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“Nature is really not agriculture. Agriculture is managed and nature is not. Farmers actively manage the crop, the soils, the nutrients and the water supply, and this makes a difference in how research is conducted and interpreted.”
— Andrew McGuire, Agronomist, Washington State University
In this episode of the Cover Crop Strategies podcast, brought to you by GS3 Quality Seed, Washington State University agronomist Andrew McGuire discusses his extensive research on the pros and cons of using cover crop mixtures vs. monocultures. After he presents his findings, we’ll then hear from Jasper, Mo., farmer Macauley Kincaid and Rockwell City, Iowa farmer James Hepp as they unpack some of McGuire’s research and offer their own first-hand experience with using cover crops.
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The Cover Crop Strategies podcast series is brought to you by GS3 Quality Seed.
Trying to improve your water infiltration? Reduce erosion? Or attract pollinators? How about increase your organic matter? At GS3 Quality Seed, we produce and market cover crops that will help you address your soil health concerns. With knowledgeable dealers located throughout the United States, we offer a wide array of experience and support. Visit our website to find a dealer near you.Full Transcript
Mackane Vogel:Welcome to the Cover Crop Strategies Podcast, brought to you by GS3 Quality Seed. I'm Mackane Vogel, Associate Editor at Cover Crop Strategies. In this episode, Washington State University Agronomist, Andrew McGuire discusses his extensive research on the pros and cons of using cover crop mixtures versus monocultures. After he presents his findings, we'll then hear from Jasper, Missouri Farmer, Macauley, Kincaid, and Rockwell City, Iowa Farmer, James Hepp as they unpack some of McGuire's research and offer their own first-hand experience with using cover crops.
Andrew McGuire:I'm going to start with the theory, and this is it that proposes that mixtures will outperform monocultures. And we're going to be just talking about cover crops here, but it also applies to inner crops somewhat. And so what is the basis of this theory? Well, you've probably all heard it. We need to mimic nature in our farming, we need to farm with nature, and this is a really enticing idea. It's kind of behind organic farming, regenerative agriculture, and agroecology, this is from an agroecologist.
And so it's been incorporated into what's being called regenerative farming. And so I'm going to talk about this theory, but is it true and what do the research results say? Nearly all the strategies for mimicking nature come down to this, biodiversity. So first we've got to recognize that we can't even get close to nature's biodiversity in most cases in agriculture.
But given that limitation, what can we do with that biodiversity? And we're talking about plant biodiversity here. And why should we think that more diversity is always better? First, we got to get over some confusion there. Monoculture, there's been a lot of confusion about what that is. It's really one species in the field at a time, and we're talking about diversity in space there. Over here, monoculture is low diversity in space. Polyculture or a mixture is more than one species in the field at a time.
And you can talk about diversity in time. Monoculture and monocropping are often confused. Monocropping is just continuous monoculture of the same crop. So continuous corn would be a monocrop. And then you've got, with diversity in time, you've got what you could think of as a polycropping or what we call crop rotation. So with that out of the way, let's go on.
So ecological theory predicts that there's a benefit from mixtures, and this is what you usually see. This is the theoretical relationship. It's based on a model, but it's often shown as fact. And the dots are individual trials in the large dots where they drew the line through, that's the average biomass. And so you see that average biomass goes up as you add more species, and generally, you hear that six to eight species is the minimum needed to get you where this benefit kicks in.
So this is the theory. Again, it's not what we actually measure. And so ecologists have done research out there, biodiversity experiments, and they grow all these mixtures and the random mixtures and then they grow out each species in monocultures. And this is done in randomized replicated plots. It's a lot of work. It's continued sometimes over decades, and they're looking for what's called over-yielding where the mixture yields more than the monocultures.
So again, here on the left, we have the theory and then we have what the research results show us on the right. And so you can see here, especially with the monoculture, which is the one species here, you look above here, there's a large spread in biomass productions among the monocultures, and then you get less and less as you look at the mixtures. But if you just take the average of all these, and this is what ecologists do, and this is where we get this whole idea, you can see the average goes up as you add species.
Now, this is ecological research. It's not cover crop research. So I asked quite a few years ago, I asked, well, what does the agricultural research show? And so I got together with Angela Florence, she's a scientist in Tennessee, and we did a systematic review of all the relevant cover crop research and our paper was published as you see here in August of 2020. It's open access, so you can read it if you want.
We looked at all the literature out there that we could find, we narrowed it down to 340 possible studies, and then we wanted to look at just complex mixtures. So we wanted to have at least three species. So we threw out all the ones with just two species. We also threw out some of those studies that didn't have all the monocultures represented that were in the mixture because that's needed to make a good comparison.
In the end, we had about 27 studies and they covered a range of planting and termination dates. We had spring planted, summer cover crops, fall planted, and then you can see at the bottom there, the overwintered cover crops that were killed in the spring or early summer. We had range of, it says 2, it was actually 3 to 18 species. And you can see the normal species, the crop species that were used in those cover crops.
And in those 27 studies, we got out 243 comparisons for these seven measurements of effectiveness or really the benefits of cover crops. And the big one there is biomass production because biomass production is related to a lot of the other ones. If you have more biomass production, you have better weed suppression, you have more nitrogen scavenging, you have more carbon going into the soil for your microbes. So biomass is very important. In fact, it's often used in the ecological studies to represent ecosystem function.
So we looked at all those comparisons and this is our overall results. So you can see on the left, monocultures were better. This is the best monocultures versus the best mixtures, and I'll talk about why we did that in a little bit. But the best monocultures were better than the best mixtures in 10% of the comparisons, the best mixtures were better in 2% and that large chunk in the middle, 88%, the best monocultures were very similar to the best mixtures. There were no statistical differences between the two.
If we look at just biomass, cover crop productivity, you can see that the mixtures or the monocultures did better. Those are the dark shapes there on the left. You can see that the monocultures did better in more of those studies, and same with biomass stability by just a little bit.
In other comparisons, there wasn't much difference between the best monoculture and the best mixture. Cereal rye and triticale are known for their ability to grow in colder conditions, the same with oats. And so it kind of makes sense that the best monocultures were the ones that best fit that growing window. Same with winter or summer season, our warm season grasses, sorghum, sudangrass, those did best in that summer growing window.
So those are the results. Now, a little bit more on this whole idea of the best monocultures versus the best mixtures and why that theory that I talked about at the beginning didn't really pan out if you've got this equal or almost equal and 88% of the comparisons. The difference here is that nature is really not agriculture. Agriculture is managed and nature is not. Farmers actively manage the crop, the soils, the nutrients, the water supply, and this makes a difference in how research is conducted and interpreted, and I'm going to cover a few of those differences.
So ecological research, what I showed you there, they use perennial plant species and they follow it for, as I mentioned, sometimes decades. And actually, in those studies, they found the benefits. They didn't find any benefits of mixtures until after three to five years. So if you're growing perennials in the field after three to five years, there's probably a benefit to mixtures, but we're growing cover crops for months, maybe six months at the most.
We're also talking about annual crops here, not native perennials, but annual bred crops. In many cases, they're non-native so very different from what ecological studies are looking at. They also used random mixes. And that's because in nature that's what you're looking at. There's nobody to select species. So they've used random mixes. In agriculture, we choose the mixes so we can ignore the random mixes, and that's one of the reasons why we went with the best monocultures versus the best mixtures is because we can choose those species. It's not a random thing, and so you don't have to use that average line.
So agriculture's not interested in the average yields of all the treatments. It's interested in those ones at the top, right? That's because we can choose our species. That's what we're most interested in. And so that's one of the reasons why the agricultural research did not match the ecological research.
So again, I mentioned after three to five years, that's when ecological research saw the benefit of mixtures. And the reason why there is that... and they've looked at this over time in different studies, one of the biggest reasons is that the monoculture yields reduce, they decrease over time. Now we're talking years here. After three to five years, it's not really the mixtures that are producing more, it's the monocultures that are producing less.
And the reason is at least this is what they're thinking right now in ecological research is soil-borne disease. So if you grow monoculture in the soil for that many years, you build up soil-borne disease, it starts decreasing. In the mixtures, you get away from that. That's one of the benefits of mixtures in perennials over time. So it kind of explains why we see this.
Then there's also this rule of logic that was said many years ago, back in 1983, if you replace... and this is in agriculture, because we can choose what to put in and what to take out... if you're replacing one species, if one species is less productive than the other, then replacing a more productive individual by a less productive one is bound to reduce yield. And that's what we see.
If you have enough nutrients in the soil and water, if you start replacing grasses with legumes, you're going to reduce yield because legumes just don't produce as much as grasses. That's what we see in the research. And actually, if you look at ecological research where they look at the best mixtures versus the best monocultures, just like we did in that cover crop study, they find the same thing. They asked this question, do diverse communities outperform their most productive species? They basically found no. And that's looking at 192 papers, 574 comparisons in ecological research. So the same thing happens there in all those other studies where they were looking at the average, they find different.
A few more advantages of monocultures. I'm not against mixtures, but the monocultures do have a little bit of more advantage. Even though 88% of them are all similar, it's easier to pick the best monoculture. We pick crops all the time for a growing window. The same thing happens with cover crops. We know our growing window, we can probably pick the best crop for that growing window in terms of biomass production.
So the bottom line is that in 88% of these comparisons, they perform similarly. Mixtures are generally going to be more expensive, harder to manage. So you have to wonder, is there a definite benefit for monocultures or mixtures? It depends on your goal. There are some goals that you might have that a mixture might be better, but generally overall, there's no clear-cut benefit to cover crop mixtures.
I didn't give you all the references here, but you can find them at this link. It's my homepage. You can follow me on Twitter where I write a lot about this. And there's a lot of blog posts on this that are linked from my homepage. So with that, I think we'll open it up to Macauley and James and you guys can tell us your experience.
James Hepp:So yeah, good presentation there. A little quick background. James Hepp, central Iowa, first-generation farmer. Been running cover crops for about four or five years. I have been running a rye about a 50, 55 pound rate on my corn stalks going to soybeans, and every year it gets better. I'm very blessed to have good cost share programs, but even if they weren't here, I've seen enough success. I plan on continuing it.
I'm able to reduce and complete... actually, I don't spray a residual herbicide anymore, so I'm able to trade $25 worth of rye for a $25 Zidua PRO or something like that. So I see a lot of benefit in that. It keeps my water hemp out. Water hemp's pretty prevalent around here like a lot of guys, and it just doesn't exist anymore. You can see right to the areas if big fields, if I only do half at rye, the other half will have water hemp.
So I've had really good luck. I've tried every method of seeding except for drones. I hope to dabble in that next year. I've done airplanes, had so-so results. If you get a hard rain after it, airplanes work great. Otherwise, lately, I've been either using a vertical till with a Valmar Seeder on it and last year we used that vertical till but didn't use the disc blades, so we just kind of broadcast it on like 30-inch centers and just used the rolling baskets to kind of just churn up the corn stalks. And I was really impressed with that. That did a way better job I thought, than vertical tilling it. And then you don't germinate old weed seed, you don't get your corn stalks blowing into the ditch. So I was pretty impressed with that. So I'm going to look into doing that more next year.
That's what I've been doing. I've also been doing some rye head of corn in like 20-acre patches, and I normally try and get it on early in the bean stubble, and then when I strip-till, normally it's sprouted by then. So last few years, I've kind of planned it and got lucky also. But I'll hit it with a strip-till bar and it leaves like a 6 to 8-inch black strip. And my corn, honestly the best corn I've had the last two years, we've been in pretty droughty area has been where the rye was.
But I think if you don't have that black strip or you don't get it terminated soon, I don't think I would have the same results. So that's kind of where I've been at. My goals moving forward is to add more diversity into my cover crop. I've tried some rapeseed and some of that and gotten a little bit out of it, but I just need to get stuff seeded sooner like everybody. It's always a chore to get it done timely, but to me it's just as important as planting. So I'm trying to get it done more of time efficiently.
And there's a local guy that would literally chase me in the combine. He'd be within 24 hours behind me seeding, which that helped a lot, but it's just a priority. I tell everybody, start small and make it a priority. Just like anything, if you don't want to work, it's not going to. If it's the very last thing you ever do in the fall, you might not get as good. You need to make it a priority.
So in a nutshell, that's kind of where I'm at. And like I said, I'm heading towards maybe adding more species this spring. We're going to frost seed some oats a head of corn because this last fall it was nice and it got really cold and nice and really cold, and it would've gotten nothing out of the oats. So we're going to do about 40 acres of oats and then I'll just terminate it like rye. I'm going to see if I can get some goodie out of it with the corn. So that's kind where I'm at in a nutshell, I guess. You got any questions, feel free to ask.
Macauley Kincaid:Thank you, James. Appreciate that. Andrew, first of all, great presentation. I guess a little bit background on me in context, I'm Mac. My name is Mac Kincaid. I farm about 880 acres in Southwest Missouri. We also run about 80 cow-calf pairs as well. So we graze a lot of cover crops and we have a lot of different goals in our farm for covers.
I typically don't try to just raise monoculture covers unless I have a goal in mind for that monoculture. So we have a roller crimper as one of our methods of termination, but I have really good luck with Elbon Rye and P919 barley together and crimping them together, which seems to work very well, and the soybeans respond to that. We try and do the Erin Silva method of rolling after the soybeans have already emerged.
So on our farm though, like I said, we have different resource goals and one reason why I personally try to step away from monocultures on my farm is because I can lower the carbon nitrogen ratios of my covers by my species I choose. So if I'm going to corn, typically I don't want to have just a solid grass out there of rye or oats or barley because of the nitrogen tie up from those cereal grains.
So what we'll typically do is, we'll add like a vetch or a winter pea and some brassicas in our mix to try to lower the carbon-nice ratio down as well as lower the rates of the cereal grains down. Now, that does get a little bit more expensive, of course, when we add legumes, but the benefits we've seen on that have been tremendous. So I'll give an example. In 2020, we were able to raise 160 bushel corn off of 80 units of synthetic in.
And in our environment, our APH is 114 on corn yields. So that was a really good return that year. And we've completely discontinued P and K off our farm about six years ago now so we haven't utilized any phosphorus from potassium. And how we've managed that is with the cover crops. We let the cover crops pull those nutrients up from the soil profile and there's an abundance of nutrients even in my shallow soils on that subject. When we took T and D test, we had over 9,000 pounds of nitrogen, 13,000 pounds of phosphorus, and over 36,000 pounds of potassium in the top six inches of my soil. So we have a lot of nutrients that are just tied up.
And the way we make those nutrients available is with cover crops and a diverse cropping rotation. So I have raised monocultures in the past. If my goals, let's say are wheat suppression with my cover crop, of course the first crop I'm going to look at is probably cereal rye. If we're trying to produce nitrogen and we're going to milo or corn, or some of these more demanding crops of nitrogen, we're definitely going to have more diversity involved with that.
Okay, as Andrew pointed out in the studies that they overlooked, biomass accumulation was basically dependent on species. And I agree with that 100% because let's say... we'll just talk grass and legume for a second. If I put barley with crimson clover together or by themselves, of course, they're not going to have as much total biomass as if I put rye with vetch. So I think that definitely being intensive with your species and paying attention to what species you're using in your cover crop blends, you can accumulate more biomass in just the monoculture by let's say, like I said, vetch and rye together, the vetch trellis up the rye and can get more sunlight. Plus you're intercepting more sunlight because of the different leaves and shapes and the way they're capturing that sunlight. Those plants are essentially solar panels.
So I do agree with the biomass, Andrew, and I wanted you to go into that a little bit deeper if you could, about what your opinions were on that. The data shows that properly chose monocultures can have as much total biomass as multi-species, but I just kind of want to see which way you're going. I guess we're looking at total biomass and maybe that'd be considered grazing or just nutrient accumulation and what the purpose of seeking that information out was.
Andrew McGuire:Yeah, yeah, all good comments both from James and Mac. I did not mention the one exception to this, and the one that we did not look at because it's been looked at... there was a review back in 1974, which we included in our paper on legumes with non-legumes. And in low nitrogen soils, that is an exception. The mixture there is always going to be better than a monoculture grass, for instance. Or it's actually better than the monoculture legume.
So that's a big exception there that we've known about for a long time and we did not include in our study because again, we've known since the 70s way before that actually farmers have been using that mixture. So that is one place where mixtures definitely make sense. The C to N ratio that you mentioned, I agree there, if you want to lower your C to N ratio, including those legumes is going to help.
And that was not one of those measurements, the seven measurements that we had over there, that wasn't one of the ones that we measure because generally it hasn't been measured a lot in cover crop research, at least compared the monoculture to the mixture. The other benefit that I need to mention for mixtures is bet-hedging, diversification in terms. It's like investments. If you have a growing window for cover crops where you can't rely on precipitation or you have variable weather in terms of temperature, planting a mixture out there is probably going to be better because one of those crops is going to do okay, at least.
There's no symbiosis between the species in that case, you're counting on the loss of some species, but other species are going to do better. So it's just basically bet-hedging. So that's another exception. You mentioned the phosphorus and the nitrogen in the soil, agree there. If there's the research that shows if we're farming soils that have received many, many years of phosphorus fertilizer, there's a lot of residual phosphorus out there that you can use cover crops, so soil biology, to get at. In fact, I've seen research that showed they had gone 11 years growing corn without any phosphorus fertilizer, just using that residual there.
Macauley Kincaid:Wow.
Andrew McGuire:So, again, I agree.
Macauley Kincaid:Wow, that's impressive. 11 years, impressive.
Andrew McGuire:Well, there's estimates that they could go a lot longer, but we're not relying on natural fertilizer. We're relying on the fertilizer that we applied in the past, really. Yeah.
Macauley Kincaid:Yep. Depends on where we're at, I guess in-
Andrew McGuire:Yeah, exactly.
Mackane Vogel:We'll come back to the discussion in a moment. But, first, I'd like to thank our sponsor, GS3 Quality Seed for supporting today's podcast. Trying to improve your water infiltration, reduce erosion, or attract pollinators, how about increase your organic matter? GS3 Quality Seed produces and markets cover crops that will help you address your soil health concerns. With knowledgeable dealers located throughout the United States, they offer a wide array of experience and support. Visit their website to find a dealer near you at www.tilthpro.com. That's T-I-L-T-H-pro.com.
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Macauley Kincaid:James, on your farm, were you guys able to reduce any of your nutrients that you use because of the cover crops you're utilizing?
James Hepp:Yeah, I think it's like everybody likes to say a systems approach. With my strip-till banding, I'm able to reduce a lot. And then since recently, I was with a group and we started reducing our nitrogen. So I'm down to about 120 pounds, 110 pounds of synthetic N, total. This year, it didn't rain. I had some fields do 210, but I had some areas that were 260, 270 for corn.
So N wasn't my limiting factor, but I thought it was interesting. My tissue tests throughout the summer, I had the highest K levels I've ever had, and nothing else really changed, but I think it's because of the N... well, I know it's because the N kind of forces vegetative growth and makes the plant more inefficient. And like I said, with the dry years, there's plenty of N out there. We've just been grossly over-applying, I think for probably the last 50 to 75 years, whether people like it or not.
So this year, I plan on doing it again. I split rate apply. I'm heavy black soil here, so most people will rip and field cultivate, and I don't. I'm no strip-tilling, leaving my corn stocks. I don't know, I reallocate a lot of those dollars into foliar cover crop blends. The ROI is just there. It's uncomfortable doing things that are unnatural, but I'm a first-generation farmer, so it's easy for me. I talk to a lot of guys and they're like, boy, I agree and believe in you, but I don't know if I can do it. And I said, well, I don't blame you. I'm new to this, so I don't have any, dad did it, grandpa did it. I'm very blessed to not have that in the back of my mind.
So I keep trying stuff and I'm with really good groups, agronomy groups I've been working with. And the biggest thing I can tell anybody is ask why about everything. Be skeptical. Why do I do this? Why do I do that? And then know your numbers. What's the ROI on that? I find in my area, we do a lot of things that look good. It looks good, but did you try it without it?
So this was about my fifth year. I've really changed up stuff a lot. It's amazing how much the feel-good look-good stuff doesn't pay. It really cost you a lot, so I can reallocate those dollars towards humics, fulvics, just makes stuff work better. But yeah, so back to your question, I have reduced a lot. We haven't used any map fertilizer for a couple years now. Phosphorus levels haven't changed one bit. Crop yield stayed the same considering no rain. K levels, I'm still doing about a third to half removal rate. And honestly, I keep cutting it back. I just don't want to cut it back cold Turkey. So I'll probably just keep reducing it, maybe find some liquid versions.
I have Y-drop capability on my hagi so I can go out there and split rate. I don't use any anhydrous anymore. Well, I never have, but I always use 32% split rate. I do some in the spring, and then when the clone's about chest chin high, I'll go out and wide drop it. Then if I need to again, I can. But it just seems like less is more and it's really scary and it's kind of a hard pill to swallow for a lot of people, but less is more, efficiency and equals more money, ROI. And then it's just kind of what I've been finding out. I really need to get step up my blends on cover crops. That is my goal to try more stuff. But I've been really happy and successful with my rye. So I don't know, that's kind of where I'm at.
Macauley Kincaid:And just to clarify, your rye can still be a lower carbon action ratio if you turn it quicker. So yeah, you can still manage that with just your [inaudible 00:28:17]. We've done that in the past as well. It was so late we couldn't get a cover in until December and pretty much our only options is rye at that point. And it seems to make it, but-
James Hepp:Yeah, it's cold up here, so I wish I had a few more growing days like you do. But I always laugh, people say it won't work up here, but then you look online, there's a lot of guys in Minnesota and Wisconsin have fantastic cover crops.
Macauley Kincaid:Oh, for sure.
James Hepp:But yeah, that's why I got to get on it right away. Literally, as soon as the combine's leaving the field, we need to get out there and get it going, make it a priority. Whether I shut down at six o'clock at night and go seed till 10 or 11 o'clock at night, that's where I'm aiming at. That's kind of my goal. You can go seed a lot in a couple hours at night. But like I said, that's a priority though, and it's important to me and it's working.
Macauley Kincaid:Oh, amen to that. If I'm going to graze cover crops and I plan on winter grazing with fall annuals, I got to get them in early. So when that combine, like you said is leaving, we got to be sewing our covers to try to maximize as much biomass as we can. Are you fertilizing your covers or are you just letting them do what they do?
James Hepp:Nope, I'm just letting them do what they do. Last year I had a field day with PFI at my farm that went over really well. We had 70 people show up at it. Last year was one of the toughest cover crops I've had. It was thin, it worked, but once again, looks don't necessarily matter. I think I had about 2.2 tons of dry matter, but it still worked pretty good. But I sent off, I think it was Regen Labs or one of the labs would sent off a 3 by 3. I don't have it in front of me, but it was alarming. It had off the top of my head, it had 110 pounds of nitrogen in it. It had 78 pounds of potash in it. Phosphorus was 60. It had more than enough in that crop just on the above ground.
And it was only probably knee-high maybe. I had planted it into it with hip high rye before, which is pretty terrifying. But it worked out just fine. You can't see anything. So like I said, that was one of my poor-looking cover crops, and it was just amazing how much it had in it. And I always knew it, I just never had the actual scientific numbers in front of me. A lot of things with cover crops like I talked with guys, they want a yield increase. I'm like, well, you might not see a yield increase, but maybe you can reduce herbicide, get the same thing, reduce fertility, get the same yield, which in the end is ROI, which is at the end of the day, I wish we had ROI monitors in the combine, not yield monitors. It'd be a whole different world. So I thought that was pretty wild for very little.
We have been growing 80 acres of rye for a couple different companies, 40 of each variety, and it's been hit-and-miss. We've had anywhere from 50 to 65 bushel, but we have another 80 acres growing this year for a couple companies. My long, long goal would really love to have a third crop in my rotation. I have about 1400 acres, and I would love to have maybe 200 or 300 acres of either a oats rye just to kind of throw in the mix so it's not just corn bean, corn bean. I think that would be great for everything.
The water infiltration is probably one of the biggest things you can see in my area because I'm really flat. We have a lot of tile and I have several fields that are lower than the neighbors. And when the spring, when everything melts, I won't have any puddles on my field. But then the neighbors who are actually higher than me have puddles in their field, which I think that's been big. And like I said, I think just those roots are amazing what you see.
Earthworms, my first year planting, when I'd set the planner on 16 rows, you'd see maybe a couple worms. Now I almost apologize, I feel like I stabbed a worm every time I got my depth finder light digging behind each row unit. Like 16 rows, I almost guarantee I'll find a clump of worms behind every. So that's a great thing. And I started getting mushrooms this fall also.
One field's been cover-cropped for four years, and when I got into it in the corn, I actually thought it was trash out in the field and I got out. It looked like a bunch of white paper plates out there. They're great big mushrooms starting to grow. So a lot of people far smarter than me said my colonies are kind of reestablishing, which that's a good sign, it's a good thing. But it was just in the area that had been cover-cropped for about four years. So I thought that was interesting for what it's worth.
Macauley Kincaid:Yeah.
Andrew McGuire:Yeah. James, I think you're absolutely right on the looks. And I think that it plays into the whole cover crop mixtures because when people first started talking about mixtures, I went out and bought a 17-way mix, planted it here. It is the best-looking cover crop I've ever seen. But you talk about ROI, probably not there. You don't get paid for looks.
And that's why I think the cover crop mixtures, especially those high number of species mixtures, they're very good-looking, but they don't necessarily do more than three or four species in it in a mix. And I also agree with you, you have to ask why. Why are you going to put all those species in there? If three or four will work, then that's going to be your solution. Why go with 17 or 20 that I've seen out there?
And then just one comparison, you do that kind of strip-till system with your cover crops. We have guys that we're in a totally different system here, so we grow a lot of vegetables, but we have onion growers that have developed a system that they do the same thing because onion seed is really tiny and it's super expensive. We're talking thousand dollars an acre to plant. They'll strip out that planting strip early, let it grow up around it, and then come in and do their precision planting for the onions in that strip in the spring. Works really well here for wind erosion.
Macauley Kincaid:Yeah.
Andrew McGuire:Yip.
James Hepp:Yeah. I think some guys will even use a 15-inch planter or a dual-row planter, and they'll put two strips of rye down in between the row. Because I think the biggest thing with corn is it doesn't like competition and it needs a little bit of breathing room, so to speak. So I think there's a lot of value in that.
Macauley Kincaid:We're a hundred percent no-till down here, but I feel like one way I've got over that, like you said, corn doesn't like the competition, but when we roll down our covers and they're flat on the ground, relatively flat, and then we can get the seed slot closed pretty well and we can get pretty fairly even emergence, we're not using row cleaners either. We're literally just using the openers and the closers.
Leaving that mat there though is so important. I think you can do the same thing with strip-tilling. I just don't want to disturb any small ones because we're in about a 42-inch rainfall environment. So if I leave any, let's say unprotected rows, I know exactly where the water's going to run down. And so I want to try to leave as much cover as I possibly can to hold my soil intact.
And then also regulate the temperatures down here in the south, we get really, really hot July, August and early September. And that cover acts as insulation on top of the soil surface to regulate temperature, same way your house does, your insulation in your house. So I really enjoy that.
And then I feel like on our farm, that priorities is to make sure that we're having all five of the soil principles on our farm every year, year in, year out, and that's how we can improve our soils. We brought our CO2 levels when we started around 20 to some of them are over 160, and my best ones are over 200. So we can definitely increase biology from cover crops and no-till and cattle, and then we can also increase organic matter. Our organic matter's been up about a little over a percent. And we started using covers. I think our first cover was in 2014, and then we really committed a hundred percent in 2016 to 100% no-till, 100% cover crop. And we integrate livestock on 80% of our acres.
And you were talking about a 10-way mix. I actually feel like I can pay for stuff like that and have that biodiversity out there because of the cattle. The livestock out there is a huge advantage that I have over a lot of other producers that they don't have because I can actually turn that cover into cash. And even if it's not with my own cattle, we can utilize custom raising to graze other producers cattle over the top of that row crop land.
So I've got some rented land with fence on it, and then I'll bring other producers cattle onto that rented land. And so I don't have to have a whole lot of money up front besides the cost of the cover crop, and I can generate really, really good pay out from that.
Andrew McGuire:Do you think the benefit of that 10-way mix is in feed value or is it because certain species are going to grow early and certain species are going to grow late and so you extend your grazing season or both maybe?
Macauley Kincaid:I have a few reasons. Number one, we have over a hundred different forage samples of cover crops, weeds, perennial species on our farm that I've got listed. And I show that on different presentations. And all those plants have different levels of nutrients, micros and macros, secondaries, they're all different levels.
And so the biodiversity, I haven't fed any mineral either in a few years, and when we've sent off meat samples, our livestock don't come back with any deficiencies. So to me, that tells me by having the diversity out there and letting them select what they need... because these animals are very smart. They will pick what plant they need when they need it if you give them diversity. And so that's one reason.
Another reason, like you said earlier, when we have quite a bit of diversity out there, let's say we have the wrong growing conditions, let's say we have a lot of water, we're really dry, different species will express themselves in that mix more dominantly. And to me, I feel more comfortable, especially when I'm grazing and it's a timely cover crop. I'm not going to put a 10-way species in November, obviously, right? It has to be a timely cover crop during the right month, whether it's a summer cover, spring cover, fall cover to have that diversity. But personally on Macs Farm, I like having that diversity for many reasons. Yeah.
Andrew McGuire:Yeah, I would definitely agree that if you're going to plant a mix like that, you definitely want all those species to be able to exhibit their strengths. And so that means time, yeah. And grazing gives you the ROI for allowing that cover crop to have some actual good growing season.
Macauley Kincaid:Correct.
Andrew McGuire:Yeah. Grazing does change that. You're almost managing it as more of a, you can call it a cover crop, but it's really an annual forage crop. And-
Macauley Kincaid:Except we are grazing that with the soil as the intent purpose of bedding our soil. So I'm not grazing down very hard at all. Most of the producers in my area, they always feel like I'm leaving so much behind. But if I'm leaving half to two thirds... so I wouldn't necessarily call it a forage crop. If it was a forage crop, I would graze it down tight.
I have on my farm personally, my goals is to lead my soil better off to my kids than whenever I had purchased it or started managing it. And so that's my goals. And I do a lot of testing and it sounds like James does too. But we do stock samples, we do soil tests, we do PLFAs, we do a lot of different tests to try to make sure that we are categorizing everything we can and we can judge whether we're having successes or failures.
And we've done infiltration tests. I'm also really blessed. Ray Archuleta is only 60 miles from me, so Ray swings through here and I always learn something from Ray Archuleta every time he's around me. And so I have a unique situation. But I do feel like if farmers are going to use cover crops, just like James says, and like you said, let's make sure that they have value, they help our bottom line at the end of the day.
James Hepp:Yeah. And I think it's important to have groups like these talking about it. Because I get kind of disturbed would probably be a word. You see a lot of big groups. There was a big farm group I won't mention, had an article today that literally said no-till costs more money. And I'm sitting here thinking, okay, what are you after in this article? What are you trying to prove?
Like, for Iowa State, custom rates, it's like $55, they figure if you rip and field cultivate. So my thought was the act of not doing tillage is $55. So I'm pretty sure that is saving money. You maybe throw $25 at a cover crop. So I'm not sure if that's the new math they're doing or what, but you see a lot of groups like that that will say, cover crops are good. And then they'll have another article two days later saying they don't pay. So I'm like, what are we trying to do here?
So that's why I try and be really practical in ROI because in my area, we have big 80s, 160, 300-acre fields, and when it's go time, you got to go. And guys don't want to leave their comfort zone, which I don't blame them, so they can't do that. Well, it might work. It might work next year. You got to figure it out. So that's where I'm kind of more into just the rye, but I do want to do more. But I just feel like we need to get the word out more and get guys to actually try stuff.
But it's frustrating. I feel like for every two or three guys I win over, you get articles like that and it's like, well, there was 500 guys that are on the fence thinking about it and they read that and now they're like, nope. All right. And now with the market going down, the last thing any guy wants to do is do something that will jeopardize money on their farm. So yeah, that's kind of a soap box.
Macauley Kincaid:An unmanaged no-till system, an unmanaged cover crop system can be a disaster.
James Hepp:Yeah.
Macauley Kincaid:I think that one reason why so many people make it work and so many people don't make it work is 100% impact on management and weather. And sometimes your management involves in the weather. If you're really dry and it's springtime, you may have to desiccate the coverage earlier than you wanted. You got to be flexible. You can't just be set in a plan that hey, how it's going to be. Exactly, we got to be flexible and yeah-
James Hepp:Every year's different.
Macauley Kincaid:Yeah. Yeah, it is. [inaudible 00:42:21].
James Hepp:That's my plan this spring. Plan A is hopefully we get moisture, let it grow, plant green, kill it. Plan B is if it's dry, I'm probably going to have to sacrifice it, kill it. I might have to put some residual down. I've talked to my chemical guys, they have some on hand, and I might only get half the goody of it, but I know I have good rip development. I know I'll get some good underground, so it won't be like a failure, but that's what you have to have.
And every year's different, every day's different. Last year was the first one of the driest springs I've ever been a part of, and I probably let my rye grow a little bit longer in hindsight, but then I got saved with a rain. We had a rain two days after I planned it, we had an inch and a half and I killed it and stuff. So I lucked out. But spring moisture normally isn't an issue, but it's definitely on the radar from here on out.
Macauley Kincaid:Isn't it funny how certain buzzwords become kind of really popular in agricultural at different times? I think a few years ago, I felt like regenerative was really a big buzzword, soil health was before that. But it seems like what I hear a lot right now is stratification. I believe bare no-till, you can have stratification of nutrient, but I believe with cover crops, 100%, you can eliminate that and you can create the nutrient cycle. And I think the nutrient cycle is placed down through the soil as well.
I've heard different people say, oh, hey, you need to take 2-inch samples of your soil at different profile levels. Well, those soil tests are calibrated for six and eight inch tests. So if you take 2-inch samples and you send it off, it's calibrated and it's going to be if you send it off for a 6-inch sample, that test is not going to come back accurate with the numbers because that test calibrated for a 6-inch sample, not a 2-inch sample.
And so your levels will be actually wrong that they send you, not because the lab did it wrong, it's just that that's the information you provided them. And so it's really important that we understand what we're doing on our farms and really taking issue just like you're doing James, and listen to different universities, what they're giving us. There's a lot of great researchers out there that are trying to help farmers like you and me, and I'm just so thankful to be a part of this conversation just like right now.
James Hepp:Yeah. And I think with that stratification, that's dead on. But then also you can look at maybe we don't need all this soil build that we've been doing for the last a hundred years, and maybe in my area, the way I look at, that $55 I save, I've invested it in my plan, or I got Delta Downforce in-furrow, my next move would be some kind of like a 2x2 form to add-
Macauley Kincaid:That's what I'd do.
James Hepp:Or my wide drop. I don't have the labor and the help for 2x2, so I'm not real excited about that because that's slowing me down. But with my wide drop capabilities, I could do all my corn in two days easy. I can go dribble on some liquid K or whatever just to help it get along. So it goes back to the systems approach, reallocate dollars. That's just how it is, I guess. I don't know. But you got to make it efficient though. That's the [inaudible 00:45:24].
Macauley Kincaid:We've done droplets the last three years and with how dry our summers have been, I'm actually going to move away from that because it always feels like when it's timely for my corn to receive the second application, we go without rain for 30, 40 days. And I'm always just thinking about how much nitrogen I'm probably losing from that. And so my thought process this following year is to maybe get an in-row applicator and actually get it into the soil, and then the residue still being on top. So try to have a mineral disturbance type situation there, but get the nitrogen in the soil so that way I don't have all that leaching back to the atmosphere or down if we get a hard rain. I always worry about it going into waterways and eventually finding the rivers.
I want to keep the nutrients I'm applying on my farm because I don't want any other outside regulation telling me how I can and can't farm. So I'm trying to do the best job I can. It's not perfect, but I'm trying to do the best job I can to keep the nutrients on my farm at all times that I'm applying.
James Hepp:Yeah. Well, and the big game changer for me, the Y-dropping is using a quart of a humic acid, that really stabilizes it. Like this year it was just crazy dry and I really thought I was going to lose it, but after a few days, you could see the next week, you could see that nitrogen got in the plant, even though it didn't rain. But of course, in the past years, I think I had too much. I was running 160 pounds of nitrogen, which was on the low end three years ago. There's a lot of guys that are still running 180, 200 probably.
Macauley Kincaid:Wow.
James Hepp:But, our APH is probably like 205 or so. But that's still a lot. But yeah, some of these humics and fulvics have been a game changer, big time. Even on terminating my rye, obviously you can't beat a warm... you need a few warm days where up north for me, that's a little more difficult than you probably for terminating because I don't have livestock, but boy, a lot of people have horror stories of that because it was too cold.
But if you get it warm, there's certain products out there you can use to get your pH low on your water and then put fulvic acid in it. And it's just night and day. Last year we had a field and I forgot to add the fulvic acid in there with it and the pH stuff. And that strip, that 60-acre chunk, it took four more days to kill. The other stuff died four days sooner. And it's like, well, didn't get into the plant. It just took a lot longer. Where the fulvic got into it, and you get your pH... because Roundup doesn't like working when you're at 7 or an 8 pH, but if you get it down to a 5... I'm in the 20-ounce range or less and there's a lot of guys who are at 36 and 48 and 60-ounce, and they're struggling to kill it, so.
Macauley Kincaid:Yep. Makes difference, pH 100% difference.
James Hepp:Yeah.
Macauley Kincaid:So what's next on the research agenda?
Andrew McGuire:Well, like I said, our system's totally different than you guys. Our growers tend to fill up all the growing season with cash crops because we have irrigation. And so cover crops are really, they're a tough thing to fit in unless you're after certain crops. We grow a lot of wheat, even irrigated wheat. And so then we have a big window there for cover crops.
And I've done a lot of work with mustard cover crops before potatoes. We grow, as I said before, lot of vegetables. And so no-till is not really a big seller here because we grow onions and potatoes where you're going to till the soil anyway just to get the crop out of the ground. But growing that mustard cover crop, and these are big cover crops, they're over my head, they're fertilized, they're highly managed, but they're doing it for soil-borne disease control. And so we've got a long-term trial that's going in this next season that's going to look at various uses of cover crops for potatoes.
Mackane Vogel:That's all for this episode of the Cover Crop Strategies Podcast. Thanks to Andrew McGuire, Macauley Kincaid, and James Hepp for that great discussion. The full transcript of this episode, as well as our archive of previous podcast episodes, are available at covercropstrategies.com/podcasts. Many thanks to our sponsor, GS3 Quality Seed for helping to make this cover crop podcast series possible. From all of us here at Cover Crop Strategies, I'm Mackane Vogel. Thanks for listening and have a great day.
