House Ag Gets Moving on Next Farm Bill
Less than two years after Congress enacted the 2008 Farm Bill, the House Agriculture Committee opened work on the 2012 Farm Bill Tuesday with a review of U.S. dairy policy at a field hearing in Pennsylvania.
Researchers Turning Hog Output in Oil
Researchers at the University of Illinois are finding success in their work to turn swine manure into crude oil. If continued research results in success this could add an additional one billion-dollar market to the hog industry and reduce U.S. dependence on crude oil imports. University of Illinois scientists have teamed with industry partners to design a pilot plant for a large commercial livestock farm that will convert swine manure into crude oil.
Opening Up Cuban Trade Could be a Jobs Booster
A half-a-billion dollar boost for the economy would be nice, wouldn’t it? That’s what some say lifting agricultural trade restrictions with Cuba would offer. American Farm Bureau Federation Trade Specialist Chris Garza explains why lifting the travel ban to Cuba is an important piece of the legislation.
“The travel issue is important to us, not only do we want to make sure that we don’t have any restrictions on importing our product, but that we also have the potential to increase those exports that we have. And that’s what the travel provisions bring to the table.”
Resistant Palmer Pigweed Marches Into Southeastern Fields
With planting underway, it’s hard to believe that it’s already time to start thinking about weeds. Jeff Mink, technical crop manager for Syngenta Crop Protection in the southern fields crops business unit says it’s never too early to talk about weeds, especially glyphosate resistant weeds. Getting started early is going to be the key to a weed-free crop:
"The main weed that we’re looking across the southeast that we’ve been dealing with for several years and that’s been coming into the mid-south very aggressively is pigweed, Palmer Pigweed resistance to glyphosate. It’s very troublesome because it germinates all season long, and so you can think you’ve got them controlled early in the year, and if you take your eye off the ball they can just continue to germinate throughout the season. And once they’ve got any size to them at all, couple of inches, three inches, they become extremely difficult to control at that point.
Chemical companies are trying to get a message to growers about glyphosate resistant weeds:
“What we’re trying to do, or the message that we’re getting out there is you need to continuously overlap your residual herbicides to make sure that you’ve got a protective barrier there to control the weeds as they’re trying to emerge season long. So, you need that herbicide barrier in the soil to help keep them from emerging, so that you don’t get in a situation where you’re battling a weed that’s got any size to it.”
Mink says that when it comes to Palmer Pigweed, there is no such think as “too early”:
“It’s starts all the way at burn down. You’ve really got to be focused on burn down. You’ve got to choose your chemistry’s very wisely. It’s all about knowing your herbicide chemistry, knowing what pre-emerge activity it has, how it’s going to last, and making sure that you’re rotating chemistry, because we’ve gotten into this situation because of an over reliance on glyphosate, and so now glyphosate is ineffective on Palmer Pigweed. So, you really need to be rotating your modes of action, and you also need to make sure that you’re not relying on a single mode of action herbicide now, as well, in the pre-emerge segment so that we don’t over use those molecules as well. “
If all that sounds like you need a degree in chemistry, there’s a helpful tool to keep you in the field and out of the classroom:
“We offer a site called resistance fighter dot com where a grower can go in, and for his geography he can pick what crop he’s going to grow, what his targeted weed is, and it will give him a suggested program that he can follow that takes into account rotating modes of action and things like that.”
Again that Website is resistancefighter.com.
Outlook for chicken industry just keeps getting better
Growing demand, restrained production, healthy prices and well-behaved feed costs are setting the stage for a substantial rebound in chicken margins, analysts who attended a recent industry conference said.
EMI is projecting a 2 percent rise in broiler production over the next two years, and, chicken production should stay below 2008 levels until at least mid- to late 2011 due to a contracting hatchery supply flock.
EMI also predicted boneless, skinless breast prices could hit $1.70 to $1.80 per pound this summer due to tight supplies, but the outlook for leg prices is uncertain because of the unresolved trade dispute with Russia. Limited domestic leg supplies should motivate Russia to resolve the dispute.
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