Door-KewauneeDemo Farm Network Year 3 Annual Report

What’s Inside

About the Demonstration Farms

Farm summaries from 2019/Year Three

Goals for 2020

Field Day and Tour Highlights

Photo provided by Augustian Farms LLC

The Door-Kewaunee Watershed Farm Network, a collaboration between USDA-Natural Resources Conservation Service, the Wisconsin Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection, and Peninsula Pride Farms, was formed in 2017 to show how different conservation practices can be used to protect surface and groundwater in Northeastern Wisconsin.

The four demonstration farms, Augustian Farms LLC, Brey Cycle Farm LLC, Deer Run Dairy LLC and Kinnard Farms, implement a variety of conservation practices to demonstrate the effectiveness of those practices in reducing soil erosion and nutrient runoff specifically for areas that contend with shallow, fractured bedrock. All of the farms focus on increasing organic matter and soil health.

2019 recap:• The weather brought a very challenging year but all

farms found that fields with no-till and cover cropswere more resilient than conventional fields: easierto get on the fields, easier to harvest, easier to plantcover crops

• All of the farms demonstrated “planting green” thisyear meaning no-till planting directly into livingcover crops and terminating the cover crop postplanting.

• On two of the farms, the Discovery Farms Programinstalled surface water monitoring in 2019 and thefarms are continuing to be monitored to quantifybenefits of conservation practices that are installedon cropland.

• Increased precipitation brought new manurechallenges involving land application and a need toget the water out of manure.

• Interseeding cover crops, double cropping covercrops for forage (winter rye) with corn silageand vegetable crops, planting green and lowdisturbance manure applications were the biggestsuccesses this year.

• 2020 Advisory Team Meeting will be held in Marchto get feedback from industry and agency partners.

Contact usBarry Bubolz, USDA NRCS, (920) 360-0627Nick Guilette, Ebert Enterprises, LLC, (920) 304-6293 Nathen Nysse, Tilth Agronomy Group, (920) 858-5756

Door-Kewaunee Demonstration Farm Network Overview of different practices being tried:

• Applying manure on growing crops• Interseeding cover crops into corn• Multi-species cover crops• Utilizing low disturbance manure applications• Planting green with no-till• Using a bioreactor system to reduce nitrogen loss

through tile with USGS monitoring• Companion cropping• Alternative forage crops• 60” row corn

Kinnard Farms

• Planted 793 acres of cover crops.• Took advantage of prevent plant with fall seeded alfalfa.• Converted to winter rye over triticale for forage and winter

hardiness benefits.• Focused on incorporating a manure dewatering system• Added a digester to process the manure and remove

natural gas.• Continued to use a denitrifying bioreactor using

woodchips to reduce nitrogen runoff was installed withUSGS monitoring.

Plan and goals for 2020:

• Monitoring will continue on bioreactor/bark bed filter withUSGS.

• Continue investigating dewatering technologies.• Continue experimenting with cover crops on fields with

straw production (barley and oats).• Side-dressing manure on growing corn.• Continue experimenting with alternative forages like

sorghum sudan grass.

Lesson learned:

• Cover crops and conservation require continuous planningand 100% commitment on tough years like 2019. Withcovers crops, the soil loss was decreased, inputs werereduced, and the fields were in better shape for the 2020growing season.

Augustian Farms

• Used the Schuitemaker low-disturbance applicator- made a huge difference in decreasing disturbancecompared to surface application.

• Increased interseeding using four-species mix(ryegrass, crimson clover, red clover and tillage radish)into corn at the v4 and v5 stage of development.Following seeding, the farm spins on urea andcultivates.

• Over 450 Acres of cover crops were planted, with manyof the acres being planted late due to the delayedharvest this year.

• Planting green was very successful with planting corninto growing rye. They found no yield drag.

Plan and goals for 2020

• Would like to custom fabricate an old grain drill forinterseeding into standing corn.

• Continue use of Schuitemaker on all rye ground.• Would like to install system for irrigating leachate

water.• Interested in adding a dewatering system.

Lesson learned:

No-tilling corn can occur into growing rye successfully, but nitrogen management needs to be adjusted depending on the maturity of the rye. The no-till/cover crops fields yielded similarly to conventional fields, however harvest conditions were superior to conventional fields, especially with the damage that occurred on conventionally tilled fields this year.

Deer Run Dairy

• Planting green was a great success.• Companion cropped with faba beans and red

clover.• Noticed huge difference on no-till vs conventional

tilled fields for rutting and compaction• Governor Evers visited to learn more about the

work on the DK Demo Farms and Peninsula PrideFarms.

• Continued to participate in the Nitrogen UseEfficiency study with UW Discovery Farms.

Farm overviews for project year 3

Plan and goals for 2020:

• Will try no-till alfalfa into corn next year.• More interseeding into corn, looking at other species,

maybe a long day soybean and clover together.Beans and clover will be planted first with corn to beplanted immediately after to reduce impact to cornpopulation.

• Will try composting project again.

Lesson learned:

No-tilling corn can occur into growing rye successfully, but nitrogen management needs to be adjusted depending on the maturity of the rye. The no-till/cover crops fields yielded similarly to conventional fields, however harvest conditions were superior to conventional fields, especially with the damage that occurred on conventionally tilled fields this year.

Brey Cycle Farms

Highlights:• Found that with no-till corn planting there was less

soil compaction and the fields carried machinerybetter.

• Found success with multispecies cover crops (oats,triticale, clover, radish and red clover) following winterwheat, which makes a great place to apply nutrientsand grow a forage crop.

• Used sorghum sudan forages in combination withlow disturbance manure application using Bazookaapplicator (rented from Outagamie County LandConservation Department).

• Using winter wheat and triticale saved on soil lossand erosion. This method also reduced the cost ofestablishing the cover crop.

• Planted 450 acres of cover crops for 2019.• Planted multiple crops with a no till drill that the farm

purchased in 2018 in response to the demo farms anddiscussions held with the other farms.

• The farm planted green into living covers on limitedacres on the home farm and found success. They willcontinue this in 2020.

Plan and goals for 2020• They are going to apply a diverse cover crop on fields

with less than 2ft of soil over bedrock after takingwheat off. The goal is to build organic matter andincrease the nutrient holding capacity of these soils.This will lead to better water holding capacity andultimately better crops that can tolerate stress likedrought.

• Continue soil health demonstrations.• Continue no-till and cover crops on 600 acres.• Will plant green again in 2020.• Will try companion cropping again.• Conduct outreach to neighboring farms by hosting a

family field day in 2020.

Lessons LearnedBrey Cycle farms found several successes for the 2019 year despite the wet weather. No-till allowed field operations to occur earlier and with less ruts than the conventional field system. Sorghum cover crops provide forage and an alternative time to haul nutrients (manure) to fields. This is also a huge benefit to the environment in that we are applying nutrients when the soil is dry. This means less manure to haul during the spring and fall time of the year. The goal for the Brey Cycle family was to have manure hauled out before December and this was possible because of the forage cover crop options that they used.

Farm overviews continuedFestival of Nature: May 24, 2019For the second year, Brey Cycle Farm hosted the only farm tour for the Festival of Nature, which is an annual event hosted by The Ridges Sanctuary in Door County and offers a variety of nature-focused field trips. This was a unique opportunity to engage with an audience that has had limited exposure to agriculture and the conservation practices being implemented by the Brey family and our Demo Farm Network. Guests learned about soil health and the importance of cover crops and no-till practices. The tour consisted of the NRCS rainfall simulator demonstration, a wagon tour to a no-till field with cover crops, and excellent conversation on why these practices are important for soil health and water quality. Additionally, the participants learned about the practices the Breys have put in place to keep the cows and calves healthy and happy.

Brey Field Day: September 17, 2019Brey’s hosted a fall field day that featured three various cover crop plantings and the soil health benefits that these cover crops are providing the farm. The day concluded with a demonstration of Outagamie County’s low-disturbance manure injector. Attendees had the opportunity to see first-hand the benefits that this piece of equipment offers for farms looking to adopt conservation practices, while still utilizing manure. Additionally, they were able to learn about opportunities for equipment rental that are available in northeast Wisconsin.

Outreach materials generated Two videos were created on Cover Cover Crops in Door County, profiling the Brey Cycle Farm and on Low-Disturbance Manure Injection which can be found on our Facebook page.

Fall Success StoriesVideos were also created featuring the success stories from two Door-Kewaunee Demo Farms (Kinnard Farms and Deer Run Dairy). Barry Bubolz, Nathen Nysse, and Nick Guilette discussed various topics including sorghum sudangrass as an alternative forage, no-till and cover crop strip trials at Kinnard Farms (still waiting to complete), and improved trafficability during harvest at Deer Run Dairy.

Beneficial Insect Monitoring ProjectThe Demo Network partnered with UW-Green Bay and US Fish & Wildlife Service, along with two farms, including Augustian Farms. Two undergraduate students were hired to monitor for beneficial insects in cover crop fields, fields with high cover crop residue, and conventionally tilled fields. Augustian Farms had four fields that were monitored in this project (three high residue fields and one conventional field). While the sample size of this project was too small to draw any definitive conclusions, but the students were able to provide a summary of their findings and will be meeting with each of the farms to go over their results. Additionally, the students will be creating a one page outreach handout that will be shared at future events. This model of the project was a new approach, so we will continue to move this project forward and improve upon the methods of data collection.

Education & Outreach Efforts

This project is funded by the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative.

Door-Kewaunee Demonstration Farm Network Partners

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