Cotton variety tech fee information for both Monsanto and Dow can be found at the AgriAFC web site.
Here's the direct link to the listings, which are broken down by state or region in both the Delta states and the Southeast.
Thanks to Angus Catchot for passing this along.
My friend Vern Crawford -- who lives in Kern County, California, and is widely known as "Vern From Kern" -- attended the World Ag Expo in Tulare, California, this week and said the neatest new product he saw was a gizmo called the Ag Flag.
Roundup Ready Resistance has been an ongoing news item on agfax.com and in some of our crop newsletters for the last couple of years.
University newsletters and blogs are full of stories about weeds that have become and are becoming resistant to the weed killer, also known as glyphosate. The best minds in agriculture are thrashing around with ideas and suggestions for the biggest gun to take to the showdown with Pigweed. The good news is that they are coming up with recommendations. The bad news is that there is no magic bullet and fighting herbicide resistance is a war, not a battle.
If you grew up in a location like me, the rural Mississippi Delta, then you probably longed for cable tv like your "city" friends had.
We were lucky. Our house had a tv antenna. It stood like a mighty sentinel collecting ALL three possible tv channels and pouring news and entertainment into our lives. It even worked pretty well, depending on the weather. Wind was hard on tv antennas and in at least one instance, a hefty antenna repairman and our roof came to a bad end.
Anyone in the business of farming will probably find at least one item of interest in a White Paper prepared by The Center for Agricultural Law and Taxation (CALT).
Here's a quick list of the the Top 10 Agricultural Law Developments of 2010 items using the David Letterman method:
Agricultural apps for the iPhone, Android and other smartphones and mobile devices are floating around now.
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| Our universal app's opening screen |
Grain bin safety is the focus of a free video released by the National Corn Growers Association and the National Grain and Feed Foundation. The two organizations teamed up in November to develop the video in response to an increase in U.S. fatalities and injuries associated with entry into grain bins.
One of the surprising things in the video is the higher rates of bin-related deaths among teenagers and people over 60.
Here's a link to more information and the video, itself.
A farmer passed along information to us about this program and said he intended to screen it for his family and employees right away. It's a very powerful presentation.
County fairs in California are in jeopardy on a wide basis because of proposed budget cuts that would eliminate state subsidies for the events, says the California Fairs Alliance (CFA). The group estimates that as many as 29 fairs could hit the rocks without state underwriting to the California fair network.
By the CFA's estimate, the state would give up $126 million in annual direct tax income generated by fair receipts, said Stephen Chambers of the California Fairs Alliance (CFA).
“That represents nearly a four-to-one return on the state’s overall $32 million investment," he specified. "In this light, the budget plan actually dries up an income stream that flows to the state from California fairs."
Along with a potential net income loss, the proposal could drive 29 fairs - including dozens of primarily rural fairs - completely out of business. This would result in a major economic ripple effect by killing jobs and related economic activities, according to CFA, which today also released the list of the 29 at-risk fairs and the formula for determining their status.
“Fair funding is seed money that creates a foundation from which the fairs are able to build up their true economic impact. While larger fairs may no longer need the platform provided by the funding, the majority of small and medium fairs do,” said Chambers. “If you destroy this foundation, the whole network is disrupted. If the ‘fair return’ to the state in tax revenue is reduced by just 30 percent, this aspect of the Governor’s budget proposal will bleed red ink from the General Fund.”
CFA noted that the financial impact of California fairgrounds is well documented by the state of California, which recently issued a report, California Fairs: Statewide Economic Impacts, which found its economic contributions to be significant, including: $2.8 billion in consumer spending, $855 million in income, 25,000 full-time jobs and $126 million in state and local taxes.
Having grown up going to the county fair and at odd times even competing in 4-H events, it's hard to argue against the All American nature of the events. But what never quite figures into the equation is the effect that fairs have on local economies. I live just outside of Jackson, Mississippi, which hosts the Mississippi State Fair. More than once, I've walked into nearly-deserted restaurants on Friday and Saturday nights during fair week. A state fair does fill up some hotel rooms, but the same can't be said for most county fairs, which are far more localized.
Local fairs do provide fund-raising opportunities for local groups, but money spent on carnival rides and similar attractions mostly flows out of the county when the operator breaks down the equipment and drives off to the next event.
Good fairs certainly have an educational component for city folks, and even CFA notes that, absent proposed cuts, the fair network appears healthy, with a strong 2010 season with an overall growth in attendance and revenue. Budgets for the 2011 season are approved and funded, and industry leaders expect another successful fair season.
And CFA is encouraging state leaders for formulate "a more thoughtful plan" for funding.
Absentee landowners in some cases aren't keeping up with land values and are evidently selling significantly below the market, according to Lee Vermeer, vice president of real estate operations at Farmers National Company, which handles farm real estate sales in a number of states.
Nearly 20% of private treaty sales transactions are considered to be sales by non-farming owners. He says the numbers keep increasing and the gap widening as values in the open market are rising.
“Our appraisers come across numerous sales in almost all states and counties that have sold well below the current market,” said Vermeer. “Examples of farms that have sold at $500 to $1,000 per acre below the market are common and instances of $2,000 below the market have been found. If a landowner sells 160 acres at $1,000 below what they could have received if offered to the open market, they will lose $160,000. This scenario happens often in this rapidly changing market.”
Vermeer advises absentee landowners to keep current on market trends and sales data, even if they are not currently looking to sell. He says it’s vital to seek regular advice from a professional land real estate company, and track state and county sales online at a website such as his company's site, www.FarmersNational.com.
“You never know when an opportunity to sell could arise, and knowing the market puts a landowner in an optimum position, and knowledge is always valuable,” said Vermeer.
The National Corn Growers Association (NCGA) said that President Obama's state of the union address last night was generally positive on points that affect its membership, including potential to expand trade agreements and continued support for corn-based ethanol. The following points are from a press release issued by NCGA today:
How is cotton penciling out for farmers in the Southeast?
Eddie McGriff, Extension Agent in Coffee County, Georgia, said today that he ran the numbers for irrigated cotton for one of his growers and found that – at least with the grower’s yields – cotton was the best choice.
Here’s how McGriff made his calculations:
“December 2011 cotton futures were at $1.13 and March 2011 was at $1.61. I put $1.09 per pound for cotton in his budget when trying to decide if he should plant more cotton or other crops (peanuts, corn or soybeans). I used his irrigated crop yields of 1,100 lbs/acre for cotton, 3,500 lbs/acre for peanuts, 160 bu/acre for corn and 40 bu/acre for soybeans.”
To beat the potential return on cotton at $1.09 a pound, he said, the farmer would need:
A mobile classroom operated by the University of Arkansas is providing hands-on communications training to high school ag students and teachers. It's a great way to provide social networking tools to the future leaders of farming. Here's a link to a full report:
http://agfax.com/Content/arkansas-video-traiking-01182011.aspx
Keith Good's Farm Policy reports that several sources, including a Wall Street Journal analyst, predict a record number of acres will be planted this year. The reports are all singing the same song, shorter global food supplies due to major weather calamities will increase U.S. acreage.
It's also worth reading further to see an interesting item in Good's report by Dennis T. Avery. A senior fellow for the think tank, Hudson Institute. Avery offers a different take on the food supply shortage related to the need for increased yields, "The public must get over its chemo phobia, and license its farmers to use the pest controls that work best, whether they be chemical or biotechnological." He specifically mentions DDT and Dursban.
Organic cotton production remains a mostly small-scale enterprise carried out in countries with an abundance of cheap labor.
That’s the take-home from a press release issued this week by the Textile Exchange, formerly known as the Organic Exchange. The report was based on 2009-2010 production.
According to the release, global organic cotton production amounted to 1.1 million bales produced by 274,000 farmers. That works out to just over 4 bales per farmer. Most of the 22 countries covered in the organic cotton report were decidedly Third World and developing nations.
The United States placed fifth in terms of the amount of organic cotton produced, just behind China at fourth. India ranked first for the third year, followed by Syria and Turkey.
The release noted that worldwide organic cotton production has grown significantly in the last five years. But it still accounts for only about 1.1% of global production.
The release did not indicate the average yield per acre or hectare.
Here's a more detailed report.
What do drug violence and the boll weevil have in common? Quite a bit if you're a cotton grower in the Lower Rio Grande Valley, writes Rod Santa Ana with Texas A&M University.
It will be a hot topic at the Cotton Pre-Plant Seminar and annual meeting of the Cotton and Grain Producers on Wednesday, January 19, at the Texas AgriLife Research and Extension Center at Weslaco, Santa Ana reported this morning.
Here's his report:
http://agfax.com/Content/texas-boll-weevil-eradication-hampered-by-mexico-drug-violence-01142011.aspx
Here's a great video of the 101st Matagorda (Texas) Peninsula cattle swim.
Also, here's a full article.
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.
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
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.
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