How Jay Young Grows 100-Bushel Corn Without Phosphorus

0:00 Hey everybody, welcome to the Green Cover podcast where we have really interesting conversations with some of the top producers and experts within the regenerative community. Join us and let's learn together how we can regenerate, steward, and share God's creation for future generations.

0:18 You know, if you wanted to really prove that regenerative ag works, then Southwest Kansas is maybe not the easiest place to do that. But my guest today, Mr. Jay Young has done just that. He is in a really harsh environment, low rainfall, high winds, high evapotranspiration, a culture that is not used to this type of farming, yet he is making regenerative agriculture work. And I'm excited, Jay, to welcome you to the Green Cover podcast, and I'm excited to hear more of your story about how you're making it work in a harsh environment. So welcome.

0:53 Thank you, Keith. I'm really looking forward to this. Happy New Year. Yeah, happy new year to you as well. And to all of our listeners. And so, Jay, you know, I know your story. Some of our listeners may know your story, but for everybody else, give us your background. Give us the context not only of where you're at down there in Southwest Kansas, but also how you ended up there and just share a little bit of your regenerative journey.

1:18 Yeah. So, the Youngs have been in Gley County since 1906. My grandfather's grandfather broke sod in 1906 about half a mile from where my house is that I'm doing this interview from. And so we have a long history of farming. And I guess for me, like I grew up with people telling me like how respected my granddad and my dad were in the community as far as making wise decisions. I heard another farmer in the community say that if you don't know what to do, ask Jerry or Verell and do what they're doing. And so like I always had this feeling of like my dad, my granddad are experts and they love what they're doing and this is just a job to me. And I was I felt kind of insecure about that growing up because it was almost this feeling of like I'll never be as accomplished as my dad or my granddad kind of thing. And like so I think part of that also made me feel like almost guilty that I was taking over or doing something that I didn't love or enjoy as much as them. So anyway I did love that I could listen to books or podcasts or whatever while I was farming because I loved learning. But you know farming was never a passion for me.

3:02 In 2016, I was at a friend's house and we were getting ready to play cards and his daughter was talking about what she was learning in college and she started talking about cover crops and I said, 'What's a cover crop?' And my friend was astonished that I didn't know in 2016 I hadn't even heard of a cover crop. And so instead of playing cards, he took me into another room and into his office and had me watch a YouTube video on Gabe Brown grazing cattle on cover crops and before we started watching it I thought I don't want to watch this stupid farming video with you like I came here to play cards and like 10, 15 minutes in the video I'm just blown away hooked and I think the main thing about cattle is like or farming is we would grow have buy stockers and run them on wheat every winter and I always loved doing cattle more than I loved farming and so as I'm watching this video thinking, 'Well, we don't have grass, but now I know that I could do cattle year round on cover crops.' I was all in. And I recognized though that this was going to be something that would be hard for my dad to swallow. That you're going to take good farm ground out of production and you're going to grow a bunch of different crops on it and do cattle on it like just made zero sense to my dad. And so I spent a full month, Keith, of researching before I felt like I was an expert to be able to explain to him, hey, this is what cover crops are. This is what running cattle are on cover crops. And so I had the conversation with him. He told me I was nuts and was so confident that it would just blow up in my face that he's like, 'Okay, well, you can take the ground that you're renting from your grandfather and do it on that. And if it works, then keep doing it. And if it doesn't, then sell the cows that you bought and move on.' Thinking that in a year from now, after a year of doing it, it would be a great life lesson for me.

5:14 A year later I made so much money on the deal because I bought 60 head of replacement heifers at 700 bucks and sold them as bred heifers for 1,800 bucks. And my dad thought, well, this is a pretty good thing, you know, and I did half the work, but I didn't get paid. So, you

5:33 Need to sell me half a young red or half of your deal. And so it went from me owning red Angus that first year to selling half of it to my dad. And it wasn't really selling half. He bought cows for the value of what I had at that time. And anyway, that's how we started Young Red Angus together after a year of doing it by myself.

5:56 And that first from 2016 to 2020, I only cared about what I was doing as much as being better at raising cattle on cover crops. I think the science behind everything kind of made it overwhelming for me, like thinking I'll never understand these concepts and these terms about aggregates or exudates or the water infiltration rates and I always say it wrong. I'll either say infiltration or filtration and you know like somebody will correct me later and I'll think I got to remember how to say that correctly next time and then I always screw it up. But anyway, all those things overwhelmed me and I thought, well, all I need to know is what cover crops will work in western Kansas. I don't need to understand that other stuff.

6:49 And then I was at the Colorado Conservational Tillage Association and we I heard Dr. Christine Jones and she talked about how if you don't eliminate phosphorus from your farming operation, you'll never get where you want to go in terms of being regenerative because phosphorus inhibits a plant's ability to secrete exudates. And if you don't have exudates, you're not building aggregation. And if you're not building aggregation, you're not increasing the amount of water you'll take on in a rain event. And so I raised my hand and repeated everything I thought she was saying to make sure I was understanding her. And she said, 'Yeah, that's correct.' And I thought, 'Dang it. Like, I don't know how I'll ever do that.' And I just kind of felt like, 'Oh man, how will I ever eliminate phosphorus from our operation?'

7:50 And then I heard Dr. David Johnson talking about Johnson Sue bioreactors and he said with this compost that they were making with their Johnson Sue bioreactors that you could eliminate phosphorus and reduce nitrogen by 85% and that's what his tests were showing. And so after hearing him say that I didn't think that was possible but I also thought this is my only avenue if what he's saying is true that's the only avenue to getting to soil health. And so I made my first Johnson Sue.

8:24 And I think from that doing that it brought me down a whole different avenue in regenerative health or regenerative farming because I realized that I'd really missed out on being a better version of myself in the area of farming by not challenging myself and saying, 'Hey, I have dyslexia. I have this learning disability, reading is a challenge for me' rather than seeing those as challenges that I need to work hard to overcome. Like I was allowing them to limit myself. And so realizing that I needed to not have excuses after that moment and that I really needed to take time to learn to understand as much as I could about the science behind what was taking place in my soil.

9:10 That took me on a trajectory to where I feel like in the last five years I've learned well over ten times what I knew in the first four years because of challenging myself and not limiting myself. And I think that's the biggest thing is recognizing going to conferences and talking to different farmers. The ones that are more successful typically are the ones who are willing to take risks and who are willing to overcome their own limitations, challenge themselves and try new things and want to learn and grow more.

9:50 And then I see two types of farmers. Ones that do that and then others that come to the same conference every year and they contemplate on whether or not they're going to grow a cover crop or whether or not they're going to try doing it. And it's just those are the two types of people. People who are willing to take risk or people who are willing to play it safe. And I you see it in a difference in what they're able to accomplish. Like you take a person like Kevin Wilty who has done so many amazing things with his farm in a very similar situation to what I am and it's amazing. And then you have other people who I know that go to that conference in Burlington every single year who there's very little change on their farming operation because they're not willing to take risks. So that was the biggest change in 2020 is those risk takings and then you know just starting the YouTube channel kind of talking about what I was learning.

10:51 Like that allowed me to help people in ways that I didn't realize I'd be able to help people. Because I feel like being able to have that YouTube channel and talk about what I'm learning and talk about where I'm failing and just being able to recognize that it's a channel where people can come and see what I'm doing and learn from what I'm doing right and wrong. And that like having the feeling of I'm not an expert. This is where I'm making mistakes. This is where I'm weak. This is where I'm all these things. I think people relate to that because they, you know, I'm not trying to make myself into being an authority on soil health or some genius. I'm just saying this is what I'm doing. This is what I'm learning and this is what succeeding and this is what isn't. I didn't realize how much that would resonate with people and how much that would help people. Because I thought it was going to be something where it was like, you know, a hundred people would watch and I'm helping the hundred people that watch, not there's 12,000 subscribers, you know, like so like things like that. Like I think it went from just a guy who didn't enjoy farming to now like I'm very passionate about it. I love it and I love helping people and I love everything about it.

12:08 Yeah. It's interesting, Jay, for anybody who has heard you speak or watch your YouTube channels, you know, for us to hear that there was a time when you weren't passionate about farming, it's hard for us to believe because you're one of the most passionate people that I've heard speak, but it's because you're now passionate about the type of farming that you're doing. And I suspect that that's what made your grandfather and your father so successful and so great pillars of that community because they were passionate about what they were doing and they were using the best tools and the technology and the knowledge at the time and you've just taken that because now we have access to lots more tools and technology and information and so you're integrating that into your operation now but that same passion is showing through now. Yeah, I I see that in a lot of ways with my dad and granted for sure that they were very they wanted to do things the right way in whatever they were doing. So, yeah.

13:10 Yeah. So, you talked about a lot of things there as we opened up and I want to go back and maybe just unpack a few of those a little bit. Take a little bit deeper dive in into a few of those things. So, you started grazing cattle on cover crops. So, do you have much, you know, perennial grass, native grass at all, or are you pretty much doing it all on annuals?

13:35 Well, up until 2026, so in 2024, we closed on some ground and bought some ground that was farm ground, like 120 acres of farm ground and 320 acres of grass. So, that's the first time I've ran cows on grass. I've ran replacement heifers on grass. I guess I would say that there was a quarter that I'd use for a replacement heifers that once or twice I put 15 cows on it, but not mass, you know, 300 acres of grass. So, all my experience up to last year was all on cover crops, grazing cows on cover crops. I did, you know, run into killing some of those replacement heifers with CN D, claustrated strands of C and D. And so, that first year I ended up moving some of them of the replacement heifer program to grass. And so I because I had that bad issue that first year, I was always trying to do that though that first generation of replacement heifers on grass and the cows were all on cover crops. So yeah, I've had a ton of experience of grazing cows on every, you know, spring cover crop, summer cover crop, winter cover crop, and the highs and lows and what works and what doesn't work in my environment.

15:06 Yeah. And and I really like how you mentioned Kevin Wilty and one of our earlier podcasts that we did here at Green Cover was with one of our neighbors, Kip Hinrich here in Nebraska. And both of those guys didn't have a lot of grass, so they took farm ground and they planted perennial grass because that's the type of farming that they wanted to do. And so just because you don't have grass doesn't mean you can't get grass back because it would have all been perennial grass at one point in time. And so again, it's just seeding some of that back to what it naturally was and what that land very likely remembers how to do very very well. Are you looking at seeding anything back to perennials like Kevin and others have done? Well, and I forgot to mention that too, like in we just my neighbor is going to is getting he's just sold his cows and so he's going to let me rent his grass. And so between the grass I bought and that grass and then another neighbor's letting me rent grass, I'm going to be able to move all my cows onto the grass. And where we got our we

16:15 Just got into a contract with Halter last May. And so we're going to be doing rotational grazing on the grass with those GPS collars from Halter. But I did want to back up, Keith, because I think you brought up in saying that about Western Kansas being very very challenging to do regenerative ag. I think that that's true, but the problem is that people only see regenerative agriculture—I guess not only but there's a big challenge in regenerative agriculture where people are only thinking in terms of immediate profit. They're not thinking in long-term terms. So like if I'm getting more plants out there and those plants are creating more root exudates, they're creating more aggregates, I'm increasing the ability of my ground to take on more water.

17:25 And that's why I brought up Kevin Wilty when I went to a field day that they did earlier this winter. He brought some of his soil and I've seen the water infiltration test. I've seen those so many times and Candy Thomas was there. So Candy put the ring down in the ground and the water infiltration test she did on that circle in Kevin's ground—his was like the fastest I've ever seen. That water went like an inch of water went into his ground in like 30 seconds.

18:08 So like the problem that farmers see is they think that everything is all the same. They think there's no difference between tillage and no till or having a bunch of cover crops. I'm even thinking about that in terms of like your corn in rows—you're not getting the aggregates in the center of those rows unless you're interceding cover crops in your ground. And so people have to be thinking of that in terms of where your water is going to infiltrate into your soil and building that up to where in 10 years from now your water infiltration rates are 10 times faster. How much more profitable are you going to be in doing that?

18:51 So like I think that if you're able to take farm ground in my area and you're able to find what works in terms of getting cover crops integrated and finding out what's going to work in your system—for us, we realize that if you try to do a living root in the ground at all times and you don't have moisture, your ground is going to blow. And so really like the best way to get a cover crop in is to do a fall cash crop and then do a summer cover crop.

19:23 And I think you can run cows on that over the summer. But if it's the first time that you've done that, you're going to run into issues with compaction. I think if you have the situation I have where you have limited water and irrigation, you could run cows on cover crops like I have. I think the best way to integrate cover crops right now are the things that we're doing with—you have cows and you plant a summer cover crop and then you graze that over the winter and then you go back to a summer cover crop. And even if you're like, well, I don't have cows, great—buy old cows that look terrible at the sale barn, run them out on your cover crops. They'll gain a ton of weight over the winter and then you sell them.

20:13 And your only experience is having those old cows on your cover crops. You graze that, they gain a ton of weight and then you sell them and then you avoid issues with compaction because your ground's frozen while the cows are out there grazing. You get the manure out there across those cover crops. You have a ton of armor on the soil because of that summer cover crop and you don't have any of the issues that you would have had with compaction. Then you're set up to continue to grow aggregation and water infiltration across your entire field.

20:48 Or if you have wheat in your system still, instead of having a long fallow period to set up your wheat, which was what everybody does out here, you do what Larry Pertie, who's in my county, has been doing for 10 years—you grow a spring cover crop. You terminate it as soon as it heads out before it flowers or right when it flowers. Then you have that thick thatch on the ground and then you plant wheat back into that. And we did that this year and we had way more moisture everywhere we had the cover crop than we did a long fallow period.

21:23 And so it's like I had to go through 10 years of trying things and doing things to get to the point where I'm like those things work in our area. And to me everybody can do that. Like you pick one quarter and you get it. You go to your local NRCS and you ask them how can I get in the equipment or the CSP program with cover crops. They tell you how that helps you pay for your cover crops.

21:45 Start on one quarter or two quarters and you figure out what works on those two quarters and then integrate that across your entire landscape of your farming operation in my opinion.

21:57 And you know, you were talking about the summer planted cover crop and the beauty of that is that that is the absolute best time to get all the diversity in there because you can plant both warm season and cool season species. And so that's where you get the richness of that plant diversity, you know, that Christine Jones talks about so much. You can't do that if you're stuck in a corn soybean rotation and you're always planting cover crops in October or November. And so the what you're doing and being able to harvest the income through the cattle, you know, it that's a beautiful system because you're maximizing all that diversity. By doing the winter grazing, you're eliminating a lot of the issues that you talked about with compaction as well. And you're really building the soil at the same time you're putting all that weight on those cattle. So I love that system. It's a great way to go. And you know, for some people when they're that's all they're doing, your equipment costs are almost nothing, too, because you know, you don't have to, you know, depreciate a combine on those acres when you're harvesting it with your cattle.

23:07 Yeah. And I, well, I was talking to Scott Ravenamp. I think he said that I think it's John Herman. I thought he said that he got rid of all of his farming equipment other than his planter and he's planting summer cover crops and doing contracts with stalkers and running stalkers on it. So he didn't even have the cost of the stalkers. He's just getting paid to graze the stalkers on the summer cover crop. He's building up the health of his soil and not having any of the equipment cost.

23:38 Yeah. And there's a number of people doing that. And here's the other thing, Jay, is that especially in very arid environments, you know, because you're what, 14 to 16 inches of rain on average.

23:49 Yes.

23:50 Somewhere in that neighborhood. And you know, people would look at that and go, 'Well, you know, you're really going to struggle to grow cash grain crops.' And you do. You know, some years you do really well, other years you don't. But what a lot of people don't think about or don't realize is that it takes about 50% of the water for this crop to grow the majority of the biomass, vegetative biomass, and the other 50% to actually produce grain and take the grain all the way out to, you know, full maturity harvest. Well, most years you have at least 50% of rainfall. Now, there's some years you don't, but most years you're going to have at least 50%. So in most of those years, you can still grow the majority of your biomass and if you're grazing it, that's really all you need. And so that's why the system that you're looking at and talking about doing can really work so well in arid environment or a low irrigation, you know, as your wells start to shrink. And we've got some of those here in our area, too, where our wells just aren't very good. And so, you know, we can't go after the highest production corn, but we can still go after incredibly good production with a little bit different system.

25:06 Yeah, for sure. Well, and I think that when you think about if let's say you want to keep farming, like you're just you're not into the cattle aspect of it, I think that you really need to think along the biological side of things. Like, you know, when we got into using Johnson Sue, we were able to reduce nitrogen, you know, we've cut our nitrogen rates back by 50%. And we haven't used phosphorus for 5 years. And so like it just thinking in terms of this year where you have very low commodity prices I don't know how people made it, you know, because we were really disappointed with the prices and we still raised, you know, 100 bushel corn on a lot of our corn acres and you know we there was one variety of milo that every field it was I assume.

26:02 Yeah dryland. So like we, if you raised, there's been four times that we've raised 100 bushel milo, maybe five times since I've been back. So like if you hit those 100 bushel, you know, with milo or corn like that's a good year in our area. And so to be able to have, you know, 140 bushel corn on one field and then like 130 bushel milo where we only did this 5 years and no phosphorus on that ground and 5 years of half the rates of nitrogen on the on that ground. And so, you know, to me, the yields are pretty much the same as our neighbors. So if you're reducing your input cost that much and you're keeping your yield where it was, you know, to me like those are the things that you also.

26:57 Have to be thinking about in terms of regenerative agriculture. You know part of the reason that you're doing a cover crop is you're feeding those microbial communities within your soil. If you're in a dry environment like us, mycorrhizal fungus cannot survive without the presence of a living root in the ground. Most people are not going to have, unless you're growing wheat, most people are not going to have a living root in the ground over the winter. So you're going to have to be stimulating those microbial communities that are naturally dying over the winter. And the best way to do that is with adding microbial inoculants either to your seed or getting it in furrow with biologicals. Whether you're making your own compost extract with Johnson-Su or whether you're buying it from companies that you trust.

27:43 You have to be thinking in terms of getting the cover crops out there, but let's say I'm in a system where a cover crop isn't going to make sense for me in this immediate moment. You have to be getting biologicals out in your soil because every time you don't have a living root, you're killing some of those biological communities that have to be there. And so I think we need to continue to push the envelope on what we're trying, whether it's doing biological strips of planting cereal rye on 30-inch spaces through your field so you can keep those alive or continue to try integrating cover crops into your growing corn. Because you have to have those microbial communities to be successful with uptaking of nutrients and pulling down carbon and putting it back into your soil.

28:38 And I want to just clarify for people listening here that even though you haven't put any phosphorus on and you've reduced your nitrogen by 50%, it doesn't mean that the crops aren't getting phosphorus and it doesn't mean they're not getting all the nitrogen that they need. It's just being made available biologically and the phosphorus is coming out of, you know, most of our soils have a huge bank of phosphorus. You're just employing the biology to make it more available, right?

29:10 Yeah. So I'm glad you brought that up. So I think that's one of the biggest misconceptions is when you talk about compost extract, and I'm trying to explain it to a farmer who's new to it, they're automatically thinking of composted manure and they're only thinking of macro and micronutrients being added by the compost. They're not thinking about the microbial communities that are being added by the compost. So Johnson-Su compost is a static compost pile that isn't turned. And because it's not turned and it has air flowing through it for the entire year and it takes a year to break down so those fungal communities can fully develop, you're adding a very fungally dominant compost to your soils and that so you're adding a fungal component to your soils that your soils need. There's other composting methods, but specifically talking about adding biology and why that works is you add those fungal components out there.

30:15 And a plant, trying to remember what the percent is, but the vast majority of phosphorus and nitrogen should be taken up by the plant through receiving it from bacteria, either bacteria or saprophytic funguses that break down dead plant material. They have two roles. They, well, I'm sure they have more than two roles that we don't know about, but saprophytic funguses break down dead plant material, but they'll take nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium, and all the micronutrients as well, and they bring it to the plant. So when we talk about compost, we're not talking about adding nutrients for the plant to take up themselves. We're talking about adding these microbial communities that will bring the micro and macronutrients to the plant for the plant to take it up naturally. And that's the natural flow of the way things should be. And so when we started adding synthetic phosphorus and nitrogen, a plant when it has that present, it does not secrete exudates because it takes all of its energy into uptaking all the nutrients that are there and it makes the plant lazy. It's kind of like us. If we have everything given to us, we're not going to go out and we're not going to hunt for it. So we're going to become fat and lazy because everything's right in front of us. And that's the way a plant gets. So the plant is healthier when there it doesn't have that synthetic phosphorus. It can secrete those exudates which is what it's supposed to do. And then I found that really fascinating that Dr. Toby Kiers did a presentation.

32:00 And she brought up how a plant if microisal fungus colonizes a plant, it will deregulate that plant's genes. And so that plant will no longer have the ability to take up nitrogen and phosphorus on its own, which is what you actually want the plant to do. And it will expend all of its energy in photosynthesis and other processes that it needs to be healthy and it is completely 100% dependent on microisal fungus to bring it the nutrients that it needs. Which I feel so foolish because I bought that the microisal package from you. I don't know where I wrote down where I put it at, but I do know I mean I do know it was on one of these fields that yielded 100 and 20 bushel milo. I don't know what the other field was. And I like that was so frustrating to me to think about that before this interview because I was like, man, I because I wanted to ask you too, Keith, like what are you seeing when you guys are adding that microisal fungus, like what kind of difference has that made in what you guys have done?

33:10 Yeah. You know, when you add the microisal inoculant, which, you know, is from a biological perspective, it's one of the more expensive things that you put on because microisa you can't just grow up huge populations, you know, in a tank like you can with bacteria. Bacteria are relatively cheap, inexpensive because you can just blow those populations up really fast. Microisa have to be grown on a plant root and it takes time and it takes, you know, the extraction and the putting them into stasis. It's a very complicated process. So, you know, you're going to spend, you know, anywhere from $8 to $12 an acre putting that on if you're doing anything close to a full rate. So, when we do that and we do that on, you know, anytime we plant a cash crop for sure because, you know, we feel like, you know, another bushel or two is going to, you know, return on return that investment. What we typically see is, you know, better root systems like you would expect. It's an, you know, the microisa is an extension of the root system and it just makes that plant so much more efficient like you said. And I think that, you know what, people, you have to get past the mindset of if I reduce my inputs, I'm going to reduce my yield because now my plant doesn't have the nutrients that it needs. Well, that's a conventional way of thinking and that would be true if the biology wasn't involved at all. But when you have the biology involved where it's microisa or the saprophytic or all of the bacteria involved in the rhizosphere system, you know that James White and others, you know, have done really great research on when you're allowing them to bring the nutrients to the plant like what you mentioned then reduced synthetic inputs does not mean reduced nutrients for the plant. It's just getting them a different way. And that's a big mindset shift that people have to make before they can do that. And you can't just do that cold turkey. You can't just do that overnight. You have to transition to a different system or you know you can crash the whole system if you don't do it right.

35:24 So, you've talked you mentioned the Johnson Sue compost several times and I don't want you to completely explain it because you've got really good explanations on your YouTube channel. And so, I would encourage people if you want to see how to make this, if you want to see it in action, go to Jay's YouTube channel. We'll put a link here to go to that because you demonstrate how to do that really well. But maybe just give a quick overview of what that looks like, how it's different than other types of composting. And what I think is really cool about it is you're not making thousands of tons of compost to do this. It's very concentrated. So just talk real briefly about that.

36:08 Yeah. So, we started making them out of IBC totes and you basically need a container like an IBC tote. Dr. Johnson has YouTube videos on how he makes them, but we'll take either the shell or the bladder out of the IBC tote. We'll line it with we'll take that shell and we'll line it with weed barrier mat and we'll make a cylinder like that where we put the product in or we'll just cut the top off the bladder and punch a bunch of holes in the bottom of the bladder, put our pipes in. We'll use the actual bladder. So, we made them both ways. There's pros and cons to both ways that I kind of break down in my YouTube channel. But then you take a product and you want something that you don't want too big of material in there that won't break down. Dr. Johnson recommends stuff that you know is the size of your thumb for a lot of it and so he's had the most

42:38 200 bushel corn on our irrigated circles with half the nitrogen and no phosphorus. So, you know, next year will be 6 years into no phosphorus on our irrigated.

42:51 And do you feel like those crops have become more efficient with the limited water that you have to give them because you're within a more biological system than if you were conventionally farming them?

43:05 So between that and there's a variety of Hogamire corn that we tried this year that we put a 12,000 population down. 125. There were parts in that field that blew because our neighbors field blew and it took off parts of our stubble. So you know in 2024 it was wheat, probably about 40 or 50 bushels of wheat and then there was a bad wind event and our neighbors field blew and then that blew the edges of our field and different parts of that field. Dad chiseled the edges. You know, on the edges where he chiseled, it was barely putting on any ears. But that whole field I think the average was 90 but then you got down to this specific variety of Hogamire it averaged 130, 140. No, it was 150 on that part. And then the 30 acres was 150, but parts where the ground blew was it was literally 30 bushels where we had cover on that 12.5 population, a lot of it hit 200 bushel corn on dry land in western Kansas at 125 population.

44:20 So that got us really excited thinking that hey, we can use this variety at 125 population. We can do it on all of our circles, do limited water on all of those circles. We got the opportunity to move our cows out and then, you know, we're in a situation where our landlords said, 'Hey, we're going to sell this. Do you want to buy it?' And we're like, 'Can't really afford to buy it?' But if we're able to raise the corn on it, you know, we're planning on buying it, seeing if that works. And if it works, we'll keep going with that. Adding the biologicals and doing the corn, grazing our cattle on the grass, and then grazing the cows on those milo or those corn stocks over the winter. So, it'll be corn or milo on our irrigated circles, mixing that variety in and hopefully getting that to work. If not, then we'll sell half those circles. But yeah, land prices are a little insane.

45:25 Yeah. They sure are. And when you're doing those super low population, you know, 12,500, are you finding are you doing interseed cover crops into that as well? And is that working better because you have more sunlight?

45:43 So, I think it would work. You know, we had 2023 was the last time I interseeded cover crops in the corn because I don't remember what had happened in 2024. 2025 I went to be a counselor at my kids youth camp. And so I didn't have that window. Yeah, you have a window to do it. And so like even if I had the opportunity to have that window, you basically have one week to interseed as much cover crops as you can with the interseeder. One thing that I want to try doing is I'm going to do some test strips of doing cereal rye right after we plant. So, a day or two after we plant the corn, doing cereal rye, hoping that the allelopathic effect holds off those weeds and then the fact that cereal rye is a cool season. I'm hoping that that will help with it not out competing the corn, but also having the signals in the soil that weeds don't need to grow. And I think you know listening to Nicole Masters, learn reading her book and learning about quorum signaling and quorum sensing was very eye opening and then understanding how that works that if you have certain plants growing they're sending signals into the soil like don't grow. It's kind of like, you know, you see a field of grass pasture, you know, there's all kinds of seeds for Canadian thistle that are out there because tumbleweeds have blown across those pastures the same as they've blown across our farm ground. And they don't have Canadian thistle or kosha growing out there. Why don't they have that out there? Because they don't have the signals that they can grow. Those seed banks aren't active because they're not receiving those signals. And so I think that that's one thing that is very eye opening that farmers, you try to explain it to them and they think that that's voodoo magic that happens. But it's the same thing with fungal components. Dr. David Johnson, he tested a field for mycorrhizal fungus and found no presence of mycorrhizal fungus. He added Johnson Sue compost and the cover crop seeds and tested again for.

48:11 Microisal fungus and found 20 different species of microisal fungus just by applying or planting cover crops and adding the biology from the Johnson Sue. And there's no unless you're getting spores in the compost, there's no Johnson Sue or there's no microisal fungus in Johnson Sue compost because it's all benefiting saptheidic funguses because microisal fungus can't survive in a compost pile. So understanding those things and seeing those things as well are big, and that's kind of why I want to intercede. I want to keep working at it, and I think that's the biggest challenge with regenerative agriculture is what you can afford to do and what you have time to do.

48:55 I think regenerative agriculture works everywhere. It's just do you have time to make it work on your operation and do you have the finances to make it work? Like what are things that you can try? And that's why I encourage people to try to figure it out on at least one quarter before they just say that it won't work in their farm.

49:14 I'm really intrigued with your low population corn. That's I think we're going to integrate that into our summer plots this year of that ultra low population, you know, with hybrids that have super flex. Can we get 200 bushel on a low population and still have good cover crop growth?

49:36 I can give you that variety after the interview. Yeah, no, that'd be great. I want to circle back, Jay, you circle back to the cattle because when we were talking about cattle, you mentioned that you have halter collars. Talk a little bit about how you're utilizing those and how that is either changed or will change the way that you're able to graze these cover crops and your grass because they both are going to respond well to proper grazing management.

50:09 Yeah, so I first heard about the collars from talking to Daniel Mushrush, and I believe you guys had him speak at Iola conference. Daniel's a good friend of mine and we talk cattle on a regular basis, and when he mentioned to me that he was getting Halter collars, I was like that's awesome. I want to do it. Tell me about it. And he's like, well, hold on. And he said this is the issue, and he went through all the issues and he's like don't, this has been a nightmare so far. Wait and hopefully this company will get all these issues out. I think after two years of working with that company, he had been researching other companies and he decided to try another company, and within three months of using Halter, I was asking him how the collars were going and he's like it's awesome. I switched to this company and here's what they're doing. And I said, 'Should I try it?' And he goes, 'Yeah.' And I'm like, 'But you're three months in with this new company.' He goes, 'Yeah, but they ironed out this, this, and this.' And so I think the biggest thing was is the solar panel unit on your collar. Like if you're going to go with a company, I think there's very few that are using solar panel units as opposed to batteries. So when you get your collars, you want one that has, if you're going to go with a company, that's why I chose Halter because of what Daniel went through. They have the solar panel unit on the collar. They're getting the signals from a tower that you're going to have at your farm or wherever the grass is at. And then it's connected to GPS satellites. So from the GPS satellites, it knows where every single cow is on your farm, and then it gets signals to the tower wherever they're at. And those are how it's getting the signals to move from place to place. And so if you decide to go with Halter, they'll come to your farm, they'll look at it, they'll be able to map it out, and then they'll give a recommendation for towers. And then you decide whether or not you want to pay for the towers. Each tower is $4,500. They have one, I think it's one, two, and four-year contracts. I took the four-year contract. I don't remember what the cost of the other ones were, but when I signed up it was $66 per year per animal and then the cost of the towers. You own the towers and Halter owns the collars. So in four years they'll re-evaluate the condition of the collars, whether or not they need to switch them out and all that. And then I decide if I want to reup with them in four years. They have an app on your phone that you go to, and you move everything from the app on your phone. So like right now while we're talking, on the bottom there's a button that says cattle and I can pick what herd I want them in. All the cattle are broken down into herds. So I've got my younger cows in a group called red one.

53:07 And my older cows in a group called winter cows. And so I can find any one of my cows with a push of a button. So, like this cow 120 is one of my favorite cows. If I want to see her on the map, I push show on map and it'll take me right to where that cow is on the map. So, if one of if like one of my hired men tell me, 'Hey, this cow, I saw her. She's sick. We need to get her off.' The next day, I can find out exactly where she is on the pasture.

53:32 To move them, this plus button on the bottom, I just hit that plus button. I pick the cows that I want to move. I draw with my finger the next paddock that I want. And then from there once that's drawn I click that that paddock and I'll hit shift cattle and then I tell it if I want to do the total area of that group I'll say yes and then in 12 minutes they'll get signals that they need to move. If typically what I want to do like I what I do is because I'm very very forgetful, I schedule like so I'll move them one day and then what like every morning I'll go in and I'll schedule the next move so that that way I know that they're getting moved when I want them to be moved every single day.

54:15 And so it's really awesome because I'm able to play with the size of paddocks with the number of cattle and pretty quickly I can adjust how big I want those paddocks. You know, winter grazing was really tough because the ground's frozen. It's hard to get polywire in. You know, you don't have to mess with that. You save all the amount of time moving cattle with a just a touch of the button.

54:41 You know, we had them get out during wheat harvest and because they were just getting used to getting trained and somebody left the gate down and so they went out through the gate. That night at 11:00 me and my hired man went out there. You can trigger their LED lights on the collar so they flash. They're flashing LED lights. We were able to put all of them back in. And then we I checked my phone. My phone showed that I had all of them in. We went home in 45 minutes. So, I mean, you're never getting your cows in in the middle of the night, you know, without collars.

55:12 And then when they cave, I can once I write down all the ones that have caved, I can create a new mob, a new group for all the ones that have caved. And then I can create a new pasture within that pasture and sort them on the pasture. And then later once they're kind of sorted out, I can go in there and I can move that group off without disturbing the other group. So there's the capability of sorting on the pasture and you know like typically if you're wanting to move cows to pasture and you want to do the ones that stuck AI or are caved, put them at one pasture and put them in another pasture, you can do a lot of cool things now that will save you a ton of time.

55:54 And both Daniel and I have talked about it. There is not a chance I will ever unless unless it gets unaffordable to do it. Not a chance I would ever go back to not doing this because before I would do rotational grazing but if it wasn't convenient like I wouldn't do it. Now it's never not convenient to do rotational grazing on my pasture and I'm really excited to see like with this summer cover crop mix and moving them around and how that's going to work as well.

56:21 Yeah, Daniel did a live demonstration of just what you were talking about at our Southeast Kansas soil health conference uh last month and yeah, just one of the coolest things, you know, to just watch him do it in real time. And I also understand that Halter is going to be coming out with the ability for those collars to connect directly to Starlink satellite, so you don't need the towers as they move forward. So, I don't know when that's going to be implemented, but uh we're looking at doing that on our own operation here as well. So, I appreciate you uh sharing that.

56:59 So, Jay, as we as we kind of wrap things up here and as we close, I just I just want to have you share a little bit about uh how you integrate faith into your farming because I know that's important to us. I know it's important to you as well. So just talk a little bit about what role that plays in what you're doing, how where you've come from and where you're going.

57:22 So I had a big like I gave my life to Christ when I was in my early 20s and so like I've been on a faith journey since it was right after 9/11. So 24 years. I had a big paradigm shift mentally in 2021, as the YouTube channel was really picking up. I got a mentor to try to kind of help me balance everything that I was doing. And from having that mentor, I really realized that I put too much pressure on myself to succeed. And that my focus was all based on you're either you're either successful or you're a failure. And so like I was constantly stressed out at work trying to balance things and trying to you know always always be successful.

58:21 Never fail. Failure is bad. In that process of getting that mentor, I really was able to get out of the success mindset and onto a complete stewardship paradigm. God created me. He loves me. He died for me. And everything in my life is to know him and to love him better. And he created me with a purpose, and that's to honor and glorify him in everything I do.

58:53 You brought up the term stewardship for me. Like really understanding that I'm a son and as a son I'm fully loved. And I need to see everything in terms of he's given me something to steward and I need to steward that to the best of my ability. And as long as I'm living in a mindset of doing it to the best of my ability, then I'm never a failure. Like I'm always being sanctified. I'm always growing. I'm always loved.

59:22 For me, being able to go through that process of breaking that mindset and not realizing how deeply embedded the success failure mindset was in my life, and even still is, that I have to constantly take those thoughts captive and make them obedient to what I know to be true from the Bible and from what his word says, not from a failure mindset. That's been the biggest thing for me, is being able to have that paradigm shift and really try to live in a mindset of I want to honor and glorify God in everything I do.

1:00:06 So one of those is stewarding my time, my family, and my employees. So being a good steward, it's not just about success. It's about how am I mentoring my employees? How am I mentoring my kids? How am I honoring my father? And being able to realize that if I'm at work and I'm successful but I'm stressed out and I'm angry and frustrated when the cows are out, or upset about something that me and my dad got in an argument about—like whatever it is—if I'm constantly thinking about success, then I'm also thinking about the opposite, which is failure. And then I'm stressed out if I'm failing.

1:00:57 But if I'm thinking about stewardship, it's all about am I honoring and glorifying God in this situation? So if my cows are out, am I honoring him and am I glorifying him by being patient and being kind to my coworkers as we put them back in? If I have a disagreement with my dad, am I stressed out because I think if we don't do it my way, then it's going to fail and I'm frustrated with my dad? Or am I thinking I'm going to honor God by honoring my dad and being kind to him even though we don't agree about this situation?

1:01:32 All of those things have really helped me to realize. So now, if I am stressed out, like to me it's a warning light. I need to stop. I need to pray. I need to process this information and thank God. How can I honor and glorify you in this moment rather than continuing on in a stressed out situation? I by no means have figured out what it means to be a steward fully, but to me, that's the mindset shift that's taken place in the last five years—having this mentor that's helped me walk through and realize, hey, you're all focused on whether or not you succeed or whether you fail. And that's really about building your kingdom, not about God. But if you're focused on his kingdom, it's all about stewarding it to the best of your ability, and there is no failure. You're just honoring him in whatever you do.

1:02:26 That's a great perspective, Jay. I really appreciate you sharing that. I think that's a great way to wrap things up and it's a great way for all of us to be thinking about how do we want to start 2026 as we roll into a new year with new opportunities. Having that stewardship type mindset, I think, is a great way to get started. So Jay, thank you so much for taking time to join us here on the Green Cover podcast. We really appreciate your time and your effort. Thank you for all the passion and your willingness to share that with other people. And thank you everyone for joining us on this episode of the Green Cover podcast.

1:03:06 Awesome. Thanks, Keith.

1:03:08 My brother and I started Green Cover 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 Green Cover 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.

1:03:47 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.