Ag Beat: Swine virus retraced
BUCYRUS — It's been more than a year now since porcine epidemic diarrhea virus, or PEDv, killed 8 million piglets across much of the U.S., including north central Ohio, but investigators are just now getting a handle on what may have caused the outbreak.
The prime suspect — tote bags.
In a report published last month by the USDA's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, flexible intermediate bulk containers, commonly called tote bags in the swine industry, "best fit the criteria established for entry into the United States, rapid and widespread across the country, and introduction onto individual farms."
The large bags, with a capacity of up to 3,000 pounds, are utilized for a variety of purposes, including the transport of pig feed, and are commonly reused.
"Several of the farm investigations as well as an early case-control study suggested feed or feed delivery as the source of the outbreak. However, there were no common feed manufacturers, products or ingredients in the initially infected herds," the USDA said.
"The most probable route of dissemination is in the context of recycled food or feed products through distribution companies who generally service a large network of feed mill customers across the Midwest and beyond."
In Crawford County, Hord Livestock, south of Bucyrus on Ohio 98, lost scores of baby pigs to PEDv, after which it instituted a variety of safety measures to keep it from reappearing in the company's stock, including a lot of cleaning and disinfecting, isolation, and building up of the animals' immunity to the disease.
PEDv is a highly contagious virus that infects pigs’ small intestines, causing severe diarrhea and dehydration, particularly in piglets. Newborn piglets typically die within five days of contracting the disease. PEDv cannot be transmitted to humans and does not impact our food supply.
"Further study is necessary to identify cleaning and disinfection procedures that might be appropriate, but the answer could be as simple as not reusing the bags or yet to be determined disinfection procedures such as dry heat prior to reusing the containers," the USDA said.
Since PEDv has quieted down, the swine industry in the U.S. has recovered nicely, with new highs seen in the number of pigs per litter during each of the first three quarters of this year. And that comes on top of record profits for the industry in 2014. At the same time, however, expansion has been kept under control, the USDA said, with pork supplies for this quarter forecast to be just 4 percent higher than a year ago.
Tar spot update
Now that tar spot, a fungal disease previously reported only in Latin America, has been found on stands of corn in four eastern Indiana locations and three in northern Illinois, plant pathologists are on the lookout for the fungus, Phyllachora maydis.
South of the border, the corn disease is most prevalent in cool, moist areas, and that pattern appears to have repeated itself where tar spot has been found in the Midwest. Several commercial hybrids now on the market may be susceptible to it.
Tar spot starts as oval or irregularly shaped bleached to brown lesions on the corn leaf. Affected areas will have a rough or bumpy feel.
"We don't want to cause a panic, but we do want to raise awareness on the issue and let growers know that this disease is out there," said Pierce Paul, an Ohio State University Extension specialist with the university's College of Food, Agricultural and Environmental Sciences.
"Because tar spot is generally considered a tropical disease, it's unlikely that the fungus will survive the harsh Midwest winter to become established here. We'll just have to wait and see."
Growers who think they may have found tar spot in their fields can send samples to Paul at the OSU Agricultural Research and Development Center, 1680 Madison Ave., Wooster, Ohio 44691.
Harvest progress
If you think the growing season for soybeans went by unusually quickly this year, you may not be imagining things.
"The rapid progress in the soybean harvest echoes the bounds made in planting that started 21 weeks ago," the Great Lakes regional office of the USDA's National Agricultural Statistics Service said in its latest Ohio crop weather report.
As of Sunday, 45 percent of the state's soybeans had been harvested, nearly double the five-year average of 23 percent, and well above last year's 19 percent at this point in the harvest. Across the counties of north central Ohio, the percentage of harvested beans appears to be well above 50 percent, and many local producers are now getting started on their corn.
"Grain corn harvest continued, as the silage season has virtually elapsed," the USDA said. The moisture content of corn harvested averaged 20 percent, 12 percent for soybeans.
As of Sunday, 18 percent of Ohio's corn was in, close to the five-year average of 17 percent and ahead of last year's 11 percent.
"The planting of winter wheat also progressed ahead of the five-year average, with many growers seeing windows of precipitation to help germination," the USDA said. Wheat planted is up to 36 percent, compared to 30 percent last year and the five-year average of 22 percent.
Although the past week in the Buckeye State was wetter than it had in quite some time, most of the rain fell in the southern and eastern parts of the state. Statewide, 56 percent of topsoil had adequate moisture, but 31 percent was still short.
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