Detailed Conservation Plan Holds Loess Soils in Place
Family Roots Run Deep to Protect Fragile Soils
During mild weather, you're likely to find Mark and Cherie Noll a short ATV ride from their home enjoying a morning cup of coffee on the bluff above the Mississippi River.
From that 500-foot vantage point, the Nolls enjoy sitting at their picnic table watching barge traffic on the river and gazing westward into Minnesota. It was there where ancient winds eroded light glacial soils and deposited them across the river to the east along the western edge of Wisconsin, where the Nolls farm near Alma. That natural geological gift has sustained the family dairy operation for four generations.
As the loess soils settled into undulating slopes on the lee of the bluff, they accumulated more than 20 feet deep in some areas, forming a rich but highly fragile foundation for crop production.
"Our farm came in on the winds and rolled all sorts of ways," Mark Noll explains. The family owns 735 acres, 450 of which is timber. They lease 100 to 120 additional acres of nearby farmland for cropping to get to 400 acres in crop production. "But, it's all hilly, and there's not a rectangular field on the place."
He points out his father laid out the first contour lines in 1954, and they continue to no-till farm along those lines. "The farm has 121 fields, and the largest is 12 acres," he explains. "It's not very efficient as modern farms go, but if we didn't constantly work to prevent erosion, our soils would take off in a heartbeat."
Still, the system produces enough feed for the farm's 120-head Holstein dairy plus grain to sell. The Nolls' management is aimed at soil conservation, careful nutrient management and an eye toward overall conservation of natural resources. The farm received the Wisconsin Leopold Award for Conservation in 2023.
COWS, CROP ROTATION AND CONSERVATION
Mark and his brother, Curtis, operate Noll's Dairy Farm LLC, and Curtis' son, Scott, is buying into the business and runs the operation's on-site Five Star Dairy LLC.
Supporting the dairy operation is an eight-year crop rotation that includes alfalfa, no-till corn for silage and grain, soybeans, oats and off-season cover crops. On steeper slopes, corn follows hay up to three years then yields to a year of oats before the field goes back to hay, Mark explains. Some slopes on the hilltop farm tilt as much as 16 degrees and may stay in corn and hay for longer periods.
The Nolls have been no-tilling since 1984. "That first year, Dad wouldn't allow me to no-till anywhere near the road where the neighbors could see," Mark recalls. "Once he observed the corn emerging successfully in those back-of-the-farm fields, we adopted the practice 100% for our corn."
The family's standard field is 75 feet wide (with some stretching up to a mile), enough room to handle their current 15-foot, six-row 955 International Cyclo air planter spaced on 30 inches. The narrow fields form strips of different crops in the rotation and provide beautiful aerial views of the meandering paths.
In 1987, the Nolls added soybeans to the rotation, planting with a 5100 International grain drill. Since 1999, however, the beans have been 100% no-tilled with the air planter. Soybeans average 60 bushels per acre to complement the farm's 200-plus-bushel corn grain yields. The older drill is still used to plant cover crops.
"Where we're cutting feed, we chop off corn silage in mid- to early September and follow the harvester with our grain drill and cereal rye cover crop," Mark explains. "The rye will be a couple of inches tall by the first hard freeze, and it overwinters to protect the fields from erosion."
NUTRIENT MANAGEMENT
He says the alfalfa provides four to five cuttings a year for four years -- without the need for herbicides on those acres -- and provides weed control plus some residual nitrogen for the following no-till corn crop.
Manure from the dairy goes back onto the fields, applied twice a year according to regular three-year soil sample analyses, and is distributed with a pair of tractor-drawn side-discharge manure spreaders. Curtis, a Percheron enthusiast, occasionally spreads a few loads with his horse-drawn John Deere spreader.
Nutrient credit for the manure, soybeans and alfalfa is taken into consideration for preplant broadcast applications of stabilized dry nitrogen on corn acres. Preplant starter fertilizer rates for corn are also determined according to soil samples. A typical application is roughly 110 pounds of 9-11-30-6S.
Mark Noll soil-samples a third of the farm every year to monitor basic fertility. Because of a well-managed, diverse crop rotation and years of no-till, the light soils on the farm generally range from 2.5 to 3% organic matter.
WOODS AND WILDLIFE
The detailed crop-production and nutrient-management decisions on the farm reflect the family's long-standing commitment to soil conservation and respect for natural resources. Since 1964, they have built more than 20 earthen dams to catch and slowly release runoff during excessive rainfall as a guard against flash flooding. Also, they actively manage their timber harvests to restore the region's natural oak populations.
"This area was naturally covered with hardwood forests of oak, hickory, elm and ash," Mark explains. "Over the years, as the oaks were selectively harvested, they were gradually succeeded by more shade-tolerant species. When we realized this, we began managing our woodlands with selective clear-cuts and controlled burns to allow sunlight to spur the regrowth of oaks and other species native to the bluff tops."
Those efforts helped the family restore a remnant of a dry bluff prairie -- an ecologically rare landform sometimes referred to as a "goat prairie" -- after Mark became inspired through the writings of Calvin Fremling in his book "Immortal River."
In addition to patchwork native forest restoration, clear-cut management also provides the "edge factor" so critical for wildlife ecology.
"Animals like those areas at tree lines where they can forage in open areas but can stay close to timber cover," Mark Noll explains. "By the 1930s most of the deer had been wiped out in this area. But, because landowners realized the potential of rebuilding the deer herd, they have begun managing their forests for habitat, along with providing food plots with a diverse buffet of forage."
The efforts, fully embraced by the Nolls, have made Buffalo County where they live the No. 1 Boone and Crockett Club white-tailed deer county in the nation.
"[Curtis' son] Scott is an instructor for our hunter safety education program, and I was a member of the Wisconsin Conservation Congress for 40 years," Mark Noll explains. "The roots of farming and wildlife conservation run deep here."
[PF_1124]
(c) Copyright 2024 DTN, LLC. All rights reserved.