Joe StreitHamilton, OH
Hamilton, Ohio
Butler County Conservation District
Double J Farm
Along with my wife Janet and our grandson Josh Crout, I own and operate Double J Farm. The Farm is located in Hamilton, Ohio. We are in the Butler County conservation district.
Soil Health Practices
Our farm is a pasture based dairy. We have approximately 50 acres in pasture and 50 acres in hay crops. We don’t use any chemical fertilizers; the manure from our livestock is our main source of fertilizer. It is our goal to continually raise the brix in pasture and hay crops. When we started the farm 11 years ago, our pasture brix were 4.5. The brix is currently 11. We would like to achieve at least 15. We usually use cereal rye for our fall cover crops.
We have had good results when adding bacteria to the soil with compost tea and a raw skim milk and water solution. We have been trying to get dung beetles started in our pastures, but so far we have not been successful.
Challenges
Our farm gets run-off from the surrounding properties and an area of our farm floods every spring. We also have compaction in our pastures from livestock traffic. We plan to purchase a ripper designed for pasture.