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“When we talk about no-till, we always talk about the no-till system. It's not just parking the plow in the shed and then no-tilling and doing everything else the same as you did before. No, it's a system.”
— Sjoerd Duiker, Soil Scientist & Agronomist, Penn State University
Penn State University soil scientist and agronomist Sjoerd Duiker says no-till alone isn’t enough to improve soils. Instead, growers need to follow a complete no-till system to achieve soils that are highly productive, contain a well-balanced ecosystem, are well-aerated and more.
For this episode of the No-Till Farmer Influencers & Innovators Podcast, brought to you by Martin-Till, Frank Lessiter sits down with Duiker to talk about what no-tillers should be doing to make their cropping systems even better.
If you are interested in more no-till history, you’ll find great stories like these and many more in the newly released 448-page second edition of From Maverick to Mainstream: A History of No-Till Farming that includes 32 more pages than the first edition. Order your copy here.
Related Content
- [Podcast] Can I Increase Soil Organic Matter by 1% This Year? – Part 1
- Plant Cover Crops ASAP
- Reduce Soil Compaction During Harvest
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Full Transcript
Mackane Vogel:
Welcome to the No-Till Farmer Influencers and Innovators Podcast, brought to you by Martin Till. I'm Mackane Vogel, assistant editor of No-Till Farmer. For today's episode, Frank Lessiter sits down with Penn State University's soil scientist and agronomist, Sjoerd Duiker, to talk about what no-tillers should be doing to make their cropping systems even better.
Frank Lessiter:
Give me a little background on you. You grew up in Europe, right, and then came to the States?
Sjoerd Duiker:
Yes. I grew up in the Netherlands in a province called Friesland. It's in the north of the Netherlands. It's a very rural area. Our house, it was looking out on the grass fields and the dairy pastures from our house. It's just look forever because it's all as flat as a pancake. And I grew up there. And didn't grow up on a farm. But I was surrounded by all farms. And I loved just looking at the fields. And I also worked some on a dairy farm when I was a teenager. And I had many friends who were farm boys. So, we often went to the farms and played in the barns and stuff like that. From a young age, I kind of grew up close to agriculture.
Frank Lessiter:
Sure. So, you went to college or university in the Netherlands and then you came to the States?
Sjoerd Duiker:
Yep. I studied first, actually, I studied tropical crop science in the agricultural university in Wageningen in the Netherlands. And then I spent two years doing some work, a couple years actually, doing some work for different organizations, helped to organize some conferences. And then I came to the United States after I had spent a little stint at the research institute where I was mostly sequestered in an office.
And I was really getting very antsy because I wanted to have my boots on the ground, and I wanted to rub shoulders with farmers. That was one thing I wanted to do. And I got very interested in soil conservation when I was doing that work. And I contacted Ratan Lowe in at Ohio State University. And that was one of the people I contacted. And he offered me an assistantship. And then I went on to do my PhD in soil science at Ohio State.
Frank Lessiter:
How long you been at Penn State?
Sjoerd Duiker:
23 years.
Frank Lessiter:
Wow. Okay. And basically you're a soil scientist, right?
Sjoerd Duiker:
Yep. Soil scientist slash agronomist.
Frank Lessiter:
Let's talk a minute. You've said several times that we've got people that have been no-tilling for many years and it's been a tool for controlling soil erosion. But now, it's time to improve the soil. So, can you give me some ideas on how no-tillers can improve their soils?
Sjoerd Duiker:
First of all, when we talk about no-till, we always talk about the no-till system.
Frank Lessiter:
Sure.
Sjoerd Duiker:
It's not only just parking the plow in the shed, and then starting the no-tilling, and do everything the same as you did before. No, it's a system. So, components of the system are also keeping a mulch cover or an organic cover at all times, either living or dead mulch keep that soil covered. And also to have diversity either in the crop associations or in the crop location. So, when you use that, you can really improve your soil with, first of all, you don't lose topsoil.
That's the one thing, which is the most valuable part of the soil. So, we conserve that. But also that tillage is stoking the fire. So, it's like I always compare it because that was a kind of illustration alert from Bobby Stewart, a very recognized soil scientist, once he made that comparison as when you're in the winter and you're sitting around the fire, and the fire kind of dies down, and you get cold, what do you do? You stoke the fire and you become hot.
Frank Lessiter:
Right.
Sjoerd Duiker:
But now, the fire is going down. The ambers are starting to burn up. And when you do till it, you're introducing oxygen into the aggregate, stirring them all up, breaking up the organic matter. And then that stimulates the decomposition. Well, then the organic matter content goes down. And organic matter is really one of the most important indicators we have of soil health. Always when people talk about the best soils in the world, they always go either to the Midwest of the United States, to the Pampas of Argentina, or to the soils in Ukraine. And why do they go there? Because they are so high in organic matter.
Frank Lessiter:
Sure.
Sjoerd Duiker:
Due to the prairie history. That organic matter just, it makes those soil so productive. And so, to conserve that organic matter is very important. And that is what you achieve with no-tilling. Now, we're learning a lot of other things too. For example, no-till also affects the life in the soil. So, we know that a biologically active soil is also a very important component of unhealthy soil. So, there we have, for example, the larger and more visible organisms like earthworms are very dramatically impacted by tillage.
So, you have different types of earthworms. You have the big night crawlers. You have other types that live more in the surface of the soil, they move more horizontally. And then you have some that live in the organic layer. The ones that are the big night crawlers that live in permanent vertical burrows basically, those are permanently open, those burrows. They move up and down in them. And then at night, they come out and look for organic material that's at the soil surface.
They pull that to their burrow, then that rots away some. And they then can consume that. That's their food source. Then they come out and they deposit basically their manure, which is a mixture of soil and organic matter from their gut. And they deposit that at the soil surface around their burrow. And that forms on the little midden that you see all over the fields often in the spring. Well, those night crawlers are very heavily impacted by tillage because they can really not survive when that soil is bare.
And they have to have that residue at the soil surface. So, those ones again, and benefit of no-till, you get much higher populations of those, especially. The other ones that live more on the surface of the soil, they are a little bit less impacted, but nonetheless, they're also impacted. So, that's just one type of organism. Research has also shown that you get a higher microbial community, more microbes, especially more fungi. And those help to, they're like nets around soil particles, helping to stimulate aggregation. And those are some of the benefits of no-till.
Of course, we also have a lot of insects that live at the soil surface. And they often need also the [inaudible]. So, if there is mulch cover, they will hide underneath there. And then they can also be favored by no-till. So, those are just some of the benefits. We also see that, for example, the fertility of the soil is affected too. Like the phosphorus, it becomes more available in the surface of the soil because you don't stir it in with the soil where its then kind of thick all the time. And therefore, that phosphorus in no-till, we see higher availability of phosphorus near the soil surface. Those are some benefits that I can think of.
Frank Lessiter:
Yeah.
Sjoerd Duiker:
We also really experienced for the farmers benefits in terms of the higher aggregate stability and a more stable soil structure, makes that soil much more resistant to soil compaction. So, that was always a big concern when I first started at Penn State. Some people were saying, "Well, we can't do no-till because we are going to cause so much soil compaction with our equipment." And we looked into that and did research on that.
And then we found that as long as you limit the contact pressure and the axle load to reasonable numbers, I mean, you can always destroy a soil. Any soil you can destroy. You do your best. But if you take proper precautions, then that no-till soil is very resilient because it has a more stable matrix. And then you have all the natural porosity that is formed by organisms in the soil. And also by shrinking swelling action of say when the soil dries, and wets, or freezes, and thaws.
Frank Lessiter:
Yeah.
Sjoerd Duiker:
All that helps to maintain its porosity.
Frank Lessiter:
So, going back to what you mentioned about phosphorus and not tilling it deeper into the soil. We have a number of no-tillers who say they don't need to put on either no phosphorus or a limited amount of phosphorus anymore. Is this because it's in the first two or three inches of the soil?
Sjoerd Duiker:
Well, it's throughout the profile. But that's where it's more available, yes, with no-till.
Frank Lessiter:
Sure.
Sjoerd Duiker:
Yeah. Of course, when you sell off grain every year from your farm, you sell it and it's all exported from your farm, you are exporting nutrients in that grain.
Frank Lessiter:
Right.
Sjoerd Duiker:
So eventually, it has to be replaced. We always need to keep that in mind.
Frank Lessiter:
Right.
Sjoerd Duiker:
But there is a very big pool of phosphorus in the soil. So unfortunately, most of it is not available because it's all fixed by the soil and not evenly available for the plants to take up. But with no-till, we see that availability increases in there because we don't mix that phosphorus with the soil.
Frank Lessiter:
So, if I've been no-tilling for a number of years and thought I was doing successfully, what can I do to improve my organic matter?
Sjoerd Duiker:
Well, I would say I would always look at how much organic matter are we returning to the soil in either crop residue or cover crops? So, if we have, I mean, I heard of farmers, some farmers, they grow continuous soybeans.
Frank Lessiter:
Yeah.
Sjoerd Duiker:
Well, you do that, you are not going to build any organic matter because there's so little residue that is produced and the root mass is small. So, all that then doesn't help you to improve organic matter. So, you need to find then crop, introduce other crops in your rotation that can add more residue. And also the root. Root mass is also very important. So, something like a crop like corn, of course, is great for that purpose.
Other things that you can do, I would say is also trying to plug any shallow periods in your crop rotation where you don't have any living crop growing. That's why we have so much emphasis on cover crop. Trying to plant a cover crop after main harvest. Because if you have say a corn-soybean rotation, well seven months in the year roughly, you don't have a living root system there.
Frank Lessiter:
Yeah.
Sjoerd Duiker:
So, to plug those holes. Now, and then another component of this is the livestock integration [inaudible]. I mean, there's more and more openness I think, you think about this again, to introduce livestock on the field. Or, also where we, in Pennsylvania, a lot of farmers are livestock holders. So, they have manure.
Frank Lessiter:
Sure.
Sjoerd Duiker:
And that manure when you spread it on the field is, of course, also organic matter. And that also helps to improve organic matter content. But you can also graze animals, of course, after harvest. So, that's another way. So, those are some things I would look for.
Frank Lessiter:
Yeah. Well, you still got a lot of dairy farmers in Pennsylvania and they cut corn silage.
Sjoerd Duiker:
Yep.
Frank Lessiter:
So, what recommendations do you have for we're taking a lot of residue off, when we cut potential residue off when we're cutting corn silage?
Sjoerd Duiker:
Oh, yeah. Yeah. Well, that goes all into the barn, of course. And then it's being fed to the animals. And part of that is then returned as manure again.
Frank Lessiter:
Yeah, there you go.
Sjoerd Duiker:
But we feel really that after silage, we really need to have a cover crop there. That system is really not sustainable if there is no cover crop.
Frank Lessiter:
Right.
Sjoerd Duiker:
And that's really a great opportunity because you're relatively early still in the season. In the fall, you still have some season left. And those cover crops typically they grow really well because you also have a manure history. And you can also apply manure to the cover crop. So, those cover crops typically are very, very vigorous and look very good.
Frank Lessiter:
How about soil structure, soil aggregates, stability, et cetera?
Sjoerd Duiker:
Well, that really improves. I always like to talk about, have you ever heard the term soil profile modification?
Frank Lessiter:
Sure.
Sjoerd Duiker:
With no-till. Yeah, I mean, we were modifying the structure in the whole profile actually. Because near the soil surface is where we see the improvement of aggregate stability with no-till because of the accumulation of organic matter near the soil surface. And then lack of disturbance there. And then the activity of the earthworms with their cast being deposited all the time at the soil surface. And then the fungi, a lot of that is also in the top few inches of the soil. And a lot of the roots, I mean, if you look at the root system of a no-till plant, it looks very different from a plant that's grown in tilled soil.
That root ball is deeper in the soil in a tilled soil. But in no-till, we have a lot of fine roots near the soil surface underneath that mulch cover. And those then also contribute again to the aggregate stability. And that's near the soil surface, all that what's happening there. But then we have a lot more deep burrowing organisms, like those night crawlers, and deep burrowing earthworms that create more pores into even, I mean, those pores can be three, four feet deep. And we have a lot more of those in no-till. So, that creates some deeper porosity also into the sub soil.
Frank Lessiter:
What about residue distribution? Are farmers doing a good job of getting this residue spread with the combine, or not? Or, what can they do? What do they need to do?
Sjoerd Duiker:
Yeah. That can still be an issue. That you see these fields in the fall and in the spring, and you see just like wind rows of crop residue in the field. Well, that is, I always say, "Well, no-tilling starts at harvest."
Frank Lessiter:
Sur.
Sjoerd Duiker:
It doesn't start at planting. You really need to first have that residue distributed uniformly because if you don't, you just end up with so many problems. And you don't get a good stand, because you're planting some, you cannot control that with your planter. You're setting up your planter, and then in some parts of the field there's no residue, in other spots you have three inches. Well, how are you going to get feet to soil contact? There's no way. So, that's absolutely necessary.
But modern equipment now, the modern combines typically I feel they come with better residue distribution capabilities than the old ones. In the olden times, we didn't even have them on the combine. Some of our combines didn't have a residue distribution mechanism. Just dumped it all right there in a swath behind the combine. So, you need to really distribute it evenly over the whole harvest. Otherwise, you're going to introduce just undesirable variability in the field.
Frank Lessiter:
Yeah. Well, back here in the Corn Belt, we've got headers that are 40 and 50 feet wide. So, getting even distribution is even more of a problem with these wider corn heads and soybean heads.
Sjoerd Duiker:
Right. But there's no way around it. You have to do it.
Frank Lessiter:
Yeah.
Sjoerd Duiker:
Very important.
Frank Lessiter:
Right.
Sjoerd Duiker:
I mean, if you can harvest the corn from 40 feet width, then you should be able to spread the residue process 40 feet width again.
Frank Lessiter:
Right.
Sjoerd Duiker:
I mean, that's just what you cannot neglect that.
Frank Lessiter:
Right.
Sjoerd Duiker:
It's so essential for no-till. Because also there are a lot of nutrients in that residue, you know?
Frank Lessiter:
Mm-hmm.
Sjoerd Duiker:
For example, think about potassium, for example. That leach is mostly from the crop residue. So, you are just already also introducing differences in nutrients availability. You don't spread your residue correct.
Frank Lessiter:
So, these people that are maybe taking off straw, or selling it to other farmers, or corn silage, or even alfalfa and grass, or even ethanol, what do they need to do to get more residue on the surface? I suppose cover crops is going to be the answer.
Sjoerd Duiker:
Yeah, the only answer. Yep.
Frank Lessiter:
Yeah, right.
Sjoerd Duiker:
Either cover crops, or double cropping, cropping intensification. I'm not against harvesting the straw.
Frank Lessiter:
Sure.
Sjoerd Duiker:
I remember we had Carlos Proveto, our no-till pioneer from Chile.
Frank Lessiter:
Sure, right.
Sjoerd Duiker:
He came here in the early days. We often invited him several times to come here to speak. And it was just amazing what he had done. And he was always saying, "Well, the straw is for the soil and the grain is for the man." And yeah, that worked for him. He did a lot of work with that straw. He really worked on it. He would have so much straw there then he would wind row it with putting even a lot of effort. And then under that wind row next year, he saw a great improvement in the productivity of that soil.
Frank Lessiter:
Right.
Sjoerd Duiker:
But that was a lot of work to rake all that residue up. And well, also our farmers, they really, that's a big economic component, that straw. And I don't know now anymore with the grain prices having gone up, but many years was like grain was as valuable as the straw.
Frank Lessiter:
Right.
Sjoerd Duiker:
So, are you going to tell that farmer they can't harvest the straw? That is a little bit not very relevant. So, then we focus on, well, when you have taken that straw off, you should immediately plant the cover crop there as quickly as possible. And you know that is then also much easier to get that established instead of having that very heavy straw residue there. And corn silage is a very important also commodity here for a feed source for a farmers. So, they grow the corn for that purpose. And then you take the whole plant off.
Well, again, you have to then take care of the soil by planting a cover crop immediately after that. The cover crop that can properly cover the soil quickly and restore that soil. I still remember, I have a good farmer friend here nearby. He is a very good agronomist also. And he said, "I was always struggling with my no-till until I started using cover crops." He is a dairy farmer. He has several hundred dairy cows. And he has a very heavy manure spreading equipment that goes over the field regularly.
And he would just compact that soil with that equipment. And then in the spring, that soil was looking so compacted that he always felt like well, need to do some tillage to loosen that up. But then when he started using a cover crop, now he made sure that that cover crop was really well established, and also put on good growth in the fall and in the spring. He typically used rye in those days. Now, I think he switched to triticale more. And he's actually harvesting that also as feed again.
But after he started doing that, that root system really helped him just that make the soil more resistant to compaction because you have a textile underneath that soil when you're on it. But it's also, that growing root, that is also taking out the compaction again. So, that is another very important component of that cover crop in a system like a corn silage system. You absolutely need to have that cover crop that.
Mackane Vogel:
We will come back to the episode in a moment. But first, I'd like to thank our sponsor, Martin Till, for supporting today's podcast. As farmers themselves, the people at Martin Till know the frustration that unforeseen obstacles can bring, especially the weather. While no one can control drought or untimely rains, Martin Till can help equip your planter to allow for more time spent planting and less time waiting to get seed in the ground. Thank you for considering Martin Till products. And now, let's get back to the conversation.
Frank Lessiter:
So, your farmers who are taking off silage, are they doing the single cover crop such as rye, or are they doing multiple mixes, or what do you recommend?
Sjoerd Duiker:
Well, I mean, mixtures are good, but sometimes they're also more difficult to manage. I like mixtures. But I do think you need to think about what is each species doing in the mix. Many times when you have a very diverse mixture, I find that there's a few species in there that really take over and the others are relatively few of those plants.
They don't really make it. So personally, typically, we do use also very diverse mixes. But I like more two or three species perhaps. That makes sense for me. I like a grass and a legume together. For example, we have a rotation with, I have a long-term tillage study, and we grow corn, soybeans. And then after the soybeans, we plant wheat in the fall.
Frank Lessiter:
Sure.
Sjoerd Duiker:
And then the following, the year after wheat harvest, we plant hairy vetch. And I like to plant that hairy vetch mixed with oats.
Frank Lessiter:
Okay.
Sjoerd Duiker:
Because oats are like my nourish crop that dies in the winter then. And then in the spring, I only have the hairy vetch. Because I'm really after the hairy vetch for nitrogen and planting corn into that again. And if we get a good stand of hairy vetch, that works great. And I don't really want to have a cereal there so much competing with that vetch in the spring. I really like the oats.
Frank Lessiter:
Yeah.
Sjoerd Duiker:
Because they provide protection for the hairy vetch. Over the winter, that hairy vetch is very wimpy early on. It doesn't look like much in the fall. It doesn't provide much soil protection. So, I like that oat there. But then I don't mind at all being dead in the spring and being food for the earthworms. And then I want to really have that hairy vetch be very vigorous. And then we record how much nitrogen is in it, and estimate how much nitrogen credit we get for it so we can reduce our nitrogen fertilizer application.
You think about what do I want to achieve, is what I'm trying to say. But in this case, we want a good cover in the fall. We want that hairy vetch that's protected. And that oat helps us protect hairy vetch by capturing some snow, I think is what it does, and also reducing wind. It doesn't get as cold. And it just provides a nice protection. And then in the spring, we don't mind it to be winter kill. I mean, we could also use rye, for example. And that could also work. And then that rye could be like a trellis for the vetch to grow up into in the spring. But now, we have more fiber again, and a could reduce somewhat our nitrogen availability from that vetch, which is really what I'm after.
Frank Lessiter:
In your research with hairy vetch, what kind of nitrogen credits are you getting?
Sjoerd Duiker:
Well, I would say 100 pounds at least.
Frank Lessiter:
That's great.
Sjoerd Duiker:
100 pounds per acre. But we have grown on a 50 bushel corn with only starter 40 pounds of vetch. That hairy vetch, I really like it a lot.
Frank Lessiter:
Yeah.
Sjoerd Duiker:
It's too bad that you have to establish it relatively early in the fall. So, you cannot really do it except if you grow a small grain, at least that's my experience. I know people are trying to plant vetch later and sometimes having success with that. But in our environment, I really haven't had luck planting it late. I like to have it in by the end of August here in Central Pennsylvania.
Frank Lessiter:
Yeah.
Sjoerd Duiker:
Get a little start.
Frank Lessiter:
Yeah.
Sjoerd Duiker:
Otherwise, don't make it through the winter.
Frank Lessiter:
Yeah, sounds great. What about soil drainage? No-tillers need to put in more tile or what?
Sjoerd Duiker:
Well, in our state, we are blessed mostly with well-drained soils. We have some soils that are more poorly drained, but they're not so prevalent. So, most of our farmers don't use soil drainage, or only perhaps some spots, wet spots. And they put some tile in. But we don't have a lot of systematic drainage like they have in Ohio, for example, or other parts of the Midwest.
Frank Lessiter:
Yeah.
Sjoerd Duiker:
So, in the Northwest of Pennsylvania, we have some areas where there is more tile drainage. That can definitely help. I do think it is beneficial.
Frank Lessiter:
Right.
Sjoerd Duiker:
Also, I mean, if you think about cover cropping, for example, it becomes very difficult if you have water standing in the field. Those cover crops are going to be drowned out. And so with the drainage, you can also facilitate, you can really facilitate the no-till system.
Frank Lessiter:
What do you see as not working in no-till today?
Sjoerd Duiker:
Well, it's more like it's a work in progress I would like to say.
Frank Lessiter:
Okay.
Sjoerd Duiker:
Not working. But it's something that we need to understand better. So, we're working now with these massive cover crops and planting into them huge amounts of crop residue. With planting green, I'm still not completely sure that we understand the nitrogen dynamics very well, especially if we plant something like a high nitrogen demanding crop like corn into rye or some other cereal.
We'd often see there are nitrogen deficiency. It just seems that stuff just soaks up the nitrogen. And it's then not available to the crop. So, we need to understand that better. There's now more tendency to put more nitrogen up out front instead of just later in the season to accommodate for that. But it's something that I still feel we need to understand better.
Frank Lessiter:
Yeah.
Sjoerd Duiker:
I would really like to have more leguminous cover crop options. That we told you about hairy vetch. But you can only plant it after small grain, in my experience. So perhaps, after corn silage you could do it. But then you had to really push the lengthy agenda there. It would be really great to have more leguminous options for cover crops. I haven't really found them prior to corn.
But then I also think there are a lot of misconceptions about no-till, like all this vertical tillage equipment that is being pushed. And I mean, the salesman, they will just say things to justify that farmers will really need to have that piece of equipment. I saw recently an article and our salesperson was saying, "Well, the farmers are really struggling with soil compaction in no-till, in continuous no-till."
Frank Lessiter:
Sure.
Sjoerd Duiker:
And that is just not my experience. As I told you, that I find the soil becomes more forgiving to soil compaction, less soil compaction. And actually, these vertical tillage tools, they're causing their own compaction below the tillage too. So, I think that that is just more anecdotal information that people are just saying that. But I don't think this is really a reality.
Frank Lessiter:
So, looking at no-till in Pennsylvania and in Northeast, is acreage growing? Is it flat? Or, is it dropping?
Sjoerd Duiker:
We've seen a tremendous increase. When I came here in Pennsylvania, the no-till acres was about 20% of the planted acres were using no-till. That was in the days that the transect surveys were still done. So, that is how we have those data. Now, that is not done consistently statewide anymore. But here in Pennsylvania, actually in the Chesapeake Bay watershed, we do have still transect surveys that are being done. So now, our no-till is about 67%.
Frank Lessiter:
Did you say 67? Two-thirds?
Sjoerd Duiker:
Yeah, roughly two-thirds.
Frank Lessiter:
Okay. Wow, that's great.
Sjoerd Duiker:
Yeah. But it doesn't seem like it's increasing anymore. It's just like we're at that level, and I'm not sure. And now, I'm sometimes a bit concerned about these different types of tillage that are suddenly coming up on the scene and start to be introduced. And it could really reduce. It could go backwards. It's not like a given that we are just going to see this level stay here where it's at or increase. It could also go down.
Frank Lessiter:
Yeah.
Sjoerd Duiker:
There's also our Pennsylvania government is very supportive of organic farming. They really see that as something that needs to be increased and pushed. And well, you know, with organic farming, probably it is going to be more to it.
Frank Lessiter:
Yeah.
Sjoerd Duiker:
Because they don't have ways to control weeds without tillage in annual crops. So I mean, there are some options, but it's only from time-to-time. If you say organic no-till, it's not continuous no-till. It's only no-till here and there.
Frank Lessiter:
Right.
Sjoerd Duiker:
And then it needs to be followed by probably moldboard plowing to get rid of the weeds that have accumulated then during that period. Yeah. Another thing about, we also need to really keep our thumb on the weed control. If we lose the herbicide, and weeds become resistant to herbicides, that's a real threat for no-till I think.
Frank Lessiter:
Right.
Sjoerd Duiker:
Yeah, I'm really concerned about that. When you see these weeds that are resistant to several different herbicides, that becomes a real problem. So, we need to be diligent there.
Frank Lessiter:
Yeah. We talked about the no-till acreage kind of being flat. Do you see this as a generational change? Younger people think they need to do more tillage, or are they sold on no-till?
Sjoerd Duiker:
We are blessed in Pennsylvania with having a very active group of no-till farmers that are real interested in soil health and really committed to no-till. And we have the No-Till Association, the Pennsylvania No-Till Association. And they really are providing a tremendous motivation for farmers, and also for the younger farmers to be serious about no-till. So, I really feel very good about that part.
Frank Lessiter:
Yeah.
Sjoerd Duiker:
I think perhaps that the companies that can make money on tillage that are pushing the tillage. Now, there's also some researchers, right now we have all the talk about nutrient stratification.
Frank Lessiter:
Sure.
Sjoerd Duiker:
And I'm surprised how quickly researchers are willing to say, "Well, we need more tillage to get rid of that." And I have very mixed feelings about that. I think we should really not throw out the child with the bath water, so to say.
Frank Lessiter:
Right.
Sjoerd Duiker:
We did so much work to help our farmers be successful with no-till. And it has just paid tremendous dividends in terms of soil erosion reduction, and increasing infiltration, and for our farmers to make more profitable. So, before just immediately pulling the plug and say, "Well, we need to do more tillage," why don't we look for opportunities or solutions to these problems without doing tillage?
Frank Lessiter:
Right.
Sjoerd Duiker:
That's what I think how we should look at that. But if those researchers often have, I mean, they have a lot of influence on policy makers. And could easily impact that.
Frank Lessiter:
Right.
Sjoerd Duiker:
That can become a threat.
Frank Lessiter:
Right.
Sjoerd Duiker:
To no-till.
Frank Lessiter:
So, you recently spent a sabbatical in Europe. Did you look at no-till while you were there?
Sjoerd Duiker:
Yeah. Mm-hmm. Yeah, I worked with the Spanish Association of Conservation Agriculture.
Frank Lessiter:
What did you find in Europe that could come back to the states?
Sjoerd Duiker:
I was really impacted by just how heavy-handed government just influences over there. It seems the farmers are doing a lot of things just because they get subsidy for it, or they are, yeah, prohibited from doing certain things. And that was one thing that I love about America is just the can-do attitude.
Frank Lessiter:
Sure. Right.
Sjoerd Duiker:
And innovation. People have so many inventions in America, invented so many things. And that spirit of let's try out new things, let's do something new.
Frank Lessiter:
Yeah.
Sjoerd Duiker:
You cannot have that if you have all the time the government looking over your shoulder. And I feel sometimes many people don't realize that we need freedom to do things. And I find that we need to guard ourselves to have the government telling what to do. I'll just tell you an example what happened to me. I was on a farm. My wife is from there. So, I was staying at the farm. It's just a small farm. And my father-in-law passed away, so they're not really farming it anymore. There's a guy, he's grazing some sheep there. But they have a lot of different fields and different types of vegetation. And one field had, well, they have a lot of trees on the property.
Well, there was an oak tree that had a branch that had fallen off years ago, a very big branch. And somebody had already removed some of that. But I was just going there, and cutting that up, and make some firewood. Lo and behold, some two guys come with hats on and uniforms. They come to me and it's like the environmental police. They were coming to tell me, "What are you doing?" I said, "Well, I'm just cutting some firewood here on our property." He said, "Well, do you have a permit for that?" I said, "What?" I didn't even know I need a permit. This is our own land.
Frank Lessiter:
Right.
Sjoerd Duiker:
And now you can just cut the trees down on your property without a permit. So, then I said, "Well, this branch was already dead." "Oh. Well, can you show us that?" And so, I had to take these guys up there. It was on a steep hill. They followed me all the way. I had to walk them there. Next thing they asked, they said, "Oh, yeah. It looked like this branch was already dead." Then the next thing they said, "But do you have a fire prevention plant?" Because you're also in trouble.
Frank Lessiter:
Yeah.
Sjoerd Duiker:
So, I didn't know that because my father-in-law had passed away. And so, we had to check that out. And oh, man. But the level of government oversight is pretty sometimes frightening.
Frank Lessiter:
Right.
Sjoerd Duiker:
You become scared to do anything anymore on your land. So, I think we should more stimulate people to be trying out things and be innovative.
Frank Lessiter:
Right. Well, that's one good thing about no-tiller is they've always been innovators. They're willing to try new ideas more so than the whole general farm population.
Sjoerd Duiker:
Absolutely. Right. Yep. I have several, we have so many examples here in Pennsylvania where people have, I mean, they form companies. They are making equipment like the cover crop roller that can be the attachment, that can be mounted on the planter.
Frank Lessiter:
Sure.
Sjoerd Duiker:
It was developed by a farmer engineer here in Pennsylvania.
Frank Lessiter:
Right.
Sjoerd Duiker:
I mean, I just think those things are tremendous. Tillage radish is, Steve Groff. He really pushed that and developed that. I mean, people finding those kinds of things and finding solutions. I just really appreciate that.
Mackane Vogel:
That's it for this episode of the No-Till Farmer Influencers and Innovators Podcast. Thanks to Sjoerd Duiker and Frank Lessiter for that great conversation. And thanks to our sponsor, Martin Till, for helping to make this podcast possible. A transcript of the episode and our archive of previous podcast episodes are both available at no-tillfarmer.com. For our entire staff here at No-Till Farmer, I'm Mackane Vogel. Thanks for listening. Keep on no-tilling. And have a great day.
