About This Episode
Shay Foulk calls Zane Erickson at Buffalo, North Dakota on May 24, 2019, in a planting season that will not open up. Erickson has had three or four decent planting days, has about a third of his crop in the ground, roughly 65 percent of his corn and 10 percent of his beans, and it is raining again. His final plant date is May 30. He has planted corn later than May 25 only once, and he says it did not turn out well.
He compares the year to 2011, when prices made the decision easy and you simply planted everything you could. This time the economics force a real look at prevent plant, which pays 55 percent of the guarantee. Erickson farmed through 2009 to 2011 on the western edge of the Red River Valley, when 25 to 35 percent of his farm went prevent plant and some operations in the Valley were closer to half, so he treats it as a management problem rather than a payment.
His lesson is that unmanaged prevent plant acres compound. Without a crop pulling water, ground stays just as wet the next spring, so his plan is barley or rye seeded as fast as possible to move moisture, hold weeds down, and keep something living in the soil. He also describes the shift on his 6,500 acre fifth generation farm 40 miles west of Fargo, from wheat and soybeans to roughly 60 percent corn since he came back in 2009.
“There's a lot of upkeep that goes into PP, whether it's weed control, moisture management. It's just not as easy as one would think, kind of deal.”
— Zane Erickson
Key Takeaways
Erickson had about a third of his crop planted on May 24, roughly 65 percent of corn and 10 percent of beans, against a May 30 final plant date.
Prevent plant paid 55 percent of the guarantee, which he says does not settle the decision by itself.
From 2009 through 2011 his farm ran 25 to 35 percent prevent plant, and some Red River Valley operations were near 50 percent.
Seed barley or rye on prevent plant acres to pull moisture and control weeds, or the ground stays wet and you prevent plant it again the next year.
He found prevent plant ground behaved as if the soil biology had to be restarted, taking extra inputs to produce like continuously cropped ground.
His 6,500 acre farm moved from wheat and soybeans to about 60 percent corn plus 20 percent pinto beans, dropping wheat around 2012.
Full Transcript
Shay
Foulk: Well, good morning everyone. This is Shay Foulk here with the Ag View Pitch brought to you by Ag View Solutions today. And we're going to be talking with Zane Erickson. He's up in Buffalo, North Dakota. Good morning, Zane.
Zane
Erickson: Morning, how are you doing?
Shay
Foulk: Well, we're wet here and I think it's probably the same up here. What's your weather looking like?
Zane
Erickson: Yeah, we've been catching about a half inch to an inch every, every handful of days here. So We got about 3/4 of an inch here on Tuesday night, and then it's raining here again today. Hopefully we're only going to get a couple tenths today though.
Shay
Foulk: So, right. Yeah, I think we're getting about an inch here in northeast Iowa today with no sign of it letting up. It makes it a little bit difficult to get the crop in the ground. How are things looking as far as planting progress in your area?
Zane
Erickson: Slow. So we've only, we've only had about 3 or 4 decent days of planting. I suppose we got about a third of our crop in, probably about 65% of our corn in, and then just, I think, 10% of our beans in. So it was just starting to get fit before last Friday's inch and a half rain that we got. And now it's just been wet ever since.
Shay
Foulk: Right now, now you're far enough north that your planting season is going to be significantly different from some of our growers and producers in southern Indiana, even down into Tennessee and Kentucky. So tell us a little bit about how this is for a normal year. You know, what, what similar years in the past are you looking at to try to compare this to?
Zane
Erickson: So typically we try to start planting corn ideally the last week of April. Um, that doesn't happen very often, but we plant— we planted a lot of corn and, you know, the first 2 weeks of May is probably the norm. So this is starting to get fairly late for us. Um, the last plant date for, for us is May 30th. Um, We've only planted corn later than May 25th once and it didn't turn out so well. Probably the year that I remember that's the most comparable to this year was 2011. We're still drier than 2011. Our progress is better than 2011, but it's getting to the point where it could be a 2011 remake kind of deal.
Shay
Foulk: So, right. Well, and you and I were talking about this a little bit earlier. The biggest unknown here is what the, what the weather does in the future, right? The markets are currently reflecting how things are right now. But if Mother Nature continues to dump rain on us, that kind of pitches a whole different story there.
Zane
Erickson: Oh, correct.
Shay
Foulk: Yeah.
Zane
Erickson: It's going to be a difficult decision. Back in 2011, we had the crop prices to go with the crop or whatever. So it was just, it was an easy decision. You just tried to plant it as much as you could, and away you went. This year, the way the economics are, we really have to evaluate if PP is a viable option or what exactly we need to be doing, because the economics aren't there. So we just, just got to look at a lot different way than we typically are Used to.
Shay
Foulk: Right. So talk to me a little bit about prevent plant in your region. So eastern North Dakota up there. I would argue that you all have a little bit more experience than some of the producers here through the, what we'll call the central Corn Belt, you know, Iowa, Illinois, Indiana. How common is it for you to experience prevent plant? And what experience have you had with that in the past?
Zane
Erickson: So I started farming in 2009. And the first 3 years, we probably had 25 to 35% of our farm PP. And we were— so we're on the, we're on the western edge of the Red River Valley, I would say the guys in the valley, some guys had all PP, but I would say on average, guys had 50% PP. So for the first 3, like, 2009, 2011. I don't know if 2010 was that bad, but for sure 2009 and 2011 due to flooding. So I would say this area is probably pretty well versed in PP. But basically, PP is, you know, obviously you have the number side of things where you get 50, now they got it down to 55% of your guarantee. So there's a lot of factors that go into deciding whether to PP or not. You know, you have your— obviously you get the money side, but then there's your— the agronomy side of things. There's a lot of upkeep that goes into PP, whether it's weed control, moisture management.
It's just not as easy as one would think, kind of deal. It's not like, oh yeah, just not going to plant it and away we go, kind of deal. You really you really have to consider all the, I would say almost a penalty on PP, and how is that gonna reflect in your 2 to 3 year plan going forward. So, kind of the plan that we've put forth, if we are gonna do PP, and that decision has not been made yet, but what we would do is basically get like a, either a barley or a rye cover crop established as quick as we can to manage the moisture and then as well keep the weeds down. Um, and then basically keep that soil living as long as we can so we don't have kind of a fall effect here, um, where we have to kind of jump start the soil again.
That was one problem when we we would have ground that was PP, it seemed like we— it's almost like we had to jumpstart the soil where the— and I'm not an agronomist, so I'm not very technical on this, but the living organisms in the soil kind of all died out. So you really had to, to put a lot of inputs into the soil at that point in time to get it, to get it to produce like your crops or your ground that's had crops on it in the previous year.
Shay
Foulk: Right. And so for farmers that have been around 10, 20, 30, 40 years and never done a single acre of prevent plant, it's really good, uh, you know, you passing along that experience that you have had. And it doesn't need to be technical because this is, this is from a producer standpoint. These are people that have never experienced this or experienced very little of it. Now, you mentioned moisture management, and we were joking about this a little bit earlier. But if you told someone in, you know, Western Indiana or Northwest Illinois or any of these wet regions right now that they needed to be worried about moisture management, they'd probably laugh at you. But when you're talking about having these barley or rye cover crops, tell me a little bit more there about what you mean by that.
Zane
Erickson: So what I'm talking about there is, If you don't manage it, it'll just be just as wetter, wetter the next year. So when I talked about moisture management, I mean, like limiting, having something out there to suck the moisture out. Because if you don't have a crop out there, you're just not going to get rid of any of the moisture and you're just going to have, have that same problem next year. And that was one problem we saw back in that '09 to 2011. Timeframe is if you didn't manage it correctly, it was just compounding. So it seemed like, okay, I PP'd in 2009, 2010, I probably had to PP it too, because it was just that much wetter again. So it almost, you almost have to have a management plan going into it, because it, it's not as easy as just letting it lay and, and, you know, go to the lake in the summer kind of deal. It's a lot more work than a guy thinks.
Shay
Foulk: Right, definitely a multifaceted approach there. When you look at, you know, you mentioned it's not just the economics, it's the management, it's the long-term impact. So crucial time for a lot of producers right now. Can you, can you tell me a little bit more about what your operation does up there in the area? I know you have some business side of things that you're involved with. Tell, tell the listeners a little bit more about what you do.
Zane
Erickson: So we're a, a fifth generation farm. I farm with my dad, my brother. We farm about 6,500 acres, 40 miles west of Fargo. We're right on the western edge of the Red River Valley. So we have a lot of loam soils and relatively productive area. I also have a shortline machinery business called Northstar Ag. I started that back in 2009 when I started farming. So we have two different businesses and I kind of run them together. In the future, we'll be building a new store offsite or whatever, and we'll start to separate those businesses. But We have about 5 to 6 employees full-time that, that work for both businesses. And then obviously, we have a handful of family help that, that helps on the farm as well as the North Star Ag side of things.
Shay
Foulk: Right, that's awesome. Well, I know you have a lot of, a lot of irons in the fire. And it's a pretty exciting time in, in your operation, your guys's lives there. So, you know, you talked a little bit about the size of your operation there and That means different things to different people. But what's interesting is we talked to the producers again down here in the Central Corn Belt, Eastern Corn Belt. And in the past, they haven't taken the Dakotas very seriously as far as production. And that's a historical thing. It's been growing relatively rapidly since the mid-'90s. And you used to think of the Dakotas as all those are those are French states. You know, they don't, they don't grow corn. But you're here to tell everybody you guys grow corn. And it's, it's something that's been affecting the market.
So talk a little bit about, you know, your rotation and how that transition has looked for you over the past, you know, maybe 10 or 15 years.
Zane
Erickson: So when I came back to the farm in 2009, My dad grew little to no corn. He was more wheat, soybeans, and I wouldn't say it was because we shouldn't have been growing corn. It was he was, he just didn't like corn or didn't like the work for corn. Because a lot of the neighbors started, started raising corn about the early 2000s, I would say. And by 2004, I would say it was prevalent, it was prevalent in the guys' rotation. It wasn't just kind of an afterthought. So as far as our operation goes, by 2012, we were 50% corn. By, I would say, 2015, we learned that we can— our soils raise a heck of a lot better corn than, than we raise wheat or beans. So we're actually now like 60% corn on an average. And then we raise some sort of bean, so we raise about 20% pinto beans and the balance is soybeans or whatever. And typically those are seed beans.
But I think in about 2012 is when we quit raising wheat. So we've had— as far as the corn goes, our soil is really— for North Dakota, I can't talk as for the whole Corn Belt, but we can raise some really good corn in our, our little area.
Shay
Foulk: Right. Well, and if it makes economic sense, and you got the production strategies there, it's kind of a no-brainer. So, well, I got about 2 minutes left here with you. I told you I'd keep it under 15 minutes. Kind of what's on everyone's mind right now is this Farm Aid package. I don't know how much you've been following that. And you also mentioned that you haven't made the decision on prevent plant yet, you know, we're a few days out. You mentioned the end of May for your date. Tell me what the farm aid package looks like for you guys and how that plays into your operational decisions this year.
Zane
Erickson: I guess as far as the farm aid package, I haven't had enough time to really evaluate it correctly to make a, to make a wise decision. Obviously, that's going to play into the PP situation. So that's on my, my agenda, probably this afternoon or the weekend, to really study up on and figure out how it affects our planting decisions. You know, just kind of off the cuff, what I've— some of the quick things I've heard, I think it's a— the way the markets are currently at, I think it's a really good thing. I kind of wish the markets were just up there and we wouldn't have to have this. But, you know, if we're going to have markets like we are, I think it's fantastic that they're providing something like that. I hope it's as simple as it was last year as far as getting paid and, you know, registering your bushels or whatever.
It sounds like there's a little more stipulations this year, if I've heard correctly, but have to do a little more looking into that.
Shay
Foulk: Yep. And it's certainly a moving target. We'll see how this plays out here in the next few days. Zane, I really appreciate you taking time here this morning. We'll be talking to you here in the next couple of weeks. Hopefully you all can dry out. And to everybody listening out there today, stay dry, have a safe Memorial Weekend, and we'll catch you guys next time.