My cousins writing on studies on farming in that region. He used to come to the NE WI for visits and would ask to see our tree planting spacing methods since we were all in the forestry industry up there. His interest in that was for windbreaks to prevent wind erosion.
He also headed a study on irrigation methods which WAS NOT popular with the local Ranchers/farmers.
We thought that the result of his getting death threats as a result of these studies caused his suicide. He testified in front of the Ag committee, and all hell broke loose after.
Sounds like he was ahead of his time as quite a few farmers are discovering mixed plantings, cover crops, trees and no-till give them more soil fertility than commercial fertilizers can and they’re actually building top soil and reducing or eliminating rain/water runoff.
Gabe Brown in SD rolls and crimps a cover crop or rye to terminate it and uses a no drill seeder to plant corn into the terminated cover crop. Zero commercial fertilizer, pesticide or weed control and is corn grows better than the neighbor who uses Big AG techniques and his farm is very resilient to weather factors. No rain, no problem, 12 inches of rain in a few days, his land soaks it all up.
He also does mob grazing of cattle, builds soil using the technique and uses no dewormer/meds or fly control. It mimics the bison/buffalo who used to stay in a tight group for predator protection. The grass gets trampled, manure gets trampled with it and then soil life till it all in.
Plenty of small market gardeners are doing similar things but people like Gabe are going large scale with it. They say the improved soil actually sequesters carbon and puts it back into the ground.
They’re in a race with those who want to do away with real beef and swap us to lab made crap.