HIGHLIGHTS

Babysitting Clinic Offered

The Price County Association for Home and Community Education (HCE) and the University of Wisconsin-Extension are co-sponsoring a babysitting clinic for all youth ages 12 to 14 who wish to be babysitters.  The clinic will be held Wednesday, July 30 and Thursday, July 31, at the Normal Building in Phillips.  Sessions will run from 9:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. daily.  Participants should bring a bag lunch.  A beverage will be provided.

Some topics to be covered at the clinic include:  child development, infant care, toddler care, pre-school care, and school-age child care.  Participants will learn about toys and games to use while babysitting, child safety, sitter safety, fire safety and first aid.

Class size is limited to the first 25 registrants.  A $7.00 fee will be charged when registering to cover material expense.  To register or for more information, contact the Price County UW-Extension Office at 339-2555.  Registration deadline is Monday, July 15th.

Two Day Camp Opportunities Offered this Summer!

Parents will not want to miss out on these opportunities for their younger children to join 4-H for Day Camp. All youth who will be entering Kindergarten this fall as 5 year olds through third grade are welcome to join us for one or both camps at Solberg Lake County Park. Camp is July 23 (register by July 11) and again on August 5 (register by July 24). Camp runs from 10 am. to 3 pm. Each day will have a different program and activities. Both days will feature swimming and playing on the beach as well as crafts, games, hikes and singing. These camps are open to the public, so if you have a friend or relatives coming to visit invite them to come along to camp. Cost is $5 for 4-H families and $10 for the public. . The cost of camp is underwritten for all youth by the Price County 4-H Adult Leaders Association’s fundraising efforts. Brochures with registration information have been distributed through area schools to all youth in grades K-3 or can be requested at the UW-Extension Office or by calling 339-2555. Space is limited so do not delay! A brochure is available here.

An EEO/AA employer, University of Wisconsin Extension provides equal opportunities in employment and programming, including Title IX and ADA requirements. Please make requests for reasonable accommodations to ensure equal access to educational programs as early as possible preceding the scheduled program, service or activity.

Pricing standing hay: Consider plant nutrient value

If you’re a farmer who rents cropland or a landowner who owns cropland that you intend to rent out, it’s best to enter into a written lease agreement.  Even so, there are situations that come up from time to time where farmers and landowners have questions about the value of standing hay that they’d like to sell or buy on a one-time basis.  The question about what this hay is worth can be answered from a number of angles, but the bottom line is usually a disappointment to the person who asks the question:  Standing hay is worth whatever price the buyer and seller agree is fair!

There are a lot of factors to consider when determining a fair price for harvesting an established crop of forage (see http://www.uwex.edu/ces/crops/uwforage/Pricingstandhay-FOF.pdf ).  Prospective buyers also need to consider the value of the crop to be harvested, the distance from the farm, the cost of being able to use land through a different means (owning or renting more land), and the cost of harvesting the crop.

If you’re the landowner, you need to consider what you would do with this crop if you didn’t sell it.  Is there another potential buyer for the crop, or can you use the crop yourself if the person who is interested in buying decides not to?  If no one makes the hay, are you prepared to pay the additional property taxes when the land is assessed at a rate different than agricultural use value?

There are so many variables involved in establishing a fair price for standing forage that it can sometimes seem overwhelming.  One way of establishing a fair “basement level” price for standing hay is to set aside all the variables that only affect one party or the other (property taxes, ownership costs, feed value, harvesting costs, etc.) and consider only the value of the nutrients removed in the crop.  For example, a ton (dry matter basis) of typical forage removes about 12 to 15 pounds of phosphate (P2O5) and about 50 to 60 pounds of potash (K2O).  If the crop is mostly legumes (alfalfa, clover, or trefoil) that have been properly inoculated at planting and the soil pH is appropriate for the species, you don’t need to worry about nitrogen, but legumes will generally require periodic liming to stay productive, and (except for trefoil) generally require reestablishment every few years.  Many grassy stands can stay productive for many years with minimal lime additions, but each ton of dry matter harvested will also require 30 to 50 pounds of nitrogen per acre.

The value of the nutrients in the crop can be established without argument.  They are definitely being removed from the land, and they are definitely being imported onto the farm that receives them--someone is losing them, and someone is gaining them.  If we consider the value of these nutrients at the upper end of today’s prices, here’s an example of what the cost of replacing them would be for a grassy stand:

The next example is for a legume stand in northcentral Wisconsin. Legume stands don’t require nitrogen, but they do typically need periodic liming.  The cost estimate for the lime will vary, but it’s probably reasonable to estimate that around one-half to two-thirds of a ton of lime per acre per year is necessary to maintain pH.  Based on a three ton/acre dry matter yield and lime cost of $43/ton, this would equate to about $7 to $10 per ton of dry matter yield.

While these examples are for the cost of purchased fertilizer, manure may be used to supply nutrients as well. The nutrient value of hay is the same regardless of whether the nutrients were applied as fertilizer or manure, and even if the field was not fertilized at all.

If you consider these costs as part of the production costs contributing to the yield of hay taken off the land, you can calculate a fair value for the nutrients being removed. Knowing the number of bales or loads of forage removed and the weight of each will allow you to get a good idea of the yield. (Since the figures in this example are based on dry matter yields, remember to adjust for moisture when you do your calculations.  For dry hay, a harvest moisture between 10 and 20% is typical, and for haylage the moisture will vary between 35 and 50%.)

To summarize, there are many factors that owners and buyers should consider when calculating the price of standing hay, but most of these factors only affect one party. The value of the nutrients in the hay can be calculated quite reasonably, and should form the starting point for negotiating a price that’s fair to both the buyer and seller. If you’d like more information on this, please contact the Price County UW-Extension Office at 339-2555.

Corn Prices and Land Rental Rates

I’ve been receiving many calls recently from people who are curious about rental rates for cropland. Most of the questions come from landowners who are interested in renting land to farmers, and some of the interest is driven by the attention on high commodity grain prices.

From conversations with farmers and landowners here in Price County, the range in land rental rates here seems to be in the range of $0 to $40 per acre (in some cases landowners are content to allow a farmer to use their land for free in order to continue receiving the property tax advantages of use value assessment, and in other areas there is more competition for land, driving the price up).

Some of my colleagues in nearby counties do surveys to determine land rental rates in their areas.  All of these counties are closer to cash grain market outlets, including ethanol plants, which should give them an edge in marketing their products.  Here are the ranges of cash rental rates reported in those counties:  

            Taylor County: $15-$50

            Polk County:  $5-$120

            Rusk County:  up to $120

            Clark County: $15-$100

Barron County:  $10-$120

            Chippewa County:  $30-$170

With the vastly increased price of corn and other grain crops, should land be worth more than it has in the past? Intuitively that would seem correct, but what about other inputs placed on the production of crops? Fuel, fertilizer, and most other production expenses have also gone up, so it takes a little math work to determine how much you can actually afford to pay to rent land instead of just buying in the extra feed you’ll need.

If you’ve kept careful track of your crop yields and expenses, you can use your own numbers to estimate your cost of production and the returns you might expect to receive. If not, the Wisconsin Center for Dairy Profitability ( http://www.cdp.wisc.edu/ ) has a budget calculator that can help you understand expenses and set a budget. Here is an example you can work off of.

The average corn yields in Price County for the last five years have been 101 bushel/acre. If we multiply this by a price the farmer can expect to get for the crop-- say $4.00 per bushel, we have a starting income of $404.00 per acre. (If you know it, use the last five years average production of the land in question.)

Now the subtracting begins (these prices come from discussions with farmers, seed dealers, elevators, and the Wisconsin Custom Rate Guide--you will want your own numbers). The numbers are for conventional corn with no nutrient credits for previous legumes or manure. The cost of seed is averaged at $65 per acre planting conventional hybrids, but could reach almost $90/A depending on seed ($404 -$65 = $339 remaining). Fertilizer is the second input cost and included nitrogen at 105 lbs/A plus phosphorus and potassium removal costs for an average of $83/a ($339 - $83 = $256 remaining). Herbicide price can vary a lot, but considering a pre-emerge grass product plus atrazine and application cost of $31/A, we have $256 - $31 = $225 remaining.

You now must include costs for tillage, planting and harvesting (most farmers won’t try to dry this grain down, using it for high moisture corn instead). Using the custom rate guide, average rates charged for primary and secondary tillage plus planting is around $70/a  ($225 - $70 = $155 remaining). Finally, we have the custom rate guide listing an average cost to combine at $25/a: $155 - $25 = $130. When we add up the production costs in this example, we end up with a cash cost of $274 per acre to grow and harvest the corn, leaving $130 per acre to pay for land, transportation, storage, interest, and whatever profit you’d like to include. If you use an arbitrary figure of $50/a profit to the farmer, you’re left with $80/a to pay for all the other expenses (equipment expenses and insurance related to equipment are built into the custom rates figures). We should also note that there is an opportunity to add direct payments and counter cyclical payments to increase the remaining money available for land rent.

Even after government payments are included, farmers in Price County on average yielding land with average crop values can not afford to pay the high land rental prices that farmers in other areas are reporting. Several factors can help out the bottom line including increasing corn yield, crop price and taking advantage of nutrient credits from legumes and livestock manure. Base whatever plans you have on the best information available, whether that’s your own historical records or these county averages, not on unreasonable high yield estimates or low crop production costs. If you’d like help calculating your own cost of production, please contact the Price County UW-Extension Office at 339-2555.

(Thanks to Clark County UW-Extension Dairy and Livestock Agent Maria Bendixen for her article on this topic, which I adapted for Price County.)

Fertilizer Prices and Sustaining Agriculture

As the weather finally warms up and dries the ground enough to think about field work, farmers are contemplating how to handle fertilizer expenses in light of record prices. Fertilizer prices have gone up between twice and three times what they were only three years ago, and I’ve heard a number of farmers saying they can’t afford to fertilize forage and grain crops at these prices. There’s no doubt that this kind of news is hard to take in light of increasing fuel costs, and the two problems are certainly related. However, there’s no sign that prices will improve, and neglecting soil fertility will lead to long term problems with production. It’s generally much cheaper to grow the crops that are suited for your farming operation instead of buying them, even when production costs are high. Sacrificing crop production is not a practice that will allow your farming operation to be sustainable--now is an excellent time to give some careful planning  into how to deal with the new costs of crop production.

Even though fertilizer prices are high, we need to remember that forage and grain crop prices are also very high. If we can invest what seems like a lot of money into crop production in order to save even more money on feed expenses, that’s a good way to go. It looks right now like that is exactly the situation we’re facing.  Understanding your cost of production and the returns you can get from your crops will help you make sense of what strategy you should follow.  However, before you spend money on fertilizer, there are some things you should do to make sure you’re actually spending that money in the most advantageous way:

1)     Soil testing:  This should always be a routine part of your cropping plan, and the higher crop and fertilizer prices are, the more important it is.  Without a soil test, about the best you can hope for is to replace the nutrients you remove from your fields by harvesting. You have no idea if you should be drawing down a surplus of nutrients or adding additional to make up for a deficiency, and either way could cost you a lot. UW Soil test recommendations are customized to the crops you grow and the yields you expect.

2)     Nutrient crediting:  If you apply livestock manure or have legume crops, make sure you understand the value of the nutrients these sources can provide. If you take advantage of these nutrients you already have, of course you won’t be spending money on adding them in the form of fertilizer. Legumes provide generous amounts of nitrogen, and manure provides lots of nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium along with almost all the micronutrients crops need.  It pays to find out how to figure your credits from these sources.

3)     Consider the revised UW nitrogen (N) recommendations for corn:  With the high cost of nitrogen fertilizer and the high price of corn, we don’t use blanket recommendations for nitrogen fertilizer rates anymore, but instead consider the ratio between the price of nitrogen (per pound) and the price of corn (per bushel), adjusted for yield potential of our soils.  With this information, the optimum rate of nitrogen for most of the soils in Price County is 105 lb of nitrogen per acre, instead of 120 lb/a under the old recommendations. You can credit your field with this rate of N if you make a modest application of only 35 tons/acre of dairy manure, or if you plowed down even a poor stand of clover, trefoil, or alfalfa before you plant corn.

4)     Remember lime:  If the pH of your soil is too low for the crop you’re growing, you won’t make good use of nutrients and may end up not getting your money’s worth from fertilizer you apply.  The only way to find out if you need lime is to soil test.

5)     Prioritize your fertilizer applications:  If you can’t afford to fertilize all your fields the way you’d prefer, apply fertilizer first to the fields that need it most.  Again, the best way to find this out is to test all your fields to see what the fertility levels are.

The Price County UW-Extension Office can help you understand more about how to take accurate soil samples for testing and how to interpret your soil test results.  We can also help you learn how to calculate nutrient credits from legumes and manure applications, along with calculating your cost of production for the crops you grow.  If you’d like more information about these topics, give us a call at 339-2555.

There’s a Place for You in 4-H – Enroll Now!

Wisconsin 4-H!  It’s the place to explore!  It’s the place to “learn by doing!”  It’s the place to build friendships that can last a lifetime!

In 4-H, youth are able to learn by doing!  They participate.  They get involved.  They get active in hand’s on learning!

They practice leadership.  They can become club officers, activity leaders and project leaders.  Members develop skills that prepare them for the real world!

4-H members belong!  They have a sense of pride in their 4-H club’s accomplishments and are able to share the pride with the 4-H community and the larger community around them.

In 4-H members explore the world around them!  4-Hers are able to choose from a variety of projects that include animals, arts and crafts, foods, theater and much more!  As they explore these projects, 4-H members build skills that can last a lifetime.

No matter where you live, there is a place for you in 4-H!  For more information on 4-H in Price County, contact the UW-Extension Office at 339-2555 or go online at www.uwex.edu/ces/4h.

A list of 4-H club contacts is listed under 4-H Clubs.  Feel free to contact a club in your area for meeting time and place.

MISSION

With an office in each Wisconsin county, Cooperative Extension develops practical educational programs tailored to local needs and based on university knowledge and research.

County-based Extension educators are University of Wisconsin faculty and staff who are experts in agriculture and agribusiness, community and economic development, natural resources, family living and youth development.

Extension county-based faculty and staff live and work with the people they serve in communities across the state. Extension specialists work on UW System campuses where they access current research and knowledge. Collaboration between county and campus faculty is the hallmark of Cooperative Extension in Wisconsin.