Soil Health Partnership - SoilSmart

By the time his corn crop would normally be chest-high, Brian Roemke’s farm was less than 10 percent planted. That’s the most-repeated story across the Corn Belt for the 2019 planting season, but for Roemke, it’s an opportunity. “When you’re given lemons, you make lemonade,” he said. Roemke recalls the 2015 planting season when he and his family had 1,500 prevented-plant acres. “That gave us the opportunity to really get into cover crops,” said Roemke. It was the year after they had first tried them. An agronomist has been tracking improvements in Roemke’s soils for the last 18 seasons. Since 2014, when they began earnest use of cover crops, something significant showed up their soil profile: organic matter was increasing by one-tenth of a percent per year. “Over a decade we can gain a full percentage point of organic matter,” he said. “That’s living soil.” No-till farming has been a regular part of the Roemke farm since about 2000 when they made a commitment to the practice. “We had toyed with the idea for many years prior,” confessed Roemke. “That’s where we learned trying just doesn’t get the job done.”

McDonald’s customers increasingly expect the restaurant chain to share their values. “We have a responsibility in society,” says Townsend Bailey, McDonald’s sustainability director, adding that McDonald’s is committed to using its scale for good. In doing that, says Townsend, they have something in common with the Soil Health Partnership. “The Soil Health Partnership is doing a great job of bringing together people in collaboration,” says Bailey, “basing their work in real data as well and figuring out, ‘how do we support the people that are taking care of that soil.’”

Chad Bloom with Pheasants Forever believes in the mission of the Soil Health Partnership. “Pheasants Forever is an implementer,” explains Bloom, “and when all this science comes out, we can partner with the farmer to deliver habitat as a solution to [Soil Health Partnership] goals.” Pheasants Forever tries to deliver conservation goals as outlined by the farmer, according to Bloom, who says the organization is capitalizing on relationships with entities such as USDA’s Natural Resources Conservation Service. “We don’t have an agenda out there,” said Bloom, “it’s simply taking the goals that these farmers have, applying a solution to them and putting it on the ground for their benefit.”

“The biggest asset a grower has is the land that he farms,” says Nathan Fields, vice president of production and sustainability at the National Corn Growers Association. From the Farm Bill Conservation Title to collaborative efforts among diverse groups and individuals, Fields supports anything that results in improved soil health. “Making sure that we’re taking care of that resource in the context of conservation measures has been something that growers have been engaged in for a long time,” he says, adding that commitment to soil health needs to continue. “Now,” he says, “we’re really beginning to understand a lot more of what those long-term benefits are.”

John and Joan Maxwell of Cinnamon Ridge Farm are the Soil Health Partnership Exceptional Educator Award winners. Through tours of their farm, at Donahue, Iowa, the Maxwells tell the agriculture story to everyone from local kindergarten students to international visitors. Since the first tour they conducted, hosting their daughter’s pre-school class, they’ve shared how a successful dairy and row crop farm can sustainably feed the growing population while caring for the land. “Any way we can connect with food and agriculture,” said John Maxwell, “we’re trying to do it.” Advocates for the Soil Health Partnership, the Maxwells have been featured in print, television and radio news stories.

Brian Martin advocates for the use of cover crops for improving soil health. The Centralia, Missouri, corn, soybean, small grain and cattle producer talks about the challenges of chemical control and the effects of herbicide carryover on cover crops. Martin, the Data Dominator winner at the Soil Health Summit, uses different approaches to cover crops depending on whether they’re incorporated in row crops to prevent erosion, or whether they’re planted to supplement cattle grazing. “It was a life saver,” said Martin, referring to how cover crops helped during a dry summer. “We actually wet-wrapped a lot of cereal rye and then followed that up with another forage type. It can provide a year-round grazing solution when there’s no other options.”

Participants in the Soil Health Partnership (SHP) are seeing improved organic matter and “a general uplift in their soil health” as a result of being in the program, according to Dr. Shefali Mehta, executive director of the SHP. The partnership is generating valuable data from farmers who are using sustainable farming practices in order to improve the health of their soil, said Dr. Mehta. “We are moving out of that start-up mode,” said Dr. Mehta, “to a much more stable, established program.” The goal of the program, she said, is to support farmer members of the SHP to be sure they come out of the program “in a much better place.” “How can we be more effective with soil health,” Mehta said, “in a way that’s economically viable for our farmers?”

Since he began to farm while in high school, Greg Thoren has worked to keep soil in place. “Erosion is a very large factor. [There are] a lot of waterways, a lot of conservation practices that have gone in place in our county,” said Thoren, describing Jo Daviess County in the hilly northwest corner of Illinois. “By no means we’re ‘flat and black,’” he said. But the practices that help secure his soil improve his land in other ways. “Trying to prevent the erosion aspects of what we’re doing in our fields,” he said, “benefit us in so many different ways.”

The Nature Conservancy helped found and continues to be a major partner of the Soil Health Partnership for a variety of reasons. At the top is that it supports TNC’s vision of “a future world in which both nature and people thrive,” according to Pipa Elias, the soil health strategy manager for TNC. “Soil health is really beneficial for farmers,” said Elias. “We really wouldn’t be interested in it if it wasn’t beneficial for the farmers themselves.” In this episode, find out how recent research lends insight into bridging the gap between landowners, farmers, and soil.

Insights from data collected by the Soil Health Partnership (SHP) shows that cover crops do not result in a yield drag. “I think farmers are concerned that when they adopt a cover crop that they’re going to see a yield drag,” said Dr. Maria Bowman, lead scientist for the Soil Health Partnership, “and the fact that our data show that there is no statistically significant yield drag, I think, is really important.” Other early data indicate that farmers participating in SHP are measurably improving their soil organic matter during their first few years in the program.

“Getting healthy” is often near the top of the list of New Year’s Resolutions. There is an equal need for soil to be healthy. The new year is a great opportunity to set goals for getting your soil healthy, which can help with managing extreme weather, it can increase profitability and it can sequester carbon. Elyssa McFarland, the development director for the Soil Health Partnership, talks about how soil can benefit from following through on resolutions that result in healthy soil.

Wes Zylstra raises crops and pigs not far from Des Moines, Iowa, and very close to Interstate 80. Wes is proud to be the third generation on that farm and one can tell by the way he talks, he’s enthused to be there. When first contacted, Wes was counting off a load of newly-weaned pigs. Those 15-pounders are important for more than one reason. As a livestock producer, Wes has access to fertilizer from manure. He puts a lot of thought and planning into applying manure in a way that delivers to most to his crops and that keeps him in good stead with people who live close by. “First of all, I want to keep my neighbors happy,” says Zylstra, adding that he can’t afford to misuse nutrients. “I need to have a relative level of confidence that the nutrients I’m putting on the crop are giving the economic benefit I need from them.” Wes is noticeably proud to follow in his dad Roger’s footsteps in adopting practices that enhance the health of the soil. For Wes, that soil enhancement starts with fertility and managing nutrients.

Brian Ryberg has been turning heads in southcentral Minnesota ever since he reduced his tillage and began interseeding ryegrass cover crops in corn. While neighbors tend to begin with a black, heavily tilled seedbed, Ryberg prefers strip tillage, leaving residue that helps hold soil in place. That method has also resulted in a savings of more than two gallons of fuel per acre.

Everyone, no matter how old, enjoys a good toy for Christmas, but some toys can improve a farm operation from a sustainability standpoint as well as an economic standpoint. For John Stewart, a field manager in central Indiana for the Soil Health Partnership, the item topping his Christmas wish list is a drone. Drones, combined with powerful software, give growers ultimate flexibility in field monitoring and scouting, according to Stewart. “You can get instant feedback from your field,” said Stewart. “With some software these days you can view imagery right at the field edge within five to ten minutes of flying.” In this podcast, Stewart explains how to get started with drone flying, what they cost, how to get a license and what software to use.

The 2018 growing season featured everything from severe drought to significant flooding. That all happened within the Illinois and Missouri geography in which Abigail Peterson serves as a field manager for the Soil Health Partnership. “During the spring for the cover crop establishment there was great moisture in the ground,” said Peterson, “so we had some great cover crop growth during the spring and that’s when it really matters.” As the season progressed, Peterson observed dryer weather, where nutrient deficiency became more prevalent than pressure from pests like slugs. For their neighbor across the Mississippi River, however, farmers were soon concerned about the infrequency of rain. “Missouri was very dry across the board,” she said. Peterson points out, however, that farmers are part of the Soil Health Partnership for five OR MORE growing seasons, giving a more accurate picture of what cover crops can do. “Within those five years, that’s really what I’m looking for,” said Peterson. “Are these changes [resulting from cover crops] going to make a difference in the long run? You can really alleviate some of the that risk that comes with weather and pest control.”

Dan Miller says cover crops should be managed like any other facet of the farm. “Managing a cover crop should be like managing a cash crop,” said Miller, who markets cover crop seeds in southwestern Iowa. Miller considers cover crops to be an integral investment in a farming operation, similar to adding another planter, another combine, or even another employee. The use of cover crops “is getting bigger as days go by,” he said, “but I really feel that it’s almost untapped.” Miller, who also farms, adopted cover crops about four years ago because of concern over the loss of top soil from hilly ground. “We’re starting to notice that ground’s firming up every year” since he’s been planting cover crops. He also hopes that they’ll contribute to weed suppression. “Cover crops may not be for every acre,” said Miller, “but they can be used on every acre.”

Iowa Corn’s Ben Gleason has an eye for water quality and soil conservation. “We encourage experimentation,” says Gleason, referring to trying sustainable practices on small areas before they’re used on the whole farm. He also pushes peer-to-peer knowledge exchange. “Farmers prefer to learn from farmers as far as what works in their area,” he says. Iowa Corn is one of many entities working toward the goal of soil and water preservation, according to Gleason. “Everyone has a role to play,” he says. “Everyone’s downstream from someone else.”

Near Springview, no-till is not a common practice. “In fact, they thought we were half-nuts when we started this,” said Deb Gangwish, who farms with her husband near that north central Nebraska community. Despite challenges, the Gangwishes have persisted, partly for the sake of their sons who also work the soil. “You want to see your farm go on for generations to come,” said Gangwish. “You can’t do that if you don’t take care of your resources.” Find out more at soilhealthpartnership.org.

It’s not enough that Jim Isermann is successful in getting producers to adopt conservation farming practices. He wants them to be aware of the impact those practices have on their farm and on their bottom line. Isermann, a field manager for the Soil Health Partnership, helps farmers understand practices such as no-till, cover crops and nutrient management. “We want to know what it does for the farm,” said Isermann, “and how it can improve things for them.” Learn more at soilhealthpartnership.org.