Selling Feed to people with different cultural backgrounds

I am not a good salesman. I don't start high and dicker. I start low and get grumpier.

Friday morning our friend Jose was out for coffee. He wanted a plastic barrel for water. His wife is convinced the power is going to go off again and she wants water for dishes and the bathroom.

Jose, being a farmer like the rest of us, over achieved. He brought his wife a 350 gallon plastic tote. "We will never have to fetch water again," says Jose.

The wife did not approve.

This was pretty funny as I could imagine the reaction to a giant Round-Up tote in my front yard, even with the best of intentions.

I found him a nicer 55 gallon barrel that was clean and didn't look bad. 

We were talking about selling oats. Oats are not selling. There are not as many cows out there as we imagine. The price got so high people just sold them. 

His buddy has cows and is always looking for cheap feed. I told Jose I would sell a big bag that weighed 800-1000lbs for $120 or $100 to him. He gets on the phone to his friend and makes the sale. I did tell Jose he could have it for $100 and keep the difference...

Later in the afternoon his friend shows up. New pickup and fancy wheels. He is overjoyed to get such a good deal on my "special," oats and hands me $150! He just bought a 1000lbs of screenings for $300 a ton. (groats-oats with the hulls stripped off by the combine)

Sad thing is that this guy will not buy my oat, barley, corn pellets for $350-$450 per ton. Too expensive... But he will pay $350 a ton to his friend who seriously upsold a bag of screenings!

Got a good laugh out of that one...

These are Baylor Oats which had the hulls knocked of in the combine. (groats) They should be higher protein in proportion to fiber without hulls. Are they a premium product or are they screening?

Latest No-till effort

Planted oats into wheat stubble Saturday. I was never so happy to hear the low population alarm go off in my life. Actually that is not usually a really happy experience as it mostly means something is wrong. Finished up at 9:35 in a light rain. Was very happy for my FarmerGPS program. Lets me run guidance on a $60 ebay special, Fujitsu 3400 tablet computer. Oh and how I do hate Windows... but that is another story, one full of violence and broken screen digitizers...and need for self help books on tape!
Anyway here are some photos and them I'm going to bed. It poured down rain today. Think we got like an inch or so in last two days. It is unbelievable how much I have to do and how little I am getting done. Can't sleep at night and can't get out of bed in the morning.
Farming is getting more interesting. Fundumental shifts locally. Grass seed is not moving and farmers are quickly moving to commodity crops, wheat, oats, perhaps barley. Price is terrible. We are going to grow some. Have some very wet ground and I plant on planting the barley when soil temp gets close to 50 degrees. Not sure if I will no-till or not. Hope to get some radish contracts. This would work good in a no-till rotation. Goal is, grass (for hay or seed), wheat or oats, or barley, then radish, then back to grass, or might be able to plant clover with the radish. This is what I would do if we didn't have all wet riverbottom ground.
So back to the no-till. Planted oats into wheat stubble. Did two fields 10 miles apart. First was prennial ryegrass, lots of sprout and very green still, just sprayed out. Planted spring wheat, don't know variety. Next was Montezuma oats into wheat stubble. Fairly tall, some a foot hight. Very wet heavy clay ground. Kind of iffy. Was in a hurry to beat the rain so planted at 7 mph. Looks like it was disked. Hope the heavy rain does not uncover the seed. Applied 10 gallons of 10-34 fertilizer per acre. Goal was 1 inch depth for oats. 120lbs per acre or 1.1-1.4 million seeds per acre. (according to monitor don't know how this applies to actual seed per bushel/lb count)
Have had wide variation in population count with oats. So if you have really heavy oats and you go by lbs per acre you actually have a lower population than if you have little light oats. What does this mean? Obviously you have a lower plant population from what one would think of as better seed. I don't know, I have a liberal arts degree...
Ok, photos are all mixed up. First pictures with the green field are of wheat into recently sprayed prennial ryegrass. Planted 3/4 to 1" deep. Pretty good sod, didn't work the ground very much. More of a silty clay soil. Should have paid more attention. Rate was 120lbs seed, 10 gallons fert. Fertilzer was mix of 10-34 plus some 32. Not sure exact mix used. Was in a hurry must take better notes. Planted at 6.5 mph. Does a pretty good job at that speed.
Photo in the cab is planting oats into wheat stubble 10 miles down the road. Did 75 acres Saturday. Not too bad a production rate for having to drive a long ways to fill the drill, with 50lb bags. Usually 28 bags to the fill. I didn't push it much past the point when the low bin alarm goes off. Have a couple more acres after that but running out sometimes leaves a pattern.
Planting at 8 mph pretty much worked the ground. I really, really hope it comes up good. Could be a lot of problems with this field, too wet, too cold, too many slugs, mice, probably low pH. Time will tell. Good night.

Planted today

Today was a beautiful day.
The sun was out and while the ground was frozen this morning when I should have been planting, it didn't get sticky enough to shut me down in the afternoon.
I'm planting cayuse oats about an inch deep into fescue sod. Fescue looks to be planted on 12" rows. Not a lot of bare dirt between the rows. It is a tad on the wet side. The Great Plains drill is slicing through the soil, not really crumbling the side walls of the seed trench like it should do. If this were late in the season and it was never going to rain again I would be pretty worried. I think it will be fine. It was nice to get away from the farm and do something to make money.
Daughter was sick today and missed school. Stayed home with her till 10 a.m. She slept in for two hours. Seems fine this evening.








This is a close up view behind the drill. Just making a little slot, dropping the seed in and closing it up. This photo looks good.