PRODUCER SPOTLIGHT

Jed Fleske, Pawnee County Conservation District Supervisor and State Conservation Commissioner

Kansas Association of Conservation Districts recently visited with Jed Fleske of Fleske Farms. Jed is a State Conservation Commissioner and a Pawnee County Conservation District Supervisor.

Fleske graduated from Fort Hays State University in 2006 and came back to the farm.

Fleske said, "At that point, we weren't doing any no-till. Everything was tilled. In 2008, we bought our first, pull-type sprayer, and we started to no-till our milo. At that point, I considered what I learned in college, and I could just see that we weren't taking care of the soil like we needed to. So, I guess we just jumped into the no-till. We learn something every year, but we just continued. Now we're not 100% no-till, but we're getting close.”

SWITCHING TO NO-TILL

In 2019, Fleske and his dad sold their cow/calf herd and now raise wheat, milo, corn, soybeans, and alfalfa and a variety of cover crops.

Fleske said the biggest reason their farm switched to no-till was because they just couldn't cover the acres they need with conventional tillage. "That was the number one reason we went to no-till. We were able to cover more acres with less manpower. Soil health benefits were not considered at the time."

After they started doing it, they realized how they were keeping the ground covered. Recognizing the importance of keeping the ground covered and shaded, was why they jumped into cover crops. Jed stated, "The cover crops are going to use moisture, but we feel that it's less than what we lose when you don't have the ground covered during the rest of the year."

Fleske has done some infiltration tests and compared a quarter that had been tilled for many years and a field that has been no-tilled for a while. "WIth the no-till, we were able to capture about 1 inch to 1½ inches more of water per hour than we could with the ground that had been conventional tilled — especially in a drought year, we want to ensure that we are capturing the rain instead of having most of it run off, said Fleske."

In addition to capturing more moisture, Fleske also sees improvement in organic matter. "Some of the fields were at 1% and, now we are seeing that up to 3% organic matter."

Switching to no-till is the first step,

the second step is throwing in the cover crops to help increase the organic matter.

ADVICE FOR PRODUCERS

Fleske said that his advice for producers is to start small. Each year they kept increasing the number of acres and learning about the practices. The first year they did cover crops was in 2014 and they did on one field. Currently, they are up to about 1,432 acres of spring cover crops. They are planting 502 acres of oats, taking the forage off, and letting the oats regrow. They will spray and kill the oats in the summer.

Get involved by going into your local FSA office or NRCS office. There are many state programs that may also apply and the local conservation district works with you to help with your decisions.

It all goes back to the soil. Without the soil, what are we going to do?

If we put the soil health first, then we will be more productive at raising crops or cattle or whatever you do.

HOSTED A FIELD DAY

In 2021, Fleske hosted a field day for about 40 to 50 people on a hot summer day in August. The Fleskes had just purchased some ground across the road from their existing fields. "NRCS Soil Conservationist, Dale Younker, came out and did water infiltration tests on my no-till fields and the new fields. KACD brought out the rainfall simulator and demonstrated a soil slake test and infiltration tests."

Fleske said, "We heard several people say that they would like to get out in the field more and see more of this stuff. So we recently held another one and called it a cover crop bus tour."

The group met in Larned, loaded up and drove through Pawnee and Rush Counties. They looked at cover crops that were planted in the Spring. Keven Wiltse was the guest speaker and gave a presentation on how he incorporates the cover crops and his cattle. "One farmer had been wanting to do cover crops so he came out and learned about it," said Fleske.

Fleske said, "We have stayed in contact with each other and it is really neat that we just share what we're doing. We all learn from our mistakes, and we share those, in addition to the successes with others."

I feel like we all learn from our mistakes, so why not share that with somebody else?

STATE CONSERVATION COMMISSION

Fleske was elected to the State Conservation Commission as the Commissioner of Area II and represents Southwest Kansas. Fleske's first meeting was in January and all of the state cost-share programs were reviewed. The State Conservation Commission discussed program changes to respond to the changing economy and current agricultural trends.

Water quantity and water quality is a priority in Kansas right now, especially the Ogallala Aquifer. "I am sure the State Conservation Commission will be involved in more discussions," said Fleske.

Just being on the conservation board and just being able to do this stuff and have these events—it's just fun.

I am learning about the way others do things and then using their ideas on my farm.

NRCS Conservation Innovation Grant and Truterra Carbon Program

Fleske works with American Plains Co-Op and they are his connection with Truterra. Last year, Farm Mobile was installed in his planter tractor and drill tractor. It records the data when he is planting and sends the data to the Co-op. Truterra gives a soil health score and lets the user know if they are increasing their soil health. It also lets the user know what can be done to increase soil health.

The Conservation Innovation Grant through the co-op is studying two fields, one was irrigated and the other one was dryland. The fields were split in half. Fertilizer is applied to one-half of the field with a variable-rate fertilizer and the other half is done with a traditional process.

Unfortunately the dryland corn failed due to the heat, so no data collected. The irrigated fields have resulted in some good data collection.

Fleske was recognized by Land O'Lakes and Truterra as a leader in regenerative agriculture.

Kansas Association of Conservation District | kacdnet.org