Visit Danny Murphy on his Mississippi family farm, and the conservation conversation comes with ease. The veteran farmer and former president of American Soybean Association (ASA) is passionate about the crops he grows and the methods he uses.
That passion comes with ease. Both Danny and his brother Tommy are proud of the continuous improvement of the operation in Canton, Miss.
“I don’t think you can have a better seed bed than the one nature prepares,” says Danny as he looks over his Mississippi soils.
The framework started a couple generations before Danny and Tommy. Their grandfather, Perry, moved to central Mississippi and purchased a foreclosed farm.
“When he bought this place, some of the neighbors told him, especially the field that way, that it was only fit to hold the world together. It wasn’t worth farming,” says Danny has he laughs.
Perry took it as a challenge. He planted some cover crops, built terraces and got the land to where it was productive, all while planting cotton and even farming with donkeys.
The farm now consists of a corn and soybean rotation. Thanks to the introduction of glyphosate crops, they changed to minimum till, and in a pursuit to do ever better, the Murphey family transitioned to 100% no-till.
As a result, the farm has reduced labor, equipment, and fuel to 40% of what they once used. Yields are consistent or better than tilled fields.
The process to transition to no-till also helped with what they call one of their biggest challenges: the Mississippi terrain.
“Most of this land, I guess we call it rolling, but there’s pretty good slopes on almost everything,” Danny says.
The soil consists of windblown deposits in the area, all highly erodible.
“Plus, we get an average rainfall of better than 50 inches per year,” explains Danny. “It’s a real challenge here to deal with erosion.”
That alone prompted them to do more to reduce soil erosion, build organic matter and improve water quality. They also utilize cover crops on half of their acres.
“You can see the root mass and the left-over residue from the crop,” says Danny.
It’s mainly planted going into soybeans, as they still need to determine how to successfully implement with corn.
“Whatever we put out there, whether it’s wheat or cereal rye or some mixture; soybeans have worked well with a cover crop,” explains Danny.
They’re discovering through soil testing, organic matter is improving from below 1% to nearly 2% in some fields because of their efforts.
“Soil organic matter does so much for our water holding capacity and water intake and just to limit erosion,” says Danny. “That’s something we are really focused on now.”
They’ve made needed and necessary improvements to prevent sediment and input runoff due to frequent rainstorms. They are not farming fence-line to fence-line. They’ve adding grass waterways, grass borders and expanded turn-rows.
“We expanded a little bit more to make sure as the water leaves the field, it’s as clean as it can be and slows down a little at these borders,” the Murphey family says.
They continued to build terraces and added rock chutes where field ditches drain into larger, deeper ditches.
“It’s really saving a lot of soil and is an effective means, especially in our high rainfall area where we’ve got a pretty good difference in elevation between the field and road ditches,” says Danny.
“It saved a lot of dirt, a lot of land,” says Perry.
If you listen to the wisdom passed down to Perry and Danny, wisdom straight from their grandfather, the legacy of conservation continues on their Mississippi farm.
“He used to have a saying, ‘the rougher the land, the better the stand,’” says Danny.
As the Murphy family strives to protect the soil and water, vital to their success in the future.
Congratulations to the Murphy family, a regional American Soybean Association Conservation Legacy Award Winner. Jason, along with other regional winners, will be honored with the American Soybean Association’s regional Conservation Legacy Award.
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