Small Grain Weeds

There has been a lot of small grains planted over the last 3 months.  It is hopeful that the needed rains will come based on all these El Nino reports and maybe we will have a good year with lots of forage.  So far the grain looks great and even some dairymen have made an early cutting based on good growth this fall.

One of the things we are seeing this fall with the rains that we have received is that the grain is growing good and so are the WEEDS!  Already henbit, shepherd’s-purse, mallow (in picture)

and mustards are doing every bit as good as the grain and are poised to be a problem.  Where you have weeds, you don’t have small grain.

We have several good weed control products available and prices are not too bad but with weeds, sooner is always better.  It is much easier to control these weeds before they get too big and already henbit is flowering.  Go check out your fields and then give us a call to spray that mess early!

Wintertime Spraying Roundup

This picture shows you a coastal bermudagrass hay field that was treated with glyphosate (Roundup) in February before the bermudagrass greened up.  The glyphosate treatment on the left killed out the winter weeds and winter grasses leaving a clean field for the coastal and a clean first hay cutting.  Cost of this treatment is minimal but the results are fantastic.  

Cattle Genomics

I recently attended an interesting program on Dairy Cattle Genomics and thought you might have an interest in what is happening in that science.  Genomics is the study of genetics combined with the study of DNA, including mapping the genome.  It is a science that is extremely technical and involves over 3 billion DNA base pairs in every cell.  Basically it takes a lot of computer power to study it.

In this meeting we learned how they are now able to take DNA samples from an individual animal and tell you how that animal will perform based on the trait you selected or want.  So, if you want to increase your herds milking ability or reproductive efficiency or even calf size, through genomics you can identify individuals that have those traits.  This saves you making crosses and waiting on the calves to see if the traits are expressed.  It also allows you to keep the right heifers at birth versus spending money and time growing them out to calving and being disappointed.  Look for this science to help our purebred breeds make rapid advancement and improvement.

Chorti Agriculture Update

For nearly eight years (since 2004) I regularly made 1 - 3 trips a year to Copan Ruinas to visit the Chorti people and to help with their agriculture projects.  In September of 2011, I made one of three trips that year to work on further development of our Extension program but little did I know that it would be three years before I would be back!

So, it was a great phone call this summer from Dan asking if I might be interested in partnering with him and Baptist Rural Life Ministries as the project expands in Honduras on into Guatemala. The last week of August I traveled to Honduras to visit old friends like Obando and to become acquainted with many new ones.  The project has grown tremendously under Dan’s leadership combined with the really great workers in the field.

Teaching about saving corn seed.

Remember this is an agricultural society that is bound up in food production with some production of cash crops like coffee.  Our purpose is to glorify God through our agriculture training while sharing the Gospel in word and deed.  We begin with committed Christian extensionists who are sent out to villages.  Through them we identify possible leaders in villages that we intensely and consistently train.  These leaders are taught both agriculture and God’s word.  Our prayer is that these leaders will come to know Christ and lead others to Christ in their village as they themselves teach good agriculture practices in the village.

I regularly remind our extensionists, our leaders and any in the villages that participate in our agriculture training of these three principles:

1. We are experts.  We intend to provide the best in training and experience known throughout the world.  We ourselves constantly improve through continuing education and we work hard to develop contacts with the best experts in the world.
2. We are here to stay.  So many projects start strong, develop great interest and then leave as if they are finished.  We don't see an ending, we intend to continue to be there to provide agriculture education, share the gospel and disciple.
3. We trust God in all we do.  We are quick to give God glory and to seek Him in all we do.  We believe firmly that because of our faith in God and our dependence on Him, He will bless our efforts and consequently, the Chorti.  This has been evident from the start.

As we see God working amongst the Chorti these things are evident and need our prayer:

• For more Christian extensionists who will come along beside us to extend our outreach.  These extensionists would live in the middle of several villages and serve as a source of biblical discipleship, evangelism and agricultural training.
• For the Spirit to move among the Chorti calling out leaders that we can train and disciple.

• 

  La Roya can devastate leaves quickly.

  For the physical safety of everyone.  There have been many murders in the area and even our own people have had family members gunned down.  I gave an extension training while in Honduras and asked the participants to tell me the greatest problems the Chorti face today and they all voted murderers/killers as the second most important problem behind lack of good land!
• For productive crops.  There has been a tremendous drought this year and food is in short supply.   Also there is a worldwide problem in coffee called La Roya or coffee leaf rust.  This problem is especially bad in Central America and will affect small coffee growers and also coffee harvesters.  Coffee is a cash crop that provides needed money for school, clothes, shoes, etc.  This video is a good look at the problem. Just click the link.  Understanding La Roya
• For Christian agriculturists who love agriculture and want to share the Gospel and hopefully speak Spanish.  We need people who will come alongside our workers teaching them and helping them in the work. It would be great to have a US team of agriculturists who would consistently and constantly be providing agriculture training and Christian encouragement.

Sugarcane Aphid

It’s not like we don’t have enough insects to deal with but this year we have added a new one and its a bad one.  There are  several aphid species that attack sorghum including corn leaf aphid, greenbug, yellow sugarcane aphid and now sugarcane aphid.  

Aphids are a unique insect.  They feed but inserting their stylet into phloem cells that transport plant nutrients.  They suck the plant juices through their bodies and excrete excess which causes the honeydew (sticky mess on the leaves) that gets on leaves and windshields under trees.  

Aphids are also unique in that the female reproduces asexually in the summer giving birth to live young every few days.  This means that populations can increase exponentially as you can see in the picture.  For some reason the sugarcane aphid seems very adept at reproducing as you can see in the picture.

The other problem with this aphid is that the typical chemical controls like imidacloprid  don’t work well at all.  This past year a TDA Section 18 was granted for Transform from Dow because it was about the only product that worked.  In some cases sorghum growers had to spray 3 times and still had problems.

There is a little hope in this desperate situation.  This aphid doesn’t survive well in cold weather and so experts believe it will die back to the Valley/Winter Garden area each year.  This means it will have to migrate to this area each spring but as we saw this year it won’t take long!