The role conservation plays in a wetter climate
Written by Jonathan Eisenthal
This year was the wettest on record by amount of precipitation, according to climatologist Mark Seeley. The result for growers has been record levels of muddy fields across the state.
For farmers who wonder if conservation tillage, cover crops and soil health techniques can keep them out of the muck, and give them an edge by saving time, labor and money, the answers will be on the table at the University of Minnesota Extension Conservation Tillage Conference in St. Cloud on Dec. 17 and 18.
The conference is organized by Jodi DeJong-Hughes, regional educator with University of Minnesota Extension.
“We have farmers doing conservation tillage who are able to get into their fields to plant earlier, and to harvest earlier, and they don’t have as many problems with ruts and compaction and digging out,” said DeJong-Hughes.
The farmer panel, which takes place on day two of the conference, will feature Seth Watkins, who has no-tilled his crops since 1999 in southwest Iowa. Watkins will share how he managed the changes while always keeping his books in the black, along with insights from other no-till and reduced-till practitioners participating on the panel.
One of the things that brings in 250 participants every year is the chance to talk with actual farmers making it work in every kind of landscape, every kind of soil and every kind of operation. Watkins is a firm believer in keeping a cow-calf herd and growing cover crops that they can graze. But he also keeps half his acres in a 50-50 corn-soybean rotation, so he has insight on how to make no-till work for folks who don’t have livestock.
The opening keynote will come from Canadian soils scientist David Lobb, who studies the economics and the physics of soil loss at the University of Manitoba.
Conservation tillage alone does not fix the problem, his analysis reveals. Soil loss through wind, water and tillage delivers an estimated up to 10-percent loss in yield to some crop farms, depending on soil type. Since the value of crops has risen in the last few decades, that potential ten percent has become more and more of a critical loss to the farm business, he says.
Luckily, Dr. Lobb suggests that there is something that can reverse the economic damage of soil loss already used by farmers, which he will dive into as part of his keynote.
These suggestions and other great ideas and conversations are what you can find at the Conservation Tillage Conference this year in St. Cloud. Learn more about the key speakers, breakout sessions, table talks and vendors by clicking here.
