It’s been said that what comes easy doesn’t last, and what lasts doesn’t come easy. This adage is especially true when it comes to change. Any change worth making isn’t going to be done overnight and it isn’t going to be realized without difficulty. One Iowa farm is showing the Midwest though that, when it…
In this video, the USDA-NRCS’s (Brookings, SD) Eric Barsness and SDSU’s Anthony Bly discusses and experiment the NRCS conducted in Vermillion SD on a conventionally tilled and a long-term no-tilled field. Eric buried two temperature probes at 2” and the probes were able to record temperatures every 15 minutes over the entire growing season of…
Extinction is a perfectly normal part of nature. Scientists of all backgrounds, belief systems and areas of study can agree on this. What is often overlooked, however, is the potential cost of extinction – whether within a single ecosystem or multiple. Still, no one plays a larger role when it comes to the loss or…
This spring (2017) SDSU Extension’s Anthony Bly and farmer, or shall we say “citizen scientist,” Al Miron got together to look at the influence of tillage, cover crops and manure on infiltration in a number of fields in Minnehaha County, SD. They compared soils in two long term (9 year) no-till fields, two conventionally tilled fields…
In this video, we recap the last 11 videos on our Merit or Myth Series that deal with residue and tillage. We sum up the information provided by our farmers and researchers, from West River to East River of South Dakota. As we consider the statement: “Farming without tillage and with surface residue is not…
This is the third part of a three part series in Dr. Anderson’s 10-minute talk on his spiral of regeneration. Dr. Randy Anderson, Research Agronomist with the USDA-ARS in Brookings, SD, shares with us his spiral of soil regeneration. The concept of the spiral had its genesis in Dr. Anderson’s work in no-till where he…
Picture this: A proactive community of open-minded producers joining forces for the greater good. With all of them together, they work to increase yields and soil health, and gain a better understanding of their livelihoods. If such a community existed, would you be interested? It may seem “pie in the sky”, but one state down,…
Stream our first official “SD Cropcast” with South Dakota soil scientist Randy Anderson! Need to listen on the go? Great! Visit our page on iTunes and download the episode FREE for off-line listening!
Dick Nissen and his son Chris farm in Clay County, SD and encounter some of the typical east River conditions many farmers face especially in the spring (including residue). It turns out that Chris Nissen is a passionate soil health guy sometimes struggling to see why his neighbors spend as much as they do on…
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…
