LAFAYETTE COUNTY, Wis. – Larry Redfearn was raised on a farm in the rolling hills of southwestern Wisconsin where conservation practices helped to keep soil in place. The youngest of eleven children, he purchased the family farm in 1983. Shortly after that he transitioned to no-till farming to reduce operational costs. He reduced to just a few pieces his farm implements. One of those pieces of equipment – a no-till drill – made row-crop farming more efficient by reducing the costs of fuel and machinery maintenance, he said.
Aerial seeding helps cover crops soar
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Aerial seeding into a standing cash crop can give cover crops more time to grow and provide effective winter cover.
Matt Miller, left, and Larry Redfearn inspect an aerial-seeded cover-crop mix of oats, radish and berseem clover. Redfearn uses cover crops to prevent soil from eroding on his hilly farm in Wisconsin's Lafayette County. Miller is a soil-conservation technician for the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Natural Resources Conservation Service office in Darlington, Wisconsin.
Aerial seeding allows time for frost-killed species such as tillage radish to establish well before winter.
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