Changing Attitudes
Wisconsin farmer Tom Perlick blazes a conservation trail when others said it couldn’t be done.
They said he couldn’t. He knew he could.
Tom Perlick’s conservation journey is all about changing attitudes.
From coming back to the family farm after his father’s untimely death to charting his own course in unexplored management techniques, the now-veteran farmer is a pioneer in the northwest Wisconsin conservation frontier.
Facing Adversity
Perlick’s family has farmed in Beaver Brook Township, Washburn County, Wisconsin, since 1920. His parents purchased the farm he now lives on in 1958. Though dairying was long in his heritage, Perlick opted to sell the cows to a cousin after his father unexpectedly passed away in 1994.
“It was very important for me to keep the farm in the family,” Perlick explains.
At the time, Perlick owned a crop consulting company in Minnesota. For the first three years, he drove 100 miles each way to plant and harvest crops. A member of the Army National Guard, Perlick was charged with balancing military duties with farming, crop consulting and family. After a few busy years, he moved to the farm in 1998 and retired from the National Guard to concentrate on farming, crop consulting and family.
During the first year of farming, Perlick grew 30 acres of spring wheat and 25 acres of corn. Acres were added until the operation capped at 3,000 acres in 2018. When he turned 60, Perlick downsized the operation to its present 1,800 acres.
Following in his father’s footsteps, Perlick took to the fields with the same moldboard plow.
But Perlick recalls thinking there had to be a better way to prepare the soil for the growing season. He turned to a Rawson Zone-Till System, started by Michigan farmer Ray Rawson, where the planter is hooked behind an attachment that runs three fluted coulters/rows to make a strip. Perlick now uses a strip-till system with a Montag air cart and RTK GPS to make the strips before planting. When he first started with the Rawson system, he says the neighbors kept asking when he was going to plant.
Rocks became a limiting factor in the success of the Rawson Zone-Till System. Perlick says he needed a system that was a better fit for the type of soil in the region. That’s when he says he really got serious about no-till.
“For soybeans and small grains, I bought a CrustBuster no-till drill and planted with that,” Perlick explains.
With Roundup Ready crops not yet on the market, Perlick says weed control was challenging.
“It was such a challenge because nobody else was doing it, and everybody said it [no-till] couldn’t be done,” Perlick notes.
Still, the veteran farmer recognized that no-till was better for the soil and less labor-intensive than conventional tillage practices.
“We have really fragile soils here,” Perlick says. “We don’t have a lot of topsoil. We’ve got sand, silt loam and loamy sands. And we’ve got a lot of lakes and rivers and streams; there are at least 20 lakes within a 4-mile radius of the farm. It was very important to me to conserve the quality of our environment here in the county.”
Charting Course
Perlick’s first experience growing cover crops was anything but a huge success. In fact, the self-professed “epic fail” sent the conservationist to dig deep into what he had done wrong.
“Cover crops were just getting started,” Perlick explains. “I had no idea what I was doing. I’d heard a little bit about them, and I didn’t get them terminated in time.”
Perlick took a time out from cover crops to research, study and learn about what the practice could bring to his operation. His second run at growing cover crops, though, would prove more successful, and since has expanded to include about 500 acres of cover crops in his rotation.
“We never stop learning, and what we think works now, five years from now, we might find a much better way,” Perlick says.
Corn, soybeans and small grains are no-tilled with a cover crop sowed behind the small grains. Perlick says using tillage radishes, oats and barley as a cover crop has improved soil health, soil porosity and reduced erosion.
Learning what cover crops could bring to his operation has been amazing, Perlick says, as the number of earthworms alone on his farm have grown exponentially.
“Soil health is what I think it’s really brought to us,” he explains. “We’re learning so much more about how the mycorrhizal fungi, different bacteria and living organisms that are in the soil make our soil more productive and healthier. We minimize erosion to the maximum amount that we can.”
Charging Forward
While land stewardship is foremost in Perlick’s management regime, turning a profit is the bottom line.
“We can have all the best intentions in the world and want to do all the right things we can, but if you’re not making money in your operation, you’re never going to be able to do those things,” Perlick explains.
Because the river market and other end users are 70 miles or more from the Perlick operation, transportation costs have shifted Perlick’s thinking to value-added opportunities for the crops he grows.
More than 20 years ago, the Wisconsin farmer started growing sunflowers. Initially, it was to produce biodiesel, in 2006 and 2007 he operated the entire farm on the biodiesel produced from the sunflowers grown on the farm. Now the sunflowers are cleaned, bagged and sold as birdseed throughout northwest Wisconsin both on the farm and through retailers. About 25% of the corn Perlick produces is sold in
50-pound bags as shell corn for recreational feeders or hunters.
“I can add value right here on our farm and not have the cost of transportation eating away at margins,” Perlick explains. “The other thing that’s good about that is I can set my own price versus having to rely only on a commodity price. We’re trying to be a price maker.”
Perlick’s operation further adds value to its crops through an on-farm distillery, which opened in 2014 when Perlick’s son returned to the farm after serving in the Air Force, then college and law school.
The move has helped the farm develop an alternative market for the small grains it grows. Perlick initially converted a two-story dairy barn into the distillery and tasting room. As that segment of the operation grew, another building was remodeled to accommodate the needs of the distillery and tasting room. Two additional expansions have since been made to accommodate customers.
“We make all the distilled spirits out of barley and wheat grown on the farm and water from the well,” Perlick explains. “So, everything that comes out of the distillery is made from what we grow here on the farm. We are one of the very few estate distilleries.”
Living Legacy
Tom Perlick’s roots run deep in Beaver Brook Township; his great-grandfather, Edward Perlick, immigrated to the area from Germany. He purchased land initially in 1919, bought more and moved there to begin dairy farming in 1920.
While Perlick chose crop farming over carrying on his family’s dairy legacy, the veteran farmer has blazed a trail all his own when it comes to conservation and land stewardship.
In the infancy of his farm business, Perlick had his sights on keeping the farm in the family. He also hoped to one day pass the heritage onto his children and enable them to experience farming if they chose.
All the while, the steward focuses on sharing his agriculture story with others.
“I get a chance to talk to a lot of people about agriculture, about farming, what we’re doing, why we’re doing it, how we’re doing it, why it’s important for me to take care of my land and be a good steward,” Perlick explains.
“We have to make sure we have good, healthy soils in order to grow good, profitable crops,” he says. “They go hand in hand.”
During his tenure, Perlick has far exceeded no-till and cover crops. From wetlands restoration to forestry management, pollinator plots and critical area seeding to manure pit remediation, nitrogen rate studies, grassed waterways and beyond, Perlick’s conservation legacy is all about changing attitudes. When others said he couldn’t succeed, he proved them wrong.
“There’s really only one thing in our entire lives that we have control over,” Perlick concludes. “It’s our attitude. Everything else is out of our control.”
