Batch and Grow With Farmer-Led Advances in Soil Health (Flash)

Nov 26, 2025

By Rachel Curry and Nicole Haverback et.al

Farmers often learn best from one another, and the Farmer-Led Advances in Soil Health (FLASH) program helps make those connections possible. In episode 77, Morgan Cauble from American Farmland Trust (AFT), Malina Przygoda from the Coles County Soil and Water Conservation District, and Bobby Orman, a Coles County farmer, discuss the FLASH program and its Batch and Grow cover crop initiative.

What is FLASH?

FLASH is designed to create farmer-to-farmer networks within priority watersheds in Illinois. In the program, farmers identify local challenges, share their experiences, and collectively decide on the conservation practices that will best address issues in their watershed.

Currently, there are five active groups across Illinois, located in:

Jo Daviess County
Coles County
Vermilion Headwaters (Livingston and Ford Counties),
Hillsboro Lakes (Montgomery County)
Black Slough watershed (Champaign County).

Farmers interested in participating in the program should contact their local Soil and Water Conservation District.

What is the batch and grow program?

The batch and grow program is a cover crop program available exclusively to FLASH participants. Cover crops are an in-field agricultural conservation practice that offers a range of benefits, including enhanced soil health and reduced nutrient loss.

The program is simple: Farmer leaders select mixes suited to the region, and AFT provides the seed and application at no cost to the participating farmers. The program is designed to reduce barriers during the early years of adopting the practice by offering technical support from farmer peers, a soil health specialist, and an agronomist, along with the free seed and application. To date, approximately 8,000 acres have been enrolled in the program.

A farmer’s perspective

Bobby Orman farms in western Coles County within the Lake Mattoon, Embarras River, and Kaskaskia River Watersheds. Orman was encouraged by the local NRCS and SWCD to join the local FLASH group because of the conservation practices he had already adopted. He acknowledged that wind and water erosion were obvious problems, and using cover crops would help address the issues. By joining FLASH, Orman notes that one of the benefits of participating in the program is the opportunity to establish strong networking connections with other farmers, agencies, researchers, and administrators.

FLASH connects farmers to:

Other farmers implementing similar practices
Local conservation professionals
Researchers, agency staff, and program administrators
Neighboring farmers facing the same resource concerns

This network allows for shared learning opportunities and problem-solving across the state. If a farmer is interested in participating in the program, Orman suggests gathering a few neighbors to identify a shared issue, which can be the foundation of a new group.

Source : illinois.edu

Video: Spring 2026 weather outlook for Wisconsin; What an early-arriving El Niño could mean

Northeast Wisconsin is a small corner of the world, but our weather is still affected by what happens across the globe.

That includes in the equatorial Pacific, where changes between El Niño and La Niña play a role in the weather here -- and boy, have there been some abrupt changes as of late.

El Niño and La Niña are the two phases of what is collectively known as the El Niño Southern Oscillation, or ENSO for short. These are the swings back and forth from unusually warm to unusually cold sea surface temperatures in the Pacific Ocean along the equator.

Since this past September, we have been in a weak La Niña, which means water temperatures near the Eastern Pacific equator have been cooler than usual. That's where we're at right now.

Even last fall, the long-term outlook suggested a return to neutral conditions by spring and potentially El Niño conditions by summer.

But there are some signs this may be happening faster than usual, which could accelerate the onset of El Niño.

Over the last few weeks, unusually strong bursts of westerly winds farther west in the Pacific -- where sea surface temperatures are warmer than average -- have been observed. There is a chance that this could accelerate the warming of those eastern Pacific waters and potentially push us into El Niño sooner than usual.

If we do enter El Nino by spring -- which we'll define as the period of March, April and May -- there are some long-term correlations with our weather here in Northeast Wisconsin.

Looking at a map of anomalously warm weather, most of the upper Great Lakes doesn't show a strong correlation, but in general, the northern tiers of the United States do tend to lean to that direction.

The stronger correlation is with precipitation. El Niño conditions in spring have historically come with a higher risk of very dry weather over that time frame, so this will definitely be a transition we'll have to watch closely as we move out of winter.