This past Saturday, August 17, many of us gathered at the Nore and Knopik farms to listen, learn and lunch together. Many of the OCIA Nebraska Board of Directors attended and added much to the conversations. We started at the Nore farm, where Tom Knopik told us about the history of his work on Ann Nore' farm and what he has learned. He focused on weed control to start, mentioning how the Weed Zapper and Tine Weeder each have different capacity for destroying weeds. One of the first things I learned from Tom was that weeds like compaction, so loosing the soil hinders their growth. One of our guests, Philip Schuchardt, shared about his Finger Weeder and how it works to do the same, loosen the soil.
Tom also explained fertility and how he increases his, figuring out where you can sell your product, foliar feeding and using high populations of seed. The best part of this entire farm tour was the guests adding in their learnings, asking questions of each other and long in-depth conversations. Some of my favorite quotes: "If you aren't taking out some of your crop, you probably aren't doing it right, " Tom explaining high populations. Philip, "It's all about the biology". And Tom again, "If you are afraid to fail, you will not learn from your mistakes."
Ann Nore also shared about her conservation corners and we inspected some of the plants growing on the pivot corners.
We traveled from Primrose to Fullerton, to the Jim Knopik farm and feasted on local brats/hot dogs from Rivers Edge Meat Market in Fullerton, and sides from Rib Shack Smokehouse in Omaha. It was a great lunch quickly ended by a thunderstorm and we took shelter in the shop. There, we heard from Brandon, Dustin and Emil with Immachine.com who explained their geothermal greenhouse kits.
Then, we all piled in pickups and drove over to witness mob grazing, and wow, was that something. The cattle had just been moved that morning, but Tom, Lexi, Becky and Kyle showed us how easy it is to move a mob (200 cow/calf pairs) to new grass. One Tom called them, "CaBoss", they came running to fresh grass. It was fun to sit in the trailer and be observed by the curious cows, between chews.
And the Knopiks saved the best for last, Kyle Knopik and his goats. Kyle shared his "invisible collars" on his goats and their presence on the farm for weed control. There were a lot of questions and ideas presented as Kyle explained his goat herd.
It was a great day at the Knopik farms. The best part, Tom and Jim have agreed to share their story at our Annual Conference in Nebraska City on January 31- Feb 1. Then everyone can listen and learn from their stories.
Comments