00:00:00 Do you need an agronomist for your farming operation? How should you go about getting that agronomist? Should you hire a person on staff? 00:00:06 Should you use a consulting, uh, agronomist? What is the best option for you to go about hiring an agronomist? 00:00:12 You need one. We're gonna answer the question of how you go about securing one in this episode of Extreme Acts. Cutting the Curve. 00:00:18 It's extreme Acts cutting the curve podcast, cutting your learning curve, and improving your farming operation every week. 00:00:25 This episode of The Cutting the Curve podcast is powered by Nature's bio kay technology delivering enhanced nutrient 00:00:31 cycling, greater plant health, and elevated stress mitigation leading to increased crop yields. 00:00:36 Visit nature's dot com. And now let's get ready to learn with your host, Damien Mason. 00:00:43 Hey there, another fantastic episode of Extreme Acts Cutting the curve. Our producer will, has been chomping at the bit to get this, 00:00:48 uh, topic recorded because, you know, we're heading into spring here and maybe depending on where you are geographically, 00:00:54 you're already in the fields. Good for you. Here's the thing, where are you getting your agronomic input? 00:00:59 Your advice, the technical expertise that you need to make good decisions in your farming operations? Some of our guys are larger scale farms. 00:01:08 They have agronomic consultants on staff. Um, and then there are agronomic consultants that are just truly in a consultancy basis that work, uh, 00:01:16 for hire charged by the hour, charged by the acre. Then there are the companies that send out their sales agronomists, 00:01:22 and our friend Brian Adams has a lot of opinions about that. Brian's joined by Johnny Rell. 00:01:26 Brian Adams is in business with Johnny Rell with Volunteer Ag Services in Jackson, Tennessee. John Rell, one of our extreme ag guys, 00:01:33 Western Tennessee Farmer, and also I think the only extreme AG guy with an actual degree in agronomy. 00:01:40 So tell us how things work around Rell Farms and then, um, what, there's so many different options on how you go about getting agronomic expertise, 00:01:50 which you obviously need. So I think the first question that says, do you need an agronomist? There's no question. Both of you guys say yes. 00:01:56 Yeah, I think we would both agree. All of us would agree that you need an agronomist and you know, for our farm 00:02:00 and operation, we're always looking at ways to do things different. Think outside the box, 00:02:04 and that's where work with multiple agronomists kind of bring ideas in, set around the table, get a plan in place. 00:02:10 And so, you know, I've got an agronomist brew blessed that works one on one with the farm. I get to work with Brian Adams one on one with the farm too. 00:02:18 Of course, he works in the, the sales side of the business that we have too. So, kind of work all together there 00:02:24 and kind of start off with a plan, what products we're going to use, the timing that they're gonna go out, 00:02:30 get a budget put in place, and make sure we stay in that budget because we'll all sit in there around that table 00:02:35 and kind of come up where we think we can spend for the year, what products are the best fit, and go from there. 00:02:40 And that's kind of how we started doing it the last few years at our farming operation, is to kind get somebody to come in from outside the farm 00:02:46 that doesn't stay here on a daily basis, that works all over the country, kind of sees different operation, what works, 00:02:52 what doesn't work on certain operations across the country, and then bring it in here so we can sit here 00:02:57 and figure out what's gonna be the best plan for us this coming year. Okay. So there's the, you don't have, 00:03:02 and you, you farm a fair amount of acres. You could have someone just on staff that says, I'm the person that does all cropping, uh, advisory, 00:03:12 all inputs, all fertility. And then even you could hire that, you could have that as a full-time job at your farming 00:03:18 operation, couldn't you? Yeah, It's, yeah. And, and that's kind of what I went to school for. I started off, I got associate's degree in precision ag, 00:03:24 so I understood, you know, soil sampling, grid sampling, writing wrecks, all that type thing. 00:03:29 Ended up with a driving degree and you know, kind of did all that stuff myself for almost, I don't know, 15, 16 years 00:03:36 and then decided to bring somebody else in because I was doing it the way I was taught in college. It really hadn't changed. Mm-hmm. 00:03:41 And in pharma, we gotta constantly evolve, constantly go to the next level. And that's why I wanted to bring somebody in 00:03:47 to really help me break down my scripts, help me break down my cost per acre and actually what products are gonna be the best fit. 00:03:53 'cause the products that I was using, the same products my granddad was using in the sixties is what we're still using from a fertility standpoint. 00:04:00 Did that really work or was there something better? And that's where thinking outside the box, the funniest thing is that's how me and Brian kind of met. 00:04:07 He was an agronomist with Pioneer at the time. He got put as the local agronomist for me and we started talking about how we wanted to think 00:04:14 outside the box on some corn one year and what we could do to push the levels of the yield. And so he came in 00:04:20 and we started doing all kinds of different tissue sampling, some predictive stuff that he had access to. 00:04:25 Yeah. And you know, he had some concepts that we wanted to try. And that was probably one of the, 00:04:30 that was the best yield we've had on our farm to date, really. And it's mainly 'cause we thought outside the box 00:04:35 and kind of changed things on the fly that year. So, you know, I just, you know, when you ask how come you don't have somebody full-time on your farm? 00:04:42 I think that's a great thing. Some farmers do it and it works. I'm gonna say for me, I like people 00:04:47 that work at different parts of the country with different farmers so that I don't get in the same rut every year 00:04:52 and kind of see what's going on across everywhere. You know, not that your agronomist is gonna tell everything you do on your farm, but a lot 00:04:58 of the stuff they will network and other farmers will reach out to you and say, Hey, what are you gonna do this year on this? 00:05:02 And you can kind of work together. Extremely valid point about the, um, you know, you, you, you were, you were c collegiately trained at Murray State 00:05:13 to be a, an, an agronomist. But the thing is, after 15 years you get to where you're kind of siloed. 00:05:20 You, you knew what you'd been doing, but you didn't have the in, uh, infusion of outside, um, thoughts or experiences. 00:05:30 So Mr. Brian, that's kind of a neat thing right there. I'm gonna go ahead and ask the question. You've got Brewer blessed as a hired consultant. 00:05:38 You've got a crop consultant, a a, a field co consulting, if you will, uh, scouting that happens around there. 00:05:44 You've got Johnny who you're in business with, who also owns the farm, and then you've got you, 00:05:50 I think there's too many cooks in the kitchen. I think it looks like, well, it sounds like it could be collaboration 00:05:55 could also be conflict. Well, I think we should do this. I think we should do that. Are there too many cooks in the kitchen there at Rell Farms 00:06:00 and volunteer ag services? I can see where, where somebody would certainly believe that Damien. 00:06:06 Um, and a lot of times if it's not the right group, I would, I would say that could be true. 00:06:10 Uh, in Johnny's case, no, uh, the guy he uses for the, uh, everyday, um, insect, uh, weeds, 00:06:19 diseases, that sort of thing, um, that guy kind of sticks to that. That's his area of expertise. 00:06:25 That's, that's all kind of where he sticks to, um, brewer and what he's doing from a, a financial 00:06:31 and crop planning standpoint. Uh, and then of course, brewer and I have been really tight for 10 plus years now. 00:06:40 Uh, he and I are generally in agreement a lot of times. Uh, ideas are bounced back and forth between he and I. Uh, he and I are, are very rarely in disagreement. 00:06:49 Um, a lot of times we'll challenge one another and, and I think that's, you know, consequentially a good thing. Um, probably keeps us all sharper, keeps us all on our toes. 00:07:00 Uh, and then my kind of role fits in is the everyday advice in season management, things like that to help fill that gap. 00:07:06 Um, so, you know, no, technically I'm not a paid consultant for Rell Farms. 00:07:12 Uh, Johnny is the owner of multiple businesses, volunteer ag certainly being one of them. Um, right there wrongly. 00:07:19 I I I am and I am not a paid consultant all at the same time. I, as far as his farm side of things goes, 00:07:26 it looks really good on his bottom line every year for what he pays me. So, yeah. Uh, but, but, but I get that elsewhere, right? 00:07:32 And, and that's the nature of friendship and, and things like that. So, um, no, in this particular case, 00:07:39 there's not too many cooks in the kitchen. Um, but uh, we as agronomists sometimes can have egos. Uh, we're not, we're not immune to that. 00:07:48 Um, but the group we have that, that Johnny has on staff, uh, I think work very well together. 00:07:56 So, uh, I sent you an outline of questions that if I was a farmer or listening to this, because I always try to think of if I'm a farmer 00:08:03 that's dialing in and we meet 'em all the time at all the field days and whatnot, we meet these, these people 00:08:08 that keep up with our stuff. How do I know if or when I need an agronomist, say I'm a smaller acreage farmer, I can get all kind 00:08:16 the co-op, the ag retailer, they'll send somebody out. And I think there's kind of this idea, Hey, you know, you only farm 800 acres. 00:08:23 Uh, you, you can't afford like having somebody on staff. Yeah, we got somebody right here. Uh, no insult. 00:08:30 No, no, no insult to the, the retailers that have, uh, that, that person. But I've always thought that's kind of like taking, 00:08:39 you know, financial advice from the person that's selling you financial products or something like that. 00:08:44 I think there's a little bit of a case being made. So Johnny, how did you look at this whole thing? Did it ever occur to you that maybe you don't need 00:08:50 to be spending money on this? Yeah, it Does. But then when things, you know, know the last few years, 00:08:55 fertility calls, stuff like that goes up, you know, I was sitting in there one day, I think Brian and Brewer in the conference room with me. 00:09:01 We were going over some stuff and I said, you know, brewer, I've been writing these scripts this way. 00:09:05 And he kind of looked up and he's like, how long have you been using these same fertility scripts? I was like, well, these are the ones 00:09:09 I learned how to use in college. So, you know, going on 20 years I've been using the same ones. 00:09:14 And he's like, well, a lot of things have changed since then. He said, let me play with some of the data 00:09:18 and see what it comes up with. And, you know, not saying I cut all the fertilizer or put more out, but just having another set of eyes. 00:09:25 And, you know, that's how it works with Brewer. He is just a paid consultant on a per acre basis. You know, if I let him consult on the whole farm, 00:09:31 he is paid on the whole farm. If not, what I do like though, we're sitting in there kind of brainstorming, trying to figure out what to use. 00:09:37 You bring in Brian in the room there. He might know of say three different potassium acetates that we can use, or four different products 00:09:44 that we can use what the cost is. Brewer might not know the cost, he might not know every company that sells 'em, so to say. 00:09:51 Whereas Brian comes in and he does. And then Brian alluded to the crop consultant that I'm using that actually scouts my crops. 00:09:57 Jason Hamlin, you know, he goes out there and he tells us what he's seeing, and then we make a plan. He makes a recommendation, we make a plan of 00:10:04 what products are the best to go out then. And we kind of do that together. I'll call Brian, or I'll usually send Brian the Rick 00:10:09 that he sent saying, Hey, what products would you recommend here? It could be from an insecticide standpoint, 00:10:14 Brian's got more knowledge of that. He's got more data on that himself than anybody else I deal with. 00:10:19 So he always falls into play there, especially in late season. Insecticide, applications on soybeans, 00:10:24 wheat, different things like that. So I guess where I'm going with that is, is I don't wanna get narrow minded. 00:10:29 I really don't wanna rely on one person. Yeah. I wanna rely on the team. Yeah. So the team that works for you is there's a person 00:10:35 that's, that is out in the fields as a scout. And so that person certainly has agronomic knowledge, uh, but doesn't make scripts. 00:10:44 Uh, brewer hired consultant on a per acre basis. You see him several times a year, I assume. And then also there's communication on the phone. 00:10:54 And then he's doing agronomic true consulting. He looks at numbers and says, here's what we should be doing. 00:10:59 And to the point you're making there is Brian knows how to get the products, but also you're, you like the idea that somebody like Brewer is working in a pretty big region, 00:11:11 so he's bringing you experiences and trial results, et cetera, from a pretty broad area versus just the next township over. 00:11:20 Yeah, and I, I think that's what college taught us more than anything. It's outta network because we'll be sitting in there 00:11:25 and Brian's like, Hey, I can reach out to this guy. We're in Arkansas, you know, and he's done this project here. 00:11:30 Or if nobody that we can find has, that's where me and Brian go out there and we'll do some test strips on my farm to see if it works 00:11:37 or if it doesn't, you know, we're not quite to the extent that Chad is where Chad goes out 00:11:41 and actually tries to kill the crop, but we'll go out and push the limits and see if that's gonna work. And that way when Brian's talking to other customers 00:11:48 or people that he runs into, we kind of know what's gonna work or what did or did not work on my farming operation. 00:11:53 That's kind of like the, the Guinea pig, so to say. You know, that's the biggest thing is I think, I think farmers get so tunnel vision sometime. 00:11:59 And I was that way for a long time. I'm still that way on some things. I mean, I remember one time, you know, Brian kind 00:12:04 of told me, he said, you don't need to look at it that way. You need to look at it this way because you'll get 00:12:08 so focused on either trying to save money or trying to do this and it actually hurts you. You gotta be careful. And that's where you need that team 00:12:14 around you to keep you in check. Yeah, that's, that's, that's a neat thing right there. So your role in the team, Brian, uh, I want to hear about it 00:12:21 before I do, I want to talk about Superior Grain. If you go to Rell Farms Field Day, which is August 7th. Am I right about that? I'm looking at my calendar 00:12:30 August 5th, sorry, August 5th, Tuesday, August 5th. I, I think you should go to it. It's one of the seven extreme ag 00:12:36 field days that we're gonna have. You can walk around the farm and see a whole bunch of really good grain equipment that is there, 00:12:41 and a bunch of it is from Superior Grain. So, uh, one of the videos I shot was climbing up on, uh, on the grain dryer. 00:12:47 In fact, there, so, uh, superior Grain is, uh, a business partner here of extreme Ag and they are sponsoring this episode of Cutting the Curb 00:12:55 as your farm operation grows. So do the challenges. Superior grain equipment's, grain storage systems are built to make your job easier 00:13:00 and help your grain reach its full potential. Talking about grain handling, we're talking about quality, we're talking about a lot of things 00:13:06 that you can help yourself by maybe upgrading your grain handling system from general mix flow dryers to durable storage. 00:13:13 Get the flexibility to market your grain on your time. Visit with the experts from Superior Grain Equipment at this year's Farm Progress Show in August in Decatur, Illinois. 00:13:20 Or visit them online anytime@superiorbends.com. Superior bends.com. Um, what's your role in this, Brian? 00:13:30 Your role is, your role is the one that probably, I bet you antagonized brewer and you probably questioned the cons, uh, the scouting guy, 00:13:38 and then you probably actually buckle down and go out and say, here's how we're gonna make this all work from the dollars and cents. That's my guess. 00:13:46 It's actually fairly accurate. Uh, for the most part. Um, I antagonize brewer. Um, I try to keep him young. Um, but all jokes aside, uh, a lot of what I'll do is, um, 00:14:00 you know, take a late season insecticide application for any particular pest. For us it's maybe loopers 00:14:07 or stink bugs or something like that. My role, my background master's in PhD in entomology. A lot of times I'll look at Johnny and I'll look at the crop 00:14:15 and I'll say, look, it's what you're gonna protects not worth the cost of the application. Let's, let's kill it and let it ride. 00:14:22 Um, you know, I guess I'm the head of do, uh, the Department of Farming Efficiency, uh, for the group. 00:14:30 Um, so I don't have the cool South African accent, uh, that, that Elon has. But, uh, or, or the money, 00:14:38 'cause I'm hanging out with you guys obviously, but, um, I really feel about any gap that's needed. 00:14:45 Um, as far as day-to-day recommendations, um, plugging in information. Um, brewer is paid consultant. Brewer has a lot going on. 00:14:54 He is all around the country. Um, and, and, and as Johnny mentioned, that brings a very unique perspective. 00:15:00 Uh, a lot of times I'll go out, I'll see what I'm seeing. I'll tell Johnny we'll call Brewer. 00:15:05 We'll powwow we'll make decisions. We'll go from there. Um, you know, my day-to-day paid role, Damien, is, is basically to run the retail business, 00:15:14 which is ball ag for Johnny. Um, and, and so at the end of the day, um, I run a business that is a retail, 00:15:22 therefore sales have to happen, um, that I'm involved in every day. Uh, I have a list of customers, um, you know, far 00:15:31 and wide beyond just Johnny. Um, he's kind of an easier sell. You know, I don't, I I probably neglect him from 00:15:37 that standpoint of, of taking care of him like I do some of the other guys. But, um, he's got his own unique ways of getting 00:15:44 that back out of me. Um, but, but that's really sort of where I fit. Um, Johnny, I mean, feel free to add, 00:15:53 but a lot of the day-to-day recommendations, uh, the understanding of the products, you know, why any given product might be superior 00:16:00 to another at any given time for any specific application. Well, I'm gonna go to, I'm gonna go to the first question. 00:16:06 We know your role because you're in a different kind of thing that you own your own retail. Rell Farms also owns his own retail, 00:16:13 and you're part of that, uh, for the farmer that says, all right, I got it. You know, Kelly has Mike Evans on staff. 00:16:22 I don't, I'm not big enough to have an agronomist on staff, but, uh, I, I'll do the Rell model here 00:16:26 and I'll hire different people that can cover acres for me. The person that can be the, the scout, the person 00:16:31 that goes out and scouts your fields is not an employee. Right. They're, it's contractual arrangement. 00:16:36 Yeah. That's how it is for me. And, you know, and that's sounds for most, Right? Yeah. 00:16:40 And, and the guy that scouts for me, he might scout 30,000 acres, which is what I want. I really don't want somebody just scouting my ground. Yeah. 00:16:47 I want somebody scouting a big area. And that way if there's an insect coming in, he might can see it coming before it gets to me. Right. You 00:16:54 Know, so all of a sudden he's four, he's four counties away. He says, holy crap, we, 00:16:58 we didn't think we're gonna see this, but now we're seeing whatever Rus spot tar. Yeah. This whatever. Um, you just pay them by the acre 00:17:05 and then you got brewer. That is more long range. That's a season long thing. So, uh, just so the person listen to this says, okay, 00:17:15 the scout gets paid per acre. Is that for the season or is it every time they cover the acre? 00:17:20 It's, I get it is a certain charge per acre to cover the, like the wheat crop costs me so much money. 00:17:25 The bean crop costs me so much money for the season, That type Thing. And it is the same way with Brewer. 00:17:30 It's a per acre charge with brewer. But Brewer consults on me, but he also consults on some of Brian's customers too. 00:17:34 Yeah. You know, that's Again, for the, for per acre for the season. That's right. That's right. 00:17:39 And I like that though because I mean, it, it goes back to if, if, let's just, we'll pick on Brewer while we're talking about it. 00:17:45 If he just consulted on me, how big is his box? Yeah. Right. Right. And, and I'm saying that's 00:17:51 so important in today's times. And a lot of times you deal with somebody that might be at a certain retail location, 00:17:56 he's only seeing customers in a certain county. He's not seeing the whole picture of what's working everywhere. 00:18:01 You know, and, and the beautiful thing about working with somebody like Brewer or Brian, I tell you this, Brewer's got customers in Texas 00:18:05 that already got corn knee high. Yeah. So if they're using products down there and just working, getting responses, 00:18:11 it gives us a heads up too. And so I'm saying like, thinking outside the box, getting outside your area is always big 00:18:16 Incident that we're recording this on April 7th. If you're saying, well, what, you know, whenever this gets released. 00:18:20 So the point is, and you've got corn that's not even planted. Yeah. We've got corn that's planted that we're gonna have 00:18:25 to replant 'cause we just got 14 inches of rain. Right. Right. So on the, on a and the person that says, well, I don't know, man, I put 00:18:33 that money out there, the this this crop scout or this consultant. I give 'em a so much money per acre for the season. 00:18:40 And then they walk and they don't, and I never see 'em again. Is it spread out? You pay him in installments? 00:18:46 Yeah, I pay him installments. I pay quarterly. The guy that scouts my weed, I pay him a little bit different too. 00:18:51 But at the end of the day, you know, he starts out with the planting, setting the planters, making sure the crop gets established. 00:18:58 Good. Doing stand counts to herbicide shots in the fall to here we are in the spring. You know, it's, it's a, it's a seven, 00:19:05 eight step process in our wheat. Our wheat's kinda like a high management crop now. Yeah. And it just, you just need somebody, 00:19:10 I need somebody directing me what products and timing. And I'll tell you this, if a farmer, we don't have time to scout like they do. 00:19:17 Right. You can say you do and some farmers can. I do not have the time to do it. So I need somebody that's going around looking. Yeah. 00:19:23 And he doesn't turn in one recommendation that's the same for say, 2000 acres a week or a thousand acres a week. 00:19:30 It might be four recommendations broke out over 2000 acres a week. Whereas if I was scouting, I'm gonna do the easy button 00:19:36 and I'm gonna use a $15 product on every acre where some of his products might be four bucks. 00:19:41 Yeah. So he pays. A good consultant always pays for their self one way or the other. Yeah. Yeah. Your point is you've got a trucking business to run. 00:19:49 You've got your grain facility, you've got the retail business, you've got all your acres, you've got various other things. 00:19:56 If you pulled in and looked at one of your soybean, uh, wheat fields, you'd say, okay, crap, looks like we got this problem. 00:20:02 And then you'd go ahead and get the guys lined up and then load the sprayer. Your scouting crop scout, I guess is what it is, 00:20:13 is covering your 2000 acres of wheat by, at minimum probably looks in, looks at 20 different times in a hundred acres each or whatever. 00:20:21 So they're giving a lot more thorough analysis. Yeah. And, and you got a baseline. 'cause if they, they find issues with weeds, 00:20:27 they go back and track. If we didn't kill 'em, we need to change up something to try again. Mm-hmm. Whereas a lot of times a farmer put out a spray 00:20:33 and walk away and it's usually a more expensive spray 'cause they don't wanna go back. Yep. This lets you do things a certain way. 00:20:40 Brian, um, how do you measure, how do you measure this? I know you're kind of the nut cutting type, so you're not gonna let somebody get away with, uh, 00:20:50 with doing a bad job. What's the measuring? Yeah, so I've been chewing on this question since you sent me the agenda. 00:21:01 It is not as easy as having a side by side out in the field to, to understand maybe what a, um, what a 00:21:10 what a consultant is doing for you. But, but I think you need to have some sort of set in place. Um, to me, uh, an agronomist, 00:21:20 if he's gonna be either on a higher consultant basis or on a staff basis, he's gotta carry his load. Um, and I still don't know that I know the best way 00:21:29 to answer that, but like what Brewer is doing, um, you know, I'm, we picked on Brewer this whole time, 00:21:35 but Brewer is a little more tangible, easier to measure, uh, especially on the budget side of things. 00:21:41 So my challenge to anybody going down that road would be make your own budget. Come up with it, wait on it, hire this guy 00:21:50 that's gonna do this same thing. Let him roll this budget out. Explain to you where he is gonna help pay 00:21:55 for his self justify his means for being there. Um, you know, that might be in cuts, that might be in swaps, that might be a lot of different things. 00:22:04 Um, but at the end of the day, you've gotta carry your own weight. Um, much like Johnny said, I, I know some guys that are on, 00:22:13 you know, more of a, a scout type business of consulting. Um, for me, if a guy comes back 00:22:20 with a blanket 4,000 acre recommendation, he didn't look at all those acres. I don't, I don't. You'll never convince me he did. 00:22:27 And look, maybe you did. Right? Yeah. Right. In those cases where that could happen, is that gonna happen every time? 00:22:33 Almost never. Right. I mean, it's, it's so dynamic across the areas. You farm neighboring crops, pest insects, uh, 00:22:41 weed pressure based on history of fields. Uh, previous tenant farmers on, on rented ground, nothing's ever gonna be the same. 00:22:49 Um, I would be leery of somebody that came back with that same recommendation every time. Um, but, 00:22:55 but finding out these guys that are truly helping with, uh, data analytics, um, you know, at the end 00:23:01 of the year drilling down, Hey, this is what made us money. This is what didn't, uh, this is 00:23:05 how we're gonna adjust for next year. As long as that guy's got a plan, we keep moving going forward. 00:23:10 Um, and, and, and you can see some sort of tangible progress. I really think that's about, I I really think that's a, 00:23:20 about how you go about it. Damien, I I wish I had a better, more clear cut black and white type answer, but it's a pretty black 00:23:28 and white question that I think has a pretty gray answer. Well, Johnny, you're the one that writes the check. 00:23:32 Obviously you've got the business, uh, you know, your bottom line, et cetera. Is it measured by just yield? I don't think so. 00:23:40 Is it measured by, I I'm guessing you probably are smart in that you look back at year over year, over year on, 00:23:48 on maybe, maybe inputs. Uh, of course that also you can't blame good advice or bad advice. 00:23:55 The season change. Sometimes you're spending more on inputs 'cause you have more problems. I mean, how the hell do you measure this, 00:24:01 Matt? I I think you just set a benchmark and you go from there and see what happens. 'cause we can have the best plan in place 00:24:06 and it turn off hot and dry in July and not rain for 60 days. And we lost everything we worked for. Yep. 00:24:13 Just like 10 days ago, I guess we started planting two weeks ago this Wednesday we started planting. I talked to Brian, I talked to Brewer, I talked 00:24:21 to all these different people and they're like, yeah, let's just plant two days and you stop. So we planted Wednesday, Thursday, it didn't even rain 00:24:28 until the following Wednesday, but it's rained from that Wednesday until yesterday, which was Sunday about 14 inches. 00:24:35 So no matter everything we did that was perfect. We had the planter set. They were planting the best they ever had. 00:24:41 You know, Brian came out, looked at some things, our infer program was perfect. The corn's coming up. 00:24:45 Then you have a disaster like that and you can't overcome that. Right. But that's where you need somebody like Brian 00:24:50 to step in and say, Hey, that crop either probably gonna have to be replanted or you're not gonna need to push it 00:24:54 because it's never gonna have that top in yield. Especially when we got roots exposed in places. We got all kinds of things going on out there. 00:25:02 You know, the, the only other thing I would throw in there, Damien, with what Brian was saying, 00:25:06 I would say you always want a consultant that wants to learn with you. You want somebody that wants to do trials on your farm 00:25:11 that wants you to learn, wants you to feel, touch it, see it. And you want your consultant doing the same thing. 00:25:17 A consultant that reads something in the book and never goes and sees it at a field day 00:25:21 or goes to any type of program like that, is somebody I'd be kind of leery of. Because if they haven't seen what it really looks like, 00:25:27 I wouldn't be advising that. I like it when Brian and Brewer come up with ideas. And that's how our field day's been based for what, Brian, 00:25:34 almost eight years now. We've had a field day, nine years. Yeah. Our field day's been based off of agronomic stuff 00:25:40 that we've kind of brainstormed about every year. Yeah. And try to keep it challenging. Yeah. So I think that you just said, so if I'm, 00:25:46 we open a question, do you need agronomist? We think the answer is yes. And then here's how to hire one. And what are you looking for in all that? All right. 00:25:54 I'm I'm hearing that first off, whoever you have better be curious. Better be curious. And also, like Evans say with Kelly, 00:26:03 you say, well, he's on staff. Well, he's only seeing what happens at Garrett land and cattle. 00:26:08 Well that's not true. 'cause they also have another business where he has customers in other places independently. 00:26:13 So I think that that's that thing. That's the what you said. If I had some, if I was big enough 00:26:18 to have somebody on staff, I'd wanna make sure as hell that they were keeping up with what's going on in another state and, 00:26:23 and another part of the country. That's right. Um, what about the, uh, the, the measuring? 00:26:29 God, that's just gotta be a tough one because you, you're measuring this year, 14 inches of rain, uh, the end of March, beginning of April. 00:26:36 It changes. Changes the entire, It could be the best corn I have or the worst depending on what the summer turns out. 00:26:42 'cause the other corn's gonna be three, four weeks behind it. So you just don't know. 00:26:46 I mean, I would think measuring, as long as they do their job, like let's say they scout the crops, as long as they're turning in the reports, 00:26:52 I really feel like they're walking the fields because you know, a lot of times it's hard to scout a field. Right. And you got tree lines, you got ditches, 00:26:59 we got all kinds of stuff here in West Tennessee. When we get on the sprayers and we start spraying, sometimes we 00:27:05 question, well did they do this? Did they not? You go back and look at the notes. Yeah, they saw it. They put it in the notes. You know. 00:27:10 So I mean, to get a good benchmark, I don't know. You know, you want somebody that walks your fields and you trust they do. 00:27:17 If they, if they don't have walking shoes on, they might not be the best crop consultant for you. Maybe that's the best way to say that. 00:27:24 So I, once I once heard our friend brewer say, never trust a pale agronomist Because they're not, they're not in the sun. 00:27:32 Yeah. So that's the thing is boots on the ground. And so when you're talking about measuring, I think the big one. 00:27:37 'cause if I'm, if I'm listening to this show and I say, okay, how do I go about hiring? What do I look for? First off, you want lots of breadth. 00:27:43 You want them to be going to field days. You want them to have, uh, buddies in Nebraska or Virginia. That way they can hear 00:27:50 what's happening in other parts of the world. That's why I'm, I'm, so, I want, I want to be active. I want boots on the ground. I want 'em 00:27:54 to be curious and go to different stuff. I want 'em to be connected. Right. That they are, that they've got other agronomic pals in 00:28:01 other parts of the country that are telling them about what they're seeing. Um, I think from the business standpoint, 00:28:09 I'm probably thinking, I wanna make sure they understand that there's a bottom line to this 00:28:12 because I don't mind paying you, but also that means that I'm investing in you for the expertise. 00:28:17 But we can't just be blowing money nilly, uh, in out here because things are a little tight. I'm guessing that's probably a pretty big concern. 00:28:24 Yeah, for sure. You know, and another thing that we do with, with, uh, my consultant actually scouts the fields. 00:28:31 He's paid a bonus on wheat if you go over a certain yield. So that also keeps some things in check. 00:28:37 If you have a, uh, act of God or weather event come in that you can't control, you know, he's not gonna get a bonus, like a late season freeze. 00:28:45 A lot of times that's what we run into this time of year, our week's getting ready to head out. 00:28:48 Mm-hmm. Uh, Easter weekend's always the hard weekend for us to make it through that. Hey, Wait, you know what? Our friend Kevin 00:28:53 calls that. What's that Easter freeze? He, he, he gets, he gets giddy and jumps around about Easter freezes. 00:29:00 Well, it's, it's funny 'cause it doesn't matter if it's the 1st of April or the 19th of April. There's always seems to be a freeze on that date. 00:29:06 That's what he says. Also. It gives him nightmares actually. But I mean, that's one way it kind of helps work 00:29:13 with your consultants to where they're always trying to make your wheat or your soybeans be the best they can. If there is a premium for them at the end of the year too. 00:29:19 If you stay in budget and make a top end yield, then here you go. And it's, it doesn't have to be a lot, 00:29:24 but, you know, a dollar here and there on the acres they scout. It is a big deal for 'em. And it's sure it is. It's worth 00:29:29 It. Well, like you said, if they're covering 30,008 50,000 acres and they can make a buck off of that, 00:29:34 that's a 30 50,000 bonus. Which, you know, they're, they're small independent business people themselves. So speaking of all that right there, um, 00:29:42 I, I don't know who sets this up. The person that says, okay, I, I need to probably get a little more agronomic help. 00:29:47 I like what Brian and John are telling me. Does the, does the consultant agronomist or consulting crop scout bring you their contract 00:29:57 and say, here's how we work with other farms. And that way, because you, you've described, okay, it's paid per this and it varies by crop, 00:30:05 and then it's also there's a bonus. Is that a standard kind of a contract? Yeah, I, I it is. And 00:30:12 I would always ask on the front end how many visits a year you're gonna do. If you're wanting somebody to visit every week. 00:30:17 I'd be very clear, you know, if you want somebody walking your fields with you, I'd be very clear because there's 00:30:22 consultants out there that do that. And then there's consultants out there that are more come in three 00:30:26 or four times a year, meet with you. Yep. They're a phone call away anytime you need 'em. And then, you know, that type of thing. 00:30:31 Just like the guy scouts, my wheat and soybeans, he scouts my soybeans. Once they come up every week, 00:30:36 he scouts my wheat about every other week. Every, you know, two to three weeks depending on the growth stage. 00:30:41 'cause you gotta remember in the winter it goes dormant. Not a lot happening. I'm not expecting him 00:30:45 to be walking out there on frozen ground and in the mud. But this time of year when the flag leaves coming out, 00:30:49 the heads just start coming out. I want him looking for a disease. And he is, you know, 00:30:53 he's probably worried to death right now. How much weed's underwater. That's what we just went through. 00:30:57 Yeah. But you want somebody, I'd have it in the contract on the front end and that way there's never any 00:31:02 complications at the end of the year. I'm sure there's been somebody that's gotten stung no matter what. 00:31:07 And there's gonna be somebody that, uh, that, uh, remember there's always, there's a lot of people that are kind of negative and skeptic in this business. 00:31:14 Uh, have you noticed that Brian? Oh, absolutely. And then they're gonna, and they're gonna say, I don't know, man. 00:31:20 I, I, I think it's just a bunch of money that blows out the door. I don't need any of that. I, I know what I'm doing. 00:31:25 But you run the risk then if you're doing the same thing that your dad did and your grandpa did. 00:31:29 Well, a a good agronomist is, is gonna understand that if nothing else, he's gonna understand products you need. Maybe it's a, you know, our part of the world, boron, 00:31:40 you know, for example, being such a leachable nutrient, to me, I've never been a big fan of, of spreading dry boron. Uh, for a lot of reasons it's easier to feed it in crop. 00:31:52 Right? I mean, a a good agronomist is gonna know that, for example, know when to do that. What recommendation 00:31:58 to make a good agronomist is gonna save you money by making the right applications, right rates, right source, whatever. 00:32:07 Um, you know, not to go back to the four Rs, but I guess to go back to the four Rs, um, get getting that done, uh, timely, efficiently, um, you know, 00:32:18 maybe there is a better way. Right? And that goes back to being outside a bigger box. Um, networking with people and perspectives. 00:32:25 If you're, if you're not a big operator, you still can, I mean, I'm sure that our guys that you're talking about, they'll cover a 500 acre operation as long 00:32:33 as it's probably in, in their, in the, it works into their plan. Right? 00:32:39 I would, I would certainly think so. I, I know if I were in that business, I would and, and, you know, for some of those smaller guys, I think maybe 00:32:47 my opinion, it, it makes a lot more sense for them to, to have a paid consultant, not necessarily somebody on staff, 00:32:54 but a, a contractual basis. Yep. Um, that might fit the operation better. Um, you know, if, if you sit down 00:33:01 and start looking at it, uh, and figure out, hey, if it's five bucks an acre, eight bucks an acre, whatever it is, you know, that's gonna, 00:33:08 it's probably gonna vary across the country. It's gonna vary across what services they're providing. Um, just like Johnny said about field visits, you know, have 00:33:17 that talk up front, get, get and set clear expectations and then nobody's disappointed that way. Um, but, but hiring that guy, I think a lot of times is, is 00:33:27 gonna do your world a good, especially if he is not selling any products. Right? Like, I, I guess anybody in the world could be 00:33:34 for sale, um, right. For the right price. So Now we're moving into it. He's been wanting to cover it for this entire, 00:33:40 Well, I'm gonna pushing into it. He's, He, he wants to, he wants to, he wants to Now give us your opinion on the sales agronomist. 00:33:48 Uh, if, if there's business cards says sales agronomist, what do you think? Ask me first what my business card says below my name, 00:33:56 Yours says sales agronomist. Mine does say sales agronomist. That is a p**s poor term. If I've ever heard one. Uh, I struggle with it. It's, 00:34:06 I think you should take it off your business card, by the way, Johnny makes my business card. 00:34:12 Uh, but I struggle with that term for a lot of reasons. Um, sometimes I feel that it's offensive. Uh, to me it's offensive to other people. 00:34:24 Um, everything I do, I try to approach with integrity, right? I, I said earlier on this episode, I help run the day to day 00:34:32 of a business that that requires sales being made to keep us going. I also offer agronomic advice. 00:34:41 I would say that makes me a prime candidate to be one that, that somebody would look at 00:34:46 and say, well, Kenny, Kenny, he, can he truly be, uh, unbiased? And, and, and I, while I would like 00:34:52 to say most of the time, yeah. Um, does it ever slip up on me? Probably, um, I struggle with the term sales agronomist 00:35:01 'cause it's used by so many companies to try to differentiate salespeople. But there's a lot of people, and, 00:35:07 and I'm not even gonna pick on an age group. I know 'em from near retirement with gray hair to fresh outta college. 00:35:12 Just 'cause somebody gives you a damn price list and a truck and a set of keys and a cell phone 00:35:17 that don't make you an agronomist. Right? If you're not providing value, you're just a damn salesman. 00:35:23 I don't care what anybody else says. Um, I like to think that some of the success that I've had, uh, across my career has been been 00:35:33 because I provide more value than just the cheapest price. Right? I, 'cause I don't care who you are, 00:35:38 you're never gonna be the cheapest every time, right? There's, there's always somebody out there that's gonna slip in and Right. 00:35:43 Beat you on x or beat you on Y but, but to provide value and, and I think the way that I try to do this 00:35:50 and say that I maintain integrity is, is when a grower comes to me with a problem, uh, you know, first instinct is always 00:35:57 to say, okay, can I help find a solution? Mm-hmm. A lot of the times I can, sometimes I like to phone a friend, right? 00:36:04 Go back to that perspective piece. But to genuinely offer a solution to any problem or a sound agronomic recommendation, 00:36:12 I feel very confident that I can do that. When I do that, I try to be completely product agnostic, right? 00:36:18 If, if my guys trust me and think I'm doing the right thing by them. And again, like I said, I, I love to think 00:36:23 that I am all the time. And I, and I really do strive to do that. If I'm doing my job 00:36:28 by offering sound agronomic advice, guess what? Generally the next, or one of the next two questions they're gonna ask me 00:36:35 is, okay, how would you do it? Is there a product for that, right? Mm-hmm. And a lot of times, you know, 00:36:39 my recommendations are outside of products, right? It's changing practices or whatever. Something that you know, that, 00:36:45 that I necessarily can't monetize in my role. And that's fine too, right? That's part of, of, of building that integrity, building 00:36:52 that trust, building that relationship. But eight, eight and a half to nine times out of 10, if I'm the guy 00:36:59 that helps this, you know, particular grower, whoever it is, they can see that tangible result saying, okay, 00:37:04 I was going down the wrong road. Brian helped me fix that. I'll learn something from him. Okay, I'm gonna about, you know, if there's a product 00:37:11 that can be bought to solve, said problem, I'm gonna buy this product from Brian. I'm not, probably not even gonna price him for it. Yep. 00:37:18 What what I like about that is, is when you do the right thing, those people keep coming back to you 00:37:23 and keep coming back to you. And if you build a, a sales book, in my opinion, in that way, um, you know, those are relationships I think 00:37:31 that stand the test of time, um, through a good economy or an economy more like today's. Um, so, and, and I enjoy that, right? 00:37:40 I mean, at the end of the day, you know, it, it behooves me to go out and sell to Johnny or, 00:37:45 or any other customer of mine, a bunch of crap they don't need, especially in a tight economy, right? 00:37:50 'cause if I run them out of business, I'm running my own book of business, you know, right out the door. 00:37:54 And that doesn't do any good for anybody. But, but man, I really struggle with that sales agronomy term, uh, 00:38:00 because, uh, they almost need to be separate. It's, it's okay just to be a salesman, right? Some of the most successful business people in the world 00:38:07 started as salesmen. There's a bunch of guys that are really good agronomists that don't want anything to do with sales. 00:38:13 I was one of those guys at one point, and then I, I realized I like the sales side of things better, Damien. 00:38:18 But, um, you know, for me there's, there are people that can wear the hat of both and it's an okay turn, but it's pretty p**s poor, 00:38:26 I think from one direction or the other. Um, Johnny by The way, he said before we hit record, he said, I probably got 15 minutes just on my opinions about 00:38:35 the term sales agronomist. He wasn't lying. He was not lying. You asked though, I told you where we were going. 00:38:42 It's, look, I warned you. I did my part. That was my honest agronomic advice to you. You chose to go down the road. 00:38:48 Uh, I appreciate it. Speaking of whether it's a sales agronomist or a hired staff or somebody that's on a consulting basis, 00:38:55 there's probably somebody that's got, uh, a bad experience. Seems to me the bad experience would be, um, you, 00:39:01 you paid them and they gave you bad consultation or they didn't show up. That's probably the two gripes. 00:39:07 Or the person that's unfairly says, I had a bad experience. But it really was, we know this happens. 00:39:14 Remember my sister-in-law owns a weight training and physical fitness facility. There's lots of people that say, I didn't get results. 00:39:20 Well, it wasn't because the gym wasn't there or it's because you didn't do, you didn't do the work and all that. I have a friend, there's probably farmers, Johnny, 00:39:27 that would say, I didn't have a good experience. Well, maybe it wasn't the o the consultation and maybe it wasn't the agronomics. 00:39:34 Maybe it was you didn't do what you were supposed to do. That's right. That's right. 00:39:37 And it's always nobody's fault, right? Finger never points at themselves. I mean, everybody runs into that, you know, 00:39:44 and you, you brought up the small guy versus the large guys. You know, I think it's a great opportunity 00:39:48 for the small guys, probably better than the large guys. 'cause if you farm, if somebody farms 20,000 acres 00:39:53 and a consultant, you call 'em and say, Hey, can you start scouting for me? And they say, yeah, I'll be right there. 00:39:59 How's that possible? How do they pick up that meat? But a guy that farms a thousand acres, you call a guy and he says, yeah, I'll be right there. 00:40:04 I can pick you up. No problem. That's pretty believable. Yeah, right. It's kind of tie all that back in it, 00:40:09 it all goes both ways. Not, I think you just gotta be careful who you, you know, sometimes the 00:40:15 Yeah, yeah. What your point there was, uh, the person that says I can pick up your 20,000 acre contract. Well that's a lot to cover. 00:40:21 That that means that they, they've must have lost, uh, a bunch of stuff. But yeah, the, the smaller operator that's listening 00:40:27 to this, it's like, okay, you know, that's a really good point. I, I've got, mine might fit in with that consultant's 00:40:36 other 20 clients that are within the eight county area or something like that. That's right. That's right. Any bad experiences? 00:40:43 Brian, besides, besides sales agronomist term, is there anything bad experience that you need to warn against? 00:40:49 Yeah, I, I mean you mentioned, right, uh, somebody didn't do the right thing. And, and Johnny and I talk about this all the time. 00:40:56 We, we've seen it, we've been on both sides of it. Um, as an agronomist, um, as an agronomist, we make recommendations. 00:41:06 Uh, recommendations are generally pretty time sensitive, right? I mean, weather gets in the way, you know, we don't, 00:41:13 we don't forego an application or, or something of that nature at that point, for instance. Uh, we're late getting there, you know, I mean, 00:41:20 we, we do our best. Um, but like I said, weather gets in the way, life happens. Kids ball games, PTO meetings, whatever it may be, 00:41:29 everything is time sensitive. Um, you know, there's, you know, know, there's probably guys that are some of 'em better qualified than others, uh, 00:41:37 on, on all sides of that. But I think in general, um, most of the guys that I deal with on a day-to-day basis, and, 00:41:44 and I have customers that have their own independent consultants, uh, good people, uh, try to do the right things. 00:41:51 Um, I often don't get in the way of undermining them. Um, you know, I, I generally think they're making solid sound recommendations 00:41:59 and it's, you know, at some point the onus is on the, the farmer, right? To, to get things done in a timely manner. 00:42:05 Uh, results could vary based on that. Uh, we're also dealing with a, a living breathing crop, right? 00:42:11 And a living breathing soil and an uncontrollable environment, right? I mean, things happen. 00:42:17 Um, so I've just cautioned everybody that everything that happens is maybe not necessarily the consultant's fault. 00:42:22 Uh, it's not necessarily the farmer's fault either, right? It's just life happens timing, X, y, Z, right? 00:42:29 And, and I would say that, you know, along those lines, I've, I've had requests from a couple customers to, to do private consulting on their acres. 00:42:38 Another reason why I won't do that is because I'm in the sales realm. Uh, I just think it's best if I keep 00:42:42 both parts of that separate. Uh, that's why I generally make recommendations to some of these other guys. 00:42:47 I've got familiarity with that. I don't have the time. At the end of the day, I really don't have the time. Johnny, do I need to know anything 00:42:55 else about hiring agronomist? The answer is yes, I need to do it. Then you gave me a whole bunch of 00:42:59 reasons and things to look for. Is there any last thought, Man, I would call and get references and ask, call 00:43:03 and ask people how they're doing on their farm. They're seeing 'em like they're supposed to be seeing 'em because you don't wanna start off on 00:43:09 the wrong foot when you could. You could prevent that with a couple of phone calls pretty quick. 00:43:14 Yep. I think, I think we're gonna leave it right there. If you want to see these guys and learn about agronomics. Uh, the extreme ag field days begin in May, 00:43:22 May 22nd at Chad Henderson's Farm, June 12th at, uh, McGee, Arkansas with the Miles Farms, June 26th in, uh, 00:43:30 Iowa for Kelly Garrett's. And then we're gonna be August 5th. The first of our August is gonna be at Rell Farms. 00:43:37 I'm gonna be there and I want you to be there. Last year was about 98 degrees and about 98% humidity. So aside from that, maybe bring a scuba 00:43:44 tank so you can actually breathe. 'cause it's almost like breathing under water. Other than that, it's a great time 00:43:49 and you can go to the Extreme Ag Farm website to register for that. While you're there, check out our new show. 00:43:54 The Grainery, uh, Mr. Vijai was at the Grainery. That's the, uh, my on Farm hangout in Indiana where we're filming the show. 00:44:01 It's real farmers with real talk from the personal to the professional. Go check it out. And also, if you've got a kid, niece, 00:44:07 nephew, grandchild that is attending college or going to attend college, pursuing an agricultural degree, two or four year degree at any accredited agricultural 00:44:17 college, is, that means that kid's gonna be eligible for the Extreme Ag Scholarship. We're doing it now. Again, 00:44:22 ten three thousand dollars scholarships. This is not the petty change. This is important stuff. So you can do that also at the Extreme Mag Farm website. 00:44:29 So next time. That's Johnny Rell. I'm Brian Adams. I'm Damien Mason. Thanks for joining us here at Cutting the Curve. 00:44:34 That's a wrap for this episode of Extreme ags Cutting the Curve Podcast. Make sure to check out extreme ag.com 00:44:40 for more great content. Cutting. The curve is powered by Nature's Bio. Kay. Check out nature's dot com to learn more about 00:44:47 how Bio Kay can improve your farm's. 00:44:49.765 --> 00:44:50.205