00:00 Do you find yourself at a threshold? Are you at a point where you're kind of plateauing? We're talking in this episode about how to break 00:07 through your own yield threshold strategies for doing so with Matt Miles and Kelly Garrett. 00:12 Welcome to Extreme ags Cutting the Curve podcast, where real farmers share real insights and real results to help you improve your farming operation. 00:22 This episode of Cutting the Curve is brought to you by cloth where machines aren't just made. 00:27 They're made for more with a wide range of tractors, combines, foragers and hay tools. Cloth is a family business just as driven, demanding, 00:35 and dedicated as yours. Go to cloth.com and start cutting your curve with their cutting edge equipment. 00:41 And now here's your host, Damien Mason. Hey there. Welcome to another fantastic episode of Extreme Ice. 00:47 Cutting the curve. We got a great topic for you. It spawned in late fall by Matt Miles. He talked about being kind of at a plateau. 00:57 His yields were good above county average. And it's not that you wanna run to the coffee shop and brag about that. 01:03 His point was like, it seems like I've stagnated a little bit here. I'm really happy, 01:08 but I'm wondering, I'm not seeing the rate of gain this happens when you take your farming game to the next level. 01:15 You go up, you get better at what you do. That's great. That's why you're here at Extreme Ag. But then maybe you kind of hit a threshold. 01:22 How do you get past that threshold? So that's what we're talking about here today. 'cause the point is you can keep doing new stuff, 01:28 cool stuff, exciting stuff. And eventually, finally, it's not the new and exciting stuff. And you may have to take it to the next level. 01:34 Kelly Garrett is talking about some things that he says, I didn't even do this. I didn't even know what this was five years ago. 01:40 That's my new strategy. And then Matt Miles is gonna lead us off 'cause he's the one that introduced this topic. 01:45 You're not unhappy at 81 bushel beans, but you feel like you've kind of plateaued there. And now you're saying, what's my ary to George W. Bush word? 01:54 What's my ary to get to the next level? Yeah. So you, you know, and this is a really tough, tough subject, you know, 02:03 'cause you have to stay involved and be involved in your farming operation to even know, you know, why is this happening? 02:10 And, and it's always easier to, to bring your yields up from 60 to 70 or 60 to 80. But there's, there becomes a point on that, on that incline 02:21 to where, you know, you start, you start running into walls. And that's what I've been seeing this year. 02:27 I, I was actually looking at some of the, you know, the tests and stuff we've done that, that weren't productive on my farm. 02:33 Uh, we're gonna do 'em again. You know, it it, because it don't work one year, don't mean we're not gonna try it again. 02:38 But what I was seeing in the trend was my 10 year average and my five year average was pretty close to the same. 02:44 So 10 years ago, you know, we, we take soybeans for instance. We got our soybean yield up 02:50 to say 78 bushel average and five. And then you go to my five year average, and it was like 80, 79. 02:58 I don't, I don't remember the exact numbers now. And I'm like, you know, that's a bushel difference in 10 years worth of, you know. 03:04 And so then we looked at a two year average and we said, okay, that it's better, you know, in a two year average. 03:10 And I attribute that to exactly what we're gonna talk about today, which is when you get to a wall, how do you fix that wall? 03:19 Now there's not a lot of new, uh, you know, fertilizer just take, uh, anhydrous because Kelly uses that. Anhydrous is the same anhydrous it was 20 years ago. Yep. 03:30 So we're not improving anhydrous. Yep. What we've gotta figure out to do is how to improve our nitrogen placement or where our fertility's gonna go. 03:40 And Kelly's gonna get deeper into this 'cause he is way smarter at it than I am. But something that we didn't, I didn't even know, you know, 03:47 five years ago was base saturation. I didn't even know what that meant. It wasn't on my soil sample. 03:51 So it wasn't something I looked at. And I think in today's world, we've gotta read soil samples different than we did 03:58 even three years ago. Uh, you know, this concept come out. But now we're starting to see the, 04:03 the benefits that are read from it. Kelly, before we do the strategies I want to, because we've, we've covered, you know, we get to 04:11 where we cover stuff and I feel like I'm, uh, I'm, I'm privy to this and I, I think, man, this is kind of a great analogy. 04:20 You and I talked about the going to the gym, you know, the person that uh, goes to the gym regularly is gonna have a hard time 04:29 seeing a big bump. Whereas the person that doesn't go to the gym, you start putting them on a program, Hey, 04:35 we're gonna have you on the bike and then we're gonna work out with a personal trainer. You're gonna do some weights. 04:39 They'll see a huge bump in that first year. Right? Right. And, you know, Matt played football. 04:45 There was always that story of the, you know, the, the, the strong kid that, you know, that was the farm boy that made into a football player. 04:51 He had huge progress his first year or two. But then making big improvements between year five and six is a hell of a lot harder than making improvements 04:58 between year zero and year one. So it's that sort of low hanging fruit. We're gonna assume that even our, uh, you know, 05:06 our people we're talking about that are at county average, they've gotten their first easy bump. 05:10 Right? So kind of then that's where you're talking about is, is that first easy bump? 05:13 Yeah. We started using fertilizer, we started using whatever this thing is, this new product, then it becomes harder 05:20 to get the next bump and the next bump. Yes. It, it's a lot easier to go from doing one chin up to doing five than it is to go from doing 15 05:29 to 20 in a set. You know what I mean? Because you're, you, those, those first gains are very easy. Um, 05:36 And that's what we're talking about. It, it was those when, when Matt's Matt's first 10 bushels of, of soybeans were easier than his his second 10. 05:45 Yes. You know, and, and, and that that is something that, you know, the, the new listener or the new, the the person wanting 05:54 to break into high yields, uh, or, or do better, that's something that they, they sometimes shy away from. 06:00 I've had people ask me before, well, should I use mega grow? Uh, is this PGR something 06:06 that will help me as an average grower? Or is it just something that helps people that are more advanced? 06:11 And, and my question is absolutely it will help. Or my answer, pardon me? My answer is absolutely it'll help you. 06:17 Um, 'cause it's low hanging fruit. The first couple things you do, you're gonna see tremendous gains from. 06:23 And then there's a law diminishing returns where instead of getting five to six bushel 06:29 and soybeans on something, now you're gonna get two to three because you're stacking these things together. 06:34 And, uh, you know, it isn't about, it's not about competing against your neighbor. For me, it's competing about what I think is possible 06:42 and getting as close to perfect, or at least reaching my potential for that year. Every year is a little bit of 06:48 a moving target with the weather. Of course, you know, for us being dry land, predominantly dry land, 06:53 and the, the competition for me is as close to perfect. I, it's like golf. If I was golfing with Damien 07:00 and Matt, I'm not competing against Damien and Matt. I'm competing against trying to hit a hole in one 18 times. Basically. That's a perfect round of golf. 07:08 Yeah. Would you break clubs like I do out of anger? Or would you be more methodical? Um, I think I methodically break clubs out of anger. 07:20 I, I just get to laughing at myself because I'm screwed up and I get like, I just hit that shot. 07:24 Why can't I do that again? Why can't I repeat that? And planting corn is the same way. Why can't I do that again like I did before? 07:31 So let's talk about strategies, Matt. Um, I mean I, that's why I spawned this. You said, how is it that 10 years ago, I'm, I wasn't all 07:40 that much better five years ago or now than I was five years ago. And then I was 10 years ago, you were sort 07:45 of a little bit bumming out that you hadn't moved the needle as much in the last year or two or three as you had 10 07:52 or 12 years ago. And that's what spawned this long. It's like, because it gets harder to do. Your first bumps are your easy 07:58 bumps and then it gets harder. So what are you thinking now strategically that you're going to change? 08:04 Well, I'm, I'm actually going to go back to the basics of where I was, what I was doing five years ago. 08:11 Now, my two year average has improved. Sam was on that text thread that we were on. He said, well, look at your two year average. 08:17 And so I went back, just did a two year average. And yes, I've made some small increases. Now the big increases I think are gone. 08:25 I don't think K either one are gonna see double dig digit numbers much very seldom out of something that we're changing 08:34 until we find the right thing. But what we, I'll give you a prime example, um, from my, from my blinders that I put on, I'll give you two actually. 08:43 One, I had a guy come in four or five years ago and he, he told me I needed to have cal more calcium in my soil. 08:50 Well, my pH was six seven and I literally almost asked him to leave the room because in my dad's opinion, if he was still alive, 09:00 if you, if you limed or put out cal acidic lime or some type of calcium on a six, seven pH I was looking at the pH then you were just probably the 09:10 stupidest farmer in the world. Number two, uh, you know, I learned this fairly recently and a hundred pounds of murated potash, which is what, 09:19 that's all we can get here. There's 43 pounds of salt in a hundred pounds of murated potash. 09:25 So the salt counter effects the potassium. So where I'm looking at now is, is, I don't know, instead of farming harder, farming smarter, uh, if 09:36 that makes any sense, you know, take the money. If, if a ton of ated pot is $500 and a ton of, uh, just say potassium sulfate as a thousand, 09:46 I'm using round numbers, put out half as much potassium sulfate, you'll get a better return on the potassium piece. 09:53 Not put the salt in there. Those are the new things we're having to think about. You know, back to balancing the soils that, you know, 10:00 there's, Kelly uses this all the time. Don't push the easy button. You know, and, and I've learned that the hard way some, 10:07 but looking at my farm in a smarter, agronomic way, you know, trying to be that perfect farmer like Kelly's talking about, neither one of us are gonna get there, 10:15 but if you don't try, you're damn sure not ever gonna get there. Alright, Well, he, when he says first off, uh, 10:21 farming smarter versus farming harder, that's good. That's what we're obviously here for. We're sharing a lot of great information. 10:25 But that calcium example, I'm not sure I've followed. Okay, then what's I get that, that, that you got information that you thought you disagreed 10:33 with, but now you're looking back. Are you saying that in hindsight you didn't disagree with him? 10:37 You did need calcium and, and, and tie that back with the salt thing. 'cause I'm not agronomic smart enough to understand 10:44 what the calcium could do about the salt problem. Well, I run two, two scenarios at you really too fast. Okay. So my calcium problem was my calcium magnesium ratio, 10:55 you know, about to get that imbalance, which Kelly talks about balance, his thing, his thing now is balance, balance, balance. Yes. Yeah. 11:02 And, and, and hopefully it's not a fad, it don't look like it is from what we're seeing as results. But in that scenario, I was, I was needing 11:10 to balance my calcium magnesium ratio so that those nutrients plus the other nutrients could, could get to where they need to be to be available. 11:18 The second scenario was I'm taking a product, a potassium product, which is used all over the world. You know, 10 years ago, 11:27 I didn't even know there was a different type of potash other than ated potash. But I'm taking that source 11:33 and removing the salt, which is the bad part of it, by creating, by using an alternative product, which will give me sulfur or, 11:41 or magnesium, uh, you know, in there with it. So just different ways of looking at things to not only that may cost more, 11:51 but they're improving the availability of nutrients to your, to your farm. So even though we always look at pH, 11:59 that's always been the deal. What's your pH If it's below six, you know, you're pretty much in trouble. 12:04 If it's above six five, you're, you're an optimum. But optimum pH and enough calcium magnesium ratio 12:12 in your soil are basically, I think, two different things. Kelly's forgotten more about that than I know. 12:17 All right. He went straight to, I said, what are your strategies? And then, uh, Matt went right to soil. 12:23 He went right to some changing his perspective from what it would've been five or so years ago about the soil. And they talk about balance. 12:33 You're gonna talk a lot about soil, but, uh, is this, is it breaking through the threshold? Is it all about soil or is there gonna be some other stuff? 12:39 Just so I know how to categorize this. No, there, uh, you know, soil is one aspect, uh, the foliar feedings in aspect, uh, the, 12:47 uh, the planning rate. You know, Matt, Matt talks about maybe his yield hasn't gone up. 12:53 You know, I remember when I used to think, uh, 55 bushel beans are good, and now I need 70 mm-Hmm. And I would tell you now, now we, Matt expects 80, 13:01 I expect 65, but it used to be when I started farming and we were hoping for 50 bushel beans, we're planting 225,000 beans an acre. 13:10 Now I'm expecting 65 or 70, and I'm planting 90,000 beans an acre. So there's a threshold right there, 13:17 not just if we break the yield, but look at how the, the expense, the seed expense has gone down well over half. 13:23 You know what I mean? That's also a threshold. There's other ways to do better than just to be just for the yield to get better. 13:29 We get more and more efficient. We get leaner all the time. We're forced to because of the margins are tight. 13:35 However, uh, you, you should always strive to do the best you can and, and not be wasteful. But, you know, we, there's a threshold on our soil. 13:43 There's a threshold with the, the plant and the foliar feeding. Um, when I started, uh, I, in 17, 13:50 I put the first inferral system on the fertile, uh, first inferral system for fertility on the planter. And I thought, holy cow, here we go. You know what? 13:58 You can't, Chad Henderson says this, you cannot buy 400 bushel corn. There is not a secret sauce. 14:04 There is not a, there's not a silver bullet. And we still have the inferral system on the planter in corn. 14:10 There's nine things. NP and K aren't one of them. We've taken all that off because it hasn't paid for us. We still have some calcium on the planter. 14:17 Like Matt said, we have some zinc on the planter. The other things are carbon sugar, stress mitigation, insecticide products. 14:25 And now to break the threshold, now we're moving all that fertility, that budget, that fertility's going from the planter to the airplane. 14:33 And now we're fertilizing in an our stage. And six years ago, seven years ago, we were, we weren't even, uh, 14:41 spraying fungicide on our rotated corn only our corn on corn. Now we're making three pass on every field 14:46 because now we know how, how precious or important that fertility is in the R stages. It just keeps evolving. 14:55 Okay, so, uh, I've wrote down, I just, I, I kinda wanna make sure we get to it. So I wrote down a couple things. 15:03 Uh, soil foliar feeding, planting rate practices, which is probably, so there has to be at least several things 15:11 that you guys are both gonna point out. I would think about new practice. You mentioned airplane, you mentioned later treatment, 15:16 which you're going to, you know, Mm-Hmm. Have to figure out a way to do it. And I wrote new products, kind of like hyphen, biologicals, 15:22 all those things, which, when Matt talks about his going back 10 years ago, I'm venture to say he did not use not one 15:29 of those, uh, no category of products 10 years ago, probably not even five years ago, right? Matt, 10 Years ago. Matt not been spelled 15:35 biological. They always pick who is. He always pickling you. Anyway. No, I couldn't either. Both. Neither 15:41 one of us. You never would've thought of that. Um, and then also I wrote down the big R underlying thing, which we're gonna get to at the end. 15:48 Um, that, uh, when we talk about breaking through your own threshold, it doesn't just mean more bushels. 15:54 I think it's about profit. I mean, there's a threshold of, uh, when Matt first got $50 dollars an acre of net, he probably, 16:01 you know, like in 1990, probably thought, you know what? I made money per acre. 16:05 There's been times you didn't do that. Now you start having that threshold. So anyway, Matt Soil, if you wanna wrap up on that, 16:12 then I wanna go through any of those other categories about what your strategy is of using those things. 16:16 Foliar planning rates, practices new products. Yeah. Plan planning rates in general. Um, paying more attention to my planter, 16:25 uh, that picked me up. Yield, you know, as far as corn. As corn, well, really corn and soybeans E either one. Um, you know, you, you've gotta, there's certain things that 16:36 with your planter, if you don't have those right on your planter, you're spacing right on your planter. 16:40 You're gonna cost yourself bushels there. And so, um, sitting rate, same way, you know, Kelly said, you know, he is planting 200,000 seeds 16:48 and now he's planting 90. That's, that's less than half seed cost of what it was before. 16:53 A lot of the things Kelly and I do, uh, don't, you know, we, I've gotta wade my way through some of these things. 17:00 So I still have fertility on the planter. Uh, not, not near as much as I did. Not as much as I thought we, you know, 17:07 that we needed the answer's. Not throwing a bunch of stuff at a, at a plant. The answer is getting that to that plant exactly 17:14 what it needs at the right time. The, uh, our stages, he is a hundred percent right. There's big yields to be picked up at the, our stages. 17:22 I did it last year, didn't work out too well for me because my heat, I was in a, in a heat wave, uh, during that time. 17:29 And that plant shuts down and just has to survive and, and doesn't get to use those nutrients like they do when you got cooler temperatures. 17:37 So I'm still working with that. That R three deal foyers is something that we do on a regular basis. 17:43 Again, getting that plant what it needs at the right time. You know what, I can't think of a better segue than 17:50 to right now, take a little break and talk about our friends at Nature's Nature's is one of our business partners. 17:55 Uh, Tommy Roach is our buddy over there, and he's quite the agronomic dude. He talks a lot about putting the right product in the plant 18:02 at the right time, as Matt just articulated. So you can do that with nature's products powered by Bio K. You can target specific periods of influence. 18:11 You know what, R two, R three, whatever that thing should be, when that plant needs it, it mitigates stress. 18:15 By doing this, you're giving the plant the shot in the arm that needs exactly when it needs it. 18:19 You're enhancing your crop yield, you're boosting your farm's return on investment. That's what it's all about. Nature's products powered by Bio 18:26 K fertility products that are targeted at times of specific parts of times of influence in your crop. Also very effective on a year when you're trying 18:35 to cut back a little bit on some of your inputs because of lower commodity prices. Check out natures.com, N-A-C-H-U-R-S nature's dot com. 18:44 If I could touch on Matt's, you know, soil comments, that is, I'm sitting here thinking that was the first th big threshold, 18:52 and that was 'cause of the plant food product. To break a threshold takes education and understanding. So, you know, so you can look, you need to learn more. 18:59 And I learned that sulfur wasn't just a, for fertilizer, it was a soil amendment like line. 19:06 You know, it's the inverse of line. And used to be just like, Matt, when I looked at a soil test, alls I looked at was pH 19:12 and how many parts per million a KI had, or what my P one and P two was on phosphorus. 19:17 I don't look at any of that anymore. Now I look at the base saturation and I wanna balance the soil. 19:23 I want 65% calcium. I want 13% magnesium, and I want 4%, 4% potassium. And if I use sulfur it in my heels, 19:33 I use sulfur to reach that. And, uh, everything else will come into line. The pH will come into line, 19:41 the parts per million will come into line. And then you're attacking that problem. You're, you're breaking 19:45 that threshold from the correct perspective. If you try to look at it from a pH perspective or a parts per million perspective, you can't fix it. 19:52 You have to fix it from a base saturation perspective. That's how you break that threshold, at least in our soils. Uh, but You, when you, and, 20:00 and Kelly's a hundred percent right? When you, you know, your, your mental thinking is, well, I'll just go out there and put 500 pounds of, 20:07 of potassium on my crop. Well, then you're throwing everything else out of balance, you know, or, or any nutrient 20:13 that you think's really a good nutrient. It is, but too much of a good thing. Well actually turn around and have a reverse effect 20:20 because you get it out of balance. Mm-Hmm. So balanced soil is one of your big things, and you just spoke to that in two different ways. 20:29 You also just talked about, all right, um, clearly if you're gonna break your own threshold, it's not, you're not gonna do it with anhydrous. 20:36 We, we've, we've been, we've been doing that forever. You're not gonna do it with a nitrogen stabilizer. We've been doing that. You're not gonna do it 20:42 by doing soil sampling. If you're already at a point where you're thresholding, the chances are you're already at least advanced enough. 20:50 You're doing soil sampling, those kind of things. Um, but what else to your soil. We get companies that work with us that are new. 20:58 There's some skepticism in the marketplace about new products. You're gonna have to try some new products along 21:05 with practices and all the other things to do it. Where are you on new products to get through to, to bust out of a threshold? 21:11 Some of the stuff we're trialing, I know on your farms and field days and things like that, we're, We're constantly trying new products and we're doing that 21:18 because of extreme ag. Both of us are. But I would tell anybody that's listening, you need to take 10% of your acres 21:24 and do research on your farm. Your farm, you know, we can cut the learning curve for you. We can tell you what products work 21:31 and what products don't for us. But you still need to take them to your farm and try, because your farm is different. 21:36 Your desires are different, your goals are different. Your budget is different. You know, like I said, I've taken all, 21:42 almost all fertility off my planter. Matt has it. Well, Matt's soil is different. He needs some fertility on the planter. 21:48 He gets a bang outta that. So that any a statement that I make for me is not a blanket statement 21:53 for everyone across the country. And you need to try new products. You're not gonna break your, 21:57 your next threshold without trying new products. You can't, Can't say to the listener Kelly, 22:02 that it was just yesterday we did a recording and I made a teeny little wisecrack about Arkansas soil, and he got, he got really mad and he yelled at me 22:13 and he insulted my soil. I'm like, you know what? I thought it was the trickle down thing. You got your agronomist Evans insults my farm ground. 22:21 And then I figured I gotta go and pick on somebody that's lower than me. And then, and Matt got mad. 22:26 Well, I'm on the bottom of that. I'm on the bottom of that whole soul deal. So if all of us in this, in this group 22:32 of extreme ag, I'm on the bottom. So it does kind of p**s you off when you get reminded that you're on the bottom all the time. 22:39 Well, you're, you're on the bottom with the, so what does that say for Damien and I, if you're on the bottom 22:44 of the soil, you've got the best soybean yields. Apparently you're the best farmer then too, because our soybean yields are 20 bushel behind yours. 22:52 I, I did. He didn't, he didn't maybe read that comment, but I said it might be the farmer on the, on the soils that you were talking. 22:59 Oh yeah. Well, No, that's what, and, and we're gonna see this year Kelly's a hundred thousand percent. 23:05 Right. You know, temple can do things in, in Maryland. Kelly can do things in Iowa that absolutely will not work for me. 23:12 Chad can do things that won't work for me. And we're pretty close to the same, you know, straight across the United States. 23:18 Uh, but it's different soil types. Plus it's a little bit different weather at different times. They have a lot more coal that they have to deal with. 23:25 And we do. We got a lot more heat than they have. So, you know, definitely what Kelly said is important. You know, just because it works for me 23:32 or works for Kelly, it might not work for you. But you can't, if you're, if you're standing still, you're backing up. 23:38 That's what my dad always told me. So you've, whether it's products or new, new ways of looking at soil samples or fertility 23:46 or whatever, you've got to be, you know, I've heard the statements. You gotta be a shadow in your field. 23:51 You've gotta be a shadow in your whole business. You know, back to Kelly talking, his favorite word is net. You know, that's where we gotta be. 23:59 Is, is the highest shields I can make in the state gonna net me more? If not, that's not where I need to be. 24:07 I need to be wherever's gonna net me the most money. Traditionally that comes from higher yields. And that's something that I think farmers are gonna 24:14 make a mistake this year. I, I've heard it time and time again. Well, we're gonna have to cut this stuff out 24:19 because it, it, it, you know, we can't spend that money. You still gotta go look, even if corn's $3, you know, 24:26 what does it take out of a product to get, you know, if the product's $6, what will it be over two bushels. If it is, then you're, if you can just break even, 24:38 you give that plant the opportunity to go further. But if you don't give it that opportunity, you know, for the break even, you don't wanna lose money. 24:49 But if you don't give the opportunity to break even, I don't have to have a two, one return, what I'm saying on, on, on my inputs, whether what kind 24:56 of trial it is or product. If I can get it, even then I know that that gives that plant the opportunity 25:02 to do more if the weather's right. Got it. What about on products? Obviously there's the biologicals. 25:10 Uh, we're still, we're still doing a lot of different stuff with that. Where's the, when you talk about breaking 25:15 through your threshold, tell me a product or at least a category that you think has helped you get through the threshold just in the last couple years? 25:25 Uh, the Nutri charge product that Matt brought to us Yeah. Has really helped out. That's from a base saturation 25:31 perspective, I didn't think that that product was gonna help because of all the work I do with sulfur 25:37 to balance my base saturation. And it, it still helped in a big way that, that's been a good product. 25:43 The stress mitigation products, you know, Steve Sexton, Scott Lay from Gerson wanted me to try that accomplished Max. 25:50 And that was in 21. It was very dry in June. And I thought, boy, what a bunch of snake oil this is gonna be. 25:55 But we put it out there, they only set enough for 48 rows across this quarter mile field. And I'm like, there's no way this is gonna work. 26:04 We walked out there in June, the corn's eight inches tall, it's rolled up tight 'cause it's hot and dry. 26:09 And we got out there to, uh, the two different applied areas and they were both unrolled like it was cooler and wetter. 26:16 I was sold at that point, turned out to be 28 bushel. And, uh, never did I think that, that that was gonna be like that. 26:25 And then that led us down the path of the stress mitigation products that we've been on that has helped 26:29 Us. That led you to, in 2022, we said, you said that your overriding overarching theme for 2022 to break through your threshold Yep. 26:39 Was to work at creating a stress-free crop. 'cause you said, I I don't think we've ever seen a stress-free crop. 26:45 So, and, and prior and, and tell and look at how fast things evolved prior to that trial with accomplished max in 21, 26:51 I didn't even know there was a stress, uh, threshold that I was looking at. 'cause it never even crossed my mind. 26:56 Is the, is the, when we've been to little Vietnam, as you affectionately call DHA County, down down where Matt Miles farms in the Delta region of Arkansas, 27:05 he lovingly refers to little Vietnam and it, it does have some very harsh environments. Is stress is the, is the product that you're gonna continue 27:14 to try, is it about soil or stress? I'm guessing probably stress, right? But you don't, but then you've said, I don't know Damien, 27:21 if I can even do anything about the stress when it's 103. I think there's a certain point where, where the, 27:28 you know, it's with anything that you use, there's a certain point that that goes beyond help. I mean, not just in agriculture, but anything you're doing. 27:36 I mean, it stress mitigators, yes, they do help us. And, and we've seen some, some double digit, you know, yield increases out out of 'em at times. 27:45 Now it can, I think sometimes can be overcome, overcome by getting too much of, of, of heat or whatever. Yeah. But, uh, yeah, stress mitigators are still, uh, 27:57 you know, I looked at my infra, uh, you know, when I was talking about taking things out and I looked at my infra program 28:03 and I said, okay, I sit down with lane. I said, we gotta, we gotta trim the fat. And we looked at all seven products, 28:10 couldn't really find anything there that we thought we could take out, you know, so I said, well, we're going to pretty much stay 28:18 with our same infra package. You know, I, I did a fertility test this year, and this was, this was more on my own than it was 28:25 through, uh, extreme ag. But I did a three gallon, five gallon, and one gallon, uh, phosphorous fertilizer, you know, 28:32 starter, fertilized, replicated across 80 acre field, five gallons, one, no question. But three gallons was the, the best ROI. And guess what? 28:42 This guy put on all his crop one, because I was listening to others that were making that work one to zero. 28:52 And so I thought, well, if they can do it, I can do it. And so I put one gallon across my whole crop, could have put three and got a better ROI. 29:00 So it's, it's a, it's evolving all the time. But I, what I've seen, and this has been more in the last probably 30 days of, 29:08 of just meditation, I guess, is that looking at the basics and fixing the basics first and then adding on top of that, these, these products 29:22 that we think are work, I've got a lot of work I've gotta do just to fix my basic agronomy. So that you gotta start with that foundation, 29:28 whether it's soil co seeding, or the right variety. You've gotta start with your base and, and go up. And I've gotta go back to drawing board 29:37 and just look at my base agronomy Breaking your threshold. What's interesting is, Matt says something, I think that all 29:44 of us know, we, the weather obviously matters, but I'm writing down here the foundation, the soil, the soil's, the foundation. 29:50 And it's interesting, you're already at a high yield, but when you say, what are we gonna do to get to the next level to bust out of the, to, to, to get 29:56 to the next plateau, he's still going back to soil. Kelly, you went to stress. Uh, what's interesting is I'm go to back 30:06 to the product thing also. No, neither. Have you ever said, I gotta get better seed. And it's, wasn't it it, a year ago when Kelly said, um, 30:16 seed gets too much credit on a good year and too much blame and a bad year. The genetics aren't the problem. 30:23 I never heard either of you say, to get to break genetic threshold, you gotta get, uh, different genetics. 30:29 The fir the genetics for us, uh, for us here are not the problem. We're, you know, people talk about they want the new 30:35 variety, the new race horse variety. I'm telling you what we're so far from the potential of that seed that that's not a threshold. 30:43 Oh, well, I I hope it's a threshold someday. It's not. Now, Hey, by the way, Matt, he just used the word race horse 30:50 as it relates to a seed variety. Have you ever heard a seed salesman de describe seed as a race horse? 30:56 That's a novel term. I've never heard, ever. It's not the most overused term in the entire seat industry. Is it? 31:02 It it is absolutely the most overused term. And what a racehorse will do is if you stump your toe on a race, 31:09 if they tell you it's a racehorse variety, you better be ready to do everything when it needs to be done. 31:13 'cause I've had those racehorses that I'd stumped my toe on and they'd dropped 20 bushel below. 31:19 What a good average Yep. Seed is. So yes, it, the, the racehorse variety is, is there, but, but think about this. 31:27 I mean, Alex Harrell, what does he 200 something bushel soybeans and Mr. Davis over 600 bushel corn. So we know the varieties are there, you know, we know 31:38 that it's not necessarily gotta be that specific variety they use, but we know the varieties, as Kelly said, has the potential. 31:44 We're our worst own enemy, uh, when we start a crop. And, and the mistakes we make to get to that point. So we know what the, the opportunity is out there. 31:54 We've just gotta figure out how to find it. And when you're looking at the biologicals, I wish we had that slide. 32:01 Uh, there is a, there is a picture of all the biological companies Yeah. That, that sell to agriculture. Y'all seen it? Yeah. 32:08 And there's not another place you could write a word on it, little bitty words, you know, 32:12 how do we figure that part out? Yeah. 12, 1200, 1200 new product, 1200 companies in the biological space 32:20 was the gist of that slide. And that slide doesn't even have all 1200 of 'em on 'em. It's got like the ones that have been around 32:25 for more than a year or something like that. Mm-Hmm. It's very illustrative. Um, so nobody said seed. We talk about Yeah, you're, uh, Matt's dad says, you got, 32:34 if you're standing still, you're going backwards. So products, um, practices, uh, besides planting rate, is there a practice change 32:44 to get you to, to break from a strategy to break through your threshold? I would say, can we, 32:51 can we count variable rate as a practice? Absolutely. I, I mean, what is it, what else would it be besides a practice you change, right, 32:58 Exactly. You changed how you're fertilizing every acre, every, every half acre. Well, So we, we variable rate our anhydrous and, you know, 33:08 and Matt talked about anhydrous. Is it gonna help you break the threshold? It's the same anhydrous. He's right. 33:12 This year we had a trial, uh, 0 61, 21 80, and 240 pounds of anhydrous. Uh, 180 was the best yield, 33:25 but the, the zero was by far the worst. Okay. But the 60 through the two 40, this is on corn, obviously all yielded within four 33:33 or five bushel of each other. The 180 had the best by a couple bushel, but that's negligible. 33:39 The 60, the 60 was the, the best. ROI by by quite a few dollars, obviously when you're putting on 60 or 120 pounds less. 33:47 And I would tell you that, I would say in this area, most people are over 180. And here on this trial, we showed 33:54 that 60 was the most profitable. So that, that's a threshold. The so variable rate is a threshold that we have come upon 34:01 because now we're, instead of managing by the field, we're not even managing by the acre. We try to manage by the square foot. 34:08 We're not that tight yet. Yeah. Uh, we're probably in a, we're probably in a 30 by 30 spot. You know, we're managing by the 900 square feet and, 34:17 and we're managing that way. We're putting the fertility where we need it. That's a huge practice change in the last few years. 34:23 And we're variable rate our corn seed, we're variable rate in our bean seed. And I think there is significant savings. 34:30 And there's a yield bump from all three of those things that hydrous corn and bean variable ring. Matt, we just recorded talking about drainage, 34:39 which is fairly new to the delta region. You put in tile, you're going to use tile as drainage, especially in your sharky clays, heavier soils 34:49 that are really flat as a pancake and very, very tight. But then also you're gonna use it in the, in the, in the Vietnam era of, uh, July 34:57 and August when it's 105 degrees to put water back into the field. That's a practice. It's an expensive practice. 35:03 It's an amortized over seven to 10 years before it really starts to pay you back kind of a practice. But is that, do you think that has a play in breaking you 35:14 to your next threshold, breaking through this threshold? I think, you know, I'm, I'm still, I don't want 35:21 to use the word skeptical 'cause I'm not skeptical. I've got, you know, I've got data to prove where it, where it increase the yield on that specific field, 35:29 and I think it can increase my yield on that specific soil type. Now that's about 20% of my soil type. 35:35 The other 80% y'all seen in the show, I picked it up and, and it, and it blew away, you know, the deep sand. 35:41 So I, I'm really concentrating on practice wise, on the deep sand. So, you know what Kelly said with the, 35:48 with the variable rate, the, the biggest thing that I've seen is fertility placement on my farm. Instead of, you know, I was all dry 35:58 five, probably seven years ago. I was a hundred percent dry. No way. I was doing liquid. It slowed me down. I was all about acres per hour. 36:06 And, and I've had to rethink my whole, and, and I think that's why my two year average is better than my, my, my five year average is 36:14 because I'm not looking at it at acres per hour anymore. I'm looking at doing the best job I can, as Kelly said, 36:20 being a perfect farmer, you know, I'm not near about close to where I need to be there, but, 36:26 but, you know, what's the d the difference in place in that fertility by the base of the plant or by the roots versus having it over in 36:34 that middle on the rows that I have to go on that, that it probably won't even get, and then, you know, I have to spoonfeed 36:40 because my sandy soils that a lot of my nutrients leach, so I paid more attention. 36:46 Again, I keep beating a dead dog to, to basic agronomy and improving my, my way of doing the basic things. And then the, when you do the basic things right, 36:57 it enables these extra products to work even better. So if I've got everything done right to begin with, or close as I can, then something like a, a foer 37:08 or a, uh, you know, a biological will work. A prime example, when I first started using biologicals, I wasn't getting, I mean, 37:16 I was getting negative out of 'em almost. Yeah. And I, I had chlorine in my water, so every time I fill the tank up 37:22 before I could get the tractor of the field, I'd kill all the biology. It, it's, it's education 37:28 and educating ourselves, you know, as what to do. We, I, I said this the other day in a meeting, and I think, I'm not sure who I got this from. 37:36 It's not my quote, but, but a guy said, if a if a biological salesman comes in to sell you biology and he don't ask you 37:43 what your water source is, tell him to hit the road. By the way, uh, dear listener, if you have, I haven't been with us for the two and a half years 37:52 since I started doing this. Uh, it was one of the first things we covered, I think when I started. 37:57 And, uh, we're digging into biologicals. Matt gets his water from a municipal water source, which is treated. 38:03 So there's a good chance you don't have that problem, but you definitely should let us make the mistake for you as Matt did. 38:11 If you're gonna use biologicals, test the water and uh, make sure of that. That's a good one. Break it through. 38:17 If you're not running off of a, off of a whale, you're running some type of municipal water. 'cause it's coming from, from a treated 38:26 area that goes to houses. So, you know, it's real easy to go hook up to that municipal water. 38:31 And because they're, you know, it's, it's convenient. So that's the first thing that we, we had to correct as our, as our water source. 38:39 And Kelly has talked about the bicarbonates in the water. You know, that's something that we don't look at. 38:44 That's another base, a base thing that we should be looking at to fix our problems. And basic agronomy 38:53 Breaking through your threshold strategy for brain through your threshold, we've gotten soil is obviously the foundation. 38:58 We've covered a lot of that foliar feeding, I think that we've done that obviously talked about like our, our business partners over at Nature's. 39:05 Um, what about, what about foliar feeding? Is there anything else you're gonna go a little later in the season? 39:11 I know that like, uh, uh, that's one of the things that, uh, Johnny talks about is, uh, you know, 39:16 going a little later in season. What do you, what do you think, where's the strategy on that For me? F 39:23 or feeding? I mean, is there something more that we're, is there a something you think that's a missing piece? Is there a strategy you're gonna deploy in 24 39:29 that involves a f or treatment that you think busts you into that next level? Yes. Uh, we started this in 23. Uh, it's new for us. 39:39 Um, and it's because we have started working with agronomists in Idaho. Jared Cook. Um, to me agronomy is chemistry plus biology. 39:49 I've never met anybody until I met Jared that understands the chemistry side like he does. And the things that he has explained to Evans Gro Vern 39:58 and I, uh, just blows my mind. Every chance I get to talk to him is, uh, is, is, is tremendous. 40:06 And it, um, he, he's introduced us to SAP sampling now instead of tissue sampling, because he says that sap sampling is predictive. 40:17 We send, uh, the SAP samples, uh, to only one lab. New age. It's in Michigan. They only take the SAP out of the flow 40:25 and zyl, which is the arterial system, the vein system, if you will, of the plant. And then we could tell what nutrients are moving. 40:33 So every week, Vern is taking, every week Vern is taking a, uh, a SAP sample 40:40 and he's taking a soil sample so we can see what, see what's available in the soil. We can, he takes an old leaf 40:45 and a new growth leaf so we can see what's moving in the plant. And the goal is to assimilate 40:52 or balance use 95% of our nitrogen, the plant. This is oversimplifying it, but our foliar feeding program now revolves around this. 41:02 The plant takes nitrogen and turns it into a protein. It is able to do that because it takes micronutrients and creates amino acids to convert the nitrogen to protein. 41:15 And especially, I will tell you across the whole nation, we probably have too much nitrogen. 41:20 That's not a complete statement. We have too much nitrogen relative to the amount of micronutrients. 41:27 We are not able to produce enough amino acids to assimilate or convert all of the nitrogen. 41:34 And too much nitrogen leads to excess vegetative growth. Uh, there's stress mitigation that can, 41:40 can problems that can come in. There is disease problems that can come in and basically just like I said 41:46 before, we're just not reaching our potential. So we have too much nitrogen relative to the micronutrients. So they need to come into balance again, 41:55 the word balance with one another. So our foliar feeding program at V 10 and corn, R one, R five, those types of things. 42:04 What we're doing is taking that SAP sample and we're trying to balance. This year we did achieve balance at 1300 parts per million 42:13 of nitrogen. And I was all excited because that ear set, 75% of my plants had two ears. Now, Matt has said he doesn't really want to have two ears, 42:23 uh, because we can't hold it. And he thinks it's a waste of energy. Matt might be right. I will tell you, I just want the plant 42:29 to reach its potential nutritionally, and I'm not gonna tell it how to flex. Whatever's gonna happen is gonna happen 42:35 'cause I don't know what's gonna happen. We had seven, we had double ears on 75% of our plants, and I thought, holy s**t, 42:41 we have blown the top off this thing. Then we couldn't hold them. Mm-Hmm. I thought we had broken the threshold 42:46 and then we couldn't hold them. What hap what Matt says happens, happened again. They aborted. I, I now believe though that 42:55 we assimilated, we know that we were at 95% assimilation, which is the goal, but it was at 1300 43:00 parts per million nitrogen. I'm now gonna add some nitrogen to my foliar feed program and there are stages and I wanna reach assimilation 43:09 at 95% assimilation. I wanna reach that at 2000 parts per million. Jared has done some work in onions and potatoes. 43:16 I understand it's a different crop, but I'll tell you, onions, potatoes, sugar, beets, soybeans, corn, when you're talking about this kind of balance, 43:26 it's eerily similar between all of these different plants where we need to be. There's not that much difference. 43:31 And the next threshold I will try, I believe that I can beat, I'm hoping 2000 parts per million nitrogen, 95% assimilation. 43:40 I think I can hold those double ears that that'll be what we do this year. That's the change. 43:47 All right, Matt. I know that got long, but I can't Explain it. I did a little bit. That's all right. 43:51 I think we're getting close to wrapping it up. Do you have anything, uh, off of that when we're talking about foer feeding and 43:57 otherwise we're gonna gonna wrap it here. Well, on the foer feeding, you know, and I think, I think we've all learned this now, but right. 44:04 Products, if you take, you know, if you look at the data on potassium acetate versus, you know, melted down potassium as far as 44:12 how it gets in a plant, you know, choose the right product that, you know, get in a plant. 44:16 You can spray a foer all day long if you spread at the wrong time or if you spread the wrong kind, 44:22 it's just gonna lay there and look pretty on the top of your leaf or either p**s you off because it's gonna be white 44:28 and what to what Kelly's saying what, you know, again, with a easy button, front end load and everything, you know, everybody wants the front end load 44:36 'cause it's easy, you know, you're not as busy during that time. The demand curve for corn for the majority 44:42 of its nutrients is later on in the season. Yeah. So by the way, you're talking about strategies for breaking through with the threshold for the person that, 44:49 is it still front end loading? That's the easy, that's the easy way to break through their threshold right there is to stop front loading 44:55 and start doing stuff through the season, I think is and probably for both crops, right? Yeah, that's right. And, and Kelly's right. 45:01 You know, now when he increases his nitrogen, I guarantee you he'll say yes to this. He's gonna increase his micronutrients 45:08 because he's gonna need to do that to keep it in balance. That's right. One of the things that I've, 45:14 that I thought was the bible that, that I see now and, and I give credit, uh, Kelly a a bunch of credit for this, is we're using too much fertilizer. 45:23 You know, we're using too much nitrogen. We cut back 50 units this year and, and we lost one bushel in the trial. 45:30 And this wasn't a little Mickey Mouse trial, this was an advanced trial and we cut back 50 units. So figure that money 45:37 and figure it on a, on a $5 bushel, you know, we might weigh more than paid for, for reducing that. Plus we helped the environment. 45:45 Okay. What I really liked there, 'cause this kind of brings it full circle. I said at some point strategies for breaking 45:50 through your threshold, everyone's gonna think yield, that's fine. We're farm people. Farm people love to concentrate, 45:56 focus on yield, yield yield, more bushels, more pounds, more gallons, whatever. But there's a threshold also about profitability. 46:03 If you're below, if you're, if you're, if you're not always looking at how to break through your threshold of profitability, you know, 46:10 and there's gonna be variable profits from one year to the next based on the commodity price, et cetera. 50 units of nitrogen reduction 46:18 and losing one bushel of corn. I'd rather have that math and, and be positive in my money, then go to the coffee shop 46:27 and brag that I busted my own threshold over a certain yield, uh, quantity all day long. Yep. I agree with you. With corn. 46:35 Price down that number even gets greater. Yeah. Yeah. You lost, you, you lost $4 and 60 cents worth of corn and you, and you and you, you, 46:44 but you peeled back your nitrogen spend by what, a hundred bucks or something like that. Right? That gets back to our favorite word. Net. 46:52 Yeah. Net. These guys are awesome strategies for breaking through your, your threshold. 46:57 And like I said, it's more than just yield, it's also about the money because you all have your threshold. 47:02 And what is neat about this, Matt brought this up during the fall. What you heard in this episode was a lot about, uh, 47:09 the first bump is the easy bump. And then once you do plateau at a certain level, it takes a little bit more creativity. 47:14 It takes a little bit more ingenuity and more important, see a little bit of more, more, uh, I say always say experimentation to get to the next level. 47:21 Talked about soil as a foundation, foliar feeding, planting rate, different practices, new products, and all of the above when you 47:27 wanna break through your threshold. Matt Miles, Kelly Garrett, this is a great topic. I think we're gonna revisit this again every year or two 47:33 because it's a good, it's a good subject, uh, if you guys are willing to do it. Absolutely. All right. 47:40 Till next time, uh, check us out at, uh, uh, at Extreme mag.farm. Hundreds, literally hundreds 47:45 of episodes just like this that are out there. If you wanna take your learning to the next level, become a member of Extreme Ag, extreme Ag Farm, 47:52 seven $50 a year, you get direct access to guys like Kelly and Matt and the other guys 47:57 for a question and answer platform. If you wanna go a little deeper on a subject, you also get, uh, data from our trial results at the end of every year. 48:04 You get free offers from some of our business partners. Like for instance, you can go to Commodity Classic for free, all for seven $50 a year. 48:11 Also very excited. In the year 2024, we're putting out the extreme Ag show. It's on YouTube. If you, uh, go to YouTube, 48:17 just type in extreme ag, hit subscribe. It's free, you can watch it. It's behind the scenes seeing guys like these two in, 48:23 in their, in their natural environment out there working and, and all the cool stuff. 48:27 So it's, it's makes reality TV look like, uh, a crap. It is an awesome show. Go and check it out. It's the Extreme Mag Show. It's also available on Acres tv. 48:36 So go and check it out there. Follow us on Facebook and Twitter. Till next time, Kelly. Matt, my name's Damien Mac. Thanks for being here. 48:41 Extreme mag cutting the curve. That's a wrap for this episode of Cutting the Curve. Make sure to check out Extreme ag.farm 48:48 for more great content to help you squeeze more profit out of your farming operation. 48:53 Cutting the curve is brought to you by cloth where machines aren't just made, they're made for more. Visit cloth.com 49:00 and start cutting your curve with cutting edge equipment.