Podcast: Upgrade Your Farm Tech: Precision Ag on a Budget

00:00:00 Precision upgrades to save you money that can make you money on your existing older machinery. That's the topic of this episode's 00:00:07 extreme ag, cutting the curve. Welcome to Extreme ags Cutting the Curve podcast, where real farmers share real insights 00:00:14 and real results to help you improve your farming operation. And now here, here's your host, Damien Mason. 00:00:22 Hey there. Welcome to another exceptional episode of Extreme Eggs Cutting the Curve. I got a good one for you today 00:00:28 because let's face it, the farm economy, we've been talking a lot about it. It's got some struggles, right? Commodity prices are down. 00:00:33 We're gonna be way off of the last three years, which we're record income, uh, years. So you've got to have modern machinery. You know what? 00:00:41 Farming is a business, but you also, because it's a business, gotta look at your profit and loss statement. 00:00:46 You gotta say, wait a minute, I can't break the bank. Well, guess what? We've got the answer for you. Precision upgrades got John Deere's, Clint Chaffer on here, 00:00:52 joined by Kelly Garrett. Kelly Garrett, when I was at your farm, we had a planter hooked up 00:00:57 to a brand new track tractor John Deere tractor. And the tractor looked like just came outta the showroom within the last six or 12 months. 00:01:03 But the planter you told me was like 12 years old. And I said, wow, you're out here going trying to set yield records with a 12-year-old planter. 00:01:11 And you said, Damien, it's 12 years old, but we've upgraded it with modern technology and that's how we can do things. 00:01:18 We can not break the bank on machinery. We can just upgrade stuff. So giving that is the example to lead off with. 00:01:23 Talk to me. Yeah. You know, especially when it comes to planners, you know, the tractors will 00:01:28 trade every year, things like that. But when it comes to planners, we customize 'em so much that we'll keep 'em around longer. 00:01:35 You know, as long as the central commodity tank is good, as long as the bar is good, we'll keep adding, subtracting, 00:01:41 changing things on there, hydraulic down force electric meters, the row by row shutoffs, the in furrow system, things like that. 00:01:48 And so once we get invested in it, we, we really like to keep it for a while. You probably, right now, Clint, um, are hearing this, Hey, 00:01:57 listen in a different, in a different, uh, economic scenario 1, 2, 4 years ago. Um, I'd say, yep, Golo ahead and, uh, 00:02:06 and farmers do like new steel, right? They like to go to the Farm Machinery show in Louisville every year. 00:02:11 They love looking at that. But the price tags are, uh, big and they, the returns, uh, 00:02:17 the net margins on crop land are not big. So you're probably hearing a lot more now. Your phone's ringing a little bit more than it was 00:02:23 a couple years ago, I'm guessing. Yeah, I mean the, the, the precision upgrade kits, uh, being able to take that, that older planter, right? 00:02:31 Or may, maybe I should use the term experienced planter, right? Uh, you know, you talked about a 10, 12-year-old planter. 00:02:38 We can go back as far as 2005. Uh, and the, the interesting part about this, Damien, is when, when folks think about, uh, a new row unit, 00:02:48 it's actually way more than that. It's actually stripping that planter clear down to the bar. You're putting new row units on, 00:02:55 you're putting all new wiring harness on. That thing is basically a new planter coming outta that, even to the point where you're getting a, 00:03:02 a precision upgrade serial number that's, uh, that's, that's on that planter now backed by a warranty as well. Um, and of course you can do this at significantly less 00:03:12 on the cost as opposed to going out there and buying a brand new planter. So those precision upgrades allows you to utilize that piece 00:03:19 of equipment that you're familiar with. You know, Kelly, you talked about, uh, about your bar, you know, your bar, you know, the, the shape it's been, 00:03:26 you know, how you've treated it over the years. Uh, if that bar's in great shape, why not update it to the, to the latest technology through a precision upgrades? 00:03:35 Clint, I know you're reluctant because you don't want to be, uh, you know, have someone that listens to cutting the curve. 00:03:40 And we have lots of listeners, uh, you don't want them to then say, go to their John Deere dealership and say, this Clint Chaffer guy was on, 00:03:46 and he said, X amount of dollars. Because we know that there's bells and whistles and technology you can add, or reductions you can make, 00:03:52 and you can order these things. You know, it's like saying, how much is a car? Well, are we talking about a Mercedes? 00:03:57 Are we talking about a, a used Hugo? Are we, you know, what are we talking about here? Um, I get that, 00:04:04 but the person listening to this that says, yeah, I was ready to, to trade out, but I'm not going to, you used planter as an example, 00:04:15 I can just upgrade a planter for maybe one third of what a new might cost. That's a rough number. I get that you said that, 00:04:21 that's probably something I can count on. Yeah, no, I mean, that's the, that, that's the, that's where the precision upgrade fits in, right? 00:04:29 Uh, and, and allowing that, that farmer of really a farmer of any size too, right? 00:04:35 Right. Whether you got a 12 row, whether you got a 24 row right, or bigger or smaller than the 12 row, right? 00:04:42 You have those, uh, opportunities to get into the latest technology without going out there and purchasing that new piece of equipment. 00:04:48 Which to your point, I mean, it, it's new equipment's expensive, right? So, uh, so the precision upgrade kit allows you to do 00:04:55 that at a significantly reduced price and being able to get that latest technology onto your farm, farm operation. 00:05:03 Kelly, you, you, you last upgraded your planter and you were going through the whole fleet here, but the planter, has it been upgraded in the last couple 00:05:12 years or a few years before that? Oh, yes. You know, the, the oldest planter that we had that, you know, and we, we just 00:05:18 traded it off for some new ones. 'cause the bar was starting to show somewhere that oldest planter was in oh five. 00:05:23 And, uh, and we'll have a new one next year from John Deere because of the bar and the tag, things like that, you know, 00:05:28 just showing where, like I said, but yet we had upgraded it when we purchased it in 19, and then we had, we had done more upgrades in about 22, 00:05:37 you know, reconfigured some things like that because the row unit's showing where and things like that. Your oldest planter oh five, 00:05:44 and you just said, if that's, if you've got a planter that's 19 years old, we're recording this in the fall of 24, depending on what we're listening to this, you can make that 00:05:52 a 19-year-old machine as good as new with these upgrades, right, Clint? Yeah, absolutely. 00:05:57 That's, uh, we can go back to, back to 2005 and, uh, put all new row units on it. You're gonna get all new wiring harness, which actually 00:06:05 that's a, that's another important piece as we start thinking about all the new technologies. And I know we'll probably talk about Exact Shot 00:06:12 and some of those different pieces that, uh, that we have out there that takes a lot of data transfer. And when you upgrade a planter, 00:06:19 now you're actually upgrading the architecture of that planter as well to our latest Seed Star five architecture, which is our high speed data transfer. 00:06:27 So again, you're taking, you know, dial up internet from oh five and you're turned into the high speed 00:06:34 internet, uh, of today. Right? Yeah. Kelly, you've got a machine that you said, uh, okay. Oh five, and you made a point 00:06:42 before we hit the record button that there was, excuse me, there was new additional stuff that came in. 00:06:48 It was 20 years ago, uh, row shutoffs that was new technology, uh, two decades ago. Now it's almost standard, right? 00:06:55 So kind of walk me through the evolution of why you would need to upgrade your planner, uh, through the years. 00:07:01 You know, do you have down pressure, uh, row shutoff go, go through the whole evolution of upgrades? 00:07:08 The first thing that ever came out were the row shutoffs with the GPS. You know, you had the original auto steer, 00:07:13 then the original auto steer would just go straight back and forth. It's not ever, you know, 00:07:17 back then I didn't think it would ever evolve to where we could use it today. And now I just came in from doing some ripping in some hard 00:07:23 areas and, you know, I'm up there auto steering and I can't imagine not using auto steer now. I mean, and so you start with auto steer, you start 00:07:30 with the original row shutoffs and, you know, I can't what that would've cost back then, it was just a couple hundred dollars a row at that point 00:07:37 to put those row shutoffs on that original planner. And, you know, if you get in central Iowa and everything, square and straight 00:07:43 back and forth, it wouldn't be the same. But here in the hills in western Iowa, I documented a 10% savings 00:07:49 because I still had, I had the, uh, I had the original planter monitor, and then we had the new, you know, the, the new 2,600, if 00:07:56 that's what it was at the time, I think Clint, you know, and so you had two monitors in the cab. 00:08:01 One was for the planter, one was for the row shutoff the way it was working, and the planner monitor. 00:08:06 I'm like, is this accurate? And they said, yep, that's accurate for the acres at plants. And then you had the row shutoffs, we saved 10% on seed. 00:08:13 The seed dealers in our area were all upset because everybody was taking back 10% of their seed. So it started with the row shutoffs, you know, 00:08:20 and then years later we put on the hydraulic down pressure and then the electric meters, you know, 00:08:24 and then we're auto steering. Now we don't even have markers. And, you know, then you wanna talk about exact 00:08:29 shot and exact rate. And I, I don't know that you can afford not to do it. Are you gonna pay for it in one year? 00:08:35 Not, not everything you're gonna pay for in one year, but exact shot row shutoffs. Hydraulic downforce, that's gonna give you an 00:08:41 ROI and just a couple years. Yeah. Uh, so the most recent, the, the most recent round of upgrades was electronic, right? 00:08:51 Yeah. Yeah. And, and from a dollar standpoint, how much are we talking about? You know, when we upgraded 00:09:00 that planner the last time here, just a few years ago, we spent about $1,500 a row. You know, that was kind of what I would say are some 00:09:06 pre inflationary numbers. So I would expect it to be a bit higher now, but it just depends on how far you want 00:09:12 to go in furrow system, new meters, hydraulic downforce, a two by two system, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. 00:09:19 You know, Clint talked about the wiring harness, things like that. Um, I, I would tell you that number one on my list, 00:09:25 number one row shutoffs are, and hydraulic downforce are numbers one and one A on my list. 00:09:31 Yeah. And, and by the way, to most people that are in modern farming, they think that that's probably like, a lot of people are like, oh yeah, 00:09:37 that's been around for a while, but there's still a lot of people that don't have hydraulic downforce. And depending on your terrain 00:09:42 and conditions, that can vary your seed placement by a couple of inches, which makes a hell of a big difference in terms of emergence. 00:09:50 Right? And Clint's nodding his head yes. Yeah. I mean, when we start looking at, you know, I, I, I always like to look at the, 00:09:57 the whole planter system, right? And you take that exact emerge, the brush belt technology, delivering the seed directly to the trench, uh, 00:10:05 and then you have individual hydraulic downforce, right? And all of that working in unison is all about driving 00:10:12 emergence, uniform emergence across that field. And I, it's, it's one of those things, at least for, for, for myself, I always look at that as, that's one 00:10:21 of the number one yield drivers is how well you can get uniform emergence. Uh, and adding all of those pieces together. 00:10:28 You can just see a, a huge, uh, you know, huge bump in efficiency and productivity as you start tying, uh, tying 00:10:35 that system together, going into the correct downforce. I mean, you're talking about that impacts, you know, compaction, it impacts your seed depth, right? 00:10:43 Um, something like IRHD where it's making an adjustment, oh, I think it's five times a second, right? 00:10:50 Uh, that it's making that, uh, making that adjustment, uh, you can't make those adjustments with air, right? 00:10:56 And, uh, and so it's just, uh, uh, an incredible feature to, to add onto a planter. Nowadays, 00:11:02 I got four bullet points on planter upgrades, uh, that didn't know I was doing my preparation for this because I knew Keller was gonna talk about his planter. 00:11:09 'cause we talked about his planter. And we're at a field day, which by the way, if you miss the field days, go 00:11:12 and check the stuff at, uh, extreme Mag Do Farm. We've got footage from all the field days that, uh, we shot, uh, about all the cool stuff we're doing, and it's all free. 00:11:20 Extreme mag.farm, hundreds of episodes of this podcast, hundreds of videos. The guys like Kelly and Matt and Kevin and Temple and Johnny 00:11:28 and all of 'em shoot out there. And then also, uh, you can check out the footage from these field days. Really cool stuff. Anyway, exact Emerge and Max emerge. 00:11:39 Um, I thought those were, I thought those were versions of planters, and you're telling me that's an upgrade. So you know what, you're gonna have to help me out 00:11:45 here. I'm not a planter buyer. Yeah, no. So that's a, that's a great question there, Damien, because, uh, 00:11:50 an exact emerge meter is our premier meter that gets you to a high speed planter, right? 00:11:57 So you're, you're, you pair that with the brush belt technology, which again, is delivering that seed directly to the trench. 00:12:03 Uh, and you can now start running at 10 mile an hour where you're looking at, of course, most guys are without a high speed planter, 00:12:11 you're planning around five mile an hour. So you're doubling that, that planter speed doubling your productivity. 00:12:16 When you go into a Maximer five E, which is our electric version of the Maximer, uh, five, uh, planter meter, uh, that's a lower cost, 00:12:25 but it's a way to get into electric meters. Now that is going to be on a, you know, up to speeds of, of five miles an hour at that point in time, right? 00:12:33 So you kind of have two different, two different productivity, uh, values there. And you also have two different, uh, uh, price, 00:12:41 uh, cost difference, right? Between, man, have you Ever ever been to Kelly Garrett's farm? I have not, no. Not yet. Lemme just tell 00:12:47 You, if you ever drove 10 miles per hour on some of his fields, you would actually gain air, because a lot of his fields are almost like a ramp. 00:12:55 I mean, it's like if you were going 10 miles per hour, you would actually land about 50 feet on down the hill. He has, if fields look like they do around here, 00:13:06 the, the round where he, there, I'm telling you, if they were here, we would put a chairlift on 'em and put a snow machine out there and make it a resort. 00:13:13 That's the kind of hills the man farms. Yeah. You would be surprised on, uh, on how fast some, uh, some guys can go on some you 00:13:20 Go 10 miles an hour when you're planting out there, Kelly, We don't go quite 10, 00:13:24 but there will be times that we'll get up to seven. Okay. Um, yeah, You know, every year is different 00:13:31 and, you know, you're watching that monitoring and, and the sensors, the, the electronics of the system will tell you how fast you can go. 00:13:38 The, but the terrain isn't really what limits us sometimes. It's the power of the track, you know, 00:13:44 to be, for us to be able to pull it. Now, you know, my, my nab good friends neighbors down here, just the southwest on the bottom, they'll go that fast. 00:13:52 Yeah. Uh, but you know, it's in the flat ground. So what, what really limits us is the ability of the tractor to pull it, 00:13:58 Planter upgrades, exact shot. Um, this is a, a big deal because now it's the ability to put the product. And we're talking about at time of planting. 00:14:07 There's so much that happens. I mean, these guys, on their tender trailers, it used to be you had some liquid fertilizer, now it's starter 00:14:14 and plant growth regulator and fungicides. And I mean my, it's, it's all this stuff. Um, exact shot is the technology, Clint, 00:14:23 that shoots it into the furrow where it needs to be either on top of the seed or just down from the seed. Am I right? 00:14:29 Yeah. So we actually call that dosing, right? So we're actually dosing that seed. Are You correcting me? Was that like 00:14:35 sort of a subtle correction? Like, um, listen, you know what, non machinery, boy, we call that dosing around here. 00:14:41 Is that what you were doing right there, Clint? I, I, I was not intentionally doing that. I guess I'm probably just stuck in my, 00:14:46 in my marketing lingo here, you know, so I Took it as a slight, I did, I Took it as a slight, I, I, well, my apologies. 00:14:51 My apologies on that. Have you Ever had this much fun on a podcast recording before? No, this is, this is a blast. 00:14:57 I'm having a, having a great time. Alright, So go back to dosing. Yeah. Dosing. So, uh, so basically what that, uh, what 00:15:03 that allows us to do, since, you know, I keep talking about this brush belt technology, right? Where we're actually taking that seed all the way down 00:15:09 to the trench so we know exactly where that seed is at, at all times. Yep. And that allows us, when that's coming outta 00:15:16 that brush belt to actually just put that starter fertilizer on that seed, uh, and then you can set that adjustment 00:15:23 and you can do, you know, different, different, uh, uh, links of strips that you can end up dosing that seed depending on what you're trying to achieve. 00:15:33 Mm-Hmm. The nice part about that is, is you end up, you can end up seeing a 60% reduction, uh, in fertilizer usage, which also means 00:15:42 that you're filling up your fertilizer tank that you were just talking about with guys, tendering, you're filling that up significantly less 00:15:48 time throughout that field. Yeah. Um, and so Just so that's the big, the big point there is it's less product Kelly's point. 00:15:55 We, we know we reduced our seed consumption by 10% just by shutting off rows. Now we also, by putting the fertility where it needs to be, 00:16:01 can reduce that by 60%. Do you have exact shot? Have you done that upgrade, Kelly? Yes. Okay, 00:16:08 Well, we'll have it on, uh, we'll have it on the two planters that we came, we tested it this year on one planter. 00:16:14 Now the two new planners coming next spring, we'll both have exact shot. It's wonderful technology and 00:16:19 You are going to, you, you, even though we're talking about precision upgrades to save money, it's time for you. 00:16:25 You're gonna get new planners next year. Yes. Okay. So the, yeah, Well, 'cause we've upgraded, you know, like I said, 00:16:31 that planner was 19 years old. It'd be the 20th season on it, the other planner, you know, and then after we, you, you know, 00:16:37 what the deciding factor was when we tested exact rate and exact shot and the in furrow system we had that was, you know, older technology than that. 00:16:46 I had a little mutiny here, and they wanted that on every planter. So now we're getting two new ones because of that. 00:16:51 He gave the inmates something besides a cold meat sandwich and they decided that they deserved something 00:16:56 besides a cold meat sandwich. Yep, That's exactly right. Alright. Um, other precision upgrades, Clint, you want, 00:17:03 is it time to get away from the planter or? We talked to planters enough. Yeah, I, I was just gonna add on the exact 00:17:07 shot piece here, Damien. Uh, one of the neat things about precision upgrades is, let's say if you currently have a planter 00:17:14 that does not have, uh, any starter fertilizer on it, we have precision upgrade kits through either exact rate, or you can jump all the way to Exact shot 00:17:25 and you can add that as a precision upgrade. Or the other thing is for those, uh, folks that are listening that are currently running Exact Rate, 00:17:32 and they wanna run this latest technology with the dosing of Exact Shot, uh, depending on compatibility of the 00:17:38 and whatnot, uh, you can actually upgrade from Exact Rate to Exact Shot as well. 00:17:44 So we also have a, a another kit there that allows you to make that step. So what's neat about precision upgrades is you get a, 00:17:51 you know, there, there are certain times where you get to take some of these steps Yep. And work your way up that technology ladder. 00:17:58 I would tell everybody that's thinking about it, go all the way to Exact Shot, the savings you have on fertility. 00:18:04 We even showed a yield gain. Uh, and it's, it's terrific. It, it really, So the point is the, your payback, uh, 00:18:13 is pretty quick if you go right to the exact, that's what you're saying, because I think I showed the pay, you know, my numbers, uh, on 00:18:20 what we run in furrow and the expenses we have, my numbers were 1500 acres. And it would payback, it would, it would be paid 00:18:26 for in 1500 acres. Yeah. It depends on how much you're spending in for. Yeah. Right, right, right. 00:18:31 Uh, anything to add on that, Clint? Are we ready to move on to a different piece of equipment? Yeah, no, we can jump on. 00:18:36 Alright. Precision upgrades, um, we're else around the farm Before we hit record, Kelly said, I don't know if we wanna get into or not, 00:18:42 but Operation Center, op Center is, uh, a precision upgrade that is inexpensive and makes you a bunch of money. 00:18:51 The data is becoming more and more important. Uh, and then the data we're using, you know, we're out there now 00:18:57 and we're talking what the field they're combining right now. Uh, I feel like the yield's a little off. 00:19:01 And so I asked Evans and he looked back and I remember this spring, you know, I was very worried about the forecast. 00:19:07 I probably pushed the pan the planning date. And Evans is like, remember when I said, what's wrong with this field? 00:19:12 And he said, well, remember when I told you not to plant and you went and planted it anyway because you were 00:19:15 worried about the coming forecast. He said, you planted it too wet. And he, and we, you know, he could pull the data 00:19:20 up right there on the phone. And it is just an easy spot. You know, like with the plant food byproduct that we spray, 00:19:26 we can show the co customers the coverage map. We know what hybrid we planted where we know the planning date. 00:19:32 Um, there's a couple times, you know, like we're, we're running a two by two system on all our planters and a couple Evans will shut it off, turn it back on. 00:19:40 We're validating is that, is that expense paying for itself? You know, we're running all those trials. 00:19:45 The, the variable rate anhydrous, the variable rate seeding that we do, all of that is sent 00:19:50 through John Deere Ops Center, the sustainability markets, all of that is, uh, what you, you push about seven buttons 00:19:56 and you can send all of your farm's data to Mike Busing, in my case, my retailer, 00:20:02 and all of your, all, everything goes into your, uh, sustainability markets. Uh, it's, it's just a database that makes everything easy. 00:20:09 You know, you just have to use it. Right? Yeah. Well, lane Miles was on, and by the way, this is a four part series 00:20:15 we're doing with John Deere. Uh, we're talking about precision upgrades in this one. We've covered Ops Center. 00:20:21 We are, uh, talking about Sea and Spray in another episode. And then, uh, I'll have 00:20:26 to figure out what the fourth one was. But the point is, lane Miles talked at great length about, uh, oh, I forgot, 00:20:32 of course we're talking about also, uh, autonomy. We did that with Johnny Gu. Lee Miles talked about, he used op center and it took 10 00:20:40 or 11 keystrokes to then qualify for a program on it was Rice, I believe that you could get some sustainability program money. 00:20:49 And he said, I, I had to make 11 keystrokes and I got 35 or 40 bucks an acre. 00:20:55 And it's because of Op Center already having all of his data. Clin. Have you heard that story before? 00:21:00 I I have not heard that specific one. No, 11 keystrokes. You need To pay attention. You need to pay 00:21:06 attention more. Clint, I say a lot of smart stuff. Lane made 10 or 11 keystrokes, and they got a check for about 65,000 off 00:21:12 the sustainability market. Yeah, that's what John Deere Ops Center, that's how easy John Deere Ops Center is, is to use 00:21:18 What's the next precision upgrade that if you, if I'm, if I come to you and I'm a little bit behind, I'm not an early adopter, um, 00:21:26 and I say, Hey, I've got this dude, uh, he is the precision upgrade manager, product manager, uh, for, uh, uh, marketing manager for John Deere. 00:21:35 Clint, what are you gonna tell me to do? You know, behind, I'm behind you want, and I want to, I I've got some money to spend. 00:21:43 I'm not gonna buy all new equipment. Where do I start? What, what are you tell me to do? You know, it's, it's, it's one of those damians 00:21:48 where I always look at what equipment you're currently running. We, we covered planters, uh, pretty, 00:21:54 you know, pretty in depth there. Uh, one of the next steps that I'd always look at is, is what sprayer are you running? 00:21:59 Uh, and, uh, we have a lot of precision upgrades that are available for, uh, for the sprayers that are running out there. 00:22:05 You touched on Sea and Spray. Right. One of the, the highest technologies that are out there, only, only spraying the, the weeds that are there out in 00:22:12 that field, uh, that we, uh, sea and spray premium is offered through precision upgrades, uh, as well as other technology, right? 00:22:20 Uh, other nozzle technology is you start thinking about individual nozzle control Pro, right? Being able to take a, uh, an older sprayer that is, 00:22:30 you know, even back to the 30 series sprayer that we can end up, uh, taking that from a section Control sprayer and we can bring that up to Pulsing Nozzles, right. 00:22:39 Individual Nozzle control. Or you can take that next jump and you can look at exact apply, which is what currently Sea 00:22:45 and Spray is kind of based off of, right. Utilizing that, uh, that exact apply Nozzle body, uh, you can make that jump to exact apply. 00:22:52 If you have the compatibility, you can then move on up to, uh, up to Sea and Spray. 00:22:57 You can also add different items that just adds to the, you know, again, I I, I always look at that productivity. Where's the, where's my time savings? 00:23:04 Where's my chemical savings? Right. Uh, as I think about, um, recer and Reclaim being able to, to add some of those products 00:23:13 where instead of just cleaning my rec Circuit, reclaim the, these are, uh, presumably sounds like a sprayer technology. Yes. Yep. 00:23:19 So those are on sprayers to where instead I'm, uh, of cleaning my sprayer out and just dumping my product down. Right. As I'm cleaning my booms out, it actually 00:23:27 recirculates reclaims that product and cleans that, that, uh, that boom out. So, uh, there's a lot of those different products 00:23:34 that you can end up, uh, adding onto your sprayer, uh, through precision upgrades there. What's the most recent precision upgrade you've done at 00:23:40 Garrett Land and Cattle, or the one that you're going to do this winter? We put Sea and Spray on a sprayer. 00:23:45 Okay. And so how old? How old, how old is the spray? I remember how old is a sprayer? Uh, 1-year-old. Okay. 00:23:53 But we, we, I wanted, and then I hosted a panel at Farm Progress Show, and I feel like I missed the boat because I was cheap. 00:24:01 We put on the premium kit and I now feel like we should have put on the ultimate. I I I said that correctly, 00:24:08 didn't I? Clin, I wanna make sure I, So, so Premium is the only one that you can get through a precision upgrades 00:24:14 and put onto a current sprayer, right? Uh, ultimate, uh, with that's the, the dual tank offering. Yep. Um, and that would be direct from Factory, 00:24:23 right? See, you'd have to, uh, yes, Because that's the whole thing. We added the premium kit to it. Very impressive technology. 00:24:29 I love it. And then when I was at the panel though, those guys talked about the ultimate and, and the cost savings that is associated that with going out. 00:24:37 And so I understand that's not an upgrade. You're right. But, uh, um, the, the technology is just amazing. 00:24:44 I, I can't say enough about it. Yeah. I mean the, the, the guys running Sea and Spray right now are seeing, you know, 00:24:51 I think our number is, is 59% savings on their, on their, uh, contact pass. Right? So, um, when you're going out there 00:24:59 and you're having that kind of savings, and again, depending, it's kind of like exact shot that we talked about. 00:25:04 Everybody's tank mix is a little different. Everybody's tank mix cost a little different, right? The higher that tank mix, man, the, 00:25:12 the dollars start adding up very quickly when you're talking about a 59% savings. 00:25:17 And, and there was three or four producers that were on that panel with me at Farm Progress, and they all had the same story. 00:25:23 And you know, one guy was 55, 1 guy was 65. Yes. You know, it came back about an average of 59% savings. I mean, again, the ROI is just amazing. 00:25:33 Yeah. What about, uh, okay, we've done sprayer, now we did planter, we spent a lot of time on planter. 'cause that's the one that Kelly has a lot of experience 00:25:39 and like, and it, and it worked. The thing is, somebody's gonna say, what the hell did you do all that work 00:25:43 for Kelly when you're getting two new planters this spring? 'cause it kept the one going for 19 years 00:25:50 and you didn't lose out on productivity, I think is the answer. So it finally is time to make a change. 00:25:56 Plus you're, you have face, face the uti. We could have upgraded and put exact shock on the current planners we had, 00:26:04 but when we looked at 'em and things like that, they were starting to show somewhere and, and we felt it was time to go, 00:26:09 you know, with the bars and stuff. I mean, my goodness, the things 19 years old. Yeah. It's covered, it's covered a lot of hard acres. 00:26:14 Well, we could, we could have upgraded and put the exact shot on there, but we're like, if we're gonna invest the money and, 00:26:20 and do this, we probably, you know, this, hopefully it's around for another 20 years. So, Uh, you know, when I talked about those hills out there, 00:26:29 um, you know, used cars, salesmen as you to say this, this, this, this old car, his car only got driven 00:26:35 by a little old lady at the church every Sunday. His equipment's the other end of that spectrum. It's the, it's like this, this has been, this has been up 00:26:44 and down 40% slopes wrecked, wrecked into trees. Anyway, um, where, where else do we go tractors? Do I need to, do I need to do any precision upgrades 00:26:53 to my tractors that are 10 years old, 12 years old? Yeah. You know, I mean, uh, tractors is always a, a, a neat place to start because, uh, 00:27:00 I always look at our precision Ag Essentials kit, which is where a lot of this technology always starts, right. 00:27:06 Which is the monitor in the cab and the receiver up on, up on top of the roof. Okay. And, uh, with the precision upgrades, uh, 00:27:13 we actually have this precision Ag essentials kit, and a farmer can get a G five, a 7,000 receiver, and a modem for $2,000. Wait, 00:27:21 You're using, you're talking about inside vernacular here? I dunno what a G five is. 00:27:25 I don't know what a seven something thousand is. Yeah, so, so those are our latest models of our display. Okay. So that would be our, our nice big, uh, 00:27:35 big display that you put in the cab. Okay. Uh, the, the 7,000 receiver is going to be the GPS receiver that sits up on, uh, top of the roof. 00:27:44 And then the modem. And the modem is what connects that piece of equipment. We talked about operations center. 00:27:49 That's what connects it to that, to, to that system. Right. As we start thinking about, uh, being able to transfer all 00:27:54 of that data, uh, in a, in a farmer now can end up getting all three of those bundled together in this precision ag kit 00:28:02 or this, uh, precision Ag Essentials kit, uh, for $2,000. Now, now, you know, you, you said 00:28:09 before, I wasn't throwing price out, but I'm gonna throw price out on you on this one. So, uh, it's $2,000 00:28:14 and then they have the option of what license level did they want to go to. So you can either have 00:28:20 License, license is like a subscription annual. Yep. Yeah. So that unlocks different features, uh, whether it's, uh, you know, jumping up to Starfire, 00:28:29 R-T-K-S-F-R-T-K, uh, to get to a higher level of, of accuracy or section control or things of those, those nature 00:28:36 or some of the, uh, auto steering features as well. Uh, like auto Path, uh, being able to unlock some of those in, uh, in different areas. 00:28:44 So we have one that's, uh, that's our basic subscription that's at $2,000 a year, uh, 00:28:49 or an advanced license at, uh, at 42 50 a year. Right. Uh, and those are really, it, it kind of gives everybody that option depending on those 00:28:58 Numbers again, directly on the subscription. Yeah. The subscription number again is Oh, so the, the basic is 2000 a year. 00:29:06 Yep. And then the advanced license is, uh, 42 50 4,250. Yep. Got it. And that's for, that's okay if I put that's not per machine. 00:29:15 Yeah. That, that's, that's on a, on a per per bundle. Right. So if I'm getting a precision Ag Essentials kit, right. 00:29:23 Uh, each one of those kits that I would end up getting would need to, need to have that license, uh, okay. License, put 00:29:29 That now I put five tractors, I'm taking that $2,000 and taking it all across all and doing it times five tractors. 00:29:34 Every Receiver needs its own Subscription. Understood. Okay. Now, There are times Damien, where somebody may end up, uh, 00:29:40 you know, you may have a farmer that has a, a kit in their planter and they're running it in their planter tractor 00:29:45 and they take that kit out and they actually move it into their combine in the fall. Right. That's so, yeah. 00:29:50 So there is a a, there, there's some flexibility there as far as for, uh, how many of these that you'd actually need on your operation. Right. 00:29:57 It isn't like you need one for every tractor in every combine, but you need a subscription for every receiver. And we'll use that receiver in, in the planter, 00:30:05 in the sprayer, in the combine. You know, obviously we need three or four of them, but it isn't like we need 10 of them 00:30:10 and, you know, use 'em on the anhydrous bar as well. Um, that, that's one of the most important pieces of equipment that we have. 00:30:18 Kelly, um, we always talk about money and, and I appreciate your frankness on this benefits. You said on all these things, like the, the, 00:30:25 the one regret you have is that you didn't you, you didn't go as high in on upgrades because you think you could have gotten even more, uh, 00:30:32 maximization of resources on say, fertility or whatever is there. So talk to me about money precision upgrades 00:30:40 that you're most ecstatic about. Like got your money back. You said one of 'em only took you 1500 acres to pay for it. 00:30:45 Mm-Hmm. Farming 708,000 acres doesn't take long to pay for the, is there anything you spent money on precision upgrade that did not pay for itself 00:30:51 or that you were disappointed in? I don't think, I honestly, I don't think I got the money back on the, uh, I haven't, 00:31:00 I haven't used all the money I could have gotten back on JD Op Center, but that's not because that's not 00:31:05 because it's not there, it's because I have to take the time to put it in or we have to take the time. 00:31:09 And now at Evans, early in my career when I was trying to do everything by myself and you, every farmer, there's not enough hours in the day. 00:31:16 I didn't do a good enough job and I didn't, I didn't have the data to make the decisions. And now with Extreme Ag 00:31:21 and with Mike Evans, we take the time to put it in there and it's incredibly valuable. 00:31:26 So the thing I regret is that I didn't do it sooner, but I, you know, the, I did the equipment didn't waste the money. 00:31:33 I did. Yeah. And using all of that, using that technology, you know, using the receivers, using the database, 00:31:38 things like that, you, you need to spend the time to put it in. And that's no different than, you know, like I think 10% 00:31:45 of all your farm makers should be a trial and you should find out what works on your farm. Well, this is the same way, but that those trials take time. 00:31:52 Take the time to put it in, be organized. Don't always feel like you're behind the eight ball, and, and you always have to be in a hurry 00:31:58 because you're, you're making mistakes by not having the correct data. That's the mistake I made. That's the regret I have 00:32:04 What you've heard that before. Yeah. I mean, it's anytime that you're, uh, adding a lot of technology to your operation, right. 00:32:15 To, to get the max ROI, it, uh, there's, there's a, a learning curve, right. To, to make sure that you're maximizing everything. Right. 00:32:23 And there is a, there is a time investment that's, uh, that's in there as well. And I think that's what, uh, what Kelly's touching on there 00:32:29 is, is just that time investment to make sure that I'm utilizing every opportunity, uh, to, to, to maximize that technology. Right. 00:32:39 Right. You we pay for it, go use it. Is there a precision is, and then is there a precision upgrade that's coming other than the new equipment? 00:32:46 Are you, are you doing, are you doing an investment into an upgrade in the next, uh, six months? 00:32:51 Well, I, yes. Uh, the new, new stuff coming with the combines. Yep. It very much interests me. 00:32:57 Okay, so you're going, that's for your next, your next investment on Precision Upgrade is gonna be on the combines. Yeah. 00:33:02 Yes. You know that we've got auto steer on the combines now, uh, the, uh, the auto threshing where it'll adjust on the fly. 00:33:10 I'm very interested in that when it comes out. Things like that. You know, when, when it, when we, when we get to that 00:33:16 Talk about precision upgrades, we had Clint Chaffer here from John Deere. He's the marketing guy. Well, he is a product guy with, 00:33:22 uh, precision upgrades. And then we had Kelly Garrett, one of the founders of Extreme Ag. 00:33:26 Again, if you've enjoyed this, you can become an Extreme Ag member for just $750 a year. And we have a special going on between now 00:33:31 and December 13th, 2024. I don't know when you're listening to this, you get 18 months for the price of 12. 00:33:36 That comes out to $41 and 60 cents per month. Now I'm telling you, for $41, you talk about investments, $41 and 60 cents, you get access to, uh, 00:33:45 a question answer platform with guys like Kelly. We'll go a little deeper on a topic and say, what's really going on here? 00:33:49 They'll do that with you. You also get the data and the trial results from our field days and labs at the end of the year, invited 00:33:55 to a special two-part webinar series. You also get, uh, offers from our business partners sometimes, like for instance, you could have gone to Commodity Classic 00:34:02 for free the last two years due to our friends with Nature. So lots and lots of good stuff. 00:34:06 Uh, if you wanna become a member of Extreme Ag, it's only seven 50 bucks now for 18 months. 'cause of this special, you can watch all these videos like 00:34:13 this for free@extremeag.farm, hear me talking to dudes like Clint, you know, all the good people at John Deere. 00:34:18 It's a four part series that had told you. And then also you can see the videos from our field days that we do, and the guys like Kelly 00:34:24 Shootout in the, at their farm. So it's all there for free in the library, and if you wanna take it to the next 00:34:28 level, become an extreme Ag member. So next time. Thanks for being here, man. Well, thank you for having me. 00:34:33 This was, uh, this was, this was fun. Yeah. Yeah, I hear that a lot. I mean, I don't mind you kind of banging on me 00:34:40 that I called something wrong. Oh, we call that dosing non equipment, man. Anyway. It's all right, Kelly. Tell him it's, 00:34:46 we always have fun around here, don't we? We like to have a good time, So next time. Thanks for being here. 00:34:51 I'm Damien Mason with extreme Ag cutting the curve. That's a wrap for this episode of Cutting the Curve. Make sure to check out Extreme ag.farm 00:34:58 for more great content to help you squeeze more profit out 00:35:01.995 --> 00:35:03.195