Conservation practices part of farmer’s DNA

EMINGTON, Ill. — Planting season went smoothly for Craig Swartz and his father, Gary, and was wrapped up in record fashion on April 29.

Craig, a fifth-generation farmer, and Gary farm about 3,000 acres of corn, soybeans and some wheat.

“We do custom work on the side. We do quite a bit of custom planting, custom strip-tilling and trucking. We also have an excavation and tiling business on the side,” Craig Swartz said.

“I’ve got two boys and a daughter getting actively involved in agriculture and the farming operations. My 13-year-old son loves to come out and learn all the neat stuff that we’re doing and be the Gator man. He really loves to drive the pickup truck across the field and it’s fun to see that thinking back to my days and the things I wanted to do when I was 13 years old.

“Dad and I farm together. I guess he’s working on retirement as we speak and I’m taking over most of the operation. He is still actively involved obviously, but business decisions and everything is kind of getting handed over to me. I think my dad appreciates that a lot. He doesn’t have to worry about it. I tell him what to do, and he gets in the tractor and he goes for the day.”

Conservation Tradition

Conservation practices on their farm go back to Swartz’s grandfather, William, and that legacy continues.

“Grandpa Swartz was big into conservation with terraces and whatever else we could do at the time. We’ve changed our operation a little bit as the times have changed. We’ve been using cover crops for quite a few years, and now about half of our acres are in cover crops following corn,” Swartz said.

The benefits of numerous years of cover crops are apparent in the soil.

“We’re really starting to see the benefits of them and not necessarily the ways that they’re sold, but a lot of other benefits like dust control. We’re starting to see the benefits of the soil tilth. There’s just a lot of neat stuff with them,” Swartz said.

“It’s kind of challenging to implement them for the average guy, but as we deal with carbon credits and other government things or mandates that we can utilize on our operation, we’ve found that they’re really not that bad.

“I guess it’s a different mentality to have. We’ve been really happy with them, and we’re really making some strides in trying to figure them out and how they can work on our operation and even on some of our neighbors.’”

He also sees the benefits when he’s installing tile.

“I can tell when we get into one of our fields that have had cover crops on it or even just no-till. The soil digs much better. There’s tilth to the soil like we haven’t seen,” he said.

“We farm a little bit of everything in terms of types of ground. We’re on the Cayuga Ridge and it seems like cover crops and managing tillage passes makes a huge difference on some of our tougher soils, poorly drained soils, and it’s just it’s really fun to see.

“We also farm around Dwight and our ground on the Cayuga Ridge is keeping up yield-wise with some of our more productive soils on other areas. It’s just really neat to see that the ground around our home base of Saunemin and Emington is keeping up with some more productive soils and we’re doing something good and benefiting the ground long-term for our kids, grandkids and great-grandkids.”

Strip-Till Benefits

The Swartz family has been strip-tilling for about 30 years, if not longer.

“I can’t remember what year we started. It was kind of about the time even before Roundup corn was around that we got into strip-till,” Swartz recalled. “We’ve learned a lot and we continue to adapt and do different things to make strip-till work better.

“We continue to try to always improve the system because with strip-till corn it saves so much on labor, fuel and time that it’s just changed our operation in so many ways. We can plant soybeans at the same time and time management is a big thing for us.

“I’m a single parent and so the strip-till is great. I don’t have to worry about extra guys. It’s fast for me, and I can make it to ball games and do other stuff and it’s just less headaches.

“We’ve been doing no-till soybeans since Roundup soybeans came out back in the mid ‘90s.”

When we met with Swartz, he was planting corn into strip-till with a 2x2x2 nitrogen and ammonium thiosulfate mix.

“That’s getting more common with strip-till to either put some nitrogen on the planter or do a strip freshener pass. For me, just for labor, it’s easier for me to find somebody to haul tanks with 32% nitrogen than it is to find somebody to run a tractor and a strip freshener. It takes a little more time to plant, but I think the time savings by having it on the planter, and I’m doing it myself, probably matters. We’ve seen a lot of yield results out there,” he said.

“Strip-tilled soil doesn’t warm up quite as fast as it does with conventional-tilled ground. We’ve found that starter fertilizer is pretty expensive. The old phosphorous blend starter fertilizer is pretty pricey, but it seems like we get a lot of bang for the buck by doing some nitrogen with the planter on our strips. It gives that corn a little extra boost to get going.”

Soil Advocate

Swartz, a 2003 University of Illinois graduate with a degree in technical systems management, is proactive in sharing his conservation experiences.

He serves on the Vermilion Headwaters Steering Committee, has hosted Vermilion River Watershed field tours to highlight conservation and soil health practices, was among the panelists for the SWCD’s “Toolshed Talk” and participated in other related events to share his experiences and advocate for protecting soil and water.

Swartz Farms was named the Livingston County Soil and Water Conservation District’s Conservation Farm Family of the Year in 2024.