Learning by Doing: Find out how cover crops, cost share practices can add value to your farm.
Angela Knuth knows the farm she and her husband, Kerry, manage will look very different in the future.
That’s why the couple stays educated on trends in the industry and actively employs conservation practices on their fields, so their operation will be sustainable when their sons take over.
“Part of looking at conservation practices is to try to decrease the inputs as much as possible,” Knuth explains. “But it’s a learning curve. I think letting (our sons) have a say makes a huge difference in how much skin they have in the game.”
The Knuths are fourth-generation farmers, growing corn, soybeans, wheat, alfalfa, and oats near Mead, Nebraska. The Knuths pay attention to conservation, planting more than 700 acres of wheat cover crop last fall.
Working with the University of Nebraska in a cover crop cost-share setting helped open the door for the Knuths to try additional species.
“It got us out of our comfort zone,” Knuth says. “That paved the way for us to try more covers.”
Practical Farmers of Iowa Senior Programs and Member Engagement Director Sarah Carlson adds that producers often become more confident with some production practices like growing cover crops after talking with other farmers.
“Crop covers and small grains help farmers control their input costs,” she explains. “In the long term, they’re the better bet. It’s a way to get off the treadmill and get some power back. Every farmer should be able to do it on 50 percent of their acres, at least.”
Like many of their peers, the Knuths want to learn more about soil preservation.
That begins by helping other farmers learn the procedures and benefits of conservation practices.
Knuth says they have not always conducted soil tests and admits it is difficult to know how your farming practices are benefiting the soil without data to support it.
“There needs to be a lot of education to know what to look for, how to test, and what your goal is in building the soil,” Knuth says. “Each field is different. What’s your goal?”
Timely fertilizer application and placement can help farmers get the most production from a crop, and Knuth says they constantly monitor production history. Over the years, they’ve adapted application methods to better capture the nutrients fertilizer provides.
“Now we’re precision placing fertilizer,” Knuth explains. “The next step is building our own fertilizer through the cover crops or sequestering it. Then we want to back off even more, but we’ve got to add organic matter to the soil and build nutrients.”
Looking to the future, Knuth says conservation will take center stage as there are growing calls from the public for farmers to pay special attention to the impacts of their production practices.
“The consumer wants to know where their food comes from,” she says. “The connection between what you eat, healthy food, and healthy people is not going away. The noise just keeps getting louder.”
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