Farming Podcast | Plant Health Strategies to Reduce Crop Inputs | XtremeAg

00:00:02 Welcome to Extreme ags Cutting the Curve podcast, where real farmers share real insights and real results to help you improve your farming operation. 00:00:12 And now here's your host, Damien Mason. There's no profit in healthy plants. That's what my man Jared Koch with calibrated agronomy says. 00:00:20 And I've heard him say it before, so I say, why don't you go a little more in depth. We did a teaser, a shortcut about this, 00:00:26 but now we're going a little bit longer platform so that we can dig into this. He's not talking about profitability for the farm. 00:00:33 Clearly that's where the profit's supposed to be. That's what calibrated agronomy does. That's what extreme ag is all about, 00:00:37 is helping you farm better, to make more money so you can live to fight another day and pass this, uh, this, uh, 00:00:44 this lifestyle onto your next generation. He's talking about profit for the company that sell inputs. Now, we're not against retailers 00:00:51 and we're not against agricultural input companies, but the point is just like you could argue human pharmaceutical companies, 00:00:58 if you're really healthy, you don't need them. That's not good for their bottom line. It's better off if you're a little bit sick. 00:01:04 So you always need their stuff. That's what you're talking about, right? Absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. 00:01:09 You know, Damien, today, I, I think in, in our modern agriculture today, we use a very narrow window of the tools in the tool chest. 00:01:17 You go to, you know, from, from right now, from from December, what's the date, say December 10th till March 1st, 00:01:23 let's say there's gonna be meeting after meeting after meeting that are known as chemical update meetings. The farmers get to go learn how 00:01:30 to reuse the same chemistries they've been using. They're gonna get to hear about chemical, chemical, chemical. 00:01:36 Well, geez, I, I wanna open the doors to Pandora's box and start talking about all the tools of integrated pest management. Mm-hmm. 00:01:44 Now you wanna say biologicals, and we, you know, we obviously been dealing with that for several years. 00:01:47 Oh no, man. 10 years ago. That's snake oil. There's biological, there's chemical, there's, uh, other soil amendments. 00:01:55 Um, we're hearing even about botanical, uh, different, uh, you know, new strains there. 00:02:00 But there's also just, he's also just focusing on soil health. And so with your calibrated agronomy series, we did a thing 00:02:07 where you got a guy named in named Dykstra, and he's controversial only because he says things that you kind of know, but it's, 00:02:15 but it's not what we've been told forever and ever. And he made the point that plants are attacked by insects. If the plants are unhealthy, if they have vigor, 00:02:25 the insects will pass 'em by. And I thought, God, is that accurate? And he went through and gave great examples. 00:02:30 That's a little bit like what you're talking about here. If you've got a really healthy plant, it needs less inputs. 00:02:35 It didn't take inputs to get it there. It takes inputs to, to doctor it up if it's, if it's sick. Absolutely. Absolutely. 00:02:42 You know, what we see, you know, from years and years now of plant SAP analysis, we see where, where we have massive amounts of nutritional imbalance 00:02:51 and it's nutritional imbalance that creates a, a plant as a susceptible host. You know, if the plant has good mineral balance, you, you, 00:02:59 you hear Kelly preach that all the time, I want a balanced plant. Mm-hmm. Well, he's, he's right on the money. Mm-hmm. 00:03:05 But we need to help farmers understand more what does that actually mean? And so I, So, and, and we're not conspiracy people, we're not saying 00:03:12 that these manufacturers of inputs are just trying to, you know, keep your plant six so they can come out and solve, you know, solve the solution, you know, uh, 00:03:18 pedal the disease and then, uh, and then solve the solution or sell the cure or whatever. 00:03:23 But there is, it seems to me we got a downturn in the ag economy now in year two or so. 00:03:29 And if there's ever a time to look at ways to reduce spend, and also it's what we're supposed to be doing. 00:03:36 It's what we're supposed to be doing anyhow. We're supposed to be trying to use less stuff and have really good crops with 00:03:46 minimum amounts of expense. It's good for the environment also. Absolutely. Absolutely. 00:03:52 You know, Damien, it was probably 3, 3, 4 years ago. I, I, I did a presentation at a big, uh, grower conference and I titled the presentation micronutrients 00:04:04 and their Modes of Action. And anyway, it, it caught everybody off guard. 'cause I went through and talked about every 00:04:10 single micronutrient. So zinc, manganese, copper, boron, iron, molly, nickel, cobalt, I talked about all those individual micronutrients 00:04:18 and the effect they have on plant health and, and, and what they do to help a plant defend themselves against pathogens and to defend themselves against insect attack. 00:04:28 And I'll tell you what, from that exercise, I learned more than I've probably ever learned in all college by deep diving into every single micronutrient. 00:04:36 And I can assure you that every micronutrient has a mode of action that, that generates a plant health benefit. 00:04:44 And that, I'll tell you, I've been to meeting after meeting and that is just not even talked about. 00:04:51 I, it is really disheartening to the agronomy community in my opinion. We've, we've allowed ourselves to be just confined 00:04:57 to a narrow, narrow box. And I wanna blow that sucker open. Well, There, there's, uh, certain folks 00:05:02 that criticize the medical profession and say the medical profession has essentially become, um, uh, a dispensary for big pharma. 00:05:10 Yeah. You could argue that retail in large part has become a dispensary for the bigger, um, forces that make and manufacture agricultural inputs. 00:05:23 You can go from fertilizer onto herbicide to, to whatever. Um, I'm not necessarily in that camp, 00:05:29 but I also understand how money incentivizes money incentivize you to go out and sell. Yeah, Absolutely. You know, and 00:05:37 really they're tools, everything you've just disclose, those are tools in the tool chest. But I, I think in today's, today's ag landscape, 00:05:45 we gotta be using the whole tool chest. Mm-hmm. Not just, not just a narrow, narrow fraction of it. And that's, that's really been my mission in life, is 00:05:53 to help farmers understand all the tools that are out there. Because I think as a society, agronomy society particularly, 00:06:00 we, we've got, we've got complacent in advancing our knowledge and using the whole tool chest. Yeah. Well, it becomes easy to use this, this group of this, 00:06:09 these five products or, and do it this way. And then it's becomes then, then the prescription again, it's not unlike the whole go to the doctor 00:06:16 and they just, uh, you know, write you the same prescription they wrote for 17 people before you because it became like, 00:06:22 uh, you know, factory work. Yeah. Um, let's talk about this thing. If I'm a farmer and I say, okay, I would like to reduce some 00:06:30 of my input spend, and I do want healthy plants, starts with the soil, right? Yep. Absolutely. The soil's your biggest driver. 00:06:38 I mean, every, what, what, what your soil is. You know, you hear me say what your water is, uh, your soil becomes, well guess what? 00:06:45 What your soil is, your plant becomes mm-hmm. Because of min mineralogy, carbon biology, I mean the, we've got a universe of, of amazing amazingness. 00:06:56 A universe of amazingness below our feet. I like it. Universe of amazingness. What about then, um, to that end, um, the, 00:07:05 the tools that our, that our hands. Okay. So we get our soil dialed in, we've got balanced, which is the big thing, right? 00:07:11 It's one of you and Kelly's big thing, balance, balance, balance, okay. We got that balance. And then obviously we talked about the 00:07:15 water in a different recording. We talked about making sure that we're putting, if we're putting on irrigation water, 00:07:19 but by golly we understand what the mineral allergy of that is. And then to keep my plants healthy. 00:07:25 It seems like the tools I have now from tissue or sap, uh, and some of the advancements in sampling 00:07:32 that I can do a better job so I can stay in front of it and all of a sudden I can predictively treat a plant more so than I used to, which means maybe I 00:07:41 don't even have to treat it. I think that right now the testing should allow us to have a healthier plant than, than we ever really have. 00:07:49 Oh, absolutely. You know, you look at like all the, the ability we have now to DNA test the soil to see what microbial profiles are in the soil. 00:07:57 I mean, that stuff I wish we'd have had 15 years ago in this business. And we have it, we have access to it, 00:08:02 and I think every farmer should use it. You know, you look at pattern ag or bio makers, 00:08:07 those companies are helping a farmer understand their soil's microbiome. Um, you got crop, you know, companies like crop diagnostics 00:08:14 that are looking at the RNA of of plants that are detecting 30, maybe even 40 days. That might be a stretch, but well ahead of any disease 00:08:22 or pathogen threat. Yeah. So we have very predictive tools out there that we can use for this. 00:08:28 Yeah. And it used to be you went out and just kind of looked at it and guessed, or you went out and did what you did the year before you went out 00:08:34 and did what your dad did. The, you know, the generation before whatever. Absolutely. Great. So keeping my plants healthy 00:08:40 and keeping the profit in my pocket versus in the input suppliers pocket. What else? Uh, what else do I need 00:08:45 to be thinking about? Rotation, Soil Testing, rotation, Rotation, compaction, drainage. You know, that's big for you guys in the Midwest. 00:08:53 You know, if you have poor drainage, you can have a poor outcome. Bottom line, I've heard Clint, 00:08:58 Clint freeze preach that left and right. And that's not just because it got drowned out. It's also because then, uh, water 00:09:04 that doesn't have air then becomes a Yeah. You can't breathe. It's got, uh, disease. Yep. I Think a lot of our diseases 00:09:10 and that, that we fight today stem from poor oxygen exchange in the soil. We have tight compact soils 00:09:16 because of either a lack of calcium or, or who knows what the challenge is. Every geography tends to be slightly different, I think. 00:09:24 But lack of oxygen perpetuates disease, lack of drainage. We have anaerobic conditions. 00:09:29 I mean, those are the fundamental principles of agronomy that we need to be addressing, you know, 00:09:34 to really solve the dysfunction. That's what we're all about. We don't want to just treat symptoms anymore. 00:09:39 We wanna solve the dysfunction. If you have a drainage problem, you better fix it. Are you gonna be treating symptoms all your life? 00:09:45 Yeah, I like it. And then from the other standpoint, if I'm a farmer, uh, I think it's, you talk about testing, 00:09:53 sometimes you can't tell a healthy plant or by the time you realize it's unhealthy, it's too late. So let's think about that. You talked about testing. 00:10:00 Is there anything else I need to do? Is there anything I need to know about my detection on healthy plants? 00:10:05 Um, I, I just think you need to have a framework of management in place. Every farmer should have his own framework of management 00:10:11 that allows him the diagnostic understanding of what's going on with his plant. You know, if, if you're just out there growth stage 00:10:20 sampling, you're sampling at V six, V nine VT and R one. If that's your sampling window, 00:10:25 what about all the other days of the week that, that plant's exposed to environment that could change the outcome? You 00:10:32 Talk about treating the symptoms versus solving the dysfunction. Um, how much of, in your, in your experience have you seen, 00:10:39 yeah, we keep doing this to treat this problem, but to treat this symptom, but the problem is over here and we could actually fix it. 00:10:47 Have you got any good stories that where you actually went deeper than the symptom and said, we resolved the dysfunction, 00:10:52 you had a mineral imbalance or, you know, it was this or is this, do you have that? Oh, absolutely. I'll tell you guy, it worked with a dairy 00:10:59 that they were, they were applying about 35 ton of raw manure every other year. And what was happening, 00:11:06 their corn would get up about five feet tall and just shut down and they would pour the nitrogen for light. 00:11:12 They were working with a different organization at that time, and they called me up, says, Hey, we'd like a different opinion. 00:11:17 Can you come help us out? So of course, I, I go, you know, just do what I do, troubleshooting the scenario. 00:11:22 And what I found, Amy, is down in their soil about eight inches, they had a layer that was about two inches thick of petrified raw manure. 00:11:32 And the plant root would grow right to that layer and the roots would fry off and just go, just go crappy. So the roots would just, they, 00:11:41 they would plateau there and then turn sideways? Yeah, they'd turn sideways and they'd hit that layer 00:11:46 that would just solid maneuver and just fry. 'cause and then we, we soil tested that and ammonium load was sky high because 00:11:53 You'd say, well, that's good. That means the roots got to the fertility. But the problem is they got to where it was too, 00:11:57 I intense, too intensive. Too intensive of one ammonia, or is that Yeah. Too high 00:12:03 of ammonia load. And so we, we harvested the crop. I recommended they come in and do some deep tillage. And so they ended up running a, a dominator, a ripper disc, 00:12:12 two passes in the fall. And that solved the problem. It broke that up. Uh, re re homogenize that, that manure. 00:12:20 Yeah. So the, the stratification of the manure layer then moved. Not, and, and that's interesting. 00:12:24 And now there's somebody that's gonna say, Damien, I thought you were anti tillage and I thought you had, well, in this case, 00:12:28 sounds like there was a time and place for It. There's an absolute need, you know, and, 00:12:32 and so we, we corrected that problem dam. And the farm went from 25 ton corn to 35 ton corn silage in one year. 00:12:40 It wasn't adding more nutrition, it wasn't adding more pesticide or anything like that. It was, it was solving the dysfunction, 00:12:45 which was a petrified layer. And As you said, they had already been, been told and advised by an agronomic group 00:12:52 or a retailer, an input provider, they just keep pouring the nitrogen to it. Mm-hmm. It's exactly what it didn't need. 00:12:57 Exactly. Yeah. In fact, we, I did a, a three foot profile, you know, in stratified top foot, second foot. 00:13:03 Third foot. We had over 800 pound or 680 pounds of nitrate nitrogen in the three foot profile. 00:13:10 Yeah. We had enough freaking nitrogen for two years of corn cropping. Uh, More than Yes, exactly. 00:13:15 Oh, yeah. Yeah. So that's interesting. All right. I like it. There's no profit in a healthy plant. 00:13:19 We're talking about treating the symptom, not the, uh, I'm sorry. The problem is, uh, spending money to treat the symptom 00:13:25 or do you actually solve the problem? You just got a great illustration right there with the manure layer and you're 00:13:29 saying, eh, it's not gonna happen to me. I don't have dairy manure. It's always something. There's always a reason why you have unhealthy plants. 00:13:35 You can keep spending your money to fix the illness or you can go to the root of the cause. That's what you're talking about. 00:13:43 Absolutely. These Jared Cook companies called Calibrated agronomy. You wanna learn more about what they do over there. 00:13:48 They work closely with us here at XT Extreme Ag. The company is called Calibrated Agronomy. Their website is calibrate your agronomy.com. 00:13:55 You can go there and check it out. If you liked this, please share it with somebody that can benefit from it. 00:13:59 If you wanna take your learning to the next level. Remember we have the data conference, January 25th and 26th in Davenport, Iowa 20. 00:14:06 This is of your 2026 I'm talking about. Depending on when you're watching this, you also can go to Commodity Classic for free if you are a member. 00:14:13 So become an Extreme Ag member. It's only seven $50 a year with seven $50 a year. You go to the Commodity Classic for free. 00:14:18 Thanks to Natures you go to Data conference for free. Thanks to Extreme Ag. You get a direct line to people like Jared 00:14:23 to get your questions answered if you're a paying member. So you get so much value plus all the data, plus all 00:14:28 of the relationships, it's worth it to go check it out. Also, you can check out all the free stuff@extremeag.farm, hundreds of videos just like this that I've shot podcasts, 00:14:37 videos in the field with guys like Jared. Go check it all out. Until next time, he's Jared. I'm Damien. This is extreme ag cutting the curve. 00:14:44 That's a wrap 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 388 00:14:52.645 --> 00:14:53.925