Author: Brian

T-L Irrigation Co. has introduced a gooseneck cradle corner system attachment option and a simplified auto-reverse system to add stability and durability to two pivot locations.

The gooseneck corner cradle option drops the corner connection point by 24 inches. This lowers the corner span’s center of gravity, allowing for greater stability on steep terrain and in areas with high winds or frequent severe storm activity, according to the company.

The simplified auto-reverse system incorporates over-centered actuation arms to change the position of the reversing valve. The over-center feature assures snap action and full engagement of the reversing valve. The arms have also been moved farther up the tower to prevent damage.

Visit www.tlirr.com. 

Sakata Seed America is continuing its infrastructure expansion with the purchase of 35 acres of land in Culiacan, Mexico. Sakata Seed has been leasing the land and facilities for the past three years. Significant growth in the region led to the decision to secure a permanent location in Culiacan, home to many global seed breeding companies.

According to Sakata, this acquisition of land and newly expanded infrastructure will improve the company’s breeding, sales, marketing and production efforts in the growing Mexico market. The site will be called the Culiacan Innovation Center and will serve as a central research and development (R&D) hub for Sakata in Mexico and Central America and allow for further collaboration with the company’s four other R&D stations in North America.

Sakata Seed America has appointed Eduardo Flores as the company’s new chief operations officer (COO). Flores will handle Sakata’s logistics, operations and seed production activity in North America and Central America.

Flores brings experience leading supply chain operations for vegetables seeds, having served as regional operations director for Monsanto’s North American vegetables business. Most recently, he led global strategy for Dummen Orange, a Netherlands-based ornamentals company. Flores has an MBA from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and is fluent in Spanish and English

by Dan Manternach, Senior Ag Economist, CommStock Investments, Inc.

Ag Secretary Vilsack has called for the USDA to conduct an investigation into skyrocketing costs for farm inputs, such as fertilizer and crop protection products. It begins with a 60-day comment period seeking input from stakeholders. Vilsack summed up the situation well by stating “As I talk with farmers and other stakeholders, I keep hearing significant concerns about whether large companies along the supply chain are taking advantage of the situation by increasing profits and not just passing along higher costs.”

He’s not blowing smoke about the scope of the problem. Purdue University polls farmers across the country monthly on a variety of key issues costing them money and sleep at night. They display results in a series they call their Ag Economy Barometer. February survey results for one of the questions asked are telling: “Which crop inputs have you had difficulty purchasing from suppliers?”

Notice that important herbicides top the list, rising even further in February, to 37% of respondents. Next was fertilizer at 25%, then farm machinery parts, and then insecticides at 15%, down just a bit from December and January readings. However, Jeff Stow, President of the online input marketplace FarmTrade.com warns the insecticide woes could still be ahead. Why? “Because a lot of farmers only buy their insecticides and fungicides as needed.”

Supply crisis “explanations” sound more like “excuses” to Stow, who addressed them one by one in an interview where I asked for his take on them as one among the “stakeholders” Vilsack referenced in announcing USDA’s investigation plans.

* Explanation 1: Ag chem companies focused on clearing inventory in years leading up to 2020, blaming stagnant crop prices and high costs of storing inventory. Stow told me “Here at FarmTrade, we took steps to ensure that all our vendors understood that any product they sold on our platform had to be a product they had on hand. Once the farmer buys, we move quickly to get the order on the road to him.”

* Explanation 2: Tariffs rose for imported crop input products, especially post-patent chemicals. Stow told me “While true some imported products have tariffs, prices didn’t rise substantially until the summer of 2021. While the tarrifs play a role in the price increases, I don’t believe they are the driving force.”

* Explanation 3: Freight costs and truck driver shortages created huge problems for farmer customers of companies relying on “just in time” delivery schedules. Stow’s take? “Nobody can argue that’s an issue for low value cargo shipped a long way. But relative to the high value of herbicides and other input products you can pack on a truck, the extra freight cost is minor compared to the price spikes we’ve seen blamed on them. The worst freight cost hikes have been for ocean-shipping and here at FarmTrade, we are not involved in the shipping process prior to the inputs arriving in the United States.”

Most analysts see input price increases to continue through 2022

A common reason cited is the simple fact that grain prices have risen so sharply on weather problems in South America, sanctions on Russian exports and the disruption to grain exports and even ’22 production prospects for Ukraine. Both of those countries are major exporters of corn, wheat and sunflower oil. In my own long experience as an ag economist, it’s not “sour grapes” or “cynicism” that sees costs often less an issue than “the farmer’s ability to pay” that’s factored into rising prices for everything they buy.

That’s been proven during times of stable energy and inflation where input prices and even farm equipment hikes exceeded cost inflation. Yet, the only thing that really explained it was higher farm income and “ability to pay.” Stow says farmers are keenly aware of that and doesn’t argue the point. “In fact,” he says, “that’s one of the things that gives a multiverse of vendors a competitive advantage over retailers captive to the price hikes passed down to them by manufacturers.”

Retailers and distributors captive to price hikes “passed down from above” are even contacting Stow for products they can buy on the FarmTrade site at little more than their own wholesale cost and be assured of delivery besides. He’s also had farmers ask why they can buy from their local retailer at or below the offers on his site and he immediately asks them to ascertain if their retailer actually has the product on hand or will guarantee timely delivery. I asked what happens when they do. Stow said, “Nine times out of ten they call back and say the answer was no, and stay with us.”

Even prepayment doesn’t guarantee delivery. I’ve found farmers complaining that not only are they not getting the usual discounts for pre-payment, there are often expanded “force majeure” clauses that go beyond specific reasons often referenced as “Act of God” clauses to vaguely-worded reasons like “unforeseen extraordinary circumstances.”  I asked Stow how they handle that. Answer: “That’s why we insist inventory sold be inventory on hand. Further, not only is that a rule from FarmTrade, it’s sort of a moral code among our sellers as well. It is not an iron fist that runs our business. It’s our sellers’ a deal-is-a-deal attitude.  We are rarely forced to remove a seller, because the ones on our platform are trustworthy and honorable.”

Are farmers themselves “hoarding” unneeded inputs for resale? I’ve read ag chem companies in short supply actually contacting farmers to offer re-purchase and asked Stow about that. “We did see some farms selling back chemicals, like glyphosate as they doubled in price, only to see them continue to rise. But even though all sellers on FarmTrade must have a chemical dealer’s license, we refer farmers with unneeded inventory to retailers we know are looking, but see very little of this going on now.”

Experts say the “Digital Age” offers some hope. I’ve read some mentioning how labor shortages, for example, are changing how agricultural companies operate, including input suppliers. They cite efficiencies in online order entry, order tracking and warehouse management systems. Stow couldn’t agree more. His platform pioneered online purchasing of farm inputs a la today’s “Amazon” model in 1999 when Amazon itself was just 5 years in business and just moving from book selling to book publishing.

Farmers pooling orders can win volume discounts. Another big competitive advantage of their business model, according to Stow, is their ability to “bundle” shipments among many different retailers on their platform. Manufacturers won’t “break a pallet” for a buyer, but retailers with offerings on their platform will. He’s finding yet another way to save farmers money is to facilitate “pooling” of their orders to win volume discounts normally limited to only the largest operations.

CLOSING COUNSEL? Waiting for lower prices has a poor reward:risk ratio. Interviewed by DTN’s Emily Unglesbee, Rabobank Executive Director of Research Sam Taylor, told her “Almost all the flex in the supply chain is now gone … everything that might not have had an impact on the supply chain in the past is now going to because of the length of delays that have built up … farmers have to be cognizant of scarcity.”

Stow totally agrees. “The days of controlling inventory expenses with ‘just in time’ delivery are over for the foreseeable future. Now having inventory on hand is an asset, not a liability. That’s why we insist on it among our vendors. Waiting until the last minute in hopes of lower prices is rolling the dice and, in this environment, the dice are loaded against you.”

By Jon Hamill, Technical Lead, Syngenta

Carrots benefit in most years from being under low pressure from disease and insects at planting. Low pressure, however, does not mean no pressure, and we need to protect our crop as though we expect pests early. When a crop is unprotected at planting, replanting is frequently the only remedy to early-season disease infection or insect infestation. Replanting costs money, time, and potential yield and quality. The surest way to avoid replanting is to plan to protect your seed and seedling at plant.

Start by properly preparing the field and till under weeds, green matter and crop residue. If you are applying manure to the field, make sure it is well in advance of planting so that any solids can sufficiently compost. Skipping these practices can attract adult seedcorn maggot flies to your fields. 

For the 2022 growing season, seedcorn maggot and carrot maggot will again be a major concern in the field. Growers also should keep an eye out for insects such as carrot rust fly, leafhoppers and flea beetles, as well as diseases including Rhizoctonia, Fusarium and Pythium. Seed treatments, soil-applied insecticides and in-furrow fungicides can each play an important role in your early-season protection strategy.

Here are my top field history-based recommendations for the highly efficacious seed treatment products for carrot crops. 

• FarMore F300 seed treatment – If you are focused on disease and saw few issues with insects last season, then I recommend FarMore F300. The combination of three fungicides protects against a broad spectrum of seed and seedling diseases to maximize your plant stand. It can also be combined with an in-furrow treatment of Ridomil Gold SL fungicide for cavity spot and Pythium protection. 
• FarMore FI400 seed treatment – If you are seeing pests such as seedcorn maggot, carrot rust fly, leafhoppers and leaf beetles in your carrots, then I recommend FarMore FI400. This product provides a broad spectrum of early-season protection against disease and insects. The complementary fungicide active ingredients found in Dynasty, Maxim 4FS and Apron XL are matched with Cruiser 70 WS insecticide, a base insecticide in all Syngenta seed-applied brands. FarMore FI400 puts the power of a neonicotinoid in the lead-off position for your crop. This technology is optimized for seed care with high water solubility, fast plant uptake and excellent protection against soil pests.

Don’t wait to hop on your carrot crop protection strategy for the upcoming season. Work with your local extension agents, retailers and agronomic advisers to plan now for potential threats to your yield and quality.

A carrot cutter can speed up production and keep users competitive.

CMI Equipment and Engineering makes carrot cutters to accommodate the needs of most food processing plants. On the single unit, the cover operates the actuator valve. The four- and two-headed units are operated by a two-hand tie-down palm button valve for safety. Units can also be used to cut other vegetables including cutting potatoes into French fries.

Visit www.cmiequip-eng.com.

Sakata Seed America has hired John Lindbo as the company’s senior biotechnology manager. Lindbo will lead efforts in marker-assisted selection, marker discovery and a new tissue culture lab for developing di-haploid lines in multiple crops.

Lindbo has a doctorate degree in microbiology from Oregon State University and a post-doc from the University of California-Davis. His career in plants and biotechnology has included teaching, researching, managing a molecular marker program and labs, and developing tools, techniques and traits for use in plant breeding.

By Jaspreet Sidhu, Vegetable Crops Advisor, University of California Cooperative Extension

Recent research hints at the potential of some non-fumigant nematicides to control root-knot nematodes in carrots. This could benefit carrot production in growing regions including California.

As the leading producer of carrots in the United States, California produces about 80 percent of the total U.S. production. Carrots are grown year-round in diverse growing areas in California. The southern San Joaquin Valley has the most concentrated area under carrot production, with Kern County producing almost 60 percent of the state’s carrots. The nation’s two largest carrot growers and shippers are also located in Kern County. However, the pride of being the “carrot capital” of the nation also comes with several challenges for carrot cultivation; one such challenge is the damage caused by root-knot nematodes.

Challenges

Root-knot nematodes , Meloidogyne spp., are the most important plant-parasitic nematodes affecting carrot production in California, especially in light texture soils. The nematodes are widespread in Central and Southern California.

Damage results from feeding of second-stage juveniles inside carrot roots, and the roots respond to nematode invasion by the formation of root galls. The root-knot nematodes can cause substantial damage by stubbing, forking and galling of the roots, thereby reducing marketable yields. Deformed roots due to galls are unable to sustain the water and nutrient needs of the plants, leading to wilting and poor growth of plants. Forked roots also pick up excess soil that increases the tare transported to the processing facilities and increases processing costs for additional cleaning efforts.

Currently, there are no resistant cultivars available for the California carrot industry, and management has mainly relied on the use of pre-plant soil fumigants. Management with these products is expensive and involves safety and environmental risks.

New fumigant regulations by the Department of Pesticide Regulations (DPR) have been put in place to restrict the emissions of volatile organic compounds (VOC) from the use of soil fumigants. These regulations include limits on the amount of soil fumigants a grower is allowed to use in a year, caps on the amounts allowed within a township, and newly expanded buffer zones, meaning large parts of a field may not be treated at all. These new regulations by DPR may mean that there will be some fields not treated for nematodes because of limits placed on the amount of fumigants a grower is allowed to use or caps on the amount allowed in a township.

Rotation with non-host crops can be a viable option, but its utility is often limited due to the wide host range and reproduction potential of the root-knot nematodes.

Therefore, alternative control options that have high efficacy, are economically viable and are environmentally safe need to be evaluated under field situations. So far, there are no non-fumigant nematicides registered in California for use on carrots.

Trial

A nematicide screening trial was conducted in 2021 at the University of California Cooperative Extension (UCCE) Research Farm in Shafter, California. The objective of the trial was to evaluate potential non-fumigant, novel nematicides for managing root-knot nematodes in carrots.

The trial was conducted as a randomized block design with four replications and seven treatments. Rates, timings and methods of application for each treatment are listed in Table 1. Each plot was 20 feet in length with a 5-foot buffer between plots along the bed (30 inches wide). Carrot seeds cv. Maverick were seeded (three lines per bed) on June 23. Treatments were applied as soil drench using watering cans, and immediately following the treatments, plots were sprinkler irrigated to wash the products down. The trial was managed following grower standard agronomic practices. Average daily high and low temperatures for the entire trial period from June 23 to Oct. 20 are plotted (Fig. 1).

Carrot roots were evaluated for galling at mid-season and at harvest. About 100 carrots from each plot were randomly sampled and were visually rated for the severity of root galling on a scale of 0-10 (0=no galls, 10=completely galled roots), as shown in Fig. 2. The average galling on these roots was used to give a galling index for each plot. Data on root galling was analyzed using statistical analysis software.

Results

The severity of root galling was assessed at mid-season (Sept. 2, 2021) and harvest (Oct. 20, 2021). At mid-season evaluations, the damage was quite mild, and root galling ranged between 0.5 in the Nimitz treatment and 1.75 in the organic treatment Promax and the developmental product DP1(Fig. 3). At harvest, there was a moderate increment in root galling across all treatments, and the treatments Nimitz, Velum+Watermaxx, Velum at planting and DP1 had significantly lower root galling compared to the untreated control. The treatments Promax and Velum post-plant were also numerically lower than the untreated control.

Conclusion

In our 2021 trial, there was some treatment effect on root galling throughout the season, with Nimitz, DP and the Velum treatments having lower root galling indexes compared to the untreated control and other products. The results indicated that Nimitz and Velum at planting had a long-lasting effect on root-knot nematode damage on the plants. The research trial demonstrates that the application of some of these products under experimental conditions in carrots provided acceptable control of root-knot nematodes compared to the untreated control.

Some of these products have the potential to be considered as an alternative, viable and safe option, but further evaluation and optimization are needed to better determine the efficacy of these products as sole treatments and in combination with other products and their continued use by the carrot industry.

Sakata Seed America has sold its carrot breeding program to longstanding corporate partner Illinois Foundation Seeds Inc. (IFSI). IFSI is a research, product development, licensing and production company that has partnered with Sakata Seed Corporation on past crop breeding and production programs.

IFSI has purchased Sakata’s carrot genetics and is integrating the Sakata carrot program into day-to-day operations, including fulfillment of existing and future orders for domestic and international business. Sakata will work in partnership with IFSI for sales, research, logistics and production.

“We started working with Talc USA about a year ago and are excited to formally expand our relationship,” says Mitch Eviston, Meristem Founder and CEO. “Talc USA has more than 10 years of research showing how their superior seed lubricants not only improve seed placement and crop stand but are a very effective and convenient way to carry beneficial technologies directly to the furrow.”

Eviston says the initial collaboration has produced Hopper Throttle an enhanced planter box treatment for both corn and soybeans. The system combines 80/20 talc graphite, micronutrients, and biologicals packaged to make the farmer’s life easier, provide yield increases of 4 to 8 bu./A and reduce overall fertility costs. Since 40 percent of farmers do not use a liquid in-furrow system on their planters, Eviston says collaborating with Talc USA is critical to ensure that farmers can tap into new beneficial technology in a way that fits how they farm.

With record-high fertilizer costs looming over the 2022 planting crop season, Eviston says there’s never been a more urgent time for new products that help farmers make the most of every dollar they spend on fertilizer. That’s why a specific area of product development will focus on microbes added to seed fluency products that help plants fix nitrogen and release phosphorus, potassium and micronutrients.

To learn more about Meristem’s Hopper Throttle and Revline Hopper Throttle formulations for corn and soybeans, and locate a dealer near you, visit www.MeristemAg.com.