Greetings from the farm! We have been enjoying the beauty of this season, and we hope you have too! I wanted to take a few minutes to share with you about our continued stewardship of the land we have been entrusted with.
This time of year we are not only harvesting our corn and soybeans for nutritious feed for our animals in the coming year, but also planting cover crop seeds to care for our soil and water in a sustainable fashion. Cover crops can be a variety of grains, brassicas and legumes that are planted in the fall and will grow until dormancy this winter. They are beneficial by reducing soil erosion, stabilizing nutrients in the soil, feeding important soil microbes year round, and improving soil water holding capacity and reducing compaction for growing crops. Planting cover crops takes extra time and resources, but many good things do.
This particular picture is of forage turnip seeds I aerial seeded over a small patch of soybeans near our pastures. As the soybeans drop their leaves, they will mulch the seeds and with a little rain the turnips will begin growing even before we harvest the soybeans. Later into the fall our cows and sheep will have the opportunity to graze them. All the while improving our soils for future generations!
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