Custom Help Can Lift Profits

Which side of the custom work equation are you on? Are you relying on custom work and expecting it to be done right, on time and affordably? Or are you a custom operator working hard to keep equipment running, get as many acres or hours logged as possible, keep customers happy, all while watching costs […] Read more

“Dare” To Love Your Spouse

Last week my friend and I had the joy of taking a warm evening walk in town, and seeing the young kids testing out the depths of the water in the ditches. I bet some of them had “dares” to see who would go in the deepest. This same friend also gave me a copy […] Read more


Freeloading On The Farm

Sons who don’t ever leave the family farm tend to be angry at age 35 when they feel like “they missed out, and are trapped with family, mortgages, and never-ending farm tasks.” Today is the deadline day for a farmer I know to have all the equipment ready for the field, the magic time of […] Read more

Go To Auctions With A Plan

Auction sale season is upon us, making both the wife and the banker a bit nervous. Hopefully the biggest challenge you face this year is from overindulging on the coffee and cherry pie, unlike a gentleman we worked with a year ago, Harley Handup. He is a regular at auction sales and he just can’t […] Read more


The Buck Stops Here

It is old news to most farmers that the past 18 months has been a period of unprecedented grain market volatility. This has introduced tremendous uncertainty and new challenges for all players in the grain supply chain — from primary producers to grain companies and the CWB, right up to the end user. On the […] Read more

Management Is The Great Leveler

A thick black soil with more consistent rainfall will often outdo a loam soil in the dark brown zone, but the differences are nowhere near what they were when the biggest input was the seed in the ground. Soil fertility is the ability of a soil to supply the necessary plant nutrients to a growing […] Read more


New Traits Benefit Everyone

The biotech plant breeding industry will break new ground over the next 10 years with a second generation of genetic traits. Just like the first generation of trait development, the production and agronomic benefits to farmers will be immense as the results will be higher yields, healthier plants and increased production efficiency. What will make […] Read more

Bracing For Another Wet Year

We have a few plans in case we get another wet summer this year. First, we will be praying for the ability to get on our fields. Then we will be signing up for crop insurance on our native hay land. Late winter snows. Puddles growing. The Red River flooding again. With all this water, […] Read more



To Bless Or To Curse

It happened in the foyer of our church this morning. My pastor asked me how my week had gone, and I quickly said, “It was tough to see a family choose to curse instead of bless. We all get to choose whether we bless or curse one another.” He nodded knowingly, and wrapped his arm […] Read more