(bright music) - Hello and welcome to "Farm Connections."

I'm your host, Dan Hoffman.

On today's program, we are joined by Mary Hartman of StableFeed as we discuss her horse feed product line and the history that goes along with it, local farmer Jason Welter joins us to talk about the benefits of growing winter camelina, and the University of Minnesota Extension brings us a new Best Practices.

All here today on "Farm Connections."

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- Welcome to "Farm Connections."

We traveled to Kasson, Minnesota, to the headquarters of StableFeed, and with me is the CEO and founder Mary Hartman.

- Morning, Dan.

- Good morning.

Mary, You have an exciting story to tell.

What is StableFeed all about?

- StableFeed has an integrative approach to restoring health in horses.

- Well, as CEO and founder, there's more of a story than that and I wanna know all about it.

- All right.

I call this my accidental company.

I'm kind of an accidental entrepreneur.

So I had a horse obviously, and the horse was sick, and as I tried to find ways to make my horse feel better, I just kept going down these rabbit holes with medications that weren't working and things that weren't working for my horse.

So I decided to take another look at this and go a different route, a more holistic approach to trying to fix her problems.

And as it turned out, the holistic approach worked.

It worked really well.

And other people noticed how well she was doing and asked if I would make the same products for their horses and vets noticed.

And within six months, I realized that I couldn't afford to keep giving away what I was giving away so I should probably start a business.

- Well, sounds like you had an accidental start with a lot of purpose.

- I did.

I did.

Growing up, I always loved horses, but we couldn't afford a horse.

So I would ride other people's horses, neighbor's horses, and, you know, we'd go to the fair and there would be horses and I'd beg my mom for the quarter so I could ride the horses.

And you started to notice, or I started to notice a trend, and that was when I was a kid, horses were never sick.

They got put out into the pasture with cattle and very sturdy animals and you brought them in and you could ride them and it was great fun.

But now it seemed like when you buy a horse, they're almost instantaneously sick and you spend as much as six months of the year being a nurse to them, and six months of the year, you get to ride and have fun with them, and that's not really fun for anybody, right?

So I started wondering why that was happening.

You know, what is the cause of that?

And what I came to realize was a lot of it goes back to food, what we're feeding them.

So it mirrors to a large extent what we're seeing in the human population.

- Very interesting.

And I've heard the proverbial saying, and maybe you have too, healthy as a horse, right?

- Right.

So healthy as a horse, but that's not so much the case anymore.

- And it once was, as horses were not only how we transported our families to urban centers or to worship or, really, tilling the fields, they were essential to livelihood and we really tried our best to keep them healthy.

- Right.

- What changed?

- A lot of things changed.

I think, you know, if you really stop and think about the role the horse, equids, so horses, donkeys, and mules, have played throughout history, we would not have, we wouldn't have the civilized world that we have or been able to civilize areas without their help, right?

So we owe a great debt, I think, to these animals.

When we industrialized agriculture at the turn of the century going into the 19th century, horses became less necessary.

Now we were getting automobiles, right?

And we were getting ambulances.

We were getting tractors.

We were getting equipment.

So in the United States at least, horses became, in the beginning, everybody owned a horse and nobody owned a car, and now everybody owns a car and very few people own horses, right?

So it was just a complete flip flop there.

They just were no longer as necessary for maintaining our livelihood.

- Well, it sounds like you began to see some trends.

This holistic approach.

What conclusions did you come up with and what did you do about it?

- Well, I studied biochemistry at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

And so, you know, you start to understand how to look up science, right?

And how to view things and how the body works.

So in order to figure this out, I spent a lot of time in veterinary journals in the NIH and CBI database looking to see, what does the science tell us about things we're feeding horses?

Or because there's not a lot of research on horses because we don't make money on them, we don't eat them, there's a lot of crossover between horses and people.

What are the impacts on a body system by foods?

And that was where I came to believe that the trend toward chronic health in horses is a result of what we're feeding.

And that has gotten, it's very different now than what we started feeding when I was a little kid.

So in 1972, we created the EPA under Richard Nixon, which was great.

We were gonna take care of the environment.

And part of that meant that industry was going to have take a responsible approach to getting rid of their hazardous materials and hazardous waste.

So hazardous waste at that time included the leftovers from feeding cattle, pigs, and chickens, and that would have a lot of molds and toxins in it.

And the feed companies would have massive amounts of this, so to pay to dispose of it would cost a lot of money.

So they went into the lab and they found out that they could feed this, they could clean it up using chemicals or using water and using heat, and they could feed this to animals we don't eat.

So they could feed this to horses and dogs without causing toxicity, at least not immediately.

So they promulgated, Congress promulgated the 1972 Hazardous Waste Recycling and Relabeling Act.

So now we're recycling the waste and we're relabeling it as byproducts and selling it as kibble.

So the waste products were now going into the food supply for our pets and some of our livestock.

So over time, that's changed, right?

The food that we ate when I was a little kid was very different from the food that we're eating now.

As a for instance, back in 1985, we sprayed 11 million pounds of Roundup in the United States.

This year, we're going to spray about 348 million pounds of Roundup alone on our crops this year, our food crops.

So these residues and these changes in the soil are changing the food and I really believe that that is the driver for these chronic health issues in horses.

- Well, after your research and your conclusions, what happened next?

What products and things came out of that?

- Well, I started out because my vet actually, I blame her, I do, I blame her, or credit her I guess, said, "Try feeding chia for your horse's gut," because chia is like a pudding and it provides gastric relief to horses.

So I started feeding her chia and she loved it, but she'd blow it out of the bucket.

So then I had to find a way to bind it to something and I thought, "Well, why not bind it to foods that bring functional change in her body?"

So then I started digging into functional foods.

What are functional foods and how can they help her?

And what is their safety rating to give to horses?

So had to dig into all of that, and came up with my chia line of supplements.

So I came up with five different products.

All of them were targeted toward individual horses that I knew that were having particular issues.

And then I started marketing those or selling those to people once I proved that they worked on the horse that I made them for.

So that was my start.

And some of those products do truly amazing things.

We can clear skin tumors off of horses just to feed through with a simple chia product.

We can regulate glucose with one of our other chia products.

So it was all really exciting and really fun.

But if you can do that with a supplement, my thought was, "What would happen if I actually changed their food?"

If food is the crux of the problem, then supplements aren't the answer.

That's not the solution.

The solution is the food.

So I started doing microbiome research to see, how is the food affecting the microbiome?

Because the microbiome we now know regulates our body systems.

It's got the gut-brain connection.

And it was when I was reading about the microbiome that this researcher wrote something about feeding sainfoin.

Well, I'm a farm girl.

I grew up in Wisconsin on a farm and I'd never heard of this.

You know, what is this crop that you can feed to these grazing animals?

And, you know, so I had to Google it.

So I googled sainfoin.

Google was my best friend during all of this.

And I read about this incredible forage, absolutely amazing forage, that, you know, the United Nations named the forage of the future because it can mitigate for climate change.

It supports pollinators.

It's a bypass protein for cattle.

So if they eat it, it improves their dairy outputs by 15%.

It's non-gas producing.

So now you can't graze cattle on alfalfa because of bloat, but you can graze them on sainfoin and they will not bloat.

So I got really excited about sainfoin, super excited about sainfoin, except you couldn't find it in the United States.

It wasn't available here.

I could have shipped it in from England if I had a lot of money, but I don't, so I had to figure out a way to grow it.

I just decided, we're gonna grow this here.

We're gonna grow it here for horses.

We're gonna grow it here for the climate.

We're gonna grow it for farmers.

And reached out through a seed purveyor in Montana.

I asked him if he would send a note to all of his sainfoin growers because they have a few there that grow for themselves to see if would grow me some sainfoin so I could test it and try to create a market for it.

So this whole journey was about creating this integrative approach for horses.

So if you have a sick horse, we can test the microbiome, see what's off.

We can take foods that I've researched and put together to feed particular bacteria or starve bacteria if you have too many of one.

And so we can do those things for the horse and then we can give them this sainfoin forage we have and sainfoin feed to maintain them at a very high level with clean food.

It's been a challenge, it's been a real challenge, because when a market doesn't exist, and there was no market for this.

So USDA has been trying to create a market for sainfoin since the late 1960s.

They've worked with Apollo research station in Wyoming.

They've worked with the University of Montana in Bozeman.

University of Minnesota's looked at it, Kansas has looked at it.

They've all tried and they've all failed to create a marketplace for this forage.

So we're the first, and there's a big educational component to doing that because we have a product that nobody's ever heard of and everybody's afraid to pronounce.

So there's a lot of hesitation, you know?

So we have to educate people before they buy.

But that's where StableFeed with the chia supplements and the microbiome work came in because those clients were so happy with those products and the results from those that they built our runway.

So my clients built our runway into sainfoin forage.

- How many products are you having available in the market at this time?

- So we have nine products available in the market if I include our microbiome testing kits.

So we have six chia products.

We have two sainfoin forage products.

One is just 100% sainfoin and the other one is 65% sainfoin with herbal inclusions that change seasonally because if a grazing horse, the horses are grazing, the seasons change, the forage changes, their microbiome changes.

So we have studied what that looks like to try to provide their bodies with the support that they need by changing the herbal inclusions in the feed four times a year.

So we have a really nutrient-dense base.

It's 100% more nutrient dense than the next closest product.

And then we have herbal inclusions that cause functional change in the horse and support their systemic health.

- Well, I've had the luxury of reading some of the testimonials in your office here in Kasson, but the audience can't.

Do you have a website where they can go to learn more?

- We do.

It's just www.stablefeed.com.

- Well, what an inspiration, all the way from solving a problem to developing a product and services that are international at this point, and also the economic development of the employees here and the distribution and growing system.

Amazing.

Thank you so much, Mary.

- Thank you so much, Dan.

- Stay tuned for more on "Farm Connections."

(upbeat music) - [Announcer] "Farm Connections" Best Practices brought to you by Absolute Energy and AgVantage Software.

(upbeat music continues) - My name's Daniel Kaiser.

I'm a nutrient management specialist with the University of Minnesota.

And in today's best management segment, we'll be talking about fall fertilizer decisions, specifically related to phosphorus and potassium.

When we start talking about these particular nutrients, one of the main things that we wanna stress is starting with a soil test gives us the best options for figuring out where we need some of these nutrients and where we don't.

And when we start talking about years when fertilizer prices are high relative to crop production prices, really utilizing that soil test is our best option for determining whether we need the nutrient or not because in many cases, specifically with phosphorus, it's one of the easiest nutrients to get a good assessment with a soil test of how sufficient that nutrient is in the soil and whether or not you need to actually apply it.

The data we have is very solid in determining what those soil test values are that we want to be shooting for in many of these fields, particularly in areas where we can build soil tests up to what we deem to be the, what we call the critical level, which is the soil test at which the response to that nutrient will tend to be zero or close to zero beyond achieving that soil test value.

For phosphorus, if you're using the Bray soil test, about 20 part per million to 25 generally is the point at which we're generally comfortable with reducing our application rates at that particular point in time.

When it comes to potassium, things are slightly different.

For most of southern Minnesota, about 200 part per million or higher.

If you're at that point, we know we can reduce rates.

The main concern I have, though, is many growers prioritizing phosphorus over potassium.

In many situations, we know that there are fields out there that are likely deficient that should have some potassium applications.

So if you have a chance, you have time, the crops come out early, you can get out there and soil test, it's a good time to do that coming into the fall.

When it comes to fertilizer applications, it's really looking at what you have for options for incorporation.

Some people that are in reduced tillage, we know there are less options versus some people that are in more conventional tillage.

With P and K, it's always good, and also other amendments like lime, to get those incorporated into the fall to help to reduce the risk for those leaving offsite should we get conditions that might favor dissolution of the fertilizer material and that fertilizer moving with water.

One thing that we're looking at here in Minnesota is looking more closely at potassium and that we've had more research focused on trying to be more specific in different areas of the state on what some of what we call the critical soil test level is 'cause what we've seen is with potassium, differences particularly in our high clay soils versus some of our lower clay soils, situations like southeastern Minnesota or sands, that it doesn't seem like we need to be achieving as high of a critical soil test level in those soils to achieve maximum yields.

So it's one of the things moving forward that we're looking at this more to be more specific to potentially change our recommendations based on what your soils are within your given fields.

We're not quite there yet at having some of those changes to our recommendations, but I would stay tuned specifically to the resources like Minnesota Crop News where we tend to release some information regarding current research on some of these particular topics.

It's challenging and we know that, and specifically looking at where the fertilizer prices are to try to make some of these decisions on what you need because we know that there can be a significant yield advantage, particularly in catching some of the areas of your field that are low in nutrients.

So, again, going back to the soil test being the first line of defense in terms of knowing what's there in the field at a given point in time to help you make a decision.

With other nutrients, I know there's always questions too with phosphorus, the nitrogen component that comes with phosphorus, and we don't have any good guidelines right now in terms of telling you how much of that crediting that going into that next cropping season.

Certainly, the later that you apply, generally when it comes to some nutrients, specifically the nitrogen that comes with that phosphorus fertilizer and MAP and DAP, we know there's likely gonna be more crediting of that, but less crediting as you go with an earlier application.

So it's one of the things that we're looking at right now to try to give growers more confidence in terms of some of those applications on what they can credit back for some of those fall applications.

Certainly, though, if you're in an area where we have issues with groundwater, other fertilizer sources like triple superphosphate are becoming more available, which doesn't contain nitrogen.

And one key question that I've had with triple superphosphate has been on the availability of that phosphorus compared to the other two sources.

One of the things that we've been telling growers, with a lot of the research that we've been seeing, that DAP, MAP, triple superphosphate, we see pretty similar availability of phosphorus from those sources.

So if that is your option that your retailer has, there really shouldn't be any concern about the availability of a source like triple superphosphate versus some of those other sources that might be readily available at the co-op where you're buying your fertilizer.

This again has been Daniel Kaiser, nutrient management specialist with the University of Minnesota, for today's Best Practices.

- With me today is Jason Welter, a farmer from Stewartville, Minnesota.

Welcome to "Farm Connections," sir.

- Thanks for having me.

- Tell us about your farm.

- So I farm with my parents by Stewartville, Minnesota.

We have corn, soybeans, we raise hogs, and have started doing other crops called, or including oats, rye, and some winter camelina and some other cover crops, so.

- Well, why is it important for farmers to try new things?

- Well, I think it's really important to have farmers being an ongoing education.

You know, things change, the weather changes, practices changes.

What my grandpa did when he was in his farming career is not what I'm doing in my farming career, and I have two young sons at home and I think that if we want them to farm, we're gonna have to change the way we do things and look at different options and ideas.

- Well said.

I bet Grandpa changed things from what his father did, and if he wouldn't have done that, maybe you wouldn't be here today.

- That's right.

You know, I always joke that my grandpa, you know, was really excited to have a tractor and then my dad was really excited to have a tractor with a cab and I'm really excited to have a tractor that I don't have to steer, and my boys will probably be saying, you know, "That would've been a lot of work sitting out there all day long in that tractor."

So it's always changing and really exciting to see what the future holds.

- So what made you come to the field day on cover crops here at the Lawler farm near Eyota?

- So I came today to speak about winter camelina.

It's a new and upcoming oil seed crop that the renewable fuels that aviation is going to be using is really looking heavily on this crop because it doesn't take away the acres that corn and soybeans grow.

It would actually go into the rotation between crops, allowing farmers to potentially get a third crop out of a year, third crop out of every two years of harvesting, which is very exciting to me.

- That's fascinating in our short growing season in southern Minnesota.

- Yeah, it's very winter hardy.

I had raised it a couple years on my farm and it's interesting to see that you can plant something in October and it can survive through winter and then in the spring, basically as the snow is melting, it's coming up and already growing kind of like your grass in your yard.

- Must look nice too.

- It does, yes.

And it actually, if you know the plant, it actually has a yellow flower that comes up about mid-May and it kinda looks different in the field where it's, you know, not traditionally your corn and soybeans and that nice color of yellow early in the season.

- And probably does a lot for soil health and holding the soil in place.

- Yes, of course.

That's another reason that farmers use cover crops and looking at other options for crops, you know, to bridge that winter season.

And this is one that does and helps with wind erosion and gets that soil off to a good start.

There's nothing that warms soil up better than a growing root and getting that air and moisture down there early in the season.

It's a good crop.

- So the camelina comes up yet in the fall.

- Correct.

- [Dan] Walk us through that growing season.

- So the camelina that we had planted comes up and that is a very small seed and a very small plant.

We're talking a quarter to a half an inch is all of growth on that in the wintertime and into the early winter.

Last year, we had a very mild winter, so it actually kind of grew throughout the winter, so that was kind of interesting to see.

But you're looking for an early rosette kind of at that late November timeframe and that will, over winter, kind of stay dormant until kind of the same thing as the rye did.

And that will start growing in March and then become a little taller at the end of March, maybe early April, and then it starts to bolt and then it really shoots up to, I had some camelina that was about 16 inches tall last year before I had terminated that with the corn growing inside of that.

- So when do we harvest that camelina so we can get jet fuel?

- So that is the next step of the process.

We are planning this next year to add that into our operation after our oats.

So we are going to be planting oats in the spring, we harvest them late July, and then the ground would sit dormant for about a month where we could maybe do some improvements, whether that be waterway work or maybe spreading some manure.

And then the winter camelina would be planted after that, right around that, right around now, September 20th, maybe the last week of September.

That would do the same thing and over winter, being planted earlier, it would have a better chance of making that rosette and growing and getting a better yield from that winter camelina the next spring.

And then the following year, we would harvest that in June, late June, as an oil seed crop with the intention of putting a cover crop in after that seed is harvested.

- Is there a place to process camelina anywhere nearby?

- As far as I know right now, no.

There's a lot of companies working on it, especially in the aviation industry with plants, and it's similar to the soybean from what I understand.

Being an oil seed, you would have to crush it or process it somehow to extract that oil and get a high protein meal that would be fed back to animals or livestock and then the oil would be refined to a fuel source.

- And earlier you talked about renewable fuels.

What do you mean by renewable?

- So as renewable fuels goes, winter camelina can be raised every year, year after year.

And if we get it into our operation such that it doesn't compete with our corn and soybean acres, which it looks like we potentially can, that just means really good news for the industry as a whole that, you know, this food and fuel debate that we've had with ethanol won't necessarily be there because this ground is laying dormant those months that nothing else can grow.

And that is really exciting to see that we can utilize that acres and become more efficient as farmers and produce a product that someone can use.

- I wish you every success.

- Thank you.

- Well, that will just about do it from here.

I'm Dan Hoffman.

Thanks again for joining us on "Farm Connections."

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