Will Fulwider 0:00
Welcome to field notes. Today we’re talking to Jake Kaderly of Kaderly Ag, he crop consults in the Green County area, and we’re going to be talking about the economics of conservation agriculture. And Jake’s run a bunch of numbers on here he’s here to talk with us about some some of those numbers and what that looks like from an economics perspective.

So welcome Jake. Thanks for spending some time with us.

Jake Kaderly 0:35
Morning, guys. Morning.

Michael Geissinger 0:37
Hey, Jake. So as far as just getting started here, how about we start by talking about what kind of things come to mind when you think about conservation economics as a buzzword or in the context of your farm, what does conservation economics mean?

Jake Kaderly 0:57
Well, fellas, I’m I’m thinking that conservation economics is just comparing the no till cover crop system to the standard tillage system that’s on about two thirds of the land that’s out there. And there’s a lot of advantages to being in a no till cover crop system versus, let’s just call it the old way of farming, because one and I had this little light went on one day. And when you talk to farmers, they always say, I want to make my farm better than it was, you know, before, so that the next generation has a better farm, the farm than I did. Well, you can’t make your farm better if you have erosion, you’re losing soil faster than you’re replacing it. So the first priority has to be to keep the soil in place and then adding the cover crops just adds another layer to that system of keeping your soil in place and building it up so and in today’s world, we have to have yield to make profit. I mean, the other thing I always tell guys is, you take an empty truck to the elevator. They’re not going to pay anything for it. You got to haul grain to the elevator. So the more grain you produce, the more profitable you are. So if you can make your soil better, you’re going to be a more profitable farmer, and you’re going to make money at this that’s why we’re all doing it is to is to make a living. So,

Michael Geissinger 2:45
yeah, definitely. And as far as, like, measuring those things out into actual numbers, I know that you’ve done a little bit of work, like with a case study on your farm and things like that, but how do you assess the benefit of these different practices that you’re talking about.

Jake Kaderly 3:04
Well, I’ll just kind of go back, actually, the first I was thinking about this the other day, about my farm in old five, and I didn’t do any physical farming until 2014 that I actually bought equipment I was having it all done custom work. And if you’re paying for it, you know what it costs? I mean, you’re not saying, Oh, I got this tractor and I just drive it around. I mean, you’re writing the checkout for it every year. So I knew that no till, you know, was the least expensive way to farm. And so then when I started farming, I I bought a a 1968 I age 1256, that at the time, cost me $8,500 and I went and bought a corn planter for about the same money, and added some things to it. And basically I was farming with an old tractor and a corn planter, and that’s all I had. So if a young guy wants to start farming, that’s the way to do it. I mean, go buy an old tractor that’s pretty solid, and my corn planters a 1997 white, and it does a pretty good job, as long as you keep it up and keep it in good play, in good condition. And when we did the case study, they were using custom rates, you know, for the Midwest. Basically, I think they took Illinois, Iowa, Wisconsin, and kind of combined them to come up with, you know what, what dollars it cost to plant and harvest and all those things like that. So my numbers are probably actually lower than theirs because, you know, I don’t have. $100,000 planter. I have a $15,000 planter, you know, and I was pulling it with a with a $10,000 tractor. Well, now I’ve made enough money that I got one with a cabin air conditioning and so on. So it’s a little nicer to be out there. But the other thing I did starting, started farming that is probably different than most being I was agronomist. I I started investing in the soil fertility right away. You know, I was putting on extra fertilizer and doing things the piece of land I farm was in the family for a long time, but had been rented to my brother in law, he did a pretty good job with it, but it wasn’t grid sampled like I do. And we through grid sampling, I found a lot of holes to fill, and once I did that, then you know, my yields just continually keep going up. So,

Will Fulwider 6:04
yeah, yeah. I think it’s, I think it’s cool that, you know, because you started off with zero equipment, right, and you had to custom hire everything. You have those numbers as to what that you feel that a lot more tangibly, because that’s, you know, every time you’re writing a check, you know, for that tillage pass in the spring, or, you know, that field cultivating, or whatever it is, it’s like, okay, that’s a check. That’s a check. That’s a check. It’s not just, oh, well, you know, I’m just riding my tractor. And so that hits when it’s like, okay, springtime, I’m just going to plant, rather than run two passes of some form of tillage or field soil finishing. So I never thought about how custom work is that much more tangible from a conservation economics perspective, is it really brings, brings that number home to you? And but, yeah, I think I don’t know, Michael, should we? Should we dive into some of these numbers that you were you were talking about? Yeah,

Michael Geissinger 6:57
definitely. I mean, the clear one already is the savings on fuel cost, but we could definitely dive in to that more or any of the practices, or Jake, whatever you have most ready for us that you want to share.

Jake Kaderly 7:13
Well, just if you guys go to, you know, custom rates in Wisconsin and you’re going to see like a chisel plowing is $25 an acre, you know. And a finishing pass is 18 to $20 an acre, you know. So there’s, you know. Let’s see 2040 you know, $43 an acre with no tillage. That’s an advantage for a no till guy right now that we’re at a box, not to, not to even talk about the soil savings and in the erosion effects of tillage and the effects on the soil, it’s just there’s $43 that I don’t have to spend. And when I was looking at that, I’m like, instead of spending money on tillage, I’m going to spend money on fertilizer and lime and those things that my soil needs, and shift that money over there because it needs it, and so I can just take those dollars away and put it over into the fertility side.

Michael Geissinger 8:25
On that note, I’ve heard a lot of people that are still doing, you know, the two tillage passes and things like that, that there’s a yield advantage to doing that that pays for itself. And I realized maybe that’s even clear right now with how low corn is that maybe that isn’t the case. But have you seen that there’s any yield advantage to that more conventional system compared to your system? Or how do those numbers shake out for your farm?

Jake Kaderly 8:56
I’ve actually been in the corn growers, National Corn Growers, several times. And one year, I took a look at the whole country’s, you know, yields, let’s say I looked at Wisconsin. I think I looked at Wisconsin, Minnesota, Iowa, Illinois, you know, the Indiana and I states, and that the no till division actually out yielded the conventional division. So when people I say that that, oh, tillage yields more than no till, not in a high yield environment, it doesn’t so as an agronomist, when, when I see things go wrong with no till, it’s they don’t have the fertility in place, so the no tillage will actually amplify those deficiencies. And then they’re they’re seeing that their crops aren’t as good. So it’s more of a fertility thing than it is a tillage thing. The other thing. Okay. The other thing about no till is it takes about two to three years for the soil to adjust that you got to stick with it. You can’t just go, oh, one year I’m going to till, and the next year I’m going to no till.

Will Fulwider 10:16
Makes total sense. I’m going to stick with it’s a bit of a transition for Go ahead.

Jake Kaderly 10:20
say really, three to five years to see the soil mellow out and change and become used to not being tilled, because the biology’s got to come back. And the other thing I tell guys, if you’re a worm and you come along with the tillage and you destroy my house and bury my food every year? Am I going to have a big family? No, you’re not, because I don’t have a place to live and I don’t have anything to eat. So once that residue comes up on top and they’ve got food to live in, and you’re not destroying the burrows. They really take off and and change the soil profile immensely.

Will Fulwider 11:08
We’ve talked a little bit about no till and how it’s a paring down, right? You’re getting rid of some of these elements that used to have to pay for your, you know, your different passes across the field. I’m just going to, I kind of want to transition to cover crops, because that’s something that you’re adding into your system, right? Rather than taking away passes, you’re adding in a passive planting, another crop, crop, right, in quotation marks, that you’re not going to harvest. And so I wonder, do you, when you think about the economics of cover crops, what does that look like to you? Because it’s something that you are adding into your system that you’re paying for. I’m wondering, how does that pay off when you work with either your clients or on your own farm?

Jake Kaderly 11:47
Pays off in a lot of ways. The Hill we’re rolling around here, four to 8% are my soils, and I’ve got customer that’s got even steeper ground than that. So one is the big erosion savings there. And like said, if you can throw a lot of numbers that erosion, and that’s hard to do, but I, I’ve seen a guy just go down and price black dirt to be hauled in and put that on, and the tons that you’re losing, and you can, you can add up some dollars in a big way, in a real hurry, that way, two, you’re feeding the biology of the soil. You’re keeping a living root in the ground. People don’t realize this, but, and I didn’t either till about 10 years ago, that plants, you know, they photosynthesize and make carbohydrates, but they also leak that carbohydrate back into the soil and feed the biology. So by having a crop there, when you don’t, you know, in that early spring, you’re collecting the energy from the sun, and you’re adding back carbon. And we’ve been talking, you know, there’s a lot of things going on with the carbon market right now. You’re adding carbon back into the system, which also did that one day. I said, What is carbon? Well, 1/3 of carbon is carbohydrate, which is sugar. So the soil system runs on sugar, just like we do. I mean, if we’re kind of running down, we grab a soda and drink it and we pep back up. So those bugs in the ground, they need carbohydrates and sugar too, so that’s what’s feeding them. So you’re heading to that system now, because I test every other year, I went back now six years and looked at my organic matter, and that’s what I’d see. I started doing cover crops in 2018 and I’ve added a half a percent of organic matter to my soil in six years. Well, one, you can’t do that if it’s eroding away. And two, you can’t do that if you’re not growing the cover crop to add into the soil. So there’s a lot of benefits there, in that you’re growing something that is beneficial to the soil. And another thing you, I don’t know if anybody’s ever noticed this, but if you, if you do tillage and make the soil bare, what does Mother Nature try to do? She tries to make something grow generally it’s weeds. So it’s much better to have a good crop growing there than than weeds. So even in a no till system, I’ve seen a lot of chickweed and and things like that come in because mother nature wants that ground to. Be covered. So I actually had a guy call me up and ask if he could have chickweed for a cover crop.

Will Fulwider 15:06
That’s easier. You don’t have to plant it. It just comes in.

Jake Kaderly 15:10
Yeah, he said I got an actual cover crop.

Michael Geissinger 15:12
Jake, do you grow much for? I’m not sure what your crop rotation, if it’s just corn, soybeans, or if you do anything with small grains or anything else, but have you, or like, worked with your clients, or anything like that on any like legumes like that, or something that’s putting nitrogen back in the ground?

Jake Kaderly 15:35
Okay, so I do corn, soybeans and wheat, I’d like to get in that I have a third, a third, a third, because of my contour strips and so on. I haven’t quite got that just tweaked yet, but after we I put in a six way cover crop mix and that I’ve been doing for, oh, probably 10 or 12 years, and I played with that mix a lot through the years, and I’ve kind of come up with this now. I run after wheat. Now, usually try to get it in. You know, last week of July, 1 week of August, I run 12 pounds of peas and oats, six pounds of sorghum Sudan, three pounds of hairy vetch, three pounds of red clover and three pounds of radishes. And then when the corn follows that cover crop versus following soybeans, except for last year, when it was extremely dry and the cover crop took a bunch of moisture, there’s a 20 bushel yield bump versus following beans. And then, you know, if you go to corn on corn, there’s another penalty, probably of another 10 or 15 bushel. So I’ve actually hit 300 bushel corn on that following that wheat crop. And I was on the combine, and I’m just like, I It’s custom harvested, and I was riding with him, and I’m like, Holy cats, this thing’s going, you know, 310 323, 25 back to 310 and then, yep, it’s consistently 300 bushel corn. So corn likes to and there’s something about radishes, and I’ve done a little research about that too. I have some nematode issues on top of my hills, because that was prairie back, you know, before it was farmed. And there’s some grass nematodes in there, and radishes seem to beat up nematodes. And once I got the radishes in those fields, then, then the yields jumped some more so, and actually discovered them following the yield monitor on the core, on the combine, we’re jumping around like 50 bushel. And I’m like, why are we going from 175, to 225, and I figured out it was did some testing then, and it was nematodes, and you can’t the only way to find them is to test them, because you can’t see them. And a lot of times you can’t even see the damage you’re doing unless you’re digging corn really consistently. And I found most guys don’t like working with a shovel. It’s

Will Fulwider 18:40
an important tool, actually, yeah, very important tool. Turns out, yeah, um, when you follow that mix that you put after wheat with corn, are you pulling back on your nitrogen at all, or is it? Are you just seeing that as an additional source of nitrogen for you?

Jake Kaderly 18:57
I’m just going to take the extra yield. But we did do some testing here last fall, and it didn’t really grow real good last fall, but we’re, we’re making about 80-85, pounds of N out of that mix in the fall, and we didn’t test it in the spring, because you got some more legume growth, you know, with the red clover and the hairy vetch, seems to come through too. So we’ll make some more in with that. So that’s probably why I’m getting that extra 20 bushel. There’s some more nitrogen here,

Michael Geissinger 19:35
yeah. So we’re talking about the cost too. And so we know there’s the cost of like tillage, obviously. But have you found, I mean, there’s all sorts of different ways that people are seeding cover crops. Have you found one economically makes more sense than another? Maybe that works best on your farm or your area.

Jake Kaderly 20:01
So if you want to stand you gotta drill it. There’s guys been trying to fly things on and and do it, you know, in different ways, but it’s you gotta drill it. I got a John Deere no till drill. And it doesn’t disturb the soil a lot, but I do like it in the fall, it will go through the stocks and and it’s kind of almost does what a light vertical till would do, you know, but I’m planting seeds too when I’m going through the other thing, if you guys, if you’re going to be a no tiller, you’ve got to process your corn stalks. I’ve got caliber knife rolls in my corn head, and they cut up the stock in about one inch, two inch pieces. And once I did that, my problems with throwing chains on the corn planter and things plugging up in between those those headaches went away. So if you really want to do that and have smooth sailing, so to speak, you got to process those corn stocks, whether it’s a head that’s got knives underneath of it, or knife rolls, or whatever you want to do, you got to get them chopped up and underground so that the biology can start working on

Will Fulwider 21:28
one thing we talked about earlier a little bit, was how, you know, you kind of took the the money that you would have otherwise been putting towards custom, hiring, some tillage in the spring and put that towards your fertilizer bill and making sure that your soils were in a good way when you were doing no till. I’m just curious, you know you are a crop consultant. You’re intimately familiar with nutrient management plans, with your consultants as well. And I’m wondering, have you seen how having a nutrient management plan helps people to save money on on fertilizer, because it’s more kind of directed in a way like you mentioned, grid sampling and the importance of that, of filling the holes. I’m wondering, if you’ve seen when people have adopted a nutrient management plan, if it’s helped them financially in that way?

Jake Kaderly 22:15
Well, everybody knows fertilizer is expensive, so you’ve got to use it right, and you’ve got to put it where it needs to go. So grid sampling really helps with that. Something I see when I talk to people, the requirements for 590, or five acres per sample, well, you can’t make good recommendations on a five acre grid sample. It has to be at least two and a half’s. I’ve been running my own at twos. I sample every other year. So the year that I sample, I do variable rate spread, and then the next year I do a maintenance spread, and then back to a variable rate spread. What I’ve seen is, when I’ve got my soil to the optimal levels, you know, when every farm is the same, there’s good places and there’s poor places. So the poor places on the variable rate year don’t need as much fertilizer as the places that really, you know, can produce. So by doing that, I’m keeping my soil consistent. One of the things I found on my farm and most other farms too, is in the past, you know, the manure didn’t go very far away from the barn. People had open tractors, and they were basically getting rid of it. And so close to the buildings on my farm, the p test was 70 and the K test was 270 and at the other end of the field, the p test was seven and the K test was 70. So we know what differences that is. And so subsequently, the East End that was the low end got lots of fertilizer, and the West End that was high got no fertilizer. But we really weren’t spending that much more money than a maintenance spread, because all the fertilizers going at one end and not at the other. So that’s the field that actually did the corn growers. That’s actually the best soil on the farm. And I guess my highest yield I ran down there was 273 bushel that we did in the Corn Growers. But I’ve had some places that have yielded better than that, but they weren’t entered in the contest. I had it set up last year, and then it didn’t rain for me. So

Michael Geissinger 24:54
yeah, I was I was wondering, was there any other nutrient management stuff you wanted to. Discuss. Or maybe we could just talk a little bit like, how do you assign like dollar values to this? You know, we talked about the black dirt thing or whatever, and I think that’s a little bit simplified, maybe, and you might agree. But how do you assign dollar values to the value of like soil conservation and not losing your soil to erosion each year.

Jake Kaderly 25:26
Oh, well, that’s why we did this soil case study. Yeah, I guess the big thing is we should tell people how to access that. Yeah, definitely. That’s through American farmland. Trust and then go to soil health case studies. Mine is the only one from Wisconsin at this point. I didn’t look there’s actually they did quite a bit of them out west, like California and so on. But I’m going to dive into this a little bit. When we did this, she went back about to previous that. I went 100% no till. So we were but I was only doing tillage on about half the corn acres after, you know. So basically, at that point, my farm was probably two thirds no till and 1/3 tillage on an every other year basis. So in the increases in net income, partly because we changed rotation and adding the cover crops did reduce some fertilizer, because it’s adding back in and for this 150 acres that we put under this study, we’ve got an annual total increase net income of $27,000 and a decrease of about $9,200 so we added about 1617, yeah, about $18,000 of added income by doing no till and cover crops on 100% of the farm. So we could really dive into this and talk about it, but the best thing for them to do is access it and read it for themselves.

Michael Geissinger 27:52
Yeah, definitely. I will probably go ahead and try to link it into the description of this episode too, so people can that are following along. Can click that, but I just read it over the past few weeks, preparing for this too. And there’s a lot of great information in there. And it’s really cool to see what you guys have made work on your farm. And so,

Will Fulwider 28:14
yeah, I mean, I’m just looking at it. It’s interesting. The biggest increase is not actually from saved machinery costs, but it’s actually from your yielding increases due to due to no till, which I found really, really interesting. And I wonder how much that is also with your, you know, with your fertilizer approach, and that you’re sampling every other year, you know, you’re doing variable rate because you were doing no till, and that approach kind of simultaneously Correct, correct, yeah, yeah. And I said my favorite element of this is machinery cost savings from eliminating rock picking,

Jake Kaderly 28:54
fellas. That’s not funny, because the first piece of equipment I bought when I bought the farm was a rock picker, and I just sold rock picker, because I pretty much got them all picked up, but it was a haybuster rock Rockies, and one dump would feel like a pickup box and like eight foot picking box half full. So two dumps would be a full pickup box I picked probably at least 300 dumps of rock, wow, off the farm, and filled in every there was an old, little old pit there, and there was a ditch in the back. And I filled in lots of places with rock. And I don’t like picking rocks. And of course, rocks aren’t aren’t good for equipment or anything, so it’s just once you get them gone and once you start no tilling, that that’s the job that you don’t have to do anymore. I say that’s that’s the crap that never fails, and you don’t. Get paid for the rock crop,

Michael Geissinger 30:04
Just gonna say I was the rock picker where I grew up. Oh, you guys know about that. We all were at some point.

Jake Kaderly 30:13
get them by hand?

Michael Geissinger 30:15
Yeah, not…on smaller farms and stuff.

Will Fulwider 30:20
that’s why you kids, right? The kids are the rock pickers. Michael, you got any other questions for Jake?

Michael Geissinger 30:32
I think that’s all I’ve got, Jake, we really appreciate having you on and sharing your experience and expertise with us and agronomic wisdom. So

Jake Kaderly 30:42
I’m going to throw one more tidbit at you guys. Every farmer should be trying some new things, whatever they try, you know, make your farm a bit of an experiment somewhere. I actually got to go to we got a big dairy that was built that’s 5000 cows this winter, and tour the tour the facility. And I got in the back, we were looking at the manure system. Well, they got separated manure solids. And I asked them, what, what are they doing with those solids? And they go, Well, they’re anybody that wants them. Can have them, so, but you got to have the nutrient plan and so on to do it. So I’m I’m composting out 3000 ton of separated manure solids this summer. And once again, I’m hiring at hauled. I’m hiring it being turned with the compost turner, and then I’ll hire to be spread, and I’m seeing if that’s economical versus buying fertilizer. So I just read that phosphate was going up a little bit more. So I’m I’m hoping that that I can do manure for less money than I’m spending on fertilizer. So,

Will Fulwider 32:03
yeah, well, we’ll have to tune back in and a couple months a year or so and see, see what your numbers are like for that.

Jake Kaderly 32:08
Yeah, we’ll see how this comes about. I’m like, somebody’s got to try this. And yeah, it goes so absolutely

Will Fulwider 32:16
Well, Jake, thank you so much for joining us today. We really appreciate your time.

Jake Kaderly 32:22
Okay, guys, nice talking with you.

Will Fulwider 32:31
Thanks for listening. This has been field notes from UW Madison extension. My name is Will Fulwider, regional crops, educator for Dane and Dodge counties. And I was joined by my co host, Michael Geisinger, outreach specialist in Northwest Wisconsin for the nutrient and pest management program of UW Madison. A big thank you to Joe Ryan for creating our theme music, and to Abby Wilkymacky for our logo. If you have any questions about anything you’ve heard today or about your farming practices in general, reach out to the extension agriculture educators serving your region you.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai