Serving proudly since 1873 as the beautiful Nebraska Panhandle's first newspaper
Serving proudly since 1873 as the beautiful Nebraska Panhandle's first newspaper
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After listening to various speakers over the past month at the no-till conferences I attended, it became pretty obvious that we are working with degraded soils on our farms and ranches. The soils we work with now are not the same quality of soil that was present when farmers and ranchers originally began production agriculture on this land. The soil is lacking carbon, or organic matter as it is often referred to, when compared to the virgin soil our ancestors tilled for the first time when the sod was originally broken. I would estimate the...
The common thread that ran throughout the no-till winter conferences I attended in the past month is carbon. Adding carbon to the soil is critical to restoring health to the soil by increasing the organic matter content of the soil. Producers in today’s modern agricultural systems are working with soils that contain far less carbon than our soils originally contained prior to the implementation of modern agriculture. All of our soils are now degraded. The good news is we now know how we can regenerate our soils and put the carbon back in the s...
Over the past couple of weeks, I attended No till On the Plains winter conference and the Colorado Conservation Tillage Association’s High Plains No-till Conference. I enjoyed both conferences and felt each had a lot to offer. After getting home and taking some time to think about what I learned, it dawned on me that nobody told me anything about how to farm. Not one speaker told me how deep to plant my corn, what herbicides to use or what crops to plant. I still left both conferences with knowledge about how to improve our farming o...
One of the pleasures of traveling to the various winter conference meetings and summer field days I attend is getting introduced to some real innovative producers and researchers who strive to really make a difference in modern production agriculture. Last week, I visited about our tour to Dakota Lakes Research Farm near Pierre, S.D., and the Burleigh County Soil Conservation District, in Bismarck, N.D. Dwayne Beck, farm manager for Dakota Lakes, and Jay Furher, head of the Burleigh County Soil Conservation District, are two of the innovative...
I am the chairman of the Panhandle No till Partnership. I wanted to share with you more about our partnership, our educational opportunities and an exciting new project that I think the producers in our region will find very interesting. The Panhandle No till Partnership members include the Upper Niobrara White, South Platte and North Platte Natural Resources Districts, representatives from the local offices of the Natural Resource and Conservation Service, Panhandle Resource Conservation and Development and myself. Our mission is to provide...
The Panhandle No-till Partnership is hosting the Panhandle No-Till Conference on Feb. 10-11. The conference is to be held at the Gering Civic Center beginning with registration at 8 a.m. each day. The local Natural Resources Conservation Service offices in the panhandle have mailed the brochure to producers with the conference agenda and the preregistration form included. This information is also posted on the PNTP website at www.panhandlenotill.org. Pre-registration is appreciated so the meal counts for the conference will be accurate....
On Feb. 3 and 4, I’ll be attending the 27th Annual High Plains No-till Conference. The conference is hosted by the Colorado Conservation Tillage Association and is held each year at the Community Center in Burlington, Colo. I’ve spoken at this conference in the past and have attended the conference over the past several years. This year I will get to just sit back, listen and learn from some excellent speakers lined up. I enjoy this conference as it is a smaller version of the No Till on the Plains winter conference. The CCTA conference att...
I’m headed to Salina, Kan., again this year for the 19th Annual No Till On the Plains Winter Conference. This year’s conference is scheduled for Jan. 27-28. I’ve attended this conference for the past 10 years or so to attempt to educate myself more about the benefits of continuous no till crop production systems on our farm. I’ve been looking over the agenda for this year’s conference and I’m intrigued by the lineup of speakers for this year’s conference. I will be part of the speaker group as I’m teaming up with Paul Jasa, UNL extension educat...
I feel like we’re at important cross roads with the field pea industry here in our region. We have grown the field pea industry from a grass roots movement to what it is today. Today, we have expanded to 30,000 acres of field peas in our region with the opportunity to grow much larger. We need to continue to develop this industry that will add to the economy of our agricultural community. Field peas don’t really compete with other crops grown in our region as they mostly replace summer fallow acres in our traditional winter wheat/summer fallow...
I would like to start off by wishing everyone a very Happy New Year! This is a good time to reflect on all the blessings and challenges the past year brought to us. It’s also a good time to look forward with a renewed anticipation of the events the coming year will bestow upon us. I’m often asked at this time of the year what farmers do during the winter months. I guess folks figure if there isn’t corn growing in the field there isn’t much going on in the farming community. I’ll often respond that this is the time of year when producers meet wi...
I’d like to start off by wishing everyone a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year! This is a good time of year to reflect back on last year’s growing season and give thanks for all the many blessings we have received. There are always challenges in agriculture but at the end of the year we are lucky to be able to work with Mother Nature and our natural resources on a daily basis to produce food and fiber for our livelihood. I wanted to make everyone aware of the upcoming educational events around the region that focus on no-till crop and fo...
I recently attended a workshop on the new farm bill. The workshop was hosted by UNL Extension and our local FSA office. I truly appreciate the effort by these organizations to attempt to educate local producers on the decisions producers will need to make concerning the new farm bill. It was obvious to me after attending the workshop and visiting with other producers that this is an extremely complicated farm bill. There are several options producers can choose from and it doesn’t appear there are any clear cut options that will be the best. I...
Last week, I had a producer call to visit about weed control in continuous no-till crop production systems. The conversation started with what herbicides we use to produce our crops. I explained to the producer that herbicide selection is very important, but not the whole story when it comes to controlling problematic weeds. I’ve always felt that the place to start with good weed control is with solid management strategies. Implement good management practices on your farm and use herbicides to control the weeds your management strategies may h...
I would like to start off by wishing everyone a very Happy Thanksgiving. We’ve all got a lot to be thankful for. Last week I wrote about how we drilled our edible bean crop this year in 7.5-inch rows with an air seeder. Prior to this year we had been planting our beans in 15-inch rows with a planter. I wanted to share with you some observations I made during the growing season and some changes we plan to make next year. Let’s start by looking at the edible beans in our cropping rotation. We have been planting our edible beans in a crop rot...
We drilled our edible bean crop this year rather than planting them with a planter as we’ve done for the last several years. I think we learned a few lessons from this year’s bean crop that I would like to share with you. Let’s start by taking a look at how we planted this year. We had drilled edible beans several years ago and had good success. We planted that bean crop into winter wheat stubble. This first experiment worked well with two exceptions. We didn’t feel we had as good of a plant stand as we would have liked, and we had to load th...
Last week, we looked at two of the rotations Dwayne Beck uses on his dry land acres at the Dakota Lakes Research Farm, Pierre, S.D. The first rotation is a simple rotation of cool season grass, warm season grass, and cool season broadleaf. A lot of continuous no till crop producers use this rotation on their farms. We use this rotation of our farm with a rotation of winter wheat, corn, and field pea, then back to winter wheat and repeated. This rotation utilizes two thirds high residue crops which produce enough carbon to the system to...
I wanted to take a look at the dry land crop rotations designed for the Dakota Lakes Research farm. Dr. Dwayne Beck has given careful consideration to the rotations in place at the research farm. I think looking at his rotations may give helpful insight to designing rotations for my farm. Designing the proper crop rotation for your farm is the single most important consideration to successful no-till crop production in my opinion. Beck has many publications that address the concepts for planning a good rotation for your individual farm. I...
The final stop on our tour at the Dakota Lakes Research Farm in Pierre, S.D., was a look at the dry land portion of the farm. I’ve always felt dry land farming is much more interesting than irrigated farming. The ability to irrigate can mask some deficiencies in cropping rotation and soil health. On dry land acres, there is much less room for error. Proper management of crop rotations is critical to the success of a continuous no-till cropping system. Lack of carbon inputs, lack of sufficient residues to protect the soil surface, poor crop d...
The Menoken Farm is located outside Bismarck, North Dakota. This is a farm owned and operated by the Burleigh County Soil Conservation District. The Menoken Farm is a 150 acre educational farm dedicated to restoring the health of the soils on the farm. The Menoken Farm is a farm every producer involved in production agriculture should visit. The Burleigh County Soil Conservation District team is moving this farm toward sustainability by eliminating fungicides, insecticides, GMO’s, and commercial fertilizer. They are also minimizing h...
I’ve been thinking about the value of water and what this resource means to our communities. I suspect if we didn’t have this valuable resource our landscape would look quite a bit different than what we are now accustom to seeing. Since we have tapped into this resource we have experienced significant economic growth in our agricultural community, primarily with center pivot irrigation. So what is the economic value of the water? If we look at the economic benefit to producers we could figure increased yields in our crop production. There is...
Our final stop on our field tour of farms and ranches in Burleigh County, N.D., was a visit to the Black Leg Ranch. It’s owned and operated by Jerry Doan and his family. Jerry greeted us in his farm yard and visited with us about his operation and his commitment to agriculture. It was obvious from listening to Jerry that he has a real passion for the agricultural community. Jerry has worked with numerous associations and university research members over the years to help guide agriculture in his region. Jerry has a real burning desire to i...
I’d like to continue visiting about our tour of the Burleigh County Soil District near Bismarck, N.D., that a group of producers from our region went on a few weeks ago. I find the approach the producers in this region are taking to improve soil health is something we can all learn from. These producers are taking the steps down the path toward improving the health of the soil they have on their farms and ranches. After enjoying a lunch at the Menoken Soil Health Research farm south of Bismarck, we continued on our tour to the Small Angus R...
Last week I talked about our soil health tour to North and South Dakota. We looked at all aspects of high quality no-till crop production and grazing practices implemented on farm and ranch lands in the region. Everyone on our tour came away with a greater appreciation for the work these individuals are doing to improve the health of the soil they work with on their farms and ranches. We started our tour in Burleigh County, North Dakota with Jay Furher and his Burleigh County Soil Conservation team hosting our group. Jay took us out the first d...
After visiting with producers around the Panhandle, I would guess that the winter wheat and field pea harvests that have just wrapped up are going to be some of the best crop yields this region has recorded. We were blessed with good fall, spring and early summer precipitation around our region and the yields reflect the abundant moisture we received. There were some areas that experienced significant hail damage from some of the severe weather in our area. Aside from these pockets of hail damage, I would guess the crops are some of the best th...
Last Friday I was invited to Alton Lerwick’s farm. Alton works with his sons, Grant and Dean, on their no till crop production farm and ranch. They integrate cattle into their farming operation with the use of forage crops as part of their cropping rotation. Alton and I share a similar educational background having both graduated from the University of Nebraska with degrees in agronomy. Alton had invited Dr. Gary Peterson to tour his farm. Dr. Peterson taught Alton and I soil science classes. Along with Dr. Peterson, Dr. Joe Brummer, a Colorado...
