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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Over the past four weeks I have had the good fortune to travel to four regional conservation agriculture meetings. These meetings are all billed as no-till meetings in Kansas, Colorado and Nebraska. What we have learned over the years is that no-till is a tool used in conservation agriculture but is not the “end all” to soil health. All of these meetings are focused on improving the health and performance of the soil which we work with on our farms and ranches. Improving soil health is the end goal in conservation agriculture and using no-...
As I mentioned in previous articles we view water conservation on our farm as a systems approach to saving water. Thus far I have talked about utilizing no-till crop production techniques to minimize soil disturbance and adopting a dynamic crop rotation. Another component to water conservation we have implemented is to produce a forage crop following our irrigated winter wheat harvest. I struggled with this decision since we are producing another crop on our irrigated acres which will require some irrigation. This contradicts our whole idea of...
Water conservation in irrigated crop production has to be viewed as a systems approach to conserving water. As I stated in previous articles I think water conservation starts with improving the performance of the soil. Another key component to a systems approach to water conservation is choosing a dynamic crop rotation for your farm or ranch. The crops you choose to produce have to be profitable, provide a good agronomic rotation, be relatively high in water use efficiency and require less irrigation for high yields. On our farm we have chosen...
I’ve been busy building my PowerPoint presentations for the No till On The Plains and High Plains No till winter conferences. I’ve been asked to speak about water conservation at each of these conferences. I’ve always thought that our limited groundwater supply would be a driving force in the adoption of continuous no till crop production practices in our region on irrigated acres. Surface water irrigation is a moving target as the levels of surface water fluctuate with the snowfall in the mountains and precipitation during the growing seaso...
Many of you may remember Dr. Jonathon Lundgren, a former entomologist with USDA-ARS in Brookings, S.D. Dr. Lundgren spoke at our Panhandle No Till Partnership winter conference a few years ago. Dr. Lundgren is a very enthusiastic and dedicated entomologist and his passion for his work shows in his presentations. Dr. Lundgren was very well-received at our conference. Dr. Lundgren has recently left the USDA-ARS research center in Brookings, S.D., to embark on a new career which I think is going to be fascinating to watch as this new career...
I would like to wish everyone a very happy and prosperous new year! I thought I would inform everyone on some upcoming regional conservation agricultural events that I’m sure will provide excellent educational opportunities to producers. I have been attending these regional meetings for several years and I always feel that this has been time well spent. You get to listen to educators speak about all kinds of topics relating to conservation agriculture and network with like minded producers from around our region. I’ve learned a lot over the yea...
I’ve met a lot of really interesting and enjoyable people through my travels and involvement with conservation agriculture and continuous no till crop production. Two of my favorites are Brian and Keith Burns. Brian and Keith took it upon themselves to establish Green Cover Seed. Green Cover Seed is a cover crop/forage crop seed distribution business. Brian and Keith decided early on with the establishment of cover crops that someone had to become a distributor of the vast variety of seed needed for these cover crops. They have built their b...
I would like to start by wishing everyone a very Merry Christmas! I hope everyone is surrounded by family and friends to share in the holiday season together. This is a truly wonderful time of the year! There is an educational opportunity for everyone interested in no-till crop production practices that is easy to use and is generated via email across our state. Once you belong to the listserv.unl.edu, you are able to post an email on any topic you are interested in discussing about no-till crop production. Your email goes out across the state...
In the past, I’ve spoken at No-till On the Plains and the High Plains No-till Conference and been asked to cover looking back at our history of no-till crop production and the evolution of my no-till farming experience during this time. My sister, Janet, gave me a memory stick for my computer for Christmas several years ago. Janet scanned all my parents photos and slides over the past 60 years on this memory stick. I’ve been looking at these photos and reminiscing as well. One of the slides that I’ve added to my presentations shows me stand...
Last week I visited about the results of the biological tests we ran on our winter wheat stubble, which showed very low microbial activity. The winter wheat sample had a total microbial biomass number of only 1,248.84. This low result would be expected since there is not much actively growing in the field and the residue is a high carbon-low nitrogen type residue. This high carbon-low nitrogen type residue explains why winter wheat residue is valuable in our region as the residue is hard to break down and lasts a long time. The winter wheat...
Modern day agricultural producers are constantly striving to lower production costs and improve their stewardship of the land. Many producers have adopted conservation agricultural systems as a means to lower production costs and improve the health of the soils we work with on our farms and ranches. Leaving previous crop residues attached to the soil surface helps protect these soils. Using no-till crop production methods that provide minimal soil disturbance when planting and harvesting the crops also improves soil health. As these methods...
As you look back through agriculture there have been some real turning points. Agriculture saw the first real leap into production agriculture in our country with the Industrial Age when mechanized agriculture really changed the face of our country. Larger and larger farms were created as it became possible to produce crops on many more acres. The next big breakthrough came with the Green Revolution where fertilizers, pesticides and plant breeding really came to the forefront and were adopted on a wide scale. This lead to increased yields on...
I want to start by thanking everyone for their well wishes following my knee replacement surgery. Everything went well with the surgery and I’m now going through the physical therapy getting a full range of motion back in the knee. I have always thought living in rural western Nebraska is a great place to be where everyone is surrounded by friends, family, and neighbors who are truly concerned for the well-being of one another. Judging from the view from my couch looking out the window and my trips to the doctor’s office and therapy, we hav...
Dr. Dwayne Beck from the Dakota Lakes Research farm near Pierre, S.D. will be presenting at the upcoming PNTP Winter Conference, Feb. 23-24, 2015, at the Gering Civic Center. He often begins to engage his audiences by asking the producers in attendance where they want their farms to be in 60 years or 600 years. He wants the producers to look to the future and start making decisions now to start building their operations to match their vision. Dr. Beck also points out that with today’s modern approach to crop production our ecosystem is l...
Our way of life in agriculture across the breadbasket of America is being threatened by special interest groups who disagree with how we conduct our business. These special interest groups disagree with how we produce the food which feeds the world. Our image as stewards of the land and livestock is being tainted and it’s important we start telling our side of the story. These special interest groups are well organized and well funded. Their sole intention is to dictate policy so the food we produce conforms to their standards. These groups do...
The United Nations estimates that the world population has now surpassed 7.3 billion humans living on our planet. It took 123 years, from 1804 to 1927, to go from a population of 1 billion to 2 billion people on our planet. The United Nations estimates it will take only 10 years from now to add another billion people and reach 8,000,000,000 people in world population. World population will grow an average of 78 million people per year. That is a rather amazing and sobering statistic. The strain on our planet’s resources to cloth, feed, and supp...
One of the best visualizations I’ve heard for managing your soil moisture and the precipitation you receive is to compare your soil’s moisture holding capacity to a bucket. The size of your bucket depends on the soil texture, organic matter content and soil structure. With good surface residues, you can get the precipitation you receive to infiltrate the soil and start filling the bucket. If you have good soil structure you can get the moisture to the bottom of the bucket, and if you have good organic matter content your soil will act as a spo...
Last week, I had the pleasure of speaking to Ron Bolze’s students at Chadron State College. Bolze invited me to speak to his farm and ranch management class. I really enjoyed getting back in the classroom to visit with tomorrow’s leaders in agriculture. The students were very interested in my topic of conservation agriculture and how we can work towards adopting conservation agricultural systems to produce food, fiber and fuel. I really think the next generation is more focused on their environment and see the long-term benefits of adopting con...
Last week I introduced you to Rattan Lal, director of the Carbon Management and Sequestration Center at Ohio State University. Lal published an article on his concepts for developing a conservation agricultural system for our farms and ranches. His concepts involve adapting five steps towards a complex conservation agricultural system which concentrates on improving the soil’s health as we move into the future of production agriculture across our nation. Last week we looked at the first three steps in adopting this system. The first of these s...
During my conversation with Dr. Dwayne Beck a few weeks ago, Dwayne told me he had a couple of articles he wanted to email me to read about a systems approach to conservation agriculture. I really like the sound of conservation agriculture a lot better than I like no-till. No-till began as a simple way to lower labor, machinery and fuel costs to produce crops. These were the reasons we looked to convert from conventional tillage winter wheat/summer fallow on our farm to no-till. We started much the same as many producers and simply replaced...
I had a nice visit with Dwayne Beck the other day. Many of you are familiar with Beck as he has been a pioneer in no-till crop production in the High Plains. He manages the Dakota Lakes Research Farm near Pierre, S.D., and will be celebrating their 25th year of operation at this farm in September. Beck has spoken at numerous no-till field days and winter conferences around the region including our own Panhandle No-till Partnership’s winter conference. You’ll be happy to know that he has again agreed to speak at our PNTP winter conference aga...
Field pea production on our farm this year proved to be interesting, much like all the other crops we’re growing. With all the abundant moisture you would hope this would equate to bumper yields. Other growing factors such as hail, cold spring temperatures, late snow storms, late freezes, and disease made growing the field pea crop a challenge. On our farm the field pea yields ranged from 0-70 bushels per acre depending on circumstances. I have heard of some very good yields this year around the Panhandle. I heard of dry land field peas m...
My knee replacement surgery has been put on hold. I developed a bacterial lung infection prior to surgery. My doctor put me on antibiotics for a period of five days that lowered my white blood cell count, but not to normal levels. I then took another 10 days of antibiotics and I’m scheduled to go back in for more tests soon to see if I’m healthy enough for surgery. It turned out to be a blessing that my surgery was postponed as my son Jacob, who works on the farm with us, was diagnosed with pneumonia. There appears to be an unusually high incid...
During the Panhandle No-till Partnership’s field days, practices on irrigated acres were discussed. The farms we visited have been using the standard irrigated no-till crop rotation of winter wheat, corn, dry edible beans and back to winter wheat. Some of the producers are now including field peas as part of their crop rotation. On our farm, we have moved to a winter wheat (followed by a forage crop), dry edible bean, corn, field pea crop rotation. We feel this rotation will be a better agronomical rotation for the crops we grow. We think t...
One of our visits during the Panhandle No-till Partnerships field days included a morning tour of the High Plains Ag Lab located near Gurley. Cody Creech and Karla Jenkins took the time out of their busy schedules to show our group the exciting research they are conducting at the University of Nebraska research farm. I really appreciate all the hard work Creech and Jenkins do to help agricultural producers in our region. I also want to thank them again for taking our group for a tour of the research farm. I found the yellow field pea variety...
