We are in Caroll, Ohio at Walnut Creek Seeds Farm, home of the legendary Dave Brandt and we are going to toss it off to our cover crop segment here with Dave Brandt’s grandson — Chris.
“So this is a cover crop of cereal, rye, winter pea, hairy vetch, flax, and balansa clover. That was planted early September, and it got terminated about three or so days after we planted into it, and that would’ve been around May 8th or so. But this is probably the lowest density, in biomass, part of the field. There’s poor emergence here. And then everywhere where you actually see biomass, there’s one coming out. So I guess that’s what counts.”
“What my grandfather David was primarily focused on was proving it can be done. No tilling in the early ‘70s, working with Monsanto and Glyphosate to prove that no-till was something you could do in the nineties. And then into their early, mid-2000s proving that cover crop single species can work. 2010s, cover crop mixes work, and they’re really good. That was his focus. My focus is on how can the average farmer start using these practices without changing their operation in a large way. What I want to do is I want to figure out how the average farmer can adopt these practices.”
Very cool to see Chris following in his grandfather’s footsteps.
