Danny Powell and Matt Griggs Updates
Updates on Soil Health Hero Number 1, Danny Powell, and Soil Health Hero Number 3, Matt Griggs
The Profiles of Soil Health Heroes are now up to 32. Danny Powell was our first hero and Matt Griggs was the third in Profiles of Soil Health Heroes. Their progression in use of cover crops and managing cover crops have warranted an update on each of them. I had the opportunity to visit Matt Griggs on February 7, 2017 and Danny Powell on May 15, 2017. Below are the updates from each of their operations.
Danny Powell Update
Danny Powell was our first in the series of Profiles of Soil Health Heroes. I completed the write up in November of 2014 and published it in the spring of 2015. A lot has transpired since
that first article was written. Danny is in his sixth year of cover crops on one field. He has purchased other fields and now is beginning to plant crops in first year cover crops on new fields that he obtained. Danny farms 2,900 acres. He owns approximately 1,300 acres. All of his owned acres are in cover crops. His crop rotation is corn-winter cover crop mix-soybeans and winter cover crop mix. He recently purchased a 30 feet John Deere 1990 Air-seeded drill. He plants or drills 100% of his cover crops with the drill.
current Acting State Conservationist, Jamie Carpenter is following Kevin's lead and promoting soil health. It helps that Jamie's normal job is Assistant State Conservationist for Programs. Having Programs focusing on soil health is huge for promoting and providing financial assistance. Tennessee Department of Agriculture is another major partner that is also supporting soil health in working with District Supervisors and financial support. Again, the team approach has been instrumental to Coffee County's support as well as the entire state of Tennessee.
Coffee County, like Tennessee, has embraced soil health in 2013. Adam Daugherty, NRCS District Conservationist, Coffee County convinced the Soil Conservation Board that this was the direction they needed to go. Coffee County was already a leader in no-till. They were doing a good job in natural resource conservation. The systems approach of mimicking nature, a deciduous forest was the missing piece. Bringing in cover crops were important, but understanding the function of soils and mimicking a forest was the key. The Soil Conservation Board not only supported the aggressive approach but many of them also jumped in and applied many soil health improving practices.
Traditionally, farmers have grown cover crops to around knee-high and waist high, killed the cover approximately two weeks before planting of corn or soybeans and plant in a crispy or dead cover. The weaknesses of this system are it limits the growth in the spring especially in corn. Some farmers in counties as south as Coffee County begin thinking about planting corn in March. As we know, cover crops are fairly short in March and just beginning to kick in another gear in the end of March, especially species such as Austrian winter pea, hairy vetch, and crimson clover. In fact, we dug these plants up on April 25 and found many nodules on the roots of each species of legumes. Nodules when they are pink indicate they are producing nitrogen. To kill legumes early, would be to lose a major benefit from the legumes in the mix. Farmers in Coffee County have learned to wait to plant corn to middle to third week of April. I know there are exceptions, but many farms that we visited had planted only about 7 to 10 days earlier. It was very wet on the April 25th, about 8 inches of rain had fallen a few days prior to our visit. Corn was germinating why we were there with a few acres of corn was still to be planted. Another weakness of planting crispy is once you terminate the cover, there is not an active root growing. This year we are bombarded by rain and cool weather. Having a root growing right up to planting is great way to drain uptake the excess moisture. Once the cover is terminated, the residue will hold the moisture in to the soil. Warm weather will eventually alleviate this problem.
the termination.
Since Coffee County has farmers in the fourth season of cover crops, it was great to see the benefits after four years. Some of the observations were on a steep red-clay field that had been in covers for approximately three years. They had been killing the covers early about knee-high to preserve the moisture going into summer. Now after some of accumulation of soil carbon, they were letting the cover grow higher. The field was functioning at a higher-level due to the three years of no-till and cover crops.
Soil structure in all the fields we looked at are granular at surface with some sub-angular soil structure as we dig deeper into the soil. This is why Coffee County is seeing 6-8" or greater per hour of water infiltration. We have seen by comparing some bare spots or some monoculture-legumes as cover crops that we can lose this soil aggregation quickly and water infiltration will go back to 2-4" per hour. We need diversity and cover continuously to keep soils aggregating. Active carbon that is recently dead residues and cover crops are the key to aggregating soils and for nutrient cycling. Total carbon or soil organic matter is important to keep climbing, but it is much more important to see diverse high-quality carbon being produced annually and being consumed by soil biology providing policing of soil disease, cycling of nutrients, and aggregating soil. If we continue to keep the soil covered, keep an active root growing, reduce disturbances, and maintain diverse covers we will continue to see our soil health or functions improving.
