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Michaela Paukner:

Welcome to the No-Till Farmer Podcast, brought to you by Yetter Farm Equipment. I'm Michaela Paukner, Managing Editor at No-Till Farmer. In today's episode of the podcast, we are revisiting the top five most played episodes of 2022. Starting with this interview with independent soil health specialist Jim Hoorman, who talks about why micronutrients may be the best opportunity to boost your yields.

Jim Hoorman:

We've spent a lot of time talking about N, P and K, nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium, and those are very important, but we don't spend a lot of time, especially looking at the biology with maybe that other 1%, the micronutrients. And if you really want to boost your yields, maybe the best place right now, especially with high fertilizer costs, are to look at those micronutrients. Because most of the micronutrients are the central element performing enzymes. And enzymes are what really increase biological activity in the plant, and that's going to boost your yield. So if you got any one of these micronutrients that's lacking, it kind of shuts a whole plant down and really can't go too far. I mean, you can do a few things, but if you really want to boost yields you're going to have to make sure you got enough micronutrients there. So, I'm going to spend quite a bit of time talking about the micronutrients in the soil.

Speaker 3:

Okay. What ways are you using to test the micronutrient levels?

Jim Hoorman:

Usually when we start testing, we're looking at soil tests and also tissue tests. The problem with some of the soil tests are, they can give you wrong answers. For example, if you're looking at iron and manganese, they're going to measure total iron and total manganese. And really there's only a specific form of some of these elements that the plant can use, even though it will absorb some of these other elements into the plant. You can have very high levels on your soil tests or... Especially on soil tests, not so much tissue tests, but they're not really helping the plant. They're taken up, but they're not utilized sometimes. So that's why it's important that you understand what the limitations of each one of those tests are.

Speaker 3:

Okay. And how do you tell if the soil test is giving you the wrong answer, and how do you go about identifying those limitations?

Jim Hoorman:

Well, usually what I do is I look for plant deficiencies. So you can go out... Corn is very easy, corn and sorghum, you can look for a lot of deficiencies on the plant. For example, let's talk about calcium and boron. Boron is used to get calcium into the plant, so you really got to have both. But you look for the zipper effect on a leaf. If you look on the edge of a leaf and you see these little dash lines, some people call them railroad tracks, some of them call them little zippers, that's an indication of boron deficiency. If you see some of the dash lines or the zipper effects in between them, the edge of the leaf and the midrib, then that's indication of calcium deficiency. And calcium is just so critical. We have 146 enzymes that calcium activates. So it's really important that you have enough calcium in the plant.

Now, if you also look at the leaf and you see some white, especially on the midrib or white streaks, that's an indication of zinc deficiency. You look towards the tip and you see that it's kind of yellow? With all the Roundup that we're using, we're seeing an awful lot of manganese deficiency, because Roundup is really good at tying up manganese and iron and copper and a lot of our other nutrients. The other thing you can look for is if you look at your corn plant and you've got a tremendous amount of brace roots, that's generally an indication of copper deficiency.

Now, there's a caveat to this. Certain corn varieties have more brace roots than others. I don't know if that's directly related to copper deficiency. Don't get too excited if you just see one set. But where you really want to be concerned is if you've got a thin stalk and you see several sets, several inner nodes, and you've got brace roots there, what's happening is those brace roots are trying to make an in run, almost like a heart bypass.

If you take that stalk and you split it, you'll see a lot of brown discolored areas. And what copper's so important for is lignin formation. So a lot of our stalk crops in our lodging comes from a lack of copper in the soil. Only about 5% of the copper that's in the soil is available. And a lot of times it's tied up in the residue and it can take two to five years for that to break down. You don't need a lot of copper, but if you don't have adequate copper, you could have some issues with stalk strength. So those are some of the things that we'll discuss in our session.

Speaker 3:

Okay. In terms of those deficiencies and looking for the different signs. At what stage of plant growth will farmers see these deficiencies? Or does it vary based on what it is?

Jim Hoorman:

It kind of varies, but you can start looking for them really fairly early, and then as the plant progresses, once you get a couple full leaves, it really becomes noticeable. But probably the thing that I think we're missing right now is that a lot of times we don't start testing, let's say on corn till about B10. Well, think about when corn determines its maximum yield. We have the potential for 1,100 bushels of corn. Now, I don't know if anybody that's ever reached that because environment and the nutrients just aren't there, but maybe we should be looking a little earlier because most of the corn determine its yield right around B6. So from about even B2 to about B6 or B8, we really ought to be looking at our corn to see how it's doing, because that's when it's really determining a lot of its yield.

That's when you got your biggest potential for yield loss. And if you'll wait till B10, by then you've already lost... If you haven't addressed it, you probably have lost a lot. So I really think we probably need to be looking a little earlier. There's not a lot of literature on that, but this is an insight that I think we need to pay a little bit more attention to. And one of the big ones that I don't think I hardly hear anybody talking about, is iron. We have quite a bit of iron in our soil. Unfortunately, it's just in the wrong form. Why is iron so important? Well, iron is used by the plant to form an enzyme that makes chlorophyll, and you got to have that chlorophyll molecule. The central element in chlorophyll is magnesium. And so if you don't have enough chlorophyll in your plant, you're not going to maximize your photosynthesis.

Right now, on average, we're probably only about 10 to 20% efficient at maximizing photosynthesis, okay? One of the big reasons for that is we just don't have enough carbon in the soil. So the most limiting element is carbon. But then after that, you start getting into some of these other micronutrients that might be having... Playing an effect. And iron and calcium are probably two of the biggest ones that I think that we're just not paying close enough attention to. A lot of times what's happening on these micronutrients, and this is kind of important you understand this, is we've got the elements in the soil. They're just either not in the right form or the plant roots can't get to them. So almost all the major micronutrients that we need that are cations, which have a positive charge on it, usually it's a two plus form, the oxidation form, if you're looking at those, what happens is they got to be reduced.

And that's where some of the humates come in is, especially fulvic acid can reduce these elements down into a form that the plant then can absorb. And what happens is a fulvic acid will encapsulate it, strip it basically naked, and move it right into the plant. The fulvic acid and everything moves into the plant, and then it'll find a protein for that element to attach to, and then that protein becomes an enzyme. And what's so important about enzymes is they increase our metabolic activity by 100, 1,000, 10,000, 100,000 times in a second. Okay? So if you really want to increase yields, you got to have a lot of enzymes in your plants. And unfortunately, we may be limiting how many enzymes and how much production we can get out of them simply because a lot of these elements are tied up.

Michaela Paukner:

Coming in at number four is an episode featuring Joel Gruver, an associate professor of soil science and sustainable agriculture at Western Illinois University's Allison Farm. Here's Joel, as he talks about how No-Tillers can encourage better crop root growth.

Joel Gruver:

I have been fascinated with what roots look like for a long time. I have seen these illustrations in old textbooks, that 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. 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 could 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 earth worms that would create channels that then the roots would follow down.

So that was something cool to see. 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 some 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 higher clay content and the sub-soil, the roots just went right on through.

And so that's 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 in all the nutrients and for water.

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. 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. 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.

And then I 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. 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, 'cause 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. 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. 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. Annual ryegrass is particularly well suited for getting through compaction when the soil is really wet. 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 crop, 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, soybeans or 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.

One of 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.

Michaela Paukner:

Before we get to the third most listened to episode of 2022, I'd like to take a moment to thank our sponsor, Yetter Farm Equipment. Yetter is your answer for success in the face of ever-changing production agriculture challenges. Yetter offers a full lineup of planter attachments designed to perform in varying planting conditions. Yetter products maximize your inputs, save you time, and deliver return on your investment. Visit them at yetterco.com.

A conversation with soil health consultant Barry Fisher is our third most popular podcast episode of 2022. Here's Barry, as he discusses the role of farmers in preventing nitrate runoff and the education efforts that need to happen to keep nitrogen in the soil and out of waterways.

Barry Fisher:

In the Gulf, at least, nitrogen is the biggest issue. So if we're losing nitrate nitrogen, especially into the Gulf, nitrate is very soluble. It'll move through our soils and come out tile lines, and it will get away from us, nitrate... It can. However, I think what we didn't initially account for is that nitrate doesn't just come from fertilizer we apply. Nitrate is being processed by the biology in the soil from organic sources, from the organic matter. And if we don't have a living root to process it, and the microbes that associate with that living root to process and assimilate that nitrogen and keep it on the land, keeping it in an organic form, it eventually transitions, biochemical processes, transition it to nitrate. And once it's nitrate in the fall and we don't have something green and growing, and we have tile underneath that land, it's going to go where the water goes. And the water is going to go downhill. It's going to ultimately go to the Gulf of Mexico.

So I think we really did a good job and talked about better nutrient application methods, the four Rs of nutrient application. However, we probably didn't focus early on enough on that mineralization process and the capture of all nitrogen sources. And it goes all the way back to our carbon sequestration. If we're building carbon in our soil, then a component of soil organic matter is always nitrogen. So a building block of organic matter in the soil is nitrogen, and that's that part of nitrogen that's being assimilated by the biology in the soil. So, anytime we're building carbon in the soil, building soil organic matter, we're also sequestering nitrogen. And so we need to have a full system. We have to have a full understanding and make sure that farmers understand the practical steps. Because farmers would be adopting this more if they saw it as less risky.

In other words, they see change. Human nature sees change as risk, and farmers have to lay out such of investment in every crop every year, that their instinct for self-preservation, that risk tolerance when they've laid out so many dollars is it's hard to make someone change. Because that risk avoidance mechanism kicks in. And so we have to do a much, much better job like we do at this conference, like we're doing with some of the soil health training that we're doing in Illinois and across the Midwest, to reduce that risk load. In other words, make this transition to these systems that sequester carbon. Make the transition so much more practical, so much more logical, so that we can make the transition without any cost to our bottom line. And so that's where we're working with the researchers and farmers are working with researchers now to refocus on whether we should be no-tilling, whether we should be integrating cover crops to how can we integrate them as successfully as possible right out of the gate. And I don't know if... That's a long, long answer to your question, but-

Speaker 7:

Well, it seemed like in general, there were two answers there. On one hand is, you had mentioned briefly that the mineralization, there's the mineralization element of it, and then the other component was kind of education, outreach, getting more people on board. So what we're seeing in Illinois, is this a result of past farming practices as opposed to what farmers are doing today?

Barry Fisher:

It's tied to tradition. We for, not just decades, but centuries and generations have farmed by using tillage. And so to make that change is very difficult. However, that tillage that the relic, if you will, of tillage, it speeds up the mineralization of that organic matter. And if we speed up the mineralization of the organic matter, then we're going to speed up the cycle of nitrogen, of organic nitrogen to nitrate, irrespective of how much nitrogen we're applying.

There's still a lot of organic matter in the soil, native organic matter that if we speed up the mineralization, if we continue the mineralization just like we did in the past, whether we change how we till, but if we're still tilling, we're still mineralizing organic matter. And as we mineralize the organic matter, CO2 goes to the atmosphere and nitrogen is released to the water.

Speaker 7:

Are we headed as a country and from what you've seen or region, are we headed in the right direction in terms of a no-till agriculture, conservation agriculture, that kind of thing?

Barry Fisher:

I think we are. I think the biggest change that's happened in the last three or four years is we have two new drivers for change. One is climate, of course. Climate is now, we're finally realizing that yes, climate change is real and climate mitigation as it relates to agriculture is worth something. And so there's a driver there, you can push a rope only so far, but now we've got people pulling the rope. So now we also have market drivers. The end consumer, they want to know, they want to see a label on everything that they buy in the store that says it was sustainably produced. That's going to be important to this new generation.

They've got it on their phone, they're going to want to scan a barcode or they're going to want to see where was it grown and how was it grown, or how was it produced? And the markets are seeing that, and as the markets demand from their suppliers that their products are being sustainably grown, that will trickle down too, so that's another market force, that's a second driver that we've got. And now we have the attention of almost all of the producers, even the very large producers, are coming to workshops like this. They're coming to advanced soil health training. They're very willing to, "How can I do this? I've got to keep my market." They're very business-minded people.

Michaela Paukner:

Coming in at number two on our list is Frank Lessiter's conversation with Russ Zenner, one of the earliest adopters of no-till in the Palouse region of north-central Idaho, southeastern Washington and northeastern Oregon. Here's Russ, as he talks about the specific equipment needed to no-till the region's steep slopes.

Russ Zenner:

Our farm is sort of on the southeast corner of the Idaho portion of the Palouse. We have land out on the breaks of the Clearwater River, east of Lewiston, but right out on that corner, and we have about a 22-inch rainfall for our area right here.

Frank Lessiter:

Is the rainfall pretty much consistent with all your acres or is it very some high and low?

Russ Zenner:

We do not have a big variation, not nearly as much as some of the other operations that are spread around, spread out geographically. So we're pretty consistent. The soil type is a little different. Our southernmost ground in [inaudible 00:30:04] County is a little more moderate slope, more south slope, and you get inland in Latah County. It's more the typical Palouse, more geographic varied elevations and a lot more slope aspect to the fields.

Frank Lessiter:

Well, one thing our Midwest people don't understand is what hills means to you. Tell us about some of the hills and slopes that you've got.

Russ Zenner:

Well, I think you've been around a few of them.

Frank Lessiter:

Yeah, I've been to your place!

Russ Zenner:

Up to over 40% slope on the typical Palouse ground. Most farms have, it depends on the location, but not uncommon to have... The most extreme slopes that are farmed are in the mid 40% slope. That's a small percentage of the total acres, but you've got to have equipment that works on that kind of ground.

Frank Lessiter:

Yep, and I've been back here in the Midwest on field tours on the bus where somebody was complaining about a 1% slope and the runoff they got. Tell us about the special equipment you got to have.

Russ Zenner:

Well, some of the early challenges, and is still a challenge somewhat as far as being successful with no-till, is dealing with a side draft on these very extreme slopes. Whether it's a disc drill or a hoe drill, single disc drill is probably more of an issue than a double disk opener, no-till drill. But beside draft distorts on a single disk opener, half of those openers are, don't have the... Well, none of them have the angle they're designed for as far as pulling through the ground, save the John Deere with a seven and a half degree angle. If you've got three or four or five degrees side draft, so you've got half of them at a 2% angle and the other half at 10% or whatever, and can create problems with seed placement.

And the hoe drills from your front rank to your back rank. If you've got a lot of side draft, you're moving dirt. Those back row gang ranks of openers are pitching dirt on top of the front rows if there's much side draft. So there's been a lot of effort to try to reduce side draft to some success, but it's still an issue as far as getting the corn belt, corn stand plant every eight inches or whatever. You don't do that in our part of the world very consistently.

Frank Lessiter:

So implement steering probably wouldn't help this problem, or would it with GPS?

Russ Zenner:

Well, there's been some effort on having a steering cart with limited success. It's helpful, but still I have not seen anybody that has been able to mechanically overcome side draft issues. There's been improvements but not completely overcoming it, and a lot of those systems that try to do that, they've had some challenges as far as having enough weight on the wheels that are trying to steer the outfit. And anytime we start adding more weight in this part of the world, weight on steep hills is a lot different than weight on flat ground, so that's part of the issue.

Frank Lessiter:

So the next step, you got the crop seeded, whether it's in the fall or spring, so your next trips would probably be with a sprayer. What kind of machine problems do you have on these hills with sprayers?

Russ Zenner:

Well, the sprayer technology has gone to a lot more guys using self-propelled sprayers. Again, probably the flat ground has adopted that much quicker in our region, but hydrostatic drive four-wheel sprayers on steep ground have some problems as far as keeping power to the drive wheels. You get on real steep side hills and with a hydrostatic drive for each wheel is just not nearly as good as a mechanical drive.

And again, some of the weight on these self-propelled sprayers, unless you can do them up and some of them, the manufacturers aren't very excited about you doing up these self-propelled sprayers on these steep side hills, so some of the warranty is voided, so there's more challenges with traction with the self-propelled sprayers than there is the tractor-pulled sprayers.

But it's still the direction it's going. There's more self-propelled sprayers all the time and trying to get them, aluminum booms or carbon-fiber booms to lighten up the boom weight, things like that to make it more efficient and easier on the ground.

Frank Lessiter:

What kind of boom widths do you have on your sprayer?

Russ Zenner:

Well, our sprayer now we've transitioned our farm to the next generation in our family. Clint Zenner and his wife Alicia are farming our farm, and he's running a John Deere and I don't remember the model number, self-propelled, and it's 132-feet boom width now.

And the boom height control, the advancements they've made with that has just been a wonderful improvement as far as suspended boom sprayers working in this undulating terrain.

Frank Lessiter:

Let's move on to the combines now. You've got hillside combines. Explain what a hillside combine is to some of our Midwest people.

Russ Zenner:

Palouse region [inaudible 00:36:16] nearly all hillside machines. Hillco levelers on John Deere, Case-IH are the predominant combines used in this region, some [inaudible 00:36:30], and it's basically a leveling system for that front axle to keep your shoe, the separation area more level so you don't run into a situation of side slope moving the grain flow to the lower side of the machine, and then just much more difficult to control grain loss if you get that shoe too far out of level. The shoe and the sieves, that part of it.

So the Hillco system, I can't remember exactly how far it goes, maybe around 30%. There used to be another system array leveler that went up to over 40%, but I don't think they're in production anymore. They've gone out of business, so pretty much the Hillco system is the one that's used on the combines in the Palouse region anymore.

Speaker 8:

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Learn the secrets of some of the highest yielding farmers on the planet, legendary no-tillers like Russell Hedrick, David Hula, Randy Dowdy, Ray Archuleta, and many more. Visit no-tillconference.com and use the promo code RADIO for a $100 registration discount. Or you can call them at (866) 839-8455 to sign up for the National No-Tillage Conference, January the 10th through the 13th, being held right here in St. Louis. Once again, that website, no-tillconference.com.

Michaela Paukner:

Stick around to the end of this episode for a bonus interview I did about the National No-Tillage Conference and the benefits No-Tillers like you will get from attending.

Finally, the number one most played episode of 2022 features two No-Tillers who have found success with no-till in wildly different climates. Jimmy Emmons no tills cash crops and raises livestock in hot and dry Western Oklahoma while Loran Steinlage no-tills several different crops in a stew of soil types in eastern Iowa.

Jimmy Emmons:

Jimmy Emmons from northwest Oklahoma. I live about 40 miles below the panhandle of Oklahoma and about 35 miles in from the state of Texas. My great-granddad brought my granddad and two other brothers and two sisters up in 1926. And so he saw the place that we call the Home Place in 1926 and he said, "Dad, this is where I want to stay." And we've been there ever since and my wife Ginger and I still own and operate that farm as well as a few others around that connect to it.

Loran Steinlage:

I guess I'm a fortunate man. I was born and raised in northeast Iowa, God's country, more affectionately known as. I bought into the family farm, I believe it was 1986 when I took my first note. We were a full dairy livestock operation through the years. Shortly after that I was hit by a semi. One thing led to another, I cannot be around livestock, so that's been some of the biggest curveballs in my life.

I've never tried to let stuff like that get me down. I've always springboarded off a downturn and it's just kept pushing me forward. As we started having to take livestock away... I've always been an iron and steel guy, so I focus on fine-tuning stuff, learning how to build it, customize it. That's what brought me to where I'm at today. I've taken a job with [inaudible 00:40:28] Equipment full-time now. I still farm, that's part of my basis. But last week I've probably had the most fun I've had in a long time. I got to go out in Mississippi and get down one-on-one with farmers. That's what I really enjoy. When you sit there and start taking time, learning what's going wrong, how to help guys figure it out.

Speaker 11:

Loran, you guys are 800 miles apart. How in the world can what you do pertain to what Jimmy does? Could you elaborate just a little bit more on that place?

Loran Steinlage:

Well, probably the biggest thing I see between us is the management styles. My biggest issue is excess moisture.

Speaker 11:

And cold weather.

Loran Steinlage:

And cold weather.

Jimmy Emmons:

I don't understand that. It's called lack of.

Loran Steinlage:

But we often call each other and share ideas. When you go back to the basic core principles, the five principles.

Speaker 11:

So it doesn't matter where we are, those five principles always prevail.

Loran Steinlage:

And now you bring forth the sixth principle, the context. The biggest thing one of our peers told me once upon a time, and I want to interject that on the context aspect, do not let that become an excuse.

Jimmy Emmons:

Yeah, the thing about it is how you manage. Whether it's raining six inches or 60 inches, it's all in the management. I have to watch every drop, so I have to watch my population on cover crops and as well as cash crops, I also have to manage that heat factor that we get in the summertime. We want water use efficiency in plants. If we get in that wet year, like in 2014, I can plant green like you do. I can plant green like Loran does, but that's very, very seldom because water is essential for us and we try to catch every raindrop where it falls and utilize that to the maximum.

Speaker 11:

So Jimmy, with your arid environment, what's your elevation?

Jimmy Emmons:

About 2,300.

Speaker 11:

2,300 feet elevation, fairly arid environment. Are you planting a cocktail of one or two species, or are you planting cocktails with multiple species?

Jimmy Emmons:

We're multiple. Most of my summer mixes are 15 to 18, 20 wave blends. Our cool seasons are anywhere from three to nine. It kind of depends on our goals and our process. But once again, we got to manage that population. If we're dry in them summer mixes, we stay with the blend, we just might not plant as much. And if we got a little extra moisture and we have that opportunity to gain more, then we'll up that rate on the go. Or the cattle, what kind of feed, make sure that I have that diversity in there to have good quality feed. So the cattle, and now we're getting it in the goat business as well, really compliments the cash.

Speaker 11:

It gives you exit plans if the rain doesn't come, you thought you were going to raise the corn crop, but now we got to move on.

Jimmy Emmons:

Right.

Speaker 11:

Yeah. Now Loran, I'd like for you to elaborate a little bit. You're very big into this relay. Explain what that is. Are you getting diversity with your cover crop packages?

Loran Steinlage:

Jimmy brought up the relay and one of the first things I thought of right away is, go back to what Jimmy said there. The reason relay works for me and probably not for him, is our moisture situation. Traditionally, we would get a strong wet spell the first part of June, somewhere in there, replenishes our water table. But the essential of the relay cropping is we go in in the fall, plant a cereal crop, and then in the spring we'll come in and plant the soybeans.

July, we'll go in and harvest the cereal crop and then the fall we harvest the soybeans. And I mean, some of the things we've learned over the years is just learning the maturities and stuff like that, and that's the networking in that. I didn't invent relay cropping, but 2013 I think is when I met a guy named John Coots. A guy out in Nebraska. Shane [inaudible 00:44:36], they're doing it. It's essentially the same latitude as I'm at. Shane gave up on it because he doesn't get the moisture situation. John, he's thrived over the years and he's kind of the inspiration for most guys doing it.

But what we're really seeing now as we've started to build out the network, once we started understanding the relay cropping, the companion cropping and all that becomes in. But I probably should back up and tell you the way we got into relay cropping was pretty easy. My cover crop experience did not start with cereal rye. I was all traditional corn on corn, we were feeding cattle, stuff like that. So my introduction, about 2006 I think it was, we started looking at the earlier interseed, V4 or V5, or back then it was about V7, V8. Everybody was talking, but the more we learned, we kept pushing that forward.

As we built into that, we built the right tools, the right pieces, had them in place. Soon as I seen what John's doing, I'm like, "We got the tools to do it. I can start doing it." It was an easy transition once you start understanding the principles, and that would fast forward to where we're at now. Now we're looking at our cover crops. When you talk diversity, we're starting to figure out how to turn our cover crops into cash crops. Everybody asks, "How are we going to make cover crops pay if we can start making them cash crops?" I don't need the best crops when I start pulling two or three different species of crop off a farm every year.

The same symbiotic relationship on the cover crops happens on our cash crops once we start figuring that out. Derek Axten in Saskatchewan's one of my best friends right now. I love talking to him and understanding what he's doing. Totally different environment. You think Jimmy's dry? Derek, a good year's six inches.

Jimmy Emmons:

But I think the key thing, Loran is, when you mentioned about how dry, I mean relay's a bigger challenge. Well, it can be and if you do it wrong it cannot work out. What I tried and it was sesame, which sesame as a desert plant does very well for us. If you can get sesame up, you can grow it on hardly nothing and harvest a good crop. And so then I put a sweet clover crop in with that. And so the idea of that was to stay in the lower canopy to set there over the summer and then over winter, and then after we harvest the sesame off, then next spring, next summer, we'll harvest that clover crop.

What I didn't count on, and this was double crop sesame as well behind the barley crop, was that the sesame done exceptionally well and canopied over, and was almost too much canopy for the clover to get established. Now the game is still a foot and we don't know yet how the clover's going to be. It's there and we'll see how that does in the spring. So I'm not out of the game yet, I'm still in the game. Worst case scenario is we don't have enough clover, it still generates nitrogen for us and we'll go to Plan B and we'll plant another crop in the spring there.

So as we all learn this even 800 miles apart, it's about how you adapt that to your local environment and your local climate and make that work.

Loran Steinlage:

I want to carry on with the moisture management conversation there, because I think that's biggest critical thing that is finds a lot of us. Original reason I got into some of the cover cropping aspect and that was moisture management, we're 100% pattern tiled into my area. Problem is it was done back in the '70s, everything's too far apart. Well, I started looking into it and I had two options. I could start learning how to grow the moisture out more, or spend a lot of money on tile. I'm a German. Simple description, I guess. I'm frugal-

Speaker 11:

Stubborn?

Loran Steinlage:

Yeah, if I can figure out a way not to spend money, that's the way we're going. So minimum expense was cover crops, we started going that way. But now as we keep talking about evolving, I've evolved to the point now we've built our water-holding capacity to the point where we can actually hold... I've done studies where we actually show we can hold 50% moisture than my neighboring soil. We got the infiltration levels, the summer, couple guys were out, we were in the 20 plus range on the infiltration. It goes back to where we're at now. Now we're sitting at a point, I'm starting to get the side hill seeps and all that going again.

So what am I going to do? Am I going to go back and pattern tile everything, or am I going to figure out how to push it to that next level and continue growing out more moisture? That's why the relay cropping and that is coming to the forefront more and more. I think a few people were shocked when I said I might not grow corn this year. I can turn the profit that will blow 250 bushel an acre corn away with the relay crop. I'm kind of getting locked in a little bit of a rotation glitch right now, but I know it's a stepping stool right now, so I'm not going to get hooked on that specific rotation.

Michaela Paukner:

If you'd like to hear more from these podcast guests and all the others who joined us in 2022, go to no-tillfarmer.com/podcast to listen to all the episodes in our archive. We'll be back in January with brand-new episodes. Many thanks to Yetter Farm Equipment and the National No-Tillage Conference for helping to make this No-Till podcast series possible. From all of us here at No-Till Farmer, I'm Michaela Paukner. Happy New Year, and thanks for listening.

Kyle Hill:

For Regional Radio, I'm Kyle Hill, this is Ag Insight. Today, I'm visiting with Michaela Paukner of No-Till Farmer. She is the managing editor and she's helping organize the 31st Annual National No-Tillage Conference that will be taking place January 10th through the 13th at the Hyatt Regency St. Louis at the Arch in St. Louis. And well first of all, Michaela, glad to have you on the program today.

Michaela Paukner:

Yeah, thanks for having me, Kyle.

Kyle Hill:

Now we're looking at four days of well, jam-packed learning about all things no-till. Well, tell us about for starters, how this conference has grown over the past three decades and that you're making a return trip to the Gateway City.

Michaela Paukner:

Yeah, so we've been doing this, like you said, it's 31 years. It started out in the '90s and has grown since then as no-till's gained popularity and the acreage has expanded in the US and across the worlds.

But I think what's unique about the National No-Tillage Conference is that the goal of it hasn't changed over those decades. We're really about connecting No-Tillers with each other and with the information they need to make no-till successful on their farm wherever they happen to be farming.

Kyle Hill:

Now we're looking at a jam-packed four days here. What can participants expect to take part in and observe?

Michaela Paukner:

Yeah, so the conference kicks off with two special paid workshops on Tuesday, January 10th. We have four of the biggest names in farming, David Hula, Randy Dowdy, Russell Hedrick and Lance Gunderson coming to talk about trimming fertilizer costs without reducing yields, and asking the right questions to boost your yields. So those two workshops are selling out fast. So when you're registering for the conference, make sure that you indicate that you want to join us if you'll be coming to that.

At the end of the day on Tuesday, we'll also have some tech talks, talking about new products and then a welcome reception where people can catch up with old friends they see at the conference, or make new connections and scope out what they're going to do. Then the conference officially starts on Wednesday, January 11th with general sessions, classrooms, a brand new cutting-edge technology review panel and our first set of dynamic roundtables. So we continue this tried and true format with the general sessions, classrooms and roundtables throughout Thursday and Friday for the rest of the conference with a diverse set of session topics.

Kyle Hill:

Now, how are the classrooms and roundtable scheduled? How difficult is it going to be for producers to figure out which of these sessions to take part in?

Michaela Paukner:

Well, it's super easy because the way we have it laid out, you'll get a program where you can see the description of what everybody's going to talk about. It's kind of like choose your own adventure where you can pick whatever topic, or maybe it's a problem that you're having on your operation, you can find that expert who will help you solve that or will give you the information you need to take whatever you're trying to do to the next level. So you can just go through the agenda and see what sparks your interest and head over to that.

It's very easy. We put a lot of time and effort into not only choosing the speakers, so we're representing a diverse mix of topics and regions of the US. And even beyond, especially this year we have someone from Australia coming to talk about how they're no-tilling in low moisture, but to also make this experience really easy for everybody attending with signage and we're always there to help too. So I would say it's very simple to pick what you want to do and find where you need to go to learn.

Kyle Hill:

Now you mentioned a speaker from Australia making the trip to St. Louis. Are there any other topics of note that might really be of interest to producers, something that might actually pique your interest, perhaps?

Michaela Paukner:

Yeah, I would say one I want to mention is our Silver Anniversary lecture, which is sponsored by H&R Agri-Power. It features Greg Sauder, who you may know as the founder of 360 Yield Center in Precision Planting. So Greg's returning to the same St. Louis stage 25 years later to review the early days of planter machine learning and technology. And then he's also going to be sharing his perspective on the future of autonomy and irrigation. For me, that's one I'm really excited about. It's on Thursday right before lunch, because not only has Greg had such a hand in a lot of the precision technology that producers are using now, but to talk about autonomy and where farming is going, especially for the larger operations, it's really exciting, and we're on the cusp of some big changes I think, coming up.

Kyle Hill:

And important to point out as your conference has grown over the past three decades is that you've got a good number of conference title sponsors helping make this possible.

Michaela Paukner:

Yes, we do. And we're so grateful for all of our sponsors. Like I mentioned, we have H&R Agri-Power sponsoring that lecture. We have Calmer Corn Head sponsoring our No-Till Fellowship lecture, which features Jim Leverage. He's a Wisconsin No-Tiller who we actually followed him throughout 2022 as he was planting, as he was harvesting, as he was doing all the other stuff on his farm. And he's going to kind of sum up what he learned over the past year, and that's really a unique thing that we're doing this year. It's something new and something we're really excited to share, because you can learn directly from Jim's experience, you're almost learning alongside of him. And then he also has been no-tilling for so long that any new to no-till or people who are thinking about no-till, they'll be able to pick up on a lot of the things they shouldn't do if they're just getting started out, and learn from those types of mistakes.

Kyle Hill:

Michaela Paukner visiting with us, managing editor of No-Till Farmer magazine, one of the organizers for the National No-Tillage Conference coming up January 10th through 13th in St. Louis. Michaela, how do farmers register for this conference?

Michaela Paukner:

Yeah, it's super easy. You can go online and go to no-tillconference.com and we have the registration form there. You can also call us too if you're interested. That number's available online as well.

Kyle Hill:

Michaela, anything additional that we'd like to pass along to our listeners today ahead of the 31st Annual National No-Tillage Conference?

Michaela Paukner:

I think I just want to mention that if you need CCA or pesticide credits, our sessions are accredited for that and we have all that information on site with us. So that's an option to help you meet those requirements in 2023. And then we survey our attendees over the years to ask them how valuable is the National No-Tillage Conference? And our past attendees estimate that they gain close to $70,000 in new no-till ideas at just this one conference. So if you break that down into four days, how often can you make $17,500 in a day? I don't know how often you can do that.

So we're always, like I said, trying to introduce new information to help people be more profitable as their no-tilling and continue their journey in learning and help people be successful.

Kyle Hill:

That is Michaela Paukner of No-Till Farmer magazine, one of the organizers for the National No-Tillage Conference coming up January 10th through 13th in St. Louis. Michaela, thank you very much for joining us on our Ag Insight program today.

Michaela Paukner:

Yeah, it's great to be talking with you.

Kyle Hill:

And for Regional Radio, I'm Kyle Hill.