fJL yv
Dairy
Business
Newton Bair
The Penn State Agronomy Guide
for 1985-1986 lists the cost of
producing an acre of corn. If you
haven’t studied it, get your copy
now and further your education.
Anyway, you can’t afford to farm
without this bible of crop
production. It contains all the
information you need to grow
crops efficiently.
The production costs published
in the Agronomy Guide are real,
honest, and as complete and ac
curate as anyone can assemble.
Everything that can be measured
in dollars is included. And some of
the items like machine ownership
costs and labor and land are the
ones that you and I often overlook
when we figure our costs, and they
turn out to be the “biggies.”
Now you should read the details
yourself, but the figures on con
ventional tillage really caught my
eye. The average hours of labor to
produce an acre of com turns out
to be just 4.2 hours. Not too bad,
but it was multiplied by $6.00 an
hour and averaged out at a cost of
A /
' I You bee
fee*.
Puri
lor
If you see your feed costs as an investment:
measure the value of your feeding program by such
things as return on investment, maximum pounds of
pork produced per ton of feed fed, and days to mar
ket; and, you want a high energy, fat-added ration...
Talk to your Purina dealer about the High
Octane line—available as complete rations or in a
concentrate to be mixed with your own grain.
Feeds that fit the way you operate. “jp
‘Registered trademark ol Ralston Purina Company
High Octane is a registered trademark of Purina Mills Inc • Punna Mills Inc 1986
$25.14 an acre for labor. You can
use your own labor value to
calculate your cost.
But machine costs are another
matter. The average operating
cost for all machinery to grow an
acre of corn was $28.00 an acre.
Add to that the FIXED cost of the
machinery, (these are the actual
cost of owning the stuff, whether it
is working or not). Fixed costs
were $44.51 an acre. Add the two
and machine cost is $72.51 an acre.
These are calculated by spreading
the purchase price and interest on
the investment over all the acres
grown by each individual grower,
so they are as real as life.
The other big fixed cost is land
The land cost is usually based on
actual rental figures, but includes
amortized ownership costs as well.
The average fixed land cost was
$52.50 per acre. You may be ren
ting land at $BO.OO to $125.00 an
acre, and that racks up an ad
ditional fixed cost on your corn
crop. Even if you grow 150 bushel
of com per acre, a land cost of $125
Ever since they introduced
High Octane® 2.6.
** *
increases your cost per bushel by
$0.84. Figure it out for yourself
The costs of growing corn, which
by the way were compiled from
figures gathered from some of the
top growers in the state, are
summarized like this. Total
operating costs $176.34, total fixed
costs $92.61, for a total production
cost of $268.96 an acre. The
average yield was 120.8 bushels
per acre, resulting in a total cost of
$2.23 a bushel.
Those figures all came from the
1983 Pennsylvania Five-acre Corn
Club, and so they are three years
old already The question one
should ask is, have things changed
for ‘ •v.l! "
MERCER Mercer County
recently held their annual DHIA
awards banquet.
The county finished the year
with 104 herds and 4,983 cows on
test averaging 14,838 M and 550 F.
Receiving the award for high
herd in milk and fat production
was John Angermeier, Sharp
sville. His herd averaged 21,150 M
and 721 F. Angermeier was also
honored for having the high
Holstein herd for fat production.
The Most Improved Herd award
went to Mrs. Martin Gall,
Cochranton with an increase of
3,509 pounds of milk. Mrs. Gall was
also recognized for having the high
Red and White herd for fat
production with 677 pounds.
Vantage Jerseys owned by Mr.
and Mrs. Donald Koontz, Fredonia
took home the award for high
Jersey herd for fat production with
654 pounds.
%
YOU to produce corn this year? Do
you really care what it costs’ If
you already own the land and have
a committed investment in
machinery, you have little
alternative but to use it to grow
whatever crops you need for feed,
or hope to sell for a profit.
If you are trying to decide
whether to rent land or buy
machinery to grow cash corn, it’s
time to sharpen the pencil. You
may decide that the margin of
profit between the actual cost of
production and the projected price
for cash corn is too narrow for
comfort.
The real tough decisions on
cropping this year are on
Mercer dairymen win DHIA awards
Harold Hill, Sandy Lake,
received the award for high Mixed
herd for fat production with a
record of 692 pounds.
Harold Ealy, Sharpsville, was
recognized for having the high
Guernsey herd in fat production,
with a record of 612 pounds.
Brown Swiss breeder Ralph
Oakes, Jackson Center received
the High Fat Production award for
this breed with a record of 584
pounds.
Somatic Cell Count awards were
also given to those herds with
counts below 164,000. Receiving
these awards were: Joe Quar
terson, Hermitage; Randy Jones,
LANCASTER - Lancaster
County Agricultural Preserve
Board staff members Alan
Musselman and Karen Freeman
will be in the Blue Ball and
Churchtown areas for the day on
Thursday, Feb. 20th to talk with
landowners about the Agricultural
Preserve proposed for East Earl
and Caernarvon Townships and
discuss other details of the far
mland preservation program.
Interested landowners are in
vited to stop by the East Earl
Township municipal building
between 8:30 a.m. and noon or the
$$ SAVE THOUSANDS $$
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in New York State in Pennsylvania & Ohio
Ag Preserve
we can afford to crop marginal
land. By this I mean land that has a
60 to 80 bushel yield potential. The
lower the yield potential is, the
higher the bushel cost will be.
Hilly, eroded, shaley, or wet land
can be called marginal, and
cropping it in com in highly
questionable. Production costs can
be squeezed only so far, and the
end result should always be
measured in cost per bushel and
compared with the market price,
whether you intend to sell or feed
the com. If you can’t see a profit,
leave it in grass and harvest some
cheap hay or pasture, and save a
little soil for your grandchildren.
Mercer; Donald Yasnowsky, New
Wilmington; Vantage Jersey,
Fredonia; Arthur Baxter,
Stoneboro; Dale L. Kepner, Sandy
Lake; and Arvid and Kathy
Kobosky, Cochranton.
The top three herds in the yearly
herd average 600 - 700 pounds
protein class were: Clarence
Minner, New Wilmington; John
Angermeier, Sharpsville; and Art
Baxter, Stoneboro.
Dewayne and William Coulter
own the cow with the highest milk
and fat production for the year.
This cow produced a record of
222139 M and 7765 F.
meeting set
Caernarvon Township municipal
building between 1 p.m. and 4 p.m.
The East Earl Township office is
located along Route 322 across
from the east end of Blue Ball.
Phone number; (717 ) 354-5593. The
Caernarvon Township office is
located along Route 23 in Chur
chtown, by the Friendship Village
Restaurant. Phone number; (215)
445-4244.
East Earl Township will also
hold a town meeting on Wed
nesday, March 19th at 7:30 p.m. at
the Goodville Fire Hall to discuss
the Agricultural Preserve proposal
in the township.