Grant Schultz Real Estate Auctioneer, CREA, 1031-Pro

Estate Planning Part 6

Step 6 of 6 in a series I have prepared to consider when preparing an estate plan. Every situation is different, a trusted attorney and/or financial advisor should be involved in any estate planning discussion you have with your family. VersaLand Real Estate Auctioneers works with many estate attorneys to assist families in selling real estate assets. This process is best done with prior estate planning. Please read through this ENTIRE series, and bring the fine points to your attorneys attention.

Best Regards,

Grant Schultz

VersaLand Real Estate Auctioneers

Step 6. Review and Modify

We live in a world of continuous change. Even if you've begun working on an estate plan, you need to remember that things change. The value of your property may change. Your objectives may change. Your beneficiaries may marry, divorce, have children, or die. Tax laws may change. So it's important to plan to review and modify. First, be sure that you have completed all of the items that you planned to do. Use the checklist to be sure that you didn't forget anything.

Financial Checkup Checklist:

_____ Obtain permission of people I would like to name to represent me in these (estate planning) documents.

_____ Have my will and/or trust drafted or updated.

_____ Carefully read each legal document. _____ Make a list describing whom I want to receive each of my personal belongings and put it with my will.

_____ Explain to family members that I have a will and tell them its location as well as the location of other important documents.

_____ Give a copy of my will to my executor or personal representative. _____ Give a copy of my trust to my trustee.

_____ Give a copy of my living will to my attorney, doctor, hospital, and family. _____ Have a current durable power of attorney for health care and family.

_____ Give a copy of my durable power of attorney for health care to my attorney, doctor, hospital, and family.

_____ Have a current durable power of attorney for financial affairs.

_____ Give a copy of my durable power of attorney for financial affairs to my attorney and all appropriate financial institutions.

_____ Write a letter of farewell to your spouse, children, and other close family members or friends.

* Financial Checkup Checklist from Jerry Mason's book, Financial Fitness for Life, (1999) published by Dearborn Publishing Company, page 295. Second, advisors suggest a review of an estate plan every one to three years, or whenever there is a major change such as a birth, death, marriage, divorce, or tax law change. We suggest that you keep a record beginning with the date that your estate plan was established and listing the date when it was reviewed

. For example:

Date estate plan was established: __________________________________

Date of 1st review or change: ______________________________________

Date of 2nd review or change: _____________________________________

Date of 3rd review or change: _____________________________________

Another suggestion is to continue to add information to this plan. You could include information about changes relating to your home, personal property, family, business, etc. Make a list of the actions you need to do.

(Directions: This will take you to a page that you can use to print and record your information or that you can save as a Word file to record your information.)

Additional resources: A list of estate planning mistakes can be found at

www.estateretirementplanning.com/mistakes.html

10 frequently asked questions about estate planning are at

www.aaepa.com/co_faq.aspx

I like how Ed Schafer thinks:

"Today we need a new generation of farmers ... idea farmers." That's the message U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Ed Schafer had for 4-H'ers and FFA members at the Farm Progress Show. He addressed the young people and other visitors to the Iowa State University hoop building at the show Thursday afternoon, Aug. 28.

New ideas and science-based solutions are necessary to keep U.S. agriculture on the forefront in an increasingly global marketplace, Schafer said. He encouraged the 4-H and FFA youth to consider careers in agricultural science, engineering and technology.

"We just have to keep expanding our frontiers of knowledge," Schafer said.

Flood relief for farmers' damaged crops and homewoners needs are just a phone call away:

The 2008 crop production season has had many challenges. The cool, wet spring delayed or prevented planting and recent flooding has damaged or destroyed crops. Farmers are faced with difficult agronomic and economic decisions.

To help farmers understand the options available, Iowa State University (ISU) Extension is holding two more Emergency Crop Production Programs on Wednesday, June 18.

ISU Extension Linn County office will host a program 9:30-11:30 a.m. at the office located at 3279 7th Ave., Suite 140, Marion. The other program will be hosted at the ISU Extension Washington County office, 2223 250 St., Washington, from 1:30-3:30 p.m.

Each program will feature individuals with a wide range of expertise. The topics include:

• Economic Issues including crop insurance government payment issues
• Livestock Issues
• Crop Issues

The program is free and open to the public. Pre-registration is not required. Questions about the program should be directed to your ISU County Extension Office or Jim Fawcett at (319) 337-2145.

Those with an interest in the food vs fuel debate that ethanol sparks will have an interest in this post. People on both sides of the ethanol fence see the great potential of ethanol manufactured from biomass.....not just grain, but the whole plant. Read on for this Farm Progress Show Update:

Iowa State University Research and Demonstration Farms will host field days for biomass plot tours the day before and the day after the 2008 Farm Progress Show.

Tours will be held Monday, Aug. 25, from 1 to 4 p.m. and Friday, Aug. 29, from 9 a.m. to noon. The tours will begin at the Ag Engineering and Agronomy research farm headquarters, located 1½ miles east of the Farm Progress Show site near Boone, Iowa.

"This is the opportunity to see ISU's research on growing and harvesting of biomass and its effects on soil and water," said Mark Honeyman, coordinator of Iowa State Research Farms. These are the only field days of these plots this year.

The tours are open to the public and groups are welcome. The cost is $5 per person, which covers the charter bus transportation. Attendees should meet at the ISU Ag Engineering and Agronomy Research Farm at 1308 U Ave., Boone, located just off Highway 30, west of Ames. The field day will take place rain or shine.

The tour will include six stops that display Iowa State's work and research in the area of biomass. The planned stops will cover topics including growing herbaceous and woody biomass crops, using biochar as a soil amendment, effects of growing biomass on soil and water, and harvesting equipment for bioenergy crop residue. The tour also will stop at the future site of ISU's New Century Farm, an integrated research facility for biomass.

"The purpose of this research is not to replace corn and soybeans, but to make things better by planting some of these alternative biomass crops," said Honeyman. "Some of these crops may be better suited for planting in a flood plain or near a stream."

At one stop, people will see how bioenergy crops, such as switchgrass and miscanthus, are grown. ISU agronomy graduate students Andy Heggenstaller and Ben Goff will talk about how these herbaceous crops can be grown effectively as a bioenergy source.

Randy Killorn, professor of soil fertility, is working with biochar; a product leftover after processing biomass for energy. Part of his research shows biochar being put back into the soil with positive results in improving soil quality.

Rick Hall and Lisa Schulte, of the natural resource ecology and management department, will discuss the use of woody crops for biomass. This stop will show how woody crops such as poplar and other fast-growing trees can be grown, ground into wood chips, and used for energy production.

Another stop will be at an experimental site where the effects of biomass crops on soil and water have been measured. Researchers Matt Helmers, agricultural and biosystems engineering, and Antonio Mallarino, agronomy, have collected data on the effects of growing corn and soybeans on agriculture drainage. On the same plot, they are now measuring the effects of growing switchgrass and other biomass crops.

A fifth stop will showcase bioenergy crop residue harvesting equipment, developed by Stuart Birrell of agricultural and biosystems engineering. This is a combine that has been fitted to collect crop residue, corncobs and husks, at the same time the grain is harvested.

In the last stop, Joe Colletti, senior associate dean of the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, will talk about plans for ISU's New Century Farm, the first integrated, sustainable biofuel feedstock production farm and processing facility in the U.S.

For more information on the plot tours contact Sally Medford at the ISU Research and Demonstration Farms office at (515) 294-5045. Pre-registration is not required.

'Not Your Father's Tillage' featured at Farm Progress Show

As a graduate of the College of Agriculture, I had the pleasure of being in Central Iowa for a 1031 Exchange conference, as well as the annual Farm Progress Show. The following is an overview of modern tillage methods exhibited at the Farm Progress Show, courtesy of Iowa State.

If you asked members of Generation X to define tillage, their answers will differ from their father's or grandfather's. Today's forms of tillage are not limited to the moldboard or chisel plow. The trend to expose Iowa's black soil is going by the wayside in an effort to retain the nutrients held underneath. Doing this practice "because that's the way Dad did it" is not acceptable anymore.

Today's generation of farmers are thinking differently. They are feeling the pressures of being green, dealing with high fuel and feed prices, and trying to balance the books amidst it all.

Iowa Learning Farm (ILF) farmer-cooperators Gary Nelson and his son Dave are prime examples of how changing perspectives and practices between generations can work successfully. Thirty-something Dave Nelson recently returned home to farm with his dad, but wanted to try a new technique he'd worked with in his previous career with Monsanto-strip-tillage. Gary was reluctant to try it but agreed. Now, after years of moldboard and chisel plowing, Gary has come around.

The Nelsons are tenants of the Smeltzer Demonstration Farm, rural Otho, and have fully adopted no-till and strip-till on the farm. They have seen the short-term benefits and are able to predict the long-term results of high residue and increased organic matter and nutrients on their farmland.

The Iowa Learning Farm project backed Dave up with proof, which also helped Gary change his thoughts. "The research we have been doing with the Iowa Learning Farm is looking under the soil surface and evaluating what's going on when you change tillage practices. So we've taken this farm and changed from a full tillage approach to 100 percent strip tillage program for this coming fall," said Gary.

The ILF exhibit at the Farm Progress Show will focus on strip-tillage, a next-best approach to no-till. While many farmers aren't ready to make a full commitment to no-till, strip-tillage is a fine alternative, marrying the best aspects of conventional tillage with the benefits of no-till. In the fall, the strip-tiller creates strips of exposed soil, broken up by a coulter and shank, and moves surface residue between the strips. In the spring, the strip of exposed soil warms and dries faster than the rest of the field, making this system ideal for some Iowa soil types. The added fertilizer is applied only to the exposed row, keeping weeds at bay.

"When I came home to farm back in the early 1970s, I brought with me the value and return on investment of spreading dry fertilizer for corn," Gary recalled. "I now watch my son come back to the farm and see this technological approach he brings with him. It is interesting to see the generations of farmers bringing different things to the table."

"Our dads taught us to drive big tractors, blow black smoke and pull big implements really deep," said Dave. "Going to a more conservation program, we're not doing that big horsepower operation; we're not driving the tractor as much. What we are doing is saving hundreds of dollars on fuel, labor, and machinery, and at the same time creating a healthier soil profile to yield bigger crops. At first I wondered if strip tillage would be a fad, but economics and technology are helping us to perfect this system for a long term program on our farm."

The Iowa Learning Farm will be in several places at the Farm Progress Show: within the Iowa State University hoop building on Central Avenue, which will include an outside display featuring strip-tiller and an area of strip-tilled land so visitors can see the technique up close. Visitors also will be able to talk with the Nelsons and other ILF cooperators who practice strip-tillage. The rainfall simulator will be demonstrated regularly as part of Conservation Central, which will be next to the ISU display.

The Iowa Learning Farm project is a grassroots approach to promote ways in which all Iowans can have an active role in protecting and enhancing Iowa's natural resources. The Iowa Learning Farm is a partnership between the Iowa Department of Agriculture and Land Stewardship, Iowa State University Extension, Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture, Iowa Natural Resources Conservation Service and the Iowa Department of Natural Resources; and in cooperation with Conservation Districts of Iowa and the Iowa Farm Bureau.