Lessons of a LaCrosse farmer

Since I am now in the process of retiring after more than 40 years of farming, I thought I would pass along some of the things I have learned.

I remember as a kid there were ditches in the field from erosion that required filling before crossing with a wheat truck. I remember farming with plows and hoeing weeds in the summer fallow by hand.

When I later took over the farm, I believed in chisel plowing deep to break the “plow pan.” Then, I did the strip farming when it was recommended to prevent erosion.

I soon learned that this did little to prevent runoff and was quite inefficient. Water woul...