Episode 6: Amiee Burke

In this episode Tom Uthell interviews Amiee Burke about her history with Redox and a chemical product called RDXN!

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:06

Ben Wheatman, welcome to the show. You're the local Bex agronomist. That's right. That's right. Thanks for having me. Pleasure to have you on the show. We're going to talk about a lot of good things today, and we want to talk about any hot buttons that you have. But you know, there's a lot of talk out there now of uh as we go into 2026, a lot of talk about tight margins, right? Commodity prices aren't where we'd like them and inputs are high. And we just want to talk about talk with you about agronomy and what do we need to be focusing on here in the next 60 to 90 days? And what more importantly, maybe what what don't we need to be focusing on, right? What have we overfocused on? And what do we need to do to be efficient? Right? So that's the biggest key to I think what we're heading into as we're coming into buying inputs. Maybe some of them are bought and we can still change rates, obviously. Uh, but what do you see and what have you seen? How do you look at it? I know you have a vast knowledge uh, you know, with a U of I degree in agronomy, and and you've been with Bex now for several years. I'll let you tell a little bit about your story. So you've seen a lot of things that cover a large geography. So tell us a little bit about yourself.

SPEAKER_01 1:11

Right. Yeah. So I've oh, what's it been now? It's been close to six years now already that I've been here. It's kind of hard to believe. Um, but you know, pretty well covering I-70 and south. Go north, you know, up to Mattoon and over to Paris a little bit. But, you know, with going across that geography, you get to really fertile black ground, you get the sands along the rivers, but then obviously a majority of it's all of our wonderful tight clays that we get to deal with all the time. Um but you know, the beauty of dealing with that geography is you get to see a lot of different farming practices deal with a lot of different people. Um, but but what's interesting about that from what I find is the trends can all be very, very similar. Um and you're exactly right, Tom. I mean, right now, let's face it, let's call a spade a spade. It can kind of be somewhat of a scary time in grain farming just with how inputs are priced, um, commod or you know, commodity prices are low, different things like that. Um, so so you know, it's always a a big struggle, but at the end of the day, you look at the big picture deal, everyone's dealing with the same things. Um, you know, and I think you know, the some of the biggest things that we're dealing with is um, I guess nothing against big ag, but I'm gonna pick on big ag is, you know, big ag wants to look at, okay, what's gonna be best for them. And that comes with the fertilizer industry, um, you know, chemical, whatever it may be, seed, all that type of stuff. But if we think about, you know, fertilizer inputs, are we truly getting back what we invested? Is our return on investment truly there with what we're truly putting into to that acre of corn, soybeans, wheat, whatever it may be. And I I think that's probably one of the biggest hot buttons that I have year in and year out is you know, let's put our money where it belongs type deal.

SPEAKER_00 3:03

Well, I know a lot of people have talked over the years, you know, my soil is a bank, right? And and and I'll have it for years to come, right? I'll maybe apply plenty when it's uh cheap and we won't apply as much when it's high. But are we really getting everything? Let's say if we put, you know, whatever, over the years, right? Multiple hundreds of dollars per acre, is that still there, right? I I always compare it to a bank account. If I put$100,000 in the bank or$10,000 in the bank, what percentage of that nutrient is available? And I think that varies by the nutrient, right? I mean, nitrogen we know is probably going to be there long term. Yeah. We don't need to talk a whole lot about that. But let's talk about sulfur, let's talk about phosphorus, let's talk about potassium. Are those things really there? And what makes them available or not available? Yeah. And what do we need to do to help, I'll say, mineralize or how do we utilize what we've had in the past, how do we make them available? But most importantly, what percentage are we getting? I guess should we start there?

SPEAKER_01 4:00

Right. I I think that'd be a great place to start if we just call out some of the big ones, NP and K, and maybe let's start with K and B in potassium. Um, you know, when I was taking soils classes back in college, I had a soils professor by the name of Richard Mulvaney. Uh, and uh, you know, that's that's really what his life was. And and there's one thing I always remember probably the best from him is he he always would get up there and he'd be like, the soil is an ocean of K. But the problem is the only portion that's available is that small speed boat out in the middle of the ocean. And I'm like, wow, that really sticks. You know, and if you think about all the tons of potash that all of us farmers in the Corn Belt, America, wherever it may be, have applied to our acres, but then I ask, well, have we truly been able to build our potassium levels? And you know, I always think about some soil testing that you did a few years back where you took, you know, maybe you elaborate on it, where you took the same probe every, what was it, two weeks or so? Every seven days. Every seven days, three different spots of the field, two different labs. And I I'll never forget you showing me that and you plotted it on a map, and it was up and down.

SPEAKER_02 5:13

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 5:13

You know, it you you looked at it, and one day you were, you know, you had gobs of potash. The next week, boy, you needed to start bringing the barge in and start dumping it, you know.

SPEAKER_00 5:24

Yeah, I remember that, yes.

SPEAKER_01 5:26

Yeah, so so you know, you you think about those things, and uh, you know, I think it's no different than than phosphorus, too, you know, whether you're applying DAP, map, triple, whatever it may be, and and the biggest problem that I always say is we have an availability issue. We don't have a lack of getting tons applied. That's easy. Load up the spreader and go get it applied, but making it available to the crop is extremely difficult, but it's also dependent on the moisture, too, as you saw with with those soil tests that you were always taking there every week.

SPEAKER_00 6:01

So, did Richard talk about how many pounds of potassium there are in the top, let's say, top foot?

SPEAKER_01 6:07

Yeah, yeah, and I I would I I'm gonna be dating myself here to go back and exactly get that, but I mean, as far as the amount of potash that was in that top foot was more than what we would ever imagine needing for for a corn or soybean crop.

SPEAKER_00 6:23

Yeah, I had a lab agronomist tell me one time that there were 60,000 pounds. I was just curious if your number was gonna correl correlate with mine, but he was telling me 60,000 pounds in the top foot. So, you know, I'm taking him for his word. I can't obviously prove that. I don't know who can, but uh that's a lot of nutrient out there when we're thinking that 300, right? 200, 200, 250 to 300 is good on a soil test.

SPEAKER_01 6:44

Right. And you know, I think about, you know, if you would get into the finer details of some of that stuff, um, you know, I was researching some different uh potassium fertilizers there the other day. I I've been a big proponent of like potassium acetate, a liquid um potash product. And if you compare potassium acetate to our regular OO60, our regular dry potash, and if you look at the solubility or the availability of both of those products, it's night and day different. You know, but we don't hear enough about potassium acetate nearly as much as we do about dry potash. And I think it all comes back to, okay, where's the markets where where's the money at, let's say? You know, where where where's the big money at? So, you know, and and I but the other piece to that potassium piece is you think about a 200 or 220 bushel corn crop, you know, and where is that potash at in that plant? Is it in the grain? Is it in the stalks? Is it in the leaves? Where is it at? You know, and if we think about where that's at, 80% of that is all in the residue. We're only gonna remove 20% of it. You know, so let's just say, for example, that corn plant takes up 150 to 200 pounds of potassium every year. Well, 80% of 200, that's 160 pounds that we're gonna be putting back in there. You know? So do we really need to be going applying 200 pounds to get back where we are? Sounds like we need to replace 20%. Yeah. Right? Exactly. Based on your numbers. Exactly. So, you know, I think the big thing is, and and you know, do I am I a proponent of okay, we need to cut out all potash? Absolutely not.

SPEAKER_02 8:26

Right.

SPEAKER_01 8:27

But I think there's a lot of different ways that we can apply some other products to maybe help drive some available availability. The reality of it is, is there's a lot of farmers that we're dealing with today that have their own sprayer. Maybe they have their own fertilizer sprayer, maybe they have their own liquid applicator. So now all of a sudden they have the means to apply a lot of different products, as compared to you go 20 and 30 years ago, maybe that wasn't the case. You know, so I think that changes things, and as farmers grow, you know, how they can buy different products also changes as well, too.

SPEAKER_00 9:05

So talk a little bit about so you mentioned potash, so you mentioned dry. What percentage of that is actually available? I mean, I know it's an 0060, right? So it's 60% potash, but of that we've talked before about salt load. So what percentage of that product is actually salt? You may talk a little bit about how that interacts with soil and plant health. And you know, obviously we know salt and water are not necessarily always gonna, you know, jive real well or gonna interact with each other very well. Right. May talk to that a little bit.

SPEAKER_01 9:37

Yeah, so as as far as you know how much is gonna be available, say say we're let's just say, for example, we're applying 150 pounds of potash every every year, you know, whether it's maybe we're doing 150 in front of the corn, 100 in front of beans. Let's just say that for example. Um, the the thing I always like to say is an agronomist's favorite term is it depends, right? Right. So so how much is gonna become available is gonna depend on weather, moisture, stuff like that. Um, but you know, say say we're applying 100 pounds of potash, so you have 60 pounds of let's call it actual um potassium or 60 pounds O60. Um, you know, it's very possible that at the most that you may ever see for that first year or two could be 50%, less than 50%. It might be 20%. It's all gonna depend on moisture and clay content. We talk about clay fixation with potassium, that's a very big thing that ties all that stuff up. But moisture is gonna be one of those biggest things that's gonna drive that as well. But we think about regular O60 dry potash, it's potassium chloride, you know, so that's where we get a lot of salt load. I'll never forget when we were doing um a lot of strip till work when I was at school with Dr. Belo, and we were, you know, banding, I think it was like 180 pounds of dry potash, you know, basically right underneath the row. And uh if I if I remember correctly, we were seeing emergence delays, not necessarily from salt kill or salt load, but essentially what it was is we had such a high concentration of the salt below the seed, we were drawing moisture away from that seed. So essentially you had a dry environment, but underneath it is where all that moisture was getting sucked to because you had such a high salt load. It's like a wicking effect. Exactly, exactly. So it was drawing it away. So we saw delays, and at first we thought, well, it's salt kill. Well, then here the crop ended up coming up, you know, and it wasn't because of that, it was just we had to get so much moisture right there to get it emerge, just because we like you said, it was a wicking effect drawing it away.

SPEAKER_00 11:50

So overall, when you think about it and you broadcast, you know, if if you're broadcasting dry uh potash, you know, there's that moisture wicking theory is kind of actually going on throughout the whole soil structure if you really want to think about it through that application, right, to a certain extent.

SPEAKER_01 12:05

Yeah, exactly. I mean it don't matter, you know, where you're doing it, salt's salt. Right. You know, and it's gonna be drawing moisture no matter where you're at there. Yeah. So so it's a big deal, and that and that's where I think you can look at some of these other products potentially that aren't as high a salt load or things like that. And you know, the problem is is they're not talked about enough in ag.

SPEAKER_00 12:27

Well, what are those? So you mentioned potassium acetate. What other what other opportunities are there from a potassium perspective? Whether it's foliar feed or dry, what what other choices are there?

SPEAKER_01 12:38

Yeah, so I mean, as far as other potassium products, um, you know, there there's a lot of them that are tied to sulfur, whether it's KTS, potassium thiolsulfate's a liquid, um, SOP, sulfate of potash, um, you know, and there's a lot of different foliar nutrition products out there with different name brands on them that have potassium in it, but a lot of times those foliar products are probably going to be derived from potassium acetate, which is gonna be our most soluble uh potassium source that I would say. And um, you know, there there's a number of different companies that are all dealing with that, get it from a number of different brands, but probably the biggest one that I've been a proponent of in the past couple years has been that potassium acetate. Um, you know, I you know, I've dealt with a lot of KTS in years past, and I think it's a good product, um, but it's not nearly as soluble as the potassium acetate. But I think we can also run into like mixing issues at times too, potentially with that. And it seems like with the potassium acetate, we don't have those problems. Um so you know, as far as potassium acetate goes, you know, if a guy's two by two on corn or liquid side dress on his corn, whether it's in the ground or wide drop, or even a lot of recommendations that I've been given is foliar on beans, you know, running that stuff. And as long as we're running high enough rates, you can see really good returns on some of that stuff. Yep. And I think that's the problem with a lot of these, let's call it, um, nutrient availability products. You know, I know we're just specifically talking on potash right now or potassium, but a lot of these products can be highly effective as long as we run enough of that product to make these nutrients available. Right.

SPEAKER_00 14:22

And and it's still economical. I guess let's go back to the economic side, right? I mean, you're you're talking about making sure we run enough. From what I know, potassium acetate's not really that expensive of a product, right? So when you're talking about a high enough rate, and I I don't want to pin you down here, and I know this is kind of a it depends, right? It's your typical agronomy answer, but what is I mean, give me a range of what you're thinking from potassium acetate application in season. I wanted to do an in-season.

SPEAKER_01 14:49

So so let's just take, for example, let's say we're dealing with maybe an OO24 or something, or or an OO29 is what I always typically um worked with.

SPEAKER_00 14:59

Same product, just at a little different concentration. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 15:01

So basically it's just more water added to it. Um, you know, you you go to that lesser concentration. You know, a lot of times I always say that just fixes some compatibility issues with mixing. Um, but but let's say, for example, we're running an OO24 and 029. And on soybeans, let's say I'm gonna run potassium acetate at R3, so that flowering time where we were always gonna run a fungicide, okay? I'm gonna run a gallon of that product at that flowering time. Um, you know, as far as dealing with some of our grass crops on corn, um, you know, there's some guys in a liquid side dress that are running maybe three to five gallon of that. Guys in a two by two maybe doing a very similar thing, tank mixing it, um, things like that. But but what's interesting about some of the potassium acetate is we can see better uptake of other nutrients. So let's take, for example, nitrogen with potassium acetate. One of the main ways that nitrogen moves within the plant is called the what is it called, the potassium malate train or something like that. That's what I call it. But essentially, the way nitrogen is going to move within the plant is through potassium. Essentially, that potassium is gonna, you know, almost be a binding site and move within that plant. So you think about, okay, well, if I can go in a liquid side dress or a two by two or any type of, let's just say 28 or 32 application, and I can put a product with it like potassium acetate that's gonna help it move within that plant. Well, let's just put them together to where they're working in unison.

SPEAKER_02 16:38

Right.

SPEAKER_01 16:39

You know, it's they're they're forming a team together. Things like that. It's no different than let's say humic acid, stuff like that. You know, humic acid, I always think about it being a carbon and an oxygen source for our microbes. It's a food source being the carbon, oxygen source being the air. You know, and honestly, not to keep maybe going down other rabbit holes, but that's the biggest nutrient availability issue that we have is the lack of oxygen, especially in our soils. You know, I always look at, okay, the guys to the north of us in central and northern Illinois, why can they grow a lot better crops? Well, their crop can breathe. Yes, they have more organic matter, which is obviously a very big part of it, but their soil can breathe. They don't, their potassium doesn't get fixated or tied up nearly as much as what we have because they can breathe. Yeah. You know.

SPEAKER_00 17:30

A lot of times we forget that we have to have oxygen in the soil to be able to take up that nutrient, right? I mean, it's it's really easy to see when we have too much rain and we've been too wet for too long and our corn goes from really dark green to kind of like uh it's really turning light, you know, kind of a lighter green because we don't have the oxygen to be able to take up the nutrients, whether that's nitrogen or potassium or phosphorus for that matter. But yeah.

SPEAKER_01 17:51

Yeah. Well, just think about a flooded field.

SPEAKER_00 17:53

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 17:54

You know, where you don't have any oxygen to those roots and everything like that. You know, that's a big deal.

SPEAKER_00 17:59

Yeah, couple that with what you mentioned earlier, a lot of clay base, right? I mean, we create compaction every time we're across the field, we forget that rain is a lot of compaction as well. Ponding is even worse, right? But we forget about that compaction piece, which is a lack of oxygen again compared to people in more of a loamy soil, that's uh a little bit easier. But yeah, the oxygen piece is is huge. So humic acid and humates can actually help do that.

SPEAKER_01 18:25

Right. Well, and you know, the other thing that I think about, not necessarily maybe more of a practical thing, but how often have we seen, and maybe we've done it ourselves, to where we go and side dress? Maybe it was with ammonia or even just a regular toolbar and we drag that knife through there. You know, obviously ammonia bars are gonna work it up a lot more versus the liquid applicator. And how many times do we drag that through and back, man, that nitrogen's really doing a whole lot? Well, is it the nitrogen or the oxygen piece? You know, probably more or less the oxygen piece there.

SPEAKER_00 18:57

Well, it would be nice, and I would go back to plant, you know, soil health and everything like that. You're right on the ammonia bar. I always kind of think that we're doing a little bit of damage there with some of that the anhydrous ammonia, uh, which we don't need to talk about a lot in length, but it would be nice to be able to help create a situation where we have enough oxygen that we don't need to have that pass, right? Because we don't always get that opportunity either if it's too wet or whatever the case might be.

SPEAKER_01 19:21

Exactly. Yeah, that's always the problem is, you know, do we get into a June like we had last year? I mean, we had some earlier corn planted, and you know, then all of a sudden that corn starts getting away from us, and you know, so yeah, you always gotta look at, okay, what are other ways that we can maybe get some of this stuff done and applied? And you know, not I feel like I'm picking on certain companies and people here, but but we look at all these high-speed discs that are coming out. You know, and I always say if it looks like a disc, it is a disc. I don't care if it's got vertical tillage disc in front of it, it's still a disc. If it looks like a disc, you know, but but if we drive up and down the interstates and we see what they're using to work these roads up to make a harder surface, right? Yeah, it's an offset disc. Yes. And to me, when I look at that offset disc, when they got those notches cut out of them, and then I go and look at these fancy new front folding high-speed discs, I think to myself, man, that looks awfully similar. That looks really similar, you know. So I'm thinking to myself, you know, are we hurting ourselves by what we're doing early season when we're not thinking about what's going on on the back end? And and you know, the other thing that I think about with some of that too, and and maybe I'm going down a rabbit hole here, is we always want to quantify what's going on above ground and not below ground, just because it's so much harder to measure what's going on below ground.

SPEAKER_00 20:42

Well, that's exactly what I was gonna say. We talk about carbon to nitrogen ratio, we talk about potassium, we'll talk about phosphorus here in a little bit, but do we ever talk about oxygen? We never talk about oxygen. We don't measure it. You know, you think you think back, it's like we can't germinate corn if we don't have oxygen in our soil, but nobody thinks about it, right? We think about moisture, we think about temperature.

SPEAKER_01 21:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 21:03

We don't have oxygen, we can't get it done, right? So we yeah, there's some things and right, and the oxygen piece doesn't really cost us anything. Right. We don't we don't spread that, right? Right, technically. Exactly. You mentioned with humates a little bit ago, but we don't spread it, so we're not paying for it, so we don't measure it. But uh so anyway, I mentioned phosphorus. Do you want to go down the phosphorus road? Talk about that, talk about availability, um, yeah, discuss it a little bit.

SPEAKER_01 21:30

Yeah, so I I I you know we think about phosphorus, obviously that's one of the what's called to quote unquote big three or big four, you know, when I talk about the big four NPK and sulfur anymore, right? Um but we think about phosphorus, and uh, you know, I guess I'll back up a little bit. When I think about potassium, I think a lot about um overall plant structure. It's retained in the residue. Um, so we need that for plant health, plant structure, stuff like that.

SPEAKER_00 21:57

Drought tolerance.

SPEAKER_01 21:58

Drought tolerance, stuff like that. Moving nutrients, stuff like that. Where if we think about phosphorus a little bit, um, it it it's gonna be a little bit of a of a different story, um, in my opinion. And obviously, we apply DAP, map, TSP, or triple, um, whatever we want to do. But I I think about phosphorus being for a lot of um energy for the plant, whether it's root growth, stuff like that. But if we think about where phosphorus goes in a corn plant, for example, where we were with potassium having 80% of it in the residue, well, it's gonna be just the opposite with phosphorus. You know, we're gonna have 80% in the grain. We're removing 80% of that with the grain, and only 20% of it is going to be in the residue. So when I say energy, a lot of our seed has a lot of phosphorus in it, so that's a lot of the energy to jumpstart that crop. We get a lot of different things going on with that. But the other thing is phosphorus is tied up in a lot of a lot of different ways as well. Um, you know, and you can go test it today, and it's gonna be a little bit different tomorrow, probably very similar to what we see with the potassium piece and things like that. But but the good part about a lot of the phosphorus is we don't have near as much salt load as what we will with like a potash, you know. So we think about 1034 o's, things like that. We can put it in furrow. Um, but but the other thing is is back to the energy piece, is when do we typically see the biggest responses from an in furrow phosphate application? You know, and typically it's when the crops are slow growing, when they kind of need a little bit of a boost, an energy boost when it's cool, when it's wet. Typically that's when we see the biggest responses from that. And we put it right by the roots because it's not going to move a whole lot within the soil. So if we put it right there, then hopefully that crop can take it up. Um, but the other thing is, is it's still an availability issue with phosphorus, just like it is potassium. Um, you know, so here sitting in Effingham, I think about, you know, there's a lot of dairy farms in Effingham County at one time and still is, right? And you know, I think about you know, those fields that maybe we have a lot of manure history on, things like that. And I always say one of the best ways that we can help with phosphate availability, especially on manure soils, is the application of zinc. Okay. And you know, we think about okay, how how can we apply the zinc? Well, a lot of times it's gonna be a chelated 9% zinc, somewhere around there. Every company's gonna vary a little bit there. Um, but you know, we can go apply those, and maybe it's with a sprayer and a broadcast application, maybe it's a two by two application, a side dress application, or maybe we're strip-tilling with it or something like that, but that zinc can help relieve a lot of that phosphorus that we already have in the soil. Um, but you know, it seems like they're again similar to potassium, at times it can be hard to build that phosphor those phosphate levels. And in my opinion, I think it's a lot easier to build phosphate levels within the soil as compared to um potassium, just because the potassium is much more in relation to moisture, soil moisture levels. Um, but but you know, I think I think about zinc applications, it's a very cheap investment in the grand scheme of things. You know, it's not gonna cost you a lot, and every farm has the capacity to apply that. Now, are there different and more efficient ways? There always will be, you know, depending on the farm. But I but I think those those are some of those things that you know we could potentially be thinking about that it's not, you know, difficult or you know, it's not recreating the wheel, I guess I should say.

SPEAKER_00 25:53

Yeah, I always say we spend thousands of dollars to make straight rows. We spend tens of thousands of dollars to make sure that every plant's six or six and a half inches apart, right? But then when it comes to our nutrient application, a lot of times we're just yeah I always kind of throw it compared to feeding chickens back in the day, right? You throw your hand in the bucket and throw it out there, and the chickens will hunt and pack and get it because it's everywhere. And so how do we start utilizing, right? And then I guess I hear you talk about phosphorus not moving, right? How do we get it closer to the plant?

SPEAKER_02 26:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 26:22

Because of the energy perspective and water log soils, we're always sitting with those at some time throughout the growing season. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 26:29

So yeah, it's always it's always a big deal, and it'll always forever be an age-old question on how do we truly maximize the availability on P and K. And at the end of the day, yes, we can go apply zinc for maybe some phosphorus availability. We can maybe adjust our potassium source at the end of the day. But really, are those just a band-aid to the bigger issue? And I and I think the bigger issue we need to look at is how can we maybe change the overall soil makeup or you know, can we adjust or change the soil dynamic a little bit to not just have to make a band-aid application every year like that? And you know, I think some of the biggest things that are around that is it goes back to the oxygen piece. The plants can't breathe, okay? So they can't actively take it up. But we think about we're living in a world today where the market is flooded with biologicals. Everyone wants to sell a living biological, right? Well, my biggest thing to combat that is well, if we don't have enough oxygen, how are we expecting a biological to live in that soil? So we need to figure out how we can get a more active, a more alive soil, how can we do more maybe with what we have in the soil already, but then we need to get the most out of those. And I think it comes to how do we feed our microbes and how do we get them to breathe. You know, how do we get them more air? It's no different than you and I. Right. You know, we're we're we're not in a good place if we can't breathe and if we can't eat, right? Right.

SPEAKER_02 28:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 28:09

So, you know, and I think about, you know, what what are maybe some of those ways that we can drive more oxygen into the soil, how can we feed the microbes there, you know, and obviously it's a very complex thing to think about, but we look at, you know, if we were to look at a soil test, first thing I always look at on a soil test is base saturation. You know, the essentially that's telling me the the makeup of that soil. And some of the big the big three that I always look at is calcium, magnesium, and potassium. Um, you know, and basically we're looking at the saturation of those positively charged nutrients. And I always say calcium is going to be how much the soil can breathe, as we've talked a lot of times, but essentially the magnesium is the glue in that soil, right? It's the glue. And the problem with our soils that we deal with here in Illinois is we have too much mag and not enough calcium. So, how can we get more calcium brought into our soil makeup, essentially? How how can we change that? Is it gypsum applications? You know, that's probably the best. But what's the biggest issues we got with gypsum? Getting it spread, right? So how do we figure out, well, you know, so calcium is probably the most under talked about nutrient, in my opinion.

SPEAKER_02 29:31

Yep.

SPEAKER_01 29:32

You know, just because we're gonna help drive air into that soil. Now, is that gonna be a one-year solution? Absolutely not. You know, it it we have gone so many years and years and years of let's call it abusing the system that we need to figure out other ways, but finding a source for gypsum is also a challenge as well. So there there's a lot of different ways and different things that you know we probably need to be looking at. It's just figuring out, okay, how am I gonna get it applied, where am I gonna get it from, and ultimately in today's day and age, what's it gonna cost me? Right.

SPEAKER_00 30:08

And what's the quality? I know there's differences there. Um, yeah, that can be a little bit of an issue, and from what I understand, and you're the agonomist, uh gypsum won't work on every field either, right? Depending on where our base saturations are, right? We can create some antagonistic characteristics there if we're if we're not on par with where we need to be for that application, correct?

SPEAKER_01 30:29

Exactly, exactly. And you know, that that's where it's always gonna be more or less a case-by-case scenario. You know, so that's where it's highly beneficial to see what you got.

SPEAKER_00 30:40

You know, some is good, not not having more isn't always better, right? And some fields don't need it at all.

SPEAKER_01 30:47

Yeah. So yeah. Yeah. And the other thing that I would say too is we think about calcium, and you know, we we're always talking about Lyme applications. So if we talk about Lyme a little bit, essentially you're dealing with calcium carbonate. Your carcin, your carbonate piece is what's adjusting your pH, but uh, you know, it's always going to come with calcium, and sometimes it's calcium, and sometimes it's calcium and magnesium. So that's another piece to the lime, is we may be wanting to adjust our pH, but being mindful of what kind of lime we're applying is very, very important too, because if we're high in mag, we don't want to apply double-nitic lime where we got the magnesium in there. We want to get some calcitic stuff. But if we were to look at gypsum versus um lime, and on the solubility of that with the calcium, gypsum is like 200 times more soluble than lime is. So if we think about building calcium levels, basically it's gonna take 200 times the amount of lime as it will gypsum to build those calcium levels there. So that that's a really, really big thing to be looking at. It's like, well, I'm I'm applying lime, you know, I'm I'm gonna build my calcium levels. Well, you may, but it's gonna be 200 times harder to build it with lime as compared to gypsum wheel.

SPEAKER_00 32:09

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So gypsum can be a great product. It's it's it is extremely tough to source. Mm-hmm. There's no doubt. I mean, like you said, hauling and then how wet is it and so on. We've done that in the past. But yeah, it's it can be a great product. And there's a sulfur piece with it as well, right?

SPEAKER_01 32:24

Yeah, you you look at the sulfur piece of it. I mean, yeah, you can get you know, you think about applying a ton or two of that to an acre. Oh yeah. You know, you could get a boatload of sulfur out of that. A ton to the acre, you know, two thousand pounds, you know, you'd probably be getting three to four hundred pounds of sulfur, maybe. You know, so it you're in it your analysis can vary a little bit, but you could be getting a lot, a lot of sulfur out of that application.

SPEAKER_00 32:50

Yeah, which is probably more than we can retain in the soil, right? Talk about availability and so on. We probably can't hold all of that, correct?

SPEAKER_01 32:57

Right, especially yeah, you think about gypsum being calcium sulfate. Sulfate is the plant available form of sulfur. It just so also happens to be negatively charged, so it can be lost just like nitrogen can. So, yeah, that's that's things to keep in mind. I always say, you know, for the first year you probably have a lot. Um, but you know, just like anything, whether it's lime, gypsum, any type of nutrient application, our soils can only take so much at one time, right? Exactly. You know, so spoon feeding and yeah, I always say there's a shock there.

SPEAKER_00 33:29

You know, I've had a theory at one time, you know, it's like we should apply if we could, right? Money was no object and we were going across it anyway. Why don't we apply 500 pounds of lime every year rather than you know, two or three ton every few years, right? Or every several years, you know, just keep it balanced, right? Keep it balanced.

SPEAKER_01 33:45

Well, and to that point, um, there there is a power plant just down the road from where I live that you know, you could go and buy this stuff, you go pick it up 30 minutes from the house, and it was let's call it nine or ten bucks a ton. Well, now it's all pelletized, so the cost has drastically gone up. But if you could guarantee, say we're gonna be spreading dry fertilizer, the DAP and potash, if we could blend a little bit of this pelletized gypsum every time we go across there, and now all of a sudden we got a constant, steady supply of gypsum that we're always doing, but we could also look at it from a sulfur source, it may be something to consider, right? You know, if we're always constantly building that up a little bit, right?

SPEAKER_00 34:28

So yeah, that's tough. It's too bad we don't have more of those power plants closer. I know it. I know it. Yeah, that's a big deal. So let's talk about nitrogen. That's one of the other big three, or one of the big four, which I agree sulfur should be a a uh macro, not a micro. Right. You want to tackle nitrogen? I mean it we're looking at nitrogen, liquid nitrogen now is 70 cents a pound, right? Yeah. Per pound of N.

SPEAKER_02 34:50

Yep.

SPEAKER_00 34:50

And so, you know, if we're looking at 200 pounds, we're dealing with a lot of money here. So let's talk about nitrogen efficiencies. I think you're gonna go down the same road of oxygen and some of the other things we've already discussed. What have you seen from a nitrogen rate efficiency? And, you know, I know you deal with PFR quite a bit as well. What are you seeing there? How do we make the best recommendation for people to be able to not break the bank but yet still get a high ROI, right? A lot of times we're so focused on bushels, sometimes we don't know what the cost that it's coming at is from an ROI perspective.

SPEAKER_01 35:26

And so, you know, at what point are we just buying bushels, right?

SPEAKER_00 35:30

Exactly, right? When's it a trade-off?

SPEAKER_01 35:32

Exactly. And you know, I I think the way that I always look at a nitrogen program, I start out with two things. Okay, I first ask the question is how much nitrogen do I need? What are my yield limiting factors, as you would always refer to it, right? So, how much nitrogen do I need to apply before it's no longer my yield limiting factor? So once I determine that, then the second piece of that is is okay, how much do I need to apply early enough in the season to set my yield trajectory? Okay, one of the biggest things in my young career, I'm gonna call it, that I've always dealt with, and when I was dealing with it at school, is how much nitrogen do I need to apply to set that yield trajectory? Essentially tell that corn plant, okay, I can grow X amount of bushels. Okay, and essentially where where I'm coming in with this application is it's not a pre-plant and hydrous application because it's gonna be a while before that plant can use that as a source. Okay, so I'm figuring out, okay, I got Tom Utell Farms. Okay, what are my capabilities here? Do I have nitrogen on the planter or do I not? Okay, and nitrogen on the planter is gonna by far be the most efficient and the best way to do it, but obviously those are obstacles, okay. So that's the next question I'm gonna ask. And if I don't have two by two capabilities on my planter, then I'm gonna figure out okay, I need to figure out some way that I can get nitrogen and I'm gonna throw sulfur in there into my corn crop as soon as it's got two to three leaves on it, okay, because when I was doing these different timing studies and everything, you know, a corn plant is supposed to live off of its seed reserves until probably the three or four leaf stage, V3, V4. Okay. Well, I was seeing as early as one leaf stage color differences where I had zero pounds of nitrogen applied pre-plant all the way up to 50 pounds. Okay, and we went all the way up to 200 pounds, but zero to fifty, you could tell a difference. And this was just with urea broadcast incorporated. Okay, so you you think about urea broadcast incorporated, we're really not being efficient with that. It's about as inefficient from a placement perspective as you can get, right? Exactly, exactly. And really where this all comes into, what I'm trying to drive with setting my yield trajectory is kernel number. Kernel number is the number of rows around is determined at V5. We know that, right? And the length is going to be determined at V12. Okay, so I want to make sure I have some form of nitrogen available to my crop by about the two-leaf stage. That way I have three growth stages, V3 or V2, V3, V4, okay, and then by V5, we're we've we're already done. Okay, so I want to make sure I have something, whether that's broadcast urea incorporated, whether that's 28 or 32 down as a weed and feed before the planter gets there, and ideally, if I can incorporate it, maybe we're running 28 or 32 with our corn herbicide pre-emerged, okay, or am I doing a two by two application? But either way, I want to make sure I have at least 50, if not 60 pounds of nitrogen available to that crop as soon as it emerges, essentially. And now, if we go to a 2x2 application, obviously we can go to a lower rate as compared to a broadcast application. We got that concentrated band there. And we think about nitrogen always having all these loss mechanisms, that's the biggest problem we have with it. So we want to try to be efficient with it. Okay, so I want to figure out, okay, what is that magical number? And I'll tell you 50 to 60 pounds through two by two, and you probably need to be maybe 60 to 70 pounds if we're in a broadcast application. And then after I figure that out, then I'm going to figure out, okay, am I going to side dress the remaining? Am I going to pre-plant ammonia the rest of it? Am I going to Y drop the remaining? What's the other way? But we also need to figure out what is that rate. And that all comes back to the original question: what is my yield limiting factor? How much nitrogen do I have to have applied? And that's all going to depend on what's your soil makeup, but what are you also applying elsewhere? Because the other thing is we bring in sulfur, sulfur's going to help with taking those nutrients up as well. So it all really comes down to I want to figure out what is my yield limiting factor to in order to figure out how much nitrogen I need to apply. I want to make sure I have some pre-plant to set that yield trajectory, and then I'm going to figure out the the rest of it there. Where is the bulk of that going to come into? But probably be figuring around 60 pounds of actual nitrogen available to that crop as soon as it emerges, essentially, to drive kernel number.

SPEAKER_00 40:30

Right. And placement, go back to placement, right? I mean, you know, two by two is going to be, you know, the most efficient delivery mechanism, right? Um yeah, we could go down a rabbit trail with that. I I'm I'm always big on nitrogen, in my opinion, does not move laterally very well. It'll move vertically very well, but laterally it doesn't. We've seen that on our own farm, and so it's it's very painful to find that out, right? And you sometimes you couple that with, hey, I worked a little too wet or I planted a little bit too wet. We have hatchet or tomahawk roots, right? And I I have all the greatest intentions in the world, right? And I'm gonna side dress, right, because we recommend two shots of nitrogen just in case we have some leaching or some loss or whatever the case might be. Yeah. But a lot of times when we create compaction, our corn roots cannot get, right? If we're in a 30-inch row, they can't get all the way over there to 15 inches to be able to utilize, right? So now we've got a say a 50, 60, 70 dollar, you know, in-season crop uh application, right? Um again, I'm double shotting it, I'm doing it the way the book tells me.

SPEAKER_01 41:32

Yep.

SPEAKER_00 41:32

And uh, but we can't get it, right? So what am I getting out of my sixty dollar an acre application? Thirty dollars? I I don't I really don't know. Exactly. And so that's where I always kind of make the recommendation for people to play the season out, right? Maybe you can get by with a traditional side dress bar, putting it 15 inches from the plant. Maybe if you planted or worked it a little bit wet, you need to get it out there and do a little bit of a Y drop application. And I know sometimes Y drop can make people a little bit antsy, but we've seen it for years that it does pay, and you do have to have some things to help stabilize that nitrogen. Right. But making sure that we utilize that spend, right? Again, that goes back to placement, but playing the year out, I think, is a big part of what we need to do, or otherwise, again, that application isn't efficient, even though our means and our nitrogen, the the product that we use may be efficient, but our means of application don't, right? If we don't get it, it's not efficient, right?

SPEAKER_01 42:28

So and we always love to sit here in the months of January and February and make all these plans and and this is what we're gonna do, this is how we're gonna do it. That's right. But the reality of it is, is it's no different than you and I eating. That's right. Well, I don't exactly know what I'm gonna eat tomorrow. You know, make call it we're fortunate, um, but we don't know what we're gonna eat tomorrow, and sometimes maybe we don't know where we're gonna eat. Maybe we're on the road or something like that. And you know, I think about that with the crop too is we gotta be able to be willing to adapt to what Mother Nature Mother Nature is so much easier to work with than against. Yep. You know? Yeah. So so and that's the biggest thing that I always want to try to go to in season nitrogen. And granted, we talked earlier that you know, conditions sometimes may not allow for it, but that's where setting your pre-plant nitrogen with the urea, the two by two, you know, you put some on there because then that gives you some flexibility if you do get into a wet scenario there. Buys you time, exactly, and then being efficient with that, yeah. You know, whether it's Y drop or whether it's with a side dress, but either way, either of those two options I'm definitely gonna recommend a lot more as compared to a pre-plant and hydris application.

SPEAKER_00 43:40

Yeah. I think our nitrogen applications need to be about like our grain marketing plans, right? Everybody was gonna sell their corn for five dollars, it never came.

SPEAKER_02 43:47

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_00 43:48

So what are we gonna do to pivot, right? I'm sitting on a really dry year or I'm sitting on a situation where I didn't get my fifty to sixty pounds on with my planter, or right there around planting. Yeah, what do I need to do? How do I pivot? To make this the most effective and bang for the buck. And when we do that, we should be able to decrease that rate a little bit, right? Because we increased our efficiency. Exactly. You know, it's it's the days of over applying to compensate for inefficient means of application or inefficient timings.

SPEAKER_02 44:15

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_00 44:16

We've we've got too many options. You know, I mean, you think about what's all changed from a nutrient application perspective. Fifteen years ago or twenty years ago, we didn't have high clearance rigs, right? We couldn't get across six, eight foot tall corn.

SPEAKER_01 44:28

Right.

SPEAKER_00 44:28

Not saying that's a desired plan, but it is a fail-safe, right? It is an option if we have to. Exactly. You know, exactly. So we didn't have fast bars, we couldn't cover as many acres as we do today. And so we need to, I guess, pull all those tools out of the toolbox, you know, from my perspective. Yeah. From what I see with what I would say.

SPEAKER_01 44:46

Well, and you know, I in in a perfect world, what I would love to see is everyone being able to apply nitrogen on the planter. You know, and then come back side dress, whether it's Y drop or in the ground, whichever way you want. That's right. But, you know, it's the age-old question is well, it's the extra equipment on my planter. Uh, you know, maybe my planter's gonna rust out. But we all know that you pretty well gotta have a guy dedicated to haul in product to that planter.

SPEAKER_02 45:13

Yep.

SPEAKER_01 45:13

Well, what I always think about is okay, if I got a guy that's applying nitrogen with his planter versus a guy that's pre-planting and hydrous, okay, how often is a farmer pre-planting in hydrous and planting corn at the same time? The past couple springs it's been pretty pretty common. You know what? So you're not ideal, but it's common. Yeah, it's not ideal, but it's been pretty common. So you think about okay, I got a guy in a planter and I got a guy in the anhydrous bar. Well, if you took that guy out of the anhydrous bar and had him tendering the planter guy, right? How much more efficient would you be? That's exactly right. And you're putting that fertility right next to the row.

SPEAKER_00 45:52

Well, and we've seen it before where, you know, let's be real, we've we've applied anhydras, and we've seen it be 60 days. We've actually seen it be 90 days before we get a crop planted, right? Over dry conditions, dry conditions, we think it's gonna be great. Turns off wet, we don't get anything planted for 60 to 90 days. What did we do? We increased our odds of any leaching or anything like that, right? So again, not effective or efficient. I shouldn't say it was effective. It got the job done, got it done efficiently, but it wasn't efficient from a nitrogen utilization for a standing crop or an establishment crop. Exactly. You know, then we run out of gas, right, as we get later in the season, and yeah.

SPEAKER_01 46:32

And so Well, and I think the other the other thing that I would make a point of here is um, you know, not to bring any of this up in in bad sense or bad humor, whatever you want to call it, but in my opinion, it's not a it's not a when it's or it's not a if, it's a when is there gonna maybe be government regulations on fertility applications. You know, there's some parts of the United States that already have that, and those guys will tell you when that hits, you better be ready. So the sooner you get on board with some of that stuff, the better off you're gonna be. But what's interesting about that is those guys will all tell you it's made them better farmers. It's made them better farmers.

SPEAKER_00 47:15

Yep, I've heard that exact same thing. So I think, you know, how do we learn from them, right? But yet how do we I mean let's let's face it, if if they're more efficient and they can still raise a good crop and and have an ROI, it only benefits us to do the exact same thing. Exactly. And so I go back to placement, right? If if you don't believe in the humates or the humics or you know any other means of uh making more oxygen in the soil or having the carbon to nitrogen ratio right, at least let's focus on our application type and placement. Right. You know, those are the big easy ones.

SPEAKER_01 47:49

Try try to be more efficient with it and you know, by going two by two or side dress, can you cut down twenty to thirty pounds of nitrogen?

SPEAKER_00 47:56

Exactly.

SPEAKER_01 47:57

You know, you figure that up on a dollars and cents perspective, all of a sudden that that can be a pretty big deal.

SPEAKER_00 48:02

Yeah. And I think the U of I's done studies, I think other universities have done studies about w you know how much benefit the crop is actually getting and what the ROI is based on your nitrogen applications, meaning nitrogen is not necessarily the most efficient. How much bang are we actually getting for our buck? Right. How much have we over applied in the past because it's inefficient, whether it was a means of application or the type.

SPEAKER_01 48:27

You know, yeah, that's exactly right.

SPEAKER_00 48:29

We probably ought to look those up and post them as well. But yeah, you know, again, it's just it's about that ROI piece that we need to be focusing on.

SPEAKER_01 48:37

Mm-hmm. Dollar dollars and cents, especially in today's day and age, is figuring out how and when.

SPEAKER_00 48:43

Well, and think about the efficiencies we create if we can actually apply less but get more out of it, right? We're carrying less tons or less volume, less gallons to the field. The the Charmin mentality, less is more, right? Yeah, exactly right. That's exactly right. So what what else do we need to talk about regarding the big three or big four? And then I wanted to talk a little bit about micronutrients. If if you don't have anything else on those three or four.

SPEAKER_01 49:09

Yeah, you know, I I I think we've pretty well hit on it. You know, basically, you know, the the last portion of that would have been the sulfur piece. And essentially where I'm at with the sulfur piece is I'm gonna apply it if I can every time I'm applying nitrogen. It and and and do it essentially in a nitrogen sulfur ratio. Right. Um, so so you know, I I think that's the biggest thing just because it's gonna help drive uh nutrient uptake, a lot of different things like that. So that that that's the biggest thing for me that that all comes down to.

SPEAKER_00 49:40

Well, and it helps uh again, it helps with pollination, right? Drought tolerance as well. So there's a big, big part of sulfur, and you know, we can talk about you know, environment. I I'm a believer that what used to come out of coal-fired stacks is what we're buying now as yeah as a crop input, right? And I think I think then what's going to happen, sulfur's the first one we missed, right? Sulfur's the first one that we're we're lacking because we need a lot of it, and I think everything else that came out of that stack, yeah, right, we're going to end up replacing in the order that they come out of the stack, right? Boron is starting to catch a lot of uh a lot of traction and has for a little while. Copper, I think, is is is a big one, and I think it'll only get bigger as as time goes on. But you know, let's talk about some of the other ones, the mollies and you know, some of those other nutrients. Yeah. Um, do you have a a passion or a hot spot there that you want to talk about?

SPEAKER_01 50:33

Yeah, you know, I think if you if we were to piggyback off of what you said with the sulfur and coming out of the coal-fired power plants, you know, you said boron was the next one, and you're exactly right, because when we lost sulfur, we also lost boron. And and you know, uh a lot of stuff that I look at is what we're doing with PFR. We we think about boron, the first one that you mentioned. Um R3 applications of a quart of a 10% boron on soybeans, the return this year, just right down the road here, was like 70 bucks an acre from a boron application. And we think about PFR proven recommendation, that that's one of those things. And the reality of it is okay, we're making money off this, and it's not really costing us anything. Three, five bucks an acre, depending on how you can get it bought, that's nothing. And the other beauty of this is you know, that's that fungicide time, whether you're applying fungicide or not, you know, maybe you're just doing a nutritional with an insecticide, but a lot of times you could probably equate that boron to having a free ride, so there's no application cost in it, because you're you're probably gonna be there for what we're gonna call some other reason.

SPEAKER_02 51:40

Right.

SPEAKER_01 51:40

You know, so so you think about that. You know, you think about boron's a big thing. And I say boron for a broadleaf crop like soybeans can be foliar applied. For a grass crop like corn and wheat, it needs to be soil applied. You know, top dress applications on wheat, side dress, you know, applications on corn is probably where you need to be. Um you you mentioned copper. We we think about copper, you know, where boron is used for a lot of reproduction. Copper, you think about to what the old original fungicides were, is copper sulfate. So we think a lot about plant health benefits. We're starting to do um work with PFR on copper. We applied um eight ounces of a seven and a half percent copper on wheat last year at that second nitrogen application. We saw like two and a half bushel response from a very, very minute, in my opinion, amount of copper. So I think to your point, the copper piece, we're gonna start seeing benefits to that. It's figuring out that time, when, how much, yeah, you know, all those sorts of things too.

SPEAKER_00 52:44

You're feeding that plant's natural defense mechanism, right?

SPEAKER_01 52:47

Exactly. You know, and I always say, you know, we think about copper and sulfur, a lot of plant health things. We think about fungicides, we're applying fungicides, we're living in a reactive world. Instead, I want us to live in a proactive world instead of reactive. You know, what can we do to where we don't have to put the band-aid on with a fungicide? You know, ideally, you know, you think about a perfect soil, you you would have everything available in your soil to where you don't ever have to run through your crop.

SPEAKER_02 53:15

Yep.

SPEAKER_01 53:16

Will we ever get to that point? Probably not. But boy, we'd like to shoot for something like that. Right.

SPEAKER_00 53:20

Exactly.

SPEAKER_01 53:21

You know, so you think boron, copper, we mentioned zinc a little bit earlier. That's a micronutrient. You know, that can help with some um, you know, nutrient release stuff with phosphorus. You mentioned uh moly, molybdenum. We we we think about soybeans. Soybeans fixate their own nitrogen. We've done a lot of different talc replacement products that have had moly in it, seen responses of that, better nodulation, things like that. Um, you know, and we're starting to hear more and more about some of these micronutrients. And at the end of the day, I think it goes back to what we were talking with humic acids and different things like that is how can we get enough of these products applied and get them bought for the right price to where we get the return on investment from it.

SPEAKER_00 54:06

And that's it's a lot of times it's about volume, right? A lot of those products aren't moved in high enough volume for them to be economical yet.

SPEAKER_01 54:13

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 54:13

Although I will say, on the other hand, there are some products that are very economical that we totally overlook. You mentioned earlier, it's very cheap at seven-ounce rate. It's like really it's it's a no-brainer. Um I think it's just the focus on, you know, a lot of times our big four, uh, are a lot of times we focus on them as being our yield limiting factor, but a lot of, you know, as you mentioned, some of those go along for the ride, yeah, and they're helping benefit. So sometimes our yield limiting factors, right? Now, if our if our pH or our base saturation of calcium is wrong, right, way off, yeah, we may not need to focus on boron or molly. Yeah. Right. And a lot of times it's really easy to do that because that's what's being advertised or whatever the case might be. We need to get the big ones right, right? And in balance, and then we can start focusing on all the other ones that are sometimes, like you said, along for the ride again.

SPEAKER_01 55:02

And at the end of the day, it's all a system. And the and the thing that I always look at is I think about a brick wall or a cinder block wall, and you're gonna make the foundation or the wall out of it. If you were to stack up just the bricks with no mortar, how strong is the wall gonna be? Yep. It's not gonna be very strong. Well, if you were to just use the mortar without the bricks, you're not gonna be very strong either. But you got to have both of those together to make a very strong bond, to make a very strong system. And it's no different. I I think of my bricks as my N, P, and K and sulfur, and I'll even throw probably calcium in there too, maybe. And then you have all your micronutrients, but also your oxygen and other things like that that are gonna make those bigger things a lot stronger.

SPEAKER_00 55:48

You know, and you talk about the foundation, right? And I'll I'll look at the foundation and say, well, if you're gonna build a foundation that's gonna go 10 bricks high, that's one thing. If you're gonna do one that's 20 bricks high, that's another. If you're gonna do one that's 30, right? And so how balanced do we need to be? How important are all of those other factors and nutrients, right, to help build, you know, and have the foundation to raise, you know, 250, 300 bushel corn, whatever the case might be. And those are hard, those are hard to achieve from a farm average perspective, but a lot of times we see those on the monitor. So how do we how do we continue to raise the bar? Yep. You know, and a lot of times in those areas where they're yellow on the yield map, if we want to go by that, how do we raise those to green and raise the red to yellow? And sometimes we can do that by looking at these other things because those areas of the field are struggling more with these other nutrients that we're talking about.

SPEAKER_01 56:36

Yeah. You know, we I I always like to say is, you know, the season's all over, just look back and know that, you know, I've done everything that I can in my power for the right cost, not breaking the bank. That's right. But at the end of the day, who's got the last laugh? Yeah, that's right. Mother Nature's always got the last laugh, right? And we always got to figure out how we can work with her the best, right? But don't break the bank.

SPEAKER_00 57:01

And that's yeah, it's exactly right. How do we be nimble? How do we utilize what she's handing us, right? How do we how do we play the cards that she dealt us?

SPEAKER_01 57:09

Yep.

SPEAKER_00 57:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 57:10

That's exactly right.

SPEAKER_00 57:11

And a lot of times we look at it and we're talking about making applications of different products, and we a lot of times talk about well, you know, this product's seven dollars and that product's eight dollars and that product's four dollars, and it's like, well, they're not much singularly, but when you add all those up, they can be really high. But it goes back to balance, and so what can we do with our NP and K? Yeah, right, to maybe peel a little bit off of that if we can do a different means of application or a different location of our application, right? Yep. How do we peel a little bit of money off of that to help get us more balance? Exactly. Exactly. How do we always compare it to the human diet, right? You want to you want an appetizer and you want your main course, but you'd like to save a little bit of money for your for your dessert, right? Right, that's exactly what we need to be doing. Don't spend more money, let's just spend it wisely.

SPEAKER_01 57:56

Reallocate it. That's exactly right. And instead of, you know, potash, instead of say you were always doing 150 pounds of potash, maybe you back that down to 100 pounds and you reallocate that to some potassium acetate or stuff like that. Because at the end of the day, you're still applying potassium, but are you gonna be more efficient with it, things like that?

SPEAKER_00 58:15

That's exactly right. Well, and you think about it, you think about, you talk about Mother Nature and look at everything that she throws at us, right? If we're planting, let's say that's from anywhere from the third or fourth week of March, right? If guys are gonna go out early if it's dry this year to f to June, today we don't know. Again, you make good a good plan there or a good idea or comment with the plan of we're making great plans when the snow flies, yeah, how many of those are how how many can we actually implement? Right. But think about it, if we apply all of our potash, if some guys have done it last fall, right? And it's eight, nine months before that crop really needs a lot from a soybean perspective, when you think about the potassium uptake and what it actually needs, if we can back off some of that pre-plant, right, and apply a little bit more in season, now I get to choose when I apply it, right? So make it more beneficial. Yeah, you know. That's a big deal. It it is a big deal. So timing, means of application, and again, I don't think we need to spend more money at it. Right. Truly. Just reallocate it. Know where to spend it. Yeah. That's right. Know where to spend it's a very big deal. If one pocket is full of cash, it won't do any good to stick any more pocket money in that in that pocket, right? It may blow out, but if we've got a pocket on the other side of our pants that's empty, yeah, right, how do we reallocate that money anymore?

SPEAKER_01 59:32

Yep, that's exactly right. So so what other hot buttons do you have? You know, I think as we're sitting here towards the tail end of February is, you know, making sure our equipment's ready to go. You know, it well, let's face it, the past couple years the best planting window we've had has been the month of March. You know, so and we think about some of those things, you know, the most important thing is making sure our planner is set accurately, making sure it's indexed, every row unit is adjusted the same so we get that consistent emergence. Every seed has hopefully the same start as the next seed, so we can replicate that across the whole field. Um, but I I think there's a lot of things that don't cost us any money. They just cost us a little bit of time adjusting things on the planter, making sure those are all good. Tillage equipment, field cultivators, you know, making sure all that stuff is set properly and in good working order. But, you know, outside of the nutrient efficiency thing that we talked and then making sure our our uh planters are ready to go, I I think those are are the big hot buttons. And I think the planter, the planter stuff is something that we could have a very long discussion on. Um, but you know, just making sure it's all set properly, indexed, adjusted, it's a very, very big thing that you don't have to spend any money on parts, just spend some time in a shed adjusting that, but then also knowing what to look for when you're actually planting, how to get that proper furrow with down force, closing wheel pressure, row cleaners, whatever it may be. You know, I think that's a very, very big thing to be looking at.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:10

Yeah. Sounds like another episode. That's right. That's right. Yeah, that's a big thing. I'll say one thing too is you know, having your tillage adjusted side to side. You know, we talk about indexing your planter to make sure every row is planting the same depth. When's the last time we've checked to make sure all the cylinders aren't leaking off or whatever the case might be, right? If you've got one wing or something that might be going deeper and pulling up more mud, we could be creating compaction issues or hatchet or tomahawk roots and don't even know it.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:35

Yeah. Or were you running that tillage tool last fall when it was really, really dry, and then maybe this spring, you know, we're gonna have moisture. We never want to work in the mud, right? Never want to power dry it. That never have. Never has.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:48

Yeah, it must I don't know where they do that.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:50

Yeah, I I wouldn't know, but you know, keeping in mind those different adjustments. It was muck an inch and a half below, but no big deal. That's a secret. Yeah. So yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:03

Um I will say, you know, talking about placement, I guess uh a trial we did actually on a customer uh, and and I've got data back, and I have not, he's he's run it all and he shared it with me. I don't know those numbers, but I know there was a pretty big bump. They actually have RTK, and they actually put their anhydrous on with RTK and then they planted over on top of that nitrogen or that anhydrous strip. And uh I shouldn't say what the yield is because I don't want to get it wrong, but uh we'll do another episode on that maybe. But yeah, you know, I think they used that as a little bit of a tillage pass, right? It was spring applied. They did that as a little bit of a tillage pass to break up any compaction that maybe we didn't get any freezing and thawing or whatever the case might be. Um, but then they planted on top of that, and so you know, that doesn't cost a lot. We can say RTK does cost some money, but it's not as expensive as most people think. And so, you know, there's there's a lot of opportunity and and just little bitty things. Again, we're not increasing our cost of application, yeah. That RTK signal can be used all season and yeah, year over year.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:03

So and and you know, there's no problem there at all as long as we're going seven or eight inches deep. And most people that I know, you know, if you're applying with a knife, you're gonna be going that regardless.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:13

Right.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:13

And and and the other thing I think about is okay, if you're applying in hydrus at an angle versus straight, you know better than me, when you're going at an angle, you're gonna have more point rows. So, really, in the grand scheme of things, if you're going straight with that, you're probably gonna have less turning on the ends. Yep, you're probably gonna be more efficient, anyways. And then plus you look at where you place those nutrients within a general area, sure, you know, you know, within a couple inches of where that crop row may be, yeah, you're gonna be in a good spot.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:41

Yeah, a lot of times when we do those things at an angle, it's it's great in theory, and I want to bust up any compaction of my normal traffic pattern, and I I get it all, and I understand that all. But man, at the end of the day, that really creates a lot of inconsistency down the row. It's like, why did these four plants come up and these three didn't? It's like that ground dried out where you put the anhydrous, right? And we didn't have enough moisture to germinate that at the same time. Exactly. So yeah, so yeah, you have to be careful with anhydrous over the you know, planting over the row of anhydrous to make sure that yeah, one tractor isn't chasing the other one out of the field.

unknown 1:04:13

Right.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:14

That never happens, though. No, we've never happens. No, it's all a perfect world here. That's right. That's right.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:19

All right. So anything else, Bernard, that you want to talk about? I don't think so. We talked on the nutrients and the planters. I th I think those are you know the big things we need to be thinking about right now is how to be efficient with all that stuff.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:31

Awesome. We'll have you back on the show again sometime, but we appreciate your time here.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:34

Yeah, I appreciate you having me on. Thank you very much. Thank you. Yep.