It was another great week for harvest! A lot of those fields were getting empty fast! Of course, the marketing and pricing side is still a bit in flux due to the impacts of tariffs and other aspects of trade …

To that point, Dr. Ian Sheldon, who serves as the Andersons Chair in Agricultural Marketing, Trade and Policy in the College of Food, Agricultural, and Environmental Sciences (CFAES) will discuss these issues at the Nov. 2 Agricultural Policy and Outlook Conference sponsored by the Department of Agricultural, Environmental, and Development Economics. This program will be held from 8:30 a.m. to 3 p.m. at the OSU Nationwide and Ohio Farm Bureau 4-H Center located on Fred Taylor Drive in Columbus.

The agenda for the conference includes Barry Ward, director of Extension’s Income Tax School, presenting “Farm Input Outlook;” Ben Brown, manager of our Farm Management Program, talking about “Commodity Outlook with a focus on South America;” and Dr. Ani Katchova, chair of the Farm Income Enhancement Program, presenting “Ohio Farm Financial Conditions and Outlook.” In addition, an afternoon agricultural policy panel will include Carl Zulauf, CFAES professor emeritus; Fred Yoder, owner of Yoder Ag Services; and Kevin Elder, a producer.

This conference is free, but you must pre-register due to space limitations. For more information and to register, visit go.osu.edu/OutlookConference2018.

Associate Professor, Dr. Thomas W. Blaine will be speaking in Brown County on Nov. 13 about the history of Climate Change, its current trends, and outlook. He will also address questions that he says are commonly asked during climate change discussions. This is an opportunity to hear how it applies to your backyard, farm, and everyday life.

I have asked the same questions Dr. Blaine will be addressing: “Hasn’t Earth been much warmer than it is now for most of its history? If that is true (and it is), then why worry about a few degrees warming in the next 50-100 years?” “Isn’t it likely that the warming is natural and not caused by humans at all?” “Hasn’t global temperature always fluctuated? After all, the glacial grooves at Kelley’s Island prove that Ohio was once covered with ice. Something caused that global cooling, and when the ice age ended, something caused massive global warming – and none of it was humans. So why the concern about global warming now?”

This program will be held at Rhonemus Hall at the Brown County Fairgrounds in Georgetown on Tuesday, Nov. 13, from 6:30 to 7:30 p.m. It is free to attend, but registration is required by November 9th. To register, contact James Morris at [email protected] or call the OSU Extension office at 937-378-6716.

There is a new app from OSU that will help farmers save both money and the environment. The Field Application Resource Monitor (FARM) uses advanced weather forecasting to advise you on when to apply fertilizers and pesticides so that they aren’t washed away by rain. You can specify the location of your field in high resolution and the app can actually give specific forecasts for an area as small as 1.5 miles wide. It then provides guidance on the best time to apply fertilizers and manures based on the precipitation forecast.

When warned about precipitation that exceeds good management practices, farmers can avoid using fertilizer and pesticides that are doomed to wash away, saving both time and money. Washed-away fertilizer also makes it difficult to know how much more fertilizer needs to be added.

Beyond the high resolution forecasts, FARM has another unique feature: historic forecasts. This gives you the ability to look back at the forecasts that were available when you applied the fertilizer. In the event that a forecast is wrong, historical forecasts may provide documentation that you were operating under proper procedures and working in accordance with forecasts that were accurate at the time.

FARM users can also set up accounts and receive detailed emails notifying them of real-time precipitation alerts and forecasts. The app can be viewed on most computers and mobile devices. The app provides both economic and environmental advantages. For more information about FARM, visit farm.bpcrc.osu.edu.