Farming Podcast | Dryland Corn, Cotton, And Wheat - In ExtremeTexas Heat

00:00 Every farmer claims they farm in tougher conditions than anybody else that's in the game of farming. 00:00:05 My guest Extreme Ag member Todd Kimbrel, might actually have a claim that you can believe we're talking to a farmer 00:00:11 who almost lost a crop during the wettest year on record. And it wasn't due to the wet, it was due to drought. 00:00:17 Yeah, that's what we're talking about. Todd Kimball, extreme Ag member in this episode of Extreme Ag Cutting the Curve. 00:00:23 It's extreme ag cutting the curve podcast, cutting your learning curve, and improving your farming operation every week. 00:00:30 This episode of The Cutting the Curve podcast is powered by Nature's bio kay technology delivering enhanced nutrient 00:00:36 cycling, greater plant health, and elevated stress mitigation leading to increased crop yields. 00:00:41 Visit natures.com. And now let's get ready to learn with your host, Damien Mason. Hey there. Welcome to another fantastic episode 00:00:49 of Extreme Acts Cutting the Curve. I got a good one for you today. He's Extreme Ag member, Todd Kimbrel. 00:00:54 Uh, he actually doesn't know that many of the extreme ag guys. He met Matt Miles at, uh, 00:00:59 row Crop Exchange and he said, you know what? Uh, this is kind of cool. He's a cotton producer, wheat corn. 00:01:04 He's in Hillsborough, Texas, uh, a little bit south of Dallas. And he said, I farm in really tough conditions. 00:01:09 Matt Miles claims he farms in little Vietnam. I farm in little Vietnam. I'm tell you, I'm even worse than that. 00:01:14 I've got terrible conditions down here. So anyway, we're gonna get into that. Todd Kimbrel, welcome to the program. 00:01:20 Hello. How's it going? So your Twitter bio says, or X as it is now, says I farm where we lost a crop to drought on one of the wettest years ever. This true. 00:01:31 That's true. I think that was in, uh, 2018. We had battled to get the crop planted. Not terribly, but we got everything planted off going pretty 00:01:42 good, and then sometime there in May, it just turned hot and dry and we literally, our corn burned up. 00:01:48 It was like a 40 bushel crop. Uh, and then soon after harvest, it started raining and didn't stop. But I, I don't know, I, I'd have to look at the number. 00:01:59 I think it was 60 or 70 inches of rain that year, but our corn literally burned up in the midst of all that. So, 00:02:05 Yeah, so it's the old thing. Wrong, wrong time, uh mm-hmm. Wrong time precipitation, et cetera. 00:02:12 Uh, your farming operation, you are, I said Hillsborough, Texas. That's what I think I saw on Facebook. 00:02:17 Is that the actual right town where your farm is located? Yeah, well, our address is Itasca, 00:02:23 but we're between Hillsborough Itasca, so yeah, Hillsborough would be the biggest town close to us. Roughly 60, 80 miles south 00:02:30 of the Dallas Fort Worth metroplex. Yep. About 70, 70 miles south of Dallas Fort Worth metroplex. 00:02:34 Okay. There's a lot of people list this. We got listeners from all over. We, we are happy to have you a, a Texan on here. 00:02:40 Um, the person that's in, you know, North Dakota, the person that's in Ohio, whatever, what's the, why is it so tough 00:02:45 with your conditions? Well, so I got to where I tell people this lately, we farm where we plant corn in the end of February 00:02:57 and it usually shocks people in the Midwest and in big corn areas. But we, we plant in the winter 00:03:03 and harvest in the spring technically, and it just kind of accidentally works per season. But, uh, it's extreme. 00:03:12 We're planting early to try to beat the heat in the summertime. So I dunno, somewhere about mid May, 00:03:18 it can really turn off hot and dry and things can go south in a hurry. So we're really trying to pollinate before the end of May. 00:03:26 So that's why we plant so early and you know, it's already warming up down here. I mean, our soil is right and it's ready. So 00:03:33 Yeah. So that might be the earliest. Mr. Miles over in McGee, Arkansas, the Delta region, a lot of stuff goes in the ground end of Feb, 00:03:41 but more early March, I think is really his window. Right. Yeah. And so used to, I would say the first week 00:03:49 of March would be our sweet spot for corn, but now it's the, it is the last week of February, or maybe even a touch earlier, 00:03:56 but somewhere right in there is our sweet spot. Okay. Real quickly run through roughly, you're, you're a pretty big, you're a pretty 00:04:03 big operator, you got plenty of acres. It's all dry land, so That's correct. I'm assuming you can cover more acres per man hour 00:04:11 because you're not taking care of irrigation. You know, you're talking to the, the guys, particularly our southern friends, Chad Henderson, 00:04:19 Matt Miles, and Kevin Matthews, they have a lot of extra man hours committed to keeping the irrigation working. And you don't have that. 00:04:26 That's correct. We're all dry land. I, I've only maybe touched one pivot or poly pipe in my whole life, 00:04:33 so I don't know anything about it, but yeah, probably less labor. But the flip side of that is we have to have more equipment. 00:04:41 Uh, our patterns tend to strip flip from one extreme to the other. And it seems like we do everything now in these little 00:04:51 short bursts of windows. Mm-hmm. Like I geared up, our farms are geared up now to plant our corn crop in five days. 00:04:59 And I think that's what it needs to be in our area now because our window is so tight that we never know if we get a two inch rain in February, 00:05:07 we're out for two weeks minimum. So because you're still, 'cause you're still cool then, and two inches of rain will keep, 00:05:14 it's kinda like even in Indiana, obviously where I'm from, you know, uh, the drying factor, you can get two inches 00:05:19 of rain in July and be out there a day and a half later pretty easily. But obviously in February it hangs around. 00:05:23 So that's just a temperature and the soil temperature and evaporation issue Right. Length of day. Yep. And then, yeah, exactly. The days are very short. 00:05:31 And then our soil is extremely sticky here. Most people, they think of Texas, they think of West Texas in the panhandle 00:05:38 and the flat dry with big pivots and all that. But we're at the exact opposite. We're rolling. We, we get about 37 inches of rain a year on average. 00:05:47 Whatever average is anymore, I don't even know anymore. Right, right, right. But yeah, it's all spurts and we're really high. 00:05:53 CEC soils really high clay soils, so we're very, very sticky. Yeah. Which most people would think it's dry, it's sandy, 00:06:00 it's flat, and it's, uh, a grain sorghum patch and that's not where you are. Right. Well, I think it's also worth mentioning 00:06:06 that remember like, uh, Texas is what, four and a half Iowas or something like that? Yeah, it's, it's a huge, it's a huge state. 00:06:13 Big state. Very big state. I mean, you can go, you can go down to the southern tip where they, they were growing sugar cane. 00:06:19 They're not anymore because of the water situation, but sugar cane and citrus in the south. Yep. And then the panhandle to the, you know, to the north. 00:06:27 I mean, it's totally different worlds within the state. Right. So your farming operation is corn, cotton, 00:06:36 wheat, uh, what else? Uh, that's the main crop. Sometimes we'll raise soybeans, but we're really too hot for beans when they're trying 00:06:44 to flour and do their thing and fill pods. We just, the heat's just brutal here. We, we haven't been able 00:06:51 to make 'em work very well consistently, I should say. And You're gonna do fif you told me on our prep call you're 00:06:56 gonna do 1500 acres of sesame as a specialty crop contract. We're gonna cover that in a different episode 00:07:01 because we're gonna talk about using specialty crops to diversify, to, uh, diversify up your operation. We'll cover that in a different thing. 00:07:08 So tell us the mix here. Corn? Mm-hmm. Who's in the ground at your first thing you plant? You're doing that in February, 00:07:14 Right? And that, but we're harvesting It. You're harvesting it in June? 00:07:18 No, probably. Well, they'll chop silage for, for silage in June, but the earliest would be early July. But usually mid to late July is when we start typically. 00:07:28 But it, it all depends. If we get good rain and a good season, it's usually later in July, early August. But so that, that timeline all shifts with the weather 00:07:39 and it's, it's, it's impossible to guess. Right. And then, by the way, that's the other thing. People say silage when people think of Texas, they think, 00:07:48 okay, there's a bunch of cattle out on the range. Y you know, uh, it's, it's, uh, cowboy Bob is out here, but, but there's a bunch of dairy in Texas. 00:07:56 So do you sell off some of your corn for silage to dairies? Uh, very rarely. There's a lot of it done in my area. 00:08:02 I, I don't chop a lot, but there is a lot done in my area. So if you go west of us a hundred miles, there's a lot 00:08:09 of dairy still in that stephenville area. Then if you go north of that kinda, there's still some feed yards. 00:08:15 Most people don't even know. We have some feed yards in, in range. And then if you go a hundred miles east, 00:08:21 there's chicken houses, you know, there's tons of chickens. Our corn really goes almost all directions. 00:08:28 And there's a, there's a big demand for corn in our area. Yeah. A lot of people wouldn't think that. 00:08:32 They'd think, okay, corn feed yards, Nebraska, Kansas, whatever. And they wouldn't think that. 00:08:37 And then obviously a lot of people don't realize the amount of dairy I knew about the dairy over in, at Stevensville. 00:08:41 I did not know about chickens, chicken broilers, layers, Uh, broilers mostly. 00:08:46 I think there's a little bit of layers, but mostly broilers. I like your, Which, which consumes 'em a lot of corn. 00:08:50 Yep. Yep. So like your Tysons, your, your pilgrims, all those big guys are out in East Texas and they, they consume a ton of corn. 00:08:58 Alright. So, uh, people like me from I state think that people like you should not be growing corn. You should just be down there having, 00:09:05 I don't know, rice or something. Cotton maybe. And let, let the ice states take care of the corn. It helps my farm ground cash, rent prices. 00:09:12 But anyway, we already decided that. What else? So your mix then, how much of your mix is wheat? You know, we're a small percent, 00:09:19 but this year we decided to plant a few more acres. Uh, I had some ground that really needed rotating that we've had in corn for a lot of years. 00:09:27 And so we decided to put wheat and we were brainstorming, how can we make a little more out of this wheat? 00:09:33 The wheat board's terrible as everybody knows. Like, what can we do to squeeze a little more out? Soybeans, double crop just don't tend to work. 00:09:41 We don't have water. It gets too hot. What's a dry drought tolerant? Heat tolerant crop? We could try. And I, I keep circling back to sesame, 00:09:50 so we're gonna give it a try. Uh, we don't really know, but we're gonna give it a try. At least the dove hunting will be good. 00:09:55 Well, that's good. Um, uh, by the way, I love, it's my favorite thing to do. Shoot doves. Uh, you don't have to wake up early. 00:10:00 It's not cold and it's fast action. So, uh, I'm gonna put you on my list. A trip to Hillsborough. Shoot Doves. That'll work. 00:10:06 What about, um, double cropping? Like Johnny Verell makes double cropping work magically. Chad Henderson makes double cropping. 00:10:13 Our friend Matt, uh, he calls him, they call 'em wheat beans, which means double crop beans following what they put in. 00:10:18 This stubble doesn't work where you are and you even have a longer season arguably. But you don't have the, you don't have enough moisture. 00:10:26 I usually, it, it's almost not even moisture. It's, it's, it's the heat. So in that, when we're harvesting corn, 00:10:33 it's always a hundred degrees. It's never less than a hundred degrees. And I've been all over the country 00:10:39 and they say, oh, it gets a hundred degrees here. Yeah, but it gets, it's a hundred at 10:00 AM here. Yeah. Right. So in that year that, 00:10:47 that we burned up on one of the wettest years ever. We had 112, 113 actual temp during corn harvest, which is, that's extreme. 00:10:56 We don't normally get that hot, but we did that year. Yeah. And there's, and there's years where I'm from where, 00:11:01 where harvesting corn, we have to wait till the frost gets off so that the corn runs through there and you know, it's down to 26 at night 00:11:08 and 40 maybe for the high. Um, So funny story about that. When I grew up, when I was a kid, 00:11:13 I could not figure out why they put a heater in a combine 'cause I just could not fathom it didn't make sense. 00:11:19 But, uh, after I've kind of figured out now why, but yeah, I could never figure out why they put a heater in a combine. Yeah. 00:11:26 Well there's combines get used a lot in places like Minnesota or, or nor or, or, or where I am. And, uh, and, and it's not during ideal temperatures. 00:11:33 Um, so on the mix, rice, no Rice is a, is a, is a Texas product, but not in your part of the world. That's right. It that'd be southeast, 00:11:42 like down towards the Houston area. Beaumont. Okay. And, you know, you gotta have a lot of water, which we don't have here. So, 00:11:48 And then is how are your cotton's Well, cotton's not profitable right now is my understanding, but cotton generally was cotton half your acres usually 00:11:56 No, uh, cotton's. So when I grew up, it was all cotton and grain sorghum, and then it's migrated more towards corn. 00:12:05 And then there's still guys that have some cotton, but very little cotton compared to historic levels. Uh, cotton's probably about maybe a quarter of our acres. 00:12:15 Okay. Uh, and you don't own ownership in a gin? No, I do not. And then why do, why don't you do grain sorghum when you're, is it 00:12:24 because you're still moist enough? You don't need to go with a dry weather crop complex Sorghum? 00:12:28 No, actually grain sorghum works really good here, but corn, there was some time in the early two thousands, corn hybrids got better and everybody switched the corn. 00:12:41 Corn crop insurance is much better. Yep. Uh, honestly, we do a better job raising corn. So better job planting, raising weed control, 00:12:51 better harvest, uh, the whole thing. So everybody's just switched the corn. There's very little sorghum left in this area. 00:12:58 So we talked about the competition, uh, among farmers. They love to talk about how tough their conditions are. I want to know, is it really that tough? 00:13:08 I mean, seriously, you're, you're sitting there in a climate controlled piece of equipment. 00:13:12 Uh, you've got the best weather forecasting that we've ever had, which still is not 100%. We get that, uh, the technology available to us. 00:13:20 Are you just being a normal b******g farmer? Are you really actually dealing with that type of conditions? 00:13:26 Man, I don't know. It's tough. So when things go good here, it's, it's the best place in the world to be to farm. 00:13:32 But, but when they don't, like, okay, last year's a good example. We had corn at about V five, fought the mud, getting it in, 00:13:38 which is fairly normal. Uh, got it going. Everything looked good. It started raining, had from 37 00:13:48 to 42 inches prior to harvest. So we completely drown out. And there was nothing, I mean, we'd just sit here 00:13:55 and watch it rain and rain and rain and I don't know. That's pretty disheartening to sit here and watch. So, So you're saying that the, uh, your, 00:14:05 your only complaint really is that unpredictable precipitation and sometimes it comes in, it comes in Torrance, that's it. 00:14:12 Precipitation and, and temp. But those typically go hand in hand here. Yeah. If, if we get dry, you just better, 00:14:18 it's gonna get crazy hot. It matter of fact, it's never not done that. I've never seen it dry and cool in the summertime. Here 00:14:26 I wanna hear more about you and then we're gonna talk about the adjustments and the adaptations that you make to pull it off and against the conditions 00:14:32 because everybody is always making adjustments no matter where they farm, soil conditions, products they have to use, 00:14:38 uh, equipment, uh, things. Those, those are what we're gonna get into. I wanna remind you, dear listener, 00:14:43 about our friends at Superior Grain. As your farm operation grows, so do the challenges. Superior grain equipment's, grain storage systems are built 00:14:49 to make your job easier and help your grain reach its full potential. What kind of conditions your grain in? Do you know? 00:14:55 Are you losing condition in your grain? Is it costing you money? Maybe sometimes you think to yourself, I can't afford 00:15:01 to make upgrades, I can't do stuff to my grain setup in these commodity prices. Well, maybe you're actually not counting the cost 00:15:07 of degrading quality of your crop. There's a lot of things to consider from gentle mix flow dryers to durable storage. 00:15:14 Get the flexibility to market your grain on your time. You can visit with the experts from Superior Grain Equipment at this year's Farm Progress show. 00:15:20 It's in August in Decatur, Illinois. Or you can visit them online anytime superior bins.com, superior bins.com. 00:15:29 Um, you're 41 years old, gonna be 42. Bringing down the average age of our extre ag guys, we got, uh, we, we we're happy to have you 00:15:38 tell me about your first year. You, uh, you got outta high school. Tell me, take me from there. 00:15:44 Got outta high school. Went to trade school. Didn't know if I'd be able to farm. It's very, it's very competitive here in our area. 00:15:50 Didn't know if I was gonna be able to farm. Uh, got the opportunity my last year there so far. By the way, this is about the year 2000. 2000. Is that, 00:15:58 So this would've been 2003, late 2003. When you say competitive, you know, I look at things, that's about when ag started getting good again. 00:16:09 Uh, you know, coming out of the bad eighties and even the nineties were a challenge. I think there was probably, you're you're coming into it. 00:16:16 My perspective about the mid two thousands, ag got cool again because ag got profitable again. So the competition, your timing 10 years earlier, 00:16:26 I think you'd had an easier time getting in. Yeah, so the only, the only way I got in was, uh, there was this farm that was, uh, in CRP 00:16:35 and then the contract expired and they wanted, they were looking for a new tenant. And I took this thing, it had been in CRP 00:16:42 for like 20 something years. It was, you're One of those guys. You're the reason that now Texas is blowing 00:16:47 away and there's no pheasants. 'cause you took ground out of conservation. I don't know this, this was more of a hog, 00:16:54 wild hog habitat than anything. It was, I don't think it was doing much good. But, uh, we took this thing and we still farm it today. 00:17:02 And that's, that's exactly how we got started. So, So with nothing Actually, yes, with nothing. Now you're from a farming background, 00:17:12 so did you use the old man's equipment and on a rental basis or how'd it start? So, no, I actually, I went to the USDA 00:17:19 and got a beginning farmer loan and started with nothing. The, I had a, I had a pickup, I was driving 00:17:24 and that was really it. Now my dad and I did farm together, so he used some of my stuff and I did use some of his stuff, 00:17:32 but I had to go get my own tractor and everything. Got it. So, uh, that, that's, that's, uh, that's a good story. 00:17:41 That first farm you picked up and then what'd, where'd you work from? Where, what did, did it have a facilities on it? 00:17:47 No. So I guess I did use my dad and grandpa's stuff for that, for a facility. But, uh, I mean I was still living at home. 00:17:55 I was just really skating by and I didn't have anything. It was, it was pretty tough at first 00:18:00 and the first year right outta the box, we made a really good crop. It was a good year and just barely squeaked by. 00:18:06 So we got really lucky. And Then you were like, uh, a teenager still? Yeah, I was 20, yeah. 20. 00:18:13 All right. So then from there, uh, from there to here, gimme the highlights, Things pretty, how do you pick 00:18:23 Up, how do you farm in excess of 10,000 acres now from that story in the year 2003? I would just say a lot of luck in just 00:18:31 trying to do a good job. But, uh, things got pretty tough in the mid two thousands. We were pretty dry. And then like 2008 when the commodities 00:18:40 got a little, little better, we had some good wheat and things kind of started, kind of started to roll a little better and just kind 00:18:47 of slowly increased our way to where we are. Which now we're worried about going back down in acres because of, uh, urban sprawl. 00:18:55 I mean, we're so close to the metroplex, the concrete is encroaching on us. Yeah, I mean at a rapid pace. 00:19:01 So it's competitive to get acres still around where you are. Very, very. Did you do, do your acres, 00:19:06 did you go door banging or did it one of those deals where people started handing off stuff? 'cause they were exiting the business. 00:19:11 How did you acquire acreage? Yep, just a little bit of that. I'm not a door banger. I don't, I don't participate in those, 00:19:19 but it just, just kind of all came to us. Uh, some people getting out, some people downsizing whether they wanted to or not. 00:19:27 We just kind of slowly grew our way. Is your acreage mostly cash rented? Is it done on shares? What's the range? Uh, 00:19:34 Both. Probably about now. Used to be more shares, but probably about half and half now. Half cash rent, half shares. 00:19:41 Yeah. Lot of old school share rents here still. Uh, How, how much you ground professionally managed where there's like a land manager and, 00:19:49 and the the ownership is off in Dallas? Uh, a little bit of that. Not a lot yet, but there 00:19:55 is a, there is a little bit of that. And Owned acres. You're a young guy. Uh, I assume you start buying, 00:20:01 did you start buying as soon as you could? As soon as I could, which was pretty late. I, I, that's one thing I wish I could have done 00:20:08 was buy more when we started. But honestly, there's no way I, there's, there's no way we could have with the position we were in 00:20:14 with, I mean, it would've been impossible. Right. Now you have a facility now you have a, you have a grain set up and a 00:20:20 barns and all that though. Mm-hmm. Yes sir. What about, uh, the adjustments and the adaptations when you, uh, 00:20:27 look at stuff, you've gotta do that. The average person may be where I'm from or maybe in the Dakotas or wherever. 00:20:33 What adjustments that adaptations do you make that you think, um, are maybe not unique? 'cause unique means there's no comparison 00:20:40 but more specific to people in your area. I don't, I honestly think it's gone to equipment. Like people are usually blown away by the amount 00:20:49 of equipment we have per acre. Yeah. And it's because of everything is gone to, I mean, we just do everything in these little tight windows 00:20:57 and I mean, maybe not corn harvest, but we try to do that in a tight window because it's, it's drying so fast 00:21:04 and we're losing so much moisture in the grain and we're trying to beat that, that moisture curve of it getting too dry 00:21:09 before we're done harvesting. So really The adjust, the best adjustment and adaptation is to just be 00:21:15 what some would argue over equipped. I'd be one of those guys. 'cause I would be looking at the, at the financials and I'd say, 00:21:21 you got too much money on equipment. You got too much money on equipment. And you'd say, I've got windows here that if I don't get that window hit, 00:21:29 I'm, I'm, I'm sunk. That's the, I would say you got over equipped and, and there's too much of your, uh, financials going to that. 00:21:35 And you would tell me it's because of timing, period. That's right. If you miss a window, especially with corn, if you miss that window, the, 00:21:43 the cards are stacked against you. 'cause the heat, the heat's gonna come. It's just a matter of when. 00:21:48 And if you're trying to pollinate and especially, you know, towards the later part grain fill during that extreme heat, ah, man, it, it's, 00:21:58 the odds are against you. And so if you get, you know, if you missed two days of planning because you didn't have enough planter power, I, 00:22:07 I've seen it too many times where that, that extra planter that you have base for itself easily. 00:22:12 Mm-hmm. And then you gotta have some hired help to cover, uh, 11,000 acres. 00:22:17 What, what's the, what's it look like on that management for that adjustment? 'cause again, you talk about windows, you need, 00:22:23 you need the manpower to go to the field when you gotta go to the field. Yeah. That's tough. I mean, 00:22:28 we don't have a ton, ton of employees here. We're pretty lean on that. I just, I have a really good group of guys, 00:22:34 but man, it's, it's tough with the city being so close. It's, it's gotten where it's hard to find people, you know, to work, to do this kinda work. 00:22:44 It's the hours, you know, we'll, we'll go extreme hours, like when we're, when we're trying to plant, we'll plant, 00:22:50 you know, there's no telling what we'll do, just depending on the weather. And then it might rain for a week 00:22:55 and then we're looking for stuff to do. So there's real big swings. It makes it tough to manage, honestly. 00:23:00 Yeah. So you got like four or five guys? Yep. Yep. What do, what do you do with them when, when you've got, I mean, 00:23:06 do you run a trucking business on the side like a lot of farmers do or something like that? No, Too much liability. 00:23:11 I, the, the population's, so dents here that I don't like, I don't like having 'em, 00:23:15 my trucks on the road anymore than I have to. Mm-hmm. They're just, traffic has gotten so bad here. Yeah. So speaking of that, Johnny Rell Farms in the, 00:23:25 in the shadow of development because that whole western Tennessee is going crazy. Chad Henderson is in the shadow 00:23:32 of development in north Alabama. And then Kevin Matthews is in North Carolina where he, he puts a third of the hours on some 00:23:40 of his equipment is asphalt time, which changes the calculus on punching out. The return on investment on a piece 00:23:48 of equipment is not making you any money driving down the road. Are you in a situation where you have 00:23:53 to be on the road a lot because of suburban development? In other words, how far is it 00:23:57 to cover 11,000 acres from one end to the other? How far are you on the, how, how far are flung? Are you About, about 70, about 75 miles. 00:24:06 We do, we do do a lot of traveling and we've got to where we put the, the 31 mile an hour option on these, on these tractors now. 00:24:14 So we can get there quicker. And that makes a huge difference. Yeah. And then you load stuff. 00:24:18 You don't put stuff on flatbeds to get, I mean, we, We can and we have, but the liability issues is just almost not worth it. 00:24:27 I mean, we do sometimes, but most of the time we just wrote it. 'cause there's a lot less liability of 00:24:32 that thing being on the road versus on a trailer. Todd Kimbrel, uh, Hillsborough, Texas, in case you forget who I'm talking to. 00:24:39 And you've said the word liability about four times. So is another adjustment you have to make is, uh, just making sure that you're not your, 00:24:49 your ass isn't hanging out there. Uh, I mean seriously because you, you've got some, some tougher conditions with the population. 00:24:56 Yeah, definitely. That, that when I was growing up, you, you know, you didn't, you didn't see people down. 00:25:01 You pull up to the stop sign down here at the highway and usually just take off. You might see one car, now you gotta sit there 00:25:08 and wait for cars to go by to get out on the road. So yeah, that my mindset has completely changed on that, on liability aspect. And 00:25:15 Just another adjustment you do is you make sure you have an annual meeting with your attorney 00:25:18 to make sure that you're covered. Yes. Lot, lots of insurance. Yes, lots of insurance. 00:25:26 Um, why, why do you see, because of the conditions where you are and now you told me where the corn goes. 00:25:32 You got poultry to the east, dairy to the west, some feed yards, uh, obviously the rail, I assume even, uh, you know, you're not, if we're, 00:25:39 if we're expecting like Mexico is our number one or number two buyer of corn, I can almost see Texas corn going across the 00:25:44 border. Is that where some of it goes? Uh, yeah, there was a number thrown around the other day that it's like 80, 85% of our corn goes there. 00:25:54 I don't quote me on that, but that was being talked about the other day. So Texas, does Texas stay at corn 00:25:59 state five years from now? When you and I are talking, do you say? Yeah, well corn came and and corn went 00:26:04 or does corn cu and does corn stay? I believe it'll stay, I mean we're still diverse across the state. 00:26:10 You go to the panhandle, they, they can race 300 bushel corn under a pivot. That corn is there to stay as long as they have water, as 00:26:17 Long as they have the water, which is, That's an issue. It's tenuous. I 00:26:21 Mean, yeah, that's an issue. And then, so I'm in the black lands, the central Texas black lands 00:26:26 and I, I think corn's here to stay, I dunno if you're just doing this to p**s me off as a Midwest guy 00:26:33 because we want you to say no, you know what, it needs to go back to Indiana. You guys need to grow the corn up there. 00:26:38 Well, yeah, it, so we used to be cotton. I mean back in the, I don't early 19 hundreds, I don't know the dates, but we were one number one 00:26:47 or number two cotton producing county in the state back then. I mean they were planting cotton 00:26:51 by hand out on this white rock hills out here, uh, east of me. I mean it was, cotton was king. 00:26:58 I think the boll weevil peeled it all back and changed the whole economy in the south. So, Well that, and then we've also just gotta demand it. 00:27:05 I mean, I don't know as much about it, certainly as you and Matt and the guys that grow cotton. Our friend Johnny, I said in Western Tennessee 00:27:11 that when I first met him, that was one of his big things. He's, he took the family operation away from cotton. 00:27:16 They grew cotton religiously. I mean that was their thing. We got a demand problem. Right? 00:27:21 That's right. And it's very expensive, very intensive crop to grow. And I mean, everything you do 00:27:28 with cotton costs a lot of money. It's like a million dollar machine for a new cotton harvester 00:27:35 and it can only do one thing, one thing, harvest cotton. Mm-hmm. Yeah, but you say that, but, 00:27:41 and it is, it is super expensive, especially with cotton price. But yeah, you may take, I don't know how many people, 00:27:48 several people out of the equation labor wise compared to the way we used to have to do it with basket machines and module builders and bowl buggies. 00:27:56 And then at the end of the day, you gotta get out and tarp all these modules and like now it's one or two guys doing all that work with one machine. 00:28:04 Right. How many acres do you need to justify a cotton harvester? Matt told me once. 00:28:10 Boy, that's a loaded question right now with the way cotton is, but I, it's probably, 00:28:17 it's gotta be bumping 3000 acres in our, in our climate here. I Mean probably, yeah, because it's based on ton 00:28:24 or pounds or whatever. I mean if you're getting more tons per acre than you can justify it. 00:28:28 So in your part of the world do own, you own a machine? Yes, I do. And do You think you need about 3000 acres 00:28:35 to justify owning a cotton harvester? Yes, but the problem with that is you can't harvest 3000 with one here. 00:28:42 Our window's too short. Well if we get a big fall rain, yeah. I mean it'd take too long. It's impossible. 00:28:48 And then the cotton deteriorates or you're losing. Right. So how many acres did you, 00:28:51 did you you gonna have this year in cotton? A little over 3000. So I'll have to hire some help or rent another machine. 00:28:57 I see. By the way, speaking of written, I always heard I wanted to be a custom harvester when I was 17. 00:29:04 I read about it and I said, oh, I wanna do that when I'm 18. I'm gonna go and I'm gonna start down in Texas 00:29:09 and I'm gonna drive a combine all the way up to Canada. And I never did it. Of course I think you also work like 140 hour weeks and don't sleep or uh, anything like that. 00:29:18 And I think you get so tired of uh, sitting in that combine, you probably like lose your mind 00:29:22 but uh, you don't use custom harvesters. No. Used to. So my dad went through a spell where he hired it all done. 00:29:30 But then we got into these situations, especially with wheat back then where, uh, you, you'd get a big rain event 00:29:39 and the next guy to the north of us would be, you know, screaming at our guy to get there, get there, get there. Well the guy's just parked here 00:29:45 and he could be running there. So he loads up and goes, it's hard to blame the guy, you know, he is got lot. 00:29:50 He's gotta keep the machines going to justice to make the money. Yeah. So Then, then we're left here. 00:29:55 Now we're scrambling to find somebody to harvest. And so when I was, I think my second year in, I'm like, we gotta buy a combine. 00:30:04 I'm going to buy a combine. So I did. Mm-hmm. And so we've been doing it ever since. How many combines you have running now? 00:30:10 Uh, we run three now. That's enough to get it done and not miss your windows. Yep. It's tough. I mean 00:30:16 last year we didn't get our wheat cut. We, we literally didn't get it cut. Uh, I mean we ended up cutting all 00:30:22 of it about two months late, I'll put it that way. And it was quality was gone. Yeah. Right. 'cause of moisture. Yep. Yep. 00:30:31 You ever think about picking up your farm and moving? I mean we did an episode of the greenery. By the way, if you're watching this, if you're listening 00:30:36 to this, it means you're a fan of extreme ag. We appreciate that. You need to check out our new show. We just started releasing episode the beginning of the year. 00:30:44 Uh, it's shot at my farm though. I had my on farm hangout, uh, 18 hundreds era grain rebuilding. 00:30:49 The guys have been there. Were eventually gonna get Mr. Kimbrel there. And we talk about personal to professional and everything in between about agriculture. 00:30:57 And I asked the guys, everybody envys a, you know, the old grass is greener thing. Would you wanna farm somewhere else? 00:31:05 I don't know. It's been talked about a lot. It seems like the Midwest is pretty sweet, but then I know they fight the big, the big dollar rents 00:31:13 and those sound really scary from a guy in the south. So I Yeah, that's a tough question. Matt Miles has all the water he wants, you know, 00:31:21 there's a lot of times where, man, I wish we could flip a switch and turn the water on. So I don't know. I'd have to go. I don't know. 00:31:29 That'd be tough. Well, Chad boy out, he is like, at first it sounds neat, but then you gotta relearn everything 00:31:35 'cause you've learned how to adjust and adapt to where you are and all of a sudden I gotta change it up. 00:31:39 Yeah. Well obviously central Illinois always like comes to the top of the heat, but then you say, uh, yeah, are you ready 00:31:44 to shell out $600 acre, uh, rent what? It's like, uh, welcome to, you know, central Illinois prairie soils. Yeah, 00:31:51 Yeah, I know that, that would be tough. I don't know how we'd manage that and eh, like you put us there, we'll be trying 00:31:57 to plant corn in February. The, we'd probably fail miserably the first year. Well, that's What I say. Yeah. 00:32:01 All, all the coffee shop crowds gonna say this idiot came up from Texas and didn't realize that he was, uh, 00:32:07 latitudinally about, uh, a thousand miles too far north to be planting corn in fab. Or maybe you go up there and revolutionize things. 00:32:13 I don't know. But my guess is it would not work. Uh, speaking of not work, tell me a failure you've had, you've learned from, I mean, most farmers, if you know, 00:32:22 if you're an extreme ag, we talk about this, we're making mistakes. So you don't have to gotta have the backbone to admit, 00:32:29 yep, I screwed up. But man, I learned, Man, I've had a lot of those lessons I I learned a long time ago. 00:32:35 It's a lot easier just to accept that you did it the wrong way than try to blame it on something else or somebody else, whatever. 00:32:42 But we've tried all the different tillages, all the conservation practice you can think of, strip till no till. 00:32:48 I got real gung ho I thought strip till was the way we tried it failed miserably. Um, I wanted it to work so bad. 00:32:58 I think you have to still do full width tillage here to make it work. But we, we got away from it didn't work for us. 00:33:05 It's too wet. Too wet in the spring. No till's extremely too wet in the spring. Uh, I missed a crop trying to do no-till on a little bit, 00:33:14 trying to do some no-till stuff one time. It just doesn't just flat out doesn't work for us. Yeah, that's interesting. 00:33:19 I mean, I'm a conservation guy and I think yeah, you know, we, we we we degrade soil texture 00:33:25 and soil structure by over the tillage. And you're just saying you wanted to be there and it's not happening. 00:33:31 We can, I mean, if we shed our ground in the early spring, it just, it'll be, you know, may or June 00:33:38 before it'll dry out typically. Mm-hmm. And Then, and then you're up against the temperature Clock, then it's way too late to plan. 00:33:43 It's really too late to even plant cotton at that point. So, Yeah. 'cause the temperatures. 00:33:47 Yep. Speaking of conservation, you got an award, uh, your wife posts on social media. It's nice to have a spouse that's proud of you. 00:33:55 Yeah, no, she's a, she's a great support. She, she pushes our whole family. So I'm a fan already. 00:34:02 'cause you told me that she was following me before you and I ever met. So you know what, if she's, if she's keeping up 00:34:06 with my business of agriculture, all my stuff, I'm a fan. But what's the award? 00:34:10 Uh, it was just being recognized about conservation practices and, and how we handle the, the water. When I think of conservation, I don't think 00:34:18 of all the tillage that you're doing. I know. So what are you doing that's a conservation, I Mean it really goes back to old school. 00:34:24 I'm almost embarrassed to say, but it's old school, like terraces and water waste, slow this water down, flood prevention, 00:34:30 flood control, uh, erosion control. Uh, and honestly that the water grows is just a push to expose people to act 00:34:40 that aren't normally exposed like politicians and the general public. Like, here's what we do, here's who we are. 00:34:47 We're just normal people like you, but we farm. Yeah. So maybe not completely normal. Well you said more people like you 00:34:56 and most people in the extreme ag guys don't think I'm normal. I looked at the aerial, uh, around where you are. 00:35:02 I don't know exactly where you are. And I did notice there's a lot more contour of that ground. 00:35:07 I saw terraces and, and waterways and that kind of thing. Uh, do you use the CRP programs 00:35:12 and the buffer strips and that kind of stuff? Yes, yes. We've done all that in the past. We have. And I do a lot of it. 00:35:19 I mean, we're heavily involved with that stuff, so yes. So you're a conservation guy and also then you, the award reflected water 00:35:25 and they're talking about water purity and, and water protecting waterways from runoff and that kind of thing. 00:35:30 That's right. You've been an extreme ag member. You met Matt, now you know me. You're gonna meet the other guys. 00:35:36 Uh, anything you've gleaned from extreme ag so far? The first thing going in that I love my mo the favorite part, 00:35:44 and I would like people to know this, I didn't know exactly what it was, but I figured out real quick. 00:35:49 It's unbiased data, unbiased info, and it's just real farmers talking real. This thing isn't scripted, isn't staged. And I love it. 00:35:58 I think we need more of this and ag honestly. Well, I'll take that. I'll, I'll even take a little credit for some of that 00:36:03 because I've been doing this for almost four years now. All right. Uh, get me outta the door here. What do I, what else did we not cover that I need to ask you 00:36:10 that you think, you know what, the one thing I can tell you, I said, uh, on your, on your X profile, uh, 00:36:17 a farm where you could lose a crop to drought and the what is year on record. Is there anything about that that we didn't cover? 00:36:24 No, just it's extreme. You know, you come down here on a particular year and everything may work perfect. 00:36:30 That doesn't happen that often. But, uh, from, you know, driving by things look really good, but it can, the switch could flip very quickly here, 00:36:40 Don't you think, Todd, that really no matter where you are, and we can make cracks about central Illinois and $600 case rents and whatever you wanna talk about, 00:36:46 and 20 foot of prairie soils and that kind of thing. I, I think, and I don't farm, remember I'm farm guy, farm kid, farm owner. 00:36:54 I think adjusting and, um, being able to always, always make the adjustment I think is really the, the key to being successful in this 00:37:06 business. Probably any business. Yeah. So being able to adapt on the fly, that's what it's all about. 00:37:10 And I know some of the older generation struggles with it. I've seen it personally here. It's tough. 00:37:16 And maybe I'm even getting that way. I hope not, but you have to be able to adapt on the fly or you're not gonna make it in this, you know, 00:37:22 and especially in this farm economy we're in right now, you gotta be able to adapt and efficiency. I watch all these videos before, before I was even involved, 00:37:31 but efficiency is what it all is, what it's all about in technology. We're, we're testing everything we can 00:37:36 get our hands on right now, Grease. So anyway, his name's Todd Kimbrel. He's got a heck of a following on Twitter 00:37:42 if you wanna go and check him out there. What's your handle? Uh, Todd Kimbrel Jr. I believe on Twitter. Well, 00:37:48 You don't even know. Yeah, something like that. Go check. Go check him out. He's in, he's in Texas. He's an extreme ag guy. He's got a good following. 00:37:57 He puts stuff up there. You'll be seeing more of him on extreme ag. Uh, anyway, I'm glad you got on here talking about farming 00:38:02 in extreme conditions where you can lose a crop of drought, even the wet on record. 00:38:06 And I wanna keep up with that. Also. We'll be covering his, uh, experiment or his business venture into Sesame. 00:38:11 He's gonna do 1500 acres of sesame and what we're gonna, I'm gonna try and pair that up with another person 00:38:16 that's doing a specialty crop so we can think about different considerations that a farmer that's going to say, Hey, maybe it's time for me 00:38:24 to consider a specialty crop contract because I need some diversification. So I think that's where we're gonna take this. 00:38:29 Anyway, his name's Todd Kim, thanks for being here, my friend. Until next time, I'm Damian Mason 00:38:32 and this is Extreme Ice Cutting the Curve. That's a wrap for this episode of Extreme ags Cutting the Curve Podcast. 00:38:38 Make sure to check out extreme ag.com for more great content. Cutting. The curve is powered by Nature's bio. Kay. 00:38:45 Check out nature's dot com to learn more about how Bio Kay can improve your farm's. 00:38:49.525 --> 00:38:49.925