First Crop of Sustainably Grown Wheat Harvested in the Saginaw Bay Region

Nov 16, 2022

The Nature Conservancy in Michigan (TNC) and Star of the West Milling Co. today announced the harvest, verification and sale of the first 86,000 bushels of wheat grown through a pilot program launched earlier this year. TNC and Star of the West partnered on the program, which runs through 2024.

This year, it took a matter of weeks to fill the roughly 900 acres available for the first year of the program. Next year, the program will expand to more than 2,500 acres.

“We are thrilled at the response to our Sustainable Option Wheat (SOW) program from producers throughout the Saginaw Bay region and that our first harvest is in the books,” said Ben Wickerham, agriculture program director for TNC in Michigan. “This program helps improve soil health and protect water quality by encouraging growers to implement a suite of tried-and-true sustainability practices, which benefits the Saginaw Bay watershed today and for years to come.”

“If the first year of our sustainable wheat program is any indication, next year will be a big year of growth as we expand the program by more than 1,500 acres,” said Lisa Woodke, sustainability director for Star of the West Milling Co. “I want to thank the farmers who took the leap with us in this first year and look forward to welcoming even more growers into the program next year.”

TNC works with Star of the West on farmer enrollments, farm evaluations and verification of in-field practices. Once the recommended sustainability criteria are implemented and verified, participating growers are eligible to receive nature-based bonuses at Star of the West when they sell their wheat.

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Video: Spring 2026 weather outlook for Wisconsin; What an early-arriving El Niño could mean

Northeast Wisconsin is a small corner of the world, but our weather is still affected by what happens across the globe.

That includes in the equatorial Pacific, where changes between El Niño and La Niña play a role in the weather here -- and boy, have there been some abrupt changes as of late.

El Niño and La Niña are the two phases of what is collectively known as the El Niño Southern Oscillation, or ENSO for short. These are the swings back and forth from unusually warm to unusually cold sea surface temperatures in the Pacific Ocean along the equator.

Since this past September, we have been in a weak La Niña, which means water temperatures near the Eastern Pacific equator have been cooler than usual. That's where we're at right now.

Even last fall, the long-term outlook suggested a return to neutral conditions by spring and potentially El Niño conditions by summer.

But there are some signs this may be happening faster than usual, which could accelerate the onset of El Niño.

Over the last few weeks, unusually strong bursts of westerly winds farther west in the Pacific -- where sea surface temperatures are warmer than average -- have been observed. There is a chance that this could accelerate the warming of those eastern Pacific waters and potentially push us into El Niño sooner than usual.

If we do enter El Nino by spring -- which we'll define as the period of March, April and May -- there are some long-term correlations with our weather here in Northeast Wisconsin.

Looking at a map of anomalously warm weather, most of the upper Great Lakes doesn't show a strong correlation, but in general, the northern tiers of the United States do tend to lean to that direction.

The stronger correlation is with precipitation. El Niño conditions in spring have historically come with a higher risk of very dry weather over that time frame, so this will definitely be a transition we'll have to watch closely as we move out of winter.