This week on AgweekTV, with the region's temperatures rising, the risk of flooding rises along with it. The proposed carbon pipeline continues to stir up controversy. A Minnesota farmer captures what life is really like on the farm and shares it with fans around the world. And the livestock at the University of Minnesota Crookston feel right at home, thanks to one special woman.
WELCOME TO AGWEEKTV, I'M EMILY BEAL. WITH THE WINTER'S HEAVY SNOWFALL AND THE SPRING'S STEADY PRECIPITATION, RANCHERS AND FARMERS SHOULD BE AWARE OF POTENTIAL FLOODING DANGERS. I VISITED WITH SOME EXPERTS TO SEE WHAT PRODUCERS CAN EXPECT AND WHAT THEY CAN DO TO MINIMIZE THOSE RISKS.
ZAC: We went pretty quickly from blizzards to wet muddy conditions.
ZAC CARLSON IS A BEEF CATTLE SPECIALIST FOR NDSU EXTENSION. WHILE CALVING SEASON IS RARELY AN EASY TIME FOR RANCHERS, THE WEATHER CONDITIONS ADDED AN EXTRA LAYER OF DIFFICULTY TO THIS YEAR'S CALVING.
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Cows calving in snowbanks and causing issues with calves getting really cold quickly after birth. I think that was one of the issues we were hearing about in extension.
BUT ONCE THOSE SNOWBANKS MELT, THERE ARE AN ARRAY OF HEALTH RISKS RANCHERS SHOULD BE AWARE OF.
Anytime we expose that hoof to moisture, we're going to soften that hoof up. At that point, its more susceptible then to abrasions and cuts. Combine that with the pathogens that survive in our environment, it allows them to get into that animals blood stream.
With the speed of the snowmelt, we've seen a lot of overland flooding.
MIRANDA MEEHAN IS THE NDSU EXTENSION DISASTER EDUCATION COORDINATOR. SHE SAYS PREPARATION IS KEY TO ENSURING A HERDS SAFETY.
Getting those livestock to in an area where they have access to high ground in case of a flood or overland flooding, which is very unpredictable.
HOWEVER, IT IS IMPORTANT THAT RANCHER'S LOOK OUT FOR THEIR OWN PERSONAL SAFETY AS WELL.
If those animals do get into those flood waters, making sure that you're not risking your life to get in there and get those animals because those waters are moving really quickly and people and animals can be swept away quickly.
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MEEHAN ALSO ADVISES HAVING FEED ON HAND AND CHOOSING SITES FOR HAY, FEED AND OTHER EMERGENCY SUPPLIES THAT ARE ON HIGHER GROUND.
THE MINNESOTA PUBLIC UTILITIES COMMISSION HEARD CONCERNS FROM LANDOWNERS IN WILKIN COUNTY THIS WEEK, IN THE PATH OF THE SUMMIT CARBON SOLUTIONS PIPELINE. IT WOULD RUN FROM THE GREEN PLAINS ETHANOL PLANT IN FERGUS FALLS, THROUGH OTTER TAIL AND WILKIN COUNTIES TO UNDERGROUND STORAGE IN NORTH DAKOTA, AS PART OF A TWO THOUSAND MILE SYSTEM OF PIPELINES AROUND THE REGION. UNLIKE OTHER STATES ALONG THE ROUTE, MINNESOTA DOES NOT ALLOW THE USE OF EMINENT DOMAIN TO SECURE LAND FOR THE PIPELINE. SHARON LEINEN REFUSED TO GIVE PERMISSION FOR THE PIPELINE TO RUN THROUGH HER LAND.
I SAW VIDEOS OF WHAT THEY DO TO THE LAND WHEN THEY'RE PUTTING IT IN AND I'VE SEEN VIDEOS OF WHAT THE LAND LOOKS LIKE WHEN THEY'RE DONE AND SUPPOSEDLY HAVE IT BACK TO WHERE IT'S SUPPOSED TO BE, AND IT'S NOT, SO THAT TURNED ME OFF.
AN ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT STATEMENT IS BEING PREPARED, THEN MORE PUBLIC HEARINGS WILL BE HELD. SUMMIT PLANS TO HAVE THIS SECTION OF PIPELINE OPERATING BY 2024.
Bison production and research is growing across South Dakota. There are more than six researchers at South Dakota State University alone doing research on the species, both on campus in Brookings and at the SDSU Center of Excellence for Bison Studies in Rapid City. WE TAKE A LOOK IN THIS WEEK'S AGWEEK COVER STORY.
Dr. Jeff Martin, assistant professor for the Department of Natural Resource Management at South Dakota State University Chad Kremer, herd manager at Custer State Park and owner of Kremer Buffalo Ranch As you drive throughout South Dakota, you may notice several bison herds like this roaming the open prairies. This loivestock species is crucial to the state.
Bison punch above their belt when it comes to economic input and return. They have a high return on investment for not just producers but also for agritourism. These things are completely coupled in this state.
Not only are they great to look at, and provide a positive return on investment, they're also great livestock for the ecosystem. Bison and cattle as we have been learning through research now is that they do not graze the same. They utilize different areas of the landscape, especially when you have hills... They will also avoid eating forbes, so your flowering plants. That allows for those flowing plants to well, flourish. So we get this increased what's called alpha diversity, that very first biodiversity measure of plants. They also don't graze near as hard so you don't have grass taken all the way down to the soil.
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While bison can be a difficult species to work with, they typically require minimal maintenance.
Like I always say at the park,we are minimal hands-on management there, we do do a roundup and if you boil it down it's basically for population control because the land base that we have can only support so many. It doesn't matter if you're a private operation or you know, a state park like we are there, you have to apply some type of management to control them numbers.
The USDA collects bison population numbers every 5 years. The 2022 numbers for South Dakota have not been released yet, but in 2017, there was around 50,000 bison across the state.
Slight growth over the last 15-20 years, we have been relatively static at about 40,000 head in South Dakota and 400,000 across Canada and the U.S. So, we see these new producers that's what I am really excited for in the 2022's is seemingly over the last five years there's been a lot of brand new people coming to conferences and we know they are buying animals at these auctions, so it will be really exciting to see how many new herds are entering the system.
You can read much more in the next Agweek magazine or at agweek.com
UP NEXT ON AGWEEK TV...THE FISHING OPENER IS JUST AROUND THE CORNER IN MINNESOTA, BUT WILL THERE BE ENOUGH BAIT?
MINNESOTA SENATOR AMY KLOBUCHAR AND SENATOR JOHN BOOZMAN OF ARKANSAS MADE STOPS IN MINNESOTA RECENTLY, TO TALK ABOUT THE UPCOMING FARM BILL. THEY STARTED AT A FARM IN SOUTHEAST MINNESOTA.
THE TWO ARE ON THE SENATE AG COMMITTEE, SO Klobuchar hosted Boozman on a tour of meetings with farmers and others in the ag industry. THERE'S BEEN BUZZ THAT THE UPCOMING FARM BILL WON'T BE PASSED THIS YEAR, BUT MINNESOTA FARM BUREAU PRESIDENT, Dan Glessing, is hopeful that both parties will come to an agreement and that the farm bill will be passed.
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I certainly think today was a demonstration of the bi-partisan support that we have in the ag committee. We were out there a few weeks ago and there's optimism that this can get done in a timely fashion
GLESSING SAYS NOT TYING CROP INSURANCE TO CONSERVATION MEASURES IS A PRIOIRTY IN THE UPCOMING FARM BILL
BAIT MIGHT BE IN SHORT SUPPLY FOR THE MINNESOTA FISHING OPENER.
A RECORD-BREAKING WINTER KILL IS A MAJOR FACTOR IN THE BAIT SHORTAGE, ACCORDING TO A BAIT PRODUCER AND HARVESTER. BARRY THOELE SAYS THE BAIT INDUSTRY HAS BEEN DECLINING FOR SEVERAL YEARS, AS MINNOW POPULATIONS CONTINUE TO SHRINK IN THE WILD. BUT THOELE SAYS AQUACULTURE COULD HELP SAVE THE STATE'S FISHING TOURISM INDUSTRY. HES PART OF A PROJECT TO GROW SHINERS ALONGSIDE HIS HYDROPONIC SYSTEM WHERE HE GROWS VEGETABLES IN CENTRAL MINNESOTA.
THE INDUSTRY NEEDS TO REALIZE THAT WE CAN'T RELY ON NATURE ANYMORE. IF WE DO WE'RE GOING TO HAVE MORE YEARS LIKE THIS. HOW MANY OF THESE CAN WE AFFORD? HOW MANY OF THESE CAN THEY AFFORD? WE'RE LOSING BAIT DEALERS BECAUSE THERE'S NO MONEY IN IT, AND THERE'S NO FISH TO CATCH ANYMORE.
BAIT DEALERS ESTIMATE A SHORTAGE OF ABOUT TEN THOUSAND GALLONS OF GOLDEN SHINERS A YEAR. THAT'S THE GO-TO BAIT FOR WALLEYE ANGLERS. THERE IS PRESSURE FROM ANGLERS, BAIT DEALERS AND LEGISLATORS TO IMPORT THE MINNOWS FROM OTHER STATES, BUT IT'S CURRENTLY PROHIBITED IN MINNESOTA, TO AVOID INTRODUCING HARMFUL SPECIES TO THE STATE. MINNESOTA FISHERIES SPECIALIST DON SCHREINER IS WORKING ON A PROJECT TO GROW MINNOWS IN THE STATE. HE SAYS AT FORTY DOLLARS A POUND, IT COULD BE A LUCRATIVE BUSINESS.
THE DNR WANTS TO SEE IT WORK TOO, BECAUSE YOU KNOW, THEY'RE NOT REAL EXCITED TO IMPORT BAIT FROM OUTSIDE THE STATE IF THEY CAN HELP IT. AND IF WE CAN GIVE FOLKS AN ALTERNATIVE,WELL THEN IT'S KIND OF A WIN-WIN FOR EVERYBODY.
THE USDA SAYS GOLDEN SHINER WERE THE MOST VALUABLE BAIT FISH PRODUCED IN THE U.S., WITH MORE THAN SIXTEEN MILLION DOLLARS IN SALES ON FOUR MILLION POUNDS A YEAR.
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Horticulture students at Southeast Technical College in Sioux Falls, South Dakota had the opportunity to share their hard work with the community through their annual plant sale. Students in the program get to decide exactly what plants they want to grow and are in charge of the planting, growing and selling process. This year, they had around 65 different varieties of plants, ranging from herbs, vegetables, flowers and houseplants. Once the sale starts, it's time for the students to share their plants and knowledge with their customers.
I love it, it's absolutely fantastic. It's fun to be able to interact with customers and being able to be like 'okay what do you want?' 'what is your landscape design and what are you just looking for?' 'do you like this color more or do you want something that essentially grows lower or higher?' and it's honestly, I think it's a great experience for us.
Through this hands-on learning experience, students become prepared to enter the growing horticultural industry.
Being able to be in here actually physically doing it really helps me learn and catch on to like you know, how much fertilizer goes in all the plants and how to do everything so when I get into my career, I will still be learning but I will already have that little boost of hey I have this basic information now help me just perfect it and keep learning even more.
The plant sale took ON April 26th and 27th.
UP NEXT ON AGWEEK TV...A MINNESOTA FARMER TURNS TO YOUTUBE TO SHOW THE WORLD WHAT LIFE IS REALLY LIKE ON THE FARM
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IS THE REGION FINALLY FREE OF FRIGID TEMPS? HERE'S JOHN WITH OUR AGRI-WEATHER OUTLOOK.
The weather pattern is finally beginning to take the shape of a full on spring weather pattern. And we're starting to see the temperatures reflected there. The cold weather really is basically gone. A few spots, still a little cool, but it is finally the pattern nationwide beginning to look much more like Maine and even southern Canada, starting to get the the those spring warm up temperatures that happen.There are some areas that have been not getting much rain that I think may get some. There are some areas that have been getting snow that can now look for some scattered rain showers. But the main storm track looks like it's going to stay down in the southern plains and the mid-south. The southern part of the country is where the real active weather looks to be now drawn.Three different elements of jet stream on air. The primary one is the middle. The other two are just kind of give you the shape of the overall flow because you don't realize that it's not just really that single thin line that the jet stream is. There's a general flow pattern and all of that impacts as often happens way up in the the boreal forest area of northern Alberta, starting to get some early spring, really warm temperatures up here.This is a seasonal effect. It's often temperatures will jump into the seventies and eighties, way up in the higher latitudes of central and northwestern part of the continent. Hot temperatures beginning to dominate Texas and finally the snow belt is mostly snow free now. And so we're finally getting some warmer temperatures up into the northern part of the Great Plains.The general pattern will feature some cooling this week in the east and all of this trough, Venus, all of this cool air temperature and the jet stream swinging around is really all that's left of that major cold air regime which has kept much of the the Great Lakes and the northern plains. So cold this spring, all that has vanished.So we're allowing finally seeing warmer temperatures, a lot of seventies and sixties working up into North Dakota, South Dakota, Minnesota, just a much more comfortable weather pattern. Looks like one more little dip down into the Mid-South late this week. And that's going to be fairly temporary. The warm temperatures in central Canada will continue. The hot weather in Texas going to start to see the Mojave Desert really getting warm and the one vestige of cool will start coming down out of Alaska into the Pacific Northwest, which will bring some cool temperatures there next week. The second week, the middle of May now looking consistently pretty warm throughout the northern Plains and even a narrow finger of hot temperatures getting up into South Dakota. By hot, I mean eighties and nineties. So we do have some warm weather to talk about. Scattered showers, looks like they will be fairly persistent this week in the Great Plains Northern part, stormy weather will be down in south Texas, oklahoma into the mid-south and it will be fairly showery along the eastern seaboard. This mountain snow is really just that. Only the higher elevations getting that. The second week, still a bit of that. The northern plains dries out the mid-south and the southeast is where the stormy weather will be in the middle of Maine.
Many of us spend countless hours scrolling through social media, watching videos and posts become viral overnight. One young Minnesota farmer is using YouTube as a resource to give his world-wide audience a real time look at life on the farm.
There's not one, not two, but three small cameras inside this tractor cab at Carson Kahler's farm in Dunnell, Minnesota. What started as a way to document his farm drone videos for his future children to watch, has grown into something bigger than he imagined.
I continued to do drone videos for a couple more years, and then I hit a thousand subscribers and I kind of thought to myself, I am really limited with just doing drone videos, because you can only make three or four a year. So I decided, with no prior experience or knowledge or want prior to, I just picked up a camera and started videotaping myself at the farm.
Now, the 6Th Gen Farmer YouTube channel has over 19 thousand subscribers. This year, Kahler decided to try something new and live stream from inside the tractor cab on the first day of planting season.
I just thought, it can't get any more genuine than live because you can't hide anything, you know, you can't edit anything out. So you know, this is a new planter to us and on the first time we went to the field with it, I was like I am going to live stream it and I am going to show everybody the sort of problems that you can have going to the field especially with a new piece of equipment.
Even though everything went smooth with planting that day, he was able to give his audience a real time look at what planting consists of and engage in conversation.
It was just a lot of fun to see the interaction, to see those comments live and to have that real time connection with my audience.
Educating people around the world, from farm to screen.
It's really cool when you're reading through the comments of a video or a livestream, whatever, and there's people that say 'hey, I am from the city' or 'I've never been to a farm' or 'I have limited experience on a farm, can you explain to me why you are doing this'. Those are my favorite comments and those are the ones I answer first because it's so important to me to give those guys a reason and an understanding of why we do what we do.
Kahler recently graduated from South Dakota State University and is now back on his family farm full time.
UP NEXT ON AGWEEK TV...WE'LL MEET THE WOMAN WHO MAKES THE UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA CROOKSTON'S LIVESTOCK FEEL RIGHT AT HOME
The animals that live in the University of Minnesota Crookston's livestock barns feel right at home thanks to farm animal attendant Mandy Gudvangen
GUDVANGEN GRADUATED FROM UMC IN 2009 AND BEGAN WORKING AS AN ANIMAL ATTENDANT IN 2011. SHE'S IN CHARGE OF THE LIVESTOCK IN FOUR BARNS AND OVERSEES THE livestock's feeding, the cleaning of their barns and monitors their health. SHE HAS GROWN CLOSE TO MANY OF THE ANIMALS ON CAMPUS AND HAS ENJOYED SEEING THEM THROUGHOUT THEIR DIFFERENT STAGES OF LIFE.
I have gotten to know the animals, they have gotten to know me. The majority of the animals that are on campus right now are ones that I've raised since they were a baby. So just being able to see them being born and grow up is really rewarding. Knowing you were a part of that and just seeing how well they become as momma's and you know, be able to see the babies they get to raise over the years.
Gudvangen is also in charge of overseeing the breeding programs in the livestock barns.
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