Spring Forage Mix vs. Grain: Jimmy Emmons Breaks Down the Numbers

0:05 All right, hey everybody, Keith Burns with here, with my good friend Jimmy Emmans. Jimmy, we caught up with him—he's at the Indianapolis Airport flying back home to Oklahoma after speaking at a Conservation District meeting. Jimmy, I just wanted to have a conversation with you. I know you and I have been talking about doing spring planted annual cover crop forages instead of looking at planting a spring crop, and I know that you—we're going to be sending a semi load of seed down to Oklahoma for you to do that. I just thought it would be good for you to.

0:36 Share the thought processes that went into you making that decision because other people, you know, may be in a similar situation. So go ahead and just tell us a little bit about the situation that you're in and running the numbers and the conclusions that you came to.

0:51 Here Keith, I'm glad to catch up with you today. Like I said, I'm here in the airport traveling, so I apologize for any noise. But what the basics is, you know, the grain prices are depleted right now, and if you want to run the numbers on your operation, they're probably pretty close to breaking even to making a little money, depends on your inputs.

1:14 Where you're at we could make a little money with some grain but not a lot, but we're cattleman also and the cattle markets on fire and that we can add a bunch of revenue by grazing versus grain and we've run the numbers on our operation with our company that states you know we can really graze quite a bit and we're blessed right now to have some moisture to be able to do that. The cows are still grazing the stalks from behind milo and some warm seasoned frosted SE mix that we planted but you're about to get all the good out of that and so we got a place to put them for a few weeks while we get.

1:59 Something pled back to growing and that's what we want to do is try to get something good mix in the ground get something green back in front of them. We got some yearlings also that we're running. We're going to ship a lot of the big cattle here in March but I've got a lot of light cattle that needs to go to May and beyond and my wheat's getting short on some of that and so we're thinking about adding more pounds of beef on. You know, you figure I've got LRP on these cattle at $256 a pound weighing 9,940—that's tremendous revenue for us and so we can literally add a lot of.

2:41 Cash in the bank if we do this well we got the moisture and where we're at. Keith, you know it's really about limited rainfall, but when you have the moisture to grow we try to capitalize on it. I'd rather take the risk here in a short-term spring mix. It's been very good to us in the past — very palpable and the cattle really gain good. So far we've had a pretty mild winter and so we're kind of hoping that transitional won't be too scorching hot like it has been in the past and let the spring do their job. And then that week that we graze out the short stuff we'll go.

3:21 Through a warm season mix as quick as we can on other acres so we can. If we have some more small cattle we can go from this mix into a warm season mix later, so it's trying that Noble research theory of 365 green to keep something around the cattle, make money.

3:40 Yeah, no, that's a great concept if you could do it. And so what we're looking at for Jimmy's mix here: oats, barley, peas, turnips, collards, safflower. We're going to throw a little flax in just for diversity. It's not the greatest for grazing, but we know the microbes love it, so we don't want just—

4:00 Be the above ground livestock but we want to look at the whole thing so really diverse mix and loading it up with good biology to get that jump start. Now Jimmy, you're doing this on dry land where you got a little moisture but you're also doing some irrigated because even with irrigated grain production this still makes sense, right?

4:16 It does Keith, because once again we have potential to add some water to be. We can get bigger growth and more tons of forage so we can convert that into beef quicker and easier and higher numbers too, as well. So you know, it just really factor in where.

5:17 That level, what kind of gains per day on your stalkers do you figure? You know, what are you hoping for based on your past experience with mixes like this? You know, these spring mixes when they're really good, like I said, under irrigation we can kind of control that. We're talking three to four pound a day. Three and a half pound a day is not uncommon if the weather stays halfway conducive for us. Worst case scenario is two and a half to three. But if you figure, you know, I got them cattle insured with LRP insurance at 250 pound, then you can do the math pretty quick in your head that's.

5:58 Pretty good revenue day when we can put the kind of stocking rates down behind this irrigation and the dry land as well. You know, and then following that you'll go in with the warm seasons for sure on the irrigated. The dry land you'll just have to kind of see what Mother Nature gives you and be ready to go with it if it gives you the opportunity.

6:19 Well, and I think that's the key that I've been trying to stress for producers for a long time out here. You know, our rainfall is a little erratic what it used to be, and when we get it we need to use it because, you know, even we.

6:35 Have trouble keeping it covered in the for our environments and so we want to take the opportunity to keep it covered when we can and then take some cattle gain off of that beef dollars in the bank because if we don't, since there's pH, we know we're going to lose that and or lose a percentage of that. And I don't want to lose any of that if I'm going to go to the trouble. You know, my famous words: I like to get it all when it rains and I want to use it. I don't want to lose it. So yeah, you know, use it or lose it. Keep it, keep it when it comes, yeah, so you got it all now you.

7:14 Yeah folks if you are thinking down these same lines, if you've got cattle, you've got neighbors that have cattle and you think you can strike a deal or a bargain with them to kind of do a joint venture on doing some grazing like this, we would encourage you take your lowest productive ground because you know it's going to struggle to make any profit on that. Give us a call here at Green Cover, we'd be happy to talk to you about the mix like what we're doing for Jimmy or something that would fit your environment. We're happy to put together a grazing plan for you.

7:46 Jimmy, thank you, travel safe. We know that you're super busy this time of year so we appreciate you taking time. Thanks a lot, Keith. Anytime.