Iowans may be pulling more green out of their pockets to purchase a Christmas tree this year, especially if that tree was grown out of state. Iowa Christmas tree grower Rod Heintz, says there’s an undersupply of some popular evergreens nationwide due to wildfires and drought. “Right now there’s a shortage of Christmas trees because of that,” Heintz says. “Everything is up three to five dollars a tree this year.”

Heintz manages Strautman Tree Farm near Cambridge. He says Iowans can likely save a few dollars this year if they get a tree grown within the state’s borders. Heintz did NOT raise his prices from last year. “We sell ’em from three feet tall to 15 foot…so, they range anywhere from $30 to $250 a (tree),” Heintz says.

There are around 100 Christmas tree farms in Iowa, growing on a total of about 1,500 acres. Heintz says he was pleasantly surprised with the strength of his Christmas tree crop this year. “We had absolutely no rain this growing season, but they look tremendous,” Heintz told Radio Iowa. “I can’t believe how well they look.”

Heintz says many of his customers return year after year because they enjoy the experience of buying a tree direct from a farm, rather than from a big box store.

According to the Iowa Christmas Tree Grower’s Association, it can take up to 15 years to grow a tree of average retail sale height (6 feet), but the average growing time is seven years. The top selling Christmas trees in Iowa are Scotch Pine and White Pine.

(Radio Iowa)

Officials with the Iowa Department of Natural Resources report Conservation Officers responded to a hunting incident at around 3:30 p.m., Saturday, in Audubon County. Authorities say 56-year old Arthur Goupille, of Negaunee, Mich., was hunting pheasants in Audubon County when his gun discharged hitting two members of his hunting party standing about six feet away.

The group had completed a drive and was taking a break when the incident occurred. Goupille’s gun fell over, discharged, and struck the nearby hunters. The hunters were taken to the Audubon County Hospital with non-life threatening injuries. They were treated and released.

The DNR reminds hunters to use safe hunting practices, treat every firearm as if it is loaded and always keep the muzzle pointed in a safe direction.

The corn harvest is completed in a majority of the state. The final crop report from the U-S-D-A says good weather allowed farmers to get into the field every day last week. That allowed them to make a dent in the corn that remains standing in the fields and the report says 96 percent of the corn has been harvested. The leaves the state eight days behind the five-year average. The report says southwest and south-central Iowa are on the only areas with more than five percent of the corn remaining to be harvested. The bean harvest was wrapped up last week.

(Radio Iowa)

The spokesman for the Food Bank of Iowa says food donations regularly decrease significantly this time of year. Danny Akright says while donations start to drop off — the number of people who need assistance has not dropped a lot since the Great Recession that started in 2008. “You would think that there would be a lot fewer people who are food insecure. But really at the peak it was about 14 percent in Iowa — 14 percent of Iowans were food insecure — but it’s only down to 12 percent.”

The organization covers 55 counties in central and southeast Iowa. He says there’s always a seasonal drop in food that’s available as the various garden programs and farms head into winter.  “Of course when the growing season ends that flow of produce kind of slows to a trickle,” Akright says. He says the Food Bank of Iowa has seen an increase in financial donations — which he says are important to keeping the pantry stocked.”We’re able to use those to buy the products that people don’t generally donate and that we’re not getting during certain times of the year,” according to Akright.

The Food Bank of Iowa brought in more than two-point-eight million dollars in donor support last fiscal year. The previous year fiscal year, that number was two-point-two million dollars. Akright says Money raised in November and December each year equals between 30 to 40 percent of their yearly total.

(Radio Iowa, w/thanks to Clay Masters, Iowa Public Radio

BISMARCK, N.D. (AP) — A Plains farm aid nonprofit that’s grown steadily in size and scope since being launched in North Dakota about a dozen years ago is expanding its services again.

Farm Rescue is adding livestock feeding assistance to its list of services that include crop planting and harvesting, haying, and hay and grain hauling.

The new service will be offered throughout the organization’s territory, which has grown through the years to include North Dakota, South Dakota, Minnesota, Iowa, Montana and Nebraska.

Farm Rescue doesn’t dole out cash. It provides free physical labor for farmers and ranchers dealing with an injury, illness or a natural disaster. It relies on volunteers from around the country, donations and corporate sponsors. It reached a milestone last summer, helping its 500th case.

Iowa has at least 75 beer brewers statewide and many of them will have representatives at the upcoming convention being planned for Omaha-Council Bluffs. The Hop Growers and Brewers Conference and Trade Show is scheduled for January. Katie Kreuser, the hop program coordinator for the University of Nebraska Extension, says it’s an ideal place for growers and brewers to get together and network.

Kreuser says, “With this increasing growth with the craft beer industry, comes this interest in growing hops and with our conducive environment, it just makes for a perfect mix.”

The conference will offer workshops and speakers providing important information for producers who are interested in growing hops to support the expanding number of breweries. “The agronomics of growing hops, pest and diseases, nutritional management, trellis design and installation, harvest timing, crop and brewery insurance,” Kreuser says.

There will be discussions about organic hop production in addition to displays of the latest in brewery equipment. The trade show covers everything growers and brewers need to launch operations, in addition to helping home or micro-brew owners. “This is geared towards any vendors that have products or information that’s going to help this audience,” she says. “This is anything from chemical companies to brewing equipment to actual plant sourcing.”

The conference will be held at the Embassy Suites in downtown Omaha on January 18th and 19th. Early bird registration ends December 1st. Learn more at growbrewnebraska.com. The craft beer industry in Iowa supports more than 15-hundred jobs and has an economic impact exceeding 100-million dollars. Iowa’s beer production is expected to top 146-thousand barrels by 2019, that’s triple the rate from 2014.

(Radio Iowa)

The CEO of an ag startup based in Iowa City is predicting rapid growth of his business in 2018. Amos Peterson is the leader of FarrPro, which has developed a replacement for heat lamps in farrowing facilities. The invention is designed to help pork producers reduce both mortality and energy costs. “It’s an enclosed micro-climate that evenly heats the piglets throughout the first three weeks of their lives,” Peterson says.

Amos Peterson – FarrPro

FarrPro was part of the Iowa AgriTech Accelerator Class of 2017. The Des Moines-based program is designed to connect ag-tech startups with mentors and investors. Peterson says FarrPro is just now beginning a pilot project, but he calls the preliminary data on his product “very encouraging.” He says the piglets “seem to really like” the enclosures.

Peterson says fundraising will be critical over the next year as he hopes FarrPro units will eventually be used by swine operations around the world. “The launch throughout 2018 – we’re hoping to sell about 1,000 units to early test partners and 10,000 through other distribution methods,” Peterson says.

The Iowa AgriTech Accelerator will begin accepting applications for its Class of 2018 in January.
…
(Radio Iowa, w/Thanks to Mark Dorenkamp, Brownfield Ag News)
LINK: AgIowa.com

Turkeys aren’t the only birds of interest this Thanksgiving. A farm in western Iowa may be the solution to a peacock problem in southern Florida. Miami area residents are frustrated by the wild birds making noise, leaving droppings, scratching cars and gobbling landscaping. Some resort to killing the birds and raiding nests to break eggs. Dennis Fett, who runs a peacock farm near Minden, says he’d gladly take any and all of the problem peacocks ruffling feathers in Florida.

“We’ve offered our services. If they will take them, then we’ll be off and running,” Fett says. “I will adopt all of the baby peachicks that they have and put them on our farm here. If there’s too many, then we’ll find places that will adopt them off our website, peafowl.com.” The adult peafowl can be adopted, too, and shipped anywhere in the U-S economically, he says. Much like roosters, the colorful peacocks often crow — loudly — at sunrise, which can rub some folks the wrong way.

“Sometimes people had peacocks in the early days and then with urban sprawl, it causes problems and they encroach on humans’ backyards,” Fett says. “They cause problems with their noise and their excrement and that sort of thing. For some reason, some people really hate them and some people really love them.” Peacocks can make excellent pets but Fett says they’re not for most city-dwellers.

“We always recommend against doing that if you don’t have a place like we do in the country or a place where the neighbors are not close,” Fett says. “Number one, the noise will be a problem. Number two, they wander and they like to eat things in your garden and that could be a problem if your neighbor has a prize tomato plant ready to be eaten.” The Fett farm is now home to about 85 mature peacocks but he had more than 200 a few years back, prior to a damaging tornado that cut through the region. He’d like to build his peafowl population back up with the Florida birds.

“Oh my gosh, we have room for many more,” Fett says. “We would take everything they have. If someone wants to endow the project, we would even build new special holding places for these birds until they’re adopted out.” Fett considers himself an expert on peafowl and he’s consulted on populations in New York, Hawaii and even at the late Hugh Hefner’s Playboy Mansion in Los Angeles. He’s written books on peafowl, composed songs and videos about them, and runs the Peacock Information Center at www.peafowl.com.

(Radio Iowa, w/Thanks to Karla James in Omaha)

The E-P-A will NOT make a major change to federal rules for WHERE most ethanol is to be blended into gasoline. The oil industry had been pushing the Trump Administration to lift the “obligation” that refineries blend ethanol into gasoline. The responsibility would then shift to fuel distributors. Under current rules, U.S. refineries must blend a portion of corn-based ethanol into gasoline. Refineries that do not have that capacity are forced to buy credits from refiners that do blend ethanol into gasoline.

The E-P-A announced Wednesday it will not change those rules. Iowa politicians like Senators Grassley and Ernst as well as Governor Reynolds praised the president for keeping his campaign pledge to protect the ethanol industry. Critics say if the oil industry had gotten its way, markets for corn, ethanol and gasoline would have been disrupted and ethanol production would have decreased.

(Radio Iowa)

State tax dollars have helped finance “restoration” of 22 Iowa lakes, with another 21 lake improvement projects in progress. Iowa Department of Natural Resources director Chuck Gipp is asking lawmakers to set aside more than nine-and-half MILLION dollars so the effort may continue. The state’s “lake restoration program” has moved beyond just simply removing sediment from the lake bottom — a process called dredging. Gipp says that’s just “recycling dirt.” “And so we work with partners in order to improve the watershed approach, make sure the soil stays where it’s supposed to,” Gipp says, “and that’s on the land.”

Gipp says the state’s natural lakes are “intensely used” for fishing and recreation. “I think 55-56 percent of the assessed valuation in Guthrie County is homes and businesses around Lake Panorama,” Gipp says. “You could say the same thing of Clear Lake and some of the others. That’s how important it is that we continue to work now to not only restore these lakes to where they were, but to prevent them from being recontaminated.”

A decade ago, 127 publicly-owned lakes in Iowa were placed on a list as candidates for restoration efforts. Improving water quality and increasing public use of a lake are the two primary goals of the program. A recent Iowa State University study found at least six out of 10 Iowans visit an Iowa lake more than once a year.

(Radio Iowa)