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“I think one of the interesting aspects of organic is it forces you to do things that other farmers wouldn’t even try, because they would just say ‘Well, I have a quick fix for that.’ But with organic, you don’t have some of those quick fixes and so you have to try other things.” — Joel Gruver
For many agronomy students in Illinois, Joel Gruver is their first point of contact with no-till and organic farming in the classroom.
In this episode of the No-Till Farmer Influencers & Innovators Podcast, brought to you by NewLeaf Symbiotics, Frank Lessiter talks with soil scientist and educator Gruver.
Gruver is an associate professor of soil science and sustainable agriculture at Western Illinois University’s Allison Farm, as well as the director of the university’s Organic Research Program. Gruver also works on the institutions Allison Organic Research & Demonstration Farm. The farm is dedicated to developing and testing there practical and economic impacts of alternative soil and crop management strategies for pesticide-free farming systems and the feasibility of organic crops in Western Illinois.
Gruver has a bachelors’ degree in Chemistry from Principia College in Elsah, Illinois, a masters’ degree in Agronomy from the University of Maryland and his Ph.D. in Soil Science from North Carolina State University.
He shepherds dozens of his “best and brightest” through intensive classes in no-till farming and organic farming in his position at Western Illinois.
In this week’s podcast, Gruver and Lessiter talk about the prospects for biological farming supplements, the perils and opportunities that arise from combining no-till and organic methods, hands-on learning at WIU, and more.
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Full Transcript
Brian O'Connor:
Welcome to the latest episode of No-Till Farmer Influencers & Innovators. I'm 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.
Brian O'Connor:
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Brian O'Connor:
I'd like to take a moment to thank our sponsor, NewLeaf Symbiotics, for supporting our No-Till Farmer Influencers & Innovators podcast series.
Brian O'Connor:
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 1,000 acre planted.
Brian O'Connor:
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:
For many students in Illinois, Joel Gruver is their first point of contact with no-till and organic farming in the classroom. In this episode of the No-Till Farmer Influencers & Innovators podcast brought to you by NewLeaf Symbiotics, Frank Lessiter talks with soil scientist and educator Gruver. In this week's episode, Gruver and Lessiter talk about the prospects for biological farming supplements, the perils and opportunities that arise from combining no-till and organic methods, hands-on learning at WIU, and more.
Frank Lessiter:
Let's start out with just a little background. Did you grow up on a farm? And if so, where?
Joel Gruver:
I did grow up on a farm, but not when I was a young child. My family bought a piece of land when I was six years old and we would go out there regularly. We were beekeepers. And so we had honeybees at that site, but actually even before we bought that land, we had honeybees at other farms.
Joel Gruver:
And we built a house in 1983 at that land when I was headed into middle school. So then we moved out there. And it was a small farm that was really focused more on kind of self-sufficiency, back to the land types of things. We didn't sell too much, but it was very much formative in my interest in agriculture. And it was in an agricultural area surrounded by lots of dairy farms, so I got to know lots of farmers and that was kind of my beginning.
Frank Lessiter:
What state and what town was this?
Joel Gruver:
Oh. Okay. This is Maryland. And so it's Harford County, Maryland up near the Pennsylvania line. It's about 15 miles or so from where Steve Groff is. And so years later when I was doing my graduate studies at the University of Maryland, then I got to know Steve Groff.
Joel Gruver:
But the farm was basically kind of between York, Pennsylvania, and Baltimore, Maryland near I-83, which connects those two.
Frank Lessiter:
Well, I got a little background on you. So how did you end up getting your bachelor's degree in chemistry at a school in Illinois?
Joel Gruver:
That's a good question. Basically, it was a small religious school that my family was interested in me going to and I think I just thought I'd give it a try. I wasn't really expecting that I would stay for four years, but I connected with lots of people there and I enjoyed doing athletics and I met lots of international students that became friends for life.
Joel Gruver:
And I was interested in the sciences, wasn't specifically interested in chemistry, but the option of studying agriculture wasn't there. And I don't think I knew that I wanted to study agriculture academically at that time, but chemistry just became a toolbox, useful ways of thinking about how to do math and science, and it has served me well.
Frank Lessiter:
Right. So then you went on and you got your master's degree at Maryland and you got your PhD in soil science at North Carolina. So today you were at Western Illinois University. So tell us a little about how you got there and what you're doing now.
Joel Gruver:
My connection to North Carolina developed a little over 20 years ago. I started a educational program at a big research station. They had just a couple of years before started what was called the Center for Environmental Farming Systems. And this was a collaboration between NC State and the North Carolina Department of Agriculture and some other entities. And it was basically a combination of multiple units focused on different dimensions of how to make agriculture more sustainable. And so they had a beef unit and they had a cropping system unit and they had a little piece of the whole facility called the Student Farm. And my job was to develop it into something that really attracted and educated students.
Joel Gruver:
And so I was the first person to run that and I did that for two years. And each summer I had lots of students that would come and be my interns. And it was a great experience and I got to know lots of faculty that were at NC State and were doing research at the Center for Environmental Farming Systems. And so that's what after two years led me to start a PhD program there because I was well-connected with those faculty. And so I did some of my research at the Center for Environmental Farming Systems and some of it in other locations, but it just was a really natural transition from being an employee to being a graduate student at NC State.
Frank Lessiter:
So now you're back in Illinois teaching soil science and a number of other crops, right?
Joel Gruver:
I finished up at NC State in terms of coursework in 2006 and came out here and started my current position that I've been in now for 15 years. And I still had to finish writing up the dissertation, so I did that while I was teaching my first classes here at Western.
Joel Gruver:
And I have a position that basically I teach all the soils classes that are offered in the School of Agriculture and also some conservation classes. And then I have a research program. That was one of the unique aspects of this opportunity, I got to teach lots of different soils classes, but I also, I had an organic research farm that had been established in the late '80s actually. It already had been established, but there really was a lot of room for growth. There were things that either needed to be put to bed or really activated.
Joel Gruver:
And so that double attraction of being able to teach lots of different soils classes plus work on this organic program that was established but needed maybe reinvigoration, that attracted me.
Joel Gruver:
So that's what I've been doing. That farm has been a huge opportunity, but also a huge sink for time. And sometimes it feels like a sail that is just giving me great opportunities, other times it feels like an anchor, but it's been something that has certainly created a steep learning curve about corn and soybean agriculture, which I had been exposed to it, but I didn't really know it well before coming out here. And that's of course my target audience. My students are mostly from corn and soybean farms. The farmers I interact with mostly grow corn and soybeans.
Joel Gruver:
And so I had to get beyond just an academic connection to that subject matter and that's what the organic research farm really has allowed me, to really learn how to set a planter and how to deal with all the specific agronomy of corn and soybeans.
Frank Lessiter:
Right. Well, we've had you talk at our National No-Tillage Conference a couple times and I pulled up an article that we did on what you had talked about in 2014. And I'd like to talk about some of these things in here that really relate to our no-tillers including cover crops, but you seem to be big on root systems. In this article, you talked about how you got to look at these roots. Can you elaborate on the importance of no-tillers looking at the roots even throughout the season, just not at one time?
Joel Gruver:
I have been fascinated with what roots look like for a long time. I have seen these illustrations in old textbooks that just, to me, it was beautiful as well as functional looking at what people had, using almost archeological methods, had been able to reveal about the hidden half of our crops.
Joel Gruver:
And way back when I was in North Carolina and we had really sandy soils, I started digging up some root systems and it was a little easier then with those sandy soils to reveal the roots, but it was really obvious that our management changed the way the roots would extend through the soil. And we would create density layers that would cause the roots to turn and not grow very deeply or we could have biological activity, whether it be previous root systems or earthworms that would create channels that then the roots would follow down. So that was something cool to see.
Joel Gruver:
Way back when I was working with Steve Groff doing my master's degree, I made a soil monolith, which is an intact slab of soil that you can mount on a board. That's typically the way it's done. Just like you would mount a big fish or a deer head, soil scientists mount these slabs of soil. And so I made one that showed in Steve's soils just how clearly his... I think in the particular case where I was making this monolith, he had tomato crop. And so you could see all these tomato roots that aren't particularly deep and impressive roots in some soils, but with Steve's management and all the cover crop roots and earthworms, the roots were clearly growing very deep. And it was fun to make that monolith and just show how impressively the roots were able to extend through a layer that had a higher clay content than the subsoil. The roots just went right on through.
Joel Gruver:
And so that's kind of the foundation of me thinking about roots, but in my soil fertility class here, I don't start with talking about nutrients. I start with talking about the uptake system for nutrients and I emphasize that it's not how much nitrogen is out there, that's as important as our uptake system for nitrogen and all the nutrients and for water.
Joel Gruver:
If I remember correctly, that presentation that I shared at the National No-Till Conference, it really utilized a bunch of the slides and concepts that I teach in my soil fertility class. And I remember talking to some farmers after the presentation and they were like, "That wasn't a typical presentation. You weren't just giving us lots of research data, you were laying it out step by step, almost like you were teaching a class." And of course that's what I was doing. And I've found that that's a good way to start the discussion about soil fertility. So that's what I've been doing now for years and it seems to keep working.
Frank Lessiter:
So what do you recommend to no-tillers to get better root growth? You were even talking about chronic root malfunctions.
Joel Gruver:
Yeah, that's a term that I didn't originate. The concept is that in most of our production systems, some combination of physical problems like compaction, biological problems like root pathogens, and chemical problems like acidity or low fertility, those three types of problems hold back root performance and don't allow the root system to express itself fully.
Joel Gruver:
Through good management, we can overcome those types of problems, we can alleviate problems, but I think what's especially important with no-till systems is that we prevent problems.
Joel Gruver:
And so problems like compaction, we don't want to alleviate with deep tillage. We want to have a cropping system that we keep our heavily loaded grain carts from driving all over the place, we avoid getting on the soil too early when it's too wet. And we of course have options for alleviating compaction that may not be as direct as pulling a steel shank through the soil like growing cover crop roots or promoting earthworm activity, but we can definitely do those things through our no-till cropping systems.
Joel Gruver:
And then think maybe most important but most underutilized is the idea of having a cycle of root zone improvement. That's something I think I talked about at that session at the National No-Till Conference, but I may not have actually originated that idea yet, but that's something that I really emphasize these days, that our cropping systems are trying to create root zones that are used over and over again and are getting better and better, becoming a better environment for the next roots to grow in.
Joel Gruver:
And that's been something that I've been trying to explore more recently with solar corridor cropping systems, but it's something that it's hard to investigate because it's hard to look at how one root system might be following another, but it's something that I think is a very important phenomenon that we should be investigating.
Frank Lessiter:
Well, we've got these Midwest no-tillers who think they've been doing pretty well with a corn and soybean rotation, but to get really good root health, we got to get another crop or two into that rotation?
Joel Gruver:
Well, yeah, I would say that there are real opportunities for improving the root zone by getting another crop in there. Just growing warm season crops like corn and soybeans, that limits our root diversity. Our roots, they are constrained by the strength of the soil, and when the soil is more moist, it's more easily penetrated by the roots.
Joel Gruver:
And so that of course is happening some of the time when our warm season crops are growing, but generally speaking, our soils are drier in the summertime. And so it's harder to get roots to grow through compacted layers during the summer corn and soybean season. If we can get more roots growing during the moist part of the year, particularly fall and spring, we can get roots through compaction layers more effectively.
Joel Gruver:
And there are drainage issues. If the soil is too moist, it's hard for roots to breathe, even though it may be easy to penetrate. So some cover crops do better than others at that. Annual ryegrass grass is particularly well-suited for getting through compaction when the soil is really wet.
Joel Gruver:
But I think the reality is that in the commodity game, economics are essentially always tight and it's hard to change the cash cropping system, but to make full use of cover crops, it's challenging unless you have some overlap of the growing seasons between your cash crops and your cover crops. If your summer crops are harvested before you plant the cover crops, there's just not that much window for really deep root growth. And so we need to look at either opportunities for rotating into another type of cash crop that's not a warm season cash crops, so like a small grain, or having overlapping of the growing seasons between the cover crops and the cash crops.
Frank Lessiter:
So interseeding is one possibility. We get in there and seed this long before harvest time of soybeans are corn.
Joel Gruver:
Yeah, it could be long before or it could be just a little bit before, but even a few weeks can make a big difference in the fall where the daylight is getting rapidly shorter, the night temperatures are getting rapidly colder. And so just getting things planted in late August, early September as compared to into October or November, that month can make a very big difference in terms of how deep the roots can extend and how much impact they can have on the soil.
Frank Lessiter:
Yeah. Well, it's like these corn and soybean growers, if they've gotten wheat into their rotation, then that gives them the opportunity to take that off in late July or early August and get a cover crop seeded for that extra month or two.
Joel Gruver:
Yeah. I mean, that's where you really see the big changes in soil health, when you can have a small grain that then transitions into cover crops. The economics of that are challenging, but wherever you can do double cropping of small grains and soybeans, that tends to be the way people go. But I think that also has soil health improving effects.
Joel Gruver:
Probably the best options if the farmer can figure out how to make this work in his system would be to harvest the small grain, then have cover crops that get grazed by livestock. That combination really can make a lot of difference in terms of improving the biomass grown, the depth of the roots, the economic opportunities because of the grazing cattle or other species. And then you can rotate back into corn and have substantial yield benefits. So even if the small grain isn't economically the equal of a corn or soybean crop, it may result in better economics just by giving you more corn yield the next season.
Frank Lessiter:
A farmer in your area who's done fairly well with corn and soybeans knows he's got a compaction problem and he doesn't really want to deep rip, what would be your suggestions for him?
Joel Gruver:
I guess the place to start is to identify at what depth the compaction is, maybe where did it come from? Is it the result of some chronic problem with the way he's trafficking on that soil or is it something that just resulted from a very unusual wet harvest season?
Joel Gruver:
I think there are some pretty low disturbance inline ripping systems that I would say if you want a quick solution that has very little impact on the organic enrichment at the surface, then inline ripping could be the way to go. But I guess a key thing to look at is the roots and see whether the compaction is really changing the way the roots are growing. And if it's obvious that the compaction is really disrupting root growth causing the roots to grow much more shallow, then inline ripping might be the way to go, but in the long run, looking at more controlled traffic types of systems, looking at ways to reduce the axle load or to spread out the footprint.
Joel Gruver:
My students in recent classes have been looking at differences between tracks and tires and different types of tires. And I think there are lots of interesting developments. Tracks are proven for providing better traction. There are a number of things that farmers know tracks will do, but the capacity for tires to be used in a new way that doesn't create as much compaction, I think that's even more novel to my students.
Joel Gruver:
And so the idea of having tires that you can run at lower air pressure when you're out in the field so you have less down pressure from the tire and a bigger footprint, but then when you get out on the road, most of the farmers of any scale have fields that are spread quite far apart, so they need to traffic over the road. And so you increase your air pressure when you're ready to travel down the road, and then you decrease your air pressure when you're out in the field, something as simple as that, which isn't that easy to execute unless have a push button system where some farmers are going that route where they're actually setting up their tractors so they can very easily change air pressure, but that's a concept that the farmers need to start thinking about.
Joel Gruver:
And I think the students in a recent class probably had many interesting conversations with the older farmers and their families about this. And hopefully they figured out some ways that they could make it practical because we saw lots of evidence that it really could make a difference in terms of reducing pinched rows and giving better traction without having to go all the way to the expensive high maintenance track system.
Frank Lessiter:
Right. Right. As a broad generalization, are no-till roots shallower than roots with minimum tillage conventional tillage?
Joel Gruver:
Well, I think we have kind of two different root morphologies. So the morphology is just the architecture of the root. And what we end up with in no-till systems is some deep roots that are going right down old root channels, old cracks, old earthworm boroughs, that those biopores, you could say, those are well-developed in mature no-till systems that have good biological activity.
Joel Gruver:
And so we have roots that go right down those very steep angle down into the subsoil. And those roots are not as abundant as you might see in a system that has deep tillage, but you have a good number of those roots going straight down into the subsoil, but then you also have this proliferation of near surface roots that are growing relatively shallow underneath the litter, underneath the crop residue layer, and that type of architecture where you have this surface root system and then the deep root system, that's a much more natural root system. That's what plants in natural ecosystems tend to have, roots that are really good at capturing nutrients as soon as they get released from decomposition of surface residues and then kind of a distinctly separate root system that's plunging deep into the subsoil to acquire moisture.
Joel Gruver:
And when you look in intensively tilled systems, you see more proliferation in the whole zone of tillage, but then often there's a compaction layer at the depth of tillage or multiple depths of tillage, and then the roots really turn and don't go into the subsoil as effectively as those deep roots following biopores down.
Brian O'Connor:
That was Frank Lessiter and Joel Gruver talking about the potential for organic farming. We'll come back to the conversation in a moment. Before we do so, thanks to NewLeaf Symbiotics for sponsoring today's podcast.
Brian O'Connor:
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Brian O'Connor:
Now let's get back to Frank Lessiter and Joel Gruver as they continue their conversation.
Frank Lessiter:
Another thing to look at is we know these no-tilled soils can be cooler in the spring, which is a plus and minus during the growing season, but how about air temperature or soil temperature, how's it impact root development?
Joel Gruver:
I think the simple explanation is that roots grow more slowly, significantly slower when the soil temperature is cool. And so your roots get off to a slower start normally if you haven't done any tillage. One way to address that is to do strip-tillage so you have a zone for the roots to start to grow where the soil is warmer and dryer.
Joel Gruver:
But I think what no-tillers have found is that they can compensate for some of these effects. One way is to band more fertility with the planter or it could be a separate banding process, but if you have a hotspot of fertility in row or next to the row, then the roots don't need to grow as far, the plant is much less likely to be limited by the slower early root growth.
Joel Gruver:
And then what really is harder to compensate for is the hot dry periods in the middle of the summer if your root system has grown more extensively, is more well-connected to subsoil moisture at that time of the year, then your production is able to finish well, it's able to finish out, to grain well, and I think that's something that there's no Band-Aid, there's no just putting a band of fertility that can compensate for that.
Joel Gruver:
So no-tillers are more likely to have planter applied nutrients and I think those planter applied nutrients can do a pretty good job of compensating for the slower early root growth.
Frank Lessiter:
Sure, so another reason to use started fertilizer.
Joel Gruver:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Frank Lessiter:
So let's say you're in 30 inch rows, you got GPS so you can do controlled traffic, when you come in that next year, does it matter where you plant? Do you split that in the middle and go 15 inches from this previous row or you want to be closer to the row or what? How's that impact root health?
Joel Gruver:
Oh, that's a good question and I don't think I have investigated that personally. I think that really comes down to the farmer has to figure out what his soils and equipment will allow. You can really challenge your equipment by trying to plant too close to the previous rows, but you can make it very difficult for your row cleaning system.
Joel Gruver:
If you can make the equipment part of it work, I think there are some real benefits to be achieved by planting right over the same rows, and you need to have a row cleaning system that is capable of moving the previous surface residues out of the way.
Joel Gruver:
I would say maybe the starting place is to be planting right in the middle between the old rows and that will be the easiest to get your equipment to do that well, but over the long-term, you can figure out options that allow you to make better use of previously banded fertility and all the root channels that are from the old rows. I think some of those benefits can be captured once you've figured out how to make the engineering work on your planter.
Frank Lessiter:
Right. I can remember a study out of Penn State probably 20 years or more in which they were saying if you were in continuous corn and plant exactly over the old row, but I don't remember what the results were or anything, but they were talking about it for a while. I mean, we got some farmers that are big on no-till, who are no-tilling soybeans, but they think they got to strip-till corn. What's happening in your area?
Joel Gruver:
I think strip-till is increasing. And it's not just no-tillers that are deciding that they need to do more cleaning of the row zone, I think strip-till is catching on especially with farmers that previously were doing full field tillage. Anhydrous is very common in this area and farmers are simply realizing that they can get more efficient use of their anhydrous when they plant right over that anhydrous band. And they also can reduce their labor and wear and tear on equipment on tillage equipment if they can just capture the efficiency of planting right over the anhydrous band.
Joel Gruver:
The soils that are heavy and don't have very large windows of opportunity for tillage in the spring, I think farmers are finding that just by making a zone with their anhydrous bar that's maybe a little bit raised up and residue free, that allows them to come back and plant in the spring without having to work soil that frequently is too wet in the spring.
Joel Gruver:
And so that's I think one thing that's really attractive. I mean, there are all different variations on strip-till from using just an anhydrous bar to do your strip-tillage, kind of the Jim Kinsella classic early approach to strip-till that is still a popular approach, and then the much more intensive strip-till approaches where you are putting multiple nutrients, you're building a bigger berm, maybe you're doing deeper tillage. You're doing a lot more than just knifing in an anhydrous.
Joel Gruver:
And people have lots of different I guess preferences for those strip-till systems. I think they all can work. Some people are building a strip in the fall and freshening it again in the spring. It just comes down to I think whether you want to have a very expensive strip-till bar that takes a lot of management, a lot of maintenance and of course can give you some additional benefits, but just is a high intensity management system, or if you want to use a more low management strip-till system, just the classic Jim Kinsella plant over your banded anhydrous, I think that can work well.
Joel Gruver:
And there's debate really on what even to call that. There are farmers in this area that just refer to that as no-till. They're not moving much residue out the row, but they are moving some and they're planting right over the anhydrous band. And so they think of that as just a no-till system that involves putting your nitrogen in the ground and they don't really think of it as strip-till.
Frank Lessiter:
Right. Let's shift gears. Let's talk a little organic. I mean, you go back a few years and organic was pretty much small scale, 100 acres. 200 was pretty big, but now today, we've got no-tillers that are doing organic on 500 or 1,000 acres. And tell us a little about it. Can you do organic and be a no-tiller?
Joel Gruver:
Yeah. So I think maybe one angle you were getting at is the idea that some of the long-term no-tillers that have been celebrated for years in No-Till Farmer Magazine and in the halls of the No-Till National Conference, I think of people in Indiana like Dan Desutter and-
Frank Lessiter:
Yeah, we just had Rick Clark on [crosstalk 00:36:08]
Joel Gruver:
And Rick Clark.
Frank Lessiter:
And he's got 7,000 acres.
Joel Gruver:
Yeah, and Mike Shuter and some of those other really pioneering no-tillers, some of those guys have decided to try organic on a large scale. And Rick Clark is the poster representative of that approach and he's being really bold about what he's trying.
Joel Gruver:
My experience is that organic no-till works really well as a phase in a tillage rotation, meaning that you can have no-till planting of soybeans, but then when you have, let's say your next crop is corn, my personal experience with the research farm that I manage and the observations I've made at other sites is that you need to have some tillage periodically to address perennial weeds. And I'm not just talking about what many people might be thinking of such as Canada thistle or bindweed, I'm talking about trees.
Joel Gruver:
I mean, we have little maple trees that come into our fields. Every time I do a no-till soybean experiment, the next season, I have mulberries and maple trees. And they're small and easily killed by tillage, but I wonder in Rick Clark's fields whether those trees are starting to come in. I hope they're not. I hope that he is either not having them come in or that he is successfully controlling them with his practices.
Joel Gruver:
But I guess what it comes down to at this point in my experience, I see the real strengths of a no-till phase for the soybeans and maybe for small grains, but then rotating into some tillage ahead of corn, and the reason being that's the crop that I see the biggest response to the tillage. So I get the return on investment from doing the tillage ahead of corn and I also take care of the perennial weed problems that are starting to develop if I do too many years of no-till in a row.
Joel Gruver:
And I think that there are new tools that are being developed and it's possible that some combination of non-soil disturbing organic controls such as weed zapping-
Frank Lessiter:
Yeah. There you go.
Joel Gruver:
Or such as flaming or steaming or various other things that are potentially able to control those perennial weeds. What you really want is something that will kill the weed right down through the root. And so the weed zapping system is one that has the potential to do that.
Joel Gruver:
I think there are many ways that our current strategies can be augmented with changes or improvements in technology. For example, the weed zapping system, it's dependent on making a really good contact with the weed foliage. If the foliage is too hairy or too dry, you don't make that good contact and then you don't get the good kill.
Joel Gruver:
Over in Europe, there's a new approach where you spray an electrolyte solution. So a high conductivity solution is sprayed at a relatively low rate, but right ahead of your weeds zapping bar, and that just makes for better contact between the bar and your weeds. And it appears that that simple addition to the system makes weed zapping much more effective.
Joel Gruver:
So I think that we need to just keep looking at how to take these systems to the next level. And I have great confidence that people like Rick Clark with their access to capital and technological sophistication, they are the people that are well-positioned to bring these new technologies into organic no-till.
Joel Gruver:
Someone like Rick Clark, he's someone who has a track record of solving problems and making things work. And so I'm excited to see what he can do. And I think one of the interesting aspects of organic is it forces you to do things that other farmers wouldn't even try because they would just say, "Well, I have a quick fix for that," but with organic, you don't have some of those quick fixes and so you have to try other things.
Joel Gruver:
And Rick may be taking it kind of to an extreme in the sense I think he really has this idea that the only management he wants to do is to plant seeds. That, to me, is pretty radical. I'm more open to using biological seed treatments and applying some nutrients and various things that Rick I think is trying to steer clear of.
Joel Gruver:
And so I'm watching closely. I'm very curious to see how his system and the system of any of these guys that are successful long-term no-tillers, that they are problem solvers and they will find a way I think. I hope they don't throw up their hands and give up because I think they can bring a lot to organic.
Frank Lessiter:
Well, the other thing that's interesting about organic, and I've been around forever, some people say I'm as old as dirt, but you go back 20 or 30 years and most organic was small scale vegetable production. And now, all of a sudden, there's a market for organic soybeans and organic corn and organic wheat, which there didn't seem to be years ago, so it's like that. And then you got somebody like Rick Clark with a huge acreage, well, if a weed zapper costs $70,000, he can afford to invest in it if he can use it on the big acreage.
Joel Gruver:
Yeah. I mean, people like Rick Clark bring a new type of thinking and problem solving to organics and it's happening in many other parts of the organic industry also. I mean, I think one thing that I'm sure you've observed as a journalist is there are the celebrity farmers, the people that everybody hears about, that you write about and that speak at the National No-Till Conference. And those stories are very interesting and high profile, but for every one of those, there are many other stories where somebody is just figuring out these things behind the scenes. And they may be inspired by the Rick Clarks, but they may be coming up with even better solutions that nobody knows about.
Joel Gruver:
So yeah, I feel really blessed in my position as an educator connected to all these students. I get to hear about the kind of behind the scenes stories that maybe never get into a magazine from my students. I enjoy reading the magazine articles and having those articles as reading assignments for my students, but then a student will come back and say, "Well, actually, I have a neighbor that's already doing just what Rick Clark is doing."
Frank Lessiter:
Yeah. Hey, you mentioned the biologicals and we're seeing more of this and even diehard no-tillers that aren't organic are trying biologicals. And there doesn't seem to be an awful lot of research on some of them, but at the same time, farmers are starting to believe in them. What's going on with biologicals, both in no-till and in organic?
Joel Gruver:
I think that the biological marketplace is just getting transformed right now. And in a sense, it's kind of similar to the Rick Clark phenomenon. When you get the big players that have more resources like the Bayers and the BASFs buying up these smaller biological companies, really making large investments in biologicals, you start to see products that just have a higher likelihood of succeeding on more acres. When a big company decides this is a product we want to market, they want it to fit millions of acres. They don't want it to just work in Western Illinois, they want it to work across the whole Corn Belt.
Joel Gruver:
And so definitely there's been a major move into the biological marketplace by the big companies. I think we have other really interesting startups that are getting really well-funded like Pivot Bio. And I think the science behind Pivot Bio is really strong. I think they still need to figure out how to explain and manage the variability in response. We know that Pivot Bio is not working on all acres, and every time there's a discussion on one of these ag forums that I participate in, there are lots of naysayers that say, "I tried it, it didn't work," but then there are other people who are confident that it's working well for them.
Joel Gruver:
And I mean, that's the nature of any type of agricultural product. I mean, even nitrogen fertilizer has variable responses, but we think that the biologicals should work the same as our chemical inputs, at least that's the bar that's been set. And we still have I think a lot of variability in how these biologicals perform and we need to do a better job of educating farmers about how they need to treat the biologicals so that they have less risk, the water quality, the way we store the product, what we mix it with, all sorts of things.
Joel Gruver:
We know when we're raising livestock, we have to care for them like living organisms. We have to think about keeping the environmental conditions favorable and giving them a good diet and clean water, and we need to treat our biologicals with the same type of mindset I think. And just thinking that you can tank mix a biological with all your other chemistries, I think maybe we'll get some biologicals that are tough enough that it consistently works, but I think we're really compromising the effectiveness of our biologicals when we treat them like other chemistries.
Joel Gruver:
And so I think that's just something that the companies and the technical service providers, that they need to get a handle on what are the reasons why their products don't work consistently and what do farmers need to do? What's the low-hanging fruit to really reduce the variability of response?
Frank Lessiter:
Well, it just goes back to even herbicides. A good example of herbicides whether they work or not is the water quality that you mix with it. Nobody pretty much pays attention to water quality. You just put in whatever you got and forget about it.
Joel Gruver:
Yeah, there are certainly farmers that take great care to have the right water quality or to mix in ammonium sulfate or whatever they're doing to condition their water and those are the farmers that have more success with their chemistries. And it's really probably the same farmers that are going to have more success with biologicals. It's attention to detail that obviously really distinguishes the most successful from the less successful.
Joel Gruver:
And it's something I hope that when I have students do interview projects and when I have these articles as readings for my students, I hope that the students are taking away it's not just the management practice, but how carefully and how well the farmer executes that management practice. And another farmer could be doing the same thing on paper, but their timing or the care with which they do it is a little different, and then the results can be very different.
Frank Lessiter:
Yeah. Hey, this has been great. You're talking about your students. Do you see something... We've done a bunch of special reports. If you see one that you'd really like, we'd be glad to give you copies, no problem.
Frank Lessiter:
This has been great. You got anything you'd like to talk about that I didn't cover?
Joel Gruver:
Well, I'll mention one experiment that I'm doing right now and this is an experiment actually in teaching that is very fresh on my mind because we just had a session yesterday. The university was actually closed because of snow, but I'm teaching a class on no-till farming systems. And we've actually been teaching it, a colleague and I have been teaching it for several years, but this is the first time that I'm teaching it alone because my colleague is on sabbatical. And because I have so many other classes I'm teaching, I really wanted to find a way to continue to team teach the class, but I don't have my colleague to work with.
Joel Gruver:
So I've lined up about 20 mostly farmers, but also agronomists and scientists to team teach the class with me. And so essentially every class session, we have a guest. And yesterday we had Phil Needham as a guest.
Frank Lessiter:
Oh [crosstalk 00:50:25] he's great.
Joel Gruver:
And it was really good.
Frank Lessiter:
Did he blow everybody's mind?
Joel Gruver:
[inaudible 00:50:31], it was really good. We didn't have every student attending because I couldn't expect them to because the university was closed. So, I mean, this is just an example, the students that chose to attend, it's because they're good students. They really wanted to learn.
Joel Gruver:
And so about two thirds of the students attended and we had a great dialogue with Phil with him in his office, but then he switched from his laptop to his phone and we went outside. He took us on a walk through a cover crop field right outside of his office. And it was just a great opportunity.
Joel Gruver:
And it's an experiment because I don't have any lectures to really make sure that the right points are being made or to digest what the previous speaker said, we just move on to the next speaker. And so we're figuring out how to make that work. But the students read background information, they develop questions, and then they answer questions that I write right after we hear from a guest speaker.
Joel Gruver:
But all of the guest speakers are people that have been featured in No-Till Farmer Magazine and are people that maybe have been part of, let's say they were interviewed by one student before, but they've never had a live Q&A session with a class before.
Joel Gruver:
And so Steve Berger will be talking to the class next Monday and then a young farmer that has a cover crop seed business, Ryan Gibbs, will be speaking next. And Allen Berry will be coming up soon after that, and just a whole line of people that I was not expecting it would be back-to-back guest speakers. I was thinking that we would have just one, maybe one a week or one every two weeks. And as I started lining up people, all of a sudden, I had every date through April lined up.
Joel Gruver:
And so we're experimenting with this and I think it's working so far, but I'm going to send a survey out to the students today to get their input and see if we need to tweak anything. But it's been exciting to have the students learn directly from these innovators and nobody will leave the class thinking that no-till can't be done because we will be hearing from the people that are clearly the best at making it work.
Frank Lessiter:
Well, I remember a couple years ago you had a real academic no-till guy, John Baker from New Zealand came and talked at your place, right?
Joel Gruver:
That was the beginning of this no-till class, yeah, where we had him come. And he kind of challenged us. He said, "You shouldn't be just talking about no-till as a little piece of the class, you should have a whole class on no-till." And I was actually a little resistant at that time. I mean, I thought, "Well, we don't teach a class just on corn production, we teach crop production," but it just seemed like the university does have specialized classes from time to time that really allows students to dig deep into a topic. And with the challenge from John Baker and from some other people in our area that are passionate about no-till and soil health, I said, "We'll give it a try."
Joel Gruver:
And so it's a class that's been evolving, but it's a class that attracts, I would say, kind of the cream of the crop. Our best students choose to take the class and it's been fun.
Brian O'Connor:
Thanks to Joel and Frank, and thanks to our sponsor NewLeaf Symbiotics for helping to make possible the No-Till Farmer Influencers & Innovators podcast series.
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.
Brian O'Connor:
If you have any feedback on today's episode, please feel free email me at boconnor@lessitermedia.com or call me at 262-777-2413.
Brian O'Connor:
And don't forget, 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.
Brian O'Connor:
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Brian O'Connor:
For Frank and our entire staff here at No-Till Farmer, I'm lead content editor Brian O'Connor. Thanks for listening.
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