00:00 We have been producing stuff for now for a couple of years of extreme Ag and the entire purpose is to make an educational to make 00:06 it so that you the viewer and listener to our content take home glean information and 00:12 insights. You can use an apply to your farming operation. Well, you know, what, we also are gleaning insights information 00:18 that we can apply to our operations. And Matt miles is probably the most complimentary of all the extreme AG participants when he says hey, you know guys, I picked up this from you. I 00:27 really got better at my game of farming when because you taught me this because I learned this from Lee because I saw what you 00:33 did over there Chad. He's always been very complimentary like that. I said, you know what we just talk about some of the things that you have learned and you've 00:39 applied to your greater success at Miles Farms. Welcome to extreme mags cutting the curve more than just a podcast. It's the place 00:49 for insights. You can apply immediately to your farm operation for increased success this episode of cutting the curve is brought to you by AG Explorer. 00:59 With Innovative products that improve fertilizer efficiency protect yield and reduce stress. AG explore helps 01:05 maximize field potential find out how AG Explorer can help you get more out of your crop at Ag explorer.com. And now here's your 01:14 host Damian Mason. Well greens and welcome to another fantastic episode of Extreme Ice cutting the curve. It's me your host Damian Mason joined by Matt 01:22 and Lane miles of Miles Farms McGee Arkansas. We're talking today about something that I think is really pertinent something or several things. In fact that Matt 01:31 and Lane miles have applied to their operation in Arkansas that they have gleaned from their participants participants. They're fellow participants 01:40 here at extreme act. All right, Matt Lane. Thanks for being here. Yes, sir. Glad to be all right. 01:45 So I'm I saw you on stage at the Hefty Brothers AG PhD field day at the end of July and baltics South Dakota and you got the award 01:54 for your wheat yield and you did like a hundred and some bushel or a little over 100 bushel wheat on your contest plot against 02:03 the other guys and you on stage said hey, you know what? That's cool, but I did not do this alone. I learned stuff from all of you that made my wheat production 02:12 more successful. It made me better as a farmer. So that's one thing. I think we can kick off there. What did you learn about wheat production? You didn't already know. 02:21 Well, I mean just just a different products that that some of these guys are putting on, you know, putting on the wheat and and put more attention 02:30 to the to the, you know, fine detail and you know, we talk all the time about you know, like some of the some of the inputs that we put into increase Roi increase 02:39 yield with extreme act and we always talk about the workers the systems approach, you know, it's not just one product. It's a systems approach of a combination and 02:48 products. That's the way I kind of view extreme AG from the day we started it to today. It's it's a systems approach. It's 02:57 a little bit from Lee and a little bit from Kelly and a little bit from Chad a little bit from Kevin, you know, whether it's coming into my brain 03:03 or whether it's coming into Lanes or or you know, a combination of the two but it you know little bitty 03:09 things make a lot of difference. I've always said I'd rather be really good at a few things. It's big, you know 03:15 fire it up at a bunch of different things. So, you know when you concentrate things down on You know, where can you make the most money working? You make the most yield or 03:24 where can you be the most satisfied with your farm? You know, it's we don't make money. We don't have a goal bag every time we make a crop but 03:33 we're satisfied, you know, sometimes if we don't make very much money, but we've done something to prove to ourselves. Hey this 03:39 works and and that could come from any of the guys on Extreme AG I get as much And and I'm sure Lane's gonna add to this I 03:48 get as much from those guys is is we try to give the other people. So I'm one of the number one fans, even though I'm an owner of the of the 03:57 business take corn. For instance. When we first started we all met at South Dakota where you where you see him stage and you know, 04:06 what I went up there I was as green as as you can be out hit 108 bushels in Arkansas soybeans and they call and ask me come up there and speak and I 04:15 said, you know, I I'm not really sure what I done, you know, I had records of what I've done but it was the first year. I didn't know if 04:23 I could do it again. I didn't know if it was a fluke. I didn't know if it was a weather. I did get pissed off on people said it 04:29 can't be repeated. So that gave me even more drive to do that. Well to repeat that I had to be around 04:35 I had to surround myself with people that really know Agronomy and so, you know, I started picking up tidbits from Kelly and Kevin and Lee Lee 04:44 and I guess Leah and I spoke together, you know, the first six years we spoke together every time up there and I was like man, how does he you know how this 04:53 work, you know, and how you doing this and and he's in a different area and some things work different there than it does here but in 04:59 general, you know, the macro side of the issue is most of the things work the same then there's a my micro side of it where 05:08 weather in different locations, you know change that but just I mean to pick out a certain instance, you know. 05:16 Fertilizer on my corn, you know planter set up, you know, Chad Henderson. I don't think there's anyone out there any I just sent a text to my my main planner 05:25 guy. We struggled a little bit with the new planner. We got this year. And I said, well Chad's coming down for three days and he's 05:31 gonna spend three days with us on fine tuning that planner and I said, there's not a deer employee a deer 05:37 engineer or anyone else that's more qualified to do that than Chad Henderson from extreme AG. So, you know, that's one thing liquid products, you 05:46 know, Kevin got me straight on on him for us and which ones to use as far as in for a fertilize which ones not to use what would prune 05:55 your roots what wouldn't Roots. I know none of that when I started, you know, so it I want to go back to a couple things here first off big picture. You said something really interesting 06:04 you said there's the macro and there's the micro Farmers. Well, it happens and all Industries, but Farmers love to 06:11 say well that never work here that never work where I am is not from From Arkansas to Gregory South Dakota where Lee 06:19 Loopers is hell. You got people that in the South End of Huntington County and I'm in the North End. Well, that wouldn't work here. I mean, it's so 06:25 provincial. It's almost amusing and what you just said there is yeah we get it things in the Delta part of Arkansas are clearly different topographically climatologically. 06:36 Soil types all that but that's micro stuff. We really think about it. The macro stuff is plantar stuff. Yes, your planter will be set up a little differently than 06:45 the soils that Lee lubbers has in South Dakota. But the point is is that macro planter setup matters fertility being right 06:54 using inferral practices that maximize that's all macro stuff in the adjustments are the micro. I think that's one of the smartest things. I've heard you say in a year and a half. I've been working with 07:03 you the macro versus the macro almost over here to Lane. You're my junior mid-fifties and you're 07:12 willing to admit you're still learning and I think that's the best part about extreme AG. We're telling these people it don't matter if you're 18, or 58 or 70 or whatever if you 07:21 stop learning you're screwed and that's where I think. What we're doing out here as a platform is yeah, you can still glean stuff. You're still 07:29 up your game Lane. You're the Next Generation. You're learning curve is even more steep than your Dad's because you've got a few less years at it talk about 07:38 a couple of things that he just said from plantar setup to infer those are just two of the things that we've gleaned from the other people extreme egg. You want to take those and and 07:47 go off on those. Yeah. I mean, I had one just the other day Damian, you know, we actually just finished playing we and it's a 07:56 little bit of a longer story. I'm not gonna tell the whole story but but you know, we're calibrating our wheat 08:02 drill and I call Chad and I'm like, hey Chad, you know, I say I call we call Ted cool thing about extreme AG, you know, I can call these guys and 08:11 they talk to me just like that were to call them and they they don't talk. To me like I'm some young Farmer. They don't know anything. They're talking 08:18 more person. However the day and I'm like, hey, you know, I need help calibrating this drill, you know, 08:25 am I on the right setting turns out I was on a long sprocket. Hey, it's funny because you know Chad knows in my opinion Chaz one of the best on anything planting 08:34 drills Planters, whatever. He said, hold on to say it. Let me call Lee. So he goes He hangs up on me calls Lee Miller talking 08:44 back. All right, he's like, all right, we got the problem. You need to change your sprocket and we thank your meter and rolls or worn out you need 08:50 to change your meals. So just in last week, I mean, I'm learning. I'm learning that I've got to pay a little bit more teaching to to some of my weird points and make 08:59 sure I'm on the right. It's probably not mechanically is working. Right? So the cool thing that's what I always 09:05 say is the cool thing about extreme AG is they talk to me just like I'm a normal person not some young. 09:11 Normal person. All right another thing about the You know the successful person always realizes that they you know, like the old thing people like my age 09:21 or your dad's age the older you get the more you know that you the more you know that you that what you don't know this infural thing. We did a trial 09:30 we talked about different things. I was fascinated frankly we talked about where we used to Fungicide and 09:36 In that fungicide should not have been touching the seed and then within the season. 09:42 By the time the guys up north were doing the fungicide application. They knew that needed to be in two by two or 09:48 it needed to be behind the seed in if it was gonna be in the furrow it sure as hell should not touch the seed that was learning that happened within a week that helps somebody save a 09:57 big headache and make more money. I think that was the cool cool thing about that takeaway. 10:02 Yep, I agree with that. And that's just the communication between the group and the communication between the 10:08 group and the public, you know, we're trying that if we can save someone a step like you say shorten the learning curve cutting cutting like cutting 10:17 your curve, you know, that's the podcast name if we can do that, you know, that's what makes you feel good inside and back 10:23 to what Lane said one thing about this group is we when we formed this group and it's Inception one of our goals were to help 10:32 the the lanes and the Danielle's and the Jacksons, you know Connors up not of our families as much as some guys maybe I that's you know, 10:41 my dad passed away when I was 30. You know, so I hear I'm sitting here with a little small farm. Trying to figure out what to do didn't learn enough from him didn't get enough 10:50 information from him. And and so if I had someone like extreme Agate, they would have been there 25 years ago, man. My my 10:59 whole world would probably be different and that's what we've been able to to accelerate and I've accelerated my 11:05 my teaching to him because I'm preparing him of something happened to me, you know, and and it's it's so important to me. 11:15 The goal that we have here and what we're trying to do whether you're 80 year old farmer that finally say I am going to change 11:21 my ways to a guy that's good starting out. Maybe that's lost his dad or his farm and partner or you know, something like 11:27 that because it's stressful enough just on its own. There's no question. Lean, you didn't give me anything specific that you you glean 11:37 to just this year from the extreme AG people. So we talked about wheat. He your dad said okay. I saw what lead does etc. 11:46 What do you think of when you think about hitting that we yield competition these guys had was there something that you saw because 11:52 you know, you've had 10 you're in your tenth farming season. I mean seasons are you actually been in the week production business? Basically, this this one okay. So 12:01 so tell me what a 28 or 30 year old kid like you sees wheat for the first time. What'd you learn? And where do you attribute that 12:10 to the fact that extreme AG challenged each other to get better at wheat production? 12:15 Oh, I mean honestly, this is gonna be broad Damian, but I'm not meaning it to be broad. I mean, I I had to learn absolutely everything we had some we had some, you 12:24 know little wheat here and there and younger just for just for Something we're going to work on in the summer or something like that 12:32 and but as far as high production, we I'm had to learn that I had learned everything of as far as seating rates and what what we're 12:41 flying on while we're flying on. I mean, I know that's really really broad. So it's hard to pick out one because I mean I was having to 12:47 learn it all and actually so I mean learning so pretty much we all okay fertility agronomics that stuff and then once 12:56 you get your shooting rate, but the thing is there's a whole bunch of things that can go wrong in there. Is there anything that kind of surprise you like? 13:02 Damn? I don't know we see this thing to grow. It's grown on every continent except for Antarctica. You know, you must do this is really kind of struck you like. 13:11 Yeah, you know what Lee Loopers must know no few things that I didn't even think about because there's a little harder to really achieve and 13:17 then you thought Oh, probably number one. We put up we put a pgr on COD called a sin and it was on 13:25 a sea treatment and you know, that's where we felt like we felt found our most yield within that in that plot we had with our sin by the 13:34 way for the person. It's just for the person is tuning into the cutting the curve podcast for the first time ever a pgr is plant growth regulator and you 13:43 put it on the wheat because I'm still learning why we put it on there. I just know it worked. Well, it worked it worked to making sure the stock 13:52 didn't get to the the seat the plant height didn't get too big. What do you think? What do you think it did what it what it does is jump start to plant Diamond. It gives a plant 14:01 a false sense that that it needs to really get out there and work harder than what it would it keeps the plant from being lazy, you know, and and you know, that's 14:10 one thing brought up the seed treatment the extra foliar, you know, we did some foliers that that made 14:16 a difference, you know Lee and and Chad was pretty was preaching Palisade, you know to keep it shorter just different things in the 14:25 week. We produce in the past, you know, you planted a wheat you put x amount of nitrogen on it. You put your P&K on it you were doing 14:31 And you would come out with 70 Bush a week, you know this year. We tried sea treatments. We tried different foliar fertilizers, we've 14:40 tried pbrs and you know, our yields went up over 30 bushels an acre just just by some what it's back to 14:49 the microbe, you know, the macro is is playing that we put an MP and K on it. Like like my daddy did type deal and you come out with a you know, what you 14:58 think is a decent weight yield then you get into the the situations where they're pinpointing applications, you know, 15:04 any of the guys any stream at Kelly all of them. They're pinpointing applications based on tissue samples and 15:10 you know different timing rates on on maturity of the week and and some of those things that all of those things. I don't think we need anything to our 15:19 week that didn't that didn't make it better and most 90% of what we've done was learn from this group 15:25 here. We learned more to to just like we did enjoy being back. And dad first started growing slow, you know 15:34 not soybeans but high yield soybeans. Don't treat wheat like a step trial treat it like you treat your corn you're caught in your beans treat 15:40 it like you really want to grow something. That right there by the way, well, you got that from extreme egg or not. I think you got it based on what we did this year with the wheat competition. 15:48 Is that obviously, you know, Kelly Garrett makes the point corns the Holy Grail of farming, you know, American agriculture farmers in America loved to 15:57 grow corn. You know, how they didn't grow corn to the degree. They do down in your part of the world or in Manitoba like where our man Riley Anderson 16:03 produces it now they do and in soybeans were always that thing in between and then when you start concentrating on all sudden, you know, Matt gets 108 bushel soybeans 16:12 and and a part of the world that has 105 degree temperatures all summer. I mean that's pretty impressive stuff when you actually look at we as something besides in between 16:21 crop, you know, Dairy Farmers looked at it as you need straw for your operation and you need a place to put my nurse starting in July. We the idea you're gonna get 16:31 to make money off but I think was like, maybe who knows we need we need to draw and be a place to put manure and July that's about how we just looked at around here I think and so 16:40 when you actually It's kind of inter material in a chemical combination. It's the stuff that that you really 16:48 don't put on the label. It's just inert because it don't matter and that's where weed is, you know in general until you start paying attention 16:54 to it. You know, it's interesting also and maybe this is a lesson like it Lane just brought it up that don't treat like 17:00 a straight head stepchild which is mean to redheads and stepchildren, but the thing here is 17:06 You know, what is that the fact that that's a lesson you took away from it. When you think about it, you're still paying the case rent 17:12 for the acre. You still have the same equipment payment you still have the hours of the day that you are investing into 17:18 your farming operation. It's kind of like why wouldn't I optimize this? Why did why did we treat it? Like it didn't matter. 17:24 You still got everything okay other than the expense of the inputs everything else Remains the Same. So why the hell wouldn't you maximize that acre? You only got so many 17:33 acres to get your return on. right lane wrapped me up here anything else observation from this year that you say? I definitely a tribute 17:42 this this thing to extreme egg. Oh, no Damien. I feel like in a in a in a year. We call a bad year where yields were down. Oh, 17:51 just just having the the people behind us and the information behind us and and try this try that we've got 18:00 our yields were don't give me wrong. They were down. Oh, but from some rumor we've heard, you know just across the 18:07 Arkansas Mississippi Delta on each side of the river where we were we felt like we were in the 18:13 steel in the top part of that that yeah. Standard, you know the hard part. I've heard a lot of horror stories and we didn't have exactly the horror stories 18:22 that we thought we might have the beginning of the year. You sent a text when we're prepping for this. He said, all right, we think that 18:28 there's evidence that this area this region down 15% from average or at least from the last year or two were things were good. We might be down seven percent if 18:37 you attribute that to some of the practices because what your old man say, it's not about a product. It's about a system. And 18:43 so if it's systems that got better because of learned insights and information from extreme AG the interesting 7% off and 15% off could 18:52 be your margin, right? I mean that that could be seven percent difference in other words seven to 15. If you're 18:58 talking about that seven or eight percent difference eight percent less yield, you know on 60 bushel 19:04 soybeans is hell, you know, that's that's five bushels. Well that that's 15 bucks 75 dollars. That's that's 19:10 the difference between break even and and decent marketing. Lane thanks. Matt rabbis out 19:18 here. What else you think that you attribute? This year's this year. You gleaned something that 19:24 made you more successful because of what you've learned from extreme egg. Well just in general, you know in line was alluding 19:30 to this while ago, you know the difference in our And what we were down and what we've been we've heard that the area was down, you know, a lot of these stress 19:38 mitigation products that you know, someone asked me I said we're down seven percent and they're like, well, I thought you put on stress mitigators and I'm like well stress mitigators, 19:47 you know are they're gonna work but they're only gonna work so much, you know, we went beyond the that level so just again and the 19:56 to the different different products that we can put out there that that protection, you know. 20:04 Yeah, yeah, that's the thing that you'd say. Oh, well, maybe what you did didn't work. No, maybe what you did absolutely worked. 20:10 And then when you start looking at the regional averages and what did for you cool so I got wheat a bunch 20:16 of lessons on that. I got that more you double down on the idea. There's not about a product. It's about a system equipment set up is the first 20:25 the most important thing you do is getting that seed in the ground and about Chad helping you with that in Furrow programs that 20:31 you've gotten better at because of Kevin's experience and then obviously the challenging yourself and looking at what the other guys are doing and being 20:40 pushed to make wheat not a stepchild but also treating it like it's it's a real crop. Those are some of the biggies and then Lane was humble enough 20:49 to say that he learned a whole bunch of other stuff. That was everything. That's why we're here is to make sure there's a learning format when 20:57 you stop learning you stop you, stop getting more successful and you know what? We don't want you to do that. So that's why 21:03 we have this podcast called cutting the curve at the idea is to cut your learning curve. So that's Lane and that's Matt. They are 21:09 Miles far from McGee, Arkansas. Thanks for being here guys. till next time 21:15 I'm Dave Mason this is cutting curve. Thank you. Thanks for listening to another edition of cutting the curve for more information that you can apply to your farm operation. 21:26 Visit extreme mag.com. Are your crops dressed out AG explore as you covered with a full line of products to help protect your crop from environmental 21:35 stressors to just cold and wet or heat and drought check out agnesport.com and start protecting your yields and profit.