CLARKS GROVE &045;Farmers from throughout the area gathered Thursday along the side of County Road 45 for a seminar on seeds, farm economics and markets.

&uot;It’s really a chance for farmers to come and view the different hybrids side by side from the different companies,&uot; Barry Kurtz, a farm business management instructor at Riverland Community College, said. &uot;They can compare their varieties to other varieties.&uot;

For the past 31 years, Riverland has held the Corn Plot Field Day at their plot south of Clarks Grove. The plot has many different hybrids of corn seed for farmers to look at and compare.

Farmers can easily compare the seeds because the soil, the weather and the sprayings are the same for all throughout the year.

&uot;It really gives you a good idea of how these different seeds react to different things,&uot; said Dennis Kelly, a financial services executive at Agstar Financial Services.

This year’s event was put on by Riverland, the University of Minnesota Extension Office, AgStar and the Freeborn County Corn Growers.

Farmers gathered to hear presentations from experts on costs of production, row spacing in corn, seed treatment and a market update.

Earl Nielsen said he has been coming to the event for more than 20 years.

&uot;It’s very helpful,&uot; he said. &uot;I always want to see how the different hybrids do. They have a lot of new genetic changes each year.&uot;

Nielsen said he comes to the event to see what the Extension office learns in their research, but also to hear about the market.

Earl’s son, Dan, is an agronomist, an agricultural scientist. His job involves giving farmers help on soil levels, crop rotation, seed use and pesticide recommendations, among other things. He said he came out to get an idea for what was going on throughout the Southern Minnesota farming community.

Kelly, of AgStar, addressed the farmers Thursday. Though some people have thought corn prices might go down this year, Kelly disagreed.

&uot;There still are possibilities,&uot; Kelly said.

Kelly expects that yields could be down a little, because of a lack of rain, but said that that dropoff could mean higher prices.

Kurtz said that once the harvest begins, prices might drop due to supply. But he agreed the smaller yield might produce higher prices.

Overall, Kurtz said the event is to get information to farmers and help them to make better decisions.

&uot;Farming is so different from year to year,&uot; he said. &uot;Things change so much, and so does the weather. It’s never easy to predict how it will go.&uot;

(Contact Peter Cox at peter.cox @alberlteatribune.com or 379-3439.)