August has been a busy month at Hof Batie. The constant heat and prolonged dry spell have kept us hustling to keep the crops, lawn, garden, flower beds and young trees watered. Then there are all the seasonal activities to attend and special occasions thrown in to keep the calendar full.

Thrown into the mix have been the farm visits of two vastly different groups with the common thread being Agriculture 101 lessons. The second week in August a busload of almost 30 people arrived on a pre-tour connected with the Governor’s Agriculture and Economic Development Summit.

Hubby hopped on the bus in Kearney so he could use the 45-minute drive to discuss Platte Valley settlement history and also point out the importance of the Platte River to the region having enough water to keep crops going in years like 2022 when Mother Nature doesn’t provide enough moisture.

Many in that group had never set foot on a farm and were eager to learn the basics of Agriculture 101.

While Hubby discussed the types of row crops and seasons of planting, cultivation, irrigation, dry down and harvest, another great ag advocate, Shana Beattie of Sumner discussed her family’s livestock operation.

The Beatties raise hogs and cattle and two of their daughters have diversified the operation to sell custom processed pork directly to customers.

Even more fascinating was last week’s visit by a team of eight scientists working with NASA’s Earth Science program. The team was led by Dr. Karen St. Germain, Director of NASA’s Earth Science/Science Mission Directorate.

While this team had the Ag 101 basics down fairly well, because 10 percent of NASA’s mission is earth science, they needed to go more in-depth. For two hours the team peppered us with questions about how and why we do the things we do on the farm.

Then the questions turned to how they could help us improve our data collection and assist the farming community in making better use of that data collection. NASA currently has 26 satellites collecting images and data circling the earth. Soon they hope to launch satellites that would improve collection of evaporation- transpiration (ET) levels of growing crops to within quarter-acre segments. The potential for using this information in agriculture is tremendous.

Many emails and points of contact information were exchanged with both groups as we strive to be transparent about how and why we do the things we do down on the farm. Agri-education never stops, for us or for the many visitors we’ve hosted and hope to host on Hof Batie.