Twin Oaks Farm

Mike Peterson began implementing conservation practices on Twin Oaks Farm alongside his father starting in the 1970s. When he and his wife, Kay, took over the farm in the 1990s, they continued adopting practices to help reduce runoff and capture carbon in the ground.

Reduced tillage and installation of grassed waterways were the earliest practices implemented on the farm. More recently, Mike and Kay have:

• Adopted no-till and strip till practices with their soybeans. Eight hundred acres are now farmed using strip and no till.
• Integrated cover crops including 50 acres of annual ryegrass, bayou kale, and purple top turnips, along with five acres of winter cereal rye to produce seeds for future cover cropping.
• Implemented best practices for nutrient management including side-dressing nitrogen.

Conservation is important to Mike and Kay because they want to leave the topsoil for future generations of the family.