Article Archives
A Look Back - 30 Years Ago
Tuesday, December 1, 2020
filed under: Historical
’90 Farm Bill Brightens the Sunflower Industry’s Future / Washington Update / By John Gordley
"After four years of struggling to survive under the 1985 farm bill, the U.S. sunflower industry has helped create opportunities for growth under the new law that takes effect with the 1991 crop. The Food, Agriculture, Conservation and Trade (FACT) Act of 1990 offers genuine planting flexibility options to those producers who gave up on sunflower during the base gridlock years of the 1980s — and also provides those who stayed with the crop a safety net against low price cycles.
“The option to plant sunflower on up to 15 percent of base acres under the so-called Triple Base program (which USDA will call ‘Normal Flexibility Acreage’) will allow growers to shift plantings on these nonpayment acres market conditions offer a chance to offset the loss of government payments. In addition, the new Oilseed 0-92 option is available to producers who shift all or any part of their wheat or feed grain payment acres to sunflower at a cost of eight (8) percent of their projected deficiency payments.
“The FACT Act also established new marketing loans for oilseeds. As with other programs, oilseed marketing loans will be nonrecourse and will be averaged across the country to reflect location and quality factors. For sunflower and other ‘minor’ oilseeds, the minimum national average loan for 1991-95 crops is 8.9 cents per pound.”
How’s Your Hybrid Yield Trial Terminology IQ? / By Don Lilleboe
“Oil Percentage — Why include this one? Doesn’t everyone know what oil percentage refers to? Sure, but occasionally some confusion can creep in. For example, while most tests denote oil on a 10-percent moisture basis (which is realistic, since that is what the farmer sells on), some results do list oil percentage on an oven-dried (zero moisture) basis. ?To convert a dry basis figure over to 10 percent, simply multiply by 0.9. [So] a 50.0 percent oil on a dry basis would translate into 45.0 at 10 percent moisture.
“Tolerance & Resistance — These related terms are often used and sometimes abused. Simultaneously, they’re not as ‘black and white’ as we’d like them to be.
“For many laypersons, the words ‘resistance’ and ‘immunity’ are identical. In reality, they’re not. Just because a hybrid is said to have resistance doesn’t mean it never can be infected by the disease in question. Resistance basically implies the ability of a plant to ward off — completely or to a high degree — the effect of a pathogen. Sometimes that translates into immunity; under other circumstances it may mean the disease is present but does not have an economic impact on yield.
“ ‘Tolerance’ commonly refers to the ability of a plant to continue to live and produce despite the presence of a disease. It may not, however, produce as well as a ‘resistant’ plant. . . .
“ ‘Tolerance’ also is frequently used when discussing a hybrid’s ability to deal with insects or environmental stress factors such as drought or salinity.”
“Days to Maturity — Technically, this term refers to the number of days from seedling emergence to the stage at which the seeds in the plant head have reached their optimum yield and oil potential and are ready to begin drying down. It does not refer to the number of days from emergence to the point at which the seeds are ready for harvest. Seed moisture is still very high at the point of physiological maturity.
“LSD — This is the abbreviation for ‘Least Significant Difference.’ When referring to yield, researchers commonly express LSD in terms of pounds per acre at a certain percentage of error — normally five percent. The LSD accounts for all variation within a trial and answers the question of whether there is any ‘real’ difference between hybrids. . .
“CV — ‘CV’ stands for ‘coefficient of variability.’ Though many trials do not list CV, it may appear on small-plot data where a large number of hybrids are being compared.
“CV serves as an indicator of the amount of variation within the test itself. The higher the CV, the less reliable the test. Researchers generally agree that if a sunflower hybrid trial carries a CV of higher than 15-20 percent, the credibility of that test’s data is in question, and it should not be given much credence . . . . ”