Maryland Soybean Board to fund research projects

Researchers seeking funding from the Maryland Soybean Board for 2015-2016 are required to submit pre-proposals by Oct. 15. The pre-proposal provides a concise summary statement of the proposed project prior to the preparation of a full, detailed grant application.
Travis Hutchison, a Talbot County producer and chairman-elect of the MSB Research Committee, commented: "We accomplish two things with this procedure. First, we get the opportunity to quickly review what researchers have in mind for the coming year.
“Perhaps more importantly,” he added, “we hope to spark an increase in grant applications. It's our thought that researchers might want to test the water with some new ideas — in production research or crop utilization or genetic development, for example — without having to go through the long and time-consuming process of filing a full-blown grant proposal."
Pre-proposals must be submitted on a form that may be downloaded from the Maryland Soybean Board website at www.mdsoy.com. The form must be returned to the board by Oct. 15. Additional pages may not be attached. Researchers are required to keep their summary statements to "two to three sentences."
Letters requesting researchers to submit full proposals will be mailed during the first week of November.
By federal law, under which the soybean checkoff program was authorized and mandated in 1990, checkoff revenues may be spent only in the areas of market development, research, education and commodity promotion. However, noted Hutchison, there's a lot of leeway, a lot of room for movement, in those areas.
"We don't want researchers to feel confined," Hutchison said. "We want to encourage new ideas. We are always interested in hearing about possibly better or novel ways to grow, manage, use or market our crop. We hope that the use of pre-proposals will continue to encourage these ideas to surface."

Bats create benefits worth $1 billion for farmers

A recent report in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences says bats save corn farmers more than $1 billion by eating moths that cause damage to crops.
The research used nets to fully enclose 20-by-20 meter sections of large corn fields in southern Illinois. The nets exclude foraging bats, as the research focused on damage caused by corn earworms, the larvae of a species of moth that is preyed upon by bats such as the eastern red bat.
The study found that corn grown where bats could not feed on the moths had 56 percent more larvae-damaged kernels. The bats increased crop yield by 1.4 percent which, based on current corn prices, adds up to a difference of $3.18 per acre and more than $1 billion worldwide.
“Bats face a variety of threats globally, but their relevance as predators of insects in ubiquitous corn-dominated landscapes underlines the economic and ecological importance of conserving biodiversity,” the report says.
The researchers’ findings also suggest the bats help protect the crops against fumonisin, a fungi-produced toxin that causes health hazards to livestock and decreases crop value.
Fumonisins interfere with the sphingolipid metabolism leading to cell membrane damage that can affect the liver, kidney, brain and also the nervous system. The highest sensitivity to fumonisins is observed in pigs.

Agrifirm, ForFarmers to combine purchase, knowledge of products

Agrifirm Plant and ForFarmers have entered into an agreement that will combine the companies‘ purchase and knowlege of artificial fertilizers, corp protection products and sowing seeds. The companies say the agreement will provide them with better opportunities in a supplier’s market that involves very large international players.
The agreement, which was signed on December 17, pertains to the purchase of fertilizers, effective July 1, 2015, and sowing seeds (grass, corn, cereals and green manure crops) and crop protection products effective January 1, 2016.
For ForFarmers, this move fits into its strategy of selecting a number of strategic partners for its total feed business concept. For Agrifirm, it is a key component in its strategy of growing its core activities. The purchase and delivery of products to the plant sector is one of the four strategic pillars, aside from animal feeds, co-products and specialties.
The partnership is exclusively limited to purchasing and the exchange of knowledge. Agrifirm and ForFarmers will continue to completely independently operate and compete in the market. This will not change in relation to the current situation. ForFarmers, as well as Agrifirm, will continue to carry individual products.

Agronomist conference to be held in December

The Home Grown Cereals Authority Agronomists' Conference will be held Tuesday, December 10 at the Peterborough Area, East of England Showground. The full-day technical conference will focus on the latest developments from the Home Grown Cereals Authority's research program and aims to help agronomists stay ahead of the game and make the best decisions on behalf of their grower clients.
For more information and to book your place at the conference, email Leo Townsend at leo.townsend@hgca.ahdb.org.uk.

Crop protection focus of UK conference

The Crop Research Conference will be held Wednesday, September 25, at the Queen Elizabeth II Conference Center in London, England. The conference is hosted by Britain's Agriculture and Horticulture Development Board.
With the theme "Knowing Your Enemy -- The Future of Crop Protection," scientists and industry experts will discuss how a better scientific understanding of pests, weeds and disease can lead to practical crop protection tools for growers. Future research priorities will also be discussed, in response to the recent publication of the British government's AgriTech Strategy.
The full agenda is available at the Agriculture and Horticulture Development Board website.

Japanese scientists map barley genome

A Japanese team, led by Kazuhiro Sato of Okayama University, participated in the International Barley Sequencing Consortium to produce a high-resolution assembly of the majority of barley's 26,000 genes.
By developing and applying a series of strategies that allowed them to circumvent the difficulties of mapping the complex barley genome, which is nearly twice the size of the human genome, the consortium described the location of dynamic regions of the genome that carry genes conferring resistance to diseases. This achievement also highlighted the detail in the differences (15 million positions) between a range of different barley cultivars. The resulting report provides a detailed overview of the functional portions of the barley genome, revealing the order and structure of its genes.
Access to the assembled catalogue of gene sequences will streamline efforts to improve barley production, according to the scientists, by breeding varieties that are better able to withstand disease and deal with adverse environmental conditions such as drought and heat stress.

USDA to start releasing reports at noon

When the U.S. Department of Agriculture releases its crop reports on January 11, it will be the first time they are released at noon, Eastern Time. The previous release time was at 8:30 a.m., also Eastern Time.
USDA outlook chairman Gerry Bange said with 24-hour trading, the noon time is a better fit. "Apparently, that is a time that has fairly good so-called liquidity in the market, where a lot of people are active in trading and so forth, and it seems to be roughly within a preferred range of time that the industry would like to see," said Bange.
Bange said that the change as a "very, very new event for us," and that for the past 18 years, staff members have been coming in around midnight and working the night shift to prepare the reports. He said the work day will now begin around 3 or 3:30 a.m.
"The 12:00 release time is something we've been looking forward to for some time, and I think it's going to make the folks around here somewhat happier, as we look forward to the future," said Bange. "Obviously, we want our reports to serve the needs of the public."

Arkansas researcher seeks to develop high-yielding soybeans

Ryan Van Roekel, a doctoral student at the University of Arkansas, is working to develop soybean yields that can average more than 80 pounds per bushel.
Van Roekel used test plots in eastern Arkansas and Fayetteville to try out his yield-enhancing methods. His research was funded by the Arkansas Soybean Promotion Board.
Soybean producer Kip Cullers of southwest Missouri, who has won his state's Soybean Association Yield contest several times since 2006, has produced contest yields of more than 100 bushels per acre. Van Roekel and his Ph.D. adviser, Professor Larry Purcell, have been cooperating with Cullers on the project.
The researchers have taken physiological measurements from Cullers' farm in an attempt to understand the inner workings of Cullers' top-yielding crop.
Van Roekel said early planting may be the most important consideration in increasing yields. The plant's primary resource is carbohydrates from photosynthesis, which peaks in late June. Growers need to match maturity with planting dates and also choose a variety with the best package of traits to suit the growing environment, he said. Producers will have to cope with the variables of diseases, pests and weeks.
Van Roekel said 100 bushels per acre can be attained in Arkansas, but the costs could be so high that growers may not be able to make a profit or sustain the necessary conditions.