Field Pea Grower Meetings

Field Pea Grower Meeting Schedule

 Wed., January 9^th – 9:00 am

      Alliance Public Library
Wed., January 9^th – 1:30 pm
      Hay Springs Community Building
 Wed., January 16^th – 1:00 pm
      Farm & Ranch Museum, Gering
 Thur., January 17^th – 1:30 pm
      Albin Community Center Conference Room

 Wed., January 23^rd – Kimball - Time & Place TBA

Wed., January 23^rd – Sidney - Time & Place TBA

Thur., January 24^th – Big Springs - Time & Place TBA

Thur., January 24^th – Imperial - Time & Place TBA

 For Updates or More Information Please Contact:

 
Courtney Schuler, 308-225-1775, Courtney@Statelinebean.com

Dave Dietrich, 308-641-1244, Dave@Statelinebean.com

Bean Seed!

Seed Booking was busy today!  Stop by or call us soon to reserve your favorite pinto & great northern varieties for 2013.  Take advantage of the 8% prepay discount in December & January.

Variety Trial Results

I realize these are a little on the small side... I think you can click on them and they will load a bigger image.  I will also have them available on the website tomorrow.  If you have any questions, please give Dave or me a call :)

 

Upcoming Events

Next week is a busy one for Stateline...Mark Your Calendars!

Membership Sign-up for Pea Growers - Tuesday, December 18th, 5:30 pm, Gering Civic Center
- Anyone interested in growing yellow peas next year or in the future should attend!

Bean Seed Booking Days - Wednesday & Thursday, December 19th & 20th, 9-3, Gering Office
- We will have information from the Stateline Pinto Variety Trials, Approved Herbicides for Harvest Aids when Direct Harvesting, and all of your favorite Pinto & Great Northern Varieties available for the upcoming season!

Photo by Dave Dietrich

Christmas Spirit

Seed Booking Days

Bean Seed Booking Days will be December 19th & 20th from 9am-3pm at the Gering Office.  Please stop by to reserve your favorite pinto & great northern varieties!  Packaging will be available in both 50# bags & 2000# totes. 

We will have results available from our 2012 Pinto Variety Trials as well as variety information on new lines that have been released!

If you are unable to come by, please contact Dave or myself to reserve your seed.

There will also be some lunch available (beans of course)... So time your visit accordingly :)

Prepay discounts will be:

Dec/Jan - 8%   -   Feb/Mar - 4%   

Apr/May/June - 2% 

 

 

Chili Weather...

It's chili cooking weather again...  So here's another recipe that one of our harvest employees shared with me. 

2 Alarm Texas Style Chili

From the kitchen of National Champion Chef Wick Fowler

Modifications by Thomas J. Harrison

Ingredients:
3 lbs - Fresh Ground Beef
1/2 c - Chili Powder
1/2 T - Fresh Chopped Onion
1/2 T - Fresh Ground Garlic
1/2 T - Cumin
1/2 T - Oregano
1 t - Salt
3/4 t - Paprika
3/4 t - Cayenne Pepper
1 - 29 oz can - Tomato Sauce
1 - 14.5 oz can - Chili Ready Tomatoes
2 c - Pinto beans, cooked & drained
1/4 c - Masa Flour mixed with water to form a smooth paste

Directions:  Brown beef.  Add chili powder, onion, garlic, cumin, oregano, salt, paprika, cayenne pepper & tomato sauce. Bring to a boil, cover and simmer for 30 min.  Add chili ready tomatoes & pinto beans.  Simmer for an hour.  Add masa mixture to thicken and cook another 30 minutes. 

Bon apetit!

P.S. For 4 Alarm Chili, double the cayenne pepper & for False Alarm Chili, omit it altogether :)

Support 4-H!

18 Shopping Days left until Christmas! 

 

The 4-H Club I help with will be Gift Wrapping at Murdoch's in Scottsbluff this evening.  It is a Free Service, but donations are appreciated!  The funds we raise will be used for the various community service activities we do throughout the year - including the Christmas Food & Gift Basket we put together each year for a Family in Need in the community.  We'll also be there wrapping on Saturday the 8th and Sunday the 23rd.  Come by and get some of those gifts crossed off of your list while supporting 4-H! :) 



Lights in Old Town Fort Collins

Attention Pea Growers!

Stateline is officially in the Yellow Pea Business!

We will be holding a Membership Sign-Up and Informational Meeting on Tuesday, December 18th at 5:30 pm at the Gering Civic Center in Gering, Nebraska.

If you would like to sign up sooner or cannot make it to the meeting, please come by or call the Gering Office so that we can get the information to you for membership!

Bean Day - January 8th

The Nebraska Dry Bean Growers Association will be hosting their Annual Bean Day on January 8th, 2013 at the Gering Civic Center in Gering, Nebraska!  Stateline will have a booth at the event, so stop by and visit us to learn more about membership, seed availability, grower meetings, and marketing opportunities!

More info available on their website: http://www.beangrower.com/bean-day.html

Below is a photo of our booth at Bean Day 2012.

Words of Wisdom...

If you are riding ahead of the herd, take a look back every now and then to make sure it's still there.

 

Clean Bean Awards

Every year at our annual meeting, awards are given out to the growers who delivered the cleanest beans throughout harvest.  We take the total CWT delivered and calculate the percentage of shrink due to dirt and splits.  The growers with the lowest percentage are presented with a plaque and cash award.  Stateline really appreciates all of our growers' diligence in bringing in a high quality product that we can market with pride!

This year the winners were:
Great Northerns
1st Place - Kerry Birdsall 1.30%
2nd Place - Ryan Dietrich Farms 1.47%
3rd Place - Letcher Farms 1.76%

Pintos
1st Place - J. Jenkins Farms 2.09%
2nd Place - M Gompert Farms 2.37%
3rd Place - Letcher Farms 2.52%

Grower Photos

Below are more of the photos submitted by our members for the slideshow I put together for our annual membership meeting in November.  I wanted to share them with everyone because I enjoyed all of them so much!  These kids know where their food comes from : )

 

 

NE Trivia

Nebraska is an American Indian term meaning ‘flat water,’ referring to the big river that traverses the state. French traders later called the river the Platte, which also means flat.

Read more: http://americanprofile.com/articles/nebraska-means-flat-water/#ixzz2DN7i2QQC 

 



Happy Turkey Day

Stateline wishes everyone a Happy Thanksgiving! The harvest season should be wrapping up for most of you so you can take some time to spend with your families and friends. Those of you waiting to receive the pool contract information should find it in your mailbox or inbox today. Also, many of you have been meeting with your accountants in the recent days - If you would like to have us defer any of your bean payments to 2013, please contact us before we write the contract checks next week! Happy Turkey Day!

 

Split Pea Recipes?





Since I gave away some yellow split peas at the annual meeting, I have been receiving requests for recipes to use them in...  I don't really want to admit it, but I have never cooked with them before.  If anyone out there has a recipe they would like to suggest, please email it to me - I would like to share them with other blog followers.  Courtney@Statelinebean.com    

Thank you in advance for your help!

Joe Franks Award

Every year, Stateline's Board of Directors chooses a recipient for the Joe Franks Memorial Achievement Award. 

 

The purpose of the Joe Franks Memorial Award is to recognize individuals who made significant contributions to the dry edible bean industry in Western Nebraska and who use innovation in the production of dry beans.  Any member, in good standing, of Stateline, its employees, contractors, and cooperators are eligible for consideration for the Joe Franks Memorial Achievement Award.  To be considered as a potential recipient, contribution to the dry edible bean industry in Western Nebraska must be demonstrated in areas such as breeding, production, harvesting, and handling of dry edible beans.

 

This year's recipient was Dr. Carlos Urrea - The Dry Bean Breeding Specialist at the UNL Panhandle Research & Extension Center.  He has been instrumental in advancing the breeding of various market classes of beans by breeding for resistance of multiple diseases within the same line.  He is always willing to share information with growers and helps us tremendously with our pinto variety trials each year. 

Congratulations Carlos!

Recipe for Pinto Bean Cookies

Jamie Meisner of "Jamie's Confections" made the dessert for our Annual Meeting on Tuesday.  It's a little bit like an Iron Chef challenge because we always have beans as a required ingredient in the dessert that is served.  This recipe can be found on www.food.com and she made one little change - Instead of raisins, she used mini chocolate chips!  Yum!  Thank you Jamie, they were delicious :-)

Pinto Bean Cookies

• 1 cup brown sugar, packed
• 1/2 cup Crisco
• 2 large eggs
• 3/4 cup pinto beans, mashed
• 3/4 cup applesauce
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 2 1/4 cups flour
• 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoon clove
• 1/2 cup nuts, chopped
• 1/2 cup raisins

Directions:

1. Cream crisco, sugar and eggs, add mashed pinto beans and applesauce.beat till fluffy --
2. Add dry ingredients.beat till smooth.
3. Stir in raisins, and nuts.
4. Drop by tspful on greased cookie sheet.
5. Bake at 375* for 15-20 minutes.or golden brown.
6. Cool on rack.

Annual Meeting

No, I haven't fallen off the face of the planet...  I apologize for my lack of blogging the past week but have been busy working on things for our Annual Member Meeting, which was last evening.  We had an excellent turnout, wonderful food, and a fantastic program.  It was great to see all of you who attended and I'd be glad to entertain any suggestions, comments or critiques you may have!  I want this to be an event that no one wants to miss!  If anyone wants a copy of the slideshow that played throughout the evening, please let me know and I'll make you a copy.  I really appreciate all  the photos everyone allowed me to use. 


Board Chairman Jerry Mackie welcomes everyone to the event.

Centerpieces - Gourds from my garden...



Mark Watson - Guest Speaker for the evening, discussing field pea production in the region



Membership & Marketing

Harvest is finally drawing to a close and growers are thinking about marketing their dry bean crop.  Stateline offers a pool marketing option to our members which allows you to capture upside in the markets.  The details on the pool for both Great Northerns & Pintos will be available next week and the sign-up deadline is November 30th.  You can transfer your beans from storage or from a new-crop priced contract into the pool contract.

I would like to acknowledge all of our new members for 2012 - We had 22 new growers become members this calendar year! 
 
Since we are a closed cooperative, our patronage is directly tied to the amount of ownership you have in Stateline.  Several of you joined and only purchased 1 Unit to start out.  Now is a good time to purchase more Units to cover your 2012 deliveries! 

Election Day

Americans... Get to the polls today and vote!

 

 

This right should not be taken for granted...  Here are two charts from the Washington Post article titled Why 50 million Americans won’t vote Tuesday, in two charts.  It's ridiculous to see how many people don't care.  Please click on the title above to read the entire article.

RSVP

Stateline's Annual Member Meeting will be held a week from tomorrow on November 13th at the Gering Civic Center. I would encourage all of our members to attend - especially if you have never attended before. You will be a part of the Board Member Election and be presented the annual audit report. This year our guest speaker will be Mark Watson from Alliance who will talk about Yellow Pea Production. I also have some pretty fabulous door prizes :-)
I need to have all RSVPs by Friday, November 9th at the latest!   Also, I have had several members turn in photos for me to include in the annual meeting slideshow - Thank you! If anyone else has photos or video clips, please get them to me as soon as possible...

Here are some of the photos I have received so far...  One of the captions I received from a member was "2012-The Good, the Bad, & the Ugly"  I believe that is a fairly accurate description of the year...

Another Bean Blog

Browsing the web today I found another blog about beans...  It's called Grow - Cook - Eat - Beans and you can reach it by clicking on any word in the title.  They post information on growing beans, recipes, nutrition, and many other beany topics.  Check it out!

Happy Halloween

This was my yard a few years back on Halloween...  We had an abundance of pumpkins from our garden that year and Tony was creative enough to figure out something to do with them :-) 

Have a safe and Happy Halloween!

Beautiful Weather

We sure were blessed with beautiful weather today!  It looks as though the warmth and sunshine are going to continue until this weekend.  Mother Nature has given us some great days to work on finishing up harvest of beans, beets, and corn. 

Our thoughts and prayers are with everyone on the East Coast that is going through flooding, blizzards, wind, and power outages.  Our drought is devastating, but isn't as life-threatening as other natural disasters...

Nebraska Dry Bean Commission

As a processor representative of the Nebraska Dry Bean Commission, I'd like to give you a little info about what our purpose is and where your checkoff dollars go... In 1987, the Nebraska Legislature created the Dry Bean Commission under the provisions of the Dry Bean Resources Act. The Commission’s primary function, as defined by the Legislature, is to adopt and devise a dry bean program consisting of research, education, advertising, publicity, and promotion to increase total consumption of dry beans on a state, national, and international basis.  The Commission supports various research projects that are conducted at the Panhandle Research & Extension Center & at the Food Processing Center in Lincoln.  The results of that research are presented at the Dry Bean Field Tour every summer and at Bean Day in January at the Gering Civic Center.  We are very excited about the Food Processing Center and their work on creating bean flour which will be an ingredient in noodles.  Click here to read more about the project.  The research is also aimed at Chinese Food Manufacturers and was recently presented at a seminar in China.  In addition, we promote the use of beans by sponsoring many cook-offs & recipe contests throughout the year. 

 

For more information about the Nebraska Dry Bean Commission, visit the website at http://nebraskadrybean.com/  If you have any questions or suggestions for the Commission, please contact any of the representatives at the contact info on the website above.

 

 

Fall Sports

Good Luck to all of the High School sports teams

who are competing in the post season games & matches! 

Play Hard & Be Safe!

 

 

 

1000th Hit!

Today I received the 1000th hit on the blog!  It has been viewed in 10 different countries since I started posting entries on August 30th.  Thank you to everyone who reads and keeps up on what Stateline is doing! 

If you'd like to become a "follower" please click the link on the right side of this window.  Comments are also welcome!  Let me know what you'd like to hear more (or less) about. 

We will be having many grower meetings throughout the winter - so stay tuned for when we will be in your area!

......Haven't received many RSVPs for the Annual Meeting yet.  Please let us know if you will be able to attend!

Autumn

 

For man, autumn is a time of harvest, of gathering together. For nature, it is a time of sowing, of scattering abroad.

                                                                                                            - Edwin Way Teale

 

 

Healthy Beans!

Below is an article that was published in US News & World Report a few months ago that has some great information on the nutritional value of beans.

Beans:The Undervalued Superfood

By Bonnie Taub-Dix

August 16, 2012

 

We've all heard the expression "shop the perimeter of the store." But if you skip the middle, you're missing out on a wealth of wholesome, delicious food choices. Your supermarket shelves are filled with hidden treasures that you shouldn't pass up. Like beans, one of the most neglected and under-valued items.

Beans provide myriad health benefits, and they fit into several different food groups: although they are rich in complex carbs like breads and starches, as a plant-based food, they feel right at home in the vegetable group, offering an array of vitamins, minerals, and antioxidants, like their veggie companions. They can also hold their own in the protein group, supplying protein aplenty. Unlike some other members of this group, beans provide little to no fat and are cholesterol-free. In fact, beans actually lower cholesterol and triglyceride levels instead of potentially causing them to increase, as some animal proteins have been shown to do.

Though they've been around for centuries, beans are a modern-day superfood. Why? Let's count the ways.

• They are heart-helpers. Beans are "heart healthy" because they contain an abundance of soluble fiber, which can lower cholesterol and triglyceride levels. If you prefer canned beans, you can ditch up to 40 percent of the sodium by rinsing them in water.

• They are low in fat. Most beans are about 2 to 3 percent fat, and contain no cholesterol, unless they're processed or prepared with other ingredients, such as lard. (Check labels to see what else may be in the package or can.)

•They pack protein. The Dietary Guidelines for Americans say we should be eating more plant proteins. About ½ cup of beans provides 7 grams of protein, the same amount as in 1 ounce of chicken, meat, or fish. Vegetarians, vegans, and individuals who seldom eat meat, poultry, or fish could count on beans as an alternative choice.

• They balance blood sugar. With a low glycemic index, beans contain a beautiful blend of complex carbohydrates and protein. Because of this, beans are digested slowly, which helps keep blood glucose stable, and may curtail fatigue and irritability.

• They cut cancer risk. Scientists recommend that adults consume 3 cups of beans per week to promote health and reduce the risk of chronic diseases, like cancer. That owes to their abundance of fiber and antioxidants. 

• They will move you. Filled with fiber, beans can promote regularity by preventing constipation. To maximize your meal, be sure to accompany high-fiber foods with ample fluids, like still or sparkling water. Weighing in at 5 to 8 grams of fiber per 100 grams (3 ounces), beans are ideal for those who are sensitive to gluten, a natural protein found in products containing wheat, rye, barley, and sometimes oats. If you do have food allergies, however, check the food label or contact the manufacturer to be sure the product is safe.

• They'll satisfy you. Because beans are metabolized more slowly than other complex carbs, they may aid in weight loss by keeping us feeling full without being excessively high in calories.

• They're convenient. Canned, frozen, or dry, beans are a breeze to purchase, prepare, and store. They even come in flour form.

• They are wallet-friendly. Beans can are the least expensive source of protein, especially when compared to fresh meat.

• They are nutrient-rich. Aside from protein, complex carbs, and fiber, beans contain a powerhouse of nutrients including antioxidants, and vitamins and minerals, such as copper, folate, iron, magnesium, manganese, phosphorous, potassium, and zinc. The Dietary Guidelines for Americans refer to many of these important nutrients as "shortfall nutrients," meaning most of us aren't getting enough of them. Beans can help you step up to a more complete plate.

• They're versatile. They can be incorporated into a main dish (chili), side dish (rice and beans), appetizer (soup), or snack (dip). It's easy to be creative when you have kidney beans, pinto beans, black beans, lima beans, black-eyed peas, garbanzo beans (chickpeas), split peas, and lentils in your pantry. Take advantage of their various shapes, sizes, and colors when planning meals.

Bonnie Taub-Dix, MA, RD, CDN, has been owner of BTD Nutrition Consultants, LLC, for more than three decades and she is the author of Read It Before You Eat It. As a renowned motivational speaker, author, media personality, and award-winning dietitian, Taub-Dix has found a way to communicate how to make sense of science.

Delivery Reports

A Note to our Growers - We have recently changed software systems and therefore the login information you have previously used to access your harvest delivery information is not available online.  If you would like a report from our new system, please contact the Gering Office at 308-436-2186.  We hope to have the new system available to everyone for the 2013 harvest!

 

 

 

A herd of deer eating breakfast Wednesday morning on Hwy 161 South of Torrington.