"I wouldn't enjoy farming a big square field of flat level ground," says Peter Kenagy. "I like the diversity of wildlife, trees and farming. I have a lot of different interests."

Peter manages 450 acres of diverse ecosystems in Oregon's Willamette Valley, ranging from lowland crop fields to forest buffers along the sloughs and river frontage that criss-cross his land. He grows sweet corn and green beans for a cooperative processing plant, as well as grass seed, vegetable seed, and small grains for other markets.

Peter and Phil Kenagy

Peter was an early adopter in the Willamette Valley, when he began using cover crops on a high percentage of his ground to improve soil fertility. A problem that he faced was that two-thirds of his tillable acres are in a flood plain, and are often flooded most of the winter. In the spring, cover crops held the excess moisture, creating a logistical nightmare when he tried to prepare the soil for planting. This led him naturally to become one of the first in the valley to adopt a strip tillage system, in order to reduce the impact on his soil.

"I felt like I was having to abuse the soil more, not less, to handle the cover crops. It cost me more fuel, tractor time, and labor expenses. So I tried to find a solution. With strip-till, I kill the crop chemically, spraying it 30 days prior to planting. Just before I plant, I come in with a modified rototiller, which has a coulter and a ripper on the front, and cultivate a 6-inch strip on 30-inch rows. This has saved tractor time, some labor, and most importantly, a lot of abuse on the ground."

Peter's innovative approach attracted the attention of researchers at Oregon State University (OSU), who recruited him for a soil quality study. They now promote the strip-till system throughout the valley. With the support and encouragement of OSU extension agent John Luna, six other farmers have looked at converting to strip-till, and formed the Willamette Farm Improvement Association (WFIA) as a way to solve problems together. Peter notes that most strip-tillers, who generally farm more ground than he does, won't use a rototiller because it's too slow. For these folks, the WFIA designed and built a new machine that uses a series of coulters and a ripper for each of six 30-inch rows. The new machine works a lot faster, but Peter still uses his original machine for most of his strip tillage, feeling it makes a nicer seed-bed.

Peter sees himself as more than just a farmer. "I manage a little ecosystem here. I really enjoy managing the whole landscape and trying to maintain the diversity. It takes a lot of personal observation, paying attention to the interactions between the different elements."

"We really have a very altered landscape, very little is pristine. One of my goals, which I may never achieve, is to find a practical way to eliminate non-native invasive species that have overtaken the forest understory, such as canary grass and Himalayan blackberry. At least I want to keep them in check, and encourage more of the original diversity that was here."

Peter is slowly increasing the amount of forestland under his care by filling the untillable corners of his fields with hybrid poplar and native hardwoods. He manages his forested acres both for timber and wildlife forage. He encourages wildlife by planting feed crops such as sunflower, sorghum and sudan grass, and by installing birdhouses. He is also "messing around" with growing native seeds on his wetland acres.

As trees blow down or get thinned out, he replaces them by planting native conifers and hardwoods, as well as non-native trees with greater economic and wildlife value. For example, he plants eastern black cherry and black walnut to produce food for wildlife, as well as high quality wood with lucrative markets.

Peter owns a small sawmill, and by working with a local miller who has a dry kiln, and another farmer who owns a planer, he has pieced together a vertically integrated, small-scale timber operation to process trees into high-quality furniture stock. Initially this has been a fairly minor source of revenue, but he hopes it may become substantial eventually. "I enjoy doing it in any case, and it keeps my hired man busy in the winter months."

Peter's attention to diversity includes improving the soil in his fields. "When you think about plowing and tillage, it is an extremely unnatural operation. In a prairie, savanna, or forest, dead organic matter falls on top of the soil, and gets incorporated in by worms and bugs, rather than being stirred up in the soil. Tillage destroys the air pockets and underground burrows where soil fauna live, and kills them mechanically. With strip-till I eliminate as much tillage as possible, and instead try to mimic the natural process. It is phenomenal how these methods have increased the biological activity in the soil. Worm production has taken off so much, on occasion the residue disappears too fast."

Despite his innovations and diverse activities, Peter is also driven by economic realities. "I am very cognizant of the need to be economically viable. A farm has to pay for itself over and over again every time it changes generations. Fixed costs and expenses force me to devote more of my time to money-making activities, although I would rather focus on other activities to improve the land."

Strip-till has not worked in every situation. Peter usually still tills conventionally before and after a crop of beans, and after a corn harvest, to overcome rough soil from cultivation. Most of his ground gets tilled 2 out of 3 years. "Depending on the year and the success or failure of crops, strip till has both hurt and improved my profit margin. In the long-run I will get an economic benefit, but at this early stage I occasionally have failed experiments that cost me. I have to spread those losses out over time." Peter is trying pure no-till on some ground to see what happens over the long term.

"Hopefully I do things in a way that makes sense, that are good for the soil. Hopefully I can give some ideas to other agriculturalists along the way."

"I farm because it's what I want to do, it's what I enjoy, and I am capable at it. Agriculture will always have some negative environmental impact no matter what we do. The less abusive we are, the better off everyone is. This farm is my life's work, so I'm always looking to the future and what this ecosystem, this land will look like down the road."

Peter Kenagy
Kenagy Family Farms
1640 NE North Nebergall Loop
Albany, OR 97321
Tel: (541) 926-8038

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