Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture

Director: Taking note of the soil

Back to Leopold Letter Fall 2012

By MARK RASMUSSEN, Director

Husbandry:  The act or practice of cultivating crops and raising livestock; careful management or conservation of resources 

In my travels across Iowa this summer, I had a chance to log a lot of gravel road miles.  It gave me the opportunity to observe crop conditions as the drought wore on week after week.  Being from Nebraska and having experience with dryland agriculture further west, this summer brought back many memories about farming where rain is most always in short supply.

I thought about how different this may seem in those parts of Iowa where “normal” usually means dealing with too much water and underground drainage tiles are common.  But after a summer like this, I suspect many Iowans may have a different perspective as they watched their crops with a worried eye, seeing the soil dry out and crack open like a wound.

In my travels, I also noted the wildly different conditions of crops from valley to valley, field to field and even on different slopes and locations within a field. Why should one part of a corn field curl up tight at midday, compared to corn in another part of the same field? There are, of course, many factors at work that help explain these differences in crop condition.  Crop varieties, cropping history, planting times and erratic rainfall were all part of the mix. Varying rainfall is especially frustrating to experience but typical of a prolonged drought, when your neighbor gets rain while your farm remains dry.

But the story goes deeper than just these factors. We all know that soil type and soil husbandry influence crop growth and yield. “Husbandry” may seem like a term from a bygone era, but I can assure you that taking proper care of our soil is a contemporary concept that proved to be extremely relevant in a growing season like we experienced in 2012.

It’s important if not essential to “make every raindrop count” during years of scant rainfall and heat stress. Farming practices that accumulate organic matter in the soil to improve soil tilth, promote infiltration of water, minimize compaction and limit runoff make a huge difference. As it was stated to me this summer: “When we have soils that cannot handle an inch of gentle rain without runoff, we have a problem.”  I am confident that some of the differences in crop conditions I observed this past summer, and that may ultimately show up in yield increases at harvest, can be attributed to soil husbandry and farming practices.

As we bring in this year’s harvest and make plans for next year, we need to remember the soil and what it taught us this year. Soil husbandry matters and it should be part of everyone’s portfolio of best farming practices. We do not yet know if next year will be wet or dry, but the 2012 season was a lesson for all. No matter what the weather, healthy soils are an asset for all Iowans. Proper care of the land and healthy soil yield dividends, even when favorable weather does not make widely varying crop conditions obvious to the neighbors as they drive by on a gravel road.

Back to Leopold Letter Fall 2012