Our zero tillage system for cereals, silage grains and forages fits in nicely with our livestock operation needs.

Our cattle operation consists of 300 head breeding cows and a back-grounding/finishing feedlot for 1000 head.

We try to stick to a four-year crop rotation consisting of cereal, pulse, cereal, and oilseed. With this approach, we will use the cereal years to grow some of the feed we need for the cattle. We will grow barley for grain (malt or feed) or for silage and corn also for silage.

If we have a field of cereal that is particularly weed infested, rather than spend money on expensive chemicals to control them, we simply decide to silage that field to clean up the weeds, seeds and all. Silaging of cereals starts at the soft dough stage, so all seeds go into the silage pile, none have matured enough to shell out on the ground.

Alfalfa is also used in our cropping rotation. Originally we planned to seed alfalfa/grass into cereal stubble, take hay or silage off these fields for 4 to 5 years and then seed back to a cereal again. This plan got side tracked, as our cowherd increased. We fenced and cross-fenced these fields to intensively graze cow/calf pairs. In years of abundant moisture we can also silage some of these paddocks if the cows can’t keep up. Silaging alfalfa allows us to put up a better quality feed because we don’t have to wait for the crop to dry down after cutting. Simply start the silaging at 60% moisture.

We have also been growing some timothy grass on a few acres, which we cut and bale and sell to PMU horse owners. This helps to diversify our operation.

In 1999 we seeded a 10-acre plot of Nitro Annual Alfalfa in partnership with MB Agriculture. The plan was to seed it in the spring and take as many cuts from it as possible, then it would winter kill. 1999 was very wet so the plot didn’t get seeded until June 2. The alfalfa germinated and emerged quickly and we did get 2 cuts from that years growth. The winter of 99/00 was warmer than normal with little snow. The plot started to green up early that next spring and we proceeded to get 3 cuts of approximately 3 to 4 tons per acre per cut. Since then we have taken 3 cuts per year, every year with no inputs no sign of winter- kill. We haven’t the heart to kill it with glysophate, since it makes us more money than any other 10 acres on the farm.

Our cattle feedlot and wintering area is 3 miles from our home yard and cropland. All of the land close to the cattle yard has been seeded to pasture mixes and fenced. This poses a problem with manure handling. Rather than pay to have the manure hauled 3 miles to the fields, we have been stockpiling it for 1 year and then spreading it onto improved pastureland. This land is pasture that has become too rough due to moles, gophers and badgers. We will tandem disc (I know that’s a bad word) this field in the spring or fall, spread our partly composted manure and then grow an annual grass such as rye, triticale or millet which we graze in the summer or swath graze in early winter depending on pasture growing conditions. These fields will have this done for 3-4 years or until smooth again. Then we will reseed to a pasture mix and proceed to rotate to another part of the pasture. This allows us to rejuvenate the pastures, get rid of our manure and also have some control of rodents. I t also allows us to have higher stocking rates on these acres.

The newly seeded pasture will be allowed to grow the first year, with any production being swathed and chopped for silage. This again helps to eliminate weed seeds and eliminate crop competition thus creating a thicker stand the following year.

The spring of 2002 saw us return to growing corn for silage after about a 15-year break. We have an older JD planter on 36 inch row spacing designed to seed into tilled ground. The spring was so dry, that we were concerned about tilling the soil, for fear of too much moisture loss. We applied liquid fertilizer with our Seed Hawk air seeder on 12 inch spacing, and then tried to seed directly into that ground. With the seed boxes full of seed the down pressure was enough to place the seed 1 inch deep. But as the boxes emptied seed placement suffered. After about 40 acres we decided to cultivate and harrow ahead of the planter. This placed the seed approximately 2 inches into warmer soil and still into moisture.

The corn stand on the cultivated part of the field was considerably better and yielded more tonnage with less weed pressure. With the equipment we have right now, tilling the ground scheduled for corn seems to be the way to go. If there had been a good rain right after planting, then the zero tilled corn probably would have been fine.