Le Mars Agri-Center

He enjoys the chance to always be learning. “There’s always something new. The new pest is soybean gall midge; before that it was soybean aphids. I can remember being on a farm in Sioux County where I first saw corn rootworm Bt resistance. It was the same farm where I first identified common water hemp as resistant to herbicides. The oddest thing is both times it was the farm my mother grew up on. How’s that for a coincidence?”

The farmers Joel serves have faced a plethora of weed problems through the years: water hemp, wooly cup grass, shattercane, velvetleaf, and his childhood nemesis, Jerusalem artichoke. “All the different weeds – we’ve found the answers over time. But we still have a lot of challenges moving forward,” Joel said. Soil conservation is another area where he’s seen a lot of progress, but where a lot more is still needed. “We’re doing a better job on soil conservation than we did before the 1980s – we don’t have moldboard plows anymore.” However, he said, after a good rainfall, it’s visible that too much erosion is still occurring. Joel and Lorriane De Jong and their family on Christmas 2020: Son-in-law Trevor “Our soil is one of the best resources anywhere. Oetken and daughter Kaitlin with their children Weston, Ty, Kylie and Wyatt; and Sometimes we underappreciate how good daughter Mackenzie. we’ve got it in this part of the world.” He hopes the “low hanging fruit” of putting more soybean acres into no-till accelerates. “I think we’re maybe 50 percent of the way there in northwest Iowa,” Joel said. He likes seeing the adoption of more cover crops. Balancing short-term profitability with environmental protection will continue to be a challenge. He values the creativity farmers demonstrate. “If there’s a roadblock, there will be a farmer who figures out a way around it in almost all cases. It’s been great to work with some of those people over the years who are willing to think differently and consider practices to reduce our impact on the wonderful resources we have here.” An important pivot point for northwest Iowa came in the 1990s. “If you want to look at a real positive change, we went from thinking of manure as a waste to valuing it as a nutrient source for the crop. Some of the highest-producing crops we have, manure is a component of the success. I like to think that what Extension did in programs and providing information contributed to at least part of that success.” He remembers the first conference on the topic he helped coordinate with Dordt University almost 30 years ago. Before too long, manure management plans started to become part of legislation. Hand-in-hand with the advancement of manure management has been the strength of the livestock sector in northwest Iowa, notably, Sioux, Plymouth, Lyon and O’Brien counties. “You take a look at the life of the communities within those counties, the fact is livestock kept people in the area. The supporting businesses for livestock have given life to a lot of

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205 First Ave. SW, Le Mars, IA 51031