The devil’s often found in the details, and one Lincoln County grower is shifting through a wheat field of data to find answers. Jesse Brunner, a fifth-generation farmer north of Almira, Wash., is going into his third year participating in the Great Lakes Yield Enhancement Network (YEN). The program, which…
Returning to her family’s Whitman County farm may not have been in the cards for Carrie Bellecourt, but she’s found a way to honor her background by sharing her wheat-growing knowledge with her first-grade classes. Bellecourt grew up in Steptoe, Wash., the daughter of Jim and Cathy White. Jim was…
When William Jasper Spillman began applying Mendel’s Laws of genetics and inheritance to wheat improvement in the 1890s, he set in motion a tradition of agricultural research that has defined Pacific Northwest farming ever since. By 1958, the industry’s needs — for new varieties, tools, practices, and education — had…
In February, wheat growers had the opportunity to learn some basic information about using options as part of their portfolio of risk management tools. The seminar was presented by Allison Thompson, a commodity broker and owner of The Money Farm, a commodity advisory service based in Minnesota. Thompson’s family owns…
Financial presentations are usually popular with growers, but adding fried chicken and jojos from Sonny’s Tavern in Washtucna made February’s Agricultural Marketing and Management Organization’s (AMMO) seminar a slam dunk. Before getting to the victuals, growers heard about estate planning from Corey Brock, financial advice from Tara Wiswall, and an…
Coming from a region of rolling hills where soft red wheat dominates and annual rainfall averages 45 inches, Morgan Menaker admits he experienced some culture shock upon arriving in Eastern Washington. “The first time I came to Pullman for my in-person interview, driving south of Spokane into Whitman County was…
Lately, we’ve been hearing a lot of negative, doom-and-gloom talk, and to be fair, some of it is deserved. Costs are high, markets are unpredictable, and it can feel like farmers are constantly being squeezed from every direction. Still, agriculture has always had its ups and downs, and sometimes it’s…
There is evidence in the broader farmland market trends that would indicate that this historically dependable asset class is showing signs of fatigue following years of steady price increases. Farmland transactional sales have been leveling out for the past 18 months, the availability of capital flowing into the market is…
