To the Editor:

I just finished reading your cover crop article in the Jan. 9 issue and found it to be a good representation of how landlords should view their ground.

I am a 33-year-old farmer in Shelby County, Ohio. My parents own around 100 acres and we rent about 350 acres. Dad started using cover crops about six years ago. We chase all of our wheat ground with hog manure and radishes, oats, Sudan grass and crimson clover. We’ve seen our inputs, mostly nitrogen, decrease, which has helped the bottom line.

But as I read the article, and being a young farmer, I laugh at the fact of how older farmers will not try a single thing. What is the definition of insanity? To do the same thing over and over and expect different results.

I feel if farmers and even landlords would take a step back and look at the practices that are preached by equipment dealers and seed companies and look into ideas like you wrote about we could produce healthy crops, which in turn produces healthier food.

We need to quit worrying about the dollars and start looking at the health of the soil and start having more faith in the man upstairs. Thank you for writing your article.

Dan Elsas

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