After the recent spike in late overnight freeze events we have been experiencing in the Midwest, I hope I don't eat my words in saying it seems that the warm weather is finally here to stay. Kansas City saw 90-degree temperatures on Tuesday and Wednesday. I am a little biased, but I have to admit May is my favorite time of year. As many know, this is a busy month, and it can be hard to balance time for graduation parties, weddings – not to mention planting, especially this year…

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Last week I finished up the 2013 Hard Winter Wheat Quality Tour by visiting the Kansas City Board of Trade – which, as many know, has been acquired by CME Group and will be moved to the Chicago trading floor in July. Since then, I've done some digging into the role the KCBT and Kansas City played on agriculture in the area. The Board of Trade was first organized in 1856, just three years after Kansas City was incorporated. However, it was during the 1870s that Kansas City, and…

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This week I had the opportunity to meet some great people and see a lot of Kansas I hadn't seen before while taking part in my first Wheat Quality Tour. The tour split up into groups and drove across the state starting in Manhattan, before meeting up in Colby, Wichita and Kansas City on the final day of the tour. The goal is to evaluate the year's hard winter wheat crop and estimate yields across the state, while seeing and learning a lot about Kansas. While gaining a much better…

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One of the reasons I love my job is the hidden gems I find while traveling for an interview – things you won't find by simply driving on the interstate. This might be a Red Dirt radio station in the Flint Hills or a small-town diner in the Ozarks. This week, a meeting and field day took me to Weston, Missouri. I had been to Weston before, since it's only 30 minutes north of where I live in Kansas City. At one point in the 1800s, the town's population rivaled Kansas…

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I've driven by the Agricultural Hall of Fame in Bonner Springs, Kansas, numerous times while driving on I-70, but until today – the first day it opened for the visitor season, I hadn't actually visited it. The Hall of Fame surrounded by a suburb of Kansas City, honors individuals throughout history who have made a significant impact on U.S. agriculture, and raising consumer awareness on the importance and influence of agriculture. The message is simple: "If you eat…

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Last Saturday I had the opportunity to visit with some victims of cattle theft in southwest Missouri, specifically near Joplin, which will be in the Missouri Ruralist in the future. The drive from Joplin to where I live in north Kansas City is over two and a half hours, so I thought I would do some sight-seeing on the trip home. Having heard of the history of the town of Baxter Springs, Kansas, just 20 minutes from Joplin, I decided to check it out. With their proximity to Oklahoma, the…

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Looking through back issues of Kansas Farmer in the past week, I read through one of the most important eras in agricultural history – the "Green Revolution," as it was named in 1968. The revolution was spearheaded by Norman Borlaug in the early 1940s, followed by major innovations in the 50s and 60s. These innovations include the widespread adoption of tractors – which outnumbered horses by 1954, and the use of high yield varieties, pesticides, fertilizers and…

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Lately I've spent a lot of time at the Kansas Historical Society in Topeka – about an hour's drive from where I live in Kansas City. In one of my recent ventures looking into the history of Kansas cowtowns, Arthur Capper, and Kansas Farmer history in general, (something you will see in future Kansas Farmer issues) another thing I've noticed is transportation and its impact on Kansas agriculture and the overall population. Obviously, the highway system was crucial to the…

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Despite living in Kansas City since October, I hadn't realized until recently the amount of green space in between pockets of development. This has been more apparent with warmer weather. In a phone conversation with Clay County Extension community development specialist Crystal Weber, she said Kansas City is actually one of the least developed cities in the country. In cases like this, the hinterland can be somewhat hard to determine – it's not quite clear where rural ends and…

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This week has been filled with Master Farmer Award programs, and many recipients have reflected on how they started farming and the changes they've seen in agriculture through the years. Lately, I've written a lot about how the city and agriculture are interconnected, but Chicago and its history may be one of the best examples. While driving through Illinois to the Prairie Farmer Master Farmer program with executive editor Frank Holdmeyer, I noticed the numerous machinery…

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