Dakota Farmer

Farmers can do better at getting moisture into the soil and keeping it there.

Kevin Schulz, Editor

January 25, 2021

4 Min Read
side-by-side cornfield with and without what straw
SEEING IS BELIEVING: The value of maintaining straw mulch is evident with these two photographs. The cornfield on the left is growing where wheat straw had been baled off yearly. The cornfield on the right is a neighboring no-till field with straw mulch. Dale Strickler

Images of the 1930s Dust Bowl are nearly a century old, and the images linger in our minds, but Dale Strickler doesn’t feel farmers have done enough to adapt soil management practices to keep those black-and-white images in the past.

Strickler holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees in agronomy and said that people will tell you the Dust Bowl happened because “it just didn’t rain.” People of that era were defeated by the drought and what it did to their crops and their livelihood, and they felt all they could do was turn to prayer.

Not discounting the power of prayer, Strickler from Iola, Kan., said producers can and should take it upon themselves by conserving the moisture that does fall on their fields. The guest speaker during the recent South Dakota Soil Health Conference wrote a book on drought resilience in 2018, “The Drought-Resilient Farm,” and to his surprise, his book was the only one written on drought resilience since 1908. “You think that a nation torn apart by the Dust Bowl would have focused a little more attention on how to prevent another one,” he said, “but we've done precious little since then.”

Becoming a water saver

He believes that all producers can create drought-resistant soil, and not just Hugh Guise. Who is this Hugh Guise?

Strickler said that is the person all other farmers look to as being the “world’s luckiest farmer.” Strickler often hears farmers say, “We don’t get rain like Hugh Guise.” He said “Hugh Guise have all the luck. You guys have all the luck.”

Every farmer has a chance to be Hugh Guise, just by changing some of their practices, said Strickler, who is now an agronomist for Green Cover Seed based out of Bladen, Neb.

The first step, Strickler said, is to better manage the moisture that arrives by increasing rainfall infiltration, reducing evaporation, improving water-holding capacity of the soil, increasing root depth and increasing root efficiency.

“In other words, what we’re going to try to do is get it in, keep it in and get it out when we need it,” he said. Improving rainfall infiltration should be the first step. It is the most critical and one farmers tend to mess up. That’s when, Strickler said, the trouble starts.

If seeing is believing, Strickler advised taking in a demonstration of a rainfall simulator, which will show how much runoff occurs after a uniform rain across multiple soil treatments from full tillage with no cover to no-till with a cover crop. It is evident that the less soil cover, the more runoff.

“Even though the tilled soil looks loose and porous, and common sense would tell you that that loose fluffy soil would allow water to soak in, but it doesn’t,” he said. “As soon as the rain starts hitting it, it starts breaking apart those aggregates that are all fluffy and seals it up, making almost a pudding-like crust on the soil and does not let the water go down.”

An added benefit of the rainfall simulator appears when each of the previous mentioned soil treatments are further investigated to see the depth of moisture penetration. “You see that a 2-inch simulated rainfall did not penetrate 2 inches into tilled soil,” Strickler said. “Is it any wonder that we have droughts? Is it any wonder why 10 days after a rain we’re begging for another one?”

Mulch makes a difference

In addition to suggesting producers move to no-till practices, Strickler also stressed the importance of leaving mulch, to again aid in rainfall infiltration.

“The more residue you have, the more infiltration you have. Simple,” he said, pointing to research that rainfall infiltration increases drastically from 0.9 inch per hour with zero to 1,000 pounds of straw per acre, up to 2.5 inches per hour with 7,000 pounds of straw per acre.

Obviously, farmers have to decide on their management choices of baling off that straw for added revenue, versus maintaining the stubble to help future crops. On top of retaining as much mulch from a crop, Strickler suggested adding even more through the addition of cover crops to a planting rotation.

Incorporating or reintroducing livestock to add operation can also improve soil health, not only by adding the natural fertilizer, but also by promoting the growth of beneficial insects such as dung beetle that, like earthworms, will create macropores in the soil to again improve rainfall infiltration. “Livestock improve your soil,” he said.

Get it, keep it

Once water gets into the soil, the trick is to keep it there and to prevent the greatest loss through evaporation. One of the factors that increases evaporation is wind speed at the soil surface.

To prevent another Dust Bowl, in 1934 President Franklin Delano Roosevelt instituted the Great Plains Shelterbelt project, “and windbreaks were planted everywhere. And what’s happening to those now?” Strickler asked. “They’re all being taken out.”

He points to research that while there will be yield reductions in the area adjacent to the windbreak, farmers will see yield increases in the “protected zone” for 10 times the height of the tree. “Windbreaks increase yield,” Strickler said, by slowing evaporation and transpiration from the plant leaves.

Though not as tall as windbreaks or hedgerows, Strickler said research has shown that “tall” stubble also slows wind and retains moisture, and he suggested using a stripper head to harvest small grains.

About the Author(s)

Kevin Schulz

Editor, The Farmer

Kevin Schulz joined The Farmer as editor in January of 2023, after spending two years as senior staff writer for Dakota Farmer and Nebraska Farmer magazines. Prior to joining these two magazines, he spent six years in a similar capacity with National Hog Farmer. Prior to joining National Hog Farmer, Schulz spent a long career as the editor of The Land magazine, an agricultural-rural life publication based in Mankato, Minn.

During his tenure at The Land, the publication grew from covering 55 Minnesota counties to encompassing the entire state, as well as 30 counties in northern Iowa. Covering all facets of Minnesota and Iowa agriculture, Schulz was able to stay close to his roots as a southern Minnesota farm boy raised on a corn, soybean and hog finishing farm.

One particular area where he stayed close to his roots is working with the FFA organization.

Covering the FFA programs stayed near and dear to his heart, and he has been recognized for such coverage over the years. He has received the Minnesota FFA Communicator of the Year award, was honored with the Minnesota Honorary FFA Degree in 2014 and inducted into the Minnesota FFA Hall of Fame in 2018.

Schulz attended South Dakota State University, majoring in agricultural journalism. He was also a member of Alpha Gamma Rho fraternity and now belongs to its alumni organization.

His family continues to live on a southern Minnesota farm near where he grew up. He and his wife, Carol, have raised two daughters: Kristi, a 2014 University of Minnesota graduate who is married to Eric Van Otterloo and teaches at Mankato (Minn.) East High School, and Haley, a 2018 graduate of University of Wisconsin-River Falls. She is married to John Peake and teaches in Hayward, Wis. 

When not covering the agriculture industry on behalf of The Farmer's readers, Schulz enjoys spending time traveling with family, making it a quest to reach all 50 states — 47 so far — and three countries. He also enjoys reading, music, photography, playing basketball, and enjoying nature and campfires with friends and family.

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