Air March 6 - 10, 2006

Last call for top dressing wheat or brome

This is Ag Outlook 2006 on 1420 KJCK, I'm Chuck Otte, Geary County, K-State Research and Extension Ag & Natural Resources Agent. With St Patrick's day just around the corner, we are about out of time to topdress wheat or bromegrass for expecting maximum return. If you have been holding off on top dressing either one of these, don't wait much longer - get it done. If you have been holding off because you weren't sure if we'd get some moisture, that's probably understandable, but not a good idea. Even if you had applied nitrogen in the past couple of months, there becomes the question of whether that N has even been taken into the root zone of the soil. For maximum efficiency, nitrogen really needs to be into the root zone and into the plant prior to jointing. Unless recent showers provided more precipitation than we saw in January a lot of that topdressed fertilizer still isn't in the root zone. Remember, 1 inch of rain, assuming none of it runs off, will only soak up about 6 inches of soil. ¼ inch of rain is only going to go in about 1 to 1½ inches in the soil profile. So in all reality, we need to see at least a half inch of rain to do us much good in getting that nitrogen down to where roots can get it. Now, some of you may be worried about nitrogen volatilization of that nitrogen, but that probably isn't too much of a concern. Dry soils are more a concern right now than nitrogen loss - and most nitrogen loss would usually occur within the first few days of application. The bottom line that I'm trying to get to is - go ahead and fertilize if you haven't. If we don't get much rain, it won't matter and the N will lie and wait. If it does rain, then it'll go on in for what good it will do. But if it isn't applied, no rain in the world will get it down to the roots. This has been Ag Outlook 2006 on the Talk of JC, 1420 KJCK, I'm Chuck Otte.

Age verified beef marketing

This is Ag Outlook 2006 on 1420 KJCK, I'm Chuck Otte, Geary County, K-State Research and Extension Ag & Natural Resources Agent. There is a growing, market with very real premiums for what is now being called age verified cattle. What this fancy title means is that you can tell the buyer exactly the age, within a month or so, of the animals being sold. This is very critical because of BSE or mad cow. Numerous tests have shown that because of the extensive length of time that it takes for this condition to develop, cattle under the age of 21 months. As more countries that had embargoed US beef step up, we can start to see a market for these younger animals, which is really the standard market age beef animal. There is still a lot of work being done on developing what the USDA likes to call QSA or Quality System Assessment program which can provide an auditable trail to insure that the cattle are the age that we claim they are. The most common method of verifiing age of animals is with a born on date. This is something that most producers are doing already. The newborn calf is tagged within a day or so of being born. The tag number and the birth date are recorded. If you want a slightly less accurate system, but still usable, involves making a note of when the first calf was born, waiting about a month and then after noting the date, tagging all the calves with ear tags of the same color - then we know that all the calves with the same color ear tag were born between the two dates. Not as much labor, but equally acceptable. For record keeping purposes, I would prefer that you use the first one. There will be many other age verification techniques that will be coming along in the coming months, and the government officials on both sides of he ocean have a few things to work out, but for those willing to take the time to prove age, stand to earn an extra $20 - $30/hd.

This has been Ag Outlook 2006 on the Talk of JC, 1420 KJCK, I'm Chuck Otte.

Electronic ear tag technology progress

This is Ag Outlook 2006 on 1420 KJCK, I'm Chuck Otte, Geary County, K-State Research and Extension Ag & Natural Resources Agent. We've all been hearing a lot about premise ID for the past couple of years and usually right along with that we have individual electronic animal identification. The principle concept of eID is an ear tag with a unique number that can be read with an electronic scanner or reader. The tags just sit there until the reader shoots a radio wave at it - the radio wave actually provides the energy for the tag to respond with it's number. If it helps to understand it, this is basically the same technology that the new keys in cars use so that if the key isn't the properly encoded the car won't start. The challenge is that there are numerous tags out there and several different tag readers, but there isn't yet a standard. Tests have been done to see how different readers and tags respond to each other. Three readers and eight tags were tested for reading rate (accuracy) and distance. They were also tested for tear resistance and tamper resistance. One of the tags failed to show evidence of tampering and there was a big difference in the strength of the ear tags to resist tearing or breaking. There was also a big interaction difference between the three readers and the eight tags. One of the readers started to lose accuracy once ear tags got more than five to ten inches away and was not able to take any readings once tags were more than 24 inches away. Another reader was very accurate up to 15 inches out and then started to lose accuracy between 20 and 35 inches. Some ear tags worked better with one reader than another, but generally one that was better with one reader was better with the other two. The bottom line is that technology is changing fast, we have a need for a standard and don't be in a hurry to rush out and purchase a system just yet! This has been Ag Outlook 2006 on the Talk of JC, 1420 KJCK, I'm Chuck Otte.

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