Schultz Legacy Farms of Van Dyne Awarded 2022 Mathias-Lesczynski Water Quality Award

Lake Winnebago Quality Improvement Association (LWQIA) recognizes farmers who are leaders in conservation with their annual Mathias-Lesczynski Water Quality Award. The award is named after long time employee of the Fond du Lac County Land Conservation department Lynn Mathias and ARCS conservationist Erv Lesczynski for their work with Fond du Lac County farmers to prevent soil erosion. This year’s award of $1000.00 was presented to Schultz Legacy Farms of Van Dyne at a Breakfast on the Farm event in Fond du Lac.

A family Operation

Schultz Legacy Farms is owned and operated by Dave and Joan Schultz and their son, Dusty and daughter-in-law Allison. Their farm is on the Van Dyne Creek which drains directly into Lake Winnebago. Their farm operation includes 2,000 acres of no-till crops split evenly with corn and soybeans with a little wheat, and rye for cover crop seed. They also do about 1,000 acres of custom planting and spraying.

Dave started no-till about 20 years ago when equipment for no-till planting was in its infancy. Dave went to no-till conferences and decided the biggest mistake would be to quit. The first year Dave found it very difficult not to go out to the field on a beautiful fall day and plow the corn stalks under. During the winter he kept an eye on the fields and saw how the snow stayed in the field and the moisture would be there for the next crop (versus his fields with traditional agriculture methods). When issues popped up, he asked himself, “What did I do wrong and how do we fix it?”. This was key in overcoming the hurdles many farmers face in the first few years of trying out soil health practices.

Dave and Dusty have done many trials and not all have been successful. Even though there were hurdles to overcome, they kept going. Dave and Dusty recommend farmers work through any issues and give no-till and cover crops at least 3 years to prove that they work for soil health and water quality.

Their newest venture is planting green. Planting green means corn or soybean is planted directly into a growing cover crop (most often a small grain like rye or wheat) without killing the cover crop by herbicide or mechanical means first.

Dave and Dusty are also participating as a demonstration farm as part of the Upper Fox and Wolf Demonstration Farm Network to showcase the total benefits of cover crops. Questions they are looking to answer are: