Trent’s Christmas List – Better Prices, Warmer Temps
Trent’s Christmas List – Better Prices, Warmer Temps
The first two items on Trent Brandenburg’s Christmas List for 2016 are: better crop prices and warmer temperatures. With the between-seasons farmer optimism, Trent is looking forward to starting another crop year. Although soybeans are more profitable than corn right now, he does not plan to change his rotations. Corn-on-corn incurs more input expenses for fertilizer and disease control. The disease issues are suppressed in a corn-bean rotation.
Trent sees no major changes in planning his crop inputs of seeds and chemicals for the new crop year. He continues to study marketing strategies to enhance his operating return during the current period of low prices. Most trade predictions see the low prices lasting for another two years at least.
More from The Field Report
Dry Weather Speeds Harvest
Trent Brandenburg is trying to get his field work done "before it rains". Much of the area Trent farms is in "extreme drought" according to the Illinois Drought Monitor https://droughtmonitor.unl.edu/CurrentMap/StateDroughtMonitor.aspx?IL map, which is updated every Thursday. The very dry soil [...]
In a Drought, but Corn is Too Wet to Harvest
The current Illinois drought map (11 September) shows severe drought in the northern 40% of Piatt County and moderate drought in the rest of Piatt and adjacent areas of neighboring counties. Trent Brandenburg has barely started harvesting because his corn [...]
Summertime Mowing And Spraying
Trent Brandenburg has been busy mowing his lawn and his roadsides due to the sunshine and frequent rains making his grass grow as well as his corn and soybeans. He has been hiring aerial spraying of fungicides to suppress disease [...]