Episode 3011

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- [Narrator] Clean Genes Farm specializes

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in growing salad greens 365 days a year.

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And here on this family
farm, efficiency is a must.

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Annette Shrader sees that firsthand

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in the seeding, the
transplanting and weed control.

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Tammy Allgood sets out

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to explore the benefits
of no-till agriculture

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for both the farmer and the land.

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Hutchinson farms has been at the forefront

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of this environmentally
responsible production technique

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for three generations.

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Let's get to it.

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(uplifting music)

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This is where farm and family flourish.

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- More than 90% of the
farms in the United States

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are classified as small,

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and most are family-owned and operated.

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We're visiting one such farm
today in McEwen, Tennessee,

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Clean Genes Farm specializes
in salad greens year round.

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Let's get to it. This
is where it all begins.

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Tell us.

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- So as I like to say

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that I tried to be as
efficient as I possibly can.

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And some of these tools that
we use on this small farm

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are the most efficient tools
that the market has provided.

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And one of them is a gravity seeder.

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And with the gravity
seeder I'm allowed now

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to seed a 200 cell
lettuce tray in seconds.

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So I will show you that process.

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First, I fill it with a potting mixture,

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peat moss, vermiculite, just
your standard potting mixture.

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And then I've made this fancy dibbler

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with some of you electricians
might see with some wire nuts,

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and it's got 200 wire nuts,

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perfectly aligned for our 200 cell tray.

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- Wow. Your breakfast tray
has been turned into a seeder.

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- And now the holes have been dibbled.

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Today I'm gonna show
you some head lettuce.

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So besides our salad mixture,

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we also do head lettuce,
romaine and green star,

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a nice summer crisp also,

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great for growing in
the heat of the summer.

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- And you're calling this gravity seeder.

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- Yes, it is.

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- Okay.

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- There's a thousand seeds on that.

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There's 200 holes aligned
and we're just gonna shake.

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These are pelleted seeds.

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And they're about the size of BBs.

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- Reminds me of a child's game.

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- Yeah. It is.

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- That is really intriguing.

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- So we just shake the gravity seeder

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until all the pelleted
lettuce is in a hole.

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And I just go directly over

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our already pre-dibbled holes
in our tray and open it up.

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- And you just slid that
tray over and they fell in.

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- Before I had the seeder,

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what used to take me three hours,

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now it takes me about 15
minutes to do about 16 trays.

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I would water this in deeply,

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and then put it into
our germination chamber

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that is set for 68 to
71 degrees temperature.

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And in a day and a half,

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the soil has been up to
temperature and I'll take them out

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and I'll put them under a light.

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- So these are the lettuces
that you're working with now.

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You would take these and transplant these

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directly into the ground.

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- Correct.

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- And you're please with what
percentage of germination?

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- I love a hundred as anybody would,

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but 75 to a hundred is good.

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- It is like May.

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Jason, It's wonderful
to be in this greenhouse

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with all of these stages of lettuce.

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Give me your edge on the market

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of how you're trying to grow this lettuce.

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- So growing lettuce in
humid, Tennessee weather

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is definitely, there's some tricks.

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It's all about varieties

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and limiting the amount
of sun that comes in.

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And most times farmers are
considered solar harvesters.

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- Yes.

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- We're trying to limit that

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through the fact that lettuce
is a colder climate crop.

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And so I utilize shade
cloth to limit the sun.

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I utilize the weed suppression
mats to keep the soil cooler

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and suppress the weeds.

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We use our irrigation systems to cool down

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in a very hot summer.

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So five minute mist, twice a day.

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And then we have drip lines
running through the cloth

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also where we transplant
to keep them watered.

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And we do that once a week,
really, really deep watering.

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And from there, having transplants

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- What percent of blockage of the sun

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do you want from your shade cloth?

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- So we use 50%, but
we're trying to figure out

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is 30% better or is 50% better.

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But right now everything is 50%.

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So this is called landscape fabric

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and we use a four foot by 100
foot piece of landscape fabric

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for our rows of lettuce.

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- And so these are very rhythmic holes.

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You do that with a certain machine?

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- I have divide a wood jig
that has about 50 holes in it,

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and I burn the holes.

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So I just continually follow the pattern.

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And that's my thing.

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Normally in larger agriculture,

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they have machines that
would make the dibbles

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and then two people or one person

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would be on the back of
that piece of equipment

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behind a tractor putting
in the transplants.

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- Necessity created this.

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- Yes. Necessity and some
hybrid information I found.

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- Right. Okay. So you don't
direct seed any of your lettuce?

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- No.
- It's all transplanted.

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- Yeah. It's all transplanted.

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So the transplants we'll
be dealing with today

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are around two and a
half to three weeks old.

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- Okay. Now this first section, evidently,

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it's definitely been
just transplanted, right?

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- Yeah. So I transplanted
actually this morning.

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I started and in each
line is 200 transplants.

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So in a perfect germination,
tray is 200 transplants.

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- Because this one over
here is two weeks old?

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- Yeah. That's been transplanted.

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It's actually now going five weeks,

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but transplanted about
a week and a half ago.

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- Okay. So from seed to
market is how many days?

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- Well, as the package says 55,

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but we definitely are in that range.

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- Okay.
- From seed to package.

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- I see definite varieties over here.

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What are you choosing to
produce in the summer?

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- Our favorite is summer crisp.

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And we definitely like
stuff that's slow bolting,

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that can stay crisp.

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We definitely have been experimenting

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with different varieties and
we find stuff that we like

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and some stuff we don't

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because from seed to process,

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in the bagging and getting
ready for direct market,

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there's a lot of other steps

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that could damage a lot of that.

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So we try to mitigate
that as much as possible.

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- So it's your goal to have
lettuce 365 days a year,

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- Yeah.
- 52 weeks, right?

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- Yeah. We try to have a base
for a salad for our customers,

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our salad snobs.

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- We are about to step up from
seed tapes to planting tapes.

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Now this is quite interesting.

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So you seeded this just like
you did the other things,

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only there in that tape.

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- So this is the paper pot system.

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So on a small scale that we have,

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we have to utilize the
space as best as possible.

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So I'm using a lot of transplants.

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The transplanting obviously allows me

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to grow it in the nursery,

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- Exactly.
- Use the germination chamber

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so I know I can control the
percentage of the watering,

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and then utilizing systems

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with my transplants from my
lettuce or the paper pot,

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which the paper pot I've done everything

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from mixed kales to
this is bunching onions,

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to beets, to carrots.

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Everything's got their own tricks.

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- Yeah. But you see,
when you kind of hear,

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it's ready to go, if you've
seeded that seed in here,

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you got to wait three, four weeks to see,

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"Did I get a good germination?"

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- Yeah.

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- Right here, you're good to go.

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- Yeah. We're good to go.

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So now in four weeks to
five weeks, well, depending,

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we'll have bunching
onions ready for market.

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- Wow.

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Well, let's talk about health benefits

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for what's so beautiful on this table.

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- Yeah. So these are all microgreens

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and we use a couple of different ones.

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We have radish over there.

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That's nice purple and green trays.

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For people that are unaware,

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radish has more vitamin C
than oranges or strawberries.

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- I just read that.

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- So the actual green tastes
like the bulb of the red.

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- Yes. They actually tastes
like the root of the radish.

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This is our mild mix. It's
a cabbage, kale, broccoli.

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And as you can see,

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we're waiting for the true
leaf to emerge before harvest,

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which this tray will be ready
to harvest in about a day.

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So we have a nice cabbage broccoli,

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cabbage kale mixture right
here which we call our mild mix

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and tastes just like
broccoli, cabbage, kale.

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And one of the great things,
besides being very nutritious,

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you can add it into salad sandwiches,

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smoothies, green greatness.
- Oh. It's just so wonderful

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on that good Turkey sandwich.

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Well, as of today,

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we're standing on different grounds

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than what you started
with say, six years ago?

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- So when we originally bought this place,

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nothing was farmed.

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And up to three years
ago, three and a half,

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when we first put our first
plants into the ground,

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but there's been a lot getting there.

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So previously when I had my career

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and we decided we're
going to start farming,

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I put down lots of tarps,
silage tarps, plastic,

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and you use the sun to solarize

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and kill all the Bermuda grass

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and any other pre-emerge
weeds that were there.

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- Perennial.

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- Yeah. The perennial
weeds and the grasses.

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Once we took off the tarps,

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we then went and got soil samples.

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And I use a pretty good agronomist,
well known from Vermont.

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And I was told with
disheartening information

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that good luck on your soil,

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it's not going to grow anything.

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From there, I'm one that
doesn't give up too easily.

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So lots of compost, lots of
reading lots of different books

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on prebiotics, probiotic,
the mycology of the soil.

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And I was like, "Well, I'm
going to create something I can

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and utilize all the microbes

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that I possibly can do
on the farm itself."

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So this bed was spinach previously.

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And one of the things like
we kind of pride ourselves on

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is once the beds are
formed, I'm using a tiller,

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then we don't till anymore.

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We don't say we're completely no-till,

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cause we do disturb the soil.

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We use broad forks to
aerate, to bring oxygen

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a little bit oxygens
everywhere, nitrogen in the air,

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and we can then slowly build up the soil

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just using the natural elements.

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So we aerate, we then use heavy compost,

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let the organic material from
the previous secession go down

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and let the germs and
microorganism start eating that

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and creating more organic biology.

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Normally, we just do quick-growing,
short-rooted products,

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lettuce for instance,

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but I'm having tomatoes
actually looking beautiful

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in the soil that I was
told a couple of years ago

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that we weren't gonna grow.
- Absolutely.

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So I feel good on that, patting myself.

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Tomorrow this could be gone but I like it.

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- This didn't happen overnight.

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- No.

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- It took you several years to build up

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all of the microorganisms in your soil.

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- So for us, we're always
putting in prebiotics,

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probiotics, compost teas, lots of compost.

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And now that we've incorporated,

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we have chickens on the farm.

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We're using chickens to break
down wood chips and biochar,

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and just other things for
the regenerative sources

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that we are linking to put in to our soil.

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- So you don't use any
synthetic fertilizers?

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- No. No synthetic, no petrochemicals.

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I'm going to quote this as I
heard a great sayings like,

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"Don't ask if we spray,
ask what we spray."

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And everybody sprays, we have neem oil,

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we spray probiotics, we spray prebiotics,

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compost teas, there's stuff we spray,

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but we're all spraying everything

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that is going to build
up this soil ecology

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as best as we possibly can,

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but there's always going
to be a bug somewhere.

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- Okay. Well, obviously
you've done the right things

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at the right time and
I think I'm gonna have

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a little conversation with Sarah.

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- Excellent.

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- Because she's going to fill us in

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on some of the things you
are growing right now.

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- Excellent.

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- Sarah, I'm excited to
hear about your plans

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for what you're growing
in here summer or fall.

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Tell me about what the
flowers you've planted

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and your vegetables.

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- Yeah. So I started to cut
flower garden last year,

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just trial and error to
see what would stick.

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And so zinnias did fantastic,
sunflowers, snapdragons

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and then there's celosia was
a great one for me, gomphrena.

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- I love those.

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- And this year I decided
to try some new things

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like the violas, cause they're edible too.

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- Right.

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- And those could go great on salads.

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- Of course, over here,

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I can't help but say these
must be white potatoes.

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- Yes they are.

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Yeah. So this is our first
year growing potatoes as well.

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And we kind of did something different.

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We wanted to suppress the weeds

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and I've never grown potatoes
in the landscape fabric.

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So we held them with straw
because I saw it on YouTube.

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- Yeah.
- And we'll see if it works,

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but it's kind of a trial for us.

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- Oh and you know but they do
need to be able to grow down

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so the barn type situation

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is what they look for for better growing.

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Well, I see you have basil?

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- Yep.

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- And dill?

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- Yes.

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- And over here, green beans.

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- Exactly. Yep.

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I like looking at these beans
blooming right here, Sarah.

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I'll see that purple bloom.

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And I recognize that
as being a blue light.

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Tell me about your concept.
This is a two-person operation.

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- It is.

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- No outsiders, just you and Jason.

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And give me your concept of this farm

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and how about the name?

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- The name?

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So the name came in the planning process.

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And a little backstory,

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Jason and I had been on a health journey

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for about nine or 10 years

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and just tried different real food diets,

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like we did some juicing and raw foods.

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So anyways, along the way,

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I read a book called Dirty
Genes by Dr. Ben Lynch.

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In the book, he discusses
how the food that we eat,

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the air that we breathe,
the water that we drink

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can all kind of are very telling

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in how the expression
of our genes will be.

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So if we're eating clean food,

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it can help promote the clean
expression of our genes.

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But if we're in a really toxic environment

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with a lot of processed foods
or just not clean water,

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- Exactly.

[00:15:09.09]
it can promote the dirty
expression of our genes.

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For our family, for our community,

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we wanted to grow the
cleanest food possible.

[00:15:18.05]
- Okay. Now you play
an important role here.

[00:15:21.03]
Not only are you the mother,

[00:15:22.09]
homeschooler of three beautiful children,

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but you're the partner beside Jason.

[00:15:27.06]
So give me a little rundown
of how you see this farm.

[00:15:32.02]
- Well, it's a lot of
work, a lot of labor,

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a lot of planning for sure.

[00:15:37.07]
We have to plan when
the seeds are planted,

[00:15:40.00]
plan when we're gonna transplant,

[00:15:41.01]
plan when we're gonna harvest,

[00:15:42.04]
wash, and pack, and all of that.

[00:15:45.00]
And so my role is I do a
lot of the labor with Jason.

[00:15:49.02]
He's the planner. He plans everything.

[00:15:52.00]
And I love physical work.

[00:15:54.08]
So I'm out here in the
fields, working with the kids,

[00:15:57.04]
and I do the customer service.

[00:15:59.08]
So I'm social media.

[00:16:02.05]
And then I get to do the fun things too.

[00:16:04.06]
I get to get creative with flowers

[00:16:06.08]
and other things that
would go great on salads.

[00:16:09.04]
- So we put a T-E-R in there.

[00:16:11.02]
He's the plan and you're the plan-TER.

[00:16:13.07]
- Exactly. Yes.

[00:16:14.05]
- Exactly

[00:16:16.00]
So these are head lettuce.

[00:16:18.02]
- Yes.

[00:16:20.00]
This crop right here will be harvested.

[00:16:21.05]
Today is Monday.

[00:16:22.08]
So these three beds that
we are looking at right now

[00:16:25.05]
will be harvested for
Wednesday's salad mix.

[00:16:28.08]
- And when you harvest it, you cut it.

[00:16:31.05]
- I cut it. Yep. Four rows cut completely

[00:16:34.03]
to about two inches off the mat.

[00:16:37.01]
- Okay. Well now then Sarah,

[00:16:40.00]
you've got a part in that
process too, don't you?

[00:16:42.05]
- Yes. So I help in the pack house,

[00:16:45.03]
but also with our online farmer's market.

[00:16:49.00]
I just share with people

[00:16:51.05]
that the online market
is open for ordering.

[00:16:54.02]
And so we do our home deliveries.

[00:16:56.06]
People can place their orders online

[00:16:58.02]
and we deliver to their doorstep.

[00:17:00.00]
Or if they're outside
of our delivery zone,

[00:17:02.08]
then they can do a farm pickup.

[00:17:03.09]
- It's obvious you've
got an edge on a market

[00:17:06.03]
that's not used so I wish
you much success with this.

[00:17:11.02]
And it's obvious

[00:17:12.05]
that when the sun goes
down at eight o'clock,

[00:17:16.01]
are you ready for going to bed

[00:17:18.02]
or do you still have work to do?

[00:17:19.05]
- Lot's of work, it never
stops, it never stops.

[00:17:21.08]
It seems like as we are talking about

[00:17:24.04]
using tools and techniques
to simplify the processes,

[00:17:29.08]
we're still refining.

[00:17:30.09]
And I think we're always
going to be refining.

[00:17:32.04]
- Of course.

[00:17:33.02]
- And it's just tweaking

[00:17:34.01]
and getting all our systems in place

[00:17:36.01]
so we can spend more time with our family.

[00:17:37.07]
And that's the main goal.

[00:17:38.09]
That's when people are like,
"What's your farms main goal?"

[00:17:42.04]
To be sustainable, be family-orientated.

[00:17:45.09]
- Exactly.

[00:17:46.07]
- And you are achieving
that and I'll tell you,

[00:17:49.07]
this was not what I
thought I was going to find

[00:17:51.06]
at the end of this country road.

[00:17:53.08]
And what a blessing it has been

[00:17:55.03]
to share time with you and
your family here today.

[00:17:57.07]
- [Jason] Thank you.
- [Sarah] Thank you.

[00:17:59.05]
(country music)

[00:18:05.03]
- Innovation keeps all
industries moving forward

[00:18:08.08]
and conservation in agriculture
has been quite dramatic.

[00:18:12.09]
As a result, today no-till is a big deal.

[00:18:17.07]
Here to educate us on that
subject is Will Hutchinson

[00:18:21.03]
from Hutchinson farms in Murfreesboro.

[00:18:23.07]
Hello friend.

[00:18:25.00]
- Hey there.

[00:18:25.09]
- Glad to have you here.

[00:18:26.09]
Will, start by telling us about your farm

[00:18:29.09]
because it truly is a family farm, right?

[00:18:33.04]
- It very much is.

[00:18:35.01]
So our operation,

[00:18:37.04]
great-grandfather moved
to Murfreesboro in 1932.

[00:18:41.04]
And from there, my grandfather
farmed, my dad farmed,

[00:18:46.00]
and now my sister and
I are farming as well.

[00:18:48.05]
Over the years, we've done everything

[00:18:50.08]
from dairy, to hogs, to hay,
to watermelons and peaches.

[00:18:57.01]
And now, currently today,
were pretty strictly

[00:19:00.08]
a no-till corn, soybean, wheat operation.

[00:19:04.05]
And we also still raise
some commercial hay.

[00:19:07.08]
- That's great. So talk
to us about no-till, Will,

[00:19:10.05]
because it seems so counterintuitive
to what we think about

[00:19:15.00]
happening on a farm
during planting season.

[00:19:18.00]
What is it?

[00:19:19.00]
- Yeah. So no-till is kind
of just like it sounds,

[00:19:22.08]
we do not disturb the soil.

[00:19:25.02]
A lot of people still think about farming

[00:19:27.05]
as to go turn the soil
and work it and disc it

[00:19:31.01]
and get it looking a lot
like you would have a garden.

[00:19:34.03]
That's not at all what we do anymore.

[00:19:37.03]
We've discovered that minimal disturbance

[00:19:40.03]
has a lot of benefits.

[00:19:41.09]
We really liked that minimal disturbance.

[00:19:44.04]
We can retain moisture better.

[00:19:46.02]
We are a lot less susceptible
to erosion that way.

[00:19:49.06]
We've modified equipment to a point.

[00:19:52.03]
To do all of that, turn in the
soil and ground preparation

[00:19:55.08]
and all that disturbance is
a significant cost on fuel,

[00:19:59.07]
and time and equipment.

[00:20:01.01]
- Right.

[00:20:02.05]
So this way we've eliminated
a lot of those costs.

[00:20:05.07]
Some of the modifications that
we've done to this planter

[00:20:08.00]
to help it work in these conditions better

[00:20:11.09]
in a no-till environment.

[00:20:13.01]
This is a disc opener here
and it has small serrations

[00:20:16.08]
and that helps to slice the
residue a little bit better

[00:20:20.08]
and reached the proper depth.

[00:20:23.03]
Also these are gauge wheels

[00:20:25.04]
and that is what sets
the depth of the seed.

[00:20:28.06]
And if you'll notice these rows
are exactly 30 inches apart.

[00:20:31.09]
And when we plant corn at
a common 32,000 population,

[00:20:36.01]
every seed will be placed

[00:20:37.03]
at 2 inches deep, 30 inches apart,

[00:20:40.00]
at exactly seven and a
half inches apart as well.

[00:20:42.04]
And that'll equate to
32,000 seed per acre.

[00:20:46.00]
Coming on back here.

[00:20:46.09]
You'll notice these
closing wheels are spiked

[00:20:50.07]
and they're also swept back,

[00:20:52.05]
that way when they leave the soil,

[00:20:54.01]
they will release any
residue and not wrap.

[00:20:56.05]
coming on back here.

[00:20:58.00]
You'll notice these stainless steel hoses

[00:21:00.09]
precisely place one third of
our nitrogen for this crop

[00:21:04.03]
right there at the seed in front of us.

[00:21:05.09]
So that it's readily
available for the seed

[00:21:08.05]
and supplying these hoses,

[00:21:10.06]
there's this tank on
the back of the planter.

[00:21:12.04]
- So what do we have here?

[00:21:15.01]
- This here is a ground

[00:21:17.00]
that has come straight out of pasture.

[00:21:18.05]
So this is not exactly what
we would consider cover crops.

[00:21:22.07]
However, we're getting a lot
of similar benefits here,

[00:21:25.05]
just not quite to the extent

[00:21:27.07]
that we would a full-blown
cover crop system.

[00:21:30.06]
But we can still use

[00:21:31.05]
our same planting practices and equipment

[00:21:33.08]
and be successful in
this pasture situation

[00:21:36.04]
as we do in our cover crop.

[00:21:37.07]
Okay. You'll notice that seed is pink

[00:21:40.08]
and that's just a coating
that we put on that seed.

[00:21:43.00]
It's a fungicide and
insecticide treatment,

[00:21:46.09]
and it's very local just to that seed

[00:21:48.09]
and that's to keep any
bugs from eating on it

[00:21:53.00]
while it's getting germinated
and getting started growing.

[00:21:56.05]
It's just very young and
very susceptible to disease.

[00:22:00.05]
And that just helps protect that seed

[00:22:02.04]
as it gets its healthy start.

[00:22:04.03]
- When I till up my garden,

[00:22:06.01]
that's part of the reason I till it up,

[00:22:08.03]
is to get rid of weeds.

[00:22:10.00]
So what do you do for weeds
when you don't do that?

[00:22:13.08]
- Yeah, exactly.

[00:22:14.06]
So mechanical termination

[00:22:15.09]
needs to be our bread and butter strategy

[00:22:19.09]
against weed competition.

[00:22:21.08]
Early nineties or so, I believe it was,

[00:22:24.09]
we'd developed crops that were resistant

[00:22:27.04]
to certain herbicides.

[00:22:28.08]
We were able to go out and
spray a non-selective herbicide

[00:22:32.05]
that would control all other weeds

[00:22:34.09]
except for our specific
crop that was planted.

[00:22:37.07]
And it was resistant to that application.

[00:22:40.08]
That allowed us to take

[00:22:43.05]
that mechanical termination off the table.

[00:22:47.07]
And that just opened the door for no-till

[00:22:49.04]
to really come full circle.

[00:22:51.06]
- Okay. So Will, talk
to me about cover crops,

[00:22:53.09]
why do we have them?

[00:22:55.09]
- So cover crops is
kind of a new discovery

[00:22:59.07]
and a new practice that
we're still developing

[00:23:02.05]
and trying to understand a little better.

[00:23:04.09]
But basically cover crops is a crop

[00:23:07.00]
that we will sow in the fall after harvest

[00:23:10.02]
and we'll plan a variety
of species of covers,

[00:23:14.02]
anywhere from legumes,
to brassicas, grasses,

[00:23:17.02]
and each one of those species

[00:23:18.03]
has a different benefit
to the following crop.

[00:23:20.09]
So a legume naturally
produces its own nitrogen.

[00:23:24.07]
So with it in the mix,

[00:23:26.04]
it produces nitrogen to feed
the grasses in that same mix.

[00:23:30.07]
The grasses are kind
of nitrogen scavengers.

[00:23:33.00]
So any nitrogen value

[00:23:34.08]
that might be left over from that crop,

[00:23:36.07]
we want to take it up in that grass

[00:23:38.04]
and we want to store it
in that plant material.

[00:23:40.09]
And the brassicas are known

[00:23:43.03]
for putting down a really deep taproot

[00:23:45.05]
and they can be known for
trying to create some airspace

[00:23:51.04]
and bring up nutrients
from deep in the soil.

[00:23:53.09]
In the spring time, we'll come through

[00:23:55.05]
and we'll roll those down flat

[00:23:57.04]
and we'll plant directly into it.

[00:23:59.08]
As that plant material breaks down,

[00:24:01.09]
we get a lot of benefits from
that in the following crop.

[00:24:04.03]
The first benefit,

[00:24:06.03]
it's a lot like when
you mulch your garden,

[00:24:08.01]
you put mulch out and that's
to keep the weeds down,

[00:24:10.09]
that's to keep the soil temperature cooler

[00:24:13.03]
and that's to

[00:24:14.03]
- Hold moisture?
- Yeah. Hold moisture.

[00:24:16.07]
And when it rains in the spring,

[00:24:19.03]
we have some pretty heavy downpours

[00:24:21.07]
in Tennessee in the spring.

[00:24:23.04]
And we want to put a layer
of armor on top of that soil.

[00:24:27.00]
And we want that cover crop residue

[00:24:28.09]
to absorb the energy of the
raindrop falling from the sky

[00:24:31.09]
and dissipate it as it goes into the soil,

[00:24:34.05]
real slow and smooth.

[00:24:35.06]
And that way the soil has a chance

[00:24:36.09]
to absorb more of that water

[00:24:39.02]
and get it deeper into the soil profile

[00:24:41.03]
before it just runs off.

[00:24:43.02]
- So it's kind of like a porous blanket

[00:24:47.01]
that's down and it's aiding
the crop that's coming.

[00:24:51.08]
- It is.

[00:24:52.06]
- Will, does no-till
work for all of the crops

[00:24:55.04]
that you plant, corn, wheat, soy beans?

[00:24:58.04]
- It does.

[00:24:59.02]
We can plant in all three
crops in a no-till environment,

[00:25:02.03]
depending on some fertilizer strategies.

[00:25:06.01]
We might do a really light tillage

[00:25:08.01]
called a vertical till pass.

[00:25:10.00]
We're only gonna disturb the
top two inches or less of soil.

[00:25:14.04]
And that's really just to
get better stratification

[00:25:16.07]
of our fertilizer application.

[00:25:18.04]
- That makes my heart happy.

[00:25:21.00]
And this has got to
make the land happy too.

[00:25:23.03]
And what about your yields?

[00:25:24.06]
Have you seen different
yields from no-till

[00:25:27.05]
versus the traditional
way of doing things?

[00:25:30.01]
- It certainly takes some
adaptation and some years

[00:25:34.02]
to get all the bugs
worked out of the system,

[00:25:36.08]
but we really had to modify
our planting equipment.

[00:25:40.00]
Now I'd say our yields are right on par

[00:25:42.08]
with where we expect them to be.

[00:25:44.08]
- How many acres do you farm?

[00:25:46.05]
- About 4,000 acres.

[00:25:48.00]
- That's a lot of acres.

[00:25:50.01]
- Well, it keeps us all busy.

[00:25:51.06]
- Yes it does.

[00:25:52.05]
And out of trouble as mother would say.

[00:25:55.01]
Will thank you for this.

[00:25:56.05]
I really appreciate your
depth of knowledge on it.

[00:25:59.06]
And for those of us

[00:26:01.01]
who aren't taking our
living, farming everyday,

[00:26:03.08]
it's quite interesting to see

[00:26:06.01]
how far agriculture has
come with row crops.

[00:26:10.06]
So thank you for taking the time with us,

[00:26:13.05]
and we appreciate it.

[00:26:15.07]
- [Narrator] For inspiring garden tours,

[00:26:17.05]
growing tips and garden projects.

[00:26:19.07]
Visit our website @volunteergardener.org

[00:26:22.08]
or on YouTube at the
Volunteer Gardener channel.

[00:26:25.01]
And like us on Facebook.

[00:26:27.01]
(light bouncy music)

[00:26:30.02]