Producer Features

Pierce, Nebraska alfalfa producer, Bernie Wrede, has been cultivating western alfalfa and serving as a supplier for dairy farms in the eastern and southern United States for 18 years.

It started in college nearly 40 years ago. Amy met Gary and the two became partners, not only as husband and wife, but as a team that has seen thousands of tons of hay produced, marketed and sold out of the Missouri River bottoms of South Dakota.

“Our hay acres will remain the same as our hay ground is not under irrigation.Several people in our area with sprinklers are pulling out their hay to put in corn, but we currently don’t have that option.

As you drive through the Iowa landscape, corn and soybeans stretch for as far as you can see. Mile after rolling mile leads one to believe that nothing else would survive, much less thrive, in these fields.

When you pull up to the Petersen residence in Knoxville, Iowa, you won’t see anything that would lead you to believe that inside this home lives a family that has taken on three types of farming and have found a way to make it all work.