ATLANTIC, IA (April 8, 2021) – Produce in the Park is gearing up for a great season in the park and recruiting vendors for summer 2021. Produce in the Park is a community-oriented farmers market held every Thursday evening (4:30-6:30 PM) from the beginning of June through the end of September in the beautiful Atlantic City Park.

Both food and craft vendors are welcome to join the market. Vendors can register for the entire season, or sign up for just a few weeks. More information on vending at Produce in the Park can be found at www.produceintheparkatlanticiowa.com. Questions on vending can be directed to Market Manager Brigham Hoegh at produceintheparkatlanticiowa@gmail.com or (712) 249- 5870.

Produce in the Park is looking forward to a fun, safe summer in the park. Live music and preorder drive-through pick-up shopping will both be back for summer 2021.

Stay up to date on the latest with Produce in the Park by signing up for the Produce in the Park newsletter at www.produceintheparkatlanticiowa.com, and following Produce in the Park on Facebook @ProduceInThePark and Instagram @ProduceInTheParkAtlanticIA.

Produce in the Park 2021 summer farmers markets are sponsored by the Atlantic Community Promotion Commission, First Whitney Bank & Trust, Cass County Tourism, and Cass County Health System.

(Story by Atlantic FFA Reporter Aspen Nilasen) – To many students, the ride to school usually involves the requirement of driving themselves by motorized vehicles, or having their parents drop them off. But last Friday, March 12th, the Atlantic FFA members had the opportunity to ride to school in a different ride. This “ride” was a part of the annual Tractor Ride to School Day that the Atlantic FFA Chapter conducts every year during the spring. Members who participated met at the Walmart located one mile away from the High School. From there, they drove to the High School in a large line of green, red, and blue tractors.

Picture Left to right
Top Row: Cooper Jipsen, Drey Newell, Dan Freund, Jacob Haupert; Middle Row:
Colton Becker, Wyatt Redinbaugh, Dylan Comes; Bottom Row: DJ Shepperd, Brett Dreager, Chase Vogl, Wyatt Simons, Hudon Goff, Charles Klemmensen, Colton Rudy. (Photo submitted)

This year, 13 members took part in the event. Charles Klemmensen said “I had pride driving my tractor to school! It felt really good seeing people drive by me with big smiles on their faces honking their horns. Representing the Atlantic FFA with my buddies and parking our tractors in front of the school was a great feeling. It was a great experience standing around the tractors and talking with other FFA members and even some non-members who just wandered over because they were interested. I drove a John Deere 455 Lawn Tractor that I took the mowing deck off of. Tractor day is probably one of my favorite days of the year and is a good way of showing the community our pride in our FFA program, as well as a good way to get kids interested in joining. I enjoyed the whole experience and I look forward to future tractor days.”

The following is the list of members who participated in tractor day: Drey Newell, Daniel Fruend, Cooper Jipsen, Wyatt Redinbaugh, Dylan Comes, Wyatt Simons, Hudson Goff, Chase Vogl, Colton Becker, Brett Dreager, Colton Rudy, Jacob Haupert and Charles Klemmensen.

The Cass County Master Gardeners are excited to announce the return of their annual Spring Plant Sale for 2021. Cancelled last year as the pandemic prohibited public gathering, the 2021 event promises to have a wide variety of spring perennials available for gardeners looking to update their landscape this year. This year’s event is scheduled for Saturday morning, May 8, at the Cass County Community Center, 805 W 10th Street, on the Cass County Fairgrounds. The sale will be open to the public to purchase divided perennials suitable for spring planting, as well as possibly some garden tools and decor.

The sale begins at 8 AM, and will be held in the front parking lot of the Cass County Community Center on the fairgrounds in Atlantic. Interested gardeners are encouraged to arrive early for best plant selection, as the annual spring and fall sales occasionally sell out before 10 AM. Due to the pandemic, several safety measures will be in place for this sale, including recommending the use of masks when interacting with others and completing purchase, spreading out sale items to allow for social distancing, hand sanitizer stations and a one-way traffic flow for shoppers.

Cass County Master Gardeners will be bringing a variety of plants from their own gardens, as well as plants dug from gardens around the community, for this sale. Community members are also welcome to donate plants to this event, and members may even help you dig! If you are dividing perennials in your yard this spring and have extra plants to donate, please call in advance and make arrangements to drop off donated plants before the date of the plant sale. As the event gets closer, the group will be sharing a list of plants expected to be available at the sale. Cass County Master Gardeners use funds from the plant sale to support their scholarships and community grants, as well as projects they do around the county each year.

For more information about these events and about Master Gardener activities in Cass County, please call the Cass County Extension Office at 712-243-1132, or email Cass County Extension Director and Master Gardener Coordinator Kate Olson at keolson@iastate.edu. In addition, you are invited to follow the Cass County Master Gardeners at their Facebook page at www.facebook.com/CassCoMG to keep up with local events and tips for gardening. For anyone interested in learning more about the Master Gardener program and becoming a Master Gardener, the next class will begin in August of 2021, with a mix of online and hands-on learning. Find details and sign up on the Iowa Master Gardener website, or call the Cass County Extension office to learn more!

(Radio Iowa) – High temperatures in the 70s and 80s warmed much of Iowa in the past week and the unseasonable weather is prompting farmers to consider hitting the fields early to plant this year’s crops. Angie Rieck-Hinz, an Iowa State University Extension field agronomist based in Clarion, says planting conditions are approaching ideal. “It’s warm, the soil temperatures are trending upwards and the soil is drying out with these winds,” Rieck-Hinz says. “The soil is fairly dry anyway because we haven’t had a lot of recent moisture so people are itchy to get in and start planting, whether it’s corn or soybeans.”

One of the big concerns for planting now, for one crop in particular, is soil temperature, which is usually measured four inches below the surface. “We want to make sure our soil temperatures for corn planting are at least 50 degrees and trending up,” she says. “Last week, they were making some pretty big swings back and forth because we got warm and then we cooled off, and then we got warm and we cooled off. Obviously, over the weekend, it was really nice so our soil temperatures have rebounded.”

In addition to soil temps, a late season frost is another big worry. “We just need to weigh some pros and cons, basically some risks, to say what’s our risk management if we get a frost,” Rieck-Hinz says. “You remember May 5th last year? We got a nice, killing frost. We had some soybeans that were in the ground and up. We dinged soybeans pretty good in some places last year because of that May 5th frost.”

The forecast for the rest of the week promises several chances of showers and mild temperatures for much of Iowa.

w/Kate Olson.

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The Iowa DNR seeks people who enjoy the outdoors, camping and meeting new people, to consider becoming volunteer campground hosts for the upcoming recreation season at five state parks and forests:

• Beeds Lake State Park (Hampton)
• Clear Lake State Park
• Nine Eagles State Park (Davis City)
  
• Springbrook State Park (Guthrie Center)
  
• Stephens State Forest (Chariton)

Contract: IA
Park: 610116

Volunteer campground hosts live in state parks from one to five months assisting DNR staff with light maintenance duties, checking in campers, and being a resource for visitors enjoying state parks and forests. Campground hosts are provided a free campsite while they are actively hosting during the camping season. Hosts volunteer 20 – 40 hours per week, including weekends and holidays, while living on site in their own camper.

General duties include greeting visitors, assisting campers checking in and with reservations, cleaning bathrooms, light maintenance and administrative duties, acting as a liaison between campers and DNR staff and answering questions and disseminating information to campers. Information about campgrounds and state parks is available online at www.iowadnr.gov/stateparks. To discuss the host position, contact the state park directly, or call 515-443-2533.

(Radio Iowa) – A very small insect is causing big trouble in Iowa’s soybean fields and it’s spreading quickly across the continent. The soybean cyst nematode, or S-C-N, is being tracked in a survey throughout the United States and Canada every few years. S-C-N Coalition co-leader and Iowa State University Extension plant pathologist Greg Tylka says the destructive bug has traveled far since 2017. “There are 55 new counties with SCN in 11 different states in the U.S.,” Tylka says, “and then also they found SCN in a bunch of new counties in Quebec, Ontario and Manitoba.”

As odd as it may sound, he says the most common way they believe the tiny bugs are being transported from field to field and from farm to farm is by the wind, specifically in blowing dirt. “The SCN female, which fills up with a couple hundred eggs and eventually dies — a dead female full of eggs is called a cyst — that cyst is about the size of a period at the end of a printed sentence in a book or in the newspaper,” Tylka says. “It’s tiny and it very easily can be in soil particles that are blown.” The soybean cyst nematode causes a lot of costly damage.

“Even a moderately low level of SCN is probably going to take two-to-five bushels per acre out of the yield,” Tylka says. “We have scenarios in Iowa where we’ve documented 22-to-25 bushels per acre yield loss. There is a lot of money being left in the field due to the SCN.”

Tylka says another reason there’s been more detection of S-C-N is that his coalition is encouraging producers to do more sample testing. He says one way to get a handle on the insect is by properly rotating crops.

(Radio Iowa) – State officials say liquid manure from a cattle operation near Remsen turned the water in a nearby creek brown and killed fish for several miles downstream. Department of Natural Resources staff were on site Monday, monitoring clean-up and conducting a count of dead fish. According to a news release from the agency, Louis Pick, who owns LCNJ Farms, filled a tanker with manure Saturday night, but a valve on the tanker apparently failed.

Manure ran into a road ditch, then into a tributary of Whiskey Creek near Remsen. Pick discovered the spill Monday morning and took steps to stop the flow of manure into the ditch and recover pools of liquid manure in the area.

Bottom row left to right- Letty McSorely, Carson, IA, Colton Krueger, Carson, IA, Cody Swank, Harlan, IA, Colton Anderson, Atlantic, Braxton Hass, Atlantic, Hunter Quist, Atlantic, Adien Smith, Elliott, Brentyn Hoover, Anita, IA, Jake Wailes, Wiota, IA, Grant Petty, Atlantic, Holden DeVore, Atlantic, Hade DeVore, Atlantic, Garret Stezel, Atlantic, Gavin Doughtery, Lewis. Top row left to right Conner Britten, Red Oak, Braden Smith, Atlantic, Drey Newell, Atlantic, Dylan Comes, Atlantic, Cooper Jipsen, Atlantic, Owen Hoover, Anita, Korben Brunt, Anita, Vicente Butcher, Corning, Joaquin Wailes, Wiota, Joey Oathoudt, Corning, Colton Rudy, Atlantic, Colin Rudy, Atlantic, Jake Oathoudt, Corning, Dakota Breaud, Corning, Mason McCready, Macedonia, IA, Caden Foristall, Carson.

Atlantic, IA. – The duo of Vicente Butcher of Corning, Iowa and Conner Britten from Red Oak took home the top spot in the Powerade High School Series at the Olsen BP SAF SWIFT tournament at Prairie Rose Lake on Saturday. The teams total of 5 bass weighing 11 pounds, 11 ounces, gave them a mere 2-ounce-margin victory over the second-place team of Drey Newell of Atlantic and Braden Smith of Atlantic who brought 5 bass to the stage weighing 11-09. Third went to Dylan Comes and Cooper Jipsen both from Atlantic with 5 bass, 11-2.

Hunter Quist of Atlantic and Adien Smith from Elliott scored the win in the Fairlire Yup Junior Series with 5 bass weighing 11-7. Quist/Smith had to overcome some early adversity when their boat would not start once it was backed into the water. The only way they could maneuver their boat was by using the remote on the trolling motor, but kept fishing and with a little divine intervention perhaps they were still able to weigh-in the biggest 5 bags of fish. Second place went to Cody Swank of Harlan and Braxton Hass of Atlantic hauled in 4 bass at 6-15, rounding out the field in third place was the team of Jake Wailes of Wiota, IA and Brentyn Hoolver of Anita, IA. their total was 3 bass 5-12.

It was a perfect sunny spring day with temperature in the low 70’s and extraordinarily little wind for thirty student anglers and their boat captains who launched from the docks at 7:30am on the hunt to put a 5 bass limit in the boat. The teams navigated across 173-acre Prairie Rose Lake for seven in half hours making history for the first SAF High School and Junior Fishing tournament to be held in the state of Iowa. At the official weigh-in there were a total of 46 were caught with a combined weight of 99lbs 8oz., all bass were safely returned to the lake. Seven teams caught a 5 bass full bad limit and the average bass weighed one pound seven once.

Jake Wailes a 6th grader from Atlantic earned the AM Cohron & Sons Big Fish of the tournament with his bass weighing in at three pounds.

Powerade High School Boat Series results from the Olsen BP SAF SWIFT tournament at Prairie Rose Lake on Saturday.

1st: Vicente Butcher, Corning, IA., and Conner Britten, Red Oak, IA., 5 bass, 11.11
2nd: Drey Newell, Atlantic, IA and Braden Smith, Atlantic, IA, 5 bass, 11.09
3rd: Cooper Jipsen, Atlantic, IA and Braden Smith, Atlantic, IA, 5 bass, 11.02
4th: Mason McCready, Macedonia, IA and Caden Forristall, Carson, IA, 5 bass, 11.01
5th: Korben Brunt, Anita, IA and Owen Hoover, Anita, IA, 5 bass, 10.6
6th: Colton Rudy, Atlantic, IA and Colin Rudy, Atlantic, IA, 5 bass, 9.9
7th: Joey Oathoudt, Corning, IA and Joaquin Wailes, Wiota, IA, 2 bass, 4.1
8th: Jake Oathoudt, Corning, IA and Dakota Breaud, Corning, IA, 1 bass, 2.11

Fairlire Yup Junior Boat Series results from the Olsen BP SAF SWIFT tournament at Prairie Rose Lake on Saturday.

1st: Hunter Quist, Atlantic, IA., and Adien Smith, Elliot, IA., 5 bass, 11.7
2nd: Cody Swank, Harlan, IA and Braxton Hass, Atlantic, IA, 4 bass, 6.15
3rd: Jake Wailes, Wiota, IA and Brentyn Hoover, Anita, IA, 3 bass, 5.12
4th: Gavin Dougherty, Lewis, IA and Garrett Stetzel, Atlantic, IA, 1 bass, 2.3
5th: Hade DeVore, Atlantic, IA and Holden DeVore Atlantic, IA, 0 bass, 0
6th: Letty McSorely, Carson, IA and Colton Krueger, Carson, IA, 0 bass, 0
7th: Grant Petty, Atlantic, IA and Colton Anderson, Atlantic, IA, 0 bass, 0

The next event for SWIFT will be a Lake Anita on April 17th.
For complete details and updated information visit www.southwestiowafishingteam.teamapp.com.
For regular updates, photos, tournament news and more, follow on SWIFT’s social media outlets at Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and YouTube.

(Radio Iowa) – Organizers in Pella are planning to bring back the city’s annual tulip festival in one month. Festival board member, Cyndi Atkins, says they are excited about the return after COVID-19 forced the cancellation of last year’s festival. “Our theme this year — Back in Bloom — so we are going to be back with thousands and thousands of tulips, lots of people in Dutch costumes,” Atkins says. The annual festival, which started in 1935, had only been canceled once before, back in 1946. “Last year was hard because it definitely was a hit to the Pella Historical Society budget. They cut their budget, here, there, and everywhere. They were documented as a 150-thousand dollars that they needed to cut out of their budget,” she says.

Atkins says the event from May 6th through the 8th will have some modifications to keep everyone safe. “We’re trying very hard to make sure we can make this one be a successful festival, so that we can continue to raise funds to support the local historic village,” according to Atkins. “And also so there is a way for a lot of the non-profits who run the food stands, and the vendors in the West Market Park craft area, to have a chance to actually make some of the funds this year that they would make in a normal year.” Atkins says many of the vendors are local churches and organizations that fund projects with the money they make. “So many of these other vendors — they’re raising money for wonderful causes — it’s heartwarming,” Atkins says.

Atkins says she’s already seen tulips poking out of the ground and expects that to continue as things warm up. “The city and the historical village and Central College and others who plant large, large gardens do a really good job of planting tulips that bloom, early, mid and late,” Atkins says. “So that some might have bloomed and be gone before people arrived, but there’s always some that are coming that will still be blooming and continue as we push into late May. That’s just the way it works so that we can have something and we can see them bloom.”

Activities will begin each day in Pella around 9 a-m and continue until the lighted parade floats go dim around 9:30 p-m.