Are We Rewarding the Wrong Things in Ag? | The Granary

00:00:00 Does agriculture hand out trophies for the wrong achievements? That's what we're talking about with my friends in the grain 00:00:07 Ring. You ready for a conversation with some real farmers about real issues? And the best part, you are invited. 00:00:13 Pour yourself a drink, grab a snack. Most importantly, pull up a chair. Welcome to the Grainery. Hey guys. 00:00:30 Alright guys. Uh, welcome to the Grainery. Um, as you'll notice here, Galen Beer is our guest. He's with Agro Liquid, the sponsor of this episode, 00:00:38 and several other episodes. We love our friends of Agro liquid fertility company. I got Kelly Garrett and I got Johnny Verell 00:00:43 and I've got these trophies that our friend Galen, last time he was here, commented a lot about my trophies. And you, you actually kind 00:00:51 of thought I was still a high school Harry, carrying on about it. And I said, actually, um, I mean, 00:00:56 I haven polished him in at least three weeks. So, man, I just want you to know how important they are to me. 00:01:00 But, um, uh, all, all gimmickry aside, and by the way, I was the champion dairy beef steer in 1982. That's brown Swiss steers. Really nice looking steer. 00:01:09 It really was. Uh, we butchered them. Anyway, we get excited in agriculture about high yields. 00:01:17 You go to these conferences, you got one cool, neat, wonderful. We give all sorts of trophies away 00:01:23 for how much yield you have. Where's the yield for ROI? Where's the yield for net worth? Where's the yield for, um, how much I've, uh, 00:01:32 grown my operation as a business instead of how many bushels I got? Yeah, so Damien, you are, 00:01:38 you do have your trophies out here, which would, you know, lead us to believe. Maybe you still live a little bit in the past, 00:01:44 but if you're going to talk about this in the context of farming, we probably need to get your past out of the way. 00:01:51 I would like to point out that in 1987, I got the most improved. You know, the thing about getting the most improved trophy, 00:01:56 it basically says last year you sucked. They don't get the most improved to the person that was already good. Right? Sell 00:02:02 'em. Try then Try. We'll get these off the table just because I want, and I, I mean, they probably won't be like any way in the 00:02:08 shot if I put 'em back here, will they? Maybe just like that. So they're kind of on display for afterwards. 00:02:14 I'm okay, there we go. Do we give away trophies for the wrong stuff? Yes. I mean, it is all about, you know, I've never once seen 00:02:21 businessman of the year farmer. I've seen most yield talk to me. I I do agree with what you're saying there. 00:02:28 All of the awards are for quantity. There should be awards for quality. Mm-hmm. Uh, the best quality corn, the best quality soybeans, 00:02:36 whatever that metric is decided to be. And of course, you know, a, a big pile of corn is a lot of fun when we talk about quantity. 00:02:42 But ROI is really what's important. Now, you're a business guy. Um, I think you do have trophies. I've been to your office. 00:02:50 I don't know that you, uh, I don't know that you let it impede your developments. You don't go around saying, Hey, look at this. 00:02:56 I got this award back in 2019. We awarding, are we awarding the wrong things? You can, I mean, if we're talking about yield contests, 00:03:03 we always talk about how high the yield was. We don't talk what it cost to get there. And I think that's what Kelly was alluding to. 00:03:08 I mean, things have changed so much in the last few years, especially since, you know, 00:03:12 I started networking with these guys. Extreme ag, you know, it, it really opened my eyes when you start looking at 00:03:16 what stuff's really cost it and how Kelly can do it for maybe so many less units of nitrogen than we can. 00:03:21 And you start thinking, well, can we do that? And so that's kinda where that starts opening up. And then, you know, some of the new competitions 00:03:28 or challenges that are out there where you do have competitions who can get a lower nitrogen use 00:03:32 and with a higher yield, that type thing. That's what I'm getting more interested in because at the end of the day, 00:03:37 we can't keep farming like we've been farming. Actually, that's the one I liked. You got an award and it was based on units of applied nitrogen. 00:03:45 When you're awarding less natural resource consumption and still retaining output, that's the stuff we should put trophies for. 00:03:53 Yeah, definitely. I do. I do think though that no, no matter where you're at in life, you're always trying to figure out 00:03:58 what is that, that pinnacle that you need to hit and you do gun for it. To Johnny's point, sometimes it's regardless of 00:04:04 how much money you invest. But I think what happens is sometimes you, you hit that pinnacle and you're like, well, I mean 00:04:12 that field's never gonna make any better than it did today. What's my next mm-hmm. You know, what's my next goal? 00:04:18 And so these guys are kind of pointing us in a direction that there is something else you can shoot for 00:04:24 besides 600 bushel to the acre corn. Can you do it and still turn a profit in the process? It's kinda like, uh, you know, what's the old thing, uh, 00:04:34 doing, doing wheelies on a tricycle? It looks neat, but what the hell has it actually accomplished? 00:04:39 You know, that kind of thing. It's kinda like, I think that also like, oh boy, you got 600 bushels of corn. It, you lost money doing so. 00:04:47 And but farm people tend to geek out over this. We are just a commodity classic. Look at the banners that are up on the, on the ceiling. 00:04:54 Did they say best ROI did they say, uh, contributed to net worth the most, uh, best balance sheet? It was high yield. High yield, high yield. 00:05:04 High yield. High yield. That's all it was. And, and those are big accomplishments. I mean, are some of these levels are doing, 00:05:09 I mean they're really, where I'm at is not achievable really, but it gives me goals. 00:05:13 And you can learn things that they're doing that you might can do that might not be the, the thousand dollars acre cost. 00:05:18 It might be a 10, 15, 20 thou or 10, 15, $20 acre cost that can get you up 10, 15 bushel too. Yeah. And I think, you know, 00:05:25 that's one thing we gotta look at where Kelly can reduce his nitrogen needs where he is. 00:05:29 I'm in, you know, he's what, five, 600 pounds of nitrogen, some acres available, maybe more. 00:05:34 I'm like negative 20 available, it seems like in our soil type. So we're not in the same playing field, 00:05:38 but we could still learn off each other. Well, and I, I, I think, you know, to your point there, you, you might not be able to do some of the yields 00:05:46 that are on those banners that commodity classic. But you do know if you hit a home run on a, a field because if you farmed it, you kind of know 00:05:54 what its potential is. Yeah. Then there's also gay, all joking aside about my high school hairiness and my old trophies, I think there's a real bad thing. 00:06:02 Uh, was it one of the famous athletes, I don't know, VIN Shaquille O'Neal talked about, uh, dad let him keep his trophies for one day and then went 00:06:09 and like put 'em away and said that was, that was the dish of his achievement that didn't, more ag people, 00:06:14 more people in general, whether they're an AG or not, should put away yesterday's trophies and say, okay, that was neat yesterday. Next. 00:06:20 I, I mean, to an extent I agree, like it was a good goal to hit that. But at the same time, if you're just gonna let 00:06:28 that be your shining moment, what are you gonna do for the rest of your career? And I think, I think that's the important thing is okay, 00:06:35 maybe if you ran a four minute mile, you'll never run it again. But what is the next thing that is I, you know, important 00:06:43 or that you can kind of shoot for if you grew 300 bushel the corn on 350 pounds of nitrogen. 00:06:49 Yeah, okay. The 350 bushels of corn is great. Can you do it on 200 Right. Pounds of ice? You continue it. So like you change the, you change your goal 00:06:57 Book, change the calculus, uh, and, and the what it takes. I focus on the mistakes that we made 00:07:02 or the things that I learned rather than the successes. So I guess that I would feel that we do put the trophy away right away 00:07:08 because our expectations are so high. I look at all the things that went wrong and let's try to correct 'em for next year. 00:07:14 Of course the weather's different next year. Yeah. We don't know that we'll replicate the yield, but we still know what we can improve upon the process. 00:07:20 Some of it is out of our hands. Those outta your hands. Uh, do you put away trophies after a while? Yeah. 00:07:25 I mean, sometimes if you don't, it'll hurt your feelings too. 'cause you can't hit those goals you hit before. 00:07:29 So, I mean, you gotta look at it. It's, it's not like if you hit 200 bushel corn this year, 2 50, 300, it doesn't always work that way. 00:07:36 Sometimes you'll hit a really good corn yield or any type of thing in life and the next time it's hard to get back to that level. 00:07:41 Some things change. You can't figure it out. And you'll spend three years trying to figure out what in the world I've done, done wrong. What 00:07:46 Should we reward? Just ROI, I don't know. That sounds a little shallow, but it, but when we say, but it's a business. 00:07:52 What, what do you, what do you, what do you wish we award? I think you have to continue to award yield. 00:07:56 ROI is a different thing for many people. And it's uncomfortable to talk about. I don't, I think there's some confidential numbers there 00:08:02 that people don't want disclose. Well, Usually. 'cause there are various of it. 00:08:07 You might be right. Yes, you might Be right. You know how much money I spent to not make any money. 00:08:11 I hesitate. I spent a whole bunch of money to not make any Money. I hesitate to say 00:08:14 this because I we did do very well this year. But I think the yield relative to the inputs that you put in, uh, should be of more importance. 00:08:22 You know, it's, it's Class J in the NCGA contest. Well that's The, is the low nitrogen. 00:08:27 You talk about the infinite game. That's the long term challenge is con you know, when we talk about the word sustainability, what's it mean? 00:08:32 Ask a hundred different customers what sustainability means. You get a hundred different answers. To me, it's using less 00:08:38 natural resource than your, you know, than you're creative. Right. I agree. And, and the reason is, is 00:08:44 because when you are looking at the yield relative to the nitrogen or relative to the inputs, there's a financial component in there. 00:08:51 We all know that it was done with less money, uh, without talking about the money. Yeah. And, and so I, I really think that that's important, 00:08:57 especially in our, uh, regenerative sustainable environment that we're in today. So I think Damien, you kind of hit on it. 00:09:04 There is, it's, it may be that that thing that you can do every year is maximize your resources. Yeah. It's resource utilization every year. 00:09:13 To Kelly's point is different. He doesn't know what the weather's gonna be like this year, but can he make the most of the resources Sure. 00:09:21 For the hand that he was dealt. And that trophy is a trophy that you should be gunning for every year. There's 00:09:27 No question. Because it's really then about reduction. A reduction of our footprint on the earth. It's reduction of the expense. 00:09:33 It's a reduction of everything that could be bad and a and an increase in the other stuff that is good yield. And I think just like they're saying, 00:09:39 we're all focusing on yield. And there's a lot of reasons we're doing it because we're trying to also see what we can do 00:09:43 to improve our farm average. But at the end of the day, if we win a yield contest, that's not as as important as an RROI across the whole farm. 00:09:51 And so, like a lot of times we'll do things in these yield contests to try to push 00:09:54 and we know well we can make 300 bushel corn or whatever, and this is what we did to do that. 00:09:58 Well, if we can figure out how to replicate that in a cost effective way and get that ROI up on a thousand acres of corn, 00:10:04 not two acres, that's Yeah. That's really the What can you scale? That's right. Yeah. That's how you can scale it out and Yeah. 00:10:10 You know, and I think as you get older, you know, it seems like how hard I used to push for the high yield. I still push for it now, but things change over time too. 00:10:18 And now you start thinking about, you know, where can I save money and still keep that yield up In 20 20, 20 21, 20 19, 00:10:26 I was always pushing for high yield. Mm-hmm. And I wanted to be the next person to raise 400 bushel corn in Iowa 00:10:31 after Francis Childs, uh, in 21 we accomplished 3 88. And I was proud of that, you know, but boy, I really wanted to break down 400 this year. 00:10:38 There was another family in Iowa that made 4 0 5. Mm-hmm. And so I don't have the third highest yield in Iowa anymore. 00:10:43 Now I have the fifth highest because I think they made 3 93 and 4 0 5. Uh, really happy for them. Mm-hmm. 00:10:49 But, uh, uh, my, my prerogative or my has has changed us a little bit. I want to do it by scaling back. 00:10:56 I, I like the class JI really want to see what I can do, um, in the ROI area, in the low nitrogen area, things like that. 00:11:03 Yeah. Because those are the research areas that we take to the rest of the farm and scale up. Like John said, the NCGA contest acres are research 00:11:11 acres for us. That's how you look at it Too. Yeah. 'cause we're not just doing this one yield contest. We usually have six, seven different ones 00:11:18 and we're trying different things on different soil types. 'cause it doesn't always work the same. The plaque, the 00:11:23 Plaque or not plaque is obviously not your objective. It's the learning. Yeah. And it's a lot of work when you start doing these 00:11:29 and you make multiple applications in these areas. And sometimes when you do all these extra applications, it decreases your yield. 00:11:34 'cause you get things out of balance. And that's one thing I think we've all kind of realized the last few years. 00:11:38 It's more, more nitrogen does not equal more yield almost. This becomes an antagonistic situation. Right. 00:11:43 I put so much crap out here that instead of it having the, uh, you know, exponential effect, it had the antagonist. 00:11:48 But, but by doing that in these higher years we're trying to do this, that's when we finally, it's an aha moment. 00:11:53 We say, man, putting out 400 units of nitrogen and only making 250, 300 bushel. What caused that? Yeah. 00:11:59 And that's when we start realizing we're doing this on the whole farm. We're putting out too much nitrogen on all the acres. 00:12:03 We might not be putting out 400 units, but even at 300 or two 50, whatever we're putting out, it's still too much. And we start getting down from a 1.2, you know, bushel 00:12:11 of nitrogen or bushel corn per nitrogen. And now we're down to like 0.7, 0.6 going down that way. That's, that's what we're learning. 00:12:18 And it's from these, in my opinion, from these yield competitions where we're realizing it's not nitrogen, 00:12:23 it's just driving the yield all the way across the borders. We've changed so much in the last couple three years. 00:12:28 Uh, you know, Evans and Win Grove and I have started working with Clinton, Luke and started working with Jared Cook 00:12:33 and then comes along calibrated agronomy and now we use the SAP test. Uh, and that technology. 00:12:39 And I feel like we've almost started over and the on-farm average has gone up. The use of fertility has gone down, 00:12:45 which has increased the profitability. But I haven't made the incredibly high yield in those special dirt areas like we did before. 00:12:54 And I think it's 'cause we're, uh, reinventing the wheel on our farm a little bit. Learning how to work in tune with Mother Nature. 00:13:00 I believe that we, I believe, and I hope that we'll get back there, but we haven't yet. Would 00:13:03 You be doing this whether there was the award or not? Would you be doing these experiments if there was a war or not? 00:13:07 You would be probably, you're doing field days for extreme Ag, et cetera. Yeah. 00:13:11 Yes, I would now, but originally, uh, in 2016 when we first entered the contest, it Was, it because Wanted was, 00:13:18 Well, it was because net of him encouraged me to do so. I had ne I had never entered it until then. Yeah. Kurt Graham net of him, Jim had beach. 00:13:25 They all, Tim Wolf, they all pushed me to enter that because they wanted to promote Will Offset. They all pushed me to enter that 00:13:31 because they wanted to promote Netafim in Iowa. I never had been exposed to anything like the Commodity Classic 00:13:36 or the, uh, NCGA contest, anything like that. I found it to be a waste of time. But then after we started to do it and then the research 00:13:42 and the learning came in, then, uh, it was A lot of fun. It became cocaine. Yes. 00:13:48 It became cocaine and it was so much fun. And now our expectations are so high. I tell my sons, I'm like, 00:13:52 we've taken all the fun out of this. Yeah. We're trying to play a round of golf and put a hole in one on all 18 holes. I 00:13:57 Don't know if we're supposed to reference cocaine in the family show. Like, I mean it's just, I I'm, 00:14:02 I'm I only know it's addictive from what you've told me, David. That's exactly right. That's exactly. 00:14:06 Well, because I, you have a trophy for, so I've been in Show v the best trophy I ever got was in 1974. 00:14:12 I won the Tricycle race downtown Huntington during heritage days. Do wheelies, right? No, I got a kid that was, 00:14:17 I was in the heat and a kid started to pass me. So I erected him and I learned something really valuable because you talk about learning from these competitions, 00:14:24 I learned that most people don't like getting injured. And if you have the threat of injury, you can win. So I learned if you can just always have people scared 00:14:32 of you, it usually helps. It's a competitive b***h. I've stayed nuts since then. I mean, it was really the trophy in 74 that, that was 00:14:37 The coming out Set me on this path of being kind of nuts. No one messes with you now. 00:14:42 They saw the tricycle race except for Will who calls me routinely to tell me I'm a husband. Excited from that. Do you have any trophies for agriculture? 00:14:52 No, I don't really. I, I, I mean, I think the thing that I just shoot for, I've, I'm not really a trophy guy, so I just would rather 00:15:02 be able to walk out in that field and evaluate, Hey, are we doing the best with everything that we put out? You 00:15:09 Give yourself the warden, you look at your checkbook, you look at your checkbook and say, I I gave myself an award this year because 00:15:14 I I I have patted myself on the back. Well, You know what? Honestly, I think the award is if you can stay in this 00:15:21 business, which is obviously consolidating has been for a hundred years. We've less farms today than there were fewer farms today 00:15:28 than there were yesterday. Fewer farmers. If you can stay in this business and stay solvent, that deserves a trophy. 00:15:34 Honestly. De definitely. And you know, it's interesting because we've talked about 400 bushel, the acre corn and 600 bushel. 00:15:42 You love the area that I live in. You always talk glowingly about the Oklahoma panhandle in Guyman, Oklahoma and you know, 00:15:49 There's, there's one tree in the entire panhandle And you can grow some good corn out there. There's some guys that are hitting 00:15:56 that 300 bushel to the acre mark. But what what's interesting is if you can grow, grow dry land corn Yep. 00:16:02 And hit a hundred bushel to the acre, if you got on the combine with that guy growing a hundred bushels, 00:16:07 the acre dry land corn on 15 inches of rain, the grin will be exactly the same as someone at 300 bushels acre. 00:16:15 Because it's relative to Are you doing the best with what he's got? He's Got a big ROI. Yeah. 00:16:19 Yeah, he does. Yeah. Yeah. Right. And also the achievement, the, the achievement is as great 00:16:25 because you're doing this against some pretty stout, um, challenges. Would, would a hundred bushel dry land be as a big ROI 00:16:34 as 300 bushel irrigated? It, it would probably be better net income to the farm. It won't be better. Uh, net profit on an acre of dry land. 00:16:46 But because you can farm so many more acres in that way and you invest so much less That's right. That at the end of the year, I mean, I know guys 00:16:55 that would give up irrigated to go acquire some more dry land if they're good at it. But then there's the guys that don't wanna give it up 00:17:03 because of the three, you know, they want the irrigated because of the 300 bushel per acre. But those guys that are good at dry land, 00:17:11 they no till they know how to eliminate mother nature a little bit by conserving moisture. 00:17:17 They're probably doing better over the long haul than a lot of the irrigated guys. 00:17:23 That irrigation is a nice security blanket. It's, but it's, it's an expensive blanket to have You Ever get an award? Your embarrassed 00:17:29 stuff, you're like, I didn't think this was that much of an achievement. I'm getting a couple of those where like, 00:17:33 they give you something like, well, Lori says you're not gonna like put that on the shelf. I said, no, no. 00:17:38 I I I don't think this's that big of a deal. I mean, do you ever get that? I mean, I don't know when I've gotten like that, 00:17:44 but I mean, I don't get a lot of awards outside of my little bit of industry I'm in. So, uh, you know, sometimes you try all year 00:17:51 and then you, you get disappointed and you're like, man, I came in third, or I came in second and I thought I had first this year. 00:17:57 And I mean, you just have to take it in stride and go on and try again the next year. But I mean, at the end of the day, it, 00:18:03 he's at 15 inches of rainfall. We're at 45 to 50 inches. Mm-hmm. And we can still make a hundred bushel corn if it's 00:18:09 the wrong weather in August. Mm July. Mm-hmm. And so, And you're not smiling on your combine? No, because we Thought guy in my area is 00:18:17 So where, I guess where I was going that whatever the word is, it depends on where you live. 00:18:21 I mean, that's where I was gonna go to. If he can make a hundred bushel dry land corn, that's probably a record setter. 00:18:25 Yeah. In certain parts Of, it's also God's way of saying you shouldn't try and grow corn in the panhandle. 00:18:31 I mean, there is that angle on it. It's your last step before moving to California One awards We're talking about. 00:18:38 Is there any other award we should be giving in this industry? Is there another thing that we're I'm not thinking of 00:18:42 that we should, I gotta say I, I think a person that can make it in this business with low margins and the historical challenge that we've had. 00:18:48 I think that person deserves some kind of a plaque. Um, you know, I like the innovation. I love, I love anything that's innovation. 00:18:54 We've done episodes with Jason Mock who's doing some out, out pretty shake the foundations kinda stuff that, uh, 00:19:01 the neighbors drive by and judge. He goes right out there and does it anyhow. And also goes around 00:19:05 and tells people about what he's learned. I think that that guy deserves a plaque for that. You deserve a plaque for all the, some 00:19:12 of the outlandish things that you do. Not most, some, some of the outlandish things you do. I just do the things that I do that are 00:19:19 outside the box to try to learn. I, I don't think if we don't do something that's not outside the box or not extreme, you're not gonna learn. 00:19:25 We can't go going from 120,000 population soybeans to 115. You're not gonna learn much. Yeah. You have to go to 30. 00:19:33 Yeah. And you did learn. Yes. And you learned also don't ever do anything that makes the crop look this bad across 00:19:38 from my dad's house. 'cause if you learn about it every day of that growing season. Yep. Yes. What awards would you given? 00:19:43 Is there anything I'm not thinking of Galen. Well, I, I think, you know, there will be new awards that emerge. 00:19:48 I think, uh, what Kelly and Johnny have described a little bit is kind of what, uh, we call it aqui. 00:19:55 That art of refinement. Mm. You know, you see what the max you can do is mm-hmm. Now you start refining how you get to that point. 00:20:03 In other words, initially you might reach your big yield by over resourcing it, by throwing a lot of money at it. 00:20:10 But I think eventually you have to start going, okay, I made it, but can I make it on list? Did you say this is a real 00:20:15 award or it just one you proposed? That's one I proposed Art of refinement. Is that what We're calling it? Yes. Art of Art 00:20:20 Refinement Of refinement. Meaning how do you basically you're saying we've done this thing now let's do it better, better with less. Yeah. 00:20:29 I like that. But along what they just both said, you know, me and Kelly Love doing field days. 00:20:33 We love showcasing what's working on our farm or what's not working on our farm because we wanna see people get their yields up. 00:20:39 Yeah. Sometimes it's easier to get yields to 300 bushel across the farm more than it is 5, 4, 5, 600 bushel, whatever the corn yields are in areas 00:20:47 because it's not replicated. What we're doing a lot of times is replicated. 'cause we've learned what will work and what won't work 00:20:52 and how you can get that on a large scale too. That's, to me, that's a big reward because, I mean, I like showing, I like showing people 00:20:58 what we've learned, whether it's good or bad because we both have done things that did not work. You know, so we're 00:21:02 Gonna give him a trophy for the art of refinement. Art. I think art sounds like though that was just like, oh, this thing. 00:21:09 I, I mean it's almost like it's un The art of it. That's just innovation. 00:21:14 Innovation. It, it, it, I like the refinement part. I'm not sure I like the art part of it. Art makes it worth more Damien. Awesome. Yeah. 00:21:22 I mean if you include the word art in the award is more valuable right out of the gate. Is there, is there anything by the art refinement? 00:21:31 It's a pretty good thing. You know what he likes to things that have little catchy phrases. 00:21:35 I told him about intentional congruence four years ago. He drops it once a week. He drops it into something once a week. 00:21:40 You're gonna start using are refinement, aren't you? I'm gonna try, I'm gonna credit Galen every time. Yes. I will look for that footnote. 00:21:50 Are you harder on yourself? This is the last thing I think we do. Are you harder on yourself, um, on these things? 00:21:55 Because, uh, it's not about the plaque. It's that you expected more yourself. Because that's, I think where the, 00:22:01 it's not art of refinement. It's, uh, art of I'm never satisfied and I'm not sure that's a good thing. 00:22:07 I I think that can be a good thing though. Because if you're not always trying to push yourself, you know, you're never gonna get to that next level. 00:22:13 There's so many weather events we can't control. We can get all the rainfall we need. And then it's, you've been there, 00:22:18 it's 115 degrees on 4th of July. You know, heat index outside for a month. Mm-hmm. You can get all the moisture you can need 00:22:24 and the heat's still gonna zap that crop. So, I mean, at the end of the day, we're always trying to figure out ways to just take it to the next level. 00:22:30 And if everything lines up right, we'll be rewarded for that. It's a bad thing. Not being satisfied. 00:22:34 Mrs. Mason says sometimes that I'm not satisfied, you know, but I, well like I said, I, I told my sons, 00:22:39 we've taken all the fun out of this 'cause the expectations are always so lower, incredibly high. 00:22:44 And, you know, what's the past success we've had and things like that. The expectations are very, very high. 00:22:49 And, um, they're never met. Uh, that doesn't mean that you get disappointed or anything. You're just like, well we, we can do this better. 00:22:55 And you keep the infinite game. Yeah. You keep trying to improve the process. And it Doesn't mean you, it doesn't mean you, 00:23:00 you know, not satisfied. Uh, you're, you're satisfied, but sure you can do better. So, I mean, there's that Right. 00:23:04 This is the right our refinements. That's pretty Good stuff. Not, yes. It's not a failure. I'm glad, I'm glad I brought that to the conversation. 00:23:10 It's one of those things that's gonna be in my, it's gonna be in my vernacular from this board. I do have one last trophy 00:23:15 I'd like to go ahead and share with you. I step off camera for a second and get this because it's just that important. 00:23:19 Um, this one's pretty big. This is, uh, I mean it's not only a huge trophy, it's just, look at what it's right there. 00:23:26 That, uh, that's for Damian Mason, the Wells County 2004 Farmer of the Year. Um, I gave that to myself. 00:23:35 Uh, Lori went to a trophy shop and uh, and her little nephew, Jules said, aunt Lori, can we buy this for Damien? 00:23:41 And she says, why? And it was the top of a former trophy and then probably from a tractor pole or something. 00:23:47 And it didn't have any plaque on it. And so this little boy gave to me, he said, 'cause Damien's a farmer. 00:23:51 And so he wanted to give us Uncle Damien. And then it didn't have a plaque on it. So I went to the trophy shop and I got his own plaque. 00:23:56 Put that on there. So I gave myself that. So you're asking everyone over a year if they're too hard on themselves. 00:24:02 Yeah. And you're the opposite. I gave myself, you're like, I didn't, but I got a trophy for it. 00:24:09 Awarded yourself a trophy. So he's Galen beer and he apparently judges other people's accomplishments very harshly. 00:24:18 He's gonna ad wrote liquid. If you wanna learn more about a fertility program that can help you, especially in tough economic times. 00:24:24 'cause you can be spoonfeeding that crop and you hear the guys talk about that a lot, go to Agri liquid.com. 00:24:29 Aggro liquid.com. They sponsored this episode and a bunch of other episodes. We're glad they're here. Check it out@agriliquid.com. 00:24:34 That's Johnny Verell. That's Kelly Garrett. And you know what we talked about? Agricultural award trophies, awards plaques 00:24:41 for the wrong accomplishments. And you heard it from these guys. What they think about that. The art of refinement. 00:24:46 Best term I've heard all day till next time. Cheers from the Grainery. Alright, that's fun. Now wait a minute. 00:24:51 You think it's, you think it's overbearing? I actually gave 00:24:53.285 --> 00:24:53.765