Your Soil’s Winter Blanket

Day in and day out, farmers face issues that they have no control over. Input costs, prices of commodities, government regulation, and equipment breakdowns are just a few of the inevitable problems that farmers have to deal with year round. While these issues cannot be avoided, they can be prepared for, and cultivating healthy soil […]

Why should you implement cover crops on your farm?

The season of cover crop planting is coming to a close. Did you get any cover crops out in your fields this year? Cover crops can be expensive, and many farmers would rather spend their money on other inputs like fertilizer, chemicals, etc. This is a tough mentality to break. Benefits of implementing cover crops […]

Crop Residue and Why It’s Valuable

Since he began using residue on his farm Brian Hora has learned more about residue management and benefits, and this is what he has to say, “Residue is not only a nutrient source, it is also food for the microbes, adding to our soil biology, and insulating the soil to protect against temperature variation and […]

TopSoil® Tool: Sustainability Tracking & Yield Data

As we move further into fall, farmers in the midwest and around the country are excited to see the yield monitor and to evaluate how the year’s worth of work will pay off. There is a lot of variability in yields this year due to weather and soil conditions and especially in the soil’s ability […]

Experimenting with Relay Rye

Today, we want to give an update on the relay crop, now that the rye portion of the trial has all been wrapped up. One of the main things to consider as we expand cover cropping is that we need to be able to grow more cover crop seed. Cover crops are a key tool […]

Experimenting with Barley and Small Grains

This year, we decided to start growing barley for the first time. We have about 24 acres of barley that we planted last fall as normal cover crop. We planted one bushel to the acre, but instead of terminating the cover crop, we harvested it for malt barley. Last year we grew wheat and became […]

Agriculture: Essential Now, Essential Always

What a crazy time we are in right now between trade, adverse weather conditions and now a global pandemic. This current state of our planet is something we have never seen or experienced before. However, the key takeaway here is how vital agriculture is to the world at large. Farmers and agriculturalists are essential to […]

60-inch Corn Trial 2019

As promised, we want to tell the complete story of our experiment with 30 inch by 60 inch row corn here in Iowa on the Continuum Ag® farm. Mitchell bought this plot in 2017. Last year it was soybeans, and they did really well. This 30 acre area did 80 bushels, which was awesome. The […]