Renewable Farming

Restore healthy soil and healthy profits in farming — One farm at a time!

The challenge is new every morning: “What’s today’s most vital information to publish on our website?” This morning, Indiana farmer Hal Brown provided that answer. It’s a really encouraging e-mail which we’re posting below.

Oct. 13, 2017 By Hal Brown, as sent to Jerry Carlson — This is the message Hal sent: 

Closeup of Hal’s cover crops seeded
after 2017 soybean harvest

Good morning Jerry:

I have a longtime friend who farms 4,000 acres. He uses close to the same farming techniques as ours.  

I have been sending him your glyphosate articles for a long time.  Well, recently he just called me and started the conversation as….”I have this friend who keeps sending me reading material that pertains to all the bad about glyphosate”

I interrupted and said, “Well, has he worn you out yet and still a friend?”

He said he had decided to never use the stuff again.  He now uses non-GMO crops, as he has watched our program for many years. And now he gets all his seed naked….no seed treatments.  Plus, is transitioning around 600 acres to organic.

I just thought you should know that your efforts have been rewarded and that you should know about it!!

He called me the other day as he was in the corn, and said he had seen his yield monitor above 300 this year more than any other year and wasn’t expecting that at all. 

He has pattern tiled most of his acres and uses a lot of manure.  He said one field had hog manure and a portion did not… a 50-bushel bonus for the hog 
manure.

Keep up the good work,

Hal

Hal and Sue Brown own and operate Windy Lane Farms near Mulberry, IN, with son Ty and his wife Sacha. They’ve pioneered biological agriculture and healthy soil long before it gained the momentum it has today. I met Hal through AgriEnergy Resources years ago.  Hal and Ty manage with intensive use of cover crops, careful nitrogen management, and much of the best technology we’ve seen on American farms.  For example, they market Indiana-based Drago corn heads, plus Horsch planters and other technology from one of the most-respected ag equipment manufacturers in Europe.  Windy Lane Farms has also been a Beck’s Hybrids dealer for 30 years.

The Windy Lane Farms cover-crop program was recently featured in Farm Journal, sponsored by the Howard G. Buffett Foundation.

Here’s a link to the PDF story from their farm.

Below is a field which Hal drilled with oats, radish, turnips and flax on Sept. 25, immediately following the 2017 soybean harvest.  Photo taken today. October 13, 2017. Emergence and vigorous growth in just three weeks!  

September showers provided soil moisture to get this cover crop off to a good start following soybean harvest.