Nate Ronsiek says he learned many conservation practices from his late father, Vince, while growing up on his family's century farm and while earning an agriculture degree at Kansas State University.
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For the past 12 years, Brian Hoffman has been farming with his dad, Keith, growing corn and soybeans near Laurens in Pocahontas County. On their 250 acres, Hoffman uses no-till on his soybeans and he strip-tills his corn. In 2012, Brian began using cereal rye cover crop on about half his acres. He is also a beekeeper and maintains six hives.
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Robert Pridie has 60 head of organic grass-fed cattle. Farming since 1981, Robert farms 300 acres for himself and 400 acres for his father. Most of his corn-soybean acres are under minimum tillage which he defines as one-pass field cultivation prior to planting. Robert has farmed for over 30 years and has been certified organic since 2003. In switching to organic, the greatest challenge was figuring out his income during the three years of transition.
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Bruce has been farming since 1993, renting the majority of the land he farms. He has been motivated to implement conservation practices because of the bottom line - it saves money. He is motivated by economics and improving water and soil quality are added benefits. Each year he has increased the number of acres that are no-tilled and he is hoping to get to 100 percent no-till soon.
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Joel and Linda Zwiefel are well-known in Northwest Iowa for their farming innovations. Located in rural Fenton, Palo Alto County, they strip-tilled continuous corn for over 10 years. They have seen increased yields, better water infiltration and reduced soil erosion with strip-till. Recently Joel switched to vertical tillage to coordinate with his planter. Joel says that the "vertical tillage tool works 1-1/2 inches maximum into soil depth to prepare for planting."
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Tom Wagner is a farmer in rural Primghar, O’Brien County. Tom and his brother, Jim, grow corn and soybeans, and have a hog finishing operation. Tom and his family have always been conservation-minded. He believes agriculture is our nation’s greatest asset and that our soil is farming’s top resource. “My brother, Jim, and I want our farm to be productive for years to come and resource conservation will do that.”
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Mark Ingwersen, Spirit Lake, has been a Soil and Water Conservation District Commissioner for over 25 years for Dickinson County. He has served the Conservation Districts of Iowa as state vice president in the past. He is a farmer living near the Iowa Great Lakes, which allows him to approach water and soil quality from three different aspects.
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Paul Kassel farms in Clay County and was an ISU Extension Field Agronomist in Northwest Iowa for many years before retiring in 2021. Living just 20 miles from the farm where he grew up, his father, a Soil and Water District Commissioner, instilled Paul’s conservation ethic early. Paul added to his conservation education and attended Iowa State University, where he received his undergraduate and master’s degree in agronomy. Today on the farm, Paul grows corn and no-till soybeans, putting a cover crop on in the fall to overwinter.
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The Smeltzer Farm, located southeast of Fort Dodge, is a multi-faceted farm containing almost every conservation structure and practice. From streambank stabilization to terraces, grassed waterways, a bioreactor, saturated buffer, restored oxbow, and farming practice demonstrations including no-till, strip-till and cover crops, the Smeltzer farm serves as a learning tool for farmers. Visitors can come out to see how things are implemented, how the crops are growing and can get pointers from the members of the Smeltzer advisory board. The county naturalist, NRCS conservationist and ISU Extension specialists all work together to make this farm successful.
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Dan uses vertical tillage on his corn and soybean acres and also no-till on his corn-on-corn acres. He went to vertical tillage to deal with the high amounts of residue on his land. He has worked with Iowa State University on a number of research projects, and is one of the first farmer partners with Iowa Learning Farms.
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Located near Clutier in Tama County, Mark Pokorny began hosting a demonstration site in Fall 2009 for the ILF/PFI cover crop working group. “I was interested in trying a winter rye cover crop for the erosion benefits over winter and in early spring,” Mark said. “I had not considered the nutrient capture, organic matter increases and reduced weed pressure benefits that I saw in 2011.” This past harvest, Pokorny reported higher soybean yield following the cover crop and also saw reduced common waterhemp and lambsquarter weed pressure.
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Brian Sampson and his wife Deb raise corn and soybeans as well as operate a cattle feedlot in rural Story County. In 2016, Iowa Learning Farms approached Brian to be a part of a new Conservation Learning Labs (CLL) project that is studying changes in nitrogen and phosphorus loss at the delivery scale.
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