 A few years ago, I had an aha moment when Ray Archuleta said to me we don't have a runoff problem, we have an infiltration problem. When farmers realize that they can control infiltration by following soil health principles, good things begin to happen. Really good things. This spring, farmer Al Miron and SDSU's Anthony Bly teamed up together to measure the influence of no-till cover crops and manure on infiltration in a number of fields in Minnehaha County. We caught up with this team and asked them to tell us about their project and how this work resulted in an aha moment for a neighbor. You're basically a farmer slash researcher team that has basically been doing this research together, is that correct? This is on your land, part of this is on my land, part of it is on neighboring land where we had permission from the neighbor to look at water infiltration rates. He wanted to know what they were and the effect of cover crops on water infiltration rates. Then what was this corn stover? This is the same gentleman's land. He had corn the previous year, he removed the stover, he tilled it this spring. I should back up, he deep tilled it last fall and then went through it and tilled it this spring with a soil finisher. Then we looked at the water and planted it into oats by the way. Then we looked at the water infiltration rate on that land which had been recently tilled. Talk to me, what were the things that you guys saw? We first of all wanted to look at whether or not the cover crop would increase water infiltration rate. On my ground which had been no till for nine years and we had planted a cover crop on a part of it. We found that that 1.14 inches of water soaked in in 27 seconds when there was a cover crop. It took somewhat longer but still very good infiltration rates at 40 seconds with the no cover crop portion. Then the second 500 milliliters of water which makes it 2.25 inches took 4 minutes and 46 seconds where there was no cover crop. 3 minutes and 51 seconds where there was a cover crop. Total 2.25 inches took just a little over 4 minutes where there was a cover crop and about 5.5 minutes where there was no cover crop. According to what I know you guys don't usually get 2 inches in 5 minutes. No, not usually but there's been some records set around Sioux Falls. Really intense rainfall. Remind me again, this corn silage land is that actually tilled? Is it conventionally tilled? This was corn silage the previous year and it had been conventionally tilled in the spring of that previous year. So it was approximately one year later that this was done, one year from the time that it was tilled. And this also had with and without a cover crop. So then we looked at the water infiltration rates and they were still very good. One minute and 22 seconds where there was no cover crop and 41 seconds where there was a cover crop. So again we're seeing the improvement from a cover crop even in a tillage situation. But if you compare the till situation with the no-till we're finding faster water infiltration with the no-till situation. And what's kind of interesting to point out is the corn silage field has had a lot of manure applied to it. So that should really benefit the soil? Benefit the tillage system. The manure in my opinion is increasing the organic matter. A lot of that organic matter is right on the surface and so it's aiding water infiltration. When we did the test, the ground was completely covered with organic material. All right. Tell me about this last plot over here. Well this land belonged to the same farmers in the previous example. He had corn there that was harvested for grain. And then he removed at least most of the stover from the land. And he tilled it this spring and planted oats. And so there was no cover crop there. It did have manure the fall before. But the water infiltration rates were dramatically reduced with the tillage program. Okay, go ahead. So you can see, I mean 36, 37, almost 40 minutes there to get that 2.25 inches to go on the soil. So just that difference between a system that's been about a year since it has been tilled versus one that is freshly tilled, that infiltration rate goes way down. With the tillage, you're destroying all the previous root holes that might encourage water infiltration. You're destroying the wormholes and you're destroying some of the soil structure, eliminating some of that airspace where water might move into the soil more quickly. And is there a compaction element that's going on as well? Yeah, there probably is because the tillage is actually compacting the soil. I mean with that. And there's a lot of heavy equipment that passes across this land. But the land that Al has, he has very good size equipment as well, very production scale as well. So it should be pretty fair comparison. In all of these trials, we replicated them three times or four times. Four times. We replicated it four times and we always find a spot where you probably hit a tractor track and it takes longer for the water to infiltrate. But this is an average of four tests. Right. And you can see that with that average, we're finding dramatic differences when the soil has been tilled. So this is the same data, just showed it differently. Same data. So yeah, this is quite dramatic over here. So again, there's this paradox in Maima, or it seems to me is that conventional thinking thinks that, well, if you till, you know, you're going to make water go into the ground. That really doesn't seem to be the case over here. Well, when we presented this data to the grower that cooperated with us other than Al, I basically would say that we experienced him having an aha moment. Okay. Because he was able to see the data from these four sites first, and then on the second page of our report was this data. And when he turned it over, his expression was out of this world. And what came out of his mouth was, well, dad taught me that we worked the soil to make it like a sponge so it would take in the water. And he had a reversal in his thinking just right then and there because of this work that Al and I did on his place. So he's committed the cover crops. He realizes water is so important to him. Yeah. And I asked him, you mean water for your cows and water for your dairy, the milking parlor. And he said, no, water for my forage. So he wants to improve his soil health so he can store more water. So he has an insurance policy for forage for his dairy. And so I think that's important. Well, this is a fantastic piece of work. I really admire the fact that extension and farmers are getting together and doing that. And I know you guys have worked together for a long time, and I love those stories that come out of it. Al and Anthony, thank you so much. You're welcome. Thank you, Buzz, for the work that you do. Yes, sir. Appreciate it. Appreciate it. One of my favorite things is to watch the synergy that happens when a farmer and a researcher get together to collaborate. How cool was it to see Al and Anthony's results change their neighbor's view? And when farmers can see the data from their own fields, they don't need too much convincing. So what are other farmers in South Dakota saying about infiltration and soil moisture? Well, stick around and you'll find out in our next video.