00:00 So I'm walking through what is a skipped row, which is kind of a new thing in agriculture. Skipped row corn planting. 00:06 And I'm going to hear about this from Chad Henderson and Johnny Vel of extreme Ag. We're at Johnny Verell's Field Day, 00:11 it's first week of August. It's hotter than blazes and this corn's actually not that far away from harvest. And we drove out here to earlier to check things out. 00:19 I'm like, Hey Johnny, were you too busy on the extreme ag site posting videos and you just got wide with the planter? 00:24 He said, no, this is skip row. So what is skip row? And how did I just start hearing about it in the last year? You go first then wanna hear Chad's experience. 00:31 Yeah, I was at a field day a few years ago and they were talking about it and talking about the results they were seeing. 00:35 And so we did it last year. We replicated it several times across the farm. We got a huge yield game by doing it. 00:41 And so this year we kind of showcased it again at our field day. And I've actually got a large scale portion of this, 00:45 of my farm planted in skip row. And so we literally took 30 inch corn, we planted two rows, skip a row, two row, skip a row. 00:51 And all we did, Damien, we planted at 30,000 is what we were saying we were gonna plant at. And when we took that row out, 00:57 we planted each row on each side at 45. So we just reallocated the seed to the rows beside it. You're getting more airflow through the canopy, 01:03 you're getting more sunlight on these ears. And I think Chas seen a lot of the same things on his farm. Same amount of seed is the idea. 01:09 And then the idea is, uh, we know that soybeans, remember we were 36 thirties, then it became seven and a half inch drilled 01:16 and then it became back to fifteens that that plant will fill out and will benefit by more solar. I thought corn was very different from soybeans, 01:23 that it didn't need all that space. What are we learning? Well, you know, another thing is, is we're, look, 01:27 we're got a lot of dry land acres here in in Tennessee, here West Tennessee where Johnny's at. And you know, a lot of times we can 01:33 get adequate moisture to make crop. You know, you'd look at moisture from the Midwest, we get, what, 52 inches a year? 01:38 Yeah, yeah. You would think that's enough, but it just don't come at the right time. And also you're, you're hotter obviously. 01:42 So yeah. And we're hotter. So this airflow deal is a big deal. We seen this last year in some of ours 01:47 that the plants was planted at the same time. But the progression of the ears was amazing, wasn't it? It was almost like they was a week, 10 days ahead. Yeah. 01:55 The year itself, you're Doing the same amount of seed. Did you do the same amount of seed when you did It? We, we tested last 02:00 year and we'll test again next year on a larger scale. Okay. We didn't have any this year. Okay. But we, we tested last year 02:06 and we did the same amount of seed. I actually did mine it like 48,000. Okay. You know, and it was irrigated corn 02:10 and it was amazing to me that the leaves still almost touched. There was still, you would believe, wouldn't believe it, 02:16 but there was probably just 50% sunlight in that canopy. Yeah. Now this is obvious. 02:20 Uh, you know, our, our Carman showed this. We've got some weed pressure in here. Yeah. Because you start giving more sun, it, it helps to plant, 02:26 but it also, uh, weed pressure. Yeah. This Year was extremely hard year us on us planting the crop. This plot was absolute in disaster. 02:34 I think every time we came over here to do anything it rained. So. Okay. We actually had a lot 02:37 of rainfall when this crop went in the crop really didn't get to the height it normally would have. So 02:41 We had a little bit of a lack of herbicide performance because of this type of season had increased weed pressure Last year. We didn't see it at 02:47 all. But the corn was taller. What's your, what was your ending result? Well, I mean with our end result we yielded to same, to better, 02:53 you know, it was four to six bushel in that area, but I just didn't have enough to quantify seeing like, hey, we need to do large scale well now 03:00 and that was under irrigation. Yep. So now we're gonna do, like Johnny, we're gonna take it out to our dry land areas 03:05 and I'm gonna do some next year. I wanna be at like a true 30,000 which would be way out there. 03:09 Yeah. Yeah. But you know, I've got corn that year before made 60 bushel in, in the drought year. I would've had some that would've made 50 03:16 or 60 bushel this year when you catch that heat. Yeah. And that dryness wrong. So we're trying to mitigate that 03:21 and especially if we can get it to a strip tail situation and knock the fertilizer off this one row 03:26 and just have fertility under those two rows and really cut the cost back. You're saving a third of fertility. 03:31 Well that's what I'm wondering. Where's the savings? What's the motivation? Yeah, So I think long term the fur, this 03:36 Same amount of seed you just said You're gonna put the seed. Yeah. But I think what Chad just hit on the fertilizer in 03:39 the future is gonna be strip till basically in some form or fashion. And also we're probably gonna be able 03:44 to start banding our PGRs, our in seasons and foliar all that stuff's gonna be able to be banded over two rows, not three. So 03:49 You'll strip till and you'll skip row and now you're putting the fertility more where it needs to be. 03:55 What about the idea where there's a whole bunch of this field now we're not using It seems like a waste. I mean even look at John Deere, you know, 04:01 with the way we're doing the double tanks. Yeah. Right. Yeah. And we're doing those like you could put PGRs over two rows. 04:07 Yeah. You see 'em getting outta sea spray type situation. So basically like you're going with Damien, 04:11 we're gonna be able to reduce our inputs by a third. Our seed may not, but our end season inputs, fertilized foliar, stuff like that, our herbicide has 04:18 to stay standard, might have to increase it. Like I said, this year, last year, the corn's extremely tall this year. 04:22 It's just shorter. I think it's just the year we were in it was so stunning from all the rain. Chad, 04:26 One of the first things that I learned when I joined you guys three years ago, you guys talked about 04:29 soybean population trials. We're gonna do something on wheat population trials. And the answer was we don't need 04:35 as much seed as we're putting out there. Maybe we're learning that on this also. Well, you know, if we can ever get our mind wrapped 04:40 around, you know, me and Johnny's, you know, you'll hear Kelly talk about it. Our quest has been this double ear thing. Yeah. 04:45 You know, and I mean you can see it on the end, you can see it everywhere. It gets sunlight. So what if this is the key to that? Yeah. 04:50 What if we're getting this more sunlight? We can tag that other second ear. We get this thing back because a lot of our dry land corn 04:56 and, and we're not talking about high yield stuff. We're talking about base hit. Yeah. We're talking about making money on the farm. 05:01 You take a third out of it, you're strong. Start making money. Well That's the thing. I think the, the big 05:05 compelling reason in a year like this when we're talking about $4 or sub $4 corn, you're talking about a real opportunity 05:11 to pare back expenses and not really lose much yield or lose any yield at all. That's right. Or even make, make a little more yield. Yeah. 05:16 Yeah. Next question for both of you. And then we're gonna go five to 10 years ago we started hearing about going from 30 05:21 intros to 15 intros. This is completely going the different direction. Is that kinda like we went to drill beans back 05:26 to fifteens and thirties. Yeah. And What, Johnny, you've been on 15-year-old corn, ain't she? I playing this 15 inch corn like you, I 05:31 Was, I was 30 inch, 15 inch, 20 inch to 30 inch. Now With 60 60 between every third. But I mean, this is the thing, if you're always trying 05:39 to think outside the box and stuff, you can't be scared to try something. And I think that's what everybody extreme ag is always 05:43 telling everybody think outside the box and just try something you hear. And I mean for us, when I saw this at a field day a few 05:49 years ago, I was like, there's no way that's gonna work. And for us, last year it was 18 bushel 05:52 And you know, and you look at it and you think that, oh well this is something new. This is not out in Oklahoma 05:57 where water is scarce and places like that. Yeah. They do this all the time. Yeah. They operate, you know, and they make money 06:02 and operate on 10, 12, 15,000 unit uh, population of corn. So They're, they're just, they're just doing it mostly 06:09 because of moisture, which you might as well. But the bigger thing is the input cost. A you're like this. Yeah. And, and Chad hit it while ago, Damon. 06:15 The the population thing could be the deal He planted real high pop didn't see the quite what we did. 06:19 Maybe we're still planting high, so that's why he's gonna do more trials. I'm Still gonna bring down, bring it out a little bit. 06:24 Stay tuned. Skip row corn planting. It's kind of a new thing. In fact, it's a completely new thing and we 06:28 haven't seen it every couple years. Stay tuned. We're gonna give you more and more information like you can find at 06:32 all of our extreme Ag Library. Hundreds of videos that I have produced that these guys have produced a podcast cutting the curve. 06:37 Not to mention our webinars. Become a member for seven $50 a year and you get direct access to guys like this when you wanna 06:42 go a little deeper on a topic. You also get end of year trial data results from field days and trials just like this 06:49 and you get special offers from some business partners. Till next time, thanks for being here. Check it all at Extreme Ag Farm. 06:54 Chad, Johnny, me out.