Pivotal Issues Blog

By: Amy Bickel Just behind the old barn on a Hesston, Kansas, farmstead sits a little white shed of the future. It houses the latest in agriculture technology—drones. Soon, the Midwestern landscape could be dotted with hundreds of these sheds, or drone base stations, ushering farmers into a time only previously envisioned in a Star Wars […]

By: Bill Spiegel Despite a lackluster farm economy, interest in cover crops and soil health continues to soar. In the western Corn Belt, some farmers who adopt cover crops as part of their crop rotation are seeing decreased herbicide costs, improvement in nutrient efficiency, and better cash crop yields. Plus, the cover crops add diversity to […]

By: Laurie Bedord Norman Borlaug once said, “Seeds are the engine of the Green Revolution, but fertilizers are the fuel.” Meeting the food demands of a growing population requires using new technology and intensifying production and management practices. Fertilizer is essential to accomplishing this. Plants need light, carbon dioxide, water, and essential nutrients, which can come […]

By: Meg Gaige Recruiting employees for your farm has never been tougher and it will get worse, says long-time headhunter Dan Simmons of Oceanview, Del. But if you can figure out how to bridge the generational divide, your business will thrive as we approach the 2020s. The generation in which you came of age frames […]

By: High Plains Journal KB Enterprise, Ponca City, Oklahoma, has a simple fix to sagging gates. Founded by a father and daughter team, GateHands fits on all standard-sized tubes gates (1 5/8 inches, 1 3/4 inches and 2 inches) in all configurations: Single Gate, Side by Side and Overlapping. Brad and Kelsey Wagner, co-owners, have […]

By: Rhonda Brooks It’s June, and while not officially summer according to the calendar, it sure feels like it with the heat and sunshine that’s poured down on our corn and soybean fields this week. The USDA Crop Progress report released on Tuesday showed that 92% of the total U.S. corn crop was planted. Now, […]

By: Sara Schafer As Top Producer Editor, the favorite part of my job is visiting farmers across the country. I love being able to see impressive operations up close and hear the pride in farmers’ voices as they tell me about their operations. Last week I traveled to central Illinois (Louisville, to be exact) to […]

By: Shawn Williamson Recently, a farmer and client of mine passed away. He was a successful farmer with several hundred acres, worth millions of dollars. The thing that struck me as unusual and important was the fact that the farm was only half of his wealth. The other half consisted of stocks, bonds, mutual funds, […]

By: Sonja Begemann While the west suffers through drought, farmers across parts of the Midwest deal with ponding, excess moisture and excess humidity. Whether you’re in droughty conditions or moist you need to scout for disease based on what environmental risks you have. “Watch for pythium, fusarium and even Rhizoctonia,” says Dean Grossnickle, Syngenta agronomic […]

By: Successful Farming Every farmer understands that applying pesticides on a windy day is a bad idea, but applying on a still day may be just as bad. Lack of wind can turn into a big problem in some circumstances. If you see a thin layer of fog in the calm, cool early morning hours, […]