No-Till Farmer Blog

So, in this time of high unemployment and a stagnant economy and the threat of tax increases and the growing presence of disgruntled voters, just how do lawmakers on Capitol Hill figure that the American people are going to take their efforts seriously?

Here’s how. They will have a comedian — yes, a comedian — testify on Capitol Hill before the House Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on Immigration, Citizenship, Refugees, Border Security and International law at a hearing entitled “Protecting America’s Harvest.” (Wow, with a name like that, that committee sure has a lot to accomplish. Glad they could fit the comedian into their schedule.)

Yes, that’s right. We’ve been subjected before to Hollywood activists and even Elmo from Sesame Street in Capitol Hill testimony. Now Stephen Colbert — whom I’ve found to be humorous, even though my political leanings aren’t in step with his — will share his expertise on immigrant farm workers. Colbert is now an expert on immigrant farm labor since he spent one day on a New York vegetable farm picking sweet corn.

Colbert became involved in the immigration issue this summer when the United Farm Workers launched a “Take Our Jobs” campaign in an effort to prove that Americans will not do farm work so we have to hire migrant workers. The comedian decided to try out the job for himself, so that is what makes him an expert to testify before Congress about the importance of migrant workers for American agriculture.

Does this make sense to you, because it sure isn’t making sense to me. But then again, that’s why our fine Beltway and East Coast intellectuals are taking charge of the country because there are too many people like me who just aren’t smart enough to get it.

Obviously, the farmers who attend the National No-Tillage Conference have a strong love for agriculture. But once again, the NNTC has proven that it has the right atmosphere for love to bloom between a man and a woman.

Some of you may recall the story of how Indiana no-tiller Denny Roth and Missouri software trainer Sandy Cox met at the 1999 National No-Tillage Conference in St. Louis. At one point, they danced during the event. That was the start of a long-distance relationship. Eventually, the couple married after Denny sold his farm and took a job in ag sales to be with Sandy in Missouri.

Well, it’s happened again. According to a report in the Omaha World-Herald, Howard Warren Buffett will be marrying Lili Thomas, a Miami, Fla., resident but frequent visitor to Ogallala, Neb., where her family has a wheat farm. Buffett is the son of no-tiller and philanthropist Howard Graham Buffett — who spoke at the 2010 NNTC in Des Moines — and grandson of well-known investor Warren Edward Buffett.

The couple had originally met at a fundraiser for President Barack Obama in 2008. However, their relationship really took off after they got to spend a few days together in Des Moines during the conference.

According to the World-Herald report, Thomas recognized Buffett when she saw a photo of him and his Dad in a No-Till Farmer article last November (Sharing No-Till Benefits Around the Globe, pg. 27-34), and an ad promoting Howard Graham Buffett’s speaking engagement at the 18th annual event.

“I met him!” Thomas recalled telling her father after attending the event.

When they saw each other at the conference, Buffett told the World-Herald, “we just knew.”

We’ve always touted that by attending the National No-Tillage Conference, you’ll go home with many valuable ideas to improve your no-till operation and profitability. Not sure I’m ready to guarantee that single farmers will meet their future spouse at the conference, but let’s just say you just never know what you may “discover” at the NNTC.

Here’s a link to the World-Herald article if you’d like to read more. Congratulations to Howard and Lili from the No-Till Nation.

I had the pleasure of attending the Ohio No-Till Field Day on Sept. 8. Here’s a few notable comments from the event held at Keith Kemp’s farm in W. Manchester, Ohio, that drew 100 folks.

1. Successfully no-tilling corn relies on successful stand establishment, says Purdue University agronomist Bob Nielsen. Successful stand establishment requires vigorous, uniform germination and seedling emergence. “The sins of planting will haunt you all season,” Nielsen says, quoting former Purdue University agronomy superintendent Ozzie Luetkenmeier.

2. “If you could pick and choose when you plant corn, you’d wait ’til soil temperatures are 55 degrees or more,” Nielsen says.

3. With cover crops, always make sure you are using the right inoculum, says David Brandt, Ohio no-tiller and cover crop user. Turnips do not need to be
inoculated. Legumes do.

4. “If you really want to get corn to come up fast, wait ’til mid-June and it will come up in 3 or 4 days,” Purdue University agronomist Bob Nielsen
says.

5. “Rain will compact the heck out of the soil,” says Matt Denton, Ohio Department of Natural Resources. He adds: “I wouldn’t deep till anything. I’m not totally against tillage. I am a proponent of cover crops.”

6. “More diversity in the soil helps the soil weather adversity,” says George Derrington, USDA NRCS for Ohio.

7. Buckwheat is very good for breaking up soil compaction, says Jim Hoorman, Ohio State University Extension educator. Cereal rye helps break up horizontal compaction, while tillage radishes help with vertical compaction.

8. Soybeans drilled in 7.5-inch rows are very poorly rooted, Hoorman says. Improve the soil structure, then 10- and 15-inch rows will work for no-till soybeans.

9. There’s a difference between radishes for cover crops, Hoorman, Ohio says. Different seed size affects seeding with a plate. Some will germinate before others.

10. I am impressed with the number of nightcrawler burrows I found, said Nielsen, while standing in a soil pit in Keith Kemp’s no-tilled corn field.

11. “What should you look for in a root pit?” a farmer asked Nielsen. “Are you getting compacted root development?” Nielsen responded.

12. “For a lot of growers, the first, best thing they could do for their soils is to improve drainage,” Nielsen says. “It’s a substantial investment.”

13. There’s much talk about drought tolerance in the seed business. “But if we had soggy soil tolerance in the eastern Corn Belt, that would help us out,” Nielsen says.

14. “Manure is a tremendous asset and also a risk,” says Bruce Clevenger, Ohio State University Extension educator for Defiance County. Just the sight
of manure can anger some in the public. “People smell with their eyes,” he says. “We’d rather do this manure management voluntary in agriculture or it will
be regulated on us.”

15. “Include wheat into your crop rotation so you have some place to apply the manure in the summer,” says Bob Featheringill, an Attica, Ohio, no-tiller.

I’ll be the first to say that we need to make sure the crop protection products we use on our farms are safe to use. That’s why companies need to expend millions of dollars in research to show a reasonable safety factor and have their products registered for use with the EPA.

Hey, it’s one of the reasons the EPA exists in the first place. There needs to be checks and balances to make sure companies are responsible. But the question needs to be raised when it comes to atrazine, whether our federal agency is being responsible.

Crop protection products go through a re-review and re-registration process. It’s a fact of life, and it’s a way of making sure that products as labeled do what they were designed to do and have a reasonable factor of environmental and human safety to them. But now, just a few years after being re-approved, the EPA — under pressure from environmental activists and a couple of lawsuits — is prematurely opening the books on atrazine again.

So what’s different? Is there some new revealing, credible evidence that atrazine as used under its federal label is unsafe? Or is the only thing new have to do with which political party sits in the White House and currently controls Congress? Are we making decisions based on sound science or political leanings? You can make the call on that one.

You can learn more about the current battle over atrazine at AgSense.org and you can sign a petition supporting the use of atrazine if you’d like. In the meantime, check out this No-Till Farmer article that editor Frank Lessiter wrote in August 2006 about the battle over atrazine. After reading it, perhaps you’ll find that some things never change.