Maximizing ROI and Soil Health: Cover Crop Strategies For Your Farm

00:00:00 Guys we're here today kinda almost, I guess this would be kinda like a Kelly Garrett Matt Miles contest that we did last year on, uh, on the, 00:00:07 uh, nitrogen reduction. And of course, I believe it or not, contrary to what Kelly believes I wanted to lose 'cause it made me see that I can save money 00:00:15 and reduce my nitrogen. Today we're here with, uh, Jacob, apple Berry from Live Oak Agronomy. 00:00:21 We started working with Jacob this year, um, you know, on, on our agronomy here on the farm. 00:00:26 And, uh, actually started a business, you know, agronomy business called Live Oak agronomy. There's a lot of different things that 00:00:32 will be involved in that. Stay tuned from water sensors to research. Jacob's going to take care of a lot of our extreme ag plots. 00:00:39 Mm-hmm. Uh, that's something he can do for other farmers too. If they need their, if they need their data kind of managed 00:00:45 or trials managed or whatever, Jacob's gonna be available for that. What we're standing in today is a hot topic. 00:00:51 Been a hot topic for several years, and, and this is what we're, you know, we're in cover crop. So Jacob and I talked about thi about, 00:00:59 about this middle of the year. Mm-hmm. Uh, you know, planting for next year, what are we gonna do? 00:01:04 And Jacob has been very successful in cover crops, making them work, making 'em be efficient on his farm. Also making them making ROI. Yeah, I've been the opposite. 00:01:13 Every time I've tried to plant a cover crop, I'd end up having to go back and till it, I couldn't get it planted. 00:01:18 It was too rough. I couldn't, number one, I couldn't kill it. And so I'd end up having to go back 00:01:23 and do something different or go to a lesser cover crop, which might be just a weed 00:01:27 or a oats, you know, a single species. Right. What we've got out here is multiple species you can see on Jacob's Right. 00:01:33 Is a cover crop and it's done pretty well. On the left is natural cover. And I've always said this natural henbit on these low CCC 00:01:40 soils will suffice as a cover crop, the same as a cover crop. As Jacob is planted 00:01:46 and it's free, there is a lot of agronomic benefits to what, to the different species he has. 00:01:51 But if you're looking for soil erosion or keeping some of the nutrients to the top, I was trying to look for a lesser evil because I've had problems with it. 00:01:59 Jacob's been very successful with it. And so we've got four different fields, I think, where we split the fields halfway 00:02:06 and we're gonna do, we're gonna have the water centers out there. We're gonna be looking at different 00:02:11 chemical, uh, applications. This is supposed to reduce root knots. This field has root knots, not severely, 00:02:16 but it does have some. Right. And so there's a bunch of different things. If Jacob wins, that's gonna benefit my farm. 00:02:23 So, you know, when I say it's a contest, not really a contest, but I told Jacob, when he come to work with us, do what you do 00:02:30 and say, prove me wrong, or Prove me right. Or prove me a good ROI. And so that's what we're all 00:02:36 after is a good solid ROI on our farm. And this is one of the places where Jacob wanted to, you know, put some time into mm-hmm. 00:02:43 And hopefully show me that this is the way we need to be farming, you know, the whole time. So Jacob, if you would, you know, kind of describe 00:02:50 what you've done here, how you've done it, what species they're in here, and what they, what they're gonna be for. 00:02:55 The four species are camelina, kale, mustard, and sewer rye. And they, they serve different purposes. 00:03:01 The sewer rye is for deep root penetration to help create some more pores for soil water to move through the soil a little bit easier. 00:03:07 Whether it helps it dry out in the spring. Uh, if the cover gets big enough, it'll help the soil be a little bit 00:03:12 warmer so we can plant earlier. Uh, but also after you get it wet during irrigation season, which the first trip is gonna take a little bit longer than 00:03:21 it normally would whenever you get over here in the non-covered crop area. The data that I've seen, 00:03:26 that I've put together myself is you get to wear your water and cotton instead every seven 00:03:30 days, which is typical around here. Every seven to 10 days you get to spread that out to 14, maybe a little longer. 00:03:35 And if you catch a rain sometime between, then you spread it out even longer, even more. And, you know, keeping a well off, whether it's diesel or, 00:03:42 or electricity's money in your pocket. Where we've seen benefit on top of that is we made good yield behind it. 00:03:48 We were even with, with other fields that had non-covered crop species on it. So that helped, you know, a lot out there. 00:03:55 You didn't, you didn't water as much. We had a little bit better weed suppression in the spring. So that's obviously another benefit. 00:04:00 You don't have to put nearly as aggressive herbicides out there. And we know you can't be very aggressive on cotton 00:04:05 herbicides in the spring. You gotta be kind of gentle with it. Yeah. So there's some opportunities there. Well, 00:04:09 And, and, and you know, I'm just sitting there while you're talking. You know, we, we just completely skipped erosion. Well, 00:04:14 That's where I was gonna max. Yes. Yeah. We have a lot of erosion in these low CEC soils also. Like you take a field this big, it's, it's probably, 00:04:22 it's not quite a half mile rose, but it's, it's long roads. Right. And when you're watering in this deep sand up here, 00:04:28 you know, watering every seven days, you're probably over watering the first third of the crop. Exactly. To get the water to the back. Exactly. 00:04:34 If you can spread that water out there every 14 days, even if if we're at seven and you get it to 10, you're gonna skip 00:04:39 one to two waterings. Exactly. You know, when you figure that money up, that probably is gonna pay for the cover crop, 00:04:44 not including all the other benefits that come from it. Right. And you start having iron problems on the top, 00:04:49 like you're talking about with certain wells and things like that start Yeah. You know, kind of discoloring your leaves 00:04:53 and, um, that's gotta cause problem with the plants. And so that, so, so having that cover crop will kind of release some of that because Exactly. 00:05:00 Or, or combat the iron problems because you're not watering as much. Exactly. You know, it's not getting hit if you get hit in 00:05:05 the mouth once you're okay, you get hit in the mouth twice, it hurts worse. It really, Whenever you look at, you know, the rain we got right 00:05:10 after Christmas, we got seven inches of rain in less than 12 hours. Yeah. If this would've not been in cover crops, what, 00:05:16 you know, what would you have pushed out the bottom and the way your fertility levels are? Do you really wanna do that? Do you really wanna waste money 00:05:21 that you just spent trying to keep your soils built up to make the yields you make? Yeah. 00:05:24 So guys, there you have it from, uh, I would call him a cover crop specialist in our area. You know, we're not in the Midwest, so we've had to learn 00:05:32 to adapt to these cover crops a little bit differently. We could be straight in no-till and didn't have to go down these furrows. 00:05:37 And it's a lot easier to manage the irrigation. Exactly. So, so in the delta we've had to go, I guess another step to 00:05:44 or infer irrigation situations. We've had to go to another step to try to make these cover crops work. 00:05:49 Right. I get impatient. I gave up. Jacob's been hammering on this for several years. We've got side-by-sides here. 00:05:57 We're gonna monitor this during the year. We're gonna have a series of videos on this and hopefully Jacob approved me wrong. 00:06:02 So y'all stay tuned for that. Stay tuned for other things from Live Oak agronomy. I think Jacob's gonna set the world on fire with this, 00:06:09 with this agronomy business. 00:06:11.265 --> 00:06:13.005