By Jonathan LaPorte
For new or beginning farm managers, crops being raised may be to reduce feed costs or to sell on the market. Raising a profitable crop begins with selecting the right seed product to plant on your farm. Once planted, a common challenge to raising crops is managing various pests that would damage or limit potential yields. The latest bulletins from the DEMaND Series offer insight into pest and seed production decisions, costs and impacts on farm revenue.
Seed product options are found in seed guides, available from seed companies or related seed dealers. Seed guides can be a little tricky to understand if you don’t have experience reading them or if you have limited experience and switch between companies. Bulletin E-3430: How to Read a Seed Guide (Corn Edition) discusses the types of information often found across most corn seed guides. The bulletin also reviews how costs and harvest factors are important considerations in selecting seed options for your farm. Note: versions of this bulletin for soybeans and wheat are also in development.
One of the important decisions in crop production is deciding what method of pest management to use and when. Available pest management tools consider biological, cultural, mechanical, and chemical methods. Bulletin E-3429: Introduction to Pesticide Use and Planning explores the use of pesticides and includes an understanding of their costs as part of developing pesticide plans.
Visit the DEMaND Series website to download these new resources today. Check out additional articles, bulletins, webinar recordings and more.
The DEMaND Series (Developing and Educating Managers and New Decision-makers) helps the next generation of farm operators learn about financial and business management strategies. These strategies will help develop them into managers and decision-makers on the farm. Whether individuals represent a succession of generations, transition from employee to owner, or a new to farming, the DEMaND series can offer assistance.
Source : msu.edu