Alastair and I have had a big week on the road. Starting in Minnesota, we made our way to Sth Dakota, then up to Nth Dakota, then back down to Nebraska. Now I am back in Iowa. Although we have had some long days, we have seen some great countryside, met lots of interesting people and learnt a thing or two as well. Here is a quick overview of the week.
This is the Corn Palace. Every year they redecorate the front of it with a new design made out of corn cobs cut in half and nailed to the wall. At first I was a bit disappointed but by the end I did
appreciate it. I though I was going to a palace made of corn, not decorated by it!
We spent Monday morning with Dwayne Beck at the Dakota Lakes Research Farm. Dwayne
gave us an honest overview of agriculture in the area (and lots of other parts of the world too for that matter). Dwaynes a big advocate of no till and rotations, cover crops and using livestock. His aim is to have the farm self sufficient in energy production some time in the near future.
Dwayne organised for us to go up to Bismarck in Nth Dakota were we met up with a group of 'Ranchers' from Montana. We hopped on their bus and went out to Gabe Browns to look at his livestock/cropping operation. Gabe switched to no-till and livestock farming after 4 successive crop failures in the early 90s. Livestock to spread risk and no-till to reduce his input costs. He also started to play with cover crops in an effort to boost soil fertility and reduce nitrogen inputs. Now he uses 90% less fertiliser as a result.
Gabe is in to Holistic management as well. This is an automatic gate opener. Set off by a timer, the gate opens and the cattle move themselves as programmed. This allows for cattle to be shifted up to eight times a day. A good idea I reckon.
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