INDUSTRY NEWS

The manufacturing facility for Wolf Trax plant nutrition products has completed an overhaul and upgrades to its equipment as the company prepares to meet increased demand in 2012. The work to the manufacturing and packaging equipment will help ensure steady production during peak periods and increase manufacturing capacity at the facility.

Walt Sandbeck, fertilizer specialist at AGGRAND has recently been certified by the American Society of Agronomy as a Certified Crop Adviser (CCA). To attain this prestigious certification, Sandbeck passed both an International CCA exam and the State of Wisconsin CCA Exam, worked for nearly 10 years as a crop adviser and provided documentation of professional competence.

As a Certified Crop Adviser, Sandbeck has signed and agreed to uphold the CCA Code of Ethics. This means he will always focus on grower profitability while optimizing and protecting natural resources.

A diverse group of public and private sector agricultural professionals are joining the University of California to form the Conservation Agriculture Systems Institute (CASI), an organization that will be formally launched at a public meeting Jan. 27 in Clovis, California.

“This is the agronomic and ecological equivalent of the ‘moon race’ back in the early 1960s,” said CASI coordinator Jeff Mitchell, a UC Cooperative Extension cropping systems specialist.

The 50-year-old herbicide atrazine, renowned for controlling weeds, is instrumental to conservation as well, according to a new study. University of Wisconsin-Madison economist Paul D. Mitchell, Ph.D., found the use of atrazine helps farmers reduce aggregate soil erosion by up to 85 million tons per year – enough to fill more than 3 million dump trucks.

Mitchell will present the findings of his paper, "Estimating soil erosion and fuel use changes and their monetary values with AGSIM: A case study for triazine herbicides," at the Wisconsin Crop Management Conference in Madison, Wisconsin.

In a development celebrated by the organic plaintiffs, Judge Naomi Buchwald announced yesterday that oral arguments on Monsanto's motion to dismiss the Organic Seed Growers and Trade Association (OSGATA) et al v. Monsanto will be heard in federal district court January 31, 2012 in Manhattan.

Judge Buchwald's decision will establish if organic farmers are to see their day in court.

Indiana livestock producers looking to improve their pastures and forages will have opportunities to learn from experts in the field at the Northern and Southern Indiana Grazing Conferences in February.

The Southern Indiana Grazing Conference is February 1 at the Simon J. Graber Building, 9164 E. 875 N., Odon. The Northern Indiana Grazing Conference, sponsored in-part by Purdue Extension, takes place February 3-4 at the Michiana Event Center, 7605 N. Indiana 9, Howe.

"There continues to be interest in utilizing improved grazing management systems in Indiana," said Keith Johnson, Purdue Extension forage specialist and speaker at the Northern Indiana Grazing Conference.