- Hello, and welcome to Farm Connections.

I'm your host, Dan Hoffman.

On today's program, we talk to economist Edward Usset, about his thoughts on current and future market planning.

Agronomist Jacob Jungers discusses the kernza project and what that means for the future of agriculture.

And the university of Minnesota extension, brings us a new best practices segment.

All today on Farm Connections.

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- Welcome to Farm connections.

We're so honored have Ed Usset, green marketer, from the university of Minnesota with us today.

Welcome Ed.

- Good morning Dan, and hi to your audience to Farm Connections.

What advice do you have for green producers and livestock producers right now in this current environment?

- Well, here we are, third week of September.

We're on the cusp of a harvest starting.

In fact, it's probably started in your area down in the Southeast.

Soybeans are coming in.

This has been an incredible six week stretch.

Market's bottomed out in the early August.

I did the little homework before we got together here.

And, I looked up prices at one point down in the Southeastern part of the state, Northern country co-op and Adams Minnesota.

I'm not picking on them, it's just, I took one book.

You know, in early August, they were bidding just under 280, a bushel for corn.

Today they're over 330 a bushel.

It's 20% higher.

Soybeans, even more incredible.

In early August, they were bidding close to $8 a bushel for soybeans.

And today, they're nine and a half dollars.

We've had an incredible run up, a quick run up in prices.

It's a wonderful opportunity.

These corn prices you're looking at today, are the best we've seen since the pandemic struck six months ago.

We were hanging at 350 or better.

It's not a great corn price, but it's not bad.

And soybean prices believe it or not, Dan, at nine and a half dollars.

That's the best soybean price we've seen since before, the trade war broke out in the spring of 2018.

So we have to go back two and a half years to get nine and a half dollars so it means.

It's a great opportunity.

- What's driven the market higher Ed?

- Two things going on here.

First of all, in early August, we kinda got the crop about as big as it was gonna be.

The August crop report came out from USDA.

We had average corn yields for the country over 180 bushels an acre and the soybeans were looking good, and since then, conditions have, I don't want to say deteriorate.

I don't want the audience thinking, boy, it's a bull marketing.

We gonna have a huge crap, make no mistake about it.

But it's not gonna be as big as our perception of six weeks ago.

And we had this little thing called the durach, run through central Iowa and into Illinois, that took some acres out of it.

And even more important than the supply set, that's sort set the pace.

But even more important than that, corn and soybean demand has been good.

(chuckles) It's been very strong.

And, particularly in the world of corn, no matter what you look at, feed demand, export demand, ethanol demand, even though lags behind it's records of a few years, corn is better than a year ago.

And Dan, I'll take strong demand, over up and if you supply side, anytime.

- What's your advice for looking forward to the next crop year?

- I'm glad you brought that up, because in this rally, we've got opportunities for next year too.

I'm looking at now i haven't looked at this morning, but if you look at the December 21 corn contract, it's been in the mid three eighties, three 85 a bushel, somewhere in there.

Not exactly a level like write home about or tell, uh, uh, viewers right now to jump in with both feet, but we're getting close to levels where we might think about starting.

On the other hand, soybeans, the November 21 contract, last I looked was trading at 970 a bushel somewhere in there give or take of a nickel or so.

That has me interested.

And we should, I'm so glad you brought it up because, producers should be looking ahead.

Always look ahead.

I tell people that with marketing, you look ahead, look forward to opportunities.

That's a good opportunity, if you wanted to get started with 2021 soybean sales, I wouldn't argue with you, don't go in don't, don't jump in with both feet, but if you want to make a few sales, make them and then hope like heck that, that guy from the university is a dummy and he talked to you and getting into early again, okay.

That's the best thing that could happen.

You make an early sale and it keeps going higher.

You've got even more opportunities ahead.

- Well, that's a nice segue into.

What's your advice for discipline, of a farm manager or grain marketer?

What do they need to do to make sure that they follow through and are successful and bring profitability home?

- I've been talking about writing marketing plans.

In fact, this morning I just finished updating a presentation I'll do for a group down South that later.

How to write a pre harvest marketing plan.

How to write a post office marketing plan.

And I'm always encouraging growers, to write a marketing plan.

People hate writing things down and they hate writing it down.

I don't want to write it down, then it's right in front of me.

But I think it's a healthy thing.

There's always flexibility in the plan.

I mean, if the news chain, you know, if you write down a number, boy, I'd love to sell $4 corn.

Uh, uh, and, and the market gets up there.

If it gets the $4 cash corn, there's news that drove it there, and you can reassess things at that time.

But when you write a plan, you really, uh, you you're setting goals for the year ahead.

And that's a healthy thing to do.

It's always a healthy thing, to write down what I'm trying to get down in the year ahead.

You can change it, you can adapt it to changing dose and, we live in a heck of a world, Dan, something's gonna change.

But just having that plan as a benchmark, that says, this is what I intend to do, is helpful.

And, I almost sound like I'm saying, and once you write it, you can ignore it.

I wouldn't ignore it, I wouldn't ignore it and execute on it as best you can adapt, but be slow to adapt.

Don't just change your mind based on, uh, today's news.

I guarantee you every day you've got three group, three people are touting the bullish side that make you wanna throw out your plan.

There are also three people touting the bearish side, keep that in mind.

But writing a marketing plan, is such a healthy thing to do, and they can go to my website, at the university of Minnesota.

Google my name, Edward Usset, and university of Minnesota that might take you there, or go to the center for farm financial management websites cfm.umn.edu.

And I, I put up a pre harvest plan and a post harvest plan for corn and soybeans every year.

You can see how I write it by how I execute it.

They're not perfect plans, please don't, don't.

I don't want the viewers here to thank God, this guy, that this smart guy from the university, he's got all the answers.

Oh, Oh, heck no, I don't have all the answers.

But I have a plan, It's worked well, not perfect, but it's worked well over time.

And soon I'll be posting 2020 post-harvest plans for corn and soybeans, I do them in early October.

- Any last advice, Ed to our green marketers?

- Well, I'll bring it back to today's big rally.

And where we are today and we're now wobbling around a bit after our 20% rise.

Boy, take a good look at that, I hate to, I don't want people to not reward a big increase like that.

This is a great opportunity, I'm even thinking, and soybeans in particular, that, on my mythical farms I might just sell out at harvest.

Just get rid of the 2020 crop and, Oh my goodness.

Oh my goodness.

If I sell it all, I've got no upset.

Hey, have you priced 2021?

There's your upside.

Okay.

If the market keeps going up, you've got 2021 crop in play.

So I'm toying with that.

We've had a wonderful run, but there's a, I see nothing, no guarantee of sorts that prices must stay this high the whole year, or they must go higher in the six months ahead.

I hope they do, but there's no guarantee they will.

- [Host] And it sounds like, subliminally your advice is watch the markets continually.

- Oh yeah, you have to, you have to watch it, but have your own plan.

Okay.

The problem with watching them continuously, hanging on your smartphone with every bump and hick in the market, bump and kick going on you, you want to change your ideas today and bullish tomorrow I'm bearish.

Forget the plan, have a plan, stick to it, watch the market be informed, but at the same time, don't get too hung up on all the noise coming at you every day.

- Great advice, to your website again Ed, - Cfm.umn.edu, the center for farm financial management.

If you Google my name, you'll find me there.

If you can't find my marketing plans, find my mail it's on the site.

Send me an email, I'll send them to you.

- Ed Useet Green marketing economists university of Minnesota, thank you Ed.

- Thank you.

- Stay tuned for more on farm connections.

(upbeat instrumental music) - [Narrator] Farm connections, best practices brought to you by... (upbeat music) - Hi, I'm Chryseis Modderman.

In extension educator with the university of Minnesota.

I focus on manure management and I'm located in Western Minnesota, and this is today's best practices.

And I'm here today to talk to you about Palmer amaranth and manure.

So what do you do if you think that you might have Palmer amaranth seeds in your manure?

Well, first of all, don't assume that the animal digestion's gonna take care of your problem, don't assume that it's gonna kill all the seeds.

Animal digestion does kill some weeds seeds, but not all of them.

So how, how well digestion kills seeds kinda depends on, what kind of seed it is, soft coated broad leafs and grass seeds are pretty easily killed.

Harder seeds, small broadleaf seeds are the hardest to kill them.

Of course, Palmer amaranth is a small, hard coded seed.

So, the ruminant, digestive system, so cows and that sword will kill about 75% of hard coded seeds.

Poultry animals like turkeys and such, are actually pretty good at killing weed seeds that gives a digestive system really breaks down the seeds.

And you can get 90% viability reduction in, through the poultry digestive system.

But, it's not gonna kill all of your seeds.

It's not gonna solve your problem.

So you might still have, Palmer amaranth seeds in your manure.

So when we're looking at killing weed seeds, heat is our friend.

The benchmark we look at is 140 degrees Fahrenheit, for three days.

That's kind of the point that we aim at aim for, to kill weed seeds and how you get there is kind of up to you.

So you can entil your feed about that appropriate for the feed type.

So silage we know silage piles get hot inside, that will cut down about 50% of your weed seed viability.

And then if you feed that entire feed to animals, the digestion will help a little bit again.

And then on the other end of the animal, the manure, you can compost the manure and that's really the way to kill the most weed seeds because the inside of compost piles gets really hot.

It regularly gets up to 160 degrees Fahrenheit, when it's just, you know, doing its thing.

And, so that does a good job of killing weeds seeds.

So regardless of your manure management, feed management, animal management, you also need to scout your fields, after manure application.

And that doesn't mean scouting once, you need to scout a few times throughout the season, because once again, (chuckles) another pesky thing about Palmer amaranth is that it has an extended emergence period.

So it doesn't just emerge in one month time span or something like that.

It can emerge anywhere from May to early September.

So if you scout in say June, and you don't see any Homer amorous plants and you think, oh, I'm good.

It might not be because, plants could be emerging in August that you haven't noticed.

So scout and scout often.

And then if you do find a Palmer amaranth plant that you think might be Palmer amaranth, you can report it to the MDA, they will help you.

They're there to help you.

You need to contact the arrest the pest, hotline or website, and they'll help you from there to they'll do some tests to determine if it is indeed Palmer amaranth, and then they'll help you go from there with, destroying the plant, managing and in the future and just, in general helping you.

And that was the best practices segment.

I'm Chryseis Modderman from the university of Minnesota extension.

Thanks for watching.

- We have Jacob Jungers from the university of Minnesota, talking about a very important research project.

Welcome Jacob.

- Hi Dan, thanks a lot for having me.

- When you have a research project with cruiser, correct?

- Yes, we do.

We have multiple projects going out with cruiser and now some of those are coming together with some new funding from the USDA.

- [ Host] Well, this project has been, developing or in process for some time.

When did you first start?

- Well, 2014 is when a formal collaboration between the university of Minnesota and the land Institute really launched.

And the land Institute started breeding kernza.

Actually, it was a long off the university of Minnesota who moved to the lamp in the early 2000s, lead on and he started breeding and domesticating the intermediate wheat grass to perform as a grain crop.

And he started that in the early 2000s, and then in, 2012, 2014, we started working together to do more of the economic research.

And then also to measure, the environmental impacts and benefits of this new potential crop.

- Well, the university of Minnesota and other land universities have a long tradition of trying to develop breeds of plants and animals that help all of humanity and also our Ag producers.

Can you give us just a little background about why it's important to develop new hybrids and refine them?

- Yeah, if there's a couple of really important reasons.

One is just to improve the profitability of our farming system and one way to do that is to have lots or many more options, so if we can diversify what kind of crops we have, just like we diversify our stocks and mutual funds.

That just protects us from the risks and brought about by extreme environmental conditions or major fluctuations in the economy.

So it's really important that we have lots of crop options that are profitable or growers to the upper Midwest Minnesota.

But also we need, to identify new crops and cropping systems that protect our natural resources, that these are the same natural resources that humanity relies on for survival.

But also that farmers rely on, we rely on the climate that we have and we wanna maintain that.

One way to do it is with new crops to protect those natural resources.

- Is there, a certain area of the state where this particular plant does better than others?

- Well, we're trying to figure that out right now, but it looks like it performs pretty well in these, sandier soils, so like this, the central sand Plains region of Minnesota, and that's really where we're seeing a lot of problems with the nitrate nitrogen leaching from farm fields into our ground water.

And you see a lot of communities in that region, they're having to put up a lot of money to provide the infrastructure to clean that nitrogen out of their drinking water, coz, that's, they get their drinking water from the groundwater.

So, kernza is a great place to grow there because it can help resolve this groundwater issue, but it also performs pretty well because, it has this deep, deep, dense root system that can grab nitrogen collect or nitrogen and water really from deeper depths than our regular annual crops.

So it can perform well in these sort of drone area environments of the state.

- We're pulling moisture actually from depths inside of the sandy soil.

- [Jacob] Exactly.

- And those roots can get up to 10 feet in depth.

- [Jacob] Yeah.

And that that'll really vary depending on the soil type and what's beneath the soil.

But yeah, we've, we've recorded depths and 10 feet.

- [Host] So a perennial crop is more than one year as opposed to an annual crop like corn and soybeans or our normal wheat crops.

How years would a perennial crop in this case, kernza be on the field and be available crop?

- That's a really great question.

The plant itself, the kernza plant is really long lived.

So, a sand could exist for 10, 12 years, even more.

However, the issue we see with using kernza as a crop right now in the longterm longevity, is that it stops producing profitable green yields at around the third year.

And this depends again on the soil type and the environment, but usually we're seeing about two to three really good profitable yield years for yields.

And then the stand really turns into more like a sod balm grass field.

So in some cases, that can be converted into more of like a hayfield and can still be used for a number of years if, if a grower has an outlet for that forage or for that hay, which is what intermediate wheat grass was before it was domesticated into kernza.

So it has pretty good forage quality values, but it can also just be used as a crop in a rotation.

So, a grower could think of this as a three year crop, that's in a rotation with alfalfa, maybe some other annuals, corn and soybeans, and then it's just a way to maybe break up the disease cycle and the soil and then diversify the revenue streams for the farm.

- Jacob, any idea how much of this crop is grown in Minnesota at this time, or the United States?

- In Minnesota, there's over 500 acres being grown right now and that is increasing very quickly now with the release of the new kind of variety and nationally acreage is also expanding pretty quickly.

- It takes money to research, It takes money to study it, it takes money to move something into the commercial market.

You recently received a grant, can you talk a little bit about that grant funding source and also the collaboration and how wide and deep that is?

- Yeah, definitely It's, it's really challenging to find the research funding for small emerging crops like this, especially at the federal level.

So a lot of the funding so far for kernza has come from, a lot of different sources, foundations of the state as provided quite a bit of funding through the forever green initiative to help get kernza into where it is today.

And now just recently, we received a large grant from the USDA Nee fa and this is one of, just a handful of projects funded in the United States, at the $10 million level to really launch kernza at the national scale.

And this project is encompasses all the different activities required to bring a new crop to market.

So includes work on the breeding and the genetics.

It includes funding research on economic, how do we grow this?

But it also funds a work on the supply chain commercialization components, the extension and education pieces.

We need to make sure that we can disseminate the information we produce and that we are building these networks of farmers and growers to support those early adopters of kernza.

So that's part of the project as well as a policy piece.

And so we're going to be working with our policy makers and legislators to make sure that there's support for new crops like this in the future.

And this is definitely a highly collaborative project, as it's gonna margin here within the university of Minnesota and really beyond.

We have partners on this project, NGOs, businesses, and also other universities, eight different other universities from across the upper Midwest and beyond.

So it's really a highly collaborative project.

- Jacob, if we have someone in the audience of KSMQ farm connections that wishes to grow this crop, how would they learn more?

- There's an organically evolving group of farmers, a network, were starting to communicate and share experiences about growing kernza.

And there are multiple levels of engagement here.

So there are farmers who are not yet growing kernza, were just interested in it, who are following along and tuning into this network and in hopes that they can get the information to be ready to grow when the time is right.

And then we have some of these really early adopter farmers, who've been working with us in the experiments for a number of years, and they're helping share their information and experiences.

And this is a network that's gonna grow more with the current ACAP project and become more formalized or the next couple of years, but information about this can be found in kernza doc book.

So there is a page about this network on the website.

- Wonderful.

Well that also worked for bakers and processors.

- Yeah, there will be a business organization, specifically on kernza evolving through this project is for end users and for processors, - Jacob, thanks for leading that research project and collaborating with others.

It's important to our future.

Thanks for joining us on fire connections as well.

- Thanks so much Dan.

- Planning provides opportunity, with proper planning, you allow yourself room for flexibility and improvisation with the knowledge and nothing is ever set in stone.

You afford yourself the ability to grow from your experiences and find successes from your plans.

I'm Dan Hoffman.

Thanks for watching farm connections.

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