Weather Resilience Through Cover Cropping - A Panel Discussion

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Hi friends. This podcast is a recording of a live panel conversation I had with a group of friends and growers from across the Midwest where we spoke about how to use cover crops in fields where planting has been delayed and we haven't been able to get crops into the ground in time. So we've talked a lot about how to use cover crops in anticipation of next year's crop and to be able to regenerate soil health and reduce weed pressure, safeguard against erosion and improve our overall farming system. I really enjoyed hosting the panel. We had great conversations with some very key points that I think you will all find interesting. I hope you find the information useful and actionable.

All right, well, welcome everyone. Today we have a bit of a slightly different format. I've invited several excellent growers and farmers who I've had the privilege of working with over the last couple of years to this conversation as well. And so we have Steve Groff, Cover Crop Coach, the infamous pioneer who was using cover crops before. There were very many cover Crops being used in the agriculture space. Glad to have you, Steve. We have David Kleinschmidt. He's an agronomist and grower from Illinois. And Brad Hobrock, also from Illinois. And then David Chance. David Chance, if I recall, correct, is from Indiana. Am I right about that, David?

That's correct. That's correct. Lebanon, Indiana.

All right. So I want to thank all of you for joining the conversation discussion today and wanted to just have a open conversation. In our consulting work, we're having many interactions with growers who are puzzled and perhaps unfamiliar with the opportunities that they have in the seasons. Looking at the latest USDA report, at this moment, we still have significant number of unplanted acres, particularly here in the state of Ohio. As of the beginning of this week's report, we had about 80% of corn acres planted and about 65% of soybean acres planted. And considering this is the first week in July, certainly pushing up against the window of what opportunities remain for the season. And so I often I'm surprised by the number of growers who are unfamiliar with the opportunities that they have and what can still be done at this point in the year. So I wanted to have a conversation together with us as a group to share some thoughts and ideas about what the possibilities are. So, Steve, perhaps I'll go to you first. There is this idea that if it's too late to plant corn and coming the window is rapidly closing on planting beans, then that's it. There's not a lot of opportunities left for us in the year. And the only thing that is left when there's a common perception that I've come across that planting cover crops is a significant expense, we have limited economic resources and that's not something we should invest in in such a challenged and troubled year. How would you respond to that?

I would respond by saying this is a golden opportunity to make lemonade out of lemons. So if you don't get your cash crop in and you've always wanted to try cover crops, you have no excuse not to try cover crops. The thing of it is, we have.

So many options, Steve, I can't afford it.

Oh, you can't afford it? Well, yeah. You know what the thing about it is, though, we have these options of multiple species and everything we can actually create and make nitrogen for next year. You know, in our corn crop, I have seen time and time again where in a prevent plant situation or in a similar opportunity like after wheat, which is kind of the same kind of a planting window here that farmers have had to use little to no nitrogen the following year for their corn. So that should get your attention, John, because nitrogen is an expense. So that would be my first comment to that. But you know, what is the value of increasing your soil's health, increasing the agri stability and all these many things that cover crops can give.

Good for you.

So I would say in my experience, talking to many, many farmers who have said that this is a situation really got them into cover crops where they were actually tested and tried them and they were able to see the benefits. I have heard of situations where farmers had wet spots that dried out, they planted cover crops and they said from then on they saw a difference in those fields where those cover crops were planted.

Thank you, Steve. David Chance, what experience have you had with COVID crops in similar situations and what advice do you give to growers when you speak to them in this situation?

That's a good point. I guess we've been working with COVID crops here on our farm since 2006 and have tried a lot of different types of things. And I'll kind of echo what Steve had said as well in terms of this is kind of an opportunity to actually kind of follow the ground and to grow a diverse species cover crop and break some of the normal corn soybean rotations that we have and also, you know, able to probably grow a significant amount of our nitrogen for next year as well and basically add liquid carbons of different taste to the microbes and really kind of generate kind of jumpstart a microbial system that will have lasting benefit. I see it as a very, very large opportunity. And there's a lot of different species and a lot of different combinations that can be used. And some of them can be just as simple as just oats and clover. You know, it doesn't have to be 16 or 20 species. It can be, it can be what you want to make it, but it can be very beneficial. And it really is a golden opportunity. You know, in scripture, if you look at the Old Testament, it talks about a seven year rest. And we've not really had in my career or probably the history of the United States, seven year rest on our lands. And looking at this little bigger picture, I feel like God's may be giving us this opportunity to have a rest that our land needs and cover crops can play into this rest very, very well.

Well, if you continue the biblical narrative, when the nation of Israel did not provide their land with the rest voluntarily, it was forced upon them.

Yes, it was rather brutally.

Yeah, One of the questions that comes to mind for me, there's been a recent announcement that the USDA is permitting the cropping of COVID crops and the harvesting of COVID crops at September 1st instead of November, as has historically been the case. And this raises a question mark about the role of crop insurance and USDA in influencing decision making, etc. But one of the questions that I would have for you as a group, and perhaps Brad will go to you next if you have any comments on this question, is how much of an influence should the ability to harvest your cover crops make on your cover crop decisions and what you decide to do.

On your farm at this point in time, especially due to cattle producers who need the hay for feeding, it does create an opportunity for an additional income source due to the USDA changing that date September 1st. So it definitely plays a big role potentially for I know a lot of people in central Illinois and probably the.

Corn Belt, Brad, with the availability of additional income opportunity. I guess the question that is in my mind is how does that opportunity compare with the opportunity to just grow a cover crop and sequester nitrogen for next year's crop? As Steve was describing, can you do both of those at the same time? Is it an either or discussion? How do you make those decisions and choices?

Can it be done at the same time? Yes, it can. I think there's an opportunity also that having discussions with some of the local cattle producers to see what their needs are, certainly not everybody is going to look at that avenue. Still, in my opinion, the greatest benefit behind cover crops is improving active carbon levels in the soil. And we've proven that that also is a very, very close correlation to yields this following year as well.

Thanks, Brad. David Kleinschmidt, we haven't heard your voice yet. The conversations you've been having with growers that you work with. What are you hearing from the countryside in terms of growers interest in cover crops and what are the major reservations and question marks that they have?

So this year reminds me a lot of 2012, really with our drought year. It gave us an opportunity to plant cover crops then. And it's kind of, kind of echoing what Steve and David said. You know, it's given us a golden opportunity to go ahead and seed some things that we typically wanted. A couple of things that I hear a lot of though is guys that just looking at cereal, rye and maybe radishes or something and we kind of gotta understand the difference between cool season and warm season grasses and legumes and when they can be, when they should be planted for the best success. So that's probably the biggest concerns I hear. And then of course, if a guy had put down any fertilizer or any residual herbicide applications on those fields and looking to see what species could then be planted and trying to make a plan for that, also managing the carbon and nitrogen for that following crop here as well.

Thanks, David. That leads me to a question that I have for each of you. Conversations that I have many growers are asking. The question, particularly those who don't have a history with growing cover crops, is what should I choose? This is now the beginning of July. What are the COVID crops that I can choose that are going to make the biggest difference for me? Let me see. Let's start with David Chance. David, you mentioned that it can be something as simple as oats and clover, but the grower has an opportunity to put in something to really optimize what is happening in his soil. What would your general recommendations be? Where would you begin?

Kind of another good question. I actually had a friend this morning that had a situation where he was looking at nitrogen production and looking at his equipment that he has to actually plant cover crops. 15 inch row planter. This particular event, probably the biggest bang for his buck would be using Austrian winter peas inoculated probably in 15 inch rows planted RTK so that he would have the option to plant corn in between those next year and have a nitrogen source would probably be a very big bang for his buck. However, a single specie. So, you know, that's one way to look at it. A lot of times the biggest bang for the buck in my opinion, in my experience has been mixing basically a grass, a good grass species with a good legume specie, with a good brassica specie and a good broadleaf specie that kind of get along with each other, don't, you know, shade each other out, but offer, you know, those different synergies. You might say it can be as simple as four things together, five things together. If somebody's really hesitant on trying cover crops, you know, the oats, radish, you know, medium red clover, Valanta clover, something like that can be fairly economical and still offer, you know, a multitude of species that are going to break those rotations and really start turning the microbiome in that soil on which is really at the end of the day what we're after doing. We're after covering the soil, anchoring it down, growing roots, putting that liquid carbon in there for those microbes, kind of accomplish multitude of those things. So it kind of depends on the situation, but I do generally like to mix those four types of species. Good grass, for instance. Oats will be using lot of oats in our mixes, probably along with buckwheat. Buckwheat's a really nice broadleaf that seems to scavenge P and K really nicely. We've done some flax as a broadleaf. We like the cilia, but it's so darn expensive. It becomes a little bit difficult to manage on a cost perspective. And then legumes will, you know, work with peas, clovers, vetches. And I'm not as big on brassicas anymore as I used to be. I still like radishes, I still like turnips, kale, things of that nature, but I just kind of sprinkle those in anymore. I find more value in the grasses, legumes, and some of the broadleaves. Don't know if that answers your question, but that's typically how I respond.

That's a great answer. Thank you, David. And I'd like to go to Brad Hobrock. Brad, what general recommendations would you make to growers who are just starting out, who have questions about how to begin with COVID crops?

David Chance really hit the nail on the head in a lot of aspects. But with that said, I also do believe that we can start fairly simple. He had also mentioned kind of oak, clover mixture. Fairly simple, fairly economical mixture there. But also, you know, if there is a possibility still for, you know, maybe balance some of this for some, some local cattle producers, I think that's a discussion that you need to have also with some of those folks to make sure that, you know, you are planting what they may want or need?

Very good thought. Thanks, Brad. Brad, would you consider, would it be appropriate or would there be an appropriate trade off to consider planting a crop that matures quickly as a forage crop, such as, say, oats, for example, although it might be getting late for those, but still producing a forage crop before the September 1 deadline. Is that something that would still be.

A viable option in certain areas? I think so. But if you look, you know, here in central Illinois, it's raining here again right now. We had another two and a half to three inches here a couple days ago. And so there's still a lot of fields that have water standing on them as well. And so due to current soil conditions, that actually might be a limiting factor in that respect.

Got it. Thanks, Brad. Steve Groff, you look at a lot of COVID crop opportunities and challenges and strange situations all over the world. Where would you make a recommendation to begin with? COVID crop planting?

Yeah, first of all, I would say start thinking about what do you intend to plant next year in that field that can help set up the type of species you might want to use. The thing too that I want to mention is that there's hardly anything better than sorghum Sudan grass to be planted. Now. It grows very well in the heat of summer and it puts carbon in the soil. But there's one thing that we rarely hear about. These soils, a lot of them have been saturated and when they do dry out, which we don't know yet, some of them we don't know when that's going to be. The mycorrhizae population has been suppressed because of extreme wet situation. And that's something that people don't think about. I ran into this in some previous wet periods of time where you have something like Sorghum Sudan can really help rejuvenate that mycorrhizal population that's going to help us. I think that's some of the benefits that we haven't really focused in on. But so I'll just say circumstan is what you want to build it on. And then some legumes would be sunn hemp and cowpeas. Those are the two, seems to be the cream of the crop for the legumes. And then throwing a brassic in there like a radish now is kind of the common tactic that's being used. The nice thing about those fast growing summer legumes, sun hemp, cowpeas and or sort of Sudan grass is the grass, they grow very quickly. The radishes are under the canopy, don't do much. And then when we have that first killing frost in the fall, then that opens up the canopy. The radish then starts doing its job. It helps pick up the nitrogen that the legumes made, carries it over to the following season. So that's a nice three way mix. There's another dozen or two dozen other species you can mix in there. So again, I appreciate the theme here, keep it simple. But if you're one who is down the road or you feel confident that someone's going to give you a good mix, this is an opportunity to plant that 12 way mix. Nothing else you can brag to your neighbors how many species you had. But still, I think there's some validity to it if it's created correctly. So that's just some of my comments to build on what was previously stated.

Great comments STEVE and we've actually observed tremendous responses when planting cover crops in this situation. When you have preventive planting with due to flooding and inoculating those cover crop seeds with mycorrhizal fungi. We have a lot of growers who use Bio Coke Gold for that. And the results are really substantial because, as you said, the soils are really suppressed in this situation. One of the things that I haven't heard at all, and just putting it out there as a question mark, should we consider using summer annuals that have a relatively short lifespan, such as buckwheat? Do they fit into cover crops at this time of the year at all? And I'll just put that out there for anyone who wants to answer.

Absolutely, yes, absolutely. Buckwheat and sunflowers.

Why sunflowers?

DAVID well, so I kind of look at what weeds really thrive in our environment, and we have a lot of pigweeds. And so if you really look at the root structure of a pigweed and the root structure of a sunflower, they almost mimic each other. But not only that, but it's kind of deep tap root there as well. But, you know, very, very good pollinator to, you know, attract in some of our beneficial insects, predatory insects as well. It also helps to bring zinc and even calcium available in that soil program. And then by next spring, when you dig up around those roots, you'll find a tremendous amount of earthworms around there.

David Chance, you also responded pretty heartily that buckwheat is a really great idea. What would be reasons you would choose buckwheat and what would be reasons that you would not choose buckwheat?

You know, this early in the season it will go to seed it seeds very quickly and flowers and seeds very quickly and will reseed itself and typically in the spring, in the following spring, it will regerminate and probably has the potential to be a weed. We are conventional grower, so we do have the opportunity to chemically terminate most of our cover crops. So that has not been an issue with us. I actually kind of like the idea of that reseeding and kind of getting started and then terminating it prior to the next crop. Where we have had buckwheat, there is obviously tremendous insect attraction. Bees, wasps, there's just different things. And I like some of these flowering things, typically after wheat. And in this prebit situation, similar to after wheat, we can put some things like buckwheat or flax porphycilia and some hemp that actually flower at different kind of times. And it really is attracted to all these beneficial insects. And where we've had buckwheat, where we have done pretty intensive soil testing without added, you know, minerals through purchase, we have seen phosphorus levels and potassium levels actually increase significantly on our soil testing. So I like buckwheat. It's a reasonable price. It's easy to put in.

Kind of look at the plant.

It's kind of a puny looking plant. You dig the roots up, they're not super impressive, but it's one of those things that must be the sugars that it produces through those roots must be magic to those microbes.

Yeah. In my personal observation, the two cover crops which loosen soil and increase soil aggregation irrigation really substantially are oats and buckwheat. They're just very difficult to match in what they do. And also they have, as you described, both of those crops have a substantial impact on increasing phosphorus availability. And to the comment about weeds, I always hear this comment that, oh, buckwheat can become a weed. And my response to that is, if you can't control buckwheat as a weed, then you really can't control anything else either. Because even if you're not using herbicides, if you're an organic grower and you're doing cultivation, buckwheat is so easy to cultivate out. If you have a problem with buckwheat, you really have a problem, you have a bigger problem. Steve, do you have any thoughts or inputs on buckwheat?

Yeah, I would say, and I like buckwheat for all the mentions, all the reasons mentioned. But again, it comes to what is your next crop going to be and when is it going to be. Let's just theoretically say you might go to wheat. Not many people do, but you know, you might go to wheat. So then that's going to be probably in October. So you don't have a lot of time there. The buckwheat be very appropriate to do that. The problem with buckwheat when you use sorghum, Sudan and sunn hemp and even cow peas is it kind of almost as fast as it grows. It's a little hard to compete in there unless you make room for it. And this is the thing about mixes and mixes certainly don't have to be expensive. You have to, sometimes you get down to ounces per acre of some of seeds in a mix. And when you have, you have to understand that if you're using sorghum Sudan grass, you got to cut that rate down to 2, 3, 4, 5 pound per acre. Maybe you want some of these other species to survive. And that I think is a key when you're kind of making up your mixes here. So I would put buckwheat in a mix, but you have to accommodate it. You have to leave room for it. It's a fast grower. But I'm telling you, sunn hemp and sorghum Sudan will beat it. And if you have 10 to 15 pounds of each of those, your buckwheat's not gonna do a lot in there. It'll probably be out competed. So these are things you just have to kind of talk to someone or seed provider who has experience in crafting these mixes is something that you do need to have some knowledge or expertise or experience in order to get these mixes to be effective and then not break bank, so to speak.

Thank you. We have a question that has come in here from David Miller. Glad to see you here, David. I'm an organic farm. I have a crop of triticale that I will be harvesting for seed. There's a small amount of clover, vetch and some low growing wheat. If I cut it really low, can I no till sun hemp and sorghum without using an herbicide? What are your thoughts on that?

Well, I'll chime right in on that. I would say as soon as the straw is baled, if he's going to bale the straw, go plant immediately. Probably a few weeds here and there, but those sorghum, Sudan, sunn hemp, they grow so fast, I think you're going to be okay. And if it's just sorghum Sudan and sunn hemp and you want to keep weeds down, keep your rates a little bit on the higher side, it's kind of a different thought, what I just mentioned, because if weed control is one of your objectives here, and that's why it's so important to think of what your objectives are for this crop, because that'll determine your seeding rates and so forth. This is just an example where, you know, I would suggest 10 to 12 pounds of sunn hemp and probably 10 pounds of sorghum Sudan for using those species. If you really want to do weed control, maybe up those rates even 20% higher than that, but that's just a foundation to jump off of.

And if you are planting no till, how deeply would you plant those, Steve?

About one inch.

Okay. A question that I've asked a lot of people on the podcast and which I really enjoy asking people in conversations one on one, is what is the question that I should be asking? What's the question you wish I would have asked? So I would like to ask you that question from a grower's perspective. If you were having a conversation with a grower, what is the question regarding cover crops at this time of the year that you that the growers should be thinking about? What are the primary considerations they should be thinking about? Steve, you've already answered this question to some degree by describing how they should be thinking about what crop comes next. But what are some of the key considerations for planting cover crops at this time that growers frequently miss or that they don't think about? David Kleinschmidt, why don't we begin with you? What's the question that growers should be asking or should be thinking about?

So the number one thing is, well, two things actually. What is your budget, how much you want to spend on your cover crop, and then what are your goals that you want to achieve? A lot of times when I'm working with a lot of farmers, I have a list of about 12 different objectives that a farmer could pick and choose from to achieve some sort of goal. It's not a checkbox, you know, they actually prioritize it, you know, 1 through 12. A lot of times, you know, when the first thought comes into mind about COVID crops is erosion, which is great. You know, we need to keep the soil in place. But there are so many other benefits that a cover crop can provide to farmers. And until you actually start to discuss that with them, they really don't think too much about it.

Thank you, David. Brad Hobrock, what thoughts do you have around this? What is the question that growers should be thinking about when they think about incorporating cover crops?

Once again, David, hit the nail on the head is what's your goal? What's your objective? Because simply just going out and planting cover crops kind of blindly, I mean, can it provide some results and things that ideal things we want to see? Yes, it can. But we have different environments, we have different crops. And so certainly next year also you know, what crops going to follow up with this because certainly managing those seed N ratios is very, very critical, especially if it is going to another grass crop, say corn, wheat, et cetera.

Brad, you referred to managing seed and ratios. Why does that matter? Why is it important?

Plays a big role especially in nitrogen availability. Not just nitrogen availability, but that's the big one. Certainly if we're not addressing that properly, we to have significant nitrogen tie up that will not be available to a, to the crop next year. Especially if it again, corn, wheat, other grass of that sort.

Thank you, Brad. David Chance.

Yeah, so I think everybody's kind of nailed that one really. I think objective is be, you know, what type of crop are you planning on planting next? That's obviously, I think probably the first question. The second question for a conventional grower is what type of chemistry have you already applied? If you have applied chemistries that have long residual activity, you need to read the labels. Certain very small seeded species can react adversely to that. So I think understanding where your chemical program has been, understanding what type of crop you want to grow, and then actually understanding the objective of each field. Is there a drainage problem in a field that needs to be addressed, you know, with perhaps like sorghum Sudan grass, as Steve mentioned, and that's an awesome opportunity to put sorghum Sudan in this early in the season as an example or, you know, are you, are you growing corn and you know, nitrogen is your primary objective, then, you know, you need to be kind of shifting toward the idea of some of the, perhaps mixes of summer legumes and winter legumes and maybe, you know, some sprinkles of grasses and things, oats and different things like that. Are you growing soybeans? You know, sir, ore and soybeans, they kind of have a synergistic effect. We're so rye in corn. I know a lot of people do it, but Dave's experience has not been good with that. So Dave does not do it because of allelopathic effects. That can be a problem. So understanding what you're going to grow, the chemistry you've used and you know, the objectives, whether it's nitrogen, whether it's mycorrhizal fungi, whether it's, you know, trying to build carbon levels. Just kind of a series of questions that I think everybody's done a pretty good job kind of answering.

Thank you, David. Steve saved you for last.

Yeah. Hey. I'm gonna build upon what David just said with the chemistry. There's an easy way to figure that out because, you know, with the amount of rain we have, and I understand the half life chemistry and everything, the best way is to take a shovel, well and gather, you know, just like you'd be soil testing about. Just go about 4 inches deep, get a couple shovelfuls, put them in a five gallon bucket, mix it up and then go plant your cover crops that you intend to plant in there and see how they do. In about 10 days you'll know.

Yeah.

That way you can feel a little more confident that you're not going to have issues with any herbicide effects. The other thing I'll just tag on with that is fertility. Some of these fields had had nitrogen applied or fertility applied. Who knows what's left with all the rain, especially nitrogen. But if you did apply nitrogen, do for sure want to get a grass in there to capture that and hold it? Again, depends on what your crop is next year. But even if it is corn, using a sorghum Sudan, a millet and some of the grass type species to capture and hold that. Another good reason to include a Brassica because they're really good at that. So that's just a few things to add to the, I guess this discussion on this question.

Steve, I'll ask a follow up question to our earlier question. We spoke a little bit about mycorrhizal fungi and using Biokoat Gold, which is one of our products that we use a lot. And we've also been having a conversation about generally all of us here in the group, about adding legumes for nitrogen fixation. Is it necessary to add rhizobium inoculants for these various species that might be specific, such as sunn hemp and cowpeas, etc.

Absolutely. Unquestionably inoculate specifically in this situation of wetness, because it can actually, I'm going to say kill or suppress some of these organisms out there, depending on a lot of things. But it's an inexpensive product to put in there and so I'm pretty adamant. Yeah, go ahead and make sure you have the rhizobias on for whatever species. Now if you do get, you know, I guess you want to know, make sure you get the right strain for the specific species. Now there's some of these companies now have multiple strains and one in one bag or one packet, so to speak, kind of covers the bases. But you know, hairy vetch and peas is the same inoculant pretty much sun hemp be a little bit different. So make sure you get the right inoculant on your specific species that you're intending to grow.

Thanks Steve. I'm going to shift the conversation just a little bit and open a can of worms that should perhaps remain closed. But I think it's important for us to talk about. When I visit with colleagues from other countries around the world, it's intriguing to hear perspective of growers from other places. And one of the recurring conversations is they are amazed by how effectively innovation has been stifled in the United States Crop growing community by crop insurance and the effects that crop insurance has on the decisions that we make. I think this is particularly relevant to the conversation that we're having about growing cover crops, etc. And there are many who've said that getting away from crop insurance and being able to make decisions for their operation completely independent of crop insurance was one of the key factors that has allowed them to really innovate and to get to a very different place of success on their operation. So I can't speak from experience because I'm not have never been a large scale crop grower. I've never been dependent on crop insurance. And so to some degree, I really don't know what I'm talking about. But it is something that I'm certainly curious about. So I'd love to hear each of your perspectives. What is the role of crop insurance? What do you think the role of crop insurance should be and what do you wish were different? Go ahead, Steve.

Oh, you want me to start? Okay. Well, first of all, I have to give the caveat. I'm not a large scale grower either. I grow 300 acres on my farm here. I have chosen not to get crop insurance. And you could say I don't even qualify to answer this question either, John. I get that. But I've been to Australia and I've seen down there where typically a lot of farmers are growing five or six different cash crops in order to diversify. That's their crop insurance, so to speak, by using soil health principles. So I totally agree. I'm not sure if I would stick my neck out and say we should totally eliminate crop insurance, but if I was in charge, I would dramatically pull it back and open it up. I would actually advocate rewarding farmers who have a history of using cover crops that they shouldn't have any premium, they shouldn't pay any premium for crop insurance because their fields are more resilient, can be a little hard to prove and everything, but we have it. We actually would have the technology to do it. I've been through the halls of Washington D.C. uSDA several times addressing this issue, John, and it is something I am passionate about and it has caused a challenge to, I'll say, the overall soil health movement. I'm actually hearing people right now, farmers who are actually planting corn knowing it's going to be too late. But they say they'll make more money filing a claim on corn than they will just to leave it go and take the prevent plant option. And you know, farmers hate to do that, but that's kind of like we have put ourselves as a country in this corner. So just to sum up my opinion, I would do away with most all crop insurance except for catastrophic cases. So you opened a can of worms. I just poured them out.

All right, thank you, Steve. Brad Holbrock, you are a large scale commercial grower and certainly this influences you a lot. What is your perspective?

I agree a lot with what Steve had mentioned, but I want to piggyback and other countries, Australia being one, they don't have crop insurance. And so generally they are so much farther ahead of a lot of people within the United States in terms of soil health and continuing to build soils. Often in our industry it's talked about of using sustainable practices. And John, this is a comment I've heard you make several times. But with continued degraded soils or continued degraded practices, there's nothing sustainable about that. And we need to be true stewards of the land. We need to do the things that we are on here to do and that's to produce healthy crops, high yielding healthy crops. But there is too much emphasis, there's too many decisions that are made on crop insurance. Certainly it's nice to have it, but I think Steve's point that those who are building soils and using covers and truly involved in regenerative farming practices, I think there should be a huge reward for that. Maybe to the point that to actually have crop insurance available to us, maybe we need. Everybody has to have those practices involved in their farm.

Good thoughts, Brad. Thank you. David Chance, do you use crop insurance?

Yeah, I do actually. I'm going to take a little different take here. So I would say we're a mid sized grower. We farm about 2,200 acres and we are pretty much your classic Midwest farm. We grow corn, soybeans, hogs, and we also have wheat in our rotation. We do not insure our wheat as I'll describe here in a minute. But I'll take a little different approach on the crop insurance. Crop insurance actually is something that we've paid into for a number of years. We have the RP insurance which we have the prevent plant option which we took on a big majority of our corn acres this year. We didn't plant a single acre of corn. We took prevent plant on all our corn acres that we intended to plant. We shifted some to beans, but it made economic sense for us to do that and then also have the opportunity to grow cover crops this next year, perhaps in order to grow corn on those acres next year and perhaps lower input costs by maybe growing a lot of our nitrogen. But what I comment on is we've paid into it for over 25 years of our career, and we've had a couple of years where we have had large claims. So I look at it from an economic standpoint in that aspect that it is sort of a backdrop for us. Our operation is set up, our infrastructure and our investments are primarily around corn and soybean production. And the opportunity that crop insurance has given us is that with that backdrop that we have, we have the ability to market those commodities on the futures market at times when they are very profitable. And we know that we have a safety net with the crop insurance underneath us that has been an intangible over that period that we have paid into it, the 25 years we paid into it. Or so that's been an intangible that actually has made our operation a lot of profitability because it's given us the confidence to market ahead at prices that give us margin and give us good return on equity and good return on investment. So I'm not going to hammer the crop insurance aspect because it works for our operation. As far as soil health, I would not disagree with the other participants in the aspect that it does force us to sort of a monoculture of corn and soybeans, corn and soybeans, or maybe corn, corn, corn, corn, and maybe throw a soybean in there every once in a while. And that is not good for soil health. And it's difficult to incorporate cover crops and different soil health practices into that mix that are going to advance regenerative agriculture. We typically try to grow wheat every year for what we call a rehab year, and that's kind of our rest year where we can actually go in and grow wheat. We can use compost manures, different soil amendments that are necessary, address compaction, and then get some of these cover crop mixes in that are sort of unique in order to really kind of advance our health. In our soils. We found that to actually be something that has helped us build our soils in the system that we use, which is commercial corn sloping systems.

Wonderful.

Thank you, David, for that perspective. David Kleinschmidt, what thoughts do you have on the crop insurance can of worms?

It is a big can of worms. You know, some of the struggle has been, you know, I guess, in the perspectives of when is a cover crop terminated, does it affect the crop insurance and stuff like that? That's really shot a lot, a lot of people away from using cover cover crops. I think just because of the terminology in some of the RMA handbook and Everything. And there's a lot of confusion in it. I think it's cleared up quite a bit now. I guess I'm very hopeful for the state of Illinois. For one thing that we've got going for us is we'll have a $5 premium reduction on crop insurance if you use a cover crop mimicking what Iowa's done. And so. So I'm really hopeful that maybe that will help to get guys to do more cover crop practices. But at the same time, I don't know how much as we build our soils and build our resilience to the soils and everything, it starts to diversify out of a corn soybean pendulum, not really a rotation, but if we really need that crop insurance or. Or if we just need more of that catastrophic, like Steve was talking wind and hailing type insurance. So, yeah, I guess that's where I stand on that.

Thank you. David. There are a few questions that I think would be of wide scale interest. One of them is we spoke about identifying the objectives of the COVID crops that we're growing. If an objective is to shift the soils microbial population from being bacterially dominant to being fungally dominant, what are some cover crop species that would really help to accelerate that shift and drive that. And if you have any thoughts or.

Insights on that, when you go to, I would say higher lignified covers that are a little more complex versus higher sugar content. Higher sugar content covers, legumes, things of that nature, tend to be digested pretty quickly and are somewhat more bacterially dominated. And Steve had talked about sorghum, Sudan grass, and even sterile rye that's left to mature, or things of that nature that have a higher carbon to nitrogen ratio and are a little more lignified and a little higher complex, they typically seem to be a little better food sources for fungal populations, but however, qualify that they also need some more bacterially dominated covers in there that are quickly digested to build bacterial populations so that the fungal populations will actually piggyback on bacterial populations as long as they have a food source, a highly lignified food source to basically feed on.

So in essence, David, what you're describing is to grow cover crops that have very broad carbon and nitrogen ratios, lower levels of protein, and have a lot of carbon. I would agree with that. There is a very good question that has come up. How do you facilitate germination of COVID crops in hot weather and dry soil when irrigation is limited? So this is a very real concern because I know of some parts of the country that where this Pendulum has already swung from one extreme this spring spring to the other extreme right now where soils are already very dry and very warm. So what answers would you have for that? Brad Hobrock, do you have any thoughts or insights on how to manage that?

Well, number one, if you have very, very adverse soil conditions that is very, very hot, very dry from a financial perspective, if we're not likely to get them germinated because of soil conditions are not ideal, then should we be spending any money on it in some of those situations? And that could even be like a dry land sand here today in central Illinois, you know, here in the Illinois River Valley. But simply if it doesn't make sense, is it worth spending the money on? It's probably not, you know, mitigating those things. Outside of looking at weather forecasts, there's not a lot that can be done.

Thanks, Brad. Pretty thorough and pretty answered. It's not a nice, it's not the answer we would like to hear, but it is the real answer. Absolutely. David Chance, do you have any thoughts to add to that?

No, I totally agree with it. You know, if you're in an adverse situation, there's not moisture and it's difficult to establish them like that. I mean, I totally agree. I mean, you need to either wait to moisture or wait to get them, you know, established because you'll be disappointed you don't get response.

I guess it's a question of how severe the problem is. If you have severe challenges with not having enough moisture, if they're severe enough, it's completely impractical.

So let me add to that real quick, John. Even, even if you get germination to occur, roots still need moisture in the soil to grow. And if we don't have enough soil moisture for that to happen, then once again, there's just no sense in spending that money.

Absolutely. Brad, thank you. We have one final question that we'll address here. Do we have any thoughts on cover crop species? For soils that have been damaged from multiple years of herbicide, tillage, chemical fertilizer, what cover crops could we use that might speed up the bioremediation process of any residues that might still remain in that slow profile? Any thoughts on cover crops that might be able to benefit that in particular, if that is a specific objective, the.

First thought that comes to my mind is root six dirt. So, you know, the annual rye grass species, berseen clover, crimson clover, balance of clover can really, really help to remediate those types of situations. Especially in a vineyard, having something that's pollinator clover in there can really be beneficial there.

David, you just used a phrase that I'm unfamiliar with. Use the phrase root six, soil. What are you describing by that? What do you mean?

So soils weren't formed by a plow. They evolved by, you know, plants, roots interaction, microbial interaction, and grazers going across much of the earth at the same time. So the more roots that we can have out there, more fibrous roots. You know, a lot of people think about radishes to help alleviate their compaction issues, where actually an annual ryegrass with a whole lot of root mass will fix that compaction issue a lot quicker. So it's just a term I heard here about a month ago. Roots fix dirt, and it just makes a lot of sense. I think maybe Rick Haney says that.

Got it. All right. Well, we are coming up to the end of the hour. Do any of you have any final thoughts you would like to add to the conversation? Things that we haven't talked about, questions that I haven't asked, Anything else that is important to discuss that we've missed?

John, if I can real quick. You know, we talked a little bit about baling some of these forages. We really got to be cautious on the nitrate levels on that nitrate and persic acid. But, you know, for either being grazed or being bailed off to make sure we're not setting ourselves up for a very catastrophic event with our livestock as well.

Thank you, David. I want to thank each of you for joining and for being a panelist here. I know that many growers find this information to be very valuable. Many people will be listening to this, and I'm sure it'll be very valuable information. So I want to say thank you for being here and thank you for sharing and look forward to having more conversations with you in the future and happy growing. Talk to you soon. Thanks, everyone.

Thanks, John.

It's an honor.

Thanks, John.

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