Drip Irrigation Supports Three-Way Cropping in Missouri

The scene on Matt Woodward’s farm, north of Freistatt, Missouri, is much like that of any other farm in that southwest part of the state. You see fields of winter wheat and corn, and a few hundred head of cattle. What you don’t see, though, are the miles of drip irrigation tape running beneath 545 acres of those fields. It allows Woodward to maintain a three-way program consisting of wheat, row crops, and cattle.

Besides the irrigated land, Woodward manages nearly 1,500 acres of dryland wheat, as well as corn and soybeans, plus pasture for a 200-head cow/calf herd. While he bales much of that wheat for feed, he harvests some corn as silage.

Best Hedge Against Drought

Woodward started farming 16 years ago, on 40 acres he rented from a grower he met while working for an agricultural company. That led to purchasing his own farm, building it up, and improving it, only to sell it before moving to his current location.

After expanding with additional land purchases, Woodward realized he needed more than crop insurance to ensure a profit and make the payments. Having lived in Nebraska, he knew irrigation was his best hedge against drought. He also realized pivots don’t often work in the irregularly sized and shaped southern Missouri fields.

“I also had ponds in most of the pastures, houses in the way, and a lot of fences that I would have had to take out to put in pivots,” he says. “It didn’t make sense to devalue the farm to revalue it with irrigation.”

Drip tape irrigates this field of wheat, now used as pasture and then going to corn.

So, after doing a lot of research, he drilled a well, and worked with a team at NutraDrip Irrigation Systems to install drip irrigation under the first 220 acres, in 2021. A year later, irrigation supported 545 acres, stretching over 2 miles.

Covering that many acres from a single 1,000-gallon-per-minute well requires regimented watering. That led to Woodward’s rotation program, which he implemented in two phases. The first consists of winter wheat, planted after corn harvest in late August. A background herd of up to 1,200 stockers grazes the fields until April, when Woodward plants corn. (GPS guidance ensures a row of corn flanks on each side of the drip tape.) He harvests the corn on those phase-two fields as late as November, then plants wheat for late grazing. Those fields don’t go back to corn until after Memorial Day. In the meantime, Woodward sells the stockers on pasture at around 800 pounds for feedlots.

Best Hedge Against Debt

Woodward says the staggered need for irrigation, along with the greater efficiency from drip irrigation, allows him to achieve a greater profit from grain and livestock without an additional well’s expense.

Nor does he say he needs the corn yields many other Midwest farmers require to realize equal profits. With dozens of poultry farms in the area, he has a ready market that pays the same price for his corn as it pays for shipped-in grain — without transportation’s greater cost.

Finally, since he uses drip irrigation to apply two-thirds of his fertilizer, he never has to make another trip over the field, unless it’s to apply a fungicide with his Hagie sprayer. That’s besides the natural fertilizer the grazing cattle furnish.

“I initially put in the drip irrigation as a hedge against drought,” Woodward acknowledges. “But it’s actually turned out to be my best hedge against debt.”