Farming Podcast | Fertilizer Compatibility & Crop Protection | XtremeAg

00:00 We're talking about enhanced crop protection via improved fertilizer compatibility. 00:00:04 It's a big deal that you probably don't even think that much about, but you're going to after you hear this episode of extreme Ag Cutting the curve. 00:00:10 Welcome to extreme Ag Cutting the Curve podcast, where real farmers share real insights and real results to help you improve your farming operation. 00:00:20 And now here's your host, Damien Mason. Hey there. Welcome to another fantastic extreme I cutting the curve. 00:00:26 It's me, your host, Damien Mason, but you just heard that in the introduction. I've got a good one for you today. I've got Art Graves 00:00:30 with Vibe Crop Protection Art, and I met, uh, last month. It was February of 2025. 00:00:35 We both were speakers at a conference in upstate New York, actually the Finger Lakes area for Finger Lakes 00:00:40 Agronomics Good folks up there. And, um, I watched Art Give a presentation and they do a thing at Crap Vive Crop Protection. 00:00:46 They've got essentially a little plastic, uh, dog toy looking thing that's essentially shows you molecules and it talks about why it matters. 00:00:53 And he gets a little bit professory because he's a former professor. He talks about encapsulated technology. 00:00:59 And I said, why don't you come on the show and explain why the hell this matters. And then we saw each other at Commodity Classic, 00:01:06 and we spent time at the booth. You may have seen the video, and he's got Johnny Rell, 00:01:10 I'm wearing the Rell Farms hat here, and he says, here's why it matters. And show you a jar. And we'll show this here. 00:01:16 If you're listening, I encourage you to check out the video. But it's real simple. One of 'em looks chunky. 00:01:21 One of 'em looks like you dumped a bunch of granular stuff into liquid that's never going to move into solution. 00:01:27 And the other one looks like a pure clean solution. Why this matters? It's about getting crop protection to your plants. 00:01:35 And the less it has, uh, incompatibility, the more efficient it is. This matters a lot the kind 00:01:42 of money you're spending right now. And also about utilization of resources. So I hope I set that up. 00:01:47 I'm not the one with the PhD around here. You are. So anyway, art graves is, I set that up. Okay. You did good. We'll, we'll straighten you out on the PhD 00:01:55 before too long, but, uh, at least you think I'm smart. I just think, I just think that you're so smart 00:01:59 and the fact that you're bald, I just think that there's so much brain up there that the root, 00:02:03 the hair couldn't get roots. And you've got this massive brain, and I always think this dude's, this dude's brilliant. 00:02:08 I just gotta make sure I give him all the accolades he deserves. That's great. There is a little bit of extra credibility 00:02:13 that comes with my hairline. Thanks. Anyway. You spoke about this in, uh, Auburn, New York, and then you talked about it at our recording 00:02:22 and it took me, honestly, maybe I was the slow kid in your class. It took me until this time to really understand it. 00:02:30 You don't make fertility, your product is carried via fertility. That's right. And a lot of other products are, 00:02:36 and we're gonna see more of that because we are, we're so much better at ag, we're putting out, when we do a pass, 00:02:42 there might be 4, 5, 7 things in there, you know, in furrow for crying out loud, nine things in there. 00:02:49 Um, you got one thing that's incompatible. It doesn't only become not good, it becomes antagonistic versus, uh, you know, complimentary. 00:02:57 Exactly. And you don't know, know which of those products is gonna get thrown out of the mix because finding out when you've got that many things in the, 00:03:05 in the tank, it's, it's hard to determine you're doing multiple jar tests, which takes a bit of time to do, uh, 00:03:11 that we don't really have in the spring to do. So you're, you're losing efficiency there. If we ever get plugged up in the spring, I don't, 00:03:17 I don't know if you've ever had to clean a plugged filter in a, in a planter, uh, clean out the pumps or clean out the sprayers. 00:03:23 It's, it's a, it's a big loss of time and a time of year where we can't afford it either. Um, and, you know, retailers 00:03:29 and growers alike like to put things in furrow because as you mentioned, it is efficient. Um, and we're looking to add more and more things. 00:03:36 So you wanna make sure that you have the, the best compatibility that you can look for in, in whatever products you're bringing into your fertility 00:03:42 program through your planter. So the thing you showed us at Commodity, you didn't show, I don't think I'm remember you showing it 00:03:49 to the crowd in New York. So you tell me which thing you want to go with because a, I was the first one that my BS meter went up. 00:03:57 And I, and I'm, I'm very frank, and I know we got a great bunch of awesome producers that listened to the cutting the curve 00:04:03 and showed up at our XStream Act stuff. I heard you say encapsulated technology. I'm like, well, that's cool. And I remember, I'm old enough 00:04:09 to remember space age technology, and then all the stuff that was being sold on tv, you know, from Tang to, uh, some new Gidget Gadget. 00:04:16 It was a space age technology. And so I'm sitting with my BS meter going up and saying, what the hell is encapsulated technology? 00:04:22 But you do a good thing because remember, 80 40% of the audience is a visual audience. You showed us that jar. Sure. 00:04:30 And that's when I didn't care about encapsulated technology more. It just became very apparent to me. 00:04:34 One of these things is gonna, uh, apply very nicely. And one of these things is gonna gum up the works. Sure. I I have a bunch of 'em around here. 00:04:41 So I have the jar of the, um, kind of chunky, snotty product there that you can see. And then the, the jar of our 00:04:48 encapsulated technology, it's clear there. Um, it's, it's a, it's a fully, uh, fully blended product because that's in a popup fertilizer already. 00:04:58 So you can see the incompatibility. And I have a product that I used last year for a real farmer, and it, uh, in this jar, 00:05:05 and you can see how it splits in, in broken half. So this 50% water and 50% starter, and this product only likes the water portion, 00:05:15 doesn't necessarily like the pop-up portion. Um, and so we know that it mixes well with water, but it doesn't mix well with the fertilizer. 00:05:23 But that's gonna make a mess. This this half and half stuff when you mix it up. Yeah, it goes to mix up pretty well, but then it settles out 00:05:30 and clumps, and I don't know if you can see it there, but there's lots of snottiness in There as well. So if you're, if 00:05:35 you're, if you're listening to the audio, you know that we released this on Extreme Ag Farms website, and we also put these on our YouTube 00:05:41 channel and on Acres tv. And I encourage you to look at the visual. Um, he's not even using an extreme example. 00:05:48 He is not doing the, he's not doing the, the silverware salesman at the state fair trick. He, he's holding up a jar. 00:05:56 And the point is, this stuff separated. It did not, it did not go into solution. And you can do the mix, 00:06:01 but if time, if, if you've gotta sit, if you gotta sit out for an hour, how long did it take for that to re separate? 00:06:07 Like not time, much time at all? No, not very much time at all. Less than half of the day. So if you're, if you're parking your planter at the end 00:06:14 of the night, uh, and you've got this in there, you will wake up to a mess in the morning. Yep. It's, uh, it's, it's not even, uh, 00:06:21 several hours till it's settling right back out. Um, where I've left this one, uh, that we've looked at before, the vi stuff in my truck, 00:06:28 over freezing temperatures overnight. You get it right out of the backseat of the truck. Last week I was in New Hampshire, 00:06:33 it was 20 degrees in the morning. It shook right into suspension right back in, uh, clear as day. 00:06:39 So I feel really good about that technology and, and when, when people hear about micro encapsulation technology that's been around a long time, 00:06:48 this is nano encapsulation technology, which is a thousand times smaller than micro encapsulation, which is where we can gain those efficiencies and, 00:06:57 and get that, that chemistry to really mix together. Okay. So it, the, there's a couple, I mean, I'm just thinking through, if I'm a 00:07:06 farmer and I'm listening to this Yeah. I'm like, all right, I don't use Vive products and I don't have this problem. 00:07:12 I think that there's somebody that probably thinks they don't have, let's go, let's go with the first thing. 00:07:16 Whether you use live products or not, doesn't matter. Sure. Um, I mean, we, obviously art would like you to, 00:07:20 but the point is I think that this is a problem more so than people probably realize because it's, it's happening. 00:07:29 And if they don't see it immediately, they might be suffering the results. They might have a lack 00:07:34 of compatibility that they're not even aware of. Is that an accurate statement? Yeah. Or they're just, 00:07:38 they're just eliminating the fertilizer aspect with that and going straight with water or mixing 50 00:07:43 and 50, uh, 50% water, 50% fertilizer, trying to eliminate that, uh, that variable. And so when they do that, they're reducing the amount 00:07:53 of fer fertilizer they can put in the right, in the furrow. Yeah. Which is where it's most efficient. 00:07:58 Yeah, by the way. But your point is they're doing such a heavy dilution to avoid compatibility issues that you're, 00:08:04 you obviously degrade your efficiency because now you're hauling a s**t load of water, right? Yeah. You're just hauling a whole bunch of water around. 00:08:11 And that seems like it's, uh, a foolish move when we have technology that can make it. So we're hauling way less water 00:08:17 and getting greater concentration. So compatibility improves my ability to concentration versus dilution, 00:08:23 which improves my efficiency 100%. And now we're getting these products to a crop where, uh, the, the seed treatments really only give you about 21 00:08:33 to 28 days of, of protection against insects and diseases. And these products are able to protect that crop 00:08:39 for an extended period of time. Past that, depending on the product, you're 50 60 days of protection against those pests that were stealing yields. 00:08:48 So when we get to plant health and the efficiency of plants, photosynthesizing, that's where these products really come into play. 00:08:54 They're making your crop, uh, re respire less, which allows that to accumulate more yield 00:08:59 because there, there's less stress on those crops. What about the, uh, the, the, your products, your crop protection products at VI are 00:09:09 fungicides, that sort of thing. Um, was you're, you seem like one of the few that's pushing this thing about Yes, 00:09:20 ours goes into a fertility mix with no problem. Is this something that, I mean, is that, is that the, is that the technology that Vive got behind? 00:09:28 Is that, or or, I mean, I don't see this as much from other companies where they're all about compatibility. 00:09:36 Our stuff goes in as part of the solution, like wanting to be more of a team player. They they talk more about their benefits. 00:09:42 Yeah, exactly. As a startup, a Canadian startup, no less, one of the ways to pre to procure funding is, 00:09:48 is you have to have a story. And, and most of the time with startups these days, they have to have an efficiency and a sustainability story. 00:09:55 Yeah. So when it came to development of these nano polymers and, and, uh, in incorporate them on act, 00:10:01 incorporating them on active ingredients, you've got to a point where we said, we can be more efficient delivering nutrients 00:10:07 and these crop protectants to the plant through the planter, and saving a pass of a sprayer. 00:10:13 You don't have to go out and spray it V three or V five. Um, you're saving that pass to get that protection of 00:10:19 that plant later into the season. So there's an efficiency and a sustainability to almost every 00:10:23 product we bring to the market. We, we call them the VI values, um, and, and, uh, five advantages. 00:10:30 And we have to have them. And then in every product we bring to the market, uh, one, it's a core value. 00:10:35 Two, it helps us continue to get funding, uh, investors, uh, beyond the Canadian government. 00:10:42 Got it. So the, the technology, uh, to bring it down. 'cause someone says, okay, well how exactly does this work? Or why is this different than usual? 00:10:54 You show the, the, the little Our little mix choice. Yeah. Oh, well. And also the that, and, uh, we did a video with that, me 00:11:05 and Will, and, and at the thing. But what I want you to do is explain in very, uh, in very simple terms, the technology that makes this, 00:11:14 why this is a game changer. Sure. Some of my, uh, most favorite things to teach when I was teaching was water 00:11:20 and how important it is to agriculture. And when we talked about crop protection, why water's a great product to work with, it's cheap, 00:11:28 it's abundant, and it's, it's because it's neutral, it's still chemically active. And, and you heard the joke I used at the, 00:11:35 at the meeting there, I won't use it here, but the nano polymers of the dog toy, because they have two different chemistries involved 00:11:43 with them, represented by the two different colors. Didn't your joke involve, didn't your joke involve wisecracking on the owner of the company's ex-wife? 00:11:49 Ex-wife? Yeah. What is, yeah. So wait A minute. You were concerned that I made a wise apple about you 00:11:55 and your hairline, and you're up there bashing on the guy who's holding the meeting's. 00:12:00 Ex-wife. I think I got permission. You might have crossed, you might have crossed more lines than I did. 00:12:03 I got permission and I included Shannon in the joke, his current wife, which made it even better. It Was good, actually. I, I 00:12:10 was, I I found it to be quite funny. Yeah, it was great. Uh, so, uh, so like water, these nano polymers give the, uh, active ingredient 00:12:19 because it coats them, it gives them the ability to work with two different chemistries. 00:12:24 So think of the pink and the purple as two different chemical abilities. One being water loving and one being fertilizer loving. 00:12:31 It can work and be compatible with water, and it can be compatible with fertilizer because there's enough surface area of each 00:12:37 on the active ingredient to give it that compatibility advantage. So that's really why we carry around these silly dog toys. 00:12:43 They're a lot of fun. They get people's attention and makes them curious. Um, it's similar to how soap works. 00:12:50 Soap works as a my cell, and it basically is a way to have water loving outside of the mar molecule 00:12:57 and water hating hydrophobic on the inside of the molecule. And that way it can clean stuff off of your body 00:13:03 that takes water loving particles, and it can clean fats and oils off your body because it will turn inside out 00:13:11 and take those fats and oils away. So it's, it's a way to, it's a way to be chemically, uh, flexible because it is water loving 00:13:20 and oil loving at the same time. And that's why it becomes compatible. And the other thing is, is it's very small. 00:13:26 We talked about nano because it's very small. That enhances the compatibility advantage. It also enhances the active ingredients efficiency, 00:13:36 because we have to get the active ingredient to be small too. So now we're getting a more consistent delivery 00:13:41 of more active ingredient to the pest. So we get a double advantage there in efficiency for, for disease control and insect control. 00:13:48 You've been around the game for a while. Um, I think you worked for a seed company at least, uh, one of your, one of your early things. 00:13:55 Yep. You, you've been in the classroom, you've got plenty of credibility and you've got enough 00:13:59 experience with a lot of this. Do you think that guys our age are gonna, you know, get to the end of our careers 00:14:05 and we're gonna say, holy crap, do you know how bad we were at? Uh, and, and, and we weren't bad at it, 00:14:13 but we didn't realize it, but we're, we put a lot of stuff out there that we never get the actual value from. And, you know, when you talk about nutrients, 30%, 40% 00:14:23 of a nutrient gets into the plant. That means the bulk, two thirds of it does not get into the plant. 00:14:28 I think on the crop protection stuff, you said vibe's, big story here is, uh, obviously improved efficiency, et cetera. 00:14:35 You've got an environmental story to tell. You've got an economic story to tell, which both are very important in your 2025 and beyond. 00:14:42 But isn't it, I mean, just from a historical perspective, you didn't think that we were bad 30 or 40 years ago, 00:14:49 but we put a lot terrible. We put a lot of crap out there that didn't do anything. Well, it would've done something, 00:14:56 but it, it, it wasn't in the right place. It was incompatible. We put it, we put it out at the wrong time, we put it out in wrong, 00:15:02 you know, way more dosage than we needed. And, and it, it's kind of a neat story. Yeah. I, I'm older, maybe I'm older than you, 00:15:09 but I remember what, when they created a certified crop advisor system, because the fertilizer salespeople at all these co-ops were 00:15:17 so bad, they were making their customers go broke. Mm-hmm. Because they were just selling a ton of fertilizer and it wasn't very efficient at all. 00:15:23 Mm-hmm. Um, that invented the, the certified Crop advisor system. And, and we've come a long ways from there. 00:15:28 And not only that, we've also learned a lot more about how these plants work. We've learned about how they worked genetically, 00:15:35 we've learned about how they work down to the cellular level now. Right. Versus when I was in graduate school, 00:15:40 I was working on, uh, some systemic acquired resistance in tomatoes. And that's all we knew about it, 00:15:46 is somehow it makes the plant's defenses increase. That was all we knew about it 30 years ago. And now we know that, that it's inducing the plants 00:15:55 to thicken their cell walls, to create peroxides, to do program cell death, that we, we know so much more now, and that's allowed us to get efficient. 00:16:03 Uh, and that's just in, in my career, I couldn't imagine what, uh, some gentlemen that, you know, 00:16:07 are in their sixties and seventies and, and all the changes that they've seen. What about, um, on the, you know, 00:16:14 I've been critical, not critical. I have pointed out that we always, in agriculture, production agriculture, we work on improved deficiencies. 00:16:23 And the tough part is that that's good. That's how we've gotten here. That's what we've gotten to 174 bushel corn per acre as a national average 00:16:30 and on all these kinds of things. And our unit of nutrient, uh, and natural resource, uh, utilization per per calorie 00:16:37 of output is as low as it's ever been in the history of humankind, let alone the history of agriculture. Those are all good, but I have pointed out at some point, 00:16:45 efficiency gains, um, just continue to decrease. It's easy to go from, you know, the, the Native American that got three bushels of corn per acre 00:16:55 to 100, you know, 100. It's harder to go from 174 to 274. That's where we are. 00:17:03 So we're, you know, it's easy to look back 30 or 40 years ago and say, my God, look at how, how much better we are. 00:17:09 I don't think we make those kinds of leaps and gains in the next 30 years. Well, I would argue that maybe we still can, 00:17:16 I think there's a lot of yield opportunities on farms. And I have specific examples in my own career that were doing a terrible job 00:17:23 of growing corn just a couple of years ago. And then I saw that same farmer at commodity classic winning third in 00:17:29 New York State, uh, this year. So you, you need to tackle the large yield issues first. If you have a compaction problem or a drainage problem 00:17:39 or something else, that's your largest yield demanding factor. If you don't tackle that first, 00:17:43 there isn't a product out there. There's not enough efficiency in any fertility, any crop protection to get you to 00:17:49 where you wanna be in yield. So you have to still do a really good job of, of putting the seed in the ground and, 00:17:55 and getting your stands and uniformity. And then fertility and crop protection come in there. We talked about fertilizer efficiency. 00:18:02 If your plant doesn't have any roots because they're diseased, or insects are chewing them off, we don't see it. 00:18:08 It's underground, it's happening. Your plants cannot be efficient with the fertilizer that's under there. 00:18:13 So we gotta think about protecting the roots. And then of course, the next thing that we'd never think about, 00:18:18 but, uh, until the corn falls down, uh, is the stalks. And if a plant is stressed, the plant will cannibalize itself. 00:18:27 And when the plant cannibalizes itself, it's, it's eating its roots and it's eating its stalks. So there goes your water efficiency, 00:18:34 your nutrient efficiency, and, and then your stalks break in half at the end of the season because the plant cannibalize themselves 00:18:41 because it was stressed, didn't have enough resources to do what it wanted to do and maximize that yield. 00:18:47 So identifying major yield stresses, uh, and yield limiting factors on your farm is a huge way to get started. 00:18:53 Once you've gotten that done, then we can talk about these designer crop protections and, uh, fertility regimes to, to take it to the next level. 00:19:01 And it can be done in a short period of time. We're an educational platform here at XT Extreme Ag, and I've seen the guys do, do be very, very, um, uh, very 00:19:13 generous with their time to help somebody that has a sincere question. But there's also the reality that, uh, 00:19:20 probably not the followers of extreme ag, but certainly among agriculture. I saw you in New York talking about products, technology, 00:19:28 people get excited, but I also heard you talk about you better address some of these other factors that are on you. I saw some arms getting crossed. 00:19:35 I saw some, I, I see a lot of people that, uh, still in this business don't want to address. Well, they don't address the, the things that are on them. 00:19:45 And because they won't change, there is still that one, One of the things I've experienced in my career is farmers spend a lot of time farming, thinking about farming, 00:19:54 watching YouTube videos, listening to podcasts about farming. It's what they do. And they are great at it, 00:19:58 but when they make a decision, they think it is the right decision. Yep. Even when it's sometimes a wrong decision. 00:20:04 So I, I probably mentioned one of the things I mentioned is speed tillers, which I call speed killers. 00:20:09 Yeah. And that's one of the times when you see 'em sit back and fold their arms, they're upset 00:20:13 because they spend a lot of money and, and they spend a lot of time making that decision to purchase that piece of equipment. 00:20:18 And it does a fantastic job preparing a seed bed. Don't get me wrong. If you have zero compaction and zero risk of compaction after that, it's great 00:20:25 Too much. Was it your point that it also, it creates compaction, it tears the hell out of soil structure? 00:20:32 Yes. Uh, and I think you have one more thing. It probably was about water infiltration. I don't know. Yeah. 00:20:36 Yeah. I I don't like, I don't like them. Yeah. Right. So yeah, they're, they're, they're, they can create a problem, 00:20:40 but they do create a great seed bed. So if your major issue is seed bed preparation and that, that's a tool for you. 00:20:45 That's right. But when a farmer thinks they, they may spend a lot of time and energy making a good decision. 00:20:50 It's hard, it's hard to overcome that. No farmer wants to admit they have compaction. No farmer wants to admit they have nematodes. 00:20:56 Those are the two things I've found in my career that farmers will just say that they don't have. Right. And they do. And they, 00:21:01 and they almost all unequivocally, boom. Do. Um, what about when, when you gave your presentation, you did get some really nice response. 00:21:09 I mean Yeah. You, you caused them to, you caused them to sit back and cross their arms a little bit, which I love because they were challenging the thinking. 00:21:16 And I tell this, my audiences the same thing, you watch me speak, and I said, we're gonna have big, some big mindset shifts. 00:21:22 And man, so those people don't like mindset shifts because it no, it, it's hard to get your head around, but on the stuff that you guys do, 00:21:32 when you say the word crop protection, do we overuse fungicide? Do we overuse products? I think we still do. 00:21:39 I think it's way better than it was. Um, but I don't think it's, uh, and, and it's maybe in the old, as you tell me, 00:21:47 we didn't have the understanding. I think we got a better understanding now. But I think it got to where, and like my guys Kelly 00:21:53 and all that, we'll talk about the easy button. I think we start, we're overusing products now because it's just because as you said, first off, 00:22:00 I already made the decision by God, I'm not, don't tell me I'm wrong. And it's also kind of easy to do. 00:22:05 So we overuse product because of the factor. Yeah. We're, we're still managing fields. We're not down to precision farmer. 00:22:11 Farming's come a long ways, but we're not managing diseases down to a, uh, a precise level. 00:22:18 When a field has a disease and it gets the economic level, or if we're worried that it's going to, we're gonna go ahead 00:22:24 and treat that with a fungicide. That probably does lead to some overuse. You would say. There is technology coming that is going to, uh, 00:22:31 have sentinel plants in a field that's going to basically alert themselves as soon as the disease affects that plant, the plant is going to fluoresce 00:22:39 and be de detectable by space and drones or planes. And then we can go out and treat just that specific area of the field 00:22:47 where the disease is developing because we caught it early. We, you can catch it within minutes 00:22:53 or the day that the disease develops or the insect starts to eat on those plants. You can detect it that night when 00:22:59 you fly the satellite over. And then we can do it very precise and use less. And that's the case. And there's another technology I heard 00:23:06 of last week talking to a researcher in the Midwest. They were spraying soybeans and trying to target with a camera sprayer the pods. 00:23:13 And when they got done with the trial, the researcher said, okay, so how do we do on the pods? 00:23:18 Well, we're very good on the pods now we can tell you if you wanna spray the top of the pod 00:23:22 or the bottom of the pod with these cameras. So that's where we're going to go with this efficiency. And, and, but the thing is, we don't, going back 00:23:31 to my original, uh, example of the plants that fluoresce the, this first plant, that's nothing we see with our eye for days or weeks later. 00:23:41 Yeah. And that plant is respiring losing, losing yield the whole time. Uh, that that happened. Some something that, and That's why we overuse 00:23:48 fungicides today, probably, Arguably it's two weeks of damage before our eye sees it. And then it became the answer. 00:23:56 I've heard Kevin Matthews say this, he's in that whole hurricane belt where it's humidity hell, and, and Chad, they talk about this. 00:24:03 If you wait till you see the damage, you've lost maybe as much as 20% of yield. So that's where we use fungicide pro preemptively. Yeah. 00:24:12 And maybe, unfortunately, maybe unnecessarily. Sure. But in the future we'll be able to be much more specific. 00:24:18 Right. And that's, that's what I'm looking forward to. So while you're looking forward to it, 'cause I like that you're, you're out there, uh, 00:24:25 what else are we gonna see? What else are we gonna see? What does, what does a company like vibe? What are, what are we, what are we, what are the smart, 00:24:30 what are the, what's the smart, uh, first off bacteria to fungi ratio since you guys were in a fun, I never even heard that term until last year 00:24:37 working with X extreme mag. And I thought I was really kind of an amateur soils guy. Nope. Never even heard about that. 00:24:44 We're gonna learn more about that, aren't we? Yeah. I think you're gonna learn a lot more about your soil biome and you're gonna learn a lot more about 00:24:51 what we can deliver in biologicals. I think the biological, biological space has a lot of opportunity. 00:24:57 I think one of the major limiting factors of the biological space is getting the biology, uh, from the jug to the plant alive 00:25:05 or to the soil alive, wherever you're delivering it. I think that's a lot of time where we see underperformance of our biologicals. 00:25:11 They work well in the lab, they work well in the greenhouse. When we get them out into the cold hard world of, of, uh, 00:25:17 of a northern spring mineral soil. They often know Rock because no, we have aren't aren't there a few things that are the enemies of biologicals? 00:25:25 First off is temperature first. Secondly is time. If it's got something alive in it, it doesn't last forever. It's got a definite shelf life. 00:25:33 And then the other one, water. Um, I've heard a number of times we were putting this kind of water, because all water is not lab water. 00:25:41 All water is not distilled and it, it's got minerals. It's got those things in it. So those are, are those the three enemies? 00:25:47 Yeah. And that's, uh, that's one of the places where our little dog toy nano polymers, uh, has, has had a lot, a lot of, uh, potential 00:25:55 to work on biologicals. So does Your Anti polymers, we can protect them. So something like your stuff that's crop protection, 00:26:03 does it play in the same sandbox nicely with biologicals? So if we move away from as much applied fertility, 00:26:10 which arguably we probably should because we're over-applying fertility, uh, or even use less herbicide, 00:26:16 does the Vive product lineup just then start holding hands and walking down the aisle with biologicals? 00:26:24 Well, we hope so. And there's still work to do and there's a thousand variables that affect the biologicals and the active ingredients because there's a 00:26:31 Thousand biologicals. There's, there's, there's a lot to figure out there. But we feel like our technology has the 00:26:36 potential to answer those questions. And, uh, once we do we'll, we'll, we'll have products that we can deliver to the market, uh, in hand in hand 00:26:44 with an active ingredient, safely with a biological, deliver them at a, at a more robust level so that we get the efficacy that we want outta biologicals 00:26:53 and consistency. 'cause sometimes when they work, they really work, but it's the consistency of, of getting 00:26:58 that every time is the challenge. And some of 'em are pretty pricey. Um, so we need to, we need to get that consistency down. 00:27:06 What else do you see, um, from the, you're about, you're about, you're about a good mix. You're, you're kind of product, you're kind 00:27:13 of a geek on products, but you're also, but you're a marketplace guy. You've, you're not, you're not the white coat in the lab 00:27:20 geeking out on, uh, on the, on the r and d. You still get the field. You still Get the field. Yeah. I'm, I'm 00:27:26 gonna get your hands dirty. Crawl behind the corn planter agronomist. Yeah. Alright. So what do you, what if I'm a farmer listening 00:27:31 to the Cutting the Curve podcast, from your standpoint, what's another couple of things you see that excite you? Well, the biology is, is a big one. 00:27:40 I do like the, uh, precise application technology. Uh, whether it's sea and spray or this, uh, this satellite technology, um, 00:27:48 satellite technology, uh, to, to view our crops right now is, is, uh, crude and in some places inconsistent. 00:27:56 And the satellites don't fly over enough, especially if you have cloud cover like anywhere around the Great Lakes we do. 00:28:02 Um, that's some limiting factors there. But with drone, when you incorporate drones and airplanes in, in conjunction with satellites, 00:28:11 you get much better imagery and we'll be able to manage these crops. And then we're not driving through 'em. 00:28:16 When, when we drive through 'em, we damage 'em. We're like, uh, we're not as bad as turf people though with that cut their crop every day and injure it 00:28:23 and then expect it to be green and nice the rest of the year. We're a little bit better than that. 00:28:27 So the other question I have for you, when like, uh, roundup ready soybeans came on, like, oh my goodness, we used to have to walk soybean fields with a weed hook. 00:28:39 Um, uh, you know, it, this was so prohibitive now, uh, back then, drill 'em, spray 'em with Roundup once done, it makes you wonder, 'cause we talked about compatibility. 00:28:50 Are we gonna then again, a few years from now say, holy crap, how did it take it so long to make it so this stuff could all work together? 00:28:57 Because it seems like that should have been something we addressed early on. If you put this in with this, it needs to mix 00:29:03 and it needs to come out in a very, um, uh, equally distributed manner, et cetera. Well, some of that's the system 00:29:10 and some of that's why Vive exists today. So to develop a, an active ingredient, a crop protection product from the ground up 00:29:17 that's never been registered before, it's 10 years and $200 million worth of investment. A a startup today cannot do that. 00:29:23 They can't afford to do it. So what we've done is we've taken these products that have been on the market a long time, and 00:29:29 because we don't have that initial investment, we can just do a little bit more investing, a little bit more research, and find these new uses 00:29:36 and find these new niches and, and even get them registered in crops where they weren't registered before, so 00:29:42 that now an onion farmer can use, uh, this technology and this active ingredient that they never could before. So your assertion would be that we, 00:29:50 we concentrated on compatibility. Second, we concentrated on chemistry or the creative of the product first. 00:29:56 Yeah. And spent all of our money there and we worried about compatibility. Second, the Original registrants had 00:30:02 to get these things on a mar into the market to start making that $200 million back up. 00:30:06 Yeah. And so because they had to do that, they then, uh, get it just good enough to get into that marketplace, 00:30:13 to sell enough of it, to make that money back because they don't wanna invest any more money in it. That's to a place where Vive comes in 00:30:19 and we have the resources and the lab technology and scientists that can take it. That next step, just make it a a slightly better. 00:30:26 There's, there's about 20 to 40% inefficiency in all active ingredients on the marketplace. 00:30:32 We're looking to, to find that space to make 'em better. That 20 to 40% better. 00:30:38 I'm gonna leave it right there. Say that. Why by the way, just give those math numbers again on the market today. They are 00:30:44 Sure on the marketplace today. Uh, most active ingredients after their initial development are 60 00:30:49 to 80% of the way there. They're still 40 to 20 to 40% room to make them better. And that's what Vive does. 00:30:56 We, we stick in that spot to, to increase their, uh, efficacy. Another 40 to 20% 00:31:02 Increase the efficacy of a product that already exists because it was, it was ran, it was, it was put out there to, and, and it just, it it's, 00:31:10 it's the next evolution, I guess what you're saying. Yep. Yep. There's room for improvement and, 00:31:14 and we've got the ability to work in that space. His name is Art Graves. The company's called Vive Crop Protection. 00:31:19 If you wanna learn more about them, go to Vive Crop. That's VIVE crop.com. Did I get that right? I'm holding your card right here. 00:31:25 You did, sir. Thank you very much. His name's Art Graves. I've had the good fortune of seeing him in real time twice within three weeks, 00:31:32 and then again online right here. So, I don't know, man, maybe I'll bump into him again. But he says he's up in New Hampshire. 00:31:37 I don't get there a whole lot. Nice spot. Yeah, it's a nice spot up there. Anyway. Alright. His name's Art Graves. My name's Damien Mason. 00:31:44 If you enjoyed this, share it with somebody I can learn from. But remember we have literally hundreds 00:31:47 and hundreds of videos, hundreds of podcasts just like this, available at Extreme Ag Farm, go to Extreme Ag Farm. 00:31:53 It's all free. It's a free library of information to help you farm better. And we're very glad you're here. If you enjoyed this. 00:31:59 Also check out our show, the grain rate. It's filmed at my farm in Indiana where I'm sitting right now 00:32:03 and with my buddies in the grain rate. You can check that out. Uh, new episodes releasing every week. 00:32:08 Um, and, and it's a lot of fun. So check that out. And also remember that we have webinars every month. That's right. The beginning of the month. 00:32:14 Usually the first Tuesday we have for first Thursday we have webinars and we invite you to come there, 00:32:18 but you gotta be an extreme Ag member to participate in that. But it's only seven $50 a year 00:32:22 and you get so much value out of being a member 'cause you get direct access to the guys. And also the trial day at the end of the year 00:32:27 with products we're using at Vare Farms like Arts. I dunno if they're gonna be doing a vi uh, trial there or not. 00:32:33 But anyway, it's all good stuff. Till next time, thanks for being here. I'm Damien Mason from Extreme 00:32:37 Ag and this is cutting the curve. That's a wrap for this episode of Cutting the Curve. Make sure to check out Extreme ag.farm 00:32:44 for more great content to help you squeeze more profit out 00:32:47.925 --> 00:32:49.205