Robert Pore's Ag Blog

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. — As farmers look toward the 2007 crop season, many are blurting out a four-letter word: CORN!

The expanding biofuels industry and high export demand adds up to what could be the largest United States corn acreage in several generations, said Chris Hurt, Purdue University agricultural economist. Hurt predicts corn prices will eclipse $3 a bushel for the 2007 marketing year and could threaten the 1995 record of $3.24 a bushel.

"There's no question at this point that we're going to need a massive increase in corn acreage for 2007," Hurt said. "That increase is driven primarily by ethanol, but we also have very strong export demand. That export demand is mostly driven by the fact that there's a fear that corn supplies are going to be very tight in the United States and that prices will be much higher.

"In terms of acreage, I've been suggesting that we may have to push acreage up to 88 million to 89 million acres of corn. That would be a 10 million acre increase from 2006 and would put us at the highest acreage planted to corn in the United States since 1946. We'd be looking at a 60-year phenomenon."

American farmers committed so many acres to corn in the 1940s to help feed European allies during and after World War II. In subsequent years, the development of higher yielding corn hybrids and other agricultural advances made it possible to grow more corn on fewer acres. In addition, crop rotations — where corn is grown on land one year and soybeans the next to lower the risk of soilborne diseases, insects and weed infestation — began to take hold.

This year farmers planted about as many acres of soybeans as corn: 75.6 million acres and 78.6 million acres, respectively. In Indiana, the acreage totals were 5.7 million for soybeans and 5.5 million for corn.

Nationally, corn production for 2006 is forecast at 10.9 billion bushels, at an average yield of 153.5 bushels per acre, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

About 2.1 billion bushels of the 2006 corn crop is going into ethanol production at the 106 ethanol plants across the country. By the end of 2007, another 1.4 billion bushels of corn could be needed to feed 53 new or expanded ethanol plants, including five new plants in Indiana, according to the Renewable Fuels Association. The more than 150 plants could be capable of producing nearly 9 billion gallons of ethanol per year.

To put that number in perspective, the United States uses about 140 billion gallons of gas a year.

"Our corn utilization next year could approach 12.5 billion bushels," Hurt said. "We can feed a little bit off of our inventory, but no more than 300 million bushels. So we'll probably have to produce about 12.2 billion bushels of corn next year."

The most corn ever produced in the United States was 11.8 billion bushels in 2004.

With corn demand running high and 2007 production still a question mark, Hurt believes corn prices could go through the roof.

"It is very early to be projecting prices for 2007 in that so many events, including harmful weather and international events, can affect those prices very strongly," he said. "But right now I'm using corn prices in the $3.40 per bushel range for the '07 crop. For the 2006 crop year, the USDA is using $2.60 a bushel, so I think talking about $3 or maybe higher than $3 a bushel is not out of the question for 2007.

"Now, many things will have to unfold for that to happen. One of those is that the ethanol industry continues to run at near its capacity. And that assumes, of course, that oil prices will stay at least above $50 a barrel."

Should farmers follow the economic trends and dramatically increase their corn acres, they'll have to grow fewer acres of other crops.

"As we look at that huge potential increase in corn acreage, we have to ask, 'Where will that come from?'" Hurt said. "We'll probably see some reduction in cotton acreage in the southern United States that will go over to corn acreage. Some land that is best adapted for sorghum could be planted to corn instead. And, throughout the northern Plains, spring wheat may be down some and we could see more corn acreage.

"But those are fairly marginal acreage numbers — maybe 1 million or 2 million acres. Most of those 10 million additional acres of corn will have to come from here in the Midwest. In order to get that acreage, it largely has to come out of soybean acreage."

Planting corn for a second straight year on the same land would disrupt crop rotations, which could mean reduced yields, Hurt said. Still, the markets say grow corn, he said.

"The 2007 crop futures market for corn and soybeans suggests that producers will get a high enough return, even if they have yield reductions for corn planted on corn land," Hurt said. "Obviously, crop producers are excited and anxious to begin planning their 2007 planted acreage."

AMES, Iowa -- John Verkade remembers just how it happened some 40 years ago: One of his Iowa State University graduate students, David Hendricker, stopped by to report somebody was stealing a little wooden applicator stick from a beaker.

Oh, Verkade said, that's just a prank. Go hide around the corner and do some peeking until the joker shows up again. Thirty minutes later Hendricker was back in Verkade's office.

"You've got to see this," Verkade remembers him saying.

What they saw was a wooden stick falling apart and sinking into the chemical compound that had been the basis for Verkade's doctoral dissertation.

"That's an interesting observation," Verkade said at the time.

It was so interesting he asked Iowa State to consider a patent application. But that was a long time before breaking down plant fibers to produce ethanol was linked to energy independence and national security. So the university didn't move on a patent back then. And Verkade, now a University Professor in chemistry, moved on with his work in catalysis and molecular design.

A few years ago, George Kraus, another University Professor of chemistry at Iowa State, brought up Verkade's story of the dissolving wood. He said that compound could be a way to break down the tough cellulose that forms the structure of a plant's cell walls. Breaking down the cellulose can release the simple sugars that are fermented into ethanol. Making that happen could add some value to Iowa crops or the fibrous co-products of ethanol production.

Verkade followed up with a proposal for U.S. Department of Energy funding from the Midwest Consortium for Biobased Products and Bioenergy led by Purdue University in West Lafayette, Ind. He won a two-year, $125,000 grant and enlisted the research help of Reed Oshel, an Iowa State graduate student in biorenewable resources and technology.

They started using the chemical compound on distillers dried grains, a co-product of ethanol production. The initial results weren't encouraging. Verkade was ready to stop pursuing additional funding for the project.

But, earlier this fall, the researchers treated the distillers dried grains with equal measures of the chemical compound and water. That mixture broke down 85 to 95 percent of the cellulose so it could be dissolved in water.

"That opened a whole new door for us," Verkade said. "We knew we were tearing some things up in the cellulose."

They've since tried experiments on model compounds of cellulose. Those experiments have been promising. And now they're working to see if a simpler, cheaper version of the compound can also break down cellulose.

"We have preliminary evidence that it works, too," Verkade said.

Verkade isn't identifying the compound until he can explore the potential for patents. But he's working on a grant proposal that would keep the research going. There are still questions to answer about the compound's performance and characteristics as a pre-treatment for converting cellulose to ethanol. Verkade also wants to see how the compound works on corn stalks, switchgrass and other crops grown for their fiber. And tests need to be done to determine the compound's compatibility with fermentation enzymes.

"This is an exciting time," said the 72-year-old chemist. "I'm now cautiously optimistic about this."

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. — Current climate change impact models that consider only one weather variable, such as increasing temperature, sometimes spawn unsubstantiated doomsday predictions, according to researchers at Purdue and North Carolina universities.

Climate change impact models often don't consider whether shifting weather will allow for sustainable agriculture, said Dev Niyogi, corresponding author of the journal article and Purdue agronomy, and earth and atmospheric sciences assistant professor.

Niyogi's team looked at weather factor interactions and their impact on two different crop plants by using data for weather and field conditions that occurred in a year considered normal for the test area. By designing a study that changed a number of variables simultaneously, the researchers found that the complex interactions of precipitation with other weather factors had the most impact on the overall health of crops and regional agricultural productivity. They concluded that lack of precipitation will have the most dramatic effect on living conditions in the future.

"Even though the question often posed involves the impact of global warming on agriculture, the real question ought to be 'What is the effect of drought?'" said Niyogi, who also is Indiana state climatologist.

Plants that are stressed due to lack of water threaten the future and sustainability of agricultural crops. Complicating the climate impact on crops is that growing demand for agricultural products also can affect weather patterns, Niyogi said.

"One basic issue we still need to understand is that population growth is a major driver for climate change," he said. "When we have more humans, we'll use more energy and use more landmass."

Land-use shifts can impact temperature and overall climate, as already evident in urban temperatures compared with rural temperatures, Niyogi said. This is a result of weather variable interactions and can be demonstrated in Niyogi's research, which involves interaction of radiation, temperature and precipitation changes.

"When temperature rises, you see more evaporation," Niyogi said. "More evaporation could lead to more clouds. More clouds might lead to changes in radiation. Changes in radiation can impact the amount of convection — the heating of the environment by the rising air. This leads to formation of rain, which can change the soil moisture and temperature again."

Niyogi and his collaborators tried to reproduce how temperature, radiation and precipitation interact and how those interactions impact two types of crops: corn and soybeans. The scientists used data from an area in North Carolina in which they had conducted previous studies. The data were from 1998, when the weather was considered normal for the area.

Niyogi's team ran 25 different climate scenarios on each of the crops in order to assess the effect of various interactions of radiation, temperature and precipitation on corn and soybeans.

The scientists found that radiation could be beneficial in a medium range because it increases the plants' photosynthesis, the process by which plants take energy from the sun to spur growth. However, too much radiation or too little radiation both lowered crop yield because they changed the efficiency of photosynthesis.

Radiation also affected how much water evaporated from the plants. This changed plants' water usage and had an impact on crop yield.

While temperature changes had a more direct effect on crops than did radiation, the researchers found that the impact was dependent on when temperature changes occurred and how long they lasted.

More refined studies need to be done on individual regions of the world to develop resource management and drought plans, according to Niyogi and his research team.

"Right now, we would be in shock if we had a real drought in Indiana," Niyogi said. "We can avoid a drought disaster depending on how we manage our resources based on climate change impacts that consider multiple interactions and vulnerability."

As the population increases, demand for agriculture products increases and regional climates change, management of resources will become even more important.

"As the region and the world brace for the necessity of higher crop yields, the role of weather becomes more critical and needs to be taken into account seriously in developing agronomic plans," Niyogi said.

The other researchers involved with this study were lead author Roberto Mera, a graduate student in Niyogi's lab; and North Carolina State University researchers Fredrick Semazzi, professor of marine, earth and atmospheric sciences and mathematics; Gregory Buol, crop science research scientist; and Gail Wilkerson, professor of crop sciences.

NASA, the National Science Foundation and the U.S. Department of Agriculture provided funding for this research.