Changes in the landscape: Technical assistance provided in multiyear program

EMINGTON, Ill. — Moving to a new farming practice after doing the same for years can be daunting which is why a multiyear program is available to lend a one-on-one guiding hand.

The Illinois Sustainable Ag Partnership’s 5-year Farmer Transition Program guides farmers through the management changes that come with switching from a conventional production system to a soil health-focused conservation cropping system.

The program, which includes cover crops, reduced tillage and improved nutrient management, was highlighted at the Vermilion Watershed Field Tour, hosted by Swartz Farms.

Jim Isermann, a Streator area farmer, is ISAP’s soil health specialist in Illinois and works directly with the Illinois Precision Conservation Management, a program initiated five years ago by the Illinois Corn Growers Association. The Illinois Soybean Association is now a program partner, as well.

Isermann said the program utilizes soil health specialists to develop a five-year transition plan and provide continuing one-on-one technical advice from cover crop selection to planting and termination.

The specialists help the farmer with other production management decisions needed to successfully adopt a more sustainable system.

Farmers in the 5-year Farmer Transition Program begin with cover crops on a 40-acre field in year one, with a goal of sustained system change at the whole farm level by the end of year five. Cost-share and technical support is phased out as the farmer finds success and gains confidence.

A localized, peer-to-peer network of program participants and interested neighbors sharing results and experiences serves as the amplifying mechanism to influence changes at a broader scale.

Participating farmers will also be encouraged to enroll in ISAP’s complimentary programs — the 5 Star Farmer Certification Program and Precision Conservation Management.

Ground Cover

“The goal is to work with growers who are relatively new with cover crops and on a field that has not had much of a history with cover crops. It’s a very simple trial design. It’s side-by-side,” said Isermann next to an 80-acre field with 40 acres of cover crops that are farmed by Craig Swartz and his father, Gary Swartz.

“The primary requirement we have with growers is that there’s a cover crop involved. After that, they’re allowed to alter their management however they’d like to do that. We have a number of growers who are doing full tillage systems versus no-till cover crop systems, some of the growers are straight no-till and the only difference is the cover crop.

“We collect a lot of the data working with PCM. They’re collecting a lot of that in-field management data. We’re also adding a layer of soil health testing, soil health assessments, yield data analysis, and we hope to now continue that with PCM.”

Swartz’s 80-acre, no-till field had 40 acres of cereal rye planted in the fall of 2020. The cover crop was terminated in early spring and soybeans were planted.

“Craig will be maintaining a cover crop on this field for five years. Even ahead of corn, he will be applying some sort of cover crop in the fall,” Isermann added.

“There is a lot of management that needs to be understood in cover crop systems, so we don’t push anything hard and fancy. We’re not expecting five-way mixes or they don’t have to be rolling down cereal rye. They need to do what’s comfortable for them in their management programs and hopefully as the five years go on they can progress in their understanding and apply it that to more fields.”

Soil Assessments

This initiative is part of a Natural Resources Conservation Service’s On-farm Conservation Innovation Soil Health Demonstration Trial grant. In-field assessments are an important piece of this program.

“The NRCS wants us to take a look at the field and try to assess any soil health resource concerns. Part of what we do in the fields is look at things such as field compaction, soil biology, soil aggregation early in the season,” Isermann said.

“All of the soil health tests, all of the assessments that we do, all get fed into this NRCS database, and anyone who has this type of funding from the NRCS has to do these same types of things, so they’re pulling together this large data set to help us all make better decisions.”

Isermann demonstrated the slump test used for a quick assessment of soil aggregation.

“This really boils down to how the water and our soils interact. Why are we doing cover crop to begin with? We want our soils to do something different than they’re doing right now and one of those is to take water in better and not erode away,” he said.

“In the test we look at how well the soil peds hold together, how well they break apart. We’re also going to look at how clean that water is. We’re not going to prevent all of the runoff, especially when we get 3 and 4 inches of rain within a few hours.

“We’re going to have runoff, there’s no way around that, but we want to see that runoff be as clean as possible. That can happen with things such as waterways, perennial vegetation, but we can also have bare soil that has good aggregation that will hold together and when you have runoff it’ll stay clean.”

Isermann said Craig Swartz was adamant when he started the program that it includes some tougher soil types such as Bryce/Swygert.

“It is tougher soil, especially to manager cover crops, because they’re going to be wet in the spring, dry in the summer, but then if we want to make changes on the landscape we want to figure out how to manage cover crops on these soils,” Isermann noted.