Muskegon County farm manager outlines cover-crop plan, soil testing and John Deere See & Spray pilot

Mike Clover, farm manager for the Muskegon County Resource Recovery Center, told the Board of Public Works on March 6 that the county farm has completed agency verification for some operations, is expanding soil-sampling and cover-crop work, and has joined a data-sharing pilot with John Deere.

Clover said the farm received verification under the county’s resolution goal from the Michigan Department of Agriculture and Rural Development (MDARD) for some cropping operations and the farmstead; forestry, wetland and habitat verification are still in progress. “That was kind of the number 1 goal of our resolution last year,” Clover said.

Clover described several soil- and crop-management changes aimed at conserving soil and reducing chemical inputs. He said staff implemented a new soil-sampling rotation in which each field will be grid-sampled on a roughly four-year cycle using about a 5-acre grid; those samples will be used to create variable-rate fertilizer prescriptions so…