Cass County: Corn $4.02 Beans $10.84
Adair County: Corn $3.99 Beans $10.87
Adams County: Corn $3.99 Beans $10.83
Audubon County: Corn $4.01 Beans $10.86
East Pottawattamie County: Corn $4.05 Beans $10.84
Guthrie County: Corn $4.04 Beans $10.88
Montgomery County: Corn $4.04 Beans $10.86
Shelby County: Corn $4.05 Beans $10.84

Oats: $3.05 (same in all counties)

(Prices are per bushel; information is from the area Farm Service Agency [FSA] offices)

LEWIS, Iowa – The Wallace Foundation will hold an educational event for the public, followed by its annual business meeting, on March 6 at the Armstrong Memorial Research and Demonstration Farm in Lewis. Registration will begin at 9:30 a.m., followed by a welcome address from Mark Bentley, president of the Wallace Foundation. From 10 a.m. to noon, attendees will hear updates from two Iowa State University experts in nitrogen management and usage in Iowa.

Matt Helmers, professor and director of the Iowa Nutrient Research Center (INRC) at ISU, will discuss what the center has observed regarding nitrates. Melissa Miller, project director of the INRC at ISU, will follow and share how to best manage nitrogen applications for maximum return, as well as new research on nitrogen management in Iowa from field trials conducted over the past several years.

The Wallace Foundation is a non-profit organization focused on research specific to farmers in Southwest Iowa and is actively looking for new members to set the direction of research to benefit farmers in the area. The annual business meeting of the Wallace Foundation will be held at 1 p.m.

The event is offered at no cost to attend and includes lunch by Downtowner Cafe and Catering. Attendees are asked to pre-register by March 2 to help with facility and meal planning. To register, email farm superintendent Matt Groves at mjgroves@iastate.edu or call him at 712-769-2402. The meeting will be held at the Wallace Foundation Learning and Outreach Center, located at 53020 Hitchcock Avenue, Lewis, Iowa 51544.

For more information, contact Aaron Saeugling at 712-254-0082 or clonz5@iastate.edu.

(Radio Iowa) – More than 20-thousand-500 F-F-A members in Iowa are marking the accomplishments of ag education as part of National F-F-A Week. Webster City High School student Megan Van Deer says she loves working with animals. “I want to go to school for veterinary,” Van Deer says, “and so just being part of the FFA program kind of helped me get more interested and stay along with it.”

Bridge Berninghaus joined the same Webster City F-F-A chapter for a host of reasons. “I think it’s a great program to get involved in,” Berninghaus says. “You get to meet new people, help others in the community, build more leadership, and have a great time.” Alyson McCarty is a vocational agriculture instructor at Webster City High School. In her native Connecticut, the F-F-A program varies from the one in Iowa, with much less emphasis on corn, soybeans, hogs and cattle.

“We have kids that are growing fish in their high school classrooms or looking at forestry, pine trees, cut flowers in greenhouses,” McCarty says. “It looks a little bit different, but they’re still learning the same: leadership, communication, all those skills.”

There are over one-million F-F-A members nationwide. The organization was started in 1928 to introduce youth to agriculture in the classroom. Members, in their blue jackets, are involved from grapefruit sales during the holidays, participating at county fairs, and driving tractors and farm machinery from their farm homes to their classrooms.

(Creston, IA) – The Iowa Department of Natural Resources (DNR) says crews have been removing trees on the east side of the 12 Mile Lake Wildlife Area (east of Creston), in order to restore high quality, grassland habitat improving water quality for the lake and benefiting grassland wildlife. Josh Rusk with the Iowa DNR, says “The grassland has been threatened by invasive bush honeysuckle, autumn olive and eastern red cedar, which outcompetes the grassland, creating nothing but bare ground underneath, resulting in increased runoff to the lake.”

The most recent clearing is visible from the boat ramp. The DNR plans to follow up with a prescribed burn this spring. “It’s been a gradual, multi-year project that has a way to go,” he said. “We plan to burn the tree piles, restack, and burn again. Once we get the tree and brush skeletons cleaned up we will convert cool season grasses to native grasses and wildflowers.” A similar restoration effort is also happening on the west side of the lake. “In most, but not all cases, we are not cutting bur oaks and black oaks. The larger tracts of oak hickory woodland will continue to be managed as woodland,” Rusk said.

“We are already seeing an increasing number grassland wildlife, and the bird hunters have responded with the growing pheasant and quail numbers. The area will still support deer populations as they will use the high-quality grasslands and brushy ditches,” he said. Once completed, the restoration will benefit many grasslands and shrubland obligate birds, such as Henslow’s sparrow, bobolink, eastern meadowlark, field sparrow, loggerhead shrike, and indigo bunting. These birds are part of the fastest declining groups of species in North America.

“The restored grassland will lead to better water quality which also means better drinking water and better fishing in the lake,” he said. “It’s a win for everyone.”

Cass County: Corn $4.02 Beans $10.85
Adair County: Corn $3.99 Beans $10.88
Adams County: Corn $3.99 Beans $10.84
Audubon County: Corn $4.01 Beans $10.87
East Pottawattamie County: Corn $4.05 Beans $10.85
Guthrie County: Corn $4.04 Beans $10.89
Montgomery County: Corn $4.04 Beans $10.87
Shelby County: Corn $4.05 Beans $10.85

Oats: $3.06 (same in all counties)

(Prices are per bushel; information is from the area Farm Service Agency [FSA] offices)

(Radio Iowa) – The leader of one of the businesses that will benefit from a new state economic development program is providing more details about their plans. Vermeer Corporation in Pella is receiving incentives from the Business Incentives for Growth or BIG program. Vermeer C-E-O Jason Andringa says they are building a new 300-thousand square foot state-of-the-art plant in Bondurant to build parts for it trenchers and drilling equipment.

“For trenchers, the booms, and the cutting teeth that a trencher uses to make a trench. For horizontal directional drilling, which is an incredibly important product line for Vermeer, it’s the tooling that goes on the front of the drill stem and the tooling that opens up the hole,” he says. Andringa says the facility will also include machining, welding, painting and assembly functions to give Vermeer Des Moines versatility to meet a continually growing demand, including new generations of equipment, from their Utility, Tree Care and Landscape product line ups. Andringa says their Des Moines operations began in the spring of 2023 by leasing a 108-thousand square foot facility, but now need more space. He says the Des Moines metro also supplies more employees.

“And here in Pella, I would say that the size of our facility has more or less fully occupied the workforce that is available within a driving distance of Pella,” Andringa says. “With our experiment in Des Moines, we are able to tap into a much greater pool of workforce. And that’s what we need.” The IEDA says the new Vermeer plant in Bondurant promises to create 182 jobs with a capitol investment of nearly 103 million dollars. Vermeer Corporation is family-owned and began an agricultural equipment manufacturer, with 80 percent of its business now focused on industrial equipment.

Other companies that were awarded incentives under the BIG program include: Arconic aluminum of Davenport for a casting facility in Bettendorf, CCB Packaging in Hiawatha for an automated production line for packaging it provides to food and pharmaceutical companies, Sewer Equipment Company of America in Illinois plans to purchase a facility in Iowa to manufacture its sewer cleaning and vacuum equipment components, and Revolution Concrete Mixers in Minnesota will purchase an existing facility in Waverly and install approximately eight million dollars in equipment to establish new production and assembly operations.

(Radio Iowa) – It’s not yet clear if Republicans in the Iowa House will pass a bill to block lawsuits alleging Roundup causes cancer if the pesticide’s label follows federal guidelines. President Trump last week cited the Defense Production Act as he issued an executive order to ensure a steady supply of glyphosate, the main ingredient in Roundup. Pat Grassley, the speaker of the Iowa House, says he hasn’t assessed that order’s impact on Iowa.

“My understanding is the president wants to see these products made in America,” Grassley told reporters, “kind of something we’ve been talking about.” Both Grassley and House Republican Leader Bobby Kaufmann said before the 2026 legislative session started that Iowa farmers are better off having Roundup made here, since 70 percent of the Roundup sold in North America is made at a plant in Muscatine. Senate Republicans passed the Roundup protection bill last year and

Senator Majority Leader Mike Klimesh says he hopes the House G-O-P takes action this year. “Companies should not be held to a legal standard for something that they’re not allowed to put on the label by the EPA,” Klimesh said. Democrats in the legislature have opposed the bill. Representative Austin Baeth, a Democrat from Des Moines, is a doctor of internal medicine. “The optics of it are horrible for anybody to be in support of this bill when Iowa is in the midst of a cancer crisis,” Baeth said.

Georgia and North Dakota are the only states that have passed laws to protect Bayer from lawsuits alleging Roundup caused cancer. Last month the U-S Supreme Court agreed to hear Bayer’s appeal to block thousands of lawsuits alleging the weed killed caused cancer and other serious illnesses

(Bedford, IA) – The Iowa Department of Natural Resources (DNR) will host a public meeting beginning at 6-p.m. on March 4th, at the Bedford Community School. The purpose of the meeting is to discuss an upcoming alum treatment to improve water quality at Lake of Three Fires, in Taylor County. The Iowa DNR will present an overview of the proposed treatments and how this treatment will help reduce the frequency and intensity of harmful algae blooms (or HABs) in the lake.

Alum (aluminum sulfate) is a nontoxic substance used in everything from cooking to treatment of drinking water, and is commonly used to reduce phosphorus concentrations in lakes. Phosphorus is a key nutrient for algae growth, and stems from runoff in the watershed. While much of the phosphorus that ends up in a lake is buried in the lake sediments, under the right environmental conditions, phosphorus can also be recycled within the lake, being released from the lake sediments when bottom waters have no oxygen.

These “internal releases” of phosphorus often fuel large algae blooms, especially in the late summer and early fall. When applied to a lake, alum binds with the phosphorus in the water and settles as a thin flocculant on the lake bottom, where it will continue to inactivate phosphorus being released from the sediments. This process can significantly reduce the likelihood of HABs, which can be harmful to the ecosystem and limit recreation.

Lake of Three Fires has experienced several significant HABs over the past few years and generally has poor water clarity. Several research efforts have shown that watershed inputs and internal phosphorus recycling are driving these blooms, and that a series of alum applications will likely help alleviate the frequency and duration of HABs.

The alum will be applied using specialized barges over a period of two weeks, depending on weather conditions, between April 1 and May 15. During this time, lake users may see boats, barges, heavy trucking equipment, and storage tanks around the park that are being utilized to complete the application. There should be minimal disruption to regular activities on the water and the application window was selected to minimize interference with spring fishing activities. DNR asks that you maintain a safe distance from the equipment to allow the crews to work efficiently and will have staff on hand to monitor the application. No swimming or boating restrictions are anticipated.

This treatment is one part of a broader effort to continue to improve water quality and recreational opportunities at Lake of Three Fires. An additional treatment is slated for this fall.

For more information, contact Michelle Balmer, Lake Restoration Program Coordinator, at michelle.balmer@dnr.iowa.gov, or 515-238-2458, or Andy Jansen, Fisheries Biologist, at andy.jansen@dnr.iowa.gov or 641-464-3108.

Cass County: Corn $4.01 Beans $10.84
Adair County: Corn $3.98 Beans $10.87
Adams County: Corn $3.98 Beans $10.83
Audubon County: Corn $4.00 Beans $10.86
East Pottawattamie County: Corn $4.04 Beans $10.84
Guthrie County: Corn $4.03 Beans $10.88
Montgomery County: Corn $4.03 Beans $10.86
Shelby County: Corn $4.04 Beans $10.84

Oats: $3.04 (same in all counties)

(Prices are per bushel; information is from the area Farm Service Agency [FSA] offices)