CASCADE, Ia. – It was a clear, dry day when Tony Kurt welcomed a small group of neighbors, local officials and media personnel to his fields near Cascade for a drone-seeding demonstration. The fourth-generation farmer has a strong historical connection to his land and its past. But in hosting the event featuring cutting-edge technology he was looking ahead to the future.
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Melvin Kurt, Tony's dad, left, and Tony Kurt work together on their farm near Cascade, Iowa.
Drone cover-crop planting is demonstrated on the Kurt Farm near Cascade, Iowa.
'One of our mottos is ‘roots in the ground year-round,’' says Eric Schmechel, Dubuque County’s Watershed Program director in Iowa.
Drones used during a demonstration on the Kurt farm drop seeds from about 20 feet in the air.
There are multiple cover-crop species growing on the Kurt farm this year, planted by drones.
A drone program plants cover crops on 200 acres of the Kurt farm.
Tony Kurt is in his 15th year as a full-time farmer.
Farmer Tony Kurt inspects cover crops that were planted by drones several weeks earlier.
Radishes are one of the cover crops growing on the Kurt Farm.
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