Seeds in Season
Functional forage and pasture.
contributed article by Justin Fruechte, Forage & Cover Crop Specialist and Jared Knock, Business Development Millborn Seeds, Brookings, SD millbornseeds.com
PATHWAYS TO PERENNIALS I
f you are a reader of The Stockman, we can pretty much guess where your passion lies. To you, four-legged bovines that eat grass are probably one of God’s most special creations, after people, and we agree! Nothing calms the soul as much as watching cattle graze on a still evening with nothing but the sounds of cows lowing to their calves and birds happily chirping, so long as you don’t witness one crawl through the fence during the process! Whether you grew up watching Westerns, were captivated by Captain Call and Gus starting a ranch in Montana, or are a diehard Yellowstone fan (or maybe all of the above), there is a pull to see the landscape around you enter into that timeless cycle. God provides rain, sunshine, and grass to
nourish cows on your land, providing steers for beef and heifers for… more cows! Frankly, though, the reality is that there have been incentives to plow up grass and farm in many parts of our country. Undoubtedly, some of this can be synergistic to raising livestock while selling most of the land’s bounty into other markets. But did you know there are also incentives to plant cropland back to grass? Most landowners are aware of the CRP program, founded in 1985, to reduce erosion on degraded farmland and prop up unsustainably low commodity prices. But for stockmen, CRP holds a Catch-22. Land can generate revenue from growing grass through payments,
but livestock cannot graze the ground annually—yielding more grass, but no additional cattle. While the CRP program remains the most dominant and best-known program for grass plantings, several other programs can provide incentives that, luckily, don’t discriminate against our bovine friends! At Millborn Seeds, we have compiled a list for at least 12 such programs in our home state of South Dakota, with most also available in other states. Every few weeks, we dig up another program, so there may well be more opportunities than those we list!
October 2020
Here are three initiatives that are available to landowners in the upper Midwest beyond the CRP program.
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Millborn Seeds, Brookings, SD The team of folks at Millborn Seeds have roots that run deep in farming, agriculture, and in the overall respect for the landscape. They opened their doors in 1987 and continue to walk alongside farmers, ranchers, and land owners across thousands of acres throughout the Midwest.
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