Spring weather is always a fun conversation across farm country, whether in the local coffee shop, after church, or during a sidewalk stroll down any small-town street in America. I came across a recent article from the National Weather Service saying that March might have above-normal temperatures and was intrigued. So, I got on the phone for an assignment from the National Association of Farm Broadcasting and began digging.
My first phone call was to Dennis Todey, the director of the Midwest Climate Hub in Ames, Iowa. As far as the March forecast goes, the veteran meteorologist says it depends on one thing: location, location, and location.
“The farther north you go, the less chance you have of being above normal during March,” Todey said. “But we should begin to rebound fairly quickly after the recent cold stretch that brought snow into parts of the Upper Midwest.”
Dennis Todey is the director of the Midwest Climate Hub in Ames, Iowa. (photo from climatehubs.usda.gov)
What you may not know is most of the cold that covered parts of the Upper Midwest was originally supposed to stay well to the north, especially up in Canada. Some of that cold worked its way into the North Central U.S., but it’s been limited mainly to the areas with snow cover.
As you go further west in the Northern Plains, there is less snow cover, so the temps haven’t been quite as cold. “The probabilities are not big, but the possibility of some warmer temperatures is there,” Todey said.
Looking out beyond March to the spring weather forecast, again, it all depends on which location you’re referring to. Out in the Eastern Corn Belt from Central Illinois and further east, they’ve had several storm events move through the area. The outlook in that location continues to look wet there.
“Planting delays are definitely on the radar in that location,” Todey said.
It’s the opposite in the Central and Southern Plains, where drought conditions have steadily grown worse in recent months as it’s been a dry and warm winter. The big question is whether the area is going to get any moisture anytime soon.
“It’s going to be interesting in the eastern Dakotas and parts of Minnesota,” he said. “They got some moisture late last year and recently picked up some recent snow as well.
“Places like Missouri and Iowa are more of a mixed bag right now,” he said. “Iowa still has some carryover dry soils, and then we have some dry soils in parts of Wisconsin in areas that keep missing out on moisture events.”
Speaking of dry weather, a good-sized part of rural America is short of moisture. The shortage in the plains begins in Nebraska and stretches to the south. It’s dry to very dry, but the lack of moisture doesn’t stop there.
“Parts of Iowa and Wisconsin are quite dry,” Todey said. “It’s quite dry in northern Illinois, which is a carryover from last year. Depending on which part you’re talking about, parts of the Dakotas had moisture while others didn’t get enough moisture for runoff for ponds and dugouts from a livestock standpoint.”
The winter wheat crop is really struggling because of the dry weather. The spring weather forecast hopefully has some moisture in it to help the wheat crop to at least somewhat rebound from the poor conditions.
As winter begins to wind down and spring gets closer, Todey has noticed an interesting trend in recent years when it comes to winter weather. Up here in Minnesota, we were able to take the dog for a walk in short sleeves or light jackets into November of 2021, which is almost becoming more of the norm rather than the exception.
“Winter has been showing up later than normal in recent years,” he said after some thought on the matter. “Let me frame this climatologically for you.
“The 90 coldest days on average for most of the Upper Midwest are typically December, January, and February,” Todey said. “That’s based on looking at data over the last 30 years. We’ve seen some of the coldest events of the winter occurring in late February.”
While late-winter snow isn’t uncommon, the larger events have been coming later and later, so “something is going on that’s a little different.”
Here is the audio podcast with Ryan Martin that you can download to your computer. You can also play it on your mobile device. Just his the play arrow on the left.
Frost in the forecast is rarely a good thing in farm country during any season outside of winter. In an ideal world, the only exception is a killing frost after corn states hit black layer. Of course, we don’t always live in an ideal world, do we? Ryan Martin of Warsaw, Indiana, is a long-time agricultural meteorologist who says the threat of some frost damage will begin this weekend.
“The days most in question are Friday night, May 8, into Saturday morning,” he said. “The axis of the coldest air will come across eastern Minnesota, Wisconsin, east-to-northeast Iowa, northern Illinois, most of Indiana, as well as all of Michigan and Ohio. This is the zone where we’ll see temperatures at 30 degrees or colder.”
He said the coldest air looks to hit Michigan and Ohio this weekend, where we could see some big impact on soft red winter wheat, especially in Ohio. The frost timing is not good as wheat has woken up out of winter dormancy and is moving forward through its growth stages.
“The wheat is at the jointing stage and anytime the crop gets further into its growth, that means the wheat is a little more susceptible to cold temperatures,” Martin said, “depending on how much the temps fall and how long they’re under a certain threshold.
“If wheat is just breaking dormancy and you get a cold snap, you have to be under 28 degrees anywhere between three and five hours,” he added. “When we get into the jointing stage and further along, wheat can barely handle 30 degrees for an hour or two. That’s where the issue lies on wheat this weekend.”
Ryan Martin, Hoosier Ag Today meteorologist, says the fast pace of planting in 2020 is going to slow down for a few days due to cooler than normal temps in farm country. (Photo YouTube.com)
Corn and soybeans will hopefully be a different story. Based on the crop planting progress and emergence reports, Martin, Chief Meteorologist for the Hoosier Ag Today Radio Network, is much more optimistic about those crops being able to survive the freezing temps.
“Illinois leads the way with nine percent of its corn crop emerged,” he said. “In most areas, the growing point of the crop is still going to be below ground, so I don’t think it will mean anything for corn and soybeans on mortality. What it does do is slow down that incredibly fast-paced planting season we’ve seen in many states.”
A couple of other examples include Iowa, which was on a record planting pace during the last planting update, while Minnesota just to the north is no slouch either on planting progress. The Purdue University meteorology graduate says all of the “good stuff” that comes with early-planted corn gets slowed down and “stunted” because of the frost/freeze over the weekend and the extended run of below-normal temps that won’t end till the middle of next week.
“Cold air moved out of Canada and focused on the Great Lakes, Upper Midwest, and the northeastern United States,” Martin said. “However, there’s an interesting twist ahead in the forecast for the next seven-to-ten days. We’ll start to see temperatures in the below-normal areas start to moderate on May 13 through 15.
“Things will take a drastic switch after that,” he added. “We’ll see above-normal temps in the Eastern Corn Belt, while the Plains may drop down below normal through the last part of May. There’s a lot of air currents, different movements here, different patterns trying to emerge, and it all has to do with where polar air is shifting to this time of year.”
It’s been a bit of an unusual spring so far for many reasons, but I’m just talking about the weather. What we’ve seen so far in terms of temps and precipitation has been very different from recent years. There’s no question, a lot of states have seen temperatures consistently lower than what they normally expect.
“Big swings in spring temps aren’t unusual,” says Martin. “We’ve certainly seen them before. I think the reason it’s coming home to roost a little bit more and has people scratching their heads is the degree of change from the last several years.
“We’ve had pretty dog-gone decent springs over the past handful of years,” he recalled. “We’ve come out of winter early and been able to hit the ground running based on the temps. Last year, precipitation was a big problem, but the temperatures were still decent. This year is the first out of the past five or so that’s really showed us the kind of variability we can see in the spring.”
Ryan will do custom forecasts for your radio and TV stations. Check out his work at www.weatherstud.com.
The 2019 World Horseshoe Tournament took place in Wichita
Falls, Texas, on July 22-August 3. The National Horseshoe Pitching Association
sponsors the tournament once a year in different locations around the country.
Once again, this year’s tournament included a contingent of “pitchers” from the
Rushford-Peterson area, who all competed well down in Texas.
Darren Chambers of Rushford usually takes a delegation of area residents to the World Horseshoe tournament once a year, with this year being no exception. “This year, we had a few more people going along than in 2018,” he said. “I took three new players this year. A total of five went from the Rushford area and I took my two grandsons from West Salem too.
Submitted photo Front row (L-R): Mason Chambers, Brielle Schneider, Lianah Williams, Noah Chambers, Isaac Rasmussen. Back: Daren Chambers
“My new players this year included my niece, Donata
Kitchens,” he said, “along with my granddaughter, Brielle Schneider, as well as
Lucas Rasmussen. They all took part in their first world tournament. The three
that I took to last year’s tournament, Isaac Rasmussen, Mason Chambers, and Noah Chambers, all went again
this year too.”
Brielle Schneider, who Chambers says has “only been pitching
for about five months,” won the Class C Division at the tournament. “She won the
round-robin tournament with a perfect 9-0 record,” Chambers said. “Brielle actually
had to beat Isaac Rasmussen at one point (18-17) to win the championship. Isaac
wound up in second place with an 8-1 record.
“A total of four kids were in Class C, including Brielle, Isaac, Lucas, and Noah,” he said. “Noah took sixth place in Class C and Lucas Rasmussen finished in seventh. Mason won his class last year and took fourth in this year’s World Horseshoe Tournament. He started slowly but finished the tournament on fire, throwing 15 ringers in one game (40 total throws, 37%).”
Chambers said he takes the kids to different tournaments in
Iowa throughout the winter (indoors). It’s not hard to get them ready for the
world tournament because “they just love the road trips” and they “love playing
the game.”
Lucas Rasmussen had the distinction of being the youngest player at the World Horseshoe Tournament in Texas. He played quite a match with Brielle Rasmussen in Class C competition. “Lucas lost to Brielle in the last game of the tournament,” Chambers recalled. “He trailed 11-9 and just needed a ringer to win the game. Lucas threw a ringer that would have won him the game. However, she had a shoe that was literally standing up on the side of the pole and it flipped her shoe right on there. That canceled out his ringer and he lost 11-9.
“This old guy (Darren) finished up 9-6 at the tournament
this year,” he said with a laugh. “I wound up in sixth place, which got me into
a little money. They pay out through sixth place.”
Chambers said Donata Kitchens wasn’t initially going to play
in the tournament. At first, Chambers said she came along to “help out with the
kids.” Chambers admitted he knew they would need an extra pair of hands on the
trip, especially with the extra kids going along to Texas. “Well, we decided
since she’s going along, Donata might as well play,” he said. “You have to play
in four tournaments to qualify for the world tournament and we just barely got
her qualified. It was worth it as she took third place in the women’s Class K
Division.”
It takes many hours of practice to be successful at the
world tournament. Chambers likes the fact that people in each division are
competing against other players with similar skill levels, thanks to the way
the national association organizes the tournament.
“This tournament really has a class for everybody,” he said. “Participants are put into their class based on their ringer percentage. The more ringers you make, the higher class of competition you’re in. For example, I’m in the second-to-lowest class at the tournament because my ringer percentage is between 10-12 percent., while the number-one-ranked guy in the world will pitch somewhere between 85-90 percent.
“That’s a big difference and why they class it up the way
they do,” Chambers added. “When you play someone in your class, you’ll have a
good chance to win. It makes the tournament a lot more fun for everybody.”
Chambers started attending world tournaments every year since 2003 and typically went by himself, however the group traveling to next year’s world championship tournament in Monroe, Louisiana, will likely include at least 13 people from Minnesota. He said there’s always room for more people who want to play.
“Anyone interested in pitching horseshoes can give me a call if they want to get involved,” Chambers added. “I’m happy to teach them different ways to throw and would be happy to help anyone interested.”
I included a video recap of some of the action at this year’s tournament:
Here’s the podcast with Jeremy Miller. If you want to download it for later, go ahead and click on the three dots on the right side of the player and hit download.
Agricultural Trade is a sore topic of conversation these days. The agricultural sector in Minnesota and around the country has been struggling for more than a year due in large part to trade disputes with other nations, including the biggest one with China. However, there is some good news out there in international market opportunities for Minnesota farmers. District 28 Republican Senator Jeremy Miller recently took part in an overseas trade mission to Taiwan July 21-26 and says there are opportunities out there for Minnesota farmers to find markets for their commodities.
Minnesota State Senator Jeremy Miller of District 28 got to see firsthand that there are still agricultural trade opportunities overseas for Minnesota farmers, thanks to a recent trade mission to Taiwan. (Contributed photo)
“A representative from the Taipei Economic and Cultural
Office in Chicago reached out to me earlier this year about leading a
multi-state, bipartisan legislative leaders’ delegation to Taiwan,” he
recalled. “Before we go any further, people have asked who paid for the trip. I
want to make it clear that the trip was paid for by Taiwan’s Ministry of
Foreign Affairs. The whole purpose of the trip was to develop relationships
between the United States of America, specifically Minnesota, and partners in
Taiwan.”
It was the second trip Miller has taken overseas, with the
first one taking place in South Korea back in 2011. He said the number one
focus of these trips is to “meet people,” with the number two focus of “looking
at opportunities.” The third and most important focus of the trip is
“developing relationships” to see what kinds of business dealings can evolve in
the future.
“The potential is there for a lot of different relationships between Minnesota and Taiwan,” he said. “By far, the biggest opportunity I see in Taiwan is for agricultural trade. Minnesota already exports a good number of crops, especially soybeans, to Taiwan. I think there’s even more opportunity there, whether it be for corn, more soybeans, and especially for pork.”
Miller looked into the numbers and found that Minnesota exported about $413 million worth of goods to Taiwan in 2018. However, that number is likely to go higher. “Last year, there was a agricultural trade mission to Taiwan that both Minnesota and Iowa took part in,” he recalled. “On that trip, Taiwan signed a $1.5 billion-dollar deal to buy 3.9 million metric tons of soybeans from both Minnesota and Iowa before 2021.
“What I’m driving at is there are even more opportunities
for Minnesota and Taiwan to increase the amount of business done,” Miller said.
“But, it comes down to keep lines of communication open and building on those
relationships once they’re established.”
Farm country is getting closer and closer to spring planting. Farmers are starting to look at their planters longingly, dreaming of being out in the field. After a wet winter that resulted in serious flooding problems, the nation’s midsection is looking for a spell of dry weather. However, ag meteorologist Ryan Martin of Warsaw, Indiana, says planters are likely going to sit a spell yet. It’s important to remember that we’re way too early to think about seriously-delayed spring planting.
“It probably going to be late this month or early into next month before planters get rolling,” Martin said. “It’s way too early to start thinking about serious spring planting delays. We’re actually not even at first planting dates in a large part of the Corn Belt yet.
Heartland Forecast
“As I look at the pattern stretching all the way from the
Great Plains through the Corn Belt, we’ve got a big weather system that wants
to move through late this weekend (Sunday, April 7 possibly through early
Tuesday the 9th). There won’t be a lot of good drying time after
that running through the end of the week.”
After that, there’s another system in the 11-to-16-day forecast that may have 1-3 inches of rain coming across all the key growing areas. Martin says, flooding and current situation aside, the forecast doesn’t give farmers enough of a window in there to really start spring planting en masse.
The Elkhorn River in Nebraska is way over its banks, covering up a lot of farm ground in Nebraska. Spring planting is likely to be delayed in a large part of the Midwest and Corn Belt because of flooding just like this. (Photo from Omaha.com)
Parts of Nebraska, Iowa, and Missouri have been devastated by flooding this spring, and the dry weather farmers are looking for really isn’t going to happen. “I don’t think so,” he said. “The way the pattern looks over the next 10 days, I’m counting two systems that come through. One won’t have a huge amount of rain, but the second one could bring as much as a quarter-inch to as much as 1.25 inches.
“Normally at this time of year that would be good news,”
Martin added. “But, the way things are set up right now it’s just not good.”
Southern Plains/Delta
There are some planters rolling deeper in the Southern Plains and in the Delta. Martin said the weather pattern in that part of the country shows that farmers may have to dodge some thunderstorms in order to keep spring planting going forward.
“Fronts will be coming through but as they do, they won’t
hit everyone at the same time,” he said. “Over the next three weeks or so,
those storms will end up with about 60-70 percent coverage at any given time.
It doesn’t look too excessive to me right now. It’ll be a hodgepodge type of
activity that should eventually allow crops into the ground and then get the crops
the kind of rainfall they need to get going.”
The pattern for the heaviest rains wants to stay a little
farther north into the Central Plains and the Missouri Valley Corn Belt areas.
The interesting area to watch will be the far east part of the Deep South,
where the likelihood of getting the crop in the ground on time is pretty good.
“Alabama, Mississippi, Georgia, and up into Tennessee are places where temperatures might lag a little behind normal,” Martin said. “There could be some thunderstorm development but I’m not quite as bullish on rain or bearish on getting spring planting in the Deep South done as I am farther north.”
Potential Flooding
Possible in Upper Midwest
There won’t be as much happening in the western states in
terms of precipitation like there will be in other parts of the country. The
biggest story in the western U.S. won’t be in terms of new systems moving
through. It’ll more likely involve snowpack runoff. The interesting thing about
snowpack runoff is the problems won’t necessarily be just out west.
“The Red River likely will hit major flood stage in eastern
North Dakota and western Minnesota,” he said. “There is snowpack that goes all
the way back up into Montana and into the northern Rockies. The biggest question
is just how fast we’ll see that snow melt and move through the area.
“The question is whether we’ll see a fast snowmelt with temps above normal,” he added. “That could be the story more than new systems coming through. Temperatures are still a little squirrely as temps likely will lag behind normal due to all that snowpack that still sits on the ground in those areas I mentioned.”
The University of Minnesota-Crookston baseball team describes itself as “gritty, not pretty.” Whatever they’d like to call themselves, it’s working. In spite of the challenges that come with a small-college program, the Golden Eagles won 14 of their first 22 games. Eagles head coach Steven Gust said they’re playing some pretty good baseball in spite of fielding a young roster this spring.
“We’re getting the job done,” he said with a smile visible through the phone. “it’s been a bit of a surprise because we lost key contributors from last year’s team. However, we’re finding ways to win in spite of that.
Steven Gust is the head coach of the University of Minnesota-Crookston baseball team. (Photo from goldeneaglesports.com)
“We aren’t going to overpower people on the mound this season,” he said. “Our best kid from last year, Zach Seipel, got drafted by the Atlanta Braves. That’s good news but he was only a junior, so we did expect him back this year. The kids we do have back are doing a good job of filling the strike zone, mixing their speeds, and are attacking hitters.”
The first player drafted
Getting a player drafted into Major League Baseball is a feather in the cap of any program. However, it’s an even bigger feather for a small school like Minnesota-Crookston because he was the first Golden Eagle ever picked in the MLB draft. What makes it an even better story is the young man didn’t originally come in to pitch for the Golden Eagles.
“I saw him as a catcher in legion baseball,” Gust recalled. “I
thought he had a pretty decent arm behind the plate. I wasn’t sure about his hitting,
but good defensive catchers can be hard to find. It was one of my first years
coaching and our pitching was thin. We needed someone to pitch the end of a
scrimmage and he volunteered after pitching just nine total innings in high
school.”
Gust said, “The ball jumped out of Zach’s hand and he was around the zone. After that, we told him to sell his catcher’s glove and he became our closer. He left here throwing a 93-94 mile-per-hour fastball. He’s a great kid and he’s only going to get better as a player.”
The University of Minnesota-Crookston was understandably excited when Zach Seipel became the first Golden Eagle drafted by a Major League Baseball team. He went to the Atlanta Braves in the 27th round and head coach Steven Gust said he expects Zach to do well and move up the chain. (Photo from goldeneaglesports.com)
Getting a player drafted is big milestone considering that
before Gust and the current staff arrived, the Golden Eagles had won just two
of their previous 100 games. Literally, the team was 2 and 98 before Gust showed
up.
Building a program
“We were fortunate to add some good players to some really good-character kids that were already here,” Gust said, “and they all bought in right away. There are so many pieces to the puzzle when you’re trying to build a program like Minnesota-Crookston.
“The pieces include working on facilities and trying to get
the highest quality you can,” he added. “You have to find good assistant
coaches that don’t mind working for literally nothing other than their passion
for the game. We also don’t have a lot of scholarships to offer, so that’s not
a strength either.”
When Gust took over the program, there were 18 Golden Eagles
on the roster. Now, in spite of some limitations that come with smaller-school
athletics, they currently have 46 players on the roster. They recruit primarily
in Minnesota and North Dakota. They’ll include a few kids out of Wisconsin,
Iowa, and South Dakota as well.
“The majority of our kids come in from our backyard,” he
said. “We’ve created some excitement in the area by bringing in a lot of
familiar players. The attendance and support from the community have been
great. We’re just trying to do the little things that maybe one day will allow
us to start thinking about winning a championship.
“We don’t have any 5-tool recruits,” Gust added. “We’re
getting better players who happen to be good students as well. Our team GPA in
the fall was 3.3, which is almost unheard of. We’re looking for guys who might
have a little chip on the shoulder because they weren’t recruited by some of the
bigger schools. They’ll have a passion for what they’re doing out there on the
field.”
Gust added, “There’s no way I could run a program if I didn’t have a great group of people around me.”
Weather is a challenge
Like most schools in the north, the weather is always a challenge to deal with. Gust said one of the biggest goals for all the Crookston programs is to get a covered practice facility. What really hurts the team is not being able to get outside much early in the season to get some much-needed practice in. Gust says, “I think that’s coming here at Minnesota-Crookston, it’s just a matter of when.”
The Eagles team is basically brand-new this season. They
graduated a lot of seniors from last spring’s squad. Last year, Crookston won
24 baseball games, but Gust said they were “disappointed” because they thought
they were headed back to the postseason tournament. However, it didn’t happen.
“We have several junior college players on the roster this spring,” Gust said. “Sometimes, it’s hard for Junior College players to buy in when they come to a four-year school. However, our guys seem to have bought in right away. We’ve found ways to get things done so far in spite of facing some really good pitching in the first three weeks of the conference season.”
NSIC a solid conference
From top-to-bottom, the Northern Sun Intercollegiate Conference is one of the best Division Two conferences in the country. For example, they have the defending national champion Augustana (Sioux Falls, SD) Vikings as a member of the conference.
“Minnesota-State Mankato is always good,” Gust said. “Concordia-St.
Paul has some really solid arms this season. St. Cloud State might be the team
to beat. Even the teams that have been on the bottom over the past few years
have gotten better. Teams like the University of Mary (Bismarck, ND) and Minot
State (Minot, North Dakota) are among the teams taking steps forward.”
Even before they got going in their conference schedule,
Crookston headed south to play some very good non-conference squads. They
started off their season with perennial power Central Missouri State. Gust said
people told him he was crazy to play them. However, he did see some good things
in spite of losing to CMS.
“I thought a lot of good things came out of playing tough
competition like that,” he said. “I saw signs that we could be a pretty good
team. We also went down to Florida to play some really tough teams too. I think
our non-conference schedule really prepared us well to do some good things in
the conference.”
The weather forecast. You know you’re paying extra attention if you live in the Upper Midwest as I do (Minnesota and any of the surrounding states). Simply put, you’re wondering when the white stuff falling from the sky will finally end. After all, it’s getting really hard to find places to pile the extra snow when it’s time to shovel (or snow blow) the driveway. So, I figured it was time to call up my favorite weather guy, Ryan Martin of Warsaw, Indiana, to get a weather forecast of what’s coming for different areas of the country in late winter and early spring.
Ag meteorologist Ryan Martin speaks during a recent event. Martin is the Chief Meteorologist for Hoosier Ag Today. (photo from hoosieragtoday.com)
“From Iowa and northward through the Upper Midwest, it’s
been a very snow-filled winter to this point,” he said. “We’ve exceeded total
snowfall amounts in our forecasts by a little bit. One thing you need to note
is the fact that it’s still February.
“We generally expect the snowfall patterns to gradually
start to ease up in mid-to-late March,” he added. “I think we’re going to be on
track to see that this year. Am I calling for an immediate stoppage of now? No.
What I do see is temps switching from below normal to normal to slightly above
normal. You’ll see more rain mixing in with the snow as March progresses.”
In the weather forecast for the eastern Corn Belt, including the Ohio River Valley, Indiana, Ohio, and the Great Lakes Region, Martin says things take a more active turn as February turns into early March. There’s going to be some “excessive” precipitation moving through that area.
“Temps are going to be on a roller coaster,” Martin said. “We
had the brutal cold snap a few weeks ago but are now transitioning into a
period during which temps will average out to normal. But, keep in mind that
means you could be ten degrees above normal one day and ten below the next day.
I’m seeing a lot of rain in the eastern Corn Belt region, which will have a big
impact on Ohio River levels, mid-and-lower-Mississippi River levels, and even
the Illinois River levels.
Find out Ryan’s weather forecast for the Plains States, the Delta region, as well as the western United States forecast.
You don’t have to be a farmer if you go to secondary education for an Agriculture Degree. American agriculture has been fighting that perception as long as anyone can remember. The Ag umbrella has more jobs underneath it than most people realize, and most of which have nothing to do with growing crops. Mahtomedi, Minnesota native Emma Persoon is the perfect example of how valuable and versatile an ag education can be.
“I’m a sophomore at Iowa State University and studying
Animal Science,” she said. “The Animal Science Degree falls under the College
of Agriculture and Life Sciences. I’m there because I love working with
animals.
“I grew up showing rabbits around the country,” she
recalled. “I also showed a llama during my time in the 4H program, which is where
I really got my start in working with animals. As a sophomore in high school, I
got a job at a dog kennel in Lake Elmo, Minnesota. I really enjoyed that job as
well, so I knew I wanted to do something with animals for a living.”
Persoon wasn’t quite sure just what that would be at that
point. At the end of her senior year in high school, she’d chosen to attend
Iowa State University and major in Animal Science. At that time, she was
considering a career as a large-animal veterinarian. After working through her
freshman year and returning home for the summer, her career path took an
unexpected turn.
“I had returned to working at the dog kennel in Lake Elmo when my mom asked me an interesting question,” she said. “My mom said, ‘do you want to foster a dog for a service animal organization?’ My first reaction was ‘yeah, sign me up!’”
Emma teaching a new service dog-in-training all the tricks of the trade. She says “it takes a lot of patience.” (contributed photo)Emma teaching a new service dog-in-training all the tricks of the trade. She says “it takes a lot of patience.” (contributed photo)
Through peals of laughter, she said, “I think I was filling
out the online application before we’d finished the conversation.”
Just a week after filling out the paperwork and going
through volunteer orientation, her life would change as she got their first
puppy. He was just ten weeks old and it was up to Persoon to show him the
service-dog ropes.
“I’d already had public-access training through the
organization,” she recalled. “When we receive the dogs, they come with a vest
that says ‘Service Dog in Training’ on it. Even when they’re just 10 weeks old,
the organization wants you to take them out in public. The training teaches the
volunteers how to interact with people out in public, and how to interact with
store managers who might not be comfortable with the dog in there.”
While walking a dog might sound like fun, it’s important to remember the dog was still a puppy, and puppies can be a challenge. “He went to the bathroom in stores,” she said. “As I kept working with him through the summer, I asked the organization (who wishes to remain anonymous) if I could take him back to school with me. I’d only had him for six weeks, but they said no, they didn’t want him that far away, which I understood. Once I got back to school, I kept getting their emails, saying they really needed volunteers.”
She called them back a month later and told them she was
still willing to take a dog. Her apartment was on the second floor, so she didn’t
have front door access to potty train a young dog. Persoon requested one that
might be a little older. After emailing back and forth for a while, they sent
her a dog to work with while at school.
There’s more to an agriculture degree than just farming. Animal Science major Emma Persoon found her life calling in training service dogs.
“I’m what’s known as a puppy raiser in the program,” she
said. “Puppy raisers have the dog from the time they’re ten weeks old to when
the dogs go in for final training at 18 months. It’s a two-year long process
from start to finish training as a service dog.”
Persoon said giving up dogs after working with them for
weeks on end was tough. “Yeah, I cried even after just six weeks with the first
puppy I had. I cried all day.”
Training a service dog happens in two parts. Part of it is
what the public might think of as typical dog-obedience training. The other part
is training them to be in public as service dogs. They go out in public two or
three times a week to get them used to different situations.
“The dog I’m working with knows all the basic obedience commands,” she said. “He knows how to grab something off the floor and bring it to your hand. He also knows how to open and close cupboards
Emma spends a lot of time out in public teaching service dogs how to react when they’re “on the job.” It’s important for the public to know not to approach or talk to service dogs when they have their vest on. (Contributed photo)
“What we do is put a braided rope-type of a toy on the
handle of the cupboard,” she said. “Then, we teach the dog to pull it open.
That means you need to have some things set up in your house to do that type of
training. Once you get the setup in place, it’s actually not difficult to teach
them that skill.”
She said the service dogs that go into training are typically super-smart. That doesn’t mean you don’t need a ton of patience to do the job well. Persoon said her dog is very smart but gets frustrated very easily.
“The organization I work with has a breeding program,” she
said. “The Labrador retrievers are bred for their smarts, but they still do go
through adolescent phases where they get frustrated. I’ve brought my dog with
me to class and he doesn’t like having to sit still for 50 minutes at a
time.
“I try to take him for a half-hour walk before class to tire
him out a little,” Persoon said. “I also bring a mat for him to sleep on
because the floors are a little slippery. I try to set him up with the most
comfortable experience as possible. I even bring in a chew-toy for him.
“He’s a vocal dog, which makes it more of a challenge,” she
said. “I wish he was quieter so I could ignore him, but I can’t. He’s very
vocal and I can’t have him interrupting class. All my professors know they’re
going to have a service dog-in-training in their classroom. They’re obligated
to let them be there. However, if the dog becomes disruptive enough to
interfere with the teaching, then they are absolutely able to ask me to leave.
However, none of my professors have gotten to that point yet. I do get looks
occasionally but they try to be patient.”
“it takes a lot of patience,” says Emma. But it’s so rewarding when you realize this dog will be able to help someone function in society who might otherwise not be able to (Contributed photo)
Persoon said working with service dogs has given her a path she’d like to follow in her professional life. Again, she was considering a career as a large-animal veterinarian. However, the first service dog she worked with changed that path completely. Working with a dog for hours at a time on skills “relaxes” her.
“It’s really rewarding to see their brain work for me,” she
said with a smile visible through a phone call. I’m looking into different
internship opportunities with service dog organizations this summer. I would
love to go into service dog training, but I’m also considering canine nutrition
as well, which I’m interested in.
“That’s the most rewarding thing about service dog
training,” she added. “I’ve found my career path.”
She’s a living, breathing example of the fact that an
Agriculture degree doesn’t mean you have to be involved in production
agriculture.
“I know for a fact there are some people (including her
professors) that think choosing the service dog training as a career path isn’t
as valuable as working on a hog farm, a dairy farm, or any other large-animal
production fields.
“For me, it’s all about knowing that someone who normally
can’t go out in public on their own, can now be out in public because of the
dog I’m training,” Persoon added. “That to me is just as valuable as putting
food on the table is for someone else.”
The organization she works for trains five different types
of service dogs. They train mobility-assist dogs for people in wheelchairs or
on walkers; hearing assist dogs, which can alert someone on things like a smoke
alarm going off, if an oven bell dings, or the doorbell rings; diabetic alert
dogs for people with Type 1 Diabetes. If someone goes into a diabetic low, the
dog will alert to that; there are seizure-assist dogs, which lick the face of
their handler to help them come around, go get help if it’s needed, or actually
push a button to call 911; they also train dogs for autistic people.
Persoon is looking into a possible internship involving
service dog training for people with autism. It’s near-and-dear to her heart as
she has a brother with autism. “it’s amazing to think that we can train a dog
to help someone with autism just because there’s a wide range on the whole
autism spectrum.”
“We see dogs from the organization I work for out with their
people all the time, which is neat to see,” Persoon said. “We were in a mall
the other day and I had the dog with me. We were doing some training when a
woman approached me to talk about her autistic daughter’s service dog. The
woman said the dog helps her out so much. It’s neat when we have our service
dogs out in public and we meet people who’ve been doing well with the dogs our
organization trains.”
She wanted to let those in the public who don’t know that
it’s important to not approach service dogs when they’re in public and
working/training. The dogs are supposed to pretend that other people don’t
exist. Persoon said that’s one of the hardest lessons for the new puppies to
learn. It’s not surprising that people want to pet or talk to a dog in a place
where they don’t normally see one. Again, it’s important to leave the service
dogs alone when they’re wearing a vest.
“The dog I’ve got right now really recognizes the difference
between off-duty and working,” she said. “When the vest goes on, he’s really
good at ignoring people. Once in a while, he gets kind of excited when someone
talks to him, but for the most part, he’s all business. When his vest comes off
and we go for a walk, he’s like a typical dog.
“Any breed of dog can be service dogs,” she added, “but most of the training organizations use labs or golden retrievers. The dogs have to be intelligent but those two breeds in particular love working with and want to please their people.”
Employees and management at Vermeer Manufacturing in Pella, Iowa, will always remember July 19, 2018. An EF3 tornado tore through the campus, causing significant damage and a number of non-life-threatening injuries. To add insult to injury, the tornado hit as the company was celebrating its 70th anniversary.
In the immediate aftermath of the storm, Vermeer CEO Jason
Andringa said, “We’ve dealt with several challenges during our 70 years of
doing business and we’ve survived them thus far. We plan on doing it again.”
That recovery is well underway.
“I was there that day, taking part at an anniversary event at which we had brought in more than 400 customers and dealers,” said Mark Core, Executive Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer for Vermeer. “We had an unbelievably good day. I’d just left to go to another meeting at the corporate building, so I was as far away as I could get from the tornado and still be on the campus.
“The people that were closer than I was described a lot of
flying debris,” said Core. “A lot of people in our tornado shelters didn’t
necessarily hear anything but they did feel their ears pop. They knew something
was close. But, for most people, they really didn’t have any idea how big the
tornado was until they walked outside.”
Awe and bewilderment are terms Core used to describe the
reactions in the aftermath. Several plants sustained heavy damage and the
wastewater treatment facility was a total loss. As the recovery process
continues, Core said they will have to demolish two of their manufacturing
facilities on the Vermeer campus.
“That means about 30 percent of our manufacturing space will
be demolished,” Core said. “It should take two or three years to rebuild, including
the time it takes to decide exactly how we want it rebuilt.
“Our CEO (Andringa), the grandson of our founder, set two
immediate goals the next day,” Core recalled. “The first goal was getting
everyone back to work within 45 days, so they could get back to their normal
livelihood. The second was he wanted us to build ourselves back stronger than
ever by 2020.
“We got everybody back to work in 31 days,” he recalled.
“The second goal is what we’re in the middle of right now. Some things force a
company to reinvent itself. Vermeer has never had a financial crisis because of
how the owners manage the company. We’ve never been part of a purchase or
acquisition. But, we did have a tornado. That gives us the opportunity of a
clean slate to improve how we do things.”
In his words, Core said they are “shockingly” back up to
pre-storm production levels. They had to shift some of their divisions into
rented buildings in order to reclaim some space. He said the workers are more
crowded in than they were before. They did have to outsource a few things
temporarily as well. He said, “it might look too good to the naked eye,” but
they’re still producing at a high level.
“I think a big key to the rebuilding is the passion of
Midwest workers who believe in the family and the company,” Core added. “The
only way to get everybody back to work in 45 days was to figure out how to get
the production lines back in place in 30 days. It hasn’t been easy and there’s
still a lot to learn over the next two-or-three months about our temporary
world here, but so far, it’s been really
pretty amazing.”
The company had a small spike in back orders during the
first few weeks after the tornado, but overall, Core said the disruption at the
dealer level has been small. He said their dealers did a “phenomenal job” of
working with each other to help take care of customers.
“It’s been so much fun to watch the people on our staff rise
and shine as they continue to help the company move in the right direction,”
Core said with a smile visible even during a phone conversation. “They’ve been
able to make quick and smart decisions on things like production, environmental
health and safety, facilities, and senior leadership.
“We’ve also had a lot of support from our community,” Core
added. “We’ve even had a lot of help from companies that you’d consider our
competitors. It’s humbling when you hear from a major competitor that night who
told us their people want to head our way and see if they could help us. I
think we had a total of eight competitors contact us within the first 24 hours.
Core said it says a lot about people in the business of
agriculture, who are always willing to lend a hand in the worst of situations.
“I think we’re getting through this,” Core said.
Here’s a first-hand, birds-eye view of the damage at the Vermeer plant taken by a drone on the same day.
The Minnesota Department of Agriculture (MDA) is investigating the source of a Palmer amaranth plant found growing in Jackson County.
Palmer Amaranth is popping up in southwestern Minnesota counties, including Redwood and Jackson. Keep an eye out for this in your fields. If you do find it, get out there and pull it out by hand, including the roots. Don’t let it multiply! (Photo from NRCS/Iowa)
In early September, a farmer noticed a suspicious weed in the first few rows of a soybean field adjacent to a utility field road. The weed survived a herbicide treatment. making initial identification difficult. The farmer then contacted the University of Minnesota Extension, which submitted the plant for genetic identification. The test has confirmed it was Palmer amaranth. MDA staff scouted fields in the area and have not found any other Palmer plants. The MDA is investigating where the Palmer amaranth seed came from.
“This is another case illustrating the effective collaborations established between the MDA, U of M Extension, crop consultants, and farmers throughout the state for locating and reporting Palmer amaranth,” said Mark Abrahamson, MDA’s Director of Plant Protection. “We continue to urge farmers and landowners to become familiar with what Palmer amaranth looks like and to immediately contact the MDA, Extension, or a crop consultant for help if they suspect Palmer amaranth on their property.”
Since 2016, the invasive weed has now been found in six Minnesota counties. In addition to this latest find in Jackson County, the MDA confirmed the weed in a Redwood County soybean field last week. It was also discovered in conservation plantings in Lyon and Yellow Medicine counties in 2016, and Todd and Douglas counties in 2017. However, after eradication treatments, Palmer has not been found at any sites in those four counties during 2018.
Palmer amaranth is listed as a Prohibited Weed Seed. This means it’s not allowed in any seed offered for sale in the state. It is also on Minnesota’s Prohibited Noxious Weed Eradicate List. All above and below ground parts of the plant must be destroyed. Also, no transportation, propagation, or sale of this plant is allowed.
If anyone suspects Palmer amaranth, they can contact the MDA through the Arrest the Pest line at 1-888-545-6684 or arrest.the.pest@state.mn.us.
Palmer amaranth is native to the southwestern United States and northwestern Mexico. It has been found in over half of the states, and along with Minnesota, it has been found in the neighboring states of Iowa, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Wisconsin.
