North Dakota Zero Tillage Farmers Association From: Clif Issendorf 641 88th St. NW Newburg, N. D. 58762-9709 Telephone 1-701-272-6379 Fax 1-701-272-6231 E-mail issbros@ndak.net

Biographical Sketch: President of North Dakota Dry Pea and Lentil Association, Chairman of the Bottineau County Water Resource Board, 8 year minimum till farmer with Concord air seeder. Farms with father Elmer, brother Tom and son Jon. Crops raised during 1998 season, field peas for seed, Majoret and Interga, green and yellow field peas for human consumption, feed peas, spring wheat, durum, triticale and corn. We planted one-third of our farm to field peas. The soils we farm are Barnes loam to Fargo Clay (Gumbo), we have rocks, wet cool spring soils, and we farm 20 miles south of the Canadian border half way between Minot and Bottineau. The last 2 years we have received double our normal summer precipitation.

Subject: Managing Pest Problems with Rotations What is Pest? To me it is anything that causes me a problem, be it a pesky weed, an animal, a farming operation, a bug or insect, or a disease. Field peas help me manage pests. Lets take a look at how we accomplish this task. Grasshoppers are not a problem in field peas, the rotation helps manage these pests. The same goes for green bugs and aphids in field peas. Because field peas are seeded early, we have not had a problem with green bugs or aphids reducing our yield. The rotation of field peas helps eliminate these pests. Treflan resistant pigeon grass is a pest to our farming operation. By using Sencor with Sonalan in our field pea rotation, we use a different mode of action to attack our pesky pigeon grass problem. Harvesting of our field peas is done early, seed early and harvest early. One third of our crop is in the bin before my son Jon goes to school. Also, the field pea seed that we harvest for seed is cleaned right from the combine at 18% moisture, placed in a hopper bin, air dried, and ready for next years seed sales. This eliminates one week of extra work later in the fall when labor is hard to find. Field peas are 24% protein, they are excellent animal feed, this can work for you and against you. When we grow field peas we look at many markets. Our first seeding is for seed, high quality, high yielding, good standing, semi-leafless upright peas, the next seeding is for high quality, high yielding human consumption field peas, and as the seeding season progresses some of these peas will have less quality and they will end up in the feed market. Here enters the pesky situation. Dark geese, ducks, sandhill cranes, deer and hunters all love field peas, and they dont know if you grew it for seed, human consumption, or animal feed and they could care less. They love protein, and once they get the taste of peas, they will be in your fields. Blackbirds are another animal pest in our area. We live next to a refuge with lots of cattails and a fly way for blackbirds. We have planted sunflowers on this land and learned a valuable lesson, never do that again! Pesky does not describe what I think of blackbirds. Field peas in our rotation eliminates the pesky blackbird from eating our crops and taking our time and money to chase these birds away. Wheat - Do we have any pesky things when we talk about wheat? Yes, there are allot pesky things with wheat. Disease, insects, bugs, price, the list goes on and on, why do we grow it? Is it a history thing, because dad grew it, grandfather grew, and his great-grandfather grew it. I can remember the year we seeded the whole farm to durum. It worked good that year, but I would not try it in 1999. Our farming area has been receiving to much moisture to even think about that much wheat. Too much rain can be a pest if we are growing wheat, but we can change our crop mix to use some of this excess moisture that wheat can not use. There are crops like triticale that can stand more moisture than A C Berrie spring wheat. If you have an outlet for forage grain(triticale) and forage field peas(Arvika) this is one way to reduce your wheat acres. Is wheat a pest? Should we try to eliminate it from our rotation? Or should we grow because it breaks the disease cycle in broadleaf crops? Corn as part of a rotation can help manage some of the pesky moisture problems. Last year we planted corn on wheat stubble and field pea stubble the last days of April. The soil temperature on the wheat stubble was 52 degrees and on the field pea stubble it was 54 degrees. We planted a 72 day corn that was waist high by the 4th of July. We were frost free by the end of August. The dark stubble from the pea ground pushed the corn along faster than the wheat stubble. Corn provides us with chemical rotation to help us with chemical resistant weeds. Our harvest moisture was 18%, and our drying costs were 5 cents a bushel. The 72 day corn was planted next to a refuge, blackbirds did not give us a problem. I think the corn was to hard when the migrating blackbirds came through, they went to the sunflowers instead of eating on our corn. We passed a pest problem unto the sunflower grower. Pest problems come in many forms, sizes, and labels. Crop rotation to peas or corn from wheat manage some of these pests. Hunters, geese, and ducks can be pests. We charge $20.00 per day per gun to put two pest together so they can call it hunting or recreational activity. Some hunters get upset, some are very appreciative for a good place to hunt. Use some of that pesky recreational money and take your family on a recreational outing away from your farming operation. Manage those pests to reward your family for the stress we are going thru. Ski at Bottineau Winter Park, they have a new chair lift, snowmobile, or what ever your personal choice is, put those pests to work for you.