Meeting environmental goals with cows, cover crops and no-till

DUBUQUE, Iowa — Smith Family Farms focuses on meeting environmental goals with a cow herd, cover crops and no-till planting.

“A lot of times cattle get a bad rap, but our experience is that cattle have been a real plus in trying to meet our environmental goals, and financially right now, it is a really good enterprise,” said Jack Smith, who owns the operation together with his wife, Maria, and sons, Nick and Ted.

Minimizing soil disturbance is important for Smith, who farms in northeast Iowa.

“We have not tilled for probably 22 years and that includes sowing our alfalfa and sorghum-sudan,” said Smith during a presentation at the Driftless Region Beef Conference, hosted by Iowa State University Extension and Outreach, University of Illinois Extension and University of Wisconsin-Madison Extension.

“We do not harvest any corn residue, we graze it all and we have a cover crop on all our corn acres to maintain some residue,” the cattleman said.

Along with growing corn, soybeans, alfalfa and sorghum-sudan, the primary cover crop planted on the Smith farm is cereal rye, because of its cold tolerance.

“We do integrate maybe some radishes to create some diversity,” Smith said. “We feel there is an advantage to having diversity and the rotational effect to break the insect and disease cycle.”

“Even on a day like today, the cereal rye is probably doing something underneath that snow when you get it established in the fall,” he said. “In the spring, when it warms up, the rye is ready to take off and it protects the soil from erosion.”

The Smiths plant cover crops in several different ways including drones, a no-till drill and with a Gandy seeder on top of their combine.

“We combine about 400 acres of corn and we air seed that as we go, so it is a one-pass operation,” the cattleman said. “It is fairly low tech, but it is really effective.”

Cattle graze on the cereal rye fields in the spring.

“We strip graze them, and as soon as we feel the conditions are right to plant, we kick the cattle off and pull the planter in,” Smith said. “We don’t worry about pugging because we feel that having cattle on the landscape is more important than worrying about a little bit of compaction.”

In addition, grazing cow-calf pairs on cereal rye, he said, has greatly improved the health of the calves by having them in a clean environment.

“It has also allowed us to rest the permanent pastures because the cattle are on rye until the day we plant corn,” he said.

Smith plants green into the rye fields.

“We have some fertility in the furrow and we have hydraulic down pressure on the planter,” he said. “We are comfortable doing this because we have done it for a while, but if you attempt to do this, do it on a few acres until you get comfortable doing it.”

Some farmers think if they adopt regenerative agricultural practices, their crop yields will drop and they will make less money.

“But our experience has been the opposite,” Smith said. “Our yields are higher than our county average and we are far more profitable than we used to be, because we are picking up the feed from the cover crops.”

He works with a neighbor to graze cattle on his farm.

“We take our fall calving cows to his farm in May and then pull them out to calve in late August,” he said. “We leave it ungrazed until about late November and then we winter graze.”

In the past, the farm owner would harvest a cutting of hay before Smith grazed his cattle.

“He decided to just graze it because he wants to move the needle on organic matter,” the cattleman said.

“My son owns this 140-acre farm, and when he bought it, it was row cropped and the erosion was unbelievable,” he said. “We fenced the whole perimeter of the farm and sowed it down about 12 years ago.”

From 75 to 80 cow-calf pairs annually graze on this farm.

“We do a little brush control, but our inputs are virtually nil and no fertilizer at all,” the cattleman said. “With today’s market it is far more profitable than trying to crop a farm like that and it’s a lot more fun.”

Smith will typically put the fall calving cows on fields of sorghum-sudan.

“A lot of times the calves will run ahead of the break wire and creep feed,” he said. “It is a super clean environment, the amount of feed you can grow with sudan is astonishing and it doesn’t cost very much.”

The cattleman is working together with ISU and the Natural Resources Conservation Service to do a three-year study on a CRP field, where the researchers are evaluating how grazing effects bird populations. The study includes bird population counts, as well as weighing the forage production.

Part of the field was grazed from June 1 to July 1.

“Look at how the Big Blue Stem came back and the weeds are gone from 30 days of grazing,” Smith said. “I speculate it was the disturbance, the animal impact and probably something to do with the saliva.”

Corn stalk grazing is an important part of Smith’s program.

“We graze all of our own corn acres and I have cows on all of a neighbor’s corn acres, as well,” he said. “He is a no-tiller, so he wants us to bring cows and it is a partnership that benefits both of us.”

Smith hauls a lot of water to his cattle herd.

“I am still hauling water on a day like this because we feel having those cows on row crop acres is a big plus,” said the cattleman, who is the winner of the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association 2025 Region 3 Environmental Stewardship award.

At one time, Smith raised about 50 cows and a lot of hogs.

“I got tired of raising hogs, so we started adding cows and now we have from 400 to 425 cows,” he said. “It is probably less work that it used to be when we had 100 cows because our management grew with our numbers.”