Joe Ridl’s story is not unlike many farm kids’ stories.  He grew up on his family’s farm just outside Dickinson, N.D., went away for college, came back to work in town, and eventually returned to the farm.

        What makes Joe’s story unique, though, is the constant presence sunflower has had in his life. His dad, Art, and grandfather, Art Sr., started planting sunflower in 1979, before Joe was even born.  They’d just gotten out of the dairy business and were searching for a new crop to plant.  The 300 acres the Ridls grew that year were among the first sunflower acres in southwestern North Dakota.  Sunflower has been a constant in their rotation ever since.  This year, the family planted close to 1,800 acres of high-oleic sunflower.

        Joe left the farm after high school and earned a degree in diesel mechanics from North Dakota State College of Science in Wahpeton.  He returned to Dickinson, but not to the family farm.  Joe took a job at the local Case-IH dealer, where he spent nearly a decade soaking up knowledge about the equipment his family used.

        “I put in 10 years there, working my way up the ladder,” he recalls.  “I eventually got into management, and for the last three years that I worked there I supervised other mechanics and serviced equipment.”

        Joe’s specialty: combines and planters. He often worked 16-hour days, six days a week, becoming well known around the region for his ability to fix just about any combine problem.  The knowledge he absorbed has proven invaluable now that he’s back on the farm.

        In January of 2014, Joe decided it was time to go home to the family farm just two miles north of Dickinson.  He bought out one of his uncles and has been working alongside his dad Art (who is a former president of the National Sunflower Association) and uncle Kurt ever since. His work ethic has been combined with his equipment knowledge and his agricultural roots.

        “Those long workdays as a diesel mechanic transferred right over into my work on the farm,” Ridl says.  “I am always working long days, because there is always work to do.  Especially when it comes to combining sunflower; I’ve been known to combine until 1 a.m. if it’s nice out.  I live for those long days that end with a sense of accomplishment.”

        One of his biggest accomplishments has been figuring out a way to minimize combine fires during sunflower harvest.

Above: This ‘clean air chimney’ on the rotary screen of Joe Ridl’s combine sucks in clean air from about two feet above the hopper, helping to keep the engine clean.	Above: Ridl wires several 24-volt RV light bulbs to the rotating components on his combine. They help reduce static electricity, thus aiding in the prevention of combine fires.

        “Early in my diesel mechanic career, one of the biggest things was figuring out how to dissipate static electricity in both sunflower and canola fibers,” Ridl recounts, “Two seasonal mechanics and I started working on a solution.  What we came up with was wiring a 24-volt RV light bulb to anything that rotates on the combine: the rotor, the cleaning fan, the spreaders, anything we could think of.  Those light bulbs help reduce the static electricity and also combine fires.”

        It is a solution Ridl still uses in his own operation; he figures he has six or seven RV light bulbs on his combine at any given time.  He can tell when a bulb breaks or burns out because the inside of the cab starts collecting dust.

        “It’s a solution that cost me about $130,” he relates. 

        “I also put what I call a ‘clean air chimney’ on the rotary screen. That sucks clean air from about two feet above the hopper and keeps the engine clean.”

        Ridl says he still blows off the combine every night during harvest; but most of the time, the machine is pretty clean, thanks to his other solutions.  Lowering the risk of combine fires also makes the decision to keep sunflower in the rotation a no-brainer.

        “We love growing sunflower,” he states. “It’s such a valuable crop to us, that if I’ve ever got a few extra acres that I can squeeze sunflower into, I’m going to do it.”

        Ridl also sells seed — and although he says sales were down in his area this year, he’s determined to increase sunflower acres.

        “I think the drought prior to the end of May had guys backing away from sunflower.  Wheat is cheaper to plant, so we’ve got more wheat acres than normal; but I think sunflower is the crop of the future. Everybody needs them, whether it’s for oil or crush or human or bird consumption, livestock feed.  There’s a market for all kinds of sunflower.  They are fairly cheap to grow, and they do very well on a year-to-year basis.”

        The Ridls have planted both high-oleic and confection sunflower, sometimes both in the same year.  It all depends on the contract price, though Joe admits he prefers growing oils.  They’ll typically market those to Enderlin (ADM) or Fargo (Cargill), but last year most of the crop went to Mitchell, S.D.

        The Ridls plant in 22-inch rows.  Joe says they do that for a couple of reasons: the longer in-row plant spacing saves on seed while creating a more “equidistant” stand, and they attain a faster canopy, which saves on chemical. They’ve seen a consistent yield increase in 22-inch rows.

        Despite all the solutions Joe and his dad and uncle have discovered that make growing sunflower easier, there are still challenges.  Blackbirds and kochia top the current list.

        “Kochia is probably our number one problem,” he advises.  “We work hard to get that under control with a preplant herbicide; then I keep a close eye on it during the season and if we need to, we get out there and spray again.

        “This is my 12th season back on the farm, and blackbirds were not much of a problem until about four years ago,” Ridl adds.  “They’ve been getting really bad in recent years, so we’ve gotten a little more selective in where we plant sunflower.  We see the path the birds are taking from the lake south of town back north to our place, so we don’t plant in that path. We’ve tried the cannons and whistles and all the gadgets from the USDA without any success.  We are definitely open to any trials and experiments they want to try because those birds can cause some big problems.”

        As any producer knows, the weather can also cause big problems.  This year it’s been hail, tornadoes and even too much rain.  The average annual rainfall in the Dickinson area is about 15 inches; as of August 1 of this year, however, they’d recorded nearly 15 inches.  The Ridls replanted several acres of sunflower in late June after the first planting got hailed out.  Joe says they’re progressing well, but he doesn’t expect to start harvesting until November.

        All in all, sunflower remains Joe Ridl’s favorite crop — and a key component in their operation, which includes 900 cattle and more than 8,000 acres of cropland. The Ridl crop rotation includes spring wheat, malting barley, durum, grain corn, silage corn and sunflower.  They don’t plant all those crops every year, but sunflower is built into the rotation yearly.

        “I see the biggest value of sunflower in its deep roots,” Joe observes.  “Those roots get really deep and get the carryover fertilizer out of the soil instead of it just sitting there year after year.  Sunflower helps us drop the fertilizer rate, which saves money.

        “Our rotation is not so much a ‘plant rotation’ but a ‘chemical rotation,’ ” the Stark County producer notes.  “With the resistant weeds we’re seeing, we’ve found the best defense is switching up the chemistry.  By going with wheat, then corn, followed by sunflower, we seem to have the best success in all our crops.”

          For Joe Ridl, that success is important — not only to his pocketbook, but to his legacy as a farmer on the land that keeps pulling him home. — Jody Kerzman