Farming Webinar | Mid-Summer Misses: What Farmers Overlook That Costs Yield

Uh, so you know what we're covering on this one. We're talking about mid-summer misses what Farmers overlooked at cost yield. And we're gonna take a couple different twists on this. We're gonna talk about what we know now on June 5th that we wish we'd had known back in March or April. Johnny Verell is gonna cover that. We're gonna talk about historical, uh, screw ups. And the, the old thing that, uh, Lee's gonna cover, uh, the best lessons are the, the ones you pay tuition for, and he's got an example on that. And then we're gonna let things evolve and we're gonna go over to Chad Henderson, who usually, uh, has all kinds of brilliant stuff, but mostly right now he's in the field putting on what they call late season nitrogen, which is interesting to me because it's June 5th and we still have corn being planted, uh, in my part of the world. Northeastern Indiana, we're remind you that we do this every month, but we're not going to do this in August because we have so many field days. If you are an extreme Ag fan, you don't have to be a member. You can come to any of our field days. Our next one is June 12th. We're gonna be in McGee, Arkansas at Miles Farms June 26th. We're gonna travel up to northwest Iowa at Garrett's. We, from August, we're gonna be August 5th at Johnny Verell's place in Jackson, Tennessee. It's a great one. We're all gonna be for that one. Then on August 7th, we're gonna be at Matthews Farms in North Carolina, August 15th, we're going north of the border up to Quebec to Sam Cchu. And then we're gonna round out our field days, August 21st at Temple Roads, midsummer, misses. Um, Johnny, I think we're gonna get you go in the batter's box. We're gonna start off with Lee. Lee said, you know what? I'm all about the systems approach. I'm all about continuing to do things. And you know what? Last year I didn't go out and put a final treatment on some of my wheat and it cost me dearly. Tell us about that. Uh, last year we got done with planting and we were getting awfully dry. It was getting kinda serious. Our wheat was starting to turn blue in places and even burn a little bit, and it was time to apply for the flowering pass, which is always very critical for us. And we're going, man, don't really want to go do it. We're not real enthused about it. Maybe we should go golfing and kick back a little bit. And it's like, no, we think there's enough, there's enough moisture in the ground and in the plant we can still get a a, a good fill. So we went out and we ran hard and with both sprayers and covered our acres, but we also took one field around power poles and, uh, kind of a redneck experiment. And I told Rich who was running the other sprayer, I said, instead of backing in around them, spray around them. And I, and we posted a video on this about a month ago, and basically it was, we were at, we were at third base rounding home on the crop. And by leaving those spots, it went from crop to crop where we sprayed versus not spraying. It was about 45 to 50 bushel an acre when we pulled in with the combine. And that really caught our attention about the systems approach, about seeing your crop through. Even when conditions are kind of on the tough side, it usually will still pay good benefits. All right, so right now we're talking about, uh, wheat sub $6, right? Yeah. Okay. So still at, at 45, at 50 bushels, you're still talking $250 of, of lost revenue. Mm-hmm. Yeah. All right. What, what was in the tank? Uh, where we sprayed, we were running wheat in the one twenties, and where we didn't spray, we were running 60, 70 bushel. What was in your spray rig? Uh, we were running, uh, vis ace. We were running energize, uh, reproductive PGR insecticide at the time to catch any, uh, late, uh, oat bird cherry aphids. Anything's coming in late that would affect, uh, flowering and fill. And, uh, uh, thus we were running primarily. And then we also ran, uh, shield slash weather king for stress mitigation. And we ran those products. And no surfactant. We do not run a surfactant at that pass. Uh, we, we don't try to load our water up. Uh, we're just strictly focusing on that. All right, I got it. So that's what ran in the tank. And then I got, I got a stress, I got a stress mitigation product. I got a plant growth regulator, I got insecticide. And then, Uh, the bu ace, that's the fight, the fusarium headlight threat. Okay. So, uh, those are the products we had in the tank, and it paid huge. So it's safe to say fungicide, insecticide, A PGR, stress mitigation, I think you said one other product. Uh, that would be it. And just water. Just Okay. No surfactant. No surfactant and no, and no foliar fertility product to that Nature. Okay. No, because we're very sensitive about that at flowering time this year, we're experimenting with some end response, which they say we'll be totally fine at flowering. We are doing some trials on that here this week. So we'll have more input on that. Otherwise, we've stayed away from foli or fertility at flowering time. All right. So let me ask you then this other question. So it cost you, uh, 50 bushels using round numbers. It's called 50 at five bucks, or 45 at six bucks. We're right in there. You're talking two a strong 250 bucks. Yeah. That, that was a difference between making good money on our crop and losing our butt. All Right. All those products we just said on a per acre basis, is that a, is that a $25 pass? Uh, roughly, yeah. Mm-hmm. Okay. It's 20, it's a $25 pass. And we're talking about 10 times that, that pass that you did not were on the acres, that you did not hit, you missed out on a 10 times in your money. Uh, yeah. I'll take 10 X all day, you know? Yeah. Right, Right, right. I imagine you would. Okay, so there's the big one. So your your your recommendation to person watching this, even if they're not growing wheat. But if they are growing wheat in particular, your, your takeaway is, Is, uh, keep rounding the base as seed the crop through. Uh, it, it, we have sprayed wheat when it's blue before, and, uh, when, when nobody else is, and it's paid some good dividends. But now that we've tweaked our system to what it is, well, we're, we used to just be fungicide, insecticide. That was it. Now we've evolved into reproductive PGR stress mitigation. Our program has evolved. The payback has increased. Good. All right. So big takeaway there is keep round the bases. It's one of Lee's favorite things, uh, and giving up too soon. But we're gonna revisit this sometimes in the midseason. You do need to decide it's time to punt. And, uh, Johnny might be there right now. I don't know. You got some problems just for you that are listening before we hit the record and open this up. Johnny blamed me for why he's behind this season. Um, it's, it's, he's got some animosity. Uh, it's misplaced, but, uh, but we're all right with that. So anyway, Mr. Rell. Yeah. Well, the week I spent with you is the best week I could have planned all year. So take it for what it is, David. So he was here in March to film episodes, the Greenery. If you're a fan of extreme ag, you should be watching our show, the Greenery. We've released almost two dozen episodes of the greenery, maybe more than that. And it's an awesome show, guys like Johnny are in on it. We come up here to my on farm hangout and we talk about, uh, issues with agriculture, uh, from the personal to the professional. It's a great little round table. It's, uh, it's a lot of fun. Make sure you tune into the green ring. You were here in a greenery in March. You think you should have been planting, you know that you're looking back now. Hindsight's 2020 even for Tennessee planting crops second, third week of March seems a little aggressive. Yeah, I mean, it is. I mean, years ago that was a common thing to do. If you really weren't planting through planting by the first week of April, you kind of quit planting corn. But the last 10 years, we, we've planted corn. We actually started planting corn in May one year. 'cause the weather was so bad. But this year, really the best conditions we had for our soil moisture and temperature was probably the last couple weeks of March, first week of April. And, you know, we did get some stuff in there that, uh, last week of March, and then we got a 14 inch flood. And so that kind of got us, but to play into what Lee was saying, I mean, really it's all a gamble when we start planting if we're gonna have a late frost or anything like that. But this year it really did set the stage, you know, it, that was the best window to be planting. And then it's going affect what we do throughout the rest of the year because we got corn all over the place in the same field. A lot of that stuff we planted in April, it's just had so much rain on it. It's different growth stages. A little bit of corn we got that was planted early on that we kept is, you know, it's, it's not quite where Chad is tasseling right now, but you know, we're, we're in that V 12 stage and it's, it looks good. So it, this year is just the early corn is the, is the winter as of right now. And depending on what the weather does next month, it might be the winter throughout the, you know, throughout the rest of the year. But you gotta start off with a good stand, you know, uh, you know, uniform crop and check and commenting on that. It is our, our crop in the south is by far the most unformed thing I've seen. And you go into what Lee was talking about with managing, man, it's hard to manage a crop that is just irregular all the way, all the way through the field. It's not just one end of the field, it's from one side to the other. And, you know, we walked corn yesterday trying to figure out growth stages because, you know, you go out there, start counting collars, some of 'em are already missing 'cause they fell off and stuff like that. So we started splitting stalks, and some of the corn was knee high. It was almost, you know, almost V 10. And I had corn that was waist high, that was almost V eight. So just the stunt ness and stuff like that. You gotta be careful with your timings and stuff like that too. So for us, it's just been, we started off very, very rough this year, and it's gonna be hard to keep up with throughout the year as far as managing and getting your applications out when you need 'em. And I think that's one thing I've done in the past is not hit those windows. You know, and Lee talked about hitting the timing of PU and stuff like that on wheat. It's the same thing on some of the things we're doing on corn and soybeans. You can, you can put a herbicide out too late and mess things up, or you can, you can miss the window you need on your fungicide too. So, All right. So you, you're looking back and you're getting a little, uh, hindsight a little bit, uh, anxious because you, you think, okay, if I'd planned this, but your conditions have been a booger no matter what, no matter when you would've planted it, if you could plan it, your conditions have obviously not warranted. The stuff you did get in, uh, you just said you got tremendous variability, et cetera. What is it that's on your mind now that to salvage this, and you and Brian talked about this on an episode of cutting the curve. What is on your mind right now that you think, okay, it is June 5th. What can I still do to, you know, to, it ain't gonna be a home run, but by God, we're at least gonna salvage crop? No, we're getting ready to start doing some V 10 applications on a lot of corn. Uh, we're pulling some SAP tissue samples right now, or sap, sap, SAP tissue samples right now, trying to figure out what all we're need to put out there. But we're getting ready to put out a pretty good foliar pack. We're actually gonna be doing what Chad's doing. We're going to be wide dropping some that we think is deficient in nitrogen. We're going to pull the samples to see on that. But we're actually gonna try to do all of it in one pass. We, we've got a spray that's gonna be capable of making both applications. And it's not gonna be the same on all the fields. That's the thing. Some of the fields don't need the nitrogen, but what we're doing is actually going to each farm, each field and trying to see what growth stage the corn's in, what it's, what it's missing, what what it's sufficient in. And used to the crop's always been fairly uniform. Seems like we could cut in one size fits all across the farm this year. We're going to pay attention to the details and actually manage, you know, a 30 acre field, different than a hundred acre block route beside it, just because of the, the stage the corn's in and the states, the quarantine and the deficiencies that are showing up. Are You facing a situation where you're gonna spend more just because of trying to rectify and save and salvage because of the conditions you probably are, right? Yeah, for sure. All right. So this is the thing that I think that maybe someone that's tuning into this should understand. You're tempted to cut back on the spend because you think you're screwed. Yeah. When will you make the decision to stop putting money out? Well, it's, right now we've finally got warm weather. Our corn's finally kicking in and going, we got moisture, we got rain coming in again this week. So as long as the rain stays there, that corn can start catching back up. We'll keep pushing it. But the biggest thing is, is only putting out what we know the plant needs. And so that's where we're really trying to pay attention to each field, each farm, versus doing a blanket application like we've done in the past, used to, we'd fly nitrogen on every acre, didn't think nothing about it. Now we're trying to see if that field didn't need nitrogen, what did it need? And address that there, because e every field's different. A lot of it's just from the lack of oxygen in the soil. And that's one thing we really can't replace right now. Mr. Henderson, why dropping nitrogen June 5th? Where have you, what have you missed in your farming career this time of year that you're like, oh, crap, that's gonna cost me? Well, you know, uh, we start out like that and we talked about that before we got on here for a brief second. You know what we gonna talk about him? And Johnny's the same way, you know, ca um, what Lee talked about was, was awesome. And we see the, a lot of the same things. You can start driving by wheat fields that's had a rain or two on them. And if that application is not made, you can see it, you know, it just shows up, the wheat will start turning faster. And so we're, we're with him on that. Now, let's talk for a second about the corn. Like Johnny's saying, like, I'm out here now wide dropping corn. It's 99.99% of the time when I'm wide dropping corn. I don't need to be cutting wheat. I mean, they, them two can't go together. And we've had machines running and we're here now cutting wheat and having to haul nitrate. And that just don't work for us around here. But it's all because it's happens. All my fertility programs are supposed to happen in May. That's just when they happen. I start in May and go through the irrigated corn twice and other corn once, and man, it's all I can do to get through it. Once I'm out here wide dropping corn that's tattling, which is not, not, not ideal at all. So the point is, it is pushed you on your timing a little bit, but you're not skipping any steps. Well, I'm gonna have to skip some steps or, you know, I had to pull the airplane in. I'm gonna have to fly some airplane, uh, national like Johnny's talking about because I can't, don't have anything else ready to run back through it. I don't have any time. And, uh, so that's, and you know, that's a cost. I mean, the airplane is 20 bucks an acre just in airplane costs, you know, so, and it, and it sh you know, it's weather related, but what it starts looking at is we're really seeing compaction. Now, if you're not managing your compaction zones, that's huge. 'cause we're seeing it now with some of this where we've worked it, you know, we was running with a little bit heavy or, or or what have you, you know, even turning trucks around in the field, um, from the season before, like you're really seeing these compaction zones when the weather and the conditions aren't perfect. So that's one thing I've noticed. And then the next thing is, you know, I'm really anxious to see how this corn does. Um, because it had all the groceries, it wanted it B five, it was great weather. I didn't put up in videos, wasn't really talking about it. But my corn was great 'cause Johnny was then was having lot folks all across the house having a lot of bad, bad weather. But we had dodged a bullet in some planting windows and had some pretty good looking corn. And so, you know, you hate, hate rubbing salt on a wound. So then we go on, but then we go to V five and I'm ready to go in and get in the game. I'm ready, man. I gotta put my fertilizer down. We come in there B seven V eight, Hey, I got to get rolling on this wide drop to get it done. I'm running across 3000 acres or so. One machine I gotta get going to get it done. Guess what? It starts raining when it starts raining, man, it, it got bad in a hurry. So that, that's where I'm at today. So, you know, it's made me rethink, maybe I should start these one events like this on a single year will make you try to rethink your whole program and, and some things in your program you need to rethink. But, but some things in the program, it'll take us two or three years or five probably for me and Johnny to ever forget. Like, oh man, you remember last year I planned three or four times, or you remember last year, I didn't plan today. Or you remember last year? You, you always got that, remember last year as a farmer, you know? So here's the thing. I, when I think about misses, uh, and we're obviously expanding the topic a little bit. When I think about something you miss, I'd say, all right, by the time you get to June or July, you just say, all right, man, I, I, I'm, I, everything's fine. And seems what it is. Yeah. And, and I think like you talk about, Chad says, all right, uh, you wanna go to the beach, which is funny 'cause you don't even go to the beach, but temple does anyway, unless he's got a hitch to paint, temple goes to the beach. Anyway, so the funny thing here is I think, okay, you miss, um, a weed problem. And you said like, especially in the south, you get hot if you get some rains, a weed problem can get away from you in like four days time. But I would think the thing that you miss is maybe like a, a disease, a fungus or a weed problem that gets away from you and it costs you a bunch to handle it. But you guys haven't even mentioned that being something that you've, that you've ever done. Well, I mean, you know, that's something that's bred into you on my side is bred into you from you, from your daddy and them, and you know, you, if you've ever been in days of having chopped cotton or something, you know, shoot, you won't miss none of them no more when you drag that hoe out. So, you know, you just kind of, you know, we got good, good herbicide programs now. Got good herbicide products out there, and for the most part, Uh, oh, we lost your audio. We lost your audio uhoh. We lost Chad's audio, by the way. This is a good time to remind me that. Me now. Yeah, I gotcha. Okay. Sorry about that. Good herbicide problems. So you don't have anything that's ais by the way, if you are listening to this tuning in here live, we want these to be interactive. So go ahead and just type into the chat feature. Go down the bottom with your little, uh, scroller, uh, and, and uh, click on the chat feature and type in your question. We'll make sure that the guys address your question. Lee. Um, midsummer misses, you talked about missing out on where you could done a, a pass with those five products that you said were in the tank, and that was a 10 time, it cost you 10 times on your money. Then he said the crime of giving up too soon. Um, is that be, that's a midsummer mistake, but it can also be a late summer mistake. It can be an early summer mistake. Do you know this from experience that you gave up too soon and said, weather's screwing us. Never going to anything. I'm done spending money. And then a month later you said, oh God, I wish we'd spent the money That, well, that's the joys of farming. Uh, I guess as far as being proactive, it's making those judgment calls. Is it time to spend the money or do we need to stop spending money? And in our environment being all dry land, there's times we have to make that judgment call. It's like, it's time to quit. We gotta ride it out. What the, where, you know, we've, we've taken care of fertility, disease, everything. We got this stand, but it's just not raining. There's no sense of throwing good money after bad. Mm-hmm. And those are not fun decisions. Uh, but that's part of farming. And, uh, we actually run into that sometimes more commonly in the r stages on soybeans. Uh, we look good in the V stages and everything's good, and we've done everything right up till then. And August is our make or break month for soybeans. And we've had products in place and everything ready. And it's like, man, they took all the chances, rain out for the next two weeks. Our, you know, R two, R three. It's just terrible conditions. We just can't see going out and spending that money. So we don't, you know, we're returning products, we're changing game plans. We just, it's just not gonna pay. We're gonna go put out 20 bucks and that's it. It's not gonna return to us. It's no fun. We, we don't like doing that. That's actually one of the reasons why we brought Milo into the equation this year, because that handles dry weather better. So that's to hedge our bets for a drier August. So that's how we're gonna mitigate and manage that risk. 'cause bringing another crop into rotation for us. Because too many times we've gotten burned in the ER stages on soybeans. Yeah. Spending money that we did not get a return on. See, I always say it's grain sorghum. I like the word milo and I actually thought they were two different products, but you know, they mean this with temple. You call it Milo. I think it's grain sorghum. You're sticking with it, aren't you? I'm going with Milo. All right, Johnny Verell. Um, here's the thing. Somebody's gonna say, Hey, Rell has his buddy Brian, uh, who's going out and scouting stuff. I overlook stuff because I miss it, because I haven't, I don't have enough time. What do you think if someone is more limited with the resources, they've, they're, they, they're covering a lot of ground on their own. What's one or two things that you're saying, all right, you're kind of busy, there's a chance that stuff's gonna fall through the cracks, but for God's sakes, don't miss this one. What's your recommendation? Yeah, I, I see it happen quite a bit down here. It seems like people go out way too late with the herbicide and they think the corn's at a lower growth stage than what it really is. They're waiting too long to do it, just 'cause the corn's short. They don't think it's as far along as it is. So I'm real picky on where my herbicides going out. 'cause that that all starts out. Everything else that you're going to have and the, the plant's gotta metabolize all that stuff. But that's a big thing is just knowing your growth stages. And you know, another thing that I think is a big, a big deal, Damien, is when is it time to start irrigating? And a lot of years, you know, I'll talk to Brian, I'll talk to all these different people and you know, Chad's already irrigating Chad irrigates his corn up every year, you know, and, and we don't. And so I, I think one thing that we're really trying to focus on this year more is making sure we start watering when we need to. Even though if the corn is early, uh, we've, we've put in a lot of the crop X sensors and stuff like that to try to really help monitor on a wider base than what we've done in the past. And just paying attention to those details. 'cause just when that corn is small, uh, I was always taught growing up, you didn't need to water into the corn tassel. But that's not the case. So, you know, you gotta, you gotta balance all these things and knowing your growth stages. I, I guess I'll just keep going back to that. That's a big deal. He brought it up on soybeans a while ago. You know, we had some soybeans that were 10 inches tall, 11 inches tall, uh, eight, nine nodes already flowering. And a lot of people are, you could put out some pretty hard herbicides on 'em. So, you know, I know I just covered a lot of things. I'm just going back to the growth stages is a big thing. And I really think we mess up a lot of times with herbicides. And then getting into the irrigation piece too. We should be irrigating probably earlier than what I do. All right, so those are two really, really big ones. Irrigation not so much. I think the last I read, 20% of America's cropland acres are under irrigation. So it doesn't affect a lot of people, but it affects a lot more people down where you are and where Chad is than it would say, uh, in the, you know, the corn belt, uh, or eastern corn belt anyway, with the precipitation. But knowing the growth stages is very, that's a, that's a really great, so if I'm a little bit more, I'm a one man band, I'm out here, I'm farming, I don't have, uh, hired help, one thing I'm paying attention to is know where my growth is on my stuff to put the water to it or to put the herbicide to it. Because if you wait too late, what you, you just lose, you lose bang for your buck, right? That's right. That's right. You're gonna be behind me hard to catch up and then you can really affect that plant, hitting it at the wrong time. Got it. Lee, one thing, two things, and you say, all right, uh, you're kind of strung out. You got a lot going on, you're busy, I get that. But for God's sakes, this time of year, over the next six weeks, do not, do not drop your guard on this. Uh, Johnny hit it perfectly. Uh, too late of applications. I see that happen again and again on fertility, on top, dressing on PGR usage, uh, fertility fungicides. Uh, one of the biggest things I've seen on fungicides is just them not getting on and guys taking massive losses because they just didn't get it done. So late applications is a huge thing that goes on out there and, and it's easy to do because we all got things going on, right? I mean, we gotta be ahead of it, not behind it. And there's things you can never catch up on if you're on the backside of the curve. You just cannot, you can't make up for what you've already lost. Yeah. Ver RELs point exactly is that after a while, the, the effectiveness of it is, you know, a, a fraction of what it would've been that you caught it a week earlier or whatever. Mr. Henderson, one thing. So somebody says, Hey, I know got Stewart and Jackson, all these people and, and my old man to go and do these things for me. I'm a I'm, I'm a I'm strung out. I got a lot going on for a one man band. What's the one thing that absolutely you should not miss in the next six weeks? Well, I don't know about any next six. I'm, I'm with him a hundred percent. I think there's a lot of, I think there's a lot of corn herbicide that goes out that hurts the corn way more than people think it does. And, and all of us had those spots, you know, Hey, I got a spot over here every year that I swear I, I don't know what it is. It's something eight acres. It's got some kind of godforsaken morning glory on it that I promise you, this year I'm fixing spray. As soon as this thorn quits, pollinating, I'm spraying it with Roundup. I can promise you that it's a fact because I ain't cutting no more vines off, no more headers. And I mean that we have a good herbicide program, but I don't know what kind of vining it is. It must come out of dang river bottom down there because it, this, it's a, it is a hella bank of a vine. But so what? Here's the thing. But, but you know, the herbicide program, Johnny, I mean, we just keep stretching over it. I know we're hammering on that thing, but it's, it's so easy to forget where you're at on the stages. And you, all we've ever been told from our parents for, from my dad is you just wanna get in there right before it laps, and that way it'll shade it out. Mm-hmm. Well, that's like three stages, two, three stages. Would y'all say two, three stages too late? Hey, I got a question though. Um, and, and you're the farmers, I'm, you're the experts. I'm not if I've missed my window, and you said Johnny and Chad in particular both said that late applied herbicide can hurt the corn. Wouldn't there a thing that it, it's only bad if it gets in the whirl. In other words, if I'm, if I'm behind, can't I still just do it? If I can put the herbicide application below the, below the corn and, and get it on the Weeds? Well, well, I mean this ain't, this ain't something that you can't not do. Like if you don't do it, then you won't harvest anything. So we're not saying, you know, oh, we just don't, you know, get behind. No, you done messed up. No, no, no. You still gotta do it. But you've gotta figure out what is causing you to be behind, whether you need another sprayer, whether you need another man, whether you, you know, what is your problem? And next year you gotta speed that process up and be ready, whether it's, uh, you know, these, these things take a lot of water and take a, you know, a lot, a lot of stuff to keep going. So it, it's, it's, it's those things we're talking about, Lee, Lee, were nodding your head. Can't we, can't we still put herbicide on even after its ideal time and not hurt the corn if we just apply it differently? What, what you need to realize is a lot of things are happening earlier in the vegetative stages, very early, dictating your length, the rounds, everything, just a lot of things are being affected early. Uh, you know, even going back to wheat, a lot of things are happening when starting to joint are affecting when it flowers, you know, uh, and corn is a, is a grass plant also. Prime example, there's a lot of things being dictated on the potential of your crop earlier. And when you come in late and there's times you gotta do what you gotta do, mother nature is not gonna cooperate. You're, you're in there later than you wanna be. But that's when it comes down to critical, what chemicals can I pick? Knowing your chemistries, how are they gonna affect the plant? Some are very easier on, much easier on the plant and some are gonna be very harsh and can come back and give you pinched in ear syndrome and really affect you in a lot of ways. That's gonna really take a lot of bushels off your tank, outta your grain tank in the fall. Got it. Uh, I want to go to these questions. We got two questions here. We're gonna go with the first one from Dale Guy, and let's address this to, uh, Johnny. First, do you have an app or a reference guide that you use to properly identify your growth stages for corn, soy, and wheat? So how are you certain and how are you being very methodical on, uh, on your growth stage, uh, analysis? Well, I mean, there's, there's plenty of apps out there and, you know, us, us just walking the fields and stuff like that with a good agronomist teaches you some tricks and stuff. And like I said, I just, I just learned the trick cutting corn open a few weeks ago. So, or I guess a couple years ago I seen it and then I did it again last few weeks. So that's a big one for us. It's just that way you really know where you are. But there is, there is apps out there. I mean, uh, you know, AG PhD has one different ones that help you figure out growth stages that can help you along the way. Okay, got it. Alan Kennedy asks, if you look at a five year average, which do you regret more? Continuing to spend money on a challenged crop or cutting your spending and losing your return on investment. So which one over the last five years? Which one's the bigger regret? I think this is good for everybody. Go around, Chad, you got this. Which one do you regret more spending money or not spending money when it was this time of year and you were about ready to pull the pull, pull the plug on something. Hey, I don't think that's a fair question for me. I got a race car, like I that don't, they don't even, you know, what do I regret spending money on a race car? How about that? But, but, um, you know, I see both sides, man, last year. And that's the problem. That is the real problem is that we gotta keep it from being emotional, okay? And it's always gonna be emotional. Heck, we're trying to make a living and we got our heart into it, but we have to keep it from being emotional. It has to be math because I promise you, you Johnny will remember this planting season when he is telling his grandkids about it. And then you always remember that and then it scars you, well, it either helps you or hurts you and does both because it's gonna make you push to plant a little more than you should have in better conditions. Or it, it's going to make you, you know, lay up when you shouldn't have. You know, I, I mean it's, so, it's really hard to say like last year I had the first corn I planted, I made 160 70 bushel corn dry land. The last corn I planted made 60, 80 bushel corn. I regret spending any money on 80 bushel corn. So I, you know, but, but all we're known to do, you know, my blood, my dad tells me that if you plan for a failure, you'll have one. So, you know, all we're known to do, all we're supposed to do is farmers, is do the best job we can do and get the best information and make, make it on that day for that time. And that's just what we, what I have to tell myself because you have one bad day and you want to pull a trigger on something and then all of a sudden it turns around and then you're wishing you was like Lee and you're still rounding bases. I think you guys don't have enough regrets. I don't know. I think you should live like I've lived for the last 20 years. I have all kinds of regrets. Hell, and I'm not even, I'm not even out here talking about growing crops, Lee, which one do you have? Which one do you have the bigger regret over where you spent money, you threw good money after bad or you decided to tighten up, uh, and, and close the checkbook and then you said, oh crap, I probably really could have made a lot of money. I, I wouldn't call it a regret. It is actually we, in the last five years, we've learned how to spend smarter money. And what I mean by that is allocating it where we think it needs to go. Is it gonna be in, into our fertility? If it's a wet year, we need to allocate more money to disease management. Where do we need to do it? If we have a poor stand on something, well then there's, then there's just things we don't need to spend as much money on. It's just trying to spend smarter money. Smarter money will pay us better instead of just like, this is the way we've always done it, the way we're always gonna do it. That's not how we're farming anymore. Uh, I, we don't farm like we did five or 10 years ago and we wanna keep evolving. It's about trying to spend the smart money where we're gonna allocate the money that we've got. Where are we gonna put it, Johnny, aside from this deep seated regret and which has turned into hostility toward me, that you came up here and filmed the Grainery show in March. Aside from that, any other regrets? No, and I, you know, I just look at it kinda like what Lee and Tad were saying. A lot of times if we have a budget in place and we got a plan in place and Lee was saying that you got you reallocated money here and there and you stick to that plan throughout the year, you'll usually come out ahead. I'll say in the past, I have it before cut spending money. 'cause I thought beans were $9, we didn't need to spend them and we didn't push the fertility program late season on 'em and stuff like that. And test weight was off, yield was off. We had the moisture that breaks your heart more than anything is when you end up with a lot of moisture for the year and you don't make the yields. You thought a lot of it's some stuff that you decided to cut out. Lee brought up the wheat early on. You can have the best wheat crop in the world and get head scab and they won't take it. It doesn't matter what you have. So I, I think the systematic approach Lee Lee opened it up with is very key. And I think we all make decisions. We wish we'd do 'em differently from a timing standpoint, uh, from spending money standpoint. But it all goes back to if you stick to a budget and you stay in that budget and you push that yield, the higher your yield usually the more money you're going to make as long as you stay in budget and, you know, and it's, i I don't know how to explain it other than that. Back in the cotton days, we didn't worry about the product. We were worried about the yield. Yeah. So I guess you can go back to this 'cause cotton was 60 cents and you made 1300 pounds and cotton was 63 cents and you made 1200 pounds, you still made more money with the higher yield. So I guess where I'm going with this is, is we gotta finish the crop. We need to stay in the budget. And in a five year period, there's always things you're gonna regret and do different. If you look back, you know, 22 is a drought for us. We went 56 days without rain. It didn't matter what I did to the crop, it was a disaster. Yeah. You know, you can't go from June 15th to August 10th basically and have zero rain and make anything. So I think the most stressful thing wouldn't be the work. It would be, it would be the stressful thing would be the question of is it time to, is it time to pull the plug? Is it time to pull? 'cause you're, you're always wondering that, is it time to pull the plug? And I, I think that'd be a tough one, Mr. Var. Mr. Lee. Uh, as crazy as this sounds, when I'm out in the field, whether I'm walking in the fields, running the spray, running the plant or anything else, when I'm focusing that crop, the price of the crop is not even in my mind. I'm out there doing what I love and I wanna raise the best crop that I can and actually leaving the price out of the equation. I've made better decisions doing that because, you know, if I'm out there in the planner and I'm stressing about corn being cheap, well, am I selling corn that day? No, I'm actually not. I'm planting corn and we have grain bins and we have a marketing plan. We have an extended window to potentially make a profit. So why am I gonna hold myself back feeling bad about corn is too cheap that day. I'm gonna enjoy the day. I wanna raise a good crop. I I leave price out of the equation when I'm out in the field. I'm focused on raising the good crop. So is my brother. So is everybody on our team? That's how we're focused on it. Let's raise that crop. Yeah. So like Lee said, stick to the plan, take the motion out. And that's where we all get hung up sometimes Lee goes, put some droughts up there. He probably goes through longer droughts than we do. He just doesn't have the heat that me and Chad do from time to time. But it can get hot up there just like it does here. But the motion piece, Have you ever been to Gregory, South Dakota? It's, No. It's, it's not, it's not hell, but it's the last exit before you get there. I'm telling you. I mean, it's tough actually. I like the place. It's pretty, it's neat. There's, there's pheasants all over the place. Um, you don't have to worry about a lot of like, uh, uh, light pollution if you go look at the stars 'cause there's only 47 people that live in all of the county. But anyway, they do have, they do have some challenge with the weather because it gets frighteningly cold and it also gets hot. And then they'll go for long stretches without, uh, without moisture. But Lee's done a great job. You had more moisture when, when Will and I were there. It was in summer. Everybody else looked dry. But your practices helped you retain more moisture than the, a lot of the fields that we saw. I'm bragging you up there, Lee. Thank you man. Lee used to have gray hair like Chad. Not anymore. It's not Grecian formula either. Hey, I wanna remind you that we got field days coming up, so make sure you register. You ha you can go, they're free to attend. We want you to come to our field days, but you gotta register. You do that@extremeag.farm. Just go in there and click on the field day tab at the top and you can sign up for whichever one you want. You can sign up for all of 'em if you want. We'd love to have you. We'd love to see you there. We wanna remind you again. June 12th, McGee, Arkansas, June four, uh, 26th up in, uh, Dallas City, Iowa. Uh, we're gonna be August 5th, Jackson, Tennessee over there, Johnny Verell. We're gonna be, uh, August 7th at Matthews Farms in North Carolina. And then we're gonna, uh, be in Quebec August 15th. That's a Friday, most of 'em on Thursdays. And we're going to then round out the season at Chestnut Manor Farms with, uh, our man temple on August 21st. Uh, you missed the first one. The most successful kickoff to the field day season you could ever expect was at Chad Henderson's place on May 22nd. Um, I want to go then and ask you this, uh, last, uh, thought on this. Oh, Chad's outta the, outta the sprayer, now he's outta the sprayer to make sure that you're not missing something. What do you scout that you think many farmers don't do? What do you look at? Okay, yeah. I walk my fields. Oh yeah, I look at all that stuff. What do you think that you are looking for in the midseason that a lot of operators just don't have on their radar and should have Me? Yep. You ask me. Yes. Well, what I, what I was gonna show you is, you know, the, the, the problems that we had from that May, so this corn, like, like right now, I'm gonna rethink my whole starter program. Well, I think I have a pretty good starter program, but this is the corn that you're looking and it's awful yellow. Like it's awful yellow. Well, we're here now. We're pollinating starting to pollinate. We can see the silks here, you know, and right now I wish I would've put another 50 pounds on up front, but we don't want that plant lazy in the front. So how much yield did this cost me? You know, I'm already got leaves fired up at the bottom. You know, a lot of times when we're in the field, that's what we're looking at. We wanna look at the bottom of the plant instead of the top. And so I've lost these and these are, these are, are leaving the building pretty fast. But, you know, I didn't have any other choice. So how much yield did I lose here and in a dry land environment, what could I have done different? And that's, that's the question we'll have. But those are the things that we'll test now is we'll know how much is too much early and then how much is too late because we'll change our plan. You know, would it have paid me to get that $20 trip with the airplane or $10 trip with the airplane midway through this? How much would that have paid me? Got it. So this time of year you're looking at the bottom of the plants and you're saying, I could have changed something. And that's only going back two months ago. Two months ago. You should have changed something. One, no, no. One month, one month, month ago. One month. Should I have, should. And you know, three weeks ago, this plant wouldn't have been fired up like this. It's just out of juice. And it's supposed to be, I mean this corn right here has, uh, it was stripped tilled and it has literally, uh, 15 and eight. It has 23 gallons. So it has 60 what Johnny, 66 units on it. 66 units of nitrogen is what we're dealing with right here. And that's what it, that's what it is. And it ain't bad. But, you know, if we would hit this corn three weeks ago when it was supposed to, we wouldn't near be in this situation. Now interesting. But whether, you know, what am I gonna do about it? I can't, I can't make it stop raining. So, no, you know, it's like Johnny was talking about with a planting window. We, we can't, you know, we just, this is what we do, but this is a learning experience for us. We need to make it one. Yeah. Got it. Johnny, what's your learning experience? What's the thing that you're gonna share that you say this time of year? Don't, uh, too many people probably don't look at this. Hey, Johnny, tell me this. Do do, do I need to not be side dressing this corn because I'm too late? Question Johnny? Yeah, I'd be side dressing Chad. Yeah, you gotta set them. You gotta set them records. You got a big temple this year. I'm gonna say it's gonna be tough, but We'll see. That ain't gonna be no problem. Well, Yeah, so Temple helping Out. Damien I'll tell you this. Like for us, southern rust is a big disease for us. We get these southern winds coming up outta the gulf and uh, you know, we get the disease coming in and a lot of times we've actually got southern rust before we go out and start treating it. And that's not what you want to do. So we've changed and we go out there and we start scouting that crop, checking the growth stages we're gonna hit. We're gonna hit every acre of corn this year in that V 10, V 11 window, the best we can. And, uh, put out a fungicide to protect that ear leaf at that stage. Be protecting that plan early on right before that task that starts coming out. And then depending on what we're seeing out there, because it'll never last until, you know, um, till we harvest. If we have southern rust come in, we'll go out and apply another application to protect the plant some more. But mainly just protecting the ear leaf. We, we've gotten ourselves in trouble in the past and you, it's just hard to penetrate that canopy when it's as tall as what Chad is. It's a lot easier to do and it's waist, high chest tie, so to say, than it is when it's, you know, 10, 11 foot tall like Chad running it. Yep. And if, and, and that's what Johnny's talking about. If we can just protect this one, they talked about studies, you know, where we've pulled the leaves, all the bottom of the plants, you know, brewer has leaves off top of the plant. Talk about that for a second, Johnny. How important that one leaf is. Yeah. You know, protecting that ear leaf is, is it's just like the flag leaf on wheat. You lose that ear leaf, you lose huge yield that you'll never make back. And go back to what Lee was saying, it doesn't matter if you lose that ear leaf and it gets taken out or damaged by disease. No matter what nutrition program you put on late season, you'll never get the ROI to pay for it for the most part, I would say, because you, you will not have the, the sunlight, the juice going into that plant, so to say, to to, to take that ear where it needs to be. So that's been an open experience. What, what Chad was talking about is one of our buddies, brewer blessed, it was, he's done several talks before, different places we've been to, he talks about where they go out there and rip the air leaf off and it actually shows what happens when you don't protect that air leaf and the yield that it do is, is is devastating to that crop. Yeah. By the way, Chad, not deer is devastating though. Is Chad not having nitrogen on his corn by tassel? Let's his hope. Yeah. Well I think it's good visual right here. I mean this is like, this is like a, an the most informative we've ever been because, uh, you're out there actually, you know, we, we have Kelly Garrett on these webinars and he talks about stuff, but he always has to bring in Evans to actually say, where is this, where is this plant you're talking about? Yeah. Johnny, Why don't you go show us your corn. Yeah, I don't have any corn close to the office right now. So You don't have any corn? You don't have any corn. You're proud to, you wanna show off Though, but, but this is exactly, this, this is exactly the problem is this leaf down here, you know, and this is the, this would be the fourth leaf up one, two, which these are going to fall off. And then we have this one here, and then our contest corn or good corn, we won't let this leaf here turn brown. That tells you how much, and this league's gone and this one's on the way out. So, you know, we're sitting there two leaves up and, and and really showing, really showing the stress on it. Yeah, you sit on your contest corn, But you know, will it, will it still be enough? I'm, I'm asking will it still be enough, Lee? Johnny, do y'all think it'll still be enough to make 150 bushel? Will it make 180 bushel if we got rains carried out? We always talking about, you know, Kelly's talking about making corn on, uh, 50 units in nitrogen. Here you go, Kelly. Come look. You Said, you said you're at 66. You're at 66 so far, or six. This, this plant has 66 on. It's what this plant has. What you're looking at Is that, and that's not, is that counting tonight or? No, that's Until now and I'm putting another, I'm putting another 90 on it, so we'll be at 150. Okay. 56 or whatever. But how, but how much did I lose? Look at the rain we've had. So Lord, it looks like his plant's got about 10 pounds on it. Yeah, Right. I saw some at Johnny's field desk, I saw some that he only put like 10 pounds of nitrogen on it and it looked like it was stunted sweet corn that somebody had also, uh, let some chemical drift on. Yeah, Don't worry Chad. It only made 40 bushels. Just let me know what happened. Uh, by the way, if you got a question, go ahead and type it in here because we're not gonna stick around all night. We know you got things to do and so do our guys. So just go ahead if you got any last questions, put 'em in there. Chad's hopping back in the sprayer, he's gonna run till dark. Um, any questions please put 'em in here. I'm gonna go around a horn here one last time. So the person that says, all right, I get this, I appreciate it. Stay with the crop. Uh, know your growth stages. Don't pull the plug too early. Uh, don't be putting herbicide on too late to Chad's point. Uh, it's a good thing that you don't put all your fertility out at once. I think that that's an important midsummer thing to be considering because if you put all your fertility out in, uh, two months ago, Chad, none of it would be there and you'd just be out a whole bunch of money. Well, I don't really know like what I would be doing, what I would be worried about now for the people that are here is they put a lot of fertility and they got a lot better looking plant than I got right now because of my program. And that's all it is, is my program, you know, but with that being said, their corn looks really good and green, but how much did we lose? And all that, you know, how, how much did we lose? Um, what's, what's the plan now? Is it going to run out on the back end? Did my loss in the front, would it be worse than their loss on the back or will mine be worse? I would wanna say that me being, I think late is always worse than running out, but I mean, who knows? You know, weather dictates everything. I think it's neat that Chad's willing to show us his stuff and let us see the warts and everything. And Johnny pretends that he doesn't have any fields nearby that he could show us. I mean, I, I think he's, he's being a little guarded, frankly. Uh, Roger Baumer asks, how do I watch past programs? If you're talking about these webinars, they are free for everybody to attend live like this one right now, when we do them monthly. If you wanna watch the programs that we've done in the past, you have to be an extreme Ag member. That's one of the benefits. Uh, and you can watch the entire library. We've been doing these monthly pretty much since I started working with these guys four years ago. So there should be, uh, at least about 40 of these, uh, sitting around. More than, so anyway, you gotta be a member. You can do that extreme Mag Farm at seven $50 a year. As I pointed out. You can get, uh, access to all the past webinars, get access to the guides. If you wanna go a little deeper on a subject, you get special offers from our business partners. And you get the data at the year end that all these guys do on all their trials. You'll find out what exactly happened at the farm and what the results were, and you'll get the no completely unvarnished answers on the products that we travel. So, thanks, Roger. Check that out. Uh, remember, while you are on Extreme Magnet Farm, if you have a kid, if you have a grandkid, if you have a niece, nephew hired hand, someone that you love, that is gonna pursue a degree in agricultural, uh, of any for at a two year college or a four year college, any accredited agricultural institution of higher learning, we have the Extreme Ag Scholarship. The applications are open until August 15th. Do not be late. You've got plenty of time. Two months between now and then, go get signed up. You can apply it, only take you about five minutes online. We're gonna give away 10, $3,000 scholarships. So this is not some little puny pocket change. It's real money can help you, uh, in the next generation. 'cause we are proud to support the next generation. Uh, all right, Mr. Rell, last thought. Midsummer. Yeah, you're kind of, you're kind of in a bad year, you're gonna look back and say, man, 2025 was a booger, all that kind of stuff. How do you, where do farmers overlook things that cost them yield from this point forward? Where have you lost? Where have you lost your focus and cost you money? Gimme a money loss. Gimme a money. Gimme a money loss story. Yeah. Timeliness. You know, it goes back to that what Cha's dealing with there. We, we've ran into that and not had our fungicides out when we should have. And 1-year-old wheat, we, we missed the window a little bit on the wheat. And, uh, when we missed that window, about half the crop there has some terrible test weight and, uh, a toxin levels in it. So we were having to hold onto that wheat and find a new buyer for it. So missing those windows is, is, is what I would say, just really pay attention to your, to your crop and make sure you're timely where you can be. Lee started this off here with your wheat story. Somebody says, all right, I don't grow wheat. That's not really the point here. What's, what's your last thought on this? Uh, like, uh, Chad and Johnny talked about the Earle, uh, and the flag leaf on wheat. It doesn't matter if it's Alabama, Tennessee, South Dakota, all points in between, uh, your Earle on corn dictates so much, uh, what's going on with your plant and the yield potential? No different than your flag leaf on wheat. We're on wheat. We're always about protecting our flag leaf. Well, we realized too, in our corn, we've really gotta be focused on that too. And, uh, mother nature's gonna throw some curve balls along the way because, uh, Southern Rust started showing up here in a few spots last year, and we're not used to that. Mm-hmm. I mean, if you ask Matt Miles, we're north of Mason Dixon, we're up here in the prairies. Mm-hmm. And now we're getting southern rust starting to come up here. We're gonna have to look at making changes in our corn program to stay up with this. Something that we've never had to do before, but the threat is real. And we've gotta look at the conditions and be monitoring our crop and stay ahead of it, because no, do you, Do you, do you spray preemptively assuming that southern rust is there? That could be kind of costly. But the other issue is it's pretty damn costly if you don't catch it. So what's the, what's the protocol? That's where it's gonna come into, uh, a good network of people that we work with and some of the apps that are, that track things on disease progression and be out in the field. And, uh, if we start seeing signs of it, or here, what if it's within 50 miles of us, we better start being really proactive and, and dealing with it because it could just rob way too much yield. What's The treatment? Uh, we'd have to be out there with fungicide like Johnny's talking and, uh, hopefully not even two passes. I mean, we don't know what's gonna happen because we're coming into a situation potentially on corn, dealing with something we've never had to deal with before. It's a whole new ball game. It could be where we thought, okay, we are rounding the bases and we're brown silk, we're okay. Not anymore. Mm-hmm. So that means, well, the joys of farming, you can't let your guard down. Things happen. Things happen that you've never seen before. Chad's dealing with it right now and trying to get his nitrogen done. Is it nitrogen? Is it gonna be diseased? What's it gonna be? Jed, last thought. Hey, I have a little, I have a little something for you when you think about it, Damien. I wouldn't be behind on this corn if I would've not had it planted when I come up there. You know, this is what we planted when we was, uh, when I was, when I come up with you, you know, we got the planner going and then, and then we left. And so if I wouldn't have come here, went with you, then I wouldn't be behind right now. It, it, it, it boils down to it's all my fault. And you know what? I got broad shoulders. If you guys wanna keep blaming me, that's all right. I'll tell you a different story about, uh, about planting in March. It was about, uh, 23 years ago, 22 years ago here in northern Indiana. And it was this freakishly warm, perfect conditions march. And I remember the farm boys decided, by golly, we're gonna go out here. And, and you know, I hear Lee saying, don't plant by the calendar, plant by conditions. Well, I saw a bunch of my farm buddies go out and by God they were gonna go out and put in soybeans and they said, as warm and nice as it is, if these soybeans lay around for three, four weeks, we'll still be fine. Snowed in April and they got replanted again about the third week of May. Uh, so anyway, sometimes you do need to pay attention to the calendar. I'm not the farmer around here. I'm just giving you, uh, my observation. If you want to do this again, please do join us on July 3rd. That's our next webinar. Remember, we're skipping August, not because we don't love you, but because we've got so many field days, we'd prefer you come to one of our field days. Like I said, we got two more in June. We got four in August. Go to the Extreme mag.farm website and get signed up. Also, while you're there, check out our show, the Grainery. It's a lot of fun. Obviously, Johnny and Chad have a tremendous investment in the Grainery show. They basically destroyed their entire revenue picture for the year 2025 by being here for a day. They were, they were here for a day, a day and it obviously destroyed their entire farming operation to come to Indiana for a day of filming. But anyway, it's well worth it. Go check out the green when you're an extreme ag.farm. Remember to do, get somebody signed up for that application for the scholarship. We really want to give these, uh, dollars away to good kids and help and foster along the next generation of agriculture. Go to the website. A topic we're gonna cover. Our July webinar is less fungicide. Same yield will tell you how you're gonna be participating with Temple Kelly and Matt about fungicide reduction strategies. Maybe it's plant health, maybe it's some biologicals, maybe it's just some timing issues, whatever. That's what we're gonna talk about is how you can cut back on your fungicide spend. Very important on a year like this when we got a little bit of squeeze on our margins. Thank you very much for being here. We love doing these things and we like the fact that you interact with us. Till next time, I'm Damien Mason with Will Chad Lee 00:54:22.665 --> 00:54:23.165