Interview: Epic Epigenetics

An interview with Rick Clark about his efforts to develop varieties of soybeans, corn, small grains and livestock that are adapted to his own farm

Acres U.S.A. Why did you start retaining and breeding your own seed? 

Rick Clark. About six or seven years ago, a major seed company called me, and they wanted to put a corn test plot in one of our fields. Because of the way we farm — no one in our area farms like we do — they were curious to see how their seed would do. And I said, “I’ll tell you what, I want you to do me a favor — I want you to check and see if you have three hybrids that I grew up with back in the 80s, and if you still have those hybrids laying around in a bag somewhere, I’d love for you to bring those hybrids and put them in the test plot, because I want to see what old genetics will do in our system.” And they said, “Yeah, we can do that.” 

I kind of forgot about it, and spring rolled around, and they called and said, “Hey, can we do the test plots tomorrow?” I was getting excited because I was hoping they were bringing three bags of hybrids that I hadn’t seen in 25 or 30 years. But they showed up and they didn’t have them. And I was pretty disappointed. But they said, “No, don’t be disappointed! We’ve got the eight best hybrids that we have in our pipeline right now.” And I was like, “No, that’s not what I wanted. But go ahead. You’re here. Let’s put them in.” 

Those eight hybrids were the worst-yielding hybrids on the farm. 

Now that got me thinking — what’s going on here? Why would the latest and greatest technology be doing the worst in our system? Our system is no-till, organic, 100 percent cover crop, no inputs for nine or 10 years now. Well, I think it’s because these genetics are losing their associations with the mycorrhizal fungi. 

So, that prompted me to start researching soybeans, because soybeans are the easiest thing to breed. For hybrid corn, you have to get a male and a female, and you have to detassel, and you have to do all these things. I wanted to start with soybeans because they’re self-pollinating. The USDA has a couple buildings scattered around the United States that house all of the seeds known to man or woman. For a small fee — about $100 — they will send you 50 seeds. I went into their catalog and looked at their inventory of soybean genetics that are off-patent. That means they’re available for anyone to purchase and reuse because the patent ran out — so this 100 percent legal. 

I started looking at the Asgrow lineup of seeds because that’s a lineup I grew up with. And there was a number in there that I could not believe Asgrow had let go — the Asgrow 3127 soybean. It’s a seed from the 80s, so obviously it’s not a GMO seed. This variety of soybean was number one on our farm 30 years ago. So, I got that number, along with nine other numbers. But you only get 50 seeds, so you’ve got to plant them by hand and observe them and harvest them by hand. And then you collect that amount, and you plant them in season two again by hand, and then you’re starting to see which varieties are not cutting the mustard which are rising to the top. After year two, we cut it to five varieties, and 3127 was still one of the five. 

The third year we still did not have enough seed to plant large acres, so we again planted small plots and kept them isolated. After year three, we finally had enough seed to plant 60 acres of production with those five varieties through our air seeder. I’m monitoring them through the growing season, and I like what I’m seeing. They’re really handling our system well. And remember — in our system we have no chemistry, no fertilizer, all cover crops, no-till organic. We have a few weeds in our system, but these beans are doing wonderful. It’s starting to prove what I thought was going on when we did that seed corn plot. That seed corn plot had started to make me realize that we were losing our association with the microbiome.

Now it’s harvest time, and I’m thinking to myself, “I don’t have five separate bins here to put these five varieties in.” But my goal was to find a soybean that was going to adapt to our system. This is called epigenetics. This is where I want the farm to be heading — it’s all about epigenetics. And I thought, “If we’re going to truly do epigenetics, then we’re going to harvest all five of these together and we’re going to create a landrace. We’re going to let the soybean decide who’s going to survive and who’s not.” 

And that’s what we did. So, we now have a soybean variety that is a mixture of five varieties that we are letting adapt and change in our system. We’re now doing the same thing with our cereal rye, and we’re doing the same thing with our livestock. It’s all about epigenetics. You’ve got to keep the genetics within your own context so that it can constantly be adapting to your environment. 

I can remember back in the late 70s, early 80s, and my dad was getting a wagon out. It was a beautiful, sunny day, and it was time to cut beans. And I remember thinking, “Why is Dad getting a wagon out?” I was just a little guy, so I asked him, and he says, “Son, we are going to harvest our beans for next year’s crop.” And I’m like, “Dad, why would you do that — you can go to the store and buy a new bag of beans from the dealer.” Well, I want these beans to be adapting to our system, like my dad was doing back in the 70s.