A Roadmap to Better Decision Making

Agronomists Warn Corn Rootworm Pressure is Rising Producers have barely even begun to harvest this year's corn crop but already need to start making decisions for next year. One of those is assessing corn rootworm threat, which agronomists say is likely to be high in 2021. Ron Beyer, a Golden Harvest agronomist who works with farmers in northwestern Iowa says, ...
Read More

New Milestone in Herbicide Resistance Fight Herbicide-resistant weeds are an ever-growing menace for crop producers in every part of the U.S. as well as other major agricultural regions around the world. Three of the most noxious agricultural weeds are waterhemp, smooth pigweed, and Palmer amaranth which lead to untold production losses on top of additional production costs every year. In ...
Read More

True Story of a Gritty Farmer Who Won the “Toughest Race in the World” I shared this story once before a few years back, but it must be recirculating because it came back across my desk. I think it's awesome and worth sharing again. Farmer Cliff Young may best be remembered as the man most unexpected to win the Sydney ...
Read More

Agencies Team on Next-Gen Fertilizer Competition The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) have launched the Next Gen Fertilizer Challenges, a joint project designed to identify and accelerate the development of next-gen, sustainable fertilizer technologies. The first two challenges are seeking proposals for new and existing fertilizer technologies that maintain or improve crop yields ...
Read More

Concerns Rising as Flash Drought Conditions Intensify Summer temperatures have been through the roof across a large portion of the corn belt. Coupled with low and rapidly depleting soil moisture, some regions are experiencing or anticipating flash drought occurrences that could lead to major agricultural losses. The loose definition of flash drought is a drought that develops rapidly over a ...
Read More

How Some Food Startups are Helping Fill Supply Chain Gaps Farmers across the country have watched helplessly as untold tons of food has literally been thrown out, left to rot, and worse for livestock producers. The domino effect of upended supply chains due to the Covid-19 pandemic has delivered a financially and emotionally devastating blow to so many in the ...
Read More

NEW "Cash Crop" Project to Consider! A Missouri-based company is looking to recruit members for its “100 Founding Farmers Club,” which will plant the very first crop of its new pennycress variety. CoverCress Inc., in partnership with university researchers from Illinois, Ohio, Minnesota, and Wisconsin are working to develop the plant into a viable cash crop while removing some of ...
Read More

Investments In Agro-Forestry Gaining Traction Startup Propagate Ventures wants to treat trees as a financial asset and is helping farmers diversify their crops through agroforestry, a regenerative practice that integrates trees and shrubs into crop and/or animal farming systems. Some of the strategies include alley cropping, silvopasture, windbreaks, and orchard bands which allow producers to stack multiple crops on one ...
Read More

One of the biggest commodity stories this year has been lumber, which has seen a run-up in prices to what some have called "mind-boggling" levels. Lumber futures blew past the previous record high nearly two weeks ago and haven't looked back. They've more than doubled since April when the September contract was trading around $280. Cash prices for SPF (spruce, ...
Read More

Effects of the Covid-19 pandemic can be felt everywhere and agriculture has not been spared. While some of the supply chain issues experienced early on have improved, the most recent updates from regional Federal Reserve districts shows the farm economy remains on shaky ground. Adding to the pressure is drought in some portions of the country which is complicating the ...
Read More