Michael Vittetoe’s conservation efforts work to synchronize production agriculture with a vibrant ecosystem to produce nutritious food.
To say conservation is in Michael Vittetoe’s blood would be an understatement.
The Washington, Iowa, soybean and corn farmer joined the family operation in 2014 after working off the farm as an engineer for five years.
“We have long strived to be good stewards of the land by taking action to reduce soil erosion and improve water quality,” Vittetoe says.
In fact, Vittetoe’s grandfather was an early adopter of reduced tillage in the area, moving away from the use of the moldboard plow. Waterways, terraces and filter strips have also been an integral part of the operation for decades.
“Going way back, [conservation] has been a part of our operation essentially since its inception,” Vittetoe explains. “My dad was big on no-till back in the ‘80s when it was first starting to be a thing. The farm has been essentially no-till ever since.”
The family’s rich history in soil preservation is matched by its efforts to protect water quality through cover crops, waterways, terraces and filter strips.
“The goal is to keep all the soil here and as many of the nutrients here as we can so we can grow the best crop possible,” Vittetoe says.
Today, the Vittetoe operation, Long Creek Pastures & Janden Ltd., includes 50 head of cattle in addition to row crops, cover crops and pasture. Vittetoe’s grandfather, Leo, and father, Dennis, have a vast history in pork production, operating a farrow-to-finish hog enterprise for many decades before transitioning to the current contract grower arrangement.
Vittetoe’s sister, Anne, also returned to the family farm a few years ago.
The southeast Iowa family business is nestled amid a county home to abundant hog operations. With strong demand for feed, most of the farm’s corn is marketed to local mills, and soybeans are grown for Stine Seed Company and conventional use.
Crediting Cover
After more than a decade of using cover crops to help mitigate soil erosion on hilly fields, Vittetoe says they’ve used the practice on 100% of their row crop acres for the last two years.
“Over time, we began experimenting with cover crops on our flat, heavy clay soils to actively manage excess moisture in the spring, especially ahead of soybeans,” he explains. “As we gained more experience with cover crops, we observed lower weed pressure in fields with living rye.”
Vittetoe adds that, in many instances, no weeds were present. By integrating cover crops in their management plan, he says they’ve reduced chemical herbicide requirements by 60% to 70% in both corn and soybeans.
An in-row roller crimper was added to the operation in 2022 to terminate cereal rye in emerged soybeans. Vittetoe says the tool has great potential to help continue to reduce the chemical load on the farmland in the future.
“I see an opportunity to eliminate chemical herbicides in our soybeans in the near future as we continue to learn and gain experience with the system,” Vittetoe says.
Cereal rye is the primary cover, seeded on all of Vittetoe’s corn and soybean row crop acres.
“We’ve got a really good comfort level with cereal rye, and we know how to make it work,” Vittetoe says. “It’s really good at erosion control and weed control, as well as a number of other factors.”
For the last four years, Vittetoe has also grown cereal rye for seed production. And, he says they have found it beneficial to use the cover in what he calls “relay cropping.”
“We seed the rye in the fall like we normally would, and then we plant soybeans into it in the early spring and let them grow together for the first half of the growing season,” Vittetoe explains. “When the rye is mature, we harvest it over the top of the soybeans, and then the soybeans take over the second half of the growing season with a normal harvest.”
Vittetoe adds that the relay cropping helps them get two crops in one year, noting that traditional double cropping doesn’t work in their area because the growing season is too short.
“It’s a lot more complicated than just going out and growing straight rye or straight soybeans,” Vittetoe says. “There are a lot of variables at play, but it’s interesting, and I think it has very big potential to do really good things not only for profitability but for the ecosystem as well.”
Sowing Seeds
While the primary focus of the Vittetoe operation is on row crop production, conservation practices have also found a place in the farm’s forage and livestock entities.
According to Vittetoe, to help transition from row crops to perennial grasses in pastures, annual forages are being established in a setting like cover crops. He’s focused on using a diverse mix, which might include three to as many as 15 or 20 different species. Examples include clovers, peas, annual ryegrass, sorghum Sudangrass, millet and other warm-season varieties.
“It’s really interesting to see how some of those mixes work,” Vittetoe says. “I would like to get some of those other species into our row crop and cover crop rotation as well. You can use a lot of different crops when you have an entire growing season to work with.”
A believer in managing the ecosystem using regenerative grazing, Vittetoe provides habitat for every aspect of the soil food web, from soil microbes to insects to birds and mammals.
“The amount of life being sustained on those acres is exponentially higher than even our best-managed row crop acres,” he notes.
While Vittetoe recognizes the conservation efforts already in place on their operation, he knows change must continue for the farm to be more sustainable in the long term.
“I think there can be a future where production agriculture operates in sync with nature to create healthy ecosystems across vast landscapes,” Vittetoe explains. “There is a lot of biology in livestock that can benefit the soil ecosystem when it is deposited directly on the land. This helps stimulate the system to grow healthy crops, resulting in healthy food and hopefully, healthy humans.”
Living Legacy
As a third-generation conservationist, Vittetoe says the management practices first put into use by his father and grandfather helped set the stage for him and his sister to carry on the family legacy.
“Having those baby steps in place from one generation to the next makes it that much easier to transition into some of the new [management practices],” Vittetoe says. “Some of the things we’re doing now have allowed us to transition without it being such a massive leap.”
Still, conservation is a work in progress as some strategies prove fruitful while others can be a bit more challenging, like determining what species work best under certain growing conditions.
Vittetoe says now that the operation has cover crops and no-till in place, they have been able to leverage those for erosion and weed control—both of which help add value to the operation’s bottom line. His sights are set on moving to a chemical-free system in the future.
Once that is accomplished, Vittetoe says it will be possible to transition some acres to organic or another system to help secure a premium for the crops being grown.
A conservation advocate, Vittetoe participates in media interviews about the operation’s stewardship practices, including the YouTube series Iowa’s Front Forty for the Iowa Soybean Association, which celebrates the state’s conservation champions. He hopes the opportunities he’s been afforded encourage others to implement conservation practices on their acres.
“I believe in a future where production agriculture operates in sync with nature to create a vibrant ecosystem, healthy livestock, nutritious food and thriving humans,” Vittetoe explains. “We cannot successfully manage the food production system until we are able to grow healthy food to feed humans, while also feeding everything else that is a part of the natural ecosystem on production acres.”
Vittetoe’s stewardship efforts extend to the community by planting steam bank buffer strips to protect soil loss and prevent nutrients, including animal waste material, from escaping into neighboring water.
“We only get so much topsoil, and we only have the resources that we have,” Vittetoe says. “Once those get washed away, we can’t get that topsoil back. We need to do more than just conserve it. We need to get it healthy.”
With children of his own, Vittetoe says his goal is to help develop systems that will be functional not only now, but for generations into the future.
“It’s nice to be recognized for our efforts,” Vittetoe says, “but that’s not the reason we’re out here doing this. Hopefully, others can see what we’re doing so that it gives them ideas for things they can do on their operations to help create a healthy ecosystem.”
