Tri State Seed Company Spring Newsletter

If you are like Craig and I you spend most of the winter going to meetings and trying to learn as much as you can about how to make your business more efficient and more profitable. Craig attended the Ag PhD seminar in Richland and came home with a ton of valuable information about soil fertility and crop nutrition. With the cost of fertility going up we should be concerned with the most efficient use of our crop nutrients. Later in the letter he will tell you how to maximize your fertility dollar. I spent my time last week at the WSU Research Review in Pullman listening to research proposals from over 20 scientists and together with only 15 other growers allocated over $2.2M of grower monies to projects that will affect the future of every grower in the state for some time to come. It never ceases to amaze me how few growers actually attend these meetings. Many of these meetings have the capacity to substantially affect your actual profitability and efficiency. In March I will travel to CIMMYT in Obregon Mexico along with six plant breeders from Washington and Idaho to visit the facility established by Norman Borlaug in the 1960’s to help develop germplasm applicable to developing nations. You all know Norman Borlaug as the father of the green revolution; his mission in life was to eliminate hunger by breeding superior wheat plants to feed a hungry world. I will have a report for you when I come back.

Over the past several years Craig and I have fielded comments about what we actually do at TSS. Some of you didn’t know that we sold alfalfa or corn seed. Some of you were surprised to find out that we have an “on demand” seed treatment system so we can accurately customize you seed treatments and micronutrient needs. Some others think we just sit in the office and take orders and deliver them. Because of these misconceptions we thought it might be valuable to spend just a little time giving you the behind the scenes look at the company. We only have one goal at TSS and that is to make you money. When we can no longer provide you value we are done.

Behind the scenes at TSS

One of the things I think we do fairly well is solicit and test germplasm from other seed programs typically in foreign countries to see if they have products that might have a commercial application here. The access to these products takes a bit of paper work with import permits and material transfer agreements and the like, but every once in a while we come upon something with commercial value. Recently we have commercialized Esperia Hard Red Winter wheat. This variety is Italian in origin and yielded 163 bu/acre last harvest with protein of 12.2% on a field of 238 acres. This was no test plot. The outstanding thing about Esperia is not only is it competitive in yield but its end use quality is also rather phenomenal. So much so that ADM has expressed interest in originating the variety for their domestic milling operation in Washington. One other success story comes from Germany and the company KWS. KWS has developed some winter barley varieties that seem to break the norm in the winter hardiness category. We have always had trouble with winter barley surviving the winter in the PNW, but the breeders at KWS seem to have raised the bar when it comes to winter hardiness. Their variety Wintmalt last harvest yielded 4.47 tons per acre just north of Pasco, it weighed 54 lbs. per bushel and made a very desirable malt product. Great Western Malting has contracted for more winter malt barley this coming year. If you have interest, just give us a call and we will talk about the contract. Other good news from KWS is that they have agreed to let us test their winter feed barley that yield even more. Barley has some real advantages in some cropping rotations also. Breaking up disease cycles, using less water and fertility, much earlier harvesting and as grain corn pricing continues to climb barley rapidly becomes a viable feed in complete mixed rations

One other success story is Verdant winter forage barley. Last year we licensed this variety from Oregon State University. Developed by OSU barley breeder Dr. Patrick Hayes, Verdant is an improvement on both yield and quality of forage over anything currently on the market. We are excited about the future of Verdant and we have established three dealers in Oklahoma, Colorado and Idaho. We are hopeful to also have a few more dealers in California this coming year.

Shooting Star Oat has been a work in progress. When we tested this line from a New Zealand company several years ago we knew it had a place somewhere. It has taken a couple of years to figure out that this line is day length sensitive and when placed in the right environment it performs very well. We are marketing this line as a blended product with Syngenta’s Trical 141 in California and Texas to dairyman for purposes of both a nitrogen sink for their effluent issues and higher quality forage than their standard California forage products.

This year we will be testing four French hard red winter wheat varieties, four hard red spring wheat varieties from Israel, three more winter barley varieties from Germany and several spring durums. We do most of our testing with private cooperators and at major universities including WSU, OSU and U C Davis.

Most Professionals Use Other Professionals

Craig’s training in college was in agronomy. He recently attended a seminar sponsored by a nationally recognized agronomic input company, and they spent a good deal of time reinforcing the basics of agronomy. Good agronomic principles have not changed over time; that is because they are based on chemical reactions in the soil and those are quantifiable in mathematical terms. One of the things we always scratch our collective head about is why growers insist on taking soil samples and then either ignore them or take the advice from the company which they plan on purchasing their fertilizer. Don’t get us wrong here, there are some good agronomist out there currently employed by companies that market fertility products, but by and large they are salesman not agronomist. I have been sorely disappointed by too many companies that pay their sales force on commission and do not have the best interests of the client foremost in the process. We are encouraging you to use professionals in your business. There are local companies that do nothing but agronomy, and employ professional soil scientists that do not sell anything but their agronomic expertise. Several companies in our area employ master degree level soil scientist with years of experience that have national accreditation. Our point here is if you want to ramp up your game professionally use the best resources you can. If you need help with a referral just call us and we will help point you in the right direction. If you are one of those farmers that only view these issues as nothing more than another expense and not an investment in the health of your farm, please disregard this last paragraph because you did not get the message.

Cation Exchange Capacity

Good crops begin with good healthy soils. When you are requesting information regarding soil fertility we encourage you to use labs that have a certain level of accreditation. These labs are certified by national boards that have minimum levels of competency and repeatability in their testing protocols. Ask for their certification credentials!

Find out how to take a good soil sample. One of the biggest reasons for variability in testing is sampling error. A few inches variation in sampling depth is enough to bias the results. Always ask for your cation exchange capacity first. That is the determining factor in how much fertility your soil can actually hold. This test is a basic determination relating to the amount of soil colloids in your soil. These are small particles of clay that have been broken down to where it cannot be further reduced in size. The clay particles and humus carry a negative charge. Fertilizers must have a positive charge to attach to the clay particles. Calcium, magnesium and hydrogen as a gas also have a positive charge. The more soil colloids you have in your soil, the more negatives there are to hold positives. Positively charged elements are called cations. Negatively charged elements like nitrogen, phosphorus and sulfur are called anions. Negatives do not hold to the clay colloid. The bottom line is that clay has a negative charge and the element being held on that clay has a positive charge. Most of the chemical reactivity of soils is governed by clay colloids. These colloids are extremely small and can’t be seen with the naked eye. Consequently the first thing you must do for your land is to measure the amount of clay and humus in your soil. Nothing less than a detailed analysis will answer the question. The procedure is based on atomic absorption and this measurement is called the CEC or cation exchange capacity. It is simply measurement that quantifies the ability of plants to exchange nutrients with the soil. Without determining the basic measurement it is impossible to receive an accurate fertility recommendation. The CEC whether large of small determines the colloids ability to hold certain elements like calcium, magnesium and ammonia nitrogen, it also affects the quantity of nutrients needed to change its relative level in the soil. A lighter soil will hold less of everything and a soil with more clay will hold more. The lighter soil will not need much fertility to reach total saturation. It may have a CEC of 5 and may not be able to hold much fertilizer, where a soil with a CEC of 10 will hold twice the nutrient load. Just remember that our goal is to feed the soil and let the soil feed the crop. If we feed the crop and ignore the soil we will create imbalances in the soil and be inefficient with our fertility dollars. This entire discussion greatly affects your potential yield and therefore your bottom line and that is why we believe this is so important. We are not soil scientist but we understand the relationship between healthy soil and good crops.

CRP Grass Supplies Tight and Getting Tighter

I have not studied rocket science, neither has Craig. One thing we can say with certainty is that there is not enough grass in the state or nearby states to seed the acres expected to come out of the program in the next two years. According to the numbers I have received from the state FSA office last month, almost one million acres are eligible for re-enrollment in 2012. The signup is due to begin this month and run into early April. Late this spring grass seed pricing was already headed up as certain species are running very low in supply. Even with the new crop coming off this summer, the supply numbers are dismal. Our suggestion is to figure out ahead of time what your chances are for re-enrollment and secure your grass supplies early. We will quote pricing out for the next two years and honor our quotes. We have a history of doing this and we think it is the best hedge you can make to offset the possibility of rising prices. We do require a signed contract but no actual cash down. If you need help in analyzing your options please do not hesitate to call either of us. Our services include building the blend, bagging, tagging, delivery and all of the paper work necessary to qualify for the cost sharing by the FSA. We even have a fool proof system for calibrating your drill.

New Varieties Released from Washington State University

Two years ago, WSU hired two enterprising young plant breeders, Dr. Arron Carter and Dr. Michael Pumphrey. Well the new guys are beginning to hit their stride. At a recent meeting of the Cereal Variety Release Committee, the committee decided to release four new varieties.

Dr. Mike Pumphrey released WA8074 and he named it Glee, after a grad student in his program that passed away suddenly after a terrible struggle with cancer. Glee is adapted to all of the spring wheat growing areas of Washington. It has exceptional stripe rust resistance including great HTAP and is Hessian Fly tolerant. The yield performance of Glee is outstanding, beating industry checks by a substantial margin in all rainfall areas. The end use quality of Glee is very exceptional. Grain protein is equal to all checks, even though it out yielded all checks substantially. Glee will not lodge even though it is slightly taller than the checks.

Dr. Pumphrey also proposed for final release WA8123. It is a broadly adapted hard white spring wheat with excellent stripe rust resistance, good test weight, above average protein content and excellent yield potential in high rainfall and irrigated production areas. It was released to provide growers with a competitive alternative to BR7030. WA8123 is substantially earlier than BR7030 and has very durable HTAP resistance to stripe rust and race specific al stage resistance to some old races. WA8123 is susceptible to Hessian Fly.

Dr. Kim Campbell released a new winter club wheat, ARS-97-163-4C named Crescent, as a replacement for Bruehl. Bruehl as you know has a problem grading club consistently at the export terminal. Crescent is an intermediate to tall awned club with strawbreaker foot rot resistance, good end use quality and test weight. Stripe rust resistance is excellent and the coleoptile length is equal to Bruehl. ARS Crescent does not have snow mold resistance. It is very well adapted to the low rainfall environments of the PNW.

Dr. Kulvinder Gill proposed for release WA8143, which is a two gene IMI soft white winter wheat designed for production is the areas currently producing Eltan. WA8143 yielded well in all precipitation zones. It out yielded Xerpha, ORCF 102 and was significantly higher than Eltan. Stripe rust reactions were good, winter hardiness is equal to Eltan, and the snow mold resistance was rated as highly resistant.

For a more complete description of these new releases please go to our website www.tristateseed.com, and click on the Washington Crop Improvement link and you can read the whole 125 page document. For you progressive guys, this is cool reading, no kidding!

The other interesting issue that came up at the Cereal Variety Licensing Committee Meeting which followed the variety release meeting involved royalties on public variety releases. The recommendation was made to charge a small royalty on each new release from the WSU Plant Sciences department from this point forward. The industry has discussed the need for this for some time. Each variety that is released has a cost associated with it. It costs approximately $300,000 of grower money and $300,000 of university funding to do the research to develop each variety. The actual release event is the trigger that initiates the growers return on their investment. But the university has no mechanism to recover their costs which are substantial. The university has always protected its intellectual property by means of the Plant Variety Protection Program and we have used this intellectual property without charge for years. Now is the time for the university to begin to recover its costs. The State of Washington in its feeble attempt to balance the state’s budget has continued to take millions of dollars away from agricultural research in past bienniums. The cost of ag research is also climbing, just like our costs of production. If the industry wants to maintain a public breeding program to compete with the private breeding companies, it is time we put our money where our collective mouths are. Private breeding companies charge royalties on all of their varieties because that is how they get paid. Growers willingly pay these royalties for one reason, value. If you see the value in a private variety, the royalty does seem to be an issue as their market share continues to rise. No one is forcing you to use the varieties developed at the university, you still have the alternative of using the old standbys. If you wish to access the newer genetics at most universities in the US today, then consider the royalty as a user fee to help continue the valuable tradition of public breeding in our state.

Thanks for your continued support of our company; we understand exactly who got us where we are today.

Dana L. Herron Craig O. Teel