Merit or Myth

Decreasing Inputs and Increasing Yields?

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What cost are you willing to pay for higher yields?

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t mean how much money are you willing to spend. I mean at what cost… or maybe we should say, “what are you willing to compromise?”

Your soil? Your land’s sustainability? Your health?

The truth is whether we view it this way or not, a lot of modern-day farming practices are compromising many of these and more to increase bottom lines. And the saddest thing? A lot of times that bottom line isn’t even budging.

This was the case for Johnny Hunter of Essex, Missouri after multiple years of poor yields were all he had to show despite his tireless efforts.

A third-generation farmer, Hunter’s system was predicated on the usual conventional farming techniques – heavy tillage, gallons of herbicide spray and high fertilizer rates. In 2012, when a prolonged drought hit and nearly crippled his operation, he turned to the only method a farmer of his mindset would – a 20′ disk ripper to loosen up the soil and increase irrigation. Unfortunately, for his yields and his soil’s health, the results were less than he had hoped for.

A tilled field in Vermillion, S.D.

The Lightbulb Goes on

A fortuitous chain of events would lead Hunter straight to what he would later term, “A treasure trove” of information, and one freely available to all internet users – YouTube. Specifically, YouTube cover crop videos.

After getting several videos under his belt, Hunter started to consider a change in mindset. As motivated as ever, he managed to identify a common link most of these free cover crop videos shared – NRCS agronomist Ray Archuleta. One quick phone call to Ray and it was off to the races.

“Johnny was trying to find a better way to survive,” Archuleta would later say. “Cover Crops are merely another tool, not the goal. The goal is simple: Mimic nature and increase soil function to cut back on input dependency. Understanding what’s going on in the soil system and how to use cover crops is the key.”

Hunter eagerly put in the necessary legwork of changing his conventional operation towards a more nature-friendly version of farming. This change would eventually not only solve his irrigation problem, but promote his soil health and (counter to what herbicide salesmen may want you to think) enhance weed control. With cover crops in place to retain moisture, increase fertilizer and soil nutrient recycling, it didn’t take long for Hunter to see that he was onto something… or for his neighbors to start taking notice.

Nearby producer Peter Rost had encountered several similar issues brought on by the 2012 drought. After observing the benefits in soil health to his neighbor’s fields, he implemented a similar system that would wean his crops off of things like fertilizer and herbicides, understanding that farming is “not a sprint.” Two years later, Rost’s cover-crop campaign would expand to 50% of his 3,500 acres with plans to see nearly 100% implementation for the following year.

A Tool or a Savior

The benefits that both of these Missouri farmers attest to is hard to ignore – even for the most staunch conventional farmer. But what’s important to keep in mind is that practices like cover crops and no-till are JUST tools. According to Ray Archuleta, they in and of themselves won’t do much for your crops if you don’t adopt a mindset founded on the principles of soil health, all of which are predicated on mimicking nature.

4 Principles of Soil Health

Now we know that both of these examples come from Missouri. And Ray Archuleta, though a national figure, is based out of North Carolina, only recently having joined our two farming pioneers in the Show Me State. But still, their success and their voices carry wisdom and truth for all farmers.

So what are the facts? Can decreasing inputs actually increase yields? If Hunter and Rost’s testimonials are any indication, the answer appears to be “yes”, but the benefits go well beyond the bottom line.

“I don’t care if you’re in Michigan, Mississippi or Missouri” Hunter says. “Tillage is detrimental to soil health. In a perfect world, my ground would be in never till. That’s the ideology I chase, but I also understand the nature of the beast.”

“Educate yourself away from fear by looking at a ton of available resources. Field days, soil health alliances, and NRCS professionals are waiting. It may sound silly at first, but YouTube is a treasure trove.”

Join the Revolution,
– Barrett

SOURCE: Chris Bennett/agweb.com: http://www.agweb.com/top-producer/article/killing-the-input-beast-naa-chris-bennett/

New Year’s Message of Hope for S.D. Farmers

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Merit or Myth's Message of Hope

“Growing Healthy Communities”

I’ve recently been watching a series of videos produced at the 2016 Fuller Field School in Kansas called “Growing Healthy Communities”. The first two videos I was able to catch featured Dr. Christine Jones’s talk “Soil Carbon – the Mycorrhizal Connection” and Gabe Brown’s talk “A Simple Man’s Take on the Current Production Model”. After what I’ve seen from just two videos, I will without a doubt be checking out the rest of the video series soon!

After listening to just a few minutes of each, it was easy to grasp their practical, big-picture message. Christine Jones is incredibly eloquent in the way she articulates the need for diversity, not to mention the way she discusses photosynthesis (or what she terms, “harvesting sunlight”) and why we need to maximize it in our fields. If you have ever wondered what that term really means, I believe Christine will help you get to the bottom of it!

In Gabe Brown’s talk, he challenges a numbers of widely-held, and perhaps cherished, assumptions common to modern day production agriculture. I’ll leave you to figure out what they are. The funny thing is that Gabe is not advocating for more inputs, more equipment or more technology. The alternative that Gabe proposes is perhaps even more difficult than an extended line of credit at the bank. What he proposes is a change in the way we look at growing our food and fiber.

South Dakota crops

Hope for a Brighter Tomorrow

While it’s not always comfortable for others to challenge our own long-held paradigms, the underlying message I get from these two talks is…. Hope. The theme of the 2016 Fuller Field School was “Rejuvenating healthy soil, growing healthy, nutrient dense food, managing water effectively, attracting wildlife and building resilience for future generations”. These ideas represent hope and are the real-world outcomes of the regenerative farming mindset. Hope in less inputs, lower operating costs and ultimately a better quality of life. I challenge you to watch the videos without being changed!

This Hope is in South Dakota

This mindset is not limited to North Dakota, Kansas or Australia, by the way – just take a look at South Dakota USDA-NRCS’s YouTube Channel and you will be blown away by the number of folks in the Mount Rushmore State who have decided to change their way of doing business.

We look forward to releasing our next video where we talk with SDSU’s Dr. Pete Sexton, a big advocate of building community around farming!

– Buz Kloot

Dr. Buz Kloot

Residue: A Friend or an Enemy?

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Residue

CHECK OUT OUR LATEST VIDEO ON RESIDUE:

For many farmers, crop residue is a nuisance – the unfortunate byproduct of a harvested crop, hence the word “trash”. And what does trash do for any of us other than create a problem that we have to deal with?

This conventional view of crop residue has led many farmers to believe that it is a perennial problem. But what if we told you that residue doesn’t have to be viewed this way? What if we told you that residue could actually add value to a farmer’s operation?

A CHANGE IN MINDSET

Fortunately for us, the traditional view of residue has been brought into question by many farmers, ranchers and scientists alike. And leading the way in the conversation is none other than South Dakota’s Dwayne Beck of Dakota Lakes Research Farm.

Dwayne Beck

At Dakota Lakes Research Farm with Dwayne Beck.

Where Dwayne has a leg up on some traditional farmers isn’t so much in his methods as it is in his mindset. As opposed to viewing management practices as isolated factors, Dwayne sees an entire farm through the lens of systems thinking – and, as we note in our latest video, in a system, everything is connected!

Once we address the system as a whole and not just our individual management practices, everything starts to change – including our view of residue. But don’t just take it from us, see what Dwayne has to say in our video below and decide for yourself – residue as a friend? Merit or Myth?

JOIN THE REVOLUTION!

– Barrett

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South Dakota Voices for Soil Health – A Brighter Tomorrow

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South Dakota Voices for Soil Health

In today’s society, it’s become a rarity for the “little man” to truly get their voice heard. Big corporations and industries (with their equally big spending) dominate the airwaves and often push a message that comes with an agenda (one that, unfortunately, isn’t always truth-based).

But despite this ever-growing trend, it’s generally the “little man” who has their finger on the pulse of what’s ACTUALLY happening – who is on the ground-level, seeing the things that big corporations can only talk about.

So when it comes to soil health, no one is more of an authority on the topic than the farmers and soil health advocates themselves. It’s about time they had their voice heard – and the USDA’s South Dakota Voices for Soil Health series is on a mission to do just that.

South Dakota Voices for Soil Health

Map of “Voices” getting involved all across the state of South Dakota

With a focus on shared knowledge and growth regarding soil health practices, the South Dakota Voices for Soil Health project is giving a platform to farmers and ranchers state wide. Made up of Earth Team volunteers, the 90+ voices already involved in this project are networking to spread their knowledge and experiences for all to hear.

South Dakota Voices for Soil Health

A look at handful of featured “voices”

These producers are stewards of their natural resources, and as voices for soil health, they actively advocate for shared knoweledge – not just for current generations, but future as well.

As Day County, SD farmer Steve Sigdestad says in one of their upcoming videos,

We want to take care of the soil because it’s going to be here a lot longer than any of us are going to be here. We’ve got to be stewards of the land, because they’re going to point back to us in history and say, ‘These guys messed up.’ And we don’t want to be that generation.”

Check out the 20 producer profiles already completed and keep an eye out in the coming weeks to hear more from farmers and advocates like Steve all across the great state of South Dakota.

Join the revolution!

– Barrett

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Introducing the Soil Health Revolution “Merit or Myth”

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Merit or Myth Soil Health Intro

Greetings friends!

For those of you that have followed along with us on our site (as well as hopefully on Twitter and Facebook… if not, what are you waiting for!?) you know we’ve been promising an official intro video for a few weeks now.

Unfortunately, we ran into a few snags on the production side of things… mostly on my end…

Us attempting to discuss soil health

When you forget your own name on camera…

But now that we remember how to say our names, we couldn’t be more proud to finally unveil our official introductory video!

So if you’re familiar with our content, but still a little in the dark as to how we’ll be crafting this project, this video will shine a light on our goals and methodology for engaging with farmers, producers and conservationists across the Mount Rushmore State!

In our two trips thus far, we’ve traveled over 8,000 miles, accumulated dozens of hours of interview footage, built a social media audience soon to be 500+ strong, and have been lucky enough to take some stunning photographs.

Dakota Lakes

Overlooking property near Vivian, South Dakota

And it’s all been leading up to this. So check out and share our intro video and continue to follow along on our quest for improved soil health, sustainability and farming efficiency. Much more to come!

Join the revolution!

– Barrett

Farming: A Lesson Well-Learned

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Author and inspirational speaker John Maxwell once said, “The greatest enemy of learning is knowing.”

This couldn’t be more accurate than when it comes to sustainable farming practices. But truth be told, most of the problems we as humans face today (on and off the farm) aren’t due to our lack of knowledge, but to our certainty of it!

Two contractors don’t fight over dissimilar work philosophies unless both of them “know” the way to do the job.

A political party doesn’t oppose another unless it “knows” (and it always does…) the right direction for our nation.

And many of us fail to properly assess opposing farming techniques because, after all, we KNOW which ones work, and we KNOW which one’s don’t..

But at Merit or Myth, we’re here to ask… do we, really?

LEARNING FIRST-HAND

South Dakota farmer Monty Williams wouldn’t say he “knows” much. After all, by his own admission, he’s no agronomist. He claims to not even be much of a “soils guy”.

But what Monty (may believe) he lacks in conventional “knowing”,  he more than makes up for with his desire to learn! 

It’s this attitude that has lead to Monty’s biggest breakthroughs on his ranch in Pennington County, South Dakota. From converting to no-till 20 years ago to increasing planting depth, Monty is a farming trailblazer – never satisfied with conventional knowledge unless it’s first put to the test. But that doesn’t mean it’s all been smooth-planting. Monty knows first-hand the struggles that come with farming.

Monty Williams

COMMUNITY LEARNING

The potential avenues for learning today are astounding. After all, we each carry the entirety of all human knowledge within a roughly 6” x 3” device that we carry in our pockets (thank you, Internet)!

Monty Williams has done his fair share of browsing when it comes to farming practices. But his primary source of learning is much closer to home… and usually the “competition”.

I have to study everybody. When I drive down the road… well look at this crop, what’s he doing over here. Well that’s a good idea, maybe we ought to incorporate that. You have to not just stare at what you’re doing, but look around.”

The ability to learn from our peers is one that takes grace and humility. What’s more, with constant access to the internet, it’s often easy to forget that one of the greatest sources for learning is just a door down. But, as Monty puts it, it’s not just about the individual farmer learning to improve his yields – it’s about the collective:

We have to make these changes ourselves. And like I say, that mindset is a tough thing to get over, it’s a tough hurdle. Same thing with my grandpa,(he was) always summer fallow, winter wheat. Couldn’t change off of those things. We can’t do what they were doing, we’ve gotta be moving forward.”

Monty Williams' ranch

(left to right) Buz Kloot, Monty Williams, Kent Cooley, Matt Odden

The key word to us in this quote has nothing to do with farming practices, but is all in the two-letter noun “we”. As farmers, we’re always greater than the sum of our parts. And we, our families, and our futures would all benefit from working together, helping each other, and learning side-by-side.

After all, we’ve made great strides as a species directly through our ability to learn. But none of us have learned very much of anything if we still think we know it all.

Join the revolution,

– Barrett

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SOILS: A Quality of Life Issue?

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We’ve all heard a lot of varying takes on soils…

Are they living or are they dead?

Do they require time to rest or more diversity?

Amongst all of these uncertainties, one thing can be agreed upon – they are the foundation on which all farmers are building. And laying a trusty foundation is something we are all striving to do… we just have different ways of getting there.

Farmer Al Miron certainly does.

THE MAN FROM MINNEHAHA COUNTY

You can’t help but feel a little extra sense of warmth when sharing a room with a man like Al Miron – from his welcoming of us onto his farm to inviting us for some fresh watermelon, Al is certainly as gracious and kind-hearted as they come.

But that doesn’t mean that he’s going to shy away from voicing his thoughts on soil health.

In fact, Al had one of the strongest opinions that we heard when it came to no-till practices.

Al Miron

Quite the statement, huh? But anyone who has spent time with Al knows that he’s a man of his word. What’s more important here isn’t Al’s quote, but that his is far from the only voice expressing the “merit” of this long-viewed “myth”.

TILLAGE? NO THANKS

When it comes specifically to management issues like no-till, we quickly found that farmers like Al don’t just have a passion for these practices, but a JOY!

That’s right, from all across The Mount Rushmore State, farmers that we met with were emphatic about the benefits of minimum disturbance not just on their crops, but on their lives! Time and time again, those we interviewed expressed probably THE most beneficial aspect of adopting this natural system – quality of life.

And isn’t that what all of this is about anyway? Quality of life for ourselves, and our families? Quality of life for our crops, our land (present and future) and nature as a whole?

Sheep grazing at a no-till ranch in Butte County, South Dakota.

We at Merit or Myth have seen substaintially positive evidence of no-till not only in the soils, but on the smiles of countless faces along the way. And we can’t wait to see who’s smiling next.

For those of you looking for more, you can check out a brief interview with Al and others in our Travelogue series. In the mean time, be on the lookout for more videos, and musings in the weeks to come.

JOIN THE REVOLUTION!

– Barrett

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An Outsiders’ Love Letter to South Dakota

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View from Blue Dasher Farm (Photo Credit: Dr. Jonathan Lundgren)

What is the most powerful lesson that South Dakota has to teach me?

This was the question that was on my mind as we anxiously drove out of the Hawkeye State and pulled into Sioux Falls. Would it be one of appreciating mother nature? Would it be one of community? Or would it simply be the undeniable impact that soil health is having on this great state?

I would quickly find the answer to be “yes” to all of the above… but not necessarily in the way that I had anticipated.

Soybeans in Vermillion, South Dakotah

SOUTH DAKOTA
BEAUTY

It was clear as soon as we crossed state lines that God had blessed South Dakota with inescapable beauty – the diverse peaks, valleys, and terrain are something more out of a desktop background than a real-life encounter. But regardless of if you see them in person or on a screen, they aren’t just external surroundings – they are something that changes the inside of a person as well. So it wasn’t tough to see that, just like the land, something else about this place was disarmingly unique…

SOUTH DAKOTA
COMMUNITY

On our trip, we had the pleasure of visiting with farmers, conservationists and scientists. The joy of conversing with customer service employees, administrative faculty and everywhere in between. It was through these fateful encounters that I was granted another powerful lesson – greeting a stranger with a firm handshake and a smile is no greeting at all – welcoming them with open arms and open hearts is the only true way to introduce yourself. And no matter where we stopped, Bear Butte to Vermillion, Huron to Rapid City, this wasn’t just an isolated incident, this was the way of life.

With Rancher Dave Ollila and family in Butte County, South Dakotah

Stopped for a “selfie” with the Ollila family in Butte County, South Dakota.

SOUTH DAKOTA
SOIL

So it’s no wonder why this eclectic group of welcomers are passionate about one of their greatest resources: soil. It’s inspiring to see how they have turned that passion into knowledge, and that knowledge into a lifestyle – from the usage of cover crops, to adopting “no-till” practices, to enhancing diversity. Each of their stories are different, but they all come from the same heart. And we couldn’t be more excited to start sharing them with you!

South Dakota Farmer Al Miron

Enjoying a laugh with farmer Al Miron located just outside of Sioux Falls, South Dakota.

IN THE END

It goes without saying that the memories and relationships built within this trip will endure – for that, we are profoundly grateful. And though our heads are still spinning after 10 days and over 4,500 miles traveled, one thing is perfectly clear: this isn’t just a campaign for soil health, it’s a campaign for people. And I’ve never met a group of people more worthy.

Stay tuned,

– Barrett

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*FEATURED IMAGE CREDIT: Dr. Jon Lundgren, Blue Dasher Farm

The Truth is Out There

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The growing amount of information on soil health is quite astonishing. Just hop on over to Google and search “Soil Health” and you’ll see for yourself. As of this writing, there were 18.1 million hits!  But that’s just the tip of the iceburg; when it comes to the nuts and bolts, everyone seems to have a different opinion.

There are several organizations out there trying to get a handle on the effectiveness and prevalence of cover crops alone – one thing we know for sure is that they are increasing.  Yet my experience is that most farmers are still hungry for information about soil health.

Many of the questions that farmers raise are management related, and often these questions are related to the transition to no-till like: “how do I plant through all that residue?”, “how will my soil temperatures at planting be affected?”, “how do I get my soils dry without tillage?”, “how do I manage for weeds without tillage?”, and “does this stuff make economic sense?”.  Let’s face it, these are valid questions that need to be addressed.

There’s a quote attributed to Harrington Emerson that goes as follows:

As to methods, there may be a million and then some, but principles are few. The man who grasps principles can successfully select his own methods. The man who tries methods, ignoring principles, is sure to have trouble.

We want to get a little more specific to South Dakota where we plan to engage with farmers, conservationists and researchers to address some of the above questions, but to do that, we also want to look at some of the underlying assumptions and views that give rise to these questions, and look at alternative assumptions.  As we do this, we want to ask questions of things we encounter: “does this have merit or is it myth?”, hence the name “Merit or Myth”.

Watch this space in the next few months for video, blogs travelogues and podcasts as we travel across the Mount Rushmore state asking the question: Merit or Myth?

– Buz Kloot

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