Patrick Reed

There’s many key benefits to cover crops and goals that growers need to consider.  

 

Chuck Rice

There are a couple farmer in Kansas. One has been no-tilling with cover crops. His organic matter is now 6%. He’s changed his system! 

 

Dusty Weis

Welcome to the FARMSMART Podcast, presented by Nutrien Ag Solutions, where every month we're talking to sustainable agriculture experts from throughout the industry.  

As the leading source of insight for growers on evolving their sustainability practices while staying grounded in agronomic proof, FARMSMART is where sustainability meets opportunity.

 

Ryan Adams

We don't just talk change. We're out in the field helping you identify products, practices and technologies that bring the future to your fields faster. I'm Ryan Adams, Director of Sustainable Ag Systems.  

 

Sally Flis

And I'm Dr. Sally Flis, Director of Sustainable Ag Programs, and when we talk about sustainability, very often we’re talking about how a grower’s actions or practices can help the environment.  

But it works both ways… the environmental improvements can help the grower out and the agriculture practices in the field as well. 

When we invest in promoting soil health through practices like cover crops, we are laying the groundwork for better yields, lower input costs and even potential new revenue streams.  

 

Ryan Adams

So in this episode, we wanted to look back at a couple of really insightful conversations we’ve had about cover crops and soil health.  

And we’re going to start with Dr. Chuck Rice, distinguished professor of soil microbiology at Kansas State University. He has a great framework for growers that he calls the “Holy Trinity of Soil Health.” 

And over the course of his almost 40-year career, he’s seen how the definition of “sustainability” has evolved over time.  

 

Chuck Rice  

When I first started in this business, we were looking at productivity and how to become more efficient with nutrients, avoid nitrogen loss, mostly from a productivity standpoint. Then things became more concerning with the environment, we were looking at water leaching, or nitrogen loss by denurification, or gaseous losses, mostly from the lens of efficiency of nitrogen fertilizer. And then, climate change became apparent. Then we were looking at carbon sequestration, nitrogen as a greenhouse gas, and now we're kind of in the era of soil health and how can we improve soils to be more resilient to climate change, how it can help with productivity, the supply nitrogen. So, it's changed quite a bit over that period of time.

 

Sally Flis  

Chuck, do you feel like this is more of the same or we're really getting into different practices, and programs, and solutions, than when you were first looking at just nutrient use efficiency and yield?

 

Chuck Rice:

It's looking from a different lens in some aspect, nitrogen efficiency or nutrient efficiency, you could argue we're doing the same thing. But, it is through a different lens. It's looking at productivity along with ecosystem services, with sustainability, and a much bigger picture, really looking at the whole system. And that's definitely changed the way I have thought, the way I conduct research. And we can talk a little bit more about that later.  

But, it's looking at what a farmer does day to day. He or she is looking at not just nitrogen, or just at corn variety, it's really putting the package together and how it relates to the weather, to the economics. I guess in a science research perspective, we're probably advancing to the farmer level.

 

Sally Flis  

I like that idea. I often push back when we're having discussions or we often touch on discussions of a lot of these programs that we deal with out there are pushing single practices. Just do cover crops, just do no-till. So, it's great to hear that transition of research into more of that holistic systems level thinking, because what we've seen is as you implement single practices, you're changing all kind kinds of different parts of these biological systems. 

So, as you've worked in soil health, we talk to our employees, and our grower customers, a lot about soil health. How do you define soil health, and what are some measurements that you like to look at as you think about soil health? 

 

Chuck Rice

Yeah. So, there's lots of different definitions. I won't go through the official definition, or two, or three, official definitions.  

But, I think, of it as a way to improve the quality of the soil so that we are a more resilient production system, and also sustainable, or more efficient, with the water and the nutrients. 

Part of my research has been on the native prairie. And so, I have the advantage in that some of the aspects of the prairie, which is very resilient, it's extremely water efficient, obviously it's nutrient efficient, and climate resilient. How can we take the elements of that native prairie and apply them to ag systems?  

So, what, I guess, I've been known for is what I call The Holy Trinity of soil health and there's three aspects. So carbon is the first step. And carbon's important because... Again, I'm a microbiologist. So, carbon is the food for the microbes. So, by having more carbon in the soil, then you're going to have more microbe activity and that's going to affect nutrient availability and efficiency. 

But then, the carbon also helps build soil structure. We use aggregation as a metric, but you could talk about water infiltration.  

But, the neat thing that why it's a trinity is that carbon feeds the microbes, microbes through activity, fungal high fee help build aggregates that builds the structure, allows for better water infiltration, capture that, and also stores carbon. 

So, they're tightly interlinked. And so, what we're trying to measure is then those three aspects. Now the chemists could say, "You should measure pH you should measure this and that." But, really from my standpoint, those three things are critical. 

 

Dusty Weis

So Chuck, you’ve published some pretty big papers on the impacts of farm practices around nitrogen management and nitrous oxide emissions. Any big insights you can share from that? 

 

Chuck Rice

Sure. Early on it goes back to one of the first questions, but when we first started doing work on no-till systems, we saw that no-till had increased N2O emissions.  

I was at this meeting that I'm at now, we've got 32 years of no-till with fertilizer and compost added, and we're seeing a change in the soil system. As you get better porosity, better aggregate distribution, we're now seeing that no-till in nitrogen management that we're seeing the same or less nitrogen emissions from no-till systems than with conventional till. 

So, that's been an important observation and it's really that long term research. We're seeing a change in soil dynamics. The other thing is that we've done work now in, I guess, the four R's or the five R's, however you want to characterize it, but in tilled systems and early no-till placement is important, timing is important. But, no-till allows you to, I guess, maybe accentuate those four R's. Placement becomes even more important. Timing becomes even more important. So, that now if no-till is the same amount or less into emissions, we can further push the system to become even more efficient and reduce those gaseous losses. 

Different sources are important. Some are going to have more losses, particularly volatilization as ammonia. So, urea anhydrous is really key. But, I think, the opportunity is now is if we get the price right, can we use some slow release products that would help extend the time when the plant needs that nitrogen? And that's, again, really important. It's a substitute or another way to get the timing right. 

And so, the important thing, it's not one single product or one single strategy, there's multiple strategies. That's the good news and bad news. So, you can't say, "Do this thing," and it's going to work everywhere. There's multiple strategies. So, that makes it more difficult to prescribe, but it also gives more opportunities for the farmer to decide what best fits their operations. Whether it's surface applied, or timing, or injection, or dribble, there's lots of different options that fits their operation. 

 

Sally Flis

Chuck, you mentioned that project was a 32 year project, that makes it even harder for us to help growers make the best decision in the field when it takes that much time to really see how that system is going to develop. But, why is it so important to keep measuring a project over a long time span like that? 

 

Chuck Rice

So, a farmer is changing their practices, changing their soil environment. We've been doing this no-till now for 30 years. And if we would've done just a three-year study, like I said, we were seeing these changes in the soil environment. So, what we expected to see after year three and now after year 30, the dynamics have changed.  

We've built up organic matter, so now that we're getting differences in nitrogen availability, and that's what a farmer would see. I'm working with a couple farmers in Kansas. One has been no-tilling with cover crops. His organic matter is now 6%. Where a lot of our, I guess, conventional farmers are looking in the 1%, 2% range. He's changed his system. Different microbe activity, nitrogen availability. And so, that's the value of these long term experiments is, if we were to start it now, we wouldn't have that knowledge to help that farmer that's been doing these high intensity cover crops, working under the excellent soil conditions at 6% organic matter.

 

Sally Flis

How does a 6% organic matter in a managed system compare to some of the places you're looking at native prairie organic matter? Just thinking about what we hear on the sustainability side of getting back more native prairie. Not that that's a bad thing. But, when we're really intensively managing a system and can get up to organic matters as high as 6%, how does that compare? What have you seen comparison to that native prairie? 

 

Chuck Rice

So, that 6% is at the surface. So, it's higher than the native prairie in Kansas. Now, if you're in Illinois, it's maybe close to that. But, for Kansas local conditions, he's above that.  

So, his farming system is continuing to evolve. And so, now he wants to know how can he take advantage of that organic matter, that nitrogen, and adjust his end rates, but he doesn't want to mine it either. Yeah. He's in a different world. 

And again, that's why the research is important. The other thing though, what he's doing, and he's changing his system even now, he's now looking at perennials in the rotation. So, he's going to go to annual crops for five or six years. And now he's, actually last year, just planted a perennial mix. And he's going to graze that. Now he's integrating livestock back into that system, and he's going to let it go perennial for three or four years and then go back into annual crops. 

Why that is important is that he's changed his fertility organic matter, his physical structure, in the surface, six inches, 12 inches. But, with the advantage of that perennial system, now he can rebuild nutrients deeper down to make it even more productive, which is more like the prairie. 

So, a lot of the changes that we've seen has been mostly in the top six, 12 inches. But, adding that perennial in that rotation is getting more like the native state that you have that whole profile. Which is really important, because as we see the weather changes, weather variability, these drought cycles, we need a better profile for water for root distribution to help us work our ways through that drought.  

And then, when we have these intense rainstorm events, we have these six inch rainstorm events, then that water's going to penetrate and then can conserve in that soil profile to help support the annual crop.

 

Sally Flis  

It is quite a system to think about from top to bottom, how all these different changes really impact things. You think about a place like Kansas where you're worried about replenishing aquifers. And as we tie all these things together, that's really what we're building in these systems is that resilience, not just for that individual field and grower, but really for, at some point, whole region type scales.

 

Dusty Weis

To that point, the kinds of practice changes we’re talking about here… it’s not like wrenching a part out of your truck and putting a new one on. An ecosystem is a complex thing, and a change here creates changes everywhere in the cycle. How does your research account for that, and how do we drive home the point that we need to look at farming practice change from a holistic perspective?  

 

Chuck Rice

So, I'll give you a couple examples. One is that, we just finished a paper that we did analysis of long term no-till studies globally. And what we saw was that when you implement no-till, then you also conserve water. And so, what we saw globally in all these 80, 90 studies was if you're only single cropping, no-till, it's a missed opportunity, because you have the extra water, it allows you now to double crop. It allows you to add legumes in the system.  

You can do that with a tilled system, but because of the timing you got to till after the harvest and then replant the crop, you've lost your moisture. You've also lost 10 days or so, which can be really critical. 

And what we saw with the no till is that because that water savings, and the timeliness to plant, then you can double crop, and then you can make more effective use of the water and the nutrients. 

And so, it's that systematic approach. That's the advantage. Again, I'm a big proponent of no-till, but it's looking at that opportunities. And can you then push the system by adding compost or doing these rotation systems. 

On the bad news or case is that what we've seen is that with conventional till we were worried about phosphorous sediment loss. And so, no-till captures or reduces that sediment loss. But, now it raised an issue. Now we’ve got water soluble phosphorus running off.  

And so, the question is, "Which is worse? Is it that sediment phosphorus loss, or that soluble phosphorus going off into the rivers and streams?" So, you fix one problem and you created another one. 

But however, I guess, my challenge is then we got to quit thinking at a single field. Can we manage the landscape? You're not going to have zero emission coming off that field, whether it's gas or runoff. Can you then start working on edge of the field practices to help solve the water soluble nutrients going off, create buffer strips, or other things that we can do to look at a landscape approach rather than a single field. 

So, that system is not only internal on that field, but now unfortunately, or because it's more complex, then we have to go much more at the landscape, which then means we have to bring in other disciplines, engineers, ecologists, to look at those issues.

 

Sally Flis

Chuck, we talked about a 32 year long research project that you've been involved in. What is your favorite project that you've worked on through your career? You've had a lot of projects and a lot of interactions with individuals. What really stands out to you as a favorite from that career? 

 

Chuck Rice

Oh gee. Yeah. I don't know if there's one favorite. The research keeps me going, excited, and passionate.  

I guess I would point to a couple things. One is: Working on the prairie, it's given me a different perspective and, and how I can apply those prairie principles to ag systems. 

The other one that's ongoing right now is really the soil health partnership where we're doing some research on these metrics that I mentioned, but the fun thing is, and the challenging thing is, that we're working on farmer's fields. So, we're working on large strips, 40 acre plots in that sense. And it's a joy to see some of the research being applied, but it's also humbling and challenging, because the farmers bring me back down to reality.  

And that's good, because then hopefully when I'm thinking systems, they're working at living it day to day, and it makes me think a lot harder, because it is complex and that's what they're working with. But, I love the field days. I got some great students that are very interactive with the farmers. And so, to see that application and the back and forth between the people living it and what we're trying to do to help them.

 

Dusty Weis

We heard there from Dr. Rice how cover crops can play a role in promoting soil health.  

But that can be a big practice change for growers who haven’t tried it before. 

So if you’ve thought about incorporating it into your practices, we have an expert cover crop seed dealer who can answer some of the trickiest questions about that practice. 

And that’s coming up in a minute, here on the FARMSMART Podcast.

 

Dusty Weis

This is the FARMSMART Podcast, and I’m Dusty Weis, along with Sally Flis and Ryan Adams… And Ryan and Sally, I know you guys know that I've got a little piece of land in Southwest Wisconsin where I rent out some acreage to a local grower.  

Well, last spring before he got planted, we had some of these really big washout rains that have been causing problems for just about everybody for a while now. 

And when I was out there a couple of days after that, I looked out over my fields… and of course it's Southwest Wisconsin, so there's all these big rolling hills… and there was just a massive washout. We're probably talking about several tons of topsoil just washed clean off the field and sitting there at the ditch along the gravel road at the bottom.  

And frankly, it kind of bummed me out because that's a really big waste and it's just going to keep happening again and again.

So I've been spending a lot of time lately thinking about how I could convince him to try cover crops. Of course, I'm kind of dicey about approaching a grower about changing his practices. They don't always really take well to that.  

But what are some of the barriers that are holding back growers who don't want to try cover crops in a situation like this?

 

Sally Flis 

Dusty, I'd say it’s a great example of what we see in the field all the time, where when we go out and ask growers to do these longer term conservation practices like cover crops or reduced till or no till or edge of field treatments, they don't own the land and they don't know how long they're gonna be cropping that land and who's actually gonna make the investment into that cover crop going on the land because there is an additional cost to it.  

And while there are other advantages over time, those advantages can take three to five years. And so if as a business person, you don't know if you're gonna be around on that acre three to five years from now, you may not wanna spend the money.

 

Ryan Adams 

And I think another one of the common things we hear from growers is a bit of the unknown about planting a cover crop when they haven't done it. And in the course of a grower’s life, they at best hopefully get 40 years to try putting this stuff out in the field. And there is some risk associated with changing your practices. 

When you have a recipe card that you know works and returns for you every time, it can be extremely uncomfortable to want to try a new practice like adding a cover crop.

 

Sally Flis

So really early on in the podcast, we had a great discussion with Patrick Reed, Vice President of Sales at La Crosse Seed.  

And from his view in Wisconsin, he’s seen a lot of growers coming around to the idea.   

 

Patrick Reed:

Well, with the recent advent of cover crops, which I would call about a decade now, what we've focused on that entire time and have really ramped up efforts recently, is on the training and education, the features and benefits of cover crops, what to watch out for, what to look for, how to do it properly. And make sure that our customers and their customers understand all the parameters of cover crops and how to effectively implement them into their crop program. Another key thing to be honest with you is making sure we have good seed supply. And that's always something in play. The products that are used for cover crops are grown in the United States and Canada, and based on mother nature and weather supplies might be good one year and might be very difficult to access in other years. So you have to plan ahead and make sure we have seed covered for the coming fall each year. And we want to make sure that these products are what customers demand, high quality, clean seed that's not going to cause them any additional problems down the road. 

Dusty Weis:

Patrick cover crops to a lot of folks might be a new practice at this point, but they've actually been around for a really long time and you guys have been on the cutting edge of them for a really long time too. So can you give us a little more background on La Crosse Seed and your operation there? 

Patrick Reed:

Sure. So La Crosse Seed is a small seed distributor, basically covering East of the Rockies. We have about 20 sales representatives in the field, working with ag retailers, companies like Nutrien. Our focus products are forage, cover crops, turf, native seed, and corresponding products that go along with those markets. And we don't sell corn and soybeans, so we're what we call a small seed distributor. And in 2019, we're a hundred years old, based here in Lacrosse, Wisconsin. We have four other facilities spread out through the Midwest. One in Madison, Wisconsin, Sioux Falls, South Dakota, Ankney Iowa and Lansing, Michigan. Those outlets help feed products and seed to the local geographies that they serve. In this business, timing is everything, having seed available when they need it. So with those locations placed strategically across the Midwest, we're able to get our customers seed quickly. So that's a big focus. 

We've been working with Nutrien and the legacy companies for many years, well before my time here at La Crosse Seed and they continue to be a very strategic partner for us in this business. And as Nutrien has grown over the last number of years, we have grown with them.

Sally Flis: 

Now to get into the meat and potatoes of cover crops with you, when should a grower start planning for cover crops. And is it ever really too early to start thinking about what their cover crop management plan should be?

Patrick Reed: 

It's not, and in a perfect world, they start planning ahead at the same time they're planning the rest of their farming operation, which perhaps is late summer fall of the preceding year to plant the cover crop. 

Sally Flis: 

What are some of the things the grower needs to think about or visit with their crop consultant on as part of that cover crop management plan, as they're thinking about what you're saying is a cover crop, really for next fall, not even necessarily a cover crop for this fall?

Patrick Reed: 

Well, first off, they need to understand what their crop rotation is, what fields are going to go into what next year, and that will help dictate what cover crop species would be best suited to be planted prior to that cash crop the following spring. Additionally, and a very large thing would be to understand what goals you want to accomplish from that cover crop on your farm. There's many key benefits to cover crops and goals that growers need to consider when implementing a cover crop on other farm. A few examples might be sequestering nutrients, compaction alleviation, reducing runoff of nitrates and other fertilizer products. There's a long list of benefits that cover crops do provide ultimately in many cases could be an enhancement over time to your corn and soybean yields. But those things initially need to be considered by the grower as key aspects of what they want to accomplish on their farm. And then by planning ahead, you can actually implement those cover crops into your entire farm program for the year, perhaps adjusting your variety or hybrid selection based on what cover crops you want to plant as well as rotations.

Sally Flis: 

So if a grower is in the situation where they still want to plan a cover crop, this fall, obvious their pesticide applications have all been done and that kind of stuff. What are opportunities around varieties or different mixes of species that they could select if they had a pretty aggressive herbicide management program that might restrict the use of the more common sort of rye or wheat cover crops being planted?

Patrick Reed: 

Well, their herbicide program definitely has an impact on what they can plant and when they can plant. In fact, the herbicide program is another example of something that needs to be pre-planned into your system if you're going to plant cover crops. One thing that's gaining in popularity is interceding cover crops into V3, V4, corn, to do that you need to have a clear direction on what herbicides you're using, so you can enable yourself to even do that. For the most part right now, depending on your geography, there's plenty of time to plant a cover crop, but to use the common things we all hear about like radishes and Crimson Clover, and some of those other products that are often used in a mix along with a small grain, it's getting a little bit late, even North of IAT right now.

Patrick Reed: 

You still have a little bit of time, but we like to see 68 weeks of good growing conditions before some real hard frost. And depending on the year we could be okay right now, maybe not, but as you go South into the mid South, in the Mississippi Delta and so on, which cover crops are really gaining in popularity there, there's plenty of time to use those. But for growers further North there's multiple small grain options they could still plant now things like winter rye, winter treated kale, and so on would be good options to still plant.

Dusty Weis: 

When growers are weighing whether to make a practice change, “Return on Investment” is always going to be a part of the conversation. Certainly there’s a few different ways to look at ROI… you can look at the revenue that you might make from certain carbon sequestration programs, and that’s certainly worth considering… But the long-term gains for soil health… a lot of folks would argue that’s where the real ROI is… how long do those benefits take to really kick in? 

Patrick Reed: 

There's far more momentum when talking about things like carbon programs and other payments. Cover crops have been a big thing now for many years, each year it's gained an intensity, but now I would say in the last year with the new administration, all the talk of climate change and all that has really ramped up efforts again, and now the advent of carbon programs have become more mainstream, so there's a lot for a grower to think about. The benefits I mentioned earlier all have an economic benefit to a farmer or to the environment, but when it comes to all of the carbon payments and maybe other government support that we're seeing in cover crops, there's more opportunity now than ever for a grower to offset seed costs and planting costs of cover crops due to some revenue source. Whether it be carbon programs, whether it be a government program, a watershed initiative that's making payments and so on, it's ramping up quickly.

Patrick Reed: 

The key though is for a grower to understand what it is he wants to do. And I would never recommend a grower planted cover crop just so he can make money or get the seed cost offset by some program or carbon program. There's so many good benefits to cover crops beyond that.

Tom Daniel: 

So most of the time, Patrick, when we think about return on investments, we think about investing a dollar and getting a dollar back. In fact, in the earlier part of the podcast, we were using a Farm Journal survey that said growers were looking for at least a $20,000 return on the whole farm from farmer practice change around sequester carbon. So when we think about cover crops, there's a lot of initial upfront cost, so you've got the cost of the seeds, you've got the cost of maybe equipment needs or special services, even going all the way to the termination of the crop in the spring, so we've got an increased costs associated with that. It's hard to pencil out the short-term benefits of using some of these practice changes like cover crop, but where do you see the longterm benefits of cover crops?

Patrick Reed: 

Well, certainly there's a lot of data and evidence to show that if you enter in cover crops on your farm, it's not immediate, you're not going to see returns quickly, but there is a long-term benefit to using cover crops in terms of corn and soybean yields. And then all the associated benefits, the society viewpoint of farmers has value, society nowadays knows what cover crops are all of a sudden in the last six months, I would say two years ago, if you asked somebody in Minneapolis or Chicago or St. Louis, "Hey, what do you think of cover crops?" "What's that?" Now, they know they're hearing about it. And then all of the food companies and so on that are getting involved in sustainability. They want their food to be viewed as grown sustainably, so they're looking for opportunities here, whether it be no till cover crops, or other things to have their products represented and grown in a sustainable way that they can market to consumers.

Patrick Reed: 

When you really sit down and pencil it out that first year, I'll admit it's difficult to say I'm going to even break even. That's why I always tell growers, if you're going to get into cover crops, start small, start easy, make sure you have a good experience with it, see how it works on your farm and expand from there.

Sally Flis: 

Patrick, as you're out in the field interacting with growers and crop consultants at field days, or just doing farm visits to check on how these cover crops have worked out, what's the long-term benefit that growers or crop consultants get most excited about when you're talking to them about successes in the field?

Patrick Reed:   

Well, certainly overall improving their soil health and preserving their soil for future generations. I think all farmers understand that, there is no doubt that continuous tillage and minimal crop rotations have an impact on the soil and they want to be stewards of their land and take care of that soil and improve it back to maybe perhaps where it once was. That's something they all recognize and find value in, at this point in time, though, it's got to make sense on their farm short term as well. So it's all about understanding what works on your farm, being cautious to a point, making sure that you're not damaging any opportunities you have for corn or soybean yields or anything like that, which are rare, but can happen.

Patrick Reed: 

And overall growers want to do the right thing and they want to take care of their land and they see that this is a way to do that. And then with all the advent of carbon programs and all that, there is some excitement that once that's all figured out that that'll be a nice advantage for a grower to jump in, in a greater level and have that confidence to use more cover crops or no till or whatever the case may be.

Sally Flis: 

Yeah. So next question would be around one of the dirty words we get into here around that carbon opportunity is the additionality piece. So one of the things that's required by these carbon markets is it's got to be a new practice to that field within the last three years. So we often get growers saying to us, well, what if I stop doing cover crops or I stop doing my no till or go out and till up all my fields for the next three to five years, just so they can sign up for a carbon market? We try to respond to them that there's not the value there to do that because of all these longterm benefits. What's your response to growers that would consider or bring up that argument of, well, what if I stopped doing this practice in order to get into something like a carbon market?

Patrick Reed: 

I think if that is a plan that they have, they're doing it all for the wrong reasons. They're already doing the right thing, they're already using a cover crop and providing the benefits that it has and by stopping that, just to get a payment out of it, that's really the wrong reason to get into it. I don't think that's a good idea. You're not really accomplishing anything if you go back and stop doing the conservation practices that you've already implemented, just to have access to a carbon program.

Not only are you wasting all that investment that you did for the last five years, you're going backwards and have to reinvest it again. Most of the time, the carbon credits are not necessarily going to cover all your costs when you factor in the issues that you may have on your yields of your corn and soybeans, or what have you. That doesn't make any sense to me. 

Dusty Weis:

So Patrick, as growers start to plan ahead for after the harvest… If cover crops are something they’re interested in implementing, that’s not something you can just flip a switch and decide to do. Like, you should probably reach out to your crop consultant and have that discussion pretty quick here and get a plan in place?  

Patrick Reed:

Yeah. Absolutely. And one thing I would say help out your ag retailer, if a farmer shows up at the ag retailer on September six and says, "Hey, I need 20,000 pounds of cover crop seed," without warning, he may or may not have it for him, thus delaying and causing problems there. Give them a heads up, let them know that you're planning on doing this. It also allows you to perhaps get better pricing, to get a more optimum product. Maybe it's a certain mix that you really should be using and so on, timing is everything, thinking ahead, planning ahead, whether it be the fall before, even just a few months, I'll take that. 

 

 

That is going to conclude this episode of The FARMSMART Podcast. New episodes arrive every month, so make sure you subscribe to The FARMSMART Podcast in your favorite app and visit (nutrienagsolutions.com/FARMSMART) to learn more. 

The FARMSMART Podcast is brought to you by Nutrien Ag Solutions. 

And the FARMSMART Podcast is produced by Podcamp Media, branded podcast production for businesses. podcampmedia.com. I’m Dusty Weis. For Nutrien Ag Solutions, thanks for listening.