Earl and Judy Prigge earn conservation honor
Janet Kubat Willette
Date Modified: 11/04/2009 3:07 PM
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Agri News staff writer
LEWISTON, Minn. -- Earl and Judy Prigge didn't set out to earn the conservation farmer award.
They just did what they thought right and built upon and expanded the conservation work Judy's father, Alfred Mueller, started on his Winona County farm.
Earl and Judy moved back to her family farm near Fremont in 1979 after spending 13 years in Washington state where Earl worked for Boeing in Seattle. They had a small, diverse farm there. Earl grew up in the Silo area.
Earl and Judy took over the registered Holstein herd developed by Judy's father and showed cattle. Her father sold registered Holsteins throughout the world, Judy said.
He was also conservation minded. He was one of the first farmers in Winona County to install contour strips. The Civilian Conservation Corps planted trees on his property.
Earl and Judy cleaned up the old windbreaks and planted more trees. They planted at least 25 trees a year for several years. They planted some trees from seeds, including a baseball-sized walnut, three kinds of oak, butternuts, cherry and ash. They have also planted white pine and white spruce.
They went from the moldboard plow to the chisel plow, to minimum till and then to no till.
They maintained the strips put in when Judy's father farmed, though they have changed their size to accommodate larger machinery. They have improved many waterways, added riparian buffers, diversions, grade stabilization structures and a feedlot runoff control structure with a picket fence and filter strip.
"We didn't realize we were doing that much until they wanted to give us this," Earl said. "A lot of other people are doing things to improve soil and water quality. A lot of other people are doing the same things we're doing."
"The Prigges have addressed their resource concerns through the implementation of diverse conservation practices," said Pete Fryer, SRF area engineer. "They are excellent examples of being good stewards to the land."
The Prigges have a corn, soybean, hay rotation, with three years of hay. They graze their 85 Angus cows.
They milked until 2000, when a fire destroyed their barn. In 2004, they bought the farm near Troy along Trout Run.
They invested time and money into fencing and cleaning up the property. The flood of 2007 brought more work.
"We enjoy it," Earl said. "It's part of being a good steward."
The Prigges have five children and 16 grandchildren. Four of their children live within 20 miles of them.