Article Archives
A Look Back: 30 Years Ago
Friday, December 1, 2017
filed under: Historical
1987 Turns Out to Be an Excellent Sunflower Season — “Sunflower growers experienced an excellent sunflower crop this year. ‘This is one of the best crops I’ve seen,’ said Don Zimbleman, a sunflower producer from Fullerton, N.D. ‘Yields in this area have been averaging up to 2,500 pounds per acre.’ Most of the production areas have been reporting higher than average oil content, yields and test weights.
“These reports from farmers coincide with the results from the annual National Sunflower Association survey. The NSA gathered 168 oilseed sunflower samples throughout the harvest region. The samples were drawn from North Dakota, South Dakota, Minnesota, Nebraska, Kansas and Colorado. . . . The oil content in the sunflower samples collected ranged from 36.4 percent to as high as 49.4 percent. Sunflower produced in southeastern North Dakota and northeastern South Dakota had the highest percent of oil, averaging 46 percent. . . .
“The climate for the growing season was a positive factor [contributing] to the outstanding sunflower crop. Sunflower growers began planting seven to 10 days earlier due to the warm and dry spring. Temperatures were above normal throughout most of the growing season, allowing the crop to flower and mature earlier.”
Anderson Elected President of NSA Board of Directors — “Floyd Anderson, Brocket, N.D., was elected president of the National Sunflower Association in an October meeting of the organization’s board of directors. The NSA directors also elected Tom Irgens of Spring Brook, N.D., as first vice president, and Bruce Hovland, Fargo, N.D., second vice president. Milt Lakness, Hayti, S.D., is the NSA’s past president.”
Sunflower and Swine: A Productive Combination / By Larry Stalcup — “Brothers Gary and Brent Frederking of Sylvan Grove, Kan., count on sunflower to bring in the bacon — literally.
“The Frederkings are hog farmers in this central Kansas community, not an unusual occupation in the Midwest. Yet, their operation is unlike others in that they depend on sunflower seed grown on their farm as a high-protein source of feed for producing some 1,500 feeder pigs a year. They also feed sunflower seed to their market sows and cattle in their beef operation. . . .
“ ‘We began growing sunflower three years ago,’ says Gary. ‘Last year we had 100 acres. Most of it was a double-cropped after wheat. This year we have 50 acres of full-season sunflower.’ . . .
“They had heard of feeding sunflower and sunflower silage to cattle, but never hogs. They decided to experiment and received surprisingly good results. ‘They ate everything, hulls and all,’ says Brent. ‘It really surprised us and we liked what we saw. We began working sunflower into our entire feeder pig ration.’ ”