Warm Season Grazing: Our Plans for This Year

In this episode of Under the Covers, Bill and James sit down at the cribbage board to talk cattle, grazing, and why more farmers may be looking at livestock differently in the years ahead.

The guys break down how they each manage cattle in completely different systems. They cover everything from grazing corn stalks and cover crops to utilizing small grains and warm-season annuals to stretch feed and extend the grazing season.

A big part of the conversation centers around warm-season grazing mixes and why they’ve become an important tool during the summer slump when cool-season pastures start running out of steam. The guys also explain what’s inside their “Cow Catcher” mix and why certain species made the cut.

The guys also dig into:

• Why more cattle herd rebuilding may happen in the Midwest
• The benefits of warm-season annual grazing
• Why they prefer millets over sorghum-sudangrass in many situations
• Using BMR varieties for improved feed quality
• The real-world challenges of establishing native warm-season grasses
• How cover crops and cattle can work together in a system

As always, the conversation goes where the cards take it.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_01 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.

SPEAKER_02 0:40

Does it screw up?

SPEAKER_00 0:43

That's fine.

unknown 0:46

No worries.

SPEAKER_02 0:47

Well, we don't understand the clapper. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 0:51

We said earlier that Tole has the clap. He's the clap expert.

SPEAKER_02 0:59

Some sort of magic. We don't get it. We don't know what it does, but it's super important.

SPEAKER_01 1:03

All right, we are live. Studio. What is the number?

SPEAKER_03 1:08

112.

SPEAKER_01 1:09

112. 112. From the shadow of the bell tower.

SPEAKER_00 1:14

Three. War. Yes. Ready? From the top. From the top. One, two, three. Yes! No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Wins. I'm still low. Yeah, but in war, it wins.

SPEAKER_02 1:32

It's higher. The rules change when you Well, it's the first time I've ever done it, so you can make up the rules. That's fun. That's a good way to play that. Yeah. We made up a new rule.

SPEAKER_00 1:44

We didn't even give any context while we were going to war. No one's talking about it. We both cut threes. Yeah, we both cut threes.

SPEAKER_02 1:50

We'll get a war. That was good. That was a good one. That's what this episode's about. War. Wouldn't that be great if that's what this episode was about? Tell me about your thoughts about Iran, James.

SPEAKER_00 2:04

By the time this episode airs, it'll probably already be done. Or not. Let's hope.

SPEAKER_02 2:12

What's this episode about? This is, we are going to talk about warm season grazing. Summer annuals. Um what else?

SPEAKER_01 2:24

That's it. Just summer annuals. Well, we can talk about warm season ates. Sure. Which might be a thing. So for March Madness, I picked cowpeas as my and I you picked oats on the first round and I lost by one vote.

SPEAKER_00 2:42

Oh.

SPEAKER_01 2:43

You didn't even know. And then you picked oats and then mung beans. Mung beans, yeah. I don't know what my other pick was. Mung beans didn't fare well. Well, cowpeas almost won. You know, the girls always seem to win that thing. I was thinking about this. I was thinking about like figuring out how to get a bunch of Russian bots to like my thing.

SPEAKER_00 3:06

And like, like, not like winning by a little, like take the most absurd one possible and then just demolish them. Oh man. Now that I told you my idea.

SPEAKER_02 3:17

That would be worth it for all the money and glory involved in the cover crap madness. Yeah. Um lot of glory.

SPEAKER_00 3:27

Lots of glory.

SPEAKER_02 3:29

Yeah, I you know what I think it is actually is I see Megan gets on there and she like talks up her promotes her seeds. And we probably don't do that as as much. We should probably do that.

SPEAKER_01 3:44

I don't. Ooh.

SPEAKER_02 3:45

Oh wow.

SPEAKER_01 3:46

Five on the top. Let's go. I don't know. All right, so we're gonna talk about warm seasons. We started with our favorite two warm seasons, among beans is Bill's.

unknown 3:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 3:55

It is, right? Yeah, I like I I am a sucker form, yeah. And mine is cowpeas. What do you like about cowpeas? I think they grow really fast, they have great growth. Um, they have all kinds of biomass. They grow in the summer when it's really hot. Sure. They're great for grazing. Um, they're in an annual that dies, it gets frosted. So yeah. Nitrogen. Oh, yeah, nitrogen.

SPEAKER_00 4:25

I forgot about the number one.

SPEAKER_01 4:27

Like they'll fix like 100 to 150 pounds of nitrogen if you let them go. That's pretty cool.

SPEAKER_02 4:31

It's a good plant. 29 2931.

unknown 4:37

You gotta be kidding me.

SPEAKER_01 4:38

So, why do you like mung beans?

SPEAKER_02 4:40

Uh similar. I mean, they they kind of act similar. Um, I've been trying to figure out how to replace cowpeas in our blends with mung beans because there's so many more seeds per pound. So I feel like per pound you get a lot more bang for your buck.

SPEAKER_01 4:59

The rumor that cattle like mung beans as much as cowpeas.

SPEAKER_02 5:03

Um, I don't know. The rumor I've heard is that in a mix they won't compete as well as a cow pea will with the other stuff. Can't confirm. This is just what I've heard. I should probably do some independent research on this.

SPEAKER_01 5:17

I recently just read an article about a guy raising giant pumpkins in annual. So, like we want to raise pumpkins in our blends so bad. If someone wants to give us 50 pounds of pumpkin seed, because we can't we've we've asked about it, but we can't seem to find just like 50 pounds. It's either like 2,000 or nothing. And we don't want to buy the little packets. We want to be enough to like make it worth it.

SPEAKER_02 5:46

Yeah, I just think it'd be a hoot to go out and see little softball-sized pumpkins out in your 160 where your cows were grazing and eating them. That'd be awesome.

SPEAKER_01 5:56

And then you could also start like a pumpkin, like a like a pick your own, like just leave it, doesn't matter. Like fight the bull for them. Five dollars a pumpkin or just five dollars. Just give me five dollars and you can pick as many go for it. Yeah, until your arms are tired.

SPEAKER_02 6:10

Yeah, we'll run deals out of the business. Speaking of which, this episode brought to you by Deals Orchard.

SPEAKER_01 6:16

Have you ever been to Deals? I have not, but I heard they're just a new sponsor to the podcast. They've chosen to sponsor the podcast. Big deal. And they're giving us all the cider we can drink during the podcast. That's what I heard. So cheers to them. Hey, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 6:32

Thanks, Chris Deal of Deals Orchard. Uh, big shout out. He's been a big fan of ours for a long time. So none of that's true, by the way.

SPEAKER_01 6:42

Yeah, we were said we need to get a sponsor of the podcast, and we're like, well, who should we get to sponsor it? And we're like, oh, maybe deals. Then they can give us some cider. And like, let's just tell everyone they're sponsoring it, and we're just gonna see if we get a sponsorship. If you say it with enough conviction, it's gotta be true. You know, if on the next podcast there's deal orchard cans here, that's how you'll know.

SPEAKER_02 7:01

That's how you know we've won. Uh I'll have my people get ahead of his people.

SPEAKER_01 7:07

All right, so this episode warm seasons. Um, so we need to start with a little context. Bill, uh, what does your herd consist of? Like, give me the give me the 40,000 feet overlook. Okay. Um and your system, I'll say. Oh.

SPEAKER_02 7:27

Herd and system. Because you can't. I have systems. Um, but uh, so we have about 70 cows between dad and I here. Um we calf them out. We usually feed them out and usually buy a few more feeders to go with them. This year we sold our calves in January, February, I can't remember. This is the first time Al's ever done that. First time in the history of Al Frederick Farm. Yeah. So um it just boy, the price is so hot. Um, it just didn't really make a lot of sense to for us to keep them. And um it freed up some space, it freed up a lot for us, which has been really nice for calving. Now I've got a little extra room there where my calves aren't so cramped and getting muddy and disgusting. And so if I can convince my father, uh I'm hoping we do it again next year because man, it works out great for our calving system. Um so yeah, uh we we run about 70 cows, uh, pasture them, you know, as much as we can. Um, we've got we we live by a creek. Um so we've got a lot of like uh the green briar.

SPEAKER_01 8:44

It is green briar.

SPEAKER_02 8:45

Yep. And so we we have a lot of like odd-shaped fields and then uh a lot of pasture that kind of follows a creek. Um and then yeah, we graze cover crops, we graze stocks all in the off season um with the raising small grains go uh wow. Um we ray we we do a lot of like grazing mixes behind our small grains. Uh run a three, thirty jack queen. Don't you gotta do it in an order? No, as long as they're like all without being broken up.

SPEAKER_01 9:31

I think we need to fact check that on the next episode. Okay, because I think I've probably like like at least we'll have to like audit the last one. Yeah, we'll go back and because I'm pretty sure I would have beat you on the last time. I I didn't lose that uh many. That's true.

SPEAKER_02 9:49

Shoot. Uh so so yeah, we do a lot of you know grazing uh annual mixes after the small grains. Um, and we'll do that all through the winter. So uh that's kind of yeah, I think that's pretty much our our operation. Cool.

SPEAKER_01 10:10

Okay, so my turn. So our primary is we have feed yard. Uh we have row crops. I recently went organic. Um we graze steers, not cows. Just bought some cows. We'll talk about that later. Um I am using warm seasons to graze steers after small grains on my organic setting. There aren't organic steers or anything. Um, so that's kind of like the context. We graze corn stocks, we don't graze warm seasons for those steers. Um so I only I only You don't ever get you don't ever graze behind like your oats or anything? Well, I do, but not like like I grazed the corn stocks. I guess I'm I'm thinking about two different systems. I grazed big steers on corn stocks and little steers on after oats. Okay. So yeah, we've grazed that. Sure. Um, so that's how we're we've used we've used warm seasons traditionally in the past uh for silage feeds, sorghum sedan, millets. Um we've had that, you know, kind of off and on since I remember, just as a forage feed. Uh we're in an area that gets really wet, like we're in the prairie pothole area, and our little area of Green County is the last to be settled in the county, which means it was obviously the best land. So uh it's some of the wettest areas in the county. So, you know, traditionally we had to replant a lot of corn. So when my we haven't really done it in a while in the past, but we would chop a lot of sorghum sedan in the in the ponds, essentially. Okay, yeah. So that's our operation, and that is how we are fitting it into our and our herd. Um, but there's more and more talk about warm seasons and annual pastures and and annual grazing. So um tell me, like, Bill, the timing of how you have used warm season pastures. Uh, maybe both native are you are you grazing native warm seasons?

SPEAKER_02 12:33

Um no. My cousin has a little bit like in like the drought years where you they release CRP or something.

SPEAKER_01 12:40

Um it it's of interest to me. Do you think it's because we just over-graze everything that we can't get warm seasons coming up?

SPEAKER_02 12:50

I don't really have. I haven't in the past at least had a lot of access to native grazing. Or do you think we're too far east? I think we're too far east. Is that just our excuse? It's either pasture or it's row crop.

SPEAKER_01 13:05

Yeah. Right. Yeah, and I I think we're gonna get like a big change happening here. Uh I am I am as excited about the cattle business as anything because I think the Midwest. Yeah, I gave my points. Yeah, no, I'm just I'm thinking about what to do. I know. Are you surprised?

SPEAKER_02 13:26

I didn't see the nine coming.

SPEAKER_01 13:28

Yeah. Anyway, I am I am as excited now about grazing and like the Midwest because I think Iowa might be the cheapest place to run a cow in the whole United States. Don't tell people that. It isn't gonna change anything. Because I think there's such massive disparities between the stocking rate is great for what the price of land is. Yes. And I think there's huge disparities. Like you hear about all like the uh you hear all about the big sales, $15,000 land, but what you don't hear about is all the $7,000 land and $8,000 land that isn't as good as the $15,000 land, but is still pretty darn good. Like our garbage is better than most people's really good land. Sure. And so um with that, how can we be using these poor lands to extract more money? And these warm season blends, geez, 10. Oh, it just looks more because it's as you go around the curve. Um but yeah, these these warm season blends are and other technology like collars are gonna be able to like we're gonna have to graze more, right? And so uh as we talk about like the herd getting larger, because it probably will get larger, everyone talks about the drought and the west and how that's affected the herd. And I think traditionally it has affected the herd. But what I don't think people are realizing is I think the herd regrowth is gonna happen in eastern South Dakota, Nebraska, Minnesota, Iowa, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Eastern Corn Belt, because I'm hearing like cows in Kentucky are unreal expensive, and you're gonna get retention from the east from places where it rains instead of places that doesn't rain.

SPEAKER_02 15:22

Well, yeah, and unfortunately, you know, with the fires this spring in the west and the south, like it's a tough place to have cows right now.

SPEAKER_01 15:32

And so here's what I think, and uh this might be getting off season off topic of warm seasons, but when NAST looks at a photo and sees all the grass get torn up, it's really easy for them to find a 3,000-acre chunk of grass in central South Dakota. It's like easy to see on the map, right? Well, 3,000 acres of grass is gone, it's torn up for row crops. What's harder to see on the grass is like your sister is seeded down 25 acres. And we have customers that are seeding down 10, 15, 20. Well, 25 acres in central Iowa will sustain 20, 20 15 to 20 cows. Right. And so that's where I think the herd rebuilding, which means all these products, these warm season products, are going to be used more and more.

SPEAKER_02 16:20

Do you remember we were we just met with a guy that we buy a lot of seed from in Canada? And his he grew up on a cattle farm in kind of poorer soil in Canada. He had what, 500 cows on like what was it, 33 square miles or something like that?

SPEAKER_01 16:39

Sections.

SPEAKER_02 16:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 16:41

Like I can't even do that math.

SPEAKER_02 16:43

It's like unbelievable.

SPEAKER_01 16:46

That's why John Dutton at Yellowstone has a helicopter. He had it on season one. Oh, but I don't know. The helicopter all of a sudden disappeared. I never saw Yellowstone. You never saw Yellowstone.

SPEAKER_02 16:58

I love Kevin Costner, but I don't love buying another subscription.

SPEAKER_01 17:03

Oh, okay. Did you write count? I did.

SPEAKER_02 17:05

Oh, so you're waiting on how far ahead I am.

SPEAKER_01 17:07

That's why you're like, gosh, James, you're an idiot. Please quit talking.

SPEAKER_02 17:11

This isn't about talking. This is about kribbitch.

SPEAKER_01 17:15

Clay and Kribbitch. Uh you're gonna have to leave the conversation while I count 20 in this.

SPEAKER_02 17:21

Yeah, you're absolutely right though. Like, yeah, much fewer acres to accomplish a similar goal, but higher priced land. Um it'd be interesting to see how it does pencil out. But it seems like it's not that much more expensive to run cows in Iowa than western Nebraska.

SPEAKER_01 17:41

No. And then you take a where I think in in our area, where a warm season mix does the most good, is what we're using it as is behind small grains. Because unlike other places, it happens to rain here in July once in a while. Last July it rained like 25 inches. I don't know how much it actually rained in last July, but it was something like crazy like that.

SPEAKER_02 18:06

Every other day.

SPEAKER_01 18:07

Yeah. Just a nice rain every day. Uh so um, so so a warm season mix that Bill put together probably five years ago, yeah, probably. Is cowcatcher. So Bill, tell us what's in cowcatcher. We change it every year.

SPEAKER_02 18:27

Yeah, it changes a little bit. The fundamentals are kind of the same, anyways, but um we've got grasses, we've got brassicas, we've got legumes. Um, try to hit a few different families uh to really maximize what it's doing. So I think right now it's a couple different millets, oats, turnips, uh, cowpeas, crimson clover, buckwheat.

SPEAKER_01 18:54

Millets. Oats.

SPEAKER_02 18:56

Yeah, that might be it. There's there's seven of them. So um, you know, you've got some pollinators in there, which is really cool. Like you get some bugs going. You get, you know, we're we're trying to attack it from all fronts. And you've got a bunch of different root uh growths, and uh the cows love it. My cows just got off of it. I pulled them off right before they started calvin there um in middle of March. And man, they they were bummed to see it go and get into a dry lot. They were not happy about it, but they were eating turnips and going crazy.

SPEAKER_01 19:32

And we use millets instead of sorghum sedan because we kind of need this cow catcher to be a little bit evergreen, and so we um put the millets in there so then if it frosts on us, uh, we don't have a prussic acid problem. Yeah. Because millets don't have prussic acid. However, I didn't know this. Last year you told me turnips do.

SPEAKER_02 19:56

Well, too much, yeah, if too much of the diet is a brassica, you can uh have prussic acid poisoning, which will kill cows. So you gotta be you gotta be a little careful.

SPEAKER_01 20:08

And with like five can five grand a piece.

SPEAKER_02 20:10

Yeah, you can do that. Yeah. But like some of your some of your warm season grass for people that don't know. Yeah, why not? Uh so what's that? Oh that's six. Yeah, dang it. Um for people that don't know, it basically releases like cyanide after, you know, like a sorghum sedan will release uh prussic acid, which it acts like a cyanide, is my understanding. I'm not a scientist.

SPEAKER_01 20:40

Have you ever seen a cow die of prussic acid? I have.

SPEAKER_02 20:43

Really? Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 20:44

Yours personally?

SPEAKER_02 20:46

I accidentally killed one. I had a like in my lot at my house, I just went in and drilled a bunch of turnips and radishes one year, and that's all that was in it. In the dry lot. Yeah. And I hate killed one. I felt terrible. Really? Yeah. You never told me that story.

SPEAKER_01 21:04

I don't like to talk about it. Remember your wedding gift to me? Yeah. It's lucky, it's a good thing I didn't kill you.

SPEAKER_00 21:12

Exactly.

SPEAKER_02 21:13

It was just one very large turnip. It was the biggest turnip in Green County. Are we gonna have a turnip contest this year again? Yeah, we need to do that again this year. Where are we? We're at 30.

SPEAKER_01 21:23

So 30 go. Yeah. Good. Um so another change that I have a cover crop this year, and I don't know if you know this, but I kind of made the executive decision to not have conventional sorghum sedan grass. We're only gonna have BMR sorghum sedan grass. Mostly because I don't want to have two skews. And no one really wants cergum, like the price spread between them is so narrow that's like Tell me the difference. Tell the people the difference. Oh, the difference. Okay. Um, brown mid rib is a more digestive. Digestible stock and leaves. And so it's more digestible, like it's a big number more digestible.

SPEAKER_02 22:07

Like higher leaf to stem ratio.

SPEAKER_01 22:10

Yes. And it's just like the stalks more digestible too. And so if you're going to use it for grazing or silage or really anything other than cover or like a food plot, you're going to want to put brown mid ribbon. And so we upsell bound brown rib rib. And when I say upsell upsell, it's like one dollar a pound instead of 80 cents or 90 cents a pound. So it's really not really that much of an upsell. Um, but uh much better product. It's a much better product. So we're gonna keep conventional round because it's just kind of a pain in the butt. And the only people that buy it are like food plot people, and food plot people have pretty big budgets, so they can just buy a BMW.

unknown 22:47

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 22:48

Well, and you know, maybe the deer is it's gotta be more digestible for deer. Sure. Is deer ruminant? Oh you don't know. I don't think so. I don't think is it like a horse where it's like a hind gut? Yeah, I don't know. Or is it like a rabbit that eats its own poop? We really need to get a fact checker on this podcast.

SPEAKER_02 23:12

All right, so what wait, hold on. We just learned about we just learned breaking news. It's just in deer are ruminants. So don't let that keep you up tonight. Um did you count?

SPEAKER_03 23:26

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 23:28

So yeah, cowcatcher has been probably our biggest. We also call it deer slayer for the for the deer people, right? I think it's called deer catcher. Is it? I always call it deer slayer.

SPEAKER_01 23:41

That's probably a better name, actually. And so we're planting most of this after small grains, but someone can put it in, like in probably like when's soonest you think you can put these warm season annuals in?

SPEAKER_02 23:53

Mid-May, probably.

SPEAKER_01 23:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 23:56

I mean, you could maybe get away with it earlier, but probably depends on your your like millets and stuff like that, are not gonna like it. Like your turnips, and they're not gonna care, they'll do whatever, but your buckwheat, the first sniff of frost, it's gonna be dead, and millet doesn't really care for it.

SPEAKER_01 24:10

Yeah, millet's very tr drought tolerant, also. It's also a tiny seed, and it's super inexpensive, too. Um, but millets uh 2025 was the year of the millet. Do you know that? Somebody decides what plant. No. Yes. I didn't know that. Well, what does 2026? What do you think 2026 is gonna be the year of?

SPEAKER_02 24:33

Mung beans.

SPEAKER_01 24:34

I think it's gonna be your mung bean. So Bill is going to plant, we're gonna do mung beans and pumpkins. Should we have like a we should do pumpkin pumpkin spice cow catcher? Oh that would be nice.

SPEAKER_02 24:50

I so that was my like a limited edition. That was my big marketing gimmick a long time ago was I was grazing cows on kale, like a forage kale. Why don't we have kale in our it's expensive? Oh, it's it's pretty good, but it's expensive. But um I thought I could sell that to like hipsters and Des Moines. Did you? And no, I I don't I don't know any. I take trips for the most um yeah.

SPEAKER_01 25:17

Don't give me I don't know any. Bill, at your bachelor party, there was more mead than there was beer. I'm pretty sure you know hipsters.

SPEAKER_00 25:26

The problem is hipsters don't have the most disposable income in the world. Yeah. To buy kale-fed beef.

SPEAKER_02 25:34

They love the idea of kale-fed beef. I thought I could charge double for kale-fed beef in the right place.

SPEAKER_01 25:42

Oh I get all these runs and I don't know what to do with them because I can't split them all up. You know what I mean? Yeah, you're a terrible dealer, is what I would say.

SPEAKER_02 25:51

This is horrible. Um, have you have you grazed natives? We were talking about that a little bit ago.

SPEAKER_01 25:58

Uh, when I first uh turned grass to so my pasture that I'm running a lot of steers and cows on right now is um is was originally CRP and I purchased it, it was CRP. So it was all natives, and it didn't have a very good payment. It was probably uh and it was like only one year in or something. They only paid like a hundred dollars or something like that. Um anyway, so I drilled in cool seasons. Um and 28 go. So I drilled in cool seasons, and as those cool seasons have taken off, the warm seasons have kind of died out. I do have some warm seasons, I couldn't tell you which ones they are because I never like let it get tall enough to run a three there.

SPEAKER_02 27:04

Did I really? Six, seven, five.

SPEAKER_01 27:06

I never let it like get tall enough for me to identify the species. Oh, I see. You know what I mean? Like it doesn't like you know, it doesn't actually like go to like sea development.

SPEAKER_02 27:15

Do they so your calves they don't shy away from the natives or anything?

SPEAKER_01 27:20

No, because like all like you know, the best grass in the world they say is in the flint ales or like hard grass in the west. Like those are all native warm seasons, you know, buffalo grasses. I don't know a lot about like the warm seasons, but they're like where they run a lot of steers is mostly places that have warm seasons. Yep. So I see that pasture does do really good in the summer because I that there's more like uh drought tolerant, right? Sure. And have you seen like an NRCS when they like they show like the roots differences between like the warm seasons and the cool seasons? Yeah, it's a huge difference.

SPEAKER_02 28:00

Yeah, I so there were there's some talk about like opening up CRP to cattle. I think there still is. So like especially with these uh these callers for cattle. I think there's probably gonna be more of it going on.

SPEAKER_01 28:29

Um getting good runs here. I'm starting to catch up. This is I just don't start very well, and then I end better. Kind of like Iowa State basketball.

SPEAKER_02 28:41

Yeah. Are you still sour about that? Three months later?

SPEAKER_01 28:45

Still sour. You know, you never will not be like, you know, the George Niang foot or you know ankle, the Joshua Jefferson ankle sprain. Like these aren't, you know, Larry Eustace drunk getting kicked out of the elite egg. These are things you just don't really forget about. Like you never get unsour.

SPEAKER_02 29:10

Uh I I don't I don't know. I we um every time I plant CRP and I have a little like I'm sucking the drill out with the shop vac. Yeah, I go and broadcast that in our pasture. Just do you ever see it?

SPEAKER_01 29:26

No. I think it's because we o like everyone in Iowa overgrazes too much. Probably right. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 29:31

I don't know. I wonder how well they compete.

SPEAKER_01 29:33

I mean They don't, that's the problem. Yeah. That's why we never see them. I'm blaming you.

SPEAKER_02 29:40

This is getting okay, so score update. I need 10, you need 16. Doable.

SPEAKER_01 29:49

If I had the crib, this thing would be over. All right. Um, so what mistakes? Well, you already talked about your big mistake, how you killed a cow one time. Yeah. Which really wasn't on a warm season, but I guess it kind of was. Turn up like you learned your prussic acid lesson, though.

SPEAKER_02 30:07

Yeah. Yeah. And so I always shy away. Like when I turn out on cowcatcher, I I usually like ease them into it in your kit. Um if I can. Otherwise, I I always give them like free choice hay, uh, something like that, just to all right. I'm not scared. You got it? You gonna win here? I'm I don't have to tell you.

SPEAKER_03 30:31

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 30:32

You count first.

SPEAKER_01 30:35

You start small. Three, huh? So you start them on free choice hay, so then you can like get them kind of filled up, right?

SPEAKER_02 30:43

Yeah, so at least they have the option of of coming back to it, yeah. 30.

SPEAKER_01 30:50

Ah I can't swear on the podcast. Well, maybe I can. It's it's your podcast. Yeah. Um, so what 12. All right, so also we have cowcatcher, but we can we can we can make anything you want. Like, and we do, we make all kinds of weird stuff all the time. Anything you can dream up, we can probably make.

SPEAKER_02 31:19

Yeah, one of the guys that I buy bowls from, he kind of came up with his own mix, which is sorghum sedan, uh, cow peas, and turnips, and they love it. Um, and we're gonna we we should probably name it after him. Oh, just just close though. Two, four and four spades is eight.

SPEAKER_01 31:43

Oh, you won by one?

unknown 31:46

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 31:48

So yeah, we will do anything if you've got some hairbrained ideas. Um reach out because we love them.

SPEAKER_01 31:55

So if someone had 20 to 40 acres that they wanted to put a warm season on, how would they start? What's the easiest way to do it?

SPEAKER_02 32:07

Um seems like the people that that are interested in doing it, what I see, because like planting in late May, early June is kind of a strange time to plant if you're not planting after a small grain, right? Yep.

SPEAKER_01 32:22

So it seems But the small grains aren't there yet, like to harvest for grain yet. Sure. So you could cut them for hay. Sure.

SPEAKER_02 32:31

Okay, yeah. We get a lot of people that are like um chopping rye for silage, and they want something to go in after that, which would be like that late May time frame. So it works in really well with that kind of system. Um, and then you come right back in with this summer annual and it can start growing, and then you're if you're planting in in early June, you can be grazing it by I don't know, early September, something like that, which is right when the pastures are getting oh, earlier than early June?

SPEAKER_01 33:05

You can be in there by like yeah, it's middle of July. Yeah. Yeah, I mean you could. Yeah. It probably depends on how many animals you have and how dense you're gonna stock it, because you gotta let you gotta let it grow. Right. Which is probably like the biggest downfall to warm season annuals, is like you can't just throw them out there the minute you plant it. You gotta let it grow and come up. And but it's a great alternative for cool season pastures, which is mostly what we have, and uh just a way to extend your grazing season.

SPEAKER_02 33:37

Yeah. I love it because it's always coming into its like peak right when the pastures are getting rank. Yep. So they they're starting to stretch over the fence and starting to dig into the ditches as far as they can, and then you turn them out into that and they're happy again. So that's probably it.

SPEAKER_01 33:59

Yeah. If you can uh reach out on all the socials about uh what your favorite warm season annual is for grazing, because there's a lot of them, it's a big list.

SPEAKER_02 34:12

And uh and tell us your biggest Iowa State basketball sob story.

SPEAKER_01 34:18

Yeah, I guess so.

SPEAKER_02 34:19

I'm not a basketball fan, so it doesn't bother me at all.

SPEAKER_01 34:22

All right. Well, we'll see you next time. Thanks for watching and listening.

SPEAKER_02 34:25

See ya. Follow us between episodes on Facebook and Instagram at IowaCovercrop, or send us an email and tell us what you really think at info at iacovercrop.com.