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(Radio Iowa) – A county official in northeast Iowa says the announcement that the proposed Navigator pipeline project has been cancelled is great news, but Delaware County Supervisor Shirley Helmrichs says she’s talking with other board members about updating the county’s ordinance regulating how close for-profit pipelines may be built to homes and buildings. “I’m going to pull out all the ordinances I have from other counties and go through setbacks and we’re going to make them large enough setbacks. It’s not going to be like a 50 foot setback,” Helmrichs says. “…We’re going to look at putting things in place rather quickly.”
Navigator’s proposed pipeline would have stretched through about 25 miles of Delaware County. Helmrichs says the cancellation has relieved a lot of stress among affected landowners. “It was like a breath of fresh air and a load of a lot of the landowners their backs,” Helmrichs says. “…They were so fearful somebody was going to take their property and not be able to make it functional and the fear of what would happen with that being so close to their homes.”
Helmrichs says she intends to have serious conversations with local legislators and urge them to forbid private, for-profit companies from using eminent domain to acquire land from unwilling property owners.
(Radio Iowa) – The dry weather has created some yield loss in soybean and cornfields in north-central Iowa. I-S-U Extension Field Agronomist Angie Rieck-Hinz says some soybean pods were shattering in the fields before a combine would enter, or the pods shattered as the cutter bar of the combine hit them. The beans fall out of the shattered pods and can’t be harvested. “A lot of fields that are green with beans seed that fell on the ground and as germinated and some cornfields too and not a lot we can do when that crop dries down too fast,” she says. Rieck-Hines says the crops turned so quickly that it made it tough to respond.
“They kind of went from wet to dry like literally overnight,” she says.”Most people will tell you we went from green stems which was hard to combine, to dry pods and beans, and that made for some harvest losses.” She says many producers are making bales out of corn and soybean stover, but that can lead to a loss of important materials in the process. “Give some thought to how many nutrients in particular I’m talking about phosphorus and potassium were removed. How do we replace those nutrients with fertilizer or manure sources?,” Riek-Hinz says. “We can optimize our soil test levels for next year to optimize our crop production we sometimes forget we do remove a lot of potassium in corn stock bales, but we remove a lot more potassium if we’re bailing up soybean stubble.”
Rieck-Hinz says corn yields in her territory have been averaging 210-220 bushels an acre, soybeans have been averaging about 62 bushels an acre.
(Radio Iowa) – Iowa’s pheasant hunting season opens tomorrow morning and state officials say there could be 50- to 60-thousand hunters in the fields. Todd Bogenshutz, a biologist with the Iowa Department of Natural Resources says the state’s pheasant numbers appear to be rising. “Our roadside counts showed populations were a little bit higher than they were a year ago from a statewide perspective,” Bogenshutz says. “Looking at the crop reports this week, it looks like over 75% of the soybeans have been harvested and we’re going to be over 50% of the corn out, certainly by this coming weekend.”
Fields that are clear of crops mean less cover and better hunting. The forecast calls for cooler weather on opening day, with highs only in the 30s and 40s. Bogenshutz says lower temperatures may also mean better hunting. “A lot of times, our openers can be warm and that can be pretty hard on the hunters and dogs,” Bogenschutz says. “It’s basically the first time out for a lot of hunters and dogs, and so when we’re warm, 70s and 80s, usually that can cause some stress.” There are no significant changes in the hunting rules from last year, he says, and one of the most frequent questions he hears is about the wearing of blaze orange.
Pheasant hunters. (DNR photo)
“Our upland bird hunters are required to wear at least one article that’s at least 50% blaze orange, whether that’s a hat or a jacket or a vest. We just want everybody to be safe,” Bogenschutz says. “If you’re hunting with a group, and doing drive hunts or whatever, just have a game plan, know where everybody is, where safe shooting zones are.”
Non-toxic shot is required in some areas, including wetlands, and he says to always get permission before hunting on private property. The season runs through January 10th. Find more information at www.iowadnr.gov.
(Radio Iowa) – Opponents of proposed carbon pipelines in Iowa say the projects will be too much of a drain on Iowa’s water resources. Jan Norris of Red Oak is one of several people who read a joint statement during a public hearing this week. “As it turns out, Summit Carbon Solutions not only wants to take our land, they want our water,” Norris said.
The Iowa Department of Natural Resources has already granted Summit a permit to withdraw up to 55 million gallons of water each year from a new well near an ethanol plant in Chickasaw County. The agency is considering another application from Summit for the use of nearly 28 million gallons of water each year from a new well in Wright County, near an ethanol plant in Goldfield. Julie Glade’s farm is about 17 miles from Goldfield.
“We know these waters are life. They belong to all of us in Iowa,” Glade said. “…Please deny Summit’s Goldfield withdrawal request.” Representative Mark Thompson, a Republican, represents Wright, Humboldt and Hancock Counties in the Iowa House. “The water shortage is about as obvious as the nose on your face. We live near Belmond, near a lake. The lake has receded about 150 feet from the natural shoreline,” Thompson said. “…I also would encourage this permit to be denied.”
Proposed Summit Pipeline
The carbon capture process generates heat. Water is used to cool the carbon so it can be compressed, liquefied and shipped through a pipeline. Marjory Swan, a Wright County farmer, says Iowa’s water resources are not unlimited and shouldn’t be used for the project. “We are very well aware of the drought conditions Iowa and her neighbor states have been suffering through recently — 2.9 million residents of our state are currently living in areas of drought,” Swam says.
Others who testified at this week’s hearing asked state officials to consider how much water Summit would need for its entire project, not just for each of the ethanol plants that would connect to the pipeline.
Kathleen Hunt of Eldora owns land in Hardin County that’s along the proposed Summit route and she says Summit’s water use would be unprecedented. “It is incumbent upon the DNR to go about their work carefully and with scientified precision,” she said, “because the public wealth of Iowa is at stake.”
Summit has said it’s project is crucial to the survival of the ethanol industry as consumer demand for carbon-free fuel will grow. Three years ago the Iowa Department of Natural Resources rejected a different company’s plan to withdraw two BILLION gallons of water from a northeast Iowa aquifer every year and sell it to communities in the west that are running out of water.
(Radio Iowa) – The winner of this year’s World Food Prize is launching a program to reestablish vineyards and farmland in parts of Ukraine that were damaged in the war with Russia. Heidi Kühn is the founder of Roots of Peace. The U.S-based nonprofit works in war-torn nations to clear landmines and unexploded bombs, and to restore land to agriculture. Kühn says the risk of injury from unexploded ordinances can harm local economies and restrict food production for decades.
Kühn says, “As land mines are in there, it’s holding the land hostage from business opportunity.” The impacted area of Ukraine is estimated to cover 22 million acres, which is about the same amount of land devoted to corn and soybeans in Iowa. The area is considered critical to the global wheat supply. In Vietnam, the group is still clearing mines placed in the demilitarized zone 50-plus years ago. Kühn says in restored areas, farmers have planted more than one-million black pepper trees.
Heidi Kuhn. (Roots of Peace photo)
“This is fertile ground that feeds us,” she says, “so I think this is not a political call to action, this is a moral call to action.” Kühn will receive the award at a ceremony in the Iowa State Capitol tonight (Thursday). The World Food Prize is awarded each year in honor of Iowa native and Nobel Prize winner Norman Borlaug and his work reducing world hunger.
(by Grant Gerlock, Iowa Public Radio)
(Radio Iowa) – Dry conditions led to another busy week in the fields for farmers. The U-S-D-A crop report says the corn harvest increased by 20 percent in the last week, bringing the total to 62 percent of the corn now out of the fields. That is two days ahead of last year and one week ahead of the five-year average. Combines have now harvested 87 percent of the soybeans statewide, up from 74 percent the week before. That is one day ahead of the harvest rate from last year and ten days ahead of the five-year average.
(Atlantic, Iowa) – Atlantic FFA Reporter Lily Johnson says on October 5, 2023, 15 Atlantic FFA members attended the fall contest held at Northwest Missouri State University located in Maryville, Missouri. The members got the opportunity to compete in several different contests.
Livestock Judging
Left to Right: (1st row) Kaydence Sturm, Aly Dreager, Maddy Anderson, Addalyn Sonntag, Mckenna Sonntag, Jailynne Castillo, Jacquie Freund. (2nd row) Frank Freund, Keston Schmit, Addie Freund, Hayden Kleen, Lauren Comes, Dylan Dreager, Mia Kloewer, and Miraylie Stuart.
This year, the chapter had eleven members compete in the Livestock Evaluation contest, placing 9th out of 31 teams. The top 4 scores for Atlantic FFA came from McKenna Sonntag, Addie Freund, Lauren Comes and Hayden Kleen. In this contest, members had the opportunity to display their agricultural knowledge of various livestock breeds. Those who competed had to place breeding and market classes of beef, swine, and sheep, while also doing three classes of oral reasons.
In the Dairy Cattle Evaluation contest, Colton Rudy competed and individually placed 6th. The purpose of the District Dairy Cattle CDE is to enable students to develop skills in dairy animal selection and dairy herd management. They evaluated and ranked dairy animals based on visual factors of selection.
The last contest that FFA members competed in, was the Dairy Foods contest. The team was comprised of Lola Comes, Lily Johnson, and Natalie Smith. The trio got to try different types of cheese, find the defects in milk, look at milking equipment, and take a written exam. Together they placed as the top Iowa team.
Dairy Foods team
Lola Comes, Lily Johnson, Natalie smith
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