A Crop Consultant's Approach to Soil Health with Brett Peterson

Bismark-based crop consultant Brett Peterson has been working at Centrol Ag Consulting for the past 15 years alongside farmers to provide the best agronomic advice possible. He doesn’t sell products but is paid to make his clients farms the best they can be such as by building the health of the soil and the productivity of the system. Peterson discusses what’s working on the farms he works with on the east and south sides of Bismark. We cover how he incorporates soil health principles into his agronomic advice, how irrigation changes his approach and the process of considering and adopting new ideas on-farm.

“We work with a lot of large clients and the thing is you need to make sure that you're not stopping the process and slowing up the farm…So I would say that's the biggest thing. First and foremost, you gotta just look at it. Is this even possible with a large amount of acres? Because at the end of the day, we have to get across the land and we have to make money doing this too.” - Brett Peterson

Peterson shares that practices like intercropping are very difficult to incorporate in large operations. He’s noticed that the use of rye has encouraged producers with large operations to start some cover crop initiatives. Education, conferences and communication between producers has also helped these advances. He goes on to share soil building practices in between potato rotations and how the occasional required tillage can actually benefit the soil.

“No-till isn't the end all be all. You have to really find that perfect mix of really light tillage but preserving that top layer of organic matter and whatnot to keep that ground cover. It's kind of a teetering cycle that we're dealing with right now.” - Brett Peterson

This Week on Soil Sense:

• Meet Bismark-based crop consultant Brett Peterson of Centrol Ag Consulting

• Explore the soil health practices he is using in his part of the state on large acre productions

• Discover the benefits he has seen to light tillage and the potential pitfalls he has observed in going full no-till