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Producer Profiles
Steve Groff
Lancaster County, Pennsylvania
Steve Groff raises grains and vegetables every year
on his 175-acre farm in Lancaster County, Pa., but his soil shows
none of the degradation that can occur with intensive cropping.
Mixing cash crops such as corn, alfalfa, soybeans, broccoli, tomatoes
and peppers with cover crops and a unique no-till system, Groff
has kept portions of his farm untouched by a plow for close to two
decades.
"No-till is a practical answer to concerns about
erosion, soil quality, and soil health," says Groff, who won
a national no-till award in 1999. "I want to leave the soil
in better condition than I found it."
Groff confronted a rolling landscape pocked by gullies
when he began farming with his father after graduating from high
school. They regularly used herbicides and insecticides, tilled
annually or semi-annually and rarely used cover crops. Like other
farmers in Lancaster County, they ignored the effects of tillage
on a sloped landscape that causes an average of 9 tons of soil per
acre to wash into the Chesapeake Bay every year.
Tired of watching two-feet-deep crevices form on the
hillsides after every heavy rain, Groff began experimenting with
no-till to protect and improve the soil.
"We used to have to fill in ditches to get machinery
in to harvest," Groff says. "I didn't think that was right."
However, Groff stresses that switching to no-till
alone isn't enough. He has created a new system, reliant on cover
crops, rotations, and no-till, to improve the soil. He's
convinced such methods contribute to better yields of healthy crops,
especially during weather extremes.
He pioneered what he likes to call the "Permanent
Cover" cropping system when the Pennsylvania chapter of the
Soil and Water Conservation Society bought a no-till transplanter
for vegetable crops. Groff was one of the first farmers to try it.
The machine allows him to transplant seedlings into slots cut into
cover crop residue. The slots are just big enough for the young
plants and do not disturb the soil on either side. The result: Groff
can prolong the erosion-slowing benefits of cover crops.
Groff's no-till system relies on winter cover crops
and residues that blanket the soil virtually all year. In the fall,
he uses a no-till seeder to plant a combination of rye and hairy
vetch. Groff likes the pairing because of their complementary benefits.
Their root structures grow in different patterns, and the vegetation
left behind after killing leaves different residues on the soil
surface.
Groff uses a rolling stalk-chopper modified from Midwest
machines that chop corn stalks after harvest to kill the covers
in the spring. The chopper flattens and crimps the cover crop, providing
a thick mulch. Once it's flat, he makes a pass with the no-till
planter or transplanter.
The system creates a very real, side benefit in reduced
insect pest pressure. Once an annual problem, Colorado potato beetle
damage has all but disappeared from Groff's tomatoes. Since he began
planting into the mulch, he has greatly reduced spraying pesticides.
The thick mat also prevents splashing of soil during rain, a primary
cause of early blight on tomatoes.
"We have slashed our pesticide and fertilizer
bill nearly in half, compared to a conventional tillage system,"
Groff says. "At the same time, we're building valuable topsoil
and not sacrificing yields."
"No-till is not a miracle, but it works for me,"
he says. "It's good for my bottom line, I'm saving soil, and
I'm reducing pesticides and increasing profits."
Groff is convinced his crops are better than those
produced in soils managed conventionally, especially during weather
extremes. He has noted high earthworm populations and other biological
activity deep in the soil.
Ray Weil, a soils professor at the University of Maryland
who has spent time on Groff's farm, concurs.
"Steve's subsoil is like other farmers' topsoil,"
he says.
Groff promotes his system at annual summer field days
that draw huge crowds of farmers and at his innovative web site,
<www.cedarmeadowfarm.com>.
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