Wheat Vs Oats What Cash Crop Is Better In Our Regenerative System?

[@janetjohnson998]

Thanks for responding. It looks like you have made great headway to your goal. Even Gabe took several years to make it. I am so interested to see your processes and outcomes this year.

[@AaricHale]

I really enjoyed the video ! I remember my grandpa had oats in his rotation and the smell was so amazing when picked . He raised pigs on pasture and still picked corn with a 2 row mounted picker up until 89 or 90 when he lost the farm like a lot of farmers did at that time . I don't ever remember selling corn like farmers do now it was fed to the pigs . I got yelled at for tossing ears of corn to the cows because he said it would mess up their stomach . Thanks for sharing and have a great day !

[@evaneichmiller]

You are a huge inspiration on my farm! Keep up the awesome work, love the videos

[@youngredangus6041]

Thanks mab

[@400brian]

I am 65 years old, so I have seen a few harvests. Here in southern Wisconsin I view oats as less reliable crop than corn, beans, or wheat. This year we are in major drought, but normally we have more rain than we want. When I sow oats, alfalfa and brome is typically sown as well for hay in subsequent years. Years ago, I believe oats were a major grain crop in WI, but has fallen out of favor. My grandfather claimed 100 bu oats were not uncommon in the 1930s, but I have never seen anything close to that. We have seen maybe 70 bu , but most years half that. Oats have a very short growing season, so if the weather isn't perfect, the oats do not perform. As you said, weed pressure is often a big problem. about the time the oats are ready to harvest, it is not atypical to get a couple of weeks of rain, and the ragweed, lambs quarter, and whatever else come firing through and in many cases make the crop un-harvestable. I always wanted to be able to swath the crop and get the weeds dry, but it makes little economic sense. If you fertilize the oats they get tall and go down, if you get high wind they go down, any amount of hail and you get nothing. I just combined 12 acres of oats that I had yesterday. The goal was to get the field into alfalfa, and I was hoping to get some seed oats at the very least. In our area' the oat straw has historically been where you might make the crop profitable if you didn't have a bedding need yourself. The dairy farms are all gone here now, I was one of the last in our township, hanging it up five years ago. Horse people will buy straw, but they want it weed free and bright, which is a rare combination. So yeah, I still mess with oats a bit, I hear people talk about potentially making money with oats, but in my experience you are more likely to lose money on oats where you could have grown corn, beans, or wheat, and wheat has its own profit problems. I did get a gravity box full of reasonably clean oats off the 12 acres, so if they are viable I did get some seed. As for the alfalfa, I highly doubt an economically viable stand has survived, I will know for sure next spring.

[@tesha199]

That's why animals are the best tool to harvest crops 😀

[@andrewyoder7510]

We probably should compare pounds or tons of grain per acre instead of bushels. Oats at only 32 pounds per bushel vs wheat at 60....oats need to yield more bushels to make up for their fluff

[@eriksandell9705]

You are a hero and role model. Your work is so important.

[@youngredangus6041]

Thanks for the encouragement I really appreciate it

[@jkirchoff7827]

When did you drill your oats and at what rate? When did you harvest your oats? Thanks for another great discussion!

[@youngredangus6041]

March 75lbs End of July Call me if you need some

[@jeffsagen3892]

I really enjoy your channel. I find it very interesting and I thank you for offering it. I’m gonna try some of your ideas. I think your spot on about our topsoil.

[@youngredangus6041]

Thanks for the encouragement Jeff

[@GeoffHou]

With bushel weight for oats being half that of wheat and the bushel price being let's say 50% higher for wheat, the profitability depends on the input costs for seeding, fertilizers, harvest in percent of the earnings. Based on my numbers, It looks almost that 1 year of wheat and 2 years of cover crops with grazing would strongly outperform the oats when looking only at the bottom line. Oats could however be part of the cover crop mix and be grazed.

[@jamestucker3260]

Average oat yield in US is 64.8 and average wheat yield is 46.5, just fyi. Love your videos!

[@janetjohnson998]

Question: how can you be regenerative and still spray for weeds and terminate a crop with glyphosate? I am assuming you use it. I am just learning about regenerative ag. Gabe Brown and Allen Williams are such great teachers. I honestly ask this. Not judging. 🙂

[@youngredangus6041]

Great question. We farm 8000 acres. It is a lot of acres to cover. We live in a very dry environment. if I could have a system where I could plant a cover crop roll it with a machine, then plant a cash crop I would. Right now greatly reducing the amount of glyphosate we are using. We just purchased a sprayer that has the technology to only spray when it senses a weed rather than the entire field. I’m hoping one day we can be a farm that doesn’t use chemicals. Right now that dream does not seem possible but I keep hoping.

[@JGDT5559]

Hi Jay, I’m a regenerative farmer in South Africa. What kind of seed cleaner did you buy… as well isn’t Calmolina non mychorizal like canola and likes bacterial dominant soil (lower in succession) than grains…. Isn’t that farming against what we want to achieve…. Anyway, thank you, seen ALL of your vids, you are a lekker guy bru, cheers

[@karlrovey]

We had an entire field of wheat lost to sprout damage. From May into July, we got so much rain that the field is still too wet to support a combine two weeks since it last rained.

[@youngredangus6041]

Dang

[@timgulotta7595]

I’ve never understood why wheat was classified as oxidative to soils. I guess it’s the root structure and plant genetics as you mentioned.

[@jvin248]

Have you experimented with Rye? We grew wheat and I think a field of oats when I was a kid on the farm but the last two years I grew wheat, rye, and a late crop of oats. Most wheat has been bred to be short while the rye gets tall creating more biomass above ground and deeper roots (one of the farm presentation videos had a rye plant with all soil washed away and hung up on the wall and it was over six feet of roots). Rye has been much more aggressive against weeds both while growing and after flattening into mulch. We had an uncharacteristically six week dry spell during May and the rye seemed to wick moisture up from below and kept putting on biomass and sprout some main crop seed. Note that conventional wheat growing practices the last decade or more of spraying with glyphosate to dry the wheat before harvest also is an anti-fungal product destroying microhryzal fungus; and the glyphosate seems to stay with the grain as it's made into flour and pastries more so than grains like corn.

[@ricksteen935]

Are there heritage varieties of wheat that may still have the relationship with mycorrhizae fungi, where the genetics could be returned?

[@youngredangus6041]

That I don’t know. I think Nicole talked about it in her book but I can’t remember

[@ricksteen935]

@@youngredangus6041 I brew beer as a hobby, and odd old grains are becoming more and more important as people seek the flavors of the past, both in beer and in various liquors. My Mother was a nurse, chairman of the Board of Nursing in the state of Iowa for more than 20 years. Her question to my agriculturalist father was, “why does it seem that the nutrient value of the grain seems to be less now than in the past?” Dad could never give her a definitive answer.