Cut Your Nitrogen Bill with Hairy Vetch, Winter Peas, and Microbes

0:02 Hey everybody, welcome to another episode of the GreenCover podcast where we have really interesting conversations with some of the top producers and experts in the regenerative ag world. Join us as we learn together how we can regenerate God's creation for future generations.

0:17 Hey, you know, as farmers, we all want to be more profitable and there's really two ways to become more profitable. One is to earn more money, grow bigger crops, sell them for more money. And while that sounds great, it's a little bit out of our control as farmers. We can't control the weather, we can't really control the market. So while that's a great goal, it's a difficult one to accomplish. But the other way to become more profitable is to spend less money growing the same crops. And that is one that we do have a little bit more control over and that is one that we want to talk about here today in this episode.

0:51 So I'm joined by my friend and colleague Zach Luetke. Zach is one of our sales team members here at GreenCover. He works out of our Iola office. Zach, welcome to the GreenCover podcast.

1:04 Yeah, happy to be here, Keith. Looking forward to this topic and getting into it.

1:08 Yeah, absolutely. So for the people that are listening to this that may not know you, Zach, just give a quick background. I know you've been a guest on here before, but some people may not have met you either in person or through the former podcast episode. So just give a quick background on yourself.

1:26 Sure. So for GreenCover, I'm a sales rep, been here over 6 years now. But I also do all of the seed purchasing and I work with Scott Ravenkamp, our contract grower, to help him pair the growers with the correct amount of seed and the correct types of seed that we want grown. I'm kind of a little bit of a nerd, if you want to call it, of the different genetics when it comes to the different varieties and how they're going to grow and be the best possible thing for not only a cover crop mix but a forage mix, but just for every type of use that we would use it as. I want to make sure that our customers have quality and consistency and not just pounds of seed that they're getting to plant. It takes a lot of diagnosis, getting that into that. But one of the things that kind of makes me unique is we have a farm and have livestock ourselves. So getting to grow and understand these seed crops, where they're grown on my own operation, and then figuring out how to control like we're going to talk about today some of these input costs the best we can and how we can use cover crops in different forms to help make us more profitable.

2:46 Yeah, I like to tell people that GreenCover got a lot better when we had a key and crucial firing happen within the company and people's eyes get really big and I say, 'It's when I fired myself from being the guy that bought all the seed because you do such a better job of that, you and Scott together.' And part of it is because you're just spending a lot of time, but you're passionate about it. And you work really hard to maintain and develop relationships with the seed companies, the growers that we have.

3:17 And so, you know, on the topic of being more profitable by reducing your costs, Zach, and that's important to you as a farmer, to us as farmers, to the people listening as farmers. We just have to reduce our inputs, reduce our costs if we're going to become more profitable, especially in the economy that we find ourselves in where commodity prices aren't great. And we just don't know what the weather's going to do. We're too dry, you've been too wet, you'll probably be too dry later on. So we just don't know. It's hard to control that income side, but we do have a bit more control over the expense side. And one of the biggest expenses as farmers that we have is nitrogen fertilizer. We spend $5 as a US industry on nitrogen fertilizer every year, and that is a huge amount, but it's one of the easiest ones.

4:10 Least one of the ones that's the most possible to replace, because God has given us all this atmospheric nitrogen, 30,000 tons of nitrogen above every thinker of crop ground. We just have to figure out how to put it into a form that the plants can use. So how do you go about talking to your customers about this concept, because it's a big deal.

4:34 Yeah, so there's a fine line between reduction of inputs and let's just say like quitting inputs altogether. And let's be very clear, we're not saying that that is what you should do, because there are like you need nutrients for your plants and crops to grow and be successful throughout the year. Now, what we have learned and what I've learned more and more is that there are different forms of each one of those inputs. You know, dry fertilizer was developed as an easy solution to get synthetic inputs out onto the fields at a mass scale.

5:15 But if we look into this a little bit further, and like you mentioned all the atmospheric nitrogen, how can we more efficiently utilize that into our situations, so we don't have to purchase as much synthetic nitrogen? And that is the stepping stone is, well, how do I do that? And the easiest way to get started is to plant a nitrogen-fixing cover crop.

5:43 Yeah, that's right. And so, obviously, you know, people's thoughts immediately go to legumes, which makes a lot of sense because they're the ones that form the associations with rhizobia that actually fix that nitrogen for the cover crops. And let's face it, so many people are in traditionally predominantly a corn-soybean rotation. So, you know, we've got a lot of great summer legumes, cowpeas, sunn hemp, mung beans. You can fix a lot of nitrogen in the summertime. But that's only going to go on a pretty small percentage of the acres where guys have the opportunity to plant in, you know, June, July, early August. And so, let's talk about what can the corn-soybean guys do, you know, following if you're in a corn-soybean rotation, what can you get into that ground that's going to go to corn next year? And obviously, it's got to be something that is going to grow long enough to get you some benefit. What are the main options that we have when it comes to that time frame?

6:45 Yeah, I always jokingly say your option is more time waiting. Because that is the most successful of all of it. But, you know, in that rotation, the let's just call it the easiest and best and easiest thing to get into that rotation is hairy vetch. I mean, it's just it's cold tolerant. It grows in about every soil type. It can handle the stress. It can handle extremes both directions. And the kicker is though is the timing of it. You know, in our area, it's not uncommon for us to be running a combine in November still, and we had corn planted like the 20th of March this year. So, if that's your goal, I'm sorry to tell you, but like I don't believe that you're going to get enough out of that hairy vetch in that time frame to make it work. But if you can stretch that window out and plant it earlier in the fall or plant later in the spring, you can capitalize on that nitrogen fixation from those rhizobia in a more efficient way.

7:55 You're saying plant your corn later in the spring? Correct. Yep. Yeah, yeah, I know you're totally right and we have seen you know, almost every year, you know, we'll plant our fall cover crop plots here at GreenCover and usually it's in the first 10 days of October, sometimes the middle of October. But almost every year we can produce 200 lb of nitrogen from hairy vetch, good inoculated, good hairy vetch almost every year. Now, the caveat to that is that sometimes we don't hit 200 lb until June 10th, 12th, 15th and that's going to be too late for people for the most part to be planting their corn. Now, we've got our organic guys that do that on a regular basis because it is their source of nitrogen. They have very few other

8:45 But are you saying that if I got my vetch planted prior to say the middle of October, that that would speed up how fast I get to my nitrogen fixation goal in the spring?

8:59 It'll speed up the terminal goal, like if you're shooting for 10 or 15 lb, but I have seen the earlier that guys are planting it, even as early as after wheat as a matter of fact, get it planted. That hairy vetch doesn't do a lot of big biomass production in the fall, but it does seem to speed it up in the spring time. I mean, it's just more roots that more plant reserves that that thing has to get started and going. And I do believe the earlier you can get that in the ground and get it started, you are going to get an earlier response in the spring time from that plant.

9:34 Yeah, some of some of our better organic customers have learned that they can't grow all the nitrogen they need for irrigated organic corn after irrigated organic beans because there just isn't enough time. So, they put wheat or some other summer harvested crop into the rotation so that yeah, they can get their veg planted in mid to late August and really get establishment and then that gives them that better growth in the spring, quicker growth and then they can get their corn planted more timely.

10:07 So, you mentioned that hairy vetch is cold tolerant. Talk a little bit about how cold tolerant is it? What are some of the factors that go into you know, is all vetch is all hairy vetch the same? Well, what are some of the things that people should be looking for?

10:23 Yeah, so let's talk about where our hairy vetch comes from and maybe what it is first and then we can describe like what it make what makes it different than other versions of hairy vetch. So, our the hairy vetch that we're producing and selling, Winter Warrior is the name. We used to call it MT but we found a new variety that is a little bit better, a little bit earlier than Winter Warrior or sorry, MT and it and it just seems to produce a little bit more biomass and fits the Midwest region, let's call it a little bit better. But you know, we're producing that in a northern climate. But let's be very specific about a northern climate. We're not talking Willamette Valley northern climate. Which yeah, they're way up there, almost Canada. But they have a really nice winter. Like they don't get super cold. We're growing it in let's just call it Midwest winter where it's not uncommon to be -20° for a couple days.

11:20 Yeah, because it's close to the Canadian border right?

11:23 Oh, yeah. Close to the Canadian border, almost close as you can get.

11:28 And and it's also in an environment that is not as lush as other environments. So it's having to perform and produce in that area environment. And like all of these way smarter than me scientists are talking about getting your seed adapted to those extremes will make it produce when it's kind of let's say softer if you put it translocated into an area where it's not going to have as harsh of an environment. But you're giving it the hardest extremes that that we know it can get through. So if it has a better opportunity or a better winter, it's easily going to get through those softer winters. But that's way different than stuff that we've seen like imported vetch. And I think you've seen some of the imported vetch from different countries and like what do you see when you look at it compared to our heritage vetch?

12:23 Yeah. Well, you know, one of the things I learned early on is that the majority of the vetch in this country is imported from either Europe, you know, like a lot of it comes out of Spain, but most of it is coming out of South America, Argentina, Uruguay, places like that. And while they get chilly, I'll just say they get chilly. I'm not sure they get cold. And and so what we have seen on that is that that vetch probably does okay in a moderate winter climate, you know, so if you're in

12:56 You know, southern Oklahoma, Texas, you know, the coast where it's moderated by the ocean, you'll probably be okay with that imported vetch. I would be very nervous about selling that to somebody who is in Kansas, Nebraska, Colorado, Missouri, where like you said, we're going to hit below zero at least once, maybe more than once, and if I'm spending the money on hairy vetch, I cannot afford to have it winterkill on me. I've got to have that survive because like you said, even earlier planted vetch, you don't get a lot of growth in the fall. All of the majority of that nitrogen fixation is going to come in the spring.

13:37 So vetch that winterkills, while it can still have some soil benefits, some biological benefits, you're not going to see the nitrogen fixing benefits if you don't have that spring growth. So that's where we've looked long and hard to find varieties and you've done a lot of the work on finding this Winter Warrior and others that we've had. You've got to have something that's going to be able to survive, and we're convinced that it has to be grown domestically, it has to be grown in a cold climate in order for us to have the confidence to share with our customers, yes, this is the most cold hardy thing that you can plant as far as a legume.

14:16 Yeah, let's go to the next step further. If it's grown domestically, Scott, he was there this spring. He's there every year, this summer even, as a matter of fact, a couple weeks ago, looking at the field, and we're talking about quality control. Like we're not trying to get a bunch of weed seed in this. We're not trying to get a bunch of cereal contamination in this. And then also from the cleaning aspect of it, our Winter Warrior Vetch this year has like 1 to 2% hard seed.

14:48 I remember when I first started, which it's been 9 years now actually, I've been selling cover crop seed, and I remember an old gentleman telling me, he's like, 'Well, you know, this one time I was going to plant hairy vetch, but I got thinking about it and talking to people, and they said, well, if you plant hairy vetch, your grandkids will have hairy vetch because there's so much hard seed in it that it'll just last forever.' And I have personally seen some seed tests that had 20, 25, 30% hard dormant seed, which it's going to grow. You just can't control when.

15:28 Someday, yeah. So that really helps for the management of it. Like you know what you're going to get, you know when it's going to be there, and you know when you can control it and terminate it the way you need to for your operation.

15:40 Yeah, and that hard seed, you know, there's a couple factors I've learned over the years that go into that. One is genetics. You know, there's genetics that have lower amounts of hard dormant seed. And they've actually mapped the entire genome now of hairy vetch, so they know where those genes are, and they're working on breeding that into some newer varieties where it will have less hard dormant seed.

16:05 And while that's kind of exciting, I'm a little nervous about that, too, because so often with genetics, when you turn off one thing, you don't know what else you're turning off. And so we don't know if they turn off the hard seeded genes in hairy vetch, if that's going to make it less winter hardy, if that's going to make it less aggressive. So there's a lot of things yet to be seen. But for me, the big thing with reducing hard dormant seed is, just like wine, it gets better with some time. Vetch does.

16:41 And so talk a little bit about how we have seen those hard dormant counts drop the following year. And this is why we tend to sell vetch that's a year old.

16:54 Yeah, so it basically, the first step of helping to break that dormancy is honestly to be a little rough with it. Like running it through the cleaner, run it through some conveyors, through some bins, through some handling equipment, within reason, so we don't crack a bunch of it or anything like that. But also getting through that climate change of warm, cold, hot, cold, steamy.

17:19 Humid, all of those different series of events that a winter and spring and summer will have helps to reduce that dormancy quite a bit. And we've tried from the seed production into things to where like our hairy vetch for this year, like this year's crop of hairy vetch, I bet we're easily a month, probably 6 weeks out of even seeing that hairy vetch in a bin. So, realistically speaking, if we waited and only sold this year's hairy vetch, we wouldn't theoretically have it until September 1st, let's say if we're lucky. And if we carry some over, we can easily get that into the hands of people that are trying to go in after really corn, early beans, to open up that market of getting it planted early in a time frame that fits your operation. And so that's all the management of the seed acquisition and handling and conditioning. We have to keep an eye on that all winter and all summer now to make sure nothing crazy happens to it. Takes a lot of work, but it definitely delivers better product.

18:29 That's exactly right. So we do have our second year vetch, which we really like to have. Now, let's talk just a little bit, Zach, about I mean, hairy vetch is, it's not a cheap crop to put in. It's a relatively, I think we're selling it for like retail price at 250 a pound, which is less than it was last year, but it's still, you know, a little bit of a price tag. I've got organic guys that are planting the full rate. They're looking at 70 to 80 dollars, which sounds like a whole lot, but you know what? If I could grow my corn on only 80 dollars worth of nitrogen, I think we'd all be pretty happy with that. But talk a little bit about why hairy vetch is expensive because it's a really easy crop to grow.

19:17 Yeah, it's a really easy crop to grow. It's not a really easy crop to grow well, and it's definitely not a really easy crop to harvest. And like everything, it has regions that it loves, and it has regions that hate it. And what we see is humidity is an awful factor on hairy vetch. They can get some pretty serious fungus problems. If you're trying to grow it all the way out for seed, yeah. There's numerous reasons why, it's like everything has niches that it grows really well in the country. And since hairy vetch hasn't been genetically selected, gone through a lot of processes, you find a variety, and we found a variety that produces seed in a specific region. Not unlike other cover crops. Like we grow it in that region for a reason, and it produces the best quality seed there. So like we've tried to grow it in Kansas, Nebraska, Oklahoma with some marginal success, but not consistent successes. And it's very important that we pair the genetics with the location to produce the best seed so that we can produce the biomass everywhere else because that's really what we're after in these cover crops.

20:33 Yeah, we don't we don't have to produce seed to make it be a really good cover crop. You just need to get the biomass. And the other thing, the other reason why hairy vetch is such a difficult crop to harvest. I tell people it's the easiest crop you'll ever grow, the hardest crop you'll ever harvest. Because it's so indeterminate. And indeterminacy just simply means it does not all mature at the same time. So it's going to grow, it's going to bloom, it's going to make pods. And where most crops then would just mature, and then you go out and harvest it, that would be a determinate type crop. The hairy vetch is going to grow, it's going to bloom, it's going to make pods, it's going to keep growing, it's going to keep blooming, making more pods, going to keep growing, keep blooming, making more pods. And so it is not uncommon for you to walk out into your field and you got pods that are so mature and they tend to pop open. You can literally hear the pods opening up.

21:27 And the seed falling on the ground and the plant is still blooming. And so, that's what makes it so difficult. If you can harvest every seed that hairy vetch produce, I'll bet the seed costs would be half of what it is right now because most growers will tell you that if they can get 50% of what vetch produces in the combine bin, they're pretty happy with that. They just know they're going to lose that much. But that indeterminacy is what makes it an awesome cover crop, too because the nitrogen fixation, these benefits to the soil happen when the plant is growing vegetatively. And indeterminate plants grow vegetatively for a long period of time.

22:12 So if you look at the price of hairy vetch and you go, 'Man, those guys are just robbing us.' Well, if you've ever tried harvesting it yourself, you'll understand why because it is a challenge. And frankly, that's why the majority of the vetch that is sold in the US is not grown in the US because most producers aren't wanting to mess with the harvest side of it. And that's why there is so much imported vetch. But we've got some growers that have been doing it for a long time. They're figuring some things out and they're some of the best hairy vetch growers in North America, I'm convinced.

22:47 Yeah, and the other side of it is, you know, people often say that it's too expensive to grow, but they're to plant and you know, a full rate is definitely super expensive. But if you cut it back and say you're planning, you know, even 5 to 8 lb an acre, like that's a pretty good rate of hairy vetch in most cover crop mixes. And if you just figure your nitrogen, if you're purchasing nitrogen as a dollar pound, like that's a pretty easy figure to throw out there. It doesn't take, I mean, you talk about 200 lb of nitrogen. If you got 25% of that, that'd be 50 lb of nitrogen, and that's $50 worth of hairy vetch seed. And I always like to compare it to things that you can't necessarily measure financially, too. Like what else is this hairy vetch plant doing for my soil and my operation that I'm not justifying a dollar amount towards?

23:42 Yeah, I use a rule of thumb that for every pound of vetch you plant, you can get 5 to 7 lb of nitrogen if you can let that get to mid-bloom or later. You know, so if you're planting 10 lb of vetch, I think you can easily produce 60, 70 lb of nitrogen from that. The guys, the organic guys that are producing 200 lb, well, they're planting 25 or 30 lb of vetch to do that. So, again, it all kind of depends on your goal and what you're willing to invest in.

24:16 So we've talked a lot about hairy vetch, and it's no doubt the star of the show because it is by far the most cold hardy, the most consistently overwintering of all the legumes. But it's not the only choice. What are the other winter legumes out there, Zach, that you've seen success in the right conditions and environments of having some overwintering ability for that nitrogen fixation?

24:42 Yeah, so if we just go off of our popularity of sales in mixes and people's favorites, the next one is probably Austrian winter peas or winter peas of some sort or fashion. They're a pretty easy one to plant with a small grain crop whether it's rye or oats whatever it may be but it can also produce quite a bit of biomass if planted the correct way and everything works together to get you to spring. It is nowhere near the same comparison as hairy vetch as far as what you can almost count on being there in the spring. So like down south of I-70 let's call it it's much more consistent to get those to overwinter especially the further east you go it seems like the more rainfall you can get but around Bladen you know it's kind of hit and miss. I mean you may have them work one year and you may not is that right?

25:41 Yeah I would say that we see an acceptable or a good stand of winter peas probably 60% of the time. You know I think it's more than half but it certainly isn't three fourths and a lot of that has to do with when they're planted, how they're planted, and the condition.

26:05 This is funny but the best year that we ever had for overwintering cover crops whether it be legumes, cereals, any of that was the year we hit 34 below zero. It's the coldest I've ever seen in my lifetime here. We had the best overwintering cover crops because when it was 34 below zero we had 10 inches of snow on the ground. And those cover crops could care less what the temperature is if they've got a blanket of snow on top of them.

26:32 But other years we never dropped below zero and we had lots of winter kill because it was such an open bare soil. So it's not just cold weather, it's the soil conditions when that happens. But with the winter peas, yeah, they're probably 60% of the time and like you say as you go south you definitely have better success. So what are the keys to getting it to survive? If you want to give those peas the best chance possible.

27:02 Yeah, so peas are one of those plants that I like to plant late. Not necessarily like pushing the back end of things late, but I like to seed them a little bit later and I like to plant them fairly deep. I know we've done some seeding trials and it seemed like 2 and 1/2 inches deep is the premium depth to get them to keep that growth point at or below the soil surface, which is critical in climates that are marginal for if it's going to get too cold or not.

27:32 But when you start saying I'm going to plant something 2 and 1/2 inches deep to somebody that's running a grain drill, they're saying I think you're crazy because it's hard enough sometimes in the fall, especially if it's a drier fall, to get your air seeder or grain drill to go in the ground an inch, let alone 2 and 1/2 inches. So that throws a little bit of a hardship towards it. The next hardship is like if you're planting something 2 and 1/2 inches deep, you have to really pick the species that you're going to put with it to make sure that it's going to work. Most cereal grains can handle that. I think oats really like getting planted fairly deep. Cereal rye is another one that you can basically bury and it'll come poking through the ground. But you wouldn't put any crimson clover with it or any other legume clover with it.

28:25 Radishes, collards, like all of that small seeded stuff, you either have to put it on a separate pass or just kind of leave it out for now.

28:36 Yeah. I always remember Paul Jasa. Paul's now retired, but he was a great extension educator with the University of Nebraska. Went to a lot of his field days. He's been here in Bladen many times. And he will tell people, 'If you want winter peas to survive, you need to plant them 4 inches deep.'

28:53 And I love watching people's faces when he says that because nobody has ever considered planting anything 4 inches deep. I mean, that's just crazy. But what he says is when you do plant it 4 inches deep, they will almost always survive because you get almost no growth above the ground when it's cold out and the wind is blowing and it's going to burn off everything above the ground. Plus, every node below the ground will be another shoot that comes out in the spring. So the deeper you plant them, the more tillering or the more shoots that you're going to get out of that single plant. And so if you need to figure out how to plant stuff 4 inches deep, get a hold of us. But planting deep is definitely a key to getting them to survive. So it can be done, but it can't be done with just the same old process that you do to plant everything else.

29:52 Yeah, absolutely. So beyond winter peas, what else? Are there any clovers that you like?

34:01 Bladen at one of our field events that we had her at. The other one was we did an event at Rick Clark's and she was talking. And she just upset our whole mentality when she said, 'You don't need legumes to produce a lot of nitrogen in your soil.' And we just looked at her like, 'Lady, are you kidding me? No, we've been taught we understand we know how rhizobia works and alfalfa and hairy vetch and all these things.' And what she said was, you know, you go out and look at a natural native ecosystem, the amount of legume plants in a naturally occurring ecosystem is very small. There are some, but there are not many. And she says that, you know, when you have enough diversity and you have the right biology, you will get that nitrogen fixation because it's not the plants that are doing it anyway, it's the biology. Now, rhizobia form colonies, they're very powerful, and they can produce hundreds of pounds of nitrogen. But when you have the right conditions and the right species and the right bacteria and biology in the soil, you can get a lot of nitrogen production without very many legumes.

35:18 What was your thoughts when you heard Christine say that? Yeah, I'm very similar to you. I was like, are you sure about this? Which, you know, someone like me questioning her is not something that I would do publicly. But she's absolutely right. You know, we just live at the edge of the Flint Hills down here in Iola, and you drive through those prairies, and there is not many legumes out there. There's some broad leaves and stuff like that, but one of the things if you dive into that is a lot of the legumes aren't even there every year. A lot of those legumes are functioning on a hard-seeded lifespan of reproduction, so they're not even coming every year. So, there might not be a legume at all there. And it just brings it all back to like your faith. Like, you either believe that's how it's working, or you don't. And for it to exist that way for so long, like you have to believe, and then you question, you know, what have I done to my soil for all these years trying to force it to function in a way that it's not even designed to be. And but you're absolutely right. It's not only a diversity of species of plants, it's a diversity of species and a balance in those species between your bacteria, your fungals, and all of the ones in between.

36:44 Yeah. And and again, as farmers, you know, we're pretty familiar with rhizobia. You know, we inoculate our soybeans, we inoculate our alfalfa and clovers because that rhizobia bacteria is what's doing the nitrogen fixation. But we know that that only works with legumes and generally it only works with very specific legumes. But what we have failed to understand for far too many years, but you know, again, Dr. Jones and others have helped us see this, is that there are thousands of other species of bacteria and fungal organisms that can also take that atmospheric nitrogen, they can break that nitrogen bond, and make it available for plants. And so we've started putting these organisms in the inoculants that we're using right on our cover crop seed. And so you know, our risofixer plus, we call it, risofixer extend plus, it not only has the rhizobia, but it also has things like azotobacter and azospirillum, which are some of the organisms that do this nitrogen fixation for grass plants and for non-legume broadleaves. And so why is it important that, you know, you do inoculate your seed with not just the rhizobia, but with the other things?

38:03 Yeah, that's a good question. I was just working with the marketing team this week writing an article about perennials and why perennial genetics are important when you're planning to spend that much money. And I would say that this goes directly into that. It's the same thing as the it comes back to the genetics and you want to pick the genetics that are going to stimulate the

38:27 Biology in your soil. You know, maybe, and even in some forms and fashion of what we're doing is like, not only are you stimulating or adding the bacteria to your soil, but you also have to—it has to have a food source. Like, it has to be able to live and survive in your soil, which is why these cover crops are so important. And the Rhizobia Extend is a good example of this. You know, it's got your Rhizobia to carry all your legume species. It's a higher concentration than anything we've ever used before—a higher concentration of Rhizobia at a lower concentration of rate per acre. So we can introduce those Rhizobia for the specific species like hairy vetch into a soil that's never had a pea, vetch, lentil Rhizobia there before, and then give it that boost it needs to be able to nodulate.

39:20 I hear a lot of stories of people planting hairy vetch the first time and it just doesn't look very good. Well, matter of fact is, if it's never had a pea, vetch, or lentil or that type of Rhizobia out in that soil, it's probably struggling to find enough association with Rhizobia to nodulate and produce as much nitrogen as it needs. Rhizobia kind of helps mitigate that risk because of the amount of Rhizobia in it.

39:47 But it also goes to say, like, what about your phosphorus? What about the free nitrogen that's in your soil but currently tied up? And those are very, very important things to consider when we're looking at using these inoculants, all and even grass mixes honestly. It's not uncommon for me to put a little bit of Rhizobia Extend in some just straight grasses.

40:12 Yeah, because it has more than just that Rhizobia. Yeah. Yep. And so, you know, again at GreenCover, we pride ourselves on having the most diverse selections of both the seeds as well as the inoculants. And we're putting, you know, we're putting that rhizobia, that rhizobac on just about every mix that goes out the door, but we're also using our elevated fungi product as well. And it's a relatively low cost but highly diverse, compost extract type product, fungally dominant.

40:47 Well, why is the fungal organism important? We've mostly been talking about bacteria, but why are the fungal organisms important as well? Yeah, so when I was thinking about getting in the right mindset to talk about reducing inputs, which can be kind of a cautious approach to farming, contrary to popular farming beliefs, I was thinking about cover crops and keeping things covered. That's the real goal of a cover crop. And I got to thinking when I first started planting cover crops, we were planting a lot of grass-dominant mixes because in my mind I was short of carbon and those grasses were producing as much carbon.

41:34 Well, got to the point where I might have 3 years of residue on top of the soil. And basically what I had was 3 years of residue and all the nutrients that were in that residue on top of the soil, because my biology was not functioning fast enough to cycle the residue and thus releasing those nutrients that were tied up in that residue. Some residue is good, 3 years not good. And that is why, like, elevated fungi is a great example. It's got the beneficial fungal in there that I'm close to that ceiling and can repopulate, reproduce, but also they're going to help with starting that biological system of boosting your soil basically, so that it can start getting that micro population up so that there's enough microbes to be able to feed off of that decomposing residues.

42:33 Yeah, and speaking of decomposition, you know, another thing that I'm pretty excited about personally for our own farm and for my customers is the product called decomposer and hypercycle that we're selling. It's the Elevate Ag program, but essentially it is—it's going to

42:55 What you're talking about, you know, helping that residue break down, release those nutrients. And I've always been a little skeptical of that type of thing, you know, okay, if we spray something out here that makes it decompose faster, it's going to tie up my nitrogen out of the soil because those bugs need the nitrogen in order to break down that carbon. And I've always worried about having nitrogen tie up with that sort of thing. Well, the decomposer product that we're actually making here in Bladen now has enough of these free-living nitrogen fixers in it, like what we've been talking about, that it can break down that carbon, but instead of pulling nitrogen out of your soil in order for them to balance out their C:N ratios, it's pulling it out of the atmosphere. And so what we're seeing is where we're using this product, it's breaking down our residue, but we're gaining nitrogen because we have nitrogen-fixing organisms pulling atmospheric nitrogen to do the job rather than pulling it out of our soil. So we're getting a net nitrogen benefit, not a nitrogen tie-up. And that's really important because we know that we can break down residue by going out there and spraying fertilizer or some of these other products, but it doesn't necessarily add to the nitrogen and sometimes it ties it up.

44:15 Yeah, absolutely. And taking it step further on that, I've become a little bit of a fan of some of the decomposer style products the last few years. I've used them a little bit differently. I'm using a spring application instead of a fall application. And I will describe it as like there's a hard carbon and there's a soft carbon. The soft carbon is easy to get rid of. It's mostly your leaves, stuff that's highly digestible. And then there's your hard carbon, and where we get plenty of moisture in the winter and the spring, often times our cover crops get very mature. And the last thing to decompose is the stem. So we're putting that all in in the spring time and getting that decomposing system working basically at the same time as that plant is relying on extra nutrients. It's worked out really well for us. I'm going to keep using it and manage some of my extra residue that way.

45:11 Yeah. We've even had some guys, you know, if they're planting corn into some really good rye or wheat stubble, cover crop stubble, they'll actually spray that decomposer after they plant the corn, get the corn in the ground and then speed up that residue breakdown, that nutrient cycling. So lots of fun things to think about there. As we kind of think about drawing this to a close, Zach, are there some new experimental kind of really fun things out there that you're looking at, that Green Covers is looking at, that maybe isn't real wide stream right now, but we're hoping that it will be?

45:52 Yeah. Well, you know me, so there's always something new and fun that I'm looking at. The most recent thing that we have been doing some testing on, actually the last couple of years now, is a nitrogen fixing endophyte, which most people hear endophyte and panic because of the toxicity with fescue endophytes. And the thing you have to remember is there's thousands of endophytes out in the world. An endophyte is just simply a fungal organism that is living inside of a plant. Inside of the plant, yeah, inside the plant, whether it be the seed head or the leaf, but yes, inside of the plant. Well, they found and isolated one that is nitrogen fixing. And some of the numbers that we're hearing for this product are really significant for their cost. Basically, your return on investment is way better than like a synthetic nitrogen. I've used a little bit. I think Brian's used it a little bit. I'm going to use a little bit more on some cover crops this late summer and some this fall just to kind of get a feeling of that. But I'm really excited about it because.

47:01 Like I said, the return on your investment, like that's what we're after. This whole podcast has been after that. And this really looks like an opportunity to put something onto your place that's going to give a pretty significant return.

47:16 Yeah, and you know, the more we study and the more we read, you know, like Dr. James White the work on rhizophagy. It's just you know, the complexity and the wonder of the creation that God put into place. It's pretty incredible. It's pretty amazing how all these organisms are out there. We just have to figure out how to work more in harmony with them instead of against them.

47:40 Yeah, absolutely.

47:43 So Zach, as we close here, maybe somebody's listening to this going, 'Well, this all sounds great, but it's a little overwhelming. What would be just kind of a good easy place to start if they want to dip their toe into, you know, how can I fix some of my own nitrogen and not try to get rid of all my nitrogen, but how do I cut back? What where what would be a good easy place to start?'

48:07 Yeah, so there's a couple places that I would start with. I'm a big fan of YouTube University and Green Cover has a lot of fantastic video there. You can listen to them podcast style on your phone. That's pretty handy. The Green Cover podcast, believe this is where this is going, is another good resource. But another really good way like if you're really thinking, 'Hey, I need to start looking into this.' Where I would go is the Green Cover website and then I would click on SmartMix and get on SmartMix and you can actually select nitrogen fixing on your as you're building your SmartMix and that's going to help you select the right species and the right varieties for your specific location and give you a rough seeding rate to get it started. And then that will give you some budgeting goals or parameters. And once you get that started like one of the sales people like we'd love to help you. We'd love to talk through this a little bit more, answer questions. I always say when I go to a conference or something like that it's like filling up a sponge that just came out of the box. It doesn't always fill up the first time. You have to wring it out and soak it up a few times before you can really get it soaked in. So it just don't give up on it if this first episode seems a little overwhelming. There's plenty of us here that are happy to help.

49:31 Yeah, that's exactly right and appreciate all your knowledge and experience. I can appreciate you sharing that with folks here. So, well, folks, you know, we hope, we pray that you all grow 250 bushel corn and sell it for $7. But, let's be honest, that's probably not going to happen for most of us. But, we do think that we can all our you know, our farm, Zach's farm, your farm, we think we can all add to our profitability by spending less to produce what we're growing. And the best way to do that, a great way to start is think about how do you reduce that $5 billion that we're spending on nitrogen fertilizer? How do you reduce that 10, 20, 30%? So, that would be our challenge to you. Make plans for next year of how you can reduce that nitrogen input. And don't do it all at once. If you want to cut way back 50, 60, 70%, do it on a strip. Don't do it on the whole field until you kind of get comfortable doing this. But, that would be our challenge is what can you do in order to reduce those inputs and increase your profitability. Thanks everybody for listening to this episode of the GreenCover podcast.

50:46 My brother and I started GreenCover in 2009 because we understand what it's like to be a farmer starting out on the journey to improve soil health. We saw the power of plant and biological diversity on our own farm here in Nebraska, but we found that it was difficult to get the right cover crop seed mix. We also learned that there was a big learning curve in successfully implementing cover crops. That's why we built GreenCover so that farmers like you can access the highest quality cover crop seed put into the right diverse mixes along with the technical advice and the educational resources to help you successfully implement cover crops on your own operation. So, contact us today and we'll help you with the right cover crop mix for your farm or ranch so you can regenerate your portion of God's creation for future generations.