How to Choose Cover Crop Species for Your Goals

0:00 Well, we are excited to be doing today's webinar. This is part two of a six-part webinar series where we are working on covering the basics of cover cropping. So, last week we talked about some of the reasons you may want to plant cover crops and some of the benefits that cover crops might be able to bring you. And today we're going to cover crop species selection.

0:20 So, you may be at a point where you know that you want to plant cover crops, but how exactly do you know where to get started? I mean, there are over a hundred, some might say 140 different cover crop species. So, that's thousands of combinations in a cover crop mix. So, it can certainly be challenging to know what to plant and what species might work well for the goals that you're trying to achieve, especially if you're looking at planting a diverse mix. So that's exactly what we're going to be covering today in today's webinar.

0:54 Our team spends a lot of time on this topic trying to understand the different cover crops out there and always continuing to expand our expertise on cover crop species. So without further ado, I will go ahead and pass it on over to Jacen and we will talk about cover crop species selection.

1:16 Okay, awesome. Thank you, Sophie. Let me share my screen here real quick. Is that how we want it to be? Looks good.

1:28 Perfect. Okay. Yes. Well, thanks for joining everybody. My name is Jacen Burns and I have been fully on the sales team here at Green Cover for about eight years or almost eight years. And through that time, I've talked to a lot of different people in a lot of different areas about a lot of different cover crops. And so with that being said, just really excited to join this webinar series and this specific episode about how to find the right cover crop for you. Just kind of dial in that species selection and overall cover crop success, hopefully leading towards overall success on your operation.

2:03 So yeah, with that, let's just get into it. Last week, if you watched it, and even if you didn't, Keith did a great job in the first episode of this series talking about the why and a lot of the cover crop benefits. He had this great slide kind of sharing the analogy of the Swiss Army knife. So he had cover crop benefits was a Swiss Army knife with all the different blades going different ways and the different blades being the different cover crop benefits. You have a blade over here, a serrated blade over here, a corkscrew, screwdriver, all these different things kind of representing the cover crop benefits.

2:36 And so I thought I'd share just a couple slides of those benefits and then maybe we can talk about how cover crop species can kind of play a role in some of these goals and then we'll talk about some other things as far as species selection as we go forward.

2:51 So with the idea of the Swiss Army knife of the different cover crop benefits that Keith talked about last week, here's just a few of them. Improve soil and, you know, building soil improving that organic matter you know and I want to emphasize that cover crops aren't the only thing that will help with this. So cover crops are a tool in the toolbox and so you see different root structures in the soil on the left so certainly some cover crops or plants or crop rotation can play a role in building that soil, building that better aggregate stability different things like that kind of making it that cottage cheese or chocolate cake kind of looking thing instead of more of a compacted, you know, lighter soil on the other side there. So, that's just one obvious benefit or one of the most common benefits or goals that people have with cover crops.

3:43 Fixing nitrogen. And I'm sure most of you are aware that, you know, legume species fix nitrogen, and actually what they can do is pull atmospheric nitrogen from the air down into the roots. And it's actually these little nodules on the roots that are fixing the nitrogen. And so when that plant dies or you terminate it, it'll start releasing that nitrogen into the ground for subsequent cash crops, you know, that next year and further on down the road. And so fixing nitrogen from legumes is a huge benefit of cover crops. And we'll talk about legumes and that plant family a little bit here.

4:16 Another one is protecting the soil and reducing erosion. So I have water and rain erosion kind of pictured here. You know, you can see and there's tons of other pictures with water going down the ditch, you know, half the field going, you know, towards the neighbors, different things like that. And it's not just the soil. Well, it is the soil, but all the other things that are in the soil, too. It's the nutrients, it's the life, it's the biology. And so, cover crops can play a huge role in.

4:42 Controlling erosion and not having that runoff. But also not pictured here, and maybe what gets mentioned less is wind erosion. You know, there's been some pictures from the Dust Bowl from a hundred years ago contrasted with very similar pictures from even this year or a couple years ago. You know, there's been some wrecks on different interstates and different states in the last few years. And a lot of that is because of the lack of visibility because of dust blowing in the air. And part of that could be mitigated by some different farming practices or some cover crops, some no till, some different practices like that. Again, cover crops aren't the only tool in the toolbox there. There's crop rotation and no till and different things, but just kind of food for thought there.

5:27 Suppressing weeds is a really common goal for cover crops. We'll talk about some species and what works with diversity on weed suppression. There are some certain species like cereal rye that do a great job even planted by themselves. But when we talk about brassicas here in a few minutes, that can be in addition to a mix a really good part of weed suppression. So weed suppression is a big part of how green cover and Keith and Brian got their start with using cover crops on their farming operation and that kind of, you know, long story short, led to where green cover is today. So weed suppression is a big one for cover crops.

6:06 I wanted to bring up compaction because I wanted to maybe stretch our thinking a little bit about how we think of compaction breaking. And I know I have this slide of the nitro radish here kind of breaking through the soil. And that's oftentimes what we think about, but it's also not just the big large tuber roots of the radish that we see here. It's also the fibrous root systems. And so think about if you have a really tight hard compacted soil, you know, think about that almost like concrete maybe with just little porous or little cracks in there. Is a like a big cylinder going to fit through a little crack in the concrete unless you have a ton of force? It's not going to break through that concrete. And so really, you need kind of little slivers or little small things. My point being, we need to think about adding more grass species and some other more fibrous and dense root systems to break up compaction. So if you're planting radish in the fall to break up compaction, maybe consider some annual rye grass or cereal rye, possibly with a few other legumes and broad leaves like flax as well. And in the summer, you know, the grasses would be more like the sorghum sedans. And sorghum sedan, if you cut it or hay it or mow it, that actually stimulates even more root growth if it's, you know, up and growing several feet tall. So, grass species aren't the only thing for breaking compaction, but they're a key component that I wanted to mention that we don't want to leave out. But then yes, the radishes or some other species like that with the deep big tap roots can be helpful for breaking up compaction.

7:37 Another benefit is attracting beneficial insects. According to Dr. Jonathan Lungren, there are 1700 beneficial insects for every insect pest. And so if we have a 1700 to 1 ratio of good versus bad, you know, and oftentimes we spend a lot of energy on controlling that one bad with insecticides and different things like that which I get it, you know, there's a time and place. I'm not saying that's an awful thing to do. But just kind of food for thought here as well of you know utilizing some cover crops as pollinator strips or even into the field and a cover crop mix. And so a lot of cover crops can play a role in attracting these beneficial insects that can actually be predatorial towards the insect pest. And so we'll talk about a little bit of what species are good for attracting beneficial insects or being good pollinators.

8:31 And then maybe stepping back from, you know, traditional agriculture or just rowcrop farming or what have you, you know, maybe wildlife and hunting and food plots as a hobby of yours. A lot of these cover crop type species work really well for food plots. And so we've been able to partner with Dr. Grant Woods and growing deer to have some really high quality food plot mixes. And so it's been really fun seeing a lot of the cover crops that we use for soil building for cattle for compaction breaking and a lot of those in the right setting in the right time frame can be you know the world's best food plot mix. And so that's been just a lot of fun to see. So just wanted to picture.

9:10 And then just a couple more slides here on some of the benefits I wanted to mention. You know, again, the low ground growth. A lot of different cover crop species are, well, some species are better than others at being a host for mycorrhizal growth. And so, if you really want the biological system underneath the ground, the mycorrhizal fungi to get going, there's some species there. And we actually have a pre-made mix on our website called the mycorrhizal mix, and has some of those species like oats and flax, etc. And then lastly, provide forage and grazing, and so a grazing cover crop can really make itself pay for itself really fast just because you're getting the cash flow of what you'd be paying for feed you have for hay or for grazing. So you have kind of the ability to stack a lot of benefits in a costly measure when you add cattle into the operation.

10:06 So, we have all these benefits that we can get from cover crops, but I said we can get from cover crops. It doesn't mean we're entitled to all of these different benefits every single time we plant a cover crop, right? And so, if I told you, you know, got on the phone with you and said, 'Hey, great news. I have this perfect cover crop. You can buy it any time of the year and plant it whenever you want and you have all of these different benefits from the whole Swiss Army knife that Keith showed,' you probably should hang up on me because if anybody's telling you they have the perfect answer, the easy button, then they're probably not truth tellers. And so there's certain nuances which I think we all understand. And so that's what we're going to talk about a little today. So unfortunately there is no silver bullet of cover crop mixes. But there are some tried and true principles of how to dial in on species selection, timing and different things like that. So we'll get into a little bit of that.

11:01 So first I want to just talk about the warm season versus cool season. We talk about you know summer mixes which would be mostly warm season species or a spring or a fall mix or a winter mix would mostly be cool season species. And so what do we mean by that? Warm season species would be you know the sorghums, the millets, the cowpeas, mung beans, sun hemp, sunflower, buckwheat. And there's not a black and white, you know, big dividing line between you cannot plant, you know, a cool season species in the summer. We certainly can. We throw some oats, which are a cool season species in a lot of summer mixes. But the point being just kind of for the most part and rule of thumb is the warm season species, you want to plant when soil temps are 55 or 60 and above, temperatures rising. For these warm season species, most of them are going to cold kill right at 32, 30 degrees. And so if there's any risk of frost, that can be risky if you're planting too early. And so, you know, this time, middle of April, a little bit further south than Nebraska, you're probably okay to start planting warm seasons. But here in further north, you might want to wait a little bit longer. Wait till maybe we get into May to be able to plant some of those warm season species. Now, cool season species, we're also looking at minimum germination temperatures but also the cold kill temperatures, especially in the fall. So, in the spring, these cool season species like spring oats and spring peas and the brassicas and flax and a whole host of other cover crop species, we can plant right now because you're looking for 40, 45 degrees and rising soil temps. But if the air temperature gets below freezing, you know, most of these species can handle that just fine. And then, like I said, in the fall, we're looking at the cold kill temperature, which sometimes can be good. We'll talk about that in a little bit as well. But different cool season species have different cold kill temperatures. And so, you know, some of these, you know, radishes will die out at 20 degrees and, you know, the collards might die at five degrees. And so, you just kind of want to be aware of that. And what are your goals there? We'll talk about that a little bit. A resource to look at that is this greencastonline.com and tools and soil temp. There's a couple other things on there, but the soil temperature we pull up all the time. So, you can put in your zip code or your town name, and they'll show you historical averages. I like to look at not just the blue one, which is this year, but also the five and ten year averages. And so this is kind of telling me I might want to wait a little bit, but I'm getting closer to being able to think about the warm season.

13:42 So that's just a breakdown of warm season and cool season, but I also want to talk about diversity because I've already mentioned it a couple times and you know, everybody talks about diversity, but we don't want to just be throwing out 20 different species in the wrong context. And so we want to really dial in on our diversity and not just have diversity for diversity's sake. And we can't talk about diversity without talking about plant families. And so if your cover crop mix, if you want your cover crop mix to be diverse, you need to have your cover crop mix singing this we are family song. I just threw that in there for a funny, but yes, plant families.

14:21 And so I actually asked Chat GPT, you know, hey, what are the best amount of plant families to have in a mix? And I think I agree with this for the most part. It's a good breakdown. Maybe this slide's a little hard to read, my apologies, but just kind of three different categories of diversity with these plant families. And so it says here, three different families would be kind of a basic balance. Maybe you're on your way to some of the diversity's benefits. Four to six plant families is soil health builder. I think I would agree with that. That's pretty solid. And then you know six, seven, eight families is a diverse buffet complex systems. And so I thought that was a decent breakdown that Chat GPT did. I tried to refrain from using AI for a lot of this talk, but I used it here and there. This was one of the slides it helped me out on a little bit.

15:16 So we say plant families. What exactly are those? Well, just a quick breakdown. We'll go through grasses, legumes, grasses, brassicas, and broad leaves. And so, legumes, all the legumes that we've mentioned, the clover, the vetch, the peas, they're all in the same plant family, this Fabia plant family. And so, you can have different legumes in a mix and still help with diversity, but just knowing it's only going to be one different plant family. Now, is there a time and a place? And is it strategic to add more than one even if it's in the same plant family? Absolutely. You know, you want to look at different root structures, root depths, the above ground benefits. And so it's not to say you can only have one of each plant family, but just knowing if we're talking about the benefits of the synergistic effects of different plant families. Legumes, you're only going to get one. But we talked about the nitrogen fixers. They provide rich forage, protein, good for wildlife, different things like that. So legumes all in the same plant family.

16:21 Grasses, that might be a little bit cut off. Grasses in the same plant family here. Ryegrass, oat, sorghum, etc. Rye, triticale, wheat. They are a heavy component of a lot of mixes. They're the biomass builders. They're the heavy lifters. And again, certainly a time and a place for more than one grass species for the root structures. I mentioned that for compaction, you know, a component of a compaction breaking mix, that type of thing. And but however they are also in the same plant family. All the grasses are in the same plant family. And then brassicas, deep rooted, we talked about that a little bit. Tap roots can break up compaction, can bring up nutrients, fast growth. They're excellent for weed suppression. And I would just caveat all these great forage as well. All these bullet points are true. But I don't know if I would tout that as loudly if I knew you were just planting brassicas by themselves.

17:20 And so my analogy I thought of yesterday, and hopefully a lot of you are aware of the card game pitch. So if you ever played pitch, you know, you bid on your hand, you can bid usually play ten-point pitch. And so I think of brassicas as a good helping hand. You know, maybe you have like a jack and a joker and a ten and a low card and a three. I'm not feeling too confident to bid six or seven on that. But I have a good helping hand. So, if my partner goes in the same suit, then we're ready to rock and roll. And so, that's kind of how I feel about brassicas. You don't want to go out there and plant, you know, 8 to 10 pounds an acre by themselves of just brassicas, even if it's a couple different brassicas. That's going to lead to, you know, maybe some soil results that you don't want to see. But they're a good, again, a good helping hand. They're a great component in a cover crop mix. So a lot of times we don't go more than, you know, three or four pounds per acre total of brassicas in a mix. And but a little bit goes a long ways. They're small seeded. A little bit goes a long ways. And again these are all in the brassica.

18:31 Family. So then we get to broad leaves and these have multiple plant families. Sunflower buckwheat flax vicelia, these are all in different plant families. And so you really start racking up the diversity, especially when we're talking about plant families when you get to these broadleaf species.

18:46 And so key to increasing diversity above and below ground. Certain broadleaf species like buckwheat have the ability to pull up phosphorus from the ground or from the soil and have that usable for next cash crops. Sunflowers in a similar way, not as much as phosphorus, but have deep roots that they can pull up different nutrients from down deep where other plants can't get to them once they're established. And then pollinators, I mentioned that earlier, but a lot of these species, flax vicelia buckwheat sunflower safflower, can be really good pollinator species as well.

19:22 And so here's kind of our sheet on the plant families. So again, if you had 10 different grasses and five legumes and a whole bunch of brassicas, you would still only have three different plant families in that mix, right? But then if you added buckwheat and okra and sunflower and some cucurbit blend, then you would add up multiple plant families. That's where you start getting that six or seven or eight different plant families in your diverse mix.

19:45 Now we talk about all these plant families, talk about diversity and the benefits. And I'm sure most of you are aware of some of the benefits, but I wanted to share one quick example of diversity in action. And so these next two slides are from Gabe Brown in North Dakota. And I know there's some more recent slides of the similar, talking about the benefits of diversity, but I wanted to share these because I also wanted to shout out our new green cover podcast that Keith is hosting. And our very first episode came out a few weeks ago and we had Gabe Brown himself on as a guest. And they actually talked at length about these very slides and just kind of how that was such a game changer not only for Gabe in North Dakota, but for Keith and Brian here at Green Cover and many different people across the country and across the world.

20:35 And so what we're seeing here is a single species cover crop and it was planted May 30th and the picture taken end of July. Very low rainfall environment contrasted with this next picture of a diverse cover crop mix planted the same day. Picture taken the same day as the other slide. Same rainfall environment. I think the other picture was taken just a few feet over there in this other field. And what are the differences? We see a lot of bare ground. We see a lot of brown. And we only see a little bit of green. And we don't see a lot of biomass here just because it's a lone ranger one species cover crop.

21:13 Where this picture with the cover crop mix, you see a lot of green. Maybe if your angle's right, you can see some bare ground, but there's a lot of solar panels here on the leaves, capturing a lot of sunlight. And then a lot of more tonnage and biomass there as well for weed suppression, ground cover, all these different benefits.

21:36 And so just talking about the differences here of just, you know, it has multiple species here. It's got the family, it's got the helpers, it's got different root structures and different things like that. Now there are some experts out there, Dr. Christine Jones, others on YouTube, check their work out talking about why or how this is happening with the different plant families. And they give some good explanations, but a lot of them also would say, 'We don't understand all of this either.' There's some things where we just have to take a step back and kind of tip your cap to nature, saying, 'I don't know the fine details of how this is working, but I see it working, and so I'm just going to enjoy that and appreciate that and try to achieve that.'

22:19 And so even if we don't understand all the synergistic effects and benefits of diversity, we can still lean into it with some of these principles that we're talking about. Okay, so that leads us to, you know, this is just a few of them. Sophie mentioned having over a hundred or about 140 different species available. I mentioned all the different plant families, but what do I choose? You see different millets and sorghum and what's the difference of the seven different sorghums on there? Why is there three different mustards? It can kind of start seeming a little bit overwhelming or a little bit daunting.

22:53 Webinar to dial in on cover crop species selection. Because I get it, sometimes it can feel a little bit like this slide, you know, where it's just like this guy laying on the ground. This is a slide from Parks and Rec, but he's trying to run and he gets a little depressed because, you know, everything hurts. Running isn't possible. Doesn't know how to make it work. And this actually kind of reminded me of my own running journey where a couple months ago I said I want to start running. And that was about it. You know, if you asked me why, I would have said, I don't know, maybe I want to have some more energy, lose a couple pounds, be in a little bit better shape. Now, those are good goals, but mostly just aspirational and a little bit vague.

23:34 And so it wasn't until I started honing in on why do I actually want to start running and looking, you know, internally and kind of tugging on my heartstrings was, you know, I want to beat my son in a race in, you know, 10 years when he turns 14 and I'm almost 40. So that's my competitive edge. But what's actually behind that is I want to spend time with my family and be healthy enough to enjoy, you know, physical activity with my kids when they grow up. And so that was kind of the underlying goal. So it wasn't until I started approaching it from more of a deeper level and then started getting specific with, okay, well now I'm going to decide to run a 5K at the end of May.

24:18 And so then I got this running app that helped me kind of dial in on it. It wasn't up to me. I was just following the app. It had some different running plans on there, so I chose. And so some of what I'm saying is just kind of going to this SMART framework that I have to share. And so SMART being an acronym meaning specific—so clearly define what you want to achieve, measurable—track progress with quantifiable criteria. So we got specific, measurable, attainable or achievable. You know, we need to set realistic goals and objectives to keep you on track. And then relevant, align with your goals. Make sure it fits within your priorities, within your schedule, within your timing, within your budget, different things like that. And then timely or time-based, you know, establish a deadline to create urgency or create accountability to create the tenacity, making sure you're able to, you know, push this goal, whatever it might be, across the finish line.

25:16 And so for me, my SMART framework for running was, you know, I finally came to the conclusion, I want to become someone who runs so that I can be in better shape to love and enjoy my family. And I'll start by running a 5K. We'll see after that. And so measurable, I got this running app to track my progress. Attainable, my running plan has helped me be consistent and work my way up to a longer and faster run. So I didn't start, you know, running the 5K. I started running one mile, and now I'm up to like running six miles just at a slower pace and different things like that. So attainable and just working your way up. And then relevant for me with this running analogy or example I have is I enjoy it. And the nice thing is it can be done in 30 to 60 minutes. I have three kids, four years or younger, and so free time is a little bit hard to come by sometimes. And so I'm probably not going to step into trying to become a semi-professional golfer and spend hours and hours on the golf course this year. That might be in the cards later down the road. And so 30 to 60 minutes I can get running and you know good stretches into that workout fits within my timeline.

26:24 And then speaking of timeliness, you know, I signed up for a 5K at the end of May and longer term, I'll race my son every year on his birthday. So we have it on the calendar, just kind of a, you know, something that's going to happen. Keep us accountable and kind of having it be fun in that way. And so, you know, maybe your SMART framework for cover crops doesn't have to look like this, but here's just a quick example. Now, I want to be someone who gives more than I take and take steps towards regenerative farming. I think that's a better answer than I want to plant a cover crop because I feel like I need to because social media says I need to.

26:56 So what are your goals? What's your specific goals? Not just, I feel like I should. So maybe you just are dialed in on I want to break up this compaction so that I can plant something else. You know, just make sure you be specific about it. And then measurable, maybe say I want to start with 5% of my acres or five acres or whatever it might be. And then I'm going to take notes.

27:16 Pictures on what I learned. That way I can learn from the successes and learn from the mistakes. And then attainable, you know, maybe your example could be I will utilize green covers resources to help me create a good action plan. Maybe it's I will rewatch this webinar when it comes out and take notes and stuff like that. Relevant. You know, this could look a lot of different ways for whatever your operation or whatever your situation looks like. But you know, I have the time and the budget to do it. If you know you already have a lot going on and you're a one-man show on your operation and you already have an off-the-farm job, you know maybe it's a little bit harder, so maybe you start smaller. So just make sure it's relevant—a lot of different examples could apply there. And then timely, I will start by planning my summer cover crop plan, you know, just make sure it's on the calendar, you know, ahead of the eight ball here. And that's not just for us operationally or trying to get sales and stuff. It's just a good idea because I don't want you to have a great plan, have good aspirations, and then you can't get your cover crop overnight. So then you miss a rainfall and you don't have the best foot forward. So make sure it's timely as well and make sure it fits within your context.

28:34 Okay. So cover crop considerations. And we won't spend too long on this because in our next episodes on this webinar series, we'll talk about some different things with planting and termination and cover crop strategy. But just some questions to keep in mind when you are planning for a cover crop. You know, where are you located? Your context is going to be vastly different in central Texas to South Dakota, anywhere in between east and west. And so you know, cold kill temperatures, soil types, different regionality. So we need to know where you're located given different things with your context. And then what are your primary goals? We talked about some of those, you know, thinking about what are your primary goals, but also secondary and tertiary goals, but maybe kind of ranking those a little bit. And then what's your planting window? We talked about that a little bit with the warm season versus the cool season. When can you plant these different species?

29:30 Other questions you should be asking, or if you're getting advice from somebody else, they should be asking you these questions. How will you terminate? You know, you could get off to a great start with a cover crop and it grows so beautifully and awesome. But then if you don't have a good plan to terminate it and you're not able to get your next cash crop or your next plant in there because there's too much residue or a cover crop becomes a weed problem. So cover crop success, you know, takes good management and planning. When will it be grazed, or will it be grazed—is another question we talked about that. What are your soil conditions? What is the next cash crop? We'll just go quickly through these. These are just good things to take note of, just kind of considerations to think about when you're planning a cover crop mix.

30:16 All right, to wrap up, just share a few resources that we have. You know, this funny picture, somebody say free resources. Yes, a lot of our resources are free and a lot of those are centered around our website. And so if you go to our website and shop, we have these single species and it's not only just a purchase, but if you clicked on buckwheat here for example, we have a lot of good info on here. So when is the right time to plant? It says up there, gives some basic info. Maturity time, minimum germination temp that we talked about, some different things like that. And so you can click around on those and learn a lot about the different cover crop species. But those are all individual species. We also have a couple dozen pre-made mixes. I mentioned there's no silver bullet. However, because we do have many of these different pre-made mixes, they are designed to fit some different goals based on some different timing and context. So you can also click on one of these. Say we clicked on the warm season soil builder. It also has some good info, gives the breakdown of the mix, when's the right time to plant, some seeding rates and different things like that. And like I said, in some of these next episode series, we'll talk about you know, some of the how to plant, how to terminate, different things like that. Some of the management aspects of your cover crop. But these are just resources to think about.

36:14 A lot of those sorghums are really high quality and really high biomass and tonnage. And then we talked about the legumes, but I would definitely think in a hot and dry climate, the legumes like cow peas and mung beans can be pretty heat and drought tolerance, especially once established. And so that's kind of what I would base a mix around is some cowpeas, mung beans, sorghum, pearl millet, and then from there, maybe if you want to add a little bit more diversity with a pound of sunflowers, a couple pounds of buckwheat. But really stick to, you know, that five to 10 pounds of sorghum with some millets and cowpeas is kind of how I would think about a warm season grazing mix.

36:53 You got into talking about plant families a little bit more and mentioned that the broadleaf plant group has a diversity of different plant families within it. And so as we're talking about some of these more ultra diverse mixes, Keith just had a podcast out with Rick Clark where they're talking about really trying to craft a mega diverse mix. Can you kind of talk us through what that looks like as far as just trying to get a few more plant families in there, even if it's just a few pounds? What are some of the species that you can really get a good bang for your buck as far as diversifying with plant families but not necessarily like really increasing the cost per acre on that cover crop seed mix?

37:34 Yeah, for sure. I'm glad you brought that up because that's a good point and I had that noted and I didn't mention it with those broadleaf species when I was talking about plant families. You really can add a lot of diversity, add a lot of different plant families into the mix without adding a lot of cost because a lot of those species like the sunflower, like the flax, like the buckwheat, facilia, you only have to add a couple pounds or less per acre. So, for example, the sunflowers, I usually don't add more than two pounds. A pound, pound and a half of sunflowers, two to three pounds of flax, two to three pounds of buckwheat. And really that's only raising your cover crop price by a couple dollars an acre, few dollars an acre. And then even like the facilia for a cool season broadleaf, another plant family, one pound, even a half a pound, a little bit can go a long ways. That facilia is a little bit pricier, but like I said, a little bit goes a long ways with that. So yeah, we have some info on like the planting rates and the planting percentages. But that's a great point. When we're planting, you know, 10 pounds or 50 pounds of the grass species, sometimes you only need two or three pounds of these other species, and you're still adding a lot of plant families and diversity.

38:50 You talked about one of the benefits being weed suppression. We've got a couple questions here on weed suppression. So when it comes to some of these benefits, whether it's compaction or weed suppression, it's not necessarily that like one plant is going to be really good at weed suppression, but no other benefits. Obviously some of these plant species are going to have multiple benefits. Some are going to be better at weed suppression, some will be excellent at weed suppression. So there's certainly a spectrum there. Can you just give us an idea of what are some of the top species that you might recommend for weed suppression, just off the top of your head for cool season and then if you could talk through some of the warm season options as well?

39:31 Okay, yeah, for sure. In the cool season, you know, cereal rye would be the primary and foremost, you know, top choice for weed suppression. We see that a lot because it can grow in such cold temperatures in the fall. You know, rye will germinate in just about 34 35 degrees soil temps, which is really impressive. Not many other plants will do that and so it can get a head start more than other species and then it just grows really aggressively and potentially has some allelopathic effect that can help with some weed suppression. A good component with some rye is actually hairy vetch. And even hairy vetch by itself, which we wouldn't normally recommend, actually has some pretty good weed suppression abilities. It just binds and covers the soil really well and so helps suppress weeds. Brassicas, like I said, would be a great component. And I guess if you planted, you know, enough pounds per acre, if that's your only goal is to weed suppress, they could weed suppress some weeds by themselves. But I don't see a reason why you wouldn't plant some, you know, grasses and legumes, but have a few pounds of brassicas there, too.

40:39 Other goals on what brassicas to select. So if you're only doing weed suppression, maybe rape seed just because of the cost per acre, cost per pound. But yeah, those are some cool season species I would think about for weed suppression. Trite or wheat if rye is not an option would be a good alternate as well.

41:00 And then for the summer, I'd lean hard on the grasses. So instead of rye because this is in the summer, the millets, the sorghums, different things like that that'll have very aggressive growth, quick growth and you know out competing different weeds and different things like that. But I would incorporate some other, just kind of what we talked about, some of the legumes like cow peas, mung beans and maybe even a little bit of buckwheat, different things like that, but I would lean pretty heavy on the grass.

41:31 And so that's kind of the same answer for a grazing mix. Funny enough is you'd lean heavy on the grass like the BMR sorghums for grazing or hay. Well, you'd also lean pretty heavy on the grass for weed suppression. So you start seeing a lot of these benefits or these goals kind of start to stack up.

41:49 Certainly. And just like you said, there is no silver bullet, but with these plants being so diverse and a lot of these benefits coming from when they're actually planted together in a mix, you actually see that some of these pre-made mixes work for a wide range of scenarios. And so that's why we have them available on our website.

42:06 So Carlos is saying that in the book The Ecology of Intercropping, there's a lot of good resources on intercropping. And so something that we didn't touch on in this webinar yet is corn interseeding. So this is a really popular practice that's coming about as people are seeing the benefits of introducing diversity to their cash crop rotation. And we are undergoing trials in our own test plots here in Blade and Nebraska to test corn interseeding mixes.

42:39 And so Jacen, can you just walk us through a little bit what cover crop species are ideal for an intercropping situation, specifically in a corn crop? Yeah, for sure. It's a good point. And yeah, maybe we'll talk about that a little bit more in depth in a future video, but we have one of our pre-made mixes is corn interseeding specifically designed around V3 to V6.

43:08 So kind of in that time frame, which is important when we're thinking about intercropping. Sometimes you can plant at the same time as your cash crop, but usually it's a good idea to let your cash crop, in this case corn, get a head start. And so then you're not planting this cover crop until the corn is established and ready to not be out competed by this cover crop, or else that becomes a detriment, not a net positive.

43:31 And so for planting this cover crop in between corn rows, you know, between that V3 V6, somewhere in there, a lot of good species are some clovers. Actually, you can throw some cool season species even though you're planting in June or July because it's going to be shaded, it's going to be underneath canopy. So red clover, crimson clover, we've seen some really good success with. Ryegrass is another cool season species.

43:56 But then some other ones would be some warm seasons like buckwheat is a great option. Cow peas, they can potentially kind of climb up the corn plants and so you want to manage that and maybe not plant too many pounds per acre of cow peas, but usually that's not too much of a concern. So cow peas would be a good option.

44:16 Harry Vetch is another cool season species. It kind of depends on your situation if you want to throw that in there. And then a brassica or two, some collards and cabbage have some better heat tolerance than some of the other brassica species. And so those collards and brassicas and cabbage, African cabbage specifically, can be a good brassica species to throw in an interseeded mix.

44:41 And we do have some more resources on corn interseeding. So you can find those on our website and we will have a video on that coming out soon. So you'll be able to find that on our YouTube channel.

44:52 So Drake is asking about interseeding cover crop mix into an existing grass pasture to help build soil health and diversify during the non-growing season. So he's specifically asking about the winter soil builder mix into what sounds like a warm season grass pasture. So maybe give your thoughts on that scenario and then if you could just share a little bit more of some ideas for interseeding perennial pasture since we didn't quite have the chance to touch on perennials too much.

45:27 That's a great topic and it's for sure a little bit tricky. You know, it's not the easiest to implement this, but the factors here and what Drake's mentioning and then also the opposite is, you know, so for his example, there's a warm season pasture that we're going to put a cool season mix in. So that oftentimes leads to the best success when it's kind of the opposite season. So when the warm season pasture is more dormant, now we're throwing in some cover crops that are going to thrive during that cool season to really get established and help that overall pasture out.

46:00 So yeah, our overwintering mix that has some rice, some peas, some vetch, some brassicas, clovers, that would be a pretty good option to think about. Maybe the cool season soil builder, something similar to that. Unless you wanted more smaller species and just kind of thinking about some clover and some of the grasses. But then conversely, you know, if it's in a cool season pasture, which we see probably more often, then in the summer when those cool season native species or perennial species are not actively growing as much in the heat of the summer, we have the opportunity to go in and plant some warm season species, kind of like the warm season soil builder or take your pick on some of these warm season cover crop species to get established when there's not as much competition in that bare ground for it to get established.

46:49 It is a little bit tricky. There's not a perfect answer on since there's already plants out there how much of a seeding rate do I need? Is that a 50% full seeding rate? 2/3, like a 60% seeding rate, or if you have a really thick, you know, maybe it's less than 50. So somewhere around there I generally start thinking okay what's a 50% rate look like? And then, you know, maybe going up or down. But it really depends on how much bare ground, how much you really want to go after it, some other factors like that.

47:20 And with that, if you're able to drill it, that's best, but oftentimes in a pasture, that's not, you know, feasible or realistic. And so broadcasting it out there can work. But if you're able to drag it or have some moisture, the main thing you're looking for is just good seed to soil contact. And so if it's spreading seed out there and it's just sitting on residue or other plants, it's probably not going to set you up for best success, but if you can get it either drilled or at least incorporated into the soil a little bit, you're going to see a lot better success.

47:52 Yeah, that's great. So you briefly mentioned that we have a wide diversity of warm season grasses, namely sorghum sudan grasses. And so can you explain a little bit of just some of the reasons why we carry such a diversity? We're about to have another video that's going to come out here on sorghum sudan grasses specifically, but Jac, if you could just touch on the reproductive life of plants and specifically plants going to seed maybe when we may not want them to and how we can avoid volunteer seeding from a cover crop because I know that's a common concern that folks have.

48:32 Yeah, that's a good consideration to keep in mind. And so on the species info page that we have, you can look at the maturity time frame and just kind of know what your time frame of growing a cover crop is. And so if you're going to leave it out there for 70 to 80 days, you might want to check on the varieties that you have that potentially could go to seed in that time frame. And yeah, that's like you said, Sophie, one of the reasons we do have quite a few different selections even like on the sorghums and some other species as well.

49:02 They're not there just to totally be redundant. Some of them have similar traits and benefits. But some of the differences are we mentioned the BMR versus not BMR, which would be for kind of high quality grazing. But also there's some different maturity times there, or either male sterile or delayed maturity or PPS, which stands for photoperiod sensitive, which means it is going to stay reproductive longer and not go to seed. So if your window, if your time frame is bigger, you want some of those delayed maturity or PPS products, or you know cowpeas for example are a little bit longer season than mung beans. So that's something to keep in mind.

49:40 And so there's some other examples with other species. That's a great point just looking at the maturity time frame. And like buckwheat for example can go to seed very, very quickly. Usually it's not too much of a concern because like we said, it's only, you know, two or three or

49:53 Four pounds an acre in your blend, so yes, that's going to flower super quick. It might go to seed while the other species in your mix are still growing productively. Buckweed's super easy to control. It's not really going to become a weed problem. So depending on the situation, but often times it's not really a huge deal if some of those go to seed. But if everything's going to seed before you want to graze it, then the quality is going to go down, different things like that.

50:21 If folks want to learn a little bit more about specific genetics that we carry, we do hold our soil health field days each summer, typically in August. This year we are holding them on August 12th and August 15th and folks can come out and tour our test plots and we have all of our sales rep out there and they walk through all the different varieties and genetics that we carry. So you can get some of those questions answered a little bit more in depth.

50:52 Jake, in the last question that I have today, since we do have to wrap up with the time that we've got here today, Ken's asking when is the best time to graze a warm season summer mix?

51:08 As far as people thinking about timing of when they're going to plant their cover crop, can you kind of walk through how people can plan out their grazing calendar and when they want to think about getting something in the ground if they have a specific time that they're needing forage?

51:25 I know this is the worst answer to give, but it sometimes does depend a little bit. Now often times I say with a warm season grazing mix, maybe give yourself 50 days and then give or take five days or so depending on if it gets established and gets going well. You can graze a little bit before that but especially with the warm season species like the sorghum, you don't want to graze too soon. You can have some prussic acid or nitrate issues there. And so making sure it's at least a few feet tall would be fantastic. And usually that's going to be the case especially on these summer mixes within 50, 55 days no problem.

52:03 Regrowth after that is actually a little bit quicker. So on a sorghum based cover crop mix you could be out there in 50, 55 days for a first grazing or hay cutting and then come back out 30 days later potentially something like that. And so that's a little bit of the time frame.

52:24 Cool season, if you planted oats and peas this spring, it'd be similar time frame. I mean, you want to manage that and if you have a little bit more time, let it grow, get more biomass and tonnage, you can wait 50 or 60 days, but you can still get some decent grazing 45 days after planting, even 40 days. But yeah, it just kind of is managing how quick you want to get out there versus how much you want to let it grow for tonnage purposes. But then if you wait too long then you're going to lose some of the protein and quality there. So little bit of thoughts there and I can't remember if there's a second part of that question but that's kind of what I would say with some of the time frames.

53:02 No, that's good. I think sometimes the best answer is it depends. And a lot of times that is kind of the answer that you may get around cover crops. So that's why our team is always available and very happy to chat with you about your cover crop questions and your cover crop needs. And this recording of this webinar will be available on our YouTube channel. So that's Green Cover Seed on YouTube and be sure to subscribe to that so you'll get notifications on any videos that we have going out.

53:34 Jacen mentioned, we just launched our new podcast. So we're very excited about that and the conversations we'll be having there. So next week on the webinar series we'll be talking about planting. The week after that we'll do termination. And then fifth week we'll do biological seed treatments on cover crop and then our last episode will be an ask me anything with Keith. So Jacen, is there anything else that you'd like to add?

54:00 The only other thing I see a question from Gretchen on here of can you search for species based on desired outcomes, you know, the goals like weed suppression and I think there is. If you pull up our website on the species page, there's kind of a sidebar here where you can search by category like legumes and grasses, etc., but also by some of the goals like weed suppression or grazing, different things like that. And so yes, that definitely is an option and a really good way to kind of search for those desired outcomes.

54:27 Yeah, no, that's a good point. Our website is chocked full of lots of great information like that, so spend some time perusing that. Yeah, so thanks everyone for joining. We had some great questions. Thanks for your participation and we look forward to seeing you next week.

54:44 Thanks, Jacen. For sure. Thanks, Sophie. Thanks everybody for joining.