Don Wirth shares fifty years of wisdom in the seed business
Don Wirth is a farmer and the founder of Saddle Butte Ag, a cover crop and forage seed company based in Oregon’s Willamette Valley. For five decades he has successfully grown and sold seed to customers in the U.S. and internationally.
Acres U.S.A.: How did you get into farming?
Don Wirth: My dad started farming at age 42 in 1950. Prior to that he was a logger. I have at least three families in my ancestry that came over the Oregon Trail here to the Willamette Valley.
There are two things that I think make me what am. Number one, because my dad was not a farmer, he didn’t know “how dad did it.” And secondly, I had a very supportive mother. If I came home with some kind of business proposal — like as a 13-year-old 4H kid wanting to buy a dairy cow, or a couple years later wanting to raise beef — she’d say, “Go buy two — I’ll buy one, you buy one.” That was always encouraging. She never said, “That’s the craziest idea I ever heard.” Consequently, I see things as “why can’t we” rather than “it won’t work.”
Acres U.S.A.: That’s a really valuable gift. And when did you begin farming?
Wirth: My son-in-law and daughter have the farm now, but my folks leased it to me and my wife in 1968 when I was 22.
We’re primarily a grass-seed area. Probably close to 70 percent of the ryegrass in the world is grown here in this little valley. Probably 60 percent of the tall fescue and 50 percent of the orchard grass. And I think we’re now the largest white clover area in the world.
If you wrote a prescription for the ideal climate for, say, ryegrass, it’d just about fit here, except we get too much rain in the winter. We are one of the only places in the world that gets 40-plus inches of rain and has a dry summer. Today [the middle of July] the temperatures will hit 80 and humidity will probably be in the 30s. It’s just ideal for harvest. We cut tall fescue in front of my house this morning. It’ll lay there for 10 days and then be ready to go. It’ll probably be 7 or 8 percent moisture in 10 days.
Acres U.S.A.: It’s primarily for harvesting efficiency for the seeds, correct? You can grow the seed all over the Midwest and anyplace else.
Wirth: Right. I had a client in Illinois years ago who called me and said, “Don, can we harvest this ryegrass?” “Yeah, you can,” I said. “At about 38 to 40 percent moisture you swath it, then let it lay 10 days to dry and then combine it. He said, “Well, we can’t do that” — and he was right.
We actually tried some production in Minnesota and it fell on its nose. We were trying to breed a better variety for winter hardiness.
Acres U.S.A.: When did you get into cover crops?
Wirth: I was on the tall fescue commission for 15 years, so I would travel to trade shows. And I was in Louisville in ’96 or ’97 and these three young guys came up to me and told me how they had a dairy in northern Ohio, and they harvested corn silage and then drilled annual ryegrass, and then the next spring harvested silage and planted corn. So I came home and talked to the ryegrass commission and eventually got them to start trials on several farms throughout the Midwest. We provided the seed and paid the expenses, and we had five-acre plots from Purdue down to Tennessee.
Acres U.S.A.: And prior to this, all of the grass seed you were growing, was that for municipal use — for lawns and parks and golf courses?
Wirth: A fair chunk of it was for the southern U.S., along the Gulf Coast. They overseed the Bermudas and the Bahias because they go dormant at 70 degrees or below. There’s actually some people there that make more money off of winter grazing than summer grazing.
And then, yes — we grew at that time annual ryegrass for lawns, for the transition zone — say, Tulsa to Phoenix. Now we grow turf annuals and turf perennials for that market.
Acres U.S.A.: So this was new — in the sense of using annual ryegrass as a cover crop in the Midwest.
Wirth: Yes. Two things were new — number one, using ryegrass, and number two, cover crops in general were pretty new. Unless you go back to prior to fertilizer and herbicides. They had to feed their horses, so they grew their hay, and next year that’d probably be their corn field. It was done because of need.
But then somebody came along in the ’40s and said, “You know, you put this little pinch of stuff on here” — and that was fertilizer — “and you don’t need to do that.” And then they came along in the mid-’50s and said, “You know, if you spray this stuff on there, now you don’t have to cultivate near as many times.” That was atrazine or simazine.
Acres U.S.A.: And today we’ve essentially gone from zero acres of cover crops in the ’90s to about 15 million.
Wirth: Something like that. It’s still peanuts, but I think we’re starting to reach the early adaptors. I know we are. Part of what’s helping is not only your publication, but when you pick up a national farm magazine now, 60 to 80 percent of it is about no-till and cover crops. Ten years ago you were lucky to find a single article.
So, that is really helping us. But there was a guy on Facebook a day or two ago who was so proud of himself. He had interseeded — which I think will be the next big thing — but he had put these herbicides on — atrazine and Halex. None of his cover crops are going to come through that! Halex is meant to be for pre-emergence and minor post-emergence of weeds in your corn.
Acres U.S.A.: It’s difficult, because you have to change your whole mindset about your system.
Wirth: I was at a trade show a few years ago and a young guy came up to me, and I was pretty sure his dad was standing behind him. And I said, “Young fella, what are you doing different than your neighbors?” He said, “My dad’s doing an excellent job. I don’t have to do anything different.” I told him, “If you don’t start trying some things, in 10 years your neighbors are going to own you. Because they are trying things.”
The other thing I usually ask a person who hasn’t done cover crops is, “Do you have more time for management?” Because they have to realize that this isn’t something you just throw in the air and forget. Even no-tilling — there’s a different realm of management versus getting on the tractor and hooking onto a disc.
Acres U.S.A.: We really simplified a lot in the chemical era.
Wirth: When somebody visits me from the Midwest, I tell them, “You do realize that our crew is spraying something every month of the year. That’s how much we’re managing — all the time.” My friend Mike Plummer used to call some people “four befores” — they’d call him for advice four weeks in the spring and four weeks in the fall. Folks have to realize that this takes more management.
Every crop we grow here is a weed in every other crop we grow. That’s a different concept than with corn and soybeans. They’re a weed in each other, but they’re usually pretty easy to deal with. Some things, yes — we can clean out in the cleaners. But, for example, you can’t hardly separate tall fescue from annual ryegrass. Or, we grow both turnips and bayou kale; if we have just a few seeds of purple-top turnips or wild mustard in there, there are states where those seeds are restricted. You end up with a noxious weed on your seed test — even though it’s probably beneficial!
Acres U.S.A.: Can you talk about your seed business — Saddle Butte Ag — how and when that started?
Wirth: That was the mid-’90s. We were just trading commodities. When my optimism about cover crops started to grow, in about 2002, I decided we needed a representative in the Midwest. So I advertised on a couple of radio channels and ended up hiring Ron Althoff in Effingham, Illinois. And I think Saddle Butte is still the only Oregon seed company that has representatives in the Midwest to promote, sell and support its products.
We started out with a variety of annual ryegrass called Bounty. It happened to be one of the more winter-hardy varieties. The selection work was done in Florida, but then they put it through one generation in Oklahoma. And it turned out to be that one year — one generation in Oklahoma — that was the important selection.
One of the reasons ryegrass works so well in interseeding in the Midwest is that it goes dormant at around 80 degrees. The secret is to get a plant in as early as you can. We trialed this up in Ontario and planted ryegrass when the corn was at two leaves, and we could not find the yield drag. The ryegrass just shuts down.
But there’s enough growth there, if you get it in early, that it reduces your soil temperatures. We had a guy last year who told us that comparing bare no-till and where he had interseeded, there was 30 degrees difference in soil temperature. Any time soil temperature passes 100, you start losing corn roots. Well, corn roots are yield. The amount of water the ryegrass uses does not equate to what it does to protect the corn roots.
Another thing is that a researcher named Dr. Lloyd Murdoch discovered several years ago that annual ryegrass was able to break up the fragipan. Fragipan is kind of like rotten concrete that’s as hard as rock and restricts water flow and root penetration. There’s over a million acres of it down in Kentucky, Tennessee, Georgia. He thought at first it was done by ryegrass — that ryegrass was able to root into that, where nothing else could. Then he was able to isolate some root exudates from the ryegrass, and he put some small clumps of fragipan in a beaker with those exudates, and in a few weeks they had all crumbled. So, there is a chemical reaction, and a good crop of annual ryegrass cover crop in a winter can make one inch of new soil every year.
In a few years, I think we won’t being talking about root mass — we’ll talk about touches. I.e., the number of touches between the roots of a plant and the soil. That’s because of the root exudates, especially when you look into endo- and ectocytosis, and exposure to soil microbes.
Acres U.S.A.: How can we measure touches?
Wirth: I think it’s gonna be extremely hard. But the finer the hair, the more touches you’re gonna have. You might have 10 root hairs that weigh half of a large root, but think of the amount of surface they’ve touched. It’s so hard to even weigh the roots when you get into these finer root species, like the ryegrasses.
So, we started marketing the ryegrass, and then we obviously added other seeds like crimson clover, although we didn’t ever have our own variety. Then we started selling radish. I’m not a very big radish fan. Everybody talks about how radish will break up a hard pan. I challenge that thinking, because I used to dig up radish and I’d see a J-route — it’d hit the hard spot and grow horizontal or push out of the ground.
On the other hand, radish has sold a lot of cover crops, because people are not afraid to try it, because it winterkills. It’s easier to sell a producer the second cover crop than the first one. I’ve had people tell me, “I tried this radish; you got something better?” Oh, yeah. Now let’s talk.
Then we started experimenting with bayou kale. Here in our heavy clay soil it gets up to 42 inches in six to eight weeks. It has several roots.
Some of our producers in the Midwest found that in either corn or soybean fields, the ryegrass roots from the previous winter were deeper than the crop. The ryegrass goes into that harder soil, and the next year the corn or beans follow that old root.
Acres U.S.A.: So it’s a follower / leader kind of thing.
Wirth: Yes. In addition, when we were doing trial work on Midwest farms, every year the phosphorus level in the plow layer went up. At that time, the extension agents thought the cover crops were mining the phosphorus below the root zone. On our farm here in Oregon, our phosphorus levels keep going up because whatever straw is produced usually stays on the farm. And I think as you increase microbial activity — as you generate humic acids, etc. — you break some of those bonds.
Secondly, it’s a proven fact that the root exudates from a brassica — like bayou kale — actually break the calcium-phosphorus bond, making phosphorus available. You know, when I was in college, a long time ago, soils profs said that in low-pH soils — which our soils are — phosphorus will precipitate and never be available again. Well, we’ve proved that wrong.
Acres U.S.A.: Will bayou kale winterkill like radish?
Wirth: It will, although not as easily. In the Midwest, it is not nearly as much temperature as desiccation that causes winterkill. So much of the Midwest gets those 20- to 40-mile-an-hour winds. It just collapses the sails. We’ve grown most of these crops here in Oregon at minus 13, and it burns them off at the ground, but six weeks later they green up. Our soils are extremely wet, and the Midwest isn’t.
The other thing that reinforces my opinion is that I’ve been on at least two farms in the Midwest that had a windbreak, and for the first 60 to 100 yards downwind, those trees cover crops do fine. Well, it’s just as cold within 30 yards of those trees is it 200 yards from them. I’m convinced it’s desiccation.
Acres U.S.A.: What are some other cover crops that are definitely going to winterkill — that, like radish, might be a good first step for people, because they’re not scared that it’ll regrow in the spring?
Wirth: Well, I’m a big lover of oats — especially spring oats, fall-seeded. In the ’50s, everybody here had a diverse farm. They had a few cows and hogs, and part of their feed was spring greens, because that’d be one way to get rid of the grassy weeds — to till them in the spring. Well, we always put oats on the poorest, wettest ground. And if we got a good crop of oats, the ryegrass did excellent the next year.
Turns out that researchers have proved that in the lab — that the root exudates of oats chelate aluminum, manganese and iron. Well, that’s why you lime — to reduce the parts per million of those elements. We were in fact liming with oats. It’d only last year or two, but we did it. It just took me from the ’50s to 2006 to understand the science.
So, I like to put 10 or so pounds of oats in. They jump up and get tall, winterkill, and then protect the other cover crops from the wind.
Acres U.S.A.: Can you talk about the sugar beet you developed?
Wirth: Sure. A large percentage of the sugar beet seed in the world is grown right here where I live. But it’s all hybrid, and most of it is GMO. I think we’re the only company growing an OP, non-GMO sugar beet.
Sugar beet seed will not germinate in light. It has to be covered. The positive thing is that no matter how hard the ground is, it will not shove out of the ground. And you would not believe the worm activity right up next to them. Well, why wouldn’t worms be there? The plant is exudating sugar, right? And if the worms are there, that’s just a macro measurement of your soil.
Acres U.S.A.: What about mustard?
Wirth: That’s one that will winterkill in the Midwest as well, and it comes on extremely quickly. It jumps up and gives you ground cover.
If I’m doing a fall mix, a lot of times I’ll put a little bit in it. We have found that the shade from brassicas does not impact seedling plants like the shade from a grass or a grain. I don’t understand that — it’s just an observation. A lot of tall fescue is spring-planted here in March, April or May, and the guys actually plant radish into it a couple of weeks later. And unless it’s a moisture issue, they both do fine. But if you plant sudangrass, fescue’s such a slow seedling that it would shade it out.
Acres U.S.A.: And then can you talk about your legumes?
Wirth: One that we sell is Mihi Persian clover. It seems to be somewhat winter hardy for a small seed. It’s a little bit later than, say, crimson, as far as building topgrowth.
We have a variety of balansa that’s 10 days earlier than fixation. We have white clover, but I don’t think white clover at this point has an application in cover crops. I think the annuals are superior because they come on quicker.
And I don’t think there’s anything that can produce much more nitrogen than a winter cover crop of hairy vetch. In about 2005 I observed a field in the Midwest where the grower had no-tilled corn into hairy vetch that was above my knee. It’s excellent for weed suppression, as well as fixing nitrogen. So I’m excited about it. I think it has quite a future. And it’s a high-protein feed.
Acres U.S.A.: And plantain — your whole lawn is planted into Boston plantain, correct?
Wirth: Yes. It’ll blow your mind the number of states where plantain is either severely restricted or prohibited as a noxious weed. Whereas in New Zealand it’s almost required to plant in your pasture. They’re having problems with nitrate in the water in their grazed dairies, and what they have found is if a cow on regular grass and clover urinates, the concentration of nitrogen is 4,000 pounds per acre equivalent. By grazing a percentage of plantain, it reduces the nitrate by making part of it a bypass nitrate, so the cows do better. It does cause them to urinate a little more, so they spread it out to reduce the concentration of nitrogen in urine and the manure.
Plus it’s a natural wormer — active on coccidiosis. I have it here in my pasture. I bought two cows with pinkeye, and between the plantain and the chicory I’ve never doctored them, and it never went to the second eye.
Acres U.S.A. When my daughters get a bug bite or a scratch, they just pick a little plantain and rub it on.
Can you talk a little bit about what you see as the future of cover crops?
Wirth: A number of people are now incorporating livestock into their rotation. Several years ago, probably about 2007 or so, I went to a research farm in Illinois that had gamagrass plus rotational grazing. If Midwest farmers ever realized how much red meat they could produce per acre, they’d park the tractors. And that’s slowly coming to pass.
If I were younger, I’d buy a farm and every year plant 1/4 to permanent pasture. I’d leave it in two seasons, and in 10 years I’d be producing more corn than if I was harvesting the whole thing.
Acres U.S.A.: These are new systems, but their old ones as well, right?
Wirht: Yes. We’re reinventing the wheel!
I have a friend who does a lot of work in Texas, and he was down there last June or July driving around in the areas where they were having drought, and he said it was night and day where they had cover crops versus not. Any variety of ryegrass will work in the South. Any annual crop field that has bare ground will benefit from cover crops. The producer just has to try it.
