Episodes

A bag of forgotten seed nearly became farmyard waste. Instead, it grew into a remarkable old-grain revival—with wheat reaching about six feet tall and a long central grain head surrounded by six smaller branches.

Join Rick Portanova for Farm Tales Unplugged — Daily Farm Brief for Thursday, October 29, 2026, brought to you by World TradeX — Empowering Farmers.

The Family Farm Story follows Claudio Grossi near Parma, Italy. A recent Smithsonian feature revisits his early-1990s attic discovery, t...

New money for working farmland, a dairy byproduct becomes a plastic, garlic fall planting and getting the field ready for spring.


Send us Fan Mail
Sponsored by World TradeX

Nearly a quarter-million fewer cattle entered America’s big feedlots in September than a year earlier—the lowest September total in thirty years. What could fewer cattle coming through the gate mean for beef supplies in the months ahead?

Join Rick Portanova for Farm Tales Unplugged — Daily Farm Brief, Wednesday, October 28, 2026. Episode 35 brings together cattle news, an unusual family nursery, farm technology, harvest progress, migrating hawks and a brief market snapshot.

USDA’s cattle repor...

What if farmers could find crop pests by listening to them? Researchers are testing technology that detects insect vibrations—and uses artificial intelligence to help recognize what’s making them.

Join Rick Portanova for Farm Tales Unplugged — Daily Farm Brief, Episode 34, for Tuesday, October 27, 2026.

In Farm News: We look at $573 million in proposed USDA funding, including projects in Kansas and Indiana, and why farmers should watch what actually gets built. We also cover a correction to Se...

Butter made from carbon. A Texas elk carrying a livestock pest. And real wasabi selling for around $130 a pound.
Join Rick Portanova for Farm Tales Unplugged — Daily Farm Brief for Monday, October 26, 2026, with farm news, surprising science, and why it matters to the people growing our food.


More buyers for your cattle? USDA’s new SPUR program offers at least $5 billion in loans to expand meat, poultry, and seafood processing. More capacity could give producers another place to sell.


Scre...

What makes grain prices rise and fall—and what exactly are futures? Grab your coffee and join Rick Portanova for a relaxed Farm Tales Unplugged — Daily Farm Brief bonus show that explains it all in plain English.

Follow a fictional corn farmer through simple examples showing why grain markets exist, how weather and demand affect prices, and how futures contracts work. We walk through what buying and selling a contract means, how a farmer closes a futures trade, and how money from the grain sale...

When did apple picking start involving traffic control, security checks, and stolen fruit hidden under a spare tire?
Rick Portanova brings a fast, lively look at agriculture in this Friday, October 23, 2026 edition of Farm Tales Unplugged — Daily Farm Brief.

First, Pioneer’s Victrato seed treatment joins its soybean lineup for the 2027 growing season. The goal: protect young plants against damaging root pests and diseases before trouble becomes visible above ground.

Then, what does USDA’s $8 b...

A giant pumpkin escapes a family farm, robots team up to find hidden apples, and cold weather gives the fall garden a sweeter finish. Join Rick Portanova for Farm Tales Unplugged — Daily Farm Brief, Thursday, October 22, 2026.

Farm News — A Clearer Look at Cattle Prices
USDA is adding a regional cash cattle report covering Colorado, Texas, New Mexico, Oklahoma and Kansas. We explain why combining sales across the region could give producers another useful reference as fewer cattle trade through...

A 2,500-pound buffalo moved into the house—and watching television was part of his routine. Add an underground harvest found by a dog, corn designed to signal trouble, and a beetle with an extraordinary chemical defense, and there’s plenty to discover this morning.


Join Rick Portanova for Farm Tales Unplugged — Daily Farm Brief, Wednesday, October 21, 2026, Episode 29.


We begin with USDA’s $8 billion Harvest Fuel Relief announcement, including the payment details farmers are still waiting ...

Could part of a farm’s fertilizer be made from air, water, and electricity? That’s the idea behind the cold-plasma research featured in this edition of Farm Tales Unplugged — Daily Farm Brief. Rick Portanova explains what researchers are exploring—and the costs and field tests that still stand between a promising experiment and everyday farm use.

For Tuesday, October 20, 2026, Episode 28, we start with the news affecting Farm Nation and Truck City: an EPA biofuel proposal with implications for ...

Could a farm stay open a new source of income? Today’s show starts with a grant opportunity, then takes us to a cattle race, a pepper breeder’s years of work, and technology that helps seeds bury themselves.


Join Rick Portanova for Farm Tales Unplugged — Daily Farm Brief for Monday, October 19, 2026, made for Farm Nation and Truck City.


We begin with Airbnb and American Farmland Trust’s Farm to Stay grant program, supporting farm stays and visitor experiences. Then we head to Frying Pan Fa...

BONUS WEEKEND EDITION | Saturday, October 17, 2026 | Episode 26 An 800,000-metric-ton soybean purchase, fresh corn-buying news from Japan, and some remarkable surprises from American farm country! What do these major agricultural purchases mean for American farmers? Rick Portanova breaks down the latest export news and what it could mean for the markets. But that's just the beginning! This weekend, we're exploring farm drones, cranberry trouble, and fascinating new egg-scanning technology tha...

What if farmers could grow plants that actually harvest metal from the ground? It sounds impossible, but scientists are exploring how certain plants can pull nickel out of the soil—and what that might mean for the future of agriculture.

Join Rick Portanova for the Friday, October 16, 2026 edition of Farm Tales Unplugged — Daily Farm Brief, featuring important agricultural news, unusual farming operations, remarkable technology, and stories worth sharing.

We begin with new Chinese purchases of ...

Imagine planting tiny machines alongside your seeds—with a target price of just one penny each. Could they help farmers spot trouble before a crop starts looking sick?

Join Rick Portanova for Farm Tales Unplugged — Daily Farm Brief for Thursday, October 15, 2026, featuring surprising farm stories, emerging agricultural technology, and some remarkable animal behavior.

We start with University of Pennsylvania researchers developing tiny soil sensors that could report moisture and chemical condit...

Put a virtual-reality headset on a dairy cow, grow a chair instead of building one, and play the sound of rain for a batch of seeds. Welcome to the wonderfully strange side of farming.
Join Rick Portanova on Farm Tales Unplugged — Daily Farm Brief for an episode packed with unexpected discoveries, unusual experiments, and stories worth sharing.

Can a virtual green pasture help a cow produce more milk? We explore dairy cows wearing VR goggles and the idea behind giving cattle a different view of...

A dinosaur on the farm. A tiny jar of snail eggs with a $105 price tag. Robots controlled by living fungus. And spiders that take to the sky without wings. This is not your ordinary day in agriculture.

Join Rick Portanova on Farm Tales Unplugged — Daily Farm Brief for a trip through the stranger side of farming, science, and the natural world.

Meet the Australian farm family behind the discovery of “Cooper,” a massive prehistoric dinosaur, then step into the unusual world of snail caviar, wher...

You paid for the tractor. Why can getting it fixed still become a battle? And how does a rock used to hold open a door turn into a $75,000 discovery?
On the Monday, October 12 edition of Farm Tales Unplugged — Daily Farm Brief, Rick Portanova covers the tractor-repair debate, visits a farm beneath the Mediterranean, and explores research that could change how we think about growing food.


We start with farm equipment repair access and the FTC and USDA’s examination of repair barriers. Farmers’...

Nearly $13.8 billion in farm payments, a Minnesota family firing pumpkins at 250 miles an hour, a heifer with a price tag that sounds like a house purchase, and flowers that make their own light. Friday’s Farm Tales Unplugged — Daily Farm Brief brings together major agriculture news and some remarkable stories from the farm world.


Rick Portanova opens with USDA’s announcement of approximately $13.8 billion in gross ARC and PLC payments for the 2025 crop year—a record for the two crop safety-n...

A Nevada ranch puts an unusual farm grain into a $300 whiskey blend, buckwheat finds a new market in the milk aisle, and a harvesting robot sends fruit through its own hollow arms.


Join Rick Portanova as we meet Ashley and Colby Frey of Frey Ranch and explore their latest farm-grown whiskey. We also follow New York farmer Klaas Martens and a buckwheat milk venture creating another potential buyer for growers.


Our High-Tech Moment introduces Picker AgRobotics’ developing fruit-picking syste...

Corn and soybean harvest progress is running behind normal in parts of the country, while farmers continue watching field conditions and the weather heading deeper into October.


On Wednesday’s Farm Tales Unplugged — Daily Farm Brief, Rick Portanova also takes you to Massachusetts, where the so-called “Pawpaw Queen” uses some unusual methods to attract pollinators to her pawpaw crop, and to Arkansas, where one farm family has built a growing business around FFA show goats.


Then in the High-...

A tiny invasive pest about the size of a printed hyphen is putting Texas growers on alert. Texas A&M AgriLife has released new guidance on the short-spined thrip, an invasive insect capable of damaging peppers, tomatoes, melons, cotton, sorghum and other crops.


On today's Farm Tales Unplugged — Daily Farm Brief, Rick Portanova also looks at a Pennsylvania grower facing roughly 1,600 tons of Concord grapes with no guaranteed processor after a major contract cancellation hit growers across the ...

Can an old hog barn grow a new farm business? On Farm Tales Unplugged — Daily Farm Brief for Monday, October 5, 2026, Rick Portanova explores how an Iowa family converted part of its former hog operation into a specialty mushroom farm growing oyster mushrooms and lion’s mane.


Plus, an Illinois family faces the theft of nearly 200 pumpkins from its first crop, and researchers use a camera-equipped robot to create detailed 3D models of corn plants—technology that could help plant breeders measu...

Fertilizer costs are climbing, dairy farmers face questions about cooperative consolidation, and new “Plant Armor” technology more than tripled strawberry yields in field trials. Rick Portanova breaks down what these developments mean for agriculture, plus practical fall frost advice from the Old Farmer’s Almanac. Join Farm Tales Unplugged — Daily Farm Brief for Friday, October 2, 2026: fast, engaging farm news for Farm Nation and Truck City.


Send us Fan Mail
Sponsored by World TradeX

Egg prices are plunging as U.S. production rebounds, American sugar growers face drought, pests and rising imports, and the newest agricultural drones can spray, refill and return to work almost entirely on their own. Rick Portanova covers the biggest farm stories of the day, plus practical fall advice from the Old Farmer’s Almanac, on the September 30 edition of Farm Tales Unplugged — Daily Farm Brief.


Send us Fan Mail
Sponsored by World TradeX