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Roundup Ready Alfalfa On Track For 2009
Return
By Neil Tietz, Editor, Hay & Forage
Grower
It looks like Roundup Ready alfalfa seed will be
available to growers again late next year. USDA’s Animal and Plant
Health Inspection Service (APHIS) reportedly is on schedule preparing
the court-ordered environmental impact statement (EIS) on Roundup Ready
alfalfa, and proponents are confident it will show that the transgenic
alfalfa and conventional alfalfa can successfully co-exist.
Click
here to read the rest of this story.
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Farm Bill May Offer Alfalfa Dollars, NAFA
Reports
Hay growers may get new funding for alfalfa research
– and supplemental conservation payments for alfalfa grown in
“beneficial crop rotations” – as part of the newly passed Farm
Bill, according to Beth Nelson, president of the National Alfalfa &
Forage Alliance (NAFA).
“We worked closely with (MN) Congressman Collin Peterson’s office to
establish the alfalfa and forage research program under ‘high-priority
research and extension areas’ in the Farm Bill,” Nelson says.
“Although this language only ‘authorizes’ the program, it’s a
significant step in our efforts to catalyze alfalfa research. What we
need to focus on now is working with the appropriators to fund the
program.”
The alfalfa and forage research program falls under section 7204 (50)
and cites that “research and extension grants may be made under this
section for the purpose of studying improvements in alfalfa and forage
yields, biomass and persistence, pest pressures, the bioenergy potential
of alfalfa and other forages, and systems to reduce losses during
harvest and storage.”
A new section of the Conservation Stewardship Program, formerly called
the Conservation Security Program, allows the ag secretary and Natural
Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) to determine whether
resource-conserving crop rotations are “beneficial” and eligible for
payments, Nelson says. Now NAFA has to convince NRCS that alfalfa should
be identified or defined as “resource-conserving,” she says.
Visit NAFA’s newly redesigned Web site at: www.alfalfa.org.
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California’s Central Valley Needs
Water
California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger proclaimed a
state of emergency in nine Central Valley counties due to severe water
shortages.
"Just last week, I said we would announce regional emergencies wherever
the state's drought situation warrants them, and in the Central Valley,
an emergency proclamation is necessary to protect our economy and way of
life," Schwarzenegger says. "Central Valley agriculture is a
$20-billion-a-year industry. If we don't get them water immediately the
results will be devastating."
The proclamation came after assessing the impact of additional
unexpected cuts, recently made by federal water officials to San Joaquin
Valley farmers, in the middle of the growing season. The state
Department of Water Resources is to work with the U.S. Bureau of
Reclamation to deliver more water now through the State Water Project
when it's needed most. The water resources department is also directed
to transfer groundwater through the California Aqueduct to benefit
farmers in the affected counties. They include: Sacramento, San Joaquin,
Stanislaus, Merced, Madera, Fresno, Kings, Tulare and Kern.
For a report on the California water situation, review last week’s
eHay Weekly lead story at hayandforage.com/ehayarchive/0610-ca-drought-dampens/.
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Manure Alfalfa Stubble Within A Few Days
Topdressing of manure after an alfalfa cutting can be
delayed a few days without harming the yield or quality of ensuing
cuttings, said a speaker at last week’s Four-State Dairy Nutrition and
Management Conference in Dubuque, IA. “The book says we should
topdress manure immediately after harvest,” pointed out Everett Thomas
of the W.H. Miner Agricultural Research Institute, Chazy, NY. But he
added that farmers typically finish harvesting before applying manure,
which can result in a several-day delay in getting it on some fields.
Researchers at the institute applied manure three or seven days after
the first cutting and compared the second- and third-cut yields and
quality to those of alfalfa receiving no manure. They applied 4,000
gallons of manure per acre with a truck-mounted tank spreader. Results
showed that the three-day application delay caused no yield or quality
losses. The seven-day delay caused a slight yield reduction, but it
wasn’t statistically significant. Crown scores taken on plants in
wheel tracks revealed no damage from either application.
The take-home message, according to Thomas: “Delay three days, no
problem. Longer than three days, you may have some yield losses, even
though our data didn’t show that. It’s an individual farm decision.
With the cost of nutrients, frankly it’s more important to get that
manure on and be able to have that crop use it than to worry about
whether it’s three, four or five days after harvest, because the
potassium in dairy manure is highly available to forages.”
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Michigan
Daniel Easterday of Easterday Dairy Farm, Camden, MI,
finished his first alfalfa cutting last week, which was later than
usual. There haven’t been many windows of opportunity between rains
this spring, he says. But that was his second high-quality forage crop
of the season. In late May, he chopped about 6 tons/acre of triticale
silage from fields planted last fall. Then he no-tilled brown midrib
(BMR) sorghum-sudangrass into the stubble, expecting to get three
cuttings of that crop.
Triticale provides winter cover and utilizes springtime moisture to
produce dependable yields. Easterday says the wheat-rye cross has
sufficient quality for lactating cows when harvested at boot stage, and
makes good heifer feed if headed out. BMR sorghum-sudangrass is more
drought-tolerant than corn, and he says its quality is similar to that
of corn silage. Growing the two crops on the same land, he gets a total
silage yield of about 25 tons/acre – roughly the same as he would get
with silage corn.
Easterday drove with his nutritionist to the Four-State Dairy Nutrition
and Management Conference in Dubuque, IA, last week. He says
dairy-quality hay was bringing $230/ton delivered to southern Michigan
earlier this spring, but he produces all the forages he needs for his
300-cow herd.
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Nevada
Big Brown came up just short in his bid to capture
horse racing’s Triple Crown a few weekends ago. Even so, the super
horse’s run at the coveted title renewed enthusiasm for the sport of
kings all over the country. Hay growers like Mark Moyle of Eureka, NV,
were watching with special interest.
Moyle produces timothy and alfalfa on 1,500 acres in Nevada’s Diamond
Valley area. High-end racehorses in southern California make up one of
the markets for his barn-stored hay. “A lot of the top horses are
stabled there before they head east in the spring for the Triple Crown
events,” he explains.
What kind of hay do the elite horse trainers want for their steeds? With
timothy, Moyle says, they’re looking for big stems and big heads.
“They’re really not too concerned about nutritional makeup,” he
notes. “In fact, they don’t want anything that might be too hot. We
don’t market any second crop to them. They basically see timothy as a
way to keep the horse busy, chewing. They also like long stems that
don’t fall through the hay nets in the barn.”
Alfalfa requirements are different. “They usually want something with
a pretty high TDN, 53-54% on a California test,” he says. “They like
hay from here because it’s bright and green.”
The market is worth pursuing, according to Moyle, who operates his hay
marketing, selling and hauling business under the handle of Nevada Hay
Connection. He reports owners/trainers of elite racehorses will
typically pay premiums of 10-15% over retail prices to secure “just
the right kind of hay.”
Moyle can be reached at 775-867-4500.
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Wisconsin Farm Technology Days Is July 15-17
Field demonstrations, more than 600 exhibitors and
University of Wisconsin dairy scientists will be a part of the 2008
Wisconsin Farm Technology Days, to be held July 15-17 at Country Aire
Farms, Greenleaf.
The event runs from 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. each day and costs $5.
Extension dairy specialists will answer questions about cow comfort,
herd management, modernizing facilities, nutrition and recycling ag
plastics. For more information, visit www.wifarmtechnologydays.com/.
For directions, visit
www.co.brown.wi.us/uw_extension/FarmTechnology/Directions.htm.
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Calendar
June 24-25 -- Wisconsin Grazing School, Gleason.
Call 715-425-3345.
June 25-26 -- Farm Progress Hay Expo, Ossian, IA, 9 a.m.-4 p.m.
Visit www.HayExpo.com.
June 28 -- 2008 Illinois Forage Expo, 9 a.m. to 4 p.m., Smith
Family Farms near Mount Vernon. Visit web.extension.uiuc.edu/regions/ag.
July 11-13 -- North Carolina Equine Extravaganza, North Carolina
State Fairgrounds, Raleigh. Learn more at www.equineextravaganza.com.
July 22 -- Wisconsin Grazing School, Fond du Lac. Call
715-425-3345.
Aug. 19-20 -- Wisconsin Grazing School, Richland Center. Call
715-425-3345.
Sept. 4 -- Kentucky Forage & Grassland Council Field Day,
Christian County. Learn more at www.uky.edu/Ag/Forage/.
Sept. 17-20 -- National Hay Association Convention, Oak Brook
Hills Marriott, Oak Brook, IL. Contact Don Kieffer at 800-707-0014, or
visit www.nationalhay.org.
Sept. 30-Oct. 4 -- World Dairy Expo, Alliant Energy Center,
Madison, WI. Visit www.worlddairyexpo.com.
Oct. 23 -- Kentucky Grazing Conference, Fayette County extension
office, Lexington. Learn more at www.uky.edu/Ag/Forage/.
Oct. 31-Nov. 2 -- Virginia Equine Extravaganza, Richmond Raceway,
Richmond. Learn more at www.equineextravaganza.com.
Nov. 6-7 -- 2008 BEEF Quality Summit, sponsored by
BEEF magazine, Antlers Hilton Hotel, Colorado Springs, CO. Visit
beefconference.com/.
Nov. 13-16 -- Massachusetts Equine Affaire, Eastern States
Exposition Center, West Springfield. Visit www.equineaffaire.com.
Dec. 2-4 -- California Alfalfa & Forage Symposium, Town & Country
Resort and Hotel, San Diego. Learn more at alfalfa.ucdavis.edu/2008AlfalfaConference/.
Dec. 5-6 -- 2008 Missouri Livestock Symposium, Kirksville.
Programs for horse, beef cattle, sheep, meat goat and forage producers,
and trade show. Details at missourilivestock.com, or call
Bruce Lane at 660-665-9866 or Garry Mathes at 660-341-6625.
Feb. 15-16, 2009 -- Southwest Hay And Forage Conference, Ruidoso,
NM. Contact Gina Sterrett at 575-626-5677 or Justin Boswell at
575-840-9908.
June 21-23, 2009 -- American Forage & Grassland Council Annual
Conference, Amway Grand Plaza Hotel, Grand Rapids, MI. Call
800-944-2342 or email info@afgc.org.Calendar.
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Send Questions & Comments
To...
Rick Mooney, Editor,
eHay Weekly,
hfg@hayandforage.com
For information on Hay & Forage Grower, contact:
Neil Tietz, Editor, ntietz@hayandforage.com
or
Fae Holin, Managing Editor, fholin@hayandforage.com
For specific information from past issues of eHay Weekly and
Hay & Forage Grower, click on hayandforage.com, and use the search
function in the upper right-hand corner of the homepage.
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