Rock County Soil Health Team makes recommendations for restarting flooded ground

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By Sirrina Martinez
Multimedia reporter

On July 3, the Rock County Soil Health Team met to share their experience and thoughts, and create recommendations for preventative planting and saving drowned-out fields in the region. According to the board, there is a considerable amount of drown-out or prevent plant in the region, and steps may be taken to prevent fallow syndrome and future weed pressure.
Justin Decker, who recently filled a new conservation agronomist position with the Pipestone County Soil & Water Conservation District, broke down the concepts behind prevent plant and fallow syndrome.
Prevent planting is defined as a failure to plant an insured crop with the proper equipment by the final planting date designated in the insurance policy's Special Provisions or during the late planting period, if applicable. Final planting dates and late planting periods vary by crop and by area.
"If fields that were planted to a typical cash crop have drown out due to the recent rains, they may be considered for prevent plant acres. That is where you plant an intentional crop (Cover Crop) out there so that you don't have just bare dirt or acres with nothing growing on them outside of weeds," Decker said. "If we would get another big rain event and there is no ground cover, erosion potentially gets to be a big problem. Another very likely issue is Fallow Syndrome on those acres. These are some of the issues on those bare acres and the benefits of having a cover crop on prevent plant acres."
The prevent plant program is not a typically available program, Decker said. Rather, it is sort of a rescue plan or a secondary program developed as a result of the effects of the heavy rains we have had. Prevent plant utilizes a cover crop on fields after the water has receded from acres that have been drowned-out, killing some or all of the cash crop. Most cover crops can be expected to be killed off during the following winter, Decker said, while some may be harvested in the fall for graze or feed. The key is having something growing in the field to prevent fallow syndrome,
"In a situation like this, if they wouldn't put anything on the drowned-out acres and there's nothing growing, you have nothing to help maintain healthy soil and soil microbial activity and you have nothing growing out there, in the following season on good farming acres you would see the effects of it," he said.
Some effects a producer might see include a lower yield. According to mentor members of the Rock County Soil Health Team, fallow syndrome can reduce yields by 15 plus bushels the following year. A key solution is keeping living roots in the ground, which can enable nitrogen and other nutrients to be captured at affected sites for future crop usage. Covering these areas with as much cover crop diversity as possible may offset potential impacts from previous herbicide applications. Cover crop diversity translates to a mix of cover crops, with each having a different benefit.
"A mix is always helpful just because each one does a different thing," he said. "Maybe it's compaction or water infiltration, especially in this case. Some are really good at that, others are really good at scavenging and hanging onto nutrients like commercial fertilizer or winter application stuff that has been done for the cash crop. That cover crop would utilize that and keep their dollars that they put out there from disappearing. It is going to be more beneficial to have a mix out there if it fits their (the producer's) plan."
Prevent plants may include annual forage that could be either chopped or cut for hay, or it would be a cover crop mixture that can be grazed or used to just keep a growing plant to prevent erosion, suppress weeds and feed the soil biology through the rest of the season, Decker said. Cover crop seedings will vary based on the producers goals and the potential herbicides used at the affected sites. Timing is everything when it comes to these affected areas, and timely planning and ordering of seed early is strongly recommended.
"Just getting it into the ground as soon as it is fit is a part of the importance of timing," he said. "These wet acres are across a big area and not just the state of Minnesota. I'm not saying the sky is falling but it is important to get orders in early and get a plan put together so that when the field is fit, the seed you want is here and you can get out there and get it planted."
The board outlined the following recommended steps for producers dealing with drowned-out fields: Step one is to check with your crop insurance agent before destroying anything, and step two is to check with your Farm Service Agency to see if they need to report anything for future options or opportunities. Step three is for a producer to check into their chemical program used at the site, and assess with their agronomist to come up with a suitable plan option for the site for follow-up crops or impacts of future plantings. Step four, is to consider herbicides that have been used, as awareness of potential restrictions on haying and grazing is imperative. It is important, the board said, to assess your goals and determine if you are looking for weed suppression, grazing, forage harvesting and biology/compaction. Once goals have been assessed, the next steps can be determined.
Currently, there are some potential programs available to assist producers, Decker said.
"Right now you can apply for cost share potentially through private entities," he said. "SWCD's current funding has been used up but there is more coming, but that won't be eligible for anything being done this summer. There are private entities that are looking for acres to tie in with some of the carbon market stuff and they are offering cost-share dollars for some of the cover crop acres as well."
Anyone interested in learning more about potential programs should contact their Natural Resources Conservation Office, or the SWCD for more information.

Local organizations team up to stock five Jackson County lakes with 17,000 fish

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By Dan Condon

Several lakes dotting the rolling farm ground of Jackson County are well stocked with fish thanks to a couple groups and nearly $20,000.
Lakefield area farmer Albert Henning, president of the Jackson County Conservation League, said the organization was notified by the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources that it could put some fish in area lakes.
"Mostly yellow perch and black crappies," Henning said. "They'd take care of the walleyes. The board decided if we could get them, we'd put them in."
The JCCL set aside $12,000 to purchase fish from Bosek Fisheries, then got a boost from another local group.
The Heron Lake Young Men's Club caught wind of the project and decided to pitch in $5,000.
"We want to thank the Heron Lake Men's Club for wanting to be a part of it," Henning said. "We had $17,000 to buy the fish."
Henning said the DNR helped in deciding where the fish would be distributed and how many would go in each lake.
"We sat down with a representative from the DNR that does fish counting in lakes," he said. "We came up with a plan to put fish in Lake Flaherty, Clear Lake, Loon Lake, Lake Independence and Timber Lake by Wilder."
Flaherty got the most fish, with an estimated 5,000 perch added earlier this year. Clear and Loon lakes each got 2,000 yellow perch and 2,000 black crappie, while Timber got 1,000 of each. Independence Lake had 2,000 black crappie added.
"The DNR said they could handle this amount of fish," Henning said. "They recommended that's what we put in there."
It's hoped the new fish fare better than some that are already in the lakes.
"We were told by the DNR we've had some fish, especially crappies, almost mutated," Henning said. "Some they tested in Boot Lake, they were dwarfs. They were 8 years old, and they weren't growing."
Inspiration didn't come from too far away.
"We looked at putting in a new strain of fish that they put in Lake Sarah," he said. "They've had really good luck with yellow perch and black crappies. They've had phenomenal growth spurts. That's what we're looking for. We wanted to get numbers up so we've got good prospects."
The fish project is one of several for the JCCL.
The group is putting up new lighting by the fishing dock on Clear Lake and last year put lights on boat landings. Restoration of Loon Lake could be in the future. Members have also donated to local fire departments and ambulance crews.
"People turn in requests for donations," Henning said. "As a board, we go over them."
To raise money, a fundraising letter was sent out recently.
"If people want to be a part of the project and donate money to the JCCL, this is where their money is being spent on," Henning said.
The JCCL also hosts a fundraiser the second Thursday of each month, hosting bingo at the Lakefield Veterans of Foreign Wars Hall at 6 p.m.
"We've had pretty good success with that the last number of months," Henning said. "We plan on keeping it up."

Princess Kay of the Milky Way

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By Sirrina Martinez

Katelyn Welgraven, of rural Pipestone County, will be competing for the 2024 title of Princess Kay of the Milky Way. Growing up on the dairy farm started by her grandfather, Welgraven, who is the daughter of Keith and Jeanna Welgraven, never expected to make it this far.
"I wanted to compete last year but I couldn't because I had a play that I was in the same weekend as the May event," she said. "I was never fully sure if I was going to compete in it, but this year I knew I really wanted to. So we went to the May event and I prepped everything. I never had my hopes up too high because I'm not really great at giving speeches in my opinion. So when it was announced that I was a finalist, I started crying because I was so happy. I just couldn't believe I was a finalist for Princess Kay. It was just something I figured I'd go back again and compete next year, but now I have this incredible opportunity to work with this amazing group of girls and to get to know them better and have a great time."
To qualify for the event that took place in May in Minneapolis, Welgraven needed to be a current Dairy Princess in her own county. Once she met that qualification, she was able to choose to either fully compete, practice or go for the session in Minneapolis. At that event, she said, contestants went through three rounds of judging that include a mock media interview, a speech that they were given a topic to plan on in advance and a professional interview. Contestants were then scored and finalists were selected.
This is Welgraven's third year holding the title of Dairy Princess for Pipestone County, and she has held this title since she was about 17-years-old, she said. She has also held the title of ambassador for multiple years. This year, the title of ambassador went to JordynBre Schulze, 12, of Holland.
Like other Dairy Princesses, Welgraven has spent time in her community educating and promoting the dairy industry by attending parades, community ice cream socials, dairy-based story reading for children and other educational activities. One of her favorite activities is attending parades and sharing information with her community.
"We go around to parades and get our cheese that is donated by Babybel and it's amazing," she said. "People have started to recognize that that's what we throw, and they'll immediately get up, all the adults, the kids, even the older people will get up and stand by their chairs ready to catch cheese  and they get excited. That's the best thing to see at a parade."
Welgraven, who is set to start her sophomore year at the University of South Dakota, is currently pursuing a degree in elementary education and a minor in deaf education. Her hope, she said, is to work in a smaller school.
"I'm not exactly sure which grade I want to teach yet," she said. "For my minor, that is something that I've always been interested in. When I found out our university had it I wanted to add it as a minor and we will just see where life takes me with that. Even if I just get an opportunity to teach sign language in school."
Being out in the community promoting the industry is a great experience, she said. "It's just a nice way to get dairy out there and then have conversations with everybody that comes," she said. "We've had people come up to us and say 'I was a former Dairy Princess,' and you have little kids learn about the dairy industry at such a young age and get the right information right away."
In July, Welgraven will attend another event that prepares finalists for the competition and the coronation event on August 21, the evening before the start of the state fair. If crowned Princess Kay, Welgraven will travel to various counties in the state, visiting classrooms, county fairs and the next Minnesota State Fair.
Having the chance to compete has been an amazing experience for Welgraven.
"I absolutely love it and I never thought I would get this opportunity," she said. "It never crossed my mind that I would get this far. When I was younger my dad asked if I would ever want to be the dairy princess and I would say 'No dad, I'm not a princess.' As I got older and I started doing it, I loved it. I was never sure if I would compete for Princess Kay but I did and I got to be a finalist and I still can't believe it."

Ehlers, Milbrath see success as dairy handlers

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The FFA dairy cattle handlers activity is unlike any other.
MacKenzie Ehlers and Shelby Milbrath of the Heron Lake Okabena FFA Chapter know that firsthand.
The two took part in the activity at the region level in early April and both qualified for state-level competition later that month.
Through participation in the dairy cattle handlers activity, students learn to work with others in a way that is cooperative, courteous and helpful, while demonstrating effective dairy handling skills.
Students in this activity present animals for evaluation as part of the dairy cattle management and evaluation career development event. Handlers earn recognition for their ability to set up their assigned animal to its best advantage, maintain the animal in its most advantageous post, exhibit effective restraint and move the animal as requested by the event ringmaster.
As Ehlers and Milbrath discovered, the keys to success in this activity are poise, calmness and a positive attitude.

Keeping the old ways alive: Branding with the Jones family

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By Sirrina Martinez

Every spring, the family of Alan and Kelly Jones gathers together at their rural Pipestone County farm with friends and area 4-H kids to carry on the approximately 20-year-long tradition of branding cattle. The Jones' have approximately 100 head that they work with, in addition to helping a family friend in the Flandreau area who still practices the tradition and showed them how to do it, Al said.
"A good friend of mine Craig Severtson from Flandreau has done it for years," he said. "He invited me to watch and now we go up to Clear Lake and Flandreau and do about 500 head for them. We just got into it and we liked it."
Branding is a custom that has been around for thousands of years. According to The Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, hot iron branding of cattle as a form of owner identification was first recorded in Egyptian tombs in 2700 B.C. In the Western Hemisphere of the world, the first recorded brands were in the shape of the Three Latin Crosses of Herman Cortez who landed in Mexico in the year 1519. The practice is considered a common form of permanent identification for cattle, and is practiced world-wide. However, locally, the Jones family is one of very few cattle ranchers that still brand their livestock today.
For the Jones family, their yearly tradition is an all day event that starts in the morning and ends in the afternoon with a meal. Kelly brings food and refreshments out for lunch while the crew works to process the cattle as quickly as possible. Almost everyone shows up wearing a blue t-shirt in honor of Tanya Fey, the daughter of Al and Kelly who passed away in 2021 as the result of a horse accident. The group typically includes 20-30 people, many of them young 4-H kids who have never watched the practice. Some of the kids appear surprised when witnessing it for the first time, Jones said.
"Oh it's big eyes," he said. "They've never seen it before."
Although the family has seven pastures that they typically move their portable pen to every year, this year they are going to do their branding in one pasture before releasing the cattle to the other six, Jones said.
"We're trying something different this year," he said. "We go to seven pastures so we have to set up seven different times and that's a lot of work. So now we are going to do it all at our home pasture once, and then next weekend we will haul the cows and calves to the pastures."
Typically, there are three people on horse back in the pen roping the calves and dragging them to two lines where helpers are waiting to throw a north fork over the calves' head and stretch them out, brand them, castrate the male calves and give all of them necessary shots including a tetanus shot.
"I usually let two to three people at a time otherwise it gets to be too much," he said. "We have two lines that we drag to. You heel the calf and someone comes through and throws a north fork on their head and it's hooked to a tire. You pull it tight and you spin your horse and the calf is right there. Sometimes they miss with that and then the rodeo's on trying to catch it."
The entire process takes about five minutes per calf, Jones said. After they are done being branded, the cattle will be watched for about a week to make sure they are healing up properly before they are taken out to the other pastures.
"We watch them for about a week," he said. "After you brand them there is some stress on them and stuff and that way we can watch them a little closer and then we can haul them off."
Having his family, and especially his grandchildren, participate in the family tradition is pleasing, Jones said.
"We just enjoy doing it," he said. "I have my grandkids be the first ones to go in. It's great to just see everybody there. It's a great day.

Getting cattle show ready
Lots of behind-the-scenes advance work precedes fair-time laurels

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By Taryn Lessman

Reese Anderson knows what it's like to spend the summer at the fairgrounds.
Between the Jackson County Fair and the Minnesota State Fair, over the past several years, the Jackson high school student has racked up a number of hours showing cattle.
Last year at the Jackson County Fair, Anderson exhibited the champion 4-H breeding heifer. She placed fifth at the Minnesota State Fair's 4-H beef show.
Being involved with livestock in 4-H is a family tradition for Anderson, who said her siblings also showed and also enjoyed success at both the county fair and the state fair.
The process of getting cattle show ready starts long before the fair, Anderson said. In the spring, show cattle need to be put on the right diet and start getting trained to be used to the show process.
First, the cattle need to get used to the person showing them and to get used to the environment they are in, Anderson said. Then, they need to be halter broken. Halter breaking is a multi-step process Anderson said includes teaching the calves how to walk on the halter, how to stand when haltered and how to behave during a show. In order to teach the calves how to behave during shows, Anderson leads them and teaches them how to stand correctly.
Anderson said it is important to spend time daily practicing with the cattle so they can build trust and get used to the routine.

Maker's Way Fiber Mill

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By Sirrina Martinez

Since 2021, the Maker's Way Fiber Mill in Brandon, S.D. has been serving the tri-state area and beyond, processing fiber from a variety of animals, including alpaca, llama and sheep. Some of their customer orders come from as far as Georgia, California, Montana and Idaho. Elizabeth Davelaar, who co-owns the mill with her mother and sister, Kari Davelaar and Erin Van Nieuwenhuyzen, said that the idea to start the mill came from a personal need to find a way to process her own materials.
"We started the mill because I couldn't find any local yarn in the area that I could use with the plants I was foraging and using for dye," she said. "This led me to a mill in North Dakota and I went to intern for a day. From there, I got my mom, Kari and my sister, Erin, involved. We purchased the equipment online through Facebook Marketplace and officially opened the mill in October of 2021."
The inspiration for the mill's name, Davelaar said, came from a two-fold idea.
"First, we do about 60% custom processing for people," she said. "We love to work with people to create the products that they can use or sell themselves. We make it the 'makers way.' The second part is that we are all Christians, and we believe in using natural fibers and honoring God in how we operate and make our products."
Around 60% of the mill's processing efforts consists of custom processing for farmers, and the remaining 40% of processing is done for the creation of the mill's own products to sell, Davelaar said.
At a high level view, processing animal fibers has a few steps. First, farmers will shear their animal, remove any fecal matter and vegetation that is stuck to the fiber and then send it to the mill. There, it is washed in hot water with a scouring detergent before being air dried. From there, it goes through a picker and carder, which opens up the fiber and brushes it into a more usable product. Next, all the fibers are combed into the same direction, Davelaar said, when it is run through a pin drafter. Finally, the fiber is spun into single threads and those threads are then plied into yarn.
The biggest factors that the mill looks for to identify quality wool or fiber for processing into yarn is staple length, Davelaar said. The staple length needs to be 3.5" or more. Other signs of quality fiber are a lack of "weak spots" in the fiber, and how fine it is. There are many factors, but these are the three biggest.
There are a few things that customers should consider before bringing their fiber to the mill, Davelaar said.
"We recommend that fiber is skirted well before it is brought to us," she said. "This means that all manure and vegetation is removed. Not only will this save customers money in the long run, but it also makes the best products. A good rule of thumb is if you don't want it in your finished fiber, don't send it to the mill. We do our best with every fleece we are sent, but our equipment won't get all of the vegetation out of the fiber."
Farmers who are interested in sending their products to the Way Maker's Fiber Mill should keep in mind that their lead time for processing can run eight months to a year, which is standard for the industry, Davelaar said. At this time they are only accepting a small number of new clients for the upcoming year.
Aside from selling their own processed yarn, the mill sells a variety of items on their website including knit hats, felted insoles, dried marigolds for natural product dying, felt coasters, eco-friendly dryer balls, bird nest starters and more.