00:00 We're talking about the Mighty Mini Micros. That's right. Micronutrients that you probably are overlooking, 00:06 or maybe as Mike Evans says, you're not even paying attention to at all. That's what we're talking about in this episode 00:12 of Extreme Ag Cutting the Curve. Welcome to Extreme Ag Cutting the Curve podcast, where real farmers share real insights 00:20 and real results to help you improve your farming operation. This episode of Cutting the Curve is brought to you by cloth 00:27 where machines aren't just made, they're made for more with a wide range of tractors, combines, foragers and hay tools. 00:34 Cloth is a family business just as driven, demanding, and dedicated is yours. Go to cloth.com 00:40 and start cutting your curve with their cutting edge equipment. And now here's your host, Damien Mason. 00:46 Hey there. Welcome to another fantastic episode of Extreme Acts. Cutting the Curve. We got a great one 00:50 for you today because you know what? You are missing out on bushels. You are missing out on plant health. 00:53 You are missing out on what our friend and guest, uh, Clint Freeze calls the ability for plans to communicate in their environment 01:02 and defend themselves from stress. Why are you missing out on this? Because you're not paying attention to your micronutrients. 01:07 This topic came up the other day. I was talking about cobalt and an off the air discussion with, uh, Kelly Garr 01:13 and he says, cobalt Damien is just one of what I'd call the overlooked micronutrients. We think nutrients are macro and micro. 01:20 The truth is there's strata of micronutrients, and that's how this entire concept came to being. I've got Mike Evans with Integrated Ag Solutions. 01:28 I've got Kelly Garrett, one of the founding fathers of extreme Ag, and I've got Clint Freeze. He's a western Illinois farmer, 01:32 and he also has a company called Bio Ag Management to cover the mighty mini micros. All right, Kelly, I kinda gave the setup, 01:39 take it from there on the strata, if you will, of micronutrients. Well, there's a lot of talk in ag about micro 01:47 and macronutrients. I probably said that backwards, macro and micronutrients is the way it's discussed. 01:52 And I, I disagree with there only being two classifications based on what, uh, your, your average co-op agronomist 02:01 or your average grower thinks about. And, and that's really what we need to educate the masses on. 02:06 I I really think there's four different levels of, of nutrients. There's nitrogen is the king of all. 02:12 That's all everybody ever worries about is how much nitrogen are we putting out. That'll be at your top. 02:17 Your next is your phosphorus and your potassium, potentially your sulfur, depending on the guy you're talking to. 02:23 That's your second level. And then we get into that would be the macros. Then we get into the micronutrients 02:28 and probably the most talked about one is potentially boron and followed by zinc, calcium, magnesium, things like that. 02:35 Potentially manganese with if you have a above average grower. And then we get into the forgotten ones or, 02:41 or how you have deemed them the mini microbes, cobalt, nickel, aluminum, Molly, things like that. Uh, Clint and Evans are way over my head here. 02:51 But, but the point is that we need to have a balance in the plant. And this is what I've learned from Clint and Mike, 02:58 and what we've learned from our friend Jared Cook, is that it takes a balance. And just because it takes less of 'em in the recipe 03:05 doesn't mean they're less important. So we need a nutritional balance of all of 'em. And we cannot forget the mini micros. 03:13 So Evans, when we set to record this, I said, I'm gonna call it the importance of often overlooked micronutrients. 03:20 And I, and I says, that fair? And you said, they're not even over. They're not just overlooked. They're not even looked at. 03:24 And so let's face it, it's not because we're all just negligent. It's not just because we in agriculture all just don't care. 03:33 It's because this is kind of new. 10, 20 years ago it was NP and K then we started talking about micronutrients. 03:39 And uh, to Kelly's point, that was about a handful of things. It was probably seven years ago on my farm. 03:44 And they, they came out and said, yeah, there's a problem with zinc in this field. I'm like, what the hell? We never talked about zinc, 03:49 but these other ones, brand new uncharted territory to even think about cobalt. Am I right? 03:58 Yeah. It's, uh, you know, we didn't really think start thinking about it on Kelly's farm till about three, four years ago on some of these. 04:05 Um, so it's been relatively new. And I think it's just the progression of agronomy and agriculture to some degree. 04:13 You start working on one thing, you figure that out and you move on to the next. So, um, 04:17 these have started showing up the last, uh, couple years. It really became apparent when we started 04:23 SAP sampling at Kelly's farm. 'cause we actually got reports back on 'em, um, of, uh, SAP samples. 04:28 So we could actually visually see what the plan is ingesting or using. And irregular tissue samples don't, don't look at cobalt, 04:37 they don't look at moley very much. Um, it's an additional charge. Most places will charge you for moley tissue tests. 04:44 Um, SAP will do aluminum, silica, some of the other stuff. So that's when we finally opened up about like, Hey, 04:50 we now we can measure 'em. Now we know now we need to learn about 'em and when their importance in growing the crop. 04:57 Clint freeze Bio Ag management. If you want to amuse yourself, ask, uh, Mr. Evans to go ahead and say, Molly, Molly, besides a girl's name. 05:06 What's Molly? Actually, what is Molly? Because he struggles to call it molybdenum. Well, I think it really, 05:15 Wait, wait. Say it Evan. Say it. Can you say molybdenum? No, I won't say it for you, David. 05:23 Anyway, um, uh, Clint Molybdenum, uh, cobalt, all these other ones, it is kind of new. I mean, we're not, we're talking about something 05:31 that has certainly not been on the radar even among really progressive minded producers, probably more than the last several years, right? 05:39 Oh, absolutely. I think you gotta get into the, uh, fruit, vegetable nut crop industry to 05:44 where they have a better understanding and have been collecting, like Mike said, you know, SAP data for a lot, lot longer 05:51 and have a better idea of what truly is not getting to the plant. And then, you know, there's a lot of, a lot of data 05:58 that goes back into the thirties on what the roles of micronutrients are in the plant. And I mean, it obviously gets more advanced 06:06 as time has went on, but we can really get the idea of starting to look at, at micronutrients as a mode of action against, against disease and stress and, 06:17 and a mode of action for further efficiencies for the plant from a, from a macronutrient perspective. Alright, you used a term in the stream 06:26 of text when we were preparing for this episode. You called it nutrient fitness. I loved it. Nutrient fitness, something I've never heard in all my years 06:34 of being around agricultural people, nutrient fitness. And then you went on to say about the ability to communicate with their environment and defend themselves against stress. 06:42 Stress mitigation was a primary, uh, primary objective of gartland and cattle. That means these two guys, Evans as the agronomist for Kelly 06:51 and Kelly said, we're gonna have, we're gonna do stress reduction. Stress mitigation is gonna be an overriding overarching 06:57 theme for 2022. They, they worked on that. Do you think that this is what we've always missed when it comes to nutrient fitness 07:05 and stress mitigation, is these, these are the little vitamins, these are the, these are the herbs that keep you, uh, healthy and the, and and flu free during the winter. 07:16 Is that, what, is that what's always been missing? I, I think so. And I think it's, it's, it takes a big understanding though 07:24 to see what, what the soil gives up and how long it'll give up these micronutrients and when we need to add. 07:30 But when a plant has high nutrition levels, whether it's macro or micro, all the micronutrients are critical and enzymatic reactions. 07:39 So creating these long chain carbon and carbohydrate molecules that the plant then can communicate, oh, 07:45 there's a bug biting me. I'm gonna increase my protein content in that area. Or, oh, I need phosphorus. I'm gonna go after and get it. 07:53 Um, you know, and all the way down to when a, when a disease spore lands on, on the tissue, that plant is actively communicating. 08:02 That's all starts with micronutrition that then create these enzymatic reactions and in communication molecules. 08:08 So it is huge, and I think it's been known in textbooks for a long time that, uh, micronutrients can be used as a mode 08:17 of action against a lot of these things. I think the logistics and the form of the micronutrient is, is important. 08:24 Uh, when you get to look in broad scale about implementation, there's a lot that can get lost in the weeds there. 08:31 Um, you know, on actually getting it and delivering it to the plant and making it effective. Evans, you worked in ag retail. Um, they love to sell. 08:40 They love to sell NP and K, they got it out there by the railroad car, right? Um, I don't know that I've ever heard, uh, 08:48 anybody from ag retail. I mean, they're starting to talk about zinc or those kind of things. 08:53 Boron obviously, which Kelly said before we hit record became an infatuation for Chad. Um, but I never heard about these other ones. 09:02 Is ag retail catching up? Are we, are we starting to demand stuff that they still are, is off their, uh, reservation? 09:08 They're like, I, I don't know what you're talking about. I don't, I I don't even know how to get you moed in them. 09:12 I don't even know how to get you, uh, iron. I think they're keeping an eye on it. Um, there's a lot of wheels in motion in agriculture, 09:22 especially retail agriculture, um, when it comes to that. Well, I had a discussion oh, a couple weeks ago 09:30 with some people about, you know, they were asking, they were here asking about what are challenges in, in agriculture, and, 09:36 and the first thing they said was now labor. But I said, well, I think it is education just in general. Um, understanding the crop goes back to 09:47 what Clint just said about reading textbooks back to the thirties that talk about this stuff and realizing it is part of our agronomy on the farm. 09:57 Like at Kelly's farm, it's like learning how to, how these plants communicate, how they grow. Um, it's really all about education 10:05 and educating yourself again about what the whole process is and using these micronutrients 10:11 or mini micros in that process and how important they are, uh, when we need them. Kelly, you said once when we were talking about the 10:22 carbon, uh, ratios, uh, the balances, carbon to nitrogen, all these kinds of things that your ag retailer or co-op 10:30 or wherever you get your inputs from, from isn't gonna talk to you about a carbon ratio 10:34 because they can't make any money selling you carbon. I think that this stuff is new enough that when Ag retail thinks we can make money on it, 10:43 they're gonna get there because it's product. It goes, it's, it's in their wheelhouse. They like to sell product, 10:49 but it's also new that they don't know what thing to sell. So I, I still don't know that if I called Mag Reath here 10:55 and said, Hey, get me some cobalt out here, that they would, uh, even understand how to do it. 11:00 I don't know that they would, not all of them are gonna understand how to do it, and not all of 'em are gonna understand potentially the form 11:07 that you want it to be in. I, I really struggle with micronutrients as a dry spread because you're putting on so few pounds, right? 11:17 A across the field that, uh, if the correct term is logistically for the plant to be able to find it, uh, if the plant can even find it, for it not 11:26 to become tied up in the soil. I really think that a lot of these, uh, a lot of what we're talking about here should be planner applied or, 11:35 or really foliar applied later in the season. Um, I agree with Clint on the stress mitigation of it. Um, it is, and this, you know, Mike 11:45 and Clint are, uh, way, way over my head on this stuff that I learned from them. But a farmer explanation of it would be 11:54 that when you have a balanced plant, you have a strong plant, and it is, it is, the immunity of that plant goes way up. 12:02 And, um, no different than a human or a steer we're trying to raise here across the road or anything like that. 12:08 When we find that nutritional balance that, uh, that, that so few of us have ever found, I don't know that I've ever found it. 12:16 That's what Mike and I are working towards. When you find that perfect nutritional balance, that's when special things will happen in your crops. 12:23 And paying attention to these many micros, um, is very, very necessary. All right. So I think that, 12:30 that the average person's gonna say, yeah, I get it. You know, if I have a nutrient deficiency in my body, if I'm missing, you know, whatever vitamin B12 12:37 or something like that, it's like, you can go and eat all the meat you want or eat all the potatoes or the vegetables or whatever that thing is. 12:42 But if you're, if you're lacking one thing, it, it shows up, you know, riboflavin 12:46 or these small things that we know about from 10th grade health class, but we've forgotten about. 12:52 That's kinda what we're talking about. Evans, you're, you're out there in the fields all the time. Is this the key to stress mitigation? Is it that Yep. 12:59 We've, we've hammered the hell out of it with nitrogen. We've got so much phosphorus out there, it's not even getting uptake in the plant. 13:04 We've got plenty of potassium. We've managed all that. We still have stress, we still have an unhealthy plant. And it's not just weather, it's this. 13:12 Do you think this is the key to stress mitigation besides products like stress mitigation products? Is it these mini micros? 13:20 Yeah, a hundred percent. I mean, like Clint said earlier, they're all key in the enzo enzymatic reactions in the plant 13:27 to start communicating with it. So we're short on cobalt boron or whatever that nutrient is. 13:34 We gotta break in the chain, and it's a, i I call it more like a sluggish plant type thing where it happens. 13:41 It just can't communicate with itself sufficiently and defend itself efficiently. So I think they're very important in that stress mitigation 13:49 because of the key things they do in the plant. And they all got kind of a rule of how they, how they handle the stress from day to day 13:58 Plant freeze. Uh, Kelly brought up a thing about how best to get these out there. So if our, if our listener right now is 14:04 thinking, yeah, you know what? I fully agree, we gotta get micro mini micros. We gotta make sure they're part of the balance, 14:10 but they're concerned about how to get 'em out there. So I want you to get ready to tell me about how to get mini micros into my field. 14:16 Before you do that, I wanna talk to you dear listeners and viewers about Nature's, nature's, as you know, as one of our business partners guy, we had a couple 14:23 of great sessions at Commodity Classic in their panel. Kelly me in there, uh, covering different topics. If you've not been to Commodity Classic, 14:30 you really should go and you should come by the Natures Panel. In fact, if you're an extreme Ag member 14:33 of the last two years, the good friends down there, Tommy Roach and the Gang and Nature has paid your admission into Commodity Classic if you're an extreme Ag member. 14:41 So it's a really good deal. Anyway, nature's is focused on providing sustainable farming solutions and helping maintain crop potential for today. 14:49 And tomorrow's generations featuring high quality liquid fertilizers that are powered by Nature's Bio. 14:54 Okay? Which can target specific periods of influence. You know what, we got all kinds of fertility talk on this, uh, on these shows, but 14:59 remember, you gotta get it in the plant. Fertilized soil is cool, fertilized that actually fertilizer fertility gets in your plants, 15:05 actually makes you yield, puts it in the hopper, makes you money targeting specific periods of influence. You can mitigate plant stress, 15:11 enhance crop yield, and boost your farms. ROI go to natures.com to learn more. That's N-A-C-H-U-R-S natures.com. 15:18 Um, all right, you're talking about spoonful, the average farm person's pretty understanding, like, oh, you urea, yeah, tons of that. 15:26 You fling it out there, uh, anhydrous, yeah, we got a tanker here behind the tractor, whatever. Now, when you're talking about a spoonful, 15:33 putting a spoonful of mi mini micros across an acre, you can screw that up pretty badly because the more precise you've got to be with it 15:41 to get your dose, the more room there is for error. Help me, help me not be overwhelmed by this. Yeah, I think, um, you know, some of the ones 15:52 that you really gotta watch out for on overdoing it, you get into the cobalt and the Molly, you can, 15:58 you can overdo those, those really easy. But a lot of the other ones, we've, we've really been rolling some big bigger rates, 16:04 but what we've found is smaller, breaking your, your micro budget, um, what we've, what we've done with a lot of our growers is pulled back some 16:12 of the macro budget made, made room in it, not trying to spend a ton more dollars for some of the micronutrients. And because a lot of 'em are in mobile, in the plant 16:22 and in the soil, we, we will spoon feed 'em throughout the year and, and the apps that they're already making. 16:26 And one of the things we've found is, is I, I sell several, you know, like, like Mike 16:32 and them guys, several micronutrient packs, but I, I'm a big believer in buying 'em all individual and making a custom tailored blend off of SAP 16:41 and running, you know, eight to eight to 16 ounces of each micro and actually delivering some substance to it. And then from there, I think we gotta look at, 16:49 at the form on what we're, what, how we want to get it to the plant and what else are we going in the tank with? What's not gonna cause issues in the tank ride 16:58 and, and stuff like that. So That's a big thing right there, Mr. Evans, um, form and, um, product availability. 17:08 I mean, we hear about micro packs, but I'm not sure the micro pack has nickel in it. I'm not sure that it's the right mix, surely to goodness 17:16 there's gonna be problems. It's kinda like a multivitamin will that that's cool and it might satisfy half the needs, 17:23 but it seems like, uh, there, there's a lot of room for errors and adjustments here. Yeah, there is. And it's, it's a learning curve. 17:33 Um, I think we've learned a lot about, um, different forms of situations, what these micros what, uh, what needs 17:41 to go along in the tank for it to get in the plant and then go where you want it in the plant. Um, I think that's a big deal. 17:48 I mean, you just can't go down to your local co-op and say, I want manganese, zinc, iron and boron and, and cobalt or whatever that would be. 17:56 'cause um, they could give you a, a, a formulation and go out, spray it, and then you're, you always get back like, what didn't yield anything? 18:04 Well, you may not use the right forms and well, What about also ratios? What about, I mean, is there a danger? 18:11 You guys are all smarter about this than I am. If you go out there, you know, Kelly talks about balance, balanced soils, balanced plants, et cetera, et cetera. 18:21 I'm concerned that if I don't, this is over my head, so I just go and buy the basic mini micro, you guys have sold me on it. 18:26 I wanna put many micros in. I'm gonna buy this bag of stuff, throw it in my sprayer, and every time I go across my field, 18:32 it's gonna be a Foley application. But it's the ratios. Is there a danger? Is there a danger that I get lack of efficacy? 18:40 Is there a danger that it doesn't work because I've got the wrong ratios? Kelly's leading up on it. There, 18:45 There you're already, you as the grower with what you just, you know, the, the, the picture you just painted. 18:52 You are already realizing that you wanna know if there's a problem. If you're out of balance, you're already 18:57 realizing that that's the point. I would tell you a very, very large percentage of of growers in the United States are way out of balance 19:06 with their nitrogen, probably way out of balance with their p and k, Mike and Clint might disagree, but you know, there's gonna be a few 19:12 of these micros like Clint talked about. You wouldn't wanna put on too much Molly or something like that. 19:17 'cause you could have a yield deficit. But you are already, that's my point. You are already experiencing the yield deficit. 19:24 You just don't know it. You're already out of balance with too much nitrogen. And if you, if your whole budget goes towards your macros 19:31 and specifically your nitrogen, and you don't have any budget for these micros, you're experiencing a problem with your ROI, 19:37 you are already out, you're out of balance now. And, and your question is, am I gonna be more out of balance? 19:43 Mm-Hmm. Uh, you know, maybe that, that's de depending on how you look at the problem, but my point is, we 19:49 as growers are out of balance now and we need to become more educated, more experienced. And there, you know, I don't wanna sound like a commercial, 19:55 but the reason to work with a a, a retail like integrated ag or bio ag management is because of the, the knowledge 20:03 and the consulting and the custom blend, you need to go there. You know, if, if you're going to to, uh, somebody might say, 20:11 get into the weeds on this and get down and pay attention to these, to these details, which can have a huge ROI, you need to deal with someone 20:19 that really knows and, and not, not throw darts at the wall and, and have that custom blend 20:25 and pay attention to your soil. And really, with the dollars we're talking about Damien and the value of the land 20:30 and how, you know, what, what eight, eight and a half, 9% interest, how can you, how can you afford to not pay better attention and intensively manage? 20:39 That's what bio Ag management and integrated ag is all about. Alright, bio ag management 20:44 and integrated ag solutions, either of you or both of you can take this on. Um, am I trying to, okay. 20:49 You talk about custom blends, this is, this is starting to get a little bit, uh, you know, complicated. I mean, this is, this is the person that wants 20:57 to be the e push, the easy button on farming that just says, yep, just have the co-op go out 21:00 and put on their custom, their normal average stuff. Are you varying it by field? You bear it varying it by, based on, um, 21:09 tissue sampling when Evans talked about, you know, getting it right, we vary. How, how much, how much are we varying 21:17 it on mic? Many micros? Well, I think, um, you know, sometimes the products get a bad rap. Either a, um, you know, the, we don't always validate 21:29 that the product actually moves the needle. And I think the cool thing that we're onto with SAP and we've learned from Jared Cook out out west is, 21:37 is you can be a product valuation tool. So we go out and apply three different micros. We have a, we have a copper deficiency. 21:45 We go out and apply three different micros. Only one of 'em move the needle. And, uh, so it, it's, it's learning that is 21:52 what we're trying to bring to the table. And also a lot of these m mobile nutrients, if you just hit it one time 21:58 with your entire micronutrient budget, say in furrow, that may not ROI out for the grower is what we're finding. We're better to take their 12, $15 micro budget 22:10 and break it into three and get it early, get it mid-season with the chemical, and then again, late season to continue 22:18 to keep those levels at a higher level be because they're an immobile nutrient, they don't always move to support new growth or new functionality in the plant. 22:26 So to keep, to keep a lot of these micros in, it's a, it's a little different mindset than we're just gonna go apply a bunch and it's gonna be there. 22:34 Right? That's kind of been a bad, bad mentality to have for a long time. I think it's not, just because we apply it does not mean 22:41 it's, it's gonna be there when the plant needs it, say, when it's building the pod or, or building the year. Mike, Evan, do you agree with that assessment 22:48 that many micros more maybe than, than the other crop inputs need to be spread out? Meaning it needs to be one third 22:58 of a tablespoon each application versus one tablespoon once? Yeah, I would agree. I think you can't fix 23:05 what you, what you don't measure. So that's where that SAP sample becomes So key is like, if we can measure what's going on 23:11 and see what it's, what the plants are doing, then we can get that custom blend going. You know, a shotgun approach with just a micro blend you 23:20 get off the shelf, so to speak, may fix one, but may create another problem somewhere else. So you gotta be more precise 23:27 and it cr creates more of an education, more precision application. And I think, I think it's very important that you tie these, 23:36 these mini micros into the, the SAP sampling and education piece. Kelly, we're gonna probably trademark this term, 23:45 the mighty mini micros because we came up with that here at extreme Ag, but it is, it is cool. 23:51 You know what you said about two years ago, we recorded something, you're like, Damien, I don't think we were even close to our 23:56 potential of the seed. I can tell you that during the drought year 2012, I still ended up with half to two thirds 24:02 of a crop of soybeans. And that was during the worst weather conditions that mother nature can throw at us. 24:07 Short of the de ratio. What the hell? Well is part of why we're not getting close to our actual yield potential 24:13 that we're just now in the year 2024 talking about, I remember studying these things in chemistry. I remember talking about nickel 24:19 and maum and iron and all that. And now for the first, in the last four years, here it is since the 2020 we started talking about this. 24:26 Is this, is this the missing, the missing, uh, ingredient? I, I believe it is. 24:32 Uh, I believe it is a long way, uh, going a long way towards reaching our potential. We're barely scratching the surface. 24:39 You know, there's people that talk about soils, the final frontier, understanding the soil. Uh, I think that there's, well, you know, 24:47 we've talked about it Damian, off air. There's so much talk about biologicals and that seems to be the buzzword in agriculture. 24:54 Uh, I'm not against biologicals, but this kind of stuff here to me is chemistry. And you gotta be, when, when you talk chemistry 25:00 and farming, a lot of people think Roundup. I'm talking about chemistry from high school to class. And what I talk a lot about with Clint 25:09 and Mike is balancing the chemistry, which is what this episode, this podcast is all about. I don't believe that we will get biologicals 25:17 to be predictable and to behave correctly until we dial in on the chemistry. And this podcast is a great example of 25:25 how far off from balancing the chemistry or reaching, making the chemistry. Correct. We've got to do that first, in my opinion, 25:32 and this is black and white and, and I believe that we're getting closer on my farm and I'm excited. 25:38 We saw a lot of great things last year. We, we, uh, identified a few mistakes. We think that we're gonna correct them this year. 25:45 And I'm excited, you know, and, and Mike and Clint would be, uh, the very, the very tip of the spear of attacking, uh, going to higher yields on my farm farm 25:55 and, and this, this chemistry is what I'm all about. Alright, so both of you, uh, agronomically minded guys from, uh, from uh, c Clinton 26:04 and Mike's perspective, I'm, I'm listening. I want to start doing this. I want to pay more attention to the mighty mini micros. 26:13 I'm fully on board. I'm an extreme ag devotee. How do I start? Do I start with SAP sampling? I heard that from both of you. 26:21 Do I start by just getting a pack of mini micro and I look at it and say, oh, this one's not sufficient. 'cause it doesn't even have cobalt. 26:30 It doesn't even possess nickel. Where do I start? Uh, Evans, uh, you go first. Where do I go? How do I start? I'd lean towards doing some SAP sampling off out the gate 26:42 to get an understanding of where you're at. Um, you know, a perfect example of what we've learned, like even with Kelly's is once we started doing weekly SAPs, 26:52 you know, and got through the year nickel, so it was mini micro, well, his was always registering on the SAP sample 27:03 and it really got us to thinking like, okay, nickel is going in the plant. We don't really, we don't need 27:10 to apply any except for key times. And nickel by nature in the plant is the key key nutrient for the urease enzyme. 27:19 So that converts urea nitrogen into proteins and stuff. So it makes it efficient in the plant. So that's gotten us into the thing of like, okay, 27:29 that's why liquid urea fully applied with some nickel is so efficient and bumping nitrogen in the plant. 27:35 So you really need to understand, 'cause some areas maybe you don't have that nickel and you go apply a nickel and you're 27:40 like, I didn't see anything. Well, you know, maybe you have abundance of it and you just don't know of it. 27:46 So it really helps fine tune your decision making. When I do SAP sampling, which was your recommendation that I start with SAP sampling. 27:53 Do I get a, do I get a SAP analysis that says, does it tell me I'm deficient in, you know, these three things and two of 'em might be more big micros 28:05 and then one of them might be the mini micros. Does it, is it that detailed? Does it say, you know, 28:10 you're completely deficient on meidum or something like this? Oh yeah, yeah. I mean, you can go into all the nutrients. 28:18 I mean, it's a full scale blood work analogy. I mean, like, you go and get the blood work and get a total array analysis of your health. 28:26 It's the same kind of concept it can give you, it's become the Bible. It is our Bible. Yeah. The SAP sampling is you're, 28:32 you're taking it from soil testing to tissue sampling to SAP testing is where you guys are now. And then, all right, uh, Mr. 28:39 Clint, um, he, he says SAP sampling. Start there then after we've done SAP sampling, then what custom blend or just try to try to go 28:49 and correct it as quickly as possible. Something off the shelf that is addresses the mini micros. Yeah, I mean, I, we're, we're, I work 28:58 with customers two ways. I, I, I prefer to go SAP and then truly get their geography. 'cause different, what I've found is different geographies 29:07 have slightly different variations, but the trend I'm seeing across the corn be on SAP especially, you know, and just looking at corn 29:15 and soy, for the most part, the trends are the same. So a a lot of times I'll, I'll help growers on, hey, we see, we see this element is always low, 29:24 and when we get to rapid growth, this, the, the shift goes from this one to this one and these four mini micros, you know, iron, copper, zinc, 29:32 boron, or low from start to finish, we, we can move the needle, but they just are constantly low. So there's some easy ones, there's some low hanging fruit 29:41 that I think, uh, will add a lot of, a lot of, a lot of weight. And a lot of these micros are just, they're, 29:47 they're dual functional in the plant. They not only, um, help with, with building a stress tolerant plant, 29:53 but they help with energy allocations. A lot of these micros are used with inside of photo photosynthesis to help process and move that energy 30:02 and, and actually then allocate the sugars to different parts of the plants. And that's the really, the, the thing with these micros, 30:08 it's got me so excited is because there's a lot of things that, that it, it is gonna correct. 30:14 And when we get that all to come together, I think it's gonna be, uh, really big things. Kelly, uh, first off, 30:20 he just used perhaps your favorite term low hanging fruit. I don't know if you've worn off on Clint, 30:26 but you love to talk about picking low hanging fruit. So I don't know if he's doing that to suck up to you or if you just worn off on Secondly, um, 30:33 you guys talk about do you do variable rate seeding? You do variable rate nitrogen application. Is there a day where we get so good with our technology 30:42 that we variable rate even the many micros when you're talking about this acre gets one spoonful, this acre gets a spoonful and a half. 30:50 I mean, are we gonna get there or does it even matter, you think? I think it does. 30:54 I think it does potentially at some point we, the technology doesn't exist to do that now, but at some point it will, uh, you know, that 31:01 that SAP sample, you know, be coming our Bible, like we've talked about, you know, and, and Jared has taught all of us that, you know, that 31:09 that really is a financial tool for me. It'll show me if we're wasting nitrogen, it'll show, it'll show us what we're deficient in 31:16 and we can really dial in and specifically, uh, offer to every acre or every field what it needs and the technology right now 31:25 and the testing to know, um, if we're gonna variable rate that foliar program. Um, like I said, it doesn't exist, 31:33 but Damon, it's kind of who thought we'd be here with Autosteer? Uh, who thought we'd be here 31:37 with the SAP sampling or the tissue sampling? You know, to me, uh, who thought we'd be here with the variable rate planting? 31:43 You know, I, I, um, this is like my 27th crop, something like that. I, what we have done in the last 27 years has amazing me. 31:51 So never say never. Yeah. And we're backing off, you know, variable rate nitrogen. We were over applying in many, most places, 31:58 frankly, and probably still do. So just things like that. Those were, again, low hanging fruit. 32:02 This is gonna be a little harder to get to, but you can start by sap sampling and then paying attention to things that were not on our, 32:09 even on our radar before. And as the mini micros. And we're talking about as they said, things like cobalt, nickel, iron, maum, et cetera, et cetera. 32:16 Closing thoughts. Evans, you know what, you're the one here that has probably lots of stuff in your head. 32:22 I always have to do this with you. And Vern, you've probably got a bunch of things in your head now that you're saying, why didn't you ask me this? 32:26 So, go ahead. What do you wanna talk about? Your Final thoughts on mini micros? Get me outta this episode. Oh 32:36 Yeah. I think, I think every grower needs to start expanding their thought process on the, their agronomic approach to their farms. 32:44 And I think it's really about, to me it's about educating yourself and or finding people that'll help educate yourself too. 32:53 I mean, finding partners in that, that journey. Um, because, you know, I always go back to, Kelly said it before, and I think Chad Henderson said it 33:02 before, if there was a four oh oh bushel dry spread out there, everybody would be applying it. Yeah. And it's, there's not, it's not, doesn't exist. Yeah. 33:10 And it's not out there. So if you're gonna keep doing the same thing, you're gonna get the Kipp getting the same results. 33:17 So we need need to start educating ourselves, finding people about teams that will help you figure that out and go down this journey. 33:25 'cause from what we've learned the last couple years has really changed our thought processes. 33:30 I'm assuming the person that's being still a little skeptical listening to this is saying, yeah, but now I'm spending more money 33:35 and it down come out of the year. I'm gonna go around the horn here. Last question. I assume that you don't spend any more money. 33:41 You say pull a little bit back from the NP and K budget and put it into the mini micros. Is that probably the, the answer? 33:49 Yes. Yeah, I think, you know, like with Kelly's it's more the nitrogen and the seed stuff. We save the money budget there, then we'll put it to there. 33:57 Um, that's kind of where his financials go. You know, everybody's gonna be a little different on their needs, but that's, that's the thought process. Yes. Yeah. 34:05 Pull, pull 20 bucks from somewhere else, Clint, is that the idea? Pull 30 bucks from somewhere else 34:09 that's probably not necessary and put it into the many micros. Absolutely. I think, I think that's, that's key. 34:15 And you know what, what SAP has taught us more than anything is we do an okay job on the first, third 34:23 or half of our crop year. It's, it's the last half that needs the most work. And I think there's a ton 34:29 of bushels hanging out there on the last half. So I'm a big, big proponent to pull out of, of some of the early to make room for, 34:36 for making these fine tuned adjustments later in the season. I like it. We're talking about the Mighty Mini micros. 34:42 The importance of often overlooked, as Evan says, sometimes not looked at at all micronutrients. You know, you've, you've already got your macros 34:49 pretty well hammered out. You've got your big level micros, the zincs and the borons, et cetera. 34:53 But you know what, it's time to start thinking about the mini micros that can help you. 34:56 And, uh, this is great stuff. That's what we do here at Extreme Ag. Hundreds of episodes just like this 35:01 that we've recorded in the last three years are available at Extreme Ag Farm. 35:04 Also, I want you to check out the Extreme Ag Show. Eight episodes have already released. It's available at Acres tv, right? 35:11 Go to watch Acres tv or you can also go to the Extreme Ag Farm. Awesome episodes behind the scenes stuff. 35:16 It's, it's a great show. It's a television show that is about farm guys and the people here at Extreme Ag. If you wanna learn more, you know what you can do. 35:23 You can come to our field days. These guys, everybody that's on this call, including, including I think Clint 35:28 and me are gonna be in area in Iowa on June 13th. That is the extreme Ag Field Day at Garrett. Land and Cattle begins at 1:00 PM registration, 35:38 2:00 PM are the introductions. We're gonna be there from two until 7, 7 30. We got field trips, we're gonna talk about great stuff. 35:45 Products, we're have a panel hosted by me. Come to the extreme Ag field days. If you're a member of extreme ag, you actually invited 35:53 to a special event the evening before where it's gonna be for the business partners and us buying the scenes, get shakes and hands and all that. 36:00 So if you're a $750 membership per year, you get to get exclusive offers, like to go to Commodity Classic for free. 36:06 You also get to come and enjoy the, uh, the night before event. But if you don't wanna spend 36:10 the money and become a member, that's fine. Come to the field day, uh, June 13th in area in Iowa. Uh, registration starts at one. 36:17 We'll be there until almost dark. Uh, you can come and see me. Evans, maybe her friend Clint will be there. 36:22 And Kelly for sure, and all the other great extreme ag people. So they're very, very educational, very hands-on. 36:27 We also have one before that. We're gonna be May 16th in Madison, Alabama at Chad Henderson's Place, field days May 16th. 36:35 Henderson's at Mass in Alabama, June 13th at, uh, Garrett Land and Cattle. June 26th, I'm sorry, June 27th, Thursday, June 27th in, uh, 36:45 McGee, Arkansas with Miles Farms, August 8th in North Carolina at Kevin Matthews and August 22nd at Temple Roads. 36:54 Put these on your schedule. You should come to at least one field day. You will absolutely enjoy it. 36:58 Till next time, thanks for being here. Mike Evans. He didn't say molybdenum. He gets mad when he asked him to do it on air. 37:07 Kelly Garrett and Clint Freeze. Thanks for being here. Special guys, come back. Do this another time. Till next time. It's extreme addict cutting the curve. 37:13 That's a wrap for this episode of Cutting the Curve. Make sure to check out Extreme ag.farm for more great content to help you squeeze more profit out 37:22 of your farming operation. Cutting the curve is brought to you by cloth where machines aren't just made, they're made For more. 37:30 Visit cloth.com and start cutting your curve with cutting edge equipment.