Warm Season Cover Crop Species: Q&A on Sorghum-Sudangrass, Cowpeas, and More

0:00 All right. Well, hello everyone. Looking forward to a good conversation here and definitely appreciate Jonathan and the marketing team for setting this all up. So we have a really great team here at Green Cover that coordinate all the marketing and outreach and allow Zach and I just to do what we do best of actually answering questions and advising. So hopefully we can have a good conversation. Definitely already starting to see some questions in the Q&A. So we'll just start at the top here. Looks like we have someone in Idaho looking for the best soil building cover crop for a vineyard. If there's a grass in the mix, do I need to worry about the boot stage of the grass or grain when it's time to kill? I prefer to crimp or tarp, not a large area.

0:50 So sometimes I think the question is there's like specific species, right, that we need to be looking at planting. But often when it comes to soil building, the diverse mixes are where we can do more good, right? The more in a more diverse mix you have a diversity of root systems. As you add more plant families to the mix, you get a better variety of root exudates. And that then the root exudates feed the microbes, the microbes improve the soil. And so often the best soil building mixes are the more diverse mixes. And just because it's more diverse doesn't necessarily mean it's more expensive because you'll use less pounds of seed for each individual seed as the diversity goes up. So the timing of when you're planting the mix is going to be pretty important to knowing what the best soil building cover crop is in a vineyard. I don't know if there's any harvest issues that we need to be considering or if you're like looking to mow it, but I don't know about you, Zach, and your customers, but often like the brassicas work well. A lot of times we try to get flowering species into vineyards to bring in beneficial insects. You probably don't need to worry too much about termination as long as you can manage with mowing. If you do want to crimp kill though, and we're talking about a fall planted blend, then we're probably talking about cereal rye or maybe winter tritikale, something that gets tall that's easier to crimp. I don't know if you have any more thoughts on that, Zach, in general.

2:24 Yeah. Another thing that I would consider, you said they're from Idaho. Guess I didn't see that. So somewhere like that that has really cool nights up north. Maybe like a sorghum-sudangrass or millet isn't necessarily a good grass, but it'd be a good fit for an annual rye grass or an intermediate rye grass, something along those lines. It's going to stay a little shorter and be easier to kill with a silage tarp. It's really hard to crimp kill stuff. That's a thing that we hear a lot of. I want to crimp kill it. It's just very hard to get a really good crimp kill on anything. So yeah, it's a short list of species that works well for. But often in vineyards, we don't necessarily have to, you know, if the grapes are established, we can just manage in between the rows with mowing and then not really worry about crimping it necessarily. So then I think like the mustards, maybe the phacelia, clovers, you know, all those things depending on when they're being planted.

3:26 All right, Eugene is out in Colorado. What are the benefits of including warm season species in a cover crop mix? Yeah, warm season species are what I would consider and my favorite thing to use as the best cover crops probably in terms of like what you're getting out of them for everything that you use a cover crop for. You have so many growing degree days. I mean you have the most sunshine which is what you're doing is photosynthesizing using your cover crop to help photosynthesize. So anytime you can capture as much of that as possible, you're getting huge benefits out of it. And then you compare that with the time, how long you can let those crops grow. I mean, you know, most of them have different reproductive stages, but most of them will grow all summer until it freezes out in the fall or winter. So you just really opens the opportunity to produce a lot of biomass, a lot of carbon, a lot of root exudates. Our warm season grasses are very, very good at putting out root exudates. And I would venture to say that you can change a soil faster planting a warm season cover crop mix than you can by any metric during a cool season cover crop.

4:45 They're just so great. Yeah. And we often talk on the sales team about how much we just enjoy the summertime because designing these summer mixes is so much fun, right? Like when it gets to be mid-October and people are calling in talking about planting cover crops, there's like three options, you know, and they're also a cereal grain. And so the thing in the summertime is there's just so many species that can work and they don't all make sense, but I mean what, Zach, probably have 30 or 40 different like summer cover crop options.

5:19 So it's interesting you say that. So you just planted your summertime plots yesterday. How many species did you plant? Well, we planted 80 different. Yep. So this trips Keith and I mentioned this in the podcast, too. It's like, okay, if you think about it, everything that we sell can be planted in the summer to some way, shape, or form. You know, temper your expectations on some of the cereals or cool season stuff, but it just gives possibility to do so much. You've got your brassicas, your broad leaves, your grasses. Like, there's just a lot of options.

6:00 And Jean to pair in here. I saw you have another question just kind of piling on here and then we'll get back to some of the others. It's like what's the latest planting date for warm season cover crops before changing to a cool season species? Would it be better to try a warm/cool season mix after a winter wheat crop? You know, Nathan, I don't know what you think, but I like that idea, especially with like some of our more heat tolerant cereals like the casic oats or spring oats. Spring peas work well in that situation. And then yeah, put them out there with sorghum sedan. Let something capture sunlight for you because realistically, you know, we talk about this all the time. If you have six weeks of growing time, growing temperature, go for it. Like shouldn't even be thinking about it. If it's starting to get at four weeks before your first frost, maybe instead of using a true sorghum sedan, maybe you use a corn because a corn can handle a little bit cooler nights and some cooler temperatures. So yeah, context is key, but I think you have plenty of time after that wheat crop.

7:12 Yeah. And that blend of the warm and cool season if they're if you are in that six weeks before your first frost date because you have to keep in mind like that's just your average first frost date. Like this last fall like a lot of guys didn't get their first frost until 3 to 4 weeks later than normal and even then maybe the frost wasn't very severe. So yeah, blending the two together, I think, makes a ton of sense. And frankly, that allows you to plant those cool seasons a little bit sooner because that warm season can kind of shade the plant, maybe take the brunt of the sunlight until it can come on later in the fall. So, I think that works great.

7:47 All right. Cover crop after wheat. Most people say or most do most people spray before seeding. I start with a fairly clean field after we harvest. Should I spray a burn down in front of drilling the cover crops? I don't know. What do you think, Zach? You're the one who lives in Kansas.

8:08 Yeah. So, this is what I'll tell everybody. So, we're Jacob's got a question about if he should spray his wheat stubble before he plants his cover crop seed. I'm a big advocate of giving the cover crop or whatever you're growing the best chance possible. Since you have no inseason weed control in that cover crop mix, it's worth it to use a burndown. You may not think that it looks like there's weeds coming, but we all know what a pigweed seed looks like and a pigweed plant just barely coming out of the ground. It's very, very small. And this is kind of how I explain stuff. If something is already started and then you drill something, by the time it has seven days of germination to get it out of the ground and going, that plant, that seedling is seven days plus ahead of the rest of it. So, it's going to look prolific and be out there. I think I do think good practice is to get that as clean as physically possible before you get out there and do it.

9:05 But you wouldn't have to, right? Because I will say I do have customers that kind of just pencil in some of the volunteer weed as part of what's going to be growing. So I agree if you want if you want to protect the cover crop and get the best stand possible, the burndown is the safe bet.

9:22 There's two sides of that because your volunteer wheat doesn't actually start growing until later in the season. So you won't take out any of the volunteer wheat. It's just like right after the wheat's harvested, chase the combine through the field or within the next few weeks. You're just terminating wheat, crab grass, stuff like that.

9:48 Keith asked if there's any availability for duran free or prussic acid free sorghum sudan hybrids, preferably a brachytic dwarf variety for grazing sheep and he is in west central Missouri. So there is some new genetics on the market of some duran free sorghum sudan hybrids. They don't have very many options right now. It's pretty well just a regular BMR sorghum sudan that could definitely come to market and be bigger in the next few years. We're doing some trials and testing in our own plots to see if basically the juice is worth the squeeze type of deal. Keith, if you haven't listened to it yet, Keith Burns and I just did a podcast, green cover podcast last week and we talked about basically some of the management strategy in sorghum sudan and cover crop mixes when it comes to grazing livestock and some of the prussic acid concerns.

10:52 With that, especially if he's grazing sheep specifically, I think the pearl millets do really well with sheep. And so then you're outside of prussic acid anyway. And then also if you know, heavy legume, heavy brassica, like kind of some of those broadleaf forbs and legumes that sheep would prefer anyway, like that should be the bulk of the mix. So probably more so with sheep, it's easier to get away from it because you're less dependent on that big sort of sudan plant for the forage. Because there's better options.

11:25 Van is in central South Dakota seeding the multispecies mix in June for grazing late July. What is the best millet for cattle forage and regrowth? We'll definitely be seeding with sorghum and sudan grass going to corn next year. Best millet? If you're talking regrowth with millet, it's pearl millet. We have a couple different varieties of hybrid pearl millet, the green giant and the exceed BMR. For grazing and regrowth, the exceed BMR probably is a little bit better. The BMR trait, meaning the reduced lignin content, a better forage value, and then that millet does regrow really well. If you wanted to pair it with some other millets or maybe Japanese or brown top, but with the sudan grass being pretty aggressive, I would probably just stick with pearl millet.

12:19 You notice he left out like the German millets, which German millets are very popular in South Dakota, but they just don't regrow like grazing them a little bit. They just won't come back.

12:32 Paula is in Piedmont, Virginia area. She and they are looking at grazing popcorn or grazing corn with large broadcast spreader. They don't have a drill. Big chain harrow does not dig into the soil. So basically they're trying to use corn of some sort in their operation and want to know if they can broadcast it. You could broadcast corn, you could broadcast anything if you get enough water with it. So a lot of times the rule of thumb is the bigger the seed, the less good it is to broadcast. Corn would be a good example of that. It seems like you see a lot of volunteer corn out in the country, but if you're looking to get something established for grazing, I would definitely choose a smaller seed like your millets. A millet would broadcast really, really well. Sorghum sudan broadcasts pretty good. But those corns just really aren't a great option for that. Popcorn would be better than the grazing corn, but still questionable at best. Just takes a lot of water to soak up the starch in that seed.

13:51 Pasture for cattle. Yeah, so Japanese millet may actually fit in pretty well in your part of Virginia. Just toss that into the back of your mind.

14:05 We got someone from New Mexico for dryland winter wheat on the eastern side. What cover crop species would you recommend for them when it rains less than guaranteed here? I'm not sure if I quite understand the question. Is this if we're talking about after winter wheat is harvested?

14:35 Yeah, I believe after mix in a very aid. Yeah. Well, all seeds take moisture to grow. So, if it's bone dry and it doesn't rain, nothing's really going to work. The millets are the lowest moisture users. So, if you're trying to grow some either cover or feed and just get some living roots out there, the millets are probably the way to go. We just said German millet's not great because it doesn't regrow, but those foxtail millets, they don't need much moisture.

15:09 If we're talking real low water, which here we are, that would be something to look at. Zach, what legume would you try to pair with potentially some of those low moisture millets?

15:24 Sure. So, if you think a lot of our customers aren't necessarily from New Mexico, but you get front range of Colorado or even southwest Kansas. Some of the successes that they've seen, a sunflower okra would be a species that you could toss in there. I think you could use sunhemp. Sunhemp just doesn't really seem like it takes much water. And then what I would call my trusty super dryland seed is a mung bean for a legume. They just don't take much to get started.

16:00 You know, we're everyone farms here, but in this situation especially, most successful cover crop mixes come from waiting for the moisture. Not a big advocate of dusting it in in a situation or scenario like you guys have. So just wait till you can get it out of the ground. It's good to have it on hand because a lot of times there's not a lot of window there. But yeah, and you can use a little bit of sorghum sudan, too. It's more so about the rates than anything else. Don't get super carried away. Keep it pretty conservative. Maybe you shoot for 15 to 18 pounds an acre on something like that and that would be pretty good.

16:39 Potentially sesame would have a fit in that low moisture mix. Brassicas probably don't. If you had to pick one, I would say African cabbage is one that I've seen do the most on the least moisture out of the brassicas. But again, based on like that's a rate thing, like maybe just a quarter pound of African cabbage is all you'd want to have out there. But yeah, take advantage of the rain if it comes.

17:03 Yep. So Paula, something inexpensive for your summertime. She was the one that was asking about that thing in Virginia. So the German Japanese, those millets, that is the most inexpensive there is. German millet seeding rate is 15 pounds an acre and it's like 90 cents a pound. So you know you're tying into it for 12 or $13 an acre in seed cost. That's pretty economical for something you're just trying to rescue.

17:40 Dwight's got a long one here. Give us just a second to process. You got to swing at this or do you want me to go on it?

17:54 Okay. So, Dwight has 25 acres. It was in CRP for 10 years. It's been hayed for 10 years assuming after that. The yield is obviously going down, which oftentimes we do see after CRP stands are removed. He wants to build his soil like we all do. His last cutting is August 1st. Planted some cool season species in there. Poor germination except for the red clover. Have some cover crops in there for the next few years. Hay crops. Should I try cool season cover crop later, warm season cover crops when I did last year.

18:33 So, the best thing I can tell you is any situation like that where you've got a lot of sod built up, especially if you've never if it's never been tilled or worked after you've been in CRP and stuff like that, I would definitely try to get a grain drill through it. It sounds like he maybe broadcasted. Yeah, broadcasted that other stuff. I would try to get a grain drill through it. It would be worth it to try to put a sorghum in there. Doesn't say where you're from, but some sort of sorghum in there because the sorghum really puts a lot of sugar and exudates into the plant. And that's just a lot of food for your microbes. And those microbes are doing your heavy lifting of making that soil healthier. So, maybe try a little bit of microbes. And then go back and I think you should try your oats again in your brassicas. The red clover, the reason that you only had red clover makes me wonder like how much of it got started last fall and then winter killed very possibly. And then the red clover was just winter.

19:39 Hardy enough to make it over winter is what it kind of sounds like might have happened. But yeah, warm season and cool season mixed together like we talked about earlier would fit into that really nicely.

19:53 All right, we've got Joel from East Texas. He has hot dry summers looking for warm season grazing cover crops. Finishing up his spring stuff. Normally does sort stand and millet. Looking for legumes that will do well in hot dry sand.

20:12 I'd be interested to know quite how acidic his soils are to see how big of a factor that would be for the legumes. Potentially, you know, this would be where maybe like the cow peas or the mung beans, I think could potentially work. Like anything, we need moisture. One thing that comes to mind, I don't know, Zach, if you think this would be a fit for like Korean lepodisa potentially in the sand.

20:38 Definitely a challenge. I potentially whatever works well in his spring mixes could help indicate what might correlate well into the summer if he's doing like peas or a veetch or something in the spring.

20:49 Or if you have like a clover that works really well. The acidic is a little bit concerning. You know, I would think like your cow peas probably fit into that. Like you said, very sandy. So maybe it would be something that you tried some Red River cowpeas, something that is grown in more of that hot, dry climate of western Oklahoma. A little bit shorter season.

21:18 I think it depends on the context of sand is a wide deal. Like if it's sugar sand or if it's just a little sandy. In East Texas, I would think it would be some sand with some clay in it probably. So you could probably try to plant some sunhemp. Sunhemp comes out of the ground pretty quick and pretty easy. And it is made for tropical climates. So even though tropicals tend to be wet, they're very very very hot. I mean, very close to the equator, hot for a long time. So that'd be another one to toss in there.

21:53 And like I said, as long as you get moisture, sand is fine. Like, summertime species are designed for the heat. You just got to get them started.

22:04 Yeah. If that pH is too low, there's not a lot of legumes that will tolerate it. Yeah. Quite a few ones to try. And that, you know, if that's potentially one approach to take would be, hey, these are the four legumes we think might fit. Let's just do a low rate of each and then really evaluate, you know, once we you start doing these diverse mixes. You guys who are the farmers, you're the ones with the boots on the ground. You can evaluate the plants and you can learn more, you know, just from trying things and then giving us feedback and helping to give us more context to point you down in the right direction.

22:43 So, I think Alicia is the vineyard. She said 'Yep.' What do you think about that?

22:54 Yeah, the brassicas being a potential host of pests. That's a good call out. We have quite a few customers who especially in like more of the market gardeners folks producing food for humans that do exclude brassicas from their mixes for this sort of reason when we don't want the cover crop to ever be a host for cash crop pests. So, you know, whether that's things that target brassicas in a vineyard, whether that's, you know, we don't put soybeans in your mix if you're a cash crop soybean farmer, right? Like we want to break up pest cycles. So, I think that's a perfectly good consideration. And we do, you know, we even have some mixes on our website that are brassica-free kind of just for this reason because brassicas tend to host so many different special to them pests which is unfortunate for anybody trying to grow them. But yeah, I would just leave them out.

23:53 So Mark is in southern Louisiana and he has a super long growing season. He wants to know if he's too late to plant super summer release or showy flower.

24:05 I sure hope not, Mark, because I planted super summer release yesterday and I haven't planted my showy flower mix yet. I'm in Nebraska. So if you're too late, I'm in trouble.

24:16 Yep. And to maximize to kind of pair into that super summer release, assuming that you're doing it for some type of deer food, you still have plenty of time to get that rolling and started and make full grain well before you know that food plot grain sorghum. I can't remember the exact day.

24:35 But it's a super short season food plot, grain sorghum. So it's going to make grain before you get into September, for sure before you get into October, which will be plenty early for you to either go in with super or fall release or superfall or whatever your fall plans might be. And the showy flower, I mean, it blooms forever. That's why we pick what we do to put in it is to just give people flexibility. I mean, you could plant it in August if you have moisture and it will just continue to flower and grow.

25:19 All right. So, Justin's up there in he's actually a customer up in Springfield, South Dakota, just across the Nebraska border. So, appreciate you tuning in here, Justin. I sure hope you get some rain soon. You're you live not far from where I'm from, and I know it's you've missed a lot of storms.

25:38 Kind of going back to what Zach said earlier, it's probably the thing kind of deal where you want to wait until you do get some moisture or at least have some decent chances at some moisture. Yeah, I'd probably wait a little bit until the outlook's not so bleak. As far as summertime goes, because this drought could go on for a while. In the fall, normally my advice kind of switches and I'm like, go ahead and plant it, you know, you'll get moisture eventually in the fall. Those species don't need they can hang out and wait better, but I think in the summertime we should probably wait for moisture.

26:19 Oh, Jonathan's telling us to read the questions out loud. Okay. Well, so circling back here, Justin said he's in southeast South Dakota D4 drought status getting ready to terminate winter wheat. Should we wait for rain before we plant or just plant and pray? I would probably wait for rain. Yep. There's a lot of summer left. I mean, it's not even June 1st yet. So, good advice. David is in South Central Missouri and he has lots of questions.

26:50 Three years planning multispecies double crop forage, warm and cool season forage with variable results within the field on warm season. Some sorghums are 6 inches tall and 100 feet away, plants are five feet tall, 45 days post-planting, same field, same soil type, same row, no till planted. Post Roundup, I think have some issues in slightly cooler temperatures even though planted mid to late May followed by severe drought. What would you expect the mycorrhizal fungal to have on getting warm season established? All right, lot to take in that.

27:31 Let me see. Plant multispecies grazing crops. So, here is kind of what I've seen over the years on some of these. Anytime there's a big variability in stuff like this, it goes to a few different things. One obvious is like, okay, what's the context of the field? Is there by chance a hard pan right through there? Because there could be hard pans just exist. We have fields that like I know where it's at exactly where it's at and it's going to lift me out of the ground when I'm planting. It could be compaction from the livestock getting in one spot for too long one time when it's too wet. By no fault of anybody's it just kind of happens. The other thing could be you know, maybe it could be a little bit of fertility imbalance right there. There's lots of different things that come up. The way it's coming out of the ground makes me think it's not a toxicity problem or a super crazy pH problem, but there could is some type of other issue there.

28:35 So and then you say cooler temperatures planted mid to late May. I live in southeast Kansas so you're in south central Missouri not too far away. This last week we had three days and it rained and it was 50 degrees and it was raining. So that cools the soil temperature off to 50 degrees because water will heat or cool soil faster than anything else. So those sorghums like 60, 65 degree soil temperatures to get going. So yeah, it's for sure going to be slower and it can stunt it. What I would say is if you can graze that off or get it reset basically push that reset button by grazing across it, let those plants rebound and see what they look like after that. There's just with anomalies in springtime and fall just let it try again.

29:29 And then the mycorrhizal will it have an effect? Absolutely. I mean mycorrhizal is very important to our soil and those plants and the root systems. It's like everything though. It's not a fix-all. So you know take it into context. We sell it, we

29:46 Inoculate seed with it every day. So you could try some, see if it makes a difference. It's going to help long term, though, not necessarily super short term.

29:59 Very good. All right. Eugene has a follow-up question. Would you include a warm season species in a postharvest cover crop for corn, or is this the case when interseeding the cover crop has a greater benefit?

30:14 So postharvest on corn, we're definitely too late, or well not most likely too late at least in Colorado to include any warm season species. I think maybe Zach made the comment, you probably want at least 6 weeks of growing window before your first frost date if we're going to include anything that's warm season. Otherwise, we should be doing more, at least a more of a spring type. So maybe something that winter kills but can tolerate some frost to get more of a value return out of it.

30:41 If you're interseeding a cover crop into corn, even then we still tend to use a lot of cool season stuff because either we're talking about broadcasting into standing corn like in August again where we're kind of pushing up against that first frost date, or we're talking about interseeding in the springtime and then just from our experience a lot of times the cool season species tolerate the shade of the corn canopy better. So probably either way we're mostly looking at the cool seasons and this is a good example of why when you have the opportunity you should really look at doing diverse warm season mixes, because in most cash crop situations those are pushed out and they're just not options to incorporate.

31:28 So yes, in your instance, Eugene, you're probably looking at just more your cool season species because that's just going to be what makes sense.

31:40 All right, Barry has a question. Has anyone no till overseeded a cover crop into a cool season pasture approaching the summer slump? He's in Idaho. You want to take that one, Zach?

31:52 Sure, I can do that. So assuming cool season pasture, so you're going to have some type of improved cool season grasses. Yeah, we definitely do. We have several customers that seed into fescue in the summer or other perennials like that. I mean, you can do it into brooms, wheat grasses, depending on what part of Idaho you're in. Could be wheat grass, too. Yeah, definitely do it. I use, I like to use less diverse mixes in situations like that. Also, seed that is pretty large and with a lot of energy. It's hard to get through a lot of the sod. So a sorghum, honestly, I think maybe a forage sorghum will work better than a sorghum sudan will. Your mung beans or your cowpeas work really well. Kansas State's done a lot of research on sunhemp into cool season pastures and it seems to work, for whatever reason. But then broadleaves grow really well in those pasture settings. I don't know if it's because they have a weedy type tendency, but your buckwheats, your sunflowers, your okras, those plants all take to those perennial pastures really well. The biggest thing is run a drill through it. It's going to do you a lot of good to be able to run a drill through it. You can broadcast and try to irrigate up, but if you're irrigating, you're probably not having too much of a slump. So I'm assuming this is dryland. Yeah, run a drill through it. You'll see a lot of benefits from running that drill through that perennial, too.

33:26 Yeah. And I, you know, if this is something you're pursuing, I would just keep in mind this is not going to be the same performance as if you took these species and planted them into an empty field, right? We're asking seeds to compete with root systems. I think a lot of times it tends to be the fescue pastures in general that this works better on because those go more dormant and so there's more of a window, like your brome grass, if that, if you're getting the rains that might stay active enough to kind of keep it from working. And like the legumes work well, especially because they can fix their own nitrogen so they're not, because most of your fertility in your pasture is tied up in the grass and so those forbs that have kind of different root structures and the legumes that can make their own nitrogen can maybe perform a little bit better. But yep. And then yeah, definitely a situation where we pull our seeding rates down because there's already a bunch of plants out there. But yep, and toss in some brassicas too. Collards or twister turnips, something that's not going to be photoperiod.

39:19 Yields. You're just trying to get a plant to grow, fix some nitrogen, provide some forage, whatever the goals are. And so they are way more forgiving and they move across a variety of soils and geographies a lot better.

39:35 So Will is asking, 'What nitrogen and potash soil levels would you like to see for growing a warm season grazing mix in Florida sandy soils?' So he did a really good job laying out where it's at and the context. He's grazing and he's in sandy soils. The one thing that he's asking is fertility levels basically. And this is an interesting one for us because we have a lot of people that'll ask this. And since we're specializing in our cover crop seed, like Nathan and I spend all of our time learning about what cover crop species or forage species are going to work there. And we can see some starter guidelines, but I don't know that I can actually tell you what exact nitrogen potash soil levels I want you to have in Florida because there's a context past what you shared. Like what's your goal? Are you wanting max production? Because that's going to be way different than having a maintaining level of just forage production out there. So the biggest kicker on that one is like, hey, get it started. I would definitely seek out a local agronomist that focuses on nutrient recommendations in that area. And then, you know, it's kind of like setting a drill. How do we set our grain drill? Well, let's pick a species and say, 'Okay, this is the species. Where should we be?' Well, you got to be careful you don't just say all grasses because they're going to tell you to put way too much nitrogen out there. But just context driven nutrient recommendations. Find somebody local that can kind of look at your mix. You should be able to show them the mix and they'll be able to give you a baseline up to where you should and shouldn't go.

41:16 Yeah. And a simple soil test goes a long way in just gaining some comfortability, right? Like, hey, I have this much nitrogen, this much potassium, calcium, whatever. And yeah, it's I often chuckle how many—and I'm sure no one on this call would ever do this, but like they want a fertilizer recommendation from me. They're willing to spend thousands of dollars on fertilizer without pulling a soil test. Like get the soil test, know where you're at, understand your crop rotation. And just know like vegetative forage crops do not need near the fertility grain crops do. Yep.

41:48 So there's a good chance what you have residually will even get it done.

41:52 All right. Mark is in southern Louisiana. I'm converting an area that has been growing sugarcane for 50 plus years with no rotation of crops. I assume the soil is fairly depleted and want to swap sugarcane for livestock, wildlife, and gardening. What do you suggest I plant to help as I convert and work to build up soil health?

42:14 Well, the good news, Mark, is if you start with a really degraded soil, you have so much room for improvement. So that's good. Yeah, I mean I would just start. It doesn't have to be any more complicated than you know look at the soil health principles. Where are you at? Which ones do you want to focus on improving? Right? So you have a lack of diversity. Well start by based on the timing of the year. What kind of—and it doesn't have to be a crazy 15 species way mix. Just a more diverse mix for forage. You know, can you be planting to start improving your diversity of the plants growing. Make sure you leave the cover out there and the residue to protect it. And then just give it time, right? Improve the system. Build the system that's focused on having diversity and growing the livestock or the wildlife. And then just give it time to work. You know, it took 50 years to degrade the soil. You're not going to fix it in one year of cover cropping. But, you know, the fact that you're listening and learning definitely means you're on the right track. So, if it's this time of year, you know, look at the warm season mixes. It can still have a little bit of a sorghum Sudan, which is related to sugarcane, obviously. You can still use some of that, but like include the other things. Include the legumes, the cowpeas and the sun hemp. Include the sunflowers or the buckwheat or the okra or sesame or like whatever, you know, diversity that kind of fits in the budget in the context. Get that planted, let it grow. You know, graze it when it's appropriate. Don't overgraze it. You can do a lot of harm to soils by overgrazing.

43:48 But yeah, there's definitely a lot of room for improvement when soils extremely degraded. So it'll be good.

43:58 So real quick, Sophie was asking if you could explain why forage crops require less nutrients than cash crops or grain crops.

44:11 Well, if you think about the plant, if you think about a corn plant, since I'm sitting in corn country here, it takes nutrients to grow the stalk and the leaves and the tassel and the roots, but really most of the nutrients that corn plant needs or uses will end up in the grain. So when you're trying to fill out that corn cob, it pulls in tons of nutrients. I mean, if you're talking about 300 bushels of corn per acre, that's all the nutrients inbound the plant uses, cycles, puts into corn, and then gets hauled away. So you end up exporting most of the nutrients that corn plant cycles in the grain. In a forage system, all of the nutrients the plant would need to make the seed, you don't need because you're not going to let it make seed. And then as you graze it, the animals only going to actually, like the animal that's consuming the forage only use about 15 or 20% of the forage for their own body's energy, and the rest ends up as manure and urine back on the field. So most of the nutrients the plants are using ends up just cycling back into the system. Thus forage crops become very in a grazing setting become very low fertility users because it's just mostly cycling. Now that changes a little bit if you're growing like hay or silage and hauling that away. You are removing fertility then which is going to have to be replenished. But yeah, it just comes down to the plant how much nutrients it takes to make seed versus just leaves and stalks.

45:38 Nope, you got it. Removal is key. How does it get removed? Do you haul it off in a truck or you put it back in through an animal?

45:46 All right. Paula says, 'Thank you.' You're welcome.

45:51 David is asking, 'Would you recommend a forage sorghum, sorghum sudangrass, or pearl millet for winter stockpile when combined with legumes and brassica? Depending on rainfall, there is a chance the mix could be grazed prior to winterkill.'

46:07 Yeah, so that's a great question and very good context to add to it. Some of our a lot of our warm season annuals do turn into potential inseason or potential stockpile grazing mixes. I'm a big fan of stockpile grazing mixes. There's just something about that feed value and those warm season plants after it freezes and you don't have to put it up in a bale. So for sorghum, sorghum sudangrass or pearl millet, the forage sorghum is definitely going to stand much better. Sorghum sudangrass is going to be okay. And then lastly, pearl millet. Pearl millet leaves will shred very very quickly, which means basically once it freezes and it kills the plant, the pearl millet deteriorates the fastest. When you're also using a stockpile mix, look for something that is a bititic dwarf or a shorter stature because you don't necessarily want something that's going to be 10 to 14 foot tall out there after it freezes. It's going to lose a lot of its integrity. The brittic dwarf, the collar on the leaf really squeezes that stalk tight, so it holds on very nicely. And then I always like to look for high sugar products if I'm doing a stockpile mix. So like our male sterile products because they're going to keep all the sugar that they would have put into a head or reproduction. They're going to keep it in their stalk. So basically there's going to be a ton of sugar for those animals to graze standing after it freezes. Even after it freezes, it keeps the sugar in the stalk. So it works really well. And then you combine it with legumes. Look for legumes that don't shed leaves. Most soybeans have been bred to shed all their leaves after they freeze so that they can be harvested. Cow peas don't shed nearly as bad as soybeans. Laredos actually hold their leaves pretty well. And then sunhemp is another one that holds leaves pretty well. So just look for all those different things that you can do to basically help stand that mix up. Keep it upright so that the animals don't have to be eating it off the ground. They're going to trample some, but you just will give them the opportunity to get it first.

48:23 Well said. Keith has a follow-up question here. Looking for regrowth for grazing on the broad leaves. So what broad leaves recommended for regrowth for grazing? He mentioned some again he looks like he's mostly grazing sheep, but this would apply to any livestock.

48:41 The ability for a plant to regrowth depends on a couple factors. The biggest most important factor is where is the growing point. So the growing point for a lot of grasses is in like the in the roots. Basically it grows from the ground up pushes up. So that's why most grasses can be hayed off or grazed off and they just come right back. So a lot of broad leaves the dicots lead with their growing point. So as that growing point goes up once that gets cut off they may not regrow as well.

49:09 The other factor in all this is the stage of the plant when it's being grazed or potentially hayed or mowed or whatever. So like a cowpea plant for example in a very young vegetative state if it's then grazed off it'll regrow much better versus in a more mature state it's going to be a lot less likely to regrow as well. So for broad leaves that regrow the best definitely the true biennials. So hybrid turnips, collards, hybrid kales, those regrow excellent. In fact, that's why a lot of the hybrid turnips have been developed. They got the purple bulb taken away, all roots, all leaves, and they regrow really well.

49:49 So if in a grazing mix where you're going to get multiple passes, those make a lot of sense, especially for like the sheep production. I would lean on those pretty hard because the elms are going to really like them and do well. Korean lespedeza would be an example of a warm season legume that regrows really well. I think the cowpeas or the sun hemp can also regrow well earlier in the season. I wouldn't expect it to come back as well as like the grasses do, but you'll definitely get some regrowth out of it. You know, for example, like a sunflower plant once like the flowers out and you graze it off, it's going to be done because the growing point was up and it got too mature. So but that's a good question.

50:28 Yep. One other context to add to that is you spoke where the growing point is on the broad leaf. If you're able to rotate them around enough or quick enough to where they're not physically removing all of the all of the leaves or the growth points, that's going to let them grow back quicker and you're a lot less likely to terminate something if you do leave leaves still on it.

50:52 Yep. Absolutely.

50:56 All right. Okay, so we have someone in North Texas near the Red River. Heavy red clay, sandy loam soils. What would be the best option for warm season and cool season cover for the clays?

51:15 Well, in the summertime the clay for clay soils like on the grass front like sorghum sudans do, they'll handle clay soils quite a bit better a lot of times comparatively to like say millets. A lot of times with clay soils we want to get like some good tap roots in there trying to open things up some plants that have pretty good rooting ability. I mean it gets hard if it gets dry and that clay soil kind of crusts up then a lot of things are going to be struggling but yeah I'd look for a fairly diverse mix in the warm season, base it on sorghum sudan, and then I would add some brassicas, I'd add some sunflowers, maybe some sun hemp. Those plants that have good deep rooting ability, I think would be best. I think in the cool season, you know, a lot of that would then become more like goal dependent. You know, do you want to go heavy cereal rye or winter critically or are you planting early enough to include some brassicas in the mix or is it getting too late?

52:13 You can fill in there, Zach, for whatever I missed.

52:16 Yeah. No, I think you got it. I like bigger seeds in this the heavier clay you have. Give it some more energy.

52:27 All right. Dean is in southern Alabama has a question. Any good cover seeds that may overwinter and summer well with bird activity and add to seed bank for the following year if they don't germinate initially?

52:46 Overwinter and summer well, nothing will bring a bird in like an insect. Depending on what your context is that may kind of guide you to it. Bird activity. When I hear bird activity, I think especially South Alabama, I'm thinking like, are you talking about turkeys? Because there could be a chance of that. But basically, if you want something to overwinter and summer well, it's going to need to either be a biennial or a perennial.

53:21 And to get the bird activity, the more flowers you can get is going to bring in the most amount of insects. And then you're feeding it. Honestly, all the brassicas reseed well. So if you're

53:33 Looking for something to create its own seed bank, throw some radishes or honestly any of the brassicas in the springtime outside of like collards and turnips, but like get them to go through their lifespan and reseed themselves. Clovers will reseed themselves. Crimson reds more of a perennial, but I think something like that probably sounds like what you're looking for. But we don't have any like bird attracting necessarily outside of like our game bird mix, but it's all annual style.

54:08 More warm season annual mix, but that could be this. And I know folks who do this, right? Plant kind of that summer annual mix, grow it up like you said, have all the flowers, bring in the insects, also have a lot of things that set grain. You know, again, it depends on the bird, whether you're looking for seed or just insects, but like some of those millets and things that, you know, foxtail millet things that actually like end up in bird seed that you can buy at the store. Just grow those. Let the seeds fall where they fall. You have the plants, you know, even though they're dead. That's plant structure. That's habitat. Give them a place to live. So yeah, mostly about food and shelter when you're talking about habitat. That's what animals need.

54:50 And then Dean has a second question here. Could you go over best low moisture covers for fall and summer broadcast again? So I think on the summer broadcast, we're talking mainly about like the millets, whatever millet makes sense for the context, and your goals. But that would kind of be on the millet side. For the fall, low moisture, I mean, the first thing I think of is cereal rye, just because it's such a tough plant if you're looking to broadcast something out there.

55:25 Whether or not you want to do a lot of the brassicas like I mentioned African cabbage for summertime or you know you'd have a lot of other options too for fall cool season brassicas. In southern Alabama I wouldn't expect too much low moisture. Sometimes some folks think they're in low moisture, but then to someone else that sounds like a whole gob of moisture. So you probably don't need to worry too much about low moisture in Alabama, I wouldn't think, unless you're in a bad drought. But yeah, that's what comes to mind for me.

56:05 Well, Carl Parker, Carl, thanks for joining us here. Decided to mow the winter cover that's still standing. As you know, I've planted my summer mix. I've been working with Carl now for a couple years, maybe just one year, actually. I don't know. But he's doing some really cool things out there in North Carolina, improving some old crop ground. The mowing I've done before germination isn't concerned, but I'm getting into some areas that have some sunflowers and other things several inches tall. Will these young sprouts bounce back after being hit with a tractor tire, or will they be permanently damaged? Thank you all for your help.

56:41 So this is kind of going back to that and maybe this question was posted before we talked about it, but the idea that you know where the growing point's at and if the growing point's still below the ground, the plant's protected, it can come back. If the growing point is now leading and you've completely decimated the plant, there could be some lasting damage there. I wouldn't be too worried about just tractor tires though because you know even if you have a foot wide space where a lot of the damage is done the plants right beside it are mostly going to fill that in and the overall stand really won't be too badly impacted by that.

57:22 Jonathan says we're running up against our time span. It's 10 o'clock.

57:33 Alrighty. Well, as they say, time flies when you're having fun. We really appreciate everyone for joining us. Sorry for a couple of you folks that didn't quite get your questions answered. You're always more than welcome to either call into Green Cover or you can submit questions via our website. You can just kind of type out an email question, send it in, and someone from Green Cover would be happy to answer those questions. But you know like as always we appreciate the opportunity to visit with you all and just help you out on your journey of soil health improvement. You know Green Cover's mission is to help people regenerate, steward, and share God's creation for future generations. So that starts with education. So with that, appreciate everyone's time. Have a great day.