 Nick Palpaugh is the owner of Cold Springs Organics in Belgrade, Montana, where he raises organic beef, grains, pulses, and flax. Nate started farming when he was just 12 years old as part of a 4-H project and used grants and other opportunities to develop and expand his cattle operation in Bozeman, Montana. As a farm-stead member of the Organic Trade Association through Montana Organic Association, Nate is a spokesperson for organic agriculture at the national level. Nate is passionate about building a food system that supports everyone. So thank you so much for joining us, Nate. Yes, thank you for having me. Excited to be here. I was listening in on some of the earlier sessions and it's a really neat conversation to be having, especially in the Montana Dakota area. So again, my name is Nate Palpaugh. Good to be with you all. I'm based out of Bozeman, Montana, and I operate Cold Springs Organics. We have just about a thousand acres of crop ground that we rotate with both pasture and forage production, as well as those oil, seeds, pulses, and cereals. Primarily raising durum and yellow peas and flax this year, along with what little alfalfa we were able to convince the weather to give us. It's been very dry over our or we are and I think it has been where you all are as well. So I got started in organics a little bit down the way I got certified in 2008 and so I've been at it for a bit but I did. I am a first generation farmer and so how to kind of build this idea from scratch as to what I wanted a career in production agriculture to look like. And on the way I had to ultimately develop this mindset for for how am I going to be in agriculture, able to make a living and and ultimately existing within this greater kind of thought ecosystem that doesn't necessarily agree with organics. I've got lots of conventional neighbors mostly conventional neighbors. I think I'm the only organic grain grower in my county. And I need to rely on them to learn how to farm to get better farming possibly to borrow some equipment or to use some contractors. And so I had to approach organic from a place where I wasn't highlighting the differences but rather really celebrating the similarities between the goals of all farmers are goals being that we want to be able to make a living from the land, steward the land effectively, and ultimately build a business that's going to be something of value and ultimately something we can pass on hopefully. And Claire, if you want to monitor the chat I'm happy to take questions as we go. If there's anything folks want to throw in the chat box otherwise I'll just kind of dive in and we can chat afterwards. Okay, sounds good. I was getting into organics all of my mentors were basically saying that why would you want to do something that's just going to be a weedy mess. You're not going to make any money because it's poor yielding. Ultimately you're sort of getting rid of the obligation of the farmer to feed the world, you're not you're not going to be able to feed the world. And in a lot of ways, organics because we do use tillage is seen as this step backwards from all the progress we've made towards no till. Those are four assumption that I've really had to figure out okay if I'm going to be an organic farmer building this business. How do I honor those skepticism to make sure I really don't make them true how do I stay and keep fields clean. How do I get as good a yield as I possibly can. And how do I do it with a conservation mindset. And so I am exclusively a tenant farmer so I don't own any farmland. And so I've spent the last about decade decade and a half building relationships with landlords, which is a little bit tricky a little bit different than what we might do in the conventional world. I have alternative crops it's not just in my area it's mostly wheat and alfalfa maybe a little bit of barley. So when we get flax and pulses, the fields look different than say their neighbors might. And there's, there are weeds there are more weeds than than my conventional neighbors. So when approaching landlords I've had to sort of assume some of their assumptions and and be ready to have a conversation so the idea that organic is weedy and could make it so that the, you know, they have to really be thinking about that how am I going to go on to a farm, rent the ground, probably the ground is going to have some weed problems already if it's ready to be organic it's going to have been not sprayed for three years. How am I going to make sure that the, the, the rent is sufficient enough to make the landlords happy. Kind of talk about that yield question, will I be making enough to ultimately make rent. And sort of the pride of the neighborhood and not the joke, making sure that we farm in a way that keeps everybody impressed with our operation, rather than the, the sort of the talk of the around the coffee shop of how ugly organics is. And then also looking at lease agreements. So in looking at all of this. I really try to figure out what is it that I need to do as a producer to hit these assumptions right up front and make sure the landlord is a good fit that they're the type of type of person who's going to be a willing and eager and capable partner for lacing me this land. So starting kind of on the, the number four annual lease agreements in organics, because we have this transition period where we have to farm for three years transition, and then we get to go into organic certified status. We need a little bit longer leases. And so I always approach landlords saying I need at least a five year lease if I'm going to be able to work with you, because I need to get through that transition period, and then a couple years at least of the organic crop sales opportunities. And then I have to and I've been working on this for quite a long time, come up with a rotation that ultimately keeps weeds at bay and makes it so that we have got good looking fields. So my crop rotation primarily consists of a year of Durham, and then we go into flax and then peas. And that alfalfa period is what really cleans it up so I have alfalfa in rotation on all of my ground. I have organic beef cattle, as well as crop ground. So I have a known market for that alfalfa, but ultimately it's, it's a way to keep weeds and keep fields looking good weeds under control and fields looking good. And it's the primary source of nitrogen for my crops. So when I'm we're looking to raise high protein Durham, that has good test weight. I'm ultimately looking at that, that alfalfa to provide the nitrogen and to provide that clean start for my cereals and the other other annual crops I raise between hay crops. So weeds in organics especially they reflect a little, they reflect your management. So when we're thinking about how do we ultimately figure out what weeds we have, what's it going to take to get rid of them and how do we keep them at bay, that's our crop rotation. That's the primary tool we have to fight weeds. And I like to think about my weed management plan is not necessarily a means of getting rid of every weed, but getting weeds to a manageable level that isn't super ugly doesn't economically impact the crop. And ultimately isn't a growing presence. So I don't have to hit a point where I just have to tear everything out or terminate what could be a cash crop for hay. So we need to think about how we holistically manage the weeds and create that rotation, growing different crops that we might not necessarily grow as if we were conventional. The longer the crop rotation I found and several studies have supported this the longer the crop rotation, the more weeds can be suppressed. And so when we're thinking about what we'd like to grow organically organic wheat has a good price but it's just it's not good for suppressing weeds. You're going to the when we grow cereals, at least in Montana, that's when our weeds really start to catch up. Yellow peas do a good job breaking up that cycle that disease that pest cycle, ultimately fixing a little bit of nitrogen themselves, but also as kind of a smother crop. I found that I plant my yellow peas at about 200 pounds an acre. And that the yellow pea carpet that comes up is a vine and so it's going to be pulling down a lot of the weeds, messing up their reproductive cycles, ultimately giving them some competition. And so, after all Falfa will do the the Durham and then the yellow, then the flax and then the yellow peas, or switch it out in there in some way. Before we go back to hey and so weeds are always getting a little bit more to get a little bit more of a presence of weeds during the annual cropping rotation. So I'm trying to figure out what I do to react to that but ultimately know that because we're going back into hey, we'll be able to sell those weeds off ultimately mine that seed bank to get rid of the weeds. Yield is something that is is kind of an exciting part of organics for a long time there was a noticeable yield drag. But as organics has used better and better seed, we are able to on the whole use the best genetics out there at campy GMO so in the corn of in the case of corn and beans. We have to use non GMO varieties, but most of the crops that will grow in Western North Dakota and Montana wheat pulses. The oil seeds not including canola are going to have a GMO variety so we have a lot of options there. So I've for the last few years this year was definitely an exception because of the drought. So for the last few years I've definitely been able to hit that 40 to 50 bushel an acre yellow peas, and similar for Durham, about 50 60 bushel dry land of Durham. And so the, the real ticket with that is making sure that we've come up with a system to suppress those weeds, and ultimately do a good job seeding managing tilling. Because we're telling and we're not able to do a true no till operation. We really have to manage for water in our operation, we have to figure out how do we till in such a way that we get that maximum weed kill, while also not releasing so much soil moisture that we don't have anything for the crop when we go in. Two studies have shown that the longer you're in organic, the better your yields ultimately become. And so a couple of studies have shown that over a 14 year period yields almost even out after a while after that soil gets used to be informed organic. You've got a good system down to control the weeds, and you figured out your management of your fertility. So, in fact, in organics do use inputs for fertility like manure or pelletized poultry litter. I'm able to mostly rely on on crop rotation. So really relying on pulses, and on our, hey, part of the rotation. So we look to to figure out what is the best market. So we're not just looking to try to produce the absolute most wheat or peas or flax, but also what is the crop that folks are willing to pay for so I got into yellow piece because I got a contract a food grade contract with McDonald's to raise it for a mac and cheese product as a flower ingredient. And I hadn't really raised yellow peas before them. It was a bit of a leap there aren't a lot of yellow peas raised in my area so I didn't have a lot of neighbors to lean on. But it ultimately I knew that the money would be good enough if I could figure out how to get the crop out of the field. And so I always look to make sure that when I'm thinking about a crop. We're trying to budget for the best yields possible, which definitely was proven out. One shouldn't do based on this year's drought, but, but also looking at how do we get a crop that's valuable enough has a market. Ideally has a contract already signed before a plan to saying that the buyer is going to buy everything we grow so that we know that we're going to be able to have a home for everything. So that informs informs the crop rotation, as well as the ability to not necessarily worry about having the absolute max yields, but sort of those more average yields all in all. Were there any questions or anything so far Claire. No, not at the moment. All right, sounds good. When we talk about ugly crops. This is I think something that we've, if you've seen an organic field I'm sure you've seen an ugly organic fields. And, and there's a lot to say about how we control weeds and how we get crops look uniform and good and a lot of it is just good agronomy practices, you know, having your, your cedar set right, making sure that your tillage was sufficient to create a good seed bed. But when we look at ultimately beating that weed component of the production equation. We're really trying to figure out what is it about a rotation that makes this easy. How do we have a rotation that makes it so we're not fighting weeds, but we're always staying a step ahead of them. And so when I see a bunch of weeds with, you know, you know, a good stand of weeds in it. Ultimately, I'm thinking that there's probably not a hey component to it. We haven't given that field a chance to rest and ultimately pulled off those weed seed heads in the form of pay. So thinking about our rotation and how to get a good clean looking crop we really need to be ready to embrace some sort of cover crop or some sort of hey period, where we can interrupt, we can use all of our tools that we have in controlling weeds we can interrupt the weed production with We're able to, if we have a cover crop, a green manure, we're able to just to hay it off before it's mature, so we don't have a growing seed bank in the soil. And we're able to outcompet it to plant something that is maybe planting it a little heavier than we would for, for cash crop for cereal, say if we're doing an annual hay barley or something. So we need to be as heavy as we need to ultimately compete out those weeds and produce a decent hay crop that that has some value, but also makes it so that we can mine off that seed bank. In organics, there's also the chance that you're going to be using manure on a field and if manure is cheap sometimes we can overdo it. And so without herbicides, our fertility in the soil becomes very apparent. So when we're looking at figuring out how to get enough nitrogen and enough NPK in the soil to meet the crops needs with manure we can sometimes overdo it have too much of one, one for one nutrient. And that oftentimes shows in what types of weeds we have in the field. And so getting comfortable identifying the weeds, identifying their life cycles looking at what what our rotation should be in order to reflect and combat those weed pressures that are particular to a given field. I found to be a really crucial means of staying ahead of having an ugly crop keeping crops and fields fairly clean and yields up there. When I'm talking about leases with farmers. I have to sell my relationship to my landlords a little bit different. So, when we're talking about, you know, what the farmer, what the landlords going to be getting out of the relationship. There's always going to be a check on the whole. So I usually do just cash leases as opposed to crop share, but for the first eight or nine years I did crop share, which totally worked out. But in discussing what we're doing for the land as organic farmers, a lot of my landlords have have overtly put value on the ecological benefits of organic farming on their land. And I found a lot of landlords have been seeking out organic farmers. Especially because of the landlords own philosophy about land stewardship, but also because on the whole I'm going to be grossing more dollars per acre than necessarily my conventional counterparts. And so they know it's a pretty good bet that that I'm going to be a steady steady source of income for them as a tenant. In exchange, though, we talked about, you know, there's going to be possibly more weeds, we're going to be growing alternative crops that you may be not used to looking at as a as a landowner. And, and we're, we're building something we're building all this stable soil fertility, we're working the weeds out over long term crop rotation. And once we get to a good steady state with our crop rotation, it's likely that we're going to be able to keep those weeds at bay. And we also, in some ways, and I know everyone probably from North Dakota can appreciate this flax and yellow peas and pulses, they're kind of fun looking crops. And so I found that landlords are actually interested in sort of the aesthetics of these alternative crops that maybe not haven't haven't really found a real big following, at least in my area, not a lot of flax or peas grown. But they look cool. They look cool. And they're, they're part of a more dynamic farming system that landlords I feel at least in my experience have been able to appreciate. And all that said, like I mentioned in the beginning, I do need that longer to lease I really don't chase leases that are only a year, even if the ground is ready to be certified organic. No ground coming out of say, a hayfield, sort of a poorly managed hayfield, or just a fallow situation is going to be very good in those first few years it takes a while to get the rotation going, and to get the land adapted to being farmed organically. And that's why I always try to get at least a five year lease if not a little bit longer. The other component and this isn't necessarily true in my neighborhood but in addition to farming I've had the opportunity to work as an organic farm inspector. And so I've seen kind of these dynamics play out between farmers and landlords around the country when I inspect organic farms. In a lot of areas, landlords are excited to get their land certified, because they know if one organic tenant isn't working out, there's others, there's other folks who are going to be able to fill this niche of growing growing crops in this style, but also probably having that more consistent income from the fields every year. So thinking about qualities of a successful organic operator. We've learned how to grow grain and learned how to run my business. In organics especially timeliness and especially in dry land, sort of high planes, dry land cropping systems. Timing is really everything so we have to think about all the, all the impacts we have with our timing. So in the springtime when we're thinking about how we're going to be getting the crop in the field getting everything planted. We're also thinking about how do we get either a hero or a tillage pass to knock out that first flush of weeds so we don't have an herbicide to do that for us. Thinking about how do we get the crops off in a timely manner so that we can get a little bit of fall tillage done if that's part of our plan. So thinking about what what goes into ultimately making the weeds chances for success on the farm ever dimmer. And so thinking about how we plan for that we have to have a really well planned out crop rotation. And so that's a bit of a balancing act for me when I've been finding contracts to to ultimately contract out my acres. I found that those contracts aren't necessarily aligned with my crop rotation needs. So I need to grow pulses for the, for both the soil for the nitrogen fixation, but also so I don't grow too many cereals or too many oil seeds in a given rotation to keep my disease and pest pressures down. So thinking about how do I both build this crop rotation that's good for my soil good for my weed control goals, but also I'm producing crops that people can contract is a bit of a challenge but but there's a lot of interest in a lot of markets out there for pulses lentils chickpeas yellow peas especially and a growing interest in organic organic oil seeds really like flax is just, I feel like it's always something that there's more demand and supply for a kind of across the board but especially in organics. When thinking about running an organic farm I've also thought, you know really hard about how do I. I have a little bit of a weedier field. How do I keep the field looking good and intentionally well maintained. And so I try to run a brush hog around the outside edges of my field, just to show that that we're not going to be a risk to the neighbors if we do have weeds in the fields we're trying not to get them too close to the fence line with our neighbors. It's also good to have a buffer just sort of for my own field protection, so that if there is any spray or any drift from my neighbors over to my field it gets caught in the buffer and not on but also you know trying to make it so that that organic farming can just be sort of lovely and boring that it's not something to be gossiped about and and looking at how do we be a good neighbor to everyone in in our area. I found that being comfortable with swathing I found that there's because we don't have any. We don't have as consistent a stand as we might with a good, you know, protection package like a seed treatment on our cereals we sometimes get a little bit uneven emergence and then ultimately somewhat uneven crops when we're getting ready to harvest. This is especially true for sort of poorly determining crops like flax or lentils or these other crops that might ripen unevenly. I just bought a grain swath or I think they're somewhat more common in North Dakota than Montana they're they're not super common in Montana. I bought a grain swath a few years ago, just to make it so that I could get at those crops, you know when the sun is shining it's still hot out, and I don't have to wait to go into very deep into the fall with these alternative crops that maybe haven't been bred as carefully as your more common cereals. Getting comfortable with cover crops I think both organics and conventional. It's kind of a cover crop bonanza right now there's a lot of folks trying different cover crops getting more comfortable with cover crops. But cover crops are in and of themselves a bit of a specialty, you have to be ready to understand what it is that your goals are for cover crops, how you make it financially work picking out your cover crops. And, and ultimately using what grows well in your area. So lots of times I use peas as a cover crop just because seed is pretty cheap, all things considered, I'll then mix into that a variety of different things. It kind of creates a good cocktail good salad mix for my cows, who all oftentimes graze on the cover crops, and, and realize a little revenue from the grazing, possibly swap it down for some windrow grazing. But ultimately try to keep it simple. I think there's a chance that we can get cover crops to be very complicated and kind of a headache. I don't grow any cover crops that I might think could become a weed could get away from me. So I haven't used a lot of vetch, haven't used very much rye, just because it's it can be kind of a problem if it sticks around. And, and so there's a lot of exciting cover crops out there but picking the cover crops that are both fairly cheap to buy the seed, we know how to easily terminate them and they're going to do a good job for us is something that you want to think about when establishing that rotation and thinking about what cover crops are a good fit. So organic is probably going to be more time intensive just because we have a few more activities we have to cover the land with we're going to have our tillage, we're going to have our planting. Depending on what you're growing you might have some post planting weeds like some heroin or if you're growing corn some cultivation. And ideally some we're going to have a little bit more residue to incorporate we're going to have some more weeds that grew throughout the season. So we're probably going to be doing a little bit of tillage in the fall to incorporate, depending on where you are in your erosion risk. You might be leaning more towards fall or spring tillage, but I do a little bit in both. And so I have my residue incorporated in the fall. So I'm going to do a quick pass with tillage in the spring, but on the whole I basically do one good disk or river pass a year, and then harrowing otherwise just getting those small weeds when they're early in the spring is the primary tillage that I do in the spring. Planting so that we can coordinate with our weed control efforts so if we're able to blast our weeds with a harrow. Get them out get them weakened down trying to plant as soon as we can to create competition for those weeds to we don't have a spray package to beat back the weeds when our plants are going so coming up with good timing. I found to be critical in keeping those weeds at bay. Managing our soil building crops with our cash crops. I think that there is. There's a thought that we want to be trying to get a cash crop every year. And I think when we think about the fact that in organics we really don't have much of a relationship with a fertilizer dealer on the whole. We grow our own fertility, either through grazing rotation or cover crops. So when you have kind of years off where you're where you're growing a green manure crop. I'd like to think of it not so much as this is the year where I'm not getting paid for cash crop, but rather doing a one to one comparison with this year and the money I've invested this year is my fertilizer bill. And it's ultimately going to then be reflected when I do the accounting for my cash crops my cereals plaques and yellow peas. I think that there's as we as we grow more alternative crops again we might be faced with the need to swap. So harvest might be a little bit more cumbersome I know that when I go through a field that's maybe in year three of my annual part of the rotation. I'm going to be dealing with more weeds that's going to be a buildup of weeds over the that time, and I'm probably going to have to combine a little slower. There's just going to be it's going to be a little bit harder on my combine. It's going to be an okay job, it shouldn't be anything that the calm I can't handle. So I'm planning out my cropping system. I really want to highlight kind of what the goals are with the crop rotation. So I'm trying to get, you know, meet these contracts that I found so I've got a contract for Durham yellow peas and flax, and then I need alfalfa for my cows. So how to get those all in a rotation, not have any stack up of disease pressures not grow yellow peas too many times in a row, not run up any disease or past pressures that might give me a hard time. But also try to ultimately build that soil fertility so that at any one time I'm adding more to the soil than I'm taking out. Depending on the weather. This year was a really good example. I always go as planned. And so I ended up, hey, quite a bit of my, my ground, because it either didn't make grain, or it was just doing so poorly that I knew I was going to need to hey. And so I took some of my cereals, some of my peas and just made hay out of them. And that, that was a benefit, ultimately to my weed control. Every time you hay and organics, you're, you're interrupting the life cycle of the weeds a little bit better than if those cash crops go to maturation. Trying to work proactively and come up with different plans. So if you're growing if you know you can grow three or four different crops and maybe some of you can grow a lot more than that. Having all of those in the back of your head as you watch the winter and the spring evolve and thinking about what we want to plant in order to reflect our best conditions, whatever mother nature is thrown at us. Having an idea of what we implant, having a few different options just makes organic work that's so much more if we just rely on say alfalfa and Durham or just Durham and peas. I found that that makes farmers have to ultimately work harder to try to keep that system in check. When we have only annuals, there's a lot more weed pressures, there's a lot more potential for erosion, since we don't have that break for the hay where we can till a little bit less. And having everything in say spring crops or annuals also makes years like this year that much harder when we have a drought. The alfalfa was able to tap a lot more deep down and I know it would have been a lot harder to get enough hay had I not had that perennial component of my operation. Again, as I think about being an organic farmer and especially organic farmer primarily around conventional farmers. I'm always thinking about how do I make an operation. That can command a little bit of respect that I'm not the I'm not the weed problem in the neighborhood, but rather figuring out how do I keep fields looking good and and still work within the organic regulations. So being cover comfortable with cover crops is an evolution. I think it's quietly trying out different things in your area that that might work so I've raised. I've raised pieces cover crops I've raised that betch and that made me understand that I don't want to raise that again. I've raised some sunflowers that I told in. I've raised a lot of clover and with my cereals I always plant a little bit of clover and a little bit of alfalfa, maybe two to six pounds an acre, just mixed in with the Durham. In order to keep some amount of legumes growing year round in all of my fields. And that's a, it's an art. And so I oftentimes have to dial it back if I feel like I put too much legumes and I have alfalfa and clover competing with my cereals. So when I go to my hay year, there's already a little bit of an established community plant community that's ready to be ready to spring to life when I want to give the land a rest. I started my, my entire business with cattle and so cattle is a really integral part of my operation. And so when I'm thinking about my crop rotation I'm also thinking, if something goes wrong, can I feed it to a cow can that cow clean up my mistakes. There's a little bit of a sort of a salad bar underneath the canopy of all my cash crops in the form of clover or other perennials that are not necessarily super thick but always going to be growing makes it so that I know in the fall I'm going to have something for the cows to eat in that stubble that's not just the wheat stubble. So I want to keep my cows fat and happy, as much as I can, and have them helping me with all of these, these different components of my cover of my crop rotation. Depending on how familiar everyone is with cover crops I found a lot of these private cover crop companies to be really useful in the recommendations coming up with a plan based on your goals with one of these agronomists has been really helpful for me. I know there's a lot of cover crop research being done, both in Montana, as well as North Dakota and I think all land grant universities are somewhat touching on cover crops so looking up what things have been done recently. I mean, you know what cheap seed is out there and what can I experiment with. Try not to do too big of an experiment at once in case something gets away from you. But I think every single field is going to be unique and your ability to grow different types of cover crops is going to be really place dependent. So you want to give yourself the chance to experiment with these different things and find what's best for you. Thinking about cover crops as one of the most versatile tools in your organic toolbox has been really beneficial to me when I I've had there's been several years in the in the past where we've had super wet rains like I think of 2019. It just never seemed to stop raining very different than this year. And in throwing in some cover crops ultimately made it so that I took a little bit of the pressure off of what I needed to get done for my cash crops I had a little bit more flexibility with what I hate off what I terminated what I ultimately just grazed. And I knew that because of that the climatic conditions that year. I was going to be able to still manage it all but build soil in preparation for the next cover crop season, all together. So it took me a while and I apologize if this is redundant for all of you but being from a place that we don't swap very much. I really had to get used to the idea of getting a pickup header and getting a swath or and being ready to swap as both of them sort of a last resort weed control, but also just to make sure I get all my work done. If you have a field of say wheat or barley or other cereal that's looking pretty dirty a lot of weeds, though, you know the rotation just hasn't really beat the weeds yet. I found that swathing can be an absolute lifesaver, because once we're, you know, post that that milk stage and we've got some grain in the head. We can swap pretty early and still realize that yield in the grain, but we can also beat your thistles and your Chinese lettuce and all these different crops that you might have in your field beat them to the point before they're already producing seed. Lay them down. It's easier on your combine to have a dry crop that has a little bit of time to dry out rather than trying to burn through all these weeds. But then also use it to make sure you can beat back the weeds and not have a growing problem of a weed seed bank developing in your soil. So I think I've touched on the landlords a lot. I think as a tenant I think about landlord relations a lot. When hunting out land I often look for folks who might have hay or alfalfa already in their fields because the transition might already be underway. So that I don't have to wait the whole three years as a producer with going organic, you have to get a legally binding affidavit from whoever was managing the land for the three years prior to certification. And so if I find a landlord who has a stand of alfalfa, they haven't sprayed anything on it, they're willing to legally swear that nothing's been put down and there's no evidence of any prohibited materials. Then I might be able to walk right into that lease ready to go and certify my first crop as organic. Walking into a good stand of alfalfa also means that your weed pressures are pretty easy. Thinking about rotation, I think a lot of folks in the rotation to get from conventional to organic, try to figure out how do I make money during that transition year. I'm going to have a hit to my yields because my land was used to getting this fertilizer that now I can't use because we don't use synthetic fertilizer in organics. But I'm also not going to have, so I'm not going to have the yield but I'm also not going to have the price support. I'm not going to get that organic premium during my transition. So I really like, and then I do this with most of my crops, I really like just using the transition period as a forage period. So I'm going to raise possibly alfalfa over those three years, I might just raise a different suite of like, hey barley and peas forage peas in a cocktail and hey that off might just hey off peas, ultimately trying to see what can I do over those three years to build nitrogen and to get rid of weeds. So I'm ready and I'm in a much better position when I can realize that organic premium. So if I can find a landlord that has alfalfa already. That's a really easy transition for me. And I walk into a situation where probably some of the work of weed control and nitrogen building has already been done. Because of these longer more phenotypically diverse rotations that we have to do finding, you know landlords will do three to five year contracts. I think it's just an absolute baseline for me. I can't do annual contracts on the whole. Other folks might be able to I found that it just the investment that I put into a field with my rotation and and the risk and the time that I'm putting into a field. I need that five year chance to recoup and profit from that field. So after I have a good plan also makes my landlord relationships more positive. If something happens in the weather, or like this year, I drew out out. I want to have some sort of plan so I know that I can keep fields looking good keep moving forward. And ultimately, not not kind of give organic to black eye is something that that that we only had one plan and when it failed, we were just kind of left without a backup. So like I said, the benefits of starting out with a perennial field. And this would be more perennial field that's been actively managed rather than a fallow field is that we might have some good Hain some clipping some management that's been going on that's been suppressing weeds. It's also a good chance that we had some nitrogen bank to start to pull from when we go organic. I mean that I think of transition again as this period of how do we spend as little money as possible, rather than how do I try to make as much money as possible during transition. I just want transition to be not very expensive. And so if we have a perennial that we can hey during the transition period. That means we're going to get some sort of sellable crop off of it or raising value out of it. We're meeting those two goals of suppressing weeds and building a nitrogen bank and not spending money on seeds. Other folks I've seen jump sort of look to the perennial as a path to transition can also run into train wrecks. So when we're looking at a perennial field that might have just been fallow, and it's just been left for a few years, it might be old CRP that's not been broken up yet, but out of the program. Those fields can often be just an incredible weed seed bank that the second you take some steel to them the second you start doing tillage, you awaken all of those weed seeds that have just been sitting there. So, not we don't want to treat every perennial field as as an as equal when we're starting out into the organic transition. So we want to think about how has this land been managed in order to ultimately have a good control on weeds and possibly have a little bit of a nitrogen credit. If we're coming out of CRP probably it's the case that we actually have all of our nitrogen tied up and whatever the biomass above ground is. And so thinking about how do we get that nitrogen cycling again in the ground. That's sort of a sort of what I consider more of a fallow. A situation where we have minimal management, lots of grasses, not a whole lot of legume presence, then usually I'll start with some sort of forage P or some other perennial or annual legume in order to get the nitrogen cycling through that soil. So I'm going to build up a credit so that when I go to Durham, which is my primary cash crop. I've got enough of a nitrogen presence in the soil to make sure I good, I produce a good quality product. So be be ready to talk about, you know, what cover crops could you use during transition. How might you employ hey, how might you build a relationship with some of your neighbors who need hey I know in Montana, anyone who has hey has friends. So if you have hey there's going to be a lot of folks who need it. And so I think as part of our, as part of our operation as grain growers, the incorporation of hey I have found to be nothing but a benefit, both for our own cattle, making sure we have enough the need also to develop relationships with other folks who have livestock. And then to make sure that we're we're ultimately making money when we're growing our nitrogen in the case of our alfalfa, rather than paying to bring it on. One more thing to say about the three to five year leases that we work with is that we, I do want to set. I don't have as many tools in the toolbox when we're farming organically. And so when we're building when I was building this business I wanted to also see how can I mitigate risk a little bit. So I don't necessarily bid up a lot higher than the going land rate, but I sometimes put some sort of incentive that if we hit a certain bushel or yield, or we hit a certain price. There would be some sort of bump for the landlord. Alternatively, if we hit a really bad drought like this year where we lose a lot of production. It's, we can even out and we might, the landlord might cut us a little bit of a break. If we had really early poor yields. So I think with this landlord talk, a lot of it has come down to just building these strong relationships where we're only working with folks who are rooting us on and wanting to see us succeed. So I think we can make it where their time is just we can being a little bit flexible about spring versus winter crops. This is again just making sure that we have enough tools in our toolbox. I have primarily relied on spring crops and it really hurt me this year. If I had had winter wheat or another winter crop. I probably could have realized a little bit more yield across the board. I have my own further diversification goals, but trying to make, make your operation as diverse as possible within the confines of being manageable has been, I think the solution for a lot of folks getting into organics and staying in organics, making sure you have a good your raising crops that folks want so you have a contract for them, but you're also raising crops that spread the risk a little bit over everything. And so this was just a slide I wanted to put out there that I think there's some perceptions you have to have a big shift of the mindset in order to become an organic farmer you have to get a really thick skin so you don't don't get as offended when people make fun of your your less than perfect fields. But I think the identity of a successful organic farmer is just the identity of a successful farmer that every farmer wants to be a clean farmer. They don't want to be trouble for the neighbors. And so thinking of how as an organic farmer, we adopt practices that are going to put us in an advantageous position to hit that goal. We know that we can get good yields and organics is just going to be finding that balance between the absolute maximum yield and the best net dollars per acre we can make given our contracting situations and the needs of our rotation. So just in disease control, primarily come from the fact that we're going to be having a more diverse rotation that doesn't doesn't put too much pressure on any one species in the rotation. And then trying to just, you know, think about all the potential backup plans we could have when one of our one piece of our rotation fails, or a crop just doesn't work out for our area, or we hit a big drought, coming up with different things that we can do to make it so that we can keep going forward and we don't fall too flat when we when we have an upset clean farmers in organics do exist. They're going to be the ones that incorporate a forage into the rotation, and they're going to be those most timely ones. I like to think of the buffers as just that neutral zone where we can keep everybody happy, keep things clipped keep things clean. But ultimately, we the folks who rely on a good strong crop rotation can have really clean fields. As we said before yield drag is is lessening we have less of a yield drag across the board with our between organics and conventional. One thing I think folks are talking about more and more these days and I might be wrong about this but in some conversations I've had talking about net revenue per acre. How much profit are we actually making off of our fields, rather than looking at how many bushels did we make has been a real a real mind mindset shift for me. And also a more of a fun way to engage my neighbors when they're kind of saying, Oh, didn't look like you got much off that field and I can say, Well, but the gross the gross and the net revenue we're actually pretty good, even though the the yield on its surface was a little less. So understanding what our actual goals are in organics and farming in general. And I think it's, it's an exciting time to think about how do we make farming as profitable as we can, and not just get stuck trying to get as many bushels as possible. So pest control and weed control both really come from our crop rotation, we don't use a lot of tools in in building a healthy cropping operation by tools I mean material tools so we don't have very many sprays we don't have a lot of reactive tools. We're going to be using crop rotation to ultimately make it so that we have a very inhospitable environment for our the desk the the pests and diseases that we have in our area. Being proactive and organic is just essential. And so when I'm thinking about what is it that I could be doing to ultimately improve my timing. What could I be doing to reduce any one. The pressure of performance under any one period so how do I plant crops are going to mature at different times. How do I not put all of my eggs in one basket with a given crop. I think it's so that the land is working for me the land is ultimately making it so that I'm not out there reacting to weeds. I'm not fighting disease and pests, but I'm just planting things in an order and a crop rotation that make it so that I have good weed control, but also building soil fertility so I can raise good quality crops and folks want to buy. And that's it player. I would love, love to engage some questions. I want to emphasize the importance of preparations. Yeah, lengthening rotations. How long do you keep alfalfa in great question yeah so it's kind of depends on what my goal is. But I say at least three years, if it's a really good stand and it's just pumping out the tons, then up to like six or seven years. It's a really good crop price for for my other annuals like my Durham or my flax or my piece. I might lessen that time in alfalfa and and take it out a little bit earlier, just so I can get back to growing those more revenue generating crops, but on the whole a minimum of three years. So that rotation of flax Durham P alfalfa is that pretty fixed for you or do you ever switch up the order at all or definitely switch up the annual order. So there's because they're so different the flax the piece and the Durham. I don't really have any disease pressures coming out of alfalfa. And so I can grow them in any order I want. I think my best protein is realized after alfalfa with the Durham, but, but if I have a big demand for any one of those crops I might reflect the market with with the plantings and the rotation order. And then I'm always always on the hunt for other markets. So there's other crops out there that someone's approached me to grow, or that I know has a really good price. And I will absolutely try those out so I do grow other things like we've grown lentils very recently, we've grown spelt pretty recently, some emmer, so other ancient grains. And, and then I also raise some some turnips for seed as well as clover for seed. So there's a little bit more smaller plots and alternatives but those those three annuals are are kind of our foundation crop. So I'll raise on the organic price on Durham. What is that kind of at right now. Yeah, well right now it is crazy. So for the last four years I've been at $17 a bushel. This year I'm getting offers of 30 to $40 a bushel. And that's really reflective in the drought. And so I think conventional Durham if I had to guess would be you know pushing 20 by January of this year. Or organics is ultimately riding of a pretty similar price delta as the price for conventional goes high because of the drought. That'd be the same for flax flax is a little bit more stable. It's not organic flax isn't there's not quite as much of a commodity market. So I've been about $28 for flax for or sorry $30 for flax for about four years. Right now the market's about $44 for flax. But but that's again reflective of the drought. I'm wondering, maybe a little bit about how you approach marketing. I mean, have you been in it long enough that you're selling the same people every year, or are you still making a lot of phone calls to find out about pricing and delivery and. Yeah, maybe just talk a little bit about how you approach marketing. Yeah, so I don't really know how this came to be but in Montana in the organic community. There's a real culture of forward contracting. And so the buyers who have been working with the folks who have been at this for you know 30 plus years. Oftentimes put out a contract saying you know we'll give you a three year contract for hard read spring week or Durham. And over those three years is going to be the same price or there's going to be you know kind of a floating floor and ceiling. So at our conference our Montana Organic Association conference we lots of times have a whole suite of buyers who show up looking to sign contracts for acres, the following spring. And so that's one source of folks to find a way to find buyers. The buyers I have now I've been working with for about four to six years. I'm always, I'm always talking to buyers at these conferences and seeing what other opportunities are out there, but also being quite candid with just like I've shared my price with you. Being quite candid with my neighbors and other organic growers saying you know what are you raising and do you think there's any room for me to raise something that you're raising as well. Is there a possibility like I don't want to take their market, but if a buyer needs more grain could I tack on to that and be an additional supplier. Marketing cooperative in Montana the Montana organic producers co op. And so right now we're we're approaching buyers. On behalf of all of us to get larger acreage contracts or we could say contract out 10,000 acres of a spring crop realize that scale so that we have a little bit of a competitive advantage, but also get the same price for all growers so that we're not competing with each other but rather cooperating with each other. Any other questions for Nate. Oh, maybe. I mean I realized it was more crop focused and cattle focused, but how do you do marketing and sale of your organic beef. Yeah, so, so for the past 10 years I've this this co op that we do the grain through started out as a beef co op. And so we all raise our organic beef on grass to finish so it's about 18 to 20 months. And they're about 1200 pounds when they finish out so a little bit smaller framed animals. And we sell them on the hoof to a, an aggregator who ultimately sells them through Whole Foods. But there's, you know, there's several different buyers out there looking for grass fed organic beef and some buyers looking for grain fed organic beef. So we get $3 a pound hanging weight for our beef. And so depending on what it is that's you know about $1800 of finished animal. And, and we're aggregating our different loads so we might not all have a pot load, ready to go at the same time, or at any one time, but between three or four of us, we can fill out a truck that ultimately makes it worth the buyers time to ship it down to the slaughter and have it packed out. There's a growing demand kind of internally in our co op but also amongst other growers who are raising out grass fed organic beef for these organic calves so if you're just a cow calf producer there's definitely a market for the calves. Usually there's a 20 to 50 cent pound premium in my experience for these calves, but all just depends on developing that relationship for with a buyer who's looking to either finish them out themselves, or with a broker who's looking to move them to someone who's finishing them out. Are they getting slaughtered in Montana primarily or I wish they're mostly going down to Colorado to get slaughtered in Greeley. But there's, there's more and more slaughterhouses kind of popping up and we're hoping to either as a co op invest in one of those slaughterhouses to claim some, some slaughter space, or we're going to hopefully have a cooperative agreement with a newer, a newer organic us da inspected setup, so that we could have them slaughtered in Montana and then, and then just the meat exported rather than live animals. Any other questions for Nate, otherwise we'll. Okay, thank you very much for your time, Nate.