It’s always great to see farm broadcasters as featured speakers at events, so it was fun to see our good friend Dale Minyo with the Ohio Ag Net as luncheon speaker at the Conservation Technology Information Center tour August 9 in Northwest Ohio.
Dale talked about the importance of messaging for agriculture. “Sometimes we’ve got to clear up the message,” he said, using the example of increasing profitability in farming. “The way we’ve been able to make a profit is we’ve become more efficient,” Dale said. “It’s more about efficient, it’s about environmental concerns, it’s about being more effective about what we’re doing.”
Dale was pleased that the CTIC chose the Ohio region around Lake Erie to showcase some of the important initiatives that farmers are doing.
The luncheon where Dale spoke was on the Mavis Farm near Edgerton, Ohio. The corn and soybean operation is a fourth generation farm owned by Gary Mavis (pictured) and his wife Pat with son Scott and his wife Jenny. Gary says they follow a corn-soybean rotation on nearly 3,000 acres and divide each field into different yield zones. “We started yield mapping back in ’95 and after a few years of collecting data was able to established yield zones that we felt comfortable with,” he said. “Now we’re applying fertilizer based on those yield zones and we’re varying the rate as we go across the field it might varying 150-200 pounds depending on what the soil test has showed.”
That results in more efficient use of fertilizer and lime, less pounds applied, and money saved.
John Deere has been a partner with CTIC since the T stood for Tillage. Now the T stands for Technology, and John Deere’s relationship with the Conservation Technology Information Center is stronger than ever.
“John Deere was a founding member with CTIC back in 1982,” said John Deere product manager Pauley Bradley on the recent CTIC 2011 Conservation in Action Tour. “John Deere needed a partner where education was required.”
Pauley says CTIC and John Deere have evolved together over the years. “In 1986, there was the realization that conservation was going beyond tillage that that’s when it was re-named the Conservation Technology Information Center,” he said. “And that’s when we started focusing on other aspects of farming besides just seeding and tillage.”
John Deere Solutions Specialist Kim Fletcher gave participants on the bus tour a little pop quiz about the history between John Deere and CTIC – watch it below and see if you know the answers!
Conservation Technology Information Center (CTIC) past chairman Tim Healey of AGROTAIN wore many hats during last week’s 2011 Conservation In Action Tour, including bus monitor, sponsor, interviewee and interviewer.
“We’ve been doing this for five years now and each year the conservation tour gets better,” Tim told me at the end of the tour in northwest Ohio. “We hear from farmers who are really dedicated to instituting conservation practices to make sure that the majority of nutrients they apply in the field stay in the field.”
The tour had a record number of participants this year, over 200, and many of them were farmers who had the chance to learn about conservation practices from other farmers. During time on the bus, Tim did an interview with one of the farmer participants, Gerald Heck of Monroe, Michigan.
Tim asked Gerry why he decided to come on the tour. “Couple of reasons,” Gerry answered. “The opportunity to gain more knowledge about conservation tillage and the six CCUs also were a nice incentive since I’m a CCA.” Gerry says he does use continuous no-till in some fields. “Started no-tilling back the late 80s, with soybeans, then wheat and finally corn, as the equipment became available,” he said. “We moved to no-till to save on fuel and wear and tear on our iron.”
“We’re thrilled that we had to add an extra bus,” said one of the organizers of this year’s event, Steve Davis with the Ohio USDA NRCS. “We wanted to show people the agriculture in northwest Ohio, the good work that many Ohio farmers are doing, and also talk about the challenges that still lie ahead for us.”
“This is by far our largest tour ever,” said tour chairman Larry Clemens of The Nature Conservancy. “I think that as CTIC we’re learning that our tours are enjoyable for people, they’re gaining in reputation, and we’re going to have to make some adjustments on how to handle over 200 people in the future.” Despite the very large group, the tour went smoothly, on time and without a hitch. Next year’s tour is slated to be in the Mississippi Delta region.
The IJC was established by the 1909 Boundary Waters Treaty to monitor the rivers and lakes along the border of Canada and the United States and aid the governments of the two countries in finding solutions to problems in these waters. “The commission was established to avoid and resolve disputes with water,” Lana told me. “Everywhere we share waters with Canada is an area that we the commission are interested in helping to protect – for agriculture, hydropower, navigation, and environmental purposes.” The six member commission has three members from each country, appointed by the highest level of government.
Lana’s interest in attending the CTIC tour was seeing what is being done to deal with environmental issues on Lake Erie. “The issue before us is one of water quality and why is Lake Erie so stressed again that we’re seeing algal blooms that are impacting recreation and probably health as well,” she said. Lana was pleased to see the tour included agricultural producers who are implementing best practices to protect water quality.
One of the stops on the 2011 CTIC Conservation In Action Tour in Ohio last week was the farm of Todd Hesterman in Napoleon, Ohio. Todd has employed continuous no-till on his 450 acre corn, soybean and wheat operation for 22 years and used yield mapping for more than 14 years and is a strong advocate for doing what he can to help water quality and “still stay in business.”
“Our water infiltration rates for heavy rains, we can definitely see an improvement in the quantity of rain water we can accept and not have standing water or running water off the service,” he said. “That’s the biggest improvement we see is soil health and soil quality.”
To show the clear difference between tilled and no-till soil, USDA-NRCS Ohio state agronomist Mark Scarpitti did a little demonstration on Todd’s farm by dropping a chunk of soil that had been in no-till for several decades, compared to a similar chunk of tilled soil. You can see what happens in the video below.
USDA resource soil scientist Frank Gibbs likes to dig in the dirt a lot. He is a certified professional soil scientist and classifier and chairs the Ohio Soil Scientist Certification Board for the Soil Science Society of America. When it comes to soil, he really knows his stuff and he has a great perspective on how lucky we are in this country to have such productive land.
Watch his entertaining and informative presentation on the soil pit he dug on Dean Farms:
Participants on this week’s he 2011 CTIC Conservation In Action Tour in Ohio heard a clear case for cover crops from farmer Allen Dean in Williams County.
“For several years now we’ve been watching our watersheds when we get these large rainfall events and it’s been interesting to see where we have some type of cover crop, water coming off those watersheds is virtually clean – you could actually drink the water, it’s so clean,” Allen said. He demonstrated the difference to the tour group with jars of water collected off fields after recent rains. He’s holding the jar with water from his fields.
Dean Farms grows wheat and non-GMO soybeans on 1900 acres where they plant a variety of cover crops, including annual rye, cereal rye, clover and radishes. “We’ve been using radishes for 4-5 years now,” he said. “They’re called a daikon radish and the advantage of radishes is they’ll actually open up the soil, they’ll drill down deep into the soil, they have a long tap root and a lot of ladder roots.” When winter comes, the radishes die and start decomposing and come spring “the soil is clean as far as any type of residue.”
Al Bensch, vice president of northern operations for The Andersons Plant Nutrient Group, spoke on one of the three tour buses as we drove past much of the company’s Maumee, Ohio operations. “We have 27 locations in the fertilizer business – Ohio, Michigan, Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin, Minnesota and Florida,” Al said. “We handled last year a little over two million tons of fertilizer.”
The diversified company, which was started in the late 1940′s by Harold Anderson, has various business divisions in addition to plant nutrients, including the grain and ethanol, railcar leasing and repair, turf products production, and consumer retailing industries.
We made a very brief stop at the Anderson family compound where we heard from the Plant Nutrient Group president Denny Addis about the Andersons’ commitment to agriculture and the environment. “Production agriculture and care for the environment are not mutually exclusive, they need to work in harmony together,” he told me in an interview. “We’ve got to continue to find more ways to produce more fiber, more food, more energy for the world at the same time make sure we care for the environment.”
The rosy glow over the Maumee River as we returned from the 2011 CTIC Conservation In Action Tour Tuesday was reflective of the mood of the participants about the future of the Great Lake Erie and the agriculture that surrounds it.
The theme of the tour was “Great Farms, Great Lake” and we heard from so many agricultural producers in the area who are taking pro-active steps to keep it great. I have lots of interviews and video but am exhausted after a very long day so we will work on that in the days to come. Meanwhile, the photo album has been updated and you can enjoy the tour just like you were there! A big thanks to the CTIC staff, board of directors, tour organizing committee and the great sponsors – including our coverage sponsor Agrotain.
The 2011 CTIC Conservation In Action Tour concluded with a visit from Congresswoman Marcy Kaptur (D-OH) who represents the district that includes much of the area of Ohio that we visited today.
This 15-term representative is an advocate for agriculture and conservation in her district and was pleased to take time to meet with the tour group. “My main message was to thank them for being in the greatest tradition of the United States – our love of the land, the ethic of conservation and land stewardship that is rooted deep in our history,” she told me in an interview.
Challenges to the water quality of Lake Erie was the main focus of the CTIC tour and Marcy just participated in a ceremony Monday announcing a new $1.3 million wetlands restoration project in the latest round of Great Lakes Restoration Initiative awards at the Lake Erie Center in Oregon. She says the manufactured wetland will filter e.coli and phosphorus “in a very creative way, perhaps even being able to reuse phosphorus where it is needed.”
I also asked Marcy about her thoughts on the current attitude in Congress and, as a member of the House Agriculture Appropriations committee, what she thinks might happen with conservation funding in the upcoming 2012 Farm Bill negotiations.
Lake Erie is the most important lake in the world but it is facing some challenges.
The first part of the 2011 CTIC Conservation In Action Tour allowed us to get a first hand look at and learn more about the Great Lake and the Maumee River and Bay that feed it.
Jeff Reutter, Director of Ohio Sea Grant and Stone Laboratory at Ohio State University says Lake Erie is very different than the other four great lakes. “The other lakes are all in excess of 750 feet deep while the deepest spot in Lake Erie is 210 feet. The average depth of the whole western basin is only 24 feet, so it’s really a shallow lake.” Jeff says Lake Erie has only two percent of the water of all the Great Lakes combined, but 50% of the fish.
It’s also the most southern and the warmest of the lakes, which makes it a breeding ground for algae. “Because we have a lot of agriculture and cities around the basin, we end up with a lot of nutrients coming into the lake. If you put fertilizer on crops, the crops do really well, if you put fertilizer out in Lake Erie, the algae does really well.”
Jeff was pleased to have the opportunity to have this agricultural group tour the area and see the proactive steps the industry can take to reduce runoff and still maintain productivity.
Check out the photo album from the CTIC Tour, which started with a boat tour of the Maumee River and out into Lake Erie. On Tuesday, we will be touring agricultural operations in the area to see the innovative conservation practices they are implementing.
The Conservation Technology Information Center annual tour is taking place in Northwest Ohio and focusing on the impact of agriculture on the Maumee River and Bay, as well as Lake Erie.
We started out the event with a boat tour of the river and bay and out into the lake to get a view from the water of what the issues are for agriculture in the area. I talked with Ron Olson (left) of The Mosaic Company and Rex Martin of Syngenta about the purpose of the tour and why their companies are involved with the event and CTIC.
Florida-based Mosaic, which is the world’s leading producer and marketer of concentrated phosphate and potash, is the sponsor of this year’s tour. “The industry has adopted the 4R stewardship campaign,” Ron said. “The right product at the right rate, at the right place at the right time – and this is part of getting that message out to the farmers and the fertilizer dealers who are users of our product.”
Rex is head of industry relations for Syngenta and chairman of the CTIC Board of Directors. “We do a good job of taking folks that need to learn about conservation technology and matching them with folks that need to know about conservation technology,” Rex says about CTIC. This year’s tour has record-breaking attendance and Rex says they have lots of great stops planned on Tuesday to find out more about innovative conservation practices in the area.
During the CTIC Indian Creek Watershed Project field tour we heard a presentation from Cristina Negri, an agronomist with the Argonne National Laboratory. Cristina told us about a project they are working on in the watershed to see what types of agricultural production will work best for biofuels. They’re looking for marginal land that doesn’t lend itself to growing corn and looking at alternative crops. Efficiently using nitrogen will be important to whatever crop is found to work best for biofuels. The name of the project is “Biomass Production and Nitrogen Recovery.” You can read about it here (pdf).
To determine the opportunity, relevance and sustainability of a biomass production scenario and BMP that recover marginal land and impaired water to support productivity. This scenario by design maximizes sustainability benefits at the farm and landscape/watershed levels.
Cristina participated in the CTIC tour to learn more about the production practices being used by farmers in the watershed and says she learned a lot. You can learn more about her project from a presentation she gave our tour group during lunch: Cristina Negri Presentation
The Ag Resource Coordinator for the Livingston County, IL Soil & Water Conservation District is Terry Bachtold. He was one of the coordinators for the CTIC Indian Creek Watershed Project field day. He says this project is all about water quality and what farm management practices will help improve it. A good percentage of farms in the watershed have signed up, in fact, I believe it’s about half of them!
Terry says these farmers are using different techniques to apply nutrients and conducting much more testing so they can fine tune how and when and where they make applications, including moving to more summer time application. They’re hoping to see results within three years with more farm participation and adoption of these new practices within a couple years after that.
One of the participants on the CTIC Indian Creek Watershed Project Field Tour was Mike Plummer. Mike was representing the Illinois Corn Growers who are one of the stakeholder group supporters of the project. I sat down with him to get his perspective on the project.
Mike says that the Illinois Corn Marketing Board is working with the project in an advisory capacity. He says the participating farms are putting some very good management practices in place from which they are collecting data to study. From a corn grower perspective the watershed is a great place to start since it is highly tile drained. The management practices developed will be useful in other parts of the state. He hopes the project will show which management practices will improve quality without harming yield. You can listen to my interview with Michael here: Interview with Michael Plummer
The CTIC Indian Creek Watershed Project field tour included a stop at Kilgus Dairy. The family dairy farm is the only one in the state bottling their own milk. They also grow corn and soybeans and have land for the cows to graze on. They move those cows periodically, allowing the paddocks to grow back. In the picture you can see Matt Kilgus showing our group how to pour our own ice cream in the on-farm dairy products store, Kilgus Homestead.
Matt says they started the grazing system which got them involved with watershed management. Matt’s uncle was on the steering committee for the CTIC project so they’re conducting several tests and programs, including the use of different types of cover crops. He says that they hope to see some results that will benefit them while also be better stewards of the land.
There was a lot to learn from Spence Farm on the CTIC Indian Creek Watershed Project field tour. Specialty corn varieties for connoisseur chefs is another lesson we learned last week. Iroquois White Corn has an unusual earthy flavor and a varied texture that chefs love and it’s worth about $840 a bushel for Marty and Kris Travis of Spence Farm in Livingston County, Illinois.
Marty and Kris started growing the heirloom corn several years ago. “We harvest it, dry it and then we roast it over an open fire, shell it and run it through our stone mill to make a roasted corn meal,” Marty said. “We sell that to the general public and to chefs for $15 a pound.”
The Travis’ have also started growing a red flint corn from Italy this year, a typical polenta corn that took them two years to find and is in high demand with chefs right now. “The red corn has this incredible, floral flavor that is unlike any of the corns that we’ve ever tasted,” said Marty.
Watch them talk about their specialty corn crops and how they’ve found a market for just about every part of the plant!
Steffen Farm in Livingston/Mclean counties in Illinois was a stop on the CTIC Indian Creek Watershed Project field tour. Our host was Herb Steffen. Two thirds of his farm is devoted to continuous corn with a third in a corn/soybean rotation. As with other farms that have volunteered to participate in this project, Herb is conducting several tests. He’s side dressing nutrients at different rates along with a control plot. During this stop we wandered through the plots to see the different results in this first year of the project.
Herb says the project is something that has been needed for a long time. He says it’s not only about educating farmers but also environmentalists who don’t know what’s actually going on at the farm. He encourages farmers to be more proactive. He says the soil nitrogen tests being conducted on his farm are providing information he wouldn’t have otherwise. The project will provide “the proof that we are working to keep the yields where they need to be to feed a growing population.”
One of the stops on the CTIC Indian Creek Watershed Project field tour was Traub Farm. Our presenter was John Traub. The family farm grows corn, soybeans, specialty hybrid seed corn and hybrid sunflowers. The farm was named the Livingston County SWCD Conservation Farm Family in 2010. So they take conservation seriously.
I spoke with John after his presentation. He says he got involved with the project through their relationship with the SWCD and NRCS. It just “made sense” to them. He says that many of the projects they have participated in provide rewards for doing so. For this project he says they didn’t have to do a lot of things different but they are doing more testing to find the right rate, timing and place to apply nutrients. He says people often get so busy they don’t take time to look at what they’re doing. One of the real benefits of the project for him is being forced to look at what the things are they should be doing.
The Traub farm uses strip-till conservation systems with minimal tillage. They are currently comparing fall applied N with an RTK strip-till system to a conventional chisel plow system.
In this week's program Chuck talks with Mike Adams, AgriTalk.
Chuck and Mike often wind up at the same events all over the country so it seemed like a good idea to do a little AgriTalking about the changes they've seen in the ag media landscape.
It’s always great to see farm broadcasters as featured speakers at events, so it was fun to see our good friend Dale Minyo with the Ohio Ag Net as luncheon speaker at the Conservation Technology Information Center tour August 9 in Northwest Ohio.
The luncheon where Dale spoke was on the Mavis Farm near Edgerton, Ohio. The corn and soybean operation is a fourth generation farm owned by Gary Mavis (pictured) and his wife Pat with son Scott and his wife Jenny. Gary says they follow a corn-soybean rotation on nearly 3,000 acres and divide each field into different yield zones. “We started yield mapping back in ’95 and after a few years of collecting data was able to established yield zones that we felt comfortable with,” he said. “Now we’re applying fertilizer based on those yield zones and we’re varying the rate as we go across the field it might varying 150-200 pounds depending on what the soil test has showed.”
John Deere has been a partner with CTIC since the T stood for Tillage. Now the T stands for Technology, and John Deere’s relationship with the 
The tour had a record number of participants this year, over 200, and many of them were farmers who had the chance to learn about conservation practices from other farmers. During time on the bus, Tim did an interview with one of the farmer participants, Gerald Heck of Monroe, Michigan. 
The 
“This is by far our largest tour ever,” said tour chairman Larry Clemens of The Nature Conservancy. “I think that as CTIC we’re learning that our tours are enjoyable for people, they’re gaining in reputation, and we’re going to have to make some adjustments on how to handle over 200 people in the future.” Despite the very large group, the tour went smoothly, on time and without a hitch. Next year’s tour is slated to be in the Mississippi Delta region.
One of the participants on the 
Lana’s interest in attending the CTIC tour was seeing what is being done to deal with environmental issues on Lake Erie. “The issue before us is one of water quality and why is Lake Erie so stressed again that we’re seeing algal blooms that are impacting recreation and probably health as well,” she said. Lana was pleased to see the tour included agricultural producers who are implementing best practices to protect water quality.
One of the stops on the 
“Our water infiltration rates for heavy rains, we can definitely see an improvement in the quantity of rain water we can accept and not have standing water or running water off the service,” he said. “That’s the biggest improvement we see is soil health and soil quality.”
The 
Participants on this week’s he 
One stop on the 
Al Bensch, vice president of northern operations for The Andersons Plant Nutrient Group, spoke on one of the three tour buses as we drove past much of the company’s Maumee, Ohio operations. “We have 27 locations in the fertilizer business – Ohio, Michigan, Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin, Minnesota and Florida,” Al said. “We handled last year a little over two million tons of fertilizer.”
We made a very brief stop at the Anderson family compound where we heard from the Plant Nutrient Group president Denny Addis about the Andersons’ commitment to agriculture and the environment. “Production agriculture and care for the environment are not mutually exclusive, they need to work in harmony together,” he told me in an interview. “We’ve got to continue to find more ways to produce more fiber, more food, more energy for the world at the same time make sure we care for the environment.”
The rosy glow over the Maumee River as we returned from the 
The 
The first part of the 
The 
During the CTIC Indian Creek Watershed Project field tour we heard a presentation from Cristina Negri, an agronomist with the 
The Ag Resource Coordinator for the 
One of the participants on the CTIC Indian Creek Watershed Project Field Tour was Mike Plummer. Mike was representing the 
The CTIC Indian Creek Watershed Project field tour included a stop at Kilgus Dairy. The family dairy farm is the only one in the state bottling their own milk. They also grow corn and soybeans and have land for the cows to graze on. They move those cows periodically, allowing the paddocks to grow back. In the picture you can see Matt Kilgus showing our group how to pour our own ice cream in the on-farm dairy products store, 
Steffen Farm in Livingston/Mclean counties in Illinois was a stop on the CTIC Indian Creek Watershed Project field tour. Our host was Herb Steffen. Two thirds of his farm is devoted to continuous corn with a third in a corn/soybean rotation. As with other farms that have volunteered to participate in this project, Herb is conducting several tests. He’s side dressing nutrients at different rates along with a control plot. During this stop we wandered through the plots to see the different results in this first year of the project.
One of the stops on the CTIC Indian Creek Watershed Project field tour was Traub Farm. Our presenter was John Traub. The family farm grows corn, soybeans, specialty hybrid seed corn and hybrid sunflowers. The farm was named the Livingston County SWCD Conservation Farm Family in 2010. So they take conservation seriously.
In this week's program Chuck talks with Mike Adams, AgriTalk.
