Banner Graphic, Volume 12, Number 45, Greencastle, Putnam County, 29 October 1981 — Page 16

B8

The Putnam County Banner-Graphic, October 28,1981

Texas fire ants spreading: 'We have a real war here--and the ants are winning'

DALLAS vAP) Like some Biblical plague of centuries past, vicious fire ants are building their foot-high nests above ground, trying to escape soil made sodden by Texas’ recent torrential rains. That, officials say, makes it easy for people to stumble into them with painful and possibly lethal results. They have a hell of a temper, and their sting can be lifethreatening,’’ Texas Agriculture Commissioner Reagan Brown said in a recent interview from Austin. “We feel that some cases of heart attack may have come from fire ant stings ” The tenacious red insect invaded the United States from South America in the late 19305. "They were introduced accidentally at Mobile, Ala. and now cover 230 million acres over nine Southern states," Brown said. The fire ants have been spreading south-southwesterly at a rate of 25 to 30 miles a year, Brown said. They reached Texas in 1956 and now cover about 105 of the 254 counties in the Lone Star State. "This year's outbreak is the worst ever in Texas, because of the rain," Brown said. "We have a real war here and the ants are w inning.” So far, four chemical-control agents have been developed to fight the fire ant: Heptachlor, Mirex, Ferriamicide and AMDRO. But, Brown said, pressure from environmentalists Frustrations prevail

Budget cuts, rivalries weaken farm coalition

c. 1981 N.Y. Times WASHINGTON - The farmstate coalition, which has long dictated agricultural policy on Capitol Hill, is cracking under budget pressures and political rivalries. Few political experts are ready to pronounce the coalition dead, but its problems were evident last week as the House passed the huge four-year farm bill that set price supports and loan guarantees for a wide variety of crops “The farm bill we are considering today,” said Rep. Don Albosta, D-Mich., “is nowhere near as strong as it should be.” Rep. William C. Wampler of Virginia, ranking Republican on the Agriculture Committee, added, “Everyone is feeling a lot of frustrations because of the budget cuts.” Critics, including the White House, denounced the farm legislation as a “budget buster,” asserting that it could add from $2 billion to $lO billion to future deficits. Rep. Bill Frenzel, R-Minn., a leading member of the budget committee, said of the bill, “We need it like we need a bad accident.” The bill now goes to a House-

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Senate conference. The White House feels that the House version is too generous toward wheat farmers and dairyproducers, particularly starting in 1983. But many farm-state lawmakers feel the bill is not generous enough. But political realities clearly have changed on Capitol Hill when a senator from Kansas, Bob Dole, feels compelled to offer an amendment to trim wheat prices, or when the House votes to eliminate peanut and sugar price supports. In the past, the farm state lawmakers who made up most of the membership of the two houses’ agriculture committees cloaked themselves in a “mystique” of expertise, as one senator put it, and banded together to protect each other’s interests. Dairy staters backed sugar prices, peanut growers defended wheat subsidies, and everybody resisted outsiders. “The whole Agriculture Committee is biased toward agricultural interests,” said Rep. George E. Brown Jr. of California, a senior Democrat on the panel. “We’re not evil or anything, just a little onesided.” But the mystique has been

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led to the banning of the first two and federal refusal to certify the third. “We have to have an understanding by the public that we’ve got to fight these insects or they’ll win,” Brown said, “and we need a crash program of continued research to find a better way to control them. ” Brad Vinson, an entomology professor at Texas A&M University, said the imported fire ants “solenopsis invicta" pack a double-whammy in their tiny stingers. “There is a potent alkaloid compound in their venom which causes pustules,” Vinson said. “But they also have a protein that can cause shock in some people who are extremely sensitive to the protein.” Such people could die from respiratory failure after being bitten by just one fire ant, Vinson said. Scientists believe that 1 percent of the population could have this extreme reaction to the stings. “The ants are very protective of their mounds and defensive of their food supplies,” he said. “They will sting if you disturb them or get between them and their food.” The fire ants latch onto their victims with their jaws and sting repeatedly, said Mark Trostle, a fire ant specialist with the state agriculture department. He recommended baking soda paste to ease the pain of the pustules. But if victims react violently to the protein in the venom, only hospital treatment can save them, Vinson said.

blown away by the harsh wind of budget austerity, and the farm programs are now subject to closer congressional scrutiny than ever before. “This whole business of budget slashing has brought new pressures on people that they never had before,” said Sen. Mark Andrews, R-N.D. “Everybody is asking questions

Hoosier farmers may buy packing plant

CENTRAL BARREN, Ind. (AP) Livestock farmers in southern Indiana say they’re tired of having to travel to Indianapolis, Louisville or Columbus, Ind., to sell their animals. So they are considering buying a Harrison County meat processing plant near Central Barren to save time and transportation costs. Bascom Wilson, Orleans cattle farmer, said that after the Wenning Packing Co. plant at

Third of corn crop harvested

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. (AP) Only a third of Indiana’s corn crop has been harvested, Purdue University reports Its weekly crop report Monday noted the harvest was slowed last week by weather conditions iess than ideal. Agriculture statistican Earl Park said the 1981 harvest is running far short of last year’s pace when 75 percent was out of

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and pointing fingers.” This new climate of skepticism has also been encouraged by a rapid turnover in congressional membership that has “shaken up the deck,” in the words of Sen. Richard Lugar, R-Ind Moreover, recent elections have disrupted old alliances and removed some of the ex-

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Central Barren folded last year, area farmers were forced to take their stock to the Bourbon Stockyards at Louisville, about 60 miles from Orleans. Wilson said transportation costs and damage to livestock in shipment are among their chief concerns. County extension agents have held three meetings, in Jasper, Salem and Corydon, to drum up support for the project, which seeks to have the packing plant

the fields by the last week in October. The average for this time of the year is 45 percent, Park said. Moisture content of Indiana’s corn varied from 23 percent in the southwest to 27 percent in the northeast and the state average was 25 percent. Officials said the corn harvest was 10 to 30 percent complete in the north and 20 To 25 percent complete in central Indiana. The completion figure in the south ranged from 30 to 65 percent. Sixty percent of the soybean crop has been combined, compared with 93 percent last year and the normal 75 percent. The moisture content of soybeans is 14 percent and combining is 45 to 60 percent complete in the north and 50 to 70 percent com-

The ants are pests in other ways. "They build mounds about a foot and a half in diameter and a foot high. When they dry out they get just like concrete and can damage agricultural machinery,” Brown said. Each year, the state spends hundreds of thousands of dollars trying to find ways to stop the spread of the pests. “We’re putting about $200,000 a year from my department into research at A&M and the same amount at Texas Tech and we’re finding out more about the imported fire ant all the time,” Brown said. Scientists have learned that the ants spread by riding everything from wind currents to pickups. “The males and females fly hundreds of feet into the air to mate,” Vinson said. The females then drift down, catching a lift on a car or truck, and eventually dig into the dirt to start a new colony. The federal and state departments of agriculture have quarantined the infested areas. Shipments of flowers, shrubs and heavy earthmoving equipment are supposed to be inspected to make sure the ants aren’t aboard, Trostle said. But, he added, the quarantine has been hampered by too few inspectors and a willful or ignorant lack of compliance with the restrictions. “They’re still spreading. We’ve added five more Texas counties in the last month,” Trostle said.

perienced pro-farm legislators, such as former senators Herman E. Talmadge of Georgia and George McGovern of South Dakota, Democrats who lost in 1980. Talmadge’s successor as committee chairman is Sen. Jesse Helms, R-N.C., who is known for his outspoken conservative views. One com-

reopened as a farmer-owned cooperative. Wilson said he is confident that he can raise the estimated $2,500 needed by Nov. 1 for a study of the feasibility of reopening the plant. After a recent tour of the plant, Wilson said the facility was in “relatively good shape, adequate to start slaughtering cattle.” However, the study is a prerequisite to securing a loan

plete elsewhere in Indiana, said Park. Planting of winter wheat is running behind the average pace. Seventy percent of the 1982 wheat crop has been seeded, said-Park. Thirty-five percent of the wheat has emerged, compared with 65 percent in 1980. Fifty percent is normal. Central counties lead other areas in the percent of wheat seeded with 80 percent of the crop in. Stands of wheat are rated fair to good. Plowing of land for spring planting is 18 percent complete.

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mittee member, who did not want to be identified, said, “How can a man as controversial as he is be effective in putting together a coalition?” Perhaps the most damage to the coalition, particularly in the House, has been inflicted by politics. Defenders of certain small crops, such as sugar, peanuts a d tobacco, are generally from Southern states whose voters supported President Reagan’s economic package. Accordingly, Demorats from these areas faced a difficult choice: Go with the president and anger friends in Washington, or go with the Democrats and anger voters back home. The sugar and peanut protectors backed the president and extracted promises from the White House that their pet crops would be saved.

of about $2.2 million from the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Under the terms of the federal loan, farmers who join the cooperative would have to come up with a $35,000 down pw-yment, Harrison County Extension Agent Jack Washburn said. More than 80 farmers have attended the county meetings on the plant purchase idea. Washburn said the farmers hope to wholesale meat at Wen-

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The only effective bait officials recommend is AMDRO, a compound of corn grit soaked with soybean oil and a slow acting poison. Since the ants are voracious eaters, they grab the bait and take it back to the nest, where they feed it to their queen. Aerial applications are the most effective, Trostle said: “AMDRO can be dropped from an airplane, bounce three times and the ants grab it right away and haul it home.” The state agriculture department plans to provide financial help and expertise to counties needing AMDRO treatments. “If the landowners will put up a dollar an acre for an aerial treatment program, the state and federal governments will put up the other three dollars required,” Trostle said. But that’s expensive. “I’ve had large landowners with, say, 25,000 acres say they can’t afford $25,000 to get rid of the imported fire ant, no matter how much they hate them,” said Trostle. The ultimate solution to the imported fire ant problem, may be biological “so we don’t have to use chemicals,” Brown said. “The answer lies with the scientist with the test tube and microscope” Brown said. “We’ve been like Edison and the light bulb, though. So far we’ve found a lot of things that don’t work.”

Market reports INDIANAPOLIS (AP) Hogs: 1,400; Barrows and gilts moderately active, 50 cents lower. 1-2 210-250 lb 44.25-44.50, 95 head 44.75; 1-3 220-270 lb 43.50-44.00. Sows moderately active, steady to 50 cents lower; 1-3 375475 lb 41.0044.00, 500-600 lb 38.00-39.00. Cattle: 400. Trading slow. Slaughter steers and heifers 1.00 lower; cows and bulls not well tested. Slaughter steers: Choice 2-41100-1200 lb 61.00-61.50. Slaughter heifers: Choice 2-4 850-1025 lb 58.50-60.00. ‘ Slaughter cows: Few utility and commercial 2-3 35.00-42.50, few cutter 1-2 32.00-38.00. Sheep: 25, not tested. INDIANAPOLIS (AP) Grain prices Tuesday at In-dianapolis-area elevators: Corn, N 0.2 yellow shelled 2.262.32, Jan. 2.47-2.56; Oats, N 0.2 white 2.00; Soybeans, No.l yellow 5.80-5.93, Jan. 6.07-6.15; Wheat, N 0.2 soft red 3.67-3.71, new 4.07-4.15. Extension calendar NOV. 7-Arts and Craft Show from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. at the fairgrounds. Call Mrs. Grace McKeehan or Mrs. Noble Fry to reserve space. Food will be served throughout the day. OCT. 29-Southern Indiana-Purdue Ag Center, Dubois will host the SIP AC Beef-Forage Field Day. OCT. 29-Forestry-Fish Field Day - Southern Indiana - Purdue Ag Center - Dubois County.

ning but wouldn’t rule out a combination wholesale-retail operation. According to a recent judgment in Floyd Circuit Court in New Albany, Old Capital Bank & Trust Co. of Corydon and First National Bank of Louisville jointly hold a $283,686 lien on the plant. Blaine Wiseman, president of Old Capital Bank & Trust Co., said he would like to see the property sold at auction

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