A second job

Custom farming is just one of many of the other enterprises farmers choose

A good majority of farmers have a second ag-related enterprise, and there’s little limit on the imagination people bring to these enterprises, according to a recent Agriculture Online poll. Only 21% of the nearly 300 farmers taking the survey said they don’t have another enterprise besides the farm.

The most popular selections were seed production and sales (15%) and custom farming (12%). Other enterprises on the list included trucking, machinery repair, land contracting, and farm management.

In farmer comments in the poll, the rainbow of ventures possible for people farming the land is seen to be even more diverse, ranging from parting out combines to selling crop insurance.

Many of these second jobs are highly entrepreneurial. A Michigan farmer has set up home-based, USDA inspected meat processing business (http://www.johnhenrys.net/). A Nebraskan has used his past experience in the financial management industry to develop a successful business specializing in agricultural software for farmers (http://www.agmis.com). A Maryland farmer is an hunting outfitter. “Pays better than crops per acre, but you have to deal with the public,” he writes.

Probably my favorite enterprise that turned up in the survey: Operating a mini donut trailer. "Feeding the world in more ways than one,” says the Minnesota farmer. Yum to that.

World's worst weeds

Giant ragweed in soybean field (Purdue University photo)

I read a story recently about cogongrass, which is being compared to kudzu for its invasiveness and is called one of the ten worst weeds in the world. Alabama has created a Cogongrass Control Center to try to contain the weed in the state, but it will be a challenge to keep it from moving north, according to the project coordinator. "Left unchecked, 'it could spread all the way to Michigan,' " Ernest Lovett told The New York Times.

The piece reminded me of a 2001 Agriculture.com story in which Indiana farmers were surveyed to name their ten worst weeds. At that time, they were:

1. Giant ragweed
2. Canada thistle
3. Johnsongrass
4. Common lambsquarters
5. Shattercane
6. Hemp dogbane
7. Burcucumber
8. Velvetleaf
9. Common ragweed
10. Common cocklebur

Glen Nice, a Purdue University weed scientist, says that although the farmer survey has not been repeated since then, many of the weeds on that list would remain there today. "A few weeds come and go, but the big ones are always there," he says. An Extension joke in the state is that Indiana is the 'giant ragweed national forest,'" he added.

In recent years, while many of the grasses have disappeared from the "most-wanted" list, others, like the herbicide-resistant marestail, have cropped up due to take their place, Nice says.

Farmers discussing the issue of the toughest weeds in Agriculture.com Crop Talk agree. Said one: "Marestail or horseweed is getting to be a real problem in KS."

Other bad-boy weeds, according to farmers joining the discussion, are field bindweed, kochia, cheatgrass, fall panicum, tall waterhemp, and dandelion.

"The list of noxious and herbicide-resistant weeds gets longer every year," said one farmer.

Using all our tools

Controlling the world's worst weeds require the grower to take a long view, says Nice.

"These weeds can be controlled but it takes persistence and, unfortunately, inputs in the way of rotations and herbicides," he says. "Growers have wrangled giant ragweed and velvetleaf seed beds down to acceptable levels by gearing their weed control programs to controlling these pests over the long haul. The use of effective residuals and timely post applications can reduce populations over time."

Perennials like Canada thistle require a "more localized approach," Nice says. "In many cases spot treatments in the spring or fall are required. Applications in the heat of summer can inhibit flowering, but generally are not effective at controlling the underground roots," he says.

"Weeds have always been a problem from the days of conventional tillage, to the adoption of no-till and herbicide tolerant crops," Nice says. "We have to use all of the tools available to us and be able to adapt to the problem as it adapts to our strategies."

Norman Borlaug: sweet music of wheat

Norman Borlaug
(Texas A&M AgriLife photo)

Word of Norman Borlaug’s death was a sad surprise. I was hoping that somehow the man would live forever. The world could have used that.

There is much yet to be written about the “father of the Green Revolution” and Nobel Prize winner. I just want to add my own little note of tribute, and that's to celebrate his ear for language.

No one in production agriculture spoke more straight about the need for new technology, which too seldom has had effective voices. I think Borlaug reminded a lot of us of our fathers and grandfathers, of our mothers and grandmothers, who tended the soil, were humble, and saw true purpose in their labor. When Borlaug and these men and women of the land spoke out, it really meant something.

One thing I guess I didn’t expect to find in Borlaug was an ear for poetic language. He had this to say to one of his biographers, the New York Times reported today: “When wheat is ripening properly, when the wind is blowing across the field, you can hear the beards of the wheat rubbing together. They sound like pine needles in a forest. It is a sweet whispering music that once you hear, you never forget.”

Norman Borlaug is someone we in agriculture likely will never forget either.

Here's a collection of YouTube videos that let you hear Dr. Borlaug in his own voice:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nACAyq0WScY&feature=PlayList&p=93EA3145F56ADD86&index=0

And not a drop more

Monitoring sump at demo farm gives view of drainage

If ever there were a place in need of drainage, it was the flat cropland on a southeast Iowa research farm last week. After about six inches of rain in 36 hours, you could get a sense of why Midwest farmers see drainage as an essential, high payback production practice.

All the moving water was also a reminder of why ag is in the spotlight for its contribution of “nutrient-enhanced” flows into streams, rivers and the Gulf of Mexico.

You had to jump over a ditch and wade through mud and ankle deep water in field borders to get a look at the experimental drainage structures presented at the demonstration.

Lifting the steel cap off a monitoring sump, Iowa State University ag engineer Matt Helmers explained how the new drainage technology can be used to reduce nitrate flows into waterways, manage cropland water tables, and potentially raise crop yields.

So far the conservation benefits are fairly clear in the Iowa work. If you retrofitted your fields with this equipment, you could be pretty sure to cut nitrate flows leaving your farm—by as much as 50 percent.

Managed properly, the control structures would enable you to drain the root zone for field work and planting in the spring and to conserve soil moisture for crop use in the summer.

The yield impacts are less vivid. In Illinois last year, one 160-acre field in a project produced a 20% increase in corn yield. Long-term studies in North Carolina show a 5% increase in a corn-wheat-soybean rotation, 9% in corn alone. But that’s North Carolina, not the Midwest, where the Agricultural Drainage Management Coalition is attempting to change drainage practices. “That doesn’t happen every time [in the Midwest],” said Leonard Binstock, the coalition’s executive director. “But we think the potential is there.”

Binstock presented a calculation, assuming a 5% yield boost, that showed a net payback of $21.95 per acre for installing a full conservation drainage system with new tile lines and control structures. Cost-sharing and low-interest loans are available for the practices, too, he pointed out.

The golden rule of drainage, Binstock says, is to drain only what’s necessary to get your equipment in the field and to produce a crop—and to drain "not a drop more.”

That “not a drop more” is a big drop--one that could have a major impact on how agriculture manages one its most fundamental practices.

View video: Matt Helmers discusses conservation drainage benefits

See slideshow: Testing out conservation drainage

A fair thing to do before you die

The Iowa State Fair has been put on one of those lists of places you’re supposed to visit before you die. Having just returned from my umpteenth visit to the fair, I guess I can now pass away a happy man.

It was a fine time to be at the fair today, given the nice weather and a stroll with good friends. A few things of note:

* The biggest boar and world record big bull attracted a lot of attention. (But is this a good way to promote livestock production to the general public?)
* The sight of of kids sleeping among their livestock is always touching.
* You wonder who pays to visit the snake house exhibit.
* A mule can be the choice of ride by a livestock control agent. A real nice mule.
* The antique farm machinery doesn’t look as old anymore.
* Minor breeds of dairy cattle are prettier than Holsteins.
* The fair puts up with a fair number of vices: You can drink beer in the morning, people smoke, and you can eat just about anything without getting a lecture from anyone.
* There is a tasty treat to be had at the Iowa Cattlemen's restaurant, a hot beef sundae: beef and gravy over mashed potatoes with a cherry tomato on top.

Long live the Iowa State Fair. If you haven’t seen it, or been to a big fair like it, you ought to put it on your list.

Here's a little photo/video tour: A day at the fair