Four individuals who have made significant contributions to agriculture and Farm Bureau were honored by the Ohio Farm Bureau Federation Dec. 9 in Columbus at the 103rd annual meeting of Ohio Farm Bureau.
The 2021 Distinguished Service Award recipients are Dr. Tony Forshey of Licking County, Belinda Jones of Franklin County, Randy Leis of Montgomery County and Keith Stimpert of Franklin County. Each honoree was recognized for lifetime achievements that benefited Ohio’s farming community.
Dr. Tony Forshey
Throughout his 27 years as a practicing veterinarian, Tony Forshey made invaluable contributions to the betterment of the swine industry. He focused on herd health and disease prevention, rather than simply treating sick animals. He was so well respected in his profession that he was named Ohio’s state veterinarian and chief of the Division of Animal Health for the Ohio Department of Agriculture. Through his leadership in that position, Forshey, in partnership with Ohio Farm Bureau, helped create the Ohio Livestock Care Standards Board and was a charter member.… Continue reading
Move over pumpkin spice latte, it is egg nog time! Hallmark Christmas movies have arrived, so it is time for a new drink of the season. Egg nog is it!
Breaking news on the latte scene is that egg nog Latte is being replaced on menus across the country with some kind of sugar cookie almond milk (nut fluid) concoction. The horror of it all! If egg nog latte is one of your favorites, have no fear, look below for a recipe you can make. It embraces authentic dairy and egg products to create your own egg nog coffee beverage at home. Destined to be spectacular this holiday season!
Americans are passionate about their egg nog. There appears to be no middle ground; you either stalk the dairy case until it arrives on the shelf or you avoid it like COVID. The Detwiler house was split with Luke drinking egg nog by the carton and Jake ecstatic not to get even a drop.… Continue reading
Ohio corn and soybean harvests crawled along last week and were hampered by cold, wet soil that wouldn’t support harvest equipment, according to Cheryl Turner, State Statistician, USDA NASS, Ohio Field Office. The average temperature for the week was 34.2 degrees Fahrenheit, 4.9 degrees below normal. The statewide average precipitation was 0.42 inches, 0.44 inches below normal. There were 3.6 days suitable for fieldwork for the week ending November 28.
Ohio farmers were wrapping up harvest season. Some farmers completed harvest while others still had some corn and soybeans needing to be harvested. Corn and soybean harvest were both behind last year and the 5-year average.
Reports will be issued monthly during the winter season and will be available at www.nass.usda.gov.
November 23, 2021 -- Remaining cold today, but not quite as cold as yesterday. Winds will start to move to the south this afternoon and that will set us up for a warmer Wednesday. Temps will actually be above normal tomorrow. We should see full sunshine today and start with full sun tomorrow, but clouds increase late tomorrow and tomorrow night...
November 15, 2021 -- Our next front will be tracking across MI and IN Wednesday, but likely will not put any moisture into Ohio until late Wednesday afternoon when showers move into NW parts of the state...
November 12, 2021 -- Our cold front is through the state this morning, and we should put together a mostly rain free day. In this dry slot, we see a mix of clouds and sun...
On October 23, the members of the Northwestern FFA Chapter gathered at The New Pittsburg Park for the annual Fall FFA meeting. To kick off the meeting, members were able to participate in some recreational activities. This included kick ball, life size janga, card games, corn hole, and dancing. Following recreation members were able to enjoy a meal with their classmates. Each class was assigned a certain food to bring. Then the meeting began. The meeting was called to order by President Jadeyn Berry. Then, the officers performed opening ceremonies and minutes of the previous meeting were read by the Secretary Ava Stoller. Treasurer’s Report was given by Zoey Dudte and the Reporter’s Report was given by Hanna Wilson. Kade Tegtmeier moved to accept all officer reports. Members then broke out into their assigned committees. The commitees are; Ag in the Classroom, Earnings and Savings, Community Service, Public Relations, Skills/CDE, Leadership, Recreation, Middle School Engagement, and High School Engagement.… Continue reading
November 2, 2021 -- No change in near term forecast this morning. We are precipitation free through the next 10 days. However, we remain very chilly in the short term, for most of the rest of this week...
November 1, 2021 -- Our forecast is rain free over the next 10 days. However, before we get too excited, we need to remind everyone that we are significantly colder for this week too,...
By John Schoenhals, Pioneer Field Agronomist, Northern Ohio
Tar spot is a relatively new corn disease for Ohio, as well as the rest of the United States. It is caused by a fungus and appears on corn leaves (as well as husks under severe cases) as small, raised black bumps that cannot be rubbed off.
John Schoenhals, Pioneer Field Agronomist in northern Ohio
Tar spot has historically been present in corn-growing regions of Mexico and Central/South America. These areas are often at higher elevations, with a similar climate to much of Ohio and the Midwest Corn Belt. Tar spot was found in the U.S. for the first time in 2015 in Illinois and Indiana. The disease was first found in Ohio in 2018, and has been found in much of the state in 2021.
Periods of moderate temperatures (60-75 degrees F), high humidity (above 85%), and leaf wetness exceeding 7 hours (heavy dews, foggy mornings, frequent rainfall) present the most ideal environment for disease development.… Continue reading
Each year the Northwestern FFA holds an officer retreat to welcome their new officers. This allows them to bond with the past officers and plan the year out together prior to the school year starting. This year’s officer retreat was a three day event packed full of the officer team bonding and getting to know each other, planning the school year out, and having fun to start the year off! Day one started with all of the officers meeting up and preparing for Adopt A Highway. Each year the officer team picks up garbage on State Route 302. Officers split into two groups with one advisor in each group, all of the trash is picked up and put into garbage bags. Following our Adopt A Highway activity, the officers began to prepare for the year, starting with personal goals. After personal goals were set a team activity took place. The team activity broke officers into three groups.… Continue reading
Sometimes, life just seems to work out. Sometimes, though, it doesn’t.
It is during those more challenging times where a program like LifeWorks can be very valuable.
The confidential program being offered by Farm Credit Mid-America is available free of charge to employees and customers. It is designed to help participants:
Resolve personal and emotional difficulties
Address marital and relationship issues
Strengthen relationships and improve communication
Deal with stress, anxiety and depression
Understand grief and bereavement
Find solutions for work-related issues
Work towards life goals
Find resources for family in the community
Address alcohol and drug misuse
Access crisis and trauma support
Find solutions relating to legal or financial issues
Obtain support for child/elder care.
“Our LifeWorks Resource Program is something we launched in March of 2020 for our employees and also our customers. It is available at no cost to customers across our 4-state territory of Ohio, Indiana, Kentucky and Tennessee,” said Tara Durbin, senior vice president of agricultural lending for Farm Credit Mid-America.… Continue reading
The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) announced the details of the Pandemic Market Volatility Assistance Program as part of meetings with farmers and a tour of farms with Senator Leahy.
In June, USDA committed to providing additional pandemic assistance for dairy farmers in an exchange at a hearing with Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Leahy. Through the program, USDA will provide about $350 million in pandemic assistance payments to dairy farmers who received a lower value for their products due to market abnormalities caused by the pandemic. The assistance is part of a larger package including permanent improvements to the Dairy Margin Coverage safety net program.
“The Pandemic Market Volatility Assistance Program is another component of our ongoing effort to get aid to producers who have been left behind and build on our progress towards economic recovery,” said Tom Vilsack, Agriculture Secretary. “Family dairy farmers have been battered by the pandemic, trade issues and unpredictable weather and are the life-blood of many rural communities throughout Vermont, the Northeast and many other regions.… Continue reading
Believe it or not, growing microgreens is the easy part.
This was one of the first lessons learned by Ty Lilly after he started researching these tiny powerhouses for nutritionand flavor after being laid off from a lucrative career in software. Rather than search for another job he decided to create his own. Along with business and life partner Martha Channell, who had also recently lost her job at a soil testing lab, they decided — after extensive research — to jump into growing microgreens full time in 2019 as Seven Acre Farm.
They live on a unique, 7-acre wooded property in Dublin on the northwest side of Columbus in Franklin County anddecided to harness the advantages of their location for growing and delivering fresh, vegan microgreens within hours ofharvesting. Despite never really hearing of microgreens before, they discovered emerging and quickly growing demandfor these vegetable greens harvested just after the cotyledon leaves develop. Upscale chefs love including microgreens in salads and as flavorful additions to their creations, and more consumers are seeking them out for adding color, flavor,and nutrition to their meals at home.… Continue reading
A heavy downpour would be a disaster for most field days. But, the muddy mess was the perfect opportunity for Michael Ott, CEO of Rantizo, to show off how a new system of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) works together to spray pesticides and seed crops.
“If you needed to spray today, you couldn’t with a ground rig,” Ott says during a media day at the company proving grounds near Iowa City, Iowa. “But, our drone systems can do it. People are realizing a drone can treat areas that tractors or self-propelled sprayers are not suitable for.”
Rantizo, which means “to sprinkle” in Greek, has spread its wings recently by developing technology and equipment so multiple UAVs can work together to spray or seed fields efficiently. In this case, up to three drones called “a swarm” can apply herbicides, fungicides, insecticides, nutrients and cover-crop seeds.
Visit https://www.dtnpf.com/… to read a 2019 DTN/Progressive Farmer story on the tech startup company.
On July 13th, the 2021-2022 West Holmes officer team met at the high school to kick off the annual officer retreat. The team wrote one funny, one ffa, and one serious questions on notecards to answer later at the campfire. Then they made up a menu and list of items needed for meals the next two days. They then went to Rodhes and got the supplies they needed. After returning they met with former National FFA president Kolesen McCoy for their first session. In their first session they talked about how to focus on things in the chapter and the responsibilities within them. They talked about how people think things go, even though we know what is really happening behind the scenes like a duck swimming from the outside. Everything looks fine, but underneath they could be struggling. After the first session they loaded everything up and headed to Lake Buckhorn.… Continue reading
It is hot, tiresome and, in some cases, physically impossible to properly scout every acre of cropland to collect the necessary, timely information to make very expensive decisions in the high stakes pursuit of agricultural profitability. Especially as farms increase in size, it is simply not feasible to scout every acre in a timely fashion.
With this in mind, Molly Caren Ag Center (the home of the Farm Science Review) has teamed up with Integrated Ag Services to explore the possibilities, applications and, ultimately, the return on investment of Taranis scouting equipment and drone technology combined with artificial intelligence to scout more acres more efficiently.
“With the drone scouting we are doing multiple passes across some of the fields to look for emergence issues and weeds we need to scout for to make a decision on. We have a 200-acre field here that we have broken up into two different treatments.… Continue reading
Poison hemlock and Canada thistle are making unwelcome appearances across Ohio, and that raises the need to talk about Ohio’s noxious weeds law. The law provides mechanisms for dealing with noxious weeds — those weeds that can cause harm to humans, animals, and ecosystems. Location matters when we talk about noxious weeds. That’s because Ohio law provides different procedures for dealing with noxious weeds depending upon where we find the weeds. The law addresses managing the weeds on Ohio’s noxious weeds list in these four locations:
Along roadways and railroads
Along partition fence rows
On private land beyond the fence row
On park lands.
Along roadways and railroads
The first window already closed for mandatory mowing of noxious weeds along county and township roads. Ohio law requires counties, townships, and municipalities to destroy all noxious weeds, brush, briers, burrs, and vines growing along roads and streets.… Continue reading
The Ohio Forage and Grasslands Council cordially invites you to join forage and livestock enthusiasts from across the state for their 2021 Summer Forage Field Days. Anyone with an interest in pasture management, hay production, or livestock systems is welcome to attend one or all of the field days planned as drive-it-yourself day tours in Central Ohio.
The series will begin on June 25, 2021, in Crawford County. Finishing sheep, goats, and cattle on forage will be the topic of this field day and will include a stop on storing wet forages. This program will feature a tour in the morning of a grazing goat operation at H&M Family Farm with Mike and Angie Hall. Guests Bob Hendershot, John Berger, and Mark Sulc will discuss finishing sheep, goats, and steers on forage. After lunch, we will travel to a second farm to view alternative forage storage methods. At this stop, we discuss baleage and methods to prevent barn fires.… Continue reading
The National FFA Organization announced that they would hold their annual in-person convention this fall in the city of Indianapolis. The event, which traditionally brings more than 65,000 attendees, will take place Oct. 27-30.
Expected in-person events during the convention include the American FFA Degree Ceremony; Career Success Tours; competitive events; delegate business sessions; entertainment; the National FFA Expo and shopping mall; general sessions; student and teacher workshops; and the National Days of Service.
In addition to the in-person event, the organization will also offer a virtual program, including student and teacher workshops, the virtual FFA Blue Room, National Days of Service and the streaming of general sessions.
“We are excited to come back to the great city of Indianapolis that has been such a gracious host to us in years past,” said Mandy Hazlett, associate director of convention and events at the National FFA Organization. “We know convention will look a bit different this year, but we are excited to offer this opportunity to our student members once again.” … Continue reading
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