Regenerative Ag Stories on the Grazing Grass Podcast

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0:00:00 - Cal
Welcome to the Grazing Grass Podcast, Episode 110.

0:00:05 - Chuck
Start small, try things, be patient, because some of the soul health principles takes a couple years to see the results of.

0:00:16 - Cal
You're listening to the Grazing Grass Podcast, sharing information and stories of grass-based livestock production utilizing regenerative practices. I'm your host, Cal Hartage. You're growing more than grass. You're growing a healthier ecosystem to help your cattle thrive in their environment. You're growing your livelihood by increasing your carrying capacity and reducing your operating costs. By increasing your carrying capacity and reducing your operating costs, You're growing stronger communities and a legacy to last generations. The grazing management decisions you make today impact everything from the soil beneath your feet to the community all around you. That's why the Noble Research Institute created their Essentials of Regenitive Grazing course to teach ranchers like you easy to follow techniques to quickly assess your forage, production and infrastructure capacity in order to begin grazing more efficiently. Together, they can help you grow not only a healthier operation, but a legacy that lasts. Learn more on their website at nobleorg slash grazing. It's n-o-b-l-e dot org forward slash grazing.

On today's show we have Charles Rolla of the Noble Research Institute. We discuss his journey from growing up in ag and what he did there and going to Oklahoma State University, go Pokes and then working for the Noble Research Institute. So we talk about his journey and what they're doing at the Noble Research Institute. Really good episode After we talk about grazing a little bit. One of his specialties is pecan production, so we talk about grazing and pecans. So that's a great topic. In fact, our bonus segment is even more on the topic of pecans and getting started.

Before we talk to Chuck, 10 seconds about my farm. We got rain last week, which was much needed. There were some tornadoes around but nothing was really close to me. Tornadoes through Oklahoma, Kansas, Nebraska. We have those people in our prayers and thoughts. We have more rain coming this week, Without the storms I believe so hopeful. On the farm lambing has started for the actual lambing season, not the accidental one, and my goats have started kidding. Actual lambing season, not the accidental one, and my goats have started kidding.

For the podcast on deck we have Eli Mack of Mack Farms. We're revisiting him in next week's episode Wonderful episode. He was on the podcast, I want to say, like three and a half years ago or maybe a touch longer, so really good catch up with him and what he's doing now. The week after we have Steve Kenyon on. Both of those are wonderful episodes. Also, we have a new Famous For sponsor, Ken Cope. Farm Fence is our famous for sponsor and we're excited to welcome them in. Enough of that, let's talk to Chuck. Chuck, we want to welcome you to the Grazing Grass Podcast. We're excited you're here today.

0:03:57 - Chuck
I'm excited, Cal, to the opportunity to visit with you. I had the opportunity to visit with you through one of the Noble Grazing Courses and had a lot of conversations with you and really enjoyed the visit. So I'm excited to be on your podcast with you today.

0:04:14 - Cal
Wonderful Chuck. To get started, can you tell us a little bit about yourself and what you're doing?

0:04:19 - Chuck
So I'm a Senior Regenerative Advisor with Noble Research Institute. I am on the grazing team, so I'm one of the facilitators for the grazing courses that Noble is delivering to the participants, and also on the development team. So we're actually working on additional grazing courses for the future, and then in my background I'm also the pecan specialist here at Noble.

0:04:48 - Cal
Oh, wonderful. Now, Chuck, you're doing a lot of things. There Is this where you imagine you would be.

0:04:56 - Chuck
Not straight out of school. I had planned on going back home and working on the family ranch. I was the first kid in my immediate family to graduate from college. Once I got into college, realized the opportunities back home wasn't as plentiful as I was hoping for, and so I had a journey through school and found out about Noble At that time it was Noble Foundation and actually went on to grad school because this was the place I wanted to work. I had applied for a job, wasn't qualified for it, found out about Noble and actually went through grad school planning to work here. The mission of helping producers stay on their property spoke volumes to me and I knew that's what I wanted to do for a living was to help producers.

0:05:43 - Cal
Now, what is your degree in and what is your graduate degree?

0:05:46 - Chuck
So my undergrad is animal science with the emphasis on ranch management. So I took a lot of ag econ classes. My master's is in ag education. I did not take the track of being a teacher, never wanted to be a VOAG teacher, hold them in high standards, but that was not for me, and so I actually worked with the department head at the time and he let me take a track, develop my own track around research, and so I went through a lot of the education courses, but most of my coursework was through different departments in the ag field. And then my PhD is in crop science. However, I worked through the horticulture department with pecans and so I went from animals to plants. So that took me on another journey through school. Having to make up a lot of prereq classes as a PhD level, taking freshman level courses was a little journey.

0:06:48 - Cal
Oh, I imagine. So Now you went to school, did you go to college with the intent of getting that animal science degree and going home at the time?

0:06:57 - Chuck
Yeah, yes, I actually went my whenever I started school. Like most freshmen, we go in with big dreams and we quickly change. The first semester or two I went in for a pre-vet. That was what I was wanting to do through animal science and realized accounting was not really what I wanted and pre-vet was way too hard for me, so I stuck with the animal science side of it.

0:07:25 - Cal
I know when I went to OSU, moved down there, and I was doing animal science with the biotechnology option, I had to take biochem and that class was only offered at 8 am or 7.30 am it's maybe on half hours, so 7.30, Monday, wednesday, friday. It was awful. It was way too early to be covering all that and I ended up dropping that class One of the few I dropped and I actually changed my specialty from animal biotech to production, not really because of that course, but there were some other things that happened.

0:07:57 - Chuck
It's funny whenever, especially as an undergrad, those early classes was awful hard and as I got to grad school, I really preferred those early classes. And I went in with a different mindset as a grad student too.

0:08:10 - Cal
Oh, I'm sure you did, yes, yeah. So you got your degree and then you decided, hey, this Noble Foundation is a place where I want to be. Is that the general area you were coming from, or where were you introduced to the Noble Foundation?

0:08:25 - Chuck
So I actually grew up in Northwest Oklahoma and went straight to Stillwater to Oklahoma State University. I got all three degrees from there and actually met my wife Funny story in the library. We were both in speech class. She has won multiple awards for speeches and we were teamed up and she would not let me speak because she didn't want me to hurt her grade. But she was actually the one that introduced me to Noble Foundation.

And while I was in working on my master's I actually worked for OSU at the Fruit and Nut Research Station and so I applied for a horticulture job here and came down and visited, done an interview and connected a lot with the person, the director that was hiring at that time, and he actually encouraged me You're not a fit for this position, but we would love to have you here at some capacity. And so I threw my my master's and actually started my PhD, had an opportunity to do a PhD because I worked at the research station and they knew that pecans was a part of Noble and had an opportunity to come down for that, but never wanted to give up my dream with livestock either.

0:09:38 - Cal
Yeah, yeah. So during this journey and I know college is a different story because I know when I was in college I worked on the OSU dairy and that kept me busy, and then going to class, and then I got married while I was down there I didn't have time or money or anything for any livestock of my own on the side. In fact, I sold all the livestock I had accumulated to go to college. When did you on a personal side get back into livestock or were you in it the whole time?

0:10:08 - Chuck
I was pretty much in it the whole time. I had an opportunity to lease land at Stillwater next to the airport, and so I was.

That's the only thing that saved me in college was being able to get out onto the land, and so I started with some stalkers. That's what my family did was stalkers. First couple of years was pretty successful, but also had dad helping, went out on my own and did not do too good. So my wife had a lot of experience with cow-calf and so we got into raising cow-calfs and so I was able to do that all through college and grad school, and so I've stayed in it, except for whenever I first started Noble. We sold out. During the 2006 drought allowed us to get out of the cattle. We still had a lot of horses.

My wife is a horse woman and so we've kept quite a few horses and then really got back into the cattle with my son being born and we're raising miniature Hereford cattle for him to show. But I fall in love with them and that's what we'll continue to do is raise, probably miniature Herefords from now on.

0:11:11 - Cal
Now, when you got that lease land and as well as growing up around stockers, were you managing those with regenerative practices? Was?

0:11:20 - Chuck
not. Had never really even heard of regenerative practices. Back then Knew a little bit about rotation but for the most part it was with stalkers. It was putting weight on keeping them out on the pasture. A lot of what my family did. We would sell truckloads.

And so we were pulling cattle at different times depending on the weights to make a truckload and so mine just fell in with dad's loads and my numbers were never consistent but it was pretty continuous grazing. But now that I've known I've learned more about high stock density grazing, adaptive grazing I look back and think, man, if we would have known this back then, how much easier my life would have been running the cattle. One of my jobs growing up was I was really good at identifying sick cattle before they got sick.

And looking back now, what I know now, I could have been a lot better than I was then, oh yeah, just those daily moves.

0:12:18 - Cal
It's so easy in my mind to identify those sick animals when you're around them every day and you're moving them, because you can just pick up when they're. Oh why is that one trailing behind? She's never there.

0:12:30 - Chuck
Yeah, and a lot of people that's not around stalkers don't realize there's telltale signs of an animal starting to feel bad, just how they hang their heads or their ears or their eyes, their appearance, and if you're out there every day moving them and everybody talks about the time, but it doesn't take long to do that, to move them and to look at them, and you can go on about your daily business. I used to spend hours on horseback riding through big pastures, looking at cattle and trying to find the sick ones. I wouldn't have had to do that if we'd managed this way.

0:13:04 - Cal
Oh, yeah yeah, when you went to the Noble Foundation, they were not exactly on the regenerative path at that time. I assume they were doing some things, but they made that switch a few years ago.

0:13:19 - Chuck
About three years ago, I'd say for me in the area that I with pecan growers now. So whenever I first started here, we were each in our own discipline and we didn't really allow to step outside of our discipline. So even though I had animal science background, I didn't work with a lot of livestock producers, um cause that wasn't my expertise at the time. But I had a lot of opportunity, that I traveled a lot by myself and so I had to answer a lot of those questions and or bringing back to the livestock consultant to to give me the answer, to give back to the producer, but it wasn't regenerative.

We yes, we did think about soil health and I've always been passionate about trying to reduce input cost, and so for me my journey is a little different than maybe some of the others. That was in the old system, at Noble. It was more about production and for me I knew a lot of the producers I worked with to stay profitable, it come down to the input cost. Where we can reduce that input cost was important.

0:14:30 - Cal
Oh, yes. So when the foundation started changing over, was that when you started a mine shift change, or had yours already started ahead of that?

0:14:40 - Chuck
I would say mine started ahead of that. I was really interested in soil health and so I'd started doing some like cover cropping in the orchards, trying to manage our orchards to reduce inputs, a few years before Noble made that change. And so it's been a little I'd say a little easier for me because I've already been started that journey. But I didn't know about regenerative and at that time Noble had a lot of research departments and there was researchers looking at the microbes in the soil or beneficial fungi, and that perked my interest because trees developed with fungi and so I was already going down that track. And then, once we made the switch to regenerative and we brought in consultants to us us up to speed, it was like the light bulb went off and this is what I've been looking for, this is what I've been trying to get out to producers. I was also in charge of research with the pecans and it really tailored the type of research as I was wanting to do to answer those questions producers were asking.

0:15:56 - Cal
Did that also that exposure, and you had already started that journey. Did that affect your practices with your own animals?

0:16:04 - Chuck
Yes it did. Did that affect your practices with your own animals? Yes, it did, because before we made the switch here at Noble, I was more continuous graze and now I'm doing the adaptive grazing. I'm not to the level of moving them daily just because I work an hour away from where my place is Right and I don't have that many animals and I'm still working on infrastructure. But I've been able to plan out the way I want to do it and eventually I'll get there. But I am as I graze. I do try to move every three or four days.

I'm now that I've taught the class the grazing, the essentials grazing class. I've learned a lot more about utilization rates and how to get the plants to recover quicker, and so even this year I've changed up how I'm grazing, not trying to take as much forage, because I was taught if you don't take it you're losing it. And now I realize the importance of leaving those plants in phase two growth don't take as much, and that allows me to get back on those pastures quicker and if I have to move to a sacrifice field or I have a lot of small pens I can put them in, like right now I have my cows in a more of a dry lot, because I'm waiting on some grasses to grow and I'm just in that phase where I've had them out for a while. They got the good stuff, the cool season. I'm waiting on my warm seasons to kick in, or my cool seasons to really take off in some other pastures, and so I'm able to hold them, but I know what to do now.

0:17:42 - Cal
So I'm able to hold them, but I know what to do now and just right, there is a mouthful because I think this, I'll be honest for me this is one of the hardest times of the year Because I see that green out there and I'm ready to get cows out and, to be honest, I think I probably put them out a little too early this year because I just get so antsy.

You realize you got some grazing out there, but then you're like, hey, we got to pull back in. And it's okay to pull them back in and hay them for a little bit so that you're not hurting your grass, so you can get out there later. And I think that's really hard to do. I know it's really hard for me because last week I was debating it myself Do I pull them back into I hate to use this term, sacrifice paddock, because that's a negative term now, but we use it that way where we can feed them, hay, it's pretty small area. So that was my thought pattern a week ago whether or not to do it Now. I decide not and I'm still grazing them and moving them. But I think being aware of that and making that move is so important and it's also so very difficult.

0:18:47 - Chuck
I agree, and that was a challenge I had last about a week ago and as I'm not, I really wanted to get out to that next pasture.

But as I walked through there and really looked at it as if I just give this another week or two weeks. Also, I was. I know my pastures very low in phosphorus, my areas very low, and so I was. I know my pastures are very low in phosphorus, my area is very low, and so I knew I needed to give a little kick, and so I'm just waiting on the rain and allow those seeds that I actually cause. I did overseed it and take advantage of what I did, but I also wouldn't know that's going to help me in the long run to bring that phosphorus up with what I planted in the pastures. It's not all about the cattle. The cattle is the tool I'm using to improve the soil health and I think for a lot of livestock producers, if they're on this journey, they got to realize that the cattle are the tool for the long-term goals that I've got to improve muscle health.

0:19:42 - Cal
Yes, the livestock is the tool. Whether you're using cattle, sheep, goats, water buffalo, bison, whatever you choose to use, they're a tool in the long-term goal. I love that being said there. Chuck, you mentioned you had broad or you had planted some seeds. Did you just broadcast them or did you drill them in?

0:20:01 - Chuck
So I've done both on my last couple of years. I do not have a no-till drill and so I have an old John Deere drill, no hydraulics on it. It works fairly good. I have limitations with it and at different pastures I will use the drill and then other areas I will broadcast. I hate to say this, but I've probably had better luck broadcasting the last two years because it's in the it seems like the fall. Whenever I'm trying to get it out it's been dry and so my broadcast has worked better. I've also done some broadcasting and then I'll follow up in a couple of small paddocks I actually brush, hogged and laid the residue on top of those, and that seemed to really help in a couple of the small paddocks. Um, oh, okay, I can definitely tell a difference there, but it was.

0:20:52 - Cal
It's due more to holding moisture, capturing that moisture and getting that seed to soil contact after broadcasting I was on a podcast every day and we were talking about broadcasting running cows afterwards to stump that in, or if the cows had run before to really bring it down. And they had asked me what works better and I said it all depends on rain.

0:21:18 - Chuck
I agree and and you witnessed, like the million pounds.

0:21:22 - Cal
Yes, a million pounds per acre.

0:21:24 - Chuck
You witnessed like the million pounds. Yes, A million pounds per acre. We just done a course in them at Wallard, Texas and the class actually wanted to see a trampling.

0:21:32 - Cal
Oh yes.

0:21:34 - Chuck
And we all had the discussion, and it was a large herd it was 683 cows, and so they done a lot of trampling in a half acre, I think it was just about an acre size pen that we put them in and it was long, skinny. It was like 50 by 100 or 750 foot long area. Oh yes, and we all. Everybody in the class was like man if we'd have thrown out seed right before we'd done this can you imagine what that would have done, because those animals would have trompled it all in.

It would have been better than no-tilling it. Oh yeah, and I would love to be able to do that. I just don't have the numbers to get to that stock density on a small acreage.

0:22:16 - Cal
Right, yes, and actually talking about your livestock a little bit more. You went with many Herefords. Why'd you go with the miniature Herefords?

0:22:26 - Chuck
Like I said, my wife is a horse person. She grew up in the show industry, I grew up showing pigs, and so 4-H and FF is near and dear to my heart, and so whenever we had our son we wanted him to experience the show industry. The good side of the show industry and one thing that the miniature Herefords allow is that they have a pre-junior class. So usually for the junior shows you got to wait until you're in 4-H, which you have to be eight years old. With the mini Herefords you can start showing at three years old and so the family's more involved parent or a sibling can go into the show ring with them until they're eight and be involved. And so that's one of the biggest reasons we looked at the miniature Herefords was to be able to start early and it really grows the kids.

And now I'm involved in the industry. I'm one of the regional board members of the association. That's a passion of mine is getting the kids involved. Oh yes, the more we can get the kids involved, and the thing I love about it, it gets the family involved with these shows, because the families with those young kids. They have to work with the animals, the kids have to work with the animals to be used to them. I'm pretty passionate about getting the when you got your miniature Herefords.

0:23:49 - Cal
Have they surprised you in any way? What do you find out? What do you feel is the advantages of them?

0:23:55 - Chuck
The biggest advantage is that this type of grazing is what they were made for. A lot of people think the miniature Herefords are a pet animal, but really they're the Herefords from the 20s through maybe the 50s. There's the short structured. The breeder that actually developed the miniature Herefords was from West Texas and on rangeland and he started breeding down his animals while everybody else in the industry bred up to a larger size, and he did it for efficiency on grass. And that's one thing I have learned is my animals do not eat as much. They don't need as much. They will get rolling fat a lot quicker than what I'm used to.

Whenever my wife and I raised lemons while we were in college before we sold out of them, and these mini herefords do not take much feed to maintain and put on weight. And the interesting thing about them, once they get fat, it's really hard to pull them off Because they do not consume near as much. When the class we tell you 2.6% of their body weight is the target, I'm guessing on mine. Mine's closer to probably a. 2.2% of their body weight is the target, I'm guessing on mine, mine's closer to probably a 2.2% of their body weight.

So it took me a couple of years to figure that out. I was putting them out and calculating my forage, and it was calculating for three days and I go out on the fourth day and, man, I still got a lot of grass here. And now that I know more about utilization rates on the grasses, I'm having to change how I calculate my paddock sizes or time I'm on the duration of that graze, just because they don't graze as much.

0:25:42 - Cal
Oh, yeah, yeah I find the miniature hereford's really interesting. My grandfather on my dad's side moved to northeast oklah, west Texas, and they always ran Herefords. Grandpa had Herefords here and he much preferred the horned Herefords and he'd put weights on their horns to curve them down. And I really like Herefords and this is really not a good reason, but it is. My wife doesn't think they're pretty, so I don't have any. I'm like, but they are. I love that red and white pretty, so she. So I don't have any, I'm like, but they are. I love that red and white. But right now I don't have any say.

0:26:16 - Chuck
My wife is a nose person and she loves their pink noses and so if you, I get this got a black nose.

0:26:21 - Cal
She's now that's an ugly one, but yeah, that makes it an easier sell when you find one with a pink nose. To convince her, you need another one.

0:26:30 - Chuck
That's right.

0:26:33 - Cal
You mentioned about calculating your forage and then when you were going out there later they weren't consuming as much as you had anticipated and I know when I went through the course that was one of the big benefits. I thought I had read about doing it but I had never really went out there, measured my forage, estimated how much I needed and then calculated pen size to get it there and then reflect upon that I was using the eyeball method. I moved cattle and sheep this morning and again it was the eyeball method, but I really that process to calculate how much forage is out there can you go into a little bit more detail about that process?

0:27:19 - Chuck
Typically we'd use like a grazing stick and then measure your height and density of your forage based on that grazing stick, or just what we try to teach in the class is you don't have to have that grazing stick, it can be just a yardstick, but really you're looking at the height of the grass and how thick it is to determine how much production you have on a per acre basis.

The one thing we have changed since you took the course is really focusing on that utilization rate a little bit more. Oh yes, and how you can utilize that utilization rate to help that plant recover quicker and actually get a higher utilization rate at the end of the year. If you're in a system that you're grazing multiple times a year, like what you guys would with in Northeast Oklahoma or areas that we get more rainfall, or on a I guess we call it a t tame pasture or improved pasture with Bermuda grass or fescue, from what you do with once you set that rate, in my opinion and you've seen this at Miami Jim Garish and I both went out the day before and we estimated what the production was, but that grass was, that fescue was so thick it actually fooled both of us. We were way low on our production per acre and we took some measurements and we actually had more production there. So that's what I like doing the measuring, but also using the eye to adjust that.

and if you remember on that during that course that last day j Jim actually went up on his production on a per acre basis because we were looking at what the cattle should have been consuming versus what they were actually consuming and realized, hey, we were several hundred pounds per acre off, and so then, that allowed us to adjust our paddock size to get to the goal that we were shooting for with each grazing event.

0:29:14 - Cal
I really think that's excellent and I think that's something I need to do more of. Now I will tell you one limitation I have Very seldom are my paddock square or rectangles, so then I've got to do some estimation to figure out how much, how many square feet are in there estimation to figure out how much, how much, how many square feet are in there.

0:29:35 - Chuck
One thing we see a lot of our class participants using different types of app to do those measurements. The ranch we were just on that we've done the course on, they'd use pasture map and um and I know we'll use those pasture maps but I never have and that was eye-opening because we told them how much area we calculated we needed and they were able to draw right on their phones and knew exactly where to go and put the fence.

And it would take a few, literally a minute, and he knew where to go to, and so technology can really help you with some of that stuff. I use different app, just a mapping system. I know Josh Gaskamp, one of the other facilitators, uses a Google map or Google pro, I think it is, allows him to do that, and then it also allows him to track where his paddocks were.

And so you know finding that technology that you're familiar with that helps you. I think that's something a lot of growers can look at, and I think that's something we are wanting to do is look at the different technologies available to give an idea. We're not going to tell you what to use, just give you an options of go out and play with these and see what works best for you.

0:30:38 - Cal
And I've been meaning to try the Google version and see how that goes. I looked at Pastor Map a number of years ago and at the time I was like this is confusing for me, I can't, and I confusing for me, I can't. And I'm pretty good with technology. I'm sure they've upgraded their program and made a better user interface. I probably should recheck into that and see if that's a potential option for me.

0:31:03 - Chuck
Yeah, I think they've just done an update just within the last couple months to make it a little friendlier and they've added more tools to it and more information. So they're continuing, just like most technology continue to evolve and get better and they try to listen to the consumer of what they need, and so I think all that stuff's going to get better and I think also, as more people are doing the adaptive grazing, you'll see new types of technology come on, that could be helpful.

0:31:32 - Cal
Yeah, I totally agree. The rate or the speed things improve is just amazing and you blink your eyes and then it's really a quality tool. So I'm going to have to look into that, or Google, because I think that would help me with my measurements of my area. I'm giving animals. I'm already walking all over it.

0:31:49 - Chuck
And that's the thing, and I think that's one of the reasons we, with our courses, try to teach the eye method. The observation is because you are out there and if you, the best tool you have is your eyes and once you can get those trained, you can make those adjustments on the fly and, as we talk about in the classes, you're not going to screw up in one day. You're not going to kill the animals, you're not going to screw up in one day. You're not going to kill the animals, you're not going to kill me. So if you mess up, it's an easy fix. The next day or the next move that you make, you just make that adjustment and you learn from it, because we all learn from our mistakes and to me that's the most powerful thing. If we can teach our ourselves to be confident in making those decisions, we we can make those quick decisions, make those adjustments and improve our own learning or our own thinking, to improve our overall system.

0:32:40 - Cal
I think you're exactly right with that. And one other thing I want to throw in from being an educator they teach us as an educator. Students need immediate feedback. With grazing it's not immediate, it's 24 hours later or you're that next move but it's very close to that initial time. So you get that feedback not immediately but really close.

0:33:01 - Chuck
So that really helps you adjust what you're doing and going forward I agree and I think, if you're seeing it, it's going to stick with you longer than, maybe more than that immediate feedback.

0:33:14 - Cal
Yeah.

0:33:14 - Chuck
You're the one that made that decision. You noticed and you're going to remember that the next year, or three or four years down the road You're like. That happened a couple of years ago. Hey, I remember that.

0:33:26 - Cal
Yeah, chuck, let's shift gears just a little bit, because I think Noble Research Institute just announced a new partnership the other day. Can you tell us what courses they're offering right now and where it's going?

0:33:40 - Chuck
OK, so right now Noble has the Noble Land Essentials, which is more based, the ecological ground measurements monitoring. How do we do that? How do we know? You know, how are we making these changes? That was actually the first course that Noble put out. The second course was Noble Grazing Essentials. That was the one that you were in Really talking, just the fundamentals of grazing. What's the importance of adaptive grazing? How do we get started? Importance of adaptive grazing how do we get started? We are currently working on Noble Business Essentials, which that's the partnership that was announced with Ranching for Profit and that will be the fundamental, the introduction of the business courses. And so we've partnered with Ranching for Profit, with Dallas Mount incorporating a lot of his materials in that, in his his course, that seven day course.

I think it's a three-day course that we're doing just kind of putting our own little twist on it, but with his blessing, and so if people are interested in improving their business instead taking the seven-day course, they can get some information out of this short one and and hopefully feeding into his seven-day. To me it's a great partnership because I know I went through the ranching for profit and I've absolutely loved it. It made me think totally different about the business side. And then we are also working on a business of grazing course, that second tier of the grazing you know, to talk about more planning of grazing, the making those decisions with grazing plans.

Looking at cost of infrastructure how do we determine if we can afford to do the infrastructure improvements or changes but also looking at those opportunities we have with our grazing. What are those triggers that tell us? Most people think of triggers as a negative trigger contingency plan because of droughts but we're trying to put a twist on that. There are other triggers. That's opportunity for you. We have a lot of rainfall in the spring. We have a flush of forage production.

Is that an opportunity that we can bring in stockers or lease cattle? It's not always a negative thing. If we're ready for it. We can pull those triggers and take opportunities. And so we're also incorporating those triggers into our next course. And then we do have, for the rest of the year, a couple of online courses that we're trying to get out and developed. So I think by the end of the year, I think of online courses that we're trying to get out and developed. So I think by the end of the year, I think our target is to have six new courses, or, yeah, six new courses available to the public.

0:36:21 - Cal
Oh, very good. Now one thing with your courses available. Where are these courses happening?

0:36:33 - Chuck
So we're taking them out outside of the Ardmore area. We're still having at least one course or class of each one of those courses in Ardmore, but we're also taking them out across Texas, other locations in Oklahoma, kansas, missouri, new Mexico, colorado. So we're going outside of Oklahoma and, as we were trying to find those right locations to get producers that are interested, to get them closer to those and try to follow up those for the next couple of years and then I think we're going to broaden on out past those states.

0:37:02 - Cal
Oh yes, For our listeners out there. Where would you suggest they start in this suite of courses you suggest?

0:37:10 - Chuck
they start in this suite of courses. So I personally, I think if you're very basic, just getting interested in soil health, I definitely encourage the length because it's going to teach you the fundamentals of the ecosystem processes, the soil health principles. We're going to touch on those in each course but that's a kind of a deep dive. And then how do you monitor it? How do you go out and monitor and see how is your soil health improving? Because it's not a number that we're looking for, it's the trends, and so every producer is going to have a different baseline numbers and see things differently. So how do you monitor that on your own property? And then, if you're a grazer, take that essential grazing course and then follow that up with the business of grazing. So we're trying to do it similar to a university class or a curriculum. We're not saying you need to take the first one to take the second one.

But if you don't have the knowledge, the second one might be overwhelming to you. If you don't have, the knowledge. The second one might be overwhelming to you and so, but I think the first essential classes, even the business course whenever it's out later this summer, that would be a great one If you're more interested in the business side. What financials do I need to be keeping? How do I keep those financials? It's not just about taxes, it's using those financials to make decisions on your own operation.

0:38:34 - Cal
Very good. I'm excited for these additional courses coming out. I thought the grazing course grazing essentials was really good. It had some things in it that I hadn't seen in some other things I had taken and just that out in the pasture opportunity. Put a million pounds in area and see what it does, measuring the forage and estimating that out in the pasture opportunity. Put a million pounds in the area and see what it does, measuring the forage and estimating that out Stuff I'd heard but I just hadn't taken the time to do. I thought was really good among everything else.

0:39:02 - Chuck
And I think one thing we know we can't do it all here at Noble and so we are making those partnerships. We mentioned the ranching for profit partnership. You were in the course with Jim Garish. We partner with Jim Garish to develop some of the grazing courses. So bring those specialists in that that have that reach, that have that knowledge and bring it to us. We learn from them. But we also can fine tune with. Our courses aren't a typical course. It's not us up teaching telling you what to do, it's more getting you to think, and so we call it facilitation. That's been a big change for us. I'm used to getting up teaching like a college professor to the audience.

We're facilitating the discussion with you guys. That's participating in the classes and we're learning from you guys too, and to me that's a big the classes and we're learning from you guys too, and to me that's a big part of one big change or difference in our courses than what some of the other ones that you see that's available is. We're all learning together. This is a journey for all of us. We don't know all the answers, nobody knows all the right answers, but we can definitely learn from each other and that's one big difference in our courses I think then you'll see from a lot of the other courses is it's not somebody up there telling you what to do. We're up there learning together and just giving you hints of what to look for or maybe giving you the confidence to go out and change what you need to change on your own operation.

0:40:27 - Cal
Very good. I am excited about the additional course offerings. Like I said, I thought the one I attended was excellent. Let's change gears just a little bit and move to our overgrazing section, where we take a deeper dive into some aspect. And in talking to you and you mentioned this today and I'd learned it the course you're very interested in pecan production and then I'm very interested in grazing. Now, along that subject, we have a few pecan trees, nothing planned. We are grafting a few and we're going to send some out. But let's talk just a moment about pecans and grazing. Are they mutually exclusive?

0:41:13 - Chuck
I'd say that they are a perfect partner and actually that's one of the reasons that I wanted to come to noble was, as I mentioned, I grew up in northwest oklahoma. Very few trees, and whenever I started working at the research station, my job was taking care of the pecans and peaches. And I realized money does grow on trees if you manage them right. And I realized, hey, I got a lot of forage grasses growing under. I can incorporate livestock in my trees.

It is a challenge because a lot of times if you're a, say, a pecan producer, on a per acre basis pecans are worth more money and so maybe you're you look at the livestock as just another challenge or headache. But I think there is a lot of benefits. You can reduce your risk if you have multiple enterprises on your property and I think, looking at soil health, there's a lot of benefits that the livestock brings to improving the soil health, to improve the production of the trees, and so you can capitalize on both enterprises at the same time and it's really I like to call it a two-story system. Oh, yes.

Where we got the livestock grazing and our fruit production or nut production above the livestock. So I'm actually able to capitalize on two enterprises on the same acre without adding much infrastructure to it.

0:42:41 - Cal
Now one thing with that. I drive down these roads and I see these pecan groves. They're not grazing anything. So when I see that, I think that's an opportunity.

0:42:51 - Chuck
Absolutely.

0:42:53 - Cal
How do you approach that landowner and pitch that opportunity to them? Because I'm assuming if they were interested in grazing, interested in livestock, they would have already figured it out. But that's not their passion.

0:43:05 - Chuck
That's the challenge. It's not their passion. They have to come through a paradigm shift. They have to realize that the livestock is going to give them something else. And the other challenge, especially here in Oklahoma, we do have. I'd say 80% of our pecan orchards are grazed, but they're overgrazed.

0:43:24 - Cal
They're abused.

0:43:26 - Chuck
And so how do you get the producer to understand and it comes goes back to understanding what the ecosystem processes are and those soil health principles. And once you get them bought into, I want to I see the benefits of improving my soil health. It's a little easier um ask of them to look outside of what they're traditionally do. A lot of the producers I've worked with that are strictly just a pecan producer.

once they realize the importance of soil health and what soil health can get them, especially reducing the input cost, because if you're managing really managing a pecan orchard, there is a pretty high cost on a per acre basis for management, for input cost and once they start seeing those input costs coming down and because of the soil health improvements, it's a lot easier sell to get them to think about maybe we do need livestock in here, the other big sell I try to do with a lot of my producers. They're not livestock people, they're not ranchers, so they don't want the headache of the animal.

0:44:29 - Cal
They don't have to own them.

0:44:31 - Chuck
They can actually get paid to let somebody else bring their animals in and graze their forage that they were spending money mowing.

0:44:38 - Cal
Oh yeah.

0:44:40 - Chuck
And once you get on that level with them and they can start seeing those benefits, it's still a struggle. I've got a lot of people that's right on the edge of putting livestock in. It takes a little time.

0:44:52 - Cal
No paradigm shift happens overnight. It takes exposure multiple times. It takes time to get there. It does. When you think about grazing and if you're out here grazing improved pasture, you're doing it this way. But when you think adaptive grazing with when you've got pecans, are you doing something a little bit different there.

0:45:16 - Chuck
So it depends on the pecan. If it's a planted orchard, say, one of the biggest challenges is if it's an irrigated orchard. A lot of people, the irrigation, with the risers at each tree, is a substantial cost, and so they're worried about damage to the riser, sprinkler risers, and so what I look at is between the trees is a perfect paddock size. When can I put up my pasture, my paddocks, my fencing inside the trees and avoid keeping them off my risers?

Now, I think, once you get into the pattern and we do this at noble we, we graze sheep and and one of our planted irrigated orchards once you realize that the animals are being moved daily or every couple days and we're keeping plenty of forage out there, they're not going to mess with those risers.

Whenever an animal gets bored, that's when they're looking at something to rub on. But if they're chasing the green grass and getting moved on a regular basis, I don't foresee there's going to be that much problems with the irrigation system. Now, if it's a native orchard, your native grove, where the trees aren't in rows, I think we'd just graze it the same way. But there's benefits of that shade. There's been plenty of research to show that grasses growing under shade are actually more digestible, higher protein or nutrient value to the animals, and the animals are stressed less, especially during the summer months, and so they actually gain better. We can still graze it the same way, but there's added benefits to both the livestock. But what the livestock's given to the soil is a benefit to our trees.

0:47:02 - Cal
Is there a certain time when we think about grazing? We don't want to graze too early on grasses. We want to give them time to mature. So they're in that phase two. Is there anything we need to be aware of on pecan trees that we shouldn't graze during a certain time or we should be a little bit easier on our grazing during that time?

0:47:23 - Chuck
So one thing is not a law but it's highly recommended right now because of FSMA, which is the Food Moderation Act, is to remove the animals at a certain period before harvest, because our nuts are harvested off the ground and what they're worried about is E coli and salmonella contaminations.

Like I said, right now pecans are exempt from that law, and so in Oklahoma we recommend 90-day removal and other. Each state's a little different. I think Texas is about 60 days. You go out east to Georgia, it's 120 days, and so knowing what the recommendations are for each state is good. But if you're harvesting your pecans, wholesaling them on the wholesale market where they're going to be processed through a processor, they go through a kill log system where they sanitize the pecans, and so there's not a big risk there. But there could be a time shortly in the next few years that we become under that FSMA law where there will be a mandate of when we have to remove the animals. The other thing is, if you've ever been involved with pecan harvest where the rubber fingers are picking the pecans up off the ground, if you have fresh manure out there, then you get fresh manure over everything.

And so just knowing that you need to have a long enough period that the manure is dry can help be more sanitary with your harvesting process, and that's one thing we are. We have a research group here at NOBO that we are looking at pecan orchards and several pecan orchards across Oklahoma and Texas, monitoring how their soil health and some of those are grazed, and so we are actually looking at as we improve soil health. Do we degrade the manure pats quicker in a healthier soil so we can reduce that time that the animals have to be removed?

0:49:20 - Cal
Oh, yes, yeah, Very good information there. One thing on your animals is there certain advantages or disadvantages to certain livestock species?

0:49:32 - Chuck
I'd say it depends on the size of the trees. We have learned if you've got small trees, goats might not be the best thing, because goats can climb trees.

0:49:41 - Cal
Yes.

0:49:41 - Chuck
And will pull the branches down If you're grafting young trees. Goats really love seem to love the new growth off the graftwood. So we've lost some trees that we've grafted and put goat here at Noble.

It was a learning experience some trees that we've grafted and put goat here at noble it was a learning experience, but I don't think it really matters on the species, as long as you're, you understand their limitations and what they're providing to you and and um, if you've got young, especially in the springtime, if you've got low, late, low hanging branches, the pecan leaves are actually really nutrition, high nutrition for the animals during the early spring, just as they're starting to leaf out. Before that leaf hardens off, pecan leaves can be up to over 20 percent protein up to 28 percent protein.

So if they so that's another forage for the animals, if they can, if they get a taste for it but if it's a young tree. They will strip the entire tree and then that sits back your tree so we have some just native pecan trees.

0:50:42 - Cal
We have done nothing to manage them. We did plant a few pecan trees, I don't know 30 years ago and we didn't do very good with those. But we've been talking. We thought, oh, let's come in and thin those trees because it's native, it's just growing up. So we're going to go in, thin those trees and we thought we'd graft a certain. So dad and I went back and looked at them and very few young trees. And once I thought about it I'm like I know why We've been grazing small ruminants for 15 years now and we didn't protect any young trees during that time. But that was an aspect that we hadn't even considered. We thought, oh yeah, we've got plenty of small trees, we'll just go back there and thin it, clean it up, get it a little bit better. But we ran goats for a number of years on this place and now we're running a lot of hair sheep. Small ruminants does affect that, yeah, and a lot of hair sheep, small ruminants does make that does affect that?

0:51:36 - Chuck
Yeah, and a lot of. That's the nutritional value of those leaves. A lot of people don't think of any of the tree species leaves being valuable to the livestock. But if the livestock gives the taste for it, man, that's what they're going to go for Chuck.

0:51:52 - Cal
It is time for us to do our Famous Four Questions and we have a sponsor for our Famous Four Questions. It's the Famous Four Questions sponsored by Ken Cove Farm Fence Supplies. Ken Cove Farm Fence is a proud supporter of the Grazing Grass Podcast and grazers everywhere At Ken Cove Farm Fence. They believe there's true value within the community of grazers and land stewards. The results that follow, proper management and monitoring, can change the very world around us. That's why Kinn Cove is dedicated to providing an ever-expanding line of grazing products to make your chores easier and your land more abundant.

Whether you're growing your own food on the homestead or grazing on thousands of acres, kinn Cove has everything you need to do it well. Whether you're growing your own food on the homestead or grazing on thousands of acres, ken Cove has everything you need to do it well. From reels to tumbleweels, polytwine to electric nets, water valves to water troughs, you'll find what you're looking for at Ken Cove. They carry brands like Speedrite, o'briens, kiwi Tech, strainrite, jobe and more. Ken Cove is proud to be part of your regenerative journey. Call them today or visit KenCovecom, and be sure to follow them on social media and subscribe to the Ken Cove YouTube channel at Ken Cove Farm Fence for helpful how-to videos and new product releases. So our famous four questions, same four questions we ask of every guest. Our first question what is your favorite grazing grass related resource? And I know you're going to say Noble Research Institute, but go ahead and think beyond that.

0:53:31 - Chuck
I would say I go back to my ranching for profit, book a lot. It might not be on the grazing side, but to me the business of grazing is so important, and so the material that I got from ranching for profit, their newsletters I read those every time they come through. So to me that's a valuable one, because to me, to be a successful grazer you have to be a good business person. Exactly right.

0:53:55 - Cal
If you're not profitable, you have to be a good business person. Exactly right. If you're not profitable, you cannot be sustainable and you won't be grazing in a few years.

0:54:03 - Chuck
Absolutely Our second question what is your favorite tool for the farm? Mine might be a little different, but my favorite tool is my skid steer. There's a lot of stuff I can do with my skid steer. I grew up with tractors and once I bought a, got a small skid steer. I realized I can do a lot more with this and control what I'm doing, so on my place my my favorite tool is my skid steer I've always wanted one.

0:54:32 - Cal
I do not have one, but that's something I've always wanted one. I do not have one, but that's something I've always wanted. Our third question what would you tell someone just getting started?

0:54:41 - Chuck
Start small, try things, be patient, because some of the soil health principles takes a couple years to see the results of. So don't be if you're planting cover crops and you have a failure, the first year doesn't mean you had a failure. Those seeds are still in the ground, especially if they're hard seeds. You might see them come back out in two or three years later. So be patient. But as you try new things, start small with it. See the successes and learn from those successes or those failures, and build off of that.

0:55:16 - Cal
Very good, excellent advice there, chuck. And lastly, chuck, can you tell us where people can find out more about you and more about the Noble Research Institute?

0:55:26 - Chuck
So if you go to wwwnobleorg that's our website you can look at the courses that's coming up, where the courses are going to be held, and there's a lot of information. We are planning to do a revamp of our website later this year, so hopefully it will be a little easier to navigate and find stuff, but all the information you need it should be right there. And then I've also have a lot of articles through the Bacan associations, through Bacan South, that I've written on soul health over the last five or six years, and so you can Google those. Just search my name and there's several articles that I've written.

0:56:08 - Cal
Very good, Chuck. We really appreciate you coming on and sharing with us today. I've enjoyed the conversation.

0:56:14 - Chuck
Well, I have too, cal, and, being my first podcast, you've made it really easy and I appreciate your comments and leading for me to get the right answers. I greatly appreciate your time and interest in having me on your show.

0:56:28 - Cal
Thank you, Chuck. I really hope you enjoyed today's conversation. I know I did. Thank you for listening and if you found something useful, please share it. Share it on your social media, Tell your friends, Get the word out about the podcast. Helps us grow.

If you happen to be a grass farmer and you'd like to share about your journey, go to grazinggrasscom and click on Be Our Guest. Fill out the form and I'll be in touch. We appreciate your support by sharing our episodes and telling your friends about it. You can also support our show by buying our merch. We get a little bit back from that. Another way to support the show is by becoming a Grazing Grass Insider. Grazing Grass Insiders enjoy bonus content, monthly Zooms and discounts. You can visit the website, grazinggrasscom, click on support and they'll have the links there. Also, if you haven't left us a review, please do. It really helps us, as people are searching for podcasts and I was just checking them and we do not have very many reviews for 2024. So if you haven't left us a review, please do. Until next time, keep on grazing grass.

Transcribed by https://podium.page