Adding Perennial Pastures to Your Crop Rotation

0:00 Okay.

0:12 Why it's being so slow opening, should have left it open.

0:22 You got my podcast so it worked. Yep, I can use that if it ends up not working, I do have that I can share.

0:30 So it is 5:30, we started letting people in here. Got a big crowd already, up to 99 participants, so I think it's going to be an awesome evening. This is a topic that we have discussed a lot but we've never actually really dedicated a lot of time to talking about perennials in a crop rotation.

0:52 So I've probably received the most questions ahead of time through email about this topic than any other webinar we've done, so we've got a lot of questions to get to. But before we do that I'll just kind of go over the rules for those who have not been here before with us. Thank you for joining everybody.

1:10 Everybody is muted and if you do have questions during the presentation, you can type those out either in the Q&A or in the chat feature, whether you're on Zoom or I'll be watching if you are checking Facebook as well, I'll be looking at those.

1:26 What we're going to do is a little bit different this evening since we have two panelists. We're going to let them each present for about 15 minutes and then we're going to get to some of our most common questions about this topic and open it up to the audience for the last 15 minutes. So should take about an hour. We do have some awesome people on here this evening. Dale, if you want to go ahead and introduce our panelists, we can get started.

1:53 Hey, sure. I think as we learn more and more about soil health and what creates soil health and learning how the importance of root exudates, we go searching for plants that make more root exudates. All those extremely high root exudate plants are perennials. And the fastest route to creating better soil is with perennial plants. And of course the way you make money off of perennial plants ordinarily is to graze them, you know, have a pasture. And so incorporating pastures into a crop rotation is something that's been done for centuries actually, but it's a technology that's been completely forgotten about for over half a century, really, since about World War II.

2:48 Putting pasture into crop rotations become passé, old-fashioned. Now we're realizing that you simply cannot substitute anhydrous ammonia and DDT like they did after World War II for the effects of what that pasture does to soil quality. And so when we came up with this topic, we decided we'd talk to some people who have been doing this and what their experiences are. And that's why we asked Keith Thompson and Josh Lloyd to join us for this. And they can share their experiences.

3:29 And those of you that are not familiar with these guys, Keith Thompson, if you've heard of the Thompson closing wheel, here's the inventor of that. And Josh, former president No-Till on the Plains, which has been an organization that's been extremely well. You've both been very involved in No-Till on the Plains, extremely influential organization. And here are two of the big movers and shakers of the past with that organization. So I think the North American continent owes a debt of gratitude to that organization and these guys for being part of it.

4:15 Keith, why don't you take off and share a little bit about your experiences with inserting perennial pastures into a crop rotation? Thank you, Dale. I'll do that. Thanks to Green Cover Crops for asking me to do this.

4:41 Perennial pastures and cropping. Well, my first introduction to seeing this, perennial pastures, was on South America, 1999. And in the heel of Dr. Dwayne Beck of the Dakota Lakes Research Station, he wanted to go down there and look at more advanced no-till ideas and how they were using long-term breaks to control many problems—weeds and insects and so on. And Matt, that late Matt Hagney, and I, Doug Paulin, my son Ben, and I, I spent three weeks traveling around looking at things down there. We looked at tons of different systems and how diversity, intensity, and rotations.

5:25 Were applied and every farm we were on had half of the acreage in this perennial pasture deal because they told us that the gacho was a big deal down there and they really kept that alive. And now we just done lots of discussion. I know looking at seeding systems and also at the perennial pasture side and like it says about half and half.

5:53 One thing we did not understand when we were talking to them was how little fertilizer they used. We talked about it and they didn't really know so we went to the University of Buenos Aires and we talked to some soil people and they weren't too sure exactly either. They thought that probably the deal was that they were really young soils compared to us for how long they'd been farming and they were just probably using up some long-term carbon systems and when that was gone they'd be fertilizing just like us.

6:26 It was many many years later that dawned on me that the soil health principles explained what was happening. Remember this was long before anybody understood a thing about biology. We that was not in our mind. And come to think about it, you know perennial pasturing has five systems principles working 24/7 year round, superstar charging that so apology and we know what they are.

6:51 That on my farm we started off just no-tilling and then I was telling Keith earlier that Carlos Cabeta Corvetto visited my farm and he said you need more residue so that was something we started working on in 1998. And more diversity in the system and then my son got the bug for the livestock going down near South America and we started using livestock and cover crops and all that.

7:20 This is our first grazing mix of the '07. Ben got cattle going and we planted this grazing mix just on our own, didn't know anything what was doing. We just kind of gathered anything we could find on the farm and planted it and do the drill and he broke it up into paddocks and what we discovered was as you can see in the background there's a print. There's a native pasture and he would graze these perennials. These were just covers and wouldn't graze him completely down. He'd move him back to the pasture then he'd come back about 40 days later. It was kind of going back and forth and now I was kind of worried about how that would affect farming later but just come to find out it didn't.

8:06 Jump again, this is many years later, this is a farm been farmed for crop for over 50 years. This is the first perennial pasture and decided to plant this after I'd on another trip into South America, I met Mayor of Keragari and he came back up. You know and he came up and spoke at a no-till conference a couple times and '06-'12. He talked about grazing and how they were using the great systems to do this.

8:43 Said Dad I've been trying to talk you into this for years. So the problem there, the first one got to get learn, listen to your kids. And we planted this to perennials and what we didn't understand was doing it right in front of a drought. We didn't get very many perennials and so every spring and fall we would plant annuals and you could see that in here and you can see how drought-stressed this is. That was pretty tough.

9:12 What we discovered when we went back to crops was we was able to reduce our fertilizer like they did down in South America and I mentioned the grazing covers and perennials extended our permanent pasture, allowed us to be almost a month later before we went back to permanent pasture.

9:31 So the yields the first year we had soybeans and the yield of that field was 17 higher than I've been farming this place over 40 years. So in that 40 years it was 17 higher than the highest yield we'd ever had and it was 47 above the long-term average. Next year I planted corn and soybeans. The corn made nine percent higher than the highest yield we'd ever had and it was 48 above the long-term average. The mold in that same field is five percent higher than the long-term average and 34 above the average for all those years. And then the third year which was last year, the soybeans were three years out and they were 10 above the highest yield. Now this was I didn't use the highest yield before, it was just the long term average.

10:25 I used the same numbers so we could see it. It might be a little going down but still is 38 above long-term average and we cut back on nitrogen about 35 if I remember right. We know since this farm when in the perennial pasture we put no P and K on it so it's had been seven years since any P, N, K has been applied and there was, you could, you know, it was really didn't need anything. Nitrogen is a big thing that we put on.

10:59 One of the things I did discover we had taken soil tests down to hard to believe. I go 56 inches before I hit a shell that's impervious and I have a real low zinc test. All-time Dr. Ward is always telling me to put zinc on and no matter how I go through my soil I don't have anything really low levels all the way down to the bottom. And Dr. Ward told me he says, 'Well Keith, that explains why I'm always telling you you got to put zinc on. You know I don't have any to recycle.' So that's a point soil test helps me.

11:36 This is our second time we plant our perennial pasture and we're going to go on a six and seven year break. That was something that Edemir said that they had kind of got when we were down there first time, three to four years, that's what they were doing. He said six to seven years breaks was maximizing their income and there was 12 different things on this in this mix. And you know we're hoping again more nutrients and organic matter. Definitely see there better water infiltration already on this farm. When it rains just literally no water runs out of it anymore. Of course the livestock forage, we're looking for weed control, that's interesting. In all three years there's been a different kind of a mix of what grew of all the things we plant.

12:32 Definitely the erosion thing is making a difference. My son was up it rained here just the other day about an inch, 20 in the field across the road which is the first perennial pasture. Remember it's been three years out, it's going our fourth, and that soil is losing some of its structure still really good soil structure. You'll see some pictures here a little later. But this field you could drive over just like you always said. If it rains, where's first place you drive? You drive out in the native pasture. In three years it's already got great soil structure. And we're looking for the fungal part of our system to get going.

13:12 I mentioned it rests our native pasture. This is what it looked like last summer. That's my son and my grandson checking. We use poly wires you know for breaks. And if you want to know what my son decides, that he tries not to over graze it because we want this to last as long as he can. You can kind of see all the different things growing. This is what it looks like just the other day. There's a hundred and just for your information there's 171 acres in this that we did in this particular field. And those tracks going up through there, another thing we've learned that if you plant an annual end there it kind of kick-starts it in the spring. Now last year we used oats, this year we used perennial rye. And this is what it looks like. You get, you can't see it in that first picture, that's what it looks like down real close.

14:10 This is my neighbor's field right across the fence from us, same soil type. I just dug this up the other day. Not much structure going on there, not much of anything. Matter of fact just one fall apart really. I can hardly get it over to where I want to take side by side pictures. This is from that same field our perennials are at. And you can see there's an earthworm there just about an inch, two inches above below the soil surface. You can see a different granulation, you can see the roots. This it just hangs together. It's unbelievable how much nicer this is.

14:47 Here's the two side by side so you can kind of get a look at it. The tilt soil the perennial, there's just no structure. Matter of fact I wanted to walk the same distance. There was a field road that separates it and I wonder I took 20 some steps out into ours, dug up and I took 27 steps and I was after three steps after into his field I was wishing I'd.

15:12 That was a dumb idea. I couldn't hardly get my boots out of the field. It's something, this is a field day we had last year. And there on my right is our soils. And this is 45 minutes later. And I think what this really shows is it's a good old slake test we've all seen it. This is my soils. I remember when you dropped those clogs in there, I was like, oh boy, what is going to happen, because I was really honest with you, you don't really know. You believe it. You see it, but like this was really an eye opener even for myself.

15:52 So like I said, this was a really good test to me. And so one of the things I've decided that's happening that really is the important thing to think of is biology is the new chemistry on farming. You got to, I'm not saying I don't use any chemistry, that's not true. We cut back. I'm trying to get where we use as little as we can to maximize profits. That's more rely on the biology. That's a real quick run through of our farm, and I'll stop right there and let Josh have it.

16:46 All right, can you hear me? Yes sir, sounds good. Okay, hold on. Yeah, so I added cattle and hair sheep probably about eight or nine years ago as a way to get more income per acre off of the cropland. We were planting covers, and so we had these grazing windows where we could graze livestock basically. You know, depending on which enterprise you wanted to associate the cost with, for free if you know, we were planting the covers just for weed control and to build soil. And then like Keith talked about, I'd heard about the perennial breaks down in South America. And so with the idea that in order to build soil you have to have a constant living root, and you have to be constantly harvesting sunlight, unless it's you know in dormancy, the best way to do that was with a perennial break, which is what I felt like.

18:05 Yeah, so I was just wanting to increase my yield and decrease my inputs. And I knew from things that I'd seen on the farm, which I'm going to go through here, you know, the way to do that was to build organic matter. And not only that, just create an environment that you know balanced the nutrient cycle and the water cycle. And to do that, and I was already no-till, so I wasn't doing any tillage, but I needed to eliminate any fallow. And then add plant diversity in the crop rotation. And then through the perennial break, was that able to have a lot of diversity.

18:49 So if we think about what we see in our like the native ecosystem, and when people talk about organic matter and carbon, biology, roots, microbes, residue, livestock, it's all that's all life, it's all carbon. And if you look at this system, you know, you've got the plants, that diversity of plants, they're harvesting the sunlight, they're sending that down to their roots, growing roots, feeding the microbes, sequestering carbon. Then you have the above-ground livestock that are harvesting that and putting manure back. And because it's not disturbed by tillage, you know, you get a balanced nutrient cycle, which is why you know we don't see nutrient deficiencies in nature unless it's been disturbed by human beings. So you know, really shouldn't surprise us at all that we have to add inputs to our cropland.

20:04 If we compare the two systems, you know, on the left you're doing tillage, which is burning off your carbon as CO2. Then because you're tilling it, you're eroding it away and exporting your carbon that way. And then as it sits there fallow, you're not adding carbon back to the system. And then when you don't have a diversity of plants, you're not adding carbon. So there's just your water cycle, your nutrient cycle, it's all wrecked. As opposed to if you look at the perennial break on the right, you don't see any tillage, you don't see any fallow, and you have all this diversity of plants going on that are cycling, living and dying and cycling at different times to create a balance. With my perennial breaks, I don't add any fertilizer. They, you know, I don't need to because they come into equilibrium and build organic matter.

21:12 Feed themselves and we see the same thing in forest systems. Think about it, you don't see a sickly nitrogen-deficient forest unless we come in and disturb it, and the same thing's true in our grasslands. A lot of people, you hear a lot of people say that we can't move back to pastured livestock, you know, we've got to have a feedlot system. Well, it's because not only do we farm poorly in a lot of cases, in most cases, people graze poorly. I mean, you're not in this particular situation you're not allowing that grass to harvest sunlight and send carbon down into the soil. So it's losing its productivity because it's constantly being grazed and not being allowed to sequester carbon.

22:12 It's really just a lot of our pastures are really just feedlots. Grass feedlots is all they are and for our summer months and then we move them into winter feedlots. So the topsoil that our native ecosystem has been eroded away. A lot of people, when you open up a soil survey, it focuses on sand, silt, and clay. That is geology, that is not topsoil. Topsoil is carbon. It was built through those principles of no tillage, no fallow, constantly harvesting sunlight and diversity. What we're actually farming is what I've labeled there now on top. We're farming that geology that was underneath. And so depending on where you are and what you were blessed with underneath, you know, you could be, you're either farming, you know, in some cases heavy clays or you're farming really nice, you know, loams or sands in the extremes.

23:19 So here is a yield map that shows productivity based on topsoil versus geology. This, the yield map on the right is of wheat. Green and blue are good, pink, orange, yellow are bad. And you can see a square of green and blue there in the middle of that field. This whole, this entire field is the same soil type according to sand, silt, and clay, according to the soil survey. So why are we seeing this, a 50 percent increase in yield with all of the other management being the same? It's because where we have, where you see the green and the blue, we have the topsoil that's labeled high yield in that soil profile to your left. And where yield is poor, it's because we're farming geology.

24:25 And then this compares the yield map to organic matter. So this is grid sampling on 2.5-acre grids. And you can see the organic matter is double where the high yield is. And I think maybe I left out the fact that what we did here, this that used to be a pasture 10 years ago, before I had cattle. Otherwise, I probably wouldn't have sprayed the grass out and started to farm it. But it's never been tilled. And that's the advantage. It's never been tilled. That's why it still has its topsoil.

25:04 And then here is the phosphorus grid sampling. Notice that where the high-yielding area is, phosphorus levels are very low. And where the low-yielding areas are, phosphorus levels are high. And we're not adding huge amounts of phosphorus. So what this shows in my opinion is that our number one yield-limiting nutrient is carbon. Carbon and water. And you're not going to increase carbon or increase water by doing tillage, letting it sit in fallow, and having a limited diversity. So planting a perennial break within your cropping system is a way to build all that back.

25:56 I'll go quickly through these. These are just again another field that compares topsoil versus subsoil and yield. Where those circles are is where it's never been tilled. We brought it into production versus where it's been tilled for the last 120 years. This is sorghum. Those green areas, roughly, are yielding probably 120 bushels on average, whereas the brown, orange, yellow areas are closer to, you know, 70. All other inputs are the same. It's just you've got that nutrient cycling going on from all that organic matter that's increasing. You see the same thing the next year with soybeans. And it's not going to need nitrogen. It's just because of all the organic matter.

26:55 The water availability that the organic matter brings and then the following year with wheat. So what I'm trying to show here is across years, across different crops, carbon is what impacts yield.

27:16 Here's an old feed lot. This was tilled way back when and then for the last probably 50 years it was a feedlot until we took it out of. We got rid of feedlots. I don't use feedlots anymore. Everything's out pastured. But you can see within that green line or those orange lines, excuse me, how the wheat is very green and vegetative as opposed to right across the fence line, the old fence line, where it's not as vegetative. And here's just a close-up of the two systems. So what are we seeing here?

27:51 In a feedlot we've been importing all this organic matter in the form of hay and grain and concentrating it within that feed lot. So where I took the picture it was where that green area is on the green on the grid sampling map. And so you can see the reason it's lush is because the organic matter again is double what it is across the fence line to where we didn't have all this carbon added in a feedlot system.

28:32 And then if you look at the grid sampling as it relates to nitrogen, that organic matter because it's higher in organic matter, it's got more nitrogen and other nutrients to release naturally. So if you can build your topsoil essentially you'll have more nutrients that will be released in that cycle so that you don't have to add inputs as time goes on.

29:02 And then here's two comparative pictures. These were taken in the same spot in the field but they're 10 years apart. You can see the one on the right how dense and light and heavy that clay was. That was it. This was taken in the bottom of a terrace. And then the one on the left is where after 10 years of no-till with just the only thing we had eliminated was fallow after the wheat crop. We still for that 10-year period would let it sit fallow in the winter when everything was dormant. But and then we have had limited diversity. So my point being with the improvements could have been even greater than what we're seeing there if we had planted a cover crop in the winter and increased our diversity even more.

30:02 These pictures have not had a perennial break on them but it shows that with a perennial break using all those practices of no-till, no fallow, diversity that we can build that topsoil back. That topsoil was not deposited. So when you hear people say oh well we've got deep top soils, you know 20 foot deep top soils, you don't have 20 foot deep top soils. That's not what topsoil is. Topsoil is that carbon rich layer at the surface.

30:35 So here's just a picture of where I've got my hair sheep and there's some cattle out here. This was a rye cover crop that I planted corn into and now I'm out unrolling bales on this. I don't want my livestock in a lot. I want that manure back out on the field so that I'm building those soils quicker. This has been planted to rye. It's just we're so dormant that it just hasn't greened up yet. This picture was taken last week.

31:18 This is my perennial break.

32:31 All right so I hope that played. Nobody's texted me to tell me my screen froze up so hopefully that shows kind of what it looks like when I move them to. This is a mix of clovers, alfalfa, chicory, bird's foot trefoil, fescues, wheat grass, brome. So just a very diverse mix. This was probably, well not probably, this was at least the second time that I had ran them through this part of the field or this part of the perennial break in the year.

33:19 By I move them twice a day. So that's right now I'm trying to figure out. This is a little bit inconvenient but I'm using the paddock size based on that amount of sheep is two 164 foot long nets long and one net wide. So if you make a square.

33:48 164 by 164, that is about 0.6 acres, and where I'm too long that's about 1.2 acres. So they get 1.2 acres in the morning and 1.2 acres in the afternoon, and that was probably about 500 to 600 sheep. There's a lot of trample, but that's good. That's what's going to help feed the biology, and I want to just hit it quick and then let it rest. I don't want to grub it to the ground. People overgraze things too much.

34:33 There's just another shot of what it looks like, one up close. Here is later in the summer. These are both paddocks that have been grazed. This is just they're probably getting ready for a move. This just shows the fencer, and then I'm using HDPE pipe from a well. I've got five rolls of 500 foot where I can get water out to the sheep because water and fencing are kind of the biggest challenges.

35:14 The other thing, this is the first perennial break that I did. That one we were just looking at is the second one. I'm getting ready to take this one out of production here this spring. But you can see this is where I do some bale grazing as a way to mimic that feedlot I showed you, where we bring in. Not only are we constantly harvesting sunlight and building soil, but then we're also importing carbon through bales.

35:47 You know, I don't want to see this on my farm. This does not honor God. This does not honor the animal. You know, why not move this back out into the crop land where the animal can have a quality of life and improve the overall productivity of your system, and really build back God's creation, his soil, rather than just mining it.

36:26 My one last soapbox thing here. You know, for me personally, I sit here and I think, why are we growing corn and beans? We don't feed the world directly with corn and beans. We grow this corn and beans to feed to animal protein in a CAFO somewhere and concentrate all those nutrients, and then they don't get exported back out like they should because it costs too much. You know, why not bring that production back onto the land?

37:04 If you look at this map, the red dot is where I'm at, and as you go east or as you go west, you can see how dry it starts to get. So as you start going west, in my opinion, even where I'm at, I'm starting to think someday why maybe not plant everything or a lot more to perennials, because as you get into a more fragile environment, perennials are the only thing that's going to take advantage of the rainfall when it comes and go dormant in those hot periods. So I'd challenge people to question their thinking and really think outside the box rather than staying mainstream. That's all I got.

38:10 Well, thank you guys. Noah, do we want to just kind of start addressing some of the audience questions here?

38:23 Yeah, that might work. We can just probably do an extended Q&A session. The first one was for Keith. Tom Cannon asked, what coverage did you have in between your summer annual crops following your perennial pastures?

38:49 We're rye, barley, tree kaley, blacks buckwheat. I think some brassicas. And we kind of go on the thought process that diversity trumps intensity, so we don't really plant really thick stands of covers unless we're going to graze it.

39:25 Can you give an overview of how perennial pastures works after the pasture? Do you grow row crop in the grazed pasture or do you need to till it first?

39:35 Well, I'll answer it and I'll let Josh have his turn. That first year we came out of our perennials we just terminated what was there with chemical, terminated it.

46:15 Use that netting for your sheep year round or just as needed. I just use the netting in the summer. When I'm on that perennial in the past and even going forward, yeah I'm making an investment in high tensile for some of the perimeters and then going to use the poly. I should be able to do it with two strands, the poly braid.

46:43 The reason I'm using the netting, although I'm getting the numbers high enough that it's I'm going to have to move away from the netting just otherwise I'd be moving that all the time, is peace of mind. I'm so busy in the summer and I just don't want to have to worry about if they're getting out. And so with the net it's just at this point it's very easy to go out there, lay out, have enough netting to lay out a great grid so I can lay out four paddocks, put the water in the center of that and then I'm only moving the water every you know two to four days depending on the paddock and how often I'm moving.

47:28 Yeah, it really, I just need to take the time to get the fence hot and put the fear of God in them of the fence.

47:45 Okay, this from Facebook, Adam says: Do you have any insight on biological analytics, whether you guys are looking at CO2 burst numbers, PLFA, anything like that and looking at how they compare to your cropland with covers and then lastly are you seeing significant increases in bacteria to fungi ratios in perennial versus annual cropland?

48:14 I have not really worried about that. Our, I think our goal is to look at the profitability. People always asking us why we have the perennial pasture and my son always says it's part of the system and we need that in our system because before there was just Josh showed pictures of the cattle causing problems and we don't see that in the perennials. And then the thing that what he does is try to wait long enough till the cover crop grows, we move them into the cover crop and then that system there is able to hold the cattle up.

49:00 I just haven't taken the time, it hasn't been something I worried about. I just don't feel that I'm not sure how I can control the biology. I just try to add enough diversity in the system and I hope the biology takes care of itself. I had a friend tell me that if you don't have something growing in a part of your field, if you put 12 things in a mix and only one comes, he says the biology's not there and so that's where the cattle come in to add more biology in so we get more diversity growing.

49:33 Yeah, I'm the same as Keith. I don't know what I'd do with that information if I took it, quite honestly. For me, I guess I know I'm putting the principles in place that we see in healthy ecosystems and so I'm not really concerned, I guess, with monitoring that and then trying to micromanage, you know, does how do those numbers change based off of different covers or whatever. I mean, I think there's some value that for somebody to maybe do that and then I'll learn from them but for me it's just put the principles in place to build soil.

50:29 Okay, that might even answer kind of this question a little bit. From Dennis says: Do we have any way to definitively test whether or not we need to inoculate with mycorrhizae at seeding time, for example spring soil test ahead of seeding? Do you guys do any testing like that for mycorrhizae fungi and if you don't, I might even let Dale kind of provide some input here as well?

50:52 I haven't. The only thing I've thought be worthwhile doing is the Johnson Sioux, you know, bioreactor to grow your own inoculant for your planting or crop but I've never thought about worrying about it in a permanent perennial pasture site.

51:15 Yeah, I'm not testing that per se in the cropland. Like when I plant rye, I'm starting to put kind of some mycorrhizal or biological with the seed. I'm not going to do that forever. I just kind of feel like if I keep a constant living root, keep it covered, I'm just kind of doing it like an initial inoculation to try and get that built up. I think if you get the principles in place, if you build it, they will come, I think anyways. I'm just putting something out there to maybe.

51:59 Build a little quicker possibly or give the system a little boost, but I don't know if I need to or not.

52:10 I know Word Laboratories will soon be offering mycorrhizal colonization testing. There are some labs that do that, but they're not traditional soil testing labs—they're kind of obscure and hard to find and have slow turnaround time. I know none of the traditional soil testing labs that I've dealt with have offered mycorrhizal colonization testing. They might give you a PLFA, but you don't really know what those numbers mean on that PLFA. So I'm very excited to have mycorrhizal colonization testing coming up through a traditional soil testing lab.

53:06 As far as the need for it, for years I've been a big advocate of inoculating with mycorrhizal fungi when you're planting a perennial pasture. Part of the reason for that is number one, it makes the pasture grow better. Number two, the glomalin exuded by the mycorrhizal hyphae is a very powerful soil aggregating agent, and after all, that's what we're after. That's part of the idea behind this: to make better soil, to increase soil aggregation. And number three, because you've got a perennial there, once the soil becomes full of hyphae, there's no place for the hyphae to go. All that extra energy is put into spore production. And once you get spore production, when you go into your four or five years of annuals, those annuals will have spores. So even if you have a fallow period for some reason, as long as you've got spores there that can re-inoculate your next crop.

54:20 The only places that I've sampled cropland have seen cropland samples that had what I would consider adequate levels of mycorrhizal colonization have been in areas where there were Amish farmers that still followed a strict rotation of hay, alfalfa, and clover hay in their crop rotation where they had a perennial. So I think if we want to have real strong, robust mycorrhizal populations, I think this concept of including a perennial pasture will give us from a single inoculation—that planting the very first pasture—we can maintain those populations indefinitely.

55:10 Paul says I'm sold on the idea. What are the biggest technical or social challenges you've had to overcome?

55:21 The first, for myself, was just thinking that it's always crops, so it's got to be cropped, and just stopping that thought process in my head. For me it wasn't for my son at all. The other thing is setting up water. Josh has mentioned water a couple of times. We've been putting in building ponds, building electric fence, perimeter fence—three wire at least—and freeze-proof water tanks that we put in below the ponds. Those are some things that I sadly spent most of my career getting rid of pastures and fences, and now here I am going back to fancy pastures, putting in fences, and building water. It's like I lost my mind, but it's the way to go. That's going to tell you that's been the best move I've ever made.

56:31 Water and fencing are two of the biggest challenges—getting that developed, getting the right animals. What I mean by that is a lot of the livestock is being propped up. With my lambs and my cattle both, with the heifers, I don't have to pull calves, I don't have to pull lambs. There's no assisting. If I ever did, they'd be gone. You've got to be ready with the livestock, and you can save yourself a lot of headaches because there've been some places where I've got some stuff where I shouldn't have. Find a producer that has philosophies where the livestock are survivors and easy keepers. And the only other thing is with the cool season perennial break, or just a perennial break—I'm not sure what everybody's situation would be—but you start thinking of it in windows. You need some native perennial grass to get you.

57:57 Through that summer period then with us after wheat harvest we plant a diverse cover and then you know that starts to grow and is available you know starting around probably August 15th. So because it needs you know a month and a half to grow and that kind of fills a fall window.

58:20 And for us one of the I mean there's probably other things but really for the most part rye, rye barley, trita kali are the only things that really will grow in the winter and they don't grow much usually. But it gets you know gives you a place to turn things out, maybe feed hay until you get into that March 15th or the spring and then you just get this huge amount of grazing from you know April 15th to May 15th. So just you know making sure you get everything set up so you got places you can go with everything because that perennial break probably depending on how you do it isn't going to you know keep them all year.

59:19 I'll just second Josh's everything he said. I agree with him on all those about time here for two more questions. And they all kind of revolve around the same thing. Tony asked were you able to establish your pastures under the cover crop using the cover crop as a nurse crop and if so what sort of mix did you use? So there's been a lot of questions that we've gotten about what species you use whether it was wheat or oats. So I guess if you guys want to touch on that real quick on if you were able to use cover crops to establish those perennials.

1:00:01 Well I could have, usually we would planting both of these covers, well I guess the first year I did it in this for the first time I did it in the spring. I think it's probably better to do it in the fall. So I've been I planted it after wheat this last time and just let it go to weeds, grazed it with the sheep and the cattle and then planted it, I'm going to say August 15th. So you know whenever you plant alfalfa and that stuff you want to get it in early enough, get it established, stay off it until the spring you know, kind of give it let it get established. So you are going to have a little bit of a dormant period but for me I'd say going forward it's after wheat. So it's not going into a in a cover. I don't know maybe I should try and plant something for a month and a half but yeah I guess I just soon let it go to weeds and volunteer wheat.

1:01:23 We used oats the first time as a helper crop because that's what we saw down in South America and the second time we just kind of like what Josh did, after a spring crop planted something grazed it real hard and then well then let it come back which seems odd and then I primarily then we plant it. And like John said, would you be doing alfalfa? We haven't really come up with a plan but definitely fall seeding seems to be where we have had our, that both times work the best.

1:02:05 We've had some questions quite a few questions about winter time, what do you do in wintertime where you're cattle grazing? Is that where you were going Noah or no? But I'll let you do that one. We'll do two more questions okay okay. We've had several questions revolve around winter, you know what are your cattle doing during the winter, you have problems with pugging the ground?

1:02:34 Yeah you can't, I mean on that first perennial break that I planted six years ago yeah they would overwinter on that that break. I had less numbers so I would I'd move them every day in the winter to give them just a little bit of stockpile just to kind of give them a little something to graze and then would they'd have just brome hay to fill up on. And yeah when you get into the wet spring and the thaw comes out you it's hard to move them fast enough. But yeah you could get, I mean that's part of the making sure you kind of have a plan ahead of time is like this winter. And so and what I've been trying to do is keep them off that perennial break so I don't plug it up and tear it up. I give them a lot bigger area than they probably need where I've just got rye planted there's

1:03:41 There's no rye there to graze yet so they're still eating hay, but they're out there. I'm unrolling that hay, so what they don't clean up will go back into the soil because I'm unrolling it. They're spread out depositing manure and treating it almost like a fertilizer application out there in the crop land. So there's lots of options of where to keep them in the winter, just my advice.

1:04:13 I will note that when I design a pasture mix for this purpose, I usually like to have number one some rhizomatous species like a—I hate smooth brome as a monoculture, but as a minor component of a pasture mix like this—because brome is rhizomatous it will fill in after you know with some rest it'll fill in after a pugging incident. Another thing I like is like you know Keith, you got the crab grass in there, a receding high quality annual that if you get a bare spot you've got crab grass seed that'll fill in in the summer or an annual rye grass that can fill in from a fall pugging incident. You've got substitutes if one of the starters gets injured, in other words.

1:05:16 What else have we got here Noah? Yeah, so the last question that I was going to ask revolved around planting methods. A lot of people were asking about broadcasting things versus a no-till drill. Any kind of tips that you guys have on what works best for getting these established?

1:05:38 We'll use our no-till drill and plant I'm going to guess about an inch deep. I'm not—we just bought a sunflower drill to kind of fill in. So I got John Deere's what we've always used before but we got this. I bought this other drill to because sometimes I'm planting and my son wants to do so we almost kind of needed another drill to touch up you might say. That's work honestly. To be honest with you there's lots of experiment going on on our farm and I hate to say what we're doing is like the way to do it. A lot of experimenting, trying different things to see what works the best. It's a work in progress, how I'm going to put it.

1:06:32 Yeah we have a good drill, a John Deere air seeder and said it I just set it a half inch or three quarters. It seems like a lot of that stuff doesn't want to be planted real deep. And this last time one of the things I did do different was on one angle I planted kind of the grass chicory part of the mix and then on the other angle planted the clovers, alfalfa's, kind of like people do with alfalfa stands where you instead of having everything at a seven and a half when you grid it up and maybe get a little bit better overall stand.

1:07:27 But yeah I guess just pray for rain once you put it in. Okay I know we did the same as Josh, Noah. We planted one way and then we planted it another way, half rate. And then if I remember right then we came back later and planted the crabgrass later.

1:07:52 Yeah, all right well I do apologize you guys that we ran late on time and didn't get to all of your questions. So if there's something that you didn't get answered that you really are dying to know, please feel free to send me an email. It's just noah, n-o-a-h cover greencoverseed.com and we will try to get those answered. I'll either pass them on or we'll try to get them answered here on our end.

1:08:17 Thank you guys, Keith and Josh for your time. We really appreciate it. Very much guys, that was excellent. Yes it was wonderful. Before I get to your final thoughts, next week we do have Keith is going to be interviewing a representative with Indigo Ag. One of the things that we keep hearing about is these carbon credits and there's a lot of questions on whether or not it's—yeah just lots of questions on whether or not that's going to come to fruition. And so we want to sit down and get it right from the horse's mouth and Keith will be interviewing Indigo Ag next week to get some of those answers. That'll be at 5:30.

1:08:55 With that I guess Keith, Josh, you guys have any final words of wisdom for us before we let you go? Believe in the biology. Sounds good, that's all you need. Mic drop. Thank you guys, that was wonderful. Thank you, thank you. All right, take care everybody. Thank you for joining and have a great rest your week.