Member News

Membership renewals for 2023-2024 have been mailed, please look for them! And thank you to those who have already returned renewals!

Growout season is close! Please download a growout intention survey here and return it to the TSTA office via email attachment. It's important to have a reasonable idea of the acreage we'll be needing this winter.

Join the American Seed Trade Association (ASTA) this December 5 - 8, 2023 at our NEW venue, the Hyatt Regency Orlando, for the Field Crop Seed Convention, an unparalleled seed business networking and educational opportunity. Gathering over 2,000 attendees from 36 countries, the Field Crop Seed Convention (formerly known as the CSS & Seed Expo) is THE place to see and be seen amongst the global community of companies working in all field crops, from corn and soybean, to wheat, rice, cotton, sorghum and so much more. Now in Orlando, after 77 years in Chicago, our new venue offers any and all seed industry stakeholders a wealth of new opportunities, in a central hub of exhibits, sessions and private meeting rooms all in one combined meeting space area. 



Visit the conference home page to learn more

The 35th Annual Texas Plant Protection Conference will be December 5 & 6 at the Brazos Center in Bryan, Texas. Click here for more info and to register

In an effort to update and maintain our membership records we request you take a few moments and fill out the very brief info request at the following link.

https://forms.gle/SC6QDSgqUVixUqAo8

The link is secure and the information will be used internally by the Texas Seed Trade Association and never shared without your permission. This request is on behalf of your association's board of directors and officers and we greatly appreciate your cooperation. Thank you!

11/9/2023 - If you have not updated your information please take a moment and do so now. We appreciate it! We continue to update this database and need your input!

USDA ISSUES UPDATES ON ITS COMPETITION AND INNOVATION IN SEEDS INITIATIVE

Nov. 9, 2023 Source: USDA news release

Washington -- USDA announces updates on several other efforts the department has undertaken as part of President Biden's historic Executive Order on Promoting Competition in America's Economy, a key pillar of Bidenomics.

These include:

*a notice to seed companies clarifying expectations that they share clear and meaningful information to farmers about the seed varietals they are purchasing;

*clarifying the domestic origin requirements a farmer must fulfill to sell meat products to meet USDA's food purchases for nutrition assistance programs; and

*creating a new, senior- level career position to formalize and enhance implementation of key competition policy priorities across the Department.

Competition and Innovation in Seeds

USDA continues to deliver on its commitments to promote fair competition and innovation in seeds. This week, the Agricultural Marketing Service (AMS), the agency leading the Farmer Seed Liaison initiative, issued multiple letters to seed companies reiterating their obligation to comply with the Federal Seed Act's varietal labeling requirements for agricultural and vegetable seed shipped in interstate commerce and highlighting the importance of establishing best practices under the March 6 Notice to Trade.

To read the letter click here.

As part of this effort, AMS is holding seed companies accountable to the best interests of their farmer stakeholders by requesting they examine how they are complying with the Federal Seed Act and USDA's Notice to Trade in providing variety transparency to farmers at the point of sale, disclosing the variety to growers usually at the time of purchase and no later than the commencement of shipment.

USDA recognizes the variety of seed farmers are purchasing under different brand names is important to them and enables a more competitive, innovative seed landscape.

Editor's Note: Aren't you thrilled that our industry is a portion of a "key pillar of Bidenomics?" We are NOT being cynical. Oscar Wilde's accurate quote about cynics is that they "know the cost of everything and the value of nothing." We feel like our industry has a good handle on both costs and value, thank you.

November 7^th Ballot Results

 TSTA Staff



Right to Farm and Ranch Yields Overwhelming Support!

Two million five hundred fifty-nine thousand one hundred and ninety Texans voted to protect the Right to Farm and Ranch in the state for the 2023 General Election which included the consideration of 14 state constitutional questions. More people voted on Proposition 1 than any other proposition on the ballot, a testament to the importance that Texans place on agriculture, horticulture, silviculture and wildlife.  The campaign by our unified organizations to educate the public on this critical protection has had an additional benefit in bringing awareness to Texans and others who are unfamiliar or misinformed about the use of unnecessary regulations by local governments. The TSTA strongly supported Prop. 1 from its formation to the ballot and we couldn't be happier with this outcome!

Among the remaining propositions constitutional amendment known as Prop. 13 was the only question to fail. The retirement age of judges and justices would have been raised to address the shortage of individuals serving on the bench.  Perhaps Prop. 13 failed due to the age of certain politicians becoming such an issue lately - bad timing.

Voters gave resounding support for the other 12 questions including a few local issues that required voter approval. The statewide solutions that passed include the establishment of funding mechanisms and reduction in personal and business taxes. Having the necessary funds to address the needs of a growing population the legislature has laid the groundwork to secure statewide access and reliability to consumer services. The requirement of general election to authorize these measures the state can now establish access for the delivery of broadband; the building of new water and energy infrastructure; the increase of teachers’ retirement compensation; the reduction of ad valorem taxes; and,an increase in the homestead exemption. Texas voters see the importance of future planning and policies that support the opportunity for a quality of life that we value.

NSP: USDA'S EMERGENCY RELIEF PROGRAM HURTS LARGE FAMERS, FAVORS SMALL ONES

Source: National Sorghum Producers (NSP)

USDA this week announced the Emergency Relief Program (ERP) for 2022 - 10 months after funding was initially signed into law in the 2022 Consolidated Appropriations Act. Congress provided roughly $3.23 billion to address natural disasters that occurred during the 2022 calendar year for crop losses and an additional $470 million for livestock losses, which has already been programmed.

However, there are two major flaws in the program that make it a disaster in and of itself. First, USDA has established a "progressive" payment factor - or backdoor payment limitation - to fit total payments within budget that will severely harm full time farm families.

Ironically, this "progressive" factor cuts deepest those who faced the largest losses. Customarily, when a factor is required to fit payments within budget, one uniform factor is applied. But, in this case, there are six separate factors, based on the amount of losses, which look a lot more like payment limitations rewarding smaller losses (and impliedly smaller producers) and punishing larger losses (and full-time farmers).

Second, although the law requires producer paid premiums to be netted out for all producers, USDA's new ERP only nets out such premiums for "underserved" farmers. The results are stark. For example, a farmer with a calculated loss of $100,000 in 2020 would have received $75,000, plus a refund of some portion of the crop insurance premium paid for the farm so as not to punish producers for buying insurance.

For 2022, the same farmer with a $100,000 calculated loss will receive $11,250 after applying the progressive factor and the limitations on premium refunds. On a $500,000 calculated loss, the ERP payment would be $41,250 - just 8% of the loss. Although called by another name, the backdoor pay limit violates both the intent of Congress and the plain letter of the law. The confinement of the netting out of crop insurance premiums to "underserved" farmers is a direct affront to the statute.

A one-pager with all the details you may need can be:

Second, although the law requires producer paid premiums to be netted out for all producers, USDA's new ERP only nets out such premiums for "underserved" farmers. The results are stark. For example, a farmer with a calculated loss of $100,000 in 2020 would have received $75,000, plus a refund of some portion of the crop insurance premium paid for the farm so as not to punish producers for buying insurance. For 2022, the same farmer with a $100,000 calculated loss will receive $11,250 after applying the progressive factor and the limitations on premium refunds. On a $500,000 calculated loss, the ERP payment would be $41,250 - just 8% of the loss. Although called by another name, the backdoor pay limit violates both the intent of Congress and the plain letter of the law. The confinement of the netting out of crop insurance premiums to "underserved" farmers is a direct affront to the statute.

A one-pager with all the details you may need can be accessed here, further showing the immense harm the program would do to full time farm families. Unless remedied, this change will not only harm producers suffering losses in 2022 but farmers under future programs if this becomes the precedent.

NSP continues to work with those on Capitol Hill as we explore all potential avenues to ensure the nation's farm economy is prioritized, setting aside the political aspects that have influenced the development of farm programs, which is unprecedented and detrimental.

">accessed here, further showing the immense harm the program would do to full time farm families. Unless remedied, this change will not only harm producers suffering losses in 2022 but farmers under future programs if this becomes the precedent.

NSP continues to work with those on Capitol Hill as we explore all potential avenues to ensure the nation's farm economy is prioritized, setting aside the political aspects that have influenced the development of farm programs, which is unprecedented and detrimental.

Editor's Note: In our experience there has never been an administration's USDA more friendly to detrimental programs. By detrimental we mean policies encouraging lower production and/or raise costs of production such as incentives to certify as an organic producer, the recent EPA proposed strategy to limit herbicide choices based on the farm, or farmer's, ability to adopt arbitrary conservation practices under the auspices of protecting endangered species, aid specific to "historically under-served" segments based solely on geography, ethnicity, or race, etc.

Favoring small farms at the expense of larger is also consistent with inefficiency and waste. Larger farms produce the vast majority of harvested produce in this country so by all means adopt programs that cater to the myth of "the family farm" versus those nasty "incorporated factory production units." Despite the fact that 97% of "family farms" are incorporated and hence qualify as "corporate farms" rather than fitting nicely into the Jeffersonian ideal of agrarian mythology that has not existed since the 1820s.

Are there no (genuine) experts available to assist in reasoned policy making these days? Does every decision have to be made purely for political purposes? The slice of voters that have ties to production agriculture is pitifully small and yet an unprecedented amount of cash is being designated to buy future votes within this segment. Makes you wonder how much money is similarly being thrown at segments with vastly more voters up for grabs.

Our sincere thanks to the NSP for this release and not being one of the (many) associations issuing weekly statements of appreciation to this administration for one thing or another.

Factoids



McKinsey & Company (McKinsey) released its latest insight on catalyzing a sustainable land use transition, revealing that 70-80Mha of additional cropland, equivalent to all of Brazil's[i] cropland or 3x Tanzania's[ii], will be required by 2030 to sustain the world's demand for food, feed, fuel and natural capital.

The report "Striking the balance: catalyzing a sustainable land use transition" notes that most of the demand is driven by three principal factors: feedstock, food and fuel. McKinsey anticipates that producing feedstock for livestock production may account for around 70 percent of all incremental cropland needed by 2030; crop production for human consumption around 20 percent; and biofuel production the remaining approximately 10 percent.

While the requirement calculated by McKinsey's model represents less than 10 percent of additional cropland for feedstocks compared to today, it is a significant ask when competition for available and suitable land parcels in other vital areas is intensifying. Hotspots of competition are already emerging in Latin America and Sub-Saharan Africa, which are likely to be the source of most additional cropland, where land and food prices could increase.

Editor's Note: 70-80M hectares of land is equivalent to 173M and 198M acres of land. That's a lot. Seems only a short time ago the discussion centered around how genetic engineering and new breeding techniques were going to make sustaining the growing world population feasible?

U OF ILLINOIS RESEARCHERS: SINGLE GENE CONTROLS WATERHEMP'S RESISTANCE TO SOIL-APPLIED HERBICIDES

Nov. 9, 2023 Source: University of Illinois news release

URBANA, Ill. -- Waterhemp, the aggressive weed threatening Corn Belt crop production, is throwing curveballs once again, according to researchers at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. The weed has famously developed resistance to not one or two, but seven herbicide sites-of-action classes, nearly exhausting the chemical tools farmers can use to defend their livelihood.

In a new Weed Science study, U. of I. researchers show that a single major gene is responsible for waterhemp's resistance to S-metolachlor (active ingredient in Dual Magnum and Dual II Magnum), an important soil-applied residual product in the class of VLCFA-inhibiting herbicides. The group's previous research showed waterhemp detoxifies the chemical with P450s, enzymes that remove electrons from toxic compounds, making them less reactive inside plant cells.

"The lingering question was which P450s? Plants have hundreds of them, and they often work in tandem to deactivate toxins. So, when we found just one major gene responsible for S-metolachlor resistance in waterhemp, we were very surprised," said study co-author Dean Riechers, professor in the Department of Crop Sciences, part of the College of Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental Sciences (ACES) at U. of I. "Waterhemp threw us a curveball once again."

Riechers' group routinely hunts for genes responsible for waterhemp's herbicide-dodging superpowers. A decade ago, his group traced waterhemp's resistance to atrazine -- a herbicide in a separate class from S-metolachlor -- to a single GST gene. But he says it's rare to find simple genetic control for a non-target-site resistance mechanism in weeds.

Tracing the genetic basis of resistance takes a great deal of hard work, precision, and time. In this case, first author Dylan Kerr, Riechers' master's student at the time, selected resistant plants and iteratively crossed them with other resistant plants for three generations in the greenhouse. Having purified the genetic stock, he then mated resistant parents with sensitive ones and looked for genetic differences in their offspring.

"Studying soil-applied herbicide resistance is very difficult because if the herbicide is doing its job, then sensitive plants won't even exist," Riechers said. "Dylan went above and beyond the call of duty. He was very diligent and persistent in the greenhouse in making these crosses so the results would be clean and easy to interpret."

What does it mean that only one major gene controls S-metolachlor resistance in waterhemp?

"Unfortunately, it's not encouraging news for growers," Riechers said. "Whenever resistance is controlled by a single gene and it's a dominant trait, the risk for spread is higher."

The worst-case scenario hasn't happened yet. Riechers notes that metolachlor has been used in corn, soybean, and grain sorghum for about 45 years, and waterhemp populations with resistance to the herbicide are not yet widespread.

"As a soil-applied residual tool, S-metolachlor is valuable for managing waterhemp," Riechers said. "Resistance is not a huge problem yet, but if S-metolachlor or other VLCFA-inhibitor herbicides ever stopped working on a broader scale, that would take even more effective tools away."

The way forward, Riechers says, is for the industry to move toward more holistic weed management methods -- including physically destroying seeds and adding more diverse crops to the rotation -- and away from complete reliance on chemical weed control. He suggests that planting winter wheat, cover crops, or even double-cropping soybeans after wheat could significantly cut down on weed pressure.

"I realize it's getting tiring to keep saying diversify your weed control, but it's true and our research findings at ACES support this strategy," Riechers said.

Michigan State University plant biologists shed light on 144-year-old seedy mystery

Michigan State University release

In April 2021, four Michigan State University plant scientists met at an undisclosed area on campus to dig up a bottle containing seeds buried more than 144 years ago by MSU botanist William J. Beal. Watch first video here

Fast forward to 2023, more than two years after the seeds were excavated from their secret location, molecular genetic testing has confirmed a hybrid plant was accidentally included among the seeds in the bottle — a discovery that would have surprised and amazed Beal since DNA was unknown at the time.

Going back to 1879

During his time on campus, Beal wanted to help farmers increase crop production by eliminating weeds from their farms, so he was determined to find out how long the seeds of these undesirable plants could remain viable in soil. (Read original story)

He filled 20 glass pint bottles with sand and 50 seeds from 23 weed species. Beal buried the bottles with their mouths slanting downward so water wouldn’t collect, replicating as best he could the natural seed and soil conditions. And so began the Beal Seed Experiment.

Beal originally excavated every five years to test the seeds, which grew each time they were excavated. However, in 1920, it was decided to change the interval to 10 years to prolong the study. Then, in 1980, the interval was extended to 20 years. With four bottles still buried, the experiment will continue until 2100.

In 2021, the current team of Beal researchers excavated the 14th bottle of seeds buried on campus to see if they could finally answer the question: How long can seeds remain viable to grow?

“The biggest surprise to me is that the seeds germinated again,” said Frank Telewski, professor emeritus, plant biologist and Beal team leader. “It’s amazing that something so old can still grow.”

DNA results ‘ex-seed’ expectations

Since April 2021, the Beal experiment team members, including Telewski; Lars Brudvig, professor of plant biology; Grace Fleming, assistant professor of plant biology; and David Lowry, associate professor of plant biology, have been sequencing genomic DNA to confirm the plant species’ identities for the first time in the history of the experiment. The Beal team’s work has been published in the American Journal of Botany.

The team always thought a hybrid was somehow mixed in with the original seeds but never had the tools to confirm it, until now.

“The molecular genetics work confirmed the phenotypes we saw, which is that the plants were Verbascum blattaria, ormoth mullein, and one hybrid of Verbascum blattariaand Verbascum thapsus, or common mullein,” Fleming said. “Beal stated that he included only Verbascum thapsusseeds, so some mix-up must have happened while the bottles were being prepared.

While most species in the Beal experiment lost all seed viability in the first 60 years, the persistence of Verbascum seeds provides invaluable information about seed viability in natural soil conditions, Brudvig said.

“In the 140-plus years since the experiment’s start, the question of seed bank longevity has gained new relevance, including for rare species conservation and ecosystem restoration; for example, prairie plantings on former farmland,” Brudvig said. “Our findings help to inform which plant species, like Verbascum, might be problematic weeds for a restoration project like this, and which other species may not, depending on how long a field was farmed before being restored.”

Beal’s question remains

Beal hoped to help farmers eliminate weeds by determining how long seeds would remain viable. After 144 years, that question remains unanswered.

“The Beal experiment will ultimately end when we run out of bottles,” Lowry said. “If seeds germinate again from our next dig, we may need to consider extending the time between bottle extractions to every 30 years. It’s still a little early to put it on my calendar, but I am looking forward to seeing if we can wake up any more seeds in 2040.”

Watch the video here