PEORIA, Ill. - Achieving long term success in land stewardship through farm conservation practices was the topic of a February 13 seminar at the Peoria County Farm Bureau. Illinois sustainable farmers Gary Asay, of Osco in Henry County, and David Isermann, of Streator in LaSalle County, shared some of their keys to success with the farmers in attendance. 

“Why are we doing all this?” asked Isermann, referring to his fifth-generation family farm’s commitment to the utilization of slow-release fertilizers, in-season fertilizer applications, deep soil sampling, tissue sampling, cover crops, pollinator habitats and conservation-based USDA programs. The central Illinois farmer then produced a Powerpoint slide portraying a recent Chicago Tribune cover story detailing how Illinois farmers are falling short of their stated goals for field nutrient loss reductions, as stated in the state’s voluntary Illinois Nutrient Loss Reduction Strategy (NLRS). 

“It was a pretty well written article and pretty balanced, but we don’t come off looking really good. If you look at the Illinois Farm Bureau’s environmental action report, they’ve spent a lot of money trying to move the needle (on field nutrient loss) and the needle hasn’t moved very much,” said Isermann, who is the current board president for the LaSalle County Farm Bureau.

To do his part to conform to the soil and water conservation tenets expressed within the NLRS, Isermann limits fall nutrient applications and plants a fall cover crop of cereal rye over no-till or strip-till bean stubble in 15-inch rows, among other conservation practices. “We’ve limited our fall applications of nitrogen and phosphorus; in fact we didn’t do any (in the) fall for a while; now we’re back to doing some but it’s injected underground. We’re actually putting some nitrogen, some DAP and some potash and sulfur into a strip-till,” he said.

Isermann has seen success with cover crops such as radishes and oats after wheat for farmers north of Interstate 70 in Illinois. “Things look really good after wheat for cover crops, because it’s warm and you have a lot of sunshine, and you can do things the people in southern Illinois can do anytime they want to. But the further north you go, it makes things a lot more difficult to make things work as far as cover crops go,” said Isermann, whose family was selected as the LaSalle County SWCD Farm Family of the Year in 2022. “No matter where you are in the state, nobody seems to lose a cereal rye (cover) crop.”

Isermann spent a lot of time with the Peoria County farmers answering questions about his years of experience along with his farming partner and son, Jim, in experimenting with various cover crops and conservation scenarios. He advised the farmers to enroll their sensitive farm lands in USDA Natural Resources Conservation Program conservation programs such as the Environmental Quality Incentive Program (EQIP) and Conservation Stewardship Program (CSP). 

Asay, who has served on the National Pork Board (NPB) for six years and is the current director of the Henry County Farm Bureau, has farmed with his family since 1976. He has employed cover crops on his farm since 2010 and has “planted green” -- or directly into a fall-planted cover crop -- for the past seven years. His nearly self-sustaining hog-corn-soybean operation has achieved a net below-zero carbon intensity score (CIS), something many large food processing companies are beginning to pay premiums for the right to purchase. 

“I’m seeing a lot of results from what I’m doing and it’s continuing to evolve. My goal is to make my only fertilizer source my hog manure, and use cover crops as much as I can,” said Asay, who saw an opportunity to utilize more hog manure from his barn pits to help hold his initial cereal rye cover crop in place and fertilizer the corn he planted. “I started seeing all the benefits like reduced soil erosion, better biology of the soil, weed control and more.”

As years went by, Asay learned he could avoid terminating or burning down fall cover crops and plant directly into them -- including tall varieties -- as long as soil moisture levels were supportive. 

Asay markets 9,500 hogs per year, allowing him to apply around 3,200 gallons of liquid hog manure per acre to his fields via spreader. Not only have his corn and soybean yields increased, the Henry County farmer has also seen his soil biology greatly improve. After first utilizing some commercial fertilizers to “even out” his soils, Asay now uses liquid hog manure supplied by his own hogs exclusively on the majority of his cropland, making his operation nearly self sustainable.

“It’s not a perfect circle, because the pigs are contract raised and the feed comes from somewhere else. The corn actually goes to an ethanol plant,” said Asay, who is a past leader for the Illinois Pork Producers Association in addition to his work with the NPB. “It’s pretty hard to do that, but it would be nice if we could. With all the manure produced on the farm, it supplies four different farmers with fertilizer.”

Closing out the morning event, PCFB Manager Patrick Kirchhofer said that taking care of the land is critical if a landowner or farmer is going to find long term success for their family and future generations of farmers. He urged the farmers in attendance to incorporate as many of the land stewardship practices they had learned about into their operations, when feasible.