by Joann Pipkin

Sometimes in farming, the forest can get in the way of the trees. At least it can if you don’t have clear vision. But Jasper County, Mo., farmer Mac Kincaid developed a keen perception for his farm.

“I knew I couldn’t afford tillage equipment,” he says. “I was a beginning farmer and had to look for other ways [to farm].”

So, Kincaid shifted his mindset and focused on intentional farming.

From breeds of cattle, crops and management practices, he plans for each enterprise. Today, Kincaid employs 100% no-till and 100% cover crops on every acre. In addition, 80% of his acreage includes fence so he can integrate livestock with the covers.

The result produced success both in the ground and at the bank. Kincaid does not simply grow and graze cover crops, but he turns its seed into an alternative revenue stream for his farm.

Focus on seed production

While adding cover crops to the farm yielded innumerable agronomic benefits, Kincaid says diversifying its crop portfolio also added to the fiscal bottom line.

He grows cool-season annual cover crops such as barley, rye, triticale and wheat, as well as vetch, winter peas, rapeseed, kale, radishes and turnips. Warm-season species include sudangrass, pearl millet, cowpeas, sunflowers, buckwheat and pumpkin.

GENTLE APPROACH: Cleaning cover crop seed takes patience and a little manual labor to glean top-quality seed for resale.

Kincaid harvests and markets the seed from the cover crops.

With barley, seed is placed in either a bin or wagon and milled through a seed cleaner before bagging or being placed in a seed tender.

A germ test helps Kincaid track the purity of the seed.

“You’ve got to make sure you keep your seed pure,” Kincaid explains.

Pure seed begins with weed management. Kincaid adds that the longer he keeps the seed, the more sustainable it is in a specific environment.

New markets for cover crop seed

Seed is then marketed via wholesale and retail outlets in Missouri, southeast Kansas, Nebraska, Oklahoma and Texas. Kincaid’s uncle also owns a seed company, so the two work in partnership to market blended seed.

The grower works one-on-one with farmers to determine their resource goals. Cover crop blends are adjusted to meet those objectives.

“Some guys might design a cover crop to be grazed,” Kincaid explains. “So, I’m going to increase the seeding rate of that cover crop because we’re trying to get as many plants as we can to produce more grazing days.

Return on investment

As farmers continue to look for ways to diversify their operations and seek value-added opportunities, Kincaid says marketing cover crop seed also helps spread out his risk.

“I have a lot of different crops and different livestock, so if one isn’t selling good, maybe the other ones will do better to overcompensate,” Kincaid says. “I think it’s very important, too, that we’re flexible in marketing.”

It’s that outside-the-box thinking and willingness to look beyond tradition that today helps the young farmer add to his return on investment while protecting his biggest resource: the soil.

“We have to do better for our bottom line, financially,” Kincaid says, “but we also have to do better for the environment before someone else forces us to.”

Slow start to new ag venture

In 2013, two years after high school, Kincaid attended an organic conference and learned the benefits cover crops brought to the soil.

Faced with a prevented planting situation the next year because of wet field conditions, he seeded a cool-season cover crop as an alternative to the double-crop soybeans, initially planned for the 74-acre field.

“It was phenomenal,” Kincaid says. “The corn the next year was great as well. So, that really got me looking at things, but I wasn’t fully committed yet.”

RIGHT CHOICE: Missouri young farmer Mac Kincaid finds barley is still a lucrative cover crop for much of the Midwest. The process sifts out the seed from the crop debris.

By 2016, Kincaid listened and learned from renowned soil health advocates Gabe Brown and Ray Archuleta about soil function. He altered his approach by simply realizing the soil always needed a living root in it to feed microbes beneath the surface.

“We started integrating diverse cover crops, not just monocultures,” Kincaid explains. “We’ve actually seen our soil health scores go way up.”

Soil respiration rates have also improved, Kincaid says.

“The more respiration you’re getting, the more microbes you have in your soil, which is a really good thing for nutrient cycling, water-holding capacity,” he explains. “We have less nutrient runoff into rivers, so cover crops can actually have a lot of positive impacts on the farm as well as the environment.”

Pipkin writes from Republic, Mo.