Author Archives: Joe Sinclair

 
The days are starting to get longer and we are all beginning to enjoy a little more sunshine as the winter fades into spring of 2021.    This is the time of year many enjoy vacations to warm destinations or the many activities in our wonderful outdoors here in the Midwest.  I particularly enjoy ice fishing with friends from the warmth of an insulated hut.  It is a good time to reflect on past results and make plans for the future before the busyness of Spring rolls around.  2021 marks Quality Ag’s 25th year in business and we are kicking it off with a very important investment for you, our customers.
Your fields will be sprayed a little differently by us here in 2021 than in previous years.  In the same way that GPS guidance has essential eliminated foam markers for sprayer navigation, you will now be seeing the newest innovation in [ … ]

Merry Christmas
Merry Christmas 2020 from all of us here at Quality Ag.  Thank you very much to all of our customers, vendors, and associates of all sorts.  I’d like to take “Merry Christmas” to a little deeper level today.  Obviously we are celebrating the birth of the Savior of the world.  God has become man-incarnate.  This has happened because of the Lord’s love for us, and because of one woman’s “yes”.  Mary is the mother of Jesus, the mother of God, and also our mother. She told God “yes” and it was done according to God’s word.  We all have an earthly mother and through the incarnation-the birth-of Jesus, we now also have a heavenly mother with Mary.
This Christmas season of 2020, we will have many opportunities to both be thankful and helpful and charitable, as well of plenty of things to complain about.  The world has not been in [ … ]

Thanks and blessings to all who have served our country today.  Here’s a bit of history if you did not already know it:
It was Sunday, December 7th, 1941–Admiral Chester Nimitz was attending a concert in Washington, DC. He was paged to the phone and it was president Roosevelt. He told Admiral Nimitz what had happened at Pearl Harbor and that he (Nimitz) would now be the Commander of the Pacific Fleet.
Admiral Nimitz made arrangements and flew immediately to Hawaii.  When he landed at Pearl Harbor, there was such a spirit of despair, dejection, and defeat that you would have thought the Japanese had already won the war.
Admiral Nimitz was given a boat tour of the destruction wrought on Pearl Harbor by the Japanese. Big sunken battleships and navy vessels cluttered the waters everywhere he looked. As the tour boat returned to dock, the young helmsman of the boat asked, “Well [ … ]

2021 Crop Expenses and Breakevens- a  Planning Discussion
By Joe Sinclair.  November 11, 2020
We are only 5 months away from beginning to plant our 2021 crop, so now is the time to start planning for it.  It may seem like an undesirable exercise to begin so soon after the current crop has been harvested, but it still needs to be done.  This blog post is NOT intended to be a “down to the penny” analysis for your crop expenses, but will serve as a beginning to your planning where you can put in the expenses for YOUR own enterprise-which will be different than any other enterprise on the planet.
To begin, our commodity prices are higher, so we can raise our yield goals if our costs are not raised significantly.  As always, our number one cost is our land cost. Some farms are too high at free rent and others are cheap [ … ]

Mid-Harvest 2020 Yields Report
Our 2020 harvest is underway, and results are mixed.  We can however, make a few generalizations about how 2020 turned out.  Here’s a link to the current Midwest drought map:
https://droughtmonitor.unl.edu/CurrentMap/StateDroughtMonitor.aspx?Midwest
As you can see, we are in a drought.  Droughts take extended time to develop, but we can get a flood in one night.
As the drought developed, our earliest corn was not hurt as badly as our later corn- so our early maturing corn which was planted early has been yielding over 200 bushels in most soils with a CSR over 65.  The lighter ground is still good -160 plus.  The later (replant) corn was flowering during the July/August heat and wind.  It is 30-40% behind our early corn.
In Southern Iowa, we need August rain to get good soybean yields.  We didn’t get it.  Especially damaged by the drought were our earliest varieties which were planted early-the 2.8-3.0’s.  [ … ]

By now most everyone has heard the hype about the Enlist E3 soybeans. Well it is now moving from hype to results. The first yields for the E3 beans are coming in and they are impressive. Even with all the weather challenges of 2019, the E3s are yielding. We have a good supply of seed available now but the popular genetics will sell out quickly. Give us a call or stop in to see what varieties will fit into your program. Take a look at this video from our partners at Merschman Seeds to see the results for yourself. Joe

We have been hit with sub zero temps, knee deep mud and snow piled head high in the past few weeks.  We like to grumble about it but it is the livestock that is really suffering.  Momma cows with newborn calves or those getting ready to calve are battling some tough conditions.  Your cows are your Factory.  If the production line is breaking down, you don’t produce your product and you don’t have inventory to sell.  Your have to keep the Factory running.  This is a critical time for your cows nutritional needs.   Poor nutrition now leads to loss of body condition, calving difficulty, weak calves, and slow breed back.
Hay is in short supply and everyone is scrambling to stretch their forages as far as they can.  Much of the hay is lower in quality and we need to supplement this forage to meet the cows needs.  Supplementing vitamins [ … ]