Ramsey County Ag Column

By Bill Hodous

February 23, 2009

Howdy!!!

For those of you that missed the annual crop improvement meeting missed two very good presentations.  Mike gave a very good perspective on the market place and also talked a little about the farm bill.  The ACRE program was talked about but not much detail but there are pro’s and con’s about the program.  The one fact that is for sure is if crop production falls or prices fall lower the ACRE program is the answer, but remember you are locked into the program for the rest of the farm bill if you enroll.  There will be much more information provided in the next month, than I know about but am attending a couple of meetings myself, to learn more about  the program and how it may or may not help us.

Leon Osborne  (President and CEO, Meridian Environmental Technology, Inc.), I call him the weather guru, spoke about the weather patterns of the past and the future and did not provide a pretty outlook for us.  He talked about the wet pattern and the likely hood of lasting up to 2015.  He talked about the likely hood of another up to 30 inches of snow for the next couple of months and he also talked about the gloomy spring prediction of being really wet and cool, until the middle, to the end, of May before it dry’s up.  He talked about 2-3 day rains in the end of April to the middle of May for this period.  It was quite funny as he said this because he became more moveable and had a laugh with producers as he said “at least no one through any shoes at him”.

This past Saturday I drove to Bismarck and was very surprised by the amounts of snow from around Esmond to Bismarck.  I had heard of the high snow amounts but until you see the mess, it is hard to believe.  Starting in an area west of Esmond there were many miles of snow pushed away from the roads, with a bull dozer.  The area sure looks different than it has for the last many years.  There was hay left in the field where you could only see the top foot or so, a sunflower field still standing with snow only about a foot down from the heads (not just on the edges) and deer standing on top of a two and three high bale stack.  It would look like, if we received a major snow storm, people would be stranded for many weeks if more help did not come to the rescue.  Cattle yards were full of snow and little trails pushed or blown to the high piles.  There was a county snow blower trying to move snow away from the highway 19 but I heard on the news someone had hit the plow and disabled it.  No matter the case I remember a year like that here but do not remember the year, although I do remember March of 1966.  When the storm settled down there were many trails dug out with a cat.

                                March 5                                Commercial applicators training  (Devils Lake)

                                March 9                                Private Pesticide training  (Edmore)

                                March 18                              Edmore Soybean days

                                March 23                              Private Pesticide training (Starkweather)

                                March 26                              Private Pesticide training (Devils Lake)  

524 4th Ave #5, 2nd Floor Ramsey County Courthouse
Devils Lake  ND  58301
701-662-7027
email - NDSU.Ramsey.Extension@ndsu.edu