Are These the Biggest Mistakes in Farming? | The Granary

00:00:00 Addressing the most common farming mistakes. That's what we're covering in this episode of The Grainery. You ready for a conversation with some real 00:00:07 Farmers about real issues? And the best part, you are invited. Pour yourself a drink, grab a snack. 00:00:15 Most importantly, pull up a chair. Welcome to the Grainery. Hey guys. Alright. Hey, welcome To 00:00:28 the Grainery. I'm sitting here with two of my favorite farm guys from Augusta, Illinois. 00:00:32 Clint Freeze, he's with calibrated agronomy. And then Kelly Garrett, extreme Ag, uh, patriarch, uh, if you will. 00:00:40 And also a frequent guest here at the Grainery table. So, um, we hit this before we hit record. I said let's talk about the biggest 00:00:46 mistakes we see in farming. Mine are gonna be from a, a business and structural setup. I think. I think we can talk, talk about, uh, 00:00:53 agronomy and talk about practice. We can cover a lot of room here. So the person that's joining us for this episode, 00:00:58 pull up a chair and sit down. There's no judgment, there's no judgment zone. But let's face it, we've made the mistakes. 00:01:03 You've lost money, you've had, uh, unrestful nights because of mistakes you've made, and you learn from 'em. And that's what we're trying to do is help people 00:01:10 farm better. And also maybe the person that doesn't farm outside perspective, like, 00:01:14 okay, I wonder what the mistakes are. You say biggest mistakes you see in farming operations. I, I've got a few of 'em that I could 00:01:20 list because I've made 'em all. Uh, but the number one mistake I see because it has the biggest effect on the farm is lack 00:01:25 of understanding your true cost. And up until a few years ago, I really thought I had it dialed 00:01:31 in relative to most farmers. I was proud of myself for it. Then I started working with JC Ag Financial, Jared Creed, 00:01:36 my good friend, you know him. And we went in and he said, you're losing money on soybeans. And I'm like, ah, I don't, I don't think so. 00:01:43 And you know, we worked with his analyst. Jeff went through it. We were in fact losing money on soybeans. 00:01:47 And I always felt like my dad took too good a care of the cattle. And I wondered if we were making any money on cows. 00:01:53 I thought, at best we're breaking even. 'cause he feeds 'em too good. We baby these cows. Things like that. We sat down 00:01:58 and went through all this is back in 22. We went through the years of data that we had. And Jared is right. We're losing money on the beans. 00:02:04 We're making money on the cows. And so now we've switched the operation a little bit. We've reduced bean acres. We've doubled the cow herd. 00:02:10 We look really smart today with the price of cattle. Yeah. However, we did this back in 22, 00:02:15 started ramping up to where we're at now. And it's made for a better overall profit from the farm. Farmers are notorious. 00:02:21 Maybe other business people are, maybe everybody is, but they're notorious for not factoring in the real cost stuff, real cost of labor 00:02:27 or the thing that I hear a lot of times, well, you, you know what? I don't have any cost that's paid for. 00:02:32 That's an inaccurate statement. There's opportunity cost a, uh, a paid for grain facility still has a cost. 00:02:36 Right? Yes. Um, so that, that I think is a real accurate thing. And my favorite one about that. 00:02:41 Also, when he went to his father, gene, who's no longer with us, God had rest his soul. He said, uh, dad, uh, it's $940, uh, per acre of soybeans. 00:02:50 And he says, how the hell do you have $900 an acre of soybeans? But your father was a successful farmer, 00:02:55 but he did the exact same thing. He didn't count all the real costs, labor, uh, machinery, time, et cetera, et cetera. 00:03:01 So it's a, it's a common thing. It makes you feel better that you, you're, but also at the end of the day, your balance sheet's worse 00:03:07 because you're not actually factoring in real costs. Oh, Yeah. And, you know, leading 00:03:11 up to the, you know, knowing your true break even true cost of production, I think we've all, a lot of us have 00:03:17 GPS computers technology in our cabs, but few of us are using that for arm farm data on farm research. 00:03:24 And so what I've found, the value of that is with the arm farm research being able to be adaptable, um, finding where my nitrogen rate is, 00:03:32 where I can be most efficient on different soil types, different pieces of ground. So the power of on-farm data, 00:03:38 I think couples right into the talk of, of true breakevens and finding that, that, uh, low net. 00:03:44 But it's, you know, like the, the, uh, research we run for calibrated agronomy, the research we run for extreme ag, it takes time. 00:03:51 And before I started with extreme ag, nobody wanted to do that because they felt, 00:03:54 felt like they weren't being paid for that time. And it slowed 'em down. Now, like I, I agree with Clint, 00:04:00 that time we take on the research, we're paid for that this year, for example, my anhydrous wreck for Nitro is, is 10 00:04:06 or 15 pounds lower than it was last year. Yep. So that's a little bit of a savings that we're gonna, we'll reallocate or we'll save that money. 00:04:12 But without the on-farm data, we wouldn't know how to do that. Well, Obviously that should help you on understanding your cost. 00:04:17 But some of the things we just talked about, if you, if you look at a lot of farming operations, again, if we're addressing the farming mistakes that are common, 00:04:23 it it, you don't need data to realize that your, your time has, uh, a a dollar unit attached to it. Yes, it does. Right. 00:04:31 Our time does, because what, what else could I be doing? Yeah. Where do I need to, uh, I need to point 00:04:36 what has the biggest economic impact in my operation? That's where I need to point my time because I don't, 00:04:41 there's not enough, we don't have enough time. He's heard my favorite one about that. When I had a farmer friend of mine when corn was $7, I said, 00:04:46 I don't think you can justify feeding $7 corn to dollar, uh, dollar and a 5 cent. 00:04:50 Uh, steer says, but I'm not feeding $7 corn 'cause I raise it myself. So like, uh, but what's the elevator paying for it? 00:04:59 Well, it's $7 down there, but mine's only got $4. Said, yeah, you're feeding $7 corn. But anyway, farming address 00:05:05 farm mistakes that you see and we're addressing it. What's the farm mistake that you've made? You know, probably the big one is, uh, you know, 00:05:11 as I've been trying to grow the farm doing side businesses, the biggest one I've made is, uh, not taking the time, uh, 00:05:18 for family as much. And, you know, we get busy with our day to day. And for me it's been getting my kids involved, taking 00:05:25 that time, slowing down a little bit, taking off early, going to the games. And so, you know, not truly farm related, 00:05:31 but I think, uh, you know, farming family, they all kind of fit hand in hand. 00:05:36 So that has been a big one for me that I've made some big changes in the last couple years. Is 00:05:40 It true of everybody that is, you know, passionate about what they do? Uh, you know, obviously Harry Chappen wrote a song 00:05:46 about it 50 some years ago. Uh, so this is not a new thing, but it's something to be very cognizant of, right? Yeah, it 00:05:50 Is. It is. The older you get, the more you realize your time is going by faster. It does. I would agree. It speed up. 00:05:56 Uh, all right, I'll go with, uh, one. And, um, it's, it's a, it's again, I get it. You can say, well, Damon, you're not really a farmer. 00:06:05 Understand there is a thing that I think is a big pharma mistake that many people that are operators believe that they are doing something 00:06:11 that is so unique that there is no comparison, that it somehow doesn't have any comparison in the rest of the world. 00:06:18 And that is a, that is a wrongheaded way to look at your business here. Say, we've heard our own extreme mad guys, 00:06:24 this ain't like anything else in the world. You know, we're, the weather affects us. Okay, well tell the person that's 00:06:28 building a skyscraper right now. If the weather affects them, uh, you know, we're dealing with interest rates. 00:06:32 Tell me any business that's using borrowed capital that doesn't deal with interest rates. In other words, looking at farming 00:06:37 as though there is no comparison in the rest of the business world is, I think, shortsighted. And it's a mistake that we make 00:06:43 because then you give yourself an excuse to not run your farm like a business. I a hundred percent agree. Farmers, you know, 00:06:50 like the previous episode we talked about the hero mentality or things like that. We think that we're in, we can have the fault of thinking 00:06:57 that we're in such a unique position. Nobody else deals with what we deals with. We, and like, you know, talk about growing the 00:07:02 side businesses and things like that. Well, the gas station we have has a line of credit. There's an operating expense attached. 00:07:07 The weather affects us when we're trying to do construction or work like that. You put new pumps in all 00:07:12 of a sudden or rain for three weeks. You, you've got your pumps are down and you can't get the concrete poured 00:07:16 that impacts your bottom Line. And harvest. And harvest is coming 00:07:18 and we know that there's gonna be a big fuel draw because you're in an ag community. This has gotta be ready to go October 1st. 00:07:24 All of those things, every business, the, the financing is a problem. Every business, the weather is a problem. 00:07:29 It's, you know, I mean, it, it always is. And we're not in that unique of a position. Well, That's why I'm saying it's not that I'm casting stones, 00:07:36 it's just that by pretending that there's no other business that does anything the same as farming does, 00:07:41 it almost then gives you some sort of excuse to not do it. Uh, to, to not run it like a business. 00:07:49 I think the emotions take over and I think the more I've tried to look at it as problem solution 00:07:54 and let the emotions go, go to the wayside, I think that has been, uh, helpful for me in not playing that pity party of, oh, the weather screwed me, 00:08:03 or, oh, I've had this gone, my tractors down. Um, just, just work through the problem. Alright. Getting to know Clinton, things like that. 00:08:09 It has changed my perspective a little bit. He, like the problem solution thing. I, uh, I now, I, 00:08:16 I don't get upset about those problems like I used to because if you can solve a problem mm-hmm. It pays really well. Mm-hmm. 00:08:21 You know, other people avoid that problem. 'cause it's a big challenge. Well, the bigger challenge, the bigger problem you solve, the better it pays off. 00:08:27 Well, it's the, so Your time is then valuable. Right. And also, again, every business has problems. Every Business has problems. If, 00:08:34 if you don't have, I had a guy that runs a small business here in town and he said, I don't know. 00:08:38 I think that if you don't have problems, maybe you don't have a business. Uh, I mean if you, he's dealing with money, transactions, 00:08:44 people, people, clients, et cetera, it's all the same thing. What's a farming mistake you wanna address? 00:08:49 You know, I think, uh, it goes back to the adaptability piece. I think we, you know, as we've done more on farm research, 00:08:56 I've learned, um, that when the economics aren't there, my balance sheet looks really bad when prices as low, that we've got more adaptability when it comes to fertility 00:09:06 and it all, there's areas where I can lean into that. I've got soil types, I can lean into that and there's soil types. 00:09:11 I can't, and no. So What's the mistake not adapting? I think it's not being, it's not looking at the balance sheet and saying, okay, I gotta cut something. 00:09:18 I gotta get more nimble here. How can I do that? How can I move, uh, dollars around and maybe I gotta cut fertility for a, 00:09:25 a couple years on my really good dirt to make this all work where I, or where I'm keeping fertility on this 00:09:30 corner soil over here. I think there's some adaptability, um, when you get foundational pieces of agronomy, right. 00:09:37 That leads very much into what I would like to say is my next, uh, biggest mistake. He, he's talking about cutting fertility in the current 00:09:44 environment and things like that, which I think is very important. But when I talk to farmers because of extreme ag, 00:09:50 and you talk to something as like base saturation, I'll tell you, 80% of farmers, 85% of farmers don't know what base saturation is. 00:09:58 That should be very basic agronomy. And you know, like 10 years ago, I really didn't know what it is, so I was guilty of it myself. 00:10:04 But now you learn about it because what most farmers will want to cut is they'll want to cut the foliar or they'll want to cut this. 00:10:10 They don't ever want to cut the dry. And for example, Jared a good, I know Jared would be okay with me saying this, Jared just bought a new piece 00:10:16 of ground, he's gonna farm it for the first time. He sent the soil test to Evans. And I, the base saturation is only 1.9% potassium. 00:10:24 I would say in this egg environment, there's no reason to put potash on that ground. Mm-hmm. It's not gonna give you an economic return. Right. 00:10:31 Save that money. You, I would run foliar K Yep. And I would do something else to address the base saturation and fix it before I ever put potash on there. 00:10:39 Especially in this ag economy. So The far mistake we're addressing is, is obviously making adjustments 00:10:44 because you do what you're, you do what you do what the prescription is, or you do what everybody else did as opposed to changing the prescription. Well, 00:10:50 The, the average grower, in my opinion, is gonna listen to the co-op and they're gonna dump potash on there, and there's gonna be no economic return, 00:10:56 but they will cut out that foliar k Yeah. Because that's an extra spend. Right. That foliar k in 00:11:01 that base saturation environment is gonna be the only thing that probably returns from a potassium perspective. 00:11:07 So again, like he's talking about, we need to be nimble and know what to cut, but we gotta know what to cut. Yeah. And there's such a lack of understanding 00:11:13 because we always depend on other people. What other business? You know, like if a farmer has a thousand acres, um, 00:11:19 he's got a million dollars of operating. Yep. Yeah. Right. Like a million dollars of input every year, at least between his corn. 00:11:25 So maybe 1.2 million that might be light. And we have such a lack of understanding in education. No other business would do that. 00:11:31 If you're gonna put out $1.2 million and you're hoping to get some, get some back with a profit, they're gonna have a better understanding 00:11:37 and not depend on other people so much. We Just had a call yesterday with my guy that has our investment monies, 00:11:43 and we spent an hour on the phone going through item by item, and it dawned on me when we hung up, I said, A larger farmer, the dollar amount 00:11:52 that we just spent an hour, hour talking about for long-term planning, a larger farmer spends that every year just on inputs. 00:11:59 And, and I'm not sure that they, from a mistake standpoint, really view it that way. 00:12:03 Right. There's not enough time. It's not exciting things like that. I I was guilty of it as well early in my farming career 00:12:09 and then, you know, started to learn it because of some of the agronomists. And I'm like, I don't know how I operated 00:12:14 before without knowing this. Yep. All right. I'll go another farming mistake that I see and it's going a different direction from agronomics 00:12:21 and, uh, it's about the family unit and it's about the transition. I'm not the first person to, to notice this 00:12:29 for crying out loud. But it's interesting, you even bring it up with agricultural people. 00:12:33 They get quiet, they look at their shoes, they get quiet, they look at their shoes, they get uncomfortable 00:12:39 because they do not want to address these things, but it needs to be addressed how many times, uh, you see it. Uh, and it's not just agriculture, obviously. 00:12:46 They got a friend that has a business and he was talking about the transition. He is got the three kids 00:12:50 and he was saying, you know, this one son, well, he was in sales and he knows the product inside and out and his financial mind, he's got a degree in finance 00:12:58 and boy, he'd be the right one to take this over. I said, all right, well I got the other two kids that need something to do. 00:13:02 And I said, you just answered your own question. Right. And so how many times do you mismanagement because you think you're gonna do what's fair? 00:13:10 Are you gonna do what feels good? Or you wanna foster and prop up the one kid that maybe shouldn't be propped up? 00:13:16 Maybe that kid should go get a job at the Amazon warehouse and not be in charge of the farm. 00:13:20 I think that is maybe the biggest mistake that I see farming operations make The lack of succession planning is, is a big problem. 00:13:27 Especially, you know, we're coming in now in the next five to 10 years. Look at the land turnover. 00:13:32 That'll be because of the, a average age of the landowner. I agree. That's a huge problem. Well, 00:13:35 E even if they do the succession planning, they don't do it. Well. No. Uh, you know, they, they do it to ends up, 00:13:43 how many times are there fractured relationships because it's been, you know, someone gets p****d off because, you know, they didn't get this or whatever. 00:13:49 And mom and dad said that. And it's a, it's, it's done poorly. A lot of times It is. It's not, 00:13:55 um, I think it's uncomfortable, um, for especially a lot of the older generation to have that plan and give up that, uh, ownership 00:14:05 and the decision making ability. And so I see it a lot, um, with my friends. You know, it's just, uh, they're ready to, to take over, 00:14:13 jump in, but they're still working another job. Not, can't come fully back until that transition happens. And then a lot of times it kicks 'em out of the farm. 00:14:21 You know, I've seen, I've seen that happen multiple times. It's Probably the most emotional topic in agriculture mm-hmm. 00:14:26 Is the succession planning. Mm-hmm. And it, and it's a, it's a, it's a big, big deal. Well, There's a woman that does a, I've got, I know, 00:14:34 I know three people in that space that that's all they do. They go around speak at ag conferences and talk about this 00:14:38 and the fact that even though they're out there doing this, there's still 77% of farming operations 00:14:43 that do not have an estate plan. And, and it's, it's irresponsible. But then the other one that I've heard one 00:14:49 of these presenters talk about is, well, you know, uh, so and so came in was talking about 00:14:54 how they're gonna hand over the operation to their son. He's 29 years old and lives at home and mom does his laundry. 00:14:59 Oh boy. It sounds like the kind of person I'd hand over millions of dollars of, uh, business to, 00:15:05 That's another mistake that can be made. Yes. Picking the wrong one. Yes. Because of favoritism. Yes. There's a lot emotion. Yeah. 00:15:11 Or propping up the one that's kind of the one that should be working at the warehouse. I mean, I think that happens a lot. 00:15:17 I I agree. It does it you, uh, um, you don't always want to pick the, the right person 00:15:21 because it's not the one that's on the farm or the closest to you, or many, many reasons that can happen. 00:15:26 But a again, it's the most, most emotional topic in agriculture. Yeah. And, and also there's decisions and, you know, it's age. 00:15:34 You can say it's an age thing. You can say it's a sophistication. It's, it's the, it goes back to the business thing. 00:15:38 There's a lot of reasons for that. All it's protecting their own interest. I don't know. My mom didn't wanna put me in charge of stuff. 00:15:44 'cause she says, I lived in Arizona part of the time, and the attorney said he seems to manage business pretty well wherever he is from. 00:15:49 And she said, nah, just wouldn't hear of it. And so whatever that was, I I, it's, it's always the, it's always the thing, what's another farm mistake you see? 00:15:58 You know, um, as we've gotten to consult a lot more and work with farmers and, you know, the, this is a this or that thing. 00:16:07 But it go back to agronomy. Um, a lot of farmers are not paying attention to drainage. And I know there's a lot of tile hitting the ground, 00:16:15 but surface drainage. Subsurface drainage. And you know, when you get the management of residue water and oxygen, water and oxygen in your soil, you manage that. 00:16:25 However, that is, you can do that through cover crops no till, depending on the area. Some places tillage is needed. 00:16:31 Um, you get a wet harvest, you gotta come in and ru something up. And we don't sometimes address those. 00:16:36 That is a, probably as we're working with more and more people, the one of the number one problems I see over 00:16:42 and over that we just go, didn't go in there and ditch out these hog wallows that aren't letting water drain off after big brain events. 00:16:49 So, you know, we come in as we've come in with growers that fix those areas. It's like yield jumps drastically. 00:16:55 Efficiency of nutrients jump drastically. So for me going agronomically, I see that over and over again. 00:17:01 How important it's getting water off your field Farm ability also, when you're talking about that, I mean, how many places you're in there 00:17:08 and it's like, oh, this area over here in the middle is wet. Well, it, it, it changes the farm ability 00:17:14 that all the crop you're getting outta there is always green. It's got 20% more moisture than the rest of the field. 00:17:18 You're getting stuck in there or whatever. So there's that part of it also, even just the agronomic is just the 00:17:23 efficiency of the how you Operate. Yeah. Getting it in timely. Getting it out timely. 00:17:26 Um, not, and getting it out without hurting your ground. You know, rutting it up. So it's something we see like over 00:17:32 and over again and we've had to kind of back up. I'm like, all right, well we need to address this first before we can get efficiencies, the other things. 00:17:39 And if you don't address the mistake of not handling the drainage, then drainage, drainage problems lead to erosion 00:17:43 and drainage to compaction. Yes. That, you know, we were involved in the conversation on x the other day about, uh, top soil in Iowa. 00:17:50 And I would tell you that, uh, like tile tile for Clint where it's flat is one thing. Tile for me on those side hills is a 00:17:55 matter of conservation. Yep. Yeah. Well, the put in a, the standpipe and, and all that. And then you're taking, catching the water 00:18:01 before it can take the soil with it. What's another mistake you see farming operations make, You know, the one thing that we talked about, like 00:18:07 with marketing and this, this would be, uh, another example from Jared, but, uh, he says that farmers don't, 00:18:13 and I've, I've caught myself being guilty of this. Farmers don't realistically forward sell 'em enough when there's an environment that they should, okay. 00:18:21 Mm-hmm. You know, and like now, you know, who knew we were gonna have a crop like this and thing, you know, we, we didn't know. 00:18:25 And, and the corn's down to 4 25 or four 30, whatever it was in February it was four 80 and the farm. 00:18:32 So there was an, there was an opportunity to sell. Mm-hmm. Now the amount that we should have hedged 00:18:37 or we could have hedged, you know, we, we just don't ever, honestly, Jared will tell you 00:18:40 that people don't honestly say, I'm gonna race two 20, I'm gonna race two 40. I'm gonna raise 200. Whatever it is in your environment. 00:18:47 They don't sell ahead enough because they don't, they don't give themself enough credit. They're not real. They, you know, 00:18:52 let's sell 75% of your crop. Well, it's only gonna make 180 when it's really gonna make two 20. 00:18:56 Right. Right. You're shorting yourself. Yeah. You know what I mean? Yeah. And, and you, you need to be more realistic 00:19:01 unless emotional about what you're gonna raise to take advantage of the economic, economic opportunity one. Yeah. The concern that I don't know if I'm gonna 00:19:07 get that yield well, right. Okay. How barring the year 2012, uh, you know, one of those years comes around every 30. 00:19:15 Right. Barring that, when are you really gonna be that far off? But, but even If that happens, even if that happens, you know, 00:19:21 use your hedging account not to speculate. Use your hedging account to hedge and don't, don't make that commitment of bushels. 00:19:27 Don't make that end destination already decided. Just hedge it. You don't have to, you don't have 00:19:32 to make a forward cash shale, hedge it so you can take advantage of the opportunity if it arises. Use the tools that are there. That's 00:19:39 Right. And there are a lot of tools and you don't have to, and, and, and what's the excuse? 00:19:42 Well, I don't pay for that. Your minimal amount of money that you can make a lot back on even getting 00:19:47 professional advice on that. You know, I would. But on that, we, we, we struggle with the marketing thing all the time. 00:19:52 We get busy doing construction, then we're farming, we're working on machinery. And so all of a sudden it's like, 00:19:57 you see what the market's done. It's like, well we, all of us are like, well, I guess we, you know, we just don't pay attention 00:20:01 'cause we're busy with operation stuff. So having that in the back of your mind all the time is critical to, 00:20:07 to success forward selling. I've got a farm mistake, and it's gonna tie a little bit to your agronomic one, uh, about drainage, 00:20:13 I believe the farm mistake that way too many farm operations make. And they're gonna, they're gonna bristle at this just like 00:20:18 they did on, uh, Twitter the other day. They treat their tractors better than they treat their soil. Oh man. They get excited. You go in there, 00:20:25 go go in the tool shed and, and the, and the tractor's all shined up for the season. They've got a pressure washed 00:20:31 and they got the, the hired kids out there. He is waxed it. And, and man, it looks 7-year-old tractor looks brand new. 00:20:37 Meanwhile the farm ground over there that they farm that's got 18% slope. As soon as the combine pulled off it, they went in there 00:20:43 and chisel plowed it. And all winter long for six months, it's gonna wash away. One of those is an appreciating asset 00:20:51 that is also your livelihood and where the bulk of your net worth is. The other one is a depreciating piece of steel 00:20:57 that is gonna be in a parade someday at the state Fair. Why do you do that? I think having a clean piece 00:21:04 of machinery is a sense of pride thing. And uh, you know, I I think it's a, I do see that from time to time on our area. 00:21:11 We don't, we don't see that a lot. Um, but it is, it is a real thing that I've run across, you know, with that. 00:21:17 So, um, you know, for, we Flew over here this morning. When you look down, a bunch of the, most of the fields are harvested. 00:21:22 We're recording this right now on the first week of November. And how many fields do you see 00:21:27 that not only were just harvested, but also plowed Over 50% probably coming across Illinois? Yeah. Yeah. And you're gonna say, well, it's 00:21:36 flat ground, it's not gonna wash away. No, but you know what? It'll blow over here. We'll take it. We'll, we'll take it. Uh, it's, it's wrong. 00:21:44 I mean, you've, you've moved into it. I'm a little bit evangelical about this. You know, I was a soils guy when I was a high school 00:21:50 and I just, I, for the life of me, I can't understand how in the year 2025 we're still doing this. I, in our area with the hills 00:21:58 and things like that, there's not a lot of fault tillage, but if you go east of us, 00:22:01 they're very much get to aims, things like that. It's a very prevalent practice. Um, I, uh, I don't understand it myself, 00:22:08 but I, you know, I don't farm in that environment. Uh, Clint has talked about it, things like that. You know, I'm, I'm a proponent of no-till 00:22:14 because, um, well, I think it makes my soil healthier and, and I just don't think the tillage produces anything. 00:22:19 I don't think there's an ROI Clint will talk about that. There is an ROI on some tillage. 00:22:23 I don't know if it has to be fall necessarily, but Yeah, I mean, for like our farm for, for instance, I've tried to go and anywhere I can men till cover crops, 00:22:33 implementing those practices and where I've, that has been a huge win. Huge. ROI is my rolling ground. 00:22:38 As soon as I go there and establish a cover crop, I, we was bringing dozers in spring and fall. To your point, we've got the, the catch basins, 00:22:46 the dry damage where we can at least catch the dirt, push it back uphill. But, you know, spring and fall dozers hitting the farm. 00:22:52 Now that we've went no till cover crop, we haven't had a dozer on the farm since. You know, so big deal 00:22:58 where I have seen the huge, uh, negatives. We've got some soil types even with tile, even with good surface drainage, doing all those things. 00:23:07 Um, the ground just wants to get crazy tight because it's clay. So where we have tried 00:23:11 to implement men till cover crops in those areas, it has been a, you know, a 15 bushel hit on soybeans repeatedly. 00:23:18 I've tried it every which way. So, we'll, what we've kind of compromised with is more of a, we will, we'll lightly work the ground more 00:23:25 of a vertical till and then strip till into that. And then my yields stay good. And I don't ever have that deep erosion. 00:23:31 But I think, uh, tillage is a hard one for a good chunk of the corn belt. 'cause we are flat. We do have a clay-based soil 00:23:38 and yield tends to come there. So, but back to the on-farm research, knowing where that works and where it doesn't, 00:23:45 and then limiting it to a smaller, a portion of your acres. It's smart business, like you said, 00:23:49 it's an appreciating asset. I think all farmers wanna leave the ground better than they found it. 00:23:53 They say that, but you know what? Their actions are not congruent with their words. Yeah. But you know, do you agree? Well, they're, 00:24:01 as your perspective goes, yeah. As their perspective goes, they are trying to do better and then they have a short-term view 00:24:06 and a long term view and short-term View is before short-term bush view is seven more bushels or whatever. 00:24:11 Well, short-term view is, last year I had trouble planning into those no-till corn 00:24:14 stalks this year I need to deal with them. Yep. You know, the long-term view is we want the soil to improve. 00:24:18 Yeah. And, and the long term view is we went soil to improve. That's a big priority 00:24:23 until they have a spotty stand the next year, because they didn't try that. You know, and, and I, I was a huge pro. 00:24:31 I am still a huge proponent of no-till in my geography, but Clint's soil and environment and things is entirely different. 00:24:37 And the strip till and things like that, and the things he does there, um, are, are very much needed in his area. And, 00:24:45 Uh, my field just got tilled because they went from, you know, corn stalks into wheat because then it's gonna go to alfalfa, et cetera. 00:24:51 You till for that. Yeah. So, I mean, it's not like I, you know, go out there and like, uh, you know, shoot fireworks off at the, 00:24:57 at the tractor thing, drive by tilling. I mean, I get it. It's an idea. But, um, it, it's, it just seems to me, uh, 00:25:04 my brother just sent me a text yesterday, a big, huge chunk of ground, couple counties away from here's 00:25:09 13,500, $5 an acre. Even in this commodity environment, $13,505. I would look at that and say, my goodness, I wanna make sure 00:25:16 that I'm really doing right. But to your point, there's gonna be someone watching that says, well, you don't know or you don't farm. 00:25:20 And then of course the next one is, well, you don't farm. You don't know what it's like in my area. 00:25:24 'cause you know, we like to say that. Right. Well, that, that's the value of extreme ag. That's the value of calibrated agronomy. 00:25:29 I have now loosened my stance a little bit on no-till because of the soil Clint deals with, I don't deal with that soil. Mm-hmm. 00:25:35 Mm-hmm. I also think it's you weighing Your foot in your, your relatives should have stopped the, the Conestoga wagon about a hundred miles before they did. 00:25:43 You got, you got, you went through the best part of Illinois and stopped at the crappy part of Illinois. 00:25:48 Why did the same thing in Iowa? Just say, Why, why didn't you stop a hundred miles further, further to the east? 00:25:53 You'd you'd, you'd be like, yeah, of course. Champagne's great. Insane. I had my, uh, you don't go too far, uh, 00:26:00 to the west of us too. There's another great pocket where water infiltrates the soil really well, combines all go to two wheel drive again. Well, you can 00:26:07 Understand why they didn't get there. The oxen died. But you know what? You already walked, you already walked past 00:26:11 champagne. Why didn't you stay there? I think my ancestors stopped when they couldn't go up the hill anymore. 00:26:15 No, that's the, they should have Stopped me. I wish they would've had weaker horses and stopped on a smaller hill. 00:26:20 Biggest Mistakes you see in farming, You know, um, it's, it's really for me, it's, it's the, you know, I think we've addressed a lot 00:26:31 of the good ones, but for me it's, there's a lot of things agronomically I think we can do to improve the ROI. 00:26:37 And so for like this year we're going like, uh, I've seen things. We're getting tight. Uh, you've been preaching it 00:26:42 for a, a long time online. We put in a bunch of conventional plot hybrids. Mm-hmm. Um, you've been planning conventional. Yep. 00:26:48 So we, you know, I think we're just constantly trying to evolve and looking at the current market, looking at we're overproducing consistently, 00:26:55 and how can we drive out cost over time. Yeah. That's a diversification also is something where specialization got us here. 00:27:03 But I think the farm mistake might be now becoming eggs in one basket kind of thing. You know, 2, 2 2 specialized into one revenue stream. 00:27:11 And as we're seeing right now, here we are in year two or so of a economic downturn, I think a mistake that is made, and again, you're not faulting, it's just 00:27:19 that from a business standpoint, specialization also means you're at greater risk of obviously a downturn on this one or two thing. Next 00:27:28 Year we'll have 300 acres of oats. We've never, never really raised oats in our life. I remember my dad raised oats 00:27:34 and my grandpa, we've raised a few oats at times to bail ahead of, uh, new alfalfa crop, things like that. But next year, we'll, uh, we'll come combine notes. 00:27:41 We have 300 acres. My sons have invested into the oat plant in Albert Lea, Minnesota. 00:27:45 And we're trying to diversify the ground. You know, the oats with the fusarium is an oats are a deterrent for a fusarium. 00:27:51 So we, that's a, that's a goal of ours, that it's another area to, uh, put the cows out on in July, you know, some late season pasture, things like that. 00:27:59 So yes, we're very much on that diversification path. And, you know, oats for the reasons I just listed, seems like a great option. 00:28:06 But we can't, we can't always just be a hundred percent corn, even though it's kind of fun. Yeah. That's the thing. I, I said it's a mistake 00:28:12 that's made, and you don't fault the the operator that does that, but in, in a downturn like this, it, it, 00:28:17 you're seeing the, the, the flaw there. Right. If you can Yeah. If you can make a living, continue to do that or, and, uh, you know, be successful in your own mind. 00:28:24 I, I think that's great. But for us, we're, we're seeing some yields have gone backwards a little bit and things like that where we've had the continuous corn. 00:28:30 Yep. We want to continue to grow the cow herd. So it's, it's a double crop scenario for us. You know, uh, Chad will tell you the most money he makes is 00:28:37 when he takes off two crops Yep. In one year. Mm-hmm. Wheat and then soybeans. Well, we're too far north to be able 00:28:42 to raise those soybeans, but I can raise those wheat. I can raise that wheat. Yep. I can raise the oats and I can follow up with cattle. That's my double crop. 00:28:50 Getting more farm mistakes. I've got another one, but I don't wanna, I don't wanna, I don't wanna steal from yours. 00:28:54 Uh, you, you know, because I'm sure you've made a lot of mistakes in your ears, so I don't wanna keep Oh, yes. Do tell. Um, 00:29:00 we talked about it here at this very table about, uh, dropping dollars to pick up dimes. Another, and this is not just farming people. 00:29:06 It's everybody is, at least in the finance class to talk about pocket accounting. Well, I've got this $10 here and this $10 here. 00:29:12 And not realizing, no, you've got $20. Right? Uh, well, I'm not gonna spend money on this, but I'm gonna spend money over here. 00:29:18 Look at the big picture and realize that it, it's this much money and you're not gonna save your way into prosperity 00:29:26 by saving 5 cents over here in this pocket when you're also dropping dollars over here on this thing. 00:29:30 So I think that the big picture of the financial aspect of running an operation so that you're not pocket accounting and thinking about this nickel over here is, what's 00:29:39 The whole thing? The pocket accounting that I would see is, you know, uh, if a farmer wants to go make a cash shale of grain, 00:29:46 you know, back to marketing, he wants to make a cash shale of grain. And he might make that, well, 00:29:50 in February we had four 80 corn. You know, like the, the local basis in February was probably 35 or 40 cents. 00:29:56 So it's a four 40 cash shale looks really great today. Okay. But now if you had made that four 80 hedge, all 00:30:03 of a sudden now you get to December, they're advertising five under the, the idea that we have to make a cash shale. 00:30:09 And we're always establishing that basis. I've, I've had years of my operation where most of the time the corn goes west to Blair, to the river, goes 00:30:16 to the local Anderson's plant, things like that. There has been a couple years where we haul corn east because they were dry east of us. 00:30:22 The not understanding how the basis moves, not paying attention to the basis, things like that is a huge thing. 00:30:27 It's a costly mistake. Yes. Yeah. Uh, this year, you know, this is because of extreme ag and Matt Miles, you know, we desiccated our soybeans. 00:30:33 Mm-hmm. Took our soybeans out in September before most other people started hauled them to Bunge south of Council Bus for a zero basis. 00:30:39 Yeah. The local basis at that time was 75 under. Yeah. You know, that, that's a mistake that gets made is not making 00:30:45 You made, you made 75 cents with, uh, and it cost you 10 cents of, so the big, the big mistake that you're saying people make is missed opportunity doesn't 00:30:52 on, on sale time. Right. And you're gonna say that it's gonna cost me a little extra transport, which it did. 00:30:58 But also when you think about the labor piece, if you're in that gutshot harvest with everybody else, 00:31:02 even though the trucks might not be going 70 miles away, they might be going 10, it still takes the same amount 00:31:07 of sitting in line because they're sitting in line. Yep. 75 cents on 72 bushel soybeans. That's a $50 net. Currently, 00:31:13 We, we, we talked about, okay, uh, you let off, we let off with, uh, we got the business side, we got the estate 00:31:19 and the, the transition side and succession. We've got agronomic. We wanna hit everything from drainage to compaction, 00:31:25 to erosion, to you defending the volatility. If your firm washes away, don't come crying to me. All right. Yeah. Is 00:31:32 There an Amazon warehouse and everybody's doing work? There's one, there's one opening up. Not too far, but you know, I, I'm not defending it, 00:31:40 but I do think, um, It has Its place. I do think it does have its place. I don't think it's, I think it's a this or that thing. 00:31:45 The one thing that we, me and my brother have missed the last three or four years, we run an older semis 00:31:51 and we really haven't been doing a year end, um, evaluation of expenses. Yep. Um, we just, well, we already own that, right? Yep. 00:31:59 But, uh, semis have gotten more reasonable. You can buy a low mile, uh, grain haul or semi pretty cheap. But, you know, we thought the cost of us having grain trucks 00:32:07 around or, or nothing, we're not spending anything. Well, then we look at our repair bill. Yep. And we've got 40, you know, 00:32:12 we're putting 40,000 a year in the last two years in semi repair. And it's like, maybe we could just upgrade trucks 00:32:18 and cut that expense, not have all the downtime with them. And so we, we now are gonna sit down every winter 00:32:23 and we're gonna go through all our expenses and figure out where, when we need to update. What's kind of the, yeah, 00:32:29 When you're traveling with Kelly, you probably talk to him. You know, he has a trucking business. 00:32:33 All half of his fleet, like when people drive by and see on the road, they think that that truck's on the way to the salvage yard. 00:32:40 It's actually on the way to take a load. That's, so, if you're worried that your trucks are junk, go and see what KKLM uh, uh, transport looks like. 00:32:49 And we, we had a good, we had a good talk on all the mistakes. And by the way, I think it's important that the viewer 00:32:53 understand we're not judging, it's just things that we see. And I get, you can say, oh, think I've done. Yeah. 00:32:58 Things you've done. And, and, uh, I get the criticism's gonna say, well, what do you know? You don't run this. Well, I, I've been 00:33:02 around this for 56 years. I know I've done it all, and so I've made every mistake. Yes. So if you enjoyed this episode, share with somebody. 00:33:09 I can benefit from it. You know what? We've got more than 40 of these episodes out there, and we keep cranking 'em out. 00:33:13 We want you to pull up a chair figuratively, and sit here at the grainery with us, because that's what this is all about. 00:33:19 It's, uh, fun, it's enjoyable. And you know what? We've got more of this. Go check it out@extrememag.farm. Also, please subscribe to our YouTube channel. 00:33:25 It's just go on YouTube type in extreme mag. It doesn't cost anything. We'd love for you to be here more often. 00:33:29 Until next time, that's my friend Clint Freeze from Augusta, Illinois. And Kelly Garrett from Area Iowa. 969 00:33:33.705 --> 00:33:36.565