No Till Notes

My trip to Pierre, South Dakota went well considering the wintery conditions I drove through on my way there. We had a couple of inches of snow here in Alliance and as I drove north through the Hay Springs and Rushville area they had significant snow on the ground, six to eight inches. Fortunately the wind wasn’t blowing so the roads were in good shape. The band of snow lasted until just north of Martin, S.D.

It was good to see some old friends at the Ag Horizons conference. I hadn’t attended this conference for a few years and after visiting with growers to the north the drought conditions are widespread. I only saw one field of winter wheat that had emerged once I got outside the northern Panhandle of Nebraska. Believe it or not we are in better shape moisture wise than a lot of our neighbors around the region.

The Department of Agriculture in South Dakota had their monthly crop ratings which showed 60 percent of the winter wheat had emerged in South Dakota. This is the lowest rating recorded for this time of year. Many producers at the meeting were wondering where the 60 percent emerged figure had come from since no one I talked to at the meeting had any wheat emerged. Conditions for their winter wheat are dire as some of the wheat has sprouted and is laying in dry soil and the majority of their winter wheat isn’t sprouted.

I also talked with a producer from Kansas who has similar conditions. The majority of their winter wheat is lying in dry soil and the outlook for any moisture anytime soon isn’t good. This is some of the toughest conditions the country’s hard red winter wheat belt has seen in decades. The prospect for next year’s crop don’t look very good at this point, but winter wheat has proven over the years that it can endure some tough conditions and still make a decent winter wheat crop. Let’s hope the weather pattern changes over the winter and early spring.

I spoke at the Ag Horizon’s conference about adding diversity into our cropping rotations for this region. Grain producers in this region have the option of adding a legume into their rotation to add diversity. Producers are looking to add field peas as markets develop in our region. Having a stable marketplace for field pea production is a huge benefit to getting field peas into cropping rotations.

Central South Dakota has a company looking to build a processing plant for field peas, chickpeas, and lentils. Here in western Nebraska we also have an edible bean company now processing field peas. There are also bean companies in Colorado and Kansas who are purchasing field peas, so our markets for field peas have really expanded.

I also spoke about including forages for cattle grazing as an alternative in our dry land cropping rotations. I think this idea of including forages for grazing is a really viable alternative in cropping rotations. This would give producers an excellent means of adding diverse crops into their crop rotation and would also diversify marketing opportunities by including livestock into our farming operations.

Adding diverse forages for grazing into our crop rotations is probably the best alternative for really improving the soil we work with. Adding these diverse mixtures would really improve soil organic matter and the diversity and populations of soil microorganisms which would in turn improve the overall health of our soils. Rotational grazing and leaving at least 50 percent of the residues are key management decisions to making this system work. I think this is a very interesting concept that has worked well in other areas where they have adopted adding forages into their cropping rotations.

These forage mixtures for grazing would also offset some of the effects of drought in our region. We almost always get enough precipitation for good vegetative growth. Where we often fail is getting from the vegetative stage to grain fill with enough moisture to produce a good grain crop.

I also spoke about adding cover crops into rotations where they have a fit. We planted cover crops into our irrigated wheat stubble and I have the results of our biomass sample back and I’ll visit with you about our experience raising these cover crops next week.