Keokuk Gate City Daily, IA
03-16-07
Dean: Iowa ‘on the edge of a revolution'
By Cindy Iutzi/Gate City Staff Writer
The Keokuk Area Chamber of Commerce Recognition, Appreciation and
Participation (RAP) breakfast Thursday was all about green.
Several teams of Keokuk's Fallon-O'Connor Irish Dancers performed traditional
soft and hard shoe Irish dances to a crowd of relatives, neighbors, business
people and entrepreneurs before discussion about agricultural matters took over
the program.
Iowa State University Dean of Agriculture Wendy Wintersteen and Vice
President of Extension and Outreach Dr. Jack Payne talked about the future of
the Iowa economy and its partnership with agriculture.
“We're on the edge of a revolution,” Wintersteen said.
She predicted that some of Iowa's picturesque landscape is likely to change.
Perennial grasses such as miscanthus, or annual grasses like triticale and other
crops high in biomass will grow alongside fields of corn and soybeans.
“This is our opportunity to have a number of different crops on the land; for
example, perennial grasses in the watershed,” she said. “Even 15 percent of
perennial grasses in the watershed would mean a significant reduction in the
number of nitrates in the water.”
Wintersteen, who worked for a time as an extension specialist in Lee County,
said Iowa will always raise corn and predicted future yields at 300 bushels per
acre.
She described 2006 as a year like none before. Not only did corn prices go up $1
per bushel, but the state's bioeconomy has taken off, with 69 ethanol plants
operating in Iowa alone.
“It's what some people are calling a renaissance in agriculture,” Payne said. “It's
very exciting, especially if you have land and you're growing corn ...”
The historically high price of corn benefits Iowa corn producers, but livestock and
poultry producers who use corn for feed are facing tough financial challenges, a
quandary ISU hopes to solve with research and new technology.
“The bioeconomy is going to transform our state,” Payne said.
Payne, who has lived in Iowa for a little over a year, is a relative newcomer to the
state. He had always thought of Iowa as “where I drove through” on the way to
and from points east and west in the nation. However, he has come to believe
the quality of his life in Iowa is the best he's ever had. Payne congratulated
Iowans on their sense of community, a comment that drew applause.
Iowa has always been a prime mover in the food supply part of the economy, he
said, but now the state is in the forefront of energy and fuel production,
agricultural biomass and technology.
He said ISU research scientists are looking at using cellulosic material from
crops high in biomass, such as cornstalks, grasses and trees.
“That technology is just down the road,” he said.
ISU researchers also are working on the ramifications of planting corn after corn
instead of using a corn-soybean rotation, a common practice in agriculture.
Corn is being used in great amounts to produce ethanol as the U.S. tries to rely
less on petroleum-based fuels. Payne said the increase in ethanol production
has resulted in American cotton farmers switching to corn. The U.S. soybean
crop seems to be moving west, he added.
Changing crop rotations can lead to changes in soil fertility, an increase in
disease and insect pressure on crops as well as environmental concerns, such
as degradation of wildlife habitat, water and air quality.
Iowa will have to balance its economy with the needs of the environment and
population, Payne said.
Wintergreen said, “We have to be smarter managing it (the ecology).”
She commented about the recent discovery of Asian Soybean Rust in the Iowa
2006 bean crop last year, saying “it is an issue to be managed” as it has been in
South America. Rust is believed to have been in several south central Iowa
counties.
Unlike South America, where Asian Soybean Rust is present all year, the fungus
isn't likely to winter-over in Iowa, Wintersteen said. Asian Soybean Rust moves
northward on winds from the Gulf “and where the wind lays it down will be the
deciding factor,” she said.
Breakfast was provided by the sponsoring business, LCL Farms in Lee County.
Farm representative Chris Lindner said the meal cost $1 of the actual $7 value to
represent the percentage of value farmers receive for their labor.
The business of the month was the Keokuk Country Club.
Agriculture was the feature business in recognition of Ag Day.
Ag Facts
(Compiled by Lee County Extension Advisor Bob Dodds)
n In 1926 Lee County farmers harvested 53,423 acres of corn with a county
average yield of 33.5 bushels per acre. In 2004 a record county average corn
yield was set at 180 bushels per acre from 78,000 acres. In 2006, 73,500 acres
were harvested in Lee County for an average yield of 144.1 bushels per acre.
n In 1927 Lee County farmers harvested 1,631 acres of soybeans at a 16.3
bushels per acre average yield. The highest average county yield was in 2004 at
54.7 bushels per acre from 69,000 acres. In 2006, the average yield was 44.6
bushels per acre from 68,300 harvested acres.
Thursday the price of corn in Lee County was $3.80 per bushel; last year the
price was $1.85 per bushel. Thursday the price of soybeans was $7.08 per
bushel; last year the price was $5.56.
In 2007 it is estimated that Lee County farmers will spend $520 per acre to plant
and harvest one acre of corn and $341 per acre of soybeans including land
charge.
Local farmers will spend about $37 million on crop inputs for the 2007 growing
season. Using today's prices and last year's average yield, Lee County farmers
will raise corn valued today at $44 million dollars and soybeans valued at $22
million dollars, excluding land charge.
n In 2006, the average acre of farmland sold for $2,893 per acre, for a land value
increase of about 14.7 percent from 2005.
The average age of Lee County farm operators is 55.9. The average farm size in
the county is 295 acres. There are 940 farms in Lee County.
One bushel of corn will produce about 2.7 gallons of ethanol and 18 pounds of
animal feed.
In a normal year, Lee County will receive 34 inches of precipitation. The average
winter temperature is 28.5 degrees and the growing season has an average
temperature of 70.5 degrees. In an average growing season about 31 days will
have a maximum temperature of 90 degrees or higher - too high for optimum
production.