SharkFarmerXM's podcast
Zach Hefty from Baltic, SD 9-6-24
- ♫ Unstoppable, unshakeable ♫ ♫ But it rolls off the town unfakeable ♫ ♫ It's unavoidable ♫ ♫ You saw a little bony between the lines ♫ ♫ Start to loosen up your mind ♫ - And we're walking by getting a shark farmer radio, hey! I'm your host Rob Sharkey, we're in the studio today just outside of Bradford, Illinois. Studio powered by a Bex hybrid. William and I have been putting up the old deer blind, haven't we, Will? - Yes, we have. - Yes, we've got creative on the way, 'cause you have to, you put up a deer blind, then you have to have steps or something to get up there. I wanted to do an elevator, but we don't have electricity. - Yeah, it's kind of downfall being in the woods. - Yeah, and then I'm on a Facebook marketplace and that's where we're at now. Do you think it's gonna work? - I know, I know it will work. - You know it will work. - 95% sure. - Yeah, the thing is huge. It's nine foot by 10 foot. It's bigger than the usual one because it had it fit specs for the farm progression, whatever. But where we have it, it will catch a straight north wind. So we're kind of paranoid about that. So that thing we have got locked down, tied down, we've drilled post for it, a sacriated a man. I would be very disappointed if that thing blew down. - Yeah, I would be too. - Yeah. All right, today we're going out to Baltic South Dakota. We're gonna be talking with Zach Hefty. How you doing, Zach? - Good, how are you guys doing? - I'm doing pretty good. You are the content creator there at Ag PhD, the old family business. How's that going? - Yeah, it's going good. Well, I have a, it's a really fun role that I'm in, but also my dad and uncle that are the stars of Ag PhD do not know much about social media. So I try to teach them all that I can do and get to try new stuff and see what works. - Your dad is Brian, uncle Darren, correct? - Yep. - Yeah. - Yeah, they're on social media, but they aren't real big on, they don't have to be. I mean, that's, they've just got that audience from the radio and TV. - Yeah, exactly. But then it also leads for an opening in social media. And so that's kind of where I took most of my role. I do a lot of other things. I work with farmers like they do and I also have been learning agronomy since I started last May. But the main focus I would say right now is doing a lot of content creation. So anything you see really on social media for Ag PhD is probably a big factor of me. - That's you doing it. All right, gotcha. Do you enjoy it? - Yeah, it's fun. I mean, you get, I mean, you understand when you post it on social media, you get a lot of not good comments. But at the same time, I mean, they're watching your stuff and commenting on it. So it must not be that bad. - I guess I've never had a bad comment on social media. Sounds like that would hurt your feelings. - Yeah, it might for some people, but it's good to be able to like see that. But I mean, there's, if you get some good comments, too, it's good, but we get lots of questions and about agronomy and stuff like that. So it's fun to answer those or to get my dad or uncle to answer those, too. And just for me to learn about what they're, what people are asking about. - So you grew up in the hefty household. You grew up as a little kid there around Ag PhD. Did you know that's what you always wanted to do is to come back to the family business? - No, actually. Not for, not probably till I was in college, to be honest. When I was younger, I was always like doing random jobs around, I guess, 'cause needed to do some sort of work in the summer. And then I went through and did a bunch of different roles, basically, that weren't agronomy focused when I was in high school. And then once I went to college, I don't even know why I went, just when I went to college, why I just picked agronomy, just because I didn't really know that much about it before I went to it in college. And then after my first couple of classes, I realized that it was awesome and that it was super fun. And one of the funny things was one of my first classes, we did, we were doing an assignment. First thing to do, watch Ag PhD and-- - Oh my gosh, did you just put your head down on a desk? - Yeah, people didn't know, well, they obviously didn't know that that was my family right away, but the teacher knew. And so it was funny. But then once people figured it out, it's like, oh my. - Yeah, you went to Morningwood University? - Morning side. - Oh, something like that. You played baseball, didn't you? - Yep. - What position? - I played outfield for all four years, which one of the years was COVID year, so. - Oh, well, you guys were six foot apart, so I guess that worked. - Yeah, now it feels fine, you're far away from everyone, anyway. - Yeah, were you any good? - I was decent, I was like, great, but I played in college, so that was good. Got a scholarship there. - Yeah, I'd say any time you get paid to go to college on sports, you've, there must be something to it. So you played all four years, you said? - Yep. - My gosh, is that hard to balance? I mean, I found it hard in college to balance studying and drinking. I couldn't imagine balancing and studying and like doing a sport. - Yeah, it was, it was hard. I mean, the sport was like, if you had a full-time job, like outside of school, so if people did, if people had a full-time job outside of school is probably similar to that, but you're gone all the time, especially in the spring, during the season. So yeah, it was hard. I mean, you had to really like plan out what you're gonna do, which not a lot of guys like to do or could do, where you're making sure you're getting your stuff done in order to like pass your classes and stuff, because if you couldn't pass your classes, it's one thing for the school, but you wouldn't be able to play because you wouldn't be eligible or your coach wouldn't be played. So you had to be decent at school as you wouldn't even be able to play baseball. - Yeah, absolutely. - You had more to be good at it, basically. - All right, we do gotta go to a break. We'll be back with Zach Hefty. ♪ A rule breaker ♪ ♪ Old society roll you 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) - I got a podcast for you to edit, William. - Oh, yay. - Yeah, interviewed the host of "Agra Talk," Chip Flory. - Yeah. - Oh, yeah, awesome. - You don't know who I'm talking about, do you? - I'll Google it before I edit it. - He's like the guy. He's like, if you're a media guy in agriculture, he's the guy. - Yeah, I don't have a lot of social media, I guess. - Oh, my gosh. - Yeah, I know. Now, he was pretty instrumental to your mom and I when we were getting started that too. So he does the pro crop tour, where they go out and they trespass on all the people's fields and then they steal the corn and soybeans. And yeah, they tell. - Sounds fun. - I have a little bit of never dewellian stuff. (laughing) Speaking of never dewells, today, we're talking with Zach F.T. from Baltic South Dakota. (laughing) Content creator at AgPhD. We're talking about him playing a baseball in college. So what'd you do after school then, Zach? - Last May, when I graduated, I came back to work here in Baltic full-time and my role has changed a bunch, I guess, from the beginning, right when I came back, I wasn't really making videos on social media yet. And so it kind of just has evolved into that as I started doing it and then it started getting more people following it and then more people and just kept growing. So then the role just kind of switched to mainly doing that right now. - Uh huh. I'm reading over all the notes you got, Emily, all the stuff you want to talk about. It seems like something's missing here. - What do you been up to the last few days? - Well, last Sunday, I got engaged to my girlfriend Faith and the last time that we talked, we talked about almost getting engaged, which that was over a year ago. - That's a long time ago, Zach. - It did happen, which it was really cool in it. It worked out great. We were down at Okaboji, which is a big lake or set of lakes in Iowa. And that's where her family likes to go. And so we were down at the end. We walked down to the end of the dock and then a half and it was great. - Uh huh, she said yes. - Yep, after I begged you. - Uh huh. What took you so long? - I don't know. I just thought it was, well, one, I had zero money because I just graduated college. So that was kind of part of it. - That never stops anybody. - That'd be very nice. (laughing) And, but-- - Did you think she would say no if you didn't get a big ring? Is that what, well, you were worried about that? - No, but if I was gonna do it once, I wanted it to be the best. - He hesitated a little bit. - He did hesitate, sounds like. Don't blame the delay, Zach. You hesitated a little bit there. That's fine. Now, did she come with acres? - Uh, no. - Oh, Zach. Gosh. (laughing) (sighing) Okay, all right. I mean, do you get any dowry at all? - Any what? - Any dowry? Hey, get some goats, some sheep, anything? - No, I don't, to be honest with you, the livestock thing is, I don't know if I'm like a huge fan, like of me personally caring for livestock. I just, I don't know. It's not like my thing, I guess. - It's not about that, Zach. It's about getting some assets to marry her. Don't tell me you're marrying for love. (laughing) - Yeah, it's mainly just that, to be honest. - Oh, gosh. - The part that you'll like is she really doesn't know much about agriculture at all. (laughing) - She's not gonna have a choice, is she? I can you imagine Thanksgiving, where she goes, what's the green stuff out in the field? - Yeah. - Yeah. (laughing) - Yeah, it's more of a four for July question. - Yeah, with all the people in there that wouldn't know everything about it. - All right, have you set a date? 'Cause I wanna get it on my calendar. - No, we haven't set a date yet, but we're looking at next summer. - Okay, all right, we just put up a new shed, if you wanna have it here. - Yeah, that's close to home. - Okay, well, I mean, sometimes people like to get it, but it's a destination wedding, Zach. - Oh, yeah, so your farm's like, I'm assuming lots of tourism around your farm. - You know, William, if I didn't know better, I would say that was with a hint of sarcasm. - Well, I mean, you asked the destination wedding in Illinois. - That's, okay, both of you, be quiet. (laughing) All right, now, congratulations. It was a nice post, very romantic there on the dock. - Again, I thought, you're a content creator, so you should have pushed her in after she said yes. - No, but you did come up with a great idea. I should've had a fake ring that I dropped in to the water because that would've probably been the craziest thing ever. (laughing) - That would've been funny. That, you would've really found out what kind of gal she was. (laughing) - Yeah, she, no, then she would probably have jumped in for it. - Yeah, if that, boy, I tell you what, having acres is first, but then having a gal that will jump into a lake after her ring. That's, it's a close second, I'll say that. (laughing) - This is, this is the most fun I've had on a show all the long time. (laughing) You, you're doing the content creating. Did you have to get your drone license to do all that stuff? - Yeah, that's like the only thing, basically, that I had to get, really, I mean, just getting my drone license 'cause they're cracking down pretty good if you're flying your drone, even though most of the places where I'm flying it, there's no one even miles away from it. But yeah, just to have, especially if you're like, for a company and not just like you, it's a lot more liability. So yeah, I was kind of forced to get it, but it's really not that hard. It's just kind of a weird process. - Yeah, you probably have a lot of eyes on you. And like, especially like the field day y'all have and someone sees a drone up there. You know, somebody just wants to tell on somebody. So that's probably a good idea. You went ahead and did it. Is it like an online thing? - No, you actually have to go in person. There's places like small, like tiny little airports around, someone will have little testing centers and you can go there and it's like a 60 question test that you have to take multiple choice. So it's really not that hard, but you have to go there and take it. - It's kind of like a hunter safety thing. It's more about the time than actually being smart. - Yeah, there's something that you would need to know, but they're not. I mean, if you look at them prior to taking the test, it's not too bad. - Yeah, there's our music, Zach. It's different than yours, isn't it? Does it feel awkward being on a show and different bumper music? - Yeah. - Okay, today we're talking with Zach Hefty from Baltic South Dakota. Their content is greater at egg PhD. We'll come back. Probably gonna talk more about his fiance. We'll be back. - All right, after the break. - 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) - Well, what do you think a property dowry is? - John, do you attract her? - That's eight. - Okay. - Barn. - At least 30 acres. - Ah, Will's laying it down. Now that's for the gal to give you, correct? - Yeah, yeah. - Okay, all right. It's time for America's favorite radio segment. We're in the world as Will. Will, what have you found for us today? - Well, today I'm in Baltic South Dakota, which is a city on the Big Sioux River in northern Minnehaha County. - Oh, that's fun. - The population was 1,246 at the 2020 census. Baltic was originally called Saint Olaf, and under the latter name was laid out in 1881. Olaf II of Norway, later known as Saint Olaf and Olaf the Holy, was king of Norway from 1015 to 1028. Son of Harold Grinsky. - It's not that long. - No, a petty king, invested, he was posthumously given the title Rex Perpetuous Norvigetay, which in English translates to Perpetual King of Norway. He was canonized at modern day Trondheim by Bishop Grimm-Katel, one year after his death in the Battle of Stinklestad on July 29th, 1030. - Oh, he was a fighting king, I respect that. - Right, his remains were enshrined in the knee daros cathedral built over his burial site, his same hood, in terms of- - Blood sharing these words. (laughing) - His same hood encouraged the widespread adoption of Christianity by Scandinavian Vikings and Norsemen. - Yeah. - So an important figure there. A post office was established in Baltic when it was called Saint Olaf in 1872. The name was changed to Keys in 1887 and again changed to Baltic in 1889. - Oh. - According to the United States census, the city has a total area of 0.76 square miles. - So it was probably about right, okay. I'll buy that. - 0.74 square miles is land and 0.02 square miles is water. - Oh, you're getting in the weeds today. (laughing) - Baltic River Park Days is a family friendly event that takes place the third weekend of July. The scenic river park is the backdrop for free movies in the park, kickball, tug-of-war beanbags, kids games, duck races, show and shine, and a grand parade. What is show and shine? - I don't know. Zach, what's show and shine? - I don't know. But it actually, it's called Dog Days. So I want to clarify that. - Right. Dog Day afternoon. - It's okay. Any notable people? - We got the governor of South Dakota from 1965 to 1969, Nils Bo, and the lieutenant governor of South Dakota from 1933 to 1935, Hans Ustrud. That's it. - Yeah, well, I'm Brian and Darren Hefti. - Right, yeah. - Yeah, thank you. Well, they're Norwegian, aren't they, Zach? Gail? - Yeah, we are. - Okay. Do you ever like want to board a ship and raid something? (laughing) - No, I haven't gotten the urge to do that yet. (laughing) You were on the root of it show that we taped there at your place in Baltic, and you have this thing where you do taste tests with energy drinks, explain that to me again, 'cause I don't remember the last time. - Yeah, we're gonna have to do that again. - No. - Basically, it was just a thing that I did in college before baseball games, 'cause pretty much everyone will drink energy drinks before college baseball games, 'cause you have two, well, it's double headers usually, so you're playing two games one day, and so there's like a million different energy drinks, and I didn't know that before, so then when we would go to the gas station before games to get a drink, there's like, the cooler stocked with so many different ones, so I was like, well, I should try a lot of these, and then it's right when I started getting into some social media stuff, and I'm like, I should just make a different energy drink review every single game, because all my friends drink different ones, and so I wanna know which one's the best. - Uh-huh, and then you dared me to shotgun one. What was a rock star, wasn't it? - Yeah, that actually didn't happen. I wanna clarify. You, there was no need to shotgun the energy drink, but that was taking upon Rob to do that, so I had to follow, obviously. - Yeah. - It was just a simple taste test, and it just got taken out of proportion. - Yeah, my heart exploded that day, thanks to you Zach. - Yeah, I like how it's thanks to me after he already had multiple shots of caffeine before it. - Oh, we stopped at scooters on the way to the studio, so I was, and then William, the thing is, when you shotgun an energy drink-- - I have, I shotgun to bang. - But, oh my gosh. - Yeah, during harvest. - That's even worse. - Oh, okay. Well, if you do it on air, then you're sitting there, and you're like, "I can't burp." So we had to stop the show, because we were both about to explode. Oh, mercy. Well Zach, what do you want people to know about what you're doing there at Ag PhD? - Well, the main thing that Ag PhD's always done, and I intend to do as well, is just help as many farmers as we can, not just sell them something. I mean, we don't sell anything at Ag PhD, and we're not out there just to sell stuff. It's what can make farmers the most money on their farm without having, I mean, you might have to spend some money to make money, but it's always about the ROI, return on investment that we like to talk about. And my dad's always the one that wants to get stuff done the cheapest, but also very good. So he's always talking about that on the show, and that's how, that's what we try to do, and all Ag PhD social media is bringing more information, agronomy information to farmers to help them on their operation. - Gotcha. So the whole thing of doing 17 trips of fungicide on your corn, that's maybe not necessary. (laughing) - No, 17 trips is not necessary. We do some trials with a bunch of different stuff. - It's really green. - It works. - Yeah. - Yeah, beautiful shade of green. - But we're also doing it for a lot of different reasons. So some of the stuff that we'll talk about, we just do because we wanna test it to then if farmers ask us what happens if you do this, then we try it to see what actually does happen. And also they think, I mean, then you can see if it pays or not to, and we're doing it all for silage too. So we're trying to keep a super green plant as long as we can. - Gotcha. Working people find you social media? - Yeah, so they can find me and social media at zach.heftd and then also on Ag PhD, which is Ag PhD media on TikTok, Instagram, Facebook for both mine and Ag PhD. - That's smart, you keep it all the same. That's thinking ahead there, Zach. Mine are all different. - Yeah. (laughing) And it's summer 'cause then you're like, oh, I know their name and then it's different. I'm still on everything. - Yeah. Zach Hefti, Baltic South Dakota content creator, Ag PhD. Zach, don't go anywhere. Sean Haney's coming up next. He's not a big fan of content creating. Are you told me that? So I don't know what he's got against you, but I hope you all work it out eventually. Zach, thank you very much. Everybody else, we'll catch you next time. ♪ Carrotty fool, carrotty ♪ ♪ Carrotty fool, the next shaker ♪