It is springtime, and pillars of smoke can be seen outside as farmers burn fields to manage grain crop residue.
Michael Konen has farmed near Fairfield for more than three decades. He says burning gives new crops an early advantage and helps prevent disease.
"By burning you also get the ground gets much warmer. And so again, the seedling, will thrive and grow faster and sooner and better if it's in warm soil," Konen said.
"If you, burn off that straw, it will kill a lot of that disease. And it won't carry over. If you don't some of that disease can live in that straw and go to the next crop and infect it," Konen said.
While the practice helps production, farmers say it also comes with risks. Reece Brown says careful planning is key to keeping the fire contained.
"Liability. The stress. It takes a little bit more time. I don't like to do it. It's kind of a necessity in many cases. And so we try to do it as responsibly and safe as we can," Brown said.
"We put in field ditches sometimes, and we just slowly back burn away from that. And, any more we try to be safe enough. Or if we know there's, a problem area, we'll use that speed tiller. We do have it. And we'll speed tiller along the end of field, discard all that residue under, and then we'll even put a burning ditch next to that so that we can, contain that fire in the field," Brown said.
Farmers say when done safely, the payoff can be worth it.
"Every time we've burned, we've found that we have a 20 bushel yield bump on this irrigated ground, for sure. And I've. That's kind of true through anecdotal experience that a lot of these farmers have in this region. And so, we like that benefit as well," Brown said.
As planting season ramps up, farmers say field burning remains one of several tools they use to protect crops and improve yields.
