Kansas Agland Quarterly - June, 2014

The Hutchinson News June 2014 KANSAS AGLAND

June 2014 The Hutchinson News KANSAS AGLAND

By Amy Bickel

Kansas Agland

It’s the middle of a hot, windy afternoon as cowboy Bill Barnes stands atop Point of Rocks – what may be the highest peak on the Cimarron National Grassland.

Here, you can see acres upon acres of dry earth across the horizon. It’s brown like winter, and Barnes admits even the yuccas that populate the grassland are having a hard time blooming.

Barnes, 63, has been managing cattle on the grassland for the Morton County Grazing Association for 46 years. He says it is one of the drier years he’s experienced. There are 100 windmills across the grass-land to water cattle, but a few dozen of them have had a hard time keeping up because of the ongoing drought.

Forest service officials who manage the govern-ment grassland permitted the association, which has the grazing rights to the grasslands, to about half of the 5,200 allowed on a normal year because the grassland is so drought-stressed. That was better than the amount allowed last year, he added, which was just 1,400 head of cattle.

In 2011, drought, along with a fire, prevented the grazing association from putting any cattle on the grassland. “The last seven years we haven’t had much rain to make much grass,” he said.

The lingering effects of drought across Kansas and the Midwest in recent years have led to another decrease in the U.S. cattle herd, which is at its lowest in more than 60 years.

Kansas cattle and calves

on Jan. 1 totaled 5.80 million head, down 1 percent from a year ago, according to the Kansas Agricultural Statistics Service. Steers weighing 500 pounds are down by 10 percent, at 1.77 million.

Rising demand for young cattle, or feeder cattle, has soared prices to an all-time high, with August feeder cattle charging over $2 a pound. “The combination of tight supplies and stable beef demand is what underpins current prices,”

said Glynn Tonsor, an agricultural economics professor at K-State who specializes in cattle prices. “The tight supplies are directly related to weather for sure.”

He said nationally, ranch-ers are trying to expand the herd. However, in Kansas and other parts of the southern plains hurt hard by drought they’re not try-ing to grow herds because of the drought.

High prices will be around for a while, Tonsor

added.“I suspect historically

high prices are here for at least the next couple years

as the long biological lag associated with beef herd expansion assures the tight supply situation has two

or more years remaining, and I remain optimistic regarding beef demand,” he said.

Drought’s impact on cattle prices looks to linger

Calvin Mattheis/The Hutchinson News

Rancher Bill Barnes is seen at the Cimarron National Grassland in Elkhart on May 29.

By Amy Bickel

Kansas Agland

Nothing is drought-proof, says John Holman, a Kansas State University Research and Extension agronomist based in Garden City.

But there are a few wheat varieties that appear to be standing out this year in parched western Kansas, in-cluding Byrd, Winterhawk, Danby, Tam111, Tam112 and Grainfield.

Texas A&M developed the Tam varieties, he said. Danby is a white wheat out of the K-State research center at Hays. Grainfield is a K-State hard red variety. Colorado State University developed Byrd and Winterhawk, is a Westbred wheat.

The data is being com-piled by K-State professor Erick De Wolf. Not all areas where these varieties were planted will harvest a crop, however.

“There are some places where the variety trails won’t yield well,” he noted. “We have as many as 40 to 50 varieties across the state … and those there seem to be doing better than a lot of the others.

“In some places, those varieties appear to be a little better than a whole list of other ones, testing side by side.”

More information will be known once harvest is complete.

Some wheat varieties are enduring in dry period, but yields will vary

kAnsAs AglAnd

A new report ranks the popularity of winter wheat varieties in Kansas.

The National Agricultural Statistics Service said recently that Everest continued to be the leading wheat variety seeded in Kansas. It

accounts for 14.3 percent of the planted acres for 2014, the same percent as the previous year.

Developed by Kansas State University, Everest topped the list in the eastern two-thirds of the state.

A wheat variety called TAM 111 is the second most

popular variety with 11.6 percent of the acreage. It is the leading variety planted in western Kansas.

In third place was the variety called T 158, with 5 percent of the planted acreage.

The wheat variety report is funded by the Kansas Wheat Commission.

Everest named top wheat variety in Kansas


By Amy Bickel

Kansas Agland

With limited irrigation and another summer of little rain, Clay Scott had nearly given up on this plot of corn.

“I abandoned it, that’s how tough it was,” the Grant County farmer said.

That summer of 2013, he had planted 230 acres of a new drought-tolerant hybrid. He planted it at a dryland population of 17,000 seeds an acre. He wa-tered it every 30 days or so, but as the hot, dry summer wore on, he was running out of water.

“We were just trying to keep it alive,” he said.

It was nearing the tassel-ing stage when he shut off the irrigation. A few days later, his field received two inches of rain. The crop greened back up and Scott’s plot made 164 bushels an acre on 11 inches of irrigation water he applied during the growing season, as well as very limited rain-fall in drought conditions.

“It wasn’t the best conditions, and it still was able to go ahead and set kernels and set grain,” he said, adding that with the drought-aimed technology, he sees the plant staying greener even when stressed by the weather. “Even

though the corn plant is hurting hard, it still shoots a tassel out and fills the ears. The pollination has been really good in severe drought stress.”

For the past four years, Scott has been growing Monsanto’s DroughtGard hybrids, starting with test plots for the company to now growing the seed technology commercially. He planted 10 percent of his farm’s acreage to a DroughtGard hybrid this year. “It still takes water and it still takes certain conditions, but it is another tool we can use to fight these tougher conditions and when conditions are bad but see success when things are good,” Scott said.

More with lessOn the semi-arid western

Kansas landscape, the goal is to beef up corn, and some farmers like Scott are seeing the results of compa-nies’ efforts to provide seed technology as drought and a declining Ogallala Aquifer take a toll on the area’s economy.

Corn, after all, is king in the United States, which is the world’s largest supplier, producing 32 percent of the crop, according to the National Corn Growers Association. It’s also an economic boon for farmers,

generating a crop value of $79 billion in 2012.

Evidence of corn’s economic impact is evident across western Kansas. Seeing the increasing need for drought-tolerant genet-ics, corporations have spent years of research and dol-lars on the concept and now are rolling out seed variet-ies that still have potential to produce high-quality corn with less water, said Kraig Roozeboom, a K-State Research and Extension agronomist.

The seed industry has been making investments in improving corn yields, largely because corn has been generating more dol-lars to invest, he said.

“The technology is great and there is more options all the time out there,” Roozeboom said, but added it is more than just genetics. “You need to manage the whole system to match your water resources – it is not just selecting a different hybrid.”

Ongoing improvements in cropping systems may be vital to maintain and expand corn acreage and production, he said. That includes systems that conserve water and soil, such as sorghum. One of the biggest benefits, too, is maintaining no-till systems.

Both Syngenta and

Pioneer Hi-Bred, a DuPont company, have released new varieties through traditional breeding tech-niques focused on drought tolerance. A DuPont Pioneer study shows that its Optimum AQUAmax drought-tolerant corn produces roughly 6 bushels more an acre with limited water, according to the company.

Meanwhile, under severe and extreme drought conditions, corn hybrids containing Syngenta’s Agrisure Artesian technol-ogy produced 16.8 percent, or 10.9 bushels an acre higher yields compared to the plot average, according to the company.

Monsanto’s biotech crop solution is called Genuity DroughtGard, which has seen a 5-bushel-an-acre advantage over compet-itor products, said John Sietsam, the technology development manager with the company.

“With DroughtGard hybrids, where it is unique, it is a combination of spe-cifically selected genetics – genetics with top-end yield potential when Mother Nature is friendly,” he said. “But within that, we are also selecting for products that offer drought-tolerant characteristics.”

It’s the world’s first

biotech drought solution, he added. The DroughtGard hybrids are part of a system combining germplasm selected for its drought-tol-erant characteristics, the drought-tolerant biotech-nology trait and agronomic recommendations on the farm.

Nevertheless, he added, it still needs water. And the technology does work the best when it brings in the farmers’ best management practices, he said. “We also have to acknowledge that some of this will mean being more efficient with the water we have,” Sietsam said, adding it means com-bining “the best agronomic technologies with the best agronomic practices.”

That can include variable rate irrigation and irrigation scheduling, he said, adding, “To be honest, the water is only part of the story.”

It’s how you use the water you have, he said.

The drought-tolerant genetics is an effort in the company’s quest to double yields by 2030 to help meet the growing world popu-lation, which is projected to hit 9 billion by 2050, Sietsam said. “As we look at the challenge facing ag-riculture and feeding those 9 billion people and doing it utilizing our resources with the most efficient and

effective ways possible to help meet those demands,” he said, “DroughtGard is the first step from biotech to help with the drought and water-use efficiency in that regard and help drive us toward our sustainable yield.”

Sietsam said research continues to work on im-proving the technology.

One tool in toolboxFarmers like Scott see it

as one tool in the toolbox in drought and limited-water situations. Scott said another test plot last year yielded about 80 bushels an acre on 5 inches of water.

In an area where dryland corn and milo didn’t come up, “that was pretty respect-able,” he said.

“It’s really good to see all the seed companies working on this,” Scott said. “We do need, where the irrigation is becoming more and more limited, something we can plant and save water and still see good yields.

“It’s a technology we can use here,” he said. “As far as smaller wells, it is a perfect fit for some of that. Long-term, going back to the water situation, that is a technology that could fit in helping preserve the aquifer but still maintain a good economic viability out here.”

Tech gives seeds of hopeCorn efforts part of farmers’, firms’ aim for durable solutions

By Amy Bickel

Kansas Agland

In the 21st century, even a half-century-old grain elevator can be technology savvy.

At Nickerson’s Central Prairie Co-op location, with the Kansas wheat harvest fast approaching at press time, gone are the days of handwritten paper tickets or hand-keying entries into the computer system. Employees don’t have to worry about figuring out landlord crop share splits – it’s all in the system.

“Right now, we can do all those things for grain at the scale,” said Nickerson’s Location Manager Amy Theis, adding that the growing volume of grain brought in by farmers can be easily tracked through a comput-erized system and saves time during an already hectic season.

Electronic and seamless

The accounting sys-tem behind it is from a company headquartered in Hutchinson. AgTrax might be under the radar for most, but from the brick building on the northeast edge of the city, a staff of about 30 help agribusinesses like eleva-tors across the nation and world better manage their ledgers.

AgTrax started in 1996 when then Farmland Industries employees, seeing the writing on the wall about the company, decided to branch out and start their own accounting software business for the agricul-ture industry, said Gayle Lewis, AgTrax’s director of operations, who helped form the company in its infancy.

At the time, there were 20 customers, including Nickerson’s cooperative, which came to the table, saying they would go with the newly formed company once it was started.

The first customer signed on in November 1996.

Today the company has grown to more than 200 organizations in 23 states and two countries, said Chuck Jenkins, director of marketing and sales. Those organizations represent 1,500 locations and about 4,000 licensed users.

The idea has always been to make the full service agribusiness “electronic and seamless,” Lewis said. End of day procedures are so much simpler and less data-entry intensive today, as software at the elevator’s scale electronically records the customers’ electronically and, when integrated through a TraxView suite

of modules, seamlessly posts the transactions to the correct financials.

Meanwhile, for some agribusinesses, it means becoming even more paperless, Lewis said. The handwritten tickets given out to truck drivers after they dump a load of grain are in the past for many of the company’s clients.

Instead, farmers can gain access into the AgTrax system and look at their scale tickets, as well as access their accounts receivable and grain bal-ances.

“There are all kinds of information they review on-line, not just scale tickets,” Jenkins said. “Any activity that happens with their account, they can review it online.”

That includes statements, grain balances, contracts, maybe even a fertilizer bill, he added.

On the agribusiness side, the software system

also can disperse equity payments to patrons, said Theis. AgTrax software will figure storage rates, do inventory, record keeping, payroll and financial reports.

The technology helps consolidate tasks, which saves time, Theis said. It means her employees can apply each load a farmer delivers to a particular farm or to the particular landlord.

PartnershipsToday, the company is

able to keep data for all aspects of a full service agribusiness, whether it is feed, fuel, grain trading, asset management or agronomy.

But instead of expanding the company to do so, Lewis said he and other AgTrax officials realized that while they were skilled and considered an industry leader on the grain accounting side, other companies were

better versed in agronomy and departmental solu-tions – solutions elevator employees and farmers need in their day-to-day operations.

“We asked, ‘do we want to keep up with the tech-nology or bring a solution to our customers?’” Lewis said.

Meanwhile, he noted, the third party vendors Agtrax works with may not have the tools on the accounting side, but bring quality software solutions that the indus-try needs.

Thus, two years ago, AgTrax leaders began to refocus the company on what it does best – devel-oping accounting software – and began creating strategic partnerships with industry leaders to offer agribusiness clients a variety of integrated applications to help meet their needs.

For instance, Lewis said, an elevator em-ployee preparing to apply fertilizer to a field could use specific software combined with AgTrax’s software to help track the amount applied.

And, if a customer needs a fuel partner, AgTrax can show them a portfolio of companies that will meet their needs while allowing them to track their ac-counts receivable, Jenkins said.

AgTrax serves as her cooperative’s central information place, Theis said.

“By working with the third parties, they are more efficient to bring in more detailed information,” she said. “It makes your life easier to do the job a coop-erative does and give the information that customers need to do their jobs, as well.”

Continued growthAs the company

continues to grow and expand, AgTrax has transitioned its software from the old charac-ter-based interface to a Windows interface.

“We are trying to be more responsive to our customer organizations and one of the requests has been to go more user friendly for employees,” he said.

In the future, he added, elevator employees will be able to manage accounts for the field on their mobile devices.

The company continues to look for the best solutions to help increase their clients’ efficiency, Jenkins said.

“AgTrax has a solid history, we recognize the sustainability and leader-ship position we hold in our industry, and we are solidly poised for the future,” Jenkins said.

Advancement helping elevators organize harvest


Mike Corn/The Hays Daily News

WaKeeney Livestock Commission owners Kyle Zimmerman, in ring center, guides a calf out a waiting gate as a crowd of farmers and buyers look on. Zimmerman comments on the cattle industry in a story on the opposite page.


By scott Aust

Kansas Agland

At its May meeting, the Kansas Water Authority heard an update about the Kansas Aqueduct project, a 30-year old proposal to build a 360-mile aqueduct to southwest Kansas.

The water authority met in Garden City in May. One item on the lengthy agenda was the aqueduct. The idea, which a 1982 Corps of Engineers study estimated would cost $3.6 billion at that time, could bring 4 million acre feet of water to parched southwest Kansas cropland.

Water regulators in southwest Kansas earlier this year asked the state to dust off a proposed plan. The idea is to tap into Missouri River water from a point near White Cloud and send it to a proposed new reservoir in Ness County.

In response to a directive from Gov. Sam Brownback to develop a 50-year vision for water in the state, the KWA is developing a water plan, part of which includes investigating the old aque-duct idea.

Last August, the KWA authorized entering an agreement with the U.S. Corps of Engineers to update the 1982 study. The Corps has hired HDR engineers to review and update costs asso-ciated with the project.

Earl Lewis, assistant di-rector of the Kansas Water Office, said work is ongoing toward bringing something back to the Legislature in January.

A number of key com-ponents are being worked through, he said, including how much water is available in the Missouri River that could be diverted, how much demand exists for that water, updated infrastructure costs, as well as potential legal issues and environ-mental impact. “We’re kind of moving through the issues in that order,” he said.

Mark Rude, executive director of Groundwater Management District 3, said the aqueduct idea is a con-versation worth having.

“There’s a market for that water,” he said. “There’s certainly a broader market out there beyond the corner store we’re operating under the current water marketing program. That’s that whole concept about moving water around.”

Rude said there’s a lot of value to that water – if it can be brought to the market – and that’s what the aqueduct concept sets out to do. “It’s not only trying to get the value of the water supply, but it’s showing that you can continue to grow communities and the economy for the state in the future,” he said.

Rude said many con-versations, public and private, are going on about water throughout the U.S. He pointed to the Central Arizona Project to provide some perspective for Kansas.

Started in 1973, the Central Arizona Project consists of a 336-mile-long system of aqueducts that brings about 1.5 million acre feet of Colorado River water to Arizona. According to a short video Rude showed, the CAP has provided an estimated $1 trillion of eco-nomic benefit to Arizona’s gross state product between 1986 and 2010.

Rude said Arizona obvi-ously has totally different demographics than Kansas, but it’s something to keep in mind. “The concept of mov-ing water around is a bigger deal. When we get to this legislative session, we won’t have all those questions an-swered. We need to keep the conversation going,” he said.

Others are looking at ways to move water around, as well. The KWA invited Gary Hausler, a retired min-ing engineer and rancher from Gunnison, Colorado, to share his idea for piping Mississippi River water west across Kansas to provide needed water for front-range cities like Denver and Colorado Springs.

For nearly a decade, Hausler has been pitching the idea that Colorado, Nebraska, Kansas and Missouri should form an interstate compact and build a 1,200-mile-long water pipe from a point on the Mississippi River below Cairo, Illinois, to Monument Hill in Colorado, which is about midway between Denver and Colorado Springs.

Hausler said the Colorado water community is split into two factions centered along the Continental Divide with those on the western slope, which has the most water in the state, pitted against those on the eastern slope, which has the most people. “Therefore, they have most of the power,” Hausler said.

Traditionally, Colorado has looked at the western slope as an inexhaustible supply of natural resources, including water. But he believes, and he said studies have shown, the Colorado River and basin water sup-ply are being overstretched now and won’t be able to meet future demand in the next 30 to 50 years.

“My assertion is there’s not enough water there to be had,” Hausler said.

Hausler said that accord-ing to Corps of Engineers data, about 2 million acre feet per day of Mississippi River water flows past Hickman, Kentucky, during the annual 10-day spring run-off. “That’s 20 million acre feet in 10 days, which is more than the entire Colorado River flows in a year,” he said.

The Mississippi River averages 240 million acre feet of flow a year. Hausler has proposed capturing just 1 percent of the river’s flow and sending it west. He estimates the total cost to build, including lift stations and property acquisition, at around $24.3 billion. It would take 25 to 30 years to build. “That’s $24,300 per acre foot of new water de-livered to the eastern slope of Colorado. That is very, very competitive to what it’s costing the water authori-ties to provide new water (to western states),” he said.

Lewis said he felt Hausler’s presentation would provide an example of other major water proj-ects being talked about in several other states. “While this is about what he’s been thinking about primarily for Colorado, it could have some implications for us here in Kansas as well,” he said.

Scott Aust is with The Garden City Telegram.

Aqueduct idea hot topic Project talked about at KWA meeting; Arizona effort mentioned

Amy Bickel/Kansas Agland

Brad Nading/Telegram Walter Geiger, with the Western Kansas Weather Modification Program, talks with members of the Kansas Water Authority about the cloud-seeding program during a full authority meeting at the Clarion Inn.


By kAthy hAnks

Kansas Agland

Cumulonimbus rain clouds mean little to Skip Mancini.

“They are a grand illusion,” she said, staring skyward, with the stern eye of a woman who has been jilted too many times by the hope of building storms.

These days her feet crunch as she walks across the dried buffalo grass lawn on her 15 acres of Haskell County land.

“If you give the buffalo grass just a little water, it will green up,” she said. However, a green lawn is not a priority for Mancini, who hosts a gardening show on High Plains Public Radio, “Growing on the High Plains.” Choices must be made in times of drought, and Mancini is conserving water for vegetables, fruits and her beloved tree rows.

Back in her house she checks her electronic weather station that mea-sures all precipitation at her rural home northwest of Sublette. Pushing some buttons, she sees that since Jan. 1 they have received 1.08 inches of rain.

“That’s nothing for four months. That’s not good,” she said, pointing to the weather station.

It brings back childhood memories from the drought of the 1950s. For many around western Kansas during those years, and for those who can remember the droughts of the 1930s, they have become the bench-mark for how bad things can become in Kansas.

The dust is starting to move this spring with the winds, and she can watch the dirt road from a window in her spacious, contempo-rary house, designed by her architect husband, Vince Mancini. Her focus is on keeping the trees alive and sustaining perennials that need little water. She keeps the water in the ground by mulching her garden and flower beds first by covering the ground with The New York Times and then top-ping that with mulch.

After four years of drought, some of the trees in the thick shelter belt are dying. She and Vince began planting them 36 years ago to create protection for their home and gardens from the fierce wind and dust that blow across the High Plains. Over the years, the tree rows have grown into a shaded forest that is a refuge on broil-ing hot days. Using a drip irrigation system and the water from the house well, she judiciously quenches the roots by placing the hose close to the tap root.

“Can you imagine living in this house with no shel-ter?” she said.

Losing the shelter belt would make life in this windswept land unbearable, plus it would take away the wildlife the Mancinis enjoy on their property.

So, like the tough woman in Harvey Dunn’s painting “The Prairie is My Garden,” Mancini has learned how to survive and still keeps grow-ing, focusing on plants that thrive in the heat without much water. She also seeks out those that will attract migrating monarch butter-flies and bees. “Dealing with the drought at home has to do with making the right choices,” she said. She fo-cuses on xeriscaping, which is growing plants that will do well with little water. She doesn’t buy anything but xeriscaping plants and trees. Forget annuals, she said. They are just immediate gratification, don’t return a second year, and use too much water.

“Don’t plant trees and bushes that don’t belong here,” Mancini said. “Planting maples is a stupid thing to do.”

She points out a Western Soapberry tree, which does well without a lot of water. Native American women taught pioneer women that they could grate the golden berry the tree produces and use it as a detergent.

Mulch is key in flower and garden beds, even with xeriscaping, because it helps maintain the mois-ture already in the ground. Also, it keeps out thirsty interlopers such as weeds.

Mancini isn’t alone in her effort to have an attractive garden without endangering the shrinking Ogallala Aquifer, which is the source for all water consumption throughout western Kansas. At Ward’s Garden Center in Garden City, owner Mike Ward said there has been an increasing demand from surrounding communities for plants that aren’t so wa-ter-dependent because water rates have gotten steeper.

Slowly and surely, people are becoming more concerned. Skyrocketing

water bills for keeping a green lawn have been a powerful incentive for people to start switching from fescues to Buffalo Grass, said Matthew Lutz, a horticulturalist at Ward’s.

“Three years ago we had the ungodly summer that was frying trees, plants and lawns,” he said. He had been working with fellow horticulturalists trying to get plants that would sur-vive without a lot of water, fertilizer or insecticides.

“We started with limited selections, a handful of shrubs and expanded to a large selection of perennials suitable for the region, including plants that attract butterflies and humming-birds, and swallowtails,” he said.

Lutz suggested such perennials as sages and salvias, and butterfly weed that attract the monarchs.

“These are plants that thrive on benign neglect,” Lutz said. “They don’t require a lot to keep happy. My mom’s my trial gar-dener, and if she doesn’t kill it, it can grow.”

Lutz recommended pea shrubs, a large class of shrubs and scotch brooms that need little water. Yards and gardens will look dif-ferent, he said. “The main thing is they are not going to be tight-clipped but more rough-hewn in shape and texture. People have to get used to a rougher look of landscape,” said Lutz.

That includes lawns that don’t look like the greens at a golf course. David Coltrain, Finney County agricultural agent, is trying to encourage people to get away from fescue grass that takes so much water. Unfortunately, he said, he hasn’t noticed a lot of Garden City residents showing interest, although he hasn’t been in town a year yet. “People have to

get away from the idea that xeriscaping is just rocks,” Coltrain said. “It’s using plants that use less water.

We have native plants that use 20 to 30 percent less wa-ter. They are native plants from the west. If you look

at native plants Echinacea, cone flower, lamb’s ear,

SH2ORTAGE RxWith xeriscaping, gardens don’t need lots of water to be beautiful

Amy Bickel/Kansas Agland

Skip Mancini points out plants in her garden that do well even in drought conditions.

See H20 RX / Page 27


By tim unruh

Kansas Agland

HAYS – Doug Zerr has targeted diversity as the key to reincarnating a cattle feedyard that closed in early 2013 thanks to drought, a dwindling herd and other economic factors.

In a partnership with his father, Farrel, a farm-er-rancher from Park, they purchased the former 18,000-head Hays Feeders, seven-and-a-half miles northwest of Hays.

They renamed it ZZ Farms, reduced the ca-pacity to 10,000 head and will offer feeding services for all industry segments, including cows and calves, stockers, feeders, or tradi-tionally feeding them until they’re ready for slaughter.

“I will do it all,” Doug Zerr said.

If a customer wants him to fatten their cattle from 500 to 850 pounds, he will do it.

“Or if they want to keep them here, we can feed them to finish. We have a lot of flexibility built in,” he said.

Cattle are typically taken to a feedyard at 750 to 800 pounds and fed to a slaugh-ter weight of 1,350 and 1,450 pounds.

Hays Feeders offered one service, Zerr said. “All they could do was fatten cattle. Their business model was fairly narrow,” he said. “You’ve got to be flexible with this market and the low numbers of cattle that are available.”

Cause of problemDrought and the high cost

of feed over the past couple of years prompted cattle producers to reduce their herds.

Those factors were at play in early 2013 when Hays Feeders closed. It was one of four feedyards owned by Pratt Feeders. In announcing the closing in October 2012, Jerry Bohn, a stockholder and general manager at Pratt Feeders, said the decision was “a

function of the economics of the industry.”

By then, the area had suffered from two years of drought, which brought herd liquidation, and high feed costs caused “over-ca-pacity in the cattle feeding sector,” Bohn had said at the time.

The plan at the time was to shut down Hays Feeders and wait for better times.

Instead, the feedyard was sold to the Zerrs in October and reopened in January.

Need for a changeRaised on the family

farm and ranch near Park, about an hour west of the feedyard, Doug Zerr, 32, said he left home and completed engineering and business degrees and added master degrees in both areas of study.

He was working in the aerospace industry in Wichita.

“I decided I needed a change. I was tired of the bureaucracy, the red tape of large companies,” Zerr said.

He saw the feedyard as a “good business opportu-nity” and a chance to move closer to home.

More than a paycheck“It’s night and day differ-

ent than what I was doing,” Zerr said. “When you break it down, it’s just a business. All the columns are there, but some of the names and terms are different.”

To him, the feedyard is more than a paycheck. “I don’t have to milk every cent out of this business, because I don’t need to,” Zerr said.

Paramount to Zerr is the health and well-being of the cattle under his care. He employs cowboys who practice low-stress cattle handling.

Six people currently work at ZZ Farms. When the feedyard is at capacity, Zerr intends to have nine workers beside himself.

He prefers hiring locally and building a relationship with the community.

His cattle there, tooZZ Farms will contract

with local producers to raise feed at a premium price, and “I can lean on Dad and his availability to raise feed an hour away if needed,” Zerr said.

The feedyard will serve others, and also Zerr’s cattle.

“It’s important to me to let them know I’m willing to take the same market risks that they are,” Zerr said. “I think a customer will have a little more confidence if the guy that’s feeding his cattle has a pen of his very own right next to him.”

Tim Unruh is a veteran agricultural journalist with The Salina Journal. He grew up on a diversified farm near Deerfield, the son of a grain elevator manager and a schoolteacher. Unruh can be reached at (785) 822-1419 or by email at: [email protected].

A feedyard’s resurrection Father-son partners tout diversity at site with reduced head, more options

Courtesy photo

Doug Zerr stands at the feedlot he purchased in the fall. Formerly Hays Feeders, it had been closed in part because of the drought.

While Stroda said it is likely that well more than 50 percent of Kansas sows have had symptoms, mean-ing a death toll easily in the thousands of piglets, the state and national impact is just a guess.

Up until recently, the USDA and pork industry tracked PED with voluntary reports from labs and farmers, said Kansas Animal Health Commissioner Bill Brown. However, on April 18, the USDA ordered that all farms report cases. According to The Associated Press, the agency said it would step up efforts by requiring farms to report infections and labs

to report positive tests from submitted tissue and fecal samples. Farms that suffer an outbreak also will have to participate in a program to help control the spread of the disease; details of that program are still being worked out.

Brown said that besides some type of monitoring program, the federal mea-sure could mean possible animal tracking of trucks and livestock, as well as the USDA requiring every case of diarrhea to be reported – which could be costly and cumbersome.

In lieu of the rule, as a proactive measure Brown is working to develop a state swine health committee that would act as a clear-inghouse, tabulating data and helping to take farms clear of the virus off the

monitoring list.He expects a federal rule

on the issue to review more in coming weeks.

“We just don’t have a lot of information,” he said, adding, “The USDA should be throwing resources on research, vaccine develop-ment, how did this virus get into the country.”

Stroda said producers appreciate that the govern-ment is worried about their livelihood, “but we would be concerned that making new rules might make a bad situation worse.”

Pfortmiller said it has made the industry more aware that a virus can spread so easily and quickly.

“It was a wake-up to the pork industry for the other emerging diseases,” he said. “We learned from this one – how to protect ourselves.”

VirusFrom PAGE 23


s

Courtesy photos

Landoll Corp. employee Brenda Arntt gives a tour of the town of Marysville during the company’s 50th anniversary celebration on May 30.

Employee Chad Crome shows visitors some of Landoll’s tube-laser capabilities.


Courtesy photos

Recently, when the company planned to serve up thousands of hot dogs and bratwurst to the public, Landoll Corp. President Don Landoll stepped into action. He and employees devised a machine to grill large numbers of links at one time.

This little girl enjoys the breeze from one of the airplanes flying out during Landoll Corp.’s 50th anniversary celebration on May 30.

Praise flowed from those who build farm imple-ments, which Landoll has constantly designed and assembled alongside other equipment for the past five decades.

“Competitor or not, we respect the heck out of Don Landoll,” Linda Salem, president of Great Plains Manufacturing, Salina, said at the lunch for 200 at Marysville’s bowling alley, which is owned by the Landoll family.

“He’s very innovative,” said Marc McConnell, South Carolina-based president of the Farm Equipment Manufacturing Association. “Landoll’s success shows exceptional foresight, embracing technology, quality and relationships.”

The company’s plants were opened to the public for tours at several loca-tions in town, allowing a view of the company’s ro-botic and laser technology.

Tim Davis, longtime Landoll designer, said he felt the company’s pride in teamwork kicked in, as it always does.

Landoll was pleased with the anniversary event’s outcome.

“Attendance was great,” he said after the weekend. “I was impressed with our employees, no matter what it was, from people direct-ing cars in the parking lot to giving commentary on tour buses. I was just over-whelmed with how many people chose to go on the tours.”

Landoll said their biggest competitors, bankers and suppliers arrived to “check us out.”

They left, he said, know-ing the Landoll workforce has largely been self-taught and trained on the job to man the high-tech machin-ery making tillage, trailers, forklifts and other spe-cialized products for such customers as NASA contrac-tors, Israeli military, private industry, farms around the world and others.

Members of the farm equipment association who attended were amazed at

employees’ years of service, Landoll said, and the num-ber of women who hold jobs alongside men throughout company shops.

Noting the company has always sought to create its own path in the industry, Landoll referenced “the old German line, ‘We’ve got to do it our way.’”

But the successful an-niversary celebration, he said, ultimately came as a result of the community.

“The airport was a great location and the city and police participation were fabulous,” Landoll said. “Everybody cooperated and helped out. Many area busi-nesses supported us, loaned equipment and vehicles, tractors.”

And the evening’s fire-works, planned for weeks in advance and put on by the Pat Bruna family’s PFB Pyros of Hanover, were impressive, he said.

“It’s mind-boggling what all goes into that,” Landoll said. “In the final four sec-onds, there were 180 shells to do that finale.”

Sarah Kessinger is editor and publisher of the Marysville Advocate.

50thFrom PAGE 32


By dAllAs peterson

Weed management specialistKansas State University

Controlling large weeds is often considerably more difficult than controlling smaller weeds. The follow-ing are some suggestions for controlling larger trou-blesome weeds in soybeans.

MarestailMarestail has become

one of our most trouble-some weeds in no-till crop production, especially in soybeans. Marestail tend to be difficult to control even when the plants are small and in the rosette stage, but become even tougher when plants get more than 6 inches tall. That is why fall and early burndown treatments are critical to long-term management.

In addition, there are pop-ulations of marestail that have developed glyphosate resistance in many areas. However, some marestail populations are still sus-ceptible to glyphosate, and even resistant plants are not completely immune to glyphosate.

The most effective herbicide treatment for controlling marestail in Roundup Ready soybeans is probably a tank-mix of glyphosate plus FirstRate. The combination of the two herbicides seems to work better than either herbicide alone, even on resistant plants. It is important to use the full labeled rates of gly-phosate and recommended adjuvants, including ammo-nium sulfate, to optimize control and help minimize the risk of developing more resistance. Other tank-mixes to consider with glyphosate for controlling marestail would include Classic and Synchrony herbicides.

Unfortunately, some marestail may also be ALS resistant, in which case FirstRate, Classic, and Synchrony would also be fairly ineffective. This just

further emphasizes the importance of early spring weed control. Liberty 280 herbicide has also provided fairly good control of large marestail as a burndown treatment or post-emer-gence in Liberty Link soybeans.

VelvetleafVelvetleaf has sometimes

been difficult to control with glyphosate. There are no confirmed cases of glyphosate-resistant velvet-leaf, but it is not extremely susceptible to glyphosate. Several application factors can affect control, including time of day, hard water, ammonium sulfate, and environmental conditions. Velvetleaf control with gly-phosate can be optimized by using full rates of glypho-sate and ammonium sulfate (17 lb/100 gal of spray), spraying during the day-light hours, and spraying when the plants are under minimal drought stress.

Herbicide tank-mix partners with glyphosate that may enhance velvet-leaf control would include Resource, Cadet, Marvel, FirstRate, Harmony, and Synchrony.

Waterhemp and Palmer amaranth

These pigweed species used to be some of the most common weeds in soybean fields prior to Roundup Ready soybeans. Glyphosate applied early, and possibly again as a follow-up treatment was effective for many years, but because of the heavy reliance on glyphosate for weed control, glyphosate-resistant wa-terhemp has become fairly common in eastern Kansas and glyphosate-resistant Palmer amaranth has now been documented in several fields in central Kansas and appears to be rapidly increasing.

The best way to manage these pigweeds in soy-beans is to use effective preemergence herbicides

followed by postemergence treatment. However, if the preemergence herbicides weren’t applied or didn’t get activated in a timely manner, early-emerging pigweeds may not have been controlled and can grow wild. Flexstar, Cobra, Marvel, and Ultra Blazer can be fairly effective for controlling small pigweed, but are less effective as the pigweed gets larger, espe-cially Palmer amaranth.

These herbicides also provide some residual weed control, so tank-mixes of these herbicides with glyphosate should be applied within 3 to 4 weeks after planting to optimize performance. Pursuit and Harmony were once fairly effective for pigweed control and can still provide good control of susceptible popu-lations, but many fields now have ALS-resistant water-hemp and Palmer amaranth.

Sunflower and cockleburFortunately, sunflowers

and cocklebur are quite susceptible to glyphosate. However, these weeds are fast growing and often have multiple flushes of germination. It is import-ant to use the full rate of glyphosate and get good spray coverage when trying to control larger sunflower and cocklebur. Tank-mixing Scepter or Classic herbi-cide with glyphosate may improve control and help provide residual control of later-emerging plants.

ConclusionIf weeds have gotten

large, it’s always best to start with the highest labeled rate of glyphosate, with the proper adjuvants, and add other herbicides as needed, depending on the weed species present. In most fields, there will be a combination of one of more of the weeds listed above, so producers will have to see how the herbicide options match up and select the best combination.

Kick off with glyphosate to tame large weeds; add other herbicides as needed

Kansas Agland Quarterly - June, 2014

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Transcript of Kansas Agland Quarterly - June, 2014