Spring 2023 Oskaloosa Herald Agriculture Magazine

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In bloom: Tips and tricks from local experts to make your garden grow

By Channing Rucks, Staff Writer

Now that spring has sprung, people are once more being inspired by the season of new growth and dreaming about what their gardens should look like in the coming year.

Spring is a season full of lively, bright colors beginning to blossom from new plants and fresh, delicious food being grown in backyards. As the weather warms and people begin to look forward to planting season, Nick and Lynn Branderhorst of Nick’s Greenhouse in Pella, and Meredith Nunnikhoven of Barnswallow Flowers near Oskaloosa, share some of their tricks of the trade for gardening in southeast Iowa.

Planning is everything

Early spring is still too cold to do any serious planting, but just because the ground isn’t ready to work yet doesn’t mean that gardeners shouldn’t begin to strategize and plan.

“I always say spring starts in your mind and in your heart,” Lynn Branderhorst says. “You plan what you want your flowerbeds, your pots, your yard to look like as early as January in your mind and in your heart, and then you work forward from there.”

The Branderhorsts recommend utilizing the first part of spring as a time for people to plan out their gardens,

waiting for the warmer weather to arrive before putting those plans into action.

“I don’t tell people to plant anything until the first of May,” Nick Branderhorst says.

In the meantime, people can give themselves the best chance of success by becoming knowledgeable about the types of plants they want to grow and their compatibility with their garden environment.

“There’s a lot of research that people can be doing now, as far as what kind of flowers they want to plant … what type of sun that plant likes, because that’s the number one thing that we see, that people will come and they’ll say ‘Oh, I want to plant fuschia, but I have no shade.’ Well, you can’t do that, because a fuschia loves shade,” Lynn Branderhorst says.

The key to a healthy garden, she says, is learning what will grow best in the available environment and leveraging that knowledge into an advantage.

“Start with what is going to make you successful. That’s learning about the light around your home or your office and what plants would be successful there,” Lynn Branderhorst says.

Know your soil

The experts agree: the secret to a healthy plant is equally healthy soil to grow it in.

“Always start with good soil,” Nick Branderhorst says. “If you start with good soil, you’re going to finish with a good plant.”

It’s easy to tell when soil is primed for planting. Grab a handful of soil and make a fist. If it forms a tight ball and stays that way, the soil is too moist and clumpy. If it remains loose and falls apart, the soil is ready for planting.

Gardeners can remedy their clumpy soil by mixing in a helpful ingredient or two.

“Peat moss or sand is probably recommended [for clumpy soil],” Nick Branderhorst says. “Peat moss is probably the cheapest way. If you use sand and it gets hot, that dries the soil out. The peat moss will retain the water.”

Gardeners can also use soil tests to measure the pH of their soil and make certain it’s at the perfect 6.5 level. Information about soil tests can be found through the Iowa State Extension Office.

All about tomatoes

Tomatoes are a much-loved vegetable crop that can be used in a variety of ways. One of the first things to consider when planting tomatoes is what the end goal of the crop is.

“People will talk to me about tomatoes, and I’ll say ‘Well, talk to me about how you’re going to eat

them,’” Lynn Branderhorst says. “If you’re going to do a BLT sandwich, you’re going to do a Big Boy, a Better Boy, which is the big, beefy tomato. If you’re making salsa, then I always recommend my favorite, the Amish paste tomato. If you’re making salsa, if you’re making tomato sauce, then go with an Amish paste tomato, which is a less sloppy tomato.”

Nick Branderhorst says that when planting, tomato growers should dig deep.

“Plant them deep,” he says. “The deeper you can go, the more rich you’re going to have, the earlier it will take off.”

Nunnikhoven says that tomato plants have “a lot of saving graces” that make them a good choice to grow in Iowa, and has a few tried and tested planting tricks to give tomato plants a running start in life.

She suggests putting a combination of Epsom salts, fertilizer and oyster shells in the ground with the plant to help it be as successful as possible. A healthy pinch of Epsom salts provides calcium, oyster shells help to prevent worms from infesting the plants, and fertilizer gives the plant a helping hand.

Planting marigolds near tomato plants will help to ward off destructive insects.

Nunnikhoven says location is an important factor to consider when planting tomatoes. They should never

Meredith Nunnikhoven began her journey as a flower farmer when she took a class on horticulture from Indian Hill Community College in Ottumwa in 2011. Here she stands with a tray full of a flower called “Stock.”

Starting a garden from seed can be as simple as using some potting soil, a plastic cup and a window, according to Nunnikhoven. Here are some of her seedlings getting ready for spring.

be planted in the same area two years in a row, since they deplete vital nutrients from the soil. The ground must be given time to recover between tomato crops.

From tiny seeds…

Gardeners have the option of starting their growing season with seeds, or already established plants. If seeds are the preferred choice, Nunnikhoven has a few tips to keep seeding simple. Aspiring gardeners can begin their journey planting seeds with supplies as simple as a window, some potting soil and a few plastic cups, according to Nunnikhoven.

“If you want to start your seeds at home, you can be very, very basic with a setup as long as you have a south-facing window that gets full sun. That can produce a lot of heat on a seeding tray with some great dirt,” she says.

Gardeners don’t have to get fancy with their setup, Nunnikhoven says. They can keep things simple and just focus on giving their sprouts all the love and care they need.

“We dig a little trench in our dirt, we plot the seeds in, we cover it if it likes to be covered,” she says. “Once we do that, then seeds will germinate based on their time to germinate; seven, 14, 20 days, whatever that may be.”

After seeds germinate, they can be transplanted to a separate, but inexpensive, container.

“You can pot them in things as simple as a plastic cup,” Nunnikhoven says. “Remember that when you pot things up, when you transplant them, they need

water drainage.”

She recommends poking a hole in the bottom of the cup to make sure any excess water can drain out.

For beginners, Nunnikhoven suggests starting out with seeds that are easy to grow in Iowa weather, such as asters, zinnias, sunflowers and even marigolds. These varieties are all colorful and pretty, with a hardiness that equips them to be successful in southeast Iowa’s climate.

…grow successful plants

After starting plants in small containers indoors, they can eventually be transplanted outside, if an outdoor garden is the end goal. There’s an easy method that will help ensure a smooth transition for a plant that isn’t yet used to being outdoors.

“If it’s never been outside, then you want to make sure you harden it off,” Nunnikhoven says. “That means that the plant receives actually the full rays of the sun and graduates before it goes into the soil. Otherwise it’ll produce too much shock and it might die off.”

Hardening plants off can be as simple as allowing an extra few days before transplanting it.

“If you’re growing plants inside under grow lights or using your south-facing window, before they’re planted outside in the soil they need to be outside for four to six days, hardening off, like in a pot, or in the same container, and they’re just going to get used to these full powered, 100 percent sunrays that they may have not received before,” Nunnikhoven says.

Nunnikhoven examines the row of lilac bushes that lines one of her flower fields.

Nick and Lynn Branderhorst each have different approaches to plants that compliment one another perfectly. Lynn focuses on the blooms while Nick will turn the plant upside down to examine its roots.

After the hardening off process, the plants will be ready to transplant into their new outdoor homes. A fine art

Once plants have been settled into their outdoor homes, the real work is ready to begin.

“Gardening is the fine art of weeding. That’s what I call it,” Nick Branderhorst says.

One of his tricks for keeping vegetable gardens weedfree is to save up grass clippings and reuse them as weed deterrents.

“When you mow your yard with a bag, save the grass. Put that between the rows, because you’re just covering [the weeds] up,” Nick Branderhorst says. “They won’t start. Some people put this fabric through there. I don’t think the plants are getting as much water if you use that fabric.”

Even though indoor plants don’t usually battle weeds, they face their own challenges.

“When you’re growing indoors, keep them away from a draft,” Nick Branderhorst says. “Any draft will affect a plant.”

As far as watering goes, timing is important.

“My philosophy is never water indoors or outdoors past noon,” he says, “In an enclosed area like a house, that moisture sits on the foliage, it gets underneath the foliage, and it starts a thing called powdery mildew. That whole leaf will get a fine powdery leaf on it, and you just as well throw the plant away. There’s not a

spray that will fix that.”

For outdoor plants, if the day is hot, they can be watered in the afternoon, but not past 3 p.m.

Planting the future

These tips and tricks can help local gardeners up their game this season as they begin making plans for what they’re going to grow. Gardening is sometimes considered a lost art that was more common a generation ago, when people relied more heavily on the land.

The Branderhorsts say they’ve been encouraged, in recent years, by the uptick in young people that they see taking an interest in gardening as a way to connect with nature.

“We see an uptick though, in gardening, a younger influx of growers,” Lynn Branderhorst says. “The biggest increase we’ve seen is college-aged people … They are very much into planting.”

The Branderhorsts say succulents are particularly popular with the younger crowd.

“I just think there’s more of a push to create eco-friendly environments, even if it’s in your dorm room, and it’s wonderful to see,” Lynn Branderhorst says. “There’s a push towards minimalist, so they’d like to have less stuff and more life in their rooms.”

Whether it’s a potted succulent, a flower bed full of zinnias or a row of tomato plants, everyone can benefit from growing a little more green in their lives, and these expert tricks can help people do just that.

Nick’s Greenhouse has been in the Branderhorst family since 1961. Nick’s parents immigrated from the Netherlands, bringing their experience as growers to the United States with them and passing it down through the generations.

Whether gardeners choose to start with seeds or plants, the experts agree that using good soil to plant in is one way to help ensure that plants get the best start in life.

Planting season: Where things stand now, and what comes next for 2023

By Channing Rucks, Staff Writer

Iowa’s farmers are looking once more toward planting season, the beginning of Iowa’s powerhouse agricultural cycle.

Along with planting season come perennial concerns about variables ranging from soil moisture levels to supply lines that farmers rely on to access vital goods. The year 2023 will have its own unique challenges to contend with.

Alex Fynaardt, of New Sharon Key Cooperative, and Rebecca Vittetoe, of the Marion and Mahaska County Iowa State Extension Offices, unpacked some key issues going into this year’s planting season, starting with how things stand after last fall.

“If we think back to last fall … basically all of Iowa was showing up on the U.S. Drought Monitor, ranging anywhere from abnormally dry to parts of northwest Iowa being in a D-4 drought,” Vittetoe says. “Looking at that drought monitor now, it has definitely improved in the eastern part of the state. More so where we were located, last fall, it ranged anywhere from abnormally dry to be more in a D-2, which would be considered a severe drought.”

Vittetoe says this spring’s data shows definite improvement compared to conditions in 2022.

“When we look at that drought monitor this spring … when we look where more of that D-2 drought was last fall, now that area is just considered abnormally dry. So still showing up on the drought monitor, but we’ve definitely seen some improvement from where we were last fall,” she says.

Those improved moisture levels, combined with the high selling price that farmers enjoyed for their crops last fall, are a great way to kick off the planting season.

“I think everybody’s optimistic that we’ve gotten some moisture back in the soil through winter,” Fynaardt says.

“For the most part, I think everybody’s putting together a pretty good, solid plan as far as they took care of their fertility levels, they spent the money on the inputs that they needed to … They probably had some more cash available from the last couple of years because commodity prices have been high. Now, input prices have been high too, so it’s been a balancing act, but at the same time, I think everybody’s in a better position now than they probably were.”

Making those plans, purchasing necessary inputs like fertilizer as they prepare to plant a new crop, began as early as last fall for many farmers.

“Starting all the way back in October we started working on fertilizer and everything. We started looking forward before the crop was even out from the year before,” Fynaardt says. Farmers use tools like soil tests to determine the best course of action to prepare their fields to grow again in the spring. Many will have fertilized their fields with things like anhydrous ammonia, phosphorus, potassium or lime. If they didn’t fertilize in the fall, Vittetoe says, they may already be doing so in preparation for spring planting.

Last year, farmers faced supply chain issues as they sought to purchase fertilizer and other necessaries for their crops. Ukraine has historically been one of the world’s major suppliers of potash, a key fertilizer in the ag industry. The disruption caused by the war in Ukraine has, in turn, caused supply chain complications that farmers had to work around.

Last year’s drought created further supply chain obstacles.

“We were having issues actually getting that product here,” Vittetoe says. “It wasn’t that we didn’t necessarily have the phosphorus or the potassium, but a lot of that comes up on barges on the Mississippi. Last fall, with the dry conditions

not just here in Iowa, but in general, it was really slowing barge traffic down on the Mississippi, just because it was too low that the barges couldn’t come, or they couldn’t be as full.”

This year, the supply chain issues are clearing up, according to Vittetoe, but there are still some concerns about the availability of certain inputs.

“It’s better than where it was a year ago,” she says. “There’s still some things, probably more on the chem side of things — whether it’s herbicides, or insecticides or different pesticides you might use — We’re running into some supply chain issues there, but it’s definitely improved compared to where we were a year ago.”

As preparations continue, the actual planting won’t begin until the end of April.

“Field work will start, so you’ll see tillage. The growers will be out in the fields, working things down, cleaning up wash-outs, leveling things out so that everything’s ready as soon as it’s time to plant, that planter can roll … It’s usually the last week of April, first week of May [that we start to plant],” says Fynaardt. “Those two weeks have just become the big weeks anymore.”

The timing depends on temperature and soil conditions.

“We ideally want the soil at least 50 degrees at the four-inch depth and warming. We also don’t want it too wet, either, that we’re going to cause any compaction issues,” Vittetoe says.

As far as concerns that growers are facing this season, it’s a mixed bag of old and new issues that Iowa’s farmers will be facing.

“Weather is always a big one, just because that’s totally out of our control,” Vittetoe says.

Because planting, growing and harvest seasons are so dependent on weather, agricultural experts keep an eye on the El Niño/Southern Oscillation, or ENSO Cycle. The cycle is caused by shifts in trade winds that affect ocean temperatures, which in turn affect temperatures on land.

Vittetoe says that for the last three years, Iowa has been in the La Niña phase of the cycle, which is characterized by warmer than usual temperatures.

“Right now, we’re transitioning more to an ENSO-Neutral phase. Typically, what that means for us here in Iowa is that we tend to be maybe a little bit on the cooler side, but we also tend to have a little bit more moisture as well,” she says.

In addition to changing weather conditions, growers are still being faced with high input costs, though Fynaardt says that at this point, it’s nothing new.

“Everything’s still high on the input side, but it’s less of a shock because we already went through it once,” he says. “Everybody’s partly become callous to it, that they’re going

to pay a lot, but they’re also getting paid a lot for their end product. When they’re selling the corn and beans at the end user, their checks are bigger now too.”

Fynaardt says the high input costs of recent years have taught farmers to streamline their spending process.

“I think a lot of people have actually tightened down and done a much better job about keeping track of everything,” he says. “Whereas, it used to kind of be ‘I know I need fertilizer, I know I need anhydrous, I know I need seed, I know I need chemicals, and we just … whatever it is, it is, and we move on,’ anymore it’s ‘How can I do a good job and rein that in a little bit?’... Just a lot more mindful about what it is costing per acre on every individual thing. A lot more in-depth conversations, especially with people like myself, about what can we change.”

In addition to these perennial challenges that farmers face, Vittetoe says there is rising concern about a fungal disease found in corn plants called Tar Spot. The disease is characterized by small black spots on the leaves of the corn plant that hinder the plant’s ability to perform photosynthesis.

“It’s a relatively new disease in corn, but we do know that it can potentially cause some yield impact if we don’t do anything to manage it by trying to pick hybrids that are going to be more resistant to that disease, and then, if we do need to spray a fungicide, we get lots of questions about ‘What should we spray, when should we spray it, do we need to spray more than once?’” she says. “A lot of those decisions need to be made more so during the growing season, but that’s something I know will be on a lot of people’s radar, especially if we do get a lot more moisture, since that disease likes leaf wetness.”

Crop diseases like Tarr Spot are nothing that Iowa’s farmers haven’t seen before.

As Iowa shifts into gear for another robust planting season, Vittetoe reminds residents of Marion and Mahaska counties to be mindful of farmers driving machinery on the road as they go about the business of growing another year’s worth of famous Iowa crops.

In their own words: Local farmers talk Iowa agriculture and its challenges

By Channing Rucks, Staff Writer

Iowa is one of the nation’s leaders in agriculture, an industry that is dependent upon uncontrollable factors like temperature and rain, touched by almost every area of politics and often misunderstood by those who are not farmers.

Four local farmers tackled some tough issues — like the daily challenges farms face and their concerns for agriculture moving forward.

Day by day: The main challenges

Farmers can face challenges ranging from weather events, to high fuel prices, to livestock diseases and more. World events, such as the war in Ukraine, can affect the supply chains producers use to access vital goods, forcing them to think outside the box so they can keep their production levels steady.

One of the main operational difficulties that concerns Steve Kuiper, a fourth generation farmer from Marion County, is government regulation and the challenges it presents.

“I think government regulation is probably one of the bigger [concerns],” Kuiper says. “There’s constant pressure on farmers, as far as water quality, chemicals that we can use or not use. The thing that farmers need to realize is the policy makers today and in the future are really non-farm related folks. The folks that are helping to make the new Farm Bill, there’s a good number of those folks that have never been a part of a farm.”

“It’s up to us as farmers to be good advocates and

show people and tell people our storytelling; what we’re doing, how we’re trying to make our farming operations more sustainable. To be good managers of our business, but also good stewards of the land,” he says.

The Farm Bill is a federal spending package supporting agriculture and food production. The bill gets renewed every five years and is due for renewal in September of 2023. Sen. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa) recently hosted a round table at the Mahaska County Environmental Center to discuss priorities for the conservation title of the bill. Other titles include crop insurance, nutrition, commodity revenues and trade.

Jacob Taylor, a young farmer from Mahaska County, says the main challenges his farm is facing are high input costs and difficulty maintaining equipment.

“I would say … just currently with how high inputs are, how much seed costs, nitrogen costs, equipment expense repairs. If a piece of equipment breaks, even just to get it into a dealership … sometimes it can be a day, sometimes it can be up to two weeks before they can even get it fixed,” he says. “And then once you get it in there, shop rates are like $150 an hour, and then you have to pay for parts on top of that, so it’s pretty expensive to keep equipment going.”

Producers like Taylor have been facing unusually high input costs for more than a year now. The high costs for some of the inputs, like fuel and fertilizer, came as a result of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. Ukraine has historically been a major source of the world’s potash supply, which is potassium that

farmers use as fertilizer. The war in Ukraine disrupted the supply chain, driving prices higher and higher.

Iowa is also facing a workforce shortage in industry jobs, meaning there are fewer people with the skills and availability to perform maintenance on the specialized equipment that farmers use. Iowa Secretary of Agriculture Mike Naig visited a New Sharon business in February to discuss the problem and the challenges it poses to Iowa’s economy and rural development.

A political perspective

The producers shared some of the most pressing issues they would choose to discuss with politicians if they got the chance.

Father and son farmers Mark and Mike Jackson, of Mahaska County, shared their thoughts about the proposed Navigator pipeline, a carbon capturing and sequestering pipeline by Navigator CO2 Ventures that has been a contentious issue in Mahaska County due to its use of eminent domain.

Mike Jackson attended the Iowa Farm Bureau’s Day on Capitol Hill on March 21 and spoke with Sens. Ken Rozeenboom and Adrian Dickey, as well as Rep. Helena Hayes. He said that eminent domain at the pipeline was a main topic of conversation.

“Talking about eminent domain was the big thing,” Mike Jackson says. “We have this Navigator pipeline coming through, and the Farm Bureau is pushing to have 90 percent [of the land to allow the pipeline voluntarily], and then the last 10 percent to be able to use eminent domain to finish getting the pipeline put in for the greater good.”

The Jacksons, who have had stretches of pipeline on their farmland since the 1930s, are concerned that requiring such a high percentage of voluntary land approval will make the project unviable. They are neither for or against the pipeline but argue that an objective view of the pipeline, with both its costs and its benefits taken into account, is necessary to the conversation surrounding it.

“Pipelines, I have neither a positive or negative [opinion],” Mark Jackson. “I think we need to maintain science in this conversation, not emotion.”

“If you compare it to truck or rail, it’s a lot safer in the long run, if you look at the history of it,” Mike Jackson.

The Jacksons say the pipeline is better regulated than above ground transportation of hazardous materials, and that it could prevent accidents like the recent train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio.

“[East Palestine] is a prime example of above ground movement of product,” Mark Jackson says. “This [Navigator pipeline] would be a process of moving items from northern Texas, all the way up to Lake Michigan.”

“[The pipeline] is closely monitored,” Mike Jackson adds. “How many trains or trucks do you see going down the road with an airplane overhead? There’s an airplane weekly that flies over these [existing] lines.”

On the other hand, Taylor’s main points he would like to discuss with politicians include concerns about cattle industry transparency and land availability.

“There’s a lot of industries getting to very large packing plants, and a lot of times it’s not always a very fair price on what you’re actually getting paid for your animals,” Taylor says. “There’s a few large packing industries just in the whole country that kind of just set the price. So you’re kind of hedged there on what you can actually get, so just more of a transparency on making it fair for what the farmers can actually make on their money. Because pretty much the packers can say ‘This is all we’re going to pay, and we know you have cattle that need to be slaughtered, so that’s what it is.’ And that’s tough.”

Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) led the charge on a Cattle Price Discovery and Transparency Act that cleared the Senate Agriculture Committee last year. Rep. Randy Feenstra (R-Iowa) introduced the House’s version of the bill on March 1 of this year. The new legislation would require big packers to source a certain percentage of their weekly quotas using negotiated trade with producers rather than formula pricing, which uses a pre-arranged contract system to determine how the cattle will be valued at the time of slaughter.

The legislation is generally hailed as a move in the right direction for price transparency and fairness. However, experts have expressed concerns that the legislation could pose its own problems of fairness if producers lack the experience or education to successfully navigate negotiating sales with industry giants.

Mark and Mike Jackson are a father - son farming duo who operate east of Oskaloosa. They raise corn, beans and hogs on their farm. Here they are pictured with their family. Mike stands on the left of the back row, while Mark stands in the middle.

Kuiper says he would prioritize promoting ethanol and biofuel as clean energy solutions.

“One of the biggest things is we need to maintain ethanol consumption in the United States,” he says. “I think people have jumped on the electric vehicle train a little too hard. Ethanol is a green energy. It’s very sustainable, it’s renewable, it’s clean-burning and today, farmers can provide more ethanol than we do … I think that our policymakers need to understand that that’s a great alternative to everybody buying an electric vehicle.”

Raising awareness

What producers want non-farmers to know about agriculture is that farmers are working hard to make their operations safe and sustainable as they work to produce high quality food.

“The majority of Iowa farmers, they want to produce a high quality product for the consumers,” Kuiper says. “They want a safe product, they want everything to be exactly what they would feed their family. That’s the thing consumers need to realize, and our neighbors need to realize, is that we’re doing the very best we can for our business and for them.”

Taylor agrees that farmers care about the quality of the food they put on consumers’ plates.

“It’s important people know that the farmers care about how they raise their livestock or their crops, and they want them to be healthy, and they want what they sell to be healthy. They’re not trying to go out there and pollute, poison their livestock, because then people are going to eat the meat. Farmers care about what they raise and they want it to be good quality so people can consume it,” Taylor says.

Kuiper recommends people connect with commodity groups, such as the Iowa Corn Growers Association or the Iowa Soybean Association, for more support and information about their commodities.

In the end, the farmers want to be able to tell their stories as producers of Iowa agriculture.

“We’re very passionate about what we do and what we say,” Mike Jackson says. “We feel that if we don’t stand up and tell our story, somebody else will, and they’re going to get at least half the facts wrong.”

Many of those stories span generations and form family histories. They’re both industrial and highly personal.

“It’s important to remember that 97 to 98 percent of farmland in the United States are family farms, which is a fact I don’t think most people realize,” Mark Jackson says. “It’s a generational thing. Two to three generations at any given time can be associated with owning, working or growing up on that farm. So I think those are all very important, just to remind people that agriculture is in a strong position and Iowa is probably the leader

when it comes to that here in the United States.”

Jacob Taylor and his father operate their family’s farm near Cedar Township. They raise corn, beans and cattle

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