00:00 Another episode of Combine Contemplations with Garrett Land and Cattle. And we're talking about this time a change out in the PGS put on 00:09 at time of planting. Welcome to Extreme Ag Cutting the Curve podcast, where you get a guaranteed return on investment of your time as we cut your 00:21 learning curve with the information you can apply to your farming operation immediately. Extreme ag, 00:27 we've already made the mistakes so you don't have to. Managing your farm's water resources is a critical component to a successful and sustainable farming operation. 00:39 Advanced drainage systems helps farmers just like you increase their yields up to 30% with their technologically advanced water management products. 00:48 Visit ad s pipe.com to see how they can keep your business flowing. Now here's your host, Damien Mason. Hey there. 00:57 Welcome to another fantastic episode of extreme Ag Cutting the curve. I got Garrett land and Cattle operator founder of Extreme Ag Kelly Garrett, 01:05 and sitting next to him is Mike Evans with Integrated Ag Solutions and an agronomist who's, uh, quite the, uh, quite the current and recurring, 01:14 uh, guest here on our episodes. 'cause he's got good stuff. So they put on a plant growth regulator, 01:20 which admittedly I never even knew what one of those was until I talked to Kelly Garrett two and a half years ago. 01:25 They put on plant growth regulator at time of planting on their soybeans. And through some new learning, they are contemplating making a change next year. 01:33 Evans, what are you talking about doing in 2024 and why? Well, this year the guys in the combine called me and, uh, they're like, 01:42 they're having issues getting their combines that they thought they were throwing beans out the back. And, uh, 01:46 so I went out there with Richie and we were looking, and really it was coming from the head, it was head shell at the bottom. Uh, the pods were too low and the head, 01:54 they were hitting the head and they were just shattering and on the ground. So got me thinking, it's like, why are we, you know, 02:00 this is probably the second year I've seen it in spots this year more, uh, common and just got me thinking like, 02:06 why are our being so potted so low and really goes, got me thinking back to planting, uh, season and what we're doing in furrow and things of products and, 02:18 and the mythology we're using there. Alright. I like the, I like the, the, that's the why you didn't tell me what you're gonna change, but that's okay. 02:26 You told me the why. What is it? You're, what, what is the change you're going to make, Kelly? Um, and I think more importantly, 02:33 tell me why you're making this change based on that, why you're making the change. 'cause because I, I don't, okay. Pods are low on a soybean. 02:42 I'm not sure that I'm smart enough to equate that to usage of a plant growth regulator. So help me out. 02:47 Well, some of the fertility we put in furrow, coupled with the P G R, we put in furrow. We believe that our plants are becoming oxen dominated. 02:57 Oxen is a hormone. We believe our plants are becoming oxen dominated and it's shortening the stature of them too much. You know, that is the, 03:04 the idea of A P G R is to make the plant grow more efficiently instead of growing so straight and tall and competing for sunlight, things like that. 03:12 The P G R makes 'em grow efficiently, branch out, uh, grow, grow a bigger stem instead of a long skinny stem, things like that. 03:20 And we think that the P G R coupled with some of the fertility is taking it too far. And that's part of the reason they're so short. 03:27 Part of the reason we can't get the head underneath the soybeans, having two of the dry shears on record doesn't help, 03:33 but we still think that we've taken 'em too far. Alright. Mr. Evans, uh, I mean, honestly, this is something that I, we, we, 03:41 we like to make sure we're very broad based and we're helping out any grower. Do you think the average grower, 03:47 and I'm not in any way being mean to the average grower, do you think this is a common problem to any, 03:52 do you think this is something that you're seeing uniquely or, or a very small, uh, chasm of soybean producers? 04:00 I've seen it before where it's happened to guys just, you know, in my career where it's happened where beans, pot bow and stuff, 04:07 but never really knew the why. So just this year it's becoming kind of like, well, let's figure out what's going on. You know, oxen like Kelly said, is a, 04:16 the rooting hormone, you know, I talked to their friends that stole her, very versed in the hormonal world and just talking about that, 04:24 you know, the oxen is really root growth, right? We sprayed on with at p uh, early vegetative time for more roofs and shoots they call it. 04:33 So it got me thinking, are we putting too much on, do we need have more balance there? Okay, so you think that this is, is possibly a common problem. 04:43 And, and the problem ends up resulting in their soybeans that are so low that they don't even get cut. They don't even have a chance to make it into the hopper. 04:52 And then some of them also run through. You talk about beans going out the back. Why would low soybean pods have a tendency to go out the back? 04:58 Am I missing something? Well, When the combine operator, Vern or Richie, you know, my brother-in-law, Jake, when they get outta the machine and they go dig in the trash, 05:06 the residue behind them to see how many beans are on the ground, they felt they were doing a poor job of setting the combine and the beans were 05:13 coming out the back when in fact they're Getting ran over. Yeah, they were getting run over and then of course they were shattering, 05:20 they were shattering out of the pod and laying on the ground. So you couldn't tell. And so it, you know, 05:23 it took some further investigation for us to, to find the real problem. You know, I, I believe when I was there, 05:29 there was about three beans per square foot back there, which is about a bushel and a half or some, something like that. Is that what you're losing? But it, you know, not terrible, 05:39 but still we want it to be perfect. Well then when we went and we looked behind the head where nothing had come out, there was two beans per square foot. 05:47 So they're only losing a half a bushel outta the combine. Again, you'd like it to be zero, but that's, you're not gonna make it. 05:53 They're losing half a bushel outta the combine, but we're losing a bushel to this. What we feel is this oxen problem. Yeah. And so that by the way, is a really neat thing. 06:03 We talk about combine setup. I covered this with Chad Henderson down there. We've talked about it and, and, uh, in, in Iowa, um, 06:11 there's gonna be a little bit of stuff going at the back, but the problem is this stuff wasn't going at the back. 06:15 It was getting driven over. Once it gets driven over, then it falls outta the pod gets crushed, whatever. So it looks like it came blowing out the back, but it did not. Okay. 06:23 So pods are low. Um, and you just articulated that you could be a bushel an acre just because of that. Is a bushel an acre that's 13, 14 bucks. I get it. 06:32 But is it worth going full tilt Evans? Um, why? What if you knew, what if you knew method, um, cost you five bushels of yield? 06:41 Wouldn't you rather have that bushel that you drove over versus five bushels that you didn't even have a chance to get? 06:47 Yeah, but I mean, we don't know unless we switched up. I mean, it goes back to just always reevaluating what you're doing today for tomorrow 06:56 and, and seeing make sure you're in the right spot because once you start changing a few practices, you might have to recalculate and think about what you're, 07:04 you know, you might create a new issue, which we feel like we have. So we gotta go, okay, let's see if this is something else we need to change. 07:12 Yeah, well, I mean, yeah, you're not com you're not completely dissatisfied with what you've been doing because putting in the plant growth regulator along with the fertility package 07:19 and, and all that stuff got you here, which is really, really good. It's just that now also we got a low, a low pod problem, 07:25 which is an interesting problem to have. What's an oxen for a layman like me? Hormone 07:31 Rooting? Hormone Rooting hormone. Okay. All right. Um, the new method, the new practice, the new product, what are you gonna do? 07:39 What are you contemplating doing? Uh, so like what we've been doing is more of an oxygen dominant with a little bit of cyto on it. Um, we're looking at, uh, 07:49 product that's got four hormones. Well, it's got three hormones in it, two different oxs. So it's got a short-term oxen and a long-term oxen, 07:58 but it's got some cyto, it's got some gib acid in it, GIC acid, so, Okay. And what's, what's, what's cyto again? 08:05 Cytokinin And what's it Do? Cyto are the dispatcher. So they move stuff around in the plant. They, they help regulate upregulate stuff in the plant, nutrients, 08:17 whatever, whatever else the plant needs. Reproductive hormone. Yep. Okay. So you're gonna do this. Are you doing this across, 08:24 this is only on soybeans. You're doing all, you're doing it on all soybeans. Are we gonna trial it on 160 acres of soybeans? 08:33 Uh, it won't be on all because we've gotta trial it to see if there's a difference, but it'll be on more than 160 08:38 Acres. Okay. So you're gonna do it on a significant enough that you can actually do a side by side, but it's not, it's not a, this is not a lab by any means. 08:46 No, this is not a lab because we're, we're somewhat confident of it. And, you know, to speak to your point, what if it costs us five? 08:53 What if it costs us five bushel to the acre? I don't think that that's gonna happen. But I don't know till we trial it. Admittedly, we're always trying to achieve balance from a fertility perspective, 09:05 from a population perspective, and now from a hormonal perspective. And we feel that we are not in balance. So I don't think in any way, 09:12 shape or form, this is gonna take us backwards. The, the, the negative, the negative to this is do we not see any gain? 09:22 So I don't think that this is a big risk here. That's why I'm willing to try it on a lot of acres, good ground and poor ground, because this is even bigger problem on our poorer acres, 09:31 which like we have a lot of, uh, you know, so that's why I'm willing to try it on a lot. And that's why I'm optimistic of this because we will be more imbalanced. 09:40 This is a more balanced hormonal package in our opinion. Got it. So the contemplation is there. 09:46 It sounds like you pretty much made the decision and you did it because you, what you're seeing in the combine, which is good. That's why I like doing this. 09:52 Uh, the product you're going to then roll out is ATO product Evans? Yeah, yeah. It'll be, uh, the longest product name in ag industry. 10:03 Stimulate yield enhancer plus. Yeah, it's ti stimulate and Fortify. Stimulate yield, enhancer plus. There we go. 10:11 Fortified, stimulate enhancer yield plus. Anyway, it's a very long product name to say the least. All right. So you're gonna put that on, on a few acres. Uh, is there any, 10:20 do you have to change out any of the other stuff? No. You think this pretty much works right alongside? Right. Th that's the reason that we want to do this. You know, 10:28 if we weren't putting calcium in the furrow, this probably wouldn't be a problem. Yep. But, 10:33 But we feel that the calcium is very important, especially with the low population we plant and the, the plants that we build. We need to change this because we refuse to change the calcium. 10:44 We gotta keep the calcium in furrow. So this is the only option we really have, is to try this. 10:50 Got it. All right. Get me out the door here, Evans. You're the agronomic dude. Yeah, I mean, 10:58 Concerns, concerns. I mean, you know, it's neat to say we're gonna try new stuff. We've contemplated this. Richie called me out to the field. We went through this, we looked at it. Yeah, 11:06 I think this is a problem. It's a problem we didn't have five years ago until we started doing this thing with our, you know, uh, P G R. Now we've got low soybean pods. 11:14 There must be a concern. Like, the only thing I'm concerned about making this switch is, You know, we, the only thing that I think of is like, 11:25 we always want strong roots, big roots, more root mass and stuff. So we're gonna take some of that oxen outta there. And there's potentially, 11:33 we may not have biggest roots on those bean plants as we would, we were, which Could, cost shield, could cost blowdowns. When you have another, another big, 11:41 uh, you as you're prone to getting big winds, does, does the root mass is gonna blow over. I mean, is that something you're really concerned about? 11:48 Not just, you know, root mass helps with water uptake, all those things, nutrient availability. So, 11:58 Okay, so the contemplation, uh, it makes sense. You're gonna change out a P G R. It's because of the low pods. 12:03 Then the concern might be maybe that we might sacrifice a little bit of root growth. And then we're gonna check back and see, 12:09 and we're doing this on a significant enough of acres, but not on all the acres because we wanna see the results. So I think I've pretty much got it. Did I sum, did I summarize everything? 12:17 Yes, you bet. All right. His name's Kelly Garrett. Sitting next to him is Mike Evans. Any grade ag solutions, I'm Damien Mason. If you enjoyed this, 12:28 share this with somebody else that will learn something from it. More importantly, go and check out the archives, if you will. 12:33 We have a complete library. We've been doing this for more than two years now. Think about it. Hundreds and hundreds of videos, 12:39 Evans and Gro and Kelly Garrett are in the field shooting videos that you can use. Short videos, stuff that they're saying, you know, 12:45 point in time kind of stuff. All the podcasts, hundreds of these. Use them, share them. They're free for you, extreme Ag Farm. Till next time, 12:53 thanks for being here. I'm Damian Mason. That's a wrap for this episode of Cutting the Curve, but there's plenty more. Check out Extreme Ag Farm where you can find past episodes, 13:03 instructional videos and articles to help you squeeze more profit outta your farm. 13:09 Cutting the curve is brought to you by Advanced Drainage Systems, the leader in agriculture, water management solutions.