No-Till, Cover Crops and the Economics of Better Soil with Sledge Taylor

After more than five decades in agriculture, Mississippi farmer and cotton industry leader Sledge Taylor is still asking questions, testing new ideas and changing the way he manages his farm.

In this episode of The Whole Farm Podcast, Les Riley talks with Sledge about his family’s farming history and the journey that led him from conventional production to no-till, cover crops and a deeper interest in soil biology.

Sledge has farmed for 53 years, raising cotton, corn, soybeans, peanuts and wheat alongside cattle, pasture and timber. His concern about erosion first pushed him toward conservation practices. Over time, he began noticing healthier crops, cleaner runoff, cooler soils and better water retention on his no-till, cover-cropped acres.

The conversation also explores the business side of regenerative agriculture. Sledge shares how reducing field passes can lower fuel, labor and equipment costs, while healthier soils can help dryland crops withstand drought stress longer.

Drawing on his leadership experience with the National Cotton Council and National Cotton Ginners Association, Sledge also discusses the opportunity for traceable, regeneratively grown U.S. cotton to connect farmers more directly with mills, brands and consumers.

He also shares practical lessons from his own cover crop program, including his preferred mix of cereal rye, tillage radish and winter peas.

His biggest takeaway is simple: cover crops cannot be treated like an afterthought. They require planning, management and the same level of attention as a cash crop.

In this episode:

• Sledge’s transition to no-till and cover crops
• How soil biology changed his view of crop health
• Reducing fuel, labor and machinery costs
• Improving water retention and drought resilience
• The future of traceable, regenerative cotton
• Practical cover crop mixes and management
• Why mindset remains one of agriculture’s biggest barriers

Listen to the full episode for a practical conversation about conservation, curiosity and building a more resilient farm for the next generation.

To learn more about CHONEX, explore additional resources, and receive future episodes to your inbox, visit chonex.ag. If you found this episode valuable, subscribe to the podcast and share it with someone in your network.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome to the Whole Farm Podcast brought to you by Joe Dex, where we explore soil health, nutrient management, and the systems that help crops and farms perform better over time. Each episode features conversations with growers and industry experts focused on practical insights that you can apply in the field. Whether you're managing nutrients, building healthier soils, or looking for data-driven ways to improve outcomes, this podcast is built to support real decisions and real results.

SPEAKER_02 0:32

All right. Um hello everyone. Welcome to the Whole Farm podcast sponsored by Chone. I'm Les Riley. Our normal host, uh Michael Pescada, is out today. He had a he had a conflict come up at the last minute, and uh, so I'm gonna get to uh do this with my uh friend and neighbor Sledge all by myself. Uh so anyway, so Sledge and I have known each other. I actually knew his dad. Um, and he his farm is about an hour from ours. Um but he's been cattle farmer in both the hills and the delta. And um uh Sledge is doing some pretty interesting things um with regenerative agriculture on his farm, even though he's been very successful in um conventional farming. And uh I told Michael if I if I didn't think it would offend you, I'd say we could uh entitle this podcast, Teaching an Old Dog New Tricks, because I think you were really successful in the uh in the conventional ag world, and now you're starting to uh are been on a journey adopting uh regenerative practices and learning about them and you know approaching things a little differently. So let's start by kind of telling your background. So you're third generation at least um on your farm. Tell us a little bit about your farm, your family heritage in cotton and cattle and farming in Mississippi.

SPEAKER_01 1:53

Well uh thank you, Les. Uh, yeah, so I've this I'm probably I I've kind of lost track, but it's been at least three generations and certainly more, although you know, farming has morphed from what it would have been a hundred years ago or more. But uh the family's been here for you know about a hundred and uh fifty years or better. Um we um farm, um, as you said, we uh farm up in the um hill marriage around Kilmoon and then over um at the very eastern edge of the Delton near Pleasant Grove. And um the the land is very similar to in both places. Uh most of the land we farm is um um Kenlin's um Silkland Silenum then um is is very productive, but it also has some challenges. Um and I mean this is my I think my 53rd year to farm. I came in and farming with my dad, and and um I guess really from the from the early stages of of when I used to, you know, uh spend a lot of time with my dad when you know I probably started when I was about six, and just being on the farm, and and one thing that was pretty evident, and I guess something he must have pointed out to me was a lot of the erosion that we had. So my um my initial goal was to uh to stop erosion. And uh of course by doing that, some of the some of the land we took out of production and put into pasture, other land we put into hay, and then some eventually went into uh CRP. But then we continued to farm the rest of it, and and my goal was to stop erosion, so we started doing no-tilling. And then we, although we had planted cover crops before, uh we'd kind of lost uh I guess lost touch with the with the value of it. And uh probably about 15 years ago or more, we started planting cover crops again. And the combination of the two really really is nice. So basically, I mean we we obviously we we have to till a little bit every year in in some fields, but for the most part, we're 100% no-till and about 50% of the land we do, and uh cover crops, and we also have uh pretty nice cattle operation. We've got uh good pasture land, and we have some timberland as well.

SPEAKER_02 4:22

Currently, you're growing uh cotton, corn, and beans. You have grown peanas as well as uh as well as wheat. Any uh any other crops that you've grown, or is it primarily been cotton and grain?

SPEAKER_01 4:34

Uh mainly cotton and grain. Uh we've we don't have any soybeans this year. Uh we used to grow a lot of wheat. Uh so the the crops that we have planted, as you mentioned, would be uh cotton's always been a mainstay, and then corn, soybeans, peanuts, and and wheat. Uh I plant a little bit of sweet corn and I plant a few uh purple oil peas, but that's mainly just for people within the community. And uh, but I just kind of get our feet wet with that.

SPEAKER_02 5:06

Right. And you uh you have some irrigation in some dry land?

SPEAKER_01 5:10

Right. And and the our quest, you know, for I guess into regenerative agriculture, uh, which I guess back at one time we probably called it best conservation practices, was to was to improve the water holding capacity of the of the land because uh a lot of the land we just don't have irrigated. Uh some of it I can irrigate, but we uh probably all of it I could, or most of it I could irrigate, but it's it would be more expensive. And uh and we've done pretty well, especially with the cotton on on the dry land. Uh but yeah, we and we have furra irrigation and we also have sprinkler irrigation in the Delta.

SPEAKER_02 5:52

And you've been uh you've been kind of on a you've been you've been a conservationist as long as you've been farming, but you've been kind of on a regenerative soil health journey the last several years. What are uh what are the some of the changes you've made or maybe things you've learned the last um last few years um you know as as you've started doing cover crops and looking at biologicals. And you know, you you even went to Brazil this year and visited with some farmers that are making their own biologicals on the farm, correct?

SPEAKER_01 6:20

That's correct. And uh I was seeing a lot of benefits, uh, just visual observation uh from the benefit of cover crop and and the no-till. Partially I think because you don't get the splashing of the soil. Uh you've got a lot of uh plant matter on the ground and and you don't get as much splashing of soil against the young seedlings. And I think that probably introduces some diseases into the young seedlings. But I really wanted to know why I was seeing what I was seeing because I thought our no-till crops were were came up healthier. Uh, I know it's kind of counterintuitive to what some people think, but uh so I started saying, well, what's going on? And I I really, you know, just got on YouTube and started searching. Uh, got on the internet and started searching, and I discovered about mycorrhizal fungi, and then I've learned about your carbon-nitrogen balance, your uh fungi and bacteria balance, and it just kind of led me down a whole nother avenue, and it's really made it kind of fun because I've learned so much they never taught us uh back, you know, certainly when I was coming along in school, and and really I don't know that uh a lot of people are aware of it now. So uh it opens up a whole new uh avenue of what's going on, and I I think it's uh it's certainly uh got a lot of potential. And uh I think I think we're gonna make a lot more discoveries in the in the biological world here in the near future.

SPEAKER_02 7:56

What are some or or maybe one significant difference you've seen is in in terms of either yield, you know, maybe the health of your crop in your soil or um uh or your uh bottom line, your you know, your economic benefits of moving towards no-till and cover crops and kind of a biological approach to farming.

SPEAKER_01 8:19

Well, you know, there's certainly uh we don't put as many hours on our tractors uh any any longer. We uh we we obviously we don't spend quite as much time in the field, we don't burn as much fuel, the water runs out of the fields uh much cleaner. I mean, and that's you know, you're you're keeping some nutrients uh on the ground or in in the soil. Uh it's just a whole lot of benefits. So I I do feel that we save money. And then when we plant cover crops, that's a cost. And it's very hard to quantify all the savings. I uh I really I always caution people that it uh I I believe these, you know, my concepts are right. I I don't think I I know I'm prejudiced against, you know, uh for some of the things that I'm doing, and I don't want to oversell anything, but uh we're saving money. Uh uh we've actually seen our yields increase. We can usually go, you know, we always laugh uh in this part of the the country that you know we may be uh just c just had a flood rain, but in two weeks we'll be uh in a drought. And it's it's it's you know, it's really it's it's a lot of truth in that, that uh uh two weeks after we're saturated, uh we pretty well need a rain again. And by doing the cover crops and the no-till, I I usually think we get at least another extra week uh before we see the similar stress. And you know, quite often in that last week we'll get a get a rain. So uh it just it just uh we absorb more water, we store more water, we uh we don't evaporate as much water because you know your ground's cooler. So these that those are some of the benefits I've seen anyway.

SPEAKER_02 10:06

Yeah, well, well, we've got um you know, we I think you're you're doing some chonecks on some uh actually some I think some native trees and a few other things on your place, and you do a lot of uh do a lot of trials, there's a lot of trials going on all over on biologicals. And I was actually thinking this morning about, you know, one of the challenges is that um you know, by uh biologicals changing the approach to your farm is is a multi-year process. It's it's kind of rethinking the way you're doing things. And so sometimes, you know, you do a trial and think, well, you know, if he doesn't see an immediate yield bump this year, you know, the guy's gonna say this doesn't work. And and I thought it was interesting you said, you know, you believe in what you're doing. And you know, there's a real confirmation bias and that we all have. Um Gabe Brown said one time that uh to make small changes change the way you do things, but to make big changes change the way you see things. And I think you know, one of the things I've come to appreciate about you as we've you know gotten to know each other and work together on things is that that you really see things differently and you you know continue to to try to look at things differently. So uh I want to talk a little about um regenerative agriculture and cotton, cotton in particular, but before uh before we go to that, something you and I have talked about a lot offline that I think kind of rolls into that next question is um the changes we've seen in rural America, the decline in number of farmers, um rural population, you know. I mean, you know, your hometown of Como, um you anywhere you drive across the the Mississippi Delta or West Tennessee or places like that, you see these dying and dead towns. Um what uh I I would say in your 53 years of farming, what has been the most shocking or the most disappointing change you've seen as far as the impact of, you know, just kind of our whole approach and paradigm.

SPEAKER_01 12:08

Well, I I think if you look at our our community, we've we've lost sight of the value of community. Uh you know, people would go to a bigger store, maybe they would drive 30 miles to a bigger store that could offer uh a gate a little cheaper or or whatever. And so uh you just kind of extrapolate that into pretty much everything we do. Uh the dollars have left this community. Uh our all of our dollars, uh, you know, whether we buy from John Deere, those those dollars go to whoever the stockholders are. Uh and uh uh once, you know, when we had more mules or just smaller farms, uh, we had more labor, that those dollars stayed within the community. They spent the dollars in the community. So basically all of our dollars leave the community. And that's one thing that I saw when we visited Brazil. They uh there was a soybean processing plant there, and they were they were using uh uh wood chips and sugarcane pulp in order to furn it fuel the furnaces that that uh heated the process into making uh soybean oil and soybean meal. And partially it was out of necessity because there was no natural gas or anything close by. But partially, I think, because it they try to use as much local products as they can. And I I think that's what we've lost, whether it's our forest products, agriculture, uh, whatever. It's really disappointing how we have just kind of handed the keys to our communities over to somebody else that doesn't care about our community.

SPEAKER_02 13:51

Yeah, it it's it's kind of an extractive economy. You know, uh rural America has somewhat become an economic colony, not only for the U.S. but for the rest of the world. And, you know, I I appreciate some of our conversations about, you know, getting back to value add, getting back to, you know, local buying, um, and and that kind of rolls into the next point that uh that we want to talk to you about. So uh am I correct that you serve on the National Cotton Council or is it the Jenners Association?

SPEAKER_01 14:22

Well, it was it was both. Uh I I have held uh leadership positions in in both. I was chairman of the National Cotton Council in 2015, and uh I was chairman of the National Cotton Genners Association in 2009. Uh but so yeah, I've and I've I've was able to travel some within the U.S. and uh overseas and representing the cotton industry.

SPEAKER_02 14:47

Yeah and and and that that's an industry certainly that you know the consolidation and the offshoring of all the all the value ads and the value ads leaving the U.S. leaving our communities has really uh really had an impact. So um two two questions. One, uh what do you think of the um I mean what what do you know about the initiatives to bring regenerative ag and regenerative ag principles, particularly to apply to cotton? And then secondly, uh what changes do you think the cotton industry needs to make the next five to ten years, you know, if it's if it's going to survive and still be a viable and uh thriving industry in this country?

SPEAKER_01 15:29

Well, I'll answer the second question first. Uh uh the the uh there are a lot of initiatives going on now in order to uh the United States actually consumes more cotton than we grow. Uh and so uh but much of that cotton is uh processed overseas, which you know is understandable, but we're trying to bring some of that processing back to this country. We're trying to make ensure that if cotton is uh cotton goods are sold in this country that it is indeed uh uh U.S. cotton uh grown cook U.S. grown cotton. And so uh, and as a whole uh initiative now, I think about plant uh plants instead of plastic. Uh and basically because synthetics, you know, have the same base, synthetic fibers have the same base as uh as plastic, which is oil. Uh so I think there's a lot of things uh going on. And then when it comes to regenerative, uh cotton is unique in that every uh bale of cotton uh you know has a grade. Uh you know, whether it's you know, it's it's a whole lot of combination of factors, but you basically hear the color of the cotton, the strength of the cotton, the thickness of the fiber, and and maybe the trash content of the cotton. Uh and so uh but every every bale is unique and can be uh through several different processes can be tracked. And so that I can say that this is my cotton if it gets to a to a mill somewhere, and uh if they've bought my cotton, which is regenerative, and other growers' cotton, which is regenerative, we can prove that, or we'll be able to prove it. And uh and that's a certain value. Uh, you know, when I sell my soybeans or sell my corn, it's commingled with anybody else's, and I can't distinguish from it. But I and I really think there's a a lot of demand out there for uh to support farmers that are growing uh cotton regeneratively. Uh I think there's a there's certainly a need, uh, and people see the benefits that the regenerative farmers are doing uh for the environment.

SPEAKER_02 17:47

I I think it's um I think it's really helpful and and cotton can uh can almost be um a test case for how that can be done um you know in other industries because we as long as you're growing commodities, you know, uh efficiency is gonna be king and consolidation is gonna be ultimate end. Um but you know, if we can move the market to where you know certain practices can be proven to not only produce uh more environmentally healthy and profitable farming, but a higher quality product, you know, then we should expect the market and the consumers to pay for that, and and I think they will. Um what is the uh what is the name of the uh the initiative that the cotton industry has that is is focused on these sort of things that it slips in my mind right now.

SPEAKER_01 18:38

Well, uh I think one of them is uh Baca, B-A-C-A. Uh, and I gosh, I've just gone blank on what what it stands for, but it it's it's about uh I think offering a premium uh for US to people that use uh U.S. grown cotton. And uh, and of course then there's the the USDA, I think, has come out with the plant not plastic campaign as as well. And I'm I'm not sure if that's exactly what you had in mind, but I know that's that's two of them.

SPEAKER_02 19:09

Yeah, I've I've just seen a lot of stuff. And and um isn't um the Nolans over in Clarksdale and a few other folks working on some initiatives to work directly with the fashion industry and clothing manufacturers to you know to kind of connect the dots. You know, we're we've got uh farm to fork on the food side. There's there's an increasing interest in traceability on the cotton side as well. Is that correct?

SPEAKER_01 19:33

That that's correct. Uh and and Callie Nolan is doing a really good job of uh spearheading that for uh and getting in touch with uh you know brands and retailers uh and uh within the cotton industry and uh signing up growers, you know, to do this.

SPEAKER_02 19:55

Right. Well, um so uh I had a I had a question that that Michael wanted me to ask, and I'm gonna kind of enhance it. He he had asked um what you thought the USDA could and should be doing to encourage these sort of practices. You know, they they put out the uh the regenerative initiative like $700 million last year. And you know, um a lot of times those NRCS programs, you know, they're great ideas, but you know, in the application, it kind of gets something gets lost in the translation. So he, you know, he wanted to know both in terms of cotton and regenerative farming what you thought USDA could be doing. But I would add to that and say, you know, what what should farmers and you know and people on the uh production and processing side of agriculture be be doing in your mind to encourage uh a different type of ag?

SPEAKER_01 20:53

Well, that's that's a good question. Uh there's one initiative out there called RIPE, R-I-P-E. And uh, but this initiative uh is encouraging USDA to give just a set fee uh per acre for cover crops. And it would be enough of a fee uh to where it would it would it would more than cover the cost, and it's it would really be an incentive uh to grow cover crops. Now, obviously there's not enough, you know, there's not enough money to cover all these programs, but not everybody's gonna take advantage of it. So I think just it can I I think probably cover crops, just from my experience, uh, for the dollar spent probably do as much uh to improve soil health and water quality as as anything out there. Uh it is a learning curve how to how to manage them, et cetera, et cetera. But you know, we all learn new things. And uh if if if I can learn these things at an older age, anybody can can can learn them. But uh so I I just think we need to continue the focus on uh on conservation, on regenerative ag. And uh you know basically the these things cost money. Uh there's a there's a fear factor of change. Uh sometimes it takes two or three years for people or longer for people to get enough experience for it. So the incentive has to be there to in in induce change uh and and mindsets. And I have been asked you know a lot of times what's the biggest uh what's the biggest uh reason people don't uh adopt cover crops and and they list a number of things and I say usually it's it's our mindset. If we want to do it we'll do it. And uh so the whole key is to just encourage people to to try it.

SPEAKER_02 22:55

Yeah yeah I think the I think the cost and fear factor is certainly a problem because uh I I saw a quote the other day I think it was on LinkedIn but I I'm not certain but the guy said um you know we all have to decide if we want to take risk but he said if you don't take a risk that in so that in and of itself is a risk. So you know there's not there's not like a risk-free way to farm or be in business or really go through life and you just have to choose your risk and you know I think the question is is the risk of continuing on the way we are you know is that worth it or is looking at things differently um before we go let uh let's talk a little bit more about specifics on cover crops um and and some things you're you've learned some things you tried because when you when you mentioned the the program to pay for cover crops uh you know they've done a little bit of that through a QIP and one of the things I've noticed is um there's two kind of people planting cover crops under those programs and regrettably the the latter is the the majority of them that I've seen uh some people are actually interested in them and are you know been either dabbling or considering cover crops and when they you know they find out there's a way to kind of offset some of the cost they jump in and try it and start to learn it and I want to you know here's the things I'm doing cover crops for I want to build my soil or you know control erosion or you know fix nitrogen or scavenge nutrients whatever their their goals are um and they start playing with it but then there's the other side which is okay the government will pay me X dollars per acre to plant a cover crop. Well what's the minimum cost I can get in cover crop seed and qualify for that and get that payment. And then I I've actually seen guys uh on the back end there'll be like a cutoff date you cannot terminate the cover crop before this date and whatever that date is you know they're out there spraying a burn down and they got their tillage equipment in the field and it's it's almost defeating the purpose altogether and it's just a you know a little money pass through. So um let on your in your specific experience what mixes have you are you using on what crops you know what works what doesn't are you are you flying it on um before harvest are you drilling it uh tell me a little bit of your specific practices on covers well uh there's a three-way mix that I that I use uh it's kind of our go-to mix but you can you can play with other things as well but uh we use cereal rye we use uh tillage radish and I use the uh winter peas so you've got three different you've got three you've got a grass you've got a brassicas you've got a legume uh if I'm gonna plant corn the following year uh I'll I'll maybe leave out I'll probably leave out the uh cereal rye because there can be a little bit of uh interaction between the rye uh and the corn when it's when it's young um but yeah that's our our go-to but I I have used uh carbonata I've used rape I've used turnips I've used uh of course uh wheat in the in the mix uh I've used some uh vetch uh you know it just kind of uh depends on the person but I I do prefer a three-way mix because there's a lot of proof to show that uh the three different species then you get three different types of mycorrhizal fungi and uh they kind of support each other.

SPEAKER_01 26:29

I mean it it you get really off into the biology there. Uh and I forget exactly what else where else we were going with it but uh what was the other part to your question?

SPEAKER_02 26:40

No I I just wanted to know some of the specifics and you and you're not you're not currently rolling or cramping your you're uh terminating with uh a burn down and and planting through it do you plant green or do you plant after you burn it down uh we burn it down uh I I keep saying I'm gonna plant green but uh that's just a whole nother you know especially when we plant cotton and we we seed cotton fairly shallow right uh it's just it adds a lot of complexity to it and that's I keep saying I'm I'm gonna do it and I haven't done it yet but and I don't like to plant my cover crop too terribly thick.

SPEAKER_01 27:18

I mean you want you want enough cover crop your your wheat or your rye will tiller out it'll it'll expand.

SPEAKER_02 27:25

So we usually plant about 35 uh pounds of uh cereal rye and about pound and a half two pounds of tillage radish and about 10 pounds of the uh peas and uh sometimes I'll toss in a few black oats with that or whatever but I've gotten real good luck except probably for last year was the worst luck I've had uh using an airplane and because it was so dry we were able to get through harvesting early so then we ended up uh drilling the you know planting at no-till the rest of the cover crop so did you um well that that that kind of leads into the the thought about are there any at least on your farm in particular that you tried and would stay away from or you know uh I I I think sometimes guys that are considering this they they try it on one spot they have you know they have a bad outcome in some some area whether it's slugs or you know couldn't get it burned down good it you know slow emergence or whatever their reason was and they say well that didn't work for me what is the what is maybe uh a negative experience you've had with covers and what you learned from it well I I know uh the the rape or canola something like that is pretty hard to terminate and so uh it it did it wasn't a problem with us because I didn't have a real thick stand of it but there's a few things like that uh that are tough to terminate the the radish where we are we're in north Mississippi the tillage radish usually freezes out uh in January early February it'll the freeze will kill it and and it's probably 98% of it'll die during the winter so it's not a problem and then the the rye and the uh winter peas are easy to terminate and I I have planned you know I I usually let the rye get begin to head out it's kind of in the boot stage or so when we'll terminate it and uh the other the other advantage to it is about terminating is uh anything that turns you know like your planter press wheels your uh gauge wheels your your row cleaners that dry material will pass through it it'll shed through it but that green material tends to kind of rope rope up and twist like a rope and and and that can give you a problem. Right right yeah well that's uh that that's really helpful um and then and then just one uh one other uh thing is I like to fly a cover crop in on our corn uh typically for us you know about the last week in August first week in September before we harvest same thing with cotton we'll do it a two three weeks later you know in September on cotton so you get a lot more biomass uh uh by doing it early than than waiting until after harvest to plant yeah and and I and I think one thing that uh that you're uh essentially talking about that I I think is the real key to incorporating covers is you don't you don't treat covers like a a stepchild that you know the end of the season you just kind of sling it out there and you leave it and forget about it. You need to take growing covers as serious as you do growing a crop you need you need to farm that cover you know plant it properly um etc and I and I think that helps a lot. Do you have any closing thoughts?

SPEAKER_01 30:59

Well I guess to go back to your question about uh the two types of people planting cover crops it all depends on what you want I mean I I can tell you how many times uh that I maybe in the past I have cut corner a little bit and it always it always comes around to where it bites me uh in the end. And so it depends on what you want. If you're just trying to get by uh okay but if you're actually trying to build something build a future do it right the first time so that's what I would say about cover crops. Uh if you really don't plan on uh doing it right just don't do it. I mean but if you're gonna do it do it right.

SPEAKER_02 31:41

All right well very good well we we appreciate your time and I'm I'm sure I'll be uh talking to you offline soon and we've got a couple of things in the works that I look forward to getting an update on and maybe sharing the update with everybody else later. Well well thank you so much for being on uh Sledge again this was the uh whole farm podcast uh sponsored by Chonex uh I'm Les Riley um and we'll see you next time and I and I believe Mike will be with us then.

SPEAKER_00 32:08

Great thanks Les for I always enjoy the opportunity to talk about uh cover crops in no-till thank you too thanks for listening to the whole farm podcast by Jonex if you found this episode helpful be sure to subscribe and share it with someone in your network for resources or to learn more about Jonex visit chonex.ag thanks again for joining us and we'll see you next time