On this episode of Conservation Ag Update, brought to you by Sound Agriculture, 4 Leopold Conservation Award recipients — Russell Hedrick, Richard Lyons, Colleen Kershaw and Wendy Mariko Johnson highlight some of the unique conservation practices on their farms.
We catch up with central Illinois no-tiller and strip-tiller Josh Stoller at the ATSG winter clinic in Nokomis, Ill., for a conversation about the cutting-edge tech giving him a winning edge on his farm.
No-tillers from across the world share how they’re reducing glyphosate dependence on their farm and what they would do to keep no-tilling if glyphosate was banned.
In the Cover Crop Connection, Gary Zimmer — “the father of biological farming” — previews his upcoming presentation at the National Cover Crop Summit. Plus, Cambridge, Ill., no-tiller Monte Bottens spotlights some of his on-farm trials for 2025.
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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- Leopold Conservation Award Recipients Share Breakthroughs
- No-Tiller Highlights Planter & Sprayer Tech at ATSG Clinic
- How Would You Keep No-Tilling if Glyphosate was Banned?
- Fitting the Cover Crop to the Farm & Making Money Doing It
- Video of the Week: Monte Bottens Highlights Tile Water Monitoring Project
Leopold Conservation Award Recipients Share Breakthroughs
Welcome to Conservation Ag Update. How about a little road trip to get us started? Leopold Conservation Award recipients from across the U.S. shared some of the unique things they’re doing on their farms. Our first stop takes us to Harvel, Ill., where Richard Lyons has been using cover crops since 2012.
“There was an opportunity for some clean air money through EQIP and NRCS. I began at that time to use cover crops. With these practices, what I’ve learned, one of the things you have to do is you have to change your management. It has to be changed to a 1/5 of practice of what you’re doing. Today that progressed to a 5-way mix in front of the corn and in front of the soybeans is all cereal rye.”
“The tools that we use in regenerative agriculture — predominately our planters are all no-till and we’ve built a fertilizer bar where we’re injecting our phosphorous 6-8 inches deep. It’s safe, it’s going to stay down there, we’re not going to see that wash off into the rivers and streams. And it costs us about $5 per acre. The conservation from that is 10 times what it would be if we were still farming the same way.”
“Rotational grazing, we’ve done that for quite a few years. It’s made a difference on quality of pastures. Of course, we’ve had some rain, too. When I check cattle, I usually try to count, but you can’t because you can’t see them because the grass is doing so well. We have some solar panel wells now that I’m so impressed with, and I know our calves are doing better when they get well water and don’t have to drink surface water.”
“I learned about Kernza, that it was a perennial grain and could be used as food. You plant it once, harvest the grain for a few different years and you can graze it. Kernza’s breeding program is monumental in terms of what it can do for the soil. I envision Kernza to be a third crop in a conventional crop rotation. Just think of the benefits, what that would do for everyone.”
For more on all the Leopold Conservation Award recipients and their systems, head to SandCountyFoundation.org.
No-Tiller Highlights Planter & Sprayer Tech at ATSG Clinic
2025 Most Valuable Dealer Ag Technology Solutions Group hosted a clinic at CEO Skip Klinefelter’s farm in Nokomis, Ill. Precision Planting region manager Josh Stoller delivered a presentation about new planter and sprayer technologies that are giving him a winning-edge in his no-till and strip-till operation.
“For us on our own farm — no-still and strip-till — one of the big things is our closing system. A couple years ago, we put on FurrowForce. We had some tougher-to-close situations on the planter in harder, wetter ground, especially in 2024. We put FurrowForce on, a 2-stage closing system that closes with first stage, and the second stage manages soil density. We lighten that up, try to tip-toe over the top of the wet ground and make sure everything got fully closed. This year, we’re going to start looking more into the technology on the sprayer. We’re going to make some changes on the Symphony nozzle — the PWM control on the sprayer. Make sure we knock out all the weeds and we don’t have escapes. Looking at some of the camera technology. Symphony Vision Rate we’re going to be adding this year as well. If we don’t have many weeds, we’re going to cut back on the rate, if we do have taller or small weeds, we’re going to increase the rate and use the full range of the label and try to get more efficient as we go through.”
How Would You Keep No-Tilling if Glyphosate was Banned?
Some lively conversation is going on in the No-Till Farmer Email Discussion Group this week. We asked — What have you done to reduce glyphosate dependence on your farm, and how would you keep no-tilling if glyphosate was banned?
“Simply switch to Clethodim for rye termination and have a more diverse crop rotation. I have already scaled back my glyphosate use.”
– Jason Harrold, Akron, Ind.
“We can farm without glyphosate. It just will cost more, and the timing of herbicide applications will be in a smaller window and there will be more weed escapes. We’ve had the easy button for a long time now with Roundup Ready crops. I would like to go back to the 90s with the herbicide-resistant weeds we have today. We need to protect all the chemical choices we have and keep rotating herbicide families to prevent weed resistance.”
– Jacob Kaderly, Monticello, Wis.
“Here, we are pretty much getting closer to that world because of weed resistance. Glyphosate use has come down dramatically.”
– Alejandro Ladaga, Buenos Aires, Argentina
“We have fields that haven’t seen fungicides or pesticides for 12 years, no soil-applied fertilizers for 6 years and no glyphosate for 7 years. Yes, we have weeds, but they grow alongside our crops, not against them. Our yields are lower, but our test weights are higher. Our inputs have dropped up to 80% in some fields. Many of the so-called weeds we used to battle simply don’t appear anymore. The removal of synthetic fertilizers could be a major reason for this.”
– Martin Caunce, Lancashire, England
Let us know what you think, join the discussion at No-TillFarmer.com.
Fitting the Cover Crop to the Farm & Making Money Doing It
Mackane Vogel here with this week’s Cover Crop Connection. Well last week I told you all about our upcoming National Cover Crop Summit and promised to showcase lots more great topics and speakers so without further ado, here is Gary Zimmer, another one of our speakers, to preview his presentation about fitting the cover crop to the farm and how to make money doing it.
“We farm in southern Wisconsin, we’re organic and we have developed what I call an extreme cover crop farming system. We’re one year rye cover crops and the next year — corn. Corn is our really big market so I think the takeaway from this is what extreme cover crop farming can actually do to your soil and your crops and I think that’s the message I am trying to give on here. Farmers can’t understand how we can actually have a decent income every other year but our farming system is very profitable and very low input and our soils are radically changed and our soil fertility numbers keep getting higher.”
“I think the piece of the puzzle comes in to play is the fact that we actually have a really good organic corn market ten miles away and so we make the money on corn and so how do you make money doing it — by the fact that, even if I was conventional, I’d say we grow excessive amounts of nitrogen and that’s a big limiting factor for organic farmers. We have our soil structure getting really good. Our weed control is getting better and better every year. We've been doing this for 8 years, so 4 rotations on some of this stuff, and so, our input costs are low. We don’t seem to have very many troubles, our soil resilience is built up. And so we are extremely well satisfied with what we did for our results on our farming system. So I look at, right now on conventional farms, if soybeans get to be $8 next fall and you’re going to grow 40 bushel, you might as well take the year off and have a soil building year and put your insecticides, pesticides, fungicides, cut your nitrogen down and use all the bio-technology if you’re conventional.”
Great stuff as always from the father of biological farming, Gary Zimmer. And there’s still plenty of time to register for our fully online and free 2025 National Cover Crop Summit, taking place March 18-20, and get access to 6 great presentations to view at your convenience from the comfort of your own home.
Monte Bottens Highlights Tile Water Monitoring Project
Wrapping up as always with our Video of the Week. The No-Till Conference presented Monte Bottens with the Most Outstanding Speaker Award for his 2024 presentation, “Making Grazing So Easy a Corn Grower Can Do It.” During his acceptance talk, Bottens highlighted some of the on-farm trials he’s got going on this year in Cambridge, Ill.
“Every acre on our farm has a replicated test plot for nutrients, cropping practices. We just started a long-term tillage, tillage-cover crop, no-till, no-till-cover crop (trial) in partnership with Illinois Soybean to get real intensive data on that. We also have a tile water monitoring project we’re working on. We have a theory. Dad invested a lot in pattern tiling many years ago before it was cool. We’re concerned about what nutrients we’re sending off, but we think if you manage nutrients right judiciously, we’re not having a problem. We’re going to compare a pattern tile system to an old clay tile system under our nitrogen management vs. tapping into the neighbor’s tile that would be on a fall-applied higher nitrogen management plan, just to have those data sets, so that we can be prepared when the regulators want to drop the hammer on us, we can say, ‘Hey it’s not the tile, it’s the nutrient management on top of the tile.’”
Interesting, looking forward to seeing how those trials shake out.
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. Until next time, for more stories visit no-tillfarmer.com, striptillfarmer.com and covercropstrategies.com.
