Agriculture

Confinement site manure applicators and anyone interested in learning about manure issues should plan to attend a two-hour workshop offered by Iowa State University (ISU) Extension and Outreach in January or February 2019. These workshops are offered in cooperation with the Iowa Department of Natural Resources. There is no fee to attend the workshops, but applicators will need to pay certification fees to complete certification requirements.

“Iowa law requires confinement site manure applicators to attend two hours of continuing education each year of their three-year certification period or take and pass an exam once every three years,” said Dan Andersen, associate professor, ISU Ag and Biosystems Engineering and coordinator of the manure applicator certification program.

Commercial manure applicators can attend annual training to meet commercial manure applicator certification requirements on Thursday, January 3, 2019, from 9 a.m. to noon. Iowa State University (ISU) Extension and Outreach and the Iowa Department of Natural Resources (DNR) will conduct Commercial Manure Applicator training at that time. Doors open at 8:30 a.m. There is no fee for the workshop, but applicators must register by December 28 by contacting the ISU Extension and Outreach Allamakee County office at 563-568-6345.

by Jeremy Leitz, Allamakee County Executive Director 563-568-2148

Upcoming Deadlines and Important Dates
• January 15: Last day to apply for the Market Facilitation Program

Changing Bank Accounts
FSA program payments are issued electronically into your bank account. In order to make timely payments, you need to notify your FSA servicing office if you close your account or if your bank information is changed for whatever reason (such as your financial institution merging or being purchased).

Payments can be delayed if FSA is not notified of changes to account and bank routing numbers.

Goal to have plans in place as water quality funding increases significantly over the next few years

Iowa Secretary of Agriculture Mike Naig today announced that applications are now being accepted for water quality planning and development projects. Selected projects will help inform, prioritize and coordinate implementation of conservation practices focused on improving water quality.

“This is an opportunity to bring in new partners to work with farmers and landowners to scale up construction of infrastructure based conservation practices. With long-term water quality funding now joining existing conservation programs, we are able to look several years ahead and make sure we are able to use the additional funding in a targeted, cost-efficient manner to improve water quality” Naig said.

Iowa Secretary of Agriculture Mike Naig today requested an additional $250,000 to support foreign animal disease response preparations as part of the Iowa Department of Agriculture and Land Stewardship’s Fiscal Year 2020 budget request. Naig also emphasized the importance of continued funding for the Iowa Water Quality Initiative and Renewable Fuels Infrastructure Program. “Iowa’s $13.45 billion animal industry continues to see significant growth and is a key economic driver for our state. Avian influenza, African swine fever and other foreign animal diseases continue to represent a significant threat to our livestock farms and emphasize the need for us to expand efforts to prevent, prepare and potentially respond to an animal disease emergency,” Naig said. “It is important we continue to invest in priority areas such as animal health, water quality and renewable fuels to support our state’s farmers and help strengthen our rural economy.”

by Jeremy Leitz, Allamakee County Executive Director (563) 568-2148

Upcoming Deadlines and Important Dates
• January 15: Last day to apply for the Market Facilitation Program

County Committee Election
Producers in Iowa, Lansing, Center, LaFayette, Paint Creek, and Taylor Townships should have received their county committee voting ballots last week.  The final day to return completed ballots to the FSA office is December 3.  Committee members are a critical component of the day-to-day operations of FSA. They work to make FSA agricultural programs serve the needs of local producers.

The recent spread of African Swine Fever (ASF) in China has elevated the importance of biosecurity to reduce the risk of a domestic or foreign animal disease entering the farm. The no-cost workshop “Biosecurity Best Practices for Pork Producers” is for swine producers, employees, veterinarians and industry partners to learn, develop and prioritize biosecurity practices.

Derald J Holtkamp, ISU Vet Diagnostic and Production Animal Medicine associate professor, said “Biosecurity can become complex and overwhelming. In the workshop we focus on carrying agents and risk events to help individual operations evaluate their own situation.  Operations are different; the workshop may help identify the “low hanging fruit” which can reduce the entry or spread of disease.”

Advanced Calving Clinic will provide in-depth information for dairy and beef producers.

Register today for the Midwest Dairy Day: Advanced Calving Clinic for Dairy and Beef to be held Thursday, December 6 from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. at Iowa’s Dairy Center located at 1527 Highway 150 S, in Calmar, Iowa.

This event is a collaborative effort between Iowa State University Extension and Outreach, the Northeast Iowa Dairy Foundation and Northeast Iowa Community College (NICC). This year’s event will provide an array of sessions on advanced calving, including a unique opportunity for a hands-on experience with a life-sized cow model. Participants choose to attend one of two different blocks of sessions: one block focuses on dairy cows and the other block focuses on beef cows. Dairy and beef producers, students and industry members are encouraged to attend.

Sessions in both the Dairy and Beef block will include:

by Jeremy Leitz, Allamakee County Executive Director (563) 568-2148

Upcoming Deadlines and Important Dates
• November 22: Office closed for Thanksgiving

Fall Certification
Unlike previous years, producers are no longer required to report their fall forage acres by December 15 to FSA.  These crops can be reported in the spring, by July 15, along with your spring-planted crops.  If you do insure any fall forage, make sure you still report this to your crop insurance agent. 

A research team led by Iowa State University has solved part of a mystery important to battling the most serious threat to U.S. soybean production, the soybean cyst nematode - a pathogen responsible for more than $1 billion in reduced yields each year in this country alone.

Cyst nematodes are tiny, but powerfully destructive plant pests. The scientists discovered an important mechanism that allows parasitic cyst nematodes to reprogram cells in a host plant to enable their parasitism.

A preview of the team’s findings have been posted online by the prestigious journal, The Plant Cell, at  http://www.plantcell.org/content/early/2018/10/18/tpc.18.00570. The full article, “An Effector from the Cyst Nematode Heterodera schachtii Derepresses Host rRNA Genes by Altering Histone Acetylation,” will appear in an upcoming issue.