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Fri, 01/04/2011 - 13:17 by Cooshalle Wilson
Hundreds of turkey poults are to be culled at a poultry farm in southwest Missouri, as a weak strain of H7N3 bird flu has been detected in them.
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Sat, 15/01/2011 - 11:56 by Anter Prakash Singh
The federal government has proposed new guidelines regarding the food served to children at schools. The new rules aim at adding more fruits and vegetables and decreasing salts and fats from the daily school lunch.
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Fri, 08/10/2010 - 22:21 by Prince damin
Washington -- Soybeans remains on track for a record-setting year, but corn yield estimates have fallen sharply, a U.S. Department of Agriculture report said Friday.
The USDA forecast puts the soybean harvest at 3.41 billion bushels, up 1 percent from a year ago, when the crop production production set a record. This year, soybeans are on track to reach 44.4 bushels per acre, up from last year's 44 bushels per acre.
The more dramatic estimate adjustment came in the country's most valuable crop, corn, where the harvest estimate in Friday's report was set at 12.7 billion bushels, down 3.4 percent from a year ago.
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Wed, 06/10/2010 - 11:48 by Rakhi
San Antonio -- An animal rights watchdog group says it wants a new U.S. Department of Agriculture probe into monkey deaths at a nationally known research lab.
In a release, the group, Stop Animal Exploitation Now, also calls for an Inspector General's investigation of the conduct of the Animal & Plant Health Inspection Service regarding the Southwest Foundation for Biomedical Research in San Antonio.
SAEN says previous USDA reports revealed primates have died at the Texas lab from dehydration and hypothermia, while others have simply been "found dead" -- possibly without veterinary care -- after suffering from serious disease conditions that include temperatures up to 105 degrees.
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Sat, 10/07/2010 - 09:52 by Rakhi
Chicago -- Prices were mostly lower at the close Friday on the Chicago Board of Trade, pressured by USDA reports on supplies and production.
Corn was off 1 to off 2 1/4, Soybeans were up 7 1/4 to up 13, wheat was off 10 1/2 to off 11 1/4 and oats were up 7 1/2 to up 8 1/2.
Corn was pressured by a negative USDA supply and demand report that put ending stocks at 1.478 billion bushels, down from June but higher than expectations, and somewhat weaker than expected export sales despite support from spreaders versus wheat. November soybeans closed at their highest level since May 5, support coming from the announced sale of 116,000 tons to China for delivery during the 2010-11 crop year.
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Wed, 07/07/2010 - 10:29 by Rakhi
Washington -- The most recent U.S. Department of Agriculture crop report says 77 percent of the 2010 cotton crop is in fair to excellent condition.
Sixty-nine percent of that falls into either good or fair categories, but the crop is progressing close to its five-year historic average with 56 percent of the crop in the squaring stage and 13 percent settling bolls, the USDA said.
Historically, 55 percent of the crop is in the squaring stage at this week of the year, while 15 percent has set bolls.
The USDA said 8 percent of the corn crop has reached the silking stage, compared with a five-year average of 12 percent at this time of year.
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Tue, 22/06/2010 - 10:43 by Rakhi
Washington -- The most recent U.S. Department of Agriculture crop report says several 2010 crops remain almost to the tick on par with their five-year historic averages.
Ninety-three percent of the nation's soybean crop is planted. Historically at this week of the year, 94 percent of the crop is planted. Eighty-seven percent of soybeans have emerged, compared with a five-year average of 88 percent.
Twenty-seven percent of the cotton crop has hit the squaring stage, on par with the crop's average progress. Nineteen percent of the sorghum crop has headed out -- one tick shy of the historic average of 20 percent.
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Tue, 15/06/2010 - 10:46 by Rakhi
Washington -- The most recent U.S. Department of Agriculture crop report said 95 percent of the nation's corn crop is in fair to excellent condition.
Only 5 percent of the corn crop is listed as being in poor to very poor shape. Further, 98 percent of the corn crop has emerged, the report said, although emergence becomes a limited measure of progress as most of the crop is expected to have emerged by this time of year.
The weekly crop report said 80 percent of the soybean crop has emerged in the field, right in line with the crop's historic average.
The USDA said 94 percent of the rice crop and 97 percent of the spring wheat crop have also emerged.
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Tue, 27/04/2010 - 10:41 by Rakhi
Washington -- A U.S. Department of Agriculture scientist says he's developed a computer program that estimates crop yields based on available water.
The program developed by Agricultural Research Service scientist David Nielsen is being used now by several hundred farmers in the central Great Plains.
Nielsen said his device, called the MultiCalculator CD, uses three simple Excel spreadsheets and, in four steps, the yield calculator predicts non-irrigated crop yields.
First, farmers estimate how much available soil water their fields have. Farmers can tab to a table on a different screen that helps them make this estimate, giving multiplication factors for various soil types.
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Thu, 08/04/2010 - 09:12 by harsheeb
Pullman -- U.S. scientists have detailed the life cycle of a virus that causes malignant catarrhal fever -- a discovery they say might lead to a vaccine for the disease.
U.S. Department of Agriculture microbiologist Hong Li and veterinary medical officer Naomi Taus collaborated with Washington State University Associate Professor Lindsay Oaks and University of Wyoming Professor Donal O'Toole in the study.
The researchers said malignant catarrhal fever -- a viral infection that's a leading cause of disease in American bison -- is usually transmitted from sheep to bison and cattle. But vaccine development has been stymied because the virus won't grow in cell culture.
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Wed, 19/08/2009 - 21:37 by Inderjit Singh
New York -- The Wildlife Conservation Society says a monitoring system it uses to measure stream habitat has been adopted by a U.S. agency working to restore waterways.
The conservation group said the technique, used in a study to rapidly measure stream habitat, has been adopted by the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Natural Resource Conservation Service to assess streams across the United States.
Society officials said their study, which looked at riparian areas in semi-arid eastern Oregon, examined two simple and quick vegetation measurements: the average height and width of woody vegetation such as willows along a flood plain.
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