SVM_Today's Farm_071223

Today’s Farm

See story on Page 18

ALSO INSIDE ...

2022 was a dry run for the next drought | p. 20

A daughter-and-pop shop parts company after more than 50 years in business | p. 22

Illinois pork producers face a difficult proposition complying with California law | p. 24

Red alert: A potentially devastating fungus is creeping closer to the Sauk Valley | p. 25

Rusty Schrader/SVM illustration

It’s Farming 101

n A northern Illinois farmer could write the book on farming, which should come as no surprise: He’s been doing it for more than 80 years, and he’s not ready to retire yet

By DANIEL GRANT | FarmWeek

It’s been quite an amazing career in agriculture for Donnie Peterson, 101, whose earliest memories include farming with horses through the Great Depression in the 1930s in western Illinois.

What’s maybe even more amazing is he’s not ready to hang up his work boots just yet. In fact, when people ask this humble centenarian who farms near Aledo, in Mercer County, when he’s going to retire, he has a simple, yet straightforward, answer.

“All I’ve ever done is farm. I don’t know of any other occupation,” Peterson, who also spent some time in the service, told the RFD Radio Network during an on-farm interview just before Memorial Day.

“I don’t have hobbies; therefore, I’m still doing it,” he continued of his career in farming, which spans 11 decades counting his childhood on his family’s farm in Henderson County. “But I couldn’t do it without help.”

PETERSON cont’d to page 19

Donnie Peterson is seen here on his farm near Aledo. The centenarian was born when Woodrow Wilson was president, and started farming in the throes of the Great Depression — and he’s still not ready to call it a day. “All I’ve ever done is farm. I don’t know of any other occupation,” he said. Denise Hampton/Mercer County Farm Bureau)

TODAY’S FARM

Peterson was born in 1921 when Woodrow Wilson was president and the price of corn averaged 98 cents per bushel that marketing year, according to USDA.

Since that time, Peterson grew up in ag and operated his own farm under 18 additional U.S. presidents, from Warren G. Harding to Joe Biden. From horses to horsepower

Corn prices throughout the veteran farmer’s life increased slowly but surely from $1.05 in 1922, $2.38 in the post-World War II boom in 1947, $3.67 in 1974, $4.58 in 1996, $7.58 in 2008 and more recently to $7.81 in May 2022 — with many peaks and valleys in between.

Meanwhile, corn yield averages, which were stagnant in the 20- to 35-bushel range in the age of open-air pollinated crops from 1866 to 1930, began to improve in the late-1930s with the rapid adoption of hybrid corn.

“It was quite a different method for putting the crops in — we had horses back then,” Peterson said of the technological advances over the years. “Then we graduated up to tractors. But it’s basically the same principle putting the crops in.

“Now, with all the equipment we use, the information available and the seed is much better,” he noted. “That helps us (be more productive and efficient).”

Other crop advancements that pushed yields over the years include improvements in genetics, stress tolerance and the increased adoption of nitrogen fertilizer in the 1950s to the introduction of transgenic hybrids, with insect and herbicide resistance, in the mid-1990s.

Farmers have also refined and improved farming practices and management styles over the years.

“We did a lot more tillage on the ground when I started than we do now,” Peterson said. “And the size of the units has changed. It takes less time (for fieldwork) now.”

Just last year, Illinois farmers set new state yield records of 214 bushels per acre for corn and 79 bushels for wheat. In Mercer County, farmers averaged a whopping 226.6 bushels per acre for corn and 65 bushels for soybeans in 2022.

Good times and bad

Looking back, Peterson has fond memories of raising sheep and training horses back when he was in 4-H.

But his formative years were also some of his most difficult times living through the Great Depression. The bright side of operating a farm at that time is there was at least enough food to eat on most days.

“Living on a farm we had things — food-wise,” Peterson said of the Great Depression. “But the

money situation was bad.

“It was difficult to have money to do anything, so we stayed home most of the time,” he continued. “It was pretty tough getting through that period.”

Peterson encourages other farmers to embrace new technology and farming methods, but to make sure to research the best ideas for each individual farm. He remains an avid reader and mostly enjoys farm publications.

“I like to read a lot,” he said. “There’s always something new coming along.”

He also owns his own cellphone but comes from a generation in which he prefers doing business with a handshake.

“I have a cellphone, but I seldom use it,” he said. “I don’t like to do business on the phone.”

Peterson joined the Mercer County Farm Bureau in 1972 which, along with Illinois Farm Bureau, was founded in 1916.

As for advice or tips for a long life, Peterson said there are no magic bullets. He just tries to give his best each day and hopes for a little luck along the way.

“Live your life as you can and go along,” he added. “You don’t know what will happen.”

This story was distributed through a cooperative project between Illinois Farm Bureau and the Illinois Press Association. For more food and farming news, visit FarmWeekNow.com.

PETERSON cont’d from page 18

A dry run for the next drought

By TIMOTHY EGGERT | FarmWeek

Top leaders with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers said the service is working to insulate the ag industry from negative impacts similar to those caused when dry conditions dramatically lowered Mississippi River water levels last fall.

Despite dredging efforts and shortened barge tow lengths implemented at the time, the low water levels from October to late November — peak harvest time — closed locks and dams, snarled barge traffic, halted the flow of grain and sent freight rates skyrocketing.

Barges hauling grain make their along the Illinois River in Hennepin. Scott Anderson/Shaw Media

TODAY’S FARM

DRY RUN cont’d from page 20

Appearing at a Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works hearing over the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers fiscal year 2024 budget, Assistant Secretary of the Army for Civil Works Michael Connor said the service this year is leaning on “lessons learned” from that period to “try and ensure that the next drought doesn’t have a steep impact.”

When Mississippi River levels fall as low as they did last year, there is “significant immediate economic impact” because “you can’t efficiently move product,” Connor said, adding “that reverberates (in) the agricultural community.”

He was responding to U.S. Sen. John Boozman, R-Arkansas, the ranking member of the Senate Ag Committee, who said most ag products nationwide are exported via water system infrastructure.

“Our inland waterways, our ports and harbors are so vital” to farmers who rely on them for inputs and trade, and to consumers who depend on their efficiency to keep food costs affordable, Boozman said.

While the upper portions of the river currently don’t reflect the exposed riverbed like last fall — areas from St. Paul, Minnesota, to Burlington, Iowa, largely remained above flood stage through late April and early May because of severe winter snow melt — they could again drop this summer and fall if severe dry conditions repeat.

In addition to dredging and working with the ag industry to manage portions of the river, Connor

said the Corps is continuing to develop a “long-term strategy” for drought contingency planning across all the inland waterway systems it oversees.

That strategy includes using Corps’ authorities under the Environmental Infrastructure Program and standard operations to make changes that can “provide more water” and to see whether “ecosystem restoration might take pressure off water supply in our tribal programs and planning programs,” Connor said.

Lt. Gen. Scott Spellmon, the 55th Chief of Engineers and Corps’ commanding general, said the Corps’ budget for research and development has quadrupled to $86 million under its current request.

Online

Read more about the important role inland water navigation plays in the economy: mvk.usace.army.mil/Portals/58/ docs/PP/ValueToTheNation/ VTNInlandNav.pdf

If appropriated, parts of those funds would be used to improve inland waterway system modeling and apply reservoir forecasting and changing precipitation patterns to better predict drought-related stress periods, Spellmon said.

The Corps’ total $7.41 billion FY 2024 budget request is its largest ever, one that would spend more than $2 billion on general construction, including $1.726 billion worth of improvements to coastal and Great Lakes ports via the Harbor

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Maintenance Trust Fund and over $1 billion on inland waterways.

A total $4.47 billion would go to operation and maintenance costs, with the Mississippi River and Tributaries program calling for $232 million.

Budget plans for construction projects and maintenance to Corps’ facilities along Illinois portions of the Mississippi River and state waterways, including the Chicago, Illinois and Kaskaskia rivers total around $282.5 million.

Major items include a combined $106 million for regular maintenance at Illinois sites on the Mississippi River such as dredging and repairs, and specific projects such as replacing the kevel rail at lock and dams 18 and 20 and repairing concrete at Lock and Dam 21.

Other items span $55 million for aquatic ecosystem restoration along the Upper Mississippi River and $50 million for ongoing work at lock and dam sites along the Illinois River, including replacing a lock gate at Lockport.

This story was distributed through a cooperative project between Illinois Farm Bureau and the Illinois Press Association. For more food and farming news, visit FarmWeekNow.com.

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FARM

Parting company

n A daughter-and-pop shop shuts its doors after more than 50 years serving the ag community — “The little guy isn’t around anymore”

JANELLE WALKER | Shaw Media

MARENGO — When Barbara Christ’s father and his cousin started B&K Power Equipment in 1970, they sold mostly farm machinery to dairy farmers.

Over the years, as McHenry County farms made way to housing developments, the business changed too, Christ said.

“There was a dairy farm every quarter-mile,” she said. “There are what, two or three left in the county now? That was our bread and butter.”

As the farms closed, the clientele changed.

“The people who came in and bought ...[they] were all in construction, building houses,” Christ said.

Barb Christ stands in the empty parts room at B & K Power Equipment on March 14. Christ decided to close the business after 53 years. The business was one of the last independent farm and construction machinery shops in the area. Gregory Shaver/gshaver@shawmedia

So the business refocused on the equipment needed by construction companies: lawn equipment and skid-steer loaders. B&K also ordered the parts clients needed and did the repairs and maintenance for everything it sold. Later, it moved from a rented location in Huntley to a building it owned in Marengo, about 15 miles east of Rockford.

Now, 53 years after she started working in the business founded by her father and his cousin, Christ had hung up her parts apron.

B&K cont’d to page 23

TODAY’S FARM

“At 77, and the way the last couple of years have gone with COVID and it’s hard to get parts and equipment ... we decided to close this year,” Christ said.

She thinks hers was the last, single-location, family-owned farm and construction implement dealership in McHenry County.

She might be right, Associated Equipment Distributors President Brian McGuire said. Based in Schaumburg, AED is a national association for farm and construction implement dealers and manufacturers. Implement dealers “have been going through consolidation for a number of years” as larger organizations buy up the small, family-owned businesses, McGuire said.

Christ never really planned to get into the implement businesses. But at age 24 and with a 2½-year-old daughter, she was widowed and needed to work.

“I didn’t know a bolt from a bearing,” Christ said about when she started.

She learned on the job and sold her first skid-steer loader when she was 42 years old in 1988.

Five decades in, Christ still had to convince some customers that she knew what she was talking about.

“I had to prove myself. I didn’t have a choice,” Christ said.

As the business moved away from farm equipment — hay balers, choppers, manure spreaders and hay racks — and into skid-steers, sprayers and lawn equipment, Christ also built a following.

She, along with service manager Bob Keller, built a client base that ranged from southern Wisconsin to St. Charles and from Lake Michigan to Galena, Christ said.

Lloyd Goebbert, of Goebbert’s Farms of South Barrington and Pingree Grove, was one of Christ’s customers.

“They were always very helpful to please, service and take care of you,” Goebbert said. “It is hard to get that kind of service. They would do whatever you asked,” including finding parts for both older and newer equipment.

Now, Goebbert will have to go a little further afield to find businesses to repair or get parts for the equipment.

The agri-business community “keeps condensing all of the time,” he said.

It’s sad, auctioneer Steve Almburg said, “when somebody who has been in business as long as them, as a family-owned business, are not in an area that is agricultural anymore.”

His company, Almburg Auctioneers of Malta, auctioned off the business in April.

“It is an emotional thing,” Almburg said. “The little guy isn’t around anymore.”

In the past decade, he’s done auctions for other implement dealers that were either bought out by a larger dealer or “sold out much the way Barb is,” Almburg said. Often, the larger company either takes over the location or moves unsold equipment onto its own lot.

“You are selling John Deere combines, and the farmers are selling farms for subdivisions. The dealers move into other areas to keep the business going,” McGuire said.

Plus, he said, manufacturers prefer larger dealers, who have more goods available for buyers.

Part of that desire to consolidate is because of the

technology now found in both construction and farm implements, McGuire said.

“These [construction] machines are reporting data back to the dealership when they need to have their oil changed or when a transmission is about to go out,” McGuire said.

On the agricultural side, with GPS and other technology hard-wired into the machine, “we are approaching autonomous equipment, especially in the [agricultural] sector,” McGuire said, adding that there also is a shortage of qualified technicians who can maintain and repair the technology-heavy machines.

Even getting the parts and equipment has been harder since the pandemic started. Like any other industry where silicon chips are part of the machine, they were hit by supply chain issues, Christ said.

One paving company couldn’t find the machines it needed and ended up buying used equipment in Minnesota, Christ said — but even then there was a silver lining to that cloud.

“They kept having problems with them, and I made money off the parts,” she said.

It was late last summer when Christ decided that she’d had enough of struggling to get parts and keep mechanics.

“I am not gong to outlive this or be able to turn around what is going on now” throughout the industry, she said.

When her pastor asked her on a recent Sunday morning what she planned do to next, she wasn’t sure.

“I have no idea,” Christ said. “That is the answer you should have. Most people have everything planned out.”

TODAY’S FARM

Pork producers face a difficult proposition

Implementing California law comes with challenges, expenses for Illinois hog farmers

By TIMOTHY EGGERT | FarmWeek

Illinois pork farmers say a litany of uncertainties remain about how California’s Proposition 12 will be implemented or enforced after the U.S. Supreme Court found the law constitutional.

Led by Justice Neil Gorsuch, the court recently upheld the state’s animal welfare law, ruling 5-4 that “while the Constitution addresses many weighty issues, the type of pork chops California merchants may sell is not on that list.”

But according to Illinois livestock producers, preserving the law could spell major costs for farmers, leading to higher pork prices for consumers, and might cause more negative health outcomes for hogs raised under its standards.

“There’s some big macro, even global, consequences to this, and then there’s consequences that impact dayto-day pork production and pig farmers like myself,” said Illinois Farm Bureau Vice President Brian Duncan, who raises hogs in Ogle County. “We’re just not sure what happens now.”

Adopted by 63% of California voters as a 2018 ballot initiative that took effect this month, Prop 12 prohibits sales in the state of pork, veal and eggs from livestock whose confinement do not meet certain minimum space rules.

Those rules mandate hog spaces be large enough for an animal to turn around, lie down, stand up and extend its limbs. They specifically set sow confinement dimensions at 24 square feet, which is 7 square feet larger than the industry standard.

The National Pork Producers Council and American Farm Bureau Federation contend the requirements violate the Commerce Clause because California represents less than one-sixth of domestic demand and sources most of its pork from other state producers.

The organizations also argued the law would compel farmers to adopt group housing and open pen gestation, which in turn would result in worse health outcomes for sows.

“There’s a higher cull rate due to injury,” said Duncan, who, with certified veterinarians, manages a sow farm that uses pen gestation.

“There’s more abrasions, there’s more fighting, there’s more biting,” Duncan said of open pen gestation sys-

tems. “All the things you would expect when you have animals that are aggressive let loose with each other.”

To meet the law’s space requirements, hog farmers will likely need to cull as many as 30% of their sows, according to Chad Leman, president of the Illinois Pork Producers Association. He owns Leman Farms Inc. in Woodford County.

“This alone will come at a significant cost,” Leman told FarmWeek, adding he has no immediate plans to change any of his hog barns or production systems until there’s more direction within the industry.

The law’s mandates are estimated to increase production costs at the farm level by 9.2%, with producers expected to spend between $290 million and $348 million to update sow housing to comply with the law, according to NPPC and AFBF.

“Currently with building and construction costs and the dynamic of our farm, it’d be very cost prohibitive and hard to justify making those changes for an unpromised premium,” said Thomas Titus, a former IPPA president who manages Tri Pork Inc., a farrow-to-finish farm in Logan County.

There are also questions around how California regulators will enforce the rules in other states. Do packers certify the pork product came from an animal housed according to the law? Will there be third-party audits and inspections?

While farmers might be tasked with tracking Prop 12-compliant hogs on their farms, Titus said packers might also have to keep pigs segregated when they come in, separated in freezers and coolers and affixed with specific labels.

“(The law) definitely adds not just another layer of compliance challenges for the producer, but also for the processor, too,” Titus said. “Labor around that is also a concern.”

And there’s uncertainty whether the market will even offer more for pork raised in the environment the law mandates.

Duncan, Leman and Titus said the farmers who implement changes to comply should be compensated more for their meat products, such as a perhead premium.

PROP 12 cont’d to page 25

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“We have no problem if there’s some sort of voluntary program where producers who choose to raise pigs this way would be paid a premium for their products and could make a business decision to try to capture that market,” Leman said. “What we’ve got a real problem with is this involuntary regulation being forced on all of us.”

Illinois hog farmers are further concerned the ruling on the law will empower “states with high people populations and low pig populations” to craft similar regulations, Leman added.

Duncan agreed, forecasting consequences that a patchwork of U.S. laws could have on international trade.

“What good is an agreement that I may negotiate ... if I can’t assure (a trade partner) the access to my markets is going to be uniform across the country?” Duncan said. “It raises all sorts of questions about what trade agreements look like going forward if a state can slap extra burdens on an importer.”

FarmWeek’s Daniel Grant and RFD Radio contributed to this story.

This story was distributed through a cooperative project between Illinois Farm Bureau and the Illinois Press Association. For more food and farming news, visit FarmWeekNow.com.

Sounding a red alert

A fungus that could knock out as much as 25% of a soybean crop has come to Illinois, and the rot has set in as close as Bureau County

By TOM C. DORAN Shaw Media AgriNews Publications

JOHNSTON, Iowa — Red crown rot, a common southern U.S. fungal disease, made its way into Illinois soybean fields over the past few years.

First detected in 2018 in a single soybean field in Pike County, red crown rot has currently been confirmed in 14 counties and is suspected in another three counties in the Prairie State.

“It’s as far north as Bureau County, as far south as St. Clair County and has a pretty good distribution east to west across the state,” said Robert Bellm, retired University of Illinois Extension crops systems educator and agronomist in southern Illinois.

Bellm participated in an informational podcast on the disease along with Pioneer field agronomists Crystal Williams, northern Illinois; Brad Mason, western Illinois; Cody Pettit, eastern Illinois; Matt Montgomery, west-central/central Illinois; and Scott Eversgerd, western-southern Illinois.

Bellm’s first experience with red crown rot was in 2019.

“I had been scouting for sudden death syndrome in the

Madison County area in Illinois and I texted Nathan Kleczewski (then-U of I plant pathologist) about seeing some sudden death syndrome in a field in that area,” Bellm noted.

Submitted photo

The key identifying characteristic of red crown rot in soybeans is the presence of tiny red balls on the crown and stem near the soil line. RED CROWN cont’d to page 26

TODAY’S FARM

“He responded back and asked if I’d seen any red crown rot. My immediate response was ‘What the heck is that?’ I’d never heard of it. He gave me a description of it and when I was in a field I thought I was looking at rhizoctonia.”

Bellm sent photos of the infected soybean to Kleczewski and he confirmed it to be red crown rot.

“It’s an emerging disease that we are still learning about, but it can be significant in those fields that are heavily infested,” Bellm added.

Pike County is included in Mason’s agronomy area and he has been near the field where it was originally discovered.

“The way I’ve framed up the area of distribution for this disease, we’ve got it up to the suburbs of Chicago and all the way to Kentucky,” Mason said. “ ... That’s quite a bit of rapid distribution of this new disease.”

Misdiagnosis

Due to its misdiagnosis the last few years, its spread may be broader than known at this point.

“That’s probably one of the big things moving forward. Is it SDS? Is it brown stem rot? Is it red crown rot? The correct identification of this disease is going to be a big deal as we try to manage it and get a hold of it,” Eversgerd said.

“This is a real SDS look-alike. It’s going to have that interveinal chlorosis. It’s going to have that real distinct SDS pattern that a lot of people are used to. It’s going to be a real dead-ringer for it,” Montgomery added.

“There are some subtle differences in the way the leaf symptomology kind of manifests itself. For the most part, most people are going to think it looks like SDS.”

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“The subtle difference that I have seen is with SDS typically the leaf falls off the plant as the disease progresses, leaving the petioles on the stem. On red crown rot, I see more symptomatology of the leaves just turning brown and hanging on the plant. It manifests more like southern stem canker in that respect than it does SDS,” Bellm said.

“The question of misdiagnosing it with the SDS disease, as far as I can read and find it, it’s strictly a soil-borne disease. I’ve got a field in this area that’s basically 100% infested on a 60-plus acre field. This disease has been around here for a long time in order to get that degree of infection, and we haven’t identified it properly.”

Yield losses

Red crown rot’s impact on yields in Illinois is still being determined. However, yield losses of 25% to 30% have been documented in Louisiana and Mississippi where the disease has been present for years.

Bellm said he doesn’t have a good handle on yield hits yet, but from what he’s observed on plants “20% yield losses would not be unheard of in those areas heavily infected.”

“A lot of growers are not good at calibrating their yield monitors and the disease is sort of sporadic through the field,” he said. “It’s hard to guess.”

“Pike County has been dealing with it for quite a bit now. Last year, we had some historic 60-, 70-bushel fields yield only 16 bushels per acre. Once it gets established, it can be really devastating,” Mason added.

Diagnosis

For those who haven’t had experience with identifying the disease, Eversgerd recommends sending

samples to a lab for the correct diagnosis.

“Make sure you know exactly what you’re dealing with because it is (an SDS) look-alike and until you really get your eyes calibrated and your mind calibrated to what it looks like, you’ll run yourself in circles trying to figure out what it is. A lab can really help,” he said.

“One thing I have noticed is it can coexist with SDS. ... I could pull up 20 plants and see the typical blue mycelia from SDS and then all of a sudden you pull a plant up and see one with red perithecia all over the base of the stem and it’s red crown rot,” Bellm said.

“It’s a root rot, so the infection occurs at the root at the very lowest portion of the stem at about the time the soybean plant reaches R3. So, I typically don’t see symptoms much before the first of August down in this area.

“When you pull plants up, the bottom maybe one inch of the stem above the ground line and even below the ground line will have. It kind of progresses. As the perithecia form you’ll see small round bigger than a soybean cysts — round balls on the base of the plant. The perithecia is very obvious. Even before those form at the base of the plant will become a very bright red. If perithecia is there, it’s red crown rot.

“One thing I have seen in areas where they’re heavily infected is the plants lodge very quickly. This thing is a true root rot and you can literally pull a plant out of the soil with two fingers. They’ll break off just below the ground line and SDS doesn’t seem to do that quite as much.”

Tom C. Doran can be reached at 815-410-2256 or tdoran@shawmedia.com. Follow him on Twitter at: @AgNews_Doran.

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RED CROWN cont’d from page 25