Thursday, January 31, 2013

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.

Tuesday, January 8, 2013

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

Friday, January 4, 2013

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.

Thursday, January 3, 2013

Ag Outlook Breakfast & Pesticide Applicator Training

This will be along the lines of a "save the date" post however I want to mention that we've scheduled the Ag Outlook Breakfast for Friday, March 1, 7:30 a.m. at the Clinton County Fairgrounds 4-H Building in Frankfort. Purdue Ag Economist Chris Hurt will be on hand to provide his Outlook for 2013. The program is free and designed to help farmers, land owners, input suppliers, and those interested in agriculture make better business decisions in the coming year.

The breakfast and program are sponsored by The Farmers Bank and Regions Bank. Now there's a lot of time between now and the program but because we are serving a meal and need to know attendance numbers, pre-registration for the program is required. Please either call the office at 765-659-6380 or 765-296-3511 or e-mail me at cemanuel@purdue.edu if you are planning to attend. The registration deadline is 4:00 p.m. on Tuesday, February 26. And don't worry, I'll have additional information as we get closer.

Later that same morning, from 10 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. we'll have a Private Applicator Recertification Program(PARP), also at the Fairgrounds. Christian Krupke from Purdue Entomology will present an Insect Control Update and Bill Johnson from Purdue Botany and Plant Pathology will provide a Weed Control Update. The regulatory topic will be on Indiana’s New Fertilizer Rule. The cost for this program will be $10. All Clinton County Private Applicators will be mailed additional information as we get closer. I also intend to request CCH's for commercial applicators.

Central Indiana Pork Conference

The Seventh Annual Central Indiana Pork Conference (CIPC) will be held on Wednesday, February 6 from 9:00 a.m. to 3:15 p.m at Rossville High School. The cost of the program will be $20 per person and will include lunch.

There will be a variety of topics covered including state and federal legislative and regulatory changes, including the new fertilizer rule. This has been a highly successful, well attended program in past years. I have a web page for this program with additional information, including a flyer and registration form.

Upcoming Irrigation Workshop

I apologize for not posting lately. With my covering 4-H in Clinton County it seems like this blog has been the main casualty of these extra duties. However I have several activities which I want to mention.

I've set up an Irrigation Workshop on Tuesday, January 22 at the Tippecanoe County Fairgrounds in Lafayette. This will be an all-day program primarily featuring Lyndon Kelley, Extension Irrigation Specialist. We will be covering a variety of topics that day and I encourage you to attend if you’ve given any thought to installing irrigation on your operation.

Lyndon has done a lot of irrigation work in Northern Indiana and I've been told he puts on an excellent program. Click this link for the program flyer and registration information.