No-Till on the Plains

[martian]

Anyone else going to Kansas next week?

http://us6.campaign-archive2.com/?u=0df5d10512582863df9ebf05d&id=2c782734b6&e=110c34dd6f

A great conference for fans of Continuous No-till.

 

[SilliamWhale]

If your going I'd really appreciate some details of what you learnt.

Have you got your ten gallon hat and spurs ready or is jd baseball cap and coke for breakfast style? (coca cola that is btw not the other type)

 

[Robert]

I've got next year's in my sights. What sort of cost are economy flights - its evidently not the cheapest place to access from outside the states?!

 

[martian]

If your going I'd really appreciate some details of what you learnt.

Have you got your ten gallon hat and spurs ready or is jd baseball cap and coke for breakfast style? (coca cola that is btw not the other type)

Stetson is required head gear and most important thing is to not mention politics (something like 90% of no-tillers voted Trump). Will try and take some notes for you.

I've got next year's in my sights. What sort of cost are economy flights - its evidently not the cheapest place to access from outside the states?!

Our tickets are about £620 return (London-Detroit-Kansas City), Salina is a few hours drive from KC. All good tax-allowable expense, as is the Stetson (protective clothing).

 

[AF Salers]

Looking forward to your presentation of your findings at Groundswell '17!!

 

[martian]

We had a fascinating week in Kansas. I thoroughly recommend going to this conference, to anyone with an interest in soil regeneration. They have dozens of speakers from around the world (mostly from the USA of course) and there is something about seeing the scale of the prairies and how their farms operate which puts what we are trying to do in perspective. Next year they've booked Allan Savory as their keynote speaker and they're moving the conference to Wichita, which will be easier to get to as it has an airport, unlike Salina, where they've been these last 21 years.

One interesting thing about these guys is that they have been at it so long, admittedly in a different climate and with different soils, and so they are constantly refining what continuous no-till can achieve. The general theme I picked up this year was: get more animals on the land. When I went 4 years ago the old-timers were saying that they wished they'd started growing cover-crops way back when, how cover crops were a game-changer etc, now they're even more excited and saying they wished they'd got more cows/sheep to eat the cover crops off: the SOM improvements from grazed covers are way better than covers alone. About half the talks were grazing animal related. Another general theme was farmers looking after their own interests, growing their own seed, getting off the GM bandwagon etc. The system is stacked against them atm, it'll be interesting to see how it pans out.

 

[Feldspar]

So is Trump pro no-till?

 

[Kiwi Pete]

So is Trump pro no-till?

He's an absolute meat-plow, that bloke [emoji168]

 

[britt]

We had a fascinating week in Kansas. I thoroughly recommend going to this conference, to anyone with an interest in soil regeneration. They have dozens of speakers from around the world (mostly from the USA of course) and there is something about seeing the scale of the prairies and how their farms operate which puts what we are trying to do in perspective. Next year they've booked Allan Savory as their keynote speaker and they're moving the conference to Wichita, which will be easier to get to as it has an airport, unlike Salina, where they've been these last 21 years.

One interesting thing about these guys is that they have been at it so long, admittedly in a different climate and with different soils, and so they are constantly refining what continuous no-till can achieve. The general theme I picked up this year was: get more animals on the land. When I went 4 years ago the old-timers were saying that they wished they'd started growing cover-crops way back when, how cover crops were a game-changer etc, now they're even more excited and saying they wished they'd got more cows/sheep to eat the cover crops off: the SOM improvements from grazed covers are way better than covers alone. About half the talks were grazing animal related. Another general theme was farmers looking after their own interests, growing their own seed, getting off the GM bandwagon etc. The system is stacked against them atm, it'll be interesting to see how it pans out.

We had a fascinating week in Kansas. I thoroughly recommend going to this conference, to anyone with an interest in soil regeneration. They have dozens of speakers from around the world (mostly from the USA of course) and there is something about seeing the scale of the prairies and how their farms operate which puts what we are trying to do in perspective. Next year they've booked Allan Savory as their keynote speaker and they're moving the conference to Wichita, which will be easier to get to as it has an airport, unlike Salina, where they've been these last 21 years.

One interesting thing about these guys is that they have been at it so long, admittedly in a different climate and with different soils, and so they are constantly refining what continuous no-till can achieve. The general theme I picked up this year was: get more animals on the land. When I went 4 years ago the old-timers were saying that they wished they'd started growing cover-crops way back when, how cover crops were a game-changer etc, now they're even more excited and saying they wished they'd got more cows/sheep to eat the cover crops off: the SOM improvements from grazed covers are way better than covers alone. About half the talks were grazing animal related. Another general theme was farmers looking after their own interests, growing their own seed, getting off the GM bandwagon etc. The system is stacked against them atm, it'll be interesting to see how it pans out.

An organic dairy farmer locally said that the increased profit in organic was as much about producing there own feed rather than buying it in as they had before.

 

[Wombat]

Totally unreleated to no till but if in the Wichita/Salina area this is certainly worth an afternoon http://cosmo.org/

 

[Philip Hedeng]

Is there any presentation material online from the conference?

 

[shakerator]

So is Trump pro no-till?

no he hates minimal disturbance

 

[martian]

Is there any presentation material online from the conference?

If I remember right, they'll sell DVDs of some of the presentations. They don't want to give it away, else people (folks) won't come to the conference. It's a delightful, farmer-run organisation devoted to exploring the possibilities of no-till and sharing ideas and techniques between farmers. If only we had something like this in the UK. Oh, hang on...

 

[Philip Hedeng]

If I remember right, they'll sell DVDs of some of the presentations. They don't want to give it away, else people (folks) won't come to the conference. It's a delightful, farmer-run organisation devoted to exploring the possibilities of no-till and sharing ideas and techniques between farmers. If only we had something like this in the UK. Oh, hang on...

Britain is lovely at the end of June I've heard. I've told my wife it's the perfect holiday destination.