John R. Whitaker, State Executive Director for USDA’s Iowa Farm Service Agency (FSA) reminds producers that the annual crop certification deadline is June 30, 2012. Producers should file an accurate and timely report for all crops and land uses, including failed acreage and prevented planting. Acreage reports on crops covered by Noninsured Crop Disaster Assistance Program (NAP) should be filed in the county office the earlier of June 30, 2012 or no later than 15 calendar days before the onset of harvest or grazing of the specific crop acreage being reported. 

To report prevented or failed acreage, producers must complete Form CCC-576, Notice of Loss for interested crops. Reporting prevented or failed acreage to FSA will ensure compliance with current farm programs, and possible eligibility for future disaster programs.  Once a CCC-576 has been submitted, if cannot be withdrawn or revised. If a producer misses the reporting deadline for prevented planting, they may still report prevented planting acreage as long as the disaster condition may be verified by a field visit.

Producers may contact their local county FSA office if they have any questions about prevented and failed reporting or visit www.fsa.usda.gov/ia.

One of two plans chosen by the public for a recreational trail in Pottawattamie County will be unveiled during a special meeting Saturday morning, of the Pott County Board of Supervisors. According to the Omaha World-Herald, a committee of 55 members have been working on the plans, and have held meetings in four Pott. County communities to gather public input.

The paper says a majority of those who attended the meetings favored a trail which parallels Railroad Highway (Iowa Highway 191) on the eastern edge of Council Bluffs. The trail continues northward through Underwood and Neola, before turning east along Highway 83, and passing near Minden, Avoca and Walnut.

The system could eventually connect to the American Discoveries Trail, which is part of a coast-to-coast route across the country. The other plan which gained favor among the meeting attendees, hooks up with North Broadway in Council Bluffs, and meanders through Crescent and the Hitchcock Nature Center. It may eventually connect with the Lewis & Clark Trail.

Saturday’s route unveiling will take place beginning at 9-a.m., at Arrowhead park near Neola, following an event designed to raise funds for the Phoenix Theater, in Neola. Additional plans call for ways to find money for the project, and finding land for the trails. It will likely take a few years, before any major progress is made, however, on making the trails a reality.

A climatologist who studies drought conditions says a “bulls eye of dryness” is centered on the nation’s midsection. Mark Svoboda, of the National Drought Mitigation Center says part of the problem is the winds in Iowa are coming from the southwest — states like Arizona, New Mexico and Texas where it’s bone dry. “This is kind of what we call a drought feeding on itself and I think we have the potential to really escalate this drought in the summer if we don’t get the rainfall they’re calling for over the next five days,” Svoboda says. “So if there’s any silver lining in the cloud — or lack of clouds, if you will — this exact region — we need that heavy rainfall forecasted over the next five days for this very region, the bulls eye of this dryness, because right now it looks like July, early August out there.” Iowa, Missouri, Nebraska, Illinois and Indiana have had a signficant “dry down” according to Svoboda, because there was little snow fall in the winter and a relatively dry spring.

“But the temperatures have been the real story,” Svoboda says, “so when we look at temperature departures over the last, say, three months, we’re seeing temperatures eight to 10 degrees or more above normal across eastern Nebraska, Kansas, Missouri and Iowa.” The most severe Midwest drought in recent memory happened in 1988 and ’89. Normal rainfall for this time of year is about an inch per week, according to Svoboda, and it would require significant rainfall this weekend to erase the moisture deficit in much of the Midwest.

“This rain this weekend, this next couple of days, is pretty darned critical to sort of tell us how we’re sitting in late June, early July,” Svoboda says. “…We have no soil moisture down to three feet virtually everywhere. When people are talking about digging posts and doing work out in their yards — and I’ve seen this myself personally, too — I’m mean, there’s virtually nothing down to three or four feet.” The National Drought Mitigation Center is based at the University of Nebraska in Lincoln. The latest forecast for the state of Iowa suggests there will be “chances for showers and thunderstorms throughout the next several days.”

(Radio Iowa)

The Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the Heartland Cooperative Wednesday, announced he will be retiring at the end of this year. Larry Petersen informed the Co-Op Board of his decision earlier this week. Petersen has spent the last 31-years with the Heartland combined companies, and his served in the agricultural-related industries for more than 42-years. He became the General Manager of the Panora Farmers Cooperative in 1981, and is the first and only CEO of the Heartland Co-Op since its inception in 1987.

During his tenure, Heartland has grown to become one of the largest local cooperatives in the nation, according to Board President Art Churchill.  Churchill says the Heartland Board of Directors has begun the process to secure a replacement for Petersen, and they fully expect to have a new CEO in-place before Petersen’s departure on December 31st.

The Heartland Co-Op has corporate offices located in West Des Moines, and consists of a total of 51 locations in Central and Eastern Iowa. The organizations serves more than 4,500 members with operations in grain handling and marketing, fertilizer and application, Ag chemicals and application, livestock feed and processing, agricultural products, and propane.

w/ Denny Hefflin

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DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) – Iowa should see an increase in its pheasant population this year, thanks to the mild winter and warm spring.  The Iowa Department of Natural Resources says its nesting forecast predicts the population will increase by more than 40 percent. Wildlife biologist Todd Bogenschutz says it would be the first statewide increase in more than six years.  He says the pheasants will be able to expand and reoccupy grassland habitats where they’ve been depleted by five severe winters.  Bogenschutz says a roadside survey in August is the best gauge of the pheasant population. He says during the past 50 years there have been weather conditions similar to this year about six times, and the average increase in pheasant populations during those years was 42 percent.

The Iowa Department of Natural Resources Green Veterans AmeriCorps members will be leading volunteers in waste audits at Iowa’s state parks this summer. Volunteers are needed to assist with separating, weighing, documenting, and bagging recyclables for processing. The information collected will be used to determine the feasibility of onsite recycling in state parks.

Waste audits are planned locally, for Lake Manawa State Park, June 18th, from 9 a.m. – Noon, and at Lake Anita State Park, July 2nd, from 8:30 a.m. – Noon. Volunteers should wear clothing suitable for sorting waste and close-toed, comfortable shoes. Other safety equipment and instructions will be provided onsite. For more information or to pre-register contact Kaitlyn Vitko at Kaitlyn.Vitko@dnr.iowa.gov or 515-725-0153. Volunteers will meet at park campgrounds.

Waste audits are being performed at several state parks may help identify additional sustainability-related opportunities. Waste sorts are sponsored through partnerships with the DNR Land Quality Bureau, DNR Iowa Green Veterans AmeriCorps program, and Iowa Waste Exchange. For more information on the state park recycling study, contact Tom Anderson at 515-281-8623 or tom.anderson@dnr.iowa.gov.