War, drought, politics, inflation, raising interest rates and more COVID, 2022 certainly had its share of disruptors.  

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• After peaking in April, commodity prices have slowly drifted lower.
• Nebraska corn yields were down 16%, with most of our clients seeing lower yields as well.  
• Although drought, high fuel and fertilizer prices, and hard to get and expensive herbicides pushed production prices much higher, the higher commodity prices still allowed farms to be profitable.

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As we start to plan for 2023 these are some of the things that we need to think about.

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• Will El Nino turn to La Nina and rains return? Will that push commodity prices lower?
• What will happen to fuel and fertilizer prices in 2023?
• Insurance companies have suffered severe losses on wind and hail (especially production plans) in recent years. How will insurance companies respond to their continuing large losses with their hail and wind policies? How does that affect your insurance plans?
• How do we protect ourselves?

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Why is there pressure to increase hail and wind rates? We constantly see reports on the media reporting severe weather and, for years, climatologists have warned that climate change would lead to more frequent severe weather. Jackson Stansell showed this slide at a nitrogen use conference last summer. It shows that severe weather has doubled in the last 12 years.

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At last year’s Midplains Ag meeting, Jackson discussed a nitrogen management practice that we have helped work on for several years. At this year’s meeting, Jackson will be discussing both positive and negative results from last year. Overall, the results were very positive. The biggest key to success is maintaining good communication and getting the check plots installed properly.

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This was a North Central Nebraska farmer’s experience with N-Time last year.

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For more information on Sentinel Fertigation, go to https://www.sentinelfertigation.com/ or visit our website https://www.midplainsag.com

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Meeting Agenda

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Traditionally, we have held our annual meeting on the second week of February. This year, to allow Tiffany to go on a skiing trip with her family we have moved it up to February 6^th. We will be covering topics that we feel will help you plan for 2023.  

• Ben Buckner with AgResource and Sterling Smith with AgriSompo will discuss the commodity markets. Ben will also discuss his upcoming tour of Brazil.
• Brian Jacobsen with AgriSompo will discuss crop insurance issues along with hail and wind insurance choices.
• John Ferguson will discuss the outlook for fertilizer prices and supplies.
• Jackson Stansell will review Sentinel Fertigation’s results from 2022 and their plans for 2023. In 2022, the farmers they worked with on average saved $40/acre in nitrogen costs with no loss of yield.

• We will review ARC and PLC choices for 2023.
• Tiffany will discuss the codes that RMA requires when filling out production reports. The codes identify how yields were determined.

Date: February 6^th.

Place: K of C Hall Elgin, Nebraska

Time: A meal will be served at 6pm and presentations will start at about 6:45.

If you haven’t got your production reports done, please do it as soon as possible.

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