Farming In Iowa With Terraces, Tile And The Truck Windows Down

Soil moves. Even though we might not see it, it’s moving all the time. That was the big lesson I took away from my visit to Dennis Seyb’s family farm located just outside the town of Donnellson, Iowa.

That means, for one thing, the Seybs have had to master the skill of a driving tractor sideways across a hill without tipping over. More importantly, all the hills and valleys mean that rainwater, wind and gravity are constantly working to carry the soil - and everything planted in it - down toward the field bottoms and streams. The Seybs constantly monitor and manage the movement and health of the soil. So they plant cover crops of rye and oats. They practice steady crop rotation, regularly switching from broadleaf plants like soybeans into grasses such as corn and back again. “This kind of rotation also helps keep plant diseases in check,” an important point that Dennis adds almost as an afterthought.

To move that much dirt around and do it successfully, it takes careful planning and coordination. That means first surveying for proper drain direction, then bringing in big machines to move around a lot of soil.  Just as I arrived at the farm, Dennis and his brother drove up. They were just returning from a visit to the local conservation office, where they were scouting maps to plan their latest terrace building project. Step one was almost complete.

Dennis takes me out to one of the fields that will soon be terraced. In early June, the beans are just starting to poke out between broken corn stalks, chaffe and other organic material (a conservation practice known as no-till). Dennis seems to glide through the rows of young soybean plants, while I constantly fall behind. I tiptoe and try not to step on the young beans. Dennis constantly, yet graciously, has to wait on me.

We come to a smallish-looking area that had filled with a little too much material.  “You can make a real mess out here if you’re not careful,” Dennis says looking over collected mass, “It’s places like this we work real hard to avoid.” Judging by the rest of his near perfectly sculpted 90-acre field, this little gully was very rare.

“If there’s one thing that I’m proud of farmers as a whole,” he continues as we head back to the truck, “it’s our soil management efforts. It’s just a matter of basic business. If we didn’t take care of the ground, we wouldn’t be able to grow anything the next year.”

Tile drainage keeps water from pooling in low-lying areas, reduces potential soil compaction and enables good root development in the crops. Dennis and Doug tiled their first field in 1998 and had the first terrace built in 1999. Fourteen years later and they continue to monitor and manage how and where their soil moves.

Back inside the truck, I mention something about how great it is to be outside in this weather (mildly hot, sunny and breezy). Dennis smiles, “As long as it’s not blazing hot, I always drive with the windows down.”