Wednesday morning, February 19, 2014

The warm, bright sun is streaming through the windows today as I work in the office.

We have changed our allocation of crop acres recently, decreasing the corn acres and increasing the soybean acres.   The reason driving the change was our comparison made using our crop budgeting spreadsheet.  This analysis shows that soybeans have a greater profit margin than corn, using the information that we know today.  There are other agronomic reasons that also enter into these types of decisions, but the financial considerations are a strong influence.  We developed these analysis tools in-house, and they are tailored specifically to the needs of Carnahan & Sons.

As we settled on the original crop plan early last November, we called that our “plan A”.  Rarely do we alter it once we decide, but there have been occasions, like this year, when we revamp our plan.  In our discussions in recent weeks, we went through several iterations, and finally settled on the new plan… “plan E”!

We have had to communicate this change to our fertilizer supplier and our seed dealer.  Both have been very gracious and helpful in making the adjustments required.   Changing the crop acre allocation also requires making tweaks to our cash flow and crop budget spreadsheets.  It’s a good thing I really enjoy this kind of “number crunching”!

We met yesterday with our crop consultant, Greg Anthis of CPS Wheatland, and we took his recommendation to purchase our nitrogen for the 2014 corn crop.  Seems that the price was headed up by about 4% or more, so we locked in the current price.

Also, we are going out tonight with the family to Bobe’s in Washington.  It’s steak night, and we are going to celebrate my #61 birthday.  I must say that it would be impossible to find a better steak than the ones prepared by Bill Bobe!  I certainly wish that Philip and Ben could be there, too, but their work in far places is keeping them quite busy.  It’s only 2300 miles for Philip… why would he not come for supper with dad?

Enjoy the warmer days, rain is predicted (100% chance according to weather.com) tomorrow, and some freezing days next week.

Have a great day.