McIntyre Family Pastures

McIntyre Family Pastures

David Sparks Ph.D.
David Sparks Ph.D.
“This is purple top turnip and Sudan, grass and oats.” Brad McIntyre is talking varieties of cover crops.

“This one, it has Sudan. It's got the oats, turnip collard, buckwheat…” Cover crops are an important part of his no till farm operation. “ Importance with cover crops as we're trying to keep the soil alive. And by doing that, you need a root in the soil living. And so here at MacIntyre Farms, we do no till and cover cropping, so we are able to keep the soil covered and not disturbed in a living root all year long.”

Macintyre grows his own cover crop seeds and also raises seed for retail sales.

“Canyon County, the Treasure Valley, there’s not very many regions in the world that can grow seed like we do here. And so we're lucky enough to be living here and being able to do that and grow a really high quality seed that's free of a lot of issues that other seeds in other parts of the area run into. And so we recognize seed is a big portion of what we need to do here on our farm to be sustainable.”

At McIntyre Family Pastures, sustainability supports thousands of free ranging chickens, laying hens who produce eggs to sell year round. The chickens will follow the cattle across no till cover crop, planted pastures and perform cleanup while roosting nightly in portable coops. The farm also raises pigs and provides fresh pork available for sale year round.

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