(Radio Iowa) – As temperatures in Iowa are forecast to climb into the mid to upper 90s all week, the prolonged heat is hard on people, pets — and plants. Angie Rieck Hinz (REEK-hines), a field agronomist with Iowa State University Extension and Outreach, says farmers will be watching for signs of crop stress, though she says her region of north-central Iowa is in decent shape heading into the heat wave. She says this area is lucky as it got a little more rain that other areas, though it’s been two weeks since a significant rain and we’re overdue. Some corn hasn’t tasseled yet and Rieck Hinz fears the hot, dry weather might impact pollination.

She says the soybeans in north-central Iowa are doing well this summer, though she’s seen a few diseases on the plants, things like bacterial blight and frog-eye leaf spot. Forecasters say the heat wave will likely last through Friday, and perhaps right into the weekend, with a few outside chances for scattered showers.

(Radio Iowa) – Officials have begun planning for upgrades at a popular, state-owned campground in northwest Iowa. Jake Schaben of the Iowa Department of Natural Resources says it’s been decades since there have been major renovations at Gull Point State Park in the Iowa Great Lakes region.”It’s probably been at least 50 years since there have been any real improvements aside from upgrading some rest rooms facilities,” Schaben says. “This is going to focusing on roads and camp pads.” There are 112 campsites at the park, which is near Milford. About half have electrical hook-ups.

Schaben says the upgrades at Gull Point State Park may be similar to what was done at state owned campsites that are about 10 miles away. “Two years ago we finished up with a campground renovation up at the Marble Beach State Recreation Area on Spirit Lake,” Schaben says. “Got a lot of complements on the results we got with that by kind of expanding campsites and full-hook-up amenities and some 50 amp electricity.”

Gull Point State Park is the second most popular park in the state-owned park system. In 2021, one-point-six MILLION people visited the park. The D-N-R will host an open house at the lodge in Gull Point State Park on August 22nd to discuss the proposed campground upgrades with the public.

(Radio Iowa)  – A new museum will open on the Osceola County Fairgrounds next year. Beth Thole, who’s been working on the project, says the McCallum Museum in Sibley, which holds artifacts from the pioneer and Civil War era, was built in 1957 and has run out of space. “We’ve been fundraising for about four-and-a-half or five years,” Thole says, “and with the costs of everything — materials and labor — escalating, we came up with an idea that we proposed to the fair board members of using a historic building on the fairgrounds as a museum for agriculture.”

Thole, who is a member of the McCallum Museum Board, says some changes have already been made to the 99 year old Commercial Building on the fairgrounds. “We have done some structural work on making things handicapped accessible, creating a balcony for displays, put eight new fans in, Thole says. “We’re well on our way.”

The Osceola County Fair wrapped up this weekend and Thole says they’ll start moving artifacts into the building soon. The goal is to have a grand opening of the museum during the 2024 Osceola County Fair.

AMES, Iowa – July 24, 2023 – The 2023-2024 Iowa Bicycle Map is now available in both paper and digital formats.

You can get your free paper version of the map at all Iowa Department of Transportation rest areas and Iowa welcome centers. You can order a paper copy online.  The digital versions of the map are available at Iowa Bikes (Bike Map) – Iowa DOT.

This popular publication highlights bike-friendly routes when traveling on two wheels through Iowa by identifying bike trails and traffic levels on all paved roads. The map also includes insets of Iowa’s 16 largest cities.

If you are riding your bicycle on a public road, you have all the same rights as motor vehicle drivers. You are also required to know and obey all the same traffic laws and rules of the road. A section of the map is dedicated to highlighting some of the rules of the road to help you understand your rights and responsibilities. Safety is always the first priority, so if you are riding, please always wear a helmet, use lights at night, and watch out for road hazards like parallel-slat stormwater grates, gravel, sand, and debris.

(Atlantic, Iowa) – The 2023 Cass County (Iowa) Fair begins this Thursday (July 27th), and continues through August 1st.  Thursday, evening, 14 youth are competing for a place in the royal court. Preliminary judging was held on Monday, July 17th at the Cass County Community Center in Atlantic where each candidate was interviewed by two judges. Candidates vying for the title of queen: Rachel Becker, Sydney Becker, Natalie Behnken, Ryleigh Harrison, Cecilia Hensley, Rio Johnson, Claire Pellett, Natalye Scholl, Quincy Sorensen, Trista Swain. The candidate selected as queen will advance to the Iowa State Fair, where she will compete in the statewide competition for the title of the 2023 Iowa State Fair Queen.
King candidates include: Dylan Comes, Tristan Becker, Parker Brock, and Brett Dreager.

Judging criteria is based on leadership, citizenship within the community, poise, charm, appearance, personality, attitude, and the ability to communicate openly with honesty about current youth issues. Candidates competing for the Queen and King Position voted amongst themselves for a Miss Congeniality and Mr. Congeniality.

The crowning of the 2023 Cass County Fair King and Queen will take place in the north garden of the Cass County Community Center at 7:30-p.m., Thursday. The evening will kick off at 7:00 pm with the Little Miss and Mister contest. Cass County youth ages 5-8 can participate by signing up in the Extension Office by noon on Wednesday, July 26^th.  All contestants introduce themselves to the crowd before a winner is drawn out of a hat.

Chris Parks and Cass/Adair County Conservation Officer Grant Gelly talk about all things outdoors. This week they talk about summer fishing, atv/utv usage, turkey sightings, new deer reporting regulations, and an upcoming hunter education opportunity.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (8.2MB)

Subscribe: RSS

(Radio Iowa) – Fourth District Congressman Randy Feenstra says he’s focusing part of the new Farm Bill on the cost of crop insurance.

Feenstra, a Republican from Hull, says the expense of crop insurance is a major barrier to young farmers who are just getting started in production agriculture.
“There’s this big push where China and other countries are buying our farmland and the reason that’s happening is because that next generation cannot afford or cannot buy that land from their parents,” Feenstra says. “One of the big problems is the input costs.”

Feenstra says he and the other members of the House Agriculture Committee are considering discounts on crop insurance for those farmers who are just starting off. “A new beginning farmer for the first five years, you get up to a 15% discount on their crop insurance to lower that input, so we can keep that farmland in Iowa and with the Iowa farmer,” Feenstra says, “and then it slowly ratchets down after five years, four years, three years, it goes from 15% down to 10%.”

Crop insurance is one of the biggest input costs farmers pay each year and he says some may choose 85% coverage, or even as low as 70%.
“Because of the costs, a lot of farmers are going down to that lower amount and that’s where operational loans from the bank, they get a little concerned,” Feenstra says. “You have a big hail out or a catastrophic event, then all of the sudden, you put yourself in peril because you only have X-percent of coverage for that crop.”

Feenstra says the largest part of the Farm Bill is food programs, including SNAP. He says farm state members of the committee want to make the program more efficient as SNAP payments have exploded in recent years.

Click to enlarge this map

(Radio Iowa) – The new map from the U-S Drought monitor show some slight improvement following rains across the state.  All of the state still has some sort of drought rating, but the area that was in extreme drought dropped below four percent in the last week. The severe drought areas dropped from nearly 39 percent to less than 14 percent. With those percentages dropping, nearly 60 percent of the state is now in moderate drought, and around 22 percent is abnormally dry. The worst drought conditions remain in northwest and southeast sections of the state.

(Radio Iowa) – The severe drought in eastern Iowa has had an impact on the Christmas tree crop that will likely show up several years down the road. Mark Banowetz started the Cedar’s Edge Evergreen Market in Ely seven years ago, and told K-C-R-G T-V he is looking forward to the first season of sale. “These trees that we put in that were a foot or 16 inches, they’ve grown to 9 feet or so,” Banowetz says. He says the drought isn’t impacting the bigger trees, but the 500 seedlings he planted this year that have struggled.

“We’re losing a lot of seedlings,” he says. Iowa Christmas Tree Association President Bob Moulds, says Banowetz isn’t alone. He said a lot of newer farmers were also struggling, and there isn’t crop insurance for Christmas trees. “If they die, they die,” he said. “There’s no insurance, there’s nothing.” Moulds is the owner of the Wapsie Pines Tree Farm in Fairbank, and says he started changing his ways after the 2013 drought. He tells K-C-R-G- T-V he started watering and mulching each of the four-thousand trees he planted this year.

“If we had not mulched all these trees and individually watered them three times while it was dry, a large percent of them would not have made it,” said Moulds. As the Association’s new President, Moulds said he wanted to show other new farmers like Banowetz, what he learned over the years. So, they too can make it through droughts like the one we’re seeing right now.

KCRG-TV photo

Moulds says when tree farmers have bad drought years they can usually plant twice the number of seedlings the following year to make up for the ones they lost. But he said that can also be a risk if there’s another drought the next year.

(Radio Iowa) – A new book by an Iowa author implores people to preserve the waterways that sustain our crops — and our lives — by tackling tough issues from climate change to nitrate pollution. Professor Neil Hamilton, who recently retired after 36 years directing the Agricultural Law Center at Drake University, uses the river as a narrator in his book, “The River Knows.” He says the book is designed as a wake-up call to make people stop and think about our waterways and how we can best protect them. It’s the sequel to Hamilton’s 2022 book, “The Land Remains,” where Iowa’s fertile, underappreciated soil told its own story.

The book is available at many Iowa bookstores and through the publisher, Ice Cube Press.