Northeast North Dakota farmer is bully for black beans

GILBY, N.D. — Gilby farmer Dexter Cronquist finds that edible beans are a superb slot in his grain and row crops rotation.

12 months in and 12 months out, Cronquist vegetation a number of hundred acres of both black or pinto beans, together with wheat, corn, soybeans and sugarbeets.

He’s carrying on a household custom that was handed down from his father, Kent Cronquist, and uncle Kim Cronquist.

The Cronquist household has farmed within the Gilby space of northeastern North Dakota since Dexter’s grandfather Jack Cronquist moved from Erskine, Minnesota, to develop grain and row crops on wealthy Purple River Valley farmland about 30 miles northwest of Grand Forks, North Dakota.

Dexter, 34, is obsessed with being in the latest technology of Cronquist growers to pursue an agricultural profession. He not solely farms the land, however he additionally believes it’s vital to be concerned in commodity organizations, together with Northarvest Bean Growers Affiliation, the place he serves as District 2 director.

He began farming 10 years in the past after graduating from Halfway Excessive Faculty in Inkster, North Dakota, and finding out welding at Northland Group and Technical Faculty in East Grand Forks, Minnesota, and agriculture enterprise at North Dakota State College in Fargo.

Dexter knew earlier than he was sufficiently old to go to kindergarten that he wished to observe his dad’s and uncle’s profession path.

“I’d trip round within the tractors once I was 4-years-old. I knew I wished to farm,” he mentioned.

4 years in the past, his father and uncle retired from farming and Dexter took over the operation. He employs 4 males, together with his son, Juan, 18.

Most years, Dexter grows a number of hundred acres of black beans, his best choice for edible beans.

“I feel they’ve develop into much more standard in our space. The varieties get up higher than pintos,” Dexter mentioned.

The worth of each pintos and edibles makes them a worthwhile crop to develop. He markets the beans domestically, black beans at Johnstown (North Dakota) Bean Co. and pintos at Forest River (North Dakota) Bean Co.

“I are inclined to make extra on my edibles than on my different crops,” Dextert mentioned.

He combines the black beans with a flex header, which eliminates the necessity for each a tractor and a cutter, saving time, gasoline and labor.

This 12 months, Cronquist planted 400 acres of black beans. Practically 25% of his land, or about 700 acres, was too moist to help tools this previous spring,

A lot of these fields are 2021 corn floor that Cronquist didn’t until within the fall in hopes that it will collect moisture. Final 12 months was one of many driest in historical past and he wished the corn floor to catch the snow.

However snowstorms in April 2022, mixed with greater than 6 inches of rain that adopted by the spring, saturated fields.

“Now, it’s too moist,” he mentioned in June. “I used to be in all probability caught eight instances with the tractor,” Dexter mentioned.

Regardless of the extreme moisture, blowing grime was a problem he confronted through the 2022 planting season. He needed to replant 300 acres or 75% of the black beans he seeded earlier within the spring.

“Hope for a late frost, I suppose,” Dexter mentioned.

Neither the chilly, late, moist planting season or replanting dampens his ardour for farming.

“It’s one thing completely different day by day. I like it. I all the time knew there could be challenges,” he mentioned.

(This story first ran in BeanGrower Journal.)