Traveling to Tennessee over the 4th of July

Tomorrow, we will be traveling to Tennessee to join in the 3rd Annual Independence Day Celebration at the Village on Sewanee Creek. This trip will also give us some time to familiarize ourselves with the property we purchased in the Village, and take the necessary steps toward the eventual building of our future home there. We will give a detailed report on our trip after we return on the 6th of July. I borrowed the above picture from the Photo Gallery of the Sewanee Creek website. Credit: Grant Miller.

U.S. House narrowly passes major energy-climate bill

Quoting from the Associated Press, "In a triumph for President Barack Obama, the Democratic-controlled House of Representatives narrowly passed sweeping legislation today that establishes the Unites States' first limits on pollution linked to global warming and aims to usher in a new era of cleaner, yet more costly, energy.

The vote was 219-212, capping months of negotiations and days of intense bargaining among Democrats. Republicans were overwhelmingly against the measure, arguing it would destroy jobs in the midst of a recession while burdening consumers with a new tax in the form of higher energy costs."

As can be seen from the closeness of the vote, a significant number of democrat congress members were against this sweeping bill. One of those was democrat Charlie Melancon from Louisiana. Charlie was formerly top dog at the American Sugar Cane League, holding the position that Jim Simon now holds. Charlie represents south Louisiana whose economy is heavily dependent on the success of the oil and gas industry, so he was obligated to come out against the bill. Charlie had to have had some mixed emotions about this, in that the sugar industry would benefit by legislation that promotes green energy, and the fact that there is no other area in the U.S. more severely impacted by global warming than southern Louisiana.

I will admit that I have mixed emotions as well. We are surely moving into a brave new world with the passing of this legislation. Here is a useful Q&A website relative to this bill.

With this legislation, we are almost certainly going to hear more in the news about "cap and trade," so it is probably going to be useful to become more familiar with what this term means.

LSU Tigers...College World Series Champions!

I admit, I sort of went underground over the past three evenings...not even checking my e-mail, nor my favorite websites. The College World Series came down to two unbeaten teams, LSU and University of Texas, which, in a double elimination situation meant that if these teams split the first two games, a final third game would determine the champion. It turned out to be a very thrilling 3-game series. LSU made an improbable comeback to win the first game. Texas had an unbelievable pitcher in the second game, and took that one. The third game went back and forth for a while, until LSU started taking command in the latter innings, finally winning the game convincingly at the end. I had a lot of fun watching all three games. LSU's Coach Paul Mainieri has been to the College World Series three times, once with Notre Dame while coaching there, and twice with LSU (2008 and 2009). Tonight, he could finally say that he reached the pinnacle with a very special team. The shots of his family crying with joy, and him hugging his father on the field were very touching following the game. Great going, Tigers!!!

Vegetable Field Day at our USDA research facility

Tomorrow, from 9:00 a.m. to noon, the La-Terre Master Gardeners and the USDA are hosting the Annual Vegetable Field Day in Terrebonne Parish. This is the first time since I have been in Houma that we have helped host this event at our facility. Personnel from the LSU AgCenter will be involved as well, providing presentations, and sharing information. There will be contests, such as for the largest tomato and the ugliest tomato brought to the Field Day; there will be opportunities for taste tasting different varieties of the various vegetables at the field day, and so on. We will also get to show off some of the research we do at our facility. It should be an interesting and fun day. Besides sugarcane, we can show off a few sugarbeets that we specially left in the field for the event. They are gigantic, but are starting to get seriously attacked by bugs and diseases. We also have some tropical maize that is now 13 feet tall, with ears that are over nine feet from the ground. I had to use a ladder to put silk bags on them this morning. Anyone interested in corn at the Field Day will be amazed at the size of these plants.

While on the subject of crops, people outside of Louisiana may not be aware that we are going through a fairly severe drought, with no relief in sight. If the drought keeps up for another two weeks, it will have a severe impact on Lousiana agriculture generally. Farmers are very concerned.

New addition at our house

The Mangels family, a family in our congregation, had a cute little dog show up at their house a little over a week ago. Judy visited them, was introduced to this dog, and learned of the family's efforts to find its owner, and short of that, someone who might be interested in taking the dog. Judy fell for the cute little dog. With Nikki gone, and Kitty showing signs of his age catching up with him as well, we decided to bring him home. We also made an effort to find the rightful owner. We have had the dog since Sunday, and it is beginning to look more and more like we will permanently keep this dog. It's about the same size as Nikki. While we are not 100% certain, we believe this dog is a yorkipoo, which is perhaps the most common of terms used for a hybrid between a yorkshire terrier (yorki) and a poodle. Our new addition is about 18 months old (according to a vet assistant who looked him over).

He needs a name. So you are welcome to weigh in, after looking at his picture. The dog has a black back, and his belly and legs are solid brown. The thing I like most about this dog, especially compared to Nikki, is that this dog is very quiet. As a watch dog, I guess this isn't a good thing, but for peace in the house, it is great.

Religious life in the South

Louisiana is distinct among southern states because of the large proportion of its population that is Catholic. Protestants are concentrated in the northern and central part of the State, while Catholics are dominant in the southern part of the State, largely as a result of the Cajun and French Creole influence. Some have suggested that Interstate 10 roughly separates the Protestant fraction (most dominant being Southern Baptist) from the Catholic fraction, but this is, of course, simplistic. A lady who recently moved to the Houma-Thibodaux area from the Florida panhandle told me that she was trying to put a finger on the essential difference between the two groups, and she finally came to the conclusion that the difference was that where she grew up, people tried to hide their sins, whereas, down here, people flaunt their sins. I thought that was pretty funny when she said it. This was shortly after Mardi Gras.

Our Tennessee "Friends of Sewanee" shared a rather humorous Ray Stevens video about religious life in the South, entitled "The Mississippi Squirrel Revival." Ray mentions Pascagoula, Mississippi in the video, which is not too far from Louisiana and a place some people around here can relate to. Hope you enjoy the video as much as I did. Thanks to our Friends for sharing it.

Verdict on crop-based ethanol

There is a lot of controversy surrounding ethanol these days, and it will be interesting to see how all of this plays out. Two scientists from our Sugarcane Research Unit just returned from Brazil. They were obviously impressed by what they saw and were told while they were there. Sugarcane continues to be the model crop for ethanol production, with its impressive energy output/input ratio. The Brazilians claim a ratio of 8:1, which is far superior to the less than 2:1 ratio for corn in the midwest. Apparently the Brazilians are continuing to increase their ethanol production capacity from sugarcane, building new ethanol plants and increasing acreage. The Brazilians are quick to point out that these increases are in non-Amazon regions of Brazil. So what we see happening in Brazil could be thought of as THE best case scenerio for ethanol production from a crop.

Chief among ethanol detractors are David Pimentel and Tad Patzek. One question I am sure has been frequently posed to them whenever they have argued against ethanol production from a crop, is this. "What about Brazil? You say it can't be done, yet Brazil is successfully doing it on a grand scale!" Pimentel and Patzek have taken the 8:1 output/input claim head on, presumably with the expectation that if they can debunk the 8:1 output/input claim, they can pretty much take the wind out of the the sails of any argument for biofuels. They recently published a paper basically aimed at raising doubts about the Brazilian sugarcane output/input ratio. Based on their own calculations, they reported the output/input ratio for sugarcane-based ethanol industry in Brazil to be no better than 1.38:1, claiming that important energy inputs were not accounted for, to get the 8:1 ratio. Most of the unaccounted for energy costs that Pimentel and Patzek allude to are associated with the factory component, rather than the field component. Using their numbers, it wouldn't matter what the yields are in the field; you couldn't improve much on their ratio even if the cane and sugar yields were triple or quadruple what they are today. Personally, I think their numbers in the factory component need a closer inspection. From the massive amount of fibrous residue (bagasse) produced when sugar is extracted from sugarcane, mills around the world today provide all of their own power and feed excess power into the electric grid of the surrounding community, and in some cases, a lot of excess power into the electric grid. There are huge differences in boiler efficiencies. It makes a huge difference if the factory energy input numbers were meant for production of crystallized sugar rather than production of ethanol. So I am skeptical of the Pimentel and Patzek numbers, especially knowing that they have an agenda to begin with. I don't believe they adequately account for the energy output potential of baggase in their calculations.

The 8:1 ratio may be inflated, but 1.38:1 when factories are net exporters of energy before the energy from ethanol is even factored in...you've got to be kidding!

We had a field day on Friday. I was asked to discuss some of the energy crop activity we are involved in. We highlighted sugarcane, energy cane (behind me in the photo), sugarbeets, sweet sorghum, and tropical maize (non-flowering tropical maize in my right hand; a so-called sugarcorn hybrid from Illinois in my left hand). The corn I was holding for demonstration purposes was planted only 60 days ago (April 8). Needless to say, the topic stimulated a lot of interest and questions. When I passed the tropical maize plant around, people couldn't believe how heavy it was. It will be interesting to see how tall our tropical maize gets before it finally decides to flower. Right now, it is about 8 feet tall. Believe it or not, it was only 18 inches tall 30 days ago.