(energetic music) (uplifting music) - Hello and welcome to "Farm Connections."

I'm your host Dan Hoffman.

On today's program, we meet with Alan Kraus of Clean River Partners to discuss carbon intensity.

Tom Cotter stops by to discuss the importance of carbon intensity scores and what they mean.

And the University of Minnesota Extension brings us a new Best Practices.

All here today on "Farm Connections."

(upbeat country music) (upbeat country music continues) - [Narrator 1] Welcome to "Farm Connections" with your host Dan Hoffman.

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- We're in Owatonna, Minnesota and with me today is Alan Kraus from Clean River Partners.

Alan, what do you do at Clean River Partners?

- Well, I'm the Conservation Program Manager and we do a lot of work with farmers on planting cover crops and no-till planting, reduced tillage.

Really the option here with us is to, you know, build the resilience in the watershed here around, the Canon River Watershed area, so southeast Minnesota, the Canon River Watershed is about a million acres in size.

There's about 655,000 acres that are tillable and planted with crops, corn, and soybeans and other crops.

And our job is to work with those farmers to try to get that land more resilient, to be able to withstand these really extreme weather events that are happening and provide greater profitability to the farmers that we're working with.

- Certainly a worthy goal.

If you reach your goal, which I'm confident you're moving towards, what would be the end result?

- Wow, I would say the end result is that, exactly what I just described, the watershed itself is more resilient to extreme weather events, the farmers that are working within that watershed are also more resilient in terms of their farm profitability and then their long-term value of the soil and long-term opportunity to pass that farm on to future generations.

- So Alan, there must be some advantages to the waters that flow through that area.

- Oh, there absolutely is.

We've done a number of tests with farmers in a little tiny watershed, as a test site, kind of a perfect, you know, living laboratory, about a 4,100 acre watershed with about 3,500 acres of tillable land.

We've been working with a dozen farmers in that small watershed to plant about a third of the area in crops with cover crops, and we've been doing that since 2018, all the way through today.

This program, this project will continue through 2025.

But what we have found and with great significance is that those fields where cover crops are planted compared to fields where no cover crops are planted, has about 30% less nitrate nitrogen in the tile water, the tile drainage water that's leaving the fields.

So that's huge, right?

I mean, that nitrogen fertilizer is retained in the soil profile by those cover crops that are growing there and it's available to the future crops that the farmers want to grow, so.

- Alan, if we're reducing through the subsurface drainage system nitrates about 30%, does that mean we could also reduce the amount potentially put on and get the same good crop results?

- Yes, it absolutely does mean that.

In fact, we're gonna be working this year with a grower specifically to try to determine on those fields where we've been planting cover since 2018 and watching the tile that's draining out of that field, we're gonna do some different nitrogen fertilizer application levels across this 40 acre field to make a really close determination about what level that farmer can actually cut back on the fertilizer that's being used on his field.

This grower has already cut back on fertilizer that he would've grown on or put on that field, but we're gonna test it to see how far back we can actually go.

There's no question there's nitrate nitrogen fertilizer available for plants in his soil profile, because of the great practices that he's done.

We wanna see how much and how much we can take advantage of that.

- And how about phosphorus and potassium?

Any results?

- Yeah, well, so we are not monitoring the phosphorus, potassium that's coming out of that tile drainage line.

Phosphorus is really tied to soil that's leaving the field.

So soil that might be leaving the field through erosion and heavy rainfall, enters our receiving waters here in the state of Minnesota.

That's where our phosphorus is likely, absolutely entering our receiving waters.

So great thing about cover crops and less tillage is we have a whole lot less erosion, a whole lot less soil entering our receiving waters because those cover crops are providing living, growing roots in the soil, holding that soil in place, keeping it from entering the receiving waters.

Phosphorus levels will be lower in those receiving waters.

- Any short term goals inside of your organization?

- Short-term goals?

Well, I'll tell you what, I'm gonna give you a long-term goal first and then describe how we're trying to get there.

So back in 2016, I think it was, the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency developed, a plan for the Cannon River Watershed.

They've done this around all watersheds around the state of Minnesota and the goal within that plan is to have 15% of the tillable acres in our Canon River watershed planted with cover crops.

15%, that amounts to about 88,000 acres within our watershed being planted with cover crops every year.

We began doing surveys, we being Clean River Partners, began doing surveys of other partners within that watershed, the soil and water conservation districts to try to get an idea of how many acres are being planted with cover crops within our watershed.

We began this survey back in 2017.

At that time, those early numbers were about 10% of the tillable acres were, I'll take it back, about 10,000 acres were being planted with cover crops, okay?

So a very small percentage.

Since that time, we've bumped it up to about 22,000 acres we think that are being planted with covers.

These are estimates, survey work, right?

So we think there's actually more than that, but there's some other satellite image work that we're doing with the University of Minnesota that might suggest it's a little less than that.

Somewhere in there.

22,000 acres is what we think is being planted with cover crops.

So about four and a half percent, our goal is to get to 15% about that 88,000.

We've got a long ways to go, we know that, right?

But we're making progress.

- And how do events like today drive you closer to that longer term goal?

- Yeah, today's event was a good event and from the standpoint that the opportunity might be in front of farmers to actually be getting paid for conservation practices on the landscape, reduced tillage, planting cover crops, incorporating livestock waste into the soil profile and retaining those nutrients in the soil, cleaning up that water, but then also having the carbon footprint, if you will, the carbon intensity score of their grain that they're selling, that that grain might be able to be sold at a premium price to an ethanol or a biofuels plant.

That's the program that's in front of 'em.

Today's event really highlighted all of that activity, all of that opportunity for farmers.

There was a lot of farmers in that room today, because of the opportunity that they might actually be able to get paid for the low-carbon farming that many of them in in that room were doing.

And there were a lot of new faces in that room today too.

Folks that aren't implementing all these conservation practices that were really looking at that opportunity and saying, "This might be my chance to get on board and, like, build that resilience into the watershed, build that resilience into my farm, build that opportunity to pass this farm on for generations to come."

And that's what this event today really provided.

- Thank you so much, Alan.

Do you have a website or someplace people could find out more about your organization?

- I sure do!

Our website is CleanRiverPartners.org.

- Awesome.

Thank you again!

- Yeah, thank you!

- Stay tuned for more on "Farm Connections."

(uplifting music) (uplifting music continues) (upbeat music) - [Narrator 4] "Farm Connections" Best Practices, brought to you by AbsoluteEnergy and AgVantage Software.

(no audio) - Hi, I'm Ryan Miller, Crops Extension Educator with the University of Minnesota Extension, and this is today's Best Practices segment.

So in today's segment, we're gonna talk about gaining our herbicide applications to work better.

This is really important given the tough to control weeds that we're dealing with nowadays, and so we're gonna mention the big four things we kind of control when it comes to making our applications work better.

The first thing on my list is the rate, and to use the maximum allowable rate per application.

And this is particularly important with our pre-emergence herbicides, herbicides we're applying before weeds emerge and control the weeds before they're up and growing.

And so these rates are often determined upon where you're located as well as the soil texture.

So on some of our finer-texture soils, we tend to have to use a little bit higher rates in order to get good control.

And on coarser-texture soils, typically we use a little bit lower rates.

So those are important details you can find on your herbicide label.

When we go into post emergence herbicides, we've got a little more flexibility.

There's typically a rate range and we can vary that based on our knowledge of the weed species that are present, how difficult they are to control.

Obviously when we have more difficult to control weeds, we wanna be at the upper end of those ranges.

We can also adjust based on growing conditions.

So if the weeds have hardened off, it's cold or it's dry and they have started to develop thicker cuticles and are gonna be harder to control, we can certainly dial the rate up to that maximum level for a single application and typically see better results.

I am a big fan of using those kind of the maximum single use application rates, because in addition to having good efficacy, we tend to have a little bit better consistency.

So over time we'll hit more home runs with those higher rates.

The next big thing on my list is additives.

And so we look at different additives, different products require different things.

One really good or important thing to mention now is a lot of folks are using glufosinate, commonly referred to as Liberty, but it's sold in our whole bunch of different trade names.

But with Liberty, we really need to be using three pounds of AMS per acre to get it to have the best weed control.

And that's quite a bit higher than some of the use rates of AMS that folks are typically used to with different products they've used in the past, so something to pay attention to.

So let's consider some of the other herbicide products on the market, both contact and systemic.

They're gonna require different additives.

And one big thing here is, when we're using a name brand product, oftentimes those products are fully loaded.

So they've got a surfactant, they've got defoamers, they've got deposition aids, and other things to make those herbicides work better.

Sometimes folks are gonna choose to use generic products, and they can save some money by doing that, but they're gonna need to really pay attention to adding those additional components that may come with that fully loaded product in the jug.

So with generics, we're gonna need to think about adding surfactants, we're gonna need defoamers, as well as some of the other additives that might be included in some of those more name brand type products.

It's important to think about.

So a lot of us are gonna be using well water, well water is notoriously hard, which can cause issues with herbicide activity.

And so a common product that's being added to the spray solution is AMS to deal with some of these hard water issues.

It's important to add the AMS prior to mixing the herbicide in.

It'll help kind of neutralize some of the cations in the solution and to help maintain efficacy of some of those herbicide products.

Some herbicide products don't allow for the use of AMS and it's important to pay attention to the label.

There are other options on the market for water conditioning that don't include AMS.

And so you can find one of those from your local retailer and use those instead.

The final thing to think about is coverage.

And when we've got a really dense weed population or we've got a lot of crop canopy out there, it's important to consider using more carrier volume to get better coverage.

We need to get herbicide on the weeds in order to control them.

When we look at our different contact herbicide products, again, back to that glufosinate, very popular product right now, we can benefit from upping our carrier volume even when we have less dense weed populations and no crop canopy out there.

So it's something to think about if you're used to applying 10, 12 gallons per acre, going to 15 or 20 gallons per acre preferably, you can see some benefits in terms of weed control with those contact herbicides.

The final thing to think about in coverage is spray tip.

Sometimes we're limited what spray tip we can use based on the label requirements.

So some products require larger size droplets and so our tip choice is limited, but where we have some flexibility, if we're in a situation where we need to get better coverage, it's oftentimes better to go back to a flat fan that's gonna create a more medium sized droplet.

It's gonna have more droplets out there, cover the weeds better, and give us better weed control.

I'm Ryan Miller, Crops Educator with the University of Minnesota Extension and that was today's Best Practices segment.

- With me today is Tom Cotter from Austin, Minnesota, an expert farmer that shared a lot today.

Welcome to "Farm Connections."

- Hi Dan!

- What a great workshop!

What inspired you to be part of it?

- Oh, it was fantastic.

Yeah, it's fun to see this new CI coming about and, you know, getting farmers paid for doing a better job.

And so that's really what I've been after for a long time.

- Well there was literally 200 or more people in the room.

- [Tom] Yes.

Yeah.

- And they all seemed interested.

What's the big deal about carbon?

- Well, the big thing is, there was some earlier programs that paid farmers to do this, but now this one's gonna pay us by bushel.

And so literally the lower your score is, the more possibility you have of capturing this mine, it'll be added onto your bushels very easily or by the ethanol plants.

And they will, they get the tax credit and then they pass it on to us at a reasonable 50/50 is what I've been hearing, but it could be a little different, but still a good thing.

- Most people when they think of score, they try for a high score.

I heard you say low score.

Tell us about that.

- So it's, they are, take all your data that you have as far as, you know, are you doing reduced tillage, are you reducing chemicals or synthetics?

Natural manures for fertilizers, all the trips across your field and they give you a CI score.

And the typical farmer in Minnesota, I think in the country actually would be like a 29.1.

And if you reduce somebody's practice, you can get down to a 10 or a five or even negative.

- Tom, why should a farmer get paid for reducing carbon?

- Well this is helping a big thing in the whole world really, and of course the United States is leading a charge on trying to reduce carbon and who better than the farmers to be able to put this carbon back into the soil?

And that comes with having a living plant out on the ground.

And that's really what's capturing the carbon the best, and putting it in the ground where it should be, which in turn really benefits us farmers in the long run period.

- Tom, your farm is kind of a experiment station, so to speak.

And you've been at this for how long?

- Started doing covers in 1998.

My boy was two years old, so, my youngest boy, so.

- So that's about 26 years ago.

- [Tom] Yes.

- So you've been at it a long time.

- Yes, I made a lot of mistakes for at least 15 years and I've gotten a lot better the last 10.

- Tom, you mentioned the word cover, I'm assuming you mean cover crop and what is a cover crop?

- Yeah, so it would be a living plant that would be out on that field in the time that the corn or soybean plant is not.

Corn is typically May 1st to October 15th.

The rest of the time you put a cover crop out there to cover the ground, armor it, protect it, and hold your nutrients in place.

- Well, we've gotten used to seeing a field completely devoid of the crop because it's been harvested and then chopped and in many times tilled, either plowed, chisel plowed or some kind of tillage and it's got a black color to it.

- [Tom] Yes.

- And then when the wind comes or the rain comes, what happens?

- That all drifts off in the ditch.

And I think the average is five ton a year of soil lost and that would literally be a dime thickness on your soil.

And of course as Tim Little showed, that adds up after a period of time.

And so our whole goal is to keep that soil, which is our best asset.

You know, it's not the combine, it's not the planter sprayer, it's our soil.

And so this is taking care of it.

- And when we think of that cover crop, we can see some of it on top of the ground, but what's beneath the ground?

- Oh, it's amazing.

So a cereal rye plant, which it can be three inches, I've had it where it's been nine inches of roots.

And so that's what's actually holding that structure, holding it in the soil, feeding the microbes, feeding the worms, building structure so you can actually drive on your soil.

When those roots are there, your field will stay in place and you won't lose a lot of that stuff.

- In contrast, I can think of living in homes where the windowsills were always full of topsoil in the winter.

I can see snowbanks in the ditches, black or brown with soil, right?

- Yes, I literally, all winter long, you know, was such a bare winter when we did get one little shot of snowfall, my neighbors along the creek was totally black and five feet away hit my fields, mine were all really nice and clean.

so, what we see there is going into the water, which is going down to the gulf, so.

- You mentioned during the workshop using the senses like taste, smells.

Can you expand on that just a little bit?

- Yeah, really it's getting back to people taking accountability for your own farm.

And when I look at it, so when I first started I was in a tile trench, you know, four feet in the ground and I could smell the difference where before we started doing cover crops, it was like stale and dead.

It really smelled dead.

And that's pretty sad, to say that your soil's dead.

But after doing covers, it smelled like a great cup of coffee, and visually you can see it looks almost like chocolate cake.

And of course I've talked about pulling plants outta the ground when they rip and tear.

That means you have structure, that means that the ground is holding onto your plants.

And of course I said tasting too.

You can taste those plants in the wintertime and they're still as pliable.

And you know, my cattle are all grazing all year long so they get those benefits.

- And I'm willing to bet you use the feel or the texture.

- Oh yes.

Yeah, absolutely.

So if you grab soil and you should be able to grab it and it should have structure and it should have almost like little rocks, looks like little nuggets, and there's structure and that's where, that's how the soil goes through.

Lots of times when a field is overtilled, done a lot of tillage, it's literally like desertification.

You can hold it and it's like sand and there's no structure and it falls apart and you can, you know, I've had combines, I've had the canyon companies out in my fields with two inch rains.

And if you have structure in the soil, it doesn't mud the fields up.

That's probably one of the biggest things with where people don't like canyon crops.

And so with structure with plants, you get that structure, it holds 'em up and it just makes everything easier.

We even shown that you will save fuel driving across the no-till field as compared to a field tillage.

You'll use at least a gallon less per acre.

- If the soil structure is right.

Soil I was gonna smell right, I heard that.

And I was in a trench by Austin.

You took us down in there.

Your group good soil drainage, good soil texture, good soil health.

It smells sweet compared to sour, right?

- [Tom] Yep.

- So if the soil structure's right, what's going to happen for nutrients, water movement and those kinds of things?

- If you follow your principles, soil health principles and take care of the soil, the biology in the soil actually start giving up some nutrients.

And so my earthworms, whenever they're crawling around, everything that comes outta the worm is neutral pH.

When they bore a hole, that lining is covered with nitrogen up to seven times the regular rate of nitrogen, I think up to four times the potassium, three or five of the phosphorus, and calcium also.

So that might, that biology in the soil just starts giving back.

Of course, you know, above the soil is as much nitrogen as we would ever need, but you gotta be able to get it into the ground, and that's what plants do and that's what biology helps do too.

- What's been your most gratifying part of the journey for soil health on your farm?

- Boy, you know, I think on my farm, the two times I was really excited on the farm is when we switched from feeder cattle and went a cow calf, 'cause we started having life born on the farm and we got rid of bringing in disease and we had a closed loop system, where everything was born and raised right on the farm.

And then of course doing the soil health practice that we have doing.

I used to say it brings excitement for future generations, but I've seen 85-year-old guys absolutely just enjoy farming again, to which farming can be very tough.

And so it's fun to see these people enjoy what they're doing and when you enjoy something, you do a better job, guaranteed, so.

- Well, speaking of generations, I think your dad would be very proud of what you're doing.

- Yeah, yeah, it was, yeah.

Before he passed in '17 and before he did, he got to see our water quality farm from the Minnesota Department of Agriculture.

And that's probably one of the neatest things that I could ever give as a gift to him.

And of course he was a storyteller, so I got the gift of, I have all his stories on CD and I can literally listen to him whenever I want, which I don't listen to him all the time.

That's, you know, that's sacred.

When I listen to that, I better be alone.

I'm in the combine and that's when I listen the most to him, so.

- Well, you love Ag, you love farming.

- [Tom] Yep.

- Family.

Your sons, your children are on the farm.

What are you passing on to them?

- Well, hopefully a better future.

You know, I think we talked about, you know, the soil has, they say, 60 to 70 years worth of life, of growing crops on it.

I think as humans, you know, disease and cancer, and all these rates are at a crazy rate of incline, and I think with better nutrition and better food grown, 'cause I truly believe food is medicine.

It always has been medicine.

We've kind of gotten away with that.

I think this kind of agriculture brings it back and shows the importance.

You know, I always felt like the farmers were the last one on totem pole.

And really we should be at the top, because we are growing what you need, and that's food.

- And thank you for that.

I appreciate eating, and I'm appreciating good health.

- [Tom] Yes.

- Thank you Tom.

- Thank you Dan.

- Well, that will just about do it from here.

I'm Dan Hoffman.

(upbeat music) Thanks again for joining us on "Farm Connections."

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