CORN

Gary Tharaldson, North Dakota’s successful hotel developer and owner of Tharaldson Ethanol in Casselton, North Dakota, describes how his company will move forward after the death of chief operating officer Ryan Thorpe. Tharaldson urges people to check in on others but said there was no warning at work that would have predicted the tragedy of Thorpe's death by suicide.

Across Steele County, about 15% of the acres weren’t planted this spring, said Johnny Jorgensen, a Hunter (North Dakota) Insurance Agency who sells Rural Community Insurance Services and NAU Country federal crop insurance. Traill County, which borders Steele County on the east, has about the same percentage of unplanted acreage and Barnes County has from 35 to 40% prevented planting acres, Jorgensen estimated.

Anne Waltner, Parker, South Dakota, left a full-time career as a concert pianist and educator to join her parents’ farming operation. Along the way she married, had triplet daughters and survived cancer. Of her journey and life, she says: “Can you think of anybody luckier than me?”

The Honeyford grain elevator, North Dakota's oldest cooperative elevator, is the first south of the U.S.-Canadian border to load an 8,500-foot — 1.6 miles-long — unit train. The train full of corn was bound for Canada.

Gerald Bachmeier, chief executive officer of Red Trail Energy, Richardton, North Dakota, and Philip Coffin, vice president of Midwest AgEnergy LLC, at Underwood, North Dakota, discuss countermoves to a drought for acquiring local corn and getting it from eastern producers. Both companies started their histories by bringing corn in on unit trains and are preparing to do it again. Both are planning to inject and store carbon dioxide byproducts for a market advantage.

A small organic farm family near Le Sueur, Minnesota, and a larger, non-GMO farmer near Kasson, Minnesota, are among those hit hard by the Pipeline Foods bankruptcy, which sent shockwaves through the region’s organic markets. The company is asking the courts to let them sell inventory grain to pay off the secured creditors, not the farmers who deliver it. The case leaves farmers wondering whether the state does enough to protect farmers and verify the financial soundness of grain traders.

Mike and Kristi Blattner, owners of Produce Plus in Eyota, have been selling coveted sweet corn for over 30 years. They continue to grow each year.

University of Minnesota Extension specialists spent the day on July 8 demonstrating trials at its plot in Rochester.

Letter writer says E15 is a Win-Win for Minnesota Legislators