2013 Central Indiana Pork Conference Report

I want to throw in a brief report about the 2013 Central Indiana Pork Conference held February 6. As I was the site host I did have to bounce around a bit from time to time, particularly in the morning, but I'll provide as much of a summary as I can. Also, pdf's of most of the presentations are up on the Clinton County Extension Office website.

Paul Clouser from Indiana Packers was the first presenter and this is the one I missed the most of. However I did catch a few items which caught my attention. First, they wanted to congratulate producers for helping them by providing higher quality animals to their plant. Since DDGS have become a substantial portion of swine rations Iodine Values and carcass quality have been a big industry issue and they had far less of a problem with this recently than they did a year or two ago.

He wanted to caution farmers on several aspects of production. One, which I intend to use in my PQA programs from now on, is that if you have a broken needle in an animal, euthanize it. My suggestion, so long as it meets all withdrawal standards, would be either to process it for your own use at home or send it to a processor and donate the meat to a food bank. However they don't want these animals at the plant. He also wanted farmers to be aware that as much of their business involves overseas markets, they should be aware of and follow IPC's corporate residue limits which in some cases are more stringent than US standards.

The Industry Outlook provided by Purdue Ag Economist Chris Hurt focused, unsurprisingly, on feed prices. He made the "official" prediction that US corn prices will experience the largest drop in history, $2.50 by next summer. Of course prices will still be above $5.00. He considers this to be a "sweet spot" where both grain farmers and pork producers should be able to turn a profit. Current stocks are short so this will be very weather-driven but he sees a good possibility of a long, slow decline with, if it looks like the crop is good, a rapid price drop in early July. With decent weather the next few years he thinks a long-term price outlook is for corn in the $5 range and soybeans around $11. With bad weather it's hard to tell where things might go. Another drought could drive corn over $10 and soybeans to $20. Ultimately, he believes that if the weather cooperates, the industry should see a return to profitability by the second quarter of 2013.

Brian Martin and Wes Lack from MP3 farms discussed a new sow unit they recently installed which uses an automated electronic feeding system and houses sows in groups rather than using gestation stalls. They provided a great deal of information on how the system works, how they train farm employees as well as gilts to use the system and other aspects which I won't detail here. They also operate an older sow unit which uses gestation stalls so they were able to provide some interesting comparative date over production in the two systems. Very briefly, while sow mortality is slightly higher with this system, overall performance of animals in the two systems has been very comparable when looking at areas such as pigs/sow/year and lbs/sow/year. One area which doesn't show up in the numbers is that they said the sows in this system are very easy to handle and work; very calm and easygoing.

I'll use their talk as a jumping-off point to editorialize a little. I've been at several programs recently including those sponsored by the National Pork Board and animal handling and housing is a prominent theme. Despite research which shows that sows get along fine in gestation stalls and other similar production-related issues, we live in a new age. At one time in this country, people were primarily worried about having enough to eat. They progressed from that to a concern over the quality of what they eat. Today many people are concerned with how animals are raised. In any business where you're producing a product for consumers, consumer preferences is a driver. Animal handling standards, housing systems, etc., should definitely be considered in animal operations. It's a basis for the Pork Quality Assurance (PQA Plus) program which almost all Pork Producers receive certification through. If I'm talking to a farmer who's considering building a new breeding/gestation/production unit, I would urge him or her to strongly consider a group housing system for sows. At this point I wouldn't advise spending a lot of money to convert an existing facility but for new construction I think farmers need to give it serious thought. The industry has been heading in this direction for some time now and I see no indication that this trend will stop.

Aflatoxin was a serious problem in corn this year and farmers know that this was a big issue in feeding hogs. Brian Richert from the Purdue Animal Sciences Department discussed issues related to this. A portion of this was related to levels at which hogs can tolerate Aflatoxin, strategies and methods of maintaining feed quality and preventing toxin development. I was more interested when he started talking about how some approved flowables - products added to grain to prevent clumping due to moisture - also can substantially mitigate the impacts of Aflatoxin in feed by serving as binders. In this area most farmers were able to blend feed enough to keep Aflatoxin levels down to acceptable levels but if you want to plan for a year where this may be next to impossible, Brian's presentation would be a very good starting point to start looking into these binders as another option.

This was a very good program. I was disappointed that numbers were down this year and will be looking at ways to bring this back up next year. For those who attended, thanks for coming and a big thank you goes out to the Rossville FFA Chapter who provided lunch.

Pesticide Applicator Recertification Program March 1

This is an update to something I posted a few weeks ago. The Clinton County Extension Office will be hosting a Pesticide Applicator Recertification Program on Friday, March 1 from 10:00 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. at the Clinton County Fairgrounds, 1701 South Jackson Street, in Frankfort.

The program schedule is as follows:

• 10:00 a.m. - Bill Johnson, Purdue Botany and Plant Pathology, "Weed Control Update"
• 10:45 a.m. - Christian Krupke, Purdue Entomology, "Insect Control Update"
• 11:30 a.m. - Curt Emanuel, Clinton County Extension Service, "Fertilizer Application Regulations"
• 12:30 p.m. - Registration and adjourn.

In addition to Private Applicator credit, 3 CCH's are available for Category 1 and RT, 1 CCH for Category 14 Commercial Applicators. There is a cost of $10.00 for Private Applicators taking the program.

I do not need pre-registration for this program, just for the Ag Outlook Breakfast if you're planning to attend that earlier in the day.

Clinton County Private Applicators will be receiving notification of this program in the mail within the next few days. The exception to this is if you have already completed your recertification requirements or if there's no way you can complete them; if you've taken no classes so far and your license expires at the end of 2013(you can only take 2 classes in a given year). To check your recertification status, go to the Purdue Private Applicator Page. On the menu bar to the left select, "Private Applicator Records" and enter the appropriate information into the search.

You do not need to be a pesticide applicator to attend this program. Anyone who has an interest in the topics is welcome to attend. In particular, if you have questions about the new Indiana Fertilizer Rule, I'd encourage you to make the last session.

March 1 Ag Outlook Breakfast and Meeting

The Clinton County Extension Service will be hosting an Ag Outlook Breakfast on Friday, March 1 at 7:30 a.m. at the Clinton County Extension Office, 1701 South Jackson Street, in Frankfort. Purdue Ag Economist Chris Hurt will be presenting his Outlook for 2013 including crop and livestock prices, the overall US Economy and farm business management strategies.

A breakfast, sponsored by The Farmers Bank and Regions Bank, will be provided. Please contact the Clinton County Extension Office at 765-659-6380 or 765-296-3511 or e-mail me at cemanuel@purdue.edu by February 26 if you plan to attend. There is no cost for this program.

Irrigation Workshop Report

I want to give at least a little bit of information from the January 22 Irrigation Workshop. First I'll point out that one of my duties was to serve as host of the program so I was able to devote my full attention to no more than half of it, at best, as I had to spend some time distributing handouts, loading presentations onto the computer and just chatting with others involved.

But I was able to pick up a few things. The first thing is to direct people to Lyndon Kelley's page of irrigation resources. Seriously, if you're interested in this, go there now. I'll wait.

A few items of note besides this. First, if you're getting started in irrigation, once you've analyzed the economics, the next step is to determine if you have water. Mark Basch from the Indiana Department of Natural Resources talked about this and said that in Central Indiana, we have sufficient groundwater. By and large, by installing irrigation you don't need to be worried about somehow causing a community-wide drought. Now you may negatively impact wells of some neighbors, particularly those with shallow wells, but the fears about this are greater than the reality. In many cases when someone's well goes dry and they blame a large capacity water user, investigators will look five miles away and find that similar sorts of wells are going dry when there isn't any irrigation going on nearby. In essence, in many of these cases people's wells go dry during a drought because of the drought, not nearby irrigation. This doesn't mean that irrigation never has an impact, just that this doesn't take place nearly as often as rumor would have you believe.

However, even though we have pretty good groundwater supplies in Central Indiana, this does not mean that you'll be able to find sufficent water to irrigate with just anywhere. Mike Chapman from Peerless-Midwest discussed how he investigates to determine if a well will be able to deliver the 300 gallons per minute necessary to irrigate with. While there are some geographic guidelines which will suggest where are good places to look, only by boring a test well can you be sure. One of the issues is that in Clinton County there just aren't that many large capacity wells in use. In some areas there may be a well every mile and you can be pretty sure nearby areas have sufficient water but that isn't the case here. IDNR's Water Well Record Database is a good place to start checking. Select the "Enhanced Water Well Viewer" link for an online map.

Screenshot of Large Capacity Wells in Clinton County from the DNR Water Well Viewer

I'll add one other personal note. From an efficiency perspective, once you've drilled a large capacity well, installed pumping equipment and provided power to the site, it makes sense to irrigate as much ground as possible. While we have some large fields in Clinton County of 160 acres or more under one owner, this has become the exception rather than the rule. Give some thought to partnering with a neighboring farmer to share costs and operate more efficiently, at least initially, if you're going to be irrigating smaller parcels.

I have heard less discussion about irrigation over the winter than I did last summer and fall however if you're interested you should look at Lyndon's web page. There is another Irrigation Program scheduled for February 12 in Vincennes. I don't have any additional information on it but you can contact the Knox County Extension Office to find out more about it.

Spill Prevention, Control and Countermeasure Plans

Many of you have likely heard of the SPCC regulations. I don't know a ton about them though I have worked with CAFO's and CFO's to develop spill response plans for their operations.

In any case, this post is a reminder for those of you who haven't started working on these that they are due by May 10, 2013. That may seem like a long time from now but if we have another dry spring and you're in a tractor cab by the middle of March again it may come pretty quickly.

Here is the link to the EPA SPCC Page for Farmers.

If you are a Tier 1 facility you can develop your plan yourself and self-certify. To be a Tier 1 facility you must have :

• A total aboveground oil storage capacity of 10,000 U.S. gallons or less;
• No aboveground oil storage containers with a capacity greater than 5,000 U.S. gallons; and
• No discharges to navigable waters or adjoining shorelines in the three years before the SPCC Plan is certified, as described below:

A single discharge greater than 1,000 gallons, or
Two discharges of oil each greater than 42 gallons within any 12-month period.

If your farm storage of oil or oil products exceeds the Tier 1 levels, your plan will need to be certified by a professional engineer.

For information on whether you need to file an SPCC Plan see this fact sheet: Oil Spill Prevention, Control, and Countermeasure (SPCC) Program: Information for Farmers

And I'm sorry but I don't know what Could reasonably be expected to discharge oil to waters of the US or adjoining shorelines, such as interstate waters, intrastate lakes, rivers, and streams means. If you have a question about that, you should check with a plans development specialist. Though my guess is that with the number of ditches, field tile and small streams we find in Central Indiana, most area farmers will need to develop a plan.

Purdue Corn and Soybean Trials

A quick post to mention that the Purdue Corn and Soybean Trial results are available at the following link.

2012 Purdue Corn and Soybean Trials

Clinton County Winter Ag Newsletter

For those of you who aren't on our mailing list, I recently finished an Ag Extension Newsletter which is available online. This PDF is the same as the one mailed out minus the Irrigation Program Flyer.