Soil Sense Tim Hammerich and Abbey Wick, Ph.D.

In this episode we wrap up season seven of the soil sense podcast with a well known and well respected farmer and long-time soil conservationist, Barry Fisher. Barry recently retired from his career at the USDA, where he most recently worked in the soil health division. In that capacity he met and spoke with farmers about soil health throughout the central part of the US. Since retirement, Barry manages his family farm in Greencastle, Indiana and has a consulting business where he does training and soil health education for organizations through Fisher Soil Health LLC. Barry discusses soil health principles, important considerations for transition to regenerative practices, and the essential role of a knowledgeable advisor.

“If you really think about it, our current crops are only feeding the biology June, July, a little bit of May, and maybe a little bit of August. That's a very small percent of the total year… We did a lot of talking about no till as far as protecting erosion, but when we added cover crops to it, that was a game changer in that now the cover crop immediately fed more biology longer. That biology immediately started providing aggregate stability which absolutely helps the surface infiltration of soil, the aeration of soil. You know you start getting better structure to the surface of the soil and that can happen in as little as one season when we add cover crops.” - Barry Fisher

One visual Barry has used to help demonstrate soil health to producers is what he has called the “fence row effect.” Previous fence rows can illustrate the value and yield potential when incorporating the four principles of soil health. There is a reduction in disturbance, added diversity of plant life, maintained living roots in the soil and because of that the soil is kept covered. These four principles can allow producers to see a bump in yield in these areas. Barry goes on to explain how to generalize some of those principles on an operation-wide basis. 

“Generally there's some farmer in the front row that says, “Okay Fisher, that's great, but, my landlord wants me to farm the whole farm, not just the old fence rows.”... I can show those aerial photos where management on one farm had the four principles kind of in place and the management on the farm right next to it did not. And the aerial photo is very telling that yes, we can manage beyond the fence row. We can get that fence row effect across the entire farm.” - Barry Fisher



This Week on Soil Sense:


Meet Barry Fisher a current Indiana farmer and retired USDA soil conservationist


Explore what Barry calls the “fence row effect” and how that can be applied to demonstrating the four principles of soil health


Discover Barry’s recommendations in transitioning tillage and cover crop practices





Thank you to the Soy Checkoff for sponsoring this Farmers for Soil Health series of the Soil Sense podcast. This show is produced by Dr. Abbey Wick, Dr. Olivia Caillouet, and Tim Hammerich, with support from the United Soybean Board, the University of Missouri Center for Regenerative Agriculture and the Soil Health Institute.

If you are interested in what soil health looks like in practice and on the farm, please subscribe and follow this show on your favorite podcast app, and leave us a rating and review while you’re there. Check out the Farmers for Soil Health website at FarmersForSoilHealth.com.

Throughout this series, we have featured a lot of large scale commercial farming operations, but soil health is just as important to farms that operate on smaller acreages as well. Mike Lewis is a farmer, military veteran, and the senior manager for the National Center for Appropriate Technologies. Mike farms in southeastern Kentucky on a small farm in the western foothills of the Appalachian Mountains. His farm consists of 126 acres, 12 of which he uses to grow fresh market vegetables and the other 114 is a forest-based pasture system where he raises cattle, pastured pork and pastured poultry. 

“For me, soil health is the most critical thing to the success of our operation… One of Wendell Berry's quotes is, “What I stand for is what I stand on.” And I think that soil is what we all stand on. And it's the foundation for all life and sustenance on this planet. So there's nothing more important than healthy soils.” - Mike Lewis

As the senior manager in the sustainable agriculture and rural communities division of NCAT Mike focuses on building resilient communities and supporting farmers in sustainable production systems. The Armed to Farm and Soil For Water programs are two of the many programs he contributes to. Mike also opens up his own family farm to other producers to demonstrate some of the soil health principles he has incorporated on his operation.

“I think that one of the things that we're really focused on is being able to have a place where we can show other producers other alternatives to production, right?

We open our farm up three or four times a year for other producers to come on and look at our hog production system and to learn how we've reduced our feed inputs by timing of our farrowing and our pasture management skills.” - Mike Lewis



This Week on Soil Sense:


Meet Mike Lewis, a Kentucky farmer, military veteran, and the senior manager for the National Center for Appropriate Technologies


Discover Mike’s journey from the farm to the military and back to the farm to raise his family


Explore the Armed to Farm and Soil For Water programs and the opportunities they offer producers





Thank you to the Soy Checkoff for sponsoring this Farmers for Soil Health series of the Soil Sense podcast. This show is produced by Dr. Abbey Wick, Dr. Olivia Caillouet, and Tim Hammerich, with support from the United Soybean Board, the University of Missouri Center for Regenerative Agriculture and the Soil Health Institute.

If you are interested in what soil health looks like in practice and on the farm, please subscribe and follow this show on your favorite podcast app, and leave us a rating and review while you’re there. Check out the Farmers for Soil Health website at FarmersForSoilHealth.com. 

Eisenhower famously said “Farming looks mighty easy when your plow is a pencil and you're a thousand miles from the corn field.” That resonates with a lot of farmers who know the theory of farming doesn’t always directly translate to the practice. Farmer and agronomist Frank Rademacher joins us to talk about what’s working on his farm in East Central Illinois, and the work he does as a conservation agronomist with The Nature Conservancy. Frank discusses the theory vs the practice when it comes to soil health, what has worked and what hasn’t worked on his farm, how they’ve arrived at some of their current practices, and a little bit on Frank’s work with retailers on behalf of The Nature Conservancy. 

“What we kind of found is we were doing diverse mixes, kind of buying into some of that messaging that diverse mixes are always best. And again, I think that's kind of where the theory versus in practice discussion happens because we would have some harsh winters and no snow cover. And so some of those species would not overwinter. And so, we start off on a bad foot if we're really depending on cover crops and we can't get the consistency. So what we've really tried to build over time is a portfolio of cover crops that perform consistently.” - Frank Rademacher

Frank found a passion for agronomy while in college, and started helping his father implement some conservation practices on their farm. Over the past 10 years, Frank and his father have gone 100% no-till and insecticide-free on their 600 acre farm. They’ve also ramped up their cover crop program which includes using a roller-crimper and high biomass cover crops. Frank also works as a conservation agronomist with The Nature Conservancy, where part of his focus is working with ag retailers and other farmer advisors to add conservation advice to their business models. 

“I understand what some of the environmental goals that Illinois has set out are and I also understand that some of these things are difficult to do at the farm level. And so, how do we scale conservation? That's a lot of what we look at now is not only shaping that cover crop mix to be a little bit more flexible, depending on spring weather, but also just understanding the operation as a whole.” - Frank Rademacher



This Week on Soil Sense:


Meet Illinois farmer and conservation agronomist Frank Rademacher


Explore the balance Frank is finding between operational success and incorporating conservation practices





Thank you to the Soy Checkoff for sponsoring this Farmers for Soil Health series of the Soil Sense podcast. This show is produced by Dr. Abbey Wick, Dr. Olivia Caillouet, and Tim Hammerich, with support from the United Soybean Board, the University of Missouri Center for Regenerative Agriculture and the Soil Health Institute.

If you are interested in what soil health looks like in practice and on the farm, please subscribe and follow this show on your favorite podcast app, and leave us a rating and review while you’re there. Check out the Farmers for Soil Health website at FarmersForSoilHealth.com. 

When you think about soil health, you might picture a soybean field or a corn field. 

It may not be immediately apparent how many other industries rely on soil health, like pork. National Pork Board Chief Sustainability Officer Jamie Burr joins us to share about the importance of soil health, conservation, and sustainability to the pork industry. He’s been in this particular role for about six months, but has spent most of his life in the pork industry. 

“The reason that the pork board is so involved in that is if you look at all of our footprints, whether it be carbon, land or water, a vast majority of our footprint has to do with making feed. So those crops are as much as 60 to 70 percent of each one of those footprints.” - Jamie Burr

Prior to the pork board, Jamie spent almost 24 years at Tyson Foods in various environmental and sustainability roles, most of which were on the live production side in both pork and poultry. Jamie shares how he defines sustainability, why the pork board prioritizes soil health for people, planet and pork, how the industry is striving forward in key areas of sustainability and conservation, and how they’re leveraging data to tell that story to consumers. 

“The goal that we have as a pork industry is a 40 percent reduction in carbon emissions by 2030. And that's the farm gate emissions. So that would be from the time the grain is grown til the pigs leave the farm gate…So we have stood up a platform to begin collecting that data so that producers can enter data and then we can start publicly reporting on those metrics from a transparency perspective. Without that data, it's hard to tell a story.” - Jamie Burr



This Week on Soil Sense:


Meet National Pork Board Chief Sustainability Officer Jamie Burr who shares about the importance of soil health, conservation, and sustainability to the pork industry


Explore the sustainability priorities of the Pork Board and the oversight they offer producers





Thank you to the Soy Checkoff for sponsoring this Farmers for Soil Health series of the Soil Sense podcast. This show is produced by Dr. Abbey Wick, Dr. Olivia Caillouet, and Tim Hammerich, with support from the United Soybean Board, the University of Missouri Center for Regenerative Agriculture and the Soil Health Institute.

If you are interested in what soil health looks like in practice and on the farm, please subscribe and follow this show on your favorite podcast app, and leave us a rating and review while you’re there. Check out the Farmers for Soil Health website at FarmersForSoilHealth.com. 

There is a lot more information about soil health available today than there was a decade ago, but it’s still up to each individual farmer to figure out what works best for their operation. Delaware farmer Jay Baxter grows soybeans, corn, sweet corn, and lima beans on Baxter Farms. Jay is the fourth generation to do so along with his sister who farms with him as well as some other family stakeholders that include his 93 year old grandmother who is still engaged with the farm. In addition to the crops, they have eight chicken houses. At any one time they have about 225,000 broilers on the farm. That’s enough to keep anyone busy, but Jay and his wife have also started a couple side businesses: a greenhouse company growing contract potted flowers for a wholesale distributor, and a custom cover crop application business.  He shares about the cover crops, equipment, biosolids, and poultry manure that are part of his operation. 

“We're starting to understand what different cover crops do to our soils, and we're starting to understand what different mixes and how different cover crop species mix together, how they interact with one another, and what they can do to benefit us on our farm and our particular soils. And what they can kind of bring to the table and help us to utilize some of our, well, our number one resource, which is our soil.” - Jay Baxter

One interesting thing about Jay that is unique is that he has included hairy vetch in his cover crop mix for about 20 years. He has heard all of the concerns others have about hairy vetch, and says for him every year is different, but they’ve learned to manage the cover crop in a way that has been very beneficial to their operation. His unique techniques have paid off in the past specifically with his lima bean practices. 

“Because they were sitting on top of a mulch, as opposed to sitting on top of bare soil, they had no blemish on them, and therefore were A grade beans, and that's what the processor really wanted. So we immediately became no till and cover crop farming lima bean growers.” - Jay Baxter



This Week on Soil Sense:


Meet fourth generation Delaware farmer Jay Baxter who shares about his operation including cover crops, a greenhouse company growing potted flowers, a poultry operation and a custom cover crop application business


Explore the many facets of Jay’s operation and the trials and successes he has found over the years


Discover the regulations of using biosolids and waste water on a farming operations





Thank you to the Soy Checkoff for sponsoring this Farmers for Soil Health series of the Soil Sense podcast. This show is produced by Dr. Abbey Wick, Dr. Olivia Caillouet, and Tim Hammerich, with support from the United Soybean Board, the University of Missouri Center for Regenerative Agriculture and the Soil Health Institute.

If you are interested in what soil health looks like in practice and on the farm, please subscribe and follow this show on your favorite podcast app, and leave us a rating and review while you’re there. Check out the Farmers for Soil Health website at FarmersForSoilHealth.com. 

When it comes to sustainability, it’s hard to argue with results. For Virginia farmer Susan Watkins that means seven generations and counting of stewarding highly productive farmland. In this episode we get to talk about that rich history and the soil health building practices that she is implementing on her operation. We talk to Susan about their legacy of caring for the soil, how they transitioned to no-till over 20 years ago, how they incorporated cover crops about 15 years ago, and what she’s looking forward to next.

“We farm Five Forks. So Five Forks was pretty instrumental towards the end of the Civil War. And we actually farm on that original land too. The house is still standing. The owners of the house still have the portraits from their ancestors and it has slash marks through the portraits where the soldiers came in and slashed them. So yes, a lot of rich history here.” - Susan Watkins

Susan farms in Dinwiddie County along with her husband Maxwell and her son Cody. She grows soybeans, corn and wheat on about 3500 acres. A lot of that ground is rented, but they still farm some of the original land that was granted by the king of England to the Watkins Family, at least seven generations ago. More recently though they have been exploring biological inputs on their operation alongside their no till practices and cover crops.

“We're all farmers. We all want to preserve our lands and pass it along to our children if possible. And that's the goal of everyone. But the margins are so slim. We have to be conscious of new technologies, new ideas and adapt to those. We can't stay stuck in one era. We have to keep moving forward.” - Susan Watkins



This Week on Soil Sense:


Meet seventh generation Virginia farmer Susan Watkins


Discover the rich history associated with the Watkins family farm land


Explore the crops and practices they are using on their operation to improve soil health and yields including no-till, biological inputs and cover crops





Thank you to the Soy Checkoff for sponsoring this Farmers for Soil Health series of the Soil Sense podcast. This show is produced by Dr. Abbey Wick, Dr. Olivia Caillouet, and Tim Hammerich, with support from the United Soybean Board, the University of Missouri Center for Regenerative Agriculture and the Soil Health Institute.

If you are interested in what soil health looks like in practice and on the farm, please subscribe and follow this show on your favorite podcast app, and leave us a rating and review while you’re there. Check out the Farmers for Soil Health website at FarmersForSoilHealth.com.