Latest / The Illinois Nutrient Loss Reduction Podcast / Episode 06 | Conservation Tillage, Cover Crops, & Side Dressing Nitrogen
Transcript
- Episode 06 | Conservation Tillage, Cover Crops, & Side Dressing Nitrogen 00:00:06:07 - 00:00:33:19 Todd Gleason This is the Illinois Nutrient Loss Reduction podcast, episode number six, Conservation tillage, Cover crops, and side dressing nitrogen. I'm Illinois Extension's Todd Gleason. We're now joined by Steve Stierwalt, a farmer from the southwestern side of Champaign County who's been using conservation tillage, cover crops, and side dressing nitrogen on his farm for several years. I asked him about the management practices. 00:00:33:22 - 00:00:59:13 Steve Stierwalt Our farm is, no till and strip till. We strip till our corn and no till our soybeans and our our management practices, we've been refining those over the last few years. And as we've learned more about the nutrient loss reduction strategy and, and, shall we say, our contributions to that, we've been trying to refine our practices to, find ways to keep the in our part of the world. 00:00:59:13 - 00:01:14:04 Steve Stierwalt Obviously, the tile drained areas we are our contribution, shall we say, is, is fugitive nitrogen. And so, we've been trying to refine our practices, to find ways to keep keep the nutrients, you know, where we want them on the farm. 00:01:14:07 - 00:01:30:14 Todd Gleason So you've been active at this for quite a while now, maybe 20 years or so. I'm going to guess to begin with, as a, way to either power down in terms of equipment and or to save soil, although you're on good flat land. 00:01:30:17 - 00:01:33:23 Todd Gleason How has that changed over the decades? 00:01:33:26 - 00:01:56:25 Steve Stierwalt Well, I'm, I'm, 63. And so, I as a kid, I really enjoyed the moldboard plow. You know, it was it was fun to get out there and hear the engine run. And then, you know, the soil savers came along, the Glencoe soil saver, and, but but as, as, I got a chance to go through the university and learn about rill erosion, sheet erosion, things that you don't. 00:01:56:25 - 00:02:14:05 Steve Stierwalt You know, we all I've always thought of gullies. You know, where you're there's erosion, but there's so much that you lose any time that water hits a bare patch of soil, it can it can displace that soil and then it can move. And so so we've tried to find more ways to keep cover on the soil year round. 00:02:14:05 - 00:02:45:04 Steve Stierwalt And, and, as, as I say, our management practices have been starting to evolve to more cover crops. And certainly with the no till, we're, we're keeping our, our residue in place and, and we're trying to even now to, to work into having more living crops. On the, on the soil year round. And what we're seeing from that, the nutrient loss reduction strategy calls for us to reduce our nitrate loading to the Gulf of Mexico by 45%. 00:02:45:07 - 00:03:14:11 Steve Stierwalt And, thanks to some, very timely research, that NREC has funded, through the university of Illinois with Lowell Gentry and some of the guys, we've, we've seen, that cereal rye following corn in our area here, can reduce our nitrate leaving leaving our farm by 40 to 60%. And so we've we've really, ramped up our efforts on learning how to use cereal rye, following corn ahead of soybeans. 00:03:14:13 - 00:03:39:24 Steve Stierwalt Another thing that, we all know that, nitrogen is, is leaky. And, the four Rs is a great way to, to address nitrogen concerns like like that. But anything that we can do to, to keep that, to put that nitrogen on closer to when the crop can use it, is what we're, we're starting to move more to, to, side dress, 00:03:39:27 - 00:03:48:09 Steve Stierwalt we'll put on 32% with our planter and then, we'll side dress our anhydrous on, on, on a big percentage of our crop nowadays. 00:03:48:11 - 00:04:03:12 Todd Gleason So a couple of things. Producers will be concerned. We'll start with the nitrogen application about side dressing so many acres in the springtime for fear that the corn will get away from them if the weather doesn't cooperate. 00:04:03:15 - 00:04:25:26 Steve Stierwalt That is always a concern. And, so anytime nitrogen is obviously our most important nutrient, this we have have to have it in at the right time. So we don't necessarily try to wait for corn to get foot high before we start to side dress. We'll even do some blind side dressing, you know, or after, right after we plant, because it is important to get it on timely. 00:04:25:26 - 00:04:38:15 Steve Stierwalt So, that is number one. As soon as soon as planting done is to get the side dressing done. And if you, if you, if you're on top of it, you know, there's no guarantees, but there's a good chance you can get it done. 00:04:38:15 - 00:04:54:02 Todd Gleason So you use the GPS unit, of course, to put that in there in the middle of the road, do you have recommendations as to how to split it and are you right down the center, or do you lay it off to the side 5 to 8in, or do you have a plan? 00:04:54:04 - 00:05:13:15 Steve Stierwalt There there is some research that shows some advantages to getting that nitrogen a little closer. So far, we're putting our, our 32%, on it in a two by two band with the planter. But now that anhydrous, we're still putting it down in the middle of the road. We haven't come up with a good way to, get that done yet. 00:05:13:15 - 00:05:24:05 Steve Stierwalt So we're looking at some of the high speed, equipment, that that don't do as much disturbance as the shank machines, but we haven't invested in that yet. But that is something we're considering. 00:05:24:08 - 00:05:32:23 Todd Gleason On the cereal rye, is it working very well? And how many acres or percentage of your farm do you try to use it on anyway? 00:05:32:23 - 00:05:52:15 Steve Stierwalt That's looking at a new practice like cereal rye or something like that. I would recommend you start with a 40 or an 80. You know, you don't want to take on your whole farm that first year. You need to learn. Learn how it works for you and your soils and like, like that. So we're still in that phase of of just kind of ramping up as far as how, how we’re using it. 00:05:52:18 - 00:06:14:20 Steve Stierwalt And we're actually going to try another management technique that we haven't done, is in our cereal rye actually building strips, in the cereal rye, to plant soybeans on. And so we're going to compare that with our 15 inch row soybeans in the cereal rye and just get some experience with that. Yet we've seen such good results with planting soybeans early. 00:06:14:22 - 00:06:31:09 Steve Stierwalt And so we're thinking about trying the strips so that we'll have those, those, warm, dry soils so we can go out there just as early as we want to plant corn. We can plant our soybeans also, even in the cereal rye. So it's a management technique that we haven't experimented with yet. We're wanting to try. 00:06:31:11 - 00:06:32:14 Todd Gleason And then you would kill it. 00:06:32:14 - 00:06:33:24 Todd Gleason How? 00:06:33:27 - 00:06:53:19 Steve Stierwalt Actually, ask you, you can wait until after your plant and then actually, spray it with, cereal rye is easy to kill with roundup. Annual rye is the one that's really tough you got to really be careful with. But so far cereal rye is is responds quite easily to to, glyphosate applications. 00:06:53:21 - 00:06:59:21 Todd Gleason Of all the things that you do, what would you suggest first that a conventional farmer try? 00:06:59:28 - 00:07:09:01 Steve Stierwalt What is the first thing is to to try to get your nitrogen close closer to when, when your crop is, is is needing it. 00:07:09:03 - 00:07:35:28 Steve Stierwalt And so if you can try splitting application, you know, if you, if you like to have anhydrous in the fall with, with a, with a, stabilizer, you know, that's still a good management practice. But try maybe splitting some of that application with some of it closer to when the crop needs it. And also, what really concerns me is, these we have these wonderful chopping corn heads, and we have these vertical till tools and all these things. 00:07:36:00 - 00:08:06:12 Steve Stierwalt And, so often now I'll see, see people with a chopping corn head and then disking their corn stalks and land chiseling them. And and we're, in my opinion, we're back to where we were with the moldboard plow. I mean, it's we've got it. There's there's nothing left on top. And again, anybody that's seen, a slow motion photography of a of a drop of rain hitting bare soil, it's just amazing the energy that that has to displace soil and get it to move. 00:08:06:12 - 00:08:12:15 Steve Stierwalt So, you know, this is a tremendous resource we have. And we need to keep a cover on our soil to keep that stuff removed. 00:08:12:21 - 00:08:24:17 Todd Gleason Steve Stierwalt is a farmer from Champaign County, Illinois. You've been listening to the Illinois Nutrient Loss Reduction Podcast, episode number six, I’m U of I Extensions Todd Gleason.