Colorado Farmer Can’t Stop Trying New Things

Colorado Farmer Can’t Stop Trying New Things Roy Pfaltzgraff just can’t stop innovating on his northeastern Colorado dryland farm. In an area where it can be hard to grow a good crop of wheat, he drills sunflowers, corn and as many as eight other crops on 12-in. centers (Vol. 47, No. 4). Next year, he plans to experiment with 3-in. centers on cereal grains and edible beans. “I took an old air drill and replaced all the ground drives with hydraulic drives, so I can turn the meters on and off as we go through the field,” says Pfaltzgraff. “A grant from Zero Footprint, a nonprofit that’s encouraging regenerative farming, helped me upgrade to a new seed cart with hydraulic drives. For a toolbar, I’m going to use an old hoe drill with openers on 6-in. spacing and a neighbor’s disc openers in between. Combining them will give me the option of drilling on 3-in. centers or drilling one crop on 6-in. spacing and a second crop like clover in between.” Dryland Rice In Colorado Pfaltzgraff is looking to add rice to his current list. Last year, he planted too late, and an early fall frost took it. This year, he planted a few weeks earlier. “It’s amazing how well the rice is doing,” he told FARM SHOW in early June. Pollinator Strips When Colorado Parks and Wildlife offered to rent his headlands for $100 an acre and seed them down to wildflowers, Pfaltzgraff signed on. The results are so positive that he would gladly renew the five-year contract when it expires, or even keep them without the rent. “I don’t have to worry about compaction reducing yields, and I can park semis on them at harvest,” says Pfaltzgraff. “We have honeybee hives and sell the honey. This was the first spring we hardly needed to feed sugar water. They had early flowers to work on. Plus, last summer we had grasshoppers, but most of them stayed in the pollinator strips where they were attacked by praying mantises flying in.” On-Farm Milling For the past seven years, Pfaltzgraff has marketed part of his crops through an on-farm milling operation, Haxtun Heritage Mills. He produces and markets five baking mixes through regional stores and online. This year, he upgraded with an Osttiroler mill from Austria. “It has multiple integrated sifters and a bagger,” says Pfaltzgraff. “We can produce any percentage of whole grain flour. With corn, we can get flour, meal and grits in a single pass.” Flux Towers Pfaltzgraff is working with Jerry Hatfield (a retired USDA soils researcher) to evaluate gas exchange between soil and vegetative matter using flux towers. Sustainable Oils, the camelina company, wants to determine the carbon footprint of different crops. The flux towers measure light and what’s outgassed in terms of CO2, methane and water vapor. The carbon footprint determines the premium paid by California refineries for camelina oil. Mushrooms In Shipping Containers To create a weather-neutral enterprise for the farm, Pfaltzgraff is modifying a shipping container to use as a mushroom growing chamber. He plans to use the mushroom substrate on his fields. Hybrid Competitive OP Corn Pfaltzgraff is in his second year of planting MN 13, a depression era, open-pollinated corn variety. He’s saving the seed. Last year, it yielded as well as his worst conventional hybrid. “I expect yields to improve as it adapts to my system and area,” he says. Spreading The Word In recent years, Pfaltzgraff has become popular as a speaker at regional and national farmer meetings. In response to requests, he initially developed a workbook on finding new markets for farm crops. More recently, he introduced Seeding Circles, an eight-week online course with a handful of farmers in a virtual meeting. In June, he hosted a field day for farmers and others interested in his practices. “The field day included researchers who are working on various projects on the farm,” says Pfaltzgraff. Contact: FARM SHOW Followup, Pfaltzgraff Farms, 12189 County Rd. 7, Haxtun, Colo. 80731 (ph 970-466-1887; roy@pfzfarms.com; www.pfzfarms.com).

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