048 AgEmerge 2021 - John Heermann

We’ve got a great guest to kick off this new year, it’s a grassroots discussion with John Heermann, a farmer from northeast Colorado. John was a guest at one of our events back in 2016 and really got our gears turning when it came to thinking differently about how we saw our management practices. He challenged us to look at how cover crops were changing the way the soil functioned. John really had a paradigm shift of his own when he saw the rainfall simulator showing five different management systems. And when he saw the no-till pan with no cover having almost as poor of an infiltration rate as conventional till - that really started the gears turning. But when they flipped the tray over with no-till and cover crops with good residue and John saw the way the water percolated through the soil, he changed his philosophy and began building that new plan to build his soil health. John grew up on the family farm and after high school went on to get his degree in Agricultural Economics. John’s education guided him towards understanding how to build soil health, reduce costs, and evaluate the profitability of the operation. John discovered that building soil health by diversifying the farm with multi-species cover crops, different crops, and some livestock could really work. His farm is located in an area that averages around 20 inches or less of annual rainfall. He’s recognized the importance of keeping the soil covered and utilizing every drop of moisture. So join us as Monte and John dive in and debunk a few myths about cover crops in dry areas and so much more.