LAWTON, N.D. – In the northeastern region of the state, Justin and Molly Zahradka run a crop and commercial cow/calf operation on the Zahradka farm homesteaded in the late 1800s by Justin’s great-great-grandfather – located west of Grafton in Walsh County.
The couple has two kids, Emily, 3 years old, and Tate, 4 months old.
This year, the Zahradkas are planning to plant wheat, soybeans, and pinto beans, and they have cover crops coming up in the fields that were seeded last fall. Justin planted a diverse mix of winter rye, radishes, and turnips into pinto bean and wheat stubble. The stubble keeps the soil covered over the winter to feed the soil biology.
“It’s just starting to green up now, but it is only April,” he said.
Both Molly and Justin grew up on their family’s farms and became passionate about agricultural careers. Justin graduated from North Dakota State University (NDSU) with a degree in crop and weed science, as well as a minor in soil science.
Molly graduated from NDSU with a bachelor’s degree in agribusiness, a master’s degree in ag education, and another master’s in educational leadership from Minnesota State University Moorhead.
After college, Molly taught ag education at the North Valley Career Technology Center in Grafton for seven years. This year, Molly switched to a new position as the career pathways coordinator for high school students, which is still in the same building.
“Molly helps high schoolers with internships and job shadowing and really enjoys it,” he said.
Justin started farming in high school and college, beginning with raising a bred heifer through a FFA Supervised Agricultural Experience (SAE) grant in 2009 as a member of the Park River High School FFA.
Justin became interested in raising crops as a career after doing a cover crop project that was a fascinating look into diverse crop mixes and what they can do for the soil and cattle.
“Initially, I got an FFA grant to start that whole thing, and then I started with a little cattle enterprise. I got an expansion grant and that helped get the crop side of things going. And then, I got involved with growing cover crops,” he said.
Justin was one of four farmers/cooperators for the North Central Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education Cover Crop (SARE) project in Walsh County, which paid for the cover crop seed.
It took a lot of time and knowledge working with seeding the cover crops, grazing the mixed species crops, learning about soil health, figuring out the costs/benefits of cover crops and grazing and collecting data.
But it pushed Justin to want to continue farming crops and following soil health principles on the land and with rotationally grazing cattle.
The project was so well done that Justin was one of the four finalists for the National FFA American Star in Agriscience award and was selected as the overall winner, a very prestigious national award.
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“There were a lot of NDSU Extension, NRCS, and Soil Conservation District people there at the cover crop field day, and the project introduced me to the world of soil health,” he said.
Justin explained some of what he discovered about grazing cattle on cover crops.
“Cattle will gain weight on cover crops. It doesn’t necessarily depend on what the forage was, it was more about the timing of grazing. If you grazed the plants when they were less mature, you’d get a better gain and the cattle would graze the most nutritious forages,” he said.
“The project really got my attention (for farming), so that’s kind of the direction I went with. After getting introduced to that, I started a custom grazing business and continued growing cover crops,” he added.
The Zahradka farm began in 1898, when Justin’s great-great-grandfather, JoeZahradka, homesteaded the land and built it into a successful farm. Joe passed the farm down to Justin’s great-grandfather, Charles Zahradka. Charles farmed for a while, but developed health problemslater,and his son, Joe, was in the U.S. Army at the time, so there was no one at that time to farm. Charles rented out the land until his son could return.
Justin’s grandfather, Joe, returned from serving his country, and started his own carpentry business. He also ran a small cow/calf operation on the homesteaded land and cut hay for the cows.
Justin’s parents, Jeff and Lori, continued the cow/calf operation until 2012.
“I grew up on the family farm with the cows, and for a while there I didn’t want any cows just because I saw they require quite a bit of work,” he said.
A decade later, Justin found that with regenerative ag, rotational grazing, and cover crops, the cows can basically take care of themselves as long as the soils and grasses are healthy.
Today, Justin is staying busy preparing for spring planting.
The family farms in the Prairie Pothole Region, so that often means rain fills the low spots in the fields and stays full of water until warm temperatures arrive. It is not fun or economical to drive the tractor and planter around water holes, so Justin waits until it is dry.
“Last year, I started planting on May 19, but some years, I have been able to start planting as early as April 11,” he said.
Temperatures were in the 50s on April 23, so Justin was able to get some work done on the new farm machines he purchased.
He and Molly live in Grafton, where Molly works, and he drives 45 minutes to the farm near Lawton.
Justin and Molly are involved in their ag community. Justin is a mentor for the North Dakota Grazing Lands Coalition in regenerative agriculture, as well as Menoken Farm’s soil health projects. He served six years on the board of supervisors for the Walsh County Three Rivers Soil Conservation District. Justin is also a speaker at field days and other soil health events and spoke in March at a field day on soil health.
Farm & Ranch Guide would like to thank the Zahradkas for allowing our readers to follow along with their operation this summer. We wish them the best of luck this growing season!