All Things Oats Part 2

Bill and James continue their talk about oat season for 2026. Oats don’t always get much attention in Iowa agriculture, but they’ve earned a spot in our system.

In this episode, Bill and James break down what it actually takes to grow oats. From planning and planting to figuring out where they fit in the rotation, this is a real-world look at what’s working, what’s not, and why oats might be worth a second look.

If you’ve been thinking about small grains, this is a good place to start.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome to Under the Covers. Where all of our cards are on the table, whether we meant to play them or not. I'm Bill. And I'm James. We're the founders of Iowa Cover Crop, and we disagree about nearly everything. These are the same conversations we've been having for years. It starts with farming and usually ends up somewhere else. No script, no sales pitch, no guarantees. We're right. To keep this from turning into a three-hour debate, we play a game of cribbage while we talk. When the game's over, the episode is over. Somebody's probably wrong. Someone's definitely losing. This is under the covers. All right. This is Oat, part two, from Studio 112, Art of Ares. From the shadows of the Mahaney Bell Tower. Oh, yeah. Welcome. Welcome back. Oats were so exciting that we decided to have another episode.

SPEAKER_01 0:58

We got whisked away with the magic of Oat Talk.

SPEAKER_00 1:02

Yeah. Ooh, five to three. Only four cards. There's only a 20% chance. Pretty close. Pretty close. All right. So we were talking about how Jerry's, 1961, is when that came out, non-PvP variety. We were just thinking about that. We are going to throw a party for their retirement.

SPEAKER_01 1:24

They're getting into the Medicare program. Yeah. Uh 65 years old this year. So uh be looking in your mailbox for the invite to the Jerry Oat birthday party.

SPEAKER_00 1:35

How many tractors do you have that are pre-1961?

SPEAKER_01 1:40

Pre-61. Uh three. Three. I think. Yeah, that sounds great.

SPEAKER_00 1:51

I only have one. Massey 85.

SPEAKER_01 1:54

Oh. Actually, no.

SPEAKER_00 1:56

Uh that Ford's got to be older in 61.

SPEAKER_01 2:00

That's like a that's like a early 70s, late 60s. Really? That's my guess.

SPEAKER_00 2:04

That's a nice tractor.

SPEAKER_01 2:06

Oh.

SPEAKER_00 2:07

It's a tractor. It is a nice tractor. We have a Ford tractor that I donated to Iowa Cover Crop. I purchased it and I have never used it, but Iowa Cover Crop use it, which is fine, whatever. Uh, but um the boys, we use it almost primarily to auger into our bins. And the boys, I mean, they kind of complain about it.

SPEAKER_01 2:35

Like uh, what was that? Beer you brought ice fishing? Uh Paps Light. Paps Light. Better than it should be.

SPEAKER_00 2:42

Yeah. But that Ford starts every time. Every time. And it's a dandy. It's a good runner. So it's not much to look at. But it didn't cost very much money.

SPEAKER_01 2:54

We might have to repaint it.

SPEAKER_00 2:56

That what that was another good investment. I forgot to put that on my balance sheet. It's definitely paid for itself. Yeah, because you're not paying anything for it. Yeah, it's I think it was only six or eight thousand. I think you could probably sell it for that.

SPEAKER_01 3:08

This is, you know what? This is the tax I'm charging you for having uh we have an overhead grain bin that's been sitting in my yard for like five plus years, and it just looks like a giant dead whale. It's like 30 feet long, takes up half my yard, and we've just never found the right spot for it. But we bought it kind of as an impulse buy.

SPEAKER_00 3:28

So this is my charge for you. You know, most of the things we've bought have been impulse buys. Like what? Like the turnip and radish costume? Well, but that so they're impulse buys. I'm not saying they're bad ones. What do we count it out? 28. 28? Okay, just want to make sure, right? Jeez. 31. Here we're gonna get started. Suckered me and we'll win this one here.

SPEAKER_01 3:50

Um yeah, score update. I am up three to two. Yep.

SPEAKER_00 3:55

Uh so all right, so we've determined we buy impulse buys. Let's talk about other things we've done in impulse buys. We've done okay so the turf and ravish costume were a big one. The OG impulse buy was the grain cleaner.

SPEAKER_01 4:08

Grain cleaner.

SPEAKER_00 4:09

And then grain cleaner again. Yep. Grain cleaner part two, part two. Why did we talk about this in the last episode about all the impulse buys that we've done in Iowa Covercraft? Yeah. Then we bought the bin impulse buy. Yeah. Okay. At least 50% of these have been pretty good buys. Then I would almost say the building was kind of an impulse buy.

SPEAKER_01 4:32

Building was an impulse buy. The blender is the best impulse buy.

SPEAKER_00 4:37

Remember when I bought the aceign impulse buy?

SPEAKER_01 4:40

Yeah, that was a really good one. That sat in the yard for a while too, and then we finally scrapped it.

SPEAKER_00 4:45

We paid $700 for it, and then we got $75. Yep. That's smart business, folks. Stay tuned in for more tips like that. Okay. We should actually get on the subject of why we okay. So I thought about this. You know, Forrest Gump and Bill. I know Forrest Gump. Okay. Okay. I'm ready. Oatmeal. Name song with oats in it. What? I said oatmeal.

SPEAKER_01 5:15

Oh. I did not make the connection. Yeah, forest meal. Oatmeal. Uh oat milk. Steel cut oats. Uh boats. Boats. What are boats? Boats, you know. It's got oat in it. That does not count. Oat. I was out. Um oatmeal raisin cookies.

SPEAKER_00 5:39

Okay. Oh gosh. I was just going to get you on. You're over your skis here. Yeah. Anyway, oats are kind of fun because they're like one of the grains that like we directly eat as a grain. And you see them everywhere.

SPEAKER_01 5:51

We raise soybeans. I don't very often go out to my field and just pick soybeans and eat them. Yeah. Turn them into breakfast food.

SPEAKER_00 6:00

Yeah, exactly. So we're going to talk about last episode we talked about oats a little bit. Uh well, the whole episode, let's be clear. And so we're like, well, this isn't enough. The game went too quick. Uh, we didn't really have that many hands.

SPEAKER_01 6:13

Yeah, that's what happens when you unleash my cribbage talent.

SPEAKER_00 6:18

Unleash the beast.

SPEAKER_01 6:19

And this time we're gonna talk maybe a little bit more into details about Yeah, maybe do some like how do we actually raise these notes and uh what do we do with them?

SPEAKER_00 6:30

So all right. So we have learned quite a bit since we get started. Are you counting? I did.

SPEAKER_01 6:37

Oh, you I've scored. I only scored four. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 6:40

You scored four. We don't have to talk about it. Oh, that I thought you were just stalling and didn't know it was your turn to score. But it was that bad. That was it. Okay, well, let me count these bad boys up. 15-2, 15-4, 15-6.

SPEAKER_01 6:58

So Raisin Oats is not that hard, really, in the grand scheme of things. It's one of the best parts of it is it's really uh low inputs. Um it requires a lot less nitrogen than corn, a lot less not that much, but a fair amount less fertilizer. I do you ever spray your oats? I don't spray my oats with any like chemical.

SPEAKER_00 7:26

The only oats I've raised have been organic.

SPEAKER_01 7:28

Oh, there you go. So you definitely don't.

SPEAKER_00 7:32

Don't even joke about that. I like you go for jail for that. You joke about beating. You don't you joke about rolling through a stop sign, you don't joke about accidentally spraying your organic rap belt.

SPEAKER_01 7:48

I have never sprayed my oats, and I know that you have never sprayed your oats as well.

SPEAKER_00 7:53

Okay, so all right, so oats are best planted. Well, let's for okay, best planted after soybeans. Correct.

SPEAKER_01 8:01

Yeah, I have planted them bef after corn before, and I have sworn it off. Yes. It it it you know, like 75% of your yield if you plant it after corn compared to after beans, I would say. It just it loses your test weight. It's just it's too much grass on grass, there's too much uh disease pressure that just kind of sticks around.

SPEAKER_00 8:22

Because what is the what is the disease? I think the big one is the fusarium. Fusarium, yeah. And the fusarium is on corn plants. Is that how it works? Oh how does that work? You know I'm not a scientist.

SPEAKER_01 8:34

I don't know. Why would you ask that question? I honestly don't. I actually believe it's I'm not sure if it's in the soil or if it's on the plant. I'm not 100% sure.

SPEAKER_00 8:46

Anyway, there's fusarium with planting after corn.

SPEAKER_01 8:51

Yep. So much like we rotate corn and beans to have a better crop, um, planting uh your oats after a legume instead of a grass is a better strategy. On four.

unknown 9:07

Dang it.

SPEAKER_00 9:08

So you want to plant oats as early as possible, at least around here. And the reason being is you want them to be in maturity at a time frame that it's not as hot. Like that's the whole goal.

SPEAKER_01 9:23

Yep.

SPEAKER_00 9:24

Like you want them to be flowering and going into in and pollination when it's not hot.

SPEAKER_01 9:30

So March oats are generally much better than April oats. Can I take that card back? Card blades, card played, but I'll allow it since I'm beating you so bad. That's that's a run.

SPEAKER_00 9:47

I was talking about oats, and I it's I'm gonna give that as a okay. So you want to get them in as early as as you possibly can.

SPEAKER_01 9:55

You can even do it in February around here. Like we're gonna have some a really warm week next week, which I would say is probably a little too early to plant, but I've planted oats in the end of February and had great success. 23, 26, 27.

SPEAKER_00 10:14

That's another.

SPEAKER_01 10:15

That is another run.

SPEAKER_00 10:16

And yeah, yeah. And that's another that we only went out on one. Look at all no face cards. No face cards at all.

SPEAKER_01 10:22

Crazy. I thought I shuffled. Okay, so you want to get them get them in before April. That is my advice on planting oats. Get them in before April.

SPEAKER_00 10:33

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 10:33

It's it's that easy. Yep. But it's not easy because we all know what happens in March. You have a decent window and you're busy doing something else, and you forget to prioritize your oat planting, and then it rains and it turns cold and it never dries out in oat in March again. So if you have that window in March, you have to take it.

SPEAKER_00 10:55

And they also say that if you can get snow on your oats, that's a really positive thing. Well, you and I would have done really well if we'd had a face card there.

SPEAKER_01 11:06

Yeah, I was hoping for four, but didn't. No luck. Sorry.

SPEAKER_00 11:11

Um and so what what seeding rate have you done with oats?

SPEAKER_01 11:17

I pretty much always just kind of hang out at a hundred pounds. So about three bushels. Um I think what are you supposed to aim for? Like a million plants per acre. Is that kind of the ballpark? I can't remember.

SPEAKER_00 11:28

That's the whole um all small grams, kind of in general, they always say a million seeds per acre. I I this year and last year, I planted heavier than that because I'm on organic and I was hoping to choke out weeds. Um but um so I'll probably do 120. Okay. And I all I also hasn't moved.

SPEAKER_01 11:53

Which, if you're gonna be like technical about it, you know, you should take your test weight and figure out like how many seeds per pound do I have, uh, and then do it by the seed count.

SPEAKER_00 12:03

But I have an oat drill that I haven't changed the setting on. Yeah. And let's just say I haven't changed the setting on it since I bought it. Someone else said it and it says oats here. So that's how you know. And it came out of Arkansas or Missouri, so you know it's good. Yeah, I suppose. So, but I after I have drilled them, it always ends up around 120 pounds.

SPEAKER_01 12:35

Basically, you just want a nice thick stand. Don't be leaving gaps in your drilling, like stay nice and tight. If you're gonna go too far left or too far right, overlap too much. Don't leave big gaps because that's where those weeds will come in.

SPEAKER_00 12:50

One of my first memories on the farm was um putting oats in the N gate cedar with alfalfa. Yeah, sure. And you know, because it required a kid to fill the N-gate cedar with the oats. Yep. Why and we actually have an oat grower that still uses N-gate cedar. We do, and he raises pretty good oats.

SPEAKER_01 13:13

Really good oats.

SPEAKER_00 13:15

Maybe we should do like a uh like a university trial of oat oats seed ones with a uh N-gate cedar versus oats without an end gate cedar.

SPEAKER_01 13:27

Yeah, I think you can get like they're maybe a little more forgiving than corner beans, right? Where you can he would he would and we would always do the same. You'd you'd put uh put them through the end gate seater and just broadcast them, and then you would disc them in lightly so they got, you know, hopefully in that like inch, inch and a half deep into the soil, which is kind of where you try to put it with the drill. Uh the old my great grandpa's saying I can't remember if I cut uh was four oats to the horse's hoof. That's how he did his seeding rate. I have never heard that before. So which which we kind of like did the math on it one time. It's about a hundred pounds.

SPEAKER_00 14:09

Crazy. No kidding. Yeah. Uh we should buy an N since we were talking about impulse pies. We should buy an NG seeder.

SPEAKER_01 14:17

I'm I think there might be one. Here, take your pair so I can take my six. Don't you don't have another three.

SPEAKER_00 14:27

Boom! Oh it's a nine. I still got two.

SPEAKER_01 14:30

What how did you get two?

SPEAKER_00 14:32

Nine. Oh, oh, you have nine. Oh six. I was adding. No wonder I'm behind. Oh, six, nine. I'll tell you what. Nine. Okay. Um, well, you can just have eighteen. All right.

SPEAKER_01 14:42

Uh so yeah, that's kind of cool.

SPEAKER_00 14:44

Just like uh oats to a horse's horse's hoof.

SPEAKER_01 14:48

Hoof. Yeah. I mean, it obviously depends on how big your horse is, but how did you do it?

SPEAKER_00 14:52

Like, could you do it with a perchin, or did you do it with a quarter horse?

SPEAKER_01 14:54

Uh, quarter horse, yeah. Yeah. 22.

SPEAKER_00 14:57

So like the difference between those two would be.

SPEAKER_01 15:00

Well, you just have to use a bigger oat. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 15:05

Go. 31. See, I got those two eventually. Nice. Oh. Okay. Best mag. Okay. Uh, I've never heard that, but we're gonna, that's probably gonna be an issue.

SPEAKER_01 15:17

What did that guy? We went to an oat meeting in Albert Lee, Minnesota, and the smartest oat guy in the country was there. Um they were talking about oat depth that you plant at. I'm usually aiming for that inch to inch and a half. I don't move it around too much. He was pretty much saying chase some moisture, right? Yeah, like bury them. Like if you're three, four inches deep, that's where you get that's just where you plant them. Yeah. I've never done that before, but um, he was way smarter than I was, so yeah.

SPEAKER_00 15:51

So okay, plant your notes, get them in early, and roughly seating rate, you know, pick the variety that works well for what you're doing, what you're using and for your purpose. How would you do that? What does that mean? I mean, if you're using it for it.

SPEAKER_01 16:06

In Iowa, it mostly means what's your market for it?

SPEAKER_00 16:09

What's your market for it? Or what's your you don't necessarily have to be playing them for grain. Maybe you're playing them if you want to have grain and you want to have a straw, you do Jerry's multi-purpose servers. If you want to, you know, you're always pushing me on this, Bill. I I'm sorry. Geez. 15-2, 15-4, or 15-15-2, run for five. Okay, so yeah, pick your variety.

SPEAKER_01 16:38

You talk while I so I get a bunch of phone calls in the summertime from people that say, Hey, I planted 80 acres of oats. Do you want to buy them? And the first question I have is what variety are they? And five out of ten times the answer is I don't know. Which I say, well, I can't buy them then because, like we talked in the last episode, uh, I can't buy protected seed. So know your variety, know whether it's protected, and if it is protected, that's fine, but you better have a feed outlet for it because that's where it goes. Food or feed. Yep. If you're planting an unprotected variety like Jerry's, um we James and I don't buy Jerry Oats from people when they just tell us they're geriotes, because there's been a long history of people saying they're geriotes and they maybe weren't necessarily, and and the farmer maybe didn't know what they bought, and they just were told they were geriotes, and maybe they were, maybe they weren't. So when we contract oats, you have to buy the seed from us because we know the seed stock is pure. Um because we don't want to mess with that patent infringement. Moral of the story have a market before you plant your oats. Yes. Uh because I can't believe how many people don't, and then they just think they're gonna get rid of them, and they probably do, but it's not easy. Yes. So have your market picked out.

SPEAKER_00 18:15

Alright, so you got your oats in, they're growing, they're, you know, you're proud of them. Um then what? Like what are some how much nitrogen should you put on? How much like should you be spraying them for like, you know, anything, you know, is any temperature.

SPEAKER_01 18:35

I don't I don't put any I don't put any uh herbicide on like pre or through the season.

SPEAKER_00 18:43

Of course they're doing them before Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 18:46

If you're getting them in in March, there's no weeds germinating, right?

SPEAKER_00 18:49

Yes. And you're before soybeans, so there's already nitrogen credit there.

SPEAKER_01 18:52

And they're aggressive, they come up and they choke out the weeds before the weeds can get out there. It's the goal. Um 31.

SPEAKER_00 19:01

Um So like I don't think if you were putting nitrogen on, how much nitrogen would you put on?

SPEAKER_01 19:09

I think it's usually like kind of like corn, right? Like uh a pound per bushel, right?

SPEAKER_00 19:18

Is that what you always heard? I've always said I've always thought that was pretty aggressive.

SPEAKER_01 19:21

Well, I think that's you know, like if you're really pushing them. If if you're pushing them and if you're following beans, you know, you would you'd give 40 40 units to the beans or whatever. So uh usually I think people are sp are putting on like 40 pounds is the most common number I've ever heard. Yep. Um did you put any on your reins last year?

SPEAKER_00 19:41

Uh I put cattlemen or so maybe. Some.

SPEAKER_01 19:47

But nothing you could like did you you you didn't have like an actual number?

SPEAKER_00 19:52

No, I think they got probably 60 to 70 pounds. That's probably what they got.

SPEAKER_01 19:58

And yours were behind chopped corn, right?

SPEAKER_00 20:01

Mine was behind chopped corn, yeah. And then I ripped it. Okay. And then I dissed it, and then I field cultivated it, and then I planted it. So I did all the tillage.

SPEAKER_01 20:12

Yeah. Um I I planted oats for a neighbor one time, and then I harvested those oats, and I I bought them. And I did the uh I did the I also planted some for myself. They put on zero nitrogen that year. Yep. Same yield. So the same oats, I planted everything, I combined everything, everything was the same except they didn't put nitrogen on. I did. I spent the money, I spent the time, we had the same yield. So I have stopped putting nitrogen on my oats. And I don't think that's like best practices. I don't think that's best practice. But I my theory is, especially with the jerry's, which are an older variety, they're not pushing the top end of the yield most of the time. They're just kind of a steady oat. Um my theory is Iowa has enough organic nitrogen released throughout the summer that we don't actually have to feed the crop because it's it's picking up enough organically.

SPEAKER_00 21:16

So when we were at the Albert Lean meeting and that we're citing here, that's what we talked about, this genetics, because rains is really short. And another thing that we've never done that to push yield is growth regulators.

SPEAKER_01 21:31

Right.

SPEAKER_00 21:31

And you've never used them, right? No. Uh, and so use growth regulators so you can keep them short. And then if you keep them short, then you can push more nitrogen. They don't watch. And so, growth regulators, you can look into that. We don't know a lot about it, but there's a lot of information on that. And so you can maybe push nitrogen up into the hundreds pretty easily, and then also um combine them like wet. Earlier, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 21:57

And dry them down because it's all about.

SPEAKER_00 22:00

Lodging.

SPEAKER_01 22:00

Most of the oats lodge in like the last week or two before you're going to combine. So if you can get out there two weeks early and just dry them down, you're probably not going to lodge.

SPEAKER_00 22:11

Yes. All right. So we've talked about nitrogen. How about herbicides?

SPEAKER_01 22:17

None.

SPEAKER_00 22:18

Yeah, I don't use any herbicides either, obviously.

SPEAKER_01 22:20

Organic. No fungicide. Um my cousin raised some oats for us last year. He put some fungicide on. I didn't notice a difference in the combine. But every year's different, obviously. You know, like I'm not going to say that it's not going to help. That expert in in uh Minnesota swore by it. Like you have to put fungicide on. So if you're really going to push yield, I think that's what you do. That was a great cut, James. What are some common mistakes you've seen?

SPEAKER_00 22:59

I'd say a common mistake for me this year because it was a very we keep saying how tough of a year it was. 23. 23. Um was like not harvesting my oats like wet enough. Like I wish I would have got them out earlier. Been more aggressive. Been more aggressive, like combine them at like 15, 16%, and then got them out. Right.

SPEAKER_01 23:26

And if you would have known it was gonna rain every single day, you would have done that.

SPEAKER_00 23:31

I would have done that. But how are you gonna know? Next year, I'm gonna be more aggressive combining them because I think what I've learned is the earlier you get them out, the more you can push yield, etc. And so I'm going to be combine them earlier. Sure. That's one thing I'm gonna do that I screwed up on. What if what have you screwed up on?

SPEAKER_01 23:52

Um I one year I had had some rye cover crop on not the not the not the fall before I planted, but the fall before that. So like a year and a half before I planted my oats. And I had apparently had some hard seed or something because we'd been in a drought, and so probably not everything germinated right away. Um and I had a little bit of rye coming up with my oats, which is a disaster for our market, is a hundred percent no go. We just can't because when we sell it as a cover crop, people are buying it because it's gonna winter kill 100%, and rye will not, so it's like sometimes we make blends with rye and oats, and that's where I think all that stuff ended up going. Um, because we can't have that contamination. Yeah, so that that is one thing you gotta remember is sometimes that cover crop will stick around for more than one year. We uh we were talking to a guy in Canada and he said their rotation is like I want to say like four years from rye before they'll plant another small grain.

SPEAKER_00 25:10

Yeah, they're really afraid of rye. Yeah. Uh and if you talk to like the Kansas wheat guys, they're deathly afraid of rye.

SPEAKER_01 25:17

Yeah. Because it gets into your wheat and then it's not a marketable product or it's stocked or whatever.

SPEAKER_00 25:23

Yep. So yeah, so it goes to uh it gets combined for us and goes to the cleaner. Um we have used all kinds of different cleaning methods on our oats, but mostly they go through a rotary screen.

SPEAKER_01 25:38

Um well, a shaker table, like a shaker table, yeah, like an old clipper.

SPEAKER_00 25:42

Uh then do they go to a length separator? Do ours right now go through length separator?

SPEAKER_01 25:48

Not currently. Um the ones they go through a gravity table and separate it kind of by like density, it'll kind of push off the lighter seeds. Or uh color sorter is our other cleaning facility that runs that. So the color sorter makes it look awful pretty. But um very consistent, but also a little more expensive.

SPEAKER_00 26:13

So it goes into the seed cleaner. We put it in packaging. The idea goes in what we sell oats in bulk totes and 50-pound bags. Yep. And then we sell them for seed.

SPEAKER_01 26:31

Yeah, and probably what would you say, 75% of our oats get used in the fall as cover crop seed, and then 25% we sell in the spring as like either seed stock for the next year or um people doing under, you know, establishing hay fields, they'll use those to keep some weeds down, nurse crops, yeah. Um, or like uh a lot of waterways and stuff like that as well.

SPEAKER_00 27:00

Yeah. So when we're using them for cover crops, oats are becoming uh really, really popular because they winter kill. And the really cool thing about oats. Um, the really cool thing about oats is like they're like the they just keep going like through the fall until they can't go anymore. And so, like, unlike other cereals that wait forever to like they'll kind of like hold back some energy and like not grow as fast. Oats just go in the fall, they'll just keep growing until all of a sudden it's gets started.

SPEAKER_01 27:38

Because they know their time is short.

SPEAKER_00 27:40

Yes. They yeah, they know the terminal cancer is coming, right? They're gonna live life to the fullest. They're gonna get after it. They don't have to worry about their uh uh Medicare because they're not gonna live long enough to see it.

SPEAKER_01 27:55

Yep. Uh um yeah, whereas rye kind of like hangs back more in the fall, gets ready for winter, and then really takes off in the spring.

SPEAKER_00 28:04

Yeah. And so we so we call those species winter kill species, and we mix a lot of oats with brassicas, uh radish, turnips, etc. And um and yeah, distribute them to our customers. And people really like those, those winter kill species also, because they have the kind of the same tendencies as oats. Yep.

SPEAKER_01 28:31

Yeah. Yeah, we have a winter kill blend that's a pound of radish, pound of turnip, pound of rapeseed, and that's probably the most common thing we fly on when we're putting it with oats.

SPEAKER_00 28:41

Um we'll be talking a lot more about that in the future episodes because with 45Z and oats and winter kill, it's gonna be flying off the shelf, at least we hope.

SPEAKER_01 28:53

We do a lot of that, like people that are putting it on before corn because they don't want to have to worry about killing rye ahead of their corn and and worrying about that iliopathic effect. Um, and then a lot of times if we have somebody that's kind of skeptical, but their landlord wants them to try some cover crops, uh, we'll kind of dip their toes in with oats that don't require a ton of management. Um and it and it's not so scary.

SPEAKER_00 29:22

Boy, this uh scoring update, this is another whip job. I need one point. So, like, it is just so very disappointing. And I of course I have a good hand.

SPEAKER_01 29:37

All in all, I would say oats, mm-hmm, oats might be my favorite crop to raise.

SPEAKER_00 29:45

Your favorite crop?

SPEAKER_01 29:46

It might be my favorite crop. It's so fun, it's like the combine doesn't have to work super hard to combine, so it's kind of quiet. It's dusty and it's itchy, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But you get past that, and uh, it might be my favorite crop. It's like it works, the cattle love them. Um, yeah, I love them.

SPEAKER_00 30:10

Alright, let's put the you want me to put the hammer down? Yeah, put the hammer down. Put the hammer down. That's what they say uh during the Chiefs game going in the fourth quarter. Mitch Holtras, he goes, it's time to put the hammer down. Put your 15-2 and get this thing over. There it is. Well, thank you for joining us. Another episode under the covers. Uh, Bill is up now. This is three in a row.

unknown 30:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 30:36

Or is it four in a row?

SPEAKER_01 30:38

Ah, might be. Yeah. I'm up 4-2, right?

SPEAKER_00 30:41

4-2.

SPEAKER_01 30:41

4-2. But it, you know what? Everybody's a winner here, James.

SPEAKER_00 30:45

Don't worry about it. So we're excited to see you next time and under the covers. Thanks for tuning in.

SPEAKER_01 30:53

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