Dale Strickler
SEEING IS BELIEVING: The value of maintaining straw mulch is evident with these two photographs. The cornfield on the left is growing where wheat straw had been baled off yearly. The cornfield on the right is a neighboring no-till field with straw mulch. Farmers can do better at getting moisture into the soil and keeping it there.
Images of the 1930s Dust Bowl are nearly a century old, and the images linger in our minds, but Dale Strickler doesn’t feel farmers have done enough to adapt soil management practices to keep those black-and-white images in the past.
iStock: Taglass Dale Strickler, farmer and Agronomist at Green Cover Seed, addresses the question of what to do about drought at the fifth annual South Dakota Soil Health Conference. Strickler says improving the drought tolerance of soil is simple in theory but much harder in practice. Increase Water Infiltration The first step is to increase infiltration. “Of all the steps, if you mess up this first one, you’re in trouble,” Strickler says. A lack of infiltration is one of the biggest problems facing farmers and the environment because when water fails to go into the soil, it runs off. When it runs off, it causes problems elsewhere, like flooding and nutrient loss.