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Tag Archives Can’t Take the Farm from the Boy

The truth is in the hopper
Columns, Soybeans

The truth is in the hopper

This fall marked the first harvest for a new farmer with a brand new field

By
Do you remember me griping about gophers eating my soybeans? I broke 120 acres of pastureland last feel, seeded soybeans on it this spring, and then, come emergence time, noticed that huge circular sections of the field were missing plants. It was gophers. They were eating my soys. They ate about five acres of soybean […] Read more
Columns, Crops

A feverish harvest week

Harvest is a literal and figurative time of year for a farmer with extra stress

By
The harvest started in a fever. We bit into the soybeans the day before my parents were scheduled to move from the farmhouse they’ve lived in for more than 30 years to a new house in town. The movers were booked. The soybeans were ready to harvest. The moisture was perfect, the sample was clean, […] Read more
Learning to make the tough calls
Columns, Crops

Learning to make the tough calls

The right time to seed, and what can be done with all of these rocks?

By
I’d like to write about wheat. I’d like to write about how in labs across the world, people who know how to do such things are working on manipulating the crop to withstand Roundup. But I won’t. I want you to think about it, though. I’m not anti-GMO. I’m not anti-science. It’s not me, one […] Read more
Columns

Keeping busy on and off the farm

Taking on a full-time off-farm job will add to Toban Dyck’s stress level, but will also add fun

By
Busy begets busy. I had no idea there was space in my schedule for another full-time job. Apparently, there was. Life is busy right now. But I love it. I now work in the ag sector, collaborating with experts, professionals, and many other people smarter than I am. If you’re an adult and take the […] Read more
Columns

The wide world of agricultural jobs

At best, non-farmers only have a vague understanding of career opportunities

By
I was chatting with someone the other day who got visibly excited when I mentioned the variety of soybeans I would be growing this year. I loved that. Her farm grows the same beans, and they’ve been impressed with the results. This is my life now, I thought, before getting into specifics with this person […] Read more
Last fall, I broke 120-acres of pastureland with a Wishek disc. Going over recently tilled pastureland a second time with a Wishek disc could be considered an extreme sport.
Columns

Reading the farm machinery classifieds

Toban Dyck is new to reading machinery classifieds, but now he’s hooked

By
It may be a stage I’ll pass through on my way to becoming the farm’s big cheese, head honcho, big man on campus, but I have become quite focused on farm products and machinery. I scour the “agriculture” section of the classifieds more now than ever before (that bar is low, as I didn’t really […] Read more
The first step was to find the right raw material.
Columns

A project for a cold winter week

Need a place to store your back issues of Grainews? Try this at home before it's time for seeding

By
We had been talking about it for a long time. We would either purchase shelving for our living room or I would make something. In summer, such deliberations seem like a waste of time. There’s farming to be done. Well, it’s done. And it’s pretty nifty, I must say, a giant raw-wood bookshelf hewn from […] Read more
A picture of my yard, where I’ll happily spend my entire winter, occasionally heading out for pizza and groceries.
Columns

The stuff of my new small town life

In a small town, simply getting a pizza can bring back memories and renew old friendships

By
To have met someone I knew wasn’t what made the encounter rare and memorable. No, it was more than that. I rarely go to town. But I did the other day. I rarely engage in anything but the most surface, innocuous chats with the people I meet. But I did the other day. It’s the […] Read more
pasture ploughed stockXchange
Columns, Crops

Pastureland gets prepped for crops

With the help of a kind couple, Toban Dyck is investing in 120 acres of new-to-him land

By
What was at first a distant possibility, a fragile idea, discussed over scotch and left to simmer has become something much more. It’s now real. It is as real as a custom applicator killing the pasture grass. It is as real as me looking for a disk to break the ground before it freezes. It […] Read more
wheat heads in hand
Columns, Crops

Everyone wants to be a farmer

City folk may not understand all the realities of farming, but many dream of doing it

By
It’s frustrating. I want my city friends to get it. I want them to understand how nuanced issues and trends like livestock production, genetically-modified organisms, fossil fuels, and eating farm-to-table are. It would be unfair to say city dwellers are vain, but I want to. Just as it would have been unfair of me to […] Read more

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