🎯 Episode Overview:
It’s a cloudy, breezy Tuesday in North Dakota, and Weather & Ag in Focus is bringing the sunshine through insightful ag chat, weed control tips, and a standout conversation with the MyAgData summer interns. Bridgette and Dean unpack the region’s hit-or-miss rain patterns, dish on leafy spurge strategies, and dive deep into the future of precision agriculture with three bright young minds who are shaping it.
🔑 Episode Highlights & Timestamps:
🌦️ 0:00 – Forecast & Field Prep
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Light showers with a chilly high near 70°F
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Breezy north winds make it feel like fall
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Bridgette prepares to literally do tomorrow’s show from a wheat field
“I’m packing my umbrella lawn chair. What could go wrong?”
🌾 5:41 – Yellow Flower Field Guide (aka Not All Sunshine is Good)
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Canola? Sunflowers? Nope — it might be leafy spurge, a noxious weed
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Identification tips and herbicide timing
"We're hitting the tail end of effective application season right now."
🧪 7:01 – Weed Control 101
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Control methods include:
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2,4-D + Tordon (picloram)
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Plateau (imazapic – Group 2)
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Sharpen (saflufenacil – Group 14)
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Bridgette nails the pronunciation on air:
“Saf-lu-FEN-a-cil… try spelling that during trivia!”
🎓 9:46 – Intern Spotlight: MyAgData’s Next Gen
Meet the trio helping digitize ag:
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Micah Lundblad (Precision Ag/Crop Science @ NDSU)
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Haylee Frizzell (Ag Science @ SDSU, grew up farming in WA)
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Paul Olson (Info Systems @ NDSU, now MBA student)
Key intern insights:
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12:56 – Paul: “Ag people are the happiest folks I’ve ever worked with.”
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18:09 – Micah: “Reputation is everything. One bad interaction spreads fast.”
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19:25 – Haley: “Before this, I didn’t even know how acreage reporting worked!”
A great real-world look at how tech + ag are coming together.
📋 22:16 – Acreage Reporting Deadline: TODAY!
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MyAgData simplifies multi-county reporting
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Visit myagdata.com — there's still time (barely!)
“We’ve got the manpower to knock out a few more reports before 6pm!”
🚜 24:20 – Ag Tech & Auto-Steer Lessons
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Micah compares MyAgData to early skepticism of GPS auto-steer
“Now nobody farms without it—this tech will be the same.”
🧵 30:33 – Cotton Crisis in the U.S.
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Texas cotton hit by both drought & flooding
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Domestic demand plummeting (6.7M bales → 1.7M)
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Competing with synthetic fibers + global trade war
“A new cotton picker? $1.3 million. Yikes.”
🦠 35:00 – White Mold Watch
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Fungicide spotlight: Rev by Summit Agro (tea tree oil + systemic blend)
“Rev disrupts spore membranes before they can take hold.”