Pipe Farmer Champions Demonstrate Progress

Dave Simon (Prairie Rock Farms) and Chad Tasch (Tasch’s Custom LLC) were introduced to readers in the Basin Buzz this past summer as the Pipe Creek Farmer Champions. Working with the Fox-Wolf Watershed Alliance and Fond du Lac County Land & Water Conservation Department (FDL LWCD) under a Great Lakes Restoration Initiative (GLRI) grant, Dave and Chad demonstrate no-till farming, cover crops, and low disturbance manure injection on 450 acres. Both farmers also have soil health practices on additional acreage not covered under the GLRI grant.

CLICK HERE to learn more about the 3-year GLRI project.

This past fall, on November 18^th, the farmers and FDL LWCD hosted a field day in the Pipe Creek Watershed at one of Dave Simon’s fields. During the event, Chad and Dave spoke to other farmers about the practices they have implemented, the benefits they are seeing so far, and some of the hurdles they have had to overcome.

At the time of the event, Dave’s field had a summer cover crop mix growing and Chad had a low-disturbance manure application field for people to check out across the road.

Boy was it cold! It was around 30 degrees and strong winds were coming off the lake, but that didn’t keep people from attending. In all, we had close to 30 in attendance! Despite it being cold, many farmers stayed for close to two hours, chatting with one another and inspecting the fields. We were very pleased with how the day turned out! We hope to see you at a field day next year!

—Article and photos by Zach at FDL LWCD and Korin at Fox-Wolf

 Visit www.soilhealthinprogress.org to learn more.

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