Have you started spring field work? what part of the world are you in?

Question

Will the inflated costs of fuel and fertilizer affect your plans for planting?

Answer 1

Started last fall for the spring field work.  I live in the southwest.

Costs of fuel and fertilizer will not affect me to much.   I farm small acreage, for high value and personal crops.  

I use a lot of composite in the clay soils.  

Mainly I will grow blue corn (plant after May 10,)  green chiles, plant also after may 10,  tomatoes,  again after may 10,  the last day of frost.

Answer 2

Kentucky-- Started planting corn two days ago, inflation and fuel costs didn't change plans. What can we do, just quite? We have to go on and hope that the higher prices for corn will hold and help cover the increased costs of planting, fuel, etc. Pretty much the way farming goes every year.

Answer 3

We are in central Iowa and have not started in the field yet, but will when it dries out. The inflated costs wont affect what we do much, we try to use as little as possible anyway, but you have to use a lot of both so we probably cant cut out much more. We may do some grid sampling of land to find nutrient requirements in specific areas to decide where to fertilize and spread manure in the future.

Answer 4

I'm in central Nova Scotia, we spread some manure last week. Fuel and fertilizer costs are still reasonable here, they shouldn't interfere with our plans at all.

Answer 5

done sparying burndown for corn putting on anhydrous planted some corn fertilized all pasture and hay we are doing the same as always it just cost more live in western ky and hope for a good year

Answer 6

High mountain desert of Idaho here, at 4700 + feet elivation.  We are still waiting for the snow to melt....no planting yet anywhere near me.  I'm in the very heart of potato country.

We live on a permaculture farm.  The meat goats and meat rabbits (and my horses) produce the manure we use to fertilize our crops.  One of our crops is rapeseed....we grow our own fuel.

So no, the cost of fuel and fertilizers will not be affecting our plans and our farm at all.  Our farm is a closed loop.....one thing feed the other.  What we mostly import to our farm, are salt and mineral blocks for the goats and horses.  

Our farm does the rest, including producing it's own fuel and fertilizer.

~Garnet

Homesteading/Farming over 20 years

Answer 7

no its too wet

Answer 8

Just got done plowing fields for tobacco last week. Still waiting about a month for the rye to get big enough to mow for straw. Living in east tennessee, its a definite hard time for farmers here. However, we're hoping that corn and soybean prices will halfway offset the fuel and fertilizer cost. Plus, tobacco is getting to be a thing of the past. Everything in growing and harvesting this crop has increased in price and your still getting the same amount of money that you was in the early 90s.