(Radio Iowa) – Some Iowa Christmas tree growers are concerned damage done by the drought could limit their supply in the next few years. Country Pines Farm owner, Justin Pritts, says last year’s lack of snow led to a loss of 100 fully grown Christmas trees at his operation in Marcus — and he also lost around one third of the saplings this year to drought.  “My big concern is going to be six or seven years down the road, if these little ones don’t start taking off or we lose more over the wintertime, I mean, we’re going to be in trouble down the road,” Pitts says.

Pritts says it takes around seven years for his trees to mature. He says the farm may have to rely more on getting trees from places like Michigan and Wisconsin where drought isn’t as pervasive. Robin Miller operates T&S Christmas Tree Farm near Hawarden in northwest Iowa. She says they usually lose around 25 percent of trees planted — but the drought pushed that number is up to 90 percent. ” I’ve been losing trees, I would say, it’s been all of three years. So that puts me at, you know, four years from now, I’m not going to have any of those trees. And there’s really no way to make up that time,” Miller says.

Miller says she’s especially worried about the supply of fir trees, which have taken the biggest hit. She fears she won’t be able to stock that popular tree type in the furture following the drought losses.

(reporting by Kendall Crawford, Iowa Public Radio)

(Radio Iowa) – Some Iowa families have a tradition of taking down the Christmas tree tomorrow (Saturday), on the last day of the year, in order to start the new year out fresh on Sunday. Horticulturist and extension educator John Fech says don’t just toss the tree to the curb, but find a way to repurpose it. “Recycling it, reusing it, thinking of it again as a resource or an asset,” Fech says. If you’re crafty, trim the branches to make a fragrant sachet, wreath, or garland to enjoy in the weeks ahead. You could also cut up pieces of the evergreen to toss in a nearby lake or pond to provide a habitat for fish. Fech says mulching is another option.

“Do that yourself with a hatchet or you could have it run through a chipper,” Fech says. “Many of the cities do that for their parks and then they use that for trail cover around city parks and hospitals and places like that.” Another idea is to return the tree to the great outdoors for wildlife to use as shelter. He likes to call it tree-cycling. “Also, it could just be songbird habitat,” Fech says. “Set it near the bird feeder so birds have a place to get out of the wind and have a little bit of refuge from predator birds.”

If mulching the entire tree is too much work, just using the needles can be an effective mulch on perennial plants, in your garden, and to keep weeds in check.

(Massena, Iowa) – The Cass County Conservation Board (CCCB) will host an “Intro to Ice Fishing” program, on January 14, 2023 at 10-a.m.. The event takes place at the Outdoor Classroom shelter, located at 76977 Tucson Rd, near Massena. The program will focus on ice fishing basics; what is needed to get out on the ice and enjoy the outdoors. We will go over ice safety and the necessary equipment needed to be safe.

Conservation Director Micah Lee says “We will also go over rods, reels, lines, augers, and bait as well as many extras such as shelters, electronics, clothing. CCCB staff will have examples on hand to show you how it works and the best ways to use it.” 

In addition, Lee says there will be “A drawing for those that attend, at the end of the event for a chance to win an ice fishing package to get you out on the ice and fishing. Depending on weather and ice conditions, following the program there will be a chance to go fishing as well. The CCCB will have ice rods, bait, and augers available for those that don’t have them.”

For further information please contact Conservation Director Micah Lee at 712-769-2372.

(Radio Iowa) – The annual Iowa State University survey finds more farmland sales in the last two to three years compared to five or six years ago. But survey manager, Wendong Zhang, says the farmland turnover rate is still very low and the buyer profile has only changed slightly.”Iowa farmland purchases by the buyer type are still dominated by existing farmers. But the share of the investors that includes both local and non-local investors are going up,” he says. He says the increase hasn’t been that pronounced.

“South-central has the highest investor share, so almost 40 percent of the land is actually bought by local or non-local investors,” Zhang says. “But on average, you’re seeing that they’re half and a half in terms of local, non-local across the board.” Zhang says the area with the highest land values has the most local buys. “In northwest Iowa where you see the strongest gross it’s the predominantly it’s the existing local farmers are buying the land in their own county or nearby counties pushing the land market,” he says.

Zhang says this is due in part to the large number of cattle owners in the area that need farmland to spread the manure on from their operations. He says that the desire to expand operations pushed up land in O’Brien County — which edged out Sioux County by 15 dollars for the most expensive farmland acres. Both topped long-running value champ Scott County. “It is the first time that Scott County is not the top county in the last 20 years, I think,” Zhang says. O’Brien County averaged 15-thousand-931 dollars an acre to Scott County’s 15-thousand-968. He says a majority of the farmland on the auction block is coming from estate sales or retired farmers.

“So, in northwest Iowa, for example two-thirds are actually coming from estate sales and 15 are coming from retired farmers,” he says. “So yes, we see a growing investor interest. But it is it’s predominantly a still a local farmer buying a local land story.” Zhang says other states like Illinois probably attract more of the investor interest because they have fewer restrictions on corporate land ownership than Iowa.

(Radio Iowa) – Top Republicans in the Iowa House and Senate say the 2023 legislature will consider new guidelines for pipelines that would capture and carry carbon away from Iowa’s ethanol plants. The proposed Summit and Navigator pipelines run through areas House Speaker Pat Grassley represents.

“I’ve been around here long enough to know when something really is an issue in our districts and I’ve talked to enough members as well as (people) in my own district to know that this is a real thing,” Grassley says. “This is something that Iowans are frustrated about.” Grassley suggests an outright ban on carbon pipelines is unlikely.

“Sometimes it’s just: ‘Well, stop it! Make it stop,’ where we have to be thoughtful in this process,” Grassley says, “and that’s what we’re trying to do right now.” Senate Republican Leader Jack Whitver says it won’t be an easy debate. “I expect that we’ll have a thorough conversation about this. It’s something that our members have heard about back on the campaign trail,” Whitver says. “And they hear from both sides — people that want the pipeline, that are excited about it, that think it’s good for our economy and our rural areas and people that are against it and so we have a lot of members that have a lot of different opinions on it.”

Whitver says there are similar debates about the siting of wind turbines and large-scale solar arrays. “Landowner rights is a key part of Republican philosophy in our platform and so we certainly want to restrict that and that’s what makes these issues difficult, you know. There are people concerned about solar farms going up. There’s also people saying: ‘Well, that’s their land. They can do what they want,'” and that’s what makes these conversations difficult and we’re coming into session to try to work through these issues.”

This fall, Grassley sent a letter to the Iowa Utilities Board, expressing concern about a waiver developers of the Navigator pipeline were seeking from current regulations about sampling and restoring topsoil in farm fields.  “When I’m talking back in my district — I know I’m not allowed to take off my speaker’s hat, but I’m going to try to — and I said: ‘I’m going to watch this very closely…I want the process to play out, but if there’s things that happen that I don’t think are up to par or not being fully transparent, I’ll weigh in,” Grassley says.

Navigator withdrew its request to reduce the amount of testing and restoration of topsoil currently required by state regulations. This fall during a televised debate, Governor Reynolds said she supports existing state law outlining when carbon pipeline developers would be able to seize property from unwilling landowners, but she has not commented on county ordinances which establish local rules for where the pipelines may be built.

w/Kate Olson.

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(Radio Iowa) – There’s still a lot of weeks of winter to get through — but Iowa State University Extension is already looking ahead with Master Gardner training starting soon. Extension specialists, Alicia Herzog, says the training will be offered in 27 counties beginning in February. “The Master Gardener training program is actually a volunteer training program, and not a lot of people realize that. So master gardeners, our extension volunteers, that work in the different counties across the state,” she explains. “And we do cover about 75% of the state with the Master Gardener program right now.” Herzog says most of the training is set up so you won’t have to venture out into the winter weather.

“You do all the materials online. So we have lecture videos on there from our experts at Iowa State, we have supplemental readings and different publications that they’ve created. And then we also have quizzes to help people with retaining the information that they’re learning, and a textbook that goes along with it. So it is pretty robust,” according to Herzog. There will be four in-person sessions at your county office. “And those can be field trips, they can be hands on classes about how to propagate plants, they kind of come up with all sorts of different creative ways that they implement those in-person offerings,” she says.

The application window for the 2023 Winter Master Gardener training opens January 9th. Once you go through the training,you can use that horticulture and gardening knowledge to help educate people in your communities, and coordinate projects that promote healthy communities. “So they might work in a donation garden, they might work with school, children, youth, and teach them about gardening, or they might teach adult education classes at a library once a month and help people learn about how to prune their bushes or keep their house plants happy. So they do a lot of different things in their communities,” Herzog says. Herzog says you don’t have to have any gardening background to get started.

“You just have to be interested in gardening or horticulture,” she says, “You know, you can be interested in turf, you can be interested in trees, it doesn’t have to be what we think of traditionally, as gardening, you don’t have to just be interested in flowers, or just be interested in vegetables.” And she says you need the desire to learn and grow because it is a continuing education program for adults. And you have to be interested in volunteering and helping your community. Iowa State has offered Master Gardener training for more than 40 years.

You can find out more at the I-S-U Extension website. The counties involved in the training are: Black Hawk, Calhoun, Cerro Gordo, Clay, Clinton, Davis, Dickinson, Emmet, Floyd, Franklin, Iowa, Jackson, Jasper, Jefferson, Keokuk, Kossuth, Madison, Mahaska, Marion, Mitchell, Monona, Monroe, Palo Alto, Poweshiek, Shelby, Tama, Wapello, Warren, Woodbury, Worth and Wright.

(Ames, Iowa) – The Iowa Cattlemen’s Association (ICA) annually honors an individual who has contributed a great deal of time and effort in promoting the beef industry in Iowa. The 2022 recipient of the Iowa Cattlemen’s Association Hall of Fame award is Dr. John Lawrence, of Ames. Lawrence was nominated for this prestigious honor by a group of producer and allied leaders for his service and engagement through many Iowa beef industry evolutions throughout his career.

Dr. John Lawrence, Vice President of Iowa State University Extension and Outreach, will retire in March 2023. He’s been a livestock economist at heart even when his title changed. Always a cattleman, John was raised on a southwest Iowa crop and livestock farm. And always an Iowan at heart, it’s been his home except while he earned his Ph.D. in agricultural economics at the University of Missouri in Columbia, and served as extension livestock economist in marketing and assistant professor at the University of Minnesota in St. Paul. In 1991 he returned to Iowa as the ISU extension livestock economist and assistant professor.

Dr. John Lawrence (ISU photo)

John continued as extension livestock economist as he advanced in his faculty position, and began adding administrative responsibilities which often overlapped. In 1998 he was named Iowa Beef Center director, a position he held until 2010. From 2004-2010, he was assistant director of the Iowa Agriculture and Home Economics Experiment Station. In 2010 he became associate dean of extension and outreach for the ISU College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, and director of agriculture and natural resources extension. Seven years later he was named acting, then interim ISU Vice President for Extension and Outreach, and the following year was appointed to his current VP position.

Along the way he held several interim positions in addition to his full time role, including interim director for the ISU Beginning Farmer Center and Iowa Nutrient Research Center, and interim chair for the ISU animal science department. The constant through the decades has been his dedication to working with people. From early days on Iowa farms and at producer meetings, to advocating for livestock industry members at the state, national and international levels, John has been a strong supporter of Iowa agriculture and its people.

“John is a true believer in engaging Iowans. Without question, his commitment to building strong, sustained partnerships like the one we enjoy with the Iowa Cattlemen’s Association make him worthy of hall of fame status,” said Wendy Wintersteen, president of Iowa State University. “For more than 30 years, John’s devotion to the power of ISU Extension and Outreach to change Iowans’ lives for the better has been unwavering.”

John and his contributions have made him an important piece of the beef industry past, present and future, and thanks to John, that future is bright. The ICA would like to thank Dr. Lawrence for his commitment and sacrifice to Iowa’s cattle industry by inducting him into the ICA Hall of Fame.

(Radio Iowa) – Iowa Congressman Randy Feenstra is pushing to expand a 2018 law about a new technology that processes data dramatically faster than traditional computers do. It’s called quantum computing and it has the potential to improve existing industries — and create new ones. “This is the fastest computing apparatus that is in the world and we always talk about health care and we talk about financials and all of this other stuff that quantum computing can do,” Feenstra says. “And I said, ‘Well, wait a minute. When you look at quantum molecular simulations, you can start modeling with fertilizer, with input costs for agriculture.’”

Here’s how the concept works: computers use quantum mechanics to store data on what are called subatomic particles — basically the fragments of atoms. Quantum computing has the potential to process data in seconds that would take a traditional computer days or even months to sort. Congress is expected to reauthorize the government’s National Quantum Initiative in 2023. Feenstra says agricultural applications need to be specified.

“I don’t want agriculture left behind when we start talking about the efficiency and effectiveness of quantum computing,” Feenstra says. “…The next generation, this is what it’s all about, is how we can be more efficient, more effective in what we can do on the farm and we can do that with quantum technology.” Feenstra made his comments during an appearance on KMA earlier this month.

Federal spending on quantum information science has doubled in the past two years. Feenstra says it has the potential to expand battery storage and create more effective medications as well as create the next generation of farm fertilizers.

(Additional reporting by Mike Peterson, KMA, Shenandoah)

Des Moines, Iowa – A reminder to farmers and ranchers: The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS) will spend several months gathering information about farm economics and production practices from farmers and ranchers across Iowa, as the agency conducts the third and final phase of the 2022 Agricultural Resource Management Survey (ARMS). Greg Thessen, director of the NASS Upper Midwest Regional Field Office, says “ARMS is the only survey that measures the current financial well-being of Iowa producers and
their households as a whole. The results of this survey will help inform decisions on local and federal policies and programs that affect Iowa farms and farm families.”

In an effort to obtain the most accurate data, NASS will reach out to more than 35,000 producers nationwide, including 1,600 in Iowa, between January and April. The survey asks producers to
provide in-depth information about their operating revenues, production costs, and household characteristics. The 2022 ARMS survey includes a version of the questionnaire focused on farm
costs of production and expenditures for wheat producers. The survey also includes questions to help measure any impacts of COVID on farms, farm and household finances, and off-farm
employment.

Thessen says “In February, our interviewers will begin reaching out to those farmers who have not yet responded. We appreciate their time and are here to help them with the questionnaire so that their information will continue supporting sound agricultural decisionmaking. Completing this questionnaire fulfills your 2022 Census of Agriculture requirement.” Information provided to NASS is kept confidential, as required by federal law. The agency only publishes data in aggregate form, ensuring that no individual respondent or operation can be
identified.
The expense data gathered in ARMS will be published in the annual Farm Production Expenditures report on July 21, 2023. That report and others are available at nass.usda.gov/Publications. More reports based on ARMS data and more information about ARMS are available at ers.usda.gov/arms.