Farmings future

[Ben Pearson]

Hey everyone,

 

I have been wondering for whenever my Dad retires and I take on his land or whenever I can get my own ground accumulated do you think there is much in the future for our generation to change and make us stand out from some of these established farmers to help us pick up ground and get rolling.  I mean my Dad's generation and some earlier farmers of ours have been able to adopt no-till where they stand out to landlords, cut production costs, reap the benefits of round-up tech.  On my Dad's farm no-till has kind of been adopted but I really don't like it for our creek bottum ground and alkalie (Kansas and its damn salt). Seems like we spend way to much on chemicals that don't have but a reliable 70% control ratio.  Marestail never escaped a 26" sweeped fallowmaster.  However, I feel like I am rolling back into the 30's when I hook to a disc, even more so this year with no rain.

Cattle, chickens, hogs?  Should we be thinking about how to meet the world's growing meat demand and also be trying to reduce our dependency on commercial fertilizers since we have $.69 28&32%, $.65 46% and $790/ton 10-34-0.  Is going to a form of organic farming, but not to the extreme way what we should think about to cut our costs?

Or is the use of cover crops what is going to set us apart?  I have customers considering a radish+sunhemp cover crop to improve their fields and provide year round feeding for micro organisms and winter feed for their cows.  I can't get over the water use that these crops would use during what should be a fallow period. 

Just curious on if I am the only one who over thinks every detail or are their more of you out there that have thought any of these thoughts?  What is our generations play so we stand out from our fathers, or do we just continue riding their coat tails?  Or do we just say screw it?

 

 

 

[Aaron Braunschweig]

I think there are opportunities to farm if someone really wants to do it. I don't know the specifics of your situation and location. But I can say that there are plenty of opportunities around in my area for getting started in farming be it with hay, crops, livestock, or some combination of all three. There's plenty of old guys who don't have kids around who want to see their farm still used for agriculture into the distant future. Our generations play is whatever it has to be. Whether that means switching to no till or going semi organic is your call and should be determined by the situation your in, I believe. In general it means being better marketers, managers, and producers.

[Ben Pearson]

The marketing, management, and producers is what I was kind of thinking is our generations real tools.  Like I said our fathers had all the chemical tools working at their prime and could be a little more sloppy because their markets weren't so volatile.  I also was thinking that maybe we are going to have to swing away from specialization farms and go back to a more diverse farm; atleast here in SC KS where we are mostly dryland with a ~20" rainfall.

 

[Adam]

Don't think there's a perfect answer to your questions.  Every farm is different, every farm has their own ways of handling things.  We still run a disk but we also no-till.  Not a whole lot of ways to go about handling a flood-irrigated farm without a disk in my book.  This year our corn looks better than most irrigated circles around.  1 advantage in a drought year.  As for alkali river bottom ground a chisel or ripper is a must!  I believe in no-till, but I also believe it is best suited in certain soil types, which we have few that allow it.  Yes, ground acquisition is hard anymore because it's either in the family, been rented by certain family for years, or the 85 yr old just won't give up!  Just have to hang in there, good things come to those who wait,   so they say....

[josh]

if you are looking for a reduction in use of comercial fertilizer why dont you try use bi products. i work for a company that handles diff types of bio solids they are great products if applied right and inexpensive i have pics i can take of what sludge can do for farmers i was quiet amazed first time i saw the effects

[Ben Pearson]

So how do you apply bio products?  Or what are bi products, slaughter house waste?  

 

[josh]

no bi products the company i work for deals in products from waste water treatment plants and water plants also have done some paper mills we have 2 diffrent methods of applying bi products depending on the plants operation we either take it out dry or liquid for our liquid operation we use semis to haul it out to the fields then we have mack straight trucks with flotation tires on them with 3600 gallon tanks we apply depending on soil test anywhere from 10 to 15 thousand gallons per an acre. with dry material we use knight side slingers with raven guidance systems in both liquid and dry units depending on soil test we typicaly put on any where between 10 to ive put up to 23 tons per an acre with lime we norm do 3 ton an acre have done 5 ton sludge is high in nitrogen and phosphorous they just tested a new job we got a few months ago and phosphorous was 140 pounds per a ton. now depending where you live you could get the material for free or for a low price my company charges depending on various things but norm its 50 cents up to 3 bucks a ton hauled and spread and liquid is pennies on the gal hauled and dry lime ive seen 11 bucks a ton hauled a spread not sure what liquid lime price is but its great products to decrease the fertilizer bill also epa has laws on how we spread sludge not lime i can share that info if you would like later

[Ben Pearson]

Yeah a brief overview of the epa laws would be nice.