Here are some trends I noticed in 2013:

1. New equipment is almost the norm. I got so used to seeing new (or almost new) equipment as I was driving around, the occasional old tractor was somewhat shocking. Planters too seemed a little bit newer and quite a bit bigger than in recent years.

2. With new equipment comes new technology. I think I even saw a guy with his feet up by the steering wheel of the tractor one day courtesy of auto steer as I drove past.

3. More fields with less residue. After hearing so much about increasing conservation tillage and a steady trend of moving more toward no-till, it seems that I saw more tillage (and more extensive tillage) in a larger percentage of fields than in the past. Retired Ohio State University agricultural engineer Randall Reeder had similar observations as he traveled out west this spring.

“I just returned from spending the week in Illinois. As we drove, we were amazed at the lack of no-till. We saw more tractors pulling disks and field cultivators than we did pulling a planter. Fields that had been planted, or were ready to plant, had virtually zero residue,” Reeder said. “Those farmers are late planting corn, and instead of planting in fields that already appeared to be in perfect condition for a planter, they felt compelled to spend their time instead doing another tillage operation. All those corn planters in Illinois are fairly new, modern planters, why were the farmers preparing the soil as if they were still using a planter from the 1950s?”

Ohio, of course, is historically ahead of the curve on conservation tillage, and is likely still a leader in this area, though my anecdotal observations may suggest otherwise.

4. Many buddies. More often than not, when I see a tractor in the field, the passenger “buddy” seat is occupied by some wide-eyed (or sometimes sleeping) farm boy with aspirations to drive that tractor some day. The future is brighter than ever for agriculture and I am glad to see a promising young crop of interested farmers, even if it’s just from the road.

What are your observations from the 2013 planting season?

I employed my usual tactics that help things run more efficiently when Mom is gone, but anyone with young children and livestock to take care of knows that the task can be daunting for one person. All in all though, it went very well. Our house is still standing and we had quite a bit of fun, but it is always an adventure at home when Dad is running the show.

As I have previously noted, I find that it saves quite a bit of time to only clean once for the duration of my wife’s absence. She comes home to a clean house and I don’t waste time picking things up and cleaning over and over again. This generally works really well, but this time it almost backfired.

We were in a hurry to get out the door in the morning so I did not clean up breakfast at all. When we returned home after five, I took the kids in and went back to carry more stuff in. Upon entering the house, I heard the ominous clank of an empty plastic cup on the counter.

“What was that?” I asked.

“Don’t worry daddy, it wasn’t rotten?” was my three year-old son’s response.

He had chug-a-lugged a half cup of milk that had been sitting out all day.  I wiped his face and got him some water. By the time dinner was over I was convinced that no trip to the ER was needed.

We then had a 4-H event to attend in the evening and I ran into another reoccurring obstacle for the father of a daughter — hair. When my wife is home, my daughter almost always has her long, beautiful hair braided or ponytailed up and it looks very nice. Though I really try, when I attempt to help with my five-year-olds flowing locks, she ends up with a cockeyed ponytail or a frumpy, frizzy mess atop her head. I have studied my wife’s hair grooming methods but I can never quite get the same results.

After the milk fiasco, we were again running late, though, so I went with the cockeyed ponytail look for my daughter and loaded them up once again after a quick dinner. In my haste, I did not notice the rapidly dropping temperature or the storm clouds rolling in.

We arrived at the meeting in a downpour and I ran my soggy children into the barn housing the event. They were wearing shorts and shivering (the rain didn’t help with the hair problem either). The rest of the children with the got-it-all-together parents were clad in raincoats and boots and their hair looked great. I was glad to get the kids home with no signs of pneumonia or projectile vomiting due to the milk incident.

The next day was Farm Day at my daughter’s preschool. My wife had promised that we would bring a sheep and chickens to add to the menagerie at the event that had originally been schedule for one week earlier (when my wife was going to be home).

After no small amount of logistical wrangling, we added our Horned Dorset spring ram and two hens to the pen at the end of the animal line-up.

The excited preschoolers quickly gathered around the animals. They went down the line asking about the animals’ names — the Donkey was Mercury, there was a snapping turtle in a cage named Snappy and a goat named Goaty. They got to our ram and asked me about his name. He didn’t have a name so I asked my daughter (who was sporting a lopsided pig-pony-tail-braid-bun) what she wanted to name him.

She pondered for a moment. The crowd of teachers, parents and preschoolers present was silent in anticipation.

“Ummmm…Horney,” she announced.

We may be getting a letter from preschool.

We survived the rest of my wife’s absence mostly without incident. My son and I had just finished cleaning up massive piles of toys, laundry, food scraps, dishes and other miscellaneous items. She was due home any time and the house looked at least respectable (and approaching pretty good). The chores were done, Horney and the rest of the sheep were grazing peacefully in the pasture and a mockingbird was singing pleasantly outside.

My son asked, “Can we have a snack?”

“Maybe,” I said. “Let me check the time. We don’t want to spoil our dinner.”

“Daddy, I’ll check. Uhhh…Yep. It’s 48 o’ clock.”

“Oh, 48 o’clock, huh,” I said. “Sounds like snack time to me.”

I had already seen a number of ticks (more than usual) this spring, so I was expecting them, but I was astonished about how many there were crawling up my pant legs and arms. I would stop my task every 10 minutes or so and brush 6 or 8 of them off of my pant legs and another 3 or 4 off of my gloves and arms.

Ticks give me the creepy-crawlies (in fact I am heebie-jeebied out just writing about this). As it turns out, though, my fears are well founded. May is Lyme Disease Awareness month due to the increasing populations (and types) of irksome and dangerous ticks in Ohio.

“Ticks will be out looking for a blood meal,” said Glen Needham, an entomologist and tick expert with Ohio State University Extension, the outreach arm of the university’s College of Food, Agricultural, and Environmental Sciences. “We want people to understand there’s a risk of getting sick from tick bites when they are outdoors, and that there are things they can do to keep themselves, their families and their pets safe.”

Needham said Lyme disease is transmitted by the blacklegged deer tick that are found primarily in wooded areas. These troublesome ticks are becoming more common.

“Blacklegged deer ticks have been found in 56 Ohio counties and are now likely established in 26 of those counties, mostly east of I-71 where we have deciduous forest,” Needham said.

By G. R. Needham, The Ohio State University.

“Most people who get Lyme disease will get it from the nymphal or juvenile stage of the blacklegged deer tick, which is very small, the size of a poppy seed, and is active in spring and summer.

“This makes it harder to identify and to know you may have been exposed to the disease.”

Lyme disease causes flu-like symptoms such as fatigue, fever, headache, and muscle and joint aches. It also produces a distinctive large, circular red rash that looks like a bull’s-eye. If caught early, the disease can be successfully treated with antibiotics. Though not known to be fatal, the disease can progress to chronic arthritis, neurological symptoms and cardiac problems if left untreated.

In 2010, 43 cases of Lyme disease were reported in Ohio, according to the Ohio Department of Health. That number grew to 50 in 2011 and 67 in 2012.

So, take time to prevent run-ins with ticks this spring. I am going to go reapply some DEET. Yikes!

More information about ticks and Lyme disease can be found at http://go.osu.edu/UgV and http://www.cdc.gov/lyme/.

This protest being held in state capitals across the country later this month ironically illustrates yet another example of a lack of understanding of the basics of the food system. With a bit of homework, it is fairly easy to see that protesting Monsanto accomplishes nothing. Monsanto is simply providing the products farmers want. Farmers are simply supplying what consumers want. If protestors really want to make a difference, they need to stop buying the low-cost, convenient foods that society has demanded and continues to buy. These protestors would send a much clearer message if they stopped eating and drinking foods and drinks made with ingredients produced from genetically modified corn and soybeans from agribusiness companies. No matter how much they protest Monsanto, the company will continue to do its job: supply what farmers demand. And farmers will continue to do their job: supply what consumers demand.

Blogger Ellen Malloy wrote a great post on this subject after taking some time to learn about the food system and actually engaging in a civil conversation with folks at Monsanto. Consumers deserve the right to choose what they want to eat, but the time of those involved with the “March” would be much better served by gaining an understanding of the reality of the situation rather than protesting a company that is just doing its job.

Food choices all boil down to personal accountability. If you are concerned about your food, good — here are useful steps you can take to remedy the situation with the time spent not protesting Monsanto on May 25.

1. Take some time to sort through the propaganda. I do understand this is easier said than done, so here are some tips. Focus on science from credible sources. If the “donate” section is prominently displayed on the web site, it is probably not reliable. Scaring people encourages more donations than facts. Also, if it sounds too bad to be true, it probably is. If it really sounds scary, be skeptical in your research. Check the sources of the information. A common tactic of anti-GMO propaganda, even from normally reliable sources, is to have a very scary sounding headline followed by some almost as scary first few paragraphs. If the source is respectable, the more extreme sounding information at the beginning of the story is always qualified at the end with a source from the other side to “balance” the story or statements about how research shows [insert scary statement here] as one possible outcome. Remember, everything you eat has some risk associated with it. The best anyone can hope to do is to minimize the incredible risks of eating. Here are some helpful websites to get you started: findourcommonground.com, http://www.bestfoodfacts.org/, www.fooddialogues.com and corncommentary.com/. It also wouldn’t hurt to talk with a corn or soybean farmer who is using genetically modified crops from Monsanto or another company about why they are planted.

2. Grow your own food. In the time you could spend protesting, why not go to the local hardware store and get a porch planter or window box? Then stop at the local garden center for some seed of your favorite veggies. May 25 is after the frost-free date and would be a great time to plant some tomatoes, lettuce, peppers or whatever. This does not cost too much, does not take much time and you will get to enjoy some delicious fruits (or veggies) of your labor. You also may learn to appreciate the challenges of producing food on a larger scale.

3. Prepare an unprocessed meal procured from all local sources. This will take some time, but it is a vastly better use of multiple hours of dressing up in a hazmat suit on what could be a warm spring day or chanting repeatedly to someone who is not listening. Instead, go to a farmers market or search on the Internet for local farms with products you’d like to try. This will take extra time, extra money and extra transport fuel from your normal daily routine, but so does a protest. And, if you take this course of action, you will get a great meal, but you will also likely learn something about the seasonality of food, how food is produced and what modern agriculture (and modern agribusinesses including Monsanto and many others) bring to the table (literally).

Of course, this list could be much longer, as I believe that almost any productive activity (including a good nap) is a much more valuable use of time than protesting Monsanto. Chances are, that if you are reading this, though, you were not planning on attending the May 25 protest either. You may not even be confused about your food. But, you probably know someone who is. Maybe, instead of doing whatever you were doing instead of protesting Monsanto on May 25, you should take a couple of minutes to talk with them.

To amp up the debate, DeGeneres had Wayne Pacelle from the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS) on the April 24 show and vowed to donate $25,000 to HSUS if 25,000 people share the interview online.

In his blog, Pacelle had this to say about the experience on the show:

“In the interview, I called on concerned citizens, especially Tennesseans, to contact Governor Haslam to veto this legislation. But I also asked everyone to get engaged in our fight to protect our rights and to understand what’s happening with the industrialization of animal agriculture…

“At the end of the interview, Ellen surprised me by letting me know that if 25,000 people share the interview she conducted with me, then the HSUS will receive a $25,000 donation. I love the idea of more people seeing the interview and getting this additional support so we can redouble our efforts to expose cruelty and abuse.”

If the Tennessee law passes, it would be the seventh state to adopt some version of an “ag gag” law. The Tennessee bill requires anyone taking photographs or shooting video of animal abuse to turn unedited copies over to law.

The “ag gag” bills passed or proposed around the country either require anyone who videotapes, photographs or records incidents of animal cruelty to turn over the evidence to authorities or prohibit the making of undercover videos, photographs and sound recordings on farms. The already passed Iowa law (HF 589) makes it illegal for investigative journalists and activists to take jobs at animal facilities for the purpose of recording undercover footage.

There are obvious reasons for those in agriculture being supportive of cracking down on crackpots with ill intent and cameras traipsing through your farm. These laws clearly have good intentions for the protection of farmers, farm employees and the farm animals themselves.

But, it can also be argued that, in a time when there is unprecedented suspicion of agriculture, it is simply not good PR to support and encourage laws that have the perception (though not the reality) of reducing transparency of the production of food. These laws drum up a debate that provides an ideal platform for animal welfare activists to make a powerful argument for their cause against agriculture.

What do you think? Do the benefits of the laws outweigh the PR damage?

Either way, I am pretty sure we’d all be better off by gagging a few celebrities.

We had some extra help this year.

couple of weeks ago. They have since been slogged with several inches of rain that are keeping farmers out of fields in the northern half of the state.

While there were a few wet spots, the fields were in pretty good shape for planting.

We planted more than 2,000 Canaan fir trees and 100 white pine, 100 Concolor fir and 100 Scotch pine trees this year. In the past, we have typically hand planted all of our trees, using a six-inch auger to make the holes. This is a huge amount of physical labor (and I am not as young as I used to be).

This year, we planted the first 1,200 or so trees in the open field with a two-man riding planter in around 3 hours. If we are really pushing with hand planting we can plant around 200 an hour with a crew of 6 or 8 people. Obviously, the riding planter made a huge difference. The rest of the trees had to be planted by hand though, because we were replacing trees that died in the devastating drought the wiped out the vast majority of trees planted last year.

In the field we just planted, we seeded a Dutch white clover cover crop that suppresses weeds and is much easier to manage. The clover was seeded two years ago and has filled in nicely. Hopefully it pays off for easier weed

All of the Reese boys took turns running the auger to make the holes for the trees.

control this summer and fall. It also helps hold moisture in the soil.

As always, tree planting is a family activity and the children all get to help. My three-year-old son was a great assistant. He helped my dad trim the roots that were too long and put the trees in the holes after they were augered. He even put the roots down in the hole first, most of the time. We also got assistance from my daughter and niece.

Hopefully we can get more consistent moisture this year for the young trees to thrive after what was a very challenging 2012 growing season.

Hand planting trees is hard work.

In my nearly 14 years as a farm writer, I don’t know that I ever saw anything quite like it. The sun was out (at least some of the time), the fields were fit, and the temperatures were warm in early April and there was a large gathering of crop farmers NOT in their fields. Instead of scrambling to make last minute preparations for planting or doing any of the myriad of other farm activities so often addressed on a pleasant spring day, well over 200 farmers went to someone else’s farm. This somewhat baffling occurrence demonstrates the power of and interest in soil health at a field day on David Brandt’s Fairfield County farm.

Farmers are learning more about the massive armies at their disposal for improving farm profits and productivity by taking steps to work WITH Mother Nature instead of fighting her. These legions of productive and efficient laborers need no wages and they can be unbelievably productive. They simply require a bit more consideration and attention than agriculture has given them in the past, hence the extensive line up of farmer pick-ups at a farm that was not their own on a warm April day.

Most scientists agree that dedication to no-till (or at least minimizing tillage) and the use of cover crops are key components in taking steps to bolster the underground armies of earthworms, microbes, bacteria, fungi and gazillions of other earth dwellers into fighting form. Though he works with soil every day, USDA-NRCS resource soil scientist George Derringer cannot help but marvel at the incredible resources that often go unnoticed underfoot.

“There is too much harmony here for this to just happen,” he said. “There is an incredible natural balance of organisms in the soil.”

Dave Brandt's soil is full of life.

Plant roots leak materials that benefit the organisms around them in the soil that react with the surrounding organisms in what is nothing short of a miraculous ecosystem of productivity. The magnitude of this system of underground life has been at least partially understood for some time, but there are still volumes to learn. One thing that is certain, though, is that the disruption of tillage is not beneficial for this ecosystem and that plant root diversity is beneficial.

For he field day, Derringer slipped into his rubber boots and slogged into a soggy soil pit on Brandt’s farm that has been in long-term cover crops and no-till. While at first glance what may appear to be just a muddy hole in the ground is transformed into an impossible–to-comprehend ecosystem that serves as the basis for life as we know it through the trained eyes of Derringer. Signs of life in the soil of Brandt’s farm are everywhere, if you know where to look for them. Earthworm holes abound, the soil is rich and porous, and, maybe most intriguing, fine plant roots can be found nestled in the dirt 40 inches below the surface to capture water and nutrients. This reality is unfortunately absent in many of Ohio’s farm fields.

The impressive iron, technology and horsepower that is so prominent above the ground has always gotten quite a bit of press, but it simply cannot compare the massive power of the Creator Himself that is going on below the ground, whether we take the time to see it or not. Honestly, it is hard to wrap your mind around everything that is taking place in our soils, but Derringer suggests a sound and simple first step to unleashing Nature’s army for the benefit of your farm: “Dig a little, learn a lot.”

Social media, blogging, and websites offer opportunities to develop relationships based on trust and shared values regardless of the geography and demographics that have restricted good old face-to-face relationships that have facilitated this debate in the past. My wife and children recently visited an area farm to learn about embryo transfer in beef cattle and she shared what she learned in her blog. Now, people she has never even met have a way to connect with her and a fascinating component of agriculture. This effort did not take long. After the farm visit she spent maybe 45 minutes documenting the experience, added a few photos and posted it. The blog allows her to reach hundreds or thousands of others with a fact based, accurate message about current happenings on modern farms.

Each time a farmer takes a bit of extra time to share their own accurate, real life farm stories with others (regardless of media) it helps chip away at the gross imbalance of inaccurate agricultural information out there.

Here is a link to her blog http://www.reesefarmroots.com that may serve as an example of how you can build good old-fashioned relationships with others in a simple, honest way that shares your values and, more importantly, your farm story.

When soaring through the air at high speeds, jet pilots can experience spatial disorientation where their perception is different from reality. This can occur when they lose the horizon in poor visibility conditions. When this disorientation occurs, pilots need to rely on their instruments, and not their perception, to safely and successfully guide the plane. If left uncorrected with the help of instruments, the disoriented pilot could unknowingly end up in a diving turn known as the graveyard spiral, which (as the name suggests) does not end well for the pilot or the

Mark Loux gives a presentation at a Weed Resistance meeting.

plane.

In the flood of information overload in modern agriculture, sometimes farmers (and farm writers) need a reliable tool to help keep the proper perspective when facing information disorientation. Every agribusiness company out there has its own set of agronomists, consultants, research, test plots, miracle products and production benefits — then they have meetings, press releases, advertisements, websites, email, and social media to share them. And, for the most part, this is a positive thing that advances agriculture. But, when sifting through this mountain of products, data and information, how does a farmer keep his bearings?

This is one of the important roles of Ohio State University Extension.

Every seed company has data that shows their products out performing the competitors. How do you know what to believe? Consult Peter Thomison’s Extension hybrid research trials performed across the state.

What about that new herbicide claiming to solve weed resistance issues? Maybe it does, but Mark Loux can give you a research-based answer to help make your decision to give it a try or not.

Trying to stay on top of what production practices work best for your farm? Your seed company’s agronomist is a great resource, but it never hurts to cross-reference with the latest Extension research on the subject with the county educator.

Whether it is pasture management, sprayer nozzles, livestock nutrition concerns, plant pests, garden diseases, raspberry pruning, or just about anything else in agriculture, Extension has probably done at least some basic and helpful research that can help provide perspective to even the most information-disoriented farmer to make sure the operation continues to fly smoothly.

And, even if you do not personally use Extension-generated information for your farm decisions on a regular basis, the companies generating the data and research do not know that. In a way, Extension research can keep them honest, which is a real benefit for everyone involved.

With the Ohio budget being considered, I have had some conversations recently about the value of Extension to Ohio. The important role of Extension in sorting out the information overload out there is just one piece of the total value of the program, but it often overlooked.

We have so much agricultural information at our fingertips these days generated by private entities, why would we need any more that is publically funded?

If you don’t know the answer to that question, I’ve got this fantastic plane without an instrument panel I’d like to sell you.

Today is National Ag Day and, to be quite frank, this is not really that big of a deal to me, or my family. This morning, for example, I got up and went outside to feed the livestock hay and grain, let the chickens out and gathered eggs just like I do every other day.

I suspect most people actively involved in farming take similar action to commemorate Ag Day — nothing out of the ordinary. And, quite frankly, that is the problem today and every day. The purpose of National Ag Day, and the Agriculture Council of America (ACA) that started it, is to increase the public awareness of

Photo by Randall Reeder.

agriculture’s vital role in our society. The Agriculture Council of America and the National Ag Day program started in 1973.

The ACA believes that every American should:

• Understand how food and fiber products are produced.

• Appreciate the role agriculture plays in providing safe, abundant and affordable products.

• Value the essential role of agriculture in maintaining a strong economy.

• Acknowledge and consider career opportunities in the agriculture, food and fiber industry.

Really, these goals should already be accomplished, but we continue to run into the same old problem that the farmers producing food are so few far between that they can only develop relationships with relatively few people. Plus, farmers are so busy producing food that they really don’t have all that much time to spend educating others about it.

With this in mind, here are some ideas that we do at the Reese house to commemorate Ag Day all year long:

• Cook an all-Ohio meal, invite friends or neighbors over and tell them where their food came from.

• Arrange a visit to a local school to tell the students about what you do on the farm and relate it to wheat they are learning.

• Invite local people for a tour of your farm.

• Start a conversation at the meat or deli counter at the grocery store about the origins of the food (my wife really does this).

• Simply share stories about your farm through social media.

While National Ag Day may be just like most every other day on the farm, maybe we should treat most every other day like it is National Ag Day.