Cattle grazing cover crops added to Riskedal Farms

LELAND, Ill. — Cattle are now grazing on a field of cover crops at Riskedal Farms.

“After wheat, we planted a 12-way cover crop blend on July 4 and we had about ideal weather conditions, rain, but not too much,” said Stephen Riskedal who farms together with his dad, Brad, and his grandfather, Steve.

Stephen started buying cattle weighing about 500 pounds at the beginning of September.

“I have about 70 head and I’m still buying,” he said. “The total number I’m going to get is a moving target because we’re trying to estimate the amount of forage out there and how much they are eating per day.”

The cover crop blend was specially designed for the Riskedal 140-acre field.

“I’m a farmer dealer with GreenCover Seed and we specialize in custom seed blends,” Stephen said. “We look at what the previous crop was, what the next crop will be, when we are planting and the climate zone because the company is based in Nebraska and they ship to all 50 states.”

Stephen is planning to graze the cattle from 100 to 120 days.

“I’m anticipating I will get them to 750 to 800 pounds, but there is a lot of estimating there of how long the crop will last and the rate of gain,” he said. “I’m taking a lot of notes and learning a lot.”

“Stephen took the time to put together a good corral system for handling, sorting and treating if we have to,” Brad said.

“If someone wants a pen of all black steers, I will be able to sort them that way,” Stephen said.

The cattleman is talking with local farmers who might be interested in putting these calves into their feedlots later this year.

“I’m going to keep some of them to put in my feedlot,” Stephen said.

Once the cattle are finished grazing the field, the farmers will strip-till the field in the fall for next year’s corn crop.

“We are expecting 3 to 3.5 tons of manure per acre,” Brad said. “So, that is another benefit.”

“I think there will be opportunities of less herbicide use because there is going to be a lot of material left on the ground,” Stephen said. “When we leave extra biomass on the ground, we suppress more weeds.”

Stephen already has plans for what he will change for next year.

“The sorghum has prussic acid issues when it frosts, so I’ll lay some of it down with a swather for seven to 10 days,” he said. “The cattle will just graze what has been swathed down.”

“For the future, I’ll take the sorghum out and replace it with millets or popcorn or create a section in the field where I plant a different blend that doesn’t have sorghum and that way I don’t have to worry about a swather,” he added.

The soybean field near where the cattle are now grazing will be planted to wheat for next year.

“The field across the road, we’ll do it over there the following year and then I’ll have three fields that are fenced,” Stephen said. “That will open up options to maybe graze some stalks or bring in 500 sheep for 90 days.”

It will be a total of 22 months that the field currently in cover crops will not have an herbicide application.

“We are able to go from a post pass on soybeans last year to a burndown on corn next year,” Stephen said. “The only thing it has was a little bit of nitrogen for the wheat, but the wheat grew without any herbicide.”

“I think this is going to cut our chemical use in corn and beans and I think we’ll apply less fertilizer,” Brad said. “We won’t be able to confirm that until we get soil tests four to five years from now.”

“Different plants help make different nutrients available and sunflowers are good at making zinc available in the soil,” Stephen said.

“We like to use buckwheat in a lot of our cover crop blends because buckwheat exudes an acid from its roots that solubilizes phosphorus, and since a lot of the phosphorus is locked up in the soil, the buckwheat makes it available for future crops.”

Buckwheat is not a great forage, Stephen said.

“The cattle aren’t touching it hardly at all, but that’s OK because it’s there getting ready for a better corn crop next year,” he said.

This is the first year the farmers are growing sorghum which will be for birdseed.

“Most of the field is past the dough stage, but there’s a few heads that are still a greenish color,” Stephen said. “We’ll have to watch that to see where in the rotation it gets harvested.”

Stephen plans to chop a portion of the sorghum field for cattle feed.

“Part of it has a poor stand and a lot of weeds, so I think it is better suited to feed than to harvest the grain,” he said.

The Riskedals plan to start their corn harvest at the end of September at their La Salle County farm.

“This year I have corn sold so we’re going to harvest some corn, get it dried and delivered,” Brad said. “Sept. 25 is about the earliest we start harvesting and most of the beans will come out the first two weeks of October.”

This is the first year the farmers are working with Regenified.

“Their job is to verify that we do, what we say we’ve done with the soil,” Brad said. “Based on those things, there should be more nutrients in the grain, and then overtime as the soil gets better, the nutrients will get better.”

The Riskedals completed a lot of paperwork for this program and Regenified representatives visited the farm to do soil tests, water infiltration tests and talk to the farmers about their farming practices.

“Regenified has had some wins in marketing grain to poultry farmers under this type of growing crops as the nutrient dense grain is producing better poultry,” Brad said. “They’re getting into markets that respect that nutritional value.”

Corn from Riskedal’s farm will be shipped to California in a 20-foot container.

“They can justify shipping Illinois grain to California because of the nutrient density and they are paying us a premium for that,” Brad said.

“Products sold to consumers will have a Regenified label on it, if it contains 75% Regenified grown products,” he said. “And they are doing the testing to make sure people are true to that.”

“Regenified is building relationships and looking for options on soybeans and wheat,” Stephen said. “They are also working in vegetables, fruits and nuts so it is not just row crops in the Midwest.”