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Farm-Stay Grants, NASCOW Cow Racing & Pepper X | Daily Farm Brief · Farm Tales Unplugged - Daily Farm Brief

• 0:04
  SPEAKER_00: Good morning, Farm Nation, and hello, Truck City.
• 0:08
  SPEAKER_00: This is FarmTales unplugged daily farm brief for Monday, October 19th.
• 0:14
  SPEAKER_00: Brought to you by World TradeX Empowering Farmers.
• 0:17
  SPEAKER_00: I'm Rick Fortanova.
• 0:19
  SPEAKER_00: Today,$10,000 grants for farm tourism, a Jersey steer named John the Deere entering a race, and a grower who spent years trying to beat his own pepper heat record.
• 0:31
  SPEAKER_00: We'll also meet a Kansas woman who sold tumbleweeds to space researchers, check Friday's grain futures, and explore the battle happening over our fields after dark.
• 0:42
  SPEAKER_00: And if you enjoy the show, give us a follow, a like, or a share.
• 0:46
  SPEAKER_00: That would be fantastic.
• 0:48
  SPEAKER_00: So grab your coffee, fire up whatever you're driving, and let's find out what was happening while you were busy actually working.
• 1:00
  SPEAKER_00: Your next farm customer might want to spend the night.
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_00: Airbnb and American Farmland Trust are preparing to offer grants of up to$10,000 for farm stays and farm experiences.
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_00: That could include improving overnight accommodations, running farm tours, or offering workshops and farm-to-table dinners.
• 1:20
  SPEAKER_00: They expect to award about 25 to 30 grants.
• 1:23
  SPEAKER_00: Applications are scheduled for November 30th through December 4th, with full guidelines coming before the opening.
• 1:30
  SPEAKER_00: The program plans to accept about 350 applications and review them in the order received.
• 1:36
  SPEAKER_00: So if you've been considering a guest business alongside your crops or livestock, this is one to put on the calendar.
• 1:43
  SPEAKER_00: The details are at the American Farmland Trust website.
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_00: And here's a farm event with a very different lineup.
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_00: Seven cattle are preparing for Thursday's NASCAL race at Frying Pan Farm Park in Herndon, Virginia.
• 2:00
  SPEAKER_00: Jojo, a Jersey heifer, is defending her title.
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_00: Among the challengers is a young Jersey skier named John the Deer.
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_00: Farm staff have been helping the animals get comfortable with the course.
• 2:12
  SPEAKER_00: Alfalfa and Spent Brewer's Grain help encourage them along.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_00: The event began during the pandemic when cancel gatherings left the farm needing another way to raise money.
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_00: This year's race is October 22nd.
• 2:25
  SPEAKER_00: Proceeds help feed and care for the farm animals.
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_00: A race where the competitors can stop for a snack and the spectators still help pay the feed bill.
• 2:37
  SPEAKER_00: Ed Curry had already grown the world's hottest pepper.
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_00: Then he spent years trying to beat himself.
• 2:44
  SPEAKER_00: The South Carolina grower behind Pucker Butt Pepper Company created the California Reaper.
• 2:50
  SPEAKER_00: In 2023, Guinness recognized his next contender, Pepper X.
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_00: Its average heat rating was nearly 2.7 million scovil units.
• 3:00
  SPEAKER_00: For perspective, Guinness puts a jalapeno at around 3,000 to 8,000.
• 3:04
  SPEAKER_00: But behind that tiny pepper was more than a decade of breeding.
• 3:08
  SPEAKER_00: Curry crossed plants, selected the traits he wanted, and kept working through generations.
• 3:13
  SPEAKER_00: Guinness described a process involving more than 100 crosses a year, with only one or two potentially making it through that long development cycle.
• 3:22
  SPEAKER_00: And here's a detail for anyone who has cleaned a pepper.
• 3:25
  SPEAKER_00: The seeds aren't where the heat-producing compound is made, it's concentrated in the tissue holding them.
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_00: Pepper X has a deeply wrinkled shape, with room inside for more of that tissue.
• 3:35
  SPEAKER_00: More than a decade of growing seasons packed into a pepper that fits in your hand.
• 3:43
  SPEAKER_00: Now, a little more on the grain board.
• 3:45
  SPEAKER_00: These are Friday, October 16th's closing futures.
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_00: December corn finished at$4.74.
• 3:53
  SPEAKER_00: Down three and a quarter cents.
• 3:55
  SPEAKER_00: Drier harvest weather weighed on prices as traders anticipated more combines moving.
• 4:00
  SPEAKER_00: January soybeans settled at$12.75 and three quarter cents down two cents.
• 4:06
  SPEAKER_00: Fresh export business wasn't enough to lift the clothes.
• 4:09
  SPEAKER_00: December Chicago wheat ended at$6.60.50.5.
• 4:15
  SPEAKER_00: Sluggish export demand and ample supplies kept pressure on wheat.
• 4:19
  SPEAKER_00: The next checkpoint is USDA's crop progress report scheduled for today.
• 4:23
  SPEAKER_00: Watch how much ground Harvest gains.
• 4:26
  SPEAKER_00: Those are futures prices.
• 4:27
  SPEAKER_00: Your local cash bid also reflects bases, the difference between the local bid and the futures contract.
• 4:38
  SPEAKER_00: Now to Garden City, Kansas, where a woman who found customers for something most people want off their fence line.
• 4:44
  SPEAKER_00: Back in 1994, Linda Katz was putting together a family website.
• 4:49
  SPEAKER_00: She invented Prairie Tumbleweed Farm, had relatives pose for pictures, and wrote about selling tumbleweeds.
• 4:56
  SPEAKER_00: The farm was make-believe.
• 4:58
  SPEAKER_00: The orders turned out to be real.
• 5:00
  SPEAKER_00: A bride planning a Western wedding wanted one for decoration.
• 5:04
  SPEAKER_00: So Linda gathered a tumbleweed, boxed it, and shipped it.
• 5:07
  SPEAKER_00: More customers followed.
• 5:09
  SPEAKER_00: Schools wanted stage props, business wanted western displays.
• 5:13
  SPEAKER_00: In 2005, in an interview with Farm Show magazine, she listed large tumbleweeds at$25 a piece, plus shipping.
• 5:21
  SPEAKER_00: That was the price back then for something she collected when the wind piled it up.
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_00: Then came a customer she probably hadn't put in the business plan.
• 5:29
  SPEAKER_00: NASA.
• 5:30
  SPEAKER_00: The agency was investigating a rover concept that could roll across Mars using just the wind.
• 5:35
  SPEAKER_00: Linda told Farm Show that NASA bought her tumbleweeds for that research.
• 5:39
  SPEAKER_00: Imagine packing that order.
• 5:41
  SPEAKER_00: A weed from Kansas, heading to researchers trying to figure out how to explore another planet.
• 5:46
  SPEAKER_00: Linda's imaginary farm had found a very real market.
• 5:53
  SPEAKER_00: And now the high-tech moment.
• 5:56
  SPEAKER_00: Drop a seed onto the ground and it may never get into the soil.
• 5:59
  SPEAKER_00: Researchers at Carnegie Mellon and partner universities built a tiny wooden carrier that can help it do exactly that.
• 6:06
  SPEAKER_00: It looks a little like a corkscrew with three tails.
• 6:09
  SPEAKER_00: Moisture helps the wood change shape.
• 6:11
  SPEAKER_00: As it twists, those tails help brace the device against the ground, allowing it to push the seed downward.
• 6:17
  SPEAKER_00: There's no little motor inside.
• 6:19
  SPEAKER_00: The movement comes from the wood itself.
• 6:21
  SPEAKER_00: The researchers took their inspiration from plants whose seeds naturally twist into the soil.
• 6:26
  SPEAKER_00: They fashioned their version from thin pieces of white oak.
• 6:30
  SPEAKER_00: The research was published in 2023, and the team demonstrated the carriers in laboratory and field tests.
• 6:36
  SPEAKER_00: One possible use is planting hard-to-reach ground, including places being restored after damage.
• 6:42
  SPEAKER_00: The published work was an experiment.
• 6:44
  SPEAKER_00: It doesn't establish what this would cost to use across a whole farm.
• 6:48
  SPEAKER_00: But that's a remarkable little planting system.
• 6:50
  SPEAKER_00: A seed, a shaped piece of wood, and moisture supplying the movement.
• 6:59
  SPEAKER_00: Now let's step outside for the almanac.
• 7:02
  SPEAKER_00: Picture a warm October evening.
• 7:04
  SPEAKER_00: The light is fading, and a bat cuts across the yard.
• 7:07
  SPEAKER_00: It looks quiet up there, but a hunt may be underway in a range of sound our ears can't hear.
• 7:13
  SPEAKER_00: An insect hunting bat sends out high-pitched calls, then listens for the echoes.
• 7:17
  SPEAKER_00: Those returning sounds help it locate a moth moving through the darkness.
• 7:21
  SPEAKER_00: Now comes the surprising part.
• 7:24
  SPEAKER_00: Some tiger moths can hear the hunter coming and answer with rapid ultrasonic clicks that interfere with its sonar.
• 7:30
  SPEAKER_00: Wake Forest researchers studied this with high-speed cameras and sound recordings.
• 7:35
  SPEAKER_00: A moth's clicks could disrupt the bat's attempt to locate it and catch it.
• 7:39
  SPEAKER_00: And other bats can help make the hunt harder too.
• 7:42
  SPEAKER_00: Researchers studying Mexican freetailed bats found that one could send a special jamming call while another was closing in on an insect.
• 7:50
  SPEAKER_00: The timing mattered.
• 7:51
  SPEAKER_00: Get that sound in at the right moment, and the hunter could miss its meal.
• 7:55
  SPEAKER_00: So there are hunters and prey that can interfere with the hunt and competitors trying to spoil one another's catch.
• 8:01
  SPEAKER_00: For farmers, that nighttime activity can have a measurable payoff.
• 8:05
  SPEAKER_00: In a study published in 2015, Southern Illinois University researchers kept bats out of some corn plots at night and compared them with plots bats could hunt over.
• 8:14
  SPEAKER_00: The plots without bats had nearly 6% more corn earworm larvae.
• 8:19
  SPEAKER_00: They also had more damaged kernels.
• 8:21
  SPEAKER_00: Bats were eating the adult moths before the moths could contribute to another generation of crop pests.
• 8:32
  SPEAKER_00: That's our Monday.
• 8:33
  SPEAKER_00: Grants for welcoming visitors to working farms, cattle getting ready for NASCAR, and a pepper grower who spent years beating his own record.
• 8:41
  SPEAKER_00: Grains closed Friday lower with a fresh harvest update due today.
• 8:45
  SPEAKER_00: A Kansas entrepreneur found buyers for tumbleweeds.
• 8:48
  SPEAKER_00: Researchers built a wooden carrier that helps seeds bury themselves.
• 8:52
  SPEAKER_00: And above the fields, bats and moths are locked in a contest most of us will never hear.
• 8:57
  SPEAKER_00: And if you'd like more information about any of the topics we cover, there's a matching blog for every episode we release.
• 9:03
  SPEAKER_00: You'll find it on our website, farmtailsunplugged.com.
• 9:08
  SPEAKER_00: To farm nation, have a safe and productive day.
• 9:11
  SPEAKER_00: To Truck City, keep the shiny side up.
• 9:14
  SPEAKER_00: The future of food starts with the people who grow it and depends on the people who move it.
• 9:18
  SPEAKER_00: And there you have it.
• 9:20
  SPEAKER_00: That's your FarmTales Unplugged daily farm brief for Monday, October 19th.
• 9:24
  SPEAKER_00: Brought to you by World TradeX empowering farmers.
• 9:27
  SPEAKER_00: I'm Rick Portanova, and I'll see you Tuesday morning.