Last year's education helps this year's fall harvest

By Kylene Scott

For Cimarron, Kan., farmer Steve Schartz, lessons learned from 2011 have made this year better for his farming operation--that and a little bit more rain.

Schartz recently began harvesting irrigated corn after cutting about 400 acres of wet corn for a local feedyard. He's also cut a little bit of sorghum until moisture issues kept him out of the field. The irrigated corn he cut during mid-September was better than he expected.

"After getting an education last year on the smaller irrigation wells, we actually cut our acres back in half," Schartz said. "I planted half circles on the smaller wells anticipating another dry year. All our yields have been probably average (compared) to last year when we planted full circles in partial irrigation--it was disappointing."

Schartz said he learned his lesson, and he cut back on irrigated acres to conserve water and has begun planning for another dry year in 2013.

"So far, I think, we did the right thing," Schartz said. "Yields on irrigated stuff have been average, or at least average. Have had some good and some bad. Overall not too bad."

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