USDA’s new planted acreage report out this morning says corn acres are two percent higher than last year, but that is down a point from the March report with more acres are going to soybeans. Corn planted area for all purposes in 2010 is estimated at 87.9 million acres, up 2 percent from last year. Acreage is up in Illinois, …
Fluidigm Introduces First Reusable Bio-Chip
Fluidigm Corporation held a joint press conference this morning with the USDA’s Agricultural Research Service to announce their new reusable bio-chip architecture which is a first for the commercial market. These reusable integrated fluidic circuits (IFCs) will dramatically lower SNP genotyping costs and are designed to support accelerated sample throughput, while maintaining data quality of 99.75 percent or greater accuracy …
Wet Weather Slows Planting Progress
Cool, wet weather slowed down corn and soybean planting last week, but didn’t stop it. USDA reports that 38 percent of the soybean crop is now planted and 87 percent of the corn – which is way ahead of last year in both cases and a comfortable amount above normal. Both crops are emerging ahead of normal – corn at …
National Summit to Wrap Up Rural Tour
A national summit for rural America will be held in Missouri next month to wrap up the Obama administration’s Rural Tour. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack will host the day-long “National Summit of Rural America: A Dialogue for Renewing Promise” on June 3 on the campus of Jefferson College near St. Louis. “This Summit will be an opportunity for rural Americans …
USDA April Sense of Humor
USDA does have a sense of humor. At least Mary Ann Leonard at the National Agriculture Library does. Here’s her April Fool’s Day post on the NAL Blog. It’s so good I had to share it. The photo credit is, “by Extraterrestrial Farmers United Intergalactic rights reserved.” USDA, the “Every Day, Every Way” Department, made its play for the hearts …
Farmer Cooperatives Can Tell Story at Workshops
Workshops on competition in agriculture, like the one held last week in Iowa, can allow farmer-owned co-ops to tell their story. According to the National Council of Farmer Cooperatives (NCFC), Friday’s joint workshop between the Department of Justice (DOJ) and U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) set the stage for farmer-owned co-ops to show how they promote a more competitive agricultural …
Sec. Vilsack Speaks At Commodity Classic
U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack spoke to the crowd at Commodity Classic just moments ago. You can listen to his full speech below. Joanna is attending his press conference right now and I’ll post audio from it later. Some of the standout phrases I heard included, “Different strategies for different markets” when he was talking about expanding world trade. …
Record Crop Production in 2009
Despite weather challenges in 2009, American farmers produced record corn and soybean crops. According to USDA’s crop report out this morning, U.S. corn for grain production is estimated at a record 13.2 billion bushels, up 2 percent from the November 1 forecast, and 1 percent above the previous record of 13.0 billion bushels set in 2007. U.S. grain yield is …
Fluidigm Inks Deal With USDA
It looks like AgWired sponsor, Fluidigm Corporation, is making some new inroads into the agricultural sector with their announcement that “USDA’s Agricultural Research Service (ARS) has purchased a Fluidigm microfluidic-based EP1™ System to help develop and validate focused 96- and 384-SNP (single-nucleotide polymorphism) panels for testing America’s dairy and beef cattle. To ensure healthy cows and top quality product.” ARS …
Corn in the Snow
The final USDA crop progress report on this year’s harvest released last week showed that 95 percent of the nation’s corn crop was finally harvested, just a few days before Christmas. Illinois was on par with the national total, reporting five percent of the crop left in the field. I saw some of that corn this week during a visit …