Thursday, March 29, 2012

Tama Livestock Auction

Tama Livestock Auction
Wed. Mar 28, 2012
512 Head

Choice Strs: 128.00-134.75
Select Choice Strs: 125.00-127.75
Select Strs:120.00-124.00
23 hd 133.00-134.75
45 hd 131.00-132.75
20 hd 129.00-130.75
13 hd 127.25-128.75

Choice Hfrs:127.00-132.50
Select Choice Hfrs: 125.00-126.50
Select Hfrs: 115.00-123.00
28 hd 131.00-132.50
34 hd 129.00-130.50
17 hd 127.00-128.00
13 hd 125.00-126.50

Choice Hol Strs:117.00-123.10
Select & Choice Hol: 113.00-115.00
Select Hol:110.00-113.00
7 hd 122.00-123.10
14 hd 118.00-120.00
9 hd 117.00-117.50

187 Cows:54.00-83.00
Fed Cows:84.00-98.25
Bulls: 85.00-105.00

Humor

If you think the Moon Landing was fake, but pro-wrestling is real, you might be a redneck. -- Redneck As Heck (@RedneckAsHeck)

Old School Plowing

From Scott Birker- Benton County, IA

Wednesday, March 28, 2012

FFA coming back to Independence Community Schools

Photo by Jordyn Burco

Our Reply: Pretty cool snapshot!

Independence School Project

Grains Down

CORN MAY 620.25 -10.5s
BEANS MAY 1367.5 -2.25s
LCAT APR 124.2-1.4
LHOG APR 83.575-1.225

Real Numbers

2012-corn's revenue adv (at 162 bu/ac) over soybeans (at 42 bu/ac) topped at $496.44/ac on 8/26/11. Now $322.75/ac. SB buying acres? #pfnews -- Chip Flory (@ChipFlory)

Precipitation Report- Rowley, IA


Precipitation for My Location
Precipitation Totals

Day 0.000"
Current Month 1.188"
Previous Month 1.074"

Nitrogen Applications After Warm Winter

Because of the unusually warm winter, may people who applied anhydrous ammonia last fall are concerned they might have lost some of their nitrogen (N), according to University of Illinois Assistant Professor of Crop Sciences Fabian Fernandez.
"Nitrogen transformations and losses depend on many variables and complex interactions," says Fernandez, "including soil temperature, time of fall-N application, use of a nitrification inhibitor, rate of biological activity, drainage, amount and frequency of rain and soil type."

Click Here for Full Article

As seen in Corn & Soybean Digest

Nominate your public school district for a grant of up to $25,000

The Monsanto Fund is proud to announce America’s Farmers Grow Rural EducationSM which allows you to nominate your public school district to compete for a grant of up to $25,000 to enhance the areas of math and/or science.

The program is available in 1,245 rural counties across 39 states. The Monsanto Fund will award 199 grants this year – totaling over $2 million dollars – to rural public school districts:

• 177 grants of $10,000 will be awarded in each eligible USDA crop reporting district.
• 22 grants of $25,000 will be awarded to one eligible school district in each state and designated region.

Visit GrowRuralEducation.com for a list of eligible states and regions.

Grants will be awarded based on merit, need and community support. The more farmers to nominate a school district, the more community support is demonstrated, and it strengthens the school district’s application. So feel free to share this exciting opportunity with other farmers in your area! Nomination deadline is April 15.

The most important thing we can grow is the next generation. Nominate your rural public school district today at GrowRuralEducation.com.

Entrants must be 21 years or older and actively engaged in farming a minimum of 250 acres of corn and/orsoybeans and/or cotton, and/or 40 acres of open field vegetables, or at least 10 acres of vegetables grown in protected culture. Entrants must reside in eligible counties where a minimum of 30,000 acres of corn and/or soybeans and/or cotton and/or vegetables are planted each year. Visit GrowRuralEducation.com for a full list of eligible counties and school districts. ©2012 Monsanto Fund.

More NH3 going on!

We got back in the field yesterday afternoon! Pulling NH3 as we speak. Its great to get going again. -- Kyle Mehmen (@mbsfamilyfarms)

Twitter Feed

It's a big day, Tweeps! The Mega Millions jackpot rolled to $476 MILLION, the highest lotto jackpot in history. Get your tix!! -- Iowa Lottery (@ialottery)

Twitter Feed

I love life!! -- Landon Kane (@LJKane_10)

Applying NH3


From Scott Hingtgen, Jackson County IA

Tuesday, March 27, 2012

Grain Marketing Wisdom

Morgan Stanley advocating buying new-crop #corn or #soybean contracts on any weakness following Prospective Plantings report Friday. -- Tregg Cronin (@tmcronin31)

Monday, March 26, 2012

From John Holst

A cowboy named Bud was overseeing his herd in a remote mountainous pasture in Montana when suddenly a brand-new BMW advanced toward him out of a cloud of dust.
The driver, a young man in a Brioni(r) suit, Gucci(r) shoes, RayBan(r) sunglasses and YSL(r) tie, leaned out the window and asked the cowboy, "If I tell you exactly how many cows and calves you have in your herd, will you give me a calf?"
Bud looks at the man, who obviously is a yuppie, then looks at his peacefully grazing herd and calmly answers, "Sure, why not?"
The yuppie parks his car, whips out his Dell(r) notebook computer, connects it to his Cingular RAZR V3(r) cell phone, and surfs to a NASA page on the Internet, where he calls up a GPS satellite to get an exact fix on his location which he then feeds to another NASA satellite that scans the area in an ultra-high-resolution photo.
The young man then opens the digital photo in Adobe Photoshop(r) and exports it to an image processing facility in Hamburg, Germany ...
Within seconds, he receives an email on his Palm Pilot(r) that the image has been processed and the data stored. He then accesses an MS-SQL(r) database through an ODBC connected Excel(r) spreadsheet with email on his
Blackberry(r) and, after a few minutes, receives a response.
Finally, he prints out a full-color, 150-page report on his hi-tech, miniaturized HP LaserJet(r) printer, turns to the cowboy and says, "You have exactly 1,586 cows and calves."
"That's right. Well, I guess you can take one of my calves," says Bud.
He watches the young man select one of the animals and looks on with
amusement as the young man stuffs it into the trunk of his car.
Then Bud says to the young man, "Hey, if I can tell you exactly what your business is, will you give me back my calf?"
The young man thinks about it for a second and then says, "Okay, why not?"
"You're a Congressman for the U.S. Government", says Bud.
"Wow! That's correct," says the yuppie, "but how did you guess that?"
"No guessing required." answered the cowboy. "You showed up here even though nobody called you; you want to get paid for an answer I already knew, to a question I never asked. You used millions of dollars worth of equipment trying to show me how much smarter than me you are; and you don't know a thing about how working people make a living - or about cows, for that matter. This is a herd of sheep.
Now give me back my dog.
AND THAT FOLKS IS WHAT THE PROBLEM IS ALL ABOUT.

Cattle Market Highlights

Overall the feedlot inventory showed that we continue to have more cattle on feed but high break evens on those cattle will continue to make feedlots reluctant in aggressively marketing cattle.

April will be critical for feedlots as retailers and food service operators get in gear for the start of the grilling season. It remains to be seen if all the negative stories about LFTB have any lasting impact on ground beef demand. Ground beef accounts for between 40-45% of all beef consumed in the US. Cattle carcass weights are now record large for this time of year and on Friday USDA pegged cattle carcass weights at 792 pounds, about 23 pounds or 3% higher than a year ago.

As seen on marketwatchonline.com

Beans Gaining Acres

The U.S. soy/corn ratio has been moving in favor of soybeans in an effort to encourage producers to allocate more of the acres to soybeans versus corn, Brugler Marketing said Monday morning. The bean/corn ratio for new crop finished the week at 2.37:1, just above the traditional tipping point for acreage shifts.

As seen on marketwatchonline.com

Independence High School Construction

Frye Farms, White Farms, & Burco Farms donating their equipment, expertise, and time shaping the building site!

Justin Temeyer's Facebook Photo

SNAPPER!

Wednesday, March 21, 2012

Farm Bill

Working 2 shape farm bill debate w new leg to put hard cap on farm paymnts & close loopholes -- ChuckGrassley (@ChuckGrassley)

Could do with out that!

Last time we hit 80s in March we saw snow in April. It happened on April 17th, 1983... 8.2" fell. -- Jeriann Ritter (@JeriannWX)

Monday, March 19, 2012

This goes for everyone!

@brett_vogel send me some blog info, time to get back in the saddle! -- Pete Burmeister (@newscoffeeshop)