Kelly Garrett Learns About Farming in The South With Matt Miles
Kelly heads to Arkansas to learn about Matt's unique and challenging farming practices.
00:00 So guys, we're here today in Southeast Arkansas. I don't know if you know this guy or not, but it's one of my best friends. 00:05 Sometimes he'll be on videos, you know, or you might see him in a meeting or whatever. No, actually, you know who this is. 00:12 So, Kelly's never been here before. Uh, his dad, mom's been here and Cheese has been here. And you know, I, I've been telling him that three years. 00:19 I said, look man, everybody's been here, but you and Temple Roads. I said, you gotta get down here. So we had the field day. 00:24 Uh, Kelly and Amber decided to come and stay a couple more days. I think they've had fun, you know, his video, 00:30 if he does one on his own, he may say he didn't have fun, but I think he had fun. But we're just comparing so much difference how much, 00:35 so much difference there is in our farms, you know. And what do you think about being down there? What have you seen? What do you, 00:40 what do you like? What do you dislike? Well, we've had a great trip staying with Matt and Sk going to Doughs. 00:46 I was so excited to eat the steak at doughs. I cannot say enough about the steak I ate there. It was about a 32 ounce porter house, two inches thick, 00:55 cooked perfectly. That has been a big highlight of the trip. Cool. But the biggest highlight of the trip is going around here, 01:01 just seeing the different ways of farming. We're 700 miles south and this a whole different world. There's two things. It's really flat here and it's hot now. 01:11 The temperature isn't much different at home, you know? Yeah. But the humidity, I, I don't even know what the humidity is here, but holy cow is at eye. 01:20 So one of the things Matt has always talked about is that his lighter soil is better than the darker soil. Mm-Hmm. And I couldn't understand that 01:28 because it's the opposite of our place. The lighter soil for us is up on the hogbacks and the knobs, you know, 01:34 and there's been erosion over generations. We're trying to rebuild that soil. That's where we have base saturation problems. 01:39 The darker soil down at the bottom is where we make the best yields. So I could never understand why is the black land the worst? 01:46 Well, it definitely is after you pick it up. Yeah. Like we talked about, it's just hard. Now. This is, this is annual know, end of June. It's super dry. 01:54 Uh, the ground's super hard. This is a field that we're doing some work on for next year. We laid it out to do some work on, 02:00 but this is a true representation of what we call sharky clay. The only time I've ever seen anything like this would be 02:06 like over on the Missouri River bottom. You know, our, our friends over there, Rob Rains, coal Coleman, Cody Neal, they have the High Mag. 02:13 So they call it gumbo, but I don't even know that that gets this hard. Yeah. You know, like it, 02:18 they'll get big cracks in the ground when it gets dry and stuff, but I've never seen anything like this. Well, The difference I went to, uh, to Ohio, 02:24 I was looking at some ground there. Black ground like this had had some tillage done to it and I could stick my hand about this far down in that soil. 02:31 Mm-Hmm. You know, I would love for you to try to stick your hand this far down in this soil. Same tillage, same everything. 02:38 It's just that it's such high mag and it's just, it's, you know, this was all woods and stuff at one point in time where you were probably 02:44 planes a lot of years were planes. Yeah. Grasslands. You Know, this was all swamp. Yeah. This is, this is fascinating. Just all that. 02:51 And again, it's so flat. I remember my dad saying one time that at home if we could see more than five acres from any 02:57 one spot, we couldn't afford it. Here you can see everything. So We're fixing the head down here. 03:01 And let's look at some of this ground that's in production. It's got rice on it. I know you've never been around rice, 03:06 you've never been around cotton. So we got a lot more good things to do today. Just glad you're 03:10 Here. Never been around rice, never been around cotton and the word zero grade have never come out of my mouth in Western Crawford County, Iowa. 03:17 And now you're setting in one. There you Go. Let's, let's, let's check it out. 03:22 So guys, there's something real cool we wanna talk to you about today. Kelly's here from Iowa, uh, 03:27 first time in Arkansas looking at the difference between how we farm and they farm and the similarities 03:31 and the differences in, you know, what we wanna talk about today is sustainability, our regenerative farming. 03:37 And we're setting on, uh, zero grade rice farm of mine. It's probably the most sustainable regenerative farm that I have. 03:44 I mean, from reusing all the water, capturing the water tail, water recovery systems, alternate wetting and drying. 03:49 We got flow meters out here. We got level sensors, you know, to make sure we're not pumping too much water. 03:54 You know, there's all kind of cool things going on on this farm to produce you a quality rice product 04:00 that you can eat at your table. And that's something that we're really paying attention to today, you know, as a group is our sustainability efforts 04:08 and where we can go from there. Kelly's kind of the superstar of this for the extreme ag team. 04:13 Uh, you know, he spent a lot of time and dedication on it. And what you think, I'll 04:18 Tell you the first thing that this reminds me of, um, it makes me smile. My grandma Pat, she uh, she always had a 55 gallon barrel 04:25 underneath the east trough and she even had the pipes shortened up. So when it rained that water went into the barrel. 04:30 She used that water for her gardening or flowers and things like that. This is just on a much larger scale here behind us. 04:35 You know, the water's in the canal, the water comes off the rice field and then you pump it back up in there. 04:40 Right. Everything. Now, obviously you're using electricity when you pump it back up in there, but you said everything's gravity fed, right? 04:45 Yes. Everything comes back out of, is gravity fed with flow meters on there so we can meet her? How much water's going in and how much water's 04:51 Going out. That's right. That's right. You know, and you and I have had many discussions about what sustainability means 04:58 and the definition of sustainability and you know, you have expressed to me that farmers in this part 05:03 of the country sometimes feel like they get left out of that discussion. 'cause everything is about no-till cover crops 05:09 and how much carbon I'm sequestering in Western Iowa. Yeah. And, and we are sequestering a lot of carbon in Western Iowa. 05:15 But you and I have formed the opinion, you know, jointly or all of us at extreme Ag that sustainability 05:21 is more than no-till cover crops and carbon sequestration. Sustainability is an improvement. 05:28 It's being more efficient, it's being more profitable. A lot of times I think that farmers misunderstand that to be sustainable means they have to take a yield hit. 05:37 And what we've decided together is the agronomic practices that we are switching to with extreme ag. 05:43 I I call it, trying to work more in tune with Mother Nature, which is what you're doing here that is sustainable. 05:49 A lot of times I talk about my agronomic path, trying to break that state record in Iowa and my sustainable path. The two paths are converging 05:56 and we're making a better ROI because of it. And this is, this is awesome. You know, I'm raising corn for ethanol. 06:03 You're raising food for human consumption and it's no-till you're conserving the water. Uh, what's not to love here? 06:09 Well, the cool thing about that is from what you've taught me, you know, and, and there's is a misconception 06:15 that us guys down here in the south can't fit in these programs. This is a perfect ex example of how we can, you know, 06:21 there's certain different things that we do. You know, a lot of water conservation, different things like that. 06:25 First thing, the misconception to a farmer is, is what you said, I'm gonna take a yield hit. And what we found out, 06:31 and you for sure found out is with those two paths converging, not only are you increasing yield, 06:36 but you're also producing more with less. So you're increasing yield, reducing cost plus there's possibilities 06:42 that you get money for doing that. That's right. There's a whole other revenue stream with these sustainable programs 06:47 and with our new organization that Extreme mag is part of regenerative root solutions. And with our new partnership into Leading Harvest, 06:55 I really feel that this is a tailor made situation for a leading harvest sustainability program to come down and document and show just 07:03 how sustainable you are here with the zero grade rice. Yeah. That's still that term amuses me. 'cause you don't ever say zero grade 07:09 where I live in the Lu Hills. Well, Matt, I, uh, this has been such an interesting trip. I'm glad Amber and I could stay a few more days 07:15 after your field day and, and experience all this with you. This is, this is like being on a whole other planet for me. 07:20 Yeah. The, the type of farming here compared to at home. Thank You. Um, I'm happy to have 07:24 you here.
Growers In This Video
See All GrowersMatt Miles
McGehee, AR
Kelly Garrett
Arion, IA