Uniting Soil Well being, Livestock, and Heirloom Crops: Mike Bronkema and Shady Facet Farm
Mike Bronkema will get excited speaking concerning the modifications he’s seen on his farm since they started integrating crop and livestock operations. Soil well being, micro organism and fungi, utilizing hay to reap extra phosphorus out of the soil… these won’t look like an enormous deal to the typical individual, however to a farmer intimately related to his livestock, the land, and the heirloom crops he’s elevating, these items make an enormous distinction to Mike.
Mike runs and operates Shady Facet Farm in Holland, Michigan. Together with assist from his spouse, Lona, their grownup kids, and Mike’s dad and mom he farms on 150 contiguous acres, and an extra 20 acres that they lease close by. He was one in every of a number of farmers that OFRF spoke with in a collection of interviews about Combine Crop-Livestock Techniques (ICLS), the follow of elevating livestock and crops on the identical farm, overlapping on the identical floor in methods that may profit the animals and the crops, in addition to the entire farm ecosystem.
Mike has been farming since 1992, and transitioned to licensed natural in 2010. He and his spouse are first technology farmers. When a neighboring farmer was on the point of retire, and wished to see his land keep in agriculture, Mike and Lona took over. At the moment the farm was primarily a hen operation, elevating pullets for egg manufacturing. They stored that up for the primary couple of years after which they slowly started to diversify the operation. “In 2004 we launched sheep and began rotationally grazing them,” Mike defined. “In 2010 we added in heirloom dry beans, and in 2011 we added in Belted Galloway cows which are licensed natural,” Mike mentioned. They ultimately phased out poultry completely, elevating the final batch in 2016. They at present develop 20 completely different forms of edible dry beans in addition to heritage small grains, similar to einkorn and spelt, and open-pollinated corn
Whereas they turned a licensed natural operation in 2010 their path into natural farming started a number of years earlier than that after they began exploring choices for composting the hen manure. “We had all these chickens,” Mike mentioned. “55,000 chickens!” It was quite a lot of manure to handle. They employed a marketing consultant to study natural composting, and ended up working with that individual to shift from utilizing typical merchandise to utilizing OMRI (Natural Supplies Overview Institute) accepted merchandise, and ultimately into the built-in strategies they’re utilizing right now.
That’s when Mike actually began to get into the nitty gritty of soil well being and diet. The natural marketing consultant helped him shift his considering from N-P-Ok to micro organism and fungi, and methods to domesticate wholesome populations of micro organism and fungi on the farm. With that in thoughts, he launched sheep and cattle to the farm to rebalance the soil after the long run steady presence of chickens, who had left the soil very excessive in phosphorus. Rising and harvesting hay for the sheep and cattle additionally helped take away extra phosphorus from the soil.
Mike has discovered that he learns quite a bit from observing the animals. “We ran sheep for plenty of years,” he mentioned. “After which rapidly we bumped into a problem with parasites within the sheep.” There was a patch of milkweed within the pasture [a host plant for monarch caterpillars], and Mike seen that when the sheep received to that spot they had been stripping the crops of their leaves. “I needed to ask the query,” Mike continued, “why had been they doing that? Come to search out out it was a means that they had been being attentive to their our bodies, and their our bodies wanted some approach to have parasite management.” Milkweed comprises a toxoid that may take out or cut back the parasite load in grazers and Mike realized that was the explanation the sheep had been so aggressively grazing the milkweed. “So I began the place I may discover those self same issues in some planting mixes I may use for the lambs to graze on,” Mike mentioned.
That’s when Shady Facet farm started to diversify their pasture combine, and shift away from simply conventional grass and alfalfa. “We added in birdsfoot trefoil, which has a type of tannins in it,” Mike mentioned. “We added in clover. So now we have now 4 completely different forms of legumes in there, that are placing vitamins again into the soil.” That nitrogen-fixing pasture combine additionally prepares the soil nicely to transition out of pasture into the corn and bean floor for subsequent plantings. “We nonetheless wanted the grass in [the pasture mix],” Mike mentioned. “So we’ve gone away from the tall fescues, to a meadow fescue, a little bit little bit of timothy, and a perennial rye grass. That makes up the grasses. The opposite issues we’ve added are chicory and plantain, that are two extra issues which have these toxoids in them for lowering parasite masses.”
This type of statement, trial and error, and continuous adaptation is all a part of the method. “I’m on a continuing studying system right here,” Mike mentioned, noting that typically implementing new concepts is its personal type of problem. “Typically you hear issues or study issues at one place, and then you definitely don’t implement it for plenty of years. It takes time to settle into the mind.”
The concepts that he’s implementing now with crop-livestock integration contain rotating animals on pasture in a 12-48 hour cycle, and an annual crop rotation that enables the animals to assist put together the bottom for the heirloom corn, bean, and grain crops that they develop. Describing his rotation system in early March Mike mentioned “At present the cows are out on pasture. They’re on one of many fields that will likely be rotated out of hay manufacturing this 12 months and rotated into corn and beans.”
Shady Facet Farm raises Belted Galloway cows, a hearty breed that’s nicely tailored to being outdoors 12 months spherical. “By having them out on the sphere presently of 12 months, they’re really taking the sod that’s there and making it weaker by overgrazing it,” Mike defined. “So in the case of taking it out within the spring, that sod will likely be simpler to take out.”
There are meals security issues with having livestock someplace that may get planted into meals for human consumption. Rules specify {that a} minimal of 120 days should cross between when manure is utilized to a subject and when a contemporary vegetable product is harvested. This ensures that pathogens can’t cross from the manure to the contemporary meals. To stick to those meals security issues, Mike makes certain to take the cattle off of the fields with loads of time earlier than he expects to be harvesting any dry beans. “We transfer the animals off at first of Could,” Mike explains. “Harvest doesn’t occur till mid-September, which will get us far sufficient into the season the place we’re past these 120 days.”
As soon as they transfer the cattle off, the work to arrange for planting begins. “Come spring time we go into doing quite a lot of subject work,” Mike mentioned. He makes use of a disc to chop by the sod. “The disc is a pleasant reducing instrument,” Mike mentioned. “It doesn’t do actual deep tillage however it would really take out the sod.” They begin making ready the fields as quickly as the bottom will be labored, after which plant corn and soybeans as soon as climate circumstances have warmed sufficient for good germination.
As soon as the corn and soybeans get harvested, the crop rotation continues. The beans are harvested early sufficient that they are often adopted with fall-planted small grains. Corn is harvested later, in order that they often comply with that up with a spring planted crop, like oats or barley, relying on what they want for supplying the animals. “That takes us again into the spring,” Mike mentioned. When the small grains come off, they put together the fields for planting again into pasture combine for the animals to graze the next 12 months. These areas will then keep in pasture for 4-5 years earlier than rotating again into the crop manufacturing cycle once more.
A essential a part of profitable crop-livestock integration is with the ability to hold the animals within the areas you need them, and out of the areas you don’t. In Mike’s case the farm really began with too many fences. “We couldn’t get gear in to do the tillage that we would have liked to,” Mike defined. “We ended up taking out a bunch of fences.” Now their fencing system is a fringe fence arrange with 5 strains going round, with the highest line at 40” and the underside one 16” off the bottom in order that Mike can nonetheless weed whip beneath it simply to maintain the fence line clear.
With 20 acres in contiguous sq. blocks this provides Mike a fringe fence that he can run electrical energy by. “We’ve received divider fences that may be attached with spring gates or string gates,” he mentioned. “We are able to switch energy from the perimeter fence into an inside divide.” They use a wide range of fencing for the cattle, sheep and lambs. The paddock techniques get arrange and moved every day all through the summer season, in order that the animals are continuously shifting across the farm.
One other factor that Mike has integrated into their system to assist hold his pastures wholesome is that they transport water to animals utilizing a trailer, somewhat than having fastened water strains. “With trailering water we don’t find yourself with mud holes or livestock areas the place they’re sporting out the pasture,” Mike mentioned. In a system with everlasting watering troughs animals will return to the identical place over and over, ultimately sporting out the bottom across the trough. Trailering water permits Mike to place it in a special place each time to distribute the impression on the fields.
Mike has had some monetary and technical help from the Nationwide Useful resource Conservation Service (NRCS) alongside the best way. “Again in 2000 we used the Environmental High quality Incentive Program (EQIP) fund to place our composting system in,” Mike mentioned. Additionally they received a Conservation Stewardship Program (CSP) grant, which helped them add a pollinator habitat space to the farm. “We’re discovering that’s an enormous assist with our insect populations right here,” Mike defined. “It’s lowering aphids out within the bean fields, regardless that it’s not proper subsequent door, it’s serving to. We’re seeing these predatory bugs with a spot to go.” NRCS applications have additionally helped with roadways, fencing for waterways, and different initiatives. “We’ve used that very same funding to place in grasslands,” Mike mentioned. “With our rotation, within the 4-5 years that they’re in pasture that’s thought-about a grassland to them. Though I name it a pasture, they [the NRCS] name it grasslands.”
Mike has noticed a number of useful modifications since shifting to built-in practices. Livestock well being has improved, soil natural matter has elevated, and the water-holding capability of his soil has elevated. He defined that within the early days of grazing sheep on the pasture, within the driest elements of summer season, the one locations that had been nonetheless inexperienced had been the drainage waterways. “Right this moment, we undergo a drought and people inexperienced areas are getting bigger,” Mike mentioned. “I can hardly inform the place these waterways are on the farm anymore. It’s been a enjoyable factor to see that.”
One other profit that Mike is absolutely enthusiastic about is wanting into the nutrient density of the crops produced within the built-in techniques. “In research I’ve been doing wanting on the diet of the crops,” Mike defined, “the corn might be operating about 40% extra nutritious than conventionally grown corn.” With the einkorn and spelt he mentioned they’re “discovering that we have now about double the protein there than what you do in typical wheat.” These vitamins circle again into the animals and into the soil, persevering with to extend the well being and resilience of his farm. Though that’s not one thing that lots of people are but, it’s one thing that Mike hopes to review extra sooner or later.
The previous poultry operation has come a good distance since Mike & Lona took over. By diversifying and integrating crops and livestock in progressive and responsive methods, they’ve set a ball in movement. “Issues are altering faster than I can think about anymore,” Mike mentioned. “It’s a pleasure to observe the micro organism and the fungi working within the soil.”
