John Mesko: (00:30)
Welcome back to The People of Soil Health Podcast. Today's guest is no stranger to agriculture. Ken Rosenow, alongside his family, farm on land that was originally settled before the Civil War and, six generations later, he is committed to caring for the land and resources for those who will inherit it next.
John Mesko: (00:51)
Ken has been working with the Soil Health Partnership since 2017 and was recently part of our new report, Conservation's Impact on the Farm Bottom Line. Welcome to the show, Ken.
Ken Rosenow: (01:02)
Hi, glad to be here.
John Mesko: (01:03)
It's really impressive to think about farming the same piece of ground that, six generations earlier, your family was farming there in Wisconsin. Tell us about that. Tell us about your farm and, as much as you can, how the farm landed in your lap all these many generations later.
Ken Rosenow: (01:25)
Okay. Well, as I mentioned, the land was originally settled here by my family way before the Civil War. Their first farm was actually up in Dodge County and now the home place, or what's left of it here, is in the northwestern corner of Waukesha County. We did have a opportunity, oh, probably about 10 or 15 years back, where we rented the original homestead. We found out from renting that for a few years why they decided to move down here to Waukesha County, because the land is a little better. That was kind of a big, rocky hill that went down into a swamp. So I guess I'm glad that, as the ancestors progressed, they picked out a little bit better spot of land.
John Mesko: (02:15)
Well, that's good. A lot of times folks didn't know where the best land was when they moved into an area back in the day, and they probably caught wind of good crops in your area there.
Ken Rosenow: (02:27)
Right. So now we actually farm or we own land in three counties: Waukesha, Dodge, and Jefferson. I farm it with my wife, Sue. My younger son, Mike, is farming full time with me. He has a degree in dairy science and agronomy. My oldest son, Chad, went on and got a degree in computer science and statistics and he does a lot of IT work. These days, now, we need his skills quite a bit too, so he helps out too.
John Mesko: (03:00)
Well, that's fantastic. And I think it's interesting that your next generation includes some computer expertise. On another podcast, we'll have to cover that because I think the future of agriculture is something that we really want to start looking at very carefully. It's probably a pretty good move to have someone like that on your team.
Ken Rosenow: (03:23)
Right. I have four grandchildren now and often they're able to help me out with a lot of this technical stuff too, so.
John Mesko: (03:32)
So, on your farm, tell us a little bit about the various rotations that you have there. I know you're mostly no-till in terms of the tillage practices there, but what kinds of rotations are you working there?
Ken Rosenow: (03:44)
Well, now we're pretty much corn and soybeans with some winter wheat worked into the rotation. And we still have a small amount of hay ground, too, that we rotate in and out.
John Mesko: (03:57)
And I know that you're actively using quite a few different cover crops as part of that as well.
Ken Rosenow: (04:04)
Right. For cover crops, I think the cornerstone or mainstay in it, we found that cereal rye works good, but we also use a variety of mixtures, some with the cereal rye and some field pea, berseem clover, radishes, and some sunflowers, too.
John Mesko: (04:27)
Well, when you think about the kinds of work that you're doing there on your farm and the approach that you have to conservation, how did you get started thinking about environmental conservation and the impact of your practices on the quality of your land?
Ken Rosenow: (04:47)
To answer that, I learned a lot from my father. As a matter of fact, he actually passed away on this very day in 2007. But working with him and learning from him, we did a lot of conservation practices. As I was growing up, we had a really good county conservation person here in Waukesha County, and we did a lot of programs, such as buffer strips, contour strips, transitioning to no-till through the EQIP program, and a lot of things like that. We were basically just about all no-till by 1991.
John Mesko: (05:28)
So you've been doing it for a long time, and you've been working with the Soil Health Partnership since about 2017. How did you become interested in SHP and what's going on on your farm? What are we doing on your farm right now?
Ken Rosenow: (05:43)
Okay. Well, as I mentioned, I had always been really interested in conservation and I've always thought that cover crops were good. But it was really hard to tell, just by the things we do on the farm, if it was really economically sustainable. When I first talked to the Soil Health Partnership people, that seemed to me what the real basis of the program was is that we kind of think it's pretty good, but we want to do some real testing and collect a lot of data, really to prove it and make sure that what we know and think is good can be economically profitable for the farmer.
John Mesko: (06:26)
I think you summarized SHP's work very, very succinctly. We really do want to demonstrate the value of these practices. And I think, at the end of the day, when people understand the value of something, they're more likely to investigate further and look for ways for it to apply to their specific situation.
John Mesko: (06:48)
And you and your farm and the results that you've uncovered on your farm were a big part of the new report we just released. I mentioned early on, the Conservation's Impact on the Farm Bottom Line. You were one of the seven farmers who were kind enough to sit down with us and open up your books and share with us really a lot around what it takes financially to put out a cover crop and how to manage soil health efficiently. What did you learn from the experience of being a part of the report and some of the feedback that you got as we analyzed your numbers?
Ken Rosenow: (07:26)
Sure. Well, the practice I'm really doing is using cover crops and alternating strips. There's eight of them altogether. So, really four side-by-side comparisons. We really wanted to find out if these pay for itself, and using this Conservation's Impact on the Bottom Line analysis, that really helped us to figure it out.
Ken Rosenow: (07:50)
Way back when I first got into the partnership with my family, I had always been really interested in economic analysis of things. Way back in the '70s, I worked with one of our county extension agents in an old farm computer program that was called Top Farmer, I believe. And I think back then I had put everything in in forms and then do punch cards to put it in the computer. And I think I had one of the longest ones in the whole state for the people that were doing it.
Ken Rosenow: (08:25)
And then, as time went on, we started doing our own computer financial programs, back in probably the '90s, I think that was. And we signed up with one of the better ones. When we first started, it was through Farm Bureau called Freddy the Computer, and now it has transitioned into Ag Solutions and you can really very detailed on it.
Ken Rosenow: (08:57)
But, now, through Conservation's Impact on the Bottom Line, for all the input that we put into it... And I keep very detailed records on all my inputs, such as fertilizer and chemicals and so forth, and then through a yield data that we get, that program has really been able to pin down some exact figures.
John Mesko: (09:20)
I think that's great. I mean, it's so hard, without the data, to make a good decision. And I think you touched on a couple of key things. You collect for yourself, for your own benefit, a lot of detailed information. And as we work with farmers across the country, sometimes we find farmers are not keeping the level of detail we're asking for and so it makes it hard to do some of that analysis.
John Mesko: (09:49)
In your case, we're very appreciative to be able to have a treasure trove of information to help detail out those impacts. I think it's really, really important. It's really the kind of thing that's going to pave the way for other farmers and other folks, even in supportive agriculture, like lenders, to be able to look at that data and understand the impacts of those practices more broadly.
Ken Rosenow: (10:15)
That's exactly right. And as I mentioned, I think with the farm records software that we are using, we probably could do it strip by strip, but I'm sure we would never take the time to do that. So working with the Soil Health Partnership in this program that they're using really helps get us all the information we're looking for.
John Mesko: (10:39)
Now, one of the things we found in that report, which makes sense, but it's kind of nice to have it proven out, if you will, was that any of the practices that we're talking about become more profitable the longer a farmer is using that practice. I mean, it's just like anything else, the more you do something the better you get at it over time. And you've been doing, as you said, no-till, for many, many years. And you also use cover crops in Wisconsin, and that's a fairly northern climate. We run into people all over the, all over the country that say, "I'm too far north for cover crops." It doesn't matter sometimes whether they're in Missouri or North Dakota, we hear that they're too far north for cover crops. Speaking of cover crops, specifically, how have you found ways to make cover crops work where you're located?
Ken Rosenow: (11:35)
Well, I think participating in the Soil Health Partnership, one of the... It's kind of ironic here, but, really, it's helped me to find out what doesn't work a lot of the times, too. And I guess that's just as important here. As you said, it's difficult in the northern climates to get things to work, but by having the opportunity to try some things out that you maybe wouldn't do on your own, that has really helped.
Ken Rosenow: (12:02)
One of the first things I think that's very important is in farms like ours, where we're not really huge, we find that with a limited amount of labor and probably not necessarily all the equipment or the right size equipment that we need, that makes it very difficult. So I think it's real encouraging that the data that we're finding shows that additional investments in these areas probably could be financially feasible in the long run.
Ken Rosenow: (12:38)
I think another thing, as we've been getting into it, is growing your own seed. That can help to save a lot on seed costs. If you go to some of these cover crop specialty places where they sell the seed, it can really be very expensive. Now, I think we're into our second crop of rye that we're growing actually for seed. We used to grow rye for seed many years ago when I was a kid, actually, and would sell it, but we probably hadn't done it now for maybe 30, 35 years or something. But now, for the last two years, we're getting back into that again. So we're hoping to save a lot on seed costs for that.
John Mesko: (13:23)
Yeah, that makes sense. What about methods of seeding? Do you find yourself with a pretty tight window after harvest to get some of those cover crops out, and how do you manage that?
Ken Rosenow: (13:36)
Well, that can be very hard. And as I said, with limited people working and with limited equipment, that really makes it hard. But one thing we've found, working with one of our groups here in the county, the aerial seeding can work. We've done this for quite a few years in cooperation with this group and we found it especially works good into soybeans. We haven't had a lot of luck flying it onto corn, but into soybeans it works good, although it is sometimes hard to get close to the edges of the fields because here in northern Waukesha County we're pretty much surrounded by subdivisions and things of that, so pilots often want to be a little careful on getting too close to things.
John Mesko: (14:27)
When you're flying that seed onto the soybean ground, are you doing that before leaf drop or after, or after harvest?
Ken Rosenow: (14:35)
Right around leaf drop or a little bit after, right.
John Mesko: (14:39)
I've known a few farmers up in Michigan that will do that and they've reported good success with it. And you can do it at a time when you're not really doing a whole lot of other things, right?
Ken Rosenow: (14:52)
Right.
John Mesko: (14:52)
You've finished all your applications for the year and you're just kind of waiting for harvest to come on.
Ken Rosenow: (14:59)
Right. And then really, with the aerial seeding, all we really have to do is maybe help them load the helicopter up once in a while. I guess I should say too that, especially for those that really want to get started for it, I think the easiest thing to get started into cover crops is if you're growing winter wheat, because usually you're taking that off in July or August, and then you have quite a bit of time to get it seeded and get it going.
John Mesko: (15:30)
And what do you typically follow winter wheat with as a cover crop?
Ken Rosenow: (15:34)
For winter wheat, since we do have that longer window, a lot of times we've used field peas or cow peas, some radish, some berseem clover and a little sunflower.
John Mesko: (15:48)
Okay.
Ken Rosenow: (15:49)
I don't know how much good the sunflower does, although those have a pretty good taproot too, but it makes for good conversations with our urban neighbors when they really kind of appreciate seeing that out there. So, I think perception is half the battle a lot of times and that's, I think, one of the most important things we have to do.
John Mesko: (16:13)
Well, you bring up a good point, and that is that people are watching how we in agriculture are producing food. They're concerned about it, whether it's meat or milk or grain that eventually feeds meat or milk, or other products that come from the farm, people are concerned. And they're concerned about the impact of agriculture on, not only soil, but water. And I know that you're involved in some additional conservation programs there with your local watershed. Maybe you could tell us just a little bit more about that and how your soil health work is connecting to some of the other things that you're working on.
Ken Rosenow: (16:58)
Yeah, really, the Soil Health Partnership work goes hand in hand with a number of other programs I'm with. First of all, there is the Oconomowoc River Watershed Protection Program. And how that came about, really, is that our sewage treatment plant here in the City of Oconomowoc has found that it's emitting a little too much pollutants there. So they're taking measurements right where the Oconomowoc River goes into the Rock River and trying to lower that down. And they've found that it's really much cheaper for them to do programs with the farmers in the Oconomowoc River watershed to get things changed for the better, than it is for them to change things in their sewage treatment plant. Their big thing here now is doing things like the cover crops in all fields around the watershed. And they also do some stream-bank, water-protection lanes there and provide cost sharing for these things.
Ken Rosenow: (18:14)
They work closely with a group called Farmers for Lake Country, which really stays right in this area of the watershed. I'm also involved because we have land in Dodge County, too, and they have a group there called Dodge County Healthy Soils for Clean Water. And they also have some cost-sharing programs where if you do a few acres of cover crops on your own, they'll cost-share some additional ones.
Ken Rosenow: (18:48)
And, actually, I'm just in the process of forming another group in Waukesha County called Waukesha County Farmers for Clean Waters. And the reason we're starting this one is primarily because the other one I've talked about in Waukesha County really just emphasizes the Oconomowoc River watershed, and there's really a lot more to that. We're just getting started with this one. So we're trying to get a little seed money because to get the money from the state we need some matching funds. So we're in the process of doing that, or we were just in the process of trying to get that started, but then when COVID came along, that kind of put a kibosh on having a lot of in-person meetings and going around calling on people and stuff. So we're working on it yet, but it's probably going to take us a extra year than what we first thought when we started out.
John Mesko: (19:52)
Well, you're very busy. You got your hands full and it's obvious that you are well connected there in your community. What would you say to a farmer that says, "I'm interested in cover crops, I'm interested in taking a look at some of the advantages that I could gain by changing my farming practices, but I don't want to do all that stuff that Ken is doing. I don't want to be involved in that many groups. I've got too much on my farm. I've got too much going on with my family or whatever the case is. And I don't want to be that deep into it." How would you respond to a farmer that is interested, but is concerned that they might be getting in over their head?
Ken Rosenow: (20:39)
Well, I'd say the easiest thing to start out with and to really keep it simple would be is if you are growing some winter wheat, just to go out and try a little bit of that. Or else another thing that we've done, really, once we have had all the fields that we planned to do cover crops with, and if we've had a little seed left over, we've gone out in a field where there might be kind of a wash out starting or something like that, and just done it on a small scale in kind of a questionable spot and see if that can really help you. And we've found that you can really see a difference. And then after you see differences like that it just gets you encouraged to get into it a little bit further. Then again, if the cost is keeping you back, really there is a lot of these programs where you don't really have to do much except sign your name to an agreement and they'll help cost-share you on just a small acreage, if you just want to try it to start out with.
John Mesko: (21:51)
Oh, that's a good point. That's good advice. I think what I hear you saying is what we see throughout the country, is that getting started is probably the biggest hurdle. And after that the advantages start popping up and the hurdles start coming down and folks tend to, most of the time, have a good experience a few years in, and this tends to catch fire with folks as they experiment more with it.
Ken Rosenow: (22:21)
Yeah. I just wanted to add that once you try it and see what it can really do for you, I think your enthusiasm will really take over and you'll want to explore it more.
John Mesko: (22:34)
I agree. I've seen that in a number of occasions. And, Ken, I really appreciate the opportunity to visit with you today to learn more about your farm and some of the other things you're doing. As I mentioned, we're so grateful for you sharing with us information as part of the report, Conservation's Impact on the Farm Bottom Line. Folks who are listening can get that report through our website, soilhealthpartnership.org.
John Mesko: (23:02)
But, Ken, pleasure talking with you today. Thank you for your support of the program and for the work that you're doing on your farm and hope that we can get around to meeting in person here one of these days.
Ken Rosenow: (23:15)
Well, thank you. It's been a pleasure, and I really appreciate the opportunity to get this chance to share what I've learned.
