Want To Sell Your Ag Widgets Abroad? Here's Where To Show Them Off.

Because our main web site, agfax.com, carries listings for upcoming ag events -- field days, commodity conferences and such -- we get occasional calls from manufacturers asking if we have or know of any comprehensive directory of meetings. The requests sometimes include listings of international ag events, especially trade shows.

Up until now, I didn't have a ready source, especially for events outside of the U.S. Sunbelt, our prime coverage area.

But a German company is now offering what sounds like a fairly comprehensive directory of international ag trade shows. The soon-to-be-published directory, the Eichberg Ag Trade Show Report, will compile decision-making data about more than 200 ag trade shows in the U.S. and abroad.

It will be published by Tobias Eichberg, owner of Eichberg Consulting and the former Show Manager of the Agritechnica Show in Hanover, Germany. Agritechnica is a sprawling event with exhibitions covering farming, equipment and technology, and it attracts exhibitors from most of the inhabited continents. So, who better to develop this kind of guide than Agritechnica's former manager?

The directory, as Eichberg explains, will go beyond the customary data about attendance and, he says, burrows into the product categories that form a show's focus. His attempt will be to help potential exhibitors determine which shows to buy into and which ones to avoid.

For more information, here's the link, which includes another link to a fax order form.

Two editions are available, one covering about 140 shows in the northern hemisphere and another covering 45 in the southern hemisphere.

The directories are priced in Euros. At the current exchange rate, the northern hemisphere edition is about $260, while the southern hemisphere edition is about $90.

Shalom, Skeeter

A chapter recently closed in the history of my hometown, Rosedale, Mississippi, when we buried Jerome Levitt “Skeeter” Michael, who as far as I can tell was Rosedale’s last resident of Jewish descent. He was 68.

Jews have been living on the riverside of Bolivar County since the first cotton planters came there. Some early Jewish settlers became cotton planters, themselves, and you can still find a scattering of farmers in the Delta with Jewish lineage.

The rich, deep dirt of the Delta created opportunity and drew people. Skeeter’s own family qualified as pioneers. Much of the Delta’s interior was still swamps, forests and cane breaks when the Michaels came to Rosedale.

Along with operating a retail business, Skeeter's step-grandfather, Isadore Mostkoff, bought and sold furs. Rosedale is situated between the mouths of the Arkansas and White Rivers as they converge on the Mississippi from the Arkansas side, so for anyone in the fur trade it would have been an ideal location at the turn of the last century. Where you find rivers, you find fur.

On occasion, Mr. Mostkoff traveled along the Mississippi and up the Arkansas River to buy pelts from riverfolk. He carried a substantial amount of money on those trips, and his traveling companions were a pair of hardy rivermen, Johnny Mott and Fred Couey. Mr. Couey, himself, was part Indian. They slept on sandbars to make it harder for anyone to sneak up and rob them, as Skeeter recounted the family stories to me a few years back.

Even within my memory, the Michaels still bought a few furs from part-time trappers. But the frontier by then was well in the past, and the Delta was changing in ways that made small town merchants obsolete. After World War II, mechanized farming reduced the need for steady labor. Farms consolidated, which also cut into the population. Skeeter and his father’s half-sister, Louise Mostkoff, made a run at keeping the family’s clothing store open, but their customer base kept shrinking, and with better highways, people drove to Cleveland or Greenville to shop.

The Michaels also had gotten into the pecan business, buying nuts from local folks and selling accumulated loads to brokers. Eventually, Skeeter put most of his time into the pecan trade.

Skeeter was always on the short side, physically speaking, which accounted for his nickname. Like many small men, he was animated, trying to fill up more space than physics would allow. He came naturally to partying in a section of Mississippi that never quite switches off its social life.

Everybody at the funeral had a story about Skeeter that involved either a girl, a late night out, a deck of cards or an Ole Miss football game. Somebody remembered how his friends went into a panic when Skeeter didn’t come back one night from a trip on the river. Search parties were dispatched, only to find that his motor had conked out.

The Delta was ingrained in Skeeter Michael like part of his DNA, and Skeeter’s funeral reflected his own history and personal journey.

First, a priest officiated at a brief service at the town’s tiny Episcopal church. At some point along the line, Skeeter had joined the church. In the first write-through on this, I thought it was simply because Skeeter's first wife was a Baptist, and Anglicanism was a compromise of sorts. But one of Skeeter's relatives told me later that he thought that Skeeter's friend, the late Harry "Brother" Wilson, had led him into the Episcopal faith after the divorce.

After that service, we drove 5 miles south to the cemetery at Beulah where Marshal Klaven, a thoughtful young rabbi from Jackson, said prayers in Hebrew, read scripture, delivered a brief homily and led a throng of Baptists, Catholics and assorted other Gentiles in the 23rd Psalm. He didn’t know Skeeter but spent most of two days in Rosedale hearing stories about him from friends and Skeeter’s wife, Vivia.
 
When Skeeter’s Uncle Toby died a number of years ago, the rabbi in nearby Cleveland officiated at Mr. Michael’s funeral. The rabbi, who was the last one the city would ever have, told one of Skeeter’s cousins that in the 1950s the Cleveland synagogue was the spiritual home to about 125 families, including those in Rosedale. By the mid 1990s, maybe 25 families were connected to it, many of them elderly couples whose children had moved away.

And now Skeeter is gone. He’s buried among the same folks he grew up around. They are all Skeeter’s people, even if their roots trace to other places, other times and other faiths.

At the end of the service, the rabbi invited us to pass by the grave, take a handful of dirt and throw it on the coffin, a traditional way to honor the deceased and to say goodbye.

I walked over to the still-cool pile of dirt. It had been brought up by a backhoe, so you knew the deepest soil was on top. It was loose, silty, good for growing cotton, even from that far down. After a season of drought, it even felt faintly moist. It was the same soil that had drawn so many people to the Delta.

And now the Delta with its rich earth holds Skeeter Michael, and he will belong to it for the ages.

- Owen Taylor

Wireless Carriers Want To Muscle In On Cell-Phone Signal Boosters. Charges Ahead?

Do you use a cell-phone signal booster, either in your vehicle or in a building?

The cell phone carriers would just as soon you didn't, and a trade organization representing wireless companies has filed a complaint with the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). demanding stricter regulations of signal boosters.

Both AT&T and Verizon have filed papers supporting the complaint, which was made by the trade group, CTIA-The Wireless Association.

The industry is asking that “the use of signal boosters be coordinated with and controlled by commission licensees and the sale and marketing of such devices be limited to authorized parties.”

Cellular carriers claim that the boosters interfere with wireless networks and disrupt service to other customers. Essentially, they want to control booster design, authorization and marketing. The boosters cut into the carriers' own efforts to market similar products.

Companies that manufacture boosters say they move is nothing short of a campaign to put them out of business. More than 1 million boosters are now in use, it's estimated, with many of them used by farmers and other rural residents who live too far from cell networks for consistent voice or data service.

The underlying problem is that cell companies have not increased wireless capacity enough to handle the proliferation of smart phones, much less the new bandwidth-hungry tablets hitting the market.

Here's a short article in this morning's New York Times that goes into more detail.

Oklahoma!: A Celebration Of Rural America

Last night for maybe the fourth time, I immersed myself in Oklahoma!, the Rodgers and Hammerstein musical set in the Oklahoma territory as it pushed toward statehood early in the last century.

You come out of Oklahoma! wanting to sing, which to me is the hallmark of a great musical.

For America and perhaps even for agriculture, Oklahoma! also is an important work of art.

Before its debut, Broadway musicals were mostly set in cities, and plots were as thin as wax paper, barely enough to string together a few ditties and at least one lavish production numbers with sequins, glitzy dancing and top hats.

Not to spoil the opening for anyone who hasn’t seen it, but Oklahoma! begins quite simply with a cowboy strolling onto the stage singing perhaps the best-known opening lines in any modern American musical. More on that in a moment.

The musical’s humor still holds up well after 67 years, which explains why it's been revived so many times and why road productions like the one I saw last night still make money.

Unlike most of the musicals Broadway produced up until then, Oklahoma! also had a dark thread woven into it, the sociopathic Jud Fry.

But at its heart, Oklahoma! celebrated rural America, more so than any musical before or since. It tells the story of people who grow food for an evolving nation, sending grain and beef to the far off cities. Nobody in Oklahoma! makes a quick fortune or marries into money.

In the Oklahoma territory of this story, times are certainly changing but values remain constant. Near the end, the cowboy hero, Curly, realizes that he’s about to become a farmer, with the certainty that he will be rubbing blisters on his hands with a plow, not a rope.

Curly and the other characters are laying a foundation, both for themselves and the coming state. Oklahoma!, it’s worth noting, was based on the barely noticed 1931 play, Green Grow The Lilacs, which premiered just 24 years after Oklahoma was admitted to the Union.

Oklahoma!, the musical, broke new ground with its rich plot, its portrait of good versus evil and its focus on common folk far from citified ways. For some historians, Oklahoma! is considered the beginning of modern American musical theater. It’s to contemporary musicals what Huckleberry Finn was to the American novel – the alpha, the beginning.

If you have a favorite musical – regardless of its subject – you can trace its lineage to Oklahoma! and that cowboy stepping onto the stage with a song in his heart.

As for the opening, I read once that Richard Rodgers -- the man who composed the music -- was, himself, a negative person who rarely saw the bright side or dwelt on it when he did. He’d had some personal losses and at least one difficult creative partnership. So it’s all the more remarkable the way his music sparkles so brightly from one generation to the next.

His connection with Hammerstein -- who crafted the words -- had been formed initially to create Oklahoma! after Rodgers ended his long-running partnership with lyricist Lorenz Hart, whose alcoholism pushed them apart.

On the very first song they shaped together, Hammerstein -- the new lyricist -- sent Rodgers the words to the opening number, which began:

There's a bright golden haze on the meadow
There's a bright golden haze on the meadow
The corn is as high as an elephant's eye,
An' it looks like it's climbin' clear up to the sky.

Oh, what a beautiful mornin',
Oh, what a beautiful day.
I got a beautiful feelin'
Ev'rything's goin' my way.

That’s what Curly sang as he strode onto the stage, so full of optimism and energy. If you’ve ever seen Oklahoma!, you can’t read those words from Oscar Hammerstein without also hearing the music of Richard Rodgers whispering ever so faintly in your mind.

We should all start our day with such a song in our heart.

Monster Trucks You Can Drive To Work

For anyone who can't find a truck that's quite big enough, check out bigasstrux.com, the web site of a Salvisa, Kentucky, custom shop that turns used 2- to 2.5-ton tucks into beefy, street-legal rides.

The owner, Mike Powell, shortens the trucks and drive trains enough to fit a dually bed on the back, which he raises with a reinforced subframe so that it blends with the cab..

Don't drive one of these if you don't like attention.

In some cases, you can buy one of these one-of-a-kind transports for what it might cost to fully pimp out a half- or three-quarter-ton pickup enough to make it look almost like a "big" truck.

No lift kits are used. These trucks are high-clearance because that's how they came from the factory.

Powell, a professional diesel mechanic, starts one of these conversion projects with a truck that has been well maintained.

"Once they're in my shop, I inspect the chassis and perform any needed repairs before making any modifications," he says. From there, he shortens the frame and drive train, builds the subframe and then mounts the bed.

Each vehicle, he says, is truly "one of a kind...No two trucks are alike, and each has it's own personality." And a lot of it, too.

- Owen Taylor

Cotton Consutlants, Mother Nature And The Danger Of Sweeping Generalizations

Cotton consulting has not gotten easier with the advent of Bt and Roundup Ready varieties.

Quite the contrary. It's become more of a challenge.

Dealer reps and Extension scouts who regularly work in cotton say the same thing. For every solution, there is a problem.

Here's how that's worked with cotton insects:

• The shift to Bt cotton caused a corresponding shift in the insect complex.
  
  
• Pests once considered minor became significant problems.
  
  
• And in many cases, the newer pests are harder to scout or they complicate treatment decisions due to move away from broad-spectrum materials and/or insecticide resistance issues.

Through the years, we've conducted several consultant surveys, asking about business practices and in-field scouting methods. As early as 2004, we asked if cotton scouting was easier, harder or about the same in Bt cotton compared to conventional varieties. The response was heavily weighted toward harder. Also, consultants overwhelmingly indicated that it took more time to scout transgenic fields.

All of that was before most people recognized the coming of Roundup-resistant weeds, notably Palmer pigweed and marestail. Plenty of consultants who started their careers as insects scouts are now dealing with weed management issues. And for whatever reason, more leaf spot diseases are hitting cotton in parts of the South, adding one more hot spot of concern to the consultant's check list.

Some people predicted that Bt cotton would, in fact, make cotton consultants an endangered species. I heard that more in the Southeast than the Delta, perhaps. And demand for consultants fell off for several years. Between Bt varieties and declining cotton acres, many practitioners either left the business or learned to scout other crops, particularly grains.

One veteran Extension worker told me halfway through the last decade that in a few years there really would be no need for cotton consultants due to the near-universal acceptance of Bt cotton. With more research, he reasoned that pests like plant bugs and aphids could be managed with treatments timed according to degree-day accumulations.

He was dead wrong. Nature is always trying to fill empty spaces, which means that somebody needs to be checking.

I've been around long enough to have heard those sames kinds of sweeping generalizations about other new technologies.

• In the 1980s, a few weed scientists said, half jokingly, that Johnsongrass might soon be on the verge of extinction with the introduction of that era's over-the-top grass herbicides. It didn't happen.

• The same goes for Roundup Ready. Monsanto positioned it as a super herbicide, only to find that nature positioned a super weed against it, meaning pigweed. The handful of Extension specialists promoting resistance management were faint voices in the wilderness.

All this came to mind today as I read Roger Carter's weekly e-letter.

Carter, whose consulting firm operates in east-central Louisiana, discusses how pest spectrums have changed and what that has meant to the way consultants must now scout cotton.

Here's a link to Roger's comments.

They're well worth reading if you are a consultant, you pay one to check your crops or you're considering it.

But they're particularly important for any farmer who doesn't intend to use a consultant, dealer fieldman or Extension scout to check his cotton in 2011. The natural order of things keeps changing. If higher cotton prices are luring you back to the crop after dropping it for several years, forget most of what you remember from the last time you picked a bale of cotton. Depending on where you are, the insects may have a new game plan.

Read Carter's comments and remember that nature is always sneaking up on you.


- Owen Taylor

Ag Students Get A Free Pass For Southern Conservation Systems Conference

John LaRose has put out the welcome mat for ag students interested in learning more about conservation tillage in cotton and rice.

LaRose announced this week that university ag students can qualify for free admittance to the upcoming National Conservation Systems Rice And Soybean Conference (NCSRSC). LaRose is the publisher of Mid-America Farm Publications and chairman of the conference steering committee, His company also organizes the event.

It takes place at the Crowne Plaza, Baton Rouge, Louisiana, February 1-2. This will be the 14th year for the annual conference.

“The Southern Corn & Soybean Conference and the Southern Precision Ag Conference will be held at the same time, giving students access to 128 different speakers,” LaRose noted this week.”

That makes the combined events one of the largest ag conferences held in the South, he added.

Free student admission is limited to the first 100 students, and a current student ID card is required for registration. The conference is sponsored by Cotton Incorporated and the U.S. Rice Producers Association. Mid-America Farm Publications organizes the event.

For more information go to: http://www.nctd.net.

Cotton Market Peaked? An Odd Signal, Perhaps.

Have cotton prices peaked?

Sharon Johnson, senior cotton analyst with First Capital Group in Atlanta, suspects that may be the case.

“Wednesday’s high is looking increasingly as a significant top, if not the top of this entire move,” she noted in a memo Friday. Indicators already were in place, then panic selling in China took hold.

“The macro picture has also turned bearish with China’s efforts to control inflation, pushing all of their individual commodity markets down, which spilled over into ours,” she wrote.

Friday was a “another brutal day with cotton as U.S. futures followed China’s lead by closing down substantially, if not at limit down.”

Adding to the probability, she said, was the fact that she was interviewed by a CBS Evening News crew Friday afternoon for a broader piece about soaring cotton prices and what it means for consumers..

“Although cotton’s advance has been well documented in print media and on the internet, along with business cable networks such as CNBC and Bloomberg, it has not hit national mainstream network TV, such as CBS, until now,” she said. “As we all know, by the time the public is made aware, the specific market being discussed has already topped.”

The segment, she was told, should air Sunday night (11/14)

Mule Races In Rosedale, Mississippi: The Thunder Of Distant Hooves.

Our friend and former mentor Leroy Morganti writes a column that's syndicated in a couple of Delta newspapers, and he recently recalled the Fourth of July mule races at the country club in Rosedale, Mississippi, where he and I grew up.

Nobody thinks much about mules anymore, much less racing them. But in our small city on the riverside of Bolivar County, the Fourth of July mule races were a social occasion and a tradition, even into my lifetime. They officially dated back to the late 1930s, although I suspect that a few races were scattered about for as long as people had been growing cotton in the Delta, and the event simply made a transition in Rosedale to the fancier setting of the club's 9-hole golf course.

Mechanized farming was taking hold, even before World War II, but mules were still a part of the countryside when the second half of the century started, although their numbers were steadily dwindling.

Leroy -- a former university administrator who worked in the news business and even had a stint as a gubernatorial press secretary -- admitted at the start of the piece that he was a bit fuzzy on the details. But he seems to have pretty much captured the essence of the annual event, based on everything I've ever been told by people older than Leroy or me. I was still in diapers at the time. Leroy, though, was just old enough to actually remember being there, smelling the mules, watching people place bets and seeing the dust fly. His grandmother's farm was just south of the golf course.

Leroy recollects that the races ended in 1950, but the last one probably was in 1951 or maybe later.

I say that because my father, Herbert Taylor, played a small role in the races on at least one occasion. He was the pilot who flew Richard Henry over the country club where he dove out of a Stearman biplane and parachuted onto the golf course. It was a big show. For most people in the crowd,  that was the first and maybe the only time they saw anybody do that live. World War II was still fresh in people's minds, and the sight of a former paratrooper landing on the golf course would have captured everyone's imagination.

Since my family didn't appear in Rosedale until the spring of 1951 -- a few months before my birth -- I'm figuring that 1951 was likely the last year.

The races couldn't have gone much past that because hardly any mules would have been left on the area farms and plantations by then. The days of animal traction were about over as that new decade started.

I don't think the mule races ended due to lack of interest. More than likely, it was the lack of mules.

Here's a link to Leroy's column, posted on our high school's alumni web site.

- Owen Taylor

As Cotton Goes Up, So Does The Value Of John Faulkner's Novel, "Dollar Cotton"

High cotton prices appear to be having a spin-off effect on the value of John Faulkner’s 1942 novel, Dollar Cotton.

How much? In the previous decade, you could buy the last reprinting of Dollar Cotton all day long for less than $3 dollars a copy. I know that because I bought a stack of them.

Today, that same book -- and keep in mind, this is a reprinting, not a first edition -- is being offered on Amazon for more than 20 times that amount. And that's for a used copy. One book marketer is offering a never-sold copy for well over $200, also through Amazon.

Unfamiliar with the book? It was largely set in that period around World War I when British mills ran up the fiber’s price over fears that hostilities would block supplies coming from Egypt.

Cotton reached a dollar a pound, which made for heady times in America’s cotton country until the bubble burst and prices fell to almost nothing..

Vast wealth flowed into the Delta, where the story was set. It accelerated the clearing and draining of land in the Midsouth as more acreage shifted into production.

Now, cotton prices are above $1 again, something that’s only happened only a handful of times in the last century.

And as the price of cotton moved above a dollar this year, the value of Faulkner’s book began hitting new highs, too.

I know this because we collect first edition works by John Faulkner, the lesser-known brother of William Faulkner, Mississippi’s literary lion.

We own 3 first-edition copies of Dollar Cotton.

By “we,” I mean my business partner and wife, Debra Ferguson, and myself. I think Debra bought the first John Faulkner first edition, although it wasn’t Dollar Cotton. Like people who collect books or anything else, it becomes a quiet obsession. For me, the quest has been to find more pristine first-edition copies of Dollar Cotton, the only book John Faulkner wrote about the Delta.

Our 3 copies are in various conditions, depending on whether they came from a private collection or a public library. It’s hard to say right now what a first edition would fetch because it’s difficult to find any that are even on the market. A year ago, you could still run across them on a fairly regular basis through various internet sources.

But as the price of cotton started rising earlier this year, I began to sense two things.

• First, demand was increasing. When somebody offered a first-edition Dollar Cotton, it didn’t stay on the market long. There seemed to be a quick turnover on eBay and Amazon.
  
  
• Second, the price was edging upward. At one time, we could buy a first edition for as little as $75. The last one I bought cost $150, and that was without a dust jacket.

Supply and demand affects the used and rare book market just as it does the price of cotton. Book merchants sensed somehow that more people wanted to buy Dollar Cotton. As the supply dwindled, prices moved higher.

And if the market for paperback copies is any indication, the price for a hardback first edition would be considerably more than what we've paid for them in the past.

Several reprints of Dollar Cotton have been done over the years. The last reprinting was about a decade ago by Hill Street Press in Athens, Georgia. The image to the right shows the front of that particular edition.

The jacket price was $14.95 for what would be considered a “trade paperback” edition, meaning a book size somewhat larger than the traditional paperback.

As interest in that printing cycled out and merchants dumped leftover copies onto closeout tables, the price dropped drastically. I’ve seen it through the years for as little as $1.98 on Amazon, eBay and other on-line sites where people sell out-of-print books. At least until this year, plenty of paperback copies always were a couple of clicks away. If Amazon didn’t have it in its own inventory, plenty of after-market vendors were selling copies through the on-line book retailer.

When the last paperback edition went into a closeout section at Square Books in Oxford several years ago, our daughter Sarah – then a Southern Studies major at Ole Miss – told me that Dollar Cotton had been marked down to $2.99. I told her to buy every copy they had, which turned out to be 30.

Since then, Debra and I have given away all but 8 of those to friends who had an interest in cotton or Southern literature.

We were overly generous, as things look now. I wish our stock portfolio had done as well in terms of appreciation as this rather obscure book published at the beginning of World War II.

On Amazon this morning, the lowest price on that same edition was $64.50, and that was for a used copy. From there, used prices ran up to $153.56, depending on which Amazon affiliate offered the book.

Only one new copy of the reprint was being offered.

The price: $263.22.

No kidding.

I've got 8 copies just like it in my office storage room.

Granted, there’s no guarantee that that particular seller – or me – will find anyone willing to pay that much. But, then, you never can tell. How many people 2 years ago would have predicted dollar-a-pound cotton any time soon? Corn spread across the countryside, gins closed or were moth-balled.

The book, itself, is well worth reading if you can find a copy (and don’t ask me to loan you one of mine).

It has all the elements you’d expect in a work of Southern fiction – lust, violence, greed, racial conflict, forgiveness and grace.

The plot, itself, hinges on a simple principle that Faulkner, as a farmer, understood. That is:

• What goes up must come down.

• Or, to put that another way, don’t bet the farm on prices staying high forever.

The protagonist of the book, Otis Town, clungs to the belief that if his cotton was worth a dollar a pound last year, it should be worth a dollar a pound this year. Town didn’t know enough about how the world really worked to feel any reservations about holding on for a better price.

He thought he deserved a dollar.

I'd like to think that Faulkner intentionally wrote a tale about economics, the opposing forces of fear and greed that guide the market and the people who make decisions. Do you buy, sell or hold? Anyone majoring in ag economics should be required to read Dollar Cotton.

For that matter, so should anyone who hasn't yet priced the 2011 cotton crop.

And if you want to buy a copy, I'll make you a deal.

- Owen Taylor

Diesel Prices Bump Up A Bit

Retail diesel fuel prices rose about one cent in the prior week to reach $2.93 per gallon.

• Prices were up throughout most of the country, although New England saw a price decline of half a penny to $3.01 per gallon.
• West Coast prices averaged $3.07 per gallon after increasing one cent.
• The largest price increase occurred in the Rocky Mountains, where prices increased almost two cents to $2.94 per gallon.

The U.S. average retail price for regular gasoline decreased over one cent to $2.74 per gallon after increasing by almost three cents the previous week.

• This week’s price is still $0.18 per gallon higher than this time last year.
• Price changes were mixed throughout the country, with the Midwest seeing the largest price decrease of almost 5 cents to $2.70 per gallon after the region saw larger prices increases than the national average over the previous three weeks.
• East Coast and Rocky Mountain prices both rose about half a penny to reach $2.67 per gallon and $2.75 per gallon, respectively.
• Gulf Coast prices fell about one cent but remained the lowest in the nation at $2.58 per gallon.
• The West Coast averaged $3.07 per gallon after edging down just a tenth of one cent; California prices fell half a penny to $3.13 per gallon.

Louisiana Hits Record Levels Of Bollworm Pyrethroid Tolerance For July

Louisiana State University this week released the charts showing how bollworm (corn earworm) pyrethroid tolerance compared in July to the same month going back to 1988. This particular chart tracks the lesser dose used in vial testing of moths.



Survivorship for both vial rates increased about 10% compared to 2009, according to a report issued in this week's Louisiana Crops Newsletter.

"This also represents the first time that survival has been measured above 50% for a monthly summary since testing was initiated during the mid-1980s," according to the report. "Bollworm tolerance to pyrethroids and high pressure within fields could lead to control problems in fields treated with a pyrethroid insecticide alone."

And, in fact, those kinds of control failures have been widely reported this season in both the Delta states and the Southeast.

"Pyrethroid insecticides should not be used alone at this time when bollworms are the target pest of an insecticide application," the report stressed. "When attempting to control this pest in cotton and soybeans, pyrethroids should be co-applied with Orthene (acephate) or other OPs to provide an additional mode of action and reduce the probability of field control failures."

Bollworm populations have increased, overall, in many Louisiana cotton and soybean fields, the report also noted. "The July moth trap captures from around the state are higher than that observed in previous years. These populations are the result of the generations that developed in Louisiana corn fields, but also migrated into the state from Texas."

The report was issued by Joshua Temple, Steve Micinski and Roger Leonard, LSU entomologists.

- Owen Taylor

Fighting Roundup-Resistant Pigweed? Remember Wheat Restrictions.

The battle against Roundup resistant Palmer pigweed had what may be an overlooked consequence for farmers this fall: carryover problems in fields where they might want to plant wheat.

Larry Steckel, University of Tennessee Weed Scientist, posted a reminder about that in this week's IPM Newsletter.

"There have been a number of calls about planting wheat this fall after using fomesafen containing herbicides (Prefix, Reflex, Flexstar GT or Flexstar) this spring and summer, " Steckel reported. "The labels say that recrop back to small grains after a fomesafen application is 4 months. I would expect some wheat establishment problems from fomesafen applications made this July for wheat sowed in October or early November. This was not an issue 2 years ago but is another repercussion of trying to manage glyphosate-resistant Palmer amaranth."

New Species Of Turtle Identified In Pearl River Of Louisiana And Mississippi

I live on Mill Creek in Rankin County, Mississippi, and about 2 miles downstream from where I'm typing right now the creek enters the Pearl River, albeit the Ross Barnett Reservoir impoundment.

So, the following article from the U.S. Geological Survey immediately caught my attention...

A new species of turtle no bigger than a small dinner plate has been discovered, bringing the number of native turtle species in the U.S. to 57.

The Pearl River map turtle, discovered by scientists from the U.S. Geological Survey, is found only in the Pearl River in Louisiana and Mississippi. It is a relict of sea-level fluctuations between glacial and interglacial periods over 10,000 years ago, which isolated map turtles in different rivers along the Gulf Coast. Eventually, the turtles evolved into unique species confined to a single river system.

USGS scientists Josh Ennen and Jeff Lovich said the turtle, whose new scientific name is Graptemys pearlensis, had previously been confused with another turtle species in a nearby river, the Pascagoula map turtle.

Like the Pascagoula map turtle, the Pearl River map turtle is a native freshwater reptile that lives in large rivers to medium-sized streams. Females are much larger than males, measuring between 6 and 11 inches as adults, and use large crushing surfaces on their jaws to open clams. Males, meanwhile, grow to a comparatively puny 4 to 6 inches and eat some mollusks, but mostly insects and fish.

The discovery, published in Chelonian Conservation and Biology, is a reminder that there are still exciting discoveries to be made – and one doesn’t necessarily have to go far to make them, said Ennen.

“We don’t know as much as we sometimes think we do,” said Ennen. “When people think about discovery and new species, they think of rainforests, or unexplored and isolated countries. Coming from southern Mississippi, I basically found this turtle in my own backyard.”

Ennen discovered the species while doing other research on Graptemys species in the region for his Ph.D. dissertation. “The Pascagoula River map turtle was one of the only map turtle species believed to occur in two major drainages. I thought it was strange that it was such an anomaly. My professors, Brian Kreiser and Carl Qualls at the University of Southern Mississippi, encouraged me to look further, so I started doing genetic research on the turtles from the Pearl River and the turtles from the Pascagoula River.”

Once he started finding significant genetic differences between the two turtles, Ennen called USGS scientist Jeff Lovich onto the scene. Lovich had found, described and named the last two turtle species – also of the genus Graptemys – discovered in the United States in 1992. During his own research in the 80’s, Lovich had noticed subtle differences between the turtles in each river, but had not thought they were different species. “Josh asked me to reanalyze my data on color and the way the turtles look to combine with the genetic data,” Lovich said.

Altogether, the data was enough to make it plain: the Pearl River map turtle and the Pascagoula River map turtle are definitely two different species. The genetic data was clear on this, though the visual differences are more subtle -- one of the most obvious is the Pearl River map turtle sports a continuous black stripe down its back whereas the Pascagoula map turtle has a broken black stripe.

Lovich and Ennen are both excited about the discovery of a new turtle species, but think “it could be a long time before another one is discovered.”

LSU Carved In Rice

LSU sculpted in purple and gold rice, the school's colors.

Louisiana State University has always had a small but important marketing advantage...

Here it is:

No other state begins with the letter L.

That may not seem important, but it's allowed the university's initials to stand alone, uniquely perhaps, to the point that some fairly educated people outside of Louisiana know it as "LSU" without immediately being able to tell you what the initials stand for.

No kidding, a friend in California asked me once if "the S in LSU was for state or something else?"

He did know, without a doubt, that LSU was in Louisiana, which gets us back to this small marketing advantage it has over other universities.

Take MSU, for example...

Which is it? Mississippi State University, Michigan State University, Minnesota State University?

The same goes for ASU. Is it Arizona State or Arkansas State?

When you think about it, only a handful of states have names that begin with an exclusive letter. For example, only Florida starts with an F, only Georgia begins with G.

But the initials UF or UG - for those respective universities - have never gained the same panache as the 3-letter string, LSU. It sounds almost lyrical. Let me add that I didn't attend LSU, didn't send any kids to school there and have never pulled for its football team. I'm not an aging alumnus, just a guy who enjoys playing with words and poking around in their symbolism.

For me, LSU simply has a ring to it. And the initials are loaded with symbolism.

Which made the landscaping in this photo possible. It's the name LSU spelled out in purple and gold rice, the university's colors. It would have taken a while to spell out Mississippi State University with a grain drill, and forming the letters MSU or UA wouldn't have had the same visual punch. And, lest we forget, rice is Louisiana's staple food. It permeates the cuisine, giving foundation to spices and crustaceans, sausage and red beans.

"This living sign is growing on the LSU AgCenter Rice Research Station in Crowley," writes Steve Linscombe, the station's director and a rice breeder, himself.

Linscombe sent us the photo of the sign with additional facts about it.

The purple rice was developed by Dr. Kenneth Gravois, now LSU AgCenter Sugarcane Specialist, while he was working as a rice breeder with the University of Arkansas. The gold leaf line, Linscombe said, is an induced mutant that was obtained from seed at the Dale Bumpers National Rice Research Center in Stuttgart, Arkansas.

As signs go, it perhaps is unique. And it's also edible.

- Owen Taylor

Corn Irrigation Webinars From The Land Of Center Pivots

The University of Nebraska has released a series of webinars on corn irrigation.

The series delves into the science of maximizing corn yields and also addresses the variability that growers deal with in terms of rainfall patterns, soil types and such. While the focus is on center-pivot irrigation, the webinars provide insight that also would be helpful to growers who furrow-irrigate their corn.

Here are the links:

• Soil Water Monitoring Part One — A Key to Applying the Optimum Amount of Irrigation
  
• Soil Water Monitoring Part Two — Equipment Preparation and Installation
  
• Soil Water Monitoring Part Three — Data Analysis and Irrigation Scheduling

- Owen Taylor

Rice farmers in the Philippines will get fertilizer advice via text messages

Farmers in the  Philippines will soon have nutrient management advice tailored specifically to their rice crops, and the info will be delivered to their mobile phones, according to an article in Rice Today, pulbished by the International Rice Research Institute, based in the Philippines.
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Dr. Roland Buresh says that after responding to a series of simple questions about their rice paddy, farmers would receive an automated text reply recommending what amounts, sources, and timings of fertilizer are needed for profitable rice production in their paddy. Buresh is part of the IRRI team that joined the Philippine Department of Agriculture to develop the system.

Residents in the Philippines have widely adopted text messaging as a regular means of communications, and it is known in the telecom industry as the "text messaging capital of the world." It was one of the first countries with affordable texting, and the average Filipino cell-phone subscriber sends 10 text messages a day.

- Owen Taylor

Diesel Prices Edge Down More Than 3 Cents A Gallon

The national average highway price for diesel fuel declined more than three cents to $2.92 per gallon, $0.33 above the price a year ago.

• All regions registered price decreases.
• The East Coast fell over three cents to $2.94 per gallon while the Gulf Coast decreased almost three cents to $2.87 per gallon.
• The largest decline took place in the Midwest where the average fell four cents to $2.89 per gallon.
• The Rocky Mountain price was nearly three cents lower at $2.93 per gallon.
• The average on the West Coast slipped two cents to $3.08 per gallon while the price in California dipped 1.5 cents to $3.13 per gallon.

Dropping for the first time in three weeks, the U.S. average price for regular gasoline fell three cents to $2.73 per gallon.

• The national average was $0.11 higher than last year. Regionally, average prices slipped in all sections of the country.
• The averages on the East Coast and on the Gulf Coast dropped about three cents each to $2.67 per gallon and $2.58 per gallon, respectively.
• The largest drop took place in the Midwest where the average slumped more than a nickel to $2.68 per gallon.
• The average in the Rocky Mountains declined a penny to $2.76 per gallon.
• The West Coast price slipped half a cent to settle at $3.05 per gallon and the average in California fell a penny to $3.12 per gallon.

DTN articles examine immigration and its important to the ag labor force

This week we published a series of four DTN articles related to immigrants and the ag industry. Certainly immigration, whether legal or not, has changed the face of who actually will do the day-to-day hard work in rural areas of the country. The series, written by Chris Clayton, gives an overview from the farmer's perspective as well as the issues faced by the unskilled immigrant who wants to work.

The series opener, features the northeast region of Alabama known as Sand Mountain where Hispanics fill the jobs provided by the poultry industry. Mexican restaurants and Guatemalan bakeries have popped up in these communities where racial tensions are just below the surface.

Part 2 explores the difficult process of getting legal for unskilled farm labor even when the jobs are available.

The next article looks at a study of the Wisconsin dairy industry and it's reliance on Hispanic employees. One dairy owner credits a strong work ethic and a willingness to work long hours forces his dependence on the immigrant labor force.

The final article examines politics and policy, and how that fits with immigrant workers and the future of the ag industry labor force.

Fertilizer Prices - Hold Onto Your Hats, Boys!

The International Fertilizer Industry Association (IFA) released publicly today its Fertilizer Outlook 2010 - 2014 .

The report highlights that, after a gloomy year in 2009, fertilizer demand is seen firmly rebounding in 2010 and growing at sustained rates in the next four years. On the fertilizer supply side, the growth of capacity is slower than anticipated last year because of numerous delays in announced projects. However, in the long-term, a potential supply surplus for nitrogen (N) and potassium (K) fertilizers can be expected due to a faster increase in capacity compared to that of demand.

After two consecutive bumper crops, it is anticipated that the 2010 world cereal output will reach a new record of 2.28 billion metric tonnes (Bt), according to FAO. With world cereal utilization seen at some 2.25 Bt, global grain stocks would remain unchanged and relatively low at the end of the 2010/11 marketing campaign. In response to relatively stable supply/demand conditions since the beginning of 2009, international cereal prices have remained fairly constant, above pre-crisis levels.

A return to more stable crop prices is making it less risky for farmers to invest in fertilizers than a year ago, resulting in a more rapid recovery in phosphate (P) and potassium (K) demand than had been foreseen.

In the medium term, increasing agricultural production will be required to meet global demand for food, feed, fibre and bioenergy.

Yield gains are expected to contribute to most of the output growth, as scope for expanding cultivated land in the next five years is limited and sustainable intensification of the currently cultivated land is the best option for mitigating climate change and preserving biodiversity.

Meeting increasing demand for agricultural products and reducing the environmental footprint of farming will require both greater and more efficient fertilizer use.

With the progressive economic recovery and a return to more favourable and more stable agricultural market conditions, world fertilizer demand in 2010/11 is forecast to increase by 4.8% over 2009/10 to 170.4 million metric tonnes (Mt) nutrients.

Demand for N, P and K fertilizers is seen growing by 1.9%, 4.5% and 18%, respectively. The positive agricultural market fundamentals over the medium term are expected to stimulate world fertilizer demand, which is projected to reach 188.3 Mt in 2014/15. The bulk of the increase in demand would come from Asia and, to a lesser extent, from the Americas.

Regarding fertilizer production, the conditions in the global fertilizer market stabilized in 2009, as fertilizer demand started to recover by mid-year in the main consuming countries. However, total sales and production dropped to levels unprecedented for more than a decade due to important inventory carry-overs in worldwide distribution systems. Global capacity increased in key exporting regions, but at modest rates compared with those of the previous years.

Capacity growth in the short to medium term is seen as expanding at a slower pace than projected in 2009. Delays and some cancellations have reduced the announced expansion of capacity and the commissioning of new projects by 6 to 24 months. However, interest in investing in the fertilizer sector appears unabated.

In the past year, several new projects have been announced for the near term since many countries continue to promote new capacity and to foster self-sufficiency. A wave of mergers and acquisitions has characterized the restructuring of the sector over the past 12 months. It is anticipated that this trend will continue in the short term. Energy prices, government policies and environmental regulations have the potential to influence future global fertilizer supply. The mid-term market perspectives vary from one product to another:

• In the nitrogen sector, much of the increase in ammonia capacity is associated with new urea capacity, which is forecast to grow by 51.3 Mt, or 30% over 2009, to reach 222 Mt in 2014. The forecast sees a large potential urea surplus, accelerating after 2012, if all the announced projects are realized according to their respective schedule. The global nitrogen supply/demand balance would show a potential surplus of close to 4.7 Mt N in 2010 accelerating to 16.7 Mt N in 2014.
   
• In the phosphate sector, the global capacity for the main processed phosphate fertilizers is projected to be 42.3 Mt P2O5 in 2014, representing a net increase of 8.2 Mt P2O5 over 2009. Over the next five years, close to 40 new MAP, DAP and TSP units are expected to be constructed in ten countries. Expansion of DAP capacity would account for three-quarters of this increase. While major DAP capacity expansions will be taking place, it was projected that demand growth would absorb most of this new capacity through 2014.
   
• In the potash sector, global sales collapsed in 2009 as major carry-over stocks were available in several consuming countries. However, a strong rebound in demand and moderate capacity growth should be picking up in the short term. Widespread interest in new potash capacity has been witnessed in 2010 with close to 100 projects being carried out in about 25 countries. Potash balances show a sustained surplus through 2014 but the expected growth in capacity is likely to be absorbed by the forecast increase in demand.

In the short term, world supply/demand conditions are expected to include resilient annual potential surpluses of phosphate rock, potash and urea due to the emergence of large capacity in the main exporting regions. Over the next five years, market conditions for phosphate fertilizers, notably DAP, merchant phosphoric acid, merchant ammonia and sulphur, are seen as relatively balanced due to firm demand growth and a gradual increase in capacity.

Over the period 2009 to 2014, global trade will expand by 15 to 33%, depending on the nutrient products and regions. In the medium term, the industry is taking the necessary measures to provide the fertilizer supply needed by farmers worldwide.

Flaring Spider Mites In Cotton: Rating Your Chances

Entomologists frequently warn against using hard chemistry that might flare spider mites, an admonition we're hearing quite a bit this summer. With all the heat, spider mites are present on a wide basis and hitting treatment levels in portions of both the Delta and Southeast.

Phillip Roberts, Georgia Extension Entomologist, delved into spider mites in this week's Georgia Cotton Pest Management Newsletter. In his discussion, he touched on the subject of flaring and also included a chart that rates the potential flaring effects of various chemistries.

"Recently, 22 cotton entomologist representing 14 states across the cotton belt responded to a survey on insecticide performance in cotton," Roberts said, explaining the origin of the chart. "In addition to rating efficacy on of insecticides on individual pests, entomologists were asked to rate the risk of flaring spider mites."

CLICK HERE for an enlarged view.

Southern Rust For 2010: The Map Tells It All

Southern rust in corn has made a big showing in the South this year, as the map (below) shows. We pulled this off of USDA's crop disease site this morning, then realized that it does not include at least one confirmed find in Tennessee.

Obit: Eldon Lundberg, Organic Rice Pioneer

Eldon Albert Lundberg, the eldest of four brothers who built Lundberg Family Farms into the nation’s leading producer of organic rice and related products, died Saturday, June 26, in Richvale, California, where he lived. He was 82.

A native of Phelps County, Nebraska, Lundberg's parents moved west when he was a boy, settling in the small rice-farming town of Richvale in the Sacramento Valley. Raised on the farm founded by his parents, Lundberg began farming with his father Albert in 1948, while studying Civil Engineering at Chico State College.

In 1969, the four Lundberg brothers - Eldon, Wendell, Harlan, and Homer - built their rice milling operations, which launched the Lundberg Family Farms brand of rice products.

While organic rice already was available, mostly from small farming operations, the Lundbergs brought a higher degree of commercialization to the business, gaining shelf space in major supermarkets.

Eldon Lundberg served as president of the family business as the company established direct links with consumers over the next 25 years. During his tenure as president, Lundberg Family Farms grew into the nation’s top producer of organic and eco-farmed rice and rice products. In 1997, Eldon’s son, Grant, became CEO, and in 1999, Lundberg retired from day-to-day management.


He served on the board of directors of the Butte County Rice Growers Association and was a longtime member of the U.S. Rice Council.

Louisiana's Weird Corn Year Continues

This has been a weird year for Louisiana corn.

First, some corn had enough spider mite pressure that it had to be treated. Off hand, nobody we spoke with could ever remember that happening in the state. Treating mites in corn is fairly common in arid parts of the country, like California's San Joaquin Valley where growers typical spray mites on corn in areas that receive little or no rain during the season.

Through much of the spring and into the summer, parts of Louisiana actually received less rain, in fact, than areas around, say, Bakersfield and Fresno in California.

Louisiana's cropping season and surrounding landscape were thrown out of whack early. Winter and early spring rains kept vegetation growing and also shut farmers out of the field when they needed to do prep work. All that likely gave pests a chance to build in wild hosts, both inside and on the edges of fields

Then as the extended dry period gripped the state, temperatures rose sharply and have lingered in the high 90s to low triple digits since late May.

If there was going to be a year to treat spider mites in Louisiana corn, this would have been it.

And now farmers and their crop advisers are facing the reality that corn has also taken an economic hit from corn earworms, something that nobody would have thought possible.

The pest typically nibbles away at the tip of the cob, which produces kernels that never quite make it through the harvesting process, anyway, because of their size and odd placement on the tapering ear.

This year, though, that part of the cob was mostly blank due to heat-induced pollination problems. Plus, a larger-than-normal earworm moth flight developed early, putting more pressure on the crop. When worms couldn't find small, tasty kernels on the cob's tip, they moved down the cob and at into kernels that actually are bigger, valuable and harvestable.

"Where we might only see one worm in a cob – mainly because they tend to eat competing worms when they find them on the tip – we found cobs with 2 or even 3 worms," said Roger Leonard, LSU Research Entomologist. "Instead of sitting on the tip but, they moved down the cob on different sides and never bumped into each other. When we have any kind of injury, it tends to be late when we higher persistent pressure and more larvae in there."

Leonard said he had never seen this happen before and didn't think that it was possible to sustain economic loss like this on any kind of scale.

"This was turning up in the Yieldgard and Herculex corn, as well as hybrids without those traits," he added.

As not to leave soybeans out, brown stink bugs are turning up in some soybeans, mainly in south-central Louisiana. But these aren't the regular brown stink bugs, though some probably are in the mix.

Several stink bugs kind of get lumped into the "brown" category, although the one commonly called "brown" is the one that tends to be an annual problem.

"There are at least 2 species out there where we're dealing with them right now -- our regular brown and a somewhat smaller one that is kind of around but hardly ever in big numbers," Leonard said. "It's not common enough that it's been given any kind of common name. They’re both managed the same way and need to be treated when they hit action thresholds. More and more fields there are being treated.”

- Owen Taylor

How Do You Control Spider Mites In Soybeans?

The short answer to the question is, "Not very well."

The question, itself, came up this week in a conversation with Ames Herbert, Virginia Extension Entomologist, who said that he'd received several farmer calls about spider mites in soybeans north of the James River, an area with mostly a corn-soybean rotation, unlike areas to the south that tend to have more cotton and peanuts.

Samples sent to him from infested soybeans contained a large number of adults "and tons of eggs," as Herbert put it.

"We have limited options for treating mites in beans," Herbert said. "The new-generation miticides used in cotton aren’t labeled for soybeans. Brigade and related chemistries are somewhat effective. Dimethoate and Lorsban also are used."

But dimethoate, he added, might be "a little quirky" because it has a pH issue, and water has to be adjusted if the pH is too high. Plus, it has to be stored properly.

"So, make sure you’re using fresh material if that’s your choice, not something that's been in the warehouse for several years," Herbert cautioned.

Lorsban can be effective, he noted, but it has some phytotoxicity issues sometimes.

"The big problem with mites – regardless of the material – is that growers often wait until they’ve got a near-salvage situation, with large numbers of adults, plus eggs," Herbert said. "You can knock out the adults on the first round but still probably have to come back in 5 to 7 days with a second treatment to take out the hatchlings. That’s the only way to break that kind of cycle. It’s a tough, expensive pest and, unfortunately, tends to show up in drier seasons."

Herbert added: "That area (where mites were being found in beans) really isn’t that dry, so this doesn’t bode well for mite problems this season."

- Owen Taylor 

Diesel Prices Nudging Up After Declines Since Mid May

From the U.S. Energy Information Administration this morning...

The national average price for diesel fuel at the highway pump rose for the first time since May 10, 2010, climbing three cents to $2.96 per gallon, $0.35 above the price a year ago.

• With the exception of the Rocky Mountains, prices increased throughout the country.
• The average on the East Coast increased two and a half cents to $2.97 per gallon and the Gulf Coast went up over three cents to $2.91 per gallon.
• The average in the Midwest moved up more than four cents to $2.94 per gallon.
• The Rocky Mountain price dipped a penny to $2.98 per gallon. T
• he West Coast price moved up four cents to $3.09 per gallon and the average in California jumped six cents to $3.13 per gallon.

For the first time in six weeks, the U.S. average price for regular gasoline increased, moving up four cents to settle at $2.74 per gallon, 5 cents higher than last year.

• Although prices went up in all regions of the country, the range of change was considerable, from less than a half cent in the Rocky Mountains to seven cents in the Midwest.
• The average on the East Coast increased three cents to $2.69 per gallon, while the Midwest price jumped seven cents to $2.71 per gallon.
• Despite an increase of two cents, the average on the Gulf Coast remained the lowest of any region at $2.60 per gallon.
• Increasing less than a half cent, the average in the Rocky Mountains was essentially unchanged at $2.77 per gallon.
• The West Coast average climbed four cents to $3.03 per gallon, while the price in California moved up nearly a nickel to $3.10 per gallon.

Readers Of The Purple Sage: This Bush Predicts Rain

Bob Rose’s Weather Blog podcast this week focuses on the Texas purple sage, a common bush in drier parts of Texas that seems to predict rain. Nicknamed “The Barometer Bush,” it seems sensitive to weather changes and often opens its flowers a few days ahead of a rain.

Rose is chief meteorologist with the Lower Colorado River Authority. This is the Colorado River in Texas, not to be confused with the one that forms the Grand Canyon. Its upland reservoirs supply water to Austin, Texas, and irrigation supplies to a good deal of the farming country west of Houston, especially that part of the state’s rice belt.

I try never to miss one of his video blogs. He’ll give me a quick “heads up” on weather patterns affecting portions of Texas we cover with RiceFax, our weekly report. Plus, I also tend to come away with useful or entertaining bits of weather information that Rose plugs into his podcasts.

Here’s his report…

PureSense Releases Irrigation Monitoring App For The iPhone

PureSense Environmental Inc. announced earlier this week that its Irrigation Manager iPhone application is now available through the iTunes App Store.

Built as a mobile platform for PureSense subscribers, the PureSense app brings the reporting capabilities of Irrigation Manager to the iPhone, allowing the grower to be more informed, efficient and mobile than ever before.

Cory Wyatt with Eastside Management in Modesto, CA manages over 5,400 acres of almonds with PureSense and was a tester for the Irrigation Manager iPhone app beta version.

"With the new app, I'm able to know anything about my soil moisture without having to find a computer," said Wyatt. "It confirms that the irrigation decisions which I've made are actually happening."

Mississippi-Based USDA Team Unlocking Sorghum's Weed-Fighting Traits

Interesting piece from Dennis O'Brien, a USDA public affairs writer...

By unlocking the genetic secrets of sorghum, Agricultural Research Service (ARS) scientists have found a way to make one of the world's most important cereal crops a better option for growers. Researchers at the ARS Natural Products Utilization Unit in Oxford, Miss. also may have opened a door to reducing pesticide use in the production of other crops.

Sorghum secretes a compound known as sorgoleone that is instrumental in helping the plant combat weeds. But in a way it does its job too well. Certain crops don't grow well in fields where sorghum has been raised, causing problems for growers who want to plant different crops on those fields.

The research team at Oxford included molecular biologist Scott Baerson, chemist Agnes Rimando, research leader Stephen O. Duke, plant physiologist Franck E. Dayan, molecular biologist Zhiqiang Pan, and plant physiologist Daniel Cook, who now works at the ARS Poisonous Plant Research Laboratory in Logan, Utah.

The team started with two pieces of evidence that helped them address the problem. Previous studies showed that sorgoleone is produced in the plant root hairs, and that a special type of enzyme within the plant plays a major role in sorgoleone production.

Using a strategy called sequence tagging, the scientists searched an established sorghum genome database for gene sequences associated with that class of enzymes. They found two gene sequences expressed in the plant root hair cells that produced the enzymes. When they silenced the two gene sequences, it dramatically reduced sorgoleone levels in the sorghum plants produced.

The results, published in The Plant Cell, could lead to sorghum lines without the soil toxicity problem, as well as lines with higher levels of sorgoleone that offer superior weed-fighting capabilities without posing environmental hazards. This discovery will enable researchers to look for similar gene sequences in other crops to increase their natural pest-fighting capabilities and reduce the need for pesticides.

Baerson and his colleagues have already identified similar sequences in rice that are involved in production of defense-related enzymes.

ARS molecular biologist Zhiqiang Pan is part of team that has found two gene sequences controlling sorghum's production of sorgoleone, a compound that stops weeds from growing nearby but may also keep some crops from growing well in fields where sorghum has been raised. Click the image for more information about it.

Diesel Prices Continue To Decline

Here's a synopsis from today's diesel price survey report from the U.S. Energy Information Administration...

The national average price for diesel fuel fell for the fifth week in a row, dropping two cents to $2.93 per gallon, $0.36 above a year ago.

• Prices fell in all regions of the country as the East Coast declined two cents to $2.95 per gallon.
• The Midwest price dipped a cent to $2.89 per gallon.
• The Gulf Coast and Rocky Mountain averages fell about three cents to $2.87 per gallon and $2.99 per gallon, respectively.
• The average on the West Coast slid less than half a cent to $3.05 per gallon.
• In California, the average was unchanged at $3.07 per gallon.

The U.S. average price for regular gasoline has declined for five consecutive weeks.

• Prices dropped by over 2 cents to hit $2.70 per gallon, 3 cents higher than a year ago. Over the last five weeks, the price for regular gasoline has decreased by over 20 cents per gallon.
• The averages fell in all regions of the country with the East Coast price falling by about three cents to $2.66 per gallon.
• The Midwest and Rocky Mountain averages slipped two cents to $2.64 per gallon and $2.77 per gallon, respectively.
• The lowest price was found in the Gulf Coast at $2.58 per gallon, after a decline of more than 3 cents.
• The prices on the West Coast and in California dipped a penny and a half to $2.99 per gallon and $3.05 per gallon, respectively.

California Farmers Fighting European Grapevine Moth May Have Enviro-Friendly Options

USDA's Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) in California is offering voluntary, environmentally-friendly control options to California farmers near confirmed trappings of the foreign pest, European Grapevine Moth (EGVM). So far EGVM has been found in Fresno, Mendocino, Merced, Monterey, Napa, Solano, and Sonoma counties.  One million dollars has been set aside by NRCS to assist grape farmers with Integrated Pest Management (IPM).

More details here.

I remember dial-up.

It's been many years since I had to live with a dial-up internet connection on a day-to-day basis. It was a miracle then, but now it's just one more story that my kids don't want to hear.

I now take my high speed internet service for granted, except when I pay the bill. And, I don't even need that service when I check my email or surf the web on my handy, dandy smart phone (yet, another bill to pay). I just hop on the 3G trail.

But, recently I had to put together a family reunion in a very, very rural piney woods part of Louisiana.

When I announced that all communication would be via email, I was surprised to learn that some of my relatives still suffer from "sorry, i only have dial-up" illness. It's so much trouble to connect and then wait, that they don't check email often enough to even have the account. And, yes, some of them feel like it's "too much trouble" to even own a computer. My solution: I wrote the email, printed it out and then visited the U.S. post office. Ah, the miracle of reliable delivery really does still exist.

Let me also explain that electricity didn't come to this particular spot in Louisiana until 1953, when my grandmother went door to door signing people up. The story is she used part of her "egg money" to pay whatever it took to get that service down her road. Her indoor plumbing came along just before John Kennedy took office in 1960. And, I'm not sure she ever got a telephone.

So, you can see why I was excited to learn that a part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (Recovery Act) might actually help out my relatives as well as thousands of other folks. Coincidentally, the projects are expected to create about 5,000 immediate and direct jobs

Over $1 billion in loans and grants has been awarded for 68 broadband projects in 31 states and one territory in the first of two scheduled funding rounds from the Recovery Act. That sounds like a cure for a lot of "dial-up."

According to a USDA press release, three types of projects received awards:

• Last-mile remote projects, which will provide broadband service to households and other users in rural areas located at least 50 miles from the nearest non-rural area.

• Last-mile non-remote projects, which will provide broadband service to households and other users located less than 50 miles from the nearest non-rural area.

• Middle-mile projects, which will provide necessary "backbone" services such as interoffice transport, backhaul, Internet connectivity, or special access to rural areas.

The projects will bring broadband service to an estimated 529,249 households, 92,754 businesses and 3,332 anchor institutions across more than 172,000 square miles – a geographic area approximately the size of the state of California. These projects will also provide services to 19 Tribal lands. A second round of successful applicants will be announced later in the 2010 fiscal year.

And, to add to my excitement, I found in Connecting Rural America that Louisiana was included in the grants, among such other states as: Alabama, Georgia, Mississippi, Virginia, Texas, West Virginia, Tennessee and Missouri.

I'm counting on broadband delivery for the next family reunion invite.

Thanks for reading.

Debra Ferguson

Oklahoma State Launches Comprehensive Ag Machinery Web Site

Farmers and others involved in production ag have a new source of information on the efficient use of ag machiner. The Oklahoma State University Agricultural Machinery Systems website contains information from the departments of biosystems and ag engineering, as well as educational material generated at other universities.

Randy Taylor, OSU Cooperative Extension engineer, machinery systems, said agriculture machinery represents one of the largest costs associated with growing crops in the Great Plains.

“Furthermore, ag machinery is common across the country, so information generated in other states can be just as valuable as that generated in Oklahoma. This makes sharing information between states more feasible,” Taylor said.

Information on the site can be found on applications systems, engines, grain harvesting, hay and forage harvesting, machinery management, power transfer, precision agriculture technology, tillage systems management and tractors.

“This website was established as a source of information regarding the efficient use of agriculture machinery. The material is organized in a manner that lets users find their needed information,” Taylor said. “This site is unique in that material from many sources can be accessed in one location. There are also links to other useful sites.”

- Owen Taylor

Hurricane And Tropical Storms In The Gulf: How Activity Stacks Up On The Calendar

What are the odds that a hurricane will be active in the Gulf of Mexico during any given period, but particularly during harvest season?

This chart gives at least some indication. It was posted on the U.S. Energy Information Administration web site with an article about potential disruptions to Gulf of Mexico oil production this year.

It shows the frequency of Gulf hurricanes and tropical storms from and the number of days on a given date that these storms were active. It covers the years 1910 to 2009.

What the chart can't show is how many storms affected land or where they hit. But it does illustrate the inherent risk for anyone harvesting fiber or grain in the South.

Give a Tractor, Get a Vacation

It seems the Reefs Hotel and Club in Southhampton, Bermuda, has plenty of rooms but one less tractor, and they are making the most of the situation. According to Ben Tutt, The Reefs managing director, "Every morning, we rake and groom our private pink sand beach to keep it pristine for our guests. It takes quite a bit of manpower and the aid of a sturdy tractor. Unfortunately, our tractor called it quits and, being on an island, has made it difficult to find a good replacement."

The Reefs Resoort

According to a press release The Reefs issued, it will trade a classy island getwaway for a replacement tractor.
"Anyone with a new tractor that meets the resort's requirements can trade it for a vacation in an elegantly appointed three-bedroom residence at The Reefs Club," the release stated. "The relaxing vacation is inclusive of daily breakfast, afternoon tea and gourmet dinner nightly."
And not just any tractor will do.

The hotel's management specifically wants a "new or nearly new" 23-horsepower Kubota B2320 tractor or equivalent. Oh, and don't forget the front loader and a trailer hitch.

More details here.

I hate fire ants.

So, who doesn't?

You never forget your first fire ant encounter. A part of your body is unexpectedly set on fire throwing you into a sort of dance with a lot of yelping.

Somehow I avoided fire ants until the late 1980s when I was interviewing Dr. Normie Buehring at the North Mississippi Research and Extension Center at Verona. I thought I had just asked a really bad question when he started pulling my arm and yelling at me to move. Then I looked down and saw my shoes covered in ants, followed quickly by a raging pain on both feet. Looking back, I am amazed how quickly I shed shoes, socks and managed to keep my pants on -- much to Dr. Behring’s appreciation, I’m sure.

So, it was with a bit of morbid fascination, I learned of a “virtual museum” that is all about the fire ant.

The Museum of Novel Fire Ant Control Methods and Products pays homage to decades of inventions tried by many in a guerilla warfare battle to rid the earth of the red fire ant.

The museum was created by the Imported Fire Ants Community of Practice, a virtual on-line community of agricultural extension professionals including members of land-grant universities, USDA APHIS and ARS, county and state governments.

The web page catalogs an amazing number of methods and products that “constitute excellent examples of ingenuity in the U.S. and worldwide.” In other words, some of the methods are ridiculous but there is no lack of effort or inspiration when it comes to finding a fire ant killer.

Here’s a sampling of some of the things I learned:

• Although the U.S. had two native fire ant species, they were fairly unnoticed until the alien fire ants arrived by ship in Mobile, Alabama, somewhere between 1918 and the late 1920s. Their official presence was first reported in 1929.

• The little buggers are expert invaders. By 1953, according to a USDA survey, the imported fire ants had invaded 102 counties in 10 states. In 2010, the more aggressive red fire ant has replaced the black imported fire ant and the two native species across the southeastern United States.

• The McCoy Stamper was probably the first non-chemical ant control device. It was actually a windmill built in Lubbock, Texas with the intent to “run over” worker ants as they emerged from the mound. Another favorite of mine is The Antser, a grinder with rotating tines meant to stir the ant beds and throw a little water into the action.

But, I don’t want to have all the fun. Take a look for yourself.

Texas In Line For A Hot Summer, But Maybe Not As Hot As 2009

How hot will it get in Texas this summer?

Meteorologist Bob Rose with the Austin-based Lower Colorado River Authority (LCRA)says it will be plenty hot, based on the number of likely days at or above 100. But he still doesn't believe there will be as many of those days as the state saw in 2009.

LCRA manages reservoirs on the Colorado River of Texas that supply water to a large portion of Texas farm country west of Houston and also supply water to Austin and other cities. We make it a point to follow his forecasts.

Rose posted the following podcast on his blog, outlining his outlook for summer heat.

Arkansas Rice Farmer Named To EPA's Ag Advisory Committee

Arkansas rice farmer Ray Vester, of Stuttgart, was named today to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Farm, Ranch, and Rural Communities Committee (FRRCC), according to a report posted in the USA Rice Federation’s Rice Daily e-letter.

The FRRCC is an independent committee that advises EPA on a wide range of environmental issues of importance to agriculture and rural communities.

According to the report:

FRCC members for the 2010-12 term include representatives from academia, industry, non-governmental organizations, and state, local, and tribal governments. Committee members were selected from a large pool of applicants responding to a request for nominations published last November in the Federal Register. FRRCC meetings will be open and the group is expected to meet twice annually, generally in Washington.

Vester, a rice farmer for more than 40 years, is the current chairman of USA Rice Federation's Environmental Regulatory subcommittee. In addition, he is a member of the Arkansas Rice Producers' Group board of directors, the USA Rice Federation Sustainability Task Force and the Biotechnology Task Force. Vester is also a member of the Arkansas State Plant Board.

Spicey, Yes, But Chili Peppers May Also Help Burn Fat

Scientists from South Korea are reporting new evidence that capsaicin, the stuff that gives chili peppers their kick, may cause weight loss and fight fat buildup by triggering certain beneficial protein changes in the body. Their study, which could lead to new treatments for obesity, appears in American Chemical Society's monthly Journal of Proteome Research.

Laboratory studies have hinted that capsaicin may help fight obesity by decreasing calorie intake, shrinking fat tissue, and lowering fat levels in the blood. Nobody, however, knows exactly how capsaicin might trigger such beneficial effects.

In an effort to find out, the scientists fed high-fat diets with or without capsaicin to lab rats used to study obesity. The capsaicin-treated rats lost 8 percent of their body weight and showed changes in levels of at least 20 key proteins found in fat. The altered proteins work to break down fats, the scientists say.

Brazilian Sugarcane Ethanol Makers Plan A Splashy Pitstop At Indy

Brazil’s sugarcane ethanol industry wants to make inroads in the U.S. fuel market, which means taking potential gallonage from corn-based ethanol.

In what has to be the ultimate in-your-face push yet, Brazilians will promote their product during the telecast of the 2010 Indianapolis 500 race this Sunday. This isn't just the premier racing event in the U.S. (sorry, NASCAR fans) but also an event held solidly in the Corn Belt.

Ironically, this reminds me of that old quip, “Indiana is a big corn field with a race track in the middle of it.” But plenty of cars on the Brickyard this weekend will be powered by sugar, not corn.

The ads, produced for the Brazilian Sugarcane Industry Association (UNICA), feature sequences of short phrases with facts about sugarcane ethanol delivered by Indy drivers, including Ryan Hunter-Reay, Ana Beatriz, Takuma Sato, Davey Hamilton and E.J. Viso.

Comments also come from the pole sitter for Sunday's race, Helio Castroneves, a 3-time Indy 500 winner.

Since last year, UNICA has provided 100% fuel-grade ethanol for the IndyCar Series.

"For the first time ever, we are taking our message about sugarcane ethanol to national network television during one of the most prestigious sporting events in the world," said Joel Velasco, UNICA's Chief Representative in North America. "These commercials seek to educate American consumers about sugarcane ethanol and how it can benefit their pockets, the environment and the market, by promoting competition on and off the track."

The ads were produced especially for this year's 99th edition of the Indy 500, the main event in the IndyCar season. The two 30-second spots will appear during the race telecast on Sunday, May 30, on the ABC television network. UNICA plans to continue running television ads throughout the season.

 - Owen Taylor