Iowa no-tiller Rick Matt will be presenting at this year's National Cover Crop Summit. In this video, he gives a short preview of what audience members can learn from his session titled "Covers & Critters: Integrating Livestock on Summer Annuals."

Mackane Vogel: “I'm joined with Rick Matt, one of our growers who's going to be on the Cover Crop Summit program. And Rick, why don't you just tell everybody a little bit of a preview about what you're going to be talking about at the summit this year?”

Rick Matt: “I'm just sharing my experience with adding covers and then various forms of livestock, and growing summer annuals as our little niche, and how that fits in with that. Try to touch on a little microbes deal, but usually when it gets too technical, my brain goes blah, blah, blah. So, hopefully it's pretty layman's terms.”

Mackane Vogel: “I was just at our national No-Tillage Conference in St. Louis and talked to a lot of different farmers from different backgrounds, and regions out there. But one thing I heard over and over again is folks saying, "Man, I've been doing cover crops and no-till for a long time, but grazing and the livestock part of it is something that a lot of folks want to add to their system, but just haven't quite figured out the logistics." I guess what's your advice to beginners trying to get into that part of it?”

Rick Matt: “Take it slow, on growing it, especially with cattle right now. It's pretty risky to jump into that, and add it, but when it corrects, I think it'd be a really good time to bring it in. But start on a small level, see what works. Sheep's a little easier just for manhandling them and moving them around, it's just a little easier. And then, I guess, to me, the benefits we've seen is just starting to diversify your crop rotation, has started to enhance your crop growth, and to me, that's a big plus if you could even start doing that ahead of the livestock.”

Mackane Vogel: “Absolutely. Well, we're looking forward to your presentation, and those of you listening, feel free to go to covercroftstrategies.com and you can find out more about the Cover Crop Summit there and sign up for free”.

To view his full presentation, plus several other videos from various cover crop experts, sign up for FREE at covercropstrategies.com.