UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS Extension changes are a work in progress, the Illinois Farm Bureau board was told last week. ...............3
EXTENSION OF THE ethanol tax credit, due to expire at the end of this year, will be greatly challenged, U.S. Rep. John Shimkus believes. ....................4
FARM EMERGENCY training proved life-saving for a Pike County farmer who last week was trapped in a grain bin. ....................5
Monday, April 26, 2010
Two sections Volume 38, No. 17
Half of U.S. corn crop in ground by May 1? BY DANIEL GRANT FarmWeek
Periodicals: Time Valued
Farmers last week continued to plant corn at a torrid pace as weather conditions through Thursday were ideal in most areas. Nationwide, farmers as of the first of last week planted 19 percent of the corn crop compared to just 5 percent last year and the five-year average of 9 percent. In Illinois, farmers as of the first of last week planted 34 percent of the corn crop compared to just 1 percent a year ago. “The ground conditions have been as good to plant as they have been in the last three years,” said David Hartke, a farmer from Teutopolis in Effingham County. Hartke estimated 60 percent of corn and 20 percent of soybeans are in the ground in his area. Elsewhere, Garry Niemeyer, a farmer from Glenarm in Sangamon County, has finished planting corn. “It probably was one of the quicker springs for putting anhydrous on, working the ground, and planting that I can remember,” Niemeyer said. In fact, Niemeyer said he
and other farmers in his area actually were looking forward to rain showers that moved into the state on Friday. The rain could help corn germinate, activate chemicals, and would benefit ground that was worked up to plant soybeans, according to Niemeyer. “After all the rain last year, I’m surprised to be interested in that (a rain shower) taking place again” during the planting season, said Niemeyer. Dale Durchholz, AgriVisor market analyst, predicted corn planting in the state as of today (April 26) could be nearly 60 percent complete. He projected corn planting nationwide could be 50 percent complete by the end of the month. “Even with a little rain,we should have half the crop planted by May 1,” Durchholz said. “Certainly the good weather allowed things to catch up and farmers, with that, may have gone a bit harder just remembering the last two years.”
The fast start to planting should improve the chance of at least a trend yield this year, and it also could allow farmers
to plant a few more corn acres, according to the analyst. He predicted U.S. corn plantings this year could reach
90 million acres. USDA last month projected U.S. farmers this spring would plant 88.79 million acres of corn.
Lynn Wollerman of rural Vandalia unfolded his planter as he prepared to plant corn on a 350-acre field. He already had planted 1,300 acres of corn and he said he would finish with corn last week. He will be planting 1,100 acres of soybeans, but was hoping for some rain first. (Photo by Ken Kashian)
Earth Day brings renewed water regulation threat BY MARTIN ROSS FarmWeek
“Every day in the farming community is Earth Day,” Chris Hausman argues. In his bustling Central Illinois piece of that community, conservation is a crucial priority and competing water demands flavor debate over most zoning or development proposals. Hausman thus is disturbed by Rep. James Oberstar’s (D-Minn.) Earth Day revival of measures that would grant federal agencies sweeping authority over all “U.S. waters.” Oberstar’s “America’s Commitment to Clean Water Act,” like his past “Clean Water Restoration Act,” would strike the word “navigable” from the definition of waters that fall under U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) jurisdiction. That small but dramatic change allows for EPA control and potential permitting of remote water sources with no connection to rivers or tributaries, including local
ditches, erosion features, and, theoretically, even Hausman’s own nine-acre farm pond.
Photo by Cyndi Cook
“That would be ludicrous,” the Champaign County producer said last week. “The state already has safeguards on management of our waters — that’s the way it should be. Let the state take care of those waters.” The National Wildlife Federation and sportsmen’s groups applauded Oberstar’s effort to “restore critical Clean Water Act protections for streams, lakes, wetlands,
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and other important waters.” American Farm Bureau Federation regulatory specialist Don Parrish noted one Washington attorney’s view that the bill could return the U.S. to a period when federal agencies could regulate virtually “anywhere a bird could land,” with wideranging economic implications. Parrish is concerned by the measure’s vague “open-endedness” and supporters’ reluctance to specifically exempt even innocuous “low-hanging fruit” such as sheet flow — water that puddles for extended periods after rainfall. Oberstar’s measure would exempt waste treatment systems and prior-converted cropland from federal controls, but EPA could step in once that farmland is sold or converted for non-ag use. That’s a “significant rollback” in current policies, which clarify that water sources on such land “are not waters of See Water, page 2
Illinois Farm Bureau®on the web: www.ilfb.org