Martin Family Farms

This time of year it

This time of year it is usually hard to contain most farmers as the weather
is warming up and spring fever is in the air. However, this year it is hard to
get spring fever when the temperature drops below freezing every night and snow
is still in the forecast. It seems like we are having a hard time trying
to shake off mother nature from the winter blahs. It does not appear that
there will be any March planted corn again this year. As a matter of fact it
might be late April the way things look now before we get serious about putting
the crop in the ground. With this being the last week of March and a cold
forecast we are officially off to a slow start. That can change in a hurry
though, one warm forecast and it will be off to the races for a lot of
farmers. Soil conditions are in pretty good shape right now and will dry
out nicely with some warm weather. With all of the freezing temps this
winter the soil should be very mellow and in good condition. This past
week we did manage to get the planters hooked up and ready to go so we are ready
when the weather breaks. We will continue this week getting equipment
ready and finishing up the odd jobs that need to be done. Maybe with a
little planting delay we can get a market rally!

We had a brief bout

We had a brief bout with some spring like conditions only to return to the
heart of winter. When all of the snow melt and rain happened a week or so
ago we had a big mess with flooding and debris in the low areas. We also
had icebergs, which I have never seen before. With the frozen drainage
ditches all of the ice broke apart and floated out into the fields when the
flooding occurred. Now they are still out in the field and could be there
for a while ( covered in washed up stalks). This is only on some of our
floodplain ground and not on most farms,but all of them did have quite a bit of
water standing on them due to the frozen ground. The markets have had a nice
rally the last few days and we are rewarding them by selling some old crop
corn. We would like to see new crop get a little higher, but are
keeping a close eye on it. We still are trying to move some corn out of
the bin, but the weather has not been very conducive to hauling. Hopefully we
can get some done before the roads start to thaw out. It is hard to
believe that we need to be ready to get in the field in 30-45 days. It is
hard to get motivated with 24 inches of frost in the ground and snow
cover. It can change quick so hopefully March will go out like a lamb.

It looks like more of

It looks like more of the same as we continue to fight through all of the
cold and snow this winter is bringing us. Most of the jobs on the farm
have been put on hold the last couple of weeks and will probably stay that way
for the next few days. This has allowed us to go to a few more meetings
and spend some time in the office getting caught up and really putting some hard
numbers together for this years cropping plans and budgets. As we continue
to look at the cost side of the equation with the higher cash rent values and
variable expenses this is setting up to be one of the least profitable years we
have had recently. However, that can change pretty quickly, but we have to
prepare ourselves for the worst and hope something changes along the way
(which I am sure it will). 

 

On the brighter side the new Farm Bill was passed this week and we are
grateful for that. It appears that there will be some homework for us and
the landlords to do in the months ahead, but it sounds like there were some
positive changes. It will be a while before all of the dust settles and we
know all of the rules which will probably happen over the late spring/early
summer. Below is a link to a summary of what is in the farm bill.

 

http://farmweeknow.com/mdfm/Fareek3/author/29/2014/2/HR%202642%20one-page%20summary.pdf

Well, I apologize for not

Well, I apologize for not keeping up with the blog to much lately, Mother
Nature has been keeping us on our toes with all of the cancellations, make up
games and practices it has been kind of hectic around here since Christmas break
started. That being said we are slowly getting ready to go for the 2014
crop season. 2013 is officially in the books and we are looking forward to
another great year. This couple of weeks we have seen a decent report from
the USDA which gives us some optimism for higher prices this spring. The
corn market has really got a lot of farmers scratching there heads and hoping
for $5.00 corn sometime this year. The only expense that has come down
some has been fertilizer and everything else at the same or slightly higher in
the expense column. With higher cash rents being paid the last few years
$4.00 corn puts a lot of fields below break even costs unless we raise some 250+
bushel corn next year.

    This past week we attended Precision Plantings winter
meetings and once again came home very excited about the future and the products
that they are going to be introducing. Now they are preparing us to be
able to plant corn at 10 mph. Wow! That will be crazy if it comes true and
it sounds like it is not too far away from happening. Also, being able to
have everything from field records, weather and recommendations all in one cloud
and have access to it thru an I Pad is something to look forward to. 

    The next couple of weeks look to be kind of cold still
so it will probably be slow on the farm. We still have quite a bit of
grain in storage and will be continuing to empty the bins and making the “to do”
list when the weather gets warmer.  

 

 

If you are in Facebook make sure and follow us at Martin Family Farms

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Martin-Family-Farms

http://blog.fastline.com/2013/12/09/top-ten-reasons-being-a-farmer-rocks/

http://blog.fastline.com/2013/12/09/top-ten-reasons-being-a-farmer-rocks/

We want to wish everyone

 

 

We want to wish everyone a Merry Christmas and Happy New
Year!!

The year is flying on

The year is flying on by and we are glad to say that we have pretty much
wrapped up the 2013 crop year. This week we have had a few bonus days that
have allowed us to get a little bit of spraying done and getting a couple of
things ready for the winter months. The winter meeting seasons in getting into
full swing and we are preparing year end paper work and making our plans for the
2014 crop year. Land prices seem to be leveling off. We have had a few
sales in our area in the past month and the good ground has gone between
$11,000-$12,000 per acre. However, the current commodity prices do not support
that high price and if prices stay the way they are now 2014 looks to be a
challenging year. That will give us the opportunity to sharpen our
pencils a little more and be aware more than ever of our costs and break even
scenarios. We are also getting into the heart of basketball season with
something going on every night and we love every minute of it. This is
also the first year all four of the kids have different Christmas programs all
on different nights so we will see if we can make it to all of them in between
practices and games. Stay safe and enjoy the upcoming holiday season.

Harvest 2013 was finished officially

Harvest 2013 was finished officially this past weekend. We had to
take turns with mother nature the last few days trying to get finished but we
managed to finish up before the big snow we had this week (@ 1”). One of
my favorite things about farming is the challenges and changes that we have to
deal with every year and trying to succeed through those. This week we have had
some pretty unusual weather for the first half of November with a pretty good
snow and some below freezing temperatures. This has made anhydrous
application and field work a bit of a challenge this week but it looks like we
will have a few more days this week to get some work done. Overall we are
very happy with the yields and results from the 2013 harvest. Both corn
and soybeans came in better than expected and we have a good start on next years
crop. The biggest challenge we have now is marketing the crop. Grain
prices are still lower than we would like to see them so a lot of grain is going
into storage in hopes of higher prices. As we complete field work we will
turn out attention to bookwork and making our plans for next years crop. 

http://youtu.be/CPspvf9LY2Y

http://youtu.be/CPspvf9LY2Y

We almost made it. We

We almost made it. We have about 4 days of harvest left and mother
nature is giving us a nice shot of rain this morning that will keep us out of
the field for a day or two. We finished soybean harvest last week and now
we only have corn left. Yields are still surprising us and are still
coming in really good. However, the dry down process has all but stopped
due to the cool weather and late time of the year. This week we had some
full season hybrids that still were 24% and a lot of our replant corn is wetter
than that. With the cool temperatures we have also been applying anhydrous
and we have a good start on that for the 2014 crop. Prices seem to be the
biggest negative so far this harvest. Most farmers are selling what they
need for cash flow and storing the rest hoping for higher prices over the
winter. The rain is very welcome though as we have not had this much
rain since the beginning of August and would like to get some of the soil
recharged before winter.