Farming Podcast | Are You Adapting To Thrive In Tomorrow’s Agriculture?

00:00:00 As Charles Darwin said, the species that will be here tomorrow is that one which is the most adaptable. 00:00:05 Not necessarily, as you might have been told about the strongest or the fittest. It really is about the most adaptable. Are you adaptable? 00:00:11 Are you gonna be here tomorrow? Will your species survive? That's what I'm talking about with next extreme mag, 00:00:16 the next generation of extreme ag, and this very special edition of extreme Ag cutting the curve. 00:00:21 Welcome to extreme Ag Cutting the Curve podcast, where real farmers share real insights and real results to help you improve your farming operation. 00:00:31 This episode is brought to you by TIVA Court, providing farmers with the most technologically advanced products and innovative ideas to meet their quest 00:00:39 for higher yields, top quality and maximum profit. Visit tiva corporation.com. And now here's your host, Damien Mason. 00:00:48 Hey there. Welcome to another fantastic special episode of Extreme Ads Cutting the Curve. We're doing a four part series. We did this a year ago. 00:00:54 We're doing it again with the next generation of extreme ag. Anyway, we're talking about adaptability. 00:00:59 Um, there's a lot of changes coming, and it always happens. Every industry's going through changes 00:01:04 and every industry will tell you, oh boy, the pace of change is greater than it's ever been. Well, maybe, maybe not. 00:01:09 But that's not just a thing in agriculture. It's a thing everywhere. We might be losing atrazine. We might have glyphosate, 00:01:15 the world's most used herbicide taken away from us. We've been in economic downturn now for about a year. 2024 was the first bad year 00:01:22 after the three of the biggest years in agriculture we've ever seen. 21, 22, and 23 adaptability. What are you doing to adapt? 00:01:29 What are you going to do to hang around and be the species that survives? That's what we're talking about. I'm gonna lead 00:01:34 off with my friend Vern. Vern, you're the one that liked this topic. Are you adaptable? 00:01:39 I'd like to think we're adaptable. You know, we, I, like you said, the whoever is most adaptable is gonna survive. 00:01:46 Right? I mean, a lot of things are changing in the industry, like you just said, and we've gotta be able to pivot. 00:01:51 We can't be married to anything, right? We've been raising corn and soybeans for I don't know how many years, and lately soybeans haven't been profitable. 00:01:58 So we're pro we're, we're pivoting away from that. We're looking for replacements. We're doing different things. Try, 00:02:03 we're making more money in cattle, so now we're, we're, we're putting more land use to that, right? Uh, and then we're always trying 00:02:10 to diversify the business, right? We, uh, added the direct to consumer meat business. We added some other businesses along the way. 00:02:16 You know, we're just always trying to be that. If it's survival of the fittest, we wanna be the fittest. Yeah. Those are economic adaptations, 00:02:23 which obviously is the, the key of course, to being here. You wanna be in business. All right, Alexander. 00:02:30 Adaptability, kind of Kind of touch on what Vern said too, is like, this year, more than any, I feel like we're more adaptable just 00:02:38 because of the year we had last year and the drought and everything that we went through. Um, you know, this year we kind of took a step back 00:02:44 and was like, okay, so maybe if we don't front load everything, we kind of, you know, apply it as it needs it throughout the year to try 00:02:51 to cut back on money and save money. I feel like that made us better for the future. Um, and then another one is like, 00:02:57 this year we don't have any wheat. So we, me and dad sat down and we're like, look, we gotta average, you know, 80, 00:03:02 90 bushel wheat just to turn a profit. You know, why would we do that? And we've, we've been growing wheat 00:03:06 for years and years and years, right? Usually, you know, between 1,012 hundred acres of wheat every year. 00:03:11 Um, so kind of like stepping back and realizing, you know, Hey, maybe we shouldn't do this. Let's kind of take another turn and see what happens. 00:03:20 Adaptation doesn't mean necessarily trying new things, which it does. It also means stopping old things that didn't work, right? 00:03:27 Yeah, absolutely. That's what, that's what I heard right there. Absolutely. Caleb cots. You're not a farmer. 00:03:31 You, uh, work for Tiva. You're a family's business. You're the third generation tiva ag. Are you adapting? Well, sure. I mean, uh, you can't stay stagnant 00:03:39 and continue to succeed. Um, my grandpa's always said that, uh, farming is a rollercoaster, and if you don't like 00:03:45 rollercoasters, you shouldn't get on. So, I mean, that, that's been the name of our business since day one. 00:03:49 We've been helping people adapt. Our, our job is to, Hey, we see this coming down the pike. This is what, you know, you gotta change your mindset. 00:03:58 Think of some new ways to do some things. 'cause that's how you're gonna gonna succeed. So, no, we, we've been, I, 00:04:05 that's all we do over here is adapt. We're, we're always looking at what the next big thing is and how we can help the farmer the most. 00:04:10 'cause without the farmer, I, I'm not in business. Jackson, one or two big adaptations you're seeing at Henderson Farms in the last two years. 00:04:18 What are you doing? What are you looking at and saying, okay, this is a, this is kind of a big change and uh, it's probably a good thing 00:04:24 we're making it. Give me one. Well, ours would be like on cutting back on products and changing products as like lower use rates 00:04:30 or far as the fertility, the fertility side, you know? Yeah. And then even on like, maybe some corn. We're trying out now some skip row corn. 00:04:38 Just trying different directions on, see, you know, what can save us money here and there and what can be better on putting less profit into 00:04:45 that acre, you know? Yeah. Coming back on the spend. And so we're gonna have to adapt. Okay. Let's talk about, since Jackson took me on this road, uh, 00:04:54 lane and Danielle, you've been farming the longest, which is to say you're the oldest. I'm not sure Alexander's kind of right there 00:05:00 with you, but let's go with Danielle. Um, we might lose glyphosate. Secretary Rollins is against it. 00:05:07 That's Secretary of Agriculture. That is, uh, they brought in, uh, secretary of Health and Human Services, Robert F. Kennedy. 00:05:13 He's got a real thing against glyphosate. The world's most used herbicide. It has been used since before you were born. 00:05:21 Uh, in mass, starting in about 19 94, 5, 6 is when it became the, the big thing. What if glyphosate is taken away from you? 00:05:28 Are you gonna be able to adapt? We won't have a choice but to adapt, but it's not gonna be easy. 00:05:35 Um, I think it's one of those things too. Like we see it coming on the forefront. We know there's a possibility they could take it away. 00:05:42 So it's also our job to advocate for them to keep these products that we need. But that also goes along with 00:05:49 where Caleb said on the mindset, we have in our mind that we have to use glyphosate. So do we need to backpedal 00:05:55 and look at what other options can we use? Yeah. So the point is, what do you think at Matthews Farms? 00:06:02 Are you already adapting? Are you already saying, you know what this is, this is coming down the turnpike. 00:06:06 We're going, did you do anything this year where you cut back and or stopped using, uh, this herbicide? Not on the glyphosate. 00:06:14 I mean, we do rely on it for, for our crops here. Vern, did I hear from Kelly? Did I hear from Kelly that you guys are, 00:06:21 you're already off the atrazine habit, right? Yep. Thinking that Atrazine goes away, you're off the atrazine habit. 00:06:27 Yeah, we've moved to some other residuals. Yeah. Okay. But you're still using her glyphosate? Yeah. Yeah. We still use new safety. Okay. 00:06:34 What are you gonna do to adapt if that gets taken away from you tomorrow? Um, you know, we can switch to different herbicides, 00:06:40 different, you know, you know, there's other options out there, but who knows if they're gonna come for that next, um, 00:06:46 we're talking about experimenting this year, seeding out some cover crop when the corn, before the corn canopies, something that has a low growth. 00:06:55 You know, just to try to keep that, um, prohibit that weed from being able to come up. Mm. You know, just always being able to try new things 00:07:03 and, uh, experiment. Lane. I'm just gonna take a, I'm just gonna, I'm just gonna take a guess here. 00:07:10 Just four years of observation. It seems like you're more willing to try and adapt, do new things than your old man. 00:07:17 Is that an accurate statement? Is that an accurate statement, exponentially accurate statement? 00:07:24 Well, I, I, I, you know, you're listen to this at some point in time, I think. I don't Know if he'll ever listen to it, so it's fine. 00:07:33 Uh, I don't know. He, he's a, I mean, he's been pretty good at, at adapting though, doing more. 00:07:37 Yeah. Because if you, usually he says he tells Lane, that'll never work. Nope, I'll fail. And then a year later he says, you know, 00:07:44 if Lane hadn't have talked me into this, I wouldn't have done this. So I'd say that you're the adapter down there, not him. 00:07:50 Yes. That's probably the answer is yes. He, he's gonna, we're they're gonna take Roundup, they're gonna take Atrazine and he's going, he's gonna, 00:07:56 oh my God, what are we gonna do? Um, but I mean, all we can do is, is, is use what we got. I mean, if it fails, it fails. 00:08:04 We mean, it's gonna take a, it's gonna take a while to figure out exactly what's gonna work. Whether or not it's cover crops like burn said, 00:08:10 or finding other residuals or whatever. I mean, we, we ain't gonna have a choice. I mean, if you, if you don't think that you're gonna get 00:08:17 through it, you might as well quit. Because if you can't get through it, and then you ain't gonna have a farm left. 00:08:21 Mm-hmm. Uh, so I mean, it's one of those, it's one of those deals. I mean, just toughen up buttercup, I guess. 00:08:28 All right. Caleb, you deal with a lot of farmers. You're not being critical, you're being honest. Where do you see failures to adapt and, and, 00:08:37 and evolve that you think this is costing you a incredible amount of money? You're not being judgmental. 00:08:42 You're just, you is your customers or, or not even your customers. Where is the failure? I see it. 00:08:49 I can look at small businesses and I'm not being mean. I, and they'll say, well, you know what, you've never, never run a dry cleaners. 00:08:56 I said, you're right. But I also know what a balance sheet is. You've got a failure by not understanding the 00:09:01 financial aspect of your business. I can look at these things and, and we can, where's the failure? 00:09:06 I think the biggest, the most common problem we run into is people wanting to do work on their planners. 00:09:11 You know, this is the most important piece of equipment they have on the farm. And either not wanting to update 00:09:17 or not wanting to look at things they can do for better placement, like in info or two by two. You know, these are, there are very few things in farming 00:09:24 that I would tell you are almost a guarantee on, you know, your return and like two by two is one of those. 00:09:30 And to get people convinced that they should be doing that kind of stuff. I mean, that, that's a big hurdle. You know, they, 00:09:37 Well, But I, that's a lot of money. I don't wanna put it on there. You know, they're, they're set in that this has worked 00:09:43 and I don't wanna change. And I think that it's, if they could get past that and see that, I mean, it's a, it's one of the, 00:09:51 I think dad says there's only three things that he guarantees and far the, or return on, you know, yield. 00:09:56 And the two by two is one of them. I mean, so if they could see that, if they would just bite the bullet on it, they would, 00:10:02 you know, alright, yeah, let's give this a go. Yeah. You know, That then spreads that everything that we work with, you know, it's the whole liquid side. 00:10:08 I mean the majority of, uh, farming is still, you know, not really in into this strategic placement thing. You know, this is, that's why extreme ag is, 00:10:18 is successful like it is. 'cause these are people that are willing to adapt and willing to look at new 00:10:22 solutions and they're ahead of the curve. Uh, by the way, I'm gonna ask everybody this questions. So get prepared, uh, about the, 00:10:30 because it's always easy to see somebody else's failure to adapt that's costing them and not your own. Except for when I get to Alexander, 00:10:38 I'm gonna make him take it by himself. I'm gonna tell him, he has to pull the mirror up and look at himself and say, where are you not adapting? 00:10:43 'cause it's finally the part where he's making decisions down there and out there in Maryland. 00:10:47 I mean, it's about time. Hey, before we do that, I remind you I'm holding it on my phone right here. 00:10:51 And if you are not watching you could, you can watch this show on our YouTube channel. Go to the extreme Ag YouTube channel, hit subscribe. 00:10:57 It doesn't cost anything. You know, all of our stuff is always extreme Ag do farm, but we are really branching out. 00:11:01 We've been doing this now for, I've been with these guys for four years. They've been doing it for five years. 00:11:05 Videos they shoot on farm to help you farm better. All free for the taking hundreds of episodes like this, cutting the curve to help you farm better experts talking 00:11:14 about new things that are happening in agriculture. It's all there. Also our show, the Grainery, this show, this one you're listed to right now, brought 00:11:20 to you by our friends at tiva. You can go to Tiva ag to learn more. That's Caleb Coz and his father Mark Kurtz's business. 00:11:26 And it was the grandfather's business before that. They are proven fertility solutions for today's farmers. Go to tiva ag.com to learn more. Check it out. 00:11:33 They can be far better. Alright, Alexander, what are your neighbors not adapting to that's costing them money? 00:11:40 If you wanna give names and addresses, that's fine too. We're not judging. I feel like a lot of people, and I know it's everywhere, 00:11:47 but I talked about it earlier a little bit, um, about, you know, front loading a crop. I feel like everybody is 00:11:53 so worried about frontloading a crop and putting so much fertility out front and then not knowing what it's gonna be on the return side. 00:12:01 Mm-hmm. And I feel like that's probably the biggest struggle is getting these people to understand it. 00:12:05 Like, look, if you put out, you know, you put out a little bit out front, that's perfectly fine. But don't put all of it out 00:12:11 and just wait, you know, willingly, oh, let's see what's gonna happen. But weather is you, you know, 00:12:17 you give a little bit out front and then you see what that crop's gonna do and you spoonfeed it throughout the year. 00:12:21 I think that's the biggest. And like I touched on earlier with the drought last year, we're glad we didn't front load 00:12:26 a lot because you know, we hit the drought and crops can't take it up if there's no water. So that was probably the biggest thing. 00:12:32 Biggest thing around here is, is people front loading a lot of their fertility and not throughout the year 00:12:38 Lane. They always thought I was making cracks about the southern accent that maybe comes out of your father's, uh, uh, mouth. 00:12:44 He has never spelled water. W-U-U-R-H-D-E-R Worder, like the people in Maryland. I thought they were sophisticated out there in Maryland, 00:12:56 but honest to God, I, I've never heard anybody other than them call it worder. But that's it. Different story, different day. 00:13:03 Jackson adaptations. Adaptations that you think are not being made. That should be, you're looking at it 00:13:10 with 20 something year old eyes and there's your grandpa Mike and they're saying, you know what, 00:13:15 here's the next evolution. What is it? I would say like, like in our area, we're one of the only ones that does strip tilling. 00:13:22 You know, a lot of people won't do that. And then also just on your, your common stuff like your fungicides 00:13:27 and stuff, a lot of people don't want to take the time, especially our neighbor stuff to, you know, make that extra pass. 00:13:33 Go out there when they don't have to, to, you know, spray something just to, you know, give it that extra push or give that extra yield. 00:13:40 You know. So I would say that, you know, I would say it's just people being laziness or not going further than just putting seed in the ground. 00:13:49 Trying to think about Danielle a year or so ago, and she's gonna have a little bow. If she'd have told Garrett my water broke, 00:13:55 he'd say something broke. But I don't know what the hell she's saying. Take her to the hospital. Something is broken, 00:14:01 your water broke. What are you talking about honey? What is this thing? Evolution. I think it's not just adapting 00:14:08 by making some of these changes. I think I, I read this once and I thought it was the smartest thing ever. 00:14:12 I said, you wanna make small changes, change what you do. You wanna make big changes, change how you look at things. 00:14:17 I think that's the big one. Daniel, evolution of how you look at things. Is that something you're good at? 00:14:25 I sometimes it depends on what it is. If I can visually see something, it's a lot easier than just like, in a picture in your head. 00:14:35 So for us, like something we've recently done is pulling the yield mats every year. 00:14:40 We farm a little lot of patches. We don't have those big fields like Lane does. So there's a lot of fields that we have 00:14:46 that are 10 acres and less. So pulling those yield maps, you, we were visually seeing, we were making no money on those outside rounds. 00:14:54 So after three years of talking dad into it, we pulled off five to 10 foot on some of those fields. And those fields are actually making money. 00:15:02 We're not just wasting the money on the seed on the outside round, planting it right up against the tree line. Mm-hmm. But a lot of our neighbors, they do still plant 00:15:10 through the tree line 'cause they have limited acres. So they feel like they need to plant every inch they can get. 00:15:15 Yeah. The problem is the, that extra inch, you're putting the input in and you get essentially no output, right? 00:15:21 Nothing. Yeah. Yeah. Evolution of thinking. Vern, you come from pretty entrepreneurial background over there. 00:15:29 I'd say that that's not a challenge. Is it a challenge for you guys? Evolution of the way you look 00:15:34 at things and think about things? I think that can be a challenge. You know, in a year like this year 00:15:38 where things are getting tougher, we've been relentlessly expanding over as long as I've been home. 00:15:43 Right. More acres, more cattle, more custom applied acres, more trucking. And I feel like we should just try to buckle down 00:15:51 and make money for one year rather than putting all that money back out and make sure everything's gonna get through. 00:15:56 I, I think that's one of the challenges we need to adapt to this year and, uh, really buckle down. Alright. Well 00:16:02 That brings me to the thing. We'll go over here to Lane and ask that one because a lot of times if I say the word evolve 00:16:07 and adapt to the average person in agriculture, what's the first thing that farmers love to think about that means to them evolve and adapt to them means expand. 00:16:15 Because that's what ag always has done. Bigger, bigger, bigger, bigger equipment. Next size combine, next size tractor, pick up another chunk 00:16:22 of farm ground when it comes up. I don't think I, I agree with verb. I don't think evolve and adapt is the same as expand at all. 00:16:29 It could be, or expansion could be a tool within that. But I think we've gotta change our mindset because as long as we think evolve, adapt equals expansion, 00:16:38 I think we're getting into a debt cycle that a lot of farms are going to end up being perpetually underwater. And uh, I I don't think it's gonna be healthy 00:16:48 Or Yeah, exactly. Yeah. That was that lane. It was kind of just a general toss out there to Lane. I figured I'd get his comments on that. You 00:16:55 Said Lane and then I was like, am I supposed to answer that or I don't know. It's more just a comment. It is almost like we're sitting 00:16:59 there in a greenery drinking a beer and that was just one of my big thoughts and I just wanted to sit back 00:17:04 and let sort of soak in my own brilliance for a minute. I mean, you couldn't have hit the nail on the head anymore because I mean, this, this dog has been beat to death. 00:17:13 I mean, we gotta try to learn to do more, less. We're, I don't know that that continuing getting these acres is the answer. 00:17:22 Yeah. Because I can tell you this has been one of the most stressful years I've ever had in my pharma career, uh, which is somewhere around 10 years now. 00:17:29 Mm-hmm. Uh, it's, it is just, it's more, it's more land, it's more people, it's more equipment, it's more, 00:17:35 it's more of everything. And it's extremely, extremely stressful. And me and dad have had this conversation, can we, 00:17:42 can we take 60% of what we have and, and be here with yields, but yet be, be up here and be a little bit more, uh, that, that would be the goal. 00:17:53 Because I mean, what we're doing now and, and it, and it's all got to do with the economy and just, just in, in our area, we've had several, 00:18:02 several farmers that, that didn't make it a lot smaller farmers, couple of big farmers will, all of the bigger farmers get asked to farm it. 00:18:12 So we absorb all this. So we go from here to here to here. I mean we took on probably 30% more land 00:18:19 this year after the first of the year. Yeah. But land that we didn't even know was gonna be available. Right. And, and it's, it's, it's next to horrible. Honestly. 00:18:30 It's next to horrible. 'cause it threw a bunch of stress and it wasn't even like you had anticipation. 00:18:34 So you had a, your, your runway was a little bit shortened, right. I, I Don't know. I saw those soul tests. 00:18:38 The He lane may be right. Yeah. Telling you. Yeah. There could be a reason for that stress. Alexander, you're, you're struggling, uh, 00:18:47 the mindset aspect of it. You're, you're now getting to where you're, you're involved in the decision making. 00:18:53 Um, adaptability, a lot of times they think, oh, that means bigger. I'd say not at all. So what's your next adaptation? 00:19:00 What do you now got when you got temple's ear, what are you saying? I think we should evolve this direction. 00:19:04 What do you tell them? I mean, I think, I don't know because we have old stuff, like all of our equipment, not old, but we just make do with what we have 00:19:13 and we upgrade the computer systems in it and the, you know, just say section control and all that stuff inside of our older equipment instead 00:19:20 of spending, you know, millions of dollars on newer stuff. And I feel like some guys probably fall short 00:19:27 of that maybe, I don't know. But I feel like making what you have work and work better is better than just throwing it up 00:19:34 and taking it to your scrap yard and going to buy some new John Deere paint. You know? Or by the 00:19:38 Way, if you, if you, if you've ever kept up with xt extreme ag, this is an ongoing thing and Temple obviously has gotten to where he's passed this, 00:19:45 uh, he's passed this mindset down to, to Alexander to hear them talk. Um, lane 00:19:51 and Matt have, when the ashtray gets full, they change the combine. Um, but that 00:19:57 Wasn't to pick on anybody that, I wasn't trying to pick on Anybody, but Alexander, Alexander 00:20:01 and Temple would have you believe about every third episode of record with him. Temple talks about how he's got a bunch of old equipment. 00:20:07 He would have, you believe he's got a 1964 Minneapolis Moline out there attached to a mule. I'm like, it's not that bad. I've been to your place. 00:20:14 You're not out there with, you know, with a hoe for God's sakes. Oh, they'd have to work on that hoe. 00:20:21 Yeah. There's, there's a lot of that. Um, what's the next adaptation that we need to make? We can talk about the products. I gotta be honest with you. 00:20:29 I, I'm, I just released an episode of my business of agriculture about the high cost of a glyphosate band. So trust me, I'm not, 00:20:36 but I honestly, I saw the restrictions on animal antibiotics come through and I heard the hog farmers 00:20:43 and chicken farmers all say that we're gonna lose money. We'll know what, and all 00:20:47 of a sudden there's less antibiotics in the drip lines of the chicken feed and, and, uh, in the chicken houses. I think it will be fine with the glyphosate. 00:20:56 I don't think that's our biggest adaptation. It'll take some, it'll be some pain, but I don't think that's our biggest one. 00:21:01 I I, I think our biggest one's gonna be when we finally realize we don't need obviously any more acres of soybeans and corn because we're too damn good at growing what we can. 00:21:12 I I think our adaptation is gonna be understanding of the thing that Lane's talking about scaling. Maybe there's a need to scale back a little bit 00:21:19 because we're so good at making stuff. I think that's gonna be our biggest adjustment. Well, I mean, if you look at the, if you look at the, uh, 00:21:25 like the wisely reports and all that, I mean, e every, every time you, you look at 'em, which this year may be different, 00:21:31 when hopefully burning them get a drought, we'll all make more money. But, uh, when you look at that, I mean, 00:21:38 every year yields go from here to here to here to here. I mean, they're, and obviously the fifth person that Damien's gonna say this, 00:21:45 the person can't see you in your video. You have to say, say when you go and you keep stair stepping up 00:21:49 and you'll just keep getting more and keep getting more and keep getting more. You're not seeing, you're not seeing the prices. 00:21:55 Follow that because we're making, they don't need to buy all this. Yeah. We're, we're gonna have to, we're gonna have to learn 00:22:01 that we're, we're making better crops, not just extreme ag, but this entire country. 00:22:06 Yep. Danielle, is that right? What's the biggest adaptation ag is gonna have to make? I think the, I think the, 00:22:12 the tools being taken from us are gonna be a, it'll be a, a pain point, 00:22:16 but I don't think it's gonna be a, uh, back breaker. I think like Lane's saying it's gonna be the economic side of it is learning. 00:22:24 You know, we're the only industry that's told how much money we're gonna make for what we do. At the end of the day, we don't get to set a price. 00:22:32 So it is gonna be adapting to what that price is and how can we make it work with our budget to make money at the end. 00:22:39 Because if we don't make money, you can't keep farming. Mm-hmm. We get told what we gotta buy our inputs for 00:22:45 and we get told what we get to sell our crop for. Mm-hmm. We have no say so in none of them. Right. Alright, Caleb, you're nodding your head. 00:22:50 What's the biggest adaptation, uh, that everybody on this call is going to make? Uh, their dads are gonna probably stay in the game 00:22:58 for another 5, 10, 20 years, but they don't have as long of a horizon to worry about the evolution that they gotta go through. 00:23:05 What's the evolution that everybody on this call is gonna have to go through? I think that we're all gonna witness, uh, 00:23:11 as we enter the biological era of farming. I think that we are moving a lot, you know, as we see some of these chemical, uh, options disappear. 00:23:20 That, and I don't know that I think they're there yet, but someone is eventually gonna figure out the biological side of this and we're gonna be able to see, you know, 00:23:30 a natural weed control. We're gonna be able to see someone finally crack the, in fixing bacteria. 00:23:36 You know, those kind of things, uh, are gonna be where we're pushed if, if we can't use chemical, which has been the answer for the last, you know, 20 years, 00:23:46 where, where are we left to go? And that the natural realms the only way we're gonna go. So I think that we'll see efficiency, uh, and, 00:23:52 and then more, uh, uh, natural sounds bad, but you know, or not. Right? But biological answers or natural 00:24:00 or not, not synthetic, But editors note asterisk. It's not just been 20 years on the herbicide front, Caleb. It's been probably 60, 00:24:10 but yeah, uh, every really, really post, post World War II from the fifties when we started getting usable and useful and, uh, herbicides. 00:24:17 But then I'd say the fifties to sixties is when it hit its fever pitch, obviously, because we found they could, could do this. 00:24:24 Uh, all right. Mr. Jackson adaptation evolution where agriculture is going, what's the one that, what's the one thing 00:24:32 that I agree with Mr. Caleb, that we're gonna get better biologicals. There's gonna be less harsh chemistry, less synthetics. 00:24:39 There'll be less fertility, synthetic fertility, which is because the bulk of what we fling out there 00:24:44 doesn't get absorbed anyhow. I can make a prediction less for less synthetic fertilizer, less harsh chemistry. 00:24:50 Uh, and a few of the products we currently use will absolutely not be here in two years. Three five at the most. 00:24:59 I don't know what to say. Like, is that, is that a question or like, I Don't know. I was kind of a 00:25:03 Katie Kirk on the Today Show. She would never actually ask a question. She just rambled on for a while and then like smiled 00:25:09 and I'm like, what the hell am I supposed to do with that, Katie? Anyway, what do you see as an adaptation 00:25:14 that you see your perspective, that you think maybe even your old man doesn't see what's coming down the pike? 00:25:20 I mean, I, I agree with everybody. I think we all kind of in the same boat as far as the economic side and stuff we use. 00:25:25 But, you know, just to, just to change it up a little bit and a, after the economic side, 00:25:30 I would think it'd be maybe the prices of equipment or the, the technology that's coming. You know, like how do we have to keep up 00:25:37 because stuff ain't gonna get cheaper, even if we keep making more like prices of equipment and just the stuff to use, like, you know, 00:25:43 like auto track and everything else. The simple stuff, everything goes up every year and you got no choice but to buy it 00:25:49 or let's go back, you know, 20 years and let's go back to hand driving it and do the best we can, you know, so that would be, 00:25:56 I would say the biggest thing coming after the economic side of it. Alexander, am I missing anything? 00:26:03 We're gonna close out with Vern. We open Vern, we're gonna close out with Vern about the a adaptability. 00:26:08 I like that one. That was good, Jackson. I was just thinking like John Deere, when they're, they're gonna start doing prescriptions now for auto track 00:26:14 and stuff like that, instead of just buying the, you know, buying the whole year, whatever, 00:26:18 they're gonna start splitting it up into prescriptions like per acre and stuff like that. 00:26:23 That's what made me think of it. When I actually look at the generation yours, um, and where this goes. 00:26:32 I'm hopeful that there's almost a refusal to accept the agricultural business model as it essentially has been for the last 60 plus years. 00:26:43 Meaning what we just talked about more go to the retail, buy more crap, and uh, and, and have high levels of debt. 00:26:51 And the answer is make more stuff. And at some point we're gonna say that this isn't working. That's what I wonder, Vern, am I right here? 00:26:59 Is there, and, and I know it's gonna be a tough nut, but I think at some point somebody's gotta say, yeah, yeah. This, this is kind of a broken business model. Yeah. 00:27:09 It's, you buy this much MP and k and you get this much yield back. It's all just an equation, right? 00:27:13 And it's, and that's diminishing, that's fallen off as our soils. We're de destroying the biology that would've 00:27:20 provided a lot of that nutrition itself because we're, we're trying to take over and fight against mother nature 00:27:25 rather than working with her. We've gotta find that balance between efficiency and resiliency and you, you provide that, um, 00:27:33 you provide the fertility so then the soil's not working for you and then you end up with pest problems 00:27:37 because you've screwed up the way the crop grows and you have more vegetation than reproductive and that that crop can't defend, defend itself. 00:27:44 And you gotta clear off this land to make more, to make more crop land. And you're killing your diversity, 00:27:50 you're losing your natural predators for insects. Right. Uh, Iowa State had a study that the more diverse the landscape is, the less insect 00:27:57 and disease outbreaks you have in crops because you have that diversity. Yep. And it's tougher for one pest to come in and take over. 00:28:04 And so, I mean, to, to tie all that together. Expansion, diversification, and efficiency. Profitability. Right. My grandpa always plant up as close to the fence 00:28:13 as you can and back into the corners as good as you can. I wanna farm every acre. I don't wanna farm every acre. 00:28:19 I wanna farm every profitable acre. Yeah. Right. And the, the more we can do that, and rather than going out with chemical, 00:28:25 relying on diversity of species and crop rotation to break up these disease and pest cycles, I think that's a lot better deal. 00:28:32 You spend less money, you make more money. There are two people on here talk about, you don't have to farm every acre. 00:28:39 Danielle said you're just spending money on inputs that you never anything out of in that five feet next to the woods. 00:28:44 And then we just heard the same thing from Vern. Uh, see you guys were already having an evolution of mindset and I agree with everything you just said right there. 00:28:51 Also, the adaptability, the, the monocropping, which leads to the greater pests, which then leads 00:28:56 to I have to purchase more stuff. This has been great for the companies that sell stuff. Exactly. 100%. 00:29:02 And, and so I think we're gonna have to see a little change in that. Well, I heard from the next stream ag, that's, uh, 00:29:07 Jackson Anderson, Verne Garrett, Caleb Kouts, Alexander Evans, lane Miles, Danielle Venable. Um, we're gonna do a series of these, four 00:29:16 of them sponsored by our friends at Tiva. Go to tiva ag.com, learn more about their line of fertility products. 00:29:21 That's Caleb's company. We really appreciate them doing this. And if you like this 'cause you like hearing from, uh, 00:29:26 AGS Next Gen Extreme Ag Next Gen that is, go and check out the four episodes we did and released in 2024. It's a great little series. We do. 00:29:34 I'm really grateful to be joined by these folks. I like to say they keep me young and everybody here does, with the exception of Vern. 00:29:41 He's kind of an old soul. I feel like when I hang out with him that, uh, it's like going out. 00:29:45 I never really had a grandfather, so I feel like if Vern, I could start fishing together, he could be the grandfather 00:29:49 that takes me fishing and I never had. Anyway. So next time. Thanks for being here. That's next Dream ag. 00:29:53 I'm Damien Mason with extreme Acts cutting the curve. Very special edition of Extreme Acts cutting the curve. That is, that's 00:29:58 A wrap for this episode of Cutting the Curve. Make sure to check out Extreme ag.farm for more great content to help you squeeze more profit out 807 00:30:06.885 --> 00:30:08.205