Serving proudly since 1873 as the beautiful Nebraska Panhandle's first newspaper
Serving proudly since 1873 as the beautiful Nebraska Panhandle's first newspaper
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Last week, I had the pleasure of speaking to Ron Bolze’s students at Chadron State College. Bolze invited me to speak to his farm and ranch management class. I really enjoyed getting back in the classroom to visit with tomorrow’s leaders in agriculture. The students were very interested in my topic of conservation agriculture and how we can work towards adopting conservation agricultural systems to produce food, fiber and fuel. I really think the next generation is more focused on their environment and see the long-term benefits of adopting con...
Last week I introduced you to Rattan Lal, director of the Carbon Management and Sequestration Center at Ohio State University. Lal published an article on his concepts for developing a conservation agricultural system for our farms and ranches. His concepts involve adapting five steps towards a complex conservation agricultural system which concentrates on improving the soil’s health as we move into the future of production agriculture across our nation. Last week we looked at the first three steps in adopting this system. The first of these s...
During my conversation with Dr. Dwayne Beck a few weeks ago, Dwayne told me he had a couple of articles he wanted to email me to read about a systems approach to conservation agriculture. I really like the sound of conservation agriculture a lot better than I like no-till. No-till began as a simple way to lower labor, machinery and fuel costs to produce crops. These were the reasons we looked to convert from conventional tillage winter wheat/summer fallow on our farm to no-till. We started much the same as many producers and simply replaced...
I had a nice visit with Dwayne Beck the other day. Many of you are familiar with Beck as he has been a pioneer in no-till crop production in the High Plains. He manages the Dakota Lakes Research Farm near Pierre, S.D., and will be celebrating their 25th year of operation at this farm in September. Beck has spoken at numerous no-till field days and winter conferences around the region including our own Panhandle No-till Partnership’s winter conference. You’ll be happy to know that he has again agreed to speak at our PNTP winter conference aga...
Field pea production on our farm this year proved to be interesting, much like all the other crops we’re growing. With all the abundant moisture you would hope this would equate to bumper yields. Other growing factors such as hail, cold spring temperatures, late snow storms, late freezes, and disease made growing the field pea crop a challenge. On our farm the field pea yields ranged from 0-70 bushels per acre depending on circumstances. I have heard of some very good yields this year around the Panhandle. I heard of dry land field peas m...
My knee replacement surgery has been put on hold. I developed a bacterial lung infection prior to surgery. My doctor put me on antibiotics for a period of five days that lowered my white blood cell count, but not to normal levels. I then took another 10 days of antibiotics and I’m scheduled to go back in for more tests soon to see if I’m healthy enough for surgery. It turned out to be a blessing that my surgery was postponed as my son Jacob, who works on the farm with us, was diagnosed with pneumonia. There appears to be an unusually high incid...
During the Panhandle No-till Partnership’s field days, practices on irrigated acres were discussed. The farms we visited have been using the standard irrigated no-till crop rotation of winter wheat, corn, dry edible beans and back to winter wheat. Some of the producers are now including field peas as part of their crop rotation. On our farm, we have moved to a winter wheat (followed by a forage crop), dry edible bean, corn, field pea crop rotation. We feel this rotation will be a better agronomical rotation for the crops we grow. We think t...
One of our visits during the Panhandle No-till Partnerships field days included a morning tour of the High Plains Ag Lab located near Gurley. Cody Creech and Karla Jenkins took the time out of their busy schedules to show our group the exciting research they are conducting at the University of Nebraska research farm. I really appreciate all the hard work Creech and Jenkins do to help agricultural producers in our region. I also want to thank them again for taking our group for a tour of the research farm. I found the yellow field pea variety...
I would like to thank everyone involved in making last week’s Panhandle No-till Partnership’s field days a success. I would like to especially thank Mark Betson, Mark and Pat Ernest, Bob Gifford and Jack Revelle for hosting these field days on their farms. I also want to thank the University of Nebraska Panhandle Research and Extension Center, and specifically Dr. Cody Creech and Dr. Karla Jenkins, for hosting our tour group at the UNL High Plains Ag Lab. I’m always amazed when I drive around the Panhandle of Nebraska at the diverse landscape w...
I recently attended No Till on the Plain’s Whirlwind field day at Steve Tucker’s farm near Venango, Neb. These are educational field days on all aspects of continuous no till crop production. I was invited to speak on crop rotations on dry land acres in our semi-arid region and I also spoke about water conservation on our irrigated continuous no till production acres. No till crop production has allowed producers in our area to continuous crop with the extra moisture stored in the soil on our dry land acres. On our irrigated acres we have bee...
The Panhandle No-till Partnership will host a series of field days Tuesday through Friday this week. These field days will focus on continuous no-till crop production practices on dry land and irrigated acres and integrating livestock into a no till cropping and forage production system. The field days will be an educational showing of how no-till crop and forage production can improve soil health and conserve groundwater. We’ll also tour the UNL High Plains Ag Lab to meet and greet Cody Creech, UNL Panhandle and Extension Center dry land cropp...
This past week I spent a morning with Dr. Bob Harveson, University of Nebraska Panhandle Research and Extension Center plant pathologist, touring field pea fields in the Alliance area. Harveson and I were looking for diseases in field peas. He is concentrating on diseases in field peas this year to see what concerns may develop for field pea producers in our area. So far the only disease that has shown up in field pea production in our area is blight. I have spoken with numerous field pea producers this spring about this disease in field peas....
I’ve had several no-till producers around the Panhandle comment on how well their fields have taken in the record-setting moisture we received during the month of May. On our farm, we recorded 10.3 inches of precipitation during the month of May. I have talked to other producers in our neighborhood who recorded up to 1.5 inches more than we did on our farm. According to my moisture totals, we received roughly 13.1 inches of precipitation in April and May. Considering our yearly precipitation average is 15.2 inches that is a lot of moisture f...
I’m sitting here at my desk watching the rain change over to snow in late May. They’re calling for more snow overnight. It has already rained and snowed 5.2 inches of precipitation on our farm this month. The corn we planted three weeks ago has barely sprouted and laying in cold wet soil. I have no idea when we are going to get a break to plant the rest of our corn. Looks like it will be later than I’ve ever planted corn before. From what I understand the sugar beet farmers are very concerned about their crop as well. Needless to say produ...
Last week, I discussed how we approach fertilizing our winter wheat crop following field peas in our winter wheat, corn, field pea and then back to winter wheat crop rotation on our continuous no-till dry land acres. We have been using this rotation for the past nine years on our farm and we’re starting to see some long term effects from this rotation. One observation is cheat grass working its way into a few fields within this rotation. Cheat grass has always been a problem in winter wheat production in our region. Throughout my farming c...
We have now planted field peas on all of our dry land fields for a third time in our winter wheat, corn, field pea crop rotation. We have learned quite a bit over this time on growing field peas and what to expect and watch for as this rotation continues over time and I thought I would share some of what we have learned and a few things to watch for in field pea production. I had several calls earlier this year on how we approach fertilizing our winter wheat following our field pea crop. Field peas are a legume which produces nitrogen during...
Last week, I took a look at the amount of precipitation we have received to produce a winter wheat crop this year and a projected yield for this year’s crop assuming normal precipitation between now and winter wheat maturation. This week, I’d like to take a look at field peas and the potential yield for this year’s crop of field peas. Each time I have written an article looking at the moisture and potential yield for these spring crops, it has rained. This past week another storm system moved through our region. On our farm we received .25 o...
I sat through two speaker presentations last winter where regional meteorologists gave their predictions for the weather outlook for our area for this growing season. One meteorologist was Brian Bledsoe, who resides in Colorado Springs, Col. Brian gave his presentation at the “No till On the Plains” winter conference in Salina, Kan. The other meteorologist was our own Don Day, who lives in Cheyenne, Wyo. Don spoke at our Panhandle No till Partnership winter conference in Gering. Don is on many local radio station broadcasts and gives weather re...
Over the past few weeks, I have been visiting with numerous producers around the Panhandle.Generally producers call to discuss field pea production but the conversation almost always turns to the condition of the winter wheat crop planted last fall. I have also read reports in the University of Nebraska’s Cropwatch and listened to a couple of programs on the radio that also discussed the condition of this year’s winter wheat crop in our area. All the reports from producers and researchers suggest that the winter wheat crop has experienced a p...
I want to start off by thanking everyone for their kind prayers and thoughtfulness in helping me and my family as I recover from my surgery. The well wishes and acts of kindness friends and neighbors exhibit during difficult times always impressed me in our rural way of life. These acts of kindness make living in rural Nebraska a very special place to be. I had my right knee replaced and the surgery and recovery couldn’t have gone any better. I’m still working hard in physical therapy to regain the strength and motion of the knee and leg and...
There is a developing feed source for the cattle industry here in our region with the introduction of field peas as an alternative feed source for the livestock industry. The production of field peas across our region has come about as producers look for alternative crops to transition back to winter wheat in their crop rotations. The addition of field peas has proven to be a sound agronomic practice in crop rotations that benefits the winter wheat production. As producers, we are attempting to make field peas a long-term part of our crop...
Over the past 40-plus years, many producers have moved from a wheat/fallow production system to an ecofallow system that includes a summer crop, to a continuous no till crop production system. Each system adds intensity with wheat/fallow having a wheat crop every other year, to ecofallow with crops grown two out of three years, to a continuous no till system where a crop is grown every year. As the intensity of these production systems increases the diversity of the crops produced also increases. With a continuous no till crop production...
Back in October when we were starting to combine our dry land corn crop, I visited with a neighbor about the value of wheat residues and residue height in dry land corn production. My neighbor thought he should purchase a stripper head for combining his winter wheat crop to leave more standing residue. The year before he had combined his dry land wheat with a conventional head and had baled the straw for his cattle. He then planted his dry land corn into the wheat residue left in the field. Right beside his dry land corn field was a field of...
Field pea planting is just around the corner so I thought I would share with you my ideas on raising field peas. We’ve been growing field peas on our farm for several years now and I know there are a lot of first time growers or fairly new growers in the area. I might be able to shorten the learning curve for the newer growers by sharing what we have learned over the years we’ve grown field peas. The first step to growing a successful field pea crop is to buy certified seed. The purchase of seed is the most expensive part of raising field peas,...
The path to soil health has many stops along the way to obtaining a live, vibrant and functioning soil. Each of us will find a resting point along this pathway and may settle into a comfortable spot along the way. I think it is very encouraging that those of us in production agriculture are even thinking and talking about our journey down the path to soil health. Our farm’s journey began many years ago and we didn’t even know it at the time. We switched our operation from a conventionally tilled crop production system to a no-till crop pro...
