Robert Willmott not only recently wrapped up his MS thesis research at Fresno State, but he also works full-time as the Farm Manager for his college's student ag farm, is married, and has two small children as well!  A full plate, to say the least.  In addition to all this, he recently told his story at Fresno State in a 3-minute video that is now posted at You Tube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uo6xZh5sGdA

Working in the Department of Plant Science in the Jordan College of Agricultural Sciences and Technology under his award-winning and Fellow in the American Society of Agronomy major professor, Anil Shrestha, Robert presented his thesis work in an exit seminar on May 14^th on campus ahead of being awarded this MS and graduating later this month.  His work consisted of a multiple-year study to evaluate the potential of using a roller crimper and strip-tillage for producing silage corn under center pivot irrigation, a new systems approach for San Joaquin Valley dairies that rely on winter and corn silage for animal feed materials.  The several years of the study saw quite good success in terminating a variety of winter cover crop mixes using the roller crimper, strong weed suppression during the early corn season, and corn yields comparable to industry standards and the conventional control system that was part of the evaluation. 

The work is now being prepared for submission to a scientific journal later this summer.  A three-minute You Tube video summarizing Robert's work may be viewed at the link https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uo6xZh5sGdA 

Documentary video on no-tillage in California being prepared

July 1, 2023

A video documentary featuring five of the CA and AZ farmers who have been part of the USDA NRCS Conservation Innovation Grant project, "No-till network for California," is in the final stages of production and will be released in the near future through the University of California's Conservation Agriculture Systems Innovation Center's You Tube channel.  

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCVd3wKF3P6fA4zQWVKIouWA 

The documentary will feature Eddie Sajian of Hanford, CA, Rick Adams of Laton, Paul Strojan of Farmington, Dr. Henri Carter MD of Yuma, AZ, and Cary Crum, of Fresno, CA and will show them describing details of the innovative approaches that they are working on to improve the overall performance of their agricultural production systems.  The release date for the documentary is scheduled for late July 2023.  

February 28, 2023

Strip-till Operation Thrives in Face of Heavy Regulation and High Costs

Tipton, CA dairyman and long-time CASI farmer member, Tom Barcellos, was featured in the Winter 2023 issue of Strip-till Farmer, a quarterly publication of the National No-till Farmer Association and Lessiter Publications.  The article details Tom's 23-year history as a strip-till trailblazer right here in California's San Joaquin Valley and describes how he came to find how strip-tillage "made everything a lot easier" at his 2,000 cow dairy just east of Highway 99 in Tulare County.  The Strip-till Farmer magazine article was written by Noah Newman when he came to California recently to interview Tom.  A copy of the article is attached below.

Fifteen years of stunning conservation agriculture success at Rollin Valley Farms in Burrel, CA!

June 22, 2020

Andy Rollin, along with his brother, Donny, are dairy farmers near the small western San Joaquin Valley town of Burrel, CA.   Their farm, Rollin Valley Farms, milks over 2,000 cows and has about 700 acres of silage crops including alfalfa, corn, oats, wheat, and sudangrass.  About 15 years ago, they began some of the earliest efforts to develop reduced disturbance production techniques for their silage crops (see video below). They pioneered the successful development of strip-till corn way back in 2003 and 2004 and then a few years later, began working with Monte Bottens and Cary Crum of California Ag Solutions (CAS) in Madera, CA, to further improve their production systems.  Monte and Cary helped them with state-of-the-art planter improvements, an Orthman 1-tRipR strip-till implement and also the use of CAS's Landoll no-till grain drill.  (See Picture 1).  In addition, the Rollins have in recent years added a late-summer multi-species silage “cover crop” which has now augmented their annual forage production over their prior double-cropping practices.  Strip-till corn yields at their farm are up about 2 to 3 tons/acre over prior production rates and there have also been 10 to 15% improvements in their feed quality that have resulted from the coupled, innovative efforts that they have made. 

The Rollins were also involved with a research study back in 2004 and 2005 with CASI's Nick Madden, Randy Southard, and Jeff Mitchell to determine the impacts of their reduced disturbance practices on air quality. (See Picture 2.)This work showed that over 85% of dust emissions were reduced by strip-till compared to their previous standard till system (see the attached article by Madden et al.  2008).  (See Picture 3). 

The Rollins are now firmly behind their transition to strip-till and no-till cover crops and small grain seeding schemes and attribute an early spring savings of about 10 days to their reduced disturbance corn planting systems.  They now have switched to watering up their strip-till corn following the very minimal soil work they do following winter small grain chopping and harvesting.  In recognition of their innovative and steadfast progress, they were Finalists in the 2018 Leopold Conservation Award Program.  The following short video shows one of their strip-till corn fields this spring. (See Picture 4.)

Here is a link to a You Tube video of this project:  https://youtu.be/mq8itVs3Iak