Pivotal Issues Blog

By Tyne Morgan On the cusp of suburbia, in the middle of fertile farmland, you can find Christy Kirtley cutting hay and raising cattle. “For us to put fence posts through black dirt, I think they thought we were going crazy to be honest with you,” she says. That didn’t stop them from striving to […]

By Paul Bergener Combines may be the most expensive of all the machines used on many farms, and are used for fewer days than much of the machinery inventory. There is an active custom harvest industry that offers farmers another option for getting the work done instead of combine ownership. This big decision needs to […]

By Farm Futures This year’s high grain prices make your bottom line even more sensitive to yield losses due to insects, disease or weeds. Yet, making that decision to treat can be difficult. Kevin Dhuyvetter and Doug Jardine of Kansas State University developed a spreadsheet to make your decision easier. It considers the cost of […]

By Gary Woodruff 1. Determine wet bin and dryer capacity correctly. Farmers often calculate how many bushels they harvest per hour, or the total number of bushels harvested per day divided by 24 hours. The drawback to that approach, Woodruff says, is that it’s difficult for a dryer to run consistently every day for 24 hours. […]

By Capital Press Klamath Community College’s Department of Agriculture Science and Business is designed for students pursuing a career in the agriculture industry. Program studies prepare students for career opportunities as Agriculture Loan Officer, Agriculture Teacher, Farm and Ranch Manager, Forest Management Specialist, Geologist, and Water Resource Manager. KCC offers students an Associate of Applied […]

Provided by DuPont™ Not Every Fungicide Can Pass This Test The best way to battle low commodity prices is to maximize yield. After choosing the right soybean variety for every field, a grower’s next step should be choosing a crop protection program to match, including a top-performing fungicide. “If you have a favorable environment to […]

By Russ Quinn When I was kid, my dad and uncle farmed a farm that was owned by one of my great-aunts. Everything else they farmed was in the typical rolling hills of eastern Nebraska, but this particular farm was in the bottoms of the nearby Elkhorn River valley. They farmed it for many decades […]

By Don Jenkins Idaho’s agriculture director, Celia Gould, told a House subcommittee Tuesday that distant federal agencies frequently foil Western states by issuing top-down orders, undermining carefully crafted homegrown policies. “This pattern has to change,” said Gould, chairwoman of the National Association of State Departments of Agriculture. Gould was one of several witnesses who testified […]

By Tim Hearden ORLAND, Calif. — Almond growers in California expect to produce a 2 billion pound crop this year, a nearly 6 percent increase from 2015, according to a government report. The National Agricultural Statistics Service cites a robust almond blossom in forecasting a yield of 2,220 pounds per acre, up 4.7 percent from […]

By Ching Lee Thanks to improved rainfall and recovering reservoirs, farmers in Northern California say they are back to planting a more-normal amount of rice this season, after water shortages forced them to reduce production the last two years. But the additional plantings come as the global rice market is struggling, with large supplies weighing […]