Burkhart proud of work with no-till, county fair
By Jean Caspers-Simmet
simmet@agrinews.com
Date Modified: 02/04/2010 8:40 AM
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FAYETTE, Iowa —Dan Burkhart speaks with pride about his work as Fayette County Extension director since 1972.
The county was the first in the state to do any work with no-till.
"Way back when we had a no-till club, " Burkhart said. "That faded away and then it came back as no-till advantage field days. I worked closely with the Natural Resources Conservation Service. We have to be one of the higher counties with acres of no-till."
Burkhart said that county farmers Collin Jensen and Dan Hunsberger have been no-tilling for 25 years.
"The big advantage is economics, and we're leaving a lot of residue on the surface," Burkhart said.
Fayette County was demonstrating no-till and Buffalo-till before Iowa State University was researching it.
"There was no research at the university, and yet farmers were interested, and so we did it," Burkhart said.
Extension set up a test plot at the Gilbertson Conservation Area. Conservation-tillage, mostly no-till, was demonstrated. That plot has 25 years of continuous no-till corn data. Hunsberger and ISU Extension's Brian Lang continue to operate the plot.
Burkhart coined "no-till advantage" for the county field days, but he encouraged other counties "to steal the name." Several counties have offered similar programs.
Burkhart has been involved with the Northeast Iowa Agricultural Experimental Association since he came to Fayette County. He helped with the fund drive to buy the Nashua land which is now the Northeast Research and Farm. He worked with organizing the Northeast Iowa Community-Based Dairy Foundation and helped raise money to build the Dairy Center at Calmar.
Burkhart helped found the Fayette County 4-H Foundation, a permanent endowment for 4-H programs. He helped start Iowa's 4-H shooting sports program and is the state muzzle loader instructor. The county now has 40 young people involved in shooting sports with 293 in all 4-H programs.
Burkhart feels good about the Master Gardener program.
"Statewide, it started as more of an urban program," Burkhart said.
He, Don Arndt from Howard County and Dick Horne from Winneshiek County trained the first group of Master Gardeners in northeast Iowa. Several years after that, Master Gardener training came to the counties.
"We have a real strong Master Gardener organization with many volunteers," Burkhart said.
To meet the growing demand for consumer horticulture information, Burkhart and six other county Extension directors pooled resources to hire Bob Hauer in 2000 as an Extension associate for horticulture programming.
"Bob has been key to making that work," Burkhart said.
He remembers the difficulties of the farm crisis and the devastating floods on the Turkey and Volga rivers. Burkhart and Jerry Muff, NRCS district conservationist, worked to secure funds for the buyout of river bottom land.
Several huge hailstorms devastated Fayette and neighboring counties last summer.
"That was a good example of Extension and other organizations working together," Burkhart said.
The Fayette County Fair has been a memorable week each summer.
"As far as the 4-H, we've always had a really good fair," Burkhart said.
He learned right off that it takes a lot of volunteers to run a county fair.
"You've got to have good volunteers, a good youth committee and cooperation from the fair board to make it go," he said.
The Northeast Food and Fitness Initiative has been an exciting movement. It started with the Food and Farm Coalition, led by Brenda Ranum, now a regional Extension director, and leaders from Howard, Winneshiek and Allamakee counties. They were brainstorming on ways to produce more locally grown food. Fayette County got involved as the process grew.
"It didn't take me long to see that this was quite a movement," Burkhart said. "Working with the local producers is more like what I used to do with all farmers."