All right. Hey, here we are. It's the November 2nd edition of the Extreme Ag Webinar. We're talking about, uh, fall focus for spring success. What thing do these guys do that maybe the neighbors don't and they would benefit if they did? We're not being competitive. We're just talking about stuff that maybe gives you a headstart, spring rolls around. It's all hell breaking loose. You got a lot of stuff going on. Why can't you maybe reduce the stress just a little bit and set yourself up for, set the table for success by doing some stuff. Now, between now and spring, fall, fall focus for spring success, what are the guys thinking? What are they doing? What practices, what products, what changes, what implementations are they doing right now that set the table for success come spring? That's what we're talking about. Kelly and Mike Evans are on here from Iowa. Kevin from North Carolina, temple from Maryland. Kelly, you were the first one on with Evans. So we wrote down a couple of notes for you. You do something with, uh, uh, a product from Maritim that helps degrade the fodder, which is a bigger thing. We've talked about that a lot, uh, management of residue. And you also put that on with a plant food byproduct that you're in the business of applying. So you get the fertility and you get the meltdown and it starts catapulting the whole thing forward to, uh, a big caprin. So kind of expand on that Plant food is a liquid byproduct out of the liquid feed industry. Uh, it has a heavy load of carbon phosphorus, sulfur has some potassium, a bit of nitrogen in it, and a lot of biology. We add the res cycle from meristem into the plant food, and we're spraying it out there at a total rate of 400 gallons per acre. I think we're putting on a quart or two of the res cycle is what's going on out there. And it, so it's a total fertility program for us, except for the anhydrous and the, uh, the res cycle going on really aids in the stock breakdown. We're very happy. We've tried a lot of residue products in the past and we finally found one that we're satisfied with. You put this on with the plant food mix. It goes over the top. That's it. Yes. Which is a, it saves a pass. Conventional sprayer. Uh, the way we apply the plant food because of such heavy rate is essentially it's a hog manure applicator with 60 or 70 foot spray booms on there. Semis are hauling loads from our lagoons of the plant food. They dump the res cycle in when they load, so it mixes up and, uh, gets us a very nice coverage. Okay. So it goes, it goes from the semi to the lagoon lagoon to or from the semi to the manure spreader. Yes. Spread out there. Okay. And so it doesn't require an incorporation? No, it does not. We don't wanna incorporate it 'cause we're a hundred percent no-till we just want to get the plant food and the rest cycle onto the corn sucks. Alright. Evans agronomically. Why, why does, why is this a, a focus in the fall that you think gives you spring success? Um, obviously we talked about residue management and then nitrogen or the, uh, fertility. Um, what's, why is this the golden ticket? Well, it just comes down to the operational side of it. When we come into spring planting season with the planters is, uh, as yields keep going up, we get a lot more residue and trying to work through that trash with the planter gets to be a challenge. If we're not trying to do things to mitigate that in the fall, um, you know, we use plant food with the rest cycle in it to break down the stalks. We also put, use some equipment on the corn heads, some devastator to help break that down, open up those stocks for the rest cycle. So they start breaking down. Um, even playing with a new tool that Kelly got called narrow away. Uh, running that around that helps with residue sizing and, and some other things. So we're really trying to set up for spring right now. Got it. So, uh, obviously if the person that's listening to this that says, well, I'm not no-till, uh, do I need, do I need to consider this? Uh, do I need to consider yes, something that melts down the me something that melts down the stubble? If I'm not no-till, do I need something that does the job that res cycle does? I believe you do. Uh, it releases a lot of the nutrients in there helps control disease because you are degrading or you, you know, eroding, rotting away, uh, the food source for the disease and it just helps break down all that residue and turn it back into nutrition in your soil. Agronomically Evans, I, I always had to do this because a long time ago it dawned on me that we got the baldheaded businessman and we got the agronomist. I mean, this is, this is, there's a reason I have to, I have to go back and forth on the question. So anyway, agronomically, agronomically, the person that I there that still does tillage might still think they don't need it. Is it really just disease control and, uh, and, uh, nutrient release are the two reasons Kelly's references. Yeah, they're exactly right. I mean, there's a lot of, at least where we're at and you cross the ice states, there's probably a lot of corn on corn, so a lot more chance of residue harboring pathogens and fungus for next year. And if we can break that down, get rid of that sooner, better off, we're Got it. Temple's got a con contribution, fall focus for spring success. You're gonna talk about these guys using plant food and red cycle. Yep. So, um, these guys are right. I mean, there's a couple things you gotta remember here. See, Kelly's putting, um, he's putting it in plant food and that adds a lot of biology to it. So what I do, I'll add the, the res cycle with seacat and sugar is what we do. And then we'll put like five gallons of UAM to start breaking it down. And you said something a minute ago about tillage, you know, why wouldn't you use tillage or whatever. And a lot of guys talk about just using tillage. I can use tillage, I can get rid of the residue. What breaking down residue with a piece of tillage equipment doesn't add organic matter. This adds to organic matter and this can help build organic matter and aid CECs to your souls because you're actually building all of that. So it, this is a little bit of different way, it's a different approach, but it works very well. I mean, take into consideration, like when you go to put it out there, when you come back in the spring, everything that you do in the spring is, is it's, it's, you gotta have, like, if you're a no-till guy like Kelly is, you have to really have your no-till game really, really strong. 'cause you've gotta remove all that residue. Well, that residue becomes like, I, I don't know what any other word to say, but explosive. Like, it just, it completely falls apart. You know, we've been in 250, 300 bushel irrigated corn and spray this on this program that we're all talking about. And then I go out there in the spring with a fuel cultivator and hit it one time and pH and it's gone. I mean, it's completely gone, right? So yeah, tillage does work, but it also doesn't add organic matter. You know, that's, that's really important here By the way. That's something that I think came, comes as a shock to everybody, including me. I had Darren Hefty on a few months ago following up on his field day Ag PhD Field day, and, and we discussed that organic matter increases, uh, happen with roots, not with, uh, not with plowing stuff down. And I, it, it runs counter to what I guess most of us would think. Uh, but that's kinda what you're speaking to about that. Exactly right. Kevin's nodding his head. Talk about that very topic. And then I'm gonna go into one of your practices on your small, especially on your smaller fields. Yeah. That the bigger the root system, and that's something that we've seen with our irrigated ground was, you know, we took, uh, some of the s farm, we had ss dirt, uh, soil, then growing these big irrigated crops. What that done for us is built massive root systems. And after years of it, what we're seeing is we're needing less irrigation water for that crop. 'cause we're getting so many capillaries in there. And when you get the capillaries is the organic matter build up in the soil and increasing your c your CECs to a point. But how much can you do? And this particular farm was, uh, just not even a one organic matter. And now we're over a 3% organic matter. And I will tell you that is a huge deal in the type of land that we're on. So when you can improve, improve your organic matter in your soils 3%, it's huge. You know, we have so much heat, we eat our residue up quite regularly compared to what Kelly does. By the way. I think it's, I think it's important, Kevin, to point out you didn't, you didn't grow your organic matter by 3%. You increased your organic by three times. And that's, that's a better way of looking at it because you had this much, and now you have three times as much, which then you talk about porosity, water retention, et cetera. And so, while this is getting a little bit off of what we're talking about, fall focus for spring success, I wanna bring it to then another one that you said. One of the most important things that you focus on the fall after the combine's done is cover crops. Mm-Hmm. Is cover crops. Yep. So cover crops. I know that people out here that don't u use 'em, we've talked about it. Kelly and I recorded the podcast about it with one of his guys. That's, that's their entire business in Iowa. I can't enunciate his name. Something like phase. And anyway, one of those, he's got a funny name up in Iowa, and we talked all about cover crops. You are big on cover cropping. Let's go with that. The roots and the cover cropping and how it's done and how it aids and absolutely plays into the, the organic matter increase. It's a reason you focus on in the fall. Yeah, absolutely. So, uh, we pull them crops off, we go right back with a barley wheat mix. Um, there's a lot of other good cover crops out there, but we grow our own barley and we got some wheat, so we're cheap. It works good. We sling it out with a spreader truck. We run a vertical tillage. We're also with that vertical tillage, we're chopping that residue. We're really chewing that residue up. So it'll break down and feed that cover crop, those roots from, and that's not ruts Kelly, that's roots. But, uh, those, those roots from the, uh, cover crops make it so much easier in the spring to no-till it's, you know, our clay soils get really hard and tough here in the Piedmont. And that is a really, really big game changer in how easy it is to go into planting season when you got a much better seed bed to plant in. And it's, it's the porosity at those roots from that cover crop does to the soil just makes it a lot more easier to get in. I wanna point out here that it's taken a while, but, uh, I've agreed with Kevin on pronunciation of words now too many times on, on one of our, one Our more time, I Find. And then also on their, their roots, their boots, their, their roots and their boots. And then those, uh, verge are called coots. They're not roots. Anyway, that's a thing that the Iowa people, uh, I don't know. They, they skipped that part of school on the little house in the prairie. But anyway, what I wanna go with then is about the organic matter thing, that while people are saying, is this an organic matter and a recover crop, uh, discussion, I thought it was about fall focus. You gotta do it in the fall. Yes, sir. Get your cover crop in the fall. Makes the all And Evans not in his head. We're gonna go to him next. Yeah. What do you got, Evans? Are, are you cover crops being planted right now as we speak? We were planted a month ago, so we need Them a month ago. Even before the corn was harvested Months ago. It's probably been two months now Almost. Yeah. We, it's too late to plant cover crops here. We won't get good enough germination. We tried to plant those in September. It Felt like six degrees on Monday. They're not gonna grow. So, Yeah. How do you, how did you plant into standing corn? You used a, you talked about using a drone. How'd you plant into standing corn? Uh, we used a drone this year. Um, and it seemed to work really good. Of course, we got some rains to help it germinate and everything, but it, it's coming up nice. Yeah. And all the cows are out there eating it, so it's kind of a win-win There. The last two years, the airplane or drone applied stuff did not go well with the drought, but this year we got it in right before rain. It it really, really nice. Mm-Hmm. Do you think that some of the, if you're aerial applying cover crop seed is pretty lightweight stuff, do you think it just gets hung up in the, in the corn plant and, and it doesn't even get to the soil? Some of it probably does, but I will tell you Kevin Temple says yes. Uh, I, well, some of it absolutely has to, but I will tell you with the stand we've got out there, we it not all of it. Yeah, right. Well, rain, rain helps Rain, rain washes off the plant and rain puts where it needs to be. Yes. Yeah. Fall focus. Fall focus for spring success. While we're on the Kelly and the, and, and, uh, Evans, you do nitrogen fall, applied nitrogen, um, you think this works for you. It's something you focus on. It's something you didn't always do. Kind of tell us about the journey to making this a focus in your fall for spring success. You know, as a young farmer, it didn't seem like we ever had enough help and we didn't get done harvesting in time that you could put the anhydrous on and, and all that. And we always put it on the spring. And then, you know, as I got older, we started putting it on in the fall and I could see, uh, I felt like I could see a yield difference. And the reason is, is because of soil health. Anhydrous definitely in that band damages soil biology. So if we can put it on in the fall when, you know, when the temperature below 50 degrees for the soil and the biology is dormant, and then when it comes up in the spring, that biology, even though we've damaged it, is very forgiving. It heals and it comes back. And I, I showed Temple and Matt this year in June driving around. I showed, I went around and I could point out a field that was spring applied and I could point out fields fall applied, because you can tell when the planter intercepts that spring applied anhydrous band. 'cause there, there's no germination there. It looks like the planter has skips up and down the hill. And I believe that that's a yield limiting factor. And if there's a skip there also, what is it doing to the roots, uh, on either side of it? There's that word for you. And, uh, it, I'm a firm believer we gotta have fall applied. People think that it's leaching away and things like that. You know, we're using a stabilizer, uh, this year, what our stabilizer showed a, uh, 12 bushel yield game. We are, uh, fall applied and hydrogen only way to do it. We work very hard. We actually, we have three bars going right now. Rich Vernon, you said a a 12 bushel, a 12 bushel yield advantage by doing fall applied nitrogen versus waiting until spring 12 bushel yield gain with our fall applied anhydrous with our stabilizer versus iner, which is the traditional stabilizer. Because iner damages soil biology even more than just anhydrous. And that was the mainstay. That was, that was the only thing you stuck in with nitrogen 40, 30, 40 years ago was NerVve, right? Yeah. That was the first one. That was the first one, yeah. Right. Yes. The, the way NerVve works is it damages soil biology, so it can't, uh, so that nitrogen can't convert in the soil. I don't wanna damage it. And that's my next thing. And temple's nodding in his head. So I'm gonna go to Temple and I wanna come back and ask you about how you can make fall applied nitrogen better for your soil versus spring applied in addition to the go ahead temple. So Kelly Kelly's right about all this. And what I will, what I wanna say is, um, out here, we can't put it on any fall applied, you know, anhydrous and I do anhydrous, I strip till anhydrous. So what I do is, um, Kelly's given it so much time for that biology and, and for his souls to recover. I don't have that time. So what we have to do, we end up having to put, we direct inject C catt, the Humic Vic base, um, product, and we direct inject it with the anhydrous pneumonia. And we do it because we feel like it buffers it somewhat and it kind of protects my soul and it will protect it from, you know, basically ruining like, you know, everybody's like, oh, you use NH three, you're ruining your biology, your soul, blah, blah, blah. Well, I haven't seen any of those effects, but I can tell you right now, like back when we used to be able to apply in the fall, Kelly's a hundred percent right. That that, that thing that is real. I mean, it, it definitely is a lot better in the fall. And we saw it time and time again. Kelly kept pointing it out when Matt and I were out there and it was evident. I mean, you could see the rules. It was bad. Kelly, uh, before we hit record, you said this is one of the things that you thought was, uh, worth sharing because most folks on here, no matter what their geography, I'm guessing, don't look at putting in Hydra out in the fall. Um, and maybe they do, but isn't there an environmental component? You just talked about using Iner then, and the anhydrous can be degrading to the soil, isn't there also the environmental issue of this, we got the, the Dutch government shutting down farms in the Netherlands. We got in Canada talking about imposing nitrogen limits and aren't we going to see this thing coming where you put nitrogen out and spoonfeed it when the crop needs it, if you are allowed to use it at all, you sure as hell aren't putting it out six months before planting. What, how do you address that? We are continually turning down the amount that we're putting on as we conduct our research and get more educated on it using the stabilizer, uh, maintained from maim, maintain elite is the name of the stabilizer we use. And, uh, in the past few years here, we've turned down our anhydrous 25 to 30% and we continue to go lower, um, in our highest yielding soils. Now we're only putting on 80 pounds, which is the complete opposite of your, uh, you know, uh, quote unquote normal grower. But in our highest yielding soils, we have validated and we're very confident of the organic nitrogen that is being mineralized. And we just don't need as much as we used to think we did to raise these big crops. And, uh, our lower yielding soils we're putting on a bit more. But in the higher yielding soils, we're only putting on 80 pounds and our the expenses have gone down. The yields have gone up. And the environmental, environmental component is something we're very much in tune with. Right. By the way, and it's not me that's bashing on it. I'm telling you that we talk about, we talk about what we think is coming. You and I talked about this Before. Yes, yes. And and this is, this is a great example of when I say my high yield path and my environmental path are converging because let's face it, we're doing this research to try to raise the biggest yields we can, but also we're becoming more environmental at the same time. And that's something I think the American public really needs to know and understand. We're not bad environmentalists, but we're gonna do it in a, we are gonna go about it and do it in a way, it's gonna come from a perspective of us of what makes us more money. And this is a great example of that. We continue to turn our anhydrous down, our yields go up and we're being better and better for the environment At the same time. The only thing that scares me, and this is completely a little bit off the reservation here, but it's kinda like the CRP program. If you were doing what you should have done for erodible soils before the CRP program, you kind of got punished because you couldn't take a highly erodable ground and put it into the program. I hope they don't do that with nitrogen, say five years from now, they're restricting the amount of nitrogen and they base it on how much you used in the last three years when you're already demonstrating demonstrably decreased amounts of an nitrogen per acre. You're right. And, and you've seen that happen with irrigation regulations and things like that as well. But that's why, uh, you know, extreme ag or, or people that are involved in this space need to be part of telling the story. So we can show what is responsible and what is appropriate rather than have someone else make that decision for us. Right. Um, we're gonna go over to Temple and talk about one of his fall focuses on data analytics. And we're gonna hear from Kevin about something he does, particularly in a small field for you, that I wanna remind you if you're listening to this right now, if you're on here right now, if you have a question, type it in. If you have a comment, type it in the chat feature. Uh, we'll just put a link up there that I encourage you to look at. It's the recording I did with Darren Hefty talking about how to increase organic matter. If you've been told you can't do it in your farming life, you've been lied to. Uh, the other thing I wanna remind you is that if you are a, an extreme Ag member, our friends at Nature's will pick up your tab to Commodity Classic. Think about that. Commodity classics coming up the end of February. It's a great show. It's, it's, it's not just a bunch of people walking around and trying to get free yardsticks. There's actually great information and there's, uh, people like Extreme Ag are there. Commodity Classic this year is in Houston. If you're an extreme Ag member, all you gotta do, and this starts on November 14th, you'll be able to go to our website and sign up for Commodity Classic Letting Nature's pay your way. If you are watching this and you're watching the replay and you're not a member, why the heck wouldn't you become a member? Become a member for seven 50 bucks? You basically get almost half of that back by getting your pay your your way paid to Commodity Classic. Our friends at Nature's are making this offer. Any member of extreme Ag can go to Commodity Classic, get your entrance for free, your admittance for free. It's three to $400 that you're saving right there. And you're only costing your seven 50 for your membership here. So think about that really, really worth your while. And, uh, we've, we're gonna be there at Commodity Classic. In fact, on Thursday of Commodity Classic, we're gonna be doing the early bird session. Uh, Shelly really, you know, baited me. I'm gonna be waking up at five o'clock in the morning, which is something I do not like to do. But Temple told me, I, if you're not there, you suck Mason. That's what he said. So anyway, uh, please check that out. Alright, temple Data Analytics, you focus on data during the fall, um, making sure that you're making the right decision and judiciously using your financial resources for success. Come spring, talk about it. So, you know, we're out here, you know, every farmer's got a trial, whether it's a variety or whether it's a fertility that he changed every, all of us are doing it, you know, and I've said it a million times, you know, data is only as good as the person that puts it in. And it's also only as good as the person that's taking it out. That's harvesting that plot, making sure that you're doing the right thing. Because, you know, if, if I think that I got a positive response on a product that cost me five or $8 an acre, and I realistically didn't, I mean, what did that cost me next year when I wanna move it into my grower standard practice over thousands of acres. Like we can make huge mistakes by doing this. So that's one of the things that we really, we really focus on that, you know, spending all that time in the combine and thinking about those as we're, as we're analyzing it. And then when we get done bringing all that data back home and sitting down with it, and sometimes we need help. You know, like, you know, Evans is, he helps Kelly decipher through all that. You know, sometimes we need help to decipher through it and be able to pull these pieces apart. 'cause it's, it is definitely a struggle, there's no doubt. But, but there's so much money that's hidden in that data. And if it's done right, it, I mean, financially, it's, it's a huge windfall. So a lot of farmers love the combine. Love the planter, love the smell of, uh, turned dirt, love the idea of being out there and digging in. And they will get very analytical when it comes to how to get an extra half a bushel of soybeans outta a field. You start telling 'em, Hey, you gotta start analyzing your numbers and you're talking about your finances and you're talking about your input costs. Then you gotta be in there and sit at your desk for a few days. They don't wanna do that. Uh, you're pretty high strung guy. What, what's your trick to actually focusing on this in the fall, even though it's not sitting at your desk and, and being an accountant is probably not one of the things that you love about farming, but you do it. It's, it's not, I'm, I'm not good at it either. I'm gonna be honest with you. I'm, I'm not good at it. But, you know, a lot of this is, you know, data collection and being able to analyze through it. I'll be honest with you, as soon as I get done a field, um, and I hit the, the, you know, the harvest summary, which is everything that I did in there, every variety, every um, fertility pass that I made and it, it'll divide out anything that I've done with the sprayer the whole entire year and it'll divide it all out. And I just hit email and I email that to myself and I'm looking through it right away. Like, I'm like, okay, this did this, this did that. You know, that's pretty impressive. Lemme go back and see if I can see it on the map. So I'm just highlighting those things in my head the whole time. And then I email it back to myself. So then that way when I get home, I'll kind of glance through it and see what it is, send it to the other guys in extreme ag, Hey, what is this? Are you seeing this? Are you not seeing that? And then you've gotta spend time. You, you, you know, I have some guys, um, that I'm pretty close with in the, in in the climate, uh, deal. 'cause I do a lot of stuff in climate and I'll get them to come and sit down with me and help me analyze it then, you know what I mean? Like dig deeper. 'cause you, you have to dig deeper to find some of these things. And like I said, you know that, you just talked about it, that half bushel thing here or there, you know, what did it cost you for that bushel and that, those are all the things that you need to do. You know, you gotta back all that out. You know, Kevin talks about it all the time. You, you gotta have that ROI just because it makes bushels does not mean that it money Money. It makes money. Yeah. Yeah. But bushels don't bushels, uh, don't mean net profit. Hey Kevin, you're nodding your head and you leaned up about this. Yep. So the technology has made the data more available. It's also made it so that now you have to be bit more of a data scientist. When you started farming Yeah. You had some, you, you took notes and you kept files. Now it's almost overwhelming. Do you think that data, analyzing your data and as a focus for the fall that you think makes you money in the spring? Oh, absolutely. If, if it's not, you're foolish for not using it. The opportunity's there and it's amazing what you can do with that opportunity. You know, we're using, uh, we've used climate, we've used my operation center and it seems like my operation center's gotten better and better. We're very happy with it. And um, you know, just last night that's what I was kinda laughing at. Uh, we had used some stress mitigation products for heat when we had that heat coming. And, um, I'd forgot I had used it on that farm and we was picking last night and the corn was doing really well and I pulled it up and it was a Haven product that we had used and you could see the line with the combine and it was just a couple bushel deviation. So with the cost of the product, it, it actually made us some money this time. But some of those products is really hard to know when the best time to get it because you're putting it on just before a heat event. And I could only do a few acres to get it right. But if you didn't have that data to look at, you wouldn't know how to prepare for next year to know to line these products up and maybe catch a good time to buy 'em through the winter when you're at a better buying price. And not wait until the day before you realize, Hey, I got a forecast coming. I need to go buy these products. And then you gotta pay extra shipping. And, you know, it's a lot of planning that goes on. A lot of overlay. Something to think about when you look at this data is how did you, how do you read the data? In other words, it is easy when you're planning. 'cause you can acronym your varieties in the variety locators that work so well on climate or, uh, my operation center or SMS ag leader. You can really see it. But it's those spray applications that we tend to forget about that we went out there and did this foliar pass or you know, or maybe, maybe we waited and did some late season. Maybe we did some wide drop. And it's easy to forget about that. But you really gotta go back and look and see where that profit is to plan for next year. Is it something you can do or just forget about. It dawned on me that temple has had his hand raised. If you're watching this replay or if you're watching this live Temple's had his, he is the Arnold horse shack of extreme ag. And if you aren't old enough to remember welcome back Kotter, go and check it out on YouTube. Anyway, um, about data, I'm sorry about data real quickly, Kelly, when we make the crack that Evans is the agronomics and you're the business side of it. You didn't tell me, uh, when we talk about something you focus on in the fall for spring success, the, the product and the money part of it, um, there is a financial focus. Um, is it, is it time to say this product didn't return? Or is it still too early for that? What's, what's, where's your money mind go? Where's your money mind focus on on November 2nd? Well, as we're harvesting, Evans is compiling the data because you know, with the extreme ag in all the trials, there's probably, there's probably at least one trial, if not multiple trials in every field. And we're constantly looking at that. And I'm constantly looking at what's gonna become grower standard practice because it made us money. What are we gonna kick out? Because it didn't, and I, I sit here think I was sitting here thinking about that as Kevin and Temple were talking. When you talk to farmers a lot of times, and I I was guilty of this before extreme ag, you don't want to take time to do the trials because it slows us down. But Kevin had a great, great point there. There's so much. Or Kent Temple, I don't remember which one. There's a lot of money in that information. There's a lot of money in that information. Take the time to do it. Kip Kohler said if 10% of your farm isn't research, you're already broken. You just don't know it yet. That's incredible. That's very, very true. Take the time, do the research because the, the stuff that we look at that, that talk about, and you're talking about, well this made $60 an acre, this lost $60 an acre, or even 80 or 40 or whatever it is. Do that. And yes, my financial brain goes right now and I I wait for Evans. This is my operation center right here. Ugh. You know, Kevin talked about climate JD operations. I just, Mike Evans brings me the paper and I read it. I don't even know how to log into all that stuff. I apologize, Kevin. Makes me feel bad. Makes me feel bad. Like the third time I met Evans, I said, you're, you're like a big old ex football player. I think maybe you got hit on a, on a, on a screen, on a screen blitz a couple too many times. Maybe in the ear hole. But anyway, hey, um, about financial focus in the fall. 'cause that's something that I think we need to go around. 'cause after all, we always say farming's a business. What, what, what one thing, Kevin and Temple, when you look at a financial focus that you didn't think about last year, that this year kind of is in your head, there's probably something, because I know that's how my business is. You're always looking like, damn, I hadn't thought of this before, but I'm focusing on it now. Yeah. For me, what what we're focusing on with our small fields is the quality. And this is something we ain't gotta buy. This is something we gotta do better. And it's the amount of damage that we're doing with our sprayers and our, our headlands and we have tremendous acres of headlands and we talk about wanting to make the yields better throughout the farms. When I look at these yield maps on that second round around the field, I can see the lower yield and put a number in this fall, we're gonna sit down, Tim, it works for me. We're all gonna sit down with the guys and we're gonna show how important it's to slow that sprayer down, do a general turn, get back in the row as quickly as possible, and don't be damaging these crops. And it's, um, it's just huge profit. We've already, the crop we've done, spent the money. Why tear it up so bad? And I run. But that's just an area of focus that we can change and it don't cost us nothing but just a few minutes of time. Yeah, that's interesting. 'cause what you're talking about is you're avoiding damage the old, the old medical thing. And they teach you in medical school, allegedly on day number one. I think day number one is sell lots of pharmaceuticals. Day number two is first do no harm. So anyway, what you're talking about is you've done the work, you've grown the crop. Why are we, Kelly talks about iron blight, uh, because he farms fields that frankly, let's face it, you know, they should be probably some sort of wildlife, uh, property. They're very slopey and curvy and whatnot. But anyway, he talks about it all the time. Do you think that while you're out there in the fall going through with a combine and you look down and say, son of a b***h, we just tore up, we just tore up a whole bunch of acres here on this corner of the field. I mean, that's kinda what you're talking about. You see it now, Kelly, you see it now. You see the damage. Now Does it become Absolutely, I'm sorry, I'm thought you're still talking to Kevin. I was listening. I'm Talking to anybody. Yes. I'm like Temple. Hey, you know what? I took some of temple's pills. I'm raising my hand over here. I'm temple tonight. Yes, you could see the damage. Now. You, you know, uh, I sometimes wonder about some of those really steep spots. I'm like, should we just seed 'em down? But then, you know, erosion starts there because the water runs around and things like that. So we continue to farm 'em. I can't wait for the, uh, episode of the TV show to come out. Tim was in the combine with Vern and they actually slid down the hill. Uh, it's supposed to be some good footage, so it'll be interesting for everybody to experience that. Yeah. You know, we, we try to be able to farm it efficiently, uh, safely, obviously, and still make it productive and profitable. When you look at, uh, fall focus, Kevin kind gets me on this topic right here, minimizing loss. In other words, you've done the work, you've spent the money, you've already paid for the seed, you paid for all the chemical, all the diesel, all your time. Is there something else you can focus on right now when a combine is running that the listeners to this or the people watching the replay are like, ah, I never thought about it. Minimizing loss, avoid loss avoidance, loss prevention. Well, it, it would be great to be able to plant straight back and forth, but we can't do that because we try to have to practice conservation. So I feel like we're continually trying to refine the way that we plant the field to make it as efficient as possible. So you're not always doing some short rows. Because when you're doing that, you're knocking down, you know, when as you're opening things up and trying to go around the corners. So you're, you're trying to find that that real center spot, that perfect spot where you are as efficient as possible and, but also still practicing conservation. And you know, we, we really try to solve that because it, there's a lot of money in, in being productive and efficient. There's also a lot of money in not knocking down the crop because you're going around a corner or something all the time, you know, but there's also a lot of money and financial gain in practicing good conservation and keeping that top soil on the hills. So you're trying to find that spot. Well, I think one thing and kind of leads into this, we've talked about this fall is this, some of the fields that you've got, Kelly, you've farmed, you know, like bockers, right? We'll just name a field that's got like four little chunks. Mm-Hmm. That we, you farm forever. When you have smaller equipment, it was probably made sense. Now you got more equipment. Now you're looking at, well is this make, make us money? And you've come to the conclusion it doesn't. No. So you're gonna seed it down to alfalfa or something like that. I mean, I talk about that. I mean, I think sometimes you farm too much of the acre that's causing us too much loss. That's true. I didn't even duck. Yeah, there's like five or six fields that amount to about 11 acres. We're gonna put them in alfalfa and stop farming them. So one thing, One thing, Well I think the other thing, Damian, is the reason you're doing that is 'cause you got the cow site, so you're gonna use that, right? Absolutely. We can still use the alfalfa for feed, obviously. And uh, Vene and Richie, they're all getting tired of going into those little spots with the 12 row head or the 40 foot draper. And it, it's tough to do a good job in there. And it's tough to make it profitable. It takes too much time. So we're gonna seed them to alfalfa's The decision you made and to fall. 'cause you decided this has taken a lot of time and it's really not, uh, worth it. Is there a decision you're making in the fall right now that's a similar thing, temple, where you're, you're your, your focus, your focus was like, Hey, you know what, I, I looked into this a little bit stronger here as the combine's rolling and I've decided this. Well, it was more of like when I was digging through the data as we were moving stuff around. Um, I think we're, we're getting to the point where, you know, all the guys in extreme ag, it's like, like Kelly says, it's like drinking from a fire hose, you know? And that's the problem with us half the time we're drinking from a fire hose, but we're learning so much, so fast. I am my focus next year, you know, for now for next year one, I'm putting, I'm doing what, what Kevin says, I'm gonna be putting in orders. I'm trying to get straight for what I'm gonna do next year, but I'm gonna start moving fertility around. Like I think that I've got the wrong fertility at the wrong times and I'm not really gonna, I'm not going to change the amount of money that I'm putting in my crop. I'm just gonna move it to a time where it's a little more efficient. Woo. By the way, like, by the way, I wanna just point out next month's webinar is about leveraging this season's insights for next season's farming success. I want you to, I want you to put that topic on hold. Give us a little more tease on it. Okay? But I want you to go into more in depth because that's exactly what we're talking about in our December webinar because it's like, man, this whole year I looked at this next year. Boom. I'm doing that. Alright, so I'll give you a just a, uh, just a really, really quick tease. So, um, you were out here Damien, um, during our field day and you saw the airplane flying. Well, that airplane was putting on fertility and we were trying to pinpoint the exact time of gdu that made the biggest bang for our buck, right? And surprisingly enough from three different, um, sets of gdu, one was 1900, one was 2,101 was 2300 gdu on this particular corn that finishes to black layer at 2,700. Um, we found the pass in there that makes the most sense and it was a 30 bushel swing between all of them. So being able to pinpoint some of those things kind of catapults me to, Hey, look, I need to move a lot of things to this and I'm gonna move it outta something else. I'm telling you there's big secrets there that we don't even realize are there? We have no idea. I we're, they're they're listener person watching this video replay. That is the December 14th topic, leveraging this season's insights for next season's farming success. It's a huge one. And we're gonna talk about more of that stuff is whatever these guys have really decided they're doing. Um, I gotta, I gotta go on with, uh, the next thing. Speaking of, uh, soil, if you are, uh, a member of extreme ag, we wanna tell you about something that we're pretty excited about. It's coming in December. You're gonna see announcements coming in December, but I'm gonna tease it right now. It's the Soil Health Initiative. We're launching a soil health program in December that will allow you to make more money per acre for many of the practices you are probably already doing. Reduce tillage, no-till, uh, cover cropping some of the things that you are doing right now. Anything that produce, reduces erosion, those kinds of things. We're gonna have a program where you can make money for doing that. No, we're not going to come and, you know, investigate you and, and you know, uh, slap your wrist. It's very simple. It's just, it's where the future is going about sustainability. And you can up your farming game and make money at it through this initiative. So we're very excited. It'll be coming out. More details in December. Stay tuned. Also wanna remind you if you would like to be a, uh, an attendance at Commodity Classic. Our friends at Nature's are teaming up with extreme ag. If you're a member, they'll pay your way to Commodity Classic. They don't pay your flight, they'll pay your admittance once you get to Houston. Alright, uh, Kevin, soil Health, one of the things you focus on to fall, you go around the edges, you've got some small fields. Matt Miles loves to bust your chops about that. And you do something that you think is really important to make your small fields not get any smaller. Yes, we, you gotta maintain the borders and the edges of the field. And so we get a lot of root intrusion from the large oak trees and, and the poplar that we have along the field lines. And we go in and with a disc gripper and a nine r tractor. And we, we rip those out pretty deep and it'd be amazing how big they can get every two years. When we do it, we come right back with a, AD you know, accelerator. Actually, we bought a John Deere vertical tillage tool this year. It's doing a great job. And we level it up, throw barley on it, wheat cover crop, and then level all that back up. We also hit our high traffic areas where we, our grain carts is packed down the land pretty hard. We try to hit those areas and we keep everything bush hog mowed back and it's just amazing the guys that don't do that. And if you get it done this fall, next spring, it's just a whole lot less work you gotta do. And you got dead trees fell out in the field and it's just a whole lot less work. And you go on, get the plant On your edges. You said you rip it and then you use a a do all or a soil finisher. I can't what you call it. Called it. Yeah. Vertical tillage. Vertical tillage vertical. And then You, you drop some cover crop, but you cover crop everything. You Yes sir. You cover crop the rest of the field as well, but that's the part that gets ripped. Yep, yep. That's correct. Yeah. Some of'em our are behind our soybeans. We want to put cover crops on the soybean land because we're gonna go right into corn lots of times and on those, and we'll have good residue from our wheat straw. So those areas, we will actually just reseeded the area that we've done to rip on and, uh, not, maybe not the whole field, but uh, but we definitely gotta keep something growing on it to cover that red clay back up. Going up to Garrett Land and cattle. Uh, one more thing that you decide is a fall focus. You're now doing what you can, you called it to remove fertility from the planter. It's something I think we can go around the whole horn here on with everybody. Um, you guys do a lot of stuff at time of planning. Uh, there's nine different products on the semi trailer that are going on the planter. And you said one of the things you're now doing in the fall is trying to take some of that load off the planter. So speak to that. Well, we're constantly looking at every decision we make and every product we use. And like this year there were eight or nine things in furrow, uh, plus what's in the two by two. And there are some, some of the products that we don't, that we don't think are, are carrying their weight because of the changes we've made. Uh, you know, how we've changed the plant, how we've changed our other fertility program and we have started to take things out of the inferral. We have started to take things off of the two by two. Uh, we're really not reducing the budget. We're moving that part of the budget to the reproductive time. And uh, like this year we, we made a, uh, airplane pass at V 10 on the corn at R one on the corn. And again, at R five, we're continually taking things off the planter now and moving it to a reproductive timeframe. Uh, and the yield benefits are, have been really, really nice for us. Uh, you know, when I started extreme ag, I had just started with an inferral program. We didn't even have two by two. Now we've added all that stuff now we've learned so much. And now, um, it isn't like we're gonna eliminate the two by two program, but it's amazing to me how far we've come and how much we've changed. And it's just because we're not married to a product, I continue looking for higher yields and bigger income. Most of the stuff you're removing from the planter, you're not, the only thing you're doing in the fall though that helps that is the nitro, the, the anhydrous application and then your plant food. And, and that's not something you would've done at time of planting anyhow. So to say that you're focusing on that in the fall isn't exactly right. You're just, you're saying that you look at it now as a season long approach versus upfront everything doing that at time of planning. What what we're doing in the fall is looking at the yield trials, uh, and the data and making the decision for what's gonna happen in 2024. That's the fall focus. The fall focus is reading the data that we were talking about before. And, uh, it isn't always about adding a product and spending more money. Sometimes it's about kicking that product out and deciding what to do with that portion of the budget. That's the fall focus. Got it. Soil samples, everybody. So everybody focuses on in the fall, soil, soil, uh, analytics, right? Yep. Yep. Uh, all right, temple, you're Froze. Wait a minute. Wait a minute. Wait a minute. Kelly shaking said no. We're taking our soil samples when we take our SAP samples in the summer and we, we won't take a lot of soil samples in the fall on, you know, we bought some new ground, we'll soil sample that to see what we have. But our soil samples are in the summer because we, you know, we're taking the soil sample when we take the SAP sample to see the relationship between the soil and the growing crop. And uh, you know, I, there's different people around here and they talk about grid sampling. I gotta tell you, I 100% disagree. Wow. Wait a minute. This is an episode In his area. He may be right in our area with our variable so many soil types, we, we really need to get that pH balance 'cause we're low pH and we really use it for getting that lime. He is a hundred percent right on the load of that soil sample. It will be different during that growing season. It's very important to know how your soils respond to that nutrient withdrawal, converting it from the ground into the plants. You really need to know that. But you also, and different soils, uh, for my situation or the whole east coast, basically that pH is a big deal for us. But Kelly doesn't fight what we do. He's got different animals. He's gotta fight. And that system works well for Kelly. I I don't disagree with soil sampling in the fall. I disagree with grid sampling and making a decision for fertility on that. You here, the, and I don't know about in the region that Temple and Kevin live, but here people will go out and they'll, and the grid, there's a point every 330 feet, every direction. If you've got a point here, every direction, there's another point. 330 feet, they're gonna take a soil sample. And exactly what you're talking about, Kevin, the soil's very variable. So you're gonna go over it this way 330 feet and you're gonna go over this way 340 feet and you're gonna take a soil sample and then you're gonna make a decision based upon that. Your income, your income was derived from the information on your yield map. Does your yield map, does your yield map look like your grid map? And if the answer is no, then why in the hell are you making a fertility decision and spending money based on a grid map? That's what I disagree with. That's The yield. The yield map is probably one of the best. If you can convert it to that, by all means. Yep. That's gonna be the best. Now. So that, What I agree with is making a decision that's not based on income, it's based on a soil reading every three 30 feet. I I disagree with that. Yeah. Well you don't have to like one soil type in your whole county. No, it's that, That could be true. There's one, one sold. The Only thing that changes in Kelly's area is elevation. Nothing else changes. I've been in that Dirt and when the elevation changes, the base saturation changes and then the yield potential changes and all that. And that's, that's, that's why I disagree with that. So he's, he's right. So what we do is we take our samples in the fall and I don't make decisions on that. I make, we do take 'em in the fall, we take 'em again in the spring. But what we do with 'em is we compare 'em one, like, like Kevin was saying, we compare them, but we also take those and we just try to find our greatest limiting factor and we compile those next to soil, type next to our yield data and find that greatest limiting factor. Because, you know, Damien and I did a, uh, a podcast the other day and we talked about the greatest limiting factor. It's a lot easier to go out and fix one really bad spot than it is for us to go out there and fix the whole field Temple. I don't need to take a soil sample to know my greatest limiting factor. It's me. Well, The same thing. I'm, I'm the same way. That's me By the way. I've always appreciated the humility of the extreme ag guys. 'cause they always say that, uh, they're the problem between bigger yields and all that. And, and we say it all the time. You Exactly. The seed's not the problem. Kelly said that like first year I worked with them, that once you open the seed, it's got, uh, probably a potential of 500 bushels or a hundred bushel soybeans. It's us that get in the way of it. And so, um, I wanna go through one other thing. Evans, um, you've been a little more quiet on this. What's something that you focus on, um, in the background as the agronomic person or what's something you've learned to focus on in your time working for Kelly? Because you have an ag retailer background, the focus back there was sell, sell, sell. Now it's a different sort of mindset. What's your focus in the fall, the versus what it may have been a few years ago? Well, I mean basically it's going through the data. Um, whether it's hybrid data, looking at all that information, you know, I don't, I think we had, he planted like 25 hybrids this year or something like that. I don't remember what it was. It was a lot. Um, and all that information, I'm going through it and looking at it not just as a yield thing, but I also go through and look at the economics. You know, you buy bag of seed from 180 bucks to $300 a bag and it could be the greatest thing you ever yielded was a 300 bag, but did it make you money at the end of the day? So we kind of measure those two things, is what I spend my time on, and then go through the trial work and really thinking about, okay, are we doing the right thing? Um, I'll go back to the soil sampling. Um, I spent a lot of years in grid sampling. Um, a lot of time in that. And, uh, from the retail side, you know, they wanna sell fertilizer, obviously. That's what they're in the business for. But, you know, never nothing's ever really truly gained, um, by a, a soil sample long term as far as like a huge yield gain. I mean, you want keep your soil in balance, you want to keep it in check. We still grid sum sample here at times. Not, you know, not all the time, but not to make decisions off of Yeah. But to see what's there, just to make sure we're keeping things in check. I mean, you want to keep a report card on it, but, uh, you know, that's what I spend my time on the fall and looking at what we're doing next season. You know, when we start combining, that's the first thing my thought is, is what are we gonna do for next year? Because that's when we start pulling data in. Okay. I always, uh, ask a question from a business standpoint. Um, you know, I I used to ask this, if I gave you four more hours a week, how would you spend it? Because the, basically what you're always asking is the person, what thing do you not apply as much energy too as you really kind of know you should, like, you feel a little guilty that you're not doing this one thing, whatever that is. So what's the thing that you don't focus on right now, or don't put enough focus on that you think moving forward you should, and I wanna go around the, the horn on that temple. What's one thing that you think deserves more attention this time of year over the next month or so, between October and and Christmas time that you know, you're gonna probably pay attention to it more? 'cause you're, you're letting it slip through the cracks a little bit because I think there's probably a lot of people that have that in their head. Like, there's only so much time. A hundred percent. My wife, I don't spend enough time with her. I, I'm letting her sort of slip through the cracks. She's getting away from me if I'm not careful. No. Um, honestly, probably, you know, probably we tend to get in a rush and we're, we're, we're so rushed to get the crop out before the winter weather comes, blah, blah, blah, blah. I'd say probably spend more time with, um, with maintenance, you know, to staying ahead of that maintenance thing. And, and we try very hard to stay ahead of the maintenance, but, you know, it seems like you, when you let something slip, you know, it just, it's bound to bite you like every time. So I would say, you know, spend a little bit more time with maintenance. You know, you, you got guys that are, that are working for all of us, you know, pull 'em in the shop on rainy days and just literally go think through everything with a fine tooth cone. That's what we try to do, but it doesn't always happen. Got it. Kevin, what's the one thing that you think, uh, could deserve a little bit more energy and focus this time of year, and if, if you could, you'd do it more? Well, we're, we're doing it this year. We've made it a goal to do it. But the, it's something that's not easy to do. Kelly just spoke of it earlier at the beginning of the webinar, but we've got some small fields, uh, that the Deere's eating up. They're not making us no money. And, you know, you hate to give the ground up. Um, it might've been some of the first ground you ever got rented to you when you started, then you kind of tied to it. But the fact is, this is a game about making money and we all got plenty of work to do and we all got wives that's got a list of stuff for us to do when we get home. So it's, um, we're looking real hard at those fields that are not making us money anymore, mainly due to the deer population. But due to the urban sprawl, the deer has nowhere to go but in our fields now and we're feeding them and we've got some land that we don't need to be farming no more. And we're gonna look at it. Your your Your, your focus that you maybe should have focused on a year or two or five ago now is maybe there's some fields that aren't a fit. Uh, they're just, there's not, it's not a financial We, we've noted. We just think, yeah, we've noted. We just didn't wanna admit it. We didn't wanna let it go, but we don't, we don't need it. We don't farm acres. We farm bushels. Yeah. And, um, you, you gotta think like Kelly on that. Think of it from a financial aspect and forget the acres. I like it. So Kelly and Evans, what's one thing that you think, uh, could deserve like in, in a fall in if we have this conversation next fall? Or do you, you know, you told me two years ago you were gonna focus on stress mitigation and you said, I haven't before. You know, it didn't focus on before. So that's kind of the, always the evolution of what the next focus is. What's something you think that you don't focus on enough now that you, it just merits more attention and if you, if you had four more hours a week, you would, I would spend my time probably more on the data and the paperwork with Mike to feel even more confident about those decisions. Evan, you know, I, I wanna be outside, I don't wanna be inside. So it's, that's something easy to pass off and, and I'll just say tell whatever Mike thinks is what we're gonna do, which is probably what we're gonna do anyway. But I should still pay more attention and learn more. Maybe I'd have an opinion Evans that is that, uh, where you're going with that too? Yeah. I mean, I don't think you can ever not look at that stuff and be a little more, you know, there's, there's, there's so many levels of that. You can look at the yield, you can look at the financial piece and all that stuff. I mean, there's, there's a lot of layers to that. Alright, so you didn't, neither of you said, uh, temples haven't talked about equipment. What about, uh, infrastructure? Should you focus more on infrastructure when you're pulling and dropping stuff off the grain bin? Did none of you ever said, um, I think my grain bin, uh, needs updating? It is time to spend another half a million dollars on infrastructure improvements? None of you said that. None of you said it's time to focus on my relationship with the banker. Nobody said that. So I'm just going through some of the stuff that I wondered if they'd have been answers. You know, the, uh, with, with the trucking business that we have here and the, the mechanics that we have here, the, the maintenance here is ongoing. Mm-Hmm. So I, I feel good about that. Um, you know, we put in, we did put in a new dryer that cost a half a million dollars that would, and that required a good, uh, good relationship with the banker. So we, we have all that tackled this year. I, uh, you know, with the diversity of our business, the maintenance things, stuff like that, uh, it, uh, it, I wouldn't say that we're perfect at it, but, uh, um, When you got Vern, it's constant maintenance. Yes. Like breaking stuff. Yes. With Vern. With Vern we're really good. I would, I would spend four more hours with Vern to show him how not to tear Snoots off the corn head. Maybe. That should be my answer. I think he's, he's, he's a little bit, he's a little bit ramish. All right. Um, we are doing this again on the second Thursday, December, December 14th. And the focus, the topic is leveraging this season's insights for next season's farming success. I'm telling you, it's a great topic. Everybody's gonna be there. We're not sure yet about Kevin. Everybody's gonna be there talking about the thing. The one big takeaway from this year. Like, you know what I'm gonna do? Here's a big takeaway from 2323, and here's how I'm gonna turn it into money in 2024. You can obviously be thinking yourself as a listener, as a viewer of this. Oh man. But great, I can apply that. I wanna also remind you about a soil health initiative. It's a program that'll be coming out in December. Look for the announcements. And you can probably make some money on acres that you already farm for stuff you're already doing. So you know what it's like, found money. So be looking for that. And then speaking of found money, our partners at Nature's are going to pay for your admittance to Commodity Classic. This is a program that begins November 14th. Get signed up. Don't wait until January 2nd when it expires between November 14th and January 2nd. You gotta get signed up. And if you're a member for seven $50 a year, a member of Extreme Ag gives you all the amenities, access to the guys, uh, premium content. You also then get to go to the Commodity Classic as part of that. So basically it cuts your membership cost by about half till next time. Thanks for being here. Fall focus for Spring Success. We want you to focus on these things to up your game. Reminder that there are literally hundreds of videos that Kevin Temple, Evans, Kelly, and all the other extreme Ag guys have shot out in the field that you can apply to your farming operation. It's all free at Extreme Ag Farm. Also the podcast cutting the curve. I recorded a couple hundred of these babies and also videos out there in the field with these guys. Share it with somebody that can benefit from it. Till next time, thanks for being here. See you December 14th and also@extremeag.farm on Twitter and on Facebook. Till next time, Kelly, Kevin Temple, Mike Evans, will Ostet, Damien Mason. Thanks for being here.