This time of year Kansas soybean fields are famous for their picturesque symmetry, long rows of dark green plants divided by corridors of rich brown soil.
The appearance is compelling enough to inspire an artist.
Because of the way he goes about farming, Karl Allen’s fields are far from eye-catching.
In various stages of early development over 300 acres, his soybean fields look more like lawns desperately in need of mowing. The recently hewn tops of rye and field radishes cover the ground like a tattered brown cloak as much as the green broad-leafed soybean plants.
That’s the way he wants it at this stage of the game.
To accept what he does, “takes a change up here,” Allen said, pointing an index finger to the side of his head. A farmer’s thought process on how to grow soybeans, or any other crop, has to undergo a sea change if he is to adopt no-till farming.
That’s exactly what Allen, 51, did a few years ago, in no small degree because of the cost of conventional farming.
He sold off his cultivation equipment, and settled on a heavy duty drill that has the brute strength to cut through ground cover of practically any dimension and deposit seeds where they will germinate, then pop up and grow into a crop that produces a hearty yield.
How it works is simple, what the neighborhood gardener learned long ago: Mulch is a necessity to successfully raise an abundance of vegetables.
In Allen’s case, ground cover, deliberately produced or from a previous year’s crop, is his mulch.
Every iota of ground shaded by whatever lies atop will retain moisture better than that made barren by cultivation or herbicides applied before weeds break the surface.
Wheat stubble is a favorite of Allen’s, but he also has found debris left from a previous year’s soybeans, stems and empty pods strewn about during harvest, is an advantage.
He has taken ground cover a step further by planting rye or field radishes in the fall, and then converting them to his form of mulch with an herbicide application before planting.
A disadvantage is renegade weeds, the ones that for eons farmers have grubbed out with cultivation or, going back further, a simple hoe. They sometimes entail spraying after soybeans have a foothold.
To wit: Allen has a field a few miles directly west of Humboldt, not far from where he and wife Jill live just inside Woodson County, that is crowned with Johnson grass and other weeds, some “even tougher to kill out than Johnson grass,” which long has been the bane of farmers.
The scrubby tufts of weeds dotting the field would make his granddad, Curt Allen, turn up his nose — until he learned how much money Allen saves on fuel and equipment costs while raising soybeans that yield as well as those grown in traditional manner.
With no intention of again cultivating any of his crop ground, Allen will see debris (mulch) build up over the years and add to the mellow layer of topsoil. That topsoil also will stay in place better when assaulted by strong winds or torrential rainfall from Kansas’ infamous thunderstorms. Ground cover is a natural deterrent to erosion.
Never stirring the soil with invasive steel prongs provides another key benefit. Worms find crop fields a haven — more so with moisture-retaining ground cover — as they create their networks of collapsible tunnels. That loosens subsoil and the process generates nitrogen and other nutrients that soybeans must have to grow and produce bumper crops.
No-till farming, Allen argues with facts and figures squarely on his side, is a winning approach for farmers willing to depart from the traditional.
EVEN WITH no-till farming, adequate rainfall is the common denominator of successful farming. Nothing puts more wrinkles on a farmer’s brow than hot, dry weather during growing season.
To no minor degree that has occurred locally, although corn, particularly that planted early, has tasseled, sports ears in good shape and foliage of the typical dark green farmers covet.
Most soybeans were planted a little later than usual, but as is their reputation from years of genetic tweaking they have been sustained by what little moisture sporadic rains provided and are moving toward early stages of maturity. A critical period will be a few weeks hence when they start to bloom ahead of putting on pods. The next decisive point will be when pods are filling; lack of rain then means shriveled beans not much larger than BBs rattling within the pods, poor yields and depressing results at the elevator.
Thursday night’s thunderstorm produced up to 2 inches of rain around the area and was immensely important. Another anytime soon — rain is a possibility this weekend — would find open arms, as will additional showers in the weeks ahead.
“We’re in a weather market right now,” Allen said, noting soybeans were fetching about $10 a bushel. That’s a jump of $1 a bushel from a month ago, and reflects concerns about what effect dry, hot weather currently is projected to have on new crop beans.
That can change in a matter of hours.
“Granddad (Curt Allen) always said we were 10 days from a drought, and 24 hours from a flood in Kansas.” The elder Allen farmed near Liberty, about halfway between Cherryvale and Coffeyville, not far from the Verdigris River, where he experienced crop damage from drought and high water.
Allen shies from planting corn because even in a no-till operation input costs are enough that it usually takes a yield of 100 bushels an acre to break even. He does raise some wheat, which fits nicely into no-till with after-harvest stubble being good ground cover, either for second-crop beans or those planted the following year.
Several portions of the Allen farm are devoted to pastures and meadows to support 30-odd head of cattle. He also drives activities buses for Allen and Neosho community colleges and has a highway transport that currently is being operated by a Coffeyville friend.
Such is the case with most farmers, who diversify either within bounds of their farm operations or latch onto off-farm opportunities to perk up the bottom line.
