Is Innovation in Crop Protection Dead? | The Granary

00:00:00 Innovation in agriculture was amazing when it came to crop protection for decades. But you know what? It seems like we're going backwards. 00:00:06 I'm talking to my friends here at the Grainery about what is happening in innovation and crop protection, and are we indeed going backwards? 00:00:12 You ready for a conversation with some real farmers about real issues? The best part? You are invited. 00:00:19 Support yourself a drink, grab a snack. Most importantly, pull up a chair. Welcome to the greenery. Hey Guys. 00:00:34 Alright, So you heard top, I'm sitting here with my friend Adam Byrne. He is an FMC guy outta Michigan. 00:00:39 Gail Stratman a I always used Think Kansas, but he's Nebraskan it turns out. And Kelly Garrett with Extre Ag and this topic came up. 00:00:46 You guys like it. We're going to cover it. Let's face it. I remember being a chemical intern in 1991 00:00:51 and they were talking about lower rates and all these new things and post applied and we're gonna be changing things so much. 00:00:58 And here we are year 2025, and we're using chemistry that we came out with, I wanna say 40 years ago. 00:01:05 We've got herbicide, toler, uh, herbicide, uh, resistant weeds. We've got, um, I would say a very 00:01:14 big dearth of innovation in this. Am I right? Well, GA Stratman, by the way, is going to hit this, and he is gonna then say, I've been around for a long time. 00:01:25 I think we're doing all right. Well, I have been around a long time. Like I said, I, uh, I got started in this 00:01:31 business probably in the late eighties. Uh, so before, uh, probably before some of the GMO crops, 00:01:36 the Roundup ready and stuff came along. So I've seen, I've seen a lot of that development and that's, that's been really, um, helpful in ag. 00:01:43 Um, yeah, you know, in the, in the eighties and nineties, there was a, a big push or a big development there where you saw a lot of companies. 00:01:53 Um, most of 'em are pharmaceutical based. And so, you know, as they're developing chemistries there, there's a lot of parallels 00:02:01 between the human pharmaceutical side and the, and the crop protection side. A lot of those chemistries, um, kind 00:02:07 of mirror each other sometimes. Um, you know, they have human purposes. Sometimes they have, uh, crop protection purposes. 00:02:13 And so there was a big, uh, development in that area in the, in the eighties and nineties. 00:02:18 And so you saw a lot of what I call major classes of chemistries, sulfonylureas. You see them a lot in the human healthcare side. 00:02:26 You see a lot of those on the, on the crop protection side. Um, and then, like I said, we started to utilize, um, 00:02:33 you know, some of the innovation on the, what I call the GMO side that kind of came along in the late eighties and, 00:02:38 and really kind of grasped us in the, in the 1990s. And so, um, but then, you know, there's, 00:02:45 there's another component of this. Um, one is, is cost. And, and two is, um, when you think about companies is, is recouping that cost. 00:02:55 And, um, and, and I hate to use the word, but, but generics are a big piece of that. Patent life is a big piece of that. 00:03:03 Um, you know, when when products go off patent, um, you know, it, it becomes something where other companies can step in and, and, 00:03:12 and build those products. And a lot of times they don't have that investment. Well, they 00:03:16 Just copy. They generally just copy the product they sent you. They don't really do anything with it. They 00:03:19 don't have anything into it. I wanna get over the, the, the thought first off, you, um, Adam Kelly, either of you go on this. 00:03:28 First off, I think a bunch of people probably got a little scared if they weren't already scared of, uh, human pharmaceuticals 00:03:34 and the stuff we used to kill weeds. Oh, it's the same stuff that just got people a little scared right there by way 00:03:41 My opinion. But He's right. But he's right. You know what, Eli Elanco, 00:03:45 Eli Lilian company, they make, they make stuff to make you not fat and, and make you not depressed. Oh. And also used to make stuff to kill your weeds. 00:03:52 I mean, it's, it is true story. And Novartis men go through the whole thing, but he's right about that. Even a bunch of them. Yeah, absolutely. 00:03:58 You know, um, yeah. You think about, um, you know, I think about companies from the past. Um, one I think about is American Home Products was a big 00:04:05 pharmaceutical company. They owned American cannabis, which was a crop protect My favorite crop protection. 00:04:10 That wasn't during my time as an intern, you know, because they had the best trade names. Like, like other companies right? 00:04:15 Here are things like Lexone, American Sideman comes in like, like they had names like Squadron or Scepter, 00:04:21 or we're gonna shoot, shoot the Hell Outta Your Weeds. You know, like, like they made it like militaristic. They had great marketing people Yes. American Sign. 00:04:28 And also I wanted to work for them because it seemed like they had younger employees and they're always drinking and golfing. 00:04:33 And I'm like, I want the job in America. And it, alright, answer me about this. You're on the, you used to be a university employee. Yeah. 00:04:40 Uh, universities get Herald as helping us with the r and d and, and doing all this stuff. 00:04:45 They sometimes get criticized companies and universities are in bed together too much, and, but at least they're bringing new 00:04:50 products that farmers can use. What the hell happened? Where's the stuff, where's the new stuff? Well, I think it goes back to what Gail was saying. 00:04:57 The dollars that it takes to, to invest into making a new product is, is astronomical. Right? And so you have to be able to recoup that cost. 00:05:04 And when you can't recoup that cost, um, that slows the, the game. Like, it makes it harder. 00:05:10 And so when you're at the university, you only have the opportunity to work with these companies that have the money to bring to 00:05:15 that have something they wanna bring to the market. And at that point, by the time we get to the university, it's pretty far along that process. 00:05:22 I mean, so research and development is dead because there's not enough light at the end of the tunnel where they can make money, make money. 00:05:28 I don't know if it's dead, but it definitely is more restrictive I think. I think that, I think it's been tightened up. Yes. 00:05:34 It, you know, with inflation and investment things like that, the, uh, companies like FMC are trying 00:05:39 to do the same thing we're trying to do at Garland and Cattle. They need an ROI. Yeah. Yeah. 00:05:42 And with the inflation and regulatory and everything, their margins are slimmer just like ours. And I, I don't think every farmer wants to believe that 00:05:50 because they believe there's all these billions and millions of dollars everywhere. But there has to be an ROI 00:05:55 and in today's reg regulatory environment, I think it probably gets trimmed for everyone. Well, there's always been that thing, you know, 00:06:01 whether it's a farmer consumer or just the person that's buying the pharmaceutical, whatever, it's the same old thing. 00:06:06 Like, oh, then big companies all that money maybe. But if you throw a billion dollars at something, I don't know what it costs to bring Mojarro to, uh, 00:06:15 you know, or the Ozempic or Proac or any of these other human farms. Whatever it took you take, you gotta get that money back. 00:06:23 Mm-hmm. And so you think that right now these farm, uh, I'm sorry, these, um, ag chemical crop protection companies aren't investing the money 00:06:32 'cause they're worried about getting a return? Well, yeah. It, it's, it's, they're investing the money. 00:06:37 But again, it becomes a challenge to just develop something that may, it may have a really good fit 00:06:43 in a small acreage crop. Well, you know, just take, I don't know, some vegetable crops. It may have a big fit there, 00:06:49 but you look at the, what the overall cost is to bring that, and then the ability to recoup 00:06:54 reup that recoup it, you know? So for two, 2 million acres of specialty crop, you've gotta be on every acre at a certain dollar amount. 00:07:01 Yeah. Four times a year for the next seven years to get your money back before it becomes a generic, Let's, let's just use $200 million as a cost. 00:07:09 And that, that you spend that over 10 years period of time, you Need to develop a new To develop that. 00:07:17 And, and, and that's probably, that's short. I mean, that's a short period of time. Most of the times you're anymore, 00:07:21 you're looking at 15 years to do that. And like I said, the minute you discover a new chemistry, um, your patent life is, is ticking. 00:07:30 So you have a, a finite window before you get, can be able to recoup some of those costs and, uh, and, and you know, basically bring value 00:07:39 to the company and bring value to the investors. You're The farmer customer. What do you think is innovation and crop protection done? 00:07:48 I think a lot of it has to go back to this ROI, I think a lot of it has to go with farmers relying too much on the technology. 00:07:55 And we're doing a poorer job of farming. We're not paying attention to our water. How many times have we talked about looking at the water 00:08:01 and how it changes the eff eff efficacy of the, uh, of the products? How many times have we looked at, you know, our fertility, 00:08:08 our nutritional imbalance, things like that, that makes it harder for this technology to work? And so we talk about weeds are becoming 00:08:15 immune and things like that. I I really think the art of farming is going backwards. Mm-hmm. And the technology can't keep up with 00:08:21 how far backwards we're moving. We need to do a better job. You, You made a point a little bit earlier about were you still 00:08:26 using some chemistries from 40 years ago? I think that's a testament to how good some of that stuff is. 00:08:31 Mm-hmm. That it is still viable. There's still good tools. But we continue, as Kelly alluded to, 00:08:36 learning more about farming and learning about the interaction of all these biological systems and, 00:08:41 and things that we can, we can still utilize some of these things that maybe 30 years ago we didn't think were, okay, this isn't gonna be 00:08:49 something we wanna wanna use. I remember talking with a seed company, uh, you know, a decade ago. 00:08:54 Um, it may be longer than that. Maybe I I my memory's too short here, but used to be you had some roundup corn 00:09:00 and then you had liberty corn. Mm-hmm. And that was really great in a corn, on corn environment, if you had any down corn, 00:09:05 you had any volunteer corn, one ke one chemical would kill the other. Mm-hmm. Well then all of a sudden, all the variety started 00:09:10 coming out and they were all round up and mm-hmm. And I'm like, well this defeats the purpose. Right. Why are you doing that? Mm-hmm. And they're like, 00:09:16 the seed company said, well, when we go through FDA approvals and things like that, it costs so much and it takes so much time, we don't wanna do it again. 00:09:24 Mm-hmm. Right. It very much is the money. Yeah. It very much is the money. Yeah. Yeah. Which then regulation, 00:09:28 and we talked about this, uh, in a different setting, is reu. Okay? There's the money and the ability to recoup 00:09:36 is regulation stifling innovation. You just said something about 50 year ago chemicals. I had a house in Arizona, 1971, it was built 00:09:44 and whatever they laid down to keep the termites out must have been the best product that we ever invented. 00:09:51 Then it got outlawed. 'cause every home I've owned otherwise in Arizona, I've had to treat for termites every year. 00:09:56 Whatever they laid down in 1971. I want that. I want, I want some of that on the shelf because I'm telling you what, they kill termites 00:10:02 for a half a century and everything else we use kills termites for about six months. Well, I'm sure regulation has, has changed what's available 00:10:09 to us to use, obviously. But it also has slowed the process down. I think in some ways I think the, the steps to get 00:10:15 through the regulatory process has lengthened. Uh, I mean, I don't have the timeline Gail has per se, in, in the industry, but certainly Exactly. 00:10:24 Is that a polite way of saying Gail's old? I, I dunno. But I have much more Experience than I Like that. 00:10:32 That's what he meant. That's what I meant. But I think that really is a factor because that process has lengthened. 00:10:38 And so that just chips away at that time to, for the companies to recoup that, that investment. You know? So they have fewer years left once they get 00:10:45 something to market to make that money. So regulation is playing both sides. Right? It is protecting certain things. 00:10:51 It is making things better and safer. But it also has slowed the process down, which makes it hard. 00:10:55 It protects incumbents, regulation protects incumbents. Oh, you're already approved. Yeah. That 'cause stay in here. And it also, by protecting incumbents saying we've already 00:11:04 got that approved, we're not gonna take that away. But new stuff, we're gonna have to have a different set of parameters. 00:11:09 It protects the incumbents we've lost and it prevents And new injuries. Yeah. We've lost some old stuff too. 00:11:14 Well, and, and that's just it. And you know, as crop protection chemicals every 15 years are required to go back through the same regulatory, uh, 00:11:24 process as a new chemistry would. So they basically going back and, and starting over. And so that's where you see maybe some products that pass 00:11:32 20 years ago with new regulatory requirements, you know, uh, that sort of thing. Don't necessarily pass this type. Yeah. Yeah. 00:11:40 And so that, that's when we tend to loosely And so then it becomes, you know, hey, um, it's, it's a high risk for us use maybe in this specific use 00:11:48 or specific crop over here. It's a higher risk than maybe if we use it here, we're gonna lose it over here and, and some of those things. 00:11:54 So, but we, we continue to, uh, to manage that and work with our regulatory agencies to, uh, make sure that we continue to, uh, have as many 00:12:05 of those tools available for growers as we can. What do you think as the farmer, um, do you, do you think that we're lacking tools now? 00:12:15 Because you'd have a hard time when you'd have a hard time complaining when yields are as good as they are. 00:12:21 Mm-hmm. And we are completely outta surplus. There's a reason why soybeans are below cost of production because we've got too many of them. 00:12:27 You can't really go and make a big, you can't pitch a b***h and say, huh, we don't have any tools. 00:12:33 Right. Here are the hoe and a horse trying to grow these crops. 'cause you're not. So maybe innovation is adequate. 00:12:40 I I really believe innovation is adequate. I believe we need to do a better job as farmers. I believe we rely too much on the technology. Yeah. 00:12:47 And we don't check all the boxes. Well, glyphosate is the one that, obviously the big innovation 00:12:52 of genetically engineered soybeans as an example. Oh God. We used to plow disk, cultivate plant, uh, cultivate through the rows a couple of times, spray 'em, 00:13:01 have kids out there walking with, uh, weed wet, you know, weed hose, drill 'em, spray 'em. 00:13:07 Done. So that one made it very easy. It did. And it also made it so that we didn't have to be very good at what we do. Exactly. 00:13:13 You remember my childhood? That one worries me a little though. Yeah. But from an innovation 00:13:18 perspective, that one worries me a little. 'cause if, where I see a gap coming is in our post herbicide applications, we're lacking options there. 00:13:25 And a lot of the innovative things that are kind of in the pipelines that we hear about are all pre residual herbicides. 00:13:31 What are we gonna do in posts in five, 10 years from now? And we've got very few options right now. 00:13:36 It is going down. You correct. We, we, we've tried to make everything so easy and so simple. 00:13:42 And we continue that, that, that tends to be the attraction is they're gonna, we're gonna come with this. 00:13:48 It's gonna make it more simple. And, and as I look back on this, that's probably the one biggest mistake we make is making it simple. 00:13:59 Because that's, as Kelly alluded to yet, Roundup ready beans, LibertyLink corn. I'm one That, by the way, 00:14:05 I'm the one that brought the roundup ready beans. Then we, then we went to Roundup ready Corn. I'd like a little credit, 00:14:09 Gail, by the way, you know how I'm gonna start calling the Adam Burn School of complimenting. 00:14:14 I don't have as many years of experience as Gail. Hey, hey, hey Kelly. I don't have as many examples of making stupid decisions as you, 00:14:24 so could you please expand on that? Well, but I, I always say, you know, the big, the biggest thing that happened, roundup ready soybeans, 00:14:32 the worst thing that happened was Roundup ready corn. Mm-hmm. Because it simplified. Mm-hmm. And, and you, you see that continued as we go forward here. 00:14:38 You're seeing companies come with, you know, two 40 soybeans. Well now we wanna take it to corn. 00:14:45 We're we're seeing, um, the, you know, some of the newer technologies that haven't even released yet where you're seeing, you know, 00:14:51 metri tolerant things are coming. You know, that's the next new traits they're gonna stack them in. Well, what's that 00:14:56 Mean? What's Metri? Well, Metri is a corn herbicide. Mm-hmm. Um, commonly known for a lot of years. 00:15:01 Sold as, sold as Callisto. And it's been traditionally a corn herbicide. Yep. In a couple years. You're gonna see that in soybeans, which, 00:15:08 well, that will have some benefits where you can, you know, not worry about maybe carry over 00:15:13 or something like that outta corn. But what that's gonna do is now let you use the same herbicide in corn and soybeans. 00:15:19 Well, the biggest issue we have with weed resistance is selection pressure. Exactly. We're using too much 00:15:23 of the same thing on everything. Exactly. And that's where it goes back to simplicity. Yeah. That's really simple. Until it doesn't work. 00:15:29 All right. So the exact same thing has happened and I, I pointed this out to one of my ag audience. I said they were worried about losing glyphosate. 00:15:36 And I said, I remember when the poultry people lamented, screamed, cried bloody murder claimed you're gonna put us 00:15:42 out business if you take tetracycline away from us. 'cause for years you put tetra tetracycline in the drip lines in the poultry barn. 00:15:48 It's an antibiotic. And it made 'em grow a little faster and it prevented disease until it didn't. 00:15:53 Because just like everything, you hit the easy button so many times. Mm-hmm. You've overused tetracycline to the point 00:15:58 where the antibiotic has absolutely zero effect. And we've made an entire bacterial world resistant to tetracycline. 00:16:08 I'm not sure that it's a bad thing that some of these things end up do getting taken away from us because it didn't really hurt the poultry thing. 00:16:13 In fact, it made it better. Not that I'm asking for regulation, but sometimes taking tools away from us forces us to get more innovative That, that that's right. 00:16:21 But not just with new chemicals. Just about why the hell we use this chemical anyhow. We didn't need it. We didn't grow birds without all this. 00:16:27 Yeah. Well it's because we wanna hit the easy button and when we're forced to go do a better job or a more complete job, we will figure it out. 00:16:33 Yeah. And it comes back to 'cause we'll get paid To do so. Yeah. Farmers are tremendously innovative. Yes. 00:16:39 But if, if sometimes they gotta be forced Into the innovation. Forced into the innovation a little bit. 00:16:45 And then, uh, and then like I said, we'll, we'll figure it out. It's just human nature. Yes. Mm-hmm. 00:16:49 Yeah. So what do you think we need? Because you know what, I'll give you a throw example. The person that is sitting down 00:16:54 to their dinner table in suburban USA, uh, sees a news item that says, yep, 00:17:00 they're taking these chemicals away from farm. Like, good, there's too many che they don't have a problem with the regulation aspect. 00:17:06 They don't have a problem with you being forced to get more innovative. They're not going to the store. 00:17:10 Food's a little high right now, but it's not bare shelves. And they'd be happy with you having to innovate. 00:17:17 And the crop protection companies saying, I guess we can't rule out all these, uh, chemistries. I don't think the consumer has a problem with this. 00:17:25 So in other words, I don't see that this gets better. I don't see there being a big outcry that FMC has to come up with 10 new chemicals between now 00:17:34 and, you know, the next 10 years. I don't see anybody saying that. I agree. The consumer does not want more chemicals. No. 00:17:40 The consumer wants less. The regulatory will get worse. Not better. So does fmc uh, what's FMC going? Is FMC still around 20 years from now? 00:17:47 Absolutely. Um, we've, uh, we've actually got a really, uh, exciting pipeline that we're working on. Um, you know, we've got a, we, 00:17:57 we've announced this in the last year or so, but we've got the, the first new complete new mode of action herbicide coming out in rice in the next year 00:18:06 or two, depending upon less harsh chemistry. It's, it's different chemistry again. It's very, but and, and that's what you see out of, out 00:18:13 of the newer stuff. When we developed chemistry 40 years ago, the glyphosates two, four Ds, 00:18:20 like they were very broad spectrum man. You used pounds of that and you could control a lot of stuff. 00:18:24 The newer stuff is very specific and it's because it has to meet so many regulatory Yeah. Hurdles and that sort of stuff. 00:18:32 And so it, it tends to narrow down, but it has a very, uh, very specific use. This one happens to be really active on a lot of 00:18:39 what we call re a lot of the resistant grass species that rice growers like Matt and those guys are really fighting. 00:18:45 Mm-hmm. I know he's really excited about seeing it come. We're hoping to have it sometime in 26, 00:18:51 but it might not be till 20 to 27. We got that. We got a new, um, corn and soybean herbicide coming 00:18:57 behind that in a couple of years. It's, it's unique in that it's a single, it's the first single active ingredient 00:19:06 that is two sites of action. So it works on two different parts of the plant from a single ai. 00:19:11 That's, that's the first time in history, something like that. So we're, we're really excited about the 00:19:15 innovation that's going on. But you know, these, these chemistries were discovered in the mid, mid 20 teens. 00:19:23 Mm-hmm. And it's gonna be late 2020s before we're able to get those in the hands because of the amount of research and the, the dollars 00:19:31 and the regulatory environment to get 'em there. Are you exci? Okay. You're, you're, you're, you probably have a few years in the game. 00:19:38 Are you excited about this? I think you are because you're not the easy button type and you're like, yeah, I'll just make us farm better. 00:19:44 But there's also a certain concern you could see if you're an agricultural person. Like hell, they're taking this tool away from me. 00:19:50 They're taking this away from me. They're taking this away from me. How am I supposed to do my job? 00:19:54 Uh, you know, I working with extreme ag and trying to manage intensively the way we do and things like that. 00:20:00 Um, you know, the, the herd, if that's what you wanna call it, the, you know, the, the, your not late adopters, 00:20:07 but your average adopters, if you look at that bell curve, uh, those people will be upset about it. 00:20:12 Me being an early adopter, I'm not upset about it. And I welcome the challenge because I think it gives me an economic, uh, advantage. 00:20:19 I, I, I think it's fine. I think you, anytime, anytime you do something that's hard, look at the value that's in that 00:20:25 because not very many people are gonna do it. So if the tools are to, if there's less innovation because there's less potential billions of dollars 00:20:33 to sell it and then there's the regulatory environment, it does favor the producer that is outside the box thinker mm-hmm. 00:20:41 That says, Hey, you know what? Great. I've already cut back on this and I already use less of this. 00:20:45 And so fine, let, let, let regulation come, which is not usual. A lot of established players welcome regulation. 00:20:53 'cause they can adapt to it easier. A big bank likes regulation more than a small bank because they've already got three compliance officers. 00:21:01 Right. That's right. So a big pharma, like you should, the big bank is gonna buy the small bank when more regulators because when they 00:21:06 can't afford the cost of regulation. There you go. And you're not going with that. You're going with, I'm a bigger player. 00:21:10 I farm, you know, quite a few acres, but that's fine. Let the regulation come because I'm already cutting back and not using the stuff that's getting regulated anyhow. 00:21:17 That's right. I, I believe the harder something is to figure out the more value there is in doing that and the less people will figure it out. 00:21:24 Right. 'cause they'll just go with what's use. Yes. I think the more progressive approach, the more holistic approach mm-hmm. 00:21:29 Maybe harder, but I think in the long run, maybe be more profitable too. I think you learn more about your crop, 00:21:34 you learn more about your land, you come up with opportunities to, that you weren't thinking about 'cause you're using that easy button. 00:21:40 I I truly believe that if we find a nutritional balance in our soil mm-hmm. We control becomes easier and the crop peel gets up. Yeah. 00:21:49 Thinking about all those sorts of things from nutritional balance and then how that affects cover crop growth 00:21:55 and all those things we figured out over the last 10 years and, and uh, and all the research that's going into that. 00:22:01 Wow. Having something growing out there suppresses the weeds. We've known about that for 40 years, 00:22:07 but we just kind of got away from it's because of it, because of the easy Button. That's the art of 00:22:11 farming that we've lost. That's exactly what I mean. Yeah. And then that's right. And then those things contribute to better plant health, 00:22:15 less plant stress, which leads to better yield or better disease management opportunities. There's all kinds of things that they interplay. Exactly. 00:22:22 Alright. A Michigan state guy, I'm gonna go around the table starting with him not giving the Adam burn 00:22:29 TI swear to God this is minute new. This is in my new vernacular. Hey, I don't have as much experience 00:22:34 as people one day hit me in the face because I'm an a-hole as you do. So. Uh, so my job review is gonna be interesting. 00:22:44 I don't have as much experience obviously as that old man over there that hired me. What's the next big innovation in crop protection? 00:22:50 I got my prediction. So I'm gonna go around, I'm last, next innovation crop protection. You wanna think about it? What's the next big innovation? 00:22:56 Crop protection. Uh, the, the new chemistries he's coming out that are more selective uhhuh. 00:23:00 You know, like it won't be such broad spectrum. It'll be, uh, more site specific. So one of them of course was less rate, 00:23:07 but that's just more concentrated. I mean that was even when I was an Yeah. Intern 1991, it was, oh, 00:23:12 we're only putting three ounces out. Well instead of, you know, 50 ounces of the other stuff. Well it doesn't mean that somehow 00:23:17 we're better environmentally. It means it's a hell of a lot more of a potent chemical. I mean really it's more concentrated. Yeah. 00:23:22 Was that that big of an innovation? I don't know. What's the next big innovation? He says more selectivity. Yeah, that's good. Um, just taken from 00:23:29 what we learned in the past and, and, um, and utilizing that to keep our new stuff viable. Um, you know, the, one 00:23:37 of the things I'll talk about in, in chronic change, Like an additive. Like we, we've come up with a new, uh, additive 00:23:42 that goes into a 40-year-old chemical and it changes it exponentially Potentially. Yeah. 00:23:47 Some of those things or just understanding where the, the, the potential pitfalls are in chemistry development mm-hmm. 00:23:55 And chemistry utilization in the market and protecting from that. First thing I'll say is, is for the most part, I don't know 00:24:01 that you'll see a lot of standalone chemistries coming to the marketplace and much in the future as you did in the past. 00:24:07 Why? Because the minute you put selection pressure on from, from specific ais, what do you do? 00:24:13 You derive resistance. Yep. You now need to, how do you protect that? Use multiple modes of action. 00:24:18 If you do that from the start, instead of doing it, what after you got a problem, you, you can prolong the ability 00:24:26 of those chemistries to be a viable tool for decades longer versus Yeah. In five years out, are you ready for 00:24:32 Your, what's the best innovation? Yeah. I'm not convinced one of the new innovations might come along the lines of finding new ways to utilize some 00:24:38 of the tools we have already too. Because I think there are tools that we have at our disposal we get used 00:24:42 to using in certain ways, but there are new, there are opportunities perhaps to use them. Well where you going with Gail's thing? 00:24:47 We own with, are we gonna take Ozempic and turn it into the crop protection products? No. Make our crops thinner. 00:24:54 Well, you know, I think of, you know, in FMC we have a fungicide we use in a different way than we did before. 00:24:59 We, it's, and that plant fungicide where we're used to foliar fungicide. So there are different ways to use tools that we have, 00:25:05 whether it's crop protection tools or nutrient balance or so on that we could use to in refine what we're doing. We 00:25:13 May have the ability in the future to, um, go into plants and, and, um, and reverse resistance mm-hmm. 00:25:21 Where we can add something to it that makes it, we're doing, we're seeing this a little bit in, in, uh, in, 00:25:26 in insects. So this is one Yeah. This Is where I was population and you can go back and, and make stuff old and didn't work new again. Where I was 00:25:34 Gonna go with innovation is we got genetically engineered crops 30 years ago. 00:25:39 Yeah. See soybeans the first 1 96. Really? Right. And they could, you can make a soybeans, you can spray it with glyphosate and boom, it kills all the weeds. 00:25:46 It doesn't kill the soybeans. Perfect. Yeah. Wonderful. That worked. What about genetically engineered crops that can do like alfalfa 00:25:54 after it's in there for a year suppresses other vegetation from growth with whatever that chemical is or whatever. 00:26:01 Why is that not the next innovation where it's combine where it no offense to FMC or any other company negates the need for herbicide 00:26:08 because the plant just make the plant itself resists wheat? Is that the next innovation 00:26:16 That I'll never say never. No. Yeah. Well there's some trees that do it. There's some trees that do it to put Right. 00:26:21 Does it put off, put off some sort of Effect. And that's, there are a number of crops, number of plants 00:26:26 that have a lelo pack of what, what Allopathy basically means. One plant suppresses the growth 00:26:33 or the viability of competing plants. So you to mention rye, you know, there's other things that have done that. 00:26:39 And so if we can figure out how to harness that and make a crop, actually produce that and uh, and do that in soil. 00:26:47 Because the problem is if you just have, like, like you said, if you have a crop that does like rye does it and you plant something behind it, 00:26:54 you're struggling to get that next crop going. Mm-hmm. Because of that. So you're you're trying to do that. You're trying to get it to selectively Yeah. 00:27:01 Effectively selectively suppress weeds that mm-hmm. Plants that you don't want without suppressing the crop Yeah. That you do want. So, 00:27:08 So my innovative idea is, is probably there. It's very possible. Yeah. I like it. What else? What else did I not know about innovation? 00:27:15 I I think that it's, I think it's not quite an embarrassment, but I think that the promise that we may have had when I'm at Purdue University in 1991 00:27:23 about this future and all this, I mean, I don't know, we're supposed to be like Jetson's flying around in cars right now. 00:27:29 And, and instead we got people that, uh, don't know how to, the guy's, a producer of this show can't get from here 00:27:33 to my house without his phone telling 'em how to do it. I don't think there as advance as we should. That's actually worse than when we were in college. Right. 00:27:39 I mean, we used to be able to read maps and go wherever we wanted. I'm just not sure. I'm just not sure that the promise, uh, 00:27:44 has lived up to what we we're. I I don't think it's quite there. I'm, I'm a little disappointed to be honest with you. 00:27:48 Yeah. I don't think there's as much innovation as innovation in, uh, mechanical Yes. Innovation maybe in seed. Yes. 00:27:54 Um, the, the stuff that's in our hands. Yes. The stuff that's in your tractor cab. Yes. I'm not sure it's there on crop protection. 00:28:01 We've, uh, the, it, there's a, there's a tremendous amount of stuff on the, on the crop crop protect, 00:28:07 crop protection side. Sorry. And it just, it doesn't look sometimes as flashy maybe as, as some 00:28:15 of those other things that are happening. But, um, you know, there's, there's a lot going on in the background. 00:28:21 Like I said, there were for a lot of years there, everybody thought, you know, everybody was putting all their investment 00:28:26 in the seed side mm-hmm. And, and that side of stuff. And until we learn that, okay, that's great. But unless we have new chemistries 00:28:35 to go along with some of that stuff. Yeah. The viability of those things is make The money, the money always kind of goes, 00:28:40 it seems like the money flows more into one little category, then it moves to the next, then it moves to the next. 00:28:44 And that's where maybe we're just in a cold cycle on crop protection. Maybe that's the next turn coming up is crop protection. 00:28:50 Yeah. Like we went to sea and then we went to technology on the this and the stuff in the computer and all that. 00:28:55 Yeah. Adam, what do you think? I think it's gonna cycle back for sure. I think, I think demand's gonna force it too. 00:29:01 I think with weed control, we're gonna be pushed in that direction. I mean there, like you said, 00:29:05 there are new things in the background coming. I mean, there are, and we're FMCs not the only company that's doing these development things. 00:29:10 There's lots of things that we don't even hear about yet that are being developed in the background, 00:29:15 but it's a slow process. And, you know, getting that, that new iPhone kind of technology at your disposal right away is not, not easy. 00:29:23 And you're not depressed and you're not disappointed and you don't think, oh gosh, we're screwed because you think it's, it's all fine. 00:29:27 I think, I think innovation is adequate. Obviously. Look at the surpluses. I absolutely do. I think innovation is fine. 00:29:33 Uh, but I think we rely too much on it. Yeah. You, you talked about Google maps and you talked about all that. 00:29:38 There's across many sectors of our lives, right? We have come to, uh, rely on it too heavily. Mm-hmm. Last word, Gail. Um, you know, it, it takes time, 00:29:48 um, and, and, uh, for innovation and a lot of companies are challenged to, you've gotta be able to predict what's the world gonna look 00:29:56 like in 20 years and what, what am I working on now that I'm gonna be able to potentially have in that market in 20 years? 00:30:04 Because like I said, an innovation takes time. It's not about today, it's not about tomorrow, it's not about next year. 00:30:10 It's, it's trying to figure out what, what can I, what's the market going to need from an FMC or any of the crop protection companies 20 years from now 00:30:19 that I need to be focused on? And that, that is probably the biggest challenge for companies is to, uh, to predict that future. 00:30:26 Because if you predict wrong and you invest in the wrong area, And I've got my prediction, Gail, 00:30:31 and I'm gonna make it another episode, because we think forever that the thing that we need 20 years from now is more. 00:30:36 And I'm gonna say we've already got plenty. So I think that's my prediction. What do you think about that? His name's Gail 00:30:41 Stratman with FMC. They're the sponsor of this show. We really appreciate you pulling up a chair and joining us here at the Greenery FMC 00:30:47 business partner here at Extreme Ag. We love 'em. If you wanna learn more about their lineup of products, where would they go? 00:30:52 Go to ag.fmc.com or we've got retailers around the countryside everywhere you go that, uh, are supporting FMC and, and have our product lineup. 00:31:00 His name's Gail Stratman. The website is ag do fmc.com. Joined by Extre Max Kelly Garrett always a regular here at the Granary. 00:31:07 I'm Dame Mason, our special guest coming down from Michigan. Adam Byrne, who I gotta say I'm not 00:31:13 as good at being passively aggressively insulting to people and passing it off as a compliment as you, there you go. 00:31:19 You're remarkable at that. Anyway, thanks for being here. Thanks for being Adam. Thanks to FMC. Till next time. 00:31:24 Pass us on. Somebody can learn from it. Enjoy it. We got dozens and dozens of episodes of the greenery. We appreciate you, uh, joining us. 00:31:30 And also remember, you're always welcome here. So check out all the great stuff at Extreme Mag Farm or when you're at YouTube, subscribe to our YouTube channel. 00:31:37 Till next time, Damian Mason coming at you from De Farms 00:31:39.965 --> 00:31:40.165