e86. Getting Started in New Mexico with Nitesh Sakpal

00:00 - Cal Hardage (Host) Welcome to the Grazing Grass Podcast, episode 86. You're listening to the Grazing Grass Podcast, helping grass farmers learn from grass farmers, and every episode features a grass farmer and their operation. I'm your host, cal Hardidge. On today's episode we have Nitesh Sackpall. He is a beginning rancher in northeast New Mexico. Nitesh had contacted me to suggest some potential guests for the podcast and I said what about you coming on? He says they are just starting out and my response to that is it's great to hear from people all along their journeys, from beginners to those experiences. That's done it for decades. Nitesh is just a beginner and he shares about his journey to where he is now and some struggles he's had and what they're doing and what they're planning to do. And I really appreciate Nitesh coming on and being brave enough to share, because we've all been beginners or if we're not a beginner yet, that's because we haven't started and anytime we start there's going to be hurdles, there's going to be challenges, there is a learning curve. Nitesh, I really appreciate you coming on and I think you'll enjoy it. 01:27 Before we talk to Nitesh, 10 seconds about my farm. So I have an experiment going and I think I mentioned it a few episodes back I weaned a few calves. In fact, when we had discussed before about the pregnancy results, that were unsatisfactory for me, not as good as I wanted, I went ahead and did due to a few factors. One, the cows being opened, not bringing back for one reason, and my fall stockpile did not grow as good as I had planned on it, so it's going to cause me a feed, more hay. So I went ahead and I weaned calves off of those cows and by weaning them it gave me an opportunity to try bonding my calves with some hair sheep. I've read where people they bonded hair sheep and cattle together using mainly young stock and then you're able to run them together and those sheep will stay with the cattle and that's what I'm trying. 02:32 I have them in the corral. Well, I say that I had them in the corral to start out and I put a donkey in there and I have a goose. I've got a few geese and I have a goose that stays with them. So I left them in the corral for a little while. I've moved them out on pasture now and I'm moving them in, electronetting and keeping the, keeping the overall size of the pin pretty small just to help in that bonding and I've also introduced my goats into that pin. We'll see how it goes. 03:07 My goal is that I can run that flurred on lease land without a dog. My big concern is predators. With doing this, I'm hoping they, the sheep, hang out with the cows. I do have that donkey in there for some predator control as well, and we'll see how it goes, and right now the goose is in the electronet with the other animals. Anyway, I will be keeping you updated. I'll let you know how it goes. But enough about that, let's talk to Natesh. Natesh, we want to welcome you to the Grazing Grass podcast. We're excited you're here today. Thanks a lot, kel. 03:45 - Nitesh Sakpal (Guest) I am super excited to be here. I listen to your podcasts pretty much every week, on my way to work sometimes, but I'm excited to be here. 03:56 - Cal Hardage (Host) Wonderful, and thank you for listening. Natesh, can you tell us a little bit about yourself and your operation? 04:03 - Nitesh Sakpal (Guest) Well, my name is Natesh Sakpal. I am originally from India. I moved here to go to school. I'm an engineer by profession. I have an engineering job. Apart from this full-time job, we live in Cuy County, which is in the northeastern New Mexico, and the closest town to us is Tukumkiri, new Mexico, which I'm sure people know of because it's right along Route 66. And it's one of those neon lights town that a lot of people stop by for still. But yeah, so me and my partner, we live here now and we had to move back. After COVID happened, we lost a family member and we decided to move back and take care of the land and start our own business in a way Very good. 04:57 - Cal Hardage (Host) Sorry about your family member. You said you moved back there. So are your parents in the United States. 05:03 - Nitesh Sakpal (Guest) No, sir, I am here by all of them myself. It's mostly my partner's family and they pretty much are family. They are family. 05:14 - Cal Hardage (Host) So, first off, where did you go to school? So I guess college is what brought you here. 05:20 - Nitesh Sakpal (Guest) Yeah, yeah, I went to school in Nebraska. Go big red. 05:24 - Cal Hardage (Host) Oh yes, as a former Big Eight foe, I'm not a big Nebraska fan. Go pokes. Well, I was going to say the pokes made it to the Big 12 championship, but by the time this airs that'll be old history and I may not want to talk about that game. At that point. You went to Nebraska, and then what brought you to New Mexico? 05:48 - Nitesh Sakpal (Guest) I went to Nebraska and then after I graduated, I worked for farmland foods, which is mostly pig or hogs. So I worked with them for a few months or maybe six months or so, and then I got a job offered here in Clovis, new Mexico, which was in the dairy industry. So I moved out here for that and then I met with my partner, jordan Jennings, who was at Eastern New Mexico University up here, yeah, and then we lived in Clovis and for about six years or so and then moved to California and Reno Nevada because he was still in school. In between that COVID happened and we moved back here. 06:36 - Cal Hardage (Host) So what made you want to get involved in regenerative agriculture? Because, as you talk, you have a background more in conventional agriculture, with the pig farming and dairying, but now you're looking at doing more regenerative stuff. Yeah, that's a good question. 06:54 - Nitesh Sakpal (Guest) I think to me it all started with the love for the Western lifestyle, which came late to me. So Jordan's family they're all cowboys. His dad had been a good mentor for me, pretty much picked up learning to ride and cowboying with him, and so it was mostly just I just enjoyed that part in the industry, I guess, with just riding horses or training horses and cowboying. But we decided to move back here. I wanted to kind of improve the land that we have in the family or I guess in his family, and I started just researching things, like it was just simple Google searches. That's how I came across. 07:42 I think I came across Greg Judy. First I watched a lot of his videos and stuff and then I watched there's a research lab in Las Cruces, new Mexico, a Hornada range. They have been researching Corrientes a lot down there, how well they do for the semi-arid region and Southwest region basically, and I came across Dad and I was like I went down a rabbit hole, like you know it's just learning more and more about him and like how great they are for this part of the country. 08:19 - Cal Hardage (Host) Just a bit on that. Corrientes, I'm a little bit more rainfall areas than you are, but I'm a fan of the Corrientes. They seem to be doing good for me and I hear a lot of people like them, that's good. 08:34 - Nitesh Sakpal (Guest) Yeah, we had a love and hate relationship in a way. We went ahead and bought some Corrientes. They only stayed on our property for an hour. 08:48 - Cal Hardage (Host) Oh yes. 08:49 - Nitesh Sakpal (Guest) Yeah, and they hopped the fans, barbed wire fans like a beer and they took off. But I think the problem there was that we bought them from a bigger range. There's a big ranch up here and they're very. They do everything holistically and you know, and they raise Corrientes and they sell grass-fed beef and that's kind of how I got a hold of those Corrientes Boy. I chased them all over Cuy County. 09:17 - Cal Hardage (Host) Oh, I imagine so, because they can be very athletic. And, to be honest, when I got my first ones I'd heard I think we had August horseman on here and he was talking about it and other people I'd talked to and I kept looking at their prices compared to what I was paying for some other cows. I wanna try them, but I'm nervous about it. So I found about three or four hours away from me a guy had 20 head of Corriente heifers bread, so I drove down there and looked at him, talked my wife into going so it probably cost me lunch and supper. Anyway, went down there and looked at him because I'm like I told her if they're crazy I'm not interested, but I'll just go down and look. And I was shocked by how con these were and I'm sorry. 10:08 I made a deal and purchased them and he delivered them for me a few weeks later and I pinned them up and I started training them to electric fence and I got them pretty well trained and then I started my rotations with them and there was some difficult times for me at the beginning and I ended up selling I would say two or three, because they did not feel like a poly braid was enough of a fence for them to stay somewhere. So I identified those individuals and took them to the cell barn and took a loss on them. But what it did the ones I kept, they're all great with my fence and they're so calm it's really. I'm amazed at how well they've done so. When you say they hop to fence and change your day's plans, I can believe it. 11:01 - Nitesh Sakpal (Guest) I still think they're very efficient cows which they are, I know they are and my partner is just no, he doesn't want to have to deal with another Corientes, because, like we literally chased these cows all over Coy County, we they got out, I got on the horse, we started walking them back to the house. They found another hole, took off and they were like we have a local airport close by and they got on there. They were on the runway at one point. It was. It was crazy, but we finally just had to rope them and drag them into a trailer and and took them back to where I got them from, although we kept one. 11:43 - Cal Hardage (Host) Oh yes. 11:44 - Nitesh Sakpal (Guest) Yeah, we kept one cause she stayed in, which was very. She's a Angus cross, so she had a. She has quarter of an Angus in her, but she was bred with an Angus bull. 11:57 - Cal Hardage (Host) Oh yeah, well, on that, I get Jordan's apprehension about that. After, if you guys are able to find some that maybe someone's rotating that's used to polybraid or some calmer ones, he ought to give them a second chance. I do get that because when your days plan change because of animal or two I'm using not a very big fan of those animals then cause I had other things planned so you got, so you kept that one. Did you buy some more cattle or do you already have some cattle there? 12:30 - Nitesh Sakpal (Guest) The one that stayed actually later on decided that she just had to hop the fence. So she hopped the fence and so grandma's ranch is pretty close to us and the road pretty much goes nowhere else other than to her property. So I think she just kept that, took that road and she went to her property and at that point at that time she was leasing that land to this another gentleman and he had some cows there, so I think she just went in with his cows. We tried to bring her back but it was too much to, you know, sort one cow out of his big herd. So grandma already named her Grace and so she wanted her to stay there. So she's been there now. But and now we're leasing that property After that I was I still hadn't given up on Corientes at that point. 13:27 So I was still looking for, you know, somewhere to buy the Corientes from. And then I was in touch with New Mexico State, cause a lot of times they bring cattle in and you know they feed them and do the research on them, and so I was trying to see if I can find some, some from them which would be which had a lot more people interaction. So I got it. I went up to Clayton, new Mexico. I got in touch with the professor up there. He told me to come up there and look at the cows that they have. And he told me you're free to pick whichever you want from here, but you should come and check out my cows too. And I was like, okay, and he raises Galvies up there? Oh yes, and they use them for for some research work up there at the lab. 14:14 When I went out there, boy, those cows were so calm and they were, they were almost like pets. I pretty much fell in love with them, to be honest, with the red ones. So it kind of ditched the plan of buying the Corientes from New Mexico State and instead I went ahead and bought the balancer bred heifers from him and Hadesh. 14:38 - Cal Hardage (Host) what is a balancer? 14:39 - Nitesh Sakpal (Guest) Yeah, so the balancer is a Galvie crossed with red red Angus. Well, if they're red, so these were red Galvies crossed with red Angus, and I think there's a percentage that goes from 25 to 75, maybe. So if it has the Galvie, 25% is still considered a balancer, if I'm not wrong. And yeah, so I bought those Balancer bread had first from him and they've been doing good so far. 15:10 - Cal Hardage (Host) So how long ago was that when you purchased them? 15:13 - Nitesh Sakpal (Guest) I bought them. 15:15 - Cal Hardage (Host) That was last October I want to say oh yes, have they kept for you yet? 15:22 - Nitesh Sakpal (Guest) Yeah, they already kept. We had all except one, did not cast. I contacted the professor up there and told him, like man, I've thought I bought this one bread, and he said that the vet didn't do a good job of screening them. I guess checking them because a lot of the ones that he said were open turned out to be bread and vice versa. Oh, yes. 15:46 - Cal Hardage (Host) But yeah, yeah, that palpating them for pregnancy, the art and science of it. Not that I've never done enough to be good at it, but I have done it a little bit and it takes some time and depending on how far along they are, it can make a difference. So have you been pretty happy with them. 16:06 - Nitesh Sakpal (Guest) Yes, I think we're pretty happy with them. We really enjoy it. We're very calm to work with and now I truly believe that the traits are Heritable, because the, the calves that they have had, are the same way like they're. They're very calm, you know I can. Getting them into the shoot for the first time was not an issue at all. And and again, with the Corey empties though they just that one that we have and the and her calf man, he still gives us a little bit of problem. Yes, but no, I'm happy with the balancers. 16:46 - Cal Hardage (Host) We did or I've talked about this on the podcast my dad. For a long time he ran limousine cows and that's still the basis of his herd. But when we first started thinking we wanted to move outside of limousine, we looked at Galvi because of some shared history there of the breeds and they've just gone down a little bit different paths. And we did buy a galvy bull, I want to say, out in the Enid Oklahoma. We drove out there and purchased one and Really liked his disposition and he he worked for us. I don't think we ended up with many heifers out out of him, in that they'd be half galvy, half limousine, which I'm not not quite sure why that happened, but I thought he was good. It just didn't didn't work out and dad's heard, but I've always liked galvy, so I could really see combining that with Red Angus for your balancer could be a really nice cross. Now, as you look at those cows, how big would you say those they are the galvies itself. 17:50 - Nitesh Sakpal (Guest) They're pretty big animals. They're. They're a big breed. But the red Angus crosses our Angus bull is not, I guess he's. He's not as big of a bull. The heifers out of him turned out to be Not as big as the galvies get. So yeah, I would say they're a smaller. They're probably close to a thousand pounds. Yeah, so they're. I won't say I. I think they're not as big. They don't get as big as the galvies or maybe the charlots, I don't know, when you cross them. 18:22 - Cal Hardage (Host) That would be my thoughts that if you use a moderate size red Angus To cross them with, you'd be bringing down some sizes a little bit and maybe improving grass efficiency in my mind. 18:33 Without you know, and I'm not super familiar with galvium somewhat familiar, but not super familiar. So I could be someone who's got galvies out there could be yelling right now at me saying you don't know what you're talking about, and I'd have to say I don't. I probably should be quiet. So you got those heifers there. Did you start rotational grazing or did you do set set stock to get started, or how did you manage them when you got them? 19:00 - Nitesh Sakpal (Guest) Yeah, so when we first got them we did not. We didn't have as much land at that point at that time, so all we had was the 80 acres that we lived on it. It's covered in mosquito, pretty, yes. So we we didn't have as much as much grass to feed them. So I think that that winner we pretty much just had to pay um, which he was. 19:25 Oh yeah, it was a lot of hay and we were blessed with some good rains during the spring time, so some of the grass came up early and we got to graze on then and that spring we signed up or we took over more, like more leases from Jordan's dad. So we then, after that, we, we moved them to the, the pasture he has, which one of the pastures that was a think about Quarter of a section, and it already had fences. That kind of helped us, you know, move on. I would say that we haven't done as good of a job moving on, but as we, you know, progressed throughout the through the summer, kind of looked at where the you know where, how the grass was looking, and I would just drive out there, shake a bag of cake and they would come running into the, close the gate and yes, and you know you you mentioned there Maybe you didn't move them as much as you wanted to or should have, or anything. 20:30 - Cal Hardage (Host) You know what, when you're getting started on the journey, you gotta do what you can do and and you're building your experience with those cows and getting started. And Even for me I've been doing this for a long time and I still have a goal of daily moves. Certain times of the year I do daily moves, certain times of the year I don't, and it's just because you have off the farm jobs. So that makes a difference. That makes a difference for me, but it's a, it's a progression and you're working. As long as you're, you're doing that next step. I think you have to do what you can do at the time and then try and do a little bit better tomorrow. 21:11 - Nitesh Sakpal (Guest) Yes, sir, yeah, and I think for us our immediate goal is to establish Grass pastures. So we're focusing more on that, you know, alongside of, obviously, raising cows. But our main goal is to eradicate the the mosquito off the land and put some grass, seed down and get grass growing. The other pastures that we have now that we're leasing, we're we're trying our best to keep them moving there so that they don't overgraze a section. Oh yeah, and, and they do they. It's crazy because I've noticed this we have buffalo grass in certain sections and then we have Kentucky blue. We have some sand drop seed. We have a bunch of us all native grasses, but they will. They won't touch the sand drop seed for some reason. Oh, yes, yeah, you know they'll. They'll graze everything else down and I've seen that in so many spots. It's kind of frustrating. 22:10 - Cal Hardage (Host) Yes, to be honest, I have not been to New Mexico. I've always dreamed of going out to Clovis, new Mexico, because of the dairies out there. At least Years ago there was a lot of dairies. I assume there still are so. So that's all. On one of these days I'm gonna go out there and not just fly over New Mexico. But I've been to Amarillo and I know when I go out there I look at that ground and there's not a lot of grass out there. So I'm assuming you're very similar to Amarillo, or or maybe not quite as good as Amarillo. 22:44 - Nitesh Sakpal (Guest) Yeah, we're. You take Amarillo and we're. We're worse than Amarillo. 22:49 - Cal Hardage (Host) How far are you from Amarillo? 22:52 - Nitesh Sakpal (Guest) We're about 80 miles from Amarillo. Yeah, oh, okay, yeah, not too far, yeah, not too far. But I always tell people that we're we're a lot prettier than the West Texas Panhandle is because we have a lot of Mesa's around and you know there's a the mountains kind of around us and we're a lot. We're sort of in a valley here, still pretty higher up elevation. We are no Amarillo, although they do have the advantage of having Ogallala the aquifer there. 23:27 So they're. They're able to pump water up with their the way. On the other hand, are kind of at the mercy of rain, although we do have irrigation water that's coming from a conscious lake. So we do have a lot of irrigated pastures, but the water irrigation here depends on rainfall. You know, if the lake is full they'll send water down. But yeah, I know, we average about 17 to 18 18 inches maybe of rainfall. There have been years where it was only like 12 inches or less. But when I say that average, it's an average for a Koi County and the county is very, it's a really big county. Like I said, we have, like these Mesa's and Caprocks around us which are a little bit higher elevation than us, so a lot of times the rain kind of goes there and it doesn't come to us as much. So but yeah, but the last spring we got a lot of rain. We probably got like nine or 10 inches in that one or two or three months. 24:32 - Cal Hardage (Host) Now you are working to get some pasture established. What is the process you're going through to convert those pastures from mesquite to something that's a little bit more digestible than mesquite? 24:45 - Nitesh Sakpal (Guest) Yeah, so the pasture that we're working on now was probably the worst affected by the mesquite, and this is not the. I think there's some variety of mesquite that some they grow tall and that you chop wood off, and these are not the nicer ones. These are the ones that they just stay short and they keep getting broader, and so they're very hard to get rid of. And what we have? Well, I read some papers on that and it said that mechanical grubbing was the best way to kill them. So we spent some money out of our pocket to get that grubbing going and we cleared about 20 acres of mesquite from there and then we windrowed everything and had to. We're burning them as we go. 25:37 So as they dry up, we're burning up and trying to clear up that land, but now I am in a contract with NRCS to get some additional grubbing done, so I think that will be very helpful. But yeah, mechanical grubbing is the best way to go. 25:56 - Cal Hardage (Host) Now, when you say mechanical grubbing, is that a dozer coming in? Is that like a brush hog? I mean, it'd take quite the brush hog to mow that, but what's that look like for someone who hasn't done that? 26:09 - Nitesh Sakpal (Guest) Yeah, so we have to get a backhoe in which has a. There's a special blade or tool that some guy in town has built in. So we have him contractor, but yeah, so he brings his backhoe and then it's a big machine. You have to pull them to where that tap root is out and then you have to lay them upside down when it's all done, because their roots can go. They go pretty far down, and there I forget the word they use, but they basically you can't just mow them down, because they'll come back, and they come back stronger when they do that. 26:49 - Cal Hardage (Host) Oh, yes, yeah, now did you consider running goats on there, or anything? 26:55 - Nitesh Sakpal (Guest) I have, but I just have shared how hard it is to keep the goats in and actually, personally I love goat meat too, so I would love to have some goats. We haven't tried that, and my other concern with putting goats out there is that we already have limited grass. I don't want the cows and goats having to compete for the grass, because obviously the goats are going to eat the grass first and then go to the mesquite. 27:22 - Cal Hardage (Host) But I couldn't be wrong about that, yeah, it's yeah, I have not tried grazing in mesquite. Now I want to say I was just at Noble Research Institute. There are essentials of regenerative grazing course and I believe we were talking there and I believe they said for mesquite, there are certain times if you run cattle in there, I may have this all messed up. So I'm going to put it out there, but it may not be right and whoever can correct me on this. But at a certain point you can push cattle on there and those leaves are tender and they'll pull those leaves, they'll eat them and then there's. I want to say there's like three times you got to do that. I don't know. There's a whole process, but you can get some grazing from those trees with cattle. Or if you were to put goats or sheep out there, but long run it's front loaded but you get that seeded into something else. So that'll probably benefit you greatly. Do you have a thought or a plan for what you're going to seed it in? 28:24 - Nitesh Sakpal (Guest) Yes, I do, and the other reason why I was looking at Corientes was because that they will eat mesquite. They'll graze on mesquite, like that's proven. There's videos also out there of them eating mesquite trees or, you know, leaves off of them, but I have noticed that the Gailwees also do that. They have been great. They eat the leaves off of them. The problem, though, is that they also like to eat the seed pod, because they're sweet, and it's the same thing with horses they love that, and then, you know, they obviously drop those seeds elsewhere, and now you have more mesquite. 29:06 - Cal Hardage (Host) So they're spreading the mesquite for you. That's interesting about the seed pods. I know with honey locusts and we deal more in this area where I am with honey locusts. Versus mesquite and honey locusts, those seed pods are a source of energy because they're sweet and there's, I think, austin Unrout that we had on the podcast a long time ago. He talked about different varieties. Have you know a little bit? They've been bred for a bigger seed pod to provide more nutrition, which is interesting. I hadn't really thought about the mesquite like that, but that would be a potential with the downfall, that they're spreading it out even further for you. 29:49 - Nitesh Sakpal (Guest) Yeah, yeah, and I think again, I wouldn't be as opposed to you know having, because the mesquite does also give them shade and stuff. But they have to be the right kind of mesquite trees. They have to be the ones that grow tall and the ones that we have, they just stay short and they keep spreading. And then there are two points where you know cows won't even want to travel through there because you know there's just these pokey things all over on the ground. It's kind of like having small, short cactus all over and a lot of times they suck up so much moisture that nothing else grows around them. And a lot of it has happened, especially on this one property that we have is because of it being so overgrazed, because it was just poorly managed before. Horses are I mean, I love my horses but they're very bad at, you know, grazing close to the ground and that's kind of what caused the proliferation of the mesquite on our properties, because it was overgrazed before. 30:51 But yeah, what we did was that I wanted to have half a pasture to myself, to basically do what I wanted to do with it and not have kind of NRC as a dictate. Well, they don't. You come up with a plan with them, but after that they're very diligent about you know you have to follow everything that they say. So we just we have like half a pasture that we're able to crop and the other pasture we're taking the Mesquite out, which it is out now, and we're going to plant native grass there. So it's just going to be a mixture of the, you know, blue grumba, sandrop seed. 31:31 - Cal Hardage (Host) Yeah. 31:32 - Nitesh Sakpal (Guest) Buffalo grass and stuff. 31:33 - Cal Hardage (Host) And then we're going to have some really warm season grasses. 31:36 - Nitesh Sakpal (Guest) Yeah, it's all mostly just warm season grasses. A lot of times during the summer months it gets so hot and I don't know if the cool season grasses will do good over here as much, although grandma has on her property which I don't I'm not, I don't know about Kentucky bluegrass how well it does, but her pastures were irrigated so they have established their very good. 31:59 - Cal Hardage (Host) So actually two things before we go to the over grazing, we dive in a little bit deeper in the NRCS One just in your short time of doing this, what's been bigger challenges than you initially thought they were going to be? 32:15 - Nitesh Sakpal (Guest) The bigger challenges have been. I think I'm always just worried about my cows getting out, just you know, walking the fences and making sure the fences are up here right, and it's kind of hard to do that when, when you have, I guess, 600 acres for us to graze and oh yeah, and, and that's kind of daunting. We moved our cows over to the bigger ranch. That was during early summer or late spring time, and we got this the spring storms boy. We got a, we got a lot of rain, which we needed, but that also meant that all our creeks and water gaps we're taken down by that water coming down, you know. 32:59 And when we let the cows out, we thought that okay, we have grass all over here, like there's good grass. They're not gonna go over to the challenging territory, you know, because some parts of the, the ranch, like you, you have to have a horse to get there because it's, you know, you can't get, get up, get there with the four by four or anything. And I was like the cows are not gonna try to go there. So we didn't really care to check the fences down that way. Sure enough they found that hole if they got out, and that was. That was crazy and we. I actually have a friend up here who raises long horns and he Helped me with his drone because his long horns get out and he uses a drone to like. 33:43 Oh yeah fly over the area to see where they might be, and and that's what we did, and we found them and got them back. 33:50 - Cal Hardage (Host) But yes, yeah, they'll, they'll find a spot for sure. Have you started any electric using poly braid or electric fence with them? 33:59 - Nitesh Sakpal (Guest) well, we did was we just had two strands, and they seem to be okay with it, like they they've been respecting that. So, yeah, well, good, most of our fences are just bark wire fences, at least the perimeter fences are. Like I said, the land had a lot of seasonal creeks and so we had we just have to maintain the water gaps there because, yeah, spring storms tend to do a lot of damage Sometimes. 34:28 - Cal Hardage (Host) Oh, I'm sure, yes, as you're getting started with this and we're gonna talk about in in our CSN Just a little bit but where do you want your farm to go? Where do you see it going Next five years? What's your goal? 34:43 - Nitesh Sakpal (Guest) for me, my, my first priority is to get the land up to where I wanted to be. I want to improve the land first and I think I'm focusing more on that and you know, alongside of raising cows. So I think my goal is to establish good pastures and have like a System in place to where I know that I can forecast how much grass I have, or or a crop that I planted, you know, and go from there. But as of now, with our small herd we're just trying to. Our goal is to sell bulk beef this coming year. We're just grain finishing them at this point because the grass is limited. Here that's going to be. 35:27 Our goal is to have a set of commercial herd, also having a small operation Going for direct consumer business. So but before I get there, I mean we're blessed to have the land that we have, you know, with then the family and I know it's hard. Land is hard to come for a lot of people. Leases are also going up there, it's not cheap. So I just want to get, get to a point where I am comfortable With the amount of grass I would have or, you know, a system is in place that I can feed them year long and I don't have to worry about hanging them right? 36:08 - Cal Hardage (Host) yeah Well, those are our great goals to work towards and I'll be excited and see your progress there. Thank you, natasha. Let's go ahead and move to our over grazing section, where we take a little bit deeper dive into Something going on in your operation and we're gonna talk a little bit more about the NRC s and your Her scribe grazing and what you're doing with them. Mm-hmm. So just tell us what you're what you're doing with them, and I have a few questions. 36:38 - Nitesh Sakpal (Guest) Yeah, sure, with NRCS. What we have now is I wanted to start with on a smaller property first and go from there, and the project that we have now is to Get the mosquito out of there, and then we have to build up, build some fences. The only fences that they like are barbed wire fences. So we're we're building some fences and then establishing the grass after that. They want us to have a grazing plan, which will basically just mean that we'll have to rotate the cows every so often. 37:15 They have a set number of cattle that can go on a land, but they don't. I guess they don't push for it as hard, but there's a recommendation from them. Oh yes, the major thing is just getting the fences in place, which I was a little bit disappointed because I'm not getting to use the electric fences there, you know, because these are not perimeter fences but they. They want us to have the four-strand barbed wire and they have to be a certain Specification to keep the antelope and deer where the antelope can go through and you know, the deer can jump and stuff. 37:51 - Cal Hardage (Host) Did you find was a process easy to get started on working with them? 37:56 - Nitesh Sakpal (Guest) Yes and no. I would say that I got. I was a little too ambitious at first. You know, when I first got into it with you know I signed up for too many projects we have. The way I got to I found out about them was in from the local extension office. So we have a beginner farmer ranger program that that I went to and they Kind of introduced us to the whole NRCS application process and walked us through everything and that's how I got in touch with them. 38:29 So there's paperwork, they they'll come out and they'll, you know, visit the land and they'll like Walk over different projects with us and then they will rank you in their ranking system and the following year you cannot start any work until you have been approved. Basically is how it is. They will call you to let you know if if you were selected or not, or if the funding was available or not. Once the funding is available, then they come up with a plan on how far out your projects can be. But we have to get all the projects done within five years. But they're they're flexible when when you do that, like I said I was, I was a little too ambitious with them. I probably should have just sticked, stuck to Getting the mosquito grubbed out. Oh, yes, yeah. 39:18 - Cal Hardage (Host) Now Is it a cost-share program they're doing? 39:21 - Nitesh Sakpal (Guest) it is a cost-share program. Yeah, so depending on how they classify the mosquito as high, medium or low, and then based on that day, I guess, they Calculate how, how much to pay, and and then it's up to you how you do it and how long will they follow through with this? 39:40 - Cal Hardage (Host) Or is it just? Or is it just the reason I'm asking? I know we had a pond built a number of years ago with I'm not sure Dad did is probably NRCS, but I'm not entirely sure it was a cost share. But I know they came out and did periodical checks for I think five years on the pond. Now I could be totally wrong with what they're doing now. That was probably two or three decades ago. But how is that on your project, once you get finished, is it done, or do they do some periodic checks or there's some follow through with that? 40:16 - Nitesh Sakpal (Guest) I don't think so. I think it's pretty much after we're done with the projects. They come out to check, they'll inspect what you're doing and based on that they will make the payments. After we got the mosquito grub, they came out and they measured the acreage that got grabbed and then they'll make the payments based on that and the grazing aspect. So, as far as the grass, they said that two years minimum, that I cannot graze that pasture because they want the native grass to establish. But they also want me to do some weed control before I plant. So they'll be inspecting all of that and after that they will just come out there to check on how I was doing, how I am doing the rotational grazing in a way. But that could depend on a lot of things, like I may not even have cows on that pasture at that point or so. We'll see how it goes. There's still time. 41:16 - Cal Hardage (Host) I haven't thought about it much yet it's all learning process. Yes, sir. 41:21 - Nitesh Sakpal (Guest) Yeah, we have planted some cereal rye spring oats and we use the no-tail drill from our local office here. The oats have done pretty good so far, the rye not as well as much. So that's kind of. My plan is to have a stockpile grass and have some sort of a crop for winter grazing, so they get some protein out of that. 41:50 - Cal Hardage (Host) And when you said your local NRCS office for us, our county has a no-tail drill you can use. It's in the county seat. Is yours in the county seat or do you all have multiple areas because your county is so big? 42:06 - Nitesh Sakpal (Guest) No, I think it's just with the local sign center. Oh yeah, yeah, so it's at the sign center. They keep that no-tail drill and we're able to lease it. Yeah, but it's just that one that I know of. 42:20 - Cal Hardage (Host) Oh yeah, I keep meaning to. Well, I keep meaning to. I thought I would talk to local office here that has a no-tail drill, but I just I'm quite a ways out of town so dragging that clear out here to do it is probably not as big a deal or issue as I have in my head, but I just find that concerning for me, Natash, it is time for us to move to our famous four questions. Same four questions we ask of all of our guests. Our very first question what's your favorite grazing grass related book or resource? 42:57 - Nitesh Sakpal (Guest) You know I don't really read books as I should. I do like reading research articles. So a lot of times when I'm trying to find something, I would go like I'll go to our local extension office's webpage the New Mexico State Sign Centers web pages and I'll find like articles from them and I'll read a lot. I get a lot more information out of that because it's more tailored towards us, I feel like, for example, on the grass, they have an article that kind of talks about what's good for the need of grasses, like when to plant them, how to control the weeds and how to graze them. So yeah, that's kind of what I do Just read the local office's pages. 43:46 - Cal Hardage (Host) You know the extension offices are great resource and their web pages, yes. If I need some kind of information that I think I need a little bit more specific information, I go to Oklahoma State Extension and search through the websites and find what I need. Sometimes it gets kind of dense to find what I need, but I like going there and reading their fact sheets. A little bit different, but it works. 44:14 - Nitesh Sakpal (Guest) Sometimes it does get a lot more technical in OE too, but I'm in touch with the professors up here and they also. They're pretty quick to respond. I'll just text them something and they'll let me know what they think I should do. So that's kind of helpful as well. I do watch a lot of Greg Judy's videos from time to time. It's pretty interesting how they have their setup up there. I just find it difficult to kind of apply that to my operation as of yet, Elise. 44:49 - Cal Hardage (Host) Yeah, and they're in that fast cube belt and those fasters look a little different than yours, but there are certain principles there that hold true. 45:00 Yeah, I get that. I enjoy watching those videos as well. I watched one earlier about their freeze-proof trough that I hadn't actually. Two things on that stuck out to me and I was going to go ahead and add this in he purchased a fitting with a mega-flow float from Russ Wilson. It has a spigot on the side so that it'll run a little stream and you can keep the stream running, which I thought is a great idea. But I didn't even know Russ Wilson had anything that he sold on his website. So I went and looked at that earlier and thinking, you know, save up money. Actually, I need to get one and try it sometime. So, yeah, I enjoy those videos and it's a tremendous resource, those YouTube videos. And in doing that I found Russ Wilson has a YouTube channel. I didn't know he had a YouTube channel. So, yeah, I've subscribed so I can watch some of that too. Our second question what is your favorite tool for the farm? 46:03 - Nitesh Sakpal (Guest) Jordan and I were debating about this. I'm going to go with what he thinks is our best tool and I think it is our tractor. We have been debating about, like you know, putting the or investing in a tractor. I was very against it for a long time but I kind of gave in and now it's been a blessing for sure so far. Oh yeah, I mean, I didn't buy a big tractor, it's only probably like 55 horse. I was like you know, I'm not a farmer, I'm not not gonna like, I'm not gonna roll crop or anything. I don't need a big tractor. But the tractor we have now is is doing plenty good for us, especially like because we have our pastures, are not contiguous acreage, you know. So some of the range lands are out there and sometimes we have to move equipment down there or whatever. And it's much easier to have the tractor to load up or, you know, haul it there and unload it there and obviously at the same time working on the farm, like the farmland, working the farmland, like planting winter crops. It's been helpful. 47:11 - Cal Hardage (Host) So oh, yes, it would. Yeah, you know, we, we ask these same questions of all of our guests and when I started this I really thought the favorite grazing grass related book or resource would be my favorite one. What do you tell someone just getting started which will get your answer in just a moment? I knew that would be a good one and that's always a favorite one. But probably my favorite question to ask is what is your favorite tool? Because it is so open ended and it doesn't give you much guidance on where to go with that, and I just think it's always interesting to hear what, what different people say. I'm, I'm always, I don't know about always, but I am often surprised by the answers you know and, to be honest, I really haven't thought and stopped and thought about what I would say. But that's one of the beauties of that question, it's just how do you interpret the question and then where do you go with it. So, yeah, I can see how a tractor would be very beneficial for you. 48:14 - Nitesh Sakpal (Guest) Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And now to me, I was going to answer it at first it was going to be my horse. You know, like I said, there's parts of the ranks that it's hard to get there and you know it helps having a horse and I can be horseback and you know, just ride along the fences to check. The fences are good Sometimes when these calves, cows or heifers calf, and they like to hide them and behind some stupid mosquito bush and it's hard to find them and it's easier to get on a horse and you know, have a good view from the top. 48:47 - Cal Hardage (Host) Our third question what would you tell someone just getting started? 48:52 - Nitesh Sakpal (Guest) I'll tell them to do a lot of research, and research that's tailored towards their land and their climate, and keep an open mind, like you know. Go out and learn what other people are doing, or what works for them may not work for you To do that. Look for research that's more unique to them or more applicable, and have patience and don't get bogged down into one thing. 49:26 - Cal Hardage (Host) Patience. Sometimes I was just talking to someone the other day about this I get stuck on the details or the individual trees when I should be just looking at the forest. 49:37 - Nitesh Sakpal (Guest) I do that a lot with a lot of things. I still do it, and Jordan's more. Like it'll be fine, don't get into the weeds right away. 49:50 - Cal Hardage (Host) Right, yes. 49:52 - Nitesh Sakpal (Guest) We're slowly building up to it. We're not going to get there at day one. 49:57 - Cal Hardage (Host) Right, right, yeah. And here's the thing we all have to be careful about, especially when we talked about YouTube and you're watching what's going on on Greg Judy's farm. He's been doing it for decades, so we have to remember when we're looking at his. We don't want to discourage, get discouraged by looking at where we are, and we don't want to forget that we haven't been doing it all that much time, or we may have been doing it that long, but different circumstances. It's just got to be careful about looking at your farm and looking at someone else's farm. The more important is to look at where you were a year ago, where you are now and where you're going in a year, comparing those to yourself. And lastly, natish, where can others find out more about you? 50:47 - Nitesh Sakpal (Guest) So we do have an Instagram account now and it's just sbarj, underscore ranch. But, yes, that's all we have for now. Our goal is to establish a website and stuff eventually, but for now we're keeping everything just local. Or find me on Facebook. 51:05 - Cal Hardage (Host) And we'll post the link in the shell notes. And, natish, I really appreciate you coming on and sharing. You're getting started on this journey and I think it's important we share about a whole range of how far you are along that journey, because there's lots of people in your position getting started and I just appreciate you being brave and coming on and sharing and letting us know what's going on there. 51:29 - Nitesh Sakpal (Guest) No, yeah, thank you First. I messaged you saying we were too early in our journey, so I'm not sure about coming on to the podcast yet, but I appreciate what you're doing and I love listening to the podcast and I get a lot of diverse information from everyone who has been on your podcast so far and it's been very helpful. 51:51 - Cal Hardage (Host) So thanks for doing that Well, thank you, and I'm glad you do. And yes, I so believe that we need to highlight the journeys from beginners to those who's been doing it for decades, and I know when you come on here and share, especially as a beginner, you're a little concerned how that's going to be received and others are going to be looking and saying what's he doing? We're all in a journey. We're all working to get better, so I really appreciate you sharing with us today. Yes, sir, no, thank you. You're listening to the Grazing Grass podcast, helping grass farmers, learn from grass farmers, and every episode features a grass farmer in their operation. If you've enjoyed today's episode and want to keep the conversation going, visit our community at communitygrazinggrasscom. Don't forget to follow and subscribe to the Grazing Grass podcast on Facebook, twitter, instagram and YouTube for past and future episodes. We also welcome guests to share about their own grass farming journey, so if you're interested, feel free to fill out the form on grazinggrasscom under the Be Our Guest link. Until next time, keep on grazinggrass.