Soybeans, Strip Tilling, and Battling Salinity: Adding Acres into Conservation

Jul 04, 2025

Standing in his soybean field on a humid June afternoon, Kenroy Wipf shared successes and challenges he has faced while implementing conservation practices when planting soybeans.

Wipf recently began experimenting with seeding his cash crop and cover crops simultaneously using a two-bin air seeder. This year Wipf planted beans and between those rows inter-seeded a combination of oats, cereal rye, and flax on May 3, 2025. Unfortunately, despite never having the issue before, Wipf had to replant the soybeans with a drill due to the unique ground-hardening conditions that occurred this spring. This hard exterior affected the air seeder’s ability to input the seed deep enough into the soil while planting.

Now replanted, growing strong, and nestled between corn stalk residue from the year prior and a cover crop mix, it is now time to give the beans their chance to flourish solo. At this stage in the growing process, the existing cover crops will be terminated so the soybeans can soak up the newly established nutrients in the soil and can be harvested by themselves come fall. This termination chemical treatment for the beans is to kill weeds, volunteer corn, and the cover crops that are in between and around the cash crop rows. After a few days, the unwanted species will turn white which is closely followed by beautiful rows of soybeans.

Source : usda.gov

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.