News Update
May 9, 2011

California Beef Council Hosts San Francisco Bay Area Educator Ranch Tour

The California Beef Council (CBC) recently hosted a Cattle Ranch & Wildflower Tour in Sunol, Calif., for San Francisco Bay area educators. Education professionals earned continuing education units while touring a working ranch and learned about daily resource management and sustainability efforts of the operation.

The day also included an industry panel discussion with cattle farmers and ranchers, a chef’s demonstration and cooking in the classroom lesson where Chef Dave Zino from the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association (NCBA) demonstrated a kid-friendly recipe that educators could prepare with students. In addition, beef educational resources aligned to California Content Standards were discussed and a beef lunch was served while attendees were entertained with cowboy poetry.

Teaching today’s youth and their influencers about the importance of agriculture has been a continuing priority for the CBC. This tour will help improve their overall knowledge of agriculture and the beef industry, as well as foster a positive image of beef and beef producers.

For more information about the CBC or the Cattle Ranch & Wildflower Tour, please contact the CBC at 916-925-2333, email askus@calbeef.org or visit www.calbeef.org.

— Release by the CBC.

Periodical Cicadas to Emerge Soon in Western Kentucky

Soon, many Western Kentuckians will begin hearing the deafening sounds of periodical cicadas as Brood XIX is scheduled to re-emerge this month.

The sap-feeding insects have black bodies, red eyes and red-orange veins running through clear wings, said Lee Townsend, extension entomologist in the University of Kentucky College of Agriculture. Once they emerge, they tend to stay in the upper canopy of trees. The loud buzzing or humming sound is the males singing to attract females.

Brood XIX reemerges every 13 years in Western Kentucky, roughly west of the William H. Natcher Parkway. This brood returns sooner than 17-year cicadas, which many Kentuckians are familiar with as their emergence covers a much larger portion of the state.

Once Brood XIX emerges, it will be active for approximately 1.5 months.

Some people may be apprehensive about interacting with periodical cicadas, but they cannot sting and aren’t harmful to humans or livestock. They pose no threat to pets other than some dogs and cats may get an upset stomach if they eat too many.

Townsend’s Web page,http://pest.ca.uky.edu/EXT/Cicada/kycic2011.html, provides additional information and tracks the cicadas’ emergence. Individuals can report first sightings and send pictures to lee.townsend@uky.edu.

— Release written by Katie Pratt for UK College of Agriculture.

Young Producer Summer Meltdown Celebration At Arlington Ag Research Station

The Annual Summer Meltdown Celebration is set for Saturday, June 18, at the University of Wisconsin’s Arlington Agricultural Research Station in Arlington, Wis.

This year’s event will begin at 10 a.m. with tours of the Agronomy and Vet Sciences areas. At noon, lunch will be served in the Public Events Facility followed by a short program. Then, at 1:30 p.m. the tours continue with the Beef and Dairy Units. Finally, the day will wrap up with ice cream treats at the Public Events Facility. 

The Young Producer Summer Meltdown Celebration is a celebration of agriculture and annually features farm and ag industry tours for the whole family. It is a part of the Accelerated Genetics Young Producer Program. This program is open to any dairy or beef producer or herdsperson in Wisconsin, Minnesota, Iowa or Illinois, who is interested in expanding his or her horizons, meeting other producers, and having fun doing it. Individuals, couples and families are welcome to attend. Anyone interested in becoming involved is encouraged to attend any or all of the Young Producer activities throughout the year. For more information about Young Producer events go to www.accelgen.com.

To make a reservation for the Summer Meltdown Celebration, call 1-800-451-9275 ext. 5422 or email kstanek@accelgen.com by June 10th. Once reservations are received, more information, including a map and agenda, will be sent. The day’s activities are compliments of Accelerated Genetics.

— Adapted from a release by Kari Stanek for Accelerated Genetics.

View The Angus Report

The May 6 edition of The Angus Report, available at http://bit.ly/l2rsKn, focuses on an upcoming Auxiliary heifer auction, Certified Angus Beef LLC (CAB) educational events, and export markets and how they affect beef demand. The American Angus Association’s online news covers a variety of topics in a traditional television news format. Watch www.angus.org for reports posted each Friday.

NMSU Researchers Study Production of Late-planted, Low-water Forage Crops

For the better part of the last decade, farmers in eastern New Mexico have had to plan for their summer growing season without knowing how much water — if any — would be available for irrigation, due to severe water limitations.

To help farmers make smart decisions about their crops before planting, researchers at New Mexico State University (NMSU) are evaluating late-planted, short-season annual forage crops for adaptability and yield potential in the Southern High Plains.

“Water is a limited resource, and is expected to be more limited in the future,” said Rex Kirksey, superintendent of NMSU’s Agricultural Science Center at Tucumcari. “This project is evaluating a number of forage crops for adaptation to lesser amounts of water than what is normally considered full irrigation. It is developing strategies for obtaining high forage yields, per unit of applied water, when water for irrigation is limited or uncertain.”

The majority of farms within the Arch Hurley Conservancy District are completely dependent on surface water from Conchas Reservoir for irrigation. Even with limited or no water in the spring, there is a good chance that spring and summer rains in the watershed will provide lake inflow to provide at least some late-season irrigation.

“The decision to evaluate late-planted crops was made with the purpose of allowing growers an opportunity to delay cropping decisions as late in the season as reasonably possible,” Kirksey said. “Planning for crop establishment in late June or early July provides an opportunity for increased water storage in Conchas Reservoir and allows for the accumulation of soil moisture following early summer rainfall events.”

Millets and forage sorghums comprised the majority of crops selected for this project that began in 2010. Researchers at the science center selected annual forages for their test that had the potential to produce a marketable yield in less than 100 days. The crops also had to be heat- and drought-tolerant, and they needed to be productive with limited irrigation, but capable of responding to increased water availability.

The crops for the study were planted in July 2010. The entire test was swathed in October — 97 days after planting — as a single-cut hay harvest: baling took place by species, based on curing time. Bales were weighed by plot and hay core samples were collected, oven dried and analyzed for nutritive quality by near-infrared reflectance spectroscopy.

Kirksey said that so far, they have found that multiple annual forages offer potential for producing hay in late-planted, water-limited situations. Traditional crops for hay production — sorghum X Sudan grass hybrids and forage sorghums — were among the most productive. Pearl millet provided the best combination of forage yield and quality when grown as a monoculture or in combination with selected annual legumes.

Researchers at the science center plan to repeat their experiment this year — and possibly in 2012 — to confirm their observations.

For more information on the project, contact Kirksey at 575-461-1620 or kirksey@nmsu.edu.

— Release by NMSU News Center.

UK College of Ag Awarded $6.9 Million Grant to Study Biofuels

The University of Kentucky (UK) College of Agriculture has several research projects under way related to biofuels and reducing the United States’ dependence on imported oil. Recently, the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s National Institute of Food and Agriculture and the U.S. Department of Energy awarded a multiyear, $6.9 million grant to improve the economics for biorefineries by using on-farm processing to convert biomass to a mixture of butanol, ethanol, acetone and organic acids.

In a USDA news release, Ag Secretary Tom Vilsack said the departments are sponsoring $42 million in research grants to eight recipients to spur innovation in bioenergy by developing renewable resources that produce energy more efficiently and in a sustainable way.

“Permanently reducing our dependence on foreign oil and getting a handle on out of control gas prices will require our brightest scientists, our smartest companies and strategic investments in research,” he said. “Advances made through this research will help boost rural economies by developing and testing new processing facilities and profitable, energy-rich crops that U.S. farmers and foresters will grow.”

Lead researcher for the UK project is Sue Nokes, a professor in the Department of Biosystems and Agricultural Engineering. Nokes and others in her department will work with other UK departments and colleges, as well as other universities and industry partners to achieve their goals. The project will integrate input from experts in a variety of disciplines, including biosystems engineers, plant and soil scientists, horticulturalists, chemical engineers and economists.

“This grant will allow us to study biomass from production through processing together as a system, including the environmental and economic impact,” Nokes said. “We’ve not had the resources to do that before.”

Nokes believes it’s technically feasible to reduce America’s dependence on imported oil in the next decade, but the first step is to develop a reliable biomass feedstock supply system using agricultural residues such as corn stover and wheat straw, and energy crops such as switchgrass and miscanthus, with enhanced plant genetics, improved crop-management practices to increase yield, reduced environmental impacts and reduced biomass harvest and transportation costs.

“After that, we have to develop the technical and economic feasibility of on-farm storage and processing of high-density biomass feedstocks to enhance biomass conversion to value-added products,” Nokes said. “So we’ll put the bales into a bunker silo and process the material in a similar manner to silage, but with a different microorganism so that it produces butanol — an alcohol which can substitute for fuel.”

Nokes said the final stage objective of this project will be to develop and validate integrated geographic information system (GIS)-based economic and life-cycle analysis models to provide strategic guidance to develop an on-farm processing system. Researchers will use the models to evaluate different landscape-scale management scenarios and their effect on food and energy production and the environment, including the potential of marginal or abandoned lands for biofuel production.  

“We want to determine the incentives required to increase ecosystem services and biofuel production when they conflict with maximum farm profitability,” Nokes added.

“We expect the system to allow farmers or cooperatives to produce biofuels and biochemicals cost-competitively with petroleum. These products will be concentrated on-farm, so the product stream will be economical to transport to a refinery to be further upgraded, largely eliminating the high cost of transporting raw biomass. In addition, the biomass will be supplied in a sustainable manner that will not increase soil erosion or net greenhouse gas emissions, yet will still maintain farm profitability.”

In the USDA news release, U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu said by developing and commercializing advanced biofuels, the United States can create new economic opportunities for rural communities, provide consumers with new options to fuel their vehicles and reduce dependence on imported oil.

“The projects selected … will help produce affordable, renewable biofuels right here in the U.S. to power our cars and trucks,” Chu said.  

— Release written by Aimee Nielson for UK College of Agriculture.

— Compiled by Shauna Rose Hermel, editor, Angus Productions Inc.