Soil conservation

I grew up on a farm here in north central Ohio where we practiced many of the soil conservation techniques championed by Louis Bromfield, a local resident, and author. Sod waterways,strip tilling, and contour planting were a common practice .

Today fields are not just planted fence row to fence row but are more commonly road ditch to road ditch. Some still use sod water ways but not many.

Recently I have noticed some of the worst erosion scars are being repaired, professionally, with what appears to be some sort of synthetic mesh to hold the planting in place.

What's up those of you who are active farmers? I suspect what I am seeing is the result of a government program. Whether forced or voluntary, it is long over due.

Generally when we see that in in Mo. it is the highway department or a contractor doing it cause they dont want to get fined by the DNR. I have not seen any use of that on farmland to speak of.

And I have traveled the whole state for 25+ years doing crop ins. claims. So I got to see lots of acreage.

Gene

My dad used to have a couple of sod patch waterways where there was a valley on the side of a hill or a spot where there was more erosion. He put them in as it was just what a person did. Later when it was rented out, with the larger equipment they were taken out and not bothered with.

I have enjoyed reading books by Louis Bromfield. One of the things he tried was to make sure when a field was worked,either by moldboard or ripper, that the soil profile was mixed with roots and plant material. It really does work to stop erosion and absorb and hold water. There is a lot of information out there from his time and before that can still be used today. But, it doesn't happen very often. In our county recently we attended a covercrop field day. It was attended by about 20-25 people. Hopefully it may have sparked some interest.

I just installed over 2 miles of grass water ways on a rented farm this spring. There are Government programs that will pay part of the cost. Then you have to go with the Soil conservation's plan.

We have an educated idiot for a county soil conservation agent in this county. He "planned" a waterway on a good friend's farm. It was only 1250 feet long. The estimated cost with his plan was $15,000 dollars. He wanted the base of the water way to be 75 feet wide. That required a lot of dirt to be moved. We built it without any government funding. We made the bottom be 25 feet wide. The whole water way 75 feet wide. Total cost was under $4500. So even with the 50-50 cost share the government offers it would have cost double using the IDIOTS plan.

I keep my water ways in good shape. I usually mow at least two cuttings of grass hay off of them. I just make sure there is at least 6 inches of grass regrowth for spring.

The mesh your seeing is use to hold straw on steeper ground. I have used it and it works pretty well. It takes a good bit of labor to pin down well.

I usually can get just about as good results with composted manure mixed with ground straw. The manure will bind the straw until the cover crop gets started. Plus the manure will fertilize the new seeding. I spread it with a rear slinger Meyers spreader. So I can get a thin, even coverage.

My steepest ground is laid out in strips. I have always planted on the contours. I would say 90% of the farmers around me do plant on the contours. We farm some pretty steep ground.

The biggest erosion control is helped with the heavy ground cover we have now that not hardly any moldboard plowing is done. There is also limited acres of soybeans on the steeper ground.

You take 200 BPA corn stalks chiseled on a contour will hold a lot of water from moving. This helps take some of the load off of the water ways and stand pipes/dams.

One big draw back of grass waterways and headlands is that the Farm Service Agency (ASCS)sometimes will not count them as tillable acres. I had this happen on my home farm. It reduced my tillable acres and crop land bases. I had to appeal it clear up to Washington to get it corrected. It was a real PAIN!!!! I won because I had harvested hay off of them. If I had not then they would have been subtracted out of my tillable acres.

Most of the strips where laid out years ago and they do not "fit" larger equipment. So most of the larger farmers have taken them out. Also not many acres of oats raised with high corn/soybean prices. So that is one less rotation crop to have in your strips.

Keeping the strips and water ways has cost me some income from less grain crop production but I feel I gained it back in the value of the soils and hay.

The decline of hay acres has really effected the amount of protected water ways too. The lure of BIG incomes right NOW has blinded many about the long term advantages of protecting the soil. This has happened several times in just my lifetime.

There needs to be a better cost share since a lot of the benefits of less soil erosion are by people off the farm. The programs as they are too complicated and really do not pay well enough to attract many acres.

There has been a lot of waterways and ponds removed around here. They are just in the way for BTO. They do tile some of the waterways and take the water down to the grader ditch or onto the neighbor. I can't believe how big the machinery has got in just the last few years.

Was Louis Bromfield the guy that had the duals on an 8N Ford Tractor pulling a ripper?

Yes, that is him.

Dan where are you located? I'm not very far from Malabar Farm either. Louis had some good ideas, but he also helped bring in that damned multi-flora rose bush also.

I live a couple blocks from the mid ohio race course (with in ear shot).

Back in the early eighties a state forester told me to do two things after walking my woods. 1. get rid of the grape vines and 2. get rid of the multi flora rose. Number one was easy and 2 is nearly impossible .