>....returns from corn-soybean rotation have been very good, although if
commodity prices stay as low as they are for very long, maybe that will
change. Growers will change the rotation if they need to.
Unfortunately, the prices for Betty's listed alternative crops are also at
unprofitable levels. Nobody can afford to grow the crops they grow best nor
can any corn or soybean farmer afford to grow an alternative at this phase
of the commodity price cycles.... I like Greg Gunthorp's thought best of
all: get livestock back into pasture settings. Intensive grazing has more
value than just as a source of Total Digestible Nutrients; my grandfather's
generation raised hogs on legume pasture in rotation with oats (for the
draft horses). It was a little hard on baby pigs in the harsh weather
months, but the rotation managed health issues fairly well otherwise. I'm
not sure "we" gave more intensive pasture management a fair score as we
plunged headlong into livestock confinement systems during the 1960s on my
home farm.... Betty, you seem to have an intuitive grasp of the
frustration Greg expresses. But there really was (and probably still is) a
labor crunch out on the farm 30 years ago that helped drive livestock off
the land and indoors. My father's four sons provided a lot of hog
management capacity while we were raising pigs on pasture, but when two of
us went off to join the service, etc. that was the end of our hog pasturing
system. I moved back onto the home place years later, but my sons weren't
as interested in the farming chores and so that idea went nowhere. It was
my observation at the time that none of the neighboring farm families
handled that transition any differently, either. All of us became
mechanized grain farmers and left the livestock enterprises permanently.
Dale's information about the rootworm's previous predilection for
curcurbits is a revelation to me. If the "trap-crop" idea or the bait
approaches have merit, I'd like to design innovation crop insurance
policies that will help reluctant growers adopt the practices more
confidently (and more quickly) once they're proven to be effective
alternatives to current methods.....
>One promising approach is use of baits to kill adults. Rootworm was
>originally a pest of cucurbits, and they are strongly attracted to
>cucurbits. Cucurbit extracts can be combined with insecticides to make
>baits that kill the pest without actually being sprayed on the crop. I
>wonder if cucurbits can be used as trap-crops to pull adults away from
>soybeans? Perhaps a small grain could follow cucurbits grown in strips in
>soybean/corn rotation.
Jim Quinton, Risk Management Coordinator
Agricultural Conservation Innovation Center (ACIC)
2234 S. Hobson Ave.
Charleston, SC 29405-2413
phone: (843) 740-1327
fax: (843) 740-1331
e-mail: Jim.Quinton@agconserv.com
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