MN CropCast with Jodi DeJong-Hughes
Good day and welcome to the University of Minnesota CropCast. I'm your host Dave Nicolai, University of Minnesota Extension educator in field crops. I'm here today along with my cohost doctor Seth Nave, University of Minnesota Extension soybean specialist. And Seth, it is the wintertime here in Minnesota. People are thinking about things to get involved with their cropping sequence coming up here in 2026.
David Nicolai:But before they do, they have to think about taking care of their soil and we have a special guest with us today. One of my coworkers and extension educator, Jody DeYoung Hughes. And Jody has been involved for with a lot of different things in terms of crop production, soils, etcetera. And I guess at this point I'd like to have her introduce herself a little bit about who she is, where she works in Minnesota and what are the things that she's involved with Extension. So welcome, Jody, to the podcast.
Jodi DeJong-Hughes:Thank you, Dave. Yeah. Thank you for having me on this podcast. I'm Jody Dion Hughes, and I worked for Extension almost twenty nine years, and I will I work out of the Wilmer office. I've been working with farmers on tillage research and compaction and just trying to help them get a more healthier soil, more productive soil, so that they can get through some of these tough times that are coming.
David Nicolai:So you've been involved in what I would call applied research in terms of a lot of different things. Today we want to kind of zero in Seth and talk a little bit with Jody about soil compaction. But also before we even start with that, you mentioned that you've been involved with some of these things Jody. So can you highlight some of your career opportunities and things that you've done over the years and worked with various people? But it's been primarily quite a bit, think, in Western Minnesota, has it not?
Jodi DeJong-Hughes:Yeah. In the Western 3rd of Minnesota is where I've done most of my research. So I would say I started out with looking at erosion, and, you know, I came out of school all, like, you know, academic and book smart, and then had to to learn a lot about the farming side of things. So I knew erosion was important, but found out that tillage is one of the biggest contributors to erosion. So that started my path on learning more and more about tillage and all the different equipment, and that's how I got into strip till.
Jodi DeJong-Hughes:And I've done about twenty years of research on looking at different tillage systems on yield and plant population residue amounts. And you know, in compaction along the way as well, we had one of the best soil compaction gurus out of Morris, Minnesota, Ward Voorhees with the ARS there. And he's since retired, but he was the one who really got me into soil compaction, and it's been quite a ride. It's something that's actually very undervalued. When I went to an international conference on tillage and research, every country that was there talked about soil compaction and how it reduces their yields and their potential out there.
Jodi DeJong-Hughes:And there was nobody in The US that was there to talk about that. And found that interesting.
Speaker 3:Well, think, as I kind of think about those twenty years or so you've been doing some of this work, it makes me think about kind of the changes over that time. There's always been farmers are always interested in iron, and there's always a lot of changes in how farmers do tillage. I think partially because these tillage equipment wear out and they have to replace them, and so they're looking for new it allows them to look at different things. But I kind of see the last ten years, especially, as kind of a big change in what I see. I've more change in tillage, I guess, than I've seen historically.
Speaker 3:Maybe not the amount of tillage, but more the details about what particular equipment they're using. What is that a fair assessment? Is this are things coming around? And are you becoming more popular now than you were twenty years ago?
Jodi DeJong-Hughes:Yes. Yeah. I I strip till really kinda started in early two thousands, but people were still very much knew more about their disc grippers and their their chisel plows. And then over the years, just more and more types of equipment have come out, and different points and shanks and discs and speed discs and vertical tillage actually really took off, I'd say, about fifteen plus years ago. So, yeah, there has been a lot more choices, so a lot more attention has been given to tillage.
Speaker 3:Do you think part of this is a result of this kind of high residue corn that that we're dealing with now with higher yields and and, you know, slower breakdown of that that material? Is that is that part of the I'm I assume that's part of the driver. Is that how how big a part of that of that shift do you think is is what we're talking about here in this change?
Jodi DeJong-Hughes:Yeah. I think that has definitely played a role. When BT corn came around, there was a a lot of attention that it just seemed to not break down as quickly in the field. About fifteen years ago, the NRCS had started a national initiative about soil health. And to me, tillage is key to creating soil health or destroying soil health.
Jodi DeJong-Hughes:And mainly, I'm talking about soil structure. And so that also started a lot of talk with the Soil and Water Conservation Districts and the NRCS offices, and then there started to be more people who understood these things, so farmers had more people to go out and talk to about it.
Speaker 3:Okay. So that brings up another question that I have. I just introduced this idea about this high residue corn and how that's impact. So how about governmental policy? How much How much is governmental policy and requirements, limitations, how much, or incentives, or initiatives, how much of those, you know, changed the landscape in terms of tillage in in that period that you're thinking about?
Speaker 3:Has this has this been impactful, or do you think this is just kind of around the edges or or just on some marginal soils on some hillsides and things like that?
Jodi DeJong-Hughes:It started off really slow, so they made that initiative, and so more people got trained. They offered a few more programs, like EQIP would cover that. Then when we started bringing in cover crops, that had some real pros and cons in Minnesota, and so it took a lot of research and farmer experience to figure out where these fit in the best. And then the Soil and Water Conservation Districts, Bowser, has received a lot of money to start looking more at this. Pheasants Forever has money.
Jodi DeJong-Hughes:We have all sorts of companies now have money. And and backtrack a little bit, and also when the carbon selling carbon became a huge initiative and people were really interested, that drove a lot of interest. But the money really wasn't there in the beginning. So it's kind of all accumulated over time, and I think in the last three, four years, we've really had quite a few incentives for farmers to go out and try things, and that can reduce their risk when they're out there.
David Nicolai:You know, one of the things that's changed over the years, Jody, has been technology. Obviously, with precision agriculture, yield monitors, and so forth, you know, we talk about incentives in terms of this but from a grower perspective it's always going to come back to yield. And what is the impact that were occurring in these some of these fields when we have soil compaction? Do growers have a better idea or better opportunity to figure this out and ascertain this when they look back at the yield maps and say for example, since that this portion of the field is not yielding up to what the other part. You know in terms of looking back at that has that has that been helpful to them obviously they're going to change equipment they get larger you know you know across the landscape but it comes back to that impact on yield has that has that been helpful in diagnosing this and ascertaining, you know, the right thing here to do?
Jodi DeJong-Hughes:Yeah. I mean, just by understanding what's going on, then you can start addressing it. Right? But if you don't even know it's a problem, how do you know? So I think with the the advent of drones and being able to go up and look at your field from high, you can see those wheel tracks for the whole season, actually, you can see them out there.
Jodi DeJong-Hughes:I go up in the airplane almost every spring, and I have tons of pictures of wheel track issues. Another thing that people can use is if they have a planter down pressure maps. Okay. Another thing that farmers can use is their down pressure maps. When they're planting, they can look at it.
Jodi DeJong-Hughes:If you if you zoom in on them because, you know, the down pressure adjusts with how hard it is to put the seed into the soil. Right? And it makes a map of it, and you can actually see when there's wheel traffic out there. So those things can help them identify that they do have compaction, and, you know, start to look at how can they either minimize it, get rid of it, or try not to to cause it in the first place.
Speaker 3:Yeah. I think you're getting to the part that I kind of like is about farmer psychology and how you convince farmers to make change and things like this. And I tillage is an interesting one because there's a historical aspect to doing tillage and ripping things up and making things black. There's an obvious aesthetic around this that farmers are really tied to. But farmers also will say that the economics are the primary driver to all of this.
Speaker 3:So they have to it has to make money for them to make any changes in their operation. How do you in terms of encouraging reduced, you know, tillage, we've always talked about, you know, diesel savings and savings on equipment costs and big tractor payments and, you know, the actual tillage equipment costs and things like that. How impactful do you think those are when you talk to farmers about that versus the yield side? Are you able to make headway with them, or do you do you see that them or do you see they're they're maybe not weighing those equally? I don't I'm just just trying to get a a read from you.
Jodi DeJong-Hughes:If they say it's purely economics, I don't think that's quite true. I I do think the aesthetics of it, the tradition of it, is very, very strong. You know, it it wasn't that long ago that if a farmer had any residue in his field, it was considered trashy and that they weren't a good farmer. And that has been changing over time. Just like everything else we're learning in agronomy, and everything has been changing.
Jodi DeJong-Hughes:Our hybrids, what we do for fertilizer, what we do for weed management, pest management, everything changes. And I think tillage has kind of lagged behind because it does have such an aesthetic out there. So when you're looking at the prices, reducing tillage always helps you with your economics. It saves fuel. It saves wear and tear on your equipment.
Jodi DeJong-Hughes:And another thing that farmers have younger farmers have been valuing more than some of the older farmers is time with their family. And I'm not saying that older farmers don't like being with their family, but, you know, when you have 10 kids versus two, you might want to be out in the field tilling and be away from the kids. But So there's a lot of time it takes to go out and till a field. We also have less people to help us out in the field, and so the economics are in your favor. The twenty years of research that we've done from all across Minnesota into North Dakota, so a very cold area, people always like to say, well, we're too cold, and we can't do this.
Jodi DeJong-Hughes:That's not always true. We've shown that you can be very reduced till and still keep your yields in a corn bean rotation. And I'm not talking no till. I'm talking some tillage.
Speaker 3:Dave really wants to talk about compaction. But I have one other tillage, broad tillage thing I want to mention is yesterday I was talking to a farmer from the Red River Valley, and he said that this year we've always had lots of problems with blowing soil in the valley, but this year, he said, is almost unprecedented in his area. And he what they've seen is the snow either melt off completely, or they've actually had snowstorms that blew so hard that they had kind of this ice that actually he thought was kind of abrasive on the soil surface. But he is he said there's more dirt moving, more soil dirt moving this year than than he's seen in in recent history, which which says a lot because we know that there's been a lot of soil moving. Yeah.
Speaker 3:He actually he was he was presenting the idea about going back and and mandating shelter breaks, and and I thought that was kind of a a wild, radical approach. I'm just wondering, tillage and and tree breaks in in the valley. What do you think about these approaches, and how do you think the lowest, what's the lowest bar, or what's the lowest hanging fruit that we could start to pick off and try to reduce some of the soil moving everywhere, but especially where we get a lot, like in the where it's flat in the valley.
Jodi DeJong-Hughes:Yeah. Flat and also with clay soils, because a clay particle is actually microscopic, and so it is prone to blow very easily. I would say the first thing to do is just keep your soil covered, and I'm not talking a 100%. I'm talking if you can be around 50%, I'd be very happy. There's a couple of crops that don't really lend themselves to that.
Jodi DeJong-Hughes:Root crops are very hard, or just don't have a lot of residue to them, and that's the carrots, potatoes, and sugar beets. But there are ways to keep the soil covered. Even let's say you have potatoes, Well, what about the other two or three years? Why not do something that leaves residue over the the wintertime? Or if if you have wheat, you know, wheat is its own cover crop.
Jodi DeJong-Hughes:It will regrow in the the fall. And so if there's ways that you can keep the soil covered longer, that's the number one thing. And that really helps out with maybe twenty, twenty five mile an hour winds. But then when you're getting, like like today, actually, about forty, forty five mile an hour winds, then I think you're gonna need the the windbreaks. So we we don't need, you know, a full windbreak.
Jodi DeJong-Hughes:It's usually just a line of trees with a line of bush on each side, and that would be enough to become, you know, a pretty good windbreak as it grows. You don't need to have them quite as big as that what we had, you know, years ago when they were first put in.
Speaker 3:Okay. That's good to think about. So I know Dave wants to talk a little bit about compaction here, and and there's something that we wanna you'd like to announce in terms of an advertisement as well. So
David Nicolai:Well, I wanna get the the elephant out of the room here that's standing in the way here and that we mentioned about cold weather. So we have a cold weather. We're right in it right now in situation. And, you know, I'm I'm old enough, one of those old guys. And when you listen to these people say, it's it's that's pretty good.
David Nicolai:You know, it's cold. It's gonna we're gonna freeze the ground and then we're gonna thaw it. We're gonna freeze it and thaw it. You know, that'll take care of all the compaction issues and situation with that. But I think you've heard that before, Jody.
David Nicolai:You have an opinion on freeze thaw. Will that cure our problems?
Jodi DeJong-Hughes:A little bit. Not much. Freeze thaw you need multiple freeze thaw cycles each season to take out the compaction. So we're talking 10 to 12 freeze thaw events to break it up. And when you're talking about, well, freeze thaw, the older guys said that worked, that could be true, because their equipment was lighter, and they also had more crops in the rotation to help naturally take out compaction.
Jodi DeJong-Hughes:And with the lighter equipment, you don't go as deep with your compaction. With the equipment we have now, we can actually go three feet plus into the soil with compaction. How many freestyle events are we getting at three feet?
David Nicolai:Been pretty. It's gotten cold, it's gonna stay cold.
Jodi DeJong-Hughes:Yeah. Yeah. But we do get multiple freestyle cycles in the top few inches, and we and depending on snowfall. Right? So if we get a snow cover all winter, we may not get those free saws that we're used to.
Jodi DeJong-Hughes:And sometimes you'll see in the spring that your residue looks the same as it did in the fall, and you're like, well, what happened? Well, that's because you just didn't get the free saw action that we can get. So when we do that, the other thing is it you also have to have wet soil for it to freeze, which we did this fall. But there have been falls that we have been bone dry. And you have to have water, because water expands when it freezes, to actually crack up that soil.
Jodi DeJong-Hughes:So, basically, you can think that it can help with the chunky soil on the top two to five inches, but below that, it really doesn't do as much as we had hoped.
David Nicolai:Well, sounds like we have a lot of assumptions about soil compaction. From an educational standpoint, are we doing some things? And I guess we are because there's gonna be a series of workshops coming up here in the month of February that I'd like you to talk about in terms of helping farmers and growers not only diagnose but understand it, prevent it, do what they can to be curative on that. But I think we have talked about this in the past but there's a good emphasis and you want to talk about these workshops here in the month of February that are coming up and you're part of that. They I believe they're online.
David Nicolai:There's a series of four of those. So I don't wanna steal your thunder, but can you give us a little bit of overview on how our growers in Minnesota and the Upper Midwest can take advantage of these?
Jodi DeJong-Hughes:Yes. We did this in 2022, and we're now repeating it. And I'm working with NDSU, Iowa State, Manitoba Ag, and Ontario Ag to to bring this. And it's going to be February every Tuesday from nine to twelve central time. And each day, we're gonna take on a different aspect of compaction, and it's going to build across the month.
Jodi DeJong-Hughes:So the first part is gonna be, you know, what is compaction? Does drainage help? You know, wet soils, heavy weights, PSI of tires, things like that. So that's starting up
David Nicolai:excuse me. February 3?
Jodi DeJong-Hughes:February 3.
David Nicolai:February 3 is the first one. Okay.
Jodi DeJong-Hughes:Yep. And February 10 will be the second one, and we'll be talking about, well, what does it do? You know, what is it doing to our yields? What just the whole aspect of how compaction affects root growth, nutrient movement through the soil, getting to the plant, and things like that. The third day will be the seventeenth, and that will be talking I think this is where most people are gonna get be interested is tracks versus tires.
Jodi DeJong-Hughes:How do you make that decision? What about the technology out there like central I call it precision inflation. And where you increase the PSI of your tires as you go on the road, but when you're in the field, you lower them, because that can make a huge difference on the amount, the intensity of the compaction that you have. And then the last day is going to be more of the alleviation. Can crabber crops help?
Jodi DeJong-Hughes:What about building up your soil structure? What about using, subsoiling? Does that help? So that's what the four days are going to be about. Now if you miss the first day, they will be recorded and available to the people who register, so you can watch those before the next one comes available.
Speaker 3:But you're really encouraging people to to engage with all four sessions. Right? I mean, you're you you mentioned I just wanna make sure that you mentioned that the last two might be of of highest highest interest. But it it sounds like you're gonna build on some of the things in the in the first sets of days, and so they aren't necessarily more elementary, but they're kind of thematic that you're moving through the system. Is that right?
Jodi DeJong-Hughes:Yeah. I mean, it's a lot easier to understand your soil and know what it can and cannot do when you're looking at purchasing new equipment or tillage pieces or heavier equipment or new tires. When you know your soil and what it what it's capable of, that and that's what we're building on. Know your soil. Know what it can and cannot do.
Jodi DeJong-Hughes:Then you can make better decisions later too.
David Nicolai:So let's review a little bit about the start of this, how people can register, where they can find out more information.
Speaker 3:How much does it cost?
David Nicolai:Yeah. How much does it cost? You know, that's the you know, in situations with that, but how they can they can hook into this from the start.
Jodi DeJong-Hughes:Well, if you go online and look up Northern Soil Compaction Conference, you'll you'll find it. It and it will take you to an NDSU registration site. And there, the full agenda will be there and descriptions of each of the talks. We have 18 different presenters. There will be CEUs offered each day, and it's $75 for the whole four sessions.
Speaker 3:So how many hours total is this?
Jodi DeJong-Hughes:Twelve.
David Nicolai:Wow. Yeah. Three hours at a time.
Speaker 3:Three times four is twelve. Wow.
Jodi DeJong-Hughes:There you go. You
David Nicolai:can do the math.
Speaker 3:Well, maybe. So this is you mentioned North Dakota. I think you mentioned some other universities. How many you eight 18 speakers, and so they're coming from a wide, I assume, more than just two or three universities then.
David Nicolai:I I think Canada as well, I believe. Is that you indicated that? Yep.
Jodi DeJong-Hughes:So Definitely. And then we also have, like, some track people, some tire people. We'll have, economics from a farmer consultant. We have, The Ohio State University has done a lot of research on soil compaction, especially when you're looking at center fill planters with tracks versus tires. And they're the ones who also told me about the the down pressure maps.
Jodi DeJong-Hughes:And it was a year and some ago that I was on a sabbatical that I for soil compaction, that I went and visited a lot of these universities and farmers who were doing things in compaction. And, yeah, it's it's amazing all the things out there. It's actually kind of a slow start. There's only a couple little spots that are looking at it because it's actually very hard to research because you don't know if you're gonna create compaction. It's totally based on, you know, the moisture of the soil and the equipment you bring above it.
Jodi DeJong-Hughes:So mother nature is in charge of a lot of it.
Speaker 3:Yeah. I think we have a lot more variability in the North in our soil structure and our our impact on soil than than they do in the South where they have very, you know, very specific hard pans that develop at certain levels.
Jodi DeJong-Hughes:Yes. They have older soil too. And so that's why all of our speakers are Northern US or Southern Canadian. We also do have one from Australia Australia that will be joining us.
David Nicolai:Wow. So this is this an opportunity but you're gonna be the moderator, I take it, Jody, at least on on maybe the first one. I'm not sure about that. But I think Yeah.
Jodi DeJong-Hughes:I'll be
David Nicolai:You'll be the moderator. Will there be an opportunity? And I know that this can be a challenge for the moderator where where listeners want to ask questions and and so forth or type them in. I mean, you have a limited amount of time, but, I'm sure that you are knowing aware that that can happen, you know, in in these situations and, and you have to do what you can.
Jodi DeJong-Hughes:Yes. We're gonna try to answer as many questions as we can. I'll moderate the first ones. My other committee members will help moderate the other ones, and we'll try to get to all the ones who can. I'll also be speaking on the fourth day about using a subsoil to break up compaction and what are the pros and cons of that.
Speaker 3:Okay. And I assume there's CEUs available. Right. Right.
Jodi DeJong-Hughes:I think Yes.
Speaker 3:Yep. Oh, she said that.
David Nicolai:She said that. Okay. You you weren't listening. But, anyway, Oh, you didn't
Jodi DeJong-Hughes:and guess what? Almost all of them are soil and water credits.
Speaker 3:Of course.
David Nicolai:How about that?
Speaker 3:They're the good ones.
David Nicolai:Well, that's that's okay because we do plenty in pest management and other crop management during the year and other programs we have. But this is rather unique certainly I I like the opportunity to emphasize a month and that it's at you know set days so people know that but they can go back and listen to that. So there's a lot of flexibility situations with that And certainly, as we indicated, you know, it's the way of the world. A lot of people want that opportunity necessarily can't, you know, drive to back and forth. And and as we've seen this winter, sometime that's problematic given given the weather.
David Nicolai:So this will be a great thing.
Jodi DeJong-Hughes:Yes. It will be. And we're trying to make it so and move the speakers along so that people don't get tired of watching a webinar for three hours because that yeah. It can be a little tough sometimes.
David Nicolai:Well, great, Jody. Thank you for your time today. We're gonna be closing it out here. We appreciate you taking the time on on a cold day here in in January to talk about some of those things. But certainly, you know, give an opportunity and one more time on what they can Google and find out that information and then we'll let you go.
Jodi DeJong-Hughes:Okay. Look up the Northern Soil Compaction Conference for February and you should be able to find it. If not, you can also email me at j d h, you know, JodyDeYoungNews,@umn.edu, and I can get you the information.
Speaker 3:Awesome. And then one last little advertisement here. So where can folks find information about soils, tillage, compaction at the University of Minnesota website?
Jodi DeJong-Hughes:Yeah. Erin, they and I have written two publications, one on their Upper Midwest Tillage Guide and the Upper Midwest Compaction Guide. One of these days, we're gonna get the Upper Midwest erosion guide, but it's still in the works. So if you look those up, you will find them. They're both about 45 pages long, but they're broken down into chapters, and it should give you a really good comprehensive information on both of those.
Speaker 3:And they're posted on the Minnesota Extension website?
David Nicolai:Yes. And how to obtain them.
Speaker 3:Perfect. And if you just go there and Google for those, you'll find them within the Extension website. Awesome.
David Nicolai:Alright. Well thank you very again. Thank you Jody. We appreciate that. This has been another edition of the University of Minnesota CropCast.
David Nicolai:I've been your host Dave Nakalai along with my co host Doctor. Seth Nave, University of Minnesota Extension soybean specialist. We appreciate your time to participate and listen in to Minnesota CropCast, we'll see you next time. Thank you.
Jodi DeJong-Hughes:Yay. Well, that was okay.
