Autumn Ag 2016

Wednesday, August 31, 2016

A garden Seed prices that keeps could stay on giving, P. 2 low, P. 5

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A spark for water quality, P. 10 WEDNESDAY, APRIL 13, 2016

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A garden that keeps on giving 11-year-old sells own produce, donates some funds to Institute

By Ashley Harrington newsroom@austindailyherald.com

ST. ANSGAR, Iowa — Even though he’s just 11, Alex Lenz’s garden has grown into a business and is even raising money for a good cause.

Alex, who lives in St. Ansgar, Iowa, has sold and grown his own produce from his large garden, and he’s donating 10 percent of his proceeds from this year to The Hormel Institute.

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“I chose The Hormel Institute because I wanted to donate my money to cancer because a lot of people have it, as well as one of my mom’s friends,” Alex said.

Alex’s mom, LeAnne, remembers her son having an interest in business even as a young boy.

“When he was really young he said he wanted to own his own McDonald’s, Wal-Mart, maybe even Target,” LeAnne said.

After exposing Alex to different hobbies, it was apparent that gardening was the fit for him.

“I tried different sports and didn’t like them so then my dad suggested a small garden,” Alex said.

“When I tried gardening, I liked it,” Alex added.

At just eight years old, Alex decided to share his products through a new business called Alex’s Produce.

From pumpkins to tomatoes, Alex had a whole collection of fresh colorful produce.

“I spend one to three hours in my garden a day depending on what is growing or what work needs to be done,” Alex said.

“It goes on the stand first and if it doesn’t sell, we get to eat it,” Le-

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Anne added.

As Alex grew up, so did his business. Investing and saving the money he made.

As his business began to see success, he bought a garden tractor with his own money to assist him in the garden.

“I bought my garden tractor this spring, sometime in April,” Alex said.

“My first set of keys,” he added.

Now at 11, Alex’s parents influenced him to involve himself even more and to donate some of his earnings to a charity.

Alex’s parents had a simple message for him: “You pick whatever you want, but do your research,” LeAnne said.

This year, Alex has been donating 10 percent of his proceeds to The Hormel Institute. This is the first year Alex has donated to The Hormel Institute and hopes to continue doing so.

“The Hormel Institute has a whole bunch of scientists from around the world who are working to find a cure,” he added.

Alex’s Produce stand can be found at 4701 Kirkwood Ave. in St. Ansgar, Alex Lenz of St. Ansgar, Iowa, has a business growing and selling his own produce and is donating 10 percent of his proceeds from this summer to The Hormel Institute. Photo provided Iowa.

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SWCD unveils soil simulator Team showcases benefits of cover crops for reducing erosion Austin Daily Herald

newsroom@austindailyherald.com

Mower County and southeast Minnesota have a new tool to show how different far ming practices affect soil erosion and the way rainfall infiltrates the land.

Area soil-health specialists now have a rainfall simulator that can be transported around the state. Acquired earlier this year for demonstrating soilhealth properties, the simulator was made possible by the Minnesota Board of Water & Soil Resources (BWSR) and the Legislative-Citizen Commission on Minnesota Resources (LCCMR).

In August, the Mower Soil & Water Conservation District hosted a demo with the rainfall simulator at the Mower County Fair, with its resource specialist Steve Lawler leading the event with Dean Thomas of the Fillmore SWCD. Lawler and Thomas also work with ag producer-led Mower-Fillmore Soil

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The Mower Soil & Water Conservation District hosted a demo with the rainfall simulator at the Mower County Fair. Photo provided Health Team formed in 2015.

The simulator has been used throughout this year at various soil-health events and field days. Most recently, Lawler and Thomas conducted a rainfall simulation Aug. 23 for U.S. Rep. Tim Walz at a Minnesota Land Trust event on a farm near La Crescent to show the effect of agronomic practices on soil

samples taken from Mower County farm land.

Using soil samples collected from different land uses, the device works by sprinkling water on trays filled with undisturbed soil, simulating a rainfall event.

Soil in each tray represents a particular cropping method or land use, such as no-till cropping, conventional tillage, cover

cropping, urban lawn, and managed or unmanaged pasture.

Glass bottles under each tray collect water that runs off and/ or infiltrates the soil. Results are determined by examining each bottle’s volume of water and sediment levels. Soils that inherently resist the forces of erosion will have less water runoff and more water infiltration.

Soils with compaction and/or poor physical/biological properties will yield high volumes of runoff water and sediment with little infiltrative water.

The bottle results are influenced by a variety of soil health attributes. Soils under land-use practices that promote low soil disturbance, high biological diversity and net carbon accumulations generally will have less runoff and sediment loss.

Soils under practices involving tillage, monocultures and/ or compacting activities that thwart natural, structural development and biological diversity typically will have less infiltration and greater volumes of runoff and sediment loss.

Results from analyzing the bottles also can give a picture of how soil-health attributes can influence watershed hydrology, erosion and sedimentation. Soils in watersheds that have good infiltrative properties might reduce stormwater volume and/or velocities.

Soils that resist erosion might help to reduce total suspended solids and nutrient concentrations in surface water. Soils that maintain good structural integrity might be more resistant to the effects of extreme weather events.

AUSTIN DAILY HERALD - AUTUMN AG

Seed prices likely to remain low

By Sam Wilmes

sam.wilmes@albertleatribune.com

ALBERT LEA — A local seed expert said crop and seed prices will likely remain low for the next few months, creating a negative effect on the local economy.

Mac Ehrhardt, owner and manager at Albert Lea Seed House, said high yields are the likely cause of the low prices.

Ehrhardt said low prices negatively affect the local economy as farmers look to cut costs and purchase fewer trucks, tractors, feed and other items.

He said seed prices have also dropped as farmers have prioritized cutting input costs.

A tug of war has ensued between large seed companies such as Monsanto and Dupont, Ehrhardt said, who noted that both companies invest hundreds of millions of dollars each year in seed development.

He said prices could dip even further before rising, adding that low prices have affected the business.

Albert Lea Seed House owner and manager Mac Ehrhardt oversees a company that specializ“We need our customers to do well for us es in providing products to help local farmers. Sam Wilmes/Albert Lea Tribune

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to do well,” he said.

Corn and soybean yields will likely remain strong this year, Ehrhardt said, who expressed his belief that most local farmers have maintained good capital from strong recent growing years and should remain financially strong, despite the low prices.

He said there is an increased demand for seed that does not have genetically modified organism traits to cut input costs because of the low crop and seed prices.

Ehrhardt, who has worked at Albert Lea Seed House for 25 years, said Albert Lea Seed House’s main goal is to help farmers make money, and added that the business functions year-round.

Albert Lea Seed House sells a variety of products, including seeds, oats, wheat, barley, wheat, alfalfa and other products.

Mac Ehrhardt owns the business with his brother, Tom Ehrhardt. They are grandsons of Albert Lea Seed House Founder Lou Ehrhardt, who founded the company in 1923.

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Crop art is made from Minnesota-grown seeds, stems and other plant parts on supporting backgrounds with or without the use of paints and dyes. This competition is housed in the Agriculture Horticulture Building on the Minnesota State Fair grounds. Photo provided

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Prince trumps Donald as Minnesota State Fair crop art king

By Richard Chin St. Paul Pioneer Press

When it comes to crop art at the Minnesota State Fair, the race wasn’t between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump. It was between Trump and Prince.

And the winner was Prince.

Much like Marshmallow Peeps diorama contests, the crop art competition displayed at the Fair’s Agriculture-Horticulture building is often driven by pop culture, with seedy tributes to recent celebrity deaths or inspired by people in the news.

This year, the recently late and longtime great rock star Prince took the title as the favorite subject for crop artists, with works ranging from a mashup between Prince and the logo from the “Hamilton” musical, a Prince glyph turned into a seed necklace and a seed art version of the album cover art of Prince’s “HITnRUN Phase One.” But coming in a close second was Republican presidential candidate Trump, who was the inspiration for a crop art depiction of the cartoon character Richie Rich spouting quotes like, “I’m yuge,” and “I don’t like losers.”

There was also a Trumpian chicken

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declaring that, “The sky is falling!” and Trump as a Pokémon Go character called “Evil Trumpachu.”

But even if you count the crop-art depiction of Ronald Reagan in heaven saying, “I said tear down the wall,” the Prince-inspired seed art entries outnumbered the Trump references seven to five.

Prince’s image also could be seen at the Fair’s Creative Activities building, woven into ribbon-winning rugs.

Despite making history as the first woman presidential nominee of a major party, we didn’t see any crop art versions of Hillary Clinton. But there was one that featured a quote from President Jimmy Carter, and another depicted Trump critic Khizr Khan waving a copy of the U.S. Constitution.

And poor David Bowie. He’s another pop-music icon who died in the past year, but he didn’t rate a crop art portrait at the State Fair. But there was a version of Abe Vigoda, the longtime character actor who died in January.

Nick Rindo said he’s not surprised that Prince inspired so many crop artists, even though it can be hard to find purple seeds among the crops grown in Minnesota.

“Prince is a natural fit. It just makes

sense. There’s nothing more Minnesota than Prince,” Rindo said.

After methodically sorting purple corn kernels by hue, Rindo did a version of “Purple Rain” Prince emerging from a purple lotus flower.

“I tried to make the whole thing out of purple seeds, which proved to be very difficult,” he said.

Former Pioneer Press artist David Steinlicht, who did the Prince album cover in crop art, said that if you were really serious about getting a crop art blue ribbon, you’d probably avoid what other people are doing and try to come up with something different or unusual.

“In the past, I’ve worried about what other people would do,” said Steinlicht, who now lives in Canada. But he said crop art takes so long to create, “you want to do something that appeals to you to put in that much effort.”

“That illustration kind of spoke to me,” he said of the Prince album cover image that Steinlicht re-created in seeds.

As far as why Trump attracted so many entries. Well, there’s the hair.

“I use corn husks as hair,” said Laura Melnick, a longtime crop artist from St. Paul, who did the Trump as Richie Rich

entry. “You can draw your own conclusions on whether it works.”

“Trump is just so out there and so obvious. He’s given us so much to work with,” said Teresa Anderson, a crop artist from St. Paul who did Ronald Reagan commenting on Trump.

Anderson said she once saw a crop art entry that depicted Democratic Minnesota Sen. Al Franken as the Joker.

But in general, when crop artists get political, they tend to be left-leaning, say many of the competitors.

Crop art competitor Cathy Camper said that’s been the trend as a new generation of younger crop artists started getting interested in the medium. Over the years, Camper has done crop art portraits of Malcolm X, Haile Selassie and Frida Kahlo.

“Where else can you have your artwork viewed by thousands of people?” she said.

“We get a lot of grief from right-wing blogs,” Anderson said.

“I wouldn’t mind seeing Republican crop art,” Melnick said. But “Republicans don’t do it.”

—Distributed by Tribune Content Agency.

WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 31, 2016

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4-H skills, traditions remain a Minnesota State Fair mainstay

By Liz Sawyer

Minneapolis Star Tribune

Long before sunrise Wednesday, a parade of trailers snaked through the Minnesota State Fairgrounds to deliver another year’s worth of blue-ribbon-hopeful livestock to their barns.

With less than 24 hours until gates open to the public, time was ebbing. Drowsy teens pushed full steam ahead to prepare the animals they’ve raised since birth for their biggest arena yet.

Dawn was barely breaking as Emma Severns, 18, of Good Thunder in southern Minnesota, closed the gate on her prized hog, Maya.

She spent the mor ning laying down bedding and making sure the crossbred gilt was comfortable ahead of Friday’s judging.

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“It’s exciting to be competing on this level,” said Severns, who lives on a hobby farm and began showing poultry in second grade through her local 4-H Club. “You can really represent yourself through your animal.”

Fair stalwart 4-H has a long history of promoting the state’s agricultural practices while educating city slickers on where their food comes from. Around 5,600 4-H kids from sixth grade through college freshmen will travel from the farthest corners of the state to the fair, having earned the spot from their performance at smaller county competitions, to exhibit livestock and showcase fine arts projects.

AgStar Arena is home to horse, cattle, llama, goat and sheep competitions among 4-H, FFA and openclass exhibitors.

Photo provided

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Most 4-H teens enroll as tots and become immersed in agricultural science projects that build social leadership skills and a sense of responsibility, supporters say. Participants are often a product of multigenerational farmfamilies who develop a love of the land while caring for creatures in their own backyards.

Fairgoers turn to 4-H youngsters to explain how dairy and beef products are produced, why animals bellow and what types produce what foodstuffs — along with any other animal trivia thrown their way. Rarely do the young experts find themselves stumped.

“There’s no question that 4-H is an integral part of almost every county fair in the state,” said Brad Rugg, superintendent of State Fair 4-H programs. “If there wasn’t 4-H there, they’d quickly start to see a deterioration of their attendance and activities.”

While there are certainly many attractions for fairgoers to choose from, 4-H exhibits remain one of the most popular educational attractions.

A lifestyle choice

T h e Ro b i n s o n f a m i ly f a r m , 1 6 0 acres nestled near West Concord, Minn., in Dodge County, has produced

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“It’s a lifestyle, not just a hobby. We work with animals seven days a week.”

— Emily Brual livestock shown by five generations of 4-Hers.

Sherrie Robinson, 75, raised eight children on the land, which was passed down from her husband’s great-grandfather. Fiercely competitive, Robinson began showing Guernsey cows as a girl and later taught her sons to train cattle.

Her daughters submitted indoor crafts and grew potatoes.

The activities became family staples, eventually drawing in 13 grandchildren and a great-grandchild. All of them competed in various categories at this spring’s county fair, which Robinson has attended every year since 1970.

When five of her grandchildren vie for ribbons this weekend, she’ ll be watching in the Coliseum — as she always does — offering support and dirty looks for judges with whom she disagrees. “For kids, this is their fun. It’s their moment,” she said. “I just love to watch their growth.”

‘Not just a hobby’

Emily Brual, Robinson’s 18-year-old granddaughter, groomed her black heifer, Alice, Wednesday morning after it arrived in a trailer full of 10 cattle.

She soaped her hide, then blow-dried it.

“It’s a lifestyle, not just a hobby,” Brual said of 4-H. “We work with animals seven days a week.”

Part of that lifestyle means giving up the typical social life of a teenager, missing out on activities with friends to tend to your livestock.

Even during the fair, which many 4-H families consider a vacation, kids rarely make the time to test the Mighty Midway rides or scarf down a Pronto Pup. A rigorous show schedule requires many students to rise around 5 a.m. to walk, wash and feed their animals before fairgoers arrive.

Last year, during the height of the avian bird flu, live poultry was banned, scrambling the plans of nearly 250 4-H

teens who had prepared for months.

That made State Fair organizers think outside the box, allowing young contenders to demonstrate showmanship based on photos and stuffed animals and encouraging others to switch to new species entirely.

This year, birds are back, but so is a new category, “Science of Animals,” a research project dedicated to deeper learning on a particular species where no live animal is needed.

Severns, who trained a hog this year, switched from poultry to a goat last year so she could compete with a live animal.

“It was a little heartbreaking,” she said. “[But] it opened up a lot of doors for me and got me out of my comfort zone.”

Parents of 4-H kids often praise the dedication it takes to make it to the State Fair, where only 35 percent of entries will receive the coveted blue ribbon.

Even fewer will nab the greater honor of a purple ribbon.

“At the end of the day, win or lose, it’s all about learning how to grow up, be an adult and make lifelong friends,” said Brual’s father, Michael.

—Distributed by Tribune Content Agency.

WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 31, 2016

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A spark for water quality As part of an ongoing project to improve water quality, University of Minnesota students conducted an electrofishing survey on Aug. 23 on several stretches of the north branch of Dobbins Creek in the Brownsdale area. The work is one aspect of a nearly $2.1 million project launched in 2014 by the Cedar River Watershed District to restore the water quality of Dobbins Creek, which feeds Austin’s East Side Lake before joining the Cedar River. Various types of small fish were found during the study, including creek chub, white sucker, common shiner, southern red belly dace, blacknosed bass, bluntnose minnow, green side darter, big mouth shiner and fan tail darter. Photos provided See a video by the group at www.facebook.com/CedarRiverWD/?fref=ts

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Governor’s order seeks to make state more bee-friendly Associated Press

MINNEAPOLIS — Gov. Mark Dayton sought Friday to extend a little Minnesota nice to the state’s declining honeybee population by issuing an executive order limiting certain pesticides that harm them, a step advocates said positions the state as a leader in protecting pollinating insects critical to the nation’s food supply.

In making the announcement at the Minnesota State Fair, the Democratic gover nor stressed the importance of pollinators to the state’s $90 billion agriculture sector.

The class of insecticides known as neonicotinoids, or “neonics,” is one of several factors that have been blamed for falling pollinator populations, along with parasites such as mites, diseases and poor nutrition. About one-third of the human diet comes from plants pollinated by insects, and honeybees do about 80 percent of that work.

“We want to work cooperatively with user groups,” Dayton said at a news conference. “We’re not trying to ban anybody’s practices or businesses, but there’s a lot more we can do, all of us, more sensibly, with better awareness, to protect the pollinators.”

Dayton’s order directs the Minnesota Department of Agriculture to require verification that any application of neonicotinoid pesticides is necessary due to imminent threats of significant crop losses. It also creates a task force to study issues impacting pollinators and to recommend long-term solutions. State government will set up an interagency team on pollinator protection.

The governor also ordered state agencies to lead by example on the 8 million acres of land they manage statewide.

Those steps will include turning highway rights-of-way into better habitat, with more of the kinds of plants pollinators crave. Neonicotinoid-treated plants and pesticides will be prohibited in the 40-acre State Capitol complex, and pollinator-friendly plants will be included in

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A hive’s queen is shown crawling on the edge of rack. A story on Ben Klankowski’s beekeeping appears in the September-October issue of Austin Living. Pick up a copy at the Herald, 310 Second St. NE. Photo by Eric Johnson/Austin Living

the Capitol’s landscaping plan.

The order incorporates most of the recommendations from a special review that the state agriculture department conducted of neonicotinoids. But some of Dayton’s proposals require legislative approval, including giving the state authority to regulate neonicotinoid-treated seeds. Agriculture Commissioner Dave Frederickson said about 80 percent of seeds planted today are treated with the insecticides.

University of Minnesota bee expert Marla Spivak said the governor’s order “puts Minnesota miles ahead of all the other states in our nation. ... Some may think that these actions go too far, but I honestly don’t know a farmer, a nursery operator, a grower, a pesticide applicator that wants to kill a bee or monarch while they’re controlling their crop pests.”

The Pesticide Action Network welcomed the moves toward using neonicotinoids as a last resort and the steps toward regulating pesticide-coated seeds.

Organizer Lex Horan said in a statement that it ensures “bee-harming pesticides won’t be used unnecessarily.”

Bayer Crop Science, the top manufacturer of neonicotinoid pesticides, said it supports state efforts to protect pollinator health. Spokesman Jeff Donald pointed to a line in the state’s review that said, “When properly applied, the risks associated with neonicotinoid use in general — and seed treatments in particular — can be offset by their benefits.”

Kevin Paap, president of the Minnesota Farm Bureau, said every farm can find a place for pollinator-friendly plants such as milkweed and flowers, but farmers still need the flexibility to use modern technology.

Neonicotinoid insecticides are “very important,” to agriculture he said. Biotechnology now builds insect resistance into corn and other crops, sharply reducing the need for pesticides, but it doesn’t eliminate the need, he said.

“We certainly can have a balance with the pollinators and neonics and make that work,” Paap said.

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Corn mazes, hayrides and Oktoberfests kick state’s fall tourism into high gear

By Jennifer Brooks Minneapolis Star Tribune

Corn maze season is coming, the one time of year when you can tell people to get lost without sounding rude.

Minnesotans pack the short, sweet autumn season with festivals, carnivals, Oktoberfests, hayrides and, of course, corn mazes.

Cornfields are being carved into fantastical shapes in every corner of the state.

“Fall is just an incredible time to explore Minnesota,” said John Edman, who heads the state tourism council Explore Minnesota. “The corn maze reflects a part of our culture. It celebrates the end of a great growing season.”

The farther you drive to a corn maze, the greater your reward.

In Pipestone County, the Spronk family carved one of their fields into the shape of Minnesota, complete with its counties.

When the Rock River Pumpkin Festival kicks off in Edgerton on Oct. 1, visitors can crisscross the state from Rock County to Cook and from Kittson to Houston counties and back.

It might seem too soon to be talking about pumpkins and cider and autumn leaves while the swimming pools are still open and ice cream trucks are still circling the block. But the state’s tourism officials know it’s never too early to start planning for fall.

Explore Minnesota keeps a running tally of the biggest and most baffling corn mazes in the state. The list runs from the Vikings-themed maze of the Twin Cities Harvest festival to the massive labyrinth in Shakopee celebrating the 20th anniversary of Sever’s Fall Festival to the 3 miles of pathways that will wind through the pirate-themed corn at Tweite’s Family Farm in Byron.

Most of the mazes will open in mid-September through early October. Up North in

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Warroad, where summers are even shorter, the County Corn Maze opened Aug. 19.

Visitors who make the road trip will be rewarded with a corn maze designed to look like a road trip, complete with vehicles, roads and roadside attractions crafted out of rows of corn.

The scenery along the way will be getting more colorful. Right now, the Department of Natural Resources’ fall color finder — dnr.state.mn.us/fall_colors — is solid green. But by mid-September, the trees in northern Minnesota will be hitting peak fall colors, and the scarlets, yellows and oranges will be brightening trees to the south.

Explore Minnesota has mapped out fall color driving tours it dubbed “Rainbow Routes.” Leaf peepers can cruise the banks of the Mississippi or the St. Croix River Valley, drive in loops around the Iron Range or Brainerd Lakes or roam along the coast of Lake Superior.

“Don’t let the season pass you by,” warns the Explore Minnesota site.

“There’s so much to do in such a short period of time,” Edman said.

It’s not even Labor Day yet, but grocery shelves are already crowded with pumpkin-spiced everything and two separate farmers almanacs are forecasting a frigid winter ahead for Minnesota.

Some fall color and a ramble through the corn maze could help cushion the blow.

So when sweater weather comes, Minnesotans have options. The Department of Agriculture’s Minnesota Grown website counts 24 crop mazes around the state, 165 pumpkin patches, 18 cider mills and legions of summer and winter farmers markets.

For a more-than-comprehensive list of fall activities around the state, visit exploreminnesota.com.

—Distributed by Tribune Content Agency.

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