Sunday, January 10, 2021
Posting here on Sunday afternoon, January 10, 2010, it is hard to top the superlative accolades that others here have entered. Professionally, I can only echo what the obituary and Bill Curran have stated regarding his pioneering work with no-till farming. I, too, worked with Nate over that same period, especally when it came to our product, crownvetch.
What I would like to add is the dignity and grace with which Nate handled the monkey wrench that was inserted into the gears of his signature life’s work. At what should have been an enjoyable culmination of his efforts, he had to face the radical environmental extremists who had arbitrarily labeled crownvetch and birdsfoot trefoil “Invasive Speicies”, the radicals’s term for a noxious weed. Nate never let his bewilderment or even anger show publically. The worst I heard him say was that maybe someone had, and I quote, “another agenda.” The fact that Nate had demonstrated many times that soil and water erosion from row crop farming could be stopped in its tracks held no sway with these people, but Nate decided to calmly let his work speak for itself and not jump into the fray. In another era he might have been elevated to the level of Norman Borlog.
I ran into Nate a few years ago. Same Class act as always. Rest In Peace, My Friend. Fred V. Grau, Jr.
