Spotlight Series
Looking to the Next 100 Years of Healthy Soil
When asked why sustainability is important to him as a farmer, Mike Wurmnest is pulled over at the side of a corn field which his grandfather first planted 120 years ago. “I wonder what the corn looked like back then,” he wonders. Mike, a fourth-generation farmer in Deer Creek, IL, has been working on the 1200 acre Centennial farm for 50 years, and has watched a lot changed in that time.
“I grew up in a time when we did a lot of tillage,” says Mike. “My dad loved corn, so we raised it each year, and we plowed it each year. When there were a couple of droughts in the 80s, we added soybean to the rotation, and over time it’s been about trying a variety of things—and to be blunt, some of them have failed.”
Mike’s approach to sustainability is about learning from those failures, and always seeking to improve on his management practices. “I have neighbors that farm lots of different ways, and there’s just no such thing as perfect,” he says. Over time, he has tested a variety of tillage and fertilizer techniques, and now has an array of conservation practices he uses regularly, including strip tilling over 75% of his corn acres and variable rating his fertilizer application according to soil tests.
“We only want to put the nutrients where they’re economically needed—to save costs and nutrients,” says Mike. “When we get soil tests back, we can still see where my dad and grandpa spread manure.” By analyzing the nutrients already in his soil, Mike is able to develop more efficient application strategies, saving on application costs and ensures his soil stays healthy for future planting years.
Mike Wurmnest
4th Generation Farmer
Deer Creek, Illinois
"There’s no system out there that has no disadvantages. If there is, I’m still looking for it. The data from the Fieldprint Platform is helping me to put numbers to my practices and think about the different ways I could raise my crops."
Mike Wurmnest
4th Generation Farmer
Deer Creek, Illinois
Mike is drawn to the power of data in making these conservation decisions. He uses the Fieldprint Platform to analyze his practices, which he was introduced to through the Illinois Corn Growers Association (ICGA) Precision Conservation Management (PCM) Midwest Fieldprint Project. “The data from the Fieldprint Platform is helping me to put numbers to my practices,” says Mike. “I’m the kind of person that likes to take a little bit of time to do testing—even when you’re busy. Getting that data from your own farm has more value than something that’s 40 miles away. It gets me to stop and think about the different ways I could raise my crops.”
Mike is working with the Soil Health Partnership to complete a five year study of a side by side trial on his farm to further explore the benefits of these practices, planting half of his farm conventionally and the other half with cover crops. He also has conservation structures including buffer strips and waterways in place across his acres, which he works to maintain each year.
Even with years of practical knowledge and the insights he gleans from the Fieldprint Platform, Mike knows sustainable farming is a balancing act. “There’s no system out there that has no disadvantages,” says Mike. “If there is, I’m still looking for it. Whichever decisions you make just have to work for you—and it still has to be fun. That’s important, or it won’t be sustainable and the next generation won’t want to do it.” Mike’s two sons work off the farm, but help him out on weekends, and hope to eventually take over management. One son, Kyle, has already started adding his own innovative conservation practices to the farm, using pumpkin byproducts from the local canning plant to put on the fields as fertilizer during pumpkin harvest season.
Looking into the field his grandfather first farmed over a century ago, Mike is hopeful about the future of the farm. “My goal is to have a profitable and sustainable farm that will be able to continue to the next generation,” he says. “I’m sure they’ll find plenty to improve—that’s the way progress goes”.
Mike understands that good stewardship of our soil and water resources is an on-going process. When it comes to conservation, farmers must have a willingness to adapt as new practices and technologies become available, all while using sound recordkeeping to maintain a close eye on their financial bottom line. Mike’s operation serves as a great example of this philosophy in practice.
Jacob Walker
Conservation Specialist
Precision Conservation Management
