United Group Insurance

KJAN Ag/Outdoor

CLICK HERE for the latest market quotes from the Iowa Agribusiness Network!

CLICK HERE for the latest market quotes from the Brownfield Ag News Network!

Facial recognition app for cows almost ready for the market

Ag/Outdoor

November 16th, 2020 by Ric Hanson

(Radio Iowa) – Iowa cattle producers could soon be able to use a cell phone app on their animals that’s based on bovine facial recognition. Kansas State University animal scientist K-C Olson says they gathered about a thousand short videos of feeder cattle restrained in a chute and the information was loaded into a neuro network based on artificial intelligence. Olson says the results were encouraging enough to develop a cell phone app. “You simply position the cell phone camera in front of an animal,” Olson says. “When the conditions are right, as judged by the app, it will snap a series of pictures, it will put a GPS stamp on each one and a date stamp on each one. Those are automatically uploaded to a secure cloud database.”

Use of the app could eventually save producers from all sorts of hassles, from security to animal health. “Any subsequent time that another producer, another owner, would be curious about the origins of a particular calf, they could use the same app, take the pictures, upload those to the database,” he says. “The information that they would then receive is when the animal was read into the system and where, physically where the animal was when it was read into the system.”

Human facial recognition is now a standard for identification in airports and other secure locations. That technology is based on the geometry of the human face and uses intricate measurements to put a permanent identification on a person. “Later on, when that human being needs to get on a flight or something similar, they can have hat on, they can have glasses on, they could have grown facial hair, they could have grown older, but that technology is capable of nearly 100 percent accurate read rate,” he says. “The thinking here is that why couldn’t we have something like that for beef cattle.”

Olson says the ultimate goal would be the creation of a national animal disease traceability system. He says the technology will be commercialized this fall and possibly before 2021, producers could add birthweights, vaccination history and other information.

(By Ryan Matheny, KMA, Shenandoah)

ISU researchers using plant material to make sensors

Ag/Outdoor, News

November 12th, 2020 by Ric Hanson

(Radio Iowa) – Iowa State researchers are among a group developing technologies that use plant-based inks to print low-cost, biodegradable, and recyclable electronics for sensors and batteries. I-S-U’s, Jonathan Claussen, is working on the printing process for the inks. “We can actually make a material called graphene out of it. It’s a carbon-based material that is highly conductive and has other great properties such as high thermal conductivity and we make these inks and print them.” Claussen is an associate professor of mechanical engineering and says sensors can be used in a variety of ways. “We use them to sense fertilizers in the soil, pesticides in plants or in the soil, to food-borne pathogens in food, to even using them to try and detect cancer for cancer diagnostics,” Claussen says.

He says here’s another use for them as well. Claussen says it also deals with creating energy harvesters that could be used to store energy and charge up an electronic device. He says there’s a lot of potential uses.”We will help in printing them and then developing them into sensors,” he says. And he says they will particularly focus on ion sensors for use in hydroponics and plants. Claussen says using these plant-based inks is a safer way to make these items. “This uses printing technology that is a lot easier to scale. It’s a lot more friendly to the environment — the materials themselves are more friendly — they are just carbon-based. But also, we don’t need to do expensive cleanroom processing which has a lot of chemicals that are harmful to the environment,” Claussen says.

He says these sensors won’t replace all the existing sensors. “They wouldn’t replace silicon chips in your computer,” Claussen says, “but they could be used for sensors that may be integrated into clothing or senors that may be going into farm fields that integrate with some conventional electronics as well.” The National Science Foundation has awarded a five-year grant of nine million dollars to support the project and its team of researchers from the University of Chicago, Northwestern University, the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, the University of Illinois at Chicago, and Iowa State University.

Local 24-Hour Rainfall Totals at 7:00 am on Wednesday, November 11, 2020

Ag/Outdoor, Weather

November 11th, 2020 by Jim Field

  • KJAN, Atlantic  .21″
  • Massena  .21″
  • Manning  .23″
  • Carroll  .25″
  • Clarinda  .24″

Cass County Extension Report 11-11-2020

Ag/Outdoor, Podcasts

November 11th, 2020 by Jim Field

w/Kate Olson.

Play

Ag interests keen to learn who will lead Farm Bill debate in US House

Ag/Outdoor, News

November 11th, 2020 by Ric Hanson

(Radio Iowa) – As Iowa farmers await passage of the next Farm Bill, they’re also waiting to see who will lead the debate in congress. Iowa Farm Bureau president Craig Hill says the Minnesota Democrat who was the long-time chair of the U.S. House Ag Committee lost his bid for re-election.  “Colin Petersen did a great job of training folks and leading the committee,” Hill says. “He will be missed.”

Iowa Congressman-elect Randy Feenstra, a Republican from Hull, is hoping to be appointed to the ag committee, but Democrats have a majority of seats in the House — so it’ll be a Democrat with seniority who chairs the panel. Veteran congressmen from California and Georgia are competing to head the committee in 2021.  “Most Farm Bills begin in the House,” Hill says. “The House Ag Committee leads in that. Of course, the Senate Ag Committee has a lot of influence.”

Iowa Senator Chuck Grassley has been a member of the Senate Ag Committee for most of the past 30 years. Iowa Senator Joni Ernst has served on the Senate Ag Committee since taking office in 2015.  “I think she’ll continue to fight for ethanol and trade and all those issues that are important,” Hill says.

Congress is to produce a new Farm Bill every five years and the next one is to be passed in 2022. Work on the massive bill will start next year.

Report: 2020 will be record year for US pork exports

Ag/Outdoor, News

November 11th, 2020 by Ric Hanson

(Radio Iowa) – Iowa remains the nation’s top pork producer and 2020 will go down as a record year for pork exports, according to new report from the U-S Meat Export Federation. Pork exports during September bounced ten-percent from a year ago, while the volume rose six-percent. Federation president and C-E-O Dan Halstrom says exports exceeded 563-million dollars, thanks to growth in multiple markets. “Japan, one of our larger value markets, had tremendous growth at about 11-percent,” Halstrom says. “We also had Canada with a record month and then you look at Southeast Asia, you’ve got the Philippines and Vietnam which had tremendous growth. China was up as well, but in terms of the total gain for global exports in the month of September, it was broad-based.”

African Swine Fever, or A-S-F, caused a shake-up this year, and Halstrom says we may see a slight drop in demand for American pork in China in 2021. “We’re going to have a record year in 2020 with China,” Halstrom says. “A lot of that’s from the China situation on ASF, but we’re still forecasting the second-largest year ever in 2021 with about 10- or 15-percent decrease there. The key is expanding the reach of pork globally and remain diversified.”

Closer to home, Halstrom says the United States’ neighbors to the south are also vital to continued growth in pork exports.  “Keep in mind that Mexico and Central and South America, Latin America in general went into the COVID-19 lockdowns after the U.S.,” he says. “It was really late May when that all happened. So, they were late to go in and they’re probably a little late coming out, but they will come out and we’re starting to see those signs already.”

Almost one-third of the nation’s hogs are raised in Iowa on some 54-hundred farms. Last year, more than 147-thousand jobs were associated with the Iowa pork industry.

Rare weather issue leads to duck being hit and killed in Woodbury county

Ag/Outdoor, News

November 10th, 2020 by Ric Hanson

(Radio Iowa) – The Iowa D-N-R says a unique weather phenomenon led to the death of several migrating birds in northwest Iowa. State waterfowl biologist, Orrin Jones, says the birds ran into trouble after flying into a weather system in Iowa. He says the birds would have left the Dakotas at sunset Monday and then entered into a frontal system in Iowa. He says once the birds hit the weather system they decided to land and then mistook wet pavement for a body of water.

“Be it a wetland or lake and landed there. And then in those very dark conditions, it would be very disorienting to have vehicles coming by with their headlights on– so a lot these birds mistakenly landed on the pavement and then were struck by moving vehicles,” Jones says. Jones says it was just a bad combination of weather and the area where they landed.

“It would have been very dark with rain or freezing rain…so it would be very easy for them to be disorientated under those conditions,” according to Jones. “Some of them probably figured it out and were able to get back in the air and find a more suitable location. Others were probably still trying to figure that out as vehicles approached.”

State Conservation Officer Steve Griebel, of Woodbury County, says he started getting phone calls and text messages about ducks on the road around 9:30 p-m. Monday. He found more than 200 ducks dead along Highway 20 toward Highway 71. Jones says this is the time of year when all of the conditions can come together and create this issue.

“October and November are when Iowa has its highest waterfowl migration — so while this is a kind of rare tragedy to have this happen — it does happen every so often,” Jones says. He says it didn’t seem to be widespread. “It seems to be relatively localized to the Cherokee, Woodbury County are. So, it just happened to affect the birds who were migrating through or over those counties,” Jones says.

The D-N-R says this the most famous occurrence of this type of weather phenomenon that happened on Armistice Day in 1940. Temperatures that day started in the mid-50s and ended with more than a foot of snow, and 150 people and thousands of livestock dead.

The harvest is nearly over

Ag/Outdoor, News

November 10th, 2020 by Ric Hanson

(Radio Iowa) – The corn and bean harvests are down to the final days. The U-S-D-A crop report shows just six percent of the corn crop remains in the fields. The most work remains in south-central Iowa — where they still have more than 15 percent to be picked. All the rest of the state has less than five percent of the corn remaining — and that puts the harvest nearly four weeks ahead of last year and more than two weeks ahead of the five-year average.

Just two percent of the soybeans are still waiting to be combined in scattered fields across the state. The soybean crop harvest ends up almost three weeks ahead of last year and 10 days ahead of average.

Local 24-Hour Rainfall Totals at 7:00 am on Tuesday, November 10, 2020

Ag/Outdoor, Weather

November 10th, 2020 by Jim Field

  • KJAN, Atlantic  1.13″
  • 7 miles NNE of Atlantic  1.15″
  • Massena  1.04″
  • Avoca  1.5″
  • Audubon  1.43″
  • Oakland  1.06″
  • Neola  1.3″
  • Underwood  1.34″
  • Guthrie Center  1.2″
  • Corning  .88″
  • Red Oak  1.76″
  • Manning  2.68″
  • Irwin  2.3″
  • Logan 1.6″
  • Carroll  2.22″
  • Clarinda  .26″
  • Shenandoah  .75″

Preserving Pellett Memorial Woods Workday

Ag/Outdoor, News

November 10th, 2020 by Ric Hanson

The Cass County Conservation Board is holding a Preserving Pellett Memorial Woods Workday, this Saturday, November 14th. The free program will be held at the Pellett Memorial Woods outside of Atlantic from 1 until 4 pm (feel free to come and go as you wish). The Board is looking for those volunteers who wish to be a part of the preservation process and may contribute, by assisting with the removal of honeysuckle bushes.

If you want to help, please dress appropriately (wearing long pants, long sleeves and gloves), and bring loppers if you have them. Those in attendance will have the opportunity to improve one of Southwest Iowa’s best locations to observe spring woodland wildflowers.

Pellett Memorial Woods is located just outside of Atlantic, ½ mile north and ¾ mile east of the KJAN radio station. The event will be cancelled if there is inclement weather.