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Ag and Extension

Ag and Extension Briefs

CLEAR30 pilot program offers 30-year enrollment FOR CRP contracts The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Farm Service Agency (FSA) will open signup this summer for CLEAR30, a new pilot program that offers farmers and landowners an opportunity to enroll in a 30-year Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) contract. This pilot is available to farmers and landowners with expiring water-quality practice CRP contracts in the Great Lakes and Chesapeake Bay regions. The program signup period is July 6 to Aug. 21, 2020. The pilot is available in Delaware, Illinois, Indiana, Maryland, Michigan, ...

Master Gardener volunteers

The Lyon County Master Gardener program is always looking for area residents to join our group and volunteer as a University of Minnesota Extension Master Gardener volunteer. We will soon be taking applications for the program. We can really use your skills that you have as a gardener or even as someone who is learning how to garden. There are so many ways to volunteer within your own neighborhood or city and especially within our county. I started with the Master Gardener program after watching PBS’s show, “Prairie Yard and Garden.” I watched the show and pointed the program out ...

Ag Briefs

SDA announces loan maturity for Marketing Assistance Loans now extended to 12 months Agricultural producers now have more time to repay Marketing Assistance Loans (MAL) as part of the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s implementation of the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act of 2020. The loans now mature at 12 months rather than nine, and this flexibility is available for most commodities. Effective immediately, producers of eligible commodities now have up to 12 months to repay their commodity loans. The maturity extension applies to nonrecourse loans for ...

National Pollinator Week

Have you ever seen a huge bumblebee searching through a yellow peony flower looking for pollen? Or have you ever seen a swarm of bees on white or purple clover? The sound that they make is hard to describe yet very fascinating! Last week was the National Pollinator week in the United States. This is the time for those of us who garden and those of us who do not garden to consider the habitat and potential loss of our pollinators and what it could do to the food sources for humans and animals alike. As many of us know, the numbers of native and domestic pollinators is at risk from ...

Ag Briefs

Transitioning expiring CRP band to beginning, veteran or underserved farmers and ranchers CRP contract holders are encouraged to transition their Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) acres to beginning, veteran or socially disadvantaged farmers or ranchers through the Transition Incentives Program (TIP). TIP provides annual rental payments to the landowner or operator for up to two additional years after the CRP contract expires, provided the transition is not to a family member. Enrollment in TIP is on a continuous basis through 2023 or until the new statutory limit of $50 million ...

Options after dicamba registrations vacated

On June 3, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals issued a ruling that vacated U.S. registrations for Engenia, FeXapan, and XtendiMax herbicides. These are three of the four dicamba products that were labeled for use on dicamba-tolerant (DT) soybeans. This means that effective immediately, there is no longer a federal label for these three products and they can no longer be used in the United States. For more details, see the Minnesota Department of Agriculture press release at: https://www.mda.state.mn.us/three-dicamba-registrations-revoked. While there will likely be legal challenges to ...