As the first frost firms the ground, the great beet lift begins in the flat black soils of the valley, and mountainous piles of roots rise beside the factories at Drayton and Hillsboro.

Once a curiosity, canola now paints whole townships a startling chrome yellow in June, and North Dakota presses more of the oilseed than any other state in the country.

Across the central and southern counties, tens of thousands of acres of sunflowers pivot eastward each dawn, and the state remains among the country's foremost producers of both oil and confection seed.

Combines rolled through amber durum and hard red spring wheat weeks ahead of the usual calendar, and elevators from Minot to Carrington report a heavier test weight than growers dared hope for.