Sesame Farming Contracts Offer High ROI Potential | Farming Podcast

00:00:00 Succeeding with specialty crop contracts. That's what we're talking about. Is it time for you to put a specialty crop onto your farm 00:00:07 to diversify your revenue, diversify your risk, and change things up in what might be a downward ag economy? That's the discussion in this episode 00:00:15 of extreme Ag Cutting the curve. It's Extreme ag cutting the curve podcast, cutting your learning curve, 00:00:21 and improving your farming operation every week. This episode of The Cutting the Curve podcast is powered by Nature's bio kay technology delivering enhanced nutrient 00:00:30 cycling, greater plant health, and elevated stress mitigation leading to increased crop yields. 00:00:35 Visit nature's dot com. And now let's get ready to learn with your host, Damien Mason. 00:00:42 Hey there, welcome to another fantastic episode of extreme Ag cutting the curve. We've got a great one for you today. We've got 00:00:46 Texas Todd Kimbrel. Uh, he is an extreme ag guy, uh, brought into the group by our good friend Matt Miles, 00:00:52 and he's about an hour south of Dallas farming down there, uh, farms in an area 00:00:56 that at first you'd say, is it arid down there? No, it's not a at all. We did another episode with Todd where we talked about how he, uh, almost, uh, 00:01:03 almost lost a crop to drought during the wettest year on record. So he is got some really interesting farming conditions. 00:01:08 He's in Hillsborough, Texas, like I said, roughly an hour 75 miles south of the Dallas Metroplex. Um, we're talking now about specialty crop contracts. 00:01:16 Todd farms quite a bit of ground and is always looking at opportunities to keep his guys going, to keep his farm operating, to keep, 00:01:24 uh, everything in the black in terms of the, the revenue and the, uh, the cash po positive cash flow, if you will. 00:01:29 And so he's doing about 1500 acres of sesame. And I said, we should really talk about this because if we're in a situation where soybeans, wheat, 00:01:39 corn are close to break even, or maybe even you're just not making any money, what do you have to lose? 00:01:44 If you were ringing the bell and you were making three, $400 net like we maybe did a few years ago on your main staple commodities, why, why? 00:01:52 Go ahead and, you know, why, why, why mess up the monkey? Why, why? Throw a monkey wrench in it. 00:01:57 But in this regard, if you're talking about maybe you're just struggling to break even, why not look at something different? 00:02:04 So you're trying 1500 acres, roughly, that's 15% of your crop ba into acres that you're going to put into sesame. 00:02:13 What was behind the decision? Well, you know, Damien, when farm economies are tough, which they're really tough, 00:02:21 and in my opinion, it's probably as tough as it's been for my generation of farm. I'm, I'm about to be 42 00:02:27 and I think things are probably as tight as we've ever seen them or people my age anyway. Yeah. Uh, my thing is you gotta think outside the box to, 00:02:38 to make all this stuff work. And I mean, you know, what's the definition of, uh, of, uh, insanity, right? 00:02:46 You keep doing the same thing different, expecting a different result, right? And so the one thing I, we we're amazing in agriculture. 00:02:52 We're good at production, but at some point, you gotta say, and I grew up on a dairy farm, same thing. 00:02:57 Um, in the eighties we were glutted with milk. That's when they were doing the free cheese program in the early mid eighties. 00:03:03 'cause we had so much milk. And so what's the dairy farmer do? Man, I'm hardly making any money. 00:03:09 I gotta squeeze as much milk outta that Holstein as I can. Oh, hey, wait, milk prices are good. 00:03:14 I've never, I've never sold milk for this much. I gotta squeeze as much milk outta Holsteins. The answer is always the same to a farmer. 00:03:19 I gotta squeeze as much milk out of that oh cow as I can figuratively. Whether it's, you know, whether, whether it's 00:03:26 a wheat field or whatever. If things are tight, I gotta squeeze as much out as I can because I, I'm barely getting by. 00:03:32 Oh my God, this margins are amazing. I've never made this much money. I gotta squeeze as much outta that cow as I can. 00:03:37 The answer's always the same. And at some point, as you say, am I insane? Why do I continue to do the same 00:03:45 thing, hoping for a different result? Yeah. We, we found ourself in a heavy, heavy corn, you know, corn on corn rotation. 00:03:53 And we, we tends to work pretty good down here, uh, winter wheat. And so we all know the wheat board price. 00:04:01 I mean, if you compare it to corn, it just doesn't work. So I just got to thinking we gotta do something different 00:04:08 to make, to squeeze a little more milk out of this wheat, so to speak. So what can we do? We can't plant beans. We've all tried it. 00:04:18 It still gets too hot in the summer. So I was kinda looking for something that could handle the heat and the drought 00:04:24 and mostly the heat more than anything here. And kind of came back to sesame. I, I tried it, I think it was 2010 00:04:34 or 2009. We tried it behind some wheat that froze out and we bailed the wheat and planted some in there, but we didn't know what we were doing. 00:04:42 We were drilling it. We didn't get a stand. We didn't know how to spray. We didn't, had no idea what we were doing. 00:04:47 The technology's come along, we know how to plant it. We're gonna plant it with a row crop planter. Uh, I think we know how to take care of it. 00:04:55 They tell me their seeds improve drastically. So we're gonna try something different to squeeze a few more dollars outta this wheat 00:05:02 that just is not profitable. Well, here's the thing You just said that, all right, your main commodities, wheat works well where you are. 00:05:11 Okay? You can squeeze a few dollars, you can change up your system, you can do a lot of things, but in this case, you're gonna put in a significant 00:05:17 amount of sesame. You've got very little experience with this. First off, you said there's a reason 00:05:22 to go ahead and experiment with something different. Why'd you choose sesame? Just because of the, the heat tolerant for us. 00:05:29 Uh, everything I hear and know that there's a lot more of it growing in south Texas, which is quite a bit warmer and drier usually. 00:05:39 Uh, and they're getting along good with it. And those guys have come a long ways with it. So I just, you know, something that can handle the heat 00:05:45 and, uh, in a long dry spell. So, so when we're, when we're shelling corn, we'll start, uh, nowadays we start mid-July really into July. 00:05:56 I mean, it's 105, so we gotta have some crop that can weather that heat, you know, to get past that heat wave when we're harvesting corn. 00:06:06 It just, it gets so hot down here. Okay, so first off, I wanna talk about sesame as a crop and then the, the climate 00:06:13 and the reasons why it works for you. But the other part of it is I'm in northeast Indiana at my farm. 00:06:18 I've never seen sesame except for on a, on a cheeseburger bun. I don't know that much about it. 00:06:23 I can tell you that even if I could grow it here, which I'm guessing I could, but probably not very well, or maybe I couldn't at all. 00:06:28 I have no idea where I'd go with it. There must be infrastructure nearby if it's, if it's being grown in south Texas 00:06:35 that's not that far from you. Where does this go? Where what, how, where, why, why, why is sesame even in Texas is a plant there? Well, 00:06:43 From my understanding it, the oil is a big deal with it for cooking oil, but, uh, I don't know anymore. But back the first time we planted it, 00:06:51 I know they were telling us McDonald's was their number one customer. I don't know if they still are. 00:06:56 I would assume maybe so, but a lot, I mean, it's all going for, you know, for edible stuff. 00:07:02 And you know, I don't know a ton about it, but we're gonna give it a shot. So where will it go when it comes outta your fields? 00:07:10 So the contract is, it states that they will pick it up out of the field. So we don't even have to handle it logistically. 00:07:16 We just have to harvest it. So the reality is, you know, you said the definition of insanity is doing the 00:07:22 same thing, expect different result. What's the, what, what's the definition of I'm doing something, I have no idea 00:07:27 where the hell this crop is going. Is there something, is there a definition for that? Maybe so, maybe it's crazy. 00:07:32 Maybe crazy. So, all right. Who came to you with this contract? Did you seek it out or did somebody approach you? 00:07:39 Uh, somewhat. Both the, those guys, ever since we planted it years ago, they kind of come and go and, you know, you know, reach out time to time. 00:07:48 And I'm gonna be honest, when things, when the economy was good, I really didn't weigh it out that much. 00:07:54 And as things got tighter, it makes your mind expand and Yep. Be a little more open minded about something like this. 00:08:00 And you know, if it's something that works, maybe it's something we stick with. I'd agree with you probably. You probably will. 00:08:06 So how's the contract work? So the person listening to this that says, you know what, I've heard about some of these deals 00:08:11 and like in my part world there's been white corn, there's been non GMO white corn. I just talked about that in Texas. 00:08:17 I was down there for, or I'm sorry, in Kentucky, I was there for a speaking engagement. Um, I'm told that it's either Maker's Mark 00:08:22 or Woodford Reserve, one of the big bourbon companies. We will give you a contract, but it's usually through a broker 00:08:29 and it's gotta be white corn and it's gotta be non GMO white corn. There's a couple of other things. 00:08:34 I don't think they specify organic, but I think that it's, it's got certain, uh, uh, you know, parameters to the contract. 00:08:41 So I know that there's specialty contracts that popcorn, I'm, I'm Indiana's number two, popcorn State. 00:08:46 So I know some guys that have grown popcorn. How does the contract work? You came, they came to you, you came 00:08:51 to them, however it came together. Yep. And you're gonna put in 1500 acres. There's a boatload of sesame. Tell me about the contract. 00:08:56 So it was a simple contract, but it's an acre contract so we don't have to, you know, and, and act of God clause. 00:09:03 So we don't have to agree to any production. I I don't even know if we can make a crop to be honest, but we're gonna try. 00:09:09 Uh, so it's a strictly an acre contract. And there was a price, I think we were right around 45 cents a pound. 00:09:17 Okay. So the point is, and explain this an acre contract, because the person says, what's he talking about? 00:09:22 Sometimes a contract says, we'll take this many units, bushels, pounds, gallons, whatever. And if you have a banner year, you might be sitting 00:09:32 with a bunch of stuff that they didn't agree to take. And you're like, what, what do I do with this? But yours is acres, period, 00:09:39 Strictly acres. And so they, well, we buy the seed from the company we we're selling it to. 'cause they have their own seed lines, 00:09:47 they're kind of start to finish. We buy the seed from them, we contract the acres through them, they come to pick it up, 00:09:55 and they pay us for what they pick up. It's a pretty simple contract. And there is an act of God clause. 00:10:01 You know, I like last year as much rain as we had. We couldn't get our wheat harvested, you know, there's no way we could've got it planted there. 00:10:10 It would've been literally impossible. And if that happens, he says it's just an act of God and we'll move on. 00:10:15 We won't plan any, we'll move on. But we're, I, I hope it dries out a little bit here where we can get some planted. Yeah. So when will the planting, we're recording this 00:10:23 by the way, on May 8th, when will the planting happen? So I suspect we'll be harvesting probably two weeks, give or take. 00:10:32 Mm-hmm. So, you know, maybe three weeks we'll be planting it. I would get just a guess. 00:10:37 Okay. So around Memorial Day is a good, oppor is a good time. Yep. You think it's, it is gonna go under ground 00:10:41 and then it gets harvested. Uh, so I don't know. I want to, I would guess somewhere in that September, end of September range, maybe early October. Uh, 00:10:53 Does the con does part of the contract say you'll harvest this when we tell you to Because they, they can only process so much at a time. 00:11:00 I know that my tomato friends here in red Gold country, they, they have a contract. They're allowed to bring, uh, four semi-loads a day 00:11:11 during this timeframe because the processing plant can only handle so much. And so is that part of your deal? 00:11:17 No, I don't think so. I don't, I don't think there's a limit on logistics. Uh, I think they have a storage facility maybe in Oklahoma 00:11:25 where they process, and I think they have storage there. So I don't think storage 00:11:29 or logistics is an issue from what I understand As part of the other contract. Uh, did they provide the 00:11:36 seed or you have to pay for the seed? I have to pay for the seed, but I I purchased it from them. 00:11:40 Yes. And then they agree to buy every pound of sesame that comes off of that acre, 1500 acres in this case. And, and if you have a banner harvest 00:11:49 or if you have a little harvest, no penalty, you, you just get paid. That's correct. What about on an insurance basis? 00:11:55 Do you, could you, could you lose money? No. No. So the, I mean, I guess the only, the way I'm looking at it, 00:12:03 the only thing I have at risk is seed. I guess you could throw planting cost in there. Um, I, you know, there will be a little plant cost, 00:12:13 uh, herbicide. We're gonna either have to do tillage or keep that, that wheat ground clean after we harvest anyway. 00:12:21 So I would call the herbicide a wash. I don't, I don't, I don't particularly think we'll be out a ton of money. 00:12:27 Maybe a little more than not having a crop, but not much. So really? So you're out the farming expense? 00:12:33 What, what about the acre? They're not giving you cash rent for the acre. You're just, so if you don't get a har if you don't get, if, 00:12:39 if some act of God does happen and you get no crop off of that, you're out those acres. Well, but I already have the weed on it, so I'm going 00:12:48 to this thing like I don't have anything to lose. You're Looking at it because it's double crop. 00:12:52 It's it's round of money. That's right. That's right. But you could have put soybeans, look at my friends, like, uh, all the southern boys and Ja 00:12:58 and all them, they put beans into their wheat ground. No sir. They won't work here. We get way too hot. We've all, they're a bunch of guys 00:13:06 around here have tried it. I've tried it. It just, I, we can't seem to make it work. Okay. It gets too hot. 00:13:13 Okay. So the point is that wheat ground was gonna get harvested at, uh, mid late May, and then it was gonna sit idle 00:13:22 and hopefully gain some moisture and going into fall and now you're getting a bonus crop out of it. Yeah, I mean that ground would sit idle until, well, 00:13:32 I mean, not idle, but it would sit there until February or March. So why not see if we can, you know, 00:13:39 squeeze a little bit out of it. Make I, to me the goal is all about making my wheat a little more profitable. 00:13:45 It just, I like to grill wheat. It's a great rotation, works good. Or most of the time it works good. 00:13:53 It just isn't profitable enough. And how can we squeeze a little more out of it? Got it. I wanna hear about the agronomics 00:13:59 and then also the agronomics and then some of the other factors like the labor and the timing on that. 00:14:03 Before I do, I want to talk to you about our friends at, uh, superior Grain as your farm operation grows. 00:14:08 So do the challenges. Superior grain equipment's, grain storage systems are built to make your job easier and help your grain reach its full potential from gentle mix 00:14:17 flow dryers to durable storage. Get the flexibility to market your grain on your time. Visit the experts from Superior Grain equipment at this 00:14:25 year's Farm Progress show. It'll be this August in Decatur, Illinois. Or you can visit them online anytime@superiorbins.com. 00:14:32 Superior bins.com. We'll check it out. Um, alright. From the agronomics then, I, I don't know. Sesame is an oil seed. 00:14:43 Yes. And, and then it's going into wheat ground, so it's not a grass. So it's not gonna be depleted 00:14:50 of nitrogen the way maybe like a, a corn or a wheat would be. What are the agronomics of it? 00:14:56 So the guys tell me, do not fertilize it at all. Just leave it out there and do not fertilize. It's not a legume, but they tell me not to fertilize it. 00:15:06 It'll scavenge and get plenty, plenty of what it needs. I don't know. I, you know, I'm pretty, usually pretty heavy on fertilizer, so I don't know. 00:15:16 That part kind of makes me a little nervous, but they just swear up and down, do not fertilize it. You won't see a a, an increase on you. And 00:15:24 They are the people that you sign a contract with. The people that's actually want and they don't have their vested interest is they 00:15:30 need the sesame seeds. So true to God, they're giving you good advice. That's right. That's right. 00:15:35 And Sesco is the name of the company if you wanted to look it up. The name of the company? Yeah. Sco 00:15:42 Sesco. Like ses like sesame, uh, COE. That's correct. Perfect. Alright. So what I need to know is When you, 00:15:53 when you do this agronomically, do they send out an actual person that you think 00:15:58 Agronomically knows what they're talking about? I mean, do they use car salesman with a, a bad two pay hop out of a, uh, 73 Nova 00:16:05 and have you signed this contract? Or was it somebody that actually showed up in a truck, had had dirty boots and says, I'm the field man 00:16:13 and I can tell you all about my contracts that I've signed up with other farmers. Did you actually talk to someone 00:16:18 that knows what the hell they're talking about? Yeah, I think so. So, uh, his name is Garrett 00:16:23 and, uh, he actually, when he is not doing the sesame stuff, he actually helps a friend of mine on his farm. 00:16:29 So he is real in tuned with farm and how everything works and what we're up against. 00:16:34 And, uh, he's, I mean, agronomically seems really intelligent. Uh, no, I feel real good about that. 00:16:41 All right. Sesame seeds, anybody that's eaten a hamburger at, uh, McDonald's knows it's just a little teeny little 00:16:47 seed and you're planting those exact seeds, which presumably are treated and obviously genetically enhanced 00:16:53 and whatever you're planting those, they, they almost could blow away in, into wind. I mean, that's right. This thing's gonna be hard to plant. 00:16:59 This is not as big as a kernel of corn or a soybean or even wheat. So tell me about the planting talk. 00:17:04 Take me through the farming aspect of it. Yeah, so the seeds are tiny. If you throw a bag of the seed, a 50 00:17:11 or 40 pound, whatever they are, bag, if you throw it down on the ground or on the back, 40 pound A, a Todd, a 40 pound bag 00:17:18 of sesame seeds could be the size of a truck bed. I mean, they don't weigh anything, do they? Yeah. I don't remember the bushel weight. 00:17:23 They're heavier than you think, but if you throw that bag down, seeds will squirt out the seams of that bag. 00:17:30 That's how tiny they are. Yeah. Uh, but yeah, so there's some seals we gotta put on the meters of our planters. 00:17:36 There's some little things we have to do. Uh, I always hear you gotta put a little duct tape on areas on com, even on a new combine. 00:17:44 Look, the tiniest little spots can leak and see that part will be a little bit of a challenge. I'm sure 00:17:49 You're planting these on thirties, 15 seven and a halfs drill. What are you doing? Great question. They recommended thirties. 00:17:57 I'm actually gonna plant it on 30 eights like my cotton, I plant my corn on thirties, my cotton on 30 eights. 00:18:03 Uh, there's a little trick and they, they tell, they swear that this trick works. It's, uh, they say to run water in furrow 00:18:11 like 10 gallons of water per acre in furrow. Okay. And you'll get a better stand. Okay. Because the seats are so tiny 00:18:19 and they need to imbibe a little bit of water and they, they, they swear that it works. So my thoughts on 30 eighths will concentrate 00:18:25 that water a little bit better versus a 30. Okay. So you're at to, you're gonna be carried, you're gonna be stopping for fills on your, uh, 00:18:33 planter a little bit more rapidly because you're having to put water in Water. That's correct. 00:18:38 But it'll be easy. Okay. And then during the season, you're not supposed to fertilize it during the season, 00:18:43 you're not cultivating Right. What are you, what are you doing? What do you about weed? You do you do herbicide pass? 00:18:49 Yeah. And herbicides are pretty limited, so that's gonna be a little bit of a challenge. Uh, grass, you know, grasses will be easy to clean up 00:18:56 'cause it is a broadleaf, but broadleaf wheats will be a challenge. Uh, we're probably gonna have a lot to learn there, 00:19:04 but, uh, I guess we'll see as we go through it. Okay. And then, um, yeah, so you're gonna make a sprayer pass. 00:19:12 Is fungi, is fungus an issue? No. Okay, so no fungicide. So actually you're not gonna have a 00:19:17 lot of money invested in this. Um, but then like I said, you, you run the risk of not making a lot of money on it either. 00:19:22 Alright. Harvest. You're using a, a grain head? Yeah. Pla just a regular platform header or Well, we run Draper, so it'll be just a draper header. 00:19:32 All right. And, and you're gonna have all the, like you said, this stuff is so little and so fine and so light and all that. 00:19:38 It could be blowing around. I imagine you gotta crank down the settings on a com on a combine like nothing 00:19:43 you've ever harvested before. Oh yeah. It's gonna be a different animal for sure, but I don't, I I don't think the harvest is that bad. 00:19:51 It's mostly just sealing up things so it doesn't leak. Is the biggest thing From a, uh, labor 00:19:57 and timing standpoint is this, does this space out anything for you? You've not, you normally aren't running planters, uh, 00:20:04 June 1st or May 28th or whatever that date should be. So no, It'll, it'll be a little bit of a challenge trying 00:20:11 to get wheat harvested and that, and spraying our cotton at the same time. I'm honestly more worried about harvest while we're 00:20:19 during cotton harvest. Mm-hmm. That'll be a challenge. But I really, it, you know, it all depends on when we get it planted, 00:20:26 how hot the summer is when the stuff matures. There's so many variables still we don't know yet. But yeah, there, there is some challenges that could be 00:20:34 on the horizon trying to get this stuff taken care of. So I only learned about cotton since I joined extreme ag. And uh, I mean I spoke 00:20:41 to a couple cotton groups over the years. Um, you got a pool of cotton once a week. You gotta have the most expensive harvesting 00:20:49 machine on your farm. Um, it's a plant. As my friend Matt Miles always says that likes to die. It looks to die every day. Cotton's a pain in the ass. 00:20:59 Have you ever thought about maybe just getting outta cotton and being a sesame farmer? 00:21:02 Because it sounds like sesame is almost easy. Yeah, I don't know. I, it's gonna have to prove it to me a little more. 00:21:10 Uh, I kind of, I was kind of hoping we could just make it part of our wheat rotation is what I was hoping. 00:21:16 Right. And, you know, rotate everything else and use, use it to make more out of our wheat dollars and maybe, you know, if it does work, 00:21:25 maybe our weed acres increase is what I'm thinking. That maybe and, and agronomically, it doesn't, it doesn't deplete 00:21:32 that if there's not gonna be like, oh God, you must have had sesame in this field last year because now there's no whatever, 00:21:36 calcium, phosphorus, nothing. Is there anything that is a hog on anything? I think it's a scavenger. 00:21:42 I think it'll be similar to a sunflower. We, when we planted sunflowers here, we, we noticed they would scavenge real deep 00:21:48 and bring up nutrients. And honestly we saw yield increases year after, uh, sunflowers here. 00:21:55 Mm-hmm. So I would hope it's somewhat similar, but I really don't know What is the expected harvest. 00:22:01 I mean, if I said, Hey, uh, we're gonna do, uh, you know, organic white corn for this specialty contract, I'd say, 00:22:10 okay, around here we're at 230 bushel corn normally. So what's the deduct? They'd say, oh, 30%. So I can run those numbers. I wouldn't have any idea what 00:22:20 to expect on something like sesame. If you told me it makes, you know, 20 bushels, it makes 70 bushels. 00:22:27 What what's the expected yield? So they go off pounds and the guy Garrett, the rep told me that he's had guys down south that planted it. 00:22:38 The main thing is getting a stand. And that's why I mentioned putting water in furrow. Yep. So stand is the most critical part. 00:22:44 He says if you can get a stand, you're going to make enough crop to you that you're not gonna lose any money. 00:22:51 That's what he says. Now he claims if you can just get it up and get it going, you're gonna make three or 400 pounds, but 00:22:59 Three or four. Oh pou three or four oh pounds per acre. Yep. So if you get two timely summer rains, he said you can get all the way up to a thousand pounds 00:23:10 By the way, you know, that's not a, I get that, that that's, those seeds don't weigh a lot. But, you know, almost doesn't seem like worth firing up the 00:23:17 combine for 400 pounds an acre. Does it? I mean, no, but 400, you know, times 45, you know, cents. I mean, I don't, we're not definitely not gonna be losing. 00:23:29 So, so that those numbers are four oh bucks at 45 cents is uh, 180 bucks. You're gonna and that's, that's 00:23:38 what you think the low side is? Yeah. Yep. And that number, hey, that number's probably worth it with the way our weed is. I'm being long. 00:23:47 Yeah, you bought the seed. Do, do you remember the number? How much your dollars on your seed cost? Uh, 00:23:51 2020 bucks lower twenties on acre. Okay. 20. Call it 20 bucks on seed, uh, herbicide pass 20 bucks. 00:24:00 I don't, I'm gonna call that a wash 'cause I'm gonna have to do it anyway. Oh, because you gotta make sure your wheat 00:24:04 stubble doesn't grow in all That. Yeah, our wheat, our wheat ground's notorious for getting green and weeds. 00:24:10 'cause it's, there's usually a lot of moisture left underneath the wheat straw. And man, we, we fought our wheat ground all summer long 00:24:17 Here. Okay. So you're, you're, you're gonna call that anyway, so we got 20 bucks on seed. 00:24:20 We got, uh, the planting. There's another what call that 20 bucks. Sure. Yeah. Okay. You're at 40 bucks. 00:24:26 What other, what am I missing? No fungicide, harvest. Harvest, no fertility. And then, then harvest. Is it fair to say is, 00:24:32 is har running a combine through there? Is it uh, another 25 bucks? Yeah, 25. I don't know. It's probably 30 bucks. 00:24:39 I mean, being realistic probably You're $70 plus your time. Yep. And so it sounds to me like you're gonna be, 00:24:46 even if they're throwing another $10 per acre in for miscellaneous at 400 pounds, you're at, uh, $80 of cost at $180 return. 00:24:53 So you're, you could make a hundred bucks on this. That's Kinda what I, that's the exact number I was looking at 00:24:58 to make it worthwhile. And I, I mean I've learned a lot of hard lessons in my, in my little short career, but I don't know. 00:25:06 We'll see. We'll see what happens about, uh, And there's no guarantee on payments. Do they pay you as the like within 30 days of, uh, 00:25:14 pickup from the field? Or is there Anything? I think so. I think it is 30. 00:25:17 It is 30 or 45 days, I believe. Okay. So you're not gonna be sitting there, uh, holding their money until, uh, 00:25:23 next in 2026 or anything like that? I Don't, no, I don't think so. They're a real standup company from what I gather. 00:25:31 I'm kinda worried that you don't know as much about the sesame as maybe you should have going into this. This is a little, it seems a little bit wim whammy. 00:25:37 Uh, I've done it before. I, again, I'm just, I don't think I have much to lose by trying it. 00:25:43 I, I just, I don't see the downside to it. So why not Recommendations for somebody that's on the fence about trying, uh, doing an sesame 00:25:51 or I'm sorry, a specialty crop. What's your recommendation, Man? Just be diligent. 00:25:56 Run the numbers. If you don't have much to lose, why not try it. Think outside the box. 00:26:02 That's what it's gonna take to get through this downturn. Think outside the box. Do something different. 00:26:07 You didn't exact you didn't exactly fest her on this. Our friend Matt would've spent a lot more time festering on this. 00:26:13 You, you just kind of said, all right. It looks to me like, um, um, my, my cost on it's gonna be about 70 or 80 bucks an acre. 00:26:19 What the hell am I out? That's kind, you looked at it. I, yeah, again, that wheat ground just sits there. There's usually a bunch of moisture under it. 00:26:27 Let's try to, let's try to use it, see what we can get out of it. I mean why not? Well there's a bunch of people that are saying it's easy 00:26:33 for him to say I don't have any ground that just sits there. Yeah. Well you know, this area, 00:26:39 nobody ever double crops anything. They usually get in there and get a bunch, bunch of tillage and it could throw our tillage behind a little bit. 00:26:46 So that may be one of the biggest down, you know, biggest threats of it, I'll say. But I'm really not too worried about that. 00:26:54 Maybe this will will force you to stop tilling so much, which would make me happy as a soils guy. Did you ever think about that? 00:26:59 I'm a soils guy, but if you can come down here and show me how to No-till I'm, I'm all ears. I've tried everything. 00:27:05 I'm gonna get down there. I'm gonna get down there one of these days. Um, alright, so the other thought on this is the person 00:27:09 that says, okay, this doesn't apply to me 'cause I'm in South Dakota and there's no, there's no double 00:27:14 cropping opportunity and all that. I think you still gotta consider taking some of your acres and doing experimentation on specialty crop. 00:27:20 Because again, if we're gonna be in depressed economics on the staple commodities, what, 00:27:27 what else you, what else are you gonna do? Yeah, I agree. Like I said, again, I I've been through a couple of downturns 00:27:34 and it seems like thinking outside the box is what kind of got us through it without being too beat up. So I don't know, 00:27:42 but maybe this is a pipe dream, but I don't know. I'm gonna, I'm gonna do my best to raise good crop If this, uh, and I'll check in 00:27:50 with you mid-season if this works. Do you expand it? Do you figure out a way to put in more weed acres to then follow it 00:27:57 with sesame in 2026? I think so. It'll, it'll keep us from being heavily dependent on corn. 00:28:03 Uh, we do overall, we do pretty good with corn here. I mean, without a doubt it's our most consistent crop dollar wise. 00:28:17 So, I mean, it'd be great to be able to put a little more wheat rotation in and, and know that we can be a little more profitable without 00:28:24 having to worry about that board price. That wheat board is just terrible. Well, the thing about corn, you know, 00:28:29 people from the corn belt really think that Texans should have never tried to grow corn anyhow. You're supposed to do cotton and cows. 00:28:37 Did anybody not tell you that? Cows cotton. Cows cotton. That's what happens in Texas. 00:28:40 You're supposed to just leave the corn to us. Yeah, just get on X everybody. Everybody's hard on us Texas corn farmers. No doubt. 00:28:49 All right. Is there anything else I need to know about a specialty crop thing? Is it, what have you done before besides sesame? 00:28:53 Did you do anything else that flopped? Uh, no. I mean we raised sunflowers for several years. I don't know if you'll call that specialty or not. That's 00:29:01 Not on a contract. Is it because you're close enough to Kansas where you could just put it on a train or truck or whatever? 00:29:06 Right. There wasn't a contract on there, was it? No, There was we and it was actually acre contracts when we did it. 00:29:11 That's the only way I would do it. 'cause that Kansas is still pretty far and I, I wouldn't dare do it without a contract here. 00:29:17 Okay. Uh, one other thing about the sesame, we didn't mention an alternative use for it, and I kind of have this in the back of my head. 00:29:25 I'm not an outfitter and I don't ever plan to be, but the dove love it more than anything else. You're getting my, you're getting my juices flowing there 00:29:35 because my favorite, my favorite, my favorite kind of shooting is Dove shooting. You don't have to wake up early and it's not cold. Yep. 00:29:41 And I'd like those two things. I'm, I'm already starting to swing my 20 gauge right there, just thinking about it. 00:29:46 Yep. Uh, you do that while they're in the field or you do it after a harvest? Probably be after harvest. But I mean, I, 00:29:52 it depends on when harvest is. I don't think it'll matter. They, we usually get a pretty big flush of dove, 00:29:57 especially if you have something like that. They, they used to love sunflowers, but I'm pretty certain they like 00:30:04 sesame more than sunflowers. Yeah. And that start sometime in September. I mean October you get all the northern doves coming down. 00:30:09 We start getting those frosty nights up here. That's That's right. That's right. All right. You just figured out a way to maybe you might 00:30:14 boost your income some more there. Maybe I come down and pay you to shoot doves. Ah, you can just come shoot. 00:30:20 I, like I said, I don't know about the whole outfitting thing. I don't know if I Don't want you to go around going broke on my watch. 00:30:27 His name's t his name is Texas Todd Kimbrel. He is, uh, doing the, the sesame thing. We're talking about how to succeed in specialty crop. 00:30:33 I think the advice I got right there was what do you got to lose? Uh, minimize your cost and, 00:30:38 and look at it in terms of okay, if it's a minimal amount of expense and you can figure out a way 00:30:43 to at least get back to break even. And especially if you can use bonus acres as Todd's doing on acres 00:30:47 that weren't gonna be doing anything during the off season anyhow. Even if you had to use some of your prime, uh, season acres. 00:30:53 But you should start experimenting now. And I think that's the, the big lessons right there. Oh, and I think the other one, 00:30:59 if you can get an acre contract versus an actual quantity contract, because I've heard about guys when they're under 00:31:05 on quantity, they've gotta go and buy it from somebody else to obligate the contract and then all of a sudden they're over a barrel. 00:31:11 Yeah. And, and the act of God clause is very important on any specialty crop in my opinion, because especially here as extreme as we are. 00:31:19 Yeah. I mean, there's a chance we planted it. We don't ever see it. So, I mean, I'm not too naive to believe that we're just gonna make a big 00:31:26 crop, you know? Yeah. Yeah. I think that's a, that's a, that's a really good point there is that the act of God and, and like I said, acres versus quantity 00:31:34 because I've seen that on both regards where a person has a really great season and they're over and they're working like hell to try and sell their overage. 00:31:43 Uh, and then the other one is they're short and they have to go and buy the stuff from some other supplier somewhere. 00:31:48 And, and hopefully it's a friend connection and then they got to obligate the contract. So those can be tougher deals. His name's Texas. 00:31:54 Todd Kimbro. I'm Damien Mason. Here's the main thing. We got all kinds of videos just like this on the Cutting the Curve podcast. 00:31:59 And you can listen to it as an audio. Also, you can find us on wherever you get your platform, your whatever platform you get your podcast from. 00:32:05 Also, go and check out our YouTube channel, extreme Ag, uh, dot farm Do is our website. 00:32:10 But you can go to find all of our stuff on YouTube. We're putting more and more stuff there. And if you like this, check out The Grainery. 00:32:15 It's the show that's shot right here at my farm in Indiana at my on-farm, uh, hangout room 00:32:19 with the guys from Extreme Ag. We cover everything about the business of agriculture, the personal, the professional, and we make it a lot of fun. 00:32:24 So go and check that out as well. So next time, thanks for being here. Thanks for tuning in to this episode 00:32:29 of Extreme Ag Cutting the Curve. That's a wrap for this episode of Extreme ags Cutting the Curve Podcast. 00:32:35 Make sure to check out extreme ag.com for more great content. Cutting. The curve is powered by Nature's bio. 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