You really just need to use basic agronomy. Find out where the maximum economic returns are for NPKS and fertilize accordingly. Don't go chasing the snake oils just use university data to find out if fungicides pay in your area. On farm trials is important too. Variety and crop selection plays a big role in profitability as well.

 

And remember there are other forms of insurance that can work with crop insurance. Or instead of it.

 

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This is what I use, insurance increases with crop inputs, premiums stay the same. It's not "cheap" but it gaurantees margins not yields.

 

Jazz I am not sure how you survive with crop insurance yields as your goal. As Farmermb and others have said use basic agronomy. Do not scrimp on fertilizer. The amount of chemical, seed cost, cost of seeding and harvest are similar for a poor crop and a good crop. Fertilizer can give you a good return on investment unless mother nature throws you a curve ball. I farm with the aim and hope of never having to collect crop insurance. Poor fertility greatly reduces your yield potential on a good year.

 

Jazz I am not sure how you survive with crop insurance yields as your goal.

I dont stay to the crop insurance hard and fast. But it is a guideline. I am not sure if you appreciate the weather we have had here. I only run 2 sections and had 3-400 acres out of production for better part of 4 years. Flooded out in the spring sometimes before I even seed, sometimes I had all my seed and fertilizer in those spots and then a June 3 incher took hundreds of acres all at once. This gumbo is a blessing and a curse at the same time.

I have no off farm income and I am small acres so I have to have a bit of caution, right?

 

Yes. Use of caution always seems to go along with the weather biting you in the *** for years in a row.

We soil test everything to get a starting point for what we need for our target yields and adjust if it doesn't make economic sense or if its dry/wet at seeding time.

 

Hang by the seem of my pants and see where weather conditions take me!

Nothing is a given and everything changes from one year to the next, last year it seemed like I had a tanker load of 28% coming every few days, this year I used 6700 gallons

Last year I was wearing out the sprayer putting down fungicide, this year I am wearing it out trying to stay on top of weeds

Last year I was splashing in the water trying to make it move, this year I am trying to figure out what needs to be fixed first, too dry to know the grade

It's not easy and can be very stressful trying to make the best decision, but like this year it never rained so I was able to cut my fertilizer bill by 85% vs last year

Always been cool with dumping big money into a crop with potential. When I get to a point of being uncomfortable I will add hail insurance just to protect myself. Hail here is not uncommon

 

Jazz we farm the same type of gumbo. I have found puting fertilizer into sloughs that dry up by mid June to be a waste of money. This years I seeded them with no fertilizer and most of them flooded back out by late summer like last year. What ever ground is dry in May is worth putting fertilizer into. There is some of this heavy land that will only give you a crop one in 10 years latley and it is not worth putting much imputes into. Off farm work has greatly helped take a lot of risk away for me. It does however come with its own set of stress trying to do both at the same time at times. I would not have been able to grow the farm with out off farm work. I use to do a lot of custom work as well when we were smaller. If your combine is sitting idle put a add out on kijji. There is a guy around us with 9610 that charges $250 per hour plus fuel and has been very buisy this fall. This can be a good way to make money as well.

 

I hear ya guys talking about loosing acres to dround out, then I scratch my head and wonder why your planting lentils and such, crops that require dry well drained soils....

Why don't you take advantage of the water and try some sunnies? They have the potential to burn up 9 gal per plant in one growing season, this may get you some land back

 

Sunflower growers are a cult.... no need to take part in that.

 

Have you ever thought of putting in some tile? Not knowing your exact location maybe you don't have the option but if you do that's exactly what I'd be looking into. Can't understand why way more land in the Regina plains isn't tiled.

 

Just curious how other people manage their crop expectations and expenses.

Really our number one goal is to make money, so we're not that interested in maximizing our yields. Rather we want to have good profits and optimize our use of time, money, and inputs. Typically we plan out each crop for each year in advance in the spreadsheet. We use out historic averages, but make our yield estimates conservative. From this we estimate our cost of unit production. Then we establish the break-even (survival), the acceptable, and good profit prices, which helps in the marketing end of things. It's very interesting to see how it all pencils out. Wheat doesn't make much profit per tonne, but sometimes it's better than other higher value crops that have more input cost to them. And rather than shoot for the stars we try to pick realistic targets.

 

I always try to maximize production and will use whatever input I can to do that provided it gives a solid ROI.
To take full advantage of this strategy you must:
>Have well drained land
>Have top-notch fertility
>Keep weeds under control
>Use good seed
>Do whatever it takes to make things happen

Some of this stuff you need to take a longer term approach on like fertility and weed control as cutting corners could save you now but cost more later.

Once you have grown your "go for it" crop the real important stuff happens and that is MARKETING. This is where the biggest difference is because it is the biggest line on the balance sheet!

Personally I believe crop insurance is a complete waste of time.:wink:

 

I could not agree with you more Swman. Excellent summary.

 

Don't know if your land has a higher water table or if it's just run off from big rain events but why not try setting up some sort of irrigation system, even if it's just wheel moves or a big gun? Or improve drainage?

Also I think alfalfa would be another choice, not sure how much water you're talking about but even if you could seed 100 more acres to alfalfa just around your slews if you can, it helps and is basically a one time cost

 

Understanding that we live in a semi-arid region is a good start to plan how you can "go for it". Rain makes grain, and so does sub-soil moisture.

Since we know we generally get less moisture than what evaporates each year then looking at your moisture situation at seeding time will give you some idea if you could roll the dice. No one is able to predict rain through the year but starting with parched ground is a good reason to not shoot for high yields that year. However starting with a full moisture profile and knowing the crop will draw on that if we have well below normal rainfall is a good reason to hope conditions are favourable to get above average yield.

As mentioned, keeping your soil fertility up is a good idea for the above reasons. Many nutrients are immobile so if your crop does not need them next year then they will be there the year after if you have better conditions. I was going to add that VR fertilizer is not of much help but in consistent dry years it would be away to keep from constantly adding nutrients to high ground that does not get used so could be something to consider.

 

It is important to note that the costs of fertilizer, chemical, fuel represent about a third of production costs and are largely can't be shifted much. Pushing these costs a little will make less difference than you think towards your total costs. On the other side of the equation is everything else and you can economise in this area particularly capital machinery acquisition. Your business can be very top heavy here. Your job as a manager is to manage these capital assets over as large a production base as possible to return value through the fertilizer,chemical,fuel. Big farmers have big toys but often utilise it very well. A good way of doing business is to trade young in years, high in hours machinery. Capital utilisation.

 

use aph and current prices, looking at long term, short term liabilitys, cost of living, insurances, taxes, direct crop expenses...... then see if it cash flows. find where you can trim fat or with things like good yield or good marketing make a little profit?