Robert Pore's Ag Blog

Golden Valley, Minn. — Convenient herbicide-tolerant technology has made it possible to reach average soybean yields by simply planting, spraying and harvesting the crop. However, growers looking to surpass typical yields and protect their investment are heading back to the fields to scout for a growing list of threats, including aphids and Asian Soybean Rust (ASR).


A myriad of diseases, pests and insects cost U.S. soybean growers billions of dollars each year, but area agronomists are encouraging Nebraska growers to fight back with good, old-fashioned scouting.


“To obtain more return from every acre, growers can’t just plant, spray and harvest their soybeans,” said Jim Erwin, regional sales agronomist for NK® Brand. “We find the time invested in scouting is still well spent. It allows growers to efficiently identify pests taxing their seed investment, and ultimately, protect their crop’s true yield potential.”


For example, aphids, first detected in the United States six years ago, overtake a soybean plant, spreading viruses and reducing yields by 50 percent or more.
By mid-June this year, aphids were found in Minnesota, Iowa, Indiana, Wisconsin, Illinois and Tennessee soybean fields.


If an ASR outbreak occurs, U.S. growers could lose between $640 million to $1.34 billion. However, the No. 1 yield-robbing pest remains soybean cyst nematode (SCN), which alone causes $1.5 billion in annual yield losses. This is equivalent to more than 273 million bushels with soybeans priced at $5.50/bu.


“All of these problems can be identified if Nebraska growers scout their fields and not solely rely on their one-pass herbicide application to protect yield,” Erwin added. “Frequent and thorough scouting allows growers to monitor pest progression, time proper in-season treatment and respond to immediate threats, such as an ASR outbreak. Additionally, creating a historical log of each field’s pest pressure helps with future planning through proper seed selection, crop rotation and applications.”


According to Erwin, scouting is as important to this year’s crop as it is to next year’s. Choosing a variety that yields well in specific conditions and controls individual challenges is the first step to higher soybean yields.


“Weather and other factors can mask or exaggerate issues, meaning what Nebraska growers didn’t see last year could be a problem this year,” Erwin said. “With careful scouting, growers can find hidden problems and properly diagnose challenges that produce similar symptoms, allowing them to effectively treat their crop.”
He said scouting not only determines proper application timing to manage current diseases and pests, but it also is a powerful tool for building a field history and better managing crops in the future.


“The key is to look in the field now, look back at field history and look ahead to next year,” Erwin said.

UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA — The first comprehensive analysis of the full life cycles of soybean biodiesel and corn grain ethanol shows that biodiesel has much less of an impact on the environment and a much higher net energy benefit than corn ethanol, but that neither can do much to meet U.S. energy demand.


The study will be published in the July 11 Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.


The researchers tracked all the energy used for growing corn and soybeans and converting the crops into biofuels. They also looked at how much fertilizer and pesticide corn and soybeans required and how much greenhouse gases and nitrogen, phosphorus, and pesticide pollutants each released into the environment.


"Quantifying the benefits and costs of biofuels throughout their life cycles allows us not only to make sound choices today but also to identify better biofuels for the future," said Jason Hill, a postdoctoral researcher in the department of ecology, evolution, and behavior and the department of applied economics and lead author of the study.


The study showed that both corn grain ethanol and soybean biodiesel produce more energy than is needed to grow the crops and convert them into biofuels. This finding refutes other studies claiming that these biofuels require more energy to produce than they provide. The amount of energy each returns differs greatly, however. Soybean biodiesel returns 93 percent more energy than is used to produce it, while corn grain ethanol currently provides only 25 percent more energy.


Still, the researchers caution that neither biofuel can come close to meeting the growing demand for alternatives to petroleum. Dedicating all current U.S. corn and soybean production to biofuels would meet only 12 percent of gasoline demand and 6 percent of diesel demand. Meanwhile, global population growth and increasingly affluent societies will increase demand for corn and soybeans for food.


The authors showed that the environmental impacts of the two biofuels also differ. Soybean biodiesel produces 41 percent less greenhouse gas emissions than diesel fuel whereas corn grain ethanol produces 12 percent less greenhouse gas emissions than gasoline. Soybeans have another environmental advantage over corn because they require much less nitrogen fertilizer and pesticides, which get into groundwater, streams, rivers and oceans. These agricultural chemicals pollute drinking water, and nitrogen decreases biodiversity in global ecosystems. Nitrogen fertilizer, mainly from corn, causes the 'dead zone' in the Gulf of Mexico.


"We did this study to learn from ethanol and biodiesel," says David Tilman, Regents Professor of Ecology and a co-author of the study. "Producing biofuel for transportation is a fledgling industry. Corn ethanol and soybean biodiesel are successful first generation biofuels. The next step is a biofuel crop that requires low chemical and energy inputs and can give us much greater energy and environmental returns. Prairie grasses have great potential."


Biofuels such as switchgrass, mixed prairie grasses and woody plants produced on marginally productive agricultural land or biofuels produced from agricultural or forestry waste have the potential to provide much larger biofuel supplies with greater environmental benefits than corn ethanol and soybean biodiesel.
According to Douglas Tiffany, research fellow, department of applied economics and another co-author of the study, ethanol and biodiesel plants are early biorefineries that in the future will be capable of using different kinds of biomass and conversion technologies to produce a variety of biofuels and other products, depending upon market demands.


Hill adds that both ethanol and biodiesel have a long-term value as additives because they oxygenate fossil fuels, which allows them to burn cleaner. Biodiesel also protects engine parts when blended with diesel.


"There is plenty of demand for ethanol as an additive," Hill says. "The ethanol industry was built on using ethanol as an additive rather than a fuel. Using it as a biofuel such as E85 is a recent and currently unsustainable development. As is, there is barely enough corn grown to meet demand for ethanol as a 10 percent additive."

SOURCE: University of Minnesota

AMARILLO – Congestive heart failure sounds fatal, but is actually a treatable condition, according to a Texas Cooperative Extension specialist.
"Congestive heart failure means your heart cannot pump enough blood to meet your body's needs," said Andrew B. Crocker, Extension gerontology specialist.
The heart is still working, Crocker said, just not as effectively as it should.
The condition occurs when the atrium, which takes blood into the heart, or the ventricle, which pumps the blood out, loses the ability to keep up with the amount of blood flow, he said.


If the left ventricle loses the ability to pump normally, the heart cannot pump with enough force to push enough blood into circulation, Crocker said. If the ventricle loses its ability to relax normally because the muscle has become stiff, the heart cannot properly fill with blood during the resting period between each beat.
In either case, blood coming into the left chamber from the lungs may "back up," causing fluid to leak into the lungs, a condition called pulmonary edema, he said.
When the right side loses pumping power, blood backs up in the body's veins, usually causing swelling in the legs and ankles.


This "backing up" or "congestion", which develops over time, is where the term "congestive heart failure" originates.

Common signs or symptoms of congestive heart failure include: fatigue and weakness, shortness of breath, persistent cough or wheezing, swelling in legs, ankles and feet, abdominal swelling, sudden weight gain from fluid retention, lack of appetite, nausea and irregular or rapid heartbeat.

A single risk factor may be enough to cause heart failure, but a combination of factors dramatically increases the risk, Crocker said. Risk factors include high blood pressure, coronary artery disease, diabetes, alcohol abuse and kidney failure, to name a few.


"Using a stethoscope, your health provider can listen to your lungs for sounds of congestion," he said. "The stethoscope also picks up abnormal heart sounds that may suggest heart failure."


One or more tests may be recommended to diagnose heart failure, including a chest x-ray, electrocardiogram, echocardiogram and cardiac catheterization, among others, Crocker said. Patients may also be referred to a cardiologist.


"Congestive heart failure is treatable in most cases," he said. "Your health provider will initially try to treat the underlying diseases or conditions, such as high blood pressure or diabetes, which are causing your heart failure."
The treatment for heart failure may include:

> Lifestyle Changes: Follow a diet low in salt. Limit fluids. Weigh every day and let a health care provider know right away about sudden weight gain. Exercise as directed to help build up your fitness level and ability to be more active.
> Medications: Medicines may be prescribed to help improve heart function and symptoms. The main medicines are diuretics to help reduce fluid buildup in the lungs and swelling in the feet and ankles; inhibitors to lower blood pressure and reduce heart strain; beta blockers to slow the heart rate and lower blood pressure; and Digoxin to make the heart beat stronger and pump more blood.
> Surgery: Severe heart failure may make the patient a candidate for a mechanical heart pump or heart transplant.

"Although many cases of heart failure cannot be reversed, treatment can usually improve symptoms and help you live longer," Crocker said. "Pay attention to your body and how you feel, and tell your health provider when you are feeling better or worse."

For more information, visit the congestive heart failure information page offered by the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute:

http://www.nhlbi.nih.gov/health/dci/Diseases/Hf/HF_WhatIs.html