Farming on the Conservation Reserve Program - Gardening Beyond Basics 87

0:00Welcome to Gardening Beyond Basics. I'm your host Diego, D.I. E.G.O. bringing you podcast since 2013. If you're new here, welcome. Gardening Beyond Basics is a deep dive into the topics that you thought were simple when it comes to gardening. From vegetable varieties to soil to pests to seeds, we'll talk to knowledge experts to go way beyond the basics and dive deep into the nitty gritty about subjects that you thought were simple, but in reality are much more complex than you can even imagine. In every episode, we'll dive deep into one specific topic to make you a better grower. I hope you enjoy it. It's Gardening Beyond Basics. I think I saw in one of your presentations, you mentioned something along lines of plants produce 40% more sugars than they actually need to sustain their own plant growth, and that's

1:07going into the soil to feed the biology. Plants are actually figured out it's cheaper for them to feed the microbes and have the microbes feed them than they could by themselves. That's how plants and the microbes evolved together, and what the plants figured out is that they were very good at photosynthesis, and we have it tremendous. We're only 15 to 20% efficient. Let's think about corn. What is the optimal? What's the, I shouldn't say optimal, but what's the highest level of corn production that could be possible? The scientists have looked at this and said we could produce 1,100 bushels of corn per acre. What's our current level? Let's just say we average 200, and a lot of places don't. Maybe it's 150, 200, but 200 is an easy number. We're only roughly 20% efficient at that photosynthesis in order to get 1,100. Everything would have to be absolutely perfect, and we'll probably not reach that level on average, but is it possible to reach 4, 5, 6, even 700

2:13bushels? It could be if we weren't improved soil enough, and to get it back to where it was. You would almost have to go back to maybe having those virgin-type soils, and that's kind of what we're doing with the cover crops in soil health, is restoring our soil. Very easy to think about this. Think about Brazil. Brazil has what we call oxisol soils. These are worn out soils. They have a lot of rainfall, 60 to 80 inches, 120 inches a year. They've really flushed out a lot of the nutrients out of their soil. Yet, today, when we go to Brazil, what are their soybean yields? They're getting 15, 16, 70, even 80 bushels soybeans, all the soils that are worn out. How they do that? They took the tropics and they basically burned up the organic matter in the trees, and within about 4 or 5 years their soils would get harder to rock. When they started growing cover crops, and now what

3:14they're finding is they're turning those oxisol soils, worn out soils, and they're becoming more and more like mullisols every year because of the root turnover. They're putting a cover crop, then they grow their next crop, and then they grow cover crop. Sometimes they're even interseeding cover crops into their beans. They have now gotten, they were starting out, they were getting 80 bushels corn. Now they're going to become one of our biggest competitors on corn. They have now raised their corn yields up to 130, 140, 150, even 160 bushels per acre. They're not that far behind us. And what they've done over the last 30, 40, 50 years is they have transitioned their soils from oxisols into more and more like a mullisol. Now they're not mullisols yet, but if you look at it, they're adding so much organic matter to their soils, and they're long-term no-till down there, and using extensive cover crops, 80, 90% of their soils now have cover crops until. The guys that will do just do conventional tillage what they find within 4 to 5 years,

4:21their soil will get just as hard as a rock. Anything that happens in the tropics happens 10 times faster than what it happens in the tempered zones. What's happening to us? Our soils are becoming compacted, they're becoming like rock. It just takes us 10 times longer than what happens in the, but that's been about a 40, 50 year time period, and a lot of farmers are really complaining about how their soils are degrading. You want to make your soils better. You got to use the four soil health principles that we talked about. Basically minimize soil disturbance, maximize livelihoods, maximize surface residue, and maximize your biodiversity. Those four things, and some people like to add the fifth principle, which is grazing, add livestock, and if you did those four or five principles, that's the fastest way to improve a soil. It's almost guaranteed to make it better as long as you don't do something between here. We can add a lot of chemical

5:22tools and things like that. We could screw it up, but if you just let the system alone, it will heal itself. It's interesting. We have a lot of CRP land, okay? Think about CRP, conservation reserve. Somebody will take their worst field, and it's low in soil fertility. It has a lot of compassion. It's eroding. They'll put it in CRP for 20 years. I have guys in my area that are looking for that CRP ground. Why is that? Because that soil has healed itself. Now there's two ways to farm CRP. I'll tell you the way that it's typically done. Guys will go in there, and they'll start tilling it up, and within four or five years they'll ruin it. But for four or five years, they'll get tremendous nutrients and tremendous yields, and then they'll restore it back to a degraded condition in about four or five, maybe six, seven, eight years. Okay? Now what's the smart way to handle it? Now that I've healed it, go and put cover crops back on there,

6:23do it in a no-till system. Maybe start with beans for one or two years just to get a little extra nitrogen in there, but then go with a corn bean soybean rotation, maintain that fertility, keep it in that almost pristine state, and you can get extremely good yields off that. I had guys that are telling me that these fields that were their worst fields are now their best fields because after 15 to 20 years, mother nature healed those soils. Okay? So that's what we're trying to do with the whole soil health thing is heal our soils, get them from a degraded state into a very productive and healthy soil. That's what we're trying to do. Do you think the next step in the evolution is a companion planning or an inter-planning, having your cash crop grown with cover crops? I see a lot of things that are going on that are very interesting right now. What we can plant, what they do in Brazil, I told you half the story, but another way that they do is they plant their corn

7:26and in between the rows, they weigh about three to five days, maybe a week depends on the area, and then they'll plant sun hemp. And the sun hemp will grow with the corn, but it'll be behind the corn and the corn will tossle and set an ear, and then the sun hemp grows above the corn. Now the sun hemp is a big legume and it'll have nodules that are as big as your thumb. Okay? And it can put on 200 pounds of nitrogen. They don't fertilize their corn in Brazil. They just use the companion cropping, the sun hemp. Okay? And what they'll do is they'll let the corn dry down. They'll go through with a real high combine and they'll harvest the sun hemp and get that as an oil seed, and they can use that both for feed and also for another cover crop, but then they'll turn around, come back at a later date and harvest their corn, and then they'll plant a cover crop until they plant their next crop, which is either soybeans or maybe they go back to corn again depends on the area.

8:27But that's a nice system, okay? We can do the same thing up here, but we have a little bit grow shorter growing season. So what some people are doing is they're interceding cover crops. Generally, what we're seeing is guys are starting to widen their rows out. I see a lot of twin row corn now starting to be experimented with where they'll have 60 inch rows, and some guys are planting their corn really thick there, but they're getting more sunlight in there. And if they've got a flexer on that, a variety they can actually get bigger ears and get the same yield, same amount of corn, and just as good, maybe even better yields. But now they've got this wide area there that they can put a cover crop, and that cover crop can grow well. And some of them are even introducing sheep or something like that they'll graze that. I've had some where I've looked at these fields, and the corn is so close together it almost looks like a kale bars, okay? The sheep would have to go all the way to the end to get through there unless they're going to knock down the corn. So there's some things like that are starting to go on that I think are really interesting that

9:31I think is going to help us with this companion cropping. We do some of that. We let your corn get up, grow with a little bit shorter maturity in corn, and you can fly on or use a high boy and get your cover crops. That's more of an interseeding top option late to say about right now in August and early September, which you can put on the cover crop. And get once started and always have a live crop out there year round. That would be the absolute goal. So there's a lot of different ways to go with this. Some of them are using I see some research going on Cura Clover. Guys are actually putting a crop down, and they'll stunt that clover a little bit, and they'll plant their corn into it, and that's supplying their nitrogen. And then as the temperatures get a little cooler, and the corn's drying down, sunlight comes out. The Cura Clover grows the best in the spring and in the fall. And then the next year they'll go right back to corn. They'll let the Cura Clover grow through the winter, and then they'll plant another crop. So I think there's a lot of different

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