 I'm Kristen Omer, Beef Systems Educator based in Saunders County, covering the southeast region for Nebraska Extension. We are located at the Eastern Nebraska Research and Extension Center near Mead, so on the eastern part of the state. We worked with the SAIR group and had funding to evaluate the effect of grazing or baling of corn residue on subsequent crop yields. And the reason for this project is Nebraska produces a lot of corn. In terms of the amount of corn that's produced in the amount of residue, so the after the corn grain is harvested, we have the rest of the plant that's left over, that would be the corn residue laying on the field. Only about half of that is grazed in the state of Nebraska, so it's a huge opportunity when we look at the number of cattle that are present in the state of Nebraska that might be grazing in terms of beef cows or those calves that would be in the feedlot. The ability to use that corn residue as an economical, cost-effective feed resource is a good opportunity for Nebraska producers. This project was looking at the first, the misconceptions I guess you could say, or perceptions of crop producers and consultants. So we looked at a survey of those producers, as well as worked with six different cooperator sites around the state of Nebraska to do this work, so it was all on-farm type research. So we evaluated whether we grazed that corn residue, whether we baled that corn residue that could be used for forage or feed later on for cattle, or left that residue on the field. What impact do we have on that crop land? The big question for a crop producer is they're looking at yield. That's their indicator of profitability on the farm. So if we are going to affect that yield, that can be a challenge then in terms of implementing grazing or not. So this project was a three-year project covering those six cooperator sites, and we evaluated corn residue grazing compared to that baling or no baling, no grazing. And we found that we didn't see any difference in the subsequent yield, whether we baled, we grazed, or we didn't baler graze on the crop yields. So then you might wonder, well, then if there's no difference between all of them, we should be fine to pick whatever we want and go with it. We also, earlier with Nebraska, looked at a 16-year trial, a long-term trial of the effect of grazing compared to no grazing. And it was looking at spring or fall grazing on a field that was in a corn and soybean rotation. And we didn't see any effect of yield when we went in and grazed in the spring or the fall with grazing as compared to not. So with the producer survey, we looked at what were some of those perceptions of the producers. Why wouldn't they necessarily allow grazing? And their top three was soil compaction. So if we fall or spring grazed, that would factor in. If we had a lack of access to livestock, which through this project, we actually had a platform that we developed online that's called the crop residue exchange that allowed those producers, crop producers, to list their corn residue where it might be available and then help a livestock producer be linked to that producer and be able to develop that connection for them. And then finally, the lack of infrastructure, maybe fencing or watering, that might be present would be a reason why they wouldn't graze. So that survey was really valuable to help see what the producer's perceptions were and then how this research could help to answer those questions. So when we looked at that baling piece, we were pretty comfortable with the grazing. If folks were grazing at a 50% removal of husk and leaf based on a lot of corn residue research done in Nebraska, the short-term research three-year project, as well as that long-term project that we have done previously, says that grazing doesn't affect our subsequent yield. We're actually removing some of that residue, but then was the cow applying it back on via manure, then we're recycling those nutrients as well and putting them back on the field. The question becomes, well, if we didn't see a difference between grazing or baling, so baling would be removing all of that corn residue, then it should be okay to just go out and bale if I don't have access to livestock. We would caution that this was only a three-year study. Okay, if we looked at it long-term, think about as we remove that corn residue as bales, okay? We're removing nutrients, so your nitrogen, your phosphorus, your potassium, calcium. All of those nutrients would need to be reapplied the following year, okay? So you would have a fertilizer cost associated with the removal of that residue, as well as the organic matter that would be disappearing with baling. So looking at that comparison of baling and grazing or just leaving that residue on the field worked out really nicely at these producer sites to help them see the real world, I guess, application on their properties of how this research could either help them or maybe be some application or rendition of how they can evaluate what they're doing.