(Radio Iowa) — Members of Iowa agriculture sector are finding hope in the tentative trade deal announced between the United States and China. President Donald Trump says China has agreed to buy between 40 and 50 billion dollars in U-S agriculture products, if the deal goes through. Iowa State University economics professor Wendong Zhang says that’s significantly more than any single-year of U-S exports to the Asian giant. But it’s not clear whether the new number reflects an annual promise. “The Chinese probably left more wiggle room-there’s a really big number but there’s no time frame tied to it,” he says.

Zhang says tariffs that could have been imposed this week will not go into effect. That’s some relief, but now farmers and others will wait to see whether the threat of December tariffs is also lifted. Zhang welcomes what he calls important first steps as the two sides each still angle to come out ahead. “The trade war has been elevated so much, I think in the end both countries need to find a way, that, in some respects, both leaders need to go back and say we won the trade war, somehow,” Zhang says.

Zhang says a shallow agreement on big issues like technology transfer and intellectual property protections is likely. But significant increases in Chinese imports of U-S corn, ethanol and beef could also be part of the deal.

(Radio Iowa) — More federal land is being opened up for fishing and hunting in Iowa as part of the Trump administration’s move to make public land more accessible. Margaret Everson, of the U-S Fish and Wildlife Service, says one-point-four million acres were added to open areas this year, including at Neal Smith Wildlife Refuge east of Des Moines.

Everson says, “We’ve expanded 300 acres here for new opportunities for white tail deer for example, for pheasants, being able to, again, open new areas that have not been open before.” The Department of the Interior will also allow more big game hunting at De Soto Bend in western Iowa. Ducks Unlimited C-E-O Adam Putnam says making that land accessible to the public promotes outdoor recreation and conservation.

Putnam says, “Without that connection to the land, we’re not going to have a strong base of support for protecting the environment going forward.” Federal officials say they’re also trying to match state and federal regulations to encourage more hunting and fishing.

(Thanks to Grant Gerlock, Iowa Public Radio)

The Iowa Cattlemen’s Association has been dedicated to improving market conditions for Iowa’s independent cattle producers since long before the Holcomb, Kansas Tyson plant fire. However, recent market conditions have added more urgency to the situation, and ICA’s volunteer leaders are actively searching for new solutions to the market problems faced in the upper midwest.

The ICA Feedlot Council has been working on specific policy proposals and invites cattle producers to attend one of the upcoming cattle marketing listening sessions.

Each meeting will include a history of ICA’s policy initiatives related to cattle marketing and an open forum to discuss new ideas with staff, Feedlot Council members and board members. Members who are unable to attend one of the five meetings will be given an opportunity to voice their opinion through other avenues.

Meeting dates and locations:

Oct. 15, 7 pm, Ames; Iowa Cattlemen’s Association
Oct. 17, 7 pm, Atlantic; Cass County Community Center
Oct. 23, 10 am, Maquoketa; Johnson Family Farms, 101 300th Ave
Oct. 23, 7 pm, Osage; Knights of Columbus Hall
Oct. 28, 7 pm, Sioux Center; Kooima, Kooima and Varilek office

(Radio Iowa) — The beauty of autumn is about to come alive with the change of colors on Iowa’s trees. Joe Herring, an Iowa D-N-R forester from Iowa Falls, says the fall leaf show is already starting. “If you see some really bright red colors, if you’re in a forest area on vines that are growing up trees, those are woodbine,” Herring says. “Along the roadsides, we’re seeing nice red colors in the sumac bushes as well as some dogwoods.”

Some trees in far northern Iowa are beginning to show reds and oranges, but the majority of the state is still in the early stages. Herring says, “Across the landscape, you can see the gradual change from the deeper forest green color to more of a lime green and some yellows showing up from some cottonwood and ash and walnut and elm right now.” Herring predicts the color show won’t really peak in Iowa for at least another week, likely closer to October 19th. “That’s a little later than I normally would predict,” he says, “but I think with the late start to the growing season that some of these trees will hang on just a little bit longer than normal.”

The Iowa DNR website offers a weekly fall color report: https://www.iowadnr.gov/Conservation/Forestry/Fall-Color

• KJAN, Atlantic  1.24″
• 7 miles NNE of Atlantic  .87″
• Massena  .38″
• Elk Horn  .61″
• Avoca  .8″
• Audubon  .7″
• Guthrie Center  1.22″
• Oakland  .68″
• Villisca  .5″
• Corning  .41″
• Missouri Valley  .64″
• Logan  .85″
• Underwood  .35″
• Malvern  .75″
• Bedford  .47″
• Manning  1.04″
• Denison  1.05″
• Carroll  .85″
• Red Oak  .27″
• Clarinda  .1″
• Shenandoah  .53″

New officers for the Washington G.E.M. 4H Club were installed at their meeting on Sunday, October 6th.  Following the meeting all 4H club members were invited to enjoy Fall Fest held on the Cass County Fairgrounds.  This week is National 4H week and anyone who is interested in joining 4H is encouraged to contact the Iowa State Extension Office at 712-243-1132.

Pictured: Lola Comes: President, Claire Comes: Secretary, Grant Petty: Reporter, Madelyn Anderson: Treasurer, Lauren Comes: Historian and Jake Oathoudt: Vice President. (Melanie Petty/photo)

w/Kate Olson.

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WINTERSET, Iowa (AP) — A south-central Iowa county has imposed a moratorium on new wind turbine installations. Madison County supervisors voted 2-1 on Tuesday to adopt the moratorium, which will run through October 2020 unless superseded by a new ordinance. The moratorium also applies to new solar energy installations. It won’t affect a 52-turbine wind farm already under development in Madison County. The supervisors say that during the moratorium they’ll develop an ordinance to guide construction of renewable energy projects.

The county health board passed a resolution in August calling for wind turbines to sit at least 1.5 miles from homes. Such a setback would be five times greater than MidAmerican Energy has proposed for its most recent wind farm project. The county supervisors have taken no action on the health board recommendation.

(Radio Iowa) The Iowa Department of Natural Resources will host five meetings across the state to discuss the proposed waterfowl season and zone structures for 2021-2025. D-N-R spokesman Mick Klemsrude says the meetings are part of an ongoing process. He says the U-S Fish and Wildlife Service allows states to take a look at the zones every five years to see if they need to make some changes. There are currently three zones in the state. “We have the Missouri River Zone in far western Iowa — and then a north zone and a south zone,” Klemesrude says. “You get different season depending on the number of zones that you have — so that is one of the considerations.”

He says they had discussions with small groups of hunter and sent out surveys as part of the review to come up with the best solution for the state. He says they look at a lot of the migration data and harvest data and then come up with a proposal. He says the meetings will get input from hunters. “We could have changes to our proposals based on those comments, and then we’ll go in front of our Natural Resources Commission and propose that. And once we have a final version, that will go back out for comment, the official public comment,” Klemesrude says.

The first meeting will be held October 14th at Three Mile Lake Lodge near Afton. October 15th at the Washington County Conservation Office education center near Ainsworth, October 16th at the Oelwein Community Center,October 22nd at the Story County Conservation Center near Ames and on October 23rd at the Alta Community Center. All meetings will be held from 6:00 until 8:00 p-m. The Commission is expected to make a final decision in April 2020.

(Radio Iowa) — The latest U-S-D-A crop report out Monday showed there were less than two days suitable for fieldwork last week — which didn’t help farmers catch up on the harvest. The report says three percent of corn has been harvested — which is two weeks behind average. Five percent of soybeans have been harvested, and that’s 12 days behind average.
Iowa State University Extension and Outreach Crops Specialist for northwest Iowa, Joel DeJong, says those farmers that were able to plant early have seen some good things. “Some of the early reports from the soybean harvest actually were fairly decent yields– so I have hope that maybe that will continue moving forward,” DeJong says. “But, we are starting about three weeks later than normal. It would be nice to get rain out of our forecast for a little while and get some sunshine and maybe a little breeze so we can get them dry so we can get that work done.”

He says not everything is negative. “The crop itself is actually hanging in there pretty well. They soybeans are pretty mature, so we are just waiting for them to dry. A lot of the corn that’s planted before the first of June has actually reached maturity or is close to maturity now,” De Jong says. He says getting the crop to maturity is only part of the issue. “The problem we still have is that when the corn crop just hits maturity it is still 32 to 32 plus percent moisture. We need some dry down time and we don’t that get much dry down time once we get past the month of October,” he says. “We would like to see the month of October be above normal if we get any chance for that to occur.”

De Jong says there have been some diseases that have hit too. He says there has been a lot of white mold that has shown up late and that could make the yield zero in parts of fields.. DeJong says there’s been appraisals of 40 to 70 bushels and acre. The corn has also had some issue and he says there have been appraisals of 108 bushels per acre and then there’s been appraisals up into 200. De Jong says the conditions vary widely across the nine counties he covers. He says a late frost would help with a lot of the issues. DeJong says the normal frost date for this region is October 10th. He says much of the area’s corn still needs additional time to mature and a light frost may not hurt the crop, but for late planted corn, an early frost could negatively affect crop yields.

DeJong says it is very likely many farmers will need to resort to using artificial drying methods in order to store their corn, which only adds to the cost of the crop.