00:00 We're talking about cat irons and ions and untying nutrition. And you're saying what? This is a little complex. You know what? 00:06 It's frankly too complex for me too. But that's what we're covering in this edition of Extreme Eggs, cutting the Curve. 00:11 Welcome to Extreme Eggs, cutting the curve more than just a podcast. It's the place for insights and information you can apply immediately to your 00:20 farming operation for increased success. This episode of Cutting the Curve is brought to you by Ag Explorer with innovative products that improve fertilizer efficiency, protect yield potential, 00:30 and reduce stress. Ag Explorer helps growers maximize field potential. Find out how Ag Explorer can help you get more out of your crop@agexplorer.com. 00:40 And now, here's your host, Damien Mason. All right. Hey there. Welcome to another fantastic example of extreme ice cutting the curve. 00:48 I'm just gonna go ahead and put it out on the table right now. They're over my head. This is entirely over my head. Uh, I was a decent student, 00:56 but I got like CS in chemistry. It's just something that's always been a little too out there, a little too difficult to grasp for me. 01:03 But we're talking about cat irons and ions and untying nutrition. There I am at Chad Henderson's farm, uh, 01:10 a couple weeks ago and talking to Molly with Ara Liquid and she explained bass base saturation and I thought, okay, this is pretty interesting to me. 01:18 And she talked about a parking lot. A parking lot has so many parking spaces. And at a certain point, it doesn't matter what you do, 01:26 you are not gonna make that parking lot any larger. And there's gonna be cars driving around. And she says, now think about soil chemistry. I'm like, oh, negative ions, 01:35 positive ions. And the fact that then this stuff you can't tie up can't find a place to park is still is a little over my head. But it made more sense then. 01:43 So I got Mike Evans with Integrated Ag Solutions and, uh, Garrett Land and Cattle. He's a agronomist up there with Kelly Garrett. 01:50 And I got Chad Henderson who was at that very discussion about base saturation in the parking lot. And he's just about as equally confused as me. 01:58 And we're talking about untying nutrition, cuz the really, the reality is we're not trying to give you a chemistry degree here. 02:02 We're trying to make sure that you can get the nutrition into your plants from your soil and you might have problems with your cat iron 02:12 anin balance. I think that's what I'm trying to get to Evans. Am I even on the right path here? 02:19 Yeah, you're getting there. You're getting on the freeway anyways. You're on the OnRamp. Yeah. 02:23 All right. All right. So when we started, we hit the record button. We said, let's not get too, uh, let's not get two into the periodic table here. 02:31 What do we got going on? What do I, what do I need to know? What's the big picture on all this? 02:36 So if you look at the soil, you know, if you take an acre, what weighs a million pounds? There's a lot of mineral in that soil. Um, 02:43 we've done a lot of total nutrient digestions on soil and Kelly's soil. You know, 02:48 you can have 40,000 pounds of phosphorus or 40,000 pounds of this or that, but each, each element's got their own charge. So it could be positive, 02:59 negative phosphorus phosphate is negative. So it's a three negative. So it's, it's a very strong negative charge. 03:07 And you got your positives with your calcium magnesium. You obviously, we talk about those o often, but everything in in nature wants to get neutral, 03:15 are balanced. So there's attractions. Positive, negative, though we'll bind stuff. And, um, to Molly's point, 03:23 there is only so many spaces out, out in that soil parking lot for things to attach to otherwise, either if they don't attach to 'em, they leach and fall off. Nitrogen's always, 03:33 at least in Iowa for last 10 years, has been a big deal with nitrogen running off into water and stuff like that. So, you know, if it doesn't have a home to park in, 03:44 it's gone and it'll find a place to leave. So, um, we deal with a lot here. I'm sure Chad does, has his own struggles down there in, in Alabama. Um, but that's, 03:55 that's, uh, my ten second elevator speech. So, So do you think the reason, that's the reason that they're building more parking lots down here around 04:04 Huntsville? Cause cause cause we have the, alright, so answer me this, um, like I said, nobody here is, uh, is uh, you know, a chemistry PhD, 04:15 but we also know this, we know that we have always thought the answer is fling fertilizer out there, fling fertilizer in the last few years, thank goodness. 04:24 And it's through the work that we're doing with, you know, extreme ag, et cetera. And some of our business partners we're like, 04:29 you might have enough fertilizer. Kelly says all the time, I think we got enough fertilizer now it's the next thing. 04:34 And that's what the biologicals and then some of these stress mitigations and plant growth regulators, et cetera. But also it's understanding that balance. 04:42 You know, Evan just said that phosphorus is a three negative, you know, it's, everything wants to be neutral, everything wants to get nu to neutral. 04:49 And so we've been flinging fertilizer out there with complete disregard to the fact that you're working against yourself. 04:54 And I think that's one of the big pictures here is that we've, we've wasted money, time, and effort working against soil chemistry. Yeah. 05:01 Yeah, I would say so. You know, phosphorus is a good one. You know, there's plenty of studies that out there, if you put out MAP or dap, 05:07 you're probably only gonna get baby less, maybe 20% if you're really good of that phosphorus, if you're just flinging it out there available in the first year and it, 05:16 and it's a slow release, they don't move. And a lot of that's due to its charge and the opposite charges in the soil. You know, you got iron, you got aluminum. 05:26 A lot of people don't talk about they're gonna attract phosphate, you know, and calcium's gonna attract it. 05:33 You're gonna have all these strong bonds that phosphate ties up to that will allow that fertilizer, that investment dollar, 05:41 which phosphor is probably one of your more expensive nutrient investments out there. 05:47 And you're putting out there and it's instantly tied up because you got, you know, like up here we got, we're high in iron, iron aluminum, 05:56 and though they don't hurt the crop, they're in the soil. So they're binding sites for that phosphorus 06:03 And, and you know, you know, to take that point, you know, this is something like, Hey, we used to throw out fertilizer, 06:09 but it's said advancements that we've made to learn these things. You know? And, and, and I don't know if anybody, you know, and, and you know, 06:16 we talked about this before we got on here that, well, I don't know if we'll ever know it all, Mike, you know, it's a learning curve and we figured out on our own farms, 06:23 like what we're trying to do with Extreme Mag, and these are the pieces that we tie in when we use certain products to make things more available. 06:30 And that's what we're trying to unlock and untie when we start. And this is when we start working in zones, you know, 06:37 whether it's in a strip deal, whether it's in a planter load, whether it's an infer or tuba two deal. 06:42 And that's where we can concentrate these particular, um, things to make it to where we have that zone available. You know, 06:50 because we can't go out there and just start trying to fix the whole farm because we're still learning how to fix the zone. 06:56 Mm-hmm. Um, question for either of you. So it was a thing, you know, starting 50 years ago, whatever, 07:03 the first time I started paying attention about, uh, nitrogen volatility, that was the big thing. 07:07 And now we've got so much we are understanding and we're trying to control environmental, uh, uh, 07:13 degradation and talking about not letting our nitrogen get away is that nitrogen Evans did it. 07:19 We were throwing nitrogen every which way we could because that's how we thought we grew corn. Were we throwing it out there and we, 07:25 was it going away just because we didn't understand the chemistry? Like, it, it wasn't that we were being wasteful, it wasn't, it was that, it was, 07:32 it was trying to neutralize. Is that why nitrogen goes away? Why it volatilizes why it runs away? Is it because it's seeking neutral? 07:41 Uh, great question. Uh, in some aspects, yeah. Um, you know, we always treated, at least in here in Iowa, over my years, we've treated, 07:51 you know, nitrogen as a need of like, well, if I'm gonna put, if I need 150 pounds, I'm gonna put 170 pounds out just because I want that insurance policy. 08:03 Yeah. Nobody wants yellow corn in July. So that's, that's been always the mentality and it's been affordable and stuff like that. So guys, you know, it wasn't, that investment was cheap in their mind, 08:13 they're cheap insurance, right? So, um, but to some degree, yeah, I mean it, depending on what form you're putting out on there, um, yeah, 08:22 it's seeking neutral, it's seeking somewhere. I mean, nitrate was a big thing we got in the Des Moines River and it flowed in the water well, and it's a negative charge. If it don't have any place to go, 08:32 it's finds water and it disappears. So, uh, yeah, it's, it's trying to find a place to bond. Um, the other thing you gotta think about, and things we're learning too, 08:42 and been learning for a while, really, you know, is the organic matter at leased up here in our soils are, it's such a, can be depending on the year, such a great, uh, 08:55 nitrogen fixer. I mean, we can get free ammonia. Uh, it turns ammonium and, and, uh, which is a positive charge opposite of the nitrate, which is a negative charge. 09:05 So, um, we, the soil will produce its own nitrogen because of the microbial activity. So, which is un unique to some of the other nutrients, so to speak. 09:16 And, uh, cause they'll pull atmospheric in out and, and, and turn things into it. 09:21 Hey, uh, It's why, it's why it's brought us in from working all the ground up to strip till to no-till. You know? 09:28 And those are the things we're trying to combat in this positive negative ions. And then trying to keep our rivers clean and, 09:34 and everything else we do as farmers, which has brought us to the most efficient, efficient point. But we had to get to where we're learning what's available and what's not 09:42 available before we can figure out which rabbit hole we gonna chase. Hey Chad, I got a question for you. Uh, Kelly brought it up, uh, 09:50 a past recording. He said, I think we're gonna find out that there's not as many depleted soils as there are imbalanced soils. So take this the right way. 09:58 And you farm ground that you farm ground. That's a little different than he has. But also, uh, you know, this old thing about, oh, 10:04 well I took on this f property that, uh, the prior tenant minded, you know, we hear that all the time. 10:11 Is it really true that it's mine or has Kelly got a real, uh, point there to be made? Maybe it's not depleted as much as it's imbalanced. 10:18 And that's goes to this complete thing we're talking about untying nutrition by getting it balanced with your cation on your anion exchange. 10:25 You know, it's a long way from Alabama to Iowa. Um, and, and, uh, you know, there's a lot of different soil types and dirt composure and, 10:34 and depths of soil and top soil all the way between here and there. But, but Kelly is right on that aspect of what we're doing. You know, 10:42 you've heard me talk about farm the ground that we're gonna lose due to industry and us pulling the reigns back on fertility and figuring out how to get the most 10:50 out of it. And then when we start pulling those samples, we start having eye opening experiences that we're not pulling near what we 10:57 thought we was pulling. You know, like, oh, we know we need this many pounds to grow a bushel of corn. So we think, well, this many pounds is gonna leave. And when we pull a sample, guess what? 11:06 It comes back and it's, and it's what Evans with 20, 25% of what we thought we was taking outta the soil, we're taking that much less out. You know? Mm-hmm. And, 11:15 and it's cause things are coming more available. It's because the organic matter Evans was talking about, it's because of, of things that are getting put back into the soil, you know, the stove, 11:25 you know. Um, so all those things break down and you have to take those into consideration, but it's all about balance. So you can have soils that were depleted. 11:34 Yes, those are out there. We know those are out there, but our family farms, the one that farmers have been on, 11:39 and one farmers have raised families on those, those are not farms that's depleted. Those are farms that peoples had to take care of because it's their way of 11:46 living. So I don't know if I'd dance around that question or answered it or what. All right, Lynn, I'll you, you did, you did fine. Okay. Uh, Evans, 11:53 I had a question for you. Um, you spoke about the phosphorus being a hugely negative charge. Um, and then you talk about calcium, magnesium being a positive charge. We had, uh, 12:04 Kelly on here, uh, and he talked a lot about using calcium products to, uh, because he's got tons of calcium in the soil, 12:14 but it's not working, uh, for him. So he puts calcium, you guys put calcium to the thing. Is it just because of that negative positive thing? 12:23 Is that why it's not working? I mean, you don't have a shortage of calcium, you just have to use calcium in products because of the untying it, yes. 12:32 Yeah. I mean, so you may have calcium in the soil test, but you may not, you probably don't have available calcium. That's the things we run into. 12:40 What's the plant seeing? What are the roots seeing? What can it take up? And your basic soil test will show you how much is exchangeable. 12:46 So basically layman terms, that's, that's a dollar for a dollar type thing. I mean, it's just a, 12:52 they take it in the lab and they do a strong acidic reaction with it to see what falls off that, that that soil coade, so to speak. So, 13:00 you know how much the chemistry exchangeable, well, the CO to some degree, a lot of it actually, the, the, the plant doesn't see that. 13:08 That's not what it's gonna pull up a lot of the times. So, I mean, we've done enough work, you know, one test examples of a Haney extraction, 13:17 um, that we've used that gives a little more, um, plant available look at, at things. And you can see the percentages changed. And I recommend guys to do that on their farms is do all these tests 13:29 once and just see what you got. Cuz it's, it's little eye-opening when you go from a total nutrient digestion to see how much tu min mineral you got sitting in the soil to your last, 13:41 your basic lab exchangeable soil test. And then you go to these, um, Haney tests would be the easiest one most common of, 13:51 of a more water, water soluble extraction to what the plant's more likely to see and take up and see how, how, how that changes. It'll open your eyes. Um, 14:02 so when we talk, we got, you know, between the hills and the bottoms here, it's either calcium or magnesium. They're dominating the soil typically, 14:10 and you run into issues of that's all you see. And it dominates the soil. Calcium's a big bully, so to speak, is a big strong positive, double positive. And it'll take up that oid. 14:24 So it, it, it doesn't allow anything else to happen. And magnesium's probably the easiest one to explain because it'll turn everything to concrete. You know, we go over the Missouri river bottom, 14:34 you know, they got 25 to 30% base magnesiums and they could disc it one day and three hours later it'd be like a parking lot. I mean, it'll just tighten up so fast. 14:43 It'll make your head spin. So, um, Yeah, that's, that's the interesting thing that we're talking about is that we always think that, you know, in the old days, 14:50 your soil type or maybe the organic matter or this kind of thing, we never really thought about the chemistry. We just thought, oh, well, you know, that's that kind of ground that's kind of, 15:00 and and it's, it's not, it's because of the chemistry you're talking about. We never thought about. It's just really chemistry sometimes that ground. 15:07 And we say, oh, that's crappy. Evan just said, yeah, man, it's like concrete. It's chemistry. So, 15:13 So, you know, I know you could probably claim to this, Damien, you know, you, you ever had farming, you was riding around in your dad's truck, you know, 15:20 back when you was younger. And he was like, you know, well that looks good. Well, you know, son, that's piece of dirt right there. Just, 15:25 it just never works. Like, I don't know why they can't, you know, and it's not the farmer, it's just like, 15:30 well that piece of that farm right there, it just, it just never has done right? Like, it never works, you know, and at the age you're like, oh, okay, 15:36 well that's note to sell. Don't ever try to buy that farm. No. It's just that imbalance. And that's what we didn't know any better then, 15:41 you know, and Evans knows when, I mean, y'all, both of y'all know what I'm talking about, you know, it's like you're riding around the truck like, man, they just, you know, and, 15:47 and they've done a great job with it. Everything you would've done or farms that you have, you know? Yeah. So those are them imbalances that we're trying to, I guess, 15:56 learn and cut through these days, you know, as, as where we're at in farmers and trying to be more efficient with the fertility and, and this, I'm telling you man, it is definitely eye-opening. 16:05 And when you start pulling the tests like Evan's talking about from the Haney test to a regular soil test to, you know, and then we're getting into, you know, 16:12 even the tissue sampling part to tie in with that or, you know, we're talking about these full, um, stalk tests, you know, it, 16:20 it is just everything starts to make you start scratching your head, you know, what you think you knew you didn't know so much of. 16:28 Yeah. So, uh, Mike Evans question for you. We've gotten way better at this, you know, just in your, in your career, uh, you know, from the time you started to today, um, 16:41 about looking at the chemistry. Is it, is it almost like eye-opening? Like, hey, we always thought we had no nutrition there and what we really had was an 16:52 imbalance situation. I mean, is it that evident? Like do people, when you get together with other soil types, do they like a soil agronomy types? 16:58 Do they say, yeah man, boy, we sure come a long way. We used to just throw fertility at it and it was never a fertility issue. Uh, not really. No. No. 17:11 We don't talk about things like in that terms. I mean, it, it's still 17:16 Old when you get together with your other agronomy types. What the hell do you talk about 17:21 How good Chad Henderson corn looks, Andon Canons, Andon Talk about whether who's gonna buy the next round of bush light? Is that what you're really talking about? 17:31 More likely, yeah. I'm gonna tell you, if my, if we sit down, my buddies, if me and Mike sit down and we talk, talking about canons, 17:38 I'm gonna get up and leave. Yeah. Alright. So, uh, the good, the good news is the people are tuning in here to listen to what we're saying 17:46 about, But you know, I got a question for both of, you know, when we're, when we're having this conversation, so Mike, you know, 17:52 you come from retail and I mean, you, you know, you've, you've been in this world, when did you know, and I can kinda remember, and I think it's toward the, 18:00 maybe the front to the start of my farming career, you know, as, as farmers, it just, was it because fertilizer was cheaper? I mean, 18:10 was it, but then at the same time, you know, we was selling beans for four or five bucks, you know, $8 was a big deal. So commodities were down, corn was $2. Mm-hmm. I mean, why, 18:19 where did this come from? Because I feel like the ratio from what we're getting for the crop to the fertility, it still isn't far off. Mm-hmm. You know, 18:27 from where we've always been. But where did this come from, y'all? Like, where we're so now active because I, we never heard this 15 years ago, or I, 18:36 What I was trying to ask Evans, and instead he went down the road of, no, I don't sit around with my buddies drinking beer and talk about this stuff. 18:42 I was basically asking the question that Chad just asked, where was this discussion 20 years ago, non exist? Cause 18:48 Evan, because Evan started in, you know, was it Nutrient Ride Evans that she was with? You know, and Oh, I've been two different places Yeah. That have been in retail. And I, 18:58 it just, it's a good question. I don't, I think a lot of came from the universities and that's the, the path they took, you know, and nothing wrong with what they took. I mean, there, 19:10 there's a need for it at the time. And I think, you know, as, as an industry and as a, as a, just a society, our ability to, 19:19 uh, be America and do things faster, cheaper, bigger, I mean, it's always been the way, right? And Yep. You just, I'd like, you know, 19:28 to that point of that question is you look at the mine system, the rail system and everything else, and look what that, 19:34 that explosion equated to this, right? We needed to move, it felt like potash and nitrogen are things we needed phosphates. 19:41 So we scaled that up and made it more affordable for the farmer to use. And at the time back then, we saw a response from it, 19:49 maybe because some of that soil was depleted to that point. But we've, we've, as a farmer does, 19:58 what a farmer does is done it really well and gotten to the point where the, the, the law dimension returns sets in, right? I mean, 20:06 we could put more out there, but we're the, the value is not as strong as it was 15 years ago. I remember putting on potash at a hundred pounds, 20:14 guys were getting great yields, but we also had a data group that, you know, once you got past a certain point, your bushel response was, you know, 20:22 wasn't returning you to that dollar. And I think to to the aspect of, as an industry, 20:27 we've gotten to that point where we don't need to be putting on all this potash because we've supplied the soil enough. Now we're trying to balance it. 20:34 And that's, so to me, from a 30,000 foot view, that's, that's what I see. So, uh, like I said, about five years ago now, four years ago, 20:45 four to five years ago, I was gonna prove that theory, Mike, just what you talked about. And so I go out there and I take, 20:51 take a yield map or a coverage map and applied map, if you will, for fertility applied map. And I said, 20:58 I wanna make this map this on a farm we own on make this map where the, the spreader truck is running the whole time. So to do that with our fertility, 21:07 where it was on that farm, I had to go to an 850 bushel yield go. Okay? Mm-hmm. So I did it and I did it on a small area. 21:15 We had like a 10 acre deal and I did it 1400 pounds to the acre of fertility, you know, and it was like I said, 21:23 between two telephone poles down to strip through the field, I said, okay, let's just see what happens. So the next year, nothing that year, nothing, 21:31 you know, pull soil samples, oh, it's gonna be great in two years, guess what? Nothing. Okay, then we pull back and we get, now we're five years later, 21:39 we can't find it on a yield map. We can't find it on a soil map. So cations, anions, dumping fertility out is gotta, 21:48 like I said, it's all about the balance. And this is what Mike was talking about, is us trying to get this thing back together and farmers doing farmers 20 years 21:55 ago, and us down here, you know, even in the cotton business, and you could just literally, 22:00 I can remember in that seventies and eighties folks just go out there and turn the ground white with fertility and then you'd make two, you know, 22:06 you could make cotton. Yeah. So tho those days and us being efficient, those days are over, you know? Mm-hmm. Um, and, 22:12 and us trying to do better for farmers and, and do better with our money and trying to make a living. And, and this is why we're talking about cat islands and add-ons now, 22:20 and none of us with no educate, well, Mike's education, me and Damien sitting here, like, okay, yeah, well, I got you. Well, 22:26 And I agree that the whole thing is, this is the kind of the new frontier. I mean, understanding soil biology's a new frontier. Yeah. 22:33 We never talked about soil biology in the old days, and I'm talking old days, even 10 or 15 years ago, we didn't talk about soil biology. Now we're truly, 22:40 Five years ago we'd come in here five years ago, we come in here and it was all almost like a wild, wild west. Biology was, wasn't it, Mike? You know me. There's no way to do it. 22:47 Still is no way to regulate it. Just say you got it and you can sell it. You know? 22:52 Well, back to, you're Talking, by the way, Chad, you're talking about products. But the reality is, I'm even talking about the understanding of it. You know, 22:58 you pick up a shovel full of soil, there's a whole bunch of living organisms in there. We still don't, we know as much about the Mars 23:06 About soil. We, we thought if we got that shovelful and had a bunch of worms in it, we still didn't have a good fishing day. 23:10 We didn't know our soil was in good shape. Yeah. So, well, I wanna go back to Chad's point quick and, and kind of clarify that too, 23:18 because we did it at Kelly's. We put, we banded in 300 pounds in the fall and came back in the spring. This was four or five years ago, here at the bottom, 23:26 outside the shop and put another 300 pounds banded on here. Cuz we felt that's what we needed to raise 400 some bushel corn, 23:35 wherever we're trying to shoot for. So I really jacked up the potassium levels in that soil. Well by doing that, actually, we've reversed the magnesium load in the, 23:44 the soil and we've created another issue because I can watch our potassium numbers skyrocket and our tissues right away. I mean, magnesium, magnesium nu numbers suffer. 23:57 Then it what'll happen is later season our pot ashes cuz it becomes unbalanced again. And, and, and it creates another issue. So by doing that, 24:05 we've created an issue chasing a singular thing. So I mean, to your point, Chad, I, we've, I've seen that out here and then Yeah, 24:14 I echo your thoughts And, and, and until you, and until you can do that on your own farm, and then you understand that the money you're putting in and, 24:22 and I mean we're not here bashing dry fertility. No. You know, we're not here talking about like, oh we can't use dry fertility. No, 24:28 we're using too much and we've done No, we're just trying to better understand the process in which dry fertility needs to be used 24:36 And to that point. Yeah. And, and you know, you know, like Kelly's Farms, we've taken some potash out of that rotation for now until we better understand 24:45 how to use it and where to use it and or what form to use potassium in. Phil, we got enough around here for, for us to learn some things and go from there. 24:54 So probably burning cheese, We probably got enough for them too. Yeah, yeah. So that to your point, Chad, that's, that's, 25:02 you're right on there as well. Untying nutrition. That's the other thing that we say we're gonna talk about. So what's the thing that you've learned, Chad, 25:10 in the last five years about untying nutrition? Uh, you know, realizing that, okay, there's a better way. Um, 25:19 we have ample fertility now I guys gotta make sure I'm untying it so it gets up in those plants. 25:23 What's one of the things you've learned the last five years about untying nutrition? 25:27 So, so, you know, you brought up excellent point. This is a good one to put that in, you know, and, and we're going, we're not going just jump on a product train here, but Titan X c you know, 25:36 we done that trial last year and I called Mike, you know, Mike was running my numbers for me and, and he was like, man, is this, 25:43 is this right? You know, Mike, it was pretty eye-opening what we were seeing down there. And this is something, you know, and, and we're just talking about a product. 25:49 This is something that's 10 years old. This is 11, 10, 11, 12 year old product here. This is not cutting curve, cutting edge, but us as farmers, you know, we get, 25:59 so we get so focused on what we're talking about with NP and K and just putting out fertility and whoa, let's use less and let's put on these products. Well, 26:08 you know, my dad in the those years when it started, everything that wouldn't NP and K was labeled a snake oil. Right? 26:17 Right. You know, and, and y'all know this. So we've had to cross that bridge of understanding what a product does such as, you know, uh, the products we use to make plants more available. 26:27 And understanding too that, oh, it's just not an added deal to my budget. Cuz you know, we have a fertility budget, we have a seed budget, 26:34 we have a herbicide budget on these farms and on these acres. So we gotta understand where this product fits in. 26:40 And then cutting that out of the fertility side, cutting a product out that you're gonna put on a seed coating out of the seed side and bringing a population down. 26:47 Cause it's all a balance of budget as well as nutrients. And to understand those products and say like, okay, 26:54 I'm gonna use Titan XC accomplished Max a Nutra charge, you know, uh, preventative xt, you know, these products that we have available, you know, 27:03 are mega grows. All these things that keep us sustainable and efficient, you know, the words we're supposed to use. And those things just to understand, 27:12 we gotta put 'em in the fertility budget. They need to come out of the fertility budget. Not just say, okay, I'm gonna spend $80 on MP and K, now I gotta add all this to it. Well I'm, 27:20 I can't use these products cuz I got pull your MP and K back to $60 and then pile these in and watch your yields go. 27:29 Uh, by the way, I like the, uh, we've said it a number of times on the, on our recordings here that, uh, if it wasn't N P K, it was snake oil. 27:37 And we've learned, obviously working with all kinds of business partners using new stuff. But those are biologicals. Let's go back to the chemistry part of this. I, 27:45 I've attested that, uh, and I don't have your experience Evans, but I was a DuPont intern, uh, 27:50 30 some odd years ago that we used to throw chemistry at everything, you know, chemistry, chemistry, chemistry. And we've gotten smarter about this than, 27:58 you know, we used to think the answer was chemistry, and now we're going the route of biology, uh, which is good eventually, 28:05 I think we're gonna figure out that it's the right ratio of both of these things and then better understanding of the soil. But, uh, what's, 28:11 what's the one thing that's still missing on, uh, on my prediction? What, what do we still not know? 28:18 Uh, oh, Ooh, ooh, pick me. What do we still not know, Chad? What do we still, I'll Tell you what we can't do. You cannot fix the American farmer. 28:29 Mike says he's, you know, we have, they have, you know, you can lead him to water, but you can't make him drink. Go ahead. Not Yeah, 28:39 I'll be the accounter. That too. I think there's that side of it. And then there's also the, the retail organization or chain across the country. 28:48 That is a limiting factor at times too. I mean, depending on where you're doing business at, I've ran into a few guys that wanted to try a few products and they're just, 28:55 either they can't do it or they don't wanna mess with it or whatnot. So there, there's multiple berries, berries of entry on this stuff. And, uh, 29:05 you know. Yeah. Well, Because they can't, you know, Kelly famously, famously, famously said, uh, a long time ago, 29:11 and we talk about him selling carbon credits and putting more carbon in the soil. He said, 29:15 nobody in the entire ag retail complex talks to you about getting more carbon in your soil and how that helps again, your ratios. And he says, 29:24 you know, why they can't sell you carbon? And I thought, well, okay. He's, he's kind of, uh, going after the the people. But it's true. Uh, so I mean, 29:32 there's, there's stuff that maybe we're not, we're missing still, but it's because 29:37 the manufacturers and the retailers can't make money on it. Uh, and, and two people are scared. I mean, people don't wanna talk. 29:44 You don't wanna talk about something. I mean, we all jokingly 30 minutes ago and his podcast said, man, we can do this thing in 15 or 20 minutes. Think about it. You know, and, and, 29:54 and it's to that point, you know, we're all scared to death to talk about something because heaven forbid, you know, we have some very good guys in retail, my guys around here. I mean, 30:02 just, just, you know, guys that are mm-hmm. Thought to theirs, trying to help you, like Evans and, and really trying to help and, 30:08 and they don't wanna steer farmer the wrong way over 15 or $20,000. Yeah. I mean, uh, you know, and, and, and, and it's a delicate situation. 30:16 Yep. All right. So we'll talk about cations iron, anions, untying, nutrition. I Dunno if we talked about cations iron anions. 30:22 I don't know. We had a good time the First five minutes we did. All Right. Get me outta here. Mike Evans, what do I need to know? What's the last, 30:29 what's you get the parting shot? Um, you Know what he hasn't done, Chad, usually what Evans does, he's brilliant about this, especially when you're on site, uh, up there in Iowa, 30:39 which I'm gonna be twice next month. He uses a, I'm gonna be gone football. He uses a football, uh, uh, analogy. And he, he's really good. I mean, 30:48 he is the absolute storyteller. He's like, okay. So imagine this, the quarterback dropped back for a pass. He always does. Doesn't, 30:55 he hasn't done any, uh, football analogies or any, any sports, any sports based, uh, comparisons. You got a sports based comparison to get us outta here, 31:03 putting It on, Mike, come on, talk back. Say We the parking, I Molly's parking lot. Parking lot. And once, once the, once the positives and the negatives are all, uh, connected. 31:13 There ain't no place for the, the negatives to go. So, uh, anyway, you got anything for us? 31:19 No, I don't on an analogy, but, uh, I was just gonna go back to something we talked about earlier is, is knowing your soil, knowing what you got, doing the extensive testing on it. 31:30 I mean, it takes a little bit of time, but I think it's well worth it to understand what you got and then you can implement practices under your farm. So, you know, 31:39 don't be afraid to test. Uh, and if you need help, find somebody that's gonna help you. I mean, I, I think that's the key to anything. And, uh, here's your analogy. 31:50 Find you a, a good coach to help you make the plays. There you go. There you go. Dang, 31:55 You knew you could get, you knew you get to it, Chad. Okay, so, um, I'm, I'm right on Mike. You know, um, uh, there's a lot of barriers here, 32:03 whether it be fathers to sons taking over and not being able to do that. Um, we see that barrier all the time here at extreme ag, you know, 32:12 and then the next, the next thing would be, um, the way that, you know what? Just lost my train of thought. Just right out the window. 32:23 Um, you know, I ain't got a clue. You know what? I ain't got a clue. I had it too. I mean, I had a good one when Mike was talking about that. 32:30 I was like, yes, that will work. Yep. You know, it went outside and now we're talking about like, I looked out the window and seen the corn. I'm like, man, 32:36 I need me wide dropping. All right. I'll give him my big takeaway. Uh, I think it'd be foolish to sit here and say that you don't need fertility or 32:43 fertilizer products. But the real, the reality I think is we've talked about this again, uh, you know, a couple times that the untimed nutrition or the balance, 32:53 the fact that what we know now, uh, that we didn't know a long while back was that if you don't have it in an available form or at the right time, or that your, your chemistry is working, 33:05 you know, with you versus against you. That's, I think, the big takeaway. And this is why you pay attention to what we're doing here. 33:13 We'll go out there and look at that stuff like, but, uh, you know, Mike talked about that. 33:18 It used to be you thought this was just a terrible piece of ground, and maybe it was, but maybe the problem was the chemistry was never right. 33:24 And what if you could rectify that, you know, there's some real opportunity there. You can take b, b grade ground, C grade ground and maybe just by getting your chemistry right? 33:35 And I'm talking about not applying herbicide, I'm talking chemistry as in what's happening in that soil. I think that's where the big takeaway is here. 33:42 You can take some some poor ground and maybe turn it. So mm-hmm. That's that, that was what I was gonna get at. I was gonna get don't be don't be afraid to stick, keep being a student. 33:52 You know, us as farmers, when you get 20 or 25 or 30 years in or 30 crops in, you feel like there's nothing left to offer. But this is, 34:00 this is the part that we're learning now is I've learned so much in the last five or six years from all the guys that we've been around. And it's, 34:07 and it's opened my eyes to not, to becoming a better student of the crop. You know? And I think the older we get, 34:13 the more the student part needs to kick in. You know, it may be reverse of what it should be, you know, because then you know better or you're looking at it. 34:21 And if you can't find somebody to help you keep going. Because at extreme ag, it took us, we're all 300 miles apart to get together. So you can keep going. 34:29 We will find you somebody to, to help you. I like that. By the way, my 76 year old farmer neighbor was down here drinking beer with me the other 34:38 night. And he was, uh, he, he sometimes thinks he knows a lot, uh, because he, he did know it. And he referenced something that, uh, 34:46 was farming fact in 1990. So, and I, I was gonna quibble with him and I thought, there's really no use. He's, uh, he's gonna be a listener to what we're doing here. He's not gonna change. 34:58 And unfortunately, if you're listening to this, you know, a person just like I described, he's like, well, we proved we, 35:03 we settled that argument way back when I said, yeah, we settled it for the time. And also we've discovered about 16 new things since then that have made it 35:11 better. So anyway, that's why you're listening to this. If you wanna listen to more stuff and not be like the, uh, 76 year old guy who, uh, still thinks it's 1990, 35:19 share these with your friends and listen to everything we have. We've recorded almost 200 of these Cutting the Curve podcasts. 35:24 We've recorded videos at places like Chad Field Day, and we're gonna be at a field day, June 22, uh, up where Mike Evans works. That's an area in Iowa at Garrett Land and Cattle. We have field days, 35:34 we have webinars. If you're a paying member, you can be part of our webinar the first Thursday of every month. And I'll tell you what, 35:39 we also do panel discussions at various events around the country. So, you know what, stay tuned to more great stuff. 35:44 Share this with somebody that can benefit from it. And you know what, go and listen to anything you haven't heard because there's so much cool stuff. 35:50 His name's Chad Henderson, Madison, Alabama. His name is Mike Evans, uh, at Integrated Ag Solutions up there in partnership with Garrett Land and 35:57 Catalyst Kelly. And my name's Damon Mason. So next time, thanks for being here. It's extreme ash cut on the curve. 36:02 Thanks for listening to another edition of Cutting the Curve. For more insights and information that you can apply to your farming operation, 36:09 visit Extreme ag.farm are your craft stressed out. Ag Explorer has you covered with a full line of products designed to reduce crop stress and improve yields. 36:19 Check out ag explorer.com and start protecting your yields and profits.