The equipment associated with precision farming is a considerable investment and is a great tool for gaining knowledge about your farming operation. The yield monitor is often overlooked as the critical piece of equipment when the crops are ready for harvest.
With harvest now in full swing, don’t forget to look at your fall weed control. What are the weeds that are left in your crop? Do you know what weeds they are? Is there a weed that you do not know?
Summer has its last hurrah the first week of September before we see potential for our state’s first freeze of the fall season, according to NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center.
As wheat harvest is underway it is important to ensure that grain bins are prepared in the best possible manner to prevent insect infestations. There are seven steps that can be taken to help reduce the chances of having infested grain.
Due to a difficult, wet harvest last fall and a challenging marketing situation, many producers in the region chose to store grains wetter and longer than typical. As a result, special care needs to be taken when storing these grains as the air temperature rises into the summer months.
Interest in no-till and cover crops has been on the rise among South Dakota crop producers. In 2019, half of South Dakota crop ground was under no-till management and about 900,000 acres were planted to cover crops.
While livestock producers know that moldy grain and forage are not ideal feedstuffs, they also know that stored feed occasionally contains a small amount of visible mold, and that their animals consume it with no obvious adverse effects. The question arises, how much mold is too much for a feed to be unsuitable for animals?
An Excel based spreadsheet for corn, soybean, spring and winter wheat producers.
The January 2020 South Dakota Crop Progress Report indicated four percent of S.D. corn acres remain in the field. Given the record rainfall of 2019, current snow pack levels and the 3-to-6-month precipitation forecasts, farmers will likely be dealing with a wet spring in 2020, thus making the removal of those acres important but hard to accomplish.
Whether due to planting delays, a cooler growing season, or an unexpectedly early frost, stress factors sometimes result in crops that do not meet standard test weight requirements. So how does reduced test weight affect the feeding value of corn and cattle performance?