Ep. 86 How Regenerative Agriculture Builds Better Beef, Better Soil, and Better Health

In this episode of the profitable steward podcast, I sit down with Patty from Hensdale.

Hello, everyone.

Welcome to the profitable steward podcast.

I am your host, Jared Sorenson.

I'm zooming in today from Ruby Valley, Nevada, and we're privileged to have Patty here

with us today.

Where are you calling in from today?

I'm from Hensdale, Montana, on the Highline Northeast corner of the state.

Very good.

Well, we welcome you to the podcast we look forward to learning from you today and I encourage

our listeners to, as always, sometimes you're driving, sometimes you're multitasking.

A lot of times we'll take notes even while I'm driving in my journal, sometimes I'll

open up audio recorder after I listen to something and make voice notes for me so that I

can remember the important things from what I learned and preserve that.

And so we encourage you to do the same thing.

And we want to give a shout out to one of our colleagues, co-sponsors of what we do at

Ag Steward and that is Ambrook.

Last week we did a three day challenge, a financial challenge where we talked about how to

do enterprise accounting and the importance of tracking our numbers.

We cannot measure what we, or we can't manage what we don't measure.

And the very best tool that we've found to do that is the software Ambrook.

So we encourage you to jump on, try the free trial if you are not already a subscriber

to Ambrook.

I'm going to order nearly two months into this new year, so it's going to be a lot easier

if you start now as of January 1st, get things in order and it just makes bookkeeping.

It's a lot less challenging, it's a lot less challenging and it is definitely rewarding.

So well, Patty, tell us a little bit about yourself and what brings you into regenerative

agriculture, a little bit about your background.

Well, first before we get started, Jerry, I want to thank you for having me on and I really

admire what you're doing and I first come across your stuff during the region egg summit

that you had on the region summit.

Yeah.

It's interesting, very good.

So I admire immensely what you're doing to help other people be profitable, for all

the balance and the issue got going on with life and work and family and all that stuff.

I highly admire you and you're definitely the ultimate definition of an egg stewardship.

You're not only teaching others, but you're helping them build their own legacy.

Who knows?

Well, thank you very much.

Let's talk about how we help people do that, make it better healthier future.

Sounds good.

Sounds good.

Are you a generational agriculturalist, Patty?

Well, my family farm was in Michigan, started right after Civil War and so that part is,

but I didn't stay there because I had older brother and a younger sister and my older brother

was adamant that he didn't need me around, so I found other things to do.

So I was crazy about the cattle business in cows in general and so I went to Michigan

stayed in the cattle program and then ended up in the grass, in the grass range at the

N bar ranch, AI and cows, having any AI and cows there for a whole couple of seasons

there.

To get started, when I left there, I went to New York state and went for a purebred

ranch, baseball, drippers in New York.

From there, I got to travel all the lower 48, for the most part other than a couple states

and all the lower providence of Canada.

So I got to really see the whole country and know, man, I like, I think Montana must be

the right place to be to raise cows because we didn't have the diseases or all the other

suckling on, good grasses, high protein grass and so that's how I ended up coming back

to Montana, I had to have a long road of not being on the family ranch, or farm.

When did you move to Montana?

I moved to Montana in 1990 and I moved to here in Hensdale in 1992 and I used to, when

I was in on my ranch up in Hensdale, which is just north, the canyon is north up here

and I used to do a lot of spraying with the chemical towardon on leafy spurge and stuff

and so my family was a chemical egg, my brother picked up the chemical egg stuff instantly

because we not only had one out, one family member not working at the farm, but my mom

was a full-time teacher, my dad worked in the shop at nights and then my brother worked

full-time during the day at an egg supply store and so it was like crazy that we'd had that

many different incomes and still have financial troubles, but of course this was in the 70s

and everything was kind of crazy.

I actually didn't start, I started on to an extreme health kick now over the years and

I didn't realize my own history until I read the book, Silent Spring and the Spring that

they did at Michigan State University, my mom was there on campus those two years and

she was pregnant with my brother and that's how I started learning about, well what's

going on with these chemicals and are they not that safe for us?

Long story short, the two of them have both passed away from the same kind of cancer

and I'm like wow we need to do everything we can do to separate from these chemicals

if we can and so I started on to a lot more healthier direction and definitely a healthier

direction for my personal health right because if I can't be healthy then whatever I'm doing

isn't going to be healthy so so I started on a lot bigger health kick and got off the

sugars and now currently off the carbohydrates and all regenerative meats and stuff so yeah

that's kind of what how I got to Montana and why I'm on this path of getting healthier people

or to get healthier people we got to have healthier plants and help your soils to get those plants

so yeah it all comes at a full circle and then I was lucky enough to meet Elaine Hingham when

she come in the state for the first time with the first Montana egg symposium where they had

different little ones around the state so I took her program did her program for online and then

then I was lucky enough to meet Nicole Masters the first season out to gate when she came to Montana

and so then I carried her down to her and my tremendous amounts from Nicole and so that's kind of

led me down this current regenerative path that I'm on. I'm a retired teacher I retired from

teaching egg at 17 years of teaching egg right here in our little community and stuff so that's

where I picked up on the teaching abilities and the different stuff was from teaching teenagers and

yeah yeah that that's an amazing journey thank you for sharing that and yeah our hearts are with

Elaine's family and after losing her recently yes definitely a great loss to those of us in

regenerative agriculture but the wonderful thing is that she's planted so many seeds and it sounds

like you're one of those right so her work won't die even though she's not with us it will absolutely

carry on because of people like you yeah yeah sure so let's let's talk a little bit about some of

the lessons that you've learned and thank you for your you know sharing the deep why of why you

started down this journey my wife can very much relate to that that it started more our journey

of regeneration started more on the physical health side and trying to find answers for chronic

fatigue and what doctors were calling celiacs disease and some of these things we just couldn't

figure out and so it's interesting and we now know that all these things are connected right

of the way our food has grown absolutely affects our our health so from your mentors specifically

Elaine and Nicole what are some of the lessons that you've learned and how you applied those in

the work that you're doing now yeah I've kind of um felt it in a couple of different pathways

to break down so people that understand that these you know one of them is a rethinking weeds

and Nicole taught quite a bit to me on the weed extracts have taken the exact plant you know when

that extract and then off and then I'm taking that either a concentrated diluted out and put it

back out onto the to the plant well and behold I was shocked to find that that actually worked

and so that was one of my major aha moments of the actually testing that on field bindweed and

then actually getting big results from it which is I've studied a lot with a doctor Christine Jones

too and so a lot of it must be the corn sensing and how these microbes are signaling and different

things and so it's it's just a really pretty pretty cool and pretty interesting but the rethinking

weeds I really think we need to understand the plant and secession so that all these weeds are

just a indicator unfortunately bindweed is in the indicator of your first secession clear down

the you're majorly disturbed soils and it's only at this down in that group most of the time it's

like kosher, lambscorder, Russian fissile things like that that are annuals but all of those are

signals those plants that are living in the net plant secession is it they're kind of know what

plant secession is a certain group of plants grow and bring up nutrients and drop their leaf

litter on soil surface and then the next set of plants can start growing in that soil and the

same with the microbes and microbes that the pioneer plants are associating with they're mostly

just a bacteria that is um can tolerate salts and is um a nitrate loving microbes which we don't

want right those those microbes are not the microbes we need to grow really healthy plants but

those pioneer plants have to kind of do their thing to move to the next secession to get up to

secession where your um your breakfast family will live your moustards and and kale broccoli that's

sort of thing those plants are in the next secession up so they're kind of a transition to

finally get to the secession it's um kind of balancing the the fungi in the bacteria are balanced

and that's kind of a sweet spot that's where we kind of want to live is there because that's where

most of our agricultural plants that we want to grow live in that secession so then that's moving

on a timeline though nature if we just let it do its own thing that first timeline to go

promote secession to the next it's in my viewpoint of looking around just watching stuff happen

as at least three years but we can we can change that by our practices and actually speed it up

yeah yeah tell us tell us more about that how do we how do we do that because as agriculturalists

sometimes we don't have three years to make a bank payment and so we so we need you know we need to

and we we would look for the quick fix that's why herbicides and pesticides are the answer right

is because the weeds are there and next day they're dead so it's hard to argue with the success of

them from that standpoint but we don't realize what other we're actually perpetuating the problem

yeah you actually didn't fix the problem you just shot the messenger out yeah and so that

messenger is trying to relay messages to us and maybe we maybe we're just not understanding

their language well enough and so that's what I trying to help people kind of bridge that

to understand that the microbes that that those pioneer plants live with and communicate with

and lie are different microbes than the ones that are over in a balanced secession of one to one

secession and so we've got to get the soil change and the habitat of that soil change for those

other microbes that we want like our protozoa for example protozoa eat bacteria and so when they

eat bacteria then they they get too much nitrogen when they consume them and they got to poo that out

or get rid of it and then that is plant available well but those protozoans have to have enough

food to eat so if you don't have high enough numbers of bacteria in the first place and they

they don't have food source and they really don't have the habitat I've noticed that those protozoan

seem to come when we have more leaf litter on the soil surface in fact they come with the leaf litter

so that's one way that I think a person could because your your goal would be to get the right

microbes in the soil to work with the right plants and so in order to get those protozoan that you

want to work with which don't even live in the first secession there only in the next secession

we need to have the right plants and some leaf litter and soil surface I call it the rough to their

house if that there isn't mulch up there or leaf litter of some kind or living plants we've got to

shade that area so we're not baking them and then then those protozoan can live as long as

there's enough food source so it's kind of a double edged sword we want to feed the bacteria

in order to have enough of them to feed the protozoans and so those protozoans come on native

progresses so you can take any native grass plant and put in an bucket of water and seek that out

I don't think it's going to take very long maybe at max three days to get those protozoans to really

be massive amounts of protozoan you need to know how to use them because that's a lot of protozoan

you know usually you've got to have a lot of bacteria in order for them to be able to live

which is kind of like planting seeds of those protozoans in the soil to kind of leap jump the soil over

into the next secession and the plants into that next secession plant easier because you can

figure out what plants are growing and that's telling you where your soil's at and then then you

can plant some more profitable plants that will grow in that same secession whether it's a

mustard or a canola or something like that that you could plant that will grow there and wants to

grow there and then you plant some of this plants from the next secession that are more profitable

or whatever in that cover crop so then you've got plants from both secession and both microbes

kind of getting to work together where that we can start moving in the right direction.

Cool how much credence do you give to soil type like cation exchange capacity high alkalinity

versus acidic? Well those those things are going to change with what plants you've got how deep

of root systems you have if you got worms or not and they're all different things it's going to

help change them or all the just out there on the ground walking around dig a hole figure out

what's going on and rather than using as many tools okay the microbes and the worms and everybody

they're going to balance that out but the salts we got to have if we've got salts which we do in

Montana and I suppose you do in your region yeah pretty good yeah anywhere in the west with how

they do so we got to get deeper root systems that will push those salts back down into the soil

and not have them up its soil surface and vine weed takes up sodium and sodas kosher so those

plants want to do that job that are actually think they are doing that job so we've got to get

other plants like spring barley that could do that job that we could actually make the cash flow

offer. I'm sorry we need to be able to figure out which plants will help me and have a plant

up that's what I need to be planting so let me make your plant what she wants to plant to book

the problem okay so do you utilize soil testing if so what do you what do you look at yeah I

mostly look at I would rather test the microbes I like working at the park right and he can tell you

exactly how many protozoans you got which site they have which the nematodes you have which the

nematodes aren't going to come without protozoan because they got to eat them so kind of like we

got to have enough bacteria lots bacteria and enough protozoan to eat those protozoan doing their

job and they can they can provide 70% of the nitrogen to the plants the protozoan all by themselves

even Wow the nematode yeah you know toad eats the protozoan now we got even a bigger load of nitrogen

goings of those plants so we kind of want to get to where we can have protozoans and nematodes

which come with earthworms all those are in the same session area so that's why if we we can find

earthworms we know we're in a really good place we're kind of where we want to go if we don't have

them you see it's the the habitat isn't right like if I go look from for fishing worms I'm going

to go look at the grass I'm not going to look into the garden because they're eating off the

root exidates from that grass yeah and so in a in a grazing system a grass on grazing system if

worms are absent what what is that indicate that's off that indicates that we've had too many

disturbances properly okay or we don't have any leaf litter right if we graze too short and they

wait the all the leaf litter that was on the ground we got problems right so we we go kind of I say

it's like going flame and aptly and we go back to start uh-huh we had too big of disturbance over

grazing such as disturbance if we had a fire that would be a disturbance um if we happened to

till it or we sprayed um anything on it doesn't matter what the it is it could be insecticide for

the grasshoppers or it could be the herbicide or whatever all of that stuff is sending us back to

starting over okay when our worms aren't there we've somehow we've had to reset and go backwards

too much or we did you know with the drought or whatever something caused it to go back that far

that we got to get the cover back in order to get back where we want to go yeah we can ask the

plant to help us with that part how much effect does uh deworming cattle have on earthworms I know

it's very detrimental to the dung beetles but would would that also be a causal factor for the lack

of earthworms it would okay yep so Jonathan Lundgren's work you haven't seen in a year

yeah it's out there they need to and if I'll summon what he's doing and stuff he said something great

PhDs study at underneath of them and stuff that yeah we just can we just need to really get off of

them and we can plant plants to help ourselves get off of them but that will help the plant the cow

with the worming and cell forming so that you know with chickeries a great one chickeries great for

it's root mitt it's roots are unbelievable and the it's a plant that I think on a range conditions

should be utilized quite a bit right now the cows can pick and choose and find another one that you

could have um either with a little bit of supplement I don't know five three to a hundred percent say

I'm fine but um it's something that would help those cows get rid of worms and I think a lot of it

might be um their own immune system I've had a cow I've had a lot of cows over my lifetime and

when a cow gets loaded up on worms and I dewormer with one warmer she still looks like she's loaded

up a month later I did dewormer with a with a paste or injectable something different a different

type of warmer than the poron was and she's still loaded up and she's just on a tall wagon

get her iron her her half her calf with her so I don't want those genetics or those cows

and that's a subplot of worms because all she's doing is spreading worms around the place that I

don't need that then the majority cows I would I would challenge people to test them to see if

you need to be warming I bet we're warming a high high percentage of the cows for no reason for

the warm part of it yeah I didn't see you know it's just been too easy I remember having to do it

the hard way you know as a kid we we had to do it the paste cows would spit the whole thing out on

the ground and you're like wow this does that look fast effective yeah that they have it to

move to the injectable that's I don't know if you like giving shots or not but that that could

turn into a wreck too and so it's like it was just what's so easy to do the poron and then

it's become friends with the bachelor the salesperson and we want to give them a little

business and so pretty soon it's just what we do and unfortunately a lot of guys have started

picking up doing that twice a year like when I was younger we only did it in November and you

yeah hopefully yeah a little bit before the first November so we didn't have the grubs in the

back of the cattle yeah yeah so that time of year it's less harmful come spring than if we decide

oh in the spring let's put it on just for a little bit of extra precaution or for flies or

whatever that that's devastating for the insects on the range the cow pies aren't breaking down

so all of those nutrients that's in the cow pie that should be going on are not going anywhere

so that's just devastating I think I know when you look out across the whole range country we're

we're lacking not only the cow pies going in the soil but all of those bones that used to be

from cattle and bison or elk or whomever dying on that prairie they're not up to anymore so all

that bone meal type product isn't going into the soil either so it's like wow what do we do

and you know when we take the whole animal to the butcher and then we don't get any of those by

products back that would go back out on branches I think not good yeah but it seems like the bigger

issue here you know whether it's warming or any kind of side that we use is we are killing the

messenger and we're addressing the symptom and not the root cause of the problem right why do we

do that in agriculture I mean when did this when did this become vogue to take a path that really

is not solving the problem well I almost think it personally I think it come from having fewer

people on the land right so we we used to have more friends that we're infarming or ranching

close to us and those words of people we communicate with now you don't have as many as those

and your buddy became your salesperson or your agronomist or your chemical egg sale guy they

become your friend okay yeah that's where I think it some of it's come from plus we've I've

gotten our places too big too many cows or whatever it's too it's slower to go back to some of

these other practices than the or not in the case of not warming I mean that's not sore but you know

what I mean yeah we still keep wanting to have an easy button where I think we need to stop

thinking about the easy button and where's the long haul button that's gonna fix the problem over

the long haul it sounds like from what you your previous statement if we do it right it it can speed

up the natural process and so rather than letting nature do it on its own which it will nature will

always have the last laugh nature will always win and prevail because it has way deeper pockets

than any of us do there are specific things that we can do that actually helps speed that up yes

there is yeah so on a let's let's let's talk a little bit from the ranching side and then we'll

switch to the farming side from a grazing standpoint maybe you put up hay but you're not necessarily a

farmer you know you've got you've got minimal equipment and your cow is the harvester what are

what are some of the best practices that you've seen as you've traveled throughout North America

that have accelerated these processes and that are working actually working with nature working

with the cow and God put them on this earth to to do their job and we can support them in that

what what do you see the number one thing is what people some people are calling the 14-year-old

14-month rest right so you don't have to buy anything other than maybe one string of poly lines

that just split your pasture in half or split all your pastures in half one time for sure split

your winter pastures so you have two different winter pastures man I've seen ranches that got more

grass than they know what to do with because of how they've managed it just with one single polywire

running down through the middle of their biggest pastures okay so they let once they graze that

pasture and hopefully they're not grazing in it so low that you get into worms you know because

you're graze so low down on the plants that's where you're picking up the worms if you're up

higher on the plant you're not going to go to the farm so if you rotate right and you get out of

that pasture and that pasture doesn't you don't come back into it for any reason and you don't let

them go back without a back fence you don't want to go back because they're going to go back and

pick out young grass plants the native grass plants that you don't want anything touching so you

would put up a back fence so they can't come back so they got 14-month rest on that pastures

every pore every grass everything in that pasture is going to get to go to maturity the next season

have seed do its own thing and get healthier and better and then you're going to have so much grass

that is just unbelievable you don't have to do the the daily rotations or the high densities

stock grazing when you just split these pastures in half you do have to know where your water

sources are and how that's going to work they the ranches that have done that that way have just

got incredible grass yeah much money you know that's that makes a lot of sense and if you can

incorporate that one principle of rest it can jumpstart things it can really help if you can stop

over grazing and implement rest and and so amen to what you said and you call that the 14

yeah the 14 month rule seen month rule you know with that which um

um maybe I'll play the devil's advocate a little bit here and say complete recovery may not take

14 months but I wouldn't go back what about in a non-rattle environment such as our irrigated

meadows or places you know east of the Mississippi where recovery is happening really fast you

could as long as you're going to leave left leafletter on the soil so if you think that leafletter

off you you went right back to start over right that the leafletter is that valuable that you

want to keep it there and so that's why I would prefer that we're like okay even if you can't do it

on the whole place at least try it on a couple pastures where that you can start seeing the results

and uh for sure on the winter pasture the winter calving it works fantastic where you got a

pasture in the fall that cows are going into and then come spring and they go into a new pasture

that's clean doesn't add cow pies there so there isn't the worm things getting broken and then they

they cab in that new tall grass and then that pasture is going to get rested and again right so

it gets a rest and so you'll always have a bigger growth stand of plants in that

calving pasture by having two of them instead of one makes sense yeah thank you for that thank you

for that clarification what are the other principles that you see that people are applying we set

better improving and working with succession and natural processes rest is absolutely important

anything else that stands out oh yeah for sure um all the practices Roger Aiderland has adopted

has been incredible and so he put together a slurry sprayer with Nicole right and they they're

able to put in that it's it's out it's an old um I don't know if it's an army truck or like

such old spray truck you know okay or whatever you know so it's big and they it got it set up

where the dick you could put in um compost or or in castings and different things and not

plug it up and so they're they they call that a slurry so they're slapping that slurry out

on the pasture and he he puts in seeds and they're even the when I'm when you're when I was at

Rogers he had I bet he had 25 bags of seed wow that was going to go in the test plots to go

back out on ranch and so some of them went and sweary out on that away and others he fed them

to them through their mineral okay and so they're never in the cow pie so you ever see a cow

boy that's got green needle grass shooting up underneath of it you know yeah thing so you're

you're like you're not only planting seed but you're gonna see a really good start with that

and for lace cow pie yeah and so with that was he brewing the compost or was it more of an

extract process no they were they were just putting in like chemical acid worm castings um okay

stuff like that I think what else it kept seaweed or in it and so that's what was going in it

I don't think actually Roger did go to the put in his own worms and I don't know as he's really

actually done a Johnson suit I would put Johnson suit by a reactor in it and only extracted I would

not be brewing anything I would extract it right off the Johnson suit finish compost so it's a

finished compost in six months and then the worms eat it for another six months and so it's really

a year before you're using it and it really looks like worm castings at that point and it pretty

well melt in water and so that I would put in it and out yeah but you know if you're gonna be

really cautious you would send that off to the lab and figure out well which protozoans and what

nematodes are in it or what's what is in it so that you know what you got going on can you

for our listeners explain the difference between extracts and compost well the compost is the raw

product itself so the I guess compost tea is what I'm okay yep going and yeah go ahead and start

with the compost but tea and extracts I didn't know the difference for a long time and I think I

was I was trying to brew sometimes I would let it go anaerobic I would let it go too long and it

would actually switch so I'd probably doing maybe more harm than goods compost compost tea compost

extract and what the difference is and when you would look at the different applications of those

okay the first thing that I learned composting from Elaine and in the Berkeley one of the

primary school things down there in Berkeley but anyhow where did you you know the difference between

compost and finished compost is two different things okay so we make a compost it starts breaking

down and you think I've turned it five times I've done everything the organic guys want me to do

it's it should be good to go right but if you've only been working with the pile for a month you

need to let the pile set for at least six months to let that those microbes mature in there it's

kind of like I was saying that we have the bacteria but protozoa and they're going to eat them

well they have time to develop and and get that like all going in this pile um and you can't do it

in a short period of time at the sleep in Buffalo which is a greenhouse here not very far from me it's

a hot spring and they put in 24 foot by 20 foot beds they were going to buy soil for it which was

going to break the bank and I'm like oh why don't we make compost and set so we made compost from

available sources right there but of course you know this is all in one season and they're like well let's

let's put the compost in the beds and so we made huge of cultures and put the compost in the beds

that was not finished compost it looked fine but the microbes weren't there and it wasn't fine

so the plants grew um at level one are you familiar with John Kempso Plant Hill Kerman at level one

they were they were like no baseline I mean the plants looked fine but they were ill because

aphids were on them by the trillions you can even tell what blossom was because there was so many

aphids on it because the compost wasn't mature okay yeah so the compost caused problem right so

you got to let that mature first once you have a mature compost then in the protocol with the

Johnson's they usually send that compost through worms right so those worms are digesting that

compost then and now now you have a high fungal worm casting coming out of the worms from that

Johnson's Zoo which takes a year to do to take that take that happen I take my Johnson's Zoo down

the root cellar and let the worms work all through the winter in the root cell you're not freezing

out here outside they would freeze out and then I just start with eggs in the spring right yeah yeah

yeah but then to extract all I do is take a maybe a quart of compost and put it in what to call

extracting tea compost tea bag and it's real fine strain so the the materials aren't coming through

it but the microbes can and so then when we strain off the microbes off the compost into a bucket of

ambient temperature water whatever temperature you're gonna put out onto the land

temperature of the day that's the temperature of the water you want to extract with so you don't

want to do anything that shocks them okay and we want to if you could use rain water but if you can't

then we need to decorinate the water make sure there's inquiry in there because that's going to kill

your microbes so yeah make sure we got real clean water just just let it sit and off gas is that

well you can off gas or you can use vitamin C tablets okay off-gassing is probably the easiest way

if you if you're having to deal with it mm-hmm yeah then then we just extract those microbes off now

that tea is turned into like a very or color of water and that water is the extract and then it's

going out onto the plants or to get diluted out to get sprayed onto the plants that's extract

okay and on that extract is there a shelf life to that is there a period you put it right away

yeah okay don't let it sit and you're doing it right away and on to eat it with an hour or so

post tea would be taken that same bag of compost and now we're putting the air bubbler through it

or sometimes in the big extractors they're really forcing air right through the compost

so that's that's actually getting more microbes off the compost than we did with the hand

massaging and extracting okay but you're getting you're getting billions of them with the hand so

that's enough with the air forcing through it they're not any forcing air through it but they're

also causing the air loving microbes to reproduce faster and reproduce alarming rates because

of all that oxygenated water and so three days is max on that anything over three days you

you have really created something you don't want because we got the wrong microbes that are living

in there and if it runs out of air after you aerated it you're definitely going to have the wrong

microbes so yeah you want to be time sensitive on that and I I've done it before and I got great

pictures from looking at it and the microscope and everything is very exciting it's fine because

you see all kinds of stuff that you might not see in the extracted and you definitely don't see

in the soil sample when you yeah they're in a microscope for practical purposes I don't use any

fan post teas in the soil okay yeah that's good and that's that's the route that we've gone

to as well it's a lot more forgiving less tech less technical and even though we do have a

William DeMille who has gone through Elaine's classes and can look at things under a microscope

you know not always is he available or you know we're in a different different ranch and so it's

a lot easier just to do the extract for us and get good results so so you're you're gonna make a lot

of sales people mad here I think by telling these things maybe that's why I'm not getting to be

a keynote speaker very often but they do sell a biological in aculents and I'm a firm believer

of using them I use them on every seed okay larger was using them on his seeds plus his worm castings

he did both on the seeds then he put them through the through air no till drill and put him out on

land where it wasn't too rocky so he didn't plant seed to that away so he did all three things to

get seed out there and plus when whenever he bailed grazed or had too much speed in one place

in the college of folks voted in some that caused the heritage bank of seed to germinate right where

they got the signal to germinate and so then those plants are coming from stuff that they'd never

seen before you know they just showed up because they're coming from what was in soil and just

setting their dorm and waiting for the right right triggers to germinate and those microbes are

there too they're dormant they just go in dormancy they're not sure how long they can stay in dormancy

I think they probably could stay in there probably pretty much kind of like the cement tank forever

as long as their conditions are right but once the right environment conditions are right and maybe

other signals from other microbes they come to life and they start living out their life again

we'll start working there's so much we don't know that it's crazy but what we do know is really cool

it is it is and that takes a lot of humility to say hey we we don't have all the answers so on

the farming side some similarities there but you know a row crop farmers are in a tough place

economically right now a hay farmers haven't been making a lot of money facetiously I spoke at a

farm bureau conference and I asked the audience how many were ranchers how many were farmers and

there's a couple that raised their hand that they were alpha farmers and I said what's your

break even cost and I was really surprised most ranchers don't know this but farmers do and he

said oh it's like $175 a ton and I said oh you know that's wow that's higher than I thought

well what what did you average on your crop this last year he said oh about 120 and he said but

don't worry we're making up for it in volume we're selling more of it yeah and he knew he knew

what he was saying is just like that's but that's the mentality right we look at we pride ourselves

on tons per acre bushels per acre on our yields we're starting to measure more the the quality of

the crops that we're producing because the market is dictating that but let's talk bring in the

economic piece to this if a person can do what you're saying and close that loop and produce their

own fertility on site what does that do for them economically yeah I think there would be extra

money there to be a look figure out to do more practices because you'd have a little extra money

to work with but I'll give you this one story it might help you that I had these two grand these

are just two individual plants but it's still the concept is the same there's two summer summer

squash plants both zucchinis that I planted in the same bed there these were touching each other

and I showed you that picture in there but and they they were both big garter's plants both

dark green so looking at them I thought they're healthy right so and that's what we've thought

or I've thought my whole life when John Kim start saying that nobody under 70 or 80s ever seen

the healthy plant before I'm like what that's that's crazy but so I learned his lesson and I understand

it fully now that so anyhow these plants work they got the same seed inoculate they got the same

water they got the same extracts put on them they got the same micronutrients put on them

which is key coming up I'll talk about that and so these plants are we're are both growing

and our big and look healthy well it was a drought year and the grasshoppers have already ate most

everything on this property and the neighbor harvested his pivot and so most millions of grasshoppers

come over and so they're setting on these plants the next day I go there and they're they're eating

one of them they've sent on the other but eating the one the next couple days because I teach

school on four days a week so I went back around unpridear Thursday evening and the one plant was

eight to sticks absolutely nothing left but sticks and the spider you know they had to use great big

garden spiders live in there and they're eating grasshoppers so I encourage people to keep all

spiders on their places so anyhow this one plant got eight ground other ones still big and green

looks good and the hoppers were setting on it but they wouldn't touch it and I'm like this was

the only green plant for miles around miles they wouldn't eat it because it was the plant health

pyramid number four okay but what was the difference between two plants because they got the

both the same practices the difference was the genetics okay the one that survived and was healthy

and it lived all the way until 28 degrees it produced squash all fall it was it was a heritage

variety the old old-time variety and the other one was a hybrid interesting from seeds that you

had saved or where did you get the heritage yeah I'm just purchasing yeah yeah really cool

that I think the farmers really need to get back to some maybe old-time genetics and some

the old school we else we always should kept our own seed now now I'm really gonna get

ousted out right get ready to see the list too yeah this here what are we talking about

this is crazy or what so but if they you know they used to buy seed from each other and swap seed

because it's environmentally situated for that environment to be growing there and stuff and I

think we can call the clean and get better seeds and we're at least going to get the first cut

of seed because in the betting plant industry they're with the call of the packing companies where

we get a pack at a seed we can't see the seed in it we're not getting a very high cut at that seed

I mean the very best seed is went back into the industry it's not something they're selling in that

pack so when I get a pack I open a pack and sort all that had big seeds bigger and heavy seeds

onto one side and others on another side and I keep the big ones plant them and then move

out genetics from there yeah yeah really cool so talk a little bit about the micronutrient side

what other things besides the biologicals are you doing to produce healthy plants yeah so if you

look at john camp's plant health pyramid it will really help you he talks about the ingredients

that it takes to get plants to do photosynthesis better and he was first talking about this and he

is saying that most plants are only doing like 20% of their photosynthesis abilities and I'm like

what you mean we got plants out here that are only doing 20% of production of what they could be

doing and actually the average is lower than that and I'm like oh my gosh and so when I start

putting the micronutrients on it encourages the plant to do photosynthesis better because some

of these minerals are tied up with our other agriculture chemicals right so like glyphosate

this one that ties up those minerals to get so the plant can use it so you apply those micronutrients

to the plant and then then the plant can get lots bigger lots stronger it will start producing way

more production from photosynthesis so it's putting way more out into the roots because it's

used what it needed to grow its own structure and it still had excess and so then it starts putting

fat on the plants actually get fat interesting so when they put that fat layer on then that that's

when they see these screaming numbers of the red oxidates like the 60% and higher numbers

going out into the soil profile is when you're already got this super healthy plant fat on and so

I tell people to look for indicators of the the actual indicators that are first can see

then they have to be measuring you can measure with bricks but you can still see way more than you

can even find out with bricks is that your plant should have really short internotes so where the

leaf nodes are at the shorter the better the bigger on the better and the bigger thicker the leaves

the better I've got pepper plants double the leaf in size on the same plant they genetic same

everything just once it started getting all the everything it needed to do photosynthesis about

the leaves were double in size and that they're going to be thicker they're going to be hairier

the hairier the plants the better and so we're like well there's not hair on plants but if you can

get like a zucchini has hair all over it when you pick it attention so that that's what you want

because that's a store that's getting washed off some of that's got washed off or removed before

shipping even but all the plants will have this little hairy effect to them that you want and then

then they're going to put on this wax layer you can easily see the wax layer and the whole cabbage

broccoli kale both that family you can you can just rub it right off because they get fat really

fast because they can live down there with that first session of microbes they can live in what I

call dirt fat and healthy but the other plants usually take longer and better soil to and better

microbes more diversity microbes to be able to get to that fat layer that you're looking for once

it gets there there is any not even a grasshopper will eat it there's no pest going to met deal with it

and you're not going to have many disease problems either super cool I didn't know the I didn't know

the plants can get fat yeah well yeah with James white stuff they can actually eat other microbes

so they're not even vegetarians super cool well let's let's pull this into the human health side

why are we dealing with so many degenerative diseases right now at this point those nutrients aren't

in the plant right and they're so low like with the refractometer I'll do that too especially

in a greenhouse um check plants and stuff but if if the plants got these visual signs I almost don't

need to check with the refractometer all you got to just taste it and the taste will be

amazing stuff like I remember is a little tiny kid eating for most people don't know what they'd

even taste like because we haven't added to these decades right I call on a cardboard tomato is

what we kind of been eating yeah no flavor whatsoever well so you're gonna taste it when those

plants are super healthy and then they say even um Dan kitchen it doesn't doesn't know

what exactly plant nutrition density is because they don't have a way of saying this is the benchmark

unlike well the benchmark is the plant doesn't have any pester diseases and it tastes amazing

and it has storage yeah pretty shelf life dramatically I picked some kale that was in the the

sleeping buffalo and these kale plants were like stellar all year they were they got planted in

spring and we were harvested them all the way to Thanksgiving and could it could have left them in

the greenhouse and let them go on but we we terminated them but so I harvested somewhat Thanksgiving time

and I still had them in the refrigerator in a bag and I pulled them out in mid-January and they still

looked edible wow and I'm like wow it's just crazy what it looks as good as what's in the grocery

store yeah what's in the grocery store crashes in a week you know and if you took both leaves and

shook them the the one that is got plant nutrient density and was able to do photosynthesis

really well it's gonna be strong and stand right up there and not even break where the other one

is gonna fail the test yeah um and so nutrient nutrient density absolutely affects our health

what about the toxin load that we're dealing with and all of us are exposed to that what yeah

how do we mitigate that and living in a toxic environment even in the middle of nowhere in Nevada

we still have chemical drift yeah yeah we had the same experience here they they come to our town

because we're close to Canadian border and it's just really rugged land all around and no farmers

open that area and they still tested in the middle of the organic fields they still found glyphosate so

yeah I think we just we just got to start where we're at and reduce how much we're using

and and there's two things but one we absolutely need to balance the pH of that water

that's going in tank with those chemicals don't care where it is the chemical label somewhere

we'll say what what pH level that water needs to be at farmers when I talk to them about this

they're like well we've never seen that part of the label like what did you I mean the label

ginormous and you need a magnify glycerine any of it but this is where I'd use a AI tool to

find out ask AI what what is the pH required pH for this particular herbicide or or

find a side whatever it is and figure out what that is and then you're going to have to clean your water

well enough to get this clean water as you can get and then balance the pH and that water before

you actually use it in your sprayer when you do you could probably drop the rate of how much you're

putting in the sprayer by 25 to 30 percent because the chemical company has increased it to the

rate level because they know you're not going to balance pH okay so it's not working as well as

it could be if you did balance pH so that's that's all in the cool masters book and best place to

start with hers is a book her book is free in depth and a little pick to read so there's other books

I would recommend reading before hers but hers has really got some of the true answers in there

that's really help people yeah yeah that's great you know from your experience that you shared at

the beginning having lost family members and I it sounded like you're able to trace that back to

the way we've to insecticide exposure I think sometimes we don't correlate that and maybe we

don't want to correlate that because we don't know what else to do right and so we just say I mean

we just if we're going to be in business that's a cost to doing business that's a high cost and

that's a cost that just beyond the economic stability beyond the whole cause of regeneration and

beyond stewardship we need to care for ourselves and we need to care for our families and well

and plus we all I'm still carrying some of it I just wasn't the unlucky one right my body adjusted

to it or whatever or my immune systems dealt with it or whatever but we're all getting something

that we probably wouldn't got if we had the chemicals not in the picture just each person is

in visual and he carried the load differently or for the load affects them differently so the

quicker we can get them out of the system where's it going to start it's going to start with each

individual right where I'm less like I won't have it on the property you know okay I don't buy it

and I don't want to get tempted to go put it on the driveway to clean up the weeds in the driveway

whatever it is you know that you got to try to figure out but if we if we can get this plant

succession thing working and we figure out our soils and we do get to that soil that's a balance

one-to-one clean literally grow anything we want you just need to really be growing you can't

leave the ground bearer here in Montana the ground bearer you know seven months of the year longer

right every year yeah like so it's a disaster every year and where that suns can make that soil

at 140 degrees and so there's just no microbes in that a lot of guys are no till but they have

shovels on the no till drill that are disturbing the top soil layer that whatever depth they set

to shovel that whether it's three inches or four inches or six inches that's still a disturbance

from that six inches and off nor that shovel hit the soil it's it's like concrete everywhere

steel hits the ground is so there's a compaction layer at the depth of that shovel so we're really

growing our plants in just that four or five inches of soil that's above with the the drill is set

and that's where all the salts are at and they're you dig a hole and you're like well what does all

the crystals and stuff in here it probably is your money from previous years set as it has been

used right or utilized up that's just setting there that the now the plant has to deal with and

microbes are handed deal with and a lot of them a lot of microbes aren't dealing with them there's

like working a side of here well we'll just wait till things get better yeah yeah so I

and everybody did a dig all and dig a deep one because in Montana we have a plow pan

plow pans only two three inches under the ground and then you have our plants from our plow pan

from whatever it is we've been using them the last 20 years and then we have our chisel plow

plow pan which is deeper and then we have the historic one which is deeper yeah so you may have

three or four layers of compaction but your plants are on the deal and the only plant that I know

that can deal with those is Canadian Düsseld and deals with it with no problem at all it's like I

can go through that I think it can only go through concrete because it can go through way more than

anything else can even dream of going through but if we dig the hole and find out then we then we

know we need to get some plants that got really deeper systems and get them working for us and get

them an acumen with bacteria but with them with microbes so that they have their setup shop

and the root system communications going good through the roots with the plant and everything

and then you give it enough micronutrients for photosynthesis and it takes off and the plant is

going to do it yeah care bless your problems yeah very good yes well we've talked a lot about the

challenges in agriculture but what what keeps you hopeful what keeps me hopeful well I got this

brand new store in our community that I can go by regenerative meats and and flour and different

stuff at so I'm really excited now I used to have to drive all the pork betten which is

270 miles or whatever to go to the store to get that type of quality of food so I'm hopeful for

that I'm also appreciative of somebody like Fall Brown that will deliver to my house at a price

that I know what I'm going to pay when I first the button don't have to wait for the shipping

button or anything so yeah yeah so I'm really hopeful for that I mean if you can afford it

that would be the way to go I think if I think we really hone in on our diets and recognize what

we're eating is probably how's our problems if we start eliminating the sugars and reduce the

carbohydrates dramatically then you won't have to buy as much food and you actually don't eat as much

food and I'm not even hungry on this type of diet so that it can just is changing a lot of mindset

you know and then then you got all the peer pressure where I'm in the little tiny town I don't

have much of your pressure because I don't listen to them if they boys talk about me so I guess

you're gonna have some tough skin I guess but yeah yeah well that that's great what what is your

definition of stewardship patty well I think we have to steward the land well enough that the

next generation the generation after that continuously forever can pick it up and say this is

what I want to do and I can afford to do it and it's a quality enough of soil to do it in

that we got to start really caring way more about ourselves most guys don't care enough about

themselves it gals that they're like you know whether it's sleep or whatever I'll sleep when I'm

dead or I don't need to sleep I can get by with three or four hours with all of that's false

information and that's all hurting you know so I think I think we really need to figure out how

to get our own individual healthy and then get our family healthy and then we can sort a lot

kind of stuff because that belongs to priority right but my priority is to get these chemicals not

just beating up glyphosate but glyphosate is the key later and I do want to get it out and so in my

book better be we're really talking about how do we get a product that's clean which was a real

challenge in writing the book in a grain section of it because I got a section in there how to

finish them on grain without the sides and the GMO it's work to find the product so if more

guys were growing the product that was clean in the first place then that would be better for

everybody absolutely yeah we'll tell us a little bit more about your book and how how do we get a

hold of it we'll put the link in the show notes but yeah I appreciate that I've been teaching

school for 17 years and so I wasn't writing none and my mom had told me my whole life that you

need to be writing a book and I just laugh at her like I don't I didn't pass English class why would

I write a book but anyhow I started writing the swimmer because I retired last spring and so I

started writing in them so I'm just trying to really help the the small producer homesteader type

person that doesn't know or have the experience or understand all of this terminology or anything so

it's a book that's going to help every day person and the youth groups the 4-H FFA homeschoolers

that are when I'm raising market beef with county fair whatever it's going to help them I got a

part of the book that I discovered and all of my I did a lot of show in a cattle so I did a lot

of halter breaking so I I discovered a way to in front the cattle and so you can in front any

heifer or bull that's coming on to your place and get them where did that they are not fearful of

you and they will work through the shoots like nothing they view monster amount of time just by

spending about 20 or 30 minutes at different times you got to do it two or three different times

you don't do it all ones okay able to get these cattle to be like not fearful of this because I tell

you what they smell us and they're like wow they just hit supper and so they're fearful of this

in every move they're like is this the day that they're going to kill me or is this the time

they're going to kill me so when you in front of you you get rid of all that and then you can do

all kinds of thing with them with the halter breaking or go catch your one ton bull out in the middle

of the breeding pasture or rope on him and walk him in the trailer you can do those things just by

learning how to in front these cattle so it's in this book so I have a advanced section for the

ranchers and what's the newest technology art is out there for heat detecting and use radio

collars and there's all kinds of really good stuff that's I think is very uplifting and hopeful

that it's can be amazing I mean the hours that I spent heat detecting on the end of our

ranch alone was incredible because we had black cattle and we had a sample of black night out

before you quit we literally only had a four hour night before we were loading the truck up to

back out there again you know these new devices are kind of like a fit that for cows but it's in

your their ear and make their temperatures so you know if they're seasoned heat or not yeah wow

would that ever have been amazing yeah yeah you know for time wise and everything I think the that

part of it is going to be really exciting and so let us stuff in the book cool well it's good yeah

gardening but at my theory is how to grow any healthy plant doesn't matter if it's a if it's

green needle grass or whatever it is every plant needs to get healthy so if we we can do things to help

feed the biology and get the plants to do photosynthesis is better we all are going to be

amazingly better off because we won't need the sites absolutely yeah well that's great we'll

encourage you to miss our listeners to check out the links what are the names of the books so we

can search so let's see the short name is better be without breaking the bank okay and then the

other one is better gardens can't remember the rest of that title the better beef one is going

to come out first I'm just getting ready to send a book proposal off to see if I can pick up a

publisher for it so nice yeah paper book and then ebook so that the ebook I'll be able to put

pictures in which we won't paper book so okay okay very good well it's been great to visit with

you patty we appreciate the work that you're doing of the legacy that you're carrying on

speaking in legacy what what do you want to be remembered by what do you want your legacy to be

oh I want to be remembered for the person that helped others grow better plants

and better food yeah yeah it's for sure I mean I spend most my time educating and so when I

go back up around the teachers or different people at the school they're like what do you miss

teaching and I'm like well no I'm really enjoying teaching now because I've teacher people that

were the lower yeah yeah no I I'm definitely a teacher and I think I'm poor generation teacher

so the teaching part is covered definitely and when I was showing I was like I would never do that

you know but no here I am wonderful well very good well congratulations on your new books that's

amazing I know it's a labor of love to write a book I'm looking at my copy here right yes and

it takes takes a lot of effort and we appreciate that you've been able to share your wisdom through

your books and through your teaching and through this podcast home we any we'll bring it back to you

for a final thought but everyone thank you for listening to this podcast today what is the

thing that you're committing to do because you've spent the time here with us today I know that

there's lots of ideas and we don't have to do them all but there's one thing that you can commit to

that I'm gonna at least try it this year do that and measure your success and and that's how we

make progress so any last thought Patty yeah I want to encourage people to strive to get to that

plant that's not doing 20% photosynthesis and when you start seeing it it's jaw dropping you're

just like wow I can't believe it I did it on my house plants my house plants are 10 years old

what health these could be and I thought that's what those plants can do genetically and I put

the micronutrients on them twice in the winter it's in um they'd October once again in November

and in December by early January they're all growing great big leaves that are like a foot taller

than the plants ever put out before and I'm like oh my gosh they've been loping they they

haven't lived up to genetic potential they were still waiting for these micronutrients to be able

to really do photosynthesis really well and so that's called happy plants I didn't turn that

plant there's another guy that turned that name but when you start seeing happy plants you're like

wow I am now I'm really a plant guru because I got the staff yeah so and I already encourage

everybody to try to do that and and push yourself let a little past what we've known as our norm

because there's some way that our stuff out there for plants and what plants can do for us

and the help of those plants which will be the healthier of our cattle and our animals that

make healthier humans and then I think we'll be happier no now yep yep I agree I agree

well patty thank you very much and listeners thank you for for tuning in check it out we'll

be doing these solo ones interspersing with our regular webinars um encourage you to check out

the rest of the work that we do at Ag Stewart have a blessed day and take care everyone thanks

thank you