Iowa is sending some turkeys to Washington, D-C. That’s not a commentary on the recent elections — it’s a big honor for the state’s turkey industry. Iowa Turkey Federation spokesperson, Hailey Grant, says a northwest Iowa farm will supply the turkeys for the annual ceremony where the president pardons the big birds before Thanksgiving. “We’re pretty excited. I think it’s a great honor for Iowa to get to raise these turkeys for the president,” Grant says.

She says the name of the farm and its owner are being kept secret until later this week for security reasons to keep animal rights groups and others from going to the farm. While a national election chooses the politicians who’re sent to White House, the selection of the presidential turkeys are picked by one person. “The chairman of the National Turkey Federation selects the state that will raise the presidential flock and this year Iowa was chosen,” Grant says. ” There’s ten or so states in the U-S that have a pretty large turkey industry — and so if you think once a year the turkey is chosen — that means that every eight to ten years Iowa we might be chosen, so that’s pretty exciting.”

The process is a little more complicated for the turkey producers than picking out a couple of birds and sending them out east. “What they usually do is they pull 20 or so from their normal size flocks and they have a special building built on the farm where those turkeys are raise — just the 20 of them — with people or noise, so they get acclimated with crowds,” Grant explains.

The turkeys that pass the test end up getting pardoned. She says they have a radio playing all the time to generate noise and they end up picking two birds out of the 20 that seem to handle being around people without being skittish are sent to be pardoned.

Grant says the honor is a big boost for the turkey industry after being hit so hard last year by the bird flu. She says Iowa’s industry has rebounded and is back to 100 percent production. Most of the turkeys raised in Iowa do not end up on the Thanksgiving table, they are used for meat in sandwiches in fast-food restaurants.

(Radio Iowa)

The recent spell of warm and sunny weather has allowed many farmers to either finish come very close to completing this year’s harvest. The latest U-S-D-A crop report shows 94 percent of the corn crop has been harvested — and for the first time this year the harvest is not behind the five-year average. Iowa Secretary of Agriculture Bill Northey talked about harvest. “It’s really coming along very good, we have some parts of Iowa that are done, and the tillage is done and fertilizer going on the ground,” Northey says.

He doesn’t expect it to take too much longer before all the combines have finished their work. “We do see a lot of progress, the forecast is good, the conditions are very good now, the corn is drying down and I would imagine within the next week or so there won’t be too many acres left in the field,” Northey says.

The numbers he’s hearing on the harvest are good for corn. “Average yield in Iowa across all acres expected to be199 bushels and acre,” Northey says. “And 59 bushels and acre for soybeans. Again that’s a record.” Northey, who farms near Spirit Lake says his harvest is completed after some weather setbacks.

“We had a little wet spell in the middle, so we had a little bit of mud in the middle. And I had a little too much rain in May when I planted some of the corn, so we had some stand issues. My corn crop wasn’t the best I’ve had — it was a little bit better last year than this years,” Northey says.

The Agriculture Secretary says he has some post-harvest work left to do before wrapping everything up for the years. While harvest is winding down in most of the state, southwest and south central Iowa still have more than 10 percent of the corn crop and almost 10 percent of the soybean crop remaining to be harvested.

(Radio Iowa)