By Norma Dittman
Fulda Free Press staff writer
A Soil Health Partnership (SHP) Field Day was held at the Bryan Biegler home near Lake Wilson on Tuesday August 29th. The event was hosted by Bryan and Lauren Biegler and Jason and Melanie VanderSchaaf of AG VS, Inc.
Under discussion were the topics of soil health, cover crops, strip-tilling, accompanied by cover crop plot tours, and equipment demonstrations.
At the Biegler farm, Bryan had planted a number of test plots to demonstrate cover crops, using them as research plots to identify the value of the cover crop mixtures. One mix was turnips, vetch, flax and radish. Another was radish, vetch, flax, clover, oats, sunn hemp, and peas, while yet another was Berseem clover, Camelina, and forage collards.
Biegler has been using conservative farming methods and cover crops for the past four years, improving the health of the soil each year.
“Healthy soil is more resistant to extreme weather, and provides water and air quality benefits,” Jacob Ness stated. Ness is the Soil Health Partner field manager who works directly with Biegler. He continued, “Our farmer-partners are innovators and pioneers, and make our best teachers for sharing good soil health practices with their peers.”
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