ROCKVILLE, Md. (DTN) — Growers with soybean injury and yield loss from dicamba in the past six years have only three more weeks to file a claim with the Dicamba Soybean Grower Settlement.

The deadline to file claims is May 28, 2021. The settlement is from Monsanto (a legal entity now owned by Bayer), which agreed to make $400 million available to resolve multi-district litigation in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri over dicamba injury claims.

Of that amount, $300 million has been set aside for payments to commercial soybean growers who suffered yield loss from dicamba between 2015 and 2020.

The settlement filing period began Dec. 30, when a website was established for growers to file their claims. You can find it here: https://www.dicambasoybeansettlement.com/….

Here’s what interested farmers need to know:

WHO IS ELIGIBLE?

This particular settlement is only available to commercial soybean growers who experienced dicamba injury any time between 2015 and 2020.

ROCKVILLE, Md. (DTN) — Growers with soybean injury and yield loss from dicamba in the past six years have only three more weeks to file a claim with the Dicamba Soybean Grower Settlement.

The deadline to file claims is May 28, 2021. The settlement is from Monsanto (a legal entity now owned by Bayer), which agreed to make $400 million available to resolve multi-district litigation in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri over dicamba injury claims.

Of that amount, $300 million has been set aside for payments to commercial soybean growers who suffered yield loss from dicamba between 2015 and 2020.

The settlement filing period began Dec. 30, when a website was established for growers to file their claims. You can find it here: https://www.dicambasoybeansettlement.com/….

Here’s what interested farmers need to know:

WHO IS ELIGIBLE?

This particular settlement is only available to commercial soybean growers who experienced dicamba injury any time between 2015 and 2020.

OMAHA (DTN) — In one of his first trips as head of the Environmental Protection Agency, Administrator Michael Regan met Tuesday with a group of Iowa ethanol producers who stressed the potential for biofuels lowering both emissions and cancer-causing chemicals.

Regan, along with Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, toured the Lincolnway Energy ethanol plant near Nevada, Iowa, and hosted a roundtable discussion with ethanol producers. That part of Regan’s visit to Iowa was closed to the press before Regan later visited a Superfund site in downtown Des Moines.

Regan later sent out a few tweets highlighting his biofuels tour. “Our agricultural community must have a seat at the table if we are to successfully tackle the climate crisis,” Regan tweeted.

Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack also tweeted, “It was an honor to have @EPAMichaelRegan in Iowa today to hear from our agriculture and energy producers. Having an EPA administrator committed to listening and talking with farmers and producers of biofuels is a welcome development.”

ANKENY, Iowa (DTN) — Ian Plagge will apply 240 pounds of nitrogen (N) per acre this year on corn-on-corn acres and 190 pounds per acre on corn-after-soybeans.

Crunching the numbers on nitrogen applications is becoming increasingly important for the Lattimer, Iowa, farmer and others, as nitrogen costs ratchet skyward.

Determining ideal nitrogen rates can be tricky though, said University of Minnesota Soil Scientist Jeff Vetsch. Using proper N math and taking advantage of N calculation tools discussed in this article can help.

“Nitrogen is often the most limiting yield factor for corn,” said Vetsch. “Finding the right (N rate) can be challenging … but you can calculate the optimum rate for a given region, state and crop rotation.”

Plagge finished spraying half of the N — mostly UAN32 and some UAN28 — planned for this year’s corn crop last weekend as part of a weed-and-feed mixture. The other half will be applied in-season before tasseling using Y-drops.

LINCOLN, Neb. (DTN) — The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers recommends leaving the Dakota Access Pipeline open while it conducts an environmental analysis that could last into March 2022. The Corps stated this position in a court filing in federal court on a case that could eventually lead to the pipeline’s closing.

The Corps of Engineers provided a status report to the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia on Monday, in a case where the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe filed a motion for a permanent injunction against the pipeline. In addition, on April 12, the pipeline owner requested a motion for an en banc hearing before the entire U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. An en banc hearing is a hearing before all judges in a circuit.

“The Corps expects to use that timeframe to fulfill its commitment to undertaking an open, transparent, and public EIS (environmental impact statement) process which rigorously explores and objectively evaluates reasonable alternatives,” the government said in its status report.

OMAHA (DTN) — As Democrats in Congress look to line up provisions of the infrastructure package and a family relief plan, a House Education & Labor Subcommittee held a hearing Monday concentrated heavily on expanding overtime wages for farmworkers.

The hearing highlighted overtime exclusions in the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), going back to 1938, that Democratic witnesses said were policies meant to affect people of color. Monday’s hearing focused on farmworkers, domestic workers and restaurant workers who rely on tips.

The hearing broke down along political lines as Democrats challenged how farmworkers have remained excluded from overtime wages for 83 years. Republicans defended the exclusion for farm labor, saying farmwork remains seasonal and driving farmers to pay higher wages could force certain types of farmers out of business.

Rep. Alma Adams, D-N.C., chair of the House Workforce Protections Subcommittee, said she came from a family where her mother and grandmother were domestic workers who had been excluded from overtime pay.

LINCOLN, Neb. (DTN) — EPA asked a federal court Friday to vacate three small-refinery exemptions (SRE) the outgoing Trump administration granted on Jan. 19, just days before the Biden administration was to take office.

In a motion filed in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit in Denver, the agency said it did not follow proper procedure when on Jan. 19 it granted the exemptions to Sinclair Wyoming Refining Company and Sinclair Casper Refining Company from their 2018 and 2019 obligations in the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS).

In particular, the agency said its action, https://www.dtnpf.com/…, did not take into account case law established by the 10th Circuit in January 2020. The court ruled the EPA illegally granted exemptions to three refiners in 2017 and 2018 although they did not qualify.

The latest EPA motion to vacate the January 2021 exemptions, came in the same week the Supreme Court considered oral arguments in a case challenging the January 2020 10th Circuit decision, https://www.dtnpf.com/…

OMAHA (DTN) — A vast majority of cattle producers have much interest in caring for the environment and pasture preservation practices, a recent survey sponsored by Elanco revealed. In addition, most producers understand the benefits of such organisms as dung beetles and earthworms in grassland ecology.

The findings showed 90% of cattle producers protect natural resources, including water, and 89% always follow pesticide labels as standard practice. Over half (56%) of those responding said sustainability means ensuring the longevity of their operation from year to year.

SUSTAINABILITY MATTERS

Sara Place, chief sustainability officer for Elanco, said sustainability means different things to producers. While 56% said ensuring longevity is what this term meant to them, 37% said it was about the economics of their operations and 29% said they thought about conserving natural resources.

“While it is certainly not surprising that cattle producers employ a variety of sustainability practices on their operations, we were interested to see the level of appreciation producers have for these insects that help them maintain viable pastures for their herds and the future,” Place said.

WASHINGTON (DTN) — President Joe Biden’s plans to raise capital gains and estate taxes would raise taxes on farmers and ranchers despite the Biden administration’s statements that farms and family businesses would be exempt from some of the provisions, an American Farm Bureau Federation tax specialist said this week.

Pat Wolff, Farm Bureau’s senior director for congressional relations, told DTN Political Correspondent Jerry Hagstrom that Farm Bureau did not have any more information than what had been released early Wednesday, but that it had included statements from Biden during his presidential campaign and what had been included in congressional legislative text in its analysis.

“We understand the basics and know that if they were implemented, there would be a significant tax increase on farmers and ranchers,” Wolff said.

The capital gains tax proposal to eliminate stepped-up basis on the inheritance of assets, including farmland, would require the payment of capital gains taxes upon death unless the property is given to charity, Wolff said.

By DTN Staff

OMAHA (DTN) — Agricultural corn seed giants started working on a containment strategy as Nebraska environmental regulators began taking stock of the pesticide and fungicide contamination at an ethanol plant that processed treated seeds almost exclusively.

Seed companies stepped in and hired a company to take over environmental cleanup at the AltEn LLC ethanol plant, capable of producing 24 million gallons per year, outside Mead, Nebraska, about 20 minutes from the suburbs of Omaha.

AltEn shut down its plant in early February after the Nebraska Department of Environment and Energy (NDEE) issued an emergency order to cease operations at the plant on Feb. 4 following numerous environmental violations. AltEn completed shutdown on Feb. 8.

However, cold weather several days later led a pipe to burst at the plant, causing 4 million gallons of pesticide-filled water to flow downstream.

Records provided to DTN also show state regulators began to query seed companies such as Bayer and Syngenta about the regulations for disposing treated seed, including questions about how to clean up millions of gallons of water in lagoons contaminated with pesticides, and whether millions of pounds of discarded treated seeds should be composted.

By Todd Neeley and Emily Unglesbee, DTN Staff Reporters

LINCOLN, Neb. (DTN) — The EPA has 60 days to either write a new rule to allow for the safe use of chlorpyrifos or halt all food residue tolerances of the insecticide, which would effectively ban most uses of it, according to a ruling handed down by a federal court on Thursday.

In an opinion from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in San Francisco, the court said EPA has had long enough to respond to a 2007 petition by environmental groups to ban the chemical.

“EPA has had nearly 14 years to publish a legally sufficient response to the 2007 Petition (to ban chlorpyrifos),” the court said.

“During that time, the EPA’s egregious delay exposed a generation of American children to unsafe levels of chlorpyrifos. By remanding back to the EPA one last time, rather than compelling the immediate revocation of all chlorpyrifos tolerances, the court is itself being more than tolerant.

OMAHA (DTN) — In a speech full of big-spending proposals, President Joe Biden made his case in a joint address to Congress Wednesday evening that the federal government can do more to rebuild infrastructure and pay more for education, social services and health care. But paying for trillions in new spending will require more taxes on corporations and wealthier Americans in the process.

Biden’s first address to Congress allowed him to tout early vaccination success in his first 100 days with the economy also continuing to grow in the first few months of his presidency. Biden used his early success to make the case to Congress for “once-in-a-generation” infrastructure and social spending plans. History has shown public investments can transform the country, he said.

“These are the investments we make together, as one country, and that only government can make,” he said. “Time and again, they propel us into the future.

LINCOLN, Neb. (DTN) — Agriculture interests on the front lines of charting a climate course for farmers and ranchers say there may never be another time like the present to expand conservation and other carbon-sequestration programs.

With numerous pieces of federal legislation introduced that could provide economic opportunities for agriculture to expand conservation efforts, panelists speaking to reporters during the North American Agricultural Journalists conference on Wednesday said that there may not be another funding opportunity quite like this.

The Growing Climate Solutions Act was reintroduced in the U.S. Senate last week and is drawing bipartisan support. (See “Groups Support Carbon Credit Bill” at https://www.dtnpf.com/….) The bill would create a certification program at USDA to provide technical assistance for farmers and forest owners to enroll in a carbon-credit market.

House Ag Committee Chairman Rep. David Scott, D-Ga., said on Tuesday he would like to move the Growing Climate Solutions Act through the committee but lacks support from House Ag Committee ranking member Rep.

OMAHA (DTN) — While fears of farm groups were realized Wednesday as the White House rolled out its tax proposals under the American Families Plan, the White House maintains elimination of stepped-up basis would not apply to family-owned businesses and farms when heirs continue to run those farms and businesses.

President Joe Biden will talk in more detail about his administration’s plans Wednesday night during the State of the Union speech.

Leading up to that speech, the White House formally released details on its American Families Plan, a $1.8 trillion mix of spending for education, childcare and expansion of the Affordable Care Act, as well as new anti-poverty measures.

Coupled with the plan are $1.5 trillion in tax increases targeting wealthier Americans, including increasing the top-line tax rate, doubling the tax on capital gains and eliminating the ability to avoid taxes on gains by passing assets on to heirs — known as stepped-up basis.

LINCOLN, Neb. (DTN) — The future of the small-refinery exemptions program likely will come down to the meaning of the word “extension” in the Renewable Fuel Standard. During oral arguments Tuesday, justices on the U.S. Supreme Court quizzed attorneys for the federal government, biofuels groups and refiners on how they interpret the word.

Refining company HollyFrontier brought the question before the court this spring in an appeal of a ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit in Denver in January 2020.

That court found EPA acted improperly when it granted exemptions to three small refiners, including HollyFrontier, because they had not received exemptions in previous years.

An eventual ruling by the Supreme Court is likely to determine how EPA grants similar exemptions going forward.

During oral arguments, HollyFrontier attorney Peter D. Keisler was questioned by Justice Elena Kagan about the limits of the word extension in the RFS.

LINCOLN, Neb. (DTN) — As agriculture interests continue to try to get a read on EPA Administrator Michael Regan and the future of the Renewable Fuel Standard, U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack said on Monday that he likes what he sees from the new head of the agency.

The EPA is lagging behind on the release of a 2021 renewable volume obligations proposal for the RFS and has several small-refinery exemption requests pending for 2019 and 2020. So far Regan’s EPA has kept its RFS playing cards relatively close to the vest as ethanol and agriculture interests watch.

Vilsack said he wants to see USDA and EPA work closely together on RFS and other issues important to agriculture, and so far, he said believes that will be the case on biofuels.

“The other day I was with a group of cabinet members in a meeting, and we were discussing climate,” Vilsack told agriculture journalists during the North American Agricultural Journalists annual meeting beginning on Monday, “and we were going around and eventually got to administrator Regan.

OMAHA (DTN) — The old adage is true: It’s all about location, location, location. When it comes to forage production in the 2021 growing season, it really depends on where the crop is located.

The forage outlook for much of the Southern Plains and Northern Plains is cloudy as these regions are in varying designations of drought, which could limit production. In the Central Plains, east into the Corn Belt, ample rainfall this spring has lessened drought concerns and better production is expected.

Other factors such pests, diseases and even higher fertilizer prices will test forage producers’ resolve this growing season.

DRY NORTH, SOUTH

One look at the U.S. Drought Monitor Map (https://droughtmonitor.unl.edu/…) shows much drought present in the Northern Plains and Southern Plains. Much of North Dakota and South Dakota and the western half of Nebraska are in various stages of drought with a good portion of North Dakota in extreme drought, which also extends down into northwestern South Dakota.

MT. JULIET, Tenn. (DTN) — The DTN National Soybean Index, a measure of cash soybean prices, spiked to $15.13 cents as of Thursday night, the highest level since July 2013. The index hit its all-time high of $17.48 during the drought of 2012.

The national average soybean basis, which is 21 cents below the May futures contract, is also the strongest it’s been in eight years.

In the futures market, the July contract gained more than $0.93 this week to close at $15.16 on Friday. The November contract, which more closely correlated to new-crop supply and demand factors, closed at $13.41 1/2.

“The story is how much these bids have spread to the west,” DTN Lead Analyst Todd Hultman said. “We’re talking about $6 corn bids, and for beans, we’re talking about cash bids over $15. And there are lots of quotes in South Dakota and Nebraska today at $15-plus.”

DTN began gathering cash grain bids in the 1980s.

ROCKVILLE, Md. (DTN) — Some agricultural chemicals such as herbicides and fungicides are in tight supply this spring as shipping backlogs and pandemic-related delays have run headlong into higher demand from increased row-crop acres this year.

Farmers from Arkansas, Colorado, Kansas, Maryland, Michigan, Missouri, Nebraska, Ohio and Oklahoma told DTN in emails they are hearing of higher prices, delays and shortages for herbicides, particularly glyphosate (Roundup) and glufosinate (Liberty), as well as some fungicides.

“We secured most of our needs in advance, but I have had some calls from suppliers the past several weeks basically saying that we should secure our glufosinate because they know they’ll run out,” said Charles Williams, who farms near Crawfordsville, Arkansas, and was counting on using glufosinate this year on his soybean acres to help control herbicide-resistant weeds.

“There is some discussion of a shortage looming for some popular products like Status (dicamba), however glyphosate is easily the most talked about shortage in eastern Colorado,” added Marc Arnusch, who farms near Keenesburg.

Smart-tractor manufacturer Monarch Tractor has moved a pair of its fully electric, driver-optional tractors to Wente Vineyards, the oldest, continuously operated family winery in the United States. The Monarch tractors represent the California-based manufacturer’s first commercial deployment of its tractor, now in development for 2 1/2 years.

“We’ve seen firsthand the benefits of the Monarch tractor in our vineyards,” said Niki Wente, a fifth-generation grower and senior vineyard and viticulture manager. “Monarch Tractor represents the future of tractors. To be the first customer deployment is especially exciting as we kick off this new era of sustainable farming.”

Wente Vineyards, founded in 1883, today tends 2,600 acres of vineyards in California’s Livermore Valley and Monterey appellations. The operation is certified sustainable by the state of California. “We’ve always been interested in new technologies, especially those that contribute to our sustainability,” Wente told DTN/Progressive Farmer.

While California law regulates the use of autonomous tractors beyond research, Wente is convinced full, driverless operations are coming for machines like the Monarchs.