Organic Harvest - KXNet - Bismarck/Minot/Williston/Dickinson

North Dakota is the home to nearly 32-thousand farms-- more than 150 of those are organic.

Ag Reporter Sarah Gustin takes you east of Bismarck for an organic barley harvest.

These rows and each of these seeds are chemical free.

(Thane Dockter / Organic Farmer) "I have a couple good friends who have gotten some health issues from the chemicals they have used. I want to grow the best product I know everybody eats. I just want to grow the best product for everybody to consume and be happy with knowing what they can eat."

Thane Dockter farms near Menoken.

Since 1996, Dockter has been certified organic farming---a practice that he says has both it's rewards and challenges. 

(Thane Dockter / Organic Farmer) "You can still raise a fairly good crop with good yields and quality, without any kinda of inputs. Some of the downfalls of it are the weeds are always an issue. The weeds are just a thing you deal with every year. You have to control them mechanical wise instead of spraying." 

Dockter says to avoid some of the weed pressure in the field he planted his crops a little later this year.

This years rains have been timely, and it's showing up in the hopper.

(Thane Dockter / Organic Farmer) "The barley crop is better than what I have had in the past. So I chanced it a little bit later and got a little less weeds and the yields were actually better because we had timely rains to where they were filling. So the timing was pretty good this year."

(Sarah Gustin / sgustin@kxnet.com) "THESE ARE SOME OF DOCKTERS FIRST PASSES OF THE SEASON AND WITH A LONG FALL LEFT AHEAD THERE IS PLENTY OF HARVESTING LEFT TO DO."

The flax and rye is already in the bin.

Once these barley rows are thrashed it's time to move into the wheat before the sunflowers and soybeans are ready this fall.

(Thane Dockter / Organic Farmer) "The soybeans are looking really good. They are waist high now most exciting for soybeans. And they are full of pods."

Dockter says the biggest investments in being organic are time and fuel because of the number of times he has to work the ground for weed control.