There’s a farm family near Salem that’s doing some very unique things through regenerative agriculture. That’s why the team involved in coordinating the Purdue Farm Management Tour chose their farm as one of their stops earlier this week.
“I have sleepless nights, so I get up in the middle of the night and I just start researching and just trying to think differently,” says Greg Rowland, the owner of Rowland Farms near Campbellsburg in Washington County. He says that middle-of-the-night research has led to some new practices on his farm, including using a mix of cereal rye and vetch as cover crops.
“We’re letting this cover crop grow and letting it get to what we would call high biomass,” according to Greg. “Then, we’re terminating it with the roller crimper and not putting herbicide on a lot of it during the very first pass. We’ve cut our chemical use at least in half and we still have good weed control. Especially with soybeans, it seems like we’ve been able to get by with just one spray application and we’ve been having really good yields in the fall.”
Greg and his family own about 800 acres and farm around 1,000 acres of crops altogether—including 600 acres of soybeans and 425 acres of popcorn, which is being produced for Preferred Popcorn in Harrison County.
Greg says they’re also trying something new this summer with their soybeans.
“Soybean prices have been pretty good, so we’re going to go out there with a foliar and we’re going to go out there with some sugars and we’re going to try to keep the Brix levels up on the soybeans,” Greg says. “The insects have a hard time digesting those beans when that Brix level is elevated, so we’re going to see if we can’t help our beans stay healthier and be able to resist those pests more naturally.”
Greg farms with his son Jacob, who recently started a new cage-free poultry operation on their farm that’s not only automated, but impressive.
“The packer came out of the Netherlands, and they have some really great advancements over there, so I decided to go with this packer that one person can pack about 90,000 eggs in about four-and-a-half hours, so it’s pretty slick,” says Jacob.
The Rowlands own over 100,000 chickens that produce an average of 90,000 eggs a day.
Jacob says they’re also using their chicken manure to fertilize their crops.
“I think coupling the manure with the cover crops is key to what we’re doing here,” according to Jacob. “We’re able to cycle nutrients in a way that we never had before. That way, we can reduce our input costs and not over-apply the manure. I think that’s a key point that some guys miss. I think you can just as easily over-apply manure as under-apply.”
The Purdue Farm Management Tour was sponsored by Purdue University’s Center for Commercial Agriculture and Purdue Extension.
Click below to hear C.J. Miller’s radio news report for Hoosier Ag Today.
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