(Atlantic, Iowa) – The Cass County Master Gardener group is excited to host walking tours of 3 private gardens in and around Anita on Sunday afternoon June 22. The garden walk will feature three unique garden spaces for participants to explore at their leisure and gain inspiration for their own gardens, while enjoying a variety of garden styles and designs. Gardens will be open for touring between 2-6 PM and may be visited in any order. Two gardens are located in town, while one is out in the country. Highlights from featured gardens included sun and shade gardens, container gardens, custom garden art, functional fruit and vegetable gardens, houseplants galore, annual plantings, perennial beds and more! Follow the Cass County Master Gardeners on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/CassCoMG for sneak peeks of featured garden spaces leading up to the day of the tour.

The walk is coordinated by the Cass County Master Gardeners, but is open to anyone interested in gaining some gardening inspiration. Educational materials will also be available at each stop for those wanting to grow their own gardening knowledge. Tickets for the walk are $10 each, with all proceeds going to support local Master Gardener projects and activities. Tickets are available now for purchase at the Cass County Extension office, and a registration form can also be found on the Cass County Extension website at https://www.extension.iastate.edu/cass. Tickets should be presented at each location for admission. A map of the tour locations and description of each garden is on each ticket purchased. Additional tickets may be purchased at any of the three locations on the day of the event. Garden locations will not be made public until the day before the event, when they will be posted on the Cass County Master Gardener Facebook page. They will be listed on tickets that are purchased in advance, but attendees are asked not to “pre-tour” the locations, so the gardeners have time to put on all the finishing touches to make their spaces tour-ready!

So mark your calendars, grab a walking buddy, and plan to join the Cass County Master Gardeners on Sunday afternoon, June 22, for memorable walk in the garden(s)! For information about other upcoming Master Gardener activities in Cass County, or to learn about becoming a Master Gardener, visit https://www.extension.iastate.edu/cass/master-gardener-program, 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, garden previews, and tips for gardening throughout the year!

ATLANTIC, IA (June 8, 2025) – Produce in the Park is celebrating Wheels Day on Thursday, June 12 from 4:30 to 6:30 PM at the Atlantic City Park. This themed market features everything wheels—bike decorating, adult trike rides with the YMCA, and a free helmet giveaway (50 helmets available, first come, first served). Volunteers from Nishna Valley Trails will be on-site to air up tires and adjust seat heights, and the Atlantic Kiwanis will assist with helmet fittings and share information on their annual free helmet giveaway. The Atlantic Police Department will be talking bike safety, and the Atlantic Public
Library will be offering a free Library for All bicycle-themed art activity.

Produce in the Park Market Manager Ciara Hoegh shows off one of the free helmets being given away June 12

Three food trucks will be serving options for dinner in the park June 12. New food truck Karam’s Grill will offer a variety of Greek favorites, including gyros and fries. A-Town SmokeShack will offer their signature barbecue dishes, and Lucky Wife Wine Slushies will provide cool, refreshing slushie beverages for adults.

The June 12 market features more than 20 vendors selling local foods including early summer greens, radishes, and green onions, farm-fresh eggs, local meats (beef, lamb, pork, chicken), honey, sourdough bread, cookies, cupcakes, Danish kringle, and more. Shoppers will also find vendors with garden decorations and plants, crafts, and bath and body products including
soaps, body lotions, sugar scrubs, lip balms, lip scrubs, beard oils, and bath salts.

Market visitors will enjoy live music from Dr. Dave, playing classic rock from The Beatles to Elton John and Led Zeppelin, and Cass Health’s Clinical Dietitian, Sarah Andersen, will be serving as Guest Chef, sharing free samples of homemade ranch dressing that will pair well with early-season produce sold at the market.

Visiting organizations and sponsors sharing community information at the park June 12 include Cass County Tourism, Cass County Conservation, Atlantic Kiwanis, Nishna Valley Trails, Cass Health, Atlantic Police Department, Healthy Cass County, and the Atlantic Public Library. Admission to Produce in the Park is always free. The market accepts SNAP/EBT and Double Up Food Bucks for all qualifying food items.

Karam’s Grill food truck will be selling Greek food at Produce in the Park June 12

Wheels Day is made possible by generous support from June market sponsors Atlantic United Church of Christ, City of Atlantic, First Whitney Bank & Trust, Gregg Young Chevrolet of Atlantic, Cass Health, Cass County Tourism, Atlantic Area Chamber of Commerce, and Nishna Valley Family YMCA.

*********

For the latest market updates, follow Produce in the Park on Facebook at www.facebook.com/ProduceInThePark and Instagram at www.instagram.com/produceintheparkatlanticia/. Vendor and sponsor applications remain open for the summer season. Interested sellers of handmade or homegrown products—including local foods, crafts, art, and plants—can apply online at www.ProduceInTheParkAtlanticIowa.com or pick up paper copies at the Atlantic Area Chamber of Commerce (102 Chestnut St., Atlantic.

ANKENY — Iowa Farmers Union members met Saturday with U.S. Federal Trade Commissioner Alvaro Bedoya and explained how consolidation in the agriculture industry has crippled their farming operations and rural communities. The Iowa Capital Dispatch reports Bedoya, who visited with Iowa farmers three years prior, said it was important to come back to the places where “the scope of the problems that people are facing just hits you in the face.”

“The key question is: what is the undone work,” Bedoya said to the group gathered in a barn at Griffieon Farms outside of Ankeny. Bedoya is visiting with groups around the country while he is involved in a lawsuit against the Trump administration, which fired him from the FTC in March. During his time at FTC, Bedoya and his team sued over the business merger between grocery giants Kroger and Albertsons, sued pesticide companies for alleged anticompetitive practices and sued John Deere for the right to repair equipment.

After listening to farmers share their stories, Bedoya said “the scope of the problem” and the “just how many issues” are facing Iowa farmers is what stood out to him. Sean Dengler, a former farmer in Tama County, said the “monopolization” across the machinery and agricultural sector led him to give it up and end five generations of Dengler farming tradition. Last harvest season, an error code on his combine led to a several-days harvest delay waiting for a licensed technician to come out to the farm, diagnose and come back to repair the rig. “Giving farmers the ability to fix the equipment they bought is their right,” Dengler said.

Federal Trade Commissioner Alvaro Bedoya, right, speaks with Iowa Farmers Union President Aaron Lehman, center, and Josh Manske, left, at an event with IFU members in Ankeny June 7, 2025. (Photo by Cami Koons/Iowa Capital Dispatch)

Part of the problem, for repairs and for nearly every aspect related to farming, is that repair shops, dealers, grain elevators, meat lockers and other commodities are fewer and further between. Farmers gave countless examples Saturday of how this spread has hurt not just their ag operations, but their rural communities as well. Josh Manske, an IFU board member and farmer, said farmers no longer shop around for the best fertilizer price, instead they shop “for transportation.” Jerry Rosman, a farmer and truck driver, said he sees the same issue in the field, but also on the highway. “The dynamics of what it is might be a little different, but it’s just — as things get tighter at the top, at the bottom they just start disappearing,” Rosman said. “Pull through a little town and you can just see the decline.”

Mike Carberry, a board member for Iowa Farmers Union, said agriculture needs the FTC’s work “breaking up the monopolies” of the industry that, he said, have turned Iowa into an “extractive state.” Bedoya, who listened intently to the farmers, said while he’s committed to bringing this type of legal action forward, stopping a merger, as the FTC did with the Kroger and Albertsons case, takes a massive amount of time, people and money. “The amount of time it takes to stop a merger that has not yet happened is massive,” Bedoya said. “To undo a merger that has already happened is gargantuan — it is something that kind of happens once in a legal generation.”

Bedoya said a similar issue of vertical integration in the pharmaceutical industry has been blocked by legislative efforts in several states. Lawmakers in Iowa passed a bill that would put restrictions on pharmacy benefit managers to prevent them from using specific pharmacies to fill prescriptions. The bill has yet to be signed by Gov. Kim Reynolds. Bedoya, speaking on similar legislation passed in Arkansas, said it “opened up” an avenue for going after vertical integration, that could be an option to intervene in some of the consolidation issues in agriculture. “This is going to require both parties, and it’s going to require every level of government or every branch, not just, federal prosecutors, but state prosecutors, state legislators, and also federal legislators if they get their act together and pass some bills,” Bedoya said.

(Radio Iowa) – Iowa’s spring planting season is wrapping up, with the majority of corn and soybean fields statewide now fully planted. Angie Rieck Hinz, a field agronomist at the Iowa State University Extension, says weather conditions have been all over the map the past few months. “It was warm when we started and then it turned off a little wet, and then it turned off a little cool, and then it got really windy, and then it warmed up, and then it got cool again,” Rieck Hinz says. “It really was a lot of stress on those earlier planted crops.” Those temperature variations, she says, can really do a number on newly planted crops.

“We were waffling between warm in the 90-degree temperatures and then back in the upper 40s and lower 50s and that causes a lot of stress on those emerged plants,” she says, “but in this last week, with a little bit of rain and now some sun and heat, the corn and soybeans really seem to be exploding in growth.” Many parts of the state have seen healthy rains in recent days, though most areas still lack moisture and could use another inch or two. Plus, she says weeds could be starting to cause a problem.

“If you did an early post-application of herbicide, I would be scouting those fields again,” Rieck Hinz says. “We really struggled with our pre-emerged herbicides this year to work because it was so dry in some places. So it might be the year where we need two post applications of herbicide to keep those weeds down.”

The latest Iowa Drought Monitor map shows about 28-percent of the state has -no- sign of drought, with almost 60-percent of Iowa in the “abnormally dry” category, and about 13-percent considered in moderate drought.

Cass County: Corn $4.12 Beans $9.99
Adair County: Corn $4.09 Beans $10.02
Adams County: Corn $4.09 Beans $9.98
Audubon County: Corn $4.11 Beans $10.01
East Pottawattamie County: Corn $4.15 Beans $9.99
Guthrie County: Corn $4.14 Beans $10.03
Montgomery County: Corn $4.14 Beans $10.01
Shelby County: Corn $4.15 Beans $9.99

Oats: $3.30 (same in all counties)

(Updated; Radio Iowa) – A federal appeals court has ruled carbon pipeline restrictions in Shelby and Story Counties are preempted by federal regulations and state law. Shelby and Story County officials adopted ordinances to establish safety standards as well as prohibited zones around places like homes and schools where the pipeline would be barred. The federal appeals court ruled the ordinances would prohibit Summit Carbon Solutions from running its pipeline through areas where it has a state permit to build. A spokesperson for Summit says the ruling confirms federal regulation of pipeline safety and the Iowa Utilities Commission’s authority over route and permit decisions in Iowa. A group that represents property owners opposed to the pipeline said the ruling strips away common sense protections.

Shelby and Story County officials could appeal the decision to the U-S Supreme Court. Summit sued four other counties with similar ordinances and those were placed on hold as the company’s lawsuit against Shelby and Story Counties has moved through the courts.

(Radio Iowa) – Volunteers are needed to help compile what’s known as Iowa’s Bumble Bee Atlas, an effort to gauge the state’s populations of the vital pollinators. Stephanie Shepherd, a wildlife diversity biologist with the Iowa Department of Natural Resources, says it won’t take much time and it will be a tremendous help to researchers who study the tiny-yet-important insects. “Volunteers are basically trained and then asked to go out to a natural area that is at least two-and-a-half acres in size that has flowers and habitat for bumblebees,” Shepherd says, “and then spend 45 minutes looking for and catching bumblebees, and then submitting photographs of those bumble bees.” Volunteers don’t have to identify each bee they temporarily net, as experts will be studying the photos to determine the various species. She says there are between 300 and 400 types of bees living in Iowa.

“But the bumblebees are a group within there, and they’re a fairly smallish group,” Shepherd says. “We have anywhere between 14 and 17 species, depending on again, this is part of why we’re doing the Atlas, is to figure out exactly what we have here.” Distinguishing bees from bumble bees isn’t hard, she says, with a little training. Bumble bees are typically larger than your standard bee, they’re fuzzier, and they carry pollen in a way that’s obviously different. Shepherd says you should start by watching the first few training videos posted on the Iowa Bumble Bee Atlas website, then consider attending an in-person session. “We have a bunch of field training events around the state,” Shepherd says. “They’re not required, but people can come out and get some hands-on experience catching bumble bees, handling bumble bees, how to take photos, and generally just meet a bunch of other fun people who like bumble bees.”

Rusty patched bumble bee (Photo by Rich Hatfield, The Xerces Society)

This is the second year for the program and Shepherd says volunteers are needed in every one of Iowa’s 99 counties. “Bees are incredibly important pollinators,” Shepherd says. “I think everybody understands the importance of pollination and bees are probably our superstars of doing that. Bumble bees have some unique traits that make them especially valuable for pollination, and the more we know about them, the better we can do at making sure they have habitat available.”

The first of the eight training events is scheduled for June 21st in Peosta, with more to follow through July in: Ames, Waterloo, Dakota City, Anita, Okoboji, Moravia and in New Castle, Nebraska. Registration is free and pre-registration is required.

More information can be found:
https://www.bumblebeeatlas.org/pages/iowa?utm_medium=email&utm_source=govdelivery
https://survey123.arcgis.com/share/2a2cc3da7eb841ac8f5d29718b0c63d8?utm_medium=email&utm_source=govdelivery

(Radio Iowa) – State climatologist Justin Glisan says the rain we’ve gotten to start the month of June is important because we remain behind for the year. “For the state, about 82 percent of normal, a little over two inches below where we should be. So not dire deficits, but still, you’d think of the four-year drought from 2020 to 2024, we still see longer-term hydrological impacts,” Glisan says. Southwestern Iowa had only about 60 percent of normal rainfall by the end of May. Glisan says normal rainfall starts to drop down after June and that could let the drought seep back in. “If we do get into a warm stretch during the summer time with higher vegetative demand, and higher atmospheric demand, that’s where we could see drought conditions expand given those longer term deficits,” he says.

While there have been a lot of ups and downs through the first five months of this year, Glisan says it has all averaged out. “As of the end of May, we’re right around the average temperature of only two tenth’s of a degree above average, so near normal on the temperature side,” he says. Glisan says the short-term outlook for June could be good news. “We are seeing a lean towards a cooler signal where there’s a big blue bullseye across the Midwest, including Iowa and also, at least in the short term, trend towards weather conditions through let’s say the six to ten-day outlook,” he says. “And when you look at the eight to 14 day outlook, which gets us into the middle of June, basically near normal. So a slight lean towards cooler. And weather conditions for the state.”

Glisan says overall June outlook leans towards warmer temperatures, but there’s no clear signal on the precipitation side.