10.08.09 North Dakota State University OceanGrown Distribution, in conjunction with OceanGrown, is pleased to announce that North Dakota State University in Fargo, ND will conduct field trials using OceanSolution, along with other OceanGrown Products, starting next spring, 2010. These trials will be conducted on 5 different and diverse crops, using an 80 foot by 100 foot area for wheat, corn, dry beans, potatoes and a larger plot for sugar beets. In order for the statistics to be meaningful, there will be at least 30 total plots with the treatments as follows:
The NPK rates would be determined through soil testing this fall or next spring, depending on conditions and timing. These trials will be supervised by Dr. David Franzen (Ph.D.), Soil Specialist at NDSU since 1994. The results will be shared with OceanGrown Distribution, along with OceanGrown and will be published in a suitable peer-reviewed journal.
The Farm Progress Show in Decatur, IL – Sept. 1 – 3 was a great success. Farmers from all over the World visited the OceanGrown Booth. Dewey Graff, Kim Callis were in the Booth, as well as, Dan Sturlaugson - OGD Sales - Midwest and Todd Stenerson – OGD Sales – Midwest, also a farmer and user of the OceanGrown Program. The OGD Team responded to inquiries from farmers and Ag. Companies, large and small. Of note, was the concern from younger farmers that had family members, who had gotten cancer from all the years of working around all the toxic chemicals associated with current farming practices. A lot of these younger farmers are now married with children and do not want to suffer the same fate. They were particularly interested in the fact that the OceanGrown Program was non-toxic and chemical free. That, coupled with all the many other benefits of the OG Program, garnered a lot of attention.
Todd Stenerson, OGD, John Hartman, OG, Dewey Graff, OGD, Kim Callis, OGD & Dan Sturlaugson, OGD
Dewey Graff, OGD, Kim Callis, OGD & John Hartman, OG
John Hartman talking to farmers.
OceanGrown products will be exhibited at the Decatur, IL Farm Progress Show 2009, September 1st, 2nd, & 3rd. Representatives from OceanGrown Distribution and OceanGrown’s CEO, John Hartman, will be in attendance along with honored quest and customer, Maurice Wilder. We will be in a tent on lot number 476. We hope to see you there. Senate Committee Approves CWA Restoration Act The Senate Environment and Public Works Committee has reported a controversial bill to restore environmental protections for wetlands, streams, lakes and drinking water sources that were eroded by 2001 and 2006 Supreme Court decisions. The committee passed the Clean Water Restoration Act in a 12-7 party-line vote. President Barack Obama has signaled he would sign the bill if Congress passes it. Sen. Mike Crapo (R-Idaho), a member of the environment committee, voted against the bill and indicated he would try to filibuster it on the Senate floor. EPA Agrees to Set Limits on Fertilizer and Animal Waste Pollution in Florida Tallahassee, FL -- In a major step forward for the environment, President Barack Obama's administration has signed a consent decree in which it agrees to set legal limits for the widespread nutrient poisoning that triggers harmful algae blooms in Florida waters. "This is a refreshing change of policy after almost a decade of foot-dragging by the Bush administration," said Earthjustice attorney Monica Reimer. "It is a real milestone in the struggle to safeguard lakes, rivers and estuaries throughout Florida." The Miami Metro Zoo is the newest member of the OceanGrown family. On September 12, 2009 Miami Metro Zoo received their first 275 Gallon donation of OceanSolution. Juliana Trigoso and John Hartman, CEO of OceanGrown, made a special trip down to Miami Metro Zoo to help set up their personalized program and demonstrate for Tom Trump and his staff the most effective way to use OceanSolution.
Having been in the flower and vegetable farming business for a while now, I receive a large number of trade publications (so many, in fact, that I think my magazines alone account for the harvesting of a small forest each year.) I never have enough time to read all of them and the ones I have tried to cancel continue to come anyway. Every once in a while, however, I do get the chance to sit down with one and I recently found an interesting article that I would like to share with you. It's going to sound pretty weird, and I have to say up front that I've never tried this myself, but the information comes from the Rutgers University Vegetable Research Farm in New Bruns-wick, N.J., so I have to assume it be at least somewhat reliable.
UC Davis researchers will receive $2.8 million in new grants to study the use and impacts of nitrogen, a hero of the agricultural revolution that is increasingly viewed as a worrisome source of water and air pollution and potent greenhouse gases.
OceanGrown will be attending the Citrus Expo in Fort Myers, Florida-August 19th & 20th. We will be in booths 206 & 208. Take your first right out of the Main Registration Entrance and we will be the first two booths on the left. Our lead representative at this show will be Barry Lilli, Sales Team Manager, and several of other OceanGrown representatives. Look forward to seeing you there! Jamaica Visit CEO John Hartman, Cesar Diaz, and Derek Lyod travel to Jamaica to speak with their Minister of Agriculture. The trip was a great success and their first shipment went out Monday, July 27th, 2009. Product was shipped for both agricultural testing and to be featured at Denbigh Agricultural Show.
Be nimble and act early to make sure you get the fertilizer your crops need for 2009. Right now is a good time to sit down with your dealer and map out your strategy, if you haven’t already done so. You already know the fertilizer outlook. Supplies: tight. Prices: sky-high. How you deal with this situation could determine just how successful you will be next year. The fertilizer news got worse, rather than better, as summer came to a close. On Aug. 7, United Steelworkers laborers at three Potash Corporation of Saskatchewan mines went on strike, putting about 6% of the world potash supply at risk. Hurricane Ike hit Texas Sept. 13, damaging the 600,000-ton yearly capacity Agrifos phosphate plant on the ship channel in Pasadena, near Houston. Agrifos managers cleaning the flooded plant say they don’t know when it will be back online. These problems make the already troublesome supply situation even tougher, at least for now. Fertilizer demand in India, China and Brazil continues to climb and is unlikely to moderate soon. In the U.S., booming corn acres keep demand high. It all makes for a tense, expensive predicament. “Fertilizer prices are at an all-time high. The farm price was up 113% in August 2008 from August 2007. There’s been a huge spike in world fertilizer demand. It’s grown 14% overall, worldwide. That’s the equivalent of a new U.S. market,” says Kathy Mathers, Fertilizer Institute vice president. “A big part of the price run-up has been driven by increased prices for grains and oil seeds. As those prices flatten out and get in a more narrow range, we’ll see inputs flatten, also. The price situation has been the result of a little bit of a lot of things,” says Tim Crislip, director of product supply for CHS Crop Nutrients. After many years of mining nutrients from fields, India is pushing to rebuild fertility, Mathers says, subsidizing fertilizer to its farmers. For example, Indian farmers are paying $150 per ton for urea, Crislip says. “Looking at the tender of today, that’s a $700 market for urea. I’d like to see the subsidy bill India is paying. I don’t think this will continue over a long period of time. It usually comes back to some economic relationship over time,” Crislip says. China, a large exporter of nitrogen (N) and phosphate products, now aims to increase food production and wants to keep more of its own fertilizer output. As a result, the Chinese government slapped a 135% tariff on all fertilizer exports. “This started in the spring with China. They’ve gone from being the largest exporter to almost a complete shutdown. This has been kind of a quiet thing. It isn’t common knowledge yet,” Mathers says. In the U.S., it’s clearer than ever that farmers are part of a global supply and demand market. Jim Camberato, Purdue Extension soil fertility and plant nutrition specialist, says Purdue ag economists expect potash prices to hit more than $900 per ton, anhydrous ammonia around $1,000 per ton and monoamonnium phosphate and di-amonnium phosphate at $1,100 or more. With prices like that, you should focus on soil testing to closely monitor nutrient levels. Even though the situation may tempt some farmers to cut back on fertilizer, be careful. “Some of our cotton farmers think they can get by without putting anything on soybean fields, but the second year soybeans are out there, you’d better add something or you’re going to mine the soil,” says Tom Barber, High fertilizer prices also make management decisions more critical. “There’s still money to be made applying phosphorus [P] and potassium [K] to low-testing soils. One thing we’re seeing, though, is that many Midwest farmers like to have high-testing soils, and some are still trying to build them up. We think that they need to look at that and change,” explains Antonio Mallarino, an Iowa Extension nutrient management specialist. “If they’re applying excess fertilizer, they’re wasting money and affecting water quality. The cost of that insurance is much higher than it used to be. With today’s variable-rate technology, they can just put the fertilizer where it’s needed across a field. Farmers need to use all the available technology to help them make decisions,” Mallarino says. Some university specialists say spring-applied N fertilizer might be a cost-cutting answer since it reduces the chances of leaching or volatilization. However, there are other considerations. Mallarino says N tends to be more expensive in the spring, the dealer infrastructure may not be set up to handle massive spring deliveries and cold, wet weather can create application problems. “Spring application is a hot issue, especially in Iowa. Yes, it can be good, but it doesn’t mean you always can reduce the application rate. People have to understand that if there’s a lot of rain from April through June, lots of N may be lost anyway,” Malla-rino explains. Fertilizer markets will continue to be volatile during the next year, CHS’s Crislip says, but there will be adequate supplies and some price leveling, as well. Farmers should be most concerned about getting fertilizer deliveries on time for the crop year. “There is a definite risk to the grower, with more than 50% of our fertilizer inputs being produced overseas. There’s a long supply chain. It can take 45 days or 60 days to get it here. The grower can’t wait until March to order it and expect it to be there on time. My advice is to talk to dealers early. Visit about intentions and needs,” Crislip says. “This is going to be more of an issue with urea coming out of the Arab Gulf than with potash out of Canada. Potash is going to be tight, but N is a legitimate concern. It comes from the same places our crude oil comes from. That’s what we’re worried about. Farmers should worry about N. Yes, there’s price risk, but there’s also supply risk. Talk to your dealer so neither of you is surprised.” Dealers now operate in a tricky financial world, says Cheryl Schmura, CHS vice president for crop nutrients. “Just think about what the credit market crisis has done to dealers. As much as it’s painful for farmers, it’s also painful for dealers. Credit is very tight everywhere. We’re encouraging partnerships. We’re partnering with suppliers, we need dealers to partner with us, and farmers to partner with dealers and sit down and discuss what’s going on. This is stuff we should have done all along. As long as you can run your operation loose and do OK, that’s fine, but there usually comes a point where you have to change. For farmers, it’s changed. We’ve reached that point,” Schmura says.
Somewhere in Iowa, a pig is being raised in a confined pen, packed in so tightly with other swine that their curly tails have been chopped off so they won't bite one another. To prevent him from getting sick in such close quarters, he is dosed with antibiotics! The waste produced by the pig and his thousands of pen mates on the factory farm where they live goes into manure lagoons that blanket neighboring communities with air pollution and a stomach-churning stench. He's fed on American corn that was grown with the help of government subsidies and millions of tons of chemical fertilizer.
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Risky Inputs
by Charles Johnson
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