By Duane Ducat, board president
Hello members, after what looked like an early planting season the second week of April with record high temps on three consecutive days and ground temps in the mid 50’s, the cooler than normal temperatures came back with a vengeance. On a positive note, this has allowed for good growth on cover crops, facilitating manure application with nutrient uptake, planting green and termination or harvesting. Another plus is we have not received much precipitation during this cooler-than-normal timeframe. With this, and our excellent fall harvest conditions the fields are in great shape for planting for, hopefully, another great growing season ahead. This spring reinforces why covers are so important as a conservation practice because, without covers, the land would be naked for an additional three weeks due to this cold snap
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To encourage our members and others to share experiences, we have resumed our monthly Conservation Conversations. These causual events highlight a conservation practice at a farm site, followed by an open discussion about the practice. These conversations are a very effective way to help our organization’s knowledge grow, as well as a way to collaborate with others.
PPF is excited to work with Houston Engineering Inc. to finalize the sustainability project results. HEI is meeting with the participating farms and reviewing each farm’s three-year Fieldprint Platform results. We will meet on July 19 to look over these results with the participating farms.
We are always open to suggestions on what the group can do to better serve our members and improve our cause. We are diligent in our efforts to have clean, safe water and a thriving agricultural community.
Finally, I am grateful to Don Niles for serving 7 years as the PPF president. He is a very professional leader, and the work he did for PPF is truly appreciated. I am sure Ann helped, too!