Soil Conservation Practices

The Klamath Basin has some of the richest farmland in the US. We’re trying to keep it that way.

Everybody is familiar with the pictures of the Dust Bowl and the importance of conserving soil and top-soil.  When your livelihood is intertwined with the dirt that you farm, soil conservation is an issue you think about every day.

Walker Brothers uses several techniques to help keep our soil where we want it – in our fields.  The use of a no-till grain drill for the last eight years has reduced the ravages of wind erosion and herbicides in the soil while increasing the amount of organic material in the dirt.   In the fall, our fields are ripped and prepared which not only cuts down on the amount of fuel we have to use in the spring to get them ready for planting, it also reduces moisture loss.  Our tractors also use global positioning system (GPS) technology to cut down on the number of passes in a field.  By doing so, again we’re able to cut down on fuel use while preventing stirring up precious top soil and causing moisture loss.

While the above practices are reliant on modern technology, we also use the “old-school” soil conservation practice of crop rotation.  Our fields are on a three-to-five year rotation, which frees up valuable potato ground more quickly while giving the ground the tried-and-true benefits that come with crop rotation and resting the ground.

Without this rich farm ground, Gold Dust and Walker Brothers wouldn’t be as successful as we are.  The above soil conservation practices have served us well and we h0pe to find other methods in the future.