News Update
May 31, 2013
Producers Should be Aware
of Potential for Hay Fires
Recent rainfall combined with rising ambient temperatures in the southern Great Plains should serve as a signal for agricultural producers to monitor their hay.
Although moderate temperature elevation is normal for baled hay put into storage, excess moisture in forage can result in hay heating to levels capable of spontaneous combustion.
“Whether hay actually burns depends primarily on stack size,” said Ray Huhnke, director of the Oklahoma State University Division of Agricultural Sciences and Natural Resources’ Biobased Products and Energy Center.
Heating of wet hay or straw occurs in three stages: First, carbohydrates combine with oxygen to yield carbon dioxide, water and heat; temperatures may reach 130°. Second, bacteria and fungi produce heat. This can raise temperatures to 170°.
“In the third stage, oxygen combines with highly oxidizable material produced during second-stage heating,” Huhnke said. “This process starts at about 170°.”
At this point, the situation becomes critical. Temperatures will continue to rise to the kindling point if enough oxygen and moisture are present to generate heat faster than it can escape.
“Monitor piles daily because sometimes it can take as much as a week before signs of a heating problem can arise,” Huhnke said. “If the temperature reaches 140°, recheck every few hours. If the temperature reaches 180°, contact your local fire department. Do not move the hay until the fire department is present.”
To view the full release from Oklahoma State Extension, please visit the Extension page here.
Ohio State University to Host Agricultural
Safety and Health Conference
From tractor safety to grain bin rescue and ATV rollovers to livestock injuries, the June 23-27 International Agricultural Safety and Health Conference is designed to provide insight into key safety issues in the agricultural community.
The overall goal of the conference is to promote agricultural safety and health as part of an effort to reduce injuries and save the lives of farmers and ranchers, said Dee Jepsen, Ohio State University Extension state safety leader and a conference organizer.
“On average, there are 26 fatalities and over 1,400 serious injuries on Ohio farms every year,” she said. “It makes sense to host this conference here because Ohio is a typical state in terms of experiencing the kinds of agricultural injuries that other states experience, such as tractor rollovers, ATV crashes, confined space issues with grain bins, and livestock injuries and fatalities.
“But Ohio is unique in that we have slightly higher roadway crashes than other states, with urban sprawl and the largest Amish community by population, which adds to more slow-moving vehicles on public roads.”
The conference will feature a Lakes and Lighthouse keynote address from Jeff Reutter, Stone Lab and Ohio Sea Grant director, who will discuss the Ohio Sea Grant program; and Doug Sharp, U.S. Coast Guard 9th District, who will share the history of Lake Erie lighthouses and their role in safety.
The conference will also feature 38 sessions, including: safety and health in Amish communities; increased risk of farm equipment crashes in urban incorporated areas; an online ag safety and health course; ATV plenary session including educational ideas for promoting ATV safety; estimating grain injuries and fatalities to youth involved in grain entrapments; an electronic risk assessment tool; assessing the effectiveness of audience response system technology in pesticide applicator training; gardening and small farm safety and health curriculum; country and urban agricultural tours and a turfgrass tour.
Registration closes June 15. The conference will also feature a half-day workshop June 27 from 8 to noon on confined spaces, including grain engulfment and manure storage. The workshop cost is $50 and includes a Continental breakfast.
For more information and to register, please visit the conference information page here.
Irrigation Water Management
The water outlook for the North Platte Valley, the Panhandle and eastern Wyoming does not look good.
The area is still in a severe to exceptional drought, and the predicted surface-water irrigation supply may be in the 50- to 60-day range. Groundwater users continue to be under allocations and, in a few cases, may have exceeded their pumping amounts.
With all of this uncertainty, what are producers to do? There are a number of tools available for producers to help manage water resources.
One tool a producer can use is Water Optimizer, a Microsoft Excel-based program that can estimate a profit-maximizing cropping mix based on a limited amount of water. The Water Optimizer program has four “models” to calculate a cropping mix: single-field, single-year; single-year, multi-field; multi-year, multi-field; and an independent budget calculator to estimate production costs.
Producers who have already selected a cropping mix should consider no-till or limited tillage operations as part of their water management this season.
For producers who have limited amounts of water, another tool to consider is deficit irrigation, a strategy where the producer utilizes stored soil moisture and in-season precipitation to get the crop established and through vegetative stages. Then the producer applies the majority of their irrigation water during the reproductive and grain-fill stages of the crop.
Other water-management tools are soil-water sensors and ET gauges. Soil water sensors are placed in the field of the growing crop at different depths relative to the root zone of the crop. The producer takes readings from the sensors every two to four days to determine how much soil moisture is available for the crop and how much irrigation is needed to fill the soil profile.
There will be follow-up articles on the soil water sensors and ET gauges in the near future. More information is available online from UNL Extension at droughtresources.unl.edu and panhandle.unl.edu.
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