Monday October 29 Ag News

It’s Not Too Late to Plant Cereal Rye as a Nitrogen Catch Crop Before Soybean
Katja Koehler-Cole - Post-Doctoral Research Associate in Agronomy
Between spring thaw and soybean planting, the risk of soil nitrogen (N) loss is great. As soil temperatures warm, soil microbes become active and start decomposing organic matter. Nitrogen released during decomposition is vulnerable to leaching as nitrate. Having a crop in the ground that can take up nitrate in early spring reduces the risk of significant leaching. Cereal rye is well suited as an N scavenger. The most winterhardy small grain, it starts growing at temperatures as low as 32°F and can be a prolific biomass producer with an extensive, fibrous root system.

In trials conducted at three research stations in eastern, northeastern and south-central Nebraska, we investigated rye productivity and its ability to scavenge N when grown as a cover crop between full-season corn and soybeans. Rye cover crops planted after corn in late October to late November and terminated in late April to early May produced at least 1,000 lb/ac of dry matter in half of the site years. Rye contained about 3% N in its aboveground dry matter. We did not measure root dry matter, but assume that root dry matter is similar to aboveground dry matter and contains 1% N. Thus, for a rye cover crop with 1,000 lb of aboveground dry matter, total N content (aboveground and belowground) can be estimated at about 40 lb/ac.

Even with this moderate rye N uptake, we were able to detect differences in spring soil nitrate in the upper 8 inches of the soil. Under rye, soil nitrate was significantly lower than under the control (no rye) in most site years. Where soil temperatures are warmer, such as in our south-central location, rye plots had 20 ppm less soil nitrate than control plots.

While the ideal planting time for rye is coming to an end, growers interested in using rye as an N scavenger can still plant it. Even with modest growth, rye N uptake can be expected to reduce soil N leaching losses. 



Grass Tetany Concerns
Steve Neimeyer – NE Extension Educator

While the quick green-up on spring pastures is the first risk factor that comes to mind for grass tetany, regrowth during warm fall weather can be a culprit, too. Grass tetany is a metabolic disorder that is associated with lush pastures due to low levels of blood magnesium concentration, which results in nerve impulse failure and death, if not treated very quickly.
Multiple factors play a role in causing grass tetany, including:
·    Low magnesium (Mg) content of rapidly growing grasses and pastures
·    High potassium (K) content of rapidly growing grasses and pastures
·    High crude protein content of grasses and pastures
·    Bad weather, storms, stress, etc., that cause cattle to be “off feed” for 24-48 hours
·    Lactation: losses of Mg and calcium (Ca) in the milk
·    Various combinations of the above factors resulting in low blood Mg or Ca

The key to prevention of grass tetany is being proactive. Provide a high Mg supplemental mineral or mineral mix containing at least 8-12% Mg. Palatability and consumption can be challenges, resulting in some of the animals consuming an inadequate amount of the mineral on a daily basis. If possible, providing dry forages while cattle are on lush pastures also helps decrease the risk. Dry forages can act as carriers to provide additional Mg and Ca to the animals at a critical time. If the drinking water source can be controlled (i.e., water tanks), soluble Mg salt may be added to the water. Some examples of soluble Mg salts are magnesium acetate, magnesium chloride, and magnesium sulfate (Epsom salts). The most common form of Mg, Magnesium oxide, is not soluble in water and therefore cannot be used for this purpose. If available, graze pastures with legumes mixed with grasses, as legumes have higher levels of Mg and Ca than do immature grasses.

Older, lactating cows which are still nursing calves will be more susceptible to tetany than steers, heifers, or dry cows. Mature cows are less able to mobilize Mg from bones to maintain the necessary level of Mg in their system. Also, cows that are still nursing and producing milk require additional Ca and Mg.

Cattle will exhibit symptoms of grass tetany, but death can happen quickly – often within 4 to 8 hours. Progressive signs the animal will exhibit include grazing away from the herd, irritability, muscle twitching in the flank, wide-eyed and staring, muscular incoordination, staggering, collapse, thrashing, head thrown back, coma, and death. Affected animals should be handled in a quiet manner, since sudden death can occur if animals incur more stress.

Normal treatment for grass tetany is intravenous injection of a commercial preparation of magnesium and calcium in a dextrose base from a veterinarian. Effectiveness depends on the clinical stage when treatment is administered. If treatment is started one or two hours after clinical signs develop, the results are usually a quick recovery. If the animal isn’t treated until the coma stage, it is too late for the treatment to be effective.



PLAN ACCESS TO WINTER HAY
Bruce Anderson, NE Extension Forage Specialist

               What happens to your hay if you have a snowy or muddy winter?  Will you be able to get to it?  Prepare now for winter barriers with proper placement.

               When I think back about some of the long, cold, and snowy periods we all have experienced in years past, I begin to realize how lucky we have been the past few winters.  Sure, we've had some cold and snowy weather.  But it rarely lasted terribly long.

               But what if it does last a long time this winter?  Will you be ready?  Will you have adequate feed supplies for your livestock on hand?  Will you have easy access to all your hay supplies during a blizzard?  And will you be able to get it to your animals?

               As I drive across the state, I see many hay stacks and round bales stored next to trees or in low spots or along fence lines that might get drifted in during a blizzard.  In some cases, the access road to this hay might get drifted in.  And in a lot of sites, when the snow eventually melts during winter or next spring, it might be too muddy to get to the hay.

               I also wonder how well the hay is organized.  Is good hay separated from poor hay?  Has it even been tested so you know what hay should be fed to cows needing only a maintenance diet and what hay should be saved for animals needing extra protein and energy.  And then, can you get to either one whenever you want?  Also, has the hay been tested for nitrates?  Nitrate poisoning occurs most frequently when high nitrate hay is fed to hungry animals right after a snow storm.

               Don't neglect planning for bad weather in placement of your hay yards.  Then if storms do occur, you'll be ready.



RESEARCH SHOWS FIGHTING WORLD HUNGER CAN BE PROFITABLE FOR AG BIOTECH FIRMS

New research from the University of Nebraska–Lincoln shows that agricultural biotechnology companies can do well by doing good.

Agricultural economists Konstantinos Giannakas and Amalia Yiannaka found that companies can profit by lowering the price of genetic-modification technology in hunger-stricken areas when consumers associate this technology with reducing malnutrition and hunger.

“When a company develops a new innovation, such as a new seed trait, a common assumption is that the company should exercise market power in order to maximize profits,” said Giannakas, Harold W. Eberhard Distinguished Professor of Agricultural Economics. “However, our research shows that the company can actually profit by giving away its technology to hunger-stricken areas.”

The Food and Agriculture Organization estimates that more than 820 million people around the world face malnutrition and hunger. Agricultural biotechnology has the potential to address food-insecurity challenges by enhancing both the resistance of plants to environmental stresses, such as drought, and the quality and nutritional value of food.

The research shows that when the association of genetic-modification technology with reduced malnutrition and hunger in food-insecure areas lessens consumer aversion to such technology, innovative companies will find it optimal to reduce their prices and increase consumer access to nutritious food in these areas. The reason is that their losses in these areas are more than compensated by their gains in the rest of the world.

“For these benefits to be maximized, it is important that the impact of genetic-modification technology in hunger-stricken areas of the world is significant and is broadly and effectively communicated,” Giannakas said.

The results of the study were recently published in Agricultural Economics, the journal of the International Association of Agricultural Economists.



Farm Finance and Ag Law Clinics this November

Openings are available for one-on-one, confidential farm finance and ag law consultations being conducted across the state each month. An experienced ag law attorney and ag financial counselor will be available to address farm and ranch issues related to financial planning, estate and transition planning, farm loan programs, debtor/creditor law, water rights, and other relevant matters. The clinics offer an opportunity to seek an experienced outside opinion on issues affecting your farm or ranch.

Clinic Sites and Dates
    Grand Island — Thursday, November 1
    North Platte — Thursday, November 15
    Lexington — Thursday, November 15
    Norfolk — Tuesday, November 20
    Fairbury — Thursday, November 29

To sign up for a free clinic or to get more information, call Michelle at the Nebraska Farm Hotline at 1-800-464-0258.  The Nebraska Department of Agriculture and Legal Aid of Nebraska sponsor these clinics.



Excitement Grows for Facility That Increases Bio- and Agro-Defense

After years of planning, funding requests, and resources, the facility that will serve as the primary defense against accidental or intentional introduction of transboundary animal diseases is being built in Manhattan, Kansas. The Plum Island Animal Disease Center of New York had protected America’s livestock from animal disease since 1954, but after the National Bio- and Agro defense facility (NBAF) opens in 2023, the antiquated Plum Island buildings will be closed.

Although NBAF’s opening is still several years away, the state-of-the-art facility will serve agriculture well, said speakers at the U.S. Animal Health Association annual meeting last week. While Plum Island is located near the northeast coast of Long Island in New York, the new, $1.25 billion facility is in the heart of livestock production and agri-business. Like Plum Island, NBAF will provide a host of high-impact, indispensable preparedness and response capabilities, including vaccine R&D, diagnostics, training, and bio-forensics, among others.

“The facility is a biosafety level-4 laboratory and is expected to be operational by 2022-2023,” Dr. Marty Vanier told USAHA members. She is Director of Partnership Development, NBAF Program Executive Office at Homeland Security, Science and Technology (DHS).

After a three-year site selection process, Manhattan, Kansas, was chosen as the location for NBAF, she said. The facility is under construction on Kansas State University's Manhattan campus and is adjacent to the university's Biosecurity Research Institute. This strategic location places NBAF near important veterinary, agricultural and biosecurity research and expertise.

She said $852 million of the $1.25 billion budget has been spent to date on planning, risk assessments, design and construction.

“The mission is greatly expanded from what we have at Plum Island,” Vanier said. “The new facility has three categories: agro-terrorism, foreign animal diseases (unintentional), and emerging animal disease and zoonosis.

Unique Arrangement
The project is a unique collaborative effort. Forty-eight acres were gifted from the state of Kansas to the Department of Homeland Security, and the City of Manhattan also contributed to the effort to host the facility. DHS will maintain responsibility for construction and commissioning of the building.

“Construction is expected to be completed by Dec. 2020, and in May of 2021, NBAF will transfer from DHS to USDA,”” said Dr. Beth Lautner, who also spoke at the USAHA meeting. She is Director of USDA’s National Veterinary Services Laboratories.

The President’s budget proposes the transfer of responsibility from DHS to USDA, stating: “…given that USDA is already responsible for the research programs that would be at this facility once construction is completed, it makes sense for USDA to manage the facility itself.”

“Coming Home”
Lautner and Vanier feel having USDA operate NBAF is “coming home,” since USDA operated the Plum Island Center for nearly 50 years.

These “Enduring Commitments” for NBAF set the plate for the future:
·        Fulfill the vision of NBAF as the premier center of scientific excellence in research, countermeasure development, diagnostics and training for foreign, emerging and zoonotic diseases of livestock
·        Leverage fully the first large animal BSL-4 facility in the U.S.
·        Maximize the use of public/private partnerships
·        Maintain a collaborative relationship between USDA and DHS
·        Enhance partnerships with academia stakeholders, other Federal laboratories, and the private sector to carry NBAF’s reach beyond its walls
·        Inspire scientific innovation and creativity which will lead to critical breakthroughs for disease detection, prevention and response

A thorough transition plan is in place with no detail left out. Transition working groups will tackle more than 20 essential planning areas; contingency planning for different scenarios will be based on the timing of Congressional approval and appropriations; and the development of a Memorandum of Agreement outlines agency responsibilities that speak to the transition planning.

“NBAF will be a cornerstone,” Lautner said. “The new facility is on time and on budget, and the plan is to be moved off Plum Island by 2023.”



NPPC ATTENDS U.S. ANIMAL HEALTH ASSOCIATION MEETING

National Pork Producers Council Chief Veterinarian Dr. Liz Wagstrom last week attended the U.S. Animal Health Association (USAHA) annual meeting in Kansas City, Mo. USAHA is an association of state and federal regulatory officials, laboratories and livestock industry representatives.

Because of industry efforts, including support from 26 state pork organizations, important resolutions were approved by the association’s committees and the board of directors. The resolutions urged the National Animal Health Laboratory Network (NAHLN) veterinary diagnostic laboratories to immediately begin a formal African Swine Fever (ASF) surveillance program in the United States, to enhance ASF and Classical Swine Fever surveillance by expanding tissues inspected to include tonsils, spleens and lymph nodes, and to provide access to reagents that will, using swine oral fluids, detect viral Psuedorabies DNA.



Appeals Judges: Gag Order in Hog Smells Cases Went Too Far

(AP) -- A federal appeals court panel says a trial judge went too far with a gag order that forbid lawyers or virtually anyone with knowledge of conditions at North Carolina hog operations from sharing information with reporters or on social media.

The U.S. Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond, Virginia, ruled Monday that judges overseeing lawsuits in the Carolinas, Maryland, Virginia and West Virginia can issue gag orders only as a last resort. The ruling was sought by farm and journalism groups, including The Associated Press.

Pork giant Smithfield Foods challenged a North Carolina federal judge barring involved parties and "all potential witnesses" from discussing dozens of lawsuits claiming industrial-scale hog farms create unreasonable nuisances.



CWT Assists with 2 Million Pounds of Cheese, Butter and Whole Milk Powder Export Sales

Cooperatives Working Together (CWT) member cooperatives accepted 11 offers of export assistance from CWT that helped them capture contracts to sell 604,067 pounds (274 metric tons) of Cheddar and Monterey Jack cheese, 275,578 pounds of butter and 1.166 million pounds (529 metric tons) of whole milk powder. The product is contracted for delivery in Asia, North Africa and South America for the period from October 2018 through April 2019.

CWT-assisted member cooperative 2018 export sales total 51.729 million pounds of American-type cheeses, 13.238 million pounds of butter (82% milkfat) and 53.619 million pounds of whole milk powder to 36 countries on five continents. These sales are the equivalent of 1.167 billion pounds of milk on a milkfat basis.

Assisting CWT members through the Export Assistance program in the long term helps member cooperatives gain and maintain market share, expanding the demand for U.S. dairy products and the U.S. farm milk that produces them. This positively affects all U.S. dairy farmers by strengthening and maintaining the value of dairy products that directly impact their milk price.



NFU Urges Administration to Honor Commitment to Biofuels

Throughout his campaign for and tenure as president, Donald Trump has consistently pledged to support American-grown biofuels. However, his administration has too often failed to follow through on those promises in a timely fashion.

In the most recent of such instances, President Trump announced his intentions to allow the use of E15 gasoline in summer months. Though National Farmers Union (NFU), a grassroots policy organization that has long advocated the expanded use of biofuels as a means to promote the economic viability of family farmers and the vibrancy of rural communities, was initially encouraged by the news, little has been done to enact the proposal.

Making matters worse, while promising to authorize E15, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has been covertly granting so-called “hardship waivers” to oil refineries owned by large corporations with multi-billion dollar revenues. These waivers exempted the refiners from complying with the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS), ultimately saved those corporations tens of millions of dollars while reducing the volume of renewable fuels in the transportation sector.

In response to the administration’s ongoing inaction, the organization today launched a radio ad buy urging President Donald Trump to keep his promises to family farmers by immediately implementing year-round E-15 and reversing the losses caused by the misappropriation of small refinery exemptions.

“Farmers are still at a net loss from Trump’s actions on biofuels,” the ad says, due to the EPA’s allocation of waivers exempting large oil refiners from complying with the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS). This decision has “destroyed 2 billion gallons of ethanol demand,” a volume that far exceeds any increased use of E15 expected over the next five years.

To make amends for the profound damage done to the biofuel industry, NFU is calling on President Trump to “do right by his promise to support American farmers” and “move quickly on E15 and support net increases in biofuels use – not cuts.”



Sunflower Launches New Till Control System

Sunflower®, the leading seeding equipment and tillage implement brand from AGCO Corporation (NYSE:AGCO), is introducing Sunflower Till ControlTM. The company’s latest precision farming product, Till Control allows operators to precisely monitor and control tillage depth and other tillage implement functions from inside the tractor cab. This technology ensures consistent tillage throughout the field for a more uniform seedbed, maximizing crop performance.

“Soil conditions, soil type and residue levels can vary significantly within a field, affecting the tillage process and ultimately seedbed quality,” says Larry Kuster, AGCO senior product marketing specialist. “An uneven seedbed can negatively impact seed singulation, spacing, planting depth, emergence and as a consequence, impact crop yield.

“The Sunflower Till Control system allows operators to monitor different tillage equipment functions and make any necessary adjustments. Conveniently touching a screen to make equipment adjustments to match changing field conditions goes a long way in achieving a consistent, uniform seedbed. And, it saves growers time and the hassle of making mechanical adjustments,” Kuster explains.

Till Control Available on Three Sunflower Products
The Till Control system is available on three Sunflower products – the SF6830 high-speed rotary finisher, the SF1436 Series disc harrows and the SF6631 Series vertical tillage tools.

The SF6830 rotary finisher delivers high-speed, high-residue flow capabilities unattainable with traditional shank-equipped finishers and cultivators. On the SF6830, the Till Control system allows operators to monitor the hydraulic level gang on-the-go, ensuring a consistent, level soil output even when ground speed varies. Equipped with two intermeshed gangs of Sunflower’s exclusive Rotary Spider tines ensures the soil is leveled and that crop residue is equally mixed across the entire width of the machine. Till Control helps the operator set the spider tines at the optimum working depth by limiting the pressure the cylinders can apply to the spider tines after the machine is at working depth.  Once the spider tine gangs are set they are then hydraulically locked into position.  They only need to be reset if the operator wants to change the target working depth of the rest of the machine.

For both the SF1436 Series disc harrows and SF6631 Series vertical tillage tools, the Till Control system enables operators to monitor and adjust the fore and aft-frame, as well as the hydraulic lift system. Besides just monitoring the tillage depth it ensures the slave cylinders on the wings stay in phase with the center master lift cylinders. Restoring the level or re-phasing the cylinders can quickly and easily be completed by fully raising the implement out of the ground. 

ISO-compatibility captures field and life-time implement data for better service planning
On all three Sunflower tillage implements, the Till Control will allow equipment to communicate with ISO-compliant terminals in tractors. Sunflower Till Control has an implement recognition feature which automatically displays the tillage tool name, type and working width on the terminal. Not only can service intervals be viewed from the cab, but operators receive notifications when maintenance is due, saving time and money. Additionally, the Till Control system tracks field and lifetime total acres and hours worked for better service planning. The system also displays active errors such as depth not calibrated.

Controlled through the cab terminal, Till Control equips implements with a lighting package which includes two LED work lights with 1800 lumens, providing operators greater visibility in dark and dusty conditions.

“Growers who have tested the Sunflower Till Control system have consistently given it high marks for ease of use, convenience of in-cab adjustment capabilities and the benefits of setting the equipment at a specific tillage depth and knowing that’s the exact depth it’s running,” says Kuster. “This latest precision farming tool is impressive and establishes the next generation of products in Sunflower’s tillage lineup.”