Brought to you by:
“I’ve been working with no-till since 1978, and I am still learning new things every year.”
— Paul Jasa, Extension Engineer, University Of Nebraska
For this episode of the No-Till Farmer Influencers & Innovators Podcast, brought to you by SOURCE® from Sound Agriculture, University of Nebraska extension engineer Paul Jasa discusses the benefits and economics of no-till, how cover crops and grazing fit with no-till and what he has learned from his 45+ years of no-till research.
Related Content
- [Podcast] Taking a Systems Approach to No-Till with Paul Jasa
- 28 Critical Points To Consider Before No-Tilling Continuous Corn
- Cash In With No-Till's "Opportunity Time"
No-Till Farmer‘s No-Till Influencers & Innovators Podcast podcast is brought to you by SOURCE®️ by Sound Agriculture.
SOURCE®️ from Sound Agriculture is a soil activator that gives crops access to a more efficient source of nitrogen and phosphorus. A foliar application of SOURCE provides 25 pounds of nitrogen & phosphorus per acre and enhances micronutrient uptake by stimulating beneficial microbes, and its performance is supported by a cash-back guarantee. Learn more at www.sound.ag.
Full Transcript
Mackane Vogel:
Welcome to the No-Till Farmer Influencers & Innovators Podcast, brought to you by SOURCE from Sound Agriculture. I'm Mackane Vogel, Associate Editor of No-Till Farmer.
In today's episode, University of Nebraska Extension Engineer Paul Jasa discusses the benefits and economics of no-till and what he has learned from his 45-plus years of no-till research.
Paul Jasa:
Hi, I'm Paul Jasa. I'm an Extension Engineer with the University of Nebraska near Lincoln, and I've been working with no-till actually since 1978. I finished my master's thesis on planter performance in 1980, and 1981, I got hired on full-time. I've been working with various aspects of soil and water conservation, no-till, cover crops, soil health, you name it, across the years. But some of my most valuable experiences actually came with working with people like some of the people listening today. I had a huge grant back in the '80s where I went out, worked with 30 to 50 farmers a year. Can you make no-till work on your farm with your skills, abilities, equipment, so on? And it gave me an opportunity to see, like I say, 30 to 50 times, six years, different situations.
Too often we get some excellent researcher who's been doing research on that same piece of ground, on the same research farm his entire career. He knows that piece of ground forward and backward. My going out, working with those farmers in the '80s just added huge to my background and things that I like to show.
Mackane Vogel:
So one question I always like to start with is I'm always curious to know some of your earliest agriculture memories, and then besides that, I guess earliest no-till memories as well.
Paul Jasa:
Well, my first ag memories, I grew up on a livestock and crop farm in northeast Nebraska. We had some irrigation, some dry land, and my dad was one of the old timers who plowed in my youngest days. As we got older, Dad switched to a Russell system, even on his irrigated corn, we'd be like one disc-and-pad plant.
So my favorite one was my first time my dad took me out in the field. I was probably about 12 or 10, somewhere in there. I got to harrow the field that he had just got done plowing and discing, and he says he's going to make the first round around the field just so I don't hook a post or something. Sure enough, what do you think he did? He hooked a post, and he says, "That's why I wanted to do it." And I'm like, "Well, I could have done that."
But anyway, another thing my dad did, we had sewed oats and I rode in a wagon that had an endgate seeder on it. Dad drove the tractor. And there's two scoops of oats into the endgate seeder, then a coffee can full of hairy vetch. We got a lot of farmers now talking about companion cropping or two crops growing at the same time. Well, hairy vetch was a forerunner to what a lot of farmers are excited about now about cover crops being a legume to fix nitrogen. Well, back then, it was a legume to fix nitrogen for our corn that was going to go in the out stubble the next year. And so that was, again, when I was probably only about eight, 10 by then. Dad didn't trust me to drive the tractor, but I could run a scoop shovel. So that's my start in agriculture as well as doing other work on a farm that had cattle and hogs and a few chickens.
But then when it comes to no-till, I didn't really learn that until I got to university and I started studying that as part of my master's thesis. My advisor I had at the time was seeped in soil and water conservation and he wanted to learn more about that so we worked together on how can we figure out different tillage systems? And like I say, I evaluated the planter performance and he was just adding to a salt water conservation portfolio as we were working together.
And so it started out in 1978. We surveyed 100 people planting corn, 25 planting soybeans, 25 planting green sorghum, looking at their planters, looking at how they're operating, looking at their features, and then went back, oh, three, four weeks later and actually measured plant spacing uniformity, dug up some skips and gaps to see if it was a problem on metering or if the seed just didn't grow. And we dug up a few random seeds to see if we could figure out the uniformity of planting depth.
Well, out of those 150 farmers we visited, it turns out that my top two performing planters were both in no-till. And that's when I decided then my thesis itself in '79, and '80 going to the field, I had six different planters, a couple of different locations, and I ran them in different tillage systems. And even out of those six, two of them did better in no-till than tilled conditions and that was 1980. And so I got real excited about working with equipment. And so when a job opening came up at the university, I tell people I was too lazy to look for another job. I've stayed there ever since.
Mackane Vogel:
All right. Well, that's a good story. I like that. You mentioned, at one point, crop rotations and a little bit about cover crops. So that's a good segue to another question I have for you.
In a no-till system, what is so important about having a good crop rotation? I've heard a lot of different growers swear by just a two-crop rotation. A lot of others have more than that. What can you say about crop rotation?
Paul Jasa:
Well, a term I like to use is the two crops, typical corn-soybeans across a lot of the Midwest. That's not a rotation, that's an oscillation, just back and forth, back and forth. A lot of people say that's working well for them. Well, when you start looking at crop rotation, you start looking at diversity. That diversity then is something I'm using to help manage pests, insects, diseases, weeds. My crop rotation, that includes herbicide rotation. I don't use the easy button of all the same herbicide program across all my crops, even though some of the seed technology allows us to do that now in some situations. And as for instance, when people ask me what's my soybean herbicide program, I'll say, "Which field?" We've got three different pres they use and three different posts they use, depending on what the weed control problem is.
And so when it comes to rotation, it starts minimizing the problems you can have if you're stuck in the same groove, and Roundup Ready crops are excellent when they first came out. The unfortunate thing is too many of our producers relied on glyphosate as their only weed control. It developed resistant weeds real fast. Well, in my fields that, for instance, are in a corn-soybean rotation, this sees one shot of glyphosate once every two years as the posts emerge on the soybeans. And that's not even on all my soybeans because in some of the other fields, I'm using some other products as well.
And so again, the rotation, think not just the crop, think about the weed control, think about the varieties. There's some farmers who will do corn on corn. Well, if you've got a corn variety that's a racehorse who performs good this year, next year you better have one with some defensive traits to make sure you don't get problems from corn on corn. The more diversity you get in the rotation, the better you're going to feed the soil system.
And that's where a lot of producers now are relying on cover crops to do that for them. And as if, for instance, I've got a set of research plots that have been in corn-soybean rotation for a number of years, a seeded cover crop of cereal rye and Austrian winter peas. The corn and the cereal rye are both grasses. One cool season, one warm season. The Austrian winter peas and soybeans are both legumes. One cool season, one warm season. I've got all four crop types in a real simple corn-soybean rotation, actually oscillation with their rotation effect coming from the cover crop as well.
And so again, when it comes to the diversity, if it's not in your cash crops, put it in your cover crops. And it's just like you and I when we go to the buffet at a restaurant. We don't eat all on the salad bar. We don't eat all on the meat course. We like a variety of things. Well, sort of our soil, our soil microbes, we want to feed it a variety of systems.
Mackane Vogel:
All right, so along those same lines with cover crops, let's talk about something sort of timely. Obviously this past growing season, a lot of growers dealt with drought, and in terms of cover crops, I've heard a lot of different takes on whether certain growers think that cover crops actually helped them during the drought. Certain growers think that it made it worse and others say it had no effect. What do you think? What would you tell the listeners about cover crops during a drought? Is this something that can be used to help conserve soil moisture in terms of drought?
Paul Jasa:
Well, that's one advantage I have of working here in Nebraska. From one end of the state, we get 35 inches of rain. The other end of the state, we get 10 inches of rain. So when it comes to working with producers across the state, I've seen a wide variety of things.
The trouble is is too many of your listeners out there, too many of the people in my audiences, they'll hear about cereal rye and they'll see a picture of a six-foot tall cereal rye in Ohio. Well, you go out in western Nebraska to 10, 12 inches of rainfall, that does not work. You have to learn real fast what cover crops can you select that's going to work for your conditions. The trouble is is too often when I'm planting a cover crop, say, in the fall, I don't know if next year's going to be a drought. And so it makes it hard to select. You got to start looking at long-term averages.
But as for instance, in our research farm, the Rogers Memorial Farm, it's about 10 miles east of Lincoln, I have a picture that I use in my presentations now where the one side is a corn-bean rotation. It's been in no-till since 1981, in no-till, the corn-bean rotation, since about 2005. And just across the terrace, so it's the same soil, everything, it's a corn-bean-wheat rotation with cover crops after the wheat. So there's a diversity there.
Well, our drought here in southeast Nebraska actually started last year after wheat harvest. I seeded a cover crop into the wheat stubble. And when I had my field day in September, the cover crops were up about head high on me and everyone says, "Oh, can we come graze this?" Because everybody was already running short on their pasture because of the drought. I says, "No, that's feeding my soil." I says, "I'm going to plant corn with that next year." And they says, "Well, you're not going to have any moisture left."
Well, I've learned for my soil moisture conditions, into wheat stubble, I choose the cover crop that frost kills, winter kills. Next spring, I don't have to worry about it dewatering my soil system, and in drought condition, that's perfect. Well, all that extra residue there with the corn-bean-wheat rotation, we were dry in May and June this year, only had about three inches of rain. Then about the time we wanted to do wheat harvest, it started raining. Just a goodwill, farmers' luck.
But when the combine rolled this fall in those corn fields, one on each side of the terrace, both planted the same day actually within about an hour of each other because we just worked across the hillside, the corn-bean side, no cover crop, 120 bushel per acre. For a drought year that we finished the year seven inches behind in rainfall, we thought that was pretty good for drydown corn. The corn-bean-wheat rotation with the cover crop, all that extra residue there was 180 bushel per acre, a 60-bushel difference.
And like I say, last September, people looked at all the cover crop there, said, "Boy, you're not going to have any water left for your corn next year." What I had was enough residue there to keep the sun and wind off the soil surface to reduce evaporation. I had an improved soil profile that, when the rains did come, they soaked in. And when you have a rain that soaks in, say, only an inch or so because it was a small rain, I had roots right there under that residue to pick up that small rain. Now, in a field that has no residue, that top layer soaks in an inch. The roots are down there about six inches because that's where the moisture is. That small rain is not even used.
And so what it comes down to is producers who say, "Well, the cover crop's using a lot of water," they've never looked at how much water they actually lost to evaporation from bare soils or unprotected soils. And so that's what I do is manage my cover crop to protect the soil. Now, I'm not growing huge biomass to feed livestock, for instance, the four-legged livestock for steaks. I'm feeding my soil livestock. I just need a living root there, I need some cover there, some habitat.
Mackane Vogel:
Wow, that's really interesting. That segues us nicely as well to another question I had for you. So talk a little bit about livestock and grazing, and some of the no-tillers I've talked to swear by having grazing be part of their system, others, I mean, obviously not everyone has access to it, but I guess from your experience, do you think that grazing is sort of an integral part of this soil management system with no-till and cover crops or is it not as important as the other two, would you say?
Paul Jasa:
I've got actually two different hats I wear on that. One, for me, cover crop is to feed the soil, protect the soil. If I'm grazing it, I'm going to switch my hat to that's a short-season forage. That is not a cover crop in my opinion.
We get a lot of producers who are considering putting in a cover crop and I ask them, "Are you going to graze it or not?" And they say, "Well, I'll decide that later." I go, "No, you have to decide that right up front." I might select something that grows a lot more biomass so I have grazing. I might select a different variety of species such that it has a better feed value. I might seed more seeds per acre because I want to make sure there's enough plants there. I might put some fertilizer on there to raise some high-quality feed.
All four of those things I just mentioned now just made my cover crop far more expensive, but that's okay, I'm going to recover it in meat. And so again, to me, that's you're treating it as a forage, an actual crop. The cash crop itself is the meat coming off of there.
Now, when it comes to the grazing itself, there's other benefits. Your ruminants, the sheep, goats, the cattle, they learned a long time ago with their stomach system to break down soils. When the cattle are out there slobbering, they are actually giving us some helpful bacteria to help cycle residue, help break down and make the system work better, breaking down that residue. And so there's a lot of producers who say that livestock is an integral part that should be in everybody's system.
Another thing that livestock does is it tramples some, so it's in contact with the soil microbes in contact with the soil. The others say, "Well, it's going to be giving you feces in urine to be fertilizer." Well, that's not actually fertilizer. It's processing the crop growth that was there in the cover and it comes back out of the other end of the animal and it depends upon the animal. You've got maybe 80, 90% of the value is still there, but you lost 10% into that animal. So you're not getting free fertilizer by grazing. Now, that first day when their manure and urine is from a different feed source somewhere else, that first day does count. But after that, no.
So again, the grazing side of things, I'd love to have it. Our research farm, the setup is such that it's with all the plots in different fields, it's not practical. So I will admit that no, my long-term, no-till farm does not have animals on it.
Now, when it comes to the animals themselves, a lot of people say, "Well, it's going to compact the ground." Compaction usually indicates the lack of soil structure to support the weight. When you've got a growing cover crop there, you've got roots there giving you soil structure, you've got roots there dewatering the excess soil moisture because dry soils are not easily compacted. Wet soils are lubricated and slide and so they're easily compacted. And a lot of farmers remember back when they did tillage and they grazed their corn stalks after harvest. Cattle footprints were probably as deep as the disc pad was because as deep as they till because there's no soil structure.
But again, that same man or livestock operator might have cattle out on a pasture and they don't have those footprints down deep because again, a pasture has soil structure and has a living root, has something growing there to support the cattle. That's where I like cover crops for grazing rather than just residues. It gets more feed value out there.
Now, a warning that I always give to all producers is you have to watch your herbicide labels. And a lot of people say, "Well, if that cover crop grows, I'm okay." No, it's the herbicide you used on the previous crop will allow you to graze the next crop. And for instance, a commonly used herbicide, atrazine. Atrazine has a plant-back restriction of 12 months. So after corn harvest, I can plant cereal rye. And as far as most regulators are concerned, if it comes up, fine. If it doesn't, that's my problem. But if I graze that cereal rye, I just violated the EPA label. Atrazine has a 12-month plant-back restriction. And so we have to be real careful on what our herbicide programs are.
Now, again, when people take the easy button and using a Roundup Ready crop and using only glyphosate, then they don't have to worry about that. And so again, you got to factor in that systems approach. How does each of these things fit together?
Mackane Vogel:
We'll come back to the episode in a moment, but first I'd like to thank our sponsor, SOURCE from Sound Agriculture, for supporting today's podcast.
If you want to make your fertilizer plan more efficient, SOURCE it. SOURCE from Sound Agriculture optimizes the amount of crop nutrition supplied by the microbes in your soil providing 25 pounds of nitrogen and phosphorus per acre. It's cost-effective and easy to use. Just throw it in the tank and spray in season. If you want to unlock your crop's potential and increase ROI, there's only one answer: SOURCE it. Learn more at sound.ag.
And now, let's get back to the episode.
So let's go back to something you said at the beginning there about how if you are grazing, these animals provide valuable things to the soil, such as the saliva. If you don't have access to grazing, you don't have the ability to do it, what are some other ways that you can still get those valuable things to your soil structure without the animals?
Paul Jasa:
Well, one of the best things we can do, organic producers learned it a long time ago, was haul out any manure that you can find, put it out there. A lot of your listeners there use poultry manure or beef feedlot manure or swine manure. A lot of people say, "Well, you got to incorporate that into the soil to get the full benefits." No, the tillage to incorporate it is going to erase some of the benefits. And for instance, beef feedlot manure has already blown off a lot of the ammonia nitrogen. The organic nitrogen is still there. The tillage trip I do might save me five pounds of nitrogen, but a tillage trip is going to cost me equivalent to I could probably buy 50 pounds of fertilizer for what the tillage costs me. So I don't need to till in that manure. So like I say, manure is one way.
Another way is to start looking at what I call helping someone else out. That someone else might be that livestock producer who doesn't have his pasture or rangeland because of drought and you've got something growing that he can graze. Rent it to him. One that we see quite a bit of is it's pretty expensive to get into farming now and a young person trying to get into farming doesn't have the land, doesn't have the capital to buy equipment, but they could buy some livestock and pair up with someone, let that someone be the farmer and they could be the rancher or cowboy or whatever you want to call it. And I know a lot of people about my age said, "I'm too old to become a cowboy. My son can do it." And again, it gets the young people into the farming system, diversifying their income stream, diversifying their cropping systems.
And so again, there's other ways to get livestock into the system if you don't have it themselves. But one of the keys is you got to manage that livestock. I cannot overgraze an area, I can't over-trample it. It's heavy grains. You might have to have what we call a sacrifice area. You leave the cattle in that area, you know you're going to have some problems, but you're going to protect the rest of the fields.
And so again, the grazing is not just turn the cattle out and then come back several months later and bring them home. And unfortunately, we've had a lot of people even manage their pasture and rangeland in that way. Their first green grass they see in the spring, they turn the cattle out, and when winter comes, they bring them home. Well, that pasture and rangeland never has recovery time, never has a chance to really grow good roots because if you don't have something on top doing photosynthesis, you can't have roots in the bottom.
And again, a lot of people are looking at putting up temporary fencing and doing mob grazing or swath grazing or moving the cattle across the fields. And again, there's some farmers who say, "I can't hassle with all that. I don't have time to move the cattle daily or every three days or whatever it is. I don't have time to put up all that fence." And again, it's got to be part of a system to make it all work.
Mackane Vogel:
Well, you're doing a great job continuing to segue into my next question. This is flowing real nicely. You mentioned a little bit about economics and cost efficiency, and so obviously that's something all farmers have to be cognizant of, but let's talk about soil health from an economic standpoint here. So I guess what would you say to someone or how would you counter some of these folks who would argue that no-till doesn't get high enough yields and ultimately isn't as profitable?
Paul Jasa:
Well, again, it depends on where you're at when it comes to potential profit or potential loss as you're adopting these new systems. And to me, one of the main problems we've had are too many of our bankers, our landlords, our dads or whoever think short-term, what happens this year? And they don't think the long-term. And we got a lot of no-till farmers that say, "Boy, that first or second year was pretty tough, but boy, by the time I got to year 10, I'm wondering why I didn't do it sooner." We got to think long-term. And again, the banker or the landlord may not think that way if you're on rented ground.
Now, if I own the ground and I want to pass it on to my children or my grandchildren, then I can invest a lot more in building that soil health because it's going to pay off in the future. And like the example I used earlier, the corn-bean rotation in a dry year, 120 corn-bean-wheat with cover crop, 180. That's a huge payoff. So what if I didn't make as many dollars on that wheat crop that year? But boy, 60 bushel of corn can make up for a lot in a hurry. And so again, you got to start thinking long-term to build that soil health.
And again, I tell farmers that out here, "Oh, I tried cover crops that didn't work," well, you don't build soil health overnight. It's going to build soil health by feeding the soil system. If I've got an empty feed yard out there with no cattle and I throw a bunch of hay bales out there, no, nothing's going to happen because there's no cattle to eat the hay. Well, the same thing with a cover crop or a soil amendment or some biological product. If we have nothing there to feed, we're not going to get a return on your investment that year.
But what might happen is you're going to build a little bit this year, a little bit more next year, a little bit more the year after. And we've got a lot of farmers saying, "Those first couple of years, just manage the mistakes. Don't make big mistakes that cost you huge dollars." A few bushels lost here perhaps, or a few extra dollars on seed, it's going to pay off in the future. And so that's what we got to do is think long-term.
Again, your banker, your landlord may not be thinking that way, but we have others, landlords in particular who say, "Well, I want to protect that land. Grandpa had it, dad had it. I'm renting it out now. I want that to be protected for future generations." Those are the kinds of landlords to find.
Mackane Vogel:
Let's talk a little bit about soil testing and the ways that there are to really see some of the differences that are being made in the soil. I think a lot of farmers swear by these tests and some others are content to just keep going with their practices and they just assume that their soil is getting better. Where do you stand? What's the importance, would you say, of actually testing your soil and seeing if you're adding more soil microbial activity and things of that nature?
Paul Jasa:
Well, when it comes to soil testing or anything like that, there's a saying, "If you don't measure it, you can't manage it." But it's very true with the soil. If you don't know what's going on there, you don't know how to take care of it, to maybe improve it, and things like this.
The unfortunate thing is that a lot of these new tests that are out there, yes, it gives me a great number on mycorrhiza fungi, for instance, AMF. I've got a lot more. Well, the farmer will ask you, "How much does that go for at the elevator right now? Is that truly a return on your investment to build that?" Well, in the short term, maybe not in the long term, I definitely think it is. But again, the trouble is is a lot of these tests are not calibrated to what you should do for management.
And I say that because the basic nutrient test for NPK and sulfur, so on like that, the university has been doing research on that for years and they get a critical level that if you're a high or a very-high versus a medium-low or whatever, how much do you need to apply to correct that? Well, if I get a soil health score of 16, what does that mean? And does a 16 in Nebraska and a 16 in New Mexico mean the same thing? Until the university starts testing all of these new soil health tests and calibrating them into management, we don't know what it's worth.
And the worst thing is we're not sure what to test. AMF, for instance, the mycorrhiza, helps us bring in phosphorus. Well, we had one researcher in our own university system who did a one-time tillage of long-term no-till and said that it didn't hurt. Well, he failed to say it didn't help, but he did say five years later, the mycorrhiza had not recovered yet, but it didn't hurt because the yields didn't get hurt. Well, again, what are you researching? What are you measuring? Does it actually make agronomic sense?
Now, with that in mind, I don't spend a lot of time doing a lot of these new creative tests because what do you do with the data? And the same thing on yield monitors. People gathered data for years and didn't know how to make a management decision. And so again, until you get some calibration of what does that soil test mean or what does that yield monitoring mean, then you can start making those decisions.
Mackane Vogel:
Well, let's talk a little bit more about your role. Obviously you've been with Nebraska Extension for a very long time, and I'm curious what you feel is the role or the most important duty, I guess, of these university extensions in terms of educating younger folks and getting them involved in agriculture?
Paul Jasa:
Well, when it comes to university extension, we just simply like to think that we are the same as the instructors on campus. It's just our classroom is, for me, the entire state. And it's the students aren't just these four-year students living on campus; it's everybody living out there. And so in a way, it's teaching, bringing them new knowledge. And so a lot of the principles we teach are... We've used various terms across the years. It depends on who the Extension dean is. They change it to match their management style. But one that I liked in Nebraska that we used was putting knowledge to work. And for Extension, then going out to the farmers, the producers, the livestock man, whatever, we can put some knowledge to work based upon the research that was done, and that's the knowledge that we've gained.
Now, another catchphrase another one of our deans had years ago was, "Helping producers make informed management decisions." And again, I'm not going to tell you what to do on your land, but I'm going to tell you how to decide better for what you need to do by giving you some background and information from my years of experiences, for instance, working with those farmers, or from years of my plot work on the university farm. "If you do X, Y will appear," or something like this. And so again, I like to think that most of us in Extension are not telling you exactly what to do, but exactly think about what you're doing and why are you doing it, and then we can give you some information why you should be changing that.
Now, when it comes to the ages, our Extension system across the United States, we got an excellent youth program in 4-H. And 4-H is definitely geared to inform the youth about anything and everything. Now, to be truthful, some of the Extension 4-H activities, when it comes to crop production, soil health, things like that, aren't as strong as they could be or should be. And that's primarily because that 12-year-old, he doesn't have soil to worry about soil health. He might have that calf he's going to show at the fair.
So again, we got to match our expertise to the people's needs. So where are we doing our programming? Who needs the most help? That kind of thing. And also, who's most receptive to help? One of the worst things you can do is put together an excellent meeting and promote it in an area that they don't even do that. And we've seen that on some alternative crops, for instance. Everyone always picks on Jerusalem artichokes or ostriches, the potbelly pigs, things like that. You can have an excellent program on how to do it, but if the audience isn't interested, it's not going to work.
So again, that's one of the challenges of Extension. What knowledge do you have that you can impart on them so they can make informed management decisions and do they need that information?
Mackane Vogel:
All right, well said.
Well, I think this will be a good question to end on here. You joked at the beginning that you've only been there so long because you're too lazy to look for a new role, but obviously if you've been there that long, you must enjoy it. So I'm curious, what is the most enjoyable or the most rewarding part about your role for you?
Paul Jasa:
For me, yes, I've been in the same position, like I say, since 1978. My undergrad degree in '80, or my master's degree, and still here. My most enjoyable thing is learning. I'm still learning. Some people say, "Well, you should have everybody converted by now." And I go, "No, job security. People don't convert overnight." I've still been working on the same research farm the entire time and seeing the same faces in some of the tourism meetings ever since as well. But it's that learning and whether it be from something I'm doing in the field myself, or it's that producer I'm visiting with in Montana because his conditions are totally different. And how did he address a problem?
Because a lot of these things that we talk about in agriculture, they're the same no matter where you're at. I've done meetings in about 10 different foreign countries as well. And again, when it comes to agriculture, it's basically the same. We're using the soil to grow a plant and we want to harvest sunlight and carbon dioxide and use some water and some other things to grow that plant. And I'm going to learn about how to do that better while protecting the environment and reducing risk to the environment, improving soil health so my plants do better.
I like, it's a long phrase that some people cringe, but, "The healthy soils for healthy crops, for healthy food, for healthy people, for healthy communities," and the people that cringe is those who are the diehard university people say, "Well, you have no proof on the soil health affecting, for instance, the food, quality of the food, the health of the food." Well, it's because people haven't researched that yet, but we have farmers who are thinking along the same way that if we build it, it'll all appear. And so we've got to work across that system. And again, that's one of the things that keeps me going, that learning. How do I take that next step to learn the next thing?
My dad had his saying one time. He used to come to a lot of my meetings, he passed away a few years ago. But people say, "Well, you're already retired. Why are you still going to meetings? Are you still learning? When are you going to quit learning?" My dad says, "When I die." And again, that's sort of what I do too is I'm going to keep learning, keep trying to put it to work. That's what Extension does for me.
Mackane Vogel:
That's it for this episode of the No-Till Farmer Influencers & Innovators Podcast. Thanks to Paul Jasa for that great conversation. And thanks to our sponsor, SOURCE from Sound Agriculture, for helping to make this podcast possible. A transcript of this episode and our archive of previous podcast episodes are both available at no-tillfarmer.com/podcasts.
For our entire staff here at No-Till Farmer, I'm Mackane Vogel. Thanks for listening. Keep on no-tilling and have a great day.
Post a comment
Report Abusive Comment