Chris Eckhart was raised on the principle that “when you take care of the dirt, the dirt takes care of you,” and the bright yellow, flowering canola blanketing his land has become a key component of his effort to follow that maxim.

“We don’t use insecticides on ours,” Eckhart said of Eckhart Farms, where wheat is the main crop and he is the third generation to work the land. “It’s been a really hardy crop for not getting too subjected to pests. … The apiculturists like that a lot.”

Eckhart Farms farms 1,500 acres in Deer Park. The farm planted canola as a rotation crop in the late 1990s and early 2000s but moved away when market prices for the crop went down.

Read more about canola and how conservation districts are a part of this growing production crop by following the link below.

Source: Taking care of the dirt: Canola on rise as rotational crop | Spokesman-Review