Submitted
The Ellis County Conservation District has selected Gary and Millie Haas as the recipients of the 2021 Conservation Maintenance Award. This award recognizes producers who have utilized exceptional conservation efforts in their operation.
Gary and Millie Haas are the second generation to live on and farm the Haas homeplace purchased by Gary’s parents in 1949. They have three sons – Danny, Daren and Dylan along with two granddaughters and one grandson.
Early in Gary and Millie’s marriage, along with farming, they ran a small dairy on the farm with the help of Gary’s mother, Hazel. They added a beef cattle herd in 1984 after they got out of the dairy business and continued that portion of the operation until 2017. Their farm is now a wheat, grain sorghum, fallow rotation managed with family help for harvest and planting and much help from Gary’s brother Jim, who also farms.
Gary and Millie were awarded the Conservation Award by the Ellis County Conservation District in 2007.
Since Gary and Millie’s Conservation Award in 2007, they have continued to maintain and build the soil and land they farm with conservation practices. They have practiced no-till since 2004 on their owned and rented farmland to keep the crop residue in place on the soil. They have tried adding cover crops to the no-till practice and are still testing this to see what fits.
Gary has found maintaining terrace height has been much easier since the no-till practice was established. In the past couple of years, they have had to perform some minimum tillage due to chemical resistant weeds, but still remain predominantly no-till. In 2020 they added 9,689 feet of new terraces on some land they recently purchased.
On pastureland, they added waterlines and tanks for more even grazing and to keep cattle out of the creek to prevent erosion and improve water quality. In a pasture they used to feed cattle, they removed fences and left a buffer area by the creak for wildlife and use the upland area for hay.
Gary and Millie’s future conservation plans include adding a new waterway in the summer of 2022 on their recently purchased farmland. They will then add terraces to this ground when the grass is established in the waterway.
They also plan to continue the practices described above along with soil sampling to understand fertility needs as their goal is to pass the land on in best condition possible.
The Ellis County Conservation District is honored to award the 2021 Conservation Maintenance Award to Gary and Millie Haas.