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Missouri cotton ginnings ahead of 2011 pace

October 25, 2012 By Leave a Comment

According to the Ag Department, Missouri cotton ginnings are ahead of last year’s pace despite harvest being slower than average.

As of October 15, 221,500 480-pound bales have been ginned in Missouri, compared to 128,300 a year ago at this time. U.S. ginnings are 3.013 million bales, compared to 3.467 million on October 15, 2011.

USDA’s most recent estimate for Missouri’s cotton crop is 650,000 running bales, compared to the 2011 total of 741,000. U.S. production is projected at 17.3 million bales, which would be an 11% year to year increase.

Filed Under: Crops, News, USDA/Government Tagged With: , , , ,

Central Texas farmer having a great year

September 5, 2012 By Leave a Comment

After suffering through one of their worst droughts ever in 2011, farmers in central Texas are having one of their best crop years in 2012.

John Perryman farms near Moody, Texas—midway between Dallas and Austin.  He grows wheat, grain sorghum, cotton and a little bit of corn. 

Perryman says his wheat averaged over 60 bushels per acre this year, and he recently harvested what he calls “a record-breaking sorghum crop” that averaged over five-thousand pounds—or about 90 bushels—per acre.

“We usually shoot for 3,500 to 4,000 pound yields on grain sorghum—so we topped that by quite a bit,” he says.

Cotton harvest is about ready to get underway and Perryman says it also looks like an excellent crop.

“We’ve got probably a bale-and-a-half crop right now—maybe two—I’m hoping for a bale-and-a-half,” he says.

“Our insurance guarantees are probably just a little under one bale—but you’re looking at long-term averages. Last year, during the dry weather, we didn’t hardly make a half a bale of cotton—so it’s about three times what we made last year and about twice of a normal crop.”

Perryman says cotton is usually the big “money-maker” on his farm, but he says cotton prices are depressed this year.  He says the local price is around 65 cents a pound compared to a dollar a pound last year.

AUDIO: John Perryman (8:38 MP3)

 

Filed Under: Crops, News Tagged With: , , , ,

Missouri FSA begins drought assessments

June 25, 2012 By Leave a Comment

Missouri Farm Service Agency workers are spreading out over farms and fields throughout the state assessing damages from the heat and drought. Governor Jay Nixon ordered the assessments on Friday.

Brownfield asked Missouri FSA Director Eddie Hamill if the drought in Missouri is at a crisis level. “Nearly,” replied Hamill, “I think we’re pretty close, honestly.”

Hamill tells Brownfield Ag News the weather forecast for the next seven to 14 days of more hot and dry conditions is a real concern for corn, which is at a critical developmental stage.

“The corn, for the most part in the state, was planted so early and should be through pollination by now. The corn is just now trying to pollinate with a lack of topsoil and subsoil moisture,” Hamill says, “Our corn crop in this state, you know, so much of it goes to livestock feed, ethanol production. It, if not the largest, corn is the second largest part of ag production in this state.”

Hamill says the drought is extremely tough on cattle producers for grazing and while hay harvest is on track, he says, the hay crop is not normal.

Hamill says sorghum and cotton are all under heavy stress, less so for soybeans right now but future surveys on soybeans may be needed.

Hamill says they will have the damage assessments turned in to Governor Nixon by July 6th. The governor would then turn those over to the USDA for consideration of a disaster declaration which would open the door for farmers and ranchers to apply for FSA emergency loans and other assistance.

The southeast Missouri region has the most severe drought conditions but the disaster assessments are for all 114 Missouri counties.

AUDIO: Eddie Hamill (9:00 mp3)

Filed Under: Crops, Featured, Livestock, News, Top Stories Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , ,

Drought worsens in Southeast Missouri

June 19, 2012 By Leave a Comment

Southeast Missouri is extremely dry and while farmers in other parts of the state and the Corn Belt are struggling with drought conditions – irrigation is there for many “Bootheel” farmers. Most of the corn and cotton and all of the rice crops in the region are irrigated.

Steve Morrison is director of the Stoddard County Farm Service Agency office.

“That’s a real blessing that we have down here,” Morrison tells Brownfield Ag News, “It makes all the difference in the world as far as getting a crop made. Now, it costs you more when you have to do that but, nonetheless, you still end up with a crop.”

Those extra irrigation costs, he says, will affect the bottom line for growers. Morrison says,  “It isn’t as costly as it has been in some of the recent years when diesel was so high but it just costs more money – the more water you’ve got to pump out there, the more it’s going to cost you whether you’re using electric or diesel to pump.”

For soybean growers, unless they have a good stand, Morrison says, irrigation right now could cause more harm than good.

Stoddard is among six counties in southeast Missouri experiencing severe drought. The others are Cape Girardeau, Scott, Mississippi, New Madrid and Butler Counties.

There’s no significant rain in the weather forecast.

Filed Under: Crops, Featured, News Tagged With: , , , , , , , , ,

Drought getting “rapidly serious” in Missouri

May 23, 2012 By Leave a Comment

The dry conditions in Missouri are a worry for crops and Missouri Farm Bureau President Blake Hurst says it’s a concern of farmers throughout the state.

“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.

AUDIO: Blake Hurst (1:00 mp3)

Filed Under: Crops, News Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

Missouri ADT-5 welcomed home

April 25, 2012 By Leave a Comment

The 56 members of the Missouri National Guard Agribusiness Development Team Five were welcomed home from Afghanistan on Wednesday at the Guard’s Ike Skelton Training Center in Jefferson City.

Sam Forester, executive officer for “ADT Five”, had been to the Nangahar province in 2008 to work with Afghan farmers where he says they were able to build on that work and that of other ADT teams over this past year. “I believe any deployment you can walk away from, knowing that you had a positive impact on the people over there, that was a good deployment,” Forester tells Brownfield Ag News.

While there is still much work to be done, he says, the Afghani farmers greatly appreciate the help they are getting, “Any kind of written material, any kind of verbal classes, any kind of instruction they can get, they thirst for knowledge and they’re very appreciative.”

Forester grew up on a farm in southwest Missouri and graduated from College of the Ozarks in Branson with an animal science degree. He joined the Guard in 2006 and tells Brownfield it was probably the best decision he’s ever made.

While he wants to go back to Afghanistan in the future and continue to work on the ADT team – this Wednesday, was about being back in Missouri, “I’m glad to be home,”  Forester said with a smile.

The projects the ADT Five worked on included construction of an Agriculture High School, irrigation construction and rehabilitation, regenerating and promoting micro-agribusinesses such as cotton, fish, and poultry production, as well as boosting veterinary services and seed oil processing.

AUDIO: Officer Sam Forester (4:00 mp3)

Missouri National Guard – ADT V

Filed Under: Crops, Human Interest, News, World Ag News/Trade Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , ,

Southern commodites urged delay of mark-up

April 25, 2012 By Leave a Comment

While leading Midwest commodity groups support the approach taken in the Senate Ag Committee draft Farm Bill proposal, southern commodity interests remain concerned. Politico Dot Com reports that southern cotton and peanut growers have been promised concessions in the process but rice growers are at a “decided disadvantage” – as rice growers have “relied most heavily” on direct cash subsidies and stand to lose up to $3 Billion from the shift away from direct payments.

Politico points out that under the leadership of former Senate Ag Committee Chair Blanche Lincoln of Arkansas – a rice farmers’ daughter – more help for rice farmers would have been included. Senator Lincoln lost her reelection bid in 2010.

Current Senate Ag Committee Chair Debbie Stabenow rolled out the draft Farm Bill proposal on Friday which included no target price language.

Politico says southern commodity groups were pushing for a delay of Wednesday’s mark-up, the process by which the committee and subcommittees debate, amend and rewrite proposed legislation.

On Tuesday night, Stabenow announced that markup of the bill would be postponed to a later date.  That date, she said, is to be announced shortly.

Filed Under: Crops, News, USDA/Government Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , ,

MO corn planting more than 2 weeks ahead

April 17, 2012 By Leave a Comment

Most of Missouri corn planting is ahead of last year and normal – with 39 percent of corn in the ground, that’s more than two weeks ahead. All but the northwest district is ahead of last year. Eleven-percent of corn has emerged, 13 days ahead of last year and the norm. Soybean planting has begun in all areas of the state except for the central and east-central regions.

In the Bootheel, rice planting is a full 41 days ahead of last year and more than a month ahead of normal. Cotton planted is two weeks ahead of last year and a week ahead of normal.

Also spurred on by the mild winter, more than half the winter wheat crop is headed or beyond. Winter wheat condition is 70 percent good to excellent.

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USDA: China trade mission overall success

April 5, 2012 By Leave a Comment

The USDA hosted its largest trade trip to date – to China in late March – and has deemed it an overall success, although complete access has not been achieved. Michael Scuse, Acting Under Secretary of the Farm and Foreign Agricultural Service, led the mission along with state ag directors of Iowa, South Dakota and several other states – and representatives of nearly 40 companies that supply a variety of US ag products.

“From seafood, wine, equipment, animal feed, forestry products, fruits and vegetables, food ingredients – so, it ran the whole gamut of agricultural products.”

Scuse says the companies were pleased with the deals they were able to reach with the Chinese.

“They were all extremely happy with the business-to-business meetings that we provided in both the city of Chengdu and Shanghai – We understand that the sales so far, and they’re going to continue to add up, but, right now we know that the sales are in the millions of dollars.”

China has a fast growing middle class and overall economy so the demand is only expected to grow. Scuse says China already buys large amounts of U.S. soybeans and cotton along with corn and pork BUT access continues to be denied on some key products.

“A couple of examples would be beef, apples, pears, forestry products from Virginia and North Carolina – that would be the down side where we’re having to continue to negotiate to get these products in.

Sixty-percent of exported U.S. soybeans go to China and China gets one-third of the U.S. cotton crop.

AUDIO: Michael Scuse (4:00 mp3) 

FAS – China Trade Mission 2012

Filed Under: News, Top Stories, USDA/Government, World Ag News/Trade Tagged With: , , , , , ,

Missouri corn grower says it “feels like June”

April 3, 2012 By Leave a Comment

With the warm weather, corn planting is ahead in Missouri. Jim Stuever, Vice Chair of the Missouri Corn Growers Association, farms in  in southeast Missouri, which had 36 percent of its corn planted as of Sunday.

He tells Brownfield Ag News planting in his region is about a week to 10 days ahead of normal.

“It’s dried up and we’ve progressed rapidly in our corn planting progress and we already have some corn coming up,” says Stuever, “Super warm temperatures have really speeded up things. It looks like all the vegetation is coming out in full force so that means the weeds and the grass is comin,’ too.”

He’s not sure they’ve dodged a freeze but he hopes so.

“I happened to notice on the news, our local news, they said the latest freeze was in 1968 on May 17th down here. So, if it comes that late we’re gonna be in trouble,” Stuever tells Brownfield.

And if they don’t get rain, like the weather forecasts have promised, then that’ll put a strain on irrigation and the corn itself. Stuever says with this warm weather pattern it seems like early June to him adding that some of his neighbors already have cotton planted.  Stuever farms in Dexter, Missouri.

AUDIO: Jim Stuever (3:00 mp3)

Filed Under: Crops, News Tagged With: , , , , ,
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