UPFRONT
Midwestern weed may inspire new found respect
Soybean farmers in the Midwest have little use for field pennycress. But that may change. Agricultural Research Service scientists in Peoria, Ill., are eyeing the annual winter weed’s seed as both a biodiesel resource and biobased fumigant.
ARS research leader Terry Isbell notes that seed of pennycress is 36 to 40 percent oil by weight. Additionally, long-chain fatty acids derived from its oil are similar to those of other biodiesel resources, including animal fats and soybean and sunflower oils.
This winter, Isbell and colleagues at the ARS National Center for Agricultural Utilization Research in Peoria hope to convert pilot-scale amounts of pennycress oil into biodiesel so that they can further examine its characteristics. This hinges on the successful harvest of a 10-acre pennycress crop grown near Hanna City, Ill., expressly for that purpose.
But why bother, if soybeans can be used? One reason is that pennycress and soybeans often share the same crop fields.
Farmers try to oust pennycress by spraying herbicide in the spring before planting soybeans, but the weed has already produced seed by then. Treating it as another crop rather than a weed could enable farmers to use their land to produce fuel in the winter from pennycress and food in the summer from soybeans, notes Isbell.
Pennycress’ seed production—1,500 to 2,000 pounds per acre—could be well-suited to biodiesel applications. Isbell estimates oil from 1,000 pounds of seed will yield 50 gallons of biodiesel.
Agricultural land values recap
The latest land price information from the USDA shows continued increase in farm real estate across the country. Farm real estate values, a measurement of the value of all land and buildings on farms, averaged $1,900 per acre on Jan. 1, 2006, up 15 percent from 2005. The $1,900 per acre is a record high.
Cropland and pasture values rose by 13 and 22 percent, respectively, since Jan. 1, 2005. Cropland values averaged $2,390 per acre and pasture values averaged $1,000 per acre on Jan. 1, 2006.
The increase in farm real estate values continues to be driven by a combination of mostly nonagricultural factors, including relative low interest rates and strong demand for nonagricultural land uses. Demand for farm real estate as an investment continues to be a strong market influence.
In the Corn Belt region cropland values rose 12 percent, to $3,230 per acre, with Iowa and Illinois offering the strongest prices.
Christmas computer shopping
We asked MFA IT Services Director Scot Mewbuorn and Technical Support Manager John Garrison what shoppers should consider if they’re leaning toward giving computer hardware for Christmas. The tech-savvy duo said that when it comes to monitors and CPUs, there’s the good, the bad and the ugly.
For monitors, the good column includes new LCD TVs and plasma displays. “They’re thin, brilliant in color, and prices are dropping like a rock,” said our team. Bad among monitors and televisions are large-screen CRT HDTVs. “These score bad because the best features are in the LCD TVs and plasmas, which are cheaper.” The ugly? Old fashioned CRT monitors. Our team reports that “they’re big, bulky, heavy, and while cheap, they’re not a bargain when you consider the costs associated with power usage, heat and shipping.”
For PCs in general, Mewbuorn and Garrison report that the good column includes following a typical rule of thumb: “Buy the best laptop or desk-top you can afford,” they said. But be careful, you can move into ugly territory quickly: “The basic desktop package offered at most stores will leave you running slow and wishing for more memory and disk storage.”
When it comes to general electronics, MP3 players such as IPODs are still hot this year. Mewbuorn and Garrison said, “They’re in the good category and supported by a growing industry of subscription-based providers. Consider purchasing a yearly subscription for your favorite music lover. To mention a few: Rhapsody, iTunes, Audible, Yahoo!Music. Throw a ‘dot com’ on the end of these to reach their sites.”
For video buffs who want to download movies (legally), check out subscriptions to sites such as Starz, Movielink and Amazon.com/unbox. Each has DVD-quality downloads at reasonable prices, but you really need to have a broadband connection.
2006 FFA All-Stars
The cover for Today’s Farmer last February featured a quartet of bright students from the Brunswick, Mo., FFA chapter. They were featured for winning the national FFA agronomy contest at the youth organization’s national convention in Louisville, Ky. This year, Brunswick FFA advisor Tom Zeilstra coached another group of exceptional students to the same end. The Brunswick FFA chapter placed first in the National FFA agronomy career development event at the national FFA convention. For their efforts, the team received scholarships to schools of their choice.
The team members were (from left to right) coach Tom Zeilstra, Jason Reichert, Elizabeth Gunn, Jordan Harmon and Chris Sterling shaking hands with contest superintendent, Harold Brown. The Missouri team placed first in competition against 31 other teams.
