WRITING
THE BUG ISSUE
Stepping onto his porch one day last June, Jay Fogle looked out over his favorite alfalfa field on his farm in Peculiar, Mo. Something wasn’t quite right.
“He sent me a picture,” said MFA Crop-Trak Consultant Erica Wagenknecht, who scouts Fogle’s fields. “There was this triangle-shaped, yellow burn toward the leaf tips.”
For Fogle, a fourth-generation dairyman, alfalfa equals milk production, and he needed answers. When Wagenknecht arrived at the farm, she swept the field with a net and found the source of the problem—potato leafhopper—which causes a discoloration on the leaf tips known as hopperburn. It wasn’t an insect she had encountered before on this farm.
RIVER, RAIL & ROAD
On a stormy day in early September, Andrew Belza mans the wheelhouse of the Mary Lynn with five grain barges in tow—some of the first of the harvest season— down the Missouri River from AgriServices of Brunswick to St. Louis.
“This river is like no other out there,” Belza said. “All rivers are unique and present their own challenges, but this one changes more.”
Lightning flashes to the left as he steers the boat through a narrow bend. Belza and his crew can feasibly run nine barges up and down this river if conditions are right. Thirteen is the most they’ve ever done, but even nine barges make for a narrow channel on a river with tight s-bends and limited depth control.
Though usually the cheapest method when it comes to moving large volumes, the river is only one link in a logistics chain that must be multi-modal to get grain to export.
ALL FOR EIGHT SECONDS
Eight seconds. That’s the amount of time it takes to complete a qualified bull ride. Eight blood-rushing, heart-pounding seconds in which anything could go awry.
This is where training, talent and tenacity collide. Both the rider and bull have been prepared for those eight seconds, when perseverance pays off and hard work is put to the test. Reach that magic mark, and the rider has done something very few have achieved. The bull? Well, he’s done his job, too.
“When that whistle goes off, it’s just a rush,” said 22-year-old Cole Bass, a bull rider and fighter from Jonesburg, Mo. “It’s like everything you’ve worked for is clicking and coming together.”
It takes a certain kind of person to climb on a 2,000-pound bucking bull, strap one hand by a rope to the animal’s back and try to stay on top for those eight seconds. Though “crazy” may come to mind, it’s not the word that truly describes these cowboys.
CHICKENS AND THE EGGS
Beyond Cackle Hatchery’s unassuming storefront in downtown Lebanon, Mo., 1 million eggs rest in incubators at all times and close to 250,000 birds will hatch each week during the spring season.
It’s a lot to manage, said Jeff Smith, who is the third generation to help run the hatchery now owned by his parents, Nancy and Clifton Smith, and founded by his grandparents, Clifford and Lena Smith, in 1936.
“In the ’20s, ’30s and ’40s, almost every town in the United States had a hatchery,” Jeff said. “But in the 1960s, almost 99% of hatcheries closed their doors because they couldn’t make a living anymore.”
GRAIN TO GLASS
On a Monday afternoon in January, Van Hawxby is feeding the rum.
The yeast needs to eat, so he’s adding just a little bit of diammonium phosphate to the sugar wash. In a few more days, the mixture of dark brown cane sugar, yeast and water will be distilled and barreled. After six months, it will be ready for drinking as rum.
“But we’re here to talk about whiskey,” Hawxby said as he dumped in the remainder of the yeast nutrients and the vat started to bubble.
Almost four years ago, Hawxby and his wife, Lisa, founded DogMaster Distillery in Columbia, Mo., with two products—vodka and unaged whiskey. Since then, they’ve added two more business partners, Dan and Stephanie Batliner, and several more products. Now, they also produce aged whiskey, bourbon and both light and dark rum.
Hawxby sources corn, wheat and oats from the local MFA Agri Services in Columbia to make his whiskeys and bourbons. He said he does so for a couple of reasons.
PLANTS OUT OF PLACE
Weeds.
They persist and resist, and every growing season presents new hurdles. The most successful survive and reproduce. They outcompete crops for resources such as water, sunlight and nutrients. They pose ever-increasing challenges for producers.
“A weed is defined as a plant out of place,” said Dr. Reid Smeda, professor of weed sciences at the University of Missouri in Columbia. “Every weed has a unique niche and how it’s going to be successful in the soil.”
Many farmers have long relied on the quick-fix control provided by post-emergent herbicides such as glyphosate, glufosinate and 2,4-D, but with resistance on the rise and limited new technologies on the horizon, management strategies have to change. The key is how.
PIPE DREAMS
For the past 150 years, the Missouri Meerschaum Company has manufactured pipes fit for authors and artists, presidents and generals. Among those of note are American novelist Mark Twain, famed illustrator Norman Rockwell, President Herbert Hoover and General Douglas MacArthur.
Corn cob pipes were emblematic of the times. Men smoked them in drawing rooms and women adorned their hats with them. Rockwell depicted soldiers, businessmen and sailors with a corn cob pipe in many of his works created for the Saturday Evening Post. Through the generations, the corn cob pipe was an affordable option for the everyman.
“It’s one of the reasons for their popularity,” said Phil Morgan, general manager of Missouri Meerschaum, which has been anchored in downtown Washington, Mo., since 1869.
The company’s storied history is another.
TAKING FLIGHT
Before dawn, Brian Jack hitches several tons of airplane fuel to his truck and heads out of town. His destination is the Omar N. Bradley Regional Airport, a rural airfield on the outskirts of Moberly, Mo., about three and a half hours away.
This is a typical day for Jack and the agricultural pilots who work for Lowry’s Flying Service based out of Grinnell, Iowa. Now that corn is tall and soybeans are canopied, making ground rigs unsuitable for applying fertilizer or crop protectants, it’s the busy season for crop dusters, more formally known as aerial applicators. Ron Lowry started his agricultural flying service in 1980, two years after getting his pilot’s license at age 28.
“Someone gave me a flight lesson, and four months later, I got my pilot’s license,” Lowry said. “I flew for a couple of years after that, and I also farmed. I started watching others spray seed corn crops, and I wanted to do the same, so I got into a spray plane and started spraying. Farming was in my family. Flying wasn’t.”
SHEAR DETERMINATION
Shearing day starts with cinnamon rolls and a side of eggs on Schmidt Brothers Farm in Centralia, Mo.
Rosel Schmidt brings a plateful of breakfast out to the barn, where her oldest son, Matt, is working with long-time shearer and family friend, Jim Schaefer. Heavy black clouds from a late-spring storm can be seen on the horizon, but that doesn’t slow them down. In fact, the farm is awash with commotion. Rosel has made enough food to feed the local wrestling team, literally.
Her husband, Bryan, and middle son, Mike, are both wrestling coaches in Centralia, while son, Marc, coaches in nearby Moberly. His twin brother, Mitch, also teaches ag education at North Shelby High School in Shelbyville, Mo. Today, high school wrestlers are flocking to one end of the farm readying for an event, while Matt is herding sheep in the opposite direction through a series of gates to Jim, owner of Schaefer’s Sheep Shearing in Callao, Mo.
CENTER OF SIGNIFICANCE
The tiny German hamlet of Hermann, Mo., is well known for its wine, but few know its history. It’s a rich history of both French and Germans, celebrated vintners and prohibition. And it’s that history the Hermann Farm Museum seeks to preserve today.
“Jim has always told me the idea came to him in a dream,” Hermann Farm Director Eric Nichols said, describing Jim Dierberg, a banker, vintner and owner of the museum in addition to several other properties in the town. “He knew the story of George Husmann and the legacy of the Hermann Farm, where Husmann lived, so when the property came up for sale, he was very interested.”
George Husmann is legend in this Missouri River town. Often referred to as the “Father of the Missouri grape industry,” Husmann immigrated here from Germany with his family as a child in 1839 and became an expert viticulturist influential in both the Missouri and California wine industries. He was an authority on grape hybrids and soils and is credited with helping to save French winemakers with Missouri rootstock when a nasty blight known as phylloxera destroyed vineyards across France’s countryside in the 1870s. Husmann served as a Union soldier during the Civil War and advocated for the abolishment of slavery. He also sat on the University of Missouri Board of Curators from 1869 to 1872.
THIS PLACE MATTERS
The tiny, one-room Newcomer Schoolhouse in Brunswick, Mo., came alive with activity on May 3 as 74 people filled the building and spilled out onto its porch to launch a tour of historic sites across the Show-Me State.
The event, organized by the Missouri Main Street Connection in honor of National Preservation Month, was one of the first stops on a road show titled “This Place Matters.” Throughout May, the 17-site tour highlighted historic districts and properties in rural communities that sponsored an event.
GAINING GROUND
Though nearly halfway through April, it was still unusually cold on Michael Martin’s farm near Thompson, Mo.
“It’s the 101st day of January,” Michael joked as he studied the cattle grazing cereal rye in the field adjacent to his house. “I heard that the other day and thought it was appropriate.”
“It’s definitely still winter here,” his son, Lane, 28, agreed.
The longer winter meant the grass on their property still lay dormant, but the Martins were able to avoid some additional feeding costs for their herd because their cereal rye cover crop had started growing. For the last five years, the two have planted rye in the fall after harvesting soybeans or corn silage on the 22-acre field closest to their house. The rye greens up faster than fescue, making it useful for early grazing.
“I always plant rye behind silage for two reasons,” Michael said. “It cuts down on erosion, and the taller it is when the cows get on it, the more good it does for you. And this stuff grows like crazy.”
PARTNERS WITH PURPOSE
Alda Owen was 60 years old when she got her first puppy.
Legally blind since the age of 10 and a recent breast cancer survivor, Alda had been struggling to figure out her future on the cattle farm she and husband, Rick, operate in Maysville, Mo. As she rode home in 2012 with the 9-week-old, newly named Sweet Baby Jo in her lap, Alda knew she was getting a second chance.
“After the chemo and double mastectomy, I was weak and mad and drained,” she said. “Getting Jo was quite the life changer.”
For 50 years, Alda had learned to work with her visual impairment, but the cancer and treatments were another story. She and Rick had farmed much of their lives together, but the illness further limited what she could do on the farm.
BIRDS OF A FEATHER
On a county road, just before the town of Loose Creek, Mo., the hills of the surrounding landscape give way to deep valleys only to rise again into another sloping arch. It’s a familiar hallmark of this region of the state.
“On the right, you’ll pass a road called Turkey Hollow Lane,” directed John Stegeman, owner of Stegeman Farms. “That takes you down into the homestead.”
Continue past the lane, and turkey houses start to come into view. John pulls a tractor into a shed across from one of the houses. He’s in the midst of readying equipment for harvest on this October afternoon.
John bought the farm in 1999 and his son, Chris, began working with his father full time in 2015. Though they also raise row crops and cattle, turkey production is their main source of income. They just finished cleaning one of the houses—tilling the existing pine shavings used for bedding and adding new.
“Our family has been raising turkeys on this farm since probably the late ’30s or early ’40s,” John said. “When my uncles decided to retire, I thought I’d give it a try.”
CHAMPIONING CHESTNUTS
In the same river hills where Missouri grapes flourish, a lesser-known favorite offers a virtually untapped industry for farmers. The Chinese chestnut tree thrives in the fertile, well-drained, loess soils that roll along the upland ridgetops adjacent to the Missouri and Mississippi rivers.
Continued research of University of Missouri Center of Agroforestry scientists has determined that chestnuts are not only an economically viable option for the family farm, but they may also have the capacity to become a major Missouri industry.
HABITAT REHAB
In the quail heyday, as Rick Butterfield recalls from his younger years, hunters would be able to bag their limits with relatively little issue. They didn’t worry about the quail having suitable habitat. The birds were bountiful.
For a while now, dwindling quail populations have been a concern across the country. Their disappearance has been attributed to loss of habitat that provides vital protection from predation for the small ground-nesting species. But thanks to the concerted efforts of farmers, landowners and conservationists, Missouri Department of Conservation surveys show quail numbers are on the rise statewide.
“Quail numbers peaked in the 1950s, ’60s and early ’70s, when agriculture was much less efficient than it is now,” MDC Private Lands Conservationist Rich Crowe said.
FARM TO FOOD BANK
Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, food insecurity was already a problem in Missouri, especially in rural communities, and especially among children. In March, when businesses shuttered, schools closed and many employees suddenly found themselves furloughed, food pantries across the country saw marked demand for their services. Over 950,000 Missourians seek help from one of the state’s food pantries each year, but due to the current crisis, those numbers are changing rapidly.
In response, farmers, agriculture organizations and food banks went to work doing what they’ve always done—feeding people.
HOMETOWN HEROES
On June 5, 1984, to commemorate the 40th anniversary of World War II’s D-Day invasion in Normandy, France, Dr. Thomas Macdonnell sat down at a typewriter and wrote his first-person recollection of that momentous day in history. He had never spoken of his experiences before, though dreams of that day had often haunted him.
“I vividly remember too much, for to talk or even think about any particular second, minute or hour gives me a gut and chest feeling, which I now know medically as ‘stress angina,’” he wrote.
Known as Dr. Tommy by most, Macdonnell will be 98 years old in January. He lives Marshfield, Mo., in the house he built with his wife, Ann, on the farm where they raised eight children together.
On June 6, 1944, Macdonnell’s boat was one of the first to hit Omaha Beach in Normandy in the top-secret Allied mission that was called Operation Neptune at the time. Originally scheduled to take place on June 5, when the moon was full and seas were predicted to be low and calm at first light, an unexpected storm delayed the mission.
