News

05/15/2012 :: Another week of ideal planting conditions in ND

FARGO — Another week of warm, dry weather has given North Dakota farmers ideal planting conditions, but some areas of the state could use rain.

 The Agriculture Department says in its weekly crop and weather report that the seeding of spring wheat and barley is nearing completion, and the durum crop is about three-fourths planted.

 The planting of all crops in North Dakota is well ahead of the average pace, and livestock calving is more than 90 percent complete. Pasture conditions are 69 percent good to excellent.

 Copyright 2012 The Associated Press

05/11/2012 :: ND poised to once again be sunflower leader

BISMARCK — North Dakota sunflower farmers are poised to reclaim bragging rights as the nation's top producers.

 Last year, wet weather and flooding led to a drop of hundreds of thousands of acres in North Dakota, and South Dakota surpassed its northern neighbor as the leading sunflower state for the first time in recorded history.

 The Agriculture Department projects sunflower acres to rebound about 31 percent in North Dakota this year, to 760,000. South Dakota's acreage is pegged at 540,000, also up from last year but only by about 11 percent.

 Copyright 2012 The Associated Press

05/08/2012 :: Apply Postemergence Herbicide to Small Weeds in Corn

"The smaller the weed, the better," says University of Illinois Associate Professor of Weed Science Aaron Hager. Proper timing of the application of postemergence herbicides provides the corn crop with the best opportunity to express its full genetic yield potential. Allowing weeds to compete with the crop for too long reduces its seed yield. Yield losses can accumulate very rapidly, and the associated costs can far exceed the cost of an integrated weed management program that includes a properly timed application of a postemergence herbicide.

The problem, Hager says, is "We know that the longer weeds are allowed to remain with the crop, the greater the likelihood of crop yield loss, but we don't know the specific day after planting or emergence when weed interference begins to reduce corn yield."

This critical time is influenced by many factors, including the weed spectrum, density of species, and available soil moisture. Weed scientists generally suggest an interval, based upon either weed size (in inches) or days after crop/weed emergence, during which postemergence herbicides should be applied to prevent weed interference from causing crop yield loss. They often recommend removing weeds in corn before they are more than 2 in. tall.

Another reason to apply postemergence herbicides to small weeds is that they are generally easier to control than larger weeds. Application rates of postemergence herbicides are often based on weed size, with higher rates often recommended to control larger weeds.

To be effective, the postemergence herbicide has to be taken into the plant (usually by absorption through the leaves) and then moved to its target site. Younger plant leaves often absorb herbicides more rapidly and completely than older leaves. High relative humidity, adequate soil moisture and moderate to warm air temperatures also favor enhanced herbicide absorption.

Waterhemp plants with resistance to one or more herbicide sites-of-action challenge the effectiveness of many postemergence herbicides. The occurrence of herbicide-resistant weed biotypes and populations is likely to escalate across areas of central Illinois during the 2012 growing season. Depending on the resistance mechanism, these plants may not demonstrate much injury or a reduced rate of growth following a herbicide application.

The choice of foliar-applied corn herbicides could be affected by prior application of soil insecticides. Specifically, using an organophosphate (OP) insecticide at planting or after corn emergence could restrict the use of herbicides that inhibit either the ALS or HPPD enzymes. Be sure to consult the most current product labels.

Labels of most postemergence corn herbicides allow applications at various crop growth stages, but almost all product labels indicate a maximum growth stage after which broadcast applications should not be made. A few specify a minimum growth stage before which applications should not be made. These growth stages are usually indicated as a particular plant height or leaf stage; sometimes both are listed.

"For product labels that indicate a specific corn height and growth state, be sure to follow the more restrictive of the two," says Hager. Application restrictions exist for several reasons, but of particular importance is the increased likelihood of crop injury if applications are made outside a specified growth stage or range.

05/02/2012 :: CME group to expand CBOT trading hours

CHICAGO — CME Group announced May 1 it will expand electronic trading hours in its Chicago Board of Trade grain and oilseed futures and options beginning May 14. This will expand market access to CBOT corn, soybeans, wheat, soybean meal, soybean oil, oats and rough rice futures and options on CME Globex to 22 hours per day.

"As we've grown our customer base in agricultural commodities around the globe, we've received increased interest in expanding market access by providing longer trading hours," said Tim Andriesen, managing director, Agricultural Commodities and Alternative Investments, CME Group. "In particular, customers are looking to manage their price risk in our deep, liquid markets during market-moving events like USDA crop reports. In response to customer feedback, we're expanding trading hours for our grain and oilseed products to ensure customers have even greater access to these effective price discovery tools."

Beginning, May 13 for trade date May 14, customers will have expanded access on CME Globex as follows: 5 p.m. to 4 p.m. (CT) on Sunday to Monday and 6 p.m. to 4 p.m. (CT) on Monday to Friday.

Open-outcry trading hours will continue to operate from 9:30 a.m. to 1:15 p.m. (CT) Monday to Friday.

By: Chicago Board of Trade, Agweek

05/01/2012 :: Farm managers and rural appraisers: Farmland prices expected to keep rising

 A survey indicating that farmland values are expected to continue increasing is more good news for landowners but could also signal caution for buyers, an agricultural economist said.

04/30/2012 :: Several countries are ramping up corn production (and corn exports)

04/27/2012 :: Assessing fields for "pop up" starter fertilizer damage

Dry fall and early spring soils have led to questions about starter fertilizer application this spring.  While that planting with starter in a dry seedbed can significantly increase the risks, the overall effect will not be known until after planting.  Assessing the situation after emergence will be the best way to determine if damage has occurred due to "pop-up" fertilizer application.  With some corn already planted and fertilizer decisions made there are a few key points to remember when dealing with starter fertilizers.

04/25/2012 :: World says, ‘More oilseeds please!’

04/23/2012 :: Technology advancing agriculture to feed world

Technological advances will continue to drive crop advances as global agriculture prepares to feed and clothe another 2-3 billion people by 2050 but on less land worldwide linked to water scarcity.

McCarty believes this will be the biggest challenge and opportunity which agriculture worldwide has ever faced.

McCarty shared his vision as the keynote speaker during the 2012 Southwest Agricultural Summit held in Yuma, Ariz. About 1,100 people attended the sixth annual event.

The HCC chief executive joined the company in 1980 as a salesman. The nearly $4 billion company distributes crop production inputs plus protection products and services for agriculture and other industries.

Looking first at the major crops grown in the U.S. including grains, McCarty said, “Agriculture will have to be more efficient than ever. Technology will drive the future of our business.”

McCarty’s crystal ball envisions that two primary businesses — agriculture and energy — will excel globally more than others. He predicts many opportunities for production agriculture and agri-business.

“I see a very, very promising future,” McCarty said.

McCarty’s optimism is partly based on mushrooming world population projections. The fastest growing areas include China, India, and Africa. Today, China has a 1.3 billion population; a fourfold increase over the U.S.

More people will mean more vehicles which will further fuel the demand for ethanol. About 35 percent of the U.S. grain crop today is converted to ethanol fuel.

“Ethanol continues as a sizable market of the grain crop.”

Another reason for McCarty’s positive agricultural forecast is the desire worldwide for a healthier diet including more fruits and vegetables.

In China, more residents are climbing the economic ladder into the middle class. This means more available income and the ability to consume more protein from meat, tree nuts, and other sources.

A healthier food supply, McCarthy points out, can reduce physical ailments including Type 2 diabetes which is tied to obesity.

“We need a change in nutrition,” McCarty said. “Agriculture can help lead this. This will be a tremendous opportunity for vegetable growers in the U.S.”

This message hit home for the large number of vegetable industry members attending the summit. Yuma County area and neighboring Imperial County, Calif., produce about 95 percent of the nation’s winter vegetable supply for salads.

In an example of technology breakthroughs underway in agriculture, McCarty discussed a recent tour he took of a Syngenta operation where the company’s future lines of vegetable seeds were highlighted. The new products signaled how Syngenta is improving the taste and smell of vegetables.

“I took a bite of a traditional pepper; it looked and tasted like a normal pepper,” McCarty said. “The other pepper tasted almost like a snack. It was like eating candy; almost addictive. This technology will be available in the future. That’s a plus,” McCarty said.

The Helena leader also addressed crop yields which have more than doubled over the last 30-40 years. McCarty warned that crop yield advances will slow slightly in the near future in developed countries, but will increase faster in less-developed countries.

“This is where new technology and innovation will really come into play.”

A 20 percent reduction in farmed acreage worldwide is tied to water scarcity across the globe.

“Water will be a limiting factor (globally),” McCarty said. “Over the last century in the world, global water use has increased at twice of the rate of the population.”

In the U.S., Texas’ record drought last year parched soil, left crops to sizzle and die in fields, and forced ranchers to cull cow herds at an all-time high.

California’s lack of rain and snowfall this past winter has producers again on edge. Arizona’s prolonged drought, stretching more than a dozen consecutive years, is forcing producers to fallow fertile land in the state’s central section; land traditionally planted in cotton and other crop staples.

About 200 high school and college students and teachers attended the summit. McCarty painted a positive forecast for jobs in the agricultural field including food production, equipment, seed, fertilizer, agrichemical, and other sectors.

McCarty says U.S. agriculture is fiscally strong with U.S. gross farm income topping $400 billion last year; an all-time record high. Production expenses were in the $320 billion range with net farm income nearing $100 million. Farm input expenses penciled out near $56 billion.

McCarty says the global economy impacts U.S. agriculture more than the U.S. economy alone.

“I’m concerned about the global economy and what is going on in Europe right now,” McCarty said. “If there is a recession-proof industry then agriculture comes pretty close when compared to other industries.”

Agriculture’s future hinges on those willing to take risks and initiate change, McCarty says. Risk takers have made U.S. agriculture stronger.

“Our competition (in agriculture) is now global. We need to be aware of what our competition is doing so we can take the steps to move forward.”

Continued change was also echoed during the summit by Shane Burgess, dean of the University of Arizona’s (UA) College of Agriculture and Life Sciences. Burgess took the reins as the CALS dean last August.

He says never has the world faced feeding 7 billion to 10 billion people and been so concerned about food safety, the food chain, and the food system security.

Change is inherent for Arizona and the UA as they move forward from the recession with reduced budgets and revised plans.

Burgess said, “One of the things that it means to be a land grant university and a college of agriculture is we need to listen to those who are making the world turn. What do we need to do now, tomorrow, and over the next 10 years?”

“We need to be consistent, pragmatic, and continually improving and being on the cutting edge of innovation.” 

04/18/2012 :: Spring planting in Dakotas ahead of average pace

FARGO — Crop seeding remains well ahead of the average pace in the Dakotas despite rainy weather over the past week.

 The Agriculture Department says in its weekly crop and weather reports that more than one-fourth of the North Dakota spring wheat crop is in the ground, compared to just 2 percent on average. In South Dakota, 83 percent of the spring wheat crop is planted, compared to 13 percent on average.

 The report says the recent rains also have improved the condition of the winter wheat crop in South Dakota.

 Corn planting is getting under way in both states.

Copyright 2012 The Associated Press.

04/17/2012 :: Research Aims to Protect Bt Technology

Pesticides derived from the bacterium Bacillus thuringiensis – widely known as Bt – have been important to farmers since the 1920s. Sixteen years ago, transgenic seed that produces insecticidal Bt proteins became available. Use of these transgenic Bt crops in the U.S. has reached 75% of cotton and 65% of corn acreage, while Bt pesticides are the most important insect control method available to organic farmers.

The Bt crop technology has saved producers millions of dollars by increasing yields and greatly reducing applications of broad-spectrum chemical pesticides. These factors make Bt important to both agriculture and human health.

Yet entomologists know that constant exposure creates evolutionary pressure for insect pests to become resistant to a pesticide. That’s why Bt plants are required to produce a high dose of insecticidal toxin and producers adopting Bt crops have been mandated to plant non-Bt refuges to bolster populations of susceptible insects in their fields. Susceptible insects emerging from these refuges mate with and dilute any resistant populations.

However, resistance to Bt crops has already emerged in India, China and Puerto Rico, where damage by resistant fall armyworms to a Bt corn variety resulted, for the first time in the U.S., in withdrawal of this variety from the market.

Although cold temperatures prevent their northward movement, Bt-resistant fall armyworms from Puerto Rico are believed to have migrated into Florida, representing a risk to southern growers and organic farmers.

“Mathematical models and estimates support that the use of non-Bt refuges would render Bt crops effective for more than 20 years,” says institute entomology researcher Juan Luis Jurat-Fuentes.

Through collaborators at the USDA, Jurat-Fuentes acquired Bt-resistant fall armyworm caterpillars from Puerto Rico to study. In the lab, he and students Siva Jakka and Liang Gong are working to pin-point the exact mechanism responsible for resistance to Bt corn.

That knowledge would enable agrochemical companies to develop improved Bt crops and sensitive assays to quickly determine if resistant insects are present in production fields.

While the EPA currently mandates such monitoring, the methods used require capturing insects and analyzing subsequent generations in the lab, which is lengthy, costly and laborious.

“It takes months to do this and a lot of work,” Jurat-Fuentes says. “So if we come up with a DNA-based assay that can be done in a day with a caterpillar or moth from the field and tell whether the resistance gene is present, then we can have a great economic impact on monitoring for resistance.

We do have collaborations with some companies that support part of our research, so what we find is of great scientific and applied interest.”

Jurat-Fuentes’ research is also funded by a grant from the USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture, highlighting its importance. For the promise of his research, Jurat-Fuentes was one of 18 researchers worldwide last year who was honored as a DuPont Young Professor.

“To develop resistance, an insect must change something,” Jurat-Fuentes explains. “Although we have some ideas from lab research, our project represents the first effort to understand what field insects change to become resistant to Bt crops. We are also interested in learning about how resistance is transmitted and the fitness of the resistant compared to susceptible armyworms to evaluate and improve current resistance management mandates.

“If we can delay emergence of resistance through better detection and control of the resistant insects, we can perhaps preserve the effectiveness of Bt for years to come.”

UT AgResearch operates 10 unique research facilities across the state of Tennessee. In addition to its agricultural research programs, the UT Institute of Agriculture also provides instruction, research and public service through the UT College of Agricultural Sciences and Natural Resources, the UT College of Veterinary Medicine, and UT Extension offices in every county in the state.

04/16/2012 :: 5 Tips to Get the Corn Crop Off to a Good Start

Corn growers wanting to ensure a healthy crop with strong yields need to plan ahead, including knowing when to plant, when and if to till and how to make the right seed depth adjustments based on soil conditions, says Peter Thomison, an Ohio State University Extension expert.

"Mistakes made duing crop establishment are usually irreversible, and can put a 'ceiling' on a crop's yield potential before the plants have even emerged," says Thomison.

Following are some proven practices that will help get a corn crop off to a good start:

• Till only when necessary and under proper soil conditions. Avoid working wet soil, and reduce secondary tillage passes. Perform secondary tillage operations only when necessary to prepare an adequate seedbed. Shallow compaction created by excessive secondary tillage can reduce crop yields. Deep tillage should be used only when a compacted zone has been identified and soil is relatively dry. Late summer and fall are the best times for deep tillage.
• Complete planting by early May. The recommended time for planting corn in northern Ohio is April 15 to May 10, and in southern Ohio April 10 to May 10. But if soil conditions are dry and soil temperatures are rising quickly, and the five-to-seven-day forecast calls for favorable conditions, start planting before the optimal date. During the two to three weeks of optimal corn planting time, there is, on average, about one out of three days for fieldwork. This narrow window of opportunity further emphasizes the need to begin planting as soon as field conditions allow, even though the calendar date might be before the optimal date.
• Avoid early planting on poorly drained soils or those prone to ponding. Yield reductions resulting from 'mudding the seed in' may be much greater than those resulting from a slight planting delay. Also, if dry corn seed absorbs cold water as a result of a cold rain or melting snow, 'imbibitional chilling injury' may result. Cold water can cause similar injury to seedling structures as they emerge during germination. Such injury in corn seed ruptures cell membranes and results in aborted radicles, proliferation of seminal roots and delayed seedling growth.
• Adjust seeding depth according to soil conditions. Plant between 1.5 and 2 in. deep to provide for frost protection and adequate root development. In early to mid-April, when the soil is usually moist and evaporation rate is low, seed should be planted no deeper than 1.5 in. When soils are warming up and drying fast in late May or early June, corn may be seeded more deeply, up to 2-2.5 in. on non-crusting soils. Consider seed-press wheels or seed firmers to ensure good seed-soil contact.
• Adjust seed planting rates on field-by-field basis. Adjust planting rates by using the yield potential of a site as a major criterion for determining the appropriate plant population. Higher seeding rates are recommended for sites with high yield potential, high soil-fertility levels and water-holding capacity. Follow seed company recommendations to adjust plant population for specific hybrids.

04/10/2012 :: CRP Acreage Enrollment Lowest Since 1988

Contracts covering more than 6.5 million acres in the Conservation Reserve Program will expire, the second-largest turnover in its 26-year history.

The Red River Farm Network reports that the amount of total land in the CRP has fallen to its lowest level since 1988, down 20 percent from its peak of 36.7 million acres in 2007.

As much as half the land coming out of CRP may be put back into production for the first time in decades.

USAgNet - 04/10/2012

04/09/2012 :: Best yet to come for US agriculture

Mike Dwyer, director of global policy for USDA’s Foreign Agriculture Service, never gets tired of giving speeches these days.

When speaking to a recent meeting of commodity associations, Dwyer gave the speech for the 17th time, including four continents and 10 countries.

“If you are a farmer anywhere in the world, and you get world prices for your crops, the story is a very optimistic one for you,” Dwyer said.

“When I talk about the prosperity of farming, I’m talking about two primary things: balance sheet and income sheet. Both are doing extremely well,” he added.

Net farm income in the U.S. alone topped $103 billion — a big-time record for American agriculture. Dwyer said this income record is net income, after all the input costs have been figured into the equation.

The other all time high for agriculture is a $2 trillion net equity in farms in the U.S. This is largely due to the rise in price of agriculture’s No. 1 asset — land.

While the value of real estate in the U.S. has taken a dramatic hit during the recession, the price of farmland has risen, because the value of farm land is based on how much income it can produce.

“In my 30-year career in agriculture, I could rarely say agriculture is a top performing industry, and now it is. And, the beauty of prosperity in U.S. agriculture is that isn’t coming at the expense of U.S. taxpayers. Payments from the federal government to farmers are at a 20-year low, down by $15 billion from 2005,” Dwyer said.

The USDA economist said the best is yet to come for farmers in the U.S. and around the world. The 10-year outlook is for continued growth and prosperity, which will be driven by a handful of economic factors globally.

“In the U.S. we are a nation of middle class buyers. If you get a raise in pay in January, your total cost for food will not go up. You may eat out more or you may change your diet, but your overall cost for food will not change much,” Dwyer said

In emerging economic countries around the world that is not the case. The Middle Class in China, India and a number of other Asian and Latin American countries around the world is growing at an alarming rate. These emerging markets will be primary buyers of U.S. farm goods for the next ten years, he added.

The recession was a major speed bump for the U.S., Japan and western European countries, China and other emerging economies barely slowed down. That’s important to the U.S. agriculture industry, because their growth has a huge impact on food demand, but regardless of the state of our economy, food demand stays about the same.

“It doesn’t take a degree in economics to figure out that an upturn in demand for good and a level line in food production is going to be good for farmers,” Dwyer said.

In China, there are currently about 125 million households that are considered middle class. By 2020 that number is expected to jump by another 223 million that go from basically subsistence level to middle class. They are going to want to buy more high protein, processed food.

As the dollar goes down, commodity prices tend to go up. The value of the U.S. dollar has trended downward over the past 10 years, pushing the buying power of emerging nations up.

In the first quarter of 2012, the dollar rallied in value, but that’s primarily due to financial problems in Europe, and not a long-lasting trend, Dwyer said.

USDA projections are for a 14 percent decline versus major export competitors over the next 10 years. If these projections are accurate, it will bode well for any American farmer who sells his crop for export and will tend to keep crop value high in both domestic and export markets.

Fuel from cellulosic processes may be the wave of the future, but for the next few years first generation biofuels stocks will continue to come from corn, sugar-producing crops and soybeans.

Around the world, more than 30 countries in the Western Hemisphere have biofuel mandates, trying to replicate what the U.S. is doing with ethanol and biodiesel in the U.S. 

To produce first generation biofuels, these countries are going to have grow or import corn, soybeans or sugar-producing crops — like sugarbeets and sugarcane.

The U.S. is the world’s leader in ethanol exports, and the biggest customer is Brazil.

Strange as that sounds, the price of corn versus sugarcane makes the U.S. the lowest cost ethanol producer in the world. Europe wants to be in a similar situation as the U.S. in biofuel production, but they are more interested in biodiesel.

This whole biofuel trend again bodes well for stabilizing prices for oil-bearing or sugar-bearing crops for the next decade.

“The U.S. chalked up $137 billion in export sales last year — never thought I’d see that level in my career,” Dwyer said.

“In the U.S. we entered into three major trade agreements last year and there is more to come. We can either play or we can watch these developing countries play, and it appears our government has made a commitment to play in the world trade market,” he added.

The path of least resistance in liberalizing trade comes from bilateral agreements between two countries. The most difficult path is unilateral agreements that involve numerous countries.

As long as profit is high in the export business, Dwyer contends the growth in bilateral agreements will continue.

Never underestimate the ability of governments to think they are doing the right thing and end up making huge mistakes. For example, in 2008, governments started banning exports of food to be sure they had an adequate supply of food for their country.

“All that did was scare all the major importers of food around the world,” the USDA economist said.

Russia did this again in 2011 with wheat. It caused a price spike in wheat, but depressed prices Russian wheat farmers received for their crop.

What this policy decision did was to lower the profitability in the ag sector, which slows down the supply response.

“It would be nice to say that won’t happen again, but with stocks at such low levels, the conditions are right for export bans and subsequent price spikes,” Dwyer said.

Agriculture is one of the most energy intensive sectors of the U.S. economy. If the price of petroleum goes up, the price of production goes up for farmers.

Many of the same factors that drive agriculture profitability drive energy prices. China, for example, will buy more food, but they will also buy more cars, which need fuel.

“Yields and cost of production is directly tied to the type seed used. There is no better technology in the world than biotechnology.

“We are just scratching the surface on such technology as drought tolerant crops. The payoff will be huge, but the question is: Where is it headed.

“There is no question the demand for food is going to increase over the next decade, and well beyond.

The only two ways to meet growing demand is to increase yield or bring new land into production. Failing to keep supply and demand in harmony could really create high food prices and be a negative factor in world agriculture growth,” Dwyer said.

04/05/2012 :: 'Early' early-spring weed management

The unusually warm weather may create additional weed challenges this spring. Winter annuals in no-till fields will likely accumulate much more biomass prior to planting than normal and therefore use more soil moisture, tie up more nutrients and potentially interfere with planting and crop establishment. In addition, weeds such as horseweed (marestail) will grow more rapidly and reach growth stages that are difficult to control much sooner than in a “normal” spring.

Due to these potential problems, applications of burndown herbicides in early April may be beneficial and improve the control of winter annual and early spring annual weeds. An additional benefit of earlier application dates for the burndown is minimizing the risk of including 2,4-D at the higher rates (i.e. 2 pts/A of LV-4) in the program. Of course, there is the important assumption that planting dates are not moved proportionally earlier.

Many farmers will want to include preemergence herbicides with these early spring burndown treatments. While this may provide a clean seedbed at planting and crop emergence, the longevity of weed control is likely to be shortened significantly. The magnitude of this reduction will depend on the time period and weather encountered between application and planting, and the herbicide rate. The rates of many preemergence products have been reduced due to the reliance on postemergence products, primarily glyphosate. If applications are going to be made a few weeks earlier than normal, carefully evaluate the product rates in order to maximize the contribution of the preemergence herbicide(s) to residual weed control after crop emergence.

Preemergence herbicides are a key component of herbicide resistance management. But to be effective, they need to be used in a manner that results in significant control of the target species. Very early applications of preemergence herbicides or reduced rates will greatly reduce their effectiveness on late-emerging weeds such as waterhemp, or large-seeded species such as giant ragweed. Many products specify split applications where a portion of the product is applied early and a remainder is applied at, or shortly after planting. This approach could be beneficial this year where an extended period of weed control may be needed due to early applications resulting from prevailing weather conditions.

Bob Hartzler and Mike Owen, Iowa State University

04/04/2012 :: Land rental rates keep climbing

As expected, rental rates for farmland continue to rise across North Dakota, with many counties in the state seeing an increase of roughly 5 to 10 percent from a year ago.

The North Dakota field office of the National Agricultural Statistics Service, an arm of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, has released its 2012 County Rents & Values. The widely watched report is used by some farmers and landlords to help determine rental agreements.

USDA surveyed about 2,150 North Dakota agricultural producers in late January.

An Agweek cover story last fall and a subsequent Agweek article early this year found that rental rates were rising rapidly. Rates have been increasing across the state for several years, reflecting the generally strong crop prices that farmers have enjoyed since 2007.

Here’s a sampling of what the newly released USDA survey found:

Richland County, in southeastern North Dakota, had an average rental rate of $114.20 per acre for nonirrigated farmland this year, the highest such rate in the state. The 2012 rate is 9.6 percent higher than the county’s average rental rate of $104.20 last year.

Richland County had the state’s highest rental rate for nonirrigated this year: $175 per acre.

Percentage increases were particularly strong in the south-central part of the state. The average rate in Emmons County was $55.40 per acre of nonirrigated farmland, an increase of 15 percent from the $48.10 per acre last year.

Renville County, in northwestern North Dakota, where wet conditions in 2011 prevented many fields from being planted, saw only a marginal increase in rental rates. The average rental rate for nonirrigated farmland was $45.80 per acre, up from $45.50 per acre a year ago.

The average rental rate for nonirrigated farmland in Bowman County, in southwestern North Dakota was $33.30 this year, up 4.7 percent from the $31.80 per acre a year ago.

The USDA report can be found online by Clicking here. Click on “county rents and values” beneath the “North Dakota publications” box at the bottom on the page.

State-level estimates will be released in a different report Aug 3.

By: Jonathan Knutson, Agweek

04/03/2012 :: ND farmers getting big jump on spring field work

FARGO (AP) — North Dakota farmers are looking to get an historic jump on their spring field work.

 The Agriculture Department says in a report that Tuesday is expected to be the average starting date for spring field work in the state. April 3 would be the earliest average starting date since record-keeping began in the mid-1970s. The Grand Forks Herald reports that the previous mark was April 6 in 1981.

 The April 3 date also is a month earlier than last year, when many areas experienced spring flooding. The Agriculture Department says this year, some North Dakota farmers say they need moisture.

 The average starting date for field work over the past five years is April 20.

 Copyright 2012 The Associated Press.

04/02/2012 :: Influence of Soil Temperature on Corn Germination and Growth

By Roger Elmore, Department of Agronomy

We experienced June-like temperatures in March. Trees budded, spring flowers bloomed and fertilizer rigs crisscrossed fields. Soil temperatures matched what we normally experience in late April and early May, jumping well ahead of previous records.

Because of the unparalleled warm March weather, many wonder about planting corn. Perhaps some did plant. This year’s warm spring temperatures encouraged early development of flowering trees and shrubs, as well as lawns, pastures and early weed-flushes in many fields - But wait until at least the crop insurance date to plant corn! Data from other scientists and Iowa planting date studies – suggests to plant corn after mid-April when soil temperatures are near 50 degrees Fahrenheit to maximize yield.

Germination process and soil temperature
Seed absorbs about 30 percent of its weight in water; temperature does not affect that process. But temperature does affect growth of both the radicle (first root) and coleoptile (shoot). With soil temperatures below 50 F, seeds readily absorb water but do not initiate root or shoot growth. This opens up opportunities for insects and pathogens to attack seeds resulting in poor emergence especially if poor seedbed conditions are prolonged. Even though soil temperatures are above 50 F at the time I write this, they can quickly plummet with a cold spell. The odds for more cold weather and or snow are still high before mid-April. With that in mind, to minimize risk, begin planting when soils are 50 F or greater or are near 50 F and rising quickly after mid-April.

Problems associated with corn in cold soils
Cool soil temperatures early in the season increase variability in final stands. We want to give every precious seed the chance of survival unless we intend to overplant to compensate for seed viability lost before emergence.

Cool soil conditions early in the season also lead to more unevenness in growth and development from one plant to another. In addition, once the seed begins to germinate, a significant change in soil temperature can cause problems for mesocotyl growth. To maximize yield, manage corn to reduce plant-to-plant variability.

In addition to the effects of early planting on seed development and growth, early planting also exposes seeds and seedlings to increased potential for frost. We know that since a corn seedling’s growing point is below ground until V6 – the sixth leaf stage – it can withstand freezing temperatures when plants have emerged until the V6 stage. Indeed that fact has saved a lot of replanting and the associated costs over the years. 

What we don’t always say – or for that matter understand – is that frost often affects individual plants differently resulting in more variability from one plant to another. That variability can result in unequal interplant competition and lower yield potential. Depending on the potential date of replant though, keeping the surviving stand – albeit of variable plant heights and development – may still be the best option. (See: Replanting Information) 

In addition to the impact on seedlings, extreme cold snaps can refreeze soils down to seeding depths. This can and does kill seeds and growing points, reducing stands and forcing a complete replant.

 

Roger Elmore is a professor of agronomy with research and extension responsibilities in corn production. He can be contacted by email at relmore@iastate.edu or (515) 294-6655.

03/30/2012 :: The Impacts of Our Challenging Climate Conditions

Weather conditions, such as record flooding, extended periods without significant precipitation, warmer than average winter months and the possibility of drought loom for the growing season of 2012. What will the short- and long-term effects be on our horticultural practices?

“What we do know is that the climate has changed in the past, is changing today and will continue to change in the future,” says Ron Smith, North Dakota State University Extension Service horticulturist. “While the scientists argue why the climate is changing, gardeners and growers are being affected by the adverse impact of year-to-year variations in weather.”

The concentration of carbon dioxide (CO2) had increased by 1.5 parts per million (ppm) since the Mauna Loa Observatory started doing CO2 measurements in 1960.

While the models contain a great deal of uncertainty on future CO2 concentration amounts, conservative models say the rise will continue and may reach 700 ppm by 2100. The models also assume that humankind will be attempting to slow the rise of CO2 during that time.

“As this is taking place, the greenhouse gases, such as CO2 and water vapor, are absorbing Earth-emitted infrared radiation,” says Adnan Akyuz, North Dakota state climatologist and assistant professor of climatology in the NDSU Soil Science Department. “This causes the Earth’s temperatures to rise and is the main mechanism of the greenhouse gas effect. However, it is important to note that because of its connection with global warming, the general public has a negative perception about the greenhouse effect. However, without the greenhouse effect, the Earth’s average temperature would have been 0 F, or 59 degrees colder than its current temperature.”

Global temperature increases mean different things for various locations. With the trends not being the same everywhere, some will experience a higher than average increase in temperatures, while others will be less affected.

While some locations will enjoy the positive impact of climate change, others will have to worry about mitigating the adverse impacts. For example, increases in annual temperature in North Dakota allowed producers to utilize 12 longer growing seasons during the last century.

“We may have cooler than normal temperatures during the next couple of summers or a much higher average minimum temperature than previously experienced.” Smith says. “With our crops, we can mitigate some of the daytime increase with sprinkler irrigation, misters or shade cloth. However, due to the blocking of infrared radiation into the atmosphere at night, we have no effective way of lowering the night temperatures. These higher minimums will impact fruit maturation, which means crops, such as tomatoes and grapes, can be harvested earlier in the season. While good for annual crops, it may have an impact on meeting the total chilling requirements of some of the perennial fruit crops such as apples.”

There are some positives. Higher CO2 levels will allow stomatal pores on plants to close somewhat, which will increase water efficiency by cutting down on evapotranspiration. Because CO2 is a necessary component of photosynthesis, plants should grow better. CO2 “fertilization” is a somewhat common practice in greenhouses at higher elevations, such as the mountain regions of Colorado.

Warmer temperatures also may mean more disease and insect activity in horticultural crops. Up to a point, common maladies, such as powdery mildew, can be expected to show an increase. With milder winter temperatures, wood-boring and root-eating insect larvae that were somewhat kept in check with more severe weather, will now flourish and feast on crops.

“Adjustments in landscape management, pest control and the timing of planting and harvesting will have to be implemented during the next decade to maximize our horticultural objectives,” Smith says. “What was standard operating procedure in 1990 will not be the same in 2020 if we want to continue growing our favorite horticultural plantings successfully.”

NDSU Agriculture Communication

03/28/2012 :: Warning from USDA: Fraudulent letters, phone calls

Mar. 27, 2012 10:57am

USDA officials have been notified that additional fraudulent letters and at least one fraudulent phone call have been received by individuals in a number of states.

The phone call was received by an individual in Indiana, and letters are being sent by fax to individuals and businesses in a growing number of states. The letters and call purportedly come from a USDA procurement officer and seek personal information. These letters are false and in no case should a recipient respond with personal and financial information.

The fraudulent letters bear USDA's logo and seal and are signed by an individual identified as "Frank Rutenberg" using a title of "senior procurement officer." Recipients should not respond and should not supply the requested information. USDA is investigating this matter through the Office of the Inspector General. USDA first learned that the letters were being circulated on March 16, 2012.

If you suspect you have received such a letter or have been called by someone representing themselves as being from USDA seeking personal information, please contact USDA at: procurement.policy@dm.usda.gov or call 202/720-9448.

Source: USDA

03/26/2012 :: Temps should be warm through March. After that, who knows?

03/20/2012 :: Pesticides get undue blame in honey bee decline

Despite a growing worldwide clamor to ban pesticides linked to honey bee deaths, multiple factors contribute to the declining honey bee population, not just one class of insecticides, says Extension Apiculturist and noted honey bee expert Eric Mussen of the UC Davis Department of Entomology.

Speaking on honey bee health at the 51st annual meeting of the international Society of Toxicology and ToxExpo, held in San Francisco, Mussen said “no specific culprit” causes colony collapse disorder (CCD), a mysterious malady characterized by adult bees abandoning the hive, leaving behind the queen, her brood, and honey and pollen stores.

Multiple factors affecting colony health include “pathogens, parasites, pesticides and malnutrition,” he told the society, which is comprised of 7,500 scientists from academia, government, and industry from various countries around the globe.

“Pesticide residues have been found in beeswax, stored pollens and adult bees,” Mussen said in his abstract.  Bee scientists are “also looking at the synergistic interactions among pesticides, including adjuvants mixed into the pesticides and investigating  everything from bacteria, fungi, viruses, malnutrition, transportation of migratory bees, impact of pollen from genetically modified plants, and effects of exposure to irradiation.”

“None of these factors explains why 25 percent of beekeepers continue to lose 40 to 100 percent of their colonies annually,” Mussen declared.

Banned in some European countries is the class of insecticides known as neonicotinoids, which act on the central nervous system of insects, Mussen said, but scientific studies show that despite the ban, the bee population continues to suffer significant annual losses.
Neonicotinoids, or systematic pesticides, are applied as seed or soil treatments, and also directly to the foliage of vegetable, orchard, field, turf and ornamental crops.

According to Mussen, colony losses are not new. Prior to the arrival of tracheal (Acarapis woodi) in 1984 and varroa (Varroa destructor) mites in 1987,  annual colony losses averaged around 5 to 10 percent, he said. “To control mites, most beekeepers place acaricides in their hives. Since then, queen longevity, colony health and vigor have declined in many operations and colony losses increased to about 15 to 20 percent.”

CCD, so-named in 2006, first surfaced in 2004 when approximately 25 percent of the nation’s beekeepers noted that apparently healthy colonies very quickly lost all adult bees, except the queen and a few newly emerged workers that soon perished, Mussen said.

“All stages of brood were present, and stores of honey and pollens were abundant,” he said. “In the few remaining adult bee specimens, titers of the fungus (Nosema ceranae) and one or more RNA viruses were very high. While appearing similar to losses induced by extremely heavy varroa mite infestations, neither bees with shriveled wings nor copious varroa fecal spots were observed.”

The resulting media attention prompted governmental agencies to provide extra funding for honey bee research. “That research provided a greater insight into the parameters of honey bee health,” he said.
 
The honey bee’s immune system is “meager” compared to that of a fruit fly or mosquito, he said.

Mussen, in a recent talk at a UC Cooperative Extension seminar in Woodland, advocated that the bee toxicity tests conducted by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the California Department of Pesticide Regulation (DPR) “be of a longer time frame.”  Current regulations “specify that they be completed in 96 hours, which is too short of a time period to see what happens to the bees.”

“Sublethal effects are not required, chronic exposure to sublethal effects is not required and synergism is not studied,” he said.

“Synergies easily could be the biggest problem,” Mussen said. “Coumaphos (an acaricide used for mite control) knocks the daylight out of queens when it’s in the pollen.  “Fluvalinate (synthetic pyrethoid commonly used to control varroa mites) synergizes Coumaphos, and vice versa.”

Mussen cautioned that adjuvants can be toxic. “Adjuvants seem to make non-toxic fungicides toxic to honey bee brood, especially the organosilicone ‘superspreaders,’” he said. “The superspreader  can penetrate the waxy cuticle of leaves, such as Eucalyptus leaves. And the waxy cuticle is the No. 1 bee protection.”

Also at the Cooperative Extension seminar, Mussen called for greater genetic diversity in the honey bee and a loosening of the “genetic bottleneck” in the United States. “Unlike dogs and horses, there are no pedigree bees and no papers, he said.  “There are few true breeding lines, but they include the New World Carniolans (developed by bee breeder-geneticist Susan Cobey of  UC Davis), Russians, Minnesota Hygienic, and the Varroa Sensitive Hygiene.”

“Most breeders simply select from last season’s best performing stock,” he said. They breed for certain company traits, such as color, gentleness and brood pattern.”

Mussen pointed out that in 1922 the United States closed the door to live bees entering our country” due to fears of an incoming pest, the tracheal mite.

The tracheal mite eventually found its way to the United States in 1984, he said. “We couldn’t prevent it from coming in forever. It killed half of our nation’s bees in five years as it expanded across the country. Then the varroa mite arrived in 1987, and killed half of the remaining colonies in five years as it expanded across the country. This one practically killed all of our feral colonies in 1995-1996. It made a really big dent in our gene pool.”

Mussen described the varroa mite as “Beekeeping Enemy No. 1.” Mite feeding lowers the pupal blood protein, resulting in underweight bees and a shortened life span, he said. It suppresses the honey bee immune system. And third, the mite is a vector for RNA virus diseases.

Of the viral diseases affecting the honey bee, RNA viruses are the most prevalent. “We have 20 known and named viruses, and more are coming,” Mussen said. Some of the viral diseases are shared with bumble bees, wasps, ants, other native bees and other unrelated species of insects.

Asked what the average person can do to help the bees, Mussen said that a wide mix of pollen is essential for honey bee nutrition, and “they’re not getting that any more. Plant bee attractive plants. Each colony needs the equivalent of one acre of bloom every day to survive.”

What about the role of genetically modified plants in bee health, he was asked. “They don’t appear to be a problem. One modified corn variety seemed to affect honey bees in lab studies,  but it’s not being grown anymore. The honey bees don’t care if it’s genetically modified or not.”

As for viruses, “The harder we look, the more we find,” Mussen said

03/19/2012 :: ARS lab celebrates 100 years of research this year

03/13/2012 :: Top 7 ingredients for 300-bushel corn

The ability to produce 300-bu. corn rests on seven factors, according to Fred Below, professor of plant physiology at the University of Illinois. Below saw his first field of 300-bu. corn 25 years ago and has since studied the factors that contribute most to high-yielding corn. Here is Below’s list, which he calls the “Seven wonders of high-yield corn production,” starting with the ones that affect corn yield the most.

1. Weather

Weather is the biggest factor affecting crop yield. Below says that on its own, weather will add or subtract 70 bu./acre or more.

 2. Nitrogen

Nitrogen applied correctly has the potential to affect corn yield almost as much as the weather, Below maintains. Combined, nitrogen and weather account for more than half of a corn crop’s yield. Also important in producing high-yield corn is a complete fertility package, including potassium and phosphorus, which are often left out of standard corn production. Below puts a 70-bu./acre impact on this factor.

3. Hybrid selection

The most important decision a grower can make is what hybrid to select, especially now that seed contains more new biotech traits, which create major yield differences among hybrids. Below theorizes that by removing the damage caused by insects, plants are more able to reach their full growth potential. He suggests a 50-bu./acre difference in yield due to hybrid selection.

4. Previous crop

If corn is grown after corn, there is a yield penalty of about 25 bu./acre, unless the weather cooperates, Below says. If the weather is not ideal, then the high levels of corn residue will tie up nitrogen and create smaller plants and smaller ears. Rotating corn with soybean crops will alleviate this problem. Below says his research found that yield penalty gets worse each year of continuous corn.

5. Plant population

Below says most farmers give up some yield because they do not plant populations that are high enough for their 30-in. rows. Other ways to increase plant populations is to switch from 30-in. to 20- or 15-in. rows. Because this requires a major equipment investment, Below is researching twin rows on 7½-in. centers with plants staggered. Under this system, plants are 7 ½ in. away from other plants, which reduces competition for nutrients. This system requires a planter change. Below gives plant population a 20-bu./acre yield factor.

6. Tillage

Tillage does not affect yield as much as farmers think. But it is a big factor in saving soil. Tillage has a 15-bu./acre impact.

7. Growth regulators

Below calls this his catch-all category because it includes packaging five independent factors that affect corn yield into one: fungicide to protect a high-performing corn crop; a triple-stack hybrid; 45,000 plant population/acre; extra phosphate, sulfur and zinc to support high-performing hybrids; and a stabilized nitrogen product. He gives this category a 10-bu./acre advantage

Karen McMahon   Farm Industry News

 

 

03/07/2011 :: 5 Tips For Corn Weed Management | Start With a Clean Field – Then Control Weeds Early as They Reach 4 Inches

 

The early weeds in corn are too small to hurt anything, right?

Wrong. Very wrong, according to Corn Belt weed scientists.

“Early season weed control is vital to both future yields and profitability, because early weed flushes compete intensely with corn for both nitrogen (N) and water,” says Jeff Gunsolus, University of Minnesota Extension weed scientist. “Dense weeds can also shade soils and make them cooler so that corn grows more slowly.”

Okay, but exactly when does early season weed control need to be done before it’s too late to stop yield loss?

“Assuming you have started with a clean field, the most competitive weeds in corn will be about 3-4 in. high when corn reaches the V3-V4 growth stage,” says Gunsolus. “If you don’t remove those 3-4-in. weeds promptly, you’ll be losing about 3 bu./acre for every day you delay. Our studies over three years show corn lost between 12-13 bu./acre within the first week and 27-29 bu./acre within the second week if weeds were allowed to remain in the field after they reached 4 in. in height.”

Such a big yield loss early in the season could mean the difference between making or losing money, says Lowell Sandell, University of Nebraska Extension weed scientist. “Depending on soil moisture and fertility levels, waiting to control weeds until corn reaches the V3-V4 growth stage can push you over the economic threshold for profitability,” Sandell says. “At about 4-6-in.-tall corn and weeds, that’s when you typically pass the breakeven mark and start losing money to lost yields from weed pressure after factoring in the cost of the herbicide application.”

Especially in corn, profitable weed control is all about timing, agrees Aaron Hager, University of Illinois Extension weed scientist, but that’s not everything a farmer needs to keep in mind to ensure successful weed control, he adds. Hager, Sandell and Gunsolus, provide the following five tips to help guide farmers towards more profitable corn weed management:

Start clean. A clean field at planting is essential for starting the corn crop off right, says Hager. “This can be achieved by using tillage, herbicides or some combination of the two,” he says.

Sandell recommends using a burndown with residual chemistry that is targeted to the specific weed spectrum for each field. “Use of a soil-residual herbicide will help to both start the crop off clean and to manage the field for any potential glyphosate-resistant weeds, such as waterhemp and giant ragweed, or to reduce the potential development of these and other herbicide-resistant weed biotypes,” he says.

Reduce your risk

Reduce your risk. “A total postemergence program is the most risky weed-control system, because the timing of a postemergence herbicide application is almost completely up to Mother Nature, and no one can control the weather,” points out Hager. “Instead, try using an integrated program with some soil-residual products. Also, farmers could consider a split application of an early preplant treatment followed either by a pre-emergence or a postemergence treatment to provide more consistent weed control than a single, early preplant application.”

A pre-emergence herbicide application will help keep late-emerging weeds small and uniform enough in height to boost odds for success when following up with a postemergence treatment, points out Gunsolus. “Using a pre-emergence herbicide buys you more time to apply your postemergence herbicide for optimal weed control,” he says.

In addition, a pre-emergence herbicide can be an especially good investment with irrigation, which ensures moisture is available at the right time to activate the chemistry, says Sandell. “With dryland corn in Nebraska, using a residual pre-emergence program will still be beneficial in reducing potential problems with glyphosate-resistant weeds, even if a lack of rainfall delays activation past the ideal time for starting corn out in clean fields,” he says.

Pay attention to timing. “Your main management focus should be on controlling those early weeds,” says Gunsolus. “Our research in Minnesota, and more comprehensive research in Wisconsin, shows that at about the V3-V4 stage, if weeds aren’t removed, fields will suffer an average 3 bu./acre/day yield loss up until the end of June. In fact, farmers should plan to have all their weed control completed by the fourth of July.”

Timing is important for both post- and pre-emergent applications, adds Hager. “For pre-emergent herbicide applications, try to time them closer to when you plant, especially if you have a weed spectrum in the field that can emerge later in the season, such as waterhemp.”

Weeds that re-infest after an initial herbicide application can also be very competitive, and Hager recommends being vigilant to control these later weed flushes, if necessary, while they are also still small.

Be careful with reduced rates. Many farmers run reduced herbicide rates of soil-residual herbicides to save costs, says Hager. “However, with reduced rates, you may be setting the product up to fail earlier, depending on weather conditions and weed pressure. Using a full, or a nearly full rate based on soil type often provides an extended period of weed control that you don’t always have with reduced rates.”

Gunsolus agrees. “Especially in the postemergence arena, good early season weed control has a lot to do with proper timing and not skimping on rates,” he says. “Also, when you do postemergence weed control, make sure you don’t go too fast and check to make sure you’re getting good spray coverage on weeds.”

Scout and reassess. After each weed-control practice, farmers should scout fields and evaluate how well their treatment worked and whether or not a remedial treatment might be needed, advises Gunsolus.

Late Weed Control Leads To Wasted N

Want to make sure your corn crop makes the best use of all the nitrogen (N) it can? Then you’d better control weeds early, say experts from Minnesota and Wisconsin.

“Early season yield loss is due largely to weeds that sequester about 30-45 lbs. of N/acre out of the field from planting time up until about the end of June,” says Jeff Gunsolus, University of Minnesota Extension weed scientist. “You don’t get that N back during the season after your weeds are controlled. So, it’s much better to kill the weeds early than to be in the situation where you need to add more N to a field where weeds have sequestered it.”

Early weeds consume a costly amount of N out of the soil, and farmers may be unable to compensate for that nutrient loss by adding additional N later, agrees Carrie Laboski, University of Wisconsin Extension soil scientist. “The bottom line on our two-year study is that N fertilizer is more efficiently used when weeds are controlled pre-emergence or at a 4-in. weed height compared to waiting until weeds are 12 in. tall,” she says. “The economic return on your investment in N fertilizer and herbicide is maximized when weeds are controlled early.” 

03/09/2012 :: Insurance Prices Set For 2012

The crop insurance pricing mechanism was finalized at the beginning of March. The numbers are very favorable for both oil and confection sunflowers. The USDA’s Risk Management Agency (RMA) has announced crop insurance policy price elections for the 2012 crop year. The price election for oil-type sunflowers will be  $28.20 / cwt. The price for non-oil sunflowers will be $35.70. Soybeans can be insured at $12.55 / bushel and the canola price election is $23.70 / cwt.

03/02/2012 :: Farm panel gives insider’s view on farm bill, NASS data

02/28/2012 :: Drainage design

WAHPETON, N.D. — All right, so you’re installing tile drainage to improve yields on your farm.

Now you might want to think about adding tools for drainage water management, said Gary Sands, an associate professor and engineer from the University of Minnesota-St. Paul, who spoke Feb. 22 in Wahpeton at one of the drainage design workshops organized by the extension services at North Dakota State University, South Dakota State University and the University of Minnesota.

“This is kind of an add-on practice to a traditional way of doing subsurface drainage, or tile drainage,” Sands said.

It is essentially a box, separating intake and out-flow tiles. The box has a set of panels or boards in the middle, which can be inserted or removed to essentially raise the water table level — often to conserve moisture, or even to keep more nitrogen in the soil profile. Inserting the boards causes the water table to rise on the inflow side.

The technique is about 40 years old. It was pioneered in North Carolina and used in coastal plains soils. It came to the Midwest about 15 years ago, but interest has grown in the past five years.

“We’re on the bubble right now,” Sands said. “We’re at the point where many of the systems are being designed with this practice in mind. We don’t have a great deal of implementation of the practice.” He knows a handful of Minnesota farmers who are using the practice, but more adoption is taking place in Iowa, Indiana, Illinois and other states.

The practice is a natural for the Red River Valley, Sands said. “When your fields are relatively flat, you don’t need very many of these structures,” he said. “Sometimes only one if a field is quite flat.” The box structures range in price from $500 to $2,000 each, depending on the size. “The larger the tile, the larger the structure is going to be,” he says.

A farmer might wish to scale back from full drainage during the times of the year when he doesn’t need it. For example, the farmers need complete drainage in the spring and fall when they are in the fields and need good, trafficable soil. “But in the middle of the growing season, where we’re not out there with machinery, and we could use a little extra water, we could use these structures to reduce the amount of drainage,” Sands said. “Similarly, in the off-season, once we’re finished in the fall, before we go into the fields in the spring, we don’t need to have a water table down at the depth of the tile. We can even have a shallower water table at those times of the year.”

Sands said he doesn’t think the practice will have a positive or negative impact on flooding, but notes there is an opportunity to capture water in the soil profile in the spring, should there be available pore space in the soil, and not let it leave the field.

Hot drainage topic

Tom Scherer, an NDSU extension agricultural engineer who specializes in irrigation and drainage issues, is one of a team of experts who first organized tile drainage design workshops — a cooperative project between NDSU and the University of Minnesota. The workshops started in 1998 in Crookston, Minn., but more consistent interest has grown in the past decade, and spread into South Dakota in the past few years.

The workshops are two, two-day repeated events, each with a 50-person capacity. The leaders walk through five design processes with special topics on new technology and safety placed between. “We could have probably had 70 in each of these,” Scherer said, noting that some that couldn’t get into sessions in the Dakotas will be attending a Mankato, Minn., session.

About half of the attendees are looking at how to do tiling on their own, but contractors and vendors also attend.

In Wahpeton, they talked about sources for soil information. In the Red River Valley there is LIDAR (light imaging detecting and ranging) topographical data available on computers.

No one knows exactly how much tiling activity is going on in the Red River Valley. In 1998, there was one tile plow at Brooks, Minn., Scherer said. Ellingson Drainage came in 2000 for the first time. Today, Ellingson has seven or eight plows, two other companies have three or four plows each. Other contractors are working in the area and numerous farmers have bought plows. “About the only way you could do it accurately is poll the guys who make the tile to see how many thousand feet they’ve sold,” he said.

Scherer said he’s heard of some cases where farmers who started installing their own tile did it improperly, possibly getting their information word-of-mouth. One of those basics, for example, is to start tiling at the outlet.

A bigger mistake, is failing to be safe.

Dying for drainage?

Jim Walker, from New Prague, Minn., is business and safety manager for Barnett Bros. Inc. in Kilkenny, Minn., midway between Fairibault and Mankato. He spoke about safety issues on behalf of the Minnesota Land Improvement Contractors Association.

What is the biggest mistake farmers make?

“They feel they’re invincible,” Walker said. “They haven’t taken any safety training. They’re starting to do this tiling on their own, so they feel they can purchase this tiling machine on their own.” He said farmers are basically safe people but also entrepreneurial “risk-takers,” temperamentally.

Walker said a typical mistake is a lack of care at the start of a project. A tiling project starts with a main line installation, which is done with an excavator, not a tile plow. “They generally aren’t familiar enough with soil types to bench (slope) the soil back sufficiently,” to ensure that it doesn’t cave in on whoever is going to be down in the trench,” Walker said.

Another mistake is that they think a shallow trench — say five feet deep — doesn’t create any danger, so there isn’t any need to bench it back, or slope it. “But the gentleman bends over to make a connection and now he is below the top of the soil, creating that vulnerability,” Walker said. Four years ago a man was killed in Le Sueur County.

Farmers tend not to make people wear brightly-colored safety vests, which help prevent machine operators from hitting them. Most don’t realize the damage cell-crushing soil can have on people who are even partially buried but rescued, and they need to be prepared to warn emergency workers who may not be familiar with that type of accident.

Another common danger is failing to put the spoil bank, or excavated material, far enough away from the edge of the trench, so that chunks can’t tumble in.

Just this past January, a 20-year-old South Dakota State University student home for a weekend on a farm near Lakefield, Minn., was in a trench repairing a main line on a field drain next to a county highway. The victim and an uncle were at the bottom of the trench, the father was on top with a backhoe. The young man bent over to pick up a “T” to make a connection, and the trench caved in and killed him through suffocation and crushing, even though it was only five feet deep. In Walker’s demonstration, he notes that a cubic foot of soil weighs 3,000 pounds and has as much mass as some pickup trucks.

One perennial issue discussed in the hallways at the event was about whether tile drainage affects flooding in the Red River Valley.

More research might help, Scherer said. There has been lots of research from April to November, but there is less information about how flows in this area are affected by weather factors — a killing frost, precipitation, spring thaw timing. “We don’t have a very good idea of when they flow, what do they respond to, the timing, because it’s all dependent on when do we get snow, when does it thaw, when does the tile start flowing,” Scherer says.

With this year’s mild temperatures, some farmers in the Brookings, S.D., area were installing tile in early February, Scherer said, chuckling. “There’s no frost. How strange is that?”

02/22/2012 :: Crop insurance decisions to consider for 2012

(Kent Thiesse, Farm Management Analyst and Vice President, MinnStar Bank)

During the next few weeks, many farm operators will be finalizing their crop insurance decisions for the 2012 crop year. 

March 15 is the deadline to purchase crop insurance for the 2012 crop year.

The Common Crop Insurance Policy (COMBO) was introduced in the 2011 crop year, and will continue for the 2012 crop year. The COMBO insurance policy options are actually a simplification of the many and varied crop insurance choices that existed previously for individual policies.

Yield Protection (YP) Insurance Policies

YP policies provide protection from yield losses only.

The Price Guarantee for YP policies for corn is the average settlement price for December CBOT corn futures in February, and for soybeans is the average settlement price for November soybean futures in February.

Producers may select coverage ranging from 50 percent to 85 percent of the APH or "actual production history" ("proven yield") to arrive at a "yield guarantee."

Soybean Example - 50 Bu./Acre APH x 80 percent = 40.0 Bu./Acre guarantee

Replant and prevented planting coverage apply to YP policies.

Indemnity payments are calculated by subtracting the harvest yield on a "farm unit" from the yield guarantee and multiplying times the YP market price minus the crop insurance premium.

Soybean Example - 40.0 Bu./Acre guarantee and 30.0 Bu./Acre harvest yield.

(40.0 Bu./A. - 30.0 Bu./Acre) = 10.0 Bu./A. x $12.25Bu. - $16.00/Acre = $106.50/Acre.

Revenue Protection (RP & RPE) Insurance Policies

The Revenue Protection (RP) and Revenue Protection with Harvest Price Exclusion (RPE) insurance policies function essentially in the same manner, except that the RPE policies are not affected by harvest prices. In this discussion, the focus will be primarily on the RP policies, since they are most popular for Midwest corn and soybean producers.

The yield guarantee (APH), "farm unit" determinations, insurance coverage selections (50 percent to 85 percent), replant, and prevented planting coverage, etc. for RP and RPE insurance policies are the same as for YP policies.

Following is how RP and RPE "Price Guarantees" are calculated: (All prices are based on Chicago Board of Trade (CBOT) Futures prices, and not cash prices.)

Corn
Base Price for RP and RPE policies is the average settlement price for December CBOT corn futures during the month of February.

Harvest Price for RP policies is the average settlement price for December CBOT corn futures in October during the year of harvest.

Limit: The Harvest Price maximum for RP is limited to the Base Price times 200 percent.

(Example - $5.70/Bu. Base Price x 2.00 = $11.40/Bu. maximum).

There are no restrictions regarding downside price movement.

Soybeans
Base Price for RP and RPE policies is the average settlement price for November soybean futures during the month of February.

Harvest Price for RP policies is the average settlement price for November CBOT corn futures in October during the year of harvest.

Limit: The Harvest Price maximum for RP is limited to the Base Price times 200 percent.

(Example - $12.25/Bu. Base Price x 2.00 = $24.50/Bu. maximum).

There are no restrictions regarding downside price movement.

2012 YP, RP and RPE Base Prices will be finalized on March 1, 2012.

As of Jan. 27, 2012, the prices are estimated at:

Corn - $ 5.70 per bushel.

Soybeans - $12.25 per bushel.

The higher of the Base Price or the Harvest Price is used to calculate revenue guarantee per acre for RP policies, and the Harvest Price is also used to determine the value of the harvested crop for both RP and RPE policies.

RP (80 percent Policy) Corn Crop Loss Example - (190 Bu./Acre APH; 152 Bu./A. Guarantee; and 150 Bu./Acre Harvest Yield;

$5.70/Bu. CBOT Base Price; and $5.00/Bu. CBOT Harvest Price); $30/Acre Premium.

Revenue Guarantee = 152 Bu./Acre x $5.70/Bu. = $866.40/ Acre.

Harvested Crop Value = 150 Bu./A. X $5.00/ Bu. = $750.00/Acre.

Indemnity Payment = $866.40/A. - $750.00/A. - $30.00.A. = $ 86.40/Acre\.

A reputable crop insurance agent is the best source of information to find out more details of the various coverage plans, to learn more about the TA-APH endorsement, to get premium quotes, and to help finalize 2012 Crop Insurance decisions.

Following are some very good web sites with crop insurance information:

University of Illinois FarmDoc: http://www.farmdoc.uiuc.edu/

Iowa State Univ. Ag Decision Maker: http://www.extension.iastate.edu/agdm/

USDA Risk Management Agency (RMA): http://www.rma.usda.gov/

02/20/2012 :: Soybean cyst nematode continue to march further into ND

JAMESTOWN, N.D. - Soybean cyst nematodes continue to advance in North Dakota, according to Sam Markell, NDSU Extension plant pathologist.

Markell delivered a 'good news/bad news message' to producers who had gathered for the 'Getting it Right' soybean production meeting held in Jamestown on Jan. 27.

The good news part of the message was that producers can live with SCN and still produce good soybean crops even though their fields are infected. The bad news was eventually all of the soybean production area in the state will be infected with SCN.

"In the short term and in the long term, this is going to be our biggest management problem for soybeans," Markell said. "The one thing I will tell you over and over again is management of SCN is based on keeping their egg levels low. That is the most important thing."

SCN is the most costly soybean disease in the United States and it's caused by a parasitic worm. He said there are two important factors growers need to know about SCN.

You can take a fairly significant yield hit, in the range of 15 to 30 percent, before you see above ground symptoms.

"This is something they call the 'sleeper' in a lot of areas because the growers don't notice it right away. When you start to see it, you already have problems," he said.

"Once you have a SCN problem you own it, you can't get rid of it. You can use crop rotation to get the levels down, but you can't work yourself out of it," he continued. "It is something you have to manage for the rest of the time you grow soybeans."

SCN was introduced into North Carolina around 1955 and in about 50 years it has spread to everywhere they raise soybeans in the U.S., according to Markell. It first showed up in North Dakota in Richland County in 2005. This past year, soil surveys funded by the N.D. Soybean Council has shown the SCN has spread to several counties in the state.

"Anything that moves soil can move a cyst," he said. "The biggest way it spreads throughout the U.S. is on equipment that has soil on it, whether it's a pickup, tillage equipment, combine or tractor."

There are two other ways SCN can move - by wind and water. Markell said when soil blows around there could be cysts in that soil, since they are that light. Water, including flood waters, can also move cysts. He attributes the fact that SCN has been detected in Pembina County to the fact that they were moved north along the Red River by flood waters.

"I would say that SCN is North Dakota's problem right now," he said. "It's not widespread and at high levels in a lot of these areas right now. In fact, I would say a majority in this room probably doesn't have it now, but the majority in this room will get it. If we are on the front end of this problem we can manage it."

Soil testing is the place to start.

Markell suggests growers should start soil testing to see if they have SCN eggs present, and they should check the 'hot spots' in the field. These would include field entrances where equipment comes in; low spots, since cysts move with water; fence rows and tree rows where wind borne cysts may have been deposited; or areas of the field where the soybeans appear to be stunted or yellow compared to the rest of the field.

Right before or after harvest is the best time to sample, and many samples should be taken, since a higher number of samples gives a more accurate picture. Those soil samples can be sent to one of several labs in the region that perform SCN tests.

Markell stressed growers don't want to see high SCN egg counts develop in their fields once it's determined SCN eggs are present. There are two ways to keep egg counts under control: planting SCN resistant soybean varieties and crop rotation.

Management practices to control SCN numbers.

Resistant varieties cause the female SCN, which cause all the damage, to be uncomfortable and thus causing them to not attach themselves to the soybean plant roots, Markell explained.

Resistant varieties may also induce a lot of hatching on the cysts in the ground, which will also aid in lowering the numbers. This resistance comes from sources of resistance and not resistant genes as is the case in many other crops. As a result, SCN-resistant varieties can vary considerably in how well they control nematode population densities.

"With a good resistant variety hopefully you can keep your egg levels the same, or maybe they will even be reduced a little bit," he said.

Crop rotation is also important, not only for control of SCN, but other soybean diseases as well. Markell said a crop rotation plan should be a part of the soybean management program, whether you have SCN or not. For those with SCN their rotation plan should include non-host crops and resistant soybean varieties.

Non-host crops grown in this region include: alfalfa, barley, canola, corn, forage grasses, oats, field peas, sugarbeets and wheat. He noted that dry edible beans are a good host for the SCN and will do nothing to help lower SCN numbers, but rather increase them.

"Getting a different crop in there every other year is very important,"he said.

Will seed treatments help?

Trials have been conducted over the past two years in evaluating two new nematicide seed treatments - Votivo by Bayer CropScience, and Avicta by Syngenta. Avicta is a chemical that kills nematodes, Markell noted, while Votivo is actually a bacteria that is supposed to establish bacterial colonies on the soybean roots that will make the SCN uncomfortable enough to avoid attaching themselves to the soybean root.

"The jury is still out on the effectiveness of these products," he said. "We're going to do this again next year. We don't have enough data, either positive or negative, to make recommendations."

The take home message from Markell's presentation was, "We can manage this. This is not something that's going to eat our lunch, unless we don't pay attention. But, we can manage this."

By DALE HILDEBRANT Farm & Ranch Guide

02/16/2012 :: 5 Tips to Help Corn, Soybean Growers Plan for Spring Drought

Source: University of Minnesota Extension

A drought threat posed across southern and western Minnesota is the most serious in over a decade, according to University of Minnesota Extension Climatologist Mark Seeley. Climate outlooks currently favor more rain than normal this spring across much of the state, but it might not be enough, Seeley says: "Many areas are so deficient in stored soil moisture they will need 150-200% of normal rainfall during March and April to make up the difference."

Here are some measures farmers should consider for a planting-season drought:

Consider crop insurance. Producers who take out a loan for inputs are usually required to buy crop insurance. Kent Olson, Extension economist, says others will want to strongly consider it this year. March 15 is the standard deadline for finalizing a plan with your agent for crop insurance.

2. If soils remain dry, planting season could arrive early. Jeff Coulter, Extension corn agronomist, recommends that growers avoid planting corn before April 18 to reduce the risk of frost damage to young corn plants.

3. Conserve moisture in the seed zone. Uniform emergence is important for corn. This requires good seed-to-soil contact and adequate moisture in the seed zone, according to Coulter. If dry conditions persist at planting, he advises growers to prepare seed beds close to planting and avoid unnecessary tillage passes.

4. Consider pre-emergence herbicides to reduce weed competition with corn and soybean, since yield loss due to early-season weed competition is greatest in dry years. According to Jeff Gunsolus, Extension weed scientist, most pre-emergence herbicides are activated with just ½ in. of rainfall. This is similar to the amount needed to stimulate early-season weed flushes. Even if dry weather follows a pre-emergence herbicide, it can still be activated by later rainfall.

5. Target post-emergence herbicide applications to small weeds that are no taller than 2 in., Gunsolus says. Larger weeds are more difficult to control if they are drought stressed and they also compete more with corn and soybean for water and nutrients.

Find more information on drought preparation at

www.extension.umn.edu/drought.

02/15/2012 :: Putting 300-Bushel Corn Within Reach

In 1985, Herman Warsaw produced 300 bushels of corn per acre on his farm near Saybrook, Ill. Although production technologies have advanced, corn growers still are chasing the elusive yield of 300-bushels.

Fred Below, Ph.D., was part of that high-yield program as a student more than a quarter-century ago. As a professor of crop physiology at the University of Illinois, he is convinced that regularly producing 300-bushel corn is not only possible but necessary. "I have tried ever since and haven’t seen 300 bushels since then, but I’ve learned about factors that affect crop yield," he said. "We need to feed and fuel a growing population with less land area."

Below has spent his career not only identifying but also quantifying and ranking the key factors that determine corn yield (see box, below). His work is invaluable to growers as they evaluate which new products and practices contribute to yield. Below has studied these factors in multiple seasons and environmental conditions across the state of Illinois, using both grower standards and a high-tech package of crop inputs (see sidebar, below).

He calls the results of his research, "The Seven Wonders of the Corn Yield World." Following is a summary of these seven factors, along with their contribution to yield in bushels.

1.　 Weather

Unfortunately, one of the two most important factors in determining yield also is the one that growers have the least control over."Weather can be a blessing or a curse, making life easy or decimating all your hard work," Below said. "On its own, weather contributes 70 bushels or more per acre, or 27 percent value of total yield. Weather is the main factor in making you look like a good farmer or spoiling all of your management."

2.　 Nitrogen

By contrast, nitrogen is the No. 1 factor that growers can control. "If used correctly, it has almost the same value as weather," Below said. "Weather and nitrogen combined account for more than half of the crop yield."The interaction of nitrogen and weather also plays a vital role."As a rule, the higher you are on the wonder list, the more control you exert over those wonders below you," he said. "Every single thing about the use of nitrogen is influenced by the weather—not only the ability to apply it, but whether the N is lost or available, and how well the crop can use it."

Nitrogen loss can occur immediately after application through volatilization, and denitrification and leaching can happen after the nitrogen is incorporated. To control nitrogen loss, Below protects his N with Agrotain nitrogen stabilizer products, including SuperU fertilizer, in the high-tech package. The grower-standard package uses untreated urea.

"By preventing the loss of nitrogen from too much rainfall, we can actually realize the benefit of that application in a higher yield," Below said. "Most farmers, if the price is right, put a little extra nitrogen on, just so that if the weather cooperates, they have that help available."But to say it’s under their control is a bit misleading, because weather has such a big impact on nitrogen use."

3.　 Hybrid selection

Matching the right hybrid to the agronomic conditions is more challenging than ever in the age of biotechnology. "I’m really surprised at the impact that the biotech has had on yield potential, apparently by removing the damage by insects," Below said. "This allows the plant to achieve some of its full growth potential. By protecting the investment that the plant already has made into the root system, this allows the plant to take up more water, more mineral nutrients and allows you to have more plants per area."

4.　 Previous crop

Residue from continuous corn crops will reduce yields each year that corn is grown. However, rotating with soybeans produces corn crops with better vigor and higher yields."If we grow corn after corn, there is a yield penalty, which sometimes can be mitigated by more N and more favorable weather," Below said. "You have plants of smaller size and ears of smaller size than you would normally see in first-year corn."

Contrary to popular belief, that penalty increases over the years. "The conventional wisdom, what I call rural legend, was that the yield penalty was worse in the first year, and each year that you were in continuous corn, the penalty became less," he said. "Actually, the data shows that it’s exactly the opposite. The penalty actually gets worse each year you’re in continuous corn, and the reason is that the penalty is due to the residue of previous corn."

5.　 Plant population

Below has experimented with twin-row planting that allows growers to boost plant populations without having to invest in new combines and other pieces of equipment. In previous years, a 7½-inch twin-row system seemed to be ideal for nutrient placement and water management.  "A lot of farmers give up a little yield, I believe, because they are not quite at the populations they need to be," he said. "Plant population is an important component of high-yield systems, but it must be managed."

One way to increase populations is by reducing row spacing from 30 inches to 20 or 15 inches, but this would require all new equipment. Planting in 7½-inch twin rows removes plant-to-plant competition, and the band in the center is an excellent location for nutrients and water. But added heat buildup within the rows in 2011may have made this approach less effective.

6.　 Tillage

Reduced tillage is good for the environment and helps cut expenses, but it has a limited role in increasing yields. "It’s not as big of a factor in yield as farmers think," Below said. "But it does play an important role in saving soil and retaining valuable moisture and nutrients."

7.　 Growth regulators

The use of fungicides to enhance plant health is a relatively new practice.  "Growth regulators, as the name implies, are compounds that regulate growth in a positive manner," Below said. "The example I use is the greening of leaves and health performance you will see from a strobilurin fungicide and a yield increase, often in the absence of disease. Where I see the fungicide work almost every time is in the high-tech system, where the high-yield potential warrants protection from disease. I have no doubt that fungicide is part of a high-yield package."

8.　 Unknown factors

If growers optimize The Seven Wonders of the Corn Yield World, their yield would be about 260 bushels per acre, still short of the objective.  "Now, 260 is a far cry from 300, so how are we going to use the seven-wonder concept to grow 300 bushels?" Below asked. "I believe the answer is better soil fertility, combined with a package of factors that we know will individually affect yield."  Many farmers can do a better job with the prerequisites such as improved drainage and better managed pest and weed control, which are important but don’t necessarily directly add yield, he said. Below also believes a combination of good practices can be greater than the sum of the parts.

"Our hope is that within that package we would get a greater yield increase from the synergistic value than we would from any factor alone," he said. "I think it’s a pretty exciting time for corn yield. By being able to combine known factors together, we can make a giant leap in yield."

For more information about maximizing corn yield, please visit www.7wondersofcorn.com.

(10 bushels) (15 bushels) (20 bushels) (25 bushels) (50 bushels) (70 bushels) (70+ bushels)

This article was provided by Agrotain.

02/14/2012 :: Developing nations leap ahead in GMO race

Farmers in developing nations will sow more biotech crops than those in the industrialized world for the first time this year, with Brazil leading the charge, according to a report issued on Tuesday that showed steady growth in the use of genetically modified seeds.

Use in developing nations continued to grow faster than in the United States, still the biggest market by a wide margin. GMO area in developing countries rose by 11 percent or 8.2 million hectares. Growth in the United States, which grows about 43 percent of the world's GMO crops, slowed to 3 percent.

(A full copy of the report can be found here: www.isaaa.org)

Biotech crops were planted by 16.7 million farmers in 29 countries, up from 15.4 million farmers in the same number of countries in 2010, according to the ISAAA.

The global value of biotech seed alone was $13.2 billion in 2011, with the end product of commercial grain from biotech maize, soybean grain and cotton valued at $160 billion or more per year, according to the ISAAA.

From Reuters

02/13/2012 :: Is a Substantial CRP Shift Coming to Corn, Soybean Acres in 2012?

Kent Politsch, UDSA's Farm Service Agency (FSA) public affairs branch chief, confirms that last year's CRP re-enrollment has lagged since contracts expired in September. During 2011, 4.4 million CRP contract acres expired, 2.7 million acres were either re-enrolled or newly enrolled, leaving 1.4 million fewer CRP acres at the start of 2012 that could be planted to crops, he states. However, new CRP general signups are being scheduled between March 12 and April 6 that could make up for that deficit, he adds.

Still, the 6.5 million CRP acres set to expire this year, plus the 1.4-million-acre CRP deficit leftover from last year, represents nearly one-fourth of the 32-million national CRP enrollment cap, according to FSA data. With the sheer volume of CRP acres still in question this year, the impact on corn, soybean and wheat markets, this year and next, could be significant, says Chad Hart, Iowa State University agricultural economist. He adds that these markets are already highly volatile, due to current global uncertainties about stocks, weather scares, and crop size for 2012 and beyond.

"The bulk of the CRP land is in the Great Plains," points out Hart. "Both Texas and North Dakota will each have more than 800,000 acres come out in September 2012," he says. "So, the first crop that CRP might go into would be wheat, not corn. In these states, we might see the Wheat Belt shift a few counties farther west and the Corn and Soybean Belt might also shift a couple counties farther west."

In addition, more than 200,000 CRP acres will expire in Nebraska, more than 230,000 acres in Iowa, nearly 300,000 acres in Minnesota and more than 500,000 acres in Kansas this September, according to FSA. By comparison, relatively few CRP acres are set to expire in eastern Corn Belt states like Illinois (111,000 acres), Indiana (36,000 acres) and Ohio (27,000 acres).

Regardless of the areain which you farm, good planning and forethought are essential prior to converting CRP acres to cropland, says Mahdi Al-Kaisi, Iowa State University Extension soil management specialist. "Before you break open CRP land to grow crops, remember that there is a good reason that this land was put into CRP in the first place," says Al-Kaisi. "It’s likely to be highly erodible land or land that is near sensitive watersheds, or both. So, if you’re going to do this, a lot of planning needs to be done beforehand."

Farmers should consider contacting their local Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) office to help develop a conservation plan on the land before they do anything else, advises Al-Kaisi. "The NRCS will be able to help you plan where to put grass waterways, contours and filter strips to minimize erosion, protect water quality and maintain wildlife habitat," he says. "To maintain soil health, I would also advise using no-till. Strip-till might also work if the slope of the field will allow it. The main goal is to do as little soil disturbance as possible. Another goal is to have as much residue on the surface as manageable to keep the soil in place."

Soil testing should also be done prior to planting, advises Al-Kaisi. "Nitrogen (N) tests are essential every year for corn production and adequate phosphorus and potassium levels are critical for both corn and soybean production," he says. "If you start with soybeans, you won’t have to worry about applying N like you would with corn. However, you’ll probably need to use a rhizobia inoculant for soybeans."

Former CRP ground is loaded with good nutrients and good organic matter, he adds. "It will be good soil for either crop (corn or soybeans) and should be productive initially," says Al-Kaisi. "However, with improper management, the productivity of the soil will decline fairly quickly. So, make sure you start out with a good fertility program. The best thing to do is get the soil tested right away to check your field’s soil nutrient status."

02/10/2012 :: Two New Herbicides

Manitoba sunflower producers, Nufarm has two new herbicides which can help you clean up your DIRTIEST fields to maximize sunflower yields - CleanStart® and Authority®.  We would like you to learn more about how these products can fit into your management practices.  Please drop by your retailer to learn more about Authority® and Spray & Go® technology. By doing so, qualified growers will receive a $50.00 / case Authority® training incentive*! 

To learn more, contact Myles Robinson at 204 724-5885 or www.nufarm.ca.

*Some restrictions and conditions apply. 

Authority® is a trademark of FMC Corporation.  CleanStart® and Spray & Go® are registered trademarks of Nufarm Agriculture Inc.

02/09/2012 :: Record U.S. crop losses

WASHINGTON — In a demonstration of the up-and-down nature of the crop insurance industry, payments to farmers for crop losses in 2011 have totaled $9.1 billion so far, the highest in American history, according to charts released recently by the U.S Department of Agriculture Risk Management Agency.

About 81 percent of claims have come in, according to RMA, with the total surpassing a record $8.67 billion paid in 2008.

Crop insurance companies have paid out a total of $27 billion in indemnities since 2008, according to National Crop Insurance Services, an industry research group. The relatively low payouts in 2009 and 2010 have given the industry an image of high profitability, but the payouts in 2008 and 2011 reflect the industry’s obligations in a period of high losses.

“Without crop insurance in place, those billions in damages would have fallen onto the laps of lenders, input suppliers, marketers, landowners and farm families, just as the economy was spiraling downward and unemployment was soaring,” said Keith Collins, a former USDA chief economist and chairman of the federal crop insurance board who is now a consultant to National Crop Insurance Services.

Premiums paid by farmers and the government have skyrocketed in recent years. And, as crop insurance prices rose, the cost of insuring a more valuable crop has risen along with it.

The government pays about 65 percent of the total cost of the crop insurance program. Congress, through the 2008 farm bill, and the Obama administration, through the renegotiation of the standard insurance agreement, cut back on government expenditures by a total of $12 billion, according to the industry.

As Congress prepares to write a new farm bill, industry officials have said they are worried about further cuts.

“Two out of the last four years have seen the largest indemnity payments in history, all while the crop insurance industry was asked to do more with less,” NCIS president Tom Zacharias said in a news release. “Faced with decreasing federal funding, record payouts and high crop values, it is imperative that Congress not weaken the crop insurance infrastructure further as it writes the 2012 farm bill.”

The high level of indemnity payments for 2011 resulted from droughts in the Plains, flooding along the Mississippi River and freezes in the South.

One out of every $4 of the 2011 payments has gone to farmers and ranchers in Texas, who have received $2.4 billion in indemnities to date, NCIS said in its analysis of USDA data. For every dollar Texas farmers paid into insurance for their 2011 crops, approximately $2.23 was paid out, NCIS added.

The next hardest hit state was North Dakota, with $1.5 billion in damages, followed by Kansas, South Dakota and Minnesota.

Together, these five states account for 63 percent of the damages paid nationally. Corn, cotton and wheat accounted for 70 percent of the losses, followed by soybeans and grain sorghum.

02/08/2012 :: North Dakota now "abnormally dry" after low snow winter

02/06/2012 :: Late-summer hit for area crops?

GRAND FORKS, N.D. — The Upper Midwest could be hit with a hot, dry late summer, which might hurt crops, a weather expert said.

“We could see a very hot August, a very hot September, and with a lack of precipitation,” said Leon Osborne, president and chief executive officer of Meridian Environmental Technology in Grand Forks, N.D.

Though the region isn’t necessarily headed for drought, “We may have turned a climate-shift corner,” he said.

Osborne spoke Feb. 1 in Grand Forks at a market outlook meeting sponsored by RML Trading of Grand Forks. About 225 people attended.

Also speaking were Steve Freed, vice president of research for ADM Investor Services, and Jay Lehr, an economist and futurist whose website says that he “makes people feel good about the environment and American agriculture.”

The Upper Midwest has been unusually wet for years. Many fields have been too wet to plant, particularly last spring.

But very little precipitation has fallen in the past few months, and most of the region now is in low-level drought, according to the U.S. Drought Monitor Index, an Omaha, Neb.-based partnership of federal and academic scientists.

“There are very strong indications” that the region’s so-called wet cycle has ended and that a dry cycle is beginning, Osborne said.

Though it’s too soon to know whether a drought is coming, “We are trending toward a drier environment that looks like it will be multi-year in nature,” he said.

Osborne predicted below-normal precipitation through April, followed by above-average precipitation in May through the middle of June.

“Not way above normal on the precipitation, but enough to make it noticeable,” he said. After that, however, “We start to turn the spigot off.”

Given the forecast for a hot, dry August and September, “The question is, will we have enough soil moisture to finish out the crops?” he said.

Old, new predictions

Osborne predicted in December that the region would experience well-below-average temperatures this winter. So far, the exact opposite has been true. Other weather forecasters across the United States and Canada also mistakenly predicted an unusually cold winter, according to published reports.

“Clearly there were some surprises that came our way,” Osborne said Feb. 1.

“We’re not perfect. Hopefully, we’re better than we were last December,” he said of his previous prediction.

His new prediction is for near-normal temperatures, on average, through April, though major fluctuations are likely.

“It’s going to be a roller-coaster ride,” he said.

His initial prediction of a cold winter was based, in part, on the presence of La Nina, a weather phenomena involving cooling of tropical Pacific water, Osborne said.

But La Nina hasn’t had its typical effect this winter, he said.

Also contributing to the relatively warm winter is the jet stream, which has split in two and kept cold Arctic air to the north, Osborne said.

The jet stream is a current of fast-flowing air at high altitudes that plays an important role in weather formation.

The other speakers

Freed said that marketing grain, never an easy task, may be particularly difficult in 2012.

Volatile weather and the uncertain state of the global economy will complicate marketing, he said.

His best guess is that the world economy will slow this year and slow even more in 2013, which would work against crop prices, “unless there’s a weather problem” that cuts into production, he said.

He was optimistic about agriculture’s future, but stressed caution.

“I don’t think this (recent high prices and strong net profits) is a bubble,” he said.

Even so, several big crops in a row could push grain prices below the cost of production, he said.

Lehr said the public is out of touch with modern agriculture.

“Our biggest problem is, the public no longer respects us (or) understands what we do,” he said. “They no longer revere what we do.”

He urged farmers to spread their message outside their circle of fellow agriculturalists.

“We have to talk more to non-farmers,” he said.

Lehr was upbeat about agriculture’s short- and long-term future, stressing the value and importance of technology.

“The future has never been brighter,” he said.

02/03/2012 :: Farm Rescue taking applications for spring planting help

JAMESTOWN, N.D. (AP) — The nonprofit Farm Rescue organization is accepting requests for spring planting help from farmers in the Dakotas, Minnesota and eastern Montana.

The North Dakota-based operation provides planting and harvesting aid to farm families who have gone through a major illness, injury or disaster. It helps with the actual farm work rather than doling out money. Each family can receive help on up to 1,000 acres.Farmers can apply themselves. Program coordinator Calli Stoudt says Farm Rescue also accepts anonymous referrals. There's no deadline to apply, but applications postmarked by April 1 get priority consideration.

Since 2006, Farm Rescue has helped 160 farm families. President Bill Gross says the organization now has the equipment to plant corn, along with small grains and soybeans.

Copyright 2012 The Associated Press.

02/02/2012 :: Proven practices increase corn yields, profits

AgAnswers, Purdue University  |   January 30, 2012    

Farmers on the quest for record corn yields this spring may try to push the limits with higher seeding rates, narrower rows, more fertilizer and preventive applications of pesticides, but an Ohio State University Extension agronomist said the best way to optimize yields is to follow proven practices.

"A more practical and economical way to achieve high yields is to follow those practices that we know enhance corn performance," said Peter Thomison. His recommendations are included in the following "Eleven Proven Practices for Increasing Corn Yields and Profits."

1.       Know the yield potential of your fields, their yield history, and the soil type and its productivity.

2.      Choose high-yielding, adapted hybrids. Pick hybrids that have produced consistently high yields across a number of   locations or years. Select hybrids with high ratings for foliar and stalk rot diseases when planting no-till or with reduced tillage, especially after corn. Select high-yielding Bt rootworm resistant hybrids where there is potential for corn rootworm  damage.

3.      Follow pest management practices that will provide effective, timely pest control - especially weed control.

4.      Aim to complete planting by May 10. If soil conditions are dry, begin planting before the optimum date but avoid early planting on poorly drained soils. If planting late (after May 25 in central Ohio) plant corn borer resistant Bt hybrids.

5.      Follow practices that will enhance stand establishment. Adjust seeding depth according to soil conditions and monitor planting depth periodically during the planting operation and adjust for varying soil conditions. Make sure the planter is in good working order. Inspect and adjust the planter to improve stand establishment. Operate planters at speeds that will optimize seed placement. Uneven emergence affects crop performance because late emerging plants cannot compete with larger, early emerging plants.

6.      Adjust seeding rates on a field-by-field basis. On productive soils, which average 175 bushels per acre or more, final stands of 32,000 to 33,000 plants per acre or more may be required to maximize yields. Check with your seed company representative for optimum planting rates for your hybrids.

7.      Supply the most economical rate of nitrogen. Use an application method that will minimize the potential loss of N (incorporation or injection, consider stabilizers under high risk applications, etc.).

8.      Utilize soil testing to adjust pH and guide phosphorus and potassium fertilization. Avoid unnecessary phosphorus and potassium application. High soil tests do not require additional inputs.

9.      Perform tillage operations only when necessary and under proper soil conditions. Deep tillage should only be performed when a compacted zone is detected and soil conditions are dry (usually late summer).

10.     Take advantage of crop rotation - corn grown after soybeans will typically yield 10 to 15 percent more than corn grown after corn.

11.     Monitor fields and troubleshoot yield-limiting factors throughout the season.

"These are by no means the only management practices with which growers need to be concerned, but they are keys to achieving high corn yields." Thomison said.

01/31/2012 :: Planting in 60 inch rows proves productive in arid regions

In south central South Dakota, growers often search for ways to deal with dry soils and find the best crops to cope with the conditions. Todd County producer Bill Huber says that with the lack of moisture in his area, he was looking for a miracle.

He turned to planting his sunflower and corn in 60-inch rows. While some might consider this on the “crazy” side, when Huber explains the benefits, it becomes apparent the ultra-wide rows may just be the miracle he was looking for.

The idea’s genesis

A few years ago, Huber had a chance to meet with some agronomists from South Africa about planting in wide rows.

“At first it didn’t make sense to me; but for them it’s a matter of survival there in the arid regions,” Huber explains.

The primary benefit of the wide rows is water management.

“First of all, we’re farming here in the desert,” quips Huber who farms near the town of Parmalee, S.D. “Our first concern is to conserve moisture. And what better way [to do that] than to have fewer plants competing for that precious moisture?”

This same concept of optimizing available moisture has been researched in skip-row planting, primarily for corn but also in sunflower.

“Moisture utilization lies at the heart of how skip rows can benefit sunflower and other crops under dry conditions,” points out Joel Schneekloth, Akron-based regional water resource specialist with Colorado State University. “As the plant roots down, it will also root out away. If we have a larger space for the plant to root away from the row, we can utilize moisture at a later date when it’s critical – like during the reproductive stage.

“Whereas if you have planted in standard 30-inch rows, once those rows meet, that’s the end of the moisture between the rows,” Schneekloth continues. “So all the plant can do then is go down; and if there’s no moisture left going down, it’s ‘out of gas.’”

All of Huber’s 12,000 acres are in a no-till system – and have been for many years. This year he had 2,000 sunflower acres (all confection). He usually plants into corn stubble or occasionally after wheat, typically applying 60 to 80 lbs of ammonium nitrate fertilizer to start. He also adds 50 lbs of ammonium sulfate, which he says seems to help with what some might call the “sunflower hangover” to replenish the soil health.

Rebuilding the planter

Huber’s planter, set for 30-inch rows, required a little ingenuity to adapt to the 60-inch row width. At first they tried to simply shut off alternating row units; but that wasn’t ideal, so they ended up disassembling the planter.

“Our corn planter was getting worn out; and we’re the frugal type, so we rebuilt it,” Huber explains. “We reconfigured it and took half the units off and centered the planter on the 60-inch spacing – 12 rows, 60 feet.”

The wide row setup also has advantages from a mechanical standpoint, Huber says. “It’s a very simple planter, really, with 12 rows. Now we have half the row units and half the parts to mess with fixing and maintaining.”

Most of last year’s crop was planted in mid-June. Another half section was planted on July 11.

“They actually made it,” he says happily. “I knew I was pushing it, but the planter was sitting there full of seed, so I gave it a shot.”

In his first year in the 60-inch rows, Huber was shooting for about 14,000 seeds per acre and ended up with a population of 12,500-13,000. This year he dropped it to 10,000 per acre with a projected in-row plant spacing of eight inches. Being in the wide rows, the plants have plenty of room to grow; and it’s evident by the robust plants that sunflower uses every inch it’s given to flourish.

Weed management and

plant health benefits

This year’s crop was eight feet tall with a big, leafy canopy and huge, healthy stalks. The plants were as healthy as Huber has ever seen.

“Plant health was excellent,” he says. “The seed fill and seed size looked good.”

Since beginning to plant sunflower in 60-inch rows, his yields have averaged between 1,200 to 1,500 lbs/ac.

A healthy canopy also helps with weed control.

“It’s kind of amazing – with the plants denser in the row, they get more leaves,” Huber explains. “We had complete row canopy this year.”

To help with weed management before that canopy develops, Huber applies Spartan preplant or pre-emergence and then comes back with a postemergent grass herbicide usually tank mixed with an insecticide. They haven’t had an issue with insects in recent years, but in defense of the seed weevil, they are very adamant about regular treatment.

Crowded plants make for little air movement. And lack of air movement fosters disease. Huber credits the 60-inch row spacing with allowing more air movement between the rows. This, he says, has resulted in fewer fungicide applications. Huber reports few issues with rust or other diseases in his sunflower.

Planting on 60-inch rows and at a plant population of about 10,000 would accomplish two things that would help minimize disease, according to Tom Gulya, USDA-ARS sunflower plant pathologist.

“One, the air flow through the canopy would lead to less dew formation, and thus fungal spores would be less likely to germinate and infect,” Gulya explains. “Two, the stalk diameter would be significantly greater, and the stalks would be slower to succumb to stalk-rotting pathogens.”

Some might question whether it takes longer for such large, robust plants to dry down for harvest and pass through the combine. Huber says it’s not a problem with his all-crop header. As an added benefit, the healthy plant is stronger and better able to sustain fall wind and rain storms.

“We had a terrible wind come through here [this fall],” he notes. “I plant my ’flowers in a north-south direction so the heads hang off to the east. This helps to cut down on the heads rubbing against neighboring plants, so there’s less shatter loss. Those huge stalks [allow them] to survive in the strong winds we get in the fall.”

This is the fourth year Huber has also planted his corn in 60" rows, and he’s “absolutely, hands-down convinced it’s the way to go.” It’s difficult to argue with someone who has such conviction – especially when he is able to back it up with numbers.

“We’ve cut as good as 150-bushel or better corn,” Huber says. “Sure, we’ve had some around 80 bushels some years in some areas. But I’m convinced it’s the best for corn in my dry environment.”

Farming in a no-till system in a very dry area brings many challenges and often requires unconventional approaches – like this one. Bill Huber emphasizes they are doing whatever they can to be sustainable.

“Sunflower may be more difficult to grow, but in the end they are worthwhile,” he remarks. “They pay you well.”

By SONIA MULLALLY, National Sunflower Association Farm & Ranch Guide

01/27/2012 :: Agriculture isn’t dead, despite misleading Yahoo report

It’s happened again.

Issues related to the safety and security of our food supply top the news on a regular basis. However, a recent article about the future of the business as posted on Yahoo-Education is the type of report doing more harm to agriculture than good.

Separate statistical data from the United States Department of Labor and United States Department of Agriculture indicates an expected growth in most agriculture-related fields including inspectors, scientists and veterinarians. The Bureau of Labor Statistics projects over the next five years, there will be a 5 percent increase in the need for graduates in these disciplines, but a 10 percent decline in the number of students choosing these important programs as their career path. This means a shortfall of qualified workers in the areas where we need them most — plants, food, animals and climate change or environmental analysts. But, there are also growing opportunities in industries linked to the business of agriculture; from trucking to coffee and beer brewing, dietetic concerns to animal welfare and pet foods.

As Yahoo’s article stated, students majoring in agriculture-related disciplines are wasting their time and money. Yet, contrary to this, the Bureau of Labor Statistics also suggests an 8 percent increase in the need for qualified, well-educated Ag Managers; citing quickly advancing technological methods of farming across the U.S. and abroad, along with changes in regulations at all Government levels.

The bottom line — agriculture isn’t dead, In fact, no other industry feeds the world’s population which, according to research, will hit 9 billion by 2050. Instead, the need for graduates in agriculture, horticulture and animal science programs will be critical to finding ways of safely doubling food production in order to meet the demand of a growing population. The many facets offer a chance to make a difference. By helping agriculture thrive — we keep the rest of humanity alive.

Sincerely,

Jeffrey Volenec

President, Crop Science Society of America

Kenneth Barbarick

President, American Society of Agronomy

Gary Pierzynski

President, Soil Science Society of America

Ellen Bergfeld, C.E.O.

Alliance of Crop, Soil and Environmental Science Societies

01/25/2012 :: USDA Announces $308 Million for Disaster-Stricken States

KANSAS CITY, Mo. — The nation’s top agriculture official on Wednesday announced more than $300 million in emergency assistance to 33 states and Puerto Rico to help them recover from an unusually intense year for natural disasters across the U.S.

Utah and Missouri will receive the most disaster aid, together taking in $109 million, or more than one-third of the $308 million in aid from Department of Agriculture watershed and conservation emergency funds, USDA Secretary Tom Vilsack told The Associated Press ahead of Wednesday’s formal announcement.

The emergency funds are part of USDA’s annual budget and money allocated from them will be used to repair and stabilize agriculture and public safety infrastructure. The federal money covers 75 percent of the cost of such repairs, and is distributed based on local agencies’ applications and ability to pay the balance, according to the USDA.

Vilsack spokesman Matt Herrick said states were largely approved for the amount of money requested. Applications are most often handled by local Natural Resource Conservation Service and Farm Service Agency offices.

“We rely on the county offices because they are right there,” said Gerald Hrdina, head of the Farm Service Agency’s conservation section in Missouri. “The requests are funneled through here, and we decide whether to forward them to the national office. We very seldom deny an application.”

Flooding last spring inundated thousands of acres of farmland in Utah, costing farmers tens of millions of dollars lost to damaged and destroyed crops or delayed planting. Utah will receive $60 million in watershed money for repair work and preventative measures in 13 cities and counties hit by floods within the last 13 months, said Bronson Smart, state conservation engineer for the U.S. Natural Resources Conservation Service.

He said his agency requested that amount to deal with two rounds of flooding, including flash flooding in southern Utah in December 2010 and flooding last spring in northern and central parts of the state caused by a record snowpack.

Missouri suffered months of flooding along the Missouri River after the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers authorized unprecedented releases from reservoirs in the northern river basin all summer to deal with unexpectedly heavy rain in May and above-average mountain snowpack. Farmers in the Missouri Bootheel, meanwhile, saw their crops swamped when the Army Corps of Engineers exploded a levee to relieve water pressure on an upriver town in Illinois. The intentional breach sent water cascading over thousands of acres of prime farmland.

Missouri will receive around $49 million, of which $35 million will come from the watershed program and the rest from the Farm Service Agency’s Emergency Conservation Program.

Harold Decker, assistant state conservationist for water resources in Missouri, said most of the watershed money will go toward clearing and redeveloping drainage ditches filled with silt and debris by flooding on the Missouri and Mississippi rivers.

“Without that work, those systems aren’t going to function,” Decker said. “If ditches aren’t draining properly, it retards plant growth and the drainage of the plants and lowers production.”

Vilsack noted that natural disasters wreaked widespread, but varying, havoc in 2011.

“There have been years that have had more intensive damage in a particular geographic area, but what’s unique about last year is that virtually every part of the country was affected,” Vilsack told the AP. “It was different in every part of the country. We’ve not seen tornadoes as devastating as last spring. Flooding on the Missouri River, because of the longstanding nature of the flooding — not a two- or three-week situation — was unique. Fires in the southwest part of the country were historic in magnitude. It’s been a tough year.”

Slightly more than $215 million of the aid comes from the Emergency Watershed Program, about $80 million will come from the Emergency Conservation Program and nearly $12 million is from the FSA’s Emergency Forest Restoration Program. Texas, for instance, will receive nearly $6 million after wildfires charred the southern part of the state.

The watershed funds will go toward public safety and restoration efforts on private, public and tribal land, Vilsack said. Projects funded by that money will include removing debris from waterways, protecting eroded stream banks, reseeding damaged areas and, in some cases, purchasing floodplain easements on eligible land.

New York trails only Utah in the amount of watershed protection money received, at $37.8 million.

New York’s money is earmarked for repairing erosion and other damage left behind by back-to-back late summer tropical storms Irene and Lee.

Dennis DeWeese, acting state conservationist with the conservation service in New York, said 51 communities have asked for assistance and damage assessments have been completed for 15. The agency’s staff of 25, mostly engineers, had visited 160 sites by the end of last week and is continuing work that may extend into the Adirondacks.

One challenge, he said, will be asking already cash-strapped towns and villages to pay their shares to qualify for the federal money and begin design and construction.

“A lot of these municipalities are overwhelmed,” DeWeese said.

In addition to flooding, 2011 was a big year for tornadoes, including record outbreaks in the South and a monster storm that leveled a large portion of Joplin, Mo.

Alabama is scheduled to get nearly $7 million in assistance for tornado recovery, followed by nearly $4 million in Georgia. Missouri, at the other end of the spectrum, is to receive only $130,000 to fix tornado damage to agricultural land.

Vilsack said the emergency money is being used to help agricultural interests beyond what is covered by crop insurance. He said the USDA paid out $8.6 billion in crop insurance payments last year, and $17.2 billion over the past three years.

A state-by-state breakdown of disaster assistance being provided to 33 states and Puerto Rico from USDA emergency funds. Figures are provided by the USDA.

Alabama: $16,555,651

Alaska: $8,262,000

Arizona: $5,213,700

Arkansas: $11,030,280

Georgia: $4,411,550

Indiana: $195,827

Iowa: $5,870,000

Kansas: $5,300,000

Kentucky: $1,710,600

Maine: $810,000

Maryland: $231,000

Massachusetts: $6,470,000

Minnesota: $419,400

Mississippi: $5,465,261

Missouri: $48,920,773

Montana: $895,000

Nebraska: $10,668,950

New Hampshire: $443,000

New Jersey: $2,537,000

New York: $41,790,484

North Carolina: $4,462,000

North Dakota: $100,000

Ohio: $3,139,400

Oklahoma: $5,266,795

Pennsylvania: $13,875,000

Puerto Rico: $2,264,000

Rhode Island: $6,453,300

South Dakota: $396,000

Tennessee: $10,849,351

Texas: $12,427,217

Utah: $60,267,801

Virginia: $1,236,000

Vermont: $8,708,250

Wyoming: $931,000

Total USDA Emergency Aid: $307,576,590

Associated Press writer Josh Loftin in Salt Lake City and George M. Walsh in Albany, N.Y., contributed to this report.

01/23/2012 :: GPS Advocates and Lightsquared at Impasse After Year of Testing

A year of testing by a federal interagency committee has unanimously determined there “appear to be no practical solutions or mitigations” to GPS interference caused by LightSquared’s broadband technology.

The co-chairs of the interagency review panel, who are deputy secretaries of the Departments of Defense and Transportation, indicated in their letter that the level of interference, even with proposed fixes, is so severe “no additional testing is warranted at this time.”

LightSquared has applied for a spectrum use waiver from the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to allow it to deploy technology to dramatically expand broadband access, including in rural areas.

However, extensive testing has shown the technology also causes significant interference with GPS systems, which are well-integrated into the agricultural, construction, aviation and other industries, as well as commonly used by members of the general public.

Agriculture groups are heavily engaged on this issue because without a technical fix, LightSquared’s technology would knock out most of an estimated 500,000 precision receivers used in farm equipment, which have allowed for critical safety and environmental benefits and billions of dollars of savings on the farm.

LightSquared reacted quickly to the interagency determination, saying the review process was “fraught with inappropriate involvement of the GPS manufacturers, lax controls, obvious bias, lack of transparency and unexplained delays,” and that its private tests have shown its proposed fix for the interference problem “works flawlessly.”

The Coalition to Save Our GPS, which has advised caution in moving forward, said in a statement, “LightSquared has been afforded every possible opportunity to make its technical case and has failed to demonstrate that it can avoid interference to many critical GPS-based activities… At this point, there is no evidence that any further modifications to its proposal would yield a different conclusion.”

NAWG and other groups have stood firm in the opinion that a workable fix must be found before the FCC grants LightSquared’s waiver, and that the cost of any modifications required to existing systems be borne by the company, not the GPS user.

01/20/2012 :: SEEDS 2000 Acquired by Australian Company, Expands International Prospects

SEEDS 2000 Inc., one of the leading seed research and productions companies in the region, announced Nov. 30, 2011, that it has been acquired by Nuseed, a global seed and traits company based out of Melbourne, Australia.  For SEEDS 2000, headquartered in Breckenridge, MN, the merger will mean a myriad of changes for employees; from an exporting prospective, the acquisition of a regional company by an international player may be a step towards increasing global sales.

“Nuseed is a multinational company, so they bring people and expertise from markets that we haven’t entered yet or are trying to expand in,” said Matt Breker, International Sales Manager at SEEDS 2000.  “It really helps bring a lot more horsepower to our international business.”

SEEDS 2000 is not a newcomer to the international exporting game.  Jay Schuler and Gerhardt “Gary” Fick started SEEDS 2000 in 1992, following years of a variety of other seed-related projects, with a focus primarily on the development of elite oil and confection sunflower hybrids that benefit both the farmer and end-use customer.  Over the past five years, the company’s global footprint has exploded, according to Schuler and Fick.  SEEDS 2000 now has approximately 45 employees, five of which are involved in international marketing.

Exporting from SEEDS 2000 began in 1999 in Austria.  Today, China is the largest market for the company’s seeds, with product also being shipped to Canada, Argentina, Mexico, Ukraine, Russia, Romania, Japan, Ghana and a number of European Union countries, just to name a few.

The hope of the SEEDS 2000 and Nuseed merger is to meet the growing demand of sunflowers for the world, and the company has expertise to fit the bill.  SEEDS 2000 has three doctorate-level plant breeders in Breckenridge and one in Argentina.  Their sunflower genetics are currently being sold in a number of foreign markets, and the addition of Nuseeds’ varieties will only expand international options.

“Our company will be able to offer a wider range of genetics internationally and domestically because now we have access to additional genetics from Nuseed.  Internationally and domestically we’ll see improved products,” Breker said.

Nuseed is focused on the enhancement of food and feed value through seed technology.  The company currently develops proprietary canola, sunflower, and sorghum products that are marketed in over 25 countries.  Nuseed has existing sunflower breeding and marketing operations based in California, Argentina, Serbia and Australia.

Although Schuler admits the acquisition was difficult after twenty years of working with SEEDS 2000, he ensures customers that the SEEDS 2000 brand isn’t likely to disappear and the goal is to help make the company grow.  For international sales staff such as Breker, the acquisition points towards a future of opportunity.

“It’s a really an exciting time to be a part of SEEDS200 and to be a part of the Nuseed organization, especially as we move forward in some of these international markets because we’ll  be much more aggressively entering some of these markets,” Breker said.

01/20/2012 :: Lots of New Varieties but Some Seed may be Hard to Find

HETTINGER, N.D. – Widespread wet conditions in the spring and hot temperatures late in the summer of 2011 affected seed supplies for producers in the Upper Midwest.

Seed dealers at Western Dakota Crops Day in Hettinger spoke about the problem, but most said they expect seed supply to be adequate as long as producers don’t wait until the last minute to order.

“The biggest problem occurred in the northwestern part of the state. There was late planting and then hot weather at the time the heads were filling,” said Mike Gartner, owner of Gartner Seed Farm south of Mandan, N.D.

That meant seed supplies were not replenished as they typically had been. Despite that, Gartner said there is seed available, just not as much.

“I’m advising farmers not to wait until April to look for seed. Start early,” he said.

Some of the sought-after varieties Gartner has available that he was showing at Western Crops Day included SY Soren, SY Tyra, Brennan, Kelby, SY605CL from AgriPro Syngenta, and Mott, Barlow and Prosper from NDSU.

“We’re selling a tremendous amount of wheat. Seed sales have been good,” Gartner said.

For livestock producers and those looking for rotational and cover crops, Gartner also has malting barley varieties and Haybet forage barley, along with many varieties of oats, triticale, forage peas, legume type cover crops and pea mixes.

Donavan Eck, AgriPro Syngenta seed representative from the Bismarck, N.D. area, said he knows his seed – and his producers. He was an ag instructor at Bismarck State College for 28 years before taking a part-time position with Agri-Pro Syngenta.

“Syngenta has really been working on new durum and wheat hybrids,” Eck said.

According to him, seed is the most important input that producers should concentrate on. Quality seed with excellent genetics can make the difference with having good yields versus average yields, he added.

SY605 CL is AgriPro Syngenta’s new high performance Clearfield spring wheat, he said. It is targeted mainly for central and western North and South Dakota, Montana and northeastern Wyoming with its high yield potential, high test weights, high protein, intermediate height and good foliar disease and stem and leaf rust tolerance.

SY Soren and SY Tyra spring wheats are in high demand this year, according to Gartner.

Soren is widely adapted from central Minnesota all the way west to central Montana and throughout South Dakota, Eck said. Soren is in demand because of its high yield potential and good scab tolerance, as well as high test weights and good foliar disease protection.

“Soren could be the most adaptable and balanced variety in the marketplace,” he added.

Tyra is AgriPro Syngenta’s sawfly tolerant variety and is suited for the sawfly regions of western North Dakota and all of Montana. According to Eck, it has a semi-solid stem and offers good yield potential, high test weights and good straw strength.

Bill Weber, account manager at Seeds 2000, said they have their own breeding program and there are some excellent new high-yielding corn, soybean and sunflower hybrids adapted for each region coming out of it.

He said sunflowers are an important crop for the Upper Midwest and he has been seeing more acreage put into flowers, as well as more available markets. New crop prices were in the $26 range in 2011, which was about $5 higher than 2010, he said.

Many contracts are offering an Act of God clause, and that is helping producers want to add sunflowers to their rotations, along with the ability to have cleaner fields and less weeds with the new hybrids, Weber said.

“We’re moving more toward herbicide tolerant sunflowers,” he said.

Seeds 2000 has been integrating Clearfield and ExpressSun traits into the sunflower hybrids, along with improved disease resistance, oil content and standability, he said.

Chris Hills, customer support at Seeds 2000, said they have two new Clearfields this year. Cobalt and Daytona are both high oleic Clearfields. Cobalt is resistant to downy mildew which was a huge problem this year in many regions, and Daytona has improved tolerance to sclerotina head rot, he said.

Birdseed has been a huge market for NuSun oil sunflowers this year and is playing a major role in setting seed prices, Weber said. The bird food market has the ability to pay premiums, at least in the short term.

Hill added they have seen some very good prices for birdseed this year.

This past year, with the wet conditions, producers who put fungicide on their sunflowers saw a big yield difference.

“It really paid off to use fungicide on both oil and confections this year,” Weber said.

He also noted they are seeing more singulation or row spacing used with sunflowers.

“As corn acreage expands, growers are going back to using row spacing,” he said.

Finally, with the population leaning toward healthier oils, high oleic sunflowers have been garnering 10 to 15 percent more in premiums than market prices, Weber said.

By SUE ROESLER, Farm & Ranch Guide Farm & Ranch Guide

01/19/2012 :: Patent Set to Expire on Roundup Ready Trait

With the patent set to expire on a Roundup Ready trait (RR1), attorney Joel Cape is set to make a return to the Arkansas Seed Growers Association meeting on Jan. 25.  In 2006, Cape spoke to the association on seed law history and where biotechnology fits in the legal picture. At the coming meeting he will update those comments and expand on what the trait’s expiration means for farmers looking to save seed and how it will impact breeding programs.

Cape recently spoke with Farm Press. Among his comments:

On RR1…

“The original Roundup Ready gene consists of different pieces of DNA and each was put together to make a functional gene. There was more than one patent on that gene because several of those individual parts were also patented by themselves.

“The last of those patents on the original Roundup Ready gene is set to expire. That does mean that seed containing the RR1 will, essentially, be unrestricted. This means that growers can generally plant and use seed with the RR1 gene without an obligation to pay royalties or a prohibition on saving seed.”

On breeding programs and developing varieties with the RR1 gene…

“Using the RR1 gene to develop generic versions of seed with the trait is more complicated process. Breeding the trait into your own lines is only part of the path to getting a product that can be commercialized.

“There are also various regulatory hurdles that need to be analyzed before just taking that gene and putting it into your own lines. You have to jump those before commercializing such a product – there is more than one regulatory agency to go through to keep RR in the marketplace. EPA is one along with the FDA and USDA. There is a fairly complex regulatory regime.”

On farmers being able to save RR1 seed…

“They will be able to save the seed, but with a caveat. The gene may be in seed that is subject to other protection.

“The Plant Variety Protection (PVP) Act has been (in force) at least since the 1970s. That gene may be in germplasm that has a PVP on it.

“The gene may also be in germplasm that has a utility patent.

“The short answer is: Yes, you can save seed. The longer answer is: You might want to pay close attention to the seed you’re buying before deciding to save it. There may be other protections that cover the rest of the genetics in the seed. Don’t just throw caution to the wind – you still need to pay attention to what you’re planting.

“People have traditionally believed that PVP-protected material can be saved. I don’t think it’s quite that simple. There is a ‘farmer-saved seed’ exception but I also think you can agree not to save it.

“This will be the thrust of the talk I’m giving at the Seed Growers meeting since I’ll be talkingwith farmers that need to make planting decisions.”

Since you first addressed seed patent laws at the Arkansas Seed Growers meeting, have you noticed the questions you’ve been getting regarding the patent laws and seed have shifted?

“Truthfully, no. There is a basic level of awareness of patents which has been established in the farm community over the last 15 years.

“That being said, the level of awareness depends on the crop to some degree. In soybean production, the message has been pretty thoroughly communicated that saving seed is something that is not available for many varieties. That’s simply because the RR trait in soybeans has been very popular and it’s been widely licensed. The bottom line is people like Roundup Ready and the educational message has gotten out.

“The same is largely true for other major crops such as cotton and wheat.

“Nowadays, there are patents on other beneficial traits in a variety of crops. The different ways in which other patented crop traits are licensed and marketed makes a difference in the knowledge that growers may not have a specific awareness of how the law impacts the use of property laws in agriculture. But the extent of that knowledge will vary.”

Where do you range?

“For the most part, anywhere I’m asked. I’ve been fortunate in that my law practice has been national in scope and my cases have taken me all across the country. In my agricultural practice, I’ve had the benefit of working with several different crops and producers in all types of production settings.”

Do you still focus on these issues in your practice?

“I do. My law practice has broadened since moving back to northwest Arkansas from New Orleans last summer. I try to help folks solve problems, either by heading off a potential issue before it comes up, or by jumping in after a difficulty arises. I also went to law school at the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville.”

On Cape’s Jan. 25 Arkansas Seed Growers presentation…

“In my experience, farmers want to know ‘what can I do now? What is allowed?’

“The message is: seed with the RR1 trait will no longer be under patent and you may be able to save it. But pay close attention what else may cover the seed.”

Looking forward…

“There’s a whole lot of interest in the RR1 trait coming off patent.

“Another aspect of this is seed companies have been curious as to what they can do and when.

“But there is probably even more interest in the next generation of traits that are being developed to address various environmental stresses, such as drought tolerance, cold tolerance, salt water tolerance, and others. There is a great deal of effort being directed towards developing plant material that can perform in challenging growing conditions. The potential benefits of these kinds of traits are a big deal because they may make the difference between having a decent crop to harvest, or no crop at all.”

01/10/2012 :: Judge Rules in Favor of GE Alfalfa Growers in California

A federal judge has upheld the government's decision to let the nation's alfalfa growers plant the genetically engineered, herbicide-resistant strain manufactured by Monsanto Co., saying the alleged risk of contaminating other crops does not require regulators to impose buffer zones.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture approved the use of Roundup Ready alfalfa - so named because it is designed to withstand Monsanto's Roundup herbicide - in January 2011, ending a nationwide ban that another judge had imposed in March 2007.

The action was challenged by a group of alfalfa farmers who said they feared that the Monsanto product, spread by winds and bees, would pollinate their crops and take over their fields. Thursday, however, U.S. District Judge Samuel Conti of San Francisco said the USDA had acted within its authority.

01/09/2012 :: Herbicide May Affect Plants Thought to be Resistant

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. – Purdue University researchers have discovered a fine-tuning mechanism involved in plant root growth that has them questioning whether a popular herbicide may have unintended consequences, causing some plants to need more water or nutrients.

Angus Murphy, a professor of horticulture, and Wendy Peer, an assistant professor of horticulture, study the movement of auxin, a plant hormone essential for plant development. They showed that ABCB4, a protein responsible for moving auxin into cells, also removes the hormone when too much has accumulated.

“We knew that the protein took auxin up, but found that it switched to removing auxin when a threshold is reached,” said Murphy, whose findings appeared in the early online version of The Plant Journal. “It starts transporting the hormones out.”

That fine-tuning mechanism is integral to proper development of plant root hairs, which extend from the main plant root and are where most water and minerals enter.

“The root hairs are doing all the heavy lifting for bringing the water into the plant,” Peer said. “And ABCB4 maintains the right auxin levels to keep root hairs growing optimally.”

The herbicide 2,4-D, a synthetic form of auxin, could have unintended consequences for the protein, Murphy and Peer said.

The herbicide is used to kill broadleaf weeds, which are dicots, while monocot grasses, such as sorghum and corn, are more resistant. That’s because grasses inactivate 2,4-D inside the plant, while broadleaf dicots do not.

But ABCB4 is located on the root surface and can be switched into intake-only mode, disabling its ability to remove excess auxin from cells, before 2,4-D can be inactivated inside the plant. This results in shorter root hairs.

“This suggests that ABCB4 is an unexpected target of 2,4-D action,” Murphy said. “It’s something that we have to be aware of with the commercial introduction of 2,4-D resistant soybeans and other dicot crops.”

Murphy said laboratory testing of ABCB4 in yeast, tobacco and human cells subjected to 2,4-D all showed that ABCB4 could be locked into the uptake-only mode. The root hairs of mutant plants that had ABCB4 removed were not affected by application of 2,4-D.

“It was very clear that what was happening in the plant was what was happening in the cell cultures,” Murphy said.

Murphy said the findings suggest that application techniques that limit 2,4-D entry into soils are important to ensure that production with engineered 2,4-D resistant crop plants does not require additional fertilizer and/or water inputs.

The Department of Energy funded the study. Murphy and Peer partnered with scientists at the Institute of Experimental Botany at the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic.

By Brian Wallheimer Purdue University

01/06/2012 :: La Nina to Stick Around Through 2012

El Nino will return and likely will bring a little more rainfall than usual to the Southwest. 

But first, the region likely will experience from one year to 18 months of continued dry conditions, says Mark Fox, warning and coordination meteorologist for the National Weather Service.

Fox spoke at the Ag Technology Conference in Commerce, Texas, in early December and said that although “forecasting weather is not the easiest thing to do it’s not the hardest either. It requires good observation, good models and common sense.”

All those factors point to continuation of La Nina conditions at least into spring and summer,” he said.

“Spring and summer likely will be dryer and hotter than normal,” Fox said. “But we don’t expect next summer to be as hot as it was in 2011.”

He said suggestions that drought conditions could persist into 2020 may be overblown. “We don’t have data to support that, but the climate for the next one to 1.5 years will be dry.”

He said outlook now is similar to the same period a year ago.

“Most models indicate that by the end of 2012, El Nino will take over and conditions will be wetter in 2013 and 2014.”

Fox said under the best of conditions Texas weather is “highly variable.” He pointed to last winter as an example. Most audience members responded that the winter of 2011 was colder than usual. In fact, last winter temperatures averaged about 3 degrees higher than normal. Most people recall the extremely cold week in early January, however, when temperatures plunged and snow and sleet covered the area.

“We had one really bad week, but we did not get a lot of winter rain,” Fox said. “There is no such thing as a normal winter. We will see wild swings one way or the other.”

He said the outlook last winter was for “way above average temperatures. We had about normal average temperatures.”

He also said late November and December rainfall may bring false hope to farmers and ranchers. Northeast Texas received as much as 5 inches of rain during that period, but Fox said the area needs a lot more and heavier rains to refill lakes, streams and stock tanks.

He also said computer models suggest a second straight year of La Nina. “Most models say it will be at least next year before we get out of this pattern. In Texas, models show a 40 percent chance of higher than normal temperatures and 50 percent or higher chances of less rainfall.

“I hope we’re wrong about that,” he said. But he also noted that the El Nino, La Nina phenomenon has been observed for 100s of years and it “affects weather cycles about every one to two years.”

01/04/2012 :: Environmental Lawsuits Could Hit US Agriculture in 2012

The National Corn Growers Association is currently involved in two major pieces of environmental litigation that will likely be decided in federal court in 2012. This could have major implications for future environmental regulations.

The outcome of this lawsuit could establish significant precedent for future water quality regulations throughout the country. Many corn growers are concerned that the Chesapeake Bay TMDL could be used as a blueprint for addressing nitrogen, phosphorus and sediment runoff in the Mississippi River Basin and other watersheds. In recent months, EPA has begun to publicly question its own confidence in the agency's water quality modeling, particularly for establishing localized nutrient allocations.

The second lawsuit involves pesticide registrations and their potential impact on endangered species. The Center for Biological Diversity filed a suit against EPA in 2011 alleging that the agency failed to consult with the Fish and Wildlife Service and National Marine Fisheries Service on hundreds of pesticide registrations potentially affecting hundreds of species.

EPA has lost similar cases in recent years and federal judges have often established buffer zones and product restrictions until interagency consultations between EPA, FWS and NMFS could be conducted. NCGA and other agricultural organizations are interveners in the CBD case to ensure that growers have a seat at the table in any potential settlement negotiations.

05/09/2012 :: Earliest Planting Dates for Sunflower

Press Release -- May 9, 2012 -- Planters are rolling at a fast pace this year. Many producers are wondering when they can begin planting sunflowers to take advantage of the good planting conditions we are experiencing this spring. In North and South Dakota, the earliest planting date is either May 6 or May 11 depending on the county. The earliest planting date in Minnesota is April 21. For High Plains states, earliest planting dates are: Colorado May 15, Kansas April 25, and Nebraska May 1. A replanting payment is allowed if your sunflower crop is damaged by a covered cause of loss to the extent that the remaining stand will not produce at least 90 percent of your production guarantee and it is practical to replant. No replanting payment will be made on acreage initially planted prior to the earliest planting date so you want to make note of your earliest date before getting out to plant.

01/03/2012 :: Back to the Farm for Young Professionals

How you gonna keep ‘em off of the farm after they’ve been savaged by corporate America?

Seems like a small exodus has begun away from mega companies that treat employees like numbers and back to rural America, where folks can at least have a say in what they do and how they do it.

A recent AP article by Dinesh Ramde indicates that more young people, those in their 20s and 30s, are abandoning careers with large companies where they feel stifled and heading back to the farm. Some are going back; others are taking up the plow for the first time and are taking advantage of programs in ag colleges that train people how to farm.

The advantages would be obvious to anyone who ever lived and worked on a farm. Farmers, to a certain degree, can be their own bosses—set their own time schedules, decide what crops or livestock to produce, determine acreages to allot for vegetables, fruit trees or livestock.

They set up their own marketing programs. They can sell to local markets, set up their own sales facility, develop a pick-your-own enterprise or sell at local farmers’ markets. They also might opt to sell to larger companies that ship across country or export. A lot depends on location, enterprise size and capital.

They also know that living in the country can be a lot less hectic than making a stressful commute every morning and every evening through bumper-to-bumper traffic.

A lot of these agri-entrepreneurs are returning home, going back to farms and ranches they left after earning college degrees and trying out careers away from the farm. In some cases, those professions simply didn’t offer them the kind of lifestyles they had hoped for. For others, the failing economy may have made agriculture look a lot brighter.

Projections indicate that U.S. farmers had a good year, for the most part, in 2011. Too much rain in some places, way too little in others created hardships for many. And new farmers must be aware of those hardships.

Anyone who goes back to the farm or takes up farming for the first time, regardless of the size of the operation, must be aware that agriculture is not stress-free. Farmers face challenges other industries don’t consider. A hail storm late in the season can destroy a year’s work. A late spring freeze can kill newly emerged plants, fruit tree blossoms or newborn livestock.

Prices go down; production costs rise; consumer preferences change. The work is hard and the outcome is often uncertain. Start-up costs can be extremely high, especially in areas close to cities, where the demand for local produce will be the greatest.

I have a friend in South Carolina, my next-door neighbor when I was growing up—if 200 yards can be considered next door. Several years ago he switched out a landscaping business to greenhouse vegetable production. He raises hydroponic tomatoes in the winter. They are quite good. He also grows greens, squash, beans, cucumbers and other vegetables and sells from a store on his property and also at local farmers markets and nearby grocery stores. He seems to be doing well, and he’s definitely doing what he wants to do.

I try to go by and see what new products he has when I go visit my mother. He usually forces me to take home a handful of whatever is in season.

Small farms, local grown produce and similar enterprises might not be the key to feeding the growing world population, but they make a significant contribution. And folks who understand the vagaries of agriculture and consumer tastes may earn good livings from these enterprises.

It’s also refreshing to consider that the exodus back to agriculture has the potential to bring some young blood back to the farm—no small consideration when most U.S. farmers are more than 55 years old.

Welcome to the country.

by Ron Smith in Farm Press Blog

12/30/2011 :: Corn Farmers Continue on 300-Bushel Quest

If U.S. corn growers continue to increase yields at the rate they’ve been doing for the last 55 years, they should be able to reach the fabled national average yield goal of 300 bushels per acre by around, oh, 2086.

With food experts predicting the 300-bushel-per-acre average will be needed long before then and possibly as early as 2030, the average rate of increase of 1.9 bushels per acre over the last half century may not be good enough, a Purdue University agronomist says.

Individual growers – some of them in the South – have reached that goal of 300 bushels per acre and more in the National Corn Growers’ yield contests, says Bob Nielson, Extension corn specialist at Purdue, who spoke at this year’s Integrated Crop Management Conference at Iowa State University.

“Furthermore, the physiological yield components necessary to produce a 300-plus-bushel crop are not terribly out of reach today,” he noted. “Potential ear size is easily 1,000 kernels with today’s hybrids, which would be equal to an ear with 18 kernel rows and 56 kernels per row.”

356-bushel potential

If that ear size could be maintained at a harvest population of 30,000 plants per acre and if kernel weight could be maintained at about 85,000 kernels per 56-pound bushel, those yield components would multiply to equal a yield of 356 bushels per acre.

Speaking at the ICM Conference in Ames, Iowa, which is attended by about 900 crop advisors annually, Nielsen said steadily rising yields are a relatively recent phenomenon for U.S. corn producers.

“For 70 years, beginning in 1886, national corn grain yields in the U.S. were essentially flat and averaged only 26 bushels per acre during that entire time,” he said. “The absence of noticeable yield improvement throughout all those years is remarkable given the farmers of the day were essentially also plant breeders, selecting the best ears from one crop for planting in the next.”

After the Great Depression and the Dust Bowl years in the 1930s, growers began to plant hybrid seed corn that launched a slow but steady rise in production. With the advent of mechanization, herbicides, inorganic fertilizers, farmers began to see even greater increases that averaged about 2 bushels per acre from 1955 to the present.

“To reach that lofty goal of 300 bushels per acre by 2030, another quantum leap shift in the rate of annual yield gain would have to occur beginning next year that would take us to an annual increase of about 7.5 bushels per acre per year for the next 19 years,” says Nielsen.

Unprecedented leap

“Such a quantum leap shift in yield improvement would be unprecedented in the history of corn production. Contrary to the hype and hoopla over transgenic corn traits by the farm press and seed corn industry, there is little evidence such a leap has begun.”

If some farmers are already producing 300 bushels per acre and more today, what can other growers do to push their yields into that range?

“The answer to that question is simple,” says Nielsen. “Once that seed is planted, that crop is subjected to a season-long array of yield-influencing factors, most of which are stresses that reduce yield potential.

“So the secret to improving yields on your farm is simply to sharpen your focus on identifying the yield-influencing factors specific to the fields you farm. Once you have successfully done that, then you are better equipped to identify the appropriate agronomic management strategies to alleviate those factors holding back your yield and, perhaps, enhance those factors that promote high yields.”

Nielsen says the trouble with the way many farmers go about trying to improve yields is that they look for “silver bullets” or the “one-size-fits-all” answer to their problems. Instead, farmers need to pay attention to a range of what he calls “yield-influencing factors:”

• Field drainage. “In my area of the eastern Corn Belt, naturally poorly-drained soils constitute a perennial challenge to establishing vigorous stands of corn. The adequacy of field drainage (tile or surface) greatly influences whether corn will produce 200-bushel-plus yields or nothing or somewhere in between.”
• Supplemental water. Some soils in the eastern Corn Belt suffer from the opposite influence in that they dry out too easily when rainfall is inadequate. Obviously, fields with those soils will usually respond to supplemental water provided by above-ground irrigation or below-ground supplementation.

Wide range of yields

• Hybrid selection. “Most of us spend too little time evaluating the documented performance of potential hybrids. Look at any hybrid trial that includes “good” hybrids from a range of seed companies, and you will easily see a 50-bushel to 100-bushel range in yield between the top and bottom of the trial.”

“The key challenge is to identify hybrids that not only have good yield potential, but that also tolerate a wide range of growing conditions. The best way to accomplish this is to evaluate hybrid performance across a lot of locations.”

• Manage trash in no-till. “If you no-till corn on soils that are poorly drained, then you simply must strive to manage surface “trash” to enable drying/warming of surface soils, facilitate effective planter operation and improve crop emergence/stand establishment. Aim to burn down winter annuals or cover crops before their growth becomes unmanageable.”
• Avoid soil compaction. “If you improve soil drainage, you will also minimize the risk of working or planting fields ‘on the wet side’ and, therefore, the risk of creating soil compaction with tillage or other field operations that can limit root development.
• Continuous corn or not. “Frankly, continuous corn does not yield as well as rotation corn. Numerous long-term rotation trials have documented this across a number of states.”
• Starter fertilizer or not. Starter fertilizer, especially nitrogen, is important for maximizing yields in the eastern Corn Belt.
• Nitrogen management. “Best management practices that target the efficient use of nitrogen fertilizers in corn are well documented and include avoiding fall nitrogen applications, avoiding surface application of urea-based fertilizers without incorporation and adopting sidedress N application programs where practical.”
• Disease management. “Warm, humid conditions typical of the eastern Corn Belt during the summer months are conducive for the development of several important foliar fungal diseases, including gray leaf spot and northern corn leaf blight. Goss’s Wilt, a potentially severe bacterial disease, has migrated into Indiana and represents a new challenge for growers in the eastern Corn Belt.”

“It should be obvious at this point that achieving higher, more consistent yields does not require ‘rocket science,’” says Nielsen. “Rather, we’re talking about a lot of common sense, agronomic principles that work together to minimize the usual crop stresses that occur every year and allow the crop to better tolerate uncontrollable weather stresses.”

12/28/2011 :: Close of Year Carries Tax Implications for Farmers

As 2011 draws to a close, so do opportunities for farmers to take advantage of certain provisions of the federal tax code according to Ohio State University Extension educator David Marrison.

Marrison said that over the past decade, Congress has repeatedly allowed faster depreciation of capital assets to stimulate business investment by providing a “bonus” depreciation allowance in the year the asset is purchased.

The Tax Relief, Unemployment Insurance Reauthorization, and Job Creation Act of 2010 extended the depreciation bonus for 2011 and 2012 to encourage new equipment purchasing. The additional first-year depreciation rules allow farmers to deduct on their 2011 income tax returns 100 percent of the cost of qualifying assets purchased in 2011 and 50 percent of the cost of qualifying assets in 2012.

The ability to write off capital purchases, however, isn’t justification to make purchases just for the sake of limiting tax liabilities.

“Don’t buy new paint or new steel without doing a comprehensive business analysis,” Marrison advised. “Don’t buy it just to buy it, but make sure it fits with your business plan and farm needs.”

Section 179

The other significant impending change to the federal tax code involves Section 179, which according to Marrison, works somewhat similarly to the bonus depreciation allowance.

“You’re able to deduct a qualifying farm asset, basically a piece of equipment that is new to a farmer,” Marrison said. “It doesn’t have to be new equipment as with the bonus depreciation, so this provision applies to used equipment purchases, too. The two allowances work hand in hand.”

He said December is a key month for farmers as they finish harvest and consider last-minute strategies to manage potential tax liabilities. The Ohio Ag Manager newsletter is one resource to help understand potential opportunities, as well as impending changes to the tax code.

“This has been happening a lot in the past few weeks, because with the delayed harvest we’ve had less time,” Marrison explained. “The Ohio Ag Manager puts a number of tax-related articles out throughout the year. We would also highly recommend getting a copy of the Farmers’ Tax Guide from your local Extension office.”

Marrison said the Tax Guide gives the latest information on what’s new for 2011 and what may be new for 2012. The 2012 edition is now available, and Marrison said OSU Extension educators will have copies available in each local Extension office in the coming days.

The Ohio Ag Manager newsletter is published in collaboration by OSU Extension educators and faculty members of the Department of Agricultural, Environmental and Development Economics.

12/27/2011 :: EPA Seeks Expanded Power via ‘Sustainable Development’

EPA wants to change how it analyzes problems and makes decisions in a way that will give it expanded power to regulate businesses, communities, and ecosystems in the name of “sustainable development,” according to a news report. Much of the thought behind this idea comes from a study, “Sustainability and the U.S. EPA,” that EPA commissioned last year from the National Academies of Science (NAS) and published in August.

The study’s panel declares part of its job to be “providing guidance to EPA on how it might implement its existing statutory authority to contribute more fully to a more sustainable-development trajectory for the United States”, that is, how to use existing laws to new ends. According to NAS, the sustainability study “both incorporates and goes beyond an approach based on assessing and managing the risks posed by pollutants that has largely shaped environmental policy since the 1980s.”

According to the study, the adoption of the new “sustainability framework” will make the EPA more “anticipatory” in its approach to environmental issues, broaden its focus to include both social and economic as well as environmental “pillars,” and “strengthen EPA as an organization and a leader in the nation’s progress toward a sustainable future.”

EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson has said that sustainability is “the next phase of environmental protection” and “fundamental to the future of the EPA.” She described the new approach as “the difference between treating disease and pursuing wellness.”

The study urges EPA to “create a new culture among all EPA employees,” and hire an array of new experts in order to bring the sustainability focus to every corner of the agency and its operations. Changes will move faster “as EPA’s intentions and goals in sustainability become clear to employees,” the study says.

The NAS and EPA held a meeting last week in Washington to begin public discussion of the study.

12/22/2011 :: Broadaxe — A Promising New Sunflower Herbicide

The introduction of Spartan® herbicide (Sulfentrazone) in the 1990s revolutionized sunflower production in the U.S. Spartan gave sunflower producers the needed tool to grow this crop in a no-till system successfully for the first time. A few years later Dual Magnum® (S-metolachlor) was labeled on sunflower as well, but without a lot of fanfare. That was largely due to the product being weak on kochia, the “Darth Vader” of troublesome sunflower weeds.

For the 2012 season, a new herbicide will be available for sunflower producers that merges these two active ingredients into one product. The product, called Broadaxe®, is expected to be labeled in late 2011 or early 2012. The product owner, FMC, is planning a full launch for the 2012 season.

FMC has been looking at this combination for the last five years in all the sunflower production states. The company noticed that Broadaxe really stuck out as demonstrating superior weed control, according to Sam Lockhart, technical support specialist for FMC. The idea is not entirely new. In the October/November 2010 issue of The Sunflower, a producer near Dodge City, Kan., reported his use of a mixture of the two labeled herbicides to control palmer amaranth.

The advantage of Broadaxe over conventional Spartan formulations is longer residual, better control of early season grasses such as green, yellow and giant foxtail and barnyardgrass. It also provides a broader control spectrum of several key broadleaf weeds, including pigweed species (e.g., palmer amaranth), lambsquarter species and Russian thistle.

University researchers like Drs. Brian Jenks (NDSU), Richard Zollinger (NDSU) and Phil Stahlman (KSU) like what they have been seeing in their Broadaxe research plots.

For Jenks, who is located at the NDSU North Central Research Extension Center at Minot, N.D., the product has done a good job of controlling foxtail that may be resistant to Group 1 and Group 3 herbicides. In addition, he has observed good control of lambsquarters, pigweed and wild buckwheat when applied preplant or pre-emergence.

Stahlman, located at the KSU-Hays Research and Extension Center, has seen good control of foxtail as well as stinkgrass, fall panicum and witchgrass, along with partial control of longspine sandbur, wooly and prairie cupgrass, shattercane and Johnsongrass seedlings (but not rhizome Johnsongrass).

Another advantage that Stahlman has observed with Broadaxe is improved control of kochia. He notes that glyphosate-resistant kochia is well documented in Kansas and other regions. Kochia resistance to ALS and triazine herbicides has been around for some time. The combination of Broadaxe with two active ingredients is an important tool in resistance management.

All three scientists note enhanced synergy with the two ingredients combined. NDSU’s Zollinger worked with the product for the first time in the 2011 season and saw nearly complete control of foxtail, barnyardgrass, wild mustard, redroot pigweed, lambsquarters, eastern black nightshade, biennial wormwood and marshelder as well as partial control of dandelion. Some of the weed control was better with the mixture compared to Spartan or Dual alone. “There must be some synergy with the mixture,” Zollinger states.

Rates, Incorporation & Soil Types

All of the university researchers found that the higher rates did the best job. Brian Jenks says “weed control was typically better with the 35-oz rate compared to the 25-oz rate.” Rich Zollinger agrees with the higher rate recommendation. Phil Stahlman likes the higher rates to get the longest season control of difficult weeds like palmer amaranth, which can germinate throughout the growing season.

Broadaxe can be applied 14 days prior to planting and up to three days after planting. Like Spartan and Dual, Broadaxe needs rainfall for activation. Generally, a half inch is needed for good activation in no-till or conventional till. Both Zollinger and Jenks like a pre-emergence application to get the longest residual. Planting time rainfall has not been a problem in the last several years in the Dakotas/Minnesota.

Zollinger thinks abundant moisture is the key reason why the results were so good in his 2011 trials. He is interested in seeing the level of weed control in a dry spring.

Stahlman suggests a seven- to 10-day preplant application in Kansas dryland production with a mixture of glyphosate. “Our spring rainfall is so unpredictable. It is important to have the product on the ground for a longer period of time to ensure a rainfall event,” he says

FMC’s Sam Lockhart cautions growers to not cover Broadaxe with much soil when planting. “Broadaxe will have trouble controlling weeds if it is buried under a lot of soil,” he says. “It is this top layer where the small-seeded weed species will be located when they germinate.” KSU’s Stahlman also warns about displacing treated soil within the row in a preplant situation when no moisture has been received.

The labeled rates will range from 17 to 38 oz/acre. Lockhart says that lower rates will be necessary on very light soils with low organic matter and high pH. “It will be important for growers to consider soil sampling or grid sampling their ground to dial in a proper rate based on the rate chart on the label,” he notes. “If a grower knows his soil type, soil organic matter and soil pH, it will be easier to pick a rate to use.”

Lockhart and the university researchers all agree that the product has great potential for added weed control in sunflower. There are weaknesses in volunteer grains, wild oat and some large-seeded broadleaf weeds. But up to this point, researchers have been impressed with the results.

— Larry Kleingartner

12/20/2011 :: Ushering in the Golden Age of Global Agriculture?

A tsunami of new demand, particularly from China and India, should keep commodity prices and producer profitability strong over the next decade, according to Michael Dwyer, director of global policy analysis for the USDA’s Foreign Agricultural Service, speaking at the USA Rice Outlook Conference, in Austin, Texas.

While Dwyer stopped short of saying that agriculture had entered a sort of “golden age” of profitability, he noted agriculture continues as one of the bright spots in the struggling global economy these days.

Dwyer says that one factor that could impact his fairly bullish outlook is a 25 percent chance that a financial catastrophe in Europe could trigger another global recession in the next couple of years. “If that happens, the value of the euro will fall, the dollar will rise and commodity prices will fall. What we’re worried about for China is a hard landing. China’s economy is starting to slow down. One third of all new construction in Shanghai is empty. This is the first sign of a real estate bubble.”

Other factors to keep an eye on the coming years, according to Dwyer.

Demand driven by global economic growth and the rise of the middle class in developing countries– “The demand theme will affect every commodity, not just rice, and not just American rice. Studies show that when there is a dollar increase in income, consumers in China, India, Latin America and Southeast Asia will spend 20 cents to 40 cents of that increase on food. This has a tremendous impact on global food demand. Prices have to rise as a rationing device.”

The value of the dollar– “When the dollar goes up, commodity prices go down. When the dollar goes down, commodity prices go up. Over the next 10 years, we expect the dollar to fall by another 14 percent. If that’s true, it’s going to continue to put upward pressure on commodity prices.”

Global biofuels production– Dwyer noted that if more land goes into feedstock for biofuels, “it means it’s coming out of land for other crops. All commodities are getting a price spike from what is happening in biofuel production. In other words, there is a substitution factor. But what if there is a breakthrough on a technology where suddenly the cost of producing biofuel drops to 50 cent to 75 cents. It would definitely impair demand for corn feedstock.”

Trade and trade liberalization– “Many countries are signing free trade agreements. These agreements have effectively lowered the levels of protection, so that production happens in the countries that have a comparative advantage. As a low cost producer in many crops, we will be the big winner in trade liberalization. World trade is up over 150 percent since 2000. Imports have gone up in almost every country, as have exports.”

Policy errors by government– Never underestimate the ability of government to make mistakes, Dwyer says. “Look what happened to rice prices back in 2008-09. There wasn’t really a rice shortage. That price spike should not have happened. But it did because a number of rice countries started banning rice exports to keep the price of rice low to their domestic constituency. All it did was shift those price pressures into the global market.”

The result was a crisis of confidence, according to Dwyer. “We have spent the last 30 or 40 years trying to convince the rest of the world that you can rely on a world trading system for the most basic human needs. When we had a crisis in 2008-09, countries basically adopted the law of the jungle, every man for himself. It sent a powerful negative signal to importers around the world that maybe we can’t trust the global trading system. I’d love to tell you that it’s never going to happen again, but we saw it last year with Russian wheat.”

Energy prices– “At the end of the day, if you really want to know where food prices are going to go, look at oil prices, because they’re going in the same direction. Those two sectors are linked at the hip.”

Biotechnology development– “With demand building around the world, we have to do one of two things, put a lot more land into production or increase yields. One way to get yields up is through biotechnology. The problem is that acceptance of biotechnology is not universal.”

Land expansion– To satisfy demand for food and fiber, increased production will come from both yield advances and more land coming into production, Dwyer says. The latter won’t happen unless producers believe that high prices are in for the long run. “In our view that is exactly what is going to happen. Much of the new growth will come from South America and the former Soviet Union.”

12/19/2011 :: The Robots Are Coming

You don't have to be a science fiction fan to believe that robots are coming to a field near you. In fact, eventually some of the robots could be your robots. The technology is here with GPS and advanced tractor management systems. Simply look at John Deere's Machine Sync and the GuideConnect system introduced recently by AGCO's Fendt brand. Throw in John Deere's logistics and networking technology FarmSight and various other companies’ fleet management/telematics solutions and operator-less field operations can only be a matter of time.

"The technology for autonomous machines exists," agreed Bob Dyar, product manager, Agricultural Management Solutions, John Deere. "We just have to have the technology to operate safely, to protect people and other things that exist in and around the machine's operating zone. Robotics is happening in other industries. It will happen in agriculture too."

John Deere's Machine Sync temporarily turns the grain cart tractor into a robotic arm of the combine. For the purpose of unloading on the go, the combine's on-board computer takes control of the tractor, ensuring that it will adjust speed and position to match the combine during the unloading process.

This is just a step away from the combine being able to alert the grain cart to leave the side of the field and come into position for unloading...without an operator on board, which Kinze Manufacturing field demonstrated earlier this year with a driverless tractor. Kinze also demonstrated a driverless or autonomous planting operation by way of a GPS field map loaded into a tractor and planter combination. As the company noted, a farmer will only need to perform “cursory monitoring.”

Peter Josef Paffen, senior vice president, Fendt, referred to the introduction of autonomous vehicles as a process that, for Fendt and AGCO, has started with their leader/follower concept in Fendt tractors. Martin Richenhagen, CEO, AGCO Corporation, said the technology is fully adaptable to other AGCO brand equipment, including combines, forage harvesters and application equipment.

The John Deere and Fendt technologies recently won awards at Agritechnica, the world's largest ag machinery show. Machine Sync won silver, while GuideConnect won gold. With Fendt's GuideConnect, two tractors with matching implements are brought to the field. One operator remains with the leader tractor and programs the follower tractor to match all actions of the leader tractor, but at a preset distance behind the leader and in a neighboring swath. No operator is needed in the follower. The sole operator in the field is responsible for directing both tractors around any obstacles in the field and watching for problems.

OPERATOR-FREE FIELDS?

Given the level of current technology, including infrared and other types of sensors, not to mention cameras for live feed to a supervising operator, why have an operator in the field at all? "Right now the biggest impediment to autonomous equipment is the questions of who assumes liability and will anyone write insurance policies to cover production, people and companies," suggested Scott Shearer, chair, Department of Food, Agricultural and Biological Engineering, Ohio State University.

It is a problem that AGCO will need to solve before many farmers are likely to adopt GuideConnect, especially in the highly litigious U.S. market. It's one that Richenhagen is adamant will be answered.

"It is an issue we are working on," he said at an Agritechnica news conference. "A nation which can develop unmanned missiles that can be fired remotely should be able to resolve a liability issue like this."

Shearer agreed that it will be resolved, but perhaps not with the 300 to 400 horsepower tractors Fendt is suggesting for initial use with GuideConnect. He pointed out the difficulty of stopping a large piece of equipment. He further suggested that the paradigm of larger equipment allowing one man to do more might be at its peak, with autonomous technology shifting manufacturers’ focus away from larger size equipment.

"If you go to small, autonomous equipment, it could be two row or four row and under 50 horsepower," said Shearer. "A 40 horsepower tractor could be stopped with a high tensile fence. Liability is simply a lot less than with its 300 to 600 horsepower counterparts."

Not only would there be economies in manufacturing costs (smaller equipment doesn't have to be as heavily built), but more importantly there would also be reduced soil compaction. That translates directly into increased yield.

"Potential yield gains as a result of reduced soil compaction may be significant," said Shearer. "Efficiency will be of secondary importance initially."

How does all this relate to application equipment, full-service ag retailers and custom applicators? Dyar and Richenhagen both suggest potential for their respective technologies for applicator customers as well as farmers.

SMALLER IS BETTER?

Jacob Bolson, application engineer, Hagie Manufacturing, noted that liability concerns might be even greater for fully autonomous application equipment, given the highly regulated nature of products being applied. However, having a single operator in a field with multiple, smaller, lighter and more soil friendly application units makes sense to Bolson. He refers to them as micro applicators.

"I agree 200 percent that bigger is no longer the answer," said Bolson. "I think we will be backtracking through the use of automation to smaller equipment. However, I do believe we will have someone in the field managing the machines."

Like Shearer, Bolson is convinced the impact of soil compaction from ever-bigger tractors, planters and harvesting equipment is a problem. He feels ag is at the tip of the iceberg in quantifying the problem. He said farmers are already turning away from the biggest sprayers, regardless of manufacturer.

"I think a lot more focus is going to be on figuring out ways to have micro applicators that are more efficient," said Bolson. "Micro applicators are something the industry hasn't tapped into."

Although Bolson couldn't say if Hagie is tapping into it now, he did say the company continues pushing for "more seamless integration with automation partners to make sure we are giving customers the best experience with today's technology while working with our partners on planning for the future."

SPEED OF ADOPTION

Shearer doesn't expect one size to fit all or one level of control to fit all. Instead, he sees coordination of vehicles ranging from very little in some situations to modest or total in others. He does feel the availability of RTK is essential.

"We are seeing the densification of RTK networks," said Shearer. "We need to see broadband internet access in all rural regions. Within fields, we can do wireless communication from machine to machine, like John Deere's Machine Sync, but we need connectivity to the farm office or from wherever the machine is being monitored. Most of all, what we need to go from the research environment to full deployment is for the system to generate returns to producers, manufacturers and service providers."

Dyar said speed of adoption will depend on customer need. He compared the rapid adoption of guided steering systems by farmers as similar to the reaction John Deere is now getting to Machine Sync with its Machine Communication Radio (MCR). It is the MCR that allows up to 10 machines to communicate, not only for unloading, but also for sharing data such as hopper fill status, location and machine status.

Although it may take time for farmers, applicators and others to realize the value of the new, semi-autonomous technologies now on the table, Machine Sync appears to be an easy sell, suggested Dyar. "Farmers who have read about it understand the value of unloading on the go," he said. "If you can harvest 100 acres more per day with unloading on the go, that's significant."

12/16/2011 :: French Court Overturns GMO Ban

France’s ban on growing a strain of genetically modified maize developed by Monsanto Company was overturned by France’s highest court last week. The move is significant since France’s government and citizens have been some of the most outspoken critics of GM technology in food crops.

The recent decision follows a ruling by the European Court of Justice (ECJ) in early September that said France had based its decision to establish a moratorium on growing Monsanto’s insect-resistant MON810 maize on the wrong EU legislation.

The ECJ had stated that member states could only ban or suspend measures when the state could demonstrate potentially serious risks to human or animal health or the environment.

France’s highest court could not find that MON810 posed a serious threat.

Monsanto told Reuters that it “welcomed support for a science and evidence-based approach to GM crop policy in the EU.”

This move could represent a shift in EU policy in the future. However, Greenpeace has said it would urge action to stop this strain’s cultivation before the next planting season.

Only two GMO varieties are approved to be grown in the EU.

12/14/2011 :: Crop Farming a Risky Business

Crop farming is a risky business, and according to a Purdue Extension agricultural economist, farmers need to successfully manage that risk now more than ever.

There are two distinct types of risk farmers need to be concerned with — operating risk and financial risk. Operating risk is what's associated with grain prices, input costs and yields. Financial risk refers to the way producers finance their business — whether through debt or their own equity.

Both types of risk have intensified in the last few years as the volatility in commodity markets and input prices has caused grain producers' profit margins to become unstable.

"The volatility we've seen in the margins has increased dramatically since the mid-2000s," Mike Boehlje said. "We had a fairly stable set of prices and, more importantly, costs, for most of the 1990s and the first half of the following decade. But since about 2005, we've had significant volatility not only in prices but also in costs, resulting in a dramatic increase in margin volatility."

During the last three to four years, farmers generally have seen much higher grain prices. But Boehlje is quick to point out how quickly that changes.

"Just look at what's happened since August of this year to prices," he said. "We've now taken over a dollar off of corn prices and closer to $2 in some markets."

Even with all of the uncertainty, Boehlje said there are strategies to help farmers manage their risk. The first is by locking in margins when both commodity and input prices are favorable.

"Margins can be protected by using futures markets or contracting to lock in grain-selling prices and by contracting input prices for fertilizer, seed and chemicals," he said.

Second, farmers need to buy crop insurance. Determining the level at which to insure the crop can be a challenge, but Boehlje said he recommends higher levels of coverage right now because of the volatility.

Third, producers need to pay special attention to managing financial risk, especially when it comes to debt.

"Be careful with borrowing money," Boehlje said. "Now may be the time to pay down a little debt and position yourself to be able to handle this increased volatility by not having as much debt."

For those producers who already have long-term debt, Boehlje suggests taking advantage of historically low interest rates by fixing their loan rates.

And, finally, farmers need to use sound operating procedures, take advantage of the best possible seed and technology, and make sure operating costs are under control.

"Don't get lax in cost-control in good times because that can certainly hurt you when times aren't so good," he said.

For more information on risk management, check out the November 2011 edition of "Purdue Agricultural Economics Report" at http://www.agecon.purdue.edu/extension/pubs/paer/. Boehlje and Purdue Extension agricultural economist Brent Gloy discuss the topic at-length in their article, "Managing the Risk - Capturing the Opportunity in Crop Farming."

12/13/2011 :: One-size-fits-all Farm Bills May be on Way Out

A “one-size-fits-all” farm bill approach may no longer be a good fit for agriculture, and it certainly doesn’t fit the rice industry.That seemed to be the gist of the comments made at a panel on “Farm Policy Outlook and Analysis: Where We Are and What that Means for Rice” at this morning’s session of the USA Rice Federation’s annual Outlook Conference in Austin, Texas.

The mini-farm bill proposal submitted by the House and Senate Agriculture Committees to the Select Committee on Deficit Reduction included a provision for target prices that could be used to provide revenue insurance coverage for the row crop commodities.

Although the Select or “Super Committee” approach failed, panelists at the Outlook Conference said provisions of the Ag Committees proposal could provide a starting point for the 2012 farm bill discussions. Unfortunately, some groups have complained the target price included for rice – $13.98 per hundredweight – was too high.

“One of my friends from a different commodity said we would plant 10 million acres of rice if that proposal became law,” said Dr. Joe Outlaw, a panelist and co-director of the Agricultural and Food Policy Center at Texas A&M University.

“They seem to think that with a target price of around $14 per hundredweight that somehow we would find a lot of water and a lot of financing and land to put all this rice on. Frankly, I don’t think it is very helpful to the process for people to be making those kinds of statements.”

The Agricultural and Food Policy Center Outlaw helps direct provides detailed analyses of farm bill proposals for members of the House and Senate Agriculture Committees. The Center looked at about 25 of those during the preparations of the joint proposal to the Super Committee.

“Our work shows that all but two of the target price recommendations from one of the other commodity group’s proposal would be below the cost of production for those commodities.” (The average cost of producing an acre of rice in the U.S., according to the Center’s analysis, is $13.10 an acre.)

“It’s an unfortunate part of the process when the commodity groups do not at least acknowledge that there are differences regionally in cost of production and practices that need to be accounted for,” Outlaw said in an interview. “As long as you keep the prices within the natural relationship the commodities have to each other, I don’t think you’re going to get any planting distortions like what was in the press recently.”

Under the proposal developed for the Super Committee, producers would be able to choose between price or revenue coverage options for the life of the farm program. Outlaw believes such a choice would offer a much better fit for rice producers.

The House and Senate Ag Committees have been criticized for reportedly conducting “farm bill negotiations in secret” while preparing the budget proposal for the Super Committee.

Bart Fischer, a member of the House Ag Committee staff, told Rice Conference attendees that was not the case. “It was an accelerated process because we had far less time to, in effect, draft a farm bill, but all of the constituents had their say.”

12/12/2011 :: Weed Identification Guide Available Electronically

Daren Mueller, Department of Plant Pathology and Microbiology

The popular Weed Identification Field Guide is now available electronically as an e-book and, for the first time, downloadable on iPad. The publication is distributed by the Iowa Soybean Association (ISA) and Iowa State University (ISU) Extension and Outreach. Pioneer Hi-Bred, a DuPont business, has sponsored the capability for users to download the electronic versions for no charge.

The Weed Identification Field Guide, CSI 0003, authored in 2010 by Iowa State University Extension specialists, includes images and descriptions of 56 broadleaf weeds and 19 grass and grass-like weeds. The electronic publications, like the print version, include tools to aid in accurate weed identification, as well as weed lifecycle and herbicide management and stewardship information. They also include detailed diagrams, including 24 illustrations, and more than 250 zoomable, high-resolution photographs of weeds common to Iowa.

The industry has rapidly adopted electronic technology for use in the field. With this field guide available in print, as an e-book and for the iPad, it gives farmers more options to access information. Plus, the ability to zoom in on high resolution photos will make identifying weeds, the soybean's biggest competitor, that much easier.

This is the second collaborative ISA/ISU Extension field guide to go electronic, with the first being Soybean Diseases. By immediately identifying weeds, an effective management plan that is vital to maximizing crop production can be determined more accurately.

Field guides, print and electronic, can be found on the ISU Extension Online Store at https://store.extension.iastate.edu/ or at www.iasoybeans.com/productionresearch.

Funded by the soybean checkoff.

12/08/2011 :: USDA Creates Board for Native American Farmers

SIOUX FALLS, S.D. (AP) — The U.S. Department of Agriculture has created a special advisory board to help ensure that Native Americans participate in and benefit from USDA programs.Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack says in a news release that the Council for Native American Farming and Ranching will help native governments, businesses and farmers partner with the USDA to create jobs and strengthen the communities.The Council will work closely with the Office of Tribal Relations, Farm Service Agency and other USDA agencies to help Native farmers achieve profitability in their business.According to the National Congress of American Indians, agriculture is the second largest employer in Indian Country.

 Copyright 2011 The Associated Press.

11/30/2011 :: Nuseed expands seed platform with US acquisition

Nuseed, a wholly owned subsidiary of Nufarm Limited, today announced the acquisition of
Seeds 2000 Inc, based in Breckenridge, Minnesota, USA.

Seeds 2000 is a seed research, production, sales and marketing company focused primarily on the development of elite oil and confection sunflower hybrids that benefit both the farmer and end-use food customer. The company has significantly expanded its international activities in recent years and today conducts development and sales activities in the USA, Canada, China, Argentina and a number of European markets.

Nuseed is a global seed and traits company focused on the enhancement of food and feed value through seed technology. The company develops proprietary canola, sunflower, and sorghum products that are marketed in over 25 countries.  Nuseed has existing sunflower breeding and marketing operations based in California, Argentina, Serbia and Australia.

Sunflower is an important oilseed and snack food crop, occupying approximately 24 million hectares of land globally and producing approximately 32 million metric tonnes of grain annually. 

Seeds 2000 President, Steve Kent, said he expected the transition to be seamless and to facilitate additional opportunities to expand the business in both the US domestic market and globally.

In 2009, Seeds 2000 received a growth investment from the Rural American Fund, a Chicago based private equity firm focused on making partnership investments in growing agricultural companies. 

“Seeds 2000 is a fantastic company and we are very pleased with this transaction for the teams at Seeds 2000 and Nuseed”, said Tom Karlson, Founding Principal of Rural American Fund.

Nuseed Americas VP, Andy Thomas said, “Sunflower is a key crop for us. This investment provides a broader sunflower footprint in global markets and a pipeline of genetics complementary to our existing business.

“We look forward to a great future with Seeds 2000 employees and customers.”

Andy Thomas, Nuseed Americas VP

11/21/2011 :: Sunflower Markets Holding Steady Through Harvest

Typically the various grain commodities feel some market pressure during harvest season as the new crop comes off the field to replenish supplies. However, things have been anything but typical this, and that shows in the sunflower market.

“Sunflower markets have been holding very steady throughout the course of the harvest season. That is unusual historically, but understandable given the sharp reduction in planted acres due to spring flooding,” said Larry Kleingartner, executive director of the National Sunflower Association, Mandan, N.D.

“Demand for the reduced production will continue to be strong,” he added.

That bodes well for producers and the market.

As of Nov. 10 local prices for NuSun sunflower were unchanged at $27.85 per hundredweight for November delivery and $28.05 for delivery in December.

Producers in the Dakotas have enjoyed the favorable weather this fall that has allowed them to progress to the point where harvest is wrapping up in the region. Most of the fields that remain to be harvested were planted late.

Thus far western Dakota yield reports remain positive except for those fields that were planted late.

“The last third of the very-late planted North Dakota crop is lighter in test weight and yield,” Kleingartner noted. “Some test weights from these late planted oil-type fields are in the mid-20s.

“The market will take the best quality first and deal with this lighter quality later.”

Kleingartner pointed out that growers are using quite a bit of on-farm storage as they wait to see how the markets play out.

On the confection side, processors have reported very good quality with good seed size this year. Sclerotinia head rot disease was very minimal which is a key aspect for quality.

Elsewhere, heavy wet snow hit the High Plains region in western Kansas in early November which slowed harvest progress.

“Producers are fighting the moisture issue while trying to get their crops harvested. Moisture was needed, but the timing was less than ideal,” Kleingartner said.

At least one high oleic new crop contract has been announced, according to Kleingartner.

“TCI is using a formula of 2.5 times the November 2012 soybean contract to determine price,” he said. “At today’s level, that translates to $30.45 cwt. Oil content premiums are in addition. In some cases a transportation allowance may be available.”

On the international front, Kleingartner pointed out that South and North American soybean oil exports have declined with more product going into biodiesel.

“That decline is being made up by southeast Asian palm oil and Black Sea sunflower oil for the time being,” he said. “Approximately 14 percent of world vegetable oil demand is going into biodiesel.”

A total of 32,132 metric tons of oil-type sunflower was crushed in the month of October. That compares to 9,149 mt in September and 69,297 mt in October of last year. 

By Mark Conlon

11/15/2011 :: USDA Leads U.S. Agriculture Toward Greater Efficiency

11/11/2011 :: USDA Reminds Producers of Disaster Program Deadlines

USDA reminds eligible ranchers and livestock producers who had livestock losses or grazing losses during the 2011 crop year that the deadline for applying for benefits under the Livestock Forage Disaster Program (LFP) and the Emergency Assistance for Livestock, Honeybees and Farm-Raised Fish Program (ELAP) is Jan. 30, 2012

LFP provides payments to eligible livestock producers who have suffered livestock grazing losses due to qualifying drought or fire that occurred before Oct. 1, 2011.  The National Drought Monitor index of drought level severity qualifies a county for producer eligibility. Fire losses apply only to federally managed rangeland.  Eligible livestock under LFP include beef cattle, alpacas, buffalo, beefalo, dairy cattle, deer, elk, emus, equine, goats, llamas, poultry, reindeer, sheep and swine. 

Emergency Assistance for Livestock, Honeybees and Farm-Raised Fish Program (ELAP):

ELAP provides emergency assistance to eligible producers of livestock, honeybees and farm-raised fish who have losses due to disease, adverse weather or other conditions, including losses due to blizzards and wildfires that occurred before Oct. 1, 2011. ELAP assistance is for losses not covered under other disaster assistance programs established by the 2008 Farm Bill.

Producers who experienced livestock death losses must file a notice of loss 30 days after the loss is apparent, but no later than Dec. 29, 2011. Producers who suffered livestock grazing and feed losses must have filed a notice of loss no later than Oct. 31, 2011 and have until Jan. 30, 2012, to submit an application for payment for livestock death losses and livestock grazing and feed losses.

Program Requirements:

In order to qualify for LFP and ELAP, the applicant must have purchased insurance coverage through FSA’s Noninsured Crop Disaster Assistance Program (NAP) or the Pasture, Rangeland and Forage Insurance-Rainfall Index for Grazing (PRF-RI) program offered through the Risk Management Agency (RMA). Producers who meet the requirements of a socially disadvantaged, limited resource, or beginning farmer or rancher do not have to meet the Risk Management Purchase Requirement (RMPR).

Program applicants should note that certain payment limitation and adjusted gross income eligibility requirements must be met in order to qualify for LFP and ELAP.

For more information on FSA’s livestock disaster assistance programs, please contact the your nearest county USDA Service Center. Information can also be obtained on line at http://www.fsa.usda.gov.

11/04/2011 :: South Dakota/North Dakota: Disaster help sign-up Nov. 14

Farmers and ranchers may sign up for the Supplemental Revenue Assistance Payments program for 2010 crop year losses beginning Nov. 14, said USDA Farm Service Agency State Excecutive Director Craig Schaunaman.

To qualify for a program payment, the producer's operation must be in a county that was declared a disaster for 2010 and have at least a 10 percent production loss that affects one crop of economic significance.

For more information on program eligibility requirements, contact a Farm Service Administration office or visit http://www.fsa.usda.gov/sure.

11/04/2011 :: The Section 179 Tax Deduction

How You Can Take Advantage, Now Thru December 31, 2011

From now through the end of the year, businesses can take advantage of a special stimulus tax law that allows 100% of a an equipment purchase to be deducted on their 2011 return.   You can take the deduction when buying new or used equipment or vehicles for your business, even if you’re financing the purchase.  More details are below.

Here’s an example of how the Section 179 savings can work:

10/31/2011 :: Envisioning Tomorrow’s Weed Control and How to Get There

How will you control weeds in 10-20 years?

Look for sensor-driven, integrated weed management systems that identify weed species and immediately target the correct control measure for the plant growth stage and weed species. These systems could limit chemical applications to the micro dose needed, reducing herbicide amounts and practically eliminating drift and groundwater issues.

At UNL’s West Central Research and Extension Center, work is underway on targeted control systems for use with sensors and guidance systems that can identify and control weeds in real-time as a device moves through the field.

The combination of plant recognition and various application technologies into a single platform will require integrating research in the fields of biology, engineering, and computer science. This single platform will incorporate sensors and decision support software so multiple application technologies can be accessed to provide directed weed management. Ideally, it would be a self-guided machine that could systematically comb the field to identify weeds and then apply the necessary control tool (e.g., spray, mow, cultivate) at the individual plant or patch scale.

From a biological approach, successfully integrating weed management requires an understanding of three key components:

• the effect of treatments on weed populations
• weed growth and development stages, and
• the critical period for applying control tools.

Control tools (e.g., mowing, spraying, cultivating) have different effects on weeds and without a complete understanding of the life history of the target weed(s) and crop, the development of effective and efficient robotic systems will be challenging, if not impossible. In most crops, there is a period when weed control is critical to avoid yield loss. An autonomous robotic system that doesn’t consider timing of weed removal will perform poorly in current cropping systems. For a robotic system to respond to critical periods of crop growth, it must be either manually sent into the field or programmed to perform weed control operations that are in sync with crop growth stage.

In a true integrated weed management system that uses the latest machine-based guidance systems with sensors and decision control systems, weed identification and control applications could occur simultaneously moving across a field.

Research Needs

An immediate research need in this area is to refine targeted application methods for quantifying micro-dose herbicide rates suitable for effective weed control. The research team at the West Central REC is conducting a series of related greenhouse studies and has proposed additional studies.

In the future, a single platform will need to have more than one tool for use in the field for controlling weeds. Greater collaboration among scientists in the fields of weed science and biological and computer science can help achieve two major goals:

1. combination of weed management tools into one operation to allow for a truly integrated system, and
    
2. advancement of more sustainable integrated weed management programs that result in reduced environmental contamination and human exposure to chemicals, as well as inputs needed to economically control weeds.

Steve Young, Extension Weeds Specialist
West Central REC, North Platte

10/24/2011 :: Population Trends are Bullish for Agriculture

By Tim Hoskins For Farm & Ranch Guide

Chad Hart is a self-described bull.

"I am bullish on the long-term future for agriculture," says Hart.

The Iowa State University economics assistant professor says the assumption for his optimistic outlook for Iowa agriculture (and the upper Midwest) is based on forecasts showing the world's population to grow to about 9 billion by 2050.

In 20 years, there will be more mouths to feed. In addition, Hart says more people throughout the world are moving up the income scale and increasing the amount of protein they eat.

He says those two factors, combined with the favorable soils and climate in the Midwest, make it one of the key areas to increase ag production.

Unless there is a massive disease outbreak or war, Hart says the population predictions, which have been steady over the past several years, should hold.

He concedes it is hard to predict a massive disease outbreak or war that would alter those numbers.

As the global demand for protein increases and also the amount of feed needed, the question becomes are countries going to import the feed or the meat, he says.

Hart says for the crop farmer, either answer would mean increased demand for their product.

However, if the grain was feed near where the crops were produced, it would mean more opportunities for livestock producers here.

Hart says that could mean more livestock raised near where the feed is produced.

He explains that does not mean individual farms will be as diverse as they once were.

However, the overall diversity of agriculture for a region would increase with more livestock.

Hart says there have been signs of that happening with higher pork production numbers moving back to Iowa and the Midwest with the higher grain prices.

He says that could translate into more direct marketing for farmers, if they decide to produce feed for a neighbor raising livestock.

The U.S. farmer will not be the only one to respond to this increased ag demand.

"We need everyone to produce," Hart says.

Higher prices will get producers from Russia to Africa to China trying to increase yields, he says.

While there is opportunity to increase yields in China, Hart notes that country is limited because it has 20 percent of the world's population and only 5 percent of the arable land.

Hart says the United States has a lower percentage of the world's population and higher percent of arable land for production.

In the past few years, China has gone from not importing soybeans to being one of the largest global markets for the oilseed.

The birth rate in China is leveling out, Hart says, meaning the increased demand could come from other areas, such as Central America and Africa.

"Africa is the wild card," he says.

If the continent can get some of its human disease issues under control, Hart says it likely will increase its population and demand for ag products.

He sees signs with low-cost ways to prevent human diseases, such as a drinking straw that has a filter that reduces tapeworm infections and the net project that helps prevent the spread of malaria.

There are various efforts ranging from private investment to non-profit work by groups, such as the Gates Foundation, to increase ag production in Africa, he says.

On the other side, he says areas such as Japan, which is the largest corn importer, Europe and Russia have lower birth rates than death rates.

That could mean, especially for Japan, it could not be the top corn importer, but it will still be a strong corn customer, Hart says.

Overall, he says that could mean a shift of what markets purchase U.S. ag products.

Hart says that translates into an increased need for infrastructure to support the markets.

There has been private investment by the railroads to haul ag commodities to the West Coast, he adds.

Also, there has been increased investment in the ports along the West Coast to ship ag commodities.

He compares future ag growth to some of the infrastructure investments made in the 1950s through the '70s

10/14/2011 :: Sunflower Harvest Begins, Weights and Oil Good

North Dakota Ag Connection - 10/14/2011

Early sunflower harvest reports from Kansas and Texas indicate good quality with high test weights and oil content. Harvest is just getting underway in the Dakotas and Minnesota with some areas reaching 20 percent complete thanks to warm, dry weather.

Yield reports from areas in south central South Dakota are ranging from 2,365 to 2,805 lb/ac. Test weights averaging around 32 with highs over 33 and lows at 28.

The moisture levels are averaging around 10 percent. Confection quality is reported to be very good in early harvested fields. High winds in the northern plains really dried the crop down this week on the plus side, but on the negative has caused some damage in lodging. Phomopsis is present in many areas.

Overall, there is optimism on yield potential recognizing there is considerable time between now and final harvest.

For more details on the most recent crop ratings and conditions refer to our website at www.sunflowernsa.com.

09/22/2011 :: SEEDS 2000 Announces Sunflower & Corn Contest Winners at Big Iron

CONGRATULATIONS Contest Winners!
  SEEDS 2000 held a contest at Big Iron this year for customers who brought in their biggest sunflower head and/or biggest ear of corn.  And the winners of the Cabela's gift cards are: 

TOP 3 SUNFLOWER
1. JAGUAR-Kenny Nieuwsma, Fairview Farm-Strasburg, ND-15” diameter
2. COBRA-Tim Weber-Sutton, ND-14.75” diameter
3. CAMARO-Ken McLean-J KJ McLean Farms-Wheatland, ND-13.25” diameter

TOP 3 CORN
1. 2821 Bt-Don Nygaard-Finley, ND-880 kernels
2. 8801 VT3-Jay Vagts-Breckenridge, MN-860 kernels
3. 9601 VT3-Roger Nelson-Rutland, ND- 840 kernels

09/21/2011 :: Frost and Freezing Temperature Affect on Soybeans

(University of Minnesota Extension - 9/16/2011)

A hard frost occurred early Thursday morning (Sept 15th) across much of central and southern Minnesota. The complete effects of this frost or freeze event may not be known for some time. However, most soybean and corn fields have not reached physiological maturity. Yield and quality in these fields were likely affected. Beyond the minimum temperature and the duration of the freezing temperatures, many cultural and environmental factors will affect the level of damage. Late planting, long season varieties, poor fertility or drainage, and cool temperatures may exacerbate the effects of this early frost/freeze event. In most crop species, a hard killing frost after physiological maturity has little effect on yields. Physiological maturity is defined as the point at which maximum dry matter accumulation has occurred in the seed. But crops are not ready for harvest at physiological maturity, since dry- down usually takes a longer period of time. Soybeans are usually harvested at moisture contents of 14 percent or less. Maximum dry matter accumulation of soybeans has been reached when: 1) all leaves are yellow and about 60 percent of the leaves have dropped from the plant; 2) pods are all yellow and more than 50 percent of the lower pods have turned brown; and 3) beans within the pods have about 60 percent moisture, show little evidence of green color, and may be shrinking. Soybeans are easily damaged by frost in the 28 to 32° F range. Temperatures of 28° F for any extended period of time can completely kill soybean plants. The frost which occurred on Sept 15th resulted in varying degrees of leaf and plant damage. This damage ranged from only the top 20% of the soybean canopy affected in some fields to the more severe 50 to 70% leaf damage of the total soybean canopy in other fields located within south central Minnesota. The yield loss will be directly proportional to the plants' physiological growth stage. Soybean plants that are very near the point of physiological maturity can be expected to weather the freeze with little impact on yield. However, soybean fields that are only at the R6 (full seed) stage with all green leaves will experience significant yield losses. Very late planted or very long-season soybeans could experience yield reductions of up to 50% due to a longer freezing duration. How can you recognize frost-damaged soybeans? Watch for these characteristics: • Green or elongated yellow soybeans that shrink to smaller than normal size after drying • Reduced oil content and quality • Higher moisture level (by 1 to 2 percent) than indicated by a moisture meter • Slower field dry-down Soybeans left standing in the field may lose green color within two weeks of maturity, so allow for field dry-down if possible, even if the plants were only partially frosted. Does the color of green soybeans change during storage? In a preliminary study done at the University of Minnesota by Extension agricultural engineer Bill Wilcke and others, green soybeans and normal yellow beans were stored and monthly color readings were taken for six months. The colors did not change significantly for either group; however, visual appearance of the pure green soybeans appeared to be slightly mottled at the end of the six-month period. Some growers believe that beans that are only slightly green will tend to lighten up with time. A study conducted at the University of Minnesota indicated that if green beans were properly dried to low, safe storage moistures, they should keep in storage. It may be desirable to try to screen out small green soybeans as a means to reduce potentially large discounts due to damage. If you are storing soybeans which require drying, be sure to dry them (at temperatures of less than 130° F) to a low moisture level in order to ensure safe storage. In the Midwest, the Midwest Plan Service generally recommends storage moistures of 12 percent or lower for clean, high-quality soybeans in aerated storage for up to one year. For damaged soybeans, the storage moisture content should be 11 percent or lowe

06/20/2011 :: Yellow Corn Plants

by John Sawyer, Department of Agronomy

The early 2011 growing season has had considerable cool and wet conditions. Many fields have corn plants showing various shades of yellowing and interveinal leaf stripping. What may be the cause?

1. Cold temperatures. Not uncommon with early planting. Entire small plants can show lack of green color.

2. Wet soils. Corn roots need aerated soil for metabolic processes and nutrient uptake. Entire plants can show yellowing and many different symptoms, including phosphorus deficiency.

3. Slow soil organic matter mineralization. With cold temperatures, microbial conversion of organic nitrogen (N) compounds to inorganic N (ammonium and nitrate) is slow. If the corn plants are dependent on that source of plant available N, then plants could show N stress. Entire plants can show yellowing.

4. Sulfur (S) deficiency. This is related to item 3, that is, slow organic matter mineralization and lower supply of plant available sulfate-S (the form of S taken up by plants). Soil organic matter is the largest reserve of S in most soils, so slow mineralization can limit available S, especially in the upper soil profile. There have been several examples of early season S response (greener plants) in on-farm S strip trials and research plots at experiment stations this spring (Kanawha, Muscatine, central Iowa). In some cases, these early S deficiency symptoms may disappear with time and there would be no yield consequence. Our research the past few years indicates this does not always occur, and about 60 percent of the research trials have had yield increase with S application, especially when the deficiency symptoms are severe. For more information on Iowa sulfur research in corn, see the ICM conference report, Dealing with Sulfur Deficiency in Iowa Corn Production. Classic S deficiency is the older leaves are green and the new leaves show yellowing and interveinal stripping. With severe deficiency, the entire plant will be yellow.

5. Continuous corn. In many springs, and again this year, corn following corn tends to show more yellowing than corn following soybean, especially in reduced till and no-till. This is related to many factors, such as same crop allelopathy and less mineralization (for N and S).

6. Potassium deficiency. It typically begins to show on larger plants, about calf to knee high. Symptoms appear first on older leaves, with yellow to brown coloration on the leaf margins.

7. Corn hybrid. Some hybrids tend to show interveinal stripping more than other hybrids, and hybrids have different levels of greenness.

Nutrient deficiency symptom pictures and descriptions can be found in ISU Extension publication, Nutrient Deficiencies and Application Injuries in Field Crops, IPM 42.

 

John Sawyer is a professor of agronomy with research and extension responsibilities in soil fertility and nutrient management.

06/13/2011 :: Nitrogen and Sulfur Sources for Side-Dress Application

05/31/2011 :: How Corn Plants Respond to Flooding

Heavy rains and overflowing creeks have caused some fields, particularly those in low-lying areas, to flood.  In other fields, water may pond for a period after the rains, and then soak in, leaving producers to ask:  How long can plants be underwater before they die?  In a May 2010 newsletter article, R.L. (Bob) Nielson of Purdue University described how early season flooding affects the crop:

• The longer an area remains ponded, the higher the risk of plant death.
   
• Corn that is completely submerged is at higher risk than corn that is partially submerged.
   
• Plants that are only partially submerged may continue to photosynthesize, albeit at limited rates.
   
• While most agronomists believe that young corn can survive up to about four days of outright ponding, in a related article Paul Hay relates his experience with corn dying after one day. Corn will survive longer when temperatures are relatively cool  (mid-60s or cooler), than when it's warm (mid-70s or warmer).
   
• Soil oxygen is depleted within about 48 hours of soil saturation. Without oxygen, the plants cannot perform critical life sustaining functions; e.g. nutrient and water uptake is impaired and root growth is inhibited.
   
• Even if surface water subsides quickly, the likelihood of dense surface crusts forming as the soil dries increases the risk of emergence failure for recently planted crops.
   
• The greater the deposition of mud on plants as the water subsides, the greater the stress on the plants due to reduced photosynthesis. Ironically, such situations would benefit from another rainfall to wash off the mud.
   
• Corn younger than about V6 (six fully exposed leaf collars) is more susceptible to ponding damage than corn older than V6.  This is partly because young plants are more easily submerged than older, taller plants and partly because the corn plant's growing point remains belowground until about V6. The health of the growing point can be assessed initially by splitting stalks and visually examining the lower portion of the stem (Nielsen, 2008). Within three to five days after water drains from the ponded area, look for fresh leaves appearing from the whorls of the plants.
   
• Extended periods of saturated soils AFTER the surface water subsides will take their toll on the overall vigor of the crop.
   
• Some root death will occur and new root growth will be stunted until the soil dries to acceptable moisture contents. As a result, plants may be subject to greater injury during a subsequently dry summer due to their restricted root systems.
   
• Associated with the direct stress of saturated soils on a corn crop, flooding and ponding can cause significant losses of soil nitrogen due to denitrification and leaching of nitrate N.
   
• Significant loss of soil N will cause nitrogen deficiencies and possibly additional yield loss.

Brandy VanDeWalle
UNL Extension Educator in Fillmore County

05/16/2011 :: Planting Corn or Soybeans Into Wet Soils Can Cause Sidewall Compaction

Conducting fieldwork after wet weather can cause soil compaction, and in particular sidewall compaction in the seed furrow, says DeAnn Presley, Kansas State University Research and Extension soil management specialist. This is especially true if the weather then turns dry after planting, she adds.

“The worst cases of sidewall compaction are seen after a field has been planted when the soil was too wet, followed by a period of dry weather,” Presley says.

“If the soil stays moist, the roots are usually able to grow through the walls of the seed furrow. But if the soil gets dry, the roots can have a harder time growing through that seed furrow wall, and instead grow along the furrow, resulting in what is referred to as sidewall compaction,” she explains. 

With corn, the plants might look fine for a while, but the symptoms of this problem will probably show up after the plants get to be several inches tall, the K-State agronomist says. Symptoms will look like drought stress, nutrient deficiency or both, she adds. 

Since there aren’t any good ways to fix sidewall compaction once it exists, the best practice would be to avoid creating the problem in the first place, Presley notes. This means waiting until soils are dry enough to plant.

“The way to test for this is to dig down to the desired planting depth, and try to make a ball with the soil. Next, see if the ball will crumble or crack apart, or if it deforms like molding putty. If it crumbles, it’s ready to plant. If it deforms, it would be best to wait before resuming field operations. Even waiting as little as half a day could make a big difference,” Presley says.

05/02/2011 :: Maximizing Yield Potential by Optimizing Soil Management Practices

By Mahdi Al-Kaisi, Department of Agronomy; and Mark Hanna, Department Agricultural and Biosystems Engineering

Current weather conditions and wet soils cause certain anxiety and concerns for late planting, especially for corn. Spring weather this year definitely creates challenges in preparing fields and getting certain field operations done on time, such as tillage, anhydrous injection, manure application, etc. Decisions to conduct these operations need to be made carefully regarding the soil moisture conditions. The current soil moisture status makes the soil conditions susceptible to soil compaction, low soil temperature and soil erosion just to name a few. These problems can be yield robbers. Let’s discuss them individually and why we need to be more patient in entering fields and why waiting a few days may pay off significantly.
 

Soil Compaction and yield

Soil compaction can occur when soil moisture is at field capacity, where the soil retains the maximum amount of water as dictated by soil texture and natural drainage of that particular soil.  The best way to determine if your soil is at field capacity is to check your tile drain. If it is still running your soil is saturated and you need to consider waiting before entering the field. 

However, once the tile stops running then the soil is at field capacity. As a rule of thumb when soil is at field capacity, it is advisable to wait one to two days before entering the field, because at such conditions soil compaction and side wall compaction (when soil smeared by anhydrous knife or seed bed-openers) can be very significant and much deeper than at dry soil conditions. The reason for a high level of soil compaction at such moisture conditions is that soil aggregates will easily break down under a heavy load. The compression of soil particles will reduce soil porosity and reduce aeration that is essential for root growth and development and ultimately reduce yield. 

One study documented 18 to 27 bu/acre losses when corn was planted into wheel tracks of a susceptible wet soil during spring field work. Although yields over time may be reduced 4 to 6 bu/acre for corn and 2 to 3 bu/acre for soybean, yield due to severe soil compaction from disturbed soil operation can range from 10 to 30 percent or more depending on the level of soil compaction. These conditions can encourage shallow root formation.

Another problem that may be associated with wet soil condition planting is the proper seed depth, which should be on average a 2-inch planting depth to ensure best root formation. Therefore, check planter settings often and proper closing of soil is essential to ensure a uniform plant stand.
 

Low soil Temperature

Excess soil moisture can significantly affect soil temperature, especially in poorly drained soils.  The current moisture condition and the saturated soil profile caused significant drop in soil temperature from two weeks ago. Ideally, for optimum soil conditions for seed germination, soil temperature should be approximately 50 F or above at the top 2 inches. Some of the risks of planting in cold soils include a delay in germination and exposure of seeds to soil borne diseases that can have considerable impact on yield potential.
 

Soil erosion

Soil erosion is always a concern during this time of the year when soil, especially conventionally tilled fields, is most vulnerable without growing plant cover or residue cover, and exposed to rain intensity. Working soils during wet conditions can accelerate soil erosion due to soil compaction that reduces water infiltration and increases surface runoff. These freshly tilled soils are most susceptible to top soil loss during heavy rain events. It was documented that reduction of top soil depth (A-horizon) by 2 inches caused corn yield loss by as much as 2 and 5 bu/acre for loess- and till-derived soils, respectively.

Operating field equipment at suitable moisture soil condition is essential for maximizing yield potential and avoiding unnecessary soil compaction that can cause nutrient loss and deficiencies of nutrients such as potassium, and ultimately resulting in yield loss. Even delaying an operation part of a day to allow surface drying can make a big difference. Modern agricultural technology and equipment can make a difference in compensating for loss of time.

 

 

Mahdi Al-Kaisi is an associate professor in agronomy with research and extension responsibilities in soil management and environmental soil science. He can be reached at malkaisi@iastate.edu or (515) 294-8304. Mark Hanna is an extension agricultural engineer in agricultural and biosystems engineering with responsibilities in field machinery. Hanna can be reached at hmhanna@iastate.edu or (515) 294-0468.

04/26/2011 :: A Guide For Seed-Placed Fertilizer

George Rehm, University of Minnesota Extension

In Minnesota, application of fertilizer in contact with the seed at planting (also called pop-up) has become a very popular practice. From my unofficial and non-scientific surveys at meetings this winter, approximately 75 percent of those in attendance (Minnesota audiences) used this popular management practice. The percentage was not nearly as high in other states and I don't have a good explanation for the difference. Even though placement of fertilizer with the seed is a very popular practice, there are many questions. So, a guide for the use of seed-placed fertilizer is probably appropriate at this time.

CONSIDER THE CROP: Of course, fertilizer can be applied in contact with the seed for a variety of crops. All crops, however, do not have the same tolerance to this mangement practice. Corn and small grains are tolerant of reasonable rates. Suggested rates will be discussed later. However, the soybean crop is not tolerant and there can be serious reductions in emergence if this practice is used. Although the soybean plant can make some adjustment for stand reduction, use of seed-placed fertilizer at any rate for the soybean crop is risky. The same caution also pertains to the edible bean crop.

SOIL TEXTURE: This fixed soil property has a major impact on the use of seed-placed fertilizer. There is a very low level of risk if the soil texture is loam, silt loam, silty clay loam or clay loam. Soils with these textures are buffered against damage. The sandy loam and loamy fine sand textures can be very risky when fertilizer is placed in contact with the seed. For the sandy soil textures just listed, there should be at least 1 inch of soil between seed and fertilizer. Then reasonable rates of fertilizer can be used. This separation is not necessary for the loam, silt loam, silty clay loam and clay loam textures. Farming soils with these textures, numerous growers have reported no problems when about 8 gallons of 10-34-0 are placed with the seed at planting. One producer reported that there was damage: but, the seed zone was excessively dry at the time of planting.

SOIL TEST SHOULD DICTATE RATE: There's not a single rate of fertilizer that fits all situations. The results of a soil test should be used as a guideline. Since nitrogen and phosphorus are the two most important nutrients in a banded fertilizer used at planting, rates should be based on the results of a soil test for phosphorus. Phosphate fertilizer guidelines from the University of Minnesota provide rates for either a band or broadcast application. The suggested banded rate is appropriate for the seed-placed fertilizer. Following this suggestion should be adequate unless soil test P values are very low. For fields with these very low P tests, a combination of banded and broadcast phosphate should be used.

WHAT ABOUT SULFUR?: With the recent interest in sulfur, there have been numerous questions about use of this nutrient in contact with the seed. Field research has shown that the fluid sources of sulfur should not be applied in contact with the seed when soils are sandy (sandy loam, loamy fine sand). There is also some risk associated with seed placed sulfur for other soil textures. Planter attachments that place fertilizer a short distance from the seed should be used if there are plans to use sulfur in a band somewhere close to the seed. For fine textured soils, 1/2 to 3/4 of an inch between seed and fertilizer is adequate. The distance between seed and fertilizer should be at least 1 inch for sandy soils.

NITROGEN IS RESPONSIBLE: Previously, guidelines for use of seed-placed fertilizer suggested that rate should be dictated by the sum of nitrogen and potash applied. However, recent research results have shown that the rate of nitrogen is the most important consideration. To be safe, the rate of nitrogen should be no more than 10 lb. per acre if fertilizer is placed in contact with the seed. This rate can be more than doubled if there is some soil between seed and fertilizer.

FERTILIZER/SEED CONTACT IS NOT NECESSARY: It is not necessary to place fertilizer in direct contact with the seed to get the positive effects on the early growth of the crop. Fertilizer placed in a band close to the seed can produce the same effect. In general, the benefits of the banded placement placement diminish as distance between seed and fertilizer increases beyond 3 inches.

HIGH RESIDUE: High corn yields combined with more conservation tillage and corn following corn as a crop sequence puts special emphasis on management practices to improve early growth. PLacement of fertilizer in a band near the seed is a management practice that is essential for early growth and development in these situations.

For Minnesota planting conditions, there's no doubt that seed placed fertilizer is a good management practice. Unless soils are sandy, there have been no complaints when reasonable rates are used.

03/25/2011 :: Fungicide Profitability Calculator Available

The Iowa Soybean Association On-Farm Network has released a fungicide management calculator tool it has developed to help Iowa growers determine the probability of seeing a profitable return from using fungicides on soybeans.

The calculator allows growers to put in their own soybean prices (either projected or a price they’ve already booked for their crop) and actual product and application costs to see whether fungicide use is likely to pay off. The data used to create the calculator came from five years of comparisons made through 282 replicated strip trials across the state using BASF's Headline fungicide.

After inputting market price and cost, the calculator returns a graph showing soybean yield response to the fungicide, the break even yield increase the grower would need to justify fungicide use, the probability of actually seeing a profit, projected profit/loss from using the fungicide, and, finally, the number of years out of five that fungicide use could be expected to be profitable.

The calculator is available for anyone to use at www.isafarmnet.com/calc.

03/21/2011 :: White Mold Continues to be a Problem for Soybean Producers

By DALE HILDEBRANT Farm & Ranch Guide Farm & Ranch Guide

VALLEY CITY, N.D. – White mold has long been a problem for soybean growers, but in 2009 and 2010 this disease seemed to be more prevalent in the region, according to Sam Markell, NDSU Extension plant pathologist.

03/14/2011 :: Tips on Prepping your Planter in No-Till Systems

Jen Bennett

Spring is upon us. Is your planter prepped? From seed meters to disk alignment, there’s a lot to be checked, adjusted or fixed so your planter reaches peak performance. Experts offer the following tips for prepping your no-till planter.

Metering units:

If using a finger pickup meter, make sure the belt isn’t cracked. It should flex and be clean, Duiker adds.

He also recommends taking your finger pick-up meter to the dealer for calibration. "Have it calibrated every year or every 300–400 acres," Sjoerd says. "Take a bag of your own seed with you, and give him the correct speed at which you’ll be driving."

Vacuum air meters should be checked for leaks and appropriate air pressure.

Planter units:

He adds that bolts should be tightened and additional bushings added. "Also check for cracked or broken seed hoppers. They must be replaced," he says.

Seed-opener disks need to have a minimum diameter (check operator manual) to place seed at the appropriate depth. "Seed-opener disks need to come together in the front," Duiker says. "Stick two business cards between the openers and move them as close together as possible. If opener disks are worn too much, you’ll get a W-shaped seed slot instead of the desired V shape."

Mark Hanna, Iowa State University Extension ag engineer, adds that furrow points should be replaced when seed-opener disks are replaced. "The furrow point gradually wears as seed opener discs are moved inward to maintain a sharp soil entry point," he says. "Furrow points also need to be replaced when the point is too worn to create the furrow bottom."

Depth wheels:

To maintain the depth wheels, Duiker recommends changing washers from inside to out, or outside-in. "If this doesn’t resolve the problem, the depth wheel arm needs to be replaced," he adds.

Closing wheels:

When adjusting, be sure the spring is intact and not damaged or worn. Also, "bearings cannot be wobbly or too tight," says Duiker. "The bottoms of rubber or cast-iron closing wheels need to be 1.5-2 in. apart."

Alignment:

For more on adjusting your planter for no-till systems, check out the videos from Iowa Learning Farm at http://www.youtube.com/IowaLearningFarm

Coulters, opener disks and closing wheels should be aligned. Duiker recommends using a rope. "Take a rope and pull it straight from the front coulter to the closing wheels," he says. "The firming wheels, seed openers and coulters should all be in line." He adds that the closing wheels should not run on top of the seed furrow. In most closing systems, down pressure can be adjusted. "There’s an adjustment for the closing wheels; be sure to use it," says Hanna. "No-till situations can require stronger down-pressure." Depth wheels should run tight against disks and be firm to the ground. "Make sure depth-gauging wheels are firmly on the ground. To check for proper depth, try to spin or slip the wheel when it’s on the ground. If you can spin it at all while on the ground, you’ll need more weight or down pressure when planting," says Hanna. Accurate depth placement is dependent on steady, firm planter units. "You should not be able to easily lift up your unit or move it sideways," say Duiker. "Look across your planter units from the side. Are they all at the same height? If one unit is either up or down compared to the others, it needs work." To avoid skips or multiples, it’s essential that the metering units function properly. "To guarantee optimal performance, take metering units apart every winter," says Sjoerd Duiker, soil management specialist at Penn State University. "Remove dirt and clean the hood with soapy water. Replace cracked plastic covers. Replace broken fingers in a finger-pickup meter."