On Reddick Farms, it Starts With Soil

Reddick Farms’ rotational grazing program and other conservation practices that reduce soil erosion and improve water quality earned Brad Reddick and his family the 2022 Kentucky Leopold Conservation Award. The Reddicks raise crops and beef cattle on 1,800 acres in the southwestern part of the state.

The award, given in honor of renowned conservationist Aldo Leopold, recognizes ranchers, farmers and forestland owners who inspire others with their voluntary conservation efforts on private, working lands.

It Starts with Soil

After hearing farmer and soil scientist Ray Archuleta speak about regenerative agriculture at the National No-Till Conference in 2017, Brad Reddick and his son, Joel, decided to try some of the practices Archuleta was promoting, including eliminating tillage, growing diverse winter cover crops, planting corn and soybeans into cover crops, reducing synthetic input costs, and grazing livestock on row crop acres. They noticed a vast improvement in the way their soil cycles water, nutrients and carbon– and they remained profitable.

The backbone of this change was switching from vertical tillage to no-till, and replacing single, small species of cover crops with diverse, large cover crops.

Not tilling soil prior to planting crops each spring increases the soil’s infiltration and conserves moisture, which buffers against drought.

Cover Crops

The Reddicks’ unique cover crop system builds soil organic matter, reduces erosion and suppresses weeds. A blend of cover crop species is custom matched for each field’s crop rotation. The covers are planted immediately after the fall harvest and grow until they are flattened by a roller-crimper the following spring.

Cover crops absorb nutrients and then release them back to feed corn plants as they mature. This win-win scenario reduces nutrient loss by storing it in the cover crop and later increasing corn fertility and yield. This natural uptake of nutrients reduces the need for commercial fertilizers.

Nutrients and Water Quality

Reddick Farms incorporates manure from its beef cattle herd and litter from its poultry broiler flock into its fields with low soil disturbance equipment to improve their soil’s biological properties. Soil and tissue samples are tested to ensure that phosphorus and other fertilizers are not over-applied.

The Reddicks see erosion as a symptom of a larger problem rather than the problem itself. Erosion is the result of a broken water cycle when soil cannot infiltrate the water falling onto it. Soil tests have shown a reduction in the volume of nutrients leaving fields after just three years of cover crops and limited fertilizer use.