Dairies and Soil Health with Brett Blackwelder

Brett Blackwelder traveled from West Central Minnesota to participate in the Agronomy on Ice event and that's where this interview was recorded in February of this year. Blackwelder farms with his dad and brother in Chokio, Minnesota. Together they have a 320-cow dairy and about 2700 acres of cropland. When it comes to their dairy production, they knew they needed to either get bigger, get automated, or get out. They chose to embrace robots. A big part of his job is managing the automated part of their operation. Blackwelder shares his views on soil health, the relationship between the row crop side of their operation and the dairy, and how they have managed the transition to using robots on the farm.

“You just see stuff on the internet about how we're wrecking soils, especially on the dairy side with silage. We don't have any cover in the fall and seeing firsthand soil blowing like crazy the way it was so I wanted to at least try to do something … just to make ourselves feel like good stewards.” - Brett Blackwelder

The Blackwelders refer to themselves as “lifelong learners” and are slowly implementing more soil health practices including reducing tillage and adding cover crops to avoid bare soil. Learning how to keep packing wheels on his implement and how to time the process of the cover crop planting has been part of the learning process. Other learnings are involved in the introduction of more automation in their dairy operation. He has noticed “the less time you spend in the barn, the more milk you get.” Flying the cover crop seed on was another new practice they tried.

“You know, our time is so valuable still at the farm where if we had to inter-seed it or do something ourselves, that actually probably would be more expensive in our case.” - Brett Blackwelder

This Week on Soil Sense:

• Meet Brett Blackwelder from Chokio, Minnesota where he farms a 320-cow dairy and about 2700 acres of cropland with his family

• Discover how a dairy producer like Brett made big changes to improve his family’s soil health on the crop side of their operation