Jenny Schlecht

Agriculture-related damage from western North Dakota fires include burnt cropland, along with killed or injured livestock and destroyed pastures, stored feedstuffs, farmsteads, and fencing.

Growing black beans in her garden was an interesting experiment for Jenny Schlecht this year. She gained a tiny bit of produce and even more appreciation for the farmers who grow most of her food.

Sugarbeet harvest — no matter how much you look forward to it — can be an especially hectic time, with equipment going this way and that, trucks zooming to unload, long days and nights of work, and bigger crews than typically are on farms.

Greg "Machinery Pete" Peterson said auction sales of late model used large farm equipment have soared while prices have plummeted. He talked about the state of the industry at the Big Iron Farm Show.

NDSU Extension Farm and Ranch Stress Program was showing ways for farmers and ranchers to deal with the inherent stresses of farm and ranch life at the Big Iron Farm Show.

The Ag Innovation Campus received $5 million from the state of Minnesota, along with money from private investors. But it never got up to its 8,000-bushel-per-day capacity before a fire in August.

Keep talking about safety. Keep stressing safety. Keep putting magnets up on the fridge and passing out flyers. The messages sink in and matter, Jenny Schlecht says.

North Dakota Ag Commissioner Doug Goehring and Minnesota Ag Commissioner Thom Petersen talked about the future of agriculture, farm bill, trade, federal funding and more at the Big Iron Farm Show.

Recent warm conditions have helped central North Dakota corn start to catch up to normal maturity for this point in the season, and plentiful rains have the crop looking likely to produce big yields.

A recent emergency situation highlighted for Jenny Schlecht the importance of the volunteer first responders in a rural area and how they quietly work to make their communities safer.