News

Spring 2024

2024-04-21T21:56:00+00:00

Spring 2024 is shaping up to be great year for spring wheat. Middle of April with planting just getting started, interrupted by rain this week. That which is in the ground already will have a great advantage of having rain falling on it. Soil Moisture is ok most places so the crop should start fast with warming temperatures.

Spring 2019

2019-06-20T16:22:00+00:00

June 2019 -- it is shaping up to be a great spring wheat year. Wheat is a cool season grass, and this year is a cool season so far. It is raining this morning as I write this. Rain makes grain and we needed rains. It is Wells County Fair Week traditionally a rainy event. Let us hope it stays in liquid form. Check out Wells County Fair on Facebook.

The year started in late April, and field work progressed all through May and into June. We in the northern plains have not suffered wetness like farther south.

Our Valda and Ingmar look great in the field and are pushing flag leaf now. Fields are thick and dark green and looking good. Spraying went well with drier fields. Weed pressure normal for the most part. Soon it's fungicide time.

Seedsmen planted two new AgriPro varieties: SYLongmire and SYMcCloud. They are looking very good, too. Seed will be available for 2020 planting.

Well, it is off to the Wells County Fair! Bull-a-Rama tonight! 4-H livestock tomorrow (Friday), Truck Pull Saturday, and Fessenden FFA Alumni Demo Derby on Sunday. And much, much more.

2017 Harvest

2017-10-23T02:21:00+00:00

2017 harvest is wrapped up. Looking ahead to next year, we have great AgriPro varieties SY Ingmar and SY Valda, and LCS Prime. For beans, we have ND 307 and ND Palomino. Call Sam at 701-341-2935 to order high yielding, high protein seed for 2018.

2016 Harvest

2016-10-20T15:05:00+00:00

Finished corn harvest before the snow!! Now on to field work and fertilizing for the next crop. We have great AgriPro varieties SY Soren, SY Ingmar and SY Valda. Call Sam at 701-341-2935 to order high yielding, high protein seed for 2017.

Harvesting Pintos and Prepping for Spring Wheat Planting

2013-10-03T13:39:00+00:00

I still can’t believe we were able to wrap up wheat harvest in the month of August, especially considering how late crops went in the ground this year. A slight update from my previous post: We ended up yielding between 60 and 80 bu/A, with SY Soren leading the AgriPro® varieties that we planted.

As far as wheat crops go, we’re just about getting into our quiet time. Because it’s too far north for winter crops, all that’s left to do in the field for 2013 is harvest pinto beans – which we’ll wrap up in the next few days – and apply fertilizer before the winter respite. Our big next step is deciding which varieties to plant for next year, but that won’t be until November after our seed sales kick-off meeting.

A Tremendous Surprise

2013-09-17T13:30:00+00:00

Harvest has gone well in north central North Dakota – exceptionally well. As it turns out, the wheat crop did much better than expected, hovering between 70 and 90 bu/A. SY Soren and new SY Rowyn from AgriPro® were two of the better-yielding varieties this year.

It’s been a strangely amazing season – the cool weather that followed the season’s early rains was excellent for grain development, so much so that this is actually my second or third best year ever (the top season was 2012).

We won’t be planting any winter wheat crops this year, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t work to be done. We’ll continue a rotation of pinto beans and wheat, so we’ll spray glyphosate to eliminate weeds and follow up with some tillage later this fall.

What a season. I wonder if next year will be filled with equally pleasant surprises!

Cool, Wet Conditions Made Being Late Okay

2013-08-28T13:24:00+00:00

While planting was delayed this year, Bill Ongstad says Mother Nature lent his operation a helping hand by keeping the weather cool and wet – great for wheat. Watch as he recounts the challenges of 2013:

My Latest Harvest Ever

2013-08-19T13:22:00+00:00

For the very first time, Bill is preparing his combine to begin harvesting in late August. “It’s the latest we’ve ever started,” he tells the Red River Farm Network. Listen as he discusses his adjusted expectations after an usual season.

A Prediction of 40 Bu/A Nearby

2013-08-12T13:20:00+00:00

The Wheat Quality Council’s spring wheat quality tour just came through North Dakota, and I went to the reporting session in Devil’s Lake (about 75 miles from me) to hear what they had to say. The quality tour reviews for spring and winter wheat and estimates yield based on plants per row, row spacing and kernel counts. This year, they crunched the numbers and predicted yields in the area to be not much higher than 40 bu/A, which is right about average.

Back home in Harvey, we’re about two to four weeks from harvest, and the wheat crops are still looking pretty good. As of late July, the plants were coming on well – we just need some warm, dry weather to ripen them up and carry us into cutting.

I don’t want to get too far ahead of myself, but after harvest, we’ll be hoping for some September rains. If the area can get some decent moisture at that time, we’ll finally have good conditions for winter wheat planting – unlike the past few years, when we kept facing dry weather. Hopefully we’ll be sitting pretty for winter crop seeding in October.

‘Strange’ Season Continues, Pushing Back Harvest

2013-08-08T13:18:00+00:00

Bill says harvest is still another two or more weeks away. “Things have just slowed up,” he says. Listen as Bill tells the Red River Farm Network why he doesn’t see his situation as unique during this “strange” season.