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TheTehamaDistrict Fair winners were an- nounced at the Tehama District Jr. Livestock Committee meeting on Wednesday night, Nov. 12. Checks to the exhibitors will be available at 4 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 15 in Don Smith Pavilion at the fair- grounds, Chairman Mike Collins announced. Each of the Rate of Gain winners received $100 from the TDJLC. There was no contest for the swine because they were not weighed on a specific date due to the swine disease. Makaylie Cook, Westside 4-H had her goat gain .6 lbs per day. Chase Kiefer, Corn- ing FFA steer gained 3.74 lbs per day, and Uriah Hancock, Los Molinos, FFA lamb gained 0.9 lb per day. Beautiful buck- les were presented to the exhibitors of the grand champions. Bert and Anne Ow- ens sponsored the beef buckle to Kayla McGif- fin, Red Bluff FFA; The Birt, Welch, Rogers fam- ilies sponsored the lamb buckle to Laney Sul- zer-Parker of Antelope 4-H. The Parker, Bor- chard families sponsored the meat goat buckle to Hanna Hamre, Ante- lope 4-H. Mike and Terri Collins sponsored the swine buckle to Savannah Miller, Corning FFA. The Birt Family pre- sented the Ernie Gros- cup Memorial award to Mahlon Owens, Antelope 4-H for her reserve 4-H champion steer. Tehama District Jr. Livestock Committee pre- sented $100 to Red Bluff FFA for their outstand- ing group/individual be- ing willing to help where needed during the fair. In- structor Matt Pritchard accepted the award for the chapter. The five Beef Carcass Contest winners received cash awards from a group of sponsors including Red Bluff Bull & Gelding Sale, Tehama County Cattle- men Association; Bub Ra- gan, Keith Ellis, Tyler Martinez, Mike Collins and an anonymous donor. Taylor Collins, Red Bluff received $1,000 for her steer that was Prime-, Yield Grade 2.61, and a hot carcass weight of 898 lbs. He was the re- serve champion FFA steer selling to Redding Roof- ing. Collins also received a buckle and $100 from Tehama County Cattle- Women and a trophy from Tri-Counties Bank for the first place beef carcass. Second place and $400 to Reghan Shannon, An- telope 4-H for her steer that graded Choice+, Yield Grade 2.67 and 843 lbs hot carcass weight. Third place and $300 to Amy Stroing, West- side 4-H for her steer that graded Choice +, 2.93 Yield Grade, and 815 lb hot carcass weight. Fourth place and $200 to Colten Leonard, Red Bluff FFA for his steer that graded Choice 2.22 Yield Grade, and 766 lbs hot carcass weight. Fifth place and $100 to Chase Kiefer, Corn- ing FFA for his steer that graded Choice , 2.30 Yield Grade, and 874 lbs hot carcass weight. There were two Gold Seal carcass certificates that were given to Col- ten Leonard and Chase Kiefer. To qualify for Gold Seal the steer had to have a Hot Carcass Weight be- tween 650 and 900 lbs, A USDA Quality Grade of at least Choice, and a Yield Grade of 2.5 or less. Of the steers, 22 quali- fied for a Carcass of Merit certificate. They had a Hot Carcass Weight be- tween 600 — 950 lbs; USDA Quality Grade of at least Choice-, and a USDA Yield Grade of 3.0 or less. They were shown and sold by Collins, Shannon, Stroing, Naomie Renfroe, Red Bluff FFA; Clara De- long, Independent; Kegan Richards, Red Bluff FFA; Kyler Puckett, Red Bluff FFA ; Emerie Eller, Corn- ing FFA ; Mason Mead- ows, Red Bluff FFA; Han- nah Endres, Flournoy/ Paskenta 4-H; Emily Hau- gen, Independent; Sage Flournoy, Flournoy/ Paskenta 4-H; Natalie Renfroe, Red Bluff FFA; Chase Wimer, Corning FFA; Kayla McGiffin, Red Bluff FFA; Wayne Spen- cer, Los Molinos FFA ; Josh Shultz, Corning FFA; Danielle Mueller, Red Bluff FFA; Melissa Stro- ing, Westside 4-H; Emyli Palmer, Westside 4-H ; Mahlon Owens, Antelope 4-H; Hannah Meeder, Red Bluff FFA. CowBelleoftheYear Congratulations to Kelly Mouton be- ing named CowBelle of the Year for the Tehama County CattleWomen dur- ing the 57th annual Lun- cheon and Fashion Show last weekend. The 2013 re- cipients Betty Peek and Jeanne Smith made the presentation. Mouton will be honored at the CowBelle of the Year Luncheon during the California Cattlemen/Cat- tleWomen annual conven- tion at the JA Nugget in Sparks, Nev. on Nov. 21. The attendees enjoyed the fashions from The Loft modeled by TCCW member Vicki Mahoney, Beef Ambassador Danielle Mueller and Abby Mae Rainwater. TCCW members Laurel Walker and Linda Walker wore fashions from Sassy & Classy in Chico. Beef Ambassadors Kayla Mcgiffin and Emyli Palmer wore clothing from Crossroads Feed & Ranch Supply. Models for 3 Genera- tions were Darla Hufford, Cheyl Forbes and Jorge- lina Roisenzuit. Wheeler West Cow- girl Boutique in corning had TCCW models Jeanne Smith, Velma Archer, Ann Butler and guest model Mason Thomas. Bambi Dodero, Jolene Kemen and April Mcdon- ald modeled for Wink, in Red Bluff. Beef Ambassador Ke- gan Richards and Avree Mulliner had clothing from Pendleton in the An- derson Outlets. Kiley King and Emilia Gray modeled for The Closet on Main. Items from Plum Crazy in Red Bluff were worn by all the models. Recent rains Thanks to the 1.45 inches of rain earlier, and the .4 inch during the night of the 12th, the grass is growing and the creeks have water. The spring calving cows are on the range, and enjoying the freedom after being on permanent pasture during the sum- mer and fall. JeanBartonhasbeen writing her column in the Daily News since the early 1990s. She can be reached by e-mail at jbar- ton2013@gmail.com. JEANBARTON Junior livestock winners announced COURTESYPHOTO The Tehama County 4-H and FFA members are pictured with their California Beef Cattle Improvement Association certificates for Carcass of Merit and Gold Seal Carcass at the Tehama District Jr. Livestock Committee meeting. Slicing open a ripe green jalapeño he had just snapped off a plant in the field, Aziz Baameur pointed the blade of his pocket knife at the yellow line. "This is where cap- saicin is located. It's what gives the pepper its pun- gency and it's what we're trying to increase," said the UC Cooperative Exten- sion advisor. "Some people think the seeds make it hot, but capsaicin is what makes chile peppers hot," said Baameur, who works with vegetable growers in Santa Clara and San Benito coun- ties. Baameur is trying to grow a hotter jalapeño by studying the vari- ables that raise the Sco- ville units, which mea- sure a pepper's heat. For the past four years, he has been documenting the ef- fects of different rates of water, potassium, sea salt and nitrogen applied to the jalapeño crop at George Chiala Farms in Morgan Hill. "We're trying to find a way to raise the capsaicin level of the jalapeno and raise the Scoville units, which will then allow us to have spicier peppers," said Jeff Sanders, raw prod- uct coordinator for George Chiala Farms. Research studies in Mex- ico, Taiwan, Thailand and Spain have shown that wa- ter stress results in hotter peppers so Sanders and Baameur tried irrigat- ing with less water. "For us, it did not show that," Baameur said. "We sam- pled fruit and we analyzed it for capsaicin content, which makes a pepper hot. It was fairly low, actually it was almost half of what the normal treatment, or con- trol, would be." The relatively cooler cli- mate of the Santa Clara County area may be the reason the pepper plants produce different results. "I think it's more a rela- tion to heat, ambient tem- perature, much more than just water," Baameur said. "Cool years and hot years will result in different heat units for the same jalapeno variety." The amount of potas- sium hasn't made a differ- ence, but adjusting nitro- gen fertilizer seems prom- ising. "High nitrogen is prom- ising because it produces a hotter pepper and also al- lows for high crop yields," Baameur said. "Low nitro- gen also resulted in higher pungency, it brings a lot of heat in the peppers," he said. "However it is corre- lated with lower yields." Next season, Baameur will try to determine the optimal amount of nitro- gen to apply to raise the capsaicin levels of the jala- peño without hurting crop yields. "The trend lately is to- ward hotter items," said Sanders, noting a growing popularity of foods con- taining habanero and even the Bhut jolokia, or ghost pepper. "Both of those are significantly hotter than ja- lapenos, but the jalapeno is still sort of the stan- dard bearer for a hot pep- per," Sanders said. "Those are the items people con- sistently want. A jalapeno chip still has more name recognition than a haba- nero chip. And the hotter you get the pepper, the easier it is to adjust your end product." Although there are hotter peppers, such as habaneros, cayenne and ghost peppers, add- ing other peppers to the end product would alter the flavor. Bhut jolokias, for example, can be up to 1,000 times hotter than a jalapeño, but have a citrus flavor. AGRICULTURE Some like it hotter: raising the Scoville units By Steve Rothwell The Associated Press NEW YORK Wheat prices are surging this week as temperatures plunge in the U.S. Plains states and after a government report showed domestic supplies slipped. The price of wheat for December delivery climbed 11 cents, or 2 percent, to $5.54 on Thursday, taking its gains for the week to 7.6 percent. If the crop holds its current level it will be the biggest weekly price surge since March. Prices started rising on Monday when a monthly report from the U.S. De- partment of Agriculture lowered its estimate for domestic wheat supplies. Weather issues in Austra- lia have also damaged the crop there. The week's cold snap in wheat-growing states, such as North Dakota, Kansas and Nebraska, also pushed prices higher, as traders speculated that the win- ter wheat already planted could by damaged, said Mike Zuzolo, president of Global Commodity Analyt- ics & Consulting in Atchi- son, Kansas. The government's report "brought the weather from a back-burner issue to a front-burner issue," Zuzolo said. The wheat market is re- covering from a slump that sent prices to their low- est level in more than four years in September. De- spite a rebound since the late summer, prices are still down 8 percent this year. In the corn market, prices are also surging be- cause of the cold weather, Zuzulo said. The government is still forecasting a record corn crop this year, but on Mon- day nudged its estimates lower by 68 million bush- els to 14.4 billion bushels. About 20 percent of that crop has yet to be har- vested, though, in states including Illinois, Michi- gan and Nebraska. While it is unlikely that the crop will be damaged by the plummeting tem- peratures, the snow and wintry conditions could make it difficult for farm- ers to gather the crop and for grain trucks to collect and distribute it. Corn for December de- livery rose 8.5 percent, or 2.3 percent, to $3.86 a bushel on Thursday. Prices are up 5 percent this week, but are down 9 percent this year. CROPS Co ld s na p he lp s wake up wheat and corn prices By Michelle Locke The Associated Press NAPA Hot air balloons drifting in multicolored splashes against a blue heaven are a common sight in the Napa Valley. But lately, more than balloons have been taking to the wine country skies. A few pioneers are exper- imenting with unmanned aerial vehicles, better known as drones, exploring their potential for such agricul- tural chores as monitoring, irrigation and crop spraying. Drones make sense for wine country, especially on the steep slopes associated with high-end wines, says Steve Markofski, spokesman for Yamaha Motor Corp. USA, which has been test- ing its RMAX remote-con- trolled helicopter for spray applications with the Uni- versity of California, Davis. Tractors may be defeated by the narrow rows and hilly terrain, but a drone can skim over the rows no problem. They also don't tamp down on the earth like tractor tires, a problem that can starve roots of oxygen among other things. Once strictly a military machine, drones have been slowly moving into civilian life. Civil rights groups have raised concerns over possi- ble invasions of privacy, es- pecially in the context of law enforcement use, but the Napa Valley test flights, limited to private property, didn't encounter opposition. Yamaha, which has used its RMAX drones for agri- culture spraying in Japan for over 15 years, isn't the only company interested in viticulture. A Canadian company, PrecisionHawk, has modified a drone to re- semble a hawk, initially us- ing it to scare away grape- eating birds from vineyards in the Niagara wine region. They later realized they also could collect useful data on things like insect popula- tions and diseased vines dur- ing the flights. The RMAX is 9 feet long, weighs 220 pounds and runs on a two-cylinder en- gine. It's navigated by a ra- dio controller much like a large-scale hobby helicopter and has an on-board GPS system to assist in flight accuracy. It even sports an attitude control system to compensate for wind and keep the aircraft stable. The RMAX also is fitted with two tanks and three spray nozzles for applying pesti- cides and nutrients. Economically, the RMAX compares well with trying to get a tractor up hills or resorting to workers car- rying backpack sprayers. Drones also could make it easier to deal with prob- lems affecting only a por- tion of a vineyard, says Mar- kofski. When a problem is detected, it would be eas- ier and faster to deploy a drone to spot treat the prob- lem areas instead of having to treat the entire vineyard with a tractor, he says. The RMAX also goes about 10 times faster than a tractor, even though it's fly- ing quite slowly at 12 mph while spraying. But before the concept of vineyard drones takes off, grape growers will have to be won over. "It's going to take time," Markofski acknowledges. Daniel Bosch, viticulture manager at Robert Mon- davi Winery, where some of the Yamaha-UC David aeronautical research was carried out, is interested in the potential of drones, though he's far from swept off his feet. Using the drone to fly along vineyard rows to get an idea of different levels of ripeness didn't save that much time since it took a while to watch the videos, he said. Using the drone to go up in the air and take a panoramic shot worked better. On the other hand, there's potential to use drones to map vineyard temperatures more accu- rately than airplanes, since it can fly close to the vine canopy. The most interesting use to Bosch would be if the en- tire process could be auto- mated, such as drones pro- grammed to fly, complete a task, then return with the information. Markofski doesn't ex- pect drones to replace trac- tors, but he thinks they will prove to be the better choice in certain situations. 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