Editor's note: This article on the growing interest in antique tractor restoration will be followed by a four- week series featuring noted tractor collectors in Iowa and Missouri.

As nitrogen prices spiral higher with corn prices, efficient use of fertilizer has become a focus of crop production.

AMES --- Feed costs will continue to drive the livestock market for the foreseeable future, a group of analysts said at a recent livestock risk conference here.

PERRY --- David Menz sits back in his tractor cab and points to the monitor that tells him what is happening with his auto-steer control.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. (AP) --- Floodwaters receding into the Mississippi River and its tributaries will suck billions of dollars out of the Midwest's economy, though probably not as much as the 1993 flooding that devastated the region.

The nation may grow billions of bushels of corn each year, but only about 10 percent of that field corn reaches the consumer's cupboard.

When legal experts be-gan combing through the 2008 farm bill, they found much that looked familiar and a couple of new items that will require research.

From April 2006 to April 2008, the cash price for a bushel of corn rose from $2.37 per bushel to $5.56.

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is asking farmers who find tanks, drums and cylinders and other containers that may have floated onto their property during recent flooding to report them so they can be properly handled and disposed.

Farmers planning on haying or grazing CRP land might see their plans delayed as they wait for a ruling on a pending lawsuit between environmental groups and the USDA.