Fall 2023 Oskaloosa Herald Agriculture Magazine

Unlocking Agricultural Potential

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About Ag riculture Magazine

Agriculture Magazine is published by the Oskaloosa Herald

All rights reserved, Copyright 2023

Contributing Writers

Channing Rucks, Leah Stam

Marketing Representatives

Ashley Coyne, Tylor Durbin

Magazine Layout/Design

Axel Vazquez

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Photos are a compilation of original photography by Axel Vazquez, creative services at the Oskaloosa Herald, Mahaska County Historical Society, and Metro Creative Connection.

4 | No-tilling through the drought

8 | They were pioneers

12 | Once upon a harvest

On the cover: Leah Stam stands in a cornfield looking on as her husband, Caleb, chops silage. She is joined by three of her children, Collin, Ryan and Lacey.

Cover photo by Axel Vazquez.

No-tilling through the drought

Local farmers say the benefits outweigh the challenges

By Channing Rucks, Staff Writer

After a rough spell of drought this summer, farmers are hard at work bringing in this fall’s harvest. Despite the lack of rainfall through the growing months, the yields in southeast Iowa have so far been optimistic. The cycle of planting season, severe summer drought and harvest has become a yearly occurrence over the past few years. Each growing season involves a lot of prayer and hope that the subsoil moisture from the previous year will be enough to see the crops through.

A perennial topic for farmers is how they can best incorporate conservation measures into their farm management practices. Conservation is a major title in the Farm Bill, a five-year federal spending package that is currently up for renewal. It can also contribute to the quality of the crops produced.

One conservation practice that has been gaining momentum over the past several years is no-till farming, an agricultural technique that allows farmers to grow crops without disturbing a field’s soil through tillage. It can help to prevent the erosion of Iowa’s precious “black gold” topsoil. Fields that have been worked using no-till can also have an edge over fields that have been tilled once drought hits.

Cress VanWyngarden, a farmer in the Knoxville area whose family has implemented no-till throughout their entire farming operation starting in the ‘90s, says that in his experience, no-till acres are much more able to retain moisture due to lack of exposure.

“My personal experience with it, places that we have had to till up, like working around a waterway or something like that, where we’ve reshaped and then had to go in and disturb that soil, you can necessarily see that that dries out much quicker, because it doesn’t have that cover, that natural stubble cover from the corn stalks or from the beans the previous year,” VanWyngarden says. “Whenever you have that dirt exposed and loosened, it’s able to dry out very quickly.”

“The soil there is black,” he adds, “and so it soaks up all of the sun’s rays, and it really eats it up and dries it out quickly, whereas with the no-till system, you’ve got all that stubble there shading the ground, keeping the wind from drying the moisture directly out of the exposed soil.”

VanWyngarden also says that using no-till on the acres he farms provides some cover for his fields in a similar way that cover crops do in other farming operations.

“We enjoy the benefit of not having nearly as much erosion, since the soil is not disturbed, and we’ve got cover all year long with that,” he says. “Not a green cover like some of the folks that are experimenting with cover crops, but we do still have a cover on our ground all the time.”

No-till also preserves the natural cracks and contours of the soil, allowing space and preventing compaction so that rain can be more easily absorbed. According to the Iowa State Extension Office, tilling increases the potential for soil erosion after rain, the loss of soil organic matter, topsoil and nutrients. The dry conditions that are exacerbated by tillage can form large soil clods that are difficult to till in the spring.

Alex Fynaardt, an agronomist at Key Coop in New Sharon, says that people with established no-till operations are seeing better moisture levels during planting season due to less disturbance suffered by the soil.

“We’ve seen increased benefits here these last couple of years, where it’s been really dry in the spring, because the no-tillers, and even some of these cover crop growers, have seen better plantable moisture in that top two inches of soil because the first time they get out there is with their planter,” he says.

“They haven’t done anything to dry that topsoil out. They can put the seed in moisture. A lot of times they can plant a little bit shallower because that moisture is still there and still uniform, and they’re not worried about making sure they get it planted deep enough to find moisture.”

Lucas DeBruin, an agronomist at FS Agriland in Oskaloosa, says that several people in the Oskaloosa implement no-till

practices on their soybeans, but that fewer use it when planting corn. He roughly estimates that over 50% of farmers in Mahaska County no-till soybeans into their cornfields, but that only 25% use no-till when planting corn.

DeBruin also emphasizes that no-till is not something that will instantly improve yields overnight. In fact, the implementation process can be difficult and actually cause a yield drag for a few years before farmers begin to see the benefits. Fynaardt adds that conversion to notill requires planning ahead, including making sure that the equipment that will be used is set up to handle the different planting process.

“It’s not ongoing to be just like an overnight thing, you know, just deciding ‘Well, I think next year is going to be a drought. Let’s go no-till this year.’ It builds on itself year over year, so the guys who have been no-till longer are seeing better results for that water holding capacity, that weathering the drought, a little bit more than the guys have for one or two years,” DeBruin says.

Successful no-tilling requires commitment, patience and investment before farmers can really reap its rewards. Jerry DeBruin, a farmer located near Oskaloosa who uses no-till, says that the method requires machinery that is specially fitted to handle no-till, and adds that his planter, which is fitted to do no-till, is now probably the most expensive piece of machinery he owns besides his combine. No-till can also require closer management in the spring to get the timing right.

In the end though, he says that the combination of environmental and economic benefits — such as fewer driving hours in the tractor, less fuel used and less erosion and compaction of the soil — is well worth the investment.

“How it first came about was, you know, it’s better for the environment, and that’s what we were after. I mean, it’s considerably changed our erosion problem. We don’t have all the little erosion ripples down the hills anymore. But what we started seeing was the economic benefit,” says Jerry DeBruin. “What’s hard is people try it and they say ‘Well, that didn’t work. It was the worst crop I’ve had in five years.’ But it is a learning curve, and it does take more management than just going out and tilling the dirt and planting the seed.”

At a southeast Iowa roundtable in March, Sen. Joni Ernst (R-IA) hosted local farmers and agricultural experts to discuss the conservation title of the upcoming Farm Bill. At the time, one of the group’s main concerns was how best to market valuable conservation practices like no-till or cover cropping to farmers who are still skeptical and fear that converting to

these practices will negatively impact their farm operations. One of the group’s solutions was to emphasize the farm management and economic benefits that conservation practices can have, marketing them as offensive tools for farmers to use, rather than defensive ones.v

It’s a sentiment that local no-tillers share. Though they say that there is no one-size-fits-all method for tillage, and that some plots of land will need to be tilled because of their

situation, they also agree that transitioning to no-till has been a valuable step for their operations.

“You’re not spending as much time, you’re not spending as much fuel, you’re not spending as much wear and tear on your equipment,” VanWyngarden says. “It does take some time for the no-till benefits to really show themselves in your yield … Usually it’s somewhere within the first three to five years is

when you really start to see a benefit from it. A lot of folks, they tried to no-till, and in those first couple years you do see a yield drag, where your yields drop a little bit, and they kind of get a bad taste in their mouth because of that. They just haven’t tried it for long enough to let the benefits of it express themselves in their crop. So there’s a lot of science that goes into it.”

They were pioneers

When the Nelson family came to Mahaska County

By Channing Rucks, Staff Writer

In Mahaska County, the season of harvest is as old as the community itself. When the New Purchase opened to settlement in 1843, homesteaders flocked to Iowa, eager to stake their claim to a piece of land they could call their own.

Many of the stories of the first Iowa homesteaders are generational. Some of their descendants are still in Mahaska County today, farming land that has been in their family for more than 150 years. Perhaps the most famous homesteaders in Mahaska County were the Nelson Family, led by Daniel and Margaret Nelson, who came to Iowa after they were married in Butler County, Ohio in 1840.

Today, their homestead is known as the Nelson Pioneer Farm and Museum, and is the cornerstone of the Mahaska County Historical Society. In the 1840s, it was Daniel and Margaret Nelson’s very own corner of Iowa; the place they lived, worked and died.

Dorothy A Vos writes in her book, “The Legacy of Daniel Nelson,” that the newly-wedded Nelson couple left Butler County, Ohio and began their journey to Iowa Territory shortly after their wedding. Their trip took them down the Ohio River to Keokuk, Iowa, where they joined a group of fellow pioneer families before continuing west.

“They traveled by covered wagons pulled by teams of oxen,” Vos writes. “The families first stopped in Fairfield, Iowa in Jefferson county. As newlyweds, they traveled while Margaret was pregnant with their first son, William. They were in Fairfield about two years, allowing Margaret to give birth to their child. Many other families from their wagon train continued to journey westward.”

Daniel Nelson’s goal, Vos writes, was to purchase a farm further north, in the territory of Mahaska County. Nelson Pioneer Farm and Museum Director Margaret Spiegel says that Daniel Nelson already had an uncle, James Comstock, living near where Oskaloosa is today. Comstock, who settled

in the area very early, had interest in a local gristmill, which was used to grind flour.

After the “New Purchase” opened to settlement in 1843, the Nelsons left Fairfield and began the journey northwest to Mahaska County. Vos writes that the fledgling family settled briefly on a farm near Eddyville before continuing their journey north to the Comstock property.

“They followed the Indian Trail, which was now wide enough to accommodate the carts and wagons used by settlers,” she writes. “They settled on a farm near J.B. Eddy’s Trading Post, which became Eddyville, Iowa. During their time near Eddyville, the Nelsons’ home was an Indian ‘wickiup’ that was constructed from elm bark. Their second child, a daughter, Barbara, was born on Dec. 2, 1844. Daniel and Margaret always said that Barbara was the first white child born in the territory of Mahaska County. They were fortunate that December was a mild month.”

In 1845 the Nelsons finally finished their journey to what is now the land just north of Oskaloosa. Daniel Nelson quickly staked his claim to approximately 230 acres of land adjacent to the Comstock property, according to Vos. Part of the land he was able to homestead. He purchased the remainder in addition to the homestead. The average land bid price at the time was $1.75 per acre. Spiegel says that according to local legend, Daniel Nelson walked 70 miles to the land office at Iowa City to file his claim. It would have been about a threeday journey by horse.

Almost immediately after filing his claim, Nelson set to work farming and making improvements to his new land.

“There was a lot of timber that they cleaned up,” Spiegel says. “They were doing cattle, and they had their draft horses in the barn and mules … And then there would have been corn and small grains.”

A scene from the Nelson Pioneer Farm’s 2023 Fall Festival

Two more children, James and John Nelson, were born in the initial log cabin that Daniel Nelson first built on the property before 1852, when the Nelsons began construction on the iconic brick house that is perhaps the best-known symbol of the farm today. The Nelsons would round out their family with two daughters, Martha and Sarah Nelson, in 1852 and 1854 respectively.

Sarah Nelson was the only one of Daniel and Margaret Nelson’s children to be born in the brick house. She and her sister Martha never married. They inherited the farm from their parents and the two of them lived in the famous house until their deaths, Sarah in 1932, Martha in 1941.

Vos’ book includes a quote from the Dec. 29, 1887 edition of the Oskaloosa Daily Herald, which was printed the day Daniel Nelson died. The notice of his death read “One of the oldest settlers of this area died early this morning after a lingering illness of many months. Mr Nelson came to Iowa in 1841 and first settled in Jefferson County, and later came to Mahaska and settled on the farm that he occupied until his death. He was born in Ohio and was 76 years of age. He was a honest man, a well hearted and kind neighbor, and in his earlier life carried on much activity and success. He will be followed to his grave by a good number of people who knew him and appreciated him at his worth.”

Daniel “Roy” and Lillian Nelson, grandchildren of Daniel and Margaret, were eventually born to the third Nelson son, John, in the 1880s. The siblings jointly inherited the Nelson property, but neither of them ever married. In the absence of a suitable heir, both Roy and Lillian Nelson bequeathed the farm

to the Mahaska County Historical Society, which is how the Nelson Pioneer Farm and Museum was born.

Spiegel says that in the time since the Nelson family first came to Mahaska County, the agricultural landscape has undergone many changes. Farms, which were once diverse operations that produced several commodities needed for a homestead on the frontier, have since become more specialized, focused on row crops or livestock operations.

“The most obvious [change] is the technology behind it,” Spiegel says. “You’re going from having draft power with a team of horses or mules pulling an implement, increasing to your first tractor … to the more powerful tractors that you see now, that can drive themselves with GPS.”

The current farm is home to Roy Nelson’s first tractor from the 1930s.

Sisters Martha and Sarah Nelson go for a drive in their buggy in 1912.

“I think it’s always important to know where you’ve been so that you can think about where you can go,” Spiegel says. “The timeline isn’t linear, or something that you walk. It’s more from the ground up. You’re built on the foundation that came before … I think it instills a deeper sense of appreciation on where we currently are and how that works. When you think about just how much harder people had to work to make all of the agricultural success that they did at the homesteading level, it was a whole family endeavor.”

The Nelson Pioneer Farm is open yearly from May through September. For more information about the site’s history and the work that it does today, visit their website at nelsonpioneer.org.

“[Farm management] is going in cycles,” Spiegel adds.

“Because when you went through, you had large acres and you wanted to convert everything to crop ground. You started to reduce the diversity on a farm. You weren’t producing livestock and doing crops the same way anymore. I think you’re starting to see some of that coming back in a cycle, where people are realizing diversification is helpful, you know, [you don’t want to] put all your eggs in one basket.”

Today, the farm and the historic machinery displayed there exists to help Mahaska County and the surrounding communities remember where they came from and the work that it took to build Mahaska County as it is today.

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Sarah Nelson goes for a sleigh ride in 1879. Behind her is the famous Nelson House, located at the Nelson Pioneer Farm. Sarah was the only one of Daniel and Margaret Nelson’s children to be born in the house.

Once upon a harvest

By Leah Stam, Guest Writer

For many, fall brings thoughts of pumpkin spice lattes, Friday night football games, a visit to the pumpkin patch, bonfires, and raking leaves. For me, the humming of the cicadas hints of the many weeks our chopper will be humming in numerous fields around Mahaska county.

Fall for this dairy farmer’s wife is one of the most intense seasons of the year. Not only am I sending three of our four children back to school, but I am heading back as well. As a part-time teacher, I spend four mornings a week in a classroom, then quickly switch roles to farm wife and mom as I hurry out the school doors. Juggling being a farm wife, mom, and teacher in the months of August, September, and October can prove to be particularly challenging. Just as I begin writing lessons and preparing a classroom, my farmer is preparing machinery and gearing up for “GO” time. In fact, we often joke when he heads out the door on the first day of harvest that we will see each other again in November! Already, several weeks ago, the first call for custom chopping

came. My husband saw the name on his phone, looked over at me, and said, “Here we go!” I knew without asking that the beginning of harvest was upon us.

Growing up in rural Iowa, with a dad who worked in agriculture, I always enjoyed the season of harvest. The equipment was enormous and fascinating; the urgency that came with emptying fields and filling bins was exciting to a young girl. As I often tagged along with my dad out to his customers’ farms, I appreciated the countless hours of “after hours” work that went into the farming operations. And somewhere in there, I began to hope that someday I might marry a farmer.

Fast forward several decades and my dream did come true! During a summer over ten years ago, I found myself dating a dairy farmer. And as I imagine many “farm” relationships begin, we spent countless hours together in tractor cabs, the chopper, and his diesel truck. Some might say the excitement of that summer was just young love…but already then, I was not only falling in love with the farmer, but also the rhythm and energy of life on a dairy farm!

Over the past thirteen years, we have weathered harvest each fall. Many things have changed in that time, most notably that we have gone from milking in a traditional dairy parlor to an automated milking system, where three Lely robots now milk our cows. This upgrade has made it easier for our guys to stay out in the fields for longer spans of time without needing to stop to milk, which has made time spent on fieldwork more efficient.

That being said, harvest has not slowed down for us. In fact, we are now able to do more custom chopping than we had before. Since not all farmers own a self-propelled forage harvester (chopper) like we do, we are asked by quite a few neighbors to bring our chopper, wagons, and sometimes

The Stam Family in the feeding alley of their Dairy. Pictured are Caleb and Leah Stam with their children Collin, 10; Maria, 8; Ryan, 4; and Lacey, 8 months.

bagger over to their farms to chop a part of their corn crops to be used as cattle feed. Since chopping involves processing the entire corn plant, it is best done when the corn is not as dry as it should be for combining. Because of this, our harvest begins earlier than it does for most other local farmers.

With this ability to work for our neighbors comes the need to move our equipment from farm to farm quite frequently. Moving a rather monstrous self-propelled chopper as well as several 20 foot wagons and often a bagger down Mahaska county roads is perhaps the most nerve-wracking event of the season for me. It was only a few years ago that two of our wagons and our pickup were rear-ended by a semi on the fourlane highway. Therefore, in the past week, I have followed our equipment to more than four different farms. When it is your husband up ahead of you going 15 mph and your kids behind you in the back seat as you follow Daddy, you pray the entire trip for safety.

Last week I watched as a pickup kept trying to pass us, and I knew it was not in a safe place to try. I cringe as fellow drivers look to pass when we go through town or right before we make a left-hand turn. Without a doubt, I breathe a sigh of relief and say a prayer of thanks as we arrive safely at each destination. There is not a day that goes by that I don’t take for granted that my family comes home safely each night.

Accompanying equipment is not my only time spent on the road. Honestly, I feel like I live out of our SUV during these fall months. Each day includes the typical transporting of kids to and from school as well as the littles to Grandma’s house while I teach. However, meals for us are rarely enjoyed leisurely at our own kitchen table. In the past several weeks since we started in the fields, I can count on one hand the number of times we’ve all sat down as a family at home to eat together. Instead, we eat wherever Daddy is. I admit, I often

am envious of those wives that meal plan a month in advance and can make their grocery lists a week or two ahead. For me, it is not unusual to not know when or where lunch or supper will be or even how many people will need to be fed.

I’ve noticed that when I try to explain this arrangement to other wives and moms, they shake their heads in amazement. “How do you do it?” “Why don’t you just send food with him?” “Can’t he eat when he gets home?” Indeed, why would I do so much extra running when it would be so much easier to just make him take his meals with him? The answer is one I am passionate about. I make these sacrifices for our family. In the past several weeks, my preschooler has looked forward to taking his chicken nuggets up in the chopper and eating with Daddy. We look forward to the ten or fifteen minutes Daddy might be able to spare to quickly hop in the vehicle with us to eat and ask us about our day. It’s our short chance to connect with one another both as a family and as a couple.

If I didn’t take our meals (and our kids) to my husband, we would rarely see him in the fall. Not only are my kids getting to tell their daddy about their days, they are seeing and learning to appreciate the long hours and hard work it takes to keep a farm running. So I make the hot dogs and throw them on buns, grab the bags of chips and some cookies and head out the door. I call my farmer as I’m leaving home to find out his exact location at that moment and head out to a field.

I smile and wave at the neighbors as I drive across their driveways and out to their fields–they all know me by now! Sometimes I have the opportunity to stop to visit with them–which is one of the highlights of custom chopping for me. I love the way our community comes together in this unified purpose. We are all in this shared, albeit a little crazy, occupation together, and there is something fulfilling about

Leah Stam delivers supper to her husband, Caleb. Their daughter, Maria, climbs up to ride with her father.

Caleb estimates he will chop 500 acres of silage this fall.

that. As I chat with other farmers, I am reminded of those times as a little girl tagging along with Dad. Just as I could feel some sense of camaraderie and purpose then, I still feel that same energy as a farmer’s wife today.

It rarely is convenient to quickly load kids in the vehicle and take off for an implement shop the next town or county over to make an emergency parts run, but once again, I love the sense of knowing that I am helping to keep the harvest going. I have also found that I enjoy being where the action is–knowing where he’s at, seeing if he’s broken down, shining my headlights or holding the flashlight to help him, or just being a quiet moral support. He knows I’m there in case he needs anything.

I’ve told new farm wives to do just that…go see where he’s at, instead of getting frustrated that he’s not home for supper on time. When you see him under a piece of equipment that has broken down, you don’t worry so much about supper and think more about his safety and hope it is a quick fix. Spending those hours together may not be romantic, but you get to know each other on a whole new level and have a better appreciation for what he does.

Sometimes, my farmer even “lets” me get a more handson experience! Although I haven’t had to yet this fall

(although I am told my time is coming soon!), there are a few opportunities for me to haul in loads from the chopper to the bagger. While driving a tractor with a full 20 foot wagon is not something that comes naturally to me, I have to admit that there is an adrenaline rush that comes with being able to play a very real part in bringing in the crops that will feed our dairy cows for the next year! And once again, I feel the satisfaction and energy that I felt as a little girl dreaming of marrying a farmer.

Did my dream really come true? Is being married to a farmer all I had envisioned it to be? In short, yes. Does that mean that we don’t have discouraging days? Of course not. Automated milkers break down. Machinery breaks down. I break down. But would I trade the countless miles and hours and tears for a more traditional life? Absolutely not. I see the pride my husband has in being a part of feeding the world, and I delight in being there beside him, supporting and encouraging him every step of the way. And as I write this while holding our sleeping baby and waiting for him to come home, I can’t think of any better place to raise a family than right here on a dairy farm in Mahaska county.

Leah Stam looks on as Caleb and Maria chop silage.

The Stams milk, on average, between 130 and 140 cows at their dairy.