The Great Mauck Relay Cropping Reset

The Graze Master Group wanted Jason Mauck as a partner because he’s willing to change, learn, and dream.? It’s going to be very exciting to cover what he is doing in the months and years ahead.? We’re proud of him.? Here’s an introduction to this “Fibonacci Farmer,” taking relay-cropping to the next level.?

He’s calling it, “The Great Mauck Reset,” at Mauck Farms in Gaston, Ind.? Mauck is changing things that he can with gusto and trying a different approach to farming through relay cropping wheat, soybeans, and corn with what he calls “God’s math” – the Golden Ratio. A “golden rule” of farming based on the fascinating science of the Fibonacci code that is expressed in his genuine love for growing more abundance in tune with the sun, soil, water, and all of life.?

The circumstances in Mauck’s life that led to him farming in new ways are rooted in challenging farm economics coupled with abrupt and unexpected pain and loss.? Early on in his career, life was unfolding well at Mauck Farms where Jason’s dad Bill and grandpa James were keeping things going while he was building a landscaping business of his own.?

“What really changed my life was when corn went to $1.80, and beans were also cheap.? My parents, Bev and Bill, said get a job and make some money.? That is when I began building my landscaping business where I learned how to relay crop,” he explained.

“It was completely a practical deal,” he went on. “I am inherently cheap, and I really like being resourceful.? So instead of marketing the landscaping business through different types of advertising, it was more effective to create living billboards around commercial properties and homes.? I took a lot of pride in my floral arrangements and started relay cropping summer flowers into bulbs and pansies.? I would have like five or ten dollars into the floral displays.? I would let them grow together and pluck out the spring stuff and kept the flowers that I could keep as bulbs.? It just became practical.”?

The relay cropping landscape math worked out in his favor.? For example, he said, “An old daylily in a landscape bed could be sliced into eight plants pretty easily, bigger than the ones for $15 each at the supply store.”

“The landscape business was going well and then my dad got pancreatic cancer.? We found out in the fall and by April he was gone.? He was 53.? That’s when I stepped into his shoes on the farm,” he said.? “Then my uncle Lewis died at 54, nearly the same age as my dad.? I lost the drive to farm more, and more, and more, and started looking at what we could actually do differently with what we already have.”

Today, Mauck’s mindset change is one of the most valuable resources being applied on the farm, “When dad died, that put an end to the industrial ag way of thinking in my mind.? I was more comfortable with a canopy of plants and the relay cropping approach to farming that I was implementing in my landscape business. Instead of the ‘scorched earth’ industrial methods, I wanted to pursue an approach more in-tune with nature.”

Every day, Mauck is tirelessly striving to take a deep look and assessment of how well he is using the economic resources from the industrialized farming methods his grandfather and father successfully implemented. Instead of dwelling on everything the industrialized system may have done wrong, he is utilizing some of the assets to find more harmony and balance with nature in a highly profitable way through relay cropping.

“My first conventional crop year was 2011 after dad’s death.? It just kept raining and raining,” he recalled. “I planted stuff in the mud, and it rained more.? I poured everything into the work ethic.? Pain teaches.? Adversity creates adaptations in nature.? Striving is living.? I also knew when you change, you’re not going to change anyone else’s mind until you prove things.? You have to make the commitment to learn and share what you are learning.? That’s when I also started to talk to new people and learn from them too.”?

Mauck now helps work around 3,000 acres of corn, soybeans, and wheat in addition to finishing 25,000 hogs in a calendar year. For nine years, he has also been relay cropping 300 acres of soybeans, wheat, and corn.? This relay cropping is inspired by the Fibonacci code he explained, “Our bodies, plants, anything under the sun follows a specific pattern.? That pattern, in numerical terms, is the Fibonacci Sequence, a sequence where each number is the sum of the two preceding ones. ?Fibonacci numbers have a ratio very close to the Golden Ratio that is approximately 1.618.”

If one takes a walk with Mauck long enough, he will point out the manifestation of the Fibonacci code in shapes all over the place, especially in the curves in his relay-cropped fields where you will find him, his sons – Case and Liam, wife Kortnee, friends, family, and the dogs immersed in the miracle of it all.? This ratio appears all over the place he noted – from art, to facial features, to architecture, and everywhere in nature.? ?

“The goal is to empower the genetic expression found in nature and mitigate the risk of both too much rainfall and too little,” he said about the “magic” that occurs when growing crops in tandem with each other.? “In other words, it’s asking ourselves, ‘How can we design a harmonious relationship between a cereal and a summer annual?’”

“We actually aren’t planting half of the field in wheat. We’re planting 1:1.618 (the Golden Ratio),” he explained.? “In order to grow nearly the same soybean yields as we would if planting alone, we must space the wheat at 1:1.618 and change the seeding rate.? This allows the direct sunlight down through the crop canopy so the beans can flourish while the wheat is growing in an amplified avenue as well.”

The relay cropping scenario allows Mauck to harvest the cereal that dies a natural death, “instead of terminating the cereal grain with glyphosate, lowering the revenue per acre, adding to costs, and not getting the full benefit of the cereal.? Also, the soybean yields may even be greater than beans growing alone (not in a relay cropping scenario) in the wetter springs which have been more prevalent than dry ones.? If it’s dry, the beans are slightly shaded, and the wheat will yield better with more abundant sunshine.? The ‘trash’ when harvesting the wheat acts as a mulch and preserves moisture.”?

The Golden Ratio is benefitting the pocketbook, and turning into real profits too, “The reason I can get up to $1,500/acre in revenue in some cases on less than $200 in true input costs (like seed, chemical, and manure) is because I am hacking into exponentials on the farm. Exponentials can be tough to explain to some people because they want specific instructions, and it takes a few years of learning your own circumstances and context on your farm to know what works best for you.”?

“I spent years trying to grow 300-bushel corn. I saw the yield potential of our crops, but I also saw the unintended consequences of pushing crops, both in spending money that wasn’t needed and the issue of things that don’t work out exactly as I wished. I would add nitrogen multiple times of year and fungicide and get aphids because the crop had too much nitrogen and I was killing the beneficial insects,” he explained, noting he could talk hours about the savings and benefits he is seeing.?

Mauck admits, there’s no doubt his can-do personality, is something he learned from his mom, dad, and grandpa. He also greatly appreciates his uncles, Mike and David Mauck, and his cousin Neil for their hard work, vital roles, and dedication to Mauck Farms as well.? Mauck, a people person, said there are simply too many friends and family that mean the world to him to list them all in the story.??? ?

His can-do spirit is being noticed beyond his backyard too.? Successful Farming named Mauck on its, “10 Up and Comers in Agriculture” list in 2017 for his leadership and collaborative efforts.? Since then, he has also spoken at numerous events about the money he is saving and the increase in bounty he is producing on the farm through these relay cropping methods.?

But it’s really not about him at all, Mauck really wanted to reiterate that, “I can teach my kids how to push a button in ten seconds on a tractor.? What I really want them to have is a deeper understanding of what’s really going on in the soil, what really matters about life on the farm, you know? What gets me up in the morning is trying to make positive changes.? We are losing our intergenerational knowledge.? We’re losing our liberties and freedoms.”

Kortnee, an English teacher, coined a hashtag, #farmweird, to explain her husband’s experiments with new methods, “She knows I just love this kind of stuff and maybe this is weird in the grand scheme of things, but for me it’s about being harmonious with nature.? It’s all about managing life with life with arrangements that can create dynamic venues that mitigate risks and empower each seed and sun ray.? Together we can learn ways to produce more with less.”

Mauck’s grandpa is in the nursing home now, but there are still plenty of discussions between the two men.? They don’t always agree, and he respects that. One way he made inroads with grandpa’s skepticism was buying a combine of his own.

“My combine.? My rules,” he said grinning about the many ways he has tried to prove himself to the man he deeply respects and that helped shape his independence.

“I want to strengthen resiliency in my soil and build resiliency in my relationships,” Mauck said adamantly.? “I am very confident farming in this way works and I love it. It comes down to striving to help people, building community, and trying to do what is right.”

“My Grandpa Mauck said, ‘Take care of the land, it’ll take care of you.’”?

Mauck is doing just that by changing things up a bit to honor his father and grandpa and to ensure the farm’s resources are fruitful for generations to come.?

There’s no way to capture everything Mauck is doing to change.? That is why we’re not done writing about his vision.? Stay tuned for more stories from Mauck Farms and how he is working with his friend Zack Smith, the visionary behind the Stock Cropper, in their quest to make farming autonomous and exponentially regenerative with multiple livestock species grazing across the field in a really cool, solar-powered piece of equipment.? The #farmweird fun never ends!

Make sure to follow Mauck at:

www.facebook.com/jason.mauck.5 and on X @jasonmauck1

Learn more about the Graze Master Group at:

www.grazemastergroup.com

www.facebook.com/GrazeMasterGroup

?

?