21 years ago, I grew crops only 1% of consumers would buy. 10 years ago, about 10% of the market wanted to avoid ingesting food sprayed with chemicals that came in containers with skull and cross bone markings. It's growing 1% per year, and 20% of consumers will reach past the cheaper wheat products for the organic stuff even though it's 3 times higher priced as long as it's "ancient grain" low chromosome, without the genetics naturally introduced over 100 plus years of plant breeding. Wheat ground is my most profitable, because wheat products are cheap, so doing it right still results in a cheap product, even if it costs more than conventionally grown counterparts. Adding in the pounds of beef gained grazing in the fall is icing on the cake. If I sprayed my wheat with fungicide it would undue 2 decades of balance achieved between the good and bad. I'd need more every year to get the same results. Then it would require a more expensive product, because the old one doesn't work anymore. This is why farmers kill themselves at a rate far higher than most professions.
Thanks for the comment. Brian responded to you on Ag PhD Radio on 8/24/17. You can listen to what he had to say here soundcloud.com/agphd/08-24-17-grain-bin-prep#t=57:53
For so many years wheat was a Redheaded stepchildren in the south. If it was a good dry harvest and time permitted some wheat was planted no seed treatment no NPK was enough residual PK for it then in late Feb early March fly on 100 to 200 lbs. Urea no fungicides or insecticides (SRSW)in arkansas yields 30 to 60 bushels. like I said Redheaded stepchild.
