Growing Seed and Building Soil: John Heermann's Dryland Farm in Colorado

0:00 Yeah I was just thinking of two words today: gratitude and connection. And just here at Green cover, myself speaking on behalf of green cover, just very grateful for the connections we do have with John, but even the people watching this webinar. Just wanted to say thank you for joining and thank you John for joining us.

0:22 A lot of Johns on this webinar series. We had John Kiemp on the first week, Jonathan being our kind of our host, and then John Herman today, so don't get confused with all the Johns and Jonathan. But John Herman, thanks for being here today. He's a farmer, a grower, does a lot of things in Eastern Colorado, a pretty dry environment, a lot of plow ground kind of around you. I assume kind of that environment with lower rainfall. But you John, can kind of get into your journey a little bit. Just sounds like you've taken a different approach and how you've done things over the years with your farming experience, taking a systems approach and that type of thing. And speaking of that systems approach, you've done a lot of growing seed for us at Green cover, and you said to get into a little bit of cleaning seed actually too, and kind of what opportunities that creates for you. So yeah, John Herman, everybody from Eastern Colorado, take it away John.

1:24 Yeah, I'm from Haxton Colorado. I'm 35 years old. I farm, used to farm with my dad. I grew up farming, and in our area there is a lot of wheat and summer fallow, and that's how I grew up: a lot of plow work and just growing wheat every other year on the same acre. And some corn came in the area, and some millet, as I got older into my teens and stuff. So people started doing some rotations, but it seemed like there was always that period of plow still in there to get back to winter wheat planted in September.

2:05 I think it was I came back to farm full-time in 2012, and I believe it was 2013 or 2014 I went to a no-till on the plains conference when it was in Salina there. And I actually heard Scott Raven Camp speak, and at that time he lived by Hugo Colorado, which wasn't too far from me, and was actually in a worse environment than I was in Colorado: less rainfall. Our average is 17 inches. But he was talking about all the different things he was growing and no-till and soil health. And at that conference, one thing kind of led to another, and I was like, holy cow, you know? I kind of opened my eyes to the fact that there's a whole different world out there of people. Different people need different things grown, and you know, there's more of the world than just wheat and fallow.

2:56 And I would say the thing at that conference that really changed my journey in life was the NRCS rainfall simulator. Believe it or not, those pans that they had—they had five different management practices laid out, and they put water on those pans. And I seen, you know, they had native soil with good cover, and they had no-till and summer fallow, and no-till. They had no-till with good cover, and they had no-till with no cover, and they had tillage with no cover. And you know, I couldn't believe how much water ran off on the no-till with no cover. So you know, right there that raised was to no, no-till, no cover, still no good. I was like, holy, holy cow. You know, in an area where we might get a one and a half inch rainfall in, you know, one minute, two minutes, or whatever it is, you know, it's a dumper—big thunderstorms rolling through. If I realized if we hadn't prepared our soils to accept that rainfall event, and you know, even though the computer, the math says you're getting this much rainfall a year, you're actually might only be utilizing 50, 60% of that if you haven't prepared your soil to accept that rainfall. And I feel like, especially in our area where rainfall is a big limiting factor, then that kind of changed my viewpoint and really the trajectory of my life, I would say.

4:28 So after that event, you know, I started getting into learning everything I could.

4:33 About cover crops and keeping my soil covered and what I could do on my farm to change the composition and change the health of my soil. And you know, it kind of just led down a rabbit hole, I'd say, of trying to learn everything I could, and one thing led to another and all these different things.

4:51 I've used cover crops on my farm since 2014, almost religiously every year. I historically put them behind a summer harvest, so like I grow some cereals like wheat or rye or even oats or peas, which are combined in the July time period out here. So for me, that's a good opportunity to go right behind the combine and I plant a diverse mixture of cover crops. And my journey is a little bit different. I didn't start with like 5 acres or 10 acres. I feel like I educated myself and got into a group of people that were like-minded, and I just said, you know, this is what I need to do and here's how I need to do it. So I pretty much just did my whole farm right from the get-go, and I still continue to do that to this day.

5:50 I had took some Haney tests in 2014 and some different soil tests, some PLFAs when I first started, and I've kind of kept track of those over these years. And you know, each year is a little different. One year you might be down or whatever, but as far as trend line, you know, over these last 10 years it's been real interesting to see what I've done for my soil.

6:21 Just for example, last year I had a new team member that I was teaching to run the drill and everything, and he was asking some questions: why are we doing it like this? Why are we doing things like this? And we were talking about the field next to us. So I didn't have a shovel in the tractor, I just had my pocket knife, but my soil was mellow enough and wet enough and just great structure that you know we dug up a chunk with my pocket knife and I pulled up a rye root ball, I believe. And you know, we looked at that soil and smelled it, and then we went 20 feet over to the other field that was some summer fallowed wheat that had wheat grown in it. And you know, just even your feet can feel that soon as you cross that line. You're like, holy cow, you know, is this concrete or what are we walking on? And I tried to get my knife in there and could barely pull anything up. And it's just powder and no structure and nothing to it.

7:19 And then you know, the guy's like, oh, I was my thing was like, what? You know, if you had a garden or you're growing your food for your family, you know, where are you going to put your garden? You going to put on this side of the fence or that side of the fence? So he's like, oh, okay. So then, like, you know, kind of after that, he and those moments are good for me too because you know I'm so used to looking at my soil and how I've done things, and it's nice to go back and look at that and see where I was, you know, 10 years ago. And you know, I was in the same position. And so it's good for me to have that too, to be able to look at my soil and see what things I've done for that.

8:02 I'd say that's my biggest benchmark or my indication on my soil health. Yeah, there's tests, there's this, there's that, but I would say the biggest thing for me is just taking a shovel out there and looking at my soil. Or you know, driving by a field after you got a real big thunderstorm, and I know there's no lagoons out there, there's no water standing in my field. You know, I got everything that came out of the sky, I got put back into the ground.

8:32 And you know, sometimes when it starts pouring, I hop in my car to go out and see. Just I got some fields real near to my house, so I like to go out and you know just see if lakes are forming. But I know that's not happening anymore. There might be a rare occasion I get a little bit, but you know, I always, when I used to talk, it's not about how much rainfall you get, it's how much your soil can hold. So you know, that's been a big part of my journey, and it has allowed me to use, you know, that journey wouldn't have happened or the stuff wouldn't have happened in my soil without using those cover crops over.

9:09 The years and you know pretty much having something growing on my field as many days as possible. So I went from a 16-month fallow period to now I'm in the month or 45 day area usually in the springtime between terminating what's left over from growing last year and planting a new crop.

9:34 That just changes based on the year if it's dry and stuff I might have a little longer window to have things not growing to try and recoup some moisture. And along those lines, when we're I was just growing weed or millet and stuff you can only take to the elevator. You know I met these people selling cover crop seed and you know you have, I think I talked with Keith first and like, you know where are you guys getting all these seeds? You'd have all these things for sale. You know yeah we need something grown, we need this grown or that grown, and I was like oh wow there's all these things, different things you can grow and actually you know have a rotation and it's fun trying something different and seeing different plants growing.

10:22 That's kind of where I first got into growing stuff for green cover. And I'd say I think rye was the first thing I started growing for you guys. And you know in our area rye is frowned upon because people been pulling feral rye out of their wheat for you know 50 years. And then you go plant a field of rye and people are in a big tizzy. But I started rye in 14 and I've grown it every year since then and I've kind of diminished my wheat acres and grown more rye, and especially with my own cleaner it's allowed me to clean my rye and you know sell that directly to you guys already cleaned and ready to go.

11:06 But just out here rye is a better fit in this environment. I feel like it's, I've never sprayed my rye with a herbicide in the spring for weeds. It just has that allelopathic effect. I don't have to spend the 5 to $25 an acre in herbicide post emergence in the spring that I have to usually do on my wheat. And you know the residue, especially running my no-till shelter belt, the residue that I can keep after that rye is really advantageous out here to catching snow and wind erosion. And you know that residue sets you up for the next year if you know if it's a dry year or something I can keep my soil covered.

11:57 And you know I don't really have a set rotation on the crops that I grow. I kind of base it off the field conditions and what's happening. But like if I have a field with low residue concern or I'm you know I can start to see the soil, you know I'm getting rye or a high carbon crop on there and I'm trying something to get that soil covered up so that I can not only get them something above ground to catch snow but something covered over the soil so that it comes springtime or the warm months of the year you know I got that residue down there to cover that soil.

12:33 And you know one of the things I've noticed with using the cover crops especially like behind rye, beforehand like when I harvest wheat and I would leave that fallow after a July harvest, come back springtime or May or June if you're drilling or planting something into there that stubble would you know be very challenging to plant into the roots would be breaking off it would ball up it would want to move with your drill or your planter you know it was a very challenging conditions. It was like the soil was you know hungry and it's eating the roots and eating below ground stuff. But once I started adding the cover crop mixes in there, you know comes springtime it's like the stubble different. I fed the soil with that cover crop and that stubble will, it stays attached and it's still kind of springy like it is after you harvest it so it doesn't, you know, running my drill through there it doesn't, it knocks down the residue a little bit but it at least still stays attached to the soil and you know that's really helpful out here because I've

13:47 I've seen pictures of people losing entire fields of stripper stubble of wheat and that just makes me sick to my stomach thinking about losing all that residue. So one of my main goals out here is residue, keep something on the soil as best I can, and that's how I make a lot of my management decisions based on that residue.

14:14 One of the things I've discovered over these last few years, especially with my seed cleaner, is I've tried to save as many of my own seeds as possible that are grown on my farm. I like planting back my own seed that's been acclimated to my soils and my farming methods, and with the cleaner that's allowed me to do that. I can save some of that seed back and I really feel like it does a better job on my farm as I've switched management practices. My seeds aren't tailored to high synthetic fertilizer and exorbitant amounts of herbicides, so if I can save those seeds, I think Jonathan has some slides of that rye that I sent him this morning.

15:12 This was three years ago I believe. I grew some Elbon rye and I was short of my own seed about 40 acres on a 320 acre field. My family, my two daughters and my son and my wife and I try to run anything or part of the crops I grow that I can run with the shell borer. That's kind of a thing I keep in mind so I can try and keep as much residue. But Jonathan, do you have those three slides of the rye from this morning?

15:49 Okay, so these are a side by side photo of an end row. Like I said before, I was 40 acres short of seed on this 320 acres, so Green Cover sent me some foundation seed, I believe of Elbon, that came from Oklahoma. The rye that's closest to you in the photo, that's further behind and is not headed out yet, is my own saved seed. The rye to your left in the photo, that's almost six to eight inches taller and is already headed out, is seed that came from Oklahoma.

16:27 There's nothing scientific here, these are just observations, but I've seen this before from my own seeds. In our area sometimes we'll get a frost or a freezing event come middle of May or something when that rye is headed out. If that rye is headed out during that period, it's not good for yields or the grain that's in that crop. My observation of this is my seeds actually genetically changed themselves to, hey, we can't grow this fast out here. We're not going to be able to reproduce because we're going to get froze off by Mother Nature.

17:10 If you go to the next one, Jonathan, those seeds were planted the exact same day. Where my seed, where my drill ran out of my own seed and started planting that foundation seed, you could see it to the row which rows ran out of seed. It was just night and day difference. Here's a little bit further along, and there was a different color once it started getting towards harvest as it started turning yellow.

17:46 That fall time they looked identical, but come springtime, once they started greening up and three weeks in I'm like, whoa, what's that out there? It was just always ahead of my saved seed. Once we got to the harvest stage, the height was exactly the same, the heads looked exactly the same, you couldn't really tell once you got to harvest time. But every time during that vegetative period, that other seed was just always a difference. That's kind of why I've kept on saving my own seed and trying to use as much as I can.

18:28 My own seed is available on my farm, and growing new things doesn't always work. Sometimes you got to start over. Some guys want seed that's closer to Foundation, but even saving it back one year or something and trying to do that, it's been real interesting to see that progression in what happens.

18:51 I think there's one more, Jonathan. We go to the next one. So yeah, there's another photo showing that the same variety that was Foundation is already headed out quite a bit taller, and you can see exactly where my drill went and where that seed ended. That's kind of eye opening. I don't know if you guys have noticed that with any of your seeds or heard of that concept from anybody else.

19:22 Yeah, I think that's often times shared a little bit, and just the lots of benefits of saving your own seed and having that locally grown in your own fields. The epigenetics and all that, and just the regionality of it. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense to me.

19:44 Yeah, and then backing up a little bit, we were talking about the drier rainfall and the residue and stuff like that. I'm sure you get this comment a lot in western Nebraska, western Kansas, eastern Colorado. If I plant cover crops, won't that take up too much moisture? That type of question. You mentioned that a little bit, but if you want to go into how you would answer those questions about water retention versus water usage, there is a balance to be found there if you don't want certain biomass and residue management.

20:19 Yeah, that's a common concern. It's a common comment out here that we don't get enough rain, you can't grow cover crops because they're using too much moisture. But if you just look at the photosynthetic efficiency percentage, it's like 35% or something. I haven't looked at it for like ten years, but it used to be like 35%. So you get ten inches during the year, you know you still got three and a half inches in your soil. Well, that's cool. What'd you do with the other six and a half? So my opinion is you can use that other six and a half inches to grow something and lose it via photosynthesis and have root exudates and something going into your soil to benefit your soil. In the long run, put money in your pocketbook. Or you can lose that via evaporation. So my thought process is you're going to use it or lose it. So I've been under the impression that I'm not as well. Use it and grow these things and do things for my soil because the evaporation is going to take most of it away anyway.

21:37 Yes, there is a delicate balance. Come springtime out here, especially in the summer months, if you plant a cover crop, it's usually pretty dry. You might get a rain here or a rain there, but usually come springtime with the spring rains or spring snow, you can usually replenish anything growing. But yes, in that time period there's always a delicate balance. Out here, if you're trying for biomass and you want that cover crop to grow big and giant like all the photos you see from back east, you're going to use up a lot of moisture, and it's going to hurt your subsequent crop. So I try and out here terminate that in March or April to stop water consumption if I know I'm going to another crop. It depends on the year too. If it's drier, try and get out there earlier and get that eliminated to stop my transpiration and start conserving as much as I can before the new crop needs it.

22:58 About three years ago when we were super dry, I let my cover crops go too long. It was probably late April before I got those terminated, and I went in there mid or late May to drill some millet. By that time, by letting them go too long, I had used up too much moisture at that stage. As a result of that decision, I had a poor stand with very little emergence. I just didn't have the moisture in there, and we did not get a rain. I needed one rain to get that crop up and we never got that. Whereas people who didn't use cover crops, they had enough moisture there that they got their crops up. I was trying to get residue and I was trying to get my soil covered for the warm months, for the dry months, and that year it didn't work out. But that particular year, come the end of things where it was so dry, you know, nobody hardly even those guys that got their crop up, they didn't harvest anything either because of the fact that they didn't get those rains either.

24:17 You know, I felt like in that situation, yes, it sucked, but what I was doing I was preparing myself for the summer, and you know, one rain would have put me in the same boat as everybody else, and I would have had my soil covered good for the warm months. So yeah, it's a delicate balance, and sometimes you learn things the hard way. But I feel like as you keep doing it, your soil just gets better and better and better, and you have more options to. I try to compare it to a flower pot. You know, when you first start trying to change your soil, it's like you're trying to grow something in this teeny Dixie cup. And you can't put a gallon of water in a teeny Dixie cup, but as you start growing your soil and making it have more water holding capacity, all of a sudden you got this big giant flower pot. And then all of a sudden, you get a gallon of water in your flower pot, that big flower pot can hold on to that for a lot longer than a Dixie cup, and it allows you to do different things.

25:33 That's kind of my thinking along those lines. Yeah, that's really well said. And you know, several things you've already mentioned, even starting with the rainfall simulator and then you being out with that other guy, kind of just noticing the differences of here versus across the road or across the different field, just a lot of those tangible things that you can notice with senses of seeing, feeling, smelling and stuff like that. I was going to ask how you can see those things, they look different. Then how does that play into benefits, you know, financially and things like that? But I mean that's pretty easy to relate with water holding capacity, infiltration rate. But what other benefits are you seeing? Not just kind of like as you increase the soil health, how does that change your operation and benefit?

26:22 I guess one of the biggest financial benefits would be the reduction in fertilizer. I still use fertilizer, but generally I'm taking a Haney test or a PLFA test to see what microbial activity I have going on, and you know, been able to cut that back significantly, especially the last four years. There was a transition period when you're in there. I was under the impression that cover crops were like magic and fairy dust, and when I first started, I just planted these and I'd be the best farmer in the world and I could cut fertilizer immediately and wouldn't owe anything. So there was like six, eight years there that were kind of hard because you didn't exactly, especially out here, it takes a little bit longer to transition your soil. So you know, it's like by year eight, nine, ten, you start seeing some of the soil tests, and they're super low in the inorganic form of nitrogen.

27:34 You know 50, 60, 80 pounds out there that can be obtained from the soil. And you know I use John Kemp's method when whenever I'm putting on fertilizer. So that helps me cut it back too where I tie it with ammonium bi and some of his rejuvenate and some of his malum. So you know whatever I still have an Negron, he kind of recommends what he thinks I need or what the industry standard is, and then I pretty much just take 40% off and do John Kemp's program.

28:10 You know I'm not always shooting for the highest yield on my farm. I'm kind of going for the highest return on my dollar so it doesn't always. I'm kind of think a little, you know I'm not always chasing higher yields. I'm kind of watching finances and just trying to get the Optimum amount of return for that dollar invested.

28:38 Absolutely. Keith kind of mentioned it last week in a conversation with Scott shimer. But just kind of, and you mention it too, the Rye just kind of being a scary word sometimes in wheat production country. But he mentioned last week just kind of that's, it's not the Rye that you're using. The serial rise for crop and cover crop aren't. The feral, it's very good quality seed. It's kind of a whole different animal. And so yeah, and then especially speaking to the quality of seed, I don't know if you want to use that as a segue talking about your cleaning operation or even just kind of what led you to decide to get into some of the cleaning and kind of what that looks like for you.

29:24 So yeah I mean with along the line of the rye, you know I got fields that been out of Rye for two years and I could go back to wheat in those fields and I would have less volunteer Rye than you know the guys that have been trying to kill it for the number of years. Yeah it's, it's just a totally different animal. It's very high germ and you know comes up and volunteers and it's very easy to kill as long as you know you have a decent rotation in there to kill it off in the springtime for at least you know for two years. And you know I've had good luck and it doesn't spread to the neighbors or anything like the feral ride does. So yeah they, I might get a hard time or people look at it and they think it's the same as a feral Rye, but yeah it's, it's it's totally different and that's hard to explain sometimes I guess.

30:16 I had a, my dad had a Clipper 27, it's like a 30 bush an hour machine, and I had this friend that was, he was cleaning yellow peas because he wanted to save some money. So he was trying to clean, he was cleaning his yellow peas with this little cleaner so he'd have enough yellow peas to plant. And I went over there one day, I just happened to be there, and I was like you're using that thing? Like yeah it takes, this a long time but oh man. So I I got Dad's out of the shed and I at that time I had a bunch of Rye for you guys, and I was like why would you price this clean? Oh man, so I I got that cleaner set up and I I think it took it took me 32 hours a semi load. I was cleaning right out of the bin. And so I I clean, I think I cleaned like six loads that year. And then I had been watching the auctions and I found a real old Clipper that needed a bunch of work that was Illinois. So I I picked that machine up. I I work on old cars. I used to work in restoration shops for a number of years, so I'm real good at fixing things and doing whatever, ever building whatever. So I got this old cleaner and during the winter months I fixed it up. It's like a hundred, it's a 200 bush an hour machine. So I was like holy cow man, I'll be, I'll be cleaning fast. So then then that you know that allowed me to price out, you know have the rye shipped out of my facility or my farm already cleaned and everything. And but when I upgraded machines, you know it was manageable to be able to do a semi in 68 hours instead of you know four days. So it made life a lot easier. And then that also opened up the door for growing different things.

36:52 Can clean those out very easily. It's one more stage, you know. I can clean the rye and the peas come off and then once I'm done with rye then I got to go back through and clean the peas again. But the rye is cleaned in one process still. I just added another process for having to rerun the peas.

37:12 I've grown peas monoculture and it's much easier to harvest them in the polyculture than it is monoculture. And plus I still have the residue out there.

37:25 So I mean it sounds like some trial and error kind of combining these and doing some companions. But would you recommend for somebody who's interested and getting into this to just go ahead and go for it, you know, finding the right combo? And sure there's some tweaking of rates depending on the situation and stuff. But or would you say just start maybe doing some rye at first or would you just say go ahead and throw some peas or vetch in there?

37:52 I feel like if you do your research there's enough literature out there and there's enough things out there of people doing the polycultures and things that are known to work. Start with those and progress to ones after you get a cleaner and you figure out how to clean these things out, progress to different ones. And yeah there's always tweaking with the rates or figuring it out. But I kind of just tailor my polycultures to still focus. I'm still kind of putting my focus towards one main crop and if I get a bonus crop that I know I can clean out then that's some additional revenue or some additional things that would help out too.

38:43 Yeah okay well I've got a few questions. I know we have a couple questions that popped up. John, would you want to move to some Q&A or is there anything else on the operation you wanted to share about specifically? Now if do you want to go those rye vetch ones Jonathan, I think they're the next two photos.

39:08 I get that. Yeah that's just a cover crop mix that I planted on my farm. And there's some. Oh the last one was buckwheat. But here's some hairy vetch. There we go. Yep, there's a hairy vetch and rye grown together and I did that last year. That was the field that I drove by the most and checked the most just because it was so cool to see all that. And last year was a wet year out here so it started flowering mid-July and I flowered through July. I didn't end up finishing combining that field well into August, which was later than normal. But it was just fun to watch that field grow with the rye and vetch planted together.

40:00 In that particular field I did half the field was rye and vetch planted in the same row and the other half of the field was rye and vetch on alternating rows. I'm able to switch my air seater with a couple levers to the front and back ranks and pull out of different tanks. So I was just trying to see if it yielded better if the vetch was in its own row and had 15 inches of space between plants. But by the time things were said and done it didn't really matter how I did it. It's been all that work splitting the rows and planting them together. They just structured and the way the plants grew was different but at the end of the day it was all about the same yield.

40:43 So out there, how hard was getting it in the combine? I mean that didn't pop out or that field I had to end up desiccating, which I don't really like doing, was my only downside of that crop because I couldn't get the could not slug my combine. I tried.

41:08 Yeah, yeah. What was the planting rate on the vetch there in this field? I did 12 pounds of vetch with 56 pounds of rye. Okay, yeah. I cut the rye back like 30 pounds from what I normally do and then.

41:23 Yeah so that's good. That field got hailed real bad but the vetch, where the vetch was intertwined with the rye, it helped hold it up so the heads didn't get totally demolished. So I was still able to harvest that whole field even though it was severely hailed.

42:00 And then just kind of thinking overall with what you shared so far and you know getting started and where you're going next I'll ask this question that Kate asked in the Q&A. So I'll just read it here: what research did John do early on before starting cover cropping to convince him to start using them on all of his acres instead of just starting small, and then how did he figure out which cover crops to use?

42:30 Yeah, I mean the No Till on the Plains was the year I was there. They had all those DVDs from like the previous year so that you could get like five years of conferences on these DVDs. So I bought every DVD I had and I watched all the speakers and stuff, and Gab Brown and some of the farmers, and you know realized all these, there's always somebody with less rainfall that's doing something that you say you can't do here. So you know I found those guys or talked to those farmers that were already doing it and I kind of opened up my eyes to it.

43:03 When I first started doing like the mixes with cover crops I didn't exactly know what to plant or what to do. So at that time I worked with Keith designing those mixes and then you know as you get into it you learn things not to do or cover crops, you know depending what your next crop is. You know things that you don't want to put into a mix that might go into your next year's crop. Like one year I had a bunch of buckwheat in a cover crop mix and I was going to yellow field peas the next year. Well it was all finding dandy but then all the volunteer buckwheat came up. So then I got, you know, then I was out of options there. So I just had a bunch of buckwheat and, I love buckwheat, but you know sometimes if you're going to that crop that's a broad leaf and a broad leaf you can't take it out. So you know there's always those problems.

44:04 I know if any of those conferences or any of those resources I think are a good resource and that's where I gained my knowledge from.

44:19 Any livestock on the operation or any experiences there with livestock? Yeah, 2016 would have been the year that I just planted cover crops like full, didn't plant a cash crop, planted full season, 15 to 20 species mixes for grazing some stocker calves. So I did that for a year. And then the seed cleaning thing kind of started going so I had to change directions. I just ran out of resources.

45:00 And I really like doing that full season cover crop and using that as a cash crop because expense-wise I was just looking at you know the seed for the cover crop and maybe a burndown and a little bit of fertilizer and I was done. So that was, you know, I like that part of it. And just I think we were moving them every day, setting up temporary fencing and moving them every day and coming back through. But at this point in time I just don't have the resources to clean seed and run the cows at this point in time.

45:41 So what are some of the next steps to continuing to improve or kind of continue to build on your operation? I would say just trying to get away from as much fertilizer and herbicide as I can and trying to grow more of the polycrops and figuring out things that I can grow together that are complementary and profitable. I guess just the overall goal is you know trying to get some of the microbial numbers up on my

46:17 PLFA to a certain threshold that I can feel comfortable not applying anything out there and just living with what I got out there. You just kind of watch those numbers on those tests. They've steadily increased but just still not quite there yet on being able to wean myself off everything.

46:45 There was another question here: do you graft the seed when you sow it, and if you do, what are you using? Additional minerals to the growing plants? And what fertilizer are you using, how much, if you want to share any of that info?

47:01 I've done a number of things with seed. I've made some of my own compost and used some vermiculture stuff, experimented with a number of those seed treatments. I can't say that I necessarily saw anything light and day difference. I didn't see anything detrimental. As I progressed, it takes a fair amount of time to make those seed inoculants yourself. And as my time's been limited and my family's grown, I haven't done as much of that as I would like to. And then I am running some dry fertilizer mixed with some. When I am planting my seeds, any time I put fertilizer on, I try to follow John Kemp's guidelines and mix it with a humic or a carbon source to try and limit the damage that I'm doing to my soil.

48:12 We have time for a few more questions if anybody wants to pop those in the Q&A chat or the Q&A box. John, I was going to ask: is there a certain thing that sticks out to you in your soil health journey or farming journey? Like a mentality or mindset, especially for you? Overcoming fear of failure or not being afraid to try things? What's something that's been really sticking out to you as you reflect on your journey?

48:52 I'd say probably focusing on the end goal of what I want my soil to look like. Knowing that and doing whatever you can, I decide. I always have that end goal in mind: how's this decision going to affect my final goal of improving my soil health and improving the bottom line of everything about my soil on my farm? So by having that overall goal, it kind of helps shape some of your management decisions—is this a detrimental thing or is this going to be beneficial for the outcome that I'm looking to see?

49:44 That's really well said, because there's so many decisions to be made each day, and going towards our core values, our end goal, our mission statement, our vision—that helps bring clarity to any of those questions that would come along.

50:04 Matt asked: what do we need to focus on differently when growing for seed versus growing for grain?

50:20 That's a good question. I don't really treat them differently—growing for seed versus growing for grain. I still kind of have the same approach towards those. But as my soils have improved, it's helped me with the seed quality. As I improve that soil, like for example, last year there was a fair amount of aluminum in our area, especially with the wheats and stuff. Where I've been farming differently for a number of years, some of that Scout we sent to Green Cover and some of that Turkey Red—I heard there's reports of like 60% germination on some of the new varieties of wheat out here. Well, that Turkey Red and that Scout came back at like 98% germination.

51:27 You know, as if you can focus on changing that soil and stuff, you know your plants are going to reward you for growing in more happy conditions.

51:43 Mike McDonald asked John, what are your plans on carbon payments through your cover crop and diverse rotations? I haven't looked at any of that or, I've heard about it but I haven't looked at any of it or anything. I guess I'm unsure of that. I just kind of stick my nose to the ground and keep doing what I'm doing.

52:12 Yeah, and I think that's understandable. I think that's something that you know is good for people to look into if they think that would be beneficial for their operation and totally understand again, you know, if that's kind of not what you're looking to do at the time. So yeah, like when I some of the equip programs and stuff, early on that I tried to get into, they, you know, they're any of those programs are kind of I feel like they're restrictive and they have their own guidelines and things that you know they want to have a little bit of say in what you can and can't do and that's, I didn't like that. I wanted to have the decision solely on me and solely what I wanted to accomplish.

53:04 We talked about kind of viewing similar growing for seed or grain but you know for your cover crop mixes differentiating them from growing for seed, just kind of any management things there, you a little bit more hands off as far as fertilizers and things like that when it's a cover crop mix, you know maybe in the summer after a grain harvest. Yeah, not. The only thing I ever fertilized was the full season stuff for forage. But usually if I'm, if it's after a harvest or something, I don't go out through it, any fertilizer. I kind of just you know let the plants do what they're going to do.

53:49 And you know they help keep my just by having them out there, they help keep my weeds away. And for me, you know, that's enough. And that, you know, they've helped me not use so much herbicide. Yeah, I usually have to use herbicide to kill them, but during that fallow period where I'd normally or would have to be killing weeds or doing something, I you know I can avoid that herbicide use just by having something living out there that I wanted.

54:22 Yeah, that's good. We kind of close with this unless you have any closing thoughts. But I was just going to ask you, you know, what's one thing that you wish, or if you could, you know, you would have almost every farmer in America, you know, do on their operation, whether that's just experiment with this or that, or kind of think through things this way or that way? What's kind of one thing you could spur on to you know the farming community at large?

54:49 I think if they could just go out to a farmer or somebody in their area that's been using these practices and take a shovel to that soil and have a sample of their own soil and just see what the difference is in that soil and you know understand that they're, we done things because that's the way we've done them, but there is there is a change or there's a know better way to do some things. And I think if if you seen two soils in a fence row with the only difference is management practices, I think that would open up a like scene is believing, I guess.

55:37 Yeah, that's great. I kind of opened up with the webinar just talking about like connections and stuff, but you know, people connections being connected to you or Scott Raven Camp, that can be a big game changer, but also just connected back to the soils, not being hands off, but you know, being literal on the ground and you know kind of seeing, smelling, feeling. That's really good.

56:02 Well, that's all the questions we have. John, is there any closing or comments you want to make? No, thanks for having me. Yeah, I appreciate you so much for joining.

56:13 Yep. Jonathan, anything else to close? Nope, I think we're good. Thanks everybody. Okay, that sounds great. Appreciate it everybody. Have a great rest of the week. All right, you too. Thanks.