Extension Notes: Pre-conditioning sale worth the money
Last’s week sale at the McMinnville barn featured calves that had been weaned and vaccinated according to the guidelines of the Pfizer Select-Vac program. This is the third such sale held at the local barn during the past year and producers have found that weaning and vaccinating calves can increase profits. The calves must be weaned and fed for 45 days prior to the sale.
The addition of up to 100 pounds of extra weight to sell per calf is important to get your feed and vaccine money back. This type of sale is also good in that different buyers often get these cattle. Many feedlot buyers are more interested in pre-conditioned calves because the calves perform better and don’t have as much sickness in the feedlot.
David Simpson tell me that there’s another sale in January and they hope to have more calves go through the Sel-Vac sales in the future.
SOYBEAN RUST UPDATE
Recently, it seems that we have had a lull in soybean rust activity, but now there is some significant movement toward Tennessee. Dr. Bob Kemerait reported a finding of soybean rust on soybean leaves near Eatonton, GA in Putnam Co. on August 14. This county is located east of Atlanta and just south of I-20. This is about 150 miles from Chattanooga as the wind blows. The soybeans where the rust was found are in a sentinel plot of MG II-III soybeans planted in April and are now at R 5-6 growth stage.
Dr. Kemerait reports that soybean rust has not been found in any commercial field in GA yet. I think our early planted, early maturing soybeans in Tennessee are out of danger even if rust infects the leaves at this late stage (R6). However, be sure to keep checking late planted soybeans that are still in the R1 to R5 stage for rust pustules. Give me a call here at the Extension office.
TOBACCO TRUST MONEY COMING TO GROWERS
Last Friday ruling by the North Carolina Supreme Court unfreezes more than $400 million in Phase II tobacco payments that have been held up since December.
The ruling means that around 47,000 Tennessee farmers and quota owners are now eligible to receive more than $32 million in a last round of payments under a private trust that was set up in 1999 to aid tobacco farm families.
“This is certainly a victory for tobacco farmers who have suffered financial hardship as a result of the delay in Phase II payments,” said Tennessee’s Commissioner of Agriculture Ken Givens. “The court agreed that denying 2004 trust payments went against the very spirit of the trust agreement to provide for uninterrupted annual payments. Hopefully, tobacco farm families can now look to their future and plan accordingly for the post-buyout tobacco economy.”
At issue was a claim by the three largest tobacco manufacturers, Philip Morris, R.J. Reynolds and Lorillard, that they were entitled to a refund and credit on more than $400 million in payments to the Phase II trust for 2004. The manufacturers claimed that legislation passed last year by Congress to end the 60-year federal tobacco program also ended their obligation to fund the Phase II trust in the same year.
Tennessee was among 14 tobacco-growing states in disputing the manufacturers’ claim. The states argued that because the buyout was not effective until 2005 that it did not trigger refund or credit provisions of the trust agreement for 2004. Givens, who serves as vice-chairman of the Tennessee Tobacco Farmers Certifying Board, says that the state will work with the trustee to secure the release of funds as soon as possible. “Barring any unforeseen legal action, we hope that funds can be made available as quickly as possible, and we will be working tirelessly toward that end.”
In Tennessee, the board has already certified the state’s tobacco farmers and quota owners that are eligible to receive a payment. The board met last December and set a payment rate of 64 cents per pound for burley tobacco marketings and nearly 8 cents per pound for quota owned based on the 2003 crop year and pending full funding of the trust.