Advancing Soil Health and Profitability in a Corn and Soybean Rotation - Evansville, IN

Who Should Attend?

Anyone wanting to take their farm or ranch to the next level. This course will examine practical and applicable aspects of regenerative farming/ranching, real life economics & marketing, multi-species enterprises, On-Farm USDA Processing, and improving net profitability. Hands-on experience will be heavily emphasized.

What You Will Learn

Benefits of using high biomass covers to mulch your cash crops
Saving money planting Green
Soil Improvement from using covers
Equipment considerations
Inputs – timing and changes

July 16-18, 2024

Tuition of $1,375 includes:
• Regen Ag 101 course ($499.00 value), which we would like you to complete prior to the first day of class;
• In-person attendance at the SHA school, as well as course materials, snacks, water and lunch each day; and
• Access to future scheduled conference calls with the instructors.

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About the Farm

Pat Bittner lives and farms on his family’s row-crop operation in southern Indiana’s Vanderburgh County. As stewards of the farm, which has been in the family for more than 150 years, Pat’s grandfather and dad were and are strong believers in conservation.

His grandfather (Anton Bittner) installed some of the first gradient contour outlet terraces in the state of Indiana and planted annual rye to be plowed under for green manure. His father (John Bittner) put in the first parallel tile outlet terraces in the state (while building the terraces, the rumor in the area was that he was building a golf course) and was an early adopter of no-till planting, buying the first model of the AC no-till planters to be released.

Pat is a fifth-generation farmer who is continuing in is grandfather and father’s stewardship of the soil. “Growing up we had dairy cows until the summer of my eighth-grade year, and after selling the cows, we continued doing row crop farming primarily with corn and soybeans and occasionally wheat,” Pat says.

In 2016, Pat’s father asked him if he wanted to do more than just help seasonally when not busy with his day job in IT consulting, and Pat was more than willing to step up to the next level of managing and running the farm. In that same year, Pat attended the National No-till conference in Indianapolis, IN with a life-long friend who invited him to go. Pat’s attitude going up to the conference was that no-till was good a practice to implement on his farm’s hills, based on his experience with his father.

After the third day of the conference, Pat called his father and told him they should “Sell all the tillage equipment,” and that “all we need is the planter and the tractors.” His dad’s response was, “Good thing one of us stayed home and grounded.” That spring they planted the whole farm with the no-till planter, and following harvest, they planted cereal rye as a cover crop for the entire farm.

Pat attended the National No-Till conference for the next three years, seeing a huge transformation in the conferences’ content and message. “The first year, if you were doing no-till you were golden, by the third year, if you were doing just no-tilling but not using cover crops, you were no better than the neighbor who was still plowing,” Pat says.

From 2017 to present, Pat has immersed himself in the regenerative agriculture movement, using 8-12-way, high-biomass cover crop cocktail mixes, planting green and crimping. He has spent considerable time and money continuing his regenerative agriculture education, attending soil health events in multiple states, along with in-person and online classes including…

Certificate in Nutrition Farming Course (2017),
Understanding Ag Soil Health Class (2018),
Understanding Ag Soil Health Academy Marketing (2020),
Elain Ingham’s Soil Food Web Course Graduate (2020),
Ranching for Profit School (2021)
Matt Powers Regenerative Soil Science Course (2021), and
Matt Powers Regenerative Microscopy Course in 2023.

Pat says he is grateful to the many mentors that have helped him along the regenerative path, Adam Daugherty, Dave Brandt, Gabe Brown, Dr. Allen Williams, Ray Archuleta, Shane New, John Kemp, and others too numerous to mention.

Pat has a bachelor’s degree in finance from the University of Southern Indiana and has worked several off-farm jobs during his career including information technology with a focus in networking and security, where he has worked most of his adult life. He believes that his time off the farm has allowed him to keep an open mind and be willing to try new innovative ideas when it comes to the farm. Pat says studying and continuing to learn about regenerative agriculture has been the most eye opening and rewarding area he has experienced. Further, he believes that the regenerative agriculture movement is most exciting thing to ever happen to agriculture, and that it can have positive compounding and cascading effects on the soil, animals, plants, environment, communities, and people.

“As a certifier for Regenified, I am excited to work with and share with farmers and ranchers what I have and continue to learn,” Pat says. “Learning to work with and mimic nature has made farming and ranching more profitable and resilient, and I know regenerative agriculture can make multigenerational farming and ranching a more realistic possibility while rebuilding communities, producing healthy nutrient dense food, and addressing our environmental challenges.”

Click Here to Register

Scholarship Money Available

We are committed to helping you finance this educational experience. If you want to attend one of our 3-day events, you are eligible for a scholarship. Our scholarships for this school were made possible by a donations from the following organizations as well as from private donors.

We encourage anyone with interest to apply. We will be giving special consideration to the following: