Stockpiling

We are preparing for winter in numerous ways. One of my favorite is stockpiling grass. Stockpiling is the term used for letting grass that grows during the summer to graze in the winter. This picture is from a 60 acre farm we rent. Before we started renting it 5 years ago it was planted in corn & soybeans every year even though there were steep hillsides and bad ditches were formed. The new land owner paid to have the ditches all closed and we sowed it all in grass. It’s taken a few years to get it into good shape but now it is growing a great grass growth. With this 2 ft tall grass throughout there is practically 0 erosion and lots of carbon/organic matter returning to the soil. This is fun stuff for us regenerative ag minded folks.

I visited another farm yesterday that wants us to help them do the same thing. The ground there was yellow (no organic matter) and hard, I broke my pocket knife blade digging in the soil. We are putting together a 5-10 year plan to get this soil back in good shape to grow good grass. It was fun to come back to our farm yesterday evening and stick a pocket knife into an old hillside that had previously been mismanaged to see the deep dark soil that we’ve built over the last 20 years. This is all fun exciting stuff for this cattle farmer/soil builder!!!