Stocker Steve
Well-known member
Greg' system is based on cheap leased fescue infected land that is not fit for row crop.
It's all about context.
Your Opportunity to Chime in on Greg Judy's Methods
- Thread starter TexasRancher
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It's all about context.
I'm not saying it is easy but it is not as hard as some people make it out to be, either.
Yes, reputation and being known is every thing. Size helps with nothing of those. For the good or the bad, every one knows wal-mart.
... and Yes, you have to cater to the land owner. No one buys land or has land with the sole intension of leasing it out for cattle. It's always a secondary, or even further down the list, item. If they bought it to hunt, your grazing plan better compliment their hunting. If they want it for recreation, your cattle better not interfere with their recreation. If they love nature, you better make a plan that compliments that.
It has to be a win-win for both parties. I see so many people try to push their cattle too hard on people rather than pitching that their cattle will compliment the land owners plans for the property.
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chevytaHOE5674
Well-known member
I lease 700 or so acres of land. NOT 1 of those acres is fenced and ZERO of the landowners have any desires to let livestock on that land even if I fenced it.
Their thoughts are making hay your in and out in a week. Livestock is a season long enterprise they don't want.
I wish I could rent pasture around here.
Their thoughts are making hay your in and out in a week. Livestock is a season long enterprise they don't want.
I wish I could rent pasture around here.
chaded
Well-known member
Also, If I understand the situation correctly, a lot of the land Greg leases is adjoined. So moving the cattle from one leased place to another is pretty easy and allows him to have them in mostly one group. I know at one point during the moving he runs them down the road though.
BC
Well-known member
Texas Rancher, I think you need to look at the Noble Foundation's work as Birddog suggested. The conditions at Ardmore, OK would be similar to Ferris or Commerce. I am an hour east of you and use rotational grazing much like Birddog. Cattle are moved to give the fields 20 to 30 days or rest. I have bermuda and bahia. I patterned my grazing pattern after observing my dairy neighbors and hay producers giving the fields rest. We cut bermuda on a 28 day schedule for optimum growth and quality. If we go longer we make more but quality is less. This past summer, I had grass but had to water some pastures from a well in the drought.
RDFF
Well-known member
Yes, this is exactly right. Greg isn't LOOKING for land that's a long ways away from his core operation... he doesn't want to have to haul the cattle from one place to the next (but as stated, he IS willing to run them down the gravel road a fair distance, if that's possible). He's fortunate that in his area (context), there's a fair number of "investor landowners" with "some rough ground" with hayfields/crop fields between the trees, and they've seen what he can do with a piece of ground, and appreciate his work and local reptutation, so they're willing to work with him, sometimes for free!
Not alot of us that can say the same for our "context", even if we DID have years of experience and a solid reputation for what we're doing. If Greg was going to have to pay "cropland prices" for the land he's grazing, I suspect he'd turn it down flat... although he also would probably try to make the case for what his improvements might be worth to a landowner if they'd be willing to reduce that rental fee so he could make it work.
Cattle can't compete with farm land here either. That's a losing battle.
RDFF
Well-known member
Here's a pretty good interview with Greg about all of how he operates... answers alot of the questions that have been discussed here.
Greg Judy - Leasing Farmland
I was looking for how he handles putting in fence on leased ground, where he retains "ownership" of the fence. He didn't address that one though... anybody have any insight as to how he makes that work? Does he reserve the right to remove the fence upon loss of the lease? Maybe have a link where he's addressing that?
Greg Judy - Leasing Farmland
I was looking for how he handles putting in fence on leased ground, where he retains "ownership" of the fence. He didn't address that one though... anybody have any insight as to how he makes that work? Does he reserve the right to remove the fence upon loss of the lease? Maybe have a link where he's addressing that?
StrojanHerefords
Well-known member
It is in his book, he says that he reserves the right to remove the fence at the end of the last grazing season of his leases.
RDFF
Well-known member
Sounds like a reasonable requirement... helps ensure a continued lease arrangement... BUT, don't know how eager I'd be to be taking back up 5 wire HT fence, which is what he said in the interview that he put in on leased ground. I don't have a powered wire roller... that'd be a help...
Stocker Steve
Well-known member
Some years ago - - Greg talked about how he went from a minimum of 5 to 7 years on his leases. Not sure where he is on EQIP - - but they had a 5-year minimum lease for fence cost share.
Greg tells a story how he once agreed to a short term lease on a property, fenced it and overseeded clover, only to have someone outbid him when he tried to renew. He pulled HIS HT fence over a weekend and the new renter got really upset.
Stocker Steve
Well-known member
Cattle can complement farmland.
Just need to scale correctly.
RDFF
Well-known member
There are crop farmers here now that are getting interested in cover cropping/soil health, and they're "eager" to have animals run on their land "in the off season"... between crops, i.e.: on the corn stalks, or better still, on a cover crop following beans in particular. The main issues there are, if it's not fenced and has no water, they're typically not willing to install it (they expect the cattle guy to do that... IF they're willing to have a fence around it at all... some might want you to use a single hot wire, and then remove it again after the cattle leave), they're not willing in most cases to tend the cattle at all (i.e.: move them regularly, etc.), so if it's a long distance from your home base, that can't work out. And they're not willing to deal with putting water on, or providing any "portable/temporary water" solutions. So it gets pretty limiting, unless they've bought into the idea pretty strongly.
The other issue is, if it's "cover crop" following a cash crop up here, there's not enough season left once that crop comes off to get any amount of cover yield... If one has a small grain crop, it's possible. Corn stalks can work "OK" for late calving cows... and if they spread a cover as interseeded like in August, that gives you a small amount of green out there for 'em... but it's still pretty limited.
I'm finding that I'm better off grazing all growing season long (using permanent, perennial species... minimal seeding costs overall... but high that first year, I spend over $100/a when I seed down, all NT frost seeded), and then custom feeding cattle on the land all through the winter, with purchased in hay. Build that soil biology.... and of course, THAT was what Greg was doing to get out of debt on a minimal budget too. The custom feeding paid his bills, till he could build a herd of his own.
Some family friends that farm not far from my house use to graze corn after they harvested. They haven't done it now for quite a few years. They said the little bit of grazing was not worth the addition soil compaction.
RDFF
Well-known member
You're in TX..., no "poor man's concrete" to work in your favor against the compaction. "Context" will play an important role... That being said, I'd be surprised if they really experienced alot... unless there were laneways or something that the herd used consistently. Of course, you get rain/mud maybe there through the winter that we don't get here (frozen), so that could be a part of it then too. Did they chop the corn residue? OR maybe, did they work those stalks in the fall after harvest and then let the cattle on them? I could see it happening some then...
Stocker Steve
Well-known member
Growing season is an issue for corn CC in MN, but most corn areas have a much longer growing season. MN folks are designing shop built row crop inter seeders.
True soil believers include a cereal grain in their crop rotation. and NT plant grain into green cover crop the following spring.
There are ways to fence a quarter in a couple hours. Still need water.
They would combine and turn them in. They would talk about how you could feel the cow trails and the impliments would rise and how the areas the cows would hang and lay would pack.
They are sharp people so I guarantee they put a pencil to it and it did not pan out. We calculated out how much corn ($) they were losing to hogs before and after adding dogs, NV, and choppers.
I've see it happen with Tifton fields too where they were losing the grass to compaction.
That's just our area. I don't see many people graze the fields. They will graze every nook and cranny around the field though.
bird dog
Well-known member
They don't seem to worry much about compaction when they bale up the stocks and sell them for $55 per roll
BFE
Well-known member
I've grazed stalks and only seen improvement. Those hoof marks act like little ponds and increase surface area to hold rain for the following soybeans. Lots of free fertilizer there too.
I feed hay in the poorest part of the field. Unfortunately I have to work those areas up, I'm a die hard no tiller. Each acre of stalks is good for 3-4 weeks of feed, and they'll still pick all winter. They'll clean up any ears the combine didn't get.
If they're conventional till farmers they may see compaction issues. It takes 4-5 years of no till to restore good soil structure destroyed by tillage.
I feed hay in the poorest part of the field. Unfortunately I have to work those areas up, I'm a die hard no tiller. Each acre of stalks is good for 3-4 weeks of feed, and they'll still pick all winter. They'll clean up any ears the combine didn't get.
If they're conventional till farmers they may see compaction issues. It takes 4-5 years of no till to restore good soil structure destroyed by tillage.
RDFF
Well-known member
Tillage (ANY and ALL tillage operations through the soil... including my "no-till drill"... which I call a" vertical till tool"... the more aggressive the tool, the more effective and complete will be its impact) destroys the soil aggregative structure, (same way it does if wanting to build a road... you "till it/shred it/mill it" so it can more effectively be compacted with compressive pressure... getting the air spaces out of it). So you've temporarily (or should I say momentarily... in soil time) "fluffed it up", but you've destroyed the supportive soil structure and carrying capacity.
Beyond that, tillage also destroys the HOME of the biology that builds this structure..., AND it physically destroys the biology itself as well. So not only have you removed the "frame of the house"... the studs that are absolutely essential to support it...................... but you've also killed a high percentage of the actual workers that built and were actively working to maintain and rebuild that house in the first place.
So it all "collapses"... literally... into what we call "compaction".
Grazing too short, and/or returning to regraze too quickly to a pasture before the grass has had ample opportunity to recover and "mature enough" so it has fully developed its root structure, will produce a similar result (even without tillage).
Beyond that, tillage also destroys the HOME of the biology that builds this structure..., AND it physically destroys the biology itself as well. So not only have you removed the "frame of the house"... the studs that are absolutely essential to support it...................... but you've also killed a high percentage of the actual workers that built and were actively working to maintain and rebuild that house in the first place.
So it all "collapses"... literally... into what we call "compaction".
Grazing too short, and/or returning to regraze too quickly to a pasture before the grass has had ample opportunity to recover and "mature enough" so it has fully developed its root structure, will produce a similar result (even without tillage).
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