7,000 years of farming

Field of clean-cultivated winter wheat in Washington State brought two hundred tons soil loss per acre. Photo by F.A. Mark

I took a drive into the hills of western Iowa this weekend, and saw some of the worst soil erosion I've seen in a long time. Heavy rains on exposed soils have really taken a toll on some fields, especially those that appear to have just been brought into crop production this spring. I saw several fields that looked to be CRP ground or pasture that had been planted to row crops. Given the slope and the gulleys, it's hard to believe you could even drive a tractor safely on fields like that.

Farmers on Agriculture Online report similar sightings. Even with conservation practices in place, major damage has occured on sloping soils. In Crop Talk, one Iowa farmer said, "I have some of the worst erosion we have ever had. It starts at the base of the terraces and is anywhere from 10 to 15 feet wide all the way to the bottom and 3 inches deep."

A couple weeks ago, Agriculture Online Correspondent Roy Smith wrote a piece, 7,000 years of farming, based on his reading of the pamphlet, "Conquest of the Land Through 7000 Years."

Roy wrote, "The reason that my attention was drawn again to this publication is that eastern Nebraska has suffered severe erosion from two very hard rain storms in the last month. I can look out my office window and see evidence of permanent damage done to the soil from these two rains of four inches each in less than two weeks. Such rains are common in this area, coming at least once in five years. As I look at the fields in my neighborhood, I wonder if some day they will look like the pictures of fields in the Middle East and North Africa shown in the pamphlet."

Roy, a seasoned Nebraska farmer, goes on to bemoan the way that "conservation has fallen by the wayside" in our modern era of agriculture.

I hear ya, Roy....

Now who's knocking ethanol?

Clayton Rye, Iowa farmer and ethanol investor

A front-page story in The New York Times yesterday cited oil industry executives as claiming that ethanol is “seen as [a]deterrent to expanding refineries.” The oil people are reported to have told Congress that as a result of increased ethanol production, oil refinery expansion plans have been put on the back burner, and that as a result current high prices for gas could become a long-term problem.

Ethanol, for all its promise as an alternative fuel source, seems to attract plenty of detractors these days--big oil, environmentalists, and assorted academics among them. Out here in Iowa, a lot of this controversy can seem pretty baffling. We thought we were maybe doing the world some good.

So, on same day as the Times story, it was good to hear from one of our Agriculture Online correspondents, Clayton Rye. Clayton farms near Hanlontown, Iowa, which he likes to point out is midway between Minneapolis and Des Moines, as well as home of Sundown Day on June 21.

In Clayton's piece, Ethanol detractors, he certainly admits his biases:

"Yes, I am a corn grower and yes, not only am I an ethanol investor, I also have an ethanol plant across the road from me that has been producing ethanol since 2004. The almost nonstop sound of the corn grinders is part of my everyday life."

Clayton's not real happy with the 30,000-foot view that too many folks take of the issues surrounding ethanol production:

"I would say to any writer who wants to tell all the facts on the impact and future of ethanol, especially to those writers on the East and West Coasts, that if you are going to write about corn production in Iowa...come out here and get your hands dirty with the rest of us. It means you will also have to get out of your car."

Clayton believes a lot of the criticism of ethanol is based on "threadbare, hackneyed arguments that are circulated like so much old gossip."

I invite you to come on over to Agriculture Online, get out of your car, and roll the cob with Clayton Rye for a while. I'm sure he'd be glad to talk with you about ethanol.

Corn high? Just watch....

There's some law in physics that says that matter observed is matter changed. If you watch some photon, it behaves differently.

In the same vein, when I was a kid I used to think that by listening to radio broadcasts of my beloved Cleveland Indians I could help them win. (Actually, deep down I still think that.) Is it possible to believe the markets work the same way--that when we watch them and cheer for them to go up, well, they just might.

Or maybe it takes people working both sides of the fence? That's the case with a new poll on Agriculture Online: What will be the highest 2007 corn price? It takes two to make a market; there are both optimists and pessimists:

Commenting on the poll, an Iowa farmer writes: "Corn plantings will soon be completed and the anticipated bumper crop will become a reality to the gurus at USDA. BTW the soybean futures may benefit from the over-planting of corn. However, that may well be a temporary phenomenon as the bean price may well collapse in sympathy with the declining corn market. In the end, we will produce too much of everything."

On the optimistic side of things, a Minnesota farmer chimes in: "My 'Ouija Board' says we are going to have a hot, dry July....so $5.50. The Stars say great weather from here out so $3.50. It is obviously up to the weather. But next winter we will have round two of the "Battle for the acres," so don't expect any 2 in the front number for the price of corn or 6 in the front number for the price of beans. This is an unprecedented demand market. So expect ups and downs, but don't expect low prices for several years minimum."

What's your guess? Take the poll, and see if you can help change the matter.

Switching to switchgrass

Leaders of the Chariton Valley Biomass Project, which is developing technologies for harvesting and processing switchgrass for energy.

In an Agriculture Online story yesterday, Business Editor Dan Looker reported that Iowa Senator Tom Harkin, chairman of the Senate Agriculture Committee, is making the case for switching some federal farm program funds to support production of crops for cellulosic ethanol. Harkin is looking at a plan that would give direct payments to farmers for crops like switchgrass, a native tallgrass prairie species that has been planted on a lot of Conservation Reserve Program acres.

We planted switchgrass on our Nebraska farm some 20 years ago, and aside from some encroachment by cedar trees, maintaining the stand has mainly meant letting nature take its course. Still I've wondered what will happen to the stand when our CRP contract comes to an end. Would I really want to return those highly erodible acres to row crops? Wouldn't it be logical to find a commercial use for the grasses, which are perfectly suited to the soils and climate of Buffalo County, Nebraska.

Harkin's proposal notwithstanding, cellulosic ethanol has at least one big hurdle to clear--the farm-level technology for harvesting, storing and and handling bulky plant materials like switchgrass.

It's encouraging, though, that there is work already underway to make the dream of cellulosic biofuels practical at the grassroots.

Check out this slideshow by Successful Farming Managing Editor, Gene Johnston:

A look at the future of growing biofuel crops

Take a look at that equipment. Switching to switchgrass is more than a policy maker's pipe dream.

Sinking and swimming in soybean oil

Central Iowa Energy's new 30-million gallon biodiesel facility near Newton, Iowa (photo by Dan Looker).

Dan Looker, who in my view covers biofuels issues as well as anyone in the business, walked into my office last Thursday with a just bit of an attitude, and some self-deprecating humor. We had been less than prompt in posting his new story on the opening of a new biodiesel plant in Iowa. The $20 million facility near Newton is "one of the largest and most efficient biodiesel plants in the nation," Dan wrote. But a big question mark hangs over the facility and the whole industry, in fact.

Anyway, Dan clearly had enjoyed working on the story and was eager to see it online. It had been filed late in the afternoon, but wasn't posted until early evening. We should have had it live in ten minutes. If you follow this industry at all--as a farmer, investor, or consumer of biofuels, it's certainly a must-read story.

Dan captures the central issue of the day in this fledgling business: "The soybean oil that can make up to about 80% of a typical plant's production costs is approaching record prices, at a time when the soybean crushing industry is almost swimming in a record supply of oil."

The law of supply and demand has taken an odd twist here, one that Dan follows with the clear eye of a great reporter.

Check it out on Agriculture Online: Will biodiesel flounder in a sea of soybean oil?

Soybean rust wakes up early

USDA Observation Map 5/11/2007

This morning, several editors here were planning the next issue of the High Yield Team newsletter. That project aims to help soybean growers get good information on improving yields. Soybean rust seems to have had little play in the farm press so far this spring, after a couple years of intense coverage. One of our group piped up and asked what we might say about rust, if anything, in the newsletter. I have to confess that the rest of us all just sort of shrugged our shoulders.

A couple hours later, we're breaking a significant rust story on our affiliated Web site, stopsoybeanrust.com.

The story reports on the first Asian soybean rust finding of 2007 in Louisiana. There have been 20 other findings of soybean rust in four other states so far this year. The significance of today's report, though, is that the finding is 53 days ahead of last year's first find in the state, and that Louisiana proved to be a source of rust for the Mid-South and Midwest last year, according to Clayton A. Hollier of Louisiana State University.

Hollier said the same sort of northward movement could occur this year, "especially if the weather is wetter than last year’s."

In the meantime, recent rains and predicted showers likely will produce more development of soybean rust in Louisiana, Hollier said.

Stay tuned. We're writing about rust early.

Farmers on a higher wire

From a journalist's perspective, since last fall it's been easy to sense a whole new optimism in agriculture. The biofuels boom has a lot to do with it, of course.

Cash corn prices in my home town hit $4.00 this winter, compared to a three-year average of about $2.00. Farmers and agribusiness people I met at the Commodity Classic meeting in February (corn, soy and wheat growers) all were talking about new technology and expansion. Only a year ago the talk was all cost-cutting and status quo.

But this new era, if that's what it is, also has raised the balancing act of farming to a higher wire. Some farmers view this year as a once-in-lifetime opportunity to make some real money. Costs for fuel, land rents, and other inputs are rising. And, the weather this spring isn't cooperating in a lot of places.

Along with the higher expectations, there's more tension in the air this spring. According to a new poll in Agriculture Online, more than half of farmers rate this year as a more stressful than normal.

Stress can come in a variety of forms--weather and other Acts of God, red tape, family matters, you name it. Writing in response to the poll, an Indiana farmer said:

"Seed all burnt up with barn fire last week, but didn't lose equipment and no injuries. Hope to start planting Sat., which would put us at normal pace. Insurance forms are a real treat. Dad wants brother and me to buy 160 ac at 1/2 price so he can start a non-ag business, but still $160/ac for 30 yrs. Neither of us own ground to spread cost over, so what to do. Town job is stressful. So I just go to the woods and look for mushrooms, but that isn't going well either."

Oh, the eternal verities of agriculture....

Weather forecasting: Every molecule in its place

If I had been planting corn in central Iowa this weekend, the forecast on Saturday held hope that I'd be back in the field by Sunday--only a 29 percent chance of rain. It rained off and on all day.

Of course, it's something of a national past-time to second guess the weather man. But farmers can make better decisions themselves if they know a more about what goes into making a forecast, one ag meteorologist told Agriculture Online.


"One thing I feel that the National Weather Service does not convey well to the public is that different forecasts have differing levels of confidence," says Brad Rippey, a meteorologist with the USDA Joint Agricultural Weather Facility. "When a weather pattern is 'locked in,' forecasts out to a couple of weeks can be quite accurate. Other times, when the atmosphere is in transition, forecasts beyond a few days are fraught with error."

Farmers can look at computer models to determine whether a forecast is high or low confidence, Rippey says. A popular Web site to view a model output:

http://www.nco.ncep.noaa.gov/pmb/nwprod/analysis

All the new technology notwithstanding, consider the challenge of a weather forecast. Rippey puts it this way: "...the purpose of a short-range forecast it to try to determine the exact position of every molecule of air and water vapor in our atmosphere. After a few days, chaos (such as the proverbial butterfly flapping its wings) undermines those efforts."

Weather worries: Farmers wait to plant and replant

On Sunday afternoon, north of Des Moines, Iowa, farmers might have been scratching their heads over the weather forecast. On Saturday, at least one weather service called for only a 29% chance of rain on Sunday, and with the wind blowing all day Saturday, the weekend weather seemed ready to let farmers back in the field.

Instead, on Sunday, planters were tucked away in machine sheds and farm yards, and some rigs, like the one pictured here north of Ankeny, were stranded in the field, as more rain fell into the late afternoon.

Lingering rains had rigs like this one north of Des Moines, Iowa, going nowhere on Sunday.

In a poll on Agriculture Online, about one third of farmers say they have less than 25% of their corn planted. Today's Crop Progress report will pinpoint the delays further, but estimates last Monday showed corn planting at 24% completed, almost half the 42% five-year average.

It was a soaking weekend in general for the western Corn Belt -- eight and a half inches of rain in Aberdeen, South Dakota, six inches in Omaha. On Monday morning, widespread, locally heavy rain was still falling in eastern Kansas and western Missouri.

"We were close to being done [planting corn] in northeast South Dakota, but with 10 inches in a couple of days everything around here is flooded and looks terrible," one farmer told Agriculture Online. "At our farm I have never seen that much water floating around."

Even for those farmers with corn planted, the wet weather has brought a new concern: replanting. "Here in southeast Nebraska, we had gully washers last night with more to come today and tomorrow," a farmer reported in Agriculture Online Crop Talk. "Doesn't look good for the approximately 50% planted."

The National Weather Service six- to 10-day outlook for May 12-16 calls for above-normal temperatures and below-normal rainfall nearly nationwide, USDA reported Monday.

But, the window of opportunity for drying fields may be limited in some areas, says Freese-Notis Weather.

"Whatever corn acreage is shown as unplanted in this afternoon's Crop Progress report for Nebraska, Iowa, Missouri and Kansas, one really wonders when a lot of that acreage will have a chance to dry out enough for such planting to get done," said Craig Solberg in his Agriculture Online weather report Monday.