What to Plant After Wheat Harvest: High-Quality Forage and Free Nitrogen

0:00 Hey everybody, welcome back to another episode of the Green Cover podcast where we have really interesting conversations with some of the top experts and producers in the regenerative ag world. Join us and let's learn together how we can steward God's creation for future generations.

0:14 Hey, you know, wheat harvest is going on right now here in Nebraska and Kansas. We're in mid-to-late June and wheat harvest is either getting going or it's going to be going. And you know, it's a time of the year that presents new opportunities for anyone who has not only wheat, but any type of summer harvested crop. And so we want to look into what can you do with those acres after you harvest that wheat because it's certainly not the end of the growing season. It's the beginning of the opportunity season. And joining me today is one of my favorite people, Dale Strickler, who is going to share a lot of ideas on what you can do with that.

0:54 Now, many of you will recognize Dale. Dale formally was part of the Green Cover team and now is an independent consultant doing regenerative ag work kind of all over the country. So, Dale, welcome to the Green Cover podcast.

1:08 Thank you. Great being here, Greg. Yeah, it's always fun to have conversations with you because we don't hopefully we won't get down too many rabbit trails on this one. But I know you and I in the past have had many conversations about all of the opportunities that open up when you can plant a cover crop in the summertime and you're not always chasing the very end of the season and, you know, October and November. So, love this time of year for doing this. But before we get into all of that, for the people that don't know you, Dale, give just a little bit of your background, you know, your experiences, how you've kind of come up through different things and have really kind of put yourself in the position as someone who has a tremendous body of experience within the regenerative ag world.

2:00 Oh, yeah. Well, I grew up on a diverse flood farm in Southeast Kansas. We raised everything from cattle, corn, beans, and wheat down to ducks, you know, so it was the whole Old MacDonald routine. And then when I went to college, went to Kansas State, one of my roommates actually, two of my roommates were growing cover crops. And I thought that was the dumbest idea I'd ever heard of. Like, they're going to use up all your moisture, and you won't— They said, 'No, no, it doesn't work that way. Trust us.' And finally, I was convinced to try it myself, and of course, my dad said, 'That's not going to work. You're going to use up all the moisture, and then, you know, you're going to ruin the next crop.' And I talked him into letting me rent some wheat stubble from him. Cuz ordinarily, we'd double crop beans and lose money, or let it sit idle and make no money. And so, he had nothing to lose, everything to gain.

3:17 And it was 1988, you know, very hot, dry year there. And my dad was furious that I was using up whatever limited moisture he had, and he was sure it was going to cause the failure of the next corn crop. Of course, he let me rent his very worst field. And then, the next year, that became our best upland field. And he said, 'Kit, I think you're on to something.' And he eventually became one of the biggest cover crop advocates in all of Southeast Kansas. He would chase people— people would avoid him because he would chase them down the street trying to tell them about cover crops. You know, people would be like, avoid it. Oh, look out, here he comes. And so that led me down the journey of that I'm still continuing today. I mean, here I am almost 40 years later, still just more excited than I was on day one because I just keep learning more and more. And I've become like my dad. I at least I think that's why people avoid me all the time.

4:27 Is they're scared I'm going to talk cover crops with them nonstop, but and regenerative agriculture and all the other cool things about regenerative agriculture.

4:37 Yeah, and you know, one of the things, Dale, that I think you really have that maybe a lot of other people don't is you've got a great perspective because you've traveled extensively both here in the states and overseas. And so I imagine as we're talking through a lot of these options, you'll be able to talk about how you've seen these things work not just in Kansas, not just in Nebraska, but these principles work everywhere.

5:01 Oh, yeah, they're they're universal. The sun shines around the world, you know, and if the soil's made up of organic matter, sand, silt, clay, you know, that the geo—

5:13 Geology's similar, the climate's similar. I mean, climates vary, but still the sun shines, the rain falls. And these principles are universal. And it's amazing people say, 'Well, that'll work there, but it'll not work here.' That's very seldom the case. But I hear that everywhere I go and everywhere I go they're wrong. These principles are universal.

5:41 So let's dig into some of these. And again, we want to have this conversation specifically around what opportunities are out there and I say wheat harvest but you know it could be harvesting rye, could be peas, it could be you know any summer harvested crop. What opportunities are out there for the operation that is harvesting something in June, July and August. Let's just start with some of the purposes because when you were with Green Cover I know you said the same thing that our sales guys are saying now when somebody wants to do a cover crop mix we always start out with what do you want to try to accomplish? You know what are your goals? And so what would some of the goals be for this type of planting?

6:26 Well I think for a lot of people a big one, of course, money's always tight, you know, farming is a large volume low margin operation so generating some sort of cash return or lowering your inputs is probably really paramount. And the other benefits can be more long-term but trying to make this practice pay in the short-term is important. So I think forage production is probably number one purpose.

7:03 And I think number two is probably especially since March of this year with skyrocketing fertilizer cost is improving soil fertility and the most obvious one there is nitrogen. There's other things, you know, there's reducing compaction, there's alleviating weed pressure, moisture management, nematode management, there's a lot, erosion control, you know, the original purpose of cover crops stopping soil erosion. There's a lot of secondary benefits but I think forage and fertility are probably number one, number two.

7:47 Yeah, and with the price of cattle right now, that's a pretty big deal, you know. It is. And you know, I know in our area with the fires that we've had in the Sandhills, it's consuming a lot of the stock piled forage in this area because a lot of those cattle aren't going to go out to pasture. They're being dry lotted. So, I think forage prices, at least in our area and probably others, are going to be higher this year than in past years.

8:20 I think that'll be true. I mean, the drought out west is reaching historic levels. I know western Nebraska, my gosh, I mean, when they're talking about it on YouTube and I'm getting it in my YouTube feed about the drought in Nebraska, you know it's really serious.

8:39 Yeah, there's some really rough areas out there. So, for areas that do catch a little bit of moisture and can maybe grow something, let's talk first of all about that forage situation. Is it, you know, you would plant something right after wheat harvest and then would you graze it, you know, 6 weeks later or what are people's options there?

9:02 Well, I think there's a lot of options. I mean, you can obviously, you know, 4 to 6 weeks after planting is about as soon as you can graze it. But that's not when you have to graze it. You can design, I mean, there's infinite options. You can design a mix to be grazed, you know, within a month after planting. You know, if you plant it 1st of July, you could be grazing it by the 1st of August. And graze it until frost if it's all summer annuals. You could plant it and graze it really anytime after that, including through the dead of winter.

9:47 Now, different mixtures, you know, when I was designing mixtures, if you tell me you want to graze in August and September, versus I want to graze in January and February, that's probably two completely different mixtures. But you have the option of both. And one thing I used to do when people say, 'Do you want to graze in August and September or January and February?' And they say, 'Yes.' And I say, 'Okay, done. But it'll take a different mix.' Now, it can be the same field, but you can put, you know, half your field in this mix and half your field in the other mix and just move them from one portion to the other.

10:31 The other as the season progresses. And they don't have to be trucked up and down the road. They can stay in the same field. They can graze the August-September mix, and then maybe during time of frost, you can have a mixture, of course, at frost, that has some challenges because of prussic acid concerns if sorghums are part of the mix.

10:57 You can compose a prussic acid-free mix that's safe to graze at frost, retains its quality, and then have an additional mix for that contains sorghums again that retain their quality very well after a hard freeze. Then, you can have 160 acres, you can have 70 acres on the summer mix and 20 acres of the frost mix, and then 70 acres of the stockpiled winter grazing mix, and if you're summer grazing mix, one additional trick is after it's grazed off you can put a winter drill a winter mix right in that stubble and have something growing early next spring. You can have one field that provides grazing from the 1st of August clear up to the 1st of May or even the 1st of June the following spring if you desire and at a very high carrying capacity.

11:58 Now what's that worth now with the price of cattle, especially if you're short on forage.

12:09 Yeah, we love working with people that think like that and aren't necessarily saying well I've got 200 acres let's just plant it all the one mix. I mean that's easy for us to do. But on the other hand from that standpoint one that it may not provide all the Yeah, but it may not be the best option. So talk a little bit Dale about different species that you might use. You know, you talked about sorghum versus millet, you know, prussic acid versus not. But you know, there's you know, we probably have 15 different kinds of sorghum. Which sorghums would you use for the early graze versus the late graze? And then what other plants would you put in there for your August September grazing versus your winter stock pile grazing?

12:52 Yeah, and genetic particularly in sorghum because sorghum is such a variable species. You got sorghum forage sorghum, sorghum sudan grass, straight sudan grass, you got dwarfs, photoperiod sensitive, all I mean, BMRs you've got a whole big range and there's some new ones that have come out as well like your prussic acid free type products in sorghums which are a complete game changer in my opinion. Sorghums are kind of the to me the backbone. I mean that's because no other plant number one, no other plant probably converts moisture into dry matter better than sorghum. Or sorghum sudan grass, you know, the sorghum families. And number two they're probably because sorghum botanically is a perennial that winter kills. You know, Johnson grass of course is a sorghum that acts as a perennial in a temperate region but sorghums are perennials and because they're perennials they give off root exudates and create this massive root mass like a perennial crop but do it in a very short growing season. Which no other annual crop really does that. You do root digs. I mean, you remember when we did the where we what was the soil health test score in the root balls of all these different cover crops and the sorghums just really kind of blew everything away. Because of the massive amount of root exudates and root exudates what feeds your entire soil microbiology. Which is where all your long-term soil improvement comes from. And so sorghums really have huge advantage.

14:48 Now, if I'm wanting something for summer grazing, I think a dwarf brown midrib sorghum sudan grass is probably my number one product. I think dwarf BM or dwarf pearl millet of some kind. BMR pearl millet. You know, these are high regrowth. They're very tolerant of in-season grazing. They regrow extremely rapidly because the dwarfs have growing points kept low to the ground. So even after an animal grazes them, they've got a lot of intact growing points left and they just sprout new leaves. Quality's phenomenal. I think some summer legumes like sunn hemp, cowpeas, mung beans, for soybeans, lablab, there's a number of summer legumes that can produce a lot of nitrogen and a lot of protein. Nitrogen's needed to make protein. It's Protein is 1/6 nitrogen. So, you can create not just protein for the animal, but also nitrogen for the following crop. Long-term soil improvement. Sunflowers, I mean, I think you said sunflowers ought to be in every summer

16:06 Mix. I'm like, 'Ah, I don't know about that.' But you were right. I mean, they just bring so many advantages. Buckwheat, there's a lot of other species you put in there to add some diversity. Okra, for some additional nutritional value. I would say, you know, sort of dwarf BMR sorghum, pearl millet, sunn hemp, cowpeas, mung beans, or lablab, and sunflowers, okra, and buckwheat are probably my top, you know, eight or nine species there. And I like putting in something as a lower growing species, like a browntop millet or something that's a little lower growing and so that when you graze through there, I love crabgrass, but crabgrass can cause some issues, so it's not every situation calls for crabgrass, but it fills that niche. Three-awn lespedeza as a legume is a low-growing species that can catch after you make that grazing pass. There's still leaf area next to the ground to catch that sunlight and convert it into nitrogen or feed or protein, whatever. So that's the summer mix.

17:31 I want to back up just a little bit just so people don't get the wrong impression here. You know, when you're talking about a dwarf sorghum, that's a dwarfing dwarf trait. People might be thinking, 'Well, why would I plant that because I'm going to give up all my tonnage, all my quality? It's going to be a smaller plant.' But that's not really true because that plant has all the leaves, it just doesn't have all of the stock because those nodes are just closer together. Maybe talk just a little bit about why that's important and why that's actually a good thing and not a bad thing.

18:05 Tim, so I did a trial. This predated my green cover days, but I put a situation where I was trying to promote these dwarf type genetics and had a guy split a field half and half and put an equal number of stocker steers on both sides and fertilized everything. We paid for the seed, we paid for the herbicide, we paid for the fertilizer, and even helped him plant it. And for the first 6 weeks, all he did was complain about how much yield he was giving up because we talked him into planting half the field to this dwarf because it was half the height of the tall product. It was shorter. He said, 'Look at all the tonnage I'm giving up.' He said, 'You guys are going to have to compensate me for that.' Well, they turned in the cattle 30 days later, 6 weeks later I think it's 6 weeks later. We got another call from this guy and he's saying, 'Hey, my calves on that tall stuff, we need to end this experiment. My cows on that tall stuff are completely out of feed and I'm going to have to move them all the way over to the other, to the dwarf, so they still have feed.' They ran out of feed. And so he weighed both sides and the dwarf produced 100 lbs by that time. Produced 100 lbs more beef per acre. 100 lbs per acre. What's that worth in today's dollars?

19:51 And it still had forage left. And still had forage left and it carried the entire herd for another 2 weeks before he terminated it both sides and planted it to wheat. So that's pretty significant and that 2 weeks of extra gain was not measured. So I don't know what that would have amounted to, probably another 50 lbs I'm guessing.

20:15 So don't get hung up on the word dwarf because it doesn't mean you're giving up a lot. You're not giving up the quality, you're not giving up the leaves, you're just giving up some of that height, but if you're in an area that gets a lot of wind, you don't want a 10-ft tall sorghum plant. Yeah, and all that extra height is stem. And animal gain comes from leaves and so if you can produce more leaves and less stem you produce more animal gain and the regrowth is phenomenal. And so I love the dwarf products for summer grazing.

20:54 We sell a lot of dwarf sorghum Sudan. So how would you change that up? How would you do that differently if you were trying to stock pile graze, you know, not grazing August, September, October, but you know, you're more that mid-October through January.

21:10 Okay. So, you know, if I'm trying to do October, then obviously, I don't want products that are going to be susceptible to prussic acid. I don't want things that are going to get too lignified. Usually, as things head out, they start losing quality. So anything any genetic

21:32 Package that's going to delay heading, longer maturities, or things that animals can eat the seed pods without problem. Sunflowers are a great example. Sunflowers are good over a very long period of time because animals eat the heads. They're full of protein. They're full of oil. Really beneficial for animals.

21:58 But particularly with the sorghums, I want things that aren't going to head out. I don't want the risk of acidosis. I don't want a lot of grain. A little grain is okay, but it's hard to limit their intake of grain and keep them from getting an acidic rumen. So the photoperiod sensitives or male sterile packages in sorghum, or something that's just really late, long maturity, like 118, 120-day maturity products, they are going to hit frost before they ever actually produce grain. Those are my favorites for stockpile.

22:48 And I love church for stockpile grazing. One of the things I think one of the most impressive things, and this is one of those, I thought you green cover folks were just crazy the first time I one of you guys, I don't even remember who it was, maybe it was Colton back in the day that put some sort of squash or something in a cover crop mix and I'm like, why? And gourds. Gourds. I'm like, why would you eat the gourds in the cover crop mix? What do these bring? I was absolutely shocked at how well those gourds work. I think of gourds while they're good for birdhouses and nothing else. Cattle love those gourds in the wintertime.

23:39 They find around, they'll climb up in the canopy and find sunlight that would otherwise hit bare soil and convert it into these dry fruits that just keep their quality. Clear. I remember one of our field days, I picked up a gourd in June. It was June 2nd. That burned in my mind. Here's this gourd and I said, I popped it open and it's just as good as it was the previous fall. And I'm like, I wonder what this thing tastes like. Now, it did not taste like pumpkin pie. But it was perfectly edible even to me. Not the shell, but

24:21 Well, now now hold on. That's not necessarily saying a lot because if anybody knows Dale very well, Dale doesn't just chew on cover crops. Dale kind of grazes his way through. So most things are edible to Dale.

24:35 I have a highly demanding tapeworm. So. Uh that's not very picky, but he is demanding. So quantity over quality.

24:51 So and we have, yeah, we love adding that. We have what we call the cucurbit blend. It's got melons, it's got squash, it's got gourds, cucumbers, all those things all mixed together and it doesn't take a lot because one of those plants can cover a lot of area.

25:10 Oh yeah. And if you know, we've all seen that when you plant any crop and you have a skip in your planting pattern, that gap gets filled with weeds. When you have some cucurbits in the mix, those vines reach over, find those spots, and just pack them full of fruit that become super concentrated packages of nutrition for those animals. And I think another important part of especially the gourds, another thing I really like about gourds because they do climb up in the canopy, they kind of lace everything together and lock them together because one of the enemies of these stockpiled mixes is really wind. Wind blows, moves the stocks around, breaks them over, shreds the leaves. They fall on the ground and then get covered up by snow. But when you have those gourds up in that canopy, the vines just lock everything together so they don't rattle around. And it just works together. It really does.

26:22 I like having stiff stocked products like sunflowers and okra in there. The sunflower heads are good in the wintertime. And the stocks help hold the even if the sorghum is trying to fall down, those branches on sunflowers and okra hold everything up and keep it off the ground, keep it above the snow, and keep it from rotting and decaying. And so I think stiff stock products are good and I love having some green out there. Spring peas or some of the, oh, bio kale. Something that has and it's amazing when you have

27:16 A little bit of green out there, how much better animals utilize the dry material. And I think the other thing is, when you have this big tall canopy of sorghums and stuff, that green material underneath stays. I mean, the air temperature above the canopy might be 10 below, but it might be because of that blanket of residue out there, it might be 10 above. And kale will stay green until you hit single digits. So it might be. I've seen it stay green a month longer in a mixture than it was out in the open. And so there is synergy in diversity.

28:06 Yeah, yeah, how about adding a cereal grain in with that? Oats, barley, any of those sorts of things? Do you like those in a stock pile mix? I think it depends a little on when you plant it. And I'll, I guess I'd ask you the same question. Well, I've seen rye just kind of burn up, but you plant it in August and it's like, 'Wow, this works great, you know.' I've seen oats planted in the summer just get ate up with rust. But there's some rust resistant oats now that that's so what have you seen? I'd like to ask you this question.

28:50 For me to me the best stockpile mixes are planted not June 15th, but they're planted, you know, the first 2 weeks of August. I love planting cover crops then because you can do warm season and cool season together. I still have enough time. I can still probably get 75, 80% of my growth out of my sorghum. Especially as you go south, but you know, there's a lot of heat units left yet. So I can still get a good growth on my sorghum, but now I can put oats or barley in and you know, those things aren't going to die with that first frost. Turnips, radishes, collards, kale, you know, pick your choice on the brassicas. They're all going to kind of work that time. I can probably still do some mung beans to get some quick growth out of the warm season, but I can also do the peas like you said. So it, you're exactly right. It depends on when you're planting it. But I think and I know a lot of people don't want to mess with this, but if you really want to do it right for your forage, you don't graze everything at the same time. So you shouldn't necessarily plant everything at the same time.

30:00 Yeah. So you might need to split plant that field and do something early for grazing early and do a little bit delayed for your stockpile.

30:08 Or, here's another one because when you do plant later, you do give up tonnage. So, here's another thought. Let's just say you do, you know, a third, half, 40% of your field to a summer grazing mix. You essentially graze it out and you're in September now or October and you drill in winter annuals there and maybe some brassicas, things like that. And it's still early enough you're going to get some good growth. Now, it's not going to be 10 tons an acre like your summer stock pile forage or 5 tons or whatever. Maybe you've got a ton an acre of this. Let's say you got 6 tons an acre on your and and you half your field is your summer stock pile. And it may not have a lot of green in. Now, if you could have some green to mix with that, you get far better performance. But you can use time limit grazing to blend those two because your summer mix after the winter annuals that you planted in that a couple months earlier you might have, let's say, a ton an acre on the on that field. Now, that's not enough maybe to carry your whole herd for more than a week or two possibly. But if you could have a system of grazing and fencing where you can turn them on that say one morning every third day so that the protein is still cycling in their system, which typically protein will cycle in a ruminant for about 3 days after a big meal. Then you put them on the stock piled sorghum for the next 2 and 1/2 days and keep repeating that cycle. So, let's just say you've got enough green material to last 2 weeks if you grazed it exclusively. Well, that doesn't seem like much of contribution. But let's say instead it's only 1/6 of the diet because you're only grazing half a day every third day. Now, you take that 2 weeks, now it's 12 weeks. Which for most people that's the entire winter hay feeding period that they would otherwise do. And you get, you can support much better animal performance through that combination than you can either one alone.

32:45 Yeah. And while that sounds really complicated, you know, as more and more people get grazing collars, now that becomes just a matter of getting on your phone and dialing it in, literally. Dial it in.

32:58 It is. And you know, it can be just running, opening gates and running them off of one or the other and especially if your water source is located where they have to leave the green material. I mean, they're going to want to stay on the green the whole time. But if you have water where they have to leave that field to get to water, you just have to have a means where the gate can be shut. But you're right. These collars are incredibly powerful for intensifying your management and the number of options that open up when you have that kind of technology, just unreal.

33:42 Yeah, it's almost endless. I think like any technology that's going to continue to get cheaper and better and more prevalent. So exciting times ahead, I think, for anybody that's grazing. I think that covers you know, that purpose pretty well. You know, the grazing, the forage, all kinds of options there and you know, our sales team has a lot of experience in designing those mixes. But look let's talk about you know, that second option, Dale, that you talked about. And that was the fertility, you know, both cycling fertility as well as producing fertility in the case of nitrogen. What how would you design mixes? What do you look at in the timing there? How do people gauge how many nutrients they've kind of liberated or produced in order to, you know, because you have to have some idea because it doesn't make sense to spend money on the cover crop and then still put the same fertility on next year. So, how do you think about all those sorts of things?

34:47 Oh, gosh. That's a lot to discuss right there but it's a great question. It really is. Because, you know, when I first started doing this thing, that was what people asked. They said, 'Well, I have no idea how much nitrogen I've got out there, so I might as well just put on the same amount I always have because I don't want to short my crop on yield.' Well, that's back when it cost 30 cents a pound. Yeah, but now it's three times that. You know, you want to take credit for all the nitrogen you're producing. Yeah, and so of course, if you follow that corn crop up with the another cover crop, you can suck up that leftover nitrogen and doesn't go to waste. It just feeds your next crop. And I think that's something that people ought to definitely look at, you know.

35:42 But I think one of the ways to measure what you've actually fixed, I think a Haney test is pretty important. You can also there are some I guess what I'd call post-emergence type things. The Black the old Blackmer test, which has been around for a long time, which is some people call it the pre-sidedress nitrogen test. Where basically your last opportunity to put on nitrogen, at least you know, with a ground rig. If you have a pivot, you can put nitrogen on, you know, clear on up through harvest, if you want to. But, the pre-side dress nitrate test, you take it, you know, when corn's about knee-high, foot to a knee-high, and well, knee-high on me, maybe. Maybe not so much on you. But, you test for the level of nitrate in the field. And if it's I believe numbers 25 or greater, you've got enough to maximize corn yield. And if it's less than that, then it's got a little table that you can put them on.

37:00 The Haney test, obviously, you would take prior to planting. And the great thing about the Haney test is traditional soil tests didn't actually really measure nitrogen. It was just take your yield goal times this number and subtract off, you know, what you think will get. It was just a guess. I mean, honestly. Nitrogen recommendations were a guess until Haney came along. They said, 'You know, let's fine-tune this a little bit. Let's figure out what you're actually going to receive from your organic fraction.' And now, what a game-changer. And so, I would start with something like that. And you know, it's an eyeball type deal. You know, if you've got a corn plant that's you know, 9% protein, and you got a legume crop, legume cover crop that's 18% protein, well, there's twice as much nitrogen per pound in the legume. So, if all that legume dies and decays, and assuming 100% of that is available to the next crop, which never quite the case, but let's just hypothetically say that, then a pound of legume cover crop will produce 2 lb of corn biomass. Roughly. And so, if you grow 3 tons of legume,

44:07 And you take off that canopy and boom, up it pops. And once it hits that sunlight, it's amazing. I mean, like 2 weeks after wheat harvest, you've got a green field out there. So it kind of advances your relay cropping. It advances that period. And I've seen somebody make—I probably shouldn't mention his name without his permission, but he sent me pictures of where he seeded red clover in the wheat, harvested the wheat, and then double cropped sunflowers after that wheat. And he had a beautiful crop of blooming red clover growing between those rows of sunflowers.

44:51 He could harvest the sunflowers because you're only taking the very top of the plant, and then turn the cattle in. So he gets a cash crop in sunflowers, nitrogen fixation from the clover, compaction breaking from both the sunflowers and then the tap roots of the clover, and fall forage for his cattle. What a beautiful system that is. Talk about a multi-purpose field.

45:19 Yeah. And he could have been charging people 10 bucks a piece to come take their pictures out there because I'm sure they were beautiful.

45:26 I have an old college roommate that, of course, all my college roommates are old now. He's got one of those little posts that you slide your money in and said, 'Take pictures, you know, sunflowers, you know, a dollar a head or whatever.' And he makes several thousand dollars a year from that deal. He plants along 24 highway between Kansas City and Manhattan.

45:56 And it is amazing how many people—when I grew sunflowers, I had a guy that took all his wedding pictures in front of that. So, yeah, there's that possibility. And if you're planting now, sunn hemp, cowpeas, lablab, mung beans, forage soybeans—probably my top.

46:19 Now, if you're planting in August, you've got all the cool season things in play. Now, I have planted cool season legumes in July, and they struggle a bit, but they don't die routinely. If they're mixed in—and we've all seen the power of diversity. When you have the other taller species that create that cooler microclimate, some these cool season species can—

46:50 They'll hang in there pretty well. And it depends on how far north and south you are, as well.

46:58 Let's talk about maybe a third purpose, because I do hear this fairly often, because weeds are a big deal everywhere. I don't care who you are, weed suppression is always going to be a big deal. And coming in after the summer harvested crops, it can be a benefit to weed control, and it can also be a disaster if not handled properly.

47:22 Yeah. And the disaster typically happens—this is what I've seen anyway—is when people plant into a weedy field. Those cover crops are not going to suppress weeds that are already there.

47:37 Right. But if you can start clean, they do a pretty good job. Talk a little bit about how you have seen cover crops be a benefit to the weed control portion of the system.

47:47 Yeah. So it's kind of like the dating game, you know, the ugly guy that asked a girl to prom has a far better chance than a handsome guy like me who didn't get around to asking till the night before prom. So which is why I often went to prom by myself. So at least that's my theory.

48:17 So the pigweeds—you know, pigweeds have a very small seed. So they're very weak emerging. They're not good seedling competitors. They're highly dependent on sunlight. But once they get out of the ground and get those first couple leaves off, from that point on, they're going to grow incredibly fast because of their C4 photosynthesis, which is unusual in a broadleaf.

48:52 Our cover crops, our summer cover crops, typically have very large seeds. So the seed has a lot of energy there. It can get out of the ground very quickly. But if you have pigweeds that are 3 inches tall when you plant those other ones, your crop doesn't have much of a chance. It is incredibly important. Everybody's wanting to cut costs, but this is not a place to cut cost. Unless you want—unless you consider pigweeds as one of your desired components in the mix.

49:29 I have a burndown. I think that is really, really important. I think it's also important.

49:40 Plant as soon as possible. I tell people, they say, 'When should I plant this after harvest?' I said, 'I want the chaff spreader blowing straw on your windshield of your tractor with the pollen.' Said, I ideally, I mean, I've seen where people have drills mounted on the belly of the combine so the chaff spreads on top of the seed in the furrow. Which to me is the ideal situation, but that's kind of a pain. Nobody wants to mess with that. But, theoretically, that's what I'd like to see.

50:24 Once you take the canopy of that wheat off, if you're in moisture is so critical in July, it disappears so rapidly once you take that canopy off. You know, taking that wheat off or whatever grain, man, the wind gets closer to that surface, the sun's hitting that surface, you're losing moisture very quickly. If you plant the day of harvest, I mean, if you don't believe me, try it. Plant the day of harvest on part of the field, wait a week, and if it doesn't rain within that week, a lot times, only half that field comes up. It's so important to be prompt with your planting, and I think it's also really important eliminate any competing weeds. And people make this mistake constantly. They're trying to save a few dollars. That's not a place to skimp on expense.

51:28 Yeah, and totally agree. Another strategy that some people would employ, especially if they're doing more of the stockpile type mix like we talked about, is you can delay, and not by a week, but, you know, maybe by 6 weeks, and let your weeds grow, let that first flush of volunteer wheat get up and going, and then you terminate and you plant clean in August. It number one, it takes care of some volunteer wheat, which we'll talk about that here in a second. But it also then allows you to have a much better chance of having cool season things in your mix, much more diverse mix. And you can really hit that stock pile window much better.

52:10 You know, as we kind of draw this to a little bit of a close here soon, Dale, we've been talking about a lot of great things, but there are some some real challenges. Wheat control is one of them. But volunteer wheat is is another one as well, and especially in areas that grow a lot of wheat, you know, the wheat streak mosaic issue is is a real pain. Talk a little bit about how you've seen that the play out in real life with, you know, how you can do cover crops into wheat when you have neighboring wheat fields that would be planted that fall around.

52:42 Well, I remember when this cover crop thing first really started, you know, like late two, you know, the late 'oughts, you know, 2000 'ought nine, 2000 'ought 10. You know, when cover cropping, you know, when you guys were first getting it started. Man, planting cover crops into wheat stubble was there were people got really fired up mad because they were convinced you were going to spread wheat streak mosaic, Hessian fly, and barley yellow dwarf, and you were going to ruin their crops. And you know, people were leaving buffers around the edge of their fields so they you know, wouldn't spread right across to their neighbors and there were people suing people and you know, a lot of it was and I was concerned. I was really concerned cuz I was recommending this thing, so I'm like, am I on the hook? Am I liable for all this stuff? Am I going to get saved? And really it wasn't that big of a concern. You know, I think a couple And And why is that? Because, you know, you leave volunteer wheat growing out there you got an issue in a neighboring wheat field. So, how come it wasn't a problem when we're planting cover crops in that field?

54:03 I think wheat curl mites, which spread wheat streak mosaic really I mean, they they can't fly. They blow in the wind. If you get a good canopy of cover crop out there that's up above that volunteer wheat, which never gets very tall then you don't have wind velocity to move those curl mites. Also, if you've got enough of a canopy that shades it out the volunteer wheat doesn't really doesn't really amount to much. And I think also, when you have you know, the the answer to solution or the solution

54:47 The solution to pollution is dilution. The solution to a lot of biological problems is diversity. I think when you have a lot of diversity out there, you attract a lot of different mite species which attracts a lot of different mite predators. Predatory mites or lady beetles or all these different things. They kind of just, I just didn't see the problems. I did hear of some issues.

55:17 Basically, where people had planted cover crops that failed usually due to lack of moisture and then they got a rain in August and the dead cover crops that did not provide canopy. Then they had volunteer wheat issues. And they didn't take care of that volunteer wheat.

55:39 Two different ways one is to plant immediately and get a very good cover crop canopy so that volunteer wheat can't get sunlight and just can't compete, can't develop and you don't have any wind velocity. Another one is to wait for the volunteer wheat to come up, burn it down and then no-till like the August planting approach, get a rain, burn it down, no-till into it.

56:17 Another one I've heard is the volunteer wheat really is an issue only when it's alive like two weeks prior to when people plant wheat. You want to break that green bridge, want it over and done with, you want the curl mites, everything to starve out before they can move. And so some people wait till first of September and then spray selective grass herbicide like clethodim or sethoxydim or select and post if you're not familiar with those. Well, fusilade to take the grasses out of the mix basically to selectively kill the grasses which are host of the curl mite.

57:08 That'll take the grasses out of your mix but you know by September they've kind of done their thing. Another one is just to plant an all broadleaf mix. You lose a lot of benefits when you plant only broadleafs in a mix. But if your goal is nitrogen fixation you can accomplish a lot with summer legumes, sunflowers, okra, buckwheat, flax.

57:41 So it really boils down to what your goals are and how you're going to manage it, like most things. Maybe one last thing here, Dale, before we wrap this up. And this maybe is the biggest concern or objection that people have, and it goes right back to how you started your story.

58:00 It's going to use up all my moisture. Right. So how can you sit there and tell me that even 40 years ago, you know, you can have something growing out there and it's not using up all your moisture? Tell us a little bit more about that.

58:16 If that wheat stubble stored all the rainfall that fell upon it, I mean, where I grew up, we average about 36 inches of rain, and about from July 1 to corn planting April 1 the next year, that's 10 months. During that time, we'd probably average 24 inches of moisture. In an average year, which averages 60 inches one year and 10 the next, but we would average 24 inches. And our soil would hold, honestly, about four. That means we should have had 20 inches of moisture sitting on top of our soil every spring, and we didn't. Well, some we did. But we think that fallow stores all that moisture, and honestly, it doesn't. What happens to it? It runs or it evaporates. And that's what happens to the majority of the moisture received during that fallow period.

59:35 It's most of it isn't going to be there anyhow. If, however, we can use some of that moisture to improve, to grow plants, create a mulch. Mulch is magic. If we can use, create a mulch that number one, increases our rate of infiltration, number two, reduces our rate of evaporation so that we get more rain in.

1:00:02 And we keep it in longer. And then number three, if we can use grow weeds and root exudates to create a condition where our next crop can after those root systems have died and decayed, the next crop can root deeper, we can get more moisture out of the soil. And then we've completely changed the game. And I've seen research where they've tracked using moisture meters and, you know, maybe you need to tell your story of how you guys got started. You know, that was what triggered Green Cover Seed altogether was you used moisture meters, and yes, there was less moisture going into winter in that wheat stubble where you grew cover crops. Inch and a half less, 2 inches an acre less. But, by planting time the next spring, you're about dead even, and then in July, when it you really need that moisture, you were actually ahead of the game. You were better off.

1:01:15 Another big thing we saw is that when we had diverse mixes, they used the moisture so much more efficiently than a monoculture did. So, I would be nervous from a moisture standpoint in our area if I just planted straight sorghum as a cover because that is going to use more moisture. It's not going to be as efficient as the mixes. At least that's what we've seen. And you know, Jay Fuhrer was here just a couple weeks ago and he was sharing those same stories, you know, that he and Gabe did up in North Dakota. And so, there's you know, there's Keith.

1:01:49 Double crop soybeans don't seem to work that way. Well, yeah, they might be a little bit more moisture here.

1:02:03 And you know, again, it comes down to a management thing. The drier you are, the more of a concern this is and the more you have to manage it. But you can manage a lot of things by termination dates. And the thing I love about these cover crops planted in the summer is that we can design them to have everything winter kill. And now you've got all winter and the first part of the spring to recapture any moisture in that top 6 to 12 inches that this cover crops would have used, we can now recapture that. We get better infiltration. We get better water capture. We have less evaporation. And that's where that winter snow is so huge.

1:02:41 Snow catch can be huge, especially. Snow catch. So, all of those things, you know, kind of you know, each one of those are contributing factor to, you know, helping with the moisture objection. So.

1:02:58 But there's no there's no substitute for trying it yourself. So, folks, I would encourage you, you know, if you have a summer harvested crop, even if you don't do a whole field, do do something. Do something to learn. Start experimenting with some different mixes and see what you can do. And you can you can learn lots. And if you have cattle, then it's almost malpractice to not to not be putting out something that can grow and produce high-quality forage at a very affordable price. So, Dale, thank you so much for joining us. If people want to get a hold of you and you're the author of several books, how do how do people get a hold of you? How do people order your books if they want more information from from you?

1:03:44 Yeah, so my business name, my consulting business, Regenerative Wisdom. And thank you for asking. Regenerative Wisdom at regenerativewisdom.com is my website. You can email me dale@regenerativewisdom.com. And you can call me 620 617 6307. Happy to talk to you. And like Keith said like you said, Keith, I travel all over the country consulting for people. And it's something I I really enjoy. I like like helping people out of their situations. It's really a fun and interesting gig. And it's something I really feel good about doing.

1:04:31 And and it's it's a great time to be in agriculture with all of these new things, new technologies, new seed, new. There's just a lot of energy. And so, it's a great time to be in agriculture if you're into regenerative agriculture. So, I would agree. I would agree. Continue learning, continue soaking up information and knowledge. And we thank you for watching this episode of the Green Cover podcast. Thank you for all you do, Keith.

1:04:57 My brother and I started Green Cover in 2009 because we understand what it's like to be a farmer starting out on the journey to improve soil health. We saw the power of plant and biological diversity on our own farm here in Nebraska, but we found that it was difficult to get the right cover crop seed mix. We also learned that there was a big learning curve in successfully implementing cover crops. That's why we built GreenCover so that farmers like you can access the highest quality cover crop seed put into the right diverse mixes along with the technical advice and the educational resources to help you successfully implement cover crops on your own operation. So, contact us today and we'll help you with the right cover crop mix for your farm or ranch so you can regenerate your portion of God's creation for future generations.