Estate and trust attorney Andrew Loudon of Lincoln tells the crowd at the Aurora Cooperative annual meeting that most of what he has learned about mistakes made in estate planning has come from helping clean up the messes left behind by those who failed to properly plan for the disposition of their assets after death.

Hamilton County Noxious Weed and Highway Supt. Jeremy Brandt sprays weeds in a road ditch near a county bridge. He is responsible for knocking out noxious weeds and invasive species along the county’s 1,000 miles of roads and enforcing weed control on private lands.

Along with the major federal funding package passed by Congress just before Christmas, major ag economic and disaster relief funds were included in the package.

Certified Agronomist Orvin Bontrager of Aurora (above) has more than 45 years of experience helping farmers grow crops. At right is a photo he took last year of what he calls a moderate infection of tar spot on a corn leaf. He said when it gets to this stage it is almost too late to apply fungicide.

Hamilton County stock grower Fred Heuermann checks the cattle at his feed lot near Phillips. Heuermann will be presented with an award from the York-Hamilton County Cattlemen at their annual banquet on Jan. 28 at York.

Kyle Moss, director of integration and testing for Lincoln-based ALA Engineering, stands in front of the company’s prototype autonomous cattle feeding truck on display at the Nebraska Ag Expo in early December. Moss works out of the Scottsbluff location of the company where he oversees product integration and testing.

A couple of generations ago farmers used to brag about having corn that was “knee-high by the 4th,” meaning by the 4th of July. However, with modern hybrids and farming techniques it’s often possible to have corn that is that high by the 4th of June, as evidenced by the photo taken along Highway 14 south of Marquette June 4. In the foreground the field also shows evidence of the washing of heavy rains that hit the area.

Nate Goertzen harvests white corn on his farm near Hampton in October. Earlier in the month he hosted a trade mission of corn buyers from Mexico.

USDA Headquarters, Washington, D.C.

Grain Weevil inventor Ben Johnson stands next to the robot and accessories that will be available for pre-order to farmers beginning Jan. 1.