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CLICK HERE for the latest market quotes from the Brownfield Ag News Network!
Celebrating its 40th year in Iowa, the Iowa State University Extension and Outreach Master Gardener program will hold its core training sessions this fall for local individuals interested in becoming Master Gardener volunteers. The Master Gardener program in Cass County is looking for people who are passionate about volunteering and gardening. No previous garden knowledge is required. The program equips participants to grow in knowledge about gardening best practices. After the training, Master Gardeners volunteer in their community, making significant contributions such as giving vegetables to food pantries and maintaining demonstration gardens at Iowa’s county fairgrounds. 
“Master Gardeners provide volunteer service across Iowa,” said Susan DeBlieck, ISU Extension and Outreach Master Gardener coordinator. “They are excellent community resources who create partnerships in their community to enhance school gardens, provide educational opportunities, and host plant sales.”
The Cass County Extension office will hold training sessions starting on Tuesday, September 3 at the Extension Office and other locations around Cass County to allow for hands-on learning. Classes will be held each Tuesday evening in September and October from 6-8 PM, with an additional extended class scheduled for Saturday morning September 28. The Class on Campus training session will be held in Ames on October 19, bringing all Master Gardener trainees across the state together for hands-on workshops with ISU Extension and Outreach instructors.
The expanded flipped classroom model that was implemented in 2018 will continue this year. Lectures that were previously given during classroom sessions are now available to be watched at home, freeing up class time for hands-on activities and tours of local gardens. This is the first time this format has been offered for training in Cass County. Those interested in the course can apply online at https://mastergardenerhours.hort.iastate.edu/application-form.php. A link to the application form is also available on the Cass County Extension Website at www.extension.iastate.edu/cass or you can call the Cass County Extension Office at 712-243-1132 for assistance with registration. Training fees of $195 are due in the fall once participants are accepted into the class. Because Master Gardener volunteers work with many community partners, applicants will also be required to successfully pass a background screen before being accepted into the program.
After completing the course, Master Gardener trainees volunteer within the community, volunteering 40 hours. To maintain Master Gardener volunteer status, they volunteer 20 hours per year and build their gardening know-how by participating in ten hours of continuing education. Cass County has an active Master Gardener group that participates in many projects throughout the year, so opportunities to learn and volunteer are plentiful! Individuals not interested in becoming a Master Gardener volunteer can still receive training. The ProHort program allows individuals to gain knowledge while earning a certificate of completion. Cost for the ProHort program is $550 and does not include any volunteer requirements.
By becoming a Master Gardener, trainees will join the nearly 2,000 Master Gardeners who were active across Iowa in 2018, compiling over 113,000 volunteer hours. Master Gardeners volunteered nearly 60 hours each, significantly more than the 20 hours required. Those volunteer hours are valued at $2.7 million collectively. For more information about the Master Gardener training, or Master Gardener activities in Cass county, 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.
Region 17 Table Setting Contest: Region 17 Table Setting Contest was held Thursday, August 1 at 4:00pm the Council Bluffs Public Library in Council Bluffs, Iowa. The Region 17 Table Setting Contest is an event bringing the best of the best from each county in Region 17 together to compete for the top table setting in each category and age division. Counties in Region 17 include Fremont, Harrison, Mills, Montgomery, Page, East Pottawattamie and West Pottawattamie.
During each county fair, each county holds a Table Setting Contest where youth choose a theme for either a formal or casual table setting. They plan a menu of what would be served, arrange a full single table setting with flatware, stemware, and dinnerware as needed to serve the planned meal at their dinner or party. They create a centerpiece to fit the theme. Finally, they set up the table setting, menu and centerpiece on a card table, or for informal table settings such as a picnic, arrange everything on a blanket on the floor. They youth wear clothing that goes along with the theme to strengthen the presentation. A judge then talks to the participant and judges them on their planning skills, ability to set a proper table, manners, ability to develop a theme, the menu, centerpiece and clothing choices, hospitality skills and communication throughout the judging process.
Youth are divided into age groups of juniors (grades 4-6), intermediates (grades 7-8) and seniors (grades 9-12) and then are divided again into the categories of formal or casual. At the end of each county fair, their top junior, intermediate and senior in both casual and formal are selected to participate in the Region 17 Showcase night. Youth came together, set up their tables and were judged. The top junior, intermediate and senior in both casual and formal were selected and received an award at the end of the showcase evening.
Region 17 Showcase Results:
Junior Casual Participants: Angelina Cain, Cadence Jahn, Ella Johnson, Summer Maher, London Schueman, Sophia Stroud
Junior Formal Participants: Lexie Clark, Lilly Kurth, Ailey Marburger, Evelyn Stoakes
Intermediate Casual Participants: Cale Clark, Rebecca Cody, Paige Goodspeed, Lea Hendrickson, Jaiden Jahn
Intermediate Formal Participants: Cora Killpack, Emily Newby, Allyee Pierson
Senior Casual Participants: Mariah Cain, Kandalyn Davies, Camryn Pierson, Camryn Schafer
Senior Formal Participants: Bailey Maher, Anna Newby
Healthy & Homemade: Healthy and Homemade is a series focused on strategies for using your time, money and skills wisely to save money and prepare nutritious and safe foods. Explore the benefits of using the slow cooker, food safety tips, and meal ideas. Discover how planning can reduce stress, save money, and provide your family nutritious home-cooked meals. Tour our virtual grocery store and learn how to identify and purchase the most nutritious food items. Healthy and Homemade will be held at the Guthrie County Extension Office from 6:00- 7:00 pm on November 7, 14 and 21, 2019. Register by November 4, 2019 at http://bit.ly/hh13242.
Silent Auction Donations: Guthrie County 4-H’ers are asking for your donation to the 4-H Silent Auction taking place during the 2019 Guthrie County Fair. Last year’s auction was a big success & we are hoping to raise even more funds this year to offset the rising cost of 4-H enrollment fees. If you would like to donate or have any questions, please contact the Extension Office at 641-747-2276.
Cy-Hawk Tailgate: Guthrie County Extension is partnering with Guthrie County Corn Growers Association to host the 8th Annual Cy-Hawk Tailgate Party on Friday, September 13th from 11:00 am- 1:00pm! Help us celebrate Iowa’s biggest game of the year and team rivalry! Whether you’re a Cyclone fan or Hawkeye fan, come and enjoy free grilled hot dogs, chips, cookies and bottled water. We have added tailgate games this year! Register for a chance to win an ISU tailgate package!
(Radio Iowa) — The iconic “butter cow” has been a part of the annual Iowa State Fair since 1911 and Sarah Pratt of West Des Moines sculpted this year’s dairy cow — as she’s done each of the past 18 years. “Really any kind of butter works, although if I have access to it, low moisture butter — so butter that’s been churned for a longer period of time — works better,” Pratt says. “I typically used recycled butter, so it in effect does the same thing. As I use it year-to-year-to-year, it reduces the moisture and becomes more like clay.”
Pratt carves a butter cow for the Illinois State Fair and does a butter sculpture for the Kansas State Fair as well. “Here at the Iowa State Fair we have a lovely, very long stretch of cooler, so I can put inside the cooler a cow and also a themed-sculpture,” Pratt says. Pratt marked the 100th anniversary of John Deere during the 2018 Iowa State Fair and sculpted — out of butter — a replica of the “Waterloo Boy” tractor. “It was extremely difficult in the sence of trying to get the scale just right and all the details,” Pratt says, “…all of the intricacies of doing it.”
This year, fair-goers who pass through the Agriculture Building may see the figures Pratt has made to celebrate a long-running children’s television program. “We are very excited to be honoring the 50th anniversary of ‘Sesame Street’ which I grew up watching and also the 50th anniversary of Iowa Public Television, which is the channel I watched ‘Sesame Street’ on, so they kind of go hand-in-hand,” Pratt says. “It’s really going to be a family-friendly sculpture this year.”
Pratt uses about 12-hundred POUNDS of butter for her Iowa State Fair carvings.
(Radio Iowa) — A farm in the Loess Hills of southwest Iowa where corn, soybeans and cattle were once raised is now home to acres of wildflowers and lavender. Mary Hamer and her husband, Tim, run the Loess Hills Lavender Farm near the Harrison County town of Missouri Valley. The peak months are July through September for the undulating ocean of delicate purple flowers. “People are allowed to go and cut a small bouquet,” Mary Hamer says. “Right now, we’re a little short because the first cuttings have been pretty much cut, but then we rebloom until it freezes again. By the end of August and September, we’ll have a nice stand of lavender again.”
The farm hosts events like teas, luncheons and weddings while the gift shop is filled with items like lavender-infused lemonade, lavender cookies and even lavender fudge. “We make all of our own products, lotions, balms and spritzes,” Hamer says. “In researching lavender, it’s an amazing herb that you can cook with, clean with, and heal with. It’s got a lot of great properties in it. Our lotions and balms are good on bug bites.”
The Hamers, originally from the Pisgah and Little Sioux areas, bought the farm ten years ago after spending a few years researching lavender. They were struck by the idea when on the West Coast to visit their son, who was in the Navy. “We were waiting for his submarine to come in and my daughter-in-law said there was a lavender festival in Sequim, Washington, and that’s where I wanted to go,” Hamer says. “We went up and I walked in the field and my very first thought was, ‘I’ve gotta’ do this is Iowa.'”
The aroma of lavender can be intoxicating and when there are acres of the purple plants, Hamer says many people find it’s the perfect place for snapping selfies — or forgetting about technology entirely. Hamer says, “The hills are beautiful and people can come out and just relax and enjoy themselves and maybe find a little inner peace here.”
(On the web at http://www.loesshillslavender.com/ )
DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — A northeast Iowa couple has won an appeal of their lawsuit against a neighboring cattle farm and can seek damages for repeated manure spills onto their property.
The Iowa Court of Appeals said Wednesday that Lee and Rita Dvorak may pursue damages against Oak Grove Cattle, a feed lot near Riceville that once held as many as 1,000 cows but closed in 2016.
The court’s decision reverses a judge’s dismissal of the lawsuit in August 2018. The judge concluded the Dvoraks waited too long to file but the appeals court says the manure was a continuing problem and the statute of limitations didn’t apply.
The couple dealt with manure flowing onto their property from 2009 to 2016 and spent thousands of dollars to empty and refill a contaminated farm pond and clean up their property.
(Radio Iowa) — An ethanol plant in northwest Iowa suspended production last week and industry officials say it won’t be the last. Ethanol plants in Iowa and across the Midwest are expected to sharply cut back on their production in the coming weeks. DeLayne Johnson, C-E-O of Quad County Corn Processors in the northwest Iowa town of Galva, says the two biggest reasons for the reductions are oversupply and the trade dispute with China. “Tariffs are actually reducing our exports,” Johnson says, “and in addition, the small refinery exemptions EPA has given to Exxon, Shell, Mobil and others is certainly eating into the demand as well, to the tune of 2.8-billion gallons of ethanol and about 1-billion bushels of corn.”
Plymouth Energy in Merrill suspended production last week. That’s one of at least ten ethanol plants nationwide to temporarily shut down. Three others have closed. While recent exports have helped, Johnson says tariffs from two of the nation’s biggest ethanol customers are countering that. “With the tariffs, we’re really not able to move anything into China and that’s potentially as much as a billion gallons a year,” Johnson says. “Also, Brazil, there’s a significant tariff there which they are also a very large client. So, we are really missing two of the largest markets.”
Iowa is the nation’s largest ethanol producer, making a record 4.35-billion gallons in 2018. Johnson says biofuel processors in Iowa and elsewhere will need to change up their operations in the future. “That will be very important as we move forward for people to continue to diversify and get more value out of that kernel of corn,” Johnson says, “or look for synergies with other processing and become true biorefineries where we may be doing multiple things in one company. There’s some plants that are doing that as well.”
The margins for ethanol production in the western corn belt have fallen to a four-year seasonal low while ethanol inventories are at their highest levels in nine years.
A new, nonresident user fee will take effect August 15 at Lake Manawa and Waubonsie state parks. The daily nonresident vehicle permit is $5. Nonresidents can go to one of the five self-registration kiosks at Lake Manawa or three self-registration kiosks at Waubonsie to register and pay for the daily permit. The daily permit is valid for the entire day in which it is purchased. The daily permit is not required for nonresidents who are registered campers, cabin renters, or who have rented a day-use lodge or shelter. The daily fee is also not required for nonresidents who go to the beach and pay the beach admission at Lake Manawa.
Nonresidents may also purchase an annual vehicle permit for $40. The annual permits are available for purchase only through the park office during posted hours. DNR is working to have the annual permit available for purchase through the online park reservation system in mid-September. For more information about the nonresident user fee, please visit www.iowadnr.gov/parks or call Lake Manawa State Park at 712.366.0220 or Waubonsie State Park at 712.382.2786.
(Radio Iowa) — High water due to prolonged flooding at a southwestern Iowa nature preserve is changing some of the habitat and a few species are taking advantage of it. DeSoto National Wildlife Refuge typically sees a dry period at this time of year, but last spring’s flooding has kept a lot of water around. Supervisory Park Ranger Peter Rhea says some species have adapted well. “We’ve seen a lot more herons feeding in the flooded water, feeding on all the fish and stuff like that,” Rhea says. “We’ve seen a ton of frogs, way more frogs than we’ve ever seen, that have benefited from all that water.”
Rhea says not all species in the 83-hundred acre refuge have adapted, as their usual grassland habitat has turned into wetlands. “With the flooding, a lot of the pheasants that need that upland, grassland habitat, obviously a lot of that is now wetland water,” Rhea says. “You’re not seeing as many pheasants. The same can be said for species like quail.”
Rhea says he’s interested to see what the fall migration holds. He says more birds like eagles could come in and feed on the fish trapped in shallow water.
(Thanks to Katie Peikes, Iowa Public Radio)
Officials with the Atlantic Parks & Recreation Department and Cass County Conservation Board report Nishna Valley Trails is holding a Kids Bike Ride this Saturday, August 10th, at the Schildberg Recreation Area’s West Parking lot. The event begins at 10:30-a.m. Check in and start the ride at the West Parking lot of the Schildberg Rec. Area. Three age groups, ride length according to age. FREE, and all ages welcome. Co-sponsored by Atlantic Parks and Recreation, Cass County Conservation, Fareway, and West Side Diner in Atlantic.
If you have any questions, call Lora at 712-769-2372. After the ride check out Atlanticfest going on downtown!
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