There are lots of reminders out there that we have a long ways to go before building soil health becomes a mainstay of our food and farming system. Some reminders are subtle, while others are about as blunt as a baseball bat to the head. A reminder of the latter variety is featured in the… Read More →
How Indiana is using cover cropping and early adopters as ‘gateways’ into a deeper understanding of sustainable soil management. It’s an overcast August morning in northeastern Indiana, and in a massive machine shed well stocked with the tools of a modern row crop operation, some 60 farmers are being reminded that growing corn and soybeans… Read More →
To Olaf Haugen, microbes equal money. That’s because at the height of the growing season on his family’s farm in southeastern Minnesota’s Fillmore County, 70 percent of the dairy herd’s feed comes from grazing. He not only rotationally grazes permanent pastures, but runs his cows through plantings of annual cover crops, which he prefers to… Read More →
As a Nature Conservancy scientist based in a Midwestern state, Steve Chaplin thinks a lot about the impact agriculture has on ecological treasures such as native tallgrass prairie. “Other than plowing, grazing has probably been responsible for the degradation of more prairie than any other source,” says Chaplin, who is in the Conservancy’s Minnesota field… Read More →
AUSTIN, Minn. — Internationally known soil health pioneer Gave Brown will be featured at a regenerative farming field day Friday, Sept. 16, from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m., at the Tom Cotter farm near Austin (50203 205th Street). This event, which is being sponsored by the Minnesota Soil Health Coalition, Superior Cannabis Company and the… Read More →
On a blustery late summer day, Jan Libbey and Tim Landgraf hike through a waist-high prairie to the top of a dramatic knob on their farm in north-central Iowa. As they stand amongst big bluestem, Indian grass and switchgrass, corn and soybean fields flow in every direction, the monocultural landscape broken up only by a… Read More →
Sometimes the rules of simple cause and effect don’t directly apply. Take, for instance, the fact that cattle are ruminants, and like all ruminants they utilize a wonderfully complex digestive system to turn forages and grain into meat and milk. A major side effect of all that fermentation on four legs is the production of… Read More →
It’s that age-old struggle: accepting a little short-term disturbance in the name of long-term stability. Dave Trauba regularly faces the challenge of explaining that tradeoff to hunters who visit the Lac Qui Parle Wildlife Refuge in western Minnesota only to find their favorite spot for shooting pheasants has recently been grazed by cattle from a… Read More →
It’s field day time on this western Minnesota farm, and it’s made clear from the outset that there will no main presenter, no expert from on-high telling it like it is or isn’t, no PowerPoints produced by consultants. This is a field day where farmers learn from other farmers. “You are all consultants,” Richard Ness… Read More →
Andy Marcum’s eye-opener was when he walked a ridge on his farm soon after snowmelt and noted the ground was speckled with the delicate, purple pedals of pasque flowers—more than he’d ever seen in his life. For Dan Jenniges, the aha moment came when he realized that he was grazing more cattle on fewer acres,… Read More →
