Plant wheat this fall or corn in spring

My son has some soybeans planted we are going to harvest soon. Would there be more money in planting this ground in wheat this fall or corn in the spring? I read where they are predicting wheat at 5.00 next summer.

You have to determine all of your input costs for each crop first. Then, estimate your yield potential for each crop, and what prices the market is offering, whether contracted or stored to sell later. Without knowing these variables, one cannot make an informed decision on which crop to plant. Good luck! Ben

Plant wheat.

(I grow corn, so the less corn others plant the better odds I have of getting a good price. You almost have to pull over and look if you see a wheat field around here, very rare. But no, this wouldn't have anything to do with my opinion.......)

Paul

point taken. I guess corn it is.

Where are you again? What is your soil like? What do others do in your neighborhood for a crop rotation?

If this is lighter, stony soil (weren't you worried about rocks??), wheat might be a decent choice. Follow it with some kind of N producing cover crop, and then plant corn the year after next. You can also market the straw.

Or plant corn next year. There will be more inputs in corn ,but more potential for profit if yields are good. A lot will depend on local markets for wheat vs corn as well.

In many cases, a rotation of corn beans wheat will do better economically long term than just corn beans corn beans. You will see less disease in both the corn and the beans, and lower input costs. Yes the wheat will have less income per acre, but there will be more net in the corn year and the bean year.

Don't try to plant what somebody said might have decent prices next year. Figure out a long term plan, and then market accordingly.

I'm in northeastern ohio. Our ground is sandy and it does have a few rocks. I drains really fast even with no tile. My son wants to plant corn but the cost to plant is high and the corn prices are low. Maybe still better option than wheat. I know straw sells really well and we do have a hay bine to mow the wheat stubble and a rake but no baler except a round baler. round bales of straw don't sell as easy as small squares. What about just planting beans again? is that a recipe for disaster?

Beans after beans usually starts to build disease pressure. The longer the time between crops, the less chance of having issues. In beans, that can be white mold, nematodes, brown stem rot, SDS, all kinds of stuff. Again, the longer the rotation, the less disease and inputs, and usually higher yields, too.

That being said, I have a neighbor who has grown nothing but beans in some fields for close to 10 years. They look OK, but is having some weed and disease issues.

The wheat market isn't great now, but it would probably do well in your environment. It likes well drained land, and is good at taking advantage of spring rains. If your weather is influenced by the lake (like cool springs) that helps, too. 100 bu wheat crops are common in WI along lake MI.

Like wheat, the corn market isn't real pretty either. Don't look to be wealthy off either in the next few months. He has only a few acres, correct? If that as the case, that is OK. Any mistakes are then small mistakes.

Last thing... do you have a corn planter? Or a drill? What you have for equipment can influence what you want to grow.

Is that how it works? Maybe if you don't plant corn I will get a better price

We have a corn planter. Its an old Ih cyclo 400. We havnt planted corn with it yet but it did pretty well with the beans. I don't know why but its set for 34" rows and we planted the beans and then moved over and planted again between the other rows. This is slow but for a few acres, it worked. We can rent a notill drill from the county for I think 11.00 an acre so that is an option.

Farming is outguessing Mother Nature, some luck involved.

In 1988 it got dry so early, and was so nice, I planted oats. And kept planting oats. Planted more than any fool should in my location. I mighta stopped when I got 1/3 of the farm planted to oats, in a corn/soybean area.

That was the driest year we ever had here, corn yielded 25bu, beans dried up and were just little BB junk in the bottom of the hopper. The year was a miserable disaster here, everyone lost money badly.

Oats got enough rain early in the year, and really enjoyed the dry weather we don't typically get in our clay soils, and yielded exceptionally well that year.

Somewhere in spring that year, they found out oats helps with high chlorestoral, and it became the fad diet over night to eat anything with oats in it. So the millers were going nuts trying to buy massive quantities of oats that summer. Price of oats doubled from winter to harvest time.

1988 was a terrible back breaking year for most around here. Me, it kinda set me up well financially, it still is one of my better years ever.

Not because I planned well, or because I was smart. Only just because I wanted to be out on a tractor early, and was too dumb to come in out of the field and wait for corn planting time. I sure Wasn't smart enough to foresee all that.


So, what to plant. What is your market? That is what I learned that year. If you can guess your market, you can do good. Who buys wheat where you are, and then can you use the straw, can you sell it ioo? What will you do with the ground after wheat? Can you apply manure, maybe some places have extra manure and discount the price to get it on your field in an 'off' time like that. Makes good apsavings for next year's crop. Can you plant a cover crop, even a legume with the wheat, and grow your own organic matter and nitrogen for next year's crop? Do you need some tiling, again many tillers will give a discount for being able to tile in the 'off' season. Or the cover crop can be grazed by livestock. Some areas you can doublecrop soybeans after wheat, get 2 crops a year tho both typically are a little lower yield.

Wheat takes less weed control and less fertilizer than corn, so it saves you on the front end in cash outlay. Then you harvest it earlier, so you get a check a little earlier for cash flow.

Many reasons a small grain field can make you more money in the big picture, vs a corn crop.

All depends on your situation.

Around me corn is gonna be the money maker tho, year in and year out. But I always do a few acres of oats. Not like back in 1988, but 10-12 acres. I get perhaps 1/2 of the benifits I mentioned from my small grain patch. Over the years, that little patch makes money for me. Would be silly to plant all oats tho, that would only work here one out of 100 years.

It all depends on the business plan. Where are your markets, and what can you gain from that crop - money, time, savings, added projects, etc.

Paul

Your planter is good for beans. Doubling back as you do is a good deal, you are managing well. They were not liked well at all around me for corn, jd sold a boatload of planters around here when those 400s came out even to die hard Red farmers, but I know others got along fine with them. Case IH never really recovered planter sales until the 1200 models came out around here.

Beans on beans works. In time some bad diseases can build up, it is best to use a totally different variety of bean year to year, as they likely have different resistances to different things. Some areas you can plant beans for 20 years, other areas in three years you start to see yields fall. Typically you are ok for 2 years, more than that continuous beans you should do some research on your area and know what you are getting into.

I'm scared where we go in 2018. Prices are falling, we farmers have improved our fertility and drainage and yields seem more steady. USDA says we have a bumper crop coming this year, and if next year is again a good crop, what to plant then, everything will be low and many of us will have already tried to cut corners a year or two, can only cut corners and skimp and repeat the cheap crops so often and it starts biting a person.....

Paul