Nebraska Cover Crop & Soil Health Conference - Presenters Panel Discussion

University of Nebraska Eastern Nebraska Research and Extension Center Author

02/25/2019 Added

41 Plays

Description

The 2019 Nebraska Cover Crop and Soil Health Conference featured innovative speakers who have worked with cover crops extensively and shared what they have learned. There are many benefits to utilizing cover crops, such as improved soil heath and reduced erosion. It is the details of how and what to do that can present challenges. The focus of the conference was to provide information to growers who are in a corn/soybean rotation and to assist them in understanding the value of cover crops.

Searchable Transcript

Search:

[00:00:13.460]Questions for our panel.
[00:00:17.020]Who wants to start off here?
[00:00:21.770]Go ahead, Ed.
[00:00:24.070]So-
[00:00:24.903]Just a second.
[00:00:29.330]Just a interesting conversation.
[00:00:30.900]Scott, you said you had 93-day corn.
[00:00:33.700]I know on soybeans the yields on later maturity soybeans
[00:00:38.430]and earlier soybean yield maturities.
[00:00:42.860]That disparance or the difference is narrowed
[00:00:46.540]and shortened up some.
[00:00:48.500]Have we seen that on corn,
[00:00:50.000]and will that incentivize us
[00:00:51.900]to go to toward a earlier yield,
[00:00:54.850]our earlier maturity,
[00:00:56.400]to get our cover crops started earlier?
[00:01:00.640]Yeah, I think so.
[00:01:01.473]I think it's kinda started back when corn hit seven dollars
[00:01:05.780]and growers in North Dakota and even Canada
[00:01:08.010]started growing more corn and the seed company
[00:01:10.470]started putting more efforts into breeding those hybrids,
[00:01:14.170]and I actually was looking into it for a couple years,
[00:01:18.394]and I thought I had researched
[00:01:20.990]and found what hybrid I wanted to plant,
[00:01:22.860]and my dealer wouldn't even sell it to me
[00:01:25.160]the first year 'cause he said it wouldn't yield.
[00:01:30.085]So, I put quite a bit of research
[00:01:31.710]into looking at different plots in the Dakotas,
[00:01:34.550]and I thought, well,
[00:01:37.070]that's not Northeast Nebraska,
[00:01:38.560]but I kinda looked at a lot of research trials
[00:01:42.960]and plots and picked out
[00:01:44.396]a number that I thought was pretty consistent for
[00:01:48.876]what I wanted to try and just did it on a small field,
[00:01:52.130]and I've gradually worked towards that over,
[00:01:56.620]that's been four years, I think,
[00:01:58.540]four or five years,
[00:01:59.490]and I think that full season corn I plant now is
[00:02:04.130]almost shorter than what most guys do
[00:02:06.830]their short season in my area,
[00:02:08.950]and I'm probably giving up a little yield,
[00:02:10.160]but there's a lot of piece of mind in getting it
[00:02:13.488]combined early because the longer it's in the field
[00:02:17.832]until it's the bin it's only potential,
[00:02:20.820]and I've taken more yields hit on wind storms in October.
[00:02:28.690]Question, John.
[00:02:30.150]John, way back there.
[00:02:31.880]Is there a mic back there?
[00:02:34.094]I think I can talk louder than the speaker.
[00:02:35.257]Oh, it's John Wilson.
[00:02:36.390]Yes, you can, I know you can.
[00:02:38.211](audience laughing)
[00:02:39.214](John speaks inaudibly)
[00:02:57.120]On some of the seed, I am adding inoculate
[00:02:59.550]if I order seed and have it mixed up,
[00:03:02.972]and I will have them put the inoculate on,
[00:03:06.290]but sometimes I, like in the plots I did,
[00:03:09.107]I didn't inoculate,
[00:03:11.080]and maybe that showed up because my clovers didn't really,
[00:03:14.928]I didn't seem much activity on the roots.
[00:03:17.370]The vetch did, and maybe I should've inoculated,
[00:03:20.560]but I'm kind of doing a little of both,
[00:03:23.140]but for the most part,
[00:03:24.390]my mixtures that are mixed up ahead of time are,
[00:03:27.640]they do have inoculates.
[00:03:31.667]When we order a cover crop seed,
[00:03:33.570]I ask that it be inoculated.
[00:03:37.840]At the Menoken Farm,
[00:03:38.930]we are inoculating all the lichens, yes.
[00:03:43.147]Jeff?
[00:03:45.040]Yeah, my experience is,
[00:03:47.620]it's definitely needed to be inoculated.
[00:03:51.650]I think I've even seen where I'm growing peas for seed,
[00:03:55.040]for cover crop seed.
[00:03:58.590]I swear I get way better growth on the peas
[00:04:00.806]as a cover crop in those fields that I've had peas in,
[00:04:06.406]and inoculations that much better, the color's better.
[00:04:12.790]Question?
[00:04:18.230]I've heard some people have horrible problems
[00:04:20.600]with yield when they plant corn in the cereal rye.
[00:04:24.910]Why is that, and how is that prevented?
[00:04:30.698]Great question.
[00:04:36.135]I'll try to answer.
[00:04:38.040]First, I have guys that call me and say,
[00:04:42.477]"That cover crop didn't really work on my corn,"
[00:04:46.660]and they said they had rye planted, put nitrogen on,
[00:04:50.410]and it was deficient in nitrogen,
[00:04:52.810]and the one thing I,
[00:04:54.492]he kind of indicates that he sprayed his nitrogen on,
[00:04:57.690]so I come to say that don't do a foliar nitrogen,
[00:05:05.575]and herbicide's a burn down, don't do that.
[00:05:07.960]I think you're losing a lot of
[00:05:09.527]the nitrogen in volatilization and from the urea,
[00:05:13.220]so he either put some kind of nitrogen
[00:05:17.855]or stream it on
[00:05:20.000]and do a herbicide application separately.
[00:05:26.340]The only time we've done this is with
[00:05:29.017]a mixture of rye and winter camelina,
[00:05:32.580]and I really had no negative impacts with that mixture.
[00:05:36.857]How did you put the nitrogen on?
[00:05:37.940]It was a nutrient-rich field that
[00:05:39.920]was covered the year before,
[00:05:41.280]and we put it on as a compost that Fall.
[00:05:46.394]Initially I moved away from rye before corn
[00:05:49.337]because of that,
[00:05:51.150]and as I'm going along here,
[00:05:54.300]I can see that my lagoon mix is not gonna be enough.
[00:05:57.770]I'm gonna have to add grass back in again.
[00:06:01.070]I think the main thing is that you keep
[00:06:02.670]the carbon/nitrogen ratio down and
[00:06:06.991]terminate it at the right time before corn,
[00:06:10.890]I think as the soil improves,
[00:06:14.994]I think it's gonna be able to handle it more.
[00:06:19.260]Like I said earlier,
[00:06:20.270]I've been a chicken so far.
[00:06:22.477]I've always terminated my rye a week to 10 days
[00:06:26.637]before I plant,
[00:06:28.160]and this year I'm gonna try it.
[00:06:30.400]I think Dan Gilespie's done it quite a few years,
[00:06:34.200]and the big thing is to plant 2 1/2 inches deep
[00:06:37.130]at least and make sure.
[00:06:39.470]A lot of problems come back to the planter.
[00:06:42.580]I got a buddy that's a seed dealer and said
[00:06:44.340]guys have complained
[00:06:46.450]when your seed didn't have good germination,
[00:06:48.390]he goes and investigates,
[00:06:50.834]and their planter didn't have good seed to soil contact
[00:06:52.890]was the problem a lot of times.
[00:06:56.770]The Gilespie formula for terminating cereal rye,
[00:07:00.660]it has to be at least the height of a Budweiser beer bottle,
[00:07:04.034]right Dan?
[00:07:05.730]Okay.
[00:07:08.150]If you've been here in the past,
[00:07:09.240]you would have seen the slides.
[00:07:13.931]Taking out an old alfalfa field, cover crops,
[00:07:17.530]when would you seed it?
[00:07:19.410]What mixtures, anything like that?
[00:07:29.314](Man speaks inaudibly)
[00:07:38.680]I guess I've never worked with that.
[00:07:40.480]I terminate the alfalfa chemically in the Fall.
[00:07:46.740]Yeah, we sprayed one this Fall,
[00:07:48.480]and then never thought of planting anything in it.
[00:07:50.570]I don't know if any of the others have a comment on that.
[00:07:53.560]We've had people do very similar thing,
[00:07:55.520]take it out in the Fall and put a cover in that Fall,
[00:07:58.260]starts the biological process,
[00:08:01.090]the breakdown, decomposition process.
[00:08:07.230]It's a little bit earlier Fall, yeah.
[00:08:09.110]They're probably gonna just take one cutting that year.
[00:08:12.100]You gonna grow corn in next year?
[00:08:14.094](Man speaks inaudibly)
[00:08:19.130]I got a question for David.
[00:08:23.340]You get a lot of different audiences, both urban and rural,
[00:08:28.075]all over the country and the world.
[00:08:33.220]You have a good understanding of
[00:08:35.480]what we're dealing with here
[00:08:37.180]and other places in the country.
[00:08:38.580]Do you have any suggestions as a society, as a government,
[00:08:44.000]as a rural community,
[00:08:45.440]how do address this problem,
[00:08:49.753]other than what we're currently doing?
[00:08:53.049]Do you have suggestions?
[00:08:55.390]Microphone.
[00:08:56.223]Yeah.
[00:08:57.572]I try to lay some of those suggestions out at the end
[00:09:00.830]of Growing Revolution,
[00:09:01.810]but there's things that I saw have great affect
[00:09:06.080]are things like demonstration farms,
[00:09:07.560]things like Menoken Farm,
[00:09:09.670]things like what Kofibo is doing in Africa,
[00:09:11.520]in demonstrating regenerative techniques
[00:09:13.480]and how they can work both for a farmer's bottom line,
[00:09:16.270]but also for helping to rebuild the soil.
[00:09:19.080]I think there's a huge opportunity for people involved
[00:09:22.520]in the practice of regenerative agriculture
[00:09:26.050]to connect with urban audiences, if you will,
[00:09:30.210]who are interested in the quality of the food
[00:09:32.180]that's produced thereby.
[00:09:33.830]I think there's a growing awareness that
[00:09:36.550]organic food is not necessarily always
[00:09:39.890]the best quality food in the grocery store.
[00:09:41.930]Ann and I are working on a new book,
[00:09:43.630]looking at soil health, human health connections,
[00:09:45.830]and as part of that we went around and sampled foods
[00:09:48.790]from four grocery stores in Seattle,
[00:09:50.700]organic foods and conventional foods,
[00:09:52.810]and then we ground them up, dissolve them in acid,
[00:09:54.910]and ran them through a mass spec to look at
[00:09:56.550]the mineral micronutrient density in those foods.
[00:10:00.169]It was a scattershot in terms of
[00:10:02.590]whether organic was actually better than conventional,
[00:10:04.980]and so I think that one of the things
[00:10:06.890]that we're starting to become more aware of
[00:10:09.100]is that is the quality of the soil
[00:10:11.080]that food is grown in has as much of an impact
[00:10:13.570]as the agronomic practices that
[00:10:16.052]we tend to think of when we think of
[00:10:18.600]the different styles of agriculture that
[00:10:20.530]are discussed in the popular media,
[00:10:22.730]and I think that urban communities are starting to
[00:10:24.260]wake up to that,
[00:10:25.870]and so we need more research into
[00:10:27.972]what are the differences in the quality of foods,
[00:10:31.010]the mineral density, the plant's secondary metabolites,
[00:10:33.760]the chemical density,
[00:10:34.900]the things like the sulforaphane in broccoli
[00:10:37.350]that helps to fight cancer, those kind of things.
[00:10:39.689]The medical world has good examples of
[00:10:42.130]what those kind of compounds do for human health,
[00:10:45.040]the connections between how the land is treated
[00:10:48.650]and the health of the soil and human health
[00:10:50.350]I think are gonna come into sharper focus
[00:10:52.700]over the next few years,
[00:10:54.280]and so I think there's opportunities in
[00:10:56.170]the agricultural world to work with people
[00:10:58.480]who are in the medical world
[00:10:59.880]and people who are in the sort of the food movement
[00:11:02.140]in the urban cities,
[00:11:03.492]what might at first blush look like unlikely partnerships.
[00:11:07.690]I think we can find a lot of common ground between
[00:11:10.360]the urban regions and rural regions of America
[00:11:12.850]in terms of trying to rebuild
[00:11:14.270]the health and fertility of our soil,
[00:11:16.180]not just to reduce inputs for farmers
[00:11:18.940]and for a better bottom line,
[00:11:20.740]but also to improve public health in general, if you will.
[00:11:25.020]One of the messages in our new book is going to be
[00:11:26.860]looking at whether or not agricultural policy equates
[00:11:29.410]to health policy.
[00:11:30.280]We need to build bridges between those at a policy level.
[00:11:34.300]Some of the societal things that could be done
[00:11:36.210]in a big way are we ought to be actually subsidizing
[00:11:38.649]and helping farmers make the transition from
[00:11:42.080]to what I was calling that organic-ish style
[00:11:44.220]of farming earlier,
[00:11:45.700]and move beyond the sort of thinking in terms of
[00:11:48.920]black and white with organic and conventional,
[00:11:50.910]and instead think of what could we do to rebuild
[00:11:52.930]the health and fertility of soil,
[00:11:54.840]and helping farmers through that transition period,
[00:11:57.310]that should be a top priority,
[00:12:00.120]embraced by people in our government,
[00:12:03.269]both in agencies where
[00:12:04.870]there's really innovative work going on like in NRCS,
[00:12:07.470]but also at a policy level
[00:12:08.900]that could actually really help support those.
[00:12:11.060]I see most of the movement coming out of a few agencies,
[00:12:14.009]a movement toward regenerative farming practice,
[00:12:16.490]coming out of a few agencies some extension work,
[00:12:19.648]but also mostly from farmers.
[00:12:22.500]I'd love to see some top-down support
[00:12:25.200]from legislatures both at the state and national levels.
[00:12:28.460]There's been a few soil health bills that have passed.
[00:12:30.452]I'd love to see a lot more emphasis on that
[00:12:32.820]at a national level.
[00:12:34.220]Sorry for the long answer,
[00:12:35.190]but you ask a professor, that's what you get.
[00:12:37.567](audience laughter)
[00:12:38.860]Questions?
[00:12:43.144](Man speaks inaudibly)
[00:12:57.820]Buy a pivot.
[00:12:59.441](audience laughter)
[00:13:05.583]To me, there's really no difference in
[00:13:08.769]if you put a cover crop on ferro-gated land or
[00:13:12.800]on dry land or sprinkler-ated land.
[00:13:16.490]The Spring treatments are a little different.
[00:13:19.269](Man speaks inaudibly)
[00:13:21.800]Yeah, so you still have to get water to run down the row,
[00:13:28.147]and once time I talked to Don Salinas,
[00:13:30.329]and said why do ferro-irrigation farmers till
[00:13:32.310]their soil so much,
[00:13:33.850]and the answer is so they can get water across the rows,
[00:13:37.110]clear down in the end of the field,
[00:13:38.980]and so you got a herd structure,
[00:13:40.960]and that way you can get the water to run,
[00:13:44.000]but Brandon Rocky out in Colorado with potatoes,
[00:13:47.620]he grows a cover crop one year, and potatoes the next year,
[00:13:51.028]and he tills in the cover crop in the Fall
[00:13:53.510]because that's when he plants potatoes,
[00:13:56.550]but he's improved his soil by doing that,
[00:13:59.980]having a cover crop one year and potatoes the next,
[00:14:02.520]and by doing that rotation,
[00:14:04.220]he doesn't have to use near the pesticides,
[00:14:06.731]and so he's making more money growing
[00:14:10.470]one potato crop every two years and a cover crop
[00:14:13.650]than he was with barley and potatoes.
[00:14:15.310]It's a good story that I think,
[00:14:19.249]plant a cover crop in the Fall,
[00:14:22.690]and do what you can and go ahead and
[00:14:25.880]treat your ferro-gated land the same the next year.
[00:14:30.630]Which lagoon-covered species
[00:14:34.080]would give you the most nitrogen fixation?
[00:14:40.740]It's gonna be hard to
[00:14:41.930]beat hairy vetch on that many times,
[00:14:44.600]and I've worked a lot of different clients.
[00:14:46.730]Some clients don't like that plant,
[00:14:48.450]and then I say use a different plant,
[00:14:50.740]don't get hung up,
[00:14:52.100]get hung up on the principle,
[00:14:53.320]don't get hung up on switching from one plant to another
[00:14:56.300]to achieve the same principle,
[00:14:58.360]but it's a bi-annual,
[00:15:00.280]so it's got a little advantage there.
[00:15:02.350]I think red clover also does pretty well,
[00:15:04.490]sweet clover does well,
[00:15:05.680]but year in and year out it's pretty hard to match
[00:15:09.089]hairy vetch in terms of nitrogen production.
[00:15:16.180]My question's kind of towards Ray or anyone.
[00:15:19.050]Soil tests, have you noticed any difference in
[00:15:24.150]raising or lowering the pH of a soil
[00:15:26.900]over a period of time
[00:15:28.510]by adding the cover crops?
[00:15:29.870]Say if you have a pH soil in the fives,
[00:15:33.480]after raising cover crops for a period of years,
[00:15:36.760]do you ever notice any difference in the pH level?
[00:15:40.120]I say if you have broad leaves
[00:15:43.130]in the cover crop mix,
[00:15:44.410]the broad leaves contain about
[00:15:46.270]four or five times more calcium magnesium than the grasses,
[00:15:49.409]so it's good to have the broad leaves in that,
[00:15:52.320]which brings more calcium magnesium up.
[00:15:54.551]By doing the cover crop with a lagoons in there,
[00:15:58.560]also you reduce your nitrogen and sulfur,
[00:16:01.210]especially nitrogen application,
[00:16:02.820]and nitrogen and sulfur are the two fertilizers
[00:16:06.560]that cause acidification of the soil,
[00:16:09.660]so by reducing those two inputs
[00:16:12.411]and bringing the broad leaf cover crops in
[00:16:15.073]should alleviate some of the acidity.
[00:16:20.570]Actually I have soil tests back from 1988
[00:16:23.670]on my farm and I used to have trouble
[00:16:26.331]with low pHs in the fives,
[00:16:28.600]and maybe Ray hit it, maybe he's right with,
[00:16:34.011]what changed mine is it's all in the middle sixes now.
[00:16:39.250]Not exactly sure what all caused that,
[00:16:41.120]if it's the no-till or if it's the rotation
[00:16:44.330]and/or the lessening of inputs or all three.
[00:16:50.811]I've got the opposite problem.
[00:16:51.700]I've got hilltops that are so eroded over the years,
[00:16:55.400]that I've got high pH,
[00:16:56.710]and I haven't seen the pHs come down
[00:16:59.550]in the soil analysis,
[00:17:02.140]but I like bark, forge barley in my mixes,
[00:17:05.220]and I think I've talked to some people
[00:17:07.377]who said barley is good on those poor hills,
[00:17:10.020]but also buckwheat I think.
[00:17:13.350]My yields have just leveled out.
[00:17:16.029]You don't see the drop in yield monitor
[00:17:18.500]going over those hills,
[00:17:19.840]but my pH hasn't changed.
[00:17:22.129]We've talked a lot about carbon,
[00:17:24.409]and one of the things that happened in carbon
[00:17:26.550]is that you got more soul life,
[00:17:27.830]you get more CO2 produced,
[00:17:29.660]and CO2 lowers the pH in those high-pH soils,
[00:17:34.080]so I think it's that good mix that you have
[00:17:36.630]is making the plants grow okay.
[00:17:42.449]I got a question.
[00:17:43.282]This is probably for Scott more than anybody.
[00:17:44.970]On your grazing out livestock on that ground
[00:17:48.050]for neighbors or for friends,
[00:17:50.030]how do you bill that out?
[00:17:52.330]I'm sure bred heifers, it's not a cost to gain.
[00:17:54.480]Is it a break or rental,
[00:17:56.500]or is it a per head per day,
[00:17:57.810]or how do you usually do that?
[00:17:58.820]It's per head per day.
[00:18:00.170]We've had pairs and we've had guys bring 'em
[00:18:03.810]after they've weened early and just bring the cows,
[00:18:06.210]but we just charge so much per animal per unit per day,
[00:18:10.340]and I've even,
[00:18:12.820]the first year one of the young guys,
[00:18:15.580]I offered that field I was talking about earlier
[00:18:18.080]that was oats that didn't do well
[00:18:20.300]and the cover crop didn't look very good,
[00:18:22.040]and he was desperate to put cows somewhere
[00:18:24.520]because his pasture was short,
[00:18:26.290]and I said just bring them
[00:18:27.330]and I won't charge anything for it,
[00:18:29.560]but pasture, grass pasture rents in our area,
[00:18:33.430]are just crazy.
[00:18:35.565]I know there's a lot of value to it to those guys,
[00:18:40.100]but like I say, there's value for me to have the cows there,
[00:18:43.680]so we just kind of,
[00:18:45.590]right now it's,
[00:18:47.300]we know each other well enough and respect each other,
[00:18:49.570]it's all pretty much handshake agreement and
[00:18:53.326]we're both happy.
[00:18:56.520]I think something to keep in mind
[00:18:58.350]if you're looking at some kind of grazing agreement.
[00:19:00.993]When you're looking at rate to gain,
[00:19:03.750]pounds on a critter,
[00:19:07.620]keep in mind that if you're in the top half of that plant,
[00:19:10.460]that's more protein and energy,
[00:19:12.330]so if you're moving more frequently
[00:19:14.290]and staying in the top half of that plant,
[00:19:16.420]that's a higher rate to gain
[00:19:18.330]than when you're taking the entire plant,
[00:19:20.990]and so if you're working with somebody on a rate to gain
[00:19:23.580]and you want a happy camper,
[00:19:25.750]usually means more frequent moves,
[00:19:27.730]it usually means staying in the top half of the plant,
[00:19:30.740]and then I think bricks was mentioned earlier,
[00:19:33.090]and we use bricks to move,
[00:19:34.900]which usually means you're gonna move more around noon
[00:19:37.610]than you are early,
[00:19:39.690]and so there's things you can do to make that work
[00:19:42.400]on a livestock agreement as well.
[00:19:46.470]Scott, if I remember,
[00:19:47.590]you're growing cereal rye for seed.
[00:19:51.230]Do you have a problem having a home for the seed?
[00:19:55.710]No, not really,
[00:19:56.910]and it's the opposite problem,
[00:19:59.870]and I'm not gonna just sell to just anybody.
[00:20:02.730]In fact, I debate whether I should even sell it at all,
[00:20:07.020]because I'm not,
[00:20:08.560]I've tested it, some of it, and it's clean seed,
[00:20:12.180]and I sell to people I know in the neighborhood,
[00:20:16.592]and no, it's not been a problem.
[00:20:19.780]The only problem is they start calling me
[00:20:21.660]when I'm combining soybeans.
[00:20:22.757]"Hey, you got rye seed for sale?"
[00:20:24.500]and I've already gotten rid of it,
[00:20:27.130]but no, it's a pretty big demand.
[00:20:30.176](Man speaks inaudibly)
[00:20:31.940]I've got a fanning mill and I've got rotary screener.
[00:20:34.620]The fanning mill works, by far, the best.
[00:20:37.460]It's just a lot slower,
[00:20:39.490]but most guys, a lot of them are broadcasting,
[00:20:42.590]but I get it pretty clean with the combine,
[00:20:44.760]clean enough for,
[00:20:46.750]even last year my own seed, I didn't clean it.
[00:20:51.050]Just was out of the combine.
[00:20:52.530]I drilled it and I was fine.
[00:20:59.560]Just before anybody feels
[00:21:01.010]they're gonna turn into seed dealers,
[00:21:02.400]and Scott and I have talked about this,
[00:21:04.020]but it's illegal for you to sell seed to a neighbor
[00:21:07.200]unless you have the seed tested,
[00:21:09.900]and you have a seed seller's license,
[00:21:12.060]and so keep that in mind because
[00:21:13.710]that is a law in this state.
[00:21:15.250]Yeah, thanks for that, Stan.
[00:21:17.560]Good point.
[00:21:24.120]On our family farm,
[00:21:25.410]we're accustomed to doing soil tests,
[00:21:27.930]and have for many years.
[00:21:30.400]Soil health is something we're not as familiar with testing,
[00:21:35.540]so are there any specific numerical measures
[00:21:39.675]other than organic matter
[00:21:42.720]that we can use to establish a baseline
[00:21:45.840]and measure progress towards improving soil health?
[00:21:51.980]I can tell you one I start with,
[00:21:54.230]and we'll share this down the line here,
[00:21:57.510]but if we have somebody moving in for the first time,
[00:22:01.310]I like to start with doing infiltration rings in the soil,
[00:22:05.520]so it's nothing more than a six-inch diameter ring,
[00:22:08.330]six inches high,
[00:22:09.950]bound it in the soil three inches deep,
[00:22:11.800]so it's half-in, half-out of the soil,
[00:22:14.580]and then if your soil is bare,
[00:22:17.130]I'd put some Saran Wrap on the bottom,
[00:22:20.200]and then I pour the water, pour in one inch of water.
[00:22:23.000]A water bottle, your typical water bottle,
[00:22:25.110]that's 500 mL, so you gotta take one drink out of it,
[00:22:28.070]then you've got 444 mL, right,
[00:22:31.110]because that's one inch then in the bottom of that ring,
[00:22:34.300]so the 444 mL,
[00:22:36.540]can you get that in the ground in less than 10 minutes?
[00:22:39.452]It's the second inch that's really the most important,
[00:22:43.690]so you put the first one in, go ahead and time it,
[00:22:46.560]but the second inch,
[00:22:47.450]can you get the second inch in in less than 10 minutes?
[00:22:49.770]It's good to do a baseline.
[00:22:51.400]If I'm gonna record something for USDA, I do five rings.
[00:22:55.580]I throw out the high, throw out the low,
[00:22:57.940]and I average the remaining three,
[00:23:00.330]and again it doesn't really cost you anything.
[00:23:02.920]It's just your time.
[00:23:04.200]Tells you a wealth of information,
[00:23:06.660]and can you get that second inch in in less than 10 minutes,
[00:23:10.560]and then after it's absorbed,
[00:23:12.430]I take my spade and I flip 'em upside down.
[00:23:15.270]Are they uniformly wet all the way across?
[00:23:17.560]Did they saturate all the way?
[00:23:20.730]This tells you a lot of information
[00:23:22.611]in a fairly short period of time.
[00:23:24.770]Onc inch in a degraded soil,
[00:23:27.409]north central or central Dakotas,
[00:23:30.380]might be two hours.
[00:23:32.373]Put that inch of water in.
[00:23:35.020]If it's fairly healthy,
[00:23:36.496]might be less than a minute.
[00:23:39.220]Might be less than 30 seconds,
[00:23:41.360]so you start doing a few of those setups
[00:23:43.250]and it'll paint a picture for you,
[00:23:44.760]so it's something you can monitor,
[00:23:46.800]and then make your change,
[00:23:48.560]add a cover crop, make a change,
[00:23:50.750]do it again a year or two later.
[00:23:54.896]My first step is get a tile spade and sharpen it
[00:24:00.300]so you can dig in the soil easy,
[00:24:03.536]then go out and observe different kinds
[00:24:06.030]of management systems,
[00:24:08.110]and kind of get your hand calibrated to
[00:24:10.730]squeezing the soil and see how it breaks
[00:24:12.520]in the granulars or plating structure,
[00:24:14.620]whatever it might be.
[00:24:16.330]That's our first step,
[00:24:18.500]and Ward Laboratories, of course,
[00:24:19.750]has soil health tests.
[00:24:21.280]We'll take your money any time you want to.
[00:24:23.595](audience laughter)
[00:24:25.330]That's your last word.
[00:24:26.260]Okay, very good.
[00:24:29.218]We're gonna close it here.
[00:24:30.650]You are welcome to visit with the panel here afterwards.
[00:24:34.340]I'd like to thank Jeff, Scott, Dave, Jay, and Ray.
[00:24:39.230]Let's give them a nice hand for their contribution today.
[00:24:41.733](applause)

The screen size you are trying to search captions on is too small!

You can always jump over to MediaHub and check it out there.

Comments

0 Comments

Nebraska Cover Crop & Soil Health Conference - Presenters Panel Discussion

Description

Searchable Transcript

Comments icon comment

Related Channels

Comments