# Margins and Seed



## Vol (Jul 5, 2009)

DTN author recommends maybe seed with fewer traits....actually, some of our members like swmnhay and a few others went to this idea last year....using more conventional type seed. That is what needs to be done in order to get these big seed companies to get their heads out of their tails and get costs in line with current markets.

Regards, Mike

http://www.dtnprogressivefarmer.com/dtnag/common/link.do?symbolicName=/free/news/template1&paneContentId=5&paneParentId=70104&product=/ag/news/topstories&vendorReference=4cc08f7f-92c8-437d-b7b8-4bbf769e5028


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## swmnhay (Jun 13, 2008)

I'm going conv corn on 75%of my corn acres and VT2 on 20%. And a few bags of Smart Stax to compare.

About a $40,000 savings in seed cost compared to Smart Stax.

Last yr conv was 12 bu better then the smart Stax corn along side it.

Now the farm magazines say you don't nessisarily have to buy all the traits,where were they the last few yrs?Not saying conv will work for everyone but I do make it work all the way to the bank not Monsatos pocket !!!


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## aawhite (Jan 16, 2012)

On the dairy, we switched from RR beans to a conventional, and started row-crop cultivating again. 
Just did a burndown prior to planting, and planted on 30" rows. The increase in return per acre was significant. Yields a little lower, but cos/acre was EXTREMELY lower.


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## luke strawwalker (Jul 31, 2014)

The traits make things easier, BUT, convenience ALWAYS comes with a price...

When I row cropped, in our local conditions and stuff, I never could make the GMO cotton pay for itself... Sure, the Bt knocked out the boll worms and army worms and stuff, but then you'd get more plant bugs or stink bugs or something to compensate... nature tends to balance itself. I never bothered with RR cotton-- the old RR1 cotton wasn't a good fit here IMHO... it had to be sprayed before the fourth true leaf stage, or it would lead to pollen sterility problems and aborted bolls (if not enough viable seed is produced in a boll, it will drop off) and/or the bolls would be malformed, with a "parrot beak" tip to the boll that wouldn't allow it to open properly at maturity, leading to "hard lock" bolls that couldn't be harvested. RR2 supposedly fixed most of those problems, but by then I wasn't interested in messing with GMO stuff-- didn't like the "grower agreements" Monsanto put out, forcing everybody to give up all their rights in order to "access their technology". So I just did it the old fashioned way...

Was watching "AgPhD" and the Hefty boys were saying a LOT of folks are dropping traits this year... which MAY get the seed companies attention and get them to rethink their pricing strategy, before they kill the goose that laid the golden egg... BUT, switching to conventional crops (if you can get the seed-- I expect shortages will cause them to raise prices in an effort to make the trait stuff more attractive) poses problems-- gotta have a sharp pencil and sharper eyes and stay ahead of the game to control weeds and pests before they damage the crop... and work without the possibility (in a lot of cases) of "rescue treatments" like are common with Roundup and other herbicide tolerant crops, and getting the bugs early in non-Bt crops...

Certainly can be done but requires VIGILANCE...

Later! OL J R


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## prairie (Jun 20, 2008)

We have never planted RR corn. We use RR soybeans, and use Glyphosate to burn down fields before planting cover crops for grazing. RR Corn never made sense to me if I was planting RR soybeans, lso it does not make economic sense. The same goes for all the bug traits.

It is purely a convenience to spray everything with Glyphosate, it does nothing to increase yield.

Their used to be a Monsanto rep in our area that that said all farmers want is "simple and stupid", and that he might as well provide it as long as they will pay for it. Heard later he got called in by higher ups and told to keep his mouth shut. I don't think his statement was wrong, by what I see going on in the ag industry.


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## luke strawwalker (Jul 31, 2014)

prairie said:


> We have never planted RR corn. We use RR soybeans, and use Glyphosate to burn down fields before planting cover crops for grazing. RR Corn never made sense to me if I was planting RR soybeans, lso it does not make economic sense. The same goes for all the bug traits.
> 
> It is purely a convenience to spray everything with Glyphosate, it does nothing to increase yield.
> 
> Their used to be a Monsanto rep in our area that that said all farmers want is "simple and stupid", and that he might as well provide it as long as they will pay for it. Heard later he got called in by higher ups and told to keep his mouth shut. I don't think his statement was wrong, by what I see going on in the ag industry.


Yeah, I get the sense that a LOT of guys are planning to go "trait free" and go back to conventional non-GMO seed to save costs for traits... But I sure hope they have their "management skills" sharpened up and ready to go with it...

I never bothered with RR cotton because the RR1 trait had a lot of problems... You could only go over the top with RU before the fifth true leaf... so basically you were limited to spraying the first month after planting. Problem is, in our area, we have weeds coming up basically all season long. Plus, if the weather goes to pot and gets into a perpetually rainy spell after planting, you can find the application window for RU closed before you can ever get back into the field-- by the time the ground dries out enough to get a sprayer in the field, the cotton may well be 4-5 inches tall and at or past the fifth true leaf... then you'd REALLY be screwed... We had pretty good control of weeds in the early season using our "standard" pre-emerge program of Trifluralin or Prowl preplant incorporated followed by a band of Cotoran or Caparol preemerge behind the planter... our biggest problem was mid-season weeds like pigweeds/amaranth and seeny beans and morningglory that came in at or just after layby... well after the fifth true leaf stage anyway where you could only use RU in a directed spray or under a hooded sprayer, not over-the-top broadcast. If you have to have a directed/hooded spray rig, you can apply RU without needing the RR trait anyway, so why bother paying for it?? Guys that disregarded the fifth true leaf application limit would often find that the crop was damaged... but you wouldn't see it until harvest when the bolls would end up being "parrot beaked" because the tips of the bolls would grow irregularly and curl over onto themselves, effectively "locking" the boll closed so it couldn't open properly-- and an unopened boll is an unharvestable boll... They'd crack but "hard lock" and be unpickable by machine pickers... RR2 and 3 traits that came along later fixed most of those problems and really made RR cotton a worthwhile option, in our area anyway...

When the GMO stuff first started coming out, seemed everybody and their dog jumped on board in just a matter of a few years... Can't say I blamed them, really, especially in RR corn and beans where it made most weed control issues "turn key easy" and took the "management" requirement down to the simplest level possible... Got a weed problem?? Hit it with RU... how easy can you get?

Thing is, that sort of thing makes ya lazy, in a way. Whether guys know it or not, you start to get reliant on the idea of just "making a rescue treatment" with Roundup is all that's required. Once you get into that mindset, it's hard to go back to "staying on top of it" by vigilant scouting and having to figure out (or having a reliable agronomist you can count on) what to spray to keep weeds/bugs out of a field before they really cream your yield... Plus, RU was plenty cheap, especially compared to a lot of the newer chemistries coming out, and so the attitude was WHY use more expensive stuff in a more complicated program??

I'm wondering how many guys are gonna "switch back" and then find themselves caught with their pants down because they were still in the "RR rescue treatment" mindset, or disheartened when they find out they saved big $$$ on seed but then have to fork over big $$$$ for new chemistry stuff to maintain control of weeds/bugs in non-GMO crops...

Ya pays now or ya pays later, but EVERYBODY PAYS... LOL Certainly it CAN be done, but it DOES require a change in mindset and management...

Later! OL J R


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## aawhite (Jan 16, 2012)

Management is the key. Beans required a LOT of management and atention to detail to produce good yields prior to RR. After RR beans came out, anyone could throw out a crop and get decent yields without much effort, jsut had to open the checkbook. I think the pendulum is swinging back the other way.


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## prairie (Jun 20, 2008)

aawhite said:


> Management is the key. Beans required a LOT of management and atention to detail to produce good yields prior to RR.....


That is why we went with RR beans when they came out, but stayed with conventional corn.

The problem as some of you have alluded to is that, conventional/non-traited crops take more management. Most farmers in my area don't really scout there crops anymore, and many younger farmers don't even know how. They rely on it being taken care of by the traits in the bag, and in many cases, their local input supplier. Around here it is the norm for the local Coops and Fertilizer/Chemical suppliers to offer package deals on seed, chemicals, fertilizer, scouting, etc. As one neighbor put it, "It is nice to only have to drive the tractor". And he barely does that because of GPS and AutoSteer. The "Simple & Stupid" quote I posted above is pretty close to the truth in far to many cases.


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