Looking for Palmer Amaranth

I'm sure most of you have heard of Palmer amaranth (Amaranthus palmeri). If not, it's an extremely aggressive, invasive broadleaf weed, native to the desert southwest, that is usually very glyphosate- and ALS-resistant. To date it's been found in northwest and southwest Indiana.

I'm not aware that any has been found in Clinton County and I've been keeping an eye out as I've been driving around this summer. However as you'll soon be getting into your fields for harvest, I have a request; if you come across any Palmer amaranth when you get in the field, please let me know. I'll send that information on to Bill Johnson at Purdue's Botany and Plant Pathology Department. Purdue has a longstanding policy regarding pest reporting; when they identify where a pest is located to inform the public, they say what county it's located in, not where in the county.



Palmer Amaranth: Photo from Purdue Extension Publication WS-51, Palmer Amaranth Biology, Identification, and Management

At the bottom of this post I'll include a link to the Purdue publication on Palmer amaranth but for ID purposes, here's what to look for. The main distiguishing characteristic at this point in the plant's life will be an extremely long seed head, up to three feet long. Its leaf is wide and ovate and is not lobed like giant ragweed.

If you come across this weed, please let me know, either by calling the extension office or by e-mailing me at cemanuel@purdue.edu. Feel free to send me some pictures if you're not sure if this is what you're seeing, or yank out the plant and let me know and I'll come take a look at it.

Purdue Extension Publication on Palmer amaranth

Source: Purdue Extension Publication WS-51, Palmer Amaranth Biology, Identification, and Management by Travis Legleiter and Bill Johnson, April 2013.

2013 Purdue Custom Rates

Between the State Farm Management Tour and the County Fair, posting about this completely slipped my mind. Purdue has issued an updated Indiana Custom Rates publication for 2013. Fewer responses were collected for the survey than for last year's so some operations were not included in this year's results. For this reason I'm including links to both this year's and last year's surveys.

2013 Purdue Custom Rates Survey Results

2012 Purdue Custom Rates Survey Results

Ag Outlook Webinar

Purdue Extension Economist Corinne Alexander will be presenting an Ag Outlook Webinar on Friday, September 13 at 8:30 a.m. I won't be able to host a session here as I'll be at the Land Lease Program in Logansport that morning but anyone with a good internet connection should be able to view it.

The link to view it is: Ag Outlook Webinar. You may find additional information on the program at this link.

I will likely have an Ag Outlook program here later this fall as we've done for the past few years but I haven't scheduled it yet.

Land Lease Program

The Purdue Land Lease Team will be sponsoring a program, "Farm Land Leases: Finding Balance in Farmland Lease Contracts" on Friday, September 13 from 9 a.m. to Noon at the Ivy Tech in Logansport. I've attached a link to the program flyer below.

To register for the program contact Howard County Extension Educator Paul Marcellino at 765-456-2313 or you can e-mail him at pmarcell@purdue.edu. There is no cost for the program.

Farm Land Lease Program Flyer

Clinton County Locally Grown Foods Tour Summary

On Saturday, August 10 we held the first Clinton County Locally Grown Foods Tour. This program was developed to promote locally grown foods operations in Clinton County (Indiana) and to inform participants about locally grown foods options. We had four host sites for the tour; McWhirt Family Produce, Rule's Golden Honey, This Old Farm and The Farming Engineers.

For this program, participants had the option of either riding a bus which went to each site or driving themselves. Somehow we managed to stay on time. Having good weather that day didn't hurt. I'll mention one item before I get to the tour; Each of the host farms discussed locally grown foods by promoting their operation, what they do, sell, and why they do it rather than trying to talk down or criticize traditional agriculture. For myself, I don't have a lot of patience with people who try to build themselves up by tearing others down. I expected this approach from our host farms so it certainly wasn't a surprise. Unfortunately it contrasts with approaches I've seen elsewhere.


Tour participants at McWhirt Family Produce

The first stop was near Michigantown at McWhirt Family Produce. McWhirt's started selling produce they raised on very limited acreage at a Tipton County roadside stand in 2001. Within a few years they had outgrown their space and purchased more acreage in Clinton County where they developed their produce business. McWhirt's sell all sorts of vegetables throughout the growing season ranging from early season crops such as lettuce and cabbage to fall crops such as pumkins. They sell produce from their home by appointment and have been selling at the Frankfort Farmers Market since it opened. For the past couple of years Rick has been the Market Manager of the Market in Frankfort.

We received a nice tour of their garden areas and afterwards everyone enjoyed looking at the Boer goats the McWhirt children raise for 4-H projects. For their garden they do not control weeds chemically but rely on tillage and hand-pulling of weeds.

Mike Rule demonstrating some of his honey processing equipment

Stop number two was just a couple of miles up the road at Rule's Golden Honey. Mike and Cathy Rule have raised bees for quite some time and began selling honey about 6 years ago once it became large enough that they couldn't just give all the honey to their neighbors. They have also been selling at the Frankfort Farmers Market since 2007. In addition to honey they sell produce and home baked goods. We received a nice tour of the farm including where Mike keeps his bees and afterwards he explained how he does his processing.

From Rule's we travelled to Colfax and This Old Farm, owned by Erick and Jessica Smith. We were served an excellent lunch consisting entirely of local foods. Indiana State Department of Agriculture Director Gina Sheets spoke to the group, as did Erick. Afterwards Jessica gave us a tour of their processing plant.


Jessica Smith talking about This Old Farm's meat processing facility

This Old Farm is the largest local foods operation we visited with 23 people employed in various aspects of the operation. The Smith's raise produce and pastured pork from their own farm. They also operate a federally inspected meat processing plant which they use to do custom processing as well as to process products which they sell from their store and online. As one of only two certified organic meat processors in Indiana they are very busy. They also operate a CSA (Community Supported Agriculture). In addition, they have established a farm alliance which allows them to work with over 50 Indiana producers to help promote and market their food products. 


A few of the residents of The Farming Engineers operation.

The final stop for the day involved a long bus ride to the other side of the county, near Pickard, to visit The Farming Engineers, Lisa and Matt Burke. The Burke's raise produce, grown outdoors in a garden as well as in a hoop house. They also raise pastured poultry and sell eggs. While they do sell products on farm, The Farming Engineers' primary business focus is their CSA where you can sign up for weekly delivery of produce and/or eggs.

Lisa took us through various aspects of their operation. As they raise everything to organic standards and the price of organic feed for the chickens is quite high, they are currently studying the effectiveness of raising sprouts as a substitute feed whith the help of a Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education (SARE) grant. This stop involved the most walking as the pastured poultry are truly out on pasture but it was fun.

This was a fun, enjoyable tour. The four tour hosts deserve special thanks for agreeing to allow us to visit their farms. I was unaware until recently that Clinton County has as many local foods producers as we do though once I started thinking about it, we border some communities which provide a good client base for this type of operation. As one of the top agricultural counties in the state, it's not surprising that we would have a strong presence with these types of farms.

If you would like additional information on local foods, I've put up a page on our Extension Office site. We also have a Clinton County Local Foods Producers Directory.

Clinton County Extension Locally Grown Foods Page

Local Foods Directory

2013 Purdue Cash Rent and Land Values Survey Results

This is sort of an "oops" post. I sent an e-mail to my mailing list when this came out a couple of weeks ago but neglected to post anything here.

The results of the 2013 Purdue Cash Rent and Land Values survey have been published at the following link:

Purdue Cash Rent and Land Values Survey

As a quick guide for Clinton County, Indiana landowners and tenants, the land values are on table 1, cash rents are on table 2 and Clinton County is in the central region of the state.

Farm Drainage Program Report

The Clinton County Extension Service with support from the Clinton County Farm Bureau and Clinton County Soil and Water Conservation District hosted a program on August 8, 2013, "Farm Drainage for the Environment and for Profit."

This was a good program and we had about 50 people in attendance in the morning and a few more popped in for the afternoon (when PARP credit was offered). As usual, I had to perform my duties as host so I only caught about half of the programs but I'll report on what I have notes on.

Jane Frankenberger from the Purdue Ag Engineering Department opened with, "Making Farm Drainage Decisions." I don't have a lot of notes from this one as I was still scrambling around but the two items I did jot down were that in a long-term study they've been doing at the Southeast Purdue Ag Center (SEPAC) in Jennings County tile drainage at 66' spacings had shown basically the same yield response as tile spaced at either 33' or 16'. Another practice she's been working on is called Drainage Water Management. This document explains this far better than I can but basically a structure is installed within the tile system where you can close off the flow of water out of the tile and conserve water for use in the field. The item I noted for this is that each structure can control water for about 2' of field slope from where it's installed. Within that area the long-term yield impact ranges from 5.8% to 9.8% depending on which study you look at.

Clinton County Surveyor Dan Sheets was up next with "Clinton County Drainage Permitting." Dan talked about how any time a farmer ties into a county drainage structure, either field tile or an open ditch, you need to contact the Surveyor's office BEFORE you start work on the project. There is a permitting process and fee which is not too much and far less than the fine (and costs of possibly having to redo the system) if you do work without getting one. The Surveyor's Office would like to be notified when you're doing the work so they can inspect where it outlets into the county system and also so they can GPS it. The key points I took away is that they want you to use sub-mains and not make too many outlets into the county system. The big message is that county drainage is a public utility owned by the taxpayers and needs to be treated like any other public system.

The next speaker was Justin Schneider, formerly Staff Attorney and now Director of Public Policy for Indiana Farm Bureau speaking on, "Legal Aspects of Farm Drainage." I'm going to leave this alone as I simply don't have the space here to fully discuss it but if you're interested in one perspective, you can take a look at this paper by Gerald Harrison of the Purdue Ag Economics Department.

After lunch Eileen Kladivko of the Purdue Agronomy Department spoke on, "Tile Drainage and Nitrogen Management." In contrast to every other presentation, I have a full page of notes for this one so I'll hit a few highlights. Much of this presentation focused on studies Eileen has been involved with at SEPAC for an extended period of time. First, Nitrate is not lost from the system in July-September. The vast majority of it is lost from November through May. It's important to note that this is different from studies done farther North. For example, in Minnesota 100% of Nitrogen is lost in April-June as before this the ground is frozen and no water flows through field tile. This is not the case most years in Indiana.

The key variable here is the amount of water which flows through the tile. The concentration of Nitrogen in the water is the same whether it's a wet or dry year, just that in wet years the quantity of water is much greater so more N is lost. Also, in recent years they've been experimenting with cover crops and fields with cover crops show a reduction of 5-20 lbs per acre per year over fields without. Studies in Iowa show that cover crops reduced Nitrogen loss from about 45 lb/ac/yr to about 18. So cover crops do seem to help conserve Nitrogen.

Ben Reinhart from the Clinton County SWCD and Kerry Smith from Howard County NRCS gave the final presentation, "Tillage and Conservation Cropping Systems for Drainage, Fertility and Weed Control." This was another presentation where I took very few notes however Kerry did some demonstrations showing how effective cover crops and no-till are at reducing erosion. Ben's discussion was on some of the practices such as no-till and cover crops which increase water holding capacity of soil and may reduce the need for drainage.

I may not have taken many notes for this session but I did get a nice picture of Kerry Smith and two assistants (one is Tom McKinney, I didn't catch the name of the other gentleman) demonstrating soil erosion differences between no-till and conventionally tilled fields.

The final presenter for the day was myself talking about Pesticide Drift (this was different from what was on the agenda). My main point was that I've been receiving a fair amount of drift complaints in the office this year and farmers need to be willing to talk to their non-farmer neighbors. If you aren't and something happens, instead of calling you about it, their call might be to the State Chemist's.

I have a page up on our Extension Office website which includes PDF's of some of the presentations. I encourage you to take a look at them when you get the chance. Thanks again to Farm Bureau and the SWCD for their sponsorship of the program.

Farm Drainage Program Page