THE REWARDS OF FARMING
To Bruce Chambers, the practice of soil conservation isn’t a job. It’s a reward.
Chambers stands at the crest of a hill on his 155-acre ranch and looks across the rolling hills where native grasses and wildlife flourish.
“This is a labor of love,” Chambers said. “This is my golf course out here.”
Actually, the land where Chambers and his wife, Lori, constructed a log cabin last year is anything but a golf course. The land east of the Jefferson County line on the north side of Springdale Road is more of a conservation reserve.
Bruce Chambers and his father, Calvin Chambers, Leavenworth, have been selected as winners of the 1999 Banker’s Soil Conservation Award for the 104 acres planted in native grass and forbs, six acres planted to food plots for wildlife, 51 acres set aside for wildlife and two ponds.
Chambers, who operates a small-animal veterinary practice in Lansing, began actively practicing soil conservation even before he was accepted into the Conservation Reserve Program.
He bought the property in 1993.
“I tried to get in on CRP then but didn’t qualify because I hadn’t owned it long enough,” he said.
Chambers said CRP sounded like a good idea because he didn’t think the land would be good enough for crops.
“It’s highly erodible soil,” he said. “It wasn’t like it was great farmland.”
He started by planting grass strips to control erosion.
Then he decided to do more. “I wanted to do something for the wildlife,” Chambers said. “The ground wasn’t producing good crops. Besides, I knew that a good stand of grass would keep the ponds from filling up with all that dirt.”
So in spring 1996, Chambers planted 104 acres in a native grass mixture.
The cost for the seed ran from $4,000 to $5,000. But, fortunately for him, labor costs were free. Chambers pointed to his father, Calvin Chambers of Lansing, chuckled, and said, “There’s the labor he does it for the joy of it keeps him exercised on the tractor.”
His father said he was glad to help with the planting.
A year later, Chambers’ land was accepted into the CRP program.
It’s hard to gauge the increase in wildlife numbers, especially the quail population, which seems to fluctuate with changing spring weather patterns. But Chambers said it appears there are more birds on the land now than there were before he planted the grasses.
Gary Rader, district conservationist for the National Resources and Conservation Services, Leavenworth, said about 6,000 acres of soil are signed up in CRP in Leavenworth County.
Since 1985, when the CRP went into effect, the program has changed.
For example, Rader said, seed mixtures used to be entirely made up of native grasses.
“When we first started CRP, the fields didn’t attract wildlife,” Rader said. “Then they found out that was because the native grasses don’t attract insects so they started putting forbs and legumes in the seed mixtures.”
Rader explained that forbs include native wildflowers such as coneflower, gayfeather, black-eyed Susan, gaillardia and Illinois bundle flower.
The Rewards of Farming
Establishing a field of pure big bluestem is no easy task.
But Carl Langley, Leavenworth, has managed to do it.
Carl and Linda Langley are being honored as 1999 Banker’s Soil Conservation winners because of their farming practices that focus on 40 acres of hay growing just south of the Atchison County line and a half-mile west of Kansas Highway 7. A total of 36 acres are planted in big bluestem and four acres are planted in native grasses.
Langley said he decided to go with the big bluestem because it’s native to Kansas and also because it doesn’t need to be fertilized.
He bought the land in 1993 and planted half of it in hay in 1994, and the other half in 1996. It can be tricky getting a stand started, he said.
“One year I flunked out,” Langley said. “I don’t know why I did everything I was supposed to do.”
Gary Radar, district conservationist with Natural Resources Conservation Service, recalled the failure to establish the crop and agreed that Langley had done everything right.
“Sometimes you never know what goes wrong,” Rader said. “He’s worked close with us and has always tried to do the right thing.”
Persistence paid off and the fields are now producing good crops of hay, Langley said.
“I think the back half is going to be as good as the front half from now on,” he said.
Rader said it’s uncommon to see fields of big bluestem.
“Most people don’t want to take the time and patience to get it to where it’s producing,” Rader said.
Langley’s hay yields are higher than they would be if it were a mixed stand of native grass, Rader said.
Langley said that last summer’s crop yielded 96 round bales off the 40 acres during the early July harvest.
Part of the beauty of the field, other than the nice look of the fields when the grass is growing, is that once established it’s fairly maintenance-free.
“You probably aren’t going to get more production than you would with fertilized brome,” Langley said.
“But the thing is you don’t have to fertilize this.”