Editors' Notebook

One of the traditions around the DTN/PF newsroom is to have an annual look back at the stories that made key differences not only in the year, but will likely make a difference in agriculture into the future.

I appreciate those of you who answered Cheri Zagurski's plea for your thoughts on the events that really changed your business and your life. We'll be running a series of articles on the Top 10 news events of 2012 through the end of the year.

I've not been one to pen annual retrospectives of a personal nature. I find myself too focused on the path ahead to spend much time looking rearward. I do, though, admire those who write retrospectives well. The late outdoor writer Gene Hill always did a masterful job with his "annual report to stockholders" columns in which he went back over key events -- unforeseen expenditures (last-minute hunting trips, guns and fly rods that couldn't be passed up, friends lost) and income (memories made, friends met, kept) -- in an effort to present a balance sheet of sorts for the year and to justify the years' activities to "management," namely the skeptical Mrs. Hill.

So while I'd prefer to read retrospectives than write them, this year was a bit different. It was a year of a lot of firsts, and I couldn't help but be reflective about them.

First time I saw 4-leaf corn in a Midwestern field on the first of April, and later saw it was harvested.

First time I've seen hay -- most of it green -- being baled in the same general area on December 5.

First time crop insurance became so important to so many producers and, at the same time, became such a target on the back of agriculture.

First time in decades I've seen so many acres put under the moldboard plow. I'm sure there were reasons, though I know it wasn't the amount of corn stalks to turn under given the drought. I suppose the conventional wisdom was given drier-than-dry conditions, if there was ever a time one could get the moldboard out and not lay in nicely compacted plow layer, this fall was one. Perhaps there was hope of burying all those stalk mold spores.

One a related note, those sights marked the first time I've considered that the art of setting up a gang of plows and laying out even, arrow-straight furrows is pretty much lost to the ages. The furrows I saw this fall were, shall we say, creative in their angles and undulations.

But knowing how out-of-condition those plows must be have been , after being rescued from a fence line or snatched from the dusty recesses of a barn somewhere, and the likelihood that it was the first time the operators had sunk a gang of rusty moldboards into soil, I felt more sympathy than smugness.

So as you peruse our list of the big stories of 2012, take time to recall the little ones as well, on both sides of your personal balance sheet.

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