My mission is to grow organic, nutritious crops while implementing the five principles of soil health: Keep the soil armored with cover crops and crop residues, minimize tillage, grow a diversity of species, have living plants on the land at all times, and integrate livestock or their manure.

While organic is the benchmark for clean, chemical-free food, organic farming has struggled to minimize the destructive practice of high intensity, high interval tillage because it's traditionally seen as the only herbicide-free way to keep weeds in check.  Constant tillage allows for soil erosion from wind and rain, destroys soil life, and releases large amounts of CO2 into the atmosphere. 

Fortunately, researchers and farmers have discovered over the years ways to use cover crops to suppress weeds instead. On my farm, I’m infatuated with inter-seeding cover crops into growing cash crops like corn, sunflower and soybeans to reduce some tillage passes. With the right species we can build soil, sequester carbon, attract pollinators, and reduce erosion and disease while eliminating the need for soil disturbance to kill emerging weeds in the growing crop.

One strategy I employ is to plant a cover crop of buckwheat amongst newly emerging corn or sunflower shoots. Buckwheat has a tremendous ability to suppress weeds with its rapid growth, and to build soil health with its deep root system. Before the buckwheat catches up with the corn, I simply drive down the rows with the inter-row crimper and the hollow, juicy stems are crushed enough that it dies and creates a mulch that continues to shade out weeds, but quickly decomposes and releases nutrients back into the soil for the corn to utilize. This practice has often eliminated the need for between-row cultivation passes. The next experiment is using mustard inter-seeded into soybeans!

I am always working to attain the most ecological low impact method of farming that works for me here. Cover crop intensive organic farming isn’t only great for regenerating our soil, but also makes organic farming a little easier, more profitable in the long run, and perhaps more popular.