00:00 What adjustments can you make between now and next spring that will make a better next year? 00:05 That's the topic in this edition of Extreme Ag Cutting the Curve. Welcome to Extreme ags Cutting the Curve Podcast, 00:15 where you get a guaranteed return on investment of your time as we cut your learning curve with the information you can apply to your farming operation 00:23 immediately. Extreme ag, 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 00:34 sustainable farming operation. Advanced drainage systems helps farmers just like you increase their yields up to 30% with their technologically advanced water management products. 00:47 Visit ad s pipe.com to see how they can keep your business flowing. Now, here's your host, Damien Mason. Hey, welcome 00:56 To another fantastic episode of Extreme Action on the Curb. I'm sitting here with my man, temple Rhodes, Marilyn Farmer, extreme Ag guy, 01:02 and I got Burt Riggin. He is with concept agritech and agronomic guru. We're talking about agronomic adjustments you can make between now and spring 01:10 that will give you a better next year. I'm recording this at the end of October. It's almost Halloween. The combines are rolling. You're seeing stuff, 01:17 you are looking at what happened this year. So what adjustments can you make between now and when the planters roll that will give you a better next year? 01:26 What agronomic adjustments are you gonna make? What are you seeing? What can you do? 01:31 What should you do that can give you positive results and improve your business, your yields, their bottom line? Bert, um, off the bat here, 01:41 I mean, our man temple's got all kinds of things. You know, he's, he's like, he's got all kinds of stuff going on in his head. What are you seeing? You, 01:47 you're all over the country. What are you seeing right now that you're thinking, you know what? I really think that more people should do this? 01:55 Well, Damien, uh, you know, this time of year, everybody's focused on getting the crop out of the field. Um, and when we do slow down just a minute to take time to either ride in the 02:06 combine with the farmers or catch 'em on a rain out or something like that, the biggest thing that, that I'm seeing is, 02:14 is that most guys aren't really focusing on what's happening other than getting the crop out of the field. 02:22 But now is the prime time to start paying attention to the little things that you may have done this past year to see if they're actually paying 02:31 off. I mean, you're seeing the grain come in, you're seeing the yield monitor, you're seeing the scale tickets, you know, where, 02:38 where in the field or where on your farm you made the changes. Taking the time to get that little bit of, uh, you know, 02:45 breather so that you can evaluate some of that stuff is a kind of a hard thing because, you know, harvest is so focused, you know. But, um, 02:55 overall what I'm seeing is a lot of the guys, uh, this year are looking back and trying to figure out where they could have intercepted some of the yield loss due to 03:08 the weather conditions we had. Uh, we had a lot of droughty areas, uh, things like that. And so that's what a lot of guys are looking backwards today, 03:18 trying to figure out what they might have done to help mitigate some of that Temple. What are you right now? Are you seeing something Th this is the, 03:28 appreciate that Bert, one of the big things we do is talk about the data, the data, the data. And temple's big on that. 03:34 What are you seeing right now you're like, man, that really worked, or, Hey, I'm gonna make an agronomic adjustment on this thing because I absolutely think 03:43 that I lost yield because of this. What are you seeing from the combine seed, You know, agronomic adjustments, um, aren't just, um, 03:54 Hey, I missed out on this. I need to put more fertility on. Um, agronomic adjustments for me is maybe moving some stuff around, you know, 04:03 Chad talks about that all the time. You know, pull outta here and put into there. And that's one of the things that we're, we're kind of seeing. So one of the things that, 04:12 that I've done over the years is, you know, constantly looking back at our tissue samples and constantly trying to figure out where, 04:21 where I'm lacking at that plant's life and how I can get in front of it. And we've talked about this tons of times, Damien, but that, 04:29 but that happens every year. So I'm looking at what I did in my grower standard practice versus what I'm doing in new trials and new labs and I'm, and I'm looking at, 04:41 hey, look, is there something here that I'm missing When you, when you start to take all those tissue samples and you start to figure out what 04:47 you're missing. So if you have like a really, really cool wet year, how can I change my in furrow? Right? So, you know, 04:55 can you put some stuff in there that's beneficial? That's what, that's, I readjust it every year. And that's the beauty of foliar nutrition. 05:04 That's the beauty of, of, of looking through your tissue samples. That's the beauty of soil samples. 05:11 You can constantly make those adjustments. And the really good part about foliar nutrition is according to the year, like you were just saying, Damien, 05:21 according to that year, whether it's dry, whether it's wet, whether it's whatever it is, 05:26 and you're looking at the upcoming future of your weather, you can make those adjustments with foliar nutrition versus, you know, 05:35 a guy that's a, i, I shouldn't say it like this, but it's like a blow and grow. You know, 05:39 you blow it all out there or you sling it all out on the ground where you put it all up front. You know, 05:45 you don't have that versatility with doing these different programs that we're doing now we're learning that we can move that nutrition back and forth 05:54 through the plant's life. And a plant is gonna require things very, very differently every year, depending on the weather. 06:03 So that's the, that's the neat thing about it. So you can move and adjust. So if you asked me, is there one thing that I would change, you know, 06:11 going into next year, we found some things with foliar nutrition this year that we had to put in really, really early in the game, um, 06:22 as a rescue pass, you know, 'cause I had a problem. Um, and I'm finding out that it made such a difference in that plant's life that instead of having, uh, you know, 06:33 I come in at V six V seven and I make a foliar nutrition pass, well, I'm gonna back that up. I'm not gonna add it to my program. 06:42 I'm just finding out with my data collection that hey, I need to shift this around. So I'm gonna pull that back and I'm gonna just shorten up that window and 06:52 I'm gonna go in with the same nutrition and I might adjust it somewhat, you know, according to the weather. 06:58 But that same nutrition that I was going to put on at V six, V seven, V eight, I'm gonna now move that down into the V two to V four range, 07:08 because I'm trying to get a few more rows around on corn in particular. Um, so that's one adjustment that I'm, 07:16 that I'm a hundred percent is gonna move into my grower standard practice. Alright, 07:20 Let's talk about that one, Right? Yeah, I haven't changed my, okay. Yeah, let's talk about that one right there. Yeah, you just said, you, you, 07:26 you referenced what Chad always talks about reapportioning. Uh, yes. I'm not spending more money. I'm want, I might take a, I might make a $20, 07:34 I might take a $20 cut from, usually it's dry fertility, I think in his case and move it into a foliar or move it into, uh, uh, 07:42 some kind of a drip via wide drop or something like that. But what he's talking about here is bumping up a foliar pass. Um, 07:52 we, we've talked in a number of different episodes, you know, Matt Miles is one of the best about this. Like, hey, man, 07:58 in the old days it was fling out dry fertilizer and uh, uh, spring or fall and then be done with it. Well, that's easy, 08:05 but it's wasteful and, and you don't get your, your benefit out of it. Now we're talking about spoon, it kind of goes to the spoon feeding. It's not, 08:13 it's not spending more, it's spending smarter and it's also doing a little bit more work. But the yield benefit is there temple's talking about, in particular, 08:21 an agronomic adjustment that you could make for a better next year? Should more people be considering bumping up? And I think what you mean bump up? 08:28 You mean earlier in the season? Earlier in the vegetative, uh, phase. Correct. So talk about that bur the benefit and what you see that evolution of thinking 08:36 about really it's a foliar pass earlier in the, in the crop and what it does. Sure. 08:41 So if you take a look at what temple's talking about the, you know, the blow and go where you throw everything out the beginning of the season and, 08:49 you know, just let her run. The worst part about that is if you as a human being tried to, to sit down on Sunday evening and consume your total caloric intake for the 08:59 next seven days, you couldn't do it. Well, a plant is a lot like us. So what temple's talking about is making these observations so that you can be 09:10 more judicious with your, the timing of your applications to try to give that plant what it needs, when it needs it. And like you said, 09:20 a lot of these expenditures can be carved out of less efficient fertility applications. We're always gonna have a need for dry fertilizer, 09:29 but let's be smart with it and put the dry fertilizer out that we need to get things going or make an amendment and then utilize 09:39 other technologies that we have in our toolbox as far as liquids and things like that in order to deliver that nutrition to that plant at a time. 09:49 It can use it most efficiently. Yes, it might mean you need to make a few more trips through the field. There are some management styles, you know, 09:57 or changes that you're gonna have to make in order to be the most productive. But at the same time, if you take a look at your cost over time, 10:06 it really does plan out and you will see those efficiencies. I mean, like Temple said, he realized that in that rescue treatment, 10:15 that there was a lot of benefit that that plant received at that earlier application. Well, if he can do it in a year where he is not having to rescue, 10:24 if he can put that out and he can see that next leap, then that's money well spent, even though it moved his timetable up a little bit on those applications. 10:35 These are the type of the things that everybody needs to be taking a look at. You know, if you spend X amount of dollars, that's great, 10:44 but if you're spending X amount of dollars at the wrong time, then you're never gonna get the benefit that bang for that buck that what you 10:52 really need to see in order to be profitable across every acre of your farm. How do you make the decision on these adjustments template? 11:00 The one you just gave the example of was that you thought you had to rescue, you had you had a problem, you had a, it was a seasonal problem, 11:09 it was a, it was a weather problem, it was all those things. And now you're like, holy hell, even if we didn't have a weather problem, 11:14 and I'm not out there trying to salvage something, this looks like it's the way to go. So that's, that's What about the person that didn't have that experience? 11:24 What's the analytics that they should look at on an adjustment? Well, you know, every year I make some type of adjustment anyway. You know, 11:33 this is one that I tr you know, most of my adjustments, I'll be honest with you, I trip upon 'em, you know what I mean? Like, I, 11:40 I make some decision and I basically, I fall upon a mistake or whatever. So I learned most of my stuff by mistakes, 11:47 unfortunately versus successes. But, um, one of the adjustments that I constantly make, it's, it's years and years of data collection of tissue samples 12:01 and trying to be in front of it, not behind it. You know, my general, you know, and everybody's general fertility program kind of stays the same, 12:10 right? So I, and I, and I, and I'll look at the weather, like when I take a tissue sample, 12:17 I'll take a tissue sample and then I write down what the weather was 15 days before and then what my forecast is coming up and I write them down on all of 12:26 it. So it kind of gives me like a, a, a analog of this is what I have, this is what I'm gonna receive, this is what, this is the benefit that I'm trying to get after. 12:36 So I'll just try to be proactive about all of it and kind kind of start to get in front of it. Does it create a lot more work? Sure, it does, 12:44 but I'm trying to fine tune it and I'm trying not to add more passes. I'm not trying not to do that. 12:52 I'm trying to find the right exact time to put things on, you know, and it's all about making that, 12:59 that plant can efficiently do things better because of the timing that you put it on. And that's all I'm trying to do. So it's fighting whether it's, you know, taking tissue samples, it's, 13:13 and then again, you know, we talked about data collection and we beat that horse about the death. Um, you and I have Damien, 13:20 but data collection is only as good as the person that puts it in and the person that's gonna take it back out. Mm-Hmm. 13:27 It's very important for all of us as farmers to do our own, our our own own on farm data collection. Because, 13:36 you know, what works on my farm is not gonna work across the hedgerow on the next guy's farm. It's not gonna work. That guy needs to do his own 13:47 research on his own farm. And I'm not saying actually have a research farm like us guys have turned into here at extreme ag. You know, 13:54 it seems like our whole farms have become research farms, but we've learned so much by doing this on our own dirt. It's, 14:02 it's really incredible how fast we're growing with all this. So bur we talk about, uh, the, the adjustments. 14:09 Somebody's listening to this saying, how, what, what analysis should I do to, to start thinking about the adjustments? I mean, everybody wants bigger yields, 14:17 everybody wants more money. It's yield thing of, you know, everybody wants success, but are they willing to do the steps? 14:21 We're not asking people or telling 'em, oh, you gotta, you know, some crazy thing. Start us out here. What analytic, what, 14:29 what, what should I start measuring, looking at, uh, to, to think, to, to make the right adjustments? 14:37 Sure. Well the, one of the easiest things that we always, you know, promote is at least get a third of your farm soil 14:46 sampled every year. That way, every three years, you, you've got, what would we, in the agronomic world would consider a recent soil test? Okay, 14:56 I'm not advocating you sell, you know, sample every acre that can get expensive, but three, you know, it takes a long time for soil to change. 15:03 So three year old data is not that bad. So if you bust it up in a third, you know, each year you have that correlate, 15:12 you know, your, your yields that you actually made versus what you want to make. And then you have to take a look and see, 15:21 is my fertility program ever going to get me to what I want make? And like Temple said, tissue samples come into play on that too. 15:30 But tissue samples should be looked at as a historical record, which is why temple keeps up with the weather data. If you're, 15:36 if you're a chasing chi tissue samples, you get a tissue sample back, oh my gosh, I'm low in boron. You go out and you treat, you treat, 15:44 you may have spent money on a product that the plant can't utilize because that window is passed, especially on something that can grow as fast as corn. So, 15:55 you know, the soil samples, tissue samples for historical record are good. Um, actually keeping up with, you know, 16:03 this field's performance versus the other field's. Performance farmers are notorious for robbing Peter to pay Paul. They have a really high producing section of ground. 16:12 They'll dump a lot of cash into it to push that yield, and then they'll kind of ignore the lower production ground. Well, what can we do to bring the lower production ground up? 16:23 I wanna, I want to, I want to, and, and I'm not interrupting. I'm want to, before we forget to address some of those, 16:29 'cause the listener might be asking the same questions as me. I wanna go back to your first one. Okay. Soil testing. Got it. Uh, now, and, 16:36 and I've also, I I've been told, and you're the agronomist here. If you look Bert at, uh, soil testing, 16:45 some of it hasn't changed in 60 years. So really, I think it, shouldn't it be soil testing that's modern soil testing beyond just your NPK, 16:55 which we used to love to do. Even looking at some of the, you know, uh, organic matter and those kinds of things. Like, in other words, 17:01 it's beyond n pk. Oh yeah, sure. We, you know, as an agronomist, I always advocate for, uh, you know, producers to get what we call a complete soil test. 17:12 And that's gonna give you, you know, all your majors, all your minors, typically, you're also gonna get your base saturations, you know, 17:20 organic matter, CEC, all that kind of stuff. Okay. Um, it does cost a little bit more than just your generic soil tests, but that information is critical. Yeah. 17:30 Especially if you're trying to identify the problem that that is, you know, persisting, that, that allows this, 17:37 this section of ground to be lower producing. So yes, a complete soil test is where we always recommend. Okay. Then the next one was tissue sampling. Uh, we almost got, 17:47 we almost saw a physical altercation in the field at Chad Henderson is talking about tissue sampling. Once that's an episode, 17:53 you should go back and listen to Dear reviewer listener, uh, I'm, I'm kidding. But, uh, there was a very, uh, heated, heated competition, heated, uh, 18:01 conversation about tissue sampling. You said it's a historic thing. A lot of folks think, 18:06 I'm gonna pull sample off of this and I'm gonna make an adjustment because this corn is, uh, you know, lacking such and such. 18:14 You don't think you should make big swings. And that was Chad's consensus. Don't make a big swing right now just because the tissue sample, 18:20 it tells you something. First off, you might have missed your window. That is a hundred percent correct. That's, 18:25 that's why if you're gonna do tissue sampling, you need to treat it as something to look back on so that, like Temple says, you can get ahead of that. 18:35 Don't wait until you have a deficit. If you have, you know, multiple years of data and you can correlate that with just a general 18:44 correlation with weather, then you can go out and you can make an application ahead of when that plant's critical pool is gonna be for that nutrient. 18:53 And that way you don't miss that window. And that, that's, that is really important because there's a lot of money that gets spent chasing 19:00 tissue sample results just to find out that, oh, I missed my window and I'm not getting that bang for that buck. So some might say, is it worth doing? And you'd say it is because it gives you, 19:12 it gives you a track record, I guess is what we're kind of talking about. It's always gonna be worth it if you keep up with it and, 19:18 and refer back to it Temple. Would you? So, so back to exactly what Burt's talking about. I'll give you a for instance. So, um, years and years of data, right? 19:31 And we're tracking it and we're, we're gonna apply it to the next year. You know what we pulled this year, we started watching these bell curves, right? 19:39 So we started watching like what these plants actually need at any given point. 19:46 So the one place that we found that was a really, really efficient big bang for our buck, you know, 'cause that's what we're talking about, 19:55 was watching this bell curve when corn was going into reproduction. Well, as it goes into reproduction, 20:02 the amount of phosphorus that it's calling for, you know, 'cause it was starting to get deficient, right? And it just goes downhill. 20:08 And the man, the amount of potassium that it was calling for at the same time, and the amount of boron found this, this big curve. 20:16 So it started going downhill and depleting. So we started adding more and more. So we were moving things out of like exactly what we're talking about, 20:25 these adjustments. We were moving phosphorus, fertility and some potassium that we were putting in the beginning, and we were moving it over and we were moving it into the reproduction in and 20:37 not into the vegetative, um, side where we had been, you know, for years been putting it up front. Well, when we started moving that, 20:45 we started seeing these big bounces in yields. And this goes back to, you know, the thing that Chad and I have been, you know, 20:51 trying to work on the last couple years, you know, we call it the, you know, quote unquote sended version, you know, late into reproduction. 20:59 And we're trying to find the exact GD that these corn plants need where it shows us, us our biggest bang for our buck. These are the kind of things that we're talking about. 21:11 And what drove us to get there was the years and years and years of tissue sampling that Chad and I were sitting there comparing of, you know, 21:20 what happens in Alabama versus what happens here. Come to find out it's the same Mm-Hmm. That's what we're finding. Burt, you said after it was soil sample, tissue sample, 21:32 you said something else when we asked the question a while back, what should a, a grower be doing that to, to then to know that they are making, that they, 21:40 that, what are they using as the research or the information to make an adjustment? You gave me a third one and I forgot. 21:49 Yeah, Lord, I've forgotten too. All right. What should I be doing? What things should I be looking at? You know, temple's digging into analytics on gdu, 21:59 and then I think he's talking about by knowing the, the DU timing, then when stuff goes on. I mean, that's something that's getting kind of next level. Let's face it, 22:09 most people look at the calendar when they should make an application. They look at the growth stage, but they certainly don't do it based on GDU. 22:15 Is that going too much? Uh, I don't think it's too much with today's technology. It just, like Temple said, 22:21 it takes a little time if you're serious about wanting to increase the profitability on, on those acres. Um, and that, 22:30 that that's not necessarily having bend buster yields every year, but it's bringing the productivity of that soil up so that you're, 22:38 you're average across your farm increases. You're always gonna have the really good ground. Well, the marginal and low production ground needs a lot of love. 22:48 And those are the things you have to actually drill down into and see what adjustments do I have to make in order for those to get better instead of 22:57 treating everything, you know, like a stepchild that doesn't give you, you know, 400 Bush or more. 23:03 That's what you said. That was the other one. You talked about a, uh, analysis on your more on your poorer stuff. So I wanna go to Temple. 23:10 I actually have this belief now. I'm not the farming expert, nor am I the agronomist here. You guys, uh, fill those roles. 23:18 I have average ground Indiana average ground, which, uh, means it's different. You're 23:22 In the, you're in the ice cream states, it's all good ground out there. That's what they tell me. 23:27 It's, it's better, it's better than many places, but it's average by Indiana standards, let's say. But it's my assertion that with the technology, 23:37 the products we have today, you can get a bigger bang for your buck by, by loving average or lesser ground than 23:47 the good stuff. Am I That's correct. Accurate temple. You're, you're a hundred percent correct. So, um, I, I guess Kelly could, Kelly calls my dirt chili s****y dirt. But um, 23:59 out here we get more efficiency or more, uh, bang for a buck or a higher return on our investment by trying to bring those low 24:16 lying soils, the soil that are less productive. We have more response from them than we do from our high-end ground. You're, I you, that's a hundred percent accurate. At least it is in my dirt. 24:28 I'm not saying it's in everybody's, but our high-end dirts, I think I've seen the potential. I don't know how much higher I can get. 24:36 I think I'm at the peak with it. Um, the low end stuff, we seem to be able to make dramatic increases on that, By the way. And, and Bert, you're the agronomic, uh, person here is, 24:48 is this, is it because we've got better stuff. I think that's a part of it. Better technology. And we've, is it also that those, 24:57 those lesser places have been mistreated for the last 20, 30, 50 years and you know, given, finally when you start paying attention to them, it's like, 25:05 holy crap. It's like, it's like loving a dog that got mistreated. It's like, oh s**t, it'll be your, it'll, it'll be the best thing ever. Is is that the, 25:12 what is it? Is it because of the technology? Yeah, because of the, well, I mean, they've been mistreated. 25:16 You're right. I mean, we have better tools in our toolbox today than we did, you know, 30 years ago. The idea is, 25:23 is that the lower producing ground is, is that way for a reason. What is the reason? Is it a reason that I can mitigate to give that ground or an 25:35 opportunity to be more productive? And that's where this data comes in. You know, the soil, the soil analysis, the tissue analysis, you know, reevaluating how I'm treating it. 25:47 Is it something as simple as changing my tillage practice? I mean, there's, there's so many different things that you can start to analyze and, 25:57 and you know, like Temple says, even though a lot of the, you know, the extreme mad guys feel like, you know, 26:02 they're basically running a giant test farm at the same time. They're looking at things other than just products. 26:09 They're looking at changes that management practices, timings, all these different things. 26:14 And that's what you have to do if you really want to, you know, move forward and, 26:19 and start bringing this lower production ground up is show it the love. You know, everybody's different, every field's different, every farm's different. 26:29 You have to figure out those differences and play to those differences. And if you want to get the most out of that acre, and that's, you know, 26:37 that's really the key point here is don't just, yes, you have a farm, but that farm is comprised of however many different fields, 26:48 and each one of those fields has a different personality. Like Temple said, you go across a hedgerow, it might be completely different environment, so, 26:57 you know, collecting the data, but then at the same time, you have to be able to do something with the data. Yeah. Right. And you know, 27:05 that's, that's when you reach out and you, you know, find somebody that's a qualified, you know, agronomist or somebody that can, you know, 27:14 has the experience that can help you interpret all this information you have and help move you in the direction you need to go by providing, you know, 27:23 some suggestions and some inputs on, on things that you might need to change in order to lift this lower producing ground up and, and at the same time maximize your good, 27:35 you know, your good ground. Yeah. So let's talk about the first off on that lesser ground. Is there some, the listener right now might be saying, okay, what should I be looking at now? 27:45 Uh, you know, we're recording this at the end of, uh, uh, you know, here we're pushing Halloween. 27:49 So what should the listener say that has average, uh, everybody has average, uh, you know, or below average ground, they wanna admit it or, or something. What should they be doing well to make, 28:01 make an adjustment for next year, for a better next year? Sure. So my whole job revolves around the why. 28:07 So if a producer come, came to me and said, look, I'm, I've been beating my head against a wall here, you know, I've got this piece of ground, I'm, 28:15 I I'm doing everything I can and I just can't move the needle. We need to sit down and take a look at that information. 28:23 It's the soil test data, the tissue samples, all that kind of stuff. And see what is the greatest limiting factor. 28:29 Oftentimes there's multiple limiting factors, but you want to concentrate on the greatest limiting factor first when you're talking about changing soil, that happens over time. 28:40 You don't change it overnight, right? So you have to start developing that plan, and then as you start to eliminate or or mitigate those limiting 28:50 factors, that's when you can really start diving into it and see, okay, do I need to change my nutrition? Do I need to change my timing? Because, 28:59 you know, the roots are in the soil, and if the soil's out of balance, it doesn't matter what type of fertility you put out there, 29:05 if the plants can't get it, you're not gonna do anything with it. And, but what agronomic adjustment are you, you already said you're going, 29:12 thanks Bert, you're going to, uh, bump up a foliar pass that's gonna become standard practice again. Yep. It's the Chad Henderson. You're not, you're not cutting something. 29:23 You're reapportioning, you're moving, uh, you're moving a, you're moving a spend, you're moving a dollar of investment in this here. 29:31 What other thing are you going do? Agronomic adjustment you're gonna make now, or between now and spring? 29:37 What thing are you gonna do between now and the planner rolling anything? Um, not now in the planner rolling. It's, it's more of a, you know, 29:45 we talked about that GDU thing. Um, I really feel like I've got that. I'm not saying I've got it completely figured out, 29:53 but I've got it figured out enough that it will be grower standard practice on all of my acres. 30:01 And I think I figured out the exact gdu of each one of those corn crops exactly where it needs to be. Um, put at, I mean, 30:09 and I'll give you a really quick, for instance, we've done multiple late season passes on a corn that, that finishes goes to black layer at 2,700 gdu. 30:21 Well, we did a pay us at 1,950 at 2150, and then at 2350, and it was all the exact same field, the exact same everything. 30:32 They were all side by side and there's a 25 bushel swing between all of them. So what we're finding is, 30:39 is there's exact precise places to make sure that you can get inside those windows. So I'm, what I'm saying is, 30:48 is there will be a movement of stuff that I generally put on, um, right, you know, during Castle, 30:55 and I'm gonna probably move some of that stuff out and I'm gonna drop it into the GDU timeframe and that's where a movement's gonna be made. You know, 31:04 now what am I gonna do about that? I'm gonna make sure that all of my stuff is pre-ordered at the beginning of the season. So it's sitting here right here, ready. Um, that's the one thing, 31:15 you know, it seems like a lot of times as farmers, um, we use these cell phones and everything's a right now kind of situation and I need to pre-plan for all that stuff because I don't wanna be caught with my 31:27 pants down and not be able to facilitate what I've learned this year. So all those orders gonna be pre-made and they're gonna be sitting here ready 31:35 for me to use. Okay, there's an adjustment. What adjustments can, what adjustments? Some, it sounds like it's not like we set adjustments for better next year. 31:43 There's probably somebody that thinks, oh, I gotta get out and chisel plow, you know, old fashioned thinking, 31:47 we're not saying it's something you gotta do right today or come January 1st, or whatever. You're talking about management, you're talking about, uh yep. 31:55 You're talking about an agronomic management adjustment in ts not That's Right. 32:00 Uh, I mean that, that's the key. I mean, you know, farming, um, obviously is a business, but you're dealing with living, 32:09 breathing things, whether it's your soil or the crop you have in the ground, you have to be able to be adaptive. 32:18 And temple's hitting on a good point there. If, if you can, you know, from a, from a business standpoint, if you can take advantage of, 32:27 of situations where they have early pay discounts or early take discounts or things like that, 32:34 then you can reduce that cost per acre by taking advantage of some of that, that stuff as well. You know, I mean, when I was going to school, 32:42 they used to talk about, you know, grain bins, you know, on farm storage, you know, it was that third, a third and the third, you know, 32:49 be prepared to sell a third at spot store the other two thirds so that you can price one, one third at the, you know, 32:56 medium delivery date and then have another third there for the, you know, farther out delivery date so that you can, you know, 33:03 increase your profit over time instead of having to rely on the port taking everything at one, at one time, 33:09 which in this part of the world in Mississippi right now, you're looking at a really high negative basis. 'cause the river's so low, 33:15 right? So you're not getting your money's worth by taking the truck and sending it to the river. You 33:20 Led off by talking about a number of things about, first off, you can't consume your week's worth of nutrition on Sunday evening. 33:28 And that's a, that's a really good illustration for the spoonfeeding thing, which we're doing more of. 33:34 And the guys at extreme ag are talking at great length about, you know, is it more work? Well, hell yes, but also it's, 33:41 it's less wasteful, uh, judicious the word you used. Uh, what do you think the people listening to this and watching this, 33:48 what do you think many of them are in need of doing? What, like what recommendation? Because we talk about agronomic adjustments, we talk about management, 33:58 we talk about testing, you know, you talk about changing your thinking is a big part of what I'm hearing here. Is there something else that you think a lot of far growers are missing out on 34:07 that would be a not difficult agronomic adjustment that gives you a better next year? Honestly, and Temple and I talked about this, honestly, 34:18 I think what a lot of guys need to do is, is um, take back control of their own farm. Um, you know, uh, large scale retail is, um, 34:28 kind of move toward the Walmart model where it's a one-stop shop, um, yep. You know, 34:34 and you make the phone call and somebody else comes and spreads it or somebody else comes and sprays it or whatnot. You need to take, 34:42 take control back of your own ground. That way you, you are more involved in it and the decisions that you make, um, will become more informed instead of 100% relying on another 34:57 entity that you're just writing a check to and that they, they're providing a service true enough, 35:03 but are they boxing you into a situation where they make you think that that application has to go out then just because it fits their 35:12 schedule and it's not gonna be best for your farm or your crop. By the way, Temple's nodding his head, and I, this is my, my head's went to, 35:20 holy crap, this is a topic for a completely nother episode. I would love to be on that one. Please enter me in that, you know what, 35:29 you just nod your head. And I thought, damn it, Bert, I'm trying to wrap up and you're giving me a completely new topic, because what you're really saying there is, it's not that these guys are lazy, 35:40 it got, it was the smart business thing to do. The person from your retailer comes out maybe even in your, maybe even your agronomic, uh, uh, consultant and gets to where, 35:51 you know, you should still, you should still probably go to your, it's kinda that same thing. Burt, 35:56 what I'm hearing is there's still a reason even though you go fishing with your insurance man to get a quote on insurance from somebody else every couple of 36:02 years because it, it's that, yeah, it's what I'm hearing. That's what I'm hearing here is take back control of your own farm. Now again, 36:10 we gotta do this topic another day because, uh, that's, there's so much there on that, but yeah, it's not that you're lazy, it's that it got real productive and real smart for you just to say, okay, 36:21 Joe Blow from ag retailer or Ag consultancy, what should I do? Okay, great. And like you said, it might work for them better than you. 36:30 Yes. That, that's a hundred percent right. And like I said, all of these things we've talked about, 36:36 if you start trying to implement some of them, and, and granted, you can't do everything all at once, 36:42 but at least have these things in mind so that when, as you progress through the years and you want to continue to be a farmer, um, little things like this can, can make a huge difference. Yeah. 36:54 In everything you do, whether it's the cost of, you know, fertility per acre, whether it's your yield per acre, 37:02 whether it's the health of your farm, all of these things, I mean, you know, it's just, these are just the little things that we tend to, 37:11 we, we know they're there, but we have blinders on because we, so we're so focused on either getting the crop outta the field or getting the 37:19 crop in the field and, you know, all the times in between, you know, sometimes you have to sit back and have a cup of coffee and take the blinders 37:27 off and look at the whole field version and not be so laser focused on one thing at one time. 37:34 I like it. Uh, temple, get me outta here. Uh, and God, I wrote that down. That's gonna be a topic. Uh, 37:40 Yeah. I can't wait to be on that one. I'm gonna get really heated on that one. I, I think that maybe he will, we'll bring, 37:45 bur we might bring this whole round table back and get one other extreme ag guy and, uh, get me outta here. Temple, 37:50 what we talk about agronomic adjustment for a better next year. The person that saw the headline thinks they're talking about fertility changes. 37:58 Hell, you talked about testing changes, you talked about practice changes, you talked about management changes, you talked about mindset changes. 38:05 What other adjustment should I make for a better next year? I, I, I would say Bert hit on it the best. Um, in my opinion, you know, 38:13 as a farmer listening to this, and I'm listening to you two, you know, go back and forth. What, what I like about it is this, you know, 38:22 Bert hit on this and, and it's more of a make a difference where, you know, you can make the difference. So in my opinion, 38:30 if you can go out there and soil test the lowest productive ground versus the highest productive ground on that same acre, you know, 38:39 let's just say that you have a farm and you've got some really low lying heavy clay soil and you have some problems with it, 38:45 and it never produces as much as the higher productive, more lonely soil. Take a take a sample of that and make the difference there, 38:54 because this isn't about growing NCGA yields 'cause we're picking it up on the highest productive soil. We know what highlight productive soil does. If we can find that one piece, 39:06 you know, Bert talked about the greatest factor, find the greatest factor, and that greatest factor that is your limiting factor is usually the one that's 39:15 tying up all the rest. So you can find a small thing that is the easiest way to fix a big portion of the field is to bring your overall average up by treating 39:27 your lowest lying production ground a little bit different. Okay. There's also another topic, 39:35 giving love to your worst ground. So you just gave me a topic we're gonna hit, uh, and I might bring you two both back for these. Bur you know what I, 39:43 who would've thought a guy from Mississippi could be this con this contributive to a a, a great podcast. Oh, well I don't, 39:51 I don't have a life, so I mean, you know, all I get to do is play agronomist. You're my second favorite Mississippian after Mac McInally, 39:58 and I hope you know who that is. Yes, sir. All right. His name is Bert Riggin. He's with Concept Agritech. If you wanna learn more, 40:06 you can go to concept agritech.com to find you if they wanna find you, because I have a question, because you've got such good stuff to say. 40:11 Is that where they find you? That'd be the, the quickest way. If they hadn't already run across me and got a business card, uh, if any, 40:19 any questions they might have through the website or call the office, then uh, they'll direct 'em to me. Got it. His name's Bert Riggin, 40:25 he's awesome and I'm gonna have him back for at least one more of these topics, probably a couple of them. Uh, 40:30 the other guy here is Temple Rhodes and he's been chomping the bit ever since we hit the record button to go out and get in the field because it is harvest 40:35 season in Maryland. So I'm gonna let him do that Reminder, if you thought this was helpful and I know that it was, 40:42 look at the library of videos, we've literally released hundreds of these episodes of cutting the curve. Also hundreds of videos that guys like Temple Shoot with Bird out in the field 40:51 that you can use. It's all free of charge at Extreme Ag Farm. If you wanna take your farming game to the next level, 40:55 you want direct access and premium content, you can become a member seven $50 a year, just $750 a year. You can become a member of Extreme Ag and get stuff that the free stuff doesn't 41:06 quite cover, including access to guys like Temple when you have a very important question. So next time, thanks for being here. 41:11 I'm Damien Mason and this is Extreme ags Cutting the Curve. That's a wrap for this episode of Cutting the Curve, but there's plenty more. 41:18 Check out Extreme ag.farm where you can find past episodes, instructional videos and articles to help you squeeze more profit outta 41:27 your farm. Cutting the curve is brought to you by Advanced Drainage Systems, the leader in agriculture water management solutions.