Overseed Bermudagrass with Legumes and Diverse Species

0:00 Joining everyone, let me get this figured out. Here, all right, so talking a little bit about Bermuda grass management. I suggested that this would be a good topic for us to kind of cover this time of the year because as you guys know, management starts now for any plans in the fall.

0:23 So I really have been kind of an advocate of getting away from Bermuda grass, while it is something that is in our climate here in Southwest Oklahoma that we use still, but I try to diversify as much as possible to avoid unnecessary expenses. The highlight is going to be getting away from your inputs that you have involved in Bermuda grass production, whether that's haying, spraying, fertilizer, or other such costs by using diversity and grazing management.

1:04 So with this presentation, I want to keep you guys in mind that don't burn your opportunities for a temporary comfort. Kind of keep an open mind for everything that you come across. It's something that isn't a Silver Bullet by any means of what I've been doing with the Bermuda grass, but it's something that's proved worthwhile as long as I gave it an opportunity.

1:40 And so with that being said, high maintenance Bermuda I always call is a temporary comfort. That's something that we like having. Everybody says you want good-looking Bermuda. When I moved down here, well, I had good-looking Bermuda and also about one broke doing that. So that's something that I want to get away from as a producer. I highly encourage other people to get away from it, and we're seeing a drastic change.

2:10 The question is how do we get away from this high maintenance or this Bermuda Triangle as I call it? Because we can easily get in a rhythm of fertilizer. Because we fertilize that pasture, we end up having to spray because the weeds come on, and then of course we get extra production on the Bermuda grass. We hay, we hay again, and we hay as much as we can throughout the summer just to hold that hay around the countryside and give it back out to the cows in the winter time frame. So it's a constant cycle of managing Bermuda through the summer and producing as much hay and putting a bunch of inputs into it.

2:53 So that's something that we're trying to get away from. How do we replace these three main expenses? The three tools that I use is diversification, rotation, and then stockpiling forages. And I use both annuals and perennials—I should say in stockpiling forages, I don't leave either one of those out. Both of them are great tools, both of them have ups and both of them have downs. But these are kind of my three main concepts that I use in my operation. There may be other small tools, but these are going to be the three that we're going to focus on today.

3:30 The biggest thing I look at in diversifying is timing. Bermuda grass, particularly if you can see on this chart here, is primarily production May through September. It starts to fall off in September. Some guys will fertilize to get a little bit more growth in October, but that's not going to be proven to provide a lot of extra biomass or a lot of extra yield. I'd like to also point out on here species like alfalfa, red clover, lino clover, some of the small grains, and so I like to pay attention to these bell curves of production when I'm looking at diversifying a system. This could be Bermuda grass, this could be Caucasian blue stem, as you can see here switch.

4:24 I don't try to have any type of monoculture on my property as much as possible and I highly encourage to get those legumes in there, those broad leaves, those tap rooted species. Biggest thing is mimicking Mother Nature. So what do you have in your pastures? The first tool that I use is observation. What annual weeds are coming into that Bermuda system? Is it Mare's tail? Is it Canadian thistles? And then finding a species that may match up with that system, so deep rooted tap roots, broad leaves, maybe a legume plant to fill that niche.

5:13 I wouldn't say that we're ever going to replace those weedy annual opportunists completely, but we definitely can fill that niche to where we give them competition and eliminate that spraying program. The other diversification, like I said before, is diversification of roots. As you can see and you've probably seen this before, is the perennial prairie—primarily Bermuda grass is going to have, being that it's sod, is going to have its root system in the top 12 inches in the sole profile. Most of them are going to be above 8 inches. So you're going to see most of that moisture that's below that foot not get used.

5:59 So putting things in like chicory, alfalfa, plantain—those deep rooted crops can get down below that, use that moisture, and bring it up to the top. A highlight that I always point out, if you've dug enough thistles like I have in my lifetime, if you notice the grass—Bermuda grass in particular—is always taller around a thistle. And a lot of that's going on is there's nutrient sharing, there's moisture sharing. Those deep tap roots are bringing up moisture and sharing it with the plants around it.

6:34 Originally I thought that was competition or the cattle wasn't grazing that grass, but even in paddocks that I haven't grazed before, I've seen the same thing with alfalfa as well, where that grass is taller around that plant because of the nutrient sharing and water sharing. So these are some species that I like to focus on in Bermuda grass particularly. Again, these can be used in native warm season pastures as well. I focus on heavy broad leaves, heavy tap rooted, heavy nitrogen fixing species. Basically we're trying to replace the species that we're spraying out in past years.

7:20 So alfalfa, vetches, clovers—there's a lot of different clovers out there and we've had plenty of webinars that probably we'll be doing and have done, along with YouTube videos, of what clovers may work. In the best scenario, I will say is with kind of a general rule of thumb: as you move into the western United States and more arid climates, your sweet clovers tend to do better in Bermuda grass. The red clovers and crimson clovers and lino clovers tend to do better in higher rainfall climates. So kind of keep that in mind.

7:59 Chicory and plantain are two of my favorites. Anytime I use alfalfa or a high bloating risk plant, I love using those two in combination to help mitigate bloat. In fact, a lot of times I'll see livestock graze those plants before they even touch alfalfa. Peas I put kind of down there at the bottom. Peas are one that are a little bit more niche than the others depending on your applications.

8:36 Other species that you can include into this are cereals, annual rye grass, some grassy plants, but being that we're on a grass on grass scenario.

8:48 There's a lot of rye or wheat production that goes into Bermuda grass but that's going into nitrogen starved systems and you end up with this pinch point where you're not going to, without having to cut out the fertility, you're going to run into a production issue on biomass. So legumes like going into nitrogen starve scenarios because they're going to produce their own nitrogen.

9:12 I use a few grasses as you can see kind of in this picture. I don't usually go over 30% grasses because I have enough dry perimeter grass underneath for animal consumption as well.

9:31 This is a research article that's been done. Alfalfa is a great plant. Even as you move west you'll be surprised that you'll get more production out of it than what's typically thought being in an arid base. So the real benefit of Bermuda is that the evaporation rate is really, really low. It has such a dense, thick canopy that your evaporation rate is very, very low. And so that makes it much more efficient for perennial legumes like alfalfa to survive and even farther west. So plus we're not haying anymore, so we're not removing drastic amounts of residue.

10:17 Here's a study that was done of zero nitrogen versus 200, 200, and 400 pounds of nitrogen on Bermuda and then just Bermuda and alfalfa alone with no fertilizer. And you can see the Bermuda and alfalfa yielded just as good as the 200 pounds of nitrogen. But keep in mind it's not just about yield, we do have some quality in there. And so you'll actually have a higher quality forage when you're done with the alfalfa and Bermuda in there. But even then I would get more diversity than just alfalfa. The study was just done with alfalfa and Bermuda.

10:56 So the big thing about implementing diversity I would say is planning, and this is kind of why we're having this webinar now. Animal rotations are very key, which will lead into whether you're broadcasting the seed, are you drilling the seed, or seed bed prep? That seed bed prep, I'm not talking about tillage, I'm talking about residue management using livestock. And so certain seeds may require a certain amount of residue, and so that's something that we want to talk about out here in this webinar and we'll have some questions on hopefully at the end.

11:36 Best time for planning is now. What are you planning on applying with? Are you going to drill the seed in the fall? Are you going to be broadcasting? Are you broadcasting with animal impact or are you going to broadcast with mechanical impact like a harrow?

11:53 This picture actually here is my brother's broadcasting unit. It's called a drop seeder. Basically if you wanted to make one of your own, it's an old conventional drill with no row units. And so I like this as a system for broadcasting because light and fluffy seeds, I know exactly where I'm dropping them. I have a light bar unit that goes with this and so I can get fairly accurate broadcast applications with the cone spreader. I have nothing against them other than with light and fluffy seeds, whichever way the wind's blowing is where your seed's going to be at and you don't know how much you're overlapping. So it's something that I encourage several people that they've went out and basically picked up cheap old conventional drills and just take the row units off. And I would say you don't even have to do that, you could just leave those on just to get a little bit more soil seed to soil contact if you want to use that.

13:01 Things to consider when you're seeding into Bermuda, use caution.

13:05 Broadcasting large seeds like peas are really particular on broadcasting. I highly encourage drilling them. I've had a little bit of luck with broadcast volunteer spring peas. Large seeds take a lot more moisture to absorb to germinate versus a small seed, and so canopy height plays a role in your establishment in Bermuda. If it's tall and thick residue, you're going to have less available sunlight to that seedling on the soil surface. So kind of a rule of thumb that I use is 4 inches or less. I only use small seeds like your clovers, a little bit of vetch, when broadcasting.

13:59 That residue starts getting over 4 inches and it's really, really thick. Then I highly recommend drilling in larger seeds like peas. The benefit of peas is they can grow for several days without sunlight. They have a lot more stored energy being a larger seed, and so they can get up through that thick canopy very, very well. Short residue you're going to have higher evaporation rates, so that's why the peas don't do very good if you're below that 4 inches if you're broadcasting.

14:41 Why is grazing rotation purposeful? The main thing is rest your paddock for seedling establishment. This is a real critical tool for getting diversity into a Bermuda system. If you're on it constantly, you're going to struggle with getting seed establishment because animals will pick up the plants that are establishing. Also getting plants to reseed is beneficial for pasture rotation. So it also allows you to manage residue for your application type if you're broadcasting or drilling. You can manage that residue in a little more key way. And it allows for stockpiling forages.

15:35 Stockpiling forages in a perennial system, I love this picture here. This picture is actually of the Bermuda field that I was managing at the time. It's heavily in spring peas, and you can kind of see this is actually taken November 5th. And across the road you can see the neighbor bailing Bermuda up November 5th.

16:04 One real key on stockpiling forages in a perennial system is understanding your plant function for profitability. Utilizing unused growing degree days can be a real benefit, and so understanding that perennial system when your peaks and valleys are can be real critical for overseed. I don't like overlapping a whole lot on seasons. For instance, I don't like doing sorghum sudans into Bermuda grass very heavily. If I do, it's probably going to be a very thin Bermuda stand or very setback Bermuda stand. Some producers have even done a chemical mow with Bermuda grass. It's something that I haven't used because I seen it as expense. But you can run a core of Roundup over the top of Bermuda grass and chemically mow it, and it will set it into dormancy for a little while in the summer time frame. Keep in mind this might hurt your Bermuda grass stand if that's something that you don't want to do. Then I wouldn't recommend it. But we've had some producers do that and have produced a lot of summer forage with sorghums, sunflowers, and added diversity into that system by doing that. But again, talk to your crop consultant, your chemical rep before you do something like that.

17:43 With the warm season perennial function, this is the biggest thing that I highlight in understanding and why I kind of point out that photo is my neighbor happening to bail Bermuda grass in November. Well, I hate to say that, but it's not doing a lot of good bailing Bermuda grass in November versus just letting it stand and grazing where it's at because the way that a summer perennial functions is in the summer time frame they are going to be building up their root systems and carbohydrates in that June, July, and August. Well, if you're going back in October, November, those plants are starting to decline in carbohydrates in the top part of their plant and they're putting those carbohydrates in the root system for overwintering. And so that's a real key point to pay attention to because your quality is also going to drop in that plant as those carbohydrates drop from the leaves and go down to the roots. That's just how a perennial plant is functioning on overwintering. And then again, it uses those carbohydrates in the spring to shoot new leaves. And so if we hurt that, you have you run much higher risk for drought, you run much higher risk for winter kill, whether that's a winter annual or a cool season perennial will do the same thing. They are storing up the root system before the winter time frame.

19:29 And so I put this chart in here understanding that function and I added down at the bottom one additional curve to this chart to kind of help show you where I am stockpiling forages and using annuals in a perennial system to show those growth patterns. So I'm looking at August, September time frame. Bermuda grass is starting to fade out. You'll be getting some competition, you'll be getting a little bit of regrowth. It depends on your moisture content of when exactly you may go in. You might not go in until October time frame and do a winter annual, but more times than not I've seen really good opportunity from August 15th through September of establishing a large seeded spring annual that will grow very quickly because you're going into warm soils and it will winter kill out. That spring annual is all about seed production, so it's putting all of its energy resources into the top of that plant. At the same time, those perennials are taking all their energy resources and putting it into their root system. And so you can stockpile much higher quality forage other than perennials going into the winter time frame.

20:59 And so I use something like spring peas and Bermuda grass in the fall for stockpiling. You get higher protein, you get higher energy, you get better utilization in the winter time frame. And I'll come back in December and January and graze that and you'll get better utilization on that perennial stockpile. So that's something that kind of keeps in mind of your growth patterns, whether it's a Bermuda grass or a warm season. You see the same dip in the chart above where that warm season big bluestem, Indian grass, they really drop down in August and September. And so you have a really good opportunity to go in there and seed if you catch them fall moisture to implement some protein sources into those stands.

22:00 So if you have a really good pristine native pasture, more than likely you're not going to need to overseed that. But primarily, there's been a lot of native pastures that have been sprayed out for years. We've eliminated a lot of legumes. We haven't had rotation. And so we've lost a lot of that.

22:22 Diversity that would maintain animals through the winter on that diversity. So the spring annuals can really provide a good winter food source to reduce your minerals and your proteins. So this is kind of a picture here, this was taken on November 5th. This was started about August 15th. There was no burndown on the Bermuda grass. As you can see, the peas did really, really, really good on this. This winter kill started flowering about mid November. In fact, I think you can see a few flowers there in the background. This winter killed about the end of November and was grazed in January with a no hay, no protein, no mineral system on those animals.

23:20 So what are the consequences of cutting back these in less Bermuda grass production? I would say that you're not going to get less Bermuda grass production in my opinion from what I've done on my own operation. However, you are going to reallocate a lot of that production of both Bermuda grass and other annuals and perennials over a longer period of time. So you're cutting out that hay, you're cutting out those inputs. You don't have to cut hay, haul hay, and then bring hay back to the cattle. There's some really good opportunities for cutting out the protein cubes or protein sources in that livestock system for over wintering by having that diversity there. And even reduced mineral consumption in that winter time frame because you're getting broad leaves in there that accumulate a lot different micronutrients.

24:24 What grasses will? This is my biggest highlight on the production. This is after two years of over seeding Bermuda grass. On the top picture on the left was kind of the soil that we started with on over seeding. The bottom left corner was just a rotation only system. There cut out the fertility. We cut out the spraying of the herbicides and we just did daily moves on this. You can see that top soil did start building. It was about an inch, inch and a half of top soil that was starting to build back. I was seeing about one earthworm for shovel full. However, where we did the over seeding right across the fence, drastic changes in the soil where I could step a spade in all the way in the winter time frame and about 3 to 4 inches of top soil was changing there. But the larger notice was 8 to 10 earthworms per shovel full.

25:31 And how I phrase this, I guess I should say is we can kill a cow with too much protein or too much fiber in their diet. And so earthworms and biology are a lot alike in the same sense is they need protein or they need nitrogen to digest the carbon that's being excited by that high carbon to ratio for Bermuda grass. And so when we get those legumes back into that system, they become a lot more effective. They repopulate much better. They are performing much better because those legumes are back into that system.

26:10 So other consequences, which that's kind of my pun of cutting back, is more soil organic matter, better water infiltration, more earthworms, and best of all, no high maintenance relationship. So that's kind of my contact info. I'm kind of opening it up early for questions. We'd answer all any and all questions on this.

26:43 There, yeah. I guess the first one here from Tucker Griffith was do you have any bloat issues? I have not had any bloat issues. The biggest thing is diversity. So if you go in and seed some something, say alfalfa, and all you get is an alfalfa.

27:03 Alpha stand then you run higher risk grazing rotation. My presentation didn't tell you the how to rotate near as well as Dale has done in the past. I highly encourage you to look that up, but rotating on legumes, rotating in a later maturity stage will mitigate bloat, so you hardly run into bloat in that scenario. Higher diversity, those plants that provide tannins do help tie up your proteins and make them bypass proteins. So rather than breaking down in the rumen, they're going to break down in the small intestine. That animal becomes more efficient. There's no methane production because it's breaking down in the small intestine. Highly unlikely if you're running into a lot of diversity, but I also let things mature along faster or farther before I graze them. I don't really like grazing lush plants because I think there's other consequences with health issues, especially having too high of a protein diet. That can be much more harsh on the kidneys of an animal because naturally the nitrogen is going to pass through the urine on the animal. Those kidneys are sorting out all that extra nitrogen. Well, once that animal starts getting scours from too much nitrogen or too much protein, we're clogging up those kidneys with all the excess nitrogen and protein. When you clog up your kidneys you're shutting down your immune system. That animal's not going to function as well immune-wise as a higher energy diet. So I try to graze things later in maturity than earlier in maturity always, so you just don't run the bloat risks with that.

29:12 Next question is from Allen and he says that they have 20 acres of coastal Bermuda but it's covered in wild flowers and Mexican hats. We're not sure what to do without spraying or burning. Mexican hats and wild flowers, those are indicator species of that soil's healing. That would be a natural response to rest. Mexican hats typically respond to compacted soils. I wouldn't be afraid to go in with legumes in there, but more than likely it holds water, it's limited on oxygen. So incorporating some legumes in there to get the biology functioning, to get more oxygen in that soil, you'll see even better response out of the grasses. Those are kind of indicator species that that system is healing. Those are actually more summer and spring species. Typically, so you could be looking at spring interseeding into that coastal Bermuda in that timeframe because that's an indicator that there's available nutrients in that system to add those annuals in. I wouldn't say that I would purposely try to choke out those wild flowers. I would leave them in because they're going to have other benefits, but I would say add to the diversity of that and get some legumes in there.

30:56 You had talked about a lot of the things that interseeded well. What things have you tried that just did not work and would not try again? Perfect question. I'm glad somebody asked that. I didn't have a long enough presentation to show all the failures that I've done. Probably the biggest one that I would say to pay attention to is your residue and what you're seeding into. That's one that I tried to highlight a little bit, probably didn't do the best job of. Your small seeds just don't have a lot.

36:18 Got too much buildup, then I would bring the cattle in and make a higher impact. Now that may not be buy more cattle, but that may be bring on more animals temporarily, like stocker cattle. If you're going ahead and doing all the rotations and finding that you don't have enough cattle to cover all that ground at that time to stay ahead of that thatch, then using annual animals in a marketing scheme is a safer bet to play than buying animals. That was my other big mistake—I bought animals and I didn't use annual animals when I had extra forage. So that was my big mistake. Mother nature corrected me on that one, as she tends to do.

37:13 If the alfalfa and clover sprout and establish, and the chicory and plantain establishment is intermittent, what would you do? Is the overseed grass going to be enough diversity with rotation to avoid cow health problems? Okay, so if the clover and the alfalfa establish well but you're chewing your plantain with, you know, obviously having them in there for the anti-bloat abilities, if those are more intermittent, is that something you need to be worried about? That would be a concern, yes. So if you don't have the broad leaves, and if you look out there, it doesn't have to be just chicory and plantain. If you have mare's tail, you probably saw in some of my pictures I have a lot of prickly lettuce. Cattle eat that prickly lettuce just as fast as they do the veg and alfalfa. At certain stages they don't eat it all the time, but they eat it at the flowering stages very, very well. And so if you have some other broad leaves out there, then your risk mitigates. So part of it's dilution, part of it's plant maturity. If all you have is a lot of alfalfa—and you know, 50% alfalfa, 50% grass—managing that rotation in a daily move manner, I'm not concerned about it because then you can control when they're getting exposed to that, moving them in the afternoon, making sure that alfalfa is in a later maturity, so 25% bloom or later. You'll mitigate that bloat risk. So you don't necessarily need to have those chicory and plantain in there. I like it as a fail-safe. And I noticed my animals graze those species before they even touch alfalfa, so I know that they're getting those micronutrients they need to properly handle that extra protein. But your bloat risk is more likely to happen if you are just going to kick out and let them have a whole paddock, you know, two cows on 20 acres paddock, and they have free choice on everything. If you create a competitive scenario, in and out rotation, they're going to consume a little bit of everything.

39:56 What would be your recommendations for pastures utilizing rotation with equine and small herd of cows that have alfalfa and clover? We recently overseeded with a broadcast cedar using a grass mix of Kentucky bluegrass, orchard grass, and rye grass, but I want to add more broadleaf species to improve grazing quality and opportunity. So your equine are really going to—both your equine and—did you say was there pastured pigs in there as well or is it just equine? I think it was just equine and a small herd of cattle, okay. So typically horses are equine animals. I have donkeys, miniature donkeys. They eat more broad leaves than my cows and probably some of the other species.

40:47 People, sheep, they eat a lot of thistles, so it kind of depends on that animal. If that animal's been raised up on forages or if that animal's just had hay brought to it its entire life, there's a difference in that mentality of that animal and there's some training in there as well. With the cattle in there and the ecocin, I wouldn't be considered adding chicory and plantain in there. More than likely that horse is not going to consume it, and we're not talking a ginormous amount of broad leaves. We're talking 10% to 30% of a stand, so there's still enough other species out there for that animal to manage its diet.

41:34 I wouldn't try to get over a 30% stand of chicory or plantain because that's not your main energy component. Your grasses are going to be your main energy component. I look at them as supplemental, like a mineral program. That's kind of how I look at the cham planting. Fact Virginia, believe it's the University of Virginia or Pennsylvania, had a study on up to 30% of a stand of chicory increased your overall grass yield because of that nutrient sharing capability and water sharing capability in that stand. If there's broadleaves over 30% of a stand, then I have a little bit more of a concern just for overall production reasons, but typically we don't reach out with the broad leaves once we start doing the system.

42:40 Jack also says they have a huge problem in Southwest Arkansas with dog fennel and woolly croton goat le, yep. So woolly croton, yes, very woody species. It's one that tends to like sandy soils, but I think I've seen it on about every soil type. Dog fennel I'm not super familiar with, but I would just look at its growth patterns and try to find out what is it capitalizing on. Woolly croton being a high woody species, deep tap root, something that's probably cycling nutrients from really deep. Again, I would look at its growth pattern and try to mimic that. Why is it taking advantage of certain scenarios? And it may be just rest. Rest could be the answer before you're seeding something. Change in management can be cheaper than just throwing any kind of input out there on it, so that's kind of how I would look at it.

43:57 I guess I have kind of a question here. You talked about using Roundup on the Bermuda. Is that something that would pretty much take care of that problem for good, or does that just stunt it for a while and then it will come back the year after that? So Bermuda grass and Roundup is actually labeled as chemical mowing for it. It takes actually five quarts or six quarts of Roundup to kill, physically kill the whole root system of Bermuda grass. I've had some producers, again I'm not a huge fan of this just because we're adding an input. I'm not a huge fan of using Roundup over the top in forages anyway. If I can mitigate it, I don't get me wrong, I still use it, but I try to minimize it as much as possible. I haven't really used it. I try to look around it and find other ways to diversify work, whether that's animal impact, whether that's overseeding, but you can spray one, maybe two quarts Roundup over the top. I'm not a chemical rep so consult.

45:10 You can spray one core over the top of Bermuda grass as long as it's a healthy stand and it will set it dormant for about a month to six weeks before it starts coming back out again. I've had some producers do that, establish warm seasons over the top of it, and then the Bermuda grass would come back up in it and September timeframe and get a full recovery. They've done that pretty successfully. I'm not a huge fan of that just because I don't have the equipment and I don't want those extra expenses.

45:57 This is from Patrick. He lives in Central Texas and has Brinan clay. They don't receive a lot of rain during the summer and he's trying to find something that would compete against Bermuda. You kind of talked about all these things working in synergy with the Bermuda grass. Is there anything that can out-compete Bermuda? You can choke Bermuda grass back by taking away what it loves, and that's nitrogen. If you start cutting out nitrogen completely, it's going to start naturally choking itself out. It almost smothers itself if you go cold turkey on nitrogen and don't do anything, no overseeding or anything.

46:42 I will throw some cereals in there and you kind of have to do a little bit of fertility if you're really trying to smother it out. If you do a little bit of fertility and get some cereals going in the fall, not a lot because you don't want a lot of nitrogen left over, but you kind of need it to get them started. You can put a lot of pressure on Bermuda in the springtime. Your cereals, winter oats have been probably the best for me on a no fertility program for going into Bermuda. In my experience, it seems like they tolerate it better. I'm not sure why, but they seem to do better. A good stand of winter oats in your region would put some pressure on it. I wouldn't mind hairy vetch. I've had some guys claiming that hairy vetch have choked their stands out, but I have not had that happen just because you get a surplus of nitrogen if you have a really thick stand of hairy vetch. But I would be careful about grazing a very thick stand of hairy vetch too because there are other toxicities with that.

48:01 So it depends on what your other goals are. If you're still wanting grazing out of it and choking it out, the number one nutrient that it loves is nitrogen. So taking away that nitrogen and putting something in that winter and spring gap before it gets going will help suppress it. It'll still grow some that first year, but a couple years into it, it'll really choke it out.

48:36 Kelsey asks, would pasture pigs help the situation with alfalfa clover in the equine and cattle pasture rotation, specifically utilizing a ground pig razer? Yeah, actually, if you're trying to diversify, I'm not afraid to use pigs. You want necessarily know. Guineas don't really tear up the pasture, and that's why a lot of grazers have went to that. I'm not completely sold on that because you need Guineas. Most pigs won't root unless they have surplus water or no other feed. But I do take advantage of that. I run some pasture pigs myself and I do take advantage.

49:24 That open bear opportunity to diversify. So if there's an area that is a monoculture Bermuda, I did this year. I've seeded some alfalfa in the spring into that. That did really well where they rooted it up and disturbed that system. Now it's bare for a little while and the Bermuda grass kind of came back with it, but it definitely opened up that thatch to add that diversity in. So I think pigs could be a beneficial tool for diversifying a system if they're managing in a way. But I would say that you don't necessarily need any specific species of pig. You know, I think you could use about any of them, and so long as you're filling that opportunity of what they open up with, otherwise Mother Nature is just going to fill it for you. And you know, it could be more white clover because there's probably a pretty good seed bank there.

50:31 Okay, we have done a webinar on fescue before, and I know this is a Bermuda topic, but have you heard or had any experience of doing this with other native perennial grasses? Yeah, so we do quite a bit actually. And so I prefer doing, say if you have crabgrass, blue stock stems, or Kansas blue stem, these improved blue stems. I do like using that system in that as well. In fact, it's a little easier because the residue management is a little easier, being that they are bunch grasses, that leaves an opportunity for legumes and broad leaves to grow inside that canopy of grasses. So native grasses are a lot easier to interseed, the clovers, the small seeds. I would say that the Bermuda grass is probably the toughest on the small seeds because of that residue management. So yeah, it definitely is an opportunity. And going back and looking at the chart that I shared kind of talking about those growing periods, you can see your natives kind of have a similar window as perennial grass, but that thick thatch is not as present when you're trying to germinate that seedling. So there's some really good opportunities there.

52:10 Okay, well with that, I think we've got all the questions answered. Do you have any final notes or something that we didn't cover? It should be good. Like I said, if you guys have any questions, feel free to email me. But the biggest thing about getting into interseeding on this is that management does start now. And that's kind of what I wanted to highlight it. Now is, you know, we're still 100 degrees. It's hard to believe that we're thinking about cool seasons. But that rotation and planning can be really critical to be prepped for when that rain starts to come again in the fall. If you're really dry right now, having that opportunity, being prepared for that opportunity, a lot of times we miss opportunities just because we didn't have any planning in advance. And I've done it myself. So I wish I had done some other scenarios before, but I just wasn't ready. I see Jack. My email address is Brett, BT at greencover seed.com. And if you feel like I haven't quite answered your questions 100% or still want a little more in depth, feel free to give me a call too. My cell phone is 402-759-9916.

53:37 So yeah, very good. Well, Brett, thanks for your time. Next week we have not completely decided. We've got two topics that we want to cover. One is the top 10 questions in cover crops, and the other one is what to plant after wheat harvest. So we are trying to decide which one we think is most pertinent for next week, but we will definitely get that out. It'll be next Tuesday at 5:30. So thank you guys for attending. Brett, thank you for your time. Thank you for your ability to answer these questions. So you guys have a great rest of your week, and we'll see you next Tuesday. Thanks everyone.