Episode #35: Perennial Genetics for Better Animal Performance with Mark Thomas

Episode #35: Perennial Genetics for Better Animal Performance with Mark Thomas

Mark Thomas has spent 30-plus years in the grass seed industry, and today he ranches south of Enid, Oklahoma with his wife Annette — raising 100% grass-fed beef on a system built around diverse annual and perennial forages. In this conversation, Keith and Mark dig into some of the most practical questions in regenerative grazing: How do you integrate perennials with annuals? When does it make sense to convert crop ground to grass? And what's actually happening in the rumen when cattle graze a diverse mix versus a monoculture?

Episode #34: Why Weed-free Horse Pastures Might be Hurting Equine Health with Allison Lepanto

Allison Lepanto of Aterak Nutrition started out wanting to improve the quality of horse feed. But after seeing the prevalence of metabolic issues in younger and younger horses, surviving her own herbicide health crisis, and stepping onto farm after farm with dead soil and overflowing supplement shelves, she started connecting the dots. Pasture quality and the practices land owners are implementing is directly impacting their horses' quality of life.In this episode, Allison and Keith dig into how degraded and chemical laden pastures make horses sick, what regenerative grazing actually looks like in a horse operation, and what a two to three year soil restoration plan looks like from the ground up. It's a conversation that draws as many parallels to human health as it does to horses, and it's a good reminder that you can't supplement life back into a broken living system.Check out Allison's website to learn more: https://ateraknutrition.com/

Episode #33: A Deep Dive into Warm Season Cover Crops with Zach Louk

Green Cover sales representative and seed buyer Zach Louk joins Keith for an in-depth conversation on warm season cover crop species. The conversation covers legumes, brassicas, broadleaves and grasses with a specific focus on sorghum-sudan grass traits and characteristics. This episode will give you a greater understanding of which cover crop species are best fit for your goals this summer growing season.Got questions? We're hosting a live Ask Me Anything webinar on this exact topic on Wednesday, May 27th at 12:00pm CST. Be sure to register to have your questions answered live: https://zurl.co/2E796Or, check out the recording of the webinar on our YouTube channel later on.

Episode #32: What 45 Years in the Field Taught Jay Fuhrer About Rebuilding Soils

Jay Fuhrer spent more than 45 years as a soil health specialist with NRCS watching farming systems break down soils — and then helping farmers rebuild them. Now leading the Mennoken Farm just east of Bismarck, North Dakota, Jay shares what decades of boots-on-the-ground monitoring taught him about diverse plant communities, liquid carbon, biological energy, and why the soil carbon needle that nobody believed could move actually did.Jay will be bringing this same knowledge and passion to Green Cover's Nexus in the Field event June 3rd and 4th in Bladen, Nebraska. It's a rare opportunity to learn directly from one of the most experienced soil health minds in the country, right out in the field. Learn more and register at greencover.com/pages/events/nexus-in-the-field.

Episode #31: Building a Drought Resilient Grazing Operation Using Perennials and Cover Crops with Kevin Wiltse

Kevin Wiltse is a fifth-generation Kansas farmer who has spent over a decade transitioning from cash cropping to perennial pasture and grazing cover crops for more profitable grazing. Five years into one of the worst droughts in recent memory, his cattle herd is bigger than it's ever been. In this episode, Keith sits down with Kevin to talk through his shift to a forage-based, perennial-centered operation, including how he cut inputs, built grazing infrastructure, and kept his herd intact through drought years that would have broken most operations. Kevin also shares the enterprise economics behind his decision-making, what winning the 2025 Leopold Conservation Award in Kansas means to him, and why he believes this kind of change has to come from within before it can show up on the balance sheet.