Adapting to change 

By the time fourth-generation farmer Jeremiah Nicholson started farming, his family had already started to adapt to the lack of normal rainfall around their southwest Kansas operation.  

Generations before him had already begun taking advantage of a nearby resource, and while unconventional and enduring a learning curve, the Nicholsons have found what’s working for them.  

Nicholson Ventures mainly consists of corn, sorghum, wheat, soybeans and triticale. The Nicholsons typically irrigate parts of the operation with wastewater and freshwater sources, and he said it’s about a 60/40 split.  

Where sorghum fits

Nicholson is aware of how sorghum fits in the commodity landscape and worldwide, but on his operation, it’s a go-to crop when there are times there’s not quite enough water to keep irrigating other crops during the season.  

If he plants sorghum, and there is adequate moisture, he can apply irrigation water, too. 

Also, it is valuable when it comes to crop rotation because sorghum feeds the micro rhizome and helps keep the soil structure strong, he said. 

“We think sorghum does a really good job of putting in a good tap root and tillering,” he said. “And then it helps us more with our salt flushing.” 

If they were to plant continuous corn on corn, he said, soil health would decline. Rotation helps the soil. He’s observed it when putting sorghum after his triticale and evaluating the soil tests. That shows in phosphorus tests. 

“We’re using silage a lot to remove the total plant to get that phosphorus loading down, and being able to put triticale in behind that, and then having sorghum as a follow-up crop for that rotation has been really beneficial.” 

Nicholson has dryland grain sorghum in addition to some forage sorghum, and being Pioneer Seed dealers, he has found the varieties that work. He’s paid special attention to soil pH, as the Nicholsons need a variety with a little more tolerance. But there’s give and take when focusing on a certain problem. Sorghum will provide ground cover, which can keep control of weed pressure.  

What works

Annually, drought-type hybrids can yield typically around 60 to 70 bushels an acre. This year, because of timely rains, Nicholson said those varieties might exceed that benchmark. 

“In years like this year, in May or June, it didn’t look like it was ever going to rain again,” he said. “Then June, we go to flooding, and we can get a lot of compensatory gain off the bushels there and yield that way.” 

Sorghum has improved through the years, and not just the varieties. Nicholson praised the work being done by the National Sorghum Producers and the United Sorghum Checkoff program. 

More producers are taking note of sorghum’s place in the High Plains, he said, even as companies are also investing in more drought corn and soybean crops, he said. 

“A sorghum plant, I mean it can take the most abuse by far out of any of them,” he said. 

He also said having access to an ADM milling plant has helped sorghum’s price basis for the western part of Kansas. 

Nicholson believes sorghum works the same as a protein source, and being able to feed it to livestock is important to note.  

“I mean, the corn still has a slight edge in that, but there’s a prolific amount of it around here,” he said. “And then, if there’s consumer incentive, I guess, for these beef plants, I could see it becoming a feeding alternative.” 

Involvement

Nicholson values the professional development he’s gained from being in Leadership Sorghum and hopes to turn that experience into something more with the Kansas association and nationally. 

Working within commodity groups and on the ground floor by attending meetings, growers can network with agronomists, he said. 

In Nicholson’s case, he now has more of a grasp on the intricacies when navigating export markets, trade relations and future opportunities. 

“The sorghum complex is so heavily dependent on the Chinese, and nobody knows what to think exactly of that relationship going forward,” Nicholson said. “So developing a second and third market, even if it is somewhat smaller, somebody’s got to be lobbying and figuring that whole arrangement out.” 

Kylene Scott can be reached at 620-227-1804 or [email protected]. 

Sidebar 

Irrigation in a shared situation

By Kylene Scott 

The Nicholson Ventures farm is near the wastewater reclamation ponds of the city of Dodge City, Kansas, and the farm was able to start taking advantage of the water source in the mid-1980s. While the area has seen changes in the operation of a beef packing plant and the planned addition of Hilmar Cheese, which is scheduled to come online in 2025,—the Nicholsons have found ways to make agricultural irrigation partly from using that wastewater to work. There eventually will be more water available, but it may not be just for farming.  

The Nicholsons had to work out kinks for irrigating with reclaimed water, Jeremiah Nicholson said. In the beginning, the farm had several considerations.  

“It was extremely challenging,” he said. “Some of the things that they use for odor control within the wastewater plant itself, it actually turned out that it caused galvanized (steel) to rust out, essentially,” he said. “They pretty much rusted out all of our systems that we had out here that were attached to the project in the beginning.” 

In this region, many farmers pay attention to the salinity level in their soil. When National Beef was still tanning hides at the Dodge City, Kansas, plant, a lot of the salts made their way to the reclamation ponds during the 2000s. Moving the tanning process to other locations helped lower the salinity. 

“That really helped out on our salt load,” Nicholson said. “We do a gypsum application, and it helps us flush our salts through our soils.” 

Using the wastewater on the farm, Nicholson is also concerned about pathogens that might remain in the water, and an engineering firm that manages the reclamation project conducts analysis and shares information with him.  

Soil health is important because Nicholson wants to preserve soil quality.  

“We’re trying to make the longevity of the soil last as long as we can,” he said. 

Nicholson constantly monitors the soils and works with the local Servi-Tech on remediation efforts in both the wastewater pivots and with his freshwater irrigated circles—most notably for nitrogen and phosphorus. 

“Nitrogen and phos, obviously, are our pinnacle when we think of groundwater and things like that,” he said. “We take 50-foot samples every year to monitor the movement of the nitrogen and the phos.” 

Nitrates are a “heavy, heavy concern,” for Nicholson, as well as keeping the workers and people handling the grain safe.  

“There’s all sorts of things, pharmacology and stuff like that, that’s within the water that we don’t want to get on ourselves,” he said. “All of our crops get sold for non-human consumption.” 

Kylene Scott can be reached at 620-227-1804 or [email protected]. 

SIDEBAR

Continued water woes part of the equation

By Kylene Scott 

Sorghum can fill an economic need 

Bill Golden, a research assistant professor in Kansas State University’s department of agriculture economics, said several years ago that sorghum has a role to help sustain the Ogallala Aquifer. Even with reduced water application, sorghum proved to be a valuable part of crop rotations.  

“If you can only pump 10 inches or less, you’re much better off, both from a profit and a risk standpoint, to include sorghum in your rotation, and, basically, that says that the revenue curves cross at about 8 inches to 9 inches,” he said. 

With any more water than that, sorghum becomes less profitable. But low water applications are where sorghum finds its best fit and helps a producer spread the risk.  

A lot of sorghum is grown in an area where many cattle-feeding operations are located, and initially feedyards fed more sorghum than corn, but corn is the gold standard.  

“The question is kind of like, ‘Which comes first, the chicken or the egg?’ ” he said. “Do we increase sorghum acres first and then develop the markets? One of the reasons that people don’t want to buy the sorghum is users will claim that the supply is not consistent.” 

Finding the elusive answers to questions is the key to increasing acres and creating markets, he said.  

In another of Golden’s research projects, working with the Sheridan 6 Local Enhanced Management Areas in northwest Kansas helped to determine how efficient producers are without doing any extra watering. The voluntary water use reduction plan required the participants to reduce water usage by 20%. 

“According to the last numbers I saw from the Kansas Geological Survey, they had actually reduced it close to 30%, and we saw more sorghum acres,” he said. 

Those in the LEMA were allocated 55 inches over a five-year period and could use 11 inches a year. Adding sorghum into the crop mix helped them to maintain their irrigation level on their corn, presumably, Golden said. 

With his work on projects like this one, Golden thinks producers are going to have to continue to adapt to water regulations and reductions.  

“I think there is enough, both political and social, pressure to groundwater use now that we will have to adapt,” he said. “One of the positives is in LEMA 6, we saw these producers reduce their water use, and they did not reduce their profit.” 

As the sustainability of the aquifer is stretched, Golden believes there will be water use reductions.  

“And I think when we do, we’re going to find out that farmers are great managers,” he said. “They face adversity all the time, and I think they will come through it fine.” 

Kylene Scott can be reached at 620-227-1804 or [email protected].