2022 Eastern Nebraska Soil Health Conference Presentations - Speaker Panel

Deloris Pittman & Mike Kamm Author

02/10/2022 Added

10 Plays

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Speaker Panel - informal discussion with growers, landowners, and consultants

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[00:00:07.990]So I'll be kind of moderating the session out there. Todd, raise your hand.
[00:00:11.740]Todd has the microphone, if you have a question. so one,
[00:00:15.340]I just want to thank everybody for presenting today and being on the panel here
[00:00:19.030]at the end of the day.
[00:00:19.810]So why don't we give everybody a round of applause for speaking today
[00:00:25.150]with that? I will open it up for questions. So raise your hand.
[00:00:28.780]And then Todd will, while we run around right in front of you
[00:00:34.060]on the.
[00:00:34.660]newer planners where you have the option of, air down pressure,
[00:00:38.860]hydraulic down pressure, which do you like.
[00:00:41.980]The trouble at the end, the trouble with the D air down pressure.
[00:00:46.360]It takes too long to pump up the air or release theatre. Hydraulic oil.
[00:00:50.350]Hydraulic is much faster reaction. Now, unfortunately, all oil hydraulics about,
[00:00:55.300]you know, five, 10 times the cost of paint upon the brand you're looking at.
[00:00:58.690]And so it's a trade off there. How much field variability you have,
[00:01:02.110]but I know someone who had the air system,
[00:01:04.430]he was planting across the center pivot road. He says,
[00:01:06.640]by the time he got pumped up, he was way out in the field.
[00:01:08.830]It was too much down pressure. oil hydronic would adjust.
[00:01:13.690]So again, how fast he made the adjustment?
[00:01:16.030]Yep. Real quick. On, on down pressure and planters,
[00:01:18.580]we have had farmers evaluate constant down pressure and then, you know,
[00:01:23.260]down pressure based on sensors on the go. And so those will we be going over.
[00:01:27.700]Some of those studies,
[00:01:28.600]there was some last year and I think there was one this year as well.
[00:01:31.780]Erin heard this morning, very first went over that.
[00:01:34.660]And if so on February 17th, I think it's York, Auburn are the closest ones.
[00:01:38.770]we will go over some of those on-farm results, odd high speed, tubes,
[00:01:42.790]all of that. Some farmers evaluated, you know,
[00:01:45.070]planning from 6, 7, 8, 9 mile an hour or two for on-farm studies.
[00:01:58.330]Okay. Additional questions for the group. Just as a reminder,
[00:02:01.990]Anita went over weed suppression, Amy, the manure lady.
[00:02:06.640]I like your Twitter handle. went over,
[00:02:10.060]soil health and benefits and manure. Okay. Question here.
[00:02:13.330]Yeah. I've been doing, healthy soils for 36 years.
[00:02:17.290]One of the first thing that I saw when I got my microbes up,
[00:02:20.500]where they should be,
[00:02:21.700]that my plants were so much healthier and more insect resistance,
[00:02:26.230]but there just seems to be a resistance to talking about soil health and insect
[00:02:30.580]resistance in the same day. so I don't know,
[00:02:35.350]you know why that is, but, I think it's something that,
[00:02:38.660]that we should bring the two together much more.
[00:02:46.090]Okay. We didn't have any entomologists on the, on the topic,
[00:02:49.660]but we will add an entomologist. That'd be a good discussion.
[00:02:53.920]Yeah. I'll, I'll add a comment if you don't mind.
[00:02:57.190]that I that's a really good and,
[00:03:00.580]the data or the information I shared this morning that looked at how manure can
[00:03:05.470]improve pest management.
[00:03:08.140]was it not necessarily just my research it's
[00:03:11.500]there's others that have been doing,
[00:03:13.150]looking at that aspect for much longer than I have, but I agree.
[00:03:19.870]I think we in maybe an extension need to do a better job of,
[00:03:23.170]of talking about the big picture, not just, you know,
[00:03:27.970]better soil stability or less runoff or erosion,
[00:03:31.480]but kind of everything that goes together and works together,
[00:03:37.210]based on, you know,
[00:03:38.200]several practices and then some impacts that people may not have even thought
[00:03:42.370]about.
[00:03:42.550]So I appreciate you mentioning that you saw improvements in pest management,
[00:03:47.260]with the, the practices that you've been implementing because that's,
[00:03:51.400]you're right. That's not normally a topic of conversation.
[00:03:55.180]When we talk about manure management in particular,
[00:04:01.690]I can just throw a, another perspective in,
[00:04:04.360]there is a lot of the cover crop opportunities with pollinators.
[00:04:08.050]So one of those pictures that Paul showed of a diverse mix as he was trying to
[00:04:12.490]plant into it, had flowers out there already.
[00:04:15.100]And so what kinds of things can we help to bring beneficials and
[00:04:19.360]pollinators and kind of cover crop mixes that you picked?
[00:04:22.810]So again, another way to help any pest management that way.
[00:04:32.800]And this might be a question for Amy regarding the manure.
[00:04:36.400]there's a lot of products out there now pelleted,
[00:04:39.510]you can get pelleted poultry, pelleted, beef manure.
[00:04:44.500]have you done any work with precision placement of those pelleted manure
[00:04:48.820]products? Are they,
[00:04:49.960]do they seem to be worthwhile or what does anybody know about those?
[00:04:55.300]so I have not done any,
[00:04:58.120]like precision application type research with those products.
[00:05:03.430]I would say the main benefit of those is
[00:05:08.230]going to be the consistency of the product. If it's a consistent,
[00:05:12.760]particle size,
[00:05:16.030]you probably are going to get very consistent application,
[00:05:20.770]spreading pattern, just like you would with a granular fertilizer.
[00:05:25.720]it does it depending on how it's land applied.
[00:05:29.920]there's a little bit of art that goes into making sure you're overlapping your
[00:05:34.390]passes as your, as, as you're applying that just like we would with manure,
[00:05:40.420]you know, for, for poultry litter,
[00:05:43.090]that's pretty consistent stuff to start with.
[00:05:46.630]so I think the benefit you might get from a Peleton or manufactured
[00:05:51.220]product would be reduced odor.
[00:05:55.840]so that to me is if, if,
[00:05:58.850]if odor issues and neighbor nuisances are a big concern,
[00:06:03.140]I think that's a
[00:06:06.560]viable reason to maybe think about a pelleted product. But,
[00:06:10.700]I don't know,
[00:06:12.080]I don't know enough about whether or not they add ingredients to
[00:06:17.060]balance out the nutrient
[00:06:20.030]content that's delivered by those products, I guess.
[00:06:22.550]So I'm not sure that fully answers your question. That's,
[00:06:26.150]that's my perspective on those though.
[00:06:29.660]we actually work with a company that does some of that.
[00:06:33.680]we haven't used it ourselves, but they said it's mostly for transport.
[00:06:36.920]It's a lot easier to transport if you pelletize it.
[00:06:39.650]so the problem is it's a lot more expensive.
[00:06:42.290]So if you're going a short distance,
[00:06:43.850]you're better off using like your regular manure,
[00:06:46.190]but if you have to haul it a long way,
[00:06:47.810]it's easier to transport and cheaper to transport. If you had to go a long way.
[00:06:52.430]Yeah, definitely any time we can limit the transport of water,
[00:06:56.690]we're going to save some money. And so for, you know,
[00:07:00.470]wet or products like feedlot manure in swine manure, you know,
[00:07:05.750]then it becomes a balance of how much energy do you want to put into drying that
[00:07:10.040]product, where you can get it in a public forum. And,
[00:07:14.360]I think that's probably what has limited advancements in
[00:07:19.340]that technology.
[00:07:22.940]Okay. A personal question here is,
[00:07:26.420]tenant wants to put on 20 tons of manure versus I'd think
[00:07:31.310]that for four to five years versus I would think that'd be a lot versus black 10
[00:07:36.020]ton, but does that make a problem in that first year?
[00:07:42.470]I should say.
[00:07:43.070]Cattlemen feedlot, cattle manure.
[00:07:46.310]Yeah. yeah, if you, so,
[00:07:51.510]so it's pretty hard to apply, be feedlot manure on a nitrogen basis, you know,
[00:07:56.510]to meet the nitrogen needs of the crop without really over-applying phosphorus,
[00:08:00.770]20 tons per acre,
[00:08:04.550]I don't think is unheard of. I know,
[00:08:09.710]I mean 10, 10 Spreaker, 15 tons. That's, that's pretty standard.
[00:08:14.270]I know there's folks who go far above 20 tons per acre.
[00:08:17.840]It really comes down to, first of all,
[00:08:22.010]the nutrient needs of that land. And second of all the topography.
[00:08:27.080]So for instance, I'm not as worried about nitrogen leaving that system,
[00:08:32.570]except through volatilization, you know, so the air,
[00:08:37.450]I'm not as worried about nitrate leaching as I am about phosphorous runoff.
[00:08:41.780]And so if you are a livestock farmer
[00:08:46.910]that's operating under a permit,
[00:08:49.100]you would have to run a phosphorous index calculation on all of your
[00:08:53.510]fields to,
[00:08:57.360]propensity for losing phosphorus via runoff. So,
[00:09:01.830]for a,
[00:09:04.140]for a farm that if you tested and your phosphorus
[00:09:08.580]concentrations in your spoil, aren't already super high. If that's,
[00:09:13.380]if that field is, you know, fairly,
[00:09:19.200]shallow gradient or slope, not, not a real sloped field,
[00:09:23.310]you're not bordered up against a water body.
[00:09:28.680]and you know, to me,
[00:09:29.850]those would be the two main questions to ask before I said 20 or
[00:09:34.560]10, how likely I might have run off from my field,
[00:09:39.720]you know, within, you know, well,
[00:09:43.320]I guess period runoff from that field, but in particular within, you know,
[00:09:47.460]a week or so of that application. So,
[00:09:52.350]I don't think I've,
[00:09:55.350]I certainly advised farmers to put on 15 or 20 tons of
[00:10:00.120]beef on the newer meat,
[00:10:01.950]the boss' first needs of that crop land for three to four years,
[00:10:06.420]and then supplemented inorganic fertilizer during that three to four year period
[00:10:11.280]until,
[00:10:12.870]another application of manure can be done without over-applying phosphorus.
[00:10:21.660]Okay, great. Thanks, Amy.
[00:10:26.580]for Paul and Chris,
[00:10:28.800]how have overall fertility needs changed as you've
[00:10:33.450]used cover crops, you know, for this many years, however, like I say, however,
[00:10:38.250]the fertility needs change for either beans or corn or haven't they really
[00:10:42.330]changed at all.
[00:10:44.550]for us personally, we haven't really changed that much,
[00:10:48.540]but we've only been doing it about 10 years and a lot of the guys that I hear
[00:10:52.380]kind of changing their fertility Rex, or have done it for, you know,
[00:10:56.490]15 to 20. but we have been,
[00:11:00.510]partnering with the groups,
[00:11:01.530]kind of calibrating some of this new soil health tests,
[00:11:04.170]like the Cornell and the Haney. And, over the last,
[00:11:08.430]almost six years that we've been doing that,
[00:11:10.890]some of them have gained almost a half a percent on organic matter,
[00:11:14.310]which is really good.
[00:11:16.800]At the Rogers rural farm.
[00:11:19.020]our Sofitel has basically stayed the same and some people say,
[00:11:22.860]aren't you cutting your nitrogen.
[00:11:23.940]Your organic matter goes up and as you're getting covers out there, no,
[00:11:27.750]because our yield goals going up when I first started there,
[00:11:31.620]driving corn yields Southeast Nebraska, you were lucky to get 125 bushel corn.
[00:11:36.150]in fact, right now, if you go in and apply for crop insurance,
[00:11:38.850]if you don't have an APH,
[00:11:40.530]the T for insurance purposes is one 20 for driving on corn lane county
[00:11:45.930]for irrigated corn. It's 1 71, our APH,
[00:11:50.340]the Rogers and rural farm is 180 9. And so, like I say,
[00:11:54.730]our nitrogen staying constant, but our yields are going up,
[00:11:57.640]which tells me fertilizer efficiency is improving.
[00:12:01.540]But as far as how much we're purchasing, no, we've not saving money there. Now,
[00:12:05.620]when it comes to PK solve for all these others,
[00:12:10.240]we rely on this whole test, tell us where we're at.
[00:12:12.880]We've tried some extra fertilizer and strips sometime don't see yield response.
[00:12:17.860]So,
[00:12:18.970]we'd put down a good starter using 10 30 for old liquid cause it's convenient
[00:12:22.450]and handle, but it's not near what we're moving,
[00:12:26.560]which tells me our biology is giving us more available from typical
[00:12:31.330]unavailable. If you didn't have soil biology.
[00:12:35.230]If you remember, from this morning, Aaron heard,
[00:12:38.080]shared some results on looking at some of the soil health tests,
[00:12:41.350]newer soil health tests to look at potentially available nitrogen from that
[00:12:45.340]system with cover crops in it. So looking at that multivariate analysis,
[00:12:48.610]there was that trend in that data that he showed this morning,
[00:12:52.630]to some potential nitrogen savings there with long-term cover crop use.
[00:13:01.510]Okay. Hold on, Gary here. Todd's coming.
[00:13:09.610]Question. Is, is it better to spread dry fertilizer into live? I,
[00:13:13.450]or after it has been terminated in front of soybeans?
[00:13:21.730]That's a good question. I want to try that in corn.
[00:13:24.700]we don't like to run a liquid rigs on our planter, but,
[00:13:29.710]to, to not have to terminate two weeks ahead to see if it's a nitrogen issue,
[00:13:33.940]I'd like to spread it and I'm going to,
[00:13:35.590]I'll probably spread it after we terminated though,
[00:13:37.750]like plant spray and then put urea over the top.
[00:13:44.140]Any other thoughts? I might have some,
[00:13:47.620]just distribution depending where that spreaders and what it's heading just to
[00:13:51.220]get a uniform distribution would be question one, right?
[00:13:54.430]Just to get even distribution.
[00:13:56.140]Two's going to be just potentially losing that nitrogen debate or what form it
[00:14:00.160]is and moisture, you know,
[00:14:02.200]your Rhea dry urea into a Dewey crop,
[00:14:06.070]would be a situation where you might have some increase volatilization on,
[00:14:10.000]on that urea.
[00:14:11.500]so it kind of depended everything on when rainfall was gonna occur after whether
[00:14:15.580]that would be an increased risk or not.
[00:14:17.860]So just two things to think about on that.
[00:14:20.650]Yeah.
[00:14:20.890]And I would also be concerned if you put it on before you terminated your cover.
[00:14:24.670]If that wouldn't give your cover enough vigor to give,
[00:14:26.950]make it harder to terminate.
[00:14:32.440]Good question online, you know, we're five minutes to four,
[00:14:36.010]so yeah. Time for a few more questions.
[00:14:49.210]What research would each.
[00:14:50.770]Of you like to see in the next three to five years to answer some further
[00:14:54.950]questions that you might have in your head to advance soil health regenerative
[00:14:58.850]ag.
[00:15:00.830]Farmer go first.
[00:15:03.380]I mean, as much as I like corn and soybeans,
[00:15:05.630]I'd like to see a little more crop diversification. I mean,
[00:15:09.650]Nebraska is a lot like Iowa in that we could grow about anything,
[00:15:13.220]but if you don't have the infrastructure or someplace to take it,
[00:15:15.980]like we're kind of stuck with corn and soybeans and being able to,
[00:15:20.600]to spread out your harvest and planting makes it a lot easier to get those
[00:15:24.950]covers and, those kinds of activities on and just make,
[00:15:29.210]the soil health practices easier, more timely and,
[00:15:34.130]just better.
[00:15:38.130]an Amy or Nita.
[00:15:41.010]Yeah.
[00:15:41.430]So I would say I've got two main areas that I would like to
[00:15:46.890]look at in the next couple of, you know, three to five years. One of them is,
[00:15:51.510]is looking more at,
[00:15:54.240]nitrogen leaching under different management systems.
[00:15:58.530]So when we're looking at manure versus inorganic fertilizer,
[00:16:03.390]cover crops versus no cover crops,
[00:16:05.310]tillage versus no-till and combinations of those practices to
[00:16:10.200]really get a better understanding of,
[00:16:13.710]how those practices individually and in combination,
[00:16:18.570]can impact nitrate leaching in well-drained soils.
[00:16:23.910]the other area that I,
[00:16:26.150]I really liked to build and give a good answer to farmers on in the next few
[00:16:30.600]years is do I do harm to a
[00:16:34.950]no-till production system if I Tilon
[00:16:39.900]manure every three to five years?
[00:16:43.440]And I think the answer's probably, no,
[00:16:46.050]you don't really damage the soil health,
[00:16:50.070]improvements that you've made with the no-till by doing a light tillage
[00:16:54.960]of, a dry litter, you know,
[00:16:57.120]poultry litter or a feedlot manure every few years. But,
[00:17:01.620]but I haven't seen a lot of data on that.
[00:17:04.920]And so I'd like to look into that a bit more.
[00:17:08.540]Great, Anita thoughts.
[00:17:14.210]yes. From weed suppression standpoint and thinking about,
[00:17:18.500]longer-term impacts of using cover crops on soil health, is,
[00:17:22.370]does that change the seed bank dynamics of our weed seeds? Are they,
[00:17:27.410]you know,
[00:17:27.960]do they survive as long as they have in the past or does that new biologies soil
[00:17:32.300]health change sort of that persistence of those needs? And then, you know,
[00:17:36.170]what does do we move from, you know, main driver weeds,
[00:17:40.130]species to diversity, which may not be as bad and problematic.
[00:17:43.820]What we see when we've got one week that's really dominating our system.
[00:17:47.330]So that's one area.
[00:17:48.960]We have another grad student looking at the interaction with grazing and
[00:17:54.000]cover crops and weed suppression.
[00:17:55.860]And how do you link all those different phases? You know,
[00:17:58.980]how soon do I need to pull the animals off,
[00:18:00.690]still get my weed suppression and still get a cash crop. So again,
[00:18:04.320]the whole system is intriguing to track all those parts.
[00:18:08.730]Okay. Paul, one of the things that, he,
[00:18:12.200]he brought it up with insects and when you start looking at,
[00:18:15.630]beneficials versus those that do damage, you know,
[00:18:19.650]a lot of jugs, we by our sides kill something,
[00:18:24.360]whether it be a fungus, bacteria is, but insects,
[00:18:29.220]weeds, so on,
[00:18:31.080]w what effect is it having on the beneficials is kind of research I'd like to
[00:18:35.100]see more of, and as a, for instance, at the register rural farm,
[00:18:38.100]we grow seed wheat for our foundation seed division.
[00:18:40.740]And while seed wheat is usually treated with a fungicide,
[00:18:44.430]they maintain high seed quality. Well,
[00:18:47.160]what's it doing to what I want in the soil?
[00:18:51.360]that's the only fungicide we use at all at the farm there,
[00:18:53.970]because our rotation or beneficials and everything else,
[00:18:57.780]we don't see problems in our corn beans and Milo, likewise,
[00:19:02.220]when it comes to insecticides and tell these, sorry,
[00:19:06.750]when Goldman showed up, we didn't think we had any problems.
[00:19:09.900]And so I think all made one year, in fact, it is, and then it hasn't.
[00:19:13.020]So what do you do? And so, again,
[00:19:15.270]I'd like to see more on what damage are we doing to beneficials as we're trying
[00:19:19.380]to kill the bad ones.

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2022 Eastern Nebraska Soil Health Conference Presentations - Speaker Panel

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