The crops currently grown are winter wheat, spring wheat, durum, barley, flax, lentils, and chickpeas. All of our wheat is exported to the west coast to buyers in Japan, Philippines, and Taiwan. The wheat grown in our geographical area is known for its high quality – including the protein content and baking qualities – whether it is used for breads, noodles, or cookies. The pulse crops, which include lentils, chickpeas, and flax are sold locally to a company that markets those products all around the world. The barley is grown for use in the brewing of distilled alcohol.
Following the drought years in the 1930s, the U.S. Soil Conservation Service proposed a new farming practice known as “strip farming”. In this practice, the land was put into “strips”, with alternating strips being cropped each year while the neighboring strip of land remained idle. The concept was to conserve water and to keep the land from blowing, due to winds over the open prairie. It was not easy to convince the farmers to idle half of their acres each year. Homesteader Grandpa Mattson was known to have said, “Why would I want to crop only half of my acres when I can’t make a living farming it all?”
This farming practice of “Strip Farming” used conventional mechanical tillage to control the weeds on the non-planted acres. Each time a tillage operation was made, the carbon in
the soil was released and the organic matter was turned over resulting in little organic matter remaining on top of the soil.
It wasn’t until 1993 that the Mattson Farms incorporated the farming practice of “No-Till”. Under this practice, disturbance to the soil is as minimal as possible. Only during seeding is the soil on our farm disturbed at all. The “strips” were blocked into larger fields. Erosion lessened since the soil is not mechanically tilled.
This farming practice, along with incorporating more crop rotations, such as lentils, chickpeas, and flax, has allowed us to plant more acres each year. We are still dependent upon Mother Nature to bring us the needed rains since there is no water available for irrigation of the crops.
Each time a new farming practice is brought online, along with that comes new added costs for different equipment, adopting new crops to put into a rotation, and a new learning curve to make use of the different philosophies. Any change in farming practices is not taken lightly. Research and education are required to ensure one is not sacrificing yield, while at the same time maintaining the health of the soils.
The most recent change in farming philosophy is to invest in maintaining healthy microbes beneath the surface of the soils. Together with the crop rotations, we believe this has contributed to the ability to have a crop to harvest even under more stressful years, such as 2021, in which the drought has been historical.
Mattson Farms is a Dryland farm. The average rainfall is only 8-10 inches each year. This moisture must come during the growing season. There is no farm ground irrigation because there is not a water source close enough, either via wells, rivers or dams. The moisture/rainfall necessary for the crops to grow is derived strictly from that provided by Mother Nature during the year. This results in more risk to the farmer, since he has no control over when or how much rain will come for the crops. Water is the driving factor for the success of the harvest each year. No matter how much planning is done to provide the plant everything it needs, whether it is good seed varieties, fertilizer, micronutrients, or weed control, it all comes down to water.
Following the drought years in the 1930’s the U.S. Soil Conservation Service proposed a new farming practice known to us as “strip farming”. In this practice the land was put into “strips” with alternating strips being cropped each year while the neighboring strip of land remained idle. The concept was to conserve water and to keep the land from blowing due to winds over the open prairie. It was not easy to convince the farmers to idle half of their acres each year. Homesteader Grandpa Mattson was known to have said, “Why would I want to crop only half of my acres when I can’t make a living farming it all?”
This farming practice of “Strip Farming” used conventional mechanical tillage to control the weeds on the non-planted acres. Each time a tillage operation was made, the carbon in the soil was released and the organic matter was turned over resulting in little organic matter remaining on top of the soil.
It wasn’t until 1993 that the Mattson Farms incorporated the farming practice of “No-Till”. Under this practice, disturbance to the soil is as minimal as possible. Only during seeding is the soil on our farm disturbed at all. The “strips” were blocked into larger fields. Erosion lessened since the soil is not mechanically tilled.
This farming practice along with incorporating more crop rotations such as lentils, chickpeas, flax, has allowed us to plant more acres each year. We are still dependent upon Mother Nature to bring us the needed rains since there is no water available for irrigation of the crops.
Each time a new farming practice is brought online along with that comes a new added costs for different equipment, adopting new crops to put into a rotation, and a new learning curve to make use of the different philosophies. Any change in farming practices is not taken lightly. Research and education are required to ensure one is not sacrificing yield, while at the same time maintaining the health of the soils.
The most recent change in farming philosophy is to invest in maintain healthy microbes beneath the surface of the soils. Together with the crop rotations, we believe this has contributed to the ability to have a crop to harvest even under more stressful years such as 2021 in which the drought has been historical.
Mattson Farms is a Dryland farm. The average rainfall is only 8-10 inches each year. This moisture must come during the growing season. There is no farm ground irrigated because there is not a water source close enough either via wells or rivers and dams to provide a water sourced. The moisture/rainfall necessary for the crops to grow is derived strictly from that provided by Mother Nature during the year. This results in more risk to the farmer since he has no control over when or how much rain will come for the crops. Water is the driving factor for the success of the harvest each year. No matter how much planning is done to provide the plant everything it needs, whether it is good seed varieties, fertilizer, micronutrients, or weed control, in the end it all comes down to water.
