Soybeans Well Suited to Try Regenerative Farming Practices

Tim Hammerich

News Reporter

The easiest path towards more regenerative farming practices may lie in soybeans. While farmers are being encouraged to reduce tillage and incorporate cover crops, not all systems are going to respond equally. Dawn Equipment CEO Joe Bassett says that farmers who want to try these practices can get more reliable results by focusing on soybeans first.

Bassett… “Growing soybeans in a cereal rye roller crimp system is very low risk. We can do that and produce pretty uniform results. And that's a system where you might go from multiple herbicide passes down to a single herbicide pass. Right? So if you look at a soybean system with a single herbicide pass you're using a thick mat of cereal rye to control weeds. That's a well-understood system that there's no reason why you won't see that scaling higher and higher because the results are there, and it's relatively straightforward.”

Corn, Bassett says, is trickier.

Bassett… “When you start getting into corn systems, everything just gets a lot more complex. But there's reason for optimism. I mean, if you look at how many acres of soybeans are grown in this country, that's a lot of acres. That moves the needle a lot.”

This practical approach to soil health makes it more accessible for farmers who want to consider trying new practices.