Leopold Family Farms

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Leopold Family Farms Family farm located in NW Ohio that produces organic corn, soybeans, wheat, and raises hogs.

When the timing of the rotary hoe and first cultivation passes are spot on this is the result. Beautiful sight!
07/16/2026

When the timing of the rotary hoe and first cultivation passes are spot on this is the result. Beautiful sight!

07/15/2026

The transitional soybeans are looking good and should be ready for harvest following a final pass with the zapper. We're excited to expand this minimum tillage system to organic acres next year.

07/07/2026

This organic corn field has not received any tillage since last fall. The field was disced last fall to level out the cultivator ridges from the previous soybean crop. This spring the field was zapped twice before planting and is now receiving a zapper pass before manure sidedress.

07/07/2026

Final w**d control pass for the year on this field. No tillage took place until 22 days after planting. The field was w**d zapped twice before planting on top of the soybean rows from last year Excited to try to fine tune the system for next year!

Day 22 Organic No-till UpdateWe got the row crop cultivator out today. The W**d pressure was extremely low from the two ...
06/20/2026

Day 22 Organic No-till Update

We got the row crop cultivator out today. The W**d pressure was extremely low from the two pre-plant zapper passes but we wanted to stay ahead of it. If we had a flamer we probably could have flamed once and been done for the year, or instead of row cultivating we could have used the zapper to clean up the rows but we still had the zapper in broadcast and was using it for pre-plant passes on other fields.

While we weren't able to reach no-till this year, I think we could in future years. However, we do have other fields that were treated in similar fashion and have not had any tillage done this year, just leveling passes from last fall. I will continue to share updates on these fields.

Ultimately, our goal is not to be full no-till but to create repeatable w**d control methods that reduce tillage in our organic operation.

Let's review the learning points of this experiement:

-The digital zapper was effective at w**d control prior to planting allowing the elimination of 4 pre-plant tillage passes
-W**d pressure was extremely low. We planted another field the same day and the field that was worked preplant had much greater w**d pressure.
-Corn stand establishment was excellent using the pre-plant zap approach. Eliminating tillage allowed for a consistent moisture line to plant into and we saw less crusting issues.

Overall, what we saw in this experiment gave us confidence to apply the pre-plant zap method to about half of our other fields planted the first week of June. More updates to follow as the year progresses.

06/09/2026

Electric sparks light up the night with the digital zapper. Running a preplant pass to kill all the w**ds using only electricity before planting. **dzapper

06/09/2026

Electric sparks light up the night with the Digital Zapper.

We have utilized the Digital Zapper across several fields at this stage and some significant effects have become evident...
06/08/2026

We have utilized the Digital Zapper across several fields at this stage and some significant effects have become evident. The device is definitely eliminating the top growth, potentially sterilizing shallow w**d seeds in the soil. Hard to say at this point but time will tell.

06/06/2026

Day 18 Organic No-till corn update. This field was planted May 18th, which on the same day recieved a hard 1.5" rain. The corn rows for this year's crop is directly on top of the soybean rows and row crop cultivator ridges from last year's crop. There was also an oats and peas cover crop in this field. So far spring operations has been zapping twice, planting, and rotary hoeing twice. So far so good. đź‘Ť

05/29/2026

Day 10 update of organic no-till corn test field. So far so good!

Address

Ottawa, OH
45875

Telephone

+14195386914

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