MO Farmer Swindles Millions in Fake Organic Farming Scheme

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Agclone91

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If we lose glyphosate, there goes no till
I'll argue that this battle has already been lost, and it is mostly due to this mentality that glyphosate is still the silver bullet.

I would also argue that the many no-till farmers that I work with have had superior herbicide programs for a long time. Herbicide and cover crops are their main forms of weed control so they understand the importance of switching MOA's for longevity vs using a tillage pass to knock down the weeds before planting and coming back with roundup expecting it to kill everything (full disclosure, I don't know ANY farmers just doing this anymore).
 

buf87

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What is the relationship of organic farming and to the amount of increased carbons released into the atmosphere from extensive cultivation?
 
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Stormin

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Wondering if Organic Loving Golfers know they are exposed to herbicides and chemicals on the Greens and Grounds of the Course they are playing.
 

buf87

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Good grass killer. Used in tank mixes. For the idiots who didn’t change modes of action in chemicals and relied on glyphosate exclusively, maybe.

Where we screwed up was putting every trait (Roundup & Liberty) in all the corn hybrids.
I was planting Helculex (Liberty only) corn and Roundup beans. Worked great.

We use you spray Liberty on our herculex corn and roundup on our beans. We had seed beans and had to get rid of any corn in them. One of the sales pitches was we won't have any corn on the ground with the 3 stack corn. That proved false.

So yep, now roundup is only good as a grass killer.
 
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BCClone

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Not exactly sure.
Where we screwed up was putting every trait (Roundup & Liberty) in all the corn hybrids.
I was planting Helculex (Liberty only) corn and Roundup beans. Worked great.

We use you spray Liberty on our herculex corn and roundup on our beans. We had seed beans and had to get rid of any corn in them. One of the sales pitches was we won't have any corn on the ground with the 3 stack corn. That proved false.

So yep, now roundup is only good as a grass killer.

Im continuous corn and that was my rotation when I started. Liberty corn one year and RR corn the next. Then they decided (or claim) that it’s hard to insert the liberty gene by itself so they do both. I believe it was to have less numbers and a Monsanto move to kill liberty competition. It’s the chemical companies that are our and their worst enemy when it comes to chemical resistance.
 

Tre4ISU

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Im continuous corn and that was my rotation when I started. Liberty corn one year and RR corn the next. Then they decided (or claim) that it’s hard to insert the liberty gene by itself so they do both. I believe it was to have less numbers and a Monsanto move to kill liberty competition. It’s the chemical companies that are our and their worst enemy when it comes to chemical resistance.

You will have a hard time convincing me that Monsanto didn't market Roundup to fail. Their early pitches were god-awful stewardship of any chemistry.

Yeah it's a grass killer. Great. We're still having to use Fusilade and in the corn we're using acetechlors and have some post options. If it went away tomorrow, the effects would hardly be felt at this point.
 
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EarthIsMan

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What is the relationship of organic farming and to the amount of increased carbons released into the atmosphere from extensive cultivation?
The scientific community is mixed when it comes to whether organic agriculture sequesters soil carbon. Details are important when comparing systems as there is spectrum of practices & management used in both organic and conventional.

More recent research has shown that tillage is helpful for incorporating high quality (low C:N) crop residues such as legumes that then becomes stable soil carbon in organic cropping systems. But anytime after tillage the soil is vulnerable to erosion- which is definitely a knock on any tillage-based system. Conventional practices need to keep moving away from winter fallows, but it is challenging to establish a cover crop in an inflexible crop rotation of long season crops.
 
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buf87

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We are trying cover crops on seed corn ground. But very unpredictable with growth & stands in Northern Iowa
 

buf87

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I also talked with a fair amount of organic farmers in the area & haven’t found one that buys organic food
 
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Tre4ISU

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We are trying cover crops on seed corn ground. But very unpredictable with growth & stands in Northern Iowa

I have zero doubt that in 10 years I'll be using CCs on everything. What they are and how we implement, I don't know. A ton of trial and error to be done and laying out the money it takes right now to take a risk is a hard thing to do on many acres.
 

buf87

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I have zero doubt that in 10 years I'll be using CCs on everything. What they are and how we implement, I don't know. A ton of trial and error to be done and laying out the money it takes right now to take a risk is a hard thing to do on many acres.

I agree. I still wait till crop is off and plant cover crop with tillage. 1st year using rye. Past, I used oats and couldn't get enough growth to make it worthwhile.

I have seen people fly on covercrops, but stand is variable that I am not convinced that is the way to go. Also if you get a bad stand you can't rip it up without giving the government covercrop subsidy back.
 

buf87

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Are the companies you are growing seed for helping with the costs of the cover crops?

Iowa Cover Crop Association is. They have a program with seed corn companies. Basically covers the cost of the seed.

This is for production seed corn, not commercial. Haven't seen anything on production seed beans.
 
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NickTheGreat

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Wondering if Organic Loving Golfers know they are exposed to herbicides and chemicals on the Greens and Grounds of the Course they are playing.

Oh they have no problem with that.

Heaven forbid that a farmer put a few lbs of NPK on his field per acre. But it's totally fine to put 35 lbs of "weed and feed" on his 1/4 acre lot. That runs directly into the storm sewer.

There's a lot of farmers that do some questionable things, environmentally speaking, but I think the average idiot out there would be surprised all the thought that goes into most farmers' operations.
 

HappyJoe

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I own a primarily rec farm that has 56 acres certified organic. My wants/goals are a good rent check, responsible farming practices and as much “food” as possible available for the deer herd throughout the year. Not sure we are getting what we want out of the organic farming being done in all accounts.
 

Beernuts

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I know a few organic farmers and they openly share they are only in it for the money. They would gladly change back to conventional farming if the economics were equal. They are tiling their farms every four days for weed control: two field cultivator passes, four passes with the drag / hoe, row cultivating 4 or 5 times and then they hire immigrant labor to walk the end rows where the crop was damaged from all the tractor turning.

People who buy organic think these crops are being grown by small mom and pop farmers with straw hats. The truth is organic is becoming large farmer production that is very susceptible to erosion.

Organic is a sales pitch that makes the soccer mom's feel good about themselves, while they drive their $50,000 gas eating SUV's to their local coffee house for a $8 latte.
 
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Tre4ISU

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I know a few organic farmers and they openly share they are only in it for the money. They would gladly change back to conventional farming if the economics were equal. They are tiling their farms every four days for weed control: two field cultivator passes, four passes with the drag / hoe, row cultivating 4 or 5 times and then they hire immigrant labor to walk the end rows where the crop was damaged from all the tractor turning.

People who buy organic think these crops are being grown by small mom and pop farmers with straw hats. The truth is organic is becoming large farmer production that is very susceptible to erosion.

Organic is a sales pitch that makes the soccer mom's feel good about themselves, while they drive their $50,000 gas eating SUV's to their local coffee house for a $8 latte.

One of the largest (could be the largest idk) in my general area is all organic. It's more a "factory farm" than 95% of the other operations around. Fortunately, around here there are still a high amount of family farms in the literal sense.