Another Conservation Success Story...
Candler County, Georgia
Veteran Conservationist
R. E. Hendrix Conducts
Conservation Tillage
Experiment on Vidalia
Onions
When District Conservationist Glyn
Thrift was looking for an innovative farmer to
try a conservation method known as conserva-
tion tillage on Vidalia onions, he wasn’t having
much luck. “I struck out two times before I
talked to R.E. (Hendrix of Hendrix Produce),”
said Thrift .
Then, he asked long-time farmer R. E.
Hendrix of Hendrix Produce in Candler
County. “He said I reckon I just wanna volun-
teer,” he laughed. Thrift is the District
Conservationist for the USDA-Natural
Resources Conservation Service.
The federal agency works with
landowners to take care of their natural
resources and provides cost-share assistance
for conservation practices that help the
environment. Hendrix, a long-time conser-
vationist, said he has worked with NRCS
“since forever.”
One of those practices is conserva-
tion tillage. Conservation tillage is a con-
servation practice that leaves residue on
the soil to prevent erosion from wind and
water. Strip till and no-till are variations of
the practice.
Georgia farmers are having a lot of
success with conservation tillage. It is
being used on cotton—Georgia’s fastest
growing crop––corn, and soybeans.
Hendrix said he was
skeptical at first about trying
no-till on Vidalia onions. “I
didn’t think it would work,”
said Hendrix speaking of con-
servation tillage. “I mean, I
had my doubts about it. I just
couldn’t see how it was going
to work.”
Hendrix tried it anyway
for the erosion con-
trol benefits. “It
stops erosion. It’s
doing that right
now. That’s the rea-
son we tried it. We
put it on highly erodible land
because we get a lot of wind dam-
age.” Hendrix said.
“We fixed our land and set
our onions out and we overseeded it
with rye. You couldn’t even see the
onions. I had to spray it three times instead of
one time,” Hendrix said.
The mature crop won’t come out of the
ground until May. “Right now, it looks
healthy,” he s