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OFFICIAL PUBLICATION OF CROP QUEST AGRONOMIC SERVICES, INC

C r o p Q u e s t P e r s p e c t i v e s

®

Volume 18 • Issue 3 • May 200

A HIGH VALUE IN BOOM TIMES

CROP CONSULTANT EXPERTIS

From east coast to west coast, the story is the same, farms are getting biggerand farmers are getting fewer. The good news is 2008 offers unprecedentedopportunities for efcient farmers with well thought out farm plans.

Currently, farmers have wonderful options – every crop it seems is at or near10-year record high prices. Along with the high commodity prices, most of theinputs required by farming operations have also reached 10-year highs and arestill climbing. Any product tied to fossil fuel is going to be high-priced for theforeseeable future. With the advancement in technology, other challenges have

presented themselves such as widespread chemical resistance crops andlarger and more expensive equipment. No-till farming has created an ideaenvironment for soil-borne diseases to form. Because of the demands

these challenges have created, a crop consultant may be one of the bestreturn on investment options for a producer.In the scenario farmers are facing in 2008 and beyond, the value of a well-

trained, technologically well-connected crop consultant will likely be thedifference in whether some growers survive this boom time. More importantly,having a trusted crop consultant will play a key role in helping farmers survivewhat comes AFTER the boom times that are in vogue today.

In Rolla, KS, Crop Quest Agronomist Mickey Huddleston says headvises his farmers to farm the land and apply only the inputs needed.“We work a lot of corn acres here in southwestern, KS, and I tell mygrowers don’t go overboard because the price of corn is high. If youdon’t need to put on extra fertilizer or a preventative fungicide, takethat money and put it in the bank,” Huddleston says.

In west central Oklahoma, Crop Quest Consultant HowardBartel says high input costs and high prices for commoditiesaccentuate the need for timeliness and efciency.

“I’ve seen real high dollar planters do a poor job, becausethe machine wasn’t calibrated right. I always ask my grow-ers to let me know when they get ready to plant, so I canbe sure their planter is calibrated correctly,” the veteranconsultant notes.

“In most cases it’s small adjustments in equipment or subtle changes infarming practices that make the biggest difference in protability. The personalexperience of Crop Quest agronomists and our access to a huge information

Continued on Pag

Mickey Hud

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Crop Consultant Expertise ... Continued from Page 1

WARD BARTEL

base helps us help farmers make those changes that they mightotherwise overlook, he adds.

Crop Quest Agronomist Kent Davis on the Front Range of Colorado says often during planting season, growers tend to beunder a great amount of stress, and that’s when they are mostlikely to make mistakes. “Being able to present them with viable

options when things go wrong is a valuable service that weprovide to growers,” the agronomist notes.

“When we sit down with a farmer in the winter, we

generally have a farm plan that will work at that time.Most of the time we change the plan in one way or another

to account for changes in weather conditions, cost of ma-terials and many other reasons. Having the exibil-

ity to change what he is going to do, withoutdoing so under a stressful situation, is a bigasset for my growers,” Davis adds.

One of the biggest advantages of having acrop consultant is often getting sound adviceon what NOT to use as much as what to use.Nitrogen costs have soared to over $600 per

ton in some areas of the country. Despite the high cost of N, Pand K, Huddleston contends the wise course of action is to usewhat you need, especially on high value grain crops.

“When one of my farmers asks me, ‘can I cut my fertilizerrates,’ my set response is, ‘At $5.60 or more per bushel, howmuch money do you want to lose on your corn crop?’ By thesame token, other farmers want to use inputs that won’t benettheir bottom line nearly as much as reducing fertilizer will hurtit,” Huddleston adds.

“In our area we have some farmers with the potential to m$350 to $400 per acre prot on corn. High diesel prices and fertilizer prices factor into our farm budgets, but still farmeran opportunity to do really well in the next couple of years, imarket their corn properly and pay attention to production coHuddleston contends.

Bartel adds, “With the cost of everything from fertilizer topesticides going up, proper timing is critical. Being a part oflarge organization like Crop Quest gives me some resources

most growers don’t have. We help our growers put together exible farm plan that allows them to choose the most cost etive chemicals to use and to get these materials where they nto be and applied at the precise time to maximize their valuethe crop.”

Davis, who works with a variety of crops from vegetablesalfalfa, with the biggest emphasis on sugar beets, adds, “Crorotation is a big factor when you have such diverse crops. Intoday’s world of high fuel, fertilizer and pesticidecosts, it’s critical to look at rotations two andthree years down the road.”

Following budget plans can be difcult inboom times. For example, Huddleston says afew years ago we had high temperatures, low

humidity, and we thought no problems withgray leaf spot on corn. But we were creat-ing an ideal environment with our centerpivot irrigation systems and diseaseproblems just exploded. Because of that, a lot of elds were sprayed lastyear. More are likely to be sprayedthis year and some elds that don’teven need to be sprayed might be,Huddleston contends.

Corn that sells for $5 to $6 per bushel makes it easier to mdecisions on which inputs to use. The key to a successful boline, no matter what price corn sells for, is the wise use of feizer, pesticides and water.

With the access we have to other Crop Quest consultants aour own experience, we can save growers a lot of money in wcosts. It’s not unusual for our growers to spend $300 per acrfor diesel fuel to pump water, he notes.

Knowing when to irrigate and how much to irrigate subseqly can provide big savings on seed cost at planting time, he spointing out that ditches in southwestern Kansas are lled wfall wheat seed blown from dry seedbeds in the fall. Likewisproper irrigation timing can help pesticides work better andgenerally gives the farmer better results from his input invesments.

Fall meetings with his farmers usually produce a rough gamefor the coming crop season, according to Huddleston. “We talkwhat did work and what didn’t work, which varieties performed

and make some plans for the growing season,” he says.On into the winter, they make more precise plans, which c

low the farmer to go ahead and make seed, fertilizer and pespurchases that can pay big dividends later. “This year, severaour farmers bought glyphosate products in the winter for $15

$20 per gallon. Now it’s selling for $40 to $45 per gallon.math is fairly easy, if you plug in glyphosate at $4 per acrversus $8 per acre,” Huddleston concludes.

The information provided by Huddleston and his Crop Qcolleagues doesn’t always save growers money in inputs, bunearly always makes money on the bottom line. With both incosts and commodity prices at record levels, not making miscan be the difference between a prot or a big disappointmen

KENT DAV

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Our company motto is “Employee-Owned & Customer Driven” signify-ing the importance we put on doingwhat we feel is important for ourclients. However, every now and then

changes are required within our busi-ness that causes some disruptions andoccasional clerical errors.Recently, we had to upgrade our con-

tracting and accounts receivable programs bygoing to an entirely different computer program. The

old program had become outdated due to continued improvements inomputer programming, and we no longer had anyone on staff whoould maintain and upgrade it. As with any new software, there is

always a learning curve in understanding how the program operatesand in modifying the program to help it meet our specic needs.

The rst major change was our agronomists going to a work orderormat using their laptop computers rather than using a “page 2”or our contracting procedure. Most of you have already seen this

ormat, except for those who contracted really early this past fall.This change has tremendously reduced the number of times the datahas to be manually entered into the computer. This has also reducedhe number of typographical errors that always occur with multiplentries. It allows our agronomists to serve you better by using more

appropriate billing schedules for the crops you are growing. Our bing system is not a simple process since we allow billings based ocropping season, delayed billings, and billings split among agronomists, landlords, and clients.

Our learning curve reached a peak when the rst statements wer

mailed to you. We received numerous calls from clients regardingmultiple billings, partial billings, and in some cases no billings. Tinitial statement was based on how the software company had theiprogram set up. We received many complaints that the billing was cult to almost impossible to read and understand. A re-write has bcompleted on the program so those who received a more recent billishould be much happier with improvements that made the statemeneasier to read. We hope these issues have been resolved, but if youhave any questions, please call our accounting staff.

We ask your patience and understanding as we work through theglitches that have occurred in addition to a few more that may notyet be resolved. Please know that we are working to resolve themquickly as possible, and we ask you to be sure and inform us if yohave any concerns regarding your billing and statements.

I wish to thank all of you for your patience and understandingwhile we complete this transition. Again, please don’t hesitate tocall if you have any questions regarding your contract or billing.We truly are “customer driven.”

Member, National Allianceof Independent CropConsultants, CPCC-I

Certied

By: Ron O’HanlonPresident

Striving For Top Performanc

By: Dwight KoopsRegional Vice Preside

GOOD DECISIONSTHE VALUE OF

Our Agronomists are trained tomake regular visits to your elds.Many times, these visits are just‘check ups’ to afrm that things areas they should be. If a eld planhas been implemented, and beingcarried out, there should be veryfew major surprises when your eldchecks are being made.

Sometimes the lack of problemsnoted on a weekly basis appears to‘devalue’ our services, but in fact,the whole idea of our service is tocreate a situation where potentialproblems are averted before theyhave a chance to rob yields andwaste operating expense.

This is accomplished by incorpo-rating good management practicesand encouraging proper timing of all eld applications.

Mother Nature is probably thebiggest culprit when it comes tothrowing a monkey wrench intoour plans. When we are hit by aweather event, an unusual pestinfestation, or any other unusual

circumstance, that is when youragronomist is asked to comeup with some creativesolutions to help minimizeany further yield loss.These situations can bevery stressful toall parties. Theagronomist andthe producerstruggle to makedecisions basedon the unknown.But with goodinformation andproper reasoning,a new game plan can bedevised and acted on.

So, during this growing season,if you are blessed with ‘boring’eld reports, and things are as theyshould be, think about the fact thatyou are probably doing a lot of things right, and a successful cropis on the way.

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Mission StatementCrop Quest is an employee-owned company dedicated to providing the highest quality agricultural services for each customer. The quest of our network

professionals is to practice integrity and innovation to ensure our services are economically and environmentally sound.

PRSRT STD

US POSTAGE

PAID

DODGE CITY K

PERMIT NO. 43

“Employee-Owned & Customer Driven” Crop Quest Agronomic Services, Inc.

Main Ofce: Phone 620.225.2233

Fax 620.225.3199

Internet: www.cropquest.com

cqofce@cropquest.com

Crop Quest Board of Directors  President: Ron O’Hanlon

Director: Jim Gleason

Director: Dwight Koops

Director: Cort Minor

Director: Chris McInteer

Director: Rob Benyshek

The Mid-Red River Valleydescribes where Southeast Oklaho-ma, Southwest Arkansas and North-east Texas all meet, and the RedRiver divides the North and South.Agriculture in this area is character-ized by highly-variable productivesoils, very at topography and springrains followed by a dry season in

July and August. These conditions cause various cropping challengesand problems. Drainage is a critical management task, and precisionagriculture technology is helping address this issue. Variable rateapplication has proven to increase the crop input efciency and crop

yields within the variable river bottom soils.Tim Sharp is the newest addition to the Crop Quest

team of agronomic consultants and is working withfarm producers involved in this project. Sharp has beena leading research scientist who has been working with

practical applied precision agriculture technologiessince 1996. He has also been educating college

students in both Tennessee and Oklahoma. Heworked with Oklahoma State University atOkmulgee as Program Chairman for Preci-sion Agriculture from 2005 - 2007. Sharp

 joined Crop Quest in March bringing adepth of skill and experience in the eldapplication of advanced precision agri-culture technology systems. The depth of skills in precision agriculture

allows him to design, optimize and support a total precision farming system that is customized for the specic needs of each farmioperation in the Mid-Red River Valley Project.

Crop Quest combines the broad agronomic experience with Shdepth of skill in precision agriculture to offer outstanding serviceinitial group of six producers who collectively farm over 30,000 of corn, soybean and wheat. This group of farmers expects to adototal precision farming system to better improve yield and crop inefciency. In the rst year of this project, the focus will be on bua data base of information for each farm. Data layers such as a dielevation model, soil electrical conductivity, crop yield, and NDVwill be developed for agronomic use in year two.

The second year of this project will focus on RTK GPS landleveling and precision ditching based on the digital elevation modeveloped in year one. This addresses the critical drainage problecharacterized in the at alluvial soils. RTK tractor guidance will further utilized to reduce soil compaction by use of controlled tralanes. RTK guidance will further allow for increased equipment eciency and reduced fuel cost.

The described data layers will be used along with the crop yielmaps to act as diagnostic tools to allow Sharp to develop the needvariable rate application plans to deal with the highly variable sofound here. Initial economic analysis indicate that the nal outcowill be a slight reduction in total cost, but an increase of over 20

els of corn per acre by combining precise drainage with precise cinput management.This project is a model for close cooperation between the prod

the consultant, and the overall depth of agronomic knowledge of Crop Quest team to identify and nd ways to solve producer proband improve prot for the grower.

Mid-Red River Project 

TIM SHARP