There are plenty of soybeans growing in American fields. Getting them to processors is becoming the problem. Persistent rain has slowed soybean harvest in parts of the western Midwest, tightening the supply of old-crop beans just as processors wait for the new crop to reach their plants. Reuters reports some processors have responded by offering unusually large premiums for soybeans that farmers can deliver immediately. Some plants have also reduced production while they wait for harvest to catch up. The timing is particularly awkward. Soybean processors crush beans into two major products, soybean meal, an important livestock feed, and soybean oil, which goes into food, renewable diesel and other products. A temporary shortage of beans at a crushing plant doesn't mean the country is running out of soybeans. It means the beans aren't necessarily where they're needed when they're needed. USDA reported soybean harvest running ahead of its five-year average nationally as of Sept. 20, but conditions vary substantially by region. Rain can stop combines even when the crop itself is mature and ready to come out. For farmers with dry, harvestable beans, and access to a processor needing supply, that can create an opportunity. For the processors waiting on them, every wet day is another day expensive equipment may be running below capacity. Sometimes a commodity shortage isn't really about how much was grown, it depends on whether you can get it out of the field in time.

The data-center boom is creating a new kind of water user across the West. Now one of the industry's biggest companies is putting money back into the Colorado River Basin. Amazon has announced a $20 million investment in water conservation projects across the basin as part of a broader $100 million effort to improve water supplies in communities where the company operates. The money is expected to support projects such as irrigation improvements, leak reduction, groundwater recharge and other work intended to leave more water available in stressed watersheds. The announcement comes as data-center water use receives considerably more attention. Amazon disclosed that its data centers directly consumed about 2.5 billion gallons of water in 2025. Water is commonly used to cool the enormous amount of computing equipment inside these facilities. But direct consumption isn't the whole picture, as electricity generation can also require water, meaning a data center's overall water footprint depends partly on where its power comes from. Researchers and environmental groups have pushed technology companies to provide more complete accounting of that indirect use. Amazon says it is working toward becoming “water positive” by 2030, meaning it intends to return more water to communities and watersheds than it directly consumes.

Every fall, southeast Colorado gets a wildlife movement that looks like it belongs somewhere much farther south. Large male tarantulas begin walking across the prairie, roads and trails around La Junta in search of females. The event is commonly called a tarantula migration, although the spiders aren't actually migrating to a new home. They're looking for mates. The spiders seen wandering around are primarily mature male Oklahoma brown tarantulas. After spending years growing in underground burrows, males eventually reach maturity and leave those burrows to search for females. That search can take them surprisingly long distances across the shortgrass prairie. The movement generally becomes most noticeable around September, particularly around southeast Colorado's Comanche National Grassland and the country surrounding La Junta. Despite their appearance, Colorado Parks and Wildlife describes the tarantulas as relatively harmless to people. They're generally interested in finding another tarantula, not confronting humans. The phenomenon has become enough of a local attraction that La Junta's annual Tarantula Festival begins today and runs through Saturday, with guided viewing opportunities and educational events centered around the spiders. For anyone trying to see them, late afternoon into evening is usually when the wandering males become easiest to spot. It's a pretty remarkable reminder of how much wildlife movement happens across Western grasslands at ground level.

A 25-year-old rule governing millions of acres of national forest is back at the center of a Western public-land fight. The Forest Service is proposing to rescind the 2001 Roadless Area Conservation Rule, which generally restricts new road construction, road reconstruction and timber harvesting in designated roadless areas. More than 44 million acres are covered by the national rule today, and over 95% of those acres are in 10 Western states. The proposal wouldn't automatically open all of that ground to logging, mining or road building. Instead, the nationwide restrictions would disappear and management would fall back to the land-management plan governing each individual national forest. Specific projects would still have to comply with other applicable environmental laws and reviews. The Forest Service argues local managers need more flexibility to thin forests, reduce wildfire fuels and respond to conditions that vary widely from one forest to another. USDA says more than 40% of inventoried roadless areas have high or very high wildfire hazard potential. Opponents argue the rule protects intact wildlife habitat, watersheds and backcountry recreation from fragmentation. California formally opposed the proposal this week, saying about 4.4 million acres of its national forests are currently covered. One important exception: Colorado and Idaho aren't included in this proposed repeal because both operate under separate state-specific roadless rules. The proposal isn't final. Public comments remain open through Oct. 6. After that, the Forest Service will have to decide whether to keep a national standard or give individual forests considerably more control over roadless areas.

Apple harvest is underway in Washington, and few crops show the scale of Western agriculture quite like this one. USDA currently puts Washington's 2026 apple production at 7.4 billion pounds. That's roughly 22 pounds of apples for every person in the United States. Washington's advantage starts east of the Cascades, where warm days, cool nights, irrigation water and relatively dry conditions create exceptionally good apple-growing country. But getting the crop off the tree is only the beginning. Apples destined for grocery stores are picked largely by hand, then sorted, packed and moved into controlled-atmosphere storage. By carefully managing temperature, oxygen and carbon dioxide, packers can hold fruit for months and supply stores long after harvest ends. That infrastructure is part of why a Washington apple picked this fall can still look remarkably fresh in a grocery store next spring. The industry also supports an enormous network of orchards, packing houses, truckers, storage facilities and agricultural workers across central Washington. Harvest will continue as later varieties mature. It's easy to think of apples as a simple grocery-store staple. Growing billions of pounds of them, picking them without damaging the fruit, and keeping them marketable for months afterward is anything but simple.

One of the biggest bottlenecks for selling beef directly off the ranch isn't raising the animal, it's the processing. USDA is offering up to $500 million through its Strengthening Processing for U.S. Ranchers program to help keep small, independent and mid-sized beef slaughter plants operating. Applications are now due Sept. 30. USDA says historically tight cattle supplies have driven up what processors must pay to acquire animals, putting particular pressure on smaller plants that don't have the scale of the country's dominant packers. The program is limited to qualifying federally inspected and certain cooperative-inspection facilities. The four largest beef processors aren't eligible. USDA is using a formula based on processing volume to make payments. Federal guidance says eligible plants are being paid at a rate of $53.05 per head based on 2025 throughput, with payments divided into two rounds. For ranchers, keeping those plants open is about more than processing capacity. A regional processor can provide another buyer for cattle and make it possible for a ranch to sell its own branded beef. When the nearest inspected plant closes, producers may have to haul cattle hours farther or lose access to that market entirely. USDA is also offering separate funding to expand processing capacity. None of this changes the fact that America's beef-processing business remains heavily concentrated. But keeping independent plants alive gives cattle producers something valuable in a tight market, which is another place to do business.

The White House's effort to bring down record diesel prices has moved directly to America's refiners. Energy Secretary Chris Wright has contacted executives at several major U.S. refining companies in recent days to gauge whether they would voluntarily restrict diesel exports, according to Reuters, citing three people familiar with the discussions. It's the latest turn in a fast-moving debate over how to get more diesel into the domestic market. President Trump said Tuesday that he supports restricting exports, saying, “Let’s not send out the diesel.” But Wright pushed back Wednesday against a blanket export ban, warning that it could interfere with refinery operations and ultimately create problems with gasoline and jet fuel supplies. Now the administration appears to be looking for a middle ground. Rather than ordering refiners to stop exporting diesel, Wright is asking whether companies would voluntarily keep more of it in the United States. The problem here is that American refineries don't make diesel in isolation. A refinery produces diesel alongside gasoline, jet fuel and other petroleum products. Gulf Coast refineries also produce more diesel than their regional market consumes and have spent decades building export markets for the surplus. If refiners lose those buyers without enough domestic demand or infrastructure to absorb the fuel, they could eventually reduce refinery runs. That's the balancing act facing the administration, because you want to put enough additional diesel into the American market to provide relief without discouraging the refineries from producing it. For farmers, ranchers, truckers and construction companies paying record fuel prices, what happens next could be significant.

Wildfires across the West aren't just burning habitat. They're making it harder for biologists to keep track of the wildlife moving through it. HawkWatch International announced Thursday that two of its long-running migration monitoring stations will remain closed for the entire 2026 fall season because of wildfire activity, cleanup and forest closures. The affected sites are Bonney Butte HawkWatch in Oregon and Manzano Mountains HawkWatch in New Mexico. Both have unusually long records. Researchers have collected roughly three decades of migration data at Bonney Butte and four decades at the Manzano Mountains site. Each fall, observers stationed along migration routes count hawks, eagles, falcons and other raptors moving south. Repeating those counts at the same places year after year gives researchers a way to identify long-term changes that would be difficult to see from a single season. This year, wildfire got in the way. HawkWatch says the Grasshopper and Whiskey fires and associated forest closures forced the two stations to suspend operations. More than 4.5 million acres had burned nationwide by early September, according to the organization, including roughly 2.3 million acres in Oregon alone. The good news is that losing one year shouldn't ruin the datasets. HawkWatch says records spanning 30 and 40 years are long enough to absorb a missing season. But the closures show another way severe wildfire can complicate wildlife management. Good conservation decisions depend on long-term information. Sometimes keeping that record intact means simply being able to get researchers onto the mountain.

If you grow your own sprouts, this is one worth checking. Berlin Seeds is recalling 950 pounds of Alfalfa Sprouting Seed because it may be contaminated with Shiga toxin-producing E. coli or Salmonella. The seed was sold from Feb. 13 through Aug. 23 at the company's Millersburg, Ohio store and through its website. Online orders went to 44 states, including Arizona, California, Colorado, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, North Dakota, Oregon, South Dakota, Texas, Utah, Washington and Wyoming. The recall covers Berlin Seeds Alfalfa Sprouting Seed in ¼-pound, ½-pound, 1-pound, 5-pound and 50-pound packages. The 5- and 50-pound packages carry lot code SAL2-24JB. The smaller recalled packages do not have a lot code. The company says its supplier notified it that the seed had been identified through traceback as seed used by a sprout grower whose finished sprouts were part of an FDA investigation involving multiple strains of Shiga toxin-producing E. coli and Salmonella Agona. A spent irrigation-water sample from one of the supplier's alfalfa seed lots also tested positive for E. coli. As of the Sept. 23 recall notice, one illness had been reported directly to Berlin Seeds in connection with the seed. Consumers with affected seed should not sprout it, plant it or give it away. FDA's posted notice says to throw away both the seed and any sprouts already grown from it in a sealed bag, then clean and sanitize anything they contacted. No other Berlin Seeds sprouting seeds are included in this recall.

Federal water managers have released their latest look at where the Colorado River could be headed over the next two years. The Bureau of Reclamation's September 24-Month Study models operations at reservoirs throughout the basin, including Flaming Gorge, Blue Mesa, Lake Powell and Lake Mead. The agency runs several scenarios because nobody knows what this winter will bring. Its “most probable” model uses median hydrology, essentially a middle-of-the-road assumption based on current conditions and forecasts. Reclamation also publishes a probable minimum scenario showing what reservoir operations could look like under substantially drier conditions. Lake Powell and Lake Mead are carrying far less water than the system was designed around, while managers are trying to protect water deliveries, hydropower production and minimum reservoir elevations. The Colorado River supports farms, cities, tribes and businesses across seven Western states. Upper Basin reservoirs such as Flaming Gorge and Blue Mesa also increasingly matter because water stored upstream can become part of the strategy for protecting Powell.