Brad Haire

3 weeks ago | farmprogress.com | Brad Haire

Every planting season matters, but this season will need to go off without a hitch for most farmers to stay above water with current commodity prices below cost of production. And as planters ease into fields across the Southeast, everything needs to work perfectly, including all the little things. Simer Virk is the precision agricultural specialist with Auburn University. “Growers cannot afford to not have a good plant stand to begin the 2025 crop season on the right track,” he said.

1 month ago | farmprogress.com | Brad Haire

We’ve been talking to farmers to get their sense of the situation this growing season. None are enthusiastic about it, but they are optimistic about planting and going another year. That may sound like an odd dichotomy to those outside of farming. But ol’ sayings hold true because they are true. “There’s no greater gesture of faith than planting a seed.”You know the situation because you’re living it: Farmer prices for major row crops remain depressed.

1 month ago | farmprogress.com | Brad Haire

A dozen large, white-shell eggs costs more than $8 on average. Egg prices have steadily stayed high since the current High Pathogenic Avian Influenza outbreak forced poultry producers to reduce layer numbers to control the disease’s spread. Layer chickens lay the eggs sold as table eggs, and the commercial layer houses have been affected most by HPAI. Since the first of the year, more than 20 million commercial table, or shell, egg laying hens have been lost due to HPAI.

2 months ago | farmprogress.com | Brad Haire

Starting Jan. 20, the snowpocalypse shocked with beauty and fun, along with a bit of inconvenience. But the record-breaking storm didn’t hurt us like so many other devastating storms and provided a nice, solid reset for us heading into the spring planting season. Across the gulf states, from Louisianna through Florida, record snowfall fell. In south Georgia, we received about 7 inches. The previous record for our part of the world happened in 1973 when about 3 inches fell.

Jan 5, 2025 | farmprogress.com | Brad Haire

Cotton farmers must focus on profitably for 2025 by growing the highest-yielding cultivars and sticking to the calendar for weed control. At a GlanceWithout dicamba in-season, farmers need to “militantly” commit to being pigweed-free at planting. And farmers need to have the layby rig ready. In mid-December, soon after cotton harvest, Drew Wendland sat in his office penciling out 2025’s crop budgets. One variable in the calculations included growing cotton without in-season dicamba.