Bayard Test Plot

Please join us tomorrow at 10:30 am for our test plot with Henkel Farms and the University.

Directions:  From Main Street in Bayard turn East on 8th Street, in 3 miles turn South on Road 81, the plot is 1/2 mile South on the West side of the road.

After the tour, we will be headed over to Chimney Rock Golf Course for an informational meeting and lunch!  We'd love to have you!

Hemingford Test Plot Tour

Today, we were all up in Hemingford for our first test plot tour.  We had around 15 people gather to look at the fields.  It was very informational and helped add to my knowledge base.  We got to see all these different pinto varieties all in one place and got to compare the disease resistance and look at the different growth types:  semi-upright vs. lower and vining.  If you didn't get up there and still want to, we left the variety signs up.

Directions:  From Hemingford, travel West on Highway 2 for 9 miles, turn North on CR 79, the plot is 1 mile North on the East side of the road.

Following the tour, we all went to the Legion for lunch.  I just want to thank the crew there who prepared a really nice meal for us.  We had an informational meeting where John talked about where the bean industry is as a whole as far as current production and how the markets relate to that situation.  Thank you to Flats Farms for doing the test plot!

After lunch, I headed further up North into the Hay Springs area again with Roger to meet one of our growers/landlords.  It was a great trip because I got to meet another member and introduce myself.  He bought more shares in our company because he likes what we are doing and where we are going.

I was on my way back to drop Roger off at his truck and thank him for a great day, and this is what we saw in the parking lot where he had left his truck.....  

We decided to stop and talk to this man to find out what his story was.  As we talked, we found out about his interesting contraption that he was driving.  A lawn mower with a hut on the back, pulling a welding trailer.  When we met up with him, he was working on the transmission of the lawn mower so that he could make it to Taco John's tonight to plug in.  He has his bed and a 17" flat screen t.v. in the hut and an air conditioner unit on top that someone had given him.  He was a happy man who wanted to share his show with us.  He got his dog, cat, and rat out of the hut and put on leather harnesses (that he made himself) on the dog and the cat.  Then, he proceeded to place the cat on top of the dog and the rat on top of the cat.  They just all hung out there together, happy as could be.  He travels up to Sturgis every year for the Rally.  What a happy guy!  Roger donated some money to help him with gas.  We wished him the best!  :)

Then, while we were stopped here, several other people stopped to see what was going on.  Roger and I ended up talking with this wonderful couple from California who were just passing through.  We got to share some facts about our bean industry here in Nebraska.  It was such a neat experience!

Only in Nebraska!

*Custom Harvesting*

ATTENTION: We have options for Custom Harvest.  Please be in touch directly with these operators if you have questions.

Jim Strauch (Pickett Twin-Master Combine)

Phone:  (308) 631.5825

Rates:

0-20 acres-$70/acre

20-40 acres-$65/acre

40-80 acres-$60/acre

80+ acres-$50/acre

$500 minimum, additional charges depending on the condition of the field

Location:  Everywhere

Tim Nab (Pickett One-Step & Custom Combining)

Phone:  (307) 532.6008-Cell (days) or (307) 532.7322-Home (nights)

Rates:  Please call.

Location:  Torrington

John and James Maser (Pickett Twin-Master Combine)

Phone:  (308) 631.5632

Rates:  Please call.

Location:  Up to 20 miles from Minatare

Joe Umble (9750 John Deere Combine with 36' MacDon Flex Draper Head)

Phone:  (308) 641.1710-Cell or (307) 532.4050 -Home

Rates: 

1-25 acres-$65/acre

26-50 acres-$60/acre

50+ acres-$55/acre

Additional charges if more than 25 miles from Torrington and for adverse field conditions.

Location:  Torrington

Bruce Lee (9670 John Deere Combine with 35' MacDon Flex Draper Head)
Phone:  (308) 430.0293-Cell or (308) 232.4422-Home
Rates:  Please call.  1/2 circle minimum
Location:  Hay Springs

Jeff Jenkins (Pickett Twin-Master Combine)
Phone:  (308) 641.3457
Rates:  Please call.
Location:  North of Mitchell


Monte Lewrick (8 Row 30" Pickett Bean Cutter)
Phone:  (307) 640.4037
Rates:  $25/acre
Location:  40 miles from Albin

More to Come

Hey All~I haven't forgotten about you!  I have been out of the office since Wednesday evening visiting with potential new growers.  I will get you all caught up with what is going on here on Monday!  Have a great weekend!

This afternoon John, Courtney, and I all headed south to tour one of our new growers fields around the Kimball area.  He had a majority of irrigated beans, but also had some dry land.  It was interesting to see what got hailed and what didn't.  The stuff that got hailed, only got peppered which set them back a bit, but no devastating effects.  Looking good!

On the second half of our tour, Zeus got to join us.  Here is a picture of how Zeus is used to riding in the pick-up.  He is discussing beans with Courtney!  :)

Travelin'

I started out today in Alliance and then headed to meet up with a current grower in Hay Springs area.  On my way out of Alliance, you would not believe what I saw on the side of the road.  A rest stop.  Sounds pretty typical to find a rest stop when you need one, but this one was unique.  Please let me know what you think of this.  Would you use it, if you were desperate?

Anyway, after this very intriguing scene, I continued on with my travels for the day.  I met up with Roger and then we drove from Gordon to Chadron visiting with growers.  It was a great day!  Not only did I meet some really nice people and see some neat country, I came home with lots of goodies.  These growers were all so generous.  I came home with sweet corn, cantaloupe, elk and deer meat!  Can you believe it?  How nice!

It was a very productive day as we got a new member from the Chadron area.  Welcome to Stateline!

Preparing for Harvest

This is what I saw as I pulled in early this morning.  Look closely and you can see Juan on top of the grain bin!  We are all preparing for harvest, getting everything up-to-date and ready to go.  While the guys are getting the facility and equipment ready, the rest of us are organizing the trucks, bins, freight, custom harvesters, and grower/landlord splits in our afternoon harvest meeting.  We have predictions for the first loads coming in by the end of the next week.  We are ready!

I'm Back!

Ok, so, I owe you all a big update on what's going on around here!  Hmmm...let's see where I left off...how about we start with Bean Day on Tuesday, August 23, 2011.  John, Courtney, and I all headed up to the Mitchell Ag Lab for the Dry Bean Field Tour, where we met up with Dave.  When we got there, they had the garage all cleaned up and people were gathered around talking over donuts and coffee.  There were growers, spray companies, beaneries, and researchers all present.  It was neat because I had met so many of these people over at the Bean School the previous week.  It feels great to see familiar smiling faces.  This day was presented by the Nebraska Dry Bean Growers Association and the UNL Panhandle Research and Extension Center.

They loaded us up on the Farmer's Limousine and after the  introduction, off we went to the field.  They showed us alot of research projects they had going on, stopping at each and giving a small presentation.  Some of the topics included:  bean breeding, insect resistance, pre- and post-emergence herbicides, screening for resistance to rust and white mold, fertilizer management for no-till with limited irrigation, iron chelate on high pH soils, planting dates/populations, effect of defoliation on dry beans, and copper applications.  It was great to see alot of our growers out learning with us.  

We concluded the tour with lunch back at the
Panhandle Research Station.

Great fellowship with the people of the Western Nebraska bean industry, what a pleasure.  Mark your calendars because Bean Day 2012 is already scheduled for January 10th at the Gering Civic Center.

Spraying This Morning

Good Morning~

I had a great morning.  I got up and went out for a beautiful bike ride and watched the sun rise over the fields.  It made me realize how green everything is and also how much work has gone into making each field look the way they do.  I was just about back to the house when I saw one of my neighbor farmers.  He was out setting water with a golf club in his hand.  Now, I know better than to think that he was practicing his swing during irrigation season!  So, after we had been chatting a while, curiosity got the best of me and I had to ask about the club.  What he explained to me was genius!  He carefully explained to me that he uses this golf club to open the gates on the gated pipe so that he would not have to bend down.  It was awesome!  We continued into what the markets were doing and how this year's crop looks when a plane started flying really low.  It looks like they were spraying copper on the bean field next to my house due to the signs of blight.  It was just such a great scene with the irrigation water trickling down the rows, the sun rising, and the yellow biplane flying low over a bean field in the nice crisp cool morning air.

If you look closely you can see the plane
in between the trees.

Good Morning

Hi Everyone~

I hope that everyone has had a great weekend!  It looks like it is going to be HOT today and tomorrow here in the panhandle.  Be prepared for the heat.

Come take a break tomorrow for the UNL Bean Field Day starting at the Mitchell Ag Lab.  Registration begins at 9 am with coffee and tours leave at 9:30 am.  It will end with lunch at the Panhandle Research Station on Avenue I in Scottsbluff.  Check it out:  http://events.unl.edu/extension/2011/08/23/58524/.

Have a Wonderful Weekend!

This photo was taken at the University's field trial plots during Bean School on Friday.  It just really attracted my eye as we were looking at the beans for various diseases.

High Plains Dry Bean School

Hey All~I have been over at the High Plains Dry Bean School at the Panhandle Research Station with Dave and Courtney over the last day and a half.  It was such a valuable program and I am so incredible thankful that Stateline invested in me to go.  I have begun building a knowledge base so that when I am out in the field, I can help people and point them in the right direction.

The University has so many resources with their research and their publications.  Please take the time to check out their website on dry beans at http://cropwatch.unl.edu/drybeans.  It is incredible.  Here is their Plant Disease Center website:  http://pdc.unl.edu/.

We spent the last two days in the best classroom of them all~~OUTDOORS!  We covered Nutrient Management, Insect Management, Weed Control, Growth States, Dry Bean Breeding, Irrigation Management, and Disease Management.  They took us around in a Farmer's Limo.  We had great weather!  

Thank you to all of those who made this day possible!  I believe that it was/is a great resource for all who attended and for all those we interact with on a daily basis.  It was such a neat dynamic with growers, beaneries, crop scouts, researchers, and chemical companies all learning together.  We all work together to make up the dry bean industry.

Update

Yesterday, Dave and I stopped to check a field of beans on our way to WESTCO's Answer Plot.  It was a very well organized, impressive event and a beautiful day for it!  There were two different seminars and then lunch.  Lunch was delicious with hamburgers and garlic sausage.  It seemed like a really good turn out!  I really enjoyed meeting growers and getting to chat about agriculture.

Afterwards, Dave and I traveled around the area and looked at fields and stopped by to chat with our growers.

Answer Plot

Headed out to the Bayard area today.  To start things off this morning, I will be attending the Answer Plot in Bayard put on by WESTCO.  This is a large corn test plot.  It sounds like a great event and I am looking forward to meeting other people in agriculture in our area.

Monday!

Good Morning~Happy Monday!

It is a beautiful day here in Gering.  I actually had to wear a long sleeve t-shirt this morning on my run!  Now, it is so nice out and sunny!

I am really excited about this Thursday and Friday.  Courtney, Dave, and I will be going to the UNL Extension High Plains Advanced Cropping School on Dry Beans.  I just talked to them and you can still sign up if you are interested.  Check out the following link to find out more about the topics that will be discussed.  You can also receive Nebraska Certified Crop Advisor credits from this workshop.  http://panhandle.unl.edu/c/document_library/get_file?uuid=cd3417e2-1cf7-4fc6-84c8-ee36d047de02&groupId=131817&.pdf

Update from the Field

Dave was out and about with Carlos on Friday, North of Scottsbluff and in Mitchell and Morrill.  They were seeing alot of rust in all varieties except for the new Great Northern variety, Coyne.  Coyne was bred for enhanced disease resistance (as described in the Coyne Variety blog on August 8th, 2011).  Dave suggests that you treat for rust before it is visible from the road for better results.  Here is an article from UNL on Rust in dry edible beans by specialists in the area:  http://www.ianrpubs.unl.edu/epublic/live/g1766/build/g1766.pdf.

Blight is still prevalent.  We have people spraying for the second and some even a third time, it seems to be worth it as we are approaching harvest.  We are getting close to harvest and the beans have made it this long, let's get them to the mill!  Here is an article on Blight by Dr. Bob Harveson from UNL:  http://www.ianrpubs.unl.edu/epublic/live/g1956/build/g1956.pdf.

Farmer's Golf Day 2011

What a day!  Yesterday was absolutely gorgeous for the Farmer's Golf Day!  The sun was shinning bright with a slight breeze to help with the heat.  Dave and I represented Stateline Bean on the 7th hole at the Monument Shadows Golf Course in Gering.  We shared the hole with Simplot where I got to meet P.J. Hoehn, Leo's nephew.  We had a great setup with some trees for shade and a beautiful view of the monument!

We had the wonderful opportunity to meet new people and network with our fellow agriculture friends.  I got to put some names and faces together of some of our current growers that I have spoken with over the phone and not had a chance to meet yet.  It was a very good day all around!  If you missed it, there will be another one next year from what I hear!

P.S.  We had alot of stuff to pack up, but we used
our space wisely!  Dave put that golf cart to test.  :)

Stormy Night, Beautiful Morning

Good Morning~I have been talking with a few guys in Banner County that got some really bad hail last night.  It seems like it was such a beautiful day yesterday, nice and cool allowing the beans to rest from last weeks heat, then we had the hail!  I'm so sorry to hear that!

I took this picture this morning with the dark sky in the background and the sun shinning on the ditch sunflowers in the front over a field of beans.  Beautiful!

UNL Greenhouse

As promised, here are some pictures of the inoculations that Carlos Urrea and crew have been working on over at the University.  They invited me over to watch the bacterial wilt inoculation on July 1st, 2011.  It was really interesting how they did it.  They have a couple of plants in each pot with one being the control that was not infected with the disease.  The other plants were pierced with the disease right in between the cotyledons and the unifoliolate leaves (first pair of leaves).  

This first picture is of the "jungle" that I was referring to the other day!  Wow, they have grown so much in just a couple of weeks since I was there last.  The crew said that they have to untangle them each day as they try to grow/vine together!

Check out the following:

Bacterial Wilt~inoculated July 1st, 2011
Photos courtesy of Carlos Urrea, University of Nebraska Panhandle Station

Bacterial Brown Spot~inoculated on July 6, 2011

Photos courtesy of Carlos Urrea, University of Nebraska Panhandle Station

Resistant

Susceptible

Bacterial Brown Spot Scale:  1, 3, 5, 7, 9
1, 3=Resistant; 5=Intermediate; 7,9=Susceptible

Bean Common Mosaic Virus~inoculated on July 18th, 2011

~These are pictures immediately after the inoculation.~

As you can see from the different leaf shapes, the inoculations were done on several different varieties of beans to test for disease resistance.  

 ~A special thanks to Carlos and crew for providing this information.~

Irrigation

~Photo Courtesy of Dave Dietrich~

This probably looks way to familiar to some!  I hope that everyone is getting through their irrigation!  Been thinking about you!

Coyne Variety

This past week, Dave had the opportunity to go out and look at Coyne fields with Carlos Urrea from the UNL Extension.  It appears that they were extremely pleased with the results they were seeing out in the field.  Only one field was a bit disappointing but it was under an extreme set of circumstances.  Overall, I hear really good things about Coyne!

For those of you that may not know much about this variety, it is a mid-season (90-92 day) Great Northern bean.  Some of it's characteristics include semi-upright growth with short vines, bred specifically for enhanced resistance to common bacterial blight, common rust, and for adaptation to Nebraska's growing conditions (Source:  2011 Seed Variety Information from Stateline Bean Producers Cooperative).

~Coyne variety.  Photo courtesy of Dave Dietrich~

Update from the Field

Good Morning All~

I hope that everyone had a great weekend!  I spoke with Dave this morning when I got in to see how things were looking and wanted to send you a quick update from the field.  Here is what he said....

On Friday, Dave saw the first sighting of the bean beetle in the Melbeta area.  He suggests considering not spraying unless you really need too.  Overall, he has seen common and halo blight, bacterial brown spot, and baterial wilt.  Grasshoppers are also creating a problem in some areas.

Extremely dry beans with some bacterial brown spot and blight.

~Photo courtesy of Dave Dietrich~

Dave's advice is to keep water on the beans in this heat, but be careful not to over water them...especially with some of the full coverage foliage varieties.  This may create a white mold problem.

I know personally, the grasshoppers have had a great time in my container gardens this spring and early summer.  I finally did what someone suggested to me and dumped a little Sevin on them...so far, I am amazed at how fast that worked and how fast my plants are coming back.  They are looking great!  I even have my first few tomatoes now!  I am super excited as this is my first garden of my own.  It has been a very rewarding process.  I hope all of our beans do the same!