Getting Creative to Order to Integrate Crops and Cattle – 2021 Virtual Annual Conference

As a field crop farmer, how can you use the resources you have to integrate livestock into your system? This is the question Bronson Allred explores with Zak Kennedy. Bronson raises row crops and wants to plant diverse cover crops so he can add cattle to his operation. Zak, an experienced cattle and crop farmer, answers Bronson’s questions while they explore the possibility of backgrounding cattle from November to April on cover crops.

• Bronson Allred farms corn and soybeans – and occasionally small grains – near Corydon, Iowa. Bronson is an avid cover cropper and is looking at ways to integrate livestock into his operation. Bronson has been engaged in the PFI community since participating in the PFI cover-crop cost-share program in 2018.
• Zak and Emily Kennedy, along with Zak’s brother, Mitch, operate Kennedy Cattle Company in Atlantic, Iowa. As fourth-generation farmers, they take steps every year to improve their land and farming system through growing diversified crops and cover crops. The Kennedys graze or feed cover crops in all phases of cattle production.