Episode 89: Regenerative Agriculture, Cover Crops and Water Holding Capacity with Jimmy Emmons

Jimmy Emmons is a third-generation farmer from Oklahoma. He and his wife Ginger have been farming and ranching together since 1980. They have a 2000-acre farm with a diverse rotation of crops that include: wheat, soybeans, sesame, sunflowers, irrigated dairy alfalfa, canola, grain sorghum, and several cover crops for seed.
Jimmy has been monitoring soil health with soil testing since 2011 and is a proponent of using multi-species cover crops to enhance soil health. He is currently involved in a multi-year water holding capacity study examining the water use of cover crops. Jimmy also incorporates other regenerative practices, such as companion crops, to attract beneficial insects and decrease the need for additional synthetic nutrients.
In this conversation, John and Jimmy discuss:
The benefits of cover crops for water retention in the soil profile
Drought resilience of crops and plants grown in diverse environments
Companion crop mixes and their benefits
The importance of talking to your legislatures about regenerative farming
The negative effects on quality markers from grower practices and input decisions
Using nutrient-dense food as medicine
About John Kempf John Kempf is the founder of Advancing Eco Agriculture (AEA). A top expert in biological and regenerative farming, John founded AEA in 2006 to help fellow farmers by providing the education, tools, and strategies that will have a global effect on the food supply and those who grow it.
Through intense study and the knowledge gleaned from many industry leaders, John is building a comprehensive systems-based approach to plant nutrition - a system solidly based on the sciences of plant physiology, mineral nutrition, and soil microbiology.
Support For This Show & Helping You Grow Since 2006, AEA has been on a mission to help growers become more resilient, efficient, and profitable with regenerative agriculture.
AEA works directly with growers to apply its unique line of liquid mineral crop nutrition products and biological inoculants. Informed by cutting-edge plant and soil data-gathering techniques, AEA’s science-based programs empower farm operations to meet the crop quality markers that matter the most.
AEA has created real and lasting change on millions of acres with its products and data-driven services by working hand-in-hand with growers to produce healthier soil, stronger crops, and higher profits.
Beyond working on the ground with growers, AEA leads in regenerative agriculture media and education, producing and distributing the popular and highly-regarded Regenerative Agriculture Podcast, inspiring webinars, and other educational content that serve as go-to resources for growers worldwide.
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VIDEO: To learn more from John Kempf about regenerative agriculture, watch this conversation between John and three AEA grower partners about how regenerative agriculture is changing lives and conventional farming: • How regenerative agric...

[@annburge291]

Great conversation. Fantastic that farmers are working closely with medical care professionals and patients. Next podcast would you please talk more about livestock integration and cropping because there is a tendency to blame animals for desertification of environments... I'm a follower of Allan Savory ... but the non farmers are not understanding holistic management and this is influencing social media and politics particularly in the vegan activist movement.

[@AdvancingEcoAgriculture]

Thank you for the suggestion, Ann. We’ll add this to our list for upcoming content. Thanks!

[@marlan5470]

Yes, and some seriously problematic decisions have derived from that lack of understanding. In Ireland, for example, they want to cull massive amounts of cattle, to the point of endangering the country's food supply. And in the Netherlands, the farmers are being dispossessed of their land and have serious limitations on what they can or cannot do.

[@tinfoilhatscholar]

Alejandro would be an awesome guest for the show! He really knows his stuff around cattle as a tool for regeneration. I met him out in a tiny little town in NE NM when Gabe and Ray and Rudy were touring through here, and Alejandro's story is really moving. It seems to me that he is the first to really replicate Savory's work on a large scale successfully. But there are politics involved too... Alejandro doesn't face all of the same road-blocks that we do in the States. Unfortunately the cult of veganism is a bit of a larger issue...

[@inigomontoya8943]

Spot on. I’ve found myself in dead end conversations with quite a few “non farmers” who’ve been lead to demonize livestock. Forgetting they’re few generations removed from the species that are an integral part of the environment.

[@inigomontoya8943]

@@AdvancingEcoAgricultureany chance we’ll get a conversation between John and Graeme Sait? That’d be legendary.

[@garybrohard3144]

I am just a home gardener/food forest person. I have been learning by listening to a lot of these type regen/permaculture and food soil web peaces. I have a strip up against my house that I grew tomatoes this year. I have observed the most robust plant is mixed with lavender hyssop, oak leaf hydrangea, and bush bean in close proximity. Plants that don’t have as many diversity and abundance of other plants are struggling or not near as prolific. Really opened my eyes.

[@christopherburman3340]

Also a home veggie gardener with small orchard. I enjoy learning about the principles and potentials of regen ag. I find the challenge with veg gardens is a happy medium between diversity and overcrowding. Diversity of plants does seem to make a difference.

[@TheFarmacySeedsNetwork]

That point that Jimmy makes about stopping and observing is so important! It is not to be looked over! One of the things that taught me the most was taking the time every day to walk through the farm and look very closely at each plant. Each species each part of the soil each working little piece of the ecosystem and study it and observe it. So many cool insights gained from that!

[@tinfoilhatscholar]

So critical once again John. Here I am sitting out on the farm in Taos, and the monsoon rains haven't come this year, ditch is dry and the well is low. Now is when we really get to see what's resilient.

[@suburbanbiology]

As always very inspiring. Your parallels between medicine and agriculture are very accurate.

[@TheFarmacySeedsNetwork]

I remember when John talked about drought resistant organic blue corn in 2013 at the NOFA conference. That inspired me to try planting some blue corn with minimal tilling and mulch instead. The results were absolutely amazing! That same year I also did a side by side trial from organic corn and conventional corn, (both blue corn varieties. Same variety ), the colonel size of the organic was probably 2 to 3 times the size of the non-organic. I learned an awful lot and that experiment and so much more from all John's wonderful talks. Life changing on an epic level!

[@landontesar3070]

Thanks, Jimmy, John. Quite amazed at the resilience of my central texas pasture after a brutal summer. We've had about 3.2" rain this 2023 fall and it's been enough to promote the fall growth of rye grass and vetch. John, with your help, I am concluding that cultivated row crops are destructive in our southern climate and would work towards complimentary grain/forage mixes for best silage products.

[@TheFarmacySeedsNetwork]

Yes, exactly! A failure is an opportunity to learn, if you don't go, analyze why you failed, you thrown away the only positive opportunity you had from that failure and now it truly is a failure.

[@jairajdd]

I am really inspired by your work. I am a engineer who is working as a farmer in India. I have a garden of pomegranate I want to implement your methods on my farm. How do I connect with you?

[@jeremyschissler337]

Self sabotaging proclivities are ubiquitous among humans… what is rare is the proclivity to be accountable for these habits

[@amitrakshe5773]

Hello sir , how i shud get of rolling leaf caterpillar? I am from india

[@jeremyschissler337]

❤

[@marlan5470]

I always like to hear about the crazy farmers who mix 100 different plant seeds, drill or broadcast the whole thing and see what they come up with.

[@christopherburman3340]

No volume . Or is this a connection issue? Am in South africa

[@AdvancingEcoAgriculture]

Hello! there is audio, so it may be a connection issue.

[@christopherburman3340]

​@@AdvancingEcoAgricultureaudio working now thx

[@hosoiarchives4858]

I can hear it

[@anthonypacheco3098]

​@@AdvancingEcoAgriculture😊😊😊😊

[@FuAzzi]

Love your shows, but I will unsubscribe if you don't cut down on the number of commercials. I know how channels operate and you get to insert commercials where you want them. You are seemingly on the maximum number of commercials... And they are long ones. I can't pull my phone out every 3 minutes to skip 20 minutes of commercials. This technique may get you extra money short term.... But you will destroy your long term gains. Much like farming. You can deplete your soul to get a good crop the first year.... Butt your subsequent years will continue to decline. Your viewers are your organisms, cultivate them, don't abuse them

[@justinfair5216]

To stay with analogies, you are effectively asking for free fruit from a plant but want it to grow inside your house - without its roots growing in the soil because it is inconvenient to walk outside to forage, pick or dig for food...but in doing so the plant will die and then you will not get the fruit. The effort that goes into creating and hosting guests speakers on these needs recompense. The question is, if AEA dropped ads and instead accommodated patron payment would you then subscribe or pay to support its existance? Or still want something for nothing? If I were to place gratitude on a one side of a set of scales and the inconvenience of some ads while gleaning incredible insights from John and guests,the gratitude is massive and the weight of the ads is the weight of a gnat on the wing. Have a great life.

[@FuAzzi]

@@justinfair5216 King of StrawMen

[@justinfair5216]

@@FuAzzi Really? I was following your words bro.

[@FuAzzi]

@@justinfair5216 just because you can fool yourself, doesn't mean you fool anyone else

[@justinfair5216]

@@FuAzzi check your comprehension. The strawman is build by a provocator...by calling me king of the strawman you placed yourself in the position of strawman builder. You must be using some sort of ambiguity in your original complaint according to my reading. So you are grateful.. but just complaining about ads, which produces revenue for AEA, which enable them to keep putting them out....and my point is to complain about that is to effectively ask them to stop feeding the plant.