Tom Cotter is a third-generation farmer from Austin in southeast Minnesota who operates a diverse operation alongside his family and brother-in-law, Tony. He began farming with his dad in 1994 under a purely conventional system characterized by full tillage and routine chemical applications. Tom’s journey into soil health began unexpectedly when his father purchased a tile plow and they noticed how much easier the equipment pulled—and how much better subsequent yields were—following a 20-acre test planting of rapeseed cover crops.
Today, Tom manages an operation encompassing 340 acres of certified organic ground, 430 acres of conventional no-till ground, and an 80-acre pasture. Driven by a desire to cut input costs and work with nature, Tom has successfully integrated a five-way crop rotation with multi-species cover crop mixes and intensive grass-finished livestock grazing. He is passionate about helping his local community and fellow producers, actively collaborating with the Minnesota Soil Health Coalition to host annual field days and food health days.
In this episode, John and Tom discuss:
A small trial of rapeseed in the 1990s that dramatically improved soil structure, earthworm populations, and subsequent corn yields.
How integrating a 40-way cover crop mix and livestock triggered a massive biological explosion of 25 to 30 earthworms per shovelful.
Balancing organic and conventional no-till acres using a simple plus-and-minus grading system to track soil health trends.
Grazing livestock on crop ground for up to 10 months out of the year to cut feed costs and to act as a natural, variable-rate fertilizer system.
Shifting to an adaptive multi-crop rotation distributed the workload, eliminated grueling hours, and reduced seasonal stress.
How designing smart crop sequences and planting winter rye allowed him to completely eliminate fungicides and insecticides on his conventional acres.
- Distributing his workload so that he can take weekends off and enjoy motorcycle rides during harvest season.
Additional Resources
To learn more about Tom and the work of the Minnesota Soil Health Coalition, please visit: https://www.mnsoilhealth.org/about-us/tom-cotter/
About John Kempf
John Kempf is the founder of Advancing Eco Agriculture (AEA). A top expert in biological and regenerative farming, John founded AEA in 2006 to help fellow farmers by providing the education, tools, and strategies that will have a global effect on the food supply and those who grow it.
Through intense study and the knowledge gleaned from many industry leaders, John is building a comprehensive systems-based approach to plant nutrition – a system solidly based on the sciences of plant physiology, mineral nutrition, and soil microbiology.
Support For This Show & Helping You Grow
Since 2006, AEA has been on a mission to help growers become more resilient, efficient, and profitable with regenerative agriculture.
AEA works directly with growers to apply its unique line of liquid mineral crop nutrition products and biological inoculants. Informed by cutting-edge plant and soil data-gathering techniques, AEA’s science-based programs empower farm operations to meet the crop quality markers that matter the most.
AEA has created real and lasting change on millions of acres with its products and data-driven services by working hand-in-hand with growers to produce healthier soil, stronger crops, and higher profits.
Beyond working on the ground with growers, AEA leads in regenerative agriculture media and education, producing and distributing the popular and highly-regarded Regenerative Agriculture Podcast, inspiring webinars, and other educational content that serve as go-to resources for growers worldwide.
Learn more about AEA’s regenerative programs and products: https://www.advancingecoag.com
Podcast Transcript
0:03 – 0:04
Hi, friends. This is John.
0:04 – 0:06
Welcome back to the Region of Agriculture
0:06 – 0:09
podcast, where we have all kinds of fun
0:09 – 0:10
conversations discussing how we can
0:10 – 0:12
improve soil health, how we can improve
0:12 – 0:13
livestock health, and ultimately, of
0:13 – 0:16
course, how we can improve human health.
0:16 – 0:18
Because if we're not growing food for
0:18 – 0:20
people, if we're not working to sustain
0:20 – 0:22
and further develop ecosystems, then after
0:22 – 0:24
all, what are we doing it for?
0:25 – 0:27
So, thank you all for being here.
0:27 – 0:29
Today, I'm delighted to be joined by Tom
0:29 – 0:30
Cotter, who's someone I've been looking
0:30 – 0:32
forward to speaking with for quite some
0:32 – 0:35
time. Tom, thank you for being here.
0:35 – 0:37
I'm not even going to attempt to do an
0:37 – 0:38
introduction of your operation and
0:38 – 0:40
background because I want you to do that.
0:41 – 0:44
Thanks for joining me here and tell us a
0:44 – 0:46
bit about your story and the context, the
0:46 – 0:47
scope of your operation.
0:48 – 0:49
Well, first of all, thank you for having
0:49 – 0:50
me.
0:50 – 0:53
It's an honor to be on with the great John
0:53 – 0:53
Kemp.
0:54 – 0:55
I don't know about the great.
0:55 – 0:56
We all play a role.
0:57 – 0:58
Yeah.
0:58 – 0:59
Well, you know what?
0:59 – 1:01
You try your best and Hardest all the
1:01 – 1:04
time. So that's what we kind of
1:04 – 1:07
don't do too much nowadays.
1:07 – 1:10
But my history would go
1:10 – 1:14
back to 1994, move back
1:14 – 1:17
to the farm, start farming
1:17 – 1:21
with my dad. We were conventional
1:21 – 1:21
everything.
1:22 – 1:24
And so full tillage, chemical.
1:24 – 1:27
My dad, you know, he wasn't heavy on
1:27 – 1:29
chemical, but we'd use it as needed.
1:29 – 1:33
I really, when I came
1:33 – 1:36
back, my dad is what
1:36 – 1:40
30 years older than me.
1:40 – 1:43
Yeah. So he had the old work ethic
1:43 – 1:47
and said, hey, let's get you more work.
1:47 – 1:48
So he bought a tile plow.
1:48 – 1:51
And that's where I really started learning
1:51 – 1:52
about soil health.
1:52 – 1:55
We did have corn beans and we would do,
1:55 – 1:57
Occasionally peas, but we always did sweet
1:57 – 2:00
corn, and that gave us options to do
2:00 – 2:01
tiling during the summertime.
2:01 – 2:05
And the O'Reilly Seed House talked my dad
2:05 – 2:07
into planting this green thing called
2:07 – 2:10
dwarf Essex or no rapeseed, canola
2:10 – 2:11
rapeseed, and uh, dwarf.
2:12 – 2:15
And we planted it just on 20 acres of a 70
2:15 – 2:18
acre field. And we realized how much
2:18 – 2:21
easier the tile plow pulled and how much
2:21 – 2:23
better the yields were the next year.
2:23 – 2:25
Actually, when my dad was combining the
2:25 – 2:28
corn next year, he's asked me, what do we
2:28 – 2:30
do here? What variety is this?
2:30 – 2:32
It wasn't the variety, it wasn't.
2:32 – 2:33
The chemical plant.
2:32 – 2:34
It wasn't the fertilizer because we always
2:34 – 2:37
did the exact same thing on the dry
2:37 – 2:39
fertilizer, you know, on the planter.
2:40 – 2:42
And it took us a while to figure out that
2:42 – 2:43
it was actually that plant.
2:44 – 2:45
It was where the canola had been the year
2:45 – 2:49
prior? Yes, the 20 acres or the 70 acre
2:49 – 2:51
field. I remember the exact spot.
2:52 – 2:54
And, you know, when you're in the trench
2:54 – 2:56
digging, you know, those things.
2:56 – 2:59
Soil smelled stale and
2:59 – 3:03
dead, and no earthworms.
3:25 – 3:27
To stop the weeds, too.
3:27 – 3:29
And all of a sudden, the earthworms
3:29 – 3:31
appeared and the soil started smelling
3:31 – 3:34
good. And, you know, back then, we were
3:34 – 3:35
about 1100 acres.
3:36 – 3:38
And it was pretty sad you can't find an
3:38 – 3:40
earthworm to take your little boy fishing.
3:40 – 3:43
You know, my boy was probably two to five
3:43 – 3:45
years old in that time frame.
3:46 – 3:48
And 1100 acres, no worms.
3:48 – 3:51
And once we started doing that, I started
3:51 – 3:51
noticing the worms.
3:53 – 3:56
We played along with the cover crops
3:56 – 4:00
from 1998 or 96 to about 2012,
4:00 – 4:03
just planting a monocrop and kind of
4:03 – 4:07
started feeling like, you know, I'm just
4:07 – 4:09
doing a monocrop now.
4:09 – 4:12
And, you know, back then, I was a young
4:12 – 4:14
farmer. I actually got into a program that
4:14 – 4:16
was paying me to plant the cover crop.
4:16 – 4:20
I put the Gandhi Air Box on my disc, which
4:20 – 4:23
I still have and parked for many years.
4:23 – 4:24
And then I got into organic.
4:24 – 4:26
I had to bring it back, which isn't good,
4:26 – 4:27
but it's a tool. That I use.
4:27 – 4:28
You know, I'm so intrigued.
4:27 – 4:31
Your story about the earthworms
4:31 – 4:34
reminds me of the story
4:34 – 4:38
that James Johnson has shared.
4:38 – 4:42
Neither he nor his father had ever seen
4:42 – 4:45
an earthworm on their entire operation.
4:45 – 4:47
This was 50 years of history.
4:48 – 4:49
They'd never seen an earthworm.
4:50 – 4:52
And they started applying some biologicals
4:52 – 4:54
and doing some cover crops, making some
4:54 – 4:55
changes.
4:55 – 4:57
They had earthworms back on the farm in 18
4:57 – 5:00
months. Where did, after not having seen
5:00 – 5:03
one for 50 years, where did they come
5:03 – 5:05
from? How did they return that route?
5:05 – 5:07
It's just the resilience of these natural
5:07 – 5:10
ecosystems is just remarkable to me.
5:10 – 5:13
Yeah, we have no idea what just like the
5:13 – 5:16
ocean, the soil is the same way.
5:16 – 5:17
We really don't know.
5:17 – 5:21
I mean, we can always put it
5:21 – 5:24
into studies and scientific, but it's mind
5:24 – 5:25
blowing. It's absolutely mind blowing
5:25 – 5:26
what's going on.
5:30 – 5:31
Earthworms, you know, we got the
5:31 – 5:34
earthworms back with the cover crops, but
5:34 – 5:36
it took me many years to start utilizing
5:36 – 5:37
the livestock side too.
5:37 – 5:41
And once I started doing big diverse
5:41 – 5:44
mixes, that was back in like 2013, 15
5:44 – 5:45
timeframe.
5:46 – 5:49
My friend TJ Curtis was out and he helped
5:49 – 5:52
me put a big mix together, started
5:52 – 5:55
grazing. The next spring we went out and
5:55 – 5:57
The earthworms that we Dug up.
5:57 – 6:00
You know, TJ is shooting a video, and I'm
6:00 – 6:02
just like, I'm swearing.
6:02 – 6:04
And I'm like, you know, it's like you
6:04 – 6:06
can't be swearing on this video, but it
6:06 – 6:07
was absolutely mind blowing.
6:07 – 6:10
And that picture has actually been a no
6:10 – 6:11
till magazine many times.
6:11 – 6:15
It's there's got to be 25, 30 just in
6:15 – 6:17
one little one shovel full.
6:17 – 6:19
Yeah. And just they're just oozing out
6:19 – 6:21
everywhere. And that's when I realized,
6:21 – 6:24
you know, that while doing the monocrops
6:24 – 6:27
for so many years and then jumping into
6:27 – 6:28
diversity. The livestock grazing.
6:28 – 6:31
So, and it just keeps
6:31 – 6:33
on going.
6:33 – 6:36
I want to ask about this this, um, where
6:36 – 6:38
you got this earthworm explosion, we'll
6:38 – 6:39
call it.
6:40 – 6:42
Um, was that what do you attribute most of
6:42 – 6:44
that to? What have you observed?
6:44 – 6:46
Did you think a great deal of that just
6:46 – 6:47
came from the diversity of cover crop
6:47 – 6:49
species, or did the majority of that come
6:49 – 6:50
from the livestock integration or a
6:50 – 6:51
combination of both?
6:51 – 6:53
I think absolutely a combination of both.
6:54 – 6:57
Uh, I always consider know, when I started
6:57 – 7:01
doing mixes, I went up to 40 way mix.
7:01 – 7:03
And, you know, I'm just trying to play the
7:03 – 7:05
scale. And, you know, it depends on the
7:05 – 7:07
ground. If it's a really variable field,
7:07 – 7:08
it gets more diversity.
7:08 – 7:11
If it's pretty even, which I don't have
7:11 – 7:14
many very even fields, even though they're
7:14 – 7:17
pretty flat, that diversity of cover crops
7:17 – 7:21
feeds just so much more earthworms or not
7:21 – 7:22
earthworms, microbiology.
7:22 – 7:24
And so for every plant, you get different
7:24 – 7:26
families. And to think that we know
7:26 – 7:28
anything about these, because there's, you
7:28 – 7:31
know, the teaspoon idea of how much
7:31 – 7:34
biology of life is in there, we just don't
7:34 – 7:36
know yet, I don't think.
7:36 – 7:40
And, but that's where I know what I
7:40 – 7:41
see.
7:41 – 7:44
And I watch an explosion from the multi
7:44 – 7:46
species, but then also putting that
7:46 – 7:47
livestock on there.
7:47 – 7:49
But I will say, you can go backwards with
7:49 – 7:53
both of them. If you get too diverse
7:53 – 7:55
and Well, actually not.
7:55 – 7:58
I will say diversity is just my probably
7:58 – 8:00
favorite, and livestock is really close,
8:00 – 8:03
but you can go backwards with the
8:03 – 8:04
livestock if you overgraze.
8:06 – 8:09
And so, if you overgraze, or I don't know
8:09 – 8:12
what conditions are like in your terrain,
8:12 – 8:16
but here in our area, our soils will you
8:16 – 8:19
will pay your soils will make you pay, and
8:19 – 8:23
your soils will be very damaged if you
8:23 – 8:26
graze when wet. When the soil is too wet,
8:26 – 8:27
they're just highly compactable.
8:27 – 8:30
And you just can't compromise.
8:30 – 8:34
And so we've had a number of good friends
8:34 – 8:37
of mine who are grazing here in the local
8:37 – 8:39
area where I'm located geographically.
8:39 – 8:42
And we've had good grass for six weeks and
8:42 – 8:45
they've only been able to be out grazing
8:45 – 8:46
for the last two weeks.
8:46 – 8:48
So they had four weeks with good grass,
8:48 – 8:49
but too wet.
8:50 – 8:52
And so they stayed indoors.
8:52 – 8:56
You haven't yet spoken about where you are
8:56 – 8:56
geographically.
8:57 – 8:58
I'm in Awesomeness.
8:58 – 9:01
Austin, Minnesota, so southeast Minnesota.
9:01 – 9:04
I'm probably 12 miles from the Iowa
9:04 – 9:06
border, right along I 90.
9:07 – 9:10
So, if you're ever on I 90 my way, all you
9:10 – 9:13
gotta do is say you can look for a big
9:13 – 9:15
yellow barn because we're just about a
9:15 – 9:18
half mile south of I 90, but we lost that
9:18 – 9:21
to a storm here December 15th, a couple
9:21 – 9:24
years ago. But if it's yellow, whenever
9:24 – 9:26
everything else is green, that's usually
9:26 – 9:28
my sunflowers. If there's animals grazing,
9:28 – 9:29
those are my animals.
9:30 – 9:32
If the dust isn't blowing, that's, you
9:32 – 9:34
know, that's a good thing.
9:34 – 9:35
Oh, my goodness. That's kind of a sad
9:35 – 9:37
state of affairs. You can offer that
9:37 – 9:38
contrast.
9:38 – 9:41
It is. And we've seen a lot of dust
9:41 – 9:42
blowing around this area.
9:43 – 9:46
Last year, actually, someone on the Austin
9:46 – 9:49
Township Board, you know, even noted on
9:49 – 9:52
Facebook saying, hey, accidents on the
9:52 – 9:56
east side of town from all the dust.
9:56 – 9:58
And we get to the west side and it's
9:58 – 10:01
beautiful green. And it's quite the
10:01 – 10:02
compliment.
10:02 – 10:04
He's referring to my fields.
10:04 – 10:06
And so, you know, it's nice because I'm
10:06 – 10:09
literally like one mile out of town.
10:09 – 10:11
So I'm the very edge of the town.
10:13 – 10:16
When I look at the dust that has been
10:16 – 10:18
blowing again, the soil that has been
10:18 – 10:20
blowing the last couple of years and some
10:20 – 10:22
of the headlines that we've seen in the
10:22 – 10:26
image we've seen. At what point are people
10:26 – 10:29
going to put liability back on the
10:29 – 10:33
farmers for accidents and for lung health
10:33 – 10:36
issues, pulmonary issues, and so forth?
10:36 – 10:39
We've lived in a consequence free world
10:39 – 10:42
for quite some time, apparently.
10:42 – 10:45
Yeah. But you say put it back on the
10:45 – 10:48
farmer. I do believe the farmer can do 100
10:48 – 10:51
better, but it's all the way along.
10:51 – 10:52
The whole, it's all the way along the
10:52 – 10:53
process of being a farmer.
10:52 – 10:56
You know, it's the insurance and the
10:56 – 10:58
absolutely state rules and federal
10:58 – 11:01
regulations, and everyone wants cheap food
11:01 – 11:04
and, you know, nothing comes cheap.
11:05 – 11:07
We have a screwed up system.
11:07 – 11:09
There's, you'll get no argument from me on
11:09 – 11:10
that. We do. We do.
11:10 – 11:13
And that's why I like promoting more
11:13 – 11:15
locally, you know, in town.
11:16 – 11:19
Hey, I can feed you.
11:19 – 11:21
I really thought when COVID came through.
11:21 – 11:24
I thought we were going to really realize
11:24 – 11:26
how fragile our food system is.
11:26 – 11:29
And I think everyone just kind of forgot.
11:29 – 11:32
You know, you get two years out of it and
11:32 – 11:33
everyone forgets. And they start going
11:33 – 11:36
back to Walmart, buying the cheap food
11:36 – 11:38
that's not even food, really.
11:38 – 11:41
There are a couple of data points
11:41 – 11:45
that I think haven't really entered the
11:45 – 11:48
consciousness, not just of consumers, but
11:48 – 11:50
of farmers as well.
11:51 – 11:54
And it just pulls me that we
11:54 – 11:58
apparently do not have a national food
11:58 – 12:00
security priority or plan.
12:01 – 12:04
A lot of people don't realize that we
12:04 – 12:06
became a net food importer in 2023.
12:07 – 12:08
We import more than we export.
12:09 – 12:13
And in the category of fresh fruits and
12:13 – 12:15
vegetables, we import the majority,
12:15 – 12:18
greater than 65 Now, granted, we're not
12:18 – 12:20
going to grow pineapples and bananas and
12:20 – 12:23
avocados in large quantities here in the
12:23 – 12:26
States, but we've exported the majority of
12:26 – 12:28
even our fresh fruit and vegetable
12:28 – 12:31
consumption to Central South America,
12:31 – 12:31
Mexico.
12:32 – 12:35
And that's just how is that smart from a
12:35 – 12:36
food security perspective?
12:36 – 12:40
It's cheaper. So the dollar prevails.
12:40 – 12:44
Yeah. Well, it used to be victory
12:44 – 12:46
gardens and eat seasonal.
12:47 – 12:50
And we've all got, we've all.
12:50 – 12:51
And you know, we've all got, we've all,
12:51 – 12:52
and it's everyone, it's me included.
12:52 – 12:55
You, we just get we enjoy having that
12:55 – 12:57
pineapple in the middle of the winter
12:57 – 13:00
time, yeah. Even though I will say it does
13:00 – 13:02
not taste as good, but still is good
13:02 – 13:04
enough to put into a pina colada or
13:04 – 13:07
something. So, yeah, yeah.
13:07 – 13:09
So, let's uh, you started by describing
13:09 – 13:11
some of your history and your journey and
13:11 – 13:13
the various things you've been playing
13:13 – 13:15
around with over the years.
13:15 – 13:17
Catch us up to speed, give us a snapshot
13:17 – 13:19
of where your operation is at this moment
13:19 – 13:20
in time.
13:20 – 13:22
Okay. Well, you know, I'm backwards from
13:22 – 13:24
everyone I Started doing cover crops first
13:24 – 13:25
and was still doing the tillage.
13:26 – 13:29
I always say taking one step forward and
13:29 – 13:31
two steps back, but I saw the benefits.
13:32 – 13:36
And so in 2015, started putting in
13:36 – 13:40
reduced tillage, no till, strip till on
13:40 – 13:43
the corn, no till on the soybeans,
13:43 – 13:46
started doing diverse mixes.
13:46 – 13:49
2018, went to all no till.
13:49 – 13:53
But then in 2017, I had one small field
13:53 – 13:54
that we went to organic.
13:55 – 13:58
So nowadays, I'm 40 organic and
13:58 – 14:02
60 no till, which roughly comes
14:02 – 14:05
about 340 acres of organic ground
14:05 – 14:09
and 430 of conventional no till.
14:10 – 14:13
And then 80 acres pasture, all the cattle.
14:14 – 14:16
We used to feed sweet corn silage and
14:16 – 14:18
always have hay or chopped corn.
14:18 – 14:20
Now I'm all grass finished.
14:20 – 14:24
And there can always be the argument of
14:24 – 14:27
what tastes better, but I know it doesn't
14:27 – 14:30
cost me barely anything to feed the cattle
14:30 – 14:33
when you plant 800 acres of cover crops.
14:34 – 14:36
There's always something out there
14:36 – 14:38
growing. And I've used to only graze two
14:38 – 14:41
months out of the year, then I went to
14:41 – 14:43
four months and then eight months.
14:43 – 14:47
And now I graze probably 10 months out
14:47 – 14:49
of the year.
14:49 – 14:51
I got into bale grazing do a lot.
14:51 – 14:52
I got into bale grazing.
14:51 – 14:52
I love that.
14:52 – 14:55
I always tell people that's my high
14:55 – 14:57
technology, variable rate fertilizer.
14:58 – 14:59
You know, go put the bales where you want
14:59 – 15:01
the manure and let the cattle do the work
15:01 – 15:03
for you. A good friend Tom Finnegan always
15:03 – 15:05
said, you know, let the cattle work for
15:05 – 15:06
you instead of you working for them.
15:06 – 15:09
And I definitely see that.
15:09 – 15:13
My livestock are just
15:13 – 15:15
easy, easy. You know, move a paddock.
15:17 – 15:19
And, you know, when we have time, the
15:19 – 15:20
packs go small.
15:20 – 15:22
When we get busy during harvest, they get
15:22 – 15:25
A little bigger. I always have pea ground,
15:25 – 15:28
which is usually anywhere from 80
15:28 – 15:32
to 140 acres. I'll go in and
15:32 – 15:35
cut those up into paddocks, and I
15:35 – 15:36
absolutely enjoy watching that.
15:36 – 15:39
And then the benefits I get from having
15:39 – 15:42
that diverse mix out there just really is
15:42 – 15:44
a payback. I'm actually on organic ground
15:44 – 15:47
right now, it's just incorporating red
15:47 – 15:48
clover.
15:48 – 15:50
So I'm putting, yes, I spent money on the
15:50 – 15:53
cover crop. Or the red clover last year
15:53 – 15:56
and organic oats, and I got to graze last
15:56 – 15:58
year. I got to graze this spring.
15:58 – 15:59
I got to incorporate the red clover.
15:59 – 16:01
I'm getting nitrogen benefit from it.
16:02 – 16:05
I still use a little bit of chicken litter
16:05 – 16:08
out there. So I have all this different
16:08 – 16:11
biology going on. And I just, the more I
16:11 – 16:14
go down this road, the more I just,
16:14 – 16:16
there's always one more step.
16:16 – 16:17
There's one more step.
16:17 – 16:20
And I always tell Ray Archerless, I love
16:20 – 16:23
you. You've taught me a lot, but my cattle
16:23 – 16:25
have taught me more.
16:26 – 16:29
Yeah. Just watching the livestock and what
16:29 – 16:32
they're doing really changes the mindset
16:32 – 16:34
of how I do things.
16:35 – 16:38
So, so I want to come back to that.
16:38 – 16:40
But before I go down that particular
16:40 – 16:42
earthworm hole, catch us up to speed a bit
16:42 – 16:45
on what does your crop mix look like
16:45 – 16:47
today? You spoke about having corn and
16:47 – 16:48
soybeans and sweet corn and peas
16:48 – 16:49
historically.
16:49 – 16:52
Okay. Well, I'll go to the organic first.
16:52 – 16:55
There, I usually have organic oats,
16:55 – 16:58
organic sunflowers, corn, soybeans, sweet
16:58 – 16:59
corn.
16:59 – 17:03
I have grown hemp, grain, and fiber, uh, I
17:03 – 17:04
absolutely love that.
17:04 – 17:06
But you know, we need more infrastructure
17:06 – 17:09
for that. Need markets, yeah, yep, yep.
17:09 – 17:12
Uh, and then on the conventional, I it's I
17:12 – 17:15
call it conventional, but it's the no till
17:15 – 17:16
side.
17:16 – 17:18
There's peas, sweet corn, sunflowers,
17:18 – 17:22
corn, and soybeans, and so it's not
17:22 – 17:24
always the same rotation.
17:24 – 17:27
Every field kind of gets tweaked around a
17:27 – 17:30
little bit according to what my livestock
17:30 – 17:31
possibilities are for grazing.
17:32 – 17:35
I always want to try and get my animals to
17:35 – 17:36
cover all the acres every year.
17:37 – 17:40
So, like, and that's what I really like
17:40 – 17:42
about organic. I'm planting, I'm going to
17:42 – 17:44
start planting corn right now.
17:44 – 17:46
And my animals have been out grazing all
17:46 – 17:48
these fields, pull them off.
17:48 – 17:51
Now the rye grew back beautiful, good weed
17:51 – 17:52
protection and feed value.
17:52 – 17:56
But doing that organic crops gives me an
17:56 – 17:59
extra month of grazing in the spring.
17:59 – 18:02
But I will graze in the spring before
18:02 – 18:05
sunflowers because I can plant those late,
18:05 – 18:07
before sweet corn, usually before
18:07 – 18:08
soybeans.
18:08 – 18:11
But then when you jump the other side, I
18:11 – 18:14
graze after peas, after corn, and I can
18:14 – 18:17
graze after sunflowers too because they're
18:17 – 18:20
a lot shorter. It all depends on what you
18:20 – 18:22
do. I do a lot of interseeding when
18:22 – 18:24
possible. We have a.
18:24 – 18:26
You about herd size, but it sounds to me
18:26 – 18:28
from what you're describing like the
18:28 – 18:30
majority of your grazing time is coming
18:30 – 18:31
from crop ground and not from pasture
18:31 – 18:32
ground. Absolutely.
18:32 – 18:36
I have 60 acres of pasture in one
18:36 – 18:39
spot and then about 10 acres right here
18:39 – 18:42
locally, but I really have capitalized on
18:42 – 18:45
double dipping in on my acres.
18:45 – 18:48
You know, your best asset is your land.
18:48 – 18:51
And so if you're only using it four months
18:51 – 18:54
out of the year for a cash crop you're
18:54 – 18:56
leaving a whole benefit out income revenue
18:56 – 18:58
stream. And I think I figured up here the
18:58 – 19:00
other day with another guy that I was
19:00 – 19:01
talking to.
19:02 – 19:04
I think we were coming up to right around
19:04 – 19:07
300 to 350 worth of bales a day that they
19:07 – 19:08
would eat.
19:09 – 19:11
And when they're out on that ground, it's
19:11 – 19:14
not that I am putting money in my pocket,
19:14 – 19:16
but I'm not taking money out of my pocket.
19:16 – 19:20
I think we came up to 20000 for
19:20 – 19:23
two months of let's see what, it was
19:23 – 19:27
some, right around 350 a day, I think
19:27 – 19:30
is what we came down to.
19:30 – 19:33
And so when you start thinking about that,
19:33 – 19:35
I'm getting double income.
19:35 – 19:37
I've even had fields, like, especially
19:37 – 19:40
after peas, and peas are not a huge
19:40 – 19:42
income, but it's a third, or it's probably
19:42 – 19:45
40 The grazing's another 30 and then if I
19:45 – 19:48
can sell something off of there, which I
19:48 – 19:50
don't like selling because that's taking
19:50 – 19:51
nutrients out of you.
19:52 – 19:54
But what I get back the next year is I get
19:54 – 19:54
to reduce my fertilizer.
19:54 – 19:58
And I will say, when I
19:58 – 20:01
go down this gravel road of,
20:01 – 20:05
I don't know if you call
20:05 – 20:08
it regenerative, probably more holistic.
20:09 – 20:12
The more contemporary things I use,
20:12 – 20:15
like synthetic fertilizer or chemical, it
20:15 – 20:18
actually doesn't work as good.
20:18 – 20:21
It works better when I always have that
20:21 – 20:22
regenerative mind and I'm going that
20:22 – 20:26
route. And it just, it
20:26 – 20:29
should work so good with
20:29 – 20:31
just synthetics. But you know what?
20:31 – 20:35
I see the damage that it's doing.
20:35 – 20:37
And yes, you can grow a great crop, but
20:37 – 20:39
man, you are sticking a lot of money into
20:39 – 20:41
it. And I'm telling you one thing I am
20:41 – 20:42
cheap.
20:42 – 20:45
So, Tom, it strikes me that as we're
20:45 – 20:47
having this conversation, ever since we
20:47 – 20:49
started this discussion, you have this
20:49 – 20:50
slight smile on your face.
20:50 – 20:52
And it sounds, it feels to me like you're
20:52 – 20:53
just having a ton of fun.
20:54 – 20:57
I am. I am. You know, when
20:57 – 21:01
you're working at something, it's
21:01 – 21:04
always fun. But when you're fighting, it's
21:04 – 21:08
never any good. And I coach wrestling for
21:08 – 21:11
18 years. I was on a co op board for 18
21:11 – 21:13
years and been married for 30.
21:13 – 21:15
And out of all these things I do, I take
21:15 – 21:17
all these bits and pieces and I put it
21:17 – 21:19
into the farm. And my wife has been really
21:19 – 21:21
good to teach me, like, hey, you know, she
21:21 – 21:23
didn't grow up with the silver spoon in
21:23 – 21:25
her mouth, like, you know, on a farm and
21:25 – 21:26
all beautiful acres.
21:26 – 21:30
And I've taken her life lessons
21:30 – 21:33
and I put them in relay
21:33 – 21:36
into the farm and just so
21:36 – 21:38
many things happening.
21:38 – 21:41
And I always want to relate well, the soil
21:41 – 21:43
life is the exact same thing as human
21:43 – 21:47
life. And so if you're happy, that's going
21:47 – 21:48
to be healthy.
21:48 – 21:51
Yeah, I always tell that you know, if you
21:51 – 21:54
don't think it's true, just go into the
21:54 – 21:54
nursing home.
21:55 – 21:56
Most people there are not happy.
21:56 – 21:57
And they're not healthy, they're on their
21:57 – 21:59
dying days. So, do I want my cattle locked
21:59 – 22:03
in the pins or do I want them out
22:03 – 22:05
doing what they're made to do?
22:06 – 22:07
And that's grazing.
22:07 – 22:10
When I bale graze, they'll go eat a little
22:10 – 22:12
bale, but 80 of the time they're all
22:12 – 22:15
grazing, even when there's nothing out
22:15 – 22:17
there. But that's just the way they were
22:17 – 22:18
made. Now, do I want them eating
22:18 – 22:19
everything down to nothing?
22:19 – 22:22
No, but in the wintertime, that's what
22:22 – 22:23
happens.
22:23 – 22:26
So, earlier in our conversation, you'd
22:26 – 22:28
made a comment that you've learned way
22:28 – 22:31
more from watching your livestock graze
22:31 – 22:33
than you have from listening to human
22:33 – 22:34
teachers.
22:34 – 22:35
Tell us a little bit about that.
22:35 – 22:37
What are some of the things that you've
22:37 – 22:39
learned from watching the livestock graze?
22:39 – 22:40
What have been some of the observations
22:40 – 22:41
that really caught your attention?
22:41 – 22:44
One of the first things was when I did a
22:44 – 22:47
large, I think it was a 23 way mix, and I
22:47 – 22:49
put the cattle into the first paddock, and
22:49 – 22:52
I thought, you know what, I'm going to be
22:52 – 22:54
smart and just get down to the Best five.
22:55 – 22:56
And I watched the Kale come in, and I sat
22:56 – 22:59
down. And I will tell you, there's nothing
22:59 – 23:01
better than sitting down on the soil in a
23:01 – 23:04
big five foot tall cover crop and watching
23:04 – 23:07
the cow graze. But I started writing down
23:07 – 23:08
everything they're doing, everything they
23:08 – 23:10
were eating first, then second, third,
23:10 – 23:13
fourth, fifth. And I thought, okay, I only
23:13 – 23:14
need to plant these five.
23:14 – 23:17
I know it all. You know, this is what my
23:17 – 23:18
feed guy is going to tell me is the best
23:18 – 23:19
products.
23:20 – 23:22
But then we moved to the next paddock,
23:22 – 23:24
they started eating totally different
23:24 – 23:25
things.
23:26 – 23:27
And I just took that paper and threw it
23:27 – 23:28
away. I thought, you know what?
23:27 – 23:30
I cannot, you know, put my, I'm not
23:30 – 23:34
a very scientific guy, but I can't take
23:34 – 23:37
human knowledge of what we think we know
23:37 – 23:41
when the cattle are proving me wrong by
23:41 – 23:42
what they're eating.
23:42 – 23:44
You know, these plants are pulling up
23:44 – 23:46
different nutrients all day long,
23:46 – 23:48
different times of the days.
23:49 – 23:51
One week later, the nutrients can be
23:51 – 23:52
different. And the cows' nutrition
23:52 – 23:55
requirements can be different, and they
23:55 – 23:57
have their senses, they know that we don't
23:57 – 24:00
have any senses. We just we're taking a
24:00 – 24:03
snapshot of one second in time where those
24:03 – 24:05
animals are living.
24:05 – 24:07
This I always tell soil health is a it's
24:07 – 24:10
like a river, it's flowing up and down and
24:10 – 24:12
it's all around. And you know, Bruce Lee
24:12 – 24:14
always talked about, uh, you know, be like
24:14 – 24:16
water and flow with it, and that's kind of
24:16 – 24:18
what I want to be able to flow with what
24:18 – 24:20
Mother Nature is giving me.
24:20 – 24:22
So in drought years, I always try has
24:22 – 24:24
given me. So, in drought years, I always
24:24 – 24:25
change my cover crops to the weather
24:25 – 24:26
patterns and what's going on out there.
24:27 – 24:28
I'm always adjusting.
24:28 – 24:31
I never know what I'm doing until it's
24:31 – 24:32
already been done.
24:32 – 24:34
I write stuff down all the time.
24:34 – 24:35
This is the plan.
24:36 – 24:39
And it always, I change it with what
24:39 – 24:40
Mother Nature has given me.
24:40 – 24:43
So, Tom, I'm going to flip scripts for a
24:43 – 24:44
bit here.
24:45 – 24:49
If you've been using the words
24:49 – 24:51
of flowing and Constantly adapting.
24:51 – 24:55
So, if you imagine that life
24:55 – 24:58
is a river and that you
24:58 – 25:01
are in a boat on the
25:01 – 25:05
river and you're paddling your boat
25:05 – 25:08
or your canoe, in this imagination
25:08 – 25:12
of yours, are you traveling up
25:12 – 25:15
the river or down the river?
25:19 – 25:22
Oh boy, that is a tough question.
25:22 – 25:23
Can I go both ways?
25:23 – 25:26
Because there's something I want up there
25:26 – 25:28
and there's something I want down there.
25:28 – 25:31
I don't know if I can say it's one way or
25:31 – 25:34
the other, but I will say it's getting
25:34 – 25:35
rockier.
25:35 – 25:37
It's getting more white rapids.
25:37 – 25:41
You know, it's just amazing how I'm
25:41 – 25:44
seeing all the fields around me and
25:44 – 25:46
mine included. Even though I think I'm
25:46 – 25:48
doing a great job, it's not.
25:49 – 25:50
On par with what Mother Nature really
25:50 – 25:51
wanted to have out there.
25:53 – 25:56
But I see how fast we go from wet to
25:56 – 25:58
dry and all these extremes.
25:58 – 26:02
I went from cold, to now it's 85, 90
26:02 – 26:05
degrees, and my cover crops are at the
26:05 – 26:07
beginning of the month.
26:07 – 26:09
I said they're about a week behind, and a
26:09 – 26:10
week later, I said they're two and a half
26:10 – 26:12
weeks behind. Now I literally think
26:12 – 26:14
they're just about a month behind.
26:14 – 26:17
So, am I going up or down?
26:18 – 26:20
I think I'm going wherever the least
26:20 – 26:22
resistance is, which makes you say you're
26:22 – 26:23
going downhill, but.
26:24 – 26:26
I know I need to work.
26:26 – 26:29
And go upstream to because you will find
26:29 – 26:32
more things if you fight the current of
26:32 – 26:35
the way farming is going right now.
26:35 – 26:38
It's we're trying to blast us down this
26:38 – 26:41
way, but I think if I go up that way, I
26:41 – 26:43
can find a nice lagoon to hang out in and
26:43 – 26:45
make the make of it.
26:45 – 26:47
You know, livestock, I'm grass finished
26:47 – 26:50
cows and I have grass finished feeders,
26:50 – 26:53
but now I've jumped into and not huge, but
26:53 – 26:55
I have my foot in the door.
26:55 – 26:58
I have chickens and pigs and sheep, and I
26:58 – 27:00
just keep on seeing these little benefits.
27:00 – 27:02
And is a large amount?
27:02 – 27:04
No. It's enough to feed me and family and
27:04 – 27:07
have some good sales, but I have my foot
27:07 – 27:07
in the door.
27:08 – 27:10
I really think that's the big thing with
27:10 – 27:11
these cover crops and no till.
27:12 – 27:15
If you never tried it, it's kind of hard,
27:15 – 27:18
but if you play with it and learn what's
27:18 – 27:20
going on, you can really expand it quite
27:20 – 27:21
fast.
27:21 – 27:25
What have you been surprised by as
27:25 – 27:27
you've been on this journey?
27:27 – 27:29
What really caught your attention?
27:30 – 27:33
How much more when I try and do
27:33 – 27:35
conventional practices into this
27:35 – 27:37
regenerative world, how they don't work
27:37 – 27:39
like they used to.
27:39 – 27:40
They're not as efficient.
27:40 – 27:44
I think as I got my ground more natural,
27:44 – 27:47
I should say, if I go apply urea, I
27:47 – 27:51
see an effect of, you know, how it can
27:51 – 27:54
harden the ground and, you know know, you
27:54 – 27:57
always hear nitrogen, Well, too much
27:57 – 27:59
nitrogen makes you the ground go hard.
27:59 – 28:02
So, do I want a good balance?
28:02 – 28:04
And I really want that soil covered.
28:04 – 28:06
And I will say it's getting harder to keep
28:06 – 28:08
the ground covered because, for one, the
28:08 – 28:10
biology is eating that much more.
28:10 – 28:13
But once you build it and they come, now
28:13 – 28:15
you got to keep on feeding them.
28:15 – 28:18
So, all right, let's talk about that a bit
28:18 – 28:20
because this is pretty important in some
28:20 – 28:22
parts of the world where they really need
28:22 – 28:23
to keep soil covered.
28:23 – 28:26
What have you been observing with soil
28:26 – 28:30
cover being digested more rapidly, and how
28:30 – 28:31
has that shifted?
28:33 – 28:35
Well, I used to grow CBD.
28:35 – 28:38
We started a company, Superior Canvas
28:38 – 28:42
Company, and I grew CBD hemp plants for
28:42 – 28:44
our couple different stores, Minnesota and
28:44 – 28:48
Wisconsin. And my first year of that, I
28:48 – 28:50
laid down about eight foot tall cover
28:50 – 28:51
crop.
28:51 – 28:53
And when I laid it down, I thought, boy,
28:53 – 28:55
I'm gonna have to deal with this next
28:55 – 28:57
year, but we'll just lay it down and we'll
28:57 – 28:58
fight that battle next year.
28:58 – 29:01
The next year, it was all gone.
29:02 – 29:05
The microbes were there, consumed it, fed
29:05 – 29:07
beautiful hemp crops for three years at
29:07 – 29:11
least, and then we moved on to a different
29:11 – 29:13
spot. But I will say, having that ground
29:13 – 29:16
covered, you know, and I'll come back to
29:16 – 29:19
bale grazing because that is the best way
29:19 – 29:21
to get your ground covered because you're
29:21 – 29:23
putting a high carbonarching ratio out
29:23 – 29:26
there. Bale and the cow eat it, yes, but
29:26 – 29:27
there's always that extra residue.
29:27 – 29:30
And if you don't have diversity and you're
29:30 – 29:33
just a corn soybean guy, that first year
29:33 – 29:37
you'll see stunted corn in that spot or
29:37 – 29:38
stunted soybeans.
29:38 – 29:40
And then the following year you'll see
29:40 – 29:41
better ones there.
29:42 – 29:45
But if you have diversity in your cash
29:45 – 29:47
crops, like my sunflowers, which you would
29:47 – 29:49
think would be the exact opposite because
29:49 – 29:52
sunflowers can take a little drier and
29:52 – 29:53
they kind of like tillage.
29:54 – 29:55
But I've seen every time where I bale
29:55 – 29:58
graze. And then I just put my sunflowers
29:58 – 30:00
right where the bales are, they're always
30:00 – 30:03
a foot taller and much bigger diameter.
30:03 – 30:06
And they'll be heading out easily a
30:06 – 30:09
week ahead. And it just blows my mind.
30:09 – 30:11
It's like, well, that goes against
30:11 – 30:12
everything I thought.
30:12 – 30:15
But when you have that ground cover, that
30:15 – 30:17
biology can just be much more alive.
30:17 – 30:19
Those earthworms are going to be, every
30:19 – 30:21
time it gets dry, what happens?
30:22 – 30:23
The earthworms disappear, right?
30:23 – 30:24
They go down. And you don't see them.
30:24 – 30:26
When you have that moisture, I've seen it
30:26 – 30:29
in the, I've seen when I bale graze in the
30:29 – 30:31
wintertime, earthworms on top of the
30:31 – 30:32
ground when I move that bale.
30:33 – 30:35
It can be negative five degrees out and
30:35 – 30:37
they're crawling around doing their jobs.
30:37 – 30:40
Like, wow, they're working, you know, all
30:40 – 30:43
year long instead of hibernating when it's
30:43 – 30:44
cold out.
30:45 – 30:48
But that's because that extra residue,
30:48 – 30:50
that ground cover, it's, it's pretty.
30:50 – 30:52
And I've heard people say my ground
30:52 – 30:54
doesn't even freeze, which, Up here, I
30:54 – 30:56
think I'd kind of like to have it be able
30:56 – 30:58
to freeze so we get that freezethaw
30:58 – 31:00
cycles. But then again, do we really know
31:00 – 31:02
what the soil wants and needs?
31:03 – 31:04
I don't know.
31:06 – 31:09
So I had asked you about what you've
31:09 – 31:12
learned from observing the livestock.
31:12 – 31:16
And I'd like to take that same question or
31:16 – 31:19
that same framing and apply it to crops.
31:19 – 31:21
What have you learned from observing your
31:21 – 31:23
crops or how have your crops started
31:23 – 31:24
behaving differently?
31:26 – 31:29
Uh I've learned that there's no waste, uh,
31:29 – 31:33
and that's that's hard for farmers because
31:33 – 31:36
they think, Oh, that residue of the corn,
31:36 – 31:40
get rid of it, bury it, soybean.
31:40 – 31:43
You know, I always look for other
31:43 – 31:45
revenues, uh, especially in the grazing
31:45 – 31:47
side. So if cash crops are going, I want
31:47 – 31:50
to know if I can be able to interseed into
31:50 – 31:52
it. So the minute they come off, I can be
31:52 – 31:54
grazing, I want to use that ground
31:54 – 31:56
multiple times. What plants work good with
31:56 – 31:57
it? Some flowers I can intersee into, corn
31:56 – 31:59
I can. Sweet corn, it's very easy to
31:59 – 32:03
interseed, but you also got to remember
32:03 – 32:07
that now they can start competing because
32:07 – 32:08
there's not much.
32:09 – 32:12
It's a short plant, low populations.
32:13 – 32:16
I've learned that these, I always want to
32:16 – 32:19
have, when I got in the organic world, I
32:19 – 32:22
always thought about, okay, I need to get
32:22 – 32:24
nutrients cycling up and down, and my cash
32:24 – 32:26
crops now, especially on the conventional
32:26 – 32:29
side, I want to see that too.
32:30 – 32:32
On the organic, it's always a focus.
32:32 – 32:35
The cover crop always gets the most
32:35 – 32:37
intense because it's for weed control and
32:37 – 32:39
grazing. Whereas on the conventional
32:39 – 32:41
sides, I always think, oh, I got
32:41 – 32:43
chemicals, so I can fall back on
32:43 – 32:46
chemicals, but that's not a good way to go
32:46 – 32:48
through farming thinking that I have to
32:48 – 32:50
use this tool all the time.
32:50 – 32:53
I always like if I'm going to be planting
32:53 – 32:55
soybeans, I want to have a good solid rye.
32:56 – 32:57
Winter rye out there.
32:57 – 32:59
Fight those plants with plants.
32:59 – 33:03
And so, what have I learned from
33:03 – 33:06
cash crops is that I want more
33:06 – 33:07
rotation.
33:08 – 33:12
Last year we had sunflowers, and a lady
33:12 – 33:15
came out, an insect lady, I can't think
33:15 – 33:18
of her name right now, great lady, and
33:18 – 33:21
she found corn leaf beetles out there.
33:22 – 33:23
I said, Oh, is that a problem?
33:24 – 33:25
It's like, No, actually, your neighbors
33:25 – 33:27
should be thanking you because in the
33:27 – 33:28
cornfield, they're going to do damage.
33:28 – 33:31
But in the sunflower, they do not do any
33:31 – 33:32
damage at all. Like, well, am I building
33:32 – 33:34
enough for them? It's like, no, they'd
33:34 – 33:36
still be here. They would still be eating
33:36 – 33:36
no matter what.
33:37 – 33:40
So, you are actually giving them a safe
33:40 – 33:42
place to go and have those insects without
33:42 – 33:45
doing damage. So, the more I get in the
33:45 – 33:48
cash crop, the more cash crops I want more
33:48 – 33:49
diversity, just absolutely.
33:50 – 33:52
I see the damage of just doing corn,
33:52 – 33:53
beans, corn, beans.
33:53 – 33:55
That's why I have a five way rotation.
33:55 – 33:57
I would really love to get up to even
33:57 – 33:58
higher yet.
33:58 – 34:02
But We're never going to get there if we
34:02 – 34:05
can't change the farm bill, insurance, the
34:05 – 34:08
way people eat. I often tell people, you
34:08 – 34:10
know, the can companies, they're cutting
34:10 – 34:12
back on peas, it seems like every year.
34:12 – 34:15
But how many kids do you know eat peas
34:15 – 34:16
nowadays?
34:16 – 34:18
They go get a french fry at McDonald's and
34:18 – 34:19
that's what they're eating.
34:20 – 34:22
I see it in my grandkids.
34:22 – 34:25
So is it all a farmer's fault?
34:25 – 34:28
Absolutely not. It's our whole society.
34:28 – 34:29
We have to change.
34:55 – 34:57
Because there's been far too many
34:57 – 35:01
occasions where I have been to a potluck
35:01 – 35:04
event or a public event or something like
35:04 – 35:07
that, and the peas and the vegetables that
35:07 – 35:10
are served just flat out aren't good.
35:10 – 35:12
I mean, I'm an adult, I'm not a kid, and I
35:12 – 35:13
don't want to eat them.
35:14 – 35:18
And so, and I've seen this with
35:18 – 35:22
farms that we've visited that have really
35:22 – 35:24
great food. I have a six year old daughter
35:24 – 35:25
and a Got lots of friends.
35:25 – 35:26
We are fortunate enough.
35:25 – 35:28
I'm fortunate enough to be in a part of a
35:28 – 35:31
community that grows a lot of its own
35:31 – 35:32
food.
35:32 – 35:35
And I would say, I mean, certainly we all
35:35 – 35:38
have our own tastes, and there are some
35:38 – 35:40
things that just aren't appealing to us.
35:41 – 35:44
I have a personal, fairly intense dislike
35:44 – 35:45
for tomatoes, for example.
35:46 – 35:48
But aside from that, aside from those
35:48 – 35:50
personal taste preferences, many times
35:50 – 35:51
I've Watched my daughter who loves
35:51 – 35:55
broccoli. When we have broccoli at home or
35:55 – 35:58
we have broccoli from a high quality
35:58 – 36:01
source, she will consume broccoli like a
36:01 – 36:01
snack.
36:02 – 36:04
And we'll be traveling somewhere, we'll
36:04 – 36:06
get broccoli at a restaurant, hard pass.
36:07 – 36:08
Yeah, absolutely.
36:09 – 36:12
You know, you talk about peas, but I
36:12 – 36:14
remember we do field days every year, and
36:14 – 36:17
the Minnesota Soil Coalition helps me do
36:17 – 36:20
all this stuff, which I love getting out
36:20 – 36:21
and helping farmers.
36:21 – 36:22
Because when I got into farming, I didn't
36:21 – 36:22
have anyone to talk to.
36:22 – 36:24
I didn't know there was Gabe Brown out
36:24 – 36:26
there, I didn't know Ray.
36:26 – 36:30
But they've helped me help other
36:30 – 36:34
farmers. But I didn't stop there, I go to
36:34 – 36:35
help my community.
36:35 – 36:37
And so we do food health days.
36:37 – 36:39
I've been doing, I think we're on our
36:39 – 36:40
sixth or seventh year this year.
36:41 – 36:44
And I remember one year the sweet corn
36:44 – 36:47
lined up just perfectly in my organic
36:47 – 36:49
sweet corn, which they can't spray for
36:49 – 36:51
fungicide, anyways, but literally the
36:51 – 36:53
conventional fields right next door even
36:53 – 36:56
though it was good practices, they still
36:56 – 36:57
spray no matter what.
36:57 – 37:00
And but when we're having that field day,
37:00 – 37:03
we made our organic sweet corn, and I
37:03 – 37:06
don't think one person put butter or salt
37:06 – 37:09
on it, they literally ate the corn just as
37:09 – 37:12
it was, and it was absolutely the most
37:12 – 37:13
amazing.
37:13 – 37:16
I've yet to repeat that exactly just like
37:16 – 37:16
that.
37:17 – 37:20
Uh, but there's so many factors that come
37:20 – 37:22
into growing stuff that just because you
37:22 – 37:25
put nutrients. There and you have sun and
37:25 – 37:26
there's water, you think that's all it
37:26 – 37:28
needs. No, there's much more to it.
37:29 – 37:31
And so I've had major successes, but even
37:31 – 37:34
when I have failures, I know that it's not
37:34 – 37:37
a loss because I have cattle and I can
37:37 – 37:40
come back in and I can always capitalize
37:40 – 37:41
on what's out there.
37:41 – 37:45
So you mentioned that if you had, if
37:45 – 37:48
you didn't have some of the perverse
37:48 – 37:51
incentives or the lack of opportunity, you
37:51 – 37:55
would desire to expand your rotation even
37:55 – 37:55
further. What are some of the
37:55 – 37:56
opportunities that you see?
37:55 – 37:58
What are some of the things that you would
37:58 – 38:01
like to do given the ability to do so?
38:02 – 38:04
Well, I would definitely like to grow hemp
38:04 – 38:06
again, hemp grain and fiber, because
38:06 – 38:08
there's just so many good products that
38:08 – 38:10
can be made out of that.
38:10 – 38:12
I really think that would help everything.
38:13 – 38:16
I would like to get
38:16 – 38:20
into probably some different kinds
38:20 – 38:21
of beans.
38:22 – 38:23
Black beans and stuff like that.
38:23 – 38:25
And that's, and really, I could do that.
38:25 – 38:29
I just feel pretty good right now, but I
38:29 – 38:31
have my conventional side and I'm always
38:31 – 38:34
trying to, I will say, master the
38:34 – 38:37
practices and then take it in organic.
38:37 – 38:39
And not that you ever master it because
38:39 – 38:40
Mother Nature will change something on
38:40 – 38:42
you, but I try and take it from the
38:42 – 38:44
conventional side where I have a backup
38:44 – 38:46
plan of chemical and then bring it into
38:46 – 38:46
the organic.
38:47 – 38:50
And, but, and the nice thing with the
38:50 – 38:53
organic side is I can do more experiments
38:53 – 38:55
with cash crops because the money's there.
38:55 – 38:56
Say sunflowers it's double the price.
38:56 – 39:00
Right there is just, oh, why
39:00 – 39:02
wouldn't I plant sunflowers?
39:03 – 39:04
When my friend asked me about growing
39:04 – 39:05
hemp, I thought, no problem.
39:06 – 39:09
I grow 30 different ways of cover crops.
39:09 – 39:11
Why would it matter if I grow one more?
39:11 – 39:14
And even when I was doing organic ground
39:14 – 39:16
and organic hemp, my certifier is like,
39:16 – 39:19
well, you have to move your cash crop.
39:19 – 39:21
Like, well, my cash crop is the minority
39:21 – 39:24
out there. There's only 6000 plants, but
39:24 – 39:26
yet every year I plant two million plants
39:26 – 39:27
out there.
39:28 – 39:30
And so they actually let me stay in the
39:30 – 39:32
exact same spot because of my diverse
39:32 – 39:33
rotations.
39:33 – 39:36
So, would I want to plant more
39:36 – 39:38
cash crops? Absolutely.
39:39 – 39:41
But the problem is the infrastructure and
39:41 – 39:44
the prices are just so terrible on the
39:44 – 39:45
conventional side.
39:45 – 39:46
That's why they're organic.
39:47 – 39:48
It gives me more possibility of doing
39:48 – 39:49
that.
39:50 – 39:52
And you have to do tillage on one side,
39:52 – 39:54
you have to do chemical on another.
39:55 – 39:58
I literally see both sides and I want to
39:58 – 40:01
take all the good and get rid of the bad,
40:01 – 40:02
reduce the bad.
40:03 – 40:04
We're human, so we're always going to be
40:04 – 40:05
doing something bad.
40:06 – 40:08
So, you actually have the benefit of
40:08 – 40:10
perspective. Let me, how long have you
40:10 – 40:12
been doing both organic and conventional?
40:12 – 40:15
And the follow up question, the question I
40:15 – 40:18
really want to get to is there's this
40:18 – 40:20
constant debate on which does the most
40:20 – 40:24
damage to soil. Is it herbicides or is
40:24 – 40:25
it tillage?
40:25 – 40:28
And I certainly have an opinion about
40:28 – 40:31
that. And I do think it does vary
40:31 – 40:33
dependent on context and soil
40:33 – 40:36
characteristics. But I'd like to hear
40:36 – 40:38
what you have observed.
40:38 – 40:39
What have you observed?
40:40 – 40:43
Well, I've been both
40:43 – 40:47
since 2017. There's only 20 acres in
40:47 – 40:49
2017, but it went 20, 81.
40:49 – 40:53
20, 80, 160, and now we're at
40:53 – 40:54
340.
40:54 – 40:56
And actually, it's the ground that I have
40:56 – 40:57
that's the organic.
40:58 – 41:01
But I literally, people always ask which
41:01 – 41:02
is better.
41:03 – 41:06
And I even had David Kleinschmidt out and
41:06 – 41:09
we ran some microburst tests on biology,
41:09 – 41:10
the organic was good.
41:10 – 41:13
I don't do it, I reduce my tillage as much
41:13 – 41:14
as possible.
41:14 – 41:16
And if there is tillage, it's with the
41:16 – 41:17
purpose of incorporating green manure.
41:18 – 41:20
But we took a shot out there.
41:20 – 41:23
And it was microbursts, I don't know, 800
41:23 – 41:27
something like that, if I'm if I remember
41:27 – 41:29
correctly. But then we went into the no
41:29 – 41:31
till side and it was 2000, and everyone's
41:31 – 41:32
like, wow, that's so much better.
41:32 – 41:36
And but then at the end of the
41:36 – 41:39
year, that organic crop was more like a
41:39 – 41:43
2000 return gross, and my conventional was
41:43 – 41:46
more like a 650. So, which is better?
41:47 – 41:51
I will say whenever I intercede into the
41:51 – 41:53
organic, I always have success.
41:54 – 41:56
There is no chemical residue, and I don't
41:56 – 41:59
care what you do on the conventional side.
41:59 – 42:00
There's always that stuff is laying in
42:00 – 42:04
there. I remember going to a conference
42:04 – 42:07
once, and one of the top guys
42:07 – 42:10
on mushrooms was talking fungi.
42:10 – 42:13
I listened, like, hey, which is worse,
42:13 – 42:14
chemical or tillage?
42:14 – 42:16
And he said, what goes deeper?
42:17 – 42:20
And I thought, wow, that's pretty powerful
42:20 – 42:20
because chemical does.
42:21 – 42:23
But I do like to refer back to human life.
42:24 – 42:27
Exactly. So, we've been doing tillage for
42:27 – 42:28
10000 years farming.
42:29 – 42:32
And we've been growing crops, and we're in
42:32 – 42:35
a dire spot. Even here in the United
42:35 – 42:39
States, we're 250 years in, and we have
42:39 – 42:42
had major disasters for the last 75 or
42:42 – 42:45
100 years. And I don't know if we could go
42:45 – 42:46
that long with the chemical.
42:47 – 42:49
Or, in fact, I know.
42:49 – 42:50
We can't go that long with the chemical,
42:49 – 42:53
right? And so, you know, you look at
42:53 – 42:56
Iowa, which is my neighbor to the
42:56 – 42:59
south, we're sending them pretty dirty
42:59 – 43:03
water. We try and get it cleaner, but to
43:03 – 43:05
see what's been going on down in Iowa with
43:05 – 43:08
the dust storms and the cancer rates of
43:08 – 43:10
how high they've jumped, it's just like
43:10 – 43:13
you know, one of my favorite things about
43:13 – 43:14
getting into regenerative agriculture, if
43:14 – 43:18
you want to say that, is I grow life, I
43:18 – 43:19
feed life, I don't kill life.
43:19 – 43:23
That's why when we used to be a two to 500
43:23 – 43:26
head feeder lot, brought in feeders, sold
43:26 – 43:28
them, raised them up, got rid of them.
43:29 – 43:32
Once I switched to cow calf, I absolutely
43:32 – 43:35
just that's brought smiles to my face.
43:35 – 43:37
I enjoyed seeing life born on the farms
43:37 – 43:39
like, wow, that's what a farm is.
43:40 – 43:42
And then I jumped into growing cover crops
43:42 – 43:45
and doing this. I was like, those are the
43:45 – 43:46
two most exciting.
43:46 – 43:48
Moments in farming that I've ever had.
43:48 – 43:51
It's not a new combine, it's not another
43:51 – 43:52
piece of land or something.
43:52 – 43:55
It's changing these practices and working
43:55 – 43:58
with Mother Nature and making the land
43:58 – 44:02
better and trying to give a better produce
44:02 – 44:03
to our consumers.
44:04 – 44:08
I was on a co op board and I
44:08 – 44:10
remember when that magazine came out,
44:10 – 44:12
Successful Fire Meet Your New Boss.
44:13 – 44:17
And everyone in that boardroom laughed and
44:17 – 44:20
they said, oh, girl, they're going to
44:20 – 44:24
be paying 8 eggs. And I just kind of
44:24 – 44:26
smiled, said, Yeah, I'll sell to them.
44:26 – 44:28
You know, that's a good thing.
44:28 – 44:31
But where you think that your customer is
44:31 – 44:35
not the one that is driving the demand is
44:35 – 44:36
just crazy.
44:36 – 44:38
I want to grow what people want.
44:38 – 44:40
I want people coming to me.
44:40 – 44:43
And I've had a lot of migraine.
44:43 – 44:46
I don't even have semis because most of my
44:46 – 44:49
grain gets hauled off by the buyer of the
44:49 – 44:50
product.
44:51 – 44:53
And that's a pretty damn good way to run
44:53 – 44:54
an operation.
44:55 – 44:55
Yeah.
44:56 – 44:59
You know, sometimes when you're in
44:59 – 45:00
conversations with people, there's
45:00 – 45:03
something about the context of the moment
45:03 – 45:06
that something registers in a different
45:06 – 45:09
way or appears in a different way.
45:09 – 45:12
And I was just struck when you were
45:12 – 45:14
describing sending dirty water to Iowa and
45:14 – 45:17
the challenges that we have with health
45:17 – 45:18
challenges in agricultural communities.
45:20 – 45:22
All of a sudden, that just kind of struck
45:22 – 45:25
a nerve for me. And from a philosophical
45:25 – 45:29
perspective, shouldn't growing food be one
45:29 – 45:32
of the cleanest, cleanest, and healthiest
45:32 – 45:33
professions?
45:36 – 45:36
Yeah, absolutely.
45:37 – 45:38
Absolutely.
45:40 – 45:43
You know, I will say you asked me about
45:43 – 45:44
the organic and conventional and what's
45:44 – 45:48
better. And I told you just a scientific,
45:48 – 45:50
you know, research on microbes.
45:50 – 45:53
And yes, I proved the point, but what I
45:53 – 45:56
do, I like to simplify things and really,
45:56 – 46:00
we don't have to get all crazy on what
46:00 – 46:03
we're doing. What I do is I do pluses and
46:03 – 46:05
negatives on everything I do on my farm.
46:05 – 46:07
So everything that I do on the organic
46:07 – 46:09
side, it gets a negative or it gets a
46:09 – 46:10
plus. I plant a cover crop, that's a plus.
46:11 – 46:13
Multi cover crops, that's another plus.
46:13 – 46:15
Tillage, that's a negative.
46:16 – 46:17
Tillage again, that's a negative.
46:18 – 46:19
Corn, just corn, soybean rotation that's a
46:19 – 46:20
negative. You got to have more.
46:20 – 46:22
More rotations, a plus.
46:23 – 46:24
On a conventional side, I do the exact
46:24 – 46:27
same thing. Fungicides, insecticides, you
46:27 – 46:29
name it. I put it down.
46:29 – 46:32
It's just as simple as plus and negative.
46:32 – 46:35
And people can sit there and say, oh, it's
46:35 – 46:38
not a negative. But, you know, truthfully,
46:38 – 46:40
be honest with yourself.
46:40 – 46:42
And I go through and I monitor those
46:42 – 46:44
things. And that's where I told you, you
46:44 – 46:46
know, like soil health is a river and you
46:46 – 46:47
just flow with it.
46:47 – 46:49
Is my organic always better?
46:49 – 46:50
No years it's better, some years it's
46:49 – 46:51
worse. It depends on what the weather
46:51 – 46:54
patterns are doing and what I have to do
46:54 – 46:57
for tillage. And I don't care if I go up
46:57 – 47:00
or down, but my trajectory should always
47:00 – 47:01
be an upward trend.
47:02 – 47:04
And so I like to look at things across
47:04 – 47:07
your rotation. So my rotation, five way
47:07 – 47:08
rotation.
47:10 – 47:11
Balance the ROI on that.
47:12 – 47:13
Look at my cell house scores.
47:13 – 47:16
Very simple, but it keeps you honestly
47:16 – 47:18
conscious about what I do.
47:18 – 47:21
I don't spray fungicides and insecticides
47:21 – 47:23
on my conventional ground.
47:24 – 47:26
I just don't need to because that rotation
47:26 – 47:27
has helped me do that stuff.
47:28 – 47:31
I like being simple.
47:31 – 47:34
Yeah. I was having
47:34 – 47:38
a related conversation just
47:38 – 47:41
recently around tillage versus
47:41 – 47:45
herbicides and just our
47:45 – 47:47
mindset around health.
47:47 – 47:48
And the impact of agriculture and human
47:47 – 47:51
health. And one of the points that
47:51 – 47:54
was made and reiterated from a
47:54 – 47:57
couple of different perspectives was that
47:57 – 48:00
the reason, foundationally, that
48:00 – 48:03
herbicides and many of these compounds
48:03 – 48:06
seem to be such a win
48:06 – 48:10
and they seem to be valuable
48:10 – 48:13
tools is because our analysis is
48:13 – 48:16
optimized for economics in the short
48:16 – 48:20
term. We look at economics of what it
48:20 – 48:23
costs to produce this crop this year.
48:23 – 48:27
And we fail to factor in what
48:27 – 48:30
is the cumulative cost of an herbicide
48:30 – 48:32
application over 30 years?
48:32 – 48:34
What's the cumulative cost of the
48:34 – 48:36
ecosystem and the way that that expresses
48:36 – 48:39
itself in the soil's ability to grow a
48:39 – 48:41
crop, to nourish a crop, and the
48:41 – 48:43
additional costs that might come with that
48:43 – 48:45
in terms of increased nutritional
48:45 – 48:46
applications or Perhaps increased
48:46 – 48:47
herbicide applications.
48:48 – 48:49
We don't factor. That longer term into our
48:49 – 48:52
analysis. And then, if you want to go even
48:52 – 48:56
the next step beyond that, we don't factor
48:56 – 48:59
in the external costs of what are the
48:59 – 49:03
costs to the people who are eating the
49:03 – 49:05
food? What are the costs of clean water in
49:05 – 49:06
Iowa?
49:06 – 49:08
Those are all externalities.
49:08 – 49:12
And it's, I think, that framing of short
49:12 – 49:15
term versus long term ROI would give us
49:15 – 49:18
a much different perspective on what
49:18 – 49:22
really is providing value and what is not.
49:22 – 49:25
Yeah. I, you know, I do both.
49:25 – 49:27
So I'm literally the guy pointing at
49:27 – 49:29
himself saying, oh, that's the wrong thing
49:29 – 49:33
to do. But I do know that,
49:33 – 49:36
you know, everything in moderation, yeah,
49:36 – 49:39
everything in moderation, quit chronically
49:39 – 49:43
doing it. And I see this all the time is
49:43 – 49:45
that people do things just because they've
49:45 – 49:46
always done them. Do they actually need
49:46 – 49:50
it? I know I have farmers all around
49:50 – 49:52
me, they're always spraying insecticide
49:52 – 49:54
every year. And I ask them, like, well, do
49:54 – 49:55
you have bugs?
49:55 – 49:57
Oh, it's just cheap to put it in.
49:57 – 49:59
The co op, you know, co op said put it in
49:59 – 50:00
because you're already there.
50:01 – 50:02
Well, I was on a co op board for 18 years.
50:02 – 50:04
I know their main thing, they're
50:04 – 50:05
agronomists, it's a salesman.
50:06 – 50:10
And now I will say, I do feel good about
50:10 – 50:12
how the agronomists now are changing and
50:12 – 50:15
kind of seeing that, hey, let's start
50:15 – 50:16
looking at this more wholly.
50:16 – 50:18
I don't even want to say holistically, but
50:18 – 50:20
I want to say look at it as a whole.
50:20 – 50:21
And they're saying, okay, don't spend the
50:21 – 50:22
money if you don't have to.
50:22 – 50:25
You know, when times are good, what do we
50:25 – 50:27
do? We just throw everything at it.
50:27 – 50:29
When times are bad, that's when you really
50:29 – 50:30
start thinking, okay, I got to cut back
50:30 – 50:32
and I got to do my best.
50:32 – 50:35
And it's just, it's a shame that
50:35 – 50:38
we're chronically doing things.
50:38 – 50:41
I often show Chernobyl.
50:41 – 50:44
I show a picture of this beautiful
50:44 – 50:46
landscape, green, animals there.
50:46 – 50:47
It's like, is this healthy soil?
50:46 – 50:49
And it's like, yeah, that looks great.
50:49 – 50:51
And I was like, nope, that's Chernobyl,
50:51 – 50:52
but it is healthy.
50:53 – 50:54
But what did they do?
50:54 – 50:57
They got rid of the humans because after
50:57 – 50:59
the meltdown, but they quit chronically
50:59 – 51:02
doing things. And yes, it was the worst
51:02 – 51:04
natural disaster ever, but it wasn't a
51:04 – 51:06
chronic natural disaster.
51:06 – 51:09
And I think in farming, we are chronically
51:09 – 51:11
doing it. You know, the soil can repair,
51:11 – 51:13
our body can repair, but not when we're
51:13 – 51:15
sticking french fries and Popping it every
51:15 – 51:19
day. You have to have a balance, and
51:19 – 51:22
it's so hard. It's so easy
51:22 – 51:26
to just jump into easy, when
51:26 – 51:28
nothing good comes easy.
51:29 – 51:33
So, Tom, one of the things I want to ask
51:33 – 51:36
you about it strikes me that you and I
51:36 – 51:38
have some similar, perhaps, personality
51:38 – 51:40
characteristics in the sense that trying
51:40 – 51:42
new things doesn't intimidate us.
51:42 – 51:46
We embrace new things and lean into them
51:46 – 51:48
and we enjoy the process.
51:49 – 51:52
And go ahead. No, go ahead.
51:53 – 51:56
There are many people who are
51:56 – 52:00
listening to the type of operation
52:00 – 52:01
you have.
52:01 – 52:03
And you have all of this diversity, all
52:03 – 52:04
these different enterprises.
52:04 – 52:06
You have livestock, you have half a dozen
52:06 – 52:07
different crops, you have those different
52:07 – 52:09
crops in both organic and conventional.
52:09 – 52:12
And they're like, I can't do that.
52:12 – 52:15
I can't do it. There are many
52:15 – 52:19
growers who are growing two
52:19 – 52:22
or three or four crops
52:22 – 52:25
and they feel fully tapped
52:25 – 52:28
out, frazzled, and they see
52:28 – 52:32
all of these hurdles and
52:32 – 52:35
barriers to trying other things.
52:37 – 52:39
I have a hard time putting myself in their
52:39 – 52:41
position because I have a very different
52:41 – 52:43
kind of inheritance perspective on that.
52:43 – 52:45
I see opportunity where others see
52:45 – 52:46
challenges.
52:47 – 52:50
But I liked you, you are actively farming
52:50 – 52:52
in this same macroeconomic context that
52:52 – 52:53
many other people are.
52:54 – 52:57
What are your thoughts for the people who
52:57 – 52:58
find themselves in that situation?
53:00 – 53:03
I think they'd be amazed that the last
53:03 – 53:06
five years, well, starting five years ago,
53:06 – 53:09
right in the middle of harvest, I was able
53:09 – 53:12
to take off and go up to northern
53:12 – 53:15
Minnesota, Duluth, Minnesota, and see the
53:15 – 53:16
leaves changing.
53:17 – 53:19
Now, does that sound like a guy that's
53:19 – 53:20
overwhelmed with work?
53:21 – 53:24
No. What I've done is I've spread my
53:24 – 53:26
workload out to where all these different
53:26 – 53:27
cash crops.
53:28 – 53:30
My planting season is I plant for two
53:30 – 53:33
days, I have a week and a half off.
53:34 – 53:36
Then I plant for a day, I have another
53:36 – 53:37
week and a half off.
53:38 – 53:39
I have this rotation that's spread out and
53:39 – 53:41
it's So easy to get stuff planted in one
53:41 – 53:44
day. Sometimes it's
53:44 – 53:45
two.
53:46 – 53:49
And when you have that diverse rotation,
53:49 – 53:52
you literally get a little more time.
53:52 – 53:56
I rarely have to work weekends.
53:56 – 53:57
Yes, I run out and check my cattle, but
53:57 – 53:58
you know what?
53:59 – 54:01
It's literally drive out, look at them,
54:01 – 54:03
say, okay, sometimes I got to haul water.
54:04 – 54:06
My Christmas time, bale grazing, you know
54:06 – 54:09
what I have to do to feed 40 cows and then
54:09 – 54:11
a another 60 feeders.
54:11 – 54:14
I moved the fence 30 more
54:14 – 54:17
feet the day before Christmas.
54:17 – 54:19
So I know when I don't even have to do
54:19 – 54:20
anything for Christmas.
54:20 – 54:24
It's just people think it's hectic, but
54:24 – 54:27
it's just I'm working with nature and
54:27 – 54:30
it just I work less now than
54:30 – 54:34
I did. I used to brag about 120 hours a
54:34 – 54:36
week, you know, back when I was younger
54:36 – 54:38
and I lost out on my family.
54:40 – 54:41
Put the workload on my wife.
54:41 – 54:44
And now it's like, heck, Friday, tomorrow
54:44 – 54:48
I gotta go look at the cows quick and
54:48 – 54:50
then we'll go for a motorcycle ride.
54:50 – 54:52
We'll go up and visit our daughter.
54:52 – 54:54
And my brother in law, Tony, who works
54:54 – 54:56
with me, it's like, oh, can you come out?
54:56 – 54:58
Just drive out, look at the cows.
54:59 – 55:01
Sometimes we need water, but it's only
55:01 – 55:03
when it's like 85 degrees that we have to
55:03 – 55:06
water every day. And it's just so easy
55:06 – 55:09
working with it. It's simplified
55:09 – 55:09
everything.
55:11 – 55:12
And I, and Simplified everything.
55:11 – 55:14
And while they're working, they're making
55:14 – 55:17
me money. And that diversity, you know,
55:17 – 55:20
what's the hot thing in agriculture right
55:20 – 55:22
now? Livestock, cattle.
55:22 – 55:25
Yeah. It just, and I don't even feed them.
55:26 – 55:27
I don't have to feed them.
55:27 – 55:28
They feed themselves.
55:29 – 55:32
The little bit of money that I invested in
55:32 – 55:35
a plant, a seed, is giving me so much.
55:35 – 55:38
I always say a seed is the greatest
55:38 – 55:40
technology there ever was or will be
55:40 – 55:42
because I guarantee you my dumb phone
55:42 – 55:45
right here, if I don't plug it in after a
55:45 – 55:47
day and a half, it's worthless.
55:48 – 55:51
A seed can sit in the soil for 50 years,
55:51 – 55:53
100 years, and conditions are right.
55:53 – 55:57
And usually, when I say right, that means
55:57 – 55:59
good, not bad, not mistreated.
56:00 – 56:02
That seed can grow in weather, drought,
56:02 – 56:05
rain, it can do amazing things, but we
56:05 – 56:07
don't give it the opportunity to.
56:12 – 56:15
I have a little ADHD, so if I jump around,
56:15 – 56:18
I'm sorry, John. No, no, this is, I
56:18 – 56:22
don't know of a better ending note.
56:22 – 56:25
I'd love to dig into this conversation
56:25 – 56:28
more, but the see, you perceive this as
56:28 – 56:31
being simple, and you've described how
56:31 – 56:34
it's reduced, or rather, it may be a
56:34 – 56:37
better way to say it is it's distributed
56:37 – 56:40
your workload, it's reduced your stress.
56:40 – 56:43
But while it has, while you're
56:43 – 56:47
describing it as being easier from
56:47 – 56:50
a workload perspective, how is it
56:50 – 56:53
from an intellectual perspective, from a
56:53 – 56:56
management and logistics and coordination
56:56 – 56:58
perspective? Like, how do you keep it all
56:58 – 56:59
straight in your head?
57:00 – 57:03
Okay. Maybe a better question, kind of
57:03 – 57:06
related to that or superseding it, is what
57:06 – 57:09
are the challenges that you see with a
57:09 – 57:10
more diverse operation?
57:11 – 57:14
Well, I'll use an analogy.
57:14 – 57:17
It's, and I've used this
57:17 – 57:20
for since 2020 or 19,
57:20 – 57:23
no, 2017. I'm playing
57:23 – 57:27
chess now. I'm not playing checkers.
57:28 – 57:31
When I was a kid and when I was a young
57:31 – 57:32
farmer, we were playing checkers.
57:33 – 57:35
One basic, simple move, but it always cost
57:35 – 57:38
a lot of money. But hey, I stick the money
57:38 – 57:39
in, I get that back.
57:39 – 57:40
Now I'm playing chess and now I'm Thinking
57:40 – 57:41
two years ahead, two years behind.
57:41 – 57:45
And I do look behind every year
57:45 – 57:48
because I want to know where I've
57:48 – 57:51
come from and where I want to
57:51 – 57:52
go.
57:53 – 57:56
And on a chess, on a checkerboard, there's
57:56 – 57:58
only simple, basic moves.
57:58 – 58:02
But on chess, I'm using all
58:02 – 58:05
these different weapons a knight, a
58:05 – 58:09
pawn, a rook, a bishop, and
58:09 – 58:12
I use them all. And that's really.
58:12 – 58:13
What I'm doing right now in agriculture.
58:14 – 58:17
I'm using all these tools that God
58:17 – 58:21
gave me, and 60 of its plants
58:21 – 58:23
and 40 of its animals.
58:23 – 58:27
I guess there should be that one, 2 of
58:27 – 58:30
synthetics that we have to use, but I
58:30 – 58:33
don't have to use near as much.
58:33 – 58:36
I've dropped my, I don't do PK
58:36 – 58:38
applications unless it's foliar now.
58:39 – 58:41
Nitrogen, I've cut.
58:41 – 58:44
That way back down to 06 to 08 I'm melting
58:44 – 58:47
urea this year from a first time.
58:47 – 58:49
My good friend Grant Brett Kreiser, I
58:49 – 58:50
think, has been on here too.
58:50 – 58:52
Well, yeah, we were together here not too
58:52 – 58:53
long ago.
58:53 – 58:56
I'm just excited about how putting
58:56 – 58:58
these things together.
58:58 – 59:01
And, you know what, I don't even have to
59:01 – 59:03
get that much nitrogen this year because
59:03 – 59:06
my diverse cash crop is so diverse.
59:06 – 59:08
I don't have conventional corn, I have
59:08 – 59:10
organic corn, which is worth twice as much
59:10 – 59:11
or more than conventional corn.
59:11 – 59:12
So, why would I plant conventional corn?
59:12 – 59:15
I did do conventional
59:15 – 59:16
sweet corn.
59:17 – 59:19
Well, that really doesn't take as much
59:19 – 59:21
nitrogen. Some flowers, that doesn't need
59:21 – 59:22
as much nitrogen.
59:23 – 59:25
And if I'm going to grow nitrogen, my
59:25 – 59:27
organic ground, I just think I'm
59:27 – 59:29
incorporating the beautiful red clover
59:29 – 59:29
cover crop.
59:30 – 59:31
Could it be feed? Yes.
59:32 – 59:33
Could it give me nitrogen for a cash crop?
59:33 – 59:35
Yes. And that's a balance I play.
59:36 – 59:39
That's a chess move that I have to go
59:39 – 59:41
graze early and then get off it and give
59:41 – 59:42
and take with Mother Nature.
59:42 – 59:45
When I used to do organic ground, it used
59:45 – 59:46
to be all alfalfa.
59:47 – 59:49
We'd cut it, take it, and then that'd be
59:49 – 59:50
for the corn crop.
59:50 – 59:52
But now I went to its transition.
59:53 – 59:56
I don't take anything off that field, I
59:56 – 59:58
graze it because I want those animals
59:58 – 1:00:01
taking half, leaving half, giving back to
1:00:01 – 1:00:03
Mother Nature really gets those nutrients
1:00:03 – 1:00:05
cycling. And so, yeah.
1:00:06 – 1:00:08
Given the transition that you've been on,
1:00:08 – 1:00:10
it's remarkable to me how much I enjoy
1:00:10 – 1:00:12
agronomy. We haven't even had an agronomy
1:00:12 – 1:00:15
conversation yet, but how has your
1:00:15 – 1:00:17
nutrition management for your crops
1:00:17 – 1:00:19
changed with the incorporation of the
1:00:19 – 1:00:21
livestock and the cover crops?
1:00:23 – 1:00:25
Well, like I said, I've cut back on the
1:00:25 – 1:00:26
PK.
1:00:26 – 1:00:29
I really see myself going more
1:00:29 – 1:00:33
to all animal manure instead of
1:00:33 – 1:00:35
any synthetic, even nitrogen.
1:00:35 – 1:00:39
I just, like I said before, when I try
1:00:39 – 1:00:41
and do conventional methods in this
1:00:41 – 1:00:43
regenerative world, and not that it
1:00:43 – 1:00:46
doesn't work, but I see the negatives
1:00:46 – 1:00:48
that's happened with it.
1:00:49 – 1:00:53
And so, agronomy wise, I want to try
1:00:53 – 1:00:56
my damnedest, my best to make sure that
1:00:56 – 1:01:00
the prior crop or cover crop is filling
1:01:00 – 1:01:02
those needs. That's why that rotation
1:01:02 – 1:01:05
after peas, I get that big multi mix.
1:01:05 – 1:01:07
It's like an energy drink for the soil.
1:01:07 – 1:01:10
And then I can't do that for probably four
1:01:10 – 1:01:13
years, but I want to maintain it and you
1:01:13 – 1:01:16
know, and feed it a good cup of coffee,
1:01:16 – 1:01:18
which is literally a cereal rye.
1:01:18 – 1:01:21
Every once in a while, I can intercede,
1:01:21 – 1:01:23
but you know, interceding really relies on
1:01:23 – 1:01:25
moisture that's the number one thing for
1:01:25 – 1:01:28
me. Uh, but the cash crops are always
1:01:28 – 1:01:29
options, yeah.
1:01:30 – 1:01:31
I think you hit the nail on the head.
1:01:31 – 1:01:33
It's one of the things that Claus Martin
1:01:33 – 1:01:35
speaks about so eloquently, and one of the
1:01:35 – 1:01:36
things that he is so good at.
1:01:36 – 1:01:39
Um, there's this old German agronomy
1:01:39 – 1:01:41
textbook that he references frequently,
1:01:41 – 1:01:45
which has this quote in it, something to
1:01:45 – 1:01:49
the effect of the science of good agronomy
1:01:49 – 1:01:53
is all about making sure that the crop
1:01:53 – 1:01:55
follows the correct crop or plant.
1:01:55 – 1:01:58
It's all about sequence, it's all about
1:01:58 – 1:02:01
how you stage one crop or cover crop for
1:02:01 – 1:02:04
the next one that comes after it, because
1:02:04 – 1:02:07
you can do so much for disease prevention
1:02:07 – 1:02:09
and for strong yields.
1:02:09 – 1:02:11
And healthy root systems and so forth,
1:02:11 – 1:02:14
simply by putting things in the proper
1:02:14 – 1:02:15
sequence. Yeah.
1:02:16 – 1:02:18
And you know, we used to have all these
1:02:18 – 1:02:21
fence lines that gave a spot for our pests
1:02:21 – 1:02:24
to go there instead of in the cash crop
1:02:24 – 1:02:26
fields. And all those fence lines are
1:02:26 – 1:02:30
gone. My first organic field, I combined,
1:02:30 – 1:02:33
my dad passed away like two months
1:02:33 – 1:02:35
earlier. And my dad was a storyteller.
1:02:35 – 1:02:38
And I got, I sent everyone home that day
1:02:38 – 1:02:40
and I put his CD in the combine.
1:02:41 – 1:02:45
And I found. He told a story because he is
1:02:45 – 1:02:46
a national storyteller.
1:02:46 – 1:02:47
I can still listen to his words.
1:02:48 – 1:02:51
He talked about a day we were ripping out
1:02:51 – 1:02:53
a fence line, and he was stopped on the
1:02:53 – 1:02:54
other field.
1:02:55 – 1:02:57
Being the young, obnoxious, you know, go,
1:02:57 – 1:03:00
kind of guy back when I was a kid, he told
1:03:00 – 1:03:03
a story about the history of that farm.
1:03:03 – 1:03:06
And you know, once that fence line's gone,
1:03:06 – 1:03:08
the history of those people are gone
1:03:08 – 1:03:11
forever. And as young, I didn't think much
1:03:11 – 1:03:13
of it. I just thinking, oh, I got to work
1:03:13 – 1:03:15
till three in the morning to get this all
1:03:15 – 1:03:17
the stuff done. But I listened to that
1:03:17 – 1:03:19
story and I cried my eyes out.
1:03:20 – 1:03:23
And then two weeks later, you know what I
1:03:23 – 1:03:23
was doing?
1:03:24 – 1:03:26
I was out putting fence lines in for
1:03:26 – 1:03:27
cattle grazing.
1:03:27 – 1:03:29
And it was cold out.
1:03:29 – 1:03:30
And I just laughed the whole time.
1:03:30 – 1:03:33
I thought, oh boy, was he right.
1:03:33 – 1:03:35
And, you know, we keep on wanting to tear
1:03:35 – 1:03:38
things down. But man, when you start doing
1:03:38 – 1:03:40
fence lines and getting livestock, and now
1:03:40 – 1:03:43
I'm trees on all my fence lines, you're
1:03:43 – 1:03:45
creating history. I'm, well, I'm creating
1:03:45 – 1:03:47
history by creating an environment that's
1:03:47 – 1:03:49
friendly to animals and plants.
1:03:49 – 1:03:52
And yeah, that's pretty crazy.
1:03:52 – 1:03:54
Yeah, creating a legacy.
1:03:55 – 1:03:58
Tom, thank you. This has been such an
1:03:58 – 1:03:59
incredible conversation.
1:03:58 – 1:04:00
I've immensely enjoyed myself.
1:04:00 – 1:04:02
What do you have any final thoughts or
1:04:02 – 1:04:04
anything that you'd like to express to our
1:04:04 – 1:04:04
listeners?
1:04:05 – 1:04:09
Well, I will say, you know, I, I got to
1:04:09 – 1:04:11
present the national no till this year,
1:04:11 – 1:04:14
and I always throw this picture of out
1:04:14 – 1:04:17
putting up fence line, moving fence line
1:04:17 – 1:04:20
with a case of Modelo beer and a cowboy
1:04:20 – 1:04:23
hat and cowboy boots, and that's about it.
1:04:24 – 1:04:27
And I always tell people what's crazier,
1:04:27 – 1:04:31
the guy sitting there drinking beer or on
1:04:31 – 1:04:33
this beautiful cover crop field?
1:04:34 – 1:04:37
Or is it crazier that it was actually
1:04:37 – 1:04:40
February 6th in Minnesota and I'm
1:04:40 – 1:04:41
capitalizing on Mother Nature?
1:04:42 – 1:04:43
We have all these extremes.
1:04:43 – 1:04:44
I capitalize on that sun.
1:04:43 – 1:04:47
And I think that's one thing that
1:04:47 – 1:04:50
we are forgetting in agriculture the
1:04:50 – 1:04:52
environment's changing and take advantage
1:04:52 – 1:04:56
of what you're given instead of just,
1:04:56 – 1:04:58
oh, we can't do anything.
1:04:58 – 1:05:00
It's like, no, have a cover crop growing,
1:05:00 – 1:05:03
capture that sun. You can feed those
1:05:03 – 1:05:04
animals. I'm feeding that soil life.
1:05:05 – 1:05:08
Never think that you can't do it because
1:05:08 – 1:05:09
you can.
1:05:09 – 1:05:10
Anybody can.
1:05:11 – 1:05:12
Yep.
1:05:12 – 1:05:13
Thank you, Tom. Thank you for sharing your
1:05:13 – 1:05:14
wisdom and thank you for being here.
1:05:15 – 1:05:16
All right. Thank you, John.
1:05:16 – 1:05:17
God bless.
