FARGO, N.D.-- Wheat production this year is up in North Dakota but down in South Dakota. The federal Agriculture Department's annual small grains summary shows spring wheat production up 53 percent in North Dakota, durum wheat up 133 percent and winter wheat up 189 percent.
SIOUX FALLS, S.D.-- A company that planned to build a $10 billion oil refinery said Monday it has allowed land-purchase options to expire for thousands of acres of southeastern South Dakota farmland.
The lawsuit was filed by the Oglala Sioux Tribe, which governs the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, where alcohol is banned. Four beer stores named in the suit sold the equivalent of 4.3 million 12- ounce beer cans last year even though they're in Whiteclay, a Nebraska town with about a dozen residents on the reservation's border.
SIOUX FALLS, S.D.-- Agriculture officials say ideal weather conditions in South Dakota have pushed the row crop harvest far ahead of last year's pace and the five-year average. The U.S. Department of Agriculture says in its weekly crop report that 55 percent of corn for grain has been harvested, ahead of the five-year average and last year's mark of 6 percent.
OMAHA, Neb.-- Little or no economic growth is likely this year in most of the nine Midwest and Plains states covered by a survey of business leaders, but the booming oil business will continue to drive growth in North Dakota and Oklahoma, according to the report released Monday.
SIOUX FALLS, S.D.-- South Dakota's state climatologist sees some hope for drought recovery next year, but not this fall. Drought Monitor map shows about 75 percent of South Dakota in severe, extreme or exceptional drought. "At this point, we won't catch up this fall," Dennis Todey told the Argus Leader newspaper. "