He spoke to Brownfield at a recent Summer Soy Series event hosted by the Iowa Soybean Association.
A central Iowa farmer says he’s focused on bringing more conservation practices to his operation.
Corey Hillebo tells Brownfield, “We went to strip-till five or six years ago. It was more of a logistics play, but it does have conservation benefits. In the beginning, I tried cover crops before and I wanted to get back to them with strip-till.”
He says he was able to adopt cover crops last season.
“I actually planted in some 30s and some 15-inch wheat and rye in front of my corn and beans,” he said. “Had about 450 acres of it this year. My cover crops got big. My 30-inch row wheat closed the row, so it was kind of fun planting green into that.”
Hillebo says he’s seen some early benefits.
“I know I’m preventing wind and surface soil erosion,” he said. “And I know I’m protecting young seedlings when I had a carcass there from getting beat up by the wind. But we need to correlate that to this is going to be as good or better than a conventional practice.”
