“That’s the reason I started no-tilling because I saw Steve Groff’s videos and I got bored of doing things the same old way.”

— Bryan Racine, No-Tiller, Cecil County, Md.  

In today’s episode, come along on the road with me as I travel across parts of Maryland and Pennsylvania to visit 3 different farmers who are working with cover crops and no-till in unique ways.

Our first stop in part 1 of this journey took us to Jim Hershey’s farm in Elizabethtown, Pennsylvania.

Last week, we met Cecil County, Maryland farmer Bryan Racine, who is relatively new to the no-till and cover crop movement, but is learning and innovating at a rapid pace. Let’s pick up where we left off with Bryan and head out into the field to see what he has been working on this year.

Related Content

• [Podcast] On the Road with Cover Crops — Jim Hershey Part 1
• [Podcast] On the Road with Cover Crops — Jim Hershey Part 2
• East Coast Farm Trip Sparks New Cover Crop Podcast Series
• [Podcast] The Origin Story of Steve Groff’s Winter King Hairy Vetch Cover Crop

Full Transcript

Welcome to the Cover Crop Strategies Podcast. I'm Mackane Vogel, associate editor of Cover Crop Strategies. In today's episode, come along on the road with me as I travel across parts of Maryland and Pennsylvania to visit three different farmers who are working with cover crops and no-till in unique ways. Our first stop in part one of this journey took us to Jim Hershey's farm in Elizabethtown, Pennsylvania. Last week we met Cecil County, Maryland farmer, Bryan Racine, who is relatively new to the no-till and cover crop movement, but is learning and innovating at a rapid pace. Now that we learned a bit about his background, let's hop in the truck with Bryan and head out into the field to see what he's been working on this year.

We have a 243 acre farm and 140's tillable, so it's pretty small compared to most, especially. As soon as you go over the canal. Hope you don't mind sitting in the old truck.

I don't mind.

I got to get the spare keys. [inaudible 00:01:11] keys [inaudible 00:01:11]. I mean, fortunately most of my stuff's pretty old and that we have so just regular upkeep on things. I mean, you can see my "tillage shed", letting that one go to waste. The barn is from the '60s. You can feel free to put the window down because that's [inaudible 00:01:36] the old girl. When was the last time you had to crank a window?

I had an old beater in high school that had windows like that.

I just like the old drive to wherever I want to drive through what field and don't care kind of attitude. I wouldn't want to do that with a nicer thing. That's my other one, same thing. Here was zero rye, three bushels an acre, planted it heavy and then planted green into with corn planter and the beans with the brush meters on 30s, just because I felt like it could move the rye out of the way better than the drill and to give it a whirl. I rolled some here earlier when it was just kind of coming up because I'm still learning when to roll it and when not to roll it. Then here I didn't roll it to see if there's a difference in weed management or soybean yield or anything really. Is the ground more covered, less covered, if it falls over its own compared to me rolling it.

Then up here, I rolled it after it was sprayed so it would lay down a little better. Here I did it at an angle at a 15 degree because I don't have auto steering stuff and I can't see the soybeans threw all the rye. I did the angle thing to see, you could see here where it come to, you definitely, you could see where it hurt the beans some, but they say sometimes if you hurt them at the right time it can help you. But I feel like that's pretty good compared to just bare dirt sitting there growing.

No doubt.

It was sprayed once, but I'm going to try to go all year for better without it, which it's very hard to run over your crop. You know what I mean? Everything you learn, you stay out of the field, stay out of the field, and here you are driving over your soybeans with a roller crimper that you don't know what the heck its doing, at least I don't. But I'm sending it anyway because I want to find out.

[inaudible 00:03:40] your feelings [inaudible 00:03:40]. Is this right?

I didn't sleep for two, three weeks. I don't know when to do it, how to do it, per se. You just read about it. But that's different than they've been doing it. I'm just starting. Here, I just did a couple passes on the outside and then I did it again at an angle because this field's a contour, so I rolled it. But now you can start to see the beans coming up so you feel a little better. Before they were just, oh man, I was ruining everything, but beans aren't expensive.

Sure.

Sure, let's go get some more. But I can't plant through that. There's too much there. This was summer crop last year, the summer mix after the wheat. Then I planted into it pretty good for what we usually average. This was a lot of crimson clover was left, and a lot of turnips. You could see the turnips sticking up. They're big bushy tree looking structures.

Maryland Public Television was here and did an interview for the bonus cover crop program. I planted this for them that day to see how it worked. It's good enough. We don't get anywhere near perfect stands. If the corn's up, that's a win. It's there. It'll give me something. I'm not the guy that's going to get 350 bushel corn, for sure. But you can just see how there's still, there was probably five or six different kinds of crops that were there that when we sprayed it had survived the winter.

Then this is the same thing, but we had the pasture around the field for the most part. You could see here, I mean this is all the same, but this is where they were mostly. You know what I mean? They were in here a lot more, so there's less residue than look over here. But they were in over here for a couple weeks. They had calves out there, which I thought was pretty cool because we haven't had that in 30-some years, a cow born on the property. But there's some residue, but not quite as much. Then there's another field over there. It's a little different, but I mean, I feel like this was harder. The ground was harder for sure because they were on it more, whether it was raining or dry. But I feel like the corn came up better almost because I don't know if it was because there was less residue or because the ground was a little harder. It was a little firmer, per se, or just because I had better contact with the closing wheels. It's hard to tell, but that's kind of, that's why I just do it and see what happens instead of trying to do too much because I already do enough.

That's pretty good and standard, not exactly the greatest. There's a bunch of residuals. It takes a clover a while to die, so sometimes I feel like it's weeds, but is what it is. These turnips here, I had the field over there. I mean, I'll show you a picture. I mean it was as yellow and bushes. I couldn't plant into it because they would break off and clog up the row cleaners and the actual, the row units themselves, they would clog it up and start pushing. I had to get the wife on the roller crimper using my marker, and then I had to follow her with the next row marker out for her to roll it because all I had to do was just roll it down so that I could get to planting it because it would just, I couldn't make a pass or two and I had to stop. You had to watch it too much. That was something you had to learn the hard way.

Sure.

Hey, you probably should've got, I don't know if I need to put less in the mix because they didn't come up until the spring, but I didn't have that issue before. It's like I don't know.

What kind of weeds do you guys deal with the most out here?

Mare's tail is pretty terrible. I mean, you can see a whole bunch of it out there still. Foxtail, we had a lot, this had a lot of foxtail in it with a giant foxtail last year. That's why the cover crop didn't go great. This, it grew great in. I don't know why. Same thing, same day, same spray program, everything's same, but it's just Foxtail got started, I guess because it didn't get a good rain or maybe this field holds moisture a little better and it allowed the cover crop to get going. Never here, maybe it wasn't quite as moist and the foxtail came up sooner. It's always a guess.

But those are probably the two worst ones for me anyway. The beans will get a lot of bur-cucumber in them and you got to go out there and pull that so the combine guy will actually go through it. He doesn't quite care for that. You can see some of the crimson in here and the red clover, and there's some, I don't know, there might be volunteer wheat, there's some rye, triticale.

That's all part of that big mix?

Yeah, and then this is where we ran, like I said, the fence was over here, so this was our shoot to run between me and the neighbors and to check the fence lines and stuff. I was like, "I'll just keep it because it is nice to be able to drive around and what's one pass." The 500 foot of corn puts me under everything. I got bigger problems. But it's cool to see then none of this was here.

Right.

Then it all just came up basically after I started planting for the most part. But nothing was here for the most of the spring, I guess just because whatever reason, and they're still growing. But it's just cool to see what does what when so then more, like, see there's no cover crop, and see all that mare's tail ground now? Is that mare's tail growing because there's nothing else growing? You know what I mean?

It's probably a good indicator.

You could see the cat. It was just outside of here. I don't see as much mare's tail out there, even though it was sprayed.

Sure.

I mean some people would cringe seeing all this stuff that's out there, all the residue and other things growing. But we don't know if you don't try. Like I said, say that field does pretty good, say it does terrible. I'll know pretty good. This has a lot more manure in it. All the little worm castings, that's what I'm looking for.

So is this all you too?

This line here is a property line base, and that's the neighbors and his chicken houses. I'm sure the [inaudible 00:11:00] aren't going to look great because that's why I had to turn around. I had to hang weights off the front of the tractor to be able to pick it up. I mean it would do it, but it was like if you're on a little bit of a hill, it didn't really want to turn a lot. If I wanted the wife to drive it, I got to have the front end down because she's not trying to play hold the brakes and turn thing.

Then see here where I didn't plant some rye?

Yeah.

Here's no cover crop, just beams into corn stalks compared to leaving the rye all the way there to see the-

Try and test it.

Because see where it starts up over there? We did Chemgro variety trial, so they planted all the way down to there so it was like, that's a good stop to there so I just left a couple gaps to see what's the difference. Rye, no rye, all that kind of fun stuff.

Then they got a variety plot out here this year. This was more residue here. There might still be something out there, but this is where I had to have her roll it. I planted two passes and I was like, "I can't." You can kind of see it coming down the hill where the corn looks real terrible and then it starts to look good. That's where she started rolling it before me because it was just too much. It was just too much stuff. There was trees out there so I had to have her roll it.

Then when we planted that variety plot or yield plot over there, the neighbor, I had him roll it for me as I made the passes because I couldn't.

Sure.

But plant through the crimson and stuff's fine, but man, this turn was killing me because they were full bloom, three, four foot tall fighting me. But I would get a rain like an inch, and I could plant the corn the next day. If that's just tilled up dirt, I'd have to probably almost disc it.

[inaudible 00:12:58].

Yeah, soft. I'm not saying I should've been out here planting, but in the morning it was a little soft. By the end of the day or middle of the day, it was perfect almost, and then by the end of the day, it almost was getting dry again because the sun was out. It's like you got to play that game of what's good enough. I only need a day to plant the beans and then I could worry about rowing them later.

But the corn, I have a field across the street where I was planting it last because I almost forget about it sometimes. As I make my first pass, I could see the pollen coming off of it. I'm like, man, this is what they tell you is the perfect time to roll it. I planted it all up and then came back over, got the crimper and rolled it and it flat like carpet, hardwood floor smooth. I'm like, "Yes. This is exactly what they tell you." They started to come up just a little bit because we don't have that nice flat land, per se. You could see the rivets and everything and compounds and manure spreader, but it laid it down.

I tried rolling this and you could see how much of it came back up. I mean it really didn't go down great, per se, but it's at least better than being straight up, I would maybe guess. I don't know. That's why I got the half-and-half mix.

I like that. I feel like that stands better where the cows were, which most people say you can't have cows out there and plant to it, and then there it is. I mean, look at the simulation. For what I got, that's pretty good.

It looks good.

But it'll be fun to see what the no nitrogen, nitrogen-

Compare it all?

This field compared to that field or it's the same. This is more of a race force hybrid in it so it's kind of per field, but it's still good to see heights because this is slower. This is 114 day mix. Most of my stuff I plant's like 102, 105. I plant it short so I get covers on it sooner.

Right, makes sense.

And try to get the combine in here so I'm not fighting because if it gets cool like it usually does in the fall, you got to wait and wait and wait, and then my covers are later. Then you talk about missing your plant dates or at least for the cover crop program because after the corn up there is rye with red and crimson in it, but it's after red clover dates are part of the bonus cover crop program. If they let me do it, see if the dates are good, if there's a reason that they need to have them or is it kind of bogus?

I told them you're not going to get anything in the fall. If you do, it's going to frost off. But in the spring if the moisture is good, the rye's not terrible, you'll get it well and it'll come up. It says the Chemgro's variety plot. That's what I use it as my base is for what my corn's supposed to look like, and then I compare it to what my junk looked like.

There's a deer. See, look at them. The thing's right there. I grow all these covers. There's always something growing so I'm giving them food. They're like, "Hey, this guy grows shit all year long. Let's live here." But at the same time, it's killing me because they just come and eat everything. But it's like, I mean, it does help being in a smaller farmer, I can drive it pretty quick, mush them along, but you can't have one without the other. It could be worse. It could be hundreds of them.

Sure.

I've had groundhogs clear a lot of soybeans off just from their hole, but that's not really a huge issue, but it is for weeds.

This is 30 acres of corn I planted, and I was trying to do the weight for it to be like V3, V4 thing, and I got scared on the first two passes and I said, "I'd rather not run it over." It looked to me like it was crimping it, or not crimping it, but knocking it over and kind of crushing it some. The stand's not the greatest anyway, but I got nervous because like I said, I can't see it with the tractor so then here I am with x-ray on the front and 150 horse tractor running over my three-inch tall corn. I couldn't do it. I was like I'd rather just let it be tall and stringy have it fight that fight of being around green. It was probably three or four before they sprayed it. I didn't get to rowing it in time because I was doing other fields, and by the time I got to it, I was like, "I don't like it."

There's whole pieces, chunks missing, but it's still growing so it's better than me rolling over 50% of it because I was going to get nothing there. Some of that looks good, some of it, like here where I ran over a little bit more, I can kind of, you could see where I made it in between these rows here better. But it's hard to run over corn with a roller crimper and not lose sleep and just being nervous, per se. We'll see what happens.

This field, it's funny it's in this field because in 2021, Maryland will let you plant late after May before you terminate the cover so I waited until after that and it was, I think by the time I got to it was the middle of May. The rye was five foot tall. Here I am with no row cleaners, nothing, just a simple coulter and the row unit, and I planted this whole field. I couldn't even see the corn planted for some of it. Wouldn't you know, when corn came up and it grew and we didn't do terrible, but it didn't do great. But I'm like, "If I could plant through that, then I'm not really scared to go try this."

that's a good point.

I'm a little more scared to roll it because I haven't got to that yet. But I did a couple of passes to see. I know I can grow corn in it. It's not going to like it and it's going to grow tall and stringy, but it's better, like I said, it's better than roll a half of it over and not having corn to harvest.

That's right.

If I had GPS, I would've cared less. I would've ran it.

True. Right.

But when you're looking through five foot green rot, like this rye to try to see a three-inch tall piece of corn, I couldn't do it, especially with the kid supervising me. We'll see what it does. I probably lost a good bit of my, I mean, that's half my corn right there, but it is what it is. I'm going to learn.

Find out one way or another.

Prices are four bucks, so what am I going to lose? I'm not losing my top end. It's going to be mediocre anyway. See, I learned roll the corn right after your point, at least knock it down. Then if it does get sprayed, it's laid down. It rolled down nice. But it had been sprayed, but it's rolled down. Lesson learned. Unless it comes out to be some of the better corn, then you're like, "What the heck?"

Right.

But that's why I do it. It's like, well, I'm going to learn it.

Right.

It sticks around in your head a little bit more for me when you mess it up, and I'm pretty good at that, finding the hard way. I mean, there's nobody that's going to have a few look like this right now, though, I'll tell you that. When I order my summer mix, I order from a guy in PA. I'm like racing crazy summer cover mix program. Here we go. Let's add some more stuff to it.

I went to see a guy named Alan Williams through the bonus cover crop program, or now he's a million acre challenge guy, one of those groups, and it was out in Frederick. He does the grazing and how to rotatively graze it and all this kind of stuff. I was like, "Well, I don't have cows, but I want them, so I'm not going to miss this." Because we got a whole free day with him because the next day he was doing it, but you had to pay and it was like hundreds more people. There was maybe 20 of us. I'm like, that's one-on-one. It's close as I want to get because I ain't paying a five grand a day or whatever it was to come out, a thousand an hour or whatever his rate was. I'm not doing that, so went out there.

He was like, "Grass is what breaks your compaction. Grass is what's supposed to be growing here." All the other things are cool. I like grasses are what give you your biomass, your organic matter. They make the roots. They break up compaction. That's when I added more grass and then I added grass because the neighbor's cows were going to graze it. We talked about it before so I was like, I wanted them to have more stuff. But they eat the sorghum first. They don't even look at anything else until the sorghum's gone. Then they'll graze through some of the other stuff. But they eat the sorghum down, and then they keep eating it as soon as it comes back up.

Then they eat a little bit like that was a lot of clover in the spring because that's what usually makes it is this clover. None of the grasses really. They were eating it some. They ate it obviously down to the ground.

There won't be any Maryland-type yield producers crops coming at it this farm anytime soon. But say I get to the point where I don't need to put as much on, or I could put no nitrogen down and still make a good bit of money. If I get the cow poop to figure out how much of that I need or how much is good or not good, then I don't even, maybe just one side dress instead of chicken litter or maybe I do just chicken litter and go enough.

Let's see across the street. I got rolled, it looks like. I feel like I got just a little bit too jumpy on rolling it like the soybean stuff. Some of it's rolled twice, some of it's rolled three times. Some of it's rolled twice before it got sprayed and rolled after. Do I keep track of all of it where? But if it's rolled down, then at least I know it's rolled or not rolled.

Sure. Is that you right here?

Yep. We have a field here and then another field at the front end of the woods a little bit.

Looks pretty good.

It's not terrible. There's a pond right there. It stays marshy. There's a lot of [inaudible 00:24:06]. I think three or four springs on the property, like that little building, there's a spring house.

Oh, sure.

That's where they used to keep the milk back in the day. We have a lot of high, when this pole here, when we dug it up, put the electric for the house, we didn't even dig to the barn and it was flowing for water.

Oh, wow.

We have a very high water table. That field used to have their cows in it, so I don't know if it's the cow activity or if it's just the type of land, but it stays wet. There's a wet spot in it, and it was until two years ago, I couldn't even drive through it. Now I can at least drive the planter through it. Not saying it's going to do great, but I can plant through it so it tells me that I'm doing better. I think the key to wet spots is having something growing to suck up the water. Everybody thinks you got to disc it dry. Well, if you have a plant that will suck it up, that's the key.

Say this field is where I rolled it and it stayed down and the corn came up, and so this is usually one of my worst field because it's surrounded by woods. Nothing's over here to spook the deer off and they can just come out all day long and eat everything. But that's rolled it. They sprayed it. It was all nice and flat and rolled down. It just shows you that whatever I did this day worked.

What it was that made the rye, so the right over here [inaudible 00:25:29], it was pollinating. I had rye over there that wasn't pollinating, but this whole field was pollinated and it was the last field I planted like two weeks late because I forgot about the darn field. After I planted all my wheat and everything, I was like, "Shoot, I forgot about the field across the street." Was it because I planted it and the moisture, it rained sooner and it got a better start? You know what I mean?

Could be, right.

That's why I do all kinds of crazy things to see what does what because I don't know the answer. Something, somewhere. We'll see if we make it out. This is what I want every field to look like with the rye covered, nice thick mat.

That does look nice.

It got a little better, like here where I turned, it didn't do good clearing the rows where I turned. But the straights, it did pretty good. Of course, I was a little low on nitrogen, so I don't have a lot of weight. I feel like most people, well, let's just say the majority of the farmers care about the corn and the population in the stand. I could really care less, to be honest with you. I'm like, "Hey, look, I rolled the cover crop, man. I figured that out. Check."

It's [inaudible 00:26:37], right? It looks cool.

Everything else is a bonus. If like I got corn to harvest, awesome. I'm just trying to figure out all the other stuff. Like I said, I mean even changing the same property, the fields are different. It's always a gamble slash you got to remember things or you just got to be lucky. I don't know. This is the lucky part, pulling out of here.

It's a lot of variables. Right?

Yeah. Who would've thought the last field to dry would've been the one that rolled over and was perfect. But the other fields were like, yep, no, I'm coming back up. I mean, they went down, but you could see it a couple days later. I was halfway back up and I have it full of water. I'm doing what I think I should be doing, and I rolled some and then it was like, man, maybe I should try the angle thing so I'm not running over the entire row on 30 inch because I got five foot gap. I need more, less sleep happening.

Old Ford over there and roller crimper, nothing fancy.

Whatever works.

We're trying to figure out if it does. I try. It's not a long tour when there's not much. You can keep it down if you want. I mean, we went to a farm in Chester down there and the first field was a rye, hairy vetch mix, and they're like, "Oh, this is a little hundred acre field." I'm like, "I don't even, that's more of my corn and beans in one acreage." And you just, "Oh yeah, we're going to see what happens today." I'm like, "I can't. That's my whole everything."

That's about just do what you can on your own farm I guess.

I went that day, the kid that works for him, Seth, was going to roll and plant and they have it on the front, a roller crimper on the front, so is it cool if I come with you? Like, "Sure. Yeah, hop on." I followed him over there and they had a eight row, I think it was just a eight row corn planter with the roller crimper on the front of the John Deere, and he can't turn because it won't let you turn. I learned that maybe I don't want to put it on the front. I was looking into getting a tractor with the three point on the front, and then I was like, "Man, I wouldn't make it through my first field with it on the front. It wouldn't turn for nothing. I'd be fighting every other fight." I thought about getting it on the corn planter. I'm like, "I don't have a tractor with the hydraulics to do that." I was like, "Well, that's not going to work great."

It was like the kid in one of the groups, Steve, he had a roller crimper for sale, so I picked that thing up.

That's where he got it?

Yup. They brought it last spring and worked out good because a new one's like 13, 14 grand or something.

Right.

I was exponentially less than that.

I've heard of some farmers making them out of just old stuff they got around.

We got the coil packer there by the barn.

Let's take a look at it, take some pictures?

Sure. I was going to use, I tried the coil packer, but it doesn't crimp. It just pushes it over. If I sprayed it, it would roll it over. If I'm going to get it, I'm not saying I want to be organic, but I want to see how much I could get it to crimp on its own. If I can make it do it mechanically, great. That's one less spray. I got 16 and a quarter every acre for the sprayer guy to go cross it. I had the body cut all the weights on the front because I had them for the drill originally.

I had some old plate steel at his job, and I gave him a John Deere weight so he cut me all these out with the water jet. I'd hang all these on the front because these weren't enough because the Case, the fuels in the back, so I don't have nothing out here holding it down, even though it's not far back, it's a short tractor. I had to hang all these bad boys on there to keep the front end down because I would ride just on those without it, and you would turn and you didn't really turn. I was like, "Man, I got to hang some weight on it."

You got to get creative.

Yeah. I was like, "Well, I'm glad I had those weights." That's why you never say no to an opportunity. We tried it out. It did pretty good. I don't have a float, so I had to put my three, the arms kind of have a float feature kind of built in, at least the Case does. I had to put that on those so it would kind of bounce some. But it's hard because it doesn't have a float, so you got to put it down a certain amount and it would get kind of choppy where it would bang, the top link would hit. Then I had to pick it up just a smidge. But it could've just been a rough fields, could've been all kinds of things.

The wife, she gets to drive that and crimp for me. I think the old drill back there, so I got it set up the way I like it, but it probably needs some new opener soon. But this is just the old 7,000.

Cool.

What else I got, the cleaners, the floaters on there. I got the skinny wheels. I got some shoot closing wheels. I had to get the hydraulic markers because it didn't have enough oomph to pick it up and have the old cable system in it, I'd have to get off every pass. I mean, you could kick it and it's like, "Oh, okay." But it would just sit there and struggle. I'd had this thing cranking. It just didn't have enough. I like it because it's open cast so I could see everything.

Right.

I can hear everything, and I'm right here. I'm not up another three or four feet in a tractor I can't hear nothing in because it's a cab.

That's a good point.

You know what I mean? I can see everything. I see the chain spinning on half the rows. I just have more visibility and I can see where I'm going. Because when you plant through some of that stuff, I mean, that's it. Where the depth gauge on the thing on the market, that's all you see. If it don't dig in the ground, it just knocks the grass over and you have to try to find that. I can't find that from up there in the cab.

I put the liquid on. It took a lot of work to get it there, but I did it all myself so now how to fix it all.

Sure.

I got to do some stuff with the row cleaners. I think I need to weight. I think I need the tread wheels on it to weigh it down more because I feel like I was kind of riding.

Is there a dealership you go to around here or you just kind of do it your own self mostly?

Just Pequea Planter, those guys up there. I think they've been in your magazine before. I got all this stuff from them because they just know. They rebuild them. I think it was 7000s or maybe even 7200s.

Sure.

Those are key. But if they had it all there, just go up there with a big truck.

Perfect.

Load it all up. I spent stupid money on it, but I planted 90 acres of crops this year. But then it helps just spread it out some. But that's what we do. You can see where the, it almost looks like your yard with the roller crimper pushing one way and then the other way. Nothing fancy, nothing going to be on the front cover of a tractor magazine, for sure.

Doesn't have to be. If it works, it works.

It's just a low ROI and it's all mechanical, nothing I don't have to worry about some computer screens starting up or a fuse blown or nothing. If worst case, you jump start the old Ford and you leave it running for a couple days. I mean, I've planted it with the Case. I've planted it with the Kubota. It just isn't the same. It just didn't do as good.

The neighbor gives me trouble. He's trying to get enough hedge height, I got a trailer hitch and then washers to try to get my front end up enough to get my closers to do a good job because it's just a low draw bar, and then the more weight I add, the more it pushes it down. It's like a bouncing act of trying to, so I need to work on that. That's one thing that for sure I need to work on. The row cleaners do fine and the depth wheels do good, but the closers, they're not running level so I don't know if I need to put another hitch on it.

Right.

Jack it up some more.

Play around with it a bit.

Yeah. Trying to get it to where it needs to be. But I mean, it plants corn. Like I said, we're not, I don't need, it's a balance because I don't need the farm to make my whole income for the year.

Right.

You know what I mean? I have the ability to send it more.

To try and play around with some stuff?

Yeah. To go all the way out here in wild town to see if I can figure it out quicker or better and not have to be like, "Oh crap, we can't do something this year," or whatever.

Sure. What do you do for work outside the farm?

I work at Northrop Grumman.

Oh yeah, okay.

Up in Elkton, we make rocket motors and I'm in the testing department.

Nice.

We get to blow them up, control blow them up. I cut grass and then this and a couple side jobs here and there.

Sure.

Always something for a dollar.

That is a wrap on my second farm visit. Thanks to Bryan Racine for showing me around. This is a perfect example of why this is such a great industry and why I love being an ag journalist. You go from one farm, Jim Hershey, a couple thousand acres, big time established no tiller, been at it for 30 plus years, and then you go see a guy like this who's just got a couple hundred acres and he's only been no tilling, you heard him say since 2019. That all started because he saw a video of Steve Groff on YouTube. It just goes to show that the range of different operations that you can find in the no-till community, it's a big range and it's really cool to see.

I mean, I think one of the coolest things that Bryan said is he doesn't have a planter or any tractors or any equipment that has a screen on it, like no GPS, none of the bells and whistles that a lot of farmers would say they need these days. He's running a tractor and it's just an open cab. He's just looking at the field with his bare eyes and he's just planting where he can see. Really cool just to see the juxtaposition of a farm like that compared to the bigger ones that we visit a lot.

That's kind of my main takeaway there. We've got one more farm visit. I will be headed to another Maryland farm tomorrow, and you can tune into the next episode to find out where I'm going and who I'm visiting. But I think that'll kind of be another pretty different operation. We have the big one with Jim Hershey, the small one with Bryan Racine, and this other one might fall kind of somewhere in the middle. I'm looking forward to it. But for now, it's lunchtime. I've got a cheeseburger with my name written on it at one of my old favorite burger joints in Towson, Maryland because it's on the way home. We're going to stop at Gino's and maybe get a milkshake too. We'll see. We'll see what the vibe is when I get there. But for now, I'm signing off and I will talk to you in the next one.

That's it for this episode of the Cover Crop Strategies Podcast. Stay tuned for next week where we will head back to Pennsylvania for our final stop of this on the road podcast series. For our entire staff here at Cover Crop Strategies, I'm Mackane Vogel. Thanks for listening and have a great day.