Sorted by date Results 304 - 328 of 362
I am writing in response to the nauseating negative campaign tactics one of our candidates for legislature has decided to mount against his opponent. Any candidate who has to resort to organizing and encouraging an underhanded derogatory letter campaign against his opposition ought not to receive even one single vote from Richland County residents. The sanctimonious rhetoric spewing from the pens of these individuals who have chosen to go along with these questionable ethics is enough to gag a...
Growing degree days (GDD’s) are highly correlated with crop growth. Using GDDs is much better than calendar days or even average daily temperature. DGGs for small grains are calculated using a base temperature of 32 degrees for North Dakota and are easily obtained from the North Dakota Agricultural Weather Network (NDAWN). GDDs are calculated by subtracting the base temperature for a crop from the average of the minimum and maximum for the day. For example, if the high temperature for May 1 w...
My husband and I live in an RV. Let’s just start by saying that RVs are not meant to live in. They are designed for temporary, short-term convenience. This is why they have a cute little stove, a cute little fridge, a cute little sink, and a cute little bathroom. They have plastic sinks, plastic faucets, plastic toilets. Cute doesn’t get you very far when you have to use it every day. Not just for weekends, but for weeks on end. RVs are not insulated to handle sub-zero temperatures, so extraordinary measures must be taken to have a modicum of...
Now that we have received significant rainfall and considerable acreage of wheat has been planted in to wheat stubble, there is concern about the crops susceptibility to leaf diseases. Certainly winter wheat fields planted last fall into wheat stubble should be watched carefully for such diseases, especially tan spot. There is a number of fungicide products registered for tan spot control, including products in the Strobilurin class and the Triazole class. There are also combinations of these...
My name is David Halvorson and I am one of the Legislative candidates who disappointed Lois Kerr at the April 26th Candidate’s Forum, as reported on page five of the May 2 edition of the Roundup. I am a candidate for Representative from House District 37. Ms. Kerr correctly reported that none of us talked about agriculture until prompted by Senator Don Steinbeisser. After reading the report, I contacted the Roundup and said that the article raised questions that deserved answers. Ms. Kerr honored my request for a return telephone call. We had a...
I attended the candidates' forum on Thursday evening, April 26. I fully expected to come away knowing which person for Montana's legislature I intended to endorse and who I intended to vote for. I planned to choose the candidate with the strongest passion for agriculture; the candidate who laid out his or her action plan for agriculture complete with details as to how he or she intended to implement the plan and what top agricultural priorities he or she intended to tackle first. Imagine my...
The North Dakota Field Office of USDA’s National Agriculture Statistics Service conducts an annual survey of farmers and ranchers to obtain average rental rates and the value of rental land in their localities. Approximately 4,600 North Dakota agricultural producers were sampled for this survey conducted Jan. 17-Feb. 2, 2012. More than 2,950 reports were collected with almost 2,150 containing positive data. We recently received a copy of the survey report and will share it upon request. It a...
Over the years I often have heard people my senior say “When it is time to make hay one must make hay.” Such is the case with this spring’s crop seeding. Although mid-April is a bit early for this area, soil temperatures and soil moisture conditions tell us we should be planting. Although not always the case, most farmers bet on the early seeded crops to produce better yields. Early seeded cool season crops can take advantage of the moderate temperatures of late May, June and early July when...
In case you didn’t notice, Spring is here. Many lawns in town are already looking pretty good. Most of the others will green up with some moisture. Regardless of how your lawn looks, however, it doesn’t hurt to go through a spring routine to improve the health and appearance of your lawn. The first thing that yard owners need to do is clean up the mess that has accumulated over the winter months. Dog droppings, decayed leaves, and other garbage needs to removed. Many people use a hand rake and...
Spring is officially here. Most people don’t get into the springtime mood, however, until they hear the birds chirping, feel the warmth of sunshine in their face, bite into a hotdog while cheering on their favorite baseball team, and – most importantly – see nature’s panoply of greens and other colors around them. This past winter was incredibly mild. There was neither bitter cold nor significant snowfall. On a physical level, we didn’t have much to complain about. We suffered through other kinds of difficulties, however. We have had a record...
Joe Victor, Minneapolis Grain Exchange (MGEX) business development specialist, recently informed me that MGEX and DTN have partnered in an effort to conduct two informative webinars that will address market outlook for spring wheat and durum along with weather forecasts for the spring wheat growing areas of the U.S. and Canada. The webinars are scheduled for March 29 and April 4. On March 29, Victor will address both spring wheat and durum wheat markets, their similarities, proteinbasis spreads...
Whether you love him or hate him, Bill O’Reilly is a celebrity that you probably know. His news show, “The Factor”, can be seen on the Fox news channel on weekdays at 8 p.m., 11 p.m., and 5 a.m. He claims that he has had the number one rated news show for the last 12 years. I haven’t found anything to refute this claim. The Fox news channel, in fact, draws more viewers than CNN, MSNBC, and HLN combined. O’Reilly is a broadcaster who not only reports the news but also expresses his opinion o...
I recently visited the great state of Texas. The plan was to take the Amtrak to St. Paul, and then for my brother (Roger) and I to drive down to the San Antonio area. We hoped to see a few new places, play a few rounds of golf, and join up with Father Ned Shinnick, who spends each February in the Canyon Lake area. The Amtrak provided transportation for the first leg of my journey. I made the 7 pm to 7 am ride from Williston to St. Paul without incident. The “clickety clack” of the rails lul...
The 59th National Hard Spring Wheat Show is history. Being heavily involved, along with over 20 other farm producers, agri-businesses and NDSU co-workers, I may be a bit biased in proclaiming the event a total success starting with the Bread Fair which focused on teaching area 5th grade students how to make bread. The instruction started by showing the students where the flour comes from and some of the steps in processing wheat into white and whole wheat flours. At first, it appeared a...
In case you didn’t realize it, last Thursday was Groundhog Day. February 2nd is the day when a legendary groundhog (Punxsutawney Phil of Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania) comes out of his winter lodging. If he sees his shadow then there will be six more weeks of winter weather. If he doesn’t see his shadow, there will be an early spring. Last year there was no shadow – yet it turned out to be anything but an early spring. This year there was a shadow. That is supposed to mean six more weeks of winte...
The week of Feb. 13-17 is VA’s National Salute to Veteran Patients Week.Throughout the state of Montana, there are men and women that are currently serving or have served our county to preserve our way of life and the freedom we enjoy. Many of these veterans have special health care needs and face challenges that we cannot imagine and come to the Medical Center at Fort Harrison or at Community Based Outpatient Clinics (CBOC’s) around the state for their health care. The employees and volunteers that work for VA Montana Health Care System are pr...
It has been 40 years since singer and songwriter Jim Croce died in an airplane crash. His music inspired me in the 1970s; and some of his words have recently come back to haunt me. “Photographs and memories,” Croce sings, “Christmas cards you sent to me . . . all that I have are these to remember you.” I’ve been doing a lot of reminiscing lately. That’s because I recently put together a “best of” DVD of our family videotapes. Working on this compilation has been a bittersweet experience. On...
Is President Obama, as Newt Gingrich claims, the biggest “food stamp president” of all time? You be the judge . . . There are now about 46 million people on food stamps. That compares to 29 million in 2009, at the beginning of Obama’s term, and 17 million in 2001, at the beginning of George W. Bush’s term. The economic recession of 2007-2009 caused a doubling of our unemployment rate. That undoubtedly led to an increase in applications for Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP)...
The events of the past week point out a few things about our community. “Life in Sidney,” several people have told me, “will never be the same.” The worst possible thing has happened. One of our favorite citizens (teacher, daughter, sister, wife and mother) has been missing – and has reportedly been abducted and murdered. We mourn her loss, and commiserate with her family for what they are going through. Everyone knows we are in the middle of a major upheaval in our economy. Sidney and surro...
Was it a “Merry Christmas”, “Happy Holidays”, or “home with the family” at your house last week? Nikki McAlpin’s letter to the editor regarding Social Service’s abduction of children raised the above question. Yes, we’ve all experienced holidays without family present, but we’ve been able to write, send gifts, or visit them via telephone calls. This is not the case with abducted children. Family contact might thwart the SS’s master plan of brainwashing children to believe their parents don’t care. They go MONTHS with no physical contact with p...
The Richland County DUI Task Force needs your help this holiday season. Across Montana local and state law enforcement agencies are doing their part to combat the number of alcohol related crashes in our communities. At record numbers, alcohol establishments are stressing the importance of responsible alcohol service, discouraging patrons from excessive consumption of alcohol and ultimately getting behind the wheel of a vehicle, but they cannot do it alone! Based on recent studies, Richland County had the highest BACs average of 0.274 for...
Recently I received several copies of the 2012 North Dakota Field Inspected Seed publication which lists fields of various crops and varieties that were inspected this past summer. Field inspection is a prerequisite for final seed certification. This year’s publication is smaller than usual, very likely due to the poor growing conditions experienced statewide. Because fewer acres were inspected in 2011 and most seed varieties may only be sold as a class of certified seed, I suspect there will b...
Regarding the North Dakota Farm Bureau lobbying because Social Services is completely out of control: lobbying for one more government agency to be a ‘watchdog’ over them is not the answer. The government should never have the right to be kidnapping children or paying some ‘foster’ person to raise the kidnapped children. The outcry of parents across the U.S. needs to be heeded: GET RID OF THE SS ‘CHILD WELFARE’ DIVISION. There is no welfare for the children because of the SS. Children are severely abused by Social Services. The SS is literally...
I recently learned that my son (Ian) made a Facebook posting saying that my wife and I should never have pretended that there was a Santa Claus. His Facebook note tells the world that we “completely abused my trust in them,” and we now “feel bad” that we ever did that. “I’m not,” Ian says, “going to do the same thing to my kids whether they believe me or not.” Ian goes on to say: “I believed in [Santa Claus] until 5th grade. My friends told me that Santa wasn’t real, but I didn’t listen to them...
According to Adnan Akyuz and Barbara Mullins, both of the NDSU Department of Soil Science, the 2011 growing season (the period from April-September) for North Dakota can simply be characterized as “wetter” than normal compared to the 30-year average from 1981-2010. No one will argue that statement, even those retired farm producers who have lived a lifetime in this area. I have yet to come upon a farmer who remembers so many prevent-plant acres as we had this year. Here are some of the numbers w...
