Friend of the program, Tony Peirick has been planting soybeans and corn green into cereal rye for about a decade now on his Watertown, Wis., farm. Tony has some words advice for those who are nervous about using cover crops.
“Try it. We’ve got to go this route. And there’s so much peer pressure out there as I travel and talk to different farmers in other states. Farmers don’t want to change. They don’t want to be the odd person out. It’s too bad. Just try something and see how it works. Once they understand why we should be using covers and no-till, the benefits of it — the water infiltration and getting our biology back so we can get more nutrient-dense grains that we need to grow. Just try it. Here in Wisconsin, we’re lucky, we have a lot of farmer-led groups. We’re seeing more and more farmers trying something because they’re not afraid to be ridiculed. As you travel in other states, there’s a lot of peer pressure, nobody wants to be the odd person doing something different.”
A former co-worker once told me, “Outside the comfort zone…that’s where greatness happens.”
Watch the full version of this episode of Conservation Ag Update.