Farmer Sense
Farmer Forum- June 26th, 2024
[music] Hello, everybody. Welcome to the Farmer's Sense Podcast. I am your host, Rick Willard, and Andrew Fuff is with me as my co-host. How are you doing, Andrew? Good. Good. Okay. Nope. Nope. Don't say anymore because we don't want to, like, say the same things we say all the time. You know, we don't want to be weird about it, right? Oh, no. We're normally weird about it. Yeah. No kidding. Okay. We had a pretty cool little get-together, we had a little farm forum, as you called it. Not like penthouse forum. We didn't tell stories that way, but it was more just farmers talking about what's going on. Do you know what penthouse forum is? The storytelling with the sex stories and stuff? I don't get how much. I'm trying quite. Probably shouldn't talk about that right now. Okay. I know. You're fine. I mean, you said some shit on TikTok to get your thing, your audio blocked because you sent me a video. Well, I don't want to, I can't say it on here because this one would get blocked too. It would get blocked too. That would be the whole broadcast when we mute. It was about that hack to a girl. Yeah. Okay. I could read your lips when I went back in a few seconds. I was like, what did you do? Yeah. Well, don't, yeah, don't say what I said when you talk about the hack to a girl. Yeah. Definitely don't. Yeah. For sure. But anyway. Yes. So back to the intro. We had Al Marth, Steve Churchill and Mark Olson as guests with Rick and Andrew. We talked about some little bit of farming. Al is close to me. Very close. I mean, we have farms like right next to each other, but it was nice to get a little different perspective from him other than hearing about what I think all the time. And same with like Steve in your area and Mark, he's up by, he's not far from Spencer. So he's been getting a shit ton of rain and not as much as, I mean, his house isn't flooded or anything. But I mean, what's going on up there is definitely sad. That's a bad deal. I feel very humbled when I talk about all my little complaints and breakdowns and screw ups I have all week and everything. I definitely don't want what they're going through. So prayers to them, obviously, and yeah. So, yeah, you do anything exciting this week, Andrew? No? I finished cleaning out the last of my old crop corn. I've sold it really cheap, you know, I hold on to it to the lowest price, you know? I got less than you did, remember, because I was like dumping it in February. Yeah, I don't know what it is, it is what it is, and all I've been doing is going to softball games. Yeah, I was just going to say softball dad. Yeah. So, I mean, Peyton's playing and Lily's playing, so some nights it's in different places. So Carla will go to one and I'll go to the other. I have so that's just been one of those, one of those weeks, I think this week we have between the two of them, there's 12 games in six days. Hm, something like that. It's women lessons. Oh, good for you. I'm just being a super uber driver right now, I'm like, wonder why I can't get anything done. You know, I can't swim. Oh, I didn't know that. Oh, goodness. I know we never talked about this. So growing up, we like, actually our school had a pool. Did you ever have on those like two lane pools, like it was just like, probably six feet wide, I don't know, 30, probably 50 feet long, but no, no, yeah, our elementary had that. So anyway, learn how to swim, it was probably only three feet deep. I have no idea. I don't remember. It ended up being the library later on, but anyway, took, did all the lessons. Actually, we ended up going to a bigger town and doing like that, that was like a Olympic size pool or whatever, at a YMCA or whatever. And we took all the lessons and I'm deathly afraid of water, like I just, I don't know if I drowned in my previous life or what, but water scares me. I didn't mind having a pontoon, but it was on Clear Lake and I think it's like eight or 10 foot deep in the deepest part. And most of the time we just kind of hung out and we were in where you could like walk around type stuff and just drank beer and partying. So, but no, you're saving me if I go down because welcome to the farmer sense podcast cruise hosted by there yet, but definitely I will never go on a cruise. That scares the shit out of me when you can only see water for miles. No frickin way. Have you been on a cruise? No. No. I'm not saying you're afraid to, but I'm, I'm not going to. Oh, goodness. I, I guess my parents went on one when I was in high school and they said it was the worst experience because it was so rough. Like even the crew members were getting sick. Oh, water was so rough. Oh, that bad. And I'm like, I don't need that. And lands great. I love land. Yes. Yeah. Okay. Well, I don't know, my wife's got a trip planned for winter for me already. So we're going to do that. Oh, good. I'm saving up my money for the agmarket.net conference and probably a total acre conference and commodity classic. So those are going to be my vacations. Yeah. Striptail conference. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. The summer. Yep. And we're going to do a little tour, right? We're still going to do that. I hope we can find some time. I got plenty of time. I don't know what you're doing, but well, you know, someday I'm going to have a spray or show up and then I can maybe get some work done, too. Yeah. Well, going everywhere a couple of years, you'll get sick of spraying all the time. You'll be like, geez, I need to hire a don. Yeah. I'm sure I'll say that or you'll be like, I need to, I need to pay for this spray. I wonder. I need to go do some more. I got to go do some more. Yeah. I wonder what neighbors need me to do work for them. What shirt you got on? I have my Willard Farms shirt. Oh, my goodness. That's nice. I know. Fancy. I got it. Farm. I just have a farm, ag gear, corn, corn star farms hat on. Oh, nice. Yep. Yep. Yeah. Yeah. My kids love this shirt. Good. They have. Yeah. They wear it all the time. Probably big for Peyton, though. It wasn't. A little bit. Yeah. I mean, not terribly. She wears a lot. I'm good. Nope. Let's get to this tricking podcast, man. Yeah. I was ready. You were just like, you're dragging on. You just keep talking and talking and talking. That's what it feels like when you're an Uber driver these days. I just wish somebody had asked me if I've been doing it longer, whatever. This my only job. The kids. When the kids don't ask me any questions anymore. I wish we were in a big city because I am. I'm broke. So I would Uber, you know, I'd Uber the fuck out of it. I'd be like all over and like, let's, let's Uber some people. Let's make some money, let's get some tips, record it and probably good. Nope. All the other exciting thing this week since I dragged on everything else was today, actually, my, what is he, is he district agronomists? I don't know what, I can't remember what his actual title is, but see Myers, he was out today with my pioneer rep, Gary Olson, and we walked a couple fields and had some wind last night, but nothing bad, you know, and I drove around and looked at some stuff this morning in between waiting for somebody to get done with whatever they had to do. And I thought it all looked pretty good. And I'm like, okay. Then we got out there, found one number that had some, some snappage. So I was like, well, that sucks. But it was not a pioneer number. So great. Was. Yeah. So they were happy to see that. Yeah. My other guy isn't going to be happy when I, he's on vacation this week. So I'm like, I'm not even going to text my texting, and I know he's on vacation this week. All right. We'll talk about it next week, but, though, other not, but don't, we had great conversation and we're going to try some things. We'll see what they say, but, um, what they kind of told me today and kicked around a bunch of ideas. And if we get a sprayer to why drop, we're going to try a couple different things. So. Good. Yeah. Yeah. I sprayed, I sprayed some beans for some neighbors and, uh, um, worked, I actually put new disc openers on the little six row planner and went out and planted some beans again tonight. Um, I tried doing it last Friday and the disc openers were, yeah, they were junk and I kept plugging up on no tilled corn stocks and those beans were coming up already where they did plant. Oh, nice. Yep. But I just went out and planted in some more. I don't even know why I did just something to do, I guess is what it is. So. Yep. Anyway, yeah. Check this one out. It's a good one. Um, I'm sure we'll have another one and we'll either have those guests again or we'll try some other guys. See what happens. Yeah. Everybody have a great week and enjoy the farmer for or, or gals will have maybe some gals next time. I would. If you watch it and you would like to come on and talk about your farming operation, drop us a note. Absolutely. Have you? I don't know. A lot of women. Do you know a lot of girls? I don't. Nope. Nope. We know a few, but not, not enough to have on here, I guess. So yeah, comment, subscribe, do it all. It's going good. We're getting some good YouTube subscribers and yeah. Perfect. Okay. Enjoy. Peace out. Have a good week. Yep. Take care. Welcome to our Wednesday farmer forum. How about that? That would have been cool, right? So we've got some great farmers with us today for this evening. I tried to call it Whiskey Wednesdays, but our first one that I'll mention is Steve Church, shall he still at work? So I felt guilty calling it Whiskey Wednesdays. He's not working though. He just went back for the internet. Hey, you do what you got to do. Yeah. Right. Right. That's right. And then our next guest is Al Marth. And where are you from, Al? I'm from Rockford, Iowa. I farm right next to Rick. I mean, I have a hog operation that I can actually see his house from my window. So we're pretty close neighbors. Yeah. We've known each other a while. Yeah. And our other guest is Mark Olson from Wallingford. How are you, Mark? Tell us about your job. Good. Are you guys good? Just corny soybeans up here in Wallingford 35 miles or 35 minutes from Spencer, which one 35 35 miles northeast of Spencer, yeah, about 20 miles straight east of Okabogy. So you're wet right now. Yeah, we're wet, but nothing compared to those guys. Yeah. We got some crop damage, but they're losing houses and things like that. So I'm not going to complain. Yeah. No, that's sad. Yeah. I was complaining the last few weeks on here just how crappy my corn looked. But yeah, definitely can't complain when you're losing houses and everything. Yeah. No kidding. That's not good. Steve, Steve, we'll go back to you. Where are you from? I tell about it. Well, currently live in Creston, Iowa, but farm in Clarinda, not far from Missouri and not far from Nebraska, so get down in the corner. That's right. Perfect. Right. All right. Who wants to kick this off? I guess I'll just make it so we just get this out of the way. We'll go around. I'll start it. Steve, Allen, Mark, biggest fuck up in 2024 so far. Let's get it out of the way. Go for it, Steve. Go ahead. Do you have any fuck ups? No fuck ups? You cut up. I didn't catch it. Oh. You got it. You got us. So we're going to start with you. Biggest screw up so far this year. Yeah. What'd you fuck up? Well, I'm pretty good at that. Me too. I don't know. My brother, Matt, must have planted his beans wrong or something. His stand didn't break good, so I don't know. I don't know. We've definitely had some adversity, but I don't have enough nitrogen on for as much as we've leached down through the soil profile. Yeah. I feel like I'm probably running hand-to-mouth on nitrogen and probably haven't done as good a job as I should have there. So do you have a plan of coming back with something else or you had all your nitrogen on? Well, yeah, we kind of had a couple of plans that just maybe some green lightning water later on, but it doesn't look like that's going to make it in time and just one of them deals. Hopefully, a wide drop here some days coming forward and we need to talk more to Andrew about that. Is Andrew Jr. wide drop? He's still waiting on that haggy, isn't he? I'm hoping. My corn will be tassel. Well, we still got a ways to go for that. Yeah, I got a long ways, but mine will probably be tasseled by the time that sprayer comes about six weeks from now. All right, Al, you're up next. That's dark. Looking back, you know, coming out of the quote unquote drought, we had all the time in the world to do what we needed to do this spring, you know, we got a nice early beneficial shower. Yay, great. We'll just wait for it to dry out and it never dried out. So my fuck up for the year is probably not going sooner, harder, faster. Yeah, 100% agree with you. I'm in that camp as well. So you live and learn next year, I'll probably be the first one out there planting beans and they'll freeze off and we'll talk next year and what did you fuck up? A lot of beans too early. So Al and I have a lot of neighbors and they're not bad farmers at all. And they plant corn early and they hoyt. I don't want to say they luck out, but I mean, they don't wait for the they do they go in the ground is fit, but not warm enough and they'll tell you every time. I know one guy just did some spraying for him and he's like, that's always our best corn. His first plan. It doesn't matter how cold it is as long as this dry. So driving around, you see a lot of the sins out there and I'm not going to point fingers that anyone's feels, but you see traffic patterns, you see nitrogen patterns, you see things showing up that normal spring, they wouldn't show up, but they showed up this year. Yep. And we're going to go into the nitrogen after Mark tells us his fuck up. So hold on to that thought out. Actually, I don't, I feel pretty good about Mark doesn't fuck up. That's my God. Yes. Thank you, Mark. I wanted somebody to say it. I got lucky. We'll say that. But boy, just the last month, the rains and stuff that's kind of thrown them plans out the window and now we're just kind of playing Z and hope for the best. Hey, it's better to be lucky than good. That's right. I'll say my fuck up. I found about 32 acres at one row that I didn't have a closing wheel spring that had broke that I didn't catch. And I found that it was leaving the slot open. So I found out this week when I was walking out in some corner. Oh fuck. My case I H planner last year left all sorts of slots open piece of shit. God. I was so pissed on like, well, that was awesome. Oh, wait, it was dark and shit happens, man. I hate doing stuff in the dark. I noticed. That's what Amy said too. Yeah. Yeah. We always have the lights on. Oh. So I my grandpa's place has like, why the hell are there two rows next to each other that are shorter and yellow right now in the corn? I was like, oh, that's right. I was putting in hydrogen sign last year last fall in the dark. And I remember it and broken knife and didn't know it for how many rounds. And that's why I don't like doing shit in the dark. And I just got that is one product that it'll show every screw up you make. I mean, a knife might have a little kink in it or something and not put on enough. And you know, the rows next to get a whole bunch and you just, yeah, it it haunts you forever. And don't put it on an angle right. Yeah. Yeah. And don't put it on an angle. We learned that too. Yeah. Do you use in hinders? Nope. Nope. Just so liquid. Good man. All liquid. Steve. Steve. No. About half and half. Yeah. I was about two thirds, one third, but I think I'm going away from it. There's just too many variables, way too many. And so we're back to the nitrogen thing out and I was going to say that my later planted corn is looking sicker longer because that nitrogen has lowered in that profile and I'm not catching it quite as quick as my like May 18th and 20th planet corn did versus my May 31st through June 2nd. So my May 31st through June 2nd corn is like perfect stand, but it's ugly right now. And May 18th through May 20th is greening up because it's caught that nitrogen, but it's ugly because the stand wasn't there. So I kind of gave up on that time frame. I wasn't going to spend a whole lot. I'm still going to wide drop it, of course, and everything and put on that, but as far as like a V3 application, I threw that out the window. I wasn't going to do any primers or anything to get it through that ugly stage. I don't know if anybody else did. Did you do anything, Mark? Nope. Nope. This didn't have the opportunity with the weather. Yeah. Good call. Yep. So, Al, what, so you said you're seeing those traffic patterns and everything. Yeah. I agree. 100%. What have you all seen? Well, with my hog manure, I get it. I have two sites where I get my most of my nutrients from hog manure and they put it on with a drag line and an angle and I'm sure you've seen those patterns showing up within my fields. And it's just, it was once powder the beast, you know, those patterns would show up and then the corn goes out of it. But I did still see those tracks this year or today when I was going across the road there. You see them going in an angle, but the corn's really doing well in those. But you see where guys work stuff too early, went through the wet spots, compaction, there's a lot of different things that you see going on. Yeah. So, it's a good deal that was pattern tiled in one corner and just out of the blue, of course, you have a wet spring and something plugged and had a hell of a deal. It was maybe it was plugged two years ago when we were dry. I don't know, but had some tree roots in it and stuff and never had a problem before. And yeah, I had to plant in a corner of corn, probably an acre and a half. But I mean, there's literally nothing there. It's not like it was a short stand. I just went in and planted it in because there was nothing to work up. But did Steve, did you have to plant anything or do any special? I had a few drowned out spots on a bigger bottom that came back in. I also had a plugged tie line and got it fixed, but it's drowned out there, obviously, but it's too late now. You're going to run over more corn to get to it than you're going to put in there. No, for the most part, there's some beans that we had to go stab back in, but not really much corn. Steve, I got a follow-up question because I know you're nitrogen situation. You did some nitrogen nitrate sampling early. You want to tell what you kind of saw and what your nitrogen program was up until that point. Yeah, so I have done some nitrate sampling on some corn on corn and some corn on beans. And then another, Steve, sorry to interrupt. This was leaf, like leaf sampling or soil? No. Soil nitrate. Gotcha, thank you. Okay, perfect. Thank you. That's what I was wondering. What I've found basically is it has leached quickly down below the top 12 inches. From everything I've pulled, the top 12 inches is pretty low as far as nitrate. Anywhere from 4 to 8, maybe 10 ppm in the top 12 inches and then below that, substantial nitrate. So then that's 12 to 24 inch. So it's still reachable, obviously, but it's leaching, I think, probably faster than normal. And if it continues to rain, we've been wet, basically all spring, except we were dry early when guys were planting early April, but so the root development may not be there compared to last year where we were super dry in June, we had roots just went straight down in a hurry. But I don't know, it's definitely, there's going to be some nitrogen loss that we haven't seen in the last three, four years anyway here. How many pounds had you, where did you have applied that you should have been showing up? How deep are you at eight or 10 inches when you're, when it's applied? So Andrew applied some strip tail nitrogen. So that's why it's all fucked up. That's right. Yeah, I mean, I've paid them anyway, but you know, oh well. Next time I'll put the, I'll put the machine that we're on next time. Oh, that would have, maybe we should ask Andrew how deep it was applied. Well, that's, I was getting ready to, I think maybe six inches, probably I'm guessing. Somewhere between five and six, and how many pounds? Yeah, 95 to 100 pounds in the strip, and then I came back on one, one field, 160 acres, we came back with sprayer and put on another 60 pounds of 32 with a, with a pre-merge. And then the other fields, I came back and top-dressed with urea and AMS pretty early, because I was worried about nitrogen somewhere around the V2, V3 range. So just trying to keep, keep ahead of it, but still, I think it's going to be an issue. Does anybody know what the parts per million should be after he applied? Those pounds? I do. No, I mean, I'd have to, I don't know how much that affects the nitrate test. More than five, we know that for sure, but yeah. I don't know. Mark, you want to say, I was thinking, says 20 to 25 per million top 12 inches is adequate. So everything I tested was well below that. All right, Mark, the thing, you know, who's adequate? I'm not, I know that asking me. There it is. All right, Mark, let's talk about your nitrogen program and what you see out there. Did you have the ugly sage in your corn this year? No, it wasn't too bad. About 50 units, band man with a planter, and then probably that V4, we come back and white drop it, the rest of it. But probably as we've had 10 inches of rain since we white dropped it, and we had enough drowned it out and everything else. I don't know if it's worth putting more on or not, and how much we lost. I'm kind of at a loss right now on that. Gotcha. Do we need tissue samples? It's been such a shit show. I believe that. I haven't either. And I'm not even in that shit show like you've had, and I haven't even pulled any, yep. In our area, we probably have corn from V7 down to V2 or V. Yup. Yup. Yup. So, when you wide drop at the V4, do you actually have like 360 wide drops, or? I do. It's on a pull type. Oh, OK, so you're having no problems putting it right where it needs to be then at that shorter corn. Because like, I got those neutral boss ones, and I mean, if you don't have a stock that's got some pretty good girth to it, it's going to be all over the place in the field. You know, I mean, it has to have something there to hold it in a row is what I was getting at. Sure. So, no, I've had real good luck with the wide drops. OK. Because, yeah, V7 V8, I think, is kind of a good time to start with, you know, some of those, like, what's the other one? Easy drop. Easy drop. Yeah. Yeah. Right. How many gallons are you putting out at that V4 stage? Are you putting anything with it like you make full of KTS, any of that stuff? I'm putting the ETS and some boost, and we've done a little carbon, you know, acid. OK. Yep. What's the boost if you, I'm not familiar with that one. QLF boost. OK. It's a molasses-based. Yeah. Sugar. Product. Yeah. Nice. How's that mix? Real good. The fact that the retailer, they mix it with our nitrogen and ETS right there. Oh, great. So we don't have to mess with it. That's handy. Yeah. So, Al, he makes strips in the spring, or strip freshener. So what's your go-to on your nitrogen when you're doing that? So where I have hot water down, based on the manure analysis, I get about 228 units of nitrogen from my application there, and then when I came back in the spring and freshen, I put 100 units down in the strip for that. So on the other ground, where it was naked, rotated, I put 170 units down in the strip, and then my corn on corn, fine, I really can't go much over the 170 units without really gum and stuff up. So my corn on corn has 170 out of it right now. I'll have to come back and why drop that later on with 50 to 60. Sure. So everything looking good? Three different planning dates, yeah, sure. So I was out driving around one day in my side by side, and I snooped at your north farm there. Nobody was around, but I thought your work as your pickup was, the old Dodge was. But well, one of the old Dodges. Anyway, I thought your corn there, it was just peeking through, it was probably V2, and it looked really good there to the east of the driveway. So that was planted on May 30th. So yeah, the corn on corn stuff with my strip freshener this year just didn't like the wet foliage. So I didn't get a chance to get into it till right last minute, and then two days after I stripped, I planted. So it kind of worked out, but yeah. And you got different, you were like me traded for a planner in the middle of the season. Yeah, it's funny, I told Tina's like, I don't know what Rick's thinking. He's going to have so many headaches and it's going to be so stressful. Yes. Yes. I did the same damn thing. Yes. Yeah. I don't know. I would have had the same headaches with my old planner because I needed new disc openers. Yeah. And I thought I was going to make it in the season and with that hard pack, no till. Yeah. Especially in the wheel tracks for him out real quick, and so I was fighting that. And I just, I can't get shit done. I don't know. I guess I like to go home at night. I don't know. I wouldn't idiot. You know, right? Who wants to sleep? I just, I couldn't get anything done with a 40 foot planner and yeah, I could have worked my ass off and done the whole not sleep and, you know, cocaine, you know, whatever it takes. But I wasn't going to do that. I like to be home at night. I like to sleep. I like to start early in the morning. I like to work during daylight hours, you know, because you always have the screw ups when it's dark out. And I was like, I'm, I'm just going to go a 30 inch rose again and I, I've been missing my roll cleaners when I plant beans. So with these 15 inch beans, I didn't have a roll cleaner on every row. I only had them on my cornrows, so every 30 inches and I just don't, I don't get the stand that I should and yeah, I don't know, I just, I'm kind of excited for next year. So this year I planted everything, planted all my beans with the old planner and then I planted all my corn with a new planner. So I'm excited to plant beans next year. I know, um, Mark, he planted 30 inch rose this year, do you use, you got your roll cleaners? Did you like them? Yep. I got the reveal. That's what they're called. Oh, from precision planning. Shit. You got the all. For sure. Yeah. And I really, I really liked them. Yeah. So anyway, anybody that doesn't know what the reveal is, is actually mounted on the bar. The, it's not mounted on the row unit. So you get less chatter, less vibration on that row unit. So it's supposed to be better for your meters and stuff. And it has the, the tire for. Yeah. It's got a little wheel. A little gauge wheels. Really nice. I think that's, that's equally as important as being mounted on the toolbar. Yeah. Awesome. I don't know. You want to talk about being populations, so I'll stay out of this conversation. Oh, who wants to start Steve start being populations, facing thoughts. I planted, uh, so I got a different planter this year too, and it's a 30 inch, uh, deer 1770 and bought the simulator discs for it, their precision planting, the 56 cell, trying to, uh, singulate some beans. It went from anywhere from, uh, 100,000 pop to 135, uh, just kind of doing some trials and fits like my normal trials all, I have good plans in the spring, and then when it comes to harvest, it's all goes to fuck, and I just, oh, just go and harvest the whole day I'm thinking, get it done, you know, so, but, uh, we're, we're going to find out not or at least have something to look at, but, uh, it does do pretty good job. Once in a while, it would pop up what you were singulating at, you know, 97, 98, 99% and then it'd go away, but, um, uh, it does help to drive slow, but, uh, what was your speed? I went, I did a couple of those tests and, uh, anywhere from three mile an hour, then I bumped it up to four, and I bumped up to five, and then I bumped up to six, and, uh, I have nothing to share as results from that. I haven't been able to look at it, but, but I have, I did do the, the initial test. Yeah. So I'll follow up on that, sorry, before Al does, but with a 15 inch planter and I have the V sets, I, I was planting 130 the first, like three years ago, and then I was 120 and the share, I was like 100 to 110, but, um, at 15 inch rows, you can, or like, I'm six mile an hour, 99% simulation. It's crazy. It's not, and you can see it. I mean, you can literally like side check your fields like you can cornfield, you know, being, so it's pretty neat, except when you get, for some reason this year, the driest part of my farms, the sandy hilltops, and anything that had lime rock or anything underneath it, those are the fields that are, those are the areas that didn't come up. Like, I don't get it. Those are the places I'm replanting. I'm replanting the opposite of wet right now in my bean fields, and I, I don't get it. I don't know if I plant it too deep and then broke their necks or what. I mean, because everything's kind of decayed by this point, but I'd, if anybody knows, I mean, leave a comment, whatever, maybe one of you guys know what's going on, but, um, I know the more you plant, you know, you get closer together, they, they compete and they come out of the ground, whatever, but, um, I don't have much competition because their shit four and a half, five inches apart, um, and I planted them all two and a half inches deep unless there was trash and then maybe they were one and a half and then they didn't come up. So I don't know, whatever, anyway, Al, he got something on your beans. No, well, there's no magic. I just kind of, however, it takes the boxes to divide all over my acres as my population ever run. So the issue is 145. Um, yeah, with the new planner, you know, they say they can run up to seven and a half mile an hour and that seems awful fast. So I went at six four just because I was so staking late on the beans and the simulation was really good. I was very happy with the emergence and it was no till and now I worked out, no till worked out this year, it's just fine on the beans. So yeah, I used to report there. I think the 30 inch rows and the no till, um, especially when you're planting them closer together, I think that's kind of a way to go. You got anything else, Mark? Might be frozen. He looks like yes. I heard the 140,000. I did, too. He blinked. Yeah. There you go. Yeah. There you go. We have John, John, your planner with precision plates and the speed tubes to nine mile an hour and it didn't have any trouble, but it was not going to go back. So I, I just had a new planner to you, Mark this year or not? No, no, no, I've had it for quite a while. Yeah. Okay. I just didn't know if I was the only one out on that club with a not a new planner. Yeah, no shit. I was, I was just wondering, oh, how long have you been playing piano? Al? Oh, for just you. I see you have that organ in the background next to your fireplace. I just wanted to know, you know, one of my favorite pieces is back. Oh, you got to see this on YouTube, everybody. Otherwise you have no idea what we're talking about, but oh shit. Anyway. Well, I want to talk about chemical because I am the world's biggest fuck up this year on corn spraying. And I hate enlist. I had just over half of my acres were enlist beans and I sprayed the rest with Liberty and I wish I was spraying them all with Liberty. And Mark actually told me that last year because that's the only thing that works. But on corn this year, I don't know what the hell happened other than every single time I finished spraying or the every single day I sprayed, it rained within an hour of me finishing. I don't know if that was a deal or what, but how's everybody's chemical holding up because mine is dog shit. Steve. Pretty, pretty decent beans are getting third, third needing posted, but the weather's been kind of hit and miss and I don't do our own spring. Sorry guy. He does a good job for us. It's just been one of those years hard to get back into and he's right on the cusp of spraying him right now. So hopefully the analysts he's going to squirt enlist on them. So hopefully, hopefully it does better than what it sounds like it did for you. So do 20 gallons. They say 20, do 20. Mix them in less with some Liberty and really give them hell. I guess. I don't know. So far, corn's done really well, which we, we fall sprayed some, what do you call that? I can't remember the name of it. It's a dicam product last fall on all the stubble ground and that's, that really kept the stubble clean, the spraying a long way into the spring that's, I attribute some help to that. So. So I actually brought in a toe of dicamba, like just straight dicamba last year and I was going to spray it in the fall and then. You know how falls going? I don't have a heated shed or shop to drive the sprayer in. So I was kind of risky, but that's good to know that that, that, that would work. I was going to spray it on my corn stocks actually, but I did that last year with dicamba in the land mine. So. Okay. Good and clean. Yeah, for the most part, I mean, there's a few escapes here and there, but overall pretty good. So. Al, what about you? Well, I was a little bit late to the football game getting my stuff sprayed this year. So with the bean burned down, I went in with, um, visual pro and the weeds were so big, I added the enlist and round up to it and the burn down worked really well. It did. I saw it. It was, yeah, I would have taken it. You saw what I was battling. So the fact that I got, got him killed, I was amazed, but we got pressure coming back. So I've all rolled my beans here shortly and then after that, I'm going to go with my plant second pass, but I was going to go with round up in this and like what Mark was saying, I think I'm going to switch to the Liberty enlist just to get a better kill on everything. So it's cheaper. And if we can get a more a better kill, I was like, why wouldn't you? Um, corn, I went with, um, Acaron with, uh, Acrazine and some of the taller fields of weeds I had, I don't know if everybody else had, uh, giant rag weeks sneaking in their field edges. They share some beers. Oh, I were awful. Yep. So I did add the dicamba to those fields and got good kill in there, but where I went with just the Acaron, I don't know if I'm going to be real happy with it. Yeah. I might have some of that. Liberty. I might go in real quick and try to clean up some spots I know that I got coming. Yeah. Mark. Uh, the corn all got sprayed good time. Um, everything's looking good there. Actually had the elevator spray it. I've never done that before, but we were just having a hell of a time and they were able to spray it. So we gave them a couple fields here and there and next thing you know, they had them all done. So that worked out pretty good. The beans, we went out with, uh, unless one in Liberty and, uh, that's holding for now, but I'm sure we're going to have to spray them again. So we're probably just going to plan on that. Yeah. Okay. Back to Al, you're rolling your beans. Yeah. Steve, do you roll your beans? Mark, you roll yours, Rick. Yep. You roll them. Yeah. I roll them before I plant just because it's no till. And I know I can get the guy. I hire it done. So I know I can get the guys in there just to roll the stocks down and that's so I just do it before I play it. So all right. I'm not, I don't grow beans. So I'm just going to. So what is the biggest benefit to rolling them in season versus maybe like pre harvest? A couple of years, for me, a couple of years ago, I rolled them right after I planted and on some ground. It's a timber clay, it did a fantastic job of creating concrete. So I have just decided to stay out of the fields until the crop is up and I did it last year. I think most of my beans were at V3 when I rolled them. It's a horrifying thing to do as you're doing it, but a day later, you don't even know you're there. I mean, yeah, I go when it's warmer where the beans were pliable and later in the afternoon and they're stressed anyway and they just roll over and they stand right back up. So the biggest benefit for me is though, as I don't want my combine in the fall, I can put a person in there that's not necessarily looking for rocks, stocks, broken sickle sections. And I feel confident that he's doing a good job and not running stuff through the header. So that's my biggest benefit. Mark, I agree that the benefits all about combine and you know, you're not no rocks and not breaking off sickle sections and whatnot, but I hire all mine done. So I kind of get mine done right after we plant. It's not ideal. I'd rather have it done when the beans are up, but when you hire somebody, you're kind of at their mercy. So that's why I do it that way. No, it makes sense. That's why I do it before I plant because I know it's going to get done. So yep. Steve-o. Do you feel the beneficial benefit of a nice planting surface too though? Yeah. Yeah, no, it is nice and it doesn't rub all the pain off of your row units as much because the stocks aren't sticking up, but no, it's nice. Yeah. Steve? Never have. There's not much of it that goes on around here. I have seen a little bit of it, but I'd say it's for rocks and maybe just to knock the stocks down, but yeah, not much of it goes on around here. So I was going to ask, do you, I mean, Andrew, Steve, and your area, do you guys have a lot of rock? Not like you guys do. There are certain areas that do, but most of the time I'd say, go ahead. Right there. Yeah, not necessarily what Andrew and I particularly farm that specific area, but there's areas that do, yes. Yeah. And if you're going to find rocks down here, it's going to be on the side slope of a fairly, you know, a CD slope soil that's going to have an outcropping or some rock, it's not going to be down on like flag going or anything. How about you, Mark? Get rock. Oh, yeah. We got plenty of rock. Yeah. Yeah. No, I mean, well, honestly, and I don't know Al's ground as good as my own, but I'm guessing he probably has a few farms with no rock or maybe five on the whole 80. And then you have another farm where like it's an 80 and you don't do tillage on 20 acres because you'll pick up rocks for years. I don't know. But that, I mean, that's how ours is and I don't know what about UL. Yeah. All our fields have rocks scattered throughout and even with minimum tillage, they keep coming to the surface and, you know, the biggest treat is working over a limestone knolls where you slow it down and reduce the plant pressure down to nothing. So it just kind of rolls over the top and not bust off your disk edge, but no, but I'm blessed with rocks every year. That's why I got kids. Well, Eva, she don't like to pick up rocks. So her mouth, her mouth ain't big enough to grasp onto those rocks yet. So I got some all at once she could get it. Yeah. I guess maybe my question, I'll let you guys think about this for a second for the guests here. What is one question that you would like to ask other farmers just to get their feedback or what's something that you're trying to maybe learn from somebody else? I mean, Rick, what are you trying to learn from some? I'm trying to learn from Rick all the time because I don't do well in the chemicals side. I'm not. I don't have that background like he does when he's spraying. And so I talked to him about chemicals and stuff on a regular basis. So I guess, Rick, what are you trying to learn? And I'll let these guys think for a minute or two as you as I take a bite of my dear stick. Yeah. What was the question? Oh, my God, this is what are you trying to learn from somebody else or a question that all Jesus ask other fertilizer placement. What do you do? Like what do you have on your planner? Because I'm going away from anhydrous. I want to be able to apply everything with my planner and why drop. So I don't even want to put anything in my strip. I just want to make a strip, just just a planting. And so that's what I'm looking for, like, you know, Mark said he goes out and why drops a V3, V4, you know, but he's got a ground rig or whatever. I don't know, just different things, you know, Andrew and I have talked about pulling a cart behind the planner and how you can't back into the corners and just different things like that. I just want to know how, because I think 32% can be just as cheap or cheaper than anhydrous because we can put it on when we need it and it's there where we need it. So that's my big thing, you know, anhydrous is nice in the fall, but, you know, how much is left in the spring and look at this year. I mean, just, it doesn't look good, I mean, because it's beneath the profile. I mean, like what Steve said, so yeah, I'm all about fertilizer placement. So anything anybody can tell me about that? Great. Sure. Any of you three want to go first? Wow. Well, I can't see it. I can't see if there's anything in particular all the time, you know, like every year you kind of pick up something from somebody and most of the time what you're thinking you're interested in is not what you find out you learned the most about. Yeah. Good point. So I guess keeping open mind and just listen to everybody, that's kind of my thought. I'll go ahead and thank you. Well, back in a prior life, I used to work in retail and you go to these meetings and they say that the seed and the corn seed has the potential of reaching 600 bushel to the acre if we don't screw it up. But you know, the first thing we do is open the top of the bag and then that's screwed up. I mean, so what can we do to unlock the next level, next tier of yields? So I'm always looking to hear what guys are thinking, you know, same thing as soybeans. What can we do to make them better? And for me to listen to all the guys talk and how they run their operation, I want to learn how to make things more efficient and how they manage their time better than what I do. I mean, I do the best I can, but there's better ways of doing what I do. So I'm always trying to figure out how to make myself better, to make my operation better. Yeah, Hunter, I agree with him there too, because we're both in the same bowl. We talked about that a lot. Shortland manpower, long on our short hours. Yep. Steve. Well, my internet, I lost, I didn't catch most of what you guys said, but I did catch the last part of Al's and I agree efficiency is what I'm, you know, is my goal. It's hard to pick up ground, it's hard to buy ground, it's, you know, the whole reason I joined in Total Acre was because I wanted to farm what we farmed already better, you know, become more efficient. And because we weren't doing a, you know, we're still, you're never there, I don't think, you know, but we got to, we got to try to get there and that's what, it's what I'm trying to do, become more efficient and, you know, you can learn from other people and save yourself a lot of time and heartache by avoiding mistakes that I would have known somebody and somebody that's already tried it and already made that mistake and they can help you kind of avoid them. So that's, that's, I guess one other thing would be just learning with the plant or at what timing, more how the plant goes through its growth stages and what it wants during different growth stages is kind of interest me. So those are some things that I tried to learn from other guys. Yeah. Yeah. What about biologicals? Anybody using biologicals other than myself? Yes. Are you using source? I use everything. Everything. Well, I was a source dealer, I'm not anymore. Oh, okay. Well, I am a phico-terror dealer now and monies, obviously, but yeah, biologicals. I mean, they tell us we have to use them, right? I mean, goodness, like, what, was it the last podcast or the one before that? I was like, I think these companies are just trying to tell us we're putting too much nitrogen on. But, you know, it's like, I don't know, I mean, yeah, I want my soil to be healthy and alive and anything I can do, I'm going to do it. I'm more kind of on the page of the, like, I use some whole ganics product this year. And when I screwed the lid off that toe and it smelled like yeast and it looked like it was growing inside and it, they send you a net to, like, catch the chunks. And there wasn't very many, but, like, when you're dumping it out of the toe to filter all the crap out, to me, that's biological. I mean, that's, that's like, it's alive already, you know? But I think phico-terror and I think source both have their, their good things too. I mean, because they're chemically based, I mean, they do it, they go into the plant and secrete their shit off the roots and the biology. Yeah. That's the technical term here. Yeah. Right. Yep. So on the label. Yeah. It says it, the shit on the roots. I can't wait to do that next week or two. Yeah. That's when the biological uses this shit coming off the root. Right. Yeah. I mean, yeah. So anybody else using anything? I don't. I want Al too. We're always trying different things and whatnot, but it seems like we have more failures than successes. No. I think you're right. But I don't give up but I maybe do smaller trials. There you go. I agree. Steve? Yeah, I used quite a bit of stuff in Furo from Mutiny, which would be made by ROI biologicals, some of their network and relay. It looks good. So I don't know. The proof is in the pudding, right? But Al, you use biologicals if you got hog manure. That's true. Yes. My fertility and my organic matter is pretty good. Yeah. There you go. That's Steve. I'm always telling Al like you need to take some tissue samples, pulse and leaf samples. I'll do it for you, but I haven't done it, but I like, God, you got some shit going for you. If you just get everything evened out, oh man. Yes. The shit on the roots. Yeah. Yeah. The shit. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It excretes the shit on the roots. Exactly. Anything you guys, I saw a video of a guy this spring who applied manure or the drag line to stay in the corn and I couldn't believe I saw, you see that Rick? Yeah. There's a place in Canada that actually sells that. I looked into it a couple of years ago when I thought about putting up a building. And that blew my mind that they would go over stay in the corn like that, but. Yeah. That's the way where they like can guide the hose down the row and then turn around and pick it back. Yeah. Yeah. I saw that too. That's pretty bad ass. Yeah. For sure. Yeah. And that's the way to do it. They were dumping it on the headland though. Did you notice that? They would just pick up and they didn't shut off and they were like flooding the headland with dog shit. It was like, oh my gosh, is that even going to be alive, but I had an applicator in the small that would do that. He was more interested in emptying the barn than applying the nutrient. Yeah. He would drag the hose around the field or the one in the wide open. I mean, it'd be just a cesspool of shit on the ends and it's like, oh, that did me no good. Well, you definitely didn't get the nitrogen, that's for sure. No. PK. Yeah. I'm good. Yeah. So what, maybe we should talk about that. Do you mind telling us what P and K levels are and your hog manure soils? I mean, not all your farms get hog manure. Most of them. Well, they don't because of logistics, but I'm going to start working on doing that just because the two farms that the sites are at, they're getting so high in the levels that I need to start moving it to where it can utilize it more. So even though it's going to cost me a little bit more to tank it, I'm going to start running it to the section that I don't have a worm. Yeah. For sure. I'm pretty fortunate to have all my farms in three different sections. So it's all pretty close. So I'm, I can't knock that too bad as far as nutrition level. So when I put out 3,500 gallons of hog manure, based on the last, I get about 228 units of nitrogen. Now that's not all available. So portion of it is organic, portion of it is inorganic and the inorganic part is what the tip, the plant takes up. So you have to go through the nitrification process to get the rest of it. So if you're continuous corn, you could get continued benefit of that extra organic matter, of course. Phosphorus, if I remember my levels, I think with the one application, I'm getting the equivalent of 140 units of the Phosphorus. And it might be 180 units of Phosphorus and 140 of potassium. So it's not a huge building event with one application of my nerve, but year after year, it does get it up there. Yeah. Well, you're getting like copper and all sorts of, I mean, you get all sorts of stuff. Yeah. Like I'd literally just ordered some copper here the other day to put him up with my wide drop. I didn't tell Andrew that though. So don't let him know. But that's one of my secrets this year. I also ordered some, oh shit, what was it called? Well, let's go to Mark and I'll try to remember what I'm talking about. Mark, didn't you have cattle? Didn't you have a whole bunch of cattle manure or was it hog manure? Yep. And I still get the manure out of the buildings. They're a bed pack. Oh, nice. So they bail off our cornstalk, use that for bedding feed and then we get all the manure out of the barn. Okay. Nice. It's really... Come on. Yeah. What do they put on when they come back? About 15 tonne an acre, which is, you know, that's probably like three tonne of chicken manure. Right. It's a pretty bulky stuff. Yeah. Nice. You know, the manure is great, but you're always out of balance. You know? Yep. The manure is not balanced. You never get a spread right. You got to deal with the compaction from it. I mean, some people think it's liquid gold or whatever, but it's not that big a deal, I don't think. No. I know I'm probably in the minority on that, but I think it gets a little overrated. I mean, so Al used to work at the local co-op and my grandpa, he was a big believer, that's all we needed, and we made all of a sudden grandpa got a bill for a lot on dry fertilizer after we soil sampled, and it was because his manure wasn't doing what we thought it was. And after that, we started getting some yields back again because it was like, well, why are we only getting 190 bushel corn here when the rest of the farms are getting like two... This was like 20 years ago or 15 years ago. We're getting like 190 bushel corn and everything else was getting 210, 215 or whatever. And yeah, so it definitely throws things out of balance, that's for sure. Steve, you get a little manure, don't you? Very little. I traded some corn stocks for some cattle manure coming back this year on that corn-on-corn. I was wanting to get rid of the corn stocks just to try to take away some of the carbon penalty and was able to get the manure back. We do have cattle not enough to really be able to go out and just spread a shit ton everywhere. But you can pretty well cover one field a year, so if you can get it done. But I wish we had more, well, I wish we had all kinds of manure, but it's a whole mother process. Yeah, I mean even if you just spread one farm a year, and like Mark says, it throws everything out of balance, but I can see it more so really screwing things up like in Al's case where you're just putting it on the same farm year after year after year after year. But it's nice to, and I think Al has the right idea of tanking it around and moving it to some other farms or whatever years to come, but salicylic acid, that's what I'm going to spray on my crop this year. Why? Because you told me I was supposed to ask. I did not say that because I don't know how I live it. It's aspirin. Oh, aspirin. There you go. I'll feed that to my hogs. Do you? Yeah. Yeah. So years and years ago, years ago, like when my sisters were in high school and they'd get flowers from their boyfriend or whatever, they'd always throw an aspirin in with the rose or their flowers, you know, into the water, and I'd always ask, well, why are you doing that? Like, oh, they, they tell you you're supposed to, like, okay, whatever. Well, come to find out if you look up the gardeners and what they do. Yeah. There's a lot of aspirin spray on stuff, info, all sorts of things. Steve. Steve just left us. That's okay. You're still here in the audio, it says. Okay. Okay. But so that's, that's one thing I'm going to try, but there's side effects to that. You don't want to spray it with like glyphosate because it'll actually, it, it helps the plant digest it so it won't kill it. So if you have a bunch of tomato plants or garden close to a field and some dumbass is going to come spray around up or something, you need to either cover it with tarps or you need to spray your tomato plants with aspirin because that helps with the glyphosate part. It'll help metabolize it so it won't affect the plant. So yeah, I don't know. You can Google it. Look it up. Check it out. Perfect. What rate are you going to run? Three to 500 milligrams per acre. Okay. Yep. Yeah. And I didn't actually buy aspirin, I actually went to a, a, like a lab company and just bought X amount of powder of that powder, like what you would feed to your hogs. Yep. Yep. And I'm not going to say what I'm going to do because you have cameras, but you'll see me. But anybody else got any secrets? Don't tell us. Oh, yeah. That's not really a secret. I mean, it, it's something you can try though. Check it out or I'll try it for everybody and then let you know how it works, but oh. I don't know, one more thing who, who, I will go around. What are you excited about from what you're seeing out of your crop so far? Steve. Nothing. Oh, Mark. Mark, like throwing you under the bus, I'll just, it's just about my career. You guys talk about an acre here or there that you're grounded out and I'm like, Oh, you poor bastards. Yeah. Well, I get it, I mean, I'm going to, I'm going to, I'm not going to let Steve talk for a second because I'm going to follow up with that. And yeah, I've been saying forever that it's just corn and it's just beans this year. I mean, especially with the commodity prices. Oh my goodness. I mean, if you didn't have something locked in before, you know, I feel sorry for you. I'm prayers to you, but yeah, I mean, how many dollars can you spend? In this crop. I mean, I don't want it to be a failure. I'm still going to spray fungicide and insecticide and, you know, whatever it needs. But as far as just going out there and winning high yield contests, that ain't my thing this year. But yeah, I don't know if Steve's probably going to win a bunch. I don't know. Mm hmm. But I don't know about that. I am excited about, I did a flag test on the latest planted corn May 18th, I think it was, and I had 34,000 pop and I think 29 were all, they're all within 10 GDU. So wow, and five, I had five one morning and then like 28 that night and, and like one or two the next morning. So it was nice. It was pretty good and then it rang like quite a bit and I don't know. Mine a lot. Well, a little stand, not very much. I'm still happy with it, but it was excellent emergence on that particular field anyway. Al. Well, am I looking forward to 2025? Yes. Well, you're in Mark and Rick's camp. I know. I'm curious. I mean, so I have three different planning days, basically the 24th of April, May 18th and May 30th. So how much yield difference will there be? I mean, that will all depend on what kind of moisture we end up with for the year, heat units, and if we freeze early or not. So it'll be just interesting to see how they do beans cover crop. I like the way you think. Well, like I would do a lot more corn if I had better or a bigger labor source. But there you go. We did that one year. We went all corn and my wife said, if we ever do that again, you're not going to have me to help you. So. There you go. So if we start sprinkling some beans in to give us a little bit of a break, I guess. Yeah. But no, I'll just see what your finishes up with. I'm excited for next year, too. I was literally thinking of that this today and yeah, I was spraying for some neighbors, spraying their beans and like, God, I'm just, I can't wait till next year, you know, that get, get the bugs worked out in the planner, plan some 30 inch beans again, get, yeah, I don't know. I'm just, I'm excited and they're definitely two by two by two starter going on and I'm doing all sorts of stuff. No in hydro, whatever I can afford to do. So I'm, I'm excited for next year. You want to know how to get your bugs out of your planner? Get a job here. Oh. You know, you can plant June 12th and it all comes up in four days. That 60 some acres that are replanted. You can go rub row by row and you can see which ones have an issue. Yeah. I mean, because the seed was out of the ground in four days, this is about as perfect as it could be. And I got one row that is, is got more skips in it than the rest of them. Like, well, I got to turn into that row and see if it's the plate or what it is. But now I know where some of my skips are coming from. Yeah. So, I mean, that's the positive thing that I've taken from replanting that corn. You know, and that's one thing like Mark said, he hasn't tissue sampled and I haven't either. And that's one thing you miss out on doing is you, you don't check. You're not walking out in your fields. You're not checking the stands and stuff. And I haven't done that enough, that's for sure. So, do you agree, Mark? I agree, 100 percent. Yeah. I told some of my friends, I feel like I'm a Minnesota Vikings fan halfway through the season we've given up on this year and all we want to do is talk about next year. They didn't like my cow. You might as well say it's like we had a cow voice. I was just going to say, it sounds like we had a Dallas Cowboys fan. I know there's a cowboy fan, maybe two, I wasn't sure if Mark was a cowboy fan or not. Oh, well, because I think we sat in a bar and watched some of the Cowboys preseason game or something. Wouldn't it like the first game or something? No, it was a, that was a game game, it was there's a night game, I had it on my iPad. You know, every year is the Cowboys year. So, oh my God, well, I suppose we've taken an hour of their time. Thanks a lot, guys. It was, it was good. You might not think you contributed much, but you did. It was awesome. It was awesome. I appreciate it. Yeah, I think it was. Appreciate your time and doing it and everything else. And you guys are good farmers, obviously, and that's why I picked you. Yep. So best of luck for a baby grand in the background, right? Yes. Yeah, yeah. And yeah, Al is going to go back to playing as Oregon tonight. So Mark, I'll leave you with another one. Yeah, I'm good. Yeah. Appreciate it. Go baby safe. Yep. Good luck. Good luck. Okay, take care. Thank you. Yeah, thank you. (upbeat music)