Progress 2014 Agriculture &

February 2014

Manufacturing

Talking tractors not just in movies

By TIM HORAN
tim.horan@abilene-rc.com

When Jeff Allison says farm tractors talk to each other, he is not describing a Disney movie. Using two-way radios and cell phone technology, farm machines (tractors, combines, sprayers, bailers) not only communicate with each other, they also have the ability to communicate with humans. Allison is the Ag Management Solutions consultant for CTI and discussed some of the new features offered through the John Deere implement dealer. He said an option called Machine Sink Option allows for wheat harvests to come in faster. With todays technology a combine can unload without missing a beat harvesting a wheat corp. Basically, that is allowing the combine to control the speed and the direction of the tractor pulling the

Jeff Allison, Ag Management Solutions with CTI, explains the new technology being used in agriculture.

Tim Horan Reflector-Chronicle

they spend harvesting and unloading stopped, or unloading and still harvesting, and how much time they sit idle, he said. There is really no limit to the amount of data that we can get from those machines. You can go back and look and see how much time that operator sat in the seat waiting to be unloaded with a grain tank full. With the Machine Sink Option, the grain cart operating can also see the levels of the machines that he is waiting to unload, he said. He can see which ones are full, which ones are half full, which ones actually requested him to come over and dump them. The technology also assists the grain cart operator from mishaps, avoiding spilling grain on the ground.

Keeping that equipment where it needs to be while those guys are harvesting at those speeds with that size of equipment is a challenge. To get an operator, that same person year in and year out, trained is not always a guarantee. With this kind of technology, you can put somebody in there that doesnt have to have the trained skill. He said a new version of the Machine Sink Option is better suited for corn and soybeans but will better suit wheat harvesters is around the corner. Allison said the newest technology is Wireless Data Transfer (WDT). That is basically communication traveling from the machines to a Cloud or a server and you can pull that down to a laptop and
See: CTI, Page 2

grain cart, Allison said. The combine is unloading but continues cutting.

We have it now where the machines will track the amount of hours they spend

harvesting, the amount of hours they spend unloading, the amount of hours

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Group seeks to return greyhound racing to Kansas

By TIM HORAN
tim.horan@abilene-rc.com

Opening a pari-mutuel greyhound racetrack in Kansas would be a huge benefit to Abilene and the county, said the vice president of the Kansas Greyhound Association. That is the primary goal of the KGA this legislative session in Kansas and that track does not necessarily have to be Wichita Greyhound Park, said Tracy Wildey, an Abilene greyhound breeder. Phil Ruffin, Sr., owner of Wichita Greyhound Park, also plans to try to get legislation passed which would allow slot machines at his track. He has been lobbying for those changes to the law since he closed the park in 2007. That same year, The Woodlands also closed which ended both pari-mutuel greyhound and horse racing in Kansas. It was a tough time for all of us when the racetracks closed here as well as local businesses, Wildey said. It affected feed supplies. It affected vets. It affected everyone in Dickinson County. Ruffin would invest between $50 million and $100 million to renovate the facility on I-135 in Park City if he could install the slot machines, said his lobbyist, George Wingert. He also would add a Gilleys Saloon. Wingert said reopening the park would create 500 jobs and generate about $1.8 million in annual gaming revenue for Sedgwick County along with

Tracy Wildey, vice president of the Kansas Greyhound Association, says the KGA is working to bring greyhound racing back to Kansas.

Tim Horan Reflector-Chronicle

additional property tax revenue. KGAs efforts go beyond the Wichita track located in Park City. The KGA is exploring several efforts to bring pari-mutuel racing back to the state of Kansas, Wildey said. We realize that there is a strong resistance to reopening Wichita Greyhound Park by the legislature in that area. The technology is called Service Advisory Remote. Going along with that is Remote Display Access (RDA) where a service manager call connect remotely with a machine. Its not just Ag, Allison said of technology. Its in every sector of what we do. Technology is just pushing the envelope. The phones and the iPads are becoming a commonplace tool. We can do Remote Display Access right on them. We can do it on our phone.

At this time with the help of (Representative) Judge (John) Barker who is doing a lot to bring racing back into the state, the KGA is exploring other opportunities, she said. I think there are some possibilities to look at along the I-70 corridor. The bill that passed seven years ago allowed for slot machines at three pari-mutuel tracksKansas City, Wichita, Pittsburgand allowed for The farmers are getting to the point where they can get alerts on their phones. I know there is more to come with the iPad. We have more and more apps available. The first app was called Mobile Farm Manager. The iPad can work with a yield map or planting map. You can walk out into a field and diagnose what is going on in that area, right where you are, if you have some crop scouting to do, he said.

three destination casinos. All three destination casinos have since opened and the racetracks have since closed. The bill required a county vote to support the added gaming and that vote failed in Sedgwick County in 2007. The vote passed in Wyandotte County but track owners didnt feel it was profitable to continue greyhound and horse racing. They will still have to have a revote (for support) in Wichita and that is something they have been working on for several years, Wildey said. I think in the last election with a far more conservative Senate (in Kansas) that is going to make that effort even harder. Wildey said that the managers of new destination casinos that Senate Bill 2006 allowed are now opposed to any changes in legislation which would give more profits to racetracks, allowing them to re-open. We were all friends in order to get Senate Bill 2006 passed and now, as with any politics, we are not. They dont want the added competition, she said. She said that one of the platforms that Rep. Barker (RAbilene) ran on two years ago was to bring pari-mutuel greyhound racing back to Kansas. One of the things that he has made promises on, is to really work his efforts on getting a track open, Wildey said. I think he has stayed very true to that. That is one of the things that he has put a lot of focus on. around for a while now to manage fertilizer needs, seeding requirements and harvest. Variable rate is still a buzzword because it does allow us to farm each acre if we want to within inches, he said. The technology has been around longer than weve been wanting to take advantage of it, Allison said. But we are beginning to see that technology spread.

CTI

Continued from Page 1

manage that data, he said. Were talking harvest data, planting data, any type of data that is generated on these machines and transferred. We can also go the other way and use something that weve created in the office and transfer that to a machine. That could be in the way of a prescription for a field or just some new setup information as far as a field,

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he added. The CTI service department can also communicate directly with the farm machinery. Our service managers can now contact machines to just check on a machines health or the machine itself can generate an e-mail saying this sensor has detected a problem. From that e-mail he can either dial into that machine remotely or he can do some diagnosed work.

Allison said the new technology is making farming more productive. Just in the last 15 to 20 years what we have seen with yields in our area which is predominately still wheat, weve seen county averages seemingly almost double, he said. The guys just get more and more out of each acre. I think its management and its more information. Variable rate was the buzzword for a long time. GPS technology has been

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Progress 2014 Agriculture and Manufacturing

Greyhound industry welcomes positive news

By TIM HORAN
tim.horan@abilene-rc.com

Without pari-mutuel racing in Kansas, county greyhound breeders and owners rely on the racing in other states to pay the bills. According to Gary Guccione, executive director of the National Greyhound Association, the industry has shown some positive signs recently. Stabilized, leveled off, even rebounded a bit, Guccione said of the state of g r e y h o u n d Gary Guccione racing nationally. The NGA is the official registry of racing greyhounds in North America and is a partner with registries in England, Ireland, New Zealand and Australia. As well as the industry has done recently, there are some states that want to end greyhound racing for other forms of gaming. They havent succeeded yet, he said of those efforts. So we continue to fight those and hold our ground. There is some good news, he said. According to the Florida Division of Pari-Mutuel Wagering, greyhound racing action has shown remarkable increases. All of the racetracks in Florida reported growth. Dont decouple us. We can actually show an increase, he said. There are lot of nice things happening at some of the Florida tracks with a very little bit of effort. There havent been any closings in the last few years, Guccione said, thus registrations are increasing. In the meantime, the industry has shown a little bit of a bounce, a little bit of increase, he said. He said the meets that the NGA hosts twice a year at its track in Abilene are flourishing. The meets with all the tradition, the attractive programs, the auctionWe had last year the first two $1 million auctions since 2008. That was pretty cool, he said. We havent had that happen in five years and that is a great sign.

Young greyhound pups race around the NGA track twice a year.
Tim Horan Reflector-Chronicle

People are coming here and enjoying it, the place to be in the industry two weeks of the year. Guccione said the NGA supports efforts by the Kansas Greyhound Association to open a pari-mutuel track in this state. It would give it another boost, he said of the industry. It would be a very welcome type of boost to get racing here. We wouldnt know how to act if someone opened a track. Were a little rusty on our ribbon cuttings for racetracks. Greyhound racing boomed in the 1980s when tracks opened in Wisconsin, Kansas and Texas but fell upon hard times after the turn of the century, due to increased competition. Each spring and each fall the NGA hosts races for young pups that have not yet raced at a pari-mutual racetrack. Those races are followed by an auction where people worldwide can buy a racing greyhound.

During the meets, the NGA and Greyhound Board of Directors convene. There is also a banquet. This spring the meet will be held from Monday, April 21, through Saturday, April 26. Racing starts at 9 a.m. on April 21, 22 and April 24, 25. Long time NGA member and former member of the NGA board of directors, N.J. Jack Sherck will be honored at the banquet, which will be held in the Eisenhower Presidential Library courtyard. Also in the spring the NGA and the American Greyhound Track Operators Association present the 2013 Rural Rube and Flashy Sir Awards to the best sprinters and distance greyhounds of the year and the All-America Team. The fall meet will be held Oct. 13 through 18. A similar schedule is held in the fall, when inductee ceremonies for the Greyhound Hall of Fame are held.

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...has been a prized animal for thousands of years, and is the oldest known canine purebred in the world. The Pharaohs rated the Greyhound first among animals, both as pets and hunters. Under Queen Elizabeth I of England, Greyhound coursing in England reached its greatest popularity. The Queens love of the sport coupled with Cleopatras great interest in greyhounds caused Greyhound racing to eventually be dubbed the Sport of Queens. Greyhounds were brought here by early English and Irish settlers, and soon became established in the Midwest. Today, Greyhounds continue to be a source of entertainment for many American racing fans. Theyre also a great source of joy and pleasure to tens of thousands of people whove adopted these former athletes as pets once their racing careers are completed.

The Greyhound...

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Dickinson County land sales

Sale 1
Tract 1 $710,600: 209 acres, 179 tillable, balance in CRP and waterways Tract 2 $175,000: 70 acres, 61 acres CRP, balance in waterways, creek and timber

Demand, cash driving ag land sales

By GREG DOERING
Greg.doering@abilene-rc.com

Sale 2
Tract 1 $848,000: 212 acres, 143 tillable, 40 meadow, balance in creek and waste Tract 2 $228,000: 76 acres, 66 tillable Tract 3 $261,800: 77 acres, 69 tillable Tract 4 $284,900: 77 acres, 74 tillable

Sale 3
Tract 1 $349,800: 159 acres, 60 tillable, balance in fenced grass Tract 2 $448,500: 156 acres, 94 tillable, 52 CRP, balance waste

Sale 4
Tract 1 $1,225,700: 238 acres, 171.4 tillable, balance in timber and creek

Sale 5
Tract 1 $444,600: 160 acres, 137 tillable balance in grass Tract 2 $$291,600: 72 acres 69 tillable, balance waste Tract 3 $246,400: 77 acres, 53 tillable, balance in grass Tract 4 $340,200: 54 acres, 48 tillable, balance in creek and timber
Source: Riordan auction

As home prices plummeted across the country during the Great Recession, farm and ranch land headed the other direction. Now, nearly six years after the housing market collapse, headwinds are showing signs of keeping further gains in check. Its stabilized at a high level, auctioneer Dennis Riordan said, nothing that hes never seen a sustained buildup in land prices like the current market. Riordan sold more than 1,500 acres of Dickinson County farm and range land in 2013, ranging in price from $2,500 per acre for a 70 acre tract of CRP and timber to a 54 acre parcel that garnered $6,300 per taxable acre. Riordan said a key difference between this boom in the price of agriculture land and one in the 1980s is leverage. More than half of the sales have been all cash, Riordan said. The price surge for land is due to a confluence of cash on hand for producers, low interest rates and stock market volatility, according Riordan. I never dreamed wed see three-year bank CDs paying 1 percent, the auctioneer of nearly 50 years said.

Dennis Riordan believes land values have stabilized at a high level and demand will remain strong as long as interest rates remain low.

Courtesy photo

With relatively guaranteed rates so paltry, Riordan believes area producers are seeking higher returns by expanding their operation, noting that the return wouldnt have to be stellar to beat a certificate of deposit. While Riordan believes the market has reached a stable plateau on prices, underlying demand hasnt waned. If it has, I havent noticed it, said Bill Mahanay, farm loan manager with the Farm Service Agency. Demand has continued to be strong. Riordan said falling grain prices havent had much impact on the demand for farmers to expand their operations, but he could see an

increase in interest rates paid on CDs and Treasury notes providing producers with another option of where to park their excess cash. While falling grain prices havent impacted the sale of land, Laura Marks, Dickinson County agricultural and natural resources agent, believes they might begin to impact rent agreements this spring. Personally, I think that probably what youll see first is leases and rents will come down this year,

Marks said. Whether they will or not remains to be seen. But I would expect some lowering just based on grain prices. Marks also doesnt foresee the bottom falling out of the market, similar to what happened to the national housing market because demand has remained steady. People are always looking to expand, Marks said. We may not see a quick rapid drop, because theres still going to be demand for additional land to be viable.

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While Dickinson County isnt subject to the Flint Hills Smoke Management Plan, using some of the resources associated with it will help cities in Kansas comply with clean air standards.

Courtesy photo

Consider your neighbors when burning

By GREG DOERING
Greg.doering@abilene-rc.com

Though Dickinson County isnt included in the Flint Hills Smoke Management Plan, resting just outside the 16-county block, area producers can still benefit from the voluntary approach being attempted to reduce air pollution. We are not in it, Laura Marks, Dickinson County Extension agent said of the plan. We are right on the edge of it. We arent subject to those restrictions on non-ag burning in the month of April that other counties are. White smoke in the spring is an annual event in the area as ranchers and farmers burn thousands of acres of pastureland every spring for brush control or to maximize gains for livestock. Its that smoke that was behind the creation of the Flint Hills Smoke management Plan, which aims to curtail the drifting of smoke from the region to large cities where it can become a health hazard with added to other pollutants. Pasture burning pushes particulate matter, ozone and carbon monoxide into the atmosphere, among other pollutants, which is generally not a problem in rural areas. Once it hits larger metropolitan areas though, intense bouts of burning can create problems for cities trying to meet the EPAs air quality standards. I would highly recommend that when somebodys getting ready to burn they take into consid-

eration some of the factors that affect air pollution, Marks said. We still have a contributing effect, even though were not one of the large burn counties, and theres a great website that has a lot of tools, to plan burning. That website, www.ksfire.org, offers producers multiple tools to use in planning a prescribed burn which isnt prohibited in the 16-county block during April. While wind direction is important in planning a burn, the site offers detailed modeling based on atmospheric conditions that determine not only where the smoke will end up, but how high it will rise in the sky and how well it disperses into the air. The sites modeling tool shows not only where the smoke goes, but its density and also what areas are likely to be impacted by the burning. What were trying to avoid, primarily, is our smoke ending up in Kansas City and Wichita, Marks said. The reason for that is they are subject to regulation on their air quality. Theyre allowed just a few days a year that they can exceed their threshold. Burning in the area that sent those cities over their pollution threshold used to count against the cities total. With the plan in place, thats no longer the case. We want a good relationship with our neighbors, Marks said. Anything we can do to minimize the impact of that facilitates being good neighbors. One way to limit the

Burning at night could be one option for area producers wanting to limit the amount of pollution created by spring burning in the region.

Courtesy photo

smoke produced in the region is to only burn when its absolutely necessary. If were talking about a producer raising stocker cattle, theres no way around the fact that not burning in a certain year costs him a significant amount of gain on his cattle and a significant amount of profit, Marks said. If youre burning for weed

and brush control, not all weed and brush needs to be burned in the same time of year. Some brush does need 2 or 3 years in a row to kill it. Other brush responds better to a break.

Marks also noted that wildlife benefits from rotational burning that offers different heights of grass. That gives a variety of cover, which is beneficial, she said.

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More cattle could be grazing in Dickinson County pastures in 2014.

Courtesy photo

2014 could be start of cattle recovery

By GREG DOERING
Greg.doering@abilene-rc.com

Nearly a foot of snow in early February could be a blessing to area ranchers in 2014 as they look to recover from a multi-state drought that has dropped the national cattle herd to its lowest level since 1951. I would expect to start to see restocking this year, said Laura Marks, Dickinson County agricultural and natural resources agent. From everything were hearing, it might take until 2015 until that really takes off. Marks said Dickinson County is sitting on a line dividing east and west of where restocking can begin to take form. The February storm will add to fall rains that helped local rangeland begin to recover from drought. But not every pasture will be ready to be fully stocked. Rain may be a limiting factor for most, Marks said. If they have the grass and we get the moisture we need, theyll probably start to retain heifers. The drought and subsequent culling of the nations herd coincided with increased demand for American beef abroad has driven up prices, giving ranchers plenty of incentive to begin restocking. Just looking at it long

I would expect to start to see restocking this year. From everything were hearing, it might take until 2015 until that really takes off.
Laura Marks

term, calf prices are at historic highs and thats being driven by beef exports, Marks said. That trend is expected to continue for at least another 5 years. So those guys are looking at being able to continue to capture the high calf prices by raising more cows. The National Agricultural Statistics Service reported that the U.S. inventory of cattle and calves totaled 87.7 million animals as of Jan. 1. That was down by about 1.6 million cattle, or 2 percent, compared with this time last year. The agency said this is the lowest January cattle inventory since 1951 and said it was the second straight year the herd shrank by 2 percent. The herd in Kansas decreased by 1 percent. For that trend to reverse, area ranchers must have plenty of grass to sustain more cows, which are just starting to come down in size from their peak a few years ago. I think weve definitely seen a reduction in the size of the cows, Marks said. That has definitely been a trend. There are still a lot of really big cows out there.

Bigger cows require more forage, which is roughly equal to about six acres per 1,000 pounds in a season in Dickinson County. While more moisture is needed to sustain any significant restocking efforts locally, lower grain prices will be a boon to those able to restock quickly. About 5.5 million young females were held back in 2013 nationally according to an Associated Press report. If our producers get really good rain, and theyre in areas that got pretty good rain last summer and fall, theyre going to probably begin to move on, Marks said. Our drier spots are going to continue to let that grass recover a bit. Marks also noted some grass was underutilized last year because of the lack of water. There may be some cleaning out of ponds, trying to recover those water sources, she said.

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