Field Inspected Seed List Now Available

As the year comes to an end crop growers are beginning to solidify their plans for the 2015 growing season. One decision which often is difficult is choosing the variety. Often growers will give serious consideration to the variety planted the previous season as they were satisfied with the yield and have seed from their own production. However, many growers wish to select a new variety simply because new varieties frequently out produce the old. It wasn’t too many years ago when a common yield goal was 30 bushels per acre. These days most growers feel 40-50 bushels are more realistic. This substantial increase must be credited to new farming practices, improved equipment and the research breeding programs which produce larger yields under specific environmental conditions.

If growers are looking for seed of a new variety and cannot find a local source, the first place I recommend is searching the North Dakota Field Inspected Seed publication. This gives a list of growers by crop, variety and location who had fields inspected and approved for further actions which lead to final certification. Final certification is made when seed produced from the inspected field is cleaned by an approved seed conditioner and random samples meet the standards established by the State Seed Department. Such standards include germination, purity, freedom of weed seeds and other crop seeds.

Recently the extension office received several copies of the 2015 growers who had fields inspected. These are available by stopping at the office. The publication also is on the State Seed Departments website, http://www.ndseed.com.

Winter Weather Prediction Favorable

Adnan Akyuz, North Dakota State Climatologist emailed me a digital copy of the North Dakota Climate Bulletin which is a quarterly publication of the North Dakota State Climate Office, College of Agriculture, Food Systems and Natural Resources at North Dakota State University. The publication gives a lot of information about weather conditions since September.

The publication reported this autumn was the 43rd coldest on record in North Dakota and it was the 29th driest statewide since 1895.

For the future Mark Ewen’s, Consulting Climate Forecaster for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, believes this month will be warm and dry, followed by a cold and wetter January then a milder but dryer February. For these predictions he uses climate signals (the phase of El Nino, the Arctic Oscillation and others) and the years that these signals have overlapped in the past. Based on the average climate signals for September-November 2014, the years 1951/52; 1968/69; 1969/70; 1979/80; 1985/86; 1994/95 and 2003/04 represent those years most similar to this year. I hope he is correct.

So what is spring going to bring? Allen Schlag, Service Hydrologist at the NOAA’s National Weather Service in Bismarck, reminds readers there is no solid idea on how spring is going to unfold as it is so far into the future when it comes to forecasting exact weather and hydrologic conditions for a given day or week. Most weather models only go out ten days in the future.

With this in mind I am anxiously waiting to hear Dr. Leon Osborne, Professor of Atmospheric Sciences at the University of North Dakota, give his outlook for the 2015 growing season during the Wheat Show on Tuesday, February 3rd.

Look For New Elm Trees

It looks like two new elm trees will be available this coming year. Both show resistance to Dutch elm disease.

One of them is Prairie Expedition ® which was a lone survivor among a grove of elm trees that died from the disease. This tree is an introduction by NDSU and named in honor of the 200th anniversary of the Lewis and Clark Expedition.

The second is named First Edition St. Croix ®. An arborist was led to a massive 100-year old tree in a front yard outside the Twin Cities. Just as the case with Prairie Expedition, laboratory testing confirmed this tree tolerated Dutch elm disease.

Merry Christmas wishes from our team of staff including Mindy Sigvaldsen, Michelle Garcia, along with Mary and I. We all have families and friends with which to share this joyous holiday season. We hope you can enjoy the same happiness.