Throughout my career I have vacillated in my support of structural practices versus management practices. You could say that I was fickle, or that I didn’t have a good grasp of the material. But in hindsight, I see my support, or non-support, depended on where I was working at the time. Early in my career, I worked in Eastern Iowa, where shallow to bedrock soils prompted us to focus more on management practices such as no-till and contour strip-cropping. From Eastern Iowa, I moved across the state to a western Iowa county where terraces and …
Really, One More Thing?
Last month at a round table discussion, Paul Meints, Minnesota Corn Growers Association, stated that farmers are fatigued from the “one more thing.” When farmers are asked to do a conservation practice and they do it, they think this thing is going to solve their environmental problems. Then 5 years later, 3 years later, or even 6 months later, they are asked again to do one more thing. They do another one more thing and the cycle continues. Mr. Meints’ comments reminded me of when Peggy and I bought our house; a house we love. Naturally, we …
Sending a man to the moon
Recently I attended a soil health conference in Ames, Iowa. At the noon lunch, Dr. John Lawrence of Iowa State University, addressed the challenges of improving soil conservation and water quality. Dr. Lawrence commented that achieving the goals of the Nutrient Reduction Strategy are probably equivalent to the difficulty of putting a man on the moon. After hearing Dr. Lawrence’s remark, I thought I would do some research. On May 25, 1961, before a special joint session of Congress, President John F. Kennedy announced his dramatic and ambitious …
Old Dog Teaching New Tricks
Ernie Aust was one of the most unique NRCS employees I have had the privilege of working with. Ernie was special. He served as Area Conservationist in Southwest Iowa and I was fortunate to have him as a supervisor. Looking back, it is obvious Ernie missed his calling. His talents would have been better utilized as an engineer or resource conservationist. During our professional visits, Ernie had little interest in talking about performance appraisals and workload analysis; instead he wanted to talk about engineering practices and variations …
I hope to see you at the InfoAg Conference
If you have an interest in precision agriculture, you should attend the 2016 InfoAg Conference. I will be at Booth #11.InfoAg features an educational program that includes plenary and breakout sessions. There is also an extensive exhibit hall of leading hardware, software, and vendors to precision agriculture. The educational programs are perfect for learning new perspectives about how to put technology to work in the field. It is also a great place to hear more about new products and services as well as the unique perspective on the global …
Choose Variety for Conservation
If you don’t care about the long-term results, then sure one size fits all…It seems like we have to learn the same lessons over and over. In 1986, I was a new District Conservationist in the Carroll Field Office in West Central Iowa. NRCS was just rolling out the Conservation Reserve Program (CRP). In those first years, we conservation planners wrote one CRP plan after another, for pure stands of smooth bromegrass on CRP. It only took a few years before the wildlife biologist realized that a solid seeding of smooth bromegrass was almost …