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Keeping It Interesting: SD Farmers Test Interseeding & Other Soil Health Practices

Jun 5, 2020

David Kruger and Todd Boesen don’t know each other. But these two South Dakota farmers share a desire to test out practices on their farms. “I guess I’m a tinkerer,” explains Boesen, a Kimball crop and cattle producer. “It’s fun to try things out. If I hear it won’t work here, I want to see if I can make it work.” Kruger, who raises crops near Milbank agrees. “If I learn about something that sounds like it might work on my farm, why not give it a try in my fields and see if it will?”

Both farmers have experimented on small manageable acres with different ways to introduce cover crops into their rotations. Read on to learn what they discovered.

Interseeding cover crops into 60-inch corn

Improving soil health wasn’t the reason David Kruger began no-till farming in 1993. His decision had more to do with moisture, labor, economics and rocks.

When his yields remained about the same, but his cost of production went down, Kruger stuck with it. “For me, no-till is not about yields. It is about the bottom line. It’s the benefit of having less inputs to increase profits,” explains the Milbank, S.D. farmer. He adds that his yields have not suffered from soil health practices….

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