Rathbun Lake Protectors

Move to Iowa benefts family, land
FAMILY TIES: Amy and Jason Boyer (back, right) take a break from their Des Moines farmers market
booth, The Harvest Barn, with their children (from left), daughter Kaitlyn, and sons Konrad and Kacey.
By KATHLEEN CHESTER
U
RBAN sprawl and
housing developments
were driving up the cost
of farmland in their home state of
Pennsylvania, so Jason and Amy
Boyer set their sights on Iowa.
Newly married, they settled in
Weldon, a small town in southern
Iowa that is divided by the county
lines of Clarke and Decatur. It
was 1994 when the couple left
Gettysburg, where they were
both born and raised, and theyve
been farming in Clarke County,
Iowa, ever since.
Southern Iowa offered the op-
portunity to have a combination
operation they were looking for:
500 owned and rented acres to
raise cattle, hay and pasture, and
some row crops. But Jason soon
discovered that heavy rain events
wash away the soil on sloping
ground, so theyve been imple-
menting conservation practices
on their land all along to preserve
the soil and protect the water.
You cant stop runoff 100%,
but what comes off the feld runs
back into our water supply, he
notes. Weve had some pretty
sporadic weather and heavy rains
in recent years, so we needed to
put in additional measures of
some type to keep the soil on the
ground where it started not just
for me but for the next generation
and the generation after that.
The Boyers have installed one
grade stabilization structure, 17
sediment control basins and a
watering facility, and they have
fenced heavy-use areas as part
of the Rathbun Land and Water
Alliances Protect Rathbun Lake
Project, a project that works with
landowners in the Rathbun Lake
watershed to stop the delivery of
contaminants to the lake.
Get landlords involved
Environmental specialist Velvet
Buckingham, who coordinates
the Protect Rathbun Lake Project,
says this farming couple pro-
motes conservation practices
on both the farms they own and
on the farms they rent, even per-
suading the landowners from
whom they rent to install ter-
races. The measures this family
has installed reduce sediment
delivery to Rathbun Lake by 163
tons per year and by 896 pounds
of phosphorus per year, says
Buckingham.
In 2013, the alliance recog-
nized the Boyers as Rathbun Lake
Protectors for their soil-saving ac-
tions. They were nominated by
the Clarke County Soil and Water
Conservation District.
Jason notes that the more soil
you keep on the feld, the less
goes into the lake, but you have
to work at it. Weve been doing
more no-tilling and trying to keep
land in pasture longer. Weve also
planted flter strips below the
row crops at the end of the feld,
and we dont row crop the highly
erodible land. A few years ago, we
frst planted rye as a cover crop
to help keep the soil in place.
The rye is about 4 or 5 inches tall
when I harvest the corn, and the
cattle graze on it along with the
cornstalks, which seems to be
working well.
Cattle help save soil
The Boyers run a 60-head pure-
bred Limousin cow-calf opera-
tion, calving in both spring and
fall. Pasture and forage for the
cattle also help save soil. A few
years after arriving in Iowa,
Jason became director of the
Iowa Limousin Association and
has served in that position for 17
years. We breed and sell a few
Limousin bulls each year. What
calves we dont feed out, we use
for 4-H, or we take the beef to
the Des Moines farmers market
where we set up a booth each
weekend, he says.
The Boyers are in their sev-
enth year of operating a booth at
the farmers market, which they
say is an extension of the Harvest
Barn they opened in 2000 just
east of Osceola. About 35,000
people attend the Des Moines
farmers market each weekend,
and we see about 1,000 people
come through our barn on busy
weekends in late fall, he notes.
The couples three children
take an active role in the farming
operation and help tend the
farmers market booth. The boys,
Konrad and Kacey, have shown
cattle for several years and are
just starting 4-H, while daughter
Kaitlyn is an active member
of FFA, serving as an offcer for
both the local chapter and at
the district level. While Amy has
her nursing degree, she hasnt
worked in a hospital for several
years, as she keeps busy with the
family businesses and has been a
4-H leader for the past 12 years.
Chester writes for Rathbun Land
& Water Alliance.
Keeping the water clean
R
ATHBUN Lake in southern Iowa is an 11,000-acre reservoir and is the water source for Rathbun
Regional Water Association, which provides water to 50 communities in southern Iowa and
northern Missouri.The Rathbun Land & Water Alliance works with farmers and landowners in the
watershed to protect the soil and preserve water quality.
Landowners began installing practices through the Protect Rathbun Lake Project in 2004. More
than 41,666 tons of sediment per year no longer are delivered to Rathbun Lake due to the actions
of more than 550 landowners who have installed best management practices on their farms. That
includes more than 1 million feet of terraces.
To put that nearly 42,000 tons of sediment per year into perspective, its equal to 2,625 truck-
loads (16-ton dump trucks filled with sediment) each and every year. If it was time for the trucks to
make their annual delivery to the lake, there would probably be quite an uproar from the public.
Another fun fact: The terraces, if built end to end, would nearly cross the state of Iowa, and there
have been enough structures built through the Protect Rathbun Lake Project for each county in Iowa
to receive five additional terraces. Kathleen Chester
Conservation
84
www.FarmProgress.com September 2014 Wallaces Farmer

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Move to Iowa benefts family, land

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