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Well, from that point on, about around that time, we had gotten a John Deere no-till corn planter, and I can't tell you exactly how that fit in with the light bulb, but about that time, we just got a standard John Deere no-till planter, and I learned pretty quickly, we need to have some type of closing wheels. We were planting into sod, limestone soil, some clay, and so forth. Number one, at one point I said to myself, "I got to learn the equipment stuff." I really concentrated over a period of a year. Let's just say a year, and really trying to educate myself about equipment.”
Joel Myers, On Moving to No-Till In the 1980s
This week’s edition of the No-Till Farmer: Influencers & Innovators podcast focuses on the early days of no-till in the keystone state.
Joel Meyers is nearing retirement now, but for 20 years as the NRCS State Agronomist for Pennsylvania, he helped to advocate no-tillage for the gently rolling hills and steeper slopes in Northern Appalachia.
No one does a journey this big alone. Joel is eager to point out that innovative dairy owners were among the first to push for no-till in Pennsylvania. However, he remains astonished, even as lumber is unloaded for his retirement house at the age of 79, how many growers have become no-tillers in his time at the helm.
In this episode, Joel talks with Frank about his first no-till drill, learning from no-till mentors, and the impact cover crops have had on no-till adoption in Pennsylvania.
No-Till Influencers & Innovators podcast series is brought to you by The Andersons.
A nutrient management program is essential to maximize crop productivity and yields. Providing the right nutrients at the right time throughout the growing season is key. The Andersons High Yield Programs make it easy to plan a season-long approach for many row and specialty crops. Visit AndersonsPlantNutrient.com/HighYield to download the High Yield Programs and get instant product recommendations for corn, soybeans, wheat, potatoes, and more.
Full Transcript
Brian O'Connor:
Welcome to the latest episode of the No-Till Farmer Influencers & Innovators podcast. I'm Brian O'Connor, lead content editor of No-Till Farmer. The Andersons sponsors this program, which features 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 the Andersons for supporting our No-Till Influencers & Innovators podcast series.
Brian O'Connor:
A nutrient management program is essential to maximize crop productivity and yields. Providing the right nutrients at the right time throughout the growing season is key. The Andersons High Yield Programs make it easy to plan a season-long approach for many row and specialty crops. Visit AndersonsPlantNutrient.com/HighYield to download the High Yield Programs and get instant product recommendations for corn, soybeans, wheat, potatoes, and more.
Brian O'Connor:
This week's addition of the No-Till Farmer Influencers & Innovators podcast focuses on the early days of no-till in the Keystone State. Joel Meyers is nearing retirement now, but for 20 years as the NRCS State Agronomist for Pennsylvania, he helped to advocate no-tillage for the gently rolling hills and steeper slopes in Northern Appalachia. Of course, no one does a journey this big alone. Joel is eager to point out that innovative dairy owners were among the first to push for no-till in Pennsylvania. And some of his mentors helped him along the way.
Brian O'Connor:
However, he remains astonished, even as lumber is unloaded for his retirement house at the age of 79, how many growers have become no-tillers in his time at the helm. In this episode, Joel talks with Frank about his first no-till drill, learning from no-till mentors, and the impact cover crops have had on no-till adoption in Pennsylvania. Here's Joel and Frank.
Frank Lessiter:
Well, tell me a little history. Are you a Pennsylvania native?
Joel Myers:
Yes. I've been Pennsylvania native. We've had our farm since 1946.
Frank Lessiter:
Oh, that's a family farm, but it's not too big, is it?
Joel Myers:
No, it's a family farm. It's 75 acres.
Frank Lessiter:
All right. And you and your brother run it?
Joel Myers:
That's correct. My brother had a heart attack four years ago, so it's mostly me now. And we're trying to cut back. We'll probably rent in a year or two. And we have two people that are very conservation minded, very no-till minded, and they'll do what we want to do. So that's going to happen. I'm 79, and I'll be 80 next February.
Frank Lessiter:
Oh geez.
Joel Myers:
You understand? You understand how that works?
Frank Lessiter:
Yeah. You're younger than I am. I'm 82. So you're catching up to me.
Joel Myers:
Oh really?
Frank Lessiter:
Yeah. Yeah.
Joel Myers:
Yeah.
Frank Lessiter:
So you work with the state agronomist with soil conservation service and NRCS.
Joel Myers:
Yes.
Frank Lessiter:
You started out on a district level?
Joel Myers:
Actually, I started out as student trainee. USDA had a student trainee program years and years ago, and I spent two summers with the agency. And then when I graduated, I actually started in Middleburg, Snyder County, and then I went and got my master's degree and I went back. So then I ended up the last 20 years as state agronomist, which meant I covered all of Pennsylvania, worked with the universities and so forth.
Frank Lessiter:
So when did you first get involved with no-till? When did you see the merits of this?
Joel Myers:
Well, back in the '80s, I can't exactly pinpoint a year or a date, but what I can tell you, Frank, I remember being out on the farm at that time in Dauphin County, I was working with a producer and I wasn't... At that point, I didn't know about no-till drills. And he told he had no-tilled corn. And he said he had just gotten a no-till drill. And bang. It just hit me in the head. Hey, he can do a total no-till system now. And I vividly remember that discussion. And we had a no-till corn planter about that time. And then we ended up with a TYE two point hitch no-till drill. And then we've upgraded since to the Haybuster drill.
Frank Lessiter:
Wow. Haybusters aren't even made anymore, I don't think.
Joel Myers:
Well, it's Vermeer now. Chain drill.
Frank Lessiter:
All right. Okay. That's right.
Joel Myers:
Just different name on it. Right. Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Frank Lessiter:
Right, right.
Joel Myers:
It's a good drill. You need to know how to work with it; a little cheaper than most, a lot of the other ones, but it's always done well for me. I'm on my third one actually.
Frank Lessiter:
Well, that's good. So Pennsylvania's kind of rolling country. You got a lot of highly erodible ground?
Joel Myers:
Yes.
Frank Lessiter:
Most of the state that or not?
Joel Myers:
It varies somewhat. There's some river bottomland near the Susquehanna River and so forth. There's some other land, limestone land, that's fairly unlevel; I'd say moderately sloping. And then of course we have, I don't know what percentage, but I'd say it's well over 50% of the land that really needs to have conservation and, say, no-till and cover crops that we look at today.
Frank Lessiter:
Sure. Let's talk a little about the Chesapeake Bay problem. And these states that have watersheds that flow into the Chesapeake Bay, there's a big [inaudible 00:05:51] going on. We got to quit polluting the Chesapeake Bay. So tell me how Pennsylvania fits into that and kind of what the progress we've made or a lack of progress.
Joel Myers:
Well, it would depend a little bit who you talk to about progress. One of the issues is you would be aware a lot of the no-till and cover cropping, a lot of the work done on farmers land by themselves. They didn't have USDA help. They didn't have any cost sharing. They just learned how to do those practices and do them well. So we feel we aren't where we should be, but we feel we really are in terms of how the land's treated and how the cover crops work in. And real quick I give you an example. The Chesapeake Bay model, if you have a small grain and you use it for cover crop and you put manure on it, you take a hit. You don't get the full credit for a cover crop because you put nutrients on it. Well, my gosh, where else should we put nutrients but on cover crops? So it's not consistent. That's a big issue here in Pennsylvania. And that's another reason we feel we're being not getting full credit for what we're doing.
Frank Lessiter:
Right. Well, I suppose of all the states where the water flows into Chesapeake Bay, Pennsylvania is probably the biggest contributor it has in the most acreage. It flows into the bay. Right?
Joel Myers:
I would assume that Frank. I think Maryland has a pretty good size acreage; West Virginia, less; and New York just has a little bit. I'm sorry I don't really have those acres, but we are a substantial part of the bay. And we do have a lot of, as we talked about earlier, rolling topography that needs some type of treatment.
Frank Lessiter:
Well, it's amazing where we live. We live in a suburb of Milwaukee and Lake Michigan is 13 miles from our suburb. And in our suburb, half or maybe a third of the water in our suburb flows into Lake Michigan and the two other two thirds flows like 150 miles to the Mississippi River. So, right here, we're 13 miles from Lake Michigan, but where we live, any water we got goes 150 miles to the Mississippi. So it's just kind of amazing what the terrain is and what makes a difference.
Joel Myers:
Yes. Yes. That's very interesting. I guess probably about a third of Pennsylvania is in the bay, whether there's some other counties that have and impartially in and out. You would be very familiar with the transect method that's used to determine cover cropping as well as no-till planting. I still serve on a group of technicians that every year do transect surveys. We do a third of the Chesapeake Bay every year. And we're just getting gearing up to do that now. And that's a strictly random points selected and on a map. And every third year we check these fields. And we're really the only good source of total information on cover cropping and pretty much so on the no-till. Now the No-Till Alliance, of course, gets acres from the people that belong to the alliance and attend their meetings. But those are the more progressive people.
Frank Lessiter:
Sure. Right. Right. So let's go back to where the light bulb went off in your head about no-till with this guy with the grain drill. What did you do and what did you encourage after that point?
Joel Myers:
Well, from that point on, about around that time, we had gotten a John Deere no- till corn planter. And I can't tell you exactly how that fit in with the light bulb. But about that time, we just got a standard John Deere's no-till planter or a planter, and I learned pretty quickly we need to have some type of closing wheels. We were planting into sod, limestone soil, some clay, and so forth.
Joel Myers:
So number one, at one point I said to myself, "I got to learn the equipment stuff." So I really concentrated over a period of a year, let's just say a year, in really trying to educate myself about equipment. Attending your meetings was certainly one way of doing that. And you knew Lynn Hoffman?
Frank Lessiter:
Sure.
Joel Myers:
And Lynn was really my mentor in my early days with NRCS. We did a lot of things together and he helped me a lot with no-till. In fact, I know there was some feedback I heard about where extension agents were a little bit unhappy that Lynn spent more time with me than he did with some of the extension people. But I wanted to learn. You know? I wanted to learn, and so the light bulb went off. I was learning about the equipment, going to your meetings and other meetings and so forth. And that's when I really started promoting this with farmers.
Joel Myers:
And when I left Dauphin County, probably 10 years later, a lot of people were close to being on the edge. And about that time, John Deere came out with a no-till drill. And Dauphin County, the upper part of Dauphin County was green. And I think within one year there was probably 15 drills purchased in that county. And that just kind of put the... You know? Now we had the drill that people would buy and we had the corn planters, and then it went from there. And going back, maybe looking 10 years later when I was doing transect surveys, I couldn't believe some of the farmers that had struggled and struggled and didn't get there, but they had gotten there. So I felt I laid some groundwork for that to happen.
Frank Lessiter:
Right. Well, I looked back at an article we did with you, I think, in 2005. And you talked a little about Lynn and how he had found out no-till was particularly suited for these small rocky hillsides and et cetera. And you pointed out that no-till would cut the labor expense by about 60% and could reduce soil erosion by as much as 90% where you had 5% to 8% slopes. So was the rest of the Penn State agronomy group ready to promote no-till at that time? Or was Lynn kind of an outcast?
Joel Myers:
I'd say he wasn't an outcast, but he certainly wasn't supported by all the agronomy staff. And I got to know a fair number of them in my position as state agronomist. And the only thing, and this is just for your information really, the only thing I found over the years working with Lynn, he at some point would admit to a farmer that no-till wouldn't work there. I never did that. I took it a step further.
Joel Myers:
Now, the thing that I had in my favor was cover crops, Frank, because when Lynn... Lynn didn't a hundred percent push the system. And back then, we weren't there yet. But I had the system. I think of this to this day. How far would we be right now if we started with cover crops when we started with no-till? We'd have had the soil health. We wouldn't have had that ugly transition that we have.
Frank Lessiter:
Yeah. Well, cover crops is interesting because when I was growing up on our dairy farm in Michigan in the late '40s, my dad was seeding cover crops. We were seeding clover in the fall. And then we were using it for nutrients. We were using it for weed control. And then commercial fertilizers came along and pesticides, and it seems like the country got away from cover crops. And finally got back to them in the last 10 years or so.
Joel Myers:
Exactly. No, I remember that too. I've heard that said by a number of people when way back on it. And I'd say here in Pennsylvania, I think we're the leaders, at least one of the leaders, but I'd say at least 20 years now. And it's been interesting. And the No-Till Alliance is about 12 years old. And it's interesting in that all of the No-Till Alliance people now cover crop. And when they first started with the No-Till Alliance, I don't think some of them were doing that. Now, a lot of them did, but it's kind of, they've carried the... You know? Made that work and make it part of the system.
Frank Lessiter:
So early on in this story, it talks about you having a friend who had a thousand acres or so, and you would go plant with him in the spring to get some experience?
Joel Myers:
Yes, it was a mutual thing. When I was in Dauphin County, I got to know him. In fact, I probably laid strips and contours out for him and built diversions and terraces on, say, half of his land when I was in Dauphin County. And at one point in time, I got to know him pretty well and the family; he and his brother and his dad at that time. They just didn't have time to get everything planted in the spring. And I loved to plant crops, basically not well, only no-till crops anymore or for quite a while. But I started helping him in the fall; just plant some miscellaneous stuff. And then we seriously got into planting no-till. He was one of the ones that got a John Deere 750 drill; one of the first ones in the county.
Joel Myers:
And so I started out planting soybeans for him. And then it ended up that the corn planter was sitting because he was spraying and the corn wasn't getting planted. So probably about midway through my career and helping him, we started doing no-till, I started plant all the corn. And then that worked out well. And he and I learned together. He had livestock; he had beef cattle. And we learned together, we learned the manure thing together. And we also learned the amount of acre. You know? Big acres versus our 75 acres. But he was chiseling. He was chiseling everything where manure went as just in general.
Joel Myers:
And I remember one year before he actually went completely to no-till, I talked to him about, back at that time with the agency and everything, they were still taking the chisel plow instead of crooked, pointed, twisted shanks, they went to straight shanks to save more residue. He did that one year and I noticed that. He didn't tell me or anything. I talked to him about it. And I noticed that year, he started doing straight point chisel. But not very long after that, it went completely no-till. And we learned how to no-till with manure and do it successfully. So that was my plus, was working with him because we had no livestock.
Frank Lessiter:
So early on, when you worked with these people, when you were putting out terraces and contours and grass waterways, if we'd had no-till at that point, would we still be doing terraces and waterways?
Joel Myers:
Waterways, I would say yes. Terraces to lesser extent. Well, diversions and terraces, there's still a place for those, Frank, on some of these longer slopes and maybe to protect... You're next to a town or a urban area; somebody's swimming pool. So we'd have done less, but we'd have still done some. Now, I don't know what the numbers are today, but I know it's reduced significantly.
Frank Lessiter:
Sure. I remember in the early days and early '70s talking to a district soil conservation guy around Indianapolis, which is totally flat ground, but he made the comment that if we were to put in all the needed terraces and waterways, et cetera, we need in my county, it would take 118 years, or we could do the same amount of good in one year with no-till. I always remember that comment from him. But he's in flatland.
Joel Myers:
Yeah. Yeah. And you know, that was one of my most difficult things as a soil conservationist working with farmers. And we had in Northumberland County, we had quite a bit of land. Well, it was between an A and a B slope, say, 5%.
Frank Lessiter:
Sure.
Joel Myers:
You didn't see the serious erosion that you saw in steeper land, but erosion was kind of the hidden thing there. So it was more difficult to get those people to do conservation than it was the people that had very obviously [inaudible 00:18:37] issues and so forth. And it's basically doing structural practices. No-till you could fit anywhere.
Frank Lessiter:
Yeah. So you got a lot of livestock in Pennsylvania and you had more before, but tell me how you got the manure into the no-till system, how you made it work.
Joel Myers:
Okay. Lynn helped somewhat with that. First of all, we had to buy the myth that everyone said, and this would've been extension, it would've been your local Ag suppliers. Everyone said you had to incorporate your manure. So we had to do field days and demonstrations and so forth where we showed that you could do no-till with manure. And I remember at one point, an engineer and I had done some overseas work, and we learned about manure injection. So very early, I guess this would've been probably in the 1990s, we brought some of that technology back with us and we were promoting shallow injection of manure. And I'm talking about a straight blade, single blade or two blades, but only going in about four inches, and of course only applying maybe liquid manure, maybe four or five tons or gallons rather than the heavier rates.
Joel Myers:
So that was part of the thing we did, was shallow injection with manure. And we put a lot of data together showing that farmers were not incorporating with tillage manure the day after they applied it anyway. Oftentimes, manure was applied, it was in the field for maybe two weeks or more. Well, they were losing all the nitrogen anyway. So when you went to no-till, you really weren't taking a hit because you were losing the nutrients even in their old system. So putting out some data on that certainly helped.
Frank Lessiter:
So going back to equipment, early on, what attachments in your early days were working well on the planters for you?
Joel Myers:
Well, the first thing, and I'll use John Deere. That was the first planter we had and my friend had one of the older no-till. What was the model, the old John Deere no-till planter? I can't think of the model right now, but they're around yet. Anyway, the first thing we did with our own, and Kenny did too, was get rid of the steel wheels and... Well, they had rubber. We put steel wheels on. Okay. Now we could put pressure on and close the slot, but we were causing compaction. So we went from the rubber wheels to the cast wheels, to some type of a closing wheel with a spike closing wheel of some sort. Not too long after that, then we got into the row cleaners, the spike row cleaners. And that kind of pretty well got us where we were for quite a few years, just those attachments, and making sure everything else was properly adjusted, down pressure.
Joel Myers:
Back, those older planters didn't even have an adjustment, an easy adjustment for down pressure. They had the old... You had to turn the bolt. You had to have a wrench and turn the bolt to put more down pressure. Well, farmers weren't going to do that too much unless you were really, really diligent in their equipment. So the row cleaners and the spike closing wheels, both were very instrumental in helping no-till move forward in Pennsylvania. Because our dairy people, which were really are leaders in no-till, were no-tilling in the sod. And then back then, fall-killed sod was a way to make no-till work in the spring, make it work easier.
Joel Myers:
Now we know today we want to have something green out there in the spring, but we have the planters that will do it now. But back then, a fall-killed sod was the ideal way to start no-till after hay.
Frank Lessiter:
So today, do you people still running coulters, or they got coulters off their planters, or what?
Joel Myers:
I never convinced my friend Kennedy to take them off. One time, he had one... We broke a coulter or we had... Something happened. We couldn't run one unit with coulters. And I made a particular emphasis to look at that one row because we kept planting. He wanted to keep planting and I did too. And I showed him it was no difference, but he still uses coulters to this day. But in general I think some of our more progressive farmers are not using coulters. Of course the international planter quite a few years ago now they came up without coulters.
Frank Lessiter:
Right. Right. Well, our benchmark data shows among our no-tillers, who are the most innovators, it's gone from like 95% of the planters had coulters on; today, it's only about half. So the people are making it work.
Joel Myers:
That would sound about right, especially if you look at acres. Because the bigger guys are the ones that are doing it, and that's a lot of acres.
Frank Lessiter:
Compaction concerns. Any concerns with no-till and compaction?
Joel Myers:
Very much so. And that ties right into the manure thing. And frankly, I don't think we promoted it as much as we needed to back in the earlier days. But to me, the cover crop is the key and using flotation tires. And there's more tractor spreaders and I think there's more tractor spreaders and less truck spreaders today which cause less compaction. Encouraging farmers not to apply manure when they shouldn't be out there as much as you can. That's just the way it is. Sometimes you've got to be out there. And also...
Joel Myers:
Well, nutrient management regulations would not allow you to full on apply manure without living cover. So that was kind of a stumbling block, but that meant you had to have your cover crop out there. So the cover crop helped in two ways. You could get manure on in the fall with the cover crop when the soil was better and not as wet and also the fact that the roots helped take the compaction out of no-till where you were on it with manure spreaders.
Frank Lessiter:
Back in this story we did with you, I think in 2005, you were talking about importance of being able to level the planter.
Joel Myers:
Yes. That's one of the very basic first things. And I don't know. I wish you'd have sent me that ahead of time, and maybe it's better you didn't. But we found out Kenny's planter itself, and I maybe talked about that then, but he had his planter nosed nose front, and that was one reason we had trouble closing the slot, and why we were wearing out coulters too fast because we had it nose front. And so it was not closing as well as it should have because the planter wasn't level.
Joel Myers:
So that's been a very basic thing. And that's gotten lost today, Frank. And the other thing I think's gotten lost today, we forget that there's a lot of farmers, and I say a lot, I don't know how many, but there's a number of farmers out there today that are still starting from square one with no-till. And we had to remember that when we're doing meetings and workshops and whatever. We need to help them start at back at that same beginning point only now with cover crops. There just isn't the issue with the transition that we had back then.
Brian O'Connor:
We'll come back to Joel Myers and Frank Lessiter in a moment. Before we do so, I'd like to thank our sponsor, the Andersons, for supporting today's podcast.
Brian O'Connor:
A nutrient management program is essential to maximize crop productivity and yields. Providing the right nutrients at the right time throughout the growing season is key. The Andersons High Yield Programs make it easy to plan a season-long approach for many row and specialty crops. Visit AndersonsPlantNutrient.com/HighYield to download the High Yield Programs and get instant product recommendations for corn, soybeans, wheat, potatoes, and more.
Brian O'Connor:
Before we get back to the conversation, here's Frank Lessiter with a little known No-Till Farmer Fact.
Frank Lessiter:
Question that comes up quite often among no-tillers planting soybeans is what row width is best. And at the Common Research Center in Central Illinois, they've done four years of soybean row spacing studies. And through four years and 16 replications, 15-inch soybean rows were $48 per acre more profitable than 30-inch soybean rows. And that was with soybeans value, that only $10 per bushel.
Brian O'Connor:
And now back to Joel Myers and Frank Lessiter.
Frank Lessiter:
So are you seeing more and more people planting green?
Joel Myers:
Yes, I am. We've planted... We did research with Penn State for four years planting green. Probably four or five years ago was the last year. So we had four years of experience with that. We were using the corn planter with 30-inch rows. It made it so much easier because part of the research on that was getting out in the field and observing things and so forth. And the other thing was, planting into... My first experience planting into rye, probably... Well, going ahead, I fought with it. I had it listed row cleaners off the closing wheels off the ground. And I struggled.
Joel Myers:
But what I've learned today with planting green, and I encouraged this because I think some farmers think the only way you plant greens if you got rye 30 inches high. I just finished planting soybeans green and that's easier than corn. Soybeans planted green is much easier than corn for a number of reasons. But I just finished planting two weeks ago. And I wouldn't have been able to get in the field. The rye, we took the moisture out enough to let me get in the field to get our soybeans planted. And one of the... Oh, well, the other thing is, I'm very happy if it's 15 inches or 20-inch. 15 inches is kind of ideal for me. And I finished planting this year after we had what conditions and warm temperatures. That rye grew about six inches in less than a week.
Joel Myers:
And I didn't have a spray. That's another thing. I didn't have a spray till three days ago. So it was about a week and a half from planting, and they had emerged in a week. The plants had emerged in a week. And we just got the rye sprayed a few days ago. It's custom spraying and that's the way those things go. And it's fine. Now we've got rain. The rye is starting to dry. So it's going to do its positive thing now in terms of helping mulch and protect or save moisture. And also we found issues, lack of issues with slugs and planting green. That was one of the big things in Pennsylvania that moved it forward was the helping to control slugs.
Frank Lessiter:
So what herbicides did you use to control the rye?
Joel Myers:
I think he's still, again is custom, I think he still used Roundup this year. My friend Kenny uses Paraquat. And I wanted, I think I could reflect too, number one, planting green, not having to have stuff immensely tall that causes planter problems. But the other thing, the last year I planted for Kenny, I think, which was four years ago, he normally didn't plant... We didn't normally plant green, but we normally planted when the rye was six inches tall. It got away for him and he probably sprayed it when it was about 20 inches tall or something like that. And I didn't get to plant those fields till a week, which with Paraquat, it was brown.
Joel Myers:
And it planted nice. And the residue was still there. So you didn't get all the benefit from planting green by killing it ahead. But on the other hand, if it got away for you and you weren't equipped to plant into 30-inch rye, you kill it off and you plant into it dead, and it still provided an awful lot of mulch there and it planted nicely. So there's some different twists to planting green.
Frank Lessiter:
Right. You mentioned slugs. What do you do if you get an outbreak of slugs?
Joel Myers:
Well, Frank, probably eight years ago, something like that, we used slug bait. Back at that time, there was just one common brand. I can't even remember what it was now. I still have four bags of slug baits sitting in the barn. We haven't had any issue with slugs since then. Now understand, we're not growing corn regularly in our rotation. We were till about eight years ago. We've got [inaudible 00:32:30] soil, which is a shallow limestone mixed with better limestone soils. And economically, we just had enough [inaudible 00:32:38] stuff. It wasn't really paying to grow corn, especially with the cost today.
Joel Myers:
So I've gone to oats. I'm getting a hundred bushel oats. That was my goal. And I got a hundred bushel oats every time I planted oats. Except one time, they harvested... It was a wet year. We didn't get in the field till late. We got half of that and the other half was in the field. I didn't have to plant any cover crop after the oats. But anyway. So we're growing primarily soybeans. I've actually gone two years back to back with soybeans now. And planting green works much better with soybeans. You don't have the some of the issues you have with corn.
Frank Lessiter:
Earlier, you mentioned there was four reasons why it was better to plant green soybeans than corn. Can you elaborate on that a little bit?
Joel Myers:
Yeah. A little bit. Number one, there's a possibility of some disease issues with planting green, but the one thing is corn will not emerge and grow in cover and rye cover like soybeans will. That might be actually the biggest one. And you've got a little bit difference in terms of the fertility program and really in the insect, I guess the pesticide issue and so forth. I'm not sure if that's for or not, but-
Frank Lessiter:
Right. No, that's fine.
Joel Myers:
Okay. Okay.
Frank Lessiter:
I'm fascinated by your growing oats. Why do you do that?
Joel Myers:
Well, it was a good rotational crop. Understanding that my brother had a heart attack four years ago, so essentially I'm doing the planting. We have custom harvesting, we have custom spraying, and so forth. Oats took the least amount of custom work.
Frank Lessiter:
Okay.
Joel Myers:
Growing it, rotating it with soybeans, I was putting about 50 pound of nitrogen on to get a hundred bushel of oats. And other than the burn down where there was one spray application to kill [inaudible 00:34:40] weeds, we did sell the straw in some cases. So it was simplest crop I could grow. And we were getting a decent price. I mean, you weren't going to make big money, but you weren't going to lose money. And in our soils where we did have some shallow soils and [inaudible 00:34:57] soils, as I said, we got a hundred bushel. We got a hundred bushel oats, which I thought was way above the average.
Frank Lessiter:
Right. No, that's what we-
Joel Myers:
And we got, let's say... So we got a decent price. And then if we sold the straw and then we, of course, we put cover crop in if we sold the straw. And so that's the other opportunity that gave you a window to put a cover crop in for the following crop, which was with soybeans in the way we were rotating.
Joel Myers:
And I heard last year, you would know better than I, that the oats price that spiked to like $7 a bushel or something like that. I don't know if you can confirm that or not, but at $7 a bushel, outgrow oats maybe... No, every other year I would.
Frank Lessiter:
Right.
Joel Myers:
We were very fortunate. For the soils we had last year, I got 60 bushel soybeans. And I couldn't believe it because with groundhogs and deer, I was hoping for 50. And I was over the scale, so we actually got 60 bushel last year. That was planted green and it followed oats. But we don't expect that every year. We don't get the moisture every year.
Frank Lessiter:
Well, we got a lot of people like oatmeal for breakfast. And Quaker Oats will tell you that they have trouble getting enough oats because we're planting less and less oats every year.
Joel Myers:
We probably need to work on that market a little bit. Pennsylvania has quite a few horses. And I think most of the oats here goes for horse feed, but maybe I need... Where are they headquartered?
Frank Lessiter:
I think Chicago, but I think they got a big processing plant in Cedar Rapids, Iowa.
Joel Myers:
Okay. Of course, not near us, but anyway, we'll have to keep that in mind down the road.
Frank Lessiter:
Well, that's a-
Joel Myers:
But it's a good crop to diversify with.
Frank Lessiter:
Right. Right. What do you use? You're using cereal rye pretty much as a cover crop?
Joel Myers:
Well last year, and this is Pennsylvania, central part of the state, soybeans came off at beginning of November. I was actually planting cover crop as they were combining. So my cover crop could plant in November 7th. And as I mentioned, when I planted the beans, which was pretty timely, it was already 12 to 15 inches tall. So cereal rye. I have mixed. I have used wheat when I could get wheat cheaper than rye. And I have not seen a lot of difference between wheat and rye, possibly the latter growth in the spring. Now, if you're going for feed for animal forage, that's a different story.
Frank Lessiter:
Sure.
Joel Myers:
But I do like wheat and I didn't plant any last year because I had the rye, but I have used wheat successfully. And the other thing, Frank, if I can get it in early enough, I like half oats and half cereal rye or half wheat. The oats comes quicker in the fall. It freezes out. Then especially if you're planting green, you won't have so much to plant into in the spring. Now I planted the rye, I planted November 7th. I cut back. I say cut back because I usually use two bushel. I planted a bushel and a half. And the way that grew, I could have planted a bushel last year and under those conditions and had plenty of cover.
Frank Lessiter:
Are you trying anything new this year?
Joel Myers:
No, the beans are in the ground. I planted green. And no. I'm 79 and I guess I don't... I kind of run out of new things. It's like the USDA programs. They have some incentive programs and things, and I'm not interested in getting [inaudible 00:38:35] anyway, but I kind of like... They don't really have anything to offer that I haven't already kind of worked with. So no. I did cut my population down according to... Well, according to actual calculation, I planted 155,000 seeds for soybeans this year. I had planted one notch higher last year, which was probably 160,000. I'm sure I could cut that back. And I mean, I remember the talks in your meetings where they cut way back and still did good. I would be okay at probably 140,000 and that's with a corn planter and with row cleaners and spike closing wheels. So I got good depth control and good planting that way.
Frank Lessiter:
Well, it's like Marion Calmer. Marion Calmer's done a lot of different populations on soybeans. And he's gotten down as low as 80,000 plants per acre, and it looks like it looks good, but he doesn't have the courage to do that on his whole acreage either.
Joel Myers:
Okay. Well I know. I refer. When I think of this, I think of Marion. And I wonder what he actually has cut back to on his majority of his acres.
Frank Lessiter:
I don't know. I think he's around 120,000 or so, but...
Joel Myers:
Okay. Okay.
Frank Lessiter:
So he's got back some.
Joel Myers:
Yeah. Yeah. I always wondered about that too a little bit. But I mean, the numbers are there. Well, the first year we did the research with planting green, I was planting probably around a hundred, maybe less than 150. And Penn State wouldn't let me plant that low in their experiment. I think I had to plant at 170 to keep them happy that first year. And then I cut back and I'm working my way back down again.
Frank Lessiter:
So in your rotation, you've got oats and you got soybeans. You got anything else?
Joel Myers:
That's basically it right now.
Frank Lessiter:
Okay.
Joel Myers:
That's basically what I'm equipped to handle here. It's two good crops. I think with planting green, I can do two years of soybeans. And probably next year I'll grow oats. Yeah. It just depends. I mean, I couldn't believe we only got, what, $13 of bushel for soybeans this past year. But of course the input costs were up some, but that was a pretty good crop for us. So I thought, "Well, we're going to try it again." So we'll have to see about next year.
Frank Lessiter:
Right. Right.
Joel Myers:
But that's all. I would love to grow sunflowers. I have a neighbor here is growing sunflowers. I have a neighbor here growing hemp. I don't want to go into hemp, but he's been very diligent in doing... He's had to develop the market and everything. And he's even done research for the fiber, that when you combine the fiber that's left, he's growing beef cattle, and he did research last year and using the fiber for beef cattle feed. So interesting. I know he is never been to your meeting, but he's a very good no-till learner. And he really is into doing things right. So I can look at some other people's mistakes or learn from that, but they're successful with no-till both with hemp and also with sunflowers.
Frank Lessiter:
So talking about mistakes, it seems to me, and I've heard you preach this, that you got a no-till system, and if you do one little thing wrong, it may mess the whole thing up. Is that right?
Joel Myers:
That's correct. And I guess the biggest single thing when I think about it, Frank, and I've had the opportunity to have classes here for the Pennsylvania nutrient management program every year and also a Penn State class. So I've had the opportunity to spend more time in the field than I would otherwise. But Frank, I have noticed a little bit of plathiness, even with, say, 3% organic matter if I don't grow a cover crop. And I would see this with my classes when I was out. And I actually saw it here this spring again. And I had the cover crop there, so I know it'll be okay.
Joel Myers:
But the one year I can remember, probably 20 years ago, we no-tilled corn, we weren't doing cover crop, it was probably after soybeans, and we had heavy range before planting, we had heavy range after planting, we had severe erosion, and that was partly because the soil was already compacted from heavy rain bear soils before planting and then all through the summer. And when we had horrific runoff and erosion that year. And it was [inaudible 00:43:12] what was causing it was all dead firs from when we plowed years ago.
Frank Lessiter:
Oh, okay. Right.
Joel Myers:
So I had to... And I couldn't do a thing once the crop was planted. I just had to kind of grin and bear it. So we took care of those dead firs that fall.
Frank Lessiter:
What'd you do with them?
Joel Myers:
That's the biggest... Well, we just got them closed off and we blocked them some places. And this was like running 1%, probably 1%, not more than 2% from our buildings probably... Oh my gosh. 800 yards or something like that?
Frank Lessiter:
Sure.
Joel Myers:
It was a long ways it was leading water, then it broke across the field and caused the problem. So we just tried to close them up enough so the water could never move that distance again. And I was ready to actually put a structural practice in there in the waterway. And that's about the time we started cover cropping and never had that again.
Frank Lessiter:
Right. So we talk about regenerative ag and soil health and sustainability, and we've had... I mean, the key parts of it are no-till, crop rotation, cover crops, and that's something a lot of our no-tillers have been doing for 30, 40 years.
Joel Myers:
Yes, yes. Especially... And the dairy. I don't know about Wisconsin. I mean, you've got dairy too, but definitely our dairy farmers were the leaders here in Pennsylvania. Even though they weren't doing quite the rotation back then, and the biggest thing there that hurt them was the silage corn. But you're exactly right. It's those three things. And that last publication, it assured... And Lisa and I put together, that really was kind of our... It put everything together, the rotations, nutrient management, and all those things.
Frank Lessiter:
So soil biology, is it changed on your farm?
Joel Myers:
I had the Cornell soil test, which gives you biology and so forth done about, well, probably 10 years ago now. It was above average. It wasn't like the top, but it was above average. We've gone to a fertilizer by variable rate fertilization now.
Frank Lessiter:
Sure. Okay.
Joel Myers:
And we've had the instrumentation. You know? Map the fields and everything. And so what I had found is on our hillsides where we have more clay, we're over 4% organic matter. The deeper soils or lonelier soils, we're at 2.5% to 3%. I don't still completely understand that, except I know that CEC is greater with your clays. And apparently there's a direct correlation between CEC and soil health. I know we saw beetles and we saw the insects when we started doing planting green because Penn State was out and looked at that. And I've learned about some of the beetles and so forth that we need there to help control the slugs and so forth.
Joel Myers:
I still use night crawlers and earthworms as an indicator. I can remember numerous situations where I was out. One particular, I was planting a rented land for my friend Kenny. And this farmer was out. We actually put the whole farm in one crop. And it had originally had gone for strips in it and no erosion problems. But he's walking at this and this whole thing's sprayed and it's brown. And he's kind of whatever, and I stopped the planting. Then I showed this night crawler middens. And I think I got through to him. I never heard anything negative after that. But I just showed the night crawler middens and said, "This shows you. It's an indicator of soil health."
Frank Lessiter:
Yeah.
Joel Myers:
Without all the bells and whistles and everything. I like, as far as trying to show farmers things, is the infiltration test. There's all kind of complicated, complex tests and so forth as you know. But to me, the infiltration test kind of shows it all. If you've got good infiltration, you've got those bugs and earthworms and night crawlers and so forth. I remember up in Bradford County once, we had done the field day, it was about a week after they had four inches of rain. And I had my infiltration rings along; didn't plan this. And so I was doing the field day. I was doing infiltration rings.
Joel Myers:
And so I put an inch on it, went in less than a minute; put a second inch on, I think it was maybe minute and a half. Anyway. I put fours of water in that and it infiltrated in less than three minutes.
Frank Lessiter:
Wow.
Joel Myers:
And after they had just observed this four inch rain, it kind of had a little more... You know? It made a little more sense to them. And it was ideal conditions, Frank, because it was sod, it had been first year to the corn after sod. So I had a lot going for me there too. But still, it's impressive to see that infiltration.
Frank Lessiter:
Yeah. So we've been talking about 50 minutes now. It's been great. Anything that I've missed asking you about that you'd like to talk about?
Joel Myers:
Oh, one other thing I would say. I had gone to a couple of your meetings and then USDA wasn't supporting me to go anymore and so forth. And you know I worked closely with Steve Groth back way back.
Frank Lessiter:
Sure.
Joel Myers:
And Steve's the one that I give a lot of credit to besides Lynn because Steve got me... In fact, he actually shared the room with me that first year when NRCS wouldn't pay for anything. He shared my room with me. And after that, I just started paying myself to go. But Steve's the one that got me reinvigorated, got me out there, the one more meeting. And after that, I hadn't missed a meeting until recently.
Frank Lessiter:
Well, he's Mr. Optimism. There's no doubt about that. He's done very well.
Joel Myers:
Yeah.
Frank Lessiter:
So you're building a retirement home at the farm?
Joel Myers:
Yeah. We're building a retirement home at the farm. In fact, they just delivered the lumber today to start framing it. So this just came up about five weeks ago. My wife and I were talking and I have a... You've never been in my home, but I have 300 acres of mountain land and a fairly large house with two tens of mile lane uphill to get to. And it's just gotten to be too much for me. And I have a friend who's going to buy the property. I can still hunt here. I can still use the property. And he's going to take good care of it.
Frank Lessiter:
That's great.
Joel Myers:
So it's an ideal situation.
Brian O'Connor:
Was Joel Myers and Frank Lessiter talking about no-till adoption in the early 1980s. Before we wrap up today's episode, here's Frank Lessiter one more time.
Frank Lessiter:
A reader asked me recently, "Well, you talk about earthworms all the time, but what are the ideal living conditions for an earthworm?" This comes from some work at Purdue University in which they say that they require an environment with lots of crop residue and a calcium-rich soil. They like shaded conditions such as might be provided by no-till residue or cover crops. Earthworms can tolerate a range of temperatures from freezing to a hundred degrees Fahrenheit. They live in almost all soil types except very porous soils such as sands and very acidic soils. So if you're no-tilling, you've probably already got a good type of growing condition for getting more earthworms.
Brian O'Connor:
That's it for this episode of the No-Till Farmer Influencers & Innovators podcast. I'd like to thank our sponsor, the Andersons, for helping to make this series possible. You can find more podcasts about no-till topics and strategies at no-tillfarmer.com/podcast. If you have any feedback on today's episode, please feel free to email me at B-O-C-O-N-N-O-R@lessermedia.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. So please email your questions to us at Lessiter Mail at no-tillfarmer.com. Once again, if you haven't done so already, you can subscribe to this podcast. That'll get you an alert as soon as we release a future episode. You can find us wherever you listen to podcasts. For Frank and our entire staff here at No-Till Farmer, I'm Brian O'Connor. Thanks for listening.
