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Ag Answers 5/6/08
for Ohio and Indiana
Ag Answers
Web site: http://www.aganswers.net .
5/6/08
Expert gives 10 strategies for farmers to reduce diesel fuel costs
Diesel prices are up roughly 50 percent from this time last year and farmers need to look at different methods to maximize fuel efficiency, said a Purdue University expert.
The average price farmers paid for diesel fuel in the Corn Belt last April was $2.50 per gallon according to reports from Indiana¹s Agriculture Statistics Service located at Purdue compared to $3.66 per gallon in April
2008. This means it¹s going to take more money to get the crop in the ground and to harvest it in the fall,² said Alan Miller, Purdue Extension farm business management specialist. ³At Purdue, we¹ve estimated it will cost farmers $10 more this year to produce an acre of corn just due to fuel for machinery operation. ³To plant an acre of soybeans, it will cost farmers $4 more per acre than last year and for wheat $6 more per acre.²
However, Miller said machinery fuel is a relatively small part of the total cost of producing corn and soybeans compared to the rest of the operation, at approximately 7 percent. ³This year will be a record year for crop production expenditures,² he said.
Miller recommends ten strategies to maximize efficiency and reduce fuels costs:
* Switch to a no-till or reduced tillage operation for corn where it makes sense.
* Combine more operations into each pass over the field.
* Think like a marketer and keep in mind the annual cycle of fuel prices due to seasonality.
* Shop around to get the best fuel price and try and buy in bulk‹half semi-tankers plus.
* Check out technologies such as auto-steer to reduce overlap and get out of the fields quicker.
* Organize to reduce costs and minimize the amount of time spent getting to and from different fields.
* Operate at the optimal speed.
* Match the tractor¹s horsepower with the equipment being pulled behind it.
* Inspect and maintain the right combination of tire slippage, tire air pressure and axle weight to get optimum traction rates.
* Follow appropriate maintenance schedules for all field equipment.
³Farmers should go back to the drawing board and reevaluate their production system from a holistic approach and make changes or adjustments where needed to maximize efficiency,² Miller said. ³It¹s often the little things you do that add up more than changing any one big thing.²
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Some fall cover crops can reduce SCN populations
The benefits of cover crops continue to grow. Touted for conserving soil while filling forage needs, some plant varieties also have the potential to suppress soybean cyst nematode populations in no-till fields.
Ohio State University researchers in the Department of Horticulture and Crop Science have found that Italian ryegrass (also known as annual ryegrass), when planted as a fall cover crop, reduces soybean cyst nematode egg populations 30 percent to 50 percent in a single growing season. Additionally, researchers discovered that Italian ryegrass reduces weed populations by as much as 50 percent, including purple deadnettle which is a prolific overwintering host for soybean cyst nematode.
Kent Harrison, a weed ecologist with the university¹s Ohio Agricultural Research and Development Center, said that the findings offer an additional tool for managing soybean cyst nematode, a small round worm that can cause significant yield reductions in soybeans. Soybean cyst nematode is the No. 2 soybean pest in Ohio, behind Phytophthora root rot. ³A rotation with non-host crops still works as the best tool for managing soybean cyst nematode populations,² Harrison said. ³We are not advocating growing cover crops as a substitute for annual crop rotations in pest management. We see this work as just providing another tool for managing the pest with something that has multiple uses, benefits the soil, as well as acts as a short-term grazing crop. Italian ryegrass can do all of these.²
Harrison and his colleagues conducted the work over a five-year period at OARDC¹s Waterman Farm in Columbus, Ohio, inoculating a small no-till plot with soybean cyst nematode and then planting half the field with Italian ryegrass and leaving the other half untouched. Harrison said the fieldwork was inspired by lab work conducted in Canada that found certain cover crops, such as perennial ryegrass and white clover, suppressed soybean cyst nematode populations. Italian ryegrass produced the strongest results.
³It is possible that the presence of Italian ryegrass causes soybean cyst nematode eggs to hatch prematurely, in the fall rather than in the spring, depleting egg numbers and killing off populations because they have no winter host to feed on,² Harrison said. ³The ryegrass grows quickly, produces a massive root system, and harbors beneficial organisms that eat weed seeds, so it just out-competes other weeds in a no-till field, including purple deadnettle.²
Harrison and his colleagues haven¹t figured out yet why some soybean cyst nematode eggs hatch prematurely, but they speculate it might be chemically driven. ³Soybean cyst nematodes hatch in the presence of purple deadnettle,² Harrison said. ³There¹s got to be some chemical signaling involved that says a host is present, and it¹s possible that Italian ryegrass is mimicking this chemical signal. Other cereal grasses do this, as well, but to a lesser extent.²
Harrison said Italian ryegrass works most effectively when it is planted in the fall before soybean cyst nematode completes its first life cycle on purple deadnettle, usually in September or October. Like most other cover crops, Italian ryegrass must be burned down in the spring before crops are planted. Though a beneficial crop in the fall and winter, come spring and summer it can become a nuisance weed if allowed to go to seed.
Researchers are expanding their work on the effects of fall cover crops on soybean cyst nematode populations to cereal rye, oats and wheat. The research is funded by a U.S. Department of Agriculture North Central Integrated Pest Management Program grant.
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Tour to stress importance of e-marketing to farm sustainability
The Indiana Farm Sustainability Tour will visit Vermillion County on May 15 and focus on the Internet as a tool to market farm products. "Participants will have the opportunity to see a few Web sites that other producers have developed and learn how they did it to effectively market their products," said Jerry Nelson, Purdue University Cooperative Extension New Ventures Educator. "They will also learn what questions to ask
when working with a Web designer."
Registration is $15, which includes lunch, refreshments and materials. To register, visit http://www.conf.purdue.edu/farmtours or call (800) 359-2968.
Event registration begins at 9:30 a.m. at the Royer Farm and will be followed by a welcome and farm tour. Scott and Nikki Royer will tell the history and give an overview of their 132-year-old farm where they raise and
sell fresh lamb, beef and pork, which can be ordered online. Lunch will be provided at the Wilson Community Education Center, located at 3636 E. U.S. Hwy 36 in Hillsdale, and will be catered by Sycamore Farm Bed and Breakfast Inn.
After lunch Chris Kraut, chef for Sycamore Farm Bed and Breakfast Inn, will talk about the importance of buying local and e-marketing. The Royers will share information about their e-marketing experience, as well as Autumn Horrall of Melon Acres and getfreshasparagus.com. Peggy Magill of TLC Services will discuss how to build an effective Web presence for a business. At the end, time will be allotted for questions. The tour is expected to conclude around 2:30 p.m.
The Royer Farm is located at 12901 S. State Road 63 in Clinton, Ind. For questions and more information, contact Nelson at (812) 886-9582, jnelson@purdue.edu, or Roy Ballard at (317) 462-1113, ballard@purdue.edu.
The Indiana Farm Sustainability Tour is sponsored by the Indiana Department of Agriculture, Indiana Cooperative Development Center, Indiana Farm Bureau, and Purdue's Small Farms Team and New Ventures Team with financial support from the North Central Region's Sustainable Agriculture, Research and Education.
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Using new genetic techniques to raise bigger yellow perch
With the help of genetics, Ohio fish farmers will be able to raise the crème de la crème of yellow perch -- the state¹s No. 1 food fish -- with the potential to increase production efficiency up to 50 percent over current
growth standards.
Ohio State University aquaculturists with OSU South Centers at Piketon are analyzing the genetic traits of yellow perch lines then cross-breeding those exhibiting high-growth rates and little genetic similarities. After
two years of research, data of first generation crosses have shown the fish grew 28 percent to 54 percent faster than the unimproved fish. The goal of the research is to genetically improve broodstocks of yellow perch -- a
species that lags in growth.
³Yellow perch is an important fish species for Ohio¹s aquaculture industry, but a major problem for the yellow perch industry is the relatively slow growth of currently cultured populations of this species,² said Han-Ping Wang, director of the Ohio Aquaculture Research and Development Integration Program. ³Our goal is to help farmers raise bigger fish. Bigger fish means more dollars.²
Wang and his colleagues are accomplishing this task using a state-of-the-art aquaculture facility and new genetic marker technology that improve upon traditional breeding methods. The Aquaculture Genetics and
Breeding Lab at Piketon, the first of its type in the Midwest, enables researchers to track the pedigree of the parents to the offspring so when genetically unrelated fish exhibiting the best growth characteristics are
bred, the genetics showcasing those traits can be traced back to the source. It¹s a step-up from traditional selection where fish are bred without any knowledge of their genetics, Wang said.
³For traditional selection, to raise 150 fish families, you have to have 150 individual tanks, but that¹s not possible,² Wang said. ³With marker technology, all families can be communally raised in the same pond or tank. ³When fish are raised to harvest size, the best fish or candidates from different families can be identified with parentage analysis by using genetic tags. Inbreeding can be a big problem if fish are being crossed with- out knowing their genetics. This reduces the growth rate instead of improving the growth rate.²
Now, researchers are able to develop genetic charts and compare the genetic fingerprint of the offspring with its parents, so that traits for improved growth remain intact for breeding the next generation. So far, researchers have distributed nearly 60,000 improved perch fry and fingerlings to Ohio farmers using this method. Researchers are also using new equipment that dramatically slashes the time it takes to map the genetics of yellow perch lines. Known as a Genetic Analyzer, the equipment has the capability of fingerprinting 800 broodfish for constructing the genetic pedigrees in two weeks. By comparison, using the traditional equipment, known as electrophoresis or a gel system, would take three months.
The Ohio Genetic Improvement of Farmed-Fish Traits (O¹GIFT) Program and the Genetic Analyzer were funded by the U.S. Department of Agriculture Cooperative State Research, Education, and Extension Service and Ohio State University¹s Ohio Agricultural Research and Development Center.
Under the O¹GIFT Program, researchers are studying yellow perch lines from Ohio, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Maine, New York, Nebraska, Wisconsin and Michigan. The 10-year project not only includes yellow perch genetic selection, but also research on genetic mapping and muscle development for food fish production.
According to the 2005 USDA Census of Aquaculture, yellow perch accounted for the largest portion of food fish sales in Ohio with 25 farms selling $222,000 worth of fish for an average price of $3.12 per pound. Ohio ranks No. 1 in the nation in sales of yellow perch, and is an integral part of Ohio¹s robust aquaculture industry, nearly doubling from nearly $1.8 million in 1997 to over $3.3 million in 2006.
