Holmes SWCD’s aerial cover crop program marks 17 years of soil health innovation

Two decades ago Holmes Soil & Water Conservation District began its effort in aiding local farmers through an innovative cover crop program that takes place late in each summer.

This year Sept. 2-3, the SWCD teamed up with Fisher Ag Service to soar across close to 3,000 acres of farmland throughout Holmes County and even into surrounding counties with the purpose of seeding cover crop that will help maintain healthy soil in fields over the winter.

Seventeen years ago SWCD program assistant Joe Christner — who then was full-time with the department — was part of the team that brought the program to Holmes County.

Nearly two decades later, it has proven to be a wise decision.

“I was involved in this decision to bring the cover crop program to Holmes County in that first year when the board came up with the idea,” Christner said. “We all felt it was the best possible way to help support our area farmers.”

At that time area farmers were utilizing a no-till program provided by the SWCD, which had been renting out no-till equipment to area farmers, but it was time to phase out that program and come up with a new idea that wouldn’t put the burden of preventing erosion on valuable farmland on the farmers.

Christner said the board was searching for new methods of lending a helping hand and identified cover crops even prior to when the process became widely popular.

“Once we identified it, we recognized there were still challenges,” Christner said.

The one major pitfall was creating time for farmers to invest in the program during the harvest season and getting it in place prior to when the harvest season was complete.

He said the answer became evident: Why not place the cover crop seed in place while the crops were still growing.

Because any equipment on the ground would be limited with the crops still growing, they decided to take to the air to spread the cover crop seeds, which at that time included rye.

“Most farms didn’t have enough acreage to be able to afford to provide air service themselves, so we decided we could group farms together and coordinate the program countywide to make it easier and more affordable for farmers,” Christner said.

Over the years SWCD has perfected the program, having farmers simply call in their seed requests. The farmers are invoiced, and the hard work is done by Fisher Ag Service.

“It helped solve a lot of challenges and made things easy on the farmers,” Christner said. “This was a really forward-thinking program, and the farmers who utilize it are recognizing the value of it long-term.”

He said the program has been in place long enough that farmers utilizing the program have been able to realize the benefits of maintaining healthier soil.

This year as the little yellow airplane from Fisher Ag Service maintained a schedule into and out of the Holmes County Airport, where it reloaded its barley and oat seed, the staff and board members from SWCD sat outside at the airport where refueling and reloading was taking place.

Darby Sherman, Holmes SWCD conservation specialist, said the program this year was moved up by one day to avoid expected rainfall on Sept. 4, which came true, so the move was fortuitous.

The two-day event proved to once again be as fruitful as SWCD members had hoped, great weather allowing the team from Fisher Ag Service to do their job quickly and easily as the yellow planes soared at low altitude over area farmland.

“They can do approximately 40 acres with about 2,500 pounds of seed on each trip,” Sherman said. “We did plain oats and plain barley the first day and a mix of the two on day two.”

She said the cover crop seed is purchased by Woodland Acres in Dalton, adding they recently have moved away from adding rye because of its expense and because it can grow taller and become more difficult to manage.

Sherman said each year they tend to bring in a couple more farmers willing to try out the program, and this year’s numbers were strong in terms of total acreage covered.

She said because it’s been in place for 17 years, most farmers know about it, and the feedback has been good.

“The important thing is that we are working with the farmers to help them,” Sherman said.

Sherman said while the early seasonal rain was excellent, the recent drought that has extended through much of August has left farmers concerned but not overwhelmed this summer. She said the rainfall the following day would be quite beneficial for cash crops such as soy and corn, but it also would be beneficial in germinating the cover crop being laid down.

Christner said because this fills such an important role for area farmers in such a successful manner, the cover crop program should be in place for some time to come in Holmes County.