The Farmer's Greatest Asset Podcast
The Farmer's Greatest Asset podcast is dedicated to supporting and empowering farmers by recognizing that their greatest assets are the knowledge, experience, mind and health. Hosted by husband-and-wife duo Jesse and Dr. Leah, this podcast combines their unique backgrounds to provide valuable insights. Together, they explore topics that help farmers thrive both personally and professionally. Tune in for a blend of practical advice, real conversations, while having a little fun along the way as they talk about all thing's agriculture and family.
The Farmer's Greatest Asset Podcast
Spoon-Feeding Your Crops
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We dive deep into nitrogen management strategies, balancing science with the practical realities of farm operations to maximize yield while controlling input costs.
• Fall versus spring anhydrous application depends on soil conditions, workload management, and weather patterns
• Soil temperature and biology significantly impact nitrogen availability to crops
• Soil moisture must be adequate to properly seal anhydrous and convert it to plant-available forms
• Progressive farmers are achieving nitrogen efficiency rates around 0.7 pounds per bushel of corn
• Side-dressing nitrogen at V3 growth stage offers optimal timing for corn utilization
• Spoon-feeding mobile nutrients like nitrogen, sulfur, and boron maximizes fertilizer efficiency
• Early morning applications of foliar products provide yield advantages over midday applications
• Harvesting soybeans at higher moisture (15-16%) rather than waiting until 8-9% could capture 5+ bushels per acre
• Family involvement creates valuable learning opportunities and problem-solving skills for the next generation
• Full-season soybean varieties may provide advantages as growing seasons shift with changing climate patterns
Share this episode with your farming friends and let us know what topics you'd like us to cover by emailing farmersgreatestasset@gmail.com.
The Farmer's Greatest Asset podcast. We believe the farm's greatest asset is the farmer their knowledge, experience, mind and health. Welcome back to the podcast. I'm Jesse.
Speaker 2And I'm Dr Leah.
Speaker 1So we're continuing our conversation from yesterday with Greg, where we left you hanging on with the question of fall anhydrous versus spring anhydrous. So for me, I used to try to do it all in the spring. It's getting to be where the workloads may be a little too much, too close to planting, because I don't want to lose it. That's why I want to do it in the spring, but then, if I can get it done in the fall, it's one more task out of the way and I'm probably not creating as much compaction then as I would. You know, march 31st, april 1st what's the best way? Yes, no, who knows.
Speaker 3I'm going to go to the quintessential agronomist answer, that it depends. And I really mean that.
Speaker 1Soil conditions kind of determine everything. Yeah, that's exactly right.
Speaker 3And then again, I really try to be respectful of what farmer you know. So like we have to consider that farmers have lives and families and workload management. That's just this big term that I throw out there with, like I mean, I can, I can be very critical of what a farmer's doing, but you know, maybe maybe farms with his dad and his dad's going in for knee replacement surgery.
Speaker 1I don't know the rest of the story.
Speaker 3I either get the. I don't know the rest of the story. That's right. So, um, I can comment on a few of the factors. Uh, again, one of the driving factors for fall anhydrous not so much this last fall, but the two prior falls was just soil moisture. Right, I mean we were drought the second half of the year, I'll say in both 22 and 23, 2022 and 2023, you know. So that's why there's a component to even maybe anhydrous that may be going on today If it's sealing, well, okay, yeah, it's in there, it's injected and it's in the soil now and that's better than I mean. That's what I think there's another component to. We could probably have a whole podcast on nitrogen. I have a book to recommend in that one too.
Speaker 3We can go there sometime book to recommend, and that one too, but um, we just we can go there sometimes. I think that we also, we all have to remember and I farmers inherently know this that we would be growing half or less of the crop for corn specifically, that we are able to grow with nitrogen if we were without synthetic nitrogen. Right, and I don't think a lot of the there's getting to be fewer people in the world that are aware and understand farming practices and it's not like we're using three times the nitrogen rates that we were 30 years ago.
Speaker 1Probably using way less. Yeah, I mean, we're becoming so myself we track ours and how many pounds of nitrogen per bushel Exactly, so I know a lot of guys are tracking it. We're getting down there around 0.7 pounds per bushel that's great, but it takes a lot of management too. Yes, yeah.
Speaker 3And really that's a metric of fertilizer use efficiency and one of the most important ones, because we know nitrogen is one of the highest cost fertilizers and the most expensive inputs, but it has the greatest impact to even producing the feed fuel, fiber that we're growing. So, spring versus fall, I think what you're doing is probably pretty wise it's trying to choose the right soil conditions and then the right workload management.
Speaker 1We did it last year, so going into the 2024 crop, we did in hydros in february. Yeah, soil conditions were good.
Speaker 3We had moisture, like okay, that's right it's rock and roll, yep get it out of the way. And soil temperature, of course because that's really what drives when nitrogen is going to become volatile is first it has to convert to forms that are available to so, from ammonia to ammonium or nitrate, and those are the components nitrate and ammonium are can be volatilized into the atmosphere or leached deeper into the soil profile. That's why I said we could talk about nitrogen'm intrigued. I don't know, Maybe we bore a lot of people on that one but, that's what we're trying to control.
Speaker 2We would definitely show our science. Nerd status with that but it doesn't mean it's wrong, it doesn't mean it's wrong.
Nitrogen Uptake and Corn Growth
Speaker 3I am a science nerd. I was doing science fair in middle school and high school and you don't even know how much of a science geek I am a science nerd. I was doing science fair in middle school and high school and you don't even know how much of a science geek I am. But it's part of why I have this job today. And the reason it ties back into anhydrous application is because we always hear that, well, the soil needs to be 50 degrees. Why does it need to be 50 degrees, jesse and Leah? It's the soil biology.
Speaker 1Everything becomes alive.
Speaker 3I mean even anhydrous has to be converted biologically to become available to the plant. That's where the liquid 32% urea ammonium nitrate has a little bit of advantage it's a little more available but it still has to go through the biological processes available but still has to go through the biological processes. Um, anhydrous is you're looking at depending on soil temperature, but you're probably looking at three weeks ish before it's available anyway, sure? Um? So fall, spring, yeah, you're talking soil temperature, soil moisture and then making sure that you you have enough. You know you don't want too much soil moisture but you don't want so little that you can't get it to seal. Or really the process from anhydrous ammonia that we're injecting in the soil to ammonium is adding hydrogen, which which comes from water so another question I side dress 95 of my corn with anhydrous yeah yep, we know the corn plant needs this amount of nitrogen, basically tasseling right, because when it's v4 5 we're not using nitrogen, but we know we need it at the end.
Speaker 1So I still put it out there between v5 v7. Probably shouldn't be out there at that point, should be out there a little sooner. So is it? I'm putting anhydrous down. Is it getting converted and used within a couple of weeks, a couple of days, or is it still hanging out there and getting further down the line?
Speaker 3No, it's still. It's still hanging out there too, because it's not all converting immediately. Right Number one.
Speaker 1Even in the middle of June, when it's hot out, we have 70 degrees soil temperatures.
Speaker 3Yeah, that's a good point. Good comment in terms of I would just refer to the nitrogen uptake curve of a corn plant is really what we would look at. And yeah, that's important note because we'll say now, the V3, V4, V5 growth stage is really instrumental for ear formation within a corn plant, but what it doesn't need is a whole lot of nitrogen when it's small. I literally I loved it. I have four sons and I literally love to think about this as rapid growth within the corn plant and rapid growth within boys. My oldest is 15 and that's when the boys need I just think of it as protein. You can help me out, Leah, and correct me. I'm sure you understand nutrition better than I do.
Speaker 2Fat as well for hormone production right yeah.
Speaker 1Protein and fat.
Speaker 2Very important.
Speaker 3Well, we are meat eaters, so I think they're probably getting some good, good fat in the meat, um, but I think of that as it relates to nitrogen for the corn plant.
Side Dressing Benefits and Timing
Speaker 3Um, it really now we don't. We absolutely don't want the corn plant to run out or be short on nitrogen during that tassel time and during ear formation and kernel fill and so forth. But the corn plant is going to relocate a lot of those nutrients from the leaves and the stock to the ear Right. So in slowly backing into, the answer is that we need the most amount of nitrogen and that uptake curve when the corn plant is growing rapidly tall, which is what always makes me think of my 15-year-old and now my 13-year-old. He's got pretty big feet, so you know his feet are getting bigger and then he'll vertically grow and it just literally tracks with the corn plant to me somewhat similarly. And so your timing. And, by the way, we have tested this within Beck's PFR and yeah, the majority, the bulk of that nitrogen B7, is probably the okay, that's getting to be on the later end and again, that's workload. I mean, you're driving through corn, you don't want to be blasting through there right.
Speaker 1So I said I probably shouldn't be out there at v5 because we know we're determining a lot at v5. Yeah, so you probably shouldn't be out there messing around yeah you know, but then again I want to get it done because I got to get over the standing corn well, and it depends on quantity too.
Speaker 3Right, because I think I take it that you put a base down of nitrogen. Oh yeah, we always put 75 pounds down pretty on either side of the row, two by two, by two, but that's. This is with liquid, but I'm going to correlate it to anhydrous liquids available a little bit faster and quicker, like I said. But, and then our side dress is the balance of that. Side dress at v3 actually is the ideal timing, even for liquid. So I guess what I'm kind of what I would, the recommendation I would land on for your situation is to side dress about as soon as you can really Wow.
Speaker 1So I try to get out there again. Soil conditions Well, and you got to finish planting first, right?
Speaker 3Well, I don't know.
Speaker 1I mean maybe right, maybe Henry's doing that, but so soil conditions for me determine a lot because we have a John Deere side dress bar.
Speaker 3So if it's really fluffy ground and I'm out there and you know a little corn I can cover that corn up in a hurry?
Speaker 1yeah, because I'm throwing a lot of dirt, yeah. Um, if it's real hard ground, yeah, I can get out there. If it's we've had a good rain, corn's all up and the ground's, you know, settled in. So ground conditions determine a lot for me too, but it's usually that v3 to v5 time I'm trying to just to get out there, just to get it done, yeah.
Speaker 2Well, and I think part of it too, is when it's itty bitty. You don't want to see it stressed at all Like you just want to baby it a little bit when it's little.
Speaker 1Yeah Well, what I like about being out there when it's little is, you can drive over it. Most of the time it comes back up.
Speaker 3Yeah, the growing point is still below ground. That's what, right I? Yeah, I, I agree, I think your practices are good. And then again, you know, what we're talking about is temperature and moisture too. So we what, if we warm up and the corn emerges and we have warm temperatures and then it gets cooler? Well, that's going to slow down the the nitrogen conversion process from the anhydrous ammonia again to ammonium and nitrate.
Speaker 3So it's all time I mean we can plan for the timing. But that's what it's just like planting. It's like I'm planting now, but I'm going to just trust the good Lord that the next two or three weeks are going to bring conditions and I can look at the forecast. But you know, forecasts getting 14 days out are pretty tricky and I wouldn't set store by them. But, um, I'm just trusting that we'll have moisture and heat to bring that, bring that to germinate that seed and bring that crop out of the ground. But yeah, those are the targets, right, you know, um, and there is this sweet spot of, like you know, v7, I mean even V5 to V7, that is V5s. You know, the number of rows around are being determined. That's why it's nice to have some starter and make sure your fertility is good Once you get to that V7, v8,. If you start running over corn, it's not going to recover quite as fast, right? So then you see your tracks more. You literally watch it break off.
Speaker 1But again, the good you're doing in the middle of field for me, you know, we're not, hopefully not breaking it off in the middle of the field, right, right, just on the end rows, where you're turning around, you're breaking it off.
Speaker 3But the good we're doing in the middle of the field outweighs the damage you're doing the end rows well, and I would back to your earlier point of the the fertilizer use efficiency you're gaining by side dressing is massive. And then secondly, yeah, what if the crop comes up and it doesn't rain for a month? You know, maybe you take that from. You said 75 units, maybe that you're side dressed.
Speaker 1Well, I put 75 down pre, then I have liquid on the planter, so I use a 31818 on the planter, six gallon an acre. And then I come back and side dress, typically 50 to 75 pounds, yep. If it's corn on corn, another hundred probably, but then it depends on how it looks. Tissue samples I mean. There's a lot of variables.
Speaker 3Right, well, and it's just a decision point that you can make later. Right, because for all but one farm we have anhydrous and got our nitrogen all front loaded. Now that's nice because it feels good as a farmer to have the workload done and you hope one in 10, one in 20 years. But that's a lot of money out there that if we don't raise, a crop isn't going to be captured. And so that's the beauty of side dressing. It's harder and it's stressful, but I like it when farmers just at least try and side dress some of their acres or if they, you know they're gaining more power. More pounds that you're putting out there of that nitrogen are getting into your crop. Right, jesse and Leah? I have no doubt, because you're like you're putting fertilizer out there when the crop needs it, like exactly right, more or less, when we put it out, either fall or spring, you know it's out there before there's even roots in the ground. I haven't decided. I'm like wavering on the number three, pfr, proven, still thinking on that, we still haven't gotten three yet.
Speaker 2Right, there's so much good stuff.
Speaker 3But that's the beauty of PFR, though, too, because really it's a jumping off point to just talk about recommendations, and that's kind of the importance of somebody that's familiar with Beck's and you me, a seat advisor, whoever, because I sometimes think what would Beck's be like without PFR and I would have to go find all this research that's external, and, first of all, you got to find it, you got to read it, which is some of what I do.
PFR Research and Science-Based Farming
Speaker 3I mean, you do that anyway, but you still have this book yeah that comes to you every year, you know well, and then I can go talk to chris grim and just say, what's this? That's something I've just kind of figured out in the last couple years is what's this product like? What's that rep like? A little bit, or, you know, they dropped it off. We never heard from him again. You know, because I'm not saying I do a whole lot of recommending a bunch of products on PFR, but you do want to talk about them and there's a component to the support or the company behind it.
Speaker 2And two, if there wasn't PFR then I don't know would we be as far as we are. The science of raising a crop, you know, whenever you have that science, not just Beck's is capitalizing on the science, right? So you have all of these companies that you're comparing products and I think that that type of competition just catapults companies farther right, Because they're not just looking at their research, they're looking at everybody's research in a way that is not biased.
Speaker 3Yeah, yeah, that's a great point and that's the science behind it.
Speaker 3For example, what came to mind there was at a meeting earlier this week too, where we were talking about soybean population and we've done a lot of testing and we continue to do testing on soybean population, seeding rate per acre of soybeans. But I'll set that aside for just a second because one of the you know so BEX is still expanding a little bit as a company into Nebraska, kansas, the Dakotas, even to Nebraska, kansas, the Dakotas even. But one of our I think our keystone agronomic points as BECCS is that we can go out and plant soybeans early and they're treated. We can kind of be pretty brave and almost soybeans are forgiving in terms of the final stand, final population they need to be at. We always want good soil conditions, but that's a workload management component and so early in my time with bex, um, we just say we have bex has a free replant policy right, and we have a lot of customers that plant soybeans first. Now I'm gonna ask jesse and leah if they do you ever do soybeans first?
Speaker 1or last year we had 95 of our beans in first yeah, we waited on the card. It was early april last year it was cold. I mean like we could see the cold coming, you know it was right again, soil temperature, soil conditions kind of determined that. I think the year before we did a lot of our corn first.
Speaker 2Yeah.
Speaker 1We have one planter, so it's just. It's not hard to switch over. We also have a high speed planter, so we can get a lot done in a short period of time. So that is a huge benefit for us. But it's yeah, it's all dependent on weather, soil conditions. So go back to the seeding rate.
Speaker 3Because I'm all over the board on that.
Speaker 1I mean, I know where I like to be. Um, I'll just say my best beans last year, the field average, so I also do uh, variable rate seeding yeah I have prescription maps I'll throw it out there so that one field is 74 acre, field average 97 point something wow, per acre, oh wow where do you think my seeding rate was? On an average with a variable rate? We're not putting you on the spot or anything.
Speaker 2Yeah right oh well it's really good dirt, I mean my average 110 000.
Speaker 3Was it lower than that? 95 000, 95. See, he's good. I mean you like jesse we, we experiment a lot on our farm you would turn. I just say we, I'm jesse you would turn some farmer's faces white with that I go as low as 75,000. 70. Yeah, that's, that's even. He's even braver than I was. You're looking a little uncomfortable over there. Well, you know, we do sell seed, no. So no, we we?
Speaker 1I mean, good for you. I can remember the days when we had the old drill. Yeah, you know, and I have always said it's just organized dumping and you set that lever to you know, you go one way, come back this way and you set it in the middle and you think you're doing 180,000, or I can remember dad wanting to do it at 150,000 or 250,000. So then you get a planner that's, you know, pretty accurate and you set it at 160,000. So then, beck's, probably within the last seven years or so, their bean units are 130,000 per unit. So I just set it at 130,000. And that was before I started variable rate. That was probably 10 years, and that was when I had my own acres and dad had his own acres and we just kind of, you know, did everything.
Speaker 3What's your dad think of the 75,000?
Speaker 1So he would always tell me go out there and plant those at 160,000, 130,000. Nothing gets planted over 120,000 anymore yeah on on my farm. Yep, but it's all variable rated, yeah, but it goes as low as 75.
Speaker 3I I mean I'm living vicariously through farmers that have variable rate on their electric drives, on their planter, but I did lower it down to 125 and that was my highest yielding soybean field on our best farm last year, but I applaud you for doing I mean. See, he's the scientist in this case.
Speaker 2Oh, absolutely. Because, that's Well. Don't let him fool you. Like he is an athletic trainer, like he went through all of the science too.
Speaker 1Well, I've had all the biochem.
Speaker 3Yeah, he knows all of that Kinesiology, right yeah, the biochem and kinesiology.
Speaker 1Right, yeah, is that? Is that what your degree?
Speaker 3is that's my. Yeah. Kinesiology with an athletic training how's?
Speaker 2that for a word. Yeah, yeah, very good, yeah, yeah yeah jesse does a lot of experimentation and and I I said that to henry, I was like you know your, your dad, runs a lot of experiments on our, our ground. We usually don't move into a new product unless we have tested it a year.
Speaker 1I'm trying something every year, right, something new. Maybe not something new every year, but we're leaving strips, doing check strips here. Um, a lot of times, new stuff, different practices, you know, but if you're not getting better and learning every day, you just got to get better.
Speaker 2Well, especially with the margins as tight as they are now and commodity prices, like we he and I were like we got to cinch it up and we got to cinch it up as much as we can. And where can we, you know, use different products to decrease the amount of input cost without affecting the yield, and really Jesse has done a phenomenal job of dialing it in. We are doing liquid fertilizer now, which was just kind of it just felt like the right thing. It was put in front of us at the right time.
Seeding Rates and Farm Experimentation
Speaker 1Well, I'm learning, you know you're talking about the sulfur-nitrogen ratio I'm starting to look more at because we side dress a lot of our nitrogen. At least half of our nitrogen probably comes from side dress. But after that we're coming back with some sulfur in some of our. We're doing a lot of foliar stuff. Now I'm thinking there's got to be a relationship there that that sulfur is getting into the plant, making it grab the nitrogen better.
Speaker 3Yeah, well, and that's kind of back to that If we could spoon feed this is just my comment, where I'm I agree with you If we could spoon feed nitrogen, sulfur and boron, those are the three most mobile nutrients. They volatile. That's why back to the boron component. That's why Chris Grimm says put more on, because you're not if you apply boron. Oh, I applied boron five years ago. Well, it's gone, yeah.
Speaker 1Right.
Speaker 3Just like nice. I mean, we can't even get nitrogen to really virtually carry over from one year to the next. You know not that you would really need to or have to do that, I guess. But so, and sulfur is the same way, a way a little bit less so than nitrogen. Yeah, I like the idea of spoon feeding all three of those well, we're starting to do more.
Speaker 1A lot of the. There's some nitrogen up front, then we have liquid on the planer in furrow, but then we're coming back a lot. So we're fortunate that we have our own sprayer. So a lot of it. You know, if you're out there with a post application, throw it in there. You know. Even if so, the one guy I talked to from spray tech, that's always his comment like, give it a free ride. You're out there with your post application, if it's not getting on the plant, it's getting in the dirt, it's gonna get there. Yeah, you know. So we're making lots of passes and I used to always say, oh man, you're just wasting all your time Not wasting your time, but you're spending a lot of time out there in a sprayer.
Speaker 2It's paid off in our yields, don't you feel?
Speaker 3Oh, yeah, yeah Well, and putting fertility out there when the crop needs it. Again, it's that timing. I have all the growth uptake, all the uptake curves for nutrients on my phone or on my iPad, I mean that's. But the principle is, if you don't need to provide food that a teenager, the quantity of food a teenager would eat to a toddler, you know, by and large. Putting the nutrition out there when the crop needs it and when it will use it is going to sync up efficiency better. And, by the way, you're hitting on kind of the, the final PFR proven.
Speaker 1It's found it.
Speaker 3And I was trying to decide cause it's? It's a PFR proven practice and that is just. We actually have developed a booklet to basically make the most profitable sprayer pass and give, give whatever you can, can, a free ride, like you said. And and really my favorite principle, because I I'm pretty frugal, I think a lot of farmers have to be.
Speaker 3But is you know, if you're doing a any foliar micronutrient, fungicide, any like plant health nutritional pass, is to try and do that in the morning. Ah, right, so and it doesn't cost you any more money, might have to, you know, be ready to mix up and go right away. But if that's a fungicide pass or a fuller nutrition pass, corner beans we see an advantage, a yield advantage, to doing it in that seven, eight, 9.00 AM range and then you get closer towards four or five o'clock in the afternoon. That's better than the middle of the day. Basically, you want to avoid the middle of the day In the middle of the day, the plant's tight shutting down, that's right, yeah, and even more so, there's a relative humidity component as well.
Speaker 3So not only are you talking about the susceptibility of the leaf surface to accepting that nutrition or fungicide, but you're also talking about the survival length of survival of those uh spray particles in the atmosphere too.
Speaker 1Very good biology yeah.
Speaker 3But simply, you know, and and it's not to say that you're not doing any good If you're making an application at one o'clock, it's just saying hey, hustle in the any good. If you're making an application at 1 o'clock, it's just saying hey, hustle in the morning.
Speaker 3and take a long lunch is how I think of it yeah, right yeah right, I like that or you know, again, there's that workload component and that's one of the number one things I think with farmers is just, I love to talk to my wife about how, like, hey, I didn't set the schedule, I didn't decide when it was going to be good planning conditions or when it was be good to to make that fungicide or foliar feed application, or so it's kind of being. It's kind of being flexible as a farmer, um, because the good lord's deciding when we need to go to work.
Speaker 1That's that's kind of, I think. Yeah, so you're, you also farm a little bit. You've got some cows.
Speaker 3That's right.
Speaker 1How do you manage all that, Amy? Your wife take a lot of it.
Speaker 3She does.
Speaker 1Does she?
Speaker 3Yeah, I mean, we just operate as a team and man, she is just a big component of making it work. You know, is how I would describe it too, Because you're also chasing four boys is how I would, how I describe it too.
Speaker 3And cause you're also chasing four boys. Yeah, you know, yeah. So I would say that's that's her she, that's her passion, she loves being a mom and just is doing, has done and is doing a great job with our, with our kids, and that's an important, very important component for me as well. But that's one of the things we love about the farm, too is that we're even kind of critical of. We don't overwork our kids, especially.
Speaker 3That's the beauty of having four of them is, they can take breaks and I don't know where I'd be without them as they're getting bigger and older. But yeah, the family component of the farm is and and kids learning responsibility and just knowing how to work. You know, I just think there are so many young people who are through high school and getting a college degree and but they don't really know even how to get out of bed early or you know, um, not to say that it's bad to sleep in occasionally and things like that, but there's not a lot of know-how or problem solving capabilities there.
Speaker 2There's definitely a lot more opportunity on the farm. Not that it can't happen off the farm, but on the farm there are so many problem solving opportunities, so you can definitely challenge them a lot easier on the farm, I think. I think we. There's so many examples on a daily basis.
Speaker 3Well, and it's. It's really ideally you have the whole family bought in. I think that's kind of really what we're circling around too, and that's where, yes, probably similar Amy's parents. They were a part of her grandpa's farm operation when she was really young, but then actually some of the I don't know if that's your story, but through the eighties farm crisis, her, her dad, did decide to go to town. Yeah, became a banker, ag, loan officer, I believe so.
Speaker 2Yeah, no, I, my brother still my brother and his boys farm with my dad. But I was the girl in the house, like I had to. I did that. I never was out helping on the farm. Actually, the first time I drove a tractor was after Jesse and I got married, so I was literally never out there.
Speaker 1That was a rough day.
Speaker 3Well see, I was going to say that was a really rough day.
Speaker 2I only cried like three times, maybe six, but who's counting?
Speaker 3I like to say to my wife the tractors these days are just light years ahead of what I operated growing up.
Speaker 1anyway, I mean joke there's.
Speaker 3I couldn't even hardly get them to shift sometimes.
Speaker 2Yeah, I know, like all you have to do is just push this button up and then pull the button back. I was like, well, this is so much easier than I thought.
Speaker 3But they're also bigger and more expensive nowadays.
Speaker 2Right.
Speaker 3Because, gosh, I feel like we had like six or seven tractors growing up and they were all pretty similar size and now you can do, they're intimidating. You can do a lot of damage in a hurry.
Speaker 1So I guess maybe we'll go back and tell the story. The first time you drove the tractor was on the grain cart yeah 10, 15 years ago, whatever it was, it's been a while and we didn't have the machine sink right, so we actually had it. We were demoing it. Machine sink is where the combine takes control as a auger cart tractor.
Speaker 3Yes.
Speaker 1And I was trying to teach her how to drive the tractor and we were demoing the machine sink and I said, okay, just put it in eighth gear, go four mile an hour and just like you would.
Speaker 3Is that the recommendation you were making?
Speaker 1it wasn't going so well and I was on the fence about buying the subscription for machine sync. So then we struggled through a day of the tractor and learning and I finally said, okay, hit the auto steer button. And then she came back over the radio.
Speaker 2She's like okay, you're buying that I don't care how much that costs we are getting that.
Speaker 1If you want me back out here, we're getting that and it wasn't that he, it was really just me.
Speaker 2It wasn't that he was hard to work with, it was just like I was so anxious about this big, huge machine and I'd never driven anything like that before 1300 bushel grain cart behind you. Yeah, it was like I just had so much anxiety about wrecking it and spilling the grain and it was nothing that Jesse had done. I'm sure his patience was very thin by the end of the day.
Speaker 1It was back to what you were saying.
Speaker 3The tractors you and I grew up driving are nothing like what our kids or she learned on you know but the but what we have today is probably safer, you know, and and that's you'd have to ask my wife, amy, to. You know she's got probably several good stories of you know me trying to show her the ropes or trainer on something. And the universal common common, as I've learned with with our couple of our older boys too, is the there's a speed component and amy likes to say and she especially says with cattle, because there is no dry run with cattle, for example, there's no like okay, we're gonna have a demo cow, just go through. You don't really run a cow through a shoot, just for practice you know right you don't really sort.
Speaker 3Hey, let's go out and sort, just to practice just for fun, right you know, and then that's the way harvest is like you're saying too yeah it's like you know, we can't, you can't even really. I suppose you could drive the combine around the the lot or something, but it's not the same.
Speaker 2It would have been good if I would have like, had someone there, like, okay, now do this, so I had to. I don't go get in the tractor very often, so now Henry is my educator and Henry is actually he is a very good teacher.
Speaker 2Like I had to have a refresher because, especially now that he can do it, I don't want to do it Like I'm tractor time is not my thing, like I'd rather do something else. If don't want to do it Like I'm tractor time is not my thing, like I'd rather do something else. Um, if I have to, I will. Um, but he is a really good teacher. Like he's very patient and he'll just be like now, mom, you just need to calm down. Unloading, unloading onto the semi, like it's okay. What's the worst thing that's going to happen? I was like, are you channeling me at home? But he's a really good teacher. So this fall, when Lucy is going to have to go out there for the first time because she is going to, henry will be her teacher.
Speaker 1I don't know if he'll teach his sister quite as well.
Speaker 2Well, he, will, or he'll be in trouble with his mama. I just wonder. See, I think you may be onto something, sister, quite as well.
Speaker 3Well, he will, or he'll be in trouble with his mama. I just wonder. See, I think you may be onto something.
Speaker 1I'm guessing there's some reciprocal patience and grace that mom's given him that maybe thought hey, this is my opportunity to with sister.
Speaker 2So maybe, maybe Jesse I'll have to go out with Lucy and Henry can combine for a little bit when she's in the green cart. It'll be a learning We'll learn together.
Speaker 3It's your, your choice as parents, but I'm a big believer in motivation and incentives rewards, and I don't want to. I don't mean like bribery, but I just, yeah, I mean telling Henry that, wow, you did such a good job teaching me.
Speaker 2Oh yeah.
Speaker 3Do you think you could teach your sister similarly? Right, Instead of cause otherwise? I mean, I think sibling dynamics are fascinating, because otherwise you get right back into that and like oh you don't know what you hurry up, you know, come on, let me show you because you need my help, whereas he he, henry may have been great. Hey, mom, mom needs a refresher from me you know, right. This is kind of fun, so I could see our boys being that way. They're used to needing mom's help and dad's help.
Speaker 1So your oldest is 15. That's right. You think he's going to do something in ag. Stay on the farm. Oh, that is a. I mean he's only 15, but yeah, I hope so.
Speaker 3I think he really gravitates towards the cattle and that's great and he's really good with them, very calm, like kind of unusually calm. But he's a pretty tall, he's taller than I am, he's about six two now. So I think he very rapidly when I was, and he's kind of always been the one out there holding the gate, so I think he's comfortable with them. To kind of answer your question, I'll just broad stroke answer Um, I've tried to encourage our boys to be to like, love agriculture and be involved in agriculture at some level or some phase, or, and then, since we have done some pretty significant capital improvements to our we live on my wife's grandparents' farm.
Speaker 1You can't miss it going down the highway. It's a nice shop.
Speaker 3We have said we want one of you to live here one day. And then every once in a while, I joke and say and as quickly as possible, those are the rough ways. And then there's other days where I'm like, oh man, I'm going to have a hard time leaving, especially when this gets to be construction is done, running well smoothly. That's what I look for hard time leaving, especially when this gets to be construction is done running well smoothly.
Speaker 2That's what I look for. Maybe you can just have a family compound and you can all just kind of live there.
Speaker 3My second son. He hasn't said it in years, but he used to talk about, like, where he's going to build a house on the farm. And then he hey, could we build a house together over there, dad.
Speaker 1You got a cool setting. You can go down over on the other hill. They may build a house.
Speaker 3There's definitely potential. Yeah, and we rent across the road with a lady that's a. She's a widow lady too, so there's about 20 acres there. That would be who knows, you know.
Speaker 2Well, sure, yeah. I mean, in the end it's got to be their choice, yeah.
Speaker 1But it is fun watching them grow and we both moved back because that's how we went to raise our kids on the farm. Amen.
Speaker 2So this fall things dried out so fast and that farm that he was talking about, that we had the 97 bushel average. It should have been more than that, but it got so dry like our beans got dry so fast so we have been racking our brains and talking with other people about how can we continue to keep the moisture in the soybeans so yeah, here's a i't.
Speaker 3The short answer is I'm advocating for planting fuller season beans anymore, even like and I have always advocated for fuller season beans, just like fuller season corn, cause there's more.
Speaker 2How far would you say?
Speaker 3I wouldn't shy away from going to the four early fours here.
Speaker 1That's where we're at, is it Three? Sixes is the shortest Yep and we did some four ones.
Speaker 2Yeah, but everything was pretty much ready at the same time.
Speaker 3So that's, that's the component, it's. You know again how to manage workload working through early to mid to full season beans I wouldn't say all of them, but fungicide helps and you're. Are you applying some fungicide on soybeans?
Speaker 1Oh yeah, yeah, we have our own sprayer, so we cover 100% of our beans with the ground rig with fungicide.
Family Involvement in Farming
Speaker 3Here's the interesting part, and I haven't broadcast this. Actually, bex, about six months ago we hired an agronomy education lead. He's from southern south central Illinois, matt Montgomery. Dr Matt Montgomery is his name. He is a super sharp guy, especially in the way of presenting he. His parents were both teachers, but he's been an agronomist all his life. I don't know what his PhD is and it's in the way he presents information and just his patience and tone and helpful attitude. I think he's on I don't know if it's Twitter or what, but he's the short balled agronomist because he's short ball. If it's Twitter or what, but he's the short ball agronomist because he's short ball. So he's funny and it's in his own right. But he put together some really fascinating information and sometimes I think he does projects like this.
Speaker 3That is to just to cut to the chase. We're tracking in recent history. So five to seven, 10 years, we're tracking like 400 to 500 heat units ahead than the 30 year historical average. So we base everything off 30 year historical average, but that's a long time ago. What about the last five to 10 years? The last five to 10 years are, and to put that in perspective I don't know if your study and I'm not always up. I couldn't tell you exactly how many heat units to tassel 6374 is, you know but but oftentimes we're in the order of 3, 000 to maybe here further southern iowa, maybe 3, 500 heat units a year for a growing season. Well, 500 is, I mean, that's, it's a lot. That's like over a week, maybe two weeks into the growing season.
Speaker 2so that's why I say my answer is to possibly push, push maturities on up, on being especially if you're planting them early and planting them first, do you think like foliar sugar could help prolong the green in the soybean? Like there has to be something that's going to improve the health of the soybean to keep it from that maturation stage?
Speaker 1right. So I did a study last year with go ahead. Well, the study was with a sugar product, okay, and the product that had the sugar on it versus no sugar, was I don't remember. I'm not going to say a whole point, but it had more moisture.
Speaker 2Okay.
Speaker 1And it might've been like a 9.3 moisture versus a 10 or something like that, but but still that, that three quarters of a percent of moisture.
Speaker 2Well, it's your book, I mean that's. I think it's very astute of you to.
Speaker 3I mean I think farmers just accept it and that's kind of where I'm challenging that a little bit too, and these, you know, I mean I think farmers just accept it and that's kind of where I'm challenging that a little bit too, and these, you know, I mean planting a fuller season is relatively easy but so I'm at the point now where I'm like so I used to raise some seed beans for backs and they even say start at 15%, put them in the bin, they'll be fine.
Speaker 1Yeah, 15% beans. I'm whacking them off and I might even take them to the elevator right away and take the hit at the elevator rather than cut 8% B. You know what I mean.
Speaker 3I, I gosh, I love that you said that, because the interesting thing to me, so so you could approach it that way, is you could, you could plant. Uh, I don't even know if, like a three, three, we've got the aretendFlex, though.
Speaker 1No, men are all in list.
Speaker 3So yeah, like 3,300s. That's what we had 90 bushel beans this year with 3,300s. They've got the peaking trait. Do whatever you want, but I have said I'd rather harvest them at 15%, and that's probably going to be in September, and you run them through the bin when the temps are still 80 degrees Often blow some air with some air over them, dry them down.
Speaker 3It's kind of too bad, Cause you're almost bringing into a question Wouldn't it be nice if we could harvest soybeans at like 16, you know cause? We can cut them. It's just threshing them, correct, getting them out of the pod. Getting them out of the pod, yeah, but what? What you're onto is a recommendation I've been making for years, really, and one of the guys that custom. Well, he's got the combine that I usually harvest the farm that's right next to him and run his combine Right, and he will take beans.
Speaker 2He'll take everything as soon as he can get it, I mean he's the first one taking the end rows off.
Speaker 3just you know, waiting, waiting, and so I'm sure he's harvested 16% beans and ground them up.
Speaker 1And that's just just this year we're doing some more corn on corn, basically to have fewer acres of beans.
Speaker 3Yeah, so we can get through the bean harvest quicker and start at that 15, 16 percent and try to get get them all before they're 12 right yeah you know, well, and it's tough because I don't know what your grain system is too, but that's where, like I just think, having a, a dump with a bin, dryer, bin, and I'm like you said, if it's 80 degrees outside well, think about that, that's.
Speaker 3That's five bushel an acre. Yeah, right, that it can be if you're going from, because there's some eight or nine percent out there all the way up to 15, right. And then, yeah, usually harvest. You know, I know that's drying them and running them again, but it doesn't mean you have to deliver them, right then. It just means you got to right, harvest them, get them in the bin, store them. They're not taking up as much space, right?
Speaker 1so that study that I did, um, the guy doing the way check, he just has an ipad and he's got. He puts it into a spreadsheet. You know the weight and the moisture and everything. Length of row, blah, blah, blah. Um, so it just defaults to 13% soybeans, right, right, right. So he's plugging everything in and he didn't change the default 13% back to 9% and that to me was like holy shit. We just gave up like 10 bushel.
Keeping Moisture in Soybeans
Speaker 3Yeah, that's from that 13 to 9 right and okay, it's hard to control but we can influence it, which is why I like the way you're thinking, because so many farmers, well, that's a little bit. We have a lot of custom combining done and, um, that's always been I. It's challenging because that's partly why I'm planting now. Right, because I was just like I, I can't be. And they were treating us relatively fair. I mean, they weren't done by the time they were planting ours, but it was still not two thirds through, over half, and and that's just the thing of like I mean we've paid for. That's why we got a second planner. We've paid for the first planner three times over and I've only I've only had it.
Speaker 3It I think six or seven years just by being able to get them on or get them planted early, yeah, early, yep, and and just timely. You know what's what's what's a week or a week and a half in the spring? It's. It's a lot of income, right, because it's a lot of yield potential. A lot of bushels right, and planting when it's perfect conditions, that's kind of hot. It'll be interesting to see how this spring unfolds yeah, some farmers are saying we're due for a wet, long fall though, so you know what I mean.
Speaker 2Like after the major drought that we're supposed to have this year.
Speaker 1Right, yeah, it's the old elwyn taylor thing like this is the year, yeah, for the major drought.
Speaker 3I think the drought's more likely then, but that doesn't necessarily mean that that doesn't mean sept can't remember that it's not going to be right.
Speaker 3Never above 50 degrees and just all high humidity and well and again. So the one thing, some of that Matt Montgomery growing degree and it's data that he kind of computed and put it, put, put in graphics and I could send you the presentation. Matt Hoffman's got it too.
Speaker 3Um, you know I don't like to get into the climate change and global warming and all that junk and uh, I just, you know that's a whole faith thing to me that I'm like, well, let's just start with, this is a fallen world and we, you know like I want to go like back up and even away from the science there where I'm like now, are we influencing it? Whose fault is it? Whose fault is sin? You know, like those are big questions, but what I've seen as an agronomist is I mean I think we have I can't say for sure on wind, but heat units, that's just that can be tracked. Rainfall events you know, for relatively the last 80 health discussion of, we are getting more severe rainfall events and then further between them, which just makes me feel like I mean.
Speaker 3I literally do. I hope we get an inch of rain over the next three four, five days because we could use it. It's a good time for it to rain. If we don't, we're going to start getting on the drier side too fast, as strange as that sounds.
Speaker 2It looks like maybe the end of next week, so when this comes out, hopefully we'll be getting some rain then, because we were, I mean, we got nothing today, right?
Speaker 3nothing, um, so well, at the end of the day, I think this transition from see la nina to el nino is that right? Yes, I, that tells me. I think it's going to be a tough year of predicting weather because and again, anytime it's windy, I just think that's when there there's just a lot of weather like wind, currents, prevailing winds, changing. That's some of my theory.
Speaker 1Well, again, that was good stuff.
Speaker 3Yeah.
Speaker 1Thank you for coming down.
Speaker 2Thank you so much. Yeah, really good stuff. Very interesting conversation, good.
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