Inside Ag Oct. 2021

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Mixed results

INSIDE AG

Hit or miss harvest for area ag producers By JILL SCHRAMM

Senior Staff Writer jschramm@minotdailynews.com

With harvest still under way, area crop producers are seeing mixed results as a statewide drought treated some fields less severely than others. No particular commodity performed better. There were mixed results across the board. See HARVEST — Page 3

October 2021

Submitted Photo

A soybean producer opens a field west of Minot Sept. 26. Much of the soybean crop in the Minot area still remained unharvested going into the final week of September.


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October 2021

Harvest

Continued from Page 2

“It was where you were located and whether or not you received some of the few showers we did get this summer,” said Paige Brummund, agricultural agent for Ward County Extension. “It’s been an unusual year. We expected the poor yield. I think what was a little surprising is some people saw average or, in some cases, above average (yields),” she said. “It just came down to a little bit of luck in where you were at.” Tony Smith, grain division manager with CHS SunPrairie, Minot, said spring wheat farmers north of Minot were surprised that while yields were lower, they still were better than expected -- up to 30-35 bushels an acre in some cases.

“It was where you were located and whether or not you received some of the few showers we did get this summer.” — Paige Brummund, agricultural agent for Ward County Extension Areas south of Minot were hit hard, recording spring wheat yields as minimal as five to 10 bushels an acre. A number of farmers baled their insurance-adjusted wheat for cattle feed. “A lot of wheat did get put up, especially if it was adjusted early at that low, low yield.

If you could get it put up when it was still green, it’s going to make a much better quality feed,” Brummund said. “Anything that you can feed is better than nothing. We just have to find what we can supplement with to make sure our cattle are being fed appropriately.”

Page 3 Wheat that was harvested tended to be good quality, Smith noted. Protein was high and test weights were as good as a normal year, he said. The drawback for some of the wheat wasn’t the drought but an untimely August rain that took color and lowered the falling numbers on the affected grain, he said. The canola crop also yielded better than expected, with no major quality issues, he said. “A fair amount came through the elevator. Good prices incentivized people to sell,” Smith said. Soybean harvest had just started at the end of September, but Brummund said that crop appears to be hit-or-miss as well. Many fields appear to be low yield, with the beans close to the ground, making harvest more difficult. Howev-

er, Brummund noted, “There’s some fields that look pretty darn good, considering the extreme drought we had.” Smith agreed the soybean results appear all over the board, with some producers seeing as little as five bushels an acre while others are into a normal range, with 35 bushels. While early yet for the grain corn harvest, that crop may be reasonably good quality, even though yields are likely to be lower, Smith added. Brummund also expects mixed yield results on sunflowers once that harvest starts. She said results were less mixed with the hay crop, which overall didn’t do well. Few alfalfa growers harvested more than one cutting. Hay producers reported crops that ranged from one-fifth to onehalf of normal, she said.

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October 2021 Corn is cut for feed west of Minot Sept. 26. Grain corn still remained to be harvested at the end of September, but lower yields are expected to limit supply for area ethanol processors. Jill Schramm/MDN

Ethanol plant prepares for projected drought impact

UNDERWOOD -- Anticipating lower yields in its drought-impacted region, an area ethanol manufacturer is looking farther out for its corn supplies. Blue Flint at Underwood is making adjustments, although it comes at a cost. “We’ve pushed our bid up to levels this year that are probably 80 cents per bushel on corn stronger, cash basis, than a typical harvest year,” said Philip Coffin, vice president of commodities and marketing for Blue Flint. “We’re doing everything we can to get the message out to anybody who can see that we need corn here and are paying as much as we can.” In eastern North Dakota, where most of the state’s corn is grown, the crop has been able to draw on subsoil moisture remaining from the previous year when it was so wet that many farmers didn’t get their corn planted, Coffin said. Yields there are projected to be close to average. In the western two-thirds of the state, a second drought year is having a more drastic effect. Coffin estimated a third of the corn crop in the Underwood area already had been harvested for forage by mid-September. The remainder of the crop is uncertain as to how much grain is actually there, he said. Coffin said Blue Flint has been contacting sources of supply that it hasn’t found necessary to use in the past. “We’re talking with rail shippers in Minnesota, Wisconsin and

Iowa and monitoring markets there to see if we can somehow bring corn in from a surplus state to help us out here,” he said. Paying more to purchase and bring in corn from farther away raises costs, though, and higher costs can influence competitiveness in the ethanol and feed markets. Coffin said the United States is on track to grow the second largest corn crop ever, which means the nation’s other 169 ethanol plants may have better access and better corn prices and will be willing to sell ethanol much cheaper than Blue Flint can. As a commodity, ethanol prices are set by the marketplace, not by suppliers who need to recover costs and try to make a profit. “The dilemma that we’re faced with is we can and we certainly do have access to corn. The hard part is what price,” Coffin said. “Our ethanol competes with every other gallon of ethanol, and as long as there’s a big supply of corn in the country, there will be a big supply of ethanol for sale in the country.” Once the corn harvest gets in full swing and eventually wraps up in North Dakota, Blue Flint expects to have a better idea of where it sits. “We’re hoping that things fall in our favor, but hope is not a good strategy in our business. We’re planning to run our plant and are making arrangements for alternative supply and hope that we can find supply locally that works into our plan at better pricing,” Coffin said.


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October 2021

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NRCS helps family conserve with irrigation system

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October 2021

Submitted Photo

WASHBURN - A “godsend” is how Clay Price describes an irrigation project that the USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service of North Dakota recently helped his family complete. Price and his brother, Lewis, converted more than 700 acres of flood irrigation to pivot sprinkler irrigation and installed a wireless web-enabled soil moisture monitoring system and weather station. They irrigate corn, soybeans and alfalfa near Washburn. Their father, Doug, who is now retired, had built the farm’s flood irrigation system in the 1960s. He constructed a 6,500-foot long ditch to carry water pumped from the Missouri River to canals built along each field. From the canals, the family siphoned water onto the fields, which they had leveled and sloped so that the water flowed from one end to the other. See IRRIGATION — Page 7

Clay Price is pleased with the new pivot irrigation system that a NRCS engineering team helped his family design. It replaces a flood irrigation system that was built in the 1960s.


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October 2021

Irrigation

Continued from Page 6

Flood irrigating is a lot of work. They had about 1,000, five-foot long siphon tubes that had to be moved manually from field to field to irrigate the crops. The tubes siphoned water from the canals onto the fields. “From the time my brothers and sister were big enough to carry tubes, we helped irrigate. I was 5 or 6 years old when I started,” Clay Price said. In dry years, it was difficult for the family and the farm’s employees to get water over all their fields fast enough. By the time they had irrigated the last field, it was time to start on the first field again. Sometimes they couldn’t make it around to all of the fields fast enough to keep the crops from being stressed. In 2018, Lewis and Clay – who had taken over managing the farm -- decided it was time to adopt new technology. “The physical labor was get-

ting harder for us,” said Clay Price, 52. Lewis Price is 54. It had also been getting harder to find people to work on the farm. For years, they have employed foreign workers through an ag visa program. The river was changing, too. A flood in 2011 created a large sandbar near their farm that reduced the flow of water past their southern inlet pump. When river levels fell due to changes in the amount of water released at the Garrison Dam upstream from their farm, they sometimes didn’t have enough water to keep their irrigation canals full. “A lot of things added up to make it the right time to make the change,” Clay Price said. Converting to pivot sprinkler irrigation was a big undertaking. They had to trench in nearly four miles of water pipe, which was as much 27-inches in diameter at the inlet. They also had to install two 250 horsepower centrifugal pumps with variable frequency drives to move the water from the Missouri River through

“In Clay’s and Lewis’s situation, they’re saving 635,410 gallons per every irrigated acre per irrigation season compared to flood irrigation.” — Wendy Thomson, agricultural engineer for Natural Resources Conservation Service

the pipes to the pivots. A NRCS agricultural engineering team surveyed the farm and worked with the Prices to design the pipelines, pumps and valving. They also evaluated the sprinkler pivot systems to ensure peak water consumption demand would be met in the hottest week of the year. “They were awesome,” Price said of the NRCS team.

Page 7 NRCS also provided funding for the project through the Environmental Quality Incentive Program. The USDA program provides financial and technical assistance to producers wanting to install conservation practices on their land. The conservation gains from converting flood irrigation to sprinkler irrigation can be significant, said Wendy Thomson, an agricultural engineer with the NRCS Center Field Office who worked on the project. Pivot irrigation uses a lot less water – perhaps as much as 30% less, according to industry estimates -- than flood irrigation. Pivot sprinklers apply water more evenly across fields than flood irrigation. Also, less water is lost to evaporation and there is less risk of soil erosion, fertilizer and chemical runoff, and nutrient leaching. “In Clay’s and Lewis’s situation, they’re saving 635,410 gallons per every irrigated acre per irrigation season compared to flood irrigation,” Thomson said.

“The irrigation water management system with the soil probes that was set up helps them make better watering decisions.” Another plus is that it’s possible to eliminate tillage. While flood irrigation often requires heavy tillage to bury crop debris, create head ditches and level fields pivot irrigation does not. Crop residue can be left on the soil surface and fields can be no-till planted. The crop residue even helps increase the efficiency of the pivots by reducing water evaporation from the soil surface. Pivot irrigation requires less labor and has proved to be a lot easier to operate than flood irrigation, Price said. The pumps, pivots and soil probes are connected to the internet. “I basically can run the pivots from my (smart) phone,” Price said. The irrigators still have to be checked to make sure that there aren’t any flat tires or other meSee IRRIGATION — Page 8


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Page 8

October 2021

Irrigation

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chanical problems, “but it is a lot more manageable than flood irrigation,” he said. Wireless sensors constantly upload soil moisture data from different depths in the fields so Clay and Lewis know when to start and stop irrigating. “It’s accurate enough that we can prevent the crops from ever being stressed by the lack of water,” Clay Price said. As a result, their yields have become much more consistent. Had they not been able to convert from flood to pivot irrigation, it would have been difficult to continue irrigating, Price said. “With the dry weather we’ve had lately, I don’t know what we would have done. The new irrigation system has been a godsend,” he said.

Clay Price, left, and Iurii Podoba, one of the Price farm employees, check siphon tubes water is flowing though on the farm’s last flood irrigated field. Submitted Photo

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October 2021

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October 2021

In a challenging year, conservative methods are key for fall tillage By SUE SITTER

Staff Writer ssitter@thepiercecountytribune.com

Some growing seasons challenge farmers more than others. Pierce County Extension agent Brenden Klebe calls the tough 2021 season “a learning year.” Sue Sitter/PCT

Soil turned over by conventional tilling sits after harvest on a plot of land in western Pierce County.

49

See TILLAGE — Page 13


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October 2021

Tillage

Continued from Page 12

“They call this year a learning year, but things have been so drastic, it’s hard to still call it a learning year,” Klebe said from his office recently. “So much of the data is skewed,” he added, referring to a Pierce County growing season that saw little rain early on, then a few days of above average precipitation just as harvest time began for crops such as wheat. Unpredictable weather and growing conditions come with the territory in ag, giving farmers an opportunity to adapt. Klebe said farmers preparing for fall and winter after a summer that saw exceptional drought conditions would likely take “a conservative approach.” For fall tillage, Klebe said a balance between no-till and conventional tillage would

bring best results. “This year, the drought has changed a lot of mindsets,” Klebe said of Pierce County farmers. “From the field variability, throughout the summer, you can see guys that did a lot more conservative tillage, maybe strip tillage or no tilling have had better luck with holding their moisture this year,” Klebe said. “I think that’s going to be the biggest thing.” “This year, it’s going to be between no-tillage and I think, even strip tillage – that’s caught on lately,” Klebe said. “With conventional tillage, you’re moving the whole ground, where with no-till, you’re not moving any ground. But with strip tillage, you have spikes on your cultivator or tillage equipment and you’re just making rows of tilled ground down the field. So, it’s a lot less, but you’re

still working the ground a little bit.” “And farmers have seen a lot of success in that warming up the ground a little better in the spring, even,” Klebe added. “Also, they’ve seen certain crops liking that a little better, too.” Klebe explained, “Generally, soybeans can handle no-till a little better, where canola and wheat are cooler-season crops that are going to be dealing with some cold temperature soils. Strip tilling seems to warm the ground up enough, especially when the farmers are getting going earlier and earlier in the year. Those (using strip tillage) are going to be the ones who are going to benefit the most with the ground warming up in the spring.” A warmer September, a few rainy days and a lack of morning frost have all added to the challenges for Pierce County

Page 13 farmers. “Warmer temperatures later into fall make farmers think about the fertility side of things, especially with the dryness. A lot of people want to be putting down nitrogen products in the fall,” Klebe said. “Well, when we’re staying warm like this, it’s very easy to lose a lot of them on the ground. Our window of putting down nitrogen is getting a lot skinnier now with warmer weather.” Later fertility means weeds will thrive as well, according to Klebe. “With the warmer temps, we’re going to see more winter weeds, like mare’s tail,” Klebe added. “That’s the biggest problem weed we deal with in Pierce County. I hope guys are taking advantage of the warm weather to do some fall spraying. A lot of those weeds are actively growing still because it hasn’t reached

below freezing at night. So, as long as it doesn’t reach below freezing, they’re going to keep growing.” “And,” Klebe added, “with mare’s tail, if they get above six inches, in the spring, they get even harder to kill because of the hundreds of growing points they have. If you can be spraying your weeds this fall, especially because of the warm temps we’ve had and now the recent moisture we’ve had, I would definitely recommend it.” Klebe said he hoped the moisture the north central part of North Dakota saw in September would continue into winter and spring. “If it shuts off again completely, we’re going to be in the same exact boat we’re in again, and I guess this year wasn’t a learning year yet. I hope we got this one out of our system and we can go back to our normal cycle,” Klebe said.

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October 2021

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October 2021

New ELAP coverage for producers’ feed transportation costs during drought outlined

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Page 15

Eloise Ogden/MDN

New Emergency Assistance for Livestock Program (ELAP) coverage was outlined when Sen. John Hoeven, ranking member of the Senate Agriculture Appropriations Committee and senior member of the Senate Agriculture Committee hosted Farm Service Agency Administrator Zach Ducheneaux recently. The program will provide producers impacted by severe drought with 60% reimbursement of their feed transportation costs above what would have been incurred in a normal year. Hoeven Hoeven and Ducheneaux were joined by North Dakota Agriculture Commissioner Doug Goehring, Executive Vice PresiSee DROUGHT — Page 16

This photo shows area pastures earlier this summer. Crops and pastures in North Dakota have been severely impacted by the drought


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October 2021

Drought

IRS: Drought-stricken farmers, ranchers have more time to replace livestock

Continued from Page 15

dent of the North Dakota Stockmen’s Association Julie Ellingson, and Independent Beef Association of North Dakota (I-BAND) Board Member Larry Kinev to highlight the importance of the new expanded ELAP coverage for livestock producers. The new ELAP coverage will supplement the Livestock Forage Program (LFP), which provides payments to producers for the cost of hay. “We’ve been working to provide our farmers and ranchers with additional tools to help them through the severe drought conditions,” said Hoeven. “We hosted Administrator Ducheneaux in North Dakota earlier this summer to hear directly from our producers about their needs. Following that meeting, we’ve been working with the administrator to expand ELAP to cover not only the cost of hauling water, but the increased costs of transporting feed. This permanent change to ELAP is an important tool in helping our producers weather the severe drought and with 95% of our state still in severe drought it couldn’t come soon enough.”

FEED TRANSPORTATION ELAP COVERAGE Previously, ELAP only compensated producers for the cost of hauling water. Now, producers will be eligible for reimbursement of feed transportation costs incurred on or after Jan. 1, 2021, in locations where: Drought intensity is D2 (severe drought) for eight consecutive weeks

Eloise Ogden/MDN

This photo shows area pastures earlier this summer. Crops and pastures in North Dakota have been severely impacted by the drought. as indicated by the U.S. Drought Monitor Drought intensity is D3 (extreme drought) or greater; or USDA has determined a shortage of local or regional feed availability. The deadline to file an application for payment for the 2021 program year is Jan. 31, 2022. Producers should contact their FSA county office or visit fsa.usda.gov/elap for more information. In addition to expanded ELAP coverage, Hoeven is working to pass: $7 billion in disaster assistance in the Senate’s Fiscal Year 2022 Agriculture Appropriations legislation. The legislation was approved by the Senate Appropriations Committee at the beginning of August with: $6.28 billion in disaster assistance to aid producers who suffered losses due to droughts, hurricanes, wildfires,

floods and other qualifying disasters. The funding will extend WHIP+ to cover losses in calendar years 2020 and 2021. $750 million for livestock producers for losses incurred during 2021 due to drought or wildfire. This disaster assistance, the first specifically for livestock producers since 2008, will build on top of existing farm bill programs for livestock producers. Hoeven-Tester Livestock Disaster Relief Act to improve LFP and ELAP. Increases assistance under LFP to more accurately compensate producers for forage losses. Makes changes to ELAP to ensure it complements LFP by covering transportation costs for forage and water. To date, Hoeven has secured: Emergency procedures and new flexibilities

from the Risk Management Agency (RMA) for crop insurance providers to help ensure quick and fair adjustments and payments to producers. Hoeven pressed for this flexibility during his recent drought tour with RMA Acting Administrator Richard Flournoy, and it comes as part of the senator’s efforts to help producers weather severe drought conditions in North Dakota. Providing flexibility to farmers when utilizing cover crops, which provide an additional source of feed for livestock producers. Following Acting Administrator Flournoy’s visit to North Dakota, RMA announced it will allow producers to hay, graze or chop cover crops on prevented plant acres at any time while still receiving their full crop insurance indemnity.

Farmers and ranchers who were forced to sell livestock due to drought may have an additional year to replace the livestock and defer tax on any gains from the forced sales, according to the Internal Revenue Service. To qualify for relief, farmers or ranchers must have sold livestock on account of drought conditions in an applicable region. This is a county or other jurisdiction designated as eligible for federal assistance plus counties contiguous to it. Notice 2021-55, posted on Sept. 24 on IRS.gov, lists applicable regions in 36 states and one U.S. territory. The relief generally applies to capital gains realized by eligible farmers and ranchers on sales of livestock held for draft, dairy or breeding purposes. Sales of other livestock, such as those raised for slaughter or held for sporting purposes, or poultry, are not eligible. The sales must be solely due to drought, causing an area to be designated as eligible for federal assistance. Livestock generally must be replaced within a four-year period, instead of the usual twoyear period. The IRS is authorized to further extend this replacement period if the drought continues. The one-year extension, announced in the notice, gives eligible farmers and ranchers until the end of their first tax year after the first drought-free year to replace the sold livestock. Details, including an example of how this provision works, can be found in Notice 2006-82, available on IRS.gov. The IRS provides this extension to eligible farmers and ranchers who sold livestock on account of drought conditions in an applicable region that qualified for the four-year replacement period, if the applicable region is listed as suffering exceptional, extreme or severe drought conditions during any week between Sept. 1, 2020, and Aug. 31, 2021. This determination is made by the National Drought Mitigation Center. As a result, eligible farmers and ranchers whose drought-sale replacement period was scheduled to expire on Dec. 31, 2021, in most cases now have until the end of their next tax year to replace the sold livestock. Because the normal drought-sale replacement period is four years, this extension impacts drought sales that occurred during 2017. The replacement periods for some drought sales before 2017 are also affected due to previous drought-related extensions affecting some of these localities. More information on reporting drought sales and other farm-related tax issues can be found in Publication 225, Farmer’s Tax Guide, available on IRS.gov.


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Kernza crop part of Minnesota farmers’ eco-friendly lineup MOORHEAD, Minn. (AP) — Don Wyse has long been an evangelist for perennial crops. The University of Minnesota professor, who leads the U of M Forever Green Initiative, now thinks the potential of those crops is beginning to be realized. “It took us 30 years to get to this point, but we now have what I call real crops that have real possibility for the marketplace and for planting by farmers,” said Wyse. “And it’s really, really exciting.” Perennial crops can help reduce the environmental impact of agriculture, and they fit well with the regenerative agriculture movement that focuses on soil health. The largest crop yet of Kernza was recently harvested. Research shows Kernza improves water quality by reducing fertilizer pollution of water, and it can efficiently store carbon in the soil, helping reduce carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas. It also requires less fertilizer and pesticide than many traditional crops, Minnesota Public Radio News reported. “It’s basically continuous living cover, protecting soil and water, enhancing soil health. That’s the basis of all 16 crops that are being developed in the Forever Green Initiative,” said Wyse.

Kernza is just the first of 16 perennial crops being developed at the U of M as part of the effort to make Minnesota farms more environmentally friendly. Researchers at the University of Minnesota have worked with the Kansas-based Land Institute, to improve Kernza genetics. There are still challenges for farmers and plant breeders. Kernza yields tend to decline after two years, limiting how long farmers can keep the crop on a field. Wyse is confident that problem will be resolved as new varieties are developed. The U of M released a new Kernza variety last year and a second variety is slated for release in 2023. Farmers aren’t yet busting down the door to grow Kernza, but there’s a steady stream of people calling, wanting to learn more about the crop, said western Minnesota farmer Carmen Fernholz, an early adopter who first grew Kernza on his farm in 2011. Kernza is a cousin of wheat, developed from a perennial grass. Researchers tout its sweet, nutty flavor for use in baking, beer and a cereal product General Mills plans to soon have on the shelves at Whole Foods.

Fernholz recently sold a semiload of the grain to a food company. He’s part of the new Perennial Promise Growers Cooperative, created to help farmers produce and market the grain. “It’s certainly not to the scale that we intend to take it over the next few years,” said Fernholz. “But to say that the market is developing, yes. To say that we can grow lots and lots of acres at this stage of development, no.” And that’s always the challenge with a new crop. Farmers want to know there’s a market before they plant, but to expand markets, you need more crop to sell. Fernholz will expand his Kernza acres next year. As an organic farmer, he believes in the environmental benefits of perennial crops, and it helps his bottom line. “If we can continue to achieve the numbers that we are as far as marketing the Kernza, and the yield that we’re getting, it will definitely be profitable,” he said. The drought this year reduced his Kernza yields somewhat, but the deep-rooted perennial plant generally fared well in the dry conditions. “Relative to a lot of the other small grains, it appears that it was less impacted,” said U

of M researcher Jacob Jungers. “The plants look healthier, generally, they were a little bit greener, and look less droughtstressed than some of the annual small grain crops.” Researchers are still analyzing this year’s crop yields to learn more about the drought impact. Kernza is very small in terms of crop production with about 4,000 acres grown nationwide. Minnesota is the leading producer with just over 1,300 acres. Jungers believes it’s now realistic to double Kernza production each year. “There’s a tipping point in terms of acreage in the state and in the nation,” he said. Once we achieve that sort of tipping point of acreage, then there’s going to be enough supply for the larger companies, for national-scale product.” “We’re also getting significant international interest,” said Colin Cureton, director of adoption and scaling for the Forever Green Initiative. “So there’s really a need to grow to meet that. How do we export this product from Minnesota to the world is a big and exciting question.” Kernza is still a niche crop, and researchers say it will likely never replace mainstay

grains like wheat. But this a good time for perennial crops to be taking off, said Cureton. There’s growing interest among farmers in soil health, carbon storage and regenerative agriculture, and crops like Kernza are a good fit. There’s also growing demand from consumers for sustainable agriculture. Cureton compares perennial crops to the development of wind and solar energy decades ago. “And so that’s what’s really exciting about these crops, which are really in their early stage,” he said. “I feel like with these crops, we’re kind of where renewable energy was about 20 years ago, but we’re making really rapid progress.” As more Kernza is grown, researchers are learning more about the benefits. Kernza stover, the stalks and leaves left in the field after harvest, makes a good quality livestock feed. And researchers have just begun to explore the potential benefits to wildlife from having a perennial crop on the land, said Jungers. Wyse is ready for the expansion of the next perennial crop — an oil seed called camelina, which he expects to reach 2 million acres of crop production in the next five years.

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INSIDE AG

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Logan Gunderson Ag Lender, Farmer

October 2021

Jacob Fannik

Ag Lender, Farmer

We’re also farmers. Farming is business. We get that. That’s why we are always here for our clients. We’re not only ag lenders at First Western Bank & Trust, we’re also farmers.

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