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AGRONOMY ALL DAY AND ALL NIGHT
By Bob Fitch
Peter Scott Westra is on the frontline of helping area farmers conquer their crop production challenges. As a veteran agronomist for Hull Coop, Peter helps farmers optimize production through seed choice, soil health, fertilization and pest control – all in an effective, environmentally responsible and cost-efficient manner.
He is the agronomy department manager at Hull Coop, overseeing eight full-time employees. Peter’s team meets individually with area producers to discuss challenges and tailor plans to specific needs. The Hull Coop Agronomy Department stays on top of new products and methods and performs field trials to determine if promises of “new and improved” will truly play out at the local level. The department also does corn silage test plots to help identify the best seed for forage production. “We evaluate tonnage, digestibility, DM tons and other quality aspects of hybrids, not just grain yield,” he said.
Meet the Westa family: Peter Scott, Peter Michael, Megan, Christiana and Lydia.
Peter puts his agronomic knowledge to personal use on his family’s small farm northwest of Hull. He and his wife, Christiana, and their three children, moved to the farm homesite two years ago when Peter’s parents, Peter Darrell and Jan Westra, moved into town. Dad still owns the land, but son does all the labor and most of the management, too. “As a kid, I always enjoyed working the crops and learning about the soil. My career in agronomy helped me stay connected to the farm,” he said.
“Growing up, I did a lot of farm work. I cultivated beans and corn in the ‘90s, and walked beans every summer. I detasseled corn for four years and ended up the last year being kind of the crew chief. We used to do a lot more physical work. Kids don’t get that quite as much any more unless they’re heavily into sports. We would typically walk beans the first half of July and detassel corn in the second half of the month.”
Which was worse: Walking beans or detasseling corn? He preferred detassling, which was done in the cooler early morning hours and didn’t require nearly so much bending over.
Peter is the oldest sibling of six and the only one to remain active in farming. He shares labor at
Peter and Christiana Westra in front of her workshop where she paints wooden flowers.
harvest with uncles and cousins in the area. He attended Western Christian High School, then went to Dordt as a plant science major. Since an internship in 2000, he’s been working in agronomy, with his full-time career beginning in 2003 at Farmers Coop Society and continuing at Hull Coop, starting in 2007.
The advent of auto-steer tractors has changed the game, especially for people such as Peter who have full-time careers off the farm. “I joke to some of my co-workers that my planter doesn’t work in the daylight. I’ve pretty much planted more in the dark than light for the past six or seven years.”
He and his father are also partners in finishing hogs. Christiana is happy to help with the incoming loads of feeder pigs. She’s not necessarily enamored with loading the finished hogs at the end of the cycle. The first time she helped loading the pigs, she warned Peter: “If you yell at me, I'm going back to the house and I won't be back.” During her teen years, her father fed a small herd of cattle, so she does have some experience with livestock.
Christiana Westra in her workshop where she paints wooden flowers and arranges them in bouquets and for other uses. The imported wooden flowers are made from tapioca root.
AND MICHIGAN ROOTS
Christiana’s mom is from Michigan and her dad is from the Chicago area. Growing up, her family lived in both states. “My dad farmed in Lansing, Illinois. We grew onions, radishes, spinach and other produce. I can remember driving with my dad to downtown Chicago to the warehouses of Jewel, from where the food was distributed to their stores.” They also had a u-pick raspberry patch. Her parents still do some hobby farming, but his work is now primarily trucking.
Family and friends connected Christiana and Peter, whose own mother was also from Michigan. Moving to Iowa was an adjustment for her. “I didn’t know anyone out here and I didn’t know where anything was at. It was a pretty big change. I do miss the fresh fruit that Michigan has, especially the blueberries,” she said. As a teenager, she worked on a blueberry farm picking blueberries by hand. “That was usually in late June, July and maybe a little bit into August; and then our raspberries would start in August until it froze. We spent hours and hours and hours weeding those gardens.” The Westras have a pretty good stand of raspberries growing at their farm, but blueberries generally don’t do well in Iowa soil. Besides gardening with her children and her mother-in-law, Christiana has a business called C Anna’s Things. She paints wooden flowers and creates bouquets to sell. The wood is derived from the root of tapioca trees found in India. The wood root is shaved thin, and is very soft and pliable. Customers are invited to her shop by appointment to look
ILLINOIS
Flowers painted and arranged by Christiana.
at the unique gift and décor pieces. She also does custom orders for weddings and other special events.
TIME FOR KIDS, CAMPING AND PRAYER
Daughters Lydia and Megan frequently help out in the craft shop. Lydia will be a seventh grader this fall and Megan will be a fifth grader, both at Hull Protestant Reformed Christian School. Lydia plays the flute and plays every sport possible except soccer. It’s too early to tell what Megan’s extracurricular interests will be. Peter and Christiana’s son, Peter Michael, will be a sophomore this fall at Trinity Christian School. He’s been active in the school’s robotics program.
When they moved from town
out to the farm, the kids missed the easy walk to their friend’s homes. “But they adjusted well,” said Christiana. “Getting to have animals had a lot to do with the positive adjustment. The cats came quick – I came home with five little kittens and those have been multiplying ever since.”
The family is active at Hull Protestant Reformed Church and their faith feeds their lives.
“We put our faith and trust in God, and have a commitment to loving each other through thick and thin. Some years it's been a lot more thick than thin,” she said.
The Westras enjoy camping, traveling as far as Ohio to the east and all the way west to Utah.
GRAIN SUCCESS STARTS HERE
Megan, Peter Michael and Lydia Westra.
Photo by Bob Fitch
DRECKMAN FAMILY INCLUDES GENERATIONS OF GO-GETTERS
By Bob Fitch
There’s very little idle time for Logan Dreckman and his fiancé Sophie Beitelspacher. The same is true for Logan’s sister, Shayla. If you look up “go-getter” in the dictionary, there just might be a photo of these three, who all are in their early 20s.
Logan Dreckman and fiancé Sophie Beitelspacher, and Shayla, Beth, Chad, Karen and Gary Dreckman.
Logan is the fifth generation of the Dreckman family to farm east of Le Mars. He farms with his father, Chad Dreckman, with an occasional assist from his grandfather, Gary. Just three years ago, Logan graduated from Gehlen Catholic High School in Le Mars and then obtained a business degree from Ellsworth Community College. During high school, he was vaccinating up to 5,000 pigs per week. He also poured concrete in the summers for six years.
According to Chad, “Logan worked hard in his younger years, and saved money to help him start farming. He was vaccinating pigs, sorting pigs and pouring concrete.” Logan updated his grandfather’s old barns for use in finishing hogs. He feeds 3,600 hogs daily, plus built a deeppit cattle barn where he feeds about 750 head.
During college, Logan worked for a
cattle feeding operation, spending his days in the outside lot. That’s what convinced him to feed cattle in a deep-pit barn. “I knew I was going to have a lot of different things going on and I wanted to minimize the amount of time put into labor. There’s a lot less labor involved with a deep-pit barn – you get rid of dealing with the bedding and scraping pens and the manure.”
Sophie’s dad taught Logan how to build his own gates and fencing for inside the barn. He also helped pour the concrete for their new shop and machine shed. His grandfather reminds him that producing beef is not always a gravy train. Gary gave up on cattle in the 1980s when interest rates were at 18 percent. “I made $20 a head and gave the bank $80 in interest.”
On top of the crops, cattle and hogs, Logan also has started selling Wyffels Hybrids.
New Season.
Karen and Gary Dreckman on Lewis & Clark Lake near Yankton.
HARD WORK IS PART OF THE DNA
Even with all this farm business, Logan found time to become engaged. He and Sophie will be married on November 8. Logan’s grandmother, Karen, said he’s marrying “another little go-getter.” Sophie matches his energy step-for-step. Raised on the farm of her parents, Scott and Jeni Beitelspacher of Brunsville, hard work is built into her DNA.
According to her soon-to-be father-inlaw Chad, “She's right by his side doing everything … feeding pigs, feeding cattle, power washing the equipment. They’ve sorted hogs together – and yet they’re still getting married. The other day, she was power washing the payloader and feed wagon.” While she was doing that, Sophie added, “Logan was inside in the air conditioning doing book work.”
Sophie’s parents have a cow-calf operation; and now she’s starting up her own herd of show cattle, in
That’s why
working with nearly 9,000 young and beginning producers –providing guidance, scholarships, youth programs and more.
Shayla, Beth and Chad Dreckman.
partnership with a breeder at Sutherland. Her herd is a mix of Simmental and Angus. “Ever since I was in fifth grade, I've been in the show cattle industry. Over the years, we've kept the high quality heifers back, and I’m going to start raising and selling show heifers with our partner in Sutherland.” Chad said, “When Sophie walks the pens, in every pen there are certain animals that will follow her around. She will brush up an animal that likes her. I came up one day and there she was sitting next to a 1,500-pound steer. And she gives it a hug and starts scratching it again. The steer just sits there and loves it.”
The other go-getter in the younger set is Shayla, Chad and Beth’s daughter. She graduated from Gehlen Catholic High School In Le Mars in 2024. She started work as a teller at American Bank and, within five months, was promoted to loan review specialist. In addition to working full-time, she is also pursuing a degree in business from Western Iowa Tech. She drove one of the Dreckman tractors to American Bank on a day employees were asked to drive something to work other than their cars.
Shayla enjoys her work at the bank and hopes to continue in the loan department.
ADDING ON TO THE DRECKMAN LEGACY
Logan and Sophie will build on the legacy of the four previous generations. According to his grandfather Gary, “My grandpa died at an early age, and my dad took on farming when he was his early 20s. In 1970 I joined my dad. We had row crops, farrow-to-finish hogs and fed a few cattle back then. I farmed with my dad for probably 25 years. When he retired, I had a few years on my own before Chad joined me, and the rest is history.” Karen interjected, “Well, we also had six kids in eight years.”
Except for a few years in military service, Gary lived in the same house for nearly 75 years. He and Karen recently moved into Le Mars and Logan has taken up residence in the old home place. While Gary still helps with combining the corn, Karen has finally stepped aside from driving the grain cart after 20 years. She also helped with hog chores and other hands-on farm work.
Chad said, “When I joined Dad, my mom's dad had an old farm place on the other side of town. I moved out there and started farrowing my own sows and raising feeder pigs for the first couple years. Then we started to fatten those out. I built my first finishing barn about 1996, five years after I got out of high school. About that same time, we decided to quit farrowing, and we got into two different sow units.”
The 1970s, ‘80s, and ‘90s all had challenging years. Chad said, “We sold pigs for $7 a hundredweight one
Logan Dreckman and Sophie Beitelspacher will be married on November 8th. They’ll be busy feeding hogs and cattle, raising show cattle, row-cropping and selling Wyffel’s Hybrids.
morning. I came home and I bought iso-weans out of my sow unit for like $36. I paid more for an iso-wean than I got for a fat hog that day.” Gary said, “It didn’t last long, but it was bad while it was going on.”
Eventually, they got out of the sow units, built a 2,400-head doublewide finishing unit, and started custom feeding pigs instead.
Chad and Gary farmed together until 2017, at which time Gary began transitioning out. Chad said, “I bought his machinery, but Dad still helped here. Slowly, he kind of worked his way out of it until now when all he does is help run the combine. That’s the job he likes.”
COVID BROUGHT DOWN J&J CAFÉ
Chad’s wife, Beth, also has roots in farming. Her father raised cattle; and her two older sons, Andrew and Brady Pottebaum, feed cattle
with their father near Remsen. Beth was the co-owner of J&J Café and truck stop in Le Mars. At the outset of Covid, J&J Café had to suspend operations. When the worst of the crisis passed, they re-opened, but employees were tough to find, since most could sit home and make more money than being in the workforce. J&J closed for good on October 8, 2020. KwikStar made them an offer on the property they couldn’t refuse.
Beth now works at Get Branded 360, a screen print shop, but she still misses the café and Chad said, “Everybody misses the food from J&J.”
LOOKING TO THE FUTURE
“It gives me a great sense of pride knowing that the farm is staying in the family,” said Gary. “Every farmer hopes the next generation
strives to make the soil a little better and to make improvements to the farm.” Logan added, “For every generation, it seems to take more acres and more expensive equipment to make the same profits. Profit margins always seem to be getting smaller.”
Chad is proud of Logan’s measured ambition. “I was on the fence about Logan putting in this cattle barn. But I guess you might as well do it young and get it paid off sooner. It will make things easier later on.”
Although he’s not quite 22 years old, Logan is laying the groundwork towards future goals. “I want to bring all my kids back to the farm in any sort of fashion, whether that’s cattle, hogs, row crops or whatever.”
PROTECTING THE MIGRATORY BIRDS
By Bob Fitch / 2nd in a series
Editor’s note: In the June issue of Farming Families, we started an occasional series about the early days of the conservation movement in Iowa. Most of the series will be based on a 1919 report from the then-newly-formed Iowa State Board of Conservation entitled “Iowa Parks: Conservation of Iowa Historic, Scenic and Scientific Areas.” This month’s article is taken from two chapters in the report. The first section is from “Protecting the Migratory Birds, by Charles F. Clarke. The second section is excerpted from “Iowa’s Waterfowl, Shore and Marsh Birds by J.A. Spurrell. Minor edits have been made for length and clarity.
Probably there has never been any place in the entire world which has been a home for as many and varied a species of migratory waterfowl as has been the territory in the upper Mississippi valley now embraced within the limits of the state of Iowa. When the pioneers first crossed the Mississippi river and stepped on the soil of Iowa they stepped on a hunter's paradise. The wild things of nature were undisturbed. Behold the waterfowl on their spring journey to the northland! With the utter abandon of perfect freedom, they came in long lines over the southern horizon – great V-shaped flocks of geese and brant and innumerable hundreds and thousands of mallard and teal, widgeon and pintail, and all the rest of the wonderful and beautiful array of feathered folk that make up the galaxy of America's waterfowl.
Whoever saw that flight of ducks and geese on a bright spring morning a little over a half century ago must have thrilled in his soul that made him glad to be alive and that made him worship at the shrine of nature, pure and undefiled as it was on that glorious morning. With whistling wings, grand flocks of mallards would swish by with a rush and alight with a splash in the nearby water and, at the same time, with loud splashing and quacking others of the birds would rise laboriously up through the trees and make off northward until they were lost in the rosy depths of the sky.
pup, he nearly died of distemper. However, at 18 months, Buck began field hunting and later earned the title of the nation’s finest field-trial retriever in 1952 and 1953. During his years, he finished 83 national series out of a possible 85. To this day, no other retriever has ever completed more than 62 successive national series. The 1959 duck stamp was a painting of old Buck with a mallard drake in his mouth, set against a backdrop of flaring ducks. It was the first time a dog ever appeared on a U.S. stamp.
As the ducks and geese came northward, as every bend in the magnificent river afforded rest and shelter for the waterfowl, as the sandbars were crowded with the Canadian geese choosing their mates and making ready for the new season, the song birds also voiced their gladness and as the sun's rays gradually dispelled the white mists of the river and the deep gloom of the heavily wooded shores, the whole grand chorus of robins, blackbirds, and a myriad of others hardy enough to go northward with the ducks, chirruped and caroled
the gladness of the morning. It was a wonderful sight, a glorious experience for those who saw it and heard it and felt it. Truly it must have seemed the dawn of creation itself when the great creator made the earth and sky, the rivers and the sea, and peopled them all with a glorious throng.
But will it ever be seen in Iowa again? Will it ever be heard or felt or experienced? The feathered throng of waterfowl and songsters that come up the river in the spring have dwindled to sadly
The “King Buck” painting by Maynard Reece won the Federal Duck Stamp Competition in 1959. King Buck, a black Labrador retriever, was born in Iowa in 1948. As a
decimated numbers, and the glory and the freedom of the new day has very largely departed. The ducks and geese now come in scattered flocks, the song of birds has decreased in volume, the woods along the shore have in a large measure disappeared, and the river itself is not the mighty and full flowing stream that it used to be.
The pioneer who first stepped on Iowa soil saw it in its primitive, elemental glory. The pioneer came into a promised land but he was greedy for the treasures that the land offered and thinking that such incredible numbers of wild creatures could never be destroyed and thinking that such boundless acres could never lose their fertility and thinking that such great stretches of woodland could never be cut down, he began with all his might to slay and destroy and confiscate. The result is that we have a great commercialized civilization in Iowa but many of the fairest and rarest of Iowa's treasures have been trodden under foot.
Civilization in Iowa is on a commercial basis. The aesthetic, the ideal, the beautiful, the elemental has had to give way before commercialism. As a people our character has suffered as a result. We miss from life things that should not be missed. The modern tendency is to disregard everything primitive, everything elemental, as being relics of barbarism. We need to get back to the things we have lost and certainly a good beginning would be to assist in the effort to get Congress to appropriate money to enforce the federal migratory bird law (to help restore) the song birds and waterfowl that have been slaughtered so ruthlessly for half a century.
IOWA'S WATERFOWL, SHORE AND MARSH BIRDS
In the days before the settlement by white people, Iowa abounded in wild ducks, geese, swans, and all marsh and shore birds native to this section. Many of these birds toured abundantly in the state, especially in the northern part. This condition continued until about 40 years ago (1880) when
Wash and tempera painting of buffleheads by Maynard Reece. In 1948, this painting was Reece’s first to win the Federal Duck Stamp Competition. All images from U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service.
Black and white wash and tempera drawing of gadwalls by Maynard Reece. This painting won the Federal Duck Stamp Competition in 1951.
Black-and-white wash drawing of white-winged scoters by Maynard Reece. With this win in 1969, he became the first person to win the Federal Duck Stamp contest four times.
Maynard Reece won the Federal Duck Stamp Competition for the fifth and final time in 1971 with this full-color wash painting of cinnamon teal. He was named artist of the year in 1973 by Ducks Unlimited.
a rapid decrease began. At the present day, but few ducks and no wild geese and swans breed in the state, while most of the shore and marsh birds must go to the far north to breed.
Furthermore, if the present craze for the drainage of all swamps and marshy lakes which can be drained, continues, it will be only a short period until no wild ducks can breed in the state. All their resorts will be drained. Ducks cannot breed on the open lakes. The ducks require a tangle of reeds, marshes, swamps and swampy lakes to furnish shelter for their nests, also to furnish food and protection for their young.
Iowa lies directly across the main migration paths of the ducks of Minnesota, portions of North and South Dakota and a large section of the duck regions of the prairie provinces of Canada. These
Sources
sections constitute the main duck breeding grounds now remaining, and in these regions spring shooting is prohibited. Yet the majority of the organized hunters of Iowa wish this condition to continue, as proven by their action before the last two legislatures when measures prohibiting spring shooting were introduced. The state of Iowa does not yet conform to the federal law prohibiting spring shooting.
While I admit that the present drainage district law is of great benefit to the state, and is a necessity to the state's development, I contend that there should be some exceptions in its application. I do not believe that the present generation has the right to destroy all the natural assets of the state among which I
would include the wild waterfowl and the beautiful and curious plants which grow in the marshes. Since the state attends to the drainage of the marsh lands, she should also attend to the preservation of portions of them. So far the state has sadly neglected the natural beauty and valuable wildlife. It seems that if any marshes are preserved it will have to be by individual or organized effort.
• Iowa Parks. Conservation of Iowa Historic, Scenic and Scientific Areas. Report of the State Board of Conservation, 1919. Published by the State of Iowa.
• U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service. www.fws.gov.
Renowned Iowa wildlife artist Maynard Reece.
Sevriena Postma of Sioux Center won “best of show” at the Iowa Junior Duck Stamp Contest three years in a row, 2022-2024. This was her winning entry in 2023.
NW IOWA ARTIST
PRESERVED WATERFOWL IN HIS PAINTINGS
At the same time Iowa’s conservation movement was being launched, one of Iowa’s greatest wildlife artists was arriving on the scene, too. Maynard Reece was born in Arnold’s Park, Iowa, in 1920. Ducks Unlimited Inc., perhaps the foremost organization advocating for habitat conservation for migratory waterfowl, pays tribute to northwest Iowa artist Maynard Reece at www.ducks.org:
Reece (pictured on the previous page) is considered one of the founding fathers of American wildlife art and is a conservation legend. Reece began his storied career as an artist in the 1940s, working for the Iowa State Historical Museum. During his time there, he was mentored by none other than famed artist and conservation pioneer, J.N. Ding Darling, who created the image for the first Federal Migratory Bird Hunting and Conservation Stamp in 1934.
Reece’s work has graced the federal duck stamp a record five times, in 1948, 1951, 1959, 1969, and 1971. His 1959 duck stamp design featuring the legendary retriever King Buck is arguably the most iconic of all time. He also painted the first Iowa state duck stamp, as well as countless other works of art for state and federal conservation programs. His artwork has been featured in numerous national magazines such as Life, Sports Illustrated, and the Saturday Evening Post.
In addition to his contributions to the Federal Duck Stamp Program, Reece was a lifelong friend and member of Ducks Unlimited. In 1973, he was named Ducks Unlimited’s Artist of the Year with his image Marshlanders Mallards.
With his paintbrush, Maynard Reece literally had a hand in making an invaluable impact on conservation and wildlife. Through his artwork, generations of sportsmen and women have enjoyed and will continue to enjoy our wildlife resources and hunting heritage.
We are able to create custom-built working facilities manufactured to meet your operational needs. We have built adjustable working alleys (curved or straight), cattle working tubs, loading chutes, portable working alley and tub with headgate, and custom alleyways.
Source:
After the opening paragraph, the article is written by Mallori Murphey, Ducks Unlimited.
CHOCOLATE CHUNK COCONUT ZUCCHINI BREAD
from www.halfbakedharvest.com
INGREDIENTS:
2 medium zucchini, grated (about 2 cups grated before squeezing out water)
1/3 cup coconut oil, melted ½ cup honey or maple syrup
2 large eggs
2 tsp vanilla extract
1½ cup whole wheat pastry flour, or all-purpose flour
½ cup almond flour (or additional whole wheat flour)
1½ tsp baking soda
1 tsp cinnamon
½ tsp kosher salt
1 cup semi-sweet or dark chocolate chunks
DIRECTIONS:
1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Grease a 9x5-inch bread pan.
2. Lay a clean towel on the counter and spread the zucchini out in an event layer, sprinkle with ½ teaspoon salt, cover with another towel, and let sit 10 minutes, then squeeze out any excess water.
3. In a large mixing bowl, stir together the coconut oil, honey, eggs and vanilla until combined. Mix in the squeezed out zucchini. Add the flour, almond flour, baking soda, cinnamon and salt; mix until just combined. Fold in chocolate chunks.
4. Pour the batter into the prepared bread pan. Bake for 50-60 minutes, or until center is just set. If the bread is browning before it’s done cooking, cover with foil. Remove and let cool for at least 30 minutes before cutting … or just eat it warm with a smear of butter and preferably with a drizzle of honey, too.
