Gabe Brown’s breakeven cost on dryland corn was $1.42 per bushel in 2013. That includes land, planting, harvest, trucking costs — and everything else, Brown says.

The Bismarck, N.D., farmer credits 20 years of no-till, a diverse crop rotation, cover crops and integration of livestock into the cash grain operation with slashing his breakeven cost.

The system “has made least-cost producers out of us,” he says in a video produced by Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education (SARE) for its February 2014 National Conference on Cover Crops and Soil Health. SARE promoted the videos, which are online at sare.org/Events/National-Conference-on-Cover-Crops-and-Soil-Health/Cover-Crop-Innovators-Video-Series.

Brown’s proven dryland yield is 127 bushels per acre. The county’s average yield is under 100 bushels per acre.

When Brown bought the farm in 1991, its soil organic matter ranged from 1.7% to 1.9%. The soil infiltration rate was one-half inch of rainfall per hour.

Today, the soil organic matter ranges from 5.3% to 6.1%. The water infiltration rate is more than 8 inches per hour.

Brown has 2,000 acres of cropland, and every acre either has a cover crop before the cash crop, after the cash crop or with the cash crop.

“Our goal is to have a living root in the ground as long as possible, feeding that soil biology,” he says.

Since 2008, Brown has not applied any synthetic fertilizer to his land. He doesn’t use fungicides or pesticides. He makes one herbicide pass every two or three years. “We are getting close to eliminating that also,” he says.

“We are saving a tremendous amount of inputs,” Brown says. “We are able to produce our cash commodity at a fraction of the cost.”

Watch Brown’s video.

You can see presentations by other farmers at sare.org/Events/National-Conference-on-Cover-Crops-and-Soil-Health/Cover-Crop-Innovators-Video-Series.

Brown also was a speaker at the 2016 “Roots to Wings” TedX event in Grand Forks, N.D. See that video here.