PODCAST: Early Season Insect Management
Dairyland Seed Product Agronomy Specialist, Rod Moran, shares early season insect management advice for Illinois soybean growers. Listen to the podcast here:
Optimizing Soybean Production with Sulfur
Crop production is the process of managing plants to maximize sunlight interception, carbon assimilation (photosynthesis) and storage of carbohydrates that ultimately produce grain, fruits and fiber to benefit mankind. […]
Growing Wheat? Keep Fusarium Head Blight on Your Radar!
Fusarium head blight (FHB), or head scab is widely considered to be the most problematic disease impacting wheat production in the United States. In Illinois, the disease is predominantly caused by the fungus, Fusarium graminearum. Symptoms of FHB include infected wheat heads, often partially bleached, and infected kernels which may have an orange/pink color at the base of the spikelet (Figure 1). Figure 1. Wheat heads with bleaching due to FHB (Photo N. Kleczewski left and P. Sylvester right). Kernels may become shriveled and chalky white or pink (Figure 2). These shriveled grains are commonly referred to as tombstones. [...]
Does Technology Pay?
At the January 2018 Soybean Summit in Springfield, Ill., growers submitted these questions with their evaluation forms. What are the practices with the most ROI? Can you tell me about the success rate vs. cost of treatment? What’s the economic return on different practices? Does it pay? Growers that see responses to fungicide/insecticide performance vs. growers that don’t. I realize these questions are basically one and the same: “What technologies work and provide a return on investment?” That is a big question. How do we know if the technology works, provides a yield increase and at the same time [...]
Protein, Oil and Amino Acids: Where Illinois Soybeans Ranked in 2017
By traditional protein and oil quality measures, the 2017 Illinois soybean crop performed well compared to the national average. Protein was slightly lower. Oil was slightly higher. And by a relatively new measure—the composite feed value based on seven essential amino acids critical to livestock customers—the 2017 Illinois crop also performed well compared with the national average. Bottom line: In addition to being the leading soybean state in the U.S. in terms of total production (611.9 million bushels) and average yield (58 bushels/acre), Illinois soybean farmers can be proud of producing soybeans with high end-user value based on important [...]
Key Resilient-Farmer Habits
The ISA Board understands that profitability is top of mind for many farmers, especially in this economic environment, and they devote checkoff funds to help farmers become better agronomic managers and better business managers. This specific project was intended to explore the commonalities of farmers who continue to be more profitable than their peers, in both good times and more challenging times. Using data from Farm Business Farm Management (FBFM), we looked at which on-farm practices lead to healthier bottom lines and what habits these resilient farmers have in common. Key Resilient-Farmer Habits: Innovative but not on the bleeding [...]
Farm Financials Standards Council – Profitability Radio
In this episode of ILSoyAdvisor.com Profitability Radio, we speak with Todd Doehring, director at Centrec Consulting and V.P. of the Farm Financial Standards Council (FFSC) about the Council’s efforts to help farmers better understand basic financial terms, statements, and using this information to help with management decision making. FFSC publishes two sets of guidelines: Financial Guidelines for Agriculture provides recommended standards for the preparation, content, and format of financial statements; recommended financial measures and ratios common to all sectors of agriculture; and a sample set of statements and educational material. Management Accounting Guidelines for Agriculture responds to the ever-increasing [...]
Compeer Financial Shares Tax Information
In this episode of ILSoyAdvisor.com Profitability Radio, we speak with Jan Schaffer, tax development consultant with Compeer Financial, about taxes, financial planning and succession planning. Schaffer discusses the importance of working with a financial professional, the basics of financial and succession planning as well as how farmers will be affected by changes in the new tax bill passed in late 2017. Key Takeaways: Don’t tax plan for a single year – may not be best for the business over the long term An expert can help you get better numbers and make better decisions Profitability Planning and deductions – [...]
ISA Trade Teams Initiative
Not only is Illinois the leading soybean-producing state in America, it’s also the fourth largest soybean country in the entire world, producing nearly 600 million bushels of beans on more than 10 million acres in 2017. Roughly 60 percent of those beans, with an estimated value of nearly $3 billion dollars, are destined for export markets, with one out of every three rows going to our biggest soybean customer, China. In this episode of ILSoyAdvisor.com Profitability Radio, we speak with ISA Trade Teams Lead David Headley about ISA’s effort to build global demand for Illinois soybeans. Headley discusses ISA [...]
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