CMEG Crop Management Extension Group

Field Crop News

Website Address: http://fcn.agronomy.psu.edu/

March 20, 2007    Vol. 07:04

IN THIS ISSUE:

Weather Outlook—March 20, 2007 — Paul Knight Pennsylvania State Climatologist

A rapid warming trend will begin on Wednesday and reach its peak on Thursday evening. Much of the state will experience a Pennsylvania ‘chinook’ as very warm air streams into the region on strong and gusty breezes from the southwest. Rising dew—points (different from the Plain’s version of the ‘snow—eater’) will enhance the melting of the snow such that streams and rivers will rise and many low spots will accumulate melt—water for a couple of days. A cool front with showers will deposit up to a half inch of rain early Friday. The boundary between a chilly air mass over New England and surges of warm, moist air from the Ohio and Tennessee Valleys will waver through Pennsylvania from Saturday through next Tuesday. There will be alternating periods of dry, pleasant weather and dull, drizzly, cool times with the damp side winning in the time frame from March 24–27. Milder air will dominate the latter part of next week, but there are indications that a spell of very cool weather is likely during the first week of April.

Alfalfa—Grass Mixtures Reduce PLH Damage — Marvin Hall, Penn State, Crop & Soil Sciences

A recent study conducted in New York and Pennsylvania found that planting a cool—season grass with your alfalfa will reduce potato leafhopper damage. The project, conducted at Geneva and Ithaca, NY and at Landisville and Rock Springs, PA was funded by Northeast Integrated Pest Management, looked at both PLH resistant alfalfa cultivars spring seeded with orchardgrass, tall fescue or timothy. During the seeding year, there were limited differences between grass species but the addition of grass to non potato leafhopper resistance alfalfa significantly reduced PLH damage and increased yield compared to having no grass in the mixture. Adding a grass to PLH resistant alfalfa offered limited benefits in addition to those already provided by the resistant alfalfa.

Court Stops Spring Planting of All Roundup Ready Alfalfa — Marvin Hall, Penn State, Crop & Soil Sciences Dept.

The preliminary injunction was issued by the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California says that NO roundup ready alfalfa seed can be planted after March 30, 2007. Farmers who have already taken delivery of roundup ready alfalfa with plans of seeding it this spring should start looking for other non—roundup ready alfalfa varieties to plant.

The March 12 preliminary injunction order allows continued harvest, use and sale of Roundup Ready alfalfa, but placed limits on the purchase and planting of seed until further hearings are held. The order also said growers intending to plant alfalfa after March 30, 2007, must plant non—genetically engineered alfalfa and that sales of Roundup Ready alfalfa seed are prohibited after March 12 pending the court’s decision on permanent injunctive relief. The court has scheduled oral arguments on the nature of any permanent injunctive relief in this case for April 27, 2007.

Grain Marketing Plans for 2007 — Tom Murphy, Penn State Extension, Lycoming County

As you move closer to the spring planting season, it is very important to have a workable grain marketing plan in place for 2007. It is well known that there are a number of factors driving the price of corn, soybeans, and wheat towards new market highs. And there appears to be an outlook of sustainability for the new pricing levels. But history has shown that when price rises dramatically, as it has since last fall, that supply normally increases and price declines. Ethanol and other biofuels are heavily factoring into this rally. But at the same time, new plants coming online in 2007 will be increasing the capacity to produce these fuel supplements in a major way which could adversely affect their price and cool the demand for the feed stocks, namely your grain. Other factors affecting commodity prices could be the increases or declines in the export markets, especially China, or the size of the crop in South America over the next two years.

So what is the upshot of this? Develop a written, pre—harvest grain marketing plan that you use as a basis to sell some of your grain commodity over the spring and summer months. And make sure your spouse, banker, and/or management partner knows what’s in the plan and how it will be implemented. Understand what your true cost of production is so you can know when you have hit a price point that makes you a profit. Your target should be to sell grain in the top third of the price range for the year, not necessarily at the peak, which is almost impossible to time. And learn about the seasonality of grain prices in your marketing area. Historical data for PA indicates that there are times in the marketing year when grain pricing can be optimized for profit. That same data indicates that rarely will holding grain to the following harvest be beneficial. Also know your true costs to hold grain and factor them into the pre—harvest plan. An effective plan should have targeted prices or dates when you will make decisions to sell and commitment to follow through vs. waiting for an anticipated rise in the market that may not occur. And although we are just past a critical crop insurance sign—up deadline, this risk management tool is increasing in importance to offer you both crop and revenue protection. It could be a very valuable floor on the farm to assure profitability if price or weather move against you. If you would like a template for a simple, easy—to—follow pre—harvest marketing plan, send me an email tbm1@psu.edu and I will send you back an example to get you started.

CTIC produces 2006 tillage survey results — Sjoerd Duiker, Soil Management

The withdrawal of support for crop residue surveys by the national headquarters of USDA—NRCS surprised many of us who rely heavily on these statistics to plan and monitor our work. Fortunately, some counties still continued the surveys, and the Conservation Technology Information Center (CTIC) in West—Lafayette, Indiana, managed to pull some data together from a small selection of the nations’ cropland (61 million acres or about 22% of cropland).

The results show that no—till adoption continues to grow. In the counties surveyed, no—till (‘pure’ no—till or strip—till leaving more than 30% crop residue after planting) grew from 16.5 million in 2004 to 19.2 million acres in 2006, or an increase from 26.5% to 31.5% of planted acres. Ridge till (building ridges with in—season cultivation, leaving more than 30% residue after planting) increased from 0.6% to 0.9%, whereas mulch till (field—wide tillage leaving more than 30% residue after planting) decreased from 23.7% to 22.3%. Total conservation tillage acres increased from 50.8% to 54.7%. Reduced till decreased from 23.7% to 21.8%, and conventional tillage from 25.5% to 23.5% between 2004 and 2006. Of interest is the difference in no—till used for different crops: in the counties constituting the national 2006 survey, only 20.4% of corn and 30.4% of small grains, but 44.5% of soybeans were no—tilled.

Unfortunately, Columbia County was the only Pennsylvania county included in the survey. However, results are revealing. No—till acres increased from 25.5% in 2004 to 35.7% in 2006 in Columbia County. Mulch till represented 7.3%, reduced till 16.4% and conventional till 40.6% of planted cropland. Although not included in the CTIC survey, we did complete a survey in Centre County with surprising results: no—till increased from 29.9 % to 64.9% in Centre County between 2004 and 2006. The results of these residue surveys suggest that the rate of increase in no—till adoption in Pennsylvania far outpaces that in other states in the country. Another observation is that it is usually all or nothing in Pennsylvania: if farmers do not practice no—till they usually fall in the conventional tillage category due to the lack of residue cover.

As we get ready for the 2007 growing season I would like to encourage county—based personnel in extension, NRCS and Conservation Districts to team up to do a residue survey in their county. There will be a training session held in the Dauphin County Extension Office on April 13, 10am–2pm. Contact Dauphin County Extension Office (717) 921–8803 to register for this event.

Carbon — a new commodity for farmers — Sjoerd Duiker, Soil Management Specialist

Most farmers are aware of the value of organic carbon in their soil to improve soil tilth, water holding and infiltration capacity, reduce erosion, and increase productivity of their soils. But now that carbon has actually become a marketable commodity in parts of the U.S. and may soon become tradeable in Pennsylvania.

How it works — Greenhouse gases are present in the earth’s atmosphere and make our planet a habitable place. Without them the earth’s temperature would be a frigid 0 Fahrenheit, but thanks to greenhouse gases the earth’s temperature is about 60 Fahrenheit. Greenhouse gases include water vapor, carbon dioxide, nitrous oxides, methane, ozone, and chlorofluoro(hydro)carbons. The gases work like the glass in a greenhouse, letting shortwave solar radiation in, but blocking part of the long—wave radiation which would otherwise be radiated out into outer space. Not all gases are equally effective in keeping the heat in: nitrous oxide, for example, is about 300 times as effective as carbon dioxide, while methane is about 20 times as effective.

The reason carbon dioxide is considered to be the major greenhouse gas is because its concentration is about 370 ppm (volumetric), while that of methane is 1.7 ppmv, and nitrous oxide (N2O) is 0.3 ppmv. A second reason is that atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations have been increasing continuously from about 320 ppmv in 1960 to more than 370 ppmv today. The increase of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere is now widely recognized to lead to increasing global temperatures, which are the likely explanation of increased melting of polar ice, retreating glaciers, which over time may lead to a more volatile climate, droughts and floods, and an increasing sealevel. There is therefore widespread concern that the increase in greenhouse gases needs to be slowed, and eventually, stopped. I think all have noticed that the U.S. government doesn't question anymore that greenhouse gas emissions lead to climate change, despite its non-participation in the Kyoto protocol. There are multiple initiatives in the U.S. to stimulate reduction in greenhouse gas emissions, or taking those greenhouses out of the atmosphere and putting them back into soil or geologic layers.

And this is where the discussion leads to carbon credits. Carbon credits are where an industry (or state or other party) that emits greenhouse gases pays someone else, like a farmer, to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, or store (transformed) greenhouse gases in the soil or geological layers. The idea is that it may buy the industry time to reduce emissions itself, or that it is cheaper for the industry, while having the same effect (this is mitigate atmospheric greenhouse gas emissions ). The Chicago Climate Exchange (CCX) is North America’s only legally binding greenhouse gas emission registry, reduction and trading system. CCX sets the rules, and then deals with aggregators who collect credits from farmers (for example) and sell them in large volume to others (such as industries) through CCX. Participating buyers in CCX include Ford Motor Company, American Electric, Lancaster County Solid Waste Management Authority, the State of New Mexico, Michigan State University, and many others. Eligible agricultural projects include no—till and low—till farming, grass and tree planting, and methane collection at livestock operations. The first U.S. sale of carbon dioxide offsets generated from agricultural soil sequestration took place in April 2005, when the Iowa Farm Bureau sold 20,000 metric tons of CO2 offsets to the University of Iowa. Since then, more than 1 million acres have been enrolled in this program. At the moment, carbon credits for no—till and grass plantings are only possible in selected counties in the Midwest U.S. The rate has been set at 0.5 metric tons of CO2 per acre per year for continuous no—till in that area. Grass plantings are credited at 0.75 metric tons CO2 per year. Farmers have to commit to continuous no—till for a period of at least 4 years. The price of CO2 has been about $4 per ton of CO2 lately, but this could change, depending on the market (which is dependent on government initiatives, among others). Although Pennsylvania no—till and grassland carbon credits cannot be sold at the moment, CCX has started the process of expansion of the territory to include all of the United States. We will keep you abreast of developments in this area.

For more news, check the CCX website: www.chicagoclimateexchange.com

2007 Pennsylvania Custom Rates — Contributed by Mena Hautau, Berks County

The Pennsylvania office of USDA NASS (National Agricultural Analytical Service) just released the 2007 Custom Rates. They report that overall, rates are up 4%. At this site, you can download reports from the past 10 years.

You can find the pdf file at: http://151.121.3.33/Statistics_by_State/Pennsylvania/Publications/Machinery_Custom_Rates/index.asp

Perspectives on the Upcoming Corn Season — Greg Roth, Crop and Soil Science, Penn State University

Earlier this month I attended the Commodity Classic and had the chance to interact with growers and many of my colleagues from around the country regarding prospects for the new corn crop, which by some estimates will be 10 million acres more than last years crop. Many uncertainties exist with the new crop. Will wet weather delay planting and cause some of this increase in corn to shift back to soybeans? Can the grain handling infrastructure handle such a large crop? To what extent will corn yields be impacted by increased corn on corn? Are speculators in the corn market driving the price up to levels that are unsustainable? Will input prices, change in policies or other factors affect the corn demand from ethanol? Could a Midwest drought cause a severe corn price spike? Nobody has any good answers for all these questions. Because of these uncertainties, several of our Penn State extension educators and other commodity analysts have been promoting various methods of managing this price risk this winter using tools like developing a marketing plan, forward contracting, crop revenue insurance and other tactics.

When planning crop input programs it might be good to consider this potential price management and be a bit more conservative for those producers who don't have some protection in place. Traditional prices and a high cost of production could be a double whammy.

Locally, we may be getting a slow start on field activities that could cause some delays in liming and manure hauling and eventually impact some timeliness of corn planting, but it still is very early and conditions can change rapidly. A couple key considerations in wet springs are traffic on wet soils which causes soil compaction and planting in wet conditions in high residue fields. At this point however, there is no reason to think that the corn yield potential for our state has been negatively impacted by conditions so far.

2007 Early Spring Fertility Challenges — Douglas Beegle, Crop and Soil Sciences, Penn State

Spring will be here eventually and it is going to be an interesting one when does get here. From a fertility point of view we will be faced with a number of challenges this year. Probably the biggest will be dealing with the very high fertilizer prices and possible supply problems. Unfortunately, there is no simple answer to this concern. It really comes down to taking advantage of the best management practices that are always important, just more so now. This starts with soil testing. You need to make sure you are not spending money on nutrients that you do not need and just as importantly you need to make sure that you have balanced fertility. For example, you want to be sure that you are not spending money on high priced N only to have your yield limited by low pH, P, or other nutrients. One of the most common areas that farmers overlook that impacts nutrient use efficiency across the board is soil pH. Last year, 63% of the soil tests for agronomic crops submitted to the Ag Analytical Services Lab (www.aasl.psu.edu) at Penn State were below optimum for pH. Time is running short, but it is not too late to go collect soil samples and apply limestone if it is needed. Getting these soil samples is best done in the fall but it is also a good job for that day before the soil is fit to work or spread manure in the spring.

Another key to managing fertility when fertilizer prices are high is to take full advantage of all available sources of nutrients. This includes different fertilizer sources, manures and composts, legumes, etc. We all know that manure is an excellent multinutrient source that can replace all or a large proportion of crop fertilizer requirements. To use manure most efficiently get it analyzed, apply it as near to the time of crop uptake as practical, and incorporate the manure as soon as practical, when incorporation is possible. Incorporation can have a large economic impact. For example, with broiler manure the difference in N value between immediate incorporation and not incorporating is around $20 per ton based on average analysis and average current N prices. (See table 1.2-14 in the Agronomy Guide.) If you have manure use it efficiently, and if you do not have manure it might be worthwhile looking into importing manure as an alternative to fertilizer. If you have legumes in your rotation don't forget to credit the N residual for this year's crop. This credit ranges from around 40 lb N/acre for soybeans to over 120 lb N/A from alfalfa. That can be over $50 worth of N at current prices already in the field. (See table 1.2-8 in the Agronomy Guide.)

We have several options for fertilizer sources of N, most of which work fine agronomically as long as they are managed properly. For example, urea containing fertilizers are susceptible to volatilization losses so the efficiency can be dramatically improved by incorporating the fertilizer as soon after application as practical or using a urease inhibitor like Agrotain. Sources like ammonium sulfate on the other hand are non—volatile so there is no need to worry about incorporation or using a urease inhibitor however this material has a lower analysis. Be aware that there are sometimes other materials, such as industrial by—products, sold as fertilizer replacements or materials or that claim to replace or enhance limited fertilizer nutrients. It is impossible to cover this in any detail here because of the wide variety of products out there. The best advice is to ask lots of questions both of the salesman and other independent experts such as your local extension office. Be sure you are confident that the material is effective, economical, and safe. If you can't get good answers and are not sure about the quality of a material, it is probably best to avoid it because you do not want to risk injuring your crop or contaminating your soil. As always, be wary of “secret processes” and “too good to be true” claims.

Finally for N, timing and testing are two critical management practices that should be emphasized under current conditions. Timing N applications as close to the time of crop uptake as practical is one of the best practices for improving N use efficiency by crops. Right now think about topdressing wheat. If you had poor tillering in the fall topdressing early, at green—up, is best. If you had good growth and tillering going into the winter delaying N until GS 5, just before stem elongation, is most efficient. Generally at our level of winter grain production we do not usually see a significant practical advantage to splitting spring N applications further. For grass hay split applications only applying what is needed for the next cutting at around 50 lb N/ton of expected yield. Don’t put it all on in the spring. We have a while before we need to worry about corn N applications but here are several things to think about. Apply the recommended amount of N, no more or no less. I hear some farmers wanting to apply extra to take advantage of the high corn prices and others want to cut N rates because of high fertilizer prices. N recommendations are based on economic optimums which include the price of the N and the value of the crop. At current prices, N recommendations do not need to be adjusted. Consider splitting the recommended N into two applications. Apply a minimal amount of N near planting and then sidedress the rest. This is a much more efficient practice plus it enables you to assess the crop progress and the growing conditions in the early part of the season before making an N decision. Also, it allows you to use in-season tests like the PSNT or Chlorophyll Meter to adjust your N management. Sidedress N recommendations based on in—season tests are, on average, about twice as accurate as preseason N recommendations. (See Agronomy Facts #17 and 53.)

New Tax Incentives for Preserving Your Land — Dwane Miller, Schuylkill County Cooperative Extension

In 2006, Congress passed a law to enhance the tax benefits of protecting your land through the use of a conservation easement. Unless extended, these benefits/incentives apply only to easements put into place in 2006 and 2007.

Some highlights of the legislation:

For example, if an individual had an income of $50,000, and donated an easement valued at $200,000 (Appraisal worth $500,000 without restrictions, and $300,000 restricted = $200,000 donation);

Under the old law, you could deduct $15,000 (30% * $50,000) in each years 1–6. Total deduction would be $90,000, and the remaining $110,000 of deductions is lost.

Under the new law, if not a farmer or rancher, you could deduct $25,000 (50% *$50,000) in each years 1–8, with all $200,000 deducted. If you are a “farmer or rancher”, you could deduct $50,000 (100% * $50,000) in each years 1–4, with all $200,000 deducted.

These new tax laws apply to both:

It really is hard to say whether or not you could benefit financially by donating your conservation easement instead of selling your development rights. In some counties, the price offered for the purchase of an easement is relatively low, with a lengthy waiting line. In those cases, it may be to your advantage to investigate the possibility of donating your conservation easement, so you could take advantage of the new tax savings opportunity. As always, your tax accountant should be an active partner in these discussions. For more information on donating a conservation easement, contact a local qualified land trust in your area. To find a land trust in Pennsylvania, visit: http://www.ltanet.org/findlandtrust/state.tcl?state_id=pennsylvania42

Contributors: Dept. Crop & Soil Science: Greg Roth, Douglas Beegle, Sjoerd Duiker, Marvin Hall, Ron Hoover, William Curran, Paul Knight, Tom Murphy (Lycoming), Mena Hautau (Berks), Dwane Miller (Schuylkill), Susan Alexander (Jefferson), Kevin Fry (Armstrong) Andrew Frankenfield, (Montgomery), Dave Messersmith (Wayne).

Editor: Tom Murphy (Lycoming)

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