Holistic Cropping Practices for Greater Resilience
- Jan 20
- 3 min read
Updated: Jan 23
Ken and his
wife, Lisa, farm their 420-acre Doonandale Farm near Selkirk, Ontario, Canada. Ken and Lisa wanted to take their farm to the next level, so Ken initially took HMI’s Foundation in Holistic Management Online Course with HMI Certified Educator Tony McQuail and found the course very helpful. “Everyone was saying you need farm goals and we never had any, so I decided to that the course. It was very helpful in helping us develop those goals.” In addition, the Bassindales also learned how to improve their on-farming decision-making through using a set of decision testing tools that HMI offers as part of that course. Following that course, Lisa then took the Holistic Financial Planning Course.
Then in 2023 Ken enrolled in HMI’s Online Holistic Cropping Planning Course because he was sick of having to clean out the ditches every spring with all the erosion that occurred during the winter. “I wanted to do a better job of managing my fields,” says Ken. “We were just soybeans, wheat, and red clover at that time. In 2020, I started with more cover crops in the mix, but I was still just planning from year to year. This course allowed me to plan my cover crops and cash crop rotations five years out.
“We are strictly no-till and we use sprays. Because of the erosion I had to keep working the ditches, which meant I had to take three days when I should have been planting. I thought, ‘I need to stop doing that.’ That’s when I started to use covers.
“The HMI Cropping Planning course was helpful for my planning. It gave me a whole plan to look and know how to use it. My plan didn’t work out the way I thought, so I had to replan because we had a dry spring and my beans sat for a month in the soil before they came up. We tested whether to replant them or not. We figured there was no point in replanting if it wasn’t raining so we left them. When they came up, the cover crop had to be planted late so it came up late as well. We have a heavy clay soil so I can’t work it if it’s wet. But having my plan kept me trying to implement my plan even if I had to make changes. I ended up broadcasting rye into the soybeans instead of drilling because of how wet the soil was by the time I needed to plant the covers in the fall. The cover crop ended up coming up late so I didn’t have the ground cover I wanted in the winter, but it did come up.
“If I hadn’t taken the cropping course and developed a plan, I wouldn’t have tried broadcasting the rye. I would have just abandoned the seeding. Having that plan has helped me do more forward planning projections. It allows me to plan better on my seeds and purchase of seeds. I purchased seed in December which saves on discounts.
“The templates were really helpful in developing my plan. The course got me to investigate which covers would work best for me at different times of the year. It was great to have someone to ask questions. The instructor (HMI Certified Educator Preston Sullivan) was very knowledgeable and came up with good ideas. I wanted to compost cattle manure, but I didn’t have enough nitrogen for the proper ratio. I was also going to use urea, but Preston suggested chicken manure instead.
“The conversations with other participants were phenomenal. There were people from all over the world and we got to talking back and forth offline. I would definitely recommend this course. I don’t know why they don’t teach this course in college.”
Ken has been farming for over 40 years using a mix of ecological and conventional practices and is a board member for the Ontario National Farmers Union. The Bassindales’ farm a combination of their home place and leased land from family and neighbors. They raise corn, soybeans, wheat and hay as well as cover crops. They also have a 25-head cow/calf operation of Polled Herefords and Ken also runs an apiary under the name KBee’s, as well as pasture chickens in the summer months.