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Conservation practices help weather wet spring

An eastern Iowa farmer believes conservation practices helped him through a wet spring.

Jeff Pape is a no-till corn and soybean grower from Dyersville and says heavy rains delayed planting and caused drowned outs.

“With the no-till, I’ve seen a lot of runoff in other tillage practices this year. And I was able to go out and get into my waterways and look at them and stuff, and I had very little water running in them.”

Pape tells Brownfield the benefits of continuous no-till are clear.

“The absorption is really good, so we absorbed a lot of water early. As this later rain came, I think our profile was so full (that) we filled our profile and we got everything full and then started to see a little runoff later. But fortunately the runoff out of my field was crystal clear.”

Pape has been part of a local watershed group since 2006.