MODERN FARMER
High-tech help a growing presence on farms ... Page 2 A special section of the Journal-Courier | Sunday, March 29, 2020 | $1
2 • Sunday, March 29, 2020 • Modern Farmer
Blossoming of bots High-tech help a growing presence on farms By Knvul Sheikh New York Times
In a research field off Illinois Route 54, corn stalks shimmer in rows 40 feet deep. Girish Chowdhary, an agricultural engineer at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, bent to place a small white robot at the edge of a row marked 103. The robot, named TerraSentia, resembled a souped up version of a lawn mower, with all-terrain wheels and a high-resolution camera on each side. In much the same way that selfdriving cars “see” their surroundings, TerraSentia navigates a field by sending out thousands of laser pulses to scan its environment. A few clicks on a tablet were all that were needed to orient the robot at the start of the row before it took off, squeaking slightly as it drove over ruts in the field.
“It’s going to measure the height of each plant,” Chowdhary said. It would do that and more. The robot is designed to generate the most detailed portrait possible of a field, from the size and health of the plants to the number and quality of ears each corn plant will produce by the end of the season, so that agronomists can breed even better crops. In addition to plant height, TerraSentia can measure stem diameter, leaf-area index and “stand count” — the number of live grain- or fruit-producing plants — or all of those traits at once. And Chowdhary is working on adding even more traits, or phenotypes, to the list with the help of colleagues at EarthSense, a spinoff company that he created to manufacture more robots. Traditionally, plant breeders have measured these phenotypes by hand and used them to select plants with the very best characteristics for cre-
ating hybrids. The advent of DNA sequencing has helped, enabling breeders to isolate genes for some desirable traits, but it still takes a human to assess whether the genes isolated from the previous generation actually led to improvements in the next one.
MODERN FARMER March 29, 2020
A blossoming of bots “The idea is that robots can automate the phenotyping process and make these measurements more reliable,” Chowdhary said. In doing so, the TerraSentia and others like it can help optimize the yield of farms far beyond what humans alone have been able to accomplish. Automation has always been a big part of agriculture, from the first seed drills to modern combine harvesters. Farm equipment is now regularly outfitted with sensors that use machine learning and robotics to identify weeds and calculate the amount of herbicide that needs to sprayed, for instance, or to learn to detect and pick strawberries. Lately, smaller, more dexterous robots have emerged in droves. In 2014, the French company Naïo released 10 prototypes of a robot named Oz that is just 3 feet long
On the cover: A TerraSentia robot moves through a research field. The robot is designed to generate the most detailed portrait possible of a field, from the size and health of the plants to the number and quality of ears each corn plant will produce by the end of the season, so agronomists can breed even better crops in the future. Institute for Genomic Biology | University of Illinois
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Farm groups push for right count
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Striping method preserves soil structure
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Expect soggy season, less severe than 2019
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The reality of growing plants for a living
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Modern Farmer • Sunday, March 29, 2020 • 3
weighs roughly 300 pounds. It assembles phenotypes of vegetable crops even as it gobbles up weeds. EcoRobotix, based in Switzerland, makes a solar-powered robot that rapidly identifies crops and weeds; the device resembles an end table on wheels. The household appliancemaker Bosch has also tested a robot called BoniRob for analyzing soil and plants. “All of a sudden, people are starting to realize that data collection and analysis tools developed during the ‘90s technology boom can be applied to agriculture,” said George Kantor, a senior systems scientist at Carnegie Mellon University, who is using his own research to develop tools for estimating crop yields. The TerraSentia is among the smallest of the farmbots avail-
able today. At 12.5 inches wide and roughly the same height, the 30-pound robot fits well between rows of various crops. It also focuses on gathering data from much earlier in the agricultural pipeline: the research plots where plant breeders select the varieties that ultimately make it to market. The data collected by the TerraSentia is changing breeding from a reactionary process into a more predictive one. Using the robot’s advanced machinelearning skills, scientists can collate the influence of hundreds, even thousands, of factors on a plant’s future traits, much like doctors utilize genetic tests to understand the likelihood of a patient developing breast cancer or Type 2 diabetes. “Using phenotyping robots, we can identify
the best-yielding plants before they even shed pollen,” said Mike Gore, a plant biologist at Cornell University. He added that doing so can potentially cut in half the time needed to breed a new cultivar — a plant variety produced by selective breeding — from roughly eight years to just four. Sowing a niche The demands on agriculture are rising globally. The human population is expected to climb to 9.8 billion by
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forward and which ones will have the right characteristics for growers in different parts of the country.” Chowdhary and his colleagues hope that partnerships with big agribusinesses and academic institutions will help subsidize the robots for smallholder farmers. “Our goal is to eventually get the cost of the robots under $1,000,” he said. Farmers don’t need special expertise to operate the TerraSentia, either, Chowdhary said. The robot is almost fully autonomous. Growers with thousands of acres can have several units survey their crops, but a farmer in a developing country with only 5 acres could use one just as easily. The TerraSentia has already been tested in a wide variety of fields,
including corn, soybean, sorghum, cotton, wheat, tomatoes, strawberries, citrus crops, apple orchards, almond farms and vineyards. But some experts question whether such robots will ever truly be targeted to small farms or be a sufficiently affordable option. “For the kind of agriculture that smallholders tend to engage in, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia and parts of Latin America, there are a lot of barriers to the adoption of new technologies,” said Kyle Murphy, a policy and agricultural development analyst at the Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab at MIT. He added that robots like the TerraSentia may be more likely to help smallholder See ROBOTS | Page 5
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Girish Chowdhary holds a Terra Sentia robot as he and Chinmay Soman (left) talk with Tim Smith in one of Smith’s research fields.
2050 and 11.2 billion by 2100, according to the United Nations. To feed the world — with less land, fewer resources and a changing climate — farmers will need to augment their technological intelligence. The agricultural giants are interested. Corteva, which spun off from the merger of Dow Chemical and DuPont in 2016, has been testing the TerraSentia in fields across the United States. “There’s definitely a niche for this kind of robot,” said Neil Hausmann, who oversees research and development at Corteva. “It provides standardized, objective data that we use to make a lot of our decisions. We use it in breeding and product advancement, in deciding which product is the best, which ones to move
4 • Sunday, March 29, 2020 • Modern Farmer
Modern Farmer • Sunday, March 29, 2020 • 5
Robots From page 3
farmers indirectly by promoting the development of better or more suitable crops.
The road to improvement Before the TerraSentia can advance crop breeding for a wide swath of farmers, it must perfect a few more skills. Occasionally, it trips over branches and debris, or its wheels get stuck in
muddy soil, requiring the user to walk behind the rover and right its course as needed. “Hopefully, by next year we’ll be able to train the TerraSentia so even more users won’t have to be anywhere in the
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field,” Chowdhary said. For the moment, the TerraSentia keeps a leisurely pace, less than 1 mph. This allows its cameras to capture slight changes in pixels to measure the plants’ leaf-area index and recognize signs of disease. Chowdhary and his colleagues at EarthSense are hoping that advancements in camera technology will eventually add to the robot’s speed. The team is also building a maintenance barn, where the TerraSentia can dock after a long day. There, its battery can be swapped
with a fully charged one, and its wheels and sensors can be sprayed clean. But for now, a farmer simply dumps the robot in the back of a truck, takes it home and uploads its data to the cloud for analysis. The main office of EarthSense, in Urbana, is full of early versions of robotic technology that didn’t quite pan out. Initial prototypes of TerraSentia lacked a proper suspension system, so the robot jumped into the air and disrupted the video streams whenever researchers set it loose in a deeply rutted field.
Another design kept melting from the heat of the robot’s motors, until researchers switched plastics and added metal shielding. Those early, cracked chassis are now stacked on a shelf, like a museum display: a reminder of the need for improvement but also of the excitement that the robot has generated. “A lot people who tried the early prototypes still came back to us, even after having robots that essentially broke on them all the time,” Chowdhary said. “That’s how badly they needed these things.”
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6 • Sunday, March 29, 2020 • Modern Farmer
Farm groups push for right count By Marco Cartolano marco.cartolano @myjournalcourier.com
Organizations that represent farmers are working on getting an accurate count of this year’s census. The Illinois Farm Bureau equipped each county farm bureau with an iPad as a part of the effort to assist both members and non-members of the Illinois Farm bureau with getting access to the internet in order to complete their census survey. This year will be the first year where the survey can be done online and online surveys could become increasingly important if field work is further postponed due to COVID-19. The U.S. Census Bureau has already suspended field work until April 1. Lindsay McQueen, manager of the CassMorgan Farm Bureau, said her bureau is trying to reach out to farm bureau members and other members of the
community through social media in order to explain the importance of filling out the census for rural communities. McQueen said that filling out the census is important for residents of rural communities in order for them to have representation in Congress. The count from this year’s census will help the U.S. government decide how it will apportion seats in Congress. Current projections suggest that Illinois’ population loss will result in the state losing one or possibly two seats in House. Analysts are predicting that those lost seats could come from the southern, more rural parts of the state. “I think for every person that does [the census] downstate,” McQueen said, “That maybe will help us keep our local representation.” The census also plays a role in the allocation of $675 billion in federal funds in year. Agencies use census information
when they make decisions about allocating the money. McQueen said that education, fire and emergency response services, employment, housing and road work are some of the sectors that the funding could impact. She said that improving transportation will be important for farmers. In rural areas, access to broadband presents an issue for taking the online survey. McQueen said that while the Census Bureau wants everyone to do the census online, a hard-copy version is available in the packet and a person can call the census hotline to conduct the survey over the phone. Kristin Jamison, president of the Jacksonville Regional Economic Development Corp., said the corporation is involved in the census in its role as a regional partner to municipalities in Morgan and Scott counties. Jamison said the JREDC worked on a plan
of action to make sure that there is awareness of the census. They have worked on an advertising campaign for both traditional and social media. Jamison said that she is finding that the online survey has been an efficient and effective means of getting people to do the census,”We’re getting a lot of feedback that folks are already completing the census online.” Jamison said that Morgan County officials took part in the Local Update of Census Address Operation to make sure that every Morgan County address are electronically documented bu the Census Bureau so every resident could receive an invitation to respond to the census. McQueen said that doing the online survey is not timely. She used the iPad provided to the Cass-Morgan Farm Bureau to do her own survey and she completed it in two minutes and 30 seconds. The Cass-Morgan Farm
Marco Cartolano | Journal-Courier
Lindsay McQueen, director of the Cass-Morgan Farm Bureau, does her online survey for the 2020 U.S. Census. McQueen is using an iPad provided by the Illinois Farm Bureau that her branch is using to provide people in Cass and Morgan Counties access to the survey.
Bureau office is a census access center — which means that it is assured that it will have internet access and a tablet available for anyone in the community that needs to do the census. McQueen
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Modern Farmer • Sunday, March 29, 2020 • 7
Striping method preserves soil structure By Samantha McDaniel-Ogletree smcdaniel@myjournalcourier.com
Every farmer has a way of doing things to grow what he or she feels is the best crop and to keep fields in top condition. For the Freemans in Murrayville, they’ve been finding ways to keep their fields from eroding by limiting tilling and plowing. Jon Freeman plants soybeans and corn across several fields, but instead of tilling the fields after each harvest, he and his family focus on proper nutrition and the use of striping the fields to conserve soil. Strip cropping is the method of planting crops in alternated strips. For the Freemans, the limited tilling has allowed their field to take on a more original form. “We allow the soil structure to go back to where it is suppose to be,” Freeman said. “Ages ago, we had rolling hills and flat ground. Then we needed to do something to keep the soil in place.” Freeman said when the soil structure is correct, fields hold nutrients better, see less erosion and less standing water during the rainy season. It starts just after the harvest in the fall. Instead of tilling and placing chemicals, Freeman said he and his family put down chemicals for the soil and weed control after soil testing, but do little
else except cleaning up their strips. In the spring prior to planting, they’ll remove any weeds from the strips before planting. “We see where the strip is and we go in the same spot,” Freeman said. “We use a navigation system to make sure things are where they should be.” His fields are alternated with 6-inch strips where the crop is planted. In the space between, debris from previous harvests litter the ground, helping to keep the soil in place. In addition to keeping the soil in place, Freeman said leaving the crop debris in place helps with other issues that can arise during the seasons, including blowing dust and standing water. “In some fields, you see a lot of water during the spring or rainy seasons, but we don’t see it as much,” Freeman said. “And, you’ll see dust fly in some fields, but we don’t have a lot of that.” He said they also have an easier time harvesting as the ground is usually harder, so they have fewer muddy fields. Freeman said by not plowing the entire field each season, there is less work and the land takes on a more natural structure, which he believe is better for the crop. “It use to be that you had to plow everything, and that took time,” Freeman said. With less run off or erosion, Freeman said the soil keeps more nutrients and Freeman said there is not truly correct
way of farming and each field is different, but said he feels striping the field, versus a full plow is a good way of doing things.
“You have to get your mind set on it,” Freeman said. “We’ve been doing it for about 15 years.”
Samantha McDaniel-Ogletree | Journal-Courier
Jon Freeman checks his equipment in preparation for planting.
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8 • Sunday, March 29, 2020 • Modern Farmer
Expect soggy season, but less severe than 2019 By John Schwartz New York Times
Brace for another flooded spring — but not one
as bad as last year, forecasters from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration are warning.
“Flooding continues to be a factor for many Americans this spring,” with major to moderate flooding likely to occur in
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An aerial view of flood damage in March 2019. Brace for another flooded spring, but not one as bad as last year, forecasters from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration warn.
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23 states, said Mary Erickson, deputy director of the National Weather Service, in a call with reporters. The flooding should not be as severe, or last as long, as the ruinous conditions much of the country experienced last year, she said. Major flooding involves “extensive inundation of structures and roads,” with significant evacuation, while moderate flooding involves “some inundation of structures and roads” near streams, according to NOAA. The most severe flooding is expected in parts of North Dakota, South Dakota and Minnesota, but the extent of high water could range from
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the Northern Plains to the Gulf Coast, she said. That forecast puts 128 million people at risk of flooding, and 1.2 million at risk for major flooding, said Edward Clark, director of NOAA’s National Water Center. Heavy rains, he added, can be expected to lead to a larger-than-average zone of hypoxia — an area of low or depleted oxygen where life cannot be sustained, commonly called a dead zone — in the Gulf of Mexico this summer. Farmers, hit hard by last year’s heavy rainfall, can expect less severe conditions this year, but nonetheless could encounter “significant planting delays in 2020, said Brad Rippey, the Department of Agriculture meteorologist. Forecasts of aboveaverage temperatures over much of the country, as well as above-average precipitation in the Central and Eastern parts of the continental United States, mean that saturated soils and heavy rains could trigger flood conditions, according to NOAA’s climate prediction center. Heavy rains are expected across the Northern Plains and south to the lower Mississippi Valley, and extending to the East Coast. Alaska, too, should experience higher-thanaverage rainfall. Not all of the country will be wet. Drought conditions in California are likely to expand, as well as drought in parts of the Pacific Northwest, the southern Rocky Mountains and parts of southern Texas. This year’s predictions
are consistent in many ways with what scientists say the U.S. can expect from climate change. Deke Arndt, chief of the climate monitoring branch of NOAA’s National Centers for Environmental Information, said that floods “are born from a set of ingredients that come together,” including precipitation, the timing of snow melt, the degree of saturation in soils and other elements of the landscape. Climate change expresses itself through some, though not all, of these factors, he said, including the “much wetter autumns” in the Ohio Valley and Upper Midwest. This year’s flood season comes at the same time as the global coronavirus pandemic, which could strain resources for flood fighting. Many of the agencies that could be thrown into the coronavirus response, including the Army Corps of Engineers and the Federal Emergency Management Agency, are mainstays of the nation’s flood response. Local communities could find their own resources stretched as well. Bob Gallagher, mayor of Bettendorf, Iowa, and cochairman of the Mississippi River Cities and Towns Initiative, a 10-state group of communities along the river, expressed relief at this year’s forecast of less severe weather conditions but said in an interview that “we’re going to be forced to fight two disasters on two separate fronts” because of the virus.
Modern Farmer • Sunday, March 29, 2020 • 9
The reality of growing plants for a living By Chris Enroth
Special to the Journal-Courier
Do you think at some point as children our imagination changes from imaginary friends, action figures, tea parties and dolls to speculative market planning? How dull the adult imagination can be. However, if there is one thing about winter, it puts my imagination into overdrive. I create these visions of farming on a grand scale with employees, tourists, and food. Yes, food. My perfect farm would have a cafe, perhaps a small local brewery operation as well. I have a passion for all things horticulture, including ornamental landscapes, natural areas, and food (growing and eating it!). I want to do it all but am stopped in my tracks when reality hits. As an adult reality tends to come in the form of bills, a sick kid, or overextended schedules. Most farmers, landscapers, pretty much a grower of any type of plant understand the need for financial frugality. The margins are slim in the world of growing food and plants. On average farmers only see about 15 cents of the retail sales dollar. If there is one quality I share with farmers, is I can stretch a dollar. Although my frugality is a double-edged sword as my wife can attest because I strive for perfection to avoid having to buy more stuff due to mistakes. That means time is used (My wife would say wasted) overthinking an obstacle
when most of the time a solution forms as I physically work through the problem. Why am I expounding on the character of farmers? Because in Illinois a lot of people are throwing their hat into the plant growing game. These are mostly cannabis growers, whether it is hemp, CBD, or THC. I think many are learning (the hard way) how hard it really is and how close the margins are for growers. Probably one of the best resources for some of the CBD/THC growers would be to chat with someone in the floriculture industry. These are often growers that have perfected living on shoe-string budgets and “use it until it’s broke and then duct tape it and keep using it.” According to GrowerTalks editor, Chris Beytes, who cites an analysis posted on Marketwatch.com, the larger Canadian cannabis growers only have on average 6.5 months of available liquidity (cash) to operate. American cannabis growers are a little better off with about 14 months of cash available. Perhaps you’re reading this as a business owner thinking, “Gee that would be nice to have six months of operating cash”, keep in mind these growers spend months developing their product – whether it’s nursery plants or food. Tree growers spend years and years getting their product to market! You need money to live on in the meantime and to pay staff to main-
tain the crop. The other major reality check is courage. Courage to hedge your bets that nature will play along, that the machinery will make it through one more pass in the field, that the markets will happily accept your yield, with enough money made to buy that new piece of equipment or perhaps that trip you’ve been putting off for years. My thanks are to the farmers, growers, nursery pros and all ag professionals as we stand on the edge of winter, with the courage to dive back into another growing season. As I work on my own courage, I’ll keep dreaming of my horticultural palooza farm/nursery/prairie/café/ brewery/Chucky Cheese. OK, that last one was my kids’ idea.
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10 • Sunday, March 29, 2020 • Modern Farmer
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Modern Farmer • Sunday, March 29, 2020 • 11
12 • Sunday, March 29, 2020 • Modern Farmer
Helping spring by starting indoors By Ken Johnson
Special to the Journal-Courier
The weather this year has been a bit of a roller coaster.
One day it feels like spring, and the next it seems we are back in winter. Despite some of the warmer temperatures we’ve had this year, we still
have a way to go before the warm weather sticks around for the long haul. To help tide you over until spring, you can try forcing some
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temperatures are above freezing. Keep in mind that any branches you choose to remove will be affecting the plant’s floral display come spring. It may be a good idea to take your cuttings from the less viewed side or from areas that have a lot of branches while still trying to maintain a good shape. Once the branches are cut, bring them inside and submerge them in water overnight. While the branches are submerged re-cut the stems (diagonally) one inch from the base. After soaking, place your branches in a container, so they are upright and add warm water and remove any buds that are submerged. Place the container in a cool (60-70 degrees), partially shaded location. Change the water every few days to prevent the buildup of bacteria. Additionally, misting the branches several times a day will help prevent the buds from drying out. Depending on the type of plant you are trying to get to bloom, it can take from one to five weeks for the flowers to begin to open. Once they do begin to bloom, the flowers will typically last about a week. To prolong the life of your blooms, keep them in a cool location and out of direct sunlight. Warmer temperatures and direct sunlight can decrease the quality of the blooms as well as reducing their lifespan. If a branch you are trying to force doesn’t bloom after three or four weeks, don’t get discouraged and try again. The branch may have been cut too early, so collect a few more to try. The closer to a plant’s natural flowering period, the less time it takes to force the cut branches indoors.
Modern Farmer • Sunday, March 29, 2020 • 13
In fight to survive, dairy farmers look for edge By Ivan Moreno Associated Press
At Rosendale Dairy, each of the 9,000 cows has a microchip implanted in an ear that workers can scan with smartphones for up-to-theminute information on how the animal is doing — everything from their nutrition to their health history to their productivity. Feed is calibrated to deliver a precise diet and machines handle the milking. In the fields, drones gather data that helps bump up yields for the row crops grown to feed the animals. Technology has played an important role in agriculture for years but it’s become a life and death matter at dairy farms these days, as low milk prices have ratcheted up pressure on farmers to seek every possible efficiency to avoid joining the thousands of operations that have failed. “If I use 100 bags of seed on a field and I change the way I distribute the seed, I can yield more without a single extra dollar of input,” said Matt Wichman, Rosendale’s director of agronomy. Such tools “are becoming so economically viable that anybody that’s of a decent scale is adopting these,” Wichman said. Technology can mean survival, but it involves a perilous gamble: Will the machines produce savings fast enough to cover the debt they incur? “The last five years have really been treacherous,” said Randy Hallett,
who has 85 cows and has spent $33,000 on new milking equipment. He would invest more if his operation could afford it. “I broke even, mostly.” The dairy industry is caught in a vise between consumer trends and competition. Americans are buying less milk as changing tastes steer them to milk substitutes from soy and almonds, or to entirely different drinks like flavored water. Two big milk processors, Dean Foods and Borden Dairy Co., filed for bankruptcy protection in the past three months, undone by declining demand and also pressured by big competitors like Walmart, which opened its own milk processing plant in 2018. And then there are milk prices. After hitting a historic high in 2014 of more than $26 per 100 pounds on the strength of massive buying from China, the bottom fell out. When China stopped its milkbuying spree, there was already oversupply from both American and European Union producers, said Mark Stephenson, director of dairy policy analysis at the University of Wisconsin. Prices fell to $17.30 by the following year, and for producers, it’s been mostly misery ever since. Nationwide, the number of dairy farms dropped from 40,199 in 2017 to 37,468 in 2018. But there are reasons to believe the worst might be over, said Jim Ostrom, a partner at Milk Source. In November, milk prices
reached $21, finally above the $18 price point that Stephenson cited as a general benchmark for producers turning a profit. With dairy prices outside farmers’ control, they have to focus on controlling costs. That’s where technology comes in. A rotary milking parlor can handle 10 cows a minute and can sense when an udder is empty so cows aren’t overmilked, which can harm their health. But a robotic milking system can run more than $200,000. “It can be very difficult for a smaller farm Morry Gash | AP to afford this technology At this dairy, each of the 9,000 cows has a microchip implanted in an ear that workers can scan with because you need, you smartphones for up-to-the-minute information on how the animal is doing, everything from their See DAIRY FARM | Page 15 nutrition to their health history to their productivity.
14 • Sunday, March 29, 2020 • Modern Farmer
Landscape drainage an important matter
By Chris Enroth
Special to the Journal-Courier
Are you stricken with pools of water in your yard and you don’t own a pool? Instead of water moving away from your house, does
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it run into the basement? If you fight these common yard maladies, then very likely there is a stormwater drainage problem in your yard. This week, we’re going to cover two common
drainage issues. . Soil around foundation Settling soil around a house’s foundation is incredibly common but might not become an issue for years or decades after a home is built. The primary reason this occurs is improper backfill and compaction around the foundation walls during construction. Typically, the soil around foundation structures should be added back in layers or ‘lifts’. Each lift is compacted using lightweight compaction equipment. We can really get into the dirt here as every construction site is different and compaction should be under the direction of a licensed soil or
geotechnical engineer. However, most homeowners are not dealing with new construction, but instead older homes with settling soil around the foundation walls. The first thing to do is rake back any wood or rock mulch and organic groundcover material. The reason we pull these items back is they don’t compact well and to expose the actual soil surface. Add lifts of soil, typically these are higher in clay content, but talk with a geotechnical engineer for their recommendations based on your soil type. Compact your lifts using hand-operated equipment. Most homeowners will be using a hand tamp, which can compact 1 to 2
inches of lift at a time. For larger projects, you could rent a vibratory plate compactor or rammer that can compact lifts between 4 to 6 inches at a time. Always check the equipment manufacturer’s recommendation for guidance. Make sure the final grade of soil around the foundation walls has a minimum of 4% slope away from the house. Avoid piling soil against the siding. Leaving 18 inches of the foundation wall exposed can reduce the risk of termites using your exterior walls as an entry point. Poor draining Water pooling in yards can develop for many rea-
sons, but the three that I typically point to are an increase in impervious surfaces or a decrease in vegetation, the development grading job disrupts the natural hydrology and is not compatible with the site, and landscape management practices. For example, if you mow your lawn too low and kill the grass leaving bare soil, it can become compacted during a rain event, which can lead to settling of soil and ponding water. To address these problems usually, means going to the top of the watershed. Can downspouts be rerouted? Or is there a possibility to install a rain garden to intercept the main flow of water before it becomes a problem? Often people will ask if an area with pooling water would work well as a rain garden, and typically, these will not be good rain garden locations. Rain gardens are designed to be well-drained and by focusing more water in a poorly drained area, it will only make the problem worse. These situations can be further complicated by runoff occurring from adjacent properties. A landscape contractor or landscape architect should be consulted for their recommendations. Often the fix will require earthwork using small equipment such as a skid steer or mini excavator. If a homeowner is fighting against a lousy grading job, retaining walls can be cleverly deployed to help create opportunities for topography and slope drainage away from structures. Other tools such as popup drains and French drains can be used to move excess water appropriately offsite.
Modern Farmer • Sunday, March 29, 2020 • 15
Dairy farms From page 13
know, a larger operation to spread those expenses across,” said Liz Binversie, an agriculture educator. She said she knows of one farm that went out of business because it couldn’t find enough workers and could not afford a robotic milking system. Because of debt, the cost of producing milk varies among farms. While some farmers can break even at a price of $18 per hundred pounds, others need $21 because of their debt load. Sometimes the way to survive is to join forces with neighbors. Hallett shares some
advanced machinery with a neighboring farmer, like a combine and planting equipment. And, fortunately, some technology isn’t expensive. Hallett’s cows carry the same microchips as Rosendale uses, so he can know from the comfort of his office the milk weight for each cow and whether a particular cow had less milk that day. The chips cost about 12 cents a month per cow. Hallett said he wishes he could afford to update his cow stalls, but that getting credit from banks is difficult because they consider bigger operations less risky. “Who do you think they’re going to work with to keep them afloat?” Hallett said.
Herd specialist Chema Ortiz looks at stats of a cow on his phone app.
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16 • Sunday, March 29, 2020 • Modern Farmer
Dicamba verdict puts maker, farmers on edge
Nicholas Kamm | AFP (Getty Images)
Farmer Perry Galloway holds a sign reading “Farmers Need Dicamba” at his farm. The use of the herbicide has pitted farmers against each other, as states debate whether to ban its use.
By Bryce Gray
St. Louis Post-Dispatch
A $265 million verdict
in Missouri against two global agribusiness giants has now created another legal headache for the
companies, building a “road map” to victory for dozens of other suits alleging the weedkiller dicamba damaged their crops, lawyers say. At the same time, regional farmers say they are left with few options but to use the controversial herbicide that has sparked thousands of complaints across millions of acres of U.S. farmland. “Most of those farmers have not filed lawsuits,” said Don Downing, a St. Louis-based lawyer for Gray, Ritter & Graham, who is representing plaintiffs in other dicamba suits. “I believe that this verdict is going to prompt many farmers to go ahead and file.”
Dicamba use ramped up in 2016, after the introduction of popular crop varieties, like soybeans, that were genetically engineered by Creve Coeur, Missouri-based Monsanto to withstand spraying. Soon thereafter, farmers across the Midwest and South began filing complaints saying the drift-prone chemical had wafted off nearby fields and harmed their crops. In late 2016, Bootheel peach farmer Bill Bader filed suit, first against Monsanto — now owned by the German pharmaceutical and life sciences company Bayer — and then against its German competitor, BASF. He blamed dicamba for
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destroying his peach farm near Campbell, Missouri, about 80 miles south of Cape Girardeau. After a three-week trial that captured widespread attention, jurors ordered Bayer and BASF to pay Bader $15 million in compensation and $250 million in punitive damages. Bader’s attorneys didn’t make Bader available for this story. Bayer and BASF vowed to appeal the ruling. Bayer representatives maintained that the peach orchard was largely damaged by root rot, that the company’s Xtend system of dicamba-tolerant seeds and spray is safe, and that the Bader verdict isn’t a bellwether for suits to come. “This case is unique, and we don’t think it has any impact on the others,” Chris Hohn, a lawyer for Bayer, told the Post-Dispatch on Monday. “We have great empathy for Mr. Bader and Bader Farms,” Hohn continued. “But what’s happening is not related to Monsanto or Monsanto’s products.” The weekend’s verdict surprised farmers for its severity, and also its location — delivered in a federal courthouse named in honor of Rush Hudson Limbaugh Sr., a prominent Cape Girardeau judge who is also the grandfather of the conservative talk radio host. “I don’t think you were going to get a liberal, company-hating jury in Cape Girardeau,” said Tom Burnham, a local farmer and vocal dicamba critic. “Not in the Rush Limbaugh courthouse
down there.” Bayer faces about 30 other dicamba lawsuits involving around 170 plaintiffs, according to company attorneys. The next case may reach trial late this year. Plaintiff attorneys say the outcome of the Bader case is promising for their clients. Not only did the jury rule in favor of Bader Farms on all counts, but it awarded more in punitive damages than the $200 million recommended by Bader’s legal team. Moreover, the jury moved quickly. It deliberated for about four hours on Feb. 21 to find the companies at fault, and then took just 30 minutes on Feb. 22 to decide on the $250 million penalty. “That jury was mad,” said Paul Lesko, a St. Louis lawyer at Peiffer Wolf Carr & Kane who represents dicamba plaintiffs. “What Monsanto and BASF did resonated.” Lesko said the Bader case provides a “road map” of successful arguments that other dicamba lawsuits can follow, including glimpses of certain “hot-button documents” from inside the companies. Lawyers said the other cases are also easier to prove. They mostly involve alleged damage to soybeans, instead of peach trees. In the Bader trial, Bayer denied the peach trees were damaged by dicamba at all. But Lesko and others said that defense disappears in soybean cases — See DICAMBA | Page 19
Modern Farmer • Sunday, March 29, 2020 • 17
‘Re-wilding’ takes work, especially at first By Dean Fosdick Associated Press
“Re-wilding” is the trend toward diversifying traditional lawns by putting in native plants that flower and fruit, boosting wildlife populations. It returns more control of the home landscape to nature. But such conservation landscaping involves more than simply quitting pruning or letting properties go to seed. “More often than not, that would result in a yard dominated by European turf grasses and invasive species,” said Dan Jaffe, horticulturist and propagator for the Norcross Wildlife Sanctuary in Wales, Massachusetts.
“With good planning and establishment of a well-built landscape, it will mature into a space that can be easily cultivated with lazier gardening,” Jaffe said. “When it comes right down to it, naturalistic landscapes can be very low-maintenance.” Find plants that are suited to your growing conditions and also to your goals for the site, Jaffe said. “The great thing about working with native plants is that these are plants that will grow in any conditions you can think of,” he said. “There is no need to bring in problem plants when there are so many other options.” Weigh the risks against the rewards. Blackberries and thistles, for example,
are popular with pollinators but painful to handle and difficult to contain. “Instead, work with wild strawberries or flowering raspberries (no thorns on those) or bee balm or meadowsweet, or one of the hundreds of other options,” Jaffe said. Re-wilding also means relaxing maintenance standards. Don’t rush to clean up the garden at the end of the growing season. Seeds are food to wildlife, and lifeless hollow stems are shelter. “Birds who eat seeds appreciate it when you don’t deadhead flowers,” said Theresa Badurek, a horticulture agent with the University of Florida Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences. “Less
frequent mowing allows pollinators to visit flowers before you mow. Less raking leaves provides habitat for beneficial insects.” No area is too small. “Every space we can provide for nature to blossom is valuable,” Badurek said. “Re-wilding containers can be helpful, especially if you need to add more flowers to the garden.” Talk with your neighbors and check local ordinances before going ahead. Your project can be a positive influence on others, but let them know “the early stages of the work can look like a mess,” Jaffe said. “Converting a lawn into a meadow will look great in three years and fantastic in six, but the first year can be tough
going. “Without an explanation, neighbors could very well interpret your work as simple laziness instead of habitat construction,” he said. Herbicides should be a last resort only, Jaffe said. “Chemicals are a tool in the toolbox, and there are some situations where invasive species have taken such a foothold that the use of herbicides can mean the difference between a project being accomplished or failing,” he said. People are beginning to realize that healthy landscapes with improved air and water quality benefit humans as much as they do wildlife, Jaffe said. “Some folks are looking for lower maintenance land-
Dean Fosdick (via AP)
White clover is attractive to a variety of pollinators. Re-wilding is an apt description for diversifying traditional lawns by using native plants that flower and fruit, boosting wildlife populations.
scapes and find that going wild is a good choice,” he said. “Other people are concerned about the changing climate and habitat loss. Still others look toward conservation as something anyone can do instead of being restricted to the untouched portions of the country and only accomplished by professional conservationists.”
18 • Sunday, March 29, 2020 • Modern Farmer
Farming’s legacy Getty Images
A John Deere Model G tractor pulls a John Deere The Life Picture Collection (Getty Images) damming lister, an implement developed for the A farmer carries a load of harvested ears of corn semi-arid and dry farming sections, to conserve to a truck. all available moisture, control surface run-off, and control wind erosion.
Wallace Kirkland | The Life Picture Collection (Getty Images)
Boys sit on a truckload of melons being hauled to a fruit stand.
Howard Sochurek | The Life Picture Collection (Getty Images)
A picnic lunch provides a pleasant break for Charlie Eater and family, who raises dairy cattle on the 40 acres he owns, and another 250 acres he rents.
Workers with sickles cut weeds along the side of a road. Chicago History Museum | Getty Images
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A father and son pick strawberries.
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J.F. Abernathy | Chicago History Museum (Getty Images)
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Jacksonville Journal-Courier • Sunday, March 29, 2020 • 19
Dicamba From page 16
cupped soybean leaves are a telltale mark of exposure to the chemical and should be harder for Bayer to deny. “If Bader was an outlier, it’s that it was a harder case,” said Lesko. Plaintiffs lawyers also say they expect the Bader case to spark new lawsuits — and for more reasons than the gigantic payout. Many farmers in recent years haven’t filed dicamba damage reports or pursued lawsuits largely because they didn’t want to strain relationships with neighbors, farmers and lawyers have said. But the Bader trial kept the
legal attack focused on the corporate defendants, and did not rope neighboring farmers or herbicide applicators into the fray. Meanwhile, if the dicamba lawsuits — and payouts — balloon, Bayer investors may lose patience. The company is already under fire for a different weedkiller. Bayer said in October that it faced more than 42,000 plaintiffs alleging the popular herbicide Roundup causes cancer. Lawyers recently postponed a St. Louis trial, hoping to work toward a settlement that could reach $10 billion, according to some reports. For Bayer, that stability suggests the market doesn’t see dicamba as a Roundup-caliber finan-
cial concern for now. “This is not a glyphosate issue in scale,” said the trading firm Liberum Capital, according to a Reuters report, “but is another legal headache for investors to worry about in the near term.” Andrew Thostenson, a pesticide specialist for North Dakota State University’s extension service, said he was “stunned” by the size of punitive damages awarded in the Bader trial, after keeping an eye on it from afar. He was particularly surprised to see the result come from an area like Southeast Missouri, where he felt average citizens generally would not be “unsympathetic” to agriculture companies and herbicide use. “It’s something that
you might expect for sure if it was on the West Coast,” Thostenson said. “But it happened down in Cape Girardeau. I think that says something.” Around the Bootheel, there’s no shortage of farmers who say they were harmed by the chemical in recent years — and forced to adopt it as a result. “I had to start growing dicamba beans because the losses were so much you can’t stand it,” said Sam Branum, a recently retired farmer near Hornersville. “If you’re farming around it, you either get with it, or you get out.” Xtend crops now blanket the area’s cotton and soybean fields. “It’s more or less taken over down here,” said
Carlis McHugh, a retired farmer and the former owner of Billy’s Steakhouse in Portageville, about an hour south of Cape Girardeau. “All the farmers use it.” He says there are multiple reasons for Xtend’s regional surge toward saturation. One is visible to the naked eye; it provides extremely “clean” fields, free of weeds. “You can drive around and not see a weed. That’s how effective the stuff is,” said McHugh. “It kills everything but the crop.” Self-preservation, though, is another top selling point. McHugh says his crops were damaged once, forcing him to join the ranks of Xtend converts. “We switched over to it to protect ourselves,”
said McHugh. “You didn’t have a hell of a lot of choice, if you know what I mean.” Incentive for defensive planting is unlikely to diminish. Weed science experts say some drift is an inevitability, and a new way of life that many growers have come to accept. Bayer expects to file post-trial motions within the next month asking the judge to overturn the jury’s rulings in the Bader case. If denied, the company could turn to a federal appeals court in St. Louis, which would re-examine the case using the same evidence on hand. The appeal process could take a year or more, Bayer lawyers said.
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