HomeMy WebLinkAboutSaluting Huron County's Agricultural Industry, 1987-03-25, Page 26PAGE A26. THE CITIZEN, WEDNESDAY, MARCH 25, 1987.
Lyle Martin composts some oj his manure Jor use on his farm. He believes healthy soil is the
sustaining power of life.
Lyle Martin
works hard
to keep soil
healthy
There was no great blinding
flash of light that turned Lyle
Martin into a farmer practising soil
conservation methods. He has
been interested in soil conserva
tion, he says, ever since he joined a
4H Conservation club in his home
county of Waterloo when he was 14
years of age.
In the years since moving to
Huron county in 1971 the Ethel
dairy farmer has become a leading
practioner of conservation meth
ods to the point he was one of this
year’s nominees for the Norman
Alexander Award which is award
ed every year by the Huron County
Soil and Crop Improvement Asso
ciation. The nomination for the
1987 award cited his work with
cross-slope cropping, use of chisel
plow, cover crops and windbreaks
but his philosophy goes deeper to a
belief that soil is the sustaining
powerof life, not just a stabilizer to
hold the plant up while applied
fertilizers promote the growth.
With that in mind, he says, it is
hard to separate his conservation
practices from his interest in the
organic aspect of farming. While
heisn’ttotally organic, still relying
on the modern conveniences of
some use of chemicals, he does
consider manure handling and
crop rotation along with his tillage
practices as essential parts of his
farm operation.
With a dairy herd of 30 cows
milking at any given time, manure
is a natural by-product of his
farming operation. But while some
well-known farm advisors regard
manure as little more than a waste
of time, Mr. Martin considers it the
major part of his soil fertilization
program. On some occasions he
does make use of composting of
manure, a practice he finds works
betterinthesummerthaninthe
winter. There are advantages, he
says, in breaking down the manure
to combine better with the soil. He
bucks the trend by using a lot of
straw, about 7,000 bales a year, in
his manure because it helps build
up the soil by putting carbon as well
as nitrogen into the soil.
There are disadvantages to
composting, the biggest being the
amount ot extra work involved.
Some critics also claim that
composting burns off the nitrogen,
he says, but modern organic
farmers say it just changes the
chemical form of nitrogen and the
nitrogen is still available in the soil.
Much of the manure on his
Sunholm farm still is applied
directly in the field, however and
then directly incorporated into the
soil through ploughing or cultivat
ing to make sure the benefits are
lost into the air (and to keep family
and neighbours happy not having
to smell the manure).
He is such a proponent of the use
of manure that he even imports
manure from a neighbour who has
chicken barns and his heavy use of
manure will this year mean a
cutback in fertilizer use, virtually
to zero.
Crop rotation is another valuable
tool in his soil building practices.
The Martin’sworkona5-6year
crop rotation, following two to
Continued on page A27
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