Presentations
W9
Soil & Water
Wed, Dec 15, 2021
9:00am to 9:50am
W2
Soil & Water
Wed, Dec 15, 2021
2:00pm to 2:50pm
Making a Soil Health System Work in the Real World
Rodney Rulon will discuss the ins and outs of making a fully integrated soil health system work on their Central Indiana farm. He will go through their soil health system using No-Till, Cover crops and intensive 1 acre management grids and review the long term results. Cover crop selection, seeding and termination timing that they have found to work best in a corn/soybean rotation will also be covered. Rodney will bring to light some of the successes as well as struggles with integrating soil health into a commercial scale 7000 acre farm and why it's worth the effort.
Speaker
Rodney Rulon
Rodney Rulon is a partner with Ken,Roy, Nick and Neal Rulon in Rulon Enterprises LLC, a fifth generation family farm near Arcadia, Indiana. Rodney has a B.S. and an M.S. degrees from Purdue University in Agricultural Systems Management. He has been responsible for leading the farms development of a production system focused on Maximum Economic Yield through conservation and technology. He manages the farm’s VRT and GIS programs and equipment, drainage system design, soil sampling and fertility, and conservation programs. He continues to develop the farms no-till/cover crop program to improve soil health.
The farm received the No-Till Farmer Magazine’s, National No-Till Innovator Award in 2011 based upon Rodney’s efforts focused on improving soil health and the economics of conservation production practices and the ASA National Conservation Legacy Award in 2012 as well as many other local and national honors. Rulon Enterprises also serves as one of 12 host farms around the state for the CCSI (Conservation Cropping Systems Initiative) which involves both hosting educational meetings as well as cooperative research plots.