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We’re on the road this week in Lake Mills, at the Jefferson County Soil Builders Field Day, co-hosted by the Rock River Regenerative Graziers. Farmers from all over the area were in attendance to hear from various speakers on the benefits of cover crops and no-till.
On this episode of the Cover Crop Strategies podcast, brought to you by La Crosse Seed, associate editor Noah Newman catches up with the event’s organizer, Dean Weichmann, who shares his biggest takeaways from the day.
The Milford-area farmer is a co-founder of the Jefferson County Soil Builders. We’ll dive into the origin story of the non-profit group and what they ultimately hope to accomplish.
Dean also reflects on thirty years of no-tilling on his operation and shares why he started using cover crops almost five years ago.
The Cover Crop Strategies podcast series is brought to you by La Crosse Seed.
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La Crosse Seed has put together a leading conservation seed platform by offering respected cover crop and native seed brands, plus practical support along the way. Quality products, helpful tools and expert advice make La Crosse Seed a strong partner with the pieces you need to succeed in this growing market. Dealers: Learn more at soil1st.com, or call 800.356.SEED.
Full Transcript
Noah Newman:
Welcome to the Cover Crop Strategies podcast. I'm Noah Newman, associate editor. Solving the soil health puzzle, La Crosse Seed has you covered. Cover crops are an important piece to future profit, but it takes work and is puzzling at times. La Crosse Seed delivers quality Soil First cover crop product, plus training and tools to help you succeed. Whether you're looking to grow your cover crop seed business, get product tips, or find a local Soil First dealer, La Crosse Seed is ready to help. Learn more at soil1st.com. That's soil, 1st.com, or call 800-356-seed. We're on the road this week in Lake Mills at the Jefferson County Soil Builders Field Day. Great event out here, several speakers on hand, including local No-Tillers, Tom Burlingham, who we featured on the podcast last week, you might remember, and Adam Lash talking about the benefits of no-till and using mixed species cover crops. Also, had a lot of fun with a soil pit demonstration, Jamie Patton from the University of Wisconsin and Michelle Props from the Dane County extension digging deep to show us the positive impact cover crops can have on soil health.
Noah Newman:
We also learned about the Wisconsin integrated cropping systems trial, an ongoing farm experiment spanning three decades. So yeah, we could spend an entire podcast on that. For more info head to wicst.wisc.edu. But on today's podcast, we catch up with the guy who helped organize this field day event, Milford area farmer, Dean Weichmann. He's also the co-founder of the Jefferson County Soil Builders. Dean explains the purpose of the nonprofit farmer and producer group and what they ultimately hope to accomplish. We'll go over their goals. We'll also explore his no-till operation and find out why he started using cover crops about five years ago. All right Dean, well we're just wrapping up the field event here and your initial impressions? How did it go today? It seemed like a pretty good turnout.
Dean Weichmann:
I thought a very good turnout. I don't know what the numbers are, but it certainly looks like we had at least 50 people here. I always worry with these events. I don't know who's who always and whether or not these are people that are actually interested or we're preaching to the choir. And I think that happens a lot. But it always helps to have these events. I know there's at least one guy here that has not been putting in covers or no-tilling.
Noah Newman:
Yeah, it was interesting when some of the speakers asked the audience to raise their hands, who's using cover crops? Who's no-tilling? Kind of a mix. You had a lot of people here that don't do it and some that are interested in it.
Dean Weichmann:
Yeah. But there's so many guys that showed up here that I know, that I met at other meetings. Like I say, "I'm preaching to the choir." I worry about that very much with these events, but I think we just keep plugging away and hopefully we get somebody convinced to try things and maybe make some progress.
Noah Newman:
And what were some of the big topics or takeaways that were covered here today or anything that really stood out to you?
Dean Weichmann:
I always loved the soil pits and Jamie and Michelle are great together. They're tag team talking and they are very well informed and very educational. Excellent. So I always enjoy that. Otherwise, Adam Lash and Tom Burlingham both were very good working together as well. And I almost kind of wish I had been over there when Tom kind of got excited over there, I could tell him he was getting-
Noah Newman:
Yeah, you could hear him from several feet away.
Dean Weichmann:
... Yeah. So he got a little more wound up there for something. And I would like to have known what, but-
Noah Newman:
Yeah. They were talking about the importance of soil health and any interesting takeaways from that? That you could think of off the top of your head?
Dean Weichmann:
Well, I mean, Jim [Stuey 00:04:08] did a nice, maybe too long winded overview of the Wix program. And I think that's just completely ignored. I mean, this has been going on 30 years and I just heard about it last year, going to Agronomy Field Day at Arlington. And that's why I invited Greg Sanford to come. Well, Greg had a problem. He couldn't make it. So Jim happened to... I found out that Jim had been involved with that program early on. So I thought, "Oh, he's perfect for this." And asked him if he could do it and he agreed. So, he did very well.
Noah Newman:
Yeah. A lot of great information shared out here. What would you say is the overall goal of a field event? When you put on something like this what do you hope you're going to get out of it?
Dean Weichmann:
Well, and at this time for me, it's more I'm trying to convince other people to try this. I still learn things. I'm still... Will try... Have ideas that some of the people have tried and maybe adopt. One of the things I... Oh interseeding. Well, Marty Weiss is here today and he's been leading the way or doing a lot with interseeding into corn. And I try to learn from him. One of the things I did just try recently with that was, well, gee, if you're interseeding, you almost got to modify a drill or something and you just go down, take out grow units or something and planting the corn after it's V7 or something like that. Well, I thought, "Well, if I want to plant something, why don't I just go out there at V3 with a grain drill, a regular grain drill, which I unmodified no-till drill and planted some alfalfa just for the heck of it to see how it turned out." And it worked pretty good.
Dean Weichmann:
The alfalfa established, it didn't survive, most of it. Because of when it canopied over, this is always a problem. One of the reasons that interseeding maybe isn't going to take off as much as we might hope. You really got to have something that's going to take off and grow, survive, and then take off and grow over winter. You want something that's survives.
Noah Newman:
Yeah, let's get some more context on your operation. Tell us where you're located? How many acres, primary soils, crop and rotation? Just the basics of the Dean Weichmann farm.
Dean Weichmann:
Well, this is Wisconsin so as far as soils go, it's a mix. I've got some high organic matter, low ground runs about 8% organic. And most of the high ground is like, silt loams, Dodge silt loams for one. Productive soils, I don't have much in way rocks on... But I always... Well, we run about far as the farm goes. I run about 250 acres. I'm retired now it was a dairy. So a dairy, you can handle that few acres and still make living. And probably not with, with cash grains. I supply a dairy now too yet. So it gives me a little bit leverage, but I started no-tilling about 30 years ago, mostly because I'm kind of lazy. I don't want to go around, around the field all the time, a bunch of different times. And I don't like picking rocks. If you don't till the field, you aren't going to pull the rocks up.
Noah Newman:
Is it... When you started no-tilling what kind of differences did you see? Did you see immediate impact? Just kind of give us what happened now that initial no-till journey.
Dean Weichmann:
I wouldn't say I would've seen immediate impact or wasn't noticeable change for probably three years. And then I felt that gee, the soil does seem to be a little softer, a little more mellow now. So that was basically the first thing I might see, but it still... Even if I didn't have that, I'd still no-till simply because I don't want go around and around the field all the time. That laziness aspect of it.
Noah Newman:
I'm the same way sometimes. So when did the cover crop start to come into it? When did you first start utilizing cover crops? And do you remember why you started doing it?
Dean Weichmann:
Well, I actually, probably maybe four or five years ago, I first started dabbling. I'm getting... Last year everything got covered with either a cover crop or alfalfa. So we've made a little progress in that regard. Why did I start doing initially? It might have been due to... I went to Dodge County's meetings, which is one reason I kind of started the Jefferson County group because I wanted to emulate what Dodge County has done. They've got a very active group, they'll have a meeting and they'll 150 people show up with a big name speaker and stuff. So... And they've got several events throughout the year and I attend, usually.
Noah Newman:
We'll get back to the podcast in a moment, but I want to take some time to once again, thank our sponsor, solving the soil health puzzle La Crosse Seed has you covered. Cover crops are an important piece to future profit, but it takes work. It is puzzling at times, La Crosse Seed delivers quality Soil First cover crop products, plus training and tools to help you succeed. Whether you're looking to grow your cover crop seed business, get product tips, or find a local Soil first dealer La Crosse Seed is ready to help learn more@soilfirst.com that's soil1st.com or you can call 800-356-seed. And now back to the podcast.
Noah Newman:
So you started the Jefferson County Soil Builders.
Dean Weichmann:
Yeah.
Noah Newman:
And give us the origin story of that. When did you guys start this group? And what are your goals?
Dean Weichmann:
Well, basically we were trying to start it a couple years ago, but COVID got in the way, made things a little more difficult, so it sort of pushed it back a little. But again, this was kind of, because I wanted to copy what Dodge County was doing.
Noah Newman:
Right.
Dean Weichmann:
And I'm very good friends with Tony Peirick who's the leader of that group. I have Marty Weiss for that matter too. He was here and he's one of the part of the choir here because he's a leader in this too. So what else can I say about it? I just... I lost my thought here. What I'm... Was trying to say here.
Noah Newman:
Yeah, it seems like a great a group of people and you guys share a lot of great information and this is the second year you put on a field event like this, correct?
Dean Weichmann:
We had an event last fall at this location. And last spring we had a soil PIP and discussion at my place actually kind of... Scott Schultz was also part of this and his brother, Randy provided a meeting place, their shop. And we had a neighbor brought in some of his equipment to display because he does strip till. So that event was pretty good. Jamie and Michelle were there at that time too. And I... From all accounts that I heard, I wasn't able to actually go over there because I had the talk to give at the time all accounts I heard they were fantastic. They were just on fire, shall we say? They were really great.
Noah Newman:
Now going back to the cover crops, when do you seed and at what rates and how do you terminate?
Dean Weichmann:
Okay. Seeding, we follow corn and soybeans. With soybeans sometimes we put in wheat, we can call that a cover or it's going to be a crop anyway, but it's still put in fairly shortly after the soybeans. Sometimes we'll follow or, we always will follow corn silage with wheat or rye because we can get it in so quickly. Even if the rye doesn't come up in the fall, by spring, we're going to have some growth. We probably should be showing now a little bit. Termination, that's very... that's changing. As far as I'm concerned, I used to terminate at planting or just before
Dean Weichmann:
Tell you what one of the... Oh, must be three years ago now. I planted some winter rye for forage two fields and took off one field. And by the time that was done, we had enough feed. There was no point in taking that other one off. So we planted corn to that and it was fairly late. That rye was at 32 inches.
Noah Newman:
Wow.
Dean Weichmann:
And all of it's good and thick, but we just went in. Said "It's late, we'll just plant." So we went in and planted and it was... You could stick your hand into the furl where the discs opened it up. It's just a double disc opening around there, do your 7,000 corn planter. And it was like putting your hand into sphagnum moss. So the corn grew great. And another interesting little aspect of that was that there were some cover crops that we planted on one... And the field, say a third of the field and that, well, winter killed. That was a winter killing cover crop. So that was planted into bare ground, it's no-till you know, it was all planted at the same time, where there was no cover like that, where there wasn't the rye. Well, gee, the corn came up quicker.
Noah Newman:
Hmm.
Dean Weichmann:
And throughout the season it was probably five inches taller, till late in the season, well you couldn't see any difference anymore. But we were curious, so we had Tom Novak come by with his way wagon, and we did a yield check. And where the winter rye... The winter rye and the bare ground were almost identical. They were within two bushel, and that was 205 bushel per acre, a fleet. So I did very well.
Noah Newman:
Interesting. Well, I wanted to ask you about this. See if you have a take on this, Wisconsin passed legislation to give farmers a $5 per acre savings on their crop insurance to plant cover crops, making it the fourth state after Illinois, Iowa, and Indiana. Do you think this will help encourage more farmers to try covers?
Dean Weichmann:
I think it's a good idea. I don't use... I don't plant... I don't use crop insurance at all myself, but I think that's an excellent start. Every little bit helps if... If crop insurance was inhibiting people from putting in covers before, well let's eliminate that. Let's get... Let's do it because it benefits so much, the farmer, the environment, the people downstream from the... it just makes so much sense.
Noah Newman:
And then do you have any thoughts on the growing carbon industry?
Dean Weichmann:
I don't have a lot of faith that that's going to be a big deal. I did... I remember participating once in it, like say, Gay Browne had urged caution with it in that regard. Depends what kind of the... What the contract is. If they got a contract that's forever and you're stuck with it and your heirs are stuck with it and it becomes obsolete well, then you're still stuck with it and that's maybe not a good idea. And perhaps it's not paying as much as you should be... Personally, I don't think I'll ever participate.
Noah Newman:
Gotcha.
Dean Weichmann:
So there's all sorts of other benefits to putting covers and improving your soil that I don't need other incentives.
Noah Newman:
Well, this has been a great kind conversation. You're probably hungry. You're probably right for dinner after a long day like today, but before we let you go, anything else you want people to know about Jefferson County Soil Building group or the field event here today or anything else you want to share with us?
Dean Weichmann:
We'll have more events. We just haven't decided too much when and how big these events will be. Though, Tom Burlingham will have an event at his place in conjunction with Jim Stuey on April 12th. And that ought to be a very good event. I have a lot of respect for Jim Stuey. I think he's wonderful. The other thing is Jim is doing a... I'll bring that up. Jim is doing a study in the area with cooperating farmers. We're one. And the other... One of the others here is Cindy Pitzner. Who's... Her land here and they're putting in winter rye in two different planting rates and then a C=check strip with nothing on it. And then we're going to compare crop yields in the following couple of years.
Noah Newman:
Interesting.
Dean Weichmann:
So I very interested to see how that'll turn out. It's a research... A Lot.
Noah Newman:
We'll have to keep an eye out for that, but Dean, I really appreciate it was great talking to you today.
Dean Weichmann:
Okay. Thanks Noah.
Noah Newman:
Thanks to Dean Weichmann of the Jefferson County Soil Builders for joining us on this week's edition of the Cover Crop Strategies podcast. And once again, thanks to our sponsor solving a soil health puzzle? La Crosse Seed has you covered. Cover crops are an important piece to future profit, but it takes work and is puzzling at times. La Crosse Seed delivers quality, Soil First cover crop products, plus training and tools to help you succeed. Whether you're looking to grow your cover crop seed business, get product tips, or find a local soil. First dealer lacrosse seed is ready to help learn more@soilfirst.com that's soil1st.com or call 800-356-seed.
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