A cross-state move and knowing the potential of no-till bought our family and the land we purchased a fresh start. A commitment to cover crops gave us a mid-race boost we’re still riding.
Ignorance may be bliss, but it’s no way to farm. Instead of blindly seeking the highest yields and following conventional management recommendations, my wife, Kelli, and I work to track, evaluate and problem solve on the farm we started together.
I WAS BORN into no-till and there’s a running joke I wouldn’t know how to drive a tractor straight if I had to thanks to the family’s quick adoption of guidance technology.
THE DAY WE realized we don’t need tillage to manage heavy corn-on-corn residue because we have cows to graze it was the day we were able to shift from dabbling in no-till to committing 100% 3 years ago.
The good thing about Cashton soils is they don’t dry out. The bad thing about Cashton soils is they don’t dry out. That’s the saying around here. It’s partly why I use cover crops like cereal rye.
We keep hitting new levels with our no-till system. There’s no stopping and it keeps farming interesting — certainly more interesting than the traditional wheat-fallow rotation we used to follow.
I'm very goal oriented. I spent 9 years working as a process engineer for ADM before our family made the move to my wife’s family farm in 2014. My corporate experience meant a lot of performance evaluations and structured goal setting, which I now apply on the farm.
The Poor Crew from Pennsylvania State University, NRCS and ARS looking to study nutrient losses in runoff left my farm very disappointed this past fall.
I think readers will find our experiences with no-till to be equally foreign and familiar. Foreign in the fact that on our family farm, the horsepower that runs our field operations comes from actual draft horses. Familiar in that we've gained many benefits from making the move to no-till.
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On this episode of Conservation Ag Update, brought to you by Sound Agriculture, planter expert Clay Scott gives no-tillers 5 action items to tackle before taking the field this spring. The Precision Planting field support specialist also explains why he tells farmers to plant no more than 10 acres on the first day of planting season.
Needham Ag understands the role of technology in making better use of limited resources within a specific environment by drawing on a wealth of global experience to overcome the challenges facing today's farmers, manufacturers and dealers.
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