Podcast: Generations - Farming Challenges and Opportunities Faced By The Next Generation of Farmers

00:00 Introducing Jordan Burko, extreme Ag member. That's who we're talking to Today, we're gonna hear a lot about Iowa farming, 00:04 and it's a really cool story for a young Gen Z person working in agriculture. Don't believe everything you've heard about that generation, 00:11 by the way, coming up in this episode of extreme Ag, cutting the curve, welcome To Extreme ags Cutting the Curve podcast, 00:17 where real farmers share real insights and real results to help you improve your farming operation. This episode is brought to you by Simon Innovation. 00:26 Protect your crops and maximize yield with a full lineup of innovative precision tools engineered 00:32 to enhance the efficiency and accuracy of your sprayer. Visit simon innovations.com and start getting more ROI out of your sprayer. 00:40 And now here's your host, Damien Mason. Hey there. Welcome to another fantastic episode of Extreme Ag Cutting the Curve. 00:47 I've got Mark Kouts, he's our friend and business partner. He's with Tiva Corporation. 00:50 You know about them C CATT and the sugars and all that stuff that Chad just gets almost giddy talking about. 00:55 Well, that's Mark Kouts, and we're happy to have him here. And Mark said, Hey, you know what? 00:58 There's a gal in agriculture you really need to have on your show, Jordan Burko. And I said, what are you talking about? 01:02 We know Jordan Burko. She's an extreme Ag member. I see her at our extreme ag field days. She's a northeast Iowa young lady working in agriculture 01:09 with her, uh, father, but also really taking over the operation in the last five years. It's a great story. And you're gonna hear from Jordan. 01:16 You might see her on social media. She's pretty active, but I don't know how she has time for that because she's also running a 10,000 acre operation, 01:22 keeping up with Burko sales, which sells equipment and about 15 other things. So we're gonna hear about Jordan 01:26 and her approach to farming. 29-year-old woman working in agriculture came back and joined the operation full-time five years ago. 01:32 You were 24 years old and you said, you know what, I'm, I'm plopping back in. You know how you hopped back in, you kind 01:38 of elbowed old man out. Tell us about that. Yeah, so I took a different approach to farming compared to probably most people my age. 01:46 I went to college for something else, was like, Hmm, this ain't really my thing. So I decided back in 2015 01:54 or 2016 to go back to college for agriculture. So I got my associate's degree in egg business and animal science. 02:02 And I worked for the farm during that time, but I wasn't really, I was just kind of the grunt worker, power wash and doing all the, the dirty jobs 02:09 and running equipment. So had my fair share of all that. So, um, we also have been very heavily in painting 02:16 for other businesses, so I would help with assist with all that painting. And then I met somebody 02:22 and they were in the military, so I moved outta state then that things did not work out. 02:27 So I came back in 2019 and I knew I had my degree in all this stuff and I knew I was confident 02:35 and I was very good at this stuff and I had potential. And I just started showing my father, Darren, that what I was capable of. 02:41 And he pretty much let the rains loose on me. And here I am, The situation with your father, uh, obviously he's, 02:49 he's got a pretty substantial operation going. And then his, uh, mid twenties daughter comes back. Uh, you know, and you were, you were around it. 02:57 You, it's not like you had never been there. Yeah. Uh, it's not like you were the estranged child that he didn't realize he had. 03:02 So you were around as year old growing up. Yeah. But you, you, many farms, the kid sort of rolls in there and Mark, uh, knows this. 03:10 He sees a lot of farming operations almost by default. Uh, well, I guess, you know, Junior's gonna be here. Junior always thought he was gonna be here. 03:17 Junior, always kind of yours was a more conscious decision. Um, I broke up with this dude in the military. 03:24 I'm coming back to farming. Is that what the call sounded like? Yeah. Um, I just, so, uh, I should back up. 03:31 I was always into showing livestock when I was younger and four H showed all across the Midwest. So the passion was there probably more 03:38 for the livestock side. But you know, when you're a young kid, you don't know what you wanna do. 03:42 And our operation was pretty large. We had 30 employees running around 'cause we were, we sold a lot. 03:48 We'd sell over a hundred tractors a year. Yeah. Um, we'd repaint 'em and go through all the engines and fix things. 03:54 So It was a hard job. Yeah. Substantial farming operation. Plus a couple of ancillary businesses. 04:00 But I want to hear about when you said, like I said, many times it's by default, junior never leaves. You kind of left, you were around it and you kind of left. 04:08 Did you call up Darren, your dad and say, dad, I made a decision. I'm come back and I'm not just gonna be a truck driver. 04:15 I'm come back and I'm gonna assume that, how did it go? How did, how, what did it sound like? It went really well. So he's always been very good about, 04:23 especially me being a woman. I've been involved in the ag industry for a while. I know there can be kind of some stereotypes, you know, 04:29 sometimes it's getting a lot better. But he was very easygoing with the whole process and was like, I trust you 04:36 and he's got a million things going on too. So he was okay with me taking over all the buying and do, I'm basically the face of the company. 04:44 I talk to everybody and kind of tell employees what to do. And so like that. And no, he was totally good with it. 04:50 So I respect him for letting me be able to just jump in like that. You know, I was gone for a year 04:56 and he was okay with, there was no grudges. He let me come back in. So he's been great about it. All right. I'm gonna, I'm gonna hear more about some 05:02 of those dynamics, but Mark Coots is the guy that said, Hey, you gotta get Jordan on air. 05:06 And I said, yeah, that's a great idea. And so why, what was it that made you think you've gotta get this girl on, on air, 05:12 uh, and uh, and do a show about your extreme ag member? Jordan? I just thought it's interesting the way 05:18 that she come back on the farm and that her dad allowed her to have, have the leeway to do what he did. 05:23 Is she, she makes all the decisions. She makes the fertilizer decisions, she makes the seed decisions, 05:29 she makes the planning date decisions. I mean, every decision she makes, uh, her dad's still around and she bounces stuff off her dad 05:35 and he's very active in it. But he's allowed her to have those. And that's, that's unique a lot I think in farming, 05:40 you know, for fathers to do that and, and stuff. And then on top of that, just how precise she is. I mean, I can tell you we mix up something 05:48 different for each field. She's got. Most farmers will say, Hey, I've got 7,000 acres of corn. 05:54 I want one mix for all 7,000 acres. Right? And Jordan's like, no, I have this field that needs this and this field that needs that. 06:00 So she's very precise in what she does. And I think that's, that is awesome for us. 'cause that's what we like to do. We like 06:07 to make sure we're doing the things properly. And that's the way Jordan operates. So we, we meshed really well because of that. 06:13 So I just think it's a unique situation. So you said before we went on air, you said, uh, Damien, one thing that I'm struck by is that she's a 29-year-old 06:22 and, uh, dad's letting it, and then you said, well, you know, let's face it, you know, so hit admit the she's a female. 06:29 Well, like Jordan said, you know, my, one of my older sisters worked in agriculture in the seventies, and certainly she has the stories of showing up at the farm 06:37 and being propositioned or, or disrespected or whatever. We've come a long way, you know, frankly, I, 06:43 I don't even perceive any of that. I mean, or it's so, so that's, that's not there. So the, the gender part of it, 06:49 I don't think is hardly a role anymore. I think the age part of it, to Mark's point, is we see joking, uh, memes or whatever on social media. 07:00 You know, the 90-year-old that's still running the combine and his 64-year-old son is sitting over there in a grain 07:05 cart and has never been allowed to plant the crop. There's this thing about the reluctance to hand over to the next generation regardless of gender. 07:13 Uh, you know, maybe in the old days it was only to the sun. That's not really as much the case anymore. 07:18 You know, look at like Danielle Matthews working alongside Kevin or whatever. But the thing is, it's a, 07:25 the testament isn't about gender, and I want cooch to speak to this then Jordan. The testament isn't about gender. 07:30 It's that, to your point, mark, granted she's been assertive, but also the dad gets some credit also. Like, you know what, you're right, Jordan, 07:40 you're a bright kid and also we're not gonna let you sink, but you sure as hell ready to swim. 07:45 I mean, that's really what you're talking about. Sure. It is. I mean, I, I have to deal with it. My own, uh, situation here with Caleb, I mean, 07:51 I've got my own son that I've turned over a, a chunk of what we do over to Caleb, but it took me some time to do that. 07:57 So you gotta respect that, you know, what goes on and look when they, when they deserve it, why wouldn't you do that? 08:03 And I think that's what Jordan did, and that's what Caleb has done. They have proven their self Yeah. To be worthy of that task. 08:10 I mean, she has improved yields on the farm. She has saved money by the way that she buys stuff. I mean, there's just many things that she's done 08:17 because like she said, her dad has got a million things to do just as I do. So when you've got somebody that you can trust like that, 08:23 yeah, that, to me, that's amazing. So what Was the first thing that you really took charge of Jordan when you came back five years ago? 08:29 It didn't, it, I mean, you gave me a list of bullet points of your, your management and or task list on the farm. 08:35 It's pretty significant. What was the first one that you took over when you came back? Oh, I don't know. I pretty much dove right 08:42 on in about everything. I mean, I would say the, one of the bigger ones was just the whole purchasing of everything. 08:48 You know, the seed and the fertilizer and the planning, the chemicals. There's a lot to it. 08:53 And just the whole inventory and making sure you got enough product there and creating all the prescriptions for everything as well 09:01 as running, you know, still running equipment. But I would say being the person that speaks to all the salespeople about this stuff was like 09:08 my first big dive in. And like he said, we have dramatically improved our yields since there's somebody here that can, you know, 09:15 a hundred percent pay attention to each field and be detail oriented like I am. So you meet with vendors, uh, and, 09:22 and there's somebody that's thinking, well, that means that she's gotta be the ball chopper. She's in here just beating people up on price. 09:28 But if it's a partnership, I think there's probably more to it than that. When you talk to somebody like Mark Cooch, you're like, 09:33 how can, it's not about me in here to be the haggle person. I'm not the purchasing agent just to haggle. 09:38 It's to get the right product in the right place. Yes. So which one's your strength? Is it the negotiating or the, or the right place, right. 09:45 Product, I would say the right place, right product. I, I own a business too, or a couple businesses, obviously. So I know the, the salespeople, they gotta make money too. 09:56 So I'm not gonna sit and beat them up. I mean, I've worked with Mark for a while. He knows. I might be like, can you wiggle the price a little bit? 10:02 But I'm not, at the end of the day, I'm not gonna beat them up. So, but when, for example, like when I shop around 10:07 for fertilizer, I have several different co-ops in this area that we have access to. 10:12 So I will compare, you know, and be like, well, this co-op's this, can you do this for me? 10:16 Or work on financing and payment terms. So that kind of stuff. So I would say I am pretty good at both. 10:23 But, uh, my, my specialty is placing the certain products in each field. So 10:28 Challenge on the handoff in a family business, which Mark Koch is second generation running, handing off to the third, presumably to Caleb, your, uh, 10:38 farming operations a little different. Your, your grandfather experienced some of the 1980s, and then, uh, your dad really took it and ramped it up. 10:46 So you can talk about whether, you know, it's second, third generation, but the, the real operation began one generation before. 10:51 There's a lot of pridefulness, but there's also a lot of crap. I'll tell you what, I don't want to turn stuff over 10:59 because I see how things could be. I think we, you know, I don't want to, I don't want to risk. You can see, I can understand that. 11:06 Like, Hey, I don't mind that the kid wants to be here, but if I let go of control, this thing could implode. There's some fear there. Yes. 11:14 Mark probably has that, like, yeah, Caleb's earned it and he's a smart young man. But there's that time when you're, when 11:19 before you're handing things off, am I right, mark, like some of a b***h if I hand this off and, and, 11:25 and this kid tanks it now I'm not, now it's not just him that fails. Mm-Hmm. He fails me. There's that concern. Yep. 11:31 I'm eating concern. Sure, there Is. I mean that's, yeah, Go ahead, mark. 11:34 Yeah, I mean, sure there is, I mean, on all that we have, you know, but I think that when they prove yourself, 11:39 you know, as a father, you, you got to acknowledge that, or they're just a hired hand. 11:44 And who wants to just be a hired hand if you're going to turn it over to the next generation? 'cause I don't want to do this till I'm 90 years old. 11:51 So, you know, you better start letting them make, make decisions and start doing some things early on so that they can get comfortable in doing, 11:56 and they're gonna screw up and Jordan's made mistakes and she'll make some more. And so do I still, but if you don't make 'em, then 12:02 how do you know what to do for the next time? But I can tell you what she told you is true. The very first time I went up there to meet them, 12:09 I sat down at the table with Jordan and we talked for an hour over her soil test and her fields and things, and her dad come in and shook my hand 12:16 and said hello, was there about five minutes and left. So, I mean, she definitely, uh, he definitely trust everything that she's doing 12:23 because he, he was there and introduced himself as courteous and then said, Hey, whatever 12:27 Jordan says, this is what we'll do. So, mm-Hmm. It's the absolute opposite, it sounds like, from the, uh, proverbial helicopter parent, Jordan. Is that right? 12:36 Yes. It's your old man. Uh, why don't you just, uh, do this, because we did this with, with Caleb 12:42 and, uh, the, the next generation of extreme ag. We did a series of four recordings. By the way, if you're listening to this and you're enjoying 12:47 it, you can go back and search. We called it Next Stream ag. And we talked to, uh, Mark's son, Caleb, as well 12:52 as Daniel Matthews, uh, Jackson, uh, Henderson, uh, Alexander, uh, out there in Maryland with Temple, and then, uh, Vern in Iowa. 13:01 And, um, uh, who am I missing? Uh, anyway, we talked to the next generation of agriculture and they really spoke a lot about 13:10 what it was like being in that role. So now do me this, what's your dad's strength and what's your dad's weakness? 13:16 Because obviously you, you must have complimented it. Oh, I would say his strength is, I mean, he's the hardest working guy I know. 13:24 He's very versatile. He basically, eighties were tough for grandpa, so things were not good. 13:31 So he took stuff over and he started a trucking company, and then he got into the sales dealership. 13:36 So he is multi, you know, he can do about everything. And he is very, he is a good entrepreneur. So, um, he's very open-minded, just like I am. 13:45 So I'd say his hard work ethic is his greatest strength and just let me do what I do now. Um, his weakness, I would say probably communication 13:54 is not always fantastic. So otherwise I don't really, you know, have too many weaknesses. 14:00 So we get along pretty good. The entrepreneur, you said it and you said, you said two words, versatility 14:06 and entrepreneurialism. And I think I, mark runs a business and has for a long, long time. 14:11 I think that there's something to that, and I'm not being mean, but I, I've, I've recorded episodes about the fact 14:16 that if farmers don't have the entrepreneur Gene, then they're just, they're equipment operators. But the entrepreneur Gene is one that usually then you say, 14:24 for us to grow, for us to expand, I need to be able to let go of control. And I think when she said versatility, yeah, 14:30 hard worker, well get it. Lots of people are hard workers in agriculture. The, I think the thing 14:35 that she just said about the strength was the entrepreneur and the versatility. Am I right, mark? Oh, I think so. I mean, you know, obviously they, 14:41 they have a lot of different entities. So, you know, farming is just one aspect of it. So it makes them be more versatile, more revenue, income, 14:48 so you can do more things and not, not be be so dependent on one operation that way. You know, so why wouldn't you? 14:54 Diversification of revenue. All right, let's go back then. Let's talk about your strengths since we just did your dad. 14:59 Uh, I'm gonna read a whole bunch of stuff here. I want you to give me an A plus to an F minus. All right, Jordan. Okay. Agronomy. 15:07 A, a plus A plus B, C, D. Oh, nice. Remember, we, we wear, we all wear a lot of hats. And I think it's very important. 15:15 I wrote about this in one of my books. I've been running my own business, by the way, today. Exciting begins my 31st year, 30 years. Mm-Hmm. 15:21 Since I quit corporate America. I think to, to be successful, one must have, uh, enough awareness of what they're, what they're ex, 15:30 what they excel at, and what they frankly struggle with, right? So that's what we're doing here. All right. 15:35 Give yourself a letter. Grade. I mean, Koch and I can do this. All right, I'll do it. I'll say it. We'll go first. Alright, mark. 15:41 Um, um, people management, probably for me it's about a c because I've been self-employed for 30 years. 15:48 I'm much more like, I'll do it, I'll do it, I'll do it, versus I'll hand it over. Um, creativity, I'm probably an A, right? 15:54 I've been creating my own thing for a long time so I can go through and get myself letter grades and all these things. 15:58 Financials a, um, people skills. Sometimes I just, uh, I'm a little, I don't know. Sometimes I'm also impatient, so I don't know. 16:06 I'll probably give myself a b anyway. Mark, what do you give yourself a couple of those? What, what, what are you, where's your A pluses 16:11 and where are your F minuses? Oh, I think my as are, uh, you know, people management and, you know, working with customers and things like that. 16:18 I think guys understand that I, I I'm there for them and not just for myself. Where I'm bad at is really letting control 16:25 and letting go of things, you know, and, and not being micromanaging, you know, on top of stuff when people are doing a good job, you know? 16:32 So, yeah, I mean, there's, there's plenty of things. Financials, I've always been pretty decent. My dad's always taught me, well, 16:37 I think I'm a pretty decent sales guy, you know? Uh, I know Temple and Chad and all say I'm the worst salesman that they talk to. 16:44 But I, sometimes I take that as a, as a compliment. 'cause I, I truly want to do what's best for the farmers. So I, I give myself an a in that, in that realm, you know? 16:52 Yeah. But sometimes sales, that doesn't mean, uh, doesn't mean like something out of a movie. Sometimes sales means I'm, 16:58 there's a sales for the long term. And that means you, you, you sometimes don't take deals that you think this isn't gonna be good for the customer. 17:05 And that way that customer comes back next year, in the year, next year. Yeah. That, That's exactly, I'll give you another one. 17:10 By the way, when you talked about your father's versatility, I think if you keep, if you keep it strung together 17:14 for three decades, you must have some adaptability and versatility. I'll give myself an A on that, 17:18 and I'll give myself, I, I'll give myself probably a d on process. That's one of the big ones. 17:24 Like engineering types love process. Well, now we'll do this and we'll do this and this. And I, and I'm always like, I, there's what we want. 17:33 Hell, I don't know. Just, we'll, we will get there. I, I don't care about the process. I wanna talk about it. You, you geeking me out with this engineer stuff. All right. 17:40 Now let's go back to you agronomy from an A plus to an F minus. Where are you? B? Okay. Business. 17:47 Business, uh, management. A Equipment. Well, you mean operating or Working? Operating it, 17:56 managing it. Um, uh, yes. There's a lot of, there's a lot of moving parts on the farming operations. 18:01 I would say. You can ask our employees. I'm a very good operator. I would say a, when it comes 18:06 to working on 'em, I know very little. So C perfect because I have other stuff going on that's, I got guys I trust up. I 18:14 Think if you're about, you're probably worse than that. I'm probably a DI, I know I could, I could mechanic, I could mechanic myself off of a desert island. 18:21 If I was stranded out there and I had to fix the boat, I'd figure that out. But it's never, I, I hate that I, I never wanted 18:27 to be a mechanic in my life. So I appreciate that. That was not my thing either. Alright, Mon business businesses not always the same 18:33 as financials, because sometimes businesses like you talk about dealing with vendors or looking at, uh, that 18:39 pure financials, financials management. Where are you A I'm pretty strong at that, I would say. Okay. Uh, facilities management. 18:48 B, You haven't given yourself, you gave yourself a C on mechanicing, and you probably should have given yourself a D 18:53 minus, but, all right, we're gonna keep going. We're gonna find, we're gonna find around the farming operation, uh, delegation. 19:01 Um, what do you, what would you consider, what do you mean by delegation Exactly? 19:06 Delegation of tasks. Are you, are you, are you, are you absolutely, uh, are you absolutely good at managing the delegation of tasks? 19:14 Oh, I would say c sometimes I do have little issues letting go of stuff. Mm-Hmm. You know, I wanna be in charge sometimes. 19:22 Uh, ongoing learning. Uh, are you a, are you, you, you've gotten this far. Are you, do you consider yourself a voracious learner? 19:29 Are you, do you, are you still reading? Are you still keeping up? Are you giving yourself an a on the effort? 19:33 Are you giving yourself a, a lesser grade on the effort? A b I'm very open-minded. I wanna learn. 19:39 And as like Chad and Temple, they're nickname is Send It. I'm about the same way. I'm all about learning 19:44 and trying out of the box kind of stuff. But do I necessarily always have the time to research? No. So probably a B 19:52 Got it. All right. Where do you think you're a d meaning I would, meaning you're sitting there at 29 19:58 and I know we've all been in our twenties. Mark and I are not anymore. We don't think we, we don't think we 20:03 have any chinks in the armor. And then at some point, maybe by the time you're 30, certainly by the time you're 40, you start to realize, 20:10 my God, I got a couple chinks in the armor. There's, there's a couple things. There's a couple things. I'm, what are you not good at? 20:15 I would go back to the equipment side. I'm a good operator, but I don't know how to fix stuff. So, well 20:22 That, that, I don't think that if you're running a, a multiple businesses, that you're being a mechanic. Uh, we make the jokes that Kelly Garrett, we have 20:29 to sometimes show him what a wrench does. Uh, so that's fine. I know what a Wrench does. What, 20:34 what, what, what else are you, what do you think, what do you think is the challenge for you in the next three years, four years, five years, 20:40 by the time you hit your mid thirties? What do you think? This is one thing that I've got to get better at. 20:46 Maybe grain marketing, for instance. Who does that? Oh, Yeah. I would love to get better on grain marketing. I think. Who 20:51 Does it right now? I do it. Uh, my dad does. So I should go back a little bit. So my brother and I have a company called 20:59 Burko, J and D Eggs. So we have our own acres, and then we also have Burko Farms. Just this year, me 21:05 and Dustin are now, um, co-partners with our father. So we own part of the company now, but Darren still does most of the marketing for Burko Farms. 21:14 But I do a hundred percent for me and my brother's company. So I actually just met with the bank of the other day 21:19 and he was amazed at how good I have done. But I know there's a lot of room for improvement. I'd love to go take classes and learn more 21:25 because it's so confusing. And it's, it's a gamble. Farming's gamble in general. So I know I'm not great at it. 21:31 And I have a lot of room to You Don't hire, you don't have outside hired help on marketing of commodities. 21:37 So we go through a, can I, I don't know if I can say companies, but, um, I, I gave you permission. You can say whatever you want. 21:44 Okay. So we go through mid Iowa co-op, and we do have a guy there that we work with. He calls us once a day usually 21:50 and tells us, this is what the markets are doing. This is the best place to go with your corn beans. And we kind of go from there. 21:56 We don't necessarily have somebody though that sits and watches just for us. You know, me and my dad have to do that on our spare time. 22:03 We look at our phones and see what the market's doing. So that's basically, we we're pretty much, we do it all ourselves. 22:10 Got it. By the way, I, I would have a higher professional, I'd make this point all the time. I have a degree in agricultural economics. 22:16 I took the commodity of marketing classes. I got a C in this, given yourself a grade. I didn't have to, the professor did that. 22:22 I was surprised I got a CI hated it. I found it tedious, boring. If I, I've made this point all the time. 22:26 If I had to, if my job when I, from now college till now was to sit and look at a computer screen 22:31 and get excited about a 3 cent move in the soybean complex, I would take the nine millimeter outta my cupboard right 22:36 here and eat a bullet. I'm telling you, I can't stand it. Yeah. Anyway, enough about that. 22:41 Mark Coutts, when you look at a 29-year-old and, uh, and, and running, running the business 22:46 and all that, you probably, you see a lot of farming operations. What, what's the one thing that you're like, Hey, 22:51 here's the one thing that I think Jordan will grow into, or one thing that if, if, if, if Jordan was my kid, 22:55 I would say, here's the only thing that you're lacking. Because there's, there's probably, there's, there's this thing you're like, man, you got a lot 23:01 of stuff going on, or not lacking you sometimes. Here's where you should hire help done. Like, I, I would say on the grain marketing, 23:08 I would never try and take that on myself. Mm-Hmm. Yeah. I think that she's doing a pretty good job of everything. 23:13 You know what, what I've met her for, I mean, she's learning more about the agronomy side of things where she'll get to where she'll be able 23:20 to read her own soil test and do her own thing. She pretty well knows that already now. But she'll only get better at that with more time. 23:27 And I'm like, you Damien, on the, the marketing side. To me, to me that's the most hard thing in farming to do. 'cause you beat yourself up today. 23:34 You, you sell too cheap or you, you didn't hit the highs or whatever else. It's the worst thing in farming it probably beat yourself 23:40 up more than anything. So that one would be one that would be interesting. You know, I don't think there's a lot of farmers 23:46 that take advantage of that. You know, a lot of 'em want to do it. And, and that's a control issue for all of us. 23:51 You know, I don't know that I would either, you know, in it. But that would be one for sure that, that I think 23:56 that any farmer could do. I don't care if you're 29 or you're 60, you know, so. Yeah. Yeah. I, I think there's a lot of money 24:01 that gets left on the table with, uh, uh, bad marketing decisions or, or worse yet stubbornness. Like, oh, I don't need any, you know, uh, I don't need 24:10 to hire any professional help on that. I mean, it's, I think there's, I think there's a lot of money that, again, if I were, if I were in 24:17 an active farmer, I would, I would hire professional consultation on marketing of the commodities, because I think it's that important. 24:23 And combining it with your crop insurance, et cetera. So tell me about what you're doing with Mark Coots. You've, uh, you, you've got a 24:31 bunch of stuff going with Tiva. Tell us what you're doing. So I've been working with Mark 24:35 for the past few years, I would say. Um, we've been, I work corn and soybean farmer, so we haven't furrow on our planters. 24:42 We started that about two years ago from now. So we've been using a lot of his products, whether it's just your Micros seacat complex, 24:51 just sort all sorts of different stuff. And, um, then we followed up with the two by two. We put stuff in that, in the planter as well for corn 24:58 and soybeans and seeing success with that. And then we come back and si we sidedress our corn instead of y dropping, 25:06 we'll put stuff in there as well. And then when we foliar feed stuff, like during, um, we're doing our post spray 25:11 or when we're going out there with fungicide, we've been spraying products. And this year I decided I'm gonna try to do the NCGA. 25:19 I got hail on the storm, so we'll see if I do it or not. 'cause the leaves are pretty tattered up and stuff. 25:24 But that's my luck my first year, I think. I'm not, I'm not the agronomic. I always wanted to be an agronomist Jordan. Yeah. 25:30 But, uh, and I was in the soil judging and all the extreme ag guys pick on me because I was telling 'em 25:34 that I would finish ninth in the nation in the National Soil judging competition in, in 1987. 25:39 That was before you were born. Uh, anyway, I wanted to be an agronomist. Uh, I, it was too much science. 25:45 So, uh, I can tell you though, agronomically, I don't think you usually set corn yield records in a field that's been hailed on. 25:53 That's, I do know that aggro. Yeah. Yep. So I had that bad luck. We'll see what it looks like here in a couple weeks. 26:01 Give some time. But then, um, also got two fields. I'm specifically going all out. I mean, I'm gonna have to have a very good yield 26:09 to make a return on investment. But we're doing a, those Two, those are your two, those are your two 26:13 high yield trial. Uh, as, as Chad says, remember he's never had any failures. He just had experiments that didn't work out. 26:19 Yep, yep. So I got, I got two soybean fields, though. They're looking phenomenal. So it's kind of my, there's no national soybean contests 26:27 there is for certain companies, but I'm trying it on my own experiments, just seeing how far I can get with all this stuff. So, 26:35 So, uh, if you got the 10,000 acres that you're farming in Iowa, and you've also got some farming interests in Missouri, 26:41 you're not as involved in that. You told us. So, uh, across the, uh, the acres like Kelly, you know, and the extreme ag folks, they say, 26:49 we think there should be a certain number of acres that are truly, uh, a learning, a learning lab. And you've got a few of those fields 26:56 that are your learning labs. If you, if you're over your skis financially like app, we're never gonna make a, we not, 27:02 we did not make a return on this. That's okay. This was a learning lab. So how many acres do you have in learning labs? 27:08 Well, with Mark, I've got about 200 acres worth of learning in four different fields. Two fields that are soybeans and two fields are corn. 27:17 And then, like I said, I use a lot of his products just trying different things with like sea cat and the sugars and all that stuff. 27:24 Just, you know, we're leaving strips. You know, I might have a hundred acre farm, but we'll eat 20 acres that has nothing, 27:30 you know, just to do a check. So I am pretty, a lot of our fields all have experiments on 'em, but they're realistic experiments. 27:38 So, you know, you're gonna try to make a return on investment on 'em. I'm not spending all that big bucks to 27:44 just blow money out the door. So What do you think we're gonna find out, mark, on the, on the learning, uh, the, the test, the test fields? 27:53 Well, I think we're gonna learn a lot. We're gonna have some failures and we're gonna have some successes there. 27:57 And that's what we had last year. Whether we've done trials like this every year with Jordan, you know, on our farm, and we do with most of our guys, 28:04 but the, the four that she talked about, these are our NCGA and things. So we did kind of go above and beyond. 28:10 But we're hoping to take, okay, hey, this Foer spray really did us a good job here and there and here, and it didn't over there. 28:17 So what can we learn from that to move to our regular production and things like that. And I think we have done that. 28:23 So many of the things that we did on her regular fields this year, we learned from the two prior years 28:28 that we had had success doing the things. You know, so that's what you do, those 200 acres for you, you do 'em to try to find out, okay, this is 28:35 what I can use on my regular production farm that makes sense. It's economical and that I can move forward with. 28:41 And so I think we'll have some pretty good successes. I mean, if, you know, if you see some of the pictures of, you know, of some of the stuff that Jordan has sent through, 28:48 and I've been up there on her farm a couple times this year. You know, just the differences of 28:53 where she leaves those strips versus where we've done different rates, you know, lots of different things. 28:57 We're gonna learn a lot of good things, you know, and the good thing is we're gonna learn some stuff that we don't need to do again too. 29:02 You know, and that's all part of it. So, Yeah. I, I, I think that's, you're gonna, you're gonna learn some things that didn't work and it works 29:09 and it didn't work badly enough that you're like, yeah, we don't need to do that again. Right. That's, that's okay. 29:14 That's, that's, that's kind of, it takes some, it takes some backbone to Mm-hmm. To say, we're willing to flop on this thing completely. 29:21 Um, what have you in five years, the stuff, speaking of like his products and these learning labs, gimme a couple of big bullet points, big takeaways in your, 29:27 in your five years back run the farm that like, yeah, last year we did this, so give me, uh, maybe one per year of big takeaways that you're like, oh, 29:36 aha, glad we did that. Um, so I've had very good success with this product called Accelerate F on our soybeans. 29:43 I've sprayed that and it's, it's made a huge, I mean, I almost all of our acres are getting accelerate f now, basically. 29:52 That's how confident I am in that product. So that's been very successful. Is it Foliar fertility product? 29:57 Yeah, so it put it on, on the soybeans micro in our stages. Mo mostly a micro, what is it? 30:04 It's a whole mix. Okay. And, okay, so there's a product, gimme another big aha takeaway 30:09 that you've learned in your, uh, in your trials. Just going back to the basics with Mark, you know, he's been, everybody wants to talk about, I call snake oils, 30:17 but he's very, been big on selling the micros to us, which isn't always maybe a big money maker to a company, but he's been very big at looking at your soil samples. 30:26 I pull plants, tissue samples. So we look at that and we evaluate and we're like, you know, you're really lacking boron. 30:32 So I've been putting boron in, for example, on fungicide, and I'll pull a tissue sample before we spray that 30:38 and I'm de deficient in it. And then once we spray it, I'll go back out there, say a week later, and I'm sufficient enough in it, you know, 30:44 so he's been very big, you know, your zinc, manganese, he's been very good at helping us with that and improving our yields. 30:50 Jordan, there's, uh, I used the term snake oil, which is in the last five years, been, uh, since you came back 30:56 to the farm, been generally tossed at the category of biologicals. Mm-Hmm. Mark's Mark Coots 31:02 and Teva Corporation aren't in the biological space. And, and God knows, 1 million companies are actually, I think it's about 1200. 31:09 I, uh, according to a graphic I saw last year, it's about 1200 companies. They're everywhere. Mm-Hmm. 31:14 Um, there, there, there's a, there's a lot of promise. It holds a lot of promise even to maybe supplant some chemistry. 31:18 Yep. You're the generation that's supposed to be embracing them, whereas the, the 78-year-old that's still out there and not letting his kid do the 31:25 planting, my god, man, snake oil. Where are you on the biological mindset? We've tried, we're we tried some, 31:33 we still got some out there. I'm still trying to get a grasp on it too, just because like you said, there's 31:37 so many different companies out there that are selling it, and I don't think a lot, a lot 31:41 of 'em are not what they really are. You know, I think there needs to be more reg, what should I say, regulation on biologicals. 31:50 'cause I think about anybody can go out back and say, they mixed up this concoction and here you go. So I've been very specific in talking 31:57 to others about which ones I should use. So I'm still trying to get a grasp on it as well. And, and, and you know what, that's great 32:05 because, uh, we, we all are, and those that are open minded, and I think there's a lot of promise. 32:10 Uh, I just think there's a lot of, there's some chaff to be sorted through. Is that the right way? Mark, 32:14 to, you know, you've been in this game a Long time. Sure. We've been, we, we started with biologicals in 79 32:17 and we still have biologicals. We sell, but they have their place and they're where they're gonna have the most success. 32:25 You know, they're not for every, uh, uh, situation yet. But look, technology is gonna get us there. It is the way farming has gone, we've went 32:33 through mechanization age, we've went through the chemical error, and we're into the biological error now. 32:38 So we have to embrace it and we have to understand it. But it's not the answer to everything right now. One day it may be, and look, these, a lot 32:46 of these companies are coming up with a lot of good different things, but there's a lot of them that, that work in the vegetable world 32:52 that will not work in the row crop world. And that's where we have, that's where we, a lot of times I think we, we mess up on what we do. 32:59 You know, there's a lot more row crop acres than there is vegetable acres. And so, you know, but look, I believe in biologicals. 33:05 I just believe they have their place and their time when they should be used. And, um, you know, and go from there 33:11 and be, you know, there's, so, like you said, there's 1200 out there. Look, when we started in 1979 when my dad 33:17 and I started this company in 1979, there was probably five biological companies in the US Mm-Hmm. 33:23 And now there's like you said, 1200. So you really have to understand the product you're getting, what bacteria is in there, 33:29 what's the plate count per milliliter, you know, all these things, what's their function? So there's a lot of education 33:35 and I think we're still learning a lot of that, you know, so, And I sh I wanted to mention too, like, as I said earlier, 33:42 go back to the basics. I feel like that's where you need to start. You'll get a lot of salespeople come in 33:46 and try to throw you all this stuff at you. Well, it's not gonna work if your other main priorities are not functioning for that plant. 33:53 If you don't have enough nitrogen or P or k, I feel like that's not, it's not gonna benefit you anyway. 33:59 So that's kind of my take on it. I wanna make sure everything else is right before I full dive into that. 34:06 Got it. I, uh, I, I, I think that we're all kind of on the same page. None of us are anti, none of us are calling snake oil. 34:14 Some of us are saying it's a, it's a, it's right now it's, I compared it to, I'm from Indiana. 34:19 I go to the Indianapolis 500 every year. Indianapolis 501st ran in 1911. It was a challenge to automobile manufacturers to say, which 34:27 of you can build a car that will go 500 miles and do it in the fastest time? Why was it held in Indiana? 34:33 'cause there was a hundred plus automobile manufacturers in the state of Indiana back then. 34:37 Now there's a couple, right? Nobody thinks of Indiana. That's where biologicals are right now. We need that 8,500 of biologicals. 34:44 Which of you is gonna prove yourself that can go 500 miles and do it in the right. That's where I think we are. 34:49 And, and it's an, it's an interesting time. 'cause you're saying, well, I guess in 110 years that's where we came with the automobile. 34:54 Well, that's where we are going. And, and Mark's fold that on from mechanization to the chemical era to the biologicals. 35:00 It's a great promise. We're also, what else excites you about the future, Jordan? By the time you're kouts age in my age, you don't have 35:06 as much excitement about the future. Like, ah, hell, I don't know. He just says, I don't wanna work until I'm 90. 35:10 I wanna hand this over to Caleb. That's where he is. Oh, wow. What excites, what excites you about the future of agriculture? 35:16 There's a lot to excite me. I mean, I can go, I'm not, I don't have any kids yet myself, but I'm actually, I'm very excited 35:22 for one day when I do have children and being able to pass that on and watch them grow and learn, and hopefully they wanna be in agriculture. 35:29 If they don't, I'm not gonna be mad at all. But I'm pretty excited for that. And just to, hopefully I wanna continue to grow and expand. 35:36 I think the whole technology world is pretty interesting as well in farming. And just seeing the whole yield bump rise as we continue 35:44 to go up the ladder, I think is, is what I'm pretty much excited about. Mark, you and I see all the stuff that we're supposed 35:52 to be concerned about the next generation. I think I am in general, when I see what's, uh, happening on college campuses 35:57 or some of those things that I, I, I don't fully understand, uh, or kids that think they're cats, 36:02 but I don't have that problem with the next generation of agriculture. Are you in the same boat? Like, 36:06 I might look at society in general and see kids that think they're cats and, and, and be completely like weirded out by it. 36:12 But when I look at the next generation of agriculture, I think we're pretty good hands. Yeah, I think so too. I think they're adapting a lot 36:18 better than probably what we will because they've grown up with this technology. They like technology 36:22 and so they adapt a lot quicker than we do. And you know, and look, most of the time, uh, farm guys, farm kids do not have to have a work ethic. 36:30 Like you said, you grow up on the farm, you have one. So if you don't, you, you don't get to stay around very long, you know? 36:36 So, uh, I think you're right. I think in the agricultural side, you know, you've got, it's a lot more family oriented 36:42 and it's, uh, there's a lot of pluses to, you know, what goes on there. So I would agree with that. So, 36:47 All right, Jordan, get me outta here. Uh, we said this was introducing to Jordan Burko, extreme Ag member and, uh, 36:53 and Iowa Farm, uh, uh, farmer, uh, next gen. What, what did the, what did we not ask you? What did we not cover that you need to tell me 37:01 and not just telling me, you're telling everybody that's listening to this, the thousands of people in agriculture are listening 37:05 to this tens of thousands. Oh, I got quite a few things. I mean, I would just say be open-minded to everything. 37:12 I mean, you look at my background and my past, I came kind of out of the blue and here I am running a full-blown company. 37:18 Be open-minded to your children and listen to them because you want them to succeed as well. If you don't let them, if you're, you know, 37:24 if you're a father and you're got a 30-year-old kid and you're not letting them take stuff over, once you get older, that kid's gonna be lacking failing 37:32 because you would, would not let the rains loose on him. And I would just say, just be open-minded or her, 37:37 Or her or Her, yes. And wanting to like learn about everything. Just take, you know, just listen to everybody around you. 37:44 Take as much knowledge in as you can. Mark's been awesome to learn from extreme ag guys. I met them back in I think 2021 at a farm deal. 37:52 And I've learned so much from them by just listening to their videos. So it's been a great experience so far. 37:59 I think that's, we're gonna leave it right there. She just wraps it up for us. Her, his name is Mark Ktz, TIVA Corporation, 38:05 business partner of Extreme Ag. Awesome dude. Out of somewhere in southern Missouri. I still haven't been there. Uh, the only town I can ever 38:10 think of down there is like Cape Gerardo, but that's not where you are. That is where I'm at, so, well, there you 38:14 Go. See, anyway, uh, you can go and check out their products or line of products and they've, we've done literally, 38:21 we've done at least a dozen different recordings with me and Mark at different places. 38:24 Commodity Classic at Field days and at the, at the guy's farm. So go check it out. Um, uh, 38:29 and you'll hear endlessly, Matt Miles and Chad Henderson, uh, adore my, uh, mark Coutts, uh, me, not so much. 38:35 I tolerate 'em anyway. And also, uh, mark sponsored those four episodes, special episodes we did with Next Extreme Ag. 38:40 If you like talking to the next generation of agriculture. Go, go look those up@theextremeag.farm site. 38:44 It's really cool. It was me talking to the next generation, like I said, all the extreme ag guys kids. 38:49 And we talked a lot about important stuff, about the handoff, about transition, about the things they lack, 38:53 all the stuff we just covered with Jordan right there. Jordan Burko, Iowa farmer, Northeast Iowa Farmer, extreme Ag member, awesome woman in agriculture 39:00 and bringing up the next generation. She's got one flaw. This is what she didn't say. She's got one terrible character flaw. She's a horse woman. 39:08 And if you know anything about me and my commentary on that, four women, anyway, I'll just leave it right there. 39:16 I'll just leave it right there. Anybody that's ever dated one knows what I'm talking about. Till next time, I'm Dam Mason. 39:20 Thanks for joining us here at Extreme Ag. Cutting the curve. Alright, thank You, you, that's a wrap 39:25 for this episode of Cutting the Curve. Make sure to check out Extreme Ag Farm for more great content to help you squeeze more profit out 39:33 of your farming operation. Cutting the curve is brought to you by Simon Innovations. Don't let your sprayer's limitations hold you back. 39:40 Visit simon innovations.com and upgrade your sprayer's capabilities now.