For Erik Dunham, a 43-year-old second-generation farmer with an operation near Roseau, Minnesota, a central strategy has been to restore crop ground that had been removed from production to its former glory.

This process started with the farm owned by his father, Ed. Although the Dunhams had about 750 acres, much of it was no longer actively farmed.

“I grew up on a farm, but the majority of it was in CRP when I was growing up, so there wasn’t a lot of actual farm work on our farm,” Erik said. “The whole area was hit pretty hard in the 80s and early 90s, so a lot of ground went into CRP.”

Despite not having the experience of growing up on a fully operating farm, Erik never had any interest in doing anything else. After completing high school in 1999, Erik decided to educate himself on the ins and outs of the business by working for other operations to address any knowledge gaps. He spent a season each working for two different farmers – Jim and Jay Miller near Wahpeton and Bruce Newhouse from near Fisher.

“I learn best by being hands-on,” he said. “I can’t sit inside a building for very long, so I thought it was a good idea to see how successful operations work, see some of the things I could improve on.”

To this day, Erik appreciates the value his involvement with those farms provided, and he continues to have confidence in applying their insights to his own operation.

“I still have a relationship with those guys and bounce ideas off them,” he said. “It’s good to have old guys who are mentors and who are willing to be pretty open and honest about how their farms work.”

After gaining his education through hands-on experience, Erik was as determined as ever to farm, but he wasn’t certain the best way – and in which location – to begin. His family didn’t have a lot of land, and he deliberated about whether or not he should attempt to establish himself back in his hometown.

“The conclusion I came to is this – it’s hard to break into a farm community you didn’t grow up in,” he said. “Farming is about relationships with people more than just about anything else.”

So, Erik returned home, bought the farm from his dad, took everything out of the Conservation Reserve Program (CRP), and had his first crop year in 2004. Fortunately, he was able to work with some of the farmers in his area to also share equipment to help offset some of his overhead operating expenses. In addition to his work on his own farm, Erik did custom farming and fertilizer application.

AS HE LOOKED TO EXPAND, HE ONCE AGAIN LOOKED TO BRING ACRES OUT OF CRP. WITHIN HIS FIRST COUPLE OF SEASONS, HE ADDED 1900 RENTED ACRES TO HIS OPERATION, ALL FORMER CRP GROUND.

Over the years, Erik continued to break fields out of CRP, and today, the Dunham farm covers nearly 6000 acres, of which more than 4500 are formerly CRP acres brought back into full production. Being close to Canada also means varying the distribution of the crops he raises, roughly splitting his acres evenly between corn, soybeans, spring wheat, canola, and perennial ryegrass.

Often, fields are put into CRP to prevent erosion or to allow the land to recover production capabilities.

Erik notes the vast majority of the ground he’s restored to use was put into CRP for economic reasons back in the 80s and 90s, rather than due to a quality issue. While the land had the potential to still be highly productive, the process of bringing so much ground back into use is not without its challenges.

“It’s all pretty good ground,” Erik said. “We just had to figure out what the crops need. You address what’s on top of the list first. We’re a wetter climate and it’s quite flat up here, so we tried to do as much ditching and water management as we could. We also have about 1000 acres pattern tiled.”

After resolving drainage issues, Erik’s biggest challenge – and biggest expense by far – is fertility management. Breaking ground on CRP meant he needed to be more efficient with his applications, so he incorporated banding to ensure his crops could more easily access needed fertility. More than that, though, he took it upon himself to learn soils science so he could have the knowledge to make his own fertility recommendations.

“I didn’t have an adequate understanding of fertility when I got started,” Erik said. “When you figure you’re going to spend $50 million on fertilizer alone over your career, you probably should understand it.”

To address this knowledge gap, Erik started attending Ag PhD Soils Clinics, as well as Neal Kinsey fertility seminars. With this information, he was able to determine his yield-limiting factors and change his practices to collect more accurate soil data through grid versus composite sampling. Now, he has his acres on a gradual build program to address the soil’s greatest needs.

“Base saturation potassium is the big one that we need to deal with, so that’s kind of what we’re trying to build up,” Erik said. “We’re just putting on extra, trying to band, but it’s hard when the majority of your ground starts off at lower than 1 percent base saturation.”

“Sometimes it gets discouraging because it’s hard to fix everything. It’s hard to implement on a large scale because it takes so much capital, so we’ve mostly been taking the slower approach, building as the economics allow rather than going wild. It’s hard to build 6000 acres from low fertility to high fertility. We had a couple of years where we went a little crazy on fertilizer and it showed, but when the TerraGator has to fill up on both ends of the field, it hurts the checkbook a little bit.”

As he continued attending informational events, Erik welcomed Brian and Darren’s approach to providing straightforward information to farmers without feeling obligated to make a purchase, and since Brian and Darren farm, too, he appreciates their perspective from a farmer’s point of view.

“You can tell if someone is selling something and has a bias,” he said. “I didn’t feel that with them. They’re just giving information that’s beneficial to the farm community, and they back it up with stories of what’s worked on their farm. I think they’re in the real world where they understand the economics of things and aren’t just trying to push a product. They give you enough information to understand what you should change, and then you can dig deeper if you need to.”

Soon after attending Ag PhD workshops, Erik began working with the agronomists at Hefty Seed in Roseau, and he’s grateful that Brian and Darren’s farmer-focused approach holds true with folks on the local level. After working with his reps for only a couple of seasons, he moved to source all his chemical inputs from the Roseau store.

“The agronomists have always been good with us,” Erik said. “What I appreciate most is they’re not really salesmen. They try to help you out, not push you. They’ve done a good job earning the business. They help me keep up with crop protection chemistry, so I trust them for all of that information.”

Erik also has generated excellent results raising Hefty Brand 40 Series Corn, as well as incorporating Hefty Naturals products into his cultural management.

“We did some split planter corn and liked what we saw, so we added more and more until we were 100 percent Hefty,” he said. “Stalk quality is better, we’re happy with the yields and quality, and it seems like it’s just so good, we haven’t had a reason to look elsewhere. We’re also doing a lot more biologicals, using D-Comp a lot for residue management and getting nutrients cycled back into the soil.”

As he works to improve the production capabilities of his acres, Erik intends to continue relying on the support and information provided by his local Hefty Agronomists.

“They’re different,” he said. “They’re trying to help you out on the farm, and it’s more of a long-term relationship. I’ve had other agronomists in the past that have been good, too, but I feel like the Hefty organization has been good at promoting agriculture, not just trying to make profits. With them, it’s just, ‘Here’s some information we think will be of value to you.’ They care about the Ag community and want to promote ag the best they can.”