Episode 101: Making the Most of Water Variability with Joel Grosbach

Hi, friends, this is John. Welcome back to the Regenerative Agriculture podcast where we talk about all kinds of fun topics related to agronomy and plant nutrition, soil health, plant health, and all of the things that contribute to human health and agriculture. And farming's kind of purpose for being, its reason for being ultimately is to steward the landscapes and ecosystems and to provide nourishing, helpful food. I've really been looking forward to the conversation today with Joel Grusbach, who is a farmer that we've worked with a little bit in our consulting work at Advancing Eco Agriculture. And Joel has been making the transition and working more to grow some food crops in addition to other crops. We were just having a conversation before we hit the record button about some of his awesome popcorn that my family and I have had the fun of experiencing. Every time we have popcorn from Joel, I look at my wife and say, why do we even get popcorn anywhere else? It's like quality, the flavor, the taste is like you think about popcorn. Can you really taste the difference between one grower's popcorn of a similar variety as someone else? And I would contend that you can. So, Joel, thank you for being here. I really look forward to this discussion and I'd love to if you could just share a little bit about your journey, your pathway, and the context of your farming operation and what you're doing today.

Yeah, well, thank you, John. It's an honor to be part of this conversation. I'm the fifth generation of my family to live in southwest Nebraska. We are on the semi arid high plains of western Nebraska, but we are situated over the Ogallala aquifer. So our farm operation consists of both dry land and irrigated crop ground. And there's two very different systems. And the irrigation water has allowed us to be very productive really over the last probably 50 or so years since that was developed. We also have native range that my father has a cow calf operation and we do a lot of grazing on crop ground and of COVID crops and that sort of thing. So there's a livestock impact on most of the most of the crop ground as well. As John said, in the last few years I've really been interested in growing food crops. I'm blessed to be located in a community that has several different market opportunities. John, you mentioned the popcorn already and that's become a major crop for us. We also have access to dry edible bean markets and I work very closely with a neighbor who has a seed production business to raise several different types of seed crops for him that are sold for commercial production or cover crop seed or wherever it's needed. So I'm blessed to have a lot of opportunities to have a diverse set of crops that allows for some rotation and really allows this regenerative idea to develop.

Joel, when you think about your farming operation and your historical access to abundant water in the Ogallala aquifer, that is now a very different scenario than it was. We're starting to realize and recognize that we don't have an unlimited resource in the aquifer. And of course, that situation will continue to evolve over the course of the next several years and into the next decade. When you think about your dry land farming operation, what is the context of what's your average annual rainfall and what is your crop potential with your dry land acres? And how do you see your farming operation evolving to be more adaptive to growing more dry land and less irrigated?

Our annual Precipitation is around 19 inches, but we rarely get 19 inches. We will get 9 inches or we will get 30 inches. It's quite a, it's quite a range. And it can be year to year, lots of year to year variability. So there's a lot of challenges. We've just come off of a three year drought. 2023 was a great, great blessing where we had snow and rain and we had quite a bit of successful crop production on our dry land. We had 85 bushel grain sorghum yields, which is really good for us.

Wow.

But the previous three years where it didn't rain, there were cases where we were trying to plant just a feed forage crop for the cattle because the pastures were in such poor condition. And we attempted to plant some of that three times because of the lack of rain, it never had a chance to even get started. So we're managing those extremes and the year to year variability is just a challenge. We're never sure what we're going to get. I will say with raising some forage cover crops that are grazed by livestock and managing that residue, every inch of snow that we can catch makes a huge difference in the end. And so that is a huge factor in our dry land production. We're always managing that residue to keep enough soil cover on the fields. Because our snow usually comes in, you know, in a few inches at a time with wind. So if I have residue and the neighbor upwind of me doesn't, I get all of his snow. And so if we have 2 or 3 inches of snow, I might have a foot of snow in my dryland field and that might be an inch of Rain, an inch of water.

Wow.

And so if I can keep that, that's the difference between a crop or not. So that's very important, I guess, a little family history. My family homesteaded just a few miles from where I live today, and it was on the river, the Frenchman Valley, the Frenchman Creek, it was. And they. They raised livestock. They had alfalfa. And during the. The Dust bowl and the Great Depression, they were okay because they had water. Anecdotally, we. We know that my family acquired some neighboring land of people that were up on the. Up on the flat who tried to raise wheat, and they blew away. And the story is that in exchange for a car or some food, the title of the land was given to my family so that the family, the other family could leave and get back to where. Where they be. But then in. In the late 40s, the Bureau of Land Reclamation wanted to develop irrigation and flood control on the Frenchman River. So my family had to move and they constructed a dam and a reservoir that's still there today. However, you know, 30 years ago, I remember being on a boat for the first time out there, and we could go clear up the spillway gates, and the water level was clear up to the. To the natural overflow. It recharged every year. And we. We always gauged how the year was going to be based on the water level on the dam. And now, due to water politics with Colorado and Nebraska and Kansas and the reducing groundwater levels and just lower rainfall levels, that lake is now not much more than a glorified mud puddle. In fact, one nice afternoon, my family and I went and walked right up to the floodgates. We could walk right up to them, look at them. And the water probably wasn't within a hundred yards of the floodgates. And there's very little hope of that ever filling up again. A lot of the natural springs from the groundwater from the aquifer have dried up and are not flowing. And it's just. We're pumping it out of the top faster than it can. The faster they can recharge.

Well, I'd like to. You just made an important comment there, Joel. It's unlikely that that reservoir will ever fill up again. And yes, that's true, as long as current practices continue. As long as the current water consumption continues, and as long as the current practices continue. But there is so much opportunity for us to manage ecosystems different. And I'm just. I haven't really gotten into it yet here in the podcast, and I hope to a lot more in the next Couple of months. But I've been fascinated for probably over a decade of understanding the dynamics of the small water cycle and rainfall cycles. And it's fascinating to me to understand that we think that rainfall creates landscapes, but in fact it's the opposite. Landscapes create rainfall and that we can manage our terrestrial ecosystems, we can manage our soil cover, our crops, trees, it doesn't even have to be trees, but particularly trees and grazing land and grassland, grassland, more so than trees, has the ability to create rain in a local ecosystem. And so I'm excited and encouraged by the awareness that I have and that I hope to share with other people that the possibility exists to regenerate local ecosystem level rainfall and rain regulation. But it's going to require significant cooperation and perhaps some very different models of agriculture than what are currently in place. And I'm not under the delusion that such a change is going to be easy. And it will probably only come when, at the point of no return, it seems there's this characteristic of humans that you have to get to. You have to walk all the way up to the edge of a cliff. At least collectively we have to. As individuals, we don't have to, but collectively, as a human species, we have this tendency to wait until a crisis stares us in the face before we're actually willing to make significant change. So anyway, love to just get your thoughts and reflection on how you think about that and what you see on the ground at the local level.

Yeah, I agree with that. And it's difficult to even have the conversation about what that would look like if our community was to decide today that we know that the end of heavy irrigation might need to come to an end. You know, but do we value our community and our families and our ability to raise our families here, where we are, in a wonderful area, in a wonderful community. Are we willing to make those changes together so that we can preserve these communities? But as you say, there are so many, so many layers and challenges to meeting that. When we think about the business models that are based on irrigation and the high production and high yields. You know, my concern is even now, even today, we run the risk of overextending ourselves as a business model because we assume that we can have the highest yields and the highest prices every year. And in southwest Nebraska, that's just not the case. We are so variable and so fragile that it can all fall apart very quickly. Whether that's an extended drought or a hailstorm that completely mows down a crop in 20 minutes, and I mean decimate a crop in 20 minutes.

Yeah, I've seen, I've seen fields in your area of mature corn that look like a brush hogwind over them.

Oh yeah, yes. And much more efficiently than a brush hog too. It's shredded. They're absolutely shredded. You know, and so, and we're, and we're also dealing with land values. Irrigated acres in our area are at least twice if, if not more the land value of non irrigated acres and pasture areas. So if we're just going to stop irrigating, there's land values and tax bases and the, and market situations that are a little beyond me. But I think that they're all factors in this whole conversation as we go forward. And you know, and even, even what we want to grow, I mean, corn, corn is the big crop. There's a lot of cattle out here that think they need corn and there's going to be more cattle in this area in the next few years. There's a couple of very large feedlots that are being constructed as we speak and we're already in a corn deficit area. Well, that may not be possible if we're not able to irrigate as heavily as we have. But cattle can eat grass too. So all this acreage that, these acres that we are raising corn or other feed, feed products, we can still raise things for cattle to eat, but it will look very different. And I hope that we can see this challenge approaching. I know the state of Kansas here in the last couple of years went from a planned depletion model of the aquifer to a, to a conservation model. And that was a mindset shift for them because they knew in western Kansas over the aquifer that if they pump it to depletion, nothing will be left. So at least in their thinking that has changed to a conservation model. And of course what that looks like for them is up to their local context. But I hope that we can have that start having that conversation too. And I think with the challenge of the recent drought and the amount of water that we've pumped to maintain the yields that we want, people are, are wary and are beginning to see that this might not work as we think it will.

Well, I think anyone with a bit of foresight can see that the situation kind of the status quo is going to come to an end either voluntarily or involuntarily. So it's really a question of good leadership to exceptional leadership really to navigate that situation, hopefully bring that to a less painful transition rather than a more painful transition.

Yeah, and related to that, it's been a couple of years since I've seen some of this data, but at one point the estimate was that we could use 7 acre inches of water per year and still maintain ground flows and aquifer recharge. And so that seven inches a year has been a number in my head that if I can structure my operation around 7 inch average, maybe not every year, but an average of 7 inches a year, that's a direction to go and to just plan that way and to be realistic about what we can yield in southwest Nebraska with 7 inches of water and to work in that direction and build the business model on that rather than pretending that we live in Illinois where water usually isn't the problem that we have.

Well, when you stop to think about it, if I'm understanding you correctly, and this, I want to make sure I'm getting this clear, but I'm assuming your 7 inches of water is your ability to irrigate across all acres, is that right?

That's true, yes.

So when you think about the variation that you described, I mean, 19 inches of water is as an average is not. You can grow a crop with that, but then to the point that you made is you get these cycles where you have 30 plus inches some years and less than a dozen inches other years. But what that means is depending on the timing of when you get the rainfall, the years that you get 30 inches, you probably don't need any irrigation. And so you could double up on the dry years.

That's true. Often our rainfall events come in large amounts. So we'll have 7 inches of rain over three days and yikes, you're right. And yeah, that, that's a unique challenge. But by August, September, we can be dry again. And so, and then we need that irrigation to get us through the end of the season to get us to harvest. And so we're never more than about 45 days from a really destructive drought. If we don't get rain in 30 days, we're, we're in bad shape. But things are still alive. If we don't get rain in 45 days, things are dying and deteriorating. And we can have stretches in times of the year where that happens. Even, even on a wet year, that can happen.

So as you've been thinking about shifting your farm to be able to operate on 7 inches of irrigation a year, how has your, how's your crop mix evolved and how are you, what crops are you growing differently today from what you have in the past? We touched a bit on Popcorn. You said you have good access to dry bean markets. You're doing some cover crop seed, but give us some insights into what your specific crop cycle and scale might look like.

Right. Trying to look at crops that are best suited for arid environments is really a first step. So we used to raise primarily corn on our irrigated acres and it involved conventional tillage, conventional fertilizer. On the dry land, it was usually a wheat fallow rotation with a lot of tillage. However, in order to move away from the high water requirements of corn, I've started to incorporate millets, sorghums on the irrigated acres. Again, there's a seed market there and that uses half the water as corn and also half the inputs. The return margin on on millet because it's a high value seed crop is better than corn in some cases. But it is a challenge to harvest and the timing is rather critical. So using that in a rotation is very valuable. Also, seed wheat production is also a good thing. However, wheat can use as much water as corn if you're not careful. If you're really shooting for high yield in a dry year, dry beans, we raise a lot of pinto beans. They use less water than corn. And then so we can save our average irrigation water use for those years where we have a popcorn crop that may take a little bit more water in the late season to finish it out, but we can bank up some of that, that annual usage for those years where we have that have that high water use crop. And again with the rotation, it allows for greatly reduced tillage. Our corn, it used to be a typical chisel plow disc field finish plant operation. Now with the COVID crop, I'm able to no till most of the corn. Again, if we have to use tillage, we'll use a strip tiller just to manage residue to make make sure that we get a good plant established. But the goal is to be able to no till as much as possible, retain all the residue that we can. And even in the case of pinto beans, where broadleaf weeds are always a challenge, no tilling pinto beans into good cover crop residue or good crop residue is an excellent tool for managing weeds. And that carbon in that residue cycles very well and feeds the beans, which are a rather carbon intensive crop. And so it acts as a just a natural fertilizer, carbon cycling way that we can make those beans really grow.

I'm curious about what your cover crop management and system looks like considering the dry land challenges and the low water challenges that you have to deal with. You mentioned at the beginning of our conversation that on one occasion you planted a crop three times without getting successful germination. So when you think about your water requirements and the water use, how do you account for, how do you justify the water use of a cover crop and what are the types of COVID crops you're using and how are you fitting them into your system?

Yeah, that has been a challenge. And that's a lesson that I learned early on when cover crops really became a thing. We really only get enough water, whether it's from irrigation or from natural rainfall for one crop. And so a cover crop ahead of a cash crop is two crops. And generally that will not work even if you're able to pump that water. You will pump more water and spend more money because of that cover crop need. And so we have to figure out how we can use those cover crops and in a timely manner to take advantage of natural rainfall so that we're not using any extra irrigation. And on a dryland scenario, it's really only a cover crop for forage. It would almost never work in our environment to try to do a spring or a winter rye that we would roll down and plant something into the rye that many people are able to do where the rainfall is much higher. And that system works for them. So for us, we can plant a cover crop after, after wheat, both irrigated and dry land. If we get some rain in the fall, and we like to use oats, peas, crops that are going to grow relatively quickly in the fall with cool weather. Radishes would be another one. But that would winter kill, leaving us with very nice ground cover and very non lignified residue. They're not mature residues, but they're very still very. Oh, I don't know what the word is.

They're in a very vegetative state yet when they winter kill. So I'm guessing they're probably quite quickly digestible.

Yes, they're still in a vegetative state when they winter kill. So the next spring that residue is cycling very quickly, but has captured a lot of snow. And so that soil is biologically active in the soil when we go plant.

That's a very interesting management tactic. There are two pieces that stand out to what you just said about COVID crops. One is you made mention of how beans are a carbon intensive crop, which is something that I think is often not very well appreciated. People don't recognize that you don't build, you actually deplete. You can deplete a soil of organic matter by growing beans and you certainly don't build organic matter by growing beans. So you're using your cover crop residue to provide carbon dioxide to the crop and also carbon to the soil while you're growing a bean crop, which I think is such a valuable tool so frequently that we see carbon dioxide being a limiting factor in crop development. Although in your environment I'm sure that's water occasionally as well. But then the other aspect is I've really come to appreciate. Just a year ago I wrote an article titled Seeds with Speed that was published by Acres usa. I just wrote a follow up article that was published a month ago. It's titled Seedlings with Speed. I've really come to appreciate, based on Dr. James White's work and other microbiologists and plant pathologists, that those first two weeks after a seed germinates, it is critical to get that root system colonized with healthy beneficial bacteria. And that if you don't, you just, you're starting off two steps behind with two left feet that are all thumbs for the rest of the crop season. From a, from a disease susceptibility perspective, from a nutrient absorption perspective, I guess those first couple of weeks in microbially active soil are critical and.