00:00:00 Continuing to ask the question to the extreme ag guys, what's one thing you're changing in 2025 and why? That's what we're covering with Kelly Garrett in this 00:00:07 episode of Extreme Ag Cutting the Curve. Welcome to Extreme ags Cutting the Curve podcast, where real farmers share real insights 00:00:15 and real results to help you improve your farming operation. And now here's your host, Damien Mason. 00:00:23 Hey there. Welcome to another fantastic episode of extreme Ag cutting the curve. I've been asking the question to the extreme ag guys, 00:00:28 what's one or two things you're changing in 2025, and why are you doing it? Because we love to give new ideas to you, the listener 00:00:33 and follower of extreme ag. Uh, Kelly's doing something pretty radical. He is gonna put in a bunch of cover crops, 00:00:38 but he is gonna do it while the corn is actually growing pretty early in the season, probably June. 00:00:43 Why is he doing this? He's gonna tell you he's joined by TJ Curtis. TJ is the regional representative 00:00:47 for a company called Saddle Butte, ag Saddle Butte Ag is a cover crop seed company. Their seed is grown mostly in Oregon 00:00:54 and distributed all over tj, interesting enough, covers a whole bunch of states in the northern plains, northern upper Midwest, where you're probably saying, yeah, 00:01:02 you can't put cover crops here because you know what? They just won't get growing in time. Blah, blah, blah, blah. The story of all herd. Well, guess what? 00:01:08 He's gonna tell you why you're wrong. Alright, Kelly, you're putting cover crops in. You're gonna do it in corn. You're gonna mostly have corn. 00:01:14 You're not gonna plant almost any soybeans and you wanna do cover crop. Can't wait until the corn comes off. 00:01:19 'cause it's gonna be November. Won't get enough coverage. You've got a bunch of reasons for doing this. 00:01:23 Tell me how you're gonna make it work. So we're gonna put 'em in in June, Damian. And there's several reasons, you know, 00:01:29 the sustainability part of it, the conservation part, the wheat suppression, uh, moisture retention. You know, a lot of farmers and myself included, 00:01:38 we've always wanted clean fields, wanted them to be spotless. We just had the one crop out there, the model crop of corn. 00:01:44 But if you look at the Gabe Brown things that we've looked at before and discussed, Gabe talks about multi-species don't 00:01:49 compete, they collaborate. And some of the work I did with TJ last year in the intensive rotational grazing, we dug up the soil, we looked at it, things like that. 00:01:58 I now a hundred percent believe in that collaboration. So agronomically, uh, it's for water holding potential sustainably. 00:02:05 It's for the conservation, the erosion control of it, the carbon sequestration of it. And the third reason, uh, of course with my cow herd, 00:02:13 when the corn comes off, there'll be a tremendous amount of feed out there. So there's many reasons to do this. 00:02:18 Um, and I'm, I'm excited about it. We've, we've done cover crops early on when the corn still's standing. 00:02:24 But, you know, we waited until tassel time to do it. Now we're moving it ahead to June to try to accelerate the process. 00:02:32 All right, so we're gonna come back to each one of those. Tj I want you to address something. 00:02:36 So reasons for doing this. Uh, obviously the erosion control, especially where the hills are. 00:02:41 Uh, Kelly farms a lot of fields that legit have 25 to 40% slope, uh, carbon sequestration. So you can then qualify for, uh, programs, uh, 00:02:51 sustainability programs that might pay as much as 30 to $50 per acre forage. 'cause he has livestock water retention. 00:02:57 We're gonna then do that. We're also talking about the how it works. First thing that the, the cynic that's listening 00:03:03 to this is saying, the skeptic, I should say, is saying, Hey, tj, that's really neat. 00:03:09 That might work for him, but it won't work here. You made that joke before you get going. That's the first thing. You even made the crack 00:03:15 before hit record button, uh, and agronomy classes at university. You didn't take the the two class, the two wet, 00:03:22 too cold, this, that, whatever. That's the first thing. The skeptics, uh, go address that. Then we're gonna get into all those, uh, objectives 00:03:30 Absolutely Damon. So that that becomes part of my world. So I live in southern Minnesota, 00:03:33 so I'm up here in the tundra, cold as hell this, this morning out here when you get up in the morning. But we realize that we have a shorter season to work with. 00:03:41 And it's not just the, the temperatures, it's the sunlight. We start to lose sunlight. 00:03:45 So we wanna establish cover crops earlier in the season. We need to do this V two V three seeding in the corn. 00:03:50 So what I tell guys is, yes, we are farther north, but we pick the correct species to collaborate and work with your crop, not compete with your crop. 00:03:58 So we use like an annual rye grass or bounty, annual rye grass. We use bayou kale, purple top turnips, African cabbage, 00:04:04 three brass, and an annual rye grass, not a cereal rye. So the reason is, is during the summer, this will go dormant on us at 85, 90 degrees. 00:04:12 And in the winter it or fall, it opens back up and grows. So in Kelly's case, 00:04:16 he's gonna get terrific forage out of it. In everybody else's case, you establish this cover crop in a timeframe 00:04:22 where you armor the soil, keep it cooler in the summer, help with water retention. You're, you're scavenging some nutrients. 00:04:29 You, you're converting these nutrients over to a usable form for your plants. Nebraska's will not compete with your corn crop. 00:04:35 They're a rooting crop. They're, they're fine. They're not a, they're not like a, a dandelion that's gonna hurt your crop. 00:04:41 So the ones we pick will not hurt your crop. Then in the fall, they're there already for you. So that whole growing season in the fall that we're trying 00:04:48 to establish this stuff late, this is already there. It's already growing. So once the canopy opens, it takes off growing. 00:04:54 Tj, the person that's again, that's gonna say, well, that doesn't work. So I'm too far north. Kelly referenced Gabe Brown, 00:04:59 if you're listening to this. Gabe Brown is sort of a, a pioneer in regenerative agriculture. He wrote a book called Dirt to Soil. 00:05:05 I've had him on my business of agriculture show. Uh, Kelly has, uh, kept up with some of the, the lessons from him. 00:05:11 Gabe is near Bismarck, North Dakota, and uses cover crops effectively. So that's one of his lead off 00:05:17 statements, if you've seen him speak. And I have, yeah, this whole thing that is too cold, I can't get it. 00:05:22 He's in Bismarck, North Dakota. It makes cover crops work so clearly, uh, it does work. Um, Kelly, about the objectives, we're gonna get back 00:05:30 to the objectives. Um, real quickly though, and then we're gonna talk about the how toss does this cover crop gonna stay all winter? 00:05:38 You're gonna forward, you're gonna, you're gonna either graze it or you're gonna chop it off. So does it grow back? 00:05:42 In other words, does this accomplish the objective of, of giving as Gabe talks about cover, uh, you know, shelter, I guess it is, or shield armor? No, 00:05:52 That it depends on the fall, depends on the cow pressure, things like that. But yeah, it'll, it'll stay there all fall. 00:05:58 There will be some remnants of it there. I don't believe that the cows will, will eat it into the ground. Okay. At 00:06:03 All. So your plan is on this. You're gonna graze it off, not chop it off, Right? We th this 00:06:10 won't be for chopping. This would be for grazing. Okay. And so you're gonna graze it off, but yeah, there's no way it's gonna be grazed down to death. 00:06:17 So there'll still be some living, uh, stuff going into hard winter, Right? Okay. 00:06:22 Alright. Uh, the objectives, uh, I think they're all equally important. Um, erosion control. 00:06:29 And somebody says, well, I, I've got flat ground. That's not an issue. Carbon sequestration, that's big because it'd say, well, I'm going 00:06:36 through the person that's questioning this. TJ say, well, I got flat ground. I don't need to worry about that. 00:06:40 Your response to them would be, I drive around my area right now with flat ground and there's, there's black dirt in the ditch. 00:06:47 So wind blows, uh, soil off the, off the, off the landscape also. So there's a living cover crop there. 00:06:54 Even if it died, now it's still clinging that soil together. So it prevents wind erosion, terrible washing erosion, 00:07:01 which you get on flat ground. So I've heard that many times, Damien, oh, I have flat ground in Oney Road 00:07:05 and I drive by your farm and there's dirt in the ditch. Well, how did it get there? You didn't blow it over there. It mother nature put it over there. 00:07:11 If you stop it in the field, it stays in the field. Uh, uh, yeah. Fall tillage. If you drive in the Red River Valley, uh, there, 00:07:18 between Fargo all the way up, uh, you'll see tons of, what's it called when the, when the snow and the soil are blowing. 00:07:24 Togetherer sert. Yes. Which by the way, trivia question, if you ever wanna know Hagar, the horrible, the comic book character's 00:07:32 dog was named Snut. There you go. Excellent one. All right, so, um, then answering the question, I said, okay, 00:07:39 carbon sequestration Kelly, somebody that's gonna be skeptical is gonna say, I don't need to do that. 00:07:43 'cause I don't have a sustainability program. So why do I cure? There's carbon sequestration. I don't get that 40 bucks from Tru Tera or whoever. 00:07:49 And your response is going to be, Carbon is our most important nutrient. Most farmers don't understand that 00:07:56 or realize that perspective because no ag retail can sell it to 'em. But carbon is your most important nutrient. 00:08:01 Your corn stalk is comprised 45% carbon, 45% oxygen, 6.6% hydrogen. And all of the NP 00:08:10 and K that we always talk about is a whole 3.4% of what's in there. Carbon is the most important nutrient we have, 00:08:16 and you need to get as much in the soil as possible. Those are the agronomic reasons. Three and a half years ago, had him on my business 00:08:23 of agriculture show because he was on the Wall Street Journal, uh, cover feature story about, uh, selling carbon credits. 00:08:30 And he said, then no, ag retailer wants to tell you about the importance of carbon in your soil. Because no ag retailer makes money selling carbon. 00:08:36 Three and a half years later, he's still preaching it. And guess what? You need to hear it again. So I'm glad, that's why I brought it up. 00:08:41 Staying with you, Kelly Forge. The person that's listening to this is gonna say, you know what? 00:08:46 I don't have cattle. I don't need forage. So therefore I don't need cover crops. And I already know where this is 00:08:51 going, but I want you to say it. Why do I still care? You, you still care because of the conservation, the erosion control, which is conservation, 00:08:58 the agronomics reasons of getting the carbon in the soil, cycling those nutrients, things like that. 00:09:03 The cattle forge is really just a bonus. I, I believe you should do it. Uh, the conservation 00:09:08 and the cycling of the nutrients, things like that. The, the getting the carbon down there, the cattle, it's just free cattle feed. I, yeah, 00:09:15 Yeah, I would say, uh, and tj, I want you to kick in here. The, you're the agronomist and the expert. 00:09:20 Um, if I don't harvest the forge or harvest it with four-legged animals, it's still, it's still a crop that benefits my soil. 00:09:29 Absolutely. A hundred percent. So, Kelly hit on it carbon. So your corn crop, even in the upper Midwest, the far north, 00:09:36 by September, it's done growing. It's flushing all the potassium out of its system. It's done growing from September to 00:09:43 whenever we completely freeze up and stop growing. You could have 30, 50, 60 days of growing season that you're harvesting sunlight 00:09:49 and plowing carbon into the soil. You're constantly feeding those microbes, constantly feeding those microbes. 00:09:55 And that's what's gonna feed your crop next year. Your mineralized nutrients are scavenging and holding nutrients. 00:10:00 So if you applied, just use a number, 150 pounds Ann and used 110 pounds, Ann, there's 40 pounds Ann out there. This crop's gonna suck that up. 00:10:09 Hold onto it and give it back to your crop next year. So all those aspects are why we apply a cover early. If you just do the fall in the upper Midwest, you get part 00:10:18 of this, but you don't get this full benefit of this early interceding. I want to then talk about, by the way, the, 00:10:24 I wanna get a little bit more into the, the mineralization and if fertility. 'cause there's gonna be somebody that says those forge 00:10:30 crops, those cover crops use up my fertility. And I want you to address that before I do. Speaking of fertility, I'm gonna talk about Nature's. 00:10:35 Nature's is one of our business partners here at Extreme Ag. We love those people. Great folks, if you're hearing this, 00:10:39 it'll before Commodity Classic. Make sure you swing by the Nature's booth. We're all gonna be there doing two different panels 00:10:45 on, uh, two different days. Uh, we always have a lot of fun there. So go check us out, uh, and, 00:10:49 and, uh, you know, we'll make sure we even play trivia games. You know, maybe I'll ask the question, 00:10:54 what is Hagar the horrible's dog's name named after the concept of erosion meets snow? And if you answer that question, I'll pull money 00:11:01 outta my pocket and give it to you. Nature's focused on providing sustainable farming solutions and helping maintain your entire crop genetics potential 00:11:09 for today and for future generations. We're talking about high quality fertilizers, powered by Nature's bio. 00:11:13 Okay? It can target specific periods of influence throughout the growing season via precision placement techniques, as a means to mitigate plant stress, 00:11:20 enhance crop yield, and most importantly, boost your farms. ROI go to nature's dot com to learn more. 00:11:24 And also, again, come and see us and come outta the classic, uh, part of the time. We're gonna be at the Nature's Booth. 00:11:29 Answer that question, Mr. Agronomist. Tj, uh, TJ Cartus, those cover crops use up my fertility. No. Is it, it's, it, 00:11:38 it actually cycles fertility. Am I right? Right. So the part of the reason we picked the species we pick is the rye grass 00:11:46 during the growing season will go almost dormant. It's not doing anything. We found out that annual rye grass, not cereal rye 00:11:54 is a good cousin of corn. They're the cousins that actually play nice cereal, rye and corn beat the snot of each other. 00:12:01 'cause they're both grain crops trying to take up all the nutrients to produce a seed head. Annual ryegrass is not doing that. 00:12:07 The brassica, yes, they are scavenging nutrients. They are tuber plant, they're, but what the thing we're looking at now is they're really 00:12:14 trying to release calcium outta the soil. We've done root pits in interceding like this, and from corn plants wrapped around brass roots 00:12:21 and Nebraska roots were soaking wet and the bras root was down 1820 inches in the soil. That's a vessel for nutrients moving up and down. 00:12:29 It's not taking it away from your crop, it could be adding to your crop. So the, the more research we try to do, the more we try 00:12:35 to quantify these data points, but we have never seen, now there's always that one time where we've had an issue where it took away from the yield. 00:12:44 It was usually, and I don't wanna blame anybody, but a management practice that didn't go right because of maybe somebody else's error. 00:12:52 And then we can talk about that later. But we have seen it once in a while where it did take a little hit on the crop. 00:12:56 Most of the time, 99% of the time we see no hit on the crop. In fact, we see a better crop. 00:13:01 And I think it's because of that arming to the ground, keeping the ground cooler, constantly putting the carbon in the soil. 00:13:07 Deep roots are going down, bringing nutrients up. So it's a vessel for more nutrients to get into your current crop. 00:13:14 Kelly, the, uh, issue on fertility is one thing, but, uh, one thing that we didn't get into was the, the timing of the fertility. 00:13:24 There's gonna be someone that says, yeah, alright, maybe if I put in cover crops in October, I can see that being the thing. 00:13:31 And I hear TJ's point, you know, those tubers going down, breaking up the compactions. Another benefit, we didn't talk about a tuber going down 18 00:13:37 inches busts up compaction, right? Yep. But what about, is it, is it too early? Might you run the risk of grabbing fertility, 00:13:46 putting them in in June that was meant for the crop? In other words, is it it's not competitive at a certain point, but it might be competitive 00:13:55 because you're going in at a real important stage for the corn plant. Uh, V three, V four V, something like that. 00:14:03 Well, that, that goes back to what TJ was talking about though, about the selection of the plants and, uh, the, the brass is things like that 00:14:12 won't hold the same nutrition that the corn is chasing. And and they will collaborate. They will collaborate, not compete. Pardon me. 00:14:20 Okay. Um, TJ water retention, um, most everybody knows that somewhere between June and August we get hot and dry in the upper Midwest 00:14:31 and the Eastern corn belt, where I am, it, it happens, right? So water's gonna be a concern. 00:14:36 'cause somebody's gonna say, man, that just came in. Those, those plants started taking off, right? Exactly. When my corn needed to water 00:14:43 and now it was competitive, I, I even have a hard time getting around that. Am I, am I, uh, teach me why I'm wrong. 00:14:50 So it can happen. So don't get me wrong, it, this can happen. So part of the reason this all works, Damian, is as 00:14:57 that crop is growing, it starts canopy over the top of these brass and the annual ryegrass, 00:15:02 and it slows their, their development and growth. The beauty of it is with that armor man on top of the soil, you're keeping the growing cooler. 00:15:09 So as long as you keep the ground below a hundred degrees or 104 degrees, you're not respirating water outta the soil 00:15:16 and you're not respirating water your crop. You're keeping it cooler with these cover crops, with the armament of the overwintering cover crop 00:15:22 and the next year growing, we found that soil staying under a hundred degrees at the surface, which means you're not respirating that out. 00:15:29 So you're not losing water by evaporation. You're holding more water in with the deep roots going down in the soil. 00:15:37 Say they get down nine, 10 inches before they really cover over, they're down in a, into moisture that you're not tapping into 00:15:42 with your corn roots yet, and they're tapping into it, bringing it up for you, plus all those little holes that they're creating, all these little funnels 00:15:49 and tubers, you get a little rain and it goes in the soil, not over the top. So that aggregation of the soil is really huge too. 00:15:56 So the longer you do this, the more water retention you actually have. So when you get that time, you get that four inch rain quick 00:16:03 and it goes in and stays. Yeah. Now you got this big sponge that's holding it so it doesn't go anywhere. 00:16:08 And these plants are just sitting there kind of using it, working it back and forth with each other. 00:16:12 The biggest part of it is the correct selection of the plants you use. It's a summer crop. Yes, you could take away from your crop. 00:16:19 Okay? That's why we need an expert like you on selection of plants. What about population, Kelly? 00:16:24 There's gonna be, I mean, am I, is it gonna look like a carpet or is it gonna look like some, is it, is it, is it, 00:16:29 am I still gonna see bare soil in between the rows of corn? I hope not. That'll depend upon the germination. 00:16:35 That's a little challenging for us in the hills where we're gonna use the drone. TJ in Minnesota with the flat, straight back 00:16:41 and forth, forth, they actually drill this in when they're y dropping. Um, and that looks great. 00:16:47 You know, the pictures TJ has sent me, it does look like a carpet. Uh, I hope that when we put 'em out there in June, 00:16:54 and it still typically will get some rains here in western Iowa. I hope it looks like a carpet. So you, 00:16:59 Part of the, you want it to be, you want it to be so that you can't see bare soil in between the rose corn? Absolutely. That gets back to the 00:17:06 armor he's talking about. Okay. I, I mean, okay, so by the way, do you have imagery the way you do it in a flat ground, TJ, 00:17:14 with a wide drop that actually has a, uh, a drill component to do this seating? Yeah. Hey, perfect. So if you're listening, 00:17:19 if you're listening to this and you wanna see how this is done, TJ's gonna send me that and then we're gonna have will our producer drop in this 00:17:24 video or this picture so you can see it, so you can appreciate it? Kelly can't do that because he's got fields 00:17:29 that have curve and hill. So you're gonna do it with a drone. This seems like a real big challenge 00:17:35 because capacity, I mean, a drill can be great big, you can put all kinds of seed on it. A drone can carry, what, 30 or 40 pounds? 00:17:43 Uh, how's this gonna work? How's it gonna work with the drone or the drill Drone? The 00:17:48 drone, you know, we can, uh, uh, I believe it holds, it holds eight G. It'll hold 80 pounds of seed. 00:17:55 Uh, and Windrow will go out there and, and cover crop it. We, you know, we dosed some spraying 00:18:00 and some different research with our drone. We actually did seed some cover crops with our drone last year. 00:18:04 Worked very well. We just didn't do it till late August. This year, we're gonna move it ahead 60 days, 00:18:09 hopefully 70 days. We'll just have to see Program. If you, if you keep up with our stuff, go and look at the footage from last summer when I was at 00:18:17 Kelly's farm and I did a video demonstrating how drones work and, and Wind Grove, his guy, Mike Wind Grove, 00:18:24 was on the flatbed trailer with all the gear you need. And it's really educational, informative stuff. With that in mind, um, why don't you tell me, do you need 00:18:32 to put liquid in there to get the dispersion? So is it, is it liquified seed or is it blowing out as dry seed? 00:18:39 It'll just blow out dry seed with the drone. We won't have to because you, you won't try to spread that big of a pattern. 00:18:44 If you know, this first year, we won't do, try to do every acre we farm or anything like that. This first year will be experimental, things like that. 00:18:51 We'll pick out some fields, uh, that, that this would really benefit from, that we can put the cattle in, um, going forward, 00:18:58 if we wanna try to do this on every acre and the drone becomes a challenge, you know, a a narrow wheel spreader, um, 00:19:05 a narrow wheel machine like our sprayer with a dry spreader box on it, we could go out and spread it at that point. 00:19:12 You would maybe wanna put some ammonium sulfate or something with it if you're trying to spread, you know, a 50 or 60 foot pattern. 00:19:18 Uh, but that would be the way to do that then. And, and just have the, the sprayer, the, uh, pardon me, it wouldn't be a sprayer, the, the dry sprayer box drive 00:19:25 across the field if maybe we'll have to get to that point to get to the volume of acres we need. 00:19:30 But we're gonna start with the drone. Okay. So by the way, you're not gonna do every acre, are you gonna do, uh, one fourth year acres? 00:19:38 I hope so. Yeah. Yeah, Tj, uh, the person that's then saying, okay, um, I don't know if that'll work. 00:19:45 Um, a drone, maybe they don't have access to it or whatever. How, how do you encourage people to do this? 00:19:51 To put it in earlier like this? Not, not, not waiting until after the harvest. You've got the method that you do 00:19:58 and then the, the drone. What are my options? So we got multiple ways of doing it, Damien, that, that's a great question. 00:20:04 So when we started out, we actually, I asked great questions, tj, I mean, I've been doing this for a long time. Okay, 00:20:09 I can tell you've done this for a day or two. Hey, I've just done it. There's people that have done stuff crappy, uh, for a long time. 00:20:16 I've done it. Well, I mean, let's just face it. You've Done it well. Yeah, absolutely. I can see that. That's perfect. 00:20:20 So we started out, we started out with a John Deere Gator with a pendulum spreader in the back 00:20:25 that held about 800 pounds. And we just went up and down the corn row and spread it. It spread about 20 foot pattern, 2025 foot pattern. 00:20:32 So we just went back and forth in our, where our, our planter tractor went and spread about 30 feet. And we just, we just spread it that way 00:20:40 and we got it on top of ground and worked. Then we built a cedar to do the same thing. Then I had a customer built a high clearance Hagen machine 00:20:47 with a box from NINGs out in Ohio that had wa that had drop nozzles on it to get it down below the surface. 00:20:53 Then there was some other units. Okay. Because real quickly, because once the crop gets a certain level, your seed, 00:20:58 because it's very lightweight, might just hang on the corn leaves and not get down to ever get soiled. 00:21:03 'cause that seed to soil contact seems like that's gonna be when you're broadcasting it, first off, you're gonna have the, the, the actual corn plant 00:21:10 that's going to prevent it from getting to the soil until it rains, which could be, you know, a week or whatever. 00:21:15 But the other one is getting seed to soil contact broadcasting. You have certain seed that doesn't germinate 00:21:21 because it doesn't actually get, uh, placed into the soil, Right? So all 00:21:26 the seeds we pick will work fine with broadcasting. You can throw 'em on top of the ground, that'll work. So annual rye grass is like grass seed do for your lawn. 00:21:33 So you take that out in the, in the spring, you know, and just go blow it on top and you get a rain on. And germinates, nebraska's are the same way. 00:21:39 They can, they're very easily spread on top and germinate it. The holdbacks of top application are two things. 00:21:44 Number one is when your predators level and beneficial levels of bugs get very high. Yeah. They eat the seed and they don't eat all of it. 00:21:52 That's what makes me mad. If they'd eat the whole damn thing, I wouldn't have to go defend anything. 00:21:56 But they eat a little hole in the side of the brassica and they eat the tip off the end of the annual ryegrass and doesn't germinate. 00:22:02 Mm-hmm. So as we go farther in this, we have to talk to guys about, okay, you can start here, but you might have to get to this level. 00:22:09 And that's when we start talking about light rolling baskets between the rows, drag chains on side dress machines, 00:22:14 dragging, tumbling it in just to get some seat, lightly seed to sew contact. That's where this ker unit 00:22:19 that we're putting together places it in the soil for us with these two rows. So as we go forward, sometimes we have to make adjustments, 00:22:26 but to start with blowing it on top in a high no-till system with a lot of residue, what we found out is it gets on top 00:22:33 of the soil surface. So the residue surface, when you flip that open in the morning, there's all this moisture 00:22:39 that's accumulated around that residue. That's enough to get it to germinate and grow. Kelly. There's gonna be somebody that's saying, 00:22:45 and I always try to act like the devil's advocate because I know that some of our listeners are gonna be, especially on this topic, you know, 00:22:50 'cause I, I mean we've, we've been, we've been here about cover crops for a long time. There's still like, less than 10% of acres, 00:22:56 10% of cultivated acres. Tj, you probably have the numbers are cover CROs. And you know, I read Gabe's book a long time ago 00:23:02 and I said, this is where we should go. And I have people that fight with me, it won't work here. Whatever. One of the other ones is gonna be in 00:23:08 trying to get this out there. Unless you do use a drone or fly it on, I'm going to knock down my crop. That's gonna be a question or a a, a criticism of this. 00:23:17 Well, I wanna drive through the crop as little as possible. However, at the early stage that we hope to put these on 00:23:24 and with the narrow, you know, if we do go with the narrow wheel, uh, dry spreader at that stage, I do believe the corn will come back most of it. 00:23:31 And, uh, and I still think that the, I still think the juice was worth the squeeze. I still think the ROI is there. 00:23:37 So if I need to go out there with that, with that spreader, I, I'm perfectly happy with it. 00:23:43 Do you change that, by the way, you, you've been big on TJ ryegrass, not cereal, rye and brassicas. 00:23:52 You just like saying the word brassica. I can tell you've said it a lot, uh, which you could say turnips and radishes, right? 00:23:57 That's really when we talk about brassicas, that's what we're talking about, Right? So I talk about, 00:24:01 I use our turnips and I use our bayou kale. And the reason I use kale over turnips or over radishes is it's a higher seed count, 00:24:09 takes the shading better, has a way superior tap rod than a radish does. It lives at 14 degrees for 20 hours in the, in the fall. 00:24:17 So in our world, sometimes that's middle of December before it's actually terminating out. Yeah. So you figure if you planted that say June 15th, 00:24:25 and it grew from then till, you know, it kinda went dormant for the summer and then it took off 00:24:30 again when the crop opened up. You can drive a kale plant down a turnip plant down a cal, each plant down, you can snap 'em down, 00:24:37 they'll pop back up the radishes, the tuber sticks outta the ground, you snap it off, it's done. 00:24:42 So I use radishes in the right sequence in the interceding, it's not the right sequence. 00:24:46 So Nebraska is, the three I use is bayou kale, African cabbage, and purple top turnips are the three I like to use. 00:24:52 What kind of kale you're calling it? Bio what? Bayou kale. Bayou meaning like the the the cages and l Yep. 00:24:58 But we get it from when you Har when you harvest this Kelly, uh, you're driving a combine that's got tires that are as big 00:25:05 as, you know, I can my wingspan. And you've got these grain carts that have a a thousand bushels in them. 00:25:11 You're, you're smashing this stuff down. What's really going to be there after harvest it? Uh, half of it? Or will it live through the smash down? 00:25:21 Uh, a lot of it will live through the smash down, number one. Number two, you know, we won't, 00:25:25 we'll drive on less than half. You know, you, you've got a 12 row corn head out there and, uh, going back and forth 00:25:32 and the, the grain card doesn't drive anywhere. I would say you're gonna drive down a fourth to a third of it. Um, 00:25:39 And then, and then a part of that comes back because, And part of that's gonna come back. You're gonna drive down a fourth to a third of it 00:25:44 and half of that's gonna go back. How big will this crop be? What will the height of this look like at, uh, 00:25:50 in October when the combines run through this cornfield tj, It could be anywhere from ankle height to E high. 00:25:57 Okay. And then you drive it down. So it's like we go back to your lawn, you drive your lawn down with a grain cart and tractor 00:26:03 and semis and you about pound your grass to nothing and it's brown, you think it's dead and 10 days later you're mowing it because it all grew back. 00:26:10 This is the same style. Grass is what's in your lawn. It's a bunch grass. It's a, it's a more of a grass versus a cereal cereals. 00:26:17 If you drive 'em down enough, you'll break 'em off, you'll snap the crowns off and kill 'em. And your rye grass, you won't do that. 00:26:22 So our, our bounty is really superior rye grass to over wintering also. So I've had this stuff over winter, nine outta 10 years. 00:26:28 So come spring it's there again, you can graze it in the spring plant corn into it, terminate out. 00:26:33 It doesn't, is not as aggressive growing in the spring. So it's easier to control in front of corn. Uh, the person that, uh, wants to do this, 00:26:42 what do they need to know that we didn't cover? Tj you're the expert. Chemicals we need, and I'm not a chemical expert, 00:26:48 but they're very good guides that I utilize as one was done by Penn State and it's, it's, it's what I used 00:26:54 and I know it wasn't done here in the Midwest. I get yelled up at this all the time. They did it in at Penn State out east. Yes they did. 00:27:01 But it is a guide to look at. 'cause we know when we've tried this with the wrong herbicides 00:27:06 and the wrong carryover herbicides, we have dinged this crop bad, this cover crop, what we've tried to do. 00:27:11 So I go through that. It's called improve cover crop seeding Penn State, and it shows you a guide of ingredients and then trade names 00:27:20 and likely injury, possible injury, unlikely injury. So there is a gamut of chemicals we can still utilize. The other part we see is once we get this covered, 00:27:30 this started in the summer, we do not see the weed pressure come back. And I really believe it's at holistic state of 00:27:37 as the grounds covered and armored. We just don't get weeds Coming up. That's what I was just gonna say, 00:27:41 Kelly, by by, if you're putting this in say mid-June, um, you could have already done your herbicide pass maybe 00:27:49 a week or two before that. And if it's a herbicide that doesn't have much residual, you're probably outta the woods on this anyway 00:27:55 because then if this takes off like it's supposed to, gets a little bit of moisture, whatever it crowds out the weed. 00:28:00 So do you see herbicide, um, herbicide being the big, the big of a challenge? No, I don't. Where, you know, wind Grove 00:28:10 and TJ are connected here and they're working on what seed TJ's gonna select and what chemicals windrows gonna connect to be able 00:28:18 to put this crop in as early as possible. Okay. So it's a concern and we are paying attention to it, but we're trying to build both programs to work together. 00:28:27 Is there a danger in TJ in putting it in too early? In other words, planting it like almo planting your cover crop almost right behind the corn planter 00:28:33 that seems like it might then it might be a competitive Situation. Yeah, so this year I had a couple growers in Wisconsin, 00:28:39 they got their corn in a little bit later due to, you know, we were wet and then they went 00:28:43 and VCV two V three seeded their corn and or a cover crop and their corn is a little slower development 00:28:50 because of the, of the weather and it got ahead of it. Now, I did hear back from both of 'em come fall when the combine rolled. 00:28:57 They're pretty nervous. They, they combine, they said it was great corn, it, it did not hurt the corn. It just looked really bad to start with 00:29:04 and it was pretty scary looking, You said in Wisconsin could, is there, is there an application like would a dairy farmer be able 00:29:11 to wait a month after the combine shells off the corn, get some growth on that cover crop and then mow it and green chop it? 00:29:17 Is there any value there or does that not work? Yep. So angle ryegrass is terrific. Forage protein, the kale and the cabbage 00:29:24 and turnips are huge, huge in micronutrients. Copper, sulfur born and manganese and zinc. So it's a full package of what you're getting. 00:29:31 So yeah, so you could get that cover crop up to 14 inches, 16 inches in the fall, possibly do the right, you know, 00:29:38 got your chopping done early. You could get a ton, ton and a half a feed off that there'd be really some high quality feed. 00:29:44 Right. Uh, but unfortunately you can't do it all. You, you, there's no way to do it. You can't chop it with the corn, uh, 00:29:53 because there's not a head to do such a thing that Kemper head that they run on most of those choppers would pull. 00:29:58 If the kale was big enough, you'd pull that kale in there with the chopper. And like I said, kale is high in micronutrients 00:30:06 and so it's helping your cattle in the ruminant because of the micronutrients. And that's what we feed so much rock to a dairy 00:30:13 to get the micronutrients and you're feeding in organic form. Tj, I I try to, every time I have Kelly on talk about 00:30:20 dairy farming, because he's pretty anti-D dairy farming, he picks on me from my dairy farming background. 00:30:25 He says that I'm skinny because I grew up eating, uh, Holstein steers. So I try to make sure that I talk 00:30:31 to people like you that are ProAir. Um, just like I feel like maybe you and I kind of can bond and, and take this, uh, hostility 00:30:37 that he has toward dairy farmers like me. Just take it away. Yeah, I mean it, you know, I, I gotta work with everybody so I'm a fan of all these guys, 00:30:46 but I grew up in dairy and then we went to feeding steers and we fed dairy steers for a long time. 00:30:50 The way we made it work was we, we took our beef herd and crossed 'em into those dairy steers so they look like Angus cattle, but they weren't. 00:30:59 So that was whole that marketing move of you think you're buying Angus and it was a Hereford Holstein cross great meat. 00:31:05 So I grew up eating that towards the end and it's like, that's, that's why I'm the size I am. You Were beef on dairy before it was a thing. 00:31:11 It's a big, huge part of the business right now. All right, Kelly, uh, last couple of thoughts here. Does this change anything else about your cropping system? 00:31:19 No, it doesn't. Uh, Like you had to change, you had to like forego fungicide. If you think you have a fungus problem, 00:31:24 can you still put fungicide on this corn? And then does it harm that cover crop? No. Yep. No, it that's fine. It, it won't change anything else. 00:31:31 We were altering our chemical program anyway because of some of the different things we want to do and now we're just making sure it all works together. 00:31:38 Uh, I actually, again, with the weed suppression, I think this will support the chemical program, but no, this doesn't change anything else. 00:31:45 And so like wind grove's out there doing stuff if you need to do a treatment in whatever late 00:31:51 season doesn't change anything. Nope. Got it. Tj, last thought, um, you obviously are wanting people to do more of this. 00:31:58 We should be doing more of this. Um, you've already said you even admitted there's been a couple of problems. 00:32:02 You corrected that some insect problems you talked about going into early with it. What else do I need to know? Closing thought on doing cover 00:32:08 crops into corn, early seeding. So one thing I I really talk about all the time is make sure you get your application right. 00:32:16 So if you're gonna go bulk spread, like with with fertilizer, say you go to local co-op and say, Hey, can you spread this for me? 00:32:21 Annual rye grass will not fly as far as fertilizers. So we'll tell guys you're gonna down be down to 25 foot spread patterns. 00:32:28 Oh, so the, with the high clearance machines, we're gonna be down, the Nebraska's will fly the same distance as the, as the, um, fertilizer, but the, 00:32:37 but the rye grass won't. So we don't want streaks of this. So as we start doing this, the, the part 00:32:42 of communication is huge. The part of education is huge. Make a lot of phone calls. I tell everybody I'm on duty from 00:32:49 seven in the morning to seven at night. My phone's on Kelly knows this. Text me, call me. I'll respond to this stuff and try to walk you through it. 00:32:55 I don't want anybody to have any more problems than we've already had. We've already experienced them. 00:33:00 You don't have to go through it again. I've goofed up enough in my life, just learn from what I've done wrong and just don't have 00:33:06 to do those things. So part Of one of the whole big things with extreme ag, we make the mistakes so you don't have to. 00:33:10 Right. Last thought, last question. Um, how much am I spending 18 to 22 bucks an acre? 00:33:18 Depending on how strong your mix is, I tell everybody, I'm still in the back of my mind. The farmer hat's on backwards. 00:33:24 So in the back of my mind I always say, do I believe this bs this guy's shoveling meat and what would I pay for? 00:33:29 I always say any kind of cover crop mix between 15 and 22 bucks an acre is benefit to us for the carbon and all the, all the great attributes to it. 00:33:38 And I believe that's a cost we can absorb and egg really easy. You start getting these mixes up 00:33:43 to 20, 25, 30, 40, 50 bucks an acre, there better be a reason. So in Kelly's case, we did some 00:33:49 of those high dollar mixes on his regenerative part with the cattle. That was a different conversation. Cover crop and car crop. 00:33:57 15 to 22 bucks an acre needs to be your Cost on it. And that includes the application. 00:34:01 That does not include the application? No, That's just Seed. Okay. So another, what's, 00:34:04 what's reasonable per acre on application? Another five to seven? Yeah, So what we're gonna do with this Y drop is we're gonna 00:34:10 charge 20 bucks an acre for the Y drop. 'cause we're doing two things. We're doing wide drop application and cover crop seeding. 00:34:15 So we're gonna charge 20 bucks to our growers, our co our local SDS have actually put some money away for just the application portion 00:34:24 so the grower won't have to pay that part of it. So there's a lot of these government things out here that you can tailor make to that. 00:34:29 Yep. So we've actually tailor made it some RCPP program dollars for that, but we always look at it as, as that's about our cost. 00:34:37 If this works out and the machine gets bigger and we can make it work better, we could cut the rates down. But right now we're doing two applications for you. 00:34:44 What do you amortize, uh, a drone per acre at Kelly? Is that, do you call that a $5 per acre? Seven? No, I think the drone is more like 14 $15 an acre. 00:34:53 Okay, okay. In drive. So 14, 15 bucks and there are 20 on seats. You're probably 35 bucks an acre on this, 00:34:59 but uh, you don't think there's any question about the payback? No, I don't. I sure won't. 00:35:04 I sure don't think there is and you know, we won't know until we see what sort of germination we get and things like that. 00:35:10 But, uh, but no, I I don't, I we're, we're already doing this Damien and we're just doing it at the end of August. 00:35:16 All we're gonna do is move this ahead 60, 70 days and get even a bigger bang for our buck out of it. June 26th is a field day. I'm looking at my calendar. 00:35:24 June 26th is the field day at Garrett Land and Cattle. I'm gonna be there. You are invited to be there and we will by then, um, there'll be acres 00:35:33 that probably have been planted for a couple weeks. I sure hope so. Yeah. So we can probably go and look at some fields that have, 00:35:38 maybe that's something we should do is make sure we have on the tour a field that's got, uh, two weeks in 00:35:42 or so, maybe even three weeks in of, uh, cover crop over droned into, uh, corn ground. It would be pretty cool. We could see some, uh, 00:35:51 growth on June 26th. I mean, we'll get some out there, like you say, two weeks ahead of time. That would be exciting. 00:35:57 Tj, you gonna be at this field? Dad, I'd like you to be there. Absolutely. I feel like dairy farmers like you 00:36:01 and I, uh, going into the lion's den of hostility, uh, the way Kelly is picking on us Holstein eaters, um, I think that we need to probably team up. 00:36:08 Yep. I think we gotta hang together. You know, that, that black and white color goes a long ways. And the big thing is, is the school. 00:36:14 I'm the mascot here at Blue Prairie is black and white. That's our color. So it just fits in the whole scenario yard. 00:36:20 His name's TJ Curtis. If I wanna learn more about the seed that you guys offer at Saddle Butte Ag, 00:36:24 I just pulled up on my phone, but the website is, Uh, bio till cover crops And you can go to saddle butte.com. 00:36:31 Can I not? That's it right there. Yep. Yep. That's us. That's, that's the guys Saddle butte.com. 00:36:36 His name's TJ Carter. Thanks for being on here. The other guy is, uh, Kelly Garrett. Tremendous amount of, uh, learning come to our field days. 00:36:42 We have field days scheduled now for all of extreme ag. We're gonna be at all the guys farms and Kelly's on June 26th. 00:36:48 So, uh, stay tuned for all that. Till next time, thanks for being here. Kelly Garrett, TJ Curtis. 00:36:53 I'm Damien Mason with extreme max cutting the curve. That's a wrap for this episode of Cutting the Curve. Make sure to check out Extreme ag.farm 00:37:00 for more great content to help you squeeze more profit out 00:37:03.985 --> 00:37:05.225