Rich Keller

Farmers & Ranchers Alliance plans for more impact

05/14/2012 1:00:00 PM

The U.S. Farmers & Ranchers Alliance (USFRA) held its spring meeting last week. Conversations centered on the impact the alliance is having in improving U.S. agriculture's image and enhancing consumer confidence in today's agriculture. ... Full story.

Corn replant considerations

05/07/2012 3:20:00 PM

Farmers definitely don’t want to replant a corn field unless absolutely necessary to assure an economical crop to harvest, and, therefore, retailer agronomists and crop consultants are often expected to help farmers make the nay or yea decision. ... Full story.

Limit on crop insurance subsidy could save $1 billion

04/18/2012 9:30:00 AM

The GAO examined the impact of limiting federal crop insurance subsidies to $40,000 per entity at the request of Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla. ... Full story.

Glyphosate-resistant weeds hit USA Today

04/18/2012 10:00:00 AM

Farmers are quoted as using more chemicals to combat weeds resistant to glyphosate herbicides in a USA Today article in the newspaper and on line. ... Full story.

Resistant weeds means more post equipment needed

03/20/2012 1:00:00 PM

The days of easy, simple weed control using all post applied herbicides are gone because of weed resistance. There isn’t enough custom application equipment plus farmer equipment in use today to do the number of applications exactly when the applications need done, according to one plant science professor. ... Full story.

Big range in custom application costs

03/21/2012 10:00:00 AM

Cost of hiring custom application or performing custom application work for others is gathered in a farmer survey by Iowa State University. What is obvious when it comes to spraying and spreading is that there are highly variable costs in Iowa. ... Full story.

Sustainability metrics too tight for every farm

03/20/2012 2:15:00 PM

The measurement of sustainability from one farm to the next farm seems almost impossible based on a single set of metrics or a tightly written definition. ... Full story.

13 farm groups issue farm bill statement

02/03/2012 11:35:00 AM

Most of the nation’s commodity farm organizations issued a joint statement Thursday after two days of discussing ways to influence the passage of a new farm bill. ... Full story.

Crop input costs will be higher in 2012

01/16/2012 11:15:00 AM

The outlook was succinctly announced to a room full of growers earlier this month in Prairie County, Ark., by Scott Stiles, Extension economist for the University of Arkansas. ... Full story.

Higher Corn Population Will Increase Yield

01/12/2012 12:31:28 PM

Corn plant population is definitely a component of yield potential for any field of corn. It comes down to simple math in calculating the number of plants that yield a quality ear of corn in each acre of the field, and quality means an ear of respectable size with large kernels. ... Full story.

UPDATED: Arrests related to hacking, and police put heat on Greenpeace

07/22/2011 8:00:00 AM

Twenty-one members of the Anonymous network of computer system hackers, including some that could have been involved in hacking minimally sensitive Monsanto files, were arrested by police in the United States, England and the Netherlands this week. ... Full story.

Biotech crops/food losing ground in Europe

07/07/2011 1:53:20 PM

The European Union Parliament voted this week on draft legislation to give individual countries more authority and sovereignty in banning production of genetically modified (GM) crops. Expectation is for companies to be forced out. Countries will also be labeling food as GM. ... Full story.

Resource Center