# Ethanol Advantage.



## Vol (Jul 5, 2009)

43% less greenhouse gas emissions.....AgWeb.

Regards, Mike

http://www.agweb.com/article/ethanols-43-advantage-over-gasoline-naa-ben-potter/


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## NewBerlinBaler (May 30, 2011)

In any other year, I would think this new research could likely turn the entire farm economy around and bring the price of corn back up above $8/bushel. But with the anti-science president about to take office, there's no telling what, if any, effect this will have.


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## 2ndWindfarm (Nov 11, 2014)

Hmmm... Research info that refutes the criticism that ethanol production creates more greenhouse gases than an equivalent quantity of fossil fuel. Improved efficiencies, improved agricultural efficiencies, improved technology. Good stuff - good news.


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## pede58 (Oct 27, 2015)

EPA did increase the blend rate but have seen little effect on prices. Sittin in the middle of the corn belt I do like higher prices but with the wide fluctuation in prices that $8 corn as almost been a curse, prices up everything is good lots of new tractors and trucks but then land prices climbs the cash rent jumps and then the markets falls...well you see the picture, better to have a good stable price but that's probably a pipe dream. The one statistic that I always look at, we could turn all the corn produced into ethanol and it would only meet 15% of current use.


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## Vol (Jul 5, 2009)

pede58 said:


> EPA did increase the blend rate but have seen little effect on prices. Sittin in the middle of the corn belt I do like higher prices but with the wide fluctuation in prices that $8 corn as almost been a curse, prices up everything is good lots of new tractors and trucks but then land prices climbs the cash rent jumps and then the markets falls...well you see the picture, better to have a good stable price but that's probably a pipe dream. The one statistic that I always look at, we could turn all the corn produced into ethanol and it would only meet 15% of current use.


I agree....I hope not to see $8 corn again....it needs to be higher though than presently. The biggest corn problem presently is not science related, it is economics....as in massive yields.

Regards, Mike


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## Widairy (Jan 1, 2016)

The last thing I want to see is 8$ corn. All it did here was screw up the rent land situations for any smaller dairy.


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## bbos2 (Mar 20, 2015)

What would be better for corn in my opinion isn't nessisarly increasing ethonal.

I wish we as farmers could put on less map, or N. Maybe 75% of normal. We would all save money and hopefully send a message to Fert mines. Then put on maybe 2000 less seeds per acre. This would send a message to overpriced seed company's. And finally quite applying fungicides esspecialy at 3.50 corn. Again saving money. All this put together would drop production cost significantly and drop national yeild significantly too.

I know I know..... You go first !!!


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## somedevildawg (Jun 20, 2011)

What was the 43% coming from? Sounds like bullshit to me.....I can tell you it's cost me a few hundred dollars out of my pocket....


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## stack em up (Mar 7, 2013)

bbos2 said:


> What would be better for corn in my opinion isn't nessisarly increasing ethonal.
> I wish we as farmers could put on less map, or N. Maybe 75% of normal. We would all save money and hopefully send a message to Fert mines. Then put on maybe 2000 less seeds per acre. This would send a message to overpriced seed company's. And finally quite applying fungicides esspecialy at 3.50 corn. Again saving money. All this put together would drop production cost significantly and drop national yeild significantly too.
> I know I know..... You go first !!!


Are you talking cutting N to 75% of normal or cutting 75% of total N applied? If cutting 75% of N, why even bother planting corn? It takes about .7 lb N to make a bushel of corn. And as far as fungicides go, the years where a fungicide application doesn't give a positive ROI are extremely few and far between. Cutting population 2000 plants per acre is t going to give you that much of a better bottom line, we've tried it. We planted a few semi flex varieties and dropped the population from 35,500 to 33,700, and the yield lag in the drop was more than the amount saved in seed unfortunately. We are actually increasing our target population this year to 36,500 and a touch higher in the good ground.

The biggest things that we as farmers can control is that 1 rent and 2 machinery costs. Most of the rest is out of our hands.

In a really shitty mood today


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## pede58 (Oct 27, 2015)

I'm not sure you have control of anything, yield might be the biggest but mother nature has to work with you on that one, machinery cost to a point but unexpected breakdowns throw that out the window and land prices and rent are controlled by the market, remember their is always someone willing to pay more. I remember when 180bu was a good number hell this year it was 250 but the weather smiled upon us, the market has pushed you to make more of what you have. I honestly don't see how today's land prices or rent even pencil out, around here cash rent is $400 or more and $10,000-15,000 per acre to buy....guess that's why I don't farm.


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## bbos2 (Mar 20, 2015)

stack em up said:


> Are you talking cutting N to 75% of normal or cutting 75% of total N applied? If cutting 75% of N, why even bother planting corn? It takes about .7 lb N to make a bushel of corn. And as far as fungicides go, the years where a fungicide application doesn't give a positive ROI are extremely few and far between. Cutting population 2000 plants per acre is t going to give you that much of a better bottom line, we've tried it. We planted a few semi flex varieties and dropped the population from 35,500 to 33,700, and the yield lag in the drop was more than the amount saved in seed unfortunately. We are actually increasing our target population this year to 36,500 and a touch higher in the good ground.
> The biggest things that we as farmers can control is that 1 rent and 2 machinery costs. Most of the rest is out of our hands.
> In a really shitty mood today


75% of normal meaning cut 25% of total N through starter and sidress. It wouldn't devastate the crop but would produce less. Yes we have use fungicides before with positive roi. but I don't see the point to boost yield by 5 or 10 bushels when we have had 4 years of a glut of corn.

I've read somewhere a month ago where some Fert mines switched to mining other things because they were feeling the pintch and prices were getting too low. So we as farmers do have some affect. I wish I could remember or find the article to back this statement.

Seed. If everyone in the country dropped 2000 less seeds it would affect yield no doubt and drop seed production some. After our seed price went up again this year we did a little shopping. Hated to do it because we like staying loyal . but we tried some from another local dealer and saved 60 $ a bag. Didn't go all in but enough to see how it does against our tried and true seed.

As for rent we never got real crazy boosting rents sky high trying to gobble up ground like some btos did around here. always just were up front and fair with landlords. So I don't want to adjust down on them, especially since our land tax just went crazy out here last few years.

I'm not cutting N or population. Just making conversation. Only thing I cut was a little map on some farms where we've been putting on a lot of manure . probably no fugicides here next year, but will be a decided later in the year. I credit 0 N on my cattle manure. Machinery will all run another year here ... Haha


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## 2ndWindfarm (Nov 11, 2014)

stack em up said:


> The biggest things that we as farmers can control is that 1 rent and 2 machinery costs. Most of the rest is out of our hands.
> In a really shitty mood today


"Supply and Demand". If there's another outlet/demand for corn from ethanol distillers who are making money with improved efficiencies... What's not to like?

I would seriously doubt that the market share for ethanol corn would be great enough to push the market anywhere close to double the current prices. Might be enough to add a buck or so to a bushel...

Enough to keep those corn acres in the rotation?

What are the options.... Straight beans? With cattle in the dumpster, there's less money in alfalfa. But milk prices are beginning to turn around. Too bad there's not more dairies above water anymore..


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## somedevildawg (Jun 20, 2011)

All but gone here.....


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## haybaler101 (Nov 30, 2008)

bbos2 said:


> 75% of normal meaning cut 25% of total N through starter and sidress. It wouldn't devastate the crop but would produce less. Yes we have use fungicides before with positive roi. but I don't see the point to boost yield by 5 or 10 bushels when we have had 4 years of a glut of corn.
> I've read somewhere a month ago where some Fert mines switched to mining other things because they were feeling the pintch and prices were getting too low. So we as farmers do have some affect. I wish I could remember or find the article to back this statement.
> Seed. If everyone in the country dropped 2000 less seeds it would affect yield no doubt and drop seed production some. After our seed price went up again this year we did a little shopping. Hated to do it because we like staying loyal . but we tried some from another local dealer and saved 60 $ a bag. Didn't go all in but enough to see how it does against our tried and true seed.
> As for rent we never got real crazy boosting rents sky high trying to gobble up ground like some btos did around here. always just were up front and fair with landlords. So I don't want to adjust down on them, especially since our land tax just went crazy out here last few years.
> I'm not cutting N or population. Just making conversation. Only thing I cut was a little map on some farms where we've been putting on a lot of manure . probably no fugicides here next year, but will be a decided later in the year. I credit 0 N on my cattle manure. Machinery will all run another year here ... Haha


Economics 101. As long as we get 10 bpa bump on fungicides (it was about 25 bpa here in 2016) @ $3.50 corn, we are going to do it. I will spend $30 to make 35 any day.


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## mlappin (Jun 25, 2009)

haybaler101 said:


> Economics 101. As long as we get 10 bpa bump on fungicides (it was about 25 bpa here in 2016) @ $3.50 corn, we are going to do it. I will spend $30 to make 35 any day.


Haven't seen that big a jump up here, have also tried fungicides on beans as well, only pays if they can be applied while spraying, ditto on foliar feed. But our conditions are different here than the very humid southern part of the state. But we also look at disease resistance when selecting seed to work in no-till.


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## swmnhay (Jun 13, 2008)

mlappin said:


> Haven't seen that big a jump up here, have also tried fungicides on beans as well, only pays if they can be applied while spraying, ditto on foliar feed. But our conditions are different here than the very humid southern part of the state. But we also look at disease resistance when selecting seed to work in no-till.


I agree with hybrid selection for plant disease goes a long way.If they say it responds well to fungicides it also means disease resistance is low! A lot of guys tried spraying 1/2 of a cornfield to see if fungicides pd spraying crossways with a plane to see if showed up on yield monitors.Very few saw a yield response.Very few used it again.Now the claim is a ground rig works better for fungicide then a plane.

Get 150 miles east of here and fungicides are used a lot more then HERE.


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## rjmoses (Apr 4, 2010)

Ethanol, wind solar, etc., are all stop-gap measures. We need energy...and we need fewer people world wide.

IMHO, safe nuclear energy would be a better solution. But, I'm one of the few that believe nuke's can be made safer. According to one study, I recently read, there is more radiation spread from fossil fuel burning, especially coal, than from a nuke plant including decommissioning. It's just that it is spread around over time rather than being concentrated.

My main concern is that the growing world population will cause a pandemic of some kind. Or another world war. I'm not smart enough to figure out how to deal with world population problems, but I have seen that Mother Nature has ways of dealing with imbalances. And some of those ways aren't so pretty.

Again, IMHO, I don't think it's a matter of "if", but "when" we get slapped across the head with a 2x4 by Mother Nature.

Ralph


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## haybaler101 (Nov 30, 2008)

Humidity is a killer. Fungicides pay 9 years out of 10 here. Even corn with high disease resistance will yield enough extra to pay. A few guys did the X pattern with plane this year in large fields and the X lit up like a sore thumb on the yield monitor, most of the time 25 to 50 bpa, but southern rust also extreme this year.


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## bbos2 (Mar 20, 2015)

swmnhay said:


> I agree with hybrid selection for plant disease goes a long way.If they say it responds well to fungicides it also means disease resistance is low! A lot of guys tried spraying 1/2 of a cornfield to see if fungicides pd spraying crossways with a plane to see if showed up on yield monitors.Very few saw a yield response.Very few used it again.Now the claim is a ground rig works better for fungicide then a plane.
> Get 150 miles east of here and fungicides are used a lot more then HERE.


This is my experience. Some guys do it here every year and they're yields are same as mine and everybody else. We've tried split apps but just have no,solid evidence were getting a return every year . your right it sounds like a regional thing. Or hybred selection


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## stack em up (Mar 7, 2013)

I can't find it right now, but I had a yield study done by ISU Ames from 2016. I don't remember all the specifics so I'm gonna email my CCA and see if he has it yet. It showed a 47 bpa increase over no fungicide. Now I know that 2016 was a spectacularly shitty year so disease was ever present.

We have a lot of hybrids that are highly disease tolerant, especially NCLB, but some of the racehorse hybrids just don't have the tolerance unfortunately.


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## endrow (Dec 15, 2011)

Lots of choices


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## endrow (Dec 15, 2011)

Bto who farms a lot nearby said last 3 years fungicides they only paid there way . But he is the kind of guy who it is often said he does not brag and often if he is fibbing he lowers the yield or price so you are not tempted to treed on his turf


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