Kansas

Soybean Gall Midge Emerges As Top-Tier Threat

Mon, 11 May 2026 20:19:27 GMT

Soybean gall midge is no longer just a curiosity or annoyance for many Midwest farmers. The pest is chewing into yield and profitability for soybean growers across parts of at least seven states – Kansas, Iowa, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, South Dakota.

Iowa State University Entomologist Erin Hodgson reports the pest’s footprint is significant, present in at least 42% of the 45.4 million acres of soybeans farmers harvested across the seven states in 2025.

“At least 19 million soybean acres are potentially impacted by this pest,” Hodgson says, noting that the pest continues to spread. Eight new counties were confirmed in 2025, with five of those being in Iowa .

According to a recent farmer survey led by University of Nebraska Entomologist Doug Golick, the pest has become a major threat in parts of Nebraska. “In the last year or two, soybean gall midge is approaching as near high of concern as herbicide-resistant weeds for survey respondents,” Golick says.

Since 2018, the soybean gall midge has spread to 185 total counties in seven states, including five new counties in Iowa this past year, according to Erin Hodgson, Iowa State University Extension entomologist and professor.

(Erin Hodgson)

Look For Small Orange Or White Larvae

Damage from the insect starts at the base of the soybean plants, largely out of sight. Adult midges emerge from the ground in May and June, then seek out tiny fissures in young soybean plants near the soil line to lay eggs, according to Thales Rodrigues da Silva, a master’s student at the University of Nebraska–Lincoln.

The larvae cause severe, localized yield losses from 20% to 100% loss along field edges and 17% to 50% reductions in entire fields average under heavy infestation, according to University of Nebraska-Lincoln (UNL) Extension. The larvae – small, orange worm-like pests – feed inside the base of the stem, causing plants to wither, die, and lodge (break), with damages sometimes extending 100+ feet into fields. Scouting for the pest should occur after the second trifoliate (V2) growth stage, according to the Crop Protection Network.

This damage in a soybean plant at the soil level shows the result of soybean gall midge larvae feeding.

(University of Nebraska-Lincoln Extension)

Because the pest often feeds along field edges, the damage in affected plants is often mistaken for issues caused by compaction or herbicide injury, according to Stine Seed Company .

To confirm the pest’s presence, Stine agronomists recommend digging up compromised soybean plants and splitting open the stem. If white or orange larvae are found feeding within the inner layers, growers should check the Soybean Gall Midge Alert Network tracking system to determine whether the pest has been reported in their area. Next, they should contact their local Extension specialist to help confirm the diagnosis and report the finding if their county is not yet documented in their area.

Cultural Practices Show Promise

Unfortunately, there are few strategies to manage and control soybean gall midge, according to Tony Lenz, Stine technical agronomist.
With no labeled, consistently effective in-season insecticide program and no established treatment threshold, researchers are testing cultural and mechanical tactics that might give farmers at least partial relief.

Tillage ahead of planting — a tough sell in no-till systems — shows some promise in reducing early infestations in current-year soybean fields.

“Turns out that disking alone, at least in (our) study… did reduce infestation,” says Justin McMechan an entomologist and associate professor at UNL.

“There’s a significant reduction as we move from no-till to that… where it’s just disked and planted into, and then disking and hilling (a practice used in growing potatoes), which really is effective, because you’re covering up the infestation site,” McMechan adds.

He notes that even subtle changes in seedbed shape may help by covering fissures or altering microclimates at the stem base.

On planters running row cleaners, McMechan says adjustments at field edges might be one of the more accessible tools.

“There are not huge differences, but they are statistically significant,” he adds.

Field edge management has been another area of experimentation, including mowing or managing dense vegetation next to infested fields. Results are mixed, but McMechan says there are situations where mowing modestly cuts pressure.

“Nebraska saw on occasion where mowing would reduce infestation and lead to marginal yield benefit… we’re talking like 6-bushel differences,” he says, adding that weather and nearby corn canopy can override those gains.

There are no insecticides currently available to control soybean gall midge. A combination of cultural practices and mechanical efforts is likely the best option, for now, to stop or slow the pest.

(Justin McMechan)

Scientists Evaluate ‘Out-Of-The-Box’ Practices

Other work by researchers is pushing even further outside the box to find control measures. At UNL, graduate research assistant Kristin Heinrichs Stark is testing whether a biodegradable surface barrier called BioWrap can physically trap larvae in the soil and prevent emergence.

The work is early-stage and raises reasonable questions about cost and field-scale application rates, but it points to the kind of layered, non-chemical tactics Extension researchers say will likely be needed to address the pest.

Even as these cultural and physical strategies are developed, Hodgson reminds farmers that the ag industry still lacks any clear control option once larvae are inside the soybean stem.

“We really don’t have a treatment threshold, or a rescue treatment option at this time,” she says. “We know that the soybean gall midge certainly can cause yield losses, plant death, and that directly relates to yield. But we don’t really have great answers on like, how many plants does it take? How many larvae per plant (causes yield loss)?”

For now, farmers dealing with soybean gall midge are being asked to combine careful field scouting, crop rotation, and targeted cultural tactics to address the pest as the research community races to find answers and close those gaps.

Specialists from three Midwest universities provided the latest updates on soybean gall midge (SGM) this spring in a webinar, available at the link below:

Lawsuit Claims Rail Fee Blocks Competition, Cuts Plains Farmers’ Grain Prices

Thu, 12 Feb 2026 20:42:04 GMT

In a lawsuit filed in late January in the U.S. District Court for the District of Kansas, two agribusiness plaintiffs and 13 farmers allege antitrust violations by a Class I railroad, Union Pacific, and a short-line operator, Kansas & Oklahoma Railroad.

Plaintiffs include Weskan Grain and Colorado Pacific Railroad, along with D&L Farms, GP; E&D Farms, GP; D&C Farms, GP; L&E Farms, GP; North Four Farms, GP; Marienthal Grain, LLC; D&A Farms, GP; Hineman Land & Cattle, Inc.; Hineman Ranch, L.L.C.; Circle C Farms, Inc.; Steven Compton; Mark Sanders; and JLD Partnership.

The lawsuit alleges UP and K&O worked together to stifle competition after Colorado Pacific Railroad rehabilitated the Towner Line. Plaintiffs claim the alleged conduct gave the railroads unfair control over westbound grain shipments — affecting the prices farmers receive for grain in Lane, Scott, Wichita, and Greeley Counties in Kansas and Kiowa County, Colo.

Union Pacific provided this statement, noting its view that the matter falls under the Surface Transportation Board’s purview: “Union Pacific denies the allegations of the lawsuit and will present the facts to the court and Surface Transportation Board who handles these issues.”

Will Bramblett, CEO of Weskan Grain, said after Soloviev Group acquired Colorado Pacific Railroad, Union Pacific and K&O put in place what he described as a “paper barrier” that makes interchange across the Kansas-Colorado line uneconomic–reportedly over $500 per car.

“What we’re trying to do is just get a more competitive environment for our local producers — farmers in the area — to be able to ship grain to markets across the U.S. and export markets in a more competitive manner,” Bramblett said.

As an example, he said in eastern Colorado, Weskan has been able to use a 110-car shuttle served by both BNSF and Union Pacific to bring cost savings and basis improvements of 25 to 40 cents.

“We’d just like to see that same thing happen in western Kansas,” he said.

Watco, the parent company of K&O, provided this statement: “We do not comment on litigation matters, but as a matter of course we will defend our commitment to the values that define us through the proper legal channels.”

Farm Journal TV subscribers: Watch the full fireside chat with Stefan Soloviev, chairman of the Soloviev Group, from the 2026 Top Producer Summit.

A Kansas Comeback: Farm Income Set to Nearly Double in 2025

Mon, 03 Nov 2025 18:52:31 GMT

When it comes to the farm economy, 2025 has been a year of contrasts. Some farmers are finally seeing brighter days, while others are fighting just to stay afloat.

Kansas State University’s Joe Parcell says the latest farm financial data tells a story of both opportunity and risk — and of two very different realities across American agriculture.

A Center Focused on Risk — and Reality

Inside the business school at K-State, Parcell leads what he calls a “pretty unique” operation. As director of the K-State Risk Management Center, Parcell’s work spans across the College of Business, College of Agriculture, and College of Engineering.

“I have the pleasure of leading a center here that’s pretty unique out there in the country,” he says. “It’s the Risk Management Center, and here we believe it’s interdisciplinary, that as you get into your career and making decisions, it’s not just about your discipline — it’s about learning from others, because we don’t work in disciplines. We work interdisciplinary when we’re trying to solve problems with firms. So, we’re a joint [operation] between really the College of Business, the Ag College, and the Engineering College here at K-State.”

That interdisciplinary approach is helping shed new light on farm-level financial pressures. Recently, Parcell’s team joined forces with the University of Missouri to study leading indicators of farm financial stress. What they found, he says, reveals a growing divide within agriculture.

Row Crops Versus Livestock: A Tale of Two Economies

“The one glaring [issue] out there is the difference between row crop farming and livestock farming right now,” Parcell explains. “The other is what’s going on in the equipment sector — and not just at the farm. I mean, this really extends into our communities and our rural areas. And, you know, probably the third one is the banks. It’s not just the farms, but it’s the banks that are lending them money and what kind of situation that they’re in, especially our local community banks.”

The disparity between the sectors has widened dramatically, as noted in a recently released report called “Leading Indicators of Farm Financial Stress: Fall 2025.” Cattle producers are seeing strong profits and renewed optimism, while many young row-crop farmers are dealing with tight margins and higher costs that have become the new normal.

Parcell notes part of the challenge is policy-related.

“Frankly, we need the government to reopen,” he says, referring to the ongoing federal shutdown. “We got some good news last week with our FSA offices reopening on limited staff, but we’ve got a lot of money out there to push out to the farmers from even last year yet — and this year. Plus, we need the Risk Management Agency to be open and help those producers out with what’s going on in crop insurance and stuff.”

Cattle Drive Kansas’ Rebound

Despite the challenges, Kansas agriculture is showing signs of recovery — thanks largely to cattle. Parcell says farm income in Kansas is set to double from last year. That’s one of the revelations that showed up in a report released last last week called the “Fall 2025 Farm Income Outlook for Kansas.” The report was released jointly between the University of Missouri and K-State.

“We’re going to have farm income about doubling from last year to this year,” he says. “And that’s a combination of three things really driven by an increase in revenues more than a drop in expenses. That revenue is being driven — of the $6.2 billion we’re going to add to the farm revenue side — 58% of that is with the cattle side or livestock side. We’ve got 34% of the government payments and only 8% in row crop.”

Kansas crop receipts are projected to rise by $559.18 million (8%) in 2025, with increases expected across all four major commodities despite lower prices. This is because yields are estimated to recover from recent lows as the state recovers from persistent drought.

(Kansas State University )

The report shows Kansas crop receipts are projected to rise by $559.18 million (8%) in 2025, with increases expected across all four major commodities despite lower prices. This is because yields are estimated to recover from recent lows as the state recovers from persistent drought.

According to the new report:

Corn planted area is projected 550,000 acres (9%) higher at 6.85 million acres in 2025. This, combined with higher yields than in 2024, results in a 17% projected increase in production that would offset a 9% drop in price and generate a $316.34 million (11%) increase in cash receipts. Crop receipts will increase by 8%, and 2025 Kansas net farm income will increase by 88% in 2025.
Soybean cash receipts are projected to jump $182.98 million (13%) in 2025, driven largely by recovering yields after three years of drought. Total production is expected to increase 2% to 157.95 million bushels, despite a decline of 430,000 planted acres (-9%).
Wheat planted acres dipped by 300,000 (-4%) in 2025; however, an increase in yield is projected to contribute to a $25.49 million (2%) increase in cash receipts.

A breakdown of the share of projected crop receipts in Kansas.

(Kansas State University and University of Missouri )

Recovery from drought is also helping fuel the cattle sector. According to the report,

Cash receipts for cattle and calves, which account for 90% of Kansas’s livestock receipts, are projected to increase by $3.54 billion (24%) to $18.33 billion in 2025.
Marketings for cattle and calves are projected to increase by 4%, and fed steer prices are projected to increase by 21%.

Cash receipts for cattle and calves, which account for 90% of Kansas’s livestock receipts, are projected to increase by $3.54 billion (24%) to $18.33 billion in 2025. Marketings for cattle and calves are projected to increase by 4% and fed steer prices are projected to increase by 21%.

(Kansas State University and University of Missouri)

After years of drought and depressed prices, cow-calf producers are finally getting a chance to reinvest.

“These cattle producers, especially the cow-calf producers, I mean they’ve suffered through a lot of years,” Parcell says. “They’ve had drought years, they’ve had low prices, and this has just given them a chance to kind of replenish their supplies so they’re getting ready for the next cycle — because we know everything will come to an end and we’ll end up the other way as part of this cattle cycle. High prices sell high prices, and we’re going to be at low prices in the near future.”

Equipment and Banking Pressures Build

While higher cattle prices offer temporary relief, Parcell warns that other parts of the rural economy are under real stress. The Association of Equipment Manufacturers’ latest flash report shows new 4-wheel-drive tractor and combine sales are down almost 40% this year — a sign of cautious spending and shrinking margins.

“I think our biggest concern in this is with the equipment dealers themselves,” Parcell says. “We saw a lot of consolidation last year. These equipment dealers hire a lot of folks in the rural areas. They’re an important source for our farmers when it comes time to fix equipment and get parts and stuff. It’s just their survivability — and they’re carrying some pretty expensive equipment on that yard right now with some higher interest rates than we had a few years ago.”

Still, despite the softening in sentiment among farmers, Parcell says bankers aren’t panicking — at least not yet.

“That’s the most interesting one,” he says. “Because you really see things in a declining mode, but it’s not in a fully worrisome mode. So, in what we talk about, or what we use as kind of our benchmark, we go back to 2016, ’17, ’18, where we had similar things. We had depressed commodity prices, we had some trade wars going on in there, and sentiment is not strong. But it’s not as weak as what it was back during that period.”

Looking Ahead: Volatility Rules

When asked what worries him most, Parcell doesn’t hesitate. It’s not what’s happening today — it’s what could happen next.

“I think the biggest concern is what’s to come,” he says. “There’s so much volatility out there in the market right now. We have trade wars. We have what’s going to be said next out of the administration. We have a government shutdown right now. We continue to have, again, strong land prices. There’s just so much uncertainty — some things that maybe we don’t typically associate with a downturn in the farm economy. Or counter to what we might expect to see right now in there. So, I think that’s the biggest challenge in all this — we all feel like things should be worse. At least the indicators should be worse than what they are.”

As the new year unfolds, Parcell says Kansas farmers and ranchers will continue navigating this uncertain terrain — balancing optimism with caution, and watching closely for what’s next in this unpredictable farm economy.

Federal Court Rules on Fate of Prairie-Chicken

Tue, 19 Aug 2025 14:08:29 GMT

A U.S. District judge on Aug. 12 ruled in favor of Oklahoma, Texas and Kansas, finding that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service committed a “foundational error” when it declared the prairie-chicken endangered in 2022.

Texas Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller in a press release praised the ruling from U.S. District Judge David Counts of the Western District of Texas, who issued the order reversing the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s (FWS) decision to list the lesser prairie-chicken as endangered and threatened.

“This is a big win for Texas, and one we fought hard to get,” Miller says. “From day one, I’ve pushed back against Biden’s federal overreach because it was wrong for our farmers, ranchers and rural communities. This court decision is more than just a legal victory. We stood our ground, and we won.”

PRESS RELEASE: Texas Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller praised a decisive ruling from U.S. District Judge David Counts of the Western District of Texas, who issued an order reversing the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s (FWS) decision to list the lesser prairie chicken as… pic.twitter.com/UzP2FlkFE6
— Texas Agriculture (@TexasDeptofAg) August 18, 2025

Under the Trump administration, FWS determined that it previously failed to provide “adequate justification and analysis” to support identifying two designated population segments of lesser prairie-chicken.

Judge Counts granted the motion for vacatur and remand, finding that remand alone would not correct the agency’s fundamental error in listing the species as endangered and threatened. The court denied all motions to intervene.

About the Prairie Chicken

The lesser prairie-chicken is a bird historically found in parts of Colorado, Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas and New Mexico. The bird has faced both habitat loss and population decline since the 1960s and has found itself the subject of proposed Endangered Species Act protections.

According to Tiffany Lashmet, Texas A&M agricultural law Extension specialist, in 2014 FWS listed the lesser prairie-chicken as threatened under the Endangered Species Act. Numerous lawsuits were filed, and the listing was ultimately vacated by the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas in 2015.

The United States District Court for the Western District of Texas issued an order last week vacating the United States Fish and Wildlife Service (“FWS”) listing of the lesser prairie-chicken under the Endangered Species Act.https://t.co/BTobyZb9MF pic.twitter.com/CEV82UWJ8P
— TiffanyDowellLashmet (@TiffDowell) August 18, 2025

In 2016, another petition was filed with FWS to list the lesser prairie-chicken under the Endangered Species Act. In 2022, the FWS finalized a rule listing the Northern Distinct Population Segment as threatened and the Southern Distinct Population Segment as endangered. In March 2023, the State of Texas and the Permian Basin Petroleum Association filed suit challenging the listing. Specifically, they claimed the listing violated both the Endangered Species Act and the Administrative Procedures Act.

Lashmet says following the administration change in January 2025, the FWS reevaluated the listing and found it erred in passing the final rule listing the lesser prairie-chicken.

“FWS now believes it erred by failing to provide sufficient justification to have two population segments of the lesser prairie-chicken, which then affected the assessment of extinction risk to the species,” she says. “This, FWS believes, was a significant error justifying immediate vacatur of the listing decision. FWS moved for a voluntary vacatur and remand of the listing rule. Several groups sought to intervene in the lawsuit to defend the listing rule.”

The Decision

Lashmet explains the court addressed two separate issues: the proper remedy and the motions to intervene.

“This case is extremely important for landowners, agricultural producers, oil and gas companies, and others across the portions of the United States where the lesser prairie-chickens are located, including Texas, New Mexico, Colorado, Oklahoma and Kansas,” Lashmet says. “As of now, the lesser prairie-chicken is not listed under the Endangered Species Act, and there is no threat of liability under the Endangered Species Act for a ‘take’ of these animals.”

She says the story is not over.

“The FWS will now reconsider the 2016 application to have the lesser prairie-chicken listed,” she says. “It will determine how properly to view the distinction population segment, and then analyze the various factors required under the Endangered Species Act in making its listing decision. The FWS told the court it expected to have this completed by November 2026.”

Fusing The Best of Regenerative Ag and Smart Farming: Senator Marshall’s Take on MAHA

Fri, 25 Jul 2025 14:22:11 GMT

Having grown up as a Kansas fifth generation farm kid and spending many years as a physician, U.S. Senator Roger Marshall, R-Kan., views the Trump administration’s Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) agenda through a different lens than many of his Beltway colleagues.

“I delivered a baby every day for some 25 years in my hometown,” Marshall says. “And certainly, diet and nutrition are so, so, so important. When I came to Congress, this was one of the things I wanted to address. And I want to start by saying there’s no MAHA without American agriculture leadership.”

RELATED: MAHA Report’s Surprising Stance on Glyphosate, Atrazine Explained

While much of the recent reporting around MAHA focuses on unpacking the movement’s outwardly anti-pesticide bent , Marshall has fashioned his own, more conventional ag-friendly version covering four distinct pillars:

Increase American agricultural efficiency
Grow healthier, nutrient rich food
Unlock affordable health care access for millions of Americans
Focus on health care resources to combat the mental health epidemic

“I believe soil health leads to healthy food, which leads to healthy people,” Marshall says. “I hear the MAHA group and I hear the ag folks. I have a foot in each of those worlds, and I am trying to bring them together. Because guess what? American agriculture wants healthy children just as much as anybody.”

RELATED: Decode MAHA’s Potential Effect on the Agriculture Sector

Marshall believes MAHA can achieve that goal by embracing some – but not all – of the regenerative ag principles Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., espoused on the campaign trail. American farmers are already reducing chemical use with tools like selective spraying systems and mechanical weeding implements, but the senator knows there’s still meat on that bone. He views it less as a return to “40 acres and a mule” and more as a combination of pieces and parts from the regenerative ag playbook with precision ag technology generously sprinkled into the mix.

“Regenerative ag should be centered around precision ag and growing more with less,” he says. “We’re already using 60% less fertilizers and less pesticides. I think we must continue to decrease the amount of fertilizers and pesticides, so there’s less residue on that loaf of bread in the grocery store.”

Marshall is currently rallying Congressional support for the bipartisan Plant Biostimulant Act. This yet-to-be-ratified farm policy would streamline the FDA approval process under FIFRA for new, novel and natural modes of action. But the senator emphasizes the program must remain voluntary.

“About 5% of the farm bill is conservation practices,” he says. “So, I would streamline the FDA process and allow these biostimulants to be one of the options. It’s not a subsidy, though. I just want to make the regulatory process easier. And that’s going to make it more affordable, as well.”

More MAHA: 250-Plus Ag Groups Ask Trump Administration To ‘Correct’ MAHA Commission’s ‘Activities’

Another goal is for the American producer to embrace best-in-class crop production and sustainability practices. The Kansas senator points to one example from his home state as the creative and nimble thinking he wants to see American farmers embrace.

“We have a group of sorghum growers that have their own mill,” Marshall says. “And they’re selling that flour directly to the infant formula (companies) as well as to European markets. The EU has higher standards, so to speak, than America does, and so be it. I don’t know if they’re necessary, but I don’t make the rules. These Kansas farmers have cracked the code and they’re getting a premium for their sorghum right now, and all it takes is a little extra effort.”

Your Next Read: Can Pulse Crops Double Acreage by 2030? The Push to Include More Pulses in the MAHA Movement

Meet The Forge: Kelly Hills Unmanned Puts New Spin on Ag Tech Field Testing

Wed, 02 Jul 2025 21:37:17 GMT

Over the weekend, Kelly Hills Unmanned, a company that says it is dedicated to accelerating multimodal technologies in agriculture and autonomy, announced the launch of The Forge.

It’s being described as a deployment-centered program designed to meld best-in-class ag technologies into new tools that farmers, ranchers and service providers can trust and use for decades to come, according to a press release from the group.

The Forge’s inaugural cohort hopes to bring together a “powerhouse group” of innovators and operators from across the ag technology landscape into a coordinated, systems approach to help growers identify and overcome agronomic issues before they become yield robbers.

The cohort members, or pillars, are:

Precision AI: Developers of real-time drone-based precision spraying systems that reduce chemical inputs and deliver hyper-targeted agronomic action.
Pyka: Builders of autonomous electric aircraft designed for aerial applications, logistics and mission-critical crop operations.
ScanIt Technologies: Experts in using early detection of airborne pathogens to maximize yields and minimize costs.
Heinen Brothers Agra Services: One of the nation’s largest aerial applicators and ag services companies, offering deployment scale and deep field expertise.
Yamaha Precision Agriculture: Pioneers of robotic and aerial technology for small scale, high-efficiency farming.
Drop Flight: Providers of droplet characterization and aircraft calibration tools to optimize spray accuracy and compliance in real-world operations.
Taranis: Global leaders in ultra-high-resolution aerial scouting, delivering precise field-level insights to boost agronomic decision-making.

For more information, head to www.kellyhills.us/the-forge .

Farm Journal reached out to Lukas Koch to pick his brain about this new, novel entrant to the ag tech ecosystem. We first met Koch last year during the Kelly Hills Unmanned summer field day near Seneca, Kan., where his group unveiled the Pyka Pelican Spray drone — at the time the largest, highest-capacity ag spray drone on the market (280-liter capacity). This year Kelly Hills is integrating the Pelican 2 (300-liter capacity, up to 222 acres per hour at 60-foot swath rate) into its aerial application arsenal.

Farm Journal: Would you call this an ag tech incubator or accelerator type of program, and if not, what’s makes The Forge different?

Lukas Koch (LK): “(The Forge) is neither of those, because we’re not taking a cash influx to create an R&D program. What we’re doing is creating new tools with existing technology — if they’re part of plug and play that’s fine, but we don’t care about that. We want to know if the tech has merit and does it fit on the acre, but maybe something with it is not fully there just yet? So, what are we supposed to do with it then? You have a technology and, for example, it can take high-res pictures and identify areas of your fields that need attention, but today the most likely options are using a ground rig or hiring an airplane to manage that in a meaningful way. For that example, we think there’s an opportunity to do that with a small spray drone, but then again the logistics are tough; you have to come back and land and swap out a battery or refill the tank so often. We’re going to take a bunch of existing technologies that already exist, ask them to change nothing and put them to the test — and we’ll push the bounds of what they can do, to make these all work together in a system.”

FJ: How will this all kind of come together and take shape this summer as the program rolls out?

LK: “We have a few drone companies (in the cohort), and there’s a droplet analysis program involved — I thought that was an important piece in analyzing the spray coverage we get. Right now, we have the in-field sensors out in the field to help us ground truth the data we get from overhead. And then the remote sensing piece gives us situational awareness; it tells us where we should be focusing our efforts. And overall, I think, OK, that’s great, but now you still have to make a treatment with either a ground rig or hire an airplane.

(www.KellyHills.us)

“But with our FAA test range (pictured above) that we were approved for last summer within Kelly Hills, now we can autonomously fly to those spots with a drone, either in line of sight or Beyond Visual Line of Sight (BVLOS), and we can make those treatments autonomously. This year, the tool we’re focusing on is true spot spraying BVLOS in corn and soybeans, and then next year hopefully we can make more tools or take that technology that already exists and make it into a tool for a grower, who can sign up for this subscription and buy one of these drones, and now I have a full encompassing suite of tools and I can know for sure what works and what does not work.”

FJ: How can farmers in Kansas learn more and possibly sign up to work with you guys?

LK: “There’s really two ways right now. For anything specific they might want to do, maybe there are some projects they are thinking about, go ahead and ping us on the website , and we’ll get back to you. And the other way is, once we’re done with a set tool or we wrap up our summer series of projects, we plan to make the results and findings available online, kind of like Beck’s Hybrids does with its farm applied research studies. We want people to see what we’re doing and to reach out with their ideas on how we can make better tools inside of The Forge and showcase some of these technologies together in one new product, and growers are very interested in this and would love to understand if they can package these technologies together and make an ROI.”

FJ: You already have this inaugural cohort in place, but are you already thinking about what’s next?

LK: “I have a couple companies that I need to further engage with now that they can see what The Forge is all about. A couple of those are involved in year-over-year (data) modeling technology that can say, OK, help me start to determine this is my pattern, and this is what I did last year; now can you tell me what to do next year and how to create more ROI? And then I think soil is a huge key right now, too. I don’t have any any soil type products in there, and soil sampling is great, but there are some neat companies that are focusing on soil-sensing technology that I think would be interesting to package in there, too. You know, in due time I think we’ll get there.”

Koch says the plan is to unveil many of the insights and results from The Forge at this summer’s Kelly Hills Unmanned Field Day. That event is set for Aug. 19, and you can get registered for it here.

And, just for fun, here’s a video breakdown of the Pyka Pelican 2:

Your Next Read: How To Navigate Foliar Fungicide Use in a Tight Soybean Market

From Omaha to Georgia: Inside the Farm Machinery Reshoring Boom

Wed, 25 Jun 2025 19:38:03 GMT

After releasing our “Where Farm Equipment Is Made” 2025 update in February , we circled back with farm equipment manufacturers to get a read on how tariffs will affect where machines are made.

Many companies across a wide range of industries are considering or even moving forward with plans to reshore production from overseas back into the United States. We’ve learned this process involves long-term, strategic investments in new facilities and/or expanding factories already established here in the States.

Although each manufacturer shared differing visions for how, when and where it plans to build out additional manufacturing capabilities in the years ahead, a common theme did emerge: farm equipment builders are investing big dollars into reshoring, and many have been for quite some time now.

Let’s hear what the machinery companies are planning:

AGCO Corp.

(AGCO Corp.)

The Duluth, Ga.-based equipment manufacturer says its dedication to American farmers and its own strategic investment plans are “key drivers of our overall growth strategy,” according to an AGCO spokesperson.

The rest of the statement from AGCO, which builds the Fendt and Massey Ferguson equipment brands along with its own AGCO machines, regarding U.S. expansion plans can be found below:

Since 2020, we have invested just under $3 billion in the U.S. across new and expanded manufacturing facilities, product innovations and the largest ag tech deal in the history of the industry. Our commitment has extended across our various brands, locations and Research & Development (R&D) efforts, including the notable 2024 joint venture establishing Colorado-based PTx Trimble, the inauguration of Fendt Lodge – the North American headquarters of Fendt – in Minnesota, a new precision ag production facility in Illinois, modernization of systems and technologies in one of our Kansas plants, and U.S.-based R&D for new sprayer and planter technology.

These investments, AGCO says, will not only enhance production at its U.S. facilities for years to come, but also ensure AGCO remains at the forefront of ag innovation around the world.

Claas

(Matthew J. Grassi)

Claas is still a somewhat fresh face to the North American farm equipment market, but the company has deep roots in Europe. It was founded over 100 years ago in a small German farming town, and today the company has global headquarters in Harsewinkel, Germany.

But you may not be aware that Claas has also built a significant manufacturing operation in America’s heartland. The company opened its Lexion combine production campus, located just south of downtown Omaha, Neb., in 1997. This year marks 10,000 Lexion combines rolling off the main production line inside the 120,000 sq. ft. facility.

(Photos: John Deere, Matthew J. Grassi, AGCO, Kubota)

Claas has significant expansion plans in place for its Omaha campus, including doubling its overall production footprint for the main manufacturing building as well as adding a new training and apprenticeship building.

Here is the statement Matthias Ristow, president & managing director of business administration – Claas Omaha, shared regarding the company’s expansion plans:

Claas is investing significantly in its production hub in the United States, and not only recently. Over the last five years, we have added to our production facility to provide a better location for our rework and reconfiguration areas, as well as a dedicated work area for our quality control department for the pre-delivery inspections each machine must go through before being shipped. This is part of our comprehensive quality assurance program.

We also have built a new service academy where we train all the technicians from our U.S. dealer network (we have a similar location in Canada) so we can keep their skills up to date and make sure they have the proper certifications to work on our machines. Technology updates and changes are trained there as well.

Furthermore, our new service academy houses our apprenticeship program where we train the future assembly technicians in a three-year rigorous training program, managed by the German Chamber of Commerce. The program has several advantages. Technicians receive a regular paycheck (“earn while you learn”), receive an associate’s degree from a community college we partner with, receive a certificate from the German Chamber and have a job when they graduate from the program debt free.

Farm Journal recently had the opportunity to tour Claas’ Omaha operation, where we learned the manufacturer is also expanding its partnerships with domestic material and component manufacturers. For example, it recently began working with a finished parts supplier local to Nebraska to fabricate the grain spout for each Lexion combine.

CNH Industrial (Case IH and New Holland)

(CNH Industrial)

Although short on specifics, CNH Industrial (Racine, Wisc.) confirms it plans to “continue to expand our footprint through capital investments in our U.S. facilities, partnerships with local suppliers and programs that strengthen the communities where we live and work.”

CNH adds it currently employs more than 9,000 people across 17 U.S. states, with 14 manufacturing facilities and 22 R&D centers active throughout North America.

And approximately 70% of the components used in CNH Industrial’s U.S. plants are sourced from domestic suppliers while 95% its steel is purchased from U.S.-based mills. It says this approach to domestic material sourcing supports thousands of suppliers’ jobs and reinforces its investment in American-made quality.

John Deere

(John Deere)

The farm equipment manufacturer with global headquarters in Moline, Ill., was first to share its future investment plans with Farm Journal. Back in May, the company announced a 10-year, $20 billion outlay plan for its U.S. production base. This year alone, Deere says it will pour $100 million into its U.S. operations.

John Deere says this initiative includes:

A 120,000 sq. ft. expansion of the company’s remanufacturing facility in Missouri.
Construction of a new excavator factory in Kernersville, N.C.
Expansion of its Greeneville, Tenn., turf equipment factory.
New assembly lines for 9RX high-horsepower tractor production in Waterloo, Iowa.

John Deere plans to invest a total of $22.5 billion into its U.S. manufacturing network once the 10-year project is complete.

Kubota North America

(Kubota North America)

Kubota Tractor Corporation (KTC) established its North America headquarters in Grapevine, TX., in 2017. The Japanese equipment manufacturer shared the following statement regarding U.S. expansion plans.

North America is critical for Kubota, and the U.S. is our largest market. We firmly believe in local production for local consumption and have made more than $1 billion in U.S. infrastructure investments in the last couple years to meet the growing needs of our dealers and customers. For example, we recently announced the opening of a new loader facility in Gainesville, Ga., (invested $190 million), a new Western Distribution Center in California (invested $72 million), and an R&D facility (invested $100 million) that’s also in Georgia. We have other network investment announcements in the works, and we plan to continue to invest over the next five to 10 years as we respond to market demands. Today, we are more than 7,000 American workers strong who market and sell, and fabricate, weld and assemble equipment with domestic and global parts.

Want to learn more about where your favorite farm machines are made? Check out “From the Factory to Your Fields: Where Farm Equipment Is Made”.

Your Next Read: The 20 Embarrassing Problems that Make Your Farm Truck Unique

Mo Technology, Mo Problems? 2 Farmers Sound Off on Unreliable, High Maintenance Farm Equipment

Fri, 16 May 2025 03:54:27 GMT

Northeast Iowa farmer Tim Burrack is getting a little taste of Murphy’s Law this spring, and he’s not too thrilled about it. The same goes for Kansas farmer Matt Splitter. Both men are dealing with farm equipment that is breaking down more often than it is getting the job done.

It’s easy to see why such a situation would be so frustrating from the farmer point-of-view: the ag technology they’ve invested in to keep things on track this spring has basically done the complete opposite. And when the ideal planting windows are as compressed and as brief as they are today, stalled equipment is more than just a little problematic.

“There’s been a lot of problems for me — that’s a reason I’m not done planting yet — there’s just all these issues slowing us down, and more often than not, it’s (a problem with) the technology,” Burrack told “AgriTalk” host Chip Flory this week during his appearance on the weekly Farmer Forum segment.

Just yesterday, Burrack says, one row on his planter completely shut down. He took it down to the local dealership, but even the dealer technician was stumped. Lucky for Brook, the dealer’s IT guy was in the office that day and he figured out how to get his planter back up and running.

“He said let’s do an ISOBUS shutdown. Now, I’d never even heard that term before, but it’s when you shut everything off, you unplug the planter from the tractor, and then you start the tractor, back it up, and then plug the planter back in while the tractor is running,” he says. “That ended up solving my problem, but then something else shut down, and we sat there for another hour and a half before we figured that out. Stuff like that — as a farmer it makes you want to pull your hair right out.”

Kansas farmer Matt Splitter considers himself an early tech adopter, but even he is feeling a bit of tech-fatigue after having to do more “hard resets than I can count on all my extremities” this spring.

“There’s just something coming at us every day, all the time,” he says. “You get error codes. You get warnings. We’ve got a tractor down right now because of (an issue with) wiring, and we’ve got planters shut down. We can’t go a full day without some kind of technology issue, and what’s crazy is it’s not something that completely stops you in your tracks, just something that makes you want to pull your hair out. And there’s nothing you can really do other than chase down a mile of wires or do a hard reset.”

Splitter puts the onus for the dodgy tech and machinery squarely on farm equipment and ag tech providers. He believes they are not perfecting new products and machines before releasing them for sale, and then they simply move on to the next new product in the pipeline.

“And the technicians at the dealerships are not being properly trained, either,” he adds. “They’re at a loss for how to fix a lot of these problems, as well.”

Your Next Read: Advice From a Rural Banker - How to Navigate Today’s Uncertainty

Industry News: GreenPoint Ag and Mid-Kansas Cooperative Name New Leaders

Mon, 17 Mar 2025 15:50:26 GMT

GreenPoint Ag Announces Key Leadership Promotions
Three GreenPoint Ag employees have recently been named to new positions:

Daniel Dodds, senior vice president of wholesale
Formerly vice president of financial planning and analysis, Dodds has been with GreenPoint Ag since 2021 - previously spending 18 years at Land O’Lakes.
Joey Caldwell, senior vice president of growth and strategy
Caldwell’s main responsibilities will include strengthening strategic partnerships with co-ops and expanding growth opportunities.
Amy Winstead, senior vice president of retail
Previously vice president of retail sales and operations, Winstead has been known for implementing rapid transformations that strengthen the retail business.

MKC Celebrates 5 Leaders Graduating From Rural Kansas Apprenticeship Program
Mid-Kansas Cooperative has had five apprentices who trained and graduated from Kansas Farm Bureau’s Rural Kansas Apprenticeship Program. They will now fill management positions at MKC locations across the state.

Tristen Burger: location manager at MKC’s Benton facility
“I think one big thing I now understand as a manager/leader is the ability to lead all different types of people is a crucial skill to have,” Burger says. “The ability to acknowledge individuals as an important part of your team will make you a much better leader and person outside of work.”
Matt Pauly: rail terminal operations manager in Sumner County
“Not many other companies allow you to see the entire company to find your fit within it,” Pauly says. “If you stay open-minded about all the experiences you are in during the apprenticeship, you will learn more than you could have ever imagined.”
Mark Perry: Manhattan location employee
“Every other job I’ve had sprinted through training and left me to figure everything else out on the fly,” Perry says. “This program has given me a well-rounded idea of the operations of the company.”
Anthony Redar: Canton Terminal’s grain operations manager
“The ability and opportunity to not only visit the other locations and departments, but also to meet, speak and learn about the company from senior leadership is something I’ve never experienced with any other job,” Redar says. “This shows not only the commitment they have to building future leaders, but also the value our producers, customers and team members have invested in our futures.”
Kyle Sherwood: assistant grain manager for Lindsborg and Marquette
“Some of the biggest growth happened during the fall harvest where I had to solve problems, assist in managing operations and work to provide exceptional service for our growers,” Sherwood says. “These have all attributed to me becoming much more confident in my skills and have made me a more rounded person.”

After becoming Kansas’ first agricultural apprenticeship program in 2023, MKC has hired seven apprentices through RKAP to enhance its labor force.

“This program has been extremely successful in attracting new employees to MKC that want to be leaders but lack the necessary experience to hop right into a leadership role,” Crosby says. “It’s the perfect program to gain experience and learn the ropes of the organization and ensure proper job placement.”

Currently, MKC has apprentice openings for CDL drivers, operations specialists and agriculture equipment operators.

Kansas Farmer Chase Larson's Ability to Overcome Adversity, and Still Grow, Will Inspire You

Fri, 21 Feb 2025 19:33:50 GMT

A pilot by training and a farmer by trade, Chase Larson runs his Kansas operation more like a Fortune 500 company than he does a farm.

“Being able to get outside of what you’re doing every day and hearing other people’s experience is crucial to making a successful company,” says Chase Larson, CEO of Bestifor Farms , which is based in Belleville, Kansas.

The Decision to Make Chase CEO
From regular board meetings to his involvement in peer groups, Chase took over as CEO just over a year ago.

Chase Larson sits in the company’s board room.

(Tyne Morgan, Farm Journal)

“He was doing a lot of the responsibilities up to that point, as far as negotiations, cropping decisions, and relationships - everything it takes to run a farm. He earned that respect and my feeling the time was right,” says Thayne Larson, Chase’s dad who also now serves as Bestifor board president.

Chase recalls the point his dad decided it was time to fully transition, “He walked in, and actually my mom was there too, and said, ‘You are CEO of all of Bestifor.”

An aerial view of harvest for Bestifor Farms.

(Chase Larson)

That moment was a surprise in a way, but Chase has always been an integral part of the operation, even buying and brokering loads of hay in college.

“That’s how I really got into it was through logistics and shipping and negotiating when we got into the trucking business,” Larson says.

Bestifor Farms is one of six companies for this sixth-generation farm family.

(Matt Mormann, Farm Journal )

Today, Bestifor Hay Company and Bestifor Farms are just two of the six businesses that make up the Bestifor family of companies.

“We hired better and better people and provided benefits. We worked off of that model, and we’re still working off that model today. But not only the farm and the hay company, but all the additional companies that we have surrounded that support it,” Thayne says.

Bestifor family of brands includes six companies today.

(Matt Mormann, Farm Journal)

Pursuit to Enter Into Pet Food
With 40 employees, 30 of which are full time, each of the Bestifor companies inject values into the overall Bestifor brand, and one of the businesses that’s sprouted within the last decade is a company called Grandpa’s Best.

“We realized we had some really good talent around us being in the hay business for a long time. We said, ‘How hard can it be to start a pet food company?’ And turns out, it’s really hard,” Chase says.

Grandpa’s Best is a small family company committed to providing premium quality Timothy Hay, Orchard Grass Hay, Alfalfa Hay, and native Kansas Prairie Hay to small herbivores and exotic animals.

(Matt Mormann, Farm Journal)

The wild idea to start a pet food company didn’t come from Chase or Thayne. The idea came from Chase’s late wife Celine.

“She came out here and she just got a curious mind,” Thayne says. “She walked the pastures and she was a K-State grad who grew up in California. She said, ‘I wonder what else can eat this grass besides cattle. So, she got seven or eight or 10 different species of grasses, and she sent samples to K-State for research asking what else will eat this? And it came back with rabbits and gerbils.”

They hired a firm to help explain the pet food business, uncovering a $3 billion pet food market worldwide.

“And we said, ‘Well, sure, there’s a piece of that we can find,’” Thayne says.

And they did - a business that’s doubled in sales every year since 2019.

“Chase and Celine, they brought a different side to the operation,” Thayne says. “They showed us there’s more to this than just local and quality for what we’re trying to accomplish as a family. And they have just taken it to another level and put it on steroids. It’s taken off in a whole different direction, and we’re excited about it.”

Constantly uncovering new opportunities, Chase’s late wife Celine was the one who came up with the idea for Grandpa’s Best.

(Chase Larson )

The Battle Against Cancer
Celine Larson was a light on the farm, in their family and in their community.

“She was someone who was an entrepreneurial spirit,” Larson says. “She enjoyed agriculture.”

In 2017, Celine was diagnosed with cancer. Their four kids were 2, 4, 6 and 8 at the time, and Chase’s focus shifted from farming, to fighting for Celine’s life with treatments in Texas.

“I think the longest stint was like 36 days that we never came back,” Chase says. “My mom took the girls to school every day, got them ready, fed them and took over that role while we were down there fighting cancer.”

Chase, along with his late wife Celine, have four daughters.

(Chase Larson )

On Dec. 9, 2019, a little over two years since she was first diagnosed with Stage 4 melanoma, Celine Larson passed away at the age of 35.

“When she passed away, it changed our perspective on what’s important in life,” Chase says. “You rethink what you want to do, what you don’t want to do. But the family support on both sides was unbelievable. And most people think, ‘How do you get through things like that?’ But it these negatives are not negatives.”

Thayne adds, “He hasn’t talked about his faith, but it’s rock solid. He’s just such an inspiration and so dedicated. And that’s part of the balance of his life.”

Water Management Software Built By Farmers
Constantly striving for balance, Chase is also always uncovering new ways to grow. One example is through is latest endeavor, which is an app for real-time water management called VandWater, a company that was built by farmers for farmers.

“We figured out how to write it, got the right coders, hired them and went from concept to that in three months,” Chase says.

Chase Larson created VandWater two years ago, which is software for anyone who manages water. The goal is to make comprehensive water management more simple through software.

(VandWater )

Today, VandWater is a fully web-based app, available on any iPhone or Android. It has thousands of wells on the system across three states.

The new ventures are allowing the operation to grow in new ways, all while not losing sight of their roots, which is the farm. Bestifor Farms has managed to double in size over the last 16 years - growing to 12,000 acres today.

Sixth Generation Farm With Sights Set on the Future
And Chase says this sixth-generation farm isn’t finished growing yet.

“We’re very entrepreneurial driven,” Chase says. “We’re not afraid to fail, not to figure out a mistake here or there. You’re not going to grow without constant change and being outside of your borders.”

Chase’s constant hunger to find value, while not losing sight of the fact quality is their legacy here, makes Chase Larson a finalist for 2025 Top Producer of the Year.

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How Iowa Farmer Mark Hanna is Investing in Innovation and Giving Ag Startups a Fighting Chance

Dalton Dilldine: Next-Generation Producer Follows in His Father’s Footsteps

Texas Rancher Kimberly Ratcliff Trades the Big Apple for Community Beef Business

Battle Against Resistant Weeds: How One Technology Could Revive No-Till On the Plains

Tue, 26 Nov 2024 14:30:42 GMT

Farming in southwest Kansas isn’t for the faint of heart. Producing a crop in an arid climate can be a challenge, but this year, Luke Jaeger is thankful for some much needed rain.

“It was the wettest November on record for us in some areas of the farm, which is crazy this time of year.” says Jaeger, a farmer in Minneola, Kan.

For an area that typically receives less than 20" of rain each year, Jaeger says some of his farms have seen 6" of rain during the month of November alone.

The deluge of rain is much needed moisture the winter wheat is soaking up, and it’s also planting ideas for different crop plans next spring.

“I was just talking with our local dealer here about how on our farm, for the first time ever, we will probably plant more dryland corn than we will grain sorghum, because of the subsoil moisture we have in the ground.

Jaeger and his brother farm a mix of corn, sorghum, soybeans and wheat, most of which is dryland, across 20,000 acres.

“Every year, my brother and I, Matthew, take a 30,000' approach and poke holes in our operation to find where we are spending too much money and where can we save,” Jaeger says.

A never ending journey to solve problems on their own farm, they started EGE Products to manufacture specialty ag chemicals and fertilizers.

“I like to say our farm is a 20,000 acre research farm,” Jaeger says. “In our office, we have a full-scale laboratory with formulation chemists, Ph.D.s, chemists and chemical engineers. So, we see problems on the farm and bring them back to our formulations team to work on solutions.”

With the farm to then put those products to the test, Jaeger says it’s a constant journey to innovate.

“I think it’s important to be relevant in the marketplace and always be innovating, whether it’s on the farm or with EGE. We’re always trying to innovate,” Jaeger says. “I think if you’re not innovating, you’re dying. A lot of people bristle at adopting newer technologies and we just dive right into it and go.”

One of the latest products they decided to try wasn’t something they produced on their own. Instead, it was added to their sprayer: John Deere’s See & Spray.

“It’s like that technology was built for our farm,” Jaeger says. “We didn’t approach See & Spray technology to specifically reduce costs. A lot of it was reducing the toxicity of some of the chemicals that we were using on the farm.”

Able to Use More Effective, But More Expensive Herbicides

Jaeger says they run their sprayer 11 months out of the year, and he’s the one who’s typically in the driver’s seat.

“I put about 600 hours a year in the seat of one of our sprayers, and I don’t like Paraquat,” he explains. “What See & Spray has allowed us to do is chemistries that perform the same, but they were a little too expensive, it has allowed us to integrate that chemistry more into our operation.”

Jaeger says in his area, a chemistry like Paraquat is widely used out of necessity, mainly because it’s the most affordable and best option available for farmers

However, they Jaegers don’t like to use that particular herbicide, saying it drifts too much and is too toxic. Now, thanks to the new spraying technology that allows them to only spray where weeds are present, their farm has been able to make the switch.

“It’s allowed us to move to other chemistries that were more expensive and hard to justify when you were spraying every acre. And now we’ve been able able to move to to some of those less toxic. I mean, the chemistry that we use now is less toxic than table salt. So, I mean, you can get real excited about that,” said Jaeger.

The Battle Against Resistant Weeds

Instead of looking at the technology to save on costs, Jaeger sees it as a way to do a more effective job.

“I found that we’re going out earlier, more often than we normally would,” he adds. “If you’re going to blanket spray, you want to wait until there are enough weeds out there to justify the the application. And for us, we didn’t. We don’t have to wait because we know maybe we’re only going to spray 5% of the field.”

Because of their location, the Jaegers had to transition to nearly 100% no-till, a necessity to control wind erosion and help preserve and protect any moisture in the soil.

“A lot of farmers have had to abandon no till because it’s just too expensive, and it became harder and harder to control those resistant weeds,” Jaeger says. “But with this technology, I think we’re going to see more farmers coming back into no till because they can cost effectively control those weeds.

In 2011, it was kochia that Roundup herbicide would no longer control. Now Jaeger says Pigweed and resistant grasses, like switchgrass, have become a yearly battle.

“What this See & Spray technology allows us to do is run a more concentrated spray mixture, a high rate of glyphosate or cluster them. But we’re only spraying that particular weed and not the whole field. So, we can run a higher rate of that chemical, get way better control, and our costs are still very minimal because we’re only spraying that target weed that’s out there,” he explained.

When farming smarter and always trying to innovate, the Jaegers say it’s technology like See & Spray that seems to have a perfect fit here in southwest Kansas.

Your Next Reads:

Looking to Cut Costs? This Illinois Farmer Saved $8,000 on Herbicides in a 200-Acre Soybean Field

How This One Technology Helped a Michigan Farmer Cut His Herbicide Use by 60%

A Partner In Shared Success: Retailer Of The Year MKC

Fri, 27 Sep 2024 17:59:15 GMT

With a mission “to create customer, employee and partner success to provide a safe and sustainable food supply” and a shared vision “to partner with customers to successfully navigate the complexities of modern agriculture and industry,” MKC has been named the 2023 Retailer of the Year, an award sponsored by Bayer Crop Science and supported by The Scoop.

Formed in 1965, the cooperative and its 600-plus employees today serve 11,000 member-owners in Kansas and surrounding states.

Simultaneously, MKC has grown traditional businesses and added new opportunities and services.

“We’ve got businesses in the traditional sense of grain, agronomy, energy and feed and animal nutrition, but we also do risk management,” explains Brad Stedman, president and CEO of MKC. “We try to tie the whole thing together through how we help the farmer be successful. Our view from our customers’ and farmer-owners’ standpoint is if they’re successful, ultimately we’re successful.”

Company leaders echo, physical signage declares and MKC employees embody the tagline, “Shared growth. Shared success.”

This statement of continuous improvement is tied to the purpose of MKC and is the intrinsic driving force bringing employees to work.

“Shared growth, shared success is not only important to our customers and our strategic partners but also to employees and the rural communities we live and work in,” says Dave Spears, executive vice president and chief marketing officer.

MKC sets its culture based on the four keys of safety, courtesy, image and innovation.

“These four keys really drive how we show up in the market, how we treat each other, how we treat customers, strategic partners and ultimately how we drive our brand and innovate across our organization,” Stedman says.

Four Core Values

Safety
MKC has established a safety-first culture for its business operations. Eight MKC locations have received certification through the Occupational Safety and Health Administration and its Safety and Health Achievement Recognition Program.

Courtesy
Company leaders say this is the backbone of customer service, and they strive to provide best-in-class customer service.

Image
MKC has strived to create a high standard in not only the experience member-owners and customers receive but also the image that communities served have of MKC.

Innovation
Team members are encouraged to embrace new ideas, be open to change and always learn. MKC offers support to them through a strong learning and development program that provides opportunities for growth, skill-building and leadership preparation.

Providing further fuel to the growth of MKC are the four pillars of its strategic plan: talent, brand, customer and profit.

Talent
Recruitment and retention are key tenants to MKC’s talent strategy. Hilary Worcester, manager of learning development, explains that the team aims to build pathways and development opportunities.

“Building the pipeline of talent for MKC starts in educational environments through on-site tours and classroom visits for local schools. These experiences progress into job shadow programs and internships for students to experience real career options. The company recently launched an apprenticeship program to foster talent without a direct background in agriculture to find opportunities at MKC.”

To establish consistency, all employees attend in-person orientation on their first day at the Moundridge, Kansas, headquarters. Additionally, once a year, all operations staff attend training to maintenance protocols and standard operating procedures.

MKC aims for high employee retention to better serve farmers with consistency and excellence.

“Each employee has a set of goals and a development plan designed with their manager to ensure clarity of expectations and tie their work to MKC’s success,” Worcester says. “The next step is providing continuous employee development to grow our current team members into industry experts and accrue bench strength for when leadership opportunities arise.”

A newly established manager’s training program focuses on outfitting successful team members for the next phase of their careers.

“We want to give them a hands-on experience, not only with our processes and tools but also with the way MKC thinks about management—not management of tasks but management of people and individuals through their career,” Worcester says.

To prepare managers for next-level leadership opportunities in the business, MKC has developed a proprietary program called the Strategic Thinking and Execution Program.

“We’ve found it’s most helpful to structure these programs ourselves because it’s about teaching the MKC way of thinking about things,” Worcester says. “They’re all rooted in our four keys. They’re all rooted in our objectives. They’re all rooted in our vision.”

Brand
Stedman wants farmers to view the MKC team as a solutions provider.

“We employ an enterprise sales approach across the business. So when we show up at the farm gate, we’re looking at their entire business rather than just a segment of it,“ he says. “We connect our team of specialists together, so they can meet the enterprise needs of the farmer. By using risk management tools, like crop insurance and grain origination contracts, we are able to tie their grain outputs and crop inputs together. Ultimately, we want to help them maximize their revenue potential while creating a floor for future success. We think it’s really important that our customers think about profitability and tying it all together through our enterprise approach.”

From how the team shows up physically on the farm to what comes to mind when a farmer thinks of MKC, this perception-building is paramount to the business’ growth.

Spears adds, “What sets MKC apart from other competitors in Kansas includes our employees and their ability to service our customers and provide them a full range of products and services.”

As such, MKC has embedded more technology into its business to deliver value and instill relevance. They are on a digital transformation journey to automate processes, create efficiency and re-imagine the business for the digital age. The four areas of projects within this initiative are business applications, robotic process automation, paperless workflows and artificial intelligence and machine learning.

For example, MKC has invested in new customer-facing portals: MKC Connect and MWF Connect. These have created an improved online and mobile experience for member-owners and customers.

“We’re invested in a drone company. We’re invested in a robotics company,” Stedman says. “We’re not afraid to try new things and fail, and we’re not afraid to try new things on their behalf to figure out what is going to help them from an agronomy input perspective in the future to make their crops more profitable and more productive.”

Customer
MKC has surveyed its core customer base for the past six years. The results have improved year over year. In 2023, the overall customer satisfaction score averaged 87%, which exceeded the 85% goal. Since administering the survey, customer retention averaged more than 97%.

“Customers choose us because we focus on bringing innovative solutions to their farm gate—whether it’s being a vanguard on the leading edge or supporting them where they are,” says Devin Schierling, vice president of sales. “They trust us to be a consistent factor throughout the entire process to help make a positive impact on their farm.”

MKC uses metrics to measure success for ease of doing business, customer satisfaction, customer and employee retention, regrettable turnover and profitability.

From the farmer survey, areas of positive feedback were as follows:

Friendly, trustworthy and knowledgeable people.
Investments made toward the continued improvement of services and programs.
Value and reliability provided by agronomic strategic account managers to the producers’ operations.
Reliability of the employees, products, programs and services.

When asked to describe MKC, this customer group most often used the word “partner.”

What Farmers Have To Say About MKC

Dale Schmidt, DE Schmidt Farms, McPherson, Kansas
“They’re able to meet the needs that I have for service. Really, my business depends on their timeliness and having good employees showing up whenever I need them. MKC invests my dollars into the infrastructure for elevators, machinery, equipment, but also, they’re investing in good people, which is greatly needed.”

Derek Sawyer, Sawyer Family Angus, McPherson, Kansas
“MKC does a great job of getting their service people to the farm gate—from having crop insurance advisers that come out and help walk us through it to the crop protection specialists that actually get out in the field and quite oftentimes will tell me what’s going on before I realize it in the field and then the marketing guys or ladies that are a phone call away to help with marketing of the crops.”

Justin Mosiman, Mosiman Farms, Newton, Kansas
“We have been with MKC for multiple generations. The service and the commitment they’ve had to us has helped us. Their willingness to innovate and try new things has helped us on our farm as well. We’re able to do business as friends, and we feel like we make decisions together.”

Sara Hasty, Graber Grain Farms, Hesston, Kansas
“We consider our strategic account manager part of our team in our operation, and they’re a partner with our planning before the year even begins. Right before any busy season, we go through planning, and then it helps things go a lot smoother.”

Profit
Stedman credits the cooperative’s consistency to its strategic plan.

“We’ve been very consistent over 12 years with our growth strategy,” Stedman says. “It has directed how we grow, making sure it’s core to who we are and who our customers are. As long as we focus on growth that is positive for our customers and our farmer-owners, that drives our success.”

He says the team at MKC is committed to earning farmers’ business every day. Focusing on winning business on the acre and serving customers for the long term have yielded success for MKC.

“Our approach isn’t about selling a widget. It’s about a mindset—a way of doing business,” Schierling says. “When you remove the noise of price and distraction in advertising, you get down to the question: How does what I do today impact the bottom line of my farm? From there, you expand that to look at managing operations on a multiyear basis.”

Advocacy

About 20 employees at MKC are actively involved in national and state associations.

“I think policy and politics are not spectator sports, and we need to have everybody involved in it,” says Brad Stedman, president and CEO, MKC.

The cooperative is a member and has employees engaged as leaders of the Agricultural Retailers Association, National Grain and Feed, National Council of Farmer Cooperatives, Kansas Agribusiness Retailers, Kansas Grain and Feed, Kansas Cooperative Council, Certified Crop Adviser Program and other industry groups.

Dave Spears, executive vice president and chief marketing officer, echoes how MKC has taken on a role of advocacy, “We advocate on behalf of our customers, our strategic partners and the entire industry as well.”

Annually, MKC hosts a Legislative Staff Day for congressional staff and state legislators at facilities to form personal connections.
MKC annually hosts members of the congressional delegation and regulatory agencies for tours and roundtable discussions at its facility locations.
At the Kansas state capitol, MKC attends Legislative Action Day each year and has for well longer than a decade.
MKC leaders and members of its board of directors make frequent visits to Washington, D.C., so they can meet with members of Congress.

“MKC having a voice not only at the local and the state level but also the national level allows them to amplify the message of Kansas farmers like us, and also sing in harmony with the other ag organizations across the country to really put an emphasis behind those important priorities as we write the farm bill,” says Katie Sawyer, state director for U.S. Senator Roger Marshall (pictured above with Spears). “The freedom to operate is invaluable to the growth and prosperity of Kansas agriculture and agriculture across this country.”

A Work Of Art: The 108 Feet Tall Wheat Harvest Mural in Kansas That's Going Viral

Thu, 12 Sep 2024 15:29:32 GMT

It all started with an aging grain solo.

“It is 108 feet tall and 49 feet wide to be exact,” says Mindy Allen, owner of Mindy’s Murals in Junction City, Kan.

That one structure in Inman, Kan., served as Allen’s blank canvas, and over six weeks she transformed it into her largest mural yet.

As a full-time mural artist based in Kansas, she’s completed so many paintings and murals, Allen admits she’s actually lost count. But her latest masterpiece is one that took her more than a month to complete.

“It’s the largest on all aspects. I mean, largest as far as time frame, size, budget, exposure, every single thing about it. This is the biggest that I’ve ever done,” says Allen.

Odds are you’ve never even heard of Inman, Kansas. It’s situated in the central part of the state, but only boasts a population of just over 1,300 people. Until now, its identity was “a small town outside of McPherson,” but thanks to the larger-than-life mural, Inman has a new claim to fame.

“It took me six weeks, but I did take a lot of days off because of weather,” she says. “Between the wind and the rain, it just took time, but Mother Nature finally was like, ‘ Fine, she’s doing the mural, I’m just going to let her let her go.’ So, she finally let me finish it.”

Other than the weather, her biggest challenge in creating the giant mural was her lift.

“The speed of the lift was the biggest challenge,” she explains. “It just takes a long time to get up to the top or to get to where you want to go, and just maneuvering the lift and making it get to the right spot, it takes a lot of time.”

The process of actually painting the mural is no easy feat, and it’s one that starts with a digital drawing.

“Then, with a digital drawing, when I know the exact height and width of the building, then I can put those measurements onto my digital drawing,” says Allen. “I use a method called a ‘doodle grid.’ I basically just spray paint doodles all over the wall where I’m going to have like main parts of the drawings. And then I take a photo of those doodles and layer those over top of my digital drawing. So then I use that as a grid and I can go back in and with spray paint, I just sketch everything out and draw it so that I know where things are and then I can start painting.”

From the digital drawing of the mural on the left to the actual finished product on the right, it’s a vivid picture that highlights wheat harvest in Kansas. And the idea all started with one man.

“The picture of the farmer standing here and looking at all this, so many of us can drive up and say, ‘That is my dad. I can see my dad doing that.’ So, that just tells the whole story of what it’s all about,” Ron Regehr, with the Inman Museum, told U.S. Farm Report affiliate KWCH.

A man on a mission, he wanted to draw attention to the museum. So, he contacted Allen to bring his idea to life.

“Without him, it wouldn’t have been possible,” she says. “And with them adding onto the museum, he’s really hoping that this would give that a push, as well and, you know, help make that more possible, too.”

What started as a dream, has turned into a picture-perfect reality that’s now a new attraction for this rural Kansas town.

“I love painting, of course. I love doing the murals. But I think that it’s so rewarding when I finished the mural to be able to see how it has affected everybody else as well,” says Allen. “That to me is my favorite part, just knowing that so many people are seeing it and so many people are having a reaction to it and appreciating it. To me, that’s what makes it all worth it. “

Allen is already on to her next project. You can follow her work on her Facebook page .

Landus Launches New Health Insurance Program, Details Recent Acquisitions

Thu, 29 Aug 2024 19:07:44 GMT

Landus, an Iowa-based agriculture solutions and farm technology provider, has announced affordable, farmer-focused health coverage options are now available through its new Landus Health and Conduit Health program.

The initiative is powered by Momentum Ag, a Division of Patriot Growth Insurance Services, LLC, and will provide comprehensive health insurance coverage through a nationwide provider network, ensuring health care is affordable and accessible for thousands of farmers across the nation.

Momentum Ag may sound familiar to some readers. Back in January, FBN spun off its health insurance project to Patriot Growth Services , which rebranded the FBN health insurance program under the Momentum Ag moniker.

According to sources with direct knowledge of the process, Landus had previously come to a tentative agreement with a separate entity to underwrite its health insurance program, but Landus and the unnamed entity mutually decided to part ways due to lack of coverage for accidents involving motorized vehicles. Landus then pivoted to an alternative partner to launch the program, with Momentum Ag entering the equation.

According to a Landus press release, health insurance programs for farmers and their employees have been overwhelmingly expensive, and coverage has been limited across the ag industry, with farmers paying the majority of expenses out of pocket. Landus Health and Conduit Health makes health coverage available for farming operations of any size and is specifically designed with rural families’ needs in mind, the cooperative adds.

“There are plenty of people out there that are thinking about what’s happening now, but one of the key advantages is going to be investing in the farmer themselves,” says Dehra Harris, senior director - training and performance. “One of the biggest changes is actually having affordable health care insurance, and we need to make models where it comes to you. Those resources don’t mean that you’re leaving the farm for five hours at a time. This is the stuff that actually works for you.”

Landus Health and Conduit Health offers, among other benefits:

Comprehensive Coverage: Program includes $0 preventative and telemedicine along with care coordination and disease management for chronic conditions.
At-Home Access to Care: All farmers who sign up for Landus Health or Conduit Health will receive a TytoCare kit for convenient, efficient at-home access to health providers and diagnoses regardless of proximity to provider locations. According to Landus representatives, enrolled farmers, their employees, and their families can be seen by a medical professional virtually with no upfront co-pay expense via the TytoCare kit.
Affordable Program Options: Multiple program options are offered to fit every budget with solutions for employee only, employee/spouse, employee/children, or family.
Nationwide Provider Network: Available options use the Cigna nationwide network, so it’s easy to find an in-network provider wherever you are.

“We listened to our farmers. Rural vitality is central to our mission here at Landus, and affordable, high quality health coverage is a key part of that,” said Matt Carstens, Landus and Conduit president & CEO. “I look forward to partnering with a farmer-focused company like Momentum Ag to get this critical support in the hands of farmers.”

Additional developments

Landus also shared the following news items this week:

The acquisition of DSM Advantage, a strategic move that marks the launch of a new freight brokering division, Landus Advantage. The cooperative says the addition will increase its ability to support farmers with quality freight service year-round. By entering the freight brokering industry, Landus is now positioned to offer its farmer-members and other customers competitive freight rates, reliable service, and a streamlined experience, according to the cooperative.
The acquisition of independent, Iowa-based distributor Wickman Chemical, which Landus says will bolster a variety of chemical products and service offerings for customers in Iowa and Kansas. The acquisition also opens up Wickman Chemical’s customer base to have access to all that Landus has to offer. The purchase agreement will go into effect on October 1, 2024.
A collaborative venture with Wessels Oil Company to spur the creation of Landus Energy, which the cooperative says will significantly enhance the customer experience for both Landus and Wessels Oil Co. and deliver energy products (off-road diesel, regular diesel, gasoline, LP, etc.) to Landus customers.

The financial terms of both deals were not disclosed as of press time.

You can visit Landus.ag to learn more.

Your Next Read: How Landus Is Blazing A New Path in Ag Retail

MKC Expands Workforce Through Rural Kansas Apprenticeship Program

Wed, 19 Jun 2024 23:17:58 GMT

Mid-Kansas Cooperative (MKC) is putting an emphasis on its next generation of leaders.

Through Kansas Farm Bureau’s Rural Kansas Apprenticeship Program (RKAP), the cooperative has selected five new full-time employees to train for leadership roles:

Tristen Burger
Matt Pauly
Mark Perry
Anthony Redar
Kyle Sherwood

“The Rural Kansas Apprenticeship Program is a crucial part of our people strategy to build a robust and skilled workforce,” says Anne Warren, chief talent officer at MKC. “By investing in these apprentices, we’re not only strengthening our company but also contributing to the economic vitality of rural Kansas. Our apprentices gain invaluable hands-on experience and leadership training, positioning them for successful careers with MKC.”

The apprenticeships will last for one year and focus on leadership development. Throughout that year, the five participants will rotate through multiple MKC locations to train in agronomy, grain, risk management, feed, energy, information technology, human resources, accounting and safety with experts in each division.

Kansas Farm Bureau created RKAP at the end of 2022 to help address the workforce needs in rural communities across the state. MKC previously participated in 2023 with seven apprentices and currently has additional openings for CDL drivers.

“The goal is to create trained and skilled workers for companies operating in rural Kansas,” says Kylee Stout, Kansas Farm Bureau’s business development manager. “RKAP gives employers the ability to create pathways for workers to acquire practical skills that lead to well-paying jobs in any role where a company has a need.”

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Scoular Acquires Three Facilities in Central Kansas

Tue, 30 Jan 2024 22:14:56 GMT

Scoular has acquired three grain handling facilities in central Kansas, enabling the company to more than double its storage capacity in the region and expand market opportunities for area farmers.

“Expanding our footprint in central Kansas enables us to better serve local producers, customers and our partners,” said Scoular regional manager TJ Mandl. “We remain committed to building lasting relationships with a continued focus on responsible growth opportunities.”

The three facilities, purchased from Skyland Grain and located in Trousdale, Cullison and Greensburg, will handle corn, wheat, soybeans, milo and canola. The expansion will also allow the company to add additional local employees to its facility team.

Grain from the facilities will be transported through Pratt, which is located on the Union Pacific mainline. The company says this will provide more producers access to markets through their supply chain network.

Kansas-Based SurePoint Ag Systems Expands With New Facility

Thu, 11 Jan 2024 19:17:19 GMT

SurePoint Ag Systems has announced plans to build a new office and production facility that will allow them to expand their capacity and offer new products.

“This project will more than double the footprint of our existing facility, allowing us to continue growing within the agriculture market,” says president and CEO Josh Wolters. “Our team of innovative developers, engineers and technicians have big plans to offer new products and expand our unique solutions to producers across the United States, Canada, and beyond. And equally important, the new facility in Atwood will allow SurePoint to continue growing as an economic engine in Rawlins County and Northwest Kansas now and into the future.”

The new facility will be located on the current SurePoint campus, which is four miles north of Atwood, Kan.

The company currently employs over 100 Atwood-based employees and expects the expansion to allow them to hire additional staff with all levels of education ranging from production and fulfillment to leadership and management positions.

The expansion follows the company’s joint venture with John Deere, which was announced in March 2022, to use Deere technology to enhance productivity across their products.

Groundbreaking for the new facility is currently planned for spring 2024.

Three Midwestern Farm Credit Associations Announce Collaboration

Thu, 28 Dec 2023 15:26:50 GMT

AgCountry Farm Credit Services, Frontier Farm Credit and Farm Credit Services of America announced they have signed a collaboration contract. The three boards will share leadership, planning and technology responsibilities, while local boards, offices and programs will be retained.

“Continual improvement is vital to the long-term success of any farm or ranch,” said Shane Tiffany, chair of the Frontier Farm Credit board. “Our financial cooperatives are no different. As agriculture gets more complicated and our risks and costs as producers increase, we need to know we can count on our lender. This collaboration better positions us for the future.”

Combined, the organizations have a reach of over 85,000 producers in eight states: Iowa, Kansas, Minnesota, Nebraska, North Dakota, South Dakota, Wisconsin and Wyoming.

“There are many examples of successful collaborations in the Farm Credit System,” said Nick Jorgensen, chair of the FCSAmerica Board. “This one is unique in allowing each association to share functions where it makes sense, yet retain the local experience we all have come to value from our individual cooperatives and financial teams.”

At the end of 2022, AgCountry, based in Fargo, ND, had a reported loan volume of $11.6 billion. Frontier Farm Credit, based in Manhattan, Kan., had a volume of $2.6 billion and FCS America, based in Omaha, Neb., reported $38.3 billion.

“Our three boards are comprised mostly of farmers and ranchers. We were elected by our fellow member-owners to make decisions ensuring our associations fulfill their mission to current and future producers,” said Lynn Pietig, chair of AgCountry’s board of directors. “Each association enters this collaboration in a financially strong position. By working together, we can achieve benefits of scale that make us even stronger.”

The collaboration is expected to take effect no later than April 1, 2024.

Wheat Tour Finds Drought, Freeze Robbed More Wheat Than Expected, Surprisingly High Abandonment Now Pegged Across Kansas

Fri, 19 May 2023 20:44:44 GMT

As scouts set out on the 2023 Wheat Quality Council ’ s Hard Winter Wheat Tour across Kansas this week, they knew they’d found drought-ravaged fields. But as freeze damage became more apparent in the central part of the state, the tour found a disappointing state-wide yield and higher abandonment compared to what USDA currently has penciled in.

The Wheat Tour found a three-day average calculated yield of 30 bu. per acre, but that yield is only based on the field that will be harvested. Kansas Wheat points out crop abandonment will be high, robbing the state’s yield potential and producing a high number of abandoned wheat fields.

Wheat field in Kingman Co KS looking OK from the road but fairly thin as you walk into it. Still better potential than many fields that we’ve sampled today. @KansasWheat @KStateAgron #wheattour23 pic.twitter.com/iAL378gwJe
— Romulo Lollato (@KSUWheat) May 17, 2023

Overall, the Wheat Quality Council’s Hard Winter Wheat Tour found:

The official tour projection for the total production of wheat to be harvested in Kansas is 178 million bushels
Tour participants thought abandonment might be quite a bit higher than normal at 26.75%.
The production number is the average of estimated predictions from tour participants who gathered information from 652 fields across the state.
Based on May 1 conditions, NASS predicted the crop to be higher at 191 million bushels, with a yield of 29 bushels per acre and abandonment at 18.5%.

First-Hand Look From the Field

Tanner Ehmke, who’s the lead economist for grains and oilseeds for CoBank , was on the Wheat Quality Council’s tour this week. He says abandonment is still the biggest question mark for the winter wheat crop across the Plains.

“There’s a lot of concern on the tour about abandoned, and that seems to be the wildcard because we saw a lot of good fields or decent fields, we’ll say, in the central or eastern part of the state. But as you head further west, conditions rapidly deteriorate. And then we saw a lot of fields that are going to get abandoned,” Ehmke told AgriTalk host Chip Flory during the AgriTalk PM on Thursday .

Abandoned fields and low yields underscore #WheatTour23 - Projection of wheat to be harvested is 178 mb, indicating that tour participants thought abandonment might be high at 26.75%. The yield for the fields that will be harvested was 30 bushels per acre. https://t.co/KuuDcq8aSt pic.twitter.com/h25TgSLB54
— KansasWheat (@KansasWheat) May 18, 2023

Ehmke says he talked to one wheat grower in Sterling, Kansas who is still debating on how much of his crop he’ll harvest this year.

“He said if you look at your insurance rate, and the indemnity check that some will be getting, it just doesn’t make any sense for a lot of these fields to be harvested,” Ehmke told Flory on AgriTalk. “So, what we saw out in the field absolutely confirmed, what we had been hearing in the marketplace, it also supports a lot of what USDA said.”

Ehmke says the final tour numbers came in below USDA’s current crop estimate, with the Wheat Tour estimating Kansas’ crop at 178 million bushels, which is more than 13 million bushels below the current USDA estimate.

“We are anticipating a little bit of a smaller crop there. And that’s mostly due to a higher abandonment rate. We came in with a yield just a tad bit over USDA. Our yield was 30 bushels an acre and USDA was about 29,” says Ehmke.

Wheat Tour Day 2 - Black Team - West Central - Grainfield (30 mi south)

Adequate moisture, boot stage, Vp stand/ highly variable, no disease. Abandonment
Yield estimate - 4#CattCropTour23 #wheattour23 @KansasWheat #wheat @KSUWheat @KStateAgron @KSU_Shawn pic.twitter.com/sZ0rMJsUF2
— Corbin Catt / Catt & Crew Farms (@cb_catt) May 17, 2023

Freeze Damage Deals Wheat a Double Punch

While drought was the main culprit of the surprising hit to yield, Ehmke says scouts were also shocked by how much damage the late freeze did to the winter wheat crop this year.

“There was extensive freeze damage, especially in the central part of the state,” he says. “That was one of the first things we all noticed is when you go out into the field, to count stems and count heads and try to come up with a yield estimate out there. The very tips of the wheat heads and head turned white. And now it’s because of the frosting a few weeks ago, and when that head was still in the boot if it had been sticking out and exposed to freezing temperatures, then you lost those kernels. And so that factored also into the lower number that we had for the crop tour,” Ehmke explains.

34.5 b/a estimated yield on 4th stop of Hwy 4 Blue Route. Much shorter stands and freeze damage. #wheattour23 pic.twitter.com/rgzsNv28H9
— Tanner Ehmke (@tannerehmke) May 16, 2023

Wheat Harvest 3 to 6 Weeks Away

The wheat tour consisted of three days of wheat scouting, with the tour taking scouts on six routes from Manhattan to Colby to Wichita and back to Manhattan. Kansas Wheat says the tour drew in 106 people from 22 U.S. states plus Mexico, Canada, and Colombia.

The Wheat Quality Council estimates wheat harvest is three to six weeks away for the area the scouts toured this week. And Kansas Wheat points out a lot can happen during that time to affect final yields and production.

Iowa Cooperative Hosts Drive-In Movie Night

Wed, 11 Nov 2020 06:24:43 GMT

This past Saturday night, May 9, Landus Cooperative hosted a drive-in movie night at its Jefferson, Iowa location.

Frozen 2 was projected onto the grain elevator. According to Alicia Heun, director of communications for Landus, 110 cars came to practice social distancing while enjoying the show. The cooperative asked all attendees to stay in their vehicles—including truck beds.

Donations were collected—contact free—for the local food pantry, which totaled $1,003.

Equipment Update: Sales Continue to Fall As Demand Softness Sets In

U.S. sales of tractors decreased 19% in September 2024 compared to the year before, according to new data from the Association of Equipment Manufacturers. Sales of combines also fell during the month, dropping 41% compared to 2023.

U.S. sales of Ag tractors decreased 19% in September 2024 and combine sales dropped by 41%, according to newly reported AEM sales data.

(Association of Equipment Manufacturers )

“September’s sales of Ag tractors and combines follows a summer that showed a cyclical slowdown in sales,” said AEM Senior Vice President Curt Blades. “These declines point to the overall softness in the ag economy.”

Canadian sales of Ag tractors also dropped in September 2024, finishing the month 24% behind 2023’s sales, while combine sales fell 52% compared to the year before.

With equipment sales lagging, manufacturers are once again having to make some difficult decisions regarding domestic production and workforces.

AGCO announced layoffs at its Hesston, Kansas, facility last week, while John Deere announced a 120,000 square foot expansion of one of its production facilities in Strafford, Missouri, where the company remanufactures parts and components.

John Deere was also on the receiving end of some presidential campaign rhetoric from former president and current Republican nominee Donald Trump. The ex-president threatened to slap Deere products imported into the U.S. with a 200% tariff due to the manufacturer shifting some of its production footprint to a facility in Mexico. Deere has said that facility manufactures tractor cabs and other components and has been in operation since the 1950s.

RELATED: Trump Threatens 200% Tariff If Deere Moves Manufacturing to Mexico

For its part, Case IH has launched the largest combine lineup in the farm equipment industry despite seeing its own sales drop 20% in Q2. Net profits were also down 19% compared to Q2 2023.

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