SharkFarmerXM's podcast
Ben Wiegmann 8-13-24
[SINGING] [MUSIC PLAYING] And welcome again to Shark Farmer Radio. Hey, I'm your host Rob Sharkey. And today we are live from Effingham, Illinois. We're here at the technology days down here learning all about everything of Bex hybrid. Another beautiful day, isn't it? Oh my goodness, it's gorgeous. Yeah, it's right by the interstate. What interstate is that, do you know? So this would actually be state '64 and '57 merged together until we get to the north side of town here. Whatever, it's an Illinois interstate, so it's probably all under construction. I can't believe stuff is moving as fast as it is. 100%. I'm surprised we don't have barricades out right now. It's our state flower, right, the orange cone? Exactly, exactly. Surprised they're not a DOT truck out here. Today, we're talking with Ben Wakeman, Illinois. You're a field agronomist. That's exactly right. What does that mean? So it's just a fancy term, basically, for being a crop doctor, a crop mechanic, whatever you want. So basically, all joking aside, the salesmen sell it, and then I either try to fix it or make it better. So that's basically what we got going on. So anything is wrong. I buy seed corn, seed beans, and something goes wrong. They're going to call you. You're going to come out and you're going to say, do this, and I still get my 250 bushel corn. That's exactly right. You know, here in Southern Illinois, it's probably closer to 350. Here we go. For people that don't know, where is Nashville in the once great state of Illinois? That's right. So if anyone's familiar with Mount Vernon in Illinois, we're just about 30. They aren't. They aren't. Well, people in Nebraska are laughing at you right now. Yeah. Well, you know where St. Louis is at. OK, the arch you might know. Yeah, the arch, apparently it's a big deal. But we are about 50 minutes to an hour count Louis on Interstate 64. OK, and that's pretty southern Illinois. That's right. Is that good farm ground there? Well, it's pretty light. I wouldn't say it's great farm ground, but it's good farm ground. OK, did you grow up on a farm? So actually, I did not grow up on a farm, but I grew up working for my uncles on their farm. They have a grain farm, and that's kind of where I learned to farm from my dad and my uncles. What kind of farm was it? So it was a corn and soybean farm. Every once in a while, they grew a little bit of wheat, really no cattle at all, but primarily corn and soybeans. So do you have some good memories of growing up around your uncle's farm and helping him farm? Did he put you to work? Did he have to do any bailing on the 4th of July kind of stuff? No, I think probably one of the biggest things is me and my brother, we always worked for my uncle Gary. And he said, go walk some beans one day to pull the water hemp out. And little did we know that the beans were sprayed the day before, and I can't quite figure out if he was pulling a fast one on us or if he just wanted us to earn her, keep that day. Did you get a growth from that? Well, all as I can say, four hours and slaving through there, we were told to come back to the shop. We didn't need to do that anymore, so I was okay with that. Well, maybe it is like today where you spray the water hemp and it doesn't die, so he was just trying to get a jump on it. Well, that could be, but I beg to differ. How do I kill that stuff? Kill the water hemp? Yeah, very carefully. Okay, it looks, I pray, it does good. And then I go in for my post and everything looks fantastic. I get a good kill on everything. My got 15-inch rows, they canopy, and then no suckers, they canopy. I know it, it's very tough. I'll be honest, when we always did herbicide research here, one of the biggest things that we always said is never let that weed emerge. Whether that was through tillage practices, pre-emerge, burn down applications, but once that weed is emerged, it's gonna become a control, but not only every time you spray that weed, once it's emerged, it's gonna become more and more resistant every time you spray to that specific chemistry that we're spraying. So it does become very, very challenging. Liberty is primarily the biggest tool that we use to help control a merge water hemp in season, but there are a lot of good pre-emerge residual herbicides, things like that, but I think a lot of times we need to look at tillage practices, soil fertility, things like them's the weed management. - Okay, so I mean, I use a residual on a post. - Correct. - Can you talk about what company, or you can't say that? - So you wanna talk about like good residual herbicide? - It rhymes with midua. - Midua, you're talking zidua? - Yeah, and again, it looked great, and then it canopy, everything was dead, and it canopy, and I still, they came up. - I know it. - I know it sometimes, I wonder if we didn't kill them the first time, or if we had tillage escapes at times. I think a lot of times, that's what we run into as we get them. - It's mainly rounding outside. So that's, so what should I do? I mean, you can repeat what I'm saying, or you can give me some help, man. I'm dying over here. - We have some nightmares about this. We can't even take walks out of the field. - Yeah, you know, I hurt a agronomist favorite term as it depends. So it depends on your situation. So I would say a lot of times, maybe we're getting some weeds creeping in from the ditch bank or something like that. - It's my neighbors. - It's your neighbors, huh? - It's always the neighbors. - The neighbors, I tell you what, it's-- - Yeah, that's generally what they say about me. - Yeah, yeah. You know, I always say, if we give the neighbors to talk, give them something to talk about, they don't have to look for something. - They have plenty, they have plenty around us. Okay, so I should, my plan is to go in, I'll do a deep tellage about 16 inches, and then I'll chisel plow it, and then I'll moldboard plow it, and then I'll put gasoline on it, and I will set it on fire. That should be ready for next spring. - That's exactly right. That sounds like a really good plan. Shouldn't have any compaction. - It's actually probably cheaper than most chemical products. (laughing) All right, we do gotta go to break. Today we're talking with Ben Wakeman. He is a field agronomist with the Beck's Hybrid. He's been talking all day here. He's from Nashville, Illinois. We come back, we're gonna talk about his background and all sorts of stuff. We'll be right after the break. ♪ A round shaker, a rule breaker ♪ ♪ Oh, daddy, roll your through every acre ♪ - This segment is brought to you by Common Ground. Are you looking for an easy way to buy, sell, or lease your land? Well, check out Common Ground, where they connect landowners and farmers, and hunters too, by the way. Go to commonground.io, that's commonground.io. (upbeat music) - Back here in Effingham, Effingham, Illinois, at the Beck knowledgey days, couldn't be nicer. Generally these field days, they're 100 degrees. We've really lucked out this year, haven't we? - Absolutely. - APHD was nice. - Yes, it was. All the field shows we've been to. - Minnesota Farmfest. - Minnesota Farmfest. It rained, but that's okay. - Yeah, well, who cares, we had a tent. - Everybody, yes. - Yeah. - We got a nice crowd that way, so there's a benefit to that. But yeah, lucking out this year on the farm shows. - I ordered that, by the way. - Did you? - Yes, I ordered that. - Did you order the ice cream over there too? - 100%. - Everybody's walking by with ice cream. - That ice cream is money, have you had so? - Oh, it's great. That's great. - I mean, all day. That thing is just, this is the first time I have not seen anybody not waiting in line for that ice cream. - You can thank me later. - That guy's gonna have a carpal tunnel. - Thank you. - He's been doing the same swirling motion for hours. - He was so serious. I was gonna joke with him, I'm like, "Hey, could I have my entorled canner clockwise?" But he looked like he'd had enough for today. That's a lot of-- - Yeah, there's always tomorrow. - A lot of ice. This is a one day show, though. - Well, I mean, you could always find the ice cream stand tomorrow. - I suppose, do you like the one day shows compared to the three day shows? - I do like the-- - It says every person that works at his show. - The three day show in Atlanta is definitely a very big show. It's very impressive to go to and see all the work after that goes into it. It's definitely very, very impressive to visit. - Mm-hmm. Ben Wakeman from Nashville, Illinois, feedbacks hybrid. Went to U of I, huh? - That's right, I-L-L. - Don't even start with me. - Don't even start, he says, "My goodness, tough crowd here today." - Well, the most arrogant people on earth, right? You got auctioneers, you got podcasters, and you got U of I grads. - Well, at least we're right behind the podcasters. - Oh, my gosh, we're throwing down here. - Man. - Did you always want to be an agronomist and work with, you know, agriculture, or did you go down a different path first? - Yeah, so, honestly, when I set out to go to school and ag ag agronomy is what I always wanted to do. I liked learning about the crops, trying to make crops better, problem solving, things like that, but ultimately helping the farmer. I mean, you know, I could be a research agronomist, but just having the relationship with a farmer is really cool. I just love working with them. So, yeah, to answer your question, this was, I guess you could call up my dream job when I set out to go to college, and I was fortunate enough to get it right away coming out of college. - You seem like you are the type of person to farmers, 'cause honestly, we're grumpy. - Oh, we are. - We are. - Extremely. - And you can do nothing right, because nothing's ever gonna be right. The prices are not high enough, the yields are not high enough. I can say this, because literally, that's what I'm thinking right now. - Yeah, you wanna know the best part about my job? - Yeah, I would love to do this. - Is that you can be a salesman, and since I'm an agronomist, since I don't have sales in my title, the farmers will listen to me versus you, and that's the greatest part about my job. We could say the exact same thing, but I'm not trying to sell you anything. - That's kind of true. I kind of see his point. - Yeah, yeah. - You got a bachelor's, but you also got a master's. - Yup. - Are you smart? - No, not at all. - Well, you gotta be somewhat-- - Well, I just baffled all my professors, you know, and they bright them. Well, sometimes, if I'm in it too. - Yeah, right? - It works. - Everybody laughs at it, but it doesn't work. - I know it. That's how I got the degree. - What was your master's in? - It was in crop sciences under Dr. Fred Bilo with the crop physiology lab. I don't have a bell to ring. - You don't? - No. - You forgot it? - Well, I didn't. - Yes. - Oh, okay. I was just checking. - So, out of, you graduated, where'd you go after that? - So, I graduated with my master's, and I immediately started here at Bex the next week, and I've been here ever since. They haven't fired me, so I'm just gonna keep doing what I'm doing. - They hired you right out of school? - They did. - Well, who'd you bribe here? - Well, it's a long list. We ain't got all day, I'm afraid. - Huh. - So, four years, so have you been doing the technology days every year? - Yup, so the first year that I was here, 2020 was a COVID year, so we had the shows on a very small basis, depending on the state. Technology day, so I was at technology that days that year in Atlanta, but then every year, since then, yeah, I've been on the circuit. I've always talked here. I've talked at Henderson before, and El Paso, and then typically, I go to Atlanta to do that show as well. - Well, and you gave 10 tours today, so you have taken the ground to look at soybeans and corn and all kinds of crops, right? - Yup. - And do you get some really great questions? I mean, do people come with problems on their farm and want you to problem solve right then and there in the tractor? - I always say, you know, the best tours or the best presentations are when people are engaged with you and they ask those questions, because then it turned conversation, but yeah, today, I mean, we had really great interaction, we had good attendance on all the buggies, throughout the whole day, throughout those 10, we were talking about planters on the first one, and then we talked about wheat and double crop beans on the second one, and there was really good interaction on all of them, and it really makes it a lot more enjoyable. Otherwise, you're just kind of talking and no one has any feedback, you get a blank stare, and then you kind of lose a little bit of energy, if you will, at times. - Yeah, I doubt you're telling the truth. - I've been on 200% or two. I mean, y'all are boring. Are you boring? - 100%, 100%. - How many people fell asleep on your tour? - All of them. (laughing) It is tough to, I mean, yes, farmers are definitely into that. I mean, sometimes the numbers, and that can kind of roll on. Do you ever try to spice it up? - Oh, 100%. Today, for example, we were showing a picture of a bad seed trench, and I asked the guy if he thought this looked good, and he said, "Yep, it looks great." And I said, "Well, that's why your corn looks the way it does." - Growing shade. - Wow. - Well, it just so happens to be a good friend of mine, so it was okay, I felt like. - Wow. (laughing) - What do people want to learn when they come here? - Well, they're again, and they're growing in this favorite term, it depends. That's why we have-- - It's good at his job, isn't it? (laughing) - But in all seriousness, we had four tour buggies a day. Ours was talking about planters, and then the second one was talking about wheat and double crop beans. We had one talking about biological products, and one was talking about all things fungicide. One got into more fertility management around nitrogen, so we have a wider ray just to speak to all audiences that we have here at the shows. - So on the holidays, when you guys get together with your family, do you really get to sit and eat and relax, or do you have everybody asking you questions and asking you to problem solve? (laughing) - Well, usually it is very farming-based, whether we're talking about tractors, or tractor pulling, or farming. It usually is a lot of different stuff, but it's all a conversation. It's what we love. It's what the only thing we know how to do. - Okay, and you've also, you've had internships and other jobs, too. - That's right, yep. I'm going through college. I try to get a different internship every summer, whether it was in research, sales, seed production, whatever it was, just to get kind of a well change. Also help to figure out if I like something that maybe I didn't think I liked and things like that. - Okay, we do got to go to break. Today, we are in Effingham, Illinois. We're at the technology days and joined all the agronomic informations from back hybrids. We'll be back. All right, enough to the break. ♪ You show a little boy between the lines ♪ ♪ Start to loosen up your mind ♪ - This segment is brought to you by Common Ground. Are you looking for an easy way to buy, sell, or lease your land? Well, check out Common Ground, where they connect landowners and farmers, and Hunters, too, by the way. Go to commonground.io, that's commonground.io. (upbeat music) And we're back here in Effingham, Illinois. We're at the technology days, learning all the good stuff from Beck's Hybrid and Man. They do have the research here. We're talking with Ben Awigman from Nashville, Illinois. He's a field agronomist. He's been given tours all day, so talking to farmers. Ben, it says here that you actually found somebody that would marry you. - Yes. - Congratulations. - I tricked you into it. - Yeah. - It was great. It was insane. - Where'd you meet your wife? - It was a Fourth of July party at a local watering hole, and got the talking, and then here about a bar. A watering home bar. It's a little same, right? - A watering hole sounds better. - They're gonna make it sound good. - Yeah, yeah. Put more professional, maybe, if you will. I don't like to be professional, but you know. - But she's a farm girl? - She is a farm girl. I actually call her my trophy wife. I have a trophy wife and model daughter. Hopefully, sometimes that gives me brownie points, you know? - Well, believe me, I know this is radio. Not everybody can see, but I mean, I'm a super attractive than you. - Oh, highly, highly. Opposites attract, don't you know? You can damn it right now, you do. (laughing) - So, Shay grew up on a dairy farm, so she is not afraid of hard work. - No. - And her family is a dairy still running today? - Yup, yup. So her and her and her sister, and her dad and brother-in-law, they operate the dairy and grain farm, and then Shay actually has her own beef herd on the side, too. So needless to say, when I get down with my real job, I just go right to work again when I get home. But in all seriousness, it's a lot of fun out there. I enjoy helping them out in any way that I can. - So, she's full-time farming. - She's full-time farming. - Wow. - You're a power. - Yeah, believe me, I get it. - Yup. You have a hobby that, man, my wife has a horse, and I think that's horrible. - A couple planes about a mop. - At least she doesn't do tractor pulling. - Yeah, yeah. - How did you get into that? - Well, I think I was in about the sixth or seventh grade, and my grandpa had a super MTA farm-all, and we put her in first gear at the plow classes, and we went about half a mile back, and I thought it was fun. Well, not later involved into my uncle and cousins had a farm stock pulling tractor, and they got busy having kids, and they got married, and seven didn't have a lot of time for it, and me and my brother were in high school and college, and he offered it to us, so we started pulling it, and we've been pulling it ever since. So, it's a lot of fun. - Yeah, it's okay, we're doing a radio show. That's fine, no. But he wanted to say hi to you really bad. - Yeah, he did. - So, I miss it, what was a farm stock tractor? - So, it's a John Deere 60-30. - You know what? That is probably one of the most iconic tractors of all time. - It is. - That was the, it was after the 50-50, was it? - Yes, yeah. So, it would have been right after the 50-20, and so yeah, the 50-20 came out, then the 60-30 come out, had a turbocharger on it, a bigger fuel pump on it, few different things, so yeah. - So, for a little bit more money, you can go just a little bit faster. - Oh, heck yeah. And it's a lot more fun. As long as it stays together. If you ask my brother, he blew it up this year, it's a bad deal, but you know, we won't hold it against him only for this year. - It would be with him and not you, though. - 100%. Yup, that's right. - You know, people will watch me walk, and they say, "Are you hitching your giddy up?" You got a slight limp. What it is, is I grew up running the 60-30, and my left leg is so much stronger from pushing in that stupid clutch. (laughing) - So, do you walk in circles too, because one leg is stronger? - Pretty much. - Pretty much. - So, this, I mean, I don't know what farm stock is. It is like, does it even look like a 60-30? - So, it does look like a 60-30, yeah. But it'll have a roll bar. It doesn't have a roll cage. We don't wear a fire suit. We probably should. But anymore, you know, here's the problem with tractor pulling. Our class doesn't have rules. Things get out of hand. So, I referred to it as farm stock-ish now. - Okay, what did the judges say? - Well, they don't really say anything. They always welcome us back. So, apparently they like us. - So, are you out of commission that blew up? - Yeah, yeah. We broke a push draw in half this year. Second pull of the year. - Okay, I mean, is it the plan to just say, hey, that was a good run, or are you gonna rebuild? - Oh, we plan to rebuild. We're not quitters. - Do you guys tell the rebuilding yourself, or do you have to send it somewhere? - Yup, so, my dad, he likes to refer to himself as the main mechanic. I have as much time to mess around with tractor pulling as the boat I used to. But yeah, we pretty well do all the work. My dad and brother do majority of the work. And I just show up when I can, and try to act like I know what I'm doing. - Yeah, I'm surprised. I mean, your wife, she lets you, because I mean, she's dairy. - Yeah. - They never stop working. - That's right. - And you're fooling around with tractor pulling. - Yeah, that's why she's my trophy wife. Trophy wife, man. (laughing) - What kind of dairy do they have? Do they have one of those carousels, or? - No, this would be, I'm pretty sure it's a double 12. So it's a little bit older style parlor. I'm the traditional style. - Okay, do you like milk? - I love milk. - You have to say that, don't you? - Yeah, yeah. - What's funny is my wife, she doesn't even drink milk. But she works on a dairy farm. - When we raised hogs, I was done with pork. - Yeah. - I believe it. - I believe the pork chops are the best thing on the face of the earth. But when you eat them every single night, yeah. You get worn out, I get tired of them. - You needed a good steak every now and then. - Yeah. So are you working the other, a, a, a, a, a, a, a technology days? - So I worked here at Effingham here today, and then I will go to the technology days that Atlanta here in two weeks. - Okay, so that, that's a big one. - Yep, that's the big one. - So will you be giving 10 tours a day for three days? - So, so that one there, I'll actually be on our rotation. So me and my speaking partner, Chris Grimm from Iowa, we will be giving our long talks. We'll be giving those six times a day. - Okay, who's a better presenter? You were, would you say Chris? - Chris? - Yeah. - Well, there again, it depends. - I mean, he's not here right now. - He isn't. - I guess we'll find out. - See the guy that walked by and didn't care that we were doing a show. - Yeah, player do you tell, he, he's something else. I tell you, I hope he can hear us. (laughing) - What, seriously though, farmers, you generally, we talk to people like you when, when something's wrong, right? What do I need to know about where you're coming from? Because when you come, I'm angry, and something happened wrong. He was like from your side. - So, so for me, you know, the biggest thing for me is to look at, look at it from all angles. You know, the probably the other good part about my job is I don't have any financial tie to it. I don't have the emotion in it because I'm not looking at that field nearly as much as you. So I like to think a lot of times I have an unbiased opinion when I'm coming into things, and I might see things that maybe you don't see just because you're looking at it every day. I think outside the box, look at every parameter possible. But also when I come into a situation, I almost want to know the least amount possible. And then once I get there, I start asking questions, start putting those pieces of the puzzle together. - Yeah, generally when I have someone like you come out, I will lie to you so I don't look bad. Like if you could tell like the field was smoked, you know, I sprayed like, I don't know, Liberty on Roundup beans, right? I would tell you that, no, absolutely, I did not spray Liberty. - You know, the crazy thing about my job is it requires an agronomy degree. But a lot of times I think I should have been like a psychiatrist or like a investigator or something like that. - Bartender. - Bartender, yeah, yeah. That's my after hours job. - Are you on social media anywhere? - I am on social media. I am on Facebook, Twitter or X, and Instagram. - Well, what's your handle? - You put me on the spot, I don't really use it a lot. - You don't know your handle? - I do have a Facebook page for agronomy stuff. - See? - Okay. - Ben Wickman dash Beck's hybrids agronomists. - You spell Wickman wrong though. He's spelled with a I-E. - I-E-G? - E-B-W-I-E-G-M-A-N-N. - You got it, buddy. - This is a purplest N on there too. - All right. - Yep, it's deceiving. - Ben, I want to thank you for talking with us, especially after you've had a long day of running off the mouth, talking with farmers and that, and yet you decided to talk to us too. So thank you for that, really appreciate it. Ben, don't go anywhere, because Sean Haney's coming up next. You know him, right? - Yeah. (laughs) - Well, that's everybody next time. (upbeat music) ♪ You're beautiful, the next shaker ♪