On his Century Farm in Grundy County, Brad Ohrt is adding a new oxbow wetland as part of a broader effort to protect soil and water quality that has defined his farming career.

“I’ve always been a conservationist my whole life, just naturally,” Ohrt said.

The farm, recognized as a Century Farm in 1976, has evolved over more than 40 years behind Ohrt’s commitment to conservation.

He was among the first farmers in his area to adopt no-till practices in the early 1980s, planting soybeans into corn residue in 1983. He began no-tilling corn into soybeans the following year.

“We didn’t really have very good equipment. The attachments weren’t like they are now, but we made it work,” he recalled.

The results are visible beneath the surface, said Ohrt, who received the Iowa Farm Environmental Leader Award in 2021.

“Every time I bend down to check corn seed that I planted, I’ll run into a earthworm, and sometimes two, three, four of them,” he said.

He adopted strip-till in 1998, combining the benefits of a narrow strip of tillage that leads to better crop emergence while leaving a wide path of residue to control erosion. Strip-tilled corn also benefits from having fertilizer directly under the seed, he added.

“I could see that was the wave of the future,” said Ohrt.

Reducing tillage also improved efficiency and profitability on his farm, he noted.

“We get super yields, and it takes a lot less time and fuel. It’s more cost efficient. Those are the big things,” he said.

Ohrt also designed mini-terraces to slow water flow on long slopes over his fields, installed grass waterways and plants cover crops on 100% of his acres to reduce erosion and filter water before it enters the creek.

“We try to gently take the water off the land that we have,” he explained. “Once the soil is gone, you never get it back. So, that’s kind of the mission.”

The farm uses grid sampling and variable-rate applications to target fertilizer where it’s needed.

“There’s no use putting it on if you don’t need it,” Ohrt said. “That’s where there are a lot of money savings, too.”

After starting soil sampling on 10-acre grids, he has dialed it down to 2.5-acre grids for even greater precision.

“When we got down to 2.5 acre (grids), you could see there was so much more variability. You’re getting three more (samples) … you thought you were OK (in certain places) but you really weren’t.”

Protecting water quality
Last fall, Ohrt installed four saturated buffers as part of a batch-and-build project led by Heartland Cooperative that constructed 14 saturated buffers in the Middle Iowa watershed.

During project siting, Heartland conservation agronomist Ruth McCabe spotted an ideal location for a restored oxbow in one of Ohrt’s existing grass buffers that had silted in over the years.  

“I said, ‘Brad, you’ve got to let us fix this up,’” McCabe recalled.

Construction on the oxbow started this spring with a collaboration of funding and design partners, including Heartland Co-op, the Iowa Department of Agriculture and Land Stewardship, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and Iowa Soybean Association.

The project will create a 1-acre restored wetland that reconnects the crescent-shaped oxbow to a nearby stream, filtering runoff from about 300 to 350 acres while also creating wildlife habitat. The new oxbow is designed to catch sediment before it reaches the water pool, prolonging the life of the structure.

“This is good for habitat, good for cleaning up our water, filtering nitrates out. That’s important to me,” said Ohrt.

“We already had a grass buffer here. We’re not farming right up next to the creek. They proposed this, and so we gave it some consideration and thought it would be kind of neat.”

The project will support numerous wildlife species, including endangered fish like the Topeka shiner as well as waterfowl, deer and other wildlife, said Drew Diallesandro, Iowa private lands coordinator for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

“We can do all sorts of practices that benefit wildlife, but we always start with what the landowner wants to do and then bring in the partners who can help,” he said. “Those layered benefits — wildlife practices, water quality, soil benefits — all overlap at some point.”

Passing it on
As Ohrt looks toward retirement, he and his wife, Lynn, remain focused on the future of the farm and its conservation legacy. That future includes Nathan Easley, a non-relative who is part of their succession plan.

“Even though I’m getting to retirement age, I’m always futuristic,” said Ohrt. “Nathan’s here to continue that mission. I’m very pleased about that.”