Sirrina Martinez
Multimedia reporter
smartinez@pipestonestar.com

Don’t let the name Doom Seeds fool you, this company is not selling anything that will usher in the apocalypse anytime soon.

After graduating from the University of Nebraska in 2017 with a degree in agronomy, Chris Reagan, a partner in Doom Seeds, moved to the area that is home to his wife, Sara, and started helping at the company which was founded by his father-in-law, Kevin Doom, in the late 80s. Today, Reagan and his brother-in-law, Steven Doom, operate the business that is located on the family farm just South of Canby on Highway 75 in Yellow Medicine County.
The company has carried seeds from different producers over the years, Reagan said, and for a long time it was a Dekalb Asgrow dealer. Today, they sell Beck’s Hybrid seeds.

Reagan and his brother-in-law share duties, he said, ranging from  salesman to logistics. The majority of their customers are in the Canby area, but they do have people they serve outside of that area.
“We do have a spread between Balaton and Clarkfield to the north and out to east to Porter but not much west of Canby,” Reagan said.

Corn and soybean sales is a big part of their services, Reagan said, and as a farm dealer rather than a bigger retailer, having a smaller operation allows them to focus heavily on customer service.
“We try to focus mostly on customer service as much as we can,” he said. “Delivering to the customer instead of making them come pick it up from us. Throughout the growing season if there are any issues we try to figure out the problems, offer agronomy advice. We try to give them everything they need.

Doom Seeds also offers seed treatment, Reagan said.

“We treat seed too if a customer has a specific seed treatment that he wants put on we can do that too,” he said. “We have a treater and a bulk system for beans.”

The industry is seeing changes in technology that make more options available to growers, Reagan said.

“There’s definitely more traits for corn,” he said. “I think the newest ones are call Bore Seed and SmartStax Pro. There is more root worm and insect protection. There are also a few more spray technologies with beans. There’s more coming in a year or two if they get approved. Seed treatments are getting a little bit better for insecticides, fungicides and biologicals. Everybody wants to plant as early as possible and sometimes the soil may not be not quite warm enough so that helps with germination and protecting the seedling before it gets out of the ground.”

Although not a major concern in this area as of now, growers should keep an eye on the rise of root worm cases, Reagan said, and tart spots which has been observed in states south of Minnesota.

“Root worm populations have been up, probably for the last two or maybe three years,” he said. “So guys have been switching more to fully traited corn instead of Double Pro’s above ground protection. We’ve seen a shift more toward SmartStax Pro’s and Bore Seeds to try to combat the root worm issues. Tar spots (Rhytisma acerinum) is something to be on guy’s minds. I  don’t think it is as big of a problem in our area yet but it’s definitely coming. Iowa and Illinois, they’ve been dealing with it for a long time it is just a really nasty fungal disease that can decimate things if you’re not treating it or planting varieties of corn that are tolerant.”

As dealers, Doom Seeds has had the opportunity to develop an eye for spotting potential problems with seed, soil and established crops, which allows them to further serve their customers.

“When you’re a dealer you get to look at a lot more acres,” he said. “You know, one farmer might farm 800 acres and that’s the only acres he looks at. When you’re going out and looking at other guy’s stuff you see different things and you have to put it in your knowledge bank.”

With the potential for a dry spring, Reagan encourages producers to look at hybrid seed that is more water efficient, and to check out the Beck’s Hybrids seed brand.

“I would encourage people to check out Beck’s hybrid, they offer a lot and they are a unique company,” he said. “They are a family owned company, the biggest one in the U.S., family owned anyway. They sell genetics from the big three corn companies. There’s a lot of different options as far as trait packages and genetics and stuff like that. They have a lot of good programs that at first might seem a little too good to be true but once you become a Beck’s customer and you learn more about the company, a lot of our customers quickly realize that they can do a lot of stuff that other companies who have share holders cannot do.”

For anyone looking to get in touch with Reagan and the rest of the Doom’s Seeds crew, they can stop by the shop on Highway 75 or find their contact information on Google.

Kyle Kuphal | Staff reporter
kkuphal@pipestonestar.com

Richard and Kathy Kallemeyn, of rural Tyler, typically eat around five gallons of honey a year. That might seem like a lot of honey, but it’s a mere drop in the bucket compared to what is produced by the bees in their 50 hives.

They keep most of their hives on Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) land. The CRP program encourages farmers and landowners to convert highly erodible and other environmentally sensitive acreage to vegetative cover such as native grasses, trees and riparian buffers, according to the United States Department of Agriculture. Those characteristics make it a desirable place for pollinators such as bees. The CRP land also tends to provide a buffer from pesticides.

Richard said the population of each hive varies. After winter, there might be as few as 10,000 bees per hive and during the peak of their populations in the middle of summer, each hive might have as many as 60,000 bees. With 50 hives, that would be up to three million bees in all.

Richard said the amount of honey produced also varies. Some hives produce just enough for the bees and others produce up to 100 pounds beyond that. He said the average is around 75 pounds per hive.

“They’re so efficient that they make excess,” he said. “They’re hard working little bugs.”

In 2024, the Kallemeyns said, their bees produced around 1,200 to 1,500 pounds of honey.

The Kallemeyns harvest the honey in July or August. Richard said they use an extractor that uses centrifugal force to remove the honey from the comb. The honey is then poured through a strainer to remove any wax chunks. The Kallemeyns then bottle it and put labels on the bottles that say “R K Honey.”

The Kallemeyns sell their honey at the Pipestone Farmers Market, Water Tower Festival in Pipestone and events in Tracy. They also sell it to repeat customers and by word of mouth. They offer bottles ranging from 8 ounces to quarts at varying prices.

Kathy said she helps with the labeling and other aspects of the process, but leaves the beekeeping to Richard due to a couple incidents when working with the hives, including being chased by bees.

“I had a whole swarm chase me down the field,” she said. “I know I had at least 10 stings that day.”
Richard has been stung so many times, that Kathy said he doesn’t even swell up anymore.

“He comes in the house at times and says he got stung and I can’t even tell you where he got stung anymore because he doesn’t swell up or anything anymore,” Kathy said.

Richard said he doesn’t even bother to wear a beekeeping suit most of the time because it gets too warm and the gloves make it difficult to work with the frames in the hives.

He said his beekeeping hobby began about 15 years ago. He’d been interested in bees before that, but that’s when an opportunity presented itself for him to get started. He was helping his brother’s in-laws clean up after a storm and was cutting up an ash tree when he inadvertently cut the top off of a beehive inside part of the tree. He decided to cover the end of the log to keep the bees inside and took it home.

“Then I went online and bought a beehive and “Beekeeping for Dummies” book and progressed from there,” Richard said.

The book said the bees needed about 100 pounds of honey for a winter, Richard said, but they only had about two pounds, so he fed them sugar water. They survived the winter and in the spring he bought more bees and expanded.

Sirrina Martinez
Multimedia reporter
smartinez@pipestonestar.com

Jonah Johnson, 25, who farms with his father and brother near Woodstock, started Prairie Aerial Drones after searching for a solution in his own pasture.

“Pastures are hard to reach areas,” he said. “That’s sort of the reason I got my drone. “I couldn’t reach all of the corners, nooks and crannies in my pasture. You can reach anything with a drone.”

Johnson started his business last spring, getting the paperwork rolling to be able to operate a drone in the area. Aside from trying to find a solution for covering his pasture, he recognized the safety concerns with trying to do so on the ground.

”It’s just so dangerous for farmers to go out with their 4-Wheeler and side-by-side and try to spray some of these pastures in southwest Minnesota with the Buffalo Ridge,” he said. “Here you’ve got some large washouts from rivers and stuff, you take a long tumble down a hill.”

While aerial spraying has its challenges such as wind, the benefits are notable, Johnson said. Aside from providing a safer alternative for covering difficult terrain, the aerial drone can ensure better coverage of that rugged terrain.

“It’s a safer route and you get better coverage from it,” he said. “It basically runs off of RTK, which is exactly what auto steers tractors.”

Johnson bought his drone, a DJI P40, over the winter. The equipment can carry a pay load of up to 220 pounds in dry weight and 10.5 gallons in liquid. He started out spraying pastures, but has expanded into fungicide and insecticide application, which has turned out to be his busiest season.

Additionally, he can broadcast seed cover crops, winter wheat, rye and more. The technology continues to evolve, he said, and it will continue to do so to the benefit of producers.

“It’s exciting new technology and we are just at the beginning cusp of it,” he said “I think this is going to be a much bigger thing and it is a lot safer form of application. A lot of the studies I have seen have it placed right below ground application. The only thing holding it back right now is battery capability.”
While covering pasture is naturally a little slower, the drone can cover a notable amount of land in an hour.

“I can probably cover about 30 to 40 acres an hour,” he said. “Pasture slows down because you are going a lot slower to try to keep up with the terrain. The radar system has to be able to keep up with the adjustments of altitude.”

While he plans on building up his fleet, like other aerial drone operators, Johnson is working to navigate changing U.S. laws surrounding Chinese-based equipment.

“There are some laws that are sort of holding us back right now as drone operators,” he said. “The U.S. is leaning more towards United States built drones. DJI is a Chinese-based company. Really the only maps being used are the same you see on Google Maps. They’re phenomenal drones.

The terrain-following is top notch. That’s the problem here in southwest Minnesota. The terrain-following capabilities with the U.S. based drones just don’t follow the terrain as well as DJI does. They’re just light years ahead of any U.S. based company.”

Johnson urges people to remember that banning DJI would harm those who are benefiting from the technology.

“DJI, if we ban that it’s going to hurt a lot of people,” he said. “There’s a lot of talk in the legislation world about banning it. I don’t think that’s the route we should go. I don’t see what information they can pull from it. That would be an immense about of data to pull and store and all they really get from me is my elevation, which they can get on Google Maps.”

Anyone interested in speaking to Johnson about his services can contact him at 507-215-3987 or send him a message on his Facebook page, Prairie Winds Aerial Drones.