On this episode of Conservation Ag Update, brought to you by Sound Agriculture, young no-tillers James Hepp of Rockwell City, Iowa and Joel Reddick of Bardwell, Ky., share their opinions on what it will take for the next generation of farmers to carry the conservation torch.

Watertown, Wis., no-tiller Tony Peirick has some words advice for farmers who are nervous about planting green into living cover crops for the first time. And in the Cover Crop Connection, Mackane Vogel catches up with Butler County, Pa., farmer William Thiele, who’s not “using covers just as covers.”

Later in the episode, Tuscola County, Mich., no-tiller Tom Hess shows off one of his long-term no-till fields and talks about the benefits of his 40-year no-till journey. We go Ahead of the Curve with Ag Technology Solutions Group’s (Greenville, Ill.) Jason Sorensen for a look at why drones are on the rise in agriculture, and we wrap things up with some perspective on the true meaning of conservation ag with retired USDA soil scientist Don Reicosky.

This episode of Conservation Ag Update is brought to you by Sound Agriculture.

Sound Agriculture delivers bioinspired solutions that enrich soil and improve crops. Our synergistic products empower growers to achieve success while minimizing environmental impact.

SOURCE® activates the soil microbiome, unlocking nutrients for crops through advanced chemistry. BLUEPRINT™ offers the highest-quality arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF), extending root systems to improve nutrient and water access.

Beyond our products, Sound leads the way with programs that support growers in adopting sustainable practices to reduce reliance on synthetic fertilizers while maintaining productivity and profitability.

 

TRANSCRIPT

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Young Farmers Discuss Future of No-Till

The future of no-till is now. But what’s it going to take for the next generation to continue promoting and increasing the adoption of conservation practices? I asked a couple young farmers for their take at the No-Till Conference, let’s listen in to what they said.

“The younger crowd has to really step up. I can count on my hands how many guys that are under 40 farming in my area. And we're a pretty good-sized area, the average farmer is probably 1,500 acres, so we don't have a lot of really big farmers, so there should be a lot more.”
“But it trickles down, we have to all step up and do more. I mean your communities, churches, and fire departments are short on help. So, we need to find a way to bring young people back and that's kind of my goal. I don't like airing my laundry out, but I like to tell people how my operation got started because my long-term goal is to try and find a way where if we could put one young farmer in every county in the Midwest or United States farming, that's extremely doable. Every county has at least one guy wanting to retire that doesn't have another family member. If we could rejuvenate that with a young family, I mean that would just multiply in ripples and help communities.”

– James Hepp, No-Tiller, Rockwell City, Iowa

“I think a lot of things. I think it's not unique to the farming community first of all. I think all of our rural communities are struggling and it's maybe most signified on the farm, but there's so many little towns across rural America that are a shadow of what they once were. And we're probably young enough that we've never even seen them how they once were, but we hear stories, and you can see old buildings falling in that used to be thriving businesses. And I think it's a problem that's bigger than agriculture. But to try to focus it in on what we can do, I think it's being open to young people in your community that might be interested and find a way to get them on your farm. I know that's going to look different for everybody and finding good help is hard, and paying good help what they deserve is even harder. But we've got to be open to it and looking. And if you're not looking for something, it's very difficult to find it because then they've got to find you. But if we can be proactive in trying to find good people rather than good people just falling in our lap, that's going to help us a lot as an industry.”

– Joel Reddick, No-Tiller, Bardwell, Ky.

James is a first-generation no-tiller in Iowa, and Joel farms with his dad, Brad, in Kentucky. They started no-tilling about 7 years ago. 

Overcoming ‘Fear of Being Different’ with Cover Crops 

Friend of the program, Tony Peirick has been planting soybeans and corn green into cereal rye for about a decade now on his Watertown, Wis., farm. Tony has some words advice for those who are nervous about using cover crops.   

“Try it. We’ve got to go this route. And there’s so much peer pressure out there as I travel and talk to different farmers in other states. Farmers don’t want to change. They don’t want to be the odd person out. It’s too bad. Just try something and see how it works. Once they understand why we should be using covers and no-till, the benefits of it — the water infiltration and getting our biology back so we can get more nutrient-dense grains that we need to grow. Just try it. Here in Wisconsin, we’re lucky, we have a lot of farmer-led groups. We’re seeing more and more farmers trying something because they’re not afraid to be ridiculed. As you travel in other states, there’s a lot of peer pressure, nobody wants to be the odd person doing something different.” 

A former co-worker once told me, “Outside the comfort zone…that’s where greatness happens.”

Using Cover Crops as a Forage

The 2025 National Cover Crop Summit is right around the corner. The fully digital event takes place from March 18-20 and is completely free for all attendees who would like to register. The Summit will feature 6 outstanding presentations from 7 excellent speakers. Here is one of our speakers, Butler County, Pa. grower William Thiele, to give you a quick preview of his presentation which is titled, “Using Cover Crops as a Forage.”

“Since we’re talking about making covers as a forage, don’t look at covers as just covers, if that makes sense. So, we thought at first that covers were just preventing erosion, which they do. But they can do so much more. And so when we found out that covers can fix nitrogen and mine phosphorus and all these things, we thought there’s a lot of benefit to this. And after that, which you’ll find in my presentation that necessity is the mother of invention, because we had to, we saw covers as a potential feed source — we consulted with our nutritionist and he said maybe you should try to use this as a forage. And we never thought of that — cover crops are just cover crops right? Well, they are, but they can also be used as a forage. So we did that out of necessity and we found great benefits from that and it’s now part of our regular farm plan to do that for years to come.” 

 The 2025 National Cover Crop Summit will also feature Gary Zimmer, Nick Vos, Jim Stute, Roger & Nick Wenning and Alyssa Essman, so be sure to head to covercropstrategies.com to register for the free event.

Soil Life Does Tillage for Longtime No-Tiller 

Congratulations to Tuscola County, Mich., farmer Tom Hess who recently celebrated his 40-year no-till anniversary. 

Hess started no-tilling in 1984 to solve his erosion problems and never looked back. His big focus now is feeding the livestock in the ground because that soil life does all his tillage, he says. I paid a visit to Tom’s farm in early May for a look at one of his long-term no-till fields. 

“I’m standing in one of our CRP fields. This has been in CRP now for probably 30 years. The reason is a little more obvious if you’re standing here. We’re looking down off a hill that’s 50 feet of fall probably. We’ve intereseded with a Hiniker interseeder, twin rows in between the corn. That was put in V3-V4-V5, somewhere in there. Things move quickly that time of year. Our goal was to get the interseeded cover crop established, germinated and allow the corn to overrun it and overshade it. The cover crop goes dormant, and we were hoping it would look more like this at harvest. Over the winter, it stayed relatively green, we had a mild winter. We’re hoping we feed that biology all winter long, keeping our solar panel out, capturing some sunlight and CO2, putting in the ground and potentially building our organic matter up.” 

Hess also flies on a good chunk of his cover crops — about 50 pounds of cereal rye, barley and ryegrass per acre — in early September. 

Ahead of the Curve: Drones Deliver Versatility  

17% of no-tillers used drones in 2023 according to the 2024 No-Till Farmer Benchmark Report. As drone expert Jason Sorensen tells us, there’s several reasons why drones are becoming increasingly popular in the precision ag world. 

“They have a lot of uses. The farmer themselves can take control of their application rather than having to hire it out. The drone is far less expensive than a traditional ground rig is. It also shines in smaller plots that have more obstacles in them where something like a traditional aircraft wouldn’t be able to get in there and necessarily apply on those fields.”

Photos of the Week: Nature’s Plow vs. Man’s Plow

We wanted to share a few slides from retired USDA soil scientist Don Reicosky, exploring the true meaning of conservation, and why tillage isn’t part of the equation.

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True conservation is carbon management. The two primary practices that contribute to the largest amount of conservation are no-till and synergy crops.

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In nature, tillage is a catastrophic event. Feed the soil biology with roots and carbon exudates, don’t slice and dice them with tillage tools…you see the picture there saying replace steel with roots.

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Plant roots go deep into soil for water, nutrients and carbon storage. Check out that impressive photo of a sugarbeet root following a worm channel 2 meters deep.

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Next slide. The showdown of the century…Nature’s plows vs. man’s plows. The root system and the earthworms are the plows in the conservation system.  

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Don’s next slide says there’s a battle between tillage machinery and the soil biology. Which one is going to win? Who is going to lose?

And that’s just the tip of the iceberg, or should I say, soil.

That’ll wrap things up. Story idea? You know where to find me — Nnewman@Lessiter Media.com. Thanks so much for tuning in, see you for our next episode.

And that will wrap things up this edition of Conservation Ag Update. Until next time, for more stories visit no-tillfarmer.com, striptillfarmer.com and covercropstrategies.com. Before we go, let’s send it out to Dave Hula for a preview of his upcoming presentation at the National Strip-Tillage Conference. Thanks for tuning in! Have a great day!

Of course, I’m sure not everyone was so lucky with the weather. Shoot me an email —nnewman@LessiterMedia.com — let us know how harvest is going in your neck of the woods.