Oil spill approaching shoreline of the gulf states

I noticed with interest that the off-shore oil rig disaster 40 miles beyond Louisiana's shoreline was the lead story on the NBC evening news this evening. This disaster, with the potential to have far reaching ecological and political consequences, has a lot of people down here nervously watching to see how it will play out over the next few days as the oil spill area spreads. The aftermath of the fiery explosion on an off-shore oil rig that resulted in several deaths, has the potential to severely impact the already fragile wetland region of Louisiana and the coastal regions of several gulf states, affecting not only wildlife, but seafood, tourism, and other industries that our economy depends on. Here is the report on this disaster from our local paper. The report contains a video about midway into the article as well, that includes a clip from Motivatit Seafoods owner Mike Voisin, a fellow Latter-day Saint who I spent some time on Sunday with.

Here is a Facebook comment from Richard Stancliffe, a member of our New Orleans Stake Presidency who works for the oil industry, and who is also an avid bird watcher, "The disaster of the Transocean Deepwater Horizon rig will have political and environmental repercussions that will impact the industry for years to come. Forget about all the OCS acreage Obama opened up last week...the window of that opportunity just closed."

Kitty...still alive and well

"Kitty," brought home as a little male kitten for our children 17 years ago, is the only animal that remains from an earlier era, when we had several animals in the home. He is still a welcome sight when we come home from work, even though he can be annoying at times.

Brazil...some amazing sugarcane statistics

Brazil is the proverbial gorilla in the room when it comes to sugarcane production. According to UNICA, during the 2009/2010 campaign that concluded on March 31, Brazilian mills had processed 542 million metric tons (or tonnes) of cane. Of the total cane processed, 42.6% was used for sugar and 57.4% for ethanol. Total sugar production was 28.6 million tonnes, while ethanol production was 23.7 billion liters. To put some of this into perspective, Brazil hauled more cane to their mills than the U.S. hauled corn (331 million tonnes), soybeans (73 million tonnes) and wheat (56 million tonnes), put together, based on crop statistics from FAOSTAT. And these are our top three agronomic crops. Granted, the collective value of the unprocessed corn, soybeans, and wheat vastly exceeds that of raw cane, but still, the sheer weight and volume of cane being transported for processing in Brazil is truly impressive. The total cane production in the U.S. last year, combining FL, HI, LA, and TX, was 27.8 million tonnes, or approximately 1/20th the size of the Brazilian crop. The U.S. is ranked 9th, after Brazil, India, China, Thailand, Mexico, Pakistan, Australia, and Colombia. In terms of ethanol produced from sugarcane, Brazil is really the only significant player out there right now.

Brazil has decided to wage an education campaign, in part, to bring into question the basis for the stiff tariffs the U.S. has imposed on ethanol exported from Brazil. If the U.S. is honestly trying to go green, and if the U.S. corn industry can't even begin to meet the potential ethanol demand, what is the point of the stiff tariffs? Brazil doesn't understand why the corn industry is pushing their congressional representatives to be so protective, when it isn't really necessary, and runs counter to our broader objective, as a country, to go green.

A greenhouse full of sugarcane seedlings

Each year, at the USDA Sugarcane Research Unit in Houma, we grow sugarcane seedlings from true seed resulting from crosses made during the winter. True seed of sugarcane has a shape similar to that of sesame seed but is much smaller, about the length of the commas in this sentence, which helps explain why sugarcane is not sexually propagated on farms and plantations. After about a month of careful nurturing, tiny seedlings can be transplanted to 72-cell trays, which you see in the photo above, taken yesterday. We transplant around 90,000 to 100,000 seedlings each year. This year, beginning on Apr 22, we will start transplanting these seedlings to the field. The field transplanting operation will take about a week to complete. Seedlings will be planted 16" apart on 6' wide rows. They will be cut back at the end of the year, then will begin to re-grow next spring. Those that cannot survive a Louisiana winter will cull themselves out. In the fall of 2011, the top 10% of surviving seedlings will be selected and be asexually propagated into the 2nd stage of selection. They will undergo additional stages of visual selection, increase, and multi-location yield testing. The entire breeding and selection process, from the time a cross is made, until a new variety is released to the industry, takes roughly twelve years. I will be long since retired before any commercial variety might possibly be selected from among the approximately 40,000 seedlings that can be viewed in the photo above. We have three greenhouses for seedling propagation, of which two are completely filled and one is partially filled with transplant seedlings this year.

Backyard blackberries in bloom