FARMER DISCOVERS STARK EVIDENCE OF PAST EROSION
An excavation project in farmer David Kruger’s field revealed that almost all of the topsoil had eroded from the top of a low ridge down a relatively gentle 7% slope. If not for Kruger’s good soil health practices, the problem could have been worse.
As a kid, Twin Brooks farmer David Kruger watched his grandfather fight erosion using a very hands-on method.
“I remember him going to the ditch along Highway 12 and hauling the dirt out of the ditch and back onto the field with a loader,” Kruger said.
That was a powerful memory, but Kruger wasn’t thinking about erosion when he first learned about no-till farming practices years later as a student at Lake Area Technical Institute, now named Lake Area Technical College.
Instead, he was thinking about moisture and long days of picking rocks.