Economics of Soil Health Systems: A Guided Tour

Levi Lyle

Levi Lyle has been farming on the operation he grew up on in Keota, Iowa, for more than 10 years. He farms about 250 acres in a set rotation of corn and soybeans.

The Lyles have been utilizing soil health practices for more than 25 years. “Since I was in about junior high, my dad went no-till, so we don’t even think of that as a soil health practice, that’s just regular farming,” Levi says. He also utilizes cover crops (beginning with Austrian winter peas, but now largely rye) and buffer strips of alfalfa mix, partially to help manage his organic fields. “You can take that rye mat that is there all season long and still there in the fall, and you can pull it back, and you can really see that underneath it is biology,” Levi said. “The earthworms are there and very busy, and it’s just incredible to see that actual presence of biology in the soil.”

Levi began organic farming, and now 40 acres of his operation is organic certified. “I knew it was going to be necessary, because I could see that absentee landowners who have not lived in this area for more than a generation were probably going to liquidate their assets, and we weren’t going to be able to buy that land, so I sought to be organic,” he said.

He visited other farms in the area and noticed frustration with local organic growers regarding managing their soybeans given significant weed pressures. “I decided to buy a roller crimper and started using it and sharing it with other farmers in the area,” Levi said. “What I found was that we were able to manage weeds, completely suppressing them. It was a little bit unbelievable, seeing how the biomass was able to inhibit weeds - this is rye biomass that we rolled down when we planted the soybeans. It was really attention gathering. We’ll put two bushels of rye on in the fall, and then we’ll roll it down in the spring and just skip the pre-emergent pass with the herbicides, with the option of coming in in July and still using the herbicides. We’re saving costs in the rolling down of rye also.”

Levi, a self-professed ‘believer in the impact of having a diverse soil,’ emphasizes educating the next generation, bringing his children in the combine or tractor when planting in the spring. “When I think about cover crops and building conservation into our operation, I think about the resilience in the soil,” he said. “I’d like to continue to evolve the way I think about my rotation on the farm, but what I would like to do on our farm is grow a third commodity and call it carbon. I would like to have corn, soybeans and carbon as my three commodity crops.”

More information about Levi's operation can be found on his  YouTube channel . The factsheet from his interview can be found  here. 

Ricky Dollison

Ricky Dollison is a fourth-generation farmer from Poulan, Georgia. His grandfather started Dollison Farms in 1949 and the farm was later passed on to Ricky’s father and now to him. Ricky’s father taught all of his children how to operate a farm and manage the land. Ricky credits his diverse agricultural understanding to the thoroughness of his father’s teachings. Ricky’s gift to his children and future generations is his investment in the continued success and conservation of Dollison Farms.

Dollison Farms grows corn, cotton and peanuts in addition to raising hogs and cows and producing their own sausage. Ricky uses a three-way cover crop mix of black oats, wheat and rye on every acre that he farms. Ricky has been able to utilize cover crops for weed suppression, allowing him to reduce his herbicide costs. He also attributes more rapid germination of his cash crop seed to the moisture retained in the soil from his cover crops.

Ricky uses a mixture of tillage practices on his land, including strip till. And while he said he was not a fan of strip till to start, the money changed his mind. “I don’t want to go out there and harrow two or three times, then turn the land, then come back and smooth it with a harrow again,” he said. “With diesel getting to the cost it is now, it became a no brainer.”

Ricky has been working with the NRCS to install fencing to rotationally graze his livestock. He plans to add irrigation and more fencing in the future to expand his rotational grazing capacity and increase his livestock operation

The factsheet from his interview can be found  here .

Lance Griff

Lance Griff has been farming full time with his dad in Twin Falls, Idaho, for 17 years. Lance is a third-generation farmer who came back to the farm in 2003 after graduating from college. The Griffs farm wheat, dry beans, alfalfa, corn and barley on 3,800 irrigated acres.

Lance originally entered the no-till and cover crop arenas around 2013 to improve the farm’s water infiltration. He, like many farmers in his area, used a tillage tool called a dammer-diker to attempt to hold water in between the rows. However, that practice was far from perfect. “We started to see articles in newspapers and magazines that were talking about soil health and how to get better infiltration into the fields and into the soil,” he said. “So, we started playing around with that. As we progressed, we started to see that if we used less tillage and we used cover crops and left a residue on the soil surface, then it would allow the water to infiltrate much better and build up our soil structure.”

While water infiltration became a big benefit of these practices for Lance, it was not the only one. He sees a significant reduction in compaction and has found that he has far fewer weed problems. “I’ve also noticed that we’ve had fewer bug and insect problems – the plant has just been healthier and so we just haven’t had nearly as many issues with that,” he said.

“There were so many benefits to it,” Lance said. “When we realized that we could use less passes across the field, then it all became economic. So, the economics were a huge part, especially because in farming it seems like margins are tighter and tighter every year.” As time has gone on, Lance also feels confident saying he’s seen some yield benefits associated with his healthier soils.

One of the biggest challenges Lance faced when starting his soil health journey was the lack of knowledge in his area. It was very difficult for him to get information about how the practices worked out for individuals in his area, so he had to hunt for information. “I think the biggest barrier was just lack of local knowledge,” he said. “But the internet and newspaper articles and things like that helped greatly. You can get online and find people’s webinars and talks that they did at a no-till conference or things like that. That helped a lot.”

Lance hopes everyone will give these practices a try. “Pick out something you want to try this year, whether it be small or large,” he said. “Try a little bit that will not cause you to lose sleep and give it a try and see how it works. One way or another, you’ll learn whether it worked or not and then you can tweak it from there.” 

The factsheet from his interview can be found  here. 

Rick Jeans

Rick Jeans farms 3,000 acres of grass and cropland in Kay County, Oklahoma. Rick is a third-generation farmer and began farming after he graduated from Oklahoma State University in 1981. He has served on the Kay County Conservation District board for over 25 years.

Rick and his wife Diane grow mostly soybeans, grain sorghum and winter wheat, and 500 acres of their operation is in pasture for 100 heads of cattle. The operation has been no-till for about 30 years, and the pair have been using cover crops since about 2013.

“What got me into no-till was I had a neighbor down the road that had been doing some no-tilling of some soybeans; he was having really good results,” he said. Rick and his family started experimenting with the practice and saw success.

Rick and Diane got into cover crops around 2013 after a Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) State Soil Scientist from Diane’s leadership class came to their farm and encouraged them to try the practice. That first year, they tried a concoction of triticale, barley, oats, wheat, soybeans, Austrian winter peas, vetch, turnip and radishes. “We liked what we saw enough that it was like, ‘Yes, let’s try it again’. We’ve been doing it ever since,” Rick said. Rick has tweaked his cover crop concoction a little bit, but still plants five or six different species each year.

“I think what’s benefited me more than anything was getting the water in the soil,” Rick said, “The infiltration has improved drastically.” He’s seen his soil come to life with earthworms, and his soil organic matter has increased in several of their fields. He also no longer experiences compaction issues. “With this soil health stuff, we just don’t see the problems we used to have,” he said.

Economically, his reduced labor costs mean he can spray many more acres in a day with his sprayer. To farmers interested in trying these practices, Rick says, “Take it slow. Get your feet under you, that way you know if this is going to work for you, and you can increase it in the future.”

The factsheet from his interview can be found  here. 

Aaron Johnson

Aaron Johnson farms in Orland Township, south of Madison, South Dakota, two miles away from his uncle, Charlie. Aaron has been farming full-time since 2011, and Charlie has been farming with his brother Alan since 1981.

Aaron took over his parents’ operation from Charlie and relies on his partnership for use of heavy machinery and for flexibility when it comes to scheduling as he raises his young family. “I think it’s been pretty successful,” Charlie said. “We still plant and harvest together and help each other out as much as possible. It allows him to step out of the mentee role and become his own boss.” Aaron’s grateful for the mentorship. “Equipment aside, the thing I lean on the most is their advice,” he said. “I call them and from time to time they call me, and we call them the ‘guardian angel phone calls.’”

Aaron’s operation consists of 560 acres of certified organic land, 400 of which are tillable. He runs a six-year rotation with corn, soybeans, oats and alfalfa, with a cover crop of winter rye and some stock cattle. He employs minimal tillage, with a cover crop for three seasons to help build organic matter.

“In that six-year rotation, we’re able to maintain very healthy soils, high water infiltration rates - our organic matter is four percent plus in a lot of areas throughout the entire farm. It has a lot of consistency in dealing with Mother Nature as far as droughts and water - helps us buffer those ups and downs.” Aaron and Charlie have noticed better water retention, tolerance for wind and water erosion, increased micro-nutrients, and improved yield on their land.

Aaron has divided his operation into smaller-sized, 20- to 50-acre parcels, which he finds beneficial when trying to plant following bad weather, along with his rotation schedule. “It just reduces your risk dramatically,” he said. “You can pick and choose the fields you wanna go to. We can work with the land and put our fields where fields are fit to be put.” Lake County Conservation District has helped to keep Mother Nature at bay, installing terraces, assisting with tree plantings, and putting up retention dams. “You got land that can be good in one year and bad the next year, just depending on what nature brings your way,” he said.

Aaron’s advice for other organic farmers looking to boost their soil health is to “Gather other advice and seek out other organic farmers. The practices vary greatly. There is no set protocol - what happens in our area is different for other farmers 30 to 40 miles away. Climate and soil textures change, soil structures change as well, so seek those individuals out that have done some in their area - or have done a lot in their area.”

The factsheet from their interview can be found  here. 

Blaine Hitchens and Chip Baker

Blaine Hitchens is a third-generation farmer from Laurel, Delaware, who took over Chip Baker’s operation after he retired in 2018. Baker grew corn, soybeans, vegetables and watermelon, and Hitchens now rotates corn and soybeans and maintains a poultry operation.

Chip began with cover crops within the last 10 years and has kept the farm no-till since 1990. He began with radishes and experimented as he went, settling on a multi-species mix including cereal rye and a radish. Blaine has been no-tilling his own operation for the last 15 years, and now plants all of his cover crops by planting green. “We let our vetches and ryes go to full bloom and to head, and that way we are retrieving everything we can from that crop to feed our next crop.”

The fact sheet from their interview can be found  here. 

Rodney Rulon

Rodney Rulon is a fourth-generation farmer in Arcadia, Indiana, and runs Rulon Enterprises LLC with his cousins Ken and Roy, along with Roy’s sons, Nick and Neal. Together, they farm corn, soybeans and run a hog operation.

The Rulons have been no-tilling for over 30 years and utilizing cover crops for 20. “We had some people tell us about green manure crops,” Rodney said. “We started talking to people and started out back then with doing some field tests: 80 acres here and there of oats and radish and things like that. And that kind of developed, and every year we liked what we saw.” Rodney notes yield improvement, improved soil health and structure, increased organic matter, and better results from his no-till systems as a result of the incorporation of cover crops. “We kept expanding the acres and trying different mixes and [in 2019,] we had 5,400 acres of cover crops.”

The family operation has worked with the Hamilton County Soil and Water Conservation District and their local NRCS field office for guidance on buffer strips, grass waterways, no-till, cover crops, tile drainage management and nutrient and manure management. “We’re definitely conservation minded,” Rodney says.

The family’s decision to convert their operation to no-till came following decades of traditional tillage. “We just didn’t like what we were seeing,” Rodney said. Following months of heavy rainfall, “We were getting a lot of gullying and erosion. We talked to the soil and water [conservation] district people and NRCS, and we knew there had to be something that we could do that was better for the soil.”

Following the many benefits the Rulons have noticed as a result of soil health management systems, the family has conducted outreach to help others learn how their operation could benefit as well. “We were able to have field days and share information back and forth,” Rodney said. “For us, it’s always been more of a learning opportunity than teaching. We get new people on our farm, have an opportunity to exchange information with them and see what they’ve seen on other farms and what works, and try and figure out how to implement those things on our farm.”

“You’ve got to give it a try,” Rodney advises farmers interested in implementing soil health practices. “There’s a lot of people out there like myself that are willing to be mentors and answer questions and talk to you. I haven’t been to an area of the country where I didn’t find somebody that was able to make it work.” 

The factsheet from his interview can be found  here. 

John Heermann

John Heermann farms about 2,000 acres of rented land in Haxtun, Colorado. He grew up farming with his dad but then started farming on his own about seven years ago.

John grows a variety of crops each year, with no set rotation. He has grown rye, Austrian winter peas, yellow peas, chickpeas, flax, wheat, millet, milo, hairy vetch, woolly pod vetch and numerous different kinds of oats.

His main soil health practice, he says, is keeping the soil covered. To achieve this, he tries to keep a living root in the soil as many days as possible by cover cropping, companion cropping and/or inter-cropping. He also operates a zero-till environment, planting everything with a no-till drill or no-till planter.

“For the past five years, any time I harvest something, I pretty much follow the combine with my seeder and plant a diverse cocktail mix of my cover crops,” he said.

John’s operation is a dry-land operation that receives about 17 inches of annual rainfall. His soil health practices have helped him better infiltrate the water he does receive and has significantly reduced the soil and wind erosion off the farm.

“I have a lot of roots in there that I’ve had the last five years, and I’ve built up some of the organic matter and kept that soil covered,” John said. “So, as far as my water infiltration, it’s actually getting into my soil a lot better, and I’m able to get across these acres a lot more quickly after it rains.”

Following his first few years of cover cropping, John has seen his microbial activity improve. Through all of his practices, he has noticed that his fuel usage has reduced significantly. “I do some custom seeding, and I didn’t really notice that until I started doing other people’s fields and fuel consumption would jump up quite a bit,” he said.

John uses routine soil tests to monitor his many improvements. However, he says his biggest monitoring tool is his shovel. “If I’ve got earthworms and indicator species, then I’m going in the right direction. That’s kind of my best tool,” he said. “The tests are helpful, but, at the end of the day, I think your own eyes and a shovel are the best tool.”

The factsheet from his interview can be found  here. 

Alex Johnson

Alex Johnson has been farming in Scotts Hill, Tennessee, for about 17 years. On his primarily soybean operation, he has been 100 percent no-till for 12 years and has been planting cover crops for seven years.

He became interested in these practices after reading about them and talking them with his fellow farmers. “You’re always looking for a better way,” he said. “Whether it’s caring for humans or caring for the soil that’s on the farm for sustainability, the goals don’t change. It’s the same either way - looking for the better way to do it.”

Normally, Alex plants a cover crop mix of seven or eight species, because he recognizes the benefit of having species that might survive when others do not. In 2019, he planted a mix of crimson clover, Austrian winter peas, cereal rye, triticale, wheat, winter oats and tillage radish.

Alex has seen his soil and seed bed continuously improve throughout his years of cover crops. “The cover crops make a big difference,” he said. “The seed bed improves in terms of what you’re planting into. That becomes incredible after a few years of doing it.” His soils have become granular, with a strong, sweet, earthy smell. He has also seen an improvement in his carbon buildup, organic matter and water holding capacity.

Erosion has significantly decreased on his operation due to his practices. Alex recalls an ‘aha! moment’ a few years ago, when runoff from his field during intense rain was clear instead of muddy. “You can see clean water draining off from the standpoint where we know you’re not losing the soil, topsoil especially,” he said.

Another big benefit that Alex sees is weed control. “If you have a uniform stand, a very good cover crop, and you give it the potential to reach where it needs to be before you plant and terminate, you’ll see the benefits on weed control.” This benefit has allowed him to eliminate one post-emergent herbicide application, which he amounts to be a savings of $20-$25 per acre.

Alex admits that there was a big learning curve for him when starting these practices, but he learned quickly and thinks it is well worth it. To individuals interested in trying these practices, he says, “start with a few acres and learn how to manage that before you progress. But, I’ll also say that you can progress faster than you think.”

The factsheet from his interview can be found  here. 

Shun Binford

Shun Binford is a third-generation farmer from Athens, Alabama. His family has been on the land since the early 1910s and Shun was born and raised on the farm. Both his father and grandfather ran the operation before passing it on to him. Today, Binford Farms mainly produces grain and cotton, while utilizing both minimum tillage and cover crops.

Shun has been implementing conservation practices since 1997, including several approaches to tillage and cover cropping. He has learned that different approaches are needed for different people and circumstances. Shun has discovered that minimum tillage and rye and wheat cover crops work best for his operation.

Shun sought out cost share programs from the U.S. Department of Agriculture to help him get started with conservation practices. He stuck with it once he was able to reduce his fuel costs by making fewer passes across his fields.

In addition to the economic benefits, Shun sees how these practices are improving the health of his soil. The ground temperature stays cooler longer during hot spells, erosion has been reduced and he can access his fields earlier after a heavy rain. From his experience, Shun knows that it takes time to see results because using conservation practices means building the soil in a completely different way. He feels confident in the minimum tillage and cover crop system he has chosen, and looks to use irrigation on the farm in the future.

If he were to give advice to a farmer thinking about starting out with conservation practices, Shun said to “find one that works for you and that you can live with. Not necessarily what your neighbor's doing but the one that you can live with and financially sustain.” He knows that not all benefits will show up overnight and it takes patience, but said, “Once you find the benefit in it, there will be no trouble to financially sustain it, but you have to find the one that works."

The factsheet from his interview can be found  here .

Ian Cunningham

Ian Cunningham and his son, Richard, produce corn, soybeans, alfalfa and beef cattle on their farm, established in 1885 in southwest Minnesota.

Ian has farmed in Pipestone since the late ‘70s, and Richard has been farming in the partnership for three years, but the farm has been in continuous operation for more than 134 years.

The Cunninghams manage an intensive grazing system, growing some annual forages for the cow herd, and feed out all of the calves.

Ian’s predecessors recognized a need for less tillage back in the 1940s. “In 1967, my dad bought one of the first no-till planters in southwest Minnesota,” Ian said. They employed ridge-till in the ‘90s and began strip-till corn and no-till soybeans in the early 2000s. “We’ve been no-till ever since,” Ian said. “We try to incorporate cover crops on our land, at least once a year on every acre. And we also try to get the cows on every acre at some point throughout the year.”

Ian says they always try to do the practices that technology and available equipment allowed. “It’s been a natural progression, to have less disturbance, to keep the soil armored, to have more diversity than just a twocrop rotation, to keep living roots in the ground as much as possible.”

The Cunninghams are in frequent cooperation with the Pipestone Soil and Water Conservation District and received assistance from their local NRCS office with procuring an Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP) contract for interior fencing and water systems when they wanted to convert crop land into perennial forages as they expanded their cowherd. The district also helps with soil health assessments, and the Cunninghams utilize learning opportunities sponsored jointly by local conservation districts and NRCS.

They visually inspect the field and examine soil aggregation and soil structure regularly, conducting soil tests every four years when possible. Ian says he doesn’t view soil health systems as a cost. “I look at it more as an investment that we expect to get a return on the investment. The money we spend on cover crop seed wouldn’t begin to make the payment or put the fuel in a piece of equipment to do intensive tillage. It’s always a benefit.” 

The factsheet from their interview can be found  here. 

Jack Herricks

Jack Herricks is a third-generation dairy farmer in Cashton, Wisconsin. When he began farming, Jack had 34 cows and 120 acres. Now, he runs an operation of 620 cows, 540 of which are lactating, and approximately 1,400 acres of crops.

Jack’s operation is a true family operation, as he and his wife, Pat, farm with their son, Daniel, and daughter, Angie, and their families.

“It always amazes me how the same land that has been farmed by our family all these years, every year produces another good crop and keeps nurturing us and producing for us,” Jack said.

Jack began no-till farming in 1985, which he admits was a tough year. At that time, very few people knew how to set planters and drills for no-till farming. But, Jack says it’s like a marriage. “I made up my mind that I was going to be a no-till farmer,” he said “I’m going to make this work. I’m not going to give up on it.”

He has also been using covers since day one on his alfalfa acres and for about 10 years on his corn silage acres.

Jack says he was driven to try these practices by the desire to keep his topsoil in place. His farm is located on steep slopes, so soil erosion has always been a concern.

“Topsoil is a very limited commodity, or resource, and I just knew that if we were going to let it erode away that our farm was going to lose its productivity” he said. “I also realized that the more productive that we can make our soils, the more profitable we can be.”

Due to his soil health practices, Jack says his organic matter has increased, he can plant easier, and he has seen improved drainage and reduced soil compaction.

“The single biggest way these practices affected our farm is that it’s made us much more profitable,” he said. “So, over the years we’ve been able to purchase land and grow our farms so that we can have more family members involved in our farm. It has helped us reach a very favorable equity position. Without the benefit of these practices, I’m sure we wouldn’t be there.” 

The factsheet from his interview can be found  here. 

Tom Klug

Tom Klug and his brother Steve, raise corn, soybeans, cattle and small grain in Waseca, Minnesota.

Tom has been farming full-time since he graduated high school in 1975, forming TBS Farms as a partnership with Steve since around 1991. The farm, once operated by their parents, has been in the family for over fifty years.

Tom began implementing strip-till and no-till conservation practices more than 10 years ago. In recent years, he’s begun experimenting to determine which soil health practices are most effective on his operation. “We’ve got to get the right combination,” he said. “It’s just trying to get more out of the ground without taking too much out of it.”

Tom no-tills his soybeans and has found the most success with winter rye and field peas as cover crops. “It really loosens the soil,” he said. “The organic matter - they always talk about organic matter in topsoil - that’s only a portion of it. Most of your organic matter is underneath, from the roots. So, the more stuff you put onto the roots system, the better you are. That’s your soil building.” He’s also recently started planting tillage radish.

Farming in southern Minnesota, Tom says his greatest challenge is weather, including heavy, wet, cold ground each spring. Cover crops allow him to spread more manure, control weed populations, and fortify his cattle.

For farmers just starting out with implementing cover crops, Tom suggests, “Start with cereal rye, plant it in the fall. And don’t go the 70 pounds, go the 40 pounds, unless you’re gonna harvest it. Get a feel for what you’re doing, and then you can always go from there.”

The factsheet from his interview can be found  here. 

Jack Boyer

Jack Boyer has been farming for over 40 years. He’s been farming on his father-in-law’s century farm, which was established in Reinbeck, Iowa, in 1912, for over 15 years.

On his farm, Jack raises corn, soybean, cereal corn and seed corn. He strip-tills his seed corn and practices no-till on the rest of his acreage. “That has worked out great,” he said. “Fewer trips across the field, and I’ve done some trials with strip-till and no-till, and I’ve seen no degradation in the yields.”

Jack has been utilizing cover crops on his farm since around 2010, when he heard Ray Archuleta speak at a soil health conference. “He was talking about using cover crops, improving soil health, and slowing down the rate of degradation of organic matter,” Jack said. “It really caught my attention, because in a soybean/seed corn rotation, you return very little back to the soil.”

Jack first experimented with cover crops on 50 acres. In his first year, he saw some benefits, including water infiltration improvements. These improvements encouraged him to continue to increase his acreage until he had cover crops on all his acres four years later.

Jack plants all his soybeans green now and doesn’t terminate the cover crop until after planting. He’s found that his planting machinery flows through the field much easier with a green cover crop instead of a dead, crispy one. He also sees the benefit of extra weed control, as allowing the cover crop to grow longer created more plant mass to choke out weeds.

Jack is active with the Tama Soil and Water Conservation District and participates in a lot of on-farm research. For the past few years, he’s been conducting trials to attempt to reduce his nutrient inputs. His current trials have focused primarily on nitrogen inputs, but he hopes to further expand that to other inputs as well.

“The first thing that I suggest when someone is considering cover crops is to ask yourself what your objectives are,” Jack said. “For my operation, it started out to be building organic matter with secondary objectives of erosion reduction and nutrient capture.”

“People, you have to want it to work, you have to try, and you have to be willing to make some adjustments, perhaps, but it can work in every area,” he said.

The factsheet from his interview can be found  here. 

Stan Usery

Stan Usery has farmed in Limestone County, Alabama, since he was 15 years old, when he planted 23 acres of cotton. In the years following, he continued to farm part-time and increased his acreage throughout college. Now, Stan and his father farm 950 acres, which include the original 23 from 1997.

On their farm, the father-son duo grow cotton, corn, wheat and soybeans. They also own nine poultry houses, which produce more than 5.5 million pounds of meat annually.

“Cotton is our major crop, because it provides the most consistent performance under our climate and environmental conditions,” Stan said. He rotates cotton with wheat, corn and soybeans.

The operation has been 100 percent no-till since 1998. The practice, according to Stan, uses less fuel and labor, maintains better soil structure, and improves organic matter.

Stan has been using cover crops for many years on various crops and acres; however, the practice is still adapting for him. “Cover crop usage has kind of been an evolving practice on our farm, and it’s still evolving today. I haven’t figured out exactly,” he said. “I believe in them and I know that they work. But it’s a matter of learning how to best implement them on my farm.” Currently, he is trying to learn more about multi-species covers and how to implement them behind their cotton-grain rotation.

With his bachelor’s degree in agronomy and soils and master’s degree in plant pathology, both from Auburn University, Stan believes he has a greater understanding of what these practices are doing to his soils. “You’re just creating soil structure,” he said. That improved soil structure comes with more organic matter and microbes, which boosts soil health. “There’s a complex ecosystem underneath the soil, and anything we do to promote that ecosystem pays dividends,” said Stan. “I need to keep something living in that soil 365 days a year to keep feeding all the micro-flora and whatever is in the soil, including earthworms, because they’re turning the organic matter into usable nutrients.”

For Stan, there’s no doubt that these practices are worth it. “Conservation tillage and a general soil health plan is worth every penny that I’ve put into it. I feel like I get a return on investment - monetarily and from an environmental impact aspect.”

The factsheet from his interview can be found  here. 

Tracy Eriksen

Tracy Eriksen manages a 3,000-acre operation with his family in Saint John, Washington. On their operation, the family routinely grows winter wheat, spring wheat and canola and occasionally grows spring barley and peas.

Tracy has been farming for more than 65 years. He began his soil health journey in the mid-’70s as he recognized that erosion was a big problem and threatened the future of the farm. “The incident that really got me started on the soil health kick was watching a piece of wood go down the hill along with flowing soil as I was weeding one day,” he said. “I decided at that point that we really had to do something different or we weren’t going to have anything left here for my sons and future generations.“

Tracy started the journey by modifying equipment to combine operations so he could make fewer trips across a field. He claims it took him a bit of time to get the hang of it, but after 35 years of experimenting, he says the erosion has stopped. Since 1985, the Eriksens have progressed from high- to low- to an ultra-low disturbance no-till system on their farm.

“Besides the erosion, the main thing that I see is that we’ve been able to develop much better infiltration of water in our soils,” Tracy said. This better infiltration, combined with surface residue and improved soil structure from no-tilling, leads to more resilience under varying weather conditions.

The practice of no-till also allows him to get over acres quickly, freeing up labor for other endeavors.

One of the initial challenges Tracy faced was learning how to handle the residue. In 2010, he rented a CrossSlot drill in an attempt to mitigate this challenge, and in 2014, the family built their own drill using the CrossSlot technology. “From that point on, residue really hasn’t been a problem for us,” he said.

He hopes that more people will look at soil health and decide to try something on a few acres other than the normal. “So many operations are still farming as my grandfather farmed,” Tracy said. “It’s a really hard habit to break.”

The factsheet from his interview can be found  here. 

Rupert Burrows

Rupert Burrows is a third-generation farmer from Kingstree, South Carolina. His grandfather started their farm with his brothers and sisters, growing tobacco and vegetables. Today, Rupert farms with his uncle and grows corn and soybeans on 65 acres.

While Rupert has experimented with several different soil health practices, he has had the most success with cover crops. “I try to plant a cover crop on everything because a living root makes a difference in your soil health,” Rupert said. He uses other soil health practices on a case-by-case basis every year, depending on the crop and field conditions. Typically, he utilizes no-till on his fields 4 out of every 5 years, but he has struggled committing fully to no-till due to his equipment and the characteristics of his operation.

Rupert said he started experimenting with conservation practices to see if there was an economic benefit. “And what I found is that, once you get soil healthy and viable, you don’t need to apply as many pesticides and fertilizers,” he said. Rupert has seen more than just economic benefits from conservation practices. “I’ve seen better water infiltration and reduced my use of insecticides,” he said. Rupert has also seen more biological diversity and activity in his soil.

Looking forward to the future, Rupert hopes to get the soil in balance and minimize his use of chemical and fertilizer inputs. He plans to continue cover cropping and testing new approaches to better understand the effects of these practices. Beyond that, he likes to maintain an open mind and ear when deciding what comes next.

Rupert thinks everyone should try implementing conservation practices on their farm. “I see the long-term benefits, I see the need for growth,” he said. “We only have so much land and we need to do our best to take care of it and preserve it, not just for us but for future generations as well. We’ve got to figure out how we’re going to feed and sustain this ever-growing population while preserving the planet."

He believes that, even if producers aren’t sold on conservation practices yet, they should try it on a small portion of their operation. “Work with other growers who have implemented these practices to get a feel for it and for guidance, and you will definitely see benefits from it,” Rupert said.

The factsheet from his interview can be found  here .

Ron Synder

Ron Snyder farms 200 acres with his wife in Ohio, where they raise corn, beans, wheat and 700 head of hogs. Snyder also has grown triticale, hybrid rye and barley for a local malting facility in Cleveland.

Following careers as school teachers, the Snyders bought their farm in 1980. Ron also manages his father’s former property down the road, where he experiments with a tester field before moving practices to his operation. He also experimented within his backyard garden and quickly noticed improvements.

Ron began incorporating soil health practices on his operation about 10 years ago. “There was a lot of experimentation in the first six or seven years,” Ron said. “We started no-till, and I stuck with it years three and four - three was really rough, trying to get the soil to change over, but once it changed over and it started coming forward, it’s been gangbusters ever since. All my acreages are no-till, everything is no-till.”

“The living root is the key to the whole thing,” Ron says. “Get something growing down in the ground; as it goes down in the ground, it loosens the soil and creates something that’s in there. Quite honestly, let nature do it.”

The Snyders don’t have issues with erosion or runoff given their elevation. Ron began utilizing a roller crimper in 2018 and planted beans into six-foot standing rye. Since then, he’s using significantly less inputs and notices his land is better armed against extreme weather events. “We had a two-inch rain in 20 minutes,” he said. “I’ve never seen it rain so hard in my life. With that cover crop, it never hit the ground - it was hitting that rye cover. As it hit the rye cover, it dispersed and went down gently into the ground. There wasn’t hardly any water pounding on the field.”

As a result, Ron’s able to get on his operation and plant earlier than his neighbors, even when the fields are saturated. “The living roots that were in that soil were holding me up. Any place else where the soil was tilled, it was so mush you couldn’t get in there.” Ron notices better water infiltration and less ponding and is focused on increasing his soil’s microbiology. “If that is your goal, drive to that goal, because that one is going to encompass every other one in getting your organic material up there.” 

The factsheet from his interview can be found  here. 

Don Elsbernd

Don Elsbernd has been farming with his wife, Trish, in northeast Iowa for over 38 years. Their operation began as a crop and dairy farm, but eventually transitioned into a crop-only operation.

“I have always considered myself a conservationist, and we are always looking for ways to improve on what we are doing,” Don said.

Don and Trish have been practicing no-till and utilizing cover crops for many years. They have used many other conservation practices as well, including conservation buffers, contour farming, grassed waterways and variable rate technology.

“We use an integrated approach to conservation, but our most recent focus has been on soil health,” Don said. “We’re getting a better understanding of what healthy soil can do, and does do, for us. Its been an ongoing learning process for us.”

Throughout the years of utilizing cover crops and no-till, Don has seen many benefits. One of the first things he noticed with no-till was how his soil became more firm. Compaction has become less of an issue for him, and he’s almost stopped using that completely. Don has also seen an improvement in water holding capacity and weed control. While he has only seen a slight boost in organic matter, he expects to see bigger gains as time goes on.

“The benefits of these practices are absolutely worth what we are putting into them,” said Don. “If you’re increasing yields because of soil health, then there’s clearly an advantage to that. If you’re saving on nutrients, there’s an economic benefit there. If you start putting all of those things together, it doesn’t take long to get a return on investment.”

Implementing these practices has not come without challenges for Don. “In our region of the country, we have a relatively short growing season, and trying to establish cover crops after harvest creates some challenges,” he said. However, through experimentation, Don has found good success in seeding prior to Oct. 20.

To individuals interested in trying these practices, Don says, “gather a lot of information, talk to a lot of people, start small, and focus on an integrated system that works for your operation.” 

The factsheet from his interview can be found  here. 

Blaine Baker

Blaine Baker and his wife Barbara, along with Blaine’s brother Kim and his wife Donna, milk 500 cows and farm 2,300 acres on their operation, Bakerlads Farms, in south central Michigan.

Their operation is 100 percent no-till. They started experimenting with no-till in the 1980s and have been utilizing cover crops on all of their acres for over six years.

“The base of our cover crops is annual rye,” Blaine said. “We don’t use a lot of straight annual. We have annual with rye rape and rye rape clover.”

The Bakers have about three miles of buffers along their ditches – some of which were installed with assistance through CRP and CREP. Blaine started using filter strips around 1990 and applies fertilizer using variable rate technology and plants according to yield monitoring data.

“We started out no-tilling using a multi-coulter setup on the first corn planter, but that didn’t make it through the season,” Blaine explained. “Our second no-till planter was a double frame planter, so we had the weight needed to penetrate the soil to get good seed placement.” Now, he uses a planter that only has residue managers and spiked closing wheels. “We tried annual rye several years ago but had trouble killing it in the spring, so we quit using it. We now have that figured out and aren’t afraid to use it,” he said.

Blaine has seen numerous benefits from his soil health practices, including improved organic matter and reduced compaction and erosion.

“The soil holds up a lot better,” said Blaine. “That’s the beauty of the annual rye that we use. It shoots roots through some pretty hard stuff, and it goes awfully deep, so what compaction we are creating, we’re hoping that we are taking out with the cover crops.”

According to Blaine, the biggest challenge in using conservation practices is “just getting people to use no-till.”

“I have told several people that if you aren’t going to no-till, don’t waste your money on cover crops,” he continued. “They won’t help reverse the current soil health trend they are experiencing if they are going to destroy all of the gain with tillage. As far as our operation, we are committed to no-till, so when we purchase a new piece of ground, it gets no-tilled.” 

The factsheet from his interview can be found  here. 

Dr. Harold Wheeler

Dr. Harold Wheeler is a third-generation farmer from Greenwood, Mississippi. While he also has a license to practice medicine, Harold considers himself a true-blood farmer. “I come from living on a farm, working on a farm all my life,” Harold said. His family’s farming history dates back to the 1840s. In the beginning, the operation consisted of a vegetable farm, where they grew spinach and beans among other crops. Now Harold grows corn, soybeans and cotton.

Harold has been implementing different conservation practices since he began farming. They were using irrigation techniques in the early days of the operation and now he has introduced cover crops and planting green into some of his fields.

“I think we were always in the front of most of what other farmers were doing and so it was always talked about,” Harold said. “We were one of the first in the area to adopt 12-row equipment, and so we’ve always set out to do what we thought was the best.”

The main benefit Harold sees from using conservation practices on his land is increased yields. He finds that cover cropping wheat has been a dependable way for him to increase his yields and get a second crop. “We farm next to some of the best farmers in the Delta and have had yields to match any of the other farmers,” Harold said. In addition, utilization of conservation practices has allowed Harold to decrease his inputs and plant on time more consistently.

While he got started on his own, Harold has turned to NRCS on numerous occasions for technical and financial assistance to implement conservation practices. Specifically, he has used NRCS support to install irrigation systems on his farm.

Harold’s advice to other producers interested in conservation practices is to start first with a soil analysis. “Whatever’s in that ground comes on top, so that’s number one,” Harold said. “Once you fix the soil, then all the other issues, compaction issues and so forth, will follow.” In the future, Harold looks forward to trying new varieties and achieving the same success he has had with his current rotation.

The factsheet from his interview can be found  here .

Kenneth McAlister

Kenneth McAlister farms on 14,800 acres with his wife, Diane, in Electra, Texas. He grew up farming with his father and grandfathers, but began on his own in 1986 after he and Diane got married. Their farm mainly consists of cotton and winter wheat; however, some acreage is devoted to grain sorghum, canola, corn and sesame.

Kenneth started experimenting with no-till in 2003 and converted the entire operation to the practice in 2005. He began planting cover crops in 2013 and has been increasing his acreage each year.

One of the big benefits of his no-till operation is that he gets to spend more time with his family. “I’ll never forget farming with the chisel plow. You worked your butt off all year round, and you could come home to do paperwork last. Now, it seems like we work for a week spraying and then spend another week working on paperwork. The benefits there is that I get to spend a lot more time with my family,” Kenneth said.

Around 2005, his family tripled the acreage in his operation. This was a big undertaking, but, with no-till, he didn’t need to spend nearly as much money to manage the new land as he would have in a conventional operation. With conventional tillage, Kenneth said he would have needed four big tractors and four plows, with four individuals driving, and likely wouldn’t have been able to cover 1,000 acres in one day. With no-till, he can take his sprayer and do more than 1,000 acres, on his own, in a day. “We saved a big chunk of money on labor. Not only did we save money on labor, we saved quite a bit of money on fuel, because it takes a lot of money just to run those tractors,” he said.

Kenneth says the benefits to erosion have been tremendous. ”With the no-till farming, we’ve got the roots and the organic material standing out there, so when the water hits the standing plant or the residue, it’s not nearly as apt to bounce as it is against that soil,” he said.

“There’s costs and challenges involved, but it’s well worth every moment of it,” Kenneth said.

The factsheet from his interview can be found  here. 

Daniel Unruh

Daniel Unruh farms a 193-acre walnut orchard in Princeton, California. The walnuts were planted in 2010 and, since 2013, Daniel has been practicing holistic management to bring nature onto his farm.

“I’m using cover crops, integrated pest management as natural predators, beneficial insects, and reducing the amount of chemical and mechanical disturbance,” Daniel said. “I’m trying to work along with nature instead of against nature.” He has also not tilled any of his land since the summer of 2012, when he established his orchard floor.

Daniel decided to implement cover crops when he realized that traditional chemistry was not fixing his nematode problem. With a parasitic nematode count of over 5,000, he knew he needed to do something. “We had tried a myriad of different things with no success,” he explained. After hearing stories about cover crops helping vegetable farms in the Pacific Northwest manage their nematode problems, he decided to try it in his orchard. “That was basically the beginning of my quest for knowledge for holistic management and production ag systems,” he said.

“I noticed a 97 percent decrease in nematode population after three years of the white, yellow and nemagon mustard and daikon radish mix,” he said. “The nematode population has continued to decrease, and finally, we’ve begun to see new growth in trees affected by the nematodes.”

Daniel plants a diverse cover crop mixture and says that the best mix includes a minimum of three grasses, three forbs and three legumes. He notes that the grasses and legumes work synergistically together, helping raise his carbon to nitrogen ratio.

The benefits of his soil health practices are numerous and stretch far beyond the reduction in parasitic soil nematodes. His soil porosity has improved, leading to better water infiltration. He also sees less disease and insect pressure, creating less input costs, and has had virtually no erosion problems since he stopped tilling. The organic matter in his soils has jumped from about 1.7-1.9 percent in 2012 to 3-3.5 percent in 2018.

To Daniel, the costs associated with his practices are well worth the benefits he sees. “If you take nature, in the way it was created to be, you can produce more nutrient-dense foods with lower input costs than what you can with the nominal, conventional model,” he said.

The factsheet from his interview can be found  here. 

David Ransbottom

David Ransbottom farms soybeans, corn and wheat on about 3,500 acres in Claypool, Indiana. He runs his operation with his father, brother and oldest son. The family operation began with his father in 1971; however, the family has recently expanded it to its current size.

“We started no-tilling soybeans in the early ‘90s and did that for several years,” David said. “Then, we started to no-till corn,and from then on, we’ve just continued no-tilling corn and soybeans. 2007 is when we started using cover crops, and we’ve used cover crops on our acres ever since.”

The topography of their area and its associated challenges is what drove the family to begin conservation farming. “We have a lot of hills, and we were having a lot of erosion with the way we’d been farming, so we decided that we needed to look at doing something different,” David said.

David practices ‘planting green,’ meaning he doesn’t terminate his cover crop before planting. Instead, he lets the covers grow as long as they can, plants into them, and then terminates the covers. Learning how to use this practice was challenging and took a lot of patience, he says, but is well worth it.

“We’re seeing so much more resilience in our soil,” David said. “Our neighbors are always saying that you have to work the ground to be able to get things planted sooner. Well, we’re finding the opposite. If it’s a wet year, the cover crops are taking the excess moisture out, and it’s allowing us to be in there sooner than they are when they’re trying to work it and dry it out to be able to plant it. It’s a long-term system. You have to stay with it.”

After talking with his agronomist, David feel confident that his practices are helping him cut back on his fertilizer applications, among other benefits. “We are using some less nutrients than his other customers are. We don’t have the expense of all the tillage equipment and the extra man-power to make all those extra trips, either,” he said.

According to David, the hardest thing they had to learn was patience to wait for the right field conditions to do no-till planting and terminate the cover crop. “It’s definitely worth the effort,” he says. “You have to do it several years and put the whole system in place to get the full benefits, because it is a long-term investment, in my mind.”

The factsheet from his interview can be found  here. 

Marquitrice Mangham

Marquitrice Mangham has been farming for about 4 years in Charleston, Mississippi. Her family farm includes approximately 180 acres of cropland, where they grow soybeans and wheat. The land has been in her family for about 70 years and Marquitrice has been farming it for the last 4 years.

Although Marquitrice started with conventional tillage, she has moved towards minimum and no-till over the past few years. She moved to minimum and no-till for several reasons, one being decreased wear on her equipment. “I have very old equipment,” Marquitrice said. “The less I have to use my equipment in the field as far as tilling and dragging the disc, the less likely I am to have issues with breakdown.”

While Marquitrice was already familiar with financial assistance programs and conservation practices, she appreciated being able to turn to NRCS for support. “I got additional information on practices best suited for my operation from NRCS websites and factsheets,'' Marquitrice said. “After I read more about the economic and environmental advantages and how local offices could provide additional technical and financial assistance, I enrolled in several programs.”

Marquitrice said there are a lot of different benefits from conservation practices that she sees on her land. “Well one, it saves a lot of time. And as far as the economics, I’m not spending as much in maintenance as well as in chemicals to maintain weed and pest control,” she said. “I also get a lot of birds and other animals that come around that I didn't see before."

Marquitrice recognizes that change may happen slowly, and she has only been doing these practices for a few years. Her goal is to improve every year. She looks forward to continuing to add crop rotations to her operation and is hopeful that she will see more benefits from these practices in years to come.

The factsheet from her interview can be found  here .

Tim Cornie

Tim Cornie has been farming in Buhl, Idaho, since 1990. “I’ve always loved it and had a passion for farming,” he said. Tim runs an organic operation of about 750 acres, where he grows spring wheat, dried beans and popcorn. He also purchases 200-300 stocker cattle each year to feed on his cover crops and sell for weight gain.

Tim began using cover crops in 1994 and has incrementally added acreage ever since. After a trip to Argentina in 2014, Tim was inspired to use a no-till drill to plant his cover crops and has seen a lot of success when using it to plant peas. “Sometimes I’ll plant a spring pea, and sometimes I’ll plant a winter pea [with the no-till drill],” he said. “Then, I’ll try to get it almost to flowering, and then I’ll either leave it for the cattle or I’ll turn it into green to feed the soil.” He also likes to include buckwheat and tillage radish with his peas as a cover.

His cover crops have provided numerous agronomic benefits, including a significant boost in worm activity. “You see the increase in worms, and when you’ve got worm growth, you’ve got soil health,” Tim said. He’s also seen a boost in his soil’s water holding capacity, as well as a decrease in erosion.

Tim says that most of these benefits are visual. “The shovel tells you everything. When you dig it in there and flip it over, you see all the worms in there, you see the roots, you see the carbon, you see the last year’s straw breaking down,” he said. “Every farmer should be cover cropping,” Tim said. “I believe in cover cropping because of the soil biology, feeding the soil. We’re feeding the next plant with the root, a dead root, or a dead plant that feeds the next one.”

The factsheet from his interview can be found  here. 

Myron Johnson

Myron Johnson runs a 2,000-acre operation in Henry County, Alabama, with his wife. Their operation is broken down into 1,400 acres of row crops, including corn, cotton and peanuts; 400 acres for pasture; and 200 acres of grass and hay for his cattle. Since 2010, Myron has been practicing strip-till with cover crops.

Myron is a fourth-generation farmer who knows the benefits of managing his operation for soil health. “I can visually see the soil is healthier than it had been in the past. My increased crop yields confirm that fact,” he said.

When Myron began using cover crops, he used cereal rye as his base. He now uses triticale, as it’s easier for him to produce his own seed. Occasionally, he’ll mix the triticale with oats or wheat.

Myron’s operation is a dry-land operation and, with water being 600-700 feet deep, it’s too expensive to drill for water. “We were looking for a way to capture moisture and conserve it, and that’s a big thing that cover crops offer you,” he said. “So that was one of the things that really had me looking strongly at doing it.”

As he expected, his soil health practices have significantly improved his soil’s ability to hold and infiltrate water. This benefit has lead to a decrease in erosion off his operation as well. “This past winter, we had a lot of rainfall, and you can see the fields that have cover. If you go by them when the water’s running off the field, and it’s got to rain a lot for it to run out of a cover crop field, it’s going to be clear water,” he said.

Another critical benefit is the cover crops’ ability to keep his ground cooler - a benefit that’s extremely important for his peanuts. “Soil temperature’s a big deal when it comes to peanut production, and the covers shade the ground,” Myron said. “So, once you get past making a stand, now we’re talking about the real benefits of the covers, which are tremendous. Conventional doesn’t have anything to offer there.”

Myron is looking forward to what the future holds for agriculture. “I’m kind of excited about what’s new. We live, probably, in some of the best times in agriculture, as far as I’m concerned.” 

The factsheet from his interview can be found  here. 

Noah Williams

Noah Williams farms about 2,400 acres of winter wheat, spring barley and sunflowers with his wife in Wasco, Oregon. He harvested his first crop in 1998 after he came back to the farm following his service with the Coast Guard. At that time, his practices were conventional; however, in 2005, he switched his operation to no-till.

For about five years now, Noah has been incorporating cover crops on all of his owned acres. “It’s easier to do stuff on ground you own than it is on leased ground around here because most leases are percentages, not cash rents,” he explained.

For his cover crops, he uses a mix of multiple species. His standard mixture contains triticale, oats, forage collards and phacelia. However, he’s played around with a number of other species, including turnips, safflower and sorghum Sudan grass. “Really, the best mix I did was probably the second year I did cover crops, and it was triticale, oats, phacelia, forage collards, turnips, safflower, sunflower, common vetch and peas,” Noah said. He always likes to include a species for pollinators, normally phacelia, in his mixture to provide a natural habitat for pollinators in his area. “I think it’s healthier for my farm by having them in there,” he said.

One of the biggest benefits he’s seen from his soil health practices is weed suppression. Russian thistle is a common weed problem on his operation. “By growing the cover crop, it really seems to suppress the Russian thistles,” he said. On his cover crop fields, he’s able to use two spray jobs instead of the three or four he uses in his chem-fallowed ground. Another large benefit has been a reduction in compaction. Noah, with help from his local soil and water conservation district, has done compaction tests that have shown that he’s taken about 200 pounds of compaction out of his soil with just one crop. He’s also noticed that the cover crop helps lower his wheat stress following major weather events.

When possible, he likes to have cattle from neighboring operations graze his cover crops. “I mean, it’s like the top feed you can buy, so why not be grazing it?” he said. “You’re basically putting the money back into your own pocket.”

“Every year, I try to do a little more or something a little different – you have to learn to adapt to the situation,” he said. “In this area, we grow pretty much only winter wheat because it’s easy, does well, and the market is in our backyard, making for cheap freight. The downfall to this mindset is that many believe it’s all we can do, and I want to change that. I want to make the nay-sayers see that there are alternatives. It might not be as easy, but it will work and be better for our farms.”

The factsheet from his interview can be found  here.