 Thanks everyone for attendance going to talk a little bit about some cover crops today and some things that we've incorporated up on our operation in North Central Kansas and a lot of this started really from back in my extension days throughout there would go to a lot of different field days see a lot of presentations on the benefits of cover crops and saw them working in people's rotations for grazing for hanging or just for increasing soil fertility getting more use out of the out of the soil and the moisture especially here in eastern Kansas but I was seeing very little data if any on the economic returns that was coming from these cover crops I've seen a lot of costs that were incurring from that and so a couple years ago applied for a Sarah producer grant to kind of look at some different treatments of applications for cover crops there so chose a location on the farm and this is on part of my dad's land through that that you really had good access obviously to water and pens for grazing because for the grazing component there just a little bit about the the field that I chose it's a continuous we were all kind of farm-wide we are in between 15 to some of our land has been a continuous no-till for 20 this would be yeah just ending the the 22nd year through there this particular field had been in continuous no-till for 15 years had been in had seen alfalfa and then our typical corn soybeans and wheat dry land rotation there some slight variation in the field there so we chose this was this the 61 acre plot through there and I just kind of divided it in thirds a plot for that we were going to graze a plot for hanging and then just a part for you know leaving on the ground to look at the look at the other piece there so ended up with two different mixes of cover crop seeds there very very fortunate to have a neighbor good friend and that by the name of Dale Strickler how works for star seeds he's just down the road from me so I you know I went to him and said hey what should I plant here and he gave me all these options and I was like Dale just tell me what to plant and he's a he knows what he's doing when he comes to this stuff so I I just went with his thing so for the parts for leaving alone and grazing we went with a mix of 30 pounds of oats 20 pounds of spring field peas 3 pounds of radishes couple pounds of turnips and a pound of a forage sorghum through that something we kind of threw in at the end and then for the haid for the haid portion which this makes perfect sense we kept everything the same except we eliminated the radish and the turnips from there because as Dale had experience you know when you're going through if you're swapping your swath or will kick up one of them turnishes or radishes or the baler could into the windrow and if that gets into the bail that is not good it's gonna rot and probably ruin a good chunk of the bail so in that in that third I did not have the radishes in the turnips so we planted it into wheat stubble on August the 6th was kind of a that would have been about three weeks after harvest that year and then in non-typical North Central Kansas weather you know you gotta love this you plant something on August 6 thinking this is crazy what it's gonna grow on August the 6th and within two weeks we had eight inches of rain very not typical for North Central Kansas and so you want to talk about optimal rainfall through there and you see that samples taken I pulled samples on October 14th and this was in this this was in the this was an average of the forage and non-forage 18.15 tons per acre of wet weight through that so we produced a lot of forage in a very little amount of time which is which is just perfect so as you'll see a lot of my results here I have a few disclaimers in that because actually this past year it would have worked probably just as well from that but maybe you can't think of that as being your typical results so you're gonna plant something like this in Kansas to mid-August and get 18 tons of product on acre so let's look at some of our costs here you see what I have the establishment costs for just the leaving alone so this is just what it costs to put the crop in the ground I had $15.59 and additional chemical application so I did an extra we did an extra a roundup burn down on the wheat stubble there so that's the cost of the chemical and application and then as you noticed you know from that seed mix if you know much about it you're talking about a lot of different sizes of seeds there a lot of different mix and I just felt the most comfortable our co-op up there a row Aurora co-op has a really good custom drilling program with the ride equipment so I thought that was a good investment so I went ahead and spent the 17 almost 17 and a half bucks an acre to have it custom drilled and then the seed was close to 40 bucks an acre $33.79 for the mix that had the turnips and the radishes there you know you see the results see the size of my hand and there was a tillage radish just much larger than that out there but that what I would call is a pretty typical tillage radish sizes you know more than half of the the width of my hand and went down a substantial amount into the ground a couple of the guys that work for my dad swore as they were going out moving the fences around in that they're like there's turnips the size of volleyball is out there and I said why don't you bring one back I want to see one of these volleyball size turnips and one of those never came to fruition in reality but we did have quite a few turnips larger than softballs through that so on the hate portion again so we planted this August the 6th October the 14th we hate it so this was roughly a 21 acre plot got 38 bales just we just put it round bales averaging 1750 pounds each had it tested crude protein value right 16% relative feed value 150 so I'd put this right at medium-grade alfalfa there you see pretty pretty healthy looking wind rows through there no we raked them and that we did hit it right with getting it put up right before there was too much rain I don't know how much you can see from there we had had it froze a lot earlier than it did this year then you see at that point the forage sorghum had already you know it had gotten burned pretty good by the frost at that point through that and so what did that what does that yield right at 1.59 tons per acre is what that came out and so at the time of the that this that this was taken the going price for that grade 150 relative feed value alfalfa was right at 90 bucks per ton in our area so I assume if you were looking at this as an income per ton type of thing that feeds worth $90 a ton sitting there in that shed and then I had $73.40 or the expenses in that for net income per ton 1666 and so what does that do kind of a sensitivity prices there so again you know we're right here right here in this level from there and if you're just comparing this and taking out any of the soil quality benefits and just looking at paying for the price of your seed the planting and putting the hay up seeing if you could see him where that would come from you could afford at that price about $73 per ton is what how far down the hay price could be now unfortunately where are we at today up in our area we're here in this 55 maybe $60 per ton region is what is what hay would be I think you'd probably be pretty happy if someone came and offered you $60 a ton for hay right now so maybe you're in 50 range and so at this price you know I just kind of take note that you know even given the high yields and some of this through that you kind of the bottom line would be if you could find some cheaper hay then than what we produced on the field but that's not and so you need to weigh in if you're thinking about this for your own operation if that $30 of quote-unquote cost per ton is is really worth is if you're getting enough benefits from the cover crops from from that so and you'll see kind of some slides some subsequent things that have happened on that form that I think are worth quite quite a good amount and so just kind of the same thing here's where I was at 1.59 tons per acre and then you could substantiate about a 20% decrease in yield to still kind of break even given those given those prices that were that were there through that the grazing portion we turned out the first package of steers 58 head on their weight 858 for 26 days and just the way my family we have a backgrounding feedlot up there and it just kind of how it worked for the timing of our ranch we ended up putting two sets of a cattle to on on this grazing system just the way things were timed so the first package was on there for 26 days the second package was on there for 60 days so 86 days of grazing terminated the grazing on January the 17th is when there's the last day they were out there and then we do supplement you know the the the steers were brought into a pin that's where the water was and everything and they were supplemented with seven pounds of corn gluten pellets per day every day regardless forage during wet conditions we had some wet days there and you know that is a working crop field out there that we didn't there was several times I think about 11 days throughout this time period that we did not turn the cattle out and so we provided forage as a supplement feed during that time and then something I never even thought of when I was designing this grant or looking at this project is what did we end up feeding for forage was the hay that we put up in the shed there you know I just it's kind of simple now when you think about it like of course you would do that but it was just one of those steps I never quite close that loop until you know we're sneaking this through and hey we can't turn the cattle out well there is a shed full of hay that's that same crop it's up there so it really it worked out that just that really worked out need to have that that portion of the of the haid part through that so so that's the piece there so you look at 58 head total over 86 days of grazing and the average daily gain on these cattle 2.13 pounds per day so so it was really there and if we just kind of normalize that put it on over across the 58 had there was pounds of gain per head right over a little over 183 pounds of gain we got during this 86 day time period there and so the total cost this doesn't obviously include the cost of livestock but the cost of the you know the cover crops valuing the forage that we did there the the pellets we even calculated some some yardage costs and then even some I calculated what the labor was for to to put up the electric fence and to move it I I costed everything out on that had about a cost per head for this 86 days right under 124 bucks ahead put that down to how many pounds we gained cost per pound of gain 68 cents per pound there and that stood up against any any package of cattle we had that year you know is as being the most economical way to put gain on cattle now you'll notice I've just I chose just for a lot of reasons there's a lot of things if you remember what cattle prices were a year ago they were they were in a lot better situation than than now a lot of things have changed since then so just for as a fairness and to just go out there I've just decided to kind of report from this cost per pounds of gain because you can imagine what we were what we were selling cattle for then this this was a pretty profitable type of operation through that and so but I just I really just chose to focus on this is the bottom line is a pretty efficient way to put that and again I want to put some caution out there we had really optimal rainfall and high cattle prices that year he was this worked very well was a great was a great it's pretty large-scale experiment and report and enjoyed learning a lot and reporting it and enjoyed continuing this you know without the the help of the grant on other parts of our operation but but there's always just some caution I want to lay out there with that and then some lessons learned so the following May received nine inches of rain in about the course of four hours on that field and that was it was something else a lot of people a lot of people lost a lot of ground there was some significant goal erosion in portions of that field but compared to you saw you know how good of a how good so it's tough to see this picture I'm sorry but this is a portion that's haze so it's pretty far down this is after the grazing had done and you know those steers that had good run of it and it was still pretty still had quite a bit of growth there there was so much there holding the soil there it's pretty tough would have it's pretty hard to imagine what happened without that and then there's surprisingly little regrowth after the hang you know we hate that stuff in October and you know it's swapped it we didn't swap it down as low as you would like alfalfa or that regular we we've had the header of the swath are up a bit but I figure there'd be some regrowth in that because it wasn't like in the dead of winter yet you know obviously mid October so it's interesting there's surprising little regrowth and very very little to know that's always the thousand dollar question people with cover crops hey can you attribute any you know decline increase in the following years crops we planted corn on that next year and there was no there was no impact on corn yield but then again had did have adequate rainfall and I will say what was interesting about this is it's my farm that's across the road from this track to land and we're always on the same rotation schedule of that and then I was on my farm across the road when the combine left my farm there was not a single bit of activity on that farm until the following April when the corn planner went in and you see all what we got off of the field across the road because of this cover crop activity which is a really neat I think a use of the resources of course this is a year especially where the wonderful my technical term the pigweed Palmer amaranth is very present up in north central Kansas and people have asked about that because you know it is worth especially if you're going to follow a cover crop after wheat you know there's you have to watch your herbicide program and your wheat because a lot of the herbicides have a residual effect will impact the crops the next year and so so you can't you have to use a different herbicide program on that wheat and I can't say that there were any additional we had any additional weed pressure or any less weed pressure I spot you know I never went out and did an official account that's just pretty much a it's very unofficial survey there so so no impacts on on weeds on either side of that but you know I do know and I've heard of people looking at cover crop mixes to specifically for weed suppression that just wasn't really the goal of this and so that's kind of I think that's the last slide I had I had there I guess said was there this was a great we appreciated the opportunity for the Sarah Grant to kind of get our foot in the door pay for a little bit of the seeding costs and that and and we're gonna continue to use them we had the chance to have have a field day with about 75 people on site the day we were swathing the cover crop and then I've just had the opportunity throughout my travels to give this presentation several times sit down with different producer groups so it's been it's been a neat learning experience and look forward to looking somewhere and so the question was obviously we fed the steers seven pounds of of corn gluten per day and like any typical economist here I will just give you a quick calculation off of what that was so I would say about 14 cents 14 cents of that would be so that is that's not even hardly 25% of that so that was given corn gluten prices them which I'm I know they've went down since there so about 14 cents of that so that's just part of our operation I do give my grandfather my dad some grief I ask them if they're in the catering business or in the cattle feeding business because they do we do tend to have some good forage and some good products like that north central Kansas but they're a firm believer in some supplemental feed and it's I know it's not necessary but I I know where to pick my battles I'm not gonna win that one and the question was really quantifying that value of the soil health and if I could think of a way especially in a one-year time frame like this to put on some specific value I would have I would have included it I love crunching numbers and and and things like that and so we're just kind of looking long term seeing what those you know we we grid and have you know you know utilize precision ag and that and then have do regular soil samples I'm just keeping track of these fields that have this have additional have a cover crop rotation worked into that to see to see where we're at there but I think a lot of the I think a lot of the values are that you know especially in all systems because even the cattle didn't the cattle didn't capture all of those turnips and radishes but that was you go out there and you know the next spring and that's something like another question I get I had a pretty harsh winter that year didn't have any problems with regrowth that just all naturally winter killed everything everything I did but you know out there in the spring when it was heating up and it it smells pretty strong out there it smells like cattle taken off a turnips you've ever had the joy of experiencing that smell and that's what it smelled with no cattle out there and then let alone the the wonderful nutrients the cattle were spreading throughout there and there's definitely there's definitely a value to that and even if it would come up to you know 10% of your overall nutritional or you know soil soil requirements through there it would be it would be pretty significant but verdicts still out I wish I could put a number that this is how much fertilizer was saved through that and it's just not that not that simple of a I can't give you an answer I feel comfortable enough on that so