- Author: Konrad Mathesius
If you haven't seen the announcements on the UC Small Grains blog, you should be subscribed to the UC Small Grains blog.
Additionally, a friendly reminder to stop by this Thursday for the UC Alfalfa/ Forages and Small Grains Field Day from 7:30 a.m. until 3:30 p.m.
Location: 2400 Hutchison Dr, Davis CA 38.5390, -121.7800
Alfalfa Talks: 8:00 – 10:00
Small Grains Agronomy Topics: 10:00 -12:00
LUNCH will be provided (please register below)
Small Grains Breeding Program Topics: 1:40 -3:00
Agenda: https://ucanr.edu/sites/small-grains/files/383475.pdf
Register: https://surveys.ucanr.edu/survey.cfm?surveynumber=40606
Continuing Education Units (CEUs): 3.5 CCA; 1.5 CDFA INMP (formerly CURES)
Looking forward to seeing you there.
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- Author: John M Harper
News from USDA. Also check out the Livestock Forage Program (LFP) at: https://www.fsa.usda.gov/Assets/USDA-FSA-Public/usdafiles/FactSheets/livestock_forage_program_lfp-fact_sheet.pdf
WASHINGTON, September 8, 2021— In response to the severe drought conditions in the West and Great Plains, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) announced today its plans to help cover the cost of transporting feed for livestock that rely on grazing. USDA is updating the Emergency Assistance for Livestock, Honey Bees and Farm-raised Fish Program (ELAP) to immediately cover feed transportation costs for drought impacted ranchers. USDA's Farm Service Agency (FSA) will provide more details and tools to help ranchers get ready to apply at their local USDA Service Center later this month at fsa.usda.gov/elap.
“USDA is currently determining how our disaster assistance programs can best help alleviate the significant economic, physical and emotional strain agriculture producers are experiencing due to drought conditions,” said Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack. “The duration and intensity of current drought conditions are merciless, and the impacts of this summer's drought will be felt by producers for months to come. Today's announcement is to provide relief as ranchers make fall and winter herd management decisions.”
ELAP provides financial assistance to eligible producers of livestock, honeybees, and farm-raised fish for losses due to disease, certain adverse weather events or loss conditions as determined by the Secretary of Agriculture.
ELAP already covers the cost of hauling water during drought, and this change will expand the program beginning in 2021 to cover feed transportation costs where grazing and hay resources have been depleted. This includes places where:
- Drought intensity is D2 for eight consecutive weeks as indicated by the U.S. Drought Monitor;
- Drought intensity is D3 or greater; or
- USDA has determined a shortage of local or regional feed availability.
Cost share assistance will also be made available to cover eligible cost of treating hay or feed to prevent the spread of invasive pests like fire ants.
Under the revised policy for feed transportation cost assistance, eligible ranchers will be reimbursed 60% of feed transportation costs above what would have been incurred in a normal year. Producers qualifying as underserved (socially disadvantaged, limited resource, beginning or military veteran) will be reimbursed for 90% of the feed transportation cost above what would have been incurred in a normal year.
A national cost formula, as established by USDA, will be used to determine reimbursement costs which will not include the first 25 miles and distances exceeding 1,000 transportation miles. The calculation will also exclude the normal cost to transport hay or feed if the producer normally purchases some feed. For 2021, the initial cost formula of $6.60 per mile will be used (before the percentage is applied), but may be adjusted on a state or regional basis.
To be eligible for ELAP assistance, livestock must be intended for grazing and producers must have incurred feed transportation costs on or after Jan. 1, 2021. Although producers will self-certify losses and expenses to FSA, producers are encouraged to maintain good records and retain receipts and related documentation in the event these documents are requested for review by the local FSA County Committee. The deadline to file an application for payment for the 2021 program year is Jan. 31, 2022.
Additional USDA Drought Assistance
USDA has authorized other flexibilities to help producers impacted by drought. USDA's Risk Management Agency (RMA) extended deadlines for premium and administrative fee payments and deferred and waived the resulting interest accrual to help farmers and ranchers through widespread drought conditions in many parts of the nation. Additionally, RMA authorized emergency procedures to help streamline and accelerate the adjustment of losses and issuance of indemnity payments to crop insurance policyholders in impacted areas and updated policy to allow producers with crop insurance to hay, graze or chop cover crops at any time and still receive 100% of the prevented planting payment. This policy change supports use of cover crops, which improves soil health can help producers build resilience to drought.
Meanwhile, USDA's Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) provides technical and financial assistance to improve irrigation efficiency and water storage in soil, helping producers build resilience to drought. In response to drought this year, NRCS targeted $41.8 million in Arizona, California, Colorado and Oregon through Conservation Incentive Contracts, a new option available through the Environmental Quality Incentives Program, focused on drought practices.
USDA offers a comprehensive portfolio of disaster assistance programs. On farmers.gov, the Disaster Assistance Discovery Tool, Disaster Assistance-at-a-Glance fact sheet, and Farm Loan Discovery Tool can help producers and landowners determine all program or loan options available for disaster recovery assistance.
More Information
More information on this expansion to ELAP is forthcoming. In the meantime, more information is available at fsa.usda.gov/elap or by contacting a local USDA Service Center.
- Author: Michelle Leinfelder-Miles
The UC Davis Department of Plant Sciences has announced their field day for small grains and alfalfa. The event will take place on Wednesday, May 11, 2016 from 8:15am to 4:15pm. The small grains field day will take place in the morning, and the alfalfa field day will take place in the afternoon. Lunch will be provided, and there is no registration fee.
The field day is located on Hutchison Road, just west of the city of Davis. Take Highway 113 north from Interstate 80, or take Highway 113 south from Woodland. Exit on Hutchison Road, and go west. Take a right at the first roundabout, left at the second roundabout, and the Agronomy Headquarters is about ¼ mile west in a clump of trees and buildings on your left.
A tentative agenda is as follows:
8:15am – Noon: Small Grains Field Day
7:45 Registration (no charge)
8:15 Welcome and Introductions—Mark Lundy, UCCE/UCD Grain Specialist
8:20 Overview of wheat breeding—Jorge Dubcovsky, UCD wheat breeder
8:25 Introducing new California Wheat Commission Executive Director Deanna Fernandez
8:35 Depart for field
Field Tour:
8:50 – 10:50 Advances and directions in small grain breeding
8:50 Promising malting barley varieties —Alicia del Blanco, UC Davis
9:05 Durum Wheat Varieties: new genes for grain yield—Alicia del Blanco, UC Davis
9:15 Promising common wheat releases—Oswaldo Chicaiza, UC Davis
9:30 Evaluation of high resistant starch wheat lines—Andre Schönhofen, UC Davis
9:45 QTL for increased number of spikelets— Junli Zhang and Saarah Kuzay, UC Davis
10:00 Discovering genes for drought tolerance—Tyson Howell, UC Davis
10:15 Combining two stripe rust resistance genes in a single locus—Nicolas Cobo, UC Davis
10:30 Mutants for stripe rust resistance—Josh Hegarty, UC Davis
10:45 Travel to forage trial
10:55 – 11:55: Variety testing and agronomic management of small grain crops
10:55 Small grain forage variety evaluation—Cal Qualset & Lynn Gallagher, UC Davis
11:10 Statewide Variety Development and Evaluation – Wheat, Triticale, and Barley Yields, Performance and Pest Resistance—Mark Lundy & Phil Mayo, UC Davis
11:40 Demonstration of in-field N monitoring & quicktests for improved precision of N fertilization—Jessica Schweiger, UC Davis
11:50 Late-planted heirloom varieties at different seeding rates—Margaret Lloyd, UCCE
12:00 NOON – Barbeque Lunch – Many thanks to California Crop Improvement for the Complementary Lunch!
12:35pm - 4:15pm: Alfalfa/Forages Field Day
12:35 Introductions—Dan Putnam, UCCE/UCD Alfalfa Specialist
12:40 Welcome, Department of Plant Sciences—Chris Van Kessel, Chair
12:50 Welcome from the Dean-Changes at UC Davis in Agriculture—Dean Helene Dillard, Dean College of Agriculture and Environmental Sciences, UC Davis.
1:00 Depart for field
Field Tour:
1:05 Insect Management and Disappearing Options for Alfalfa—Larry Godfrey, UC Davis and Rachael Long, UCCE
1:20 Measuring Evapotranspiration (ET) in the Field – Ali Montazar, Project Scientist, UC Davis
1:35 Using ET to schedule irrigations – How to—Daniele Zaccharia, Irrigation Specialist, UC Davis.
1:50 Sorghum Field Studies for Grain and Forage Crops—Jeff Dalberg, Kearney Ag. Center, Fresno, CA
2:05 Field Studies with New Weed Management Options—Mick Canevari, UCCE, San Joaquin County
2:25 Kura Clover, an alternative Clover for Pastures—Dan Putnam, UC Davis
2:35 Subsurface Drip Irrigation Studies on Spacing—Dan Putnam, Daniele Zaccaria, UC Davis
2:50 Deficit Irrigation Strategies for Alfalfa—James Radavich, Dan Putnam, Ali Montazar, UC Davis
3:05 Controlling Gophers in Alfalfa Fields—Roger Baldwin, UC Davis
3:20 Understanding the Fertilizer Needs of Alfalfa—Steve Orloff, UCCE Farm Advisor, Siskiyou County
3:35 Variety Performance Data for Managing Diseases, Insects, and Nematodes, UC Davis—Dan Putnam, UC Davis
3:50 Breeding Alfalfa for California—Scott Newell, Gitanshu Munjal, Charlie Brummer, UC Davis
4:15 Return to Base
- Author: Rachael Freeman Long
- Author: Daniel H Putnam
If trends continue as per current predictions, the continued drought in California will have serious impacts to forage production in 2014, affecting the availability and price of animal feed.
It’s like an 800-pound gorilla in the room, worrying everyone including growers, suppliers, livestock operators and consumers alike. According to the Western Regional Climate Center, October-December of 2013 was the driest on record in California. Other western states are also experiencing drought to varying degrees (note the U.S. Drought monitor map for the west below). Current predictions are for zero to slight chances of rainfall for the rest of January for most of California.
Figure 1. Millions of acres of foothill and coastal grasslands are normally lush green, dotted with grazing cattle in January, but this year are dead brown – this causes havoc for livestock producers and increases demand for hay. (Photo by Phil Hogan, NRCS, 2014)
This drought is likely to have impacts in several areas:
Annual Small Grain and Miscellaneous Hay. On the supply side, oat hay, which is typically grown as a dry land crop in most of California, is a disaster. Roughly 200,000 acres of oats are planted each year in our state (it was 180,000 in 2013), and it’s unlikely that these will yield much, except for the relatively small percentage of irrigated acres. Many fall plantings never even germinated, leaving fields appearing as if they were fallowed. Those plants that germinated from the scant amount of rainfall we did receive are withering. In addition to oats, the yield and acreage of other small grain forages and meadow hay forages will likely be far less this year. Summer annuals such as sudangrass may be out of the question for some areas due to the water scarcity for irrigation, and irrigated pasture production may also be curtailed. The lack of inexpensive oat and other coarser hays has a large impact on beef producers, who are seeking sources of feed for hungry animals that have little range to feed on this winter.
Figure 2. Rainfed oat field in Yolo County, CA showing crop failure. Normally, growth would be knee high by now. Hundreds of thousands of acres of forage production may be lost due to lack of winter rainfall in 2013-14.
Alfalfa. Seedling alfalfa fields planted in the fall should now be a carpet of green. Instead, a number of fields never established, a casualty of north winds and dry conditions that shriveled seedlings. The extreme cold in December did not help either, and these new stands are behind – and existing stands were frozen back. Many thousands of dollars spent for seed and field preparation have been lost.
Alfalfa is a perennial crop that remains in production for four to five years and needs water to be productive. Essentially none of the state’s alfalfa fields have had ‘winter re-charge’ from rainfall which carries the crop into spring until irrigation is initiated. With a shortage of water, difficult choices will have to be made on which crops to irrigate.
In the Central Valley, it is expected that growers will shift water resources from alfalfa to trees and vines, which represent high investments to protect, or to tomatoes or other contracted annuals that have attractive prices this year.
For alfalfa, there are options for deficit irrigation, which means choosing when to stop watering (usually mid-summer). However, the plants will go into a drought-induced dormancy, resulting in significant yield losses, though the stands almost always recover when irrigated again. All of these factors point to a diminished alfalfa supply situation in 2014.
Demand. On the demand side, the utter lack of rain has resulted in nearly zero growth of rangeland forage, causing livestock producers and horse owners to purchase hay that would normally not be needed over the fall and winter period. The coastal and Sierra foothills, normally green and dotted with animals, are dry and sparsely stocked or not stocked at all due to a lack of drinking water for livestock. In rangelands that are stocked, the only available forage consists of any carryover of dry forage from last year, which is of very poor quality. Many livestock producers are using corn stover, rice straw and feed supplements to get them through this period when they usually have “free” feed on rangeland. Thus, demand for hay from grazed animal producers has increased tremendously due to the drought, which has been reflected in an upturn in prices for the medium to lower grade hay.
In addition, the dairy price situation has improved, which should improve demand for hay, and exports are again scheduled to increase in 2014. Currently, about 11% of alfalfa produced in the western states is exported to foreign markets.
Price. Corn grain prices have gone down in recent months, which tends to have a depressing influence on hay prices. Additionally, alfalfa acreage has gone up slightly, which also tends to suppress prices, but it should be noted that locally and nationally, these are not historically high acreages for alfalfa, and miscellaneous hay acreage is quite a bit down. The slightly higher acreage may be more than offset by reduced productivity. The improved dairy situation and anticipated increases in export demand, as well as demand from beef operators and horse owners should continue to create demand for forage crops. With the drought conditions likely to continue, feed will remain in short supply and prices pushed higher than would be expected under normal conditions.
Some Historical Perspective. California has experienced numerous droughts in the past, as shown on statewide yearly precipitation graph below. However, this drought is unprecedented in that it has been so dry since January of 2013, making it tough, if not impossible to establish winter forages. Many growers rely on rainfall for crop emergence and then on water from irrigation districts for subsequent irrigations. However, with our reservoirs at a fraction of capacity (around 20% in many cases), many districts are facing zero water allocations at this time, or severe cutbacks. Many growers are putting in new wells, but this means more pressure on our limited groundwater resources.
For now, let’s all hope for rain to try to get the gorilla out of the room. However, we should probably start planning for what appears to be a drought of momentous proportion that we will likely be talking about for years.