This week we’re paying a visit to Starkey Farms, a seventh-generation family farm just outside of Indianapolis.
Co-owner Mike Starkey’s been no-tilling since 1989. He started using cover crop mixes on his corn and soybeans in 2005.
For this episode of Cover Crop Strategies, brought to you by La Crosse Seed, Mike reflects on lessons learned over the years, and identifies the benefits of cover cropping on his farm. Mike also shares some advice on planting green.
Plus, he explains how the use of AirScout thermal imagery has helped improve nitrogen application methods, ultimately boosting yields.
The Cover Crop Strategies podcast series is brought to you by La Crosse Seed.
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Full Transcript
Noah Newman:
Hello, and welcome to another edition of the Cover Crop Strategies Podcast. I'm your host, Noah Newman, associate editor. Got some good stuff today but before we get started, let's thank our sponsor, La Crosse Seed. Solving the soil health puzzle, La Crosse Seed has you covered. Cover crops are an important piece to future profit but it takes work and is puzzling at times. La Crosse Seed delivers quality Soil First cover crops products, plus training and tools to help you succeed. Whether you're looking to grow your cover crop seed business, get product tips or find a local Soil First dealer, La Crosse Seed is ready to help. Learn more at soil1st.com. That's Soil 1-S-T dot-com. Or call 800-356-SEED.
Noah Newman:
This week we're paying a visit to Starkey Farms, a seventh generation family farm just outside the great city of Indianapolis. Co-owner Mike Starkey's been no-tilling since 1989. He's also been using cover crops mixes on his corn and soybeans since 2005. So on this episode of the podcast, Mike reflects on lessons learned over the years and identifies the benefits of cover cropping on his farm. Mike also shares some advice on planting green and how the use of AirScout Thermal Imagery has helped improve nitrogen application methods, ultimately boosting yields. Without further ado, here's Mike.
Mike Starkey:
Mike Starkey. It's a family farm just the northwest side of Indianapolis, that's Brownsburg, Indiana, Central Indiana and a seventh generation farm about 2,500 acres. Corn, soybeans, wheat and some hay. And a few cows for freezer beef.
Noah Newman:
Your location, as we were talking about before we started recording here, you're in a fairly urban area. Tell us about that.
Mike Starkey:
Very urban. I mean, right across the road a bunch of houses from our farm, right across the road from one of the biggest churches in the North Side of Indianapolis. A school there one through eight or kindergarten through eight and lots of traffic but I get the perks of going to the Indy 500 Sunday. It's easy to get in and out because I know how to get in and out. Nice restaurants.
Mike Starkey:
I go to all the Colts' games and Pacer season taking over also. It's kind of a fun life to live in this area here but you got to deal with the issues of lots of people, lots of traffic. But it's a good life. It is a family farm. It goes way back. This is seventh generation and sentimental value for the property also. So it's one of those things that just the love of the land and I enjoy what I'm doing. Good family life too. That's number one.
Noah Newman:
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, that has to be a big perk being able to make it to a Colts game in no time or the Indianapolis 500. What are some of the challenges though that come with farming in an urban area? I'd have to imagine planning around when school is in, school is out, that has to be one of them.
Mike Starkey:
Well, obviously number one's the traffic going up and down with a big sprayer or combine but people respect that. It's amazing how when they see this big sprayer coming down the road, they just get out of my way and they pull off the side. Wave at me and I really feel, Noah, that they appreciate the farming around here. Obviously, they want to keep the land as-is instead of just packing them in with a bunch of houses or whatever. So but the challenges obviously are the traffic number one.
Mike Starkey:
I think number two, I fly on my cover crops and I have to educate the neighbors of what I'm doing. When they see that plane flying over one of the fields they're afraid of having pesticides or chemicals dropped out of the air. Then when I educate them to tell them that actually it's seed just like their grass seed in their yard, they really appreciate that. So that's another part of the issues I have to deal with and actually my pilot sometimes has to get authorization from the FCC that he may fly in this area to do that.
Mike Starkey:
But again, it'd be the traffic's number one. A good part of it and again, the bad part is the land values are incredibly high around here and with that, I have a lot of developers pounding on my doors weekly or letters sent to me. I actually went to a local planning commission meeting Monday night. Got off the sprayer to attend a meeting. It started at six o'clock for a local development and for me to make my comments, I had to sit there till 10:30.
Noah Newman:
Oh.
Mike Starkey:
Then yesterday morning, I had to get up for a drainage board meeting that I drove to Danville for, which is our county seat to let them know that, "Hey, I have 100 acres going to this drainage outlet. So therefore, I'm concerned about this development coming in, so that's part of the problem or I meant to say problem but the issues I have to deal with but, yeah. That's okay.
Noah Newman:
Yeah.
Mike Starkey:
I'm used to it.
Noah Newman:
So the land development are they trying to buy your land or are they just building close to it or how's that working?
Mike Starkey:
Oh, no. Buy the land. Buy the land and I keep saying, "Hey, if you can find me land to turn around and 1031 to nearby, let me know." But there's nothing like that around here.
Noah Newman:
Yeah.
Mike Starkey:
It's one of those things where again, I have sentimental value in the property. It's what I do, our family does and the value of the land it's not going down. I mean, it's incredible how much the values have gone up just in the past year. So and one of these days, I lived through it before, like in '08 where the market's going to crash and when that happens, my land values will go down. But in the meantime, I'm happy where I'm at.
Noah Newman:
Well, that's good to hear. I mean, you sound really happy. Let's talk about planting season. How's planting going so far? I know that the weather's not cooperating today, which is good though because that's giving you a time to join us on the podcast.
Mike Starkey:
Yeah. There we go. Noah, the month of May has been a challenge. April, seemed like it rained all month. It was cold. March was really a nice month but we were down to one more farm to plant corn. Finished up the fields around here locally. The other one's about eight miles away but the issue with that farm is that we've been wanting to tile that farm since January and the weather conditions have not been good for that. So we decided to go ahead and plant it.
Mike Starkey:
Then we're going to have it tiled after the planting is done because with these intense rain events that we have anymore, tiling needs to be done when the conditions are right. Seems like the conditions are not right unless it's the middle of the summer. So even though we're going to destroy some crop by doing this tiling, it's the benefits outweighs more than what we're going to lose in the crop this year by getting it done.
Mike Starkey:
It helps that the landlord's going to help participate paying for it, so therefore, we want to get this done. This one farm is just way past and needs to be done. Tiling around here is so critical for us. We have tiled so many farms in the last 15 years and because we've seen the benefits of it. But our tiles that our forefathers put in are just worn out. Now, these rain events, like last Wednesday night, we had a two-inch rain in three hours.
Noah Newman:
Oh, my goodness.
Mike Starkey:
So they just can't handle the rain events that we have anymore, so therefore, if you're going to get into no-till, first thing you need to do is get your drains figured out and then go from there. The worst part for me is the fields that I no-tilled for many years that just like have to be done for tiling. The issue is you got to level it off for the tile lines and do tillage to level them all out. So again, the experience of no-tilling over the years, get your drainage figured out first and then transition into it.
Mike Starkey:
We have our beans planted. Now, that was the first thing we did. We got the beans planted and those are done. They were done a week ago Thursday and boy, everything looks good. They come up nice because we're having these rains to keep things going obviously but it would be nice to have some sunshine, some heat to really make them take off.
Noah Newman:
Now, do you plant green?
Mike Starkey:
Oh, 100% green, yes. Right. I mean, the experience with no-tilling over the years, it's so much easier and beneficial to plant green. The cover crops in our area do not wake up until it warms up, which like anything else, so therefore, I want to get the most benefit if I can with the cover crops. So therefore, we plant everything green and it's so much easier to do instead of having to contend with a lot of dead residue that's out there.
Noah Newman:
So then, you plant green and how does that work in terms of termination?
Mike Starkey:
On the corn, no. I have spray right ahead of the corn planter, especially like on a year like this because the ground is somewhat soft because of the rain events and the sprayer ... The most compacting piece of equipment we have is the sprayer. So by spraying just ahead of planting on the corn, you don't have that surface compaction for the tires on the sprayer. In the past, if we ran a sprayer over after we planted, you would lose the stand from where the tires ran. So therefore, if you get away from that, we burn everything down right ahead of the corn planter.
Mike Starkey:
Soybeans, we plant or we spray after because the soybeans can handle it. You don't have as much surface compaction but the issue you have to deal with that is that you got to get that spray down before the soybeans come up. I actually was really nervous this year because I put a residual down with my burndown on soybeans and well, corn both. But with that the soybeans cannot emerge because the herbicide we use would terminate the soybeans. So I was really on the edge of not getting that done this year because all these rain events we keep having. So I was fortunate enough, just got that done, just ahead of time so the soybeans emerge.
Noah Newman:
Well, glad to hear you were able to get that done. Now, what covers do you plant into? Is it cereal rye or?
Mike Starkey:
With soybeans, 100% cereal rye. We fly that on. We throw some radishes with it because our CFP requires a minimum of two species. So on soybeans we do that and on corn, it's a five-way mix hairy vetch, some annual, some Australian winter peas, oh, buckwheat and I can't even think of the fifth one right now. It's not in my head but the hairy vetch is the one we really like because the benefits of providing so much excess nitrogen from the organic that we pull out of the soil. But I'm telling you, it was not a very good stand this year.
Mike Starkey:
I was disappointed in the hairy vetch because everything was so cool in the month of April that we couldn't get things to take off. So this is one of those years that I'm going to fly this on a little bit earlier next year or this coming year for next year's crop because we didn't get the stand as much as what I wanted to this year. The reason being, we had a late application of it because we were planning on ... We have an air seeder that we were going to use to put them in with.
Mike Starkey:
Then the rains came in the fall and we couldn't get that out there. So we ended up just pulling the trigger and flying it on since we already had it mixed up. Then on top of everything else, the month of April was pretty cruel where it just would not wake up. So therefore, I live and learn from what the benefits of the experiences of what we did in the past. That's one mistake we did so but the cereal rye really took off nice this year, I want to tell you.
Noah Newman:
Yeah. Every year's a little different. You learn something new every year it seems like.
Mike Starkey:
Absolutely. Yep.
Noah Newman:
How long have you been no-tilling and using covers? When did you start doing that?
Mike Starkey:
Well, I'm pretty old, Noah. I'm actually 65 years old so I've been doing this a long time. So the late '80s we've been no-tilling the soybeans and then got into the corn mid '90s. Did that a couple years. Couldn't make things work for corn. Went back to tillage and then learning from my peers, then we got back into the corn late '90s. So and then the covers, gosh, we started off with annual rye grass about 17 years ago and grew from there, so the cover crops came on for a long time, so.
Noah Newman:
Yeah. What were some of the first signs you saw that showed you that the cover crops were working, that they were actually making a difference?
Mike Starkey:
Well, we started off with annual rye grass. Digging a soil pit and seeing how far the roots go down was just an eye-popping experience to learn from at that time. That broke up a lot of the plow-layer compaction back then and a big key was the air and water movement through the soil. We didn't have the standing water with the annual rye grass initially when we started using it because it just opened up the soil. So getting that oxygen in the soil and not seeing the ponding out there on your fields after a big rain event.
Mike Starkey:
Then next-door was maybe a field that had no covers or conventional till and seeing standing water, so that was the first eye-popping experience that we realized that, "Hey, we might be on to something here." That was key to start with and again, drainage with these rain events, we need to get that water in the soil profile. Our tiles all of a sudden started working harder also because of the air and water movement through the soil. So again, that goes back to those tiles that we had out there, that those old clay tiles all of a sudden started working again. Then they just got worn out. So I guess that's good and bad but obviously the good outweighs the bad.
Noah Newman:
You said, you fly on the covers. How long have you been doing aerial applications and why is that the method that you choose?
Mike Starkey:
Harvest, manpower. There's just only myself and my nephew and his son and my son, Nick do the farming here. Harvest time rolls around, you want to get the crop out. Well, then you don't want to have, to have another employee be putting on cover crops and the timing of getting that on early in Central Indiana, is critical to get things established. So we started flying on oh, probably, what, seven or eight years ago? Again, though, you have to have the pilot that understands how to apply it.
Mike Starkey:
We have a pilot that we've been using for many years who actually farms also. He puts it on right but getting an inexperienced pilot, which we've had in the past before this current pilot that we use, you might have skips out there or a worse application. So and then the conditions may not be right, so therefore, that would be a problem like too much wind, that's for example. So the timing of getting that on actually before the crop is harvested is critical for us because we fly everything on our corn with the cereal rye, on standing corn by Labor Day.
Mike Starkey:
The year before last, we flew on our soybeans going on the corn when the beans were yellow and starting to drop leaves. We had great cover crop stand because of that. This past year, we did not do that. We waited till after soybean harvest and flew it on after the soybeans were harvested because again, I wanted to try something different and use our air seeder to get it on that way. But we just couldn't get in the field because the conditions just it was too wet. So therefore, it was too late, so with that experience I am planning on flying everything on by Labor Day this year corn and soybeans.
Noah Newman:
Back to the podcast in just a moment but once again, let's thank our sponsor, La Crosse Seed. Solving the soil health puzzle. La Crosse Seed has you covered. Cover crops are an important piece to future profit but it takes work and is puzzling at times. La Crosse Seed delivers quality Soil First cover crops products, plus training and tools to help you succeed. Whether you're looking to grow your cover crop seed business, get product tips or find a local Soil First dealer, La Crosse Seed is ready to help. Learn more at soil1st.com. That's Soil 1-S-T dot-com. Soil First or call 800-356-SEED.
Noah Newman:
Now, back to the podcast. You've used a lot of different cover crop species over the years, I'd have to imagine. Do you have a favorite or like a power rankings of which ones work best for you?
Mike Starkey:
It depends on the crop. It depends on the farm. It depends on your soil samples. Like buckwheat is a great scavenger for phosphorous but annual rye, if you have an issue with a new farm that maybe has some compaction. I'm looking at this nitrogen and as we know, this nitrogen has just skyrocketed. So why not have a species out there that would provide some nitrogen to you? So annual rye is a great scavenger for nitrate but with that, you have to have nitrogen on your planter. But it releases a lot of that later on in the growing season. I'm talking late July, August.
Mike Starkey:
The hairy vetch is a great provider of nitrogen, so you got that benefit. Then if you have an issue with soil structure, maybe grow some pea vetch. After we harvest, we have a 14-way mix that we have and the more diverse on these cover crops, the more it provides to your soil that much better of a diet. It's a balanced diet that way. But the one after wheat is that we have cover crops that will die in the fall, with the first freeze but you're getting the extra benefits of what it does to your soil, so that's the reason we like wheat also. Not only to do some tiling but you have a opportunity to put a more diverse mix of cover crops out there instead of just relying on a certain species that will come back in the spring.
Noah Newman:
Yeah. I remember you saying, "Hairy vetch is just huge when it comes to the nitrogen aspect of it and nitrogen prices skyrocketing." Cover crops like hairy vetch, how much can that help you reduce inputs and increase yields?
Mike Starkey:
We're all learning from that. I mean, this year I mean, I don't think it provided hardly much at all because I didn't have the stand. Last year, I think it really provided a lot and that's where we had to take these soil samples and tissue samples. Grabbed the samples from the hairy vetch and see how much that's providing you. So we're all learning from that every year. I mean, I feel personally it depends. Last year, I felt it had a huge benefit. Probably 50 pounds of nitrogen that it provided, even more maybe.
Mike Starkey:
This year, who knows what? So that's the reason you've got to have the experience and education from your peers to see what their thoughts are on that also. It's key that we learn from others what they've done, how much it provided and share that information. So and we're not getting that from the universities obviously because they're doing their thing and we're doing our thing.
Mike Starkey:
So that's one of those deals where you're kind of figuring it out on your own and who knows when we'll get that all figured out. But I do feel that hairy vetch is a great cover crop species to provide some nitrogen for your corn. This year, hmm. I don't know and that's the reason I use this AirScout Service that I use to observe the fields and to let me know how much nitrogen I need to put on that second application.
Noah Newman:
Yeah. I was just going to ask you about the AirScout Thermal Technology. That was kind of a game changer for you, right?
Mike Starkey:
Man, it was. I don't know if you saw my ... Yeah. You saw my presentation at No-Till Conference and what I observe through AirScout is that the application, that second application is so critical to your corn crop. But it gives me a picture at that time, what my corn needs. Oh, and the areas that it needs, so therefore, it's a at-season picture that I can put on what I feel confident and what my corn needs are. We'll look at the price of nitrogen, which fortunately I did buy all my nitrogen up-front.
Mike Starkey:
But we got to look at the rainfall events. We got to look at the growing season, the temperatures and of course, the price of corn at the time. What's corn being worth? So you got to pencil all that out and then enter your goals in that you feel that you can make that year. Then put that second application on based on the images that we have at that time through the AirScout Service.
Noah Newman:
Yeah, so if you can go into a little more detail about how the AirScout Service works in case someone's listening right now, they might be interested in trying to use it, just how does that work exactly?
Mike Starkey:
Well, they take an actual visual shot, oh, with an airplane, of your whole field at a certain time. Actually, they flew over my field yesterday and I already have the images today, which is pretty cool. You don't have to wait for a couple weeks, whatever to figure out what that picture is. But you have ADVI, NDVI, a rifle shot, just a bare shot and the thermal images. You observe throughout the growing season how your crop is doing. The one they took yesterday is a good starting point because we're actually seeing the soil that's out there with the tile lines.
Mike Starkey:
You observe how the crop is growing throughout the growing season and if it's under stress. But the one I really like is the one when Y-drop my application of the side-dress nitrogen, I put a flatter rate on the first time of like around V6. But the second one is the one that I use the AirScout Service where I make a prescription based on that field and those areas. It gives me a opportunity to apply more on the corn that's the best ground or the best corn that's out there and I can put on, back off on the corn that's looking so-so.
Mike Starkey:
So I'm not over-applying on the corn that's going to be average but I do put it on more, on the corn that I feel that's going to be a big opportunity to get the big yield out of. We all see on our yield monitors, this corn can really hit the 300-bushel mark. It can, certain areas of the field and certain areas of the field it's only going to get 200 bushel. So with that, I make a prescription through their service. It gives me an opportunity to apply the right amount, at the right place, at the right time.
Mike Starkey:
Therefore, my sprayer with my Y-drops as I go across the field changes and I can visually see the good corn from the sprayer. I'll see that monitor on the sprayer bump it up immediately. It's amazing and so when I get in that corn that's so-so, it'll back off on it. Before making my management zones, I just had to tweak those every year and do the best I could in my application of that second of nitrogen. But now, I know exactly where the good corn is out in my field and the corn that's not so good.
Mike Starkey:
It could be planter error. It could be all of a sudden the corn planter didn't put on. It shut off the nitrogen by accident or something like that. We'll back off on that so and in years past, I might have had those areas where it was good. So that's what I like about this AirScout Service because it gives me a true observation of how that corn is doing for that year.
Noah Newman:
Well, I wanted to ask you about this as well. I read that you're part of or you took part in the Edge of Field Monitoring Project and it showed that water leaving your farm is now cleaner than when it entered.
Mike Starkey:
Well, we as farmers do not go out there and try to throw a bunch of nitrogen down the stream. So we want to keep it on our farm as much as possible. So the observation of others thinking that we're throwing money away down the creek and polluting their water supply is I want to prove them wrong. So therefore, we have extensive monitoring service on our farm where we monitor the water before it enters the farm and monitor water after it enters the farm. We have a farm that we can do that on.
Mike Starkey:
It's a big partnership with several partners. The USGS, NRCS, State Department of Ag, Citizens Water out here in Indianapolis, our local soil water conservation district, we put together a partnership where ... Oh, and Indiana University out in Bloomington. They're doing that because they have the well water but we have different sensors out there that are monitoring the water not only in the stream but also coming out of the tiles that we have. We observe the groundwater coming out of the farm is cleaner than it is entering.
Mike Starkey:
How's that happen? We keep the nitrogen, we keep the nutrients of what we apply on our farm, No-till cover crops, application as needed. We don't just go out there and dump a bunch of nitrogen before the planter even starts hoping that the corn plants going to be using it. It's so necessary to spoon-feed what that corn crop needs throughout the growing season. That's a big deal where we want to educate others that the type of farming that we do, is it's what's needed, not only here in Indiana but across the world.
Mike Starkey:
We've had people come out and see or visually visit the farm because of that and EPA's been out here, "Well, come on out. Check it out." We've had international people. We've had Chinese people come out here even to observe this because we got to figure out, we all drink water. We all want to drink clean water and like the hypoxia zone down in the Gulf of Mexico. We got to get rid of that. I mean, that's crazy and so there's ways to take care of our water supply and to keep it where it's needed and clear.
Noah Newman:
Well, I know you've got a busy weekend ahead getting ready for the Indy 500 so won't keep you much longer. Just before you go, any advice you want to give to people listening that might be thinking about getting into cover crops or something you've learned in recent years that you wanted to share with our audience?
Mike Starkey:
Well, number one, you got to be a patient farmer. If you're not a patient farmer, forget it. You got to be willing to change, be open to change. You got to be listening to your peers, people that have actually done it, not people that have not even been on a tractor and tell you how to do it. You're going to learn from your mistakes. Don't go 100% crazy about it. First year I did cover crops, I did 20 acres, so kind of transition into it. Enjoy your family. Take care of your family first. You're able to sleep okay at night and not get stressed about it, so all good.
Noah Newman:
Thanks to Mike Starkey for joining us on this week's podcast. Before we go, let's once again thank our sponsor La Crosse Seed, solving the soil health puzzle. La Crosse Seed has you covered. Cover crops are an important piece to future profit but it takes work and is puzzling at times. La Crosse Seed delivers quality Soil First cover crop products, plus training and tools to help you succeed. Whether you're looking to grow your cover crop seed business, get product tips or find a local Soil First dealer, La Crosse Seed is ready to help. Learn more at soil1st.com. That's Soil 1-S-T dot-com. Or call 800-356-SEED.
Noah Newman:
Thanks so much for joining us once again on the Cover Crop Strategies Podcast. Hope you enjoyed it. Until next time, for all things cover crops head to covercropstrategies.com.
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