progress 2014 - agriculture and manufacturing

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Talking tractors not just in moviesBy TIM HORAN

[email protected]

When Jeff Allison saysfarm tractors talk to eachother, he is not describinga Disney movie.

Using two-way radiosand cell phone technology,

farm machines (tractors,combines, sprayers, bail-ers) not only communicatewith each other, they alsohave the ability to commu-nicate with humans.

Allison is the Ag Man-agement Solutions consul-tant for CTI and discussedsome of the new featuresoffered through the JohnDeere implement dealer.

He said an option calledMachine Sink Option al-lows for wheat harveststo come in faster. Withtoday’s technology a combine can unload withoutmissing a beat harvesting awheat corp.

“Basically, that is allow-ing the combine to controlthe speed and the directionof the tractor” pulling the

grain cart, Allison said.

The combine is unloading

but continues cutting.

“We have it now where

the machines will track the

amount of hours they spend

harvesting, the amount of

hours they spend unload-

ing, the amount of hours

they spend harvesting andunloading stopped, or un-loading and still harvest-ing, and how much timethey sit idle,” he said.“There is really no limitto the amount of data thatwe can get from those ma-chines. You can go backand look and see how muchtime that operator sat in theseat waiting to be unloadedwith a grain tank full.

“With the Machine SinkOption, the grain cart oper-ating can also see the levelsof the machines that he iswaiting to unload,” he said.“He can see which onesare full, which ones arehalf full, which ones actu-ally requested him to comeover and dump them.”

The technology also as-sists the grain cart opera-

tor from mishaps, avoid-ing spilling grain on theground.

“Keeping that equipmentwhere it needs to be whilethose guys are harvestingat those speeds with thatsize of equipment is a chal-lenge. To get an operator,that same person year inand year out, trained is notalways a guarantee. Withthis kind of technology,you can put somebody inthere that doesn’t have tohave the trained skill.”

He said a new version ofthe Machine Sink Optionis better suited for cornand soybeans but will bet-ter suit wheat harvesters isaround the corner.

Allison said the new-est technology is WirelessData Transfer (WDT).

“That is basically com-munication traveling fromthe machines to a Cloud or

a server and you can pullthat down to a laptop and

Tim Horan • Refector-Chronicle

Jeff Allison, Ag Management Solutions with CTI, explains the new technology being used inagriculture.

See: CTI, Page 2

Progress 2014

February 2014

Agriculture &Manufacturing



2 Progress 2014 — Agriculture and Manufacturing www.abilene-rc.com

manage that data,” he said.“We’re talking harvestdata, planting data, anytype of data that is gener-ated on these machinesand transferred. We canalso go the other way anduse something that we’vecreated in the ofce andtransfer that to a machine.

“That could be in the wayof a prescription for a eldor just some new setup in-formation as far as a eld,”

he added.

The CTI service depart-ment can also communi-cate directly with the farmmachinery.

“Our service manag-ers can now contact ma-chines to just check on amachine’s health or themachine itself can gener-ate an e-mail saying thissensor has detected a prob-lem. From that e-mail hecan either dial into thatmachine remotely or hecan do some diagnosedwork.”

The technology is calledService Advisory Remote.

Going along with that isRemote Display Access(RDA) where a service

manager call connect re-motely with a machine.

“It’s not just Ag,” Allisonsaid of technology. “It’s inevery sector of what we do.Technology is just pushingthe envelope. The phonesand the iPads are becom-ing a commonplace tool.We can do Remote Dis-

play Access right on them.We can do it on our phone.

The farmers are getting tothe point where they canget alerts on their phones.I know there is more tocome with the iPad. We

have more and more appsavailable.”

The rst app was calledMobile Farm Manager.The iPad can work with ayield map or planting map.

“You can walk out into aeld and diagnose what isgoing on in that area, rightwhere you are, if you havesome crop scouting to do,”he said.

Allison said the newtechnology is makingfarming more productive.

“Just in the last 15 to 20years what we have seen

with yields in our areawhich is predominatelystill wheat, we’ve seencounty averages seeming-ly almost double,” he said.“The guys just get moreand more out of each acre.I think it’s managementand it’s more information.Variable rate was the buzz-word for a long time.”

GPS technology has been

around for a while now to

manage fertilizer needs,

seeding requirements and

harvest.

“Variable rate is still a

buzzword because it doesallow us to farm each acre

if we want to within inch-

es,” he said.

“The technology has

been around longer than

we’ve been wanting to

take advantage of it,” Al-

lison said. “But we are be-

ginning to see that technol-

ogy spread.”

CTIContinued from Page 1

Group seeks to return greyhound racing to KansasBy TIM HORAN

[email protected]

Opening a pari-mutuel grey-hound racetrack in Kansas

would be a huge benefit toAbilene and the county, saidthe vice president of the KansasGreyhound Association.

That is the primary goal of theKGA this legislative session inKansas and that track does notnecessarily have to be WichitaGreyhound Park, said TracyWildey, an Abilene greyhound

breeder.

Phil Ruffin, Sr., owner ofWichita Greyhound Park, also

plans to try to get legisla tion passed which would allow slotmachines at his track. He has

been lobbying for those chang-es to the law since he closed the

park in 2007. That same year,The Woodlands also closedwhich ended both pari-mutuelgreyhound and horse racing inKansas.

“It was a tough time for all ofus when the racetracks closedhere as well as local business-es,” Wildey said. “It affectedfeed supplies. It affected vets. Itaffected everyone in DickinsonCounty.”

Ruffin would invest between$50 million and $100 million torenovate the facility on I-135 in

Park City if he could install theslot machines, said his lobbyist,George Wingert. He also wouldadd a Gilley’s Saloon.

Wingert said reopening the park would create 500 jobs andgenerate about $1.8 millionin annual gaming revenue forSedgwick County along with

additional property tax revenue.

KGA’s efforts go beyond the

Wichita track located in Park

City.

“The KGA is exploring sev-

eral efforts to bring pari-mutuel

racing back to the state of Kan-

sas,” Wildey said. “We realize

that there is a strong resistance

to reopening Wichita Grey-

hound Park by the legislature in

that area.

“At this time with the help of(Representative) Judge (John)Barker who is doing a lot to

bring racing back into the sta te,

the KGA is exploring other op- portuni ties,” she said. “I thinkthere are some possibilities tolook at along the I-70 corridor.”

The bill that passed sevenyears ago allowed for slot ma-chines at three pari-mutueltracks—Kansas City, Wichita,Pittsburg—and allowed for

three destination casinos. Allthree destination casinos havesince opened and the racetrackshave since closed.

The bill required a county

vote to support the added gam-ing and that vote failed in Sedg-wick County in 2007. The vote

passed in Wyandotte County but track owners didn’t feel itwas profitable to continue grey-hound and horse racing.

“They will still have to have arevote (for support) in Wichitaand that is something they have

been working on for severalyears,” Wildey said. “I think inthe last election with a far moreconservative Senate (in Kan-sas) that is going to make thateffort even harder.”

Wildey said that the managersof new destination casinos thatSenate Bill 2006 allowed arenow opposed to any changes inlegislation which would givemore profits to racetracks, al-lowing them to re-open.

“We were all friends in orderto get Senate Bill 2006 passedand now, as with any politics,we are not. They don’t want theadded competition,” she said.

She said that one of the plat-forms that Rep. Barker (R-Abilene) ran on two years agowas to bring pari-mutuel grey-

hound racing back to Kansas.“One of the things that he has

made promises on, is to reallywork his efforts on getting atrack open,” Wildey said. “Ithink he has stayed very true tothat. That is one of the thingsthat he has put a lot of focuson.”

Tim Horan • Refector-Chronicle

Tracy Wildey, vice president of the Kansas Greyhound Association, says theKGA is working to bring greyhound racing back to Kansas.

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The Greyhound......has been a prized animal for thousands of years, and is the oldest knowncanine purebred in the world. The Pharaohs rated the Greyhound first amonganimals, both as pets and hunters. Under Queen Elizabeth I of England, Grey-hound coursing in England reached its greatest popularity. The Queen’s love

of the sport – coupled with Cleopatra’s great interest in greyhounds – causedGreyhound racing to eventually

be dubbed the “Sport of

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came established in the Mid-west. Today, Greyhoundscontinue to be a source of enter-tainment for many American

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www.abilene-rc.com Progress 2014 — Agriculture and Manufacturing 3

Greyhound industry welcomes positive newsBy TIM HORAN

[email protected]

Without pari-mutuel racingin Kansas, county greyhound

breeders and owners rely on

the racing in other states to paythe bills. According to GaryGuccione, executive directorof the National GreyhoundAssociation, the industry hasshown some positive signs re-cently.

“ S t a b i -lized, lev-eled off,even re-

bounded a bit,” Guc-cione said ofthe state ofgreyhound

racing na-tionally.

The NGA is the ofcial reg-istry of racing greyhounds in

North America and is a partnerwith registries in England, Ire-land, New Zealand and Austra-lia.

As well as the industry hasdone recently, there are somestates that want to end grey-hound racing for other formsof gaming.

“They haven’t succeededyet,” he said of those efforts.“So we continue to ght those

and hold our ground.”There is some good news, hesaid. According to the FloridaDivision of Pari-Mutuel Wa-gering, greyhound racing ac-tion has shown remarkable in-creases. All of the racetracks inFlorida reported growth.

“Don’t decouple us. We canactually show an increase,”he said. “There are lot of nicethings happening at some ofthe Florida tracks with a verylittle bit of effort.

“There haven’t been anyclosings in the last few years,”Guccione said, thus registra-tions are increasing.

“In the meantime, the indus-try has shown a little bit of a

bounce, a little bit of increase,”he said.

He said the meets that the NGA hosts twice a year at itstrack in Abilene “are ourish-ing.”

“The meets with all the tradi-tion, the attractive programs,the auction…We had last yearthe rst two $1 million auc-tions since 2008. That was

pretty cool,” he said. “Wehaven’t had that happen in ve

years and that is a great sign.

People are coming here andenjoying it, the place to be inthe industry two weeks of theyear.”

Guccione said the NGA sup- ports efforts by the KansasGreyhound Association toopen a pari-mutuel track in thisstate.

“It would give it another boost,” he said of the industry.“It would be a very welcome

type of boost to get racing here.We wouldn’t know how to actif someone opened a track.We’re a little rusty on our rib-

bon cuttings for racetracks.”

Greyhound racing boomed inthe 1980s when tracks openedin Wisconsin, Kansas and Tex-as but fell upon hard times af-ter the turn of the century, dueto increased competition.

Each spring and each fall the NGA hosts races for young pups that have not yet raced ata pari-mutual racetrack. Thoseraces are followed by an auc-tion where people worldwidecan buy a racing greyhound.

During the meets, the NGAand Greyhound Board of Di-rectors convene. There is alsoa banquet.

This spring the meet will beheld from Monday, April 21,through Saturday, April 26.

Racing starts at 9 a.m. onApril 21, 22 and April 24, 25.

Long time NGA member andformer member of the NGA

board of directors, N.J. “Jack”

Sherck will be honored at the banquet, which will be held inthe Eisenhower PresidentialLibrary courtyard.

Also in the spring the NGAand the American GreyhoundTrack Operators Association

present the 2013 Rural Rubeand Flashy Sir Awards to the

best sprinters and distancegreyhounds of the year and theAll-America Team.

The fall meet will be heldOct. 13 through 18.

A similar schedule is held inthe fall, when inductee cere-

monies for the Greyhound Hallof Fame are held.

Gary Guccione

Young greyhound pupsrace around the NGAtrack twice a year.

Tim Horan

• Refector-Chronicle



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Demand, cash driving

ag land salesBy GREG DOERING

[email protected]

As home prices plummet-ed across the country duringthe Great Recession, farmand ranch land headed theother direction.

Now, nearly six years af-ter the housing market col-lapse, headwinds are show-ing signs of keeping furthergains in check.

“It’s stabilized at a high

level,” auctioneer DennisRiordan said, nothing thathe’s never seen a sustained

buildup in land prices likethe current market.

Riordan sold more than1,500 acres of DickinsonCounty farm and range landin 2013, ranging in pricefrom $2,500 per acre fora 70 acre tract of CRP andtimber to a 54 acre parcelthat garnered $6,300 per tax-able acre.

Riordan said a key differ-ence between this boom inthe price of agriculture landand one in the 1980s is le-verage.

“More than half of thesales have been all cash,”Riordan said.

The price surge for landis due to a conuence ofcash on hand for producers,low interest rates and stockmarket volatility, accordingRiordan.

“I never dreamed we’d seethree-year bank CDs paying1 percent,” the auctioneer ofnearly 50 years said.

With relatively guaran-teed rates so paltry, Rior-dan believes area producersare seeking higher returns

by expanding their opera-tion, noting that the returnwouldn’t have to be stellarto beat a certicate of de-

posit.While Riordan believes the

market has reached a stable plateau on prices, underly-ing demand hasn’t waned.

“If it has, I haven’t noticedit,” said Bill Mahanay, farmloan manager with the FarmService Agency. “Demandhas continued to be strong.”

Riordan said falling grain prices haven’t had muchimpact on the demand forfarmers to expand their op-erations, but he could see an

increase in interest rates paidon CDs and Treasury notes

providing producers withanother option of where to

park their excess cash.

While falling grain priceshaven’t impacted the saleof land, Laura Marks, Dick-inson County agriculturaland natural resources agent,

believes they might begin toimpact rent agreements thisspring.

“Personally, I think that probably what you’ll seerst is leases and rents willcome down this year,”

Marks said. “Whether theywill or not remains to beseen. But I would expectsome lowering just based ongrain prices.”

Marks also doesn’t foreseethe bottom falling out of themarket, similar to what hap-

pened to the national hous-ing market because demandhas remained steady.

“People are always look-ing to expand,” Marks said.“We may not see a quickrapid drop, because there’sstill going to be demand foradditional land to be viable.”

Dickinson Countyland sales

Sale 1

Tract 1 — $710,600: 209 acres, 179 till-able, balance in CRP and waterways

Tract 2 — $175,000: 70 acres, 61 acres

CRP, balance in waterways, creek and

timber

Sale 2Tract 1 — $848,000: 212 acres, 143 till-

able, 40 meadow, balance in creek and

waste

Tract 2 — $228,000: 76 acres, 66 tillable



Sale 3Tract 1 — $349,800: 159 acres, 60 till-

able, balance in fenced grass

Tract 2 — $448,500: 156 acres, 94 till-

able, 52 CRP, balance waste

Sale 4Tract 1 — $1,225,700: 238 acres, 171.4

tillable, balance in timber and creek

Sale 5Tract 1— $444,600: 160 acres, 137 till-

able balance in grass

Tract 2 — $$291,600: 72 acres 69 tillable,

balance waste

Tract 3 — $246,400: 77 acres, 53 tillable,

balance in grass

Tract 4 — $340,200: 54 acres, 48 tillable,balance in creek and timber

Source: Riordan auction

Courtesy photo

Dennis Riordan believes land values have stabilized at a high level and demand will remainstrong as long as interest rates remain low.



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Consider your neighbors when burningBy GREG DOERING

[email protected]

Though Dickinson Coun-ty isn’t included in theFlint Hills Smoke Manage-ment Plan, resting just out-side the 16-county block,area producers can still benet from the voluntary

approach being attemptedto reduce air pollution.

“We are not in it,” LauraMarks, Dickinson CountyExtension agent said of the plan. “We are right on theedge of it. We aren’t subject to those restrictionson non-ag burning in themonth of April that othercounties are.”

White smoke in thespring is an annual eventin the area as ranchers andfarmers burn thousands ofacres of pastureland everyspring — for brush controlor to maximize gains forlivestock.

It’s that smoke that was behind the creation of theFlint Hills Smoke man-agement Plan, which aimsto curtail the drifting ofsmoke from the region tolarge cities where it can be-come a health hazard withadded to other pollutants.

Pasture burning pushes particulate matter, ozoneand carbon monoxide intothe atmosphere, amongother pollutants, which is

generally not a problemin rural areas. Once it hitslarger metropolitan areasthough, intense bouts of burning can create prob-lems for cities trying tomeet the EPA’s air qualitystandards.

“I would highly recom-mend that when somebody’s getting ready to burn they take into consid-

eration some of the factorsthat affect air pollution,”Marks said. “We still havea contributing effect, eventhough we’re not one ofthe large burn counties,and there’s a great websitethat has a lot of tools,” to plan burning.

That website, www.ks-

re.org, offers producersmultiple tools to use in planning a prescribed burn — which isn’t prohibitedin the 16-county block dur-ing April.

While wind direction isimportant in planning a burn, the site offers de-tailed modeling based onatmospheric conditionsthat determine not onlywhere the smoke will endup, but how high it will risein the sky and how well itdisperses into the air.

The site’s modeling toolshows not only where thesmoke goes, but it’s den-sity and also what areas arelikely to be impacted bythe burning.

“What we’re trying toavoid, primarily, is oursmoke ending up in KansasCity and Wichita,” Markssaid. “The reason for thatis they are subject to regu-lation on their air quality.They’re allowed just a fewdays a year that they canexceed their threshold.”

Burning in the area thatsent those cities over their pollution threshold used tocount against the cities’ to-tal. With the plan in place,that’s no longer the case.

“We want a good relation-ship with our neighbors,”Marks said. “Anything wecan do to minimize the im- pact of that facilitates be-ing good neighbors.”

One way to limit the

smoke produced in the re-gion is to only burn whenit’s absolutely necessary.

“If we’re talking abouta producer raising stock-er cattle, there’s no wayaround the fact that not burning in a certain yearcosts him a signicantamount of gain on his cat-tle and a signicant amountof prot,” Marks said. “Ifyou’re burning for weed

and brush control, not allweed and brush needs to be burned in the same timeof year. Some brush doesneed 2 or 3 years in a rowto kill it. Other brush re-sponds better to a break.”

Marks also noted thatwildlife benets from ro-tational burning that offersdifferent heights of grass.

“That gives a variety ofcover, which is benecial,”she said.

Courtesy photo

While Dickinson County isn’t subject to the Flint Hills Smoke Management Plan, using some of the resources associated with it will help cities in Kansas comply with clean air standards.

Courtesy photo

Burning at night could be one option for area producers wanting to limit the amount of pollution created by springburning in the region.



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2014 could be start of cattle recoveryBy GREG DOERING

[email protected]

Nearly a foot of snow inearly February could bea blessing to area ranch-ers in 2014 as they look torecover from a multi-statedrought that has droppedthe national cattle herd toits lowest level since 1951.

“I would expect to start

to see restocking thisyear,” said Laura Marks,Dickinson County agricul-tural and natural resourcesagent. “From everythingwe’re hearing, it mighttake until 2015 until thatreally takes off.”

Marks said DickinsonCounty is sitting on a linedividing east and westof where restocking can begin to take form. TheFebruary storm will add tofall rains that helped localrangeland begin to recover

from drought.But not every pasture

will be ready to be fullystocked.

“Rain may be a limitingfactor for most,” Markssaid. “If they have thegrass and we get the mois-ture we need, they’ll prob-ably start to retain” heifers.

The drought and subse-quent culling of the na-tion’s herd coincided withincreased demand forAmerican beef abroad hasdriven up prices, givingranchers plenty of incen-tive to begin restocking.

“Just looking at it long

term, calf prices are at his-toric highs and that’s beingdriven by beef exports,”Marks said. “That trend isexpected to continue for atleast another 5 years. Sothose guys are looking at being able to continue tocapture the high calf prices by raising more cows.”

The National Agricultur-al Statistics Service report-ed that the U.S. inventoryof cattle and calves totaled87.7 million animals as ofJan. 1. That was down byabout 1.6 million cattle, or2 percent, compared withthis time last year.

The agency said this isthe lowest January cat-tle inventory since 1951

and said it was the sec-ond straight year the herdshrank by 2 percent.

The herd in Kansas de-creased by 1 percent.

For that trend to reverse,area ranchers must have plenty of grass to sustainmore cows, which are juststarting to come down insize from their peak a fewyears ago.

“I think we’ve denitelyseen a reduction in the sizeof the cows,” Marks said.“That has denitely been

a trend. There are still alot of really big cows outthere.

Bigger cows require moreforage, which is roughlyequal to about six acres per1,000 pounds in a seasonin Dickinson County.

While more moisture isneeded to sustain any sig-nicant restocking effortslocally, lower grain priceswill be a boon to those ableto restock quickly.

About 5.5 million youngfemales were held back in2013 nationally accordingto an Associated Press report.

“If our producers get re-ally good rain, and they’rein areas that got prettygood rain last summer andfall, they’re going to prob-ably begin to move on,”

Marks said. “Our drierspots are going to continueto let that grass recover a bit.”

Marks also noted somegrass was underutilizedlast year because of thelack of water.

“There may be somecleaning out of ponds, try-ing to recover those watersources,” she said.

“I would expect to start to see restocking this year. From

everything we’re hearing, it might take until 2015 until

that really takes off.”

Laura Marks

Courtesy photo

More cattle could be grazing in Dickinson County pastures in 2014.

Courtesy photo

Water will be key to localranchers’ restocking effortsafter a prolonged drought.

According to Dickinson CountyExtension agent Laura Marks,moisture is still needed in forherds to begin rebuilding in2014.

progress 2014 - agriculture and manufacturing

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