Podcast: Cut Costs Not Profits with These Farming Strategies

00:00:00 Strategies to take cost out of every acre while leaving the yield intact. That's the topic of this episode 00:00:06 of Extreme Acts, cutting the Curve. Welcome to Extreme ags Cutting the Curve podcast, where real farmers share real insights 00:00:13 and real results to help you improve your farming operation. And now here's your host, Damien Mason. 00:00:21 Hey there. Welcome to another fantastic episode of Extreme Act, cutting the curve. We're rolling into the new year. You know, it's 2025. 00:00:26 We know that commodity prices are a little bit on the downturn, and we know that things are getting a little snug on farm economics. 00:00:32 That's why we've been covering this in a lot of different angles. This time we're gonna cover it with Johnny Barre, 00:00:37 our Extreme Act guy from West Central Tennessee. And Peter Russ, who's, uh, with Mari Stem Corporation, one of our business partners. 00:00:44 And you know what? I proposed this topic. I said this is very pertinent. We know that things really get a little snug. 00:00:49 Uh, there's always, there's so much spend on a per acre basis at the farm level. What if you wanna take 10, 20, 30, 40 bucks out? 00:00:56 Where do you start looking at where you can peel some money back, uh, shave off some expense 00:01:01 and not actually feel a burn for doing so? Uh, Peter, I'll start with you. Before we hit record. You said, I don't like to tell guys to, uh, 00:01:12 a avoid fertility, but, and then you said, Right? Yeah, no, uh, fertility is definitely something that, 00:01:20 you know, a lot of people like to go after fertility when it comes to saving money. And, and, and like John, I do farm some as well and, and, 00:01:27 but, and also part of, part of some crop performance. So I kind of see it from both sides. And, um, I do see fertility though, as a lot of times we, 00:01:36 you know, we apply every year, every year, every year. And there is a significant amount of inefficiency to fertility. 00:01:42 Um, I'll, I'll pick on phosphorus as an example. You know, we get typically 10 to 15% of our phosphorus that we apply, uh, the first year. 00:01:50 Most of it ties up and, and a lot of it, you know, ties up and we never actually see access to it again. 00:01:56 Um, and in, in most markets we've got anywhere, you know, universities will tell you 8,000 pounds upwards 00:02:01 to 30 plus thousand pounds of phosphorus in our upper inches of our sole profile. So that's the first place my mind goes to. 00:02:07 It doesn't mean don't put on fertile, don't put on phosphorus fertilizer. It means that this could be that type of year that you take 00:02:12 that cost out completely and utilize other technologies that might be available to market to increase phosphorus, solubility, you know, so 00:02:20 that we're feeding that plant. So I, I look at feeding the plant in years like this and not necessarily maybe making huge 00:02:26 deposits in my bank account. Johnny, you're nodding your head. Um, I thought there was an old rule. 00:02:32 When you're a farmer and you wanna chase yield, you throw fertilizer out there in excess 00:02:38 because the neighbors are gonna drive by. And if you don't have big crops, all of a sudden you get judged. 00:02:43 So, you know what? Don't ever cut back on fertility because neighbors will judge you. You're nodding in your head though. 00:02:48 You think you can take some money out of fertilizer? Yeah, I think you can. I think kind 00:02:51 of like what Peter was saying, it's not the time of year to be putting it in the bank. You know, let's, let's see what's out there. 00:02:56 Let's take soil samples, let's tissue sample a sap, SAP sample te uh, test. And let's see where the crop is 00:03:03 and let's feed it, what it, what it's needed throughout the year. I think that's one of the big takeaways 00:03:07 that we've been learning the last few years. And going into a year like this, it's definitely gonna be a year to kind of watch 00:03:12 what you're putting, put putting out there for the crop to have. 'cause we really need it to have what's available now. 00:03:17 And I think, I think along the lines of what Peter's saying, there's several products you can 00:03:21 put out there to make that happen. Alright, let's go with another since, uh, he just went, well, he led off with reduce, what's the old thing 00:03:27 that the environmental movement started 20 years ago? Reduce, reuse, recycle, repurpose. So that's a reduce, uh, recycle. 00:03:34 Is there any way, you know, you talk about fertility, I was at your farm, but we talked about using the, the products that melt down the, 00:03:41 and break down the is, is this a year that you rely more on the recycle part? Um, what are you thinking on that, on the farms? I 00:03:50 Would say, so we've already started spraying, uh, stubble, digesters out this fall. 00:03:53 Getting in, going into the spring, trying to make sure what we have out there is available, especially in some high residue crops. 00:03:59 You know, we are in the south, we do get a lot of breakdown, but it still takes several years for corn stalks 00:04:04 to break completely down you go. Just, you know, a couple of states north and they could have residue on top of the ground for years. 00:04:09 So I would, you know, really look into, if I had never done it, I would really look into using stubble digesters on our farm 00:04:16 or on your farm because for us, the, the, the test we done on farm on our farm last year was about 40% reduction from November to about March. 00:04:26 So it doesn't take very, very many months at all to really see a big, uh, reduction in residential top of that ground. 00:04:33 All right, so we we're saying we're trying to peel expense out of every acre. Can we make the, that a stubble digester is actually 00:04:39 peeling expense back? Can we make that argument? 'cause somebody's gonna say, yeah, but I had to spend money on the stubble 00:04:44 digester. Yeah, You do, but you gotta look at it more in one ways. And Peter could chime in on this, 00:04:48 but you know, not only are you releasing more nutrients that are already out there on top of the ground and putting 'em back in the soil to be used, 00:04:54 but you're also probably gonna be reducing some tillage needs too. So you can look at it from a fertility standpoint 00:04:59 to a tillage standpoint. There'll be less residue on top of the ground, be less to handle in the spring if you're having some 00:05:04 type of issues to plant into. So, you know, it's, it's multiple applications a lot of times. You know, we, I guess we can kind of transition 00:05:11 to that a little bit too. Dam is, you know, you could piggyback these applications into a tank mix you're already going out with. 00:05:16 So if you're doing a fall burn down, you could throw a product like that in there. And it's not a special trip. 00:05:21 It's already tank mix in, it's a piggyback application. All right. So I like that. First off, if you're saying that it, it, it is a new expense, 00:05:28 but also you're getting your bang back out of it so it more than pays for itself. And then also you're not making an extra trip 00:05:33 'cause it goes in there with a Paul Marone. So I think the big thing is if we're, if we're talking about dimes 00:05:38 and we're talking about dollars, um, uh, Peter, what you see, you cover a lot of ground, you cover a lot of farms in this. 00:05:46 Where do you see a chance that farming operations, um, you know, this time of year, you know, winter time can, can do something that, uh, 00:05:55 feels a little bit of expense back? Well, I mean I'll first start with completely agreeing with John there on the double digester. 00:06:02 So we sometimes look at those as a fall applied only application. Um, and, and there's a lot of, uh, there's a lot 00:06:08 of information, there's a lot of data out there in the market that, um, you can look into that we know. So touch on this topic for just a minute is 00:06:16 that we know there's a lot of fertility, especially follow a corn crop. I mean, as example 200 bushel corn crop has 90 pounds of n 00:06:24 18 pounds of phosphorus and 104 pounds of potassium in the stove. Some people call that trash, what I call it treasure. 00:06:31 I mean that is true fertility dollars that have been spent by the farmer. And you mentioned recycle. Now let's reuse. Right? 00:06:37 So find a way to reuse that and that's using a double digester. Uh, as John mentioned, if you could do that in the fall, 00:06:43 that's great because you improve your, you can actually take a tillage pass out, which most universities I think put a tillage pass now at 00:06:49 about 18 to $20 an acre. Uh, so you found the $20 bill just taking two, We said, we said if we wanted to just save 20 bucks, 00:06:56 we can do something that just takes off. And by the way, there's gonna be hardcore tillers on here that say nah, but that tilling that sets the soil 00:07:03 and it sets the seed bed and all that. And I would say, um, my, my 55 years around this industry tells me 00:07:09 that farmers love tilling more than the ground love being tilt. Well, true, true. Absolutely. 00:07:14 Uh, but you know, we, like you said though, working in the spring, let's say that window's closed, we can still utilize that even in a tillage situation. 00:07:21 'cause when we till, um, what are we really doing? We're breaking up the top layer of the soil profile. We're not flipping it over, we're not plowing anymore. 00:07:28 We're actually just moving that residue around, maybe breaking it up into smaller pieces, which is gonna help digest it. 00:07:34 But really it's still all sitting there in an upper two, three inches of sole profile. 00:07:38 So these double digesters that can be applied can still work to break down increased nutrient availability out of those, 00:07:44 out of that stubble, which really farmers will say, a lot of people will say, Peter, I get that sooner or later, 00:07:50 but really it's about sooner or later which one matters more than the other. It's, it is getting it sooner. 00:07:55 So we can use that nutrition in season because once it does come available, nature's gonna take its course. 00:08:01 Phosphorus is gonna tie up and potassium is gonna, is gonna wanna leach away from that plant. So we can, we can manage that more effectively 00:08:08 so we can recycle, reuse and actually utilize that nutrition and season, which means you could take fertilizer costs out, 00:08:14 whatever that is from a comfort level for, for your own farm. But I, you can easily take 30, 40, $50 worth 00:08:19 of fertilizer costs out. Again, maybe not on an every year basis, but definitely when you start looking at a how do I, 00:08:26 how do I achieve a better profit margin in a year like this? And I, and I'll make one other comment about that. 00:08:31 There's a, there's a lot of research around corn residue, uh, any grass residue that actually has a carbon 00:08:39 and nitrogen ratio of 57 to one. Now what does that mean? That means when we have a 57 to one carbon nitrogen ratio, we immobilize nitrogen, 00:08:47 which means we as farmers, we have to put on more nitrogen When we're in a corn on corn scenario or corn following wheat 00:08:54 or whatever the case may be, when we are grass to grass, we utilize these double digesters. 00:08:59 We can actually bring our carbon to nitrogen ratio down closer to more of a corn soybean rotation. 00:09:05 And there's a likelihood we could start to remove some of that nitrogen that we would 00:09:08 otherwise have used to offset that penalty. So there's a lot there, but I mean there's, there's a, these double digesters, we're finding significant amount 00:09:16 of value when we, when we manage the acre properly. Johnny, The guy started off 00:09:19 by saying we got cut fertility application and now all of a sudden I said, but the farmers will judge us 00:09:24 and now he's talking about cutting nitrogen. Has he not hurt? Gotten the memo that in North American agriculture, 00:09:29 the one thing you never do is cut back on nitrogen. You gotta keep putting more nitrogen out there because that grows big tall corn 00:09:35 and then all of a sudden you can tell everybody how tall your corn is. Is he not getting the memo? Wait a 00:09:39 minute, I've been in your field. I was at your field day, I was at your field day where you actually purposefully cut back nitrogen. 00:09:46 So anyway, um, is this the year to, to go ahead and be a little bit, um, put your agronomous I think what Peter's talking about there, 00:09:54 if you can make this residue this carbon go away, then you're not having the tie up. So you won't have to apply as much to feed that crop. 00:10:00 You know, because we've all seen that happen before. When you got heavy residue on top of the ground, it really does tie that nitrogen up. 00:10:06 So I think he's just saying you can, you can apply products that can help you farther in the year. 00:10:11 We're reducing some of your other inputs because of the top issues. So By the way, isn't the key then to just get the carbon 00:10:17 into the, the carbon cycle in the dirt that the, I mean in the soil, is that the idea, Peter? It's to get yes, to get that cycle going. 00:10:23 That's that, you know, naturally it's going to break down. And when it naturally breaks down those, that, that, 00:10:28 that soil biology requires a food source. So it takes our nitrogen that we apply, utilizes that as a food source and breaks that to, to break down 00:10:35 that, that that residue. If we, if we can kickstart that process, we can, we can narrow the window that it takes for that to happen. 00:10:42 We, we bring that ratio down so we start to mineralize more nitrogen. 'cause really we've got tons 00:10:48 and tons of, of nitrogen in our soil profile. We just can't access a lot of it because it's doing other workforce 00:10:53 to break down our residue. So we're just helping that, that process. So the summary, the summary is if you utilize a, 00:11:00 a stubble digester, I believe on a one-off, you can absolutely likely take most of your fertility out and your p and k and it not hurt you 00:11:09 because you're gonna focus on your, your, your stove that's out in the field. But long-term thinking, we can also become better managers 00:11:16 and better stewards of our nitrogen spend. Once we start to realize the other benefits that that exists with a stubble digester, 00:11:23 Mr. Ral, does it take a little downturn like this because, you know, 20, 20 20 through 23 were really good, but we got a little smarter about things. 00:11:32 Does it take a little downturn like this to make you better? Like you're, you're starting to look at things that when, 00:11:39 when, when, when the tide was up and the, you know, there's a lot of froth, eh, but now you gotta go, uh, in other words I'll go 00:11:46 with reduce, recycle, repurpose, reuse, rethink. This is, this is kind of the time where it makes you rethink. 00:11:52 Yeah, I think think it is, but I think a lot of farmers the last three, four years have really been looking at what can we do 00:11:57 to start reducing, you know, not in an economic downturn, but at least if you know, so we've been doing trials the 00:12:03 last three or four years on our farm trying to figure out what nitrogen rates do we really need for us, how, 00:12:08 how low can we cut, can we go from a 1.2 nitrogen ratio down to 0.8 0.9? 00:12:14 And that's where we are now on our farm. And it's taken us several years to get there. But it prepares you for years like we're going into right 00:12:19 now where things are a lot tighter. And I think that's the big thing to take away is for people to always be trying things on their farms, 00:12:25 trying new products, trying to see what works. Does this still the digester work? Does this phosphorus product work for 'em? 00:12:31 Just starting to learn what it is along the way. And then when things like this happen, you can really start playing 00:12:35 and plugging in these new products that are out there to really help you lower that input cost. So we talked a all about stable digest, 00:12:41 we talked about fertility reduction because there's probably enough fertility and then also we talked about carbon and nitrogen ratio 00:12:46 and that's just a matter of, of being, getting better agronomically, which we are than we were just 10, 20, 30 years ago. 00:12:53 What about, um, on on rethinking, when you look across the farming acres you gotta cover and you would need to pull back, you know, I, I came 00:13:01 with you to you with an assignment and I said give me five bucks an acre of savings. Uh, whatever you would go to. 00:13:08 Hopefully you'd turn to our friend Brian who I haven't seen for a long time. My friend Brian Adams my second favorite Mississippian 00:13:15 after Mac McInally. If you don't know who that is, look it up. You just sing with Jimmy Buffett songwriter. Anyway. 00:13:22 Where are you rethinking also on your operation where you can peel back five or 10 bucks? You know, we were kind of talking a little bit beforehand, 00:13:29 you know, what can we do to re reduce some passes throughout the year? So like if we're gonna be spraying used to, 00:13:35 we say we didn't wanna weed and feed at the same time, a lot of times there's compatibility 00:13:39 standpoints reason we weren't doing that. Is that something we could start looking at? So if we're spraying a herbicide, is there a product 00:13:44 that I could feed to that crop too to help with some nutrient uptake? And then along that same line, when we're planting, a lot 00:13:51 of times our planters are set up with infer and two by two, a lot of times you don't wanna do those 00:13:55 things 'cause they take time. But in a year, like this year, if I can cut an application out, reduce the rate 00:14:00 of fertilizer I'm gonna put out, I'm gonna band it and put it right in that root zone. That's where times like this, 00:14:06 when things are getting a little bit leaner, we can go in there and start doing some things. We're actually putting the product right in the root zone 00:14:11 where it needs to be and not broadcasting it. So for us on our app on our farm, we're probably gonna try to reduce an application pass maybe two throughout the year 00:14:19 and then turn around and uh, put the same products out, just put 'em out at different timings and piggyback on. And then at planning we're gonna really try to focus on 00:14:26 what can we put out in infer and two by two to really help boost those yields, get that better RRI but also reduce that input cost. 00:14:35 So you're going to do a little bit more at time of planting and you already do a lot at time planning. Right. And you took the two by two 'cause 00:14:43 'cause I pay attention Peter, I recorded with him last year. He took the two by two off of his planter 00:14:49 and now you're talking about doing more at the, at the time of planting. Are you putting two by two back on? No. 00:14:53 'cause it doesn't work that well for your Well I've Got, I've got dribble systems so I'm not putting the knife system back on. 00:14:58 I'm actually just gonna be dribbling it right on east side of this road. There is what I'm gonna be doing with a lot of my fertility. 00:15:03 So. All right. And then you said weed and feed you're going to make when, when you're going across, you're going to, 00:15:11 but you, you mentioned the compatibility. If I save $10 'cause I didn't make an extra pass an acre, but I lose efficacy, did I really gain anything? Yeah, 00:15:21 But I think now we've learned what works and what doesn't work. There's several products out there that you can source that, 00:15:25 that have no issue with compatibility. Now a lot of this has been changed over the last few years. There's reasons you were doing it 00:15:31 and stuff like that, but Yep. You know, Peter, on the re sticking with our theme rethink, where do you, where do you think there's room 00:15:40 to rethink again from yourself being a farmer and in all the ground you cover in your job with Mari stem? Yeah, 00:15:46 So I mean we're, you know, I I like to say one way to, you know, one way to um, decrease costs is is increase bushels. 00:15:53 So I mean if we can, you know, do what we're talking about, recycle, reuse, you know, uh, a lot of our nutrients 00:15:58 through double digesters. I think also, you know, when we look at our nitrogen applications, uh, John mentioned it right? 00:16:05 One, I mean the four R has been around forever, right place, right time, right source. 00:16:09 Um, and so, so you start looking at can I, can I, can I do a better job timing wise? Can I place it better so the plant 00:16:14 can use it more effectively? And that's what John's doing there with his plan or placing it right near that seed at a time closer 00:16:19 to time plants can use it, which allows you typically to cut back. 'cause time is our enemy when it comes 00:16:25 to nitrogen applications. The earlier we put it on, the longer it's gotta hang out there. So if we're gonna do that, consider using a nitrogen 00:16:31 management product as well that will hold it or maintain it in that root zone or in that plant longer. You may be able to reduce some end that way. 00:16:38 So nutrient use efficiency, I know that's A-A-N-U-E is a, has been used and overused multiple times, 00:16:45 but it, it is, it is legitimate and true and, and things that I think we all should dissect and understand better. 00:16:50 Then I look at in season and I say, okay, I still wanna feed that plant. I don't wanna give up bushels. 00:16:55 Part of this podcast was reducing costs but producing as much or more. Yeah. And so how do you fuel the fire in season so 00:17:02 that we continue to maintain our yields that we're used to or, or higher because that's 00:17:06 how we can outpace the cost of production. Uh, and so I look at things like yesterday I was visiting with a gentleman that told me he was gonna spend, uh, 00:17:14 with his traditional methods, we call it the splash and dash, which is they're gonna put on fungicide at about VT on corn and they're gonna spend $40 an acre. 00:17:22 I'm not gonna pick on a brand or anything like that, but you know, you get into some of these very high priced, uh, fungicide products 00:17:29 and applications and things you need to get in there. And it's a one-time app at 40. I look at that and I immediately say there's a better way I 00:17:35 can do that by maybe spending 20 or 30, but I utilize, you know, lower cost fungicides that are out there that still do a good job, 00:17:44 but I might put it on twice. And as John said, I might be able to put that on when I'm, when I'm applying a herbicide 00:17:49 and then I might be able to put that on a gun later. And I focus on how I can better manage my plant health through the season with maybe less cost, 00:17:57 less costly products that perform the same function if, if I do it more than once. And I can pair that with other foliar plant nutrition, 00:18:06 other stress mitigation products, things that, things that I can take that spend $40 reallocate it so that maybe I save a little or maybe I spend the same 00:18:16 but my end result is I produce more. Yeah, that's, that's, that's the other, when I look at how to better manage my acre, I'm not looking to cut 00:18:23 and save my way into prosperity. I'm looking at cutting the things that are maybe less efficient like fertilizer and, 00:18:29 and creating efficiency there, but then really fueling the fire in season in a way that maybe I can take a cost that I'm just kind of spending. 00:18:37 'cause that's just what you do and I find a better way to spend it. That's Kind of on the other re repurpose. 00:18:44 Um, are you taking anything out like in way of fungicide Johnny Rell and then deciding to take $40 of fungicide out 00:18:55 and putting 20 of that 40 into something else and then deciding that you're gonna be okay? Is there any decision about a 00:19:03 repurposing that you might be doing? Yeah, so what we we're probably gonna do is we'll run a cheaper fungicide probably at V 10 00:19:09 and then we'll really watch that crop. 'cause southern rust is our biggest issue. We don't have tar spot in our area yet, 00:19:15 so it's probably coming, but we'll start, we'll put out something cheap early on and then watch that crop. 00:19:20 'cause we're talking about, you know, a 10, $12 fungicide cost doing it that way and then be watching for that rust 00:19:26 because it's very hard for us to protect the crop from say, V 10 all the way to brown silt with one fungicide anyways, 00:19:33 if rust comes in, 30, 40, 50 days is a long time to protect for any fungicide out there. 00:19:38 So it's a lot easier for us to do something cheap on the front end like we did this year and then watch that crop. 00:19:43 We may never have to go back to that second application. It's, It's, and if you do, if you do have to go back, 00:19:47 are you doing, uh, inexpensive version of the fun side again? It won't be The Cadillac version, it'll be another inexpensive version 00:19:53 because we're, we're we're combining the two to get the longevity that we're needing. Yeah, So compared to two does two cheap shots. 00:20:00 And Peter, you know this, I don't buy fungicide, do two cheap shots of fungicide, not cheap, lesser priced fungicides, um, 00:20:09 still cheaper than the Cadillac. Yes, in most cases that is the case. You can do it for less, um, twice. 00:20:15 And John mentioned, and I don't have to manage it and I don't have tar spots. Some of these diseases that are out there, there's very few 00:20:20 that are actually gonna handle the, you know, holding those diseases back. So for where I'm at, I can get away with it. 00:20:27 Southern rust is our enemy and it's, it can be protected fairly cheap, still Good. And, and Damian we 00:20:32 do have, we do have, uh, northern, out northern we do have, uh, tar spot and in a lot of geographies 00:20:37 and where I live we, we, we battle with tar spot and, and to, to John. Wait, you're in eastern Iowa, aren't you? 00:20:42 So I live in home for me is north central Illinois. Right. Long interstate. Don't You hate it Johnny? When 00:20:48 people that are from like God's country, he's got 19 feet of top soil and like he could fling, he could fling corn out the window 00:20:56 of his truck when he drives by and still do 200 bushel corn and he is b******g. I don't know if I can handle this Johnny Bush crop. 00:21:02 Do you agree? He just needs to stop whining. Yeah. And the big field, throw that in there Damien. You know, we're down here, we turn every 30 seconds. 00:21:09 They turn every 30 minutes. So His small, his small patch is 120 acre square, right? Yeah. Anyway, those small fields, okay, we did reduce, redo, 00:21:19 recycle, uh, we talked about you can, you can probably get by with less p and then we talked 00:21:24 about recycle, we talked about stubble. Digesters, we talked about um, recycling. We talked about also making sure your 00:21:29 carbon nitrogen ratio is good. We talked about repurpose, we talked about fungicide, we talked about reuse and that was a big one. 00:21:35 You guys went down the road of, there's a whole bunch of stuff that you've got fertility that's already out there. Peter rattle off the numbers 104, uh, you know, pounds 00:21:43 of this and then and all that. And that's reusing what you've already got in there. And we did rethink, um, weed 00:21:48 and feed, putting more stuff on at time planning. You reduce one pass, you reduce one pass, it's $11 just in the equipment and field maybe, right? Oh yeah, 00:21:59 That's right. Yeah. And then your time and stuff like that. Yeah. You could save 10 bucks, pretty easy. 00:22:03 12 bucks some cases by just reducing One pass. Yeah, I mean obviously you got a human that's sitting in 00:22:07 that machine and that's not easy. Alright, last thoughts. Um, any other rethinking that a person listening 00:22:13 to this is like, Hey, I hadn't thought of that. Thanks for the idea on, uh, trying to back out some expense. Peter, you go first. Johnny gets the last word. 00:22:19 Oh, one thing I'll throw out 'cause I know we talked a lot about corn here. Uh, corn is king in a lot of areas, 00:22:23 or at least we, we talked a lot about that type of application. Soybeans, you know, another crop. 00:22:27 I, I was having a conversation just this morning with a producer and we were talking about these double digesters and this recycle reuse. 00:22:33 And, and I've been, uh, at a university, uh, speech actually that I witnessed here a couple weeks ago where they, 00:22:39 they made the comment that, you know, soybean production in, in the US is, I think the 52 bushel is the, 00:22:45 is the highest we produces a nation. Um, you know, you take the, the great state of Illinois as you talked about, as good as we think, 00:22:51 Wait, wait, that's an average. Just wait, just a person says, wait a minute, I didn't want that. He means the national average, 00:22:55 that's the national national average is around 50. The highest has been around 52 and a half or three I think. Yeah, so go ahead, sorry. 00:23:01 Produced in 2016, the highest in Illinois is 62, if you can believe it. So I mean it's not that great average, average, average. 00:23:07 So when you think about that, uh, we fertilize in front of soybeans, we fertilize in front of corn, corn is king. And, and it's hard to in, for those that are struggling 00:23:15 with maybe this conversation where they say, Hey, I I just can't remove fertility outta my corn. I just can't bring myself to do it. 00:23:20 Think about soybeans and how much fertility's out there in your, in your stove or in that residue from the year 00:23:25 before, whether you worked it or not, utilize this double digester and just consider not putting on p 00:23:30 and k in part of your soybeans. That's a hundred dollars bill in most cases. You can do it for about 15 or 20 bucks 00:23:36 and you can get yourself, you can get your economics right on your soybeans. If there's one thing you're gonna do that's something 00:23:42 to consider is just utilize that fertility that's out there, there, let it manage the soybean crop 00:23:46 and then manage your corn crop as you always have. If that makes you feel more comfortable. And then take some of these other, uh, pieces that, 00:23:53 that we've talked about here with John and, and, and start and consider starting to work with them on your farm 00:23:57 so you'd better understand and, and grow confidence. Because one of our missions and, and especially here at Mary Stem remissions, is 00:24:02 to grow more bushels for less cost. And that's gonna be by supplementing, taking down some of our, uh, current costs by, 00:24:08 by utilizing other technologies and then also raising more bushels. So that's, uh, that's what, that's my main takeaways on it. 00:24:14 I like it. That's a big one. We did it. We got through here. Really good. Okay. Rethink, reduce, recycle, repurpose, reuse, rethink. 00:24:20 I added the rethink. That's not one that they used to come up with with the environmental movement. In case you're remembering that Johnny. 00:24:25 I mean it's, uh, I, I just made that one up. So anyway, how are you rethinking Yeah, you know, along the rethinking process there. 00:24:30 You know, I just think everybody needs to go to all the grower meetings that they can to hear what people are doing across the country. 00:24:35 Damien, they need to get on here and look at all the podcasts or listen to all the podcasts 00:24:38 that we've done, the videos that we've had. There's a lot of trials that have already been done in their area. 00:24:43 They may not know about 'em and it saves a lot of headache. It tells you what products are working, 00:24:48 which products are not working. 'cause not all products are created equal. I think Peter would tell you that for sure. 00:24:52 So, you know, you gotta look at that type thing. And then I would just sit down and say, Hey, if I could save $10 an acre 00:24:59 on a thousand acres acres of corn, that's 10 grand. That's a big number this coming year. We just talked about you can Mike 00:25:05 and reduce one trip across that field and piggyback that on. 'cause on our farming operation, we used 00:25:09 to put out a B three primer shot. We didn't put it in there with a herbicide shot. We're trying to figure out how to combine those two together 00:25:15 to cut that 10 bucks out. So I would just tell people to try to network work through this deal together, because together we'll figure 00:25:21 this out and there's a lot of good things already out there for 'em to look at. I agree. Fantastic. I like it. And yeah, you're right. 00:25:27 You know, uh, sometimes you think $10 could be an experiment. Well maybe in some years $10 is your margin. 00:25:32 Uh, and that's just the unfortunate reality. But those of us, uh, you know, we've, we've been around ag, we know that reduced recycle, repurpose, reuse, rethink. 00:25:39 We talked about how to take cost out of every acre you farm while leaving the revenue intact. You got some really good ideas. Peter Rusin, 00:25:46 he's the senior Vice President, uh, with Mari stem crop performance. If you wanna learn more about Mari Stem, 00:25:51 they're one of our business partners here. Extreme Ag go to meristem ag, that's M-E-R-I-S-T-E-M meristem ag.com. 00:25:59 Johnny Verell one of our extreme ag guys from Jackson, Tennessee. Uh, if you wanna see j uh, Johnny 00:26:04 and I in action, make sure you go to Commodity Classic. You can go to Commodity Classic. You can see us there because we're gonna be doing panels, 00:26:11 we're gonna be doing a pancake breakfast, and we're even gonna do a game show that Johnny's gonna be a part of. 00:26:17 He doesn't know it yet, but he's gonna be a major personality on stage during the Pancake breakfast. We want you to come to that. So you'll see me and Mr. 00:26:23 Rell in action, uh, at Commodity Classic. And in between now and then check us out@extrememag.farm. As Johnny said, hundreds of videos 00:26:31 that they have produced on farm. I met some of 'em in some of those videos at their field days, 00:26:36 illustrating all the trials that they're doing. And then also we've been doing this Cutting the curve for three and a half years. 00:26:41 There are nearly 250 or 300 episodes of this, you, they're all free at Extreme Magnet Farm. So go check it out. So next 00:26:47 time, Peter, thanks for being here. He's on the road. Came to us from a hotel along the road, just so we can share this information. 00:26:52 Johnny Rell, uh, took time away from babysitting to join you. So anyway, till next time. Thanks for being here. 00:26:56 I'm Dave Mason with Extreme Ag. That's a wrap for this episode of Cutting the Curve. Make sure to check out Extreme ag.farm 00:27:04 for more great content to help you squeeze more profit out 00:27:07.605 --> 00:27:08.885