3 complementary strategies for raising crops and cattle

Iowa farmer Kelly Garrett is well known for his passion of raising high yielding corn and soybeans. He regularly shares his knowledge on topics like soybean desiccation or reducing crop stress through XtremeAg and speaking on panels around the country.

• READ MORE: XtremeAg farmers share desiccation tips, 2022 challenges, and lessons learned

While row crops may be Garrett's claim to fame, the family's herd of crossbred cattle is an important part of the fifth-generation, Crawford County operation. Together with his dad, Gene, and three sons, Connor, Colin, and Cael, Garrett runs 400 to 500 cows and Schaff Angus bulls.

The Garretts aren't afraid to challenge local norms. Over the years, their cattle business has embraced a wider calving window and began selling some direct-to-consumer beef. Other changes the family has made complement both the crops and cattle.

Earlier cover crops on soybean ground

In 2019, Garrett desiccated his soybeans for the first time. Killing the soybean plants allows him to harvest sooner, and in turn, cover crops are planted on that ground two to three weeks earlier than before.

"We get so much more fall growth out of the cover crop, and what great cattle feed!" he says.

Once cattle are moved from their summer pastures to those cover cropped fields for the winter, they begin accelerating the natural process of returning nutrients to the soil.

Better residue breakdown

"Cattle are going to tromp that into the dirt, eat it, and manage the residue for you," Kelly says.

When you're raising 300-bushel corn, accelerating the breakdown of all the residue is critical. If there's too much, it can be challenging to achieve even soybean emergence the following season.

"You can physically drive down the road and almost know, on our fields, which fields have had cows and which fields did not, because it hinders your soybean stand if you don't have the cows out there," he says.

Backgrounding on by-products

After the cows calve in the spring, the calves are weaned, and then the Garretts background them. Their ration is a mixture of silage, DDGs, and soy hulls.

"If you want to talk about sustainable agriculture, I'm hauling corn to the ethanol plant and I'm bringing DDGs back. Or I'm hauling soybeans to Bunge and I'm bringing soy hull pellets back," says Garrett. This strategy is efficient for both the crop and livestock sides of the operation.

Rounding out the cycle, the manure from the cattle lot is spread on the fields as fertilizer.