CLICK HERE for the latest market quotes from the Iowa Agribusiness Network!
CLICK HERE for the latest market quotes from the Brownfield Ag News Network!
CLICK HERE for the latest market quotes from the Iowa Agribusiness Network!
CLICK HERE for the latest market quotes from the Brownfield Ag News Network!
(Ames, Iowa) – The latest Iowa Drought Monitor map was released this (Thursday) morning. It shows continued improvement in the drought conditions, statewide. Locally, much of Montgomery, Cass and Adair Counties remain “Abnormally Dry,” while nearly two-thirds of Madison County is Abnormally Dry. Across Interstate 80, most of Audubon County is experiencing the same conditions, while small parts of Guthrie and Dallas Counties range from Abnormally Dry to mostly Moderately Dry.
Severe Drought conditions continue to affect parts or all of 10 counties in central/north central Iowa. Across the Midwest, much of the southern and central portions of the Midwest received heavy precipitation, with a band of 2 to locally 4 inches measured from Iowa and northeast Missouri to southern Michigan and northwest Ohio. Areas to the south and north had 0.5 to 2.0 inches, except for a dry spot in southeast Minnesota to central Wisconsin and a dry swath in central Missouri. The northern half of Minnesota received no precipitation.
(Radio Iowa) – Thanksgiving is four weeks away, after which many Iowans start decorating for the holidays, but finding the perfect Christmas tree could be a challenge this year with a developing tree shortage. David Pierce, past-president of the Iowa Christmas Tree Association, says some tree farms may be having trouble this season due to the long-running drought. “We’re a little low. We had strong demand last year due to other events like the weather, a little bit of deer damage,” Pierce says. “Our supplies are a little bit tighter this year than we would like but we’ve been here before.”
Pierce runs Honey Creek Timbers in southeast Iowa, near Morning Sun, and has a few thousand white pines and Scotch pines on his acreage. Last year’s derecho destroyed untold thousands of native hardwoods and shade trees statewide, but the powerful wind storm didn’t cause much trouble for evergreens. The heat and the dry weather, though, that can be a problem. “The shortage that you’re probably seeing the most is on the fraser fir. That appears to me to be the most dramatic,” Pierce says. “Some of our growers in the northern part of the state, where it’s a little bit cooler, grow those. We’re not able to because it’s a little hot here in the summer.”
A Blue Spruce Christmas Tree (Photo from ISU Extension)
Many clients seek out the fraser firs and Pierce says he’ll truck them in from out of state, if they can’t be sourced nearby. Perhaps a worse threat to the industry than drought is the march of time, as growers with decades of experience in the business are retiring. “We’ve seen a steady decline in those. It would probably mirror what’s happening with other older-generation farmers,” Pierce says. “But this year, we’ve seen a nice influx of new members, people who have decided they’d like to try to plant some trees, so we’re encouraged by that.”
It can take seven to eight years, he says, to grow an eight-foot-tall pine tree from a sapling. The association says eight types of Christmas trees grow well in Iowa: Scotch pine, white pine, Fraser fir, blue spruce, Douglas fir, concolor fir, balsam fir and Canaan fir. To find a grower near you, visit https://www.iowachristmastrees.com and click the “Find a Farm” button.
(Atlantic, Iowa) – Cass County Naturalist Lora Kanning reports the Conservation Department’s final, “Building Better Birders” program will be in the form of a two day workshop format. You’re invited to join Kelly McKay from ‘Building Better Birders,’ as he shares about Sparrow, and Waterfowl Bird Identification. The event takes place November 19th, at Outdoor Educational Classroom near Massena.
It will start with Waterfowl ID at 5pm (you can bring your dinner with you), and includes an Owl Prowl, starting at 7-p.m. Friday, Nov. 19th. Kanning says participants will hike and try to call in various species of Owls that may be in the park that night. Saturday, November 20th at 8am, is at the Outdoor Educational Classroom near Massena, and features a Sparrow ID, with a birding hike to follow at 10-a.m.
At 11-a.m. that day, Iowa Bluebird Conservationists will do a presentation on bluebird basics and their efforts. There will be a break for a catered lunch for $10, in support of our Friends of the Outdoor Classroom. At 1pm the final program on a Christmas Bird Count Marathon will conclude the workshop. Funding for the program is provided by the Resource Enhancement and Protection – Conservation Education Program (REAP – CEP). The workshop will be conducted by Kelly McKay (BioEco Research and Monitoring Center), with assistance from Mark Roberts (Clinton County Conservation) and Brian Ritter (Nahant Marsh Education Center).
Pre-Register by November 15th . Call 769-2372 or email to sign up lkanning@casscoia.us Take Hwy 148 south of Massena, Turn Left on Tucson Rd, Follow it East for about two miles, and then a right hand turn into the parking lot. Kanning says you’re welcome to attend one or all of the programs, but they are asking for your preregistration for Saturday, Nov. 20th, so they know how many to expect for Lunch. She says “We look forward to seeing everyone for the final weekend.”
(Radio Iowa) – A Cedar Rapids ethanol plant will be part of a new effort to create environmentally friendly jet fuel. Archer Daniels Midland announced it has signed an agreement with a biofuel company to produce jet fuel at its dry mills in Cedar Rapids, Columbus, Nebraska, and Decatur, Illinois. The company in an announcement Monday says it would use 900 million gallons of ethanol — or about half of its production capacity at the plants — to produce 500 million gallons of sustainable aviation fuel (SAF).
The company says the agreement is part of its plan to produce low carbon-footprint hydrocarbon fuels. Production is expected to begin between 2025 and 2026.
(Radio Iowa) – The State Ag Secretary says Iowa’s soybean harvest could be wrapping up very soon. The Ag Secretary’s comments come as the latest U-S-D-A crop report shows the bean harvest hit 83 percent complete by Sunday. That is up from 60 percent complete last week and six days ahead of the five-year average. The report says the southern one-third of the state lags behind in the bean harvest.
Lots of progress was made on the corn side last week as the completion rate hit 60 percent — up from 43 percent the prior week. That’s one week ahead of the five-year average. Growers in the northeast and south-central regions still have more than half of their corn remaining to be harvested.
(Atlantic, Iowa) – Atlantic Parks and Recreation Department Director Bryant Rasmussen, Monday (Today), said it was the intention of the Parks and Recreation Departmentto keep the bathrooms at the various city parks open as long as possible, but “with the current string of vandalism to our facilities and projected colder temperatures on the horizon we are beginning to winterize all of our bathrooms.” Rasmussen said “By the end of the week all restrooms in Sunnyside, City Park, and the bathhouse at Schildberg will be closed for the season.”
(Radio Iowa) – Researchers have found the toxic substances known as “forever chemicals” in some of Iowa’s remote streams, suggesting the contaminants are spreading far beyond sites typically known to use them. The class of chemicals called PFAS have been used in household and industrial products for decades and are linked to a slate of health issues. Researchers at the U.S. Geological Survey and the University of Iowa detected PFAS in one-third of the Iowa streams they tested. The U-I’s Dave Cwiertny worked on the study. “I think it indicates that there are likely sources that we’re not probably thinking about correctly,” Cwiertny says. “That there are ways these things can reach parts of the environment that don’t necessarily, aren’t tied to the ones you read about in the news like an airport or a military base.”
Cwiertny says he’s especially worried about Iowans who rely on private wells, which are much more vulnerable to contamination. He says the findings also raise concerns for people who eat fish from the state’s streams. Dana Kolpin, with the U-S-G-S, says finding PFAS, even at low levels, is concerning because they bioaccumulate and don’t break down. “It may not mean something today, but if you keep ingesting it and keep building it up, it may mean something to you five years from now, 30 years from now. That’s the question mark, we don’t know,” Kolpin says. “So if a compound bioaccumulates, at least to me means we should be concerned enough at least to start looking at it.”
The highest levels the researchers found were downstream from a wastewater treatment plant, which they say is valuable data for state regulators.
(reporting by Kate Payne, Iowa Public Radio)
Facebook
Twitter
YouTube
RSS