How are you bud? It has been a while. I miss that duck soup from chicken processing day!

Thank you. I do hope that you enjoy the videos and maybe they help you! Are you farming/homesteading?

@@DowdleFamilyFarms After being stuck in the suburbs for 20 years, 3 years of planning, and 2 years looking for property and 7 months of wading through FSA paperwork to take advantage of the great rates, we close on a 320 acre property tomorrow morning. We are going to launch a grass fed/pasture-raised multispecies livestock operation. My husband and I are looking forward to using the animal science degrees over 25 years ago 🙂

I hope your closing on the property went well. Let me know how your journey works for you! It’s a lot of fun.

We will see how it goes. I think this playlist will allow people to see the journey that this paddock takes as we improve soil health out here in this field.

Thank you for watching! Do you farm? If so where?

Thank you for watching and I appreciate the kind words. Knowing your context is critical. I did not realize that it has been added to the list. A few weeks back one of my videos got 50-60K views within a few weeks. Its a lot for me! But it's amazing the number of people who said that we need to use a bale unroller like greg judy, or compost extract like this other person. Interestingly enough, because of our context, our time and energy is best spent elsewhere. Forage rape is excellent for pigs and other livestock. Where are you located? We can plant it just about yearround here in Mississippi. So far, the only native species that we see is broom sedge which isn't very useful for livestock! Hopefully we will see more soon. However, the continual rotation of cover crops on the ground will help speed up the process.

@@DowdleFamilyFarms I am in central KS and reliable rainfall is usually an issue. I have only done small amounts of cover crop planting, most not being very successful. We have pastures that are primarily warm season natives (big/little blue, indiangrass, etc). My focus has been trying to get more grazing days in colder weather and reduce my hay consumption. Our primary ventures are ruminants (goats and cattle).

@@mattcantrell5640 I would like to try some warm season native grasses. At this point, I'm a bit overwhelmed at what it would take to get them growing. I am hoping that one day I can take some of this soil that we are improving and plant it with warm season native grasses. I think the big/little blue stems, indian grass,, and switch grasses are the primary ones to grow here. Unfortunately, I do not recognize the WSNG when I see them yet. We will see how it goes.

@@DowdleFamilyFarms I have heard that establishing warm season grasses is more difficult. I read where it has to do with the fungal community they prefer for survival. I have unlimited access to seed if you ever want some.

@@mattcantrell5640 Yeah, there’s a pretty good learning curve. For now, I am focusing on other projects, but I do hope to do that one day.

Thanks for letting me know. I hope that the content is helpful in your journey.

You are so welcome. What part of MS?

@@DowdleFamilyFarms we lived just outside Neshoba county in Kemper cty but just recently bought property in Pike cty to be closer to grandchildren. We are starting over from scratch and you videos are so helpful. Most are from the Midwest or more north. I can relate to you and your pointers. Thank you so much for the info😊

@@DowdleFamilyFarms we lived just outside Neshoba county in Kemper cty but just recently bought property in Pike cty to be closer to grandchildren. We are starting over from scratch and you videos are so helpful. Most are from the Midwest or more north. I can relate to you and your pointers. Thank you so much for the info😊

Nice.

Thats great to hear. Where are you located? I’m really interested in more native grasses.

@@DowdleFamilyFarms southern Oklahoma so blue stem Indian are a go to. Just barley far enough east that there is some fescue but not much

Big and little blue stem and Indian grass are native here. I’d like to try them all here. Maybe one day I will. Did you plant yours or did it grow naturally in your fields?

@@DowdleFamilyFarms planted. Got a mix of warm and cool season grasses from Hamilton seed.

Cowpeas are good for summer. In your area barley may grow well. We don’t grow barley here much due to disease, but if we did it would be a cool season grass for us (like wheat and cereal rye). Look into adding Sunn Hemp, it is a good legume to grow too. You might try a hybrid pearl millet or a different type of Millet to grow. Forage brassicas like rapeseed (canola) will give your livestock good forage, but it doesn’t produce much biomass like sorghum Sudan grass. It isn’t very tolerant of drought either, but it might provide some early feed for your livestock.

Tillage and discing can create more long term issues with compaction. Usually, the only time I disc or till is to cover my large seeded cover crops so that they get enough soil moisture to sprout. It sounds like you are in the midwest or an equivalent dry area in the US. If so, by the time it is dry enough to disc or till, you may not have any more significant rainfall for the growing season. You might try broadcasting smaller seeded plants like clover and ryegrass. Look of "frost seeding clover" but as the ground is freezing and thawing in the winter/spring you broadcast clover seeds and that freezing thawing action in the soil helps them seed better. If you can find a decent forage for your livestock that can be broadcast on the ground without having to be covered, it can start growing earlier. You might have some success with it. In terms of warm season forage crops, you could try a crabgrass and sunnhemp and/or cowpea mix for the warm season. You wont get as much production out of it as you can with the sorghum sudan mix, but there are fewer issues to worry about in terms of prussic acid and nitrate poisoning, both of which can be a bigger issue in drought. Sorry that I can't be of more help, I just don't know your context as much.

Chisel plowing breaks up compaction and hardpan with minimal topsoil disturbance