By Jason Johnson
For more than 40 years Ray Gaesser has farmed some of the best soils in Adams County, Iowa. His mid-80s Corn Suitability Rating (CSR) – an index for measuring row crop productivity – far exceeds the county average of 62. His faith and responsibility to future generations are motivating factors for not only maintaining his cropland but improving it with healthy soil management.
Gaesser and his wife, Elaine, moved to Iowa from Indiana in 1978, purchasing a 300-acre farm between Lenox and Corning in southwest Iowa. “We wanted opportunities and a place to farm,” he said. “Back then, the sign entering Iowa said, ‘A Place to Grow’ and later became ‘Fields of Opportunities.’ We found both here.”
In the 1980s Gaesser began expanding his operation by purchasing and renting land from his neighbors. Today, he farms about 4,000 acres alongside his son, Chris.
Through the years, Gaesser’s conservation focus has evolved from reducing soil erosion to improving soil health – with his faith and responsibility to future generations as motivation. “We have a responsibility to care for what we’ve been blessed with here – not only to the earth but to future generations. That’s what we believe in.”
Gaesser was an early adopter of no-till farming and installed grassed waterways and terraces for erosion protection. “We have 30-40 inches of topsoil in some places,” he said. “We want to protect that. What drives us is we want the land to be as good or better than when we took it over.”
A Mindset Change
After a one-hour four-inch rain in May 2008, Gaesser began to ponder other ways to protect his soil and crop residue. “Chris and I were in the house that day and watched our terraces top over from one to the next to the next,” he said. “I had never seen that before. We thought we were doing a wonderful job protecting the soil.”
Following several more years of extreme, damaging rainfalls on his farm Gaesser decided to try cover crops for extra protection. “When you have a four-inch rain with no-till, the residue floats away,” he said. “We didn’t lose a lot of soil from those heavy rains, but we lost our surface protection.”
Gaesser annually increased his cover crop acres from 200 to over 3,000 by 2017. Some Iowa farmers struggle to establish cover crops or even claim a hit to crop yields. He says you must have the mindset that you’re going to find a way to make it work. “We learned by doing,” he said. “We tried to drill everything at first but found there was too much wear and tear on equipment.”
For the past eight years the Gaessers have used a high clearance spreader to apply a cereal rye cover crop before soybean harvest and after corn harvest. “We don’t want it to sod – just a nice cover,” he said. “We want adequate roots to provide microbes and other biological activity in the soil.”
Cover Crop Benefits
Gaesser says the benefits cereal rye provide have far exceeded his expectations. “We haven’t taken a yield hit, our soil health is like we’ve never seen before, water infiltration has improved, and we leave no tracks in the field anymore,” he said.
The results have been so dramatic that Missy Johnson, district conservationist in Adams County for USDA’s Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS), utilizes Gaesser Farms for soil health field days. “You can tell when you walk on Ray’s fields the difference in the soil – it’s spongy,” she said. “Fields that are tilled in Adams County are much harder to walk on.”
Johnson says water infiltration on Gaesser Farms is amazing. “Water infiltration tests show Ray’s fields can absorb an inch of water in two to three seconds. Comparable fields with a history of tillage take seven to eight minutes to absorb that much water,” she says. “This tells us that the soil health improvements the Gaessers are making are helping to not only reduce soil erosion, but also reduce flooding and ponding.”
Within a few years of using cover crops, Gaesser says he also noticed improved weed suppression. “Cover crops have allowed us to eliminate an herbicide application on soybeans,” he said. “Just that savings covers all our cover crop expenses – the way we do it.”
Thousands of cover crop acres are also providing fall feed for cattle. Gaesser allows five neighbors to graze livestock in the fall. This year, about 250 cows grazed his cropland. “I figure I am saving my neighbors about 300 hay bales in a months’ time,” he said. “That’s $30,000 saved at $100 a bale.”
Cereal Rye Production
The Gaessers rest about 300 row crop acres annually and grow cereal rye for seed there instead. They harvest seed for their own cover crop use and sell some to other local producers.
Gaesser supplies the remaining rye to Revelton Distillery in Osceola, Iowa. “It’s fun to grow an additional crop to add a little diversity,” he said. “They [Revelton] had been getting their rye from Kentucky but wanted to get it locally sourced.”
The 70-year-old Gaesser is now semi-retired. Chris has slowly bought into the farm and will eventually take over full-time. “I feel good about what we’ve done here and for our future,” he said.
Gaesser admits every year is different, but he continues to adapt and adopt practices. “I think smart agriculture is using all the conservation practices that are proven successful, along with all the latest technology, to grow more and use less resources and protect the environment,” he said.
Source : usda.gov