agriculture

Today is the first day of Pork Congress 2017 at the Minneapolis Convention Center. This is the 50th anniversary of the Minnesota Pork Congress. Show hours are 9AM to 5PM today and 9AM to 1:30PM Wednesday. Minnesota Pork Congress is the Midwest's best swine-specific tradeshow and educational event, and features a variety of show exhibitors, timely seminars and social activities designed specificall

The Southern Research and Outreach Center at Waseca will be holding the annual Winter Crops Days next week at a number of locations. This is a very well-attended program because the topics vary from year to year depending on production issues corn and soybean producers are facing...

The Midwest Dairy Association has scheduled producer meetings starting early this month. All dairy farmers are invited to attend one of the meetings that is most convenient for them. The meetings will include a report from the dairy farmer board member serving the district, an update from Midwest Dairy staff and a complimentary meal...

The University of Minnesota corn and soybean variety trials are now published on the University of Minnesota Extension website. It seems seed companies are asking for seed orders from farmers earlier every year. Many times the best early season discounts are available in November and early December...

The 34th annual Rural Legislative Forum will be Thursday, December 8, at South Central College in North Mankato. The forum will begin at 4PM and wrap up at 8PM. The topic this year will be Rapidly Rising Property Taxes, Challenging Rural Minnesota...

If you are, or know someone majoring in agriculture at a two- or four-year college that is looking for a summer job, check with the Central Farm Service. CFS has a number of summer agronomy intern positions available at the Ellendale, Blooming Prairie, Owatonna and Kenyon locations...

The University of Minnesota Extension Service will be hosting two Fair Land Rental Workshops on Monday. One will be held in Le Center in the 4-H building on the Le Sueur County Fairgrounds starting at 9:30AM. The location for the one scheduled in Mankato on Monday afternoon has been changed...

This month the Nitrogen Smart Program for farmers enters its second year. Nitrogen Smart is an educational program developed to provide farmers with information to better evaluate nitrogen fertilizer options. It is a free program offered through a partnership between the University of Minnesota Extension, Minnesota Corn Growers and the Minnesota Agriculture Water Resource Center...

This morning we received the notice that all Minnesota County Farm Service Agency offices will be closing at 1PM today. They were scheduled to close today at the normal time but sometimes county offices get the permission from the state office to close early before a holiday...

Remember spring 2015 when Minnesota had an outbreak of highly pathogenic avian influenza that resulted in millions of turkeys dying? It was determined that migrating waterfowl spread the contagious virus into Minnesota. Now we can blame migrating waterfowl for spreading herbicide-resistant weeds like Palmer amaranth too...