Rebuilding After Wildfire: Practical Recovery Steps for Ranchers

0:00 You know, it's Jimmy, it's great to be able to chat to you. I hate the circumstances that it's under because there's been another set of fires that you know, we want to try to help people with and as you probably know Jimmy, you know, the Nebraska wildfires that burned around 800,000 acres here in Nebraska, the Moral Fire, Moral County Fire burned about 643,000 acres. So that's recorded as the ninth largest wildfire in US history. You know, think about that here in Nebraska, but covered an incredible amount of area and so you can imagine the number of acres, the number of cattle, the miles of fences, the number of people that it's affected and so some serious damage has been done, displaced a lot of cattle. And one of the reasons that we wanted to do this is because not only because Jimmy, you're just a man full of wisdom and experience. Unfortunately, some of your experience came the hard way because you and Ginger and your team there in Western Oklahoma lived through something very similar. Back in I believe it was 2018 when you experienced the Rey Fire there in Western Oklahoma. So I'm going to give just a quick introduction of who Jimmy is for those of you that don't know him and then Jimmy, I think it'd be good for you to talk about, you know, the fire that you and your ranch went through and then let's get into talking about some of the recovery part.

1:34 My friend Jimmy Emmons, Jimmy and I have known each other for many many years. Jimmy's been a great friend to not only to Brian and I but to Green Cover for many years. Regenerative farmer and rancher from Western Oklahoma, but he's also now serving as the assistant chief of the NRCS which gives him very unique perspective in being able to talk about a lot of the subjects that he's going to talk about both from a perspective of a producer as well as a perspective as NRCS policy person who has a lot of insights into what's going on. He was one of the chief architects of the regenerative pilot program which a lot of people are talking about right now. So Jimmy has just great perspective and especially on this topic because he got burned out in 2018. Literally burned out. Not because he worked too hard. That's maybe still coming with all the hats you're wearing, but Jimmy, welcome to this webinar. Thank you so much for giving of your time. I know your schedule is very hectic, but we appreciate you taking the time. Share with us your fire background.

2:49 Thanks a lot Keith. I hope everyone you find yourself well today and safe from fire. As Keith talked about, you know, 2018 we had an extreme wildfire about 330,000 acres through the ranch. Burned this pretty well out, not completely. Saved our house, saved our headquarters. But a lot of lot of devastation through that. A lot of cows in that area and then a year ago we got the other side that didn't burn. Burned out again in about an 80,000 acre fire. We still have our house, still have. We almost lost the headquarters that day. We had all the equipment out in the wheat field and I mean it was right up to it. So yeah, I've lived through it Keith. Extreme challenges with fencing and animals injured and hurt and smoke inhalation and I should have called harder after that fire that I thought cows were going to be all right, but they later had some more issues. So we can talk about all that as we go forward here in steps and what to do and what to look at, but it's not an easy thing to live through in this fire as of yesterday 870,000 acres in all the fires in Nebraska, the Moral Fire that expanded some with lightning just a few days ago. Still one of the largest fires. Didn't quite top the million acre fire in Texas but so close that single fire that it was it come in number two. So very challenging.

4:43 Well, it's really not something you want to be number one. You know, usually we don't like Texas to be ahead of us in things, you know, football, volleyball, things like that, but we'll let them have this one, but yeah, just a really hard thing to recover from because not only have you lost a lot of your forage but you also lose a lot of your infrastructure and so that's one of the things that we want to visit with.

5:07 You about Jimmy is just how you recovered, you know, from the infrastructure part from, you know, the livestock, you know, what didn't get killed in the fire may have had, like you said, smoke inhalation, which is something you don't really think about and that's something that affects you more down the road. So maybe just start with talking about kind of the scope of what you lost, you know, miles of fences, number of cattle and then let's just kind of start talking about the rebuilding process because I want you to share this background so then that the folks that are on the webinar with us here can ask the questions based on the experiences that you have. So just talk a little bit about the scope of, you know, fences and cattle and how you started recovering from those losses.

5:56 So during the Rey fire I had about 25 miles of fencing that were laying on the ground or in serious despair. Had a lot of cedar trees and fences, extreme heat. Much like the fires that you experienced in Nebraska, we had low humidity, forage levels were very high, the humidity within the forage or moisture in the forage very low. Creates a extreme heat. Also with the powerful winds it moves very quickly. Lights in front of itself. In our particular fire it was burning about 168 acres in its peak. I saw some of the numbers from the forest service. Part of my job currently I'm kind of the lead person in these fires. I have what they call a red stripe PIV card which means I can be on site. In a senior advisor from the administration on site. So that fire it is peak was moving about 9 miles every 7 minutes and at times. So extreme.

7:21 So moving forward with that fast fire. Can you hear me Keith? I'm extremely. Yeah it's it's lagging it's lagging a little bit, but it's kind of catching up. Okay. I'm sorry about that. We're experiencing extreme winds here today as well. So my satellite's probably vibrating a little bit.

7:46 Are you are you home in Oklahoma or where are you at today? I am today. I just came in from Texas and North Dakota this week. So did you hear everything I said a minute ago? I think so. 25 miles of fence and yeah, the scope of the Nebraska fire. Now did you say it was moving 9 miles every 7 minutes? That's like 75 miles an hour. That's that's so when you having get wind gusts of 70 miles an hour it's. That's how fast the fire is going to move. Yeah. Yeah. Boy, that's that's becomes very difficult to. Yeah, there's there's there's no there's hardly any getting ahead of that.

8:28 So in there's going to be fire meetings this coming week in three locations there in Nebraska with FSA, NRCS, RDN, the state Department of Agriculture extension. One of the first things everybody needs to do is to go into their local USDA service center. Sign up with FSA for ECP. It is very critical and that will help you with your external fences. They have a whole list of things that at FSA to assist you with. But also you need to contact your local NRCS within the same office. And get equip contract signed and then they have what they call an early start waiver. So that means that you can start on your practice on the ground immediately and still recover your cost and stuff of that cost share program.

9:38 And so we've been doing that. We had about 50 or 60 people that had contacted some support people in well drilling and which is well repairs, a lot of well houses solar panels, tanks electricity that was burned going to pumps and everything to do repairs. And so he had a lot of questions for our offices. Well, what really needs to happen is you need to go in and sign that contract and early start waiver. What we actually did with this particular request, the well driller gave the state conservationist the names of the people that had contacted him. We then reached out to them and took them early start waivers and contracts out to the ranch and met with them and got them signed so they could get underway. So, that's some of the first things that you need to do. And you know, if you can't if you're

10:40 Still in, you know, survival mode, that's what I would call it. And you don't feel like you have time to drive to the office, please call them and ask them to bring that out. We're making provisions for employees to be able to do that since it's safe for us to travel in these areas.

10:59 We want to be there to support you and help you with all the recovery. And so there's multiple stages of this. I tell everybody it's first make sure the family's all right, housing for the family, then you can start worrying about the animals and fencing, water, infrastructure, that type of things. Of course, forage and hay for all the animals and food for the family and all that.

11:34 And there's lots of structures that have been burned. So housing is a big concern for people as well. So it's that's kind of the sequence that I go through, Keith. Is make sure family's all right, the housing's all right, we're functional, then start thinking about the animals and the infrastructure of the ranch.

11:59 But as far as recovery from economics, you need to go into USDA as quickly as you can, get signed up with FSA with the ECP which is emergency conservation program to help you with external fencing and other things as well as NRCS. Sign up for we have an emergency fire equipment program. I've requested about 20 million to get us started with NRCS. I think it's going to be 40 some million, 30 40 million dollars for FSA.

12:38 That's startup money. That doesn't mean that will be the final numbers that we get to with these larger fires. You can only imagine how many miles of fencing that would incur externally much less internally. That's one thing that ECP will do a lot of that. And NRCS also can help you with internal fencing, wells, solar panels, fiberglass tank, rubber tanks that have burned.

13:12 All that there's a whole list of things. They can also help you with deferred grazing. So you have no forage for your animals. If you can find somewhere to go with your animals, we pay you per acre for deferred grazing so you can stay off the burned areas, move your cattle somewhere else. There's also we made a special variance for producers that have irrigation in the area that can provide annual forage, summer forage for you to help your animals.

13:47 You will need a written contract. We have them with the Department of Ag ready to go for you. So if Keith had a pivot that he wanted to help his neighbors out for forage, it'd be a one-page, one-signature type of document says I've got this lease for this period of time this summer. That gives us the ability to help you with that financially as well. So it's a forage option if you have neighbors willing to help and they can recover some of that cost and stuff through this program as well.

14:28 Multiple things that are available for you at the agencies. Yeah, that's a lot of good assistance. Um thank you, Jimmy. And I know that in visiting with the director Sherry Benton, director of our Department of Ag here, they have been working this the Department of Ag. They have a website called pasturematch. And I might, this is pretty cool. I might let me just see if I can share my screen here quick.

15:02 I don't know if I can or not. Let's see. You might have to ask my permission, but I'll let you do it. Gee thanks. You're welcome. See, do you see where I rank here, Jimmy? I've got to ask now for everything. I'm no longer in control. Well, you could work for the government.

15:26 I am happy letting you do that. We appreciate your service. Okay, can you see that? Yes. Okay. So this is a website called pasturematch.com. And this is something that came through one of the programs that the state has put together. But it's pretty cool because if again, Jimmy, as you mentioned, if I've got some extra

15:52 Grazing, I can go in here and I can post a listing and you can do that and basically, you just sign up, you say where you're at, how much capacity you think you're going to have, where you're located, what you're wanting to charge, all that sort of thing. And then people can get in here and they can browse the listings and they can come down here and they can look at what's available. So, the only way this works is if both sides are active on it. People have to be posting things and people have to be then looking at things. And so, I just wanted to share that. It's just pasturematch.com. But I've got to put it in the chat too as well, Keith.

16:38 Yeah, perfect. So, you know, one of the things that we are continually telling people, Jimmy, is especially now, there's never been a better time to not plant corn because everybody knows it's going to be difficult to make a profit growing corn or beans. So, what better time is there for people not affected by the fire to plant some of their lower production grain ground to forages and be able to improve their land and help a neighbor. So, I think it's a great program. And if you're going to do that, let us know at Green Cover. You were willing to offer some discounts on people wanting to do that on some seed. And then get it into this pasture match so that people can come find it.

17:26 So, Jimmy, talk a little bit about, you know, when you went through those fires, just talk about how long it took for your perennial grasses to recover. I'm assuming that maybe they came back better than ever, but it took a while to get there. Just talk about the time frame of the grass recovery and then what you did in the meantime.

17:49 Yeah, and I came up to Broken Bow when the fires were up there. You and I had a conversation back then as well in Nebraska. Where we got into a debate with the extension up there about the difference in a control burn versus a wildfire burn. And that's very critical that we understand the difference of what heat intensity does to the crowns of the grass, the biology in the very near surface. So, when you have extreme heat, extreme drought going on with a lot of forage, with a very hot fire, then it takes that grass longer to recovery because your humidity is lower. If you do a control burn with 30%, 35% humidity versus in the teens or single digit humidity, the heat intensity is more. And so, that's really critical to think about deferred grazing. Take that cash in hand from NRCS, find some place to go with your cattle, lay that off, give that grass a good recovery.

19:07 I've had some producers I've been talking with in Oklahoma Panhandle. They said, 'No, I don't want to do that.' In southwest Kansas as well because if we get these rains, you know, we'll have grass coming and we'll be back in business. Well, the grass will come back, but it's very under stress and it's not as viable as it would be if you'd done a control burn. So, it does need that several months. I laid off an entire year. And the reason I done that because of Forest Service told me in single digit like the 2018 fire, the Ray fire here, with 90° plus temperatures that the forage there had a lower moisture content than the lumber that you would purchase at the lumber yard to build your house. So that several thousand degrees in some locations, especially in cedar tree areas, extreme temperature. There is going to be some of them crowns that's not going to make it. You'll look like you have grass coming, but you're going to need to give that a good rest if at all possible.

20:27 Yeah, it's really more you need to treat it more like a new planting than something just recovering from a controlled burn. Absolutely. Absolutely. It looks good, but it's still trying to build sugars and carbohydrates in the root system. It's trying to rebuild the roots because we all know if you eat that off to the ground that your roots shrink. The same thing with fire. It pulls reserves in so you have some root strength shortening. So that's got to rebuild as well. So it's very critical to do that. That's the reason we have deferred grazing.

21:08 Yeah. And you know, in the Sandhills it's a little bit of a domino effect because it's certainly affecting the ranchers out there and their own cattle herds. They've got to find a place for them.

21:21 But it's an area where they take in thousands of cattle from our area, from central and eastern Nebraska and probably really all over the country. Huge amounts of cattle imported every year. And so now those cattle don't have a summer home. And so that's why it's so important. You can't stress enough if you're interested in looking at alternatives to corn and soybeans and most people are right now, certainly consider that because even if you don't have cows, somebody in your area, somebody not very far from you, is going to be affected by the Sandhills fire even though they don't live out there because they send their cattle out there every year and they're going to be looking for new homes. And so that's again where you can help your neighbor by doing this. And again, you don't have to do it on the whole farm, but I think it's certainly something to consider on a portion of it.

22:18 Jimmy, talk a little bit maybe about the fencing because you know, 25 miles of fence is a lot. But compared to what some of these guys out in the Sandhills have lost, it's probably not very much. How long did it take you to rebuild that? Was it difficult to get supplies? I would imagine it was difficult to find the labor to help do that. Talk just a little bit about the fence infrastructure issue.

22:43 Well, to start with, know your fencer. Just like you would know your roofer because we see this a lot of times in big hailstorms with roofing. People come in. Most of the people are good. There are some bad actors. It's the same way in fencing because sadly people swarmed to these areas of disaster. So know your fencer as well. Make sure you check out their background.

23:14 I know this week I approved some variances in the fencing standards in that area. A lot of people used hedge post every three to five T posts that's put in the ground. They put a 4-inch hedge post in the Sandhills to make that fence stable. It's a barbed wire fence. Hedge posts are hard to come by at the 4-inch size. Now with all the demand, we made a variance for 3-inch or pipe oil field pipe, 2-inch, 2 and 7/8 inch pipe for that. So we're trying to make variances for the materials because that becomes a huge issue. You know, if you look at the size of the fires in Nebraska and if you just figure 870,000 acres and you divide that by 640, if everybody had just had a perimeter fence of around a section of 640 acres, how many miles of fence that would be at the cost of fencing today is a tremendous amount. And it's a lot of materials that needs to be shipped into the area that normally doesn't have that demand. Yeah. And so we're trying to make some variances on the quality. We're still going to have good quality, but we're lessening some of that to help producers get there.

24:40 One of the things that we also have and I used it this year is I got some virtual fencing. So when we had the wildfires, we had the collars already on the cows. We were able to go ahead and some of our rangeland in the big pastures didn't all burn this past year. So we were able to graze the unburned areas with virtual fencing while we still didn't have all our perimeter fencing put back up. So that's some great options that's available in equipment.

25:21 If you think that you can lightly graze burned areas later and you don't want to do deferred grazing, it's a very good tool to quickly, one day on, two days on and move on and just very lightly graze that. Once again, I would still want to make sure that your grass can stand that before you do that. But in critical situations, that's a good tool Keith to really help you manage labor wise and move very quickly across. So there are some of these options out there as well.

26:03 Yeah, is there funding available to help with the virtual fencing? Yes, yes there is. And that would be through equip or through other programs? That's through equip right now. That's part of in the wildfire areas. We also have water monitoring because, to tell you the truth, the whole part of the big wildfire is a new management level of stress. And if even if you have cattle out there, you're trying to feed hay and protein to hold them till you find a place to go. We have water monitoring cameras.

26:44 Available so that you don't have to go do that. You can look on your phone. You can see there's water there. There's hay there. If you put your hay in the background near the water source, you can see some of that. So it's time saving as well. There's cost share on all of that in equip right now.

27:04 Yeah. So a good opportunity to explore some new technologies.

27:09 Jonathan, I think with just the hassle that it's going to be trying to switch over to a different meeting, I think let's just keep going on this. Folks, please please please please put your questions in the chat so that we can discuss them here with Jimmy. Brad Brad has put a question in so we'll talk about that one. But at this point, I would love to hear from the people on the meeting here. What questions, concerns do you have? You've got a great expert here not only from experience, but also from the help side of things. So be putting your questions in the chat there.

27:45 But Jimmy, Brad is asking a question about virtual fencing recommendations. Maybe talk a little bit you can talk about what you're using, but more so talk about the process that you went through to decide who you're going to use because just like with buying a tractor or a pickup, you know, there's good options out there and it's going to be different for different people. But maybe just talk a little bit about the thought processes that you went through to determine which company you went with on the virtual fencing. And maybe even talk just a little bit about you know, how it works, you know, the cost. Do you need a tower? Do you does it work off satellite, cell phone? Just talk a little bit about that.

28:28 Yeah. So when we started looking at virtual fencing, there's companies that only use cell phone technology to get the signal to and from the cattle in the virtual fence. So first of all, you got to make sure you have good cell phone technology for that. Where we were going to be at, that was not an option. So we ruled that one out for that area. Now I still think that company is got great technology, but you just got to make sure that you're you have the cell phone technology.

29:03 Then it's other virtual fencing systems, they all work very good. There's great technology out there with several different companies. We started looking at the collar itself and and how the animal, you know, adapts to that. And we settled on we're currently using Halter. I love the Halter system because it's directional. It tell it gives audios where the fence is located. So if I'm looking straight at the fence, both tones go off. If I turn my head, the tone on the right where the fence is goes off. So, it's it helps them very very quickly.

29:51 Most all these systems have you can set up multiple paddocks, tell them you want to move every day, every 2 days, every 3 days. A lot of that technology's coming online if it's not already. So, you don't even have to do that. It long as you draw that out where they have water or you have water in them paddocks, it will move the cattle for you as you see fit and whatever schedule you have.

30:20 Typically, right now with Halter, I think it's around about $66 a year for a collar. You buy the towers. I have two towers up that gives me about 6-7 mile circle around them depending on terrain and location and all that, but the Halter helps you with that as other companies do to help, you know, where to put the towers if that's required. A lot of these technology and Halter's one of them. They're starting look at satellites now so that you don't have to mess with towers. Just check all that out, Keith. Just like you said, if you're using my new car you know, look at what you're buying. Make sure that fits you. If you don't need a a ton and a half pickup if you're just running around. But, if you're going to haul cattle and stuff, maybe you do. Same thing with virtual fencing. Kind of fit it to your ranch.

31:18 Yeah, and and one thing we we don't have any virtual fencing collars for our herd yet, but we certainly have looked into it. And one thing about the Halter, it's a little bit more of a yearly cost, but you're not buying the collars. You're you're leasing them. And so, if if they break, if there's new technology that comes out you you don't have a huge upfront investment in it because they own the collars. And if they, you know, come out with better batteries or different technology, then you know, you're not stuck with that huge investment. But, on the other hand, some

31:51 Of the other companies, it's a little bit more of an upfront cost because you're buying the collars, but then it's less of that yearly charge. So again, look into it. E-shepherd is another one that a lot of people are using.

32:04 We actually had one of the guys, he's from Illinois, one of the guys at one of our Nexus events was showing pictures. He's actually using those. He's grazing now with no perimeter fence because he's got his cattle trained. You would not do this at first, but he's grazing with no physical fence at all, just the collars. He was even grazing road ditches, which is pretty crazy to think about. But the technology has gotten good. When you have well-behaved animals and, Jimmy, I would imagine, how long did it take your cows to get used to them? Probably not very long, did it?

32:43 About 2 weeks. 10 days to 2 weeks. They adapt really quickly. And that's what I was talking about. I didn't clearly express that a while ago. This last past spring, a year ago, when we had the fire, we had the perimeter fences along the roads going down to my headquarters, Keith, that you've been down were all burned up. And so the county took that all out. But it just went across the road and down the fences. So I still had about 400 acres in that section of grass that I could graze, which I was rotationally grazing already with the collars.

33:22 I had the fencers call me daily, said, 'Your cattle are out. They're up here where we're building fence.' And I would ask him like, 'How far are they away from you?' 'Well, 100 ft.' I said, 'Well, the fence is at 80 ft.' So you're good. 'No, no, there's no fence.' And so them cattle were done trained and broke. We had no trouble.

33:46 The only thing you have issues with like us, we don't collar the baby calves or the growing calves on the cows. They'll creep out in front of them a little bit, but they don't get very far from mom. So you know, along the road, you'd have to have all them collared if you didn't want them grazing out in the ditch or across the road in the other ditch. But no, it works very well.

34:13 Yeah, so really good option. And I would imagine, too, especially, you know, if your cattle are pretty well-behaved that until you get permanent fencing back up, you know, even some polywire type stuff could, you know, if you've got some areas that you feel like you can still get out there and graze, you know, there's some temporary fencing solutions that could be used until you get that good infrastructure rebuilt.

34:39 Well, folks, feel free to put your questions in the chat there for Jimmy. But while we're waiting on that, Jimmy, why don't you talk a little bit about the role that community, the role that faith played in helping you and Ginger not only survive the fires that you've been through, but you know, come out on the other side, you know, stronger and more resilient.

35:04 Yeah, I mean, it is. We should all help one another in these situations. And the amount of hay and feed and donations and cash from the whole community of agriculture, not just local communities. That stuff came in from several states around as well as it's happening in. I've got states with five states of my eleven that I'm in charge of has had wildfires. So there's a lot of hay, a lot of protein being donated, even fencing materials. But it's also food and a lot of times churches do breakfasts and lunches for fencing crews, for the ranchers and the farmers that's going through that. If you lost house structures, a lot of donation. There's some temporary housing that can be available through FEMA and different things. But you know, it's really your strong faith that really pulls you through. God will only put on you whatever you can stand. And sometimes it feels like it's more than we can stand. But you know, we always get through and it makes us stronger and more resilient. And you know, that's the reason I do what I do and trying to share the experiences out like this in wildfires because, you know, we were asked to have a congressman and an undersecretary come in a few days after the 9 days of fire we had to provide, you know, a building and some food for them. And that was a real stretch for me. But once again, I knew they were coming to help us and look at the devastation and all. And so I quickly said, 'Yes, I can do that.' And then I reached out to friends and farm credit and other things to help us.

42:16 The fire happened. It actually burned green growing wheat. And the residue off of that and so then that land much like the Sandhills until you get rain and I know there's some rain in the area last night up there not in all the areas.

42:32 We know that sand is going to move. It's very challenging times that's happening out in Beaver, Oklahoma now as we go it's very sandy there. So there's a lot of challenges to that. There's really nothing to do until we get significant rainfall in them areas to stop the sand from growing and the grass from coming back.

42:58 One of the things that you got to think about in the Sandhills. You know, that blew for years, not that many years ago when a lot of people tried farming some of that, not all of it, but then it recovered once we took care of it and nurtured it. So that recovery will come once we get good rainfall. Hopefully this system is in neutral is going to kick in more rainfall will be coming to get that going but I just can't stress enough don't over graze it too quickly.

43:40 Because I had friends and neighbors that didn't find places to go with their cattle. You know, it's very extreme hard, hard to find places to go and not everybody can do that. Felt like they needed to graze that and it has cost them dearly down for several years after that because it really set that back. They lost a lot of stand and a lot of weeds came.

44:08 So you really need to give it sufficient time to recover and even as it's recovering go out and look and like Keith and I do all the time take a shovel with you and look and really evaluate it before you do that, but if you do just lightly quickly take as little as you can and move right as quickly as you can through that.

44:36 Yeah, that's great advice because the temptation is going to be you see some stuff coming back. You're desperate for forage for the animals to get them out there, but like much of life sometimes that short-term benefit is going to cost you a lot in the long run.

44:54 Well and I think you mentioned this a while ago Keith and I really want to touch on that with grain prices where they're at. There is a lot of opportunity in forage right now and where the cattle market is and in the value what grazing animals pay right now. We haven't, we didn't harvest a fall crop last year was all in forage. We were grazing all our winter stuff out except what we need for seed. Because the value is there and so you really need to look at your financials and really figure what a corn or bean crop actual ROI is going to be on your farm and if you can help other people out and help yourself out with revenue and forage you really need to look at that because the market is really screaming no more, no more corn, no more beans even though we've had a little boost in wartime here some corn and bean prices the long-term carry overs really stressing that the market saying we've got enough.

46:10 So that's some of the things that you really need to look at and once again help out your neighbors but also help out your bottom line as well.

46:19 Well and not only that Jimmy it's not just the financial considerations and any boost in prices have been eaten up by the boost in fertilizer or diesel fuel. I know. So that the margin didn't get a boost. It's just, but here's the thing it's a dry in a lot of areas. Fertilizer is really high but to grow a forage crop I don't know that I have scientific data to back this up but I think it probably only takes about half the moisture and half the nutrients to grow 80 to 90% of the forage. It takes the other half to take it all the way to grain and so when we're growing forage crops not only does it take less water, not only does it take much less moisture, but from a nutrient standpoint if you're doing good managed grazing 80% of what goes in the front end is coming out the back end.

47:21 So now you're setting yourself up to grow a cash crop next year on this ground much, you know, with far fewer inputs because you're banking those nutrients. You're building your carbon. You're building your soil aggregates. All those things are really really good things and if you can do that and not, you know, take financial hit and help a neighbor. I mean that's like a win-win-win right there. Isn't it?

47:49 It is. It is. Keith I see a question in the chat.

47:55 So Brad is asking just recommendations on seeding pasture that's been burned. It's burned up acres that had been entered into a carbon program was farm ground 80 years ago. So I'm guessing Jimmy he's asking about what could he plant and maybe just that annual kind of like what you did. You know, plant it some annuals while you're waiting for the perennials. Number one to see if they're going to recover. But maybe talk a little bit about what you planted and what you know, would be some options here to get planted.

48:27 Once again, I think God has the seed bank that's there that the recovery will come. If you were going to do anything in that, I'd really recommend a light seeding the native mix if that's what it is. You could do some annuals in that if you got moisture where you know, where we've had wind erosion sand moving stuff like that. But you got to have adequate moisture to do that. And then you you get really got to watch that them annuals like that if that tender grass is coming will shade that out. It's a fine line of how you manage all of that.

49:14 You know, and it's really case by case. It's hard to make a general recommendation here. But typically if it was in a good native range perennial range, I think it will recover if you give it rest and time. I don't know how the carbon program. I say that there was some act of God clauses in there. I would hope there in the due diligence of the contract that was in there where you have these extreme weather that to help you out. But you know, like I said, some of the seeding that I done I felt was a little bit wasted because the grass was already starting to recover and then we got rains and then it out performed the annuals. But it also that it the annual shaded some of that grass early on, but it survived and come on. So, you you really need to have some experts come and look with with the Department of Ag or extension there and really look at over before you you spend much money doing something that may be all right anyhow.

50:26 Yeah, and and the other thing too, Jimmy, would be is if you go out there and you drag a no-till drill across that and you don't get rain to get that seed up, well, you probably just loosen things up to where it may be more susceptible to blowing. So, be careful of that. I would use a drone if or or plane if I was going to do any of that. Especially in that like you said, if we don't have adequate moisture because you will you will start the soil moving.

50:57 Yeah. So, we have another question here. Sheridan, who actually was an intern for us here couple years ago. So, Sheridan, thanks for joining here. She and her family, they ranch north of Lake McConaughy up there. About 80% of their stuff got burned, but their structures are okay. So, it could have been worse. She's asking Jimmy about so, let's say you do deferred grazing like what you're talking about. You find another home for your cattle. When it has recovered, talk a little bit about how do you reintroduce stock onto this ground so that you're you're not hitting it too hard. How can you kind of start building up, you know, some of that that natural thatch that you accumulate over the years that protects the soil. Well, that's all gone. How do you kind of get back into the groove of a grazing rotation once it has started to recover?

51:51 Well, it it gets back into good grazing management. In them cases, high stock density on a very short period of time. So, you just take a bite or two and move on through it. You leave manure and and you're in behind close closely gathered. It has more biology in it. It really starts helping the system kick in. So, that's where virtual fencing can really help out, lower your cost, make it easier to do. Polywire is a good option if that's what you got and you you don't have the capital to invest in any more technology. But it it's really good accelerated rotational grazing. Light on long rest. Going over even though you've had a say you take a year to deferment from that and that's what I done. I had I sent my a lot of my cattle to northeast Oklahoma for the summer. I had winter pasture on the farm ground when they come back. So, I was able to give that that long stretch of of rest to that.

53:02 But you know, it's really don't overgraze to start with because you got to give that system time to regenerate. It's kind of like going on an extended vacation. Everybody thinks you're all rested up and you've been busy, you're overworking, trying to do all you can do. And then you get back home and like, man, I got to rest a day or two. Well, that's the same way with your plants and animals and ecosystem. They've been through a very extensive period of surviving and how I'm going to regenerate, how am I going to come out, do all this. They need a little rest once they get started so that they can have that moment to really engage and try to regrow. Because plants and animals are just like us. They got to have food, they got to have water, they got to have energy, they're going to breathe in oxygen, exhale CO2 and nutrients. And so they, it all works just like us.

54:09 So, while you've been under stress and you're recovering, you're exhausted mentally and physically. And even though you get things to go on, even after you start coming out of this, you still need some downtime. That's why your plants and animals are. And on the animals, you really got to watch for smoke inhalation. You may think, well, my cattle, they're not burned, they're not, you don't see any outside scars, so to speak, but they breathed a lot of smoke and stuff. So, as it starts warming up, you need to really look for signs of shortness of breath and struggling a little bit. That's one thing that I missed early on that I should have culled harder for, especially the cows that we that the fire went over the first few days. We moved them cows in another area where there was grass. The fire turned around and came back, ran over them cows a second time. I should have really culled most of all them cows because that was just too much smoke and too many days for them.

55:23 So, one thing about this fire, it moved pretty quick. Maybe the smoke wasn't lasting for some of them, but if you were downwind of that, say 3 days, 4 days in front of the fire, them cattle were still breathing all that smoke. I would really watch that, Keith, in them animals. Even have veterinarian look at some of them and listen to them. As high as cull prices are right now, it might be a good strategy to invest a little bit in veterinarian work and make sure because the long-term effects of that is not good.

56:06 That's really good advice there. So, Brad has another question here. This is a great question actually. He's got some native pasture that they had to go out and disc, try to, you know, make fire breaks. And so now, obviously, that's all tore up. That's rough. What does he do there, Jimmy? Will that recover? How does he go smooth that out? What would you do there, you know, where that's kind of been tore up for a fire break?

56:32 So, Brad, have you had any moisture on that yet? Would be the first question. If you'll drop that in the chat, I'll address that. So, you know, the main thing before you go to smoothing things down, make sure you got, you know, moisture to that it doesn't start blowing. First of all, if you go in there and smooth that all back down, it's like any typical fire break that we see. It'll really recover. That disturbance brings up new seeds and stuff out of that. It normally comes back, but especially where graders and dozers and discs, like you said, it roughed it up, that needs to be smoothed back up. But you got to make sure you got moisture before you do that. So, don't get in too big a hurry unless you got these good rains, then you can go out there and level that down and then that new seed will kick off and then them plants, them crowns are pretty resilient. They'll come back, I think, but you just really got to watch.

57:38 Yeah, so no moisture yet. So, maybe just kind of hold off. Be have a plan, be ready to go, but wait till there's at least a decent forecast of rain. That's the hardest thing is waiting. Yeah. With on that kind of stuff. It's a torment. Yeah. So, I've got I've got one more question for you, Jimmy, and did you see or do you think that there would be a role of applying any type of biology to these to this rangeland to help it

58:13 You know, would do you think that would speed up the recovery? Whether it's just a compost extract or just some sort of a stimulant out there. Did you do any of that? Are you aware of anybody that did that? Any studies that would, you know, just kind of help stimulate because not only did the grass get singed and burned and charred, so did all your biology. And it would have killed all that biology probably a couple inches deep, maybe deeper as hot as some of these were. What do you think there's a place for that?

58:48 You know, that's one thing that we didn't do. That's just one of the things I didn't think about it in the heat of the moment, so to speak. But I actually just now touched on that when you started regrazing that what how important that biology is from the animals to get you to go on again. So, I think there's definitely something to that, Keith, that that helps. Once again, I would just try that in spots. I wouldn't try a lot of acres of that. See if you see some improvements there. You know, so you hold your costs down, try something, see if it works. But you're absolutely right. I touched on that early on. That that inch or two if there's cedar trees in very large numbers 3, 4 inches that intense intense heat and then off the needles that that have fallen a lot of that burns for hours underneath there and days. That's totally wiped out. There's no way that the biology you know stayed alive in that situation.

1:00:00 I don't have no data on that Keith and but I'd like to see some people try that. It's pretty inexpensive to do. It'd be worth a try but I wouldn't get carried away because like I said God's pretty good and Mother Nature's pretty resilient. And sometimes we think we need to help it when when they've got a bigger plan than we do.

1:00:22 Yeah. You know Jerry Hatfield who retired from ARS many people know Jerry he's done a lot of great work. He is doing a research project with putting biologicals on rangeland has seen some success and and this is on rangeland that wasn't burned. I'm going to be doing a podcast with him here coming up. I think we're going to get that scheduled here in the next couple weeks. I'm definitely going to ask him how he thinks that would help on the burned out stuff because he's been studying this for a few years now just on range so I think and and and collecting tons of data. He would be a really good one to help us answer that question so folks who are watching this stay tuned to our podcast schedules. That might actually be an elevate ag podcast that I'm going to be doing but he'll have some good information on that.

1:01:15 It it would be interesting to see how much for or leaf area you would need to help that biology to be taken in by the plants versus surface applied with with no shade no ability I mean I don't know. I don't know. That'd be a great Jerry. Yeah. I I would definitely would not apply it to bare ground. I would wait for a regrowth and apply it on new vegetation.

1:01:40 Yeah. But I don't know how much of that cover that that would need to be but Jerry can answer all that. He would be the expert. Yeah. Yeah. So I definitely will be will be doing that. So well Jimmy we're we're a little bit over our hour. Thank you so much for taking time out of your busy schedule out of your busy day. To not only help provide some information on this webinar which again we'll post out and hopefully lots of people watch it later on but also for all the work that you're doing at with your position within NRCS to be helping the folks out there.

1:02:15 Folks don't forget next week there are some three different meetings out in the Sandhills. They were posted on here. Get to one of those meetings not just to get additional information but to you know build community and to be able to share your stories with each other. Yeah get a hug give a hug and it just you know allow the community to serve you and to be part of the community that serves others. So I would just encourage that for all of us. Find find something that you can do to help and and continue to pray for your neighbors continue to be there to support them. So thank you again Jimmy. Thank you everybody who watched. We appreciate this.

1:03:01 We'll get this out there as a resource so make sure you share this with your friends and neighbors. We will send the link to this to all of you that are on here and then we are going to depend on you to get it out to your friends and neighbors who need to see this if you feel like it would be helpful information. So thank you Jimmy. Tell Ginger hi for us and have a blessed Easter weekend. Thanks everybody. Thank you.