Decisions & Data Management
By Maddy Rabenhorst      Precision Ag Manager, Marion  
As winter slowly makes its presence and harvest 2017 is wrapping up, it’s time to start thinking about next year. Winter is a slower time for most of us, but these cold winter months are a great time to start looking back at 2017 and figuring out what went good and what went wrong on your farm, and start building a successful plan for the 2018 crop season.
For those of you that have yield monitoring in your combines, now is a great time to export the yield data off the monitor, get it to your agronomist so we can process the data for you, and get you a yield analysis of your farm. Yield data is a great tool that can be used to help make management decisions for the upcoming year. Sitting down and analyzing yield maps can help make fertilizer decisions, can aid in hybrid placement, and overall precise field management. With cost being a crucial part of everyone’s operation, we want to make sure we are helping you manage the variability across your fields the best we can to help your overall return on investment. If you don’t have yield monitoring, but are still interested in looking at the variability across your fields we have a tool called R7 that provides us historical in-season imagery and can help us identify management zones and the variability across your fields.
Data collection and management are becoming more and more important when making management decisions and sometimes this process can be overwhelming, but it does not have to be. Contact your CFC sales agronomist and let us help you with the process and make sure your farm is ready for next year.
From everyone at CFC, have a safe and blessed Christmas and a happy New Year!
Planning is Important
By Trevor Edwards    Merchandiser, Marion
With harvest quickly fading from the rearview mirror and grain prices fluttering towards new lows seemingly every week, the focus of grain marketing has taken the back seat in many producer’s minds. This is totally understandable given the fantastic fall we’re coming off and the reluctance of prices to show improvement, but that can be a very costly mistake at the same time. 
Benjamin Franklin said, “If you fail to plan, you plan to fail.” Believe it or not, there ARE ways to profitably navigate the grain markets, but doing so without a plan is going to be a very difficult task in this environment of grain surpluses.
Whether it’s kicking the tires on different contracting terms & mechanics, alternative pricing strategies, seasonal pricing programs or diving into wide world of option strategies, there will be ways to position yourself which doesn’t include selling at today’s prices. I can’t stress enough how important planning is. Getting the rally to happen hasn’t been the challenge the last several years; executing through the rallies has been the challenge. Let’s sit down and discuss marketing plans and how/when to use some of the many tools in our marketing toolbox. As always, we appreciate your business!