John Meyer - The Pinnacle Fulfillment of the 6 Principles of Soil Health

John currently has all 400+ cropland acres seeded down to perennial forages and is using it either for daily moved adaptively managed rotational pasturing or hay for his 270 head custom grazed beef herd, and a100 head C/c beef herd of his own, which he directs to market as 100% Regeneratively Pasture-Raised Grass-Fed and Finished Beef as quarters/halves and wholes.

In 2012, John was still full tillage row cropping. He started with 100% no-till in 2013, frost-seeded his first cover crop in the spring of 2014 on half of his cropland, and that fall planted covers on all 100% of it. In 2018 John Frost seeded my first fields for pasturing (into fall-seeded covers), without having any livestock. John custom grazed those first two years as he worked to build my own herd. By 2020, the first calves in his herd were born, while he continued expanding the custom grazing herd. By 2022, all of his cropland was seeded down, and he was feeding about 400 head that winter, custom and owned. John’s completely eliminated all synthetics (fertilizer, chemicals, etc.). His fuel and equipment costs have been dramatically cut. Water infiltration is way up, and sightings of “canary in the coal mine” indicator species have exploded. Naturally achieved fertility has increased soil critter activity immensely. LIFE is all around him now.

John passionately believes in the benefits of what he is doing, not only for his farm and soil, but for the health of the environment and society as a whole, and he wants to share the knowledge he’s gained through experience (sometimes difficult lessons) so that others can learn and grow from them as well.