Healthy Soil Cuts Inputs, Boosts Profits According to Corn and Soybean Farmer
- News Reprint
- 4 days ago
- 3 min read
November 19, 2025
HERSHEY, Pa. — Many crop farmers depend on plentiful inputs in their pursuit of top yields, but building healthy soil that needs less fertilizer and chemicals can be more profitable.
That’s the message corn and soybean grower Bob Waring of Tappahannock, Virginia, delivered at the Chesapeake Agricultural Networking Forum on Nov. 12.
It’s not an easy sell.
When someone suggests cutting back on inputs, “farmers’ minds automatically go to losing yields,” Waring said. “We can’t have conversations unless it’s centered around yield.”
Yet his farming methods can generate just as many or more bushels per acre compared to those of his conventional peers.
The third-generation farmer at Brandon Farms grows about 450 acres of corn and soybeans on land that his grandfather and father began no-tilling and cover cropping 40 years ago. Except for occasional deep ripping to break up compaction, the ground hasn’t been tilled since then.
Waring plants green into a variety of live cover crops, with hairy vetch being a favorite. He also experiments with some less common types such as balansa clover.
“We’re all about farm viability and soil health,” he said.
Waring said the approach has let him reduce chemical usage by about 75%, and he hasn’t used fungicides, insecticides or pre-emergence herbicides for about five years. He has also been able to cut back considerably on post-emergence herbicides.
When soybean aphids to the tune of “thousands per plant” infested his crop last year, Waring said he faced a tough call.
Lots of ladybugs — predators of aphids — were living on the undersides of the same soybean leaves that were also teeming with aphids. Waring had to choose whether to spray the aphids or depend on the ladybugs to kill them.
“It was the hardest decision I’ve ever had to make,” he said.
He opted for the ladybugs and was glad he did.
“They ate them up,” he said of the small, red and black beetles feasting on the aphids and saving the crop.
Also in 2024, many Virginia farmers received crop insurance payments because of drought losses, but Waring said he didn’t need support because of the health and water-holding capacity of his soil.
Waring is so dedicated to soil health that he’s even willing to take some land out of production to measure the effects of a cover crop experiment backed by the American Farmland Trust.
He planted 20 acres in a year-round cover crop system, starting with sorghum-sudangrass, followed by a mix of several species, then hairy vetch and balansa clover to provide nitrogen for the next corn crop.
Biomass and soil samples are being analyzed for key nutrients and organic matter to measure how much the cover crops boosted fertility and biological activity in a year’s time.
As vice chairman of the Chesapeake Bay Program’s Agricultural Advisory Board, Waring has the opportunity not just to influence policy but also to spread his message.
He knows farmers have to learn from someone they trust, and that’s typically other farmers.
“We need conversation,” he said. “It has to be farmers talking to farmers. I don’t see any other way.”
That message was also a common theme among a panel of farmer-led conservation groups on the following day.
The three-day conference at the Hershey Lodge was hosted by the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation and drew nearly 200 conservationists, including a number of farmers, from across the Chesapeake Bay watershed.
Read more on the www.LancasterFarming.com webpage.
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