“... you know what’s wrong with this team? We don’t have any team play. We don’t care about each other. Let me give you an example. Tonight, I had 48 points with two minutes to go. Did anybody pass me the ball so I could get 50? Huh? No, they just kept the ball to themselves and I got stuck at 48. Stuff like that; that’s what’s wrong with these guys.” – Marvin Barnes, St. Louis Spirits of the ABA
Although you and I chuckle, once you hear some of the stories about
Mr. Barnes there isn’t any question to the sincerity of this quote – he was
dead serious! The American Basketball Association (ABA) was known to have
some eccentric characters in its day and Marvin Barnes was definitely one of
those folks. Barnes was quite the talent as he was the ABA’s Rookie of
the Year recipient for the 1974-75 season with averages of 24.0 points and 15.6
rebounds per game. Marvin also was an ABA All-Star for his first two
years in the league. After the 1975-76 season, the ABA merged with the NBA
and Marvin’s theatrics couldn’t find a consistent home let alone consistent
playing time. Unfortunately, the St. Louis Spirits continually strove to
have Mr. Barnes’s immense talent be the face of the franchise, but with his awful
selfish behavior they were never able to develop the culture of a winning
tradition for the business. Marvin’s poor
choices both on and off the court led to immense frustration by everyone around
him – teammates, coaches, front office personnel, and I’m sure even his close
family and agents. When the ABA merged
with the NBA, the St. Louis franchise did not survive, and the city has not
seen professional basketball since.
https://www.basketball-reference.com/players/b/barnema01.html
If you’re looking for a good winter time read, and are interested in a
little entertainment as well as a historical perspective on the business of
professional basketball from the late 1960’s to the mid 70’s, “Loose Balls” by
Terry Pluto will not disappoint. https://www.amazon.com/Loose-Balls-American-Basketball-Association/dp/141654061X
The business world today is similar to the game of basketball where it
takes team play and a willingness to include others to experience success.
If we expand on this thought for our significant farm businesses in the region,
we understand that farm operations with a strong employee team and a
willingness to partner with other key businesses in the local area seem to more
easily develop success. I’ve even seen
smaller farms – with only 2-3 people involved in the whole business – conduct a
very profitable enterprise with a commitment to good communication internally
as well as with others who they rely upon to help their farm succeed.
At the end of the day, the better team any business is able to build within
and around them, the better success everyone will enjoy. You may see some short-term value in
negotiating for that last nickel or dime on the cost of a farm input item or an
employee’s salary, but if the value is there and the business or individual is
providing a quality product, service, and /or labor in return, those extra
dollars are fairly inexpensive and the money should be viewed as well spent.
Regional Weather
Well, that was probably the
coldest weekend my family has spent in Grand Forks in our 10 years of being
residents. I’m sure we are all looking
for the above zero temperatures later this coming week. Hopefully, we’ll start a slow warm-up from
here and looking at spring conditions in the not too distant future.
I’ll count on your weather app
for the best guidance through the 7-8 day forecast, but looking beyond that,
I’ve found this site from National Oceanic Atmospheric Association (NOAA) to be
fairly reliable for a general 8-14 day outlook (next week).
https://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/predictions/814day/index.php
For the last full week of February,
the forecast is to have greater chances of above average temperatures, as well
as above average (west) to equal chances (east) on the precipitation front for
our region.
The NOAA
organization also provides three month outlooks. If we would like to get a general forecast
for next season’s harvest run (Sept-Oct-Nov), it can be seen here:
https://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/predictions/long_range/seasonal.php?lead=8
This forecast
currently predicts above average to equal chances on the temperature potential,
along with equal chances for precipitation in our region. Overall, if that holds true, we would welcome
the developments and hope to accomplish significant additional tasks besides
just the harvest.
Dicamba
Formulations for 2021 RR2Xtend®
Soybeans
With
Xtend® acres forecasted to be down this year in the US, there should be plenty
of dicamba product available this summer – regardless of the EPA delay
regarding Fexepan™. I will keep you
posted on any further developments when they do occur.
Planter
Maintenance
It’s
that time of year where the planters are going through the shop for their
yearly maintenance. Precision Planting
placed together a very thorough website on the topic and has included several
short videos (all under 5 min; many under 2-3 min) on the key items for monitoring
to insure the planter will be performing at top-notch come this spring.
Some
key items for winter maintenance and in the field adjustments:
·
Parallel arm bushings – make sure the row unit
does not have too much play from right to left or up and down in a resting
position. Replace the bushings on one
row unit and then compare other rows to the newly rebuilt unit if you are
unsure
·
Seed tubes – worn seed tubes can affect kernel
spacing. Often the seed tube becomes
damaged (tip and sides of the tube) due to worn disc openers and/or worn seed
tube guards.
·
Seed tube guard – should be at minimum 3/4” wide
to start the season. New guards are approximately
15/16” wide
·
Disc openers – Always check the maintenance guide
for the specific model, but most discs are 15” in diameter new and should be
replaced at 14.5” in diameter. Disc shims
should be utilized to have a consistent 1.5-2” of contact at the point of
furrow creation
·
Meter calibration – seals and brushes are common
wear items inside the meter along with worn seed plates that can cause inconsistent
seed spacing. Research on inconsistent
plant spacing has shown significant yield reductions. Individual meter calibration should be
performed yearly to ensure a consistent seed drop performance from row to row
across the planter
·
Planter bar height – in the field, most planter
models will need to be set around 20-22” height (bottom of bar to the soil
surface). Parallel arm bushings should
run parallel or horizontal in relation to the planter bar and row units
·
Downforce setting – there are risks of too much (extra
soil compaction) and too little down force (dry soil crumbles back into the
trench creating poor seed to soil contact, shallow seed placement, and/or
inconsistent soil moisture for germination).
https://www.precisionplanting.com/agronomy/research/your-planter-maintenance-guide
EPA and
Amazon.com
The
EPA office in Seattle has issued a “stop sale” order to Amazon.com for many illegal
pesticides they have been marketing. The
most common ways that a pesticide can lose its EPA approval status is through the
following avenues (vast majority of cases): 1) de-registration, 2) adulteration
of the formulation after the original formulation was granted EPA approval,
and/or 3) misbranding – false, unproven, or misleading claims about the product
which are added to the label after approval.
Some products may become available illegally by never being submitted to
the EPA for registration (actually somewhat common).
Many
of the products outlined in the “stop sale” order are disinfectants or
antibacterial formulations with mis-branding claims around “CoronaVirus protection”,
“Safe for Kids”, “Safe for family and pets”, “Kills 99.9% of harmful bacteria”,
etc. Other products on the list lack an
EPA registration number.
A
few of the products on the list are insecticides for mosquitoes, spiders, ants,
and other bugs, plus a few are rodenticides for mice and rats.
I
don’t think Amazon is yet in the business of selling broadacre agricultural
pesticides, but this is a good reminder for the safety of our employee teams
and family (plus pets) to buy these types of products from reputable businesses
with recognizable brand names. The tad
bit extra the established brands may charge for their product is easily justifiable
for extra assurance and safety. When it
comes to on-line purchases for agricultural pesticides, it’s probably worth
your time to ask for labels of considered products and cross-reference with the EPA. This should help insure that products have been EPA tested and thus should perform as intended.
https://www.epa.gov/enforcement/ssuro-amazoncom...june-10-2020 http://news.agropages.com/News/NewsDetail---38040.htm
Product
Spotlight: The Weed Zapper!
Last
summer I heard a bit about machines in local fields using electricity to kill
weeds – primarily in sugarbeet and dry edible bean fields. “The Weed Zapper” is a USA based company
investing in the technology.
Successful
Farming had an article on the efficacy of the device based on some preliminary
research from the University of Missouri.
Their findings report the pros and cons:
·
Research and observations were on soybeans with waterhemp
as the primary targeted weed species
·
Electrocution was instantaneous to every plant
the boom made contact with. It was rare,
but there was unintended contact with the crop and yields were reduced (10-15%
depending on the growth stage of the crop when the kill occurred). I would assume some yield loss was due to the
addition of late season wheel traffic as well
·
Taller weeds that portrayed above the canopy
were more susceptible – especially if they had some good leaf area for the
electric boom to contact. Generally
speaking, broadleaf weeds were more susceptible than grass weeds
·
Smaller weeds at the time of initial application
were not controlled – a second pass would typically be warranted
·
Not all crop competition would be eliminated as
applications would be made mid to late season to provide time for weeds to gain
height
·
Operator safety was a concern.
Overall,
The Weed Zapper isn’t going to be a first line defense against resistant weed
populations, but used in combination with a strong herbicide program, it should
help significantly reduce weed seedbank populations.
https://theweedzapper.com/ https://www.agriculture.com/crops/soybeans/the-mizzou-weeds...
Product Spotlight (2): P7844AM
Well, I thought I would try to delay until closer to planting the introduction of our key new Pioneer products for the season, but I may run out of time between now and then, so let’s get started. Pioneer’s earliest corn hybrid advancement for the upcoming season in our region will be P7844AM. It’s a 78 RM (relative maturity) product with above average trait characteristics for good late season standability.
For
a quick review, Pioneer rates their products on a 1-9 scale with 9 being the
best/strongest/tallest. Average
characteristic performance scores are typically 4’s and 5’s; below average is
3, and above average strength would rate 6 to 7. It is fairly rare to see a commercially advanced product
with a score of 8, but it does happen.
Most all products that would rate below a 3 on any given single agronomic
score would not make it through the process to become a commercially available, but those numerical scores are utilized in our research program.
All of the other traits for this particular hybrid rate adequate/acceptable, so
it’ll be interesting to see how this hybrid performs for the summer against
P7861AM, P7632AM, and P7527AM. Our
internal data says that it should easily out-compete those established benchmark
products, but that data only comes from our IMPACT testing system which covers
two years and numerous small replicated plots.
The IMPACT system is great for testing and advancing products as the system builds confident statistical data sets, but us field agronomists like to see a
product across several acres and through some more widely variable conditions –
sandy soil types (added drought and fertility stress), high pH soils, heavy clay
soils (stress emergence), water logged conditions, etc. to get a true feel for
the genetic yield and performance potential.
We’ll have a few units of this hybrid available this spring, so please
reach-out to myself and/or your local Pioneer agent if you would like to see
some P7844AM on your farm this spring.
China’s Pork
Production
Since
the vast majority of China’s imported soybeans are processed for animal feed,
the topic is important to review.
Therefore, let’s take a dive into the numbers we are hearing regarding
China’s hog production recovery from African Swine Fever (ASF).
As
I’m sure you are well aware, ASF had an outbreak in China a couple years ago (summer
of 2018) that caused a quick reduction and culling in their domestic pig herds
(40-50% plus by most estimates). If you do a quick internet search today on
the topic, you’ll find many articles talking about a quick recovery. Here’s one such article stating, “as of Nov.
30, 2020, China’s swine herd recovery was seen at 90% of the pre-ASF
levels”. https://www.spglobal.com/platts/en/market-insights/latest-news/...
Well,
if you dive into some of the Chinese numbers, you begin to question how strong
their swine herd rebuilding actually is.
First, pork inputs into China compared to the historic past are still at
record volumes through to the very end of 2020.
Second, China’s domestic pork prices are still about twice the long term
average (see charts below).
There
are some additional concerns in China as well regarding the overall status of
the swine herd. Foremost, their Ministry
of Agriculture has recently highlighted concerns on their ability to gather
confident domestic statistics. Also,
swine disease concerns are not fading completely away – ASF outbreaks are still
occurring in some limited scope, and reports of significant foot and mouth
disease are also present. Many comments
have also been shared about questioning the genetic quality of the rebuild as
they have witnessed smaller litter sizes and less efficient weight gains –
documented with lighter slaughter weights.
https://www.mintecglobal.com/...china...global-pork-imports-in-2021
https://www.thomaseldermarkets.com.au...why-i-dont-trust-chinese...
Mark
Twain would say, “if you torture the numbers enough, they’ll confess to
anything”. In today’s world of
conflicting news, I’d just prefer to say that we should keep a very open mind
to the developing situation and insure that we utilize our marketing plans with
sound strategy to make profitable decisions.
Random
Agricultural Facts – PIGS
Speaking of pigs, it is believed that pigs were the first
domesticated animal on the planet and it occurred about 6000 years ago… Any
guesses to the location?? Present day
China!
Pigs
first came to America around 1540 with the Spanish explorer de Soto.
Over
2 billion pounds of bacon are produced for US consumption annually. At a population of close to 340 million
people, the average US person (man, woman, and child) consumes close to 6 pounds
of bacon per year! In China, the per
capita pork consumption is 90 lbs per person annually (or 0.25 lbs/day/person).
Sows
have a gestation period of just under 4 months (114 days). And, while the average litter size worldwide
is only 6-10 piglets, an American sow will average around 10-13 due to genetics
and nutrition. Most sows will have 3-4
liters per 2-year timeframe.
