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

I'm your host, Dan Hoffman.

On today's episode, we join Joe Lawler at his family farm on a cover crop field day, Ryan Jennings from the American Coalition for Ethanol discusses the Regional Conservation Partnership Program, and the University of Minnesota Extension provides us with a new Best Practices, all here today on "Farm Connections."

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- Welcome to "Farm Connections."

We're at the Lawler farm between Rochester and Eyota, Minnesota, and with me is Joe Lawler.

Joe, welcome to "Farm Connections."

- Hey, thanks for having me, Dan.

I appreciate it.

- Well, something exciting is happening at your farm today.

There's people all over.

There's machinery all over.

What's happening?

- Well, today we had a field day put on by the University of Minnesota Extension.

Plenty of sponsors that came here to talk about cover crops.

On this farm, we've been doing covers for quite a few years now and have quite a few pieces of equipment built up now because of that.

And, you know, I think it was kind of a good opportunity to show others that are getting interested in covers different ways to use it, apply it, and some of the benefits of it.

- What is a cover crop?

- Well, a cover crop can be a lot to, I guess the purpose of a cover crop or what a cover crop is can mean different things to different farmers.

Farmers can use it to build soil.

They can use it to hold soil, to hold nutrients.

And then there's a biological side, which I kind of like to focus on, is the way I see it at least, is a soil that doesn't have living roots in it is dormant.

So, we try to keep living roots in our soil so that our biology will continue to flourish in the off seasons.

And erosion control obviously.

You know, there's so many different reasons we can use cover crops, but I guess it all depends on what each individual farmer who is interested in it is looking to do.

- We talked about a lot of things that cover crop is and what it does.

Why is that important?

- Well, we don't get our soil back after we lose it, is the way I see it.

And, you know, my grandpa said, "We leave the ground in better condition than when we got it."

And, you know, we hear now about regenerative agriculture and I think cover crop is kind of the step into being regenerative as a farmer.

And we also, it's cost too.

We do some studies, you know, on does it cost more to put cover crops in versus doing the old way?

But we really believe that we are, economically speaking, ahead using cover crops.

There are a lot of different factors or a lot of different things that we don't take into account, mainly like organic matter in our soil, building organic matter.

I mean, could we put a price on that?

What's the price for that?

And on top of that, too, we're decreasing our workload.

We're doing no-till, which time is probably our number one most scarce resource as a farmer.

- Well, earlier we heard Steve, your dad, speak about cover crops and why we do it, and I think he also kind of slanted a little bit of the conversation towards generational.

- Yeah, right.

I mean, to be honest, Dad, at least for myself, was a big reason to start getting into cover crops.

You know, generational, I think we are, and I am sixth generation on this farm, I think this is our generation, my generation, I guess I'm a millennial, but anyway, I really think that we are the ones that are gonna make it cool, if we want to call it cool.

They are the black sheep.

We were the black sheep a few years ago.

Now, as we're seeing, and I think my dad touched on it when he was talking about what we produce here on the farm, you know, we have to keep in mind the consumer and what the consumer wants.

Granted, for me personally, it has nothing to do with that.

It's really a moral obligation in my opinion, I guess, to cover and to use, to cover our soil, to keep our soil, to build our soil.

You know, so, yes, I'd say maybe it will become generational.

- For example, today's a fairly windy day in southern Minnesota, right?

- Yes.

Yes.

- You see the leaves moving and the grasses move behind us, and, of course, moving past our ears.

This is mild compared to sometimes.

What would happen on this farm if there was no cover crop, nothing growing, and the soil was in exactly the wrong state, or in other words, the right state for wind to pick it up and move it?

What would happen?

- Well, I guess we all see it in the wintertime when we drive by that moldboard plowed field and we look in the ditches and we see the black snow.

Same thing happened when I was young when we tilled.

We would see our ditches here with soil in them, you know, and that's centuries of making to make that soil that we just gave to our neighbor.

Hopefully they gave to us, you know?

So, yes.

And not only that, especially with soybeans, we really notice sheet erosion, sheet erosion with soybeans.

And in April, May/April, May, early May, actually go back too, those heavy rains where we have a little bit of frost, the upper couple inches thaw, but we have frost below it, and that big heavy rain comes in and (whistles) there it goes.

And I would say that's probably our number one, you know, source of lost soil and the cover crops work phenomenally well with that.

- Great point.

You can't buy it back, right?

- You can't buy it back.

- You mentioned regenerative.

Can you expand on what you mean by that?

- Regenerative, in my opinion, and there's lots of different ways we could define regenerative, we're bringing biology back into the farming mix, okay?

So, you know, and I don't want to downplay conventional agriculture as it is today, but a lot of it, in my opinion, is we're farming like, we're farming in a Petri dish.

And I mean by that is we're using different chemicals or we're using, you know, different inputs and we're doing the work, not Mother Nature.

So, on the regenerative side, you know, we start doing crazy things like our grandparents did where we put our cattle out on our field to graze cover crops.

That's really crazy.

You know, we're bringing small grains, we're doing a crop rotation, we're minimizing tillage, which our grandparents didn't do, but they didn't know better.

But we're gonna start letting the soil, the plants and the soil life work together, and we're gonna bring animals back on our ground, and we're gonna have a very diverse microbial population in our soil.

And when we do that, we build soil, we get soil structure, and we have soil life.

Soil life is everything.

And, you know, we see all of these fungus problems that we have in corn, black tar spot or we see sudden death, we see all of, well, sudden death isn't, but we see that this is a good way for us to combat that, but it's an insurance policy.

Like last year with our drought for instance, you probably couldn't tell our fields had a drought.

Our soil structure was great.

Our roots were going deep.

Even with cover crops, we didn't lose moisture.

So, it's resilience.

We get resilience, but we're building.

And I think the only way to get back to that is just to bring life back in.

You know, there's been plenty of studies where adding cattle first to desert ground can turn to grassland again.

So, it's pretty amazing what Mother Nature can do when you give it a chance.

- Absolutely.

So, that's regenerative.

I get it.

So, you're introducing the livestock back to the farm, thus the reason for the fence behind us, getting 'em off the road.

- [Joe] Yes.

- And so they're out here.

What do they do different than just bare cropland?

- Well, you know, bare cropland, bare I guess is a really good word there.

But it's dormant ground half the year or more than half the year, okay?

I just don't see personally how we can build soil if we don't have plants on it, or how can we add carbon from the air to the ground?

And, you know, we talk about carbon dioxide in the air and how we want it in our soil.

Well, heck, I like to burn carbon dioxide in my soil.

I like my soil to respirate.

I want to build up organic matter so that we can respirate it right back up to the plant.

So, you know, yes, we're storing it, but we want to use it too.

- Joe, you've spoken about organic matter on several occasions and we've heard the speakers talk about it.

Why is that important to you and why is it important to your soils?

- Well, high organic matter is very important in everyone's soil because with high organic matter, we can form a really good soil structure.

When we talk about soil structure, we're talking about a soil that can take water in instead of letting it wash off.

When soils are heavily tilled, especially heavily tilled soils, we start plating our soils.

We start making plates on top.

And with cover crops, we can infiltrate those plates and we can start building structure again.

You know, a good soil structure should almost look like cottage cheese when you dig it up.

Plenty of paths for water and roots especially.

So, when we get the roots deeper in the soil, we're going to have water deeper in the soil.

We're gonna have oxygen, which we talk about with mineralization and with respiration of the soil, bringing CO2 back up to our plants.

I mean, we're gonna have a healthier soil, healthier plants, and we're also, you know, gonna keep our water where we want it in our root zone and also keep our nitrates, our phosphates, where they need to be.

- Well said.

And a happy soil, healthy soil with organic matter means healthy plants, healthy animals, healthy farmer, healthy farm, right?

- [Joe] Right.

Exactly.

- You talked a little bit about the consumer and the importance of getting products to them that are good for them, but also that they're wanting.

Can you expand on that just a little bit?

What do you mean?

- Well, I think that the consumer in many ways is a little ahead of the farmer.

They hear about regenerative ag.

They hear organic.

They hear all this.

But I think us farmers have to start listening a little bit more to the consumer.

And I think this going to more of a regenerative approach, you know, of using cover crops, of using manure or cattle, I think we can start speaking the language of the consumer and, you know, eventually that's gonna be a necessity.

We're gonna have labels on our food that say it was grown regeneratively or whatnot, or, you know, we already have the GMO conundrum, you know, which it's not.

But we do have that.

And that's a big thing for consumers, some consumers.

So, I think, you know, it's really important for us farmers to listen and to see what our consumers do want, what concerns them when it comes to soil, when it comes to, you know, even cover, you name it, you name it.

And I think we're trying, trying to do the best we can, and hopefully other farmers are listening as well, but I think they are.

We saw the showing here today at the field day, about a hundred people showed up for cover crops.

Five years ago, lucky to have a few, you know?

So, I think we're listening.

- Awesome.

And speaking of the field days, you opened up your farm to people to come in to look at, to scrutinize.

- Mm-hm.

- Why?

- You know, I mean, I think it probably ties to vulnerability, right?

It's hard for all of us farmers to be vulnerable.

And I think when I came into farming, I was headstrong on being okay with that, to being different, to being the black sheep, right?

Because if I don't do it, you know, I mean, well, actually, I mean, there'll be other people like myself doing it, but you just have to feel comfortable doing it.

And what we're doing here, this is more than just our generation.

This is more than just, you know, any one of us that are trying new things, but we're changing really the way agriculture, we hope, we really hope we're changing the direction of agriculture.

- Thank you so much for sharing.

- Thank you so much.

- Stay tuned for more on "Farm Connections."

(bright music) - [Announcer] "Farm Connections: Best Practices," brought to you by Absolute Energy and AgVantage Software.

(bright music continues) - This is Brad Carlson, extension educator with the University of Minnesota Extension, with our Best Practices segment.

Today we're gonna talk about fall nitrogen application.

As many of you are probably aware, there's been a lot of issues over the last several years related to nitrates in water, whether that's surface water statewide or in groundwater in certain parts of the state.

There's been a lot of scrutiny on nitrogen application and particularly fall application.

Guess the first thing to realize is that there's now a prohibition or ban on the application of nitrogen in the fall in certain parts of the state.

So, that map is available from the Minnesota Department of Agriculture's website and you can check that out and make sure that you're in a zone that's approved for application before making a plan to do the application.

I think the next thing to realize for the rest of the state is that there definitely are recommended practices that are going to help keep the nitrogen out of the water.

So, particularly, we look at not doing an application until it is below 50 degrees temperature.

The processes by which nitrogen is converted to nitrate are microbial in nature, and so because of that, microbes operate like all living creatures.

They need moisture and they need warmth.

And so the soil will act just like your refrigerator does in your home and slow that microbial activity down.

And so we recommend not doing an application until the soil temperature gets below 50 degrees.

The research shows that that activity decreases very significantly at that point.

And so hedging it by a few days actually is kind of a big deal.

So, really keep in touch with that.

The information is available readily across southern Minnesota.

You can look at the University of Minnesota's Research and Outreach Centers' websites.

Both Waseca and Lamberton have soil temperature data reported and kind of keep in touch with that.

Minnesota Department of Agriculture also has soil temperatures available on their website.

Probably the next thing to realize is that we only recommend applying anhydrous ammonia in the fall pretty much across the whole southern half of the state until we get to about Morris and north.

We just have not found that applying urea in the fall is a recommended practice anymore.

Urea is highly susceptible to loss.

One because it's a neutral molecule and it will actually move on its own without needing to convert to nitrate.

But also, urea has some other factors that make it a lot more susceptible to loss.

The research has simply shown that a higher percentage of fall-applied urea is lost and so you're not getting your money's worth and we're also losing that to the environment, whether that's in the air or in the water.

So, anhydrous ammonia really is the only product that we look at making applications with in the fall.

Now, the other factor is looking at using a nitrofication inhibitor for those fall practices.

So, this is a product which operates on the microbes in the soil.

It kind of numbs them or slows them down.

And so it slows the nitrification process.

If you look at some of the research on particularly nitrapyrin, which is one of the older products that's been on the market, and you do some of the calculations, what you'll find is if you do wait until the cell temperature's to about 50 degrees, it actually will significantly slow that process until about the middle of, towards the end of April, which is exactly where we want to be at with that because by then we're getting to corn planting time.

And so those products are recommended for use.

I guess as far as some overall things, kind of make sure that you're keeping your rate in line.

There are reasons to maybe want more nitrogen, but have a reason.

Don't just simply say, "I'm risk averse and I just put on more."

That's problematic.

And I think the other thing to realize is if you can't get the application on in the fall or if you don't think it's prudent to put it on in the fall, we have a lot of infrastructure available now to put on nitrogen in the springtime over a lot of acres in a real hurry.

And so it's maybe just not as critical as it once was to get that fall application done.

Remember that the loss processes of nitrogen are water-based and so the places where we see higher rates of infiltration like sandy soils, as well as places that are poorly drained, where the water ponds up, are places that are susceptible to nitrogen loss and those places should be avoided for fall application.

This is Brad Carlson, extension educator at the University of Minnesota Extension, and this has been our Best Practices segment.

- So, we traveled to Austin, Minnesota, the site of the Hormel Institute, for a special program and a visit with a special person, Brian Jennings of the American Coalition for Ethanol.

Brian, thanks for joining us.

- Thank you, Dan, for having me.

- Well, this is a great presentation today.

What's happening?

- Well, the American Coalition for Ethanol has been awarded significant dollars through the United States Department of Agriculture Natural Resource Conservation Service for something called the Regional Conservation Partnership Program, RCPP.

And what that enables us to do is to work with some of the ethanol company members that we have across the country and work with the farmers supplying those ethanol companies to try and make sure that we increase the adoption of certain practices, a lot of these are already used by a lot of farmers, but certain practices that help bring down the carbon intensity of the corn, of the bushels that are being delivered to those ethanol facilities.

And the reason this is so important to us is that the big picture is that in the future, there's going to be greater demand for fuels which can demonstrate lower greenhouse gas emissions or lower carbon intensity compared to fossil fuels.

And so what we're trying to do is set up the stage so not only can ethanol producers that are members of the American Coalition for Ethanol, but also farmers, take advantage of the benefits that they have right now with production agriculture.

- Well, you certainly built the case that it's important, but how does it impact our local community and the environment?

- Well, this is all about sustaining rural communities.

You know, the ethanol industry has had a transformational impact on rural America.

When you think about the high-skill, high-wage jobs that are created in these very small, in some cases, very small rural communities, you think about the economic development that's created as a result of the tax base, expanding the tax base and employing all of these people, and then of course, most important for the farmers, is a new market, a market locally where they can get more for their corn, add value to that corn, and then that value comes back to those rural communities because a lot of the farmers and local community members also happen to be shareholders of these facilities.

And so it really is a great way to sort of support that circular economy and really fortify rural communities.

And we wanna see that sustained for a long period of time.

You know, the ethanol industry has made this very beneficial impact.

What we're trying to do, really, Dan, is set the stage for them to continue to make that impact, but well into the future.

- Wow.

Well said.

And I remember the day I discovered farmers didn't have to beat themselves up on a semi-truck driving all the way to the river or to a port to get a decent price.

In fact, we now sometimes have corn and soybeans coming out of the river basin to our local Mower County and other ethanol plants because the pricing is better.

- It's really fantastic.

That's exactly right.

And that's the kind of economic development that we're trying to drive here, and we want to continue to drive that.

If we can keep these bushels closer to home, add value to these bushels closer to home, it's only going to help the farm community, the rural towns and communities that depend upon farmers.

And, of course, for us, we wanna make sure that these ethanol producers have a very long and prosperous future.

And so it's all about how can we economically benefit from also reducing carbon intensity so the economic benefits stay local, but then we're able to expand the sales of ethanol all around the world.

And that's what we're trying to do.

- Brian, how does the carbon intensity help our environment?

- So, greenhouse gas emissions have a major impact on the overall climate.

And there's a global sort of effort right now to minimize greenhouse gas emissions if possible.

Farmers are really doing an incredible job today of being sustainable.

And so a lot of the practices you see being adopted on farms are very climate friendly, if you want to use that term.

Reduced tillage helps build carbon in the soil, helps that soil retain water, helps those farmers then in turn have higher yields in the future.

There are also opportunities to reduce nitrous oxide emissions from fertilizer use.

Nitrous oxide is a much more sort of lethal greenhouse gas than CO2.

Everyone talks about CO2, but nitrous oxide emissions have almost a 300 times impact on the environment than CO2 does.

And so anything we can do through our project to provide farmers a cost share payment to get into 4R nutrient management to more precisely apply that fertilizer, to follow the right time and the right form and the right place and the right rate, that's going to dramatically reduce nitrous oxide emissions.

So, not only does it help reduce the carbon intensity of those corn bushels and the ethanol that's produced from those corn bushels, but it helps the environment in a big time way as well.

- Can you tell us more about 42R?

- Yeah, so 4R nutrient management: right place, right time, right form, and right rate relative to how farmers are applying their nitrogen fertilizer.

And so the project that we have available can pay upwards of $40 an acre for farmers to engage in these kinds of practices, and that's important because nitrogen fertilizer can be incredibly expensive.

And so anything we can do to help farmers adopt new practices but also take advantage of the need to fertilize their crops in a way that's efficient only benefits everyone.

And so we're really looking forward to deploying that as much as we can.

- Well, it's no secret we're losing prime farmland to freeways, buildings, housing, urban kinds of things, and other uses.

So, the land that's left has to be as productive as we can make it, right?

- That's so important.

We are losing productive farmland all around the country due to urban sprawl and infrastructure projects.

And so farmers are asked to do more with significantly less, and farmers have been successful at that for generations and we just want to make sure that we help set the stage for the next generation of farmers to continue on that trajectory where they are much more efficient, much more sustainable, because we're gonna have fewer acres upon which to grow crops for fueling the world, for feeding the world, and everything else that's required.

- Great mission.

- Thank you.

- Can we find out more about a website?

- Yeah, so, you can learn more about the American Coalition for Ethanol at ethanol.org.

You'll also learn more about this USDA Regional Conservation Partnership Program we're doing and how the farmers that we're working with are going to adopt these various conservation practices there.

- Thank you for your work, Brian.

- Thanks, Dan.

Appreciate it.

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

I'm Dan Hoffman.

Thanks again for joining us on "Farm Connections."

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