DROUGHT

Dry conditions mean more wear and tear on planters, increased demand for irrigation

Ariana Schumacher — Mon, 12 May 2025 12:00:00 GMT

BRIDGEWATER, S.D. — Dry conditions mean there aren’t many weather delays for farmers in the field, but there can be more equipment breakdowns.

Kenny Weber owns Innovative Ag in Bridgewater, which specializes in building custom planters. He says that during a dry season, planter parts get more wear and tear.

“With the dry soils, the seed disk openers, they are definitely wearing down faster. Field cultivator points, stuff like that, it definitely wears faster,” he said.

Dry conditions also mean the planter settings have to be different.

“The challenges that we’ve been facing is just getting the planters set right. Downforce has been a big one that I’ve gotten a lot of questions on,” Weber said. “You don’t want to be too heavy on your planter units, but at the same time, if you’re not heavy enough, you’re not packing the sidewall, and the dry dirt is going to fall down into the trench before your seed drops.”

This can cause the seed to be inaccurately placed.

“It ends up being shallower than it needs to be,” Weber said. “Then, having that dry dirt around the seed doesn’t help with germination at all.”

Weber also operates 3,000 acres of his own farmland. He says that in the past month, they’ve had around 2.5 inches of rain, which is significantly lower than normal.

“When you’re out in the field digging, you might have some topsoil that has decent moisture in it, but once you get down past the topsoil, it’s dry,” he said.

With more wear happening to planters, Weber has seen an increase in business.

“With the extra wear and tear, there definitely has been more wear parts that have gone out the door; row cleaner blades and disk openers is a big one for this year,” he said.

Lack of rain also means there is more of an interest around adding irrigation to fields, something Innovative Ag also does.

“We sell 360 Rain, which is an autonomous irrigation system that Yield 360 came out with; we’ve had a lot of interest in that,” said Rylee Schultz, Precision Ag tech at Innovative Ag. “It’s just another way to help with the dry conditions.”

360 Rain autonomously drives through the rows and hits every corner of the field that it can with its 3,000-foot hose.

“We can go up to a half-inch of rain banding to equal out to about an inch of rain each pass,” Schultz said. “It takes about six or seven days to irrigate a quarter, depending on how much rain you’re putting out there.”

While it’s still a new product on the market, Schultz says he’s been getting a lot of calls from farmers interested in potentially adding this irrigation system to their operations. He says the demand is up 20-30% compared to this time last year.

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Whether it rains or not, drought fears in the region are never far away

Jenny Schlecht — Mon, 05 May 2025 10:32:00 GMT

April showers bring May flowers. And April showers help pastures, hayland and the crops of farmers who actually are able to get in the fields in early spring. But here's another thing: April showers bring calves with respiratory and intestinal problems in May. It doesn't rhyme, but it's pretty true.

We've had a lot of rain lately, but you wouldn't know it if you watched the news coming out of our closest city. There, it's all talk about drought and how we need even more rain and how lucky we are for the rain. I can tell my husband feels lucky when he comes in from checking cows soaked through three layers of clothing.

My home in central North Dakota is not in a drought and is not considered abnormally dry — at least not right now. However, most of North Dakota is either abnormally dry or in drought conditions, as is most of my home state of Montana (strangely not including the area around my home county of Yellowstone, where it often seems desert-like), most of Minnesota and all of South Dakota.

That means we're pretty well surrounded by people who do want it to rain and who are enjoying seeing the liquid level rise in the rain gauge. Certainly, all of the people who dealt with wildfires last fall and this spring are happy to have the rain.

I very much enjoyed a recent piece by James Rogers, forage crops production specialist for North Dakota State University Extension. Rogers wrote about how drought really is a regular part of our climate. He looked at North Dakota data from 2014-24 to see how often the state entered D2 — or severe — drought, which can trigger various federal emergency responses and also is the level at which crops, pasture and range losses would be expected to occur.

"Of the 572 weeks in the time period, 269 were reported at a drought intensity level of D2. That was 47% of that timeframe! It ranged from zero weeks in 2014 to all 52 weeks in 2021," he wrote.

That's been sticking with me. We are in severe drought conditions here almost as often as we aren't. That also means we're probably in at least moderate drought or abnormally dry conditions more often than not.

We can't prevent the drought, Rogers wrote, but we can plan for it. He wrote about how to utilize forage as well as possible with strategies like pushing livestock to unused portions of pasture with temporary fencing. I'm thinking planting varieties of crops that do well in dry conditions would count there, too. And experts always stress not putting livestock out too early to graze or overgrazing too often as ways to keep land resilient in a drought. Since we're dry as often as not, these should be the practices we always follow.

In a perfect world, we'd get the perfect amount of rain at the perfect time and end up perfectly average. But that never happens. We're too wet sometimes and too dry sometimes — and sometimes they're in the same season. If we get timely precipitation, we might be technically abnormally dry or even in drought, but we might not even worry much. Conversely, rains that aren't timely or are excessive don't always do a lot of good, but we might end up looking like we have average precipitation, even if we were dry when it mattered.

While we very much wish it would stop raining here until we can get the calves to some drier ground — and maybe even until my poor daughter's softball team can get some games in — we know we, like everyone else in the region, are never far from a drought. We'll never get it when we want it all of the time, so we just have to take it when it comes.

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Farmers in the region see a dry start to growing season as planting ramps up

Ariana Schumacher — Mon, 14 Apr 2025 13:00:00 GMT

The last big drought at Jorgensen Land and Cattle in Ideal, South Dakota, was in 2012. That spring was fairly normal. This spring is drier than at the same time that year.

But Bryan Jorgensen, chief agronomy operations officer, knows that can change quickly in the spring.

"This is normally when we get most of our moisture,” he said.

South Dakota State Climatologist Laura Edwards said April is the tipping point to see if conditions will get worse, get better or hold steady in the drought conditions. A lot of uncertainty remains in the forecast.

“The official outlook for April shows really equal chances, equal probability of warmer, cooler or near average for temperature and the same for moisture, equal chances of wetter, drier or near average for precipitation,” she said.

The end of March and the first week of April did bring some much-needed rain and snow to much of the region, including parts of South Dakota, but farmers in many areas of South Dakota are putting seed into dry ground.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s National Agricultural Statistics Service released the first Crop Progress report for the growing season on Monday, April 7, reflecting conditions on April 6. The report showed national planting progress at normal pace for the northern Plains’ major crops like corn, spring wheat, sugarbeets, oats and barley.

In South Dakota, the state’s farmers had planted 15% of the expected acreage of oats, compared to 8% on average for the date and 16% last year, along with 9% of spring wheat, compared to 6% on average and 4% last year.

Overall, soil is mostly thawed across the state, except for some isolated locations in northeastern South Dakota, Edwards said.

“I know there has been a lot of spring wheat and oats that have gone in already as our soil temperatures were able to warm up pretty quickly because of the lack of snow cover,” Edwards said.

Planting at Jorgensen Land and Cattle began in the end of February, and spring wheat and oats are all planted. Until March 29, conditions were extremely dry at their operation. They had not gotten any moisture since last August. Dry conditions made for easy planting of spring wheat and oats.

“So, very, very easy to plant when there’s no moisture in the ground, but it’s not as optimistic when there is no moisture either,” Jorgensen said. “So now that we’ve gotten a little bit, it’s a little more favorable.”

In White, South Dakota, Chris Berndt is just starting to think about planting season. He grows corn and soybeans, along with some popcorn. Conditions were also dry in that part of the state, near the eastern border. He hopes to begin planting around April 20.

Meanwhile, progress was slower — as is typical — in Minnesota and North Dakota, according to Crop Progress. Minnesota farmers had planted 2% of their oats, compared to 3% on average and 9% last year. North Dakota farmers had planted 1% of their spring wheat, compared to 1% on average and 0% last year.

The report also showed 2% of the nation’s corn acres had been planted, the same as the average for the date and similar to 3% last year. No corn had been planted in Iowa, North Dakota, Minnesota or South Dakota. While sugarbeet planting has begun in Michigan and Idaho, farmers in Minnesota and North Dakota — the two top-producing states in the U.S. — had not begun yet. Soybean data was not included in the initial Crop Progress report but will be included in the April 14 report.

Soil temperatures will need to rise before any corn or soybean planting begins in the region. Soil temperatures at 4 inches across much of South Dakota were in the 40s on April 8, except for the northeast quadrant where most South Dakota Mesonet stations remained in the 30s. Most stations of the North Dakota Agricultural Weather Network — in North Dakota and western and southern Minnesota — also were in the 30s.

Edwards said the recent moisture won't keep people from planting corn and soybeans, but they are "just waiting for those temperatures to come up a little bit for the more ideal 50 degree or more soil temperatures that we like to see for corn and soybeans.”

Average dates when soil temperatures reach 50 degrees vary significantly from an average of April 21 in south central South Dakota to May 19 in north central Minnesota, according to the Soil Temperature Climatology Tool through the Midwestern Regional Climate Center at Purdue University.

Drought outlook

All of South Dakota was in moderate to extreme drought on the U.S. Drought Monitor as of April 1, after a dry winter followed a dry, warm fall.

“Over the winter we also had what I would characterize as a snow drought. Very little snow on the ground, barely enough to cover the ground,” Edwards said. “We had some very deep frost depths as well as a result of that.”

Most of South Dakota saw warmer than average temperatures in March, Edwards said, with some places 6 or 8 degrees above average for the month.

Even with the recent moisture, the Crop Progress report still noted that subsoil moisture was short or very short in 83% of South Dakota, 66% of North Dakota and 49% of Minnesota.

But Edwards said this level of drought at this time of the year is not too uncommon, as April is when "we really ramp up precipitation, historically." April, May and June account for about 40% of South Dakota's annual precipitation. Even near-normal conditions will make a big difference for getting the growing season off to a good start.

The bigger concern is that NOAA Climate Prediction Center and other sources are hinting at dry conditions returning in the later spring and summer season, Edwards said.

“I am thinking that June to August time frame, which is most of the growing season here,” she said. “So, that is a concern in the long run. I hope that we can really hold the moisture that we’ve got, and it’s something for farmers and ranchers to be thinking about.”

A broader outlook of the north central states appears to point toward more drought conditions on the way, along with a warm summer, according to Dennis Todey, director of the USDA Midwest Climate Hub.

“We are in a period that (drought) is happening more and something more that we need to keep talking about, not to stress people, but at least keep people aware of what's going on right now,” Todey said in a University of Minnesota Extension webinar on March 26.

The seasonal outlook is for below average precipitation for much of Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Minnesota and Iowa. The weakening effect of La Niña potentially leads to a less consistent and predictable impact on weather patterns.

“Don’t bet the farm on this,” Todey said. “Don’t get too concerned, but keep this in the back of your head when you’re doing some of your planning.”

About 39% of the nation’s corn acres are experiencing drought as of April 1, according to the U.S. Drought Monitor. They also show 33% of soybean acres, 39% of spring wheat acres and 48% of sugarbeet acres experiencing drought.

While conditions have improved across portions of the northern Plains, as of April 1, 47% of the north central states were in some level of drought. That compares to just 25% a year ago.

Farmer concerns

Farmers know that big precipitation systems typically come in the spring months, but the lack of moisture right now in South Dakota is still a concern. Jorgensen said their subsoil moisture is zero, and that could mean trouble for yields if dry conditions persist.

“We are going to need several inches in between now and May just to get caught up to where we should be. We are that much behind normal right now,” Jorgensen said. “If we can catch another four to five inches between now and the end of May, we will be in pretty good shape.”

With the dry fall, winter wheat didn't get much chance to get started.

“The winter wheat that was seeded last fall never even came up, and it’s just now starting to emerge,” Jorgensen said. It was helped by about 1.6 inches of rain. "But we need a lot more just to kind of fill up the reserve because there’s no reserves in the system right now, so we need moisture.”

Stand establishment in the fall creates good root establishment and a lot of extra tillers, which can lead to higher yields. How the winter wheat fared through the open winter remains a concern, too.

“There was no snow cover to really protect that seedling wheat. So, we are not terribly sure how vigorous it’s going to be,” Jorgensen said. “In some cases, we might have some winter kill or some spots that have died out, and I’m not sure. It’s just too early to tell.”

The moisture that has fallen got the wheat started.

“If we get some temps up into the 70s and 80s, I think it’s going to come up pretty quickly here,” Jorgensen said. “So, I’m a little optimistic that it got through the wintertime OK, but we will soon see how the stands look once we get full emergence.”

In the end of March and beginning of April, Berndt's farm got around 1.5 inches of rain. However, subsoil moisture is still not where it should be.

“We could use a good week of just really slow soaker of rain,” Berndt said.

Dry conditions the last few years have been helped by some timely rains.

“We are the driest we’ve ever been going into spring,” Berndt said. “We haven’t gotten any snow — or any measurable amount of snow — up until just recent. Winter was a very open winter.”

Berndt said he could run into some issues with crop emergence with his soil moisture.

“If we don’t have any moisture, it’ll be hard for the crop to emerge out of the ground. If some of the seeds get into some moisture, some will sprout, some will not,” he said. “We want a good, even start with our crops when it starts coming out of the ground, and looking like now, we are getting moisture and that will probably happen.”

Berndt is hoping to see some rain conditions in July and August as well.

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For Christmas tree farms, harvest is a long wait and drought can wreak havoc for years

Ariana Schumacher — Mon, 18 Dec 2023 13:00:00 GMT

It's a quintessential part of the Christmas tradition. The family loads up, goes to a tree farm or a tree lot, and picks the perfect pine or fir or spruce upon which to center their holiday decorations.

Todd Gannon, owner of Riverview Christmas Tree Farm in Canton, South Dakota, said when it comes to getting the perfect Christmas tree, it’s all about the experience.

“Perfection in a tree is really in the eye of the beholder,” Gannon said. “We have some trees that might look like a Hallmark Christmas movie and other trees that are a little crazy. Families enjoy different types of trees, so it’s really just finding something that you like and really focusing on the experience more than anything. You get to be out in nature, Santa Claus is here, we have Christmas music and cider and hot chocolate and a fire roaring and kind of all the fun Christmas and winter stuff going on.”

According to the National Christmas Tree Association, U.S. consumers purchased 22.34 million real Christmas trees in 2022, for a median price of $80 per tree. Choose and cut farms made up nearly a third of tree purchases, following by chain stores, nurseries, retail lots, non-profit sales, online and other types of sales.

Those trees are grown at farms across the country that have to deal with the same weather, pest and disease pressures of any other crop.

The upper Midwest is not particularly a stronghold for Christmas tree farms. But even the relatively treeless Dakotas have some trees of their own. South Dakota in the 2017 U.S. Census of Agriculture accounted for 2,648 cut trees and North Dakota 581.

Riverview Christmas Tree Farm has been spreading holiday cheer with their 60 acres of trees for the past 35 years.

What started as a joke nine years ago changed the course of Gannon’s career. He had spent 10 years working in the corporate ag industry and was looking for a change.

“We were picking out our tree here nine years ago right before Christmas, and I was joking with Bill Kyser as he was helping me load my tree in my truck, and I jokingly said, ‘Hey, when you’re ready to retire, give me a call.’ And we both kind of laughed and thought that was kind of the joke,” Gannon said. “Then that February, about three months later, he actually called and said ‘Hey, I’m ready to retire. Do you want to buy the farm?’ The joke kind of turned into reality at that point.”

Joel Lyons, who owns and operates Happy Valley Tree Farm in Walcott, North Dakota, always enjoyed working outdoors and first began planting trees as a hobby. But somewhere down the line that hobby changed into a business.

"I just started planting trees and let them grow for a while, and I decided I'd like to try to sell some. So I bought myself a tree spade and we dug a few trees and I ended up having some people interested in buying trees from me. So one thing kind of led to another,” Lyons said.

Happy Valley Tree Farm grows a variety of trees on 40 acres, focusing mainly on trees for landscaping purposes. But after 10-plus years selling landscaping trees, Lyons noticed there was a demand for locally grown Christmas trees.

"My phone started ringing around Christmas time, people wanting Christmas trees so I thought, why not? This is actually just the third year I have been selling Christmas trees,” Lyons said. "I actually bring in a lot of pre-cut Christmas trees just because I can't meet the demand for what people need for Christmas trees. North Dakota in general isn't a big state for growing Christmas trees.”

Minnesota and Wisconsin tree farms fight drought

A couple other states in the region are bigger Christmas tree producers. Wisconsin, for example, was fifth in cut trees in the 2017 Census of Agriculture with 700,341 trees.

Peter Hartung is the owner of Hilliker Tree Farm located in Tomah, Wisconsin, which is celebrating its 80th anniversary this year.

The operation was started by Hartung's grandfather, Lee Hilliker.

"I bought the farm as a third generation grower in 1989," Hartung said.

In 2010, the farm was purchased by a sand mining operation but Hartung kept the business alive by changing its plan to growing and cutting trees on several locations and selling them in one place.

"All of our trees are fresh cut, and we bring them in and sell them here," he said. "I have trees growing around the state that I'm cutting and supplying fresh cut Christmas trees to my customers."

Minnesota is not quite Wisconsin when it comes to Christmas tree numbers, but it's a lot more productive than the Dakotas, with 182,532 trees cut in 2017. For Miranda and Jaime Wendlandt, owners of Centennial Hills Tree Farm in Garfield, Minnesota, deciding to start a Christmas tree farm in 2019 has had its ups and downs.

Their first planting of trees are on a hillside, not uncommon in the hilly, glacial till region in the lakes area near Alexandria, Minnesota. This region’s farmers have to deal with those hills, covered in a mixture of clay, rocks and sand in any given planting area. More plantings each year after have extended out into flatter fields, where they experiment with mowing or not mowing around trees.

Even though the couple works to water the trees often, it’s not been enough to keep up with the last few rounds of drought. Those planted this year have shown rather heavy losses thanks to a hot and dry growing season.

“I think we’re pretty fortunate that we don't have as much (loss) as others,” Jaime said. “I don’t think we have 50% loss, but we’re not far off from that.”

While these Christmas trees can grow a foot each year, the stress during drought years have slowed some of that growth to just an inch, as the trees sink into dormancy or death.

Drought was the big story in Wisconsin, too. Hartung said the drought didn't impact established trees, and he has an "excellent crop of trees" for this Christmas. But he said the drought "severely affected" new plantings.

"I'm hearing 100% loss, and 90% loss, to 75% loss," Hartung said. "Back in the day when we were planting 2-3,000 trees a year, if I lost 10%, I felt bad. This year was devastating."

Hartung, who said the last bad drought he remembers was 2008, said the impact won't be felt by customers until a decade down the road.

"You won't feel this shortage of trees until 10 years from now, when that class of tree should be available for harvest," he said. "They won't be there, because they died. In 2033, the market will probably be short on trees, because you can never make up that time."

The Wendlandts describe the 2023 growing season much like other farmers across the Midwest.

“So winter drug on forever. And then it was, moisture was a big problem,” Jaime said. They got lucky in getting rain on some of the plantings early.

“But then it seemed like it shut off for two or three months and it didn’t matter how much water we put on, we would have to water daily,” Jaime said.

Miranda said it’s not until about year three that the trees have grown strong enough root systems that they can get the moisture they need without constant watering.

“We don’t have a good way to water, so we’re out there with 5-gallon buckets,” Miranda said. That’s quite a job for about 2,000 trees.

It will be about 2028 before the family will be cutting trees from their own property. They are hoping it will continue each year thereafter. They plant trees every year, and will be doing so “forever,” as Jaime explains.

How Christmas trees are grown

Riverview Christmas Tree Farm has more than 20,000 Christmas trees growing on the farm every year. Growing that many trees takes a lot of work.

“It starts in the spring when we plant three (thousand) to 5,000 trees. Every one of those trees before it goes in the ground gets hand pruned and trimmed and then you know some of the trees are hand planted too,” Gannon said. “Once they are in the ground, we cover every tree we plant with a wax to help with transpirations to hold moisture into the trees.”

Trees don’t naturally grow to the perfect shape. Once the trees are around 4-foot tall, they are manually sheered. All the treetops must be trimmed. They also have to hand pick off pine cones.

“They are just little nubs, and the trees will put 100 plus on so those all have to be hand picked off every year,” Gannon said.

Weed control can be a challenge as well.

“It’s not like corn and soybeans where there are hundreds of different products that are labeled that won’t hurt your crops that will kill weeds. Pretty much everything we do was either hand control or kind of shielded spot spray of weeds, because there is really not much you can spray over the trees,” Gannon said.

In order to avoid pests, one thing the farm does is a tree crop rotation. On the farm they grow Fraser fir, Canaan fir, balsam fir, a Fraser/balsam cross, Black Hills spruce, Colorado spruce and white pine.

“Different types of trees are more susceptible to different types of pests so, although they are all Christmas trees, it’s kind of like that normal crop rotation that farmers do. Now ours isn’t every year; ours is every eight to 10 years, but just rotating species really does help kind of control some of the pest issues that we might have,” Gannon said.

These trees are not native to South Dakota and require extra irrigation to grow properly. A lot of the trees come from the Pacific Northwest, where they are used to cooler, more moist climates.

“Growing Christmas trees in eastern South Dakota is definitely a challenge. I often joke that when we put a fir tree in the ground it has one goal, and it’s goal is to die. They are not a native tree to the area, and really the heat and lack of moisture compared to what they are used to becomes a real challenge,” Gannon said.

They dug a 125 foot deep well on the farm with 8-inch pipes and they can pump 125 gallons of water a minute at 125 pounds per square inch.

“We pump water over the trees, and we can irrigate about a football field area in 12 hours and put about three-quarters of an inch of moisture down in that area,” Gannon said. “Like this past summer when it was hot and dry, the irrigation rig really just never stopped.”

Trees take about eight years until they are ready to be sold on the farm, so this year, Gannon is now selling trees that he planted himself. They need to reach around 7 feet tall before they are for sale.

“It’s really fun to just kind of see all the work and labor that you put in come full circle,” Gannon said.

Christmas tree sales hold on

The National Christmas Tree Association expects the supply of farm-grown trees to remain tight this holiday season. Christmas tree sales have been down the past couple of years, Gannon said.

“I think everyone just kind of feels the economic pressures of the country,” he said. “So, our numbers are down a little, not significantly, but definitely can tell there’s maybe some economic suppression going on.”

But Hartung, in Wisconsin, said fake trees haven't eaten into his business much at all.

"Back in the '80s, the fake tree was kind of making a dent in our market, and we had an overproduction," he said. "But I think people are getting back to the real tree. We serve nearly 700 families with Christmas trees this year."

Hartung said in the last decade, the Christmas tree industry in Wisconsin has changed "a lot."

"Just our membership in the Wisconsin Christmas Tree Producers Association has declined severely," he said. "The younger generations are not taking over the family farm."

He said that goes for his own operation as well.

His kids "know how much work it is, and they know the monetary return is not that much money," Hartung said. "But it's not about the money. It never has been about the money. It's about the tradition and giving back to the land."

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What's happening to Minnesota's mallards?

John Myers — Fri, 15 Sep 2023 12:00:00 GMT

BEMIDJI — For the first time in more than a half-century mallards were not the most common duck shot by Minnesota waterfowl hunters in 2022 — topped by both blue-winged teal and ring-necked ducks.

Mallards had been the most-harvested duck in the state since at least the 1960s, said Steve Cordts, waterfowl specialist for the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources, and it remains unclear exactly why mallard harvest numbers in the state are dropping.

“Mallards have been No.1 forever, at least since the 1940s and maybe 50s when scaup (bluebills) were the most commonly harvested duck here,” Cordts said, adding mallards had never before trailed teal or woodies.

While wood duck harvest and teal harvest have generally been going up or been stable in recent years — and ring-necked ducks have always been a popular duck, especially in northern Minnesota — the number of mallards harvested has slowly moved down. Cordts had predicted several years ago that wood ducks likely would eventually top mallards in hunters’ bags in the state. But the addition of an early September teal-only duck season in the state propelled bluewings to the No. 1 spot instead.

The state’s wood duck harvest also declined markedly in 2022, but still just missed pushing mallards down to the No. 4 spot.

According to data based on hunter surveys conducted by the U.S. Fish and wildlife Service, Minnesota hunters in 2022 harvested:

125,812 blue-winged teal, up from 81,170 in 2021 71,703 ring-necked ducks, up from 28,507 in 2021 63,072 mallards, down from 84,070 in 2021 62,076 wood ducks, down from 83,587 in 2021

The 63,000 mallards shot last year is down nearly 80% from the highest harvest levels over 300,000 per year in Minnesota during some years in the 1970s and just a fraction of the 435,000 mallards shot in Minnesota in 1967. And, in addition to dropping out of the No. 1 spot, the 2022 mallard harvest was also the lowest in Minnesota since accurate records have been kept, Cordts noted.

Habitat availability and quality remain ongoing issues, with fewer wetlands and grasslands available for ducks to nest in historic duck-producing areas of Minnesota.

Part of the problem may also be an historic shift that’s occurred in recent decades in both when and where northern ducks fly south. It seems more ducks are avoiding Minnesota during their migration, at least when most hunters are in the field.

“Across the continent, mallard numbers are down a little this year. But they have been pretty stable in Minnesota as far as nesting ducks, so it’s not clear why our hunter harvest keeps dropping,” said Cordts, who is based in Bemidji. “Maybe it’s a case of the northern ducks coming down later in the fall because it’s freezing later up there, and then they fly right over us (Minnesota) because it’s also frozen here? We really don’t have an answer.”

The number of estimated waterfowl hunters, based on the sale of state waterfowl stamps required to hunt, had risen slightly to about 87,000 during the pandemic rush to get outdoors, Cordts noted, but fell back to pre-pandemic levels of about 80,000 in 2022. That number has been fairly stable for about a decade, Cordts noted, but is less than half the historic number of duck hunters from 50 years ago. Stamp sales so far this year are about 10% down from last year.

Season forecast: Ample ducks, but drought may impact hunter access

Early reports from the September teal season and youth waterfowl season are that Minnesota is holding a decent number of “local” ducks and that northern reaches of the state have seen an influx of early migrant Canada geese ahead of Minnesota’s Sept. 23 general waterfowl hunting season opener.

“The teal reports were pretty good, better in the south than the north … and people are seeing a big influx of molt-migrators (young Canada geese migrating south from their summering grounds in Canada) the last few days,” Cordts said. “Thief Lake (in northwestern Minnesota) is just full of wigeon and other ducks already, so that's a good sign.”

Cordts cautioned that a hard cold snap could push many local ducks out of the state. So far that's not in the forecast.

“I really hope we don’t get a rush of temperatures in the 20s the day before the season starts, because that can push the teal and wood ducks out very quickly,” he said. “I’ve seen it happen overnight. They just leave.”

Extremely low water levels in some lakes, sloughs and rivers may make it tough for hunters to get to where the ducks are. While ducks can be happy in just a few inches of water, it’s hard for hunters to get to those spots in boats or canoes.

Cordts warned hunters to “do some scouting before opening day to make sure you can get to where you want to go, because water levels are very low across the state. Don’t expect to go to the same spot you've been hunting for 20 years, because it’s probably going to look a lot different this year.”

Cordts said Minnesotans may see a smaller "northern flight" later in the season, because very dry nesting conditions across much of Canada likely produced fewer ducks.

In the Duluth area, DNR wildlife manager Chris Balzer in Cloquet said hunters should look to wild rice beds to find ducks.

“Most places have really good rice crops this year and I suspect many of the ducks are concentrated in the rice beds, but it is hard to see them in the rice,” Balzer said. “Given that, it is hard to comment on duck numbers much, but I suspect there are good numbers of birds in the good habitat. I think access will be OK. Most of the shallow lakes and wetlands are a little low, but there should be enough water for duck hunting access.”

Minnesota's duck season starts a half-hour before sunrise on Sept. 23 and runs continuously through Nov. 21 in the north and through Nov. 26 in the central and south, with a five-day closure in those zones from Oct. 2-6.

The daily limit is six ducks with no more than four mallards (two hen mallards), three wood ducks, two redheads, two canvasbacks, two black ducks, one pintail. One scaup may be taken per day through Oct. 12; tao scaup per day through the remainder of the season in each zone. For all other species, such as teal or ring-necked ducks, up to six ducks of a species may be taken daily.

North Dakota duck numbers high

North Dakota-raised ducks were about 23% above last year’s numbers based on observations from the state’s annual mid-July duck production survey.

The number of broods observed during the department’s July brood survey was up 79% from 2022 and 88% above the 1965-2022 average index.

According to Mike Szymanski, migratory game bird management supervisor for Game and Fish in Bismarck, the department’s 76th annual breeding duck survey conducted in May indicated the 2023 duck index was the 23rd-highest on record, up 1.5% from 2022, and exceeded the 1948-2022 average index by 39%.

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Severe drought in central Minnesota is stressing trees; here's how to help them

Thu, 24 Aug 2023 15:00:00 GMT

PARK RAPIDS — Taking a late-August stroll outside, there may be an acorn crunch under the shoes and a few, yellow leaves on the ground. But it's not necessarily a fall thing — according to experts, it's a drought thing.

“Trees are definitely stressed,” said Steph Pazdernik, who is the city forester in the Park Rapids parks department. She said drought conditions during the past three years have negatively impacted trees in the area.

“In some cases, burr oak trees have aborted their acorns before they had a chance to mature," said Pazdernik, adding that the trees quit growing and go dormant, dropping their acorns and leaves early.

"Larger trees will drop their seeds and little leaves first, then their bigger leaves and then go dormant. It was worse last year and this year with the severe drought."

Pazdernik said the tiny acorns can still provide a source of food for squirrels and other animals, but they will need to eat more of them. “Squirrels only eat them when they dry up and turn brown,” she said. “They will hide them now and eat them later.”

Helping trees survive

Like many aspects of life, tough times are toughest on the young, and that includes trees.

“If you have a young tree, it takes a couple of years for it to get established,” Pazdernik said, adding that people should water trees for the first five years. "You can water them until the ground starts freezing and their fiber roots will still take the moisture in," she said. "The best time to plant a tree is early spring or later fall. It’s cooler and they can hold more moisture in. The first two years are the most important ones. After that nature takes over. And hopefully we'll get some good rains this fall.”

Pazdernik said mulch around the tree helps hold moisture as long as the mulch is placed a distance from the tree.

“Do not mulch up to the tree as mulch can rot out a tree,” she said. “You don’t want that mulch touching the tree.”

Trees are definitely stressed. In some cases, burr oak trees have aborted their acorns before they had a chance to mature.

If watering with a hose, watering in the early morning and at night is best so water can soak in rather than evaporating in the heat of the day.

The city of Park Rapids uses gator bags that hold up to 5 gallons of water on some of their young trees for the first two years, such as those at Lindquist Park that are part of the Fair Avenue project.

“A truck with a water tank and a hose is used to fill the gator bag and the water slowly seeps into the ground,” she said. “That way it goes directly into the root system. You can buy those gator bags for trees around your home, too.”

Extreme drought

Park Rapids and much of central Minnesota remain in a severe drought and will likely stay there for a while, even with rain chances predicted to increase by mid September.

Tyler Thomas is a meteorologist at the National Weather Service in Grand Forks. He said during the past 90 days, the Park Rapids area has only seen 6 to 8 inches of rain total.

“The average for that period is closer to 10 inches, so we’re running two to four inches below normal,” said Thomas, who said this summer has been downhill almost the whole time with not getting enough rain. "Even if we could get 4 inches of rain tomorrow, we’d still be in drought because not all of it would be soaked into the ground. Some of it would run off, and some would continue through the ground into the aquifer. “

Thomas said during the summer, rainfall rates can vary quite a bit within a region as a thunderstorm may hit one area with a couple of inches of rain and completely miss another area.

“Hopefully we can get some good rains to quell the concerns about wildfires, too, because that’s definitely been on our minds with what is happening in Canada,” he said, adding that the North American Drought Monitor shows most of the Canadian prairies are in severe drought, with exceptional drought near the Canadian Rockies. "Up until they get snow to put those fires out, it looks like whenever we get those north or northwest winds, there will be chances for that smoke to reach our area.”

Thomas said a ridging pattern over the western and central U.S. has caused heat domes to build over the northern plains and pushed precipitation east and north of this area during much of the summer.

As far as the extended outlook goes, he said the national weather service is forecasting a better chance of lower than average precipitation for the next two weeks.

“As we look at the long term through mid to late September, we are trending more towards normal precipitation or maybe even above normal,” he said.

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Recent rains helped some crops in some places, but for others the damage was done

Jenny Schlecht — Mon, 21 Aug 2023 14:00:00 GMT

Recent rains have made a big difference for crops in the northern Plains — at least in the places where rains have fallen. But the impacts of dry conditions earlier in the growing season still are being felt around the region and even more so in areas that have continued to miss out on what have been spotty showers.

The percentage of the nation's corn and soybeans that was being grown in areas with some amount of drought conditions peaked in late June — 70% and 63%, respectively — but precipitation since then has improved conditions to an extent, with only 49% of corn and 43% of soybeans considered in drought by Aug. 8.

Conditions are looking dramatically better in portions of central Minnesota where parts of the region have received 1-5 inches of rain since early August. The North Dakota Ag Weather Network on Aug. 14 showed a majority of west central Minnesota with either optimal or excess soil moisture in the 2-8 inch depth range.

Jack Sharp farms near Menahga, Minnesota. In the first 10 days of August he received over 3 inches of rain — enough to bring a renewed hope on his farm, where he and his son Jason planted strictly soybeans in their 275 acres of heavier clay soils, which has no irrigation. It was a different feeling than Sharp had towards the end of July about conditions.

“The beans are looking really great considering that we had a drought for about six or eight weeks and they were looking terrible,” Sharp said on Friday, Aug. 11. “If you’d have come here two weeks ago or 10 days … the leaves would have been all rolled and they looked like they were dying, the beans. But then at night they’d pop back up a little. Now with 3 inches of rain, they’re looking pretty dang good, for what they went through.”

May 2023 was drier than average across much of the region, and June featured above average temperatures across North Dakota, South Dakota and Minnesota, along with continuing dry conditions in Minnesota and far northern North Dakota. July — while being the hottest July on record for the U.S. as a whole — was more mild for much of the northern Plains and into the Corn Belt. And while much of the Corn Belt received moisture, Minnesota, North Dakota, Iowa and much of South Dakota dried out.

For some corn in central South Dakota, the heat during the growing season and especially during pollination has meant some cobs not filling with kernels to the ends. Grasshoppers have started showing up in fields as they move out of harvested small grains fields. But rains in early August perked up the soybean fields just in time.

Without those timely rains, it likely would have been a much different picture in many parts of the region.

“If that drought kept on for another month or a couple weeks, ya know, the beans would have been pretty well toast. There wouldn’t have been much there to combine,” Sharp said.

Ken Schefers, a partner in a family dairy operation that also grows wheat, corn and soybeans near Paynesville in central Minnesota’s Stearns County, has been in a severe drought area, while the west edge of the county was in moderate drought and east edge, where St. Cloud lies, was in extreme drought.

That was before a nice rain, just short of 2 inches, on Aug. 13. That followed up a 2.4 inch rain on July 26, the first rain of more than an inch all summer.

“The beans and the corn are actually looking quite good,” Schefers said. “And soybeans might even be a little greater than average.”

But again, there can be a difference a few miles away.

“As soon as you get onto the sandier soil, it changes drastically,” Schefers said. “Pretty good stuff on the heavy soil, pretty bad stuff on the light soil.”

He said a farmer in the area who irrigates corn did an early yield check and the irrigated field had about 170 bushels per acre while the unirrigated corners only showed about 40 bushels per acre.

The story is similar in other parts of Minnesota. Rob Tate raises corn and soybeans and a few head of beef cattle in Cannon Falls, Minnesota, in the southeast. Goodhue County, where Tate farms, has been listed in the severe drought category, and four nearby counties showed pockets of extreme drought. But most of the area received at least some rainfall in the second week of August.

Tate considers himself to be one of the lucky ones.

"In the last couple of weeks, we've probably had 3-4 inches total," Tate said while unloading some corn at an ethanol plant on Aug. 15. "We've been getting decent rains now."

Tate, who also works as a crop insurance agent for Crop Revenue Consultants, said prior to the last week of July, rain was rare.

"I want to say we only had about 4 inches total since the time I planted," Tate said of the first two summer months. "Which is a fair amount compared to other areas."

His corn was much more impacted than his soybeans.

"The beans have recovered, and are taking advantage of the moisture now," he said. "And with the corn, the damage has been done."

Still, Tate was expecting to have an OK corn harvest this fall.

"I'm expecting my corn yields to be a little bit below average," he said. "Certainly the rain, when it came, has kind of been the saving grace."

Rainfall in northeast North Dakota and northwest Minnesota since late June has been spotty, differing from farm to farm and even field to field. In Grand Forks County, North Dakota rain on Aug. 13 varied from a 6/100ths of an inch in Grand Forks in the eastern part, to half an inch in Kempton in western Grand Forks County, according to NDAWN. There were unofficial reports of 7/10ths of an inch about 2 miles north of Kempton. The Langdon Research Extension Center had little rain during July and early August. About 5 miles from there, a Cavalier County farm had 2 inches more than the center.

“I think that’s kind of what we see during the drought,” said Katelyn Landeis, North Dakota State University Extension agent, agriculture, for Grand Forks County. “Some people tend to be doing OK and others are really hurting for moisture and could use some more.”

Northern North Dakota and Minnesota range from abnormally dry to moderate drought and some pockets severe drought. But rain during the next few weeks could still benefit soybeans and edible beans, which are filling pods, and corn, which is filling ears. Sugarbeets still could get a boost, too, said Jochum Wiersma, University of Minnesota Northwest Research and Outreach Center small grains specialist in Crookston.

Earlier crop and pasture struggles

Because dry, hot conditions struck early in the growing season, early season crops and grasses are struggling the most.

“The crop that is hurting the worst is wheat,” Schefers said.

The percentage of spring wheat in drought in the U.S. appears to have peaked in early August, at 43%.

Schefers figured yields of his wheat, which was ready to be harvested as soon as it was dry enough, would be 70% to 80% of normal. And for a dairy operation that needs straw, the wheat was short. The farm’s alfalfa hay and grass hay also were below average.

Like row crops, northern North Dakota's small grain conditions vary with where rain has fallen. In Grand Forks County, some wheat and barley was yielding well, with other fields heading out at only several inches high and producing below average yields. Generally, across Cavalier County, field conditions for the wheat crop were dry in 2023, and yields were reduced.

Wheat yields, with about half of the harvest in northwest Minnesota completed, vary from nearly triple digits to much less. Overall, the yields in northwest Minnesota will exceed the projected statewide average, Wiersma estimated, which the U.S. Agriculture Department National Statistics Service on Aug. 1 pegged at 50 bushels per acre.

“Like I figured, there are going to be winners and losers, depending on the rain,” Wiersma said. “There are going to be some really good yields and some disappointments.”

Like small grains, many forage crops and pastures rely on early season growth. And, like in cash crops, that growth has been widely dependent on geography.

Sharp, in west central Minnesota, has about 20 beef out on 50 acres of pasture. The pasture was in very rough shape and the Sharps started feeding their cattle hay starting at the end of July in order to supplement their diets. The hay crop, too, was disappointing as the second cutting yielded very little hay. Sharp said they’ll be buying hay this year.

While the dairy doesn’t have any pasture, Schefers said on farms with heavy soils, like his, he estimated the pastures at about 60% but much worse not far away.

“The soils change a lot in this area. We only have to go about 4 miles and it’s sand and their pastures are basically down to nothing,” Schefers said.

Warren Rusche, South Dakota State University Extension feedlot specialist, said "when and where and how much" rain has fallen has been "incredibly variable. Typically dry western South Dakota has been in better shape than central and eastern.

"Now here in August we have started catching some rains so some of those drought conditions are alleviating," he said.

Rusche said many cattle operations in South Dakota experienced drought in 2022 and went into the winter with low feed supplies, which were further diminished by record snow and cold. While West River producers work to refill their hay yards, a hot hay market shows the short supply of bales East River. What is needed now for hay production is fall rains to set up a better 2024 crop.

Silage will be the saving grace for many producers. Rusche expects more tons than typical will be put up this fall, then producers will "put diets together than optimize that" in place of more hay. And with new crop corn bids under $5, it makes silage a more viable option than in past years when corn was $6 or $7.

"The alternative to silage is perhaps less lucrative than it was a year ago," Rusche said.

More of the same

Sharp referenced how 2021 was a bad year when the drought brought only 15 bushels per acre for corn, soybeans only 7 bushels and oats just 1 bushel. He said last year brought more timely rains for the farm. His second year farming, 1976, was a terrible drought that devastated the crop. He hopes that they’ve avoided that this year.

Rusche said being too dry in some places and too wet in others is nothing new for the region.

"The good news is, our producers have gotten pretty adept at navigating some of those issues and dealing with some of those changes in terms of feed supplies and weather patterns," he said.

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Rainfall monitoring network seeks volunteers

Pioneer Staff Report — Tue, 28 Mar 2023 18:49:09 GMT

BEMIDJI — The Minnesota State Climatology Office is seeking volunteer rainfall monitors for the Community Collaborative Rain, Hail and Snow Network in the Beltrami County area.

The network includes more than 20,000 volunteers nationwide who measure precipitation in their backyards using a standard 4-inch-diameter rain gauge.

These rainfall monitoring activities are performed by individuals at home who submit their reports online. Minnesota Climatologist Luigi Romolo said the data from backyard rain gauges are helpful and important in many ways and can also serve as a fun learning activity for the whole family.

“The data from these volunteers is extremely important to us for monitoring drought, monitoring flooding, verifying high rainfall and snowfall totals and much more,” Romolo said. “The value of their observations cannot be overstated, especially given the recent droughts we’ve had to endure over the past two years. The program is also a fun family activity and a great way to get kids more involved with science.”

Each March, the network runs a recruitment campaign to sign up new volunteers. Minnesota has already recruited over 550 volunteers this year and the national record for a state during the recruitment campaign was 365 volunteers, which was set by Minnesota last year. In addition, the state which recruits the most volunteers in March wins the CoCoRaHS Cup. Minnesota has won it an unprecedented three years in a row now and hopes to keep the streak going.

Volunteers receive training on how to observe weather trends and how to submit their precipitation and weather event reports. All training material is available online. They must purchase or provide a standard 4-inch-diameter rain gauge (available at discount through CoCoRaHS) and have internet access to submit reports.

“Although we have already recruited a historic number of volunteers this month, we can surely use more in the Bemidji and Beltrami County area,” Romolo said. “We’re hoping Minnesotans will again come through in 2023 to keep the Cup in Minnesota and more importantly, to improve our state’s precipitation recording.”

To sign up or for more information, visit CoCoRaHS.org or contact Luigi Romolo at luigi.romolo@state.mn.us.

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College professor ready to learn as new Minnesota Senate Ag Committee leader

Jeff Beach — Fri, 25 Nov 2022 20:45:00 GMT

ST. PAUL — State Sen. Aric Putnam admits he doesn’t know a lot about farming, but as a scholar, he’s ready to take a crash course to prepare to lead the Minnesota Senate Agriculture Committee.

Putnam, a Democrat from St. Cloud, was named to his leadership post just before the Minnesota Farmers Union state convention and went to the event Nov. 19 to be introduced.

“The first thing I said was, ‘I don't seem like a clear fit for this,’” Putnam said. “I still think that the committee is a space to do great things for the whole state. So the full title is Agriculture, Rural Development and Broadband, so there's a lot of stuff in that jurisdiction that I think I can help with.”

Putnam was elected to his second term in the Minnesota Senate in the November general election, which saw the Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party flip enough Senate seats from red to blue that the party now controls both houses of the Legislature and saw Gov. Tim Walz win a second term.

Walz is reappointing Thom Petersen as agriculture commissioner, and Putnam was to meet with Petersen before Thanksgiving. For Putnam, who teaches at St. John’s University and the College of St. Benedict, that is part of his crash course before the 2023 legislative session starts on Jan. 3.

“My day job is as a scholar, so I've already asked for like 10 books on agriculture,” Putnam said. “I'm going to try to put together a tour of different parts of the state before January, because you get a better idea of how agriculture matters differently in different parts of the state.”

Putnam replaces Republican Sen. Torrey Westrom of Elbow Lake as chair of the Senate Ag Committee. In the 2022 legislative session, Sen. Erin Murphy of St. Paul was the ranking Democrat on the committee, which Putnam was not on.

On him being selected as Ag Committee chair, “I do think that it's a sign that the caucus is trying to prioritize voices in greater Minnesota. Why I got it, I think, it's because I'm not from the 612,” Putnam said, referring to the Twin Cities area code.

Agriculture was one of the only areas where the Minnesota Legislature was able to get something done in the 2022 session when Republicans controlled the Senate and Democrats controlled the House.

Emergency drought relief and funding to respond to the highly pathogenic avian influenza were among the items that were addressed.

The 2021 session was to spend money from Minnesota’s huge budget surplus. The 2023 session will set the Minnesota Department of Agriculture budget — a $100 million biennial budget.

Petersen said disease response still is a top priority.

“Making sure we have resources to deal with avian influenza and the potential African swine fever outbreak in our state,” Petersen said. “We were hit pretty hard this last year, the (avian flu) virus has kind of hung around.”

Petersen said despite the change in Senate leadership, he seeks bipartisan support.

“Yes, the DFL has a majority but we’re still going to need to work on things … reach across the aisle,” Petersen said.

Some of the things that are important to the Ag Department for possible funding:

Value-added processing. Meat processing. Soil health and developing third crops. Biofuels. Bringing in the next generation of farmers.

“We'll be looking at a very large ask through bonding to make sure that our Rural Finance Authority has enough money to make loans to farmers. Our beginning farmer loan is our number one loan,” Petersen said.

Putnam said a new generation of farmers is a priority.

"One thing that's important to me from talking to farmers, my community and just from my day job, I'd like to see us do some real intentional work on getting more people into farming, especially young people," Putnam said.

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