KARNAK, N.D. - Dennis Haugen uses a jackhammer to soften his soil, but it’s not the construction equipment. It’s a radish. Haugen is a farmer and president of General Grain Co. Inc., which has been in business for more than 25 years. Haugen has farmed commercially for more than 30 years, growing wheat, corn and soybeans on a farm near Hannaford, N.D. General Grain is in the village of Karnak, N.D., which is seven miles east of Hannaford. The core of the business is a mobile seed cleaning. The company operates three state-certified seed-cleaning machines. The Jackhammer Radish is a trademark name for General Grain, the cover crop business, shipping product across the U.S. and into Canada. They’re starting next year with seed production in Australia. Changes Like many of his era, Haugen has seen a huge change in agricultural crops and technology. He graduated from Hannaford High School in 1978 and earned an ag business degree at the North Dakota State College of Science in Wahpeton. After that, he went grain farming in cooperation with brother, Brian. Initially, the Haugen brothers grew wheat and barley, and then sunflowers. Today, his farm grows wheat, corn and soybeans, and he farms with sons Andy and Mike. The radish project is only the latest in a string of diversifications that have helped the Haugens thrive through some difficult times. Initially, Brian had a separate auto body shop for diversification. Dennis diversified the grain cleaning business with General Grain. General Grain started with one portable seed cleaning machine in 1988, when Dennis worked for the original owner. Initially, the company cleaned “common seed” for farmers. In the mid-1990s, the company added a second rig. In 2000, Haugen bought out the owner and added a third certified rig. Today, the business is 90 percent for certified seed. “Farmers have gone away from saving their own seed; they’re doing certified seed,” Haugen says. “They see the value in it.” Covering it The cover crop seed business emerged from the seed cleaning company about six years ago. Cover crops were gaining popularity and the Haugens started doing some radish seed production to support it. Cover crops have always been around, but the popularity seems to be snowballing, Haugen says. “Every time you turn around, it seems like there’s a new benefit for soil health,” Haugen says. “There’s erosion control, water control, soil absorption with water: just a lot of different parts of cover crops. You want different recipes for different things.” Cover crops include grasses ( barley, oats and rye) and brassica (turnips and radishes). The “cocktail” mix of cover crops depends on whether the goal is erosion, salinity, excess moisture or moisture retention. The company supplies barley, oats, rye and radishes, but acquire turnip seed out of Oregon because it is a biennial that doesn’t do well in North Dakota winters. They’ll also outsource sorghum, sudangrass, millet crops that can be put into blends.

He credits some of the increased interest in cover crops to the work of North Dakota State University’s soil scientists, including Abbey Wick, the North Dakota State University Extension Service assistant professor of soil science. “The healthiest soils have something growing on them all of the time,” Haugen says. All of the time In recent years, farmers have promoted the radishes as a soil builder because the roots reach into the ground, pulling out excess moisture. In this application, the radishes aren’t intended to be harvested, but their “carcasses” provide channels for moisture and for roots for subsequent commercial crops. Radish roots penetrate deeply and scavenge nutrients that can be used by subsequent commercial crops. “We found there were some bad strains of Daikon radish floating around that would bolt and bloom and produce seed, but wouldn’t produce a root,” Haugen recalls. The root is what’s important to the cover crop industry. Daikons refer to the strains of the radish, a root vegetable that resembles a white carrot. It’s the same kind of radish that originated in Asia for human and livestock feed. “By luck, the seed we were working with had the good root characteristics that the cover crop industry was after,” Haugen says. “In order to identity-preserve our product, we came up with the Jackhammer name and patented the trademark name.” Wind enemy For seed production, the company plants with air seeder at a rate of about 12 pounds of seed per acre. “We’ve learned that you want to plant early,” Haugen says. “We treat it as just a regular broadleaf crop,” he says. They are careful not to put on too much nitrogen, or the crop will go “rank” and lie down. They are at less than 50 pounds of nitrogen per acre, and often use 11-52-0 fertilizer. This year’s crop has seen some drown-outs, like everything else in the area, and they have to watch for flea beetles because the crop is related to canola. Most people driving by the fields think they’re canola, with white blossoms, Haugen says. The add a hard-to-thresh kit to their combines to knock seeds out of the pods. “We desiccate for ease of harvest and we harvest with a flex draper head like you’d harvest canola or soybeans. We like to get the crop off before the winds of October,” he says, with a curl of a smile. “That can be tough on ripe radish standing in the field.” The pods are very tight, but they break off the stem of the plant, causing losses. They’ve had yields as low as 500 pounds an acre, but up to 2,500 pounds an acre in North Dakota. The company produces about 1,200 acres of radishes for seed every year, involving their own production and up to a half-dozen other contract growers. After harvest, they go into processing - cleaning, germination tests, bagging and shipping. “It’s a niche business, and we were in that business before we got into the cover crop business. We didn’t have to lay out expenses to get into this venture. We had all of the equipment.” Other than radish, General Grain Cleaning doesn’t grow much other certified seed production. They do a little production of new wheat varieties, but mostly are certified to do custom processing for other growers around North Dakota and South Dakota. Haugen says he’s happy to be in the radish business. It’s one of the crops that is both good for the pocketbook, and good for the soil.

Haugen also has developed a damaged grain and salvage business.

They do a lot of work in reconditioning grain with high vomitoxin levels. This year there has been a lot of that in northwest North Dakota durum wheat. They do mixed grain separation, all over the U.S., from the Port of Houston to the Canadian border. They work with distressed and moldy grain to find alternative markets for livestock feed. There is always trouble for stored or transported grain somewhere in the U.S. Haugen has become a specialist in this part of the business. “It comes on my radar screen; I’ve got end-users that are always looking for livestock feed. It’s always tougher when corn has a ‘2’ in front of it,” referring to low-priced corn. Freight costs are a killer for some deals. “To find a new home for it, it has to have (truck) wheels underneath it and that gets expensive,” he says. They do a lot of work in reconditioning grain with high vomitoxin levels. This year there has been a lot of that in northwest North Dakota durum wheat. “We’re getting calls on trying to work with this ‘high-vom’ to clean it, get the ‘vom’ down so that it’s a marketable product,” for commercial markets. That process is “kind of a flip of the coin,” he says. “Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t,” he says.