Yielding progress

By Matt Echelberry

mechelberry@galioninquirer.com

Water for Yields in Your Fields, an event spon­sored by the Craw­ford County Soil and Water Con­ser­va­tion Dis­trict (SWCD), was held on Aug. 28 on a farm located west of Crest­line. Mem­bers of SWCD, local farm­ers and employ­ees of Sun­rise Coop­er­a­tive gath­ered beneath a large canopy tent.

Sev­eral pre­sen­ta­tions were given about how to help farm­ers in the Loss Creek Water­shed use farm­ing prac­tices that increase the yields of their crops, reduce soil ero­sion and reduce nutri­ent runoff into streams, rivers and lakes. Top­ics like water con­trol and the 4R Tomor­row Nutri­ent Stew­ard­ship were discussed.

For water con­trol, prod­ucts from Agri Drain Cor­po­ra­tion, an Iowa-based com­pany that spe­cial­izes in water man­age­ment, were explained and their uses were demon­strated. One of the prod­ucts was the Water Gate, a float acti­vated head pres­sure valve for inline water level con­trol. It was reported to con­serve water and reduce nutri­ent loss for farmers.

4R Tomor­row is a stew­ard­ship pro­gram designed by SWCD and the Ohio Fed­er­a­tion of Soil and Water Con­ser­va­tion Dis­tricts to help farm­ers while also pro­tect­ing nat­ural resources. Accord­ing to the infor­ma­tion pro­vided to the atten­dees that day: “Sus­tain­able agri­cul­ture pro­duc­tion is impor­tant and con­sists of three ele­ments: eco­nomic, social and envi­ron­men­tal. Agri­cul­ture prac­tices must con­tribute pos­i­tively to all three ele­ments to ensure a pro­duc­tive and pros­per­ous future.”

For more infor­ma­tion, visit 4RTomorrow.org or con­tact your local Soil and Water Con­ser­va­tion District.

In addi­tion, Tom Cook, a man­ager at Sun­rise Coop­er­a­tive, attended the event and explained what his com­pany offers to help farm­ers increase soil efficiency.

Sun­rise, which is located across the road from the farm where the event was held, is a grain mar­ket­ing and sup­ply coop­er­a­tive located in north cen­tral Ohio. It is owned by 2,800 farm­ers and oper­ates seven grain facil­i­ties, three of which are large grain ter­mi­nals. One of those ter­mi­nals is in Crestline.

After about an hour’s worth of pre­sen­ta­tions, a tour of cover crops and farm­ing equip­ment was offered that after­noon. The equip­ment a farmer chooses is impor­tant for yield poten­tial, but cover crops such as clover, rye­grass and win­ter wheat are equally ben­e­fi­cial. They reduce soil ero­sion and improve soil micro­bi­ol­ogy, lead­ing to improved yield potential.

Matt Ech­le­berry is a reporter at the Galion Inquirer.

Posted by Rob Treynor on Oct 4 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.