Thumbing through the latest machinery auction price listings has Machinery Pete thinking hay equipment this week. He's seeing some intriguing numbers for machinery like bale processors. See a few of them in this week's column.

7/02/2009, 1:01 PM CDT

They may seem like toys and timewasters now, but more folks in farm country are starting to glean value from new technology like smartphones and social networking.

7/02/2009, 12:00 AM CDT

Rain delays mean a lot of farmers who may have applied nitrogen at planting are now turning to sidedress applications to get those nutrients on the ground before it's too late. When doing so, it's important to keep a few things in mind.

7/02/2009, 10:02 AM CDT

Do you have all of your fertilizer purchased for the near future? If not, now may not be a bad time to think about it.

7/02/2009, 9:10 AM CDT

Soybean aphids continue to pop up -- though in low numbers so far -- in early-planted soybean fields in the eastern Corn Belt. But, their presence at this point in the growing season indicates the pest will reach the treatment threshold fairly soon.

7/01/2009, 12:57 AM CDT

It's like a broken record. For months, everybody's said the weather will be the main factor in the direction of the grain trade. On Tuesday, after the dust from the morning's big USDA Acreage and Grain Stocks reports had settled, the broken record skipped again.

6/30/2009, 2:18 PM CDT

Expensive fuel and fertilizer, or the salvation of the biofuels industry? In a nutshell, that's how two different agricultural leaders view a climate bill that heads to the U.S. Senate after narrow passage in the House of Representatives last week.

6/30/2009, 1:11 PM CDT

Survey results published in the quarterly journal Weed Technology indicate U.S. farmers in general do not feel a sense of urgency when it comes to developing a deeper understanding of the herbicide glyphosate and its relationship to weed resistance. That's spawned a multi-state study on glyphosate resistance and whether today's means for weed control are sustainable.

6/30/2009, 12:34 AM CDT

A fairly large corn acreage guess combined with a higher stocks number could knock the stuffing out of the corn trade, but ought to lend support to soybeans, one analyst says.

6/30/2009, 8:03 AM CDT

The last week was a big one for the development of the '09 corn crop, with hot, muggy conditions in much of the Corn Belt. But, some farmers who have chest-high corn fields now still have bare-dirt soybean fields yet to be planted.

6/29/2009, 3:32 PM CDT