MSU Extension MI Ag Ideas to Grow With

Welcome to this
session of My Ag Ideas to Grow With
virtual conference. My name is Charles Gould
and I'm a bioenergy educator in the
agribusiness at the Agriculture and
Agribusiness Institute with Michigan State
University Extension. It's my pleasure
to welcome you to this session, an introduction to solar grazing with
inverter cattle. Today we'll hear
from Jess Gray. Jess is the CEO of
Gray's Landscaping LLC. overseeing the
company's financial management, policy
development, logistics, and reporting. She is crucial
in guiding the company towards
sustainable agriculture and
solar grazing goals. She has been a board
member of the American Solar Grazing
Association since 2024. Jess is with us
tonight to introduce us to inverter cattle
and the role that they can play in
grazing solar sites. before we get
started we'd like to take a moment
to thank our sponsors who are
shown on the screen due to their generous
support we can offer this event at no
charge to participants now let's jump in
today's into today's presentation this came
about because we're solar grazers to graze our
sheep on solar and our home farm we were
multi-species grazing so we were grazing our
cows first followed by our sheep and
then our um chickens turkeys ducks geese and
then our pigs and in a very short time we
were creating a much better landscape at
our home farm then we had the opportunity to
shift our sheep from our home farm to solar
and as we're working in solar we're like
you know we spend a lot of money on mowing
we we are constantly mowing things that
cows would love to eat. Why aren't our cows
out here? So Marcus and I got to thinking
about, okay, what would it take to get our
cows out onto solar? One of the big things
about solar grazing and agrivoltaics in
general is that you're taking a farming community,
but you're mixing it with a community
that honestly doesn't come from being
outside very often. And I'm always surprised by
that. The technicians that are on site are,
you know, they're afraid of bugs in
the grass. So can you imagine, you know,
they were afraid of our baby lambs. They were
afraid of our rams that aren't, you know,
more than 175 pounds. If I threw a full
Angus at them, they'd be running
scared. So we got to thinking, okay, if we
were going to develop a breed, what would
make sense? What traits are we looking for
that would be the best to be out on solar?
And this is where inverter cattle came
from. we're playing off of the name of mixing.
And then also there are inverters on
site. And so we were thinking, oh, this will
be a fun play to get solar cattle out
there, which is where, you know, this is kind
of where we started. We've got a composite
breed. So crossing two or more breeds
and then interbreeding those breeds to enhance
productivity and specific traits that
we were looking for. One of the big
questions or comments that comes to us a
lot is that Dexter's lack diversity, right?
So the genetics, and I see this a
lot, honestly, across cattle breeds in general
right now, right? We need more
diversity within those realms overall, as
an overarching thing. And one of the things
that we were thinking about is, okay, as we're
looking at this life cycle out on solar,
what do we need to be breeding towards? And
what breeds have those characteristics that
we'd be looking for? Pretty simple question. We were thinking, okay, simple. When
you're thinking about cattle,
everybody thinks about rate of
gain on pasture, right? We're
not in a feedlot system. So we want
the animals to grow bigger, faster
out on pasture. That's a big key.
We want disease and parasite resistance
because we're 100% pasture -based. We want them to
have characteristics of being fertile
and being able to reproduce for us, and
we want them to be able to have a genuinely
long life cycle. Pretty simple
characteristics that we are looking for when we
were building out this breed. Now, one of the
big things is, like I said earlier, was
the docility right if people are afraid of my
sheep they're going to be afraid of cows they
don't understand how to act around these
animals so we wanted to make sure that we
were bringing animals along that honestly
could care less if you've driven through a
pasture if you've ever had the pleasure of
having to drive through a pasture that was not
your own the cows are not fans they recognize
their people they recognize their people's
vehicles you know they get used to those
characteristics what we were thinking is hey
we need to make sure that our animals just
could care less about who's in that pasture
right docility was super important the
performance on the pasture so being able to
make the most out of whatever is present i
can tell you we've we've consulted for projects
all over in the u .s outside the u.s you
know from the way the layout is the kind of
panels the seed when we're seeding what
we're seeding and nature happens right the
birds you know spread seed for us and the
wind spread seed for us and the you know
whatever was in the seed bank pops up because
as the construction companies are going over
and creating um you know turnage in the soil
everything happens and and other stuff pops
up let's be honest there's no pasture right
off the bat that is 100% everything that
we wanted right away. So we need to make
sure that we're putting animals out there
that can utilize this pasture to the best
of their abilities and make the most out of
what's present there. We wanted to think
about moderate frame. So thinking about the
equipment, contact with folks that are
going to be on site. So we're looking at
about 1,000 pounds. It might be a
little bit over, but not by too
much. Under 48 eight inches at
the shoulder. So this is my husband,
Marcus. He's six one. I feel like it's
a bit of a fishing picture, right? Like
the perspective is a little bit off
because of where he is comparative to the
cow, but you get the idea. They're not the
mini highland that everybody wants in
their house running around, but they're
also not a full grown cattle that people
are used to, right? We were looking for
polled, so we didn't want the horns because
they can be intimidating. People can not like
them. People worry about them running
into things. the funny thing is that the
cattle have really great spatial awareness with
their horns but the look of it is what is
really where we were going so we're looking
for okay let's start breeding that out
we wanted them to be able to slick off
pretty fast this is an important characteristic
for us because where we are in virginia we
get the the winters right we don't get them
you know so terribly like some other folks
but we do get the ice we do get the cold
so we wanted them to be able to be hardy
in that situation but we also when the season
changes and is warmer we want that to
reflect we want them to slick off and be ready
to be heat tolerant the health and the
hardiness on the pasture like i already said and
then the calving ease this these characteristics
towards the end aren't really talked
a lot about even i find in the in the sheep
circles that we talk about when we're
talking about what we're putting out on solar but
for marcus and myself they're really heavy
we want these animals to to be able to
maintain themselves with minimal help from us,
right? We're going to rotationally graze them.
We're going to give them the mineral they
need. Obviously, we've got their best interest
in mind when they're out there, but we
don't want to have to keep stepping in. And we,
from the very beginning, as we were building
our herd, we have made sorting decisions
that folks would probably not have made.
We'll go, oh, she's not the best mom. Her bag
isn't that great. We need to be aware of you
know x y and z and so we're taking care of
that much earlier on with the idea that by
the time we've got our our cattle out there
they're going to thrive out there on their own
um one of the things a lot of people don't
talk about in in the solar world and and
as farmers we all know with livestock sometimes
you have dead stock me going out into the
field to pick up a dead you let's say
she's you know 125 150 pounds that's one thing
if we're going out and we had we had a cow
go down and have an issue, that that's a
bigger thing, as you all know, right? So if we
can start making those choices to ideally
in the end, have less of those instances,
that's what we all want. I'm not going to say
it's perfect, right? Because life happens,
things happen. But if we can start getting
some of those genetics out of there earlier
on, that's what we've been investing in.
And that's what we've been doing. So our
herd is not necessarily growing as fast as we
all thought it would, but it's growing at
a rate that's healthy for this idea of life
full-blown on pasture. We started with
a Dexter base. There are so many
reasons why we started with a
Dexter base that were personal to me,
but really what we were looking for is
this dual-purpose milkhead beef. We
were looking for an animal that did not
intimidate me, so those that don't know me.
I'm only 5'1". I was not a farmer growing
up. My experiences with animals came
later in life as I met my husband and we
were farming. And so this was another big
step for me, being around animals that
were bigger than me. I felt and always
feel comfortable with Dexter's. Our other
screening process for our animals is if they can
be around my youngest, who's four, and not,
you know, be worried about her and she can
still be her crazy, happy self, then
these are animals that characteristically we
want to keep around. The Dexters, one of
the things that people kind of bring up a lot
is that they needed more diversity
genetically. So that's why we're starting with
them as our base. But overall, they're ideal
for the situation that we're putting them into.
they're hardy they're adaptable so we
started with with our dexter base and then
um these are our cows this is this is the group
that we started with for our foundation um
there's our cat our cattle dog uh all
right then we took our belted galloway and
and the reason that we brought him in um other
than the fact that he is like a puppy dog
is he has this double coat that sheds really
well in the summer. He has good meat
marbling, and he's naturally pulled,
so we won't have to worry about
the horns anymore when it comes to
the Belted Galloway. They're fast. Their
rate of gain is great. They finish well on
pasture, and they're adaptable to lots of
different environments. Then we added the Piney
Woods, and the reason that we added our
Piney Woods is they are heat adapted they're
fantastic and what's really funny about this
is when it gets into summer here all of our
cows go into the shade of course and the
piney woods lays out in the middle of the sun
sun uh you know in the middle of the field
sunbathing he is so tolerant of heat i
don't i don't think it impacts him at all it's
amazing um he's really good at consuming a
wide range of plants and i'm talking like you'd
be so surprised with oh my gosh there's
nothing in that field and he's still growing
he's still gaining he's still doing really
well so those are the traits that we really
wanted to bring up um from the piney woods
and so when we bought him he's the little
guy on on the left hand side and that's his mom
uh right next to him so that's what that
he'll look like as he gets bigger there he is
again uh and then lastly we've added in the
american milking devon the idea again was
dual purpose milk and beef they are super
efficient foragers and genetically their diversity
comes from a while back when we're looking
at the breeds that we're bringing to the
table and crossing here genetically they've
got some really great foundation in them as
we cross them we should then get the best
of the best and we currently have our first
generation cross of dexter with her belt of
galloway she was born about three weeks ago.
And she is already about as big as the
calves that were born a month before her. And
she's just thick. And she's got the characteristics
that we've been looking for as we're
making those crosses. Thinking towards the
future, some people have asked us, will
you pull in the South Pole? Because people
know that breed. And I don't know that
we're going to have to. I think there's
potential for it, you know, way down the
road, maybe when my kids are managing the
herds. But when we're looking at genetic
diversity and what we're bringing and breeding
here, we should be able to be a
standalone in that sense. So yeah, there is the
option of doing that, but that would be
much further down the road than what we're
looking at right now. Our goal would be to
have some bull sails so people can
upgrade their herds, drawing straws for
artificial insemination, embryo transfer, ideally down the road
we're selling you know cow-calf pairs we're
helping other people diversify their herds
and and get these traits that that we want um
out there with you know the docility the
rate of gain being able to do as much as they
can on the pasture um now i said earlier
you know like i said i am a sheep farmer um
that's where we started solar grazing so for
me personally what i really want is i
want to see our cows go out on the sites
with our sheep. I want multi-species grazing
because you're getting better pasture
utilization overall. We're stacking
enterprises. So I've got lamb for
the meat market and now I've got
beef as well. Um, and parasite
control, they're each other's end hosts
for parasites, right? So we're also helping
in that sense. Predator abatement. I
don't know if anybody runs livestock
guardian dogs, but what we've found is when we
run multi-species, when we run our animals with
our cattle, we have less issues of predators
coming in. Now, livestock guarding
dogs are great. I love them to pieces,
but the hardest thing is keeping them
where we want them all the time. And
so if this allows me maybe to not have to
worry about having as many dogs on a
site to protect my livestock, that also
helps me in the end. Really what we're
thinking is this is going to help a lot
with public acceptance of solar grazing in
general. A lot of people recognize cattle
as farming. I get told a lot sheep is
not you know no matter how many sheep i
have i have 1300 head of sheep right now uh
that i'm not a real farmer um so one of
the things that we're trying to say is
okay well what if we paired it with cattle
it would be more accepted more people
would like it better pasteurization um you
know we're getting more organic matter
faster in the soil so as another quick
comparison one of the things that we found
is in virginia you're mowing four to five
times of summer. And once we put
sheep out, we can cut that
in about half. So we've cut
it down to two, some cases like
two and a half, which seems
weird, but if you knew the sites,
you'd see why. And if we were
to put our cows out, imagine how
much more we can bring that down,
having to use mowers to essentially
mow the forage. Instead, I can
put cows out there and now I'm
getting way better pasture utilization
um there are some current cattle
intake operations uh in the u.s and i
wanted to bring them up because they're doing
some of this important research and pushing
to say hey it's not the bull in the china
shop mentality that everybody says it is so
if you go back 10 years people didn't even want
sheep out there they couldn't tell the
difference between a sheep and a goat and so what
they were you know they're like oh they're
going to jump on panels they're going
to chew wires they're going to break out of
the fences you know all these crazy things that
over the past 10 years we've been able to show
nope this is really great for the landscape
this is really great for farmers this
is an opportunity um and that's kind of where
cattle are right now because they were the
easy ones to say they're too big no definitely
not going to happen out of silicon ranch
they have a program um that's trademarked
it's called uh cattle tracker and what it is
it's a collar that goes on their cattle and as
they go into a certain area what it does is
it takes the panels and we call it tabletop
so it just makes them flat um and it allows
the cattle to move all around them without
even touching the panels so they can
still eat all the grass underneath as the cattle
move away from it the panels go back to
tracking the sun and everybody's happy that's
their that's how they've tried to solve this
issue with that people want to have with
cattle being on solar uh there's a gentleman up
in new york his name is tony hendrick he
has been grazing sheep and dexter cattle together
on fixed array sites for two plus years
and the fixed arrays if you haven't been on
solar are exactly what they sound like they're
fixed the bottom edge of the panel is
anywhere from only um two feet to three feet off
the ground right so it's prime rubbing area
if you will tony has had no issues with his
cows rubbing on panels breaking panels running
into panels running into wires getting
tangled or anything his cattle don't interact
with the panels they eat all the grass
they're happy um because he's far enough north
he does bring his cattle home in the winter
um but otherwise they're out there grazing
spring through fall hula enterprises is also
in the cattle voltaic realm right now and um
they've grazed about 6 000 acres with 600
black angus cows and they're putting them
out there on the sites trying to see if they'll
cause any damage and they're not um so
again this bull in the china shop mentality
is is constantly being proven uh you know a
misunderstanding if you will uh if if it's
all about management practices just like anything
else we do as farmers it's all about how you
manage your animals if you're keeping them
on good ground and they've got food and
mineral and water they're not likely to find
themselves getting into any trouble when we
think about sites the next big thing that we
always get is is site design modifications
um what do we have to change let's talk
about it and let's talk about the costs and
realistically we we don't have to be making a
ton of changes if you want to you can so there
there are some sites that have gone higher
um just so that they can avoid those problems
or they've buried lines or whatever it
is there are many ways to approach it and the
hard part for all of us is that it's all
about bottom dollar and what a company is willing
to do or not willing to do what we're
trying to lead the way with is saying there
isn't a whole lot that needs to be changed
okay we were one of the first we were the first
sheep grazers to use collars on our sheep
so for fencing right and what was great for
that is that it allowed us to create zones
where our sheep couldn't go because
they were still doing construction on the
site so I could say okay sheep I don't want you
near this whole array and I could create a
whole no-go zone for the sheep and they
would avoid those areas. The technology is the
same for cattle. We can put these collars,
these virtual fences on the cattle and we
can create those no -go zones. Everybody is
worried about inverters or, you know, them
being around the gate specifically or
combiner boxes. Well, we can create these
paddocks that have these no-go zones and then
the cattle won't even bother going there. It's
just like when you're on your home farm
and you're teaching your cattle about the
fencing and they start to learn it. They
start to figure it out. I think that as they
start to learn what these no-go areas are,
they're going to just start to avoid them
on their own anyway. But we have this
technology. We can start deploying it
on sites immediately. The next, the
biggest thing in all honesty is water. What are we doing for
water on these sites? So what I've loved
over the, I will say the past five years
is sites are starting to be built with
this idea of thinking about livestock and
having a well on site. That's the biggest
thing. So the picture up top is us hauling
water with this truck. We do this all the
time for our sheep. We find connections.
We work with folks. We use these IBC totes
with gravity-filled water. It works
out fine. But sheep don't drink as much
as cattle do, right? The nice thing about
our cattle and the inverter cattle is they
still actually drink even less than the
typical Angus that most people are used
to, but we still need to supply water. What
I would love to see is our ball waters,
right? Let's run water lines. Let's be
thinking about that. That's a change that
we would like to see, but it's not an end
-all and be-all. It's just one of those things
that says, okay, as we're starting to
think about this a little bit more, let's
start thinking about the water supplies on
these sites and how we can best manage
that for ag practices. Here are the no
-fence colors that we used, and this
is the day that we strapped everybody in and started to figure
out the system. The big thing for us is
we are in the service industry, so we do
get paid to manage the vegetation under solar.
It's pretty simple. The methods to do it
are either currently right now with livestock
or with mowers where multi-species comes
into play is hey we don't have to change
the equipment very much and now farmers grazers
whatever we want to call ourselves
don't have to invest in expensive mowers we can
actually keep investing in the animals
that will reproduce themselves right you rub
two cows together you typically get another
cow you rub two mowers together you get a
fire um so instead what we're doing is we're
growing those herds we're and flocks and
we're producing more they can eat on that
landscape and be adapted to that landscape as
they're there longer um and kind of you
know swinging back to some of the other
stuff you already said we've got better pasture
utilization right um and we're reducing
potentially the need for livestock guardian
dogs which i've also found the hard part
is there are so still so many people who
are afraid of dogs out there that uh if it isn't
the sheep or the cow that that scares them
it's the dog that's big and fluffy and
wouldn't attack them right um so it's working
this system together within the constraints
of what is presented to us in the solar
industry uh and remembering that because
we are in the service industry our top priority
really is keeping the vegetation out
that's what i have for my presentation um i'm
open for any questions or anything else
anybody wants to bring. Okay, Jess, I think
there were, you want to stop sharing here.
We'll go to, I think there were some questions
in the chat here. Let's see. The question about
budgets, if there's Michigan specific, I also
have animals in Arizona and Georgia, if
there are active and intentional breeding
programs in those areas. Mr. Austin or Ms.
Austin, I'm not sure what the S stands
for. You want to just unmute yourself
and maybe explain a little bit of what
you're referring to? Yeah, that's me. I
actually typed the question from a different
device, and S is short for Shannon, Shannon
Austin. Okay, Shannon. Yeah, so I'm in the
process of trying to be intentional with
designing programs. And I'm working on
some specific urban agricultural projects
around Metro Detroit, and I'm currently dealing
with sheep and showing people how to raise
egg-laying chickens from home. But I would
like to, like, breed maybe some bison or
some smaller form of some bison buffalo-type
situations so I can get closer to producing,
I guess, more healthy meat options locally.
But I'm also trying to work in alignment
with who actually has budgets and resources
already in place. So, you're looking
for some connections. Correct. Yeah. I don't know, Jess,
do you have some ideas on that? I don't
have anyone I could refer him to right off
the top of my head. Yeah. I would say,
you know, one of the, you know, your ag agents
or, you know, your extension office is
a good spot to start with with those kind
of connections. And then they'll know
what's available. That's what I always kind
of lead people to. It's funny. My
husband worked on Ted Turner's ranch for
his graduate program. And people bring up
bison quite a bit. And I'm not
sure we're quite at the bison level yet. I appreciate that. I would like to
see it grow. I am the number one
cheerleader for like as many different
farmers, as many opportunities as
we possibly can. Um, I just not a hundred
percent sure that we're, we're at that
level just yet. Um, but, but let's hope
that we can grow there. And yeah,
I, you know, if, if you want, you
can reach out to me and we can try to
see if, if we can make some connections
for you. Um, you know, I'm, I'm all for trying to help out. I appreciate
it. Thank you. Yep. Lee, you asked the
question about, uh, cattle mounting, uh,
on a small solar array. You have anything you
want to add to that? Well, we have a farm
where they have a ground mount system just
for their own use on their farm. You know,
so it's very limited. And the array is
out in the pasture where the Angus
normally are. And everything worked
until the season came for mounting.
and now the cattle are not paying
attention to things that they normally
pay attention to. And once they
mount, their heads are quite a bit
higher than they were when they
were just grazing. So that was an
unexpected consequence. But the damage
was repaired very easily, I mean,
a new panel. And I guess that goes
with the territory. no i that's that's
awesome to bring up because i don't know
that a lot of people are thinking that way
and and research like what marcus and i've
been saying is man we we need a full
year and and all the things together right
we need exactly what you just said like we
need to test it with when we're breeding
we need to test it with when we're calving
and we're nobody is letting us do
that quite yet um but yeah if we want a
full picture we have to we have to paint
the full picture. So Jess, why don't you,
this idea of rubbing, can you go, I know
you, you touched on it a little bit in your
presentation, but can you be a little bit
more specific about what you've observed? And I
don't know, just kind of share some of your
practical experience with cattle rubbing yeah
so there's there's a couple different um
theories out there right now and and one um
so i was a a nutfield international scholar
scholar so farming scholar so um my topic was
obviously on sheep but you wouldn't believe
the amount of cattle farms i got to tour
around the world which was really insightful for
to me but there's a nutfield scholar uh i
believe out of the uk that talked about
enrichment toys or, you know, different things
you can put in pasture, but they were looking
at more in a containment system, right? So
like a feedlot system. And when they compared it to rotational grazing,
they found that because they're
getting new forage and spaces, you
know, as the growing season moves, so let's
say they're moving twice a week or
whatever it is, they're less prone to those
activities where they start to get into needing
that extra enrichment right so that that was
one of the theories that's out there um
when i talked to tony about it because
it's the first thing that came up with a lot
of people is like talk to me about the
rubbing tony says that they don't touch the
paint they're not rubbing the panels in fact
um he goes because they're fixed panels
you can get under one side a lot more than
you can on the other and he says if if the cows
want to rub they'll rub the the pylons
that are on the inside that aren't near any
wires or anything like that. He said, but
even then it's less. So, you know, I land heavy in
the idea of, it's all about how we
manage our animals. It's always about
that, right? Like we know when they
need to move, we know how they're
acting behavior wise. If you've got that,
you know, I think we've all had that one that
just does whatever they want to do all
the time maybe that's not the one that goes
out on solar um but what we found is yeah
if we can keep them moving if we keep
them you know in that sense we're better off
and then also we have less of those instances
of like lice or um flies flies coming
in or anything like that so if we can keep
them moving across the landscape we also
have a lesser amount of of those kinds of
things that are introduced all right thank
you uh joe go ahead and unmute yourself
and ask your question. Hi, Jess, this is Joe. Hey, I'm the one from
Wisconsin that happens to live
in Illinois. Got two questions.
Oh, I think you can remember them. So
the first one is what would you say this
the status is of the reap grants and the
number two has that lasso solar prize just
totally disappeared yes so lasso is we
were we were on a couple grant um teams
for that lasso is completely gone so that
was the easy answer um and then um i
don't know the status of the other right now
i'm trying to think about the reap stuff
oh my gosh last time i looked at it
was like a month ago i think i think
the reap stuff is gone yeah i
think i'm inclined to think that as well but um yeah we're basically
looking at everything through this we've
been talking a lot about this too is
that it's it's private dollars now is how
things are going to work all right thanks yep
thanks joe lee go ahead yeah i've heard uh
you might say through the grapevine that for
every foot that you have on a post above
the ground you need two foot below the
ground in most soil conditions so have
you run into people who have said you
know we like to build the post only five
feet tall and then you say couldn't
you just raise it two feet can you
confirm that that kind of rule of thumb um
you know it's true yeah lee that's what
that's what we were told oh man even before we
started talking people about getting our cows
out there um as we were learning about
sites and designs that was what we were told
um and it is it has been the biggest hiccup
for getting cattle out as everybody goes well
i already can't spend more money for you
know a taller panel and that's why we've been
leaning towards okay how can we make this
work with what we have um without having to
go to that that height and i also think that
the rental equipment or the equipment
that's available to drive those steel
posts there's one model that's pretty easy
to use that will take will start with a 16
foot beam which means you can put you know
this much below the ground and so much
above and as soon as you say well let's
add two feet to this post will the cost
isn't that much all of a sudden they have
to get a completely new set of equipment
because they have to be able to reach clear
to the top of the post before they start
driving right yep thank you lee i've
got a question here about genetic
seed stock pool for selecting
genetics and measuring performance can you i
think what uh kevin is getting that is can you
talk about the your your performance or your
your uh rate of gain um you know some
experience with with uh you know milking meat
quality those kinds of things hopefully kevin
i'm uh getting at your point here yeah
i think charles the biggest thing is Most of
the popular breeds that we've worked with,
and I've worked with the last 30 years as a
beef extension educator, we have a plethora
of information about these breeds with
EPDs. In my experience with most of the, and
I'll call them novelty breeds, the smaller
stature breeds that have been addressed
today, don't have a lot of good information
on selection criteria. And a lot of times don't
have a lot of choices out there. And, you
know, just mentioned embryo transfer AI
technology, and those would definitely
increase the numbers much quicker than natural
service to try to build some of these herds
and accomplish some of her goals to be able
to market some of these breeding stock
down the road to other farms that have
potential to graze. But I guess my question is,
are we actually measuring performance or is
there ways to measure performance so we can
select from the best? So we start off
early with the best because the generation
interval in beef cattle is long. It
takes a long time to make progress. We
need to start it out in the right place.
That's my question. No, that's a, that's
a great question. And it's, it's where
we started. Actually one of the other things
that Marcus and I talked a lot about,
because in the sheep industry you know,
my, my use typically twin. So they've
reproduced themselves quite quickly in a
much shorter timeframe. Whereas, you know,
cattle obviously take longer, just like
you said. So for us, what we are finding
and we are doing the research because we
have to, quite frankly, like you said, the
data isn't out there. So right now, as
we're building, we're trying to get our
partner with our vet and whoever else is willing
to help us start to collect this data
on what we have. Where we started,
all of our bulls are registered within
their breed. Right. So so we've got this
background on them. And as we're crossing
them, you know, we're collecting all of that
data right now. what we're seeing is uh
about three pounds of gain per day with
the hybrid vigor um but it it's also hard
because it's still early crosses we're
still in this early process right now um
where our breeds typically are is a lot of
people respect them for you know this
homestead idea right we kind of get laughed at
when people are like oh uh you have
dexter's like that's that's a homestead
thing. And when I say, well, you know, I've
grown from two to 30 in three years, that's
not terrible, right? But we are in the
process of collecting that to try to get it
to make these efforts. And we were pretty
adamant starting out, like I said,
to make sure that what we had was registered.
When it comes to the milk quality, our
Dexters are A2A2 and registered. So that
was important to us, too. Because of that
duality, we wanted to make sure that if we
wanted to get back into milking, if there was
the opportunity that, you know, we could keep
that and looking at some of these other
things. So we're definitely geared towards making
that happen and producing. Right now,
all I have for you is what I've seen on our
farm and what we've been able to do with the
goal of backing this as we can get more
people on board with it. Appreciate that. Yeah, I would have one more
comment on the earlier question about bison
and you hit the nail on the head about
docility and the need to be able to have
livestock and agri-fotail situations and solar
grazing that are as calm as they can be to be as
easy on the equipment. my experience is
bison are the opposite so if we're going to
look at small farms i think you gotta call
a ***** a ***** and come out and say bison
are probably not the place to go and we can
find um healthier meat sources within our
breeds of beef cattle in our in our feeding
systems and our management systems that accomplish
that goal and i think bison would be
the last thing i would attempt in a in a
solar grazing system because they're going to
be hard on the equipment and if you don't
have experience in equipment to handle bison
you're going to get in trouble real quick um
so i i would recommend everybody stay away
from bison for the for now um in this
situation because of the equipment needs and
the facilities and the handling and the facility
goals that you talked about earlier that'd
be my two cents no i i completely agree
with you i i also am 100 in the boat of um
what's hard about agrivoltaics and where
and the and where we are right now is what i
don't want to do is shut the door to opportunities
10 10 years down the road right so exactly
what you said like like right now it's
not it's not correct you know it's not set
up for that but we don't we we get asked all
the time like let's get a bill and define
agrivoltaics and in this state and make it
this and make it that and the slippery slope
we get into on all of this is it's it's we
don't know what the future opportunities are
so i don't want anybody to you know slam a
door closed and say no because that's kind
of what we're fighting right now too good
point so jess i want to circle back around to
uh this this concept of grazing sheep with
cattle. And I'm just wondering, how do you
determine a stocking rate when you have the
duality of animals out there? I mean, how
do you balance forage quality and quantity
with sheep and cattle? It's a really
good question. We get asked this
a lot because everybody wants
the stocking rate. Everybody wants
to know if I'm going to put in,
how many animals do I tell them I'm
going to put in? And first and
foremost, every solar site is different. Like we talked about
very early on with seeding and what blows
in and what pops up and is it fully vegetated
or not? There's so many different stages in
solar too that a lot of people aren't aware
of, right? So there's construction and everybody
understands that, you know, gets built,
panels go in um then there's a stage called
substantial completion which is when the
array is is live it's turned on it's collecting
energy but um the site isn't fully turned
over yet and done so they still have civil
work to finish out we get on sites a lot of
times at that window and the rate the and
the amount of animals we put on are a lot
less than what we would put on let's say in
a full uh pasture situation right so we
use a lot is this idea of it if i'm gonna
fully stock a site i typically start out
with um one head per acre is a really good
rule that we start with and then um build
out it's always better it's always better
to be in a position to have to add more
animals than to go oh my goodness uh my animals
aren't doing well or the landscape isn't
doing well um i need to pull pull animals
back because i'm i hate this i hate when
people say this but i'm over grazing uh
that term gets thrown around way too much
in my opinion um so we go a little bit under
but when we're when we work our cows with
our sheep together um if i were just go
with my cows right now i think i have about
uh 30 head not counting the calves that are
on the ground and we can easily manage 100
acres at the right pace that i want to be
managing it so we're grazing the top third
we're moving on we're not coming back for
about 30 days I take that method mix it with
my sheep and it just depends a lot on on
the way the site lays out and I know that's
super open-ended uh not direct question but
um it strikes this balance and right now
you know we try to float that as best as we
can as we're going through so I would say
if if you gave me a hundred acre site that's
broken up let's say into four different
paddocks and we're going to play pretty games
here and each paddock is 25 acres you know
I would stock on the lower end so I would
probably only be looking at about like five of
my cows and and maybe um you know 20 or
so 2025 depending um use and work that through
just to see how that rotation is um the
the nice thing about solar I will say is that
we are growing really great forage out
there so the sheep are excelling out there the
cattle would as well because the amount of
the forage is there um so we you know it
becomes a bit of a balance in that sense
and it's just going to play off each other
as we get going um but we err on the side of
let's go under first and if we have to add
more we could thank you thank you Clyde go
ahead unmute yourself yeah jess uh when it
comes to uh setting up one of these
agreements uh as far as getting the right
forage in there do you have to work with
the are you working with utility skill
people or just uh commercial scale um
we work a lot on um utility scale okay
and so we tried oh sorry yeah do you have
to get ahead of or get get in there ahead
of time to get the right forages started
or because you can't really you can't
really do a lot of reseeding once once
everything's in there yeah it's it's a fun
um i say that with a bit of sarcasm it's
a really fun network to to have to deal
in uh so what we're honestly telling them
a lot of the times is let's get in it's never
too early to start working with the farmer
we tell them that first we say hey um
where are you trying to build this are you
talking to the current landowner who is
likely a farmer uh how does the land what
what had it been doing right all of those
kind of things and then we say the first thing
that they need to do before they put any
posts in the ground is uh to make sure
that it's seeded and we talk to them about what
plants they want in there what plants they
don't want in there what what we found
early on is a lot of times they were putting
in like construction mixes so thinking about
um you know making sure there wasn't a
lot of erosion And yes, I agree, we don't
want erosion. But the problem was a lot of
those plants were from manuals that were
written, oh, I don't know, 60 years ago with some
plants that are now we are aware that are
super invasive and not so great and that
the animals won't eat. So we kind of had
to pull it back and say, OK, let's think
about this landscape overall. Let's think
about the mixes that we're putting in.
So we advised very early on about the seed
mixes as best as we can. There is always
a need to reseed. It just happens on a
smaller scale. Technology is coming so far
now, as you all know. I mean, there are some
companies that are using drones to
reseed. There are some that are still doing
it by hand. There are some that have smaller
tractors and they're doing it that way.
Everybody kind of adapts a little bit.
But what we're seeing in the reseeding is,
OK, here's the target of what you really
need in the soil here. Remember that there's
been a big push for pollinator seeding as
well. So how do you find that balance
between grazing and pollinators? Super
easy, as we all know as farmers, but they think
it's rocket science, so you have to break
it down a little bit. And you also have to
explain to them how long some things take
to seed, right? So, yes, you seeded it
this year, but you're not going to see it
till next year and that kind of a thing. So
it's walking people through that process
a bit as well, as much as we can and as
best as we can. And sometimes honestly
pointing out the stuff that shouldn't have ever
been planted or the stuff that blew in and
we go, OK, see that? that's a bad
guy because uh we're actually
on a site this is a true story
we're on a site and uh marcus was
looking at the grass and he said well who who
did your seed mix and they said whoever
it was and the guy's like why is it a problem
and marcus pointed out a prairie grass
and he goes do you know how tall that gets
and the gentleman had no idea and he said
well that that right there is a prairie
grass and that is gonna get um six to eight
feet tall but he planted it next to panels
that obviously we're gonna have problems and
the guy said well we just needed stabilization.
And we just, and Marcus is like,
that's all fine. Where did the seed mix come
out of? And it turns out it came out of the
West, which is great for prairies in the
West, but not on solar fields. So we've kind
of been doing a lot of this work to get
people to understand what we really
need out there versus what they
think they need. Thank you, Clyde, for
that good question. Jess, Jonathan asks,
can you address the economic aspects
of grazing animals in solar? Is there any
noticeable reduction in animal productivity
as opposed to growing in an open
pasture? And then how much can the
landowner expect per acre when leasing
to a solar company? These are all good
questions. Can you do me one, give me one at
a time again? Sorry. Yep. Okay. Can you
address the economic aspects of grazing
animals in solar? and yeah so oh no go
ahead he's got four of them in here um as a
third party grazer i get paid to keep the
vegetation out of the panels uh that price
point changes based on where you are so the
american solar grazing association based on
sheep did a survey a couple years ago to
talk about what the price points were um
depending on where you are it can range from
anywhere from a hundred dollars being paid
a hundred dollars an acre per year to up
to six hundred dollars an acre per year uh
how you manage it also or what they expect
from you also is important so sometimes
it's just literally grazing sometimes it's fence
line work road work um every company is a
little bit different you work that it
would obviously what that's going to cost
you into it but we get paid per acre per year
to manage the sites. Okay, and then he
asked, is there any noticeable reduction
in animal productivity as opposed to growing
on an open pasture? Okay, so for that one, our animals are actually
thriving on solar comparative to just
pasture-based, and I have a couple good
comparisons for that. The first one is that this
past summer, we had a really strange summer
here uh it was either super wet or super dry
it was not consistent for us and my sheep
lambed they raised their lambs we we were
doing great our rate of gain was great we were
getting animals to the processor uh and
there's i have a neighbor who raises sheep
for the meat market locally and we were
talking to her and she's like i got a question
how are how are your lambs doing right now
and i wish i had asked why she asked that
question before i told her how amazing everything
was because she is 100 pasture she takes
care of her animals i know her farm so let
me lay that out first i know that she has
clean water out for them all the time great
shade structures you know has all over
everything that they need right but what she said
was they just weren't doing well um they were
like more lethargic she couldn't she just
their their gain was not very good she didn't
know what was going on nothing had
changed with anything anything that she had
done and so i think really the way the the fact
that our animals had constant access to the
shade that the vegetation under the panels
because they're all tracking is growing
fantastic it's green it's lush it's growing
really well you know for us we were excelling
in that and then my flip to that is always
we keep our animals on site year round so we
had um last year we had a fluke ice storm
hit the area where i mean my kids were out
of school for a really long time you couldn't
get out the driveways because power lines
and it was crazy we had a farm for four
miles from the house but when i got over there
i thought oh my gosh i'm gonna find so much
trouble here you know i'm gonna have dead
lambs and you know i was preparing for work
the worst case scenario i got there and the
lambs were being born the ones that were
born the day before the storm were running
around and playing mamas were eating grass
because the panels kept everything uh you you
know, kept the snow and ice off the ground
enough that they still had access to forage
without having to dig for it. They were
doing really well with, again, minimal intervention
from my side as a farmer. So what we've
seen, honestly, is our animals on solar
thrive and grow better, faster, and cheaper,
essentially, for us than the ones that we have
in pasture at home. thank you jess um i
think this will be our last question here
uh brian asked about seed mix what's a
what's a good uh how did he put it please
provide a good seed mix that's a really good
question um depending on where we are uh is
is what we recommend so the american solar
grazing association put out a seed mix it's
called fuzz and buzz So it promotes grazing and pollinators together. We start that as a
foundation when we suggest people use a
seed mix on solar. And then we'll add in,
wherever we are, other plants that they should
be thinking about. In my opinion, it's
not been a one-size -fits-all kind of
mentality. It is really regional. And
that's where I always say, talk to the
local farmer whose land it's going on
and see what works in that area. because
they're the ones that have been working
it for so long. But I think when
it comes to mixes, that's a good
starting point, and then add to
it as you need. Yeah, the fuzz
and buzz can be purchased through
Ernst Seed. Yes. And I
believe they're out of Pennsylvania. Yes, they are. Charles, most of your
land-grant universities also have forage
research. Michigan State does as well so
most of your most of that research is going
to be species specific in varieties within
species and most of the time I'm sure
Jess is planning a mixed variety of plants
out there legumes grasses and so forth
to meet her livestock needs so there's not
there's never going to be one size fits all
for the species for the climate for the
soil type and for the rainfall so it's
going to have to be a ideally a custom mix
but the point she made about having this
planned before the soil panels go up and get
that planned ahead of time is critical because
your forage base, you hope you want
to do that one time permanently and then
just improve it over time as needed. Does that
sound right, Jess? That's, yep, perfect. Yeah, and we've
got some really excellent forage
specialists at Michigan
State University. and uh you know they're
certainly willing to share their expertise
as uh as needed as requested in
developing uh pasture mixes so kevin's
exactly right and get you lined up with them
if that's something that you're interested
in i think that you know the the hardest
thing about solar is that there are
folks that just honestly look out and
they if they see green on the ground, they
assumed it's good. Um, whereas, you know,
all, all of us farmer background were
like, uh, that plan over there is not so
great. Or, or, Hey, that if it gets
stressed, it becomes toxic, right? Those
kinds of little nuances we bring to the
table as much as we can too, to try to
say, this is why your seed selection is
so critical because, you know, in the summer
months it's toxic, but by the, by the
time, you know, we reach this point,
it's not, or when it's young, and those
conversations are critical, too, as we're laying
this foundation. All right. Jess, this has
been absolutely fabulous having
you here and sharing this
information with us. We sure appreciate
the wisdom that you've given us and your
practical experience. and hope everybody
that has tuned in also has benefited from
what you've shared. Jess, I'm going
to give you the, we've got just
a couple minutes here. Is there
anything else, just kind of a wrap
up last parting thought that you'd
like to leave with us as we close
this session out? No, I am. Honestly,
I appreciate the opportunity to talk
and share what we're excited about. I really
I want cattle out there and I want to
see farmers succeed. And so, Charles, you
have my email. If anybody needs it or
anything, please feel free to share it.
I'm here to support anybody along their
way in their journey. Thank you, Jess.