Farming Podcast | Fungicide, Fertilizer, Fuel, and Finances — How to Make It All Work

00:00:00 Fertilizer, fuel, fungicide, and finances. You're tempted to cut back on the first three. If you're going to cut back on fungicide, you better do it right because it can be 00:00:10 a big game changer for your crop in these trying economic agricultural times. That's what we're talking about in this episode of XtremeAg's Cutting the Curve. 00:00:22 Welcome to XtremeAg's Cutting the Curve podcast, where real farmers share real insights and real results to help you improve 00:00:30 your farming operation. And now, here's your host, Damian Mason. Hey there. Welcome to another fantastic episode of XtremeAg's Cutting the Curve. 00:00:38 I've got a great one for you today. I've got Art Graves. He is a technical agronomist with Vive Crop Protection. 00:00:43 He and I bump into each other at agricultural events, Commodity Classic, different XtremeAg functions, and even at a function we both were speaking at in the Finger 00:00:51 Lakes region of New York. He's from that part of the world. He's a sharp dude, and we said, "Let's put a topic together here that's going to be 00:00:58 very pertinent for the crop year 2026." Right now, as we're recording this, and we're recording this mid-May, things could be completely different here by the 00:01:05 time you're listening to it, but I doubt they will be. Fuel prices are up almost 50%. Diesel fuel is up around 50% over just the last six to eight weeks. 00:01:15 So think about that. Depending on your cropping system, Art, depending on your cropping system, you probably use, on average, eight gallons of diesel per acre farmed per season. 00:01:26 Okay, now some people are using way less and actually completely no-till. Some people are more than that, because they're more conventional, and they've got 00:01:31 a specialty crop. But the point is, you're using a lot of diesel. Well, when your cost of diesel is up 50%, and it's not probably going to 00:01:37 change by the end of the year 2026. Now let's talk about fertilizer. Your fertilizer is going to be up at, my God, sometimes double from what it was 00:01:45 one year ago. So you know more about the fertility than I do, but it's a big deal. Now, fungicide. Fungicide prices might remain the same, but you're thinking, "Wait 00:01:52 a minute, maybe I don't need that pass of fungicide. Maybe I can save a little money right there." And Art Graves is saying, "No! 00:02:01 If you do, do this." He's going to tell you if you're going to cut back to try and make it so you're at least break even on your cropping, 00:02:08 by golly, listen to him. Did I set that up right? Yeah. Actually, you hit it right on the nose, and I'm hearing of farmers now, even this spring, they're cutting back already on their fungicide 00:02:19 applications. There's a lot of farmers that were using an in-furrow fungicide a year ago that has discontinued this year. 00:02:26 Just one more thing trying to cut out so that they can try to get the most out of this crop in the high prices. They're skipping passes of tillage, 00:02:34 going to more and more no-till to save on those diesel costs, and without the right plan, I think that can be a problem. 00:02:41 Well, first off, I'm a soil guy. Since I was a kid, I wanted to be an agronomist. I'm not as technically attuned as you. 00:02:47 That's why I became an agricultural economics guy instead. The switching to no-till, probably good ultimately, if you're doing it 00:02:54 right, and figuring out a way to use less diesel, that's probably good. Going across the field maybe one less time, less compaction. There's a lot of benefits to this, but by God, you got to do it right, and that's 00:03:05 where I think we're going to see some of these people that are saying, "I screwed the pooch on this. I didn't get the right yield because I tried these 00:03:13 new things." And then they're going to be tempted to write it off and say, "Nope, that's why I got to just stick with what I normally do." But the problem is 00:03:20 on the applications of stuff. You just said, "Okay, I'm already seeing some of my customers that are saying I'm not going to put an in-furrow fungicide." That's 00:03:27 fine. Well, I don't know where you're farming when you're listening to this. I'm from my farm here in northeast Indiana. 00:03:33 It's 54 today on May 13th. The soil temperature might be 50, and we've had rain, 00:03:43 in general, every other day since sometime at the end of March. So you want to tell me that this doesn't bode well for a fungus problem? 00:03:51 Yeah. Yeah, I had a frost yesterday morning, if that helps you. Yeah. 00:03:54 You know how cold and wet our soils are. So the point is, I think this is maybe not the time to cut back on fungicide, but I understand the 00:04:01 farmer's predicament. They're saying- Yeah ... "I can't go out here and just keep throwing money at stuff," and commodity price is where they are. 00:04:10 So sure, a couple of things on that is when a farmer decides to go to no-till and they have a lot of biomass out there and 00:04:17 cover crops or residue that they're not incorporating, that residue is tying up nitrogen, and we know that nitrogen's expensive. 00:04:25 So now you're allowing the microorganisms to have that nitrogen. The plants aren't getting it, and whenever a plant is 00:04:30 lacking nitrogen, they're actually more susceptible to diseases. And so it becomes a snowball effect when we look at these 00:04:38 impacts of trying to reduce a pass of tillage and then trying to save on fertilizer. They can start to compound on each other, and then the plants just become more and 00:04:48 more susceptible to diseases. Early on it would be early foliar diseases like anthracnose is a cold, wet kind of early season leaf disease problem, and you 00:04:59 can actually target that at V5 and do a good job of controlling it with a fungicide. So that would be like your herbicide pass timing. 00:05:07 You could stick a relatively inexpensive herbicide if you're looking at peaked yellow plants because you decided to go no-till, and the 00:05:18 carbon's tying up your nitrogen. That would be a good opportunity to stick a relatively inexpensive product in the tank at that time. 00:05:25 All right, let's do a thing. Let's go through sort of the seasonality. We know that there's going to be producers that are 00:05:32 listening to this, and it's already missed. Maybe if you're in Tennessee, whatever- 00:05:37 Sure ... you might have already planted. You're in Alabama, you're done planting. That's fine, but a lot of our people are in the Corn Belt, and like I said, there's 00:05:42 not a whole hell of a lot's happened around here. But whatever the point is, let's go through the risks and then again, where I can cut back. Again, we know we've got the fertilizer 00:05:52 issues. We know we've got the fuel issues. So now, we're talking about alliteration there, fertilizer, fuel, fungicide, finances. 00:06:00 What-Fungicide may have been overused. To the credit of the person that's listening to this that says, "You know what? I don't know that I got all my bang for my buck anyhow." So let's start with 00:06:10 that, and then let's go with the intelligent way to use fungicide, and then maybe products like yours that make fungicide better or more 00:06:20 impactful, whatever. So right now, I just looked at some of the notes that your people gave me here. They talk about the different diseases. 00:06:28 All of these that I'm looking at are late season. I'm thinking head scab on wheat, I'm thinking gray leaf spot on corn, and tar 00:06:38 spot on corn, and frogeye on soybeans. That's not a concern right now in the spring, is it? Not necessarily, but if you leave more residue, you have more 00:06:47 inoculum, and you go corn on corn, you have more of that disease inoculum from last year laying right on the surface of the soil, just getting ready to 00:06:55 splash up on those plants. So it is something that you should be thinking about, especially if you're thinking about skipping a pass. 00:07:01 And the opportunity to also save a pass later in the season is your V5 pass when you're doing your herbicide pass. So me thinking about it as 00:07:12 helping and trying to solve the problem versus just being a part of the problem is if you're making a pass to save fuel at V5, then there's an 00:07:20 opportunity there to throw a fungicide in. And maybe you won't need one later if it turns hot and dry. That usually reduces gray leaf spot. 00:07:27 Like last season, we had very little tar spot because it got hot and dry, and tar spot didn't come until a lot later in a lot of the 00:07:36 geographies. So you've got to make the most of each pass and have a really good plan because if you're changing your system, your corn plants aren't the same as they were a year 00:07:48 ago when you were potentially overusing fungicides. They might be in worse shape, and you have to take that into account, especially if you've reduced your potash. That reduces your stalk strength. 00:07:58 If you reduce your nitrogen rates because urea's over 1,000 bucks a ton- Yeah 00:08:02 ... you're going to be really on the edge of plant health, where before when we were overusing fungicides, we were probably overusing fertility, too. 00:08:11 That's the thing, is that when you overuse one thing because a rising tide kind of a deal, then you tend to probably overuse everything. 00:08:17 And then things get tight and you're like, "Okay, I got to go cuts across the board." All right. 00:08:21 Yeah. Everybody was shooting for 300 bushel corn- Mm-hmm ... or wanted to average 200 across their farm, and you use an offensive 00:08:28 hybrid that is more susceptible to diseases, too. So if you're going to cut back on fertility, you probably should've changed your genetics. But if you didn't and you still are growing an offensive hybrid, that 00:08:39 offensive hybrid will fall apart and get disease more rapidly when it's underfed. Let's deal with the disease risk right now. 00:08:46 So a couple of notes I have in my bullet points here are on foliar fungicides, which again- 00:08:52 Yep ... we're talking about now in-furrow. So let's finish the in-furrow, and if you're going to cut that out, if I want to not put 00:08:59 out fungicide at time of planting- Yep ... what do I need to know from Art Graves, the technical agronomist with Vive Crop Protection? Tell me. 00:09:07 Yeah. I'm going to not use fungicide at time of planting. Give me my 00:09:11 then, "Okay, if that's the case, then boom." Yeah. Well, you want to have a keen eye when you're scouting your crop to make sure you're picking up the diseases and identifying them right, and then you want to 00:09:21 have a strong plan going into the season of when it comes time, like I said, at the V5 application timing, look at the 00:09:29 crop, have a plan to make a decision to go into that crop and put a fungicide on if you have to. Okay, so wait. 00:09:35 I would say at the V5- I didn't put it out at time of planting, and you're saying just- Right 00:09:38 ... really have a keen eye. Now, I've been told by my XtremeAg guys, if I'm out there at V5, okay, there's been no 00:09:46 fungicide treatment at all since last year. I'm at V5. I didn't put anything out at time of planting. If I see signs of disease at V5, 00:09:56 my XtremeAg guys tell me you've already probably lost 5% of your yield because by the time you're seeing it, you 00:10:04 can save it, but you're not- Yeah ... going to prevent it. Yeah. As soon as the disease enters your plant, you're starting to lose yield, even 00:10:10 before you see the first lesion. So yes, that's true you're losing yield, but you have to address the disease you have on hand. 00:10:17 So you have to scout your crop just before you're going to go out and spray, and then attack whatever problems you're seeing in the field with your herbicide 00:10:24 pass, and then make that V5 decision. And a lot of people aren't doing that. There aren't a lot of diseases at that time, and as far 00:10:33 as gray leaf spot, northern corn leaf blight, and tar spot, they're not developing at V5. It's usually an anthracnose, 00:10:39 some other early season disease that's there. And in cold, wet weathers, I've seen farmers need to spray at V5 because the anthracnose, which loves cold, wet conditions- 00:10:50 Okay ... is blowing up on the leaves. Okay, so let's say now in my part of the world, I think V5, you're talking 00:10:58 typically- Yeah ... early June, right? Or sometime- Yeah ... in early June, let's say. 00:11:03 I've done no fungicide. Now, you haven't even done that thing where you tell me about the Vive lineup. Is there a chance that I do something where 00:11:11 I throw your thing in there and it helps me make up for lost ground, or more importantly, since the theme of this show is the finances of cutting 00:11:19 back on fungicide, fuel, fertilizer Is there a way that you can help with the financial aspect of it? Absolutely. So the Cadillac programs that you hear about 00:11:30 with the multiple modes of actions, three and four-way fungicides, are expensive. And so when farmers are looking to cut back to 00:11:38 going to off-patent products or some of the more generic products, it's important to make sure you're still using high-quality products. 00:11:45 And those products are good, proven, active ingredients, but they oftentimes lack the performance through their formulation. 00:11:53 And in the Vive portfolio, our products have a nanopolymer that's called Alozpersse, and that Alozpersse technology helps them mix in fertilizer. It's the same chemistry that also helps them 00:12:05 stick to the waxy cuticle of the leaf, and that's important so that they get on the leaf and stay on the leaf through the upcoming rain events and 00:12:13 then enter the plant and become curative. And so they have to stick and stay for that, and that's important. Okay. 00:12:18 And so when we think about where Vive fits in that program, it's adding Vive products into 00:12:24 other mixes to help make them better. So looking at a product like Phobos, our Phobos has been proven to be a strong leaf-holding, rainfast product that 00:12:35 also helps other fungicides stick and stay with it. Okay, so I want to get to if I'm trying to cut back on fungicide because of the financial picture that's staring me down as a producer right now, the one thing I'm 00:12:46 hearing you say is, all right, maybe we can get by without at time of planting. And frankly, maybe that's where fungicide has been overdone. I don't know. 00:12:54 I'm not speaking for farmers. I'm not making a judgment. But if we think that we've overused fungicide when things are up, 00:13:00 we throw a lot of stuff out there, then we probably definitely need to have a foliar because we know, especially with a year like we're talking about here. 00:13:08 So then that's where you said if you're going to do that. So I want you to give me then the timing on all that because I've got- 00:13:14 Yeah ... some bullet points here about timing and- Sure. Yeah, the timing is- Wait, wait, wait. Before you do that- 00:13:19 Oh, sorry ... I got to tell people about our friends. Yeah. I'm holding the pen here from Pattern Ag. It's not even called that anymore. 00:13:24 It's called Earth Optics. If you don't know about Earth Optics, you should. They can help you dial in your soil situation, 00:13:32 just like we're talking about right here, about pathogens. So with Earth Optics, you get the most precise soil insights in the industry, 00:13:37 clear, accurate data on fertility, biology, and compaction. No more guessing. They also can talk to you about pathogens that are in your soil or likelihood of 00:13:44 pathogens. No more guessing, just the information you need to make smarter decisions, optimize your input costs, and boost your yields. 00:13:49 Earth Optics puts the full picture of your soil right in your hands so you can farm confidently and profitably, unlock healthier soil, 00:13:57 stronger harvests, and a better bottom line. You want to learn more about how they can help you? Go to earthoptics.com. That's Earth, as in the planet you live on, optics like your eyeballs, 00:14:05 earthoptics.com. All right. So if we're going to cut back, I think, and you're the smart one around here, if I'm going to try and go to 00:14:16 one fungicide pass instead of two, I'm going to cut it out at time of planting and then put it out there when the historic risk of disease and 00:14:23 pathogens is typically are... In my part of the world, it's like third week of July. 00:14:28 Yep. That just seems like that's when it always is here, and that's when I see the airplanes buzzing around and all that. Am I thinking clearly? 00:14:34 Close. Still do one pass? Yes. One pass is fine, and that late application is the one to target because that's when we're going to keep the plant healthy through its kernel fill 00:14:43 timing. And so I really actually have two timings that I like to talk to growers about. One is right at green silks, especially if you're keeping the grain on the 00:14:53 farm and you're feeding it to poultry or hogs. Because if you're targeting the green silks, you want to use a product, and adding four ounces of our product, of Phobos, at that timing. 00:15:02 Prothioconazole is a great product to help control ear molds, and you need to target that green silk. If you have a history of mycotoxins on your 00:15:10 farm, target green silks with Prothioconazole or our Phobos, and it does a great job at controlling those ear molds, which leads to less 00:15:17 mycotoxins, which leads to less problems. Help me out here. So dairies, hogs, and chicken farmers. 00:15:21 Help me out. For the mycotoxin, am I using just your stuff, or am I using that in conjunction with one of the Cadillac fungicide products like you talked about that has four-way 00:15:30 modes of action? Yeah, you can do either. You can do our product, Phobos, in conjunction with another Cadillac program, or 00:15:40 you can kind of make your own Cadillac program using other products that are off-market. That's what I'm wondering. 00:15:46 So we have Azoxystrobin. Is there a chance, because we're talking about bottom line, and we said the four Fs- 00:15:49 Yes ... fertilizer, fungicide, fuel, finances. In this year, can I do a half-priced fungicide product but then get the bigger 00:16:00 bang for the buck by using it with one of your things? And I think that that's what I'm seeing some of my XtremeAg people are doing. This is not the year to go full tilt on the 00:16:11 fanciest, newest, fanciest, newest. This is kind of like equipment, right? We hear that all the time. 00:16:16 It's fine. It'd be neat to have the million-dollar combine, but you know what? So it takes me two and a half more days to get through harvest, and maybe I even 00:16:22 lose 1% of quality or whatever. Big damn deal. This is the year to do it. So is this the year to use a generic fungicide 00:16:34 and then- Spice it up ... give it a shot of steroids by mixing it with something like yours? Exactly. And that's exactly the protocol I'm working with growers on right now 00:16:44 is to have a plan in place. And to target specifically mycotoxins, you have to do the green silk, and adding four ounces of our Phobos to pretty much 00:16:52 any other fungicide pass does that. But then the other fungicides in that mix are great for... Like an Azoxystrobin is great for making sure that you're covering the whole 00:17:01 spectrum of leaf diseases. Not everybody- And so you're targeting your ear molds and your leaf diseases on the other AIs. 00:17:09 Not everybody listening to this is dialed into corn, even though we grow 99 million acres of it or 95 million acres of it. 00:17:16 Talk about the other commodities, the other crops, from specialty to soy and wheatSame thing? Are you recommending- 00:17:23 Similar, yeah. Same thing. The data we have on our fungicides is we stick to the crop better. And we're off-patent products, so our 00:17:33 azoxystrobin and our prothioconazole have been around for 30 years. Our nanopolymers just made them better. 00:17:39 So when we do a trial against the legacy product that has been on the market for 30 years, and you compare it to the Vive-branded new product on the market, our data shows that we can outperform 00:17:50 them almost every time. Okay. And so we've done something different to those, and it's the AlloSpurs chemistry that gives us that little bit of an advantage. 00:17:59 And we're not charging a premium for that because we didn't spend $200 million developing the active ingredient. 00:18:04 Can I go without fungicide this year at all? Can I- If you have a really good fertilizer program and a really defensive hybrid, yes. If you're in a field that does 00:18:15 not have a long history of disease, yes. If you are doing the opposite of all three of those things, then absolutely not. We know fungicides work. We know they bring yield. 00:18:25 And when you have a history of disease, the conditions that favor disease, and 00:18:31 it's that timing, putting a fungicide on, as we saw last year when people didn't or tried to get away with it, southern rust came up because the 00:18:39 southern farmers weren't using it to save money. Right. It blew up southern rust, and it blew into the Corn Belt really heavy because they were trying to save money. That same situation could happen this year. 00:18:49 So southern rust likely could come back hot and heavy this year. And obviously- 00:18:54 Wait. We got the Chinese giving us invasive species in the Great Lakes. We got the South giving us southern rust. How many more invasions are we supposed to deal with here in the Midwest? Okay. 00:19:05 Answer me this. The long term, what practices can I do... We talk about saving money on all those things, and we've already went through 00:19:14 no-till, et cetera. I believe, and you're the agronomist, you cover all these acres, you see everything, you're all around the country. 00:19:22 If you did institute no-till and you were making sure that the fodder, the debris was getting melted in 00:19:29 and all those things, give me not a this year prescription, give me a three to five to 10-year prescription. 00:19:39 Imagine I'm your patient, and I'm coming, and you're like, "Hey, that's great. Quit smoking, go exercise, eat more protein," whatever. 00:19:46 Now do it for me for the next several years where I can eternally use less fuel, use less fungicide. Maybe my fertility 00:19:57 program, I can live with cutting it by 10%, like I have to this year, and it doesn't cost me yield. Walk me through the future of all those things, and then still going back to the 00:20:07 finance art. I'm glad you asked me that because you know what makes me sad? Driving around Iowa in the winter and seeing black snow banks from all 00:20:15 the wind erosion going into the snow. So if- Because they follow the combine with tillage because that's what Dad did, and that's what Grandpa did, and the landlady that 00:20:25 old Elmer died. All the Iowa farmers are going to hate me and never invite me back. But yeah, that's exactly what happened. 00:20:29 So for me, it goes to get your fields to drain well. So if you need to add tile drainage, get them to drain well, and that allows your soils to breathe. 00:20:40 And when your soil is breathing, it's going to be healthy. Incorporating cover crops, managing them appropriately, 00:20:47 terminating them in a timely manner is important. And getting a good, healthy soil that is resilient to traffic so that it will compact less. 00:20:57 It will be drier when you're on it. And you won't have to work it when it's over wet. And you can get through and do all of your 00:21:04 passes and not destroy your soil structure. And it will be more resilient. Once you do that, then no-till becomes a lot easier to do. Your soil 00:21:14 has produced aggregates that are holding nutrients in a much higher capacity. So now the fertility that you do use is being more efficient, and you can then get away with less passes, 00:21:26 less fuel, less fertilizer, and then do the right things with your crop protection to make sure you're getting the most out of that. 00:21:33 And that includes when you're terminating cover crops, they're grasses. So when you're planting a grass crop, those grasses probably harbored those diseases. So keep in mind that those are the diseases you need to 00:21:45 look for and target. And insects, too. And then you talked about there is a disease, all that fodder, and 00:21:54 then that's going to be somebody say, "Well, that's why I go out and do all that tillage, Art." 00:21:56 Oh, yeah. "You can tell me about erosion, but by God, I follow the combine with tillage, and that way it decreases my disease risk." 00:22:03 Yeah. And your answer to them is? Well, and there were big pockets of corn that went down last year from stalk rots across the Western Corn Belt, and that same fungus 00:22:12 is going to cause stalk rots this year, especially if you're trying to cut back on potash. Potash is your stalk strength nutrient. 00:22:19 Yeah. And so you have to keep that into account. And so it's not one answer. There's no silver bullet here. You have to think about the scenario that you're 00:22:30 in, or each field is in, and making sure you have a good plan for that. Because potash is just as bad... It's 00:22:37 as important as nitrogen is for plant health against diseases and insects. So- Well, I thought you were going to tell me, if I want to eliminate the disease risk 00:22:46 by keeping fodder on the ground, because the person that's a habitual tiller is going to say, "I till all that. That way I get rid of it." 00:22:52 Well, first off, aren't there plenty of products that help me melt that fodder in, and also with that becomes a 00:22:59 reduced disease risk? Am I right in thinking that? Yes, to some degree. Yeah. You can reduce your disease risk with that, but then you also want 00:23:09 to make sure that you're watching your diseases. Because the- Yeah 00:23:12 ... disease cycle's there, the environmental conditions are there. But it might allow you, because of your soil health, to therefore then 00:23:19 make sure that you only need that late season pass. You don't need an in-furrow or aV5 application. Or you only need an in-furrow and a late season 00:23:30 application, depending on the different years. I still don't love prescribing fungicides this time of year. I am a scout and spray type of agronomist, so I like 00:23:40 when people look at their fields or have somebody in their fields looking at them for them. I think that's as important as any advice I could give. 00:23:47 By the way, I like driving by, and I like to pack a cooler and drive by and drink a beer and look at it. Is that not scouting? 00:23:56 Is that not adequate scouting? It's close. Compatibility issues. If I'm cutting back, it should be less. But if I'm looking at saving money and I'm trying to do some 00:24:09 crazy stuff, am I going to run into a possible hiccup? Potentially. Potentially because we're cutting back at fertility this time of year. 00:24:22 People might want to try to rescue and put on late fertility foliar feeding, that type of things on their crops. 00:24:27 So you might get a tank mix at tassel or late in the season that you want to add a lot more things, and then you're buying these generic products that 00:24:38 you don't know the quality in the jug. That can be a problem. All of our products were designed to be fertilizer compatible and 00:24:45 maximize their ability to work with other chemistries. And so when you're putting a Vive product in the tank in that scenario where you're adding 00:24:54 some other products, foliar feeds, biologicals, bio-stems, all that stuff, you want to have a product that you're confident is going to mix, and that's where that 00:25:02 Ellis First chemistry comes into play. So I kind of started this whole thing, and I think you and I agree, but again, I'm not the technical agronomist. 00:25:11 I look at my buddy that is always going up and down in his weight, and I said, "You're not trying to make weight for a Saturday wrestling tournament. 00:25:18 This is for the rest of your life." And that's how I look at where we are right now. I get it. I understand farm economics. 00:25:25 Hell, I got a degree in agriculture economics, and I'm around this. And granted, I don't farm. I get that, but I was raised doing it. 00:25:31 The idea that you're going to do something crazy this year, well, yeah, you got to always adjust. I understand that. 00:25:36 But I look at many of these things should be lifetime, lifestyle. In other words, decreasing tillage, using the products to melt the debris in, 00:25:49 obviously having an agronomist boots on the ground, getting the sampling done to find out what my risk is of disease. As you said, 00:26:01 understanding, oh, crap, this stuff blew in, like you said, Southern rust. All those things, those aren't just one month, one week, do this tomorrow. 00:26:09 I think those are just like lifestyle, I'd call them farm lifestyle things. Go out there and do this every day, and then maybe 00:26:17 I can cut back on fertility by 10%, and I can use 10% less diesel fuel, and I can use less fungicide and get by with one pass. 00:26:24 I know there's going to be a farmer that says, "What the hell do you know, Damian?" Maybe they question me, but am I right about this? 00:26:30 It seems to me like this is all doable. I think definitely times like these make people be better managers, and I do think that just looking at the 00:26:40 scenario and where they can get better is almost important to have times like these just in that case. And I've seen it across my career. You see the farmers that 00:26:51 do that and do that well, they're the ones that are out there and buying the new equipment and getting more land because they survived, and they made 00:26:59 the best decisions in times like these. I think we can leave it right there, my friend. Thanks, man. 00:27:04 His name's Art Graves. He's a technical agronomist for a company called Vive Crop Protection. Vive Crop Protection can be found. 00:27:08 If you want to learn more about their product lineup, where do they go? Oh, you can go to vivecrop.com. You can call any one of our territory 00:27:15 managers across the United States and Canada. Reach out to me directly. vivecrop.com is the website. If you have 00:27:23 learned anything from this, please share it with somebody that can benefit from it. XtremeAg, we've got literally hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of videos 00:27:29 on our website, XtremeAg.farm. Also, we're on YouTube. Go to YouTube, type in XtremeAg, and hit subscribe. It doesn't cost you anything. You'll see shows like this, the Cutting the Curve, which I've been doing for five 00:27:39 years now, putting out multiple episodes with experts like Art that can help you farm better. Remember, we've got shortcut videos, 60 seconds or less, tips to help you farm 00:27:48 better. And then don't forget all the videos we do out in the field and some of our field days, and we're at places like Commodity Classic. 00:27:53 For crying out loud, we're everywhere. And then also do check out our new show, The Granary. It's filmed right here at my farm in Indiana. 00:27:59 One of these days, we might get Art here. Hang out in the granary, talk about ag stuff, hang out with the guys. We get done. Maybe we have an adult beverage or two. 00:28:07 Anyway, go check all that out, XtremeAg.farm. Go to our YouTube channel. Thank you very much for being here, Professor Graves. 00:28:13 Thanks, Damian. I appreciate you. Till next time, this is XtremeAg's Cutting the Curve. That's a wrap for this episode of Cutting the Curve. 00:28:20 Make sure to check out XtremeAg.farm for more great content to help 00:28:24.492 --> 00:28:27.752