Castalia farm couple earns Iowa Conservation Farmer of the Year Award from Iowa Farm Bureau

Two Castalia family farmers are winners of the 2016 Iowa Conservation Farmer of the Year award.

Dale and Karen Green, owners of the Spring Valley Farms and Green's Sugarbush, have adopted more than 30 stewardship practices on their farm to promote conservation.  The majority of their 30 conservation practices are self-funded, with the other 14 using cost-share funding from collaborative federal and state conservation programs.

Practices put in place on the Green farm include grassed waterways, cover crops, no-till and tree-planting and wetlands, as well as contour farming, soil testing, manure management and precision fertilizer applications.  Much of the work is also part of collaborative, research-based efforts designed and installed through the Yellow River Headwaters Water Quality Project, and used as a demonstration project for livestock producers throughout Iowa. 

"We bring several thousand people to our farm every year when we host our annual Maple Syrup Festival at Green's Sugarbush; it's not only fun for them to go on trail rides through our forests, it's a learning opportunity for them to see our connection to the land and the 'big picture' in preserving it.  We are farmers, yes, but we are caretakers of the land, first, last and always," says Karen Green. 

As part of receiving the award, the Greens will receive free use of a John Deere 6D Series Utility tractor for up to 12 months or 200 hours.  The Greens get their 'keys to the tractor' during the Conservation Districts of Iowa annual meeting on Monday at Prairie Meadows in Altoona.