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 “Cover Crops are so versatile and so diverse that we wanted to come up with a comprehensive guide but at a beginner level…”

—  Keith Berns, No-tiller & Co-Owner of Green Cover Seed, Bladen, Neb.

In the latest edition of the No-Till Farmer podcast — brought to you by Yetter Farm Equipment, listen to a discussion with Bladen, Neb., no-tiller and Co-Owner of Green Cover Seed, Keith Berns, as he talks about his new book Cover Crops 101. The book explores cover crop benefits, species selection, seeding methods and much more. 

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Full Transcript

Welcome to the No-Till Farmer Podcast, brought to you by Yetter Farm Equipment. I'm Mackane Vogel, managing editor of No-Till Farmer. In today's episode, listen to a discussion with Bladen, Nebraska no-tiller and co-owner of Green Cover Seed, Keith Berns, as he talks about his new book, Cover Crops 101. The book explores cover crop benefits, species selection, seeding methods, and much more.

Keith, why don't you just give us a little bit of an overview of the book and how long you guys have been working on it and when the idea came about, maybe?

Sure. Yeah. Thanks, Mackane. Appreciate the opportunity to share about it. It's pretty brand new, so this is actually our first interview about it, so thank you for reaching out. So, yeah, we've been in business now for, I think, 16 years. And so, we get a lot of the same questions, just how do I get started? Some people, it's even, what is a cover crop? And then for others, it's how do I get started? And how do I choose the right one? And how do I pick my goals or how do I terminate it? So, it's really just a lot of those basic questions that we kept getting over and over again. And again, it's going to be nuanced answers for each one of them, but we thought, "Well, we've got a lot of good information already put together. We should write a book." And so we said that several years ago, actually, we've probably been thinking about this for maybe three years. "We should write a book and we have so much good information to get out there for folks."

And you know how that is. You talk about an idea for a couple of years before you actually implement it. At least that's how it was for us. And so this year we really made it this conscious decision to really get after it. And so, we started earlier this year, just pulling together a lot of the information that we already had on the basics of cover crops. And it really turned out to be a nice product. It turned out to be, I think, eight or nine chapters. And it's not terribly long, a little over 100 pages, but it has really good information, really nice graphics, and really is targeted for that person who is trying to figure out how to get started. And so, it takes people through the whole thought process of what is a cover crop and why would you do it? And what are the ways that you can plant it? And what are the things you have to watch out for? And then termination strategies. So, kind of takes it all the way through. So, it's a fairly comprehensive guide, but at a fairly beginning level.

Sure. Yeah. And I'm curious too, because obviously you've got tons of experience as a grower yourself. And then as you mentioned, 16 years with the business. How much of the info in there would you say is from your own farming experience versus your experience with the seed company? Or I'm sure it's a little bit of a mixture of both, but walk us through that.

Yeah, definitely. Definitely sum of both. Probably, I mean, we work with our own farm and that's one environment, that's one context, but we work with tens of thousands of people all across the country. And so, it's really probably pulling together those collective experiences that we've had more so than just what we've done on our own farm. And again, because cover crops can be so diverse and they can fit so many environments, we don't get into a lot of real specific, "Hey, if your soil type is this and your climate is this, then this is exactly what you need to do." Cover crops aren't really a recipe-driven type thing of, "Well, you take this test and then you just apply this formula and here you go." It's much more nuanced than that. And so, we don't get into a lot of super specific scenarios, but we try to lay out those principles. The principles of soil health all apply here. Well, there's principles of cover cropping that apply as well.

And so, that's kind of where it's based. Now, there are some examples in there from our own operation and from others, but for the most part, it's going to be a little bit more general information, helping people get started. And really, we do hope that it's a conversation starter that introduces people to the topic. And then if they have more questions, we've got lots more information on our website. We've got, I think, over 400 videos on our YouTube channel now that people really want to take deep dives into some of these. And the book has a lot of links to here's where you could go to get more information, scan this QR code, go to this website. So, it's a little bit of a gateway to the deeper conversations, the more in depth topics as well.

Yeah. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. That's good. So, I'm also curious, obviously working for a no-till publication and we focus on cover crops a lot too, but for me, when I'm talking about cover crops, I'm usually talking about no-till as well. How much of the book is related to no-till or is it really just focusing on specifically the practice of cover crops?

Yeah, really not a lot on the no-till part. We certainly are no-till practitioners here on our own farm. And I would say that a lot of the people using cover crops are no-tillers, but not everybody. And it's interesting, Mackane, that we came to this, and a lot of the people that we know came to this as no-tillers who then started adopting cover crops. But it's interesting because in other parts of the country, there's people that have been doing cover crops and now they're starting to think about no-till. So, that was really kind of weird for us to think about it in those terms. Now, ideally, the best thing for soil health is to do them both at the same time, because that's where you really capture so many benefits. And you'll speed up the process for many of us as no-tillers without introducing all the biological emphasis that cover crops will bring, the process to improve it was slower than what it would've had to have been.

So, when you combine the two, less disturbance and more biology, that's where the magic really starts to happen and you see really quick changes in your soil when they come together.

Yeah. No, I've noticed that too. It's interesting. I have run into some farmers who are cover cropping, but maybe not in a no-till system. And it is interesting because like you said, I'm more used to the folks who they had no-till and now they're kind of getting the cover crops going. Yeah. I mean, every farm is different like you said. While we're talking about principles of soil health, I think I noticed there's a chapter in there about grazing, and that's a big piece of the puzzle that I think can be one of the more elusive parts of soil health for a lot of farmers, whether it's logistics or just they don't have the animals or the fencing. There's a lot of moving pieces to that. How important would you say it is to try and get grazing into a system with cover crops? What's that going to do for somebody?

Right. It is important for sure, but it's not so critical that I would say, "Well, I can't graze it, so I'm not going to plant a cover crop." It certainly isn't that. It's still worth planting a cover crop because when you plant a cover crop, it is going to get grazed. If you don't have animals on top of the ground, you've got plenty of critters under the ground that's going to be processing. And really, that's what the properly managed grazing is doing. It's biologically processing that plant growth and speeding up the process of it really getting incorporated back into your soil system, making those nutrients more available, making the carbon more available. And so, livestock above the ground will speed that process up, but certainly it's not required. It's just helpful. And what we have found, and I've seen this over and over again, and it's actually the most pronounced in some of the California work we're doing in orchards and vineyards, but we've seen it in broad acre row crops as well.

The first year you do a cover crop, you probably aren't necessarily going to be super happy with the results that you get, especially if you're comparing it to pictures that you've seen of other people that have been doing it for a while. And it's like, "Oh, look at all this big growth and look at all these nutrients, look at all this biomass." But when you do it the second year and you do it the third year, those benefits and the growth that you get, they compound and they cascade. And so we try to encourage people, don't give up. The first year it's an adjustment, the whole system is adjusting to a more biologically based and that takes a while and it builds on itself. And again, we've seen this really clearly in almond orchards in California where they'll have, because I was at one a couple of years ago and they said, "Okay, right here is our first year cover crop." And it's like, "Well, yeah, that's okay. It's not great, but it's there."

And then they moved over and said, "Here's where we did it last year as well." And it's like, "Well, that looks pretty good." And then we moved on down several more blocks down, "And here's where we started. This is the third year." And it looked great. Same mix planted the same day, everything else exactly the same. It was just one year, two years and three years. So, it built on each other. And part of that building is the fact that you are now building your livestock up underground to help cycle and process all of that material much, much quicker than it did that first year when you had a little bit of biology, but not a lot.

We'll come back to the episode in a moment, but first I'd like to thank our podcast sponsor, Yetter Farm Equipment. Looking for innovative solutions to maximize your farm's productivity, look no further than Yetter Farm Equipment. We're dedicated to providing farmers with the highest quality equipment from row cleaners and closing wheels to fertilizer management, strip till units, and stalk devastators. Yetter has the tools you need to optimize your farming operation. Visit yetterco.com to learn more and find a dealer near you.

You mentioned orchards and vineyards and I think it's interesting because historically our publication has focused primarily on row crops in the past, but I've taken a few trips recently to California and covered some ag conferences out there and I'm seeing a lot more of the cover crops and the regenerative ag stuff finding its way into that orchard and vineyard space. Whereas a few years ago, I didn't see as much of that. And I'm just curious because I've gotten some more questions about it too. Do you think that cover crops really do have a good fit for that orchard and vineyard style of agriculture?

Yeah, and they absolutely do. It's different because now we're talking about permanent crops, grapevines, almond trees, walnuts. And so, you've got permanent crops growing, but you've got lots of space in the middle where they have to go in there and do all the work.

Right.

And that Mediterranean climate that California has is really quite ideal for it because they're virtually a desert during the time when the fruit or the nuts are growing. But kind of in that off season, starting typically late October and going through March, it's when they get the majority of their rain. And so, they can have a pretty nice cover crop growing out there. They can accomplish a lot of pretty good benefits. They don't have to irrigate because we all know water is a huge issue in California, but they can actually have those cover crops growing as a rainfed crop, protect the soil, improve the biology, feed those vines, feed those trees. More and more people are starting to incorporate grazing sheep through those as well. So lots of really good benefits that can happen, but they're doing that in that kind of mid-October through March type timeframe.

Yeah. Yeah. It's interesting. I think we'll probably start to cover a little bit more of that just because there seems to be a bit of a demand for it and people want info on it.

Yeah. And a lot of times as corn and soybean farmer, we look at them and go, "Oh, man, they must be making all kinds of money growing the specialty type crops."

Right.

But it's no different. Their commodities are, the prices are way down as well and it cycles like anything else. We had $8 corn four years ago or whatever, now it's half that.

Right.

Same thing with almonds and wine grapes, the markets fluctuate wildly. And so, a lot of people are doing this in response to trying to reduce inputs because as their commodity prices that they're getting for their products are now far less than it used to be, they're trying to figure out how to cut costs. And when we cut costs on corn, we're looking at, "Okay, we can shave $20 an acre here, $50 an acre there." Some of these specialty crops, I mean, they'll have $3,000, $4,000, $5,000, $6,000 an acre of inputs into it. And so cover crops, if you can replace some of those inputs, the potential is much bigger because those inputs are so much more concentrated and specialized. So, there's a lot of opportunity there.

Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Back with the book for a second, I thought another question that I'm curious about. I know you mentioned it really is kind of a beginner's guide for somebody who wants to get started and maybe this isn't something that you would try your first or your second year using cover crops, but do you guys get into planting green at all in the book?

I think we reference that as a topic of as you get more advanced in what you're doing, here's what some people are doing. And again, we link that to, "Here's where you can find more information on that." But yeah, it's certainly not where we'd recommend people to start, but it may very well be where you end up because it can be a successful operation, but it requires a lot more management. So, again, it's something that's referenced and connects you to more information.

Yeah. And have you had much experience with it yourself with planting green?

We've done some on our own farm on our irrigated. Now we're in South Central Nebraska. We get about 25 inches of rainfall a year, so we treat our dry land and are irrigated differently because it really is two different environments, two different contexts. And so, we'll do it some on the irrigated. Rarely we'll do it on the dry land unless we just have a really wet spring. We're typically terminating that cover crop much earlier on that. What we found with planting green and with our own experience and with talking to a lot of other people too, timing is super critical on that and to get it planted and then get it terminated. And so, it's a timing determination, but then it's also the timing of the nutrient application because the biggest risk, especially if you're planting corn green into a cover crop, especially if it's primarily rye or triticale or something like that, it's going to be that nitrogen cycling. And so you really have to pay attention to that.

Now planting beans green into growing rye, that's pretty easy. That's almost a no-brainer if you've got the water to do it, the moisture with... Again, with irrigated, we can do that. That's a great system. The corn, however, is where you have to apply really high levels of management to make that work effectively and efficiently. But when you do, the weed control is fantastic on it.

I'm curious, kind of a fun question. Do you have a favorite cover crop? Is there one that's been the best to you over the years?

Yeah, I've had people ask that question. It depends on the time of the year and probably not a favorite cover crop. We would probably have favorite cover crop mixes.

Mixes, yeah.

Because we don't really think that any one cover crop can do the jobs that we want to hire them to do, but a mix like for after wheat, our favorite mix would be something like cow peas and mung beans and sorghum and millet, radish, flax, sunflowers, and buckwheat. That's kind of a go-to mix for us that time of year. Later in the fall, we're going to shift to oats and barley and peas and turnips and things like that. So, we would have our favorite mixes based on those conditions or scenarios.

Sure. Yep. It's a hard question too. It's like asking somebody what their favorite food is or favorite-

Yeah.

Yep. Well, what else is going on with green cover? Anything fun on the horizon in the next couple of months as we get into the winter?

Yeah. Well, we're starting to roll into conference season, so going to a lot of different events and some that we're just speaking at or sponsoring and some we're putting on. We're doing a Southeast Kansas Soil Health Conference at our facility in Iola, Kansas. That'll be in December coming up here. We're doing a couple of what we call regenerative nexus events, one in Scottsdale, Arizona, and one in Omaha. Of course, National No-Till is coming up and No-Till on the Plains. It's the time that we travel. We get to connect with a lot of customers. Some people go, "Oh, well, you're planting, harvest. It's all over. You guys must be ready for a vacation." Well, not really for the sales team. We're just busy in a different way. So, I got a lot of that kind of things coming up.

I did want to mention on the book too, the Cover Crops 101 book, it is available for purchase off of our store, but we wanted to make this information available to as many people as possible. So, you can download the PDF completely for free. So, you go to our website, you can download the PDF version for free. So, if you're okay with reading that on your computer or whatever, you don't have to pay for it, but it is a really nice book. It's got really nice graphics professionally printed and everything. So we're trying to recoup some of those costs on the printed edition. And if you like holding a book and holding that actual paper in your hand, you can purchase that. I think they're like $15 or something. So, not terrible, but that would be on our website at greencover.com.

Sounds like a good Christmas gift for maybe those younger farmers that are still trying to convince dad to let them plant some cover crops on the farm.

Absolutely. Yeah, that's a great idea. Maybe Santa will bring that to them.

That's right. All right. Well, we'll finish with a fun question. I always like to ask my farmers and ag people on the show. What is your earliest agriculture memory?

Oh boy. Yeah, that's a good one. Growing up on a farm, just so many early agricultural memories, one of the things that I remember pretty vividly, so my brother and I farmed together, we have the seed business together. And we started farming together at a very early age. I remember this playroom that we had had this big rug, and this was back in the 70s. And so, it just had all kinds of these circular pattern type things, and that was our farm. And so I'm a couple of years older than him, but we would be farming that thing with our little toy tractors and toy trucks and all of that, going around in circles and doing all those things. So, actually, that's probably one of my first memories. Now, I'm sure that was based on things that we saw dad doing and my uncle and everybody else doing, but I just remember farming the heck out of that carpet. And we had very little erosion because that carpet lasted a long time.

There you go.

Even though we probably weren't planting cover crops back then, but yeah, it's part of who we are. We grew up there and I'm still living in that same house, where I was farming that carpet. Don't have the carpet anymore, but still have the house.

There you go. Well, now you got a nice carpet of cover crops down on your actual farm.

There you go. I like it. Yeah. I'll have to use that in our next book maybe. That's a great analogy.

Yeah. Awesome. All right. Well, thanks. This was good. And like Keith said, you can find the book online and check out some of those PDFs and see what there is to learn.

Okay. Sounds great, Mackane. Thanks everybody.

That's it for this episode of the No-Till Farmer Podcast. Thanks to Keith Berns for that great discussion. You can find a transcript of this episode as well as our archive of previous episodes at no-tillfarmer.com. And for our entire staff here at No-Till Farmer, I'm Mackane Vogel. Thanks for listening. Keep on no-tilling and have a great day.