Farming Podcast | Residue Management Without the Tillage: A Biological Approach

00:00:00 Residue management for better planting. That's what we're covering in this episode of Extreme Eggs, cutting the Curve. 00:00:07 It's extreme eggs, cutting the curve podcast, cutting your learning curve, and improving your farming operation every week. 00:00:14 This episode of The Cutting the Curve podcast is brought to you by BASF, creating innovation 00:00:20 to help farmers do the biggest job honor. And now let's get ready to learn with your host, Damien Mason. 00:00:28 Hey there. Welcome to another fantastic episode, oft extreme acts cutting the curve. You know what? Residue, there's more and more of it 00:00:34 because you yields are bigger, the crop is bigger. Big crops equal big residue. We don't till, we don't bring out the moldboard plow 00:00:42 and then disc six times, we run a field cultivator across it, which is a good thing for soil health. 00:00:48 But you also gotta manage all this residue. We're talking about that with a guy named Grant Strong. Grant Stroms a pretty big farmer over in northern Illinois, 00:00:55 and he also uses a product from Holganix. He is going to share his journey into residue management and increasing the biological activity in his soils 00:01:07 for better soil, better long-term improvement of the asset, and then also ultimately, better planting, 00:01:13 which creates better results. Grant, thanks for being on here. Uh, special guest 00:01:18 as you are on extreme ag cutting the curve. Yeah, appreciate the opportunity. So, um, your journey began, um, 00:01:27 five years ago, four years ago on, uh, changing up how you do this. When I, uh, referenced these things, 00:01:33 like we don't bring out the moldboard plow and all that, they're probably somewhere, somebody still is doing that. 00:01:37 And, and you're a younger guy and you're like, what's he talking about? Is he talking about a threshing machine? 00:01:41 Is he talking about a, you know, an, an eight, an eight horse hitch? In the old days, he just went out and tilled 00:01:47 and tilled and tilled some more. And unfortunately, I think we still do too much tillage in agriculture. 00:01:51 I, uh, I, I believe that we're gonna look back at all this tillage, the way we look back at, uh, using leeches 00:01:56 for medical treatment, uh, almost kill the patient. By golly, it's what we do. So are you a no-till person? Yeah, we're, uh, primarily no-till, minimum till, um, 00:02:09 dab in Trump wanting to dabble in a little strip tail, but we've actually, uh, don't even own a disc gripper or chisel anymore. 00:02:17 Um, there's times I wish I had one to, you know, help with some tiling ditches or something, but, uh, that, that's how committed we are to, you know, 00:02:26 reducing our tillage on our farm. We actually don't even, uh, have a deep tillage tool that will turn the soil over even on the farm anymore. 00:02:33 So, uh, we've committed to that. Uh, it's been definitely a process over a few years. Um, up until a couple years ago, 00:02:41 we still had some full tillage acres and, uh, we've kind of weaned ourself off of that, trying to find, uh, new opportunities and new ways to do things. 00:02:50 I you bring up the, the moir plow. I mean, my dad is 66 years old, um, but he'll tell me stories when, you know, 00:02:57 in the seventies they were raising dairy and beef cattle and hogs, and they fed every bushel of corn, 00:03:02 and so they grew nothing but corn. And the best way to grow corn in the seventies was just to make it as black as you could make it. 00:03:08 And, uh, farms that definitely should not have been being turned black in the seventies. 00:03:13 They were farming. And I, I'll be honest, that were still fighting some of the, the consequences of those decisions then. 00:03:20 But, um, at the time, that was the technology and they thought they were doing the right thing and didn't know any better. 00:03:25 And I, I definitely agree with your statement. We're gonna look back in 20, 30 years and realize the mistakes we were 00:03:30 making during this timeframe. But, um, that's business, that's farming, and that's, that's how you learn. 00:03:37 Yeah, it is. And, uh, I'm glad that, uh, I'm glad that you even, there's a lot of folks that don't realize that, um, these, these longer term consequences, right. 00:03:46 Of soil degradation. Mm-hmm. But back to the residue thing. So you got these, you know, you're, 00:03:51 you're progressive minded guy. You're out here doing all you can to boost yields and you've got this massive amount of residue. 00:03:58 Uh, again, the easy answer, what would, what would dad tell you? Well, grandpa tell you, well, you'll got there 00:04:03 until it under, well, we know that when we do that. Uh, you know, I, I sat through enough sessions in, in my career now I've seen really smart agronomic people. 00:04:12 It's about, you know what, you'll never increase your organic matter if you're doing this tillage, which is counter to 00:04:18 what you would've thought 30, 40 years ago. Like, oh, you just got there and plow it under, it keeps rotting in. 00:04:22 Uh, you got the carbon issue, obviously you got the erosion issue, et cetera. So you've talked about improving your soil health 00:04:28 and the biological activity, and it all does go back to this thing. So tell me about your journey on residue management. 00:04:35 Like you started using the, the, the organics product line, but even before that, you probably started thinking, 00:04:41 how do I, how do I handle this? Because you can see the temptation to till because Yep. I don't get good seed to soil contact 00:04:50 and I've got all these other issues. Yeah. So, um, just to kind of give a little description of our farm, um, you know, we, we farm 6,000 acres 00:04:58 and every acre is different. Um, I can, uh, I always tease guys, I can plant all of our good flat square fields in about a day and a half. 00:05:06 And I spend the other eight and a half days planting the fields that are hilly or curved or terrace 00:05:11 or have a lot of waterways or different soil types. And, and so we were kind of forced in a way, um, where we needed to really be no-till reduced till just 00:05:19 'cause of erosion and, and loss issues. We had to find ways to keep our tillage at a very minimal, and obviously you stated in the open talking about, uh, 00:05:29 the varieties and the yields we're starting to pull. I mean, our yields are significantly higher than they were 10 years ago. 00:05:35 Um, but along with that, uh, the more yield, the more fodder and residue you're dealing with. 00:05:39 And so we, we tried a lot of different things, you know, uh, trying to somewhat maximize the allowable tillage 00:05:47 for a while, but even that, um, seemed like it. We, it was just kind of a losing battle. We were just rearranging residue 00:05:54 versus actually dealing with it. Yeah. And I think that's what happens, um, in a lot of cases, you know, 00:06:01 we've invested a lot in mechanical means on planners to, to manage the residue as we're going through the field. 00:06:07 Um, and again, you know, the, the stuff we do in the fall. Um, but about four years ago we, you know, 00:06:13 started looking at different biologicals, um, kind of tested several things on the market before You get into the, the biologicals market. 00:06:21 So this is something, uh, I've talked about with Kelly and the extreme ag guys. Yeah. Um, again, you're producing these massive crops, 00:06:27 you know, you start getting yours, stocks are bigger and Yeah. You, And they're tougher. They're 00:06:31 just different than they used to be. There's just a toughness about them that wasn't there 10, 15 years ago. So, well, 00:06:37 You gotta, you gotta breed 'em to withstand a 40 mile an hour wind, right? Yeah. So the thing is, it begins, 00:06:42 there is some mechanical aspect to it. Like we talk about these, these, you know, devices on the corn head that, uh, yeah. 00:06:48 You know, chop it up and, you know, you Size it up Yeah. And you create a little bit more surface area than the 00:06:53 degradation of it and all those, all those types of things. But it's still not enough. Uh, no. 00:07:00 No. And so that's where you, you know, you're like, okay, what's the, the yetter, I can't remember the, the product brand name, but the point is the thing that's, 00:07:07 you know, on the corn head that chops up. And then, yeah. And then there's the temptation still that the people that can't just break the tillage habit 00:07:13 wanna go out and do vertical tillage, you know, and all that, where they fly over this thing, and I think it's 'cause they like to drive fast. 00:07:19 They like go like 20 miles an hour across the field with those things. But, um, doing none of that, you've got this stuff. 00:07:26 And, uh, like you said, it's, it's been a journey. You started looking at a product lineup, but before that you were looking at mechanical means 00:07:36 that were minimally invasive. Yes. Yeah. So, um, you talked about the vertical tillage tools. Um, we've ran, uh, um, a lot, 00:07:47 several different brands of different, uh, types of tillage where we really wanted 00:07:52 to stay away from like a full turn of the soil. Um, and so we had different, uh, they kind of almost call 'em high speed 00:07:59 disks and different things now. Um, there's lots of different creative names they, they put on the different tillage tools, 00:08:04 but, um, it, it was all just a, a different way of trying the same thing. We had things we tried to, um, 00:08:11 that end up just windrowing the stocks even worse. Uh, things that, uh, were too aggressive and we had too much soil exposure, um, 00:08:20 without really handling the residue issue any better than it was before. Um, so there there's just, uh, multiple different tools 00:08:26 that we, we tried, um, on different acres and, uh, we were still over tilling on a lot of the acres that we were still allowed 00:08:35 to till on from a government conservation perspective that definitely didn't need to be tilled. Um, some of the fields that, uh, 00:08:43 need less tillage are the ones that are non HEL fields that you're allowed to till if you want to. Um, but just the soil structure on those fields is 00:08:52 problematic and, and tillage was causing a lot of other secondary issues. You Realize We, the residue, 00:08:56 You realize Grant, when most people think of Illinois, they think it's all, uh, like champagne to Decatur that it's all flat and that there's no mm-hmm. 00:09:04 There's no issue. So you actually do have some curve and some Oh, yeah, Yeah. We, we live, 00:09:09 yeah, we live kind of on a, on a fringe of, we do have some of that, you know, nice flat black, you know, three, four foot black, uh, top soils. 00:09:18 But, uh, we've got river bottoms that are plum to flooding. We got a lot of hills and, uh, 00:09:22 we're, we're kind of in the area. Knox County, Illinois is our primary area of farming and kind of on the perimeter of the county, 00:09:29 it's all pretty flat then right through the center. It's got some, uh, some slope and, um, it's not area we are close to. 00:09:38 They, they called it red brush and it's just kind of a, um, brushy, hilly, you know, terrain area. 00:09:45 We've got some e slopes that, uh, people wouldn't think that, uh, you'd be farming, but we do deal with some of those as well. 00:09:51 So we have a lot of diversity in our farm portfolio. Got it. All right. So you said I'm gonna start using these products 00:09:59 to melt this down, and there's a bunch of different, you know, methods and I've seen different products out there. 00:10:05 But you, you're a dealer, this organic, uh, product line, and is that where you started? 00:10:11 Yeah, well, we, we've, uh, tried, uh, different products. I did a lot of research and it kind of started with, um, 00:10:17 I had some neighboring farmers. I, I could tell they were doing something different on their stocks. 00:10:22 And I started looking into it, what they were spraying what they were doing, and said, well, we're using these biological breakdown products. 00:10:29 And, and they were still running like a vertical tillage Passover, but just kind of, um, not real aggressively, 00:10:35 but their stocks were just turning black. And I, I just couldn't figure out, it was like, man, whatever he's doing, I gotta figure it out. 00:10:41 And, you know, a lot of it came down to, uh, using some biological breakdown products and, you know, maybe putting a little bit of, uh, fertilizer 00:10:49 with it to feed the microbes. And it was, uh, all about, you know, I really came to learn that there's three things that, um, are key when it comes 00:10:58 to residue management. And it's, it's moisture temperature and bi and biology. Those are really the three things that do it. 00:11:05 And obviously if you're running tillage, what you're really doing is just getting more of the biology in contact with your residue. 00:11:12 Um, 'cause obviously soil has biology in it, and that's where the microbes are living. And so the more soil that's touching your residue, 00:11:18 the more it's going to break down. But they're, once I started really investigating and going down the wholeganics path, once I kind 00:11:26 of circled in, I think this is the best product on the market to do this. Um, I could get by with spraying the biology on the stocks, 00:11:33 putting the biology biology in contact with the residue in that way, versus turning it under. 00:11:39 And I can get the kind of the same effect. And, uh, so we've been doing the, the, the fall product, uh, for residue digestion for a couple years. 00:11:47 Um, LA last year we did, uh, every acre year before we had done about half our acres. And, um, 00:11:54 last year I had people stopping literally by the field. Um, we had harvested a field and we had sprayed it with the whole organics product. 00:12:02 And, um, a few days later, I had somebody stop by our field, um, while we were harvesting and, 00:12:08 and were asking me, first question was, why, why were you spraying on September 20th? What, what are you spraying? 00:12:14 And I said, well, we're spraying a, um, this residue digester. And oh, three 00:12:20 or four days went by, another guy stopped, said, what did you spray on that field? Why are the stocks so black looking like that? 00:12:25 Because that bacteria and fungi really get to work quick if you have the temperature and moisture. And 00:12:29 Well, this crop is still standing, Uh, no, this, this is right after harvest. So we did this, uh, it's like we harvested, uh, 00:12:36 this particular field was harvested like on September 11th or 12th, and we sprayed it like five days later. 00:12:42 Okay. And five days after that, I was getting people stopping and asking what we had done, but we had great temperature. 00:12:47 So it was like 80 degrees out, and we had some moisture, and the biology just took off immediately 00:12:51 and started breaking down that residue and got it. Uh, so these were sta these were stalks that, you know, we don't chop our with our corn heads or anything like that. 00:12:59 We went away from that, just from the horsepower and the residue blowing around on us and windrowing. And, um, 00:13:06 and so we, we, we immediately had people stopping asked what we did. We left some trials, um, had farmers who were driving 00:13:12 by on the highway all winter lookings, like you could tell where the area was sprayed versus the area 00:13:16 that wasn't sprayed, just because the way the stock looked. And, um, then, and you give that a month 00:13:21 and we, we started to notice that, uh, there was even fields you'd, you'd drive by and it didn't look like anything was happening. 00:13:27 You'd go out there and pick up the residue and you, you could just take the stock in your hand, just kind of rub it together like a stick, 00:13:33 and it would just start to descend, uh, just kind of almost gate it from the inside out. Yeah. And so, uh, first off, that's, that's cool 00:13:39 that it happened that fast. And I'm gonna ask you a few questions about the conditions and how specific that is to it. 00:13:45 Yeah. Um, I wanna also remind you, if you're listening to this, remember our friends over at Superior Grain, I was just in their booth actually the other day at the Farm 00:13:52 Progress Show, talking about the economics of grain drying and, uh, and this challenging, um, 00:13:57 commodity price environment. You might be thinking, I don't know, man, I gotta save every nick I can. 00:14:01 Well, sometimes you can't save your way to prosperity. So remember, there might be opportunities, there might be opportunities for you 00:14:06 to improve your grain storage system with superior grain equipment systems that are built to make your job easier and help you do your grain business, 00:14:16 uh, on your terms from general mix flow dryers to durable storage. You can get the flexibility to market your grain 00:14:20 on your timetable. You can, uh, check out all the stuff at Superior Grain by going to superior bins.com. 00:14:27 That's superior bins.com. Um, all right, so there's somebody listening. Remember, there's always naysayers. There's always the, 00:14:35 the cynic, the questioner, the, the pessimist, whatever, uh, yeah. 00:14:39 Well that works for him out there in September. I can't harvest September. My stuff doesn't come off until the end of October. 00:14:47 And then we get to winter. Um, a function of you going out there when it was still the right temperature and putting this stuff down, 00:14:53 and then you had the right moisture. You could make the argument that this worked out great, but also, um, you were gonna get into that anyhow 00:15:00 because you had some moisture and you had some higher temperatures in September, but you'd say no, this was already being 00:15:05 digested within the week. Mm-hmm. If you'd have done this one month later, mid-October, what do you think the 00:15:12 results are there? 'cause you've done it. Yeah. It def definitely gonna be slower. As I, as I mentioned, the, the three things 00:15:18 that are critical to residue digestion is temperature, moisture, and biology. I Wrote those three down, by the way. 00:15:24 I wrote those three down. Yeah. Those are the three things that we found are, are, are really, I mean, there's other factors, 00:15:30 but those are, those are the main three. And so obviously, uh, I will say temperature is, is perhaps the most significant, uh, for every 10 degrees 00:15:38 that, uh, of, of ground temperature, air temperature, we have, I mean, it, it's exponentially higher activity of, of the microbes that are, that are going to work on 00:15:47 that residue are going to work in your soil. So we know that for a fact. So obviously we get close to winter, you know, 00:15:53 if your average temperatures are gonna be 45 to 50 degrees, you're gonna have very minimal activity. 00:16:00 And that's whether you're spraying a, uh, a product like organics or, or not spraying product like organics. 00:16:06 I mean, we obviously know those stocks we harvest the day before winter starts are gonna look the same next spring 00:16:12 as they did the day we harvested 'em. 'cause nothing's going to happen. And so, yeah, there's definitely a timing aspect of this. 00:16:17 We've had to adjust, um, Grant and those, and those varieties say one of your fields, you can't get it off. 00:16:23 You got problems. I don't know. It lays wet. You gotta wait until it freezes. I mean, that's happened before in the Midwest in the fall. 00:16:28 You gotta wait until there's a hard freeze to go out there and do the harvest because it stayed wet. 00:16:32 Do you bother spraying, do you put a residue, uh, degradation product on, uh, November fir November 12th? Do you, do you bother or do you wait until spring? 00:16:42 Uh, at that point, we would wait until spring. Um, 'cause you know, obviously, you know, you know, spraying any kind of product you want, 00:16:49 you wanna make sure you're doing it effectively. You're not just trying to check a box, you know, it's, um, it's like tillage or any other pass. 00:16:56 I mean, if you're not doing it in the right conditions, you, you shouldn't be doing it. 00:16:59 You, you don't plant your corn when it's muddy. So you don't wanna spray your biology when the, the conditions aren't right for it to be, 00:17:05 you know, maximize its benefit. So that, that's where, um, we did make that mistake on a few farms last year. 00:17:11 We, we kind of had like 500 acres left to spray and we kind of pushed it till the first week of November to get it done. 00:17:16 And it, it's quite obvious that we just did not get the job done. We wanted to on those acres, uh, this year, if we get to 00:17:23 that situation where we don't have, you know, 10 days of good, uh, digestion weather, uh, we'll probably start pushing those applications till spring. 00:17:33 We've had some really, uh, wonderful springs to apply the product. Uh, so we personally haven't done it on our farm, 00:17:39 but that, I'm confident that's the route we're gonna go. You know, the last you What route, what route is that Spring treatment? The, 00:17:45 The, we'll, we'll do the spring treatment if we get to where we feel winter has set in and we're not gonna be able to get the proper digestion 00:17:51 outta the product, we will wait till spring and do an early pass, uh, spring. Do you do, do 00:17:55 You, do you see a need ever for someone? Do you get a bigger bang for your buck by treating it twice? Or is one treatment adequate? 00:18:02 In other words, would you ever see yourself doing a October 1st treatment and then you whack it again, uh, April 1st? 00:18:07 Is there any, is there any, is there benefit to that? Probably not. I mean, in the whole gangs program, we're doing two applications of biologicals, 00:18:15 but we're targeting them differently. So one of 'em is specifically for residue digestion, the other one's more for crop development. 00:18:21 Um, so I, I don't see myself doing that. There may be an extreme case that I maybe try it just for a trial basis, but, um, you know, it, 00:18:30 it's, it is still an expense. And yeah, if you could couple it with another pass, you know, that that's one of the biggest, uh, uh, negatives 00:18:38 that I get sent my way when I talk to 'em about, you know, residue addition in the fall. Uh, farmers don't wanna get their sprayers out in the fall, 00:18:46 uh, even though they probably should. They're, they're, what's funny is they're, they're willing to get the tillage tool out 00:18:50 and spend twice as much on fuel versus, you know, running a sprayer across it at 10 12 mile an hour to 120 to one 30 feet. 00:18:57 But, um, so, so I always find that conversation interesting. I mean, grant You missing out though. 00:19:03 Remember, if you rent, uh, acreage from an old widow, uh, Herbert, her husband tilled every fall, and she thinks when she gets in her Buick 00:19:15 and drives to the beauty shop, she thinks if that till field is not tilt in October, it means that that guy's lazy. 00:19:21 'cause by golly and Herbert tilled every fall. So sometimes you have no choice, but you gotta keep the old widow happy 00:19:27 because she thinks you're supposed to till every fall. 'cause that's what her husband did for 50 years. Yeah, there's definitely an, an element of that. 00:19:35 And, uh, the, uh, the, the absolute worst answer that for any question, not even related to agriculture, the worst answer 00:19:46 for any question is that's 'cause that's the way we've always done it. That's The way we've always done it. 00:19:50 And it's like, just think, think of the lack of innovation we have in our world right now, whether it's agriculture or anything else. 00:19:56 If everyone just always did things the way we way they always did it. And, um, so I I, I really despise 00:20:02 that answer, but I totally get it. There's a lot of optics to, to what we do. And, uh, um, obviously, you know, you can go to the mowing, 00:20:10 the roadsides, and they want that clean look in the fall, but then I'll challenge 'em that when the first snow hits 00:20:15 and the ditches along their field are black and mine are not, um, you know, I think that's a lot, a lot worse look, is 00:20:23 to have all your soil in the ditch versus on your field. So I agree 1000000%. 00:20:28 And, uh, I'm, I'm surprised that in, again, I, you heard me say it in the year 2025, that we're still doing this ridiculous amount of tillage, 00:20:35 uh, because that's what we've always done. Or because that's what, uh, that's what Betty down the road that, uh, the, 00:20:40 the widow thinks you're supposed to do or what have you. Um, about the rates. 00:20:45 And then, uh, you gave us something about the results. How much are we putting on of this stuff? Is it Bio 800? We're talking about from Holganix? 00:20:52 Yeah. Yeah. So Organics Bio 800 plus, um, they've holganix kind of went through, uh, rebrand, if you can see my hat. 00:20:59 This is the new Holganix logo. It's, uh, made a change here in the last couple weeks. So, um, they have rebranded the names of the product. 00:21:06 So now our spring product is called Holganix Bioway, hundred plus Revive. And the fall product is Holganix Bio 800 plus Thrive. 00:21:13 Uh, so Revive and Thrive, that's the, the two spring products. We used to call 'em just Bio 800 plus 00:21:18 and Bio 800 plus breakdown, which is the fall product. Um, very similar products. Uh, they, they look the same, they act the same, 00:21:25 but they have some different properties in 'em. One's, uh, definitely more geared for that UE di digestion. It's got the proper fungi in there to, 00:21:32 uh, to get that job done. Um, a half gallon use rate per acre on the spring and fall products, uh, we spray 00:21:38 with about 15, 16 gallon of water. Uh, you know, a little more water's better 'cause it needs some of that water to get the coverage. 00:21:44 Um, you want some moisture for those. Is there anything else that goes to your tank on that fall treatment and you're following the combine within 00:21:51 a, within a week it sounds like. What Else? For same field sometimes. Yeah. 00:21:54 So, um, we didn't put anything extra in last year. Um, I've been doing, uh, a little bit of research. Uh, I follow, uh, Connor Sybil, Dr. 00:22:02 Fred Belo at University of Illinois. Uh, they've been really kind of doing some research on the biology 00:22:07 and trying to attack this question about residue, digestion. And, uh, so I actually got a tanker 00:22:12 of a TS sitting in one of our storage tanks. We're gonna, uh, um, organics has, it has some microbe food in it. 00:22:19 It's got some slow release nitrogen in there. Um, and guys, traditionally, there was always some guys that sprayed, uh, 28 00:22:26 or a TS on stocks to break 'em down, by the way. But it's, it's not For what's a TS Uh, ammonium. 00:22:32 Th sulfate. Thank you. So, um, so you're Spiking that you're, you're spiking that in the mix for what purpose? 00:22:38 Uh, for microbe food. So, uh, traditionally a thought will just spraying the UAN uh, solution, nitrogen solution was 00:22:46 what broke the stock down. Well, that's not what's breaking the stock down. You're just giving the microbes a bre uh, a big buffet 00:22:52 to chew on, to give them more energy to break the stocks down. So it's not the, it's not the fertilizer that's doing it, 00:22:57 it's just, that's just the food being provided to the microbes that are doing all the work. So we are gonna do some trials, um, with that just 00:23:03 to see if we can feed that process up, um, by a few days. 'cause obviously we talked about, uh, temperature 00:23:11 and, uh, timing is very critical in terms of really getting a lot done. And, and we've definitely had to restructure our, 00:23:18 um, how we do things. You know, we're planning, uh, some shorter season varieties that are still giving us the same amount of yield 00:23:24 so we can get that harvest process started quicker. Um, we still try to do some corn on corn, and trying to do that without 00:23:31 full tillage can be a challenge. 'cause you know, that's where the residue management really comes into play. 00:23:35 So if you have a field that, you know, say, Hey, I'm gonna plant this field to corn again next year. That's the field you wanna target 00:23:42 with a little bit shorter season variety. Get it harvested, get it sprayed with the, the biological product, get that residue breakdown going. 00:23:50 Um, and so you have to make some, some choices with that. Whether, um, when you're building your soil biology 00:23:56 and building overall yield and resiliency, there's some choices you have to make that, um, maybe won't maximize the yield on 00:24:04 that particular field that particular year. But in the long run, it's going to maximize your profitability and yields in the long run. 00:24:10 So those are decisions you gotta make when you try to implement this system. It, it, it takes, it takes management, 00:24:15 but, um, tillage takes management as well. And there's, there's a lot of, I think you talk that much management, you, again, 00:24:22 you're talking about a management hassle that the, that the person that's stuck in their ways won't, this is not okay. 00:24:30 You changed up a variety, a variety to get a few, a few more days on your season and, and you bring the sprayer out in the fall when 00:24:38 people think it should be stored. That's not, these are not, you know, this is not that, this is not that big of adjustment. Um, no, 00:24:46 It's not, not a big adjustment. You know, our large tillage, we still have a one large tractor that, um, 00:24:52 we pull some heavier stuff with, but the hours we've put on that tractor and are cut in half from what they used to be, 00:24:58 and we, yeah, we're putting more hours on the sprayer. Um, but boy, those spray hours on the sprayer cover, you know, an hour covers a hundred acres on a sprayer, 00:25:06 on a tillage tractor, you can cover seven acres in an hour. So it's, uh, um, 00:25:11 the economics are definitely in, in the favor. It's just, again, w raking this cycle. If you gotta try something a little bit different. 00:25:18 Well, in the economics grant, so I, I don't know, you know, on a use rate, you gave me the use rate. So are we talking, uh, $12 of product 00:25:25 and then put $6 an acre to the sprayer, uh, amortization? I mean, what are we talking about? Yeah, 00:25:31 So organic's, uh, it's a little, uh, price during that retail price, organics $40 a gallon. Um, and so you do a half gallon use rate, 00:25:39 you're $20 an acre. Um, I'll admit that it's, it's not the cheapest option on the market, but it, it is absolutely the best option on the market for, 00:25:48 um, everything you're getting in that product, or 800 species of micros versus, uh, most of the residue digesters on the market are gonna have a 00:25:56 couple, three strains of bacteria, maybe a strain of fungi that definitely doesn't have the fungi profile to, 00:26:02 to break down the lignin and, and the tougher stuff in those stocks that we really deal with. 00:26:06 And, uh, we had some great side-by-sides from some customers this year, uh, Comparing the, the, the holganix products 00:26:12 to, uh, a competitor, Uh, to a competitor or organics to a check of nothing. And, uh, you could really tell the differences spraying on 00:26:21 just the, the pith of those stocks was completely eaten up versus, um, very, very little digestion. 00:26:27 'cause it, not all microbes are created equal. So you have to understand what, what biology you're putting on 00:26:33 and what bi what that biology is doing for you. And organics is so broad spectrum that, um, all, all the beneficial microbes that you're really looking 00:26:41 for in your soil are in that product, In this mix. Um, since it's biologically based, do I, is it a shelf life? 00:26:51 Do I keep this stuff refrigerated? What are we talking about? Yeah, so Holganix is a refrigerated product. It is. 00:26:56 We'll stay in it. It is. Um, so it is a product that will stay in refrigeration, uh, once you pulled out refrigeration, 00:27:03 depending on your ambient temperatures and how you store it. Um, we usually, you know, we're comfortable six 00:27:09 to eight weeks out of stor out of, uh, refrigeration storage. Um, I've had product in our shed 00:27:15 for over 12 weeks and it's been fine. Um, you know, if you have super hot temperatures, you know, you may wanna get it used within four weeks. 00:27:23 That's when we deliver to customers. I'm not taking it out there two months before they want to use it. 00:27:28 Mm-hmm. Uh, I'm delivering those products, you know, most typically a week or 10 days. You got Refrige, you got a refrigerated facility at you're farm? 00:27:34 Uh, we do. Not at our farm, but, uh, we have, we have a cold storage that, um, that's one thing we're hoping for, for spring of 26. 00:27:42 We're gonna have refrigeration here. Um, Holganix is good about, um, letting us use reefer trailers 00:27:47 and, uh, we actually have, um, some of the holganix facilities are fairly close to our farm, so if we need to get some product pulled out, 00:27:54 refrigeration pretty quickly we can. But, um, definitely some timing and logisticals on our part to, to make sure the product is, 00:28:02 is good when it gets here and we get it used in, in that timeframe and mm-hmm. It's really not that, that big a deal. 00:28:08 Um, people think, well, this is a huge deal and a huge problem. But in reality, if you look at four to six weeks, 00:28:14 that's pretty much, you know, in the planting season, that's pretty much the window, uh, in the post harvest season, that's pretty much the window. 00:28:20 So it's like, um, if you can't get it on that window, it's not gonna be nearly as effective for you. So, um, but again, um, 00:28:31 any product on the market that's not being refrigerated, it's not going to have certain 00:28:34 strains of biology that Right. You really need on your farm to, to get these things done. It is not a, it is not a dead microbe sitting in a, on a, 00:28:43 on a shelf that can sit there for two years. It's live biology that is gonna go to work for you immediately. 00:28:48 So along those lines, this is where I want to take it here at the end, is the biology. Um, I did a thing at a field day 00:28:59 where we actually were able to measure some of that with a organics person. And it seems to me that when we talk about 00:29:05 where this future is going, we know better about what soil biology looks like now. We concern ourselves more with it now than we used 00:29:11 to, and that's a good thing. Uh mm-hmm. I mean, of all the things we never talked about, we talked about macronutrients 00:29:16 and we talked about, maybe we started talking about micronutrients, but one thing we never really, are you seeing a difference? 00:29:21 Can you measure a difference? Can you see, you know, you talk about prevention of erosion and soil structure and all that. 00:29:26 Yeah. Can you, are you seeing that you've got a better, healthier biome in your soil now in the last Oh yeah, Absolutely. I mean, we, we 00:29:37 can measure it in ways by testing, you know, we do micro biometer tests, and so we can see, um, what our bacteria to fungi ratios 00:29:45 and our total microbial levels are doing over time. Uh, without question. Uh, products that have had, 00:29:51 or fields that have had GaN products, um, are showing higher fungi to bacteria ratios is what, which is what we want. 00:29:57 A lot of soils, especially in Illinois, tend to be bacteria dominant. Uh, if you've got any history of manure, that sort of thing, 00:30:02 you're gonna have very bacteria dominant soils if you have a lot of tillage. Uh, that's really the, the biggest negative 00:30:09 of tillage is you're killing all your fungi that's screwing your macro aggregates together in your soil and creating that structure 00:30:14 that we really want. Did you ever hear About the bacteria to fungi ratio until the last few years? 00:30:19 Because I did not. And I'm telling you that I, I think that's where the future's going. When you're talking, you're talking 00:30:25 about, we didn't even know about it. And then we realize how outta whack we are. And again, just like the leeches example, 00:30:32 we're gonna look back and say, yeah, we didn't even know, but why fungi mattered. 00:30:35 Well, we were out there just beating the hell out of it with fungicide and then wonder why there's no fungi in our soil. 00:30:41 Yeah. And that, that's, uh, one, one of the issues is when we talk about fungi, most conventional farmers will immediately go to, well, 00:30:49 that's a negative because I'm trying to kill this fungus or that fungus that's attacking my, my crop. 00:30:56 But in reality, the vast majority of fungi can be beneficial for your soil. And they're what creates the glue 00:31:02 and the macro aggregate of your soil to give you soil structure, and that that's what actually holds the carbon to the soil. 00:31:07 We talk about sequestering carbon through, uh, proper crop management. We want, we want high carbon levels in our soils, 00:31:13 and every time we till we're killing that fungi. It releases the carbon back into the atmosphere. So that's definitely a negative. 00:31:20 But there, there's things that, you know, we can measure bulk density. Uh, I can show you graphs and charts of, of ours 00:31:26 and customers that have used organics over three and four years now, the soil bulk density are going down. So that's like, think of that as the tightness of the soil. 00:31:34 Uh, we want looser soil that's, uh, easy more easily to percolate with water. Um, I can show you lots of numbers 00:31:40 that we've definitely been trending down in our soil bulk densities, and there's things that really can't be measured. 00:31:45 I mean, we have a farm, we've been farming, uh, since the early nineties, and my grandfather and dad started farming in early nineties 00:31:52 for one of our landlords. And, um, I'll be honest, it's a farm that we've been farming at 30 years, 00:31:57 and I think I thought about 30 times giving it up because it just seems like we can never get it over the top. And what we wanted to do, you know, it started out as a lot 00:32:04 of tillage in the nineties on at to try to get it to produce. Um, and the last, you know, 10, 00:32:11 15 years we've been no tilling it. Um, we're still having trouble. We started cover cropping it, um, I'm wanting 00:32:18 to say probably seven, eight years ago on every other year basis. And that seemed to help a little bit. 00:32:22 We're starting to see some progress. Um, it's now had whole gans for its fourth season this year. Um, so it's had the spring 00:32:29 and fall product, uh, the last year, and it had the spring product, uh, this will be the fourth season. 00:32:34 It's had the spring product. The first year we had the spring product on that farm. We had had the soybean record, uh, yield for 00:32:41 that farm the first year. The second year was organics. It had the record corn crop the third year. It had organics, it had the second best bean crops ever 00:32:49 had by half a bushel. And barring any sort of catastrophe, I think will have a record corn crop on 00:32:55 that particular farm this year, record For record for that farm record for That farm record for that farm. It, 00:33:00 it will not out yield some of our better farms that have better things going on. But for that particular farm, 00:33:06 the percentage increase we've seen from a yield perspective in those four years, um, 00:33:11 has been out doing a lot of our other farms. And it's the, the thing you can't measure, like when you're out planting a field, 00:33:18 you can just tell when the, when the soil texture and, and when things are right that those macro aggregate particles are right. 00:33:25 And how it feels and how it looks and how it acts. And that's one that's really hard to describe to customers and, and farmers is it just feels and acts 00:33:33 and works differently than it used to. It always had this tightness to it before it had this fineness to it before that. 00:33:39 Yeah, it looked kind of pretty, but as soon as you got a rain, it turned to concrete and it wouldn't percolate water. 00:33:46 And that has absolutely changed over the last four years. And I, I don't know, a great way to measure that 00:33:52 and really quantify that to, uh, to another grower is it's just, it's just different. It, it's got a different feel, a different texture. 00:34:00 Um, it handles water so much better than it did four years ago. And those are the things we're seeing 00:34:05 after continual build of our biology is those things just improve on an annual basis. 00:34:11 So like year one will not be the best year. It's going to be years 3, 4, 5, and yeah. And, and that's often a difficult reason why guys are 00:34:20 reluctant to switch to a no-till type system. 'cause sometimes that first year won't go great. Um, well, By the way, you're also, you also got the, the case 00:34:27 of many of these people that they, they're so fixed in their ways, then they finally, I'll try it, I'll try it. 00:34:33 And what they're really gonna do is they're, They're looking for, they're looking for a reason for it to fail. That's 00:34:39 They'll, They'll in that's what they're doing. Yeah. They'll fix, they'll make it fail so they can prove themselves. 00:34:45 Right. Because yeah, the one thing, humans a lot of times wanna believe that they're right. And so yes, they'll make sure that their experiment fails so 00:34:51 that way they can convince themselves they were doing it right all along. Yeah. Um, real quickly about the program, 00:34:57 the stuff you put on behind the combine is now a rebranded stuff. It's a fall stuff and it's about breaking down the residue. 00:35:04 And the spring treatment is about activating fungi. Uh, and yeah. Yeah. Not just fungi, but all the biology in your soil. 00:35:14 So, uh, we want it, uh, apply as close to planting as possible kind of that two weeks before, two weeks after we personally do it at plant, uh, either 00:35:22 through our herbicide pass, right after the plant goes to this field where we put it in furrow with water or, or some starter fertilizer. 00:35:29 And it's really about jump starting that, that lifecycle in the soil and making, because pretty much all the fertilizer 00:35:35 that gets into your plant has to go through the belly of a microbe, um, before it gets there. And you need a balanced, uh, spectrum 00:35:41 of microbes for that to happen. You need bacteria, fungi. Um, you need the fungi to consume the bacteria. 00:35:46 You need the protozoas and arachnoid to, to, to feed on them. And so there's a life cycle in your soil that you have 00:35:52 to understand that's happening. And I don't even know if we understand 5% of what's really going on there. 00:35:58 No. Uh, so there hasn't been enough research done, but, um, we do know that microbes play a critical role in the, in the, um, 00:36:05 in the, in the soil biome for those plants. And we consistently see, uh, much better growth, early development, resiliency, uh, 00:36:13 the emergence stand there. There's a lot of things that, that go on there. Especially if you have a soil that's, you know, 00:36:18 maybe been prone to flooding. And you gotta remember, these soils are coming outta winter, especially in our area. 00:36:23 Um, we're coming outta winter where, where a lot of your biology has been killed or completely, um, immobilized 00:36:29 because of the winter weather. And, and so anything we do to jumpstart that, uh, especially as we try to plant crops earlier and earlier, um, 00:36:38 and the fall product too, you know, we talk about residue, digestion, but also what's happening 00:36:42 there is nutrient release. I mean, we think about, uh, how much of our nutrients are tied up in, uh, the residue, 00:36:49 the fodder, what are, however you wanna state it from previous year's crop, we need to get those nutrients released back to the soil. 00:36:56 And, uh, digestion and microbes are, what, what does that, and We've had people, so That's a big part 00:37:01 Of it. We've had agronomic people on this cutting the curve show that, and I, 00:37:05 if floored me the first year I was doing these recordings and they're talking about, you know, 40% 00:37:10 of applied nutrients are still in that fodder. Well, it makes sense. Yeah. Because obviously it, it produced the plant. 00:37:16 All you took was the kernel. All you took was the seed. Yeah. So it makes sense. You're talking 40 or so percent with these elevated input prices 00:37:24 and the commodities where they are. You need to get every nickel's worth of nutrients back outta that. 00:37:29 And that's where I think the recycling, you can be opposed to no-till and all that, but don't be a d*****s. 00:37:36 Get your, get your investment of fertility back out of the residue. You already spent it. You know, that's 00:37:41 where I think the big, the big, uh, the aha, the aha moment would be for me. I, if I'm listening to this, get your nutrient track. 00:37:49 Yeah. I, I know there's been, been studies, and if I'm remembering correctly, like, uh, like your, your corn residue, if you're going to soybeans next year, 00:37:57 there's enough potash potassium in the corn residue to support like 70 bushels soybeans just in the residue. That's not even adding anything 00:38:04 or what's in the soil already, right? That's just in the residue from the previous source corn crop. 00:38:08 So, and, and that, that is going to continually happen. So even if you, uh, you know, spray your residue, digestion, the, the organic Thrive product in the spring, early spring, 00:38:18 that residue is going to digest. Obviously if you go out there in the spring, you're gonna have more residue. 00:38:22 You go out there now and that residue is still being breaking, is breaking down over the summer, 00:38:27 releasing nutrients back into the soil for the microbes to grab and feed to your crop. And so it is, it hap it's happening as long 00:38:35 as the environment is correct, you know, with the temperature and the moisture. It's happening all year. It's not just happening 00:38:39 in the spring or in the fall. And that, that's part of, It's, it's happening throughout, this's happening throughout the season, as you say, 00:38:45 Happening throughout the season. And, and actually, you know, as long as there's temperature and moisture, it, it's doing it 00:38:49 at more of an increasing rate. And so, um, anything we can do, a lot of guys look at the residue management. 00:38:54 Well, I just gotta have, and it is definitely, you know, a, a carbon issue and this year's going to be a telling tale 00:39:00 of, um, you know, we had some really cool weather to start this year and we got all of our soybeans planted in April, 00:39:07 which is, which is a great thing. And, but boy, they looked pretty, pretty tough for a long time. 00:39:13 And all the full tillers were crowing about how good their beans look. And, and now a lot of their beans aren't standing very good. 00:39:18 But, um, it is gonna be interesting. I don't think the yield gap is going to be what the expectation was. 00:39:24 Uh, maybe there'll be a slight edge for full tillage this year just because of, um, the slow start we had on the no-till beans. 00:39:31 But it, it is not gonna be enough to justify doing the tillage pass for sure. So, well, And, and that's the economics gist of the diesel 00:39:39 and the wear and tear and plus, plus one thing that farmers are really, uh, not always good at doing is the value of time. 00:39:45 Uh, yeah. Like you said, going out there and sitting in a piece of equipment for, you know, seven acres every hour, uh, 00:39:52 as a pretty expensive proposition if you value your time. Uh, but I guess maybe it's a hobby for many people anyway, 00:39:58 on the, uh, on the other front of it then, like you said, the, the long-term improvement, you just gave the example 00:40:03 of a chunk of ground that's was kind of poor and you've been working with it for 30 years and it took you until five years ago. 00:40:09 She started really thinking you were turning the corner on that. And so mm-hmm. Uh, 00:40:12 if I wanna learn more about this, where do I go? Yeah, so, um, organic's got a great website just, uh, just throw organics, um, in your, in your search bar. 00:40:22 And they have a great revamp website. They can take you to a lot of different aspects. A lot of farmer testimonials on there. 00:40:28 Um, if you're in central Illinois or Illinois, um, you find, uh, find Grant Strum and he will tell you all about it. 00:40:35 We've got some great programs for the 26, uh, crop year coming up. Um, I know Hogans will, 00:40:40 if you're all at all the trade shows. So they were at Farm Progress Show at had a, had a great farm progress show with organics 00:40:46 and getting guys there to learn about the product. Uh, there'll be a commodity classic and, uh, farm Con if you, uh, 00:40:52 make it the Farm Con in Kansas City this winter. And a lot of great opportunities there. But, uh, yeah, just look up, uh, just throw organics, uh, 00:41:01 in your browser and it'll take you right to their website and there's lots of, lots of great information there. So 00:41:06 His name's Grant Strum. He is, uh, he's gonna come back because I've enjoyed this conversation and I like what he has to say. 00:41:11 He is a guest. He's a guest here. He is not one of our extreme ag guys, but I'm gonna have him, uh, as a recurring guest. 00:41:16 I can tell you that because I like what he has to say. Um, if you enjoyed this, share it with somebody that can benefit from it, 00:41:21 that can improve their farming operation. You know what? Margins are tight. We understand that you need all the tools in your toolbox 00:41:27 and we just gave you some exceedingly good information. I didn't, grant did, he's the one that's the expert out here in North Central. 00:41:34 I'd call it North Central, maybe central Illinois. Yeah. We, we tend to call it West Central, 00:41:38 but yeah, kind of northwest central. Okay, We'll call it West Central. There we go. Yeah. Anyway, uh, and, and, and I'm calling you 00:41:43 and I'm talking to you from my farm here in Indiana, but it doesn't matter where I am or where Grant doesn't matters where 00:41:47 you are and your journey. And we wanted to make you, uh, farm better. So share this. Also go and check out all the great stuff. 00:41:54 Remember extreme ag, I've been doing this for over four years, so there's four and a half years of, uh, cutting the curves, hundreds 00:42:00 of episodes free for the, yeah. 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He's Grant Strom. 00:42:42 I'm Damien Mason. This is extreme Ag Cutting the Curve. That's a wrap for this episode of Cutting the Curve. Make sure to check out Extreme ag.farm 00:42:50 for more great content to help you squeeze more profit out of your farming operation. 00:42:56 This episode of The Cutting the Curve podcast is brought to you by BASF, creating innovation 1152 00:43:01.345 --> 00:43:03.605