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“We’re finding that the perennial crops, I think, are going to be an important component to diversity that we maybe need on these soils, seed production, just trying to keep heavy equipment off of that ground, uh, in the spring of the year. We’re finding if we can see it a couple of years in a row in the fall versus the spring, we got better soil structure.” — Russ Zenner
In this episode of the No-Till Farmer Influencers & Innovators Podcast, brought to you by NewLeaf Symbiotics, Frank Lessiter talks with Russ Zenner about the early days of no-till in the Palouse, Shepherd’s Grain and the pandemic, and growing garbanzo beans for homemade hummus.
Russ Zenner was among the earlier adopters of No-Till Agriculture in the Palouse region of North-Central Idaho, Southeastern Washington, and North Eastern Oregon. The Palouse region is marked by rolling verdant hills and loess-rich glaciated soils.
Along with other farmers in the mid 1990s and early 2000s, Russ became concerned about the potential for top soil loss after serving as a volunteer on the Latah County Soil Conservation Board.
He was among the first farmers from his region to visit the Dakota Lakes Research Farm in South Dakota. He became involved with The Shepherd’s Grain, which works with no-tillers and organic farmers in the Western United states.
Russ is retired today, but he maintains an active interest in his family’s farm.
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Full Transcript
Brian O'Connor:
Welcome to the latest episode of No-Till Farmer Influencers and Innovators. I'm your host, Brian O'Connor lead content editor for No-Till Farmer. NewLeaf Symbiotics sponsors this program, featuring stories about the past present and future of no-till farming. I encourage you to subscribe to this series, which is available in iTunes, Google Podcasts, Spotify, SoundCloud, Stitcher, and TuneIn Radio. Subscribing will allow you to receive an alert about upcoming episodes as soon as they are released. I'd like to take a moment to thank our sponsor NewLeaf Symbiotics for supporting our No-Till Farmer Influencers and Innovators podcast series.
Brian O'Connor:
You want to do more with your fields in 2022? Now available in convenient planter box application, Terrasym by NewLeaf Symbiotics is proven by Beck's 2021 PFR to improve yield by 2.7 bushels per acre in soybeans and 4.6 bushels per acre in corn. And that's $20,000 more in incremental income with every 1000 acres planted. To calculate your return on investment for the 2022 growing season and purchase Terrasym directly online for only $4.35 per acre. Visit newleafsym.com/2022. That's newleafsym.com/2022.
Brian O'Connor:
Russ Zenner was among the earliest adopters of no-till agriculture in the Palouse region of north central Idaho, Southeastern Washington and Northeastern Oregon. The Palouse region is marked by rolling Vernon Hills and lowest rich glaciated soils. Along with other farmers in the mid 1990s and early 2000s, Russ became concerned about the potential for top soil loss. After serving as a volunteer on the Lake Tahoe County Soil Conservation Board, he was among the first farmers from his region to visit the Dakota Lakes Research Farm in South Dakota. He became involved with Shepherd's grain, which works with no-tillers and organic farmers in the Western United States. Russ is retired today, but he maintains an active interest in his family's farm. In this episode, Frank Lessiter talks with Russ about the early days of no-till in the Palouse, Shepherd's Grain in the pandemic and growing garbanzo peas for homemade hummus.
Frank Lessiter:
How long you been no-tilling?
Russ Zenner:
We started in the nineties, but it was probably around the year 2000 that we did a 100% no-till. Originally, the no-till seeding was done seeding winter wheat on pulse ground or re-cropping stubble ground, very little spring crop consistently no-tilled in this region, prior to the mid nineties, I would say.
Frank Lessiter:
You're down close to what we call the Palouse, which would be the Southeast corner of Washington and that corner of Oregon and Idaho, right?
Russ Zenner:
Correct. Yeah. And we are literally, our farm is sort of on the Southeast corner of the Idaho portion of the Palouse. We have land out on the breaks of the Clearwater river, east of Lewiston, but right out on that corner. And we have about a 22 inch rainfall for our area right here.
Frank Lessiter:
So is rainfall pretty much consistent with all your acres or is it varied, some high and low?
Russ Zenner:
We do not have a big variation, not nearly as much as some of the other operations that are spread out geographically, so we're pretty consistent. The soil type is a little different. Our southernmost ground in Nez Perce County is a little more moderate slope, more south slope, and you get inland in Latah County. It's more the typical Palouse, more geographic varied elevations and a lot more slope aspect to the fields.
Frank Lessiter:
Right? Well, one thing our Midwest people don't understand is what hills means to you. Tell us about some of the hills and slopes that you've got.
Russ Zenner:
Well, I think you've been around a few of them.
Frank Lessiter:
Yeah, I've been to your place.
Russ Zenner:
And up to over 40% slope on this typical Palouse ground, most farms have, it depends on the location, but not uncommon to have the most extreme slopes that are farmed in the mid 40% slope. That's a small percentage of the total acres but you've got to have equipment that works on that kind of ground.
Frank Lessiter:
Yeah. And I've been back here in the Midwest on field tours, on the bus where somebody was complaining about a 1% slope in the runoff they got. So tell us about the special equipment you got to have.
Russ Zenner:
Well, some of the early challenges, and it's still a challenge somewhat, as far as being successful with no-till, is dealing with the side draft on these very extreme slopes.
Frank Lessiter:
Sure.
Russ Zenner:
Whether it's a disc drill or a hoe drill, single disc drill is probably more of an issue than a double disc opener no-till drill, but the side draft distorts on a single disc open or half of those openers don't have the... Well, none of them have the angle they're designed for as far as pulling through the ground. Say the John Deere with a seven and a half degree angle. If you've got three or four or five degrees side draft. So you've got half of them at a 2% angle and the other half, a 10% or whatever, and can create problems with seed placement.
Russ Zenner:
And the hoe drills from your front rank to your back rank, if you've got a lot of side draft, you're moving dirt, those back row ranks of openers are pitching dirt on top of the front rows if there's much side draft. So there's been a lot of effort to try to reduce side draft, some success but it's still an issue as far as getting the corn stand, a plant every eight inches or whatever. You don't do that in our part of the world very consistently.
Frank Lessiter:
So implement steering probably wouldn't help this problem, right? Or would it with GPS?
Russ Zenner:
Well, there's been some effort on having a steering cart with limited success. It's helpful, but still I have not seen anybody that has been able to mechanically overcome side draft issues. There's been improvements, but not completely overcoming it. And a lot of those systems that try to do that, they've had some challenges as far as having enough weight on the wheels that are trying to steer the outfit. And anytime we start adding more weight in this part of the world, this weight on steep hills is a lot different than weight on flat ground. So that's part of the issue.
Frank Lessiter:
So the next step you got the crop seeded, whether it's in the fall or spring. So your next trips would probably be sprayer, what kind of machine problems do you have on these hills with sprayers?
Russ Zenner:
Well, the sprayer technology has gone to a lot more guys using self-propelled sprayers. Again, probably the flat ground has adopted that much quicker in our region, but hydrostatic drive four wheel sprayers on steep ground have some problems as far as keeping power to the drive wheels. You get on real steep side hills and with a hydrostatic drive for each wheel, it's just not nearly as good as a mechanical drive. And again, some of the weight on these self-propelled sprayers, unless you can do them up, and some of them, the manufacturers aren't very excited about you doing up these self propel sprayers on these steep side hills. So some of the warranty is voided. So there's more challenges with traction with the self propel sprayers than there is the tractor pull sprayers.
Frank Lessiter:
Yeah. Right.
Russ Zenner:
But it's still the direction that's going. There's more self propelled sprayers all the time and trying to get them aluminum booms or carbon fiber booms to lighten up the boom weight, things like that to make them more efficient and easier on the ground.
Frank Lessiter:
What kind of boom widths do you have on your sprayer?
Russ Zenner:
Well, our sprayer now, we've transitioned our farm to the next generation on our family. Clint Zenner and his wife, Alicia are farming our farm and he's running a John Deere. I don't remember the model number, self propel, and it's 132 feet boom width now.
Frank Lessiter:
Okay.
Russ Zenner:
And the boom height control, the advancements they've made with that has just been a wonderful improvement as far as suspended boom sprayers working in this undulating terrain.
Frank Lessiter:
Yeah. Let's move on to the combines. Now, you got hill side combines. Explain what a hill side combine is to some of our Midwest people.
Russ Zenner:
Well, the Palouse region assists nearly all hillside machines, Hilco levelers on John Deere, Case IH are the predominant combines used in this region, some Gleaners. And it's basically a leveling system for that front axle to keep the separation area more level. So you don't run into a situation of side slope moving the grain flow to the lower side of the machine, and then just much more difficult to control grain loss. If you get that shoe too far out of level, the shoe and the sieves, that part of it. So the Hilco system, I can't remember exactly how far it goes, maybe around 30%. There used to be another system, Array, level that went up to over 40%, but I don't think they're in production anymore. They've gone out of business. So pretty much the Hilco system is the one that's used on the combines in the Palouse region anymore.
Frank Lessiter:
Give me a ballpark figure what it would cost additional to get the Hilco system on the combine.
Russ Zenner:
Boy, my guess would be a 100,000.
Frank Lessiter:
Okay.
Russ Zenner:
I don't know for sure.
Frank Lessiter:
Well, I think you're in the ballpark.
Russ Zenner:
Yeah, I would guess that's it. When we first got one, it was about 50,000. So it didn't take many years to double that price, I guess.
Frank Lessiter:
Right. We're about done talking about machinery, but I got to tell you a story that happened in one your fields. When Mike and I were there some years ago. You were harvesting wheat and you were up on the slope. And I set my camera bag down about the next row out where he was going to come so he wasn't going to run over it. But you spread chaff and straw so evenly that for about five years I was picking straw out of my camera bag. It's like I just got pushed in there with strength. I would think I'd have it cleaned out and I would find more.
Russ Zenner:
You were traveling with part of the police for quite a while, huh?
Frank Lessiter:
Yes. And I learned not to set my camera bag down as close to the combine as I had in the past.
Russ Zenner:
Yeah. Well, that's another advancement that's been very helpful for no-tilling, is the chopping and spreading capabilities of these newer combines. What's coming out the back is in much better shape for one pass seeding behind the combine than it used to be.
Frank Lessiter:
Yeah. How big a header do you have on your combines?
Russ Zenner:
Clint's got a 35 John Deere flex header, and then he's got a MacDon 40 foot Draper header on one machine.
Frank Lessiter:
And you're doing a pretty good job of spreading this 40 feet wide, right?
Russ Zenner:
It does pretty well. Yeah. And it chops it very well. That was one of the other things. Some of the earlier choppers just didn't chop it up as fine. And of course then it didn't spread as well either.
Frank Lessiter:
Right.
Russ Zenner:
Dramatic improvement there.
Frank Lessiter:
Well, even today, you'll see pictures of combines from the manufacturers or videos in which they're spreading strong chaff about half the distance of the header. So you know that's not a no-till situation.
Russ Zenner:
Yeah. If you want to have good stands and make a one pass system work, you very quickly pay close attention to what's coming out the back of the combine.
Frank Lessiter:
Right. I want to back up. And you mentioned that the next generation's taken over the farm. Did you grow up on this farm? Are you more than the first generation?
Russ Zenner:
I'm actually the third generation. And my dad's family, my grandfather immigrated from Luxembourg in 1908 to Uniontown Washington, which is just west of, a short distance. And he married a second generation German girl. Her family is big in farming in this part of the world. Is the [Druffle 00:15:06] family was her maiden family. My grandfather got from his start without much before he retired the second time he had all six of his boys farming and helped some of the girls and their husbands get started farming.
Russ Zenner:
And at one point in time, there was 13 of us in my generation farming in North Idaho from his start. I owe a lot of gratitude to what he did for our family, the legacy he left, as far as helping the kids get started and carried through to my generation. And it was a big change for my family when our kids made the decision that none of them were going to be a farmer. So that was a big change for us, but we've got a very good young couple. He's the oldest son of one of my first cousins, is on the farm now. And we were committed to trying to keep the operation in the extended family, if it would work out.
Frank Lessiter:
Sure. How many acres are you talking about, was in your operation?
Russ Zenner:
Well, when I retired, we were just under 3,000. And Clint expanded that pretty dramatically. He said a couple of opportunities and he's just around 5,000 acres now.
Frank Lessiter:
Wow.
Russ Zenner:
And he's also running a hundred mother cows. He likes cattle and trying to utilize them. And some cover crop grazing and see if we can get some good out of the livestock on the farmland.
Frank Lessiter:
Right. When did you retire?
Russ Zenner:
Well, I'm about, let's see, this is the fifth year. Yeah. Retired when I was 70.
Frank Lessiter:
Okay, good for you.
Russ Zenner:
Stuck around for some mentoring and helping in the busy season. I still do a little of that, but I figured I had my turn at it and we pushed Clint pretty hard getting started there. And he was drinking from a fire hose for a while, but he got better every year.
Frank Lessiter:
So was he already farming before he took over your operation or did you just get him started?
Russ Zenner:
Yes, he was. His dad and brother were partners in a farm and livestock operation. And we had a business experience or relationship with them. They were leasing our range land for their cattle operation. My brother got out of the cattle business. Oh man, late eighties, I guess. So we'd been working with them for several years.
Frank Lessiter:
So how has it changed?
Russ Zenner:
Well, it's been an adjustment. I'm curious to see how you're planning your transition into retirement because the first few years were, it was, I would say a sort of a struggle personally. You just felt guilty not going out and working all day.
Frank Lessiter:
Right.
Russ Zenner:
But we've got grandkids in Boise in Seattle and chased them in sports. And again, Clint's progress just gave us a lot more confidence that we could step away quicker.
Frank Lessiter:
Yeah. Well you're probably doing better than I am. I'm 82 years old and our son's running-.
Russ Zenner:
My goodness.
Frank Lessiter:
Our son's running the company and I still like coming to work, but I try to take a day and a half off each week. But the COVID thing is really... We haven't been any place in a long time and we've been traveling a lot before that. I kind of miss that.
Russ Zenner:
Well, Kathy and I have done a fair amount of international travel and we had plans for more of that before COVID certainly curbed our goals for seeing some more of the world, and that's been disappointing.
Frank Lessiter:
Right. So do you lay the law down to Clint? He has the no-till. What if he came to you and said, I wanted to start doing some tillage?
Russ Zenner:
Clint knew because we'd work with him three years. He knew the reasons for why I was farming the way I was. And we would've never picked a successor on this farm if we had any doubts that they didn't believe as we did and have the passion and the belief in what we needed to do to sustain that resource that we rely on.
Russ Zenner:
And Clint's on the Conservation District Board now in Nez Perce County. And that's really what I guess motivated me early in my career. One of the first volunteer positions I took after I come back to the farm, I was with farm credit for a couple years after college, but I got talked into serving on the Latah County Soil Conservation District Board. And just the activities there really opened up my eyes to the implications of top soil loss in this Palouse region and became convinced that we needed to do things differently than they'd been done in the past if we were going to sustain this for generations to come. And just very fortunate to have that influence early in my career.
Frank Lessiter:
How did you first get started with No-Till? Did somebody talk you into it, go to meetings or you built a-
Russ Zenner:
Meetings... Actually, one of the first meetings I ever went to, it would've been Guy Swanson's dad, Mort Swanson.
Frank Lessiter:
Sure. I've met Mort. That's how old I am.
Russ Zenner:
Well, he spoke at a conservation tillage event over in Pullman, Washington at WSU. And he talked about what motivated him to design a no-till drill. He seeded some winter wheat into spring wheat stubble with just some conventional drills. And he just became convinced that we should be able to figure out how to do this and it struck me that this made a lot of sense, what he was saying. We had a long ways to go to perfect it, but that was one of the early influences over my making the decision to go in that direction. And then a lot of the things that we did on the Conservation District Board, as far as promoting reduced tillage back then, divided slopes, a lot of the things. Well, basically to reduce tillage. Those were the early influencers over what happened.
Frank Lessiter:
Yeah.
Russ Zenner:
And then in 1995, I was part of the first group from the Pacific Northwest that went back to Dwayne Beck's farm. That was a powerful motivator to work harder at eliminating tillage and changing rotations and learning more about a lot of the things we needed to do to be successful.
Frank Lessiter:
Let's talk about how the rotations changed over the years. What were you doing early on? Were you ever summer fallowing?
Russ Zenner:
Probably not in my active management career, but prior to that. When I was going through high school and college, we were still doing some summer fallow. Part of it was for farm program compliance after... But we ran into situations with this amount of rainfall, with basically too much moisture on a fallow period. There was no cover crop, it was just basically bare ground. And with too much moisture, with two years accumulation, not only top soil loss, but water log soils, we were actually running into yield reductions on summer fallow versus annual cropping. So that was a pretty good motivator to eliminate that.
Frank Lessiter:
What did you start out with as a rotation?
Russ Zenner:
Well, the early days it was before we went to no-till, it was pretty much dry green spring peas and winter wheat, two year rotation in this region. And some of it, if there was summer fallow, it was like the dry land country now and the real low rainfall regions wheat summer fallow. The first step was just going annual cropping, eliminating summer fallow. It was a research work done through the STEEP program. And I don't know if you remember those days?
Frank Lessiter:
I do.
Russ Zenner:
I served on the advisory committee for that for quite a few years.
Frank Lessiter:
So you better explain this to our listeners.
Russ Zenner:
Okay. STEEP was the acronym for Solutions To Environmental and Economic Problems in cropland production in primarily the dryland Pacific Northwest. And it was research funding provided by the grain producers of Oregon, Washington and Idaho, was a tri-state effort. Would commit so many dollars a year to no-till conservation tillage, sustainable farming as we knew it then. The land grant universities and ARS leveraged that money into some more federal funds that became available. The commodity organizations had growers on the advisory group to evaluate the research proposals every year. That provided a lot of help in getting this region transitioned into reduced till and no-till. And I don't know how many that was in effect. I would guess it was close to 20 years from the-
Frank Lessiter:
Sure.
Russ Zenner:
... eighties through 2000 or later than that even. One of the projects as a result of the STEEP research was a three year rotation done over at Pullman Washington, very similar rainfall to us. They eliminated the Mould Board plough. They were still doing chisel ploughing, but they did winter wheat followed by a spring grain of some type followed by primarily a spring planted pulse crop, but dramatically reduced the tillage in that system. It still wasn't all no-till but the stretching that rotation just a little longer made quite a difference in reducing some of the original root disease pressures we had in the low disturbance cropping systems with short rotation, the root disease stuff. So it got us over the hump on a lot of the disease in impacts of going to no-till.
Frank Lessiter:
Yeah. Now later on, you got into more diverse rotations, wheat, durum, barley, spring peas, lentils, garbanzos.
Russ Zenner:
After our trip to Beck's farm, we tried corn for about 10 years. John Ashman still raising corn, we aren't.
Frank Lessiter:
I've been in John's corn fields.
Russ Zenner:
Yeah, I'm sure you have. We just did not have the luck that we had hoped to with corn. Little difference in growing degree, days, soil depth from John's farm, he's got some acres that he's making it work on, but there isn't much dryland corn grown in this region. But we tried it for quite a few years. But still some more diversity, we've raised sunflowers a couple times. We've gone into more alfalfa production. Clint with his livestock operation, we're finding that the perennial crops, I think, are going to be an important component to diversity that we maybe need on these soils. Seed production, just trying to keep heavy equipment off of that ground. In the spring of the year, we're finding that if we can seed a couple years in a row in the fall versus the spring, we've got better soil structure and that seed zone with fall seeded crops playing around with fall seeded pulse crops, winter canola, things like that to, I guess, get some more diversity and change things up a little.
Brian O'Connor:
That was Frank Lessiter and Russ Zenner talking about soil diversity in the Palouse farming region. Before we get back to the conversation, a brief word from today's sponsor, NewLeaf Symbiotics. Want to do more with your fields in 2022? Now available in convenient planter box application. Terrasym by NewLeaf Symbiotics is proven by Beck's 2021 PFR to improve yield by 2.7 bushels per acre in soybeans and 4.6 bushels per acre in corn. And that's $20,000 more in incremental income with every 1000 acres planted. To calculate your return and investment for the 2022 growing season and purchase Terrasym directly online for only $4.35 per acre, visit newleafsiym.com/2022. That's newleafS-Y-M.com\2022. Before we get back to the conversation, here is Frank Lessiter with a little known no-till farmer fact.
Frank Lessiter:
Now that this podcast deals with Russ Zenner out in the Palouse area of Washington and Idaho and Northern Oregon. It's a good time to look at the green bridge situation. Many no-tillers in the Midwest won't know what we're talking about, but the green bridge might be stealing yields from no-tillers who don't even know they've got it. Jim Cook is a retired Washington State University plant pathologist, and he defines green bridge as the wheat's volunteer crops or cover crops that grow in fields between harvesting one crop and no-tilling the next. He says disease pathogens feed on the roots of volunteer plants surviving long enough to infect the roots of the next season's crop. Wind spread pathogens and any insect, pests are also a green bridge concern.
Frank Lessiter:
And he says, the pathogens in the soil don't care if you planted a crop, or if it's a volunteer crop for wheat, he says roots are roots and they can be the source of infestations for the next crop. And it's been a serious problem in the Pacific Northwest where they'd count on soil biological activity to decompose the food that the pathogen gets from the roots, and that biological activity is a key to sanitizing the soil. So when we talk about green bridge today, it's pretty much up in the Pacific Northwest, but it's something you might want to think about if you're no-tilling in other parts of the country.
Brian O'Connor:
Now here's Frank and Russ again.
Frank Lessiter:
What else besides Canola could you seed in the fall as a pulse crop?
Russ Zenner:
Well, there's winter peas that have been fairly successful and the genetics are working on human grade P production now. There's been efforts on winter lentils. And I think down the road, we may even see a winter garbanzo, there's quite a bit of research effort, genetic effort being put into that also.
Frank Lessiter:
Right. Well, for just a minute, let's talk about wheat yields because back in the Midwest, we're pretty happy if we get a hundred bushel wheat yield, that's no great yield for you, is it?
Russ Zenner:
Well it's been quite a variation the last two years. I can tell you.
Frank Lessiter:
Yeah. Okay.
Russ Zenner:
This last harvest, we had drought conditions. Well this entire Pacific Northwest region. So the dryland areas were particularly hard hit. The lowest dry land yields we've had since 1977.
Frank Lessiter:
Wow.
Russ Zenner:
Which was actually worse than this year. It's hard to make the young guys believe that, they thought this year was pretty bad. And the year before this one, there was record high yields. We had a couple neighbors participated, this would be the 2020 crop, in the national wheat yield contest. Well, one of them was my cousins just across the road from us, but they had a strip entered in that yield contest that made over 180 bushel per acre of dry land.
Frank Lessiter:
Wow. Right.
Russ Zenner:
And Clint had couple fields of 120 bushel spring wheat, which I'd never seen a hundred bushel spring wheat in my lifetime. Most farmers had never had, and it was just unbelievable, the rainfall was timely in. Compare that to this last year spring wheat, a lot of it in the 20 to 40 bushel range.
Frank Lessiter:
Wow.
Russ Zenner:
Quite a difference in how busy the trucks were in harvest. I'll tell you that.
Frank Lessiter:
Right. What proportion you see in the fall versus spring?
Russ Zenner:
Oh, it probably runs two thirds of the wheat in the fall. And the spring grain is usually divided between spring barley, spring wheat, primarily that used to have corn, not a big acreage of corn in that spring grain leg, but Clint's doing malt barley, and then doing a fair amount of certified seed production on the spring grains. So it depends on what they're looking for there for seed.
Frank Lessiter:
Sure. Harvest would be August, right? And then you would seed September, October?
Russ Zenner:
Yes. Usually our harvest on the early ground will start in late July. August is predominant, vast majority of the crop is harvested in August in this region. Some years the garbanzos extend into September, they're the latest maturing crop. And then fall seeding winter wheat, late September into October. In some years, it's been later October because just seems like we have had drier late summer, early fall situations in the last couple decades. And it's part of climate change I presume, but we're struggling to get the late summer moisture that would help us a bunch on cover crops. Trying to double crop for forage production, or even utilizing multi-species cover crops for grazing. We're just struggling to have the late summer moisture for some of those warm season crops.
Frank Lessiter:
So when you seed wheat in the fall, what kind of fertilization program would you use in the fall?
Russ Zenner:
Oh, typically it depends on the class of wheat, the soft white wheat doesn't... You're not shooting for high protein, so we can get by with less nitrogen fertilizer. But typically fall fertilizer on soft white winter wheat, it'd be a hundred, 120 pounds of N applied in the fall. And a lot of times using a nitrogen stabilizer with that. The protein wheat, hard red winter, probably another 20 to 30 pounds again in the fall. And then some phosphate and sulfur. One of the changes we have made in the last few years, as far as the sulfur source, we've gone to pretty much relying on gypsum for our sulfur source. And we got onto that basically trying to look at what we could do to help reduce seed zone compaction with our spring planting crops in this region. And the gypsum helps for soil structure, it helps reduce the aluminum toxicity associated with low soil pH. And the sulfur is the only non acidifying source of sulfur that we have. So that's appears to have been a pretty good move as far as fertility efficiency and helping the overall soil structure and soil health situation.
Frank Lessiter:
So will you come back in the winter or spring and put some more fertilizer on that fall seed?
Russ Zenner:
Usually, yeah. We'll soil sample in the spring of the year, see where the fertilizer is, do some top dress, but Clint is starting to utilize more, just the last about three years now doing sap analysis of the growing plants-
Frank Lessiter:
Okay.
Russ Zenner:
... to determine fertilizer needs. And I don't know if you've done much writing about that yet, but it seems to be just a discovery and knowledge on that whole process as improving the efficiency of application methods and timing for these sweet crops.
Frank Lessiter:
Yeah. We've done a couple articles on, in fact, in our February issue of Conservation Tillage Guide, there's a long article on sap analysis. And then I was talking to Dick Whitman a couple weeks ago and he said that they had had John Camps talk at the Pacific Direct Seeders Association, and people were excited about what he was talking about, which includes sap analysis. So there's a lot of interest in it.
Russ Zenner:
Yeah, there is. And it's from what I've seen, what Clint has done, it is exciting. And it makes sense what they're doing there and as they get better at it and more perfected in the sampling and testing methods, I think it's going to be a good tool for adding nutrient efficiency to our system.
Frank Lessiter:
Cover crops have been a little slow to catch on in your area, but Clint seems to be doing and making it work.
Russ Zenner:
Well, we keep trying. We've had disappointments with the forage output. And again, it's the late season, lack of moisture in this region. That change in rainfall patterns has really been a hurdle for successful cover crop forage efficiency, I would say. Which has been a big disappointment because we're pretty well set up to utilize livestock. That time you visited we're out there on that rim area, where if you got grazing land on the breaks of the Clearwater adjacent to farmland. And my original thought process was that this is going to be a real asset to manage both sides of that fence. But the crop land side has been disappointing as far as the contribution to forage value.
Frank Lessiter:
Yeah.
Russ Zenner:
Clint, he's persisted, tried a lot of different things. And we've had some success and some things, it just doesn't look like it's helping us much. And that's been disappointing.
Frank Lessiter:
Talk about the rainfall patterns. A few years back, most of your rain used to come in a couple [inaudible 00:38:56] during the year. Didn't it?
Russ Zenner:
Well, over winter moisture is the biggest contribution.
Frank Lessiter:
Okay.
Russ Zenner:
In my youth growing up in, 50, 60s, 70s, it was not uncommon to have rainfall during harvest that would delay it for some point in time or several times during harvest. And maybe an accumulation of a couple or three inches of moisture in August and early September. And that's just unheard of anymore, that August, September, early October, stretch in there late July. But the late summer, early fall moisture is certainly less than it was early in my career.
Frank Lessiter:
Yeah.
Russ Zenner:
And that's just put the challenge to trying to make this cover crop stuff. Those attempts to be anywhere near the contribution that some of the guys and the Northern Plains are doing with the summer moisture.
Frank Lessiter:
Yeah.
Russ Zenner:
That's been a frustration with not being able to successfully take advantage of what you see happening in some other areas, because that is just amazing. Obviously, what Gabe Brown is doing, but other people with that summer rainfall.
Frank Lessiter:
Yeah. Fertilizer prices right now are sky high. Do you see people in your area cutting back on fertilizer this year or not?
Russ Zenner:
Oh, there could be, the protein wheat, dark Northern spring wheat, hard red winter wheat, there may be a cutback on those acres. I know there was guys stockpiling if they had the storage fertilizer last fall. And that's looks like it's going to be a great investment.
Frank Lessiter:
Right.
Russ Zenner:
Yeah. I guess it remains to be seen, if the price of wheat stays where it, I don't think there'll be much pullback on fertilizer applications, if we have the moisture to do it.
Frank Lessiter:
Right. You mentioned cattle. Times I've been in the Palouse, I haven't seen many fences.
Russ Zenner:
There aren't. When most of us my age spent our early career tearing out fences-
Frank Lessiter:
Right.
Russ Zenner:
... between fields. As farms expanded and people got out of livestock and it's just been a dramatic change from the farms in the thirties, forties, fifties, sixties, to now. They used to have all sorts of livestock. And problem in Palouse country is over wintering livestock with the soils we have and the free [inaudible 00:41:43] cycles and stream flow as far as water contamination with confined livestock operations. And trying to manage cattle in the mud is just a tough region to over winter livestock. There's been a dramatic reduction in livestock in this region in the last 40 years.
Frank Lessiter:
Yeah. So what's Clint using for fencing?
Russ Zenner:
Well, for the crop land areas, it's electric fencing.
Frank Lessiter:
Okay.
Russ Zenner:
Yeah. Solar power. And he's actually got a cost share program to set up some watering delivery system for crop land grazing. He's got a solar pump on spring development down in one of the canyons. That's a good source and pumping it up to the upper end of the field and putting in some water sources to utilize more of that crop land along the range land for summer grazing.
Frank Lessiter:
Did you own most of the land you were farming when you were farming or running?
Russ Zenner:
Oh, it was a split of family owned ground. We were predominantly family owned ground when I retired. And the stuff that Clint's taken on has been rented non-family ground, but combination.
Frank Lessiter:
Pretty much, it's a cash rent situation?
Russ Zenner:
Well, we're doing it both ways. We're doing a crop share lease with quite a bit with Clint to motivate him to try more things, because we're going to have a stake in the risk then.
Frank Lessiter:
Right. There you go.
Russ Zenner:
So that was part of our motivation to encourage him to keep pushing the envelope on getting better at sustainably managing the resource.
Frank Lessiter:
There you go. Still involved with Shepherd's Grain.
Russ Zenner:
Yes. Clint's involved in Shepherd's Grain. And we also, I don't know if I talked to you when you were here for... You knew our daughter-in-law was in the hummus business?
Frank Lessiter:
No, I didn't know that. It's been quite a while since I've been there.
Russ Zenner:
Yeah. She's been in that about, well, just started about 10 years ago. But using garbanzos from our ground, from our farm obviously. But our son married a girl, Lebanese descent, and there was no family recipe. And her mother convinced her to use garbanzos from our farm. And so she's now in the, they're in the food business, selling hummus in all Western US. And she just partnered up with a Chicago food company, Devanco Foods, which is in Euro meats, is their primary product. But they were looking for expanding their Mediterranean line of food, and Janine partnered up with them and she's having some luck expanding that business. It's been pretty exciting.
Frank Lessiter:
Well, my wife buys hummus also. I have to start looking at the labels.
Russ Zenner:
Yeah, Zacca, Z-A-C-C-A.
Frank Lessiter:
Okay.
Russ Zenner:
That's her maiden name actually, is the name of the hummus, but she's got about five different flavors of hummus. And I can't remember the name of the grocery lines back in the Midwest that she is just starting to get into since her partnership with Devanco.
Frank Lessiter:
So what happens with garbanzo beans to make them into hummus. They take them off the farm, they truck them off the farm, then what happens?
Russ Zenner:
Well, they're harvested dry, low moisture, just like wheat. And then the hummus making process is basically adding water and boiling and then crushing or making a sort of a puree out of it. Janine claims, she talks about having a clean label where she has no artificial preservatives in her product and some lemon juice. I'm trying to think what else is in it. But it's very few ingredients to make the hummus. And it's with a plant protein preference in food buying trends now, the hummus sales volume has risen dramatically in the last decade.
Frank Lessiter:
Sure.
Russ Zenner:
And still increasing. A lot of the plant based stuff is taking a lot of market share here recently. So the timing to get involved in that was good and it's a good product. Value added stuff, that was sort of my, I guess, priority when I looked at getting into no-till. That was the reason for the start of Shepherd's Grain, was to take advantage of value added opportunities on the way we produced the food. And we did everything from certified seed to Shepherd's Grain. And now Janine with Zacca hummus to take some of the risk out of trying new things.
Frank Lessiter:
Right.
Russ Zenner:
It's worked well for us. Farming treated us very well and Clint's carrying on trying new things. And hopefully that continues.
Frank Lessiter:
What new thing might he be trying this year?
Russ Zenner:
Well, I'm not sure what he's... He's got some fall seeded cover crop that barely made it out of the ground. Last fall didn't provide any grazing value just because it stayed dry so long, it just didn't get a start last fall. But he has not tried that before, and we'll see how that turns out this spring, whether he can get some grazing off of that and then plant a cash crop after he grazes the fall seeded cover crop, I don't know. It remains to be seen, but that was something new last fall.
Frank Lessiter:
Right. Do you think with the right cover crop seed, you can get some nitrogen value on wheat.
Russ Zenner:
Oh yes, certainly. Any inclusion with pulse crops, peas, the Austrian winter peas or lentils. There's opportunity to have carbon or nitrogen contribution with them.
Frank Lessiter:
Right. Well, have we missed talking about anything in your background we ought to be talking about?
Russ Zenner:
Well, you got quite a bit of life history here. I just want to, again, thank you for your contribution to sustainability. We've been very fortunate to have your commitment with your publications and your annual conferences to motivate people to farm in a manner that is going to keep us around longer. The other thing I'm seeing now, this global concern on climate change is having a significant influence over consumers and shareholders, corporate shareholders that are going to put more value on producing food in a sustainable manner and reducing our carbon footprint.
Russ Zenner:
That's some of the stuff we're actually looking at in Shepherd's Grain to where we can carry the contribution to the marketplace. Not only no-till, but reducing our carbon footprint, becoming more efficient with fertilizer applications. Utilizing livestock, they can be a very important asset on nutrient cycling efficiency if we can master that. Meat is getting a bad rep here, but they can be a wonderful contributor to agriculture doing a better job if we utilize them a little differently than we have in the past.
Frank Lessiter:
Right. I'm amazed today at how many consumers want to know where their food came from, what field it came from, what day it was harvested. We've gone for years and years and years, nobody cared.
Russ Zenner:
Right. Well, Shepherds Grain was the first flower company that you could identify what field the flower came from and get a profile of the farmer. And there's the big companies are trying to imitate that now, but none of them have, I guess, the rigorous compliance requirements that we have in Shepherd's Grain to go into that product. Our daughter-in-law's hummus on the shelf there, it's tough to find another hummus product that you can trace the garbanzos back to the farm they were raised on. There's opportunities there. And the meat business too, especially now, there's some very good opportunities for identity preservation and grass [inaudible 00:51:16] stuff. What Gabe Brown has done with that group he's working with, with their processing facility, there's a lot of opportunity.
Frank Lessiter:
Right. Any guess or estimate of what extra value you've gotten for wheat by selling it through Shepherd's Grain over the years?
Russ Zenner:
Well, it varies. Just like right now with these very high commodity, we're pricing our wheat and Shepherd's Grain based on cost of production. And so we're actually below the commodity price.
Frank Lessiter:
Okay.
Russ Zenner:
When I got involved in Shepherd's Grain, what convinced me that it's going to be... If you're a decent farmer doing the right things, you're not going to go broke selling your crop when you've got your cost of production covered. And in the bad years, that's been a big difference at times versus commodity price, commodity is way down. But I don't know, I would say, well, we're close to 20 years of Shepherd's Grain production now, 18, something like that. But 15 to 20% over commodity price average through the years, that may be a little high, but again, we've got cost of production plus some profit in that. And it looks to me like it's hard to go wrong with that.
Frank Lessiter:
Well, right. When prices are really low, the cost of production looked pretty good.
Russ Zenner:
It did. Yeah.
Frank Lessiter:
Right.
Russ Zenner:
Yeah. This whole pandemic thing has put some pressure on that pricing model just because a lot of these bakeries have really been hit hard. With help and staying open, for them to be paying more than commodity price right now, it's really tough for some of those outfits to do that.
Frank Lessiter:
Exactly. Right.
Russ Zenner:
So we've trying to work on our pricing model that we can accommodate situations like that, but still getting back to our whole theory on sustainability. We've been very transparent with the pricing. We have our wheat through the years and that's been a real asset for us to have some loyalty in the flower market.
Frank Lessiter:
Right.
Brian O'Connor:
Thanks to Frank Lessiter and Russ Zenner for today's discussion. And thanks to our sponsor, NewLeaf Symbiotics, for helping to make possible the No-Till Farmer Influencers and Innovators podcast series. Before we wrap up today's podcast, here's Frank one more time.
Frank Lessiter:
One of the questions that's come up from readers in the past is whether long term no-till requires less nitrogen or not. And after 12 and 14 years of continuous no-till Mark Allie says you'll be able to dramatically trim your nitrogen cost with no-till. He's a retired Virginia Tech University agronomist that has research data that indicates long term no-tillers definitely won't need as much fertilizer as conventionally tilling neighbors. Allie also pointed out that most growers can maximize their overall profit of ability by investing in starter fertilizers for quick plant growth with no-tilling corn.
Brian O'Connor:
Thanks for tuning in. You can find more podcasts about no-till topics and strategies at no-tillfarmer.com/podcasts. That's no-tillfarmer.com/podcasts. If you have any feedback on today's episode, please feel free to email me at boconnor@lessitermedia.com. Or call me at (262) 777-2413. And don't forget that Frank would love to answer your questions about no-till and the people and innovations that have made an impact on today's practices. So please email your questions to us at listenermail@no-tillfarmer.com. Once again, if you haven't done so already, you can subscribe to this podcast to get an alert as soon as future episodes are released. Find us wherever you listen to podcasts. For Frank Lessiter and our entire staff here at no-till farmer. I'm lead content editor, Brian O'Connor. Thanks for listening.
Frank Lessiter:
All right. I'm mumble and jumble, but people that don't get it perfect are the people you can believe.
