The Farmer's Greatest Asset Podcast
The Farmer's Greatest Asset podcast is dedicated to supporting and empowering farmers by recognizing that their greatest assets are the knowledge, experience, mind and health. Hosted by husband-and-wife duo Jesse and Dr. Leah, this podcast combines their unique backgrounds to provide valuable insights. Together, they explore topics that help farmers thrive both personally and professionally. Tune in for a blend of practical advice, real conversations, while having a little fun along the way as they talk about all thing's agriculture and family.
The Farmer's Greatest Asset Podcast
Coffee on the Porch: Grain Bags & Better Halves
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Fall harvest is in full swing as we navigate recent rains and explore grain bagging as a cost-effective storage solution to avoid excessive commercial storage fees. We're implementing this method to circumvent the 24 cents per bushel plus monthly charges that significantly impact our already tight profit margins.
• Storage costs at local elevators have increased to 24 cents per bushel for the first three months plus 3-4 cents monthly thereafter
• Our 300-foot grain bags hold approximately 13,500 bushels each and can be filled in just 3-4 hours
• The grain bagger system increases harvest efficiency while providing flexible storage options
• Staggered planting dates this season have helped distribute our workload and made field operations more manageable
• Dr. Leah is becoming more comfortable with farm equipment operation including running the grain cart
• We're hosting friends for "Farm Camp" where they'll experience harvest firsthand and help with farm activities
• Farm spouses deserve more recognition for their crucial contributions during harvest season
• Our foliar applications of sugar and micronutrients may be contributing to slower bean maturity this year
Send us a message or suggestions for other topics at farmersgreatesasset@gmail.com or find us on social media at Farmer's Greatest Asset.
the farmer's greatest asset podcast. We believe the farm's greatest asset is the farmer, their knowledge, knowledge, experience, mind and health. Welcome to the podcast. I am Jesse.
Speaker 2And I'm Dr Leah.
Speaker 1Well, we are in the middle of fall. Fall is in full swing. Had a few rains so we've kind of taken it easy last weekend and haven't really got back into the field yet, but we are in full swing.
Speaker 2It was nice to rest. Was it nice for you to rest?
Speaker 1It was. It was nice to not have to run all weekend.
Speaker 2I needed that yeah, we've had a cold going through the house, so I know pretty much all of us needed it yeah, you couldn't.
Speaker 1I still could probably sing baritone today, still getting through it. But there have been a few people cut beans in the area and I know there's a few thinking about trying trying them again. So the rain kind of helped knock off the last of the leaves and kind of send them over the finish line.
Speaker 2So maybe plump them up a little bit.
Bagging Grain: A Cost-Efficient Solution
Speaker 1The rain was good for the beans. Our beans, however, just seem to be changing slower, which to me is fine because there's still a lot of green, a lot of yellow out there. So if there is, they're gonna, that seed's gonna absorb that moisture. So the rain was good. We had about an inch and a half out of three different rains. It was a good rain over the last week. It did give us a chance to move some dry corn out of the bin. So if anybody follows us on TikTok I don't know if I put a video on Facebook or not, but you've seen that we are bagging some corn. This year Might even bag some beans. We'll see how that goes. It's a new little adventure for us.
Speaker 2On the farm, something we are all experiencing together.
Speaker 1We're going to learn together.
Speaker 2It's an experience we're going to learn together. That's what it is.
Speaker 1So we have actually used a grain bagger in the past. We used it for high moisture corn for cattle and it worked really good. So here we are now. We're gonna try to bag some corn in the fall. So put dry corn in the bag. It should be dry corn coming.
Speaker 2It will be dry corn coming out so yeah, and I wouldn't say we're doing some, we're doing quite a bit, which is good, right, I mean when you. I don't know about other places, but the quote-unquote storage costs around here are significant. Um, I'm sure they are everywhere and even like the mill and ethanol. They do price later contracts and things like that. But to take it there, whatever they're calling it, it is what? 24 cents here now.
Speaker 1It's getting high. It's just like all the fertilizer and stuff, stuff's getting high. I mean it's out of hand. Let's be honest $1,000 ton fertilizer, what was? 32% nitrogen for something basically 800 anhydrous. I mean things are just high. So somewhere down the line something's going to have to change and that could be a whole nother discussion some other day.
Speaker 2Yeah, definitely.
Speaker 1So our solution is to bag our grain rather than take the storage hit, which would be 24 cents right off the top, or take the in season price.
Speaker 2Cause. After that it's like three, three, another.
Speaker 1It's 24 cents 24 cents for the first three months and then, depending where you're at, three or four cents I think it's three and a half or four depending where you're at and what crop it is.
Speaker 2A cent three to four cents per bushel per month after the first three so to get to markets, you're already like 28 to 30 cents to well, 28 to 36 cents, actually, right, which is it's an already tight margins so you scrape 30 cents, 35 cents right off the top.
The Logistics of Grain Bagging
Speaker 1That's a lot of money and it just so happens we don't have enough storage on the farm, so we have always taken some to town and stored it or marketed it ahead and hauled straight out of the field. But there again you got to have dry corn to haul out of the field. So if you don't haul dry corn into the elevator you take that hit on damage or drying cost. All that. To us this was a good alternative. To put it in a bag.
Speaker 2Just trying to be as cost efficient and production efficient as we can be.
Speaker 1Right.
Speaker 2To improve our family farming operation.
Speaker 1So we have heard that last year the bagger we used we rented it. Those guys said they have people down that do the wheat run like down through Texas all the way up through north. There are certain custom harvesters that won't pull into your field unless there is a bagger there because they go that quick and we have filled two bags of dry corn out of a bin and it'll eat everything you throw at it with our big grain cart. You open that grain cart wide open, throttle up and it just eats it. So I could see what they say it makes harvest efficient. So if you put the bag right there in the field where you're harvesting, I could see where it just goes quick.
Speaker 2It is time to get the bag hooked up and that type of thing. And that's a learning curve. We're learning that as well, but how has that been going?
Speaker 1It's fine. After you do a couple, it's okay. Okay, so we're just using 300-foot bags because we have talked to others that have done bags for a couple years now and they tried 500-footers. So a 500-foot bag will hold a lot of grain, but they're so heavy. Even the 300-foot bags that we are using are heavy.
Speaker 2So you have to have something else out there to help move it around.
Speaker 1Well, you can flop the box off of the pickup onto the ground and there's a winch on the bagger itself. So once you get it on the ground, it's not so bad. But you've got to get the box off the pickup opened up and then you've got to lay the whole thing out and then the winch will pick it up. But it's still a a process. Once everybody knows what's going on, it's not so bad. With three guys you could do it in 10 minutes or less. I bet. Once you know what you're doing, a 300 foot bag will hold 13 500 bushel plus. Uh, once you get the bag on, you can rock and roll for that amount of bushels, whatever it takes, and you can close the bag back up.
Speaker 2So you know like if you have a contract and it's 5,000 bushel, you can just open it up, get what you need out of it, or you have to use the whole bag at one time.
Speaker 1I plan on just cleaning the bag up Once we get into a bag, we just clean it up. I haven't asked that specific question. Somebody did ask me that though, yesterday, funny enough, um, and I have not asked. But to me I don't see how you would be able to pull that unloader out of there without screwing up the rest of the bag and being able to get it closed up tight to keep the critters out. The plan is, once we get to unloading the bags, to just clean up the bag once you start.
Speaker 2So that might be another bonus of just having a 300 foot bag that you don't have to sell such a large quantity at one time if you didn't want to. Right. Knowing those types of things and how much is in each bag will be helpful for marketing purposes as well, right?
Speaker 1So on our grain cart we have scales and then we have an app to track bushels so you can literally track if you use semis you can put it in a semi and then which where the destination is, and so you can track how many bushels that semi-hauled versus number two, number three, whatever, and then you can see where every bushel goes to. So we used it to track the bushels going into the bag. So I know we put 13,300 bushel in that first bag and it didn't take us but three, four hours to do it.
Speaker 2And that's between 15% and 16% moisture.
Speaker 1It was all 15%.
Speaker 2Right, so we know it coming out of there is good going to wherever we're taking it.
Speaker 1It goes into the bag at 15%. It comes out at 15%, right, I don't know. I was talking to Dad and somebody else yesterday and I said this may not be a long-term solution, but it is definitely going to work this year and it might just be our long-term solution for storage.
Speaker 2Well, when I figured out cost projections of putting up bins to cover how many bushel we need, of putting up bins to cover how many bushel we need, like it's like years of investment comparatively over renting a bagger and buying bags.
Farm Wives Deserve More Credit
Speaker 1Right, bins are expensive, very expensive. I like having the grain in a bin, then you can. So, specifically beans, like we want to try to rehydrate some beans if they get too dry. So that's why I like putting grain in a bin, so you can maybe manage it that way. But if you're in 13% beans, they say they're going to come out at 13%. So same with corn. So I guess we'll see how this goes. Again, if you follow me on TikTok, you saw that Dr Leah was out in the grain cart this last week or so she can do it. The whole point, I guess, was actually to get Lucy out there, which we still need to do again, and Lucy was out there and she did. She did okay. She was very worried that she was going to screw something up she's very much in resistance of getting into the grain cart she is.
Speaker 2I understand I have been there for years, but this year it was like, okay, I have you know, henry's going to be coming out. It's really more about how am I going to get the work done at home when I'm out here? That's really my big thing, and I think she feels that too.
Speaker 1So I actually bring that up about me putting it out there on TikTok, because probably one of the first comments was the farm wives don't get the credit they deserve. So I guess this is me publicly thanking you for everything that you do do, because it's true, the farm wives do so much around the farm and they deserve more credit than what they get. So thank you.
Speaker 2Thanks, honey, that's. Very nice.
Speaker 1I don't say it, so I guess this is also me telling the farmers if you have your farm wife out there, whatever she does for you, you need to thank her.
Speaker 2If you have a lunchbox packed thank her. Be thankful If you have groceries in the refrigerator or a meal when you come home. Thank her. Be thankful if you have groceries in the refrigerator or some a meal when you come home thank her because I will tell you, harvest time, there is a lot going on.
Speaker 2Getting to the grocery store, I'm I'm thankful that lucy can do a lot of grocery runs for us now. Even getting to the grocery store in the middle of trying to plan, you know, get my work done, that I need to get done and to plan getting a meal prepped and out to the field hot and then doing it again, like then getting it cleaned up and the laundry and getting it back out there and Lizzie playing volleyball, and it is the biggest juggle. And at this point in my life I'm really also trying to not just push through, because I have been trained to to put the patient first, or now the farm first, and so I'm really trying to retrain my brain to not just push through all the time. And I think it's been an uncomfortable, vulnerable time to really try and change myself in fall because in the past I have not enjoyed it and I want to be able to enjoy it.
Speaker 1Last year was probably the first year you said you enjoyed fall.
Speaker 2Yeah, and this year has been really good too. Oh, and what do we have going on this weekend?
Speaker 1Farm camp.
Farm Camp: Sharing Agriculture with Friends
Speaker 2Harvest camp 2025. My friend Anita and her husband, Paul are coming up from St Louis to visit and help on the farm. This is the second year that they're coming up. They came up last year and absolutely loved it, and I can tell you like I go into a total shame spiral like, oh, my house is the best. Oh, my God, I have weeds everywhere. I will tell you right now, I think it's worse this year than it was last year.
Speaker 1And I'm like I don't know what?
Speaker 2what are we gonna do? Because last year we canned pumpkin and we canned tomatoes and this year I'm just throwing everything in the freezer and gonna work on it later. We are going to work on lucy's chicken coop the chicken chicken and duck duck yeah, but I'm really looking forward to them coming up and they look forward to it. Last year we planned it. When they left, they were like we are coming up, we're here the first of August for your birthday. Yeah.
Speaker 1And they came back six weeks later to do what we're calling farm camp. Yeah, they loved it so much, paul got out there and he rode around in a grain cart and he ran the grain cart that whole day, pretty much right.
Speaker 2The whole day. He ran it by himself, gave Henry a break and Henry was super excited about that.
Speaker 1So then I gave him an opportunity to ride in the combine the next day and combine some corn. I'm sure he was like a little kid in a candy store. I mean seriously. I say all the time I say all the time it's big boys, big toys. Yeah, It'd be good to have them back again.
Speaker 2Yeah, and it's just sometimes it feels like an Island. I'm I'm sure everybody feels like that. This time of year too, it feels somewhat like an island and it's nice to have visitors even when it's busy. And there's like no expectations, right, like Anita is full on and Paul too they are full on, like we want to come and help.
Speaker 1He brought his coveralls last year. I forgot about that.
Speaker 2They're going to be hot this year.
Speaker 1He didn't actually wear them, but he wore them in that one first day. It was good and they're just. St Louis is only three hours from us, and then all around St Louis there's a lot of farm ground. But I guess the point is is they're they're not far away from a farm, but just are removed from farms and just understand anything. So they were just excited to see how things work and learn about what, what we do and why we do it.
Speaker 2yeah, and they I mean they dabble a little in farming. They've had chickens in their yard and they have an apiary.
Speaker 1Have some honey.
Speaker 2Yeah, so they've brought that's. That's exciting, and I would love to learn more about that at some point, but I do not need one more thing.
Speaker 1I guess my point was with farm camp I. I do like to educate people, especially when they are open and want to learn about it. It was kind of fun.
Speaker 2Yeah, so we're looking forward to that again this year. I know they're excited. Oh, and she did complete some triathlon out in Maryland. An Ironman Out in Maryland Like she's trying to hit every state and last year she was there and had.
Speaker 1It's pretty awesome that Anita does that Like good for you, anita, if you're listening, good job, that's awesome.
Speaker 2Yeah, she actually had an accident last year and broke her clavicle, so this was her redemption and she finished. I saw her post on Facebook and she was super triumphant about that. That's wonderful.
Speaker 1It is impressive.
Speaker 2She's been doing it for years, like since probably the last 10 years at least that she's been on this and still practicing as a OBGYN.
Speaker 1They've raised four kids.
Speaker 2Yeah, they're all college age or beyond. Joe got married just this summer their oldest I am just.
Speaker 1that's how impressive it is that she is still that busy in life and work and does it and trains for it, and it's impressive.
Speaker 2She is an impressive woman, so I am looking forward to just having some time with her and getting up and having some coffee by the fire in the morning and relaxing.
Speaker 1It's going to be a hot fire.
Speaker 2It's okay.
Speaker 1It's going to be hot this weekend we'll figure it out anyway.
Speaker 2So rolling into corn again today we got.
Harvest Strategy and Staggered Planting
Speaker 1I think we have 10 days before we get to any beans. Um, like I, ours just are not turning quite as fast. Why that is? We do plant full season as full a season as I possibly can. We've also done a lot of foliar passes with sugar and other foliar micros, so maybe that's making a difference. That is my hypothesis, so maybe it is doing what we were wanting it to do.
Speaker 2That would be amazing.
Speaker 1But I think we have 10 days before we get to cutting any beans, so we'll just keep plugging away at some corn, get some corn dried and moved home and then, when we get to beans, then we get those off and by the time we get back to corn it all should be dry, so we won't have to dry anything after that.
Speaker 2That would be great, that would be great, that would be great.
Speaker 1We honestly haven't dried a whole lot this year.
Speaker 2I think we've dried more this year than we did have to last year, though.
Speaker 1Last year everything got so dry so fast.
Speaker 2Things got really dry really fast this year too. But I don't know it's just, we got this rain. I don't know it's just, we have like we got this rain.
Speaker 1I don't think we got rain like this last year right and all of ours just just kind of has been sitting around there. 22. We had one field that was 19 out of the the little bit we've picked and I think that was just a fungicide timing thing. The fungicide didn't get on as soon as I wanted it to on that field. But everything else is just kind of sitting there at 22%, which is fine, good by me and which is also why we're just kind of plugging along slowly. It's only September 24th today. You don't have to have all the corn off before October.
Speaker 2So when our friends are here we can maybe end a little early in the day and like have time with them.
Speaker 1That's kind of how it's been rolling, yeah.
Speaker 2We're going to move up north.
Speaker 1So it's the furthest farm away from home, so it's going to take a little extra time. But yeah, it's kind of the plan. Like I said, I've just been plugging along because we have not picked corn for four or five days.
Speaker 2Right.
Speaker 1One because of the rain, and then we move some dry corn out of the bin. But then I'm like it's September 20th, like we don't have to dry all of the corn and be done with corn before October. That'd be cool, but we don't have to, and if we don't have to dry it, let's just plug along. I do want to get some off because I am worried about the earlier planted stuff stock quality. But at the moment ours is standing, but the early stuff.
Speaker 2Aren't we almost done with that? The?
Speaker 1earliest, except for one field, which is righted by the bins. So that was I left that because then we could just put a bag there of dry corn. And it's that field of all of our fields has always been the greenest, has always looked the healthiest, has looked the best. So that was another reason why I was just like well, we'll leave that till last and put it in a bag straight out of the field.
Speaker 2But yeah, we have three different plantings so we'll see how they go it'll be interesting not that we should ever like have that plan, but I think, having three different plantings, it's been interesting seeing them grow through the season and how they have been different and having that space between them made foliar feeding less, made all of our other applications easier to time out.
Speaker 2Right. So that's something I think we should keep in mind moving forward. That it's all very weather dependent for sure, but that type of spacing might be something we want to keep in mind as well.
Speaker 1And that all just kind of fell into place like it did, one because of weather and two it's. I was same kind of thing, Like we started April, I don't know 12th, 13th, 14th, planting beans and planting some corn, and it was all before Easter. And I was like, well, you don't have to have everything planted before Easter, which was early this year in April, where a lot of the neighbors around here did which is great, that's fine. But I told somebody, I said everybody's done and I still have two-thirds of my corn to go, and I said there's all be ready at the same time. That's fine, I'll just plug along on my corn and it'll all be spaced out.
Speaker 2So far that's kind of how it's played out I think it's something to, just you know, keep another factor to keep in the back of our, of our head.
Speaker 1There, like you said, it's all weather very weather dependent, right, because that could be one of those things where you just get rained out for two months and don't get back in until June. You know so it's just how farming goes, unfortunately.
Speaker 2Or fortunately.
Speaker 1Or fortunately.
Speaker 2I think that farmers are they like to roll with it, Right.
Speaker 1They have to.
Speaker 2Right, right, I mean that right. So the, the ones that are going to be in good mindset are are going to be the ones that are more, you know they like risk isn't as scary to them, right, um, because you have to be able to roll with it yeah, it's a gamble every day, better get get used to it.
Speaker 1So I guess I'm going to circle back and say my biggest takeaway today is thank your farm wife, no matter what she does for you, because I know you feel the stress and you don't feel thanked. So thank you. So all the farmers.
Speaker 2Thank you.
Speaker 1Appreciate what your wife does for you.
Speaker 2Thank you very much, honey, and I would say the same is true like I. Sometimes it feels like the farm takes over our life it does and we are so used to our husbands going out and doing a lot of work and it's almost like an expectation. I don't thank you enough either for all the work that you put into it. So thank you for being our visionary on the farm, thank you for being the hardest worker, and thank you for being you and open to all my crazy ideas.
Speaker 1There's a lot of crazy ideas that come out of the both of us. To be continued yep, with that being said, thank you for listening. Uh, go out and check us out on all of the socials at farmer's greatest asset send us a message we hearing from you. If it's just a comment, uh, or suggestions for other topics, you can email us at farmers greatest asset.
Speaker 2at gmailcom. It's a good day to have a great day. Bye.
