Beans planted before May 1 have higher yield potential, but growers should be aware that crop insurance doesn't cover very early plantings, said Shawn conley, Purdue University soybean specialist. Last year, 53 percent of Indiana's acreage was planted to soybeans and with most farmers in a corn/soybean rotation, more acres were naturally going to shift to corn in 2007, Conley said. Indiana farmers will plant more acres to corn than soybeans this year, but the push for more corn for ethanol...

Some are signing futures contracts to lock in prices now; some are holding off in the hope that prices will climb higher. The planning is an annual rite of spring, but this year it has huge implications for farmers in a market driven by a boom in ethanol, the corn-based biofuel that has surged in popularity partly because of rising gasoline prices and partly because President Bush declared that the U. The planning is an annual rite of spring, but this year it has huge implications for...

In the roughly 10 years since biotech crops have become available, consumers have been buying food products without always being aware that GMO products might have been used in their production. The rice, now under development in Japan, is genetically modified, but GM technology is still viewed with deep suspicion by many consumers here, where no GMO crops are commercially grown despite increasing a growth in global acreage. She said it was likely to be a time-consuming process for the...

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Rice farmers might not even need to change out their crops to produce ethanol, he said. Southeast Texas has all the right ingredients for growth in the ethanol industry because of its existing petrochemical industry, it's a matter of when ethanol production begins to take root, Wilson said. farmers into cornhuskers, but the trend might be a while in coming to Southeast Texas rice farms, a researcher said. The news dented prices, and importers, especially in Europe, still refuse to accept...