James Kelly's Page

Good man, best of luck to you and if you come across any problems or have any questions feel free to ask, I love talking organics with other farmers.

More like 14 including ours, and yes for us that organic market is very strong, were one of three companies that pretty much does it. However that certainly didn't come overnight my mum started her company (the marketing side of the farm) more then 15 years ago and built up to it today. Yes all human consumption, millet is a gluten free grain and the with celiacs disease becoming so much more predominate recently the human consumption needs have risen. 

Lots of places dont have certifiers yet, however, there are private agency that will certify your farm and follow the EXACT guidelines and the USDA. More then anything I recommend that you look into your market, many organic farmers sell there product on the conventional market because they do not have the wherewithal to market there product. If you feel that there is a market around you and you have the energy to start organics I cant recommend it enough.

A quick heads up on major differences and working organics: One of the most difficult parts of entering organics is the farm land must be under organic practices for three years before you can sell your product on the organic market, kind of a buffering process. Secondly there is alot more time spent in tractor, unlike conventional farming where you can cover sections in a day via sprayer organic farming requirers at least 3-4 passes over fallow each summer which is time consuming. Again though this is just a heads up wanted to throw out there, still recommend you give it a stab, its a great lifestyle. 

P.S. thanks for the link

We work a little under 5 then have another 9-10 custom grown for our distribution/marketing plant including fallow. It varies a little every year with supply and demand. Right now I would kill for a few extra truck loads of organic millet, currently its worth 19-22 $/100 but no one has any. I would defiantly accept that link, I'm just starting to look at this and trying to gain as much knowledge as possible.

For the moment yes its the only additive we have. In the past we have tested with fish fertilizers and I'm thinking I will probably take a stab with either that or chicken waste again this year. As an organic farmer its hard to add additives only because there are few choices and those that do exists many people believe them to be "snake oil". As far as the two rotations go thats just what works with our growing cycle/ annual precipitation. If we had more rain here I would take look into more complex cycle but for now its just not practical.  Yes im on Face Book, Type in Bryce Hediger and my photo is me riding a snowboard, and it will probably say Denver or Fort Collins as home.

Yes, two crops. To part two of that question the answer is yes and no. We don't directly plant in a crop to fallow however when we seed millet we also seed some clover in with it which doesn't come up till the next fall. It takes a few passes to kill it and it does not really keep blowing down. More then anything clover has a very aggrieve root which can penetrate and hard plates and more importantly add Nitrogen to the ground.

Currently we do winter wheat with our millet in a wheat and summer fallow rotation. So the years we switch to millet it would be wheat over the winter, harvest in July and disk afterwards then get an early start on it and plant millet into it in mid June. We try to jump back and forth every few years. Its not ideal with dry land but the millet is a incredible resilient crop and if you have fair summer rains it will yield fine. Also in our part of the world we have some trouble with rye and if you grow millet on there for two years you can get your rye down to .5% or less which is usually acceptable for our uses. However with that all being said we are breaking out a few more sections this June and I sat down last week and decided that instead of doing a fallow wheat rotation Im switching this new ground to a millet, wheat, fallow rotation. So every year we have both a wheat and millet crop. This does take more work but it spreads out risk of total crop failure as well as increase ability to market crops having two different options to sell.

Overall I can’t recommend organics enough, I know that most people on these forums are anti organics and its practices but in my opinion it’s a much cleaner form of farming. Also it’s the difference between making a fair living and a very successful living. 

I go to Del Tech. Are you in school?

the farm in IL is 185 acres an it comes with all the equipment,feed, an all the animals i dont want to live in maryland anymore i truck an tractor pull i need a place closer to all the national tractor pull sites. my farm is bout 200 acres 300 cow cap. dairy farm two bulk tanks

to tell the truth my parents taking my farm when I go off to college this september they talked me out of putting it up for sale my farm was located in westminster i was just offered a farm in IL for bout $2,100,000 should i take it or not