Farmer in Utah plants differently to save soil moisture

Box Elder County, Utah — Utah farmer planted his corn crop differently this year as a way to preserve soil moisture during Utah’s historic drought. “I love working with the soil, I love improving it, I love coming up with new and innovative ways to take on these challenges,” said Joel Ferry, a fifth-generation farmer.

Ferry has been trying out a new way to prepare the soil for planting his 200 acres of corn, for the past four years.

Leaving pieces untouched, still covered by last year’s nutrients, instead of tilling and turning over his entire field, he tills in strips. “You can see there is a bunch of lead material, and what that does is it protects that from the sun in the springtime so the ground stays wetter because it’s shaded,” Ferry said. “And so when we go and plant, we already have the moisture there to get the seed started.”

According to him, every drop of water makes a difference, and this soil is still moist from rainstorms in October. “Maybe it will save me one irrigation cycle, which is four inches of water, and I do that over 1,000 acres,” Ferry said. “That’s a lot of water.”

According to Ferry, it also saves them the cost of gas and labor tilling the ground, which on a year like this shows how sensitive farming is to price increases. Even the Ukrainian conflict has caused a shift in the global market favoring farmers selling their harvest. “Right now, prices are extremely high and we’ve got to take advantage of that. But in our way, we’ve got to help solve that global problem,” Ferry said.

“If we were to get a half an inch of rain tomorrow?” Ferry said, “We call it a million-dollar storm because it makes that much of a difference to the crop production.”

And that moisture, Ferry hopes, helps to allow his family farm to stick around for another generation. “I do take pride in what I do. I love being able to feed Utah,” he said.