FFA officers installed at banquet

Soil Stewardship Week

In 1955, the National association of Conservation Districts began a national program to encourage Americans to focus on stewardship. Stewardship Week is officially celebrated from the last Sunday in April to the first Sunday in May. It is one of the world's largest conservation-related observances.

Small raised garden

Do you have a small backyard? Do you wish you had the space for a garden, but don't want to sacrifice your entire yard to be able to grow your favorite vegetables? Well, an option for you is to garden is a small raised bed. When you garden in a raised bed system, one of the most important things to consider is the soil that you are going to use. One of the major reasons ...

The Law of the Minimum

There isn't much to say regarding the wheat crop right now but to wait so let's go in a different direction this week. First, the Crop Protection class at the college toured the area south of the college this past Wednesday travelling as far south as the Hudson area. Normally they can examine wheat, alfalfa, and newly emerged corn. Since the weather went south pretty quickly, the tour was a bit abbreviated. It's safe to ...

K-State Research and Extension Announces Lesser Prairie-Chicken Meeting

Pheasants Forever is helping to publicize a meeting for landowners interested in learning more about the potential listing of the lesser prairie-chicken (LPC) as a threatened or endangered species by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS). This issue has been on the minds of western Kansas landowners for the last two years. A final decision is expected from USFWS in September of this year, but there is still plenty of uncertainty about what that ...

The family that eats together stays together

When we think of eating a meal today, images of a person dashing toward the door while chomping down the last bite and yelling good-bye, is an all too common picture. But again, that is only part of the story.

What is Mother Nature thinking?

They say that April showers bring May flowers. The question on everybody's mind right now is what do April ice storms bring? This year, for three weeks in a row, this region has experienced temperatures well below freezing with ice and snow adding to the problems. After two severe drought years the good news is we finally are receiving some moisture. The wheat fields may be growing slow, and look promising as of now, but ...

Spring Crops and Winter Canola

After the last blast of winter this week, we have had three extremely cold, hard freeze events in about two weeks. By the middle of next week at the latest the damage from this last freeze on the developing head should be apparent. Most of the attention has focused on wheat but where are we concerning our spring planted crops? Let's tackle the easy ones first.

Preserve the land

Forty three years ago, when folks in the USA celebrated the first Earth Day, I was stationed in Stuttgart, West Germany – the country was still divided then. Back then I had little opportunity to carry signs that championed the abstract idea of protecting something as vast as our planet. Heck, I didn't even hear about Earth Day until I returned a couple years later.

Weather, What’s Normal, and Spring Planting

No one can argue our weather has been boring in 2013. Many find these spring reminders of winter unusual to say the least. The area and most of Kansas has experienced two hard freezes combined with freezing precipitation over the last two weeks. This stands in sharp contrast with the winter/spring seasons common during much of the 2000s. The K-State weather station at the US 281 and US 50 junction reported a high temperature of ...

NRCS announces Drought Recovery Initiative in Kansas

U.S. Department of Agriculture's (USDA) Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) continues to work to provide as much relief to drought-impacted producers as possible. NRCS State Conservationist Eric B. Banks announced the agency will assist producers through a new Drought Recovery Initiative. NRCS will use two application cutoff dates for the initiative: May 17 and June 21, 2013.

NRCS announces Water Quantity and Drought Pilot opportunity in Kansas

In response to the drought faced by Kansas producers, the U.S. Department of Agriculture's (USDA) Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) is providing financial and technical assistance in a new Water Quantity and Drought Pilot funded through the Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP) announced Eric B. Banks, State Conservationist. While NRCS accepts applications for financial assistance on a continuous basis, NRCS will use two application cutoff dates for this pilot: May 17 and June 21, 2013. ...

Specialist has wealth of knowledge

This week, I have been in Manhattan for New Agent Training and it was wonderful to meet and to learn from the experts in their various fields. One person I had the pleasure to meet was Ward Upton. He is a specialist for the Horticulture Department with a wealth of knowledge about his subject. This week, I thought that I would share a couple of his pieces from the most recent Horticulture newsletter. I hope you find them as informative as I did.

Hazardous occupation

Farming is a dangerous business. In fact, farming is one of the most dangerous jobs in the US. Every year, around one hundred youth are killed in farm work related activities. A lot of these deaths could have been prevented with better safety practices. Every year, Barton County, K-State Extension and Research provides a class in Hazardous Occupations Training to teach youth ages 13-18 about the Hazards of farm work, and how to create a ...

Nine Lives and Winter Wheat

Wheat farmers in Kansas joke that wheat has nine lives and you don't produce a crop unless at least eight of them have been used up before harvest. While this may sound a bit like gallows humor, there is a lot of truth in this statement. The wheat crop here is exposed to the extremes of our weather for nine months while crops like corn, soybean, and sorghum for approximately four. One of the hazards ...

University team receives $9.6 million USDA grant to help develop solutions for beef cattle grazing s

Drought, flooding, extreme heat, subzero temperatures: All of these climatic events and more in Kansas can threaten the supply and affordability of the nation's beef supply. It's hard to do much about the weather, but a team of Kansas State University scientists will be trying to find solutions so cattlemen can better adapt to any future climate extremes in their grazing operations.

Wandering about wheat

Looking at wheat throughout the central region of Kansas during the first couple days of May, members of the Wheat Quality Council (WQC) labeled the crop in fairly average to slightly above average condition.

Barton County Farm Bureau awards scholarships

Trees need care through dry weather

The question that I seem to get most often right now is why are my trees dying? Most of the time, the answer is the drought. Even though we have had some moisture recently, we are still in a severe drought. Driving around the county, you will even see old, big Red Cedars dying in the tree rows. That is because we have had two summers that were extremely hot and dry which baked the ...

Divide remains in Congress over Farm Bill, food stamps

WASHINGTON (AP) - The House and Senate Agriculture Committees laid the groundwork this week for reducing the size of the federal food stamp program, approving farm bills that would shrink food aid and alter the way people qualify for it.

Kansas CRP meetings for landowners prior to signup hosted by PF

Pheasants Forever is hosting fifty-one informational meetings across Kansas for landowners and agricultural producers in advance of the USDA Farm Service Agency's Conservation Reserve Program general sign-up that runs May 20 through June 14. Led by Pheasants Forever Farm Bill Wildlife Biologists, landowners can learn how to increase their farm or ranch income while creating wildlife habitat in the process.

Even Animal Lovers Prefer No Rabbits in the Garden

This week, I found a column from K-State's Mary Lou Peter about the rabbits that are out and about. They may be cute hopping around in a field, but when they get into your garden, their cuteness wears a little thin.

MILC, SURE, and NAP will restart on May 8

The U.S. Department of Agriculture's Farm Service Agency (FSA) Administrator Juan M. Garcia announced today that farm payments, which had been temporarily suspended due to sequestration, are scheduled to resume today, May 8th. This includes payments for the 2011 Supplemental Revenue Assistance Payments Program (SURE), the Noninsured Crop Assistance Program (NAP) and the Milk Income Loss Contract Program (MILC).

Why Does It Matter?

This is finals week at Barton and many of the other colleges around the state. For instructors it's time to evaluate what students learned over the last semester. For students it's time for that one last push to maintain or raise their grades. While faculty see testing as a method to evaluate learning and adjust accordingly, students often see testing as a way to be tortured. Students focus on the grade while faculty focus on ...

Play safe on the farm

The dream of many young farm boys and girls is to ride on a tractor. For a youngster, the mammoth tractor epitomizes raw power, responsibility and coming of age.