By: Kevin Brown, Agricultural Resource Specialist, Bradford County Conservation District
If you have, or intend to, plant cover crops, please read this column.  We all hear the benefits touted about cover crops- less erosion, having a living plant in the ground at all times, alleviating compaction, retaining nutrients for the next crop, giving food and shelter to microbes in the soil, and so on.  It is a great list and will do some miraculous things to the soil.  Try it on a limited basis, if you haven’t already.  Then get a shovel out and really look at what happened.  There are some benefits that definitely go with cover crops.  However, there are some things you should know beforehand that really can affect how those cover crops grow.  We have two years under our belt now with our highboy planter.  It has been a couple really wet years, so they haven’t been the best, but we have learned some interesting things that I think need to be shared.  They are things that I have NOT heard in any other cover crop presentation.  It’s like, “plant them and life will be good”.  Well, not here.  We have really struggled to get some good crops growing, but with the lessons learned, I think that will change.

​By: Kevin Brown, Agricultural Resource Specialist, Bradford County Conservation District
There was a joke in school back in my day that went like, “Do you know how to keep a person in suspense?  I will tell you later”.  Well, I told you I would help you pay for some of these conservation practices, most notably fencing out streams, in the next column and yet I didn’t.  I was keeping you in suspense.  Miranda had such a good article that I just had to let her go first.
I would like to remind you that even though we here at the District may be doing it for other reasons (clean water, and who wants that?), the real reason to do any of this is for the animals themselves.  The happier they are, the faster they grow (for production), and the more they will love us back.  

By: Guest Columnist, Troy Bishopp, Grazing Specialist, Upper Susquehanna Coalition
It’s amazing how ignorant I have been in following the tradition of feeding hay to my animals.  Once you’re in this agricultural paradigm for so long it’s hard to break the cycle of thinking.  It wasn’t until I actually looked at my farm’s displaced fertility levels from a nutrient management plan that I started to question my hay feeding practices and the labor it took.  

By: Miranda Neville, Agricultural Resource Specialist, BCCD

     In a fast-paced world that demands constant change with bigger-is-better ideals, many still look at small, conventional, dairy farming as an antiquated way of life. Often referred to as “stubborn farmers”, a term I’ve uttered myself more often than I care to admit…sorry husband, the advancement of farming practices has proven just the opposite.  Ironically, if you were to sit down with those “stubborn farmers” you could learn so much about the growth of the industry and how they’ve had to evaluate, adapt, and adjust to so many new pressures.
     The origin of the family farm was to provide a stable life for a family while supplying surrounding communities with farm fresh milk and locally grown produce. A simpler time. As communities got bigger, so did the demand on the farmer. Not only the demands, but more astringent regulatory requirements and increased skepticism from the general public. Though farmers are getting paid significantly less for their products, operating costs are at an all-time high and many cannot sustain. Dairy farmers are given two options: change to meet demands or sell the farm, the foundation of their family. 

By: Kevin Brown, Ag. Resource Specialist
​
It is that time of year again.  For the very important, local people that bring food to your table, it is the time of year to be thinking about how I am going to manage, and even improve, my field health through the winter months.  (This goes for gardens too).  Typically, we have given our fields a rest for the winter.  Sounds like a good idea, right?  Everything needs a rest.  Well, in this case, a rest is basically the starvation of the very soil life that we need to help us grow food.  Look up any kind of article or research on soil health.  Two of the things that good soil health requires are to always keep it covered and have a living root in the ground.  Soil biology feeds off living roots.  Take away the root, take away the food.  Take away the food, everything dies.  You are left with the D word (dirt- which is not even a word in most soil professions).  Why do we want a field to work for us 4-5 months out of the year and against us 7-8 months of the year?  It just doesn’t make any sense.  Read some articles from other parts of the country.  They will tell you that they couldn’t make a living on one crop per year.  They need multiple crops per year.  It would help us an awful lot here too.  How do we do this?  Cover crops.
​