AgFax Blog: 2009

Tuesday, December 15, 2009

Why (maybe) it always seems to rain in town

By Owen Taylor, Editor
AgFax.Com - Your Online Ag News Source

A Purdue University scientist contends that man-made changes to the landscape have affected Indian monsoon rains, and he suggests that land-use decisions play an important role in climate change. Sprawling and packed urban areas are seeing an increase in heavy rainfall, according to the researcher, Dev Niyogi, an associate professor of agronomy and earth and atmospheric sciences.

Consider Houston, Texas, if you want a closer example of this effect.Every summer it seems that parts of the city flood, and the rainfall is generally unrelated to hurricanes. The flooding also can play havoc with crop production around the city.“All the asphalt, concrete and buildings accumulate heat, which rises into the atmosphere and creates a kind of thermal wall,” a Texas Extension worker noted last summer during one of those downpours. “When cool air carrying moisture hits that warm wall, it releases the moisture, and you end up with flooding rain in parts of the metro area and in rural areas where the 2 air masses meet.”

In India, this effect is clearly evident, Niyogi says. Some storms in urban areas have dropped as much as 37 inches of rainfall in a single day.

Analysis of the areas that have received increases in heavy seasonal rainfall, based on Indian Meteorological Department and NASA satellite data, showed that those areas were experiencing fast urban growth, which also describes Houston.

"You only see these types of heavy rainfall events in those areas with heavy urbanization," said Niyogi, whose research on the urban effect was published in the International Journal of Climatology. "The more urbanization spreads in those areas, the more of these heavy rain issues we'll see and the more flooding will become a problem."

Meanwhile, back in the Sierras...

Weekend storms have increased California’s Sierra snowpack – excellent news for farmers in the state’s Central Valley, who depend on winter accumulations for irrigation water in the spring and summer.

California Department of Water Resources officials say it is a good start to the season, the state’s Farm Bureau noted today on its web site. “However, they add this does not mean the drought has ended,” the report emphasized. “The overall snowpack for the Sierra is 95% of average for this date. That compares favorably to the 17% of average last year at this time. The Pacific Ocean El Nino current gives hope to farmers and urban dwellers alike for above-average precipitation, at least in the Central and Southern Sierra.”

A reduced snowpack going into the 2009 crop season meant severe limitations on water allotments in parts of the San Joaquin Valley, which makes up the southern half of the Central Valley and accounts for nearly all of the state’s cotton production area.

Growers and their crop advisors indicate that they will significantly increase cotton acreage in 2010, providing water is available again. Their projections are based on a strong price for Pima cotton and a falloff in other commodity prices, especially for tomatoes and dairy feed.

Monday, December 14, 2009

Owen Taylor Up Early: Asian Oil Demand, Onions For Energy, Remote Moisture Monitoring

AgFax.Com - Your Online Ag News Source

By Owen Taylor, Editor

December 14, 2009 – Worth noting this morning:

Asian Oil Demand: The federal Energy Information Administration (EIA) forecasted in a report last week that Asian countries will increase their short-term demand for oil. The heightened demand will be fueled mainly by a turnaround in industrial production. The upswing, EIA noted in a report last week, will be led by “countries such as China and India. Oil demand in 2010 should grow on average around 0.5 million bbl/d (barrels per day), rising to 25.5 million bbl/d for the region.

Georgia Gasifying Onions For Fuel: Georgia researchers are finding a use for spoiled Vidalia onions: turning them into methane gas for fuel. That fact was included in a University of Georgia report that gave consumers a string of Vidalia facts.

Why turn them into energy?

“They (unmarketable and spoiled onions) can pollute soil and pollute the water,” says UGA biological and agricultural engineer Changying “Charlie” Li. “And, for neighborhoods, the smell is a social issue. How to manage this waste stream is very critical.”

Diseased onions put back on fields can lead to more diseases.

Gary Hawkins, a CAES pollution prevention and alternative energy specialist, is working to turn unwanted onions into fuel, specifically methane gas. To do so, he shuts them in containers called anaerobic digesters, which are void of oxygen and contain bacteria. The digesting onions produce methane gas that can be used to heat buildings or to run electricity-producing generators. Based on chemical tests, onions are second only to blueberries in their potential to produce the most methane, Hawkins said.

Water Watching Remotely: We’ve just returned from the California almond conference where much of the emphasis was on how to produce almonds and other crops in 2010 with the looming potential for another year of restricted water supplies. So, a press release about a new wireless mesh moisture monitoring system caught my attention. The ClimateMinder system was initially developed to assist drought-stricken farmers in Turkey and has since been deployed in 60 farming and greenhouse operations worldwide.

According to the release, it consists of 3 technologies: GrowFlex, a patent-pending seamless hardware and software integration for 24/7 monitoring and control; GrowMobile, a unique mobile handset application; and ClimateMinder Server a secure server that provides management and connectivity. The system is managed through a “cloud-based” computing system, meaning that all the software and data functions are managed through a service.

Peanuts: Argentine Planting Off To Reasonable Start, Export Report Includes U.S.-Bound Tonnage

Andres H. “Hari” Georgalos -- who operates the Argentine trading company Georgalos Peanut World in Río Segundo, Cordoba -- filed the following report on crop planting progress and exports, which include some tonnage that ended up in the U.S.

About 5% of the anticipated 2009-10 Argentine peanut crop still has not been planted due to dry conditions. Although the area under these conditions is not highly significant, this continues to be a very worrying situation because of the lateness of the planting period at this point.

Fields planted early (in October) look good, with appropriate stands. The fields planted during November germinated well, without having significant emergence problems, so far. Wind damage was reported in some fields, leading to replanting in some cases.

Argentine HPS peanut kernel exports reached 350,000 tons in the January-October period. That number does not include the shipments of peanutbutter, peanut oil, peanut flours and pellets.

The main destination was Holland at 142,000 tons, followed by England with 32,000, Russia at 30,000, Algeria with 27,500, Poland with 14,000 and France importing 13,000.

The rest is distributed in other 60 countries, including 5,500 tons of "peanut of Cordoba" shipped to the United States.

FMC introduces Broadhead rice herbicide

AgFax.Com - Your Online Ag News Source

From a press release

FMC Corporation announced the introduction of Broadhead rice herbicide last week at the 2010 Rice Outlook Meeting in New Orleans. This new herbicide offers the flexibility and convenience rice producers need to control even the toughest grasses and broadleaves.

For use on both conventional and Clearfield rice varieties, Broadhead improves yield and rice quality by providing fast knockdown of barnyardgrass, panicum, broadleaf signalgrass, hemp sesbania and morningglory, among others. Additionally, the dual-action formula of Broadhead controls weeds that quinclorac or tank mixes cannot.

When used on conventional rice, Broadhead can be applied alone or tank mixed as an early post treatment, following a full rate of Command® 3ME herbicide applied pre or at-plant, providing growers with an effective, economical early-season weed control program.

If used on Clearfield rice, Broadhead herbicide can be tank mixed with Newpath® herbicide, following a full rate, pre-plant application of Command 3ME, improving results by controlling weeds such as hemp sesbania that may escape Newpath when used alone.

Application rates may vary based on the size of the weeds, with small actively growing weeds less than two inches tall requiring between 4.0 and 12.0 oz/A. For larger actively growing weeds (3-4 inches tall), Broadhead should be applied at rates between 8.0 and 12.0 oz/A. For optimum weed control, add COC at 0.5 to 1.0% v/v (2-4 qt. per 100 gal. spray solution).

"Broadhead provides excellent control of difficult-to-manage grasses such as barnyardgrass, broadleaf signalgrass, and crabgrass, plus a wide variety of tough broadleaf weeds," says Stu Throop, Broadhead product manager. "Broadhead combines two unique chemistries and modes of action to control grasses and weeds that other herbicides miss, making it an extremely effective way to manage resistant weeds and improve overall yield and crop quality."

Studies conducted by weed scientists at the University of Arkansas found that Broadhead provided equal or superior control of key weeds such as hemp sesbania, morningglory, Northern joint vetch and smartweed when compared to competitive herbicides.

Mississippi Row Crops Short Course Programs Now On Line

AgFax.Com - Your Online Ag News Source

By Owen Taylor, AgFax Editor

In case you missed it, last week’s Mississippi Row Crops Short Course is available on line in a series of video presentations. The links below will take you to individual presentations covering cotton, rice, soybeans and corn. Topics include insect control, fertility, disease prevention and weed control, including a big dose of current information on Roundup resistance.

The programs include a small video screen showing the person making the presentation and a larger screen that flips through the PowerPoint images that support the talk.

The audio is a bit distant, recorded through the video camera that captured the presenter. But the sound is good enough that you can follow along pretty easily. In at least one case, the video shows an empty podium for a couple of minutes before that specific presentation started.

That niggly point aside, these presentations are a cost-effective way to make this excellent short course available to a wider audience. There’s no substitute for attending, yourself, but so many meetings get jammed into the late fall and early winter that conflicts occur.

This is the first short course MSU has put together that covers major field crops, and it replaces the long-running and well regarded Cotton Short Course.

The programs are available in the Microsoft Silverlight format, which enables this simultaneous viewing of video and PowerPoint data. While the Row Crop Short Course home page advises that the presentations should be viewed with Microsoft Internet Explorer, we can no trouble running them in FireFox 3.0. However, we could not run the presentations in Opera 9.2.

Here are the links:

Sunday, July 26, 2009

Late-Week Cotton, July 25: Market ends lower, bollworms take flight, late crop complicates wheat planting

AgFax.Com - Your Online Ag News Source

July 25, 2009

By Owen Taylor

Editor, AgFax Media

Cotton Market Pulls A Lloyd Bridges On Friday

Meaning, it took a dive. (If you're too young to understand the reference, do a web search for "Sea Hunt".) Cotton slipped sharply, and Duane Howell - DTN’s cotton correspondent - says the market may have established a near-term top.

Read his full report.

Better weather and crop conditions in the Delta and Texas also could account for the bearish turn, Scott Stiles writes in this week's Arkansas Cotton Update. Stiles, an U. of Arkansas ag economist, also provides an analysis of where nitrogen prices are likely going.

See his report on page 3.

Roundup Ready or Ready For Roundup?

Rome Ethredge, Extension Agent in Seminole County, Georgia, took this photo of a pile of Palmer amaranth pulled from a peanut field in his county this week. It's an all-too-familiar site in both the Southeast and Delta this year as growers bring in crews to chop and pull a weed that no longer succumbs to Roundup, with that resistance further complicated by ALS resistance. “I’ve seen more hand pulling than ever this year and more rope wick applicators for our glyphosate and ALS resistant Palmer amaranth,” Ethredge noted in this week’s Seminole Crop E-News.

More Moths Taking Wing

Parts of the Southeast are experiencing a larger bollworm/corn earworm moth flight. Cotton newsletters from both Georgia and South Carolina showed clear spikes in bollworm moth captures to date.

“Captures of bollworm moths have dramatically increased again,” Jeremy Green, Extension Entomologist, reported in the Clemson Cotton/Soybean Insect Newsletter on Thursday. “How high will these numbers go, and how long will the pressure last once these moths start depositing eggs in high densities? I think they will go higher, and I think that this flight out of corn could persist for a lengthy period at high levels. The window for corn planting was a long one, so we have corn that is maturing at varying times."

That likely means extended bollworm/earworm pressure, Greene said. Be aware of egg lay and moth flushes in cotton, "particularly if you have sprayed for bugs with an OP alone and have not used a pyrethroid yet,” he added.

While Bt varieties provide a level of protection, check for escapes and follow threshold guidelines (included with his report)

“Also, be aware of corn earworm (bollworm) in soybeans (called ‘podworm’ in soybeans), especially considering this level of moth activity, so check soybeans that are blooming or setting pods,” Greene emphasized.

Links to both reports:

Georgia Cotton Pest Management, 7-24, Corn earworm pressure high; fall armyworms reported at low to moderate numbers; aphids still lingering.
South Carolina Cotton & Soybean Insect Report, 7-23, Bollworm & Tobacco Budworm; Captures of Bollworm moths have increased.

Late Cotton Complicates Wheat Planting

Late planted cotton could bump into short recrop intervals where growers want to plant wheat after the pickers leave the field, according to Larry Steckel, Tennessee Extension Weed Specialist.

“Please keep in mind there are just a few commonly used layby herbicides that have a recrop interval short enough where sowing wheat this fall would still be on label,” Steckel writes in this week’s University of Tennessee IPM Newsletter.

See his report and a table of herbicide wheat recrop intervals on page 2.

California's Cotton Feeling The Heat

Temperatures in the San Joaquin Valley - where most of California's cotton is grown - hit 111 and 112 in places last weekend, July 18-19, and temperatures have pretty solidly been in triple digits since then, from 102 to 108 in places.

"It's suppose to be 102 today, and a farmer and I agreed that would seem pleasant at this point," joked Tony Touma of Bio-Ag Consulting Friday. Touma and other PCAs (Professional Crop Advisors) are wondering what effect the intense heat will have on the fruit load.

For more on the heat and crop in California, see this week's MiteFax, our report covering cotton and other row crops in the SJV.

Plant Bugs Once Again "Pest Of The Week" In Arkansas

That's how Gus Lorenz puts it in this week's Arkansas Cotton Report. For a couple of weeks, plant bugs were eclipsed by bollworms. A heavy moth flight - loaded with high levels of pyrethroid resistance - moved through the state for a couple of weeks, pushing plant bugs to the back row in terms of attention. But now plant bug numbers are building.

See comments from Lorenz on page 1.

AgUpdates, July 27 Edition

SUNBELT AG NEWS

From staff and services

Late-Week Cotton: Why did the market drop?; bollworms take flight in Southeast; late crop complicates wheat planting; even for California, too much heat 7-25

Late-Week Rice: Market up a bit, coastal harvest starts, sort of 7-24

North Carolina: Peanut Disease Forecast 7-25

Peanuts: insect advisories, leaf spot - PeanutFax 7-24

California Cotton: What will the heat do?; lygus building - MiteFax Report 7-25

California Almonds: Spider mite concerns; harvest nears 7-25

Pilgrim's Pride to Idle Two Chicken Processing Facilities in Athens, Alabama, and Athens, Georgia 7-24

Mississippi: Erratic weather has hurt state corn yield potential 7-24

Arkansas: Field Day to Focus on Resistant Pigweed, Insects and Economics 7-24

Closing Livestock: Cattle futures finished mixed 7-24

Closing Rice: Posted Gains Today After Charting Key Reversal Yesterday 7-24

Closing Grain: All Grains Locked in Seasonal Downturns 7-24

Closing Cotton: Market Skids Below Retracement Point 7-24

USDA National Weekly Cotton Review 7-24

Linn Soybean Commentary: Closed Firmer along with other Ag Commodities 7-24

USDA National Weekly Grain Review 7-24

Corn Yields, Frost Concern In Upper Corn Belt 7-24

K. Good's Farm Policy: Climate Legislation; Animal Agriculture; CFTC Issues; Food Safety; and Doha 7-24

Southern Grain: More insect advisories for soybeans, rains helping, corn harvest updates 7-23

Virginia Cotton: Potential Improves Following Rain 7-23

Kansas: K-State´s Shroyer Says Start Early, Stay Vigilant in Controlling Volunteer Wheat 7-23

Arkansas: ‘We haven’t got the boats out yet:’ Farmers, Agents Take Stock Following Heavy Rains 7-23

Brazil Corn Outlook 7-23

Energy: Gas, diesel prices continue to decline 7-23

Rice harvest delayed on coast due to rain, while showers prompt fungicides in Midsouth: RiceFax 7-23

Delta Cotton: More insect pressure and more rain 7-23

Southeast Cotton: More worms, more stink bugs, maybe more rain 7-23

STATE ADVISORIES

Bulletins, newsletters, analysis

ALABAMA:

Alabama Crop Report, 7-20.

ARKANSAS:

Arkansas Cotton Update, 7-25. Plant bugs once again the pest of the week, and building; market retreats - why?; nitrogen prices made a bottom?

Arkansas Rice Newsletter, 7-22. Leaf-tip discoloration: sheath blight or something else?; wet weather and rice disease.

Arkansas Crop Report, 7-20.

Monday, June 08, 2009

Wheat: store or deliver?

Cory Walters, University of Kentucky Ag Economist, posted the following advisory on the state's grain blog Friday on wheat marketing strategies:

Wheat producers may be asking themselves if they should store or deliver wheat and if they store should they forward price or not.

Currently, the wheat futures contract at the Chicago Board of Trade is offering a large positive carry (the difference in price between two futures contracts) for storing wheat from now into the fall. The gross return between July and December futures is 53 cents per bushel (6.23 for July and 6.76 for December) as of June 5, 2009.

The July to September carry is 28 cents per bushel. The forward price benefit of 53 cents per bushel offers positive returns to storage, thereby making storage with a futures contract (a storage hedge) for fall delivery appealing since net return to storage is positive.

To calculate net returns you should subtract variable costs to storage (this includes the interest cost of capital in the wheat), cost of insurance on wheat, and cost of shrinkage from the gross return of 53 cents. Also, any basis improvement between now and delivery would add to storage hedge returns.

-- Owen Taylor

Friday, June 05, 2009

A season with more bad choices than usual

My favorite cartoonist, Joe Martin, draws a daily strip called "Mr. Boffo."

Boffo is a kind of an everyman who Martin places in all manner of situations, from prehistoric times to the space age and in all types of peril and predicaments. The humor in Boffo can be, well, subtle.

Perhaps my favorite one shows Boffo strapped in a hulking electric chair, and in each hand he holds a piece of white bread.

The caption: "Making the best of a bad situation."

In other words, the best Boffo can do at this point is make toast.

Which brings me to this cropping season in the American South.

With all the rain in April and/or May (depending on where you are), this season has started in a miserable fashion. The wheat crop (see the item below) has suffered terrible losses in yield, quality and test weight. We reported more comments about that in this week's AgFax: Southern Grain report, plus carried numerous advisories in the Worth Downloading section on our home page.

Beyond the wheat, many growers were unable to make fertilizer and herbicide applications on corn until weeks after they were due. Soybeans and cotton were planted late and/or replanted multiple times. People in the field are telling us about soybean farmers who have replanted some spots 2 and even 3 times. Cotton and rice planting have been delayed so long that growers finally switched acreage to soybeans where they could. And much of the South's peanut crop will be planted late enough that it will take an extremely warm fall to carry it to full maturity.

Which brings us back to Mr. Boffo holding that bread and hoping for toast when the voltage hits.

This is one of those years when we're trying to make the best of a bad situation, which I'm hearing almost universally from farmers and the people who advise them.

In many cases this year there have been no "right" or "best" decisions, only varying degrees of bad choices, whether you're dealing with replanting, herbicide drift on rice or Valor injury on peanuts. Every choice is bad, but some are worse than others.

A Mississippi consultant told me about attending a social function over the weekend where he came in contact with a cross-section of Delta farmers -- cotton, rice, grain, Baptists, Catholics, even a sprinkling of Ole Miss graduates. It was the kind of gathering that people who run corporate focus groups should attend if they actually want to know what farmers think.

When they talked about the way this season has unraveled, the consultant realized that nearly every farmer in the crowd at one time or another said, "I'll be glad when this SOB (or words to that effect) is over."

"You always hear that, but it tends to be as you approach harvest or maybe in the middle of the season when they've suddenly got to throw a bunch of money at insects or irrigation," the consultant observed. "But this is the earliest I've ever heard so many people say it so much."

We've been hearing the same thing.There are plenty of bad situations to go around and, unfortuately, ample opportunities -- like Boffo -- to make toast.

-- Owen Taylor

Sprouting wheat: a bad situation made worse

Wheat acreage dropped in the South for the 2008/09 crop, which was a blessing in many areas.

This has turned out to be a disappointing crop in much of the region due to heavy, persistent rain in April and May. Diseases flared, even where fungicides were applied on time. Growers who planted susceptible varieties and couldn't make fungicide applications on schedules were often left with crops that weren't worth harvesting, and what would have been a contribution to cash flow has now turned into an expensive cover in the absence of crop insurance.

Now, growers are dealing with sprouting issues. Grain dried down to the point it could have been harvested, but then rain developed again, keeping combines out of the field and exposing vulnerable grain to enough moisture to sprout the seed.

Dewey Lee, Georgia Extension Wheat Specialist, has been dealing with this issue and distributed an advisory last week.

Click here to download Lee's observations and recommendations.

Initial reports came from Georgia. But we're also hearing about sprouting in south Alabama. As wheat harvest moves north, more of this probably will be encountered. Farmers who might have been cutting wheat over the last week in the Midsouth were forced, instead, to finish planting other crops delayed by the rain, replant acres lost earlier and catch up on fertilizer and herbicide work across the board.

Rain moved into the region on Thursday, which could promote sprouting in some fields.

Most elevators in the affected areas are rejecting loads with sprouting of 4% or more, based on our conversations with several growers and Extension workers. In certain areas, 30% to 40% of the loads are above the limit. A handful of elevator operators, though, are buying the grain and finding a home for it in the feed market, albeit with dockage.

-- Owen Taylor

Wednesday, June 03, 2009

Across the Southeast, June 4, 2009: Summertime?

Based on the weather last weekend and this week, it appears the cool and wet spring is over. While crops are being planted in some areas, other crops and areas are doing quite well. All crops are responding to warmer and drier field conditions. However, approximately 10 early growing days were lost from this growing season. It is awfully difficult, if not impossible, to make them up. Now the management decisions will be made to prevent any more losses in yield potential.

Peanut producers should be concerned as they consider late planting dates and resulting late harvest dates. Two very timely articles by Beasley (University of Georgia) and Chapin (Clemson) can be found in the AgFax Media Publication PeanutFax.

Alabama: Wheat yields have a wide range from 25 to 50 bushels per acre and the test weights are reportedly dropping. Worse, in some fields mold is developing and grain is sprouting. Three-cornered-alfalfa hoppers are being found in low numbers in soybean fields. In North Alabama producers are reportedly giving up on corn and cotton in favor of soybeans, while in South Alabama cotton is still going in the ground. Heavy thrips damage is reported on cotton where the at-plant insecticide is depleted.

Alabama Weekly Crop and Weather Report: Alabama Crop Report

Florida: Rains on the Panhandle, some of which were heavy, have delayed wheat harvest and causes some disease. Also delayed are cotton and soybean plantings. The oldes cotton is at the third true leaf with mostly good stands. Peanuts are still being planted, but it's late and the spring rains continue.

Florida Weekly Crop and Weather Report: Florida Crop Report

Georgia: Rains have delayed field work with low temperatures of 60 degrees and daytime highs of the low 80's. Corn looks good with some at silking. Overall the crop is shorter than normal. Some disteases such as rust and Northern corn leaf blight are present in fields of corn followed by corn rotations. Perhaps 60% of the wheat crop has been harvested, but poor grain quality is a concern.

Peanut plantings are at 60% complete as compated to the normal 90% completed. Cotton is behind but the planters are rolling.

Georgia Weekly Crop and Weather Report: Georgia Crop Report

North Carolina: Wheat has a lot of disease pressure. Corn looks decent but needs rain on some to stop leaf curl. Cotton is reported to run from good to bad. While the thrips infestation is light, the at-plant insecticides are depleted and insects will increase. Farmers should be prepared to make foliat treatments as soon as threshold infestations are present. Hopefully the cotton plants will quickly grow out of the thrips stage.

North Carolina Weekly Crop and Weather Report: North Carolina Pest News

South Carolina: Soybeans are perhaps 45% planted with some delays due to excess rain slowing wheat harvest. Cotton planting is near completion. With the exception of a few grasshoppers, the insects are quiet. Farmers are nearly finished with peanut planting with most of the intended acres planted. The heavy rains earlier have triggered some herbicide damage to peanuts that warm dry soils should help.

South Carolina Weekly Crop and Weather Report: South Carolina Crop Report

Virginia: A Louisiana consultant noted the earliest corn was still in the sack. Reports indicate that a similar situation exists in parts of Virginia. The larger corn is getting side-dress fertilizer applications. The soil moisture is adeauate and crops are responding to the warmer temperatures. Cotton at-plant insecticides are depleted and foliar thrips treatments are being made. A few western flower thrips are present, but they are spotty and not at threshold levels yet.

Virginia Weekly Crop and Weather Report: Virginia Crop Report

--Tom Crumby

Monday, June 01, 2009

Across the Mid-South, June 3, 2009: Summertime?

Based on the weekend weather and a glance at the US weather map this morning, it appears the cool and wet spring is over. While crops are still being planted in some areas, cotton in South Louisiana is making good progress. And in other areas corn and soybeans are doing well. Weather conditions have created wide differences in crop development that will define the 2009 crop. The challenge is to make the correct management decisions that do not hinder crop development.

In the North Delta area late planting, especially cotton, is somewhat risky considering the potential for an early frost this fall. There are many questions regarding late cotton. How much fertilizer is needed? Do the pest thresholds change to tolerate lower damage levels? Do the maturity evaluations change to get the defoliation treatments out before frost?

One key component to very carefully watch is production expenses.

Arkansas: Arkansas agriculture is behind due to the frequent and heavy rains. The Crop Condition Report rated only 39% of the rice crop as good or excellent. For those prefering to plant soybeans instead of late rice or cotton, gains in soybean market prices were welcomed.
Arkansas Crop Report

Kentucky: Kentucky crops have progressed supported by imporoved weather conditions. As of May 26, 75% of the intended acres were planted, However, some fields were being replanted. Soybeans plantings (13% completed) for 2009 were reported to lag behind the five year average (24% completed). The wet weather has put increased disease pressure on wheat and funcicide treatments are being made.
Kentuck Weekly Crop and Weather Report Kentucky Crop Report

Louisiana: Louisiana's oldest cotton is now at node 10 and the youngest is just emerging. Pest levels remain low, but the insects are there. Warmer and drier conditions will only eggravate the insect infestations and weed pressure. Wheat harvest is nearing completion and farmers are planting double-crop beans with an eye on improving soybean prices. Wheat yields were reported in the range of 70 bushels per acre making some farmers wish they had planted more.
Louisiana Field Notes

Mississippi: Mississippi rice is late and out of sync. Due to the rains some fields did not get levees pulled and planted. The unfortunate aspect here is the overall yield loss from not having levee rice. There is an old adage, "paddy rice pays the bills, levee rice is the profit." Corn has done rather well during the cool and wet conditions. However, with all the rain, the plants may not have good root systems to hold up during potential hot and dry weather conditions in the near future. Irrigation may be needed quickly. Cotton is in a rather difficult situation. Planters were still running last week. But a lot of those intended cotton acres will likely be planted to soybeans. And with this late start, cotton pest problems in late August andSeptember could get expensive.
Mississippi Crop Report

Missouri: While corn planting is finished, the crop is approximately nine days behind normal. Cotton and rice are also lagging in field progress due to the frequent rains. For the week ending
May 24, soybeans plantings were nine days behind normal. A lot of the replanted acres likely went to soybeans.
Missouri Crop Report

Tennessee: Tennessee is experiencing more problems with glyphosate pigweed tolerance in many areas. There are also reports of soybean crop damage from dicamba being washed to low areas in the fields. The contaminated soil is being moved by the recent heavy rains. Cotton is being planted or replanted. In some cases, the replant acres in corn or cotton have been planted to soybeans.
Tennessee Weekly Crop and Weather Report: Tennessee Crop Report

--Tom Crumby

Friday, May 29, 2009

Peanut Money-Maker: It's name says it all

Every year, South Carolina Peanut Extension Specialist Jay Chapin issues his Peanut Money-Maker Production Guide. Among all the peanut-related documents we offer our readers, this is the one that people download the most.

Jay's objective every year is to lay out a program and suggestions that could reasonably result in a 2-ton yield, which partly explains why the guide is so universally popular.

A couple of our peanut readers already have asked if it would be available this year. Usually by now we've already posted it on our home page. But Clemson University has been reworking its own web site, and Jay's annual guide has just now popped onto the site.

Click here to download this year's guide.

- Owen Taylor

Thursday, May 28, 2009

Off Topic: The unofficial state movie of Mississippi (and what's yours?)

As a diversion, state legislatures go on sprees of declaring "official state" things. During a brief stint as a political writer in Nashville in the mid 1970s I watched lawmakers consider tagging various flora, fauna and other non-persons with the "official state" prefix. As I recall, the firefly was named an official state insect that year (Tennessee has more than one).

One young lawmaker, making light of the whole thing, entered a bill naming the oldest member of the state senate as the "official state fossil." The elder statesman was not amused.

What I've never seen anywhere is a state with an official movie.

Here in Mississippi, I would nominate O' Brother, Where Art Thou?, the 2000 comedy from the brothers Coen, Joel and Ethan.

It already ranks in my mind as Mississippi's unofficial state movie. People who've watched it more than once almost invariably have their favorite lines.

It's a comedy, but the whole premise sounds anything but funny: 3 convicts escape from a chaingang, seeking an alleged treasure, all of it set during the Depression in hardscrabble rural Mississippi in the midst of a gubernatorial election. Oh, and did I mention that it's a retelling of The Odyssey by Homer?

But funny, it is.

My personal favorite line comes from the scene in the stolen car when the escapees have just picked up Tommy Johnson, the bluesman. Tommy admits to having sold his soul to the devil the night before. As it happens, 2 of the escaped convicts, Pete and Delmar, had just stumbled into a riverside baptism service and, being caught up in the fervor, were submersed, themselves.

The third escapee, Ulysses, played to the pop-eyed hilt by George Clooney, declares:

"I seem to be the only one who's currently unaffiliated."

That's my favorite.

I"ve heard other people say that their favorite lines are, among others:

"I'm with you fellers."
"She done R-U-N-N-O-F-T."
"Is this the road to Ittie Beenie?"
"Watch your language, young feller, this is a public market!" and, related to that, "I'm a Dapper Dan man."
"Hot Damn! It's the Soggy Bottom Boys!"
"Oh, George, not the livestock!"
"I didn't seem to be needin' it."
"Well, ain't this just a geographical oddity!"

Granted, none of those seem funny if you haven't watched the movie. But in context, they are memorable gems and rank right up there with round up all the usual suspects and I'll worry about that tomorrow as dialog that people will recite decades from now.

Most states don't have such a close enough tie to a movie that anyone would want to make it an "official" part of the state's symbolism.

Maybe folks in Georgia would point to Gone With The Wind as a nostalgic favorite. Having the state's name in the title is no cinch. I don't think the citizens of one western state would want to enshrine the 1954 yarn Cattle Queen Of Montana as its celluloid icon.

If I lived in Texas, I would throw my weight behind Giant, the 1956 drama that tells of the state's evolving economy and gradually shifting social outlook. A writer with Texas Monthly several years ago, in fact, did declare it to be the unofficial state movie of Texas. Many people in the power structure of Texas actually hated Giant when it first came out, the article noted. But then it kind of took hold and in many ways portrayed the state as its natives would want the rest of the world to see it. Rough and tough but progressive and forward looking, full of adventure, opportunity and, yes, romance. And don't forget the wide open spaces.

I guess that would be the hallmark of an official state movie: a story that would show the world who we think we are as a people. Mississippi could do worse than O' Brother.

But past Mississippi and Texas, I can't think of any other state that has that sort of relationship to a piece of cinema. I don't mean to slight my friends in other parts of America, but tell me what would be the state movie of Arkansas or California, Alabama or New York?

Any further suggestions about Mississippi -- or elsewhere?

- Owen Taylor

Friday, May 22, 2009

J. G. Boswell was anything but a simple cowboy

On our web site in late April we noted the death of J.G. Boswell, whose name is synonymous with California cotton and, for better or worse, corporate agriculture.

If you've ever traveled in the the state's San Joaquin Valley then you probably drove by, on or near land in Boswell's holdings, especially if you were in parts of Kings and Kern Counties on the southern end of the SJV. Though referred to as a ranch, the word operation is more appropriate. And this giant agribusiness entity is just as multi-faceted as Boswell, himself, who took over the family business at 29 from his uncle. Boswell died in April of this year at 86. His legacy as a success was as recognized as was his penchant for privacy.

He liked to be viewed as a simple cowboy. In reality, he was a graduate in Economics from Stanford University and sat on the board of General Electric as well as other corporations. He was born in Greensboro, Georgia, before the family moved to California.

Despite his Southeastern roots, he became part of the very power structure of California, marrying the daughter of Harry Chandler, Los Angeles Times Publisher and real estate baron. Boswell further built real estate interests in suburban and urban settings, but he will forever be linked to the SJV holdings. Today, J.G. Boswell Company farms over 150,000 acres in the U.S., and the cotton enterprise is said to have produced income exceeding $150 million annually.

Boswell's farm personnel grow it, pick it, gin it and spin it. Other crops raised on the California acreage include tomatoes, alfalfa hay, wheat and safflower. The company also crushes the cotton seed, runs two tomato processing plants and has a cow/calf operation. The Boswell operation is also a major grower, ginner and marketer of cotton in Australia. It is one of North America's main suppliers of safflower oil, and the company's cottonseed breeding program was commercialized under Dow's Phytogen brand.

The best resource for understanding what made J.G. Boswell, the man and the company, take a look at The King of California: J.G. Boswell and the Making of a Secret Empire, written by Arax and Wartzman. This is authoritative because the authors were actually given access to both Boswell and the company's archives. The book tells of the early years when cotton was king and Boswell, as well as other San Joaquin Valley farmers, understood that success was tied to water.

Boswell also recognized the need to take advantage of the most modern and productive farm equipment available. He knew that to plant 90,000 acres of cotton in 9 days, then harvest those same acres in 6 weeks, he had to have the best equipment and dedicated employees.

This book should be on the required list for any farmer, but definitely for the cotton growers in the crowd.

-Tom Crumby

The Boll Weevil, Then And Now

Ron Smith, Alabama's Extension Cotton Entomologist Emeritus, has lived a good deal of the history of the boll weevil in the South. Now, Smith has developed a lecture on the subject, going back to the very entry of the pest into this country and tracing it through the so-far-successful attempt to eradicate it.

"The impact of the boll weevil on the South's economic life is second only to that of the Civil War," says Smith, who has been invited to share his insights with history groups and as part of a museum lecture series. It's a fascinating talk, full of things you've probably never heard about the pest and its role in shaping modern Southern agriculture.

One of his recent lectures was recorded on video, and his slide presentation accompanies his talk. Click here to view it:

http://wms.aces.edu/accordent/bollweevil/f.htm

It's best viewed on Internet Explorer, we've found.

-- Owen Taylor

Monday, May 18, 2009

Willie Nelson steps into milk-price debate

Willie Nelson and the Farm Aid organization are urging U.S. Ag Secretary Tom Vilsack to put a floor under milk prices after prices paid to dairy farmers fell by more than half this year, and the organization has started a petition drive to round up support for its position.

The free-fall in dairy prices has crippled areas where farmers operate dairies and/or supply hay, silage and other feed for milk production. Earlier this month, California reported what is believed to be the fifth instance of a dairy farmer committing suicide. Larger dairies are losing hundreds of thousands of dollars a month, but even smaller operators are being hit, according to a release from Farm Aid. High feed and energy costs last year took a toll

“Setting a fair price for milk won’t fix all the problems that led to the current crisis, but it may be the only way to keep thousands of dairy farmers on their farms this year,” said Nelson, a Farm Aid board member and ag activist. “Unless Secretary Vilsack takes immediate action, huge areas of the United States may be left without any local dairy farms at all.”

The price of milk paid to farmers by processors collapsed a record 30% in January, according to a release from Farm Aid, and prices are "currently down 50% since July 2008. In the meantime, the top dairy processors have recently announced 2009 first quarter earnings that are up from the same period last year. The top processor, Dean Foods, reported their first quarter earnings are more than double that of last year thanks in part to the plunging price Dean pays to its milk producers."

-- Owen Taylor

Tuesday, December 15, 2009

Why (maybe) it always seems to rain in town

Monday, December 14, 2009

Owen Taylor Up Early: Asian Oil Demand, Onions For Energy, Remote Moisture Monitoring

Peanuts: Argentine Planting Off To Reasonable Start, Export Report Includes U.S.-Bound Tonnage

FMC introduces Broadhead rice herbicide

Mississippi Row Crops Short Course Programs Now On Line

Sunday, July 26, 2009

Late-Week Cotton, July 25: Market ends lower, bollworms take flight, late crop complicates wheat planting

AgUpdates, July 27 Edition

Monday, June 08, 2009

Wheat: store or deliver?

Friday, June 05, 2009

A season with more bad choices than usual

Sprouting wheat: a bad situation made worse

Wednesday, June 03, 2009

Across the Southeast, June 4, 2009: Summertime?

Monday, June 01, 2009

Across the Mid-South, June 3, 2009: Summertime?

Friday, May 29, 2009

Peanut Money-Maker: It's name says it all

Thursday, May 28, 2009

Off Topic: The unofficial state movie of Mississippi (and what's yours?)

Friday, May 22, 2009

J. G. Boswell was anything but a simple cowboy

The Boll Weevil, Then And Now

Monday, May 18, 2009

Willie Nelson steps into milk-price debate

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