Brothers Transform Crop and Cattle Operation Using NRCS Programs and Expertise

Dan Crummett, Contributor

Brothers Jon Richer, fresh out of the Marine Corps, and Caleb, an engineer working for the U.S. Navy, became full-time farmers with a common goal of building on the legacy their father, Dale, put in motion years ago.

"The former tenant [of 18 years] had been no-tilling all those years but had been using anhydrous ammonia, and the ground was hard, and the soil was pale," Jon recalls. "Despite the long-term use of no-till, there were still several washouts we needed to repair, and we couldn't find earthworms in our fields."

The brothers were already building up their 45-head Angus-based commercial cow herd when they went "full time" producing a 50/50 split of corn and soybeans on roughly 600 acres, along with about 100 acres in wheat and triticale forage. Slowly, they also established a drylot operation to fatten 100 purchased steers per year on farm-grown grain and forage.

"We were making it work well for nine months of the year," Caleb explains. "But, from December to March, our cattle would be nearly up to their bellies in mud and manure because of the wet winters."

That began to change in July 2016 with a chance conversation between Caleb and a friend who worked for the Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS).

"He asked me how we were doing on the farm, and I had to tell him for most of the year, we do well, but with winter's rains, we're going to have to do something to fix the mud situation, or we'll have to quit the cattle," Caleb says. "While we were skeptical at first, he convinced us to approach NRCS about its programs and how they could help us plan out remedies to our problems by looking at our whole operation and planning around what we wanted to do now and in the future."

9-STEP CONSERVATION PLAN (See the conservation planning steps below.)

In 2017, the Richers met with Mark Cambron, the local NRCS district conservationist, about their concerns for animal health, manure runoff into a pond and the possibility of technical and financial assistance.

"That was Step 1 of the proven Nine-Step Conservation Planning Process," Cambron explains. "From there, we worked through the farm's overall resources and how those could be used to meet the brothers' objectives with our technical and financial assistance."

The process also explored alternatives and potential for future improvements. By 2019, the Richers made decisions to begin what ultimately involved three improvement projects through the Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP). They included:

-- the installation of a 40- x 120-foot manure barn and a concrete heavy-use-area feeding slab to allow quick removal and storage of manure into the barn until applied on fields

-- constructing a roof over the cattle feeding area to direct excess rainfall safely down a grassed waterway to a nearby pond in the West Boggs Creek watershed

-- building a nearby barn for the cow herd to protect it from winter weather and the inevitable mud (the structure is designed to allow cows and calves access to corn stalks and other field residue on an adjacent 80-acre field).

The brothers were ecstatic at the turnaround their improvements made, providing them better livestock feeding efficiency, the ability to store and spread manure at will to nourish crops, and improvements in soil health the homegrown fertilizer provided as cattle grazed cornstalks and cover crops.

PLAN BOOSTS CATTLE BENEFITS

"When we got the concrete and manure barn, our rate of gain on cattle went from 2 pounds per day to over 3 pounds," Caleb explains. "We realized we could now feed a lot more cattle, and using the manure to help produce the forage they eat would benefit our bottom line as well as the biological health of our fields."

Currently, the brothers feed about 150 steers but say their facilities could handle up to 300 on full feed from 500 pounds to finish. They market a large portion of cattle as freezer beef and also sell individual cuts through the Richer Farms Market, operated by their wives, Neely and Megan.

"In addition, we graze all of our cornstalks with the cow herd, and while they are consuming that residue, they're recycling those nutrients right back onto our fields," Jon says. "The same with the cover crops we keep on all acres not growing grain. We're improving soil health and growing cheap cattle feed at the same time."

With the access to stored manure, the brothers have begun to spread it further across the farm rather than just on acres next to the feeding operation. To facilitate moving the manure, they bought an Artex SB 600 spreader, which is instrumental in keeping the storage clean and fields fertilized according to soil tests.

"We've been able to turn a potential liability in storing large amounts of manure into a money-saving asset," Jon explains. "When we realized we could save $15,000 to $20,000 per year on commercial fertilizer with farm-raised manure, it made sense to buy the big spreader, because in two years, it would be paid for."

SOIL-HEALTH BENEFITS

Soil tests show the brothers are slowly improving soil organic matter from the 1.2% when they took over the operation to readings in the 2.2 to 2.3% range in some fields. Also, they say the top foot of their fields is now turning black, and a shovel in nearly any spot of cropland yields 20 to 30 earthworms.

"This regenerative approach to farming also has boosted corn yields from the 165 range when we started farming together to 230 to 240 bushels per acre," Jon says. "We market some of our grain, but at least 100 acres goes back into a total mix ration for our cattle. The yield bump has been astounding."

The positive changes in soil health on Richer Farms are also rooted in the brothers' early switch to no-till. Cover crops go in immediately behind the combine and provide extra grazing as well as reduced compaction and improved nutrient cycling.

"We've been very happy planning the projects through NRCS," Jon explains. "They helped us turn problems into solutions. The efficiencies we've achieved are helping pay for our part of the EQIP projects and definitely are improving our bottom line."

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NRCS 9-STEP CONSERVATION PLANNING:

1. Identify problems and opportunities.

2. Determine objectives.

3. Inventory resources.

4. Analyze resource data.

5. Formulate alternatives.

6. Evaluate alternatives.

7. Make decisions.

8. Implement the plan.

9. Evaluate the plan.

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