At Lankin, North Dakota, Dale Zahradka is looking for every possible rain cloud. The area from Highway 2 to the Canadian border has missed many of the recent rains. The crop is holding on despite the lack of timely rains. “A lot of the crop come up uneven, I call it salt and pepper with a lot of dual-stage crops out there.” Zahradka has started his barley harvest and is pleasantly surprised. “The test weights were good, the protein was low enough for malt and the yield was a little better than we had anticipated on this early stuff where the heat hurt it.”
