Arlo: We’ve always had an interest in trying to leave our land in a little better shape than what we found it. I think we were really early on in the 70s to give up the moldboard plow and started then on corn stocks that were not getting plowed [undered 00:00:24] and had an interest in the strip-till. Then Iowa Soybean Association came around and helped us look at the economic side of it and which we knew was going on, and yet just verified what we were saving from across the fields and opportunities that we had to improve on that.
Arliss: I’ve had the question asked of me many times now. How did I get started no-tilling? My son and I, we farmed traditionally and we worked our ground and we worked the bean ground and we always said to each other, “Why don’t we just skip that? Why don’t we just plant into that?” We’re to the place now where we have a lot of … We got 5 years of no-tilling.
Arlo: I’ve been at this about 50 years and now I’m get to be the loafer, and it’s worked out very well for us. Jim has taken on a lot of responsibilities and we no longer have to run the field cultivator ahead and so a lot of our planting is a 1 man operation. It’s just cut down our fuel costs as well as our labor.
Arliss: There are a lot of nutrients in this soil that are not available to our plants. We have to have some kind of a system that makes those available. That’s primarily what cover crops will do. I expect to use less fertilizer because of that fact, that we’re going to turn some of these nutrients loose. Instead of putting on more fertilizer and more fertilizer, maybe we could improve the structure of the soil so that the fertilizer that is there can become more available.
Arlo: Then the other thing we’ve noticed now after a few years is that our ground, it just, even in the fall when you waiting for the combine to get filled up, or come back around, walk out in that field, the ground just feels different.
Arliss: Being a member of the Iowa Soybean Association is kind of the trigger that made me do this, and of course, like I said before, I knew they were on the up-and-up because they were helping the corn farmers too. Practicing good stewardship is going to improve your bottom line, sooner or later. You have to have a little confidence that’s going to happen but it is.