Farmer Sense
Grant Cassavaugh-Independent Crop Adjuster
Hello everyone. Welcome to the Farmer Sends podcast. I am your host Rick Willert. Iowa Farmer 7 is my handle on X. It's TikTok, Instagram, all that stuff. So, oh yeah, Andrew's here too. Yeah, Andrew. I made it back for the intro from the, I guess, be the outro, baby. I don't know. Yeah, so perfect timing. Kind of. Miller light. I'm drinking a vodka mule because I had no beer in the fridge. Well, Amy went grocery shopping tonight, so she got me some beer. So thank you, Amy. Thank you. It was on sale. Of course it would be. Thank you, Amy. Yeah, I can't give that shit away in my opinion. Oh, good, though. Anyway, so we had Grant Passavaugh. He is an independent crop adjuster and he was a hell of a good guess. Um, answered a lot of questions. Andrew didn't get a partake. That's how he sounded on my hand anyway. So normal. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, it sounded normal, but I didn't think anybody else wanted to hear it. Yeah. And we made fun of you. I said, I don't know why Andrew thought that this would work because it never works when we have guests do it, but that's okay. No, no problem. I know you got it handled. That's why you're the host. And I'm the co-host. Hostess with the most this. That's right. The host with the most, it's not. What do you been up to? I'm talking to you. I feel like I haven't seen like three weeks. Yeah, no, it's been. Oh, yeah, it's been a couple of weeks. Well, we didn't do a podcast last week because you and I were busy wide-dropping. I don't know that I was wide-dropping. I was trying to figure out how to get the sprayer don't hurt. You finally got a sprayer. Congratulations. Yes. I made fun of you on with Grant, too. I was telling everybody how you only go between four and six mile an hour and I was like, I don't remember when I was 18 and I ran a sprayer the first time. I think it'd be totally different if I could have sprayed some praise. Yeah, I told you it would have. No, no, no, no. And I also told Grant, I'm like, I get it. You know, I and I know there's people out there that have have sprayed hundreds of thousands of acres, especially guys working for co-ops and stuff. But I mean, I got to think in the acres I've sprayed and I've sprayed well over 100,000 and I'm like, that's probably why I feel pretty comfortable in the seat and that's why you don't because you haven't done that much. But the more and more you do, the more and more comfortable you'll get. Roughly 500 acres of corn that is, I don't know, either about ready to tassel or been tasseling for a week for the first time ever doing it. Yeah. So that's cray cray. Yeah, dumbass was what I call it. Well, I don't know. That's why I'm going slow. I don't care. I mean, next year, I hope to be able to run 10 mile an hour with eight to 10, whatever. And you might not want to. There's nothing wrong with going slow when you're wide drop and I know I had the wrong size orifice for the gallons I was running and so I was running about anywhere from nine to 11. And that was fine. I mean, it was leaving a nice stream. I had plenty of pressure. They weren't all jerky and bouncy and because sometimes you get kind of going fast and they'll swing on you and then you'll leave blank spots and you don't want to do that either. So I was putting on between, let's see, the lowest one was 12 gallon, the highest. Well, highest it is tassel corn or pretast of corn was like 24. But then my replant corn, it got like 65 gallons. And at 65, you can go slow. Pressure stays like 50. Yeah, I was running 110 or 15 pounds. Oh, really? Oh, my gauge goes to like a hundred. And that's it. So, well, I'm not, I'm not saying that was like you that was like, I kind of say I fucked up. No, I'm just saying that's what I was running. And the reason I run that is because I have neutral boss ones because I'm a dealer for them. And, and they seem to perform better at higher, higher pressure. Yeah. Might seem to be doing really well every time I get out and check it. It's throwing it in between the stocks even. Yeah, good. I can't believe that. I was like, I was expecting this stream, but no, it's going in between every corn plant. So am I in your easy drops? And we're going to have them on the podcast sometime. Yeah, I got to be honest. First time ever. I can't yep. Second, actually. Second. The easy drops. I kind of like, I wish I had them. They're nice. I think what I was thinking about this today. So I like the easy drop because they're the hose on them. That's it's Polly, isn't it? Or is plastic stainless? The actual hoses? Oh, oh, yeah, they're just a poly. Yeah, it's a minor rubber minor rubber hoses. And what happens is they they don't press out against the row. Yours does. And they're and they're able to, I mean, you could have a a pinch row where it's only 20 inches and it's going to squeeze and as long as the stocks are tall enough that it's not going to, you know, if it's that tall of corn is going to just push it over. But see mine, just however the hoses are, sometimes I can be oranges away from the corn plant. And sometimes I'm riding between the plants like you said. So it all depends. But I'm thinking when I when these hoses get wore out or maybe even before probably next year, I'm going to do a little Rick mod to it. And yep. And I think I'm going to throw on some poly tubes or hose instead of the rubber hoses. I'm so they push out. Right. Because that's I want mine to run like yours do like they're rubbing up against the stock. I want that. Yeah, I mine do for the most part the only time I ever once while for some reason, I'll have one that'll be like too close to one row, but it's still close to the other one. I don't know why. I don't know if I just need to move it over on the on the only. Yeah, that's what I think. I think it just hangs funny. And I need to move it out probably a half inch or something and it'd probably work better. I don't know. But then you got to take in the angle of the booms. So like if the outside is higher, then you got, you know, they need to be out or in a little bit for the inside of the row because of the angle. They don't pivot or swing a little bit, but still you got an angle. I mean, I don't know what it's probably fine. I mean, it's better than what I'm doing. We did it before. I think I don't know. Well, I don't have anything bad to say about a neutral boss. Don't get me wrong, but I like the easy drop concept as well. I think I think of all three companies that I think there's only three that I know of, you know, if they all went together, they would have the best. That's for sure. But that ain't going to happen. I don't have anything negative to say about my easy drops. I mean, the only thing problems I've had are something that I did and it was stupid. Yeah, same. We kind of talked about that. Yeah, same here. But yeah, and the case I H prayer isn't ideal. I mean, I have longer. Why drops because I had a haggy and excuse me, I have to burp. It did mute. Okay. Where are you going with? Oh, the haggy are longer. So now your case is set up as high. Yeah, I'm on the ground. There you go. You can adjust them in the bracket, but then some of the rows are right underneath a nozzle. So you can't push them up because then there'd be the wreck, the wreck my tip. They'll literally break it off or ruin it. So I have to have them down. And it's fine. And that's only on the wings. Okay. So it's just on the main, the main transom, like the main, the center section that there. I just had to like slide them up in the bracket, but okay, see, like all my brackets are out in front. Yeah. So then you just move them side to side to get them where you need to go. Because that's a like a. I don't know, too. Yeah, I too, too, with the U bolts as you balls are square bolts that hold it in. Yeah. So you can just loosen up the nuts and side them around or better. Yep. Yeah. These are just a bracket. You actually put them where they need to be. Yep. I mean, they swing and then they got that nice big spring and stuff on it and then some stainless and then down to that poly. So it's pretty nice. Yeah, the neutral boss don't they don't have a spring. They have a spring right up on top where they can flex and where they rotate right on the bracket, but then it's all, you know, it's a rubber hose and did you? Okay. So anybody that's got neutral boss, make sure, especially if you're running section control and you're going to certain tips with your two hoses that you you mark the you know which one is your right drop and which one is your left drop, because if you flip flop them and you go to section control and you're in the middle of a section, you might shut off the left side when it should be the right side. Gotcha. I know that doesn't maybe pertain to anybody of me, but I'm just kind of throwing that out there. So make sure you know which hose is the right hose drop and which hoses the left hose drop. Now, are you easy drops one? Yeah, one. Yeah. See, mine, mine has a hose to each side. Oh, see, mine has a hose to just one nozzle. Yeah. So yeah, you're not getting even distribution, are you? Well, it should be down to the puck. Yeah, but how do you know it's getting separated and evenly at the puck? How do I know? Yeah, how do you know that measure it with a cup? You you did? No, I knew it. I look at the flow. I just look at the flow when I start, I lift it all the way up and let it sit down. I'm like, okay, those look pretty, pretty even. So that may be, I don't know this, not calling them out, but that may be a drawback. Like if one one side was getting more flow than the other side. Well, now tomorrow, I'm going to fucking put a cup under both of them and turn it on and see what happens. Because there was a one point where I took both of my hoses, ran them into a Y and just went to one nozzle. I'm like, well, fuck that ain't doing me any good because how do I know it's getting evenly spread at that? Why? And then going down six feet to the, you know, you know what? That's a great question for the easy drop guys when we have them on the podcast. Yeah, I'm gonna call them out. I'm like, I'm a neutral boss. I'm gonna call them out. I'm gonna call them out as Rick said. Yeah, fuck to you now. Mm hmm. All right. And then they'll call me out and say, this is why we know this is it. This is why I just stop looking. Let's go there. Oh, I gave up on one farm completely. I Y dropped it. That's it. It's not getting fungicide. It's not getting fufu juice. It's not getting the devil's urine after a healthy dose of asparagus. It's nothing like that. It's not getting anything. It's, it's like, that's done though. But the rest of the farms look pretty decent. They're starting to green up after Y drop. And so I Y dropped them and then turned right back around. Got, I usually do like a, you know, the V eight V 10 fungicide app while I still get through with sprayer. So I got that all done. And in that meantime, in the meantime, five, six, seven days, green and up looking better. But in five or six days that other field wasn't some like fuck it is just gonna be dog shit. It's never had an insurance claim ever. The APH is very high. And I guess this is a year. It's just gonna get one. I've farmed it for like 20 years. And it's is what it is. Yeah. Yeah. Do you have any of them or is everything? I mean, stuff looks tough because it hasn't really it rained a lot again after I replanted. So it's sad. So I've got yellow spots because all the nitrogen's gone from the first two times it's that water, whatever. So now why dropping it? I'm hoping that'll bring the yelliness back out of it. I don't know. That's why I put 65 gallon on. Cause we basically said that 85% of the nitrogen was gone in that replant. Cause I don't know how else to figure it. I mean, had some what percent of the yield is gone. 65. I would say. I don't know. There's spots of yellow. So it's not like the whole thing. I mean, I don't want to make it out to be. I mean, it doesn't look good. I'm still happier that I replanted it than I didn't. Cause I've seen my yellow spots on some other fields that were water ponded. Yeah, they're green now, but the stands about eight thousand eight to 12,000. So yeah, it's green, but then there's places that there's corn that's waist high that tasseled and still light green. So it's not bad though. I'm not saying that it's bad. I just have bad areas since a lot of it looks phenomenal. I'm not going to lie. It looks phenomenal. So excuse me, I had a burp again. I'm going to have a lot of waist high corn that tassels in that ugly field that I gave up on. And what I did, I was put on 20 gallons and I'd get to those spots and I'd either shut off or I'd just floor it and it'd end up being like 12 gallons instead of 20. Cause I was running based on speed and rate. So I was bypassing my aim system. But anyway, so that's kind of what I did on those farms, but where that field of being wise though. So I was praying fungicide on beans as well. Cause they were planted first. So a lot of them at our three right now and wow. That's fucking weeds. Oh, doesn't list not work or does it not work? Tell me. You don't know. I don't know. And list is all I don't think it killed a single water hunt plant. No. And it's, it's crazy. Cause I did, you know, half my anchors within list and then half them with Liberty and those Liberty fields are great. But in list. Sorry yet. And don't tell. I'm not going to use enlist and Liberty fuck that. I'm not going to spend that much money. Cause unless it's like, it's like putting 48 ounces around up in with your Liberty to kill the weeds. You're not put in the 24 ounce rate to help kill the grass and let the Liberty do the Liberty thing. I know Roundup can still kill short small weeds and it's still, it helps putting it with products. I get it. And I'm sure putting in lists with Liberty and Roundup works as well too. But I'm not going to spend that extra money. I'm just going to do Liberty and Roundup. Yep. So I don't know. This endless corn. I hope it works. It won't. By the time we get in less corn, which we already have, I guess we have it. It already, it doesn't work. See, and I want a list in list corn next year, all endless corn to kill my volunteer. Not that I have a lot or I hope I don't. Oh, yeah. Speaking of that, the fuck up and just knock on wood and don't say anything. Yeah, that 1027 I had last year that went completely fucking flat. Yeah. That that second flush volunteer corn is all coming. I'm just going to leave it. I hope people remember the sign that was out there last year so they can see that that's the field that had all the down corn in it. They won't remember. I did it again, so it doesn't look like shit. I would. No, sorry. I'm just going to let the volunteer corn, girl. I bet you don't. I will. No, because you'll get tired of looking at it like this is stupid. I don't want my feels to look like dollar shit. No, I don't care. I'm flowering now. I don't want to. I don't like using any herbicides when I'm flowering. And that's why I get good soybean yields because I don't burn off flowers. They can abort because of mother nature, but I'm not going to intentionally burn them. You're not the killer. No, I'm not going to be. And that's why these fields that have this water, hemp coming up in spots and just it is what it is. You got to worry about it next year. Yeah, I guess. I don't know. I just. I have a giant ragweed poking out over my corn. Really? Yeah, but I'm going to drone that once it gets past brown. So I'm going to use some two four D and hit that with a drone. Yeah, I'm ready for some brown soap to be honest with you. I'm not quite there on a lot of it, but I don't have I don't have a single tassel yet. Really? Yeah. Well, I'm going to be interested to see the stuff that I wide dropped right before tassel it tasseled and the stuff that I wide drop two weeks after it tasseled and see if there's difference. They know. I don't know if there is. I don't my question to you is and nobody probably cares about this, but so why drop this week? Well, I see it. My tissue samples on Sunday night when I take them. I'll see you in all. They'll take a week. I don't think so. I mean, she's burpee. You can see. Holy no, I thought I was going to burp, but. Okay, fine. All right. Anyway, I'm sorry. We can leave that out, but we're leaving that shit. Can you hear that when I hit the drums? No. You're frozen right now. Like you get your finger in your eye. Now you're frozen. Way to go. What'd you do? I think it's your internet, not me, bud. Well, with that, I guess, enjoy this week's episode with Grant. He is a crop advisor. I met him because he came out to look at some wind. Well, hello, everyone. We have Grant Cassivall with us. He is an independent crop adjuster in southwestern Iowa and Northwest Missouri. Are you today, Grant? Good. Doing good. Good. Andrew, just for everybody. So they know he thinks that he's going to do this podcast from the sprayer and he knows better. We've had absolutely no luck doing any podcast with anybody if they haven't been set in front of a computer. So we're just doing it without him tonight. But no big deal. And Grant, we appreciate having you here. Crop adjusting is something that I think everybody has questions about. And I just got done telling you, I don't have any questions in front of me. And one of the things we kind of go by in this podcast is we just it's kind of like just sitting and talking to a neighbor. So I mean, we'll just kind of shoot from the hip. Not everybody, you know, when they meet with their crop adjuster has a list of questions they're going to go over. So we'll just kind of go from there. So if you can just tell us a little bit about yourself and we'll kind of kick it off. Yeah, so as you said, I'm an independent crop insurance adjuster. I also farm on the side a little bit. I live in Maryville, Missouri in a very northwest corner. I farm about a half a mile from the Iowa border. So I'm almost to the good dirt there in Iowa, but not quite. And so I've been a crop adjuster for about two years now on my own out as an independent contractor doing that. I contract with Rain and Hail. They're pretty heavy in the Midwest. But I've done a lot of private claims for people to, you know, cows get out in somebody's field. They need a third party to come and just kind of assess the damage and they'll bring me out to do that. Okay. Yeah, I never think of the whole livestock problem. We just think of hail wind, you know, whatever. But yeah, that's that's interesting. Yeah, a cat looking to a lot of damage. That's for sure. Yeah. Go ahead. Well, both sides are normally both sides are normally pretty mad at each other. Yeah, it really helps to kind of calm the nerves a little bit. That's what I was just going to say. Yeah, definitely. I'm sure there's a lot of arguing going on. But what got you started as an independent crop adjuster? I was kind of looking for something that I could do on the side to farming and make my own schedule a little bit. And with this, you know, if I don't, if I have something going on on the farm, I've got a meeting, I can just not have claims that day and spend my day doing stuff that I need to do for the farm and kind of work when you want to. So and you get to meet tons and tons of people in the area around where you farm and that was a big plus for me. So you've, you they just kind of call you a contact you say, Hey, we got this going on if you can you make it and you just say, Hey, no, I got, I can't and you don't have to go. I mean, is it really that simple or? Yeah, it comes in waves. So, you know, every big hail storm that comes through, we'll get 20, 30 claims from rain and hail. And we'll call those guys and say, Hey, you know, we've got the claim, figure out kind of what's going on. And we try to, you know, hit the ones that are the worst first so that we can just kind of get a grasp of what's going on. But then, you know, I try to plan my appointments out normally about two days in advance. And that's about it. Just in case something comes up. So, you know, right now I'll make an appointment for two days from now and just kind of roll that. And then if I had something come up, I'll say, Hey, nothing, you know, on Thursday or whatever and do what I need to do. So. Okay. So I'm guessing you just kind of do you have like a list of claims that come to you on your, like your laptop or computer and you're like, Okay, that's my area. I can, I can do this one. I can hit this one. This one's closer to me. Like you said, this one's worse. I can do this and like more than one person sees this. Or yes, we have a claim supervisor that assigns them to each adjuster. And so if something comes up that, you know, there's a conflict of interest or it's just not one that you're going to be able to get to, you can move it to somebody else. But of course, you only get paid if you do it. So we try to keep those as much as we can. But yeah, yeah, they just get assigned to us at random. And everybody kind of keeps the same amount of claims always so that not adjuster has a hundred and somebody else doesn't have any. But it did, like I said, it comes in waves. We'll get tons and tons after each hail storm and then we'll kind of work on them for a while. And then we'll get another big wave and try to work those down. But yeah, right now it's kind of a slower time normally. Okay, I'm so it's kind of like I was thinking it'd be like being a seed dealer where you got one guy might have 120 or 30 customers and one guy might only have 30. So I can see how that makes it more fair for not doing it that way. So congrats to the companies for not pushing them all on one guy or whatever. But so beforehand, we're talking about how you're an expert in almond adjusting. No, I'm kidding. But you did say something about how. So you can kind of you more do you more or less get trained in all aspects? And can you like if you're a single guy and you don't have a you're not a farmer, you have nothing else to do, can you just travel to us and do adjustments or how does that work? Well, so there has to be you know, there has to be claims somewhere to get there. And normally they don't want to call anybody in if if it's kind of manageable because they pay extra if you go out of your territory. So if it's you know, if there's a hurricane that comes through Florida and all the citrus trees gets what get wiped out, then they'll start trying to call people in to take care of that. And you know, yeah, if you do want to go and adjust citrus trees, they'll probably let you go do it. And you know, to be a crop adjuster, you have to spend 1000 hours of on the job training. Plus, there's a bunch of huge tests that we have to take. And in part of that, there is citrus almonds, potatoes, everything. So we're trained in all of it. That's that's crazy. Why they wouldn't just have give you like a specialty like, you know, like, if you're in Iowa, it'd be like, Oh, it's alfalfa, you know, corn, soybeans, that that type of thing, you'd think they would just kind of stick you to what's in your area or wheat. Oh, but well, there is actually an orchard about 40 miles for me that really hold the policy on. Yeah. Okay. Yeah, we do apples and stuff. Yeah. Okay, I guess I didn't think of that. Yeah. Always just think of corn and soybeans. Yeah, there's a lot to it. So when it comes to soybeans, that's the one I get adjusters in the moles because I carry hail insurance on my beans. I don't on my corn. What is it? You look for like, let's say right now I'm going into our three of my soybeans and a hail storm comes in. What's what's the first thing you're going to look for when you meet with me as being the customer as a farmer? I mean, what obviously we're going to go to the field that I think is hit. But what are some tips? What are some things you look at to know to give you a quicker response time so you don't have to walk the whole 160 acre field? Well, part of it is we do, if the farmer knows where the worst spot in the field is, that's the first thing we want to look at because we can drive around and look at spots that are barely hit. And it kind of just wastes both of our time. And of course, if you're out looking for that, then you have to go look at most of the field. But we don't mind looking at the whole field, but the worst spot is where we want to go. On soybeans, we're looking for nodes that are completely cut off. So if that plant is in that R3 and you've got 17 nodes on each plant, and it went out there and cut off half of them, that's what we're going to count to pay you on. So the leaves and stuff with holes in it, that doesn't really mean we can pay you some of that if it's really bad, but it doesn't pay much. Nodes cut off is what really pays for the soybeans. And is there a certain timing you want to get out there? I know a crop or a guy that used to do crop adjusting and it seemed like they didn't want to come right away. Was it like maybe a week or two after? I can't remember exactly, but they don't want to come the next day, obviously. Yeah, they say seven to 10 days is how long we're supposed to wait. And of course, if your field gets hit, your neighbors probably does too, so we get a huge wave. So we'll try to start seven days after the storm, but it could be two weeks before we get to everybody. And what's the reason for that? I mean, is it easier to show where they're not growing from? And look for that. And honestly, it stuff turns brown because it's dead and it's a lot easier to see. So yeah, they want it to turn dead, die, and then it's just easier to tell what's going on and look for regrowth. You know, if it's going to start to regrow out of it, it's a little easier to tell. Okay, this is going to be fine versus mainly on corn versus it's cut off, it's dead, and nothing's going to grow back. So, okay, yeah. I was out with an adjuster one time and he kind of gave me a tip just before I make a call or because it seems like, you know, farmers are so spread out nowadays that you don't even really know you get a hail storm, but I'd have a friend or neighbor call and he'd be like, oh, we had hail in our area. You know, he might want to check your field. Okay, so, or you just a lot of times the insurance agent just turns them all in, turns every field in, you know, whether you have it or not. And so the one adjuster I had, he's like, well, just if there's some corn fields nearby, just kind of drive down the road and you don't even have to get out of the pickup. Look for, you know, torah believes there's something on the corn. He's like, that's kind of a good indicator that you might have some hail around here. Or another thing was, I don't know if this is true or not. This was probably, gosh, I was really young. It was probably 20 years ago, but that hail storms, like if there's a building site or a big grove or something that they kind, did they kind of go over that? Like they won't be right on the edge of it. They'll be farther out in the field. Is that true? I mean, it'll protect them. It seems like, yeah, if you've got trees around, it'll protect them a little bit. And but on wind, sometimes that'll have the other effect where like on corn, it'll hit the grove of trees and just everything right there gets flattened. Okay. Yeah, let's maybe skip to corn. So because beans are kind of boring, nobody cares about beans, right? But so on corn, like I said earlier, I don't carry hail insurance on corn. Let's first start with the hail insurance and how what you think of hail damage on corn and then maybe we'll go into the wind part more. But let's kind of stick with the hail at first. So what went I'm guessing when like dough or milk stage is probably a bad time, but just kind of give me your insight on when you'd get maybe the biggest bang for your buck on a hail storm. Yeah, so that that milk stage on corn would be the biggest payout. Anything smaller than tassel, it really doesn't pay because the only thing it would pay there is a defoliation of the leaves. And it takes, you know, if it would cut off a tassel or what we've seen quite a bit is if it hits the ear and the milk runs down the ear, it will rot the kernels that are on each row that it runs milk down. And so then it'll pay for every kernel that's rotten or damaged by the hail stone. So if it rocks, you know, if it would hit the top of the ear and all of it runs down a couple places, it'll pay for 30% of the kernels that are all rotten. Oh, wow, I never. But of course, the hail stone has to hit. Yeah. But just the milk running down, actually, it will make the other kernels rot. Yeah, it rots them out. Really? From milk to about blister, it'll start to rot all of that, that year out. Okay. Huh. Oh, why is that just because there's more more moisture and it's trapped in there and you don't know why it does it. It does. Yeah. I don't know if it's super acidic. Maybe I'm not sure. Okay. Maybe somebody can comment on here if they know why that happens. But that's interesting. I had I had no idea at all. So, so it kind of covered the the basics on the hail on corn, but I know a lot of people nowadays seem to carry wind or green snap insurance. So how does that obviously that works in percentages, but do you think there's a worse time for that corn plant to go through a windstorm or a butter time? Like have you seen more damage at, I mean, I'll say V 10 versus V T or I mean, do you have any insight on that? Yes. I guess it depends on what you're after. If if you're after just straight yield, then of course that green snap is the worst thing, because like we had some wind here about a week ago when it was trying to, well, it was tassel, but it wasn't, the silks were pollinated yet. So it snapped it off below the ear. That's dead. That's not going to do anything. But if you if you kind of want, you know, your insurance to pay out the best for you last year, we saw a lot of it getting really heavily blown over around tassel again, but it was it just kind of bent it over and goose-necked it. Well, of course, it was a mess to combine, but it's still all pollinated. So they got their wind payment, not all of it, of course, but they got a percentage of their wind payment and they still have decent yields. So it kind of, it seems like it depends on also a little bit how the corn grows from the beginning, because this year it's just snapping straight off. And last year, it just goose-necked it and ended up, I mean, it was fine, but a lot of people were worried it wasn't going to pollinate, because it was 30 inches over, put some brace roots down, and then took off back up. But it all seemed to pollinate fine. Do you carry extra harvest expense with your wind? I don't. I know a lot of people that do, though, and I'm not saying I'm not like the go-to guru on crop insurance. I carry very little. I just I pray a lot. And I mean, overall, we have we have good yields. I mean, so there's seems like, gosh, do I want to spend $35 an acre or do I want to spend $15 an acre on insurance, especially with prices the way they are now? But no, I don't to answer your question, but I mean, do you have a follow-up to that? Yeah, last year, that kind of paid a lot because it was goose-necked so bad. And of course, it did take a lot of extra time to combine it because it was goose-necked so bad. But that's what kind of paid out last year. The green snap, you know, you won't get that because it's just broken off and dead. But the the wind, if I was going to buy wind, I would also get the extra harvest expense. I don't know what it costs, but because I don't sell it, I just adjust. But I would always get that with it because it seems like that would pay on those goose-necked years. What does what does pay the most? I mean, you've you've done it a couple just twice, two years now? Two years away. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Okay. Training first. Oh, okay. So, you know, let's say three years then, what I mean, is there something you see all the time? Like, you're like, God, you know, you go home and tell your dad or whoever you farm with, you know, your family member, you just say, hey, we got to carry this because 80% of the time we're adjusting for it and that hits. I mean, is do you have something like that? I mean, it kind of seems regional. You know, like, you surely have farms that some always get hail, some never get hail. The stuff I have just never seems to get hail, so I don't buy hail insurance. But there are some people that I'm there every year because they get hailed on. But I mean, in windy years, like last year, that wind insurance on the corn was really nice. Because like I said, they still had good yields, but they also got the wind insurance check. But there's not one thing really that just always pays. I think the replant is also nice just because you're going to replant anyways, you know, where most people are. So you might as well get the check forward also. Yeah, let's come back to replant. But I was going to say that my dad always tells me a story. And I mean, he's 80 years old. So he's heard a lot of stories and I've heard a lot too from him. But about a neighbor that like, I'm not he always just say like, nine times, nine years out of 10, they'd get hail, a hail storm. And it does seem to kind of go that way. It's kind of runs in pockets on it. And that's crazy. But those people pay more for their hail insurance also. So the price ranges based on the section in hail history. But if your stuff gets wiped out from hail, it's still worth buying, I think. But like I said, I don't know what it costs for them. But okay, so even insurance, so even the insurance companies know that there's regions and they're just like living along a river. And you're got sandy soil, you're going to pay more, you know, because yeah, I've had that I've rented ground along the river. And it's been zoned that, you know, you've a astronaut, yeah, yeah, yeah. So back to the, what was like the replanting replant? Yeah, percentage wise, is there is that overall the same percentage by every farmer that, you know, X amount of that farm or that field has to be replanted? Or can you, can you, you know, can you buy up or other people that if they plant, say it's 150 acre field and they only replanted one acre, can they get paid on that or they have to be like 40% or 50 or whatever? I don't know what it is. It's 20% of the unit or 20 acres. So if you have optional units, you know, and you have a 100 acre field, then you only have to have 20 acres, which would also qualify. But if you have enterprise units, any farmer 1000 acres in one county, you have to get at least that 20 acre minimum. So it's either over. And that gets a lot of people because, you know, 20 acres is quite a bit, if you have an optional unit to get 20 acres of one field could be quite a bit of the field. But yeah, that's the rule and everybody that applies to everyone. Okay, so yeah, that is tough because a lot of times optional units, you know, they'll, they'll pay better on the, the back end, yield wise, but it changes your plan also. Wow. Okay. I did not know that. Yeah, that's crazy. So I guess what else is there that you have adjusted other than corn and soybeans? I guess I don't have a lot more questions. But tell us some other crops you've done in southwestern, northwestern Missouri, southwestern Iowa. We do a lot of a lot of wheat, especially here in northwest Missouri. We've done some Milo a little bit. In Milo, you've worked pretty much just like corn. But wheat also works a lot like corn. But it's mainly those four. But I don't know, I haven't got in on the, I haven't got in on the orchard yet, but maybe I'll get in. Even though it's even though it's close by, he's still having that in. And every summer people get to go dig potatoes down in Arkansas and do that. And I hope to get in on that this summer too. Really? Yeah. When you did your thousand hours, was it in your territory or did you go all off to another state? Oh, okay. So you get in with a, you ride around with an experienced adjuster and you basically just, I mean, every day they go out, you go out with them. And the guy I rode around with was great. You, he threw the laptop in front of me and he said, all right, you're, he showed me the first day. And the second day, he said, you're going to do it from now on. And that's how I learned, but yeah, they do a whole year so that you can hit, you know, replants in the spring, hail in the summer, and then your fall harvest claims also. And there's still stuff that I'll call him about because just stuff will come up that I've never seen before. So I'll call him on and try to get that work through, but. Okay. So here, here's my big question. I don't know if anybody else will be thinking this when they're listening, but so I, I consider you, you're kind of the, well, you're kind of like a state trooper or a deputy when it's pulling me over, you know, like, is there something special that I can say or do to persuade you to go, you know, kind of sweeten the deal? Or is it, I mean, is there any tricks or secrets or? I mean, bring a cookies and. Well, first off, nobody should be nervous, because I think most of us are also farmers. So there are crop adjusters around here. So you're just going to deal with another farmer. But in terms of sweetening the pot, we're pretty, I mean, we have to follow procedure for everything and we're pretty tied down on that. But cookies wouldn't hurt anything. No, I mean, I'm going to turn it down. Yeah, every single adjuster I've had has always been a farmer. And it kind of surprised me. And I'd say the last 10 years, they were pretty close farmers too. Otherwise it would, they'd be maybe an hour away. Has that changed? Because it seems like maybe they didn't want somebody you knew coming to adjust for yet. Does that make sense or? Well, so I guess the big distinction is hail claim, wind and hail claims, and federal crop claims are just completely separate for us. So because one's a private product and the other one is subsidized by the government. So the rules are different on both. The way we work them is completely different. On federal crop claims, your agents not allowed to be involved. You're not the farmer, isn't even supposed to like hold the other end of the tape measure when we're measuring bins. It's completely cut and dry, black and white. The hail claims are a little bit different where we can, you know, we can take an agent with us. We encourage the farmers to go with us. We kind of can work together on those a little bit. But a lot of the change that you probably see in adjusters is because on federal claims, we can only work them for two years in a row before we have to get switched per farmer. That way, you know, we can't be bribed by you year after year. We can only go two years at a time. And then we have to switch on federal claims on hail. You can, I think they're going to change that rule actually. But in the past, you could work same guy year after year. Okay. Yeah, that's interesting. And I'll be honest, I, of course, nobody wants a hail storm unless you got the worst looking crop ever. But I dread, I don't like going around all the fields. I mean, it just, it sucks. I mean, it does. It takes a whole day and it's not because I'm lazy and don't want to walk around in the field. I mean, it's good to get out and look at stuff, but it's like, jeez, you know, especially if you want to, you're spraying fungicide or just anything. And I know they work around the schedule. I mean, I've, I've had them call and be like, Oh, you know, can I come in two days and you're like, well, no, I was actually going to start spraying my beans, you know, well, yeah, I don't want to bother you then. But we have none that kind of tell you, like, you know, I got so many days, I want to look at them, you know, like within a week or 10 days or whatever, just kind of work out. But yeah, so. Well, yeah, I always try to be really flexible. You know, nobody'll ever pin down a day. So I'll just throw a date and a time out there. But if that doesn't work, I'm normally pretty open. Like I said, I only plan them out about two days in advance. And I think pretty much everybody else does the same thing. So, you know, if I called and said, Hey, can you meet Tuesday at nine a.m.? And that doesn't work. Just say, how about Wednesday? Most people are just going to say yes to that. So, like I said, we'll work with you and and definitely, you know, we're not that state trooper coming out there to punch you down or anything. So, yeah, just be upfront and we're good with it normally. So. Yeah, I guess I, I didn't, when I said the state trooper comment, I didn't mean that I was afraid of you. I just didn't know if, you know, usually if you admit that you did something wrong, you know, they'll kind of let you off type, type of deal. And I didn't know if you had something similar. Normally, it seems like you can get out of the pickup and within five minutes, you can tell if somebody's being honest or just, you know, really trying to pull something over. Maybe stay trooper to have that same kind of thing. I guess you just see it people over and over every day. So you kind of get on that. But yeah, certain people you get out of the pickup and it's a battle the whole way. Right. So, so you, you don't only do infield adjusting, you also do the federal crop if then to if measuring the bins, do all that. So I mean, you're, it's I mean, how many months out of the year? I mean, you're working quite a bit in the winter time, too. I mean, normally, yeah, we get down about February 1st, February 15th, normally, and normally, like some replants or some wheat claims will start rolling in about the end of April. So we have from the February to April 30th, normally off, but yeah, the rest of the time is pretty well booked. Hmm, interesting. And how do you become an independent, I guess, that I don't know if this sounds as dumb question or not. But a lot of people out there are probably thinking they have to call a rain and hail or whomever and say, Hey, do you need adjusters? I'm look, you know, or maybe that's how you started. Did you, did you call one of them? And then they're like, Oh, we hire independently, right? I mean, how's that start? Well, yeah, so pretty much everybody starts out as an independent adjuster. And that's where you'll do your training and everything. There are some staff adjusters that most of them were independent adjusters, and then they get hired on salary, they work year round, they'll show up with an actual company pickup that'll say rain and hail across the side of it. But independent adjusters, I mean, most of us are all just contracted to one company, but we're able to go anywhere we want to technically. But I mean, you would be swamped if you tried to contract with multiple people. But so that might be the person that doesn't farm that their only income is adjusting, they would maybe work for a couple different companies you're saying or well, I don't know anybody that does you would you would get overrun, but they would probably become a staff adjuster because it would come with some benefits and a full time salary. Right, because as an independent adjuster, you don't have any benefits, we get paid the same as like, according to the IRS, I mean, we're classified the same as like an Uber driver, because we're a contracted employee. So we work, we just get paid weekly, we turn in a time voucher, and that's how we get paid. So like a commission kind of type thing, I mean, you're you're in charge of doing all your own taxes and stuff, obviously. Yeah, I mean, yeah, you claim everything. Yep. We just get paid by the day. So if we have claims that we can work that day, we get paid. If not, we don't get paid. Oh, okay. And then I assume you get mileage in, if it's your own vehicle, or yep. Okay, that's a nice mileage. So how do you how do you have just your your area? Do they kind of draw a circle around you, or I mean, have you have you gone to North East Iowa ever before, or you've just always known? I haven't, but they try to keep since they pay mileage, they try to keep you as close to your house as possible. But I've been I've been to Eastern Nebraska just a little bit, but not very much. But now they they kind of have adjusters scattered, you know, within 30 miles of each other, basically, they try to keep everybody spaced out evenly. So there's always somebody close by, especially in Iowa, Missouri, you know, in these high crop acre areas. But no, I'm normally the furthest I go is about a hundred miles. Sometimes I'll go a little further than that, but not very often. Okay, would you recommend someone doing this for? I mean, absolutely. Okay, I was gonna say, I mean, because I used to have a truck and grain trailer and stuff, you know, I used to haul for the local co-op, but they kind of went on their own, you know, hauled their own now and stuff. And I mean, it seems like it would be if you wanted to a good second source of income, especially if you're a starting off young farmer, you know, or you don't have you don't farm very many acres, and you're just trying to get into the family farm or whatever. But you already said absolutely right away. So I mean, is it just because it's fun? Or I mean, why? Well, I guess one thing is, they aren't always looking for a gesture. So if anybody's listening and is thinking about it, reach out and go to their website. They have a link there. You can talk with somebody. And I mean, you're not tied down if you talk to them, just hear them out and you can get started. But no, I one thing that I always was really drawn to was a beginning farmer. You don't really, you can't live off the farm. So it's some extra income. But at the same time, you're after meeting a new person every single day in your area. One of those eventually, I would think would be somebody that could have an opportunity for some custom work. Maybe it's somebody that's going to retire. Who knows that maybe they'll have a podcast that wants you to come on. You never know. So that was what I was really drawn to was just go out and meet people in the area. And I've met tons and tons of people through this. Yeah. Oh, yeah, that's awesome. Yeah, I'm sorry. I just kind of always think this is usually where an Andrew asked a question or something. But since he's not here, I'm just kind of daydreaming like, Oh, yeah, what if I was to do this type of thing? But yeah, you know, you don't have to, you're not behind a desk. There's some desk work, but I mean, it's minimal. So most of the guys I see they not even really does. They just have their laptop and they kind of sit there and figure it up while you're there. And then it's a touch screen and you sign it and off you go, I think. Yeah. Yeah. So yeah, if you've got a decent mode of transportation and I could be outside. It's great. Yeah. So they kind of teach you everything. So my other question is, if somebody's listening and they're not a farmer and they're not into a ground, I mean, I mean, they could still be an adjuster because you're doing, use a thousand hours is a lot of is a lot of seats in with somebody else. So you're going to learn a lot about stuff just from following somebody. Even if you have, it helps to know, you know, the basics of corn soybeans, a little bit of that. But no, I mean, if you don't know anything, I'm sure they can teach you for sure. So a friend of mine. So I used to sell pioneer seed and a friend of mine that now took took it over. I quit or retired or whatever, just a farm. But he took over and he was doing crop adjusting. And he was kind of my go to when I wanted to know about like bugs in the area and just little, you know, little things like that he was. And that's kind of why I picked him to transition into my agency, you know, because you have to find somebody when you want to quit or retire, you need to find somebody to replace you. And that was kind of why I picked him because he was always out in the field. He said he practically knew more than I did as far as or I know he did more crop scouting just because he was out adjusting. So yeah, I guess, yeah, it's interesting, especially like you said, if you want to be out in mother nature and you want to meet people sounds like a kind of a fun gig. Yeah, and as a beginning farmer, you get to see all kinds of different practices and stuff. You know, I was asking Andrew about his soil warrior, you get to just kind of learn a little bit about that also and you're out in other people's fields. And you can kind of compare that to how yours looks see maybe if you're head of the game, similar to the area, you know, you can learn a lot about the farming side of it also through this. Yeah, there you go. I sold machinery before I sold seed. And yeah, same deal. You'd just you'd sell somebody a tillage tool that you didn't use on your farm and you got to see them how they used it and like, oh, you know, that might be a good way to go. And yeah, and help set up equipment and all sorts of things. I mean, yeah, there's there's always something to learn definitely. But yeah, I don't know, maybe crop adjusting will be in my future. I don't know. But it's interesting. Anyway, and word what website did you say? I guess you said there's a website for anybody. I want to listen. Yeah, what do we Google? Just brain inhale.com. It'll come out. And I think there's a careers page. I think what they have. And it'll just say independent adjuster. And I don't get you into it. But I know they're always looking for adjusters, but I'm sure other companies are too, I guess, but we're the best. So. Yeah, exactly. So, well, is there anything else Grant that you want to add to the podcast and these shout outs or you got any Twitter X page or anything exciting or just. No, Grant, nice to be nice to your crop adjuster. Return the phone call, right? Yeah, I called him back. I, gosh, I know there was one year. I think I called me four or five times left a message. And I was not getting back to him when I felt awful. And I'm sure he was getting pissed too. But we finally got together. But yeah, we don't have to call three times before we can send a letter that we're going to really clean. So yeah, really going back. Well, maybe there was only three times then, but because it was nice. But yeah, three no answers. And you get a letter that says in 10 days, your claim is going to get released. Okay. Well, that was a good little piece of information for everybody to know. So, okay. Normally, we'll send a text message, leave a voicemail. But yeah. Yeah. Well, great. It was nice having you on here, Grant, I'm sure we might add a couple more questions from Andrew if he'd been on here. But that's okay. I knew the whole him. So he's, he's trying to finish up his wide dropping right now, because he wants to start spraying his fungicide on his corn. And he just got the sprayer. And I'm not going to call him out and make fun of him or anything. But he told me he was going anywhere between four and six miles and I don't know why drop it. And the only reason is I shouldn't laugh. But I got to think back to when I was like 18 years old and ran a sprayer for the first time, because literally he is running a sprayer for the first time ever. He said he's only rode in a sprayer like two times. So he's like starting fresh, bought it. And what's better than buy your own sprayer and goes, you know, wide dropping spray with it. I mean, that's a proud moment. But it was just kind of funny because I told I was spraying like 16 mile an hour or the other, you know, the other day. And and that's not even fast compared to some people. But yeah, he's he's getting used to it. I think the biggest thing, it's a haggy. And I told him that boom on the front, I can really make your your steering wiggle. I mean, you have to kind of learn how to manage that steering wheel when you got a front boom, because it'll it'll move you back and forth versus a rear boom. They're both completely different. I've I've ran both and it's a whole different world. But hopefully he's okay. Yep. Same with the same as a haggy. Yeah. Yeah. So but hopefully he's getting a long good and really appreciate you doing this at six o'clock on a Friday night. That was a great of you. We it didn't work for me to do it this morning. So I appreciate you pushing him back. And we're glad to have you on here. So I will have you back sometime. Maybe there'll be a knock on wood. We won't have any doracios or any bad storms, but maybe we'll have you back in a follow up. Sounds great. Thanks for having me. Yep. Thank you and take care.