Farm family of the year

The Winner Area Chamber of Commerce Farm family of the year   recently retired but they have proven to be excellent farmers and innovative in farming practices, expense control, crop rotation and conservation practices. Bill and Joan Ferguson have been married for 60 years.

Bill grew up in Idaho and Joan grew up in Quinn South Dakota. In Bill’s early years his family would come back to his grandfather’s farm in the Winner area to help with wheat harvest.

Bill is a graduate of South School of Mines. After college they lived in Indiana and later in Boston, Mass.  During that time Bill worked with computer control systems.

They decided to move to South Dakota in 1975 to start farming.

During 1975 to 1980 they mostly raised wheat, summer fallow and a little milo if needed.

Bill started to make some changes, still raising wheat and milo  but started being more involved in  eco farming and no till practices  Bill started to see the advantages of no till farming practices with improved health of the soil and better land conservation practices.

Another area Bill has been involved with starting back in 1996 was the implementation of precision ag practices. This was the time of the introduction of yield monitors in combines.

Starting in the 70s’ raising primarily wheat and then started raising corn in 2000 and followed shortly by soybeans.  Current crop rotation is winter wheat, milo, corn, soybeans, sun flowers and spring Wheat.

With Bill and Joan’s farming practices their land was ideal pheasant habitat. In 1997 they began doing paid hunting. They opened a hunting lodge in 2000. The Fergusons have some of the best wild pheasant hunting in the state of South Dakota. One of the things that Bill said that helped his pheasant population is the use of a stripper head during wheat harvest.

Bill and Joan have been great supporters of the Winner Area. In 2011 The Chamber started the Sharpshooter Classic, Bill and Joan were and are still strong supporters of the event. Bill and Joan sponsored the first Young Gun team ( a team of 6 kids 12 to 18 involved in shooting sports) that participated in the competition.  Bill and Joan are good farmers are great people.