KGNC-AM Ag News

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kgncam — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 10:22:21 +0000

A reminder here on two upcoming hearings related to the proposed USDA office closings: In the Texas Panhandle, where two FSA offices are targeted for closure, hearings have been set for the same day – Tuesday, January 24 – in Stinnett and in Miami. The Stinnett hearing will be at 10 a.m. at the Stinnett Community Center. The Miami hearing will be at 3 p.m. at the Miami High School Auditorium.

Local Agribusiness News

kgncam — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 18:30:53 +0000

The annual High Plains Irrigation Conference and Trade Show is Thursday, Jan. 19. Texas AgriLife irrigation specialist Nicholas Kenny says lessons learned from the challenges of 2011 will highlight the event. Last year’s experience “showed us how important sprinkler efficiency is,” “the importance of different varieties in terms of managing and tolerating heat stress as well as water stress” and “the benefits of later planting dates.” The Conference will be held in the Regency Room of the Amarillo Civic Center from 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. There’s no pre-registration requirement, but there is a $30 dollar fee.

Another upcoming event is the Texas High Plains Grain Elevator Workshop Thursday, Jan. 26 from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. at the Ashmore Inn and Suites in Amarillo. Dr. Ed Bynum, an AgriLife Extension entomologist in Amarillo, said the event is designed for anyone with grain storage facilities including grain elevators, feedyards or farmers. CEU credits are available by attending the event, which has a $40 fee.

For more information on these events contact Texas AgriLife.

Local Agribusiness News

kgncam — Fri, 13 Jan 2012 13:36:29 +0000

The Texas winter wheat crop appears to be bigger than many might have expected, at least when it comes to planting. The Texas Wheat Producers Steelee Fischbacher says new USDA numbers show 5.9 million acres in Texas have been seeded for winter wheat, an 11 percent increase from January 2011. Fischbacher says even though our region was once again in a dry spell at planting time, producers “went ahead and planted wheat hoping to get a crop out of it or maybe just the insurance payments.”

As we learned earlier this week, USDA proposes closing more than 250 of its offices around the country, including 19 in Texas. But there will be public hearings – at least when it comes to the FSA offices on the list. In the Texas Panhandle, where the FSA offices in Stinnett and Miami are targeted for closure, hearings have been set for Tuesday, Jan. 24. The Stinnett hearing will be at 10 a.m. at the Stinnett Community Center. The Miami hearing will be at 3 p.m. at the Miami High School Auditorium.

The Carson County Extension Office is hosting a cotton production meeting on Tuesday, Jan. 17 at the Groom Community Center. Subjects to be covered include insects, variety selection, weed control, herbicides and irrigation management. The event begins with registration at 10 a.m. A lunch will be provided, so an RSVP to the Carson County extension office by Noon Monday would be appreciated. The registration fee is $10.

Local Agribusiness Headlines

kgncam — Fri, 06 Jan 2012 13:54:21 +0000

Is cotton planting going to be smaller this year? Perhaps so, on a national scale. The newly released Thompson Reuters survey pegs the anticipated decline at somewhere between 10 to 12 percent less cotton. But within the KGNC listening area, especially that part of the Texas Panhandle north of I-40, we’re expecting maybe even as much as a doubling in acres planted to cotton. Bucking the national trend could benefit producers, according to Mary Jane Buerkle of Plains Cotton Growers. “Hopefully we can maintain some decent prices next year for producers,” Buerkle said. She noted that the decline in prices since their lofty $2-plus heights of early 2011 is one reason that national cotton acres are expected to fall this year. However, current prices, which are in the vicinity of 95 cents per pound, “are still a lot better than they have been in the past. So I think, definitely, the more West Texas cotton we can get out there, the better it will be for our producers.”

The annual High Plains Irrigation Conference and Trade Show is coming up later this month. Texas AgriLife irrigation specialist Nicholas Kenny says lessons learned from the challenges of 2011 will be discussed. He said our region’s drought experience “has shown us how important sprinkler efficiency is, how important different things within fields in terms of uniformity are, the importance of different varieties in terms of managing and tolerating heat stress as well as water stress, and some of that interaction. It’s also given us some insight as to benefits of later planting dates. All of those will be highlighted in our conference.” The conference will be held in the Regency Room of the Amarillo Civic Centeron Jan. 19 from 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. There is no pre-registration requirement, but there is a $30 fee.

Local Agribusiness News

kgncam — Wed, 04 Jan 2012 18:20:46 +0000

With all the difficulty in providing cattle with enough to eat during our drought, it is good news to hear of successes in the development of drought-tolerant alfalfa at New Mexico State University. NMSU has been involved in the research for more than 30 years and has released different seed varieties over the years, with a new one set to become commercially available in the fall of 2013. NMSU researcher Ian Ray told KGNC that research indicates it’s possible to produce seeds with yield advantages of 9-15% under drought conditions, but one drawback is that the process tends to remove leaves from the plant “because the leaves are what lose the water.” Ray said that means “some of our more drought-resilient material may have little bit lower forage quality.” However, Ray said recent studies indicate that DNA markers can be manipulated in such a way that alfalfa can be produced that will offer both drought tolerance and high forage quality.

Hereford dairyman and KGNC contributor Mike Schouten said – beginning with the New Year –U.S.dairymen are now under a new requirement when it comes to measuring white blood cells in dairy products. The so-called 400,000 somatic cell count standard is not actually a requirement of the U.S. but must be met in order to sell product to the European Union. Previously producers could satisfy the requirements by certifying that a “combination of milk going into the silos” was in compliance, Schouten said. “Now, however, each individual farm has to meet that requirement.” While the requirement is now in effect, dairy producers actually have until May 1 to comply and in some cases exemptions will be allowed.

Local Agribusiness News

kgncam — Tue, 03 Jan 2012 18:29:35 +0000

We know that Texas agriculture was hit very hard last year by drought, unusually hot temperatures, abnormally strong winds and wildfires. Losses will be in the billions of dollars for the year. But Texas AgriLife Extension economist Dr. Steve Amosson said a really big loss was lost opportunity for producers. “We had record corn prices at $7. We had cotton hit $2. Fed beef was over $120 on a fairly consistent basis,” Amosson said, lamenting that despite those strong prices many producers had “nothing to sell.” Hopefully producers will have something to sell this year as Dr. Amosson predicts commodity prices will be strong again.

Many cattlemen begin 2012 with a challenge. Having culled herds steeply in 2011, the purchase of new cattle will be tough. Dr. Ted McCollum, AgriLife Extension beef cattle specialist, said right now cattle numbers in the United States are the lowest they’ve been since the 1950s. That means cattlemen may find that they are “liquidating (cattle) at a price today and maybe have to pay twice to three times as much to buy those cattle back in the future.”

Amosson and McCollum were interviewed for a special edition of KGNC-AM’s “James Hunt Show,” which was sponsored by Great Plains Ag Credit.

Local Agribusiness News

kgncam — Fri, 30 Dec 2011 17:14:36 +0000

The Super Committee effort to trim federal spending ultimately failed to meet its goals. But along the way, agriculture policy leaders in Congress did get a lot of work done that many observers believe laid a good foundation for work on the next Farm Bill. Tom Sell of Combest, Sell and Associates said the congressional ag leaders’ plan called for moving away from direct payments but – while still trimming overall ag spending – making countercyclicals stronger. For example, Sell said the plan would have boosted the target price for corn, which is currently $2.63 per bushel and “well below the cost of production these days.” Sell said the ag policy leaders’ plan would have elevated the target price to closer to $4, “so that if that market goes way south, the assistance would trigger more quickly.”

Coming off a drought year, you can imagine some area farmers might be looking for a crop that can get by with less moisture. And Dr. Brent Bean, Texas AgriLife agronomist, said he does expect a surge in cotton planting in the Texas Panhandle. In 2011, there were approximately 180,000 Panhandle acres north of I-40 where cotton was planted. “I could easily see that number doubling next year just because cotton does not require as much water,” said Bean.

Local Agribusiness News

kgncam — Fri, 23 Dec 2011 18:33:35 +0000

Things are going better for the area winter wheat crop than might have been expected a couple months ago. Steelee Fischbacher with Texas Wheat Producers says the snow earlier this week provided the latest contribution to what amounts to about three to four inches of precipitation in the past 60 days or so. That has helped the condition of the topsoil throughout the Texas Panhandle, but more moisture is needed farther underground. “Our subsoil moisture, that moisture that’s deep down in the soil, that the crop is going to use later on, is still very short,” Fischbacher said. “We’re still going to need more rain, and more snow throughout the winter. But hopefully, this that we have seen can get us through to spring.” Fischbacher added the crop will certainly need rains in March and April.

Gone are the heady days from earlier in the year when cotton prices jumped above $2 a pound. But, Plains Cotton Growers Executive Vice President Steve Verrett said even the current level of about 86-87 cents a pounds still looks pretty good from a historic perspective. “When you look at the last 10 years, we’ve had futures prices as low as 40 cents a pound.” Within the past five years, Verrett said cotton futures prices have typically been in the range of 55 cents to close to 70 cents per pound. “So we are above where these crop prices have been the last five years with the exception of 2010.” Verrett said a big reason prices came down from those early-2011 highs is reduced demand due to the struggling global economy.

Local Agribusiness Headlines

kgncam — Fri, 26 Aug 2011 16:30:23 +0000

Former U.S. House Agriculture Chairman Larry Combest, who continues to represent agricultural interests on Capitol Hill, hopes lawmakers looking to cut federal spending do not make disproportionate cuts in ag program spending. Combest believes his former colleagues in Congress should ask: “How much has agriculture contributed to the deficit, and how much has agriculture actually been below the level of spending that was anticipated? Over the past several years, it’s the only government program that I’m aware of that has spent less money than was anticipated.” Combest said federal spending that goes to support production agriculture amounts to less than one-quarter of one percent of the total federal budget.

Meanwhile, Wildorado farmer David Cleavinger said the American people are getting a good deal. “The reason why the economy in the United States has flourished is because for years we have had a cheap food policy.” Cleavinger said that federal farm policies enable Americans to spend less than ten percent of their income on food, “so they can go buy flat screen TVs, they can go buy cell phones, they can buy new cars.” In some countries, Cleavinger said, people spend up to fifty percent of their incomes on food.

Combest and Cleavinger were guests on a special edition of the James Hunt Show sponsored by Great Plains Ag Credit.

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Make no mistake: The local cotton crop has been hurt by the drought this year. But Texas AgriLife agronomist Dr. Brent Bean says – with a boost from our exceptionally hot summer – a lot of the irrigated cotton in the northern Texas Panhandle looks pretty good. So good in fact that it might spawn even more enthusiasm for cotton in the future at the expense of corn acres. “It’s a little surprising to me that when you drive around the areas of Stratford, Spearman, Morse or Sunray, how much cotton was actually planted this year.” Bean believes the amount of acres devoted to cotton north of I-40 this year has doubled or tripled over historic levels.

Local Agribusiness News

kgncam — Mon, 22 Aug 2011 20:45:00 +0000

Cotton yields in Texas will be way down this year, which is bad not only for farmers but also for others who enter the production process on down the line. One example is cotton gins. Tony Williams of the Texas Cotton Ginners Association told KGNC that some gins “are certainly going to have some small runs, and some of them probably won’t even open their doors to begin with.” He noted that some gins with multiple locations are consolidating their operations down to one site this year. Williams said most ginners manage their finances well enough to hopefully sustain this year’s downturn. But, if we get back to back years of drought – as some anticipate – we could lose 10 percent to 20 percent of the cotton gins in the state.