Farming Podcast | Cover Crop Strategies Beyond Rye | XtremeAg

00:00 Improving cover crop outcomes on your farming operation. It's time to get with the program. 00:00:07 And I'm talking to you about what worked, what didn't, and how you can have really good outcomes from cover crops. In this episode of Extreme Ice, cutting the Curve, 00:00:15 Welcome to Extreme Ag Cutting the Curve podcast, where real farmers share real insights and real results to help you improve your farming operation. 00:00:25 And now here's your host, Damien Mason. Hey there. Welcome to another fantastic episode of extreme Ag Cutting the curve. 00:00:31 I've got, uh, extreme ag patriarch Kelly Garrett on here. He is joined by Biot Till's, TJ Curtis. 00:00:37 Uh, we've had him on a couple of times before we talk about cover crops, if you're not tuning into this 00:00:42 because you say, oh, cover crops won't work here. You know what? Tune into this. If you think, oh no, we're gonna tell you exactly 00:00:48 what Kelly has done, outcomes, what worked, what didn't, and we're gonna tell you why you very much should consider 00:00:55 getting off of your anti cover crop stance. You know why we think the three of us, that regulation is coming in the next few years 00:01:04 to agriculture that might just require you to use cover crops from a nutrient management plan. I'm not here to scare you into submission, 00:01:14 I'm just telling you what I see happening and TJ agrees, and I think Kelly does too. 00:01:18 Anyway, uh, tj, you and I had a little planning call because we wanna make sure this recording was valid and you said we're gonna talk about 00:01:24 what worked, what didn't. We're gonna talk about all this and we're gonna talk about the future. 00:01:26 So main thing is you said, let's talk about moving beyond cereal rye. That's the big one 00:01:31 because 10 years ago we started hearing about cover crops. I'll go out and aer seed some cereal rye. 00:01:36 I want you to tell me about what in your mind, moving beyond cereal rye looks like. And then we're gonna go to what Kelly is doing 00:01:42 and what he did in 2025 and what he is gonna expand upon in 2026. Thanks, Damien. So, you know, 00:01:48 cereal rye was the go-to all the time it worked. It, it, it is almost a no-brainer, doesn't fail. But we've seen issues in front of corn 00:01:54 and we've always seen this in front of corn. You don't want competition from your corn crop. You don't want things that can cause 00:01:59 a problem in front of your corn crop. So we have guys that make it work, right? But there's other options out there. 00:02:05 And what we've tried to do is really look at this aspect of let's get s let's get like kale and cabbage and turnips 00:02:11 and those kind of things from beans to corn. Let's get more of a neutral grass in front of corn if we can. 00:02:18 Let's get past this cereal rise. So winter treated kale is an over wintering one we put in front of corn or we'll put oat salt there. 00:02:23 Now, yes, they'll die in the fall and up Midwest, but it'll live late in the fall. And it gives 'em great attributes to the soils. 00:02:29 It's something that works really easily. So we have some other ideas here than just say, put rye out there. 00:02:34 Just use rye all the time. 'cause what we've done is, what I feel we've really done is we've created some disease issues. 00:02:40 Once again, if you do the same thing over and over and over and over and over again, you're gonna cause a problem. 00:02:44 And I think that's what we've done with the cereal rye in front of corn or corn beans, corn beans, front of beans. 00:02:49 It works great in front of corn. We got some issues. So we're trying to move past that and say, front of beans, great in front of corn. 00:02:56 Let's look at some different options front of Corn, because it's grass on grass and it's pulling the same nutrients 00:03:02 and it ha it introduces the same soil problems. So, real quickly, the first objective of cover cropping was to control soil erosion. 00:03:09 It's an issue in places where Kelly is, 'cause he's got hugely sloping fields. If you're in a flat land area, 00:03:14 you're like, I don't have that problem. Well, it, you still might. 'cause if you do too much tillage, you'll have wind erosion. 00:03:20 Um, but the second objective, if I'm not mistaken here, is to enhance the soil. 00:03:26 Besides just soil erosion prevention. It's to enhance the soil. And we can argue that cereal rye did the first one. 00:03:31 It kept the ground from washing away, but it didn't necessarily do a lot to enhance the soil. In fact, to your point, it may have actually degraded, 00:03:39 uh, but not degraded it. But, uh, put enough, put enough problems out there to, to mess up your following crop. 00:03:46 Right? And I think that's where in front of corn, Damian, we always have to look at what's the next thing? 00:03:49 What's the better thing in front of beans? That works great. And it checks that box. It sc means up the nitrogen. 00:03:55 So one of the first comments about cereal rye was we had the little water problem down there in Des Moines. 00:03:59 We all heard about, you know, a lawsuit and everybody's pointing fingers. And all these naughty farmers were putting 00:04:04 too much nitrogen out there. They were putting on what the recommendations were saying the ground just wasn't holding the nitrogen through. 00:04:09 The next year, the corn wasn't utilizing all of it. So we put a cereal rye crop out there, scavenging it up. Sarah Carlson's stuff showed that in the beginning, 00:04:17 worked great, but in front of corn, it's almost the other side of it. And then we saw some disease issues of pythium 00:04:23 and face iPath effect causing sealing diseases. So let's advance away from that. So the erosion side, 00:04:30 right now we're melting our snow away in southern Minnesota because we're nice and warm. 00:04:34 Our ditches where there's a lot of tillage are full of dirt. Now, we just had a farm sell in this area for 10,000. 00:04:40 We had a farm sell a month ago for 17,000. I don't want that dirt going in the ditch. I'm sorry if I paid 17 grand for a farm 00:04:46 and it's blown away, I'd be pretty sick to myself right now, especially when there's some I can do to change it. 00:04:51 So wind erosion is huge. Water erosion, just run over the top moves soil, everything moves dirt. 00:04:56 If there's something growing the soil stays where it belongs. So what can we put out there to accomplish these goals? 00:05:02 Then the next part is carbon. The whole time that's grown, we're plowing carbon in the soil. 00:05:06 Carbons are elixir life for our microbes. They're gonna feed the microbes, keep 'em healthy, keep 'em going, keep 'em strong like me. 00:05:13 Kelly's skinny. 'cause he works harder than I do. I sit behind this desk and do a lot of this stuff. Damien, you golf a lot, 00:05:18 so I see why you're a skinnier person. I don't do all that. I, I get bigger. I'm a bigger person, so I need more microbes. 00:05:24 You know, I need more, I need more dirt to hold me. Dj, I was gonna let you go on for a while, but actually, Mr. Garrett, he's very degrading 00:05:32 to dairy farmers in general. But he says that the reason I'm skinny is because I grew up eating Holsteins instead of the kind 00:05:40 of beef that he produces. That's what he says. Yep. And so I grew up with dairy too, but then we went to beef. 00:05:46 So, you know, look what happened to me. So answer me this, Mr. Kelly, when I talk about moving cereal rye, uh, 00:05:51 moving away from cereal rye, that was how this whole thing got started. Then we went into the erosion. 00:05:55 We went into a whole bunch of other stuff. Um, I think that the cereal rye thing began and it gave a bunch of farmers the excuse that they wanted 00:06:04 to not do cover crops ever again because it didn't have a positive outcome. It's like, see, I tried that. 00:06:11 I tried that and it didn't work. And it gave you the, it's like the old thing of I'll, I'll prove to myself what I already wanted to prove. 00:06:18 Because you can do an experiment that does that, right? I think that's what serial ride did. I I do think that there's some validity in that point, uh, 00:06:27 because it's not a, it's not a one-time fix. It, it isn't something that happens overnight, you know, and the further north you get, 00:06:33 it can be challenging, things like that. Uh, and, and, but we want to use cereal rye because of the mass that it puts out there. 00:06:40 You know, it's easy, you know, when we put out the cover crops, we want a lot of tonnage. We want a lot of vegetation. We want it to be green. 00:06:47 And the cereal rye really does a great job of that. I have now evolved a little bit. I've tried to plant green into cover crops. Uh, pardon me. 00:06:54 I've tried to plant green into cereal rye, and I've had problems. Uh, I've had a yield deficit. I've had problems like that. 00:07:01 You know, I've talked with TJ about it. It is the allopath effect, um, especially, you know, in all of my corn on corn and things like that, that we go to. 00:07:08 And, uh, you know, I I still use cereal R now, but I use it to chop. And, uh, I'll tell you, I followed up. 00:07:16 Uh, I, I thought, you know, we'll let this cereal ride mature. We will chop it and then we'll put the sorghum 00:07:21 out there and we'll chop that. I, I should have, I should have maybe done some tillage. I should have done a better chemical program. 00:07:28 Uh, I had an allopath effect from that cereal r after I chopped it in the sorghum. And so now we've, we've gone to the brassicas, we've gone 00:07:37 to the kales, you know, the, uh, the radishes, different things like that. I really like oats. Uh, what I wanna now use cover crops 00:07:46 for is, is erosion. Number one. I, uh, you know, I don't know that this is in any certain point or any certain order. 00:07:52 Erosion, cattle feed and disease prevention and oats is a natural deterrent of fusarium. Fusarium is the number one problem I feel 00:08:02 that I have in my soils. And so I'm really big on oats. Now, I know they don't over winter, but I'm really big on oats. 00:08:08 We get a lot of nice fall growth for the cattle feed where the erosion, uh, prevention. And in the fall, you know, we can get some fall rains. 00:08:16 And then the, uh, the fusarium, uh, the deterrent of fusarium is the reason that I really like oats. And, you know, TJ will add in some other things 00:08:25 there that we use as well. But, uh, my belief in these has evolved. And, and I, and I do think there's a benefit in my hills, 00:08:33 There's a benefit in your hills. And the person that's saying that wants to be anti cover crop, they come with the excuses. 00:08:38 Like, TG talks about is too cold, I harvest is too late, whatever. Or I don't have hills. 00:08:44 I think those other things you just talked about, they're gonna say, well, I don't have an erosion problem. Which a lot of people have erosion problems 00:08:49 that they don't see because it didn't wash into the ditch, but they still have some erosion problem. 00:08:52 I mean, uh, I, I've never seen white snow when I was driving on Interstate 29 in the Red River Valley. 00:08:59 I've seen a lot of black snow. Uh, you can say it's not washing away. Well, that snow didn't get black on its own. 00:09:05 It blew off all those acres that they fall till every year. Um, but then there's disease mitigation. 00:09:10 I think you'd also make the case for it for, um, microbial activity. Um, increase in organic matter 00:09:18 and water infiltration issues. TJ Kelly didn't name those in his top three, but I'd say those are the next three, aren't they? 00:09:27 Absolutely. And I think that's what it is, is each farm has a, has a list of things that are, are their priorities. 00:09:33 And I know what Kelly's are. He and I worked very closely together. I know what they are. I go to the next guy 20 miles down the 00:09:38 road, he flip flop it. But the species that we pick are very similar because they, they fit all these boxes. 00:09:45 The oats side of it. I've really been big on oats, pushing oats, especially in guys that don't want a lot of over wintering. 00:09:50 I get that a hundred percent. But if you leave it alone, all that carcasses out there 00:09:54 and it's still holding the soil, it's still protect armoring the ground. It's protecting rain from pounding on it. 00:09:59 It's all still there. So a bushel oats goes a long, long ways. Half a bushel oats goes a long ways. 00:10:05 And it's something that we always just kind of treat it as well. It's just oats. Oats are a phenomenal crop. 00:10:10 I, I really wish. We just need to move more and more oats into these mixes. And they work pair well with these brassicas, 00:10:15 the kale's cabbage, the turnips, the radishes. They just pair well with them and help protect them. So they live longer in the fall 00:10:21 and do their job longer in the fall. But we need 'em to do Kelly At your place. We looked through 00:10:25 the field this summer and it was oats and peas and I think it was just peas like I would plant in my garden. 00:10:30 I think it was just green peas, but maybe some kind of a more hearty pea. 00:10:37 But what, what was in that mix that we looked at It, it was oats and peas and we put it in there to, uh, ba it, 00:10:42 TJ can talk about the exact, uh, ratio of oats to peas. It was, he actually wanted it to be heavier peas because the feed value would be better. 00:10:50 The protein would be higher, but then we would have to either chop it or we would have to wet bale it 00:10:55 because it wouldn't dry down. So we were a little heavier oat little lighter pea, which did hurt the protein, 00:11:00 but we could roll it up in your traditional round bale. We're feeding them to the cows now. Uh, and it is a tremendous feed source. 00:11:07 Yeah. So if you're gonna, if, and then again, there's gonna be somebody that says, well, I don't have livestock. 00:11:12 This doesn't apply to me. That might still be a good mix for, uh, a lot of people. Because you just talked about the benefit of oats. 00:11:18 Yeah, exactly. So if I can make a point about that, that people that don't have livestock, uh, that, uh, that's fine. 00:11:25 And we are feeding it to our own livestock. But you can sell those bales, sell those bales. It's another cash crop. 00:11:31 And if you've got, you know, work with earth optics, okay? And if you've got a a fusarium problem, 00:11:37 maybe consider putting that field to oats. You know, beans don't look profitable. Uh, corn looks like we're hoping for a break even in 26. 00:11:45 What if you put that field to oats that has a fusarium problem and bail it, add some peace to it, you know, take the, um, 00:11:53 uh, take the feed value reading, get a relative feed value reading and see what your protein is. 00:11:57 And here's another cash crop that we're selling. And I feel like it would be, I feel like it has a better chance 00:12:04 of being profitable than corn and soybeans. And we're amending that soil disease. We're amending that fusarium. It's an outside the box look. 00:12:11 But I, I think it warrants, I think it warrants some conversation. It does. I want to hear what worked 00:12:17 and what didn't in this year. 'cause we know you did oats and peas. That's not the only thing you did. 00:12:20 And then I want TJ's perspective going beyond just, uh, the Garrett land and cattle, because you've got some other results from other 00:12:28 places and stuff that we've learned. 'cause we're really trying to talk about improving our outcomes. 00:12:32 So we're gonna get into both those things. Before I do, since Kelly just mentioned it, I'm gonna mention it. 00:12:36 I'm talking about earth optics. Earth Optics is a sponsor here for our friends at extreme Ag. 00:12:39 And it's because we actually use their stuff. If you want to know what your soil looks like, earth optics can help you. 00:12:48 Ortho, ortho, ortho orthotics, you get the most precise soil insights in the industry. Clear, accurate data on fertility, biology and compaction. 00:12:56 No more guessing just the information you need to make smarter decisions. Optimize your input costs and boost your yields. 00:13:03 Earth optics puts the full picture of your soil right in your hands so you can farm confidently and profitably, unlock healthier soils, stronger harvests, 00:13:12 and a better bottom line. Go to earth optics.com. www.earth, like the planet you live on. Optics like your eyeballs, earth optics.com to learn more. 00:13:25 What'd you do besides oats and peas? Uh, you know, the oat oats is very common in our, uh, cover crop mix. 00:13:33 We also had that field that was just oats and peas that we wanted to bail. Uh, we have oats in our, uh, warm season or or cold. 00:13:41 We, where we do the, uh, intentional or intensive rotational grazing. Uh, oats is part of the mix there. 00:13:49 Peas are part of the mix there to just to graze them. Uh, you know, uh, TJ can talk more in depth about the different perspectives we have, 00:13:56 but what, what we're really trying to do in that o intensive rotational grazing is get up to like three cows per acre. 00:14:02 And we're getting closer. Um, we've had to stop using atrazine, which I don't think is bad when you study it, 00:14:08 but we've stopped using atrazine. Now, 26 will be the third year of no atrazine on our farm. And the reason is the, the, the carryover that it has, 00:14:17 it's hard on some, it's hard on some crops. And we've had to, we've had to kind of pick and choose what we can use for cover crops, Damien and, and, 00:14:25 and rotational grazing crops. We've had to pick and choose 'em because they don't all work 'cause of the atrazine. 00:14:30 And so my, my chemical mix has, has cost a bit more. Not a lot, but a bit more. But the benefits we see from the cover crops, 00:14:38 I think far outweighs that. Um, we also, the last thing that we, you know, let TJ talk about this. 00:14:43 We seeded some cover crops very early. Like we, we wanted to seed them like at, at three or four leaf corn. 00:14:49 It was more like six or seven because of our chemical program and some rain and things like that. 00:14:54 But that was, that was a success as well, getting those cover crops out there earlier, before the ground was shaded. 00:15:00 So interceding them in the, in the standing crop, which people might have thought you were crazy. And that was the big experiment for 2025. 00:15:08 The results on that are The results were good. Now tj uh, tj uh, was frustrated with me because I didn't get it out there wind grove, 00:15:17 and I didn't get it out there soon enough. And it was because of the chemical that we had and some rain, it pushed it off a little bit. 00:15:24 Um, you know, and we, it didn't turn out that we had a drought obviously, you know, but we, we were really forecast across 00:15:31 the Midwest to have a drought. And you know, Damien, you and I have talked about this with TJ and things like that as well. 00:15:36 Gabe Brown and his talk of collaborative species out there. And so when we monocrop with like corn, we really reduce 00:15:44 the amount of water that the soil can hold. And so it, it wasn't that I was necessarily excited to have a drought, but with the forecast for the drought, 00:15:53 I'm like, let's try this. Let's, let's put out this collaborative species. And, and TJ helped us select species of plants 00:15:59 that would collaborate with the corn, not compete. So let's do that because, because then we wanted to see can the soil structure, 00:16:06 can we change it to try to hold more water? Because we, you know, we did a video, TJ and I here a couple years ago in 00:16:12 that intensity rotational grazing. And you can, you, I think it was in 23, you could dig down and see. 00:16:19 And everywhere the, the root from different species touched, it was moist. And Gabe Brown talks about a 10 x water 00:16:26 holding capacity in your soil. After seeing that with TJ in my, uh, rotational grazing fields, I believe in it. 00:16:33 And so I wanted to do this in that corn crop to see if I could increase the water holding capacity to improve that corn crop in a drought. 00:16:41 We didn't have a drought, but we still made the attempt. And the, if, if nothing else, the wheat control was better. 00:16:48 I think the erosion control was better and the cattle feed was better because that crop had so much longer to grow 00:16:54 before we harvested the corn. Interesting. All right. So also it didn't yield, it didn't yield, it didn't steal yield. 00:17:03 That was the other big concern. It It did not. We, we, uh, we have that yield map, you know, and we'll talk about that at the data conference. 00:17:09 I believe we, we didn't see any deficit to yield at all because again, TJ helped us choose species of plants that collaborated, not competed. 00:17:18 He's leading me right into it. Again, tj. So before we go to your next question, he just mentioned data conference. 00:17:23 If you're listening to this and it happens to be before the end of January, be sure that you put January 25 and 26 on your calendar. 00:17:30 January 25 and 26 is the extreme AG First annual data conference. If you come to Davenport, Iowa 00:17:34 and you are an extreme Ag member, you will be there for free. No registration costs. 00:17:39 Your hotel was paid for your meals, your drinks paid for, well maybe not all your drinks depending 00:17:44 on, you know, how much you drink. Anyway, I'm gonna be there on stage. Kelly's gonna be there on stage. 00:17:48 And we're going to make sure that we let you get all the information from the companies that we work with. 00:17:52 It's a data conference. We're gonna share all of the actual information and you can ask the questions to take your farming 00:17:57 to the next level and also have a little bit of fun. So it's January 25 and 26. If you're an extreme Ag member, it's free to attend. 00:18:03 If you're Notre Ag member, you can still sign up $750 a year as an annual membership for that seven 50 bucks. 00:18:09 You go to data conference for free. You go to Commodity Classic for free because of our friends over at Nature's, 00:18:14 you get a direct line to people like the calibrated agronomy guys. So you can ask them questions 00:18:19 and you get some other benefits. So why don't you check it out, go to Extreme Ag Farm, check out all the videos, and also become a member, uh, 00:18:26 TJ around the country. What do we learn and what worked and what didn't? Are we gonna see more of this interceding 00:18:31 during the vegetative se uh, phase like Kelly did? I think we can Damian as long as a couple things. One is we gotta look at that chemical program 00:18:40 for two years prior to what we're doing because there are herbicides and you do a wonderful job. That's what they're there to do is clean up weeds. 00:18:46 They take care of broadleaf, they take care of grasses. And then we put something out there, say, no, kill that one, but don't kill this one. It doesn't work that 00:18:52 The atrazine from a year, the atrazine from a year and a half ago could still be in there and make it so your radishes don't grow. 00:18:57 No, it won't kill at all. But you're gonna ding 20, 30, 40% of your stand. Well, I don't wanna sell something 00:19:03 that you're gonna ding right off the bat. So if we can look back and say, Hey, we gotta do this for one or two more years, you gotta stop, 00:19:09 you know, go to a different program. And there's programs out there and there's a lot more research 00:19:13 and data on how many programs are out there. But what we use in the interceding, and I think the farther north you go, this becomes a very, 00:19:19 very attribute or a good way of doing it for corn on corn. Guys that are gonna go back to maybe a, a specialty product. 00:19:26 We go with this interceding early with brassicas and we use a kale, we use turnips, we use cabbage. Those three work for us early seeded. 00:19:35 They don't get vinney and stringy. They still make a tuber. They make the same plan. And then I use something 00:19:40 that everybody gets panicky over annual rye grass, not cereal rye. It's annual rye grass. And it's not tet deployed. 00:19:47 It's not teya, which is Italian rye, which keeps coming back. This is a Diplo rye grass that can be terminated 00:19:53 with herbicide correctly in the spring. Sometimes it doesn't over winter. What if it doesn't over winter, if it's 40 inches worth 00:20:00 of roots underneath and a foot or half a foot of top growth, it's done its job. It doesn't have to over winter. 00:20:06 But if it does, it's just a bonus for grazing water suppression, uh, soil erosion, all the great things we're trying to do. 00:20:13 It's there for you. It's, we've cut the rates back these two 18 pounds, we're cutting it down to 10 to 12. We're still getting the same great growth out of it. 00:20:22 Uh, Kelly did a little bit late and I wasn't, I wasn't upset Kelly, I was just panicky 'cause I've seen it go late and I've seen it not make it. 00:20:30 And then I'm like, oh, this is gonna be the first year of this and we're gonna fail at it. But we've really learned 00:20:34 that it can take it a little bit later depending on statue of your corn and fertility. 00:20:39 And you had plenty of fertility out there. So we had a great, great stand. I think moving north, this is a really good attribute. 00:20:44 You don't have to have cattle to make this work a a trip. Typical row crop guy can make this work. 00:20:49 And there's reasons that it really works well. I have a guy that strip tills it in strip till's part of an interview that's green manure. 00:20:55 I'm fine with that. But there's still cover on both sides of his strip. That's terrific. He's really checking a lot of boxes 00:21:01 and he's not just using cereal rye, which is good, but I think we're finding some better things. But he started with Silver R and he worked up to this. 00:21:09 So I really liked the early interceding. But I, it takes a little more getting used to and a little more due diligence 00:21:15 on how you do things with him. But once you get it to work, it's terrific. We talked about when we were going through some 00:21:21 of the note taking yesterday about the economics. So, so far you and especially Kelly have made the agronomic case except 00:21:28 for he made an economic case for cow feed. Again, say there's a person listening to this like, well that's great. 00:21:33 I don't have cattle. The economic case, sometimes we've gotten these cover crops paid for from an Iowa State program or from A-U-S-D-A program. 00:21:41 And then it also helps you qualify for like a carbon program moving forward. Are we gonna, do we have enough economic case 00:21:48 to make somebody that's still considering or not considering doing it? I'd be a cover cropper if I was an operator 00:21:55 for all the things we talked about. But gimme the economic case, farmer, farmer perspective first. Mr. Garrett. 00:22:01 Well I really think, you know, you can still get equip money for this and things like that to try it 00:22:05 to learn. And now with that, is That enough? Does it, does equip dollar for dollar cover for me 00:22:10 to get the cover crop and put it on? Yes, It Does. So then every benefit for the soil is bonus 00:22:14 because I've got at least my application Right. Plant is covered. It does, you know, uh, the CSP program 00:22:21 that we're still part of, we, uh, we have, there's some equip money to do some separate programs. Part of the CSP program that my sons 00:22:29 and I are part of, we get part of that money is because, uh, you know, be one of the boxes we check to get to CSP program, our cover crops. 00:22:37 That's the way to explain it. And now, you know, it remains to be seen. But this 700 million that came out for regen Ag Yep. 00:22:44 I, it remains to be seen where that money will all go. So, but I believe part of that will be cover crops. And I believe part of that will be 00:22:51 because of the regulation that we fear is coming. I, I don't like regulation either because I don't wanna be told what to do. 00:22:57 But I don't know that we have a choice. You know, it seems like, it seems like we're going to get, it seems like we're going to get money for this kind 00:23:09 of stuff through that 700 million bucks. But I've read it and some of it's got a degree of ambiguity. Ambiguity that, uh, it's not, it's not clear yet, like 00:23:18 what I'm gonna have to do to get part of that money as a farmer. Did you, did he tj you've got, uh, 00:23:22 you know, a little bit of read on it maybe? Yeah, so I, and I think that becomes part of it is we've, we've had N-R-C-S-S-N-B-C programs for, 00:23:30 well since the Dust Bowl. We've had programs out there and I got growers who are like, I don't wanna go to the government office. 00:23:36 I don't want to get the program money. It's too much work. So we as a, as a company, we walk people through it, 00:23:41 we show 'em the species, we sh we do the mixes for 'em, we show 'em how to make it work. We get 'em up there, we get 'em signed up. 00:23:46 We try to just take 'em down the path so they don't fail at it. 'cause to me it's, it's educational money. 00:23:50 It's like, it's like continuing or learning money from realtors or whatever. You're learning how to make this work and 00:23:56 after so many years, if it's gone, you'll already have it dialed in or you don't have to worry about. 00:24:00 Or if regulations come and they don't pay anything for a regulation move, well you already know what to do. 00:24:06 So you're already ahead of it. I think the problem is when we talk about this and we talk about, okay, guys can't make it work, 00:24:12 I look at a large producer. So say like admire you got a two to three, 4,000 acre producer. 00:24:17 He's so scripted and he's not, nothing wrong with what he's doing, but he's very scripted. The field cultivator runs today. 00:24:23 The planter runs tomorrow, the sprayer puts a preem emerged down with 32%. We come back and spray again our corn crops in and done. 00:24:30 You start adding cover crops and say, well now you can't spray after three o'clock in the afternoon. 00:24:35 You can't spray before nine o'clock in the morning. You can't do this now. It's gonna be too cold 'cause it's not gonna terminate. 00:24:40 And we put all these hurdles in front of him and he says, well, it doesn't work. So like in Kelly's case, he took one of the hurdles out 00:24:46 by saying, I'm gonna use a non over wintering o oat crop that's gonna gimme great benefits, 00:24:51 but I don't have to worry about terminating in the spring. Nebraska's come back. Big deal. 00:24:54 We're putting a broadleaf killer down anyways. You're gonna get rid of them easy. So I think the, the hurdle is to get 00:25:01 that large guy to say he's gonna do it. And then the economic benefit is they use less spray a lot of times, a lot less herbicide, 00:25:08 a lot less tillage, a lot less fuel. I got one guy that's saving almost 60% of his fuel budget because he's went to no-till strip till and cover crops. 00:25:17 He's saving 60% of the fuel used to buy his fuel bill is a hundred thousand dollars. He's buying 40 grand worth of fuel. Yeah. 00:25:22 But this, this flies in the face because the excuse is gonna be, I use more fuel, more tire and more tractor hours to go out and put in the cover crops 00:25:29 and then also to terminate 'em. But as you said, you already, Kelly was his guys were gonna be out to with the spray rig in the spring 00:25:34 anyhow. Yep. Right. So, so in the fall, I had a guy tell me that, well what am I gonna do? 00:25:39 I pull that 15 foot ripper, 20 foot ripper. I see you pull a 40 foot drill at the same tractor covering 40 feet versus 20. 00:25:46 Oh, I said, you're using less fuel per acre. Oh, you're right. You Know, not only pulling an implement that's twice 00:25:53 as wide is probably pull only pulling half as hard. Yeah. One thing that I'd like to touch on that we, that doesn't ever really get talked about, the atrazine, 00:26:03 the atrazine that we've been using and you know, like the, the species of plants that we had to choose or couldn't choose 00:26:10 because you said atrazine, you can't tell me that that doesn't hurt the yield of the corn and soybeans just a little bit when it 00:26:17 builds up over time like that. I, I, you know, I mean I really, I mean if atrazine can be there a year and a half later and kill my radishes, 00:26:26 how can it not have some level of detrimental effect to the actual crop that I'm attempting to produce for, to put in a bin. 00:26:33 Damien, there was one plant and TJ will remember there was one species of plant I wanted to use. 00:26:37 And you could, you had to be without atrazine for two years. Yeah. Before you could do you, which one was 00:26:42 that tj, do you remember? Um, That was the one of the peas. And it just, I mean it would just, 00:26:48 it showed a response two years later of dying. So if that p so you know, like if that pea showed a response, 00:26:55 you're gonna tell me a soybean doesn't, you know, I, and I can't, I I wonder about this. So, you know, and I've been so heavy corn, 00:27:02 we're gonna have more soybeans next year. I wonder what my soybean yields will do. Yeah. Um, without atrazine being a forever chemical in 00:27:09 that ground, I, and I, I'm not trying to necessarily be en environmental about it. I just want to have a better ROI 00:27:16 and I, I'm like, are you serious? We can't plant pea for two years, but it's okay to have a corn soybean rotation. 00:27:22 Tj are you hearing this? There's a, a conventional verging on regenerative some many ways Iowa farmer questioning atrazine. 00:27:33 This is like going to the Vatican and standing up and saying there might not be a pope. I mean, this is gonna be, this is gonna be a problem here 00:27:39 because if I, God, if you wanna grow corn, you gotta use atrazine kine. Well, I, well it, it, it worked. 00:27:44 It has always, it's worked well and it's inexpensive. So I I understand all of the positives of atrazine. Yeah. However, when you, I had no idea that it was 00:27:53 around in the soil that long because nobody ever told me that. And, And by the way we've been using it to, to your point, 00:27:59 we've used it in places like where you and I are from for 60 years. Early seventies, mid seventies, three 00:28:06 Generations I'd say as Least. I mean, I was a kid. We were using it. We Right tj we were using it 00:28:10 in the seventies. Right. Pretty, It was the original. It was the original chemical. Yeah. 00:28:14 We were, I mean it was after two four D two four D was our first one. Yep. And then by golly atrazine. 00:28:19 And we flung that stuff every which way. Um, real quickly, you know, all the good about atrazine, it kinda reminds you of one of those commercials, you know, 00:28:26 those commercial TJ that they put on the evening news to gear to your demographic. And by that I mean old people like pharmaceutical products. 00:28:33 Yep, yep. All the things. You, and then at the end they tell you all the bad things. I Was gonna say, yeah, if you take this, hey, 00:28:38 if you're having those, if you're having those tremors, when you eat old person, we'll make it so you don't have those tremors. 00:28:43 Oh, you'll get diarrhea. You won't be able to remember your name and you'll probably like, have hives. 00:28:47 But aside from that Oh, and don't drive. Yeah, exactly. Don't drive. I, I just can't, I just can't help. I, I can't help but think, uh, 00:28:56 there's a yield penalty there somewhere. And, and you know, so my, my chemical program now is a bit more expensive, 00:29:03 but I'm fairly confident that the yields are gonna make up for it because what have we been doing? 00:29:09 So you think about that Kelly, where you sit with the atrazine. So all the years we did that over and over and over again. 00:29:14 Soybeans like corn, corn has the ability to use yield 500 bushels, maybe even more. It's got the ability to do it. 00:29:21 Just environmental takes away from it. We've taken away from soybeans, soy, there's no reason soybeans don't do a 00:29:26 hundred, 120 bushel beans. Now with that help us. No, not really. 'cause we're overproducing 'em anyways, 00:29:31 but we have limited soybeans one way or another. We've limited soybeans. Is that one of the limiting factors 00:29:36 that has just not really hurt the yield? Bad, bad, but it's taken a, a percentage. What if it's 10% of your yield potential? 00:29:43 You're at a 70 bush yield percent potential. You took out 10 bushels. Well, current market, that's a hundred dollars. 00:29:49 That's, that's exactly the line of thinking I have. So while we're on the environmental discussion, and we're not in any way being radical, 00:29:57 crazy environmentalists, we're talking about some realities. If we've got a product here that sticks around 00:30:02 for two years in the soil, it's, it's, and we've been using it intensively for 50 to 60 years. Let's talk about the next thing we've been using intensively 00:30:10 and maybe over applying things like n and P. So tj, you and I both believe, and I opened the show by saying this. 00:30:17 I shot a video walking along my drainage ditch at my farm in Indiana in springtime. 00:30:21 And I said, because of extreme ag I've learned that only 35% of applied nitrogen gets into this corn plant right here. 00:30:28 Where's the other two thirds go in this drainage ditch? And you wonder why the state representative in Des Moines is out there along the Raccoon River talking about we need 00:30:38 to monitor and, and stop agricultural, uh, agriculture's nitrogen overuse getting into our water supply. 00:30:46 I'm not, I'm not anti ag I'm just telling you this is what's coming. We get out voted 99 to one, uh, all the time. 00:30:55 Cover crops play into the nutrient management aspect of this. And I'm not sure that it's unjustified. 00:31:01 That agriculture's got a little bit of a target on its back when it comes to things like nitrogen and phosphorus in our waterways. 00:31:07 So I work with a, a group outta Mankato at Minnesota State University over there. And one of the gals made a great point. 00:31:13 She goes, municipals dump a lot of stuff in the water too. But that's a small area. AG is a large landmass. 00:31:21 So we have the biggest bullseye 'cause we're the large landmass. So we must be doing things really wrong. 00:31:25 Well, we're not, we're trying to do the best job we can. We're the bigger landmass. 00:31:29 So we have more going into those areas than a municipal does. Municipal is a smaller landmass. 00:31:34 They're probably doing the same amount of things. They're just at a more condensed level and it looks worse when it comes out our end. 00:31:40 So when you take ag, we have been told to put this much NP and K on all the time, which at the 00:31:46 time it was probably correct. But the farther we get into this, the better our hybrids are, the better our soil reacts, 00:31:52 the better we do things. I think we can really start weaning those, those rates down. And the other part is if we don't use it, 00:31:59 it gets in the water and goes to somebody who doesn't want it there. And that's one thing. And if you talk economics, 00:32:05 if you could raise the same corn, a hundred bushel, a hundred pounds of nitrogen versus 200, you're making more money. 00:32:11 So that cover crop helps scavenge up NP and K, which we know it can, holds it there in the biomass. Lets it go back to your crop next year. That's a bonus. 00:32:20 You're recycling what you did not use. You drive around any city, there's recycling bins everywhere. 00:32:24 Put your plastic here, put your cans here, put your, but we let stuff get away from us and ag a little bit. So let's hold onto every ounce of it. 00:32:33 If I bought a hundred pounds of in, I want the a hundred pounds in used one way or another. 'cause I paid for it. And I'm kind of a tight pot that way. 00:32:40 I hate paying for something I don't get to use out of. It's like leaving a meal. I don't leave nothing on my plate when I leave a restaurant. 00:32:46 There's no sense in that business. I mean, if it's there and brought it to me, I paid for it. I'm eating it all. I might eat my wife so she doesn't eat. 00:32:51 She's real tiny. She doesn't eat all her food. I'm eating her food too. 'cause I don't want, I don't want waste. 00:32:56 And I think that's kinda what we've done is we've had a little bit of waste. I think we can control it a lot better by recycling. 00:33:01 And the cover crops really fit that build really well. Uh, I was gonna throw this to Kelly, but I figured he'd have something to go on this, 00:33:09 but, uh, if you don't, I got my last wrap on this entire topic that I think is gonna bring it all together. 00:33:14 But if you have anything to follow up on him Nope, go ahead. He said it Up. I'm gonna tell you, and 00:33:19 this again, I remember, I'm the host of this show. I'm not supposed to be the opinion in person, but I keep up with a lot of stuff and I watch a lot of media 00:33:27 and I travel this country. I, I believe that we're, I I could almost make the case that this $700 million of a regenerative ag initiative 00:33:37 is a partially appeasing the RFK Maha movement because, you know, densities, nutrient, all that stuff that Kelly likes to talk about, I can make the argument. 00:33:48 This is also the trial balloon of you are going to use certain practices, reduce tillage, cover cropping, uh, probably reduction of applied, uh, synthetics. 00:34:02 And in a few years you'll have no choice. Yeah, you'll still get USDA programs, but to get crop insurance to be eligible for USDA programs, 00:34:11 this will be part of it. I wonder, Kelly, if the $700 million is a little bit appeasing the RFK Maha thing 00:34:18 and also taking this to the next level. And if you're gonna throw it out there and the farmer's gonna say, yeah, 00:34:24 but you know what, this might take some adoption time for me. I might lose some yield. Well, 00:34:28 we're giving you $12 billion over on this other hand because we have so much yield that our prices are below the, uh, cost of production. 00:34:36 I could make the case that I think this is where this is going and another couple years, it's, it's part of the USDA program. 00:34:43 Well, I think you'd be, uh, you know, I I think you'd be very, uh, uh, wrong to, to not think that that's a possibility. 00:34:51 Uh, if if the, you know, again, they haven't even said what the programs are. No, but when they, when the programs come out 00:34:58 to spend the 700 million, if, if one of them goes well or very well, uh, the idea that it will become law, I think is, is very logical or become policy, become law 00:35:10 or become re regulation is, is a very, uh, uh, a very logical thing to say. And it's, uh, it, it, it probably is headed down that road 00:35:22 to appease the Maha movement and to appease the, uh, regulators, especially within the nitrogen in the groundwater. 00:35:28 Alright, so we all think this is where the, where this ultimately goes. And, and we're not, we're not cheering on the regulation, 00:35:34 but if this, this $700 million and what we think the program's gonna look like, obviously is gonna, I think it's going 00:35:41 to involve cover cropping and different, uh, nutrient management programs as of being a requirement for the money. 00:35:46 And then it ends up being a project for USD compliance. Tj. Yeah. So you take like, where, where Kelly's partner 00:35:53 of temple is at out in the, in the Chesapeake Bay that started as a seven year pilot program. After seven years, they said, here's your rules 00:36:00 and you'll live by 'em or you'll get fined. And the fines were steep enough. So guys were like, okay, I gotta live by this. 00:36:05 Ohio has the same thing with their H2O program. They're going to Lake Erie. They, they realize that by doing these practices, 00:36:11 there isn't stuff getting into those areas that are sensitive water areas. We all live at the top of the Mississippi Basin. 00:36:18 All of our water goes to the Gulf and they got problems down there. If we stopped it from coming down, 00:36:23 it changes the whole attribute of what's going on in the Gulf. So everything time, I see something that says pilot program, 00:36:28 it makes me realize that they're monitoring this to set precedents and set, set policy and if these are the things they want, the other, 00:36:35 the other part is the healthier the soil gets, the healthier the food gets, the healthier we'll get that will all tie in together. 00:36:41 I believe that a hundred percent. But the rules and regulations and guys will fight it. They'll fight it right to the end, but it will happen. 00:36:48 I'm I I don't wanna be the negative Nelly about it. I don't, but I can tell you right now, there's things happening 00:36:55 and we gotta really pay attention to this. 'cause we don't want, I, okay, here's the thing. I don't wanna have to be the bad guy 00:37:00 to come sell you cover crops, but I will be, I get a choice but to buy it from you. Yeah. You know, we'll be the, 00:37:06 we'll be the antagonistic guys and well now you have, now I gotta buy from you. This makes me mad. I don't want that. 00:37:12 So let's start working together, forward so you understand it. You don't have to do a hundred percent, 00:37:16 you don't not be perfect at it, but let's learn and go forwards. The money is there to learn. What's 00:37:21 Mr. Garrett say every year? 10% of your acres. Isn't that right? 10% of your acres should be in 00:37:27 10% of your acres should be in research. Research. And what's the other one? If you, if you don't, if you can't, 00:37:32 you're already broke. You don't know it. Kim Kohler's told Chad Henderson and I, if you cannot afford for 10% 00:37:38 of your acres should be in research, you're already broke and you just don't know it yet. 00:37:41 Yep. All right. So why don't you dabble in cover crops? That's the recommendation we have for you in this episode. Um, if you wanna learn more about the company that TJ 00:37:51 represents, the website is by, it's Biot Till is the company Biot Till? You can just go in here, I'm gonna pull it up on my phone 00:37:57 right now myself and you can learn all about cover crop that work for you. It is biot till.com right there it is on my phone. 00:38:05 His name is TJ Curtis. He has been on this show before. He's gonna be doing some stuff in 2026 with us at X Extreme Ag. 00:38:12 And Kelly's gonna continue to do more of what works and what doesn't. Remember what I told you about the data conference, 00:38:17 January 25, 26, and also at Commodity Classic. We'll be there. We want you to be there Till next time. He's Kelly. He's tj. I'm Damien Mason. 00:38:24 This is extreme ag cutting the curve. That's a wrap for this episode of Cutting the Curve. Make sure to check out Extreme ag.farm 00:38:31 for more great content to help you squeeze more profit out 00:38:35.005 --> 00:38:36.285