 South Dakota's educational effort to raise awareness about the importance of soil health continues. The USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service entered into a cooperative agreement with the South Dakota No-Tel Association and IGRO South Dakota State University Extension for delivering these seminars with the latest soil health and productivity technology to South Dakota farmers and ranchers. Andy and Mitch Hohenhaus have been farming together with their father here, Lisbon, North Dakota, for 40 years. Their farm includes 5,000 acres and a 350 cow camper. The Hohenhaus began using No-Tel in 2001, adding cover crops to the mix in 2005. The farm, which is situated in the southeast corner of North Dakota, is an area that is prone to flooding. Moisture in the spring makes it difficult to get to the fields, and No-Tel and cover crops have helped in overcoming these problems. So guys, we're really glad you came today and we're looking forward to your presentation. Thank you. I'm Mitch. I'm Andy. I'm from North Dakota. I live here. The picture is probably 3,4 years old. It's by Lisbon. It's 5 miles little. We're on the Cheyenne River Valley. Approximately 75 miles to part of it. About 30, 40 miles from South Dakota. I'll give you guys some ideas. This here is just a picture of the farm. The Cheyenne River. Trouble flooding in the past. I don't know if that's what we do with things around the farm. Our grandma started this back in 1946 when they moved there. Dad took over. Previous operations. First of all, three of us involved. Mom and Dad. Andy and myself. Prop land acres. Just one pivot irrigated and the rest is dry land. Life's got stocks. We're going to make health care fares. About 2,500 acres of pasture. We've got soil that we've got everything from river bottom to gravel pit. Growing seasons. Rain falls in the last 10 of the bad year. 10 and 11 are the normal rain falls. Later on in the presentation, we'll kind of see what you mean by that. Prop system, wheat, corn. Well, grain and silage. Sunflowers and alfalfa. We used to do tillage to the plow. Mobile plow across spring field elevation prior to seeding. Why we went to a no-till. The biggest reason is we needed a bunch of machinery, primarily the grill and the planter. They're taking on more acres all the time. And we didn't have a lot of help in the post part. So we're trying to save them all. They're taking on more with the same amount of help or less. We were looking the way to cut input costs. And then dad wanted to know if we'd want to try this. Grandpa and dad back in the 60s had tried a little bit on a no-till. Dad said they had a planter that was able to put it into the ground. But the chemicals and stuff back then were basically zilch. For most parts they had a lot of weed problems. And I guess they tried it later on. Grandpa was involved with it then. Grandpa and dad, they tried it kind of in the early 80s. Same deal. They had some equipment. They were able to put the seed into the ground. But they never pursued it. But that didn't think it was weed control. It was probably the big thing back then. First change, the fall before 2001. We completely switched conventional to no-till. We didn't, we left everything under propertation. We left corn, we had adipese, winter weed, radish, soybean, canola, and alfalfa. I think it was all for crop types. Also called the entire encounter. Resident management, we started. We didn't have no chaff spreader on combine. And we didn't pay no attention to what we're doing on combine. We didn't crop off. Seeding for the first three years. That ground, we started getting dirt. No-till to drill. We had trouble with the trench closing back up. And then the weed control was a little more... We had a lot more weeds. We had a nice long weeds for the most part. Like he said, the ground was blue underneath. Dry on top, crusty. Big change when we went into it. Didn't look like it was really better to start with. Then later on, through the process of years into it, we got the excess moisture and stuff. Then some of the other things over... Some of the crop insurers programs, one thing I can remember back then was, you had to work your slews or wetlands to qualify again or prevent planting next year. If you don't detail it, what do you do? Well, we just... We got liable to do the most part of it at the time. I don't want to literally help tomorrow with the insurance. Well, in the resident management, we had trouble with the chaff behind the combine. We added chaff spreaders. Paid a little more attention to the chaffers. Got the straw spread back. That's good. Then we decided to go to a stripper head to leave all that straw standing instead of a big mat of stuff on the ground. Then we tried to cut... At least run two combines on the small grain. We tried to cut one combine with a stripper head that worked for about the first two years. Added more acres, but now we have two of them. I remember one of the big things on our resident management without the chaff spreaders. It was one spring. The snow was all melted. We got a little skip to snow an inch or two. We had one field very close to home there, drilled by the end of it, which you combine. You could see strips out there. There was no snow, no snow, no snow. We started with, we didn't know what the reason for it was, but chaff strips versus the dark ground. The ground was actually... You could see it had to have been warmer, because the snow disappeared and it actually took... They are so different than that. Then we'd been the early company to some of their stuff in the meantime, and learned a lot more about resident management, which got us a lot farther into it than it got us a lot. Dad made a comment, Mother Nature will take care of itself. Leave a demand to screw it up. When we got going on the no-till, the wet low-lying ground, if we didn't... This year was a low ground. That would be in the crop for 30 years. The first pass, I went through it, no problem. Second pass over here, which you can't see, and the second pass of this is where I ended up. I didn't call it Steve. Anyway, next picture, I guess. The more we got into the no-till and the cropping of the wetter ground, if you could crop it, get a crop in there every year, this doesn't happen as much. This is one that we had not cropped in in probably over five, six years, where it was just a slew and mulled or well-backed, and right where the tractor was, there was absolutely no vegetation. There was no weeds as it had been. It basically was a little spot where all the water always did set. The back of the cart was set in there. There was, and we were able to grow weeds right behind the drill, probably the end of what we had been cropping. We finally got... We had to take the tractor out by itself after we got everything on-booked. We had a smaller four-wheel drive set in there. It took a lot of air for it, but this one all of it. But when we got this tractor out, we were able to back in on a 45-year-old, a small four-wheel drive, and we got the cart from the tool, and that thing actually pulled the cart out by itself. And we didn't, like I say, we didn't learn till after the fact and we didn't know why it fell in right there, but there was no vegetation in the tractor setting. And later on, we fell and rolled down, took this picture and what we learned a lot more with the motor. This is soybean harvest. This, I think, everything was seeded, and then it got drowned at all. It had been cropped probably for four or five years. Late fall rain, and we had a lot of rain right before soybean harvest. We learned that if you got a soil structure there, and you keep the combines empty, we can pretty much harvest everything that's left out there. And I believe this was an old way to make the next picture is that for the most part, we probably had 6,700 or 8,000 beans. We harvested, I'd say, just about, I don't think we already left an acre from the coal to the water. We were able to harvest, and just use another picture. Same deal. We never had a slew party here. I don't know how much rain ended up here, but keep the combine empty and keep the header above the water, of course. We were able to get 99% of them. And then here I took this one and this one is this greater crack from the summer. I assume it was a little wet that summer, too. But with the good soil structure with the plants growing, with the water running, it carries up very well for the most part and tracks are minimal. Here we never, the combine tracks, they never get moved back in and leveled off in the water, leveled off a lot of what we had to do. And we've never done nothing to do that with this. The key was, you have a grain cart, you've got an adult, if you push a lot of the combine, here's a video on it later on and here too later of seeding. You get bored, you get out of steer, so you play with the phone and the same deal is I don't like to turn for slew, but this ain't much of a slew, but I'll pull through them and clean up the tires anyway. The same deal here, normally this is not a wet spot, but it was a lot of rain early in the spring and we didn't have to turn for anything. You have to know where you're thrown to a point because there is sometimes a lot of that sneak up on you. This is another one. A lot of people ask this, what's the point in doing this as well. A lot of guys will seed up to a seed around the slew and turn around there and you get, we'll get ruts going the opposite way in action and compaction and then you do get ruts, then you got to bump across them keep your ruts the same way. So they, we don't have that much ruts and stuff like this that we do, but over the years we've added CRP to the dropping system and without following it. Because there is an aggregate slack test that they did two red R's in different fields. Ours on the was eight years of being in the no-till they took a chunk out of the CRP there in the middle national tail, there's a neighbor's right across the road from Ours and you can see in the bottom of the jars aggregates of stuff that settled when you got good soil structure and they both together and very little there in the CRP one Ours is fair amount but it's getting better and they conventionally tailed that pretty much after an half an hour an hour where it was all settled out in the bottom of the jar. So on the CRP we got mole hails and condos and stuff we got to get them knocked down and we tried different ways we'll take a disc and just set the stop so on a hard flat surface it's just tickling the ground and we'll go across it two-three times just to break up the gopher mullins and then we'll come across into a field cover cultivator the same way just so the shovel just if it's on a flat surface it ain't doing nothing just trying to break them up and not level it off and over the wet years we've had a quarter that we farmed or took on we didn't know where the boundaries were at in the low spots but coming to planting time he planted it to corn and we didn't quite have a big enough tractor on the planter we pulled an air cart on the planter too so he got stuck many different times out there and one spot wasn't a low flat it was not really wet land but it was low we were waiting for the tractor to come there and as you stood there in the ground if you walked your feet the water would actually come up in your footprints we looked down at the four-wheel drive and basically the tractor just fell through the saw and wrote masks I guess we made two or three rounds with him when it pulled the four-wheel drive we seated it all that fall and you never told me anything about it you never know that we could not actually pull the corn assist tractor so another thing that we did learn soil structure is it important to if you were to go out there and plow that or chisel plow it there's you want to get seen it but we got seen it I didn't know that we were to torque all that ribbon ass and we had to drive on this is just a picture of corn on the tractor instead of the remaining residue there we always go with corn I think we've tried soybean a little bit the big thing with corn is you have bigger or broader control of weeds you can get the broadleafs you can get the grass means usually CRP and hard pressure you always have a scandal on this one you're limited on your chemicals on weeds the other part is weeds they get about ankle eye on CRP yield is nothing to break with at all the ankle eye usually the beans you get half the crop so you always go with corn first year CRP second year if we have an excess moisture issue on it and with the corn too if we have an option if the corn doesn't make it we can chop it so it's not a total loss and this is corn on CRP our yields we've always been happy with that I mean they're never your big top yields but in our country we can get 120 on CRP but I had to get a quick rain during the summer and where your normal you have your own the broadleaf 150, 160 so it's really happy we started adding cover crops to improve the operation spring in the winter wheat field we noticed come springtime we're getting more saturated we had trouble getting in we added the cover crops in 2008 we went through the spring seeding trying to take the wheat off everything's darned we've got nothing growing there we've got enough excess moisture we try to put winter wheat or a rye in so in the spring it'll be come back to growing the seed either depends on wheat or corn wheat probably when you kill off the wheat to the rye started to get a little more diversified in the mixture I was added radish since then we've had it multiple some other reasons we've got the ability especially on the wheat ground to put in the corn the next year he bought the corn miner because it was wheat underneath the wheat still the cover crops were there that moved the infiltration to get the water to use up the excess surface moisture we wanted to increase our organic miner trying to see if we could use these cover crops to cut back on fertilizer in up in our country we're not in favor of it we get everybody's grain when they pull the tile then we'll see the end result it seems like most of our ground is always on the bottom and somebody's grain spring farm planting this is the cover this is wheat or winter wheat coming in with corn that spring it was fairly wet I think so one of the days we let go one spring planted it and let it go after a week or so after it was planted it was a cold spring and we figured the corn would never amount to nothing to start with kept watching that the corn was actually dark green and appeared to it seemed like it was ahead of everything else that was more bare ground we had no reader the cover crops we were told you get the harvest more sunlight earlier in the spring and it liked to get the ground more in the spring earlier especially for the crops more especially and then with the cover crop especially on the corn planter if it was a little bit wet the green plants would like to be washed in the planter you didn't quite as bad as we did why the cover crops you said pillar organic matter try to reduce the perlite of the cost and then the weed pressure is way down you have some multi-grown competing against the weeds you plant the weed that you want to control from the soil biology and add diversity and then pushing the leg and cover crops to add nitrogen and enhance moisture nitrogen and cycling and you add crops in the cover crop that you normally cannot put in your normal rotation diversify, get it rolled up get rid of the routine and we tried different ways to get cover crops out in the corn especially, soybeans too so we were forward and we added this cover crop attachment to our sprayer just a whole nine spinner box of the Malinahonda on it this is broadcasting I think we just used turnip radish a little bit or something in there just broadcast out see what you come up with it worked just the biggest thing is the time the rainfall happened in the broadcast and after that the result did not deal with the pattern this was the raddish turnip winter week actually this year was not spread that little one we rented a pro gator with a spinner box on a fertilizer box and you're so after the you got enough rain in your crop this was close to home and it was stormed precisely anyways we chopped the corn off and some of the turnips and radishes were actually E.I. in there pushed the chopper some of us we run cattle on and said we're heppers altered all the other grades other ways of broadcasting covered we've been playing before looks cool we've been facing all the results whatsoever on the plane we don't put enough on or it gets to a grain but it's a waste of money in our work drilling versus broadcasting you can drill it ten times better in the standing crops drilling is hard to do in the corn drilling was sure to be almost broadcasting I don't know if we could get a big percent so we took some junk out of the trees and made this interceder and it's just got some old John year planter unit for the openers that's all I used them for as the openers I tried using them to play part to put bigger seeds through or hold them decrepit put the Belmar on it took the tube and put it right behind the opener and then run the small seed to have a Belmar pretty much the same deal radish and turnips and clover just to be sure of things you get the seed in the ground you get any moisture at all and it'll germinate and it'll grow big seed bees that we ever used there finally gave up on it besides the units didn't work great there were cities in their world you can see a plant here and there it couldn't get a good enough rate for a plant stand and just to fight them there's just another picture that's one of the results in between the cornrows this is after pea harvest we've been down a few fields not too many but trying to file strip till so we pull the air cart behind the planter to fertilize it down and we're mixed up pea and inter-pea and run that through the air cart which is the fertilizer opener on the inside of the I think it's the taller stuff and then we run radish seed through the corn planter and then by using deep lakes you can run radish seed through the planter and let that go come in there the following year and plant corn right next to folks two on two we don't use GPS much on the planter he runs ahead so he's kind of too reliterate but and you can see too the cap tails actually this was dry enough for that fall and when we see them through I think on that corner all of the cap tails some of them are fall as a traffic cap we just see it through the cover crop thing on the dam so we're not able to get that but with the cap tails that are you carry off that can be met or wet in the area many times out of 10 you can't get through but here's right in the cap tails right this is the planter we use for the fertilizer cart we use we use winter wheat we use winter wheat and the and we were trying to shoot right on top of the rows so after we thought about it these 15 inches that most of you are going to be off what does the difference really make the corn roots will get to where they need to go for nutrients so we didn't try to stay as close to the goal as we could where we weren't concerned about it but another thing we tried with wetlands that are right up we spread the winter wheat in everything I think we'll know later on that fall over the winter we would roll or it was drying up to grow in the spring to try and get back some of these wet spots same deal with broadcasts it was a big waste of time another trouble we've had over the years cover crops is getting them planted as soon as we can in the last few years we get going on harvest real short of help you got time to get in the drill right away so you get done combine and then you're sick of this and then you know what we'll see cover crop well I don't know a week later is it too late well this year finally we got the drill in the same field and had enough help that's the best way to do it we tried to tie the drill behind the combine it didn't work and all our hired help as the kids some of us do have school starts we're next to a three man plan this is bee harvest yeah summertime we got a lot of help our combine crew is pretty young this is the beginning stages of trying to get the livestock more into the cover crop this year is a eight acre pack right at home our silage pile is off and we file all our hay out here but before we no till we put all our hay out here and come springtime we had ruts up to your knees and and then you'd spend half the summer beating them down and try to get something seeded in there and it was always half a crop since we've been no till in it we put the hay out there come springtime we don't have to have any ruts out there we get the hay off knock it down a little bit with a drag or even a box picker to really go to pretty much trash on the ground just shape tops off pull in there and seed it and this happened to be a mixture we used for feed seeded in the 20th of June and this was in September and then this grew back at the end this is the regrowth you can see the bales they were really on top of it and didn't get them off of those crops it was amazing how much regrowth complicated they had to fall so like their big theory is on the cover crops all day is too late to plant them it's never too late we seeded some cover crops after silage time which is about 10th of September for us the winter wheat actually this side of the trees over here is where the winter heifers out on we actually got 6-7 inches of winter wheat growth back in September so every year is different so it won't make any plans this was that same we interceded with that Fante this was after corn harvest during corn harvest after hard frost and they're still green still growing 20th of November we've come to that interceder and we've chopped that so now you've got something growing after you've chopped it that's a full scene of cover crop we did this year we seeded it 3rd of July and just let it go now when we're able to turn the cows on that's a lot of it off but that's the other thing is we don't like to graze it down break down the black ground again try to leave 30-40% another thing on this field we got a few pieces one across the road one another if your own should be the same this piece you got crops the same as always we have no reason for this to work it's easier to come on and look at it some few soil tests it doesn't seem to be that bad on that but it's just not as good as we would like it to do so with the whole season crop we did this hoping to make the ground better put some fertilizer back in the ground we have a break basically it's the new way it's over all in our book and then being very able to put the cows on break down over it put the manure on there we did nothing to see that it sprayed over it it's just a picture of the cows grazing on some coast home there this one and oats we put in for feed we cut it and ate it just bailed it and pulled it in there to see the cover crop three-four way mix there just turned the cows out there in the fall and the good and the bad of it it's always washed green cows a lot but they'll stay there as long until you chase them out of there and say they're a good suggestion is if you have an adoption because they will eat it down to like this carpet below and they'll eat the grass down so you have to chase them off and lock them off after he gets to the point lessons learned that getting the cover crop seeded in a timely manner that's the picture of the drill behind the combine that took one of the keys in our book drilling versus broadcasting same deal you can get the seedling ground we have had a couple of instances where last fall we did spread some with the Terrigator after PR was because we got three, four, five, six inches of rain and we went all through the drill, we've been driving through water running it up, took a chance on it and spread it with the Terrigator to get really a potty potty field in it he was able to by practice he could throw it out in the water right along the water and you can get everything where the drill would be playing in the mud and packing it turned out actually that one didn't turn out pretty well the other program, instead of the combine dad's always told us you gotta save every kernel you can because you get one shot of it and you get it in the cover crops when something goes out the back of the combine that always seems to grow the difference is what it does so we're not especially unset the combines nothing else kicking in the mud a little bit to get a few more acres done see a little more cover crops don't waste your plant cover crops we've always done that July, August forgets to rain use a 12 inch crescent wrench to help the cracks and apply any one plant anything we're going to do is wear the drill out two weeks later it rains and you know why didn't we do that also probably we first started the local support from anybody we were doing it they all laugh at you or whatever else but they're starting to watch see what's going on, wondering why keeping our own order driving our own from what we started doing this you never stop learning we've been open-minded there's so many things that there is to be learned we've only touched the bottom of the iceberg most part it's cover crops I think are a big thing they're awesome what can you do more just try different things don't be afraid of a failure every failure you learn in 2013 we did straw management we run in stripper heads and a lot of guys don't rate weed anymore we had quite a bit of it that year a lot of guys are wanting straw let's put the straight heads back on drop or straw and bail out and get rich it sounded like a good idea at the time you bail out you still get a strip of even with the strap spreaders a strip of thicker residue that the bailer don't pick up and we got one cover combine we drop the straw with them the chap gets dropped in the same spot so we ended up dragging our weeds double just to try to even out the residue again that's one other thing we back up a ways before we went to a stripper head we bought one of them big heavy harrow to residue to manage the residue first time we were out in Bismarck we talked to Dwayne Beck he went left with her tail between her legs you wonder why you need one of them we also got one so we sold it and just by putting chap spreader on and then the stripper head was a big jump for the small grains as far as the residue management and by using the gray again 2013 we just used our little normal gray it's wasted time too it helps but thanks Dwayne you helped us on that one wherever you're out here I think you left me sick I'm sick another thing we have yield monitors you guys can believe them if you want to believe them they give you an idea but you can make them read whatever you want this is this was actually calculated but okay five years of craft before we had the mapping we just had the brown box in there just by watching them over the years of the no-till I kept looking at them I kept saying to him I almost think our yields are getting more even over the hills and the postpods after we got the mapping this video here it's kind of potty but it's got a soil types are very similar in this one there's a draw there it runs from the north side of that quarter there but there's a bolt corn there's a smaller field there the first year out of CRP it was corn and this was what I was seeing and I after seeing them watching it our fields are evening out more after more of the no-till I think as you can see from that CRP like Sadie said it was an observation we had the brown boxes we noticed it there's a gravel pit in the corner of the field and there's movement ground on this certain field where you can get your 30, 40 bushel beans and over the top the old way was it was 5, maybe 10 and the need for the I guess the most most people on that were taking their field they'd burn up mid-summer last year two years ago we walked out there in the July 1st part of August you can see where the ground will be and where it will start to show up you're still over there so then we map this orn that ball and kind of notice the observation what you guys can see too one of the future challenges is the prop rotation but we got rid of that a long time ago everybody asks us what's our rotation we don't have one I think it worked for you however don't be afraid to put something in where traditionally it ever was and kind of read our ground to what it needs put the crop in there that's going to benefit you the most at the time moisture was probably the easiest one to say we got some ground that's getting too wet or it seems to get wetter and wetter until the corn in there it looks like it's drying out able to weed and mix it up we got weed problems push the crop and control the weeds better for the most part we don't put corn on corn we try to time or two we had really good luck with that try to break it up so we don't put our same shoe on the same fort every day yes and the cover crop benefits what we're seeing over there they're outrageous it's we're a little down on that we're trying to do more and more with them every year trying to get them in earlier we're trying to intercede some stuff we have interceding some soy beans a couple different times if everything is right you can broadcast that break it for the leaves all get a catch of their meat we can only put a combine of beans it would be there in the spring too same meals broadcast it's not a sure thing how much do you want to spend to take a chance we're not afraid to take a chance we control when we first started making grasses were a big big big problem since we've had better weed control our weeds changed in the beginning from the grass to the drought and all the grasses are almost a thing that will pass for us they're a little bit but it seems to be less than us all the time you get the cover crops in there they shade things out plant the weed of your choice you plant something that you know you can control that's a huge benefit then we'd like to get better integrated with the cattle and the crops we'll make them work together more and more cattle more dads we all work together we've got land that we can run on that's simple we'll have to fence off as quick and easy we can put a cover crop on there on the cows or cattle thank you we don't seem to have an issue there's no tell in the first few years the compaction was a problem all of our staff with the drills the compaction was a big issue the first few years you get into advice it's years crusting is a big thing when you're conventional you get a hard grain crusting you don't even know what that is anymore you've got the organic matter in the ground we run it all through the cart side by side we do have some soil tests we don't get the biggest yields we have how much of your neighbors can you leave for yields what are they telling you I'd say last year anyone has good if not better we shoot for about 300 pounds of product through the planter we can go 350, 400 350 is the most we've ever done we run it all down to the planter residual herbicide in your corn will be used for you Danny what's that? do you have any residual herbicide use on your corn or roundup question was there any residual herbicide use on your corn or dispute roundup we use some pre plants we used to use mostly roundup if you're going to do the inner seeding in there you have to watch your chemicals for that we're not big on freeze we're trying to get some of that more into it a little bit more because there's a few of them we have used we have put our pre plants down probably not sprayed the rest of the summer and well last year we two years ago we had some corn we put the rod and didn't use it pre plants I don't think we sprayed it that particular field but last year we had 70 acres of followers we put a freak on that and it never sprayed nothing we're trying to get back away from some of the chemicals too but if you've got weed problems you've got to get rid of the weeds or they will fight you plant a cover crop in a weed stumble it seems like if we leave the straw it's hard to get the cover crop started because of all that trash it won't go through that straw if you run into that problem it seems like it's a little slower that it grows but it's a little too late it ain't going to get the tallest crops at all compared to our pea ground some of the other things to keep in mind it isn't always what's involved in the ground what you're putting into the ground too is that you've done a bit when you're in the ground you've got something along the ground you know where you've got roots in the ground so you're still you're still big benefit do you guys simply put some cover crops in? no we don't we put a broad cap in some of that we put some Maria in for a carrier on some of that but the stuff that runs in the drill we never put in any the stuff we're putting in that inter-seeded with urns and clover I think it's stuff in that bull season the clover being had good luck with them some of it grows a lot of it don't honestly I can't say for sure I'd say it was problem two and all this last year we had a test this last fall and I think we've got some more it seems like the last couple of years it's come a lot more than the first six or seven years Andy you've mentioned me around for a while so if that's when brave you can give me more questions let's give a big round of applause