Pre-harvest considerations for corn
	USDA increases crop estimates
	First loss to soybean rust
	Biodiesel worth billions to soy farmers
	Lincoln to chair Senate Ag Committee
	First link in safe food supply chain
	Soybean rust found in South Carolina
	Soybean cyst nematode resistance weakening?
	Media reproved over H1N1
	Soybeans - resistant weeds, treatments

The rain may or may not fall where you're located. The first cool winds of fall may blow - or not. But one staple to the new season is for certain - football is back! For those of us lucky enough to grab a little tube time over the weekend, it was a nice relief from the long football drought.

In the news this week, crop estimates are up according to the latest USDA report, and we've got the angles covered in this week's issue. What does that mean for you and your operation? How will the markets be affected? Find out below. Also this week, the first crop loss to Soybean rust has been reported. We'll catch you up with the latest in news about the disease and where it's cropping up this week. And we also offer up a feature about resistant weeds and treatments in this issue. In fact, we're loaded down with news and issues to help you prepare for the harvest season, so dig in and get started. And happy reading.

With the 2009 growing season winding down, now is the time to prepare for corn harvest and start thinking about next year. Volunteer corn in soybean fields serves as a reminder to properly adjust combines. In addition to being an eyesore, volunteer corn can cause significant economical losses through added weed control costs and lost bushels at harvest. It only takes two corn kernels on the ground per square foot to equal 1 bu./acre (Carlson and Clay, 2002), and that's not to mention dropped whole and partial ears that contain hundreds kernels. For specific suggestions on combine adjustment. - Corn & Soybean Digest

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Released last Friday, the latest USDA crop report is showing increases in corn and soybean production, as well as an increase in yields. Below is a summary for corn and soybean production.

Corn
Corn production is forecast at 13.0 billion bushels, up 2% from last month and 7% higher than 2008. Based on conditions as of Sept. 1, yields are expected to average 161.9 bu./acre, up 2.4 bu. from August and 8 bu. above last year. If realized, this will be the highest yield on record and production will be the second largest, behind 2007. Yield forecasts increased from last month across the western Corn Belt and the northern half of the Great Plains as mild temperatures and adequate soil moisture supplies provided favorable growing conditions. Yield prospects were unchanged in the eastern Corn Belt where dry conditions during August depleted soil moisture supplies.

Soybeans
Soybean production is forecast at a record high 3.25 billion bushels, up 1% from the August forecast and up 10% from last year. Based on Sept. 1 conditions, yields are expected to average 42.3 bu./acre, up 0.6 bu. from last month and up 2.7 bu. from 2008. If realized, this will be the third highest yield on record. Compared with last month, yields are forecast higher or unchanged in all states except Indiana, where the yield is expected to be down 2 bu. The largest increases in yield from the August forecast are expected in Alabama and Maryland, up 5 and 6 bu., respectively. If realized, the forecasted yield in Alabama, Georgia and Mississippi will be a record high and the forecasted yield in Nebraska, North Carolina and Ohio will tie the previous record high. Area for harvest in the U.S. is forecast at 76.8 million acres, up slightly from June and up 3% from 2008. - Corn & Soybean Digest

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A Noxubee County soybean field severely infected with soybean rust will represent Mississippi’s first yield losses to the disease that has been present in the state since November 2004.

Rust was evaluated in the field Sept. 4, and it is the most severe case of soybean rust found in Mississippi to date. The 100-acre field near Brooksville was not treated with a fungicide.

Tom Allen, plant pathologist with the Mississippi State University Extension Service, estimated this field will lose 5 percent to 10 percent of its yield to rust, but emphasized that this is just a guess. - Bonnie Coblentz, MSU Ag Communications

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U.S. soybean farmers received an additional $2.5 billion in net returns over the last four years due to the biodiesel industry’s demand for soybean oil, a new study funded by the United Soybean Board and soybean checkoff shows.

The demand added up to 25 cents in support for the per-bushel price of soybeans.

Soybean oil remains the dominant feedstock for biodiesel production, and the soybean checkoff has funded a large portion of the research and promotion of biodiesel through the National Biodiesel Board.

USB Domestic Marketing Chair Lewis Bainbridge says the study proves the value of those efforts. “We commissioned this study because we wanted to find out how much soybean farmers were benefiting from the checkoff’s investment in biodiesel,” said Bainbridge, who grows soybeans in Ethan, S.D.

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In a move sure to please Southern agricultural interests, Arkansas Senator Blanche Lincoln has been named chairman of the Senate Agriculture Committee.

Lincoln is widely viewed as a friend to Southern agriculture and has been credited with helping shape the last farm bill to the region’s benefit. She will set precedent as the first woman and Arkansan to helm the 184-year-old committee.

The announcement, which came Wednesday afternoon, was part of a Senate committee chairmanship reshuffle necessitated by the recent death of Sen. Edward Kennedy, who had chaired the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee. Lincoln’s rise to chairman became possible when Iowa Sen. Tom Harkin, who had been helming the Senate Agriculture Committee, agreed to take Kennedy’s former position. Harkin will immediately get to work on health care reform. - David Bennett, Farm Press Editorial Staff

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Farmers are the first link in the chain for food quality and safety and the measures they take to safeguard their products make the job easier for other links in the chain to maintain the integrity of the nation’s food supply.

A lot is at stake. U.S. consumers enjoy the most abundant and the safest supply of food in the world, experts say, but recent scares with peanut butter and some vegetable products make consumers nervous. - Ron Smith, Farm Press Editorial Staff

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Asian soybean rust has made its way into the Carolinas about on schedule — too late to do much damage.

The rust find on soybeans was in sentinel plots in the southeastern corner of the state. One leaf out of 50 had 3 clusters of pustules and there was also one solitary pustule. All pustules had just begun to sporulate. This portion of Berkeley County has been one of the wetter areas in South Carolina for the last month, according to Mueller. - Roy Roberson, Farm Press Editorial Staff

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Soybean cyst nematode resistance weakening?

Tennessee, many soybean fields are looking good this year, but experts say more cases of Sudden Death Syndrome are showing up which means there could be trouble below in the form of soybean cyst nematodes.

“We’re monitoring the populations that are present in the state of Tennessee and we’re finding they’re changing,” says Pat Donald, Nematologist with USDA. “What this means is the sources of resistance that have held the level of soybean cyst nematode down in commercial varieties are in some cases no longer as effective as they used to be.”

Donald, who is also an adjunct professor with the University of Tennessee Institute of Agriculture, is leading a study on soybean cyst nematodes at the West Tennessee Research and Education Center. She says the study’s findings could have a dramatic effect on the state’s soybean producers. - Ginger Trice, University of Tennessee

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Media reproved over H1N1

In a Thursday press conference to explain USDA’s preparedness to handle the potential onset H1N1 influenza this fall, Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack expressed his exasperation with the general media’s misrepresentation of the virus as “swine flu”.

“As you know, since last spring and the onset of the H1N1 outbreak in humans, USDA has consistently asked those in the media who convey information to consumers and to citizens to be careful about what they call this virus. We would ask, respectfully, that the media give serious consideration to transitioning from what they have been doing — which is to call this (virus) the swine flu, incorrectly — to using H1N1 as the appropriate name for this virus.”

Vilsack acknowledged that the novel H1N1 virus includes part human, part avian and part swine strains. “It’s the combination that made it unique and different,” he continued. “Unfortunately, the media gravitated to the swine aspect of it — and then labeled it so. Then, in their efforts to simplify the complexity of the virus by using the ‘swine flu’ reference, they (media) created a real problem in terms of pork producers and pork markets” by fostering “confusion and uncertainty in the markets at a time when the market was unstable to begin with. - Dale Miller, Editor, National Hog Farmer

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Soybeans - resistant weeds, treatments

The storm arrived at Dee Henderson’s farm east of Keo, Ark., just as a tour of LibertyLink soybean plots and treatments began. Even as lightning flashed and thunder boomed in the downpour (which, a few minutes earlier, had set the record in Little Rock for most rain in a July) the large crowd was able to see eye-opening plot work in a field infested with glyphosate-resistant pigweeds.

Those in the field “pulled out a few umbrellas and/or got soaked as we hurriedly walked out of the 17-treatment test,” said Bob Scott, Arkansas Extension weed specialist and Delta Farm Press contributor. “I thought it was a bit of a testament to how this pest has got their attention.”

“I want to highlight a couple of things about the plots,” said Scott. “First of all, those plots were not an example of a severe infestation of Roundup Ready- or glyphosate-resistant pigweeds. That is a fairly inconsistent, light infestation.” - David Bennett, Farm Press Editorial Staff

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