Congratulations

We would like to congratulate Carlos Urrea for his service and dedication to the dry bean industry.  Thank you for all of your hard work!  We really enjoy working with you and your team.

http://kneb.com/news/agricultural/index.php?more=pt4r8hh3

Flats Farms Test Plot HARVESTED

The beans were cut on Tuesday of this week up at the Hemingford test plot on Flats.  Dave went up to help Flats and UNL harvest the plot yesterday.  Overall, they were very pleased with the yields, especially the La Paz and the 6203 Sinaloa Pinto varieties.  Flats had 2 combines running at the same time which helped it go faster.  Check back for the results later this fall.  (Photos courtesy of Dave Dietrich, 2011).

Coyne Tour Successful

We had a great day!  We met this morning at 8:30 am over on Sunflower Oil Road and Experimental Farm Road.  We saw several Coyne fields belonging to our growers.  The overall excitement for Coyne was shared among all present, including Carlos Urrea.  We had Randy Mattson from Treasure Valley Seed present.  His company has the seed available and assures us that there will be no problems getting seed this year.  Everything is looking good on his end.  The day was topped off by several interviews by Miss Leslie Smith from K.N.E.B.

Bayard Test Plot Tour

We had a GREAT turn out today!  We had over 40 people attend out test plot tour and luncheon.  It was a great day for it and I feel like it went really well.  I just want to thank everyone for coming out and also Chimney Rock Golf Course for lunch and Henkel's for doing the test plot!

*September*

Wow, it is hard to believe that it is the first day of September today.  Fall is here and harvest is about to begin!  I am headed out to Bayard for our test plot tour today....I will take pictures to post tomorrow!  Have a great day!

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!

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.

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.

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.

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.~

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~

University of Nebraska Expo 2011

Good morning!  I just wanted to let you all know that the UNL Research Station will have an Expo tonight from 5-8 p.m.  There will be displays from 5 p.m. to 8 p.m. and research plot tours at 5:15 p.m. and 5:35 p.m. each lasting 1 hour.  There will be arboretum/horticulture walking tours at 5:30 p.m and 7 p.m. and a BBQ provided by the Scottsbluff-Gering United Chamber of Commerce Ag Committee.  Come join!  http://newsroom.unl.edu/announce/ianrnews/416/2786

Oh Sunny Day....

Well, it appears that we did reach the high of 100 degrees today! Beautiful sun shinny day! Not a cloud in the sky. As for me, I headed out to Bayard today to chat with growers! What a great job! I met with one new grower and one of our members who showed me around. We spent some time talking about his beans and identifying cockle burs. These were great examples since they had been sprayed, the were beginning to die. Some of them were rather large and he said that they are pretty resilient and might just keep on growing. He had some burn on his field from spray since the last quarter of the field was sprayed when it was raining. It should be alright though.

After visiting for a while, I headed back to the office to check in and then went over to the University. I went to see how the experiments were doing in the greenhouse that were inoculated on Friday, July 1st, 2011. It was crazy to me how much they had grown. Now, you have to remember that I have been looking at beans out in the field and these beans are being grown in a greenhouse under special lights and with individual irrigation systems. It was amazing to me how much they had grown! It was like a jungle. Stay tuned to see pictures of the inoculated research beans tomorrow.

My Experiences So Far

On Monday June 6^th, 2011 I went out to help put in my first dry edible bean test plot.  We worked with Carlos, John, and Fred from the University of Nebraska Panhandle Research Station at Flats Farms.  Their farm is up in the Hay Springs area.  It was a great first experience because we had a really nice day and nice people to work with.  Currently, we are testing 10 different pinto varieties in 4 different replications. 

Jay was driving the tractor with a 12 row planter, running around 6.6 m.p.h.  We would load Jay’s planter up with seed and he would go out and plant 4 replications using his GPS.  When he got back to the pickup and trailer, we would carefully vacuum out each and every seed box to be sure that we did not mix the seeds, for more accurate results.  While a couple of us were doing this, the others were opening up the seed bags and spreading them evenly over all the boxes.  With the good weather and teamwork, we were finished in around 4 ½ hours.