Mitigating Factors

By: Dr. John Doerr, Ph.D, PAS, Dpl. ACAP, Vice President, Science and Technology

As of this writing (9/18), I’m told that the coastal portion of North Carolina will likely contend with another 8-10 days of actively flooding rivers because of the rain in the mountains.  If you think back a week or so, forecasters said that regardless of category, the worst scenario for hurricane Florence would occur if she stalled over the area.  While she approached the coast at 4-5 mph, once ashore she managed only about 2 mph for quite a while.  An effective stall!  I don’t want to minimize the suffering, death, destruction, etc. but consider, too, that FEMA had just conducted a training exercise in that region using a scenario similar to the one that played out.  As a result, the staging of resources (food, water, medicine), emergency response teams, evacuation equipment, utility engineer crews (my PA county had several crews southbound two days before Florence made landfall), shelters, etc. is said to have far surpassed any such effort in US history.  As a result, thousands stranded who would have been highly vulnerable will likely survive this catastrophic storm.  Those are the ‘mitigating’ factors which can keep the direst prediction from coming true.

And here we are, hopefully not facing any kind of catastrophe with harvest, but still just on the cusp of knowing what this year’s corn is going to do for or against our herds.  There are some very optimistic reports about a robust crop, good harvest progress, etc.  As of yesterday, GA had 92% of its corn in, but NC had only reached the 66% mark.  That’s 34% of their corn that just got hit by a hurricane.  And for what portion might be salvageable, it’s going to sit, wet, in the field quite a while before equipment can get in.  Keep heading north; PA is just hoping to see the last of Florence’s effects by tomorrow. And we’re only 1% harvested.  A lot of eastern seaboard and southern corn is going to start working its way into commerce soon and much will be suspect. It might be nice to have our own preemptive strike put into motion.  You might, for example, boost the herd with Select’s BioCycle Plus™, which, incidentally, is on special this month.  Then whether we see high mycotoxins, other quality issues with feedstuffs, disease, or just cows stressed from standing in wet conditions while all this odd weather plays out, your herds will be well ahead of the game. Your mitigating factors will be in play.

One more.  If you have other concerns about mycotoxins and the products we offer to combat them, Agrarian has a nice, short FAQ video that addresses the questions we get most often.  Get in touch!  And ask your Select Sires representative about that BioCycle Plus offer.