Reconditioning soybeans in storage poses problems

Reconditioning low-moisture soybeans in storage can damage the grain bin, cautions Ken Hellevang, the North Dakota State University Extension Service’s grain-drying expert. Warm, dry fall weather can result in soybeans being harvested well below the market moisture content of 13 per cent. Hellevang says he has heard reports of harvested bean moisture contents as low

Water cycles on the great plains have changed

A water crisis isn’t coming. It’s already here. And unless action is taken, Robert Sandford says the hydrological changes the Lake Winnipeg Basin is experiencing will bankrupt the province. “More extreme weather events are clearly already a reality,” said the author and adviser to the United Nations Water for Life Decade. Rising global temperatures have


Drought area widens in U.S., producers are frustrated

More than 65 per cent of the contiguous United States was under at least “moderate” drought as of Sept. 25, up from 64.82 per cent a week earlier, according to the Drought Monitor, a weekly compilation of data gathered by federal and academic scientists. The portion of the United States under “exceptional” drought — the



Wetter outlook for drought-struck Midwest

chicago / reuters Forecasts were for wetter weather in the U.S. Midwest this week, which will help the late-planted soybean crop but arrive too late to be of benefit to the drought-stressed corn crop, an agricultural meteorologist said. The region was expected to get half to one inch of rain Aug. 8 and 9. “Previously

Nebraska irrigators cut off

Reuters / More than 1,100 farmers in Nebraska have been ordered by the state’s Department of Natural Resources to halt irrigation of their crops because the rivers from which they draw water have dropped due to a worsening drought. The orders come as the central United States is enduring the worst drought since 1956, which



Expert says climate change may be driving floods

Climate data suggests weather patterns are changing and flooding on the Assiniboine River may become more frequent, says John Pomeroy, director of the University of Saskatchewan’s Centre for Hydrology. It’s not just the three consecutive years of heavy spring rains that concern the professor, who is also a Canada research chair in water resources and


Manitoba soils help NASA’s new gadgets take flight

From June 7 to July 17, the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) will fly two piloted aircraft several times a week over an area of mixed agricultural and forested land from Portage la Prairie to Carman in south-central Manitoba. These aircraft will carry instruments similar to those onboard a satellite that NASA will

How much flood protection is enough?

How much protection against flooding is enough? This question is often asked in the Red River basin. The Red River Basin Commission’s recent study, Long Term Flood Solutions for the Red River Basin (LTFS), found little consensus on the answer to this question. As a result, flood protection practices in the basin’s communities and municipalities