Taking Care of Crops by Taking Care of the Land: The Leggett Farming Partnership, Conservation in Action Tour Farm Stop Host

There’s always something going on at Leggett Farming Partnership.

“We farm about 13 months out of the year,” Sue Leggett jokes. “We are very busy people, but we’re always looking for ways to innovate and be better and be progressive.”

Sue and her husband, Brent, own and operate Leggett Farming Partnership. They grow sweet potatoes, tobacco, cotton, peanuts, soybeans, corn, watermelons, and strawberries across 4,000 acres. They also welcome school tours and operate Strawberry City, which offers u-pick strawberries and ice cream.

Innovative Solutions

Within their four-year crop rotation, the Leggetts use no-till or reduced tillage like strip-till on peanuts and row crops. On the peanuts, a crop that has historically been managed with extensive plowing and bed management, they’re currently testing different tillage systems.

Those trials have been spearheaded by Brent and Sue’s oldest son, Colin, who had seen different tillage systems in peanuts and wanted to try the conservation practices on his family’s farm. Sue says they’re in their second year of fall bedding–creating a raised row in the autumn, protecting it with a cover crop, and planting on it in the spring.

“Instead of doing all the tillage in the springtime, we went ahead and did the land work in the fall,” Sue says. “We bedded it up and then spread the cover crop on top of that. The cover crop would grow all winter long, and then in the springtime, all you have to do is just plant straight into that bed. We’ll spray the cover crop to terminate that, but then, once that cover crop dies down, we will come in and plant.

“The intent is that you won’t have to plow them, that it’ll be basically no-till peanuts,” she explains. “You may have to spray them some just like any other ones, but there’ll be no-till the whole season.”

Cash crops that require tillage are accompanied by cover crops every winter.

“While tobacco and sweet potatoes are primarily full tillage crops, we look to those other companion and rotational crops to fill a little bit of that void and to be able to do more conservation in those off years,” Sue says.

The Leggetts have used winter wheat and a multi-species cover crop mix.

Sue says she’s seen benefits from reduced tillage, including increased moisture-holding capacity and weed suppression.

“Anytime we can build some soil structure and prevent erosion, that is a win,” Sue says.

Through partnerships with North Carolina State University, USDA’s Natural Resources Conservation Service, and private industry, the Leggetts run test plots, such as variety trials or fertilizer trials.

Benefits of Diversification

The Leggetts are partners in Nash Produce Company, where sweet potatoes are washed, graded, and packaged; then, they’re shipped and marketed across the U.S. and globally.

The Leggetts also pack and ship their own watermelons along the East Coast. With their diversified production system, Sue says she sees several benefits.

“Diversification allows us to not be solely reliant on certain things,” Sue says. “If the weather is very bad, for example, if the cotton doesn’t do very well, then you still have the soybeans or the corn. It allows us to spread our risk, and it allows us to try different practices.”

With their four year crop rotation, Sue says they’ve seen reduced disease and weed pressure. They also give the soil a rest between crops like sweet potatoes and tobacco that require full tillage. In addition, their conservation practices include grassy field borders.

Sue says farmers who are considering diversification in their operations can start by seeing what works well on their farms.

“Is there something that they can plant and use their existing equipment that fits well with their current level of labor?” she says. “What can they do that shares a lot of what they’re doing already? Sharing equipment and labor, the labor source that they’ve already got, their labor availability, equipment operators. They’re not having to recreate the wheel, per se.”

Committed to Conservation

Conservation has always been at the heart of the Leggett Farming Partnership. The operation began in 2005 with 900 acres. Brent had worked as the farm manager for a local producer. When Brent’s supervisor retired, he connected Brent and Sue with his landowners so the Leggetts were able to start their own operation as first-generation farmers.

Both Brent and Sue earned their degrees in agriculture. Sue was a 4-H member, raising livestock, riding horses, and tending a garden. She worked with USDA’s Natural Resources Conservation Service in high school, attending on-farm activities. She also entered an essay contest focused on conservation agriculture practices.

“What attracted us to being farmers, we just have that love for the land and to see things grow and prosper,” Sue says. “So conservation is something that is near and dear to us.”

Farming Challenges

Like all farmers, the Leggets face challenges with the weather.

“The weather plays a definite role in our ability to carry out the different conservation practices,” Sue says, “like our ability to get the cover crops planted when we want to, and then to get back in the field to do the different conservation tillage. The weather just plays a huge role.

“And the weather is changing,” she continues. “Less frequent, more intense rain events, stronger storms, and colder, hotter, just more extreme weather. It’s definitely something that we’re dealing with on a daily basis anymore.”

And so, Sue sees conservation and constant improvement as a necessity.

“You have to take care of the land if it’s going to take care of your crops,” she says. “If we just let it all wash away, we’re not going to have anything to tend.”

Core Values Leading the Way

The Leggetts’ core values of quality, safety, family, leadership, and fairness weave into conservation agriculture.

“Quality means you’re taking care of the land—you’re not just taking care of the crop that’s being grown, but you’re taking care of the land so that you can be there year after year,” Sue says. “We’re building soil health so that when my kids start farming this land, it’s more fertile and more productive. We can’t sustain ourselves as a farm if we don’t produce a quality crop and we don’t do a good job.”

She adds the family value is seen in their sons’ involvement and keeping an open mind.

“It’s very important to us that we give them a hand in things, that it’s not just our way,” Sue says. “We’re very open to ideas from them and suggestions from them. They can help steer this thing in a future direction.”