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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In the past, I’ve spoken at No-till On the Plains and the High Plains No-till Conference and been asked to cover looking back at our history of no-till crop production and the evolution of my no-till farming experience during this time. My sister, Janet, gave me a memory stick for my computer for Christmas several years ago. Janet scanned all my parents photos and slides over the past 60 years on this memory stick. I’ve been looking at these photos and reminiscing as well. One of the slides that I’ve added to my presentations shows me stand...
Last week I visited about the results of the biological tests we ran on our winter wheat stubble, which showed very low microbial activity. The winter wheat sample had a total microbial biomass number of only 1,248.84. This low result would be expected since there is not much actively growing in the field and the residue is a high carbon-low nitrogen type residue. This high carbon-low nitrogen type residue explains why winter wheat residue is valuable in our region as the residue is hard to break down and lasts a long time. The winter wheat...
Modern day agricultural producers are constantly striving to lower production costs and improve their stewardship of the land. Many producers have adopted conservation agricultural systems as a means to lower production costs and improve the health of the soils we work with on our farms and ranches. Leaving previous crop residues attached to the soil surface helps protect these soils. Using no-till crop production methods that provide minimal soil disturbance when planting and harvesting the crops also improves soil health. As these methods...
As you look back through agriculture there have been some real turning points. Agriculture saw the first real leap into production agriculture in our country with the Industrial Age when mechanized agriculture really changed the face of our country. Larger and larger farms were created as it became possible to produce crops on many more acres. The next big breakthrough came with the Green Revolution where fertilizers, pesticides and plant breeding really came to the forefront and were adopted on a wide scale. This lead to increased yields on...
I want to start by thanking everyone for their well wishes following my knee replacement surgery. Everything went well with the surgery and I’m now going through the physical therapy getting a full range of motion back in the knee. I have always thought living in rural western Nebraska is a great place to be where everyone is surrounded by friends, family, and neighbors who are truly concerned for the well-being of one another. Judging from the view from my couch looking out the window and my trips to the doctor’s office and therapy, we hav...
Dr. Dwayne Beck from the Dakota Lakes Research farm near Pierre, S.D. will be presenting at the upcoming PNTP Winter Conference, Feb. 23-24, 2015, at the Gering Civic Center. He often begins to engage his audiences by asking the producers in attendance where they want their farms to be in 60 years or 600 years. He wants the producers to look to the future and start making decisions now to start building their operations to match their vision. Dr. Beck also points out that with today’s modern approach to crop production our ecosystem is l...
Our way of life in agriculture across the breadbasket of America is being threatened by special interest groups who disagree with how we conduct our business. These special interest groups disagree with how we produce the food which feeds the world. Our image as stewards of the land and livestock is being tainted and it’s important we start telling our side of the story. These special interest groups are well organized and well funded. Their sole intention is to dictate policy so the food we produce conforms to their standards. These groups do...
The United Nations estimates that the world population has now surpassed 7.3 billion humans living on our planet. It took 123 years, from 1804 to 1927, to go from a population of 1 billion to 2 billion people on our planet. The United Nations estimates it will take only 10 years from now to add another billion people and reach 8,000,000,000 people in world population. World population will grow an average of 78 million people per year. That is a rather amazing and sobering statistic. The strain on our planet’s resources to cloth, feed, and supp...
One of the best visualizations I’ve heard for managing your soil moisture and the precipitation you receive is to compare your soil’s moisture holding capacity to a bucket. The size of your bucket depends on the soil texture, organic matter content and soil structure. With good surface residues, you can get the precipitation you receive to infiltrate the soil and start filling the bucket. If you have good soil structure you can get the moisture to the bottom of the bucket, and if you have good organic matter content your soil will act as a spo...
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...
3st Century Equipment has announced its support for 4-H County Fair Livestock Programs across the 43 counties in our operating area. Individual donations will be presented to county extension offices in this month – including Cheyenne – to be used at the discretion of the council and advisors in livestock facilities, livestock programs, or wherever they see a need. "21st Century Equipment has a business presence in Wyoming, Nebraska and Colorado," said CEO Owen Palm. "As such, we have a tre...
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...
Cheyenne County USDA Farm Service Agency Executive Director Brad Fraass, announced that county committee election nominations begin June 15. Farmers, ranchers and landowners are encouraged to nominate farmer and rancher candidates to serve on their local FSA county committee by the Aug. 3 deadline. Elected county committee members serve a three-year term and are responsible for making decisions on FSA disaster, conservation, commodity, and price support programs, as well as other important federal farm program issues. “County committee members...
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...
