Black cutworm flights indicated this insect is in the area and some fields have high probability of cutting. Now is the time to examine fields for cutting, especially those fields which have had historically problems. Black cutworms fly in on winds from the south. They do not overwinter in northwest Missouri.
Black Cutworm
This pest generally attacks localized areas or fields. Generally, the cutting is not wide spread and with dry conditions, the insect will work beneath the soil surface and kill the growing point of corn. Heavy infestations in a concentrated area can injure corn with seed treatments or with transgenic events. It is best to scout fields now and with an insecticide if needed.
The next pest we need to watch for is wireworm. This insect feeds on the corn seed beneath the soil or later attacks the growing point of the germinated corn. This insect often makes a hole in the growing point causing injury. There have been some isolated fields affected by this pest and which need to be replanted. One should use a soil insecticide to control heavy infestations of this pest.
The other corn insect pest we need to watch for is perennial white grub. This grub stays in the soil for more than one year and has a pattern on the raster and damages corn. Annual grubs have hair that are scattered without a pattern and rarely injure corn. Insect injury to corn causing replant situations should have insecticide applied during planting and not rely on a seed treatment insecticide.
For more information, contact Wayne Flanary at 660-446-3724 or Heather Benedict at 660-425-6434, Regional Agronomists, University of Missouri Extension.
The organization’s first name change since incorporation in 1962 was prompted by several key considerations, including:
Growth in international membership.
An increase in the number of members involved in health and agromedicine.
The desire to replace “farm” with the more encompassing “agricultural.”
“Our new name and tagline, ‘Protecting People in Agriculture,’ better reflect the needs of agriculture and the work of our membership,” said ISASH President Michael DeSpain, John Deere. “With our 50th anniversary coming up in 2012, we felt it was a good time to take a look at how we’ve evolved and where we want to go.”
A name change was recommended in the 2008 NIFS Strategic Plan. The name change was approved at the January 18, 2011, board meeting.
“It was a long process, and the name change required a membership vote,” said Amy Rademaker, Carle Foundation Hospital, Urbana, Illinois, and co-chair of the ISASH public relations committee. “But all the steps were important in getting the feedback necessary for truly making this the membership’s name, logo and tagline.”
ISASH is preparing for the first national meeting to be held under its new name, June 26-30, in Boise, Idaho. The theme is, “Strengthening Partnerships across Multiple Disciplines.” Details are at www.isash.org.
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The International Society for Agricultural Safety and Health is dedicated to the professional development of agriculture safety and health professionals. Its 200 members include engineers, educators, insurers, physicians, nurses, veterinarians, statisticians, communicators, business leaders and others who contribute to a safer and healthier agricultural work place. For more information, go to www.isash.org.
United States Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack
Due to the overwhelming amount of water flowing down the Mississippi – the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers had to open the Morganza Spillway this weekend as part of a flood risk management plan designed to minimize damage to property, structures and to protect millions of people from historic flood levels. Ag Secretary Tom Vilsack and FEMA Administrator Craig Fugate issued a joint statement assuring producers affected by the opening of the spillway in Louisiana that they will be eligible for crop insurance indemnities if they purchased crop insurance and their crops have been damaged by flooding. Producers unable to plant who have purchased crop insurance will be eligible for prevented planting payments in accordance with their policy.
USDA has been coordinating with federal partners to evaluate how to provide relief to farmers and others impacted by the natural disaster. Vilsack and Fugate say FEMA and USDA will continue working together to do everything they can to help mitigate the damage caused by the flooding and protect the families, farmland and communities they serve.
Domestic production of oil and oil subsidies are getting a lot of attention this week on Capitol Hill. This morning the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources holds a hearing on several bills which would loosen up certain regulations to encourage more domestic oil and gas production. Increasing domestic production is important to the President. Obama says it is time to increase safe and responsible oil production here at home.
The President wants the Department of the Interior to conduct annual lease sales in Alaska’s National Petroleum Reserve, to speed up the evaluation of oil and gas resources in the mid and south Atlantic and to create new incentives for industry to develop their unused leases. At the same time – the administration is extending drilling leases in areas of the Gulf of Mexico that were impacted by a temporary moratorium.
This week a vote is expected in Congress on the issue of the elimination of taxpayer subsidies going to oil and gas companies. President Obama hopes Democrats and Republicans come together and get this done. He says the U.S. should be investing in the clean, renewable sources of energy that are the ultimate solution to high gas prices.
St. Joseph, Missouri, May 16, 2011 — Cattle producers have more options for effective parasite control with Synanthic® (oxfendazole) suspension dewormer back on the market. Now part of the Boehringer Ingelheim Vetmedica, Inc. family of products, Synanthic is once again available to beef producers.
“Synanthic offers beef producers an excellent choice in the benzimidazole dewormer class,” says Mac Devin, Boehringer Ingelheim Vetmedica Professional Services Veterinarian. “It’s important for producers to have choices in classes of parasite control products to reduce resistance issues.”
There are two classes of anthelmintics available in the marketplace: benzimidazole and macrocyclic lactones.
Devin explains that after several exposures to the same class of anthelmintics, surviving parasite populations begin to develop resistance to the class of anthelmintics. “Having more than one class of anthelmintic to use may become really important for some operations if resistance is becoming an issue,” says Devin. “Synanthic is an important and effective option to have back on the market.”
Synanthic is fast, effective and available in a low-dose formulation. Synanthic is readily absorbed in the gastrointestinal tract and goes to work rapidly to reduce parasite populations. In a study, reported in the Synanthic FOI (Freedom of Information), Synanthic was 100 percent ovicidal within 24 hours.1
Devin adds that Synanthic is labeled for control of Ostertagia ostertagi inhibited L4 larvae at a dosing rate of 4.5 mg/kg. He points out that this is an advantage compared to Safe-Guard® (fenbendazole), which is not effective against L4 larvae or inhibited L4 larvae at its recommended dosage of 5 mg/kg.
Ostertagia ostertagi, otherwise known as brown stomach worm, has been shown to have significant impact on weight gain. A stocker weight gain study showed that non-parasitized animals exhibited 77% greater weight gain than parasitized animals due to appetite suppression caused by O. ostertagi.2
Synanthic is available in two presentations: 22.5% and 9.06%. The 22.5% presentation offers a low-dose option at 1 mL/110 lbs and the 9.06% presentation has a 2.5 mL/110 lbs dosage.
Synanthic® is back on the market under the Boehringer Ingelheim Vetmedica, Inc. name.
For more information on Synanthic, contact your veterinarian or Boehringer Ingelheim Vetmedica, Inc. representative.
Boehringer Ingelheim Vetmedica, Inc. (St. Joseph, MO), is a subsidiary of Boehringer Ingelheim Corporation based in Ridgefield, CT and a member of the Boehringer Ingelheim group of companies.
The Boehringer Ingelheim group is one of the world’s 20 leading pharmaceutical companies. Headquartered in Ingelheim, Germany, it operates globally with 145 affiliates and more than 42,000 employees. Since it was founded in 1885, the family-owned company has been committed to researching, developing, manufacturing and marketing novel products of high therapeutic value for human and veterinary medicine.
For Boehringer Ingelheim—and its employees—carrying a good share of social responsibility is an important component in its business culture. Both global commitments in social projects and properly caring for all its employees are included. Respect, equal opportunity, and the balance of career and family life form the basis for mutual cooperation. And, environmental protection and sustainability are always the main focus during any of Boehringer Ingelheim’s undertakings.
In 2010, Boehringer Ingelheim posted net sales of approximately $16.7 billion (about 12.6 billion euro) while spending almost 24% of net sales in its largest business segment, Prescription Medicines, on research and development.
References: 1Guinan JJ et al, Wellcome, Australia—Study IAS 1103-C354. FOI, Summary for Synanthic, NADA 140-854. 2Fox MT, Gerrelli D, Pitt SR, Jacobs DE, Gill M and Gale DL. Ostertagia ostertagi infection in the calf: effects of a trickle challenge on appetite, digestibility, rate of passage of digesta and liveweight gain. Res Vet Sc, 47:294-298, 1989.
(May 16, 2011) Washington – Based on what they describe as a “‘bottom-up’, data-driven, statistical approach,” researchers at Michigan State University have concluded that biofuel production in the United States through 2007 “probably has not induced any indirect land use change.” The research, conducted by MSU scientists Seungdo Kim and Bruce Dale, is discussed in a paper that will be published in the next issue of the journal Biomass and Bioenergy . The paper was made available online May 13 for a fee.
The researchers empirically tested whether indirect land use change (ILUC) occurred through 2007 as the result of U.S. biofuels expansion by using historical data on U.S. croplands, commodity grain exports to specific regions and land use trends in those geographical regions – a previously unused but commonsense approach to verify what, if any, scientific evidence supports the ILUC theory. ILUC is the theory that any acre used in the production of feedstocks for biofuels in the U.S. necessarily results in a new acres coming into food or feed production somewhere else in the world.
“Biofuel production in the United States up through the end of 2007 in all probability has not induced indirect land use change,” the authors wrote. “There are two feasible dependent conclusions that might be drawn from this interpretation: 1) crop intensification may have absorbed the effects of expanding US biofuel production or 2) the effects of US biofuel production expansion may be simply negligible, and not resolvable within the accuracy of the data.”
RFA President & CEO Bob Dineen
“Solving America’s energy crisis must rely on the best available science. Since its inception, the notion indirect land use change has been deeply flawed and repeatedly disputed. It is refreshing to see academia using real-world data and actual market behaviors to challenge the hypothetical results and ‘what if’ scenarios that have so far dominated the ILUC discussion,” said Renewable Fuels Association President and CEO Bob Dinneen. “Biofuels like ethanol offered unparalleled environmental benefits as a renewable alternative to gasoline. Hiding behind the faux science of ILUC, some have attempted to stall and thwart the sustainable growth of biofuels across the globe and especially in the U.S. This work from MSU, coming on the heels of other recent scientific analyses, has demonstrated that ILUC as a matter of science and fact is wrong.”
This Michigan State University research arrives at a similar conclusion as recent work done by the U.S. Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL). Scientists at Oak Ridge concluded that ILUC resulting from corn ethanol expansion over the past decade has likely been “minimal to zero.”
The Michigan State study relied on real world data that looked at acreage, production and trade data from the past two decades during a time of unprecedented growth in U.S. ethanol production. This is a stark difference between work done by and for the California Air Resources Board (ARB) and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Both CARB and EPA utilized assumption-driven future scenarios and highly uncertain economic modeling tools to develop point estimate ILUC penalties for biofuels that are enforceable by law. As Kim and Dale note in their analysis, “Prior iLUC studies have failed to compare their predictions to past global historical data.”
The report’s bottom line about U.S. cropland is clear: “No arable land increases from the 1990s are observed in the United States. Furthermore, no declines in natural ecosystem lands in the United States have been observed since 1998.” Similarly, the analysis suggests cropland expansion in foreign countries is not well correlated to U.S. biofuels demand for certain feedstocks.
Last week, the RFA released a report on the importance the livestock feed co-product of ethanol production. The report noted that the growing availability of this ethanol feed is offsetting the need for additional crop acres.
(Kansas City, Kan., May 16, 2011) – EPA Region 7 announced today that it has issued administrative compliance orders to seven concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs) in Iowa, Kansas and Nebraska, directing those operations to correct a range of violations of the federal Clean Water Act.
Region 7’s latest round of CAFO enforcement activity, aimed at encouraging producers’ compliance with the Clean Water Act and the National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) permitting program, involves seven beef feedlots, including four in Iowa, two in Kansas and one in Nebraska.
“Feedlot-related pollutants have significantly contributed to water quality problems, causing states to list streams as impaired under the Clean Water Act,” EPA Regional Administrator Karl Brooks said. “As Clean Water Act permits provide a crucial tool to maintain water quality, EPA works with our state partners and stakeholders to promote producers’ legal compliance. Enforcing feedlot permits and requiring producers to get them, where appropriate, will produce cleaner waters and likely require fewer enforcement actions in the future.”
EPA Region 7 Regional Administrator Karl Brooks
Wastewater discharges and runoff from CAFOs and lands where those operations store or apply manure and wastes can cause exceedances of water quality standards, pose risks to human health, threaten aquatic life and its habitat, and impair the use and enjoyment of waterways.
Violations noted in the seven separate administrative compliance orders include wastewater discharges by unpermitted medium and large CAFOs, discharges by a large CAFO in violation of its NPDES permit, failures to maintain adequate storage capacity for wastes, and a large CAFO’s failure to adequately track its land application activities to ensure that area surface waters are protected:
Crossroads Cattle Co., Woodbine, Iowa – An inspection and review of the NPDES-permitted open beef feedlot identified failures to maintain adequate storage capacity in its lagoons, and confinement of cattle in areas lacking adequate controls to prevent unauthorized discharges. The order requires the operation to cease use of areas with inadequate controls and ensure wastewater levels in retention structures are in compliance with its NPDES permit. Discharges from the feedlot flow to a tributary of the Boyer River in Harrison County. The feedlot has a permitted capacity of 5,500 cattle and was confining approximately 3,200 to 3,500 cattle at the time of the inspection.
Feedlot Services Company, Neola, Iowa – Inspection found the unpermitted operation was confining 809 beef cattle in an open feedlot that discharges into Keg Creek in Pottawattamie County. The order requires the operation, which has a confinement capacity of 999 cattle, to cease unauthorized discharges or apply for an NPDES permit within 90 days and construct controls before September 30, 2012.
Harlan Northrup, d/b/a Harlan Northrup Feedlot, Griswold, Iowa – Inspection found the unpermitted operation was confining approximately 350 beef cattle in an open feedlot that discharges into a federally recognized wetland and a tributary of Boughman’s Creek in Cass County. The order requires the operation, which has a confinement capacity of 800 cattle, to cease unauthorized discharges or apply for an NPDES permit within 90 days and construct controls before September 30, 2012.
Petersen-Bubke LLP, Mapleton, Iowa – Inspection found the unpermitted operation was confining 1,050 beef cattle in an open feedlot that discharges into Rush Creek in Monona County. The order requires the operation to cease unauthorized discharges or apply for an NPDES permit within 90 days and construct controls before September 30, 2012.
KM Feeders, Lyons, Kan. – Inspection and file review of the NPDES-permitted feedlot found failures to maintain adequate storage capacity in its lagoons. The order requires the operation to ensure wastewater levels in retention structures are in compliance with its NPDES permit, and provide monthly reports to EPA. Discharges from the feedlot would flow to Dry Creek, which is officially listed by EPA and the State of Kansas as an impaired water because of phosphorous and total suspended solids levels. The feedlot has a permitted capacity of 5,200 cattle and was confining at capacity at the time of the inspection.
McPherson County Feeders, Marquette, Kan. – Inspection and file review of the NPDES-permitted feedlot found failures to maintain adequate storage capacity in its lagoons. The order requires the operation to ensure wastewater levels in retention structures are in compliance with its NPDES permit, install legible staff gauges in its retention structures, and provide monthly reports to EPA. Discharges from the feedlot would flow into Sharps Creek in McPherson County. Sharps Creek is officially listed by EPA and the State of Kansas as an impaired water because of E. coli and total suspended solid levels. The feedlot has a permitted capacity of 13,000 cattle and was confining approximately 8,506 cattle at the time of the inspection.
Knox County Feeders, Bloomfield, Neb. – As part of a compliance evaluation, EPA determined that the open beef feedlot had failed to sample its manure, process wastewater and land application areas as required by the terms of its Nutrient Management Plan (NMP) and its NPDES permit, and was unable to provide adequate records associated with its land applications. Those failures made it impossible to determine application rates for manure disposal, putting nearby surface water at the risk of potentially harmful discharges. The order requires the operation to update its NMP and meet all sampling and recordkeeping requirements of the NMP and NPDES permit. The feedlot has a permitted capacity of 5,000 cattle.
Learn more about the National Pollution Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) and how it regulates concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs): http://cfpub.epa.gov/npdes/home.cfm?program_id=7
WASHINGTON, D.C.—May 16, 2011— Concerned with the impact of recent extreme flooding and drought conditions across the United States, National Association of Conservation Districts (NACD) President Gene Schmidt sent a letter to U.S. Department of Agriculture Farm Service Agency (FSA) Acting Administrator Bruce Nelson supporting the temporary use of Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) lands, as long as a conservation management plan is in use.
NACD President Gene Schmidt
“Recent flooding and drought conditions have had major impacts on grazing lands across large portions of the country,” said Schmidt. “Some producers in hard-hit areas are in desperate need of grazing acreage, and would benefit through the emergency use of CRP lands.”
FSA rules allow for the temporary and/or emergency use of CRP lands while using a conservation management plan during certain weather events.
“We support FSA’s efforts to allow CRP land-use decisions to be handled at the local level, based on proper management plans and local environmental conditions,” Schmidt continued.
Conservation districts across the country work with private landowners to carry out a variety of conservation programs, including CRP. CRP plans are developed through the agreement of local landowners and USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) technical staff. CRP provides a variety of important environmental benefits, including erosion reduction, wildlife habitat and carbon sequestration.
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The National Association of Conservation Districts is the non-profit organization that represents the nation’s 3,000 conservation districts, their state associations and the 17,000 men and women who serve on their governing boards. For more than 70 years, local conservation districts have worked with cooperating landowners and managers of private working lands to help them plan and apply effective conservation practices. For more information about NACD, visit: www.nacdnet.org.
Research Collaboration to Accelerate Agricultural Crop Improvement
DES MOINES, Iowa, and RENO, Nev., May 16, 2011 – DuPont and Biotique Systems, Inc., have entered into a research alliance to accelerate genetic discovery in agricultural crops globally, bringing better products to farmers faster.
Under the agreement, Biotique will provide knowledge and access to its proprietary “TITAN” solution for next-generation sequence management, marker analysis, and genotype to phenotype association as well as its “Make-Sense” intellectual property portfolio. DuPont business Pioneer Hi-Bred will have access to the platform for agricultural applications and will retain all intellectual property for its genetic information and crops produced as a result of the alliance. Specific milestones and terms of the agreement were not disclosed.
“Pioneer’s sophisticated deployment of new sequencing technologies is bringing new value-added seed technologies to market faster,” said John Soper, vice president – Pioneer Crop Genetics Research and Development. “Our work with sequencing the genes in corn plants is helping us improve the crop faster than ever. This alliance will help us bring those advancements to other crops faster, an important part of increasing farmer productivity to meet future demands in agriculture.”
The platform incorporates a number of methods, tools and technologies. DNA sequence analysis allows Pioneer scientists to better understand the structure and function of genes in plants and other living things. Recent improvements in sequencing technologies have increased the pace of sequence data accumulation by many orders of magnitude and new information platforms are essential to translate this accumulated data into knowledge, and then customer value. The Biotique platform also enables the efficient handling and analysis of the millions of DNA sequence data points generated by Pioneer through use of second and third generation sequencing technologies. When integrated with state-of-the-art molecular marker technologies, advanced bioinformatics and global knowledge management at DuPont, these powerful genetic discovery technologies can dramatically advance scientific discovery and product delivery for customers.
“Pioneer is an excellent choice for an agricultural research alliance,” said Stephen Sanders, co-founder, chairman and chief executive officer – Biotique Systems, Inc. “We are committed to developing and advancing use of the latest genetic technologies in crop science, health care and diagnostics. Pioneer was an early leader in genetic marker technology and the application of next generation sequencing in crop production, and has effectively leveraged this important technology for agricultural applications.”
This collaboration is another example of Pioneer’s dedication to continued improvement in genetic technologies. For example, genetic marker and doubled haploid technology advances at Pioneer have enabled Pioneer researchers to evaluate the commercial potential of more crop genetics in 2010 than in the 80-year history of the company. Pioneer recently introduced high-yielding Y Series soybeans, developed through the proprietary Accelerated Yield Technology (AYT™) System, a novel integration of a proprietary matrix of molecular breeding technologies into the product development process increasing the rate of genetic gain, reducing yield variability and improving performance predictability.
Biotique Systems. For over a decade Biotique Systems has been helping the biggest agriculture, health care and diagnostic organizations increase productivity. Biotique provides solutions that allow large scale application of the latest genetic technologies to solve critical business and scientific problems.
Pioneer Hi-Bred, a DuPont business headquartered in Des Moines, Iowa, is the world’s leading developer and supplier of advanced plant genetics, providing high-quality seeds to farmers in more than 90 countries. Pioneer provides agronomic support and services to help increase farmer productivity and profitability and strives to develop sustainable agricultural systems for people everywhere. Science with Service Delivering Success™.
DuPont is a science-based products and services company. Founded in 1802, DuPont puts science to work by creating sustainable solutions essential to a better, safer, healthier life for people everywhere. Operating in more than 90 countries, DuPont offers a wide range of innovative products and services for markets including agriculture and food; building and construction; communications; and transportation.
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The DuPont Oval Logo, DuPont™, The miracles of science™, AYT™ and Science with Service Delivering Success™ are registered trademarks or trademarks of DuPont or its affiliates.
