5 months ago
Drought notoriously impacts many facets of wheat production. Growers deal with reduced yields and shortened plant heights while facing other issues that cloud a crop's success. Little moisture also influences the result of a post-wheat harvest herbicide application, said Kansas State University weed specialist Sarah Lancaster. “After-harvest weeds can be particularly challenging in dry growing seasons because ...

5 months ago
The Kansas State University Helwig Farms Quarter-Scale Tractor Team took second place out of 21 teams at the 27th annual American Society of Agricultural and Biological Engineers' International Quarter-Scale Tractor Student Design Competition. The event — held May 30-June 2 at the Expo Gardens Fairgrounds in Peoria, Illinois — challenges teams to design and build a quarter-scale tractor capable of ...

5 months ago
Kansas State University researchers have found that grazing cover crops can improve soil health in no-till dryland cropping systems, addressing a key concern for producers in water-limited environments like the central Great Plains. The study, conducted from 2018 to 2021 across three producer fields in central and western Kansas, found that grazing cover crops with beef ...

5 months ago
The stalemate over the current farm bill may be solidifying a new era in farm politics as it joins the last three farm bills in a trend of delays and partisan division — a contrast from the legislation’s history of bipartisanship. Every five years, Congress is tasked with drafting a new federal farm bill. The omnibus ...

5 months ago
Public health officials have diagnosed a Colorado farm worker with the country’s fourth human case of highly pathogenic avian influenza, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the state’s department of health reported Wednesday. The Colorado case, the state’s first this year related to spread from dairy cattle to humans, was reported after an adult ...

5 months ago
In an instant, Fred Levendofsky knows his life could have been changed forever. Thirty years ago, the Belleville man was a young farmer and father with two small children. On one particular day, he was shredding weeds with a tractor and mower around a lagoon in a cattle lot near his parents’ home. “I thought everything was ...

5 months ago
Summer rains that leave behind humid air are keeping farmers out of the fields until late in the day, but producers are just glad to be able to climb in the cab and cut some wheat this year. After a multi-year drought, the showers and sprinkles are welcome, even if they delay the final stretch ...

5 months ago
As the calendar flips over to July, the combines keep rolling across western Kansas, albeit getting a late start on Monday due to lingering moisture from rain over the weekend. Better than expected final yields can mean of one of two things to western producers — either that they are actually cutting fields they expected ...

5 months ago
The Kansas Department of Agriculture’s Division of Conservation (KDA–DOC) is pleased to announce the availability of funds in the form of cost share assistance and incentive payments to assist commercial feedlots and dairy operations with livestock water efficiency technology. The Kansas Livestock Water Efficiency Pilot Project is part of the state’s ongoing effort to encourage ...

5 months ago
The Kansas Water Office, along with the Kansas Department of Agriculture, and the Kansas Department of Health and Environment, hosted six stakeholder input meetings across the state throughout the second half of June. Team Sorghum was well-represented at a majority of these meetings, notably in Colby, Dodge City, Wichita and Salina. According to the Kansas Grain Sorghum ...

5 months ago
At the root of almost every field bindweed outbreak is, in fact, the part of the plant that attaches to the soil and absorbs nutrients, said Kansas State University weed scientist Jeremie Kouame, noting that the weed becomes dominant within fields by developing a vast root system. "It can stay in a soil’s seed bank for ...