In 1972, the Guess Brothers Farm was the cover story for Ohio Farmer magazine. Mark Guess, along with brothers Steve and Tom, were farming about 1,800 acres while milking 200 cows and feeding out 1,000 pigs. Numerous other farm publications have featured the farm over the years, noting innovation, farm management and ability to adapt. Just a year earlier, in 1971, Mark was being honored and singled out as a National Outstanding Young Farmer for Ohio.

Today, at 80, Mark is not as young, but he’s led an outstanding life centered around family and farming in Jamestown. Mark’s still at the helm of the operation and has seen it through many trials to bring it to its current status of about 8,600 acres — 40% of it owned.

Related: Changing with the times

In April, he’ll be on the cover of Ohio Farmer again, this time as a 2017 Ohio Master Farmer.

Bill Richards, a 85-year farmer and longtime friend from Circleton who nominated Mark for the award, says, “He’s a quiet guy and an innovator who really absorbs what goes on around him. He’s a man of impeccable integrity and an outstanding farmer.”

New to farming
Mark did not come from a farming family or a farming background. The oldest of six children to Ralph and Teresa Guess, Mark credits 4-H for his interest in agriculture. He grew up on 22 acres and enough space to raise a barn full of 4-H projects, he says.

Also, across the road was a farmer with a large farm, 600 acres at that time, who Mark worked for. “I started farming right out of high school and planted my first crop in 1954,” he says. “Dad said, ‘I’ll send you to college, or I’ll buy you a tractor.’ I didn’t go to college. Instead, I attended the college of hard knocks.”

Steve joined the operation a few years later after graduating from high school. In partnership, they raised crops and fed dairy cows, hogs and a few beef cattle. “Grain prices were low, and the best way to merchandise that cheap grain was to walk it off the farm,” Mark says.

A few years later, Tom joined the farm as an employee.

In 1956, Mark married Connie Milburn. They will celebrate their 60-year anniversary June 29. “Connie has been just wonderful; we have had wonderful cooperation working as a team,” Mark says. “She did the bookkeeping and raised our four kids — Ron, Cathy, Martha and Teresa.”

Connie stood by Mark and had faith in his decisions, he says, even when they were concentrating on building their land base. The first purchase was a 120-acre parcel in Sugarcreek Township. “It was rolling and some of it was a river,” he says. “One of the first things we did was put in 80-foot strips on the contour to control erosion. “It was a start, but we could see a lot of problems there. We sold the acres 3 to 1 to move up here,” says Mark about the move into Greene County in the early 1960s. Mark and his son-in-law Rock Persinger and grandsons, Phil and Brent, farm in a 19-mile radius primarily in Greene County.

“We parked the plows in the late ’60s and went to chisel tillage, which helped along with better herbicides. We put in a lot of grass waterways, even on flat ground, because water has a tendency to pool up and find the shortest way out of the field.”

Grid-sampling started in 1990 and was fully incorporated with 2.5-acre grids by 2008, which led to variable-rate fertilizer application that fall. “We use less lime and fertilizer by getting it only where it needs to be,” he says.

Soybean ground is chiseled, while about half of the 4,000 corn acres is in no-till.

Planting earlier than in past years, tractors will be rolling by April 15 if conditions allow.  “We will plant corn and beans the same day,” Mark says.

Sharing credit
In his humble way, Mark says he doesn’t consider himself a Master Farmer any more than some of his farming friends and neighbors. But when asked what’s brought him to this level, he says, “One of the biggest advantages I had was not coming from a farming background. I wasn’t tied to the old principles. When new technologies came out, we would see if it fit our operation. We got our own drone, and our tractors are equipped with autosteer.”

He also credits Premium Ag Commodities, a cooperative of 11 original growers that formed in the late 1970s to buy inputs cheaper and sell grain higher. Today, it’s 34 members strong and has added an insurance business. “It also allowed us to bounce ideas off each other and really think about new practices,” he says.

Ohio State University Extension agent John Crane was also influential, Mark says. “He would listen to any wild idea I had and encourage me.”

Mark is excited about Ohio agriculture — the advancements in technology and new people coming into the industry. “I’ve been very blessed. Farming has been good to this family. And, I say, if anyone wants to farm, if they got the will to farm, they can go do it. Somebody will help them, but it takes hard work. It takes 18-hour days and lots of days.”

Profile of Mark Guess

FAMILY: Wife Connie; children Ron (1958-2014) and Tammy Guess; Cathy and Rock Persinger; Martha and Mark Rector; Teresa and Steve Moore; and 10 grandchildren and 10 great-grandchildren.
ACTIVITIES: Member of the Greene County Community Foundation and Community Improvement Corp, Ceaser Creek Township Zoning Board and St. Columbkille Catholic Church. He has been featured in numerous ag publications, served as 4-H club adviser and a host farmer for Ohio State University for more than 30 years.  He has hosted and taught students from many different countries and set up food safety seminars. Mark founded the Guess Family Scholarship for students to attend Wooster ATI and to honor his son Ron, who died in 2014.
AWARDS: Greene County Soil Conservation Cooperator of the Year in 2015, National Outstanding Young Farmer Award (representing Ohio) in 1971, Greene County Hall of Fame in 2016, Farm Futures 10 Best-managed Farms in 1983, and Soil and Water Conservation Outstanding Cooperator in Greene County in 2015