Farming Video | How SAP Testing Changed My Farm’s ROI and Nutrient Profile

So, you know, I started down this path of nutrient density. You know, some people have talked about what, you know, I obviously have the GLC beef direct to consumer meat store. How does a farmer, the most common question is how does a farmer get paid for nutrient density if you're not direct to consumer or something like that? And I, I didn't go, I didn't start down this way to try to raise nutrient dead beef in, in 22. Mike Evans, my agronomist, talked about, you know, he met Jared Cook and he met plant freeze and things like that, and they were using SAP testing on their fields, things like that. We'd already talked about, uh, you know, reducing nitrogen, we didn't think we need as much. You know, Jared, really, Jared really spurred us down this, this, on this journey. And so we started to reduce the nitrogen. We started to take the soil test. We started to, to run sap. And in 2022, we really kind of went whole hog into it. And our goal again, wasn't nutrient density. Our goal was to reach 95% nitrogen assimilation. Our goal was to minerally balance the corn to have better yields and to raise 'em less expensively by using the SAP test. You know, the saying I've come up with is how do you manage what you don't measure? And I've never found a tool like the SAP test that, that allows us to measure in such great detail. And so the nutrient density was just, uh, it, it, it happened coincidentally, or I got lucky, which is typically, I don't really ever feel like I'm very smart. I get lucky a lot of times, and this is one of the examples of that. So, uh, this is my family, uh, thing I'm most excited about. Generation number eight's on my farm ar my first grandson. But my, uh, youngest son, uh, my oldest picture, my oldest son Connor, got married in, uh, 24. And my youngest son, kale, got married to Giselle this year. So we've got everybody married off and, uh, we're doing great. And I keep waiting for another grandchild, so that's way better than being a dad. That grandpa is a, is a real better deal. Uh, you know, we started with extreme ag and, and part of the reason, you know, Chad and I and the other guys, it's because we, we have some notoriety because of the high yields and things like that. You know, we got all, got to know each other at A PHB field day. And, uh, the high yields are great. Um, and I, I still enjoy that. You know, Chad raised over 400 bushel corn this year. It's a tremendous accomplishment. Uh, but like, uh, I've switched a little bit. I still wanna raise the high yield, but I want ROI, especially with $4 corn. And, you know, again, the SAP test. Let's ma let's manage as detailed as possible. Let's apply the nutrition that we need possible, and let's not waste anything. Let's be as efficient as possible, you know. So again, it, it started with agronomy and I was on this agronomy path to do a better job. I always wanted to do a better job that led to the high yields, you know, then a lot of documentation about me selling my, uh, my carbon credits. And I quickly found out that my high yield path and my sustainable path, they, I always talk about their converging. They didn't really converge. They were always together. We just needed the, the, the technology and the understanding of the science to know that they were the same thing. And then I quickly found out because of the, uh, nutrient density and the beef, all three of these paths are really the same. If you, I call it farming in tune with Mother Nature. And it, it's not because I'm trying to be nutrient dense. Again, I'm not trying to be sustainable. I'm trying to have the biggest ROII, I really just focus on ROI and the, uh, the, the converge. And that, that's what I've come to know with extreme ag. And the sponsors that are here today have all contributed to that because of what I've learned from them and the products that they, they sell and the, the products that we use. Of all of those on my farm, this is one of my favorite, uh, trials of all time. And this is from the fall of 23. And this is an example of a nitrogen trial. Uh, Mike Evans wrote this, it's on a farm of mine, south of Dunlap, Iowa, where my wife grew up 10 years of corn on corn no-till corn on corn. As you can see, we applied, uh, what really? Five rates of nitrogen. 0 61 21 80, we consider grower standard practice in two 40. Jared Cook told me because of the nitrogen in my soil, I theoretically didn't need any commercial nitrogen or synthetic nitrogen at all because I was mineralizing so much. Okay? And let me show you that here, right here. This is, uh, this, the soil test that Mike Evans took. And you can see like what we call the bush bottom is, uh, a very high yielding piece. And you can see there's 660 pounds of nitrogen available. This was taken in the middle of July sometime. That's mineralized organic nitrogen in my soil. Uh, the top pieces would be a lower yielding. Well, the middle one is there in my house, another high yielding piece, over 700 pounds of available nitrogen. And so does it take 1.1 pounds of nitrogen to raise corn? Probably might take more than that. But why do we think it all has to be synthetic? Why do we think we have to pay for it again, let's measure this and see what we have, and then let's, let's try to save some money. And, and so I'm reallocating those expenses so that, you know, like at the bottom, that's a lower yielding piece of ground. There's 180 pounds, you still 180 pounds of organic nitrogen is in that soil. So now we go back to the trial, you could see zero pounds only made 144 bushel. So we know we need some nitrogen to get started for at least in my soil, until the soil warms up and the biological system gets to cranking. But look at the yields on the other four rates, 60 to two 40, they all yielded with been five bushel of each other. This piece of ground would've like a 215 bushel proven yield. And so we didn't quite make proven yield there, uh, but it was dropped. That 2023 was very dry for us. So this, this to me is tremendous proof and, and, and data that we don't need it. I, I would tell you that, you know, like I, I'm a fan of Elon Musk and he said, when you're doing a trial, you're doing something. If you haven't gone too far, you haven't gone far enough. Well, I would tell you, we haven't gone far enough. Look at the 60 pounds it's yielding, right? With anything else. We need to get to 40, you know what I mean? We need to get to 30 now different rainfall years, if there's gonna be a difference of what's there, but we, we haven't gone far enough. That's how much we can cut out. And not everybody's looking on 240 pounds. But look at the difference in money. $77 an acre in nitrogen savings and that it didn't provide anything. It didn't provide anything. $77 is a lot of money per acre. So this is the basis of where we started. You can see up there that's on a side hill. And, uh, every, every rate was replicated three times. And you know, Evans wrote this, went into the anhydrous bar. There's not anything, not much data that I'm more confident of this because it's our own. This is the SAP test that we, uh, use. Uh, here's the application. This happened to be an agro liquid trial, okay? But like at the top there where it says nitrogen conversion efficiency, I want those numbers to be 95. And I'll tell you, I struggled to get there because of all the nitrogen coming out my soil. And, and so then, uh, I'll tell, I'll be honest with you, for me to read this, I could tell you, but to make an application, I can't do it. You need to smart people like Evans to do this. Uh, Chad and Matt, they'll tell you that, uh, I simply regurgitate what Mike Evans tells me. And there's a lot of truth to that. So you could see that we even, even though, you know, like we took the test on the 9th of July, then we took the next test after the application on the 16th, and we're, we're still struggling to maintain 95%, but I, you know, like I was in the seventies or the eighties before we started doing this. So we've made tremendous gains. And this test is so detailed that we can calibrate a product. You can see like the copper, we raised the copper 2300% probably the next time. I don't need to put quite that much on. That's a spot we could save money. So I, you know, but we didn't, you know, what we put on like, uh, 20 ounces of the copper agro liquid apparently has a great copper product. Just look at what we accomp, look at how much we move the needle. And so this test is for me to balance my corn to make a healthy product and to, uh, to try to make sure I'm using all the nitrogen. And also though we calibrate that product, maybe for example, I didn't need quite that much copper in this example. We'll know that the next time maybe we can dial that back. But this is where a lot of my fertility expenses gone, is to get here. Here's the, uh, again, here's the application we made. And you can see, you can see what we did. The one thing I find interesting, like down there, the phosphorus and the potassium, we, uh, the phosphorus went backwards a little bit. The potassium we gained a little bit. Um, those are both kind of wins because the plant is so hungry at the time we put that on there just to keep up, we felt like was an accomplishment. We, we'd like to improve the phosphorus, of course, but the plant is so hungry that it's hard to even keep up at that time. So now this is something I wanna show you because of what we accomplished. This is, uh, this Utah state is the nutrient density lab that we send it into. But, uh, again, I didn't start raising my corn this way to try to make nutrient dense beef. I'm trying to make better corn, and I'm trying to make better corn, less expensively. And we've accomplished that. We, we very much accomplished that. But the reason that we went down this path is, uh, with my meat store, I'm like, why, why is grass fed beef considered to be healthier? So then why is it more valuable? Well, the answer is it's nutrient dense. What, what's nutrient density? The formula for nutrient density is biodiversity or soil health plus mineral balance. Well, then when I knew that, I'm like, well, maybe we're partway down this path because mineral balance to me is a 95% nitrogen assimilated SAP test. That's mineral balance. And so then we sent the, uh, we sent two kinds of hamburger off and we sent off, uh, red lights. The reason we have two kinds of hamburger, little side note, it's one of my favorite things. Uh, hamburger at the time were retailing for $5 a pound, liver heart, things like that. You'd give it away. You just hope somebody get it for $3 a pound. You can't, you can't hardly sell it. Well, I, uh, saw online there's a hamburger called Ancestral blend. So ancestral blend is hamburger with 10% organ beef. And I'm like, well, this is awesome 'cause we'll mix 'em together. And it was selling for $16 a pound. And I'm like, nobody in Dallas City, Iowa is gonna pay $16 a pound. So locally, we'll sell it for eight. It is on the website for $16 a pound. I wanna be a capitalist. I want, you know, I wanna sell things. So we made this ancestral brand product, put it on the website for $16 a pound. And it always makes me smile when I go to bed at night. Somebody from California calls and buys all the ancestral blend you want for $16 a pound and it's $5 hamburger and products you can't sell. You mix 'em together in school. I love ancestral blending. So the, uh, that, so here's what we sent off. And the, you know, the, the claim to fame, uh, for, uh, grass fed beef is their omega six to three ratio. And you can see that we're equal to or near equal. And you can see the grain fed benchmark is seven to one. So we are grass fed. Beef on average is healthier, but we're there. And because of, but the pro here's the calcium content. I have done a lot with calcium in on my farm to try to raise better crops, and I've got yield gains because of it and the reef. And so look at how it's expressed in the meat though. Look at how it comes through. You know, things like that. The zinc, zinc is now our most challenging one. We're not any better, but the grass fed in the grain fed aren't, aren't that good either. And so, like this year on my silage, we, the corn that we chopped for silage, we sprayed extra zinc. Okay? And so not like I, I really think that we're onto something here, uh, that what what we're getting to. And, and so, but again, not everybody has a direct to consumer meat store. How does the farmer get paid? You know, Luke Harvey's sitting out here somewhere and, uh, Luke met Luke, he's southeast of Atlanta, Georgia. And, uh, he started me on a whole other journey and he, uh, he, he emailed in a question that sodium levels in his soil from the dairy manure and things like that. So a question that was over my head, I referred him to Evans and Clint. They started working with Luke. And then, you know, Luke farm throughout the season, they, he chopped his s and then he called and he said, my dairy nutritionist is so excited. He said, whatever you did to raise corn this year, do that again. Continue to do that. And because of achieving mineral balancing his corn, and because of improving the biodiversity of his soil health, Luke improved his silage, the starch in his silage, seven to 10%. And the reason that, that's a big deal. He's saving 30 cents per head per day on his dairy ration. That's a tremendous amount of money. And so, like with my beef cattle, you know, beef cattle, we're never going to save 30 per 30 cents per day. We're just gonna push it far faster. They're gonna convert better, they're gonna get done. So using ai, I talked to, I just put in there, you know, into ai. So, well, you know, my friend Luke improved his dairy silage, seven to 10%. Uh, and, and now he's saving 30 cents. How does that equate to beef? And I'm, I have a hard time with this. We have to run some trials, but AI suggests that an 800 pound steer, I'm feeding a ration that I wanted to gain three pounds a day, should go to 3.7. I'm having a hard time thinking I'm gonna have a 22% better gain, but I do believe there'll be a better gain. And then I said, well, what about poultry and, and hogs? And they said, well, it would even be a bigger game than beef cattle because they convert feed better. And so these are examples. If you have livestock, how you, the mineral ba, how can you get paid for nutrient density or mineral balance right here in feeding your livestock? And the last one has really made me, uh, fascinated and I, so I put in ai, well, if I do to my corn, what Luke has done to his, what will it do for ethanol production? It said, it, it, it came back and it said it should improve ethanol production. Two tenths of a gallon per bushel of corn. It should be worth 40 cents or so per bushel to the ethanol plant. Now, we all know the ethanol plant's not gonna give us a, a premium, but again, I didn't start raising my corn the way I do to accomplish that. I just wanted to raise better corn, less expensively. Well, when I got this, I thought this was interesting with the ethanol and I wanted to test it. And so when I, I went up to the ethanol plant and I told the manager, Trevor, I'm like, this is what it says. And I think this is interesting. He looked at me like, I have three eyeballs. You're crazy. How could any corn be any better than other? How could you measure that? And this year, coincidentally this year, because of the carry in the market and things like that, for the first time ever, we didn't really deliver anything out of the field. We, we begged it, we used grain bags and we put, had about 600,000 bushel in bags. And I was so nervous about getting that delivered. And how good was this unloader gonna work? And, and were we gonna be able to get it outta the field in time? And so we went at it very hard. And that the little ethanol plant there by Dennis and Iowa, they grind about 60,000 bushels a day. 60 62,000. Well, again, I was nervous, you know, so we really cranked up. I I put a lot of, uh, of effort behind it. And there were days we'd have, I'd have 12 trucks hauling. We'd deliver 50,000 bushel a day into the ethanol plant. And so we basically took over the grind for that day. And we did this for a couple weeks. And Trevor called, you know, it wasn't 50,000 every day they'd get full and things like that. But as this went on for a couple weeks, then Trevor called and he said, something's wrong with your corn. And I'm like, well, what, what are you talking about? Look, the tickets look fine. There's no dock. He said, they called from Ohio where the Anderson's headquarters is. And they said, the oil production has dropped drastically in our plant, and we're looking for the problem. We're looking for the leak. We can't find anything. So we went back to the days where they can see that sharp drop in production. And so the days you're delivering corn and that, so it made me smile because I had a, i, I had an idea of what it was. I went back to the AI conversation and I said, my ethanol plant. And I told, I typed in the a of what was happening, I said, is this is a result of changing the corn, changing the starch in the corn. AI basically came back and said, well, what the hell did you think was gonna happen? It's a zero sum gain. And if you increase the starch and you increase the ethanol output, something's got a gif. And you, you probably dropped the, the kernel of corn, it's four to 5% oil. You probably dropped it to 3%, which reduced the oil output 15 to 25%. But it said, this is a huge indicator that you've improved the ethanol output of that corn. And again, today we are not gonna get a premium for that. But look at what we did. You know, like we, we have $4 corn and we're raising a commodity, and that's treated like a commodity. But if we put a little technology and a little science behind it and a little management, look at how we can improve the quality, and it's not, it's not just a commodity. Uh, you know, someday maybe we'll get paid a premium for the higher value of corn traceability, things like that. But these are examples of what you can achieve with mineral balance. It's, you know, which, which truly is nutrient density. But how does a farmer get paid for nutrient density today? If you're not direct to consumer? It's many ways improve yield, improve plant health, improve livestock cheaper inputs. You know, I, I feel that, that my yields are, uh, you know, a few percent better according to Evans than our neighbors. But my corn is so much less expensive to put in because look what I'm saving on nitrogen. Uh, look what I'm saving on pesticide. Look what I, you know, at times with fungicide, things like that, it, it really does pay a farmer to achieve mineral balance in many ways. Ahead. Go ahead. Yes, I'm ready. Any questions? All Right. So obviously we want this to be interactive. If you have a question, please now hop in comment statement. And also I wanna make things right with the other Kelly room over there. I beg for people to get participative and ask, uh, and participate in the trivia. And he tried and he fought as hard as he could and then he didn't get it. So I'm gonna go ahead, if you would please give me one of those bottles of booze. We're gonna go ahead and make this right because I'm not one of those guys that like begs somebody to be involved and then like takes the booze away. You know, you should, and here's what I think we're gonna do for you to win this. Now you could ask me a question. Anything you want, ask me. The four towns, the make quad cities. All right, you're good. You're good with that. Are there any questions for Kelly? Okay, I've got a question. Um, first off, when when you say, you know, this makes me more money, there's gonna be some skepticism because you're saying no, you're producing a better product, it usually takes more money to do that. So kind of dig into that and maybe you need evidence to kick in on this. How is it actually that you're using less input cost to make that month, to make that crop? I'm sorry, We're having, I apologize. We're having a couple technical difficulties. We need you to stay on stage so the guys can hear you. 'cause as soon as you come off stage, they can't hear you. So the, the, the nitrogen spit a question and, and some of the fungicides spend at times, you know, we, we've used much less fungicide, you know, how much that cost per acre. You can see how much less nitrogen I'm able to use. And we're, we're reallocating part of that budget into the micronutrients, into the foliar, but we're not reallocating all of it. And, and then all, you know, so that there, there isn't net result there because it's, it's just really a reallocation. You know, I, I used to put on 180 pounds or 200 pounds of anhydrous. Now it's variable rated. Uh, we have a, it is a variable rate, uh, prescription that, that goes out, you know, high yield area, we're turning the nitrogen down to 80 or a hundred pounds. I would like to get lower, but we're having trouble with the bar to get that low in a high yield area. We're putting on a bit more nitrogen, you know, and, uh, but we're, my nitrogen is turned down considerably. And because of the plant health, I don't need as much fungicide because of the plant health. I don't need as much pesticide times. 'cause we've raised the brick score and so that, that's how we're, we're spending less money. I I do spend more on the micronutrients and the foliar than I used to, but again, I don't believe I'm spending as much. And then also that spend comes in July or August, whereas used to be I put on the dry p and k, we put on all that, and you have all that money out there. And interest is a real thing. Now, I don't have to spend that money until July or August. And then I'll tell you like sometimes if, if we get into a, you know, no-till corn on corn, if we get into a field and we plant it a little wet, if if there's a little bit of a hailstorm, if there's something, yeah, then we, we just don't, we won't make the application. I, I won't, don't wanna tell you I sacrifice that field, but I, I won't chase it like that, that uh, this, this, uh, right here, like, you know, that we, we were really chasing and we're trying to chase some 300 bushel of corn there because we thought this field had potential. I won't do that all the time. And so you don't have to spend that money you could kick that can down the road, you can save the interest and you can save the decision until, you know, does this field have top end potential? And you know, maybe I'll put on half of this or a fourth of this or something like that. Um, and those are the ways that we're increasing the profitability we Talked about last night is the future. Is there a de commoditization opportunity? I know that everybody probably got a little skeptical on that. Like Daniel, we talk about, it's number two yellow corn, it's 60 pound bushel, soybeans, whatever. There is differentiation in Ohio oleic and that in organic whatever. But what if on the decommoditization of corn, it's corn for ethanol because that plant, when Ma Ohio and Anderson's called up and said there's a problem or not enough oil. Well, ethanol plants make ethanol oil is the byproduct. If they eventually pay a premium for a higher starch content corn that's got lower oil, then all of a sudden you have de commoditized and you do get a premium. And this is, this is maybe an opportunity, or to Luke Harvey's case, a, a corn that is obviously better for a dairy rion has much more value. And this, this, the company seen company's been doing this for a long time, right? Uh, Michael, Jim was the one that a long time ago, had a dairy, uh, a dairy specific syl specific corn. But it wasn't because of the nutrients, 'cause of the tonnage, right? Yes, exactly. So, and you're not doing it based on the hybrid, you're doing it more based on the practices, you know, Evans and Clinton, all that put together for the, that's where I think that's where I think the opportunity is. I, I agree. I now have an opinion, you know, we all talk about what our favorite hybrid of corn is, uh, or like in cattle, we're gonna, we're gonna choose these genetics for marbling or rib eye going, things like that. I, I now believe that we have things in the wrong order until I mentally balance something or I make something nutrient dense, it totally changes it, you know, like, uh, we, we combine our winter wheat, then we ba the straw and we grind it. And that's one of the ingredients in our fashion. We've sent that, uh, we've sent that, uh, the wheat off to Utah State and our winter wheat is nutrient dense. So now actually I'm getting some feed feed value out of my wheat straw going into my cattle. Again, it just, it it's expressed positively in so many ways. And then what, you know, like that, that the mineral balance in the, in the, the stove and things like that, in the corn stalks, when that's breaking down in the field, it's improving your soil health. You know, like when, when you have that calcium level in the beef, think about what the calcium level is in the corn, think about what the calcium level is in the corn stalks and the rest of the corn that's decaying out in the field. And it becomes a very holistic, circular process of the nutrition that you're building in the field. You know, like, uh, Luke has done so much in his farm. Think about the what the value, the added value of the dairy when were going back out on his field. Things like that, that it, it, it starts to build on itself. You know, Chad Chad's four oh bushel corn this year, the nutrition he put into that and the micronutrients that he put into that. I very much believe that that stove is worth more and is gonna improve the soil health. Big yields, but got big yields. And we, we need to balance the plant to balance the soil. And it very much all works together. Anybody got anything? Yes, mark Verson has a question. Um, and we have a mic, but we got a lot of tech problems. So just, just, uh, here comes the bald guy with a microphone. You got me? I do. Uh, hey sir, what's the mixing order of that treatment There? That would be one for Evans. I'm gonna, this is, these are all mostly Aquid products and they would, uh, Evans or Clint can help you with that. But I, this would mix together pretty easily, I believe. Alright. He asked what was the, uh, mixing order of this application? I think it's way it is up there. Start at the top and go to the bottom. Yep. No, wow. No, we went through I was two gallon, no, three, four gallons. Excuse me. I was on the plane trying to remember the, but yeah, it was no problem. Oh yeah. Alright. Little bit, Little bit of leaf burn, but not bad. Just a little speckling. Yeah, Airplane. Alright, so, so everybody else here is what my park asked you a question. You missed it in the order that it went down the line and you, this was an aerial is where aerial application. Aerial application should have been probably a four gallon rate. Four gallon rate, yes. Thank you. Anybody else? Guy back from, uh, singular, You kind of answered it with your we, but I'm thinking of the cow ration itself. Pat, are you doing that same thing with alfalfa? If you're bringing alfalfa in for that ration, would you provide or would you pay a premium if you knew they were doing x, y, z practice? I, I would pay a premium for that. Alfalfa. We, uh, we started to raise oats. I was buying a lot of alfalfa. But now since we haven't raised as much soy bess and I was trying to get a rotation, we started raising oats and we're bailing our oats, you know, some of the oats we're harvesting, but, uh, we're bailing oats and we're doing the same with the oats. We're we, we did the same with the sorghum, things like that. We had some rye that we chopped and we, you know, we ran sap on the r then we, we followed that up with sorghum and we ran sap on the sorghum. And, uh, yeah, it, the, the value is there, you know, it's just a higher quality product. So yes, I would pay a premium for it if I could measure those things. 'cause you don't have to buy it. You, uh, like for example, for this Jared Cook who's our, you know, the, one of the calibrated agronomy partners, he lives in Idaho. He talked about a dairy, a dairy coming to him, and he was running the agronomy for the dairy. The nutritionist came and the nutritionist said, we're spending too much on feed supplements, which is going to be about Jon's question. And could you, could you improve those, these nutrients? And it was magnesium and potassium in particular in this case. Could you improve those in the silage somehow? You know, nobody had ever asked anything like that. And Jared, this was a decade ago. So Jared, you know, he was very, it was sap, but he was using SAP at the time. He improved the potassium 30% and the magnesium 40% from one year to the next. And it didn't have anything to do with trying to raise better corn. He was just trying to infuse that nutrient into, into the silage. The farmer had, if I remember correctly, the farmer had 1500, uh, acres of silage and they spent $60 an acre. So they spent $90,000 on this experiment, which is impresses me that, you know, the guy would go after this. Then they, they got to silage and they tested it and Jared claimed they saved $1 million on feed supplements at this dairy. So would you pay a premium for that? Absolutely. Absolutely you would. And then I gotta tell you, I believe that that nutrition going into the cattle is much more easily digested and, and into that cap, into that dairy than anything you could buy, than anything you could, it's better nutrition. It's, it's natural. So yes, I would pay, I would and and for the hogs that you don't, so, you know, like we, it just needs to be talked about. You know what I mean? It needs to be talked about if you have a higher quality product. Jart says when you, when you do this, Jared in his new phrase is, we're not, we're not raising a commodity anymore. We're raising a specialty crop and it's worth the premium. You just have, you have to find it. I I do have a, uh, a 20,000 head feed yard a bit east of me and they buy corn from us and they segregate the corn. Am I anything on this topic? Uh, again, this is a big new way thinking it's not just about high yield, the kind of stuff that a lot of the ag conferences have gone to for the last 50 years. It's about changing what's in the crop, but I think that's maybe where the future goes. Luke Harvey is back here with his other dairyman friend from Georgia at the break. Talk to him about the silage issue. You're saying, well, I don't, uh, raise cows and I don't produce silage. Doesn't matter. This is kind of the same topic. That is one of the reasons they're up here is to think about raising a better corn for my specific need. And I think that's again, the beginning of the de demonetization, which is what we talked about last month. Okay. Yes, absolutely. Uh, I, one thing I forgot to announce, there's a bucket on the table when you go outside and that is a GoFundMe for Mike Windrow. He doesn't have enough gas money to get home after the blackjack table last night. So if you can help Mike out, he'd appreciate it. Uh, the cattle nutrition and stuff like that, have we have you sat test the, uh, cover crops that we're putting on to see what that's helping with the cattle or We, you know, like the rye, we did things like that. But like a cover crop rye, I have that rye that we were gonna chop, we did. And to try to improve that nutrition and things like that, Craig, but we, we've never actually gone out and done a cover crop yet. Just the, just the, uh, the ones that the, the crops were harvesting, the ones that were grazing, we have not, okay, Well I'm just thinking about putting cover crop a hundred percent of my farms and I can't cover all my cattle written those farms out and, and showing, hey, this is gonna be a value to your cattle. You know, this could be this, you know, just trying to Yeah, it, it's, you know, the, the, the feed that's out there, it should be, it should be worth something. Yeah. I love, I love to put oats out as a cover crop because my, our biggest, uh, soil problem is fuer and oat are a natural deterrent for fusarium. And so I find the value there. And then if you can get, you know, the cows are simply a carbon transfer system and, uh, if they can turn that cover crop into manure and, and those corn stalks into manure, we're speeding up the transfer. But yeah, if you, if you could show the value of the nutrition out there, it's just like showing the value of that hay bill. Uh, So what they, that would be water learned too with this, your livestock producer. Um, and one thing, like with Jared and Clint, what we do is if you're gonna raise, um, you're just make my buddy here, let's Talk to the guy, What's gonna happen? He's gonna follow you around like that. This is for the guys mine, Just, just to think about the one thing we've learned like raising a silage crop and raising a grain crop are two different things. So you take different nutrients in a different program. So like when we do this stuff, we talk, like in our calibrated group with like Jared, it's like, it's distinctly different when you go raise feed crops versus just raising grain crops. And it's been a challenge, like, we've raised silage at your place, but we raise it for crane crops to feed the cows. So when we go down these paths of why things look like they do, you know, we've always raised it 'cause we're gonna produce yield to go to the ethanol plant. Well now we gotta retrain our brains like we're raising a feed to go to the cows. It's like with Luke's Harvey's data and the big acy, we gotta change our brains. And it goes back to what Damien said last night. You gotta retrain your brain to think about, I'm feeding cows to be more efficient. So that's some of the things we're gonna do, uh, coming this year with, especially with cow. Kelly's farm is like, we're gonna raise silage. We're not raising grain crops, right? Right. And we're gonna go attack things a little different. So that's just one thing we learned here this last year to kind of hit on Kelly's points of we've got, uh, we've gotta learn too as we go along. So we're gonna go learn this year of how to graze feed crops for, for the animals to get a premium and all that stuff. So Yeah, like that. So I brought this slide up. As you could see, this is why, you know, like talking what Jerry did at that dairy, this is why I sprayed extra zinc. I wanna see if I can get extra zinc in my beef next year. Uh, the solids we're gonna produce this year, I'm interested. I wanna go look, you know, like we're feeding a balancer every day to those cattle, right? That stuff's like $600 a month to, and you're feeding every calf like a half a pound a day at the feedlot. I want to go, I'm gonna go look what are, what are the most specific nutrients in there? Could I put more of that in the silage so I can reduce that spend on those, on that balancer? Things like that. That is the way, as a livestock producer, that's the way to get paid. You know, things like that. Again, mineral balance is valuable to everyone through yield, through expenses. And then, uh, if you can marry some animal science to it, if you have that opportunity, there's tremendous value here. It doesn't have anything to do with direct to consumer, just has to do with what you can accomplish on your farm. We got a shy question back here. Yes. Kelly, have you done anything with that? As for like on the hawk production or anything like that for Hulks? You Have the hawks. Yeah, I, I've typed it into the AI and it says that it would have even bigger effects on hogs than it would on, on cattle because of the feed conversion. But we have yet to try it. I did have a, a, you know, uh, my oldest son was an agronomy major at Iowa State, so we know a few of the professors. Shelly and I did have a Zoom call with him a week ago, and they're going back to talk to the team. And we hope Iowa State seems to be pretty interested in running some trials and things like that because again, we're marrying agronomy and animal science, which is what Iowa State's all about. So we have not done it yet, but I hope to do it this year. Alright, we're going to move on 00:32:31.285 --> 00:32:32.765