Live from Commodity Classic: The "Crunchy Agronomy" Crossover with Mary Pat Sass & Sean Nettleton

In this special episode of RhizometRX, recorded live at the 2026 Commodity Classic in San Antonio, Texas! Faith and Mary Pat Sass (co-host of the Beyond the Crops podcast, founder of Grounded Journals) join Sean Nettleton (host of The Crop Cast).

Together, the trio explores the fascinating parallels between human health and soil health—a concept they playfully dub "crunchy agronomy." They discuss how settling for "average" on a standard soil test is just like settling for "average" on a routine blood panel, and why feeding your crops unbalanced fertilizers is exactly like feeding a toddler Pop-Tarts: it just makes them want to graze for more snacks. Finally, Mary Pat shares the heart behind her business, Grounded Journals, and why physically documenting your farm's history and struggles is vital for future generations.

Meet the Guests:

Mary Pat Sass: Farm wife, content creator, co-host of the Beyond the Crops podcast, and founder of Grounded Journals—prompted memoirs designed specifically for farmers and ranchers.

Sean Nettleton: Host of The Crop Cast and BW Fusion Agronomist. A regular voice on RhizometRX, Sean is passionate about marrying regenerative practices with conventional agriculture.

In this episode, you’ll learn:

The "Crunchy Agronomy" Connection: How Mary Pat’s personal journey toward better health and whole foods mirrors the shift toward better soil health and balanced plant nutrition.

Average vs. Optimal: Why a standard soil test is like a basic trip to the doctor—it might tell you you're "average," but an Indicator soil test (like a comprehensive blood panel) tells you what you actually need to function at an optimal level.

The "Pop-Tart" Effect: Why crops fed a steady diet of unbalanced synthetics constantly "snack" and fail to build resilient health, drawing a direct parallel to the way humans react to heavily processed foods.

Regen Meets Conventional: Why you don't have to be an "all or nothing" farmer. Faith and Sean discuss how BW Fusion acts as a consulting bridge between regenerative ideals and the realities of conventional farming.

Documenting Your Farm’s Legacy: Mary Pat shares the inspiration behind Grounded Journals. The group discusses why writing down your seasonal practices, market challenges, and field changes is one of the greatest gifts you can leave for the next generation.

Resources & Links Mentioned:

Grounded Journals: groundedjournals.co (Prompted journals for farmers and ranchers)

Beyond the Crops Podcast: Hosted by Mary Pat Sass & Jenna Ochsner

The Crop Cast: Hosted by Sean Nettleton

X (Twitter): @FaithLois12\

After You Listen: 

• Subscribe to RhizoMetRx to stay updated on new episodes
• Share this episode with fellow growers, consultants, or agronomy professionals
• Join the conversation—send your questions, field observations, or feedback to infinityagsolutions@gmail.com.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:02

Soil fertility is no longer about applying more, it's about understanding more. Welcome to the Rhizometrics Podcast, or dirt meets data. I'm your host, Faith, a farmer's daughter, farm life, entrepreneur, and agronomist seeking a deeper understanding of what drives results for farms today. Each week, we dig deep beneath the soil surface to uncover the chemical, physical, and biological metrics that impact crop performance. We know farm profitability doesn't start at a spreadsheet, it starts at the root. So if you're ready to turn rootstone insights into actionable agronomy, challenge outdated assumptions, and explore how the rhythmosphere holds the key to farming for today, while building soil resilience for tomorrow, you're in the right place. This is Rhizometrics, where we turn roots into revenue. Let's dig in. Welcome back to the Rhizometrics podcast, as promised. I am bringing a first for me triple collaborative podcast between Beyond the Crops, which is hosted by Mary Pat Sass and Jenna Oxter, two of my great friends, joined by, actually hosted by Sean Nettleton of the Cropcast and yours truly. We collaborated on this podcast at the 2026 Commodity Classic in San Antonio. The conversation stems around human health, soil health, crop health, and how they are all seemingly unrelated, but how we can start to view them similarly because as it turns out, they actually are not all that unrelated. With that being said, again, this was a pre-recorded episode from the 2026 Commodity Classic. I hope you guys enjoy.

SPEAKER_03 2:06

All right. We're back to Commodity Classic. This is the first ever. I said this last night. Let me think about it.

SPEAKER_00 2:14

Don't say it how you said it last.

SPEAKER_03 2:16

The cleaner way of saying that this is the first time we've done, I don't know a better way to say it. We've done a three-way podcast with we've got the we've got Mary Pat from Beyond the Crops. Jenna couldn't make it, but Mary Pat's with us. I'm here. We got Faith. Faith's been on the podcast four times now. This will be number five. She's repping the Rhizometrics podcast. Podcast she started here this but first of the year.

SPEAKER_01 2:40

December.

SPEAKER_03 2:41

Yeah. And then obviously the crop cast. So we're just I'm excited. You know, because we're gonna talk, we're gonna talk about the things. All right. So we talked about this last night at dinner for those that are you know gonna listen to this whenever. We were trying to think of what we would talk about. I said people don't go back in history. So if they didn't hear, you know, something you guys have said the first time, it's like a clean slate. We just and and and let's talk about what we've learned this year. And uh like we gotta start it off with you know, something semi-crunchy. I'm showing you guys here.

SPEAKER_01 3:13

Do you want us to introduce ourselves for the people that don't know us, or just we're gonna roll?

SPEAKER_03 3:17

You'd think I'd you act like I've never done this before. Yeah. Absolutely, guys. Go ahead. Tell us about yourself.

SPEAKER_01 3:23

I'm Faith Pearson. I am an agronomist. I work with BW. I also have a seed business in the northern Illinois area. But my consulting business is now expanding to multiple states, which has been fun. Um, I work with the guys here at BW quite a bit. Um and yeah, I mean, I could go on, but I'm gonna go short. Love it.

SPEAKER_02 3:47

I'm Mary Pat Sass, and Faith and I are actually like best friends. So it's really fun to be able to do this with her. Um, I am a farm wife and mom from northern Illinois. We live just a little ways away from each other. And I am a content creator. So I create content about our farm and podcast and do that full time along with being on the farm and helping out.

SPEAKER_03 4:10

So let's talk about content creation for a little bit because I'm not good at it. And secondly, I feel like I watch your reels, right? On Facebook, is where I usually see your Okay. Facebook. You're old.

SPEAKER_02 4:22

Yeah, that is a that is aging yourself.

SPEAKER_03 4:25

That's right. So what is the okay, so let me let me say what I was gonna say, then we'll we'll unpack that. I want you folks to tell me what is the uh because I I think I have them all. I've got Facebook, I've got Instagram, I've got X, I have Snapchat, I have uh LinkedIn, and I also have um TikTok. So what's the I think you got them? What's the media of choice?

SPEAKER_02 4:52

I mean, my bread and butter is Instagram. It's where I spend the most time and where I have like the most connections, I guess, like the deepest connections with people. Uh but I also share like I cross post to TikTok and Facebook and a little bit on YouTube.

SPEAKER_03 5:08

So I gave up I gave up t I TikTok and uh Snapchat for Lent. And I don't know why I gave up Snapchat because I don't really use it much. But I do know that if you're young, if you you like you can't get a young person to text you, you message them on Snapchat and it's like you get an instant reply. So I'm I'm learning that. But the thing about Facebook is this I I watch your reels and they all, you know, they go across the top and and you click through, but and it it almost feels kind of creepy.

SPEAKER_04 5:35

What?

SPEAKER_03 5:36

I I don't know. I I just get this like if I like, if I hit the like button or the heart, does it I don't know. It just for me, maybe it's the age thing where I'm getting older, and I feel like if I'm liking something, I'm being a creep. Because likes and shares, and that's where the that's where the views come from.

SPEAKER_01 5:59

You mentioned I host a podcast, but um I will say from a content creation standpoint, like from you, even just you and Jenna sharing me on your stories, I pick up followers all the time, even though I have like two posts on Instagram.

SPEAKER_03 6:14

So my my wife the my wife loves Instagram and I get on it just to see the things that she shares with me, which are usually DIY projects or something to do with our chickens or whatever, you know. I don't really but I look at Instagram kind of like I used to look at uh well, Pinterest.

SPEAKER_04 6:33

Mm-hmm. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 6:34

It's kind of the I mean it's not the same, right? It's not boards, but but I would go to Pinterest if I had it, if I wanted or needed an idea for to do something, and I sort of feel like Instagram is is taking that spot, depending on how your algorithm you know gets into.

SPEAKER_01 6:48

Okay. I think we should dive into the to the meat and potatoes of what we're gonna talk about.

SPEAKER_02 6:52

Well I mean, we could start here a year ago. You had Jenna and I on Cropcast to kind of compare, like, I mean, we've kind of dubbed all of this like DW fusion, you know, crunchy agronomy.

SPEAKER_03 7:05

Yep, that's right.

SPEAKER_02 7:06

And we, Jenna and I have been, Jenna especially, has been on a journey to like bettering our health and making better decisions for our families because we all we both have young kids. And so we are kind of she's very crunchy. I'm more like crispy. Um we just we made some parallels between human health and crab health last year.

SPEAKER_03 7:27

We did. And I I think for me that is um I it's something I think about all the time. And I'll also tell you that I've and I think I might have said this before, feel like a poser at times because um there's certain things that that I do like that's not that's not what we should, you know. Last night we had you guys went to dinner with us, you know, and had a couple drinks.

SPEAKER_01 7:48

We didn't.

SPEAKER_03 7:49

You guys didn't. The rest of us had a couple drinks.

SPEAKER_01 7:53

Committed.

SPEAKER_03 7:54

And uh, you know, and I think about that all the time. It's it's and and I don't mind that. I've I've had a couple drinks since I was old enough to have a couple drinks. But but I'm kind of a I'm sort of a teetotaler, you know, uh in a sense that okay, I'm not gonna do all these other things if I'm not gonna stop doing this. And and that's the thing I wrestle with. It's like, okay, I want to commit to this, but until I stop having a couple drinks, you know?

SPEAKER_01 8:20

You're an all or nothing guy.

SPEAKER_03 8:21

I'm an all or nothing guy all the way. And I know that if if I turn that switch off and say, okay, I'm just not gonna drink anymore or whatever, then the other, you know, going, whether it's carnivore or doing things that are completely healthy, would come just naturally.

SPEAKER_01 8:36

It's true. So it isn't I I think though that's the the interesting part about where we're at in agriculture is and we do at as a whole at BW Fusion, I feel like we do a really good job of bridging the gap that you don't have to be all or nothing crunchy agronomy.

SPEAKER_03 8:57

Well, I think that's a hundred percent right because I I I talk about this at meetings all the time. I did the introduction for all the roadshows, and I and I talk about how what I think BW Fusion is, I think BW Fusion's a consulting company first. I think that's for me, that's big. Yes, we have products to sell, but our products come from what we learn by doing the consulting side of it. But secondly, I and I I talk about this all the time, I hate the silo effect that we have. You know, you've either got to be no-till or there's the guys who are walking around regenerative, and you gotta be regenerative, or you you you know, it's like you're you're not allowed to live in all the camps. And and and I think that applies to life. That people change, people have different ideas. You don't have to just fit into one thing or another. And I think that's a a huge piece because I think that's what we do is we marry these regenerative ideas with the conventional farming because you know, it's like everything else. This is the game in which we are all we have to play.

SPEAKER_04 9:54

Yep.

SPEAKER_03 9:55

You know, whether it's um it's not all about chasing yield, but at the same time it's about chasing yield. And you it doesn't mean that it doesn't mean you're in the chase where it's throw you just keeping throwing more money at the you know, this moron approach that we've often talked about. But at the end of the day, the way the the way the current the system is currently stacked up, you gotta grow bushels because you sell bushels and that's how you generate more income.

SPEAKER_01 10:22

Mary Pat, do you want to talk about how I guess you came here, or maybe like in a last year you shared after Brandon and I's meeting, like what what clicked for you or you know, why your farm connected with us or why we kind of went down this route. Sure.

SPEAKER_02 10:42

I think it's like like you were kind of explaining, it's challenging the way we've always done it because those are like the seven most is that the right? The way we've always done it. Whatever seven most expensive words in business is not making change. And I think the challenge to think about, okay, there's conventional agriculture and there's the way we've always done it, and there's like constantly new products, new modes of action, new things to try and solve the problems that we have. But like, is there a different way that we can be doing it? Is it does it all stem down to the base of your soil health? And I went to your meeting, it was like a winter meeting where you were talking through the different soil health soil tests in um what's what are they called again? What baseline indicator is that? Indicator, so there's just like so many more metrics, and like what you're looking at is incredibly uh, I guess, in depth versus a regular soil test. And once I saw that and you guys presented on it, it was like, man, I can't even look at a normal soil test anymore. And I feel like we're just wasting our money if we're doing a typical soil test. So this year we added, you can, I mean, we added several acres, several fields into the baseline RX program with Faith to learn more and to figure out what we can do, what incremental things can we do to get to that, like higher yield. Maybe we're lowering input costs, but we're we're trying to manage in a way that we never have before.

SPEAKER_03 12:07

I think that's really cool. Uh that you guys have have dove into it. I I tell Faith this all the time, and Jason and I talk about this all the time, but that the passion that Faith has for baseline is is is second to none. I mean, there's there's we've got lots of really good service providers that we work with that that do that do baseline. They all do a great job, but I mean she lives it, eats it, breathes it. I I would imagine that uh um is that what you and Trent talk about most of the time? Is your soul test?

SPEAKER_02 12:36

No, actually not really at all. He just says, here you go, here you go, do it, right? It's really blessed to have her because he doesn't have to worry about it. That's right. And so are we.

SPEAKER_03 12:44

But it's you know, I I say this all the time. That the the thing about that, uh and I'm with you, I cannot I can't tell you the last time I looked at a standard tool thing.

SPEAKER_00 12:54

Like you can't unsee it.

SPEAKER_03 12:56

But it's it's like I I we we talk about this all the time from the fact that you know, that soil test doesn't just tell you your nutrients, it tells you when to apply them, how to apply them. And people are like, what do you mean? I'm like, well, you look at a P saturation, you look at a K to Mag score, you look at these different things, that will tell us how we should apply our RK. It doesn't explicitly say, hey, use this type, you know, use this fertilizer or that fertilizer. That's a conversation. But the when, how, and the why is right there on one page. You know, that and and and and we don't tell people, well, if you're gonna work with us, you got to change your equipment, what you can do. No, it's logistics plays. But if you look across the farm and you look at all these acres and you're seeing the similar trend that says maybe we need to apply phosphorus differently than we've been applying phosphorus. We talk about K all the time. Potash is the is the is the wild one that, especially as you get into better soils, is probably misapplied 90% of the time.

SPEAKER_01 13:56

It's so crazy looking at so I have currently have consulting customers in four different states, but it's really cool to look at all of your soil tests from different areas and actually be able to pinpoint from the soil test where and why those soils act the way they do. So, for example, I have some customers in Nebraska, their Ketamags are the complete opposite of what they are for us in our like in Illinois where we farm. And the light bulbs just go off. They go off for the growers, they go off for the for me all the time. And it's being able to take a soil test. Okay, so I was listening to a podcast the other day and I can't even remember which one it was, but I'm gonna hijack this from there. Can you look at a soil test traditionally and say, can you tell me what this field is going to yield? No, no, no, no one can, right? Because you can have them all over the board. And so then why are we using those to make determinations of how a field is going to yield? And the secret is is that there's no secret because we shouldn't do that. But looking at your soils in a different way, whether you want to be all in or not, I think we need to remove that mentality from agriculture just like we can remove it from like a ho your household, right? You don't have to be all or nothing. You can help me out. You just did a whole podcast.

SPEAKER_02 15:31

It reminds me of if we're relating it back to human health. I like for the first time in my life got comprehensive blood work done this this year. And a regular soil test would be like going to your regular GP and getting blood tests and saying, Oh yeah, you're average. You're in the average ranges, you're totally fine. But I went to a doctor that didn't settle for average. And it was like, actually, if you want to be feeling good, this is where your levels should be.

SPEAKER_04 15:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 15:56

And this is how we can get them there. And within like weeks, I was feeling incredible. And it made me think like, oh yeah, actually, are we giving our crops what they actually need to feel incredible? Or are we band-aiding things and wasting money, honestly, in so many different areas that we could be putting our input dollars into something that'll give us a better ROI?

SPEAKER_03 16:19

I think that's huge. And and I man, that the the the the they track together so very well because you know, I was telling you guys before we started what my daughter was being taught today by the local health department at third-grade school, you know, that diet pop was okay. This is the the health department, that's a government entity telling us the telling the kids in third grade that diet pop's okay, but watch the sodium. Sodium's not the only bad thing that's in health. And in fact, I think that and sodium, in my opinion, is not that bad. You want hydration, what do you put in your water? Why we put sea salt in our water at home all the time. You know, if you're if you're a marathon runner, they literally give them packets of salt and they eat salt while they're running because what retains your water. Um the health department ladies said that it's okay to eat Pop Tarts because of all the bulk vitamins that are in there. There's probably there's probably more sugar in one Pop Tart than than our grandparents probably ate in a month.

SPEAKER_02 17:18

But don't don't drink whole milk because of the fat.

SPEAKER_03 17:21

That was the one. Don't drink whole milk because of the fat. And uh don't use animal fats for cooking. I do everything in bacon. I eat every morning. If I'm home and I don't have an early morning meeting, my day starts with four eggs fried in bacon grease. Not really fried, like it's not like you know, it's not like a liquid, but that lube for that pay in bacon grease. And it's because it's fat. And we were talking last night. Um, it's Lent. Fish on Fridays. I cook all my fish and beef tallow that I rendered myself because of of, you know, I got a I went to went and did Faith's meeting last winter, and and the payment for the meeting was I got a 20-pound box of beef fat and I took it home and disclaimer we don't we we don't charge to do meetings. That was it was a prize and and rendered that down, and I cook my fish and beef tallow. Like we don't use vegetable oils and seed oils and things like that because um it's starting to sound like they're not great for us.

SPEAKER_01 18:21

And so there's another parallel there, right? Think about the way our grandparents did it when I was growing up. My grandma, I believe your grandma too, um they probably had on their stove a tub of some kind of animal fat that they cooked in, right? And at some point someone told us that that wasn't healthy. The way of the world today is honestly you can find and be information biased. Yeah. Any any way you want. You can you can say that this is bad for you, that is bad for you. Um, but until you have the metrics to back up either your health or your the health of your farm, they're just, you know, Mason, I'll give him a shout out. He talks about this all the time. Like you don't want to be an average. You are your own farm, you are your own person. You don't want to function like average, right? No people at this show don't want to function like average, right? They invested time and money to come here to learn, to talk to experts. Um and they don't want to function like average either. And so there's a lot of parallels that can be made too. I mean, there's things that once upon a time we did, right? Like the advent of fertilizer, dry fertilizer, spreading more. We had other things, you know, I don't want to give away all of our secrets, but we had other things that we were doing at the same time where they had and made the product that you applied to react a certain way in the soil because you had components that would make it go. We had different crop rotations, a lot of us had manures, we had livestock. The makeup of our soil was different and it functioned different. But then the further we got away from that, just like the further we got away from animal fats and and went to some other, you know, things in cooking or in even in your house, and the sake for the sake of convenience, basically, the further away we actually got from going where we wanted to go.

SPEAKER_03 20:28

I always think about it from I always think like if I could go back in time, what would I like to see? There's a lot of things I like to see. Or in San Antonio, I'd kind of like to been at the Alamo and seen what that was like, but uh after going on touring that. But but on a more serious note, I think about like what you just said. I always think about what it would have been like to take some of today's technology and go back 50 years. Take the seed that we have today with its yield potential and go back to your grandparents, you know, like you said about your grandparents when guys were running when they had manure. I mean, there's obviously it's manure now, right? You see the benefits of that. But go back to when people were plowing under alfalfa and doing the things that we did, green manures and stuff like that, and see what yield levels would be like back then, right? And and at the end of the day, I think, you know, I always talk about what BW fusion is and what it means to me. What we're trying to do now is we're still using synthetic fertilizer. We're not anti-synthetic fertilizer. We it's still a must, it's still a need. If you need it, you have to apply something. But what we're trying to do, when you're trying to build carbon in the system, you're trying to build the soil health in the system, you're trying to make synthetic nutrients act like manure. That's essentially what we're doing with the carbon side. We're building the carbon in the soil so that when you apply a synthetic nutrient and them and they get together, it's more like a manure apply application than a than a straight synthetic. That's that's how I think about that.

SPEAKER_01 22:02

Makes sense to me. But as uh Mary Patty could probably talk to this. I don't have children yet, but from a perspective of a mom. I mean, you just said it before, right? The school's teaching your kids you can get vitamins from Pop Tarts. Well, that doesn't mean it's the best place to get vitamins. Like you don't want to feed your kids Pop Tarts.

SPEAKER_02 22:21

No. No, that's why I bought a freeze dryer so I could make them f fruit to eat instead of fruit snacks or whatever else is convenient for them. I mean, it's a little less convenient for me, but when I think about what they're actually getting out of their food, it's very important to me that they're getting a lot of good nutrients out of it.

SPEAKER_03 22:39

I'd love to have we talked about that last night too. I'd love to have a freeze dryer. They're expensive, but I think you're exactly right. I think that's it. You take the time, you dry, you freeze-dry that fruit, you have fruit snacks. And the kids will like them. You know. Um So I'm gonna circle this back to your content creation then because I think it's so important that, you know, we have to I I always say this too, that we have to challenge the narrative. You know, uh, I think I know we talked about this last time. You know, it's it's imperative that what you know you put your life out there, and I think that's I think that's I don't know how you do it, you know, to take the time to do it. But at the same time, we have to take back the take back the messaging of what we're teaching our kids, you know, um, that pop-tarts are good for you in third grade. Like, come on, you know. Um we like agriculture definitely has, in my opinion, has an education issue. There's all kinds of plays to get education. That's I mean, we used to say that it used to be a tagline like we used to see it in the videos, BW Fusion is an education company. And I hated that because I felt like that's a it was sort of a negative connotation that we know something and and you don't, and we're we're gonna teach you. So I don't I don't love it from that perspective, but people need to see that there's a different way. And I think it's doing stuff like what you're doing that can help with that to show what truly is healthy. And and that's not it's you know, I think some people think, well, it's an anti-ag approach because if you tell me that that high fructose corn syrup's bad, well then that's something else that or corn doesn't get used for, or you know, seed oils are bad. So the guy that grows canola or soybean oil or soybeans or whatever, well, that's losing a market. But I think that we're constantly in a transition, right?

SPEAKER_02 24:28

We're constantly learning.

SPEAKER_03 24:29

We're constantly learning. And I think that's what we need to focus on is is like I still think Agat has a PR problem. Yeah. A big PR problem. Because you know, you look at the uh you look at the reaction people online when when when when the president talks about, you know, we've got to pay our farmers, you know, prices are down, all that, you get these these payments. It's a it's a PR problem. That we don't we still we're still not equating what you're doing on the farm to food in the in the right way. Yeah. And I think that there's a huge opportunity for people do that do like what you guys do, uh to continue to share that story that there's a better way of eating and a better way of, you know, capturing the nutrients that we need.

SPEAKER_02 25:19

Yeah. I th I think when you were talking about like educating, I started off on social media as an educator too, and it wasn't I didn't feel good in that position.

SPEAKER_04 25:29

Right.

SPEAKER_02 25:29

And I shifted, I don't know how long ago, but I shifted to storytelling because I can only share my experience. I can't share what the farmer down the road or, you know, on some other state how it is for them, but I can share what has happened through me or to me through storytelling. And in agriculture, if we aren't telling our story, someone else will, and they usually get it wrong. So we have to be, you know, sharing what we're doing. And it's it's sometimes these little moves, you know, we we don't want to rely on chemicals and stuff. So, like, what can we do to make our farm better for the future? And I I do agree with you on like policy and stuff and not connecting to the consumer because we have a very cheap food supply in America, and the consumer does not understand that. I the average consumer does not understand that.

SPEAKER_03 26:21

Because they see their grocery bill and you know it's like, well, that's expensive. But at the same time, it's cheaper than anywhere else in the world. Because we we can't see it from that lens, right? You I don't I don't know what somebody in France pays for a pound of hamburger, right? I I don't. But they that's what that's what we we know that and then that's the policy, is is is cheap food, which is great. Cheap food doesn't have to be bad food. And so we're not talking about, yeah, if you want, if you want, you know, I I buy my beef from my brother-in-law and a good friend. They raise, they raise, you know, so many head a year, and and it's it's butcher beef, right? It's different than what you go at the grocery store and buy. I promise you it's different. Um just because you pay more at the grocery store doesn't mean food is expensive. It's expensive for for us, but in the grand scheme of things, of other things we buy, it's not.

SPEAKER_01 27:20

Yeah, but look at how much we spend on health care.

SPEAKER_03 27:22

That's right. And we yeah, we've talked about this. I mean, i if we if we eat better, our health care costs go down. And so we make that money back, right? It's not a it's the way the way I think the way that we eat as a whole now and as a country or as a people, we spend it both ways.

SPEAKER_04 27:40

Yep.

SPEAKER_03 27:40

There's a give and take, and we can get some of that back if we if we do, you know. And I I I don't have that figured out. Like I said, there's things I've got to change before I feel like a lot of that would kick in, but but that's the these are the things that we've got to strive for. And I think it's I think it's on ag as I think ag should be leading this healthy charge. I really do.

SPEAKER_01 28:01

And I think that lends itself to what you do not only just as a farm life, but like what you truly enjoy, right? Like you enjoy fueling your family to feel good. That's a lot of what you share online. And I think if people took that same approach to fueling their plants, we wouldn't have to depend on the plant healthcare industry as much.

SPEAKER_03 28:29

I think that's the transition, that's the exact transition I was looking for too, is you know, we th you and I talk about this a lot. The just the connection. People, plants, animals were no different. And and you know, if if if somebody doesn't want, you know, we say hormones and all the different things that you could put in a cow, right? People they rail against that. Well, let's not do the same thing to her. You can put it in your plants too. Do we put it in our plants too? Um is it can we feed the plants better and get more from it? Can we use less and get more? I think that's just I think those are so paralleled into us and what we're doing.

SPEAKER_01 29:08

And I think you I mean, Mary Pat, you should share, you know, from uh a farm wife's perspective of like why I guess I mean you guys invest a lot of time with your family, and I think what you guys do is is unique in how long it's been going on. I think the way that you do it is also unique. But I think as a whole, if we could do more of that like what you do, not saying that, you know, the wives have to stay home, but not saying it all, but if we approach it, if we approach our soils the same way that you approach feeding your family.

SPEAKER_02 29:45

Yeah. Yeah, I think and it's evolved over the years, like just the convenience part is not as important to me as what we're getting out of it, what my family is getting out of it. And trust me, like we're not perfect. There's still fruit snacks in my pantry. Like mine too. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 30:03

But they're the ones with no artificial dyes and you know, so they're not as appealing to look at because they're not bright and colorful like like the the cheaper ones are.

SPEAKER_02 30:12

Yeah. Yeah, but it's super important to me. And I mean, we just overall feel better when we're fueling our bodies with good whole foods as often as we can. And, you know, the more you show your kids by example and prepare foods for them that aren't out of a package, the more they want them. I think it takes time though, because my daughter is four and she is still, I struggle with her. I think it they can go in phases, but like my son will sit down and eat a whole steak.

SPEAKER_04 30:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 30:39

So grocery bill is not getting cheaper, but he's growing and that's and healthy and that's the important part.

SPEAKER_01 30:45

Yeah, but the wheels that all this turns in my head, right? So when you're when Hank sits down, maybe I shouldn't have mentioned his name, but that's okay. It doesn't matter. When your son sits down to eat a steak, what doesn't he do after he eats a steak? Snack. He asks for doesn't ask for a snack. Well, if you thought about feeding your plants a diet where they weren't constantly wanting to consume because they were looking for something they don't have available to them, they wouldn't be looking for a snack either. Yeah. And you can get by on less. Ooh, I have a good story. Go for it.

SPEAKER_02 31:20

Not actually that good, but okay. I am a recovering candy holic. I still like candy.

SPEAKER_03 31:26

Me too, but for sure.

SPEAKER_02 31:27

But like the gross kind. So I was like a circus peanut lover. Okay.

SPEAKER_03 31:31

Nobody eats those are those are for packaging in a box and shipping something somewhere else.

SPEAKER_02 31:36

The best way to eat a circus peanut is if you open the bag and let them get a little bit stale, and then the texture is like perfect. Anyway, so I used to be like a huge fanatic. And for Valentine's Day, my husband got me like the huge bag that you get at Farm and Fleet. Right. But we've been on this train of like no dyes, which they have a lot of dye in them, and just overall eating better. So like my candy now is like a piece of dark chocolate with caramel in the middle. But uh anyway, that bag has been sitting in our pantry since Valentine's Day, unopened, because I'm not gonna eat them. I love him and I love that he thought of me to get those for me. But like our kids aren't eating them. He's not even eating them. And it's just like it's there. We could, and it's tempting, but like still haven't cracked it open because we were far enough on this journey to know that that's not the way I want to go.

SPEAKER_03 32:22

Well, and I think that like we talk, we talk about this a lot. You know, we've got four kids, and we talk, you know, my kids are I've got four of them, you know, three to nine, and life's busy and they're a lot, you know, kids are a lot, you know. The more of them you have, the more they are. And they graze, you know.

SPEAKER_05 32:38

Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_03 32:39

And so that's I think that's the hardest part about like you say, your son will sit down and eat a steak. My kids like to eat steak, but come come supper time, eh, you know, they they they nibble because they've they got them from school and they had a snack. Yeah. And they graze and they graze and they graze. And, you know, we've got a fridge. Our fridge is is my wife hates it, but our fridge went out and we went to the store and and and she got over sh fridge shopping in about two and a half minutes. But it's the top's a fridge, and the bottom can be a fridge or a freezer. So this side's a fridge, and this side's the freezer. You've got a fridge and the garage and a deep fridge and all that. Well, that's the kids' fridge. The bottom one is theirs. Like that's where they go to get a snack. Now it's full of fruit um all the time. Fruit and cheese sticks and yogurts and stuff that's that's good for them. So they're eating decent stuff, but they're continuously eating decent stuff. You know, we'll bring home a package of strawberries. Package of strawberries is like nine or ten bucks now. Yeah. And my especially my my number three pork chop, he'll devour a package of strawberries in in a in an hour or two if you if you let him. And he's he'll go to the fridge, you know, grab one, you know, go back and do what he's doing, he'll eat that one, and you'll see him again, and you'll grab him another one. And he eats them one at a time and just walks back and forth to the fridge, but they graze all the time. Yeah. And so it's hard to get him to sit down and eat a regular meal.

SPEAKER_01 34:08

Oh, yeah, it takes a lot of persuasion. So your story reminded me of a story I have with a customer that we've been managing his fields differently for four years now. And like a snack drawer, we had designed his fertility program to make a fertigation pass in season. But then when we monitored it, like we didn't actually need it. So it's like the pantry was full in the sense that we could have used it if we had to, but we had eaten enough steaks up to that point that we didn't need it. So actually we ended up watering it down so it could overwinter not salt out. But the parallels are they're crazy, yeah, it really is.

SPEAKER_03 34:52

And when you start to it, and I think that's the thing is when you look for them, you see them. You know, you may not you know, you could have 50 people, 500 people, 200 people come to one of our meetings, and you know, you you've been there, you know, been to Roadshow. We just did a roadshow six, you were six hours into the day before you heard a product. Yeah. You know, and so it's it's talking about ways to be more efficient, and we spend all that time doing it. And then, okay, this is where these products come in, is to try to help that be more efficient. And, you know, I feel like we need more of that. It's I still hate the word education, but that's that is essentially is what it is, is is we learn and and you know, we learn more from you guys than what you learn from us. It may not seem that way because we're up on the ones up on stage presenting all that stuff, but where does that information come from? It comes from working with people that work with us. That's you guys are kind of our our RD to some extent. And I don't mean that, hey, we're gonna sell you this and we don't know if it works or not, but but the data, the soils, the tissues, the things that you guys are doing is helping us all learn. I I think that there is uh, you know, I don't think this is that bold of a statement, but I feel like we uh like we I really feel like we're a year or two away from having so much, you know, as as we compile the information that we're collecting, that I think we're gonna blow university education out of the water. I really feel that way. And the understanding plant nutrients and soils and and how nutrient release works and happens, I think we're so close to But we still have a long way to go. Yeah, and it it it but when I say that, I don't mean like, okay, here's the end, we've got it figured out. My goodness, we'll never have anything figured out. Just like it's no different than trying to understand, you know, our diets and how to change and how to, you know, like you talked about a comprehensive blood test that tells you all these different things. Well, that then becomes a process of learning what triggers this and what triggers that and and and how to manage that. That's that'll take forever.

SPEAKER_02 36:56

I was gonna oh sorry.

SPEAKER_01 36:57

I want to ask you a question. Hopefully, this is where you're going. You've talked a lot about, right? You can't change, like we're not gonna, I say it like this, you're not gonna turn a cruise ship on a dime. So if you've farmed a certain way for so long, it's not, it's not wrong by any stretch of the imagination. It is what we did that we knew worked for us. And so you've made parallels before of, right, you got your comprehensive blood test, but then you have to make and implement changes, but it can also take a little while to see results when you do implement changes. And I think as agriculture as a whole, whether it's what we eat, some people, right, they eat a salad and at dinner and they're like, well, I should feel better, but I don't. So no more salads. We look at again, we can use products on a farm to help bridge a gap and supplement basically what your plant is your soil is not providing your plant, whether that's a fertility product, whether that's a biological product, sometimes it's an either product. But we didn't get here overnight, and I think we have to be we have to lend ourselves some grace, and we also have to be patient with the process. So I guess what would you say to people that don't want to be patient with the process with their health or with their farm?

SPEAKER_02 38:21

I think we as a society have lost our intentions, attention spans and have come to expect silver bullets. Like we just want one thing that'll fix all of our problems. And like our own personal physical health is a roller coaster. Like you're gonna have good times and some times where you gotta adjust something. And I think that's the same with crop production. And it's like we said, we've uh I guess conventional agriculture has continued to find ways to put band-aids on problems and new innovations, which have been necessary and very important for where we are today. But I think it's a constant like understanding that there's gonna be hills and valleys. There's gonna be years where you're like, oh yeah, I got this figured out. And then the next year there could be just a change in your season or a change in whatever, you know, that throws you off a bit and you have to readjust. And having that mentality that like we're gonna constantly be readjusting and figuring this out, and we're actually probably never gonna have it fully figured out is a really healthy way to look at it.

SPEAKER_03 39:23

I actually love that. I think that ties back to, you know, you think about like the baseline tests, right? You're tweaking plans as you go. Tweaking always. Always tweaking it. Always tweaking. Well, next year you're gonna tweak that, you're gonna pull that sample two years, you're gonna tweak it again. You're gonna pull it two more years, you're gonna tweak it again. It will it will always be a moving target because as we maybe if as we wean off the the PPM mindset and we and we look at at nutrient cycling, well then new challenges will will come, right? It'll it'll it'll lead to, okay, well, we've got nutrient cycling here. Now what do we do about this, right? So we're you're constantly it's a snowball rolling down the hill, you know, it's just picking up as we go. And I think that's there is no one size fits all.

SPEAKER_01 40:12

There isn't. There isn't If you're still staring or glaring at the same deficiencies or inefficiencies that you have for years, whether it is your soil and your your yields or your health, like what do you do? Right? If you take a supplement and you've been taking it, you're you're consistent, you're committed, and then it doesn't work, what do we do? We pivot.

SPEAKER_04 40:34

Right?

SPEAKER_01 40:35

It's like, but we don't sometimes in agriculture we don't want to do that, unfortunately, or in agronomy because we feel like, well, this has to be the way. But I think Jenna put it really well last year is especially us as the upcoming decision makers in agriculture, like we have to accept the information that we have with an open hand and be willing to change. That's one thing I tell my customers, like, if this isn't or prospects or whoever I'm talking to, like you might not be there yet, and that's okay. There's nothing wrong with that, but like we're here and I'm here if there comes a time that you decide that I don't want to do it this way anymore.

SPEAKER_03 41:18

I I think it goes to so many other things too, is like, what is what is food? Like we talked about this last night too, right? Um and and it it it stuck out to me like I've watched water documentaries. And we talk I had Parker from Uptera yesterday. So we talked some about this, but but when I get something stuck in my head, it sticks in my head. And I've watched lots of water documentaries, all right, about like the wonderful company out in California. They make pistachios and you know We had some on the plane. The cuties and all those different things, right? And it's like, are we utilizing limited resources to grow something that we don't really need? So I got I got onto this, I read an article yesterday, I was sitting here waiting for a podcast to start, and I knew I was going to talk about water, and it was just somebody tweeted that we're talking about lettuce. Like, oh, lettuce in Arizona in the wintertime, and like 95% of the lettuce in the country comes from there in the wintertime. And it takes 40 gallons of water to grow ahead of lettuce, and that area gets less than three inches a year in rainfall, so it all has to be irrigated, that has to come from somewhere. Do we really need lettuce? Like, it's like I think that's a question in the future to like what actually is food? Do we need? Like, are we wasting resources growing something we don't need?

SPEAKER_01 42:35

We really need Pop-Tarts.

SPEAKER_03 42:36

But we need Pop Tarts. That's right. But it's like you start thinking about it like, well, do we have to eat lettuce? And I'm just that's just using that one thing as a as something that I can't get out of my brain. Yeah. But I've thought about almonds. Like almonds are the same way. I love almonds. I could eat a hand. You walked over the bag of almonds, I eat the whole bag today. It's probably my favorite nut. And you but you look at their water resources, what they used to grow an almond, and it's ridiculous. And it's a snack. It's not a it's not a necessity. And you just, I don't know, that's the way I think about all the things that we're to your point as we learn as we go, what that dynamic looks like 20 years from now, 30 years from now, 100 years from now, on on what we're doing. I know we're making soils better. I know we're making nutrients better, and whatever whatever we do need to grow, we'll do better. But I don't know. I just was trying to have that crystal ball and think for the future.

SPEAKER_01 43:28

I think that's, you know, I I'm not gonna talk about like any of your guys' specific data, but that's the other thing to implement this approach on your farm. It doesn't have to be all or nothing. You don't have to change everything immediately. A lot of times we're actually probably the amounts that we're gonna use are gonna be different. Could be more, could be less. But we want you to operate currently in the confines and what you do, and and you guys do have some cool data from this year, just like it didn't take that long to see a change. in the money that you spent just on a few fields and just disclaimer like the yield didn't go down. Yeah. It went the other way.

SPEAKER_03 44:10

Yeah, and I would say, you know, I and I I don't, you know, I haven't studied your stuff, but you guys didn't make drastic changes. I mean it's it's subtle things. It's timing and alignment and some of that sort of stuff. It's it's not like all these guys we've got to pull a band-aid off. We've got to use this, this, this, and this. It's not like that at all.

SPEAKER_02 44:26

Aaron Powell No, but it's definitely a different way of making decisions. You're making a more informed decision, which I think is important in human health too. You're instead of putting a band-aid on your issues, go to the root cause and figure out what is causing these symptoms and can I make a a change, even if it is a small one, to make a step in the right direction.

SPEAKER_03 44:48

That's great. Now I gotta I'm gonna pivot again because I'm sitting here thinking I've got I got content creator questions that I have to ask. So my way So like I said I've I watch a lot of your watch your reels and stuff. Does it make it harder to live in the moment?

SPEAKER_02 45:06

For me, no, because I'm never like editing in the moment. I guess I've found ways to capture like quick pieces and bits of our life that I find important or that like you know I think will be a good way to tell our story. Um but I don't think so. I guess it's a good challenge though to like check yourself.

SPEAKER_03 45:26

Sure.

SPEAKER_01 45:27

I think it's all about boundaries. It is I think you should also shamelessly plug your your business where maybe 10 years ago or 10 years from now or 20 years from now you can look back potentially on some of the stuff of when I when it started to change.

SPEAKER_03 45:44

So I think you should plug your like I've seen a little bit but I actually and it was not even a shameless plug. Please do because I I'd think that um I don't know my wife and I talk about this all the time um something something changed the other day and and she was paying for some storage and now she's looking for a bunch of photos. Like what do we do? And I think this is right you do like what do we do with plug yeah talk about what you missed talk about what you do.

SPEAKER_02 46:09

I mean I for as far as sharing on social media too part of it is to remember our story for our for ourselves but social media is a possibly temporary place to keep your memories. So in 2022 I launched a business called grounded journals they're prompted journals and memoirs for farmers and ranchers to keep their stories and throughout each crop season like I'm gonna pick on crop farmers because we're at commodity classic. So there's a section for planting growing harvest and then just like an overall check-in at the end of the year and it you can just write about what what change did you make this year, you know, and what kinds of new things did you try and what did you see and you know when did you start planning when did you finish all of that kind of stuff to look back on and remember your history and the changes on your farm and of course have a place for pictures too because I feel like a picture tells a thousand words. So yeah I it's been a very deep heart project for me because uh we actually um the grandma who inspired that business just passed away last weekend so it's just like bringing it full circle on why I started this because our memories aren't kept there unless we record them somewhere.

SPEAKER_03 47:19

Right. Actually that's I think that's really, really cool. I've got a it was I was looking around there was a young guy that was watching this a few minutes ago but his dad is a very good friend of mine. He's a few years older than me one of my best friends from back home and he has kept a journal I think that's maybe a lost thing but he's kept a journal he farms right and he's kept a journal every day for well as long as like I know he's got just stacks of like those composition notebooks of and and having I think that I I tell him I said that's your boys will cherish that someday.

SPEAKER_04 47:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 47:55

They will be able to go and grab you know times are you know times tough bad day whatever I'm gonna grab dad's journal from nineteen ninety seven and see what it was like today then, you know?

SPEAKER_01 48:06

Yep.

SPEAKER_03 48:06

And I think that's I think it's a really neat way of doing it.

SPEAKER_01 48:10

And it kind of ties in this morning we were actually out uh Commodity Classic has a a 30 year 30 years of commodity classic celebration wall by one of the entrances and it actually like loops through all of the years and that just reminded me kind of of that they're talking about what was pertinent you know in three sentences at the time and they had the crop prices and and uh standing there this morning looking at the wall it just reminded me like of the place we are in agriculture like we've been here before not maybe facing the same exact things but like we've been in low commodity markets before we've been faced to make hard decisions before and we also adapted to do that.

SPEAKER_03 48:50

That's you know if you're gonna put if you're gonna put you know this group of folks that are in this building in one word man it's resiliency. I mean resilient is the it's it's what it is. What else do we do, right? Mm-hmm the the need is there, you know everybody's resilient and and this too shall pass.

SPEAKER_01 49:11

Yep.

SPEAKER_03 49:12

What else guys?

SPEAKER_01 49:14

Did you say the name of your business and I missed it? Grounded journals. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 49:18

How do you find them?

SPEAKER_02 49:19

Uh groundedjournals dot co.

SPEAKER_03 49:21

See that that's the second dot co that's what what's with why why'd we lose the M I don't know the truth.

SPEAKER_02 49:26

Yeah because I was just starting my business and I was not ready to invest in what it would have cost to buy dot com. But I'm still like the first search when you look up on Google grounded journals.

SPEAKER_04 49:38

Cool.

SPEAKER_02 49:38

But yeah those journals are not like it would be hard and not picking on your friend but because I think it's really cool that he journals I think it's really good for your mental health journal like that. But um it's hard for them to go back and pinpoint exactly what they're looking for. But mine are like organized into like a concise summary for the year and you can quickly look through it and see those changes and get the highlights I guess is what I would say year to year.

SPEAKER_03 50:02

Like it's a paper book, right?

SPEAKER_02 50:04

Yeah. And I have actually early on a lot of people were like you should make this digital you should make it so that we can type it in on our phones and I'm like that kind of defeats the purpose for me actually I want that person's handwriting. I want to see like raw thoughts where they had to scratch something out. Like it just meant a lot more to me to have a paper copy.

SPEAKER_03 50:21

I think that's exactly it. My mom does it my mom has given me like different journals that like it's a book about whatever my childhood or whatever.

SPEAKER_01 50:30

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_03 50:30

Yep it's like a baby book for your farm it is it is sort of is and that's and I and I think that's I think that's something that's getting lost in this digital age. So I think that's that's awesome.

SPEAKER_01 50:42

But I think it is important and maybe to put a bow on it but I think as we look forward to the future of agriculture I think it's important to still preserve the way that we did it so that we continue to learn from the way that we did it. So when times are challenging and we think boy I really want to I really want to eat a Pop Tart circus peanuts. Yep I really want to need a Pot Tart that you can look back and say that didn't serve me. You know, maybe feel like garbage if I'm a human eating it but if you start on this journey with your farm to change the way that you I'm not even saying change the way you do agronomy just change the way that you think about doing agronomy and if you can look back and say oh yeah and remind yourself this is why we changed because corn was this price and inputs were this price, which you can put in the book.

SPEAKER_03 51:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 51:40

Yep.

SPEAKER_03 51:41

Awesome. Well we'll we'll do this again maybe next year. Yeah. But we but let's just continue this conversation because um keep doing what you're doing. Absolutely keep doing what you're doing. You guys are both sharing um a different story but the same story in a sense I I feel because I feel like you know you you you share your family story Faith you share your passion for for helping families like like Mary Pat's you know do more with less so keep doing that because thanks Sean I'm I enjoy watching I'm just a like you said I'm I guess I'm that creepy guy that's watching the reels at the end of hitting that like button.

SPEAKER_01 52:19

All right I'll I'll remember that so thanks for having us I appreciate you guys thank you thank you this was such a fun conversation appreciate it thanks for digging in with us today remember better data built better farms please like share and subscribe to receive notifications about new episodes launching every Thursday. To connect with me on social media visit Twitter or X at FaithLoist12. That's at FaithLoist L O I S the number one two. See you next time