Sowing old and new together

was going in. I didn’t have any solid plans for it, but my dad was aware that it was for sale and suggested I consider buying it. It was a lot of hard clearing work for a few years to get it really cleaned up.”

Following his 1988 graduation from Michigan Tech, Tutak worked as a “part-time” farmer and full-time engineer until 2009. Once his father retired, he rented the farm from him. Then in 2000 he purchased the home farm and property. Interestingly, the first piece of equipment he purchased on his own was a John Deere minimal-till planter. With a few modifications Tutak says it really could be called a no-till planter. According to Tutak his ground is mostly a loamy sand, “I’ve got about 10-18 inches of topsoil and below that it’s pure yellow beach sand. In the early days we experienced several years of drought. I could literally see rain falling all around us, but we wouldn’t get any. In 2011 I put in my first pivot, designing and installing both the irrigation pumps and 3-phase generator systems. It cost me some money, but it is amazing what putting water on a crop can do. It’s like an extra insurance policy, if you have water available. While the soil is a sandy loam, the water table is high, which is ‘a blessing and a curse’. I’ve installed horizontal sock wells, which are trenched horizontally 20 feet below grade. Sock wells were originally used for dewatering construction work sites. The eight-inch drain tile is covered with a filter sock to keep the sand out. The key is to have enough good ground structure to allow infiltration and percolation so water is available for irrigation. It is a balance irrigating enough to grow the crop, but not so much that you deplete and leach nutrients to the water table. You have to take a lot of things into consideration to create that balance - weather, growing cycle etc. In the spirit of conservation, extra features are included on the irrigation systems to ensure uniform water application and high water well energy efficiency.”

As far as his no-till practices, Tutak says he’s been almost 100% no-till since the beginning of his farming operation. He can remember the days before the farm implemented no-till, when wind and water erosion would severely damage a freshly plowed field or hillside. Besides other safeguards, Tutak is in the process of creating more permanently-vegetated waterways. Instead of farming right through the low spots or drain areas, grasses have been planted to protect the groundwater.

Tutak speaks well of the Oceana Conservation District saying they have kept him motivated to do what he knew he needed to do. “EQIP does require thorough record-keeping, but that info is handy to have when managing nutrient application and irrigation,” Tutak said. The EQIP program inspired him to put in a protective chemical and fuel handling facility, the final step in becoming MAEAP certified. With OCD Executive Director Suzie Knoll’s assistance, he has added two acres of wildflowers to create a natural pollinator habitat as well. He does use grid soil-sampling on a two to three year rotation. With that information he can more accurately apply amendments to his fields. He also regularly scouts for weeds, insects and disease and relies on the experts for advice.

Tutak enjoys all seasons of the year and uses winter to catch up on paperwork and if the conditions are favorable, get in some cross-country skiing. Pretty soon the snow and cold will be gone and the fields will need his attention once again. And along with his many modern farming and conservation practices, you’ll probably still find him walking his fields with a hoe over his shoulder, scouting for any velvetleaf or marestail, meticulously taking care of the land.