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Ag News

Nine Generations Later Americas Oldest Distillery Still Running

Laird & Company is synonymous with apple spirits, producing the vast majority of all Applejack and American Apple Brandy on the market. The Laird family began distilling in America in 1698 after Alexander Laird emigrated from County Fife, Scotland, where he had already perfected his distilling technique. Apples were the most abundant natural resource in the area, so Alexander made ...
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What I’ve Been Hearing About the Locust…

What I've Been Hearing About the Locust... The UN's Food & Agriculture Organization said recently that the number of locusts in East Africa could expand 500 times by June. The desert locust may be the most dangerous yet. From what I understand, just a single small locust swarm, if it comes into a farmer’s field in the morning, by midday it ...
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What’s Expected from the USDA Ag Outlook?

Corn traders have all eyes on the USDA Ag Outlook numbers. The trade seems to be looking for a planted acreage number between 93 and 95 million with an average yield of around 176 bushels per acre and total U.s. new-crop production north of 15 billion bushels. If you want to compare the numbers from this past year, we planted ...
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What You Need to Know About Growing Hemp in 2020

USDA in late January closed the public comment period on its interim final rule for hemp production but there remains a great deal of confusion about the guidelines as the 2020 growing season quickly approaches. Many growers viewed 2019 as an "educational opportunity" on many fronts. And a lot of those lessons were quite painful, like the destruction of crops ...
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The Biggest Cow-Calf Ranch in the U.S.

If you're thinking it's in Texas, Kansas or South Dakota, you're wrong! Deseret Ranches is located in Central Florida and belongs to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church). It is located about 50 miles southeast of the Orlando International Airport and 19 miles west of Cape Canaveral, Florida and spreads over the three central Florida counties ...
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What’s Driving Global Protein Demand?

Plant-based protein demand is growing and while most people think vegans are the driving force behind it we actually have to thank the "flexitarians", those who switch between eating both meat and meatless meat. Flexitarians have multiple approaches to their diets, meaning some limit their meat choices to items that meet certain criteria like high welfare, locally sourced, or 100% ...
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Why I’m Making a Move on Fertilizer

Fertilizer prices here at home had been moving lower for several months, but I've started noticing a few ticking higher compared to last month i.e. anhydrous and UAN32. I'm not sounding any alarms, but I do think we need to take notice and pay attention for a moment, especially with the coronavirus still brewing inside China. Remember, China is the world's largest producer ...
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From the Field – South Dakota

The little bit of snow and 50 miles per hour wind is going to shut everyone down for at least a few days. I wanted to further report on what we are seeing. When the guys first got out there and started picking corn, the moisture was around 20-21% and the test weight ranged from 47 to 48 pounds. The ...
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Morning Summary 02-12-20

Stock bulls are extremely happy to see the 10th record close for the S&P 500 and the 12th record close for the Nasdaq already in this new year. Bears continue to question how much higher the bulls can run amid the large degree of global economic uncertainty being generated by China's coronavirus outbreak. There does seem to be some growing optimism surrounding ...
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Still Keeping An Eye on Natural Gas

As I wrote back on January 23rd, "This is somewhat unseasonal as most of the major lows in the natural gas market are generally not posted until March-April or even later in the calendar year during August-September. This is why some traders wonder if there's still a lot more room to the downside?" Now, three weeks later, prices are still ...
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