“That’s protected outside of state government for us to dedicate those funds for new nutrient efficiency and water quality programs — and really try to focus a lot on on-farm research where we can manage nutrients better to reduce nitrogen and phosphorous losses through tile drainage and runoff,” says Jean Payne, president of the IFCA.

She tells Brownfield the ag industry wanted to step up to the plate – so - a specified tonnage amount of fertilizer sold in Illinois will go to the protected fund established with the support of ag and environmental groups.

“It’s amazing how quickly it can change from having plenty of moisture or maybe having too much to being dry. It’s very widespread in the state of Missouri. Southern Missouri is tremendously dry.”

The state has seen very little rain in the past few weeks and has had higher than normal temperatures for much of that time. Hurst says he just talked with former Missouri Farm Bureau President Charlie Kruse – who farms in Dexter, in southeast Missouri.

“He said the cotton growers down in the Bootheel are trying to water enough to get their cotton up and a lot of them have quit planting. This drought is rapidly becoming very serious.”

Hurst says the dryness is becoming a problem in northwest Missouri where he farms.

“Most everybody is getting near the end of bean planting but I talked to a couple of farmers that had pulled the planters out of the field waiting for rain. And, of course, everybody is concerned about getting the late planted – the last planted beans out, so, it is a worry.”

Missouri’s state climatologist says the state is on track to have the warmest spring on record.

Iowa State University entomologist Erin Hodgson says this year’s hatch is only slightly ahead of normal, but about two weeks ahead of the 2011 growing season.

Hodgson says conditions are right for good larval establishment this year.

“Those that were able to survive—and we had a very mild winter, so most likely the eggs did survive—they probably are hatching just fine,” Hodgson says, “and if they happen to emerge when corn is already planted and germinated, they have plenty of root tissue to feed on.”

Hodgson says the early egg hatch could also mean earlier adult corn rootworm emergence—which has the potential to cause some pollination problems.

“If their emergence is synched with silking, you could have some of that interference with pollination because they are really attracted to those corn silks,” she says, “and so we should be watching for the adults this year—paying a little closer attention to that this year than we normally would.”

Hodgson says the southwest region of Iowa is experiencing 50 percent egg hatch now.  She says other parts of the state will approach that 50 percent mark within seven to 14 days, depending on the temperature.

AUDIO: Erin Hodgson (5:00 MP3)

Link to more information on ISU website

“Basically the June Area Survey, we select land areas and we’re picking up what they actually have planted in the field and what they intend to harvest and we’re picking up grain storage also,” said Turner. “The June Agricultural Survey is our quarterly crop survey that we do, we do them in March, June, September and December and again we’re picking up plantings, grain storage and capacity.”

For the agricultural survey, Turner says they’ll be collecting data electronically, by phone, or by mail from around 1500 farmers in Ohio, data for the area survey will include randomly selected tracts of land then interviews with operators on that land.

Audio: Cheryl Turner, Deputy Director, Ohio NASS (2:40 mp3)

But Vilsack says changing report release times is not as simple as it sounds.

“A decision as to timing and information being accessible can potentially make the difference of millions of dollars, one way or the other, to those who are trading,” Vilsack says, “and now we have essentially two competing entities that have different hours that don’t necessarily align.”

Those competing entities are the CME Group and the Intercontinental Exchange (ICE), which recently expanded its trading in grain futures. 

The Kansas City Board of Trade and MGEX, formerly the Minneapolis Grain Exchange, have followed suit and expanded their trading hours as well.

The challenge, Vilsack says, is to continue providing the information in a transparent and equitable way, “to do it in a very timely way, but not to distort the market or provide an undue advantage to someone or some entity as a result.”

USDA’s monthly crop reports are released at 7:30 a.m. Central time, when grain trading has traditionally been halted.

Vilsack made his comments during a conference call with reporters on Tuesday.

AUDIO: Tom Vilsack (1:48 MP3)