Winters ISA’s Farm Family of the Year

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — For over 20 years, Doug Winter has been dedicated to representing and advocating on behalf of soybean growers at the state, national and international levels.

The fifth-generation White County farmer and his family were honored when the Illinois Soybean Association presented them with the Farm Family of the Year Award at the annual Soybean Summit on Jan. 27.

“It was quite an honor for me and the family. Any time that you get selected for something like this from your peers, from your fellow farmers, from the people that you’ve worked with over the years, and soybean associations, it’s quite humbling,” he said.

“I’ve enjoyed the work that I’ve done over the years. It’s been a good organization to work with. They do a lot of important work for farmers — for soybean farmers, in particular — but I think also for agriculture in general, particularly in Illinois.

“It’s just being a pleasure been with the association and working with people over the years. I really enjoyed it.”

The Farm Family of the Year Award recognizes an Illinois farm family actively engaged in ISA programs, committed to industry advancement and making a positive impact in their communities.

Winter, of Mill Shoals, has a long record of leadership through service on the ISA board, United Soybean Board, U.S. Soybean Export Council, Center for Food Integrity Board, and U.S. Farm and Ranch Alliance Board.

His wife, Nancy, a certified public accountant with her own practice, plays a vital role in the family’s farming operation.

Can you tell me about your experiences on the ISA board and national organizations, working on behalf of soybean farmers?

Winter: I started on ISA as District 16 director, representing southeastern Illinois in 2003 or 2004. I served on the ISA board for about six years. I was ISA secretary-treasurer my last two years on the board.

I had the opportunity to be appointed to the United Soybean Board, the national checkoff board. At that time Phil Bradshaw was one of the current directors from Illinois and he resigned from his position.

I was elected to fill the rest of Phil’s term, and then I was in three three-year terms there and was on USB for 11 years. I served on various committees there and on the Strategic Management Committee, which was kind of an overall guidance on the direction of the USB.

I had the distinct pleasure and honor of getting appointed as one of the USB directors to U.S. Soybean Export Council in about 2016 and served six years on that. Two of my last three years I served as vice chairman and was chairman my last year.

It’s opened up a myriad of opportunities over the years and a chance, particularly with USSEC and USB, and some with the ISA, to see a number of different uses, import sites and that sort of thing for soybeans and soybean meal around the world.

It must have have provided a unique perspective of the soybean supply chain from your farm and then on to state, national and international end-users, right?

Winter: Yes, starting out from the farm, and you think of the basics of soybean production and what we do on the farm, trying to do the best job we can do. Then being able to expand through the organizations, through the checkoff, to see firsthand how all that goes down the export and the import chains.

I was able to experience that and to get a feel for the people that are importing it and using it as far as feed millers and the importers that take a look at the quality of the crop, then the feed millers, and then actually out on a number of the farms, particularly poultry farms and aquaculture farms around the world, to see.

It’s really amazing when you look at the entire chain of things from growing the soybean all the way through through producing a chicken or a fish.

What about your farming operation, crop production and conservation practices?

Winter: We have roughly a 3,000-acre operation in White County. We grow predominantly corn and soybeans and occasionally grow wheat, depending on the market.

We use no-till on about 70% of the operation. It’s a combination of river bottom ground and rolling clay hill ground in the middle, and we use quite a bit of no-till on that. We’ve incorporated parallel tile outlet terrace systems in the more erosive ground.

I have about 120 acres of Conservation Reserve Program ground that I manage. About one-third of that is my property that I own and then I have about another 80 acres in CRP that I manage for landlords.

We have started using cover crops to a greater degree over about the last four to five years. We started out with about 150 acres experimenting with cereal rye and planting soybeans into that.

This next year, we’re going to have cover crops on about a 1,150 acres — using a combination of cereal rye that we’ll go back into with soybeans and using a combination of oats and rapeseed that we’ll plant corn back into in the spring.

My brother and I farmed together up until 2017, and around 1997 or 1998 we started doing grid soil sampling just to see what affect it would have on lime application rates.

We found out that it was saving us a massive amount, and so we’ve used yield monitors in our combines to kind of see where our drainage problems, fertility problems were in fields and analyze that yield map information from that to see what we needed to treat.

But that kind of led to, for about the last 10 years, I’ve used all variable rate technology application on fertilizer, being able to put exactly what’s needed in each 2.5-acre grid on the ground.

We’ve had really good luck with that, and then following it up with seeing how things are tying out with the yield monitors on the combines.

What would you say on behalf of southern Illinois farmers who struggled with timely plantings due to the extremely wet spring of 2025?

Winter: We started out wet in early April. I think we got 250 acres of pre-plant anhydrous down and that was the end of that. The next time we were rolling was May 28, and we were still planting in wetter conditions than we should have been.

We finished up with corn planting around the June 5. We took prevent plant on 500 acres of corn. I ended up only planting about 1,100 acres of corn this year.

We finished up on June 5 and in one of the fields that we took prevent plant on I got a side-by-side hung-up in four-wheel drive trying to go across it to check and see how wet it was. That was when I decided probably the money they were going to give out for prevent plant was the best option.

Part of that ground that was prevent plant we applied lime and used a ripper to incorporate the lime. We then came back across the top and no-tilled the cover crop into that. So, we tried to use that fallow year in the prevent plant acres to kind of do some improvements to it.

We started planting soybeans that same day and got rained out two more times. We finally finished planting soybeans around July 3.

We had a very good rain the week following July 4. That was the last rain we got until Aug. 29, and we were dealing with a consistent three or four weeks of 90-degree temperatures with no rain.

We had replant corn that kind of looked like a pineapple plantation. We began to get some rains right around Labor Day and it helped the soybeans.

On the operation overall, I ended up with nearly an average yield and a few fields that were above average. My overall crop average for soybeans was just about what my five-year average is. So, we ended up in good shape there.

For corn, the crop insurance guys are still figuring that out. I turned yields into them in early December, but they’re just swamped over down there. I’m going to guess were were probably 25% below our average corn yield.

We were fortunate that some of our crop, not nearly enough, but we had about 20% of the production forward-contracted early at a pretty decent price. It was over $11 on beans and up in the $4.90 to $5 area on corn.