Being a farmer means being diverse in multiple ways. From a business perspective, diversification is a basic element of risk management – multiple income streams across different crops or from livestock or other sources serve as a bulwark against the unpredictability of nature. Farmers also need proficiency in a healthy variety of skills in the realm of the logistical, mechanical, scientific, and beyond.

Ben Crick, 34, a second-generation farmer with an operation just west of Menno, South Dakota, knows this all too well. Born and raised on his father’s farm, Ben spent his childhood putting up hay while taking care of pigs and cattle. After graduating high school in 2005, he attended the North Dakota State College of Science for diesel mechanics.

“I always wanted to farm, but I just didn’t know how it was going to happen,” Ben said. “We liked fixing our own machinery, and it was a good program to do while working through school. It was internship-based, and it was the kind of occupation that I knew I could bring back to the farm. Even though I didn’t know what exactly I wanted to do back then, I knew that I could use those skills if I farmed someday.”

Throughout college, Ben remained active in his family’s farm, and after completing his degree, he returned to South Dakota, taking a job at Butler Machinery in Sioux Falls, about an hour’s drive east of Menno. Being close to home allowed him to continue to help out during weekends and holidays, and he frequently used his vacation time to travel home and assist with field work. Eventually in 2012, Ben was able to return to his hometown and take up farming full time again.
His return was timed along with numerous changes to the operation. Most significantly, the farm began strip-tilling in the spring ahead of their twin row planter pass to strike a balance between soil disruption and fertility and moisture management. According to Ben, improving placement has especially been a game changer.

“I want to be as close to no-till as I can, but I want to have good fertilizer placement,” Ben said. “With the twin row planter, each row is four inches on each side of the strip. In my opinion, twin row on the strip-till allows me to go with a hotter blend; it’s more forgiving on burning the seed because I’ve got a little bit of distance. And I still have a no-till planting environment because I am to the side with the berm in between.”

Though fertility management is big for him, Ben does find some drawbacks to the practice. First, it can be more time-consuming and a bit more specialized to operate versus conventional tillage, where you can have any farmhand jump into the tractor cab and just go. Other challenges with strip-till are residue management and delivery of fertility, but it just takes a bit more finesse to get everything just right.

“You have to work with Mother Nature sometimes,” he said. “With corn, you have lots of residue to deal with, causing the machine to plug up, and sometimes you have to wait until the dew is off – you have to keep an eye on humidity and dew. There are times we can’t start strip tilling until noon going into corn stalks. The other challenge with humidity and strip-tilling is fertilizer delivery. We apply all dry fertility and have to be careful of gumming and plugging up, especially when we use urea.”

Despite these drawbacks, Ben still considers the practice highly beneficial for his acres, as the yield boost from better fertility placement far outweighs the hassle of dealing with residue and relative humidity.

“I put 100 percent of our fertility out with the strip, and it has leveled off our yields as far as consistency,” he said. “I feel that the strip tilling makes my fertilizer available, and I can grow a good crop across all my acres and not just in the bottoms.”

Another way the Crick farm bolsters its bottom line is by contracting production soybeans with Hefty Seed Company, which they have done for the past five seasons. This relationship with Hefty’s has endured for more than 25 years, beginning in the mid-1990s. At that time, Dan Crick, Ben’s father, started working directly with Ron Hefty out of the Centerville store to source the farm’s ag chemical supplies, which the Cricks applied with their own sprayer rig.

“The Heftys encouraged my dad to do his own spraying and do the $100-an-hour jobs himself, and spraying was one of them,” Ben said. “When he started, it was worth his drive over to save some money, especially when things were pretty tight back then. A little bit of savings went a long ways, but apart from the competitive prices, the agronomic advice has always been good, too. The one thing that we appreciate about Hefty’s is they’ll give advice on stuff they’re not making money on, too, as far as how to be a better farmer.”

Ben Crick with his wife, Julie, along with their children (left to right), Laura, Leah, Trent, and Marie.

Apart from a big focus on fertility placement, the Cricks have begun improving their land with soil testing, liming, tiling, and utilizing cover crops, tactics they learned in part about by attending Ag PhD workshops. After grid sampling his ground to get a baseline, Ben discovered many of his acres had a very low pH, down in the low 5.0 range, likely due to years of alfalfa production and nitrogen applications removing a large amount of unreplenished calcium from the soil. Following an application of three to four tons of high-calcium lime per acre, the vast majority of his ground is now in the 6.2 to 6.6 range that he’s shooting for.

“The Soils Clinics really helped me understand my soils and some of the bigger benefits of trying to be a self-taught agronomist,” Ben said. “You just keep going to seminars like that and research on your own to figure it out. I’ve been to the Tiling Clinics, and now we install our own drainage tile, too. We just got started in the fall of 2019, so I can’t say that I’ve seen crazy things yet as far as the yield map goes, but we have crop growing in spots that we couldn’t grow for the previous five or six years, so I’m confident we’re doing the right thing. You shouldn’t treat your ground like dirt. Treat it like something better than that.”

As is the case on many farms, the big reason Ben’s family is putting in all this work is to have something of quality to pass down to the next generations. Ben and his wife, Julie, have four children and highly value an upbringing in the farming life, surrounded by family; and Ben’s entire life’s journey has led to building a life to make that possible.

“I always wanted to farm,” he said. “I love the flexibility of being my own boss while still being busy. As a farmer, you have a busy, demanding career, but still have the ability to work with your family. I wanted to raise my kids on a farm where I’m around and have them experience that life. They’re all interested in it, and my goal for them is if they all want to farm, then they can someday.”