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Farm Ground Prices Increasing
By Brandon Redmond Story Created: May 15, 2013 at 3:39 PM MDT Story Updated: May 15, 2013 at 11:15 PM MDT Twin Falls, Idaho ( KMVT-TV / KTWT-TV ) The price of farm land and farm real estate began increasing in 2011 but it increased even more in 2012. “Back in 2011 when the market was down, things started picking up a little bit and was has happened since now is commodity prices have actually increased which actually increases the farm prices,” said Mark Jones with Robert Jones Realty. The cost for farm real estate has risen twenty to twenty five percent over the past two years. But what does the future hold? “The only thing that I can do is predict what happened in the history. In 2007 the market was on another top of the bubble we would say and that time the commodity prices dropped out and in 2008 we hit, we started going down from farm prices from that point. At this point with our commodity prices still looking fairly good in 2013, we see the prices staying fairly strong for the good quality farm ground,” said Mark Jones. But if commodity prices drop, then the potential is there for farm ground prices to decrease. If you are looking to buy farm real estate, you should contact an agent and get on their list. “The ground that we have. We are low on inventory and they get sold very quickly if they are priced correctly,” said Mark Jones. Jones also told us that now is a great time to sell farm ground. Continue reading
Biofuel From Wood: Researchers Look For Best Enzymes
Mark Hoffman First Posted: May 13, 2013 04:18 PM EDT Huge amounts of fossil fuel could be replaced by biofuels if it was possible to extract them from the very plentiful waste product lignocellulose. Importantly, its use in biofuel production does not interfere with the animal or human food chain. Researchers are currently trying to find the best enzymes to make bioethanol production as efficient as possible and elucidating the mechanisms behind the key process of enzymatic hydrolysis. Lignocellulose is the main component of currently poorly used waste materials from agriculture, forestry and wood-based industries, including straw, corn leaves and stalks as well as paper mill waste. Composed of carbohydrate polymers tightly bound to the tough material lignin, enzymatic breakdown and microbial fermentation of the carbohydrates can be used for production of bioethanol, the researchers explained. (Photo : Flickr) On the downside, however, lignocellulose is what makes woody material so indestructible and so difficult to decompose. The EU-funded project DISCO aimed to develop and test more efficient and cost-effective enzymes for breakdown of carbohydrates in lignocellulose for production of bioethanol over the past years. To achieve this goal, DISCO researchers reported that they isolated naturally occurring enzymes from fungi and bacteria in soil samples, culture collections and metagenomic libraries. Altogether, almost 700 lignocellulytic strains were screened, yielding tens of interesting fungi for cellulose and hemicellulase activity. Genome mining from the fungus Myceliphthora thermophila resulted in nearly 20 novel cellulases and hemicellulases and multiple bacterial carbohydrate active enzymes were discovered from soil metagenomic libraries. Knowledge on the mode of enzyme action is crucial to the success of lignocellulose breakdown. Lignocellulose is composed of cellulose fibrils linked together with hemicelluloses, all embedded in lignin. The researchers said that they thus specifically looked for synergy, efficiency and ability to degrade the entire backbone of the hemicellulose molecule. Besides hemicellulose, the inhibiting effect of lignin on cellulases/hemicellulases was also analyzed. Project scientists also investigated the effects of different pre-treatments on chemistry and enzymatic digestibility of agricultural residues. On hydrothermally pre-treated wheat straw, temperature and residence time had a marked effect on enzyme digestibility. Discovery of new recyclable enzymes promises to supply biofuel to supplement other less sustainable forms of energy. Further details and research papers can be found on the DISCO website ( http://www.disco-project.eu ). Continue reading
Record Prices for US Commercial Property
Record Prices for US Commercial Property By Francys Vallecillo | May 7, 2013 2:47 PM ET U.S. commercial property prices hit record levels last month, a new report suggests. Green Streets Advisors’ commercial property index moved one percent higher than the record achieved in August, 2007, fueled by low interest rates and “modest economic growth.” The index rose one percent in April, after a two percent increase the month before, Bloomberg reports. “It’s likely we’ll see more gains,” Green Street analyst Peter Rothemund said in the statement. “Real estate continues to be attractively priced relative to the returns on offer in the bond market.” As confidence rises in U.S. commercial markets , investors looking for higher returns than those available from bonds are increasingly purchasing office and apartment properties, industrial buildings, malls and retail centers, according to Bloomberg . California-based Green Street bases the index on approximate value of portfolios of REITs which usually own high-quality properties. Not all studies agree about the levels of overall prices. In February, the Moody’s/Real Capital Analytics Commercial Property Price Index released in April was 20 percent less than a 2007 peak, Bloomberg notes. Continue reading
