Wichita and most of south central Kansas finally got rain this week. Almost two inches fell in the Wichita metro area on Aug. 3 and we've had another round of storms with at least some rain since then. But the water came with a price. Hail and power outages came with the storms that hit with 60 to 70 mph winds about 10 p.m. Wednesday night. Tree limbs are down all over town and the silver maple at the side of my driveway lost a big limb right out of the center of the tree. The wisteria was…

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Blistering Kansas was supposed to get a "respite" Sunday from 100-degree heat, with a forecast high of "only" 96. It hit 101. Things heated up more today, topping out at 108 and Tuesday is expected to be hotter still with highs around 112. That's air temperature for the folks accustomed to talk about "heat index." The stats for July were tallied over the weekend, making it officially the second hottest July on record, with an average temperature of 89.3 degrees, topped only by the heat of…

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Kansas seems to have its own version of the divide in farm country precipitation this week. Heavy rains in the north have put rivers and creeks over the banks with widespread threat of flash flooding and river flooding across the top quarter of the state. The rest of the state is still gripped in drought despite off-again, on-again showers. The problem is heat and wind, which rapidly sucks any moisture right back into the atmosphere. Today, for example, most of the state is under a wind…

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One of the real joys of my life is that from time to time, thanks to my partner, Dave, I get to meet new people that are intersecting his world as they come to Wichita to buy an airplane or get flight training. Tonight, we had a wonderful time talking to David, who just bought a Bonanza, and his flight instructor, Harold. They are from Greenville, S.C., and during the course of the dinner conversation, agriculture came up as a discussion topic. David revealed that about 10 years ago he…

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This is the time of winter discontent. Oh, the heck with the winter of OUR. . . discontent and all that other literary stuff. Farmers know that late January and early February is the awful time of the year. Christmas and New Years and shiny resolutions are over. It is a long, long time until spring. So here we are in the sometimes snowy, often cold, ever windy, mostly cloudy, just plain YUCK!! season of the year. And I do have some ideas to offer -- although mind you none of this applies to…

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I drove out to Stafford County today for the first of my six interviews with this year's Master Farmer/Master Farm Homemaker Award stories and on the return trip, I got a reminder that this has been an extraordinarily dry fall and winter in central Kansas. Just west of Hutchinson, I had to pull off to the side of the road as gusty northwest winds picked up the topsoil from fields and hurled them across the road, temporarily cutting visibility to near zero. DUSTY DAY: Blowing dirt…

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I always think of November and early December as the "season of conventions" because almost every organization has an annual meeting somewhere in there. The rest of the winter is education conferences and one of the biggest is coming up Jan. 25-26 in Salina: the annual No-Till on the Plains Conference. This one is special whether you are currently no-till or just thinking about it. It's a chance to learn what no-till is all about, explore how you might gain soil health, productivity and…

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Greetings from Husker Harvest Days. Walking the show yesterday, it was fun to see how many Kansas farmers -- and Kansas businesses -- are a part of the show. SPF, a  Leawood company specializing in fertilizer treatments is here and so is Ryan Hammes of Seneca, who is showing his AgSynergy dual placement feritlizer applications. Both have some brand new products that you'll be hearing more about in future editions of Kansas Farmer. And I don't know if it was just to make me feel at…

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There are a lot of people out there that don't trust farmers to do what is right for the land. I wish they could have been on the tour bus with me this afternoon as the Residue Alliance of South Central Kansas toured five farms where the commitment to take care of the soil is rock solid. As the bus took off from South Barber High School's parking lot for the first stop, we drove past a "clean" field and the comments were non-stop: All you need is that sight to make you understand no-till…

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One thing you can say for Kansans: they know when to put on a straw hat with a wet towel underneath and hunker down to endure. And that's exactly the mode that most of the state is in as we continue to bake in 100-plus temperatures with higher humidity than we would like thanks to the abundant rain of the early summer. For those who planted fall crop early and are near harvest, this heat may be a yield robber but it won't be devastating. For those who double-cropped behind wheat…

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