00:24 This episode of the Extreme Ag Show is presented by concept Agritech Cowboy is the game changer, getting it in 00:32 through the leaves and into the plant circulatory system. That's why this product is 00:37 so effective at delivering both calcium and boron to plants at critical times when they need it the most. 00:45 In the heart of the Iowa Corn Belt, besides farming 8,000 acres of row crops, Kelly Garrett also has a cattle operation 00:53 with a unique approach, with a dedicated group he refers to as his Seal Team six. 00:59 They're getting up early and getting it done every day. So I get up just after five every day, but it doesn't feel like work to me 01:07 because I love it so much. Oh yeah, boy. Our cow herd is mostly black cattle, mostly black cows mama cows, 01:17 and we have registered Angus bulls. The cattle are born and raised on our farm. We sell the steers weighing eight or 900 pounds. 01:25 We keep the heifers. It's a little bit of a value added project because the steers obviously will bring more in town 01:32 as an eight or 900 pound animal than the heifers will. So then we keep the heifers and we finish those to approximately 1,250 pounds. 01:42 We built a store, we opened on Labor Day 2022, and we process about 12 head a month. If you look at a steer that finishes at 15 01:56 or 1600 pounds, the diameter of the loin, you know, think about a ribeye and as a consumer, you know, most people want a 12 or 14 ounce steak. 02:05 I would say out of a 1600 pound calf, the diameter of the ribeye is so much bigger that you then end up cutting that steak thinner 02:12 and it's not as good as an of an eating experience. I would really like to finish the heifers at 12 or 1,250 pounds smaller diameter. 02:21 We cut the steaks an inch and a quarter thick. That's a beautiful steak because our perspective is ra making quality meat. 02:28 We will feed 'em a little bit longer to try to make 'em grade better. And I, I think it reflects in our product. 02:35 I come out here in the morning to check and make sure that these cows and calves are all right. There's about 18 pairs here. 02:40 We've got an electric fence that we put in here now with a rotational grazing. There's these theoretical effects to rotational grazing 02:47 where you intensive management makes the grass last longer. But this is a small pasture. 02:52 Uh, and we have about a cow per acre here and we got the cows fenced on the south half and then in a week or so we'll put 'em on the north half. 03:00 And you don't want to pasture the grass into the ground. You don't wanna let 'em clip it off very short. 03:05 Every blade of grass is basically a solar panel and every blade of grass is conducting photosynthesis, putting carbon into the earth, uh, for the exchange 03:14 with the microbial system, this is really healthy. You'll see the effects of the rotational grazing in just a couple dates and then we'll move them back to the other side 03:22 and that grass will recover. And it's just like a salad bar for humans. The cows think they're going on fresh grass 03:27 that they haven't crumpled over or, or the manure, things like that. It's just the next level of intensive management like 03:33 we're trying to do with our crops. There's a staff of about seven key employees that we have that I call Seal Team six 03:42 'cause they'll run through a brick wall for me and I will run through a brick wall for them. And so not only do I have my sons, 03:47 but I've got Seal team six and there's nothing we can't do. Never ceases to amaze me what we can accomplish. 03:59 Burn, burn sharp in our state. You have to take the ASFA for like it's testing for the military, like what your job would be 04:06 or I don't know. He got, uh, nuclear scientists or some nerd stuff and uh, they were like offering him scholarships 04:15 and like telling him where he could go. He could travel the world and do all these jobs and everything. 04:20 And he was like, no, I wanna go to Iowa State and get my four year degree and come home and farm. He, they looked at him like he going crazy. 04:26 They didn't get it. Like he just wanted to come home and farm. So Vern is like an old farmer name, 04:34 I guess old guy name from a young age. I had that personality just slow doing everything, really thinking things over, 04:40 never jumping right into something. And uh, so I got the name Vern when I was pretty young and that's what everybody knows me as. 04:46 A lot of people don't know my real name. Most people describe me as a 75-year-old farmer living in a 24-year-old. 04:52 Body. Cheese is the uh, baby of the family. He loves working with cattle. He loves being out there every day. 05:07 He takes after my dad, definitely he's extroverted, he wants to talk to anybody. He wants to have a good time and joke around. 05:14 I don't take it for granted that I get to work with my sons every day. My dad's always been my hero. 05:25 Just all the things he can do out here. He can talk to anybody and figure anything out and it's pretty special to get to work with him 05:32 and try to model what he's after. I love to go visit the city. I love going to New York City, love going to Chicago, 05:40 but that looks like a rat race to me. You know, living here, sitting out here. How many people can you see right now? 05:45 How many cars are driving by? You know, it's quiet. I wouldn't have it any other way. I was born to be here. Amino grow is an exciting new product put out 06:01 by concept Agritech. What we've seen is an increase in fruiting sites as well as branching. 06:07 And this has equated to yield Spot less. Introducing the cleanup for Tar Spot, gray leaf Spot, Southern Rust and more novel Next generation at Astria. 06:25 Fungicide from FMC broadens your spectrum and strengthens your residual foliar disease control. Protect your corn fields with a proprietary combination 06:33 of three modes of action. Visit your f fmc retailer or@astria.ag.fmc.com to clean up this season. Introducing dem CO's newest dual auger grain cart design 06:53 now equipped with the front folding auger and available in right side or left side unload options featuring Dem CO's quarter auger 07:01 design for optimal visibility with a 22 inch vertical auger unload at speeds of 600 bushels per minute. 07:09 Demco outpace harvest time every time. Some farmers I know swear by a name say they never operate anything else. 07:22 Well, here are a few names for my Fent 900 tractor fuel saver time maximizer game changer. 07:35 I like those names. BioHealth is a product by concept Agritech made up of a consortium of beneficial biology 07:48 that actually colonized the plant and boost the plant's immune system from the inside. It's planting season a stressful time for any farmer. 08:02 After preparing all winter, Kevin Matthews is finally ready to put seed in the ground. 08:07 Unfortunately, his equipment is not on the same page, The inverse system is not working. It just, uh, worked fine then, uh, 08:19 shut it down the next day. It ain't started back and so we're trying to figure out what's going on. 08:26 Smell something burning. If we see smoke, we'll know where to look. We've troubleshoot it down to where now we know 08:43 that the motor is not running but there's power going to it. So think it might be bad. 08:50 We got an extra one we're gonna put on here and see if that fixes the problem. So what happened here is it's a dual pump system. 08:59 One pump had apparently been out but we're running such a low rate at four gallons an acre. It really didn't need both pumps running 09:07 and we did not know one of them was out. And actually the top pump when we did our winter maintenance, I, I personally laid my hand on it 09:19 and it was running fine. So I never thought nothing about it. But we're learning now that these pumps need 09:25 to be replaced about every five years or four, four years to five years and I was not aware of that. 09:32 But you live and learn. We're about 10% right now. Not quite 10% on planting. That's pretty far behind for us. 09:48 Typically we're going to be a lot further down the road and there's my problem. All that rust right there, that's really bad. 10:01 That's why this motor's not running. So yeah, we'll do a little motor repair here in the field. I think I can clean this thing up. 10:11 Hard to believe you farm with electronic engineering degree and we're out here in the middle of a corn 10:17 field rebuilding electric motor. But you gotta do what you gotta do to keep his stuff going With the pump fixed. 10:25 Kevin still can't catch a break. A fertilizer supply hose burst, spewing fertilizer all over his planter. 10:33 Well that's a lot of fun but I can fix it in a few minutes and get back to going just another day. 10:41 Some a gun. So you can see each one of these sensors here got sensors on the downpour sensors all the way up. 10:51 All these LED lights. I was really worried, but it looks like I got pressure on my airbags, so hopefully they're okay, 11:01 but I don't want to take a chance anywhere. I think I might have a little fertilizer. I'm gonna rinse it off because that stuff's very corrosion. 11:12 There shouldn't be any pressure on it 'cause there's my hole. You can see where it's split right there. 11:18 Can't get upset though because it could be something major to pick. See, sometimes we gotta improvise 'cause time is money. 11:26 I happen to know where there's a piece of hose I can steal off my cracker With rain in the forecast. 11:34 Kevin can't afford to get further behind with some quick thinking. He decides to cut a piece 11:39 of overflow hose from the fertilizer tank for an in-field repair. Oh lord, yeah, well sometimes 11:50 you gotta improvise. There's a life farming right here. Farm life at its best. After all the repairs and with daylight fading quickly. 12:03 Kevin is in a race against the clock. He and Danielle will need to work together to make up for lost time. 12:11 He should be good to go. Or is he When we're in the same field, on the same farm, we have all the machines connected so you can see 12:20 where the work has already been done. In order, in order for these machines to see what each other's done, we've gotta have 12:27 that internet connection. A lot of this works with satellite and and the internet and I pretty much have to have that signal. 12:35 So it's a, it's really frustrating when it don't work right? But this is, uh, unreal. What all you deal with. 12:42 Kevin calls for help. A technician arrives and gets to work Every hour that we lose production, 12:54 that delays our planning and when we delay the planning, it's costing us huge money. One hour is 50 acres with two planters that that's bad. 13:06 It's actually two guys working one remotely and then the one in the cab. So it looks like we're gonna be up and running here shortly 13:13 With intense troubleshooting. They finally got it. The internet connection is restored and Kevin and Danielle begin a long night of planning. 13:22 If I gotta run to five the next morning, we're going to do it. We ain't got no choice. We're rolling. 13:36 Adding Raytheon into your infer application or even an over the top application round D three V four can do wonders in helping that plant 13:45 navigate tough soil conditions. As far as nutrient tie up is concerned, Control the toughest weeds with overlapping residuals. 13:55 Lock in the longest lasting control for your soybean fields authority brand herbicides such as authority, edge herbicide 14:01 and authority Supreme herbicide combine the industry's most effective group. 14 and 15 active ingredients for a clean start 14:08 and long lasting residual control. Following up 14 to 28 days later with a post application of Anthem max herbicide 14:15 through V six establishes a heavy duty economical, overlapping residual program. Claims are good and all, 14:25 but I'm more interested in results. My Fenton momentum planter delivers them the only planter with automatic tire pressure adjustments, 14:34 weight transfer across its frame and inline center tandem wheels that eliminate pinch intros. It's just another way I know fence got my bottom line. 14:46 Top of mind. Sweet success has been in the product lineup of concept agritech for a while. 14:55 We've seen it do a lot of things that you wouldn't think a black strap molasses product would do. 15:00 Anytime you could increase the bricks content of your plant, the more healthy it's gonna be 15:09 Down in the Arkansas delta, Matt Miles and his son Lane take an approach to farming that involves constant change, new technology, innovation 15:20 and the risk that goes along with it. The thing about our farm is we're always continually changing something. 15:28 You know, our grower standard practice, it's different today than it was two years ago. Yeah, different today than it was last year. 15:36 And that's one cool thing about our operation. We're we're big, but we, we stay agile. We're, you know, lane's 28 years old, I'm 54, 15:46 I should be smarter than him and experience wise maybe I am. But he comes in with so many new 15:51 and innovative ideas that, that I've had to take a step back and say, Hey, I gotta listen to 15:57 what this young guy is saying because he may be smarter at some of these things than I am. And you've proved that time and time again 16:03 and you know, I think we got a pretty good team going. It's one thing we do on our farm is try new things that are probably out of the box that 16:13 probably won't make money. But you don't know if you don't try. And if we do it on a small amount of acres, 16:19 you know, it don't break the bank. If I lose some money here, you know, it's money that I've saved up to be able to continue to do research 16:26 with that we've won maybe in a contest It gets taxing sometimes the amount of trials that we do, but you can't stay stagnant. 16:37 If you stay stagnant, you're gonna stay stagnant in yields or efficiency. You don't always have to be yields. It could be efficiency. 16:45 So instead of testing an input, we may be testing a new, a new piece of machinery and, 16:51 and so it's always constantly something going on. Five years ago, you know, we run four to six combines in the field together or on a farm together. 16:59 And if we had a combine that the, that the yield monitor broke on, there was no way I was stopping. 17:05 But I wasn't gonna stop the combine to wait on a yield monitor because I get my tickets at the end of the year 17:10 and I would know what the field average. What I figured out though is that it's not all about what the field average is, it's about 17:16 what places in the field average. Kevin Matthews says this all the time, and I really thought it was, 17:22 it was some pretty intelligent advice. We need to be managing plants instead of managing acres. And so I finally realized 17:30 the mistakes we were making with that. Today we have a yield monitor breakdown. Bad as I hate to, I'm gonna wait on deer to come out 17:37 and fix that yield monitor because the data that we get from the technology is a roadmap for next year's crop. 17:44 If we didn't have yield data at the end of the year to compare to the experiments we had, then we would have no idea of if the, uh, 17:51 if the experiment was working at all As far as planting depth, we have to pay attention to weather. 18:00 And when I say weather, we have to pay attention to the amount of rainfall we'll get or not get. We have to pay attention to temperatures, 18:06 whether they're high, whether they're low. And something a lot of people, you know, probably don't take into consideration is the amount 18:14 of wind we get every year. All those things are dependent on how deep we plant any crop we plant. 18:20 You know, I don't use a ruler, I use knuckle. So you know, I'm gonna plant, I'm gonna plant cotton a half a knuckle, 18:26 I'm gonna plant soybeans between a half a knuckle and a knuckle and I'm gonna plant corn two knuckles. If I get any deeper than that on any crop with any kind 18:34 of moisture coming our way, it's probably not coming up in my soils. So planting DE's crucial to me. 18:40 But when, when you've got these sealed over soils, like, like we get, you know, moisture's a big deal. 18:45 So if I plant that bean and I get a half inch rain, I need another half inch rain in about five to six days. Because what'll happen is we plant the field, 18:54 we get a half inch rain, the ground seal's over, wind's blowing 15 miles an hour for four days. Then you get that concrete look to this ground, you know 19:02 that that plant starts pushing up. So it's in his crook and, and you've got, you know, you've got a piece of 19:09 of soil over it. And so he's having to push through that and push that, that piece of soil up 19:16 and get out and then fold out. And when you get the concrete look to this ground, that seed is probably a good chance, 19:23 especially if he's deeper. That's why I plant shallower. Their chances are he's gonna die 19:28 before he can get that rock pushed off of his head. If you don't get the depth right, you're not gonna get the stand of merge the way you want to. 19:35 There is no correct depth to planting. It all depends on environmental factor. So most people have no idea we spent a million dollars in 19:46 seed, you know, when we're talking about a million dollars worth of input just in seed alone, you know, 19:52 we've gotta get it right the first time of all things that I can do. Losing a million dollars is not one of them. 20:01 It takes a tremendous amount of investment time knowledge to do the things that we're trying to do. 20:07 Grain prices, cotton prices, they've went up but not near at the rapid rate that the input costs have gone up. 20:13 That's not even considering a fact of availability of products and, and inputs that we need today that are, that are basically non-existent where you could walk, 20:21 walk in a part parts store and pick up five different parts today you can go in there and pick up one of those five 20:28 and the other four have gotta be ordered. So it's, we're farming in a complete different world than we've ever been in the past. 20:46 Go long for season long foliar disease protection that starts at plant active ingredient flu triol moves through your corn plants as they grow for 20:54 inside out protection from roots to tassel. A single at plant application provides comparable performance in corn yield protection to that 21:02 of VTR one foliar fungicides against diseases like gray leaf spot, northern corn leaf blight, common rust and more. 21:16 Some farmers I know swear by a name say they never operate anything else. Well, here are a few names for my Fent 900 tractor 21:27 fuel saver time maximizer game changer. I like those names. Ask just about any farmer 22:22 and they'll tell you the most important thing that happens on their farm is planting because at time of planting dictates 22:28 so much about the success of your crop throughout the season. I'm standing in a shop 22:33 'cause it's way past planting time here and I've got a planter right here beside me. So I thought this would be a great time to show you some 22:39 of the inner workings because as you might imagine, a planter obviously plants the seed, but it does so much more than that. 22:46 For instance, there's a seed tank where the seed would be put in in bulk. It comes down to the planter unit via air 22:53 and is put in a furrow. In that furrow goes more than just seed because there's in furrow technology to allow us to put some 23:00 of the crop inputs that help us make a crop. In addition to the in furrow, many planters are outfitted with two by two technology. 23:08 What that means is off to the side of the furrow, two inches out, two inches down, we're putting other crop inputs, things like fertility, 23:16 maybe a fungicide treatment, a plant growth regulator, or even a biological, which of course are becoming more and more popular in today's agriculture. 23:24 As you see, this planter does more than just put the seed in the ground. It delivers all the other inputs 23:29 to help put this crop on the right path for successful harvest. In the heart of Alabama 23:42 where the soil poses challenges in the unforgiving heat tests, the metal of farmers, one innovator stands tall. Chad Henderson thinks he's cracked the code 23:52 to optimal planting in these tough conditions. We started out with a strip pressure and, and I went and bought these units, you know, 'cause we, 24:00 what we was trying to do is we needed, we didn't need to work up all this red ground and have it exposed, but I had a hard time no tilling back in the beans residue 24:09 with wheat bean stubble there. It would, it would never dry out accurately. So we just brushed that away and it planted nice. 24:16 So we started with that and at first we had a 16 row rig and we just kind of put it on a stack bar 24:22 and was like, man, I think this will work. I hate to buy a rig, but maybe it'll work. So then we run it the first year 24:27 and we was like, oh, this is gonna work. So then we went and bought a 16 row planter, like a 7,200 and we stripped the units off of it like a lot 24:35 of people have done, put the fresheners on it, it worked great. Well then we went to from a 16 row planter 24:39 to a 24 row planter and we run it a year or so, you know, with RTK. But man, it just never would really line up. 24:45 And for y'all that do strip healing, you know how important it is to stay on the strip when the planter's set up 24:51 to run on a strip and it gets off the strip, the unit's not coming in the same place again. Now we do have hydraulic down force 24:57 and a lot of things that will come combat that, but it's not the same. This season we built a 24 row bar 25:04 and we took a planter just like this and we found a used planter, stripped all the units off of it, took the commodity tank off of it 25:10 and then just set a tank on it and put our fresheners on it. And that's what we've been using. 25:16 So now it'll match the planter and everything runs accurately. So we have a 12 row strip te, a 24 row strip freshener 25:24 and we're running with a 24 row planter. This was double crop soybeans, so this was wheat and then soybeans. 25:37 And then we come back and run a strip till right behind China chasing the combines if you will. This will be a November to December strip till application, 25:45 putting our P and our K down. And you can see the old strip here as you look here, it'll be an old strip and um, 25:52 it's not a lot left is a lot of trash in it. The reason we left our row cleaner off of the strip to kinda leave that in there 25:58 because we're looking, we don't want anything to wash. We're a little bit rolling and we don't want any chance of washing. 26:03 So we'll take a row cleaner off and kinda leave the straw in that strip. Now we're coming back with a freshener 26:09 and we're putting our, it's an absolute application. So we're putting our end down now this is nitrogen at a 28 0 0 5 and then we're looking at anywhere from a fi a 10 26:20 or 12 up to a 25 gallon application here, according to what we're doing and the process and what we need out of the field, if it's irrigated field, 26:29 none irrigated field, how much we're looking at what the end use rate is, several variables that go into this. 26:35 But we have our sulfur there also. Thus being the five in the 28, 0 0 5. So this application was just p and k. 26:44 We come back here and it's our nitrogen part of it. So we're being as efficient as we can, not putting our nitrogen out for leach ability earlier on. 26:53 So what we wanna do really prime, it's a little cloudy. If things was perfect, I'd wanna get one rain on this, get us and then we're planting into 27:00 that stale seed bed effect. We really like that. The planter runs real nice. The smoother it is for the planter to run, 27:07 the better the planter's going to do. This is a 20 gallon of acre application right here is what we're putting down. 27:12 And that'll give us around 60 units to start with and that'll ease up on the planter. When we get to the planter part of it, 27:18 we're looking at a tube or two effect, then we can ease up and not have a whole lot of liquid going through the planter 27:23 because it's already in a band. And so we'll be lighter. We may be like six to eight gallon of 28 27:29 and then we'll be higher our phosphorus or K or things that we might need. Actually you know me, I might have a little boron in there. 27:36 This is why we're stripped tilling and this is where our strip freshener is. The second application, 27:51 It changes everything. So says Indiana corn grower Nathan Davis about innovative xw LFR fungicide from FMC Xw brand fungicide are the first 27:59 and only at plant corn fungicides provide unprecedented season long inside out foliar disease protection. Precision is understanding the potential hidden within 28:15 decoding the specific nutritional needs of your crop, maximizing every nutrient and getting the most out of your yield. 28:25 We break down the science in a way that works for your crops and for you apply less 28:32 and expect more with precision crop nutrition from agro liquid. Manganese is one of a micronutrient. 28:45 It's important in photosynthesis process. It's also important in structure. It is important in the formation of lignin, 28:51 which is basically self structure. So plant structure, everything supports stiffness is very important with manganese. 29:00 Here's the reason that we use manganese. So in our soil type we're generally cooler. We're generally wetter. 29:07 We add manganese with a MN, not magnesium mg. We use that because it helps with photosynthesis, right? When it's cool and wet 29:18 and expecting to rain, those kind of things. I'll hand a little bit more manganese to my in furrow system. 29:25 And the reason that I do that is because I'm trying to get a little bit of a jumpstart, gonna try to power pack that plant. 29:30 It just helps it photosynthesize better than if it had a deficiency, right? So it'll get it over that curve, over that hump. 29:40 If you're deficient magnes, you might get a droopy plant or a little less structural strength. 29:45 So that's what guys probably that are deficient are looking for is that boosting overall strength of their cell walls 29:53 and plant structure. Everybody knows about glyphosate and how you get that yellow flash in glyphosate. 90% of the time that yellow flash in glyphosate is 30:04 because glyphosate will tie up manganese in the plant and that's where the yellow flash is coming from. So couple of things that we do, 30:13 so we can alleviate the yellow flash one, we at A PGR, like uh, you know, a certain type PGR. The reason that boy add that is, is it helps 30:24 with the yellow flash, but we'll also add a pint of manganese when we're spraying our herbicide program with glyphosate. 30:32 That way we don't ever feel that effect. Um, and we don't ever lose days of sunlight, days of sunlight lost or that is yield. 30:42 And I don't ever want a hole in my leaf. I don't ever want my leaf to not be a bright, beautiful solar panel 30:49 because without those, you can't make up days of sunlight. And for the sense that you can't make them back up once 30:57 you've lost them, it's too late. On the next extreme ag show, We're a little bit worried. 31:11 We got an inch and a half at the rain here a couple days ago because they're talking about getting really cool this 31:16 weekend into the forties. So we'll stop planting. It's just not worth that risk.