Two Young Farmers

Two Young Farmers

David Sparks Ph.D.
David Sparks Ph.D.
With 2017 coming to a close and 2018 just around the bend we went out into the field to see how two young farmers in the Treasure Valley fared in 2017 and what they are hoping for in the new year. Terry Walton is busy with ground preparation work for the 2018 spring planting. Walton said this year started bad but finished better than he expected. “We had a hard spring but how the crops turned out, I am pretty surprised. Pleasantly surprised. We had a good year. Crops yielded decent, for the spring we had I will take it.” Walton, remembering the misery of the 2017 winter hopes 2018 winter weather will be kinder. So far he likes how mother nature is behaving. “I'm looking for a lot better weather. I’m optimistic so far. We had already had a snow day this time last year for school and we haven’t yet. We haven’t had any snow yet, so. Looking forward to easier, more cooperative weather.”

 

Travis Bryant also remembers the impact of the hard winter. “That first cutting crop last year was terrible.” Bryant, who runs a small feed lot and grows various row crops started 2017 later than usual but earlier than his neighbors. “It was really hard to get some of the seed crops in. It was just way too muddy. I was three weeks later that I was the last three years putting some seed crops in and I was still two weeks earlier than anybody else and I shouldn’t have been in the field but it was in my head that I had to get there.”

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