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U.S. Sen. Jon Tester, D-Mont., last week voted to increase investments in agriculture research and critical rural water infrastructure for Montana family farmers and ranchers in an annual funding bill approved unanimously by the Senate Appropriations Committee. Tester’s language also ensures the lab in Sidney will continue to research the impact of the Wheat Stem Sawfly, which causes over $250 million in crop damage every year across the nation, including $80 million in damages in Montana. “Sawflies are a serious threat to the bottom line of...
R-CALF USA may be defined as a non-profit producer organization, but our work benefits anyone who eats meat and lives in an economy that includes agriculture. We’re more than a producer organization; we’re your organization! Senate Judiciary Committee Approves R-CALF USA’s Request to Investigate Cattle Price Collapse. In a letter signed by the chairman and ranking Member of the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee, Sens. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) and Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), respectively, along with the chairman and ranking member of the Senate Judic...
E-rase your E-waste organizers invite you to bring your damaged and outdated electronic equipment to the group’s spring recycling event May 13-14 in Sidney and Fairview. Now in its 12th year, E-rase your E-waste has recycled more than 380,000 pounds (190 Tons!) of electronic waste and is hoping to add substantially to that total in 2016, organizers said. This spring’s collection will once again be held Friday and Saturday, May 13-14, in Sidney, while Fairview will hold its own mini collection event on Saturday morning, May 14, as part of tha...
U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) will provide a new financing option to help farmers purchase portable storage and handling equipment. Farm Service Agency (FSA) Administrator Val Dolcini and Agricultural Marketing Service (AMS) Administrator Elanor Starmer announced changes to the Farm Storage Facility Loan (FSFL) program today during a local and regional food roundtable in Columbus, Ohio. The loans, which now include a smaller microloan option with lower down payments, are designed to help producers, including new, small and mid-sized...
E-rase your E-waste organizers invite you to bring your damaged and outdated electronic equipment to the group’s spring recycling event May 13-14 in Sidney and Fairview. Now in its 12th year, E-rase your E-waste has recycled more than 380,000 pounds (190 Tons!) of electronic waste and is hoping to add substantially to that total in 2016, organizers said. This spring’s collection will once again be held Friday and Saturday, May 13-14, in Sidney, while Fairview will hold its own mini collection event on Saturday morning, May 14, as part of tha...
The MonDak area is home to a unique "research triangle" featuring three agricultural research facilities in Sidney, MT and Williston, ND that regularly share the results of their work with producers through annual summer field days. This year, the group's field days are scheduled as follows: The 2016 Froid Research Farm Field Day will be held Thursday, June 23rd, from 1:00pm until 5:00pm mountain time at the farm site located eight miles north of Culbertson, MT on MT Hwy 16. In addition to a...
A native wildflower with a foreboding name is abundant on Montana rangelands this spring. Death camas (Zigadenus spp.), a plant that resembles wild onion, has caused at least four cattle deaths in Yellowstone County so far this year. "Montana livestock owners may want to take extra precautions and adjust when and how pastures with death camas are grazed this year," said Jeff Mosley, Montana State University Extension range management specialist. Death camas is highly toxic to cattle, sheep and...
USDA, Rural Development State Director John Walsh today announced that USDA is making up to $44 million available to farmers, ranchers and businesses to develop new bio-based products and expand markets through the Value-Added Producer Grant program. “Agriculture is Montana’s largest industry and adding value to this industry’s products will only help Montana’s farmers, ranchers, and rural business owners increase economic opportunities for their families and communities” said Walsh. “The Value-Added Producer Grant program is an under-utili...
As stakeholders and supporters of agricultural research in general, and our research here at Sidney ARS in particular, our goal is to keep you informed of items affecting the lab and its research programs, as well as reporting on research accomplishments. Consequently, we want to let you know about proposed changes for Sidney ARS in the President’s budget for FY2017. In that budget, ARS as a whole has received a $17.5 million increase from FY2016 totals, a 1.5% increase over last year. At the same time, ARS has been asked to redirect $66.3 m...
Sidney resident Karli Johnson just returned from four days in Washington D.C. as part of REAL Montana (Resource Education and Agriculture Leadership). REAL Montana is comprised of twenty of Montana’s emerging and established leaders. The participants were competitively selected from a pool of qualified candidates representing a wide variety of agriculture and natural resource industries across the state to take part in Class II of REAL Montana. For Karli and other members of REAL Montana Class II, this was the fourth seminar in their t...
BOZEMAN – Researchers will be using a mailed survey in Richland County, Montana, and McKenzie County, North Dakota, to collect data to better understand the local community benefits and costs of oil and gas development. The survey asks businesses and landowners about how recent oil activity affected their businesses and farm and ranch operations. The post-boom timing of this study makes it notable as little hard data exists about communities after peak drilling activity, according to Julia Hobson Haggerty, project director and assistant p...
ARS talk moves to Thursday; features soil health discussion “We do not inherit the earth from our ancesters, we borrow it from our children.” ARS Soil Scientist Maysson Mikha takes this Native American Proverb to heart in her research focusing on building soil health and sustainability in the Great Plains region through improved management practices. Soil health reflects the soil’s ability to function as a dynamic living system that can support plant growth, promote animal production and health, sustain human needs, and preserve and/or impro...
Most people will tell you that they can tell when spring has arrived by watching trees bud out or seeing the grass green up, and while that is true for me as well, there is one definitive item that signals to me spring is here, the greenhouses start to go up and fill up. Some businesses that specialize in other items the rest of the year start to roll out flat after flat of annuals, perennials, and vegetables for you to choose from. While I would agree that selecting plants to purchase from these retailers is not rocket science, there are a...
Sidney resident Karli Johnson just returned from four days in Washington D.C. as part of REAL Montana (Resource Education and Agriculture Leadership). REAL Montana is comprised of twenty of Montana's emerging and established leaders. The participants were competitively selected from a pool of qualified candidates representing a wide variety of agriculture and natural resource industries across the state to take part in Class II of REAL Montana. For Karli and other members of REAL Montana Class...
While use of “Roundup Ready” sugarbeets has provided producers with many benefits for weed management in that crop, the technology can also compound weed problems without proper management by building weed resistance to the popular herbicide. New strategies for slowing the spread of resistance are the focus of the next BrownBagger presentation at the USDA Agricultural Research Service’s Northern Plains Agricultural Research Lab in Sidney this coming Friday, March 11. Dr. Tom Peters, Extension Sugar Beet Agronomist at North Dakota State Unive...
Producers with spring-seeded crops need to make insurance decisions soon. USDA’s Risk Management Agency (RMA) reminds Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Wyoming producers the final date to apply for crop insurance coverage on spring crops is March 15. Current policyholders who wish to make changes to their existing coverage also have until the March 15 sales closing date to do so. Producers who planted winter wheat in a county with only spring wheat coverage must notify their crop insurance agent by March 15. Crop insurance provides p...
Montana cattle producers and the Montana Department of Agriculture will be hosting an inbound Australian beef cattle trade mission for six days starting on March 10. The trade mission will work to maintain the strong relationship between Australian and Montanan beef producers, particularly with Montana’s high-quality beef genetic seedstock. “We had a productive trade mission attending the Beef Australia trade show two years ago and piqued their interest in Montana’s high-quality beef seedstock. This is an opportunity to show them our quality fi...
Annual grass invasions into productive perennial grasslands are creating headaches for livestock producers and land managers. As the annual grasses move in, their litter provides fuel for fires, which in turn aid germination of the annual invader, eventually crowding out the more nutritious, native perennial species. It’s a vicious cycle requiring substantial inputs by producers to reestablish perennial species in the face of these self-sustaining invaders. However, in recent studies Agricultural Research Service scientists have successfully i...
Dr. Mark Petersen will be discussing his research done on livestock water quality at the MonDak Ag Days and Trade Show at 10 a.m., Fri., March 4. Petersen is currently the research leader at USDA-ARS Fort Keogh Livestock & Range Research Labratory. There, his responsibilities are to conduct range and range livestock research, supervise personnel and over all operations. He received his BS in Animal Science/Zoology from the University of Hawaii, his MS in Animal Science from the University of...
Dr. Justin D. Derner, a rangeland scientist and Research Leader for the Rangeland Resources Research Unit of the USDA Agricultural Research Service, will be discussing the theories of adapting cropping and livestock systems to a changing climate. He will be speaking at 9 a.m. on March 4 for MonDak Ag Days. Dr. Derner received his Ph.D in Rangeland Ecology and Management in 1996 from Texas A&M University. He leads a a team of scientists developing and providing land managers the necesary tools...
Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack today announced that $150 million in funding is available for agricultural producers through the Conservation Stewardship Program (CSP), USDA’s largest conservation program that helps producers voluntarily improve the health and productivity of private and Tribal working lands. USDA’s Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) plans to add an estimated 10 million acres to the rolls of CSP during fiscal 2016. “The Conservation Stewardship Program is one of our most popular programs with producers becau...
The importance of U.S. beef exports to the U.S. cattle markets has been well-documented. Beef exports on a value basis set a record high in 2014, and so did beef byproducts. Beef byproducts are less glamorous, so their importance sometimes gets overlooked by cattle producers. However, the value of byproducts, sometimes referred to as “offal or drop value,” also plays an important role in cattle prices. Beef byproducts include all edible and inedible items from harvested cattle that are not part of the dressed carcass. The hide is the most val...
Welders and other heavy duty tools have been the instruments of choice for farmers and ranchers needing to repair or adapt their equipment for specific jobs. But as GPS, drones and other new technologies continue to expand in agriculture, producers may find themselves reaching for a new tool in their toolbox: a 3D printer. Brian McGinnis of Exdivio Solutions, Inc. in Sidney, MT will provide producers and others an insight into this new technology as the third speaker in the USDA-ARS Northern Plains Agricultural Research Laboratory’s 2016 B...
DICKINSON, N.D. – Dickinson State University and North Dakota State University (NDSU) recognize the need to provide timely, effective reclamation information to affected stakeholders in the Bakken energy development. This is especially true in uncertain economic times. This effort began in February 2013 when the first reclamation workshop was held in Dickinson. This year’s fourth annual workshop is titled “Reclamation: Where Do We Go from Here” and will be held Feb. 22-23, 2016 at the Astoria Hotel & Event Center in Dickinson. Hosting the eve...
Bozeman, Mont., Jan. 29, 2016—The USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service in Montana has extended the funding application deadline for the Wetland Reserve Easement component of the Agricultural Conservation Easement Program (ACEP) from Jan. 15, 2016, to March 11, 2016. Landowners interested in conservation easements to address natural resource concerns can submit applications at any time. Though signup is continuous, funding selections are made at specific times during the fiscal year. To be considered for funding in Fiscal Year 2016, a...
