Paws, Planes and Precision Farming with Paws & Pints, Lee Brooke and Joe McClure

What do a dog park in Des Moines, a conference room in Colombia and a strip trial in Greene County all have in common? Soy innovation.

Katie Dunlap of Paws & Pints opens the episode with a tour of Des Moines' beloved canine social retreat, where SYNLawn synthetic turf with a soy-based backing has survived hundreds of dogs a day and is still going strong after four years. Then, Aaron Putze checks in from downtown Bogotá, where Iowa Soybean Association President-Elect Lee Brooke joined an AGP trade mission to meet with the three largest feed producers in Colombia. 

We close with Joe McClure, chief officer of ISA's Research Center for Farming Innovation, whose team is running an AI-driven field trial across Iowa—pitting a decade of agronomic data against farmer intuition, and asking whether a machine can out-farm a farmer. (Spoiler: it can help one!) We'll also explore the Farm to River Partnership—an innovative program helping farmers and landowners install conservation practices at no cost in western Iowa. 

The Bean Scene is brought to you by the Iowa Soybean Association and the soybean checkoff.

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Transcript

Maxwell Schaeffer 0:01

Welcome back to the Bean Steam, brought to you by the Iowa Soybean Association and the Soybean Checkoff. I'm your host, Maxwell Schaeffer, and I'm glad you're here. Today's episode is about a bean that travels the world and the people quietly finding new, innovative ways to grow it, sell it, and put it to work in places you'd never expect. We start at Pints, Des Moines' beloved canine social retreat. Katie Dunlap, director of guest relations, is gonna tell us how around 300 dogs today have been doing their thing on SYN Lawn's soy-backed synthetic turf for four years running. The chairs destroyed. The turf going strong. Then we'll catch up with Aaron Putze, who's been on the ground in Bogota, Columbia, several thousand miles from home on a trade mission with Iowa Soybean Association President-Elect Lee Brooke. They'll share what it actually looks like to sit across the table from the buyers who depend on what Iowa farmers grow, and why face-to-face relationships halfway around the world matter back on the farm. And we close with Joe McClure, Chief Officer of the Research Center for Farming Innovation at the Iowa Soybean Association for a pods of potential highlight. His team is running AI-driven field trials across Iowa, pitting data against decades of farmer intuition and asking a question that's equal parts practical and provocative. Can a machine out farm a farmer? Three conversations that mean traveling. Let's get into it.

Paws, Pints and Soy-Based Turf

Maxwell Schaeffer 1:46

Here's Katie Dunlap of Paws & Pints. Okay, what room are we sitting in right now?

Katie Dunlap, Paws & Pints 1:53

So we're in our small dog park. Um most of the time people don't use it as our small dog park, but it's like a rentable space for birthday parties.

Maxwell Schaeffer 2:03

Is there like a height thing like at the adventureland for roller coasters?

Katie Dunlap, Paws & Pints 2:08

Let me tell you what, we do have about a width thing, though, because there's a little chihuahua that has to wear wiffle balls on his harness.

Maxwell Schaeffer 2:17

A width thing?

Katie Dunlap, Paws & Pints 2:18

Well, he's a little tiny baby . And so he has these little wiffle balls that we have him put on his harness.

Maxwell Schaeffer 2:28

So he doesn't get smushed?

Katie Dunlap, Paws & Pints 2:28

So he doesn't sneak through all the little grates.

Maxwell Schaeffer 2:28

Oh, I see. Oh, yeah.

Katie Dunlap, Paws & Pints 2:29

He's a teeny tiny little thing.

Maxwell Schaeffer 2:31

Actually, that's a brilliant idea for people that have maybe a fence that but a small dog comes over to.

Katie Dunlap, Paws & Pints 2:38

I was like, I will play make a deal with your membership if you put these wiffle balls on this dog. She's like, deal.

Maxwell Schaeffer 2:45

For people that don't know, what is Paws & Pints?

Katie Dunlap, Paws & Pints 2:49

So, Paws & Pints is a canine social retreat, would be like our official title of Paws & Pints. It's a dog park, it's a bar, it's grooming, it's lodging, it's daycare. And I think on top of all of that, it's community, which is probably one of my favorite things about Paws & Pints is that it is this really unique hub of humanity in a society where people are more disconnected.

Maxwell Schaeffer 3:14

Well, it sounds to me like it's half of it is also a dog owner experience, obviously. Okay.

Katie Dunlap, Paws & Pints 3:20

Oh, definitely. Like our members come. You don't have to be a member to come, you don't even have to have a dog to come. Sometimes people are like, Do we have to have a dog to be there? Are people gonna think I'm a weirdo? And I'm like, no one knows.

Maxwell Schaeffer 3:31

So I see turf everywhere. Oh, yeah. How much turf is here? And why not, why not grass?

Katie Dunlap, Paws & Pints 3:36

Oh my goodness. We have indoor, outdoor turf areas. So we have this bark park or small dog park. Then we have our indoor park and our outdoor. All five of our daycare bays have a cement area and a let out space with the turf. And if you were to ask our owners again if they would probably do grass, I'm gonna say that they would choose turf all day over grass.

Maxwell Schaeffer 4:01

Easier to clean.

Katie Dunlap, Paws & Pints 4:02

Easier to clean, easier to maintain when it rains. You don't have to close the backyard because of mud. I never even really take my dog to the backyard because I'm like, I have mud at home. I don't need you to go in the mud here.

Maxwell Schaeffer 4:17

I want to get some turf at home.

Katie Dunlap, Paws & Pints 4:19

Correct. You best believe.

Maxwell Schaeffer 4:21

So this turf is called SYNLawn, Synthetic Turf, and it has a soy-based backing. Now, this is the great connection that we have here.

Katie Dunlap, Paws & Pints 4:30

Yeah.

Maxwell Schaeffer 4:31

Uh, and you've had gotten your hands dirty with maintenance. What do you do? How do you maintain this with your quote grounds crew?

Katie Dunlap, Paws & Pints 4:38

So it is really interesting. I used to just be uh sales and front desk guest services. So then when I did get this position to kind of help with grounds crew, it's been very eye-opening on how much effort and just work. And honestly, the wear and tear, shout out to Sin Long. Woop woop. Because this turf takes a beating on a daily basis from the dog. So each day during the operation, we have little sprayers that we use uh to do like immediate spot checks for any residue. If there's a little gross, you know, number two on the turf. So we spray it down right then and there to make sure that it's clean. And then at night we have like a certain amount of cleaning procedures that go in. It varies on the day. But usually it's like a disinfectant. There's an enzyme one that breaks down the poo residue, and then we use like a chemical for the smell, and all of those are dog safe. But that's still like at least two chemicals on this turf every single night, if not three.

Maxwell Schaeffer 5:47

So you you know, hundreds of dogs a day.

Katie Dunlap, Paws & Pints 5:49

Oh yeah.

Maxwell Schaeffer 5:50

And the turf is still going.

Katie Dunlap, Paws & Pints 5:51

And she's still going each Wednesday, and then on Saturdays, too, we brush the turf. So we have little turf sweepers, which has been my favorite thing that I was helping them with.

Maxwell Schaeffer 6:02

So what's the craziest thing a dog has tried to do to this turf?

Katie Dunlap, Paws & Pints 6:06

You know, that's a tough one. They mainly just like to parkour off of all the furniture, but then getting that launch off of the turf and they're running, they're they're rotating.

Maxwell Schaeffer 6:18

Getting their claws in there

Katie Dunlap, Paws & Pints 6:18

Yeah,

Maxwell Schaeffer 6:18

Digging, right?

Katie Dunlap, Paws & Pints 6:20

And uh, you know, they're they're they're pretty good. I haven't caught a dog trying to rip up the turf yet. That's probably a testament to ground's crew, too, being like, you stop that right now.

Maxwell Schaeffer 6:35

We also sat down with Avery Blake, the facility manager at Paws and Pints, who's been with the place since the beginning. You're involved in the day-to-day cleaning. Yes, and I have to say, for a dog park, when you walk in, don't you feel like it's a it's really clean. Yeah. Smells good in here. We works really nice.

Avery Blake, Paws & Pints 6:57

A lot on the smell is our biggest thing that we try to combat here. Um, so we do we have a bunch of turf grooming that we do in spring, and then we have scent machines that go into the central air duct.

Maxwell Schaeffer 7:10

Perfect, because I have no wet dog smell in this place at all, right? So explain in detail kind of what you do every day and how you clean the areas.

Avery Blake, Paws & Pints 7:20

We brush the turf two to three times a week, kind of depending on the week. If we have heavier, busier weeks, we'll do more. If it's a slower week in the winter, we'll only brush twice a week.

Maxwell Schaeffer 7:29

And what does that brush look like?

Avery Blake, Paws & Pints 7:30

So we have a gas brush and then we have a few different electric brushes.

Maxwell Schaeffer 7:34

And how's the this uh soy-backed turf hold up to that?

Avery Blake, Paws & Pints 7:39

Good. We um originally when we started doing it, it would pull some of the infill out of the turf, um, but it never tore the turf up. But now that we've gotten four roughly four years on it, um it's doing really good. It's not pulling any of the infill out, it's not tearing up the turf, it just pulls all that dog hair out.

Maxwell Schaeffer 7:58

And then once you pull all that out, then what do you do?

Avery Blake, Paws & Pints 8:00

So we have another brush that also collects the hair as it pulls it out, and then we also vacuum and rake it up. We have some hair rakes and uh just standard shotbacks and vacuum stuff. Vacuum up the dog hair.

Maxwell Schaeffer 8:11

And I see some spray bottles and things like that around. What do you do with those?

Avery Blake, Paws & Pints 8:14

These here would be filled with um a chemical that we have called Eliminator. It's a bioenzyme spray, so it just kills all the fecal matter and urine, and it just keeps the smell down.

Maxwell Schaeffer 8:26

Got it, got it. And how many people do you have maintaining this space?

Avery Blake, Paws & Pints 8:33

There's a team of anywhere between four to about 10 that will help work on it and maintain it throughout the year.

Maxwell Schaeffer 8:42

It gets hot during the day. The sun beats down on this turf. Turf probably gets a little hotter than grass per say, but how do you regulate the temperature?

Avery Blake, Paws & Pints 8:50

So, for dogs' pop heads, anything over 115 they'll start burning their pop heads. Um so as soon as it hits that 115, it starts to burn them fast. So uh around 111, 110, we start spraying the cement down with water, but the turf never gets above around 90.

Maxwell Schaeffer 9:09

Oh, really? Okay, so the turf does stay cool.

Avery Blake, Paws & Pints 9:12

Yes, yep. Um we use uh infrared thermometers and on them and it'll be warm to the touch, but it won't burn you. Um but when you point an infrared thermometer at it, it says it's reading like 180, 190-ish, but it's never actually that hot. It's just reading the temperature of the material underneath. That's fantastic. It's been really easy to work with. It's not really torn on us in the few locations it has, it was dog staking at it. Um it's really easy to work with, real easy to patch and fix.

Maxwell Schaeffer 9:42

We have four years of use out of this and it still looks fresh and new. How long do you think it'll last?

Avery Blake, Paws & Pints 9:48

I would say probably eight to nine years. I don't think it'll ever become an issue of it um not performing. I think it'll just be the fibers do eventually lay down.

Maxwell Schaeffer 9:59

Sure.

Avery Blake, Paws & Pints 10:00

Um I think just after about probably eight or nine years it'll be almost flat, so we might look into replacing it then. But other than that, it's been holding it.

Maxwell Schaeffer 10:10

Yeah. Well, um you seem to have a tremendous amount of passion and energy for this work.

Katie Dunlap, Paws & Pints 10:16

Yeah.

Maxwell Schaeffer 10:17

What keeps you coming back day to day?

Katie Dunlap, Paws & Pints 10:19

Each day is different, and we obviously love the dogs and everything that they bring to the table. Like when the dogs, you know, we celebrate with them, we mourn with our members when that's the worst part about this job. Woof. But the joy that this job brings to other people too. I think sometimes in our jobs, we get caught up in like the day-to-day and forget about the fact that this place is a really amazing community. It's it's it's an exciting experience for a lot of people. People will travel from all over to come to Paws & Pints.

Maxwell Schaeffer 10:57

How far away?

Katie Dunlap, Paws & Pints 10:57

Um, we've had people from Canada, we've had people from New York, California. I think that that's a really good testament to what we've created here and what you know, Kyle and Megan have have done to create a nice little pocket of whimsical in in today's world.

Maxwell Schaeffer 11:17

Which we need. We do. So, you know, July's here, big month. You have big things coming up. Give us a rundown of what we can expect.

Katie Dunlap, Paws & Pints 11:26

Sure. So we have foam party coming up on July 4th, which is always a fun time. The dogs love the foam. Uh, we have pup cella, which is like our take on Coachella for the dogs.

Maxwell Schaeffer 11:37

Wait, I want to get back to the foam party. What do you explain that? What do you mean?

Katie Dunlap, Paws & Pints 11:40

So it's dog safe foam, and it's basically like this big giant cannon that just shoots out bubbly foam.

Maxwell Schaeffer 11:48

Oh, and the dogs must go nuts.

Katie Dunlap, Paws & Pints 11:50

Yeah. Then we have our birthday party in August. We have a pool party coming up here shortly. Our Porters pool party. That is a fundraiser for the Porterinski Foundation, which our owners created after they were opening Paws & Pints. They lost one of their Bernese Mountain dogs. They felt very fortunate that they could afford those vet bills, but they realized in this space of being the people for the dogs, that they wanted to create a foundation that would help other people be able to afford access to health care for their dogs. It's always cute seeing the dogs bounce around in all their pools.

Maxwell Schaeffer 12:29

That was Katie Dunlap of Paws & Pints, where the turf takes a beating from hundreds of dogs a day and keeps on going. Four years of paws, claws, foam parties, and a very committed grounds crew. And through all of it, a soy-based backing holding strong underneath. Now we're going from Des Moines to downtown Bogota, Columbia, because Aaron Putze has been on the road. Aaron's the chief officer of brand management and engagement at Iowa Soybean Association, and he's been on a trade mission with Lee Brooke, an Iowa soybean farmer from Clorinda and ISA's president -elect. They've been sitting across the table from the largest feed producers in South America, companies buying Iowa soy by the millions of metric tons. Here's Aaron and Lee on the ground in Columbia.

A Clarinda Farmer's Trade Mission to Colombia

Maxwell Schaeffer 13:23 Aaron Putze, ISA 13:24

Lee, we're in uh downtown Bogota, and you know, we wanted to find a quiet place for this interview, but good luck with that in a city of around 8 million, and we're several thousand miles away from home, but we're down here to sell some soybeans and and to meet with some customers. So, first of all, set the stage. Why is it important to come to a country like Colombia to market and sell Iowa and U.S. soy?

Lee Brooke, ISA President-Elect 13:49

Well, we have an abundance of uh soybean meal, and uh we we're down here meeting with the top three, uh we've met with the top three uh feed producers uh Colombia and South America. So uh they use they import a lot of our products. So it's it's great to be here and meet with them.

Aaron Putze, ISA 14:06

What's the main message when we come on a trip like this? And we're sitting across the table from buyers and and those who really need what Iowa and U.S. farmers produce to be able to feed the people here in in Colombia. What's the main message you bring to the table?

Lee Brooke, ISA President-Elect 14:22

We have a quality product, uh, we can have a consistent supply, and uh and they tell us that they they love our product, the quality and amino acids in it, and they just like that they're able to work with us.

Aaron Putze, ISA 14:38

So the the conversations we've had, and they've been very substantive ones, Italcol, uh Contegral, and also with Solla, and those are, as you said, the three largest buyers, procurers of raw materials. What have they talked about in terms of their procurement of product from the US? What are they looking for? And how does uh how does the U.S. soybean product measure up to the competition?

Lee Brooke, ISA President-Elect 15:07

Well, it's amazing. I was really surprised. Uh they've one of the companies procured 98% of their product from the United States for their feed mill, and uh another one was 95%, and and then the third one was in the uh in the 80s, you know, close to 90 percent. So that's just it shows how important this market is to us. And they like our consistency, like I said, they like the we have a better amino acid package, and they don't have to have so much synthetic stuff added to their feed.

Aaron Putze, ISA 15:40

Right. Now, this is a a big country and you know, over 50 million people, they uh you have to import a lot of what they need, and and they do it through either ports on the western side of the country or ports on the northern side of the country, and they can bring in product through the from the Gulf, uh, through the Panama Canal. They can also bring product in if we ship it out through the Pacific Northwest. Of course, they would prefer to bring it from the Gulf through the canal, but uh logistics. That word came up over and over and over again in the conversations when we would talk to them about some of the challenges and they would talk about logistics. Share a little bit about what you heard in that on on that topic.

Lee Brooke, ISA President-Elect 16:23

Yeah, the logistics is definitely an issue for them in the the Panama Canal right now. They're they talk like up to 20-day wait period, and then there's an auction process of the pay to get through there, which adds to their tonnage uh fee, you know, cost-wise. Um but it's what really I think blew a lot of our minds was you know, they they talked about twenty dollars a ton freight to get it from the US down to the ports, but we're in a very uh mountainous region here in Colombia, and they talked fifty dollars a ton to truck it to where they need it. So it's a huge expense, you know, their freight is huge, but they need our feed, and that's what they have to do.

Aaron Putze, ISA 17:07

They uh they they do have those logistical challenges, and you know, they are very keen on getting past those. And I think we've got options. You know, we're here um on an AGP trade mission, an AGP, a soybean processor, that's what they do, that's what they focus on. Uh, they pull a lot of material from a lot of soybeans from Iowa, from Kansas, Nebraska, Missouri, South Dakota, Minnesota. Um the the quality of the product, we've touched a little bit on that. Uh, that is that is a an important component of what they're looking for. But they also talk a lot about the importance of relationships. And something that really stood out to me, Lee, was these are family-owned companies and they value working with family farmers. That's that's a message we heard, didn't we?

Lee Brooke, ISA President-Elect 17:57

Yeah, we sure did. They uh, you know, all these companies that we've met with are are generational, just like myself and a lot of the farmers. You know, most farmers in Iowa are, and uh they appreciate that value and and know that we can supply them. And and one thing that you mentioned AGP and and I think some things they can't, some of these feed companies can't take whole vessels. Uh, you know, they don't use it that they use a lot of stuff, but a whole vessel of soybean meal is a lot that to keep quality up in the humid weather. So we've talked with them about working to maybe split some uh vessels and do containers shipping and different things to help them out, hopefully.

Aaron Putze, ISA 18:34

So you're taking away uh time from your farm. You're down here and you know, we're here the first week of June, and there's a lot to do on the farm back in Iowa. You know, you're president-elect of Iowa Sweden Association, so a little bit of this comes comes with the territory, but but why do you personally make time to come down here to meet with buyers to take time away from the farm?

Lee Brooke, ISA President-Elect 18:54

Well, it's it's one thing I've learned on my five years of being on the board that uh when I started some of these mission trips and different trips that uh the importance of uh uh relationships with these buyers. Uh you know, they have a great need for our product and and we have a great we need to export our products. So we have we raise, we know how to raise it, we raise too much. And uh it's just that people ask me at home why do you go? And it's like you need to visit face to face with these people and keep the relationship open. And they every place we've been, they they say come back, visit us again, and they love that we're here.

Aaron Putze, ISA 19:34

Well, and I think a lot about relationships and the and the ability to speak the language is just having relatability, being able to relate to the concerns that they have, being able to see it through their eyes. I mean, you when you're here, you can just can't you just feel the the the crush of people and and the the logistical challenges when they talk about that and that it can take you know three to five days to bring uh a truckload of soybean meal down from the northern cord here into Bogota, the terrain that they have to deal with and the logistics and the challenges. And it it's one thing to to talk about it, maybe a virtual call over the telephone. It's quite another to be here across the table from them. But not only that, but it's it's even going from meeting to meeting. What has really you know stuck out to you, Lee, as you just have been as we've moved around the country of Colombia? Uh what have you what have you pondered, I guess, in in in in terms of what you've seen?

Lee Brooke, ISA President-Elect 20:31

It's you know, the the drain, uh, the trees, um that like say there's 57 million people in Colombia that these companies are are you know feeding all species of livestock and pets. Uh I think we've yeah, I think they've I think between the three companies they cover about all the livestock that there is and and then the pet foods. And it's just you know, it's beautiful here. Um people are nice, uh, but you know, they have some definitely some challenges to to uh keep everybody the animals fed and uh with the terrain, and it's just something that we don't deal with quite like this at home.

Aaron Putze, ISA 21:10

These companies are very uh very modern. Uh they are fully integrated. Uh speak a little bit, Lee, to um, you know, what are they sourcing these raw ingredients for? What what are the primary uh markets that they're serving with US uh soy? Uh and uh what have you heard in terms of potential for growth? So, first uh the the species that they're using the soybean for, and what have you heard in terms of their opportunities for even making additional purchases of Iowa and U.S. soy moving forward?

Lee Brooke, ISA President-Elect 21:47

Yeah, poultry, I believe, is their number one uh consumption of the feed products that we that they buy from us, and and I think pork was right up there, and and you got aquaculture, a lot of fish. Stuff you have a lot of pet stuff. Um what am I missing here?

Aaron Putze, ISA 22:04

I think well, I think there was equine, equine, some dairy, some dairy, cattle, uh, and fish, yeah. So it's yeah, it's all of the above. And um the consumption here in the country, I think, as you reference, I think poultry is uh is surging, pork is surging. A little bit of that I think we heard was because beef is much like back home. Yeah, uh, it's just not accessible, maybe for a lot of consumers day to day. But the the prospects for the for future growth uh is very positive.

Lee Brooke, ISA President-Elect 22:35

It's very positive. And we walked into uh uh one of the uh plants yesterday, and on the wall they had a bunch of signs that uh entities that they work with, and I recognized two of them right away, which is PIC, which is in pork uh genetics, and ABS, which is a beef genetics. And I asked them about it, and they said, Yeah, we're you know, we've done they've done a great job working, partnering with those companies to help their products down here and the pork, they've done great. They're working on the beef to get it more off of the grass fed into more of a grain fed, poor quality product for their consumers.

Aaron Putze, ISA 23:11

It's indeed a small world, and uh they they know where I whiz, you know, we come here to visit them, but they also they come to visit Iowa and and share uh information, share some techniques because they these companies what what I what I heard from them, Lee, when I felt from them was they really exist because they are so family-owned, much like your farm, they really feel uh a duty to serve the people of their n of their homeland, and that starts with making food affordable and accessible.

Lee Brooke, ISA President-Elect 23:50

Yeah, yeah, it definitely does. They, you know, you mentioned that them, you know, the Iowa Pork Congress is going on at home, and there's a delegation from Columbia that is in Iowa right now is as we speak, and at the fork congress, and I believe they're maybe coming to the soybean office, possibly. And and so it's uh, you know, they they're they're just you know, they're generational family people just like we are, and and they're feeding their country like we feed our uh people at home.

Aaron Putze, ISA 24:16

As we prepare to head for home, you know, what's something from our time here in Columbia that's really gonna stick out to you uh that you're gonna take with you as you continue in your role as uh as president elect, and then in September, when you take the gavel as president of Iowa Soybean Association, what's something from this trip that's that's gonna stay with you?

Lee Brooke, ISA President-Elect 24:36

Probably the biggest thing that's gonna stay with me is how they are committed um to buying products from us. You know, when they said 95-98% of their products come from us and they want to continue that. I mean, they're happy with it. So it's our job to uh keep them satisfied. And and when I was sitting at the table and they tell us how much that they were buying that high percentage from the US that really hit home with me.

Aaron Putze, ISA 25:07

Well, and it's uh you know, and it's not a small amount. Two million metric tons and and on their way potentially to 2.5 million metric tons. Uh lastly, Lee, what what do you feel when you're you're here visiting with buyers and they speak so highly of the relationships with farmers like you and with the product you grow?

Lee Brooke, ISA President-Elect 25:25

Uh it just makes you uh think, you know, and and I know it's easy to sit there at home and we we haul it to our bins or haul it to our elevator or crusher, and you think that's the last of the last of that where that bean goes, but it's not. I mean, that bean travels the world and feeds people around the world, and and it's just something you gotta be proud of.

Maxwell Schaeffer 25:47

That was Lee Brooke and Aaron Putze, live from Bogota, where the buyers are buying up to 98% of their product from the United States, and where a three to five-day truck haul through the mountains doesn't stop them from coming back for more Iowa soy. Lee put it well. You haul it to the elevator and think that's the last of it. But that bean travels the world. It also travels back to the field because growing more of it, more profitably, more sustainably, is exactly the work our next guest and his team does every day. Joe McClure is the chief officer of the Research Center for Farming Innovation at Iowa Soybean Association. His team runs over 200 research locations across Iowa. And they're using one AI-based trial to answer a question that's equal parts practical and provocative. Can a machine outfarm a farmer? Here's Joe McClure.

Farmer vs. AI - Who's The Better Farmer?

Maxwell Schaeffer 26:45 Joe McClure, ISA 26:47

I'm Joe McClure. I'm the chief officer of our Research Center for Farming Innovation at Iowa Soybean. Our team is focused on exploring uh agronomic questions and supporting conservation implementation. So essentially our goals are to help farmers meet their goals, whether it's a question in the field, on their soybean, or even corn crop, or if it's how to implement some conservation on their farm.

Maxwell Schaeffer 27:10

What does that look like? Are you out there in the fields? Are you mostly behind the scenes? How's that working?

Joe McClure, ISA 27:14

Myself personally, I'm behind the scenes. We do have a great team who's in the field with farmers running over 200 locations a year of research and then uh and then working with farmers to implement tens of thousands of acres of cover crops and edge-of-field practices. So there's a lot of people in the field.

Maxwell Schaeffer 27:30

I hear you and your team uh use this term man versus machine. And what what does that mean? Why does that exist, that term?

Joe McClure, ISA 27:40

So it's our uh play on words. We have a uh research project that we're a partner of um uh headed out of University of Wisconsin. And we fulfill the Iowa component uh across across the Midwest. And so we run five to six locations a year for that. And what we're really looking at is using the data collected over the past 10 years of which practices equate to what yield advances or or not advances, um, what is what should farmers be doing based on the data? And then we pair that up against farmer practice. And so what's the algorithm says you should do versus what you're doing? And then we run that side by side and see on a profitability which which method is the better method.

Maxwell Schaeffer 28:21

That's really interesting because I'm sure you uh run into a lot of farmers that know their land who maybe are hesitant to adopt technology. Uh you know, how do you deal with that? How do you work with that?

Joe McClure, ISA 28:33

Yeah, I mean absolutely. But uh they in a lot of these uh cases and and this, it's it's mainly tweaks. Um it's not wholesale changes on the farm, because you're right, they know they know their land, they know their equipment. Um and and so it's tweaks to planning date or maybe it's products that they they use and they've used for the past 10 years that may not be really providing much value. And so it may be stopping doing something so we can drive that profitability up and not always worried about how can I get from 65 bushel to 68? You may be losing money if you try to chase that last three bushel.

Maxwell Schaeffer 29:07

So what is the machine then recommending? You know, you talk about the algorithm. What does it recommend? How is it really helping uh farmers uh find that profit?

Joe McClure, ISA 29:17

It's very consistently um suggesting to plant a little bit earlier than we do, the April 15th, April 20th for soybeans. Very consistently uh suggesting that uh seed treatment is not a driver for profitability. It doesn't mean it can't it shouldn't be used in certain situations, but it is not a consistent payoff for profit. And then foliar fungicide and later in the season for for leaf diseases, it's only about uh 20% of the time does it actually yield more profitability. Um so that's an area where farmers can actually cut activities and and drive more profitability for themselves.

Maxwell Schaeffer 29:51

How does that add up across a full operation? I mean, you're talking about squeezing five or ten more dollars an acre using this algorithm. How does that work across the whole operation?

Joe McClure, ISA 30:05

You know, half a bushel to a bushel of added value there. And the good thing about that is it's it's uh often times of not changing much, uh not adding a new equipment, not not purchasing anything new. So it's actually eliminating uh steps or or changing slightly. So it you know, if you're if you get um you know 750 acres of of soybeans, that that'll add up so you can invest that uh in other ways, save it, whatever, but it'll add it'll add up nicely for farmers to really kind of make get closer to that breakeven point because we're not in breakeven zone right now.

Maxwell Schaeffer 30:39

Has this been a mindset shift then, uh, you know, over generations? Or do you find that younger farmers are adopting it quicker?

Joe McClure, ISA 30:47

I would say right now what we're seeing is our our older farmers and our younger farmers are adopting things a little quicker. Um and and you know, you could that's dynamics of older farmer may have a little less risk in the game because they may have more things that are owned, uh less rent, less, less, less carrying costs. Younger farmer is you know, by you know, looking to change things, looking to really drive to drive the middle of the road, you know, loans and children, and there's a lot of risk there. So making big changes when you've got a lot of risk at on the table may be a little less likely. So helping them with small changes that don't really add risk or or minimize it. And then helping farmers not do it on every acre. Let's let's try that 40 over there, or let's try something near your house so you can keep an eye on it. Um, that's a good way to do it to minimize risk.

Maxwell Schaeffer 31:35

So uh ISA is one of the many partners, as you said, with the University of Wisconsin-led program. It's funded by the North Central Soybean Research Program. Tell us about that.

Joe McClure, ISA 31:46

So the North Central Soybean Research Program is a is a coalition of 13 states in the upper Midwest as well as around the Great Lakes. Um and what we do there is we get funding from the 13 soybean organizations that are are in those 13 states and we try to drive research that is cross-institution and cross-discipline. So we want Iowa State researchers to work with Illinois, to work with Ohio State or or so on to drive the best research possible. So we're not in silos. And so this project is one of those where we have uh a researcher out of Wisconsin leading it with a partner out of Pennsylvania State, Penn State. And those folks are leading this effort, and it's uh it's uh covering all 13 states uh to be able to answer uh questions for all the farmers, so we don't have pockets of research and in each state that's not helping the farmers in the neighboring state.

Maxwell Schaeffer 32:36

You know, I can say there are a lot of people that uh AI just the term scares them, uh you know. But this is one of those things where AI is a tool to as you say, and and explain the difference between chasing maximum yield and chasing maximum profit.

Joe McClure, ISA 32:58

Yes, this algorithm that's been developed by the these researchers, we can look at it two different ways. We can drive maximum yield and maximum profit, but not every input that drives additional yield will actually pay for itself. What the AI portion of this is really looking at is like where do you farm? Essentially, what zip code are you in? We know a bit about your soil, we know a lot about your weather, uh, we know what farmers around you and the data has for the past decade of where when they planted, what kind of practice they've used. And we then we have the data, we've collected the data on the yields of those farmers. We can use that to really assess what's the right decision to make here. And when should you do an activity planting, whether it's seed treatment, whether it's fungicides, whatever it might be. Um AI can be a daunting term in our universe today, but in this case it's it's providing a tool that can be helpful.

Maxwell Schaeffer 33:48

What kind of feedback are you getting? I mean, is this turning some heads because this is something that not everyone in the space is doing, but Iowa soybean is.

Joe McClure, ISA 33:57

Our partner in Wisconsin kind of summarized it really well. When he was doing some early testing, he worked with five farmers, the algorithm won all five times. He went back to them next year. It won, but a lot less advantageous because all the farmers adapted last year's model. And so if you prove it to me on my farm, I'm gonna do it again.

Maxwell Schaeffer 34:19

That's a great question. Can a machine out farm a farmer, right?

Joe McClure, ISA 34:23

I don't think it can. I think it can help a farmer, but uh the land, the lay of the land, uh there's so much about that that's ingrained from generations. And so it's not looking to replace, but I think it definitely can be a tool as farmers look to be profitable and then hand this to the next generation. This is a good way to reduce risk and drive the best possible outcomes.

Maxwell Schaeffer 34:42

So to pivot a little bit, you also have a conservation program called Farm to River. Now, how does that fit into the Research Center for Farming Innovation?

Joe McClure, ISA 34:52

It goes back to our goals are essentially helping farmers meet their goals. And part of our farmers' goals are addressing water quality concerns, keeping nitrogen in the field where they can use it that year or the next year, uh, driving improvements to habitat and just generally improving conservation implementation on their farm. So this program is in Carroll, Green, Sac, and Calhoun counties, which is the North Raccoon area. It's again, it's centralized to help those farmers achieve their goals around infield, which is cover crops or edge of field, whether it's bioreactors or uh oxbows or any other edge of field practice that essentially slows the water down before it gets to the river and we can treat it to get the nitrogen out of it before it hits the river.

Maxwell Schaeffer 35:35

You've described this sort of as a financial advisor for conservation. Explain that.

Joe McClure, ISA 35:41

If we have farmers that come to us and say, I want to do something on my farm, we'll walk the farm with them and identify this area would be great for this structure. Uh if you're interested in cover crops, we can help you implement those. We get cost share from uh the state of Iowa for that. And then for the edge of field, there's cost share from the state of Iowa for that as well. And so the edge-of- field practices are no cost to our farmers.

Maxwell Schaeffer 36:02

Do you handle the permitting and uh the engineering and all that funding sources?

Joe McClure, ISA 36:07

That's the hard part uh that that we take on behalf of the farmers. We handle all the permitting, the organizing of the engineering, getting all the work done. So we work with the farmer to cite the location, where do they want it, or where do they where they think they want it, and we can alter that to make sure it's gonna work. But then we take care of everything after that until uh it fills up with water and it's it's it's doing its job.

Maxwell Schaeffer 36:30

So the Farm to River Program is focused on the raccoon watershed area there in Green County, around Green County there. And you're partnering with the ACWA. Explain that partnership and who's leading that.

Joe McClure, ISA 36:45

Yeah, so the Farm to River Project is a ACWA project, which is uh Ag Clean Waters Alliance. Um it's a collection of co-ops in Iowa, started mainly in the Des Moines and Raccoon watersheds, but spread throughout Iowa now. These co-ops are organizing so collectively they can help impact water quality. Uh they are fierce competitors outside of water quality, but uh within water quality, they're trying to partner together to help advance that issue. Farm the River is one of the projects that they own uh through the state of Iowa. And then we participate, ISA participates by providing the technical expertise and the manpower to drive this with Alex Slagle running program. She's she's doing a great job there and uh working with those farmers in those four counties.

Maxwell Schaeffer 37:32

That was Joe McClure, whose team is out in the fields of Iowa with farmers running trials, crunching data, and quietly handling conservation permitting. Today, that bean traveled from the backing of a turf for dogs in Des Moines to a conference room in the Andes to a 40-acre strip trial in Green County. And in each of those places, somebody was doing something new with soy. Innovation doesn't always announce itself. Sometimes it's turf holding up to 500 dogs and a very committed grounds crew. Sometimes it's a farmer from Clarinda sitting across the table from a feed company in Bogota that buys 98% of its raw materials from the United States. Sometimes it's an algorithm that tells you to plant earlier and skip a fungicide pass. And it turns out to be right. And sometimes it looks like a farmer standing out at the edge of a field watching a bioreactor do its quiet work before the water ever reaches the river. Which brings us to next time. Joe mentioned Farm to River today, the conservation work ISA is doing in the Raccoon watershed, where they're helping farmers slow the water down, treat it and keep it clean before it leaves the farm. In August, we're going deeper. We're gonna follow Iowa's water upstream all the way back to the farmer and the practices, the programs, and the people working to enhance water quality in Iowa. Be sure to tune in. Before we go, here's your fun soy fact. According to the American Soybean Association, Columbia was the third largest importer of U.S. soybean meal and soybean oil between 2024 and 2025, totaling $979 million in value. Thank you for listening to The Bean Scene, proudly brought to you by the Iowa Soybean Association and the soybean checkoff. Find us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. And follow the Iowa Soybean Association on Facebook, LinkedIn, X, or YouTube. We'll catch you next time where Iowa soy meets life. Until then, keep growing.