farming – Dustin Monke

Erratic weather brings ups, downs during harvest for area farmers

The only delay Lenci Sickler saw this week in his family’s spring wheat harvest was a combine that broke down Wednesday.

North of Dickinson, farmers like Sickler haven’t been affected much by the colder temperatures and rain showers that have hindered their counterparts south of town since Sunday.

“We’ve kind of been in a weird pocket here where we’re at,” Sickler said during a phone interview while driving a combine.

In rural Hettinger County between New England and Regent, Jon Stang hasn’t been so lucky.

“We’re shut down for the day,” Stang said.

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Southwest ND farmers slowly start spring planting

The spring planting season has begun in southwest North Dakota.

County extension agents and farmers south of Dickinson said fertilizing and seeding of fields is slowly starting throughout the area thanks to a mix of warm temperatures, dry conditions and general anxiousness.

“Right now, everybody is tickled,” said Duaine Marxen, Hettinger County’s extension agent.

But it isn’t full-speed-ahead quite yet, farmers said.

“We’re kind of piddling along here,” said Terry Kirschemann, who farms near Regent. “We need another week of temperatures before we can get into the heavier stuff.”

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Technology changing how grain elevator operates

RURAL TAYLOR — When he first began working for Southwest Grain several years ago, Kent Candrian said there were days when he would walk about a mile or more at work — all of it in a 20-square-foot area.

Manning toggles and switches on a large wall switchboard, Candrian would make sure grain hauled to the Boyle Terminal between Gladstone and Taylor made it to the proper bins.

These days, Candrian still does that job. Instead, he sits in front of a bank of computer screens and does the majority of his work with the click of a mouse.

“I do everything in one spot,” said Candrian, a longtime driveway attendant for the CHS Inc. elevator. “Basically, it eliminates walking.”

Like many elevators, Southwest Grain has converted to automated systems that speed up its daily unloading of farmers’ trucks, its own loading of rail cars and also makes the lives of its employees easier.

“In the last four or five years, technology has advanced to the point where it just makes more sense because of the volume we do anymore,” Southwest Grain General Manager Delane Thom said. “It gets rid of some employee fatigue. It makes their job much easier and you can manage the whole system from one spot.”

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Drowning in Spring: Large swatch of southwest cropland left unseeded due to wet season

MOTT — As much as 25 percent of cropland in parts of southwest North Dakota remains unseeded due to wet conditions that have lingered since late May.

Duaine Marxen, the North Dakota State University extension agent for Hettinger County, said Wednesday the cropland that is seeded is doing well, but unplanted ground will be difficult for farmers to even access without a significant drying-out period.

“In order to get that last 25 percent done, we’re going to need a week, a week and a half, and it’s gotta be warm and dry in order to get it in,” Marxen said.

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Farm accident claims the life of 19-year-old Mott man

A 19-year-old Mott man beloved by the community he grew up in died Monday while doing what he loved, family and friends said.

Mike Wehri was attempting to spray a field for an area farmer he worked for when the machine he was driving “hit something electrical,” Hettinger County Sheriff Sarah Warner said.

Wehri was a 2012 Mott-Regent High School graduate and recently completed his freshman year at North Dakota State University, where he was majoring in agronomy.
“All he wanted to do all his life was be a farmer,” said Judy Martin, Wehri’s grandmother who lives in Dickinson.

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