I hear a lot of situations where children come back to the farm, they want to try some
of these practices, but they're hampered a little bit by that older generation not wanting
to try these changes.
Well, I feel a lot of the time I have to, Dad, we've got to slow down a little bit.
We've got to see if this will work first.
He said, let's walk before we run.
And so I have to keep telling myself that.
Welcome to the 345th installment of Ear to the Ground, the Land Stewardship Project's
podcast on family farming, regenerative agriculture, community food systems, and local democracy.
I'm Brian DeVore, editor of the Land Stewardship Letter.
Back in 2019, when Northeastern Iowa farmer Rick Mott had knee surgery, he decided to
spend his recovery time learning a musical instrument.
Well, that didn't work out so well.
It turns out it's difficult to take up a task like that while lying on one's back.
But what he did spend his recovery time doing was reading Dirt to Soil, Gabe Brown's book
on how he used regenerative, soil-healthy practices to build ecological and economic
resilience on his North Dakota farm.
It turned out to be time well spent.
Rick was struck by Brown's use of diverse cover crop mixes and intense management of
livestock grazing rotations to build the soil's resilience and productivity.
Today, Rick and his son Damien are utilizing various regenerative practices on their hilly
farm in Winnipeg County.
The farm had already been utilizing no-till and cover cropping as part of its row cropping
system, but after reading Brown's book, they began experimenting with highly diverse
cover crop mixes of summer annuals that consisted of as many as 12 species.
They've also adjusted the grazing rotations they utilize on permanent pasture as well
as in their stands of summer annuals.
They now move their cow-calf herd as often as once a day instead of weekly.
Most recently, the Mott's have added sheep to their enterprise mix, which they feel can
not only diversify their income stream, but help them better utilize the forage available
on some of their rougher ground, which is in the heart of the driftless region.
We're starting to see some significant payoffs.
For example, during the drought of 2023, a time when the Mott farm received less than
6 inches of rain between May and September, they were able to actually increase the productivity
of their grazing system, despite having less pasture than in previous years.
Damien and Rick recently attended LSP's Driftless Grazing School at the Jordan and
Rochelle Meyer Farm in Southeastern Minnesota.
During the two-day school, the Mott's, along with other participants, got first-hand experience
with fencing and watering systems, multi-species grazing, soil biology monitoring, and financial
planning.
Besides Rochelle and Jordan, grazers such as George Heller, Nicky Meyer, Clifford Johnson,
Zach Knudsen, and Jeff Juchain shared insights from their own operations.
The Mott's told me they came away from that event energized.
It's clear that they're open to trying out new ideas, something that can be particularly
important as a new generation enters the picture on a farm.
Too often, the older generation can be a barrier to innovation and pushing the envelope a bit.
That's definitely not the case with this father-son duo.
After the grazing school, I chatted with Rick and Damien about their soil health journey,
what benefits they've seen so far, and how it's helped open up opportunities for a new
farming generation.
Rick started our conversation talking about an epiphany he had while lying flat on his
back.
In 1993, we was our first year in no-till.
A few years after that, we started experimenting with cover crops, mostly rye.
And then I went on to double species like turnips and milo, teff and sorghum.
I like to say I was looking for the holy grail.
And we kept playing around on and off with that.
We did soybeans and milo for several years in a row.
In 2019, I had knee surgery.
I was going to play an instrument or learn how on my back, but that was pretty tough.
So a neighbor gave me a book, Dirt to Soil.
And that just connected the dots.
That instead of two species, let's go eight, let's go 12, let's go more.
So since then, we've been going up to 12 species.
By summer annuals, we seeded half the ground down and rotated it with corn one year and
a multi-species mix a second, which we also graze.
And last year, we did some fall swath grazing with that.
You have a cow-calf herd or what do you have?
What's your livestock situation?
Yeah, so we have a cow-calf herd, feedlot.
We used to have thousands of pigs up until a few years ago.
And last December, we added a small sheep herd, which we were quite pleased how that's
working out.
Do you infertile finish?
No, we were just custom finishing hogs, big confinement units, and don't miss them at
all.
Yeah, what don't you miss about that?
The smell, the work, going in the barns.
I guess I'm just going to say it.
I felt like my lungs would cringe after my whole life going in and out of these barns.
And I don't experience that anymore.
We did buy a few pigs to raise out on grass for the freezer, and they were absolutely
delicious.
Well, it sounds like that really inspired you to read about Gabe Brown and what he was
doing.
And so you've tried to replicate that a little bit.
Is your ground, is it pretty hilly or is it kind of prime corn ground?
Or what's the layout there?
Yeah, so we're in the driftless area of Iowa, very hilly.
We're about 200 feet elevation top to bottom.
We do have bottom grounds, it's a fantastic ground.
Our hilltops is fantastic, but in between it's a pretty rough ground.
We have 300 acres of managed woodland.
We're working with that.
So it's pretty steep context.
And so the grazing has been working out well for us.
So what's the, right now, what's the mix of, how much percentage of it is crops and how
much is pasture or grazing?
Well, counting the summer annuals, we're right at about 500 acres, so half corn, half summer
annuals.
The summer annuals are rotated with rye and sometimes oats and peas in the spring.
Pasture, that's a bigger ask.
It's all over, I would roughly guess, maybe six, 700 acres of pasture.
How big of a cow herd do you have?
We're just shy of 400.
You know, it ebbs and flows with the years.
So you're about a thousand acres in total then?
Just a little bit more than that, but some of it's further away in CRP and that's coming
out.
We'll need to figure out how to get livestock down there.
All our beef is hormone free and it's for the European market.
So you've got somebody you're marketing through?
Yeah, so we have a third party verifier that certifies us every year and we ship it to
Omaha where it's processed and then shipped overseas.
Damien, I wanted to ask you, you said you're 33?
So when did you come back to the farm and I guess has some of these kind of diversifying
a little bit and getting into some of this regenerative practices, has that given you,
I guess, an entry into farming that maybe you wouldn't have had otherwise or has that
gotten you interested in it in maybe a way you hadn't been before?
Yeah, well, so I came back to the farm in 2015 and I was interested in coming back even
before we started really implementing this, going down the soil health journey, regenerative
egg practices.
But like dad says, in 2019 we seeded down, it was 18 acres to a summer annual grazing
mix and we really liked what we saw.
Well, in 2020, 2020 was the COVID year.
That spring we were looking at marketing grain below our cost of production.
So we really jumped all in, we're going to rotate all of our ground and a two year rotation
to this small grains summer annual mix and just really loved what we saw, allowed us
to really do the grazing that we wanted to do, increase that carrying capacity of the
ground and just really loved what we saw soil health wise.
Can you talk a little bit about the soil health, what you saw as far as the soil changing a
little bit?
Learning every day about it, what we can do, increasing the organic matter that our soils
hold.
So the pasture ground that we did sort of before that 2019, 2020 period is we did weekly
rotations with the cattle and moving from that to like a daily rotation, just all kinds
of grass and we're able to do a lot of things grazing wise, like for instance, we're able
to take cattle grazed all the way out into the January timeframe.
So really, I guess I'm most excited about the profitability that it gives to our operation.
Just that much less feed that we have to harvest and grow and that much that we're letting
the cattle and now these small ruminants do for us.
Oh, that's right, because you have the sheep now.
I don't know if we talked to see you've added sheep to the operation recently.
Is that correct?
Yes, this past December, we bought 47 bred ewes.
I was really excited.
I've been trying to convince dad for a number of years and he relented and I'm really excited.
I can really see the future that sheep will bring to our operation.
What is it about sheep that you like?
Well, it really does come back to profitability, but also the grazing interaction between the
cattle and the cows.
There's that saying that sheep make cattle pastures and cattle make sheep pastures.
Well, I think grandpa back in the 1960s had some sheep on the operation and then he sold
them.
So we've been grazing just cattle for a long time.
It's time to introduce that multi-species back into the grazing.
So I've heard that phrase before too, that sheep can make pasture for cattle.
How is it, specifically what does that mean?
What is it that you're seeing where they're able to make that pasture for them?
Well, granted, I'm still learning and have only really been at this a couple months,
but just the way that the sheep more utilize the forbs, the cattle, the grasses allows
those species not in competition with each other to grow and allows more perfect conditions
for like a more balanced approach and not letting any one type of grass or any one species
of legumes take over your pastures.
Do you actually mix them in the same paddock at the same time or are you doing it at different
times?
Not yet.
We have given it some consideration.
Right now we're managing it separately.
Ideally, about a 30 day window between grazing the cattle and the sheep, but it's something
we might explore further down the road.
What's your market for the sheep?
Right now we'll take the lambs to the sale barn, ideally late December, January timeframe
trying to market a 70 pound lamb at that time.
Is this kind of scenario you have set up now for you folks, is it providing on farm, full
on farm income for both of you or is there off farm income that has to kind of help you
guys out or what's the situation there?
No, it's taking care of both of us right now.
My wife does work off the farm, but she doesn't contribute to the bottom line of the farm.
Farms its own business.
It's been working well.
We've also coming off some pretty high corn prices.
The beef is fantastic right now.
Knock on wood that we can carry through this, but right now it's quite comfortable.
That's really good to hear because that's pretty rare these days.
So the livestock must really make that possible I would think.
Yeah, like I said the hormone free market has been a real treat to work with.
I guess I have an issue with USDA, maybe I shouldn't say that out loud, but why doesn't
the American consumer have that option?
Why does it have to go to a different country to be purchased that way?
That's a really good point.
Did you have acres that you actually were in crops and you converted to now are in pasture?
Yeah, so that's been kind of an ongoing year over year.
The steeper ground, the smaller fields were just slowly seeded down one by one and anything
with shallow soil were seeded down to permanent pasture.
What was that process like?
Did you, that must, it's a little bit like, it's a pretty dramatic shift for something
that's been in row crops for years and years to then put into a perennial system.
Was there a certain practice or a certain kind of cycle you went through or scenario
you went through to do that and kind of what was the reaction of the soil?
So there was a little incentive.
So the first time we did this we did it on our own and working with our local NRCS we
found out that there was a program that would help with paying for the cover crops.
And so we went whole hog and we did half the acres.
And it was a little nervous watching the people drive by and wonder what the heck we're doing,
but it's been positive all the way.
As far as how the pasture soils have responded, I haven't actually sampled the pasture soils
but we are sampling the tall species cover crop mix and we've had a soil scientist out
several times who are taking microscopic samples and we have abundance of mycorrhizal fungi.
And so that was my aha moment that we have that and so we're trying to promote that fungus
and to bring on the nematodes and the protozoas.
I'm really interested in this last year.
So work, this is, things have switched.
We are, even in this field, we had a hard time doing this grazing school because it
was raining so much.
So the faucet has turned on after being off for a couple years and I know you were in
drought situation as well.
But it sounds like you had, because of some different situations, you had less acres to
graze last year but because you were able to change your management, you were still
able to, sounds like increase your productivity.
And that's kind of what that was kind of being preached at this grazing school was you can,
there's no magic grass, there's no magic, you know, silver bullet, but there is good
grazing management.
It sounds like you were able to kind of take advantage of that a little bit last year.
Yeah, so we had a situation where we walked away from 200 acres of pasture that was about
eight miles away from our main operation.
And the story behind how we initially rented that is in 2020 we had this farmer who was
retiring or scaling back a little bit approached us about buying his herd and also renting
his pasture and we gave it some consideration and we actually initially turned him down
and he said, no, I'm not taking no as an answer.
I'd like to work with you guys.
So we signed a three year lease, purchased all of his cows and was a fantastic gentleman
to work with, some really nice pastures.
And as those years progressed and changing those daily rotations just on our own ground,
realized that we're sitting on a lot of grass and despite those drought years.
And one of the things that Meyers mentioned here at this grazing school was a three legged
stool and one of those, the legs of those stools being family, life interaction, quality
of life.
One of those legs is soil health and one is profitability.
And if you have any one of those legs get out of balance, you're going to tip over.
Well, I think we had our soil health and our quality of life legs not in balance on this
stool and getting that soil health leg taken care of on our own farm and realize what we
can do with our grazing allowed us to take those 80 cows that we were having on this
pasture, bring them back to our own operation, which gives us 200 less acres we have to maintain
and the fences that go along with it and sort of improve that quality of life and family
leg of that stool as well.
Did you do some different kinds of rotations on that?
Because you were kind of getting putting more cattle on less acres.
So we did you have to change some of your rotations to adjust to that?
Mainly just combining those those herds, more managed, heavily intensive grazing, and then
also using the summer annual species and stockpiled forages grazing as well allowed us to bring
those 80 head end with really mean there was some impact, but not as much as I anticipated.
Well, that must have been a little scary.
Yeah, so I think daily moves really helped.
So we were probably, I don't know, three to five day moves before and we've made a conscious
choice to try and hit the daily move.
To be honest, maybe we're at 1.5 daily moves, but I think that's made a huge difference.
Last year, the state's whole con was out and we had deep green grass growing and right
across the road, it was brown neighbors ground.
So yeah, there was definitely it was visual last year.
Do you think some of that is just over the years, being able to build that organic matter
and to the point where it could get through a really dry period like that you kind of
you kind of invested in that in that bank a little bit?
Yeah, definitely.
Also the multiple species.
So I guess for instance, growing oats and peas together, I don't have proof of this,
I haven't dug it up.
But what I'm hearing is the roots go four times deeper than each species by itself.
And so with the diversity in the pastures, I think, you know, what you said, I think
our soil health has been rising and everything is becoming more resilient.
Give me some context of what the situation was like for you last year.
Like how much rain did you get during that prime growing season?
Do you remember what the how parched you really were?
We had four inches Mother's Day weekend.
Okay, three and a half.
And then after that, boy, it was not much at all.
One point seven inches until was it September sometime.
That's it.
Basically less than six inches the whole growing season.
Correct.
You still were able to have that it was a pretty you had some really green forage and
pretty established.
Yeah, it's almost embarrassing to admit that we had grass left over in the fall.
Our intention was to do more late season winter grazing on it.
But we also tried to control the mud.
So December was quite muddy for us.
We did our swaths grazing December 26 to about the end of January.
That's when we had the deep snow and 20 below zero weather.
And then we were back in the mud again.
So we didn't want to tear up our pasture.
So they we left them out.
That must be if you're able to get through a year like that.
And now we're having plenty of rain.
I will say I was talking to a lot of course, I was talking to all the grazers here at the
grazing school.
Nobody was super complaining about the rain.
You know, crop farmers are in a whole different situation if it's all you're doing is crops.
I saw some pretty flooded fields on the way down here.
But it sounds like it's almost a win win situation because in a year where we're getting so much
rain, you are able to put more into that bank, so to speak, you know, for future years when
things aren't so good.
And that last year was proof, really proof for you guys.
Yes.
And part of it is we're stuck in our pasture in not in anticipation of these drought events.
But if they happen with these regenerative practices, we're able to increase that carrying
capacity even on these drought years where you if you plan for those drought years, then
that's your baseline and everything is extra than that, I guess.
Yeah, you've seen how bad it can get.
That's pretty bad.
Six inches, less than six inches during growing season.
You see it, they can get that bad and you can still come out ahead.
That's something that you're not always planning on getting 32 inches or whatever it is every
year.
No, every year is different.
Every year has its challenges.
And we learned that on a year with that six inches of rain during the growing season is
through these practices, daily moves, incorporating some summer annuals into our mix, we can really
do a lot with our grazing and not be impacted by the drought conditions.
When you do something like this, did you guys get any ideas for some some things you'd like
to try?
It sounds like maybe multi species grazing is something that you're diving a little bit
more into or did you get any other ideas that was a big focus today was multi the past couple
days was multi species grazing, but also putting things in context was a big one.
Sounds like that's something you guys think about a lot.
Yeah, I got dad convinced to get some sheep.
Now I'm trying to get them to buy some goats.
So how's that going?
What do you think?
I would like to try it.
So I said we have 300 acres of managed woodland and I think goats could really do some wonders
in there and multiflora rose and honey honeysuckle.
Well it's really interesting what the Myers have done with that.
And one of the things that really struck me is they talk about how the goats transport
biology from the woods into the pastures a little bit.
Yeah, and even the sheep we have are will eat the same things as goat, they just won't
go high.
And so we're starting to see that I'm just impressed with the really light touch they
have on the ground itself.
You know, you can run quite a few head over it and they're not impacting it like cattle
do.
I just have to say one more thing with the excessive rain this year, it sure feels good
to have your ground seated down.
It's a good feeling and you know that it's going to turn green when the sun comes back
out, you know, it's great.
Yeah, that is a must be a cool feeling.
You're hearing it all night and you're like, if you're a corn farmer on low land, you're
like, oh man, what's it going to look like?
But you're like, well, I got it seated down and this is going to turn green.
And you know, we do have some rural crop, but we're pretty careful with how we manage
that and it is no tell, but we don't farm steep ground anymore.
Going back to the goats, you know what, the one thing I learned at this was if your fence
can hold water, it can hold a goat.
So you just got to get one of those fences that does that and you'll be all right.
Just one last thing on the grazing school.
I mean, did you, this was this valuable for you guys to connect with?
We had people from a pretty wide area, a lot of people from this area from Northeast Iowa,
Southeast Minnesota, Southwest Wisconsin, but also from a little bit.
I know George Heller, he, that was interesting to see what the situation he's working with
was very sandy soil, very poor fertility.
You know, his stocking rates have to be much less that kind of thing.
But was, was that of value to you guys to kind of get in the mix and see what a lot
of other people were thinking?
Oh, absolutely.
Coming to an event like this, I got pages of notes filled in my notebook, but also even
more valuable than that is the connections that you make at these events.
It's good to have people that are trying the same practices that are you, that you're doing
on your farm and realizing you can learn from each other's mistakes and successes.
You don't have to learn and try everything yourself.
Yeah, great group of people.
People that come to events like this really want to do what's right for the land.
And I can't say good enough things about the people here.
Good connections.
And I'm really excited about George Heller.
He's having a field day this fall.
I'd really like to go because what he's doing on that kind of land is proof that it can
happen anywhere in the world.
And that story needs to be spread.
We can reverse this desertification that's going on.
And that excites me.
It is exciting what he's working with there.
I mean, it's one thing if somebody's just got everything going good, but he's been able
to make a go of it and some sounds like some pretty rugged country there.
And the other speakers here too have been fantastic.
I just impressed all the way around.
So Rick, how old are you?
57.
So this must be really satisfying to have the next generation come back to the farm.
And you guys are not only kind of doing, you're not only kind of making a go of it, but you're
able to kind of be very innovative.
And I don't know, it's neat to see that you're coming to something like this.
You're still both learning.
You know, you guys are able to learn together.
This must be kind of fun for you.
What's shocking is at my age, I can still learn.
But I'm blessed to have a family that wants to learn, a family member that is part of
this and that's truly blessed that way.
Damien, is that, I mean, is it kind of fun for you?
So I'm super blessed.
I hear a lot of situations where children come back to the farm.
They want to try some of these practices, but they're hampered a little bit by that
older generation not wanting to try these changes.
Well, I feel a lot of the time I have to, Dad, we got to slow down a little bit.
We got to see if this will work first.
So I'm very blessed that Dad's willing to try these new things.
You got him to do sheep.
I think maybe the world is wide open for you.
Like I said, we're trying the goats next.
Get that fence.
He said, let's walk before we run.
And so I have to keep telling myself that.
For more on building soil health profitably, see the podcast page for Ear to the Ground
episode 345 at landstewardshipproject.org.
There, you'll also find links to other podcasts in our Driftless Grazing School series.
If you have comments or suggestions about this podcast, contact Brian DeVore at bdevor
at landstewardshipproject.org or you can call 612-816-9342.
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Thanks for listening.
And we'll see you next time.