Farmer Sense
Dr. Alison Bryan and Lily Cobo-CASE IH Research Agronomists
Hi everyone. You're listening to the Farmer Sense podcast. I am your host, Rick Willert. Andrew Fuff is my co-host. How are you doing, Andrew? I'm fabulous. I like the new intro. Yeah. I like it. I mean, it's something different. It's not the same shit as normal. So I'm excited. Good job. Yeah, we're changing it up. We had a really good, really good interview just now. A few minutes ago, we just finished up with Dr. Allison Bryan. She is a soil management research agronomist with Case IH and Lily Cobo. She is a planter research agronomist with Case IH. I guess you'll get to hear them in a few minutes, but yeah, it was good. We could have like three or four more interviews with them. Yeah, we covered a lot of stuff. I mean, this has kind of been a fun last two weeks. I mean, if you think about it, yeah, I mean, I got to talk to like pioneer guys that I've known a lot. I mean, I haven't known them a long time, but been a long time customer of huge, you know, always like pioneer. I'm not saying I don't like other brands either. But and then we get to talk about Case IH stuff today. That's like the best is it gets as good as it gets, right, man? I don't know. This was excited. And it's just interesting to hear how as a company, they're taking the agronomic agronomic side, as well as the iron side. So I don't even know if you could if you could see the Case IH chair, I was in when the girls were on because now your head was in the way. Yeah, gosh. Yeah, I got this chair. I got this chair when I was working at McRoberts implement. It was offered to the it was a dealer special or like a yeah, you could buy one. And I know John McRoberts, he he was pretty cheap. He didn't he had a chair. He didn't need another one. And I said, hey, can you order that? And I'll just buy it from you. That's what we did. So perfect. Yeah, super great interview. I mean, we haven't really had bad interview. We've had great people all the time. The only time things seem off is when I'm not prepared, which I haven't prepared for a podcast since like number one or two. Yeah, I just started winging it. And I know Alison, she was kind of nervous because she prepares well. And I was nervous because I could tell she wanted, you know, more input on what we were gonna. Yeah, more structure. And I couldn't give that to her. I apologize. But it went really well. And yeah, we had a good time. So it's laid back podcast. What I think our listeners want to hear, right? Yeah, I mean, yeah, it was exactly what we always jump around. We jumped around a lot like normal. But we either talk about a lot of different things by jumping around the sort of focusing on just one. I don't know. Maybe that's the wrong way to think about it. Well, and how many conversations do you have with your fellow friends or neighbors that don't jump around? I mean, this was literally, I mean, what we do on here, I think is literally like talking to your neighbor, you know, and we just have other neighbors and friends listening to us talk. Right. So I mean, I mean, this is, I think we, you said you met them down at Total Laker. I did not go to that one. I never made it. Yeah, it was a breakout session. So not everybody got to hear it. Right. Because I was, I think, if I go Terra or something else at that time, and I don't have a case planner. So it was like, I didn't need to hear about case planner setups. So, but I do remember seeing Lily at the commodity classic and you talked to her because you'd seen her at Total Laker. Yeah, but I just remember her name because your daughter's name and my niece's name. So it was easy to remember. Yeah. Perfect. So what do you even do it this week? Now, then you said you wanted to show me a picture sometime of some corn, but I didn't, I haven't taken one. Yeah. I'm not going to show that, like, so other people can see it. That's just for you. And I got some, and it's not because it's good people. Just once again, we talked about it last couple episodes. But yeah, my nitrogen is lower than my roots are. So, I'm not catching up and I need to get why dropping. So yesterday, I started mixing up my micro fulvic. I don't know what you want to call it. I actually, Rick's mix is what I call it. Thanks, Rick's mix. That will be put in with my 32% and ATS when I why drop, but I would be doing that right now, if I could. We just had another, I don't know, inch and a tenth, which isn't as much as some of the people around us had. There was up to two inches, not too far from me. But we had 230 last yesterday and night before. Okay. Actually, yeah, I'm sorry. I just looked, I think I'm at an inch and a half now, I guess, if you count. Yeah. But I mean, you don't have to go very far north of me and they had four and a half inches in Nebraska. They had seven. So, I feel very fortunate that getting some rain, it's completely different than the last three years. We were begging for rain the last three years at this time. And now it's to the point where I'm like, I could really go for seeing the sun for about a week. Yeah, like every night when I say my prayers, it's like, let's go three weeks or two weeks without any rain. I want to get my, I got to get this wide drop and done. I have already a huge loss on yield on a few of these farms. Absolutely. I mean, the bottom leaves are deficient. They're like brown in spots, especially what spots or headlands, but ugly, ugly, ugly, ugly. And I'm not going to give up on it when it comes to nitrogen and wide dropping. You know, I'm probably not going to hit it with a bunch of foliers like I have in the past, but I had to get those nutrients down or where the roots are. Yep. I got some corn that's just starting to tassel. Nice. Yeah. But the same boat, I still have a little bit of nitrogen I'd like to be putting on there and some zinc and some manganese to push some of this stuff because it does look so good since we've been getting some rain. So I'm nervous where we've had storms like, you know, in the forecast the last couple days. I'm like, we're at a crucial stage here right before tassel where that next set of bracelets comes out that man wind damage. I've seen it many years before. That corn that has tasseled is fine, but the corn that's just not quite tasseled is like the next day. It'll, it'll, it'll go down or whatever and makes me nervous, but so far, so good. I don't know. Other than that, I haven't done much of anything this week. Running kids around and it's only Wednesday. So tomorrow's the fourth of July. So yeah, big plans for the fourth? No, no, no. Good friend. They have an awesome fireworks display that Saturday actually. And yeah, tomorrow morning there is a parade where my, and the town my brother-in-law lives in. So I think we're going to Amy and I are going to go there with Ava, take her along and go watch the parade. I don't, it's not supposed to be raining in the morning, I don't think, but in the evening, there's like a 95% chance. So the girls need to get the ranger cleaned up because I think they're taking our rangers through the parade. Oh, cool. The last guy's parade on Heritage Day sprayed this Saturday. So do that and fireworks are Friday night. Shell rock is the town that I'm, that I'm going to. So just north of Waterloo or Waverly, Waverly, Shell Rock school. That's where the Brent Underworth Point is. It sure is. Yeah. I've been there. And yeah, that's right. You have. So the, yeah, the plant is West and pretty much straight West. Yeah. Kind of out in the country, but on a highway. Anyway. Hey, don't you have some connections there? We need to do a podcast with them. Absolutely. Well, I'm a kill bros dealer. I know you are. Yeah, I have connections. Hold on. Shit. Okay. We can do that too. I just, I'm just still excited about the whole case. I each thing. I know me too, man. I'm excited. I think, I think it was a really good one. I didn't understand how much data and research that they're doing on the agronautics side and the soil sisters did a great job. And I, I'm doing some of the stuff that they've done in the past. And I'm like, well, why don't I see their research and just stop screwing around and learn from them? Yeah. So we didn't talk about it on the podcast. But afterwards, it was mentioned that they are going to be at the farm progress show in Boone and both Allison and Lily are both going to presenting. I think it said Thursday of the tentative letter there Thursday morning at the farm progress shows. Yeah, because there's a big women of Ag push for in the case I H Booth and stuff. So a lot of women of Ag are going to be speaking, which is going to be good. Because I think we're going to be there and maybe we can make some new contacts for people that we want to get on the podcast. There we go. There we go. There's a lot of women in agriculture that, you know, you don't hear about as mainstream as some and that's kind of, you know, where we want to target people that are doing awesome things in agriculture that maybe aren't mainstream. Yeah. Right. Exactly. Enough to say. Yeah. Awesome. Well, okay. You want to, I got nothing else. I'm ready to clip this up and excited for what we just talked about. So yeah, I hope everybody enjoys. It was good. Like I said, we jumped around what we talked a lot about my grandomy and some of the things we're doing. And I'm sure we'll have them on again for some follow ups. So I agree. Yeah. So Dr. Allison Brian. And yes, she earned it. So you can call our doctor. It's okay. And Lily Kobo actually working on her master's. So check them out. Enjoy. Have a good fourth. Well, I hope you had a good fourth. This will air afterwards, but everybody take care and we'll see you next week. So today we want to welcome Dr. Allison Brian and Lily Kobo from Case IH. How are you girls today? Great. Thanks for having us. Yeah, we're excited. So as we spoke before and everybody on our podcast knows Andrew and I are big Case IH fans. So you have been our first official Case IH company reps. So a lot of pressure on you guys today is going going forward. Everybody's going to have to top you. So this is going to be the best one. So Allison is a soil management research agronomist for Case IH and Lily is the planter research agronomist for Case IH. So I met both of them in Houston last winter. They spoke at the Total Acre conference and gave a presentation and then they were also at the or Lily. I know for sure was at the commodity classic in Houston as well. But yeah, I had a great conversation with them. I asked them if they wanted to be on here. Little hesitant at first, but I guess the big thing is they wanted to be my best. So well, good. Then we'll have you you can be our first or we'll be your first. But I do remember part of the conversation was let's talk in the summer after we get some of our plot data and all the research stuff and plots done not, you know, go from there. So first of all, before we get to all that exciting information, I'll have you both introduce yourselves or I guess I already introduced you but just kind of give a background where you all came from even where you are located in the US now. So go ahead, Alison. Okay, so I am Dr. Alison Brian. I'm from Central Illinois and I grew up on a pretty small farm there and basically my dad came over from Indianapolis and he really wanted to farm. But you know, that takes a lot of money. So he came over, got some makers, but then he mainly just helped helped farmers around Central Illinois. And then so that's kind of where I got it from that I really wanted to be involved in agriculture. But the only way I could be involved, the way that I really wanted to be was to get a lot of education. And so that's what I did for sure. I went to Illinois State and I was studying crop and soil science. And then I went to the University of Illinois and I was in Dr. Belo's crop physiology lab. And with that one for my masters, I was looking at cover crops, pretty old ground cover and biofuel. And then I kind of shifted gears for my doctorate and I was looking at high yield, corn soybean systems, crop rotation, and then managing crop residue in different ways, including mechanically, which led me into my current role as the the tillage research agronomist or soil management here here at Case IH. And so that's kind of where I'm at. Just stuck around Illinois quite a bit. And so yeah, I guess, I don't know I'll stop there for now. I wanted to say Case IH should be honored to have you, especially after working with Dr. Belo and just yourself. So it's a big deal that you didn't get picked up by a seed company or, you know, something like that. So that's one plus Case IH has. So awesome. I will add. Yeah, it was it was a fantastic program. Dr. Belo is a wonderful mentor. I was very lucky to interact with so many different industry contacts being in that role and then getting the opportunity to be up in front of them and go go to farm shows even as a grad student and present even with Dr. Belo. So yes, it was it was a good time there. But then just being at Case IH, well, we can get more into that, but it's we're a pretty small team here. So I feel extremely lucky to be here too. It's just a few of us that are part of this grottomy team because it's not something you'd really maybe maybe you would. But for an equipment company, they're usually focused more on the iron side and the quality and durability of that. Whereas just them having the foresight to think, oh, we need to think about this interaction with the soil and with the plants and what it's actually doing for our farmers, not just one side of it, but the whole picture. And so yeah, we're in a unique situation. And so I do love my job, but yeah. But that's that. Anyway, that's who I am. Great. Thanks, Alison. So yeah, you introduced me, but Lily Kobo, I actually grew up in the suburbs of Chicago on the west side. I was kind of in between the urban area and the rural area. So if you went east, you were getting into even denser suburbs. And then if you went west, it was all cropland. But I spent some time working on farms and I really fell in love with agriculture when I decided to go to agrostate university for my bachelor's degree. Just a phenomenal soils program, really great agricultural professors in general and program there. So decided that that was my true passion. And kind of like Alison, I just decided to continue my education to get more of that experience, get a little bit further into the agricultural research realm. And so I ended up going to Northern Illinois University for my master's degree. There I worked with Dr. Mike Conan, a very heavy soils guy, and we focused on soil health and cover crops. So I spent a lot of time in the Corn Belt looking at both the qualitative and quantitative side of cover crops. So looking at adoption of cover crops, drivers behind it, what was happening kind of in that realm. And then also actually doing cross spend comparisons of soil health. So looking at fields that had been in long term cover cropping in compared to those that were more conventionally farmed. So now I live in Southern Illinois. So I live about an hour from St. Louis on the Illinois side and joined the Case IH team back in 2019. I actually just had my five year anniversary in June. The soil sisters began. Okay, awesome. Yeah, going strong for five years now. But yeah, just I go what Alison said, it's been we're a small team, but super lucky to be where I'm at. And it's been a great experience so far. So when did Case IH have somebody else in place before you two started five years ago, or was this something they thought, hey, we need to get out in front of this? Because I know my past was selling equipment in between 2008 and 2013. I sold for Case IH dealership. It's a red power store now, McRoberts red power. But I remember going to like the tillage school and getting a little plaque out of like a worm on it. I can't remember who taught that. But it was like a two day DMI tillage school. Yes. There you go. Helping plants thrive. Yeah. And that was a big deal. And you know, I learned a lot selling equipment for Case. I mean, that's kind of what got me started in well, kind of some of the thinking out of the box thinking I do now. And then I also actually became a pioneer rep. I don't do that anymore. But all that kind of played hand in hand. And it was real exciting. So I guess I was I'm wondering, you know, so five years ago would have been 2019. He said, is that kind of this was at the start of them? Or did you guys just take over? No, actually, we've had the tweets took over. There you go. Okay. Well, that's what I'm assuming it made it better team. But when I came in and I was very comfortable with being out front and going to farm shows and interacting with farmers, because that's my training. And so I immediately jumped into that and just some of our marketing like management, they were were asked, do you would you do this? And so I immediately just jumped in. And then shortly after that, they asked Lily to and then this was born. And so we've had the team, but it's much more we're trying to be agronomic ambassadors much more and just make sure everybody knows that when we put the agronomic design logo on our equipment, like this is for real backed up by our team. And so yes, it has existed. It's just, it's kind of been back in the in the shadows. So we've tried to shine light on it as much as possible. Yeah. And the team definitely is growing. I think since we started, which is awesome. You know, we have like we were talking about just kind of a small cohort right now, but we've got folks who focus more on sprayers and applications, we have a cedar agronomist as well. Yeah. And then Allison and I as well, plus our supervisor. So definitely growing. And I think we'll continue to see that growth as we move over here. Okay, that's awesome. So my question is, you talked about cover drops and soil health. What about the strip till side? Have you guys been on that side or is there someone there that's talking about strip till or maybe that'll be the next person on your team? Yes. So soil management here. So yes, that is something that is a big deal. And that's things are in the pipeline. I'm not exactly sure how much I can share, though. I, but I definitely feel that it's an important practice. And I think it's a great happy medium between no till until and it's a way you can place your fertilizer to be more efficient. So I think it's a great option. And so I will continue to push for it and to want to do research on it, for sure. So yeah, Andrew and I both do strip till and I actually have a, I have a case H 53 10, which is, I call everybody that glorified and hydrous applicator, which it will. Our manager says the same exact thing. Oh, okay. Well, maybe I should work for you guys. That'd be great. I could use a one or time job. It's just different types of strip till. I feel like you've got one that's focused on in hydras that you're just sealing the surface. You have one that's going to be more focused on tillage. Another one that's focused on putting out dry fertilizer. So there's in like compassion alleviation. So there's different mindsets of a strip filler too. And so I'm not saying that that bar is bad, but it's definitely focused on applying in hydras. Yep. And that's interesting to bring that up because Andrew, he doesn't run a knife. He runs colders because he has a soil warrior. And then I run the knife, but I am actually going to be going away from and hydras, but I'm still going to run the knife. I might actually just be running the machine with nothing at all and just making the strip because I like, I run a mole knife, so I'm able to break up compaction. It does a great job. I mean, you wouldn't believe how, how much compaction it does break up in that strip. And of course, you're planting there anyway. So that's where you need it. I don't necessarily need all the breakup, you know, in the middle 10 or 15 inches of the row, because I'm planting in it, you know, that eight inch strip. And that's where it's just so mellow, it's so nice to plant in. And I got a different planter this spring. And it's a 24 row high speed. And I have a hard time pulling it with a 370 horse tiger tractor. And I know why it's because that strip is so mellow. And those row units just, I mean, I have to hardly run any down pressure at all. Lily might have more input on this, but it's just like it just, it's almost like it's plowed ground. It just really sinks into that. And it just, and it follows it like once you're in that strip, I think I could, of course, I have auto steer, but I could sort of the steering wheel back and forth. And that planter will just stay in the strip because it's, it's so mellow there. And that's where the gauge wheels want to be. And I like that part of it. I'm curious for you, both of you guys, when are you running your your strip? Mine is in the, mine was in the fall with an hydro. Yep. Mine is in the fall, but then this year I tried to do another pass to freshen the strips in the spring and put my nitrogen down. So I didn't have nitrogen and moss over the winter time. Yeah, I'm not sure that I'll be doing that again. I think I'm going to stick with just the fall. Did it create a pretty cloudy finish? No, no, not necessarily. I think I worried about sidewall compaction of the actual strip till colters. And it just made me nervous that I was pushing compaction a little bit lower in that at the bottom of what I want to say, the six inches of the strip. I just didn't feel comfortable with it. And I think I actually saw some nitrogen burn. I'm not seeing it on the roots, but I just feel like that time management can be better. There was no bed, no drawbacks or anything from doing it in the fall versus doing it all in this, you know, half and a half. So I think I'm just going to do it in the fall and be done with it and be ready to plant. What do you guys think? What do you think it's the best time to do it? Well, that's what I'm doing, all kinds of brainstorming. And I don't necessarily think there's a best time. I will say about refresh, I think it's very much, I guess I understand you looking to apply nitrogen, maybe trying to put it all up front. But a lot of times I think it's more of a rescue mission. Like if when you built the strips in the fall, you had a ton of issues. That's when it's more like a saving, try to buff this out situation. But I obviously understand you were trying to put out your end. But yeah, no, I just I mean, I still split application by nitrogen. So it just seems like I would use an ESN and it's a little higher price owner to try urea in the spring treated, which was a whole another disaster through the machine. But it just was one of those things where I thought if I got it closer to planting with a third of my nitrogen, maybe it would be more efficient. But the ESN I put on the fall actually has higher tissue samples in the area that I put on the spring. So that's where I'm like, well, I'm just going to do it all in the fall and be done with it. It'll freeze out. Yes, and is a pretty good product and that's obviously protecting it. Obviously, I'm not going to advise you to put everything all your nitrogen out in the fall. But if you're seeing positive results, that's what you need. Yeah, and I'm only putting out about 100 total pounds in the fall. So so it's not like I'm going full board. But the one thing I do it for is because I do cover crops. So this was the first year that cover crops on every acre and I'm corn on corn. So I have that carbon penalty anyway. So I thought by going in the fall, getting the cover crops out of the way, and then freshen in again to make sure that where I plant, there is no cover crops. If it doesn't get killed early enough, which it didn't this year, that maybe. That's the way the research that I'm doing is the we're doing like a termination timing for cover crop by strip. So also by nitrogen rate and biological at planting and side dress. So lots of components, but I am curious. So for your cover crop, are you how are you applying that? Are you drilling that in? And when you drill it, are you skipping rows or are you just are you broadcasting? Broadcast aerial application about the end of August. And it's wheat and cereal rye. But I can tell you where it did not get killed and that you got a little taller. I'm like three leaf stages behind where it was terminated as soon or didn't get killed. It didn't get killed. That's kind of what we're seeing. So it's stunted and I actually saw some deficiency. That's where I was at yesterday in Kentucky. I was pulling ear leaves to check it out. But visually, I could see there was an impact. But you know, we're seeing that. But it's going to matter though, is the bottom line like how is it going to impact yield? But you know, throughout, that is what we saw. And I think you're on to something there because I mean, I pulled tissue samples every week. So this year, I picked the spot that was behind just so I could see. And I'd say on my nitrogen, I'm one to one and a half percent less nitrogen where that cover crop stunted it every week. And then my P and K uptake are also below the other ones that didn't have the issue. Same field, same nitrogen. Yeah, it makes sense though. Yeah. But that's where I'm like ready for it to tassel so that I'm pulling the same leaf. That makes sense, the ear leaf. Because I'm always doing the last collard right now. But I'll be interested to see what you guys find out. Yes. Yeah, no. Yeah, me too. We did that yesterday and got them shipped off. It was a great hot, spicy time in the field. So what kind of kind of plant not to change a subject? I like the whole strip till subject and that was good information. But I want to get lily involved with the whole planter. Some of the testing different plots that you guys do as far as planners are concerned. Yeah, no, absolutely. We do all sorts of different things. It totally depends on what the year and what our priorities are that year. You know, I know that when we were at Total Lakers, we talked a little bit about what we did last year. So we'll do, like I said, just depending on what we're looking at, we can do full planter studies, which we'll do speed trials. It's something that we're always interested in, you know, increasing that efficiency and planting as quickly as we can, while still getting the seed placement and the end that we want and the appropriate emergence, you know, it's the early riser planters. So we want to see that early uniform emergence. And then last year, I just wanted to point out what's up. You talked about the early riser. So one of you guys has not a red planter, right? Yeah, I felt her in on the female. Yeah, I just wanted to say like based off of her research and the experience we've had, I think that that name early riser goes with our industry really well. So yeah, if you wanted to hit on that. But I just think like that's the thing we have this team and we're very, we're all about integrity. Like we're not just like one spin off. Oh, I saw this one little spot in a field and this is our marketing material. You know, it's randomized replicated. We're very, we're very proud of it. Like, and it's all about the integrity of the products. And so anyway, I just wanted to know that's what I know for sure is that our planner does a really good job. So just say what I understand, I feel like all equipment companies, they're, they're good at different things. You know, they're all in business for a reason. They have their loyal customers. But I do know that based off of our repeated research. Yeah, and as a scientist, I would never show data that I didn't feel like I could stand behind and feel, you know, good about and that we had done, you know, our due diligence. So yeah, 100% with our early riser, you know, if you look at our row unit and you look at our the design of our gauge fields, we do have that reduced inner diameter, really the whole row unit together. I mean, you know, we can show us live really quickly here just so those who have that aren't super familiar with red planters can take a look. But we do have the reduced inner diameter gauge wheel, which helps keep that soil nice and loose and mellow when the gauge wheel is coming to the appropriate depth. And followed up by our, you know, our Tuesday to closing system, where that nicely seals up that, that trench, again, keeps that soil nice and loose and mellow. And so because of the way that that's designed, we do almost every time we do a competitive plot where we're comparing to any other color planter, we see that our plants are coming up at least a few days earlier. So I love our planters. I love the whole row unit design for almost every situation I feel you can work. But we always are looking for ways to improve, of course. So we'll sometimes look at different closing desks, we'll look at even different press wheels, things like that, residue managers, just to see, you know, four certain customers in a certain area, because we technically cover all of North America. So there's a lot of variation for what we see as far as soil type and the type of crop that we're looking at an environment in general. Yeah, like right now you have plots in Canada and South Carolina you know, just all over the place. She's headed to Utah next week. And so we're all over the place looking at different parameters, I guess different. What's unique about our group is because we're small and mighty, we work with a bunch of different functional groups within the company. So it's not just like one person asking. So we kind of like bring everybody together and get things, we figure out the questions they really want answered, and then we work on getting those answered. So like she was saying it could be just a part changing and maybe that's more focused on engineering and we would test that it's not doing any worse. Or it's competitive benchmarking a lot of times for for like a brochure or some some type of material that we want to make sure we share with our dealer or growers. Things like that nature. Yeah, so obviously having always had a red planter my whole life, I mean, I and having sold them and everything I feel I know a lot about them. And I can tell you from my experience with like other peer groups and planter setups as far as even listening to Missy Bauer. And I know she goes over. She has like, this is John Deere, this is Kinsey, this is Casey H. And she talks about how Casey H is different. But you can't listen to a John Deere guy and set up your planner the same on a red one because well, just that gauge wheel that pulls, that's a completely different thing. I mean, obviously you always use a wheel, wheelbarrow or wheelbarrow. I don't know. I never know. But anyway, you either pull it over a curb or you push it over a curb, right? And Casey H is pulling it, which makes sense. But when you space those gauge wheels to the disc opener, you have to remember that going through the field, they're going to press back a little bit, they're going to get tighter. And one of my problems I had this year, I had them set too tight from the get go. And then I got even tighter yet. I had all sorts of problems. And once I got them set back to where they would spin freely, but maybe Nick or touch the disc opener once in a while, that was like, that was perfect. You know, because I don't want them too far away, because I didn't want to be leaving dry dirt in my furrow. But on the other hand, you can't listen to a John Deere guy and set it up the same way, I guess, is what I'm what I'm trying to say. And I think on the picture you have here, is that a 15 inch, is that a narrow row? Because it looks like it's the narrow gauge wheel setup, or can you get that same flatter gauge wheel on a 30 inch also? You can get the reduced inner diameter on both the narrow and yeah, yeah, but I totally agree with you, you can't set the planters up the same way when we do our competitive plots. But we want the machines to reform each of them as best as they can. So they are optimized for their specific design. You know, we will have sometimes John Deere representatives on site to actually optimize the machine themselves to make sure that we can, right? Yep, yep, we don't want it to be skewed in a certain way just to make our plan look better. If we do find an issue, we want to be able to see it and fix it, right? So, or if we're not doing as well as the competition, so we always make sure that depending on the design that we adjust those appropriately, because you're right, you know, our closing system compared to a V press is going to be totally different with the gauge wheels and pull versus push, so it totally depends. Yeah. So my question is, so have you been doing some try, assume you're doing trials with down pressure, down force? Are you seeing that people are maybe using a little too much at times just to be safe? Or what are you kind of seeing in that realm? Yeah, I would say that there are people who tend to put a little bit too much down pressure, too much down force on the on the planter than the ones really needed. I know it's important to keep an eye on your good ride and your ground contact just to make sure that you aren't having that jostling and whatnot that can impact your seed placement and result in a poor sand than what you'd like to see. But, you know, growers have to remember that when you apply that down force, you can also run the risk of, you know, increasing that sidewall compaction. If you put too much force, you're really kind of digging those gauge wheels into the ground. We do occasionally do research relating to sidewall compaction, but typically the reduced inner diameter gauge wheel does a pretty good job of helping alleviate that. And then, of course, like I said, depending on the soil type, it's also going to vary how much pressure you want to apply in a sand versus a clay, for example. But, yeah, even even in my area, it goes, it varies field to field or when was it tilled or, you know, is it is it chunky or is it mellow? I mean, there's all sorts of things that come into play. Oh, it's something like talking about the tillage side and the interaction with the planter. We've done quite a bit of work with that, but just let me back up a bit. So we have, you know, smart tillage tools too. So that's something that's newer. It's not it's the last frontier of adding technology is tillage. And so you do have soil command, which controls the the implement from the cab. But then we also have what's called seed bed since. And so you're running and it actually is detecting the quality of seed bed that's being produced. And so we've done studies where we ran and we got these different readings, we planted into it, and then we captured the performance of that ride quality of the row unit. And we were able to see that where this sensor and the seed bed was created, poor, that's where the planter performed, poor, where is when you saw a good, the best quality seed bed being created, that's where the best performance for the planter was. And then we took it clear to yield. Right. And that's where we actually saw a yield differential as well. We saw it was a 12 bushel swing. The year we were, we were at so percentage wise, I don't have that off the top of my head. But I know it was where we had the the lower poor seed bed and planter performance is where we had the lower yield and then we improved each step until we had the highest field with the best seed bed quality. So there is definitely this interaction between the tillage and the planter for sure. And you definitely have to remember that because if you have that poor seed bed, like we were looking at, you got to remember that your opener does sort of be riding right along that that seed bed. So if you've got something that's super rough, you know, you start with something that's not so great, you're probably going to end up with something that's not as good as you would hope for. And causing some issues with seed depth, seed spacing, all things that, you know, especially with corn can cause some issues with their yield later on. I have a, did you have a question, Andrew? I was just going to talk, you know, I do some custom spraying for people and I, you know, I spray my fields that are strip-tilled and all worked in one direction and it rides so nice and smooth and I got good soil till, you know, I don't sink in, I got plenty of power. Then I go spray for someone that disc ripped all their ground, worked at an angle and then I'm like fighting the steering wheel the whole time and I have a case site sprayer. So it's a rear, rear boom. I can imagine having a hagi with a front boom. Well, I used to run a hagi and that front boom really pulls you back and forth because it's wiggling, you know, with your tires. So is there a difference in, or have you noticed a difference in people like working with an eight or it's an 875 now, I believe, right? Working it straight back and forth versus at an angle because I know working it straight back and forth, you're not going to have all that pull in all the time. But does it not true up the stocks is good? I mean, is it recommended that you be at an angle and maybe they didn't have their leveling disc set right? I mean, is everything set right? Do you still have that? That's a lot of questions, all at once. That's definitely very much a farmer's preference. I went around, I guess it's been a little bit now because I was pretty last year, but whatever, we went around and did customer visits and interviews and that's definitely it varies by the farm, the farmer, what they want to do. But a lot of times the angle is incorporated because of residue flow. And so they feel that the best residue flow is happening at that slight angle compared to when they go straight with the row. They feel like they could be more potential for plugging to happen. That's like the biggest thing that I've heard. When I do my research, particularly when I'm doing tillage in the fall and the spring and then planting into it, I'm planting straight and I'm going straight back into that and then straight with the row, everything, and then harvesting that as well so I can get all the layers to add up simply for me, for data analysis and everything. So I like it a lot, but just to go with the row, and I've heard the same as you where there is quite a bit of movement when you have to go across that angle. Yeah, I've even seen one better than the other, but you can definitely, you could definitely feel it. I had even seen issues prior, especially if you didn't have didn't have the auto steer set up quite right, or too much sensitivity or whatever, and even planting, you get the little wiggles and stuff with that angled fall pass. Even our system plot, we call that, but it's like a bunch of different tillage systems that we put up in the fall in the spring and then we go into that and plant into it. You can absolutely tell different tillage as you're going across that planter and sometimes there's more movement than other times, it just depends on what, because we look at all kinds of different things from very conventional all the way to no till and everything in between, so you can definitely tell when you're planting it. If you pick it up and the performance shows too, it's pretty interesting and then how it all relates to you. Sorry, Andrew, and then how crazy it is if you look at your downforce map and how you can see the patterns in the field. So, a couple of two springs ago, I had just purchased a farm and had it tiled, so I had a neighbor come in because I don't have a good field cultivator. He came in with a soil finisher and worked it, and then when I planted it, you could see every time he did a loop along the fence and everything, that downforce map showed all those little turns and all those little ridges and I just think it's so crazy how, and I'm sure there's some effect there. I couldn't see it in the yield monitor because it's so small. We've done research where we actually go in early on where there's just the plants are up, different staging, and we actually stage the plants, like the average plant, and then you've got the plants that are at least staged behind, and then the plants that are two leaf stages behind, and we've taken those clear to yield. I don't know if she wants me to steal all this thunder here. Yeah, go ahead. I'm not sure which one you're talking about. The one I'm talking about because we do so much research is the one where when you had a plant that was one leaf stage behind its neighbor, it lost 50% of its yields, and then if it was two leaf stages behind its neighbor, it lost 78%, very precise because we're replicated research, right? Or you can route it to 80%, but whatever. So I'm just saying that's on an individual plant basis. So if you have this variability throughout the field, then you will see an overall yield hit, and so that's kind of why we're trying to set the stage, and the best for every single seed. And else, and just remind me of another study actually that I talked about when we were at Total Lakers, and this was actually a soybean plot because I looked at all sorts of different crops. I'm not specific to corn, but soybeans, we did look at emergence and found that in our research that we had done, we looked at all the dead plants that had occurred that didn't survive to harvest, and over 75% of the plants that hadn't made it to harvest were actually day three or later emerges. So just within that small timeframe, you can just start losing plants and see a yield hit with soybeans too. So again, that emergence is just so important. It's so important to your yield, and actually having your plants to survive to do something. And there's a ton of different factors that are, you know, causing that. Of course, yeah. And we're trying to at least set the stage and complement the planter with the tillage operation, and then obviously we want the planter to do really good things. And you mentioned Missy Bauer. I know she talked about some down pressure studies, and she saw that that was really impacting things, so to make sure you have enough down pressure for soybeans was a big, big part. So yeah, I mean, your down pressure can also impact your seed depth. Of course, you want to get your seeds to moisture and make sure that they're actually being planted at the depth that you want to mat. We saw in a depth study that I did previously, you know, if you're not making it to that moisture line with soybeans, we saw it was like a 50% hit as far as yield around that. I wouldn't quote me on that number exactly, but yeah. I planted my soybeans at the same depth as my corn this year, two and a half inches, and the only difference I saw was on the headlands where I turned, you can see all my planter tracks and tractor tracks where the beans didn't come up. And I think what had happened, well, and I had low population per row. It's 15 inch rows planted 105,000. So, you know, I only had 57 or so, 57 and a half thousand per row. And so there wasn't a lot of push. And did I say that? All right, no, 52 and a half. I'm trying to do my math. Half of 105 is 52 and a half thousand per row. Yeah, anyway, I'm sorry. Anyway, so anyway, they weren't pushing. And what happened is they broke their necks. They didn't come up. There was compaction in those turn rows or whatever. I did notice that. So, but other than that, they came up fine for the most part everywhere else. But yeah, if you drove on the row or even, yeah, even driving back on the headland an extra time to fill the planter or something, you could definitely tell that that a little bit of extra compaction, the beans didn't want to come through. So, I was just going to point that out for all the listeners and everybody. If you're going to plant, if you're going to plant deeper, maybe not plant your headlands as deep or plant them with a higher population. So, Andrew has a whole bunch of questions. I've been interrupting the heck out. So, we better let him go back because we got to go back. And I don't want to do that. No, let's go. Let's go back. It's okay. That's all right. Now, I'm like, you got off on your tangent and the soybean population. I'm like, well, my corn, I got some corn at like 48,000. So, I'm not too far away from your bean population. So, yeah, correlation. 48. 40. What, what's your row spacing? 30. He's a high yield. Also, you have to have a very good hybrid then. He just. I had a lot of research at in Dr. Bilo's lab where we looked at the high pop by row spacing and then hybrid was in there too. Yep. I'm still learning. I just do, I have about 25 acres that I do trials on different populations every year. And so, yeah, so it goes from 34,000. I plant everything at 38,000, but for the corn on corn. But then this, it goes to like 38, 44, it's actually like 49,000. But trying to really push it and everything else, we'll see how well it does and heat and he can. I mean, he's had good success with it. So, I can't. I was in corn on corn. For my graduate work, it was a lot of, it was either rotary corn or 13th or 15th year continuous corn. And I had different systems where I looked at just like a standard management versus a high input management. And my, my high pop was 45 with the 30 inch spacing, but it had additional PKN and foliar fungicide. So, that helped it. And obviously, you know, the best and it, you know, reduced the yield penalty. Anyway, and then that's interesting. I'm curious to see so. Well, yeah, that's published somewhere. I'll have to go look for it then. No, I'm with you, a high management area. I mean, everything's pretty well. I consider it higher management and, you know, different. Well, if you guys are going a total acre, you guys are like probably hardcore, like good at managing or wanting to be good. Yeah, there you go. Wanting is way better than probably doing. You know, I'm trying to do my best, but it's, it's interesting to see how the tissue samples are different based on the populations too. Well, something you remember about the tissue sample is that it's a concentration. And so you always have to be careful with that instead of, instead of content, because you don't have the weight. And so yes, the row spacing and the population will impact the spindleiness of the plant and the biomass that it's putting on too. So that will impact your concentration from the tissue samples you're taking. So you always got to, you know, think about that. Yeah, I'm still learning. And so I do have a question about residue management on the cornhead side, because I do have a case on my case, cornhead. Do you do studies with maybe when I want to say chopping cornheads versus non chopping cornheads or different roles on the cornhead versus planting in the spring or different tillage equipment or how do you guys look at some of that stuff? Yeah, so that's what I did. My graduate work on was the calmer cornhead. We were sizing it like, you know, a little confetti. I have a case I H head, but it has the calmer roles. All right, you have it like retrofitted. And so that that's so much about the mindset of the farmer too. Some folks want the really small pieces. Some people would prefer like the chain roll, the 360 yield center chain roll, a little bit longer pieces that just kind of diced in. So I did a lot of that work. And I did see improvements and reductions in the yield penalty with the sizing of the residue, as well as managing it with some foliar chemical application. Like a like something to reduce the like a breakdown the residue. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, we looked at, we looked at a control and then we looked at nitrogen, AMS if we applied, and then we also looked at extract, the product that is, it's a biological nutrient, isn't it? Yeah, I've used that one before. So we applied all those and we had some pretty nice responses. It seemed like, you know, you have different hybrids and that creates different residue. And it seemed like certain hybrids were more responsive than others to that breakdown. And then the response, the next year the yield was affected differently. So I think that's a component that I want to like brush up on. But anyway, that's what we did at the University of Illinois. And then when I got here, we did do a study where we had like the mower trapper head on there compared to the standard. And then we planted, we had two different tillage types and then we planted into that with different populations. We did that and we did the residue bags and looked at the comp. Yeah, I can't remember the results. It was a while ago. And I think that, you know, we were talking about expansion a little bit ago, but I think that as far as the agronomy team, we are looking to expand more into that harvest aspect of the cycle because we're doing more and more of these kind of system plots where we're having how the interaction between the implements and the different components. So yeah, so that's a study. It started and then we didn't have a true harvest agronomist. And so I didn't go too far with it. So that's something future we hope to have. And there's already buzz in the company right now that we might be doing more of exactly what you're talking about, even before that position gets filled. So maybe we'll have some more current data coming up soon. But I will say that I think, always from the research I did at the University of Illinois, I think that it did a really nice job of breaking down the residue. We never had a problem with staying and it was always nice. And it's a nice addition to break down your residue. In addition to managing your residue, I will say that having sized residue, whether it's like the chopper or a stockroll sizing it, I think it helps your tillage too. So it's like a double whammy of residue management of it makes it smoother, flow better through your tillage equipment. I've definitely seen that in places where they didn't have the stock devastators or sizing of residue at all. And they've got the long stocks. It can be more tricky to till with a VT in that situation. I mean at 875, it's not going to have a problem with anything because it's just a beast. But the thinner less than cavity blade of a VT, that's when sizing the residue, I think really does help your tillage too. Do a good job. And speaking of residue management, just a quick plug for planters, we did do a study where it was actually the same seedbed sense study that we were talking about earlier. But looking at seedbed quality, so a poor versus a good seedbed, and then also looking at residue managers, if we incorporated them into the study, was there an improvement? So going from a poor seedbed to a good seedbed, of course, we saw an improvement, not only in ride quality, but also yield. But when we added in the residue managers, we actually had the best yield out of all those different treatments. So they did really do, in some situations, make a difference as far as you're yield. Yeah, and in that particular study, we were actually trying to force a very poor seedbed, like we improperly set this tool. So highly recommend probably setting your tillage equipment, because if not, oh my gosh, we put nose down and we had the baskets not engaged, and it was just a freaking mess. And then you have that next time. It throws it all out and you can't bring it back in. And then this huge coddiness, and it ran not level, so it was all over the place. And so that was, you know, try planting into that. And then look at your stand and then your yield. So yeah, definitely had an impact. And I'm not saying that that's always what you're going to see, you know, when you have a poor seedbed, but that was kind of the extreme poor seedbed. And so we really learned that, hey, we have these settings for a reason, and you should definitely properly set the tool. But for sure, having a good quality seedbed in combination with the resident managers to knock the residue out as well as large clods or any type of debris, it really does make an impact. Like we had in that study, obviously it wasn't extreme, but it was like a shift of the biggest difference was a 21 bushel swing. So big impacts for sure. You know, talking about tillage, I just want to point this out quick. So, you know, when people are setting up their disc grippers, like an 875, a lot of people, they'll look at the frame. And I know that's important that the frame is level you can measure from the front and back. But a quicker way to do it is get behind that second set of disc gangs and kind of sweep the dirt out. So find where the front disc was running that trail and scrape the dirt out and then get behind where the rear disc was running and scrape that out. And if they're both at the same level, then the tool's level. But if you have one, like if the front is deeper and you know, the back one's up an inch, well, then you know, the front is an inch deeper. So that was one thing I learned. I cannot remember the guy's name. He was the DMI guy. Gosh, this was before your time. But yeah, he was, yeah, he was so great. I can't even remember his name. That's horrible. Yeah, I'm not going to throw out names. I'm not sure. But I will say we have test specialists and that it's their job to make sure it kind of takes a component out of like us adding any type of error. It's a consistent operator. And so he's the one who would he would set that and I've absolutely seen them get out and do the blade check like you're mentioning. But and then also a lot of times our equipment is equipped with soil command. And so you can make the adjustments from the cab. So you don't have to do the mechanical adjustment. So that saves them a lot of time. So he always likes it when we use the equipment that he's actually equipped to a soil command. He has one with it's newer stuff like we're just still in like the more like testing phase. You can't have that yet. So that's now takes a little longer. But yeah. Now the soil command on about every piece of tillage equipment. We're working on that. It's offered on quite a few, quite a few things. For sure. The 75. So our disk gripper at 75 you call a tiger are 255 field cultivator that tiger mate. I didn't know if it was on. Yes, it is. The 335 BT and the Barracuda. You can get it with with soil command. And then and you know that's basically making it able to adjust from cab have automation. Not autonomy yet, but it's giving you it's like a stair step, right? And then for the field cultivator we have the extra industry exclusive with the seed bed sense. So additional sensors that actually are sensing the quality of the seed bed. So we've got those tools currently. There might be more. That's just south top of my head. And you know, there's always some things going on in the pipeline. Right. I want to know more about that seed bed sense since I don't have a field cultivator since I know till and strip till. But so back in my day again that tiger mate was made to you know the way it flexed that that sweep or that shovel whatever you want to call it whatever part of the US you're in when that comes back when that shank flexes that was supposed to stay flat in the ground you know as it flexed. So is that are you measuring like the like the angle of the sweep or the down pressure because field cultivators they can make compaction too if you're you know because all that weight from all those shovels it makes like a smearing. And I'm not pointing out. Okay. Okay. Okay. Well, okay. Let's talk about all these things. So to that last part there is typically a density change in what we call that our subsurface floor and that's something that we assess all the time. The guys love to help me dig floors but that is something you do have a very thin density change. I'm not going to necessarily call it compaction because it's so thin that it usually does not impact your root growth. And we've done total penetrometer you know resistant readings and we're very confident that that's typically it's not going to have a negative effect but you are creating a layer and we call that the floor and we're trying to make it as smooth as possible so that's complementing the planter. So we're not shying away from that but we want to make sure it's smooth and that's you know all till its tools are creating some type of density change. Going back to the sensor and you were mentioning the flexing we call it tripping and you're basically you're tripping the shank and there's a sensor on there and it's detecting when it's getting tripped and then it has some type of algorithm that it's calculating a percentage and there's multiple sensors across the tool. Okay. And so then it brings it right into your display and you're actually visually on the go seeing the the seed bed quality reading and so that's basically the movement of the shanks and so adjustments that you can currently make would be you could adjust your speed if it's all green meaning it's all making a great quality seed bed you could go faster there or if it's red then you probably could slow down or you could adjust your depth you could go shall or or is usually the direction you need to go if you're in the red or if you it just it kind of depends what you're after but that's that's currently what we we are doing with that sensor it's giving you feedback of the movement of that shank which would then obviously be connected to your sweeper shovel. I used to have that on actually on our Tiger Mate 200 years and years ago I just watched the slip on the tractor and as it started slipping more than I'd raise it out of the ground a little bit. Here you go exact same thing. If you get up to 10, 11 percent slip you know you're too deep and you just kind of lift it up till you get to about five and then you're good to go again. So one thing gosh I'm definitely not here to bash field cultivators but I had a fence line taken out on a farm that I rent and the guy he was paid to take out the fence and everything and then the spring he field cultivated about oh I don't know 120 feet around and of course he worked it a lot because he was trying to pick up sticks. I don't know how many times he worked it. It was like powered or once I got there to plant but it was also a wet area of the farm and where I had stripped tilled and where he had field-colivated there was a huge difference in soil drainage. So that's why I kind of went back to that smearing effect and I know he probably worked he probably worked it 10 times so you can't tell me that didn't do something but nobody's going to work their field 10 times they're going to you know work at once maybe twice but I actually have pictures to where like you could see right where he field-colivated and where I planted and I got this wet spot and it just turned into gumbo I started spinning and it was just of course then I had to get out and dig my mud out of the planter but came around the next pass where right next to him and on the strip till unworked went right through it just beautiful. Yeah so it's interesting. I will say we've already mentioned that he hit it 10 times. Yeah yes I did conditions so all of our all of tillage equipment has like this threshold of you know the proper conditions they should be running and it doesn't sound like that was necessarily the best plus this is why we have such a huge product line until it's ridiculous the amount of numbers I have to memorize right yeah because not every tool is best for every field and I think your situation is a perfect example of strip till seems much more ideal in your situation at least in this this scenario maybe if it was different and he did hit it 10 times yes which is you know what I'm a hero but yeah I know but he was he'd work he'd pick up the sticks he'd work it again pick up you know he was doing a lot of the all types of things but yeah he was sometimes maintenance with it yeah but yeah and that's it was interesting though and I mean I feel like aggregate stability and water infiltration is one of the first things that you're going to see as far as that difference when you go from conventional tillage to more of your conservation tillage so yeah oh yeah and that's we're doing a big study on carbon like kind of shifting gears here but we're looking we have no till in the project we have no till we have strip till and then we've got some of our conservation till options with our 435 our VT flex the one that you could adjust the gang angle on the go that's our 435 and we have it for a couple different angles and then we have our very conventional very popular in central Illinois and other places with the 875 followed by that field cultivator tiger meat we have all these different treatments and we're looking at the impact on carbon sequestration and that's a study that we're doing we do we've done some internally kind of preliminary and just have some extra data in our back pocket but then we're also doing things with the Ohio State University and that's that's going to be a good one because it's the full cycle it's yield and planting and tillage and so we'll get more information on the no till side and strip till and just all the different tillage systems so I have some long-term studies where I look at different systems but a lot of times it's tricky to incorporate no till into that too because the farmers typically want it if they're telling they want to have different tillage system you know different tillage but so it's good good stuff but so we are you know making sure we're getting that information too it's just tricky to be an equipment company now it's with all the different tillage practices out there and I mean you have to accommodate all the farmers you know it's crazy that's why you can't sit here and you know say something bad about a field cultivator because there's a lot of people that use them you can't say something bad about strip till I mean it's everything has its place like you said everything has its purpose for me the biggest thing is time management and I don't have anybody working for me you know as far as I want to have one pass everything so and same messenger yeah so let's talk about let's talk about that autonomy that's the next thing where are you guys seeing that start maybe you don't want to talk about it I know it's probably in the pipeline and everything else but I think it's a very hot topic everybody in the industry is working towards that and I think everybody has heard that word it's definitely in the pipeline I honestly don't know how much I can share no no I'm not I just push direct information but my question is on the planner side I mean the autonomy is getting to where you know the algorithm on the planner setup you think that'll be automated per row at some point in time to where it'll adjust the depth and down pressure and all that just automatically where you don't have to manually touch anything yeah and I mean I think we're you know already kind of seeing some of that with planters I mean if we think about precision planting they've got their smart depths that they've come out I'm not sure if you guys are familiar with it but basically you know if you've got a smart firm around there that can read your moisture on the go the idea is that you know smart depth will adjust automatically to hit that perfect moisture across the field so yeah like Allison said you know it's in the pipeline I mean for planters for sure full autonomy is the way it way for us but there are certain components that we're definitely working towards that so I think that there could be some refinement to stuff that's already on the market but well that's something too we we do research not just on our own stuff right we look at competitors or or just stuff on the market so we've done our research and so when she says that she knows what she's talking about something we find it before we're like oh yeah this is gonna be great let's put it on our planter we know you both know what you're talking about well I know that I don't need to do as many tests I got to go find Allison's documents and all her tests because basically what I'm trying to do I'm like she's already done it I don't know why I'm wasting my time I just need to go read through it so yeah it's probably under my old last name too so it's really hard to find but yeah I can agree sure all right well I might reach out so I can I don't have to recreate the wheel if you've already done it I don't need to do it again so well we've taken up a lot of their valuable time rec so yeah we appreciate you guys coming on for sure and I'd love to have you on again because we could have another topic about a lot more stuff the case I H has to offer for sure so yeah this is the kind of stuff Andrew and I like to talk about and yeah we we're kind of getting off on different avenues and getting sidetracked here and there but that's okay I mean we'll just we'll have you on again and yeah awesome we have plenty to talk about yeah good I think we have fun yeah thank you for inviting us this was great yeah I'll definitely send you my contact info seeing send me a hat or something so I have something to wear next time yeah there you go yeah absolutely definitely yeah I'd like to get red power to sponsor us that they're pretty high presence here in northern Iowa so yeah we'll see what happens no I'm interested for that I know you can't talk about but the strip tell stuff if if there's any testing or stuff I would love to to be involved if possible so yeah we'll do all the videos you want because that's that's the next thing I think the case is got I think they're gonna do some interesting things so yeah and Welkers in Montana they don't do strip till so you can't take a strip till machine out to the Welker farms you know because they're the big YouTube presence for a case I H will will be the podcast presence if you want so we'll do all the all the testing you need just bring it our way all right thank you very much for your time I appreciate it for sure yeah thank you it's very informative yeah awesome take care have a good fourth yes you too okay thanks bye