Fourth-generation producers Jennifer (Jen) Meyer, 38, the first woman to serve on the North Dakota Soybean Council (NDSC), and her husband, James Meyer, 44, are building their family farm near Wilton. They have a daughter, Jasmine, 8, who is the fifth generation on the farm.
As the first woman on the NDSC, Jen said it has been a very rewarding experience. She was recently elected to her second term serving soybean farmers in District 12.
“I am glad to show that women can bring different ideas and perspectives to the table. In the future, I hope more women will join agriculture boards and join the conversation,” Jen said.
On the Meyer family farm, Jen and James are planning to grow durum, corn for grain, soybeans and either oats or silage corn. In addition to growing crops, the family also has a Hereford/Angus cross cow/calf operation.
Even though the date for the typical start of spring planting at the farm is approaching, Jen knows it is unlikely that they will be able to get into the fields for a while yet.
“We’re hoping for a May 1 planting start, but that just really depends,” she said. A few snowdrifts are still melting in the farm fields and pastures and some of their farm equipment is still under a couple feet of snow.
“We check the soil temp and go by that – more or less. But even then, it is hard to deal with some of this because there are a couple of fields that we have that I am not sure how I am going to get in because of all the water that is in the approach,” she said. “The snow melt was so fast and there was so much – it’s a mess. We haven’t even brought our hay home yet.”
Currently, the Meyers are finishing up calving through some cold, windy, wet weather. Jen takes the night shift during calving season.
“We are about 75 percent done. It’s winding down, but yesterday it rained a little bit, and it was windy, and we had to put two pairs of twins in the calf warmer,” she said on Wednesday, April 19. The Meyers were glad to have the calf warmer this year with the cold temperatures in March and April and are considering moving their calving date back next year to avoid extreme weather.
The past winter has been a rough one for the Meyers, with the cattle having difficulties not seen in previous winters. The cow herd experienced unrelenting cold temperatures with bitter windchills and record snowfall. Fencing and windbreaks were decimated by heavy snow.
“We have not seen so much death loss in our cow herd since starting the farm. It wasn’t just the snowstorms, it was all the ice that would form underneath. The older cows would slip on that ice. It was awful,” she said.
They have a 30-acre field close to their feedlot for the cow herd during the winter and through calving and take hay bales out to the herd. The cows can move around and walk paths to their water.
“We feed out there as much as we can. It’s good for them to keep their muscles moving and keep the blood flowing,” she said.
The family, like others in the region, is concerned about getting their crops in on time. They have been speaking with insurance agents in case they won’t be able to get into their fields until after the planting dates pass.
“The (farm) community has been talking to insurance agents, and now they are saying, ‘If you can’t get your crop in, you can still use that land for either grazing or a crop for hay forage.’ So, that’s really nice. If we can’t put it in durum, then we’ll put in oats,” she said.
When it is time to plant, James will operate the air seeder and plant the small grains and soybeans. Jen runs the planter at the same time and plants grain and silage corn.
“It is a two-man job to plant our crops. I could do soybeans if I wanted to, but we’ve only got an eight-row planter, so it would be a lot of stopping and refilling,” she said.
They had sunflowers last year, in spite of being in the Prairie Pothole Region where there are a lot of birds that fly through and eat seeds from the flower heads.
Source: agupdate.com
Photo Credit: GettyImages-Vadven
Categories: North Dakota, Crops, Corn, Soybeans