Enhancing Small Farm Nutrition Efficiency

Speaker 1 0:00

Welcome to Just Say hey . The podcast . A podcast where we talk about the things that matter to small farms . You know why ? Because we are a small farm . Today's really cool . I've got a guy sitting here next to me , a regional agronomist for AgroLiquid . They're a liquid fertilizer manufacturer , but one of the things we like well , several of the things we like about them . First , they put a lot of science behind their product and do a lot of continual studies . But the most important thing to us as a farmer , we've seen some major turnarounds in our crop and I attribute a lot of the success we have had to the use of their products . So let's get into it today . Welcome to Just Say hey . The podcast where we talk about what matters to small farms , whether it's business , marketing , agronomy , equipment , livestock health . If it matters to small farms , we'll probably talk about it here . So let's get into it . Welcome back . So sitting next to me here is Dan Peterson . He is the field agronomy manager for the Midwest . Is that , technically , your title ?

Speaker 2 0:58

Yeah , close enough . Regional agronomist .

Speaker 1 1:00

I saw all the things across your name that looks like a doctor .

Speaker 2 1:05

Yeah , well , I'm a certified crop advisor and a certified sustainability specialist Very cool .

Speaker 1 1:11

I'm going to throw a question at you that I asked you earlier , because I think it's fun , and it's just going to be fun , I'm going to throw it back at you what's your favorite music album ?

Speaker 2 1:21

Tapestry by Carole King .

Speaker 1 1:23

You know , carole man , what a great songwriter , and we shared her off the podcast . We both I was , I was in the music business for a long time and share a passion for music . You said your kids were into music too and what you know .

Speaker 2 1:36

So I know farming was a passion as well , and so that's it's kind of weird to meet somebody that has the same two passions when I walked into your , into your studio , into your office , and saw that music production equipment , like , okay , I'm definitely going to have to get to know you , john . We share that passion for music . But we are also discovering that we share a passion for forages . And that's going to be exciting going forward , because I think you're on a very interesting path here .

Speaker 1 2:17

On what you're trying to do with alfalfa and grass forages , sharon , that need for an economically balanced approach to nutrition , because we've talked about that from the agronomic side . We know what it needs . But you also have to balance how do we afford it ? And agri-liquid , at least in my experience so far , has really helped me get a little bit better economically on the farm . How to get those nutrients to the plant in a more economical way . Better economically on the farm , how to get those nutrients to the plant in a more economical way .

Speaker 2 2:45

Dry fertilizers yes , we need them , right , but dry fertilizers are very inefficient when it comes to getting into the plant itself . Okay , they have to be dissolved in soil moisture for the roots to take up any of the nutrition . But when that happens , they're reactive with other elements of the soil , phosphorus in particular , and so you start getting this tie-up , and so we only get 10% to 30% efficiency out of dry fertilizers . Well , with forages , they're growing rapidly and you're taking multiple cuttings , so you're getting multiple crops , so they need that nutrition every time you're going to be taking a cutting , and so how can we make that more efficient ? Well , one of the things that we've discovered with AgroLiquid is that our products can be soil applied , yes , but they're very , very efficient when you put them on as a foliar application .

Speaker 1 3:43

Right .

Speaker 2 3:44

So we can use less actual nutrition and get more nutrition on a per acre basis . For example , Right Fewer pounds of a nutrient like phosphorus or potassium and actually use less of it , but get more into the crop itself , get more into the plant Right and they respond to that .

Speaker 1 4:03

And we've noticed it into the plant Right and they respond to that and we've noticed it . I mean , I know , again beginning farmer , I've noticed things . Like you know , applying fertilizer will apply in the fall . It takes a long time for that fertilizer to break down and become available to the plant , Correct , and so we've originally looked at agri-liquid as a way to solve an immediate problem . We see a deficiency in a field and we need to fix it immediately . Well , dry fertilizer can't do that .

Speaker 2 4:29

Correct . Yeah , we like to look at it in terms of the dry fertilizer is a soil amendment , use it to correct a long-term , to correct a deficiency , say to build up a potassium deficiency . Right , and we know forages use a lot of potassium . But we look at agri-liquid applied as a foliar . As we're feeding this crop this cutting or this year , we're giving it what it needs right now . Well , we're not necessarily feeding it for the future , we're feeding it for what we need right now .

Speaker 1 5:04

And that's interesting because the way I think about it is you know , the guy out there in the field every day mowing and raking and baling and all of that . The way I've thought of it is exactly that way that the soil is , basically I want to be able to give that plant everything it needs to survive and then , when it's done for the season , I will have taken as little out of that soil as possible . So I leave my soil in that great condition it was in before the season started , instead of thinking about I'm just going to deplete the soil and then I'm going to refeed it and then I'm going to deplete the soil again . Is that an accurate way for me to think about it ?

Speaker 2 5:36

It is . And while we always consider dry fertilizers as a tool in our toolbox , you have to look at the economic side . And how much are we spending on fertilizer , especially in the face of low crop prices and so on and so forth ? And fertilizer can be a major expense , oh yeah , you know , regardless of crops , but especially on forages , because when we remove the whole plant , we're taking a lot of nutrition off of the field , right . So how do we deal with that ? We're taking a lot of nutrition off of the field , right . So how do we deal with that ?

Speaker 2 6:05

We have discovered that in our research that when we replace some of that nutrition as a foliar okay , so you're putting in nutrition into this crop Right Now , you remove it , now you repeat the process for the next cutting . In the meantime , that plant is drawing less from the soil , right ? So we have found that oftentimes when we bring in an agro-liquid foliar program , we can start reducing our dry fertilizer . In fact , we have customers who monitor their fields quite closely and have for years , and they've used agro-liquid for years and they have found that they have been able to drop their dry fertilizer substantially .

Speaker 1 6:41

Right , because this past year was the first . I think we did a test two years ago , but this was really the first year that we've used agri-liquid as a major component of our fertilizer plan . We still do dry fertilizer . We still replace that potash .

Speaker 1 6:57

Potash is a good one to put on when the price is right , but balancing that economic need with that nutritional need and sometimes it's a balancing act because you have X number of dollars and the plant needs this where do you sacrifice ? And we found , at least in our experience thus far , that we are spending less money on overall nutrition than we were the year before , right . So you know , especially as fertilizer prices have gone through the roof Now they've kind of settled a little bit , but you know it's still pretty expensive and still not back to 2018 levels . So you know we were talking before we jumped on here about . You know , we really talked to a lot of small farmers in that two , five , 10 , 50 , 100 acre kind of guys . How can a person that's running an operation that's that size really take advantage of agri-liquid as a product ? Looking at that same dry versus liquid .

Speaker 2 7:57

That's a really good question and I would say the versatility of our products comes to the top and our packaging . So , whether it's a tote , two and a half gallon jugs are very convenient for these smaller guys . They don't have to worry about bringing in any kind of storage tank or anything like that . So we have flexibility with our packaging . That makes it convenient . Some of our products are blends already packaged . For example , Fertorain is just an outstanding foliar product for alfalfa grass haze , especially small grains . But looking at , say , a mixed grass alfalfa blend or a straight grass blend , Fertorain is terrific .

Speaker 1 8:42

No , that's one of the products that we use . In fact we worked with some other small farms using that product . It was interesting . It was already pre-blend , made it easy , right . But from their point of view , you can't get the big fertilizer companies to come look at a four-acre patch . They can't get their equipment in and turn it around because they're running such large equipment Right , and you can put it on with a small sprayer . You know a lot of these people are also growing vegetable gardens . They could easily put that as fertigation into an irrigation of a small vegetable garden , correct .

Speaker 2 9:22

It's a 12% nitrogen , 3% phosphorus , 3% potassium , 1.5% sulfur and then some manganese as well , and really those nutrients are all needed by grasses in particular , right . But they also work very well on We've had great success with them on tomatoes , right . A lot of our customers that are putting for rain or other of our products on , say , an alfalfa field or grass field , they uh will take some of that in the smaller about , just put it in a hand sprayer and use it other gardens , you know , and it was pretty good stuff so we were walking a field earlier today and you were telling me about , you know , working with a lot of different forage guys and that you've worked .

Speaker 1 10:01

You know really been passionate about the forage side because , let's face it , there is a lot of different forage guys , and that you've worked . You know really been passionate about the forage side Cause , let's face it , there is a lot of guys doing corn and beans , especially down in our area . The vast majority of farms that are commercial scale are corn and beans . When you get to the smaller scale guys , we're doing a lot of little things to make a farm work , whether you're running livestock , whether we're we're doing vegetables , we're doing pumpkins . I've got a friend who does pumpkins and some vegetables in the summer . So we have to figure out ways to become economically viable on a super small scale . So we look at least in our operation and we're getting to where we're larger . I mean we're about 850 acres of forage and that's a lot of throwing bales

Small Farmer Education and Craft Farming

Speaker 1 10:45

. Yeah , imagine being a kid doing that with 50-pound bales or something .

Speaker 2 10:48

Hey , when I was a teenager I got heat exhaustion throwing small bales up in an A-mile on a 95-degree day .

Speaker 1 10:54

I got to ask you how much did you get paid to bale ?

Speaker 2 10:58

I just got paid by the hour . Oh , I got paid $1.50 an hour .

Speaker 1 11:01

I worked for a guy down the road here when I was a kid and we got I think we got five cents a bale , a nickel a bale and I remember another guy paid me 10 cents and I thought I was king of the world 10 cents a bale I'm going to take over the world .

Speaker 2 11:18

Well , you talked about how can we help these smaller farmers . What I find interesting is that in the course of my career I saw so many traditional family farms . You know I'm from Wisconsin so it's called the dairy state for good reason . At one point in time 90% of all farms in Wisconsin had dairy . Obviously , today that's shifted and you know I've watched in the course of my career farm after farm after farm after farm get sold , get rented out and cow herds get sold and now we've got these grand old dairy barns sitting empty .

Speaker 2 11:52

But there's been a kind of an interesting movement . We would lament the loss of the family farm and what also has happened is land prices have gone very high , equipment prices are very high . What's an entry point for someone who wants to get into agriculture , who wants to do farming at some scale . Maybe it's going to be a part-time endeavor , but we've seen the rise of the craft brewing industry , the microbreweries , right . We've seen the rise of the craft distilleries We've like in Wisconsin there's several distilleries that are now farm to bottle , which is a fascinating thing . But vegetable gardening , maybe specialty livestock like goats , for example . Now we have smaller scale Now . Maybe it's an entry point .

Speaker 2 12:44

That's right For somebody to get in , and we'll call it craft farming .

Speaker 1 12:48

Yeah , you know we were talking about this before the podcast that it's hard for a young guy to get started .

Speaker 1 12:53

I talked to a guy the other day he's a friend of mine , he's probably third or fourth generation here , works for the family farm during harvest Works but has an off-farm job and then on the side runs , you know , does vegetables and pumpkins and stuff like that , and he's trying to make his own way , doesn't have a , you know , none of the family because they row crop . They don't have that . You know that equipment that you need on the small scale . So it's difficult but not impossible , right ? So you know , we see you read article after article after article of people saying , oh , we need to change our food industry , we need to buy local . And the big challenge is getting the consumer to follow through and actually buy local , because there is a growing industry of having a vegetable garden down the road . Buy your vegetables from them . We go out of our way to buy our eggs from local farmers , go out of our way to try , during the season , buy vegetables .

Speaker 2 13:48

And if you're one of these local , we'll call it a craft farmer . Now you're not going to get served very well by the larger farm supply companies , the retail farm supply companies , because you mentioned it earlier large equipment they sell thousands and thousands of tons of fertilizer , you know crop protection chemicals in large volumes . You know you can't bring in a custom application machine with 120 foot boom On four acres .

Speaker 2 14:17

Because it doesn't work . That's right . So people like that are caught in a kind of a between a rock and a hard place , in that they need nutrition , they need advice , they need equipment . They need Right , but it has to be scaled .

Speaker 1 14:33

Yeah , we sort of joke that it's between the farm store and the farm . You know you're too big to be able to go down to your local farm store and buy the cheapo products on the lot there . But you're too small to go to you know store and buy the cheapo products on the lot there . But you're too small to go to John Deere commercial . And that's not anything against John Deere or the small farm store . But you need that service that's at the same type of a level that you get from your major ag retailer . But you don't have that kind of a budget because they do . I mean those guys . What are they spraying ? 1,000 , 1,200 acres a day ?

Speaker 1 15:07

Oh yeah , yeah , I mean four acres . They can't even afford the time to turn off the road and turn around for that Correct , they got to keep moving .

Speaker 2 15:14

Right . So I think , going back to the how do we help these farmers ? I like our packaging two and a half gallon jugs . I like the fact that some of our products are already pre-blended , for that . The other thing about them is that mixing and matching . When it comes to liquid fertilizers , you oftentimes have to be careful with what you blend with it what products you blend together .

Speaker 2 15:40

So , for example , if you blend a liquid calcium and a phosphorus , you're going to get cottage cheese . Yeah , our products are formulated differently , and so we can blend our calcium and our phosphorus and be perfectly fine , right . But that also comes to like crop protection chemicals . You need insecticides sometimes , because we were talking about army worms earlier . Sometimes you just cannot afford to not put on an insecticide because you don't lose a crop .

Speaker 1 16:05

That's right . Well , we had that problem . We were talking about it . We had a spot that was a half mile off the road . From the road it looked like it was about the size of a dime and by the time we could get to it it was probably 15 acres .

Speaker 2 16:17

Right , but what did you do ? You were going to spray foliar nutrition on that field anyway . That's right . Put in the insecticide and all in one .

Speaker 1 16:25

Yep .

Speaker 2 16:26

So that need for that goes all the way down to our craft farmers .

Speaker 1 16:31

I'll tell you the need that I see and we've talked about it a little bit off camera and Ryan and I have talked about it a lot over the years is education . You know , if we've got a great product , it's very complicated . I mean , the things you do go , the things that AgriLiquid does go so far over my head in my understanding , but the kind of grassroots , down and you know , down and dirty , how , when and why should I use this ? And understanding that , because I know , when I first got into farming I didn't have anybody to ask and so I hunted and pecked until I got it right , and that was a very expensive way to learn , you know .

Speaker 2 17:11

Right .

Speaker 1 17:12

So I mean , one of the things that I've liked about AgriLiquid is you guys have done a really good job of putting a I think you called it . I think I saw it was called Back to Basics .

Speaker 2 17:21

Yeah , it's a to Basics . Yeah , ryan's been on that . Right , you mentioned Ryan , and it's a Back to Basics video . You can access it on our website . Right , and it just talks . It goes back to basic crop nutrition , right , what are the kind of basic requirements for various for crops ? Right , you know ? And from what are the basic principles of crop nutrition , of fertilizer technology , you know , how do we use these products and what's the timing of these products . It's a great series .

Speaker 1 17:49

Yeah , and I mean they're helpful to me . I've watched a couple of them . I've watched more than that , but you know they help me make decisions because education I went over and did our friend Ryan , who's ? You can't see him , but he's sitting over there in the dark . He's keeping me on it , that's right . But Ryan invited me to a seminar that one of your guys did Galen Beers did and it was fantastic for me because it was mostly big farmers in there . These guys were .

Speaker 1 18:15

You could tell they were , they knew what they were doing and a guy like me sat there and learned so much in that room because the decisions I have to make on our farm are basically agronomic , economic and time . So how do you make those decisions ? And if you've watched this podcast or listened to it , you know you make the best decision you can with the information you have . You move forward and hopefully you didn't screw up too bad and you learn and move forward . But the more education we can get and we can provide in easily understandable nuggets for smaller farmers helps them make those decisions which your product does . You know your line of products I really like because of that flexibility .

Speaker 2 18:58

And we , as a company , believe in education Right , believe in education . We believe that the more our customers know and understand about agronomics , the better the customer they're going to be , because then they'll understand why we're telling them certain things right .

Speaker 2 19:15

So if I'm giving you some agronomic advice and you don't know much about agronomics , you're not going to really be able to discern whether I'm telling you , giving you useful information . If I'm just trying to sell you a product and I don't care about more economic outcome , I'm just worried about my economic outcome From our standpoint , the more we can teach you as a customer about what's a soil test , what does it mean ? How do we use it ? How do we read mean ? How do we use it ? How do we read it ? How do we read it ? How do we use these numbers ? So that when I sit down with you and start formulating a recommendation and we're looking at the soil test and I'm justifying what I'm telling you based on what I'm seeing , field needs or what your crop is , you're going to have that ability to discern whether I'm leading you down .

Speaker 1 20:08

You know a good path or a yellow brick road and we've all , you know , we've all been there before and one of the things you know I bring up Ryan quite a bit because I know him really well but one of the things that I liked early on was the questions that Ryan asked from an agri-liquid point of view was , you know , was about answering my questions and I could tell right away these were not selfish economic questions .

Speaker 1 20:34

So I mean , I've had sales guys come out here and try we were talking about one earlier tried to sell me a half a million dollar tractor . Well , I'm a hay farmer . I don't know how much he takes a bale of hay goes for , but you know , uh , you know , and and I could tell he wanted to sell a tractor , not he wanted to help me get to be the biggest best farm I can be . So you know that's been , that's been helpful in that kind of question , the open dialogue that we've been able to have , you know , since I met dan I met you this morning but a lot in common becoming fast friends , but being able to ask those questions and say how do we balance that need ? For I told you I want to produce the absolute best crop I can , but I also know that at a certain point my customers aren't going to pay $700 for a bale of hay .

Speaker 2 21:19

Right . No matter how good it is Kind of going back a little bit to the value of foliar nutrition Right In these forages . I think we saw a good example this morning when we were out looking at fields and you showed me a field that had been seeded , I believe the previous fall and lack of moisture , and so a lot of seeds did not germinate . You went ahead and put on agri .

Speaker 2 21:46

seeds did not germinate , right , you went ahead and put on agri-liquid blend I did On that field I don't remember exactly what the portions were at the time Right , right . Anyway , you put that blend out there that coupled with some , at least a brief , incident of rainfall . You can't tell that that's a new seeding field anymore . That field looks lush , it's healthy . We've got a good stand .

Speaker 1 22:09

Well , I'll tell you there was no alfalfa there , and I mean Ryan will attest to this . We went out there and west of that one landmark , that oil derrick there , whatever it is , there was no alfalfa . And now it looks as good as any other part of the field . And between those two points , the only treatment that received was agri-liquid and I probably received a little bit of luck with some rain and temperature and things like that . But Well , sure you know .

Enhancing Nutrition Efficiency Through Foliar Supplementation

Speaker 2 22:39

I've discovered earlier in my career , even pre-agro-liquid days , that alfalfa liked foliar nutrition . What I've discovered with agro-liquid products and we talked about the research I did back in 2015 , 16 , 17 , is that alfalfa has real propensity , a real ability to absorb foliar nutrition . With agro-liquid products I can use rates and timings on alfalfa , like with our liquid sulfur product Access . For example , I can put on three to five gallons of Access per acre on nice lush alfalfa . I don't get any leaf speckling at all .

Speaker 1 23:19

Really .

Speaker 2 23:20

And the alfalfa just loves it . Because alfalfa , being a high-protein crop , needs sulfur , because sulfur is a critical component of protein .

Speaker 1 23:28

Right , and alfalfa is just like come on , bring it on , bring it on . I wonder if that sulfur could have been a deficiency , helping with . You know , when we talked about earlier in that field , that it produced tonnage , but the quality was not where I wanted it to be , yep , and so I wonder if Mm-hmm that I could put on foliar on alfalfa , if I was limited , you know .

Speaker 2 23:57

You said , dan , there's a new law . You can only put on one nutrient on alfalfa from this point forward , it would be sulfur .

Speaker 1 24:03

Okay .

Speaker 2 24:04

Yeah , Access in it's a 17% sulfur Right . But that foliar in alfalfa just does remarkable things .

Speaker 1 24:10

Yeah , we've noticed and you know the way you said it earlier kind of gave me a new way to think about it . We are , we're harvesting that crop , we're asking that root system to generate plant matter and then we're taking it away . It's got to generate it from someplace . And I thought you know , like with our grass crops , we're doing two treatments of an agri-liquid product on our grass crops and we're doing three on our alfalfa and we saw we see the tonnage go through the root . I mean we really did see almost a ton an acre increase . Now I think we need to start fine tuning them . We've talked about that before . It's the things we need in some of that . Some of that may be the sulfur . That one crop we were talking about is a new seeding that had not gotten treated the way , the way the other crops had . So you know , I think those things are interesting . We've talked about how do we help small farmers utilize this .

Speaker 2 25:03

One of the ways I think we can help these small farmers is through soil testing . Some of these farmers , you know they're new to agriculture . Okay , they've had a career off the farm , right , they've maybe never been exposed to farming at all , but they want to grow something . They want to be productive . They love the idea of growing not only their own food but growing food for their neighbors and bringing back . I grew up in the era of the neighborhood grocery store . Yep , you know , we had little neighborhood grocery stores . We didn't have Walmarts and Meyers and Kroger's on these huge supermarkets , so we bought local , we bought from people we knew .

Speaker 1 25:44

I grew up outside of Philadelphia and I , even as a kid , I loved farming . You know what I did to make a little extra money . We would grow cucumbers and squash in our backyard and you know what I'd do ? I'd walk around with a wagon . There you go , sell cucumbers and squash . There you go . So yeah , yeah , but you're right , you bought from your neighbor .

Speaker 2 26:01

You were passionate before you didn't even know . You were passionate about agriculture .

Speaker 1 26:04

Actually , there's a pretty girl that had a mother who liked to cook , so I went .

Speaker 2 26:07

Well , that's something to be passionate about . It doesn't take a lot of time to kind of coach people through that . Okay , what does this mean ? I got this result . I can coach somebody through that fairly quickly and we don't have to get really down and dirty . We don't have to give them complicated programs . We don't have to get real complicated with blending and mixing and so on and so forth . We can keep it at a pretty simple basic level and do them a whole lot of good from a nutrition standpoint , because you know what ? Maybe they're getting horse manure from a neighbor , maybe they're getting cow manure from a neighbor .

Speaker 2 26:43

But in many cases they're not . So they're in a situation where they're kind of pulling nutrition out of the soil .

Speaker 1 26:48

And that's two different situations there One where you have no additive , manure or anything like that , and some where you do so . It's different mineral deficiencies .

Speaker 2 26:56

Correct . Yeah , absolutely . And even if you are able to amend your soil with , say , a neighbor's manure , which is always good , we have found that oftentimes some foliar supplementation to that really brings it to a different level . I saw that out in Western Kansas . 13 to 15 tons of dry lot beef manure on alfalfa . The previous fall on paper .

Speaker 1 27:22

Looked right .

Speaker 2 27:23

Giving the alfalfa all the phosphorus and potassium and sulfur it needed . Yet we got huge . We almost doubled the tonnage with five gallons of agri-liquid as a foliage .

Speaker 1 27:38

To supplement , I'll tell you a challenge we have here in this part of the country and we've talked about it a lot as we've gone through the fields and how much work it has taken to get rid of invasive species the waterhamps , the amaranths , the spiny amaranths . So if you're getting your neighbor's horse manure or cattle manure and they have eaten bales where they have that seed pod still there that flows through , it's a really good point . You know , we don't have the benefit in a lot of cases here of having high quality you know high quality hay which is free of that stuff .

Speaker 2 28:10

Right .

Speaker 1 28:11

So you know that's a challenge . So we end up fighting the weed problem as well . So you know it's just a challenge . We have a lot . Every , I'm sure , every area , every region you go to , because you handle Illinois and you go all the way up to Western Canada .

Speaker 2 28:25

Well , yeah , five or six states do some national stuff too , but then all of Western Canada in addition to that .

Speaker 1 28:32

Oh , my gosh . Yeah , it's a large territory , it's a challenge , but it's also a blessing , and they gave you a . You get 500 miles a month on your truck .

Speaker 2 28:41

Yeah , lots of sky miles , yeah , but no , it's a challenge and a blessing . You know , I have the kind of a unique position of working with just a huge variety of crops .

Speaker 1 28:54

Right .

Speaker 2 28:55

You know from yellow peas . It's part of my heritage . By the way Just a little funny side here I'm a Swede , so I grew up Swedish . My mom was still fluent in Swedish when she died . But one of our traditions was yellow pea soup , really , especially during the winter , and we would get whole yellow peas out of Canada Right To make that soup with Well , now with agri-liquid . Now I'm up in Canada working with that crop Really Yellow peas as a crop , so it's kind of come full circle for me .

Speaker 1 29:26

What's the variety of crops you have to deal with ?

Speaker 2 29:29

Well , all the small grains , Right , you know so . Barley malting , barley , spring wheat , durum wheat , right malting barley , spring wheat , durum wheat , all the varieties of wheat , triticale for forage grass haze , you know , the farther north we go the more challenging it gets , for alfalfa especially , although it is amazing how far north we can grow alfalfa up into Canada . But potatoes , you know you get into short season crops . So potatoes work , you know you get into short season crops .

Speaker 2 29:57

Right , right , so potatoes work well . Up there , the southern plains region of Canada , the vast Canadian prairies , as it were , are a really great place to grow potatoes .

Speaker 1 30:09

Right .

Speaker 2 30:10

And so there's quite a bit of that up there , and I get into lentils and dry beans . Really , you know , pinto beans , black beans , Two of my favorites , several varieties of lentils , you know , yeah , canola , right , that's a huge one . Boy , you go up into Canada . You think it's amazing , middle of the summer , when it's blooming , the vast , you know , 5,000 acre fields of yellow , bright yellows , where it's just as far as you can see . It's beautiful .

Speaker 1 30:44

I'm kind of an equipment dork . I love just driving different pieces of equipment , what's your favorite piece of farm equipment to drive .

Speaker 2 30:47

Believe it or not , one of my favorite jobs in the entire world is planting corn .

Speaker 1 30:52

Really .

Speaker 2 30:52

I love running a corn planter .

Speaker 1 30:54

Really .

Speaker 2 30:55

Yeah , there's just something about it .

Speaker 1 30:57

I'll tell you they've gotten so big . I talked to a guy . Well , I'm not saying necessarily .

Speaker 2 31:01

It would be my favorite now running a 36 row . You got to be pretty smart to run one of those . Oh yeah yeah , my hair's getting pretty gray . That would be a big challenge , but no , the bottom line is I just have always loved planting corn . Yeah , I like planting any crop , but corn in particular just gave me a lot of respect .

Speaker 1 31:17

You know , we don't plant with a drill , we plant , we actually work soil . We use a vertical tillage tool to kind of put a nice thin layer , plant a seed bed , okay , and then we airflow . Oh sure , we airflow our alfalfa on with potash , or , yeah , usually potash as a carrier , yep . And then we come back with a cultimulcher and roll over it , yep , and we've had really good luck doing that .

Speaker 1 31:43

Right and true method . Yeah , and it seems to be easier than drilling , maintaining the drill and the depth and having the right moisture content in the soil . We can be a little bit more varied in wind and Sure , you know , and the speed of it I mean good Lord know . And the speed of it , I mean good lord . They can airflow it on the way . If there's 120 foot airflow , they could be in and out of an 80 acre field in 30 minutes well and early in my career .

Speaker 2 32:02

Sometimes guys would try doing that with spinner type dry fertilizer applications and yeah , that never worked very well because that small seed , you know , just wouldn't carry out from the spinners very far right . These air flows now are very concise .

Speaker 1 32:17

Right .

Speaker 2 32:17

GPS guidance . You know we don't get the overlap or the skips and it worked really well .

Speaker 1 32:22

What we ended up doing . We did one field this year with a spinner type truck and they set up a pattern . They set up all the boxes and made sure all the seeds are falling there . But we did a dual pattern . So they spread at half rate but covered the field twice , doing multi . You know multi pattern . So they spread at half rate but covered the field twice , doing multi . You know multi pattern . So it'll be interesting to see how that field comes up this year .

Speaker 2 32:41

Yeah , yeah , that'll make it better .

Speaker 1 32:44

Yeah , Not as good as an air flow . No , we tried it . We tried it a couple of years ago with with not only alfalfa but a grass seed , and so we got striping because of the the different gravities of the seed , Absolutely so it was kind of weird . It was an interesting looking field .

Improving Grass Hay Nutritional Management

Speaker 2 32:58

Well , you know , going back to grass hay , you know , and it's a little bit of a it's a crop that I , you know , over the course of my career I've seen grass hays neglected from a nutrition standpoint and a management standpoint , probably more than any other crop . You know , I have seen it a lot out on the Great Plains , where guys will have permanent pasture and never fertilize . Well , the universities haven't helped us in that situation . When you know , when you've had these land-granting , universities have traditionally said it's not worth fertilizing permanent pasture . But we have found that even small amounts of agri-liquid out there as a foliar will make those pastures pop and we can double the production . And that doesn't sound feasible until you realize that because they have never been fertilized or they've been dramatically under-fertilized for years or decades , they're not producing much . So it doesn't take a lot to really increase that production .

Speaker 2 34:03

Take it back in , exactly right .

Speaker 1 34:06

Well , we see that with guys , especially as you go south of where we are , you get down into the rolling hills and more of the more difficult terrains . They graze cattle on it year after year after year after year , and there's no fertilizer . Now they'll fertilize their hay fields , but their pastures get neglected , right , and you see some of the guys around here starting to do what we do , which is a rotational grazing . So we rotationally graze our cattle , so we always give that ground . It gets eaten down to where you know , about three to four inches and then they're off of it and that plant gets rejuvenated , right , and with the agri-liquid product we sprayed it on . That we did , I showed you that test we did on that 30 acres over there . Uh , where pull our , pull our fences up , run over it , spray it doesn't hurt the animals , not going to hurt them , you know .

Speaker 1 34:52

wants it to dry you know , now we left them off of there , for I think the next time they were back on was a week . That plant had the time to ingest that .

Speaker 2 35:02

Yeah , yeah , Right , that's a little interesting side issue . I do get that question quite a bit oftentimes from smaller producers that are running 10 , 15 , 20 , 50 cows on relatively small acreages . How can I fertilize this without endangering my cows ? And you know my response is , as long as you've given that , I'll speak for agri-liquid , not other liquid products because I can't represent them . But from agri-liquid standpoint I'll probably give about 90% of my product into the plant within 24 hours .

Speaker 1 35:41

Really yeah .

Speaker 1 35:43

So what we did is we left it off several days because I , you know again new farmer , not very smart you know we would fertilize it and then we could walk our , because we just use a single line fence to separate them as they're rotationally grazing through there and we have a we call a central hub that has our waterers and then we you know we've talked about spreading our mineral feeders out but pull our fences down takes an hour , run over it , spray it takes an hour and then our fences can go right back up and then that's ready .

Speaker 1 36:09

The next time they come out of that next paddock they go into one , that one that's been fertilized , and you can see I mean you can see a distinct difference of that field , run right down the fence line . You know where one side got nothing . It didn't get treated . Now it was fertilized in the fall , but you can see how fast it got beaten down and how unresponsive it was . Coming out of the drought , those plants that had , where those roots had built up a little bit of reserve , a little bit of extra strength , came out of the drought ready to go .

Speaker 2 36:40

Right .

Speaker 1 36:41

And we saw that with the alfalfa too . Even during the drought , we'd have new sprouts coming up within a day , a day or two , you'd start to see that green start to come back , and once we got that rain after we went through the drought , it was like an explosion .

Speaker 2 36:56

Yeah , you know , in agriculture none of us are very smart , john , no matter how long we've been in it , because agriculture is going to keep teaching us lessons , right ? Yeah , you know , we get to a point where we think we've seen it all , never have seen it all , because we're always getting thrown curveballs , right . So if there's a career out there to keep you humble , it's agronomy . I'll be the first to admit that , you know . You can't be a know-it-all and be an agronomist . It doesn't work .

Speaker 1 37:24

Man , don't tell some of the farmers I know , man , some of these guys are smarter than you know they'll tell oh , this is what you do , you got to do this and you walk right . Mother nature comes in and says nah , I don't think so .

Speaker 2 37:35

Yeah , so you know , one of the things it's kind of a given .

Speaker 2 37:40

Sometimes there's things that you assume in agriculture that become just assumed knowledge , even though you maybe haven't actually experienced it yourself .

Speaker 2 37:54

But you hear and one of those is from a foliar standpoint is if the crop is under stress , if it's under drought stress , don't bother putting any foliar nutrition on it , right , because it's not going to absorb it , it's under stress , not going to be able to use it . Well , I'll accept that , maybe as a general rule of thumb , right . But again , agronomy teaches lots of lessons and sometimes it'll teach lessons that you don't see coming , and one of them was out in North Dakota , actually in Manitoba . Okay , so we have an agri-liquid dealer there and the owner of this agri-liquid dealership also has a personal family farm , right , and part of that farm is irrigated , part of it isn't , and he's selling agri-liquid , so he's also using it on his own farm , which is actually a quite large farm , and so on the part of the farm that's pivot irrigated , you have these corners right that the pivots don't get deep , and he's got some 160-acre pivots . So some of these corners are quite large .

Speaker 1 38:58

Right right .

Speaker 2 39:00

So he's one of these guys that I'm selling the product . I want to see it work on my own operation , which is great you talked about .

Speaker 1 39:08

That's how we got . That's how we got into it .

Speaker 2 39:19

That's why I'm an agratimus for agri-liquid , because I see with my own eyes , you know , and I can do my own field research , which has been awesome . But so dry years this goes back maybe three years ago . They were pretty significant drought and he had some leftover . It was a blend , our Shirke , I think there was some furthering in it , uh , some pro germinator , and the corners were had basically gone dormant because of the drought , and alfalfa will do that .

Speaker 1 39:46

Right Lack of water .

Speaker 2 39:47

Right . So there was one corner , he thought probably about four acres worth . He drove up , made a boom , pass across it , um , just basically empty out the rest of this product and finish up . It was about a week later , maybe 10 days later , and he got a call from one of his farmhands . He said hey , what did you do in that corner ? He had a name for that particular pivot , you know . Hey , what did you do in the corner on , you know , pivot number 12 ? And Ray said well , I just went across it with the foliar blend I'd been using . And he said why ? He said you need to come out and see this , even though ostensibly that alfalfa was dormant , right , Right .

Speaker 2 40:33

Still dry . Hadn't rained in the meantime , but there was new growth on it .

Speaker 1 40:38

Really when he had sprung . Came out of dormancy , Didn't ?

Speaker 2 40:41

yes .

Speaker 1 40:42

Well , it got enough nutrients to pop a little bit .

Speaker 2 40:44

Yeah , exactly , there was a visible response to that fully nutrition , even though there shouldn't have been , inventional wisdom would have said no . And then , when he did get rain later in the fall bang , that strip really took off .

Speaker 1 41:02

Well , I think we saw . You know , one of our ways of thinking was when we were putting down our fertilizer and our you know , our agri-liquid products . Putting them down is that drought . If you farm alfalfa in Illinois , there's no crop insurance . That drought . If you farm alfalfa in Illinois , there's no crop insurance . None , yeah , and it's just .

Speaker 1 41:19

I mean you might as well go to Atlantic City and throw some money down , but the thing that you can do to prepare for droughts is make sure that your plants are as healthy as possible . So when we went , I think it was close to eight weeks yeah , it was close to eight weeks with no rain . The minute that rain came now there was one field . I showed you that field that's not in the , it's a more traditional alfalfa that didn't get treated . The field across the road treated that field across the road . When we got that rain exploded . I mean , alfalfa was 12 , 16 inches high in a matter of almost no time and the field that didn't get fertilized didn't get the same program might've made it to six inches . I mean massive , massive difference in yield by making sure that plant was ready to accept that challenging condition .

Speaker 1 42:10

Dan , it's been great having you on the podcast . Man , when you're back down we'll do it again because you and I have so much in common with the music and stuff that's been fun all day . I gotta say it's been what a wonderful day just going around talking about the two things that I'm really passionate about yeah , including including music .

Speaker 2 42:27

That was such a surprise . When I walked into your office I thought , oh my gosh , look at the keyboard , look at the stereo system , oh my gosh , and yeah , uh , gold records on the wall , yeah , stuff that you've produced , and it's like wow , instant connection . But it's fun .

Speaker 1 42:40

Man . Well , it's good talking to you . Thanks all for watching . We'll catch you on the next one .