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Yield Winners, Fertilizer Facts and Cattle Rumors

Here are the Top 5 things the DTN Newsroom is tracking for the week of Dec. 10. Watch for coverage of these and other topics through the week on our subscription platforms as well as on www.DTNPF.com.

All times listed below are in Central Standard Time (CST) unless otherwise mentioned.

1. Yield winners announced: Both the National Corn Growers Association and the National Sorghum Producers are expected to announce their annual yield contest winners. Will we see familiar names, or will some new contestants pop in with top yields?

2. Global Fertilizer Outlook: DTN Staff Reporter Russ Quinn continues our deep dive into global fertilizer conditions on the supply and demand side along with what possible wild cards could affect price. His latest piece, on the phosphorus outlook, is here: https://www.dtnpf.com/….

3. Cattle market rumors: Late in the past week, rumors flew about reasons for the drop in cattle futures prices while herd size remains historically small. At this writing it appears to be the "X" (formerly known as Twitter) factor -- that is, a remark thrown out into social media that then fed on itself. Ah, social media, we get what we pay for. DTN editors and analysts will look under whatever rocks turn up at the bottom of that stream.

4. Weather cools down: The weekend band of snow near the U.S.-Canada border pushed a cold front south through the Plains and east through the Upper Midwest. Temperatures have dropped some 20 degrees Fahrenheit from the previous week, but still remain mild by December standards through this week, well-above normal across northern zones.

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Trending Video

Learning to Wrench From Dad the Hard Way

Video: Learning to Wrench From Dad the Hard Way



Harvest is a week out and the farm picked this week to fall apart. The truck needs a battery, the barn curtain's got a problem, and the corn and beans are telling us we're out of time to get it all fixed.

So it's a full day of wrenching. Tork supervises while I get the truck back running, then we're out at the hog barn where one rusted up part has the whole curtain system hung up. Ladder work, cable work, and a little dad-and-son disagreement about the right way to do it. We close it out walking the fields, shelling beans and checking corn, because whether everything's fixed or not, harvest starts when harvest starts.

Chapters: 00:00 Everything breaks the week before harvest 01:00 Tork supervises while I fix the truck 12:30 Out to the barn to find the curtain problem 14:30 One rusty part hung up the whole curtain 20:00 Running the curtain cable from the ladder 24:00 Walking the beans and corn before harvest 26:30 Wrapping up

We're a 6th generation family farm in southeast Iowa showing the real ups and downs of pig farming and row crop farming. No script, just the work. Subscribe and follow along.

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