Living roots, low-input costs

Keeping living roots in the ground year-round is Loran Steinlage's top priority for his West Union, Iowa, farm. His second aim is earning a profit through a twin-pronged strategy of growing low-input, high-output cash crops.

Juggling the goals for his operation keeps his rotation in "a state of flux," Steinlage points out. While the crop rotation may change, it's always working to improve soil health and thus continually reduce the cropping system's dependence on purchased inputs.

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Farming with his wife, Brenda, Steinlage started in the 1990s growing corn on corn. Later recognizing a need to diversify the cropping system, he began growing cover crops of annual ryegrass and clovers. Then he added soybeans to the rotation and a cereal rye cover crop.

"We saw benefits from the diverse crops in improved soil health," says Steinlage. "In 2012, our local Natural Resources Conservation Service staff did some tests on our farm showing that bulk density had improved, and we had 15 to 20 earthworms per square foot."

Secondary Crop Income

Armed with the evidence of cover crops' benefits to soil health, Steinlage began to wonder how to earn an income from this secondary crop — the cover crops. That thought led him to experiment with relay-cropping cereal rye and winter wheat in soybeans. His experiment worked so well that in 2015 he began relay-cropping cereal rye and wheat in many of his soybean fields, harvesting the mature cereal grains as cash crops in midsummer before harvesting the soybeans in fall.

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Steinlage also experimented with relay-cropping malting barley and oats in soybeans. "But we backed away from barley, oats, and wheat because it was hard to get those cereal crops established early enough in the fall so that they would be able to overwinter," he says.

As Steinlage fine-tuned his rotation, he looked at corn with a wary eye. Besides requiring high inputs of nitrogen, he found the corn crop a challenging fit for his goal of keeping living roots in the soil year-round.

"For the most part, we're now taking corn out of the rotation," he says.

Steinlage's 2022 cropping system leaned heavily on soybeans and cereal rye.

"About half of what we grew this year is relay-cropped cereal rye and soybeans, and the other half was conventionally grown soybeans," he says. He initially planned to double-crop buckwheat behind rye in relay-cropped soybeans, but harvest delays and weather nixed that plan.

While the crop mix may temporarily lean heavily on soybeans, the silver lining is eliminating nitrogen inputs.

"It's kind of just dumb luck that what we're doing this year with our crops lets us eliminate applications of nitrogen, which is extremely expensive this year," he says.

Cropping Sequence

When Steinlage sets fields up for relay-cropping soybeans in cereal rye, he begins the cropping sequence by growing a crop of "conventional" soybeans with a short-season maturity. He harvests these beans early enough — between September 25 and October 5 — to permit the planting of cereal rye in that time frame.

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The following April, he plants a longer-season variety of soybean into the rye.

Steinlage plants the beans in 30-inch rows with two rows of rye in between.

He combines the mature rye for grain over the top of the soybeans in about mid-July.

"It's critical that the soybeans stay in a vegetative mode through rye harvest, and that's the importance of planting a long-season variety of bean with a 3.4 to 3.9 maturity," he says. Because the soybeans remain vegetative through rye harvest, they bush out and take off after the harvesting of the rye.

Steinlage double-crops buckwheat in the soybeans after harvesting the rye. "If I can get the cereal rye harvested by July 20, I'll interseed buckwheat into the standing soybeans," he says. "The two crops will mature at about the same time, and I'll harvest the buckwheat with the soybeans in mid-to late November."

After harvest, he uses a grain cleaner to separate the buckwheat kernels from the soybeans.

Usually, a cover crop of rye volunteers from the small amount of kernels passing over the combine sieve during the rye harvest. The volunteer rye persists through the double-cropping sequence and provides live roots in the soil over winter.

"The rye population results from about a quarter or a half bushel of rye per acre that passed over the sieves," says Steinlage. "I get the benefit of a cover crop without spending money on seed and without incurring fuel costs for seeding."

In some other fields, Steinlage benefits from a no-cost, self-seeding cover crop from the red clover that persists because it grows naturally in his area, he says.

Besides minimizing costs for cover crops, his production system results in reduced costs for herbicide. "We don't have weed issues to speak of," he says. "A lot of that is because of the allelopathic effect of rye. I would say our herbicide applications are about 25% to 50% of what most producers use."

Because the farming system itself provides the lion's share of its needs, costs decrease and profitability increases, despite moderate yields.

"Rather than aiming for top yields, we aim for the ability to cash flow," says Steinlage. "I haven't touched an operating note in five years. We expect to operate as low-input, high-output producers, while improving soil health along the way."

• Loran Steinlage
• 563/380-1149
• flolofarms@gmail.com