Cropping Challenges 2010

County Agent News

Dan Folske

November 23, 2009

Cropping Challenges 2010

A series of meetings titled “Cropping Challenges 2010” is scheduled for Dec 7-10 in northwest North Dakota. The meeting in this area will be held in Bowbells at the Burke County Courthouse Community Room on Thursday, December 10th at 1:30 pm. This meeting series is being conducted by the County Extension offices in this area. There is never a shortage of issues facing agriculture and producers are currently facing a number of challenges. The “Cropping Challenges’” meeting series is designed to cover a variety of agronomic and market issues that will be of a concern to producers in 2010 growing season.

Jeremy Pederson, NDSU Extension Area Agronomist, will explain the new nitrogen fertilizer recommendations that will be implemented for wheat and durum this winter. The long-standing recommendation of 2.5 pounds of nitrogen per bushel of wheat will be replaced with a more comprehensive and complex system that will take in to account a number of items including the management practices of the farm and location of the farm in the state.

Frayne Olson, NDSU Extension Crop Marketing specialist, will address our extremely volatile and unpredictable grain market. Olson will give us his view on why the market has responded the way it has this fall and what the outlook maybe for the remainder of this marketing year and into the next marketing year.

LoAyne Voigt, Renville County Extension Agent, will give an update on Supplemental Revenue Assistance Payments (SURE). The SURE program is part of the permanent disaster program include in the 2008 Farm Bill, which will replace the prior Ad Hoc disaster programs. This presentation will also review the SURE calculator, which was created by USDA to assist farmers in evaluating their options with SURE.

Information on the projected 2010 crop budgets will be given by Keith Brown, Divide County Extension Agent. The presentation will concentrate on the input portion of the budgets. The great volatility of the grain market gets a lot of attention, but there also have been major changes in the costs associated with growing crops.

The program will conclude with a presentation on “Seed Quality Issues”.  Jeremy Pederson, NDSU Extension Area Agronomist, will discuss a variety ofissues that crop producers should consider when selecting or buying seed for 2010.

Cropping Challenges 2010 will also be held at the following locations:

December 7 at 9:00 am in the Velva Senior Citizens Center

Dec 7 at 1:30 pm in the Rugby Ottertail Building

Dec 8 at 9:00 am at the Bottineau County Courthouse and at the  Stanley Memorial Building;

Dec 8 at 1:30 pm in the Renville County Courthouse at Mohall and the McKenzie County Courthouse in Watford City

December 10 at 9:00am at the Dakota Theatre in Crosby

Dec 10 at 1:30pm at the Burke County Courthouse in Bowbells  and the Williams County Courthouse in Williston.

The Cropping Challenges meetings are open to the public at no charge. For more information on the Bowbells meeting, contact the Burke County Extension office at 377-2927. For information on any of the other meetings, contact the county Extension office for the particular location.