Take an ATV ride with Alex Daake to go check his cows grazing the remnants of cover crops, and you’ll drive by newly-planted oak trees he’s nurturing lining the driveway, “I might plant fruit trees in-between those one day, and maybe build a house back there if I ever get to it.”
All farms and ranches hold many dreams throughout generations. The dream on the Daake farm began when Duane and Sylvia moved to the area after Duane had served in the military. Daake’s dad, Dave, was born in Hawaii when his parents were stationed there.`
“They scraped enough money together to buy the farm and some used equipment that they fixed up. That’s how it began,” Daake said about the farm where he also grew up and has lived ever since in Utica, Nebraska. “Yes, I’ve always been here. This is it. This is home.”
This is the second year Daake, age 37, is managing the farm overall on his own, “My parents, Betty and Dave, still live close. Dad is ‘retired,’ but still helps a lot.”
Many experiences led him back to the farm where he grew up. After high school, Daake attended college for a year for mechanical engineering, “Then I was like, no – this is not for me.”
Ever moving forward, he decided to complete the Southeast Community College welding program out of Lincoln and graduated in 2009. From there, he spent his first three summers working in northern Minnesota at a Boys Scout adventure camp. His dad had served as a Boys Scout leader for years and Daake found the program very rewarding, “I served as an adventure guide. They go on a lot of canoeing trips and do a lot of fishing. It really was a fun summer job.”
Daake returned to the farm, working for his dad, and supplementing that work with other jobs for about three years. Then he was ready for more adventures. Talking with a friend he found an opportunity, “I worked as a logger for a little over a year in the western part of Montana near Missoula. It was tough, but it was fun. I worked on what you call a line crew, the ones that use cables and just a small crane to pull the logs up the mountain. It was a very physically intense job because you’re just running up and down a mountain all day, but I loved it. They were very good people, and it was a small company I worked for. They would give anyone a shot who wanted to try it, and the crew decided if you got to come back or not. So, I must have done a decent job.”
Eventually though, Nebraska tugged at his heartstrings, “I decided that I had enough of that and wanted to come back and try farming.”
When Daake started getting into farming full-time with his dad, Dave had already been practicing no-till in York County, NE for about 20 years, “Pretty much everything was no-till farmed with a few cover crops planted on the seed corn acres, mostly turnips. It was always pretty much corn, soybeans, and seed corn.”
Today, Daake runs a small cowherd to diversify his farm portfolio and to benefit the soil through grazing, “I run mostly all mixed breeds. The cows are grazing irrigated ground because I don’t have enough pasture. So, I bounce back and forth between a little irrigated ground and the few pasture acres I do have.”
Daake plants annual forages to rotationally graze his cattle on throughout the year, “The cows are grazing 34 acres of summer pasture and winter grazing another 24 acres, so about a quarter of of a pivot circle.”
The summer forage grazing mix he plants includes a lot of millets and about 16 to 18 other species – everything from sunflowers to okra, Sunn Hemp, turnips, and radishes, “On another portion of the field, I raise cereal rye for seed.”
Daake is currently planting cover crops on all the farm acres, followed by a second forage crop that is grazed in the wintertime, “We have seen cover crops impact soil moisture somewhat on the dryland corners, but we absolutely don’t worry about that a whole lot with an irrigated operation. The benefits are so positive when using cover crops to enhance soil health. Cover crops help greatly with water infiltration – that is a really big one. We also have higher than average organic matter because of the cover crops and the 25-plus years of no-till.”
Because some of the more mainstream ag companies are still not widely promoting soil health and the use of cover crops and grazing scenarios to benefit land and water conservation, Daake said he seeks out information from YouTube, various events/conferences, extension, talking to other farmers trying new practices and, “The bulk of the learning is doing a lot of my own research.”
A part of why Daake is trying new practices, is because of the adventure that comes with change, “If you just hit the easy button and plant nothing but corn and soybeans, honestly, it can just get boring. That’s why I am continually trying to learn something new, to make farming more exciting. I also think in the future, we are going to run into some big challenges in agriculture. There will be more regulations on our chemical, fertilizer, and water use. Adopting good soil health practices will make it easier to continue farming. Why not start now before we’re regulated even more? Then we’re that far ahead. The benefits of these practices help the soil and also benefit the economics of the farm. It’s more of a long-term game. You may not see the returns as fast, but over time building your soil health reduces inputs and the overall cost of farming.”
Daake said the first year of no-till alone saves farmers fuel, equipment, and another precious commodity often not accounted for – time, “When you can cut the cost of tilling a field say three times, it may be up to a savings of $100 per acre when considering how much equipment and fuel costs. That $100 doesn’t include the time you spent tilling.”
The time not doing field work, also gives farmers a chance to start other ventures. In Daake’s case, it’s time with his cattle, “That is one thing, corn and soybeans don’t have to be checked quite as much as livestock. I am moving my cows every day and that takes time, but those moves make my grazing program effective and build soil. I am setting up a lot of temporary fences, but that makes the system efficient and makes more money.”
Daake has also diversified his business portfolio by signing up for Agoro Carbon, a program rewarding farmers and ranchers for adopting conservation practices, “I saw Agoro Carbon as an opportunity to have another income stream. If I am going to be doing these practices already, why not take advantage of the incentives out there?”
He added that Agoro Carbon has been a simple program to join, “This first year, I have gone through getting signed up for the program. A bit of information is needed about crop history and practices. But, it’s all information a farmer should be keeping track of anyway. It has maybe taken an hour total working with Agoro Carbon and that includes sitting down with someone to get things started and a couple phone calls to finalize everything and that is about it.”
Change is constant for all farmers, Daake said. For those wanting to chase their dreams in different directions he gave this advice, “I think the biggest thing is farmers need to experiment. There are still not enough guys trying things outside ‘the norm.’ If anyone is interested in getting into soil health practices, the best thing is to try on a few acres and keep doing it on the same spot year after year, to show how it’s working. To me, this is a long-term commitment. It’s not a get rich quick thing in farming. You’re doing it for the future.”
