University of Illinois Extension

Illini Farm Report

 

Instructions for using this document;

 

clicking on any slug line will download an mp3 file of the complete story

clicking on any actuality will download an mp3 file of only that actuality

 

Weekend Weather and Weekend Illini Farm Report

Click to Download: 

ifrwx.mp3                  

mccwx.mp3    

                                    ifrwe.mp3

 

Illini Farm Report

Todd E. Gleason

1301 W. Gregory Dr., Rm 75 MC710

Urbana, Illinois 61801

217-333-9697 or ifr@illinois.edu

 

January 27, 2012

 

Dear Broadcaster:

 

The Illini Farm Report is for use in your agricultural radio programming slots. You are welcome to run each story "as is," or to lift actualities from it. For your editing convenience, the scripts used for each story are included in this document. If you have any problems with the audio, story ideas, or suggestions for improvements, please call me at 217-3339697.

 

1          Soil Tests and Banded Fertilizer

 

2          Group Risk Income Plan (GRIP) 2012

 

3          Feb 4 Chicago Farmers Farmland Investment Fair

 

4          farmdocdaily: Corn Basis Revisited

 

5          The Southern Cousin is Big Bad Weed

 

 

The opinions expressed on the Illini Farm Report are not necessarily those of the program producer, the University of Illinois College of Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental Sciences or U of I Extension. Our programs feature a wide range of viewpoints in the interest of promoting awareness and discussion of issues that are important to the agricultural community.

 

CUT 1 Soil Tests and Banded Fertilizer

            Fabian Fernandez, Soil Fertility Specialist – University of Illinois

 

 

There is a right way to take a soil sample and a wrong way. Todd Gleason files this report on a new standard for an old standby.

 

The University of Illinois has long recommendedÉ

3:24

 

The University of Illinois has long recommended farms be soil tested every four years. It helps producers understand the fertility of the land, and what needs to be done to maintain and manage that fertility. The old standard for taking a test was to simply pull a spade full of dirt about 7 inches deep. That hasnÕt worked for a while. For about as long as the moldboard plow has been out of fashion. The plow insured nutrients applied on the soil were mixed pretty evenly into the soil. No-till, conservation tillage, and strip till have mostly eliminated that mixing process says Fabian Fernandez from the University of Illinois. The soil fertility specialist says it is a reason the way soil samples are taken has changed.

 

Fernandez :17  ThatÕs one of them, the other one is if you are banding theÉ

Érepresent the fertility of that field.

 

So a banded fertilizer program, even a broadcast fertilizer program, requires soil samples be gathered in much a more precise way than in the past. Seven inches isnÕt deep enough anymore and a spade just wonÕt do the job accurately enough.

 

Fernandez :22  It is not only the depth, but that you need to representsÉ

Éa uniform diameter across.

 

The core should be 8 inches deep. The bottom end of the core should be low enough to compensate for the higher concentration of soil nutrients closer to the soil surface. Other than take an eight inch core, the rest of the soil sampling process is pretty much as usualÉunlessÉthe fertilizer applications have been banded. ThatÕs a complete soil sampling game changer.

 

Fernandez :44 And when you are doing a subsurface bandÉ

...in order to represent that fertility.

 

If youÕre keeping track – that means those using subsurface banding for the fertilization program must pull six inch deep cores, not eight inches deep, and for every sample site one core in the  band and two to three outside of the band.

 

HereÕs one other note from Fabian Fernandez on soil fertility. He says there is no proof – over many years and many trials – that crops respond differently to banded fertilizer applications when compared to broadcast applications. ItÕs just a lot more expensive to put fertilizer in a sub surface band.


 

 

CUT 2             Group Risk Income Plan (GRIP) 2012

            Gary Schnitkey, Farm Management Specialist – University of Illinois

 

Farmers will soon decide which type of crop insurance to take, if at all. Todd Gleason reports a farm management specialist at the University of Illinois says those in the Midwest that have historically chosen GRIP (pronounced grip) may want to reconsider the combo or RP plans.

 

RP stands for revenue protection and USDAÉ

2:28

 

RP stands for revenue protection. USDA RMA re-rated - lowered in many cases - the premiums for those plans in most primary corn and soybean producing counties around the nation last fall. That was not the case for the Group Risk Income Plan says ILLINOIS ag economist Gary Schnitkey.

 

Schnitkey :27  The re-rating was for the combo product or theÉ

Écrop insurance like RP.

 

Other than a cheaper premium, Schnitkey – a farm management specialist at the University of Illinois – says the primary difference between GRIP and the RP (combo) products is how the yield is calculated. Combo uses farm level yields. GRIP uses county-wide yields. Given that, hereÕs what a farmer will find out about GRIP premiums in Illinois.

 

Schnitkey :33  What weÕve seen is this year is that GRIP premiumsÉ

Éhave increased by about 11 percent.

 

Crop Insurance is a government subsidized product and by design supposed to payout, over time, at a 1 dollar in 1 dollar out rate. GRIP for corn has, and Schnitkey says even with the higher premiums will, meet that goal. GRIP for soybeans doesnÕt work that well.

 

Schnitkey :14  Soybeans we donÕt observe that as muchÉ

Écost of GRIP premiums are going up.

 

Farmers can check by how much and compare crop insurance products at the University of Illinois FarmDOC website. The address is FarmDOC.illinois.edu. It is different than the FarmDOCDaily site. The FarmDOC site has online premium calculators and comparison tools for crop insurance.

 

 

 

CUT 3             Feb 4 Chicago Farmers Farmland Investment Fair

Jeff Martin, Chairman Farmland Investment Fair – Chicago Farmers

 

The Chicago Farmers organizationÕs annual investment fair is set for February (this weekend). Todd Gleason files this report on the Farmland Investment fair and itÕs history.

 

The Chicago Farmers were organized 1935É

1:57

 

The Chicago Farmers were organized in 1935. ItÕs purpose is to advance production agriculture and agribusiness.  It is a non-profit, non-partisan organization that  provides information, educational programs, and a forum for discussing issues for its members and others interested in agriculture efficiency and competitiveness in a global economy.

 

Members of The Chicago Farmers, as reported on the website, at www.ChicagoFarmers.org, are a unique blend including farmland owners, commodity traders, agribusiness leaders, farm management professionals, real estate consultants, and those from other affiliated businesses. The common thread throughout the membership is an interest in agribusiness and the promotion of agriculture in general.

 

Saturday February 4th the organization will host its annual Farmland Investment Fair. Jeff Martin, a farmer from Mt. Pulaski, in the middle of Illinois, chairs the program.

 

Martin :19  It includes 16 different seminar sectionsÉ

Éanything to do with farmland.

 

The fair, again on Saturday February 4th, will be held at Joliet Junior College – by the way it is the first public community college in the United States and was established in 1901. JCC is in Joliet, Illinois. Pre-registration

 

Martin :09  Doors open at 8am and it last untilÉ

Élunch is served from eleven to one.

 

Typically, Jeff Martin says, about 60 to 70 percent of the folks attending the fair are landlords the rest are farmers.

 

 

CUT 4 farmdocdaily: Corn Basis Revisited

 

The extremely strong corn basis is currently receiving a lot of attention. Todd Gleason reports the ag economist at the University of Illinois decided to try and figure out why, given the supply of corn projected to be on hand, it has been so strong.

 

Two ILLINOIS ag economist have beenÉ

3:30

 

Two ILLINOIS ag economist have been following the strength in the corn basis. Basis is the difference between the price of corn in Chicago, and the price of corn locally. Scott Irwin and Darrel Good have written a couple of articles about the issue for their farmdocdaily website. The last one, titled ÒCorn Basis RevisitedÓ was posted last Friday. HereÕs a summary of what it says.

 

The two first made note of the unusually strong corn basis pattern last fall. At the time they suggested the strong cash corn prices relative to futures prices implied the Chicago market had undervalued corn. They wondered how long that might last. Three months later Irwin and Good decided to reconsider the issue. Corn basis is even stronger now than in October and at record levels in some markets.

 

They write that some have argued the small 2011 corn crop coupled with ample storage space has uniquely allowed farmers to store grain requiring a strong basis to motivate additional sales. That explanation alone, think the economists, is not sufficient to explain the strength in the basis. By that logic soybean basis, for example, would also be record strong, but it is not. In addition, storage space is always in surplus in the middle of the marketing year. Farmers may be tight holders of the 2011 crop, but the tightness is not just the result of them having capacity to store the crop. Nor is it due to a ÒshortageÓ of physical inventories of corn—at least 9 billion bushels of corn were in storage as of December 1, 2011. So, if there are so many bushels of corn in storage what accounts for the continuation of the very strong basis?

 

Corn is consumed in three major categories: exports, ethanol and co-product production, and feed. The pace of exports and the pace of ethanol production are very transparent, with data reported on a weekly basis. The pace of exports this year has not been unusually rapid, with shipments to date about equal those of a year ago. The pace of ethanol production was very rapid from mid-November 2011 through mid-January 2012, exceeding the pace of a year ago by 4 percent. The pace slowed a bit in the third week of January. The rapid pace of corn consumption for ethanol production may have contributed to the very strong basis this year.

 

The pace of feed use is not very transparent and is calculated as Òfeed and residualÓ use on a quarterly basis following the release of the USDAÕs quarterly corn stocks estimates. The calculated rate of feed and residual use of corn was unusually low during each of the final two quarters of the 2010-11 marketing year and the first quarter of the current marketing year. The low rate of feed and residual use appears to be at odds with the increase in the USDAÕs estimated number of Grain Consuming Animal Units (in the 2010-11 and 2011-12 marketing years and the level of feeding of other grains, oilseed meals, and by-products (including an estimate of distillers grains). That all means the implied rate of total feed consumption per animal unit has declined sharply.

 

The continuation of the extremely strong corn basis over a relatively long period of time suggests that the rate of feed and residual use of corn may have been more rapid than implied by the recent quarterly stocks estimates. It would be a convenient explanation for both the strong basis and the apparent under-valuation of corn futures prices. Irwin and Good write we wonÕt know that until further stocks reports are released.

 

 

CUT 5 The Southern Cousin is Big Bad Weed

                        Aaron Hager, Extension Weed Scientist – University of Illinois

 

Herbicide resistant versions of waterhemp are spreading northward in the state of Illinois. And as Todd Gleason reports a second, more aggressive herbicide resistant weed is right on its heals.

 

Glyphosate resistant versions of waterhempÉ

1:56

 

Glyphosate resistant versions of waterhemp have been showing up in southern Illinois for quite sometime. Today there are populations of this plant that have adapted to as many five different families of herbicides farmers have used to control it. Waterhemp is a powerhouse of weed says University of Illinois Extension Weed Scientist Aaron Hager).

 

Hager  :30  Waterhemp is really a species that is very wellÉ

É really to thrive.

 

Waterhemp plants are either male or female, too. It has to cross in order to produce seed and that crossing creates genetic diversity. Oh and one more path to pass on herbicide resistance. So, waterhemp is one tough weed for farmers to deal with in the state of Illinois. But if they think itÕs bad, wait until they meet its bigger, badder cousin from the south, palmer amaranth.

 

Hager :24  This is another dioecious amaranthÉ

Éon the other hand may put on two to three inches of new growth.

 

And yes palmer amaranth is in the state of Illinois – these are found in the wild in the middle of the state. There is a population in southern Illinois that has been confirmed glyphosate resistant. Like waterhemp, it will be a growing problem.