Eastern Iowa Farmer Spring 2017

managing your soil
eastern iowa farmer photo / brooke taylor
no-till.”
“Yep,” Jeff said, pointing to a wriggling
worm. “We let those little suckers do the
work.”
Healthy soil ecosystems depend on
worms, plant residue, dead and living
plant roots, ants and other insects, snails,
fungi and other microorganisms that build
structure through their chemical and biological
interactions. The more protected
the ground is by crop residue left when a
farmer doesn’t till a field after harvest, the
better the water infiltration and the protection
and growth of organic matter, as well
as less erosion.
That evidence sums up the Turnis brothers’
reasons for modifying their planting
practices to include no-till corn-on-corn.
According to the NRCS, the negative
impact of harvesting crop residue is greater
if the crop rotation includes low-residue
crops such as soybeans. Switching from
a corn-soybean rotation to a continuous
corn, corn-corn-soybean or corn-soybeanwheat
rotation would somewhat offset the
impact of removing crop residues.
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Vicker’s Ag Service - Matt Vickers
(563) 659-1465 • vickersag@iowatelecom.net
spring 2017 | Eastern Iowa Farmer 73