Jumping in Headfirst
How John Heermann’s Farm Thrives in a Tough Environment
I educated myself, started talking to the right people, and pretty much just started using cover crops on the whole farm.
Grit is defined as “firmness of mind or spirit—unyielding courage in the face of hardship or danger,” and is a trait of a true entrepreneur. Grit is an indicator of one’s ability to not be worn down by others, and John Heermann has grit. Anyone who has met him or talked to him would agree. Farming in one of the harshest environments in the country, John proves year after year that the traditional wheat-fallow-wheat rotation does not have to be the narrative for Western Great Plains farmers. In a place where rye is considered a four letter word, John has built an entire business around it. In fact, he’s building his soil with diversity and focusing on profitability, a combo that many would say is mutually exclusive. Today, John’s farming operation is teaming with diversity, yet he would be the first to say it hasn’t always been this way.
Going Against the Grain
John grew up in Haxtun, Colorado, farming with his dad. He remembers the days of a wheat-summer fallow system with heavy tillage. As he got older, John recalls some neighbors bringing in corn and millet to extend their rotations, but the landscape remained dominated by monocropping, heavy tillage, and bare ground, with any sign of life being snuffed out by an additional herbicide pass. After college, John returned to the farm in 2012. Shortly thereafter, he attended a No-Till on the Plains conference in Salina, Kansas, where he heard Scott Ravenkamp, a farmer from Hugo, Colorado, share his story. John farms in a 17” rainfall environment, and yet, “Scott was getting less precipitation than us and growing more things than we were. That really got me thinking and helped me realize different people need different things grown and there’s more to the world than just wheat and fallow.”
John also saw the well-known NRCS rainfall simulator in action at the conference. He recalls, “It really changed my life. I realized no-till with no cover is still no good!” In an area where rainfall is generally the limiting factor, it is important to capture all of it. Later he would learn, it’s not about how much rainfall you get, but about how much water your soil can hold.
Returning from that experience, John went down the proverbial rabbit hole of soil health and cover crops. He watched all the no-till videos he could find, attended conferences, and talked with people who had been farming this way already. “I didn’t start out slow or just on a few acres. I educated myself, started talking to the right people, and pretty much just started using cover crops on the whole farm. I went from a 16-month fallow period to only 30-45 days without a living root.” After seeing positive results from cover cropping, John became curious as to who was growing all these cover crops that people were using, and that led him to Green Cover in Nebraska. Eventually, John started growing cereal rye seed for Green Cover. But in his neck of the woods, growing rye wasn’t met with much appreciation from other local farmers.
Anybody who knows wheat country knows that rye is very much frowned upon. John admits the neighbors were—and some still are—quite skeptical of the whole thing. Rye, however, is a better fit for the region, at least on John’s operation. Having to never spray herbicide on the crop due to its weed suppressive capabilities is a huge cost savings. Plus, the high carbon residue of rye makes a perfect snow catch, again taking advantage of every drop or snowflake of water that lands on his fields. John emphasizes that his rotation is not set in stone; it changes every year. “I don’t have a set rotation, I just do what the soil needs. Most of my decisions are based on residue management.” Managing residue is vital in a regenerative system. Too little and you can end up with a massive weed problem and your soil will be susceptible to wind erosion. Too much, and the soil microbes may not be able to keep up with residue decomposition, and you’ll end up with a thick mat of dead plants to deal with during planting.
Anecdotal Evidence
John started saving many of the seeds back year after year to utilize seed stock that is uniquely adapted to his environment. One year, he observed a slower maturity rate from the rye seed he had saved from his own farm the previous year compared to purchased rye. Though this doesn’t necessarily prove his point, John has noticed, as well as others, that plants can quickly adapt their growth patterns to be most advantageous to the environment they are in. In Eastern Colorado, plants may experience a hard frost later in the spring compared to places where the rye is grown in the south. Extending the vegetative stage of growth for these plants allows them to tolerate a late frost without any detriment to the final yield and quality of the seed produced.
Use It or Lose It
One of the biggest critiques of cover crops, especially in dry climates such as eastern Colorado, is that they use too much water. Through proper management, however, John has seen the reverse. “The fallow period is estimated at 35% efficiency so if you get 10” of rain you will store 3.5” of that and the rest will evaporate. I would rather use that other 6.5” to grow something and lose it via photosynthesis while also feeding my soil through root exudates. In the long run, I’m putting money in my pocket. We don’t get a lot of water out here, but what we do get, you can either use it or lose it.”
We don’t get a lot of water out here, but what we do get, you can either use it or lose it.
John explains there is a delicate balance between terminating the cover crop at just the right time in the spring to avoid using too much water. One year, he learned the hard way and wasn’t able to harvest a crop. Yet John is convinced that the compounding effects of building soil over time will continue to improve the ability to harness moisture. John says it took 5-6 years to start to see changes in his soil. “When I first started, I was under the impression that I could cut fertilizer right away and that cover crops were some magic fairy dust that would solve everything.” He quickly realized that cover crops were not the silver bullet, but a part of a holistic management system that, over time, would improve his soil and his bottom line. After doing the work and making the mistakes, John says that the biggest financial benefit is reducing fertilizer. He uses a Haney soil test to decide what his crops and soils need. This model isn’t the cure-all for farming and it isn’t for the faint of heart or for someone unwilling to be a high level manager. It takes patience and perseverance, and the ability to step out of your comfort zone and do what nobody else in your area is doing.
Diversification Is Everything
In addition to being a great seed grower, John branched out to start cleaning his seed as well. Seeing a need and finding a dusty old seed cleaner in a shed opened an opportunity to pursue this new business idea. Eventually, he purchased a bigger and faster cleaner, able to churn through 200 bushels per hour. The seed cleaner enabled John to experiment with polycultures as opposed to monocultures. Anything from chickpeas and flax, yellow peas and vetch, hairy vetch and rye, and oats and peas have gone through the seed cleaner. John admits some of the combos don’t work quite as planned, but he’s found that using seeds that are different enough so they will separate out is the key. John has witnessed polycrops with yields better than traditional monocrops. He focuses on growing one crop well, and the second is just extra revenue on top. John now grows multiple varieties of seed for Green Cover as well as being an integral part of the Green Cover seed cleaning plan, running millions of pounds of cover crop seed through his facility every year.
Seeing Is Believing
On his own farm, John hopes to continue improving, honing in on his soil nutrient profile and tapping into the biological activity more and more. John expresses excitement for the future of regenerative agriculture, but notes that the benefits need to be showcased for people to really grasp the concepts. “If other farmers could go see what good soil looks like and compare it to their own, I think that would help change people’s minds; seeing is believing.”
