Nikki Rothwell

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Revelers Wassail at Tandem Ciders

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Locals know a secret about Leelanau County winters. The season lends reprieve from chaos, re-rooting and grounding us after the busy, crowded summer season. Having this sacred place to ourselves for a fleeting moment allows for deeper camaraderie and connection to place. Tandem Ciders co-owners Dan Young and Nikki Rothwell have hosted a wassail celebration at their tasting room on Setterbo Road north of Suttons Bay since 2009, offering an opportunity for locals to connect with each other under the constellations in the depths of Leelanau’s winter. At Tandem Cider’s 16th annual wassail celebration, buoyant echoes of raucous partiers standing around a bonfire are somehow harmonious with the silence that vibrates from the black, night sky of deep winter. A collection of familiar faces represents a community slow to change, slow to grow, until the Covid migration occurred. These are faces that connect our past to this place we call home.

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Tariffs and boycotts and supply shortages, oh my!

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The Trump administration’s federal policies and steep tariffs are adversely impacting Leelanau companies that sell chocolate, coffee, fruit and wine. “Never in my 23 years as a small business owner have I felt obstructed by our national government in my ability to operate, manage, and grow my business as I do now under President Trump,” said Grocer’s Daughter Chocolate co-owner Jody Hayden. “Like many small businesses, we’re feeling the effects of a very uncertain and volatile global economy.” On its most recent shipment of bulk chocolate, valued at $171,500, the small business based in Empire paid a tariff of $24,725 after Trump raised duties on Ecuadorian products to 15 percent on July 31.

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MSU Extension’s Nikki Rothwell named Cherry Industry Person of the Year

Nikki Rothwell didn’t grow up with aspirations to be the National Cherry Queen. She was too interested in bugs. Nevertheless, the longtime director and educator at the Michigan State University Extension Office in Leelanau County found herself waving to the crowd as an honored participant in the DTE Energy Foundation Cherry Royale Parade. No tiara, though—instead, “I did get (to wear) a red jacket, like the Masters,” she says with a laugh, as winners of that golf tournament receive a green sport coat. Rothwell was honored as the Cherry Industry Person of the Year at the 2025 National Cherry Festival.

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Saving cherries, saving farms

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Cherries are the calling card of Northern Michigan. They represent our home, just as citrus speaks for Florida, or as lobsters lobby for Maine. Here in the North, orchards define our landscape, U-Picking is a cherished tradition and a slice of pie means “I love you.” But cherry farmers these days face a perfect storm of challenges, from environmental to political. Erratic swings in temperature caused by climate change threaten cherry buds in the spring; cheap foreign imports have undercut prices that U.S. farmers can expect to earn; workers needed to harvest crops have grown scarce due to unaffordable housing prices and restrictive national immigration policies; and the local real estate frenzy has disincentivized growers from staying on their land when they can sell their orchards for millions.

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Rothwell talks farming in unpredictable weather

Leland Township Public Library will host Nikki Rothwell, Ph.D, on Thursday, Sept. 12, at 10 am as the final installment of its Leland Library Summinars series. Agriculture is a challenging occupation, and climate change has made this job even more difficult. Attend to hear about how the variable climate is impacting local farmers and how research and outreach programming are trying to address this key factor that is influencing how we grow fruit in northwest Michigan.

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Spotted Wing Drosophila — not your average fruit fly

I am grossed out. On the video, a creature reminiscent of horror flicks, B-movies, an almost pornographic monster, except it’s not a monster, except it’s real and it is a monster. Sortof. The winged thing trembles on a flesh-like surface. The film reveals in full detail the tail-end of the monster’s abdomen, where a serrated ovipositor descends, and a double row of “teeth” pierces the surface. Slowly, with mesmerizing tenacity, she saws into the thin-skinned softness, dipping ever deeper into the flesh. Then, and this is where I feel sick, out of that same organ she forces a single small white egg, deposits it firmly into the hole. The ovipositor closes, lifts like a machine, revealing a tiny filament still extending from the hole—the breathing tube of the egg. The egg’s breathing tube!?! The creature turns; huge red eyes stare straight into the camera, and after all that, the darn thing starts the process all over. Hundreds of times. I am not kidding.

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Will climate change kill the Michigan cherry?

That pie you ate at Cherry Republic last week wasn’t the fruit of a local tart cherry farmer’s labor — not this year, at least. The Glen Arbor retail company’s quick-thinking president Bob Sutherland imported those pie cherries from Poland after extreme weather this spring all but wiped out northern Michigan’s tart cherry crop.

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