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

I'm your host Dan Hoffman.

On today's program, we learn about land improvement, and carbon credit programs with Ed McNamara.

We attend an AFREC event in Rochester with Research Coordinator, Bruce Montgomery.

And the University of Minnesota Extension provides us a new "Best Practices" segment, all here today on "Farm Connections."

(cheerful music) [Narrator] Welcome to "Farm Connections" with your host, Dan Hoffman.

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EDPR wind farms and solar parks provide income to farmers and help power rural economies across the continent.

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- Welcome to "Farm Connections."

We're in Rochester, Minnesota for the summer meeting of AFREC, and with us is the research coordinator of AFREC, Mr. Bruce Montgomery.

Welcome to "Farm Connections," Bruce.

- Thank you very much.

It's wonderful to be here today.

- Well, and it's a beautiful day, but we might ask the question, what is AFREC?

And what does it stand for?

- Oh, sure, I'd be glad to explain that.

AFREC stands for the Ag Fertilizer Research and Education Council.

It is a fund that's paid by farmers.

It's a tonnage fee that goes on every time fertilizer gets sold in Minnesota.

What's interesting about this particular program is this money goes into a dedicated account, and it's solely used for soil fertility research across the state.

- Well, that's really important for a number of reasons, but, of course, we all like to eat, but what other reasons are we to fund this program?

- Sure.

Well, besides the importance of the fertilizer, and the soil fertility, and all those things that go along with it, there's other things to consider.

And one big one is environmental impacts.

And one of the things we certainly wanna try to address as well is we use more fertilizer, we wanna use it efficiently, but at the same time, we wanna protect the environment.

And I think this program goes a long way in helping us do that.

- Bruce, I've sat in a lot of the meetings and proceedings today, but it looks like it's a statewide program.

- Oh, absolutely.

Every farmer puts into this.

And so we wanna distribute it across the state as much as we can.

Obviously, most of the ag is down in the southern third of the state, and then up into the valley, but there's projects that go on throughout the whole state.

We use the research and outreach centers to the University of Minnesota for a lot of this work, and those are distributed across the state fairly evenly, but we also use other research sites, such as what we're gonna see today at the Lawler sign just east of Rochester.

So that way the university and the researchers that do this work can get work done in a variety of soils, a variety of climate, and a variety of cropping systems.

- Well, speaking to that, when we look at our state top to bottom, east to west, it's a very large geographical area, but it's also diverse in soils.

- Tremendously.

We have about 21 million acres of crop land in this state and a lot of different soils.

And the climate changes drastically rainfall-wise from west to east and north to south.

So it's imperative that this work is done on a very localized level.

- Well, we heard researchers speak this morning about different soil types.

Sand near Becker that drains different than Southeast Minnesota soil.

So is the idea to get recommendations based on their local area?

- It's based on a number of different things.

For nitrogen, we have five different zones, regions, what we call BMP regions.

And the university researchers tend to design those recommendations within each of those five zones.

For example, the southeast karst is very, very different than the northwest glacial tills, and outwash from Lake Agassiz.

So they very much customize those recommendations for that geographic region.

So the geology's different, the climate's different, and a lot of times the cropping systems are very different.

And the university does a really good job of trying to match that, and have site-specific, or at least soil and regional soil-specific information to go into those RECs.

- That sounds like a real challenge for a research coordinator to bring all that together for meaningful impact.

- Well, fortunately, we have a wonderful university system.

And, you know, they've been around for a long time, and a lot of it, you know, the heartbeat comes from those research and outreach centers.

And so they're kind of the drivers of this, but I also wanna say that not all the work that AFREC does is through the University of Minnesota.

Some of it's done through private contractors.

Crop consultants are a wonderful source of information for us 'cause they know some of those very minute, but important differences in a localized area.

So in some cases, that money is contracted out to either federal agencies, or private consultants to help with them as well.

- Bruce, how old is the program?

- The program started in 2008, but it didn't really get rolling 'til about 2010, once we got the tonnage fee attached to it.

Then it was funded.

We had a program without funding to start with, as commonly legislative things start out that way, but in about 2010, the 40 cent a ton went in.

And what that does, it generates about a million to $1.2 million a year.

All of that money goes out the door for this type of work.

It's a highly efficient system.

- So it began in 2008.

And, of course, something that brings value, we hope it continues.

How does the future look?

- Well, this program, like all legislative enacted systems, it has a sundown, or a sunset.

This one is scheduled to sunset in 2025.

So that means the legislature has to re-approve the project.

The farm groups, by and large, are extremely supportive of this.

They see the economic value.

They see the society value.

And they also recognize the environmental value of the program.

What we have to ensure is that we're all on the same page, we understand what we're funding.

It costs the average producer about six to 10 cents an acre per year for the program.

When everybody kicks in a lot of the hands, pretty powerful.

And to generate that type of money to do this kind of work is incredibly important.

If we wanna keep this program going, it's imperative that we're all on the same page, we're supportive of it.

We've learned a lot since 2010.

There might be some minor changes we wanna make to how we distribute money, or who makes those decisions.

The thing that's so interesting about this program is it's not the University of Minnesota driving the programs, it's not the Department of Ag, it's farm groups and farmers.

They're here today with us.

There's 11 farm groups that govern AFREC.

They make all of the funding decisions.

It's a tremendous partnership.

The university, the Department of Ag, myself as coordinator, we can all chime in and influence, but they have the final vote.

- Well, data's important to make good decisions, correct?

- Oh, absolutely.

- What's the most important data that's come out of the research so far?

- Probably the biggest impact is sulfur research.

We've seen just a tremendous increase in fertilizer sales as we've changed and cleaned up our air quality through emissions.

You know, better gas, low-sulfur gas, less coal being burnt.

The atmospheric deposition of sulfur has dropped dramatically.

This has been a huge success story over the last 20 years.

The problem with that is now, all of a sudden, we have sulfur deficiency in our soils.

We've never seen a sulfur response 20 years ago.

Now it's very common.

And as you saw today in some of the data, we're seeing a tremendous economic, and yield response to sulfur applications now.

So I would say if there was a single thing to point out, is probably the great work that the university has done at really trying to answer that question on sulfur, not on just corn and soybeans, but also alfalfa, as we learned today, and some of the other, you know, smaller acreage crops like potatoes and sugar beets.

- Well, to wrap up today, Bruce, what's your hope?

What's your hope for the future?

- Well, I hope that we can keep this program going.

I hope we can make some good, solid decisions going forward in the next couple of years with the state legislature, and the farm groups on what's the right amount of money to charge if it's gonna go forward.

Are we answering all of the questions that the ag community needs to do their soil fertility work correctly?

And I think we're in a good position to try to answer that question 'cause some of the great work that the university, and other partners have done in the last 10, 15 years of the program.

- And one last thing, Bruce.

Do you have a website that our audience can go to to learn more?

- We do, it's mysoilfertility.com, or you can go to the Department of Ag website and just type in AFREC, and you'll be able to link directly to it.

- Thank you so much for your time.

- You're very welcome.

It was great talking to you.

- Stay tuned for more on "Farm Connections."

- [Narrator] "Farm Connections" Best Practices brought to you by Absolute Energy, and AgVantage software.

(cheerful music) - I'm Dave Nicolai, University of Minnesota Extension educator in crops.

This is today's Best Management Practices in Crops.

We wanna talk a little about some of the best management practices, and today I'd like to talk about three of those that make successful weed control for growers in Southern Minnesota.

One is an opportunity to go out into the field, number one, and identify the weed species that you have, so you can match that up properly to your crop protection label.

Number two, is to take a ruler with you, and take some measurements, so you can determine the average weed height that you have out in the field, and compare that to the recommendations on the label.

Oftentimes, growers have difficulty when applying a pulse emergence herbicide with weeds that are too large depending upon the label situation.

The third thing is to look at the weed density, or the weed canopy that you have out in the field.

What we hope to do there is to provide good, adequate coverage across the wide spectrum of different weeds so we have adequate control, and yet reduce the amount of potential for drift.

If you have an opportunity to scout your fields prior to making a herbicide application, and/or cultivation, it's good to know what types of weeds typically we run into in Southern Minnesota.

Typical weeds include velvetleaf, lambsquarters, foxtail, common ragweed, as well as giant ragweed.

And, of course, there are other weeds, purslane, and other weeds that can come into the field as well, but being knowledgeable about how to identify these weeds is really essential for efficient weed control.

Redroot pigweed, and waterhemp are similar weeds in terms of weed species that we do find in Southern Minnesota.

Waterhemp is a particular concern because of the biology of that particular weed allows it to emerge not only in the spring of the year, but well into the summer, and even into the late summer into the month of August.

So it's really important to try to use a pre-emergent herbicide, maybe two applications, or what we call layering, as well as a timely pulse emergence for control of waterhemp, especially if you're in a rotational field situation.

One of the concerns that we have from growers is why do we need to determine individual weed species?

And we really have to look at the particular label, and a lot of situations that herbicide is a costly input we want to make sure that we match up correctly the weed species with the label in terms of control.

And in addition to that, we also have to match up the height of those weed species.

So really two things that growers have to keep in mind here is weed species identification, and also weed height and proper timing for successful pulse emergence weed control.

I'm Dave Nicolai, University of Minnesota Extension educator in crops.

And this was Best Practices for Crops.

(soft music) (soft music continues) (soft music continues) - "Farm Connections" traveled to rural Goodhue, Minnesota to the Ed and Jane McNamara farm.

And with me is Ed McNamara.

- Hey, Dan, pleased to meet you, welcome.

- Well, thanks for having us.

- Thank you very much for coming.

- There's something special happening?

What is it?

- Well, we're having a carbon summit.

There's a lot of discussion about carbon credits, whether producers should be signing up for it, how much they could possibly get.

And some of that falls into the scenario with using cover crops and using no-till to sequester carbon in the ground instead of having it go up into the atmosphere.

- Well, Ed, thanks for your leadership on this.

Sometimes it takes an awful lot of courage to step out ahead of the group, right?

- Well, I don't think it's that far out.

I'm on the local Soil and Water Conservation District board, and we wanna be a leader throughout the county with conservation practices, and no-till is one of those conservation practices along with cover crops, and if that can help producers gain a few extra dollars, and have better water quality, and keep your soil in place for the next generation.

- Important, very.

- Very important, yes.

I'm the third generation to farm this farm, and there's only been three people that have turned the furrow on this farm.

- Well, Ed, this is a special place because your family's here, and, also, it's still in the family, but it's also special for where it's located.

This is a special space with a special watershed.

Can you talk to that?

- Well, that's part of working with the summit is that we're at the top of three watersheds, this farm is.

We're gonna stand on the top of two watersheds, the Hay Creek, which is known for brown trout, and the Zumbro, which flows down through and comes in, the water from here actually comes in east of Zumbro Falls.

So, but that Zumbro watershed is a very long and narrow watershed, has a lot of different terrain on it, a lot of different diversity as far as cropping systems to go along with the livestock that's in the area, too.

- So to speak, we're at the top of the world, at least in this region, right?

- Well, we'd like to think so.

- What's the elevation?

- We are at 1,240 feet above sea level.

- And we're not very far from the Mississippi River.

- We're 21 miles, that way.

You can see Wisconsin over your right shoulder.

- The three watersheds, again?

- The Belle Creek, which flows into the Cannon, the Hay Creek, which actually does flow into the Cannon, too, but down near the Cannon Bottoms, near Red Wing, north of Red Wing.

And then the Zumbro watershed that flows.

They all flow into the Mississippi River.

- Well, especially since you're at the pinnacle, so to speak, of the topography, why is it important to look out for somebody else?

- Well, I'm not only looking out for somebody else, but I'm looking out for the longevity of this farm.

What I do on this farm is gonna affect the next generation behind me, just as my grandfather and my father did before me.

If we don't take care of our ground, it's not gonna take care of us, and if we can't take care of ourselves, where's this country gonna go?

- Well said, and we all like to eat, right?

- Yes we do.

- You talked a little bit about sequestration of carbon.

What does that mean?

- Basically, you know, carbon is CO2, you know, but I mean, carbon is what gets sequestered into the ground.

The plants take in CO2, take it down to the roots, that's where it's stored until it's released back through tillage or other practices that release that carbon back up outta the ground.

Coal is carbon, diamonds are carbon, petroleum is a carbon.

So we need to put it back down into the ground because all those products have come back up outta the ground.

- Are we taking it out faster than we're putting it back in?

- I believe we are, but agriculture has only really, that and forestry are the only two operations that really sequester it back in, where the other ones are all taking it back out again.

So we need to put the carbon back into the ground, and keep it there.

- What's at risk if we don't do it right?

- If we don't do it right, it'll probably escalate climate change.

I temper that a little bit.

Climate is always changing.

There's never two years that are the same.

It's just a matter of how fast things happen.

Hotter summers, warmer winters, higher dew points, and the plants all react to that based on whether you have tillage practices, or cover crops, and to be able to keep that plant cool so we can keep on producing a bountiful crop in the United States.

- Sometimes we hear people when they look at a field that's completely barren and say, "Look, the soil is beautiful."

When you see that, what do you say?

- Unless there's something there, when you start looking at the temperatures on that, today's a pretty warm day, you know.

Earlier this week we touched up a hundred.

The soil microbes on a bare soil, basically when they get over a hundred degrees, they die.

So now the biological activities has slowed down in that soil.

So now it's slower on recycling the nutrients outta the crop residue to make it available for the next crop.

Where you take a field that has a cover on it, you can control that temperature, the soil microbes keep on working, maybe not as fast, kinda like you and me when we get overheated a little bit, but we still have, we have moisture, we have controlled temperature.

We don't have the big fluctuations of too cold nights, too hot of days.

- You put a lot of work into this workshop tonight, a great deal of effort.

What is your hope that happens?

- The debate.

Our country's been founded on democracy.

The forefathers debated what we were gonna do.

This is another frontier for American agriculture.

We need to have a debate.

I don't care what you sign up for, but at least have the debate.

Talk about it, go home, talk with your significant other about it, because it's a long-term commitment to your operation when you do this.

And in long-term, it'll affect the next generation, too, so we wanna be proactive about that.

We always wanna make it better than our dads and our grandfathers bought it.

We're gonna have a tough time doing that because right now we just seem to be taking so much outta the ground.

Now it's time to be putting some stuff back into it.

- You referenced debate.

It must mean choosing a vendor for carbon credits, and?

- Just the discussion.

I mean, listen to 'em all.

We have four of 'em here tonight.

That's not all of 'em, but at least four very different points of views, and they come at it at different angles.

So it depends on how you really want it.

You're taking home your operation.

Look forward to see how the next generation, if you have the next generation coming into your farm, or how it's gonna be operated is gonna dictate that as if you're renting your farm out to put a cover crop on it.

Well, now that's a win-win for you and your tenant.

- You certainly can make an impact here, Ed.

And you've opened up your farm, which is a sense of vulnerability to a certain degree for people to come in and learn.

So I hope that it works out extremely well, and people leave with more knowledge.

- Every day, you're a teacher and a learner.

- And you're good at it, Ed.

- Thanks, Dan.

- Thank you.

- Thank you.

- Stay tuned for more on "Farm Connections."

- The hill is bare now.

Only the greenest of grasses and the yellowest of dandelions occupy that wide empty space.

Space where the barn once sat, the pride of the farm, but if you're really quiet, you can almost hear it's milking time.

The rhythm of the milkers, each cow in turn waiting, waiting to let down her milk as she chews on an ear of corn, and gobbles up a scoop of silage.

Across from the stanchions, Jimmy's favorite cow, Maxine, is giving birth.

And for just one moment, our world stands still until dad says, "It's a heifer."

And we're so excited, we hug each other and we dance.

This little heifer will someday take her place in the stanchions beside her Holstein sisters, and her milk, too, will go to pay for the expenses on our little farm.

In a pen nearby, a tiny little pink pig is born.

The runt of the litter, it struggles.

It struggles to reach food.

It finally gives up.

Dad very quietly slips over the partition into the pen, and just as he gets a hold of that little pink pig, the seemingly sleeping sow jumps up to attack.

He gets out.

He gets out, thankfully, with the only bad thing happening a tear in the leg of this overall.

He escaped.

In the next pen, a more docile mother accepts the hungry little one as her own.

A big black-and-white cat climbs the ladder to the haymow clutching a fresh catch in her teeth to feed her hungry ones.

And just as she gets to the top rung, all the pigeons in the haymow fly in every direction, warning each other, get out of her way.

That cat eats mice, she'll eat us too.

Milking time over.

Dad throws the filter from the cream separator out to our eagerly awaiting black lab German Shepherd, Laddie.

And life in the barn goes on to give life to the farm.

- Well, that just about does it here for today's episode of "Farm Connections."

I'm Dan Hoffman.

Thank you for joining us.

(cheerful music) (cheerful music continues) (bright music)