ATLANTIC, IA – Bridgewater Farm lost thousands of plants in last week’s hailstorm; the farm was  devastated. This is a loss not only in the Atlantic area (Bridgewater Farm is a produce vendor at Produce  in the Park), but across the state; Bridgewater Farm is Iowa’s largest organic farm. The losses were so  significant that Channel 13 News out of Des Moines did a story on the damage. The farm’s Facebook page, https://www.facebook.com/BridgewaterFamilyFarm/, links to the story and shows many photos of the destruction.

Dale Raasch indicates how tall these tomato plants were before the June hailstorm hit Bridgewater Farm.jpg

Looking through photos of thousands upon thousands of destroyed plants can leave one asking, “What  could I possibly do to help?” Bridgewater Farm has an answer. The community is now being invited to  help with replanting this Wednesday, June 16, at 9:00 AM at Bridgewater Farm (2409 Brown Ave., Bridgewater, IA 50837). There is no need to RSVP for the volunteer day, but participants may want to bring a dish to share at the lunch potluck, along with a lawn chair.

Volunteers should wear clothes that can get dirty. Bridgewater Farm is expecting a few news stations to attend the event.
Produce in the Park thanks customers for supporting Bridgewater Farm and understanding that the farm  may not have as much produce as they’d expect at the farmers market over the next month or so, as  they rebuild and regrow.

Chris Parks and Cass/Adair County Conservation Officer Grant Gelly talk all things outdoors. This week they discuss young wildlife, turkey harvest numbers, new fishing atlas updates, and an odd local celebrity squirrel.

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WILLEY, Iowa —Officials with the Iowa Department of Natural Resources, on Friday (today), followed up on an anonymous tip received Thursday night indicating manure was discharging from the Wendl Feedlot about 6.5 miles south of Carroll. When notified, feedlot owner Brian Wendl left his vacation and drove 900 miles overnight to oversee containing and cleaning up the runoff.

Friday morning, DNR staff found runoff leaving several locations from a saturated field, flowing into a tributary of Willey Creek. The discharge occurred when the field became saturated following an attempt to dewater a basin used to contain manure.

DNR staff found elevated ammonia levels in the tributary at the field, but considerably lower levels a mile downstream. The tributary flows into Willey Creek and then into the Middle Raccoon. There were no signs of dead fish. And the stream was running high after about three inches of rain in the last few days.

Wendl was constructing a berm along the stream to stop runoff. DNR is sending water samples to a laboratory for testing. Staff will monitor the cleanup and containment. DNR will consider appropriate enforcement action.

(Radio Iowa) – Beef producers in Iowa and New York are in the midst of a burger battle. Kylie Peterson, spokeswoman for the Iowa Beef Industry Council, says carnivores in both states are being encouraged to log on and cast a ballot for their favorite burger. Peterson says, “This is just a fun way to put together two states that have a similar goal and that is to promote beef.” Over the past few months, Iowans got the chance to vote on their favorite burgers, as did New Yorker’s. The winners of the respective state contests are now going head-to-head, or bun-to-bun.

“We’re putting the two together in a little mini contest that’s for bragging rights only,” Peterson says. “There’s no prize or anything like that. It’s just a fun way to capitalize on our contests that we’ve already had.” The contest ends Monday night and Iowans can vote on the website I-A-beef-dot-org.

“The Flying Elbow in Marshalltown is featuring the Tombstone Burger which includes a blend of chuck brisket and short rib and it has also Wagyu beef that’s raised by a Marshalltown producer,” Peterson says. “And then the Ale ‘n Angus Pub burger is called the Holy Smokers Burger and it is an eight ounce certified Angus beef patty that’s topped with smoked beef brisket.”

This is the second year for the contest. New York challenged Iowa last year — and Iowa won. The winner will be announced on Tuesday.

(Radio Iowa) – Plans for a major expansion project at a beef processing plant in Tama County are now on hold indefinitely due to high construction costs. Iowa Premium had announced plans to replace its current beef processing facility in Tama with a bigger plant in 2021. In a filing with the state, the company announced that it planned to hire 400 additional workers by the end of 2024, bringing its total workforce to more than 1,200.

Company officials announced Thursday that the current facility will continue to function at normal capacity where nearly 800 people are presently employed. The company plans to further review the status of the expansion at a later time.

(Bridgewater, Iowa) – The hail storm that passed through Cass and area Counties Tuesday evening stripped trees of leaves and decimated an Adair County organic vegetable farm. Bridgewater Farm is the largest organic vegetable farm in Iowa. It has 25 acres of vegetables. Owner Dale Raasch reports almost all of his outdoor produce was lost during an approximately 10-minute burst of hail and heavy rain.

The hail, whipped by approximately 80 mph winds caused damage that was estimated at $150,000.  Raasch said he did not have insurance on the specialty farm. He estimates the losses from strawberries alone to be $32,000. On the Bridgewater Farms Facebook page, Dale Raasch said “We have received donated transplants to replant, some have offered to volunteer their time and energy and the amazing monetary donations that will help mitigate the losses of all the seed costs, labor and infrastructure, not to mention the potential profits lost. Thank you all for giving us hope.”

Lettuce

Beets

Garlic

In addition, a Go Fund Me page has been established, that (as of early Friday morning), had raised more than $88-hundred dollars. Replacement plants are on their way to the farm, and new seeding has begun. (Photos from the BF Facebook page show some of the many different vegetables that were lost to the storm)

(Radio Iowa) – One of the largest employers in Clinton is celebrating its 40th anniversary. Governor Kim Reynolds and other officials joined A-D-M leaders Wednesday to mark the anniversary of the company’s corn processing plant purchase from Nabisco. Plant Manager Eric Fasnacht says A-D-M has significantly expanded the plant in the four decades — and it currently processes 350 thousand bushels of corn a day from local farmers and elevators. That works out to between 400 and 500 truckloads a day.

“Separate the corn kernel into its fractions – we make different kinds of corn sweetener, dry starches, crystalline sugars, and feed components that go out to the animal food or feed industry,” he says. There are around one thousand employees in the plant every day from A-D-M and local contractors. The company also celebrated the opening of a new mill to process corn that cost 250 million dollars. And Fasnact says the company will continue to invest in Clinton.

“We’re looking at even another project that’ll be starting here in the fall with a Japanese company that we’re partnering with on another big project, so we’ll see some of that starting to happen later this year, ” Fasnact says. Hiring for that joint project has already started. He says a corn processing facility first opened in Clinton back in the early 1900’s, and Nabisco is believed to have purchased the plant in the 1950’s and run it until selling to A-D-M in 1982.

(Radio Iowa) – Iowa Agriculture Secretary Mike Naig says the state is getting closer to the end of the bird flu outbreak. There are just a few commercial poultry sites left to release from quarantine and then they can bring in new birds. He says that’s not the only step in recovery. “There’s the financial piece of this as well, which is a significant disrupter, and it’s a financial hardship for these producers. And so, in terms of financial recovery, that could take time,” Naig says. The process for lifting the quarantine involves cleaning and disinfecting the sites and then testing for the virus.

“It takes some time for these things to happen. And we anticipate that by the end of June, all of the quarantines will have been lifted,” Naig says. The U-S Ag Department pays producers for their bird losses and for cleaning and disinfecting their barns, but Naig says these payments don’t make producers whole. More than 13 million birds in Iowa have died from the disease or been killed to stop it from spreading. The state had its last case of bird flu in early May.

(Radio Iowa) – Just in time for the summer fishing season, the state Department of Natural Resources is adding more than two-thousand fish structure locations to the maps of lakes on its website. John Lorenzen, a fisheries research technician at the D-N-R, says it’s valuable information for anyone who’s on the hunt for fish. “These structures are habitat fishing structures that congregate fish and allow anglers to have a better success rate,” Lorenzen says. “The structures include things like brush piles, rock reefs, spawning beds, things of that nature.” D-N-R Fisheries staff and partners, like county conservation groups and fishing clubs, strategically place fish structures in Iowa lakes to attract fish for anglers.

In addition to the various underwater structures, another 215 lake contour maps have also been added to the website. “That information is also uploaded to our Online Fishing Atlas, which is an interactive satellite map,” Lorenzen says. “You can turn your location on on your phone and it shows where you are in relation to the lake and its features. So, those individual habitat fishing structures will be located on the map as well as our lake contours.” The information can be downloaded to the “fish finder” gadget on your boat, or just access it directly from your phone.

Lorenzen says, “So, if you don’t have a fish finder but you want to fish from shore or fish even in a boat using your smartphone, that information is also available to anybody who wants it.” The new maps can be found by Googling “Iowa fishing maps” or through the website: www.iowadnr.gov/Fishing/Fishing-Maps

(Radio Iowa) – Anyone who’s driven through Iowa’s farmland lately likely noticed the corn and soybean crops are beginning to sprout. Angie Rieck-Hinz, a field agronomist with the Iowa State University Extension in north-central Iowa, says so far, the crops are coming in strong. “We have a lot of corn that’s already at that V4 stage and I think the most advanced beans I’ve seen are V2 or V3,” Rieck-Hinz says. “So for those folks that planted earlier, we got some really nice looking crops out there. For folks who’ve planted in the last week or 10 days, we’ve got stuff just coming out of the ground.”

Recent rains flooded some central Iowa fields, and Rieck-Hinz says that’s not be the only weather challenge of late. “There has been some replanting in some of those areas that were hit by that Memorial Day storm because between the wind and the dust blowing, we just kind of lost some of those soybeans out there,” Rieck-Hinz says. “So there are some people that are replanting those fields or trying to go back in and thicken up those stands.”

The new U-S-D-A report shows 98-percent of Iowa’s corn crop is planted, three days ahead of the five-year average, while 94-percent of soybeans are in the ground, which is six days ahead of the average.