TC's 2009 farm thread

[topcropper]

What do you make of Phosphorous article in todays FR ?

Shawn

I couldn't see anything in the weekend AFR about phosphorus. Maybe it was in the Friday AFR that I didn't see?

There have been some recent articles about 'Peak Phosphorus' in some papers including the latest 'THE LAND'.

http://www.abc.net.au/science/articles/2010/08/05/2973513.htm

modern agriculture has become completely dependent on using phosphate rock as a basis for fertilisers, says Cordell. "We have essentially become addicted."
The trouble is that the global supply of that rock is running out. According to Cordell, "current global reserves will be depleted in 50 to 100 years."

Phosphorus will probably never run out. It is being exported from farm land to city sewers, and it is being exported from farm land of food exporting nations, to the sewerage systems of food importing nations.

If the worlds supplies of rock phosphate run out, there will have to be some very expensive recycling sysyem set up to get it back from where it ended up, and this will cost an absolute fortune. A bit like oil, it will be the end of cheap phosphorus.

Most of australia's soils are the poorest in the world when it comes to phosphorus and thats why a lot of it is only good enough to grow trees and not much else. Mine are a bit of an exception, and we grew grain for 40 years without even needing phosphorus, but finally it ran out and we now supply the full amount per crop.

As with anything that causes food production to drop, farmers will be winners, and consumers the losers, so I'm not too concerned. It will be up to others to find a solution.


See ya's.

 

[Sunfish]

Are all bird droppings rich in phosphorus or only sea birds? Guano anyone?

I find it odd that droppings can have so much P in them when the bird only eats grains etc which are not high in P. Likewise cows and their calcium. We humans are told we need dairy products to get the C but the silly old cow gets plenty from grass.

So much to worry about, so little time. LOL

 

[topcropper]

Are all bird droppings rich in phosphorus or only sea birds? Guano anyone?

I find it odd that droppings can have so much P in them when the bird only eats grains etc which are not high in P. Likewise cows and their calcium. We humans are told we need dairy products to get the C but the silly old cow gets plenty from grass.

So much to worry about, so little time. LOL

I'm no bio-scientist. We need help Mr Fish.

But I do know that there is heaps of Phosphorus in animal or human manure. And heaps of other stuff, but very little N. Using organic fertilizer or manure as fertilizer works great, but you still have to add lots of N.

I typically use 10 times as much N [nitrogen] to grow a crop as I do S [sulfer] or K [potassium] or P [phosphorus].

Even Asimov 60 years ago called P the 'bottle neck of life' and predicted P to be the first 'PEAK' thing to bring our rampant growth to a stop. Does this mean that the N is used up in growing animal bodies and as making energy, and disappears into the atmosphere from where it came, but the P, while still essential gets used, but then also put back into the animal body as waste? Then ends up in, our sewers where it will cost a lot to get it back?

Any scientists here?


See ya's.

 

[Sunfish]

So can we make the assumption that NPKS must be recycled from wherever it ends up?

We already spend massive amounts "neutralising" sewerage. Must be time we recycled it. We must overcome the Western thought that only Asian peasants do that and at great cost to their health.

 

[topcropper]

Still very wet here.

Rained all night for another 15 mills.

We have had over 500 mills now for the year, and that's well over 100 mills above what the average should be. In July there was 105 mills, when the average should have been just 42 mills. We are well past the August average now of 45 mills.

Up to another 50 mills is forecast for the week ahead, but more than 100 mills further north to the QLD boarder.


Alice Springs is on the way to breaking it's all time wettest ever year, and with rain predicted for the rest of the week. Wettest ever year was in 1974, a year that smashed rainfall records all around the country. Alice Springs is over 500 mills now for the year, and the all time record is 782 mills from 1974.

So Alice Springs has had way more rain for the year than Melbourne or Perth or Adelaide or Hobart or Canberra. More rain than every capital city except Brissy and Sydney.

Alice Springs,......503 mls.
Melbourne,.........362 mls.
Adelaide,............326 mls.
Canberra,...........406 mls.
Hobart,..............223 mls.
Perth,................393 mls.



Apparently, the filming of the movie 'Mad Max 4' is being held up, as it's a green oasis out around Broken Hill now, and they want a barren dry dusty wasteland.



Map showing rainfall anomolly for the year,.....

It's way too wet here. The wheat is suffering. Thankfully I've only got wheat in. There are crops of chickpeas that are riddled with disease and will probably die. Even the graziers are whingeing now, and that's unusual.

It's looking really good for the summer season. I should have full soil water profiles in all my land now, so that means I'll be starting the season with up to 300 mills of stored soil water.

Have sold most of our current season sorghum crop into the big spike in prices, and have a big amount of next seasons crop sold. I've also been buying in and stockpilling roundup and fertilizer. Generally when the price of grain rises, so do the prices of inputs, as the suppliers know that farmers can pay up.



Way out north and west of here where it is regarded as marginal, they are having a great year. Places out there that might grow 2 tonne per hectare crops if they're lucky are looking at 4 and 5 tonne crops, and still have full soil water profiles. I highlighted these blokes on the first page of this thread over a year ago.

http://morvenvale.farmnet.com.au/

Pictures of their crops in the wet,....

http://morvenvale.farmnet.com.au/2010/08/14/august-crop-update-2/

These blokes farm 8000 hectares, compared to me cropping 1400. If the season stays good, it could be possible for a farm of this size to grow 20 thousand tonnes of grain.


See ya's.

 

[Sunfish]

Hey TC. Have you read BHP's presentation on their offer for Saskatchewan Potash?

They paint a rosy picture of future fertilizer use but the market has marked them down. Is demand and price going to keep rising?

 

[pursefattener]

Well it sounds like a shrewd strategic move that BHP are trying to pull off to me . All these things that TC has been saying about the outlook for agriculture generally are right on the money if you ask me and fertilisers play a key part obviously .

Here in Aus we desperatly need more competition as the likes of Pivot will try and shaft the farmers , naturally . As far as nitrogen/urea goes it is an absolute imbarassment that we don't produce it here .

I was reading in the FR over the weekend that Macquarie are buying broadacre arable propertys in Aus as well as Brazil .

Foreign interests are also buying large scale enterprises where the oportunities arise , 6 billion worth of agri enterprise was sold to off shore entities last year alone I think i read ! What do you make of that ?

Most Australian people with a bit of money think of farms as a poor place to be I reckon but things are changing .

 

[The Fence]

Global warming/climate change at work there TC....record wet times and we are supposed to be heating up and drying out....I'm with the sceptics....

Got an email yesterday that quotes a professor from Adelaide Uni who says to the effect that the recent volcanic eruption in Iceland (just the first 4 days of it) has negated all the efforts over the last 6 years of countries reducing emmissions etc.

And there are many more eruptions happening as well as more to come. makes one wonder just why a tax will help with climate change.....

Bad luck with the rain TC but as you say, all stored up for a Summer crop.

 

[HiEquity]

Global warming/climate change at work there TC....record wet times and we are supposed to be heating up and drying out....I'm with the sceptics....

Last time I checked the CSIRO modelling predicted drier and hotter weather in the southern parts of the continent and more erratic (often greater) rainfall in the rest.

Seems to me to be pretty accurate on this data...

Mind you, it is some time since I checked what most of the models were predicting so I could be out of date. It's called climate change because it doesn't necessarily mean everywhere is going to get hotter. The point is that changing the climate over a period of hundreds of years instead of the previous millions of years timeframes has it's own risks - regardless of whether rainfall or temperature go up or down in a particular location.

 

[topcropper]

Hey TC. Have you read BHP's presentation on their offer for Saskatchewan Potash?

They paint a rosy picture of future fertilizer use but the market has marked them down. Is demand and price going to keep rising?

I dunno Mr Fish. The older I get the more I realise I don't know. I wish I was 17 again when I knew everything.

The market doesn't like it do they? And that's after the offer was rejected.
BHP is my biggest stock by a factor of about 5 times.

Seems to be a long term play. Demand will certainly keep rising, thats a given, as fertilizer use has to keep up with the increasing supply of food or else people will go hungry. You would think prices will rise too.


See ya's.

 

[steveadl]

Well it sounds like a shrewd strategic move that BHP are trying to pull off to me .

I agree. Hoping they'll drop further in the process of this bid so I can load up on some.

On a similar vein I think it's sad that a lot of Australia's agricultural businesses seem to be falling into overseas hands. Don't get me wrong, as an investor I don't mind, but it presents me with less opportunities to invest in the local industry. ABB Grain fallen to Viterra (and they don't pay a dividend so I'm not interested), AWB may be on the way to the hands of Agrium unless Graincorp can sweeten their offer but might be a big ask, Elders still too sick a puppy for me to jump in (plus no dividend), Nufarm still a basket case. Very few options left with to take a stake in the industry.

 

[pursefattener]

I guess as big a thing for BHp will be that Canada is a bit more friendly tax wise ? I suppose it's obvious when you think about it ...

Do you think there is any long term prospect with Elders ? I agree , very sick indeed .

 

[steveadl]

I guess as big a thing for BHp will be that Canada is a bit more friendly tax wise ? I suppose it's obvious when you think about it ...

Do you think there is any long term prospect with Elders ? I agree , very sick indeed .

Well yeah, it's a Tier 1 asset, long life, low sovereign risk and I believe (don't actually know off hand) that as you said Canada tax rates are good for mining co's.

I think Elders do have good long term prospects once they sort all their $h!t out - but who knows how long that will take? The Elders rural business is good, but they've still got a lot of stuff to sort out, and in the mean time it's not paying me a dividend so more of a cap. growth and recover play - which is the old Steve that I'm trying to keep under wraps! My equity portfolio is yielding a nice rate and I need to be strict and keep it that way.... which incidentally is why I'm biting my lip and refraining from jumping back into BHP just yet.

 

[pursefattener]

I know in my area Elders have lost most of their good people in the last few years to private firms and the like . Not good .

I actually have a large industrial block that I have leased to them which is used as a fertiliser depot . I've had it for over three years now . I see the manager there about once a year for a cup of tea and a chat . So far no dramas . The yeild is nothing flash but a whole lot better than if i Was a shareholder

 

[The Fence]

Last time I checked the CSIRO modelling predicted drier and hotter weather in the southern parts of the continent and more erratic (often greater) rainfall in the rest.

So what...? So they got lucky with their "prediction"...it will come to pass that they make a boo boo with their predictions.

All I know is Climate change is not happening here...in fact it's just getting back to the good ole days when we had wet winters and stormy summers.

Then in a few years time it will be dry and bloody hot again....it's called climate cycles...not change....

 

[HiEquity]

All I know is Climate change is not happening here...in fact it's just getting back to the good ole days when we had wet winters and stormy summers.

Glad to hear it. Obviously no need for the precautionary principle then.... nothing to see here.

 

[The Fence]

So what's you point with precautionary principle....?

Sounds political to me, and not practical.

Whats the story with the Iceland volcano that recently erupted and in just the first 4 days wiped out the last 6 years of the World's efforts of reducing carbon emmissions....? Let alone the rest of the time and the other many volcanos erupting at any one time..

There can be nothing done to stop a volcano erupting and therefore spewing out toxic emmissions at far greater rates then we can.

In saying all this, I try my best to stop emitting, so will stop this post right there. LOL

 

[topcropper]

Still too wet.

Nothing much has changed here. It's still too wet for the crops in my neck of the woods. Our wheat has suffered from too much rain. But move out to the west and north, and the rain has been a bit less, and has been perfect. The vast plains north west of here where crops fail regularly, they are looking at massive crops. 5 or 6 tonnes per hectare as far as the eye can see. Bumper crops in Queensland, NSW, Victoria and South Australia.

We are up to 570 mills of rain for the year. Just 100 mills below the yearly average. Many places in the south east of the continent have had over the yearly average already. The Murray/Darling had more inflow into it last week than the whole of 2008.

Western Australia is having a shocker. Too dry. The poor sandy soil over there needs regular rain or else you can't grow much grain. It hasn't come this year.

Overall it will be a bigger than average winter grain crop for Australia, with way above average prices.



This is a great patch of our wheat. It is higher up and better drained soil. With a full water profile, it has 300 mills of water still under the roots of the plants and it will be a big yield. Even without another drop of rain this patch of wheat will go 5 tonnes per hectare, but if things finished perfectly it could go 6 tonnes per hectare.

This wheat is on lower country and is suffering waterlogging. Some of it hasn't even germinated, or died after germination as the seed went rotton from being under water for too long. We have big bare patches all over our paddocks. We have some good wheat and some bad, so it will average out.

That yellow in the far distance is the neighbours canola in flower. It's very pretty right about now.



If it sounds like I'm whinging, I'm not. Our wheat crop this year should still go OK, hopefully an average yield, but the wet weather and good prices are setting us up for a fantastic summer crop. The cattle have feed up to their bellys and it's good to see the country look so great and the rivers and creeks flowing so well.



Grain prices are just fantastic. We sold the last of our sorghum on Friday for $238 per tonne on farm and was the top price for the season for us. It could go higher still, but that was good enough for us. So that's up from $150 a few months ago before things started going pear shaped around the world. Just shows how valuable grain storage is for a grain farmer. If grain is not worth much, just put it away and hope for something to happen. It did this year.

The drought in Russia continues. They are worried about the next crop now, and are running out of time to plant it. Russia and the former Russian states went from grain exporters to grain importers.

Pakistans floods wiped out millions of tonnes of grain and cotton. The hole will have to be filled there.

Canada planted way less grain crops than normal 4 months ago as it was too wet and they ran out of time. Now the worst possible outcome has happened. It's turned cold with frosts before the late planted crops were finished, just weeks after summer was over, and the yields will be down now too along with hectares planted. Some paddocks are covered in snow.

The US corn crop is yielding less than expected. I'm not sure why, as it's been a good season for them. It will still be almost record yields, but just not as big as expected.



I got the wheat sprayed for weeds and got on a fungicide as well for rust. Rust is bad this year with all the rain and not much sun. I've been spraying the fallows when dry enough. Loading trucks with sorghum that we have sold. Getting stuff ready for sorghum planting in a month. It's all good.


See ya's.

 

[topcropper]

We've had a great run of weather. Sunny and warm, and everything is growing madly. I've managed to catch up on a lot of work. It would be ideal if it didn't rain again for a month.

The cows are in heaven. Grass and clover everywhere they look. It's been a while since we've had this much feed in early spring.

The 18 steers we bought? Sold them last week. They put on 110 kilos each over 100 days. Got from $1.90 to $2.10 per kilo, which was fine.



This is a contractor we got in to disc harrow the sunflower stalks. I sprayed this paddock a few months ago, and then again a few days ago. Today the contractor ran over the sunflower stalks with his disk harrows, and this paddock will now be ready to plant to sorghum in a months time. The harrows only lightly scratch the soil. They don't dry it out much, so we don't lose much soil water, and they smash the old stalks up so they are easy to plant back into. The green plants are self sown sunflowers, seeds left behind from harvest 4 months ago. They look all shivelled up and sickly from the roundup spray.

The harrows rip out a lot of the plants, but it doesn't kill all of them, only some. That's why I sprayed the plants first.

We are off in the morning on a family camping trip for a week beside a big river with 4 other families. The old man is running the show.


See ya's.

 

[ILoveProperty]

Thanks for the update, really enjoy reading how it's all going.
Good to see how green it all is.
Sounds like export prices will be good this season, amazing how it all lines up.

Just wondering, how long can you store grain for? Months or years?