Index to University Clippings
Iowa State University
December 26, 2005 through January 6, 2006
University News
Dubuque Telegraph Herald - 1/1 - Agriculture Briefs – General
Farm Journal - 12/28 - Temperatures Rising - Gene Takle - Faculty/Research
RIA Novosti - 12/27 - Digest Of The Russian Press, December 27 - Stephen Schmidt - Faculty/Research
Associated Press State & Local Wire - 12/26 - Growing Numbers Of Elderly Farmers - Faculty/Research
Grand Forks Herald - 12/26 - Bin-Buster Year Prompts Concerns Of Low Prices - Robert Wisner - Faculty/Research
Kansas City Star - 12/26 - Tips: Time To Untrim The Tree? – General
Dubuque Telegraph Herald - 12/26 - Former Dubuquer Rises To Prominence As Architect - Kate Schwennsen - Faculty/Research
Begin In-house Media Review, 01-06-06
Agri News, MN - 1/3 – Iowa news and notes - Extension
Asbury Park Press, NJ – 1/2 – Build a Pet First-Aid Kit – Beth Streeter – Faculty/research
Associated Press – 12/29 - Judge orders Iowa Board of Regents to pay open records case costs – Mark Gannon – Former – Faculty/research - Also ran in: WHO-TV, IA; WQAD, IL; WOI-TV, IA; Cedar Rapids Gazette, IA; Iowa City Press Citizen;
Associated Press – 12/29 - Iowa State University to study crosswalks after fatal accidents – Cathy Brown – Faculty/research - Also ran in: WOI-TV, IA; WQAD, IL; WHO-TV, IA; Sioux City Journal, IA; KCRG-TV, IA;
Associated Press – 12/30 - Foundation pays fees in lawsuit – General – Also ran in Iowa City Press Citizen, IA; Des Moines Register; Cedar Rapids Gazette; KCRG, IA; WHO-TV; WQAD, IL; WHO-TV, IA; WOI-TV, IA
Associated Press – 12/31 - Mistaken eyewitness IDs at heart of recent exoneration cases – Gary Wells – Faculty/research – Also ran in: Picayune Item, MS; Daily Press, VA
Associated Press – 12/31 - Lawmakers want to expand Laramie lab – James Roth – Administration - Also ran in: The Casper Star Tribune, WY; Jackson Hose Star Tribune, WY; Billings Gazette
Des Moines Business Record – 12/25 - Questionable highlights from the year gone by - General
Des Moines Register – 12/29 - ISU to study walkers' safety after 2 deaths – Cathy Brown – Faculty/research
Des Moines Register – 12/29 – Dateline Iowa — $40,000 ordered paid in open-records case - General
Des Moines Register – 12/29 - An athlete's journey: Sheepish to sheepskin – Nik Moser – Dan McCarney - Athletics
Des Moines Register – 12/29 - Looking back: Notable Iowans from 2005 – Josh Sievers - Students - Barbara Mack - Guillermo Gonzalez – Faculty/research
Des Moines Register – 12/30 – Sun sets on Allen’s bowl games – Terry Allen – Football – Athletics
Des Moines Register – 12/30 – Cyclones’ hospital visit lifts spirits of patients – Cyclone Football – Bowl - Athletics
Des Moines Register – 12/31 – Letters to the Editor – Norm Riggs - Faculty/research
Des Moines Register – 12/31 – Hopes for 2006 – Kan Wang – Faculty/research
Des Moines Register – 1/1 – Grassroots – Crop risk is workshop topic – Steven Johnson - Extension
Des Moines Register – 1/1 – New outreach at ISU – Stanley Johnson – Jack Payne - Extension
Des Moines Register – 1/1 - ISU fans gather at home to cheer for football team - General
Muscatine Journal, IA – 1/3 - Louisa retail sales growth tops state again - General
Radio Iowa – 1/2 - I-S-U lab helps find leaks in space - General
Sioux City Journal, IA – 12/29 - Extension office to host beef Webcast – John Lawrence – Administration – Dermot Hayes – Faculty/research
The American Society of Civil Engineers, Reston, Virginia – 01/06 – Better Bridges – Brent Phares - Administration
The Guthrian, IA – 12/28 – Annual Farmland Study Completed – Mike Duffy – Extension - Also ran in: Missouri Valley Times News, IA
Waterloo Cedar Falls Courier – 1/2 - Waterloo schools turn into fitness facilitites after dark – Jill Weber - Extension
Dubuque Telegraph
Herald
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January 1, 2006 Sunday Agriculture; Pg. b4
Agriculture Briefs
CompetitivEdge 1-888-881-EDGE www.clipresearch.com Electronic Clipping
Telegraph Herald Staff
ELKADER, Iowa
Iowa Beef Center planning Webcast
The Iowa Beef Center at Iowa State University is planning a statewide Webcast that will focus on qualifying for Japanese beef exports, the cattle market outlook, risk management and new cattle insurance products.
The event will include speakers, market and price implications of the resumption of exports, the current market situation and its long-term implications on long-run cattle prices.
The event is scheduled for 7 p.m. Jan. 9 and will be Webcast to several extension locations, including the Clayton County Extension office in Elkader.
Those interested in attending the program in Elkader should contact the Clayton County Extension office at 563/245-1451 to register. A small fee will be payable at the door.
Workshop can help commercial applicators
MANCHESTER, Iowa - Iowa State University Extension and the Iowa Department of Natural Resources will conduct a Commercial Manure Applicator Satellite Program from 9 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. on Friday at county extension offices.
This workshop is intended to help commercial manure applicators receive the three hours of annual continuing instruction required to maintain their manure applicator certification.
There is no fee for the workshop, but applicators must register in advance with the ISU Extension county office where they plan to attend.
All currently certified commercial manure applicator licenses will expire on March 1.
Those wanting to renew must complete training requirements and submit forms and fees prior to March 1.
CompetitivEdge 1-888-881-EDGE www.clipresearch.com Electronic Clipping
Farm Journal
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December 28, 2005
Temperatures Rising
CompetitivEdge 1-888-881-EDGE www.clipresearch.com Electronic Clipping
Jeanne Bernick
HIGHLIGHT:
Its now agreed that the climate is warming. Why should you care and what can you do?
Gene Takle is not easily awakened from sleep in the middle of the nightexcept when it storms. The cracks of thunder and flashes of lightening dont frighten him; they give him peace. It means that Iowas weather patterns are holding.
As global temperatures continue to rise, those midnight storms unique to the Midwest will only be memories in 35 years, says Takle, an Iowa State University climatologist with the Regional Climate Modeling Laboratory. His research predicts global warming will diminish nighttime summer showers that drench corn and soybean fields. Two weeks between rains instead of one will be significant for crops.
Global warming is bringing a whole new climate to the farm, Takle says. The climate change he refers to may not necessarily be warmer, as the term global warming suggests. Your farm may actually incur colder, wetter weather, depending on where you live.
There was, in the 1990s, considerable debate among scientists and policymakers about whether global warming was real and exactly how human activity contributed to it. Not anymore. Most scientists agree that its real, and its human activity that discharges carbon dioxide (CO2) and other greenhouse gases into the airor at least theyre partly to blame. A strong minority of scientists believe climate warming is due to natures own cycle, not human activity. Both sides of the debate agree there is no crisisyet.
Farmers naturally shy away from anything related to global warmingits scary, it screams extremism and it ignores the human ability to adapt. After all, who invented the umbrella?
But heres why you should care: Climate changes affect every aspect of how you farm and what you produce. Certain practices on your farm could even help slow the warming trend.
Hows the weather?
Scientists postulate a wide range of possible impacts on agriculture from global warming, including benefits like increases in soybean yields due to the phenomena called CO2 fertilization.
Heres what they agree on: Global annual average temperatures rose an average of 1°F during the last century. This may seem insignificant, but with atmospheric CO2 expected to double by the year 2100, the National Research Council predicts temperatures in most areas will jump another 4° to 7°the same amount that has occurred in the Arctic during the past 50 years.
While scientists are in agreement on this front, they are anything but agreeable over exactly what impact this change will have on major crop producing regions.
In the least, a 5° temperature rise during the next 30 to 50 years lays the groundwork for increased weather volatility for all farmers, says Michelle Wander, University of Illinois soil fertility specialist. Wander drafted the agricultural portion of the recent Union of Concerned Scientists 2005 publication on climate change in the Great Lakes Region.
By 2030, Illinois summers may resemble those of Oklahoma or Arkansas in terms of average temperature and rainfall, Wander says. This means more intense spring and fall rains and more frequent occurrences of heat extremes.
By the end of the century, however, the Illinois summer climate will generally resemble that of current east Texas, she adds. Temperatures will limit the productivity of our major grains.
But Takle has a different take on higher temperatures. His climate modeling indicates a 21% increase in rainfall in the Upper Mississippi region by 2040, an 18% increase in snowfall and a 51% increase in surface water runoff. Precipitation will come in heavy rainfall events marked with longer dry periods between rains. Increased rainfall could favor crop growth in western Iowa, Nebraska and northern Canada.
Changes in climate already produce longer growing seasons and heavier rainfall in the Midwest. Iowa now averages about eight more days between the last frost of spring and the first fall frost than 50 years ago, he says. The wide disparity makes projecting specific impacts on agriculture difficult for scientists. For example, while Corn Belt farmers can expect more weather volatility in the future, Takles climate modeling suggests summertime daily maximum temperatures will not climb as high in a Midwestern region centered on eastern Kansas as elsewhere in the U.S.
More pests and disease.
This warming hole stretches for hundreds of miles and includes Missouri, Iowa, Nebraska and Oklahoma, according to research by the Regional Climate Modeling Laboratory. The findings underscore the need to further research the impact of global warming on a region-by-region basis, Takle says.
Climate change is already behind increased large-scale epidemics of new and old crop diseases, scientists say. Plant pathology literature connects pandemics of pests with extreme weather events, says X. B. Yang, Iowa State University plant pathologist. He nods to the pandemics of wheat stripe rust in the Great Plains in 2001 and 2003. In 2002, U.S. soybean farmers experienced epidemics of soybean sudden death syndrome and viral diseases.
Mass outbreaks of Asian soybean aphids occurred in 2003 in Iowa, Illinois and Minnesota after cool July weather suddenly turned into a record dry August. Before the mid-80s, no more than four major diseases affected soybean production, Yang says. Now the number has more than doubled, with annual losses totaling almost $2 billion. Warmer winters in northern production regions allow pestsand insect-borne viral diseases associated with themto survive. For example, the European corn borer, the No. 1 pest affecting corn yields, increased the number of generations in the Corn Belt each season from one to two.
Policymakers and scientists continue to point fingers at agriculture for greenhouse gas emissions. Agricultural activities are responsible for as much as 7% of total U.S. heat-trapping emissions, according to the Environmental Protection Agency.
Farmers often ask what they should be doing about global warming, but there are no easy answers, says William Easterling, agronomist and director of the Institutes of the Environment at Penn State University.
No-regrets approach.
Given the uncertainties of how climate may change in each region, Easterling suggests a no-regrets approachdo things that will help reduce the impact of climate change and also make sense whether there is a climate change or not.
One of his win-win suggestions is to plant shelterbelts wherever possible. Studies show that shelterbelts increase crop yields and help offset the losses that drought and other weather cause to crop productivity. Economic analysis shows the costs of installing shelterbelts are returned within a few years by additional revenues from increased crop productivity.
According to Wander, simply using biodiesel and ethanol in place of fossil energy on the farm helps overall reduction of emissions. Certain best practices in soil management, such as no-till, reduced tillage and cover crops enhances short-term soil carbon storage.
Effectively managed soils could abate an estimated 10% of heat-trapping emissions produced in the U. S. over the next 30 to 50 years, Wander says.v Carbon sequestration (removal of CO2 from the atmosphere and storing carbon in the soil) is gaining momentum as the most crucial action farmers can take to help curb carbon emissions.
Harness the market.
In fact, the potential for U.S. agricultural soils to sequester CO2 using existing technologies is about 15% of carbon emissions in the U.S., reports the Consortium for Agricultural Soil Mitigation of Greenhouse Gases (CASMGS).
The potential market for carbon credit trading, in which a company that produces an extreme amount of carbon pays a farmer to sequester carbon in the soil, is $1 billion to $5 billion during the next 30 to 40 years, CASMGS reports. Many economists believe the most efficient way to achieve the goal of reducing greenhouse gases is with a free-market carbon trading program, says Chuck Rice, CASMGS director and professor of agronomy at Kansas State University.
About 75 producers representing nearly 75,000 acres in Kansas have enrolled in a pilot program from the Chicago Climate Exchange (CCX) to keep land in no-till or new grass plantings for four years. Producers pool carbon credits from their land and offer those credits for bid on CCX.
When credits are purchased, a record of the carbon financial transaction resides in the CCX registry. Credits purchased by businesses can be used that year or banked. Bid prices indicate producers will eventually receive about $1 per acre for the four-year period of the pilot project (2003 to 2006).
In Iowa, more than 83,000 acres are enrolled in Iowa Farm Bureaus program, which aggregates carbon credits for sale on CCX. Each acre of land that is not tilled pulls a half-ton of CO2 from the air per year, reports Dave Miller, manager of the Iowa Farm Bureaus carbon program.