Apple Season in Nebraska | by Kelly Cox

Last year, we gave you a snapshot of a classic agritourism stop in Nebraska – Vala’s Pumpkin Patch. This year, we’d like to give you another pin in your agriculture map with a quick tour of Nebraska apple season. 

AppleJack Festival

© Nebraska City AppleJack Festival

For the past two months, Nebraskans state-wide have been celebrating the apple harvest, beginning with the annual AppleJack Festival. 

Each September, Nebraska City opens its streets and orchards to nearly 80,000 people to kick off the harvest. This massive three-day event includes a parade, carnival, craft fairs, live music, and, of course, APPLES. And I’m not just talking about freshly-picked apples; anything you can think of that is made from apples is available to sample and take home. 

Throughout the rest of the apple harvest season, the orchards remain open for anyone to experience, including a “u-pick” service and farmers’ markets. 

For the first time in my 28 years of being a Nebraskan, I went through the orchards and picked a peck of apples. I was absolutely AMAZED at how absolutely beautiful and expansive the orchards truly are! Many of the orchards have several kinds of apples available to pick, so you can mix and match what you take home.

There is also fun for the whole family at the Arbor Day Farm Tree Adventure® (or “Treeventure,” as I keep calling it). Along with apple picking, you and your family can learn about nature, take a guided tour of the Arbor Day Farm, and climb a massive 50-foot treehouse!

So, if you find yourself in Nebraska in early fall, be sure to plan a day to visit the orchards in and around Nebraska City. 

Click here for a full list of open orchards.

U-Pick Apple Service

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Kelly Cox Global Digital Marketing Manager Kelly is a native of Omaha, NE, and has degrees in English and Web Development. She joined the Valley Irrigation Global Marketing Department in 2008 where she shares her love of web and all things digital marketing with her colleagues and the Valley dealer network. Outside of her life at Valley, Kelly enjoys reading, singing, and spending time with her family.

Top Five Recommended Fall Maintenance Tips

The growing season doesn't end with harvest. Taking care of your irrigation equipment now will prevent costly repairs and downtime next year. Give your center pivot a checkup so it will be ready to roll when planting season arrives.

To help you with post-harvest maintenance, Valley_® offers its Top Five maintenance tips:

1. Wheel Tracks - Be sure to fill deep wheel tracks during the off-season to reduce stress on irrigation, tillage, and harvest equipment. To help prevent future tracking, consider changing to a different type of tire, adding floatation, or modifying the sprinkler package to reduce water application to the wheel tracks.

2. Drive Train - To maximize the life of your drive train and keep it operating trouble-free, drain water from the wheel gearbox and center drive, and make sure the gear lubricant is at the appropriate level.

3. Pipe Flushing - Flushing your pipeline and cleaning your sand trap is essential, especially if you either have water quality problems or your irrigation water contains sand.

4. Moving Parts - Steel moving on steel without proper lubrication can lead to unnecessary wear and tear on irrigation equipment. Be sure to grease all moving parts, including the pivot point bearing, towable hubs, corner rollers, and legs.

5. Schedule Your Preventive Maintenance Check - Our Valley dealers offer winterization programs for all brands of pivots. From inspections and tire pressure checks to sprinkler package replacement, your dealer will ensure your irrigation equipment is in top condition and prepared for winter.

For more preventive maintenance tips, visit our website.

The Love of Fall Harvest | by Jill Zwiener

It seems if you ask anyone in the farming/agriculture industry what their favorite part of the year is, most of the time you will hear “fall harvest.” There is something extra special about turning the calendar to October when harvest is in full swing.

It starts with walking out in the morning, a slight fog hangs in the air as you take in that first breath that is a little cooler than the months before. As everyone starts to gather in the field to begin harvesting, you feel a sense of excitement. The entire team is working together to get the year’s crop brought in.

The sights, the sounds, and the smells of harvest are so special. The sound of the combine shelling the corn. The aroma of the corn drying while a slight dust floats through the air. As the sun starts to set after a long day, the lights of the equipment and grain systems come on.

The mercury starts to drop and you reach for that light jacket to keep warm as you watch everyone coming in from the field. You shut down the equipment for the day and that's when you not only realize your love for fall harvest, but the love you have for taking care of the family farm. If you are lucky, you might even experience the joy of sharing this with your own children, knowing this might turn into their love as well and keep the cycle of family farming going.

The only thing that can make it better is catching a big, orange harvest moon coming up over the horizon on your drive home, knowing that in only a few short hours you get to start the process all over again. 

Happy fall harvest to everyone in the agriculture community! Take care and be safe this year!

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Jill Zwiener Brand Manager Jill joined the Valley Irrigation team in 2011. She loves country music, fountain soda, food, college football, and the ski slopes of Colorado. She enjoys using photography to freeze the precious bits of time with her family into pictures that she can cherish for years.

Celebrating Halloween, Valley Style | by Shannon Peterson

The Valley® marketing team is divided. Half of us LOVE Halloween, the other half, “meh, take it or leave it.” 

So, the Halloween enthusiasts decided to pump a little spirit into Valley Irrigation with a pumpkin-carving contest. The contest asked employees to send in a photo of their carved or decorated pumpkin or local produce. (Local produce? You’re wondering, ‘What on earth?’ We wanted to open the contest up to our international colleagues who may not celebrate Halloween. Truth be told, we didn’t get a lot of decorated produce entries.) There were three categories: most creative, scariest, and Valley-themed.

After we launched our contest, I noticed several similar competitions on Twitter, including the National FFA and the University of Minnesota. Maybe next year we’ll open the contest up to our dealers and customers. I just know that someone out there possesses the artistic skills to carve a pivot on a pumpkin.

This year, we didn’t get nearly the volume of entries we anticipated. But that’s OK because some of the submissions we did get are pretty amazing.

Here are some of the Valley-themed entries. Enjoy! 

Visit our Facebook page to see the creative and scary pumpkins.

Meanwhile, for those who were wondering, the USDA reported that there were plenty of pumpkins available for carvers this year, although crop conditions varied by region. “Wet spring weather, followed by a hot dry summer, had a negative impact on pumpkin volume in the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic states. Conditions in the Midwest and Western United States were much more favorable, and growers are reporting good quality and good size for their pumpkins.” (Thanks to the USDA Economic Research Service for the pumpkin report quoted here).

Have a safe and happy Halloween.

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Shannon Peterson Marketing Content Editor Shannon joined Valley Irrigation in 2013. She enjoys traveling with her family, particularly to national parks, and she occasionally writes about her travels for Home & Away magazine. Shannon also likes reading, trying new restaurants, seeing movies, and watching Husker football and Creighton basketball. However, she and her husband spend most of their free time chauffeuring their teenage son to activities and chasing their baby daughter.

Harvesting Pride – from the seat of a combine | by Brooke Stover

 Grandpa's $1,700 tractor Harvesting corn Grandpa Gene

Autumn is signified to me by many things: the changing of the leaves from green to shades of orange and red; the sun starts coming out a little later (making it a bit more difficult for some of us to get out of bed – not me of course, but some); and (something I have come to appreciate) the caravan of combines combing the fields of rural Nebraska.

I was asked to write about the harvest, which I don’t know too much about, but I did know who to ask. So I visited my grandparents farm just east of Fremont, NE. As I drove down the gravel roads through clouds of dust with my camera and list of questions, I thought I knew what answers I was going to get and exactly what I was going to learn. I was both wrong and right, as usual. (I will most likely never admit to that again, so take note.)

After I arrived, I sat down at the kitchen table with my grandparents, and they told me how farming has changed. Their first tractor cost $1,700 and fuel could be purchased for 30 cents a gallon! They told me that, once upon a time, both weeds and crops were picked by hand. I, of course, teased them for that – a lot of horse and buggy jokes ensued, followed by a few about running water. But, all jokes aside, I am proud of where my grandparents started and where they are now. 

So, I was there to ask questions and take some pictures, but then my grandpa asked if I wanted to combine with him. Of course I did – I hadn’t been in a combine since I was eight! 


As we made our way up and down the rows, I could see why my grandfather enjoys farming so much. You can look right behind you and see what you have accomplished. You can see the corn as it flows from the combine to the truck, then look back out at the field and see what’s left.

On the way down row two, my grandfather said, “Grandma asks me when I am going to stop farming.” My grandfather is 76-years-young (he looks, maybe, a day older than 60). “And I told her, why would I quit now when farming is becoming easier?” Smart guy. Then he showed me all the buttons on his combine and told me that GPS could run the combine for him, if he wanted it to.

By the end of the day, I did, in fact, learn something I already knew – that farming has become easier. But I also learned something I didn’t exactly know – the joys of farming and the pride a grower deserves to feel about what he can accomplish on the land he owns. Those are the same reasons I am proud to work at Valley_®. We provide products like BaseStation and TrackNET™, which make the grueling and time-consuming tasks of farming just a little bit easier, a little bit more manageable, and a lot more precise, while instilling pride in every grower who calls farming his occupation.

As for my grandfather, well, he’s probably never going to quit farming. Sorry grandma.

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Brooke Stover Global Marketing Coordinator Brooke has been with the Valley Irrigation Global Marketing department since 2011. She spends her free time taking pottery classes; though she thoroughly enjoys this, most of her stuff is a bit lopsided. Brooke also loves to read and listen to Frank Sinatra. She enjoys traveling and has been to 11 countries with the goal to make it to six more in the next six years!

Agriculture in Autumn and International Intrigue | by Kelly Downing

Ah, fall. This is my favorite season. The weather cools down, the humidity drops, and conditions tend to be very comfortable. And there is football (American style)! 

As I watch my wife finish her garden activities (from a safe, non-involved distance, of course) and I see the combines roar through the fields sucking in crops and dispensing chaff, it hits me. One of the big reasons I enjoy autumn so much is the feeling of accomplishment we get in agriculture. It really does create a warm feeling for me, seeing the harvest hit the bin after the long growing season of work, and worry. So, I get a good feeling whenever I stand in front of the (literally) hundreds of jars of bounty in my basement, canned by my wife from her garden. 

But, back to reality. I was asked to write about our international efforts. As this hits our website, I will be in Senegal, Africa, visiting a pivot rice project. The farm is just beginning its second crop. The first crop, planted this spring and harvested in August, was definitely a learning experience. 

One of the lessons learned was the importance of adequate weed control. The growers planted into virgin desert soil, where there seemed to be little or no native vegetation. So, it was a little surprising how many weeds grew. The growers also had to work around some limitations in available herbicides. Here is a photo of some weed issues they faced:

This was a major problem, of course, and yields were very poor. However, the growers are committed to making it work, so they formed a relationship with the research team from the University of Missouri’s Delta Center that has been working with them—via regular conference calls—to improve their results. 

The “intrigue” comes, of course, from wondering how things will go in the second crop. While they are still battling the same issues all farmers face, it seems that the relationship with the Delta Center researchers has been beneficial. Early reports are better this time, so I am confident that the second crop will show improvement. 

The important thing, as we all know, is the process. There might be a lucky few who find success immediately, but nobody does their best work the first time they try something. So, the key lesson here is to keep trying, learn constantly, and put those experiences to work. 

I will report later on how things are going, and what I see there. I encourage you to stay in touch with us as well. Tell us how your harvest is going. 

And, remember to be safe. Get adequate rest and make sure your equipment is in good shape. I know things are hectic right now, and everyone is trying to finish. Just don’t cut safety corners to save a few minutes. We need you all out there next year, too!

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Kelly Downing International Ag Project Specialist Kelly, a Nebraska-based Irrigation Specialist, spent 10 years working on soil and water research projects for a major agricultural university, involving a variety of crops. His work focused on irrigation management, but also included other topics.  Since joining Valley Irrigation, he has worked in the fields of Service, Product Management, Product Reliability and Sales. Kelly focuses on developing projects in irrigation field management and providing recommendations for the Circles for Rice project. Kelly has traveled to several countries providing technical support, such as soil moisture monitoring and irrigation management training.

Fall Maintenance Tips

Drive Train Wheel Tracks Sprinkler Package

Depending on where you are located in the United States, harvest is either right now, very close to starting, or already complete. Before the snow comes and buries your field for the winter, be sure to take time to give your center pivot or linear a checkup so that it's prepared for the next growing season.

To help you through this post-harvest maintenance process, Valley_® offers this list of 10 maintenance tips.

1. Drive Train - To maximize the life of your drive train and keep it operating trouble-free, drain water from the wheel gearbox and center drive, and make sure the gear lubricant is at the appropriate level.

2. Wheel Tracks - Be sure to fill deep wheel tracks during the off-season to reduce stress on irrigation, tillage, and harvest equipment.  To help prevent future tracking, consider changing to a different type of tire, adding floatation, or modifying the sprinkler package to reduce water application to the wheel tracks.

3. Motor Contactors - Damaged motor contactors can reduce the life of the drive unit motor, so be sure to inspect and replace worn contactors.

4. Tire Pressure - Tires are vital to the operation of irrigation equipment. Be sure to check the pressure and tighten the lug bolts, as well as evaluate the overall tire condition.

5. Sprinkler Package - Sprinkler packages should be changed at least every 10,000 hours of operation.  Regularly check for broken or worn sprinkler components and replace them as necessary.  Also consider running a new sprinkler design which could maximize efficiency for soil and crop type.

6. Energy Efficiency - You can minimize water pumping costs by lowering pressure when possible.  To ensure that water is being used efficiently, check the machine's water pressure at the pivot point.  For sprinkler packages with pressure regulators, check the line pressure at the last tower.

7. Pivot Alignment & Pipe Flushing - Ensure the tower box microswitches are set properly.  Improper settings can cause pivot misalignment, which results in nuisance shutdowns.  Flushing your pipeline and cleaning your sand trap is essential, especially if you either have water quality problems or your irrigation water contains sand.

8. U-Joints - Evaluate the equipment for worn u-joint inserts and ensure driveshaft shields are in place for safety.

9. Electrical Connections - Be sure to power down the equipment before checking any electrical connections.  Once the power is off, check for loose connections or loose cord grips in tower boxes.

10. Moving Parts - Steel moving on steel without proper lubrication can lead to unnecessary wear and tear on irrigation equipment.  Be sure to grease all moving parts, including the pivot point bearing, towable hubs, corner rollers, and legs.

For more information on how you can make the best of your investment with irrigation machine maintenance, contact your local Valley dealer.