RAVEN AG TEAM MONTHLY UPDATE - June, 2010

Greetings from the Raven Ag Team:

We are certainly seeing some changes in our weather and have went from cool and wet, to jumping headfirst into summer. Our late May turned into a blast furnace in the upper Midwest and by watching the various weather websites; it looks as though a lot of you are seeing the same behavior. The crops appear to be doing well with first cutting and in some places the second crop of hay is already being put up and yields appear to be very good. Be sure you are contacting your Raven distributor EARLY this year as the demand for the FeedFresh™ has continued to skyrocket!!! We are thrilled with the feedback we have received and by all indications; things are not going to slow down. Remember, we can manufacture almost ANY size cover here at Raven. I was calculating a cover for a distributor just the other day and it ended up coming out to a 312ft x 500ft in a one‐piece cover! Certainly if you have any questions about a cover size or shape; shot us an email at efdag@ravenind.com and we will get right back with your answer.

I have also been having a number of conversations with producers in regards to proper methods of storing silage. I would defer you to your nutritionists or extension experts, when it comes to the best practices to use, when cutting, inoculating, packing and so on, but one thing that I am making sure people are aware of is the use of tires, sandbags, etc., that are being put down on the silage cover. I know it always seems easier to just put a rim of gravel around the bottom edge and then put tires only up and over the edge of the face, but this can cost you in more ways than one. The first is simply the amount of air that can “blow” under your cover. With all of the extreme wind we see, you are actually creating a nice tunnel. The second is the risk you are running that the wind will take the cover right off your silage pile. Your investment in the silage is significant and to have the cover blow off is the last thing you are going to want to see happen. Word of simple advice; “just put on the tires” please.

For those elevator managers, who may be reading this article, now is the time to also be calculating your grain cover needs for this fall. We are excited with the new business we are seeing as more and more of you are becoming aware of the benefits of using GrainMax™ storage covers on all of your temporary grain storage systems. It does not matter what type or where your system came from, we can basically manufacture any size cover here. If you haven’t seen or heard about Raven GrainMax™ covers, follow this link for more information. http://ravenefd.com/Ag/GC/index.php

In closing, I am hoping that we all have a bumper crop this year. Be sure to stay in communication with your distributors for your upcoming needs and be sure to do that sooner rather than later. If you do not know who your distributor is, please be sure to use our distributor locator function on the RavenAg.com website at http://ravenefd.com/Ag/DistFind/. Thank you and have a great summer!

Rodney Scholten
National Market Sales Specialist - Agriculture