Farmers Making Harvest Progress Thanks To Frost

Farmers in the Red River Valley are working steadily this week to get the remainder of their crops off the field and into the bin.

 

Wet conditions over the past two months have made it challenging for producers to get onto their fields.

 

However, thanks to sub-zero temperatures over the past few evenings, the ground has frozen allowing producers to get onto their fields and make some real progress with the remainder of the harvest, according to Brunel Sabourin, owner of Antara Agronomy Services in St. Jean. "Farmers have switched from trying to take corn off in the mud to taking soybeans off while taking advantage of the frozen ground. For the most part, corn is pretty good ... the weight is probably not what farmers would like, but the bushels seem to be there so far."

 

Brunel said producers are hoping to gain some ground over the next few days and eventually wrap up this year's harvest. "There is also some fieldwork happening on the frost which seems to be working and should help farmers manage some of the ruts and some of the mess that we made over the last couple of weeks."

Video: Evolution of Beef Cattle Farming

The Clear Conversations podcast took to the road for a special episode recorded in Nashville during CattleCon, bringing listeners straight into the heart of the cattle industry. Host Tracy Sellers welcomed rancher Steve Wooten of Beatty Canyon Ranch in Colorado for a wide-ranging discussion that blended family history and sustainability, particularly as it relates to the future of beef production.

Sustainability emerged as a central theme of the conversation, a word that Wooten acknowledges can mean very different things depending on who you ask. For him, sustainability starts with the soil. Healthy soil produces healthy grass, which supports efficient cattle capable of producing year after year with minimal external inputs. It’s an approach that equally considers vegetation, animal efficiency, and long-term profitability.

That philosophy aligned naturally with Wooten’s involvement in the U.S. Roundtable for Sustainable Beef, where he served as a representative for the Colorado Cattlemen’s Association. The roundtable brings together the entire beef supply chain—from producers to retailers—along with universities, NGOs, and allied industries. Its goal is not regulation, Wooten emphasized, but collaboration, shared learning, and continuous improvement.