Many of you are familiar with Iowa no-tiller and Executive Director of the Conservation Technology Information Center, Ryan Heiniger. Recently I had a chance to chat with Ryan and his son Matt - who is currently a senior in high school — about the new cover crop business they started this summer called Clear Water Cover Crops. The company is a custom farming business meant to remove barriers for other farmers to adopt cover crops and accelerate their soil health efforts. Let’s listen to Matt and Ryan as they describe the most fun and the most challenging parts of the father-son business so far. 

Matt Heiniger: “The funnest part would be just riding in tractors and going to see new fields and just cover new ground. It’s always exciting when you can pull up to a new field and unfold and just go. One of the more challenging things — when we first bought the cover crop seeder, there was a valve in one of the hoses that wasn't assembled right. So just trying to get that figured out and squared away took quite a few tries and a few calls to Unverferth to get that squared away but we got it figured out and was able to then get it working correctly”

Ryan Heiniger: “You stole my answers —On the frustrating part, just like if you need new pieces of equipment, getting things figured out so when it is go time, things are operating as efficiently as possible and thankfully we did get that accomplished really before the peak of the season hit in late September. On the rewarding side, I think just watching him in his element and getting these life experiences to be a successful entrepreneur and to be able to be a little bit of a support system for him but also just moving that relationship now that he’s an adult and going from father-son to just business partners — I think that’s something that both right here and now has been rewarding but also just once a couple years tick by, looking back it will be even more rewarding as something that we did together.”

Matt says it can be tough to juggle all the responsibilities that come with being a senior in high school and running a business at the same time, but he tries to get his school work done during the daytime so he can spend more time in the tractor when he gets home. And of course if you want to hear the rest of my conversation with Ryan and Matt Heiniger you can check out the latest episode of the Cover Crop Strategies Podcast at CoverCropStrategies.com.

Watch the full version of this episode of Conservation Ag Update.