Agriculture and AI

On this episode of The Turn Row Podcast we're joined by special guest, Spencer Day. Hear Spencer share about the many hats he wears in his role at Cross Creek Ag Solutions - from Business Operations Manager to Data Manager and Chief Technology Officer to Farmer. 

Learn more about the impact of technology and the influence of AI in today's farming culture and hear how Cross Creek Ag Solutions is on the cutting edge of innovation when it comes to new products and resources.

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:09

Hey everyone, welcome to episode two of the Turn Rail Podcast. I'm your host, Kyle Bremley. And with me here today is our special guest, Spencer Day.

SPEAKER_01 0:19

Glad to be here.

SPEAKER_02 0:21

So many of you guys have probably heard me mention it before. I know you've heard Brad mention it before. Spencer is the operational business manager for Cross Creek Add Solutions. Yep. Um I kind of think of you of honestly like the Swiss Army knife of Cross Creek. I mean, you are the Renaissance man.

SPEAKER_01 0:41

I appreciate that.

SPEAKER_02 0:42

But so uh Yeah, I mean you you wear every single hat here. That's why I say you're a Swiss Army knife. Um super interesting backstory. Um so let's just jump into it. I mean, typically, you know, guys are used to that conventional route into the world of agriculture. You you grew up on a family farm, you you went to Purdue or another land grant university. Yeah. Not the case with you.

SPEAKER_01 1:08

No, no. I actually I didn't I didn't grow up on a farm. Um didn't even grow up around anything in farming until college, really. Um high school, I was normal kid, uh, did sports, was active at church, all that kind of stuff. Um started working for a local farmer when I went to college, Indian Westland, um, and worked there and worked a couple other jobs um while I was at school pursuing a degree in business management. And uh just so happened I got out around COVID. Uh that was my senior year, so they sent us home the last semester and uh was looking for work and did a couple things in between, real short, but ended up going working for uh Reynolds, the John Deere dealership in Englena, Indiana, starting in parts and then uh eventually worked my way into service. I was a service manager for a year or so. And uh Brad had called me up and and said, Hey, I'm looking for somebody to do you know operations and kind of come be a come be a leader in this kind of area for the team. Would you be interested? And I originally told him no. Um, and I called him back about 30 minutes later. I was like, actually, yeah, I think I I think I would be interested in talking. And uh for some reason when I hung up the phone and I told him no, it just didn't feel right. So I called him back and talked, and sure enough, about two weeks later we came to an agreement. And um, and so yeah, I started my journey here.

SPEAKER_02 2:35

Uh that's kind of that that that's awkward. I never knew that part about the whole turning him down because that's honestly my that's my backstory here too. Um I obviously knew him for a long time, used to work with him. Yeah, I called him up one day and was just gonna pick his brain about some other information, and he threw a job pitch at me and I was like, Yeah, no way. And then later that night, I was talking to my wife and I was like, Yeah, I think I need to text him back. So that's pretty cool. I never realized that before.

SPEAKER_01 3:03

Yeah, that that that's how it went down. Um, I've been here almost five years, it'll be five years in October. And I mean, I came in, I I came to the job. One of the things that like really attracted me was like working in the dealership. You know, if you start to develop that passion for agriculture, like you obviously become infatuated with like the equipment and everything looks really cool and all that kind of stuff. Well, at the dealership, you were always close enough to it, but you never got to do anything with it. And I knew nothing about farming, uh like row crops. I I didn't know anything about growing a crop, nothing like that. And so for me to make that step where I was comfortable with I knew my role, I knew what needed to be done, who I needed to talk to for everything, and and kind of jump into this role and be completely different and have to learn something new every single day. Um it was a cool process for me to start, and it's a cool process for me to live out. Um, after five years, I've learned quite a bit and feel pretty comfortable talking about most subjects in farming, but I mean, there's still things I even do today for the first time that is different that I haven't done before as an operator or as you know, talking about agronomy or anything like that. Like it's uh it's a cool process to be able to get to grow and learn in that. Um, it's a cool process for me to develop personally as I get older, um, pushing 30. So understand that there's still a lot for me to learn. Um, but proud to say that I've also learned a lot to this point in life.

SPEAKER_02 4:39

Yeah. So I mean, kind of to expand on that, ag is kind of one of those tougher fields to get into if you weren't kind of raised into it, born into it, especially if you go to true production agriculture farming, which we do here. It's not, you know, your main role, it's not my main role, but we do do that. So I know there's probably a lot of other people out there listening, a lot of people that are in your same shoes, which is really why I wanted to bring you in and talk to you today. Uh expand on it a little bit more. I mean, how you know, not to say you didn't know anything, but coming from basically ground level to where you are in five days or five years.

SPEAKER_01 5:20

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 5:20

Um for someone out there, you know, who is just starting out, you know, how how have you got here?

SPEAKER_01 5:27

Like sure. It's uh as far as like what I knew beforehand and what I know now. I mean, when I came here, I I'm not ashamed to tell you that I literally had only worked dirt maybe once in my life for maybe 30 minutes, 40 minutes. Did not even really understand how to maneuver around a field, how you would start a field, how you would finish a field or cut a field. Um knew nothing about crop stages, nothing about what went on the crop. I mean, I'd heard words like herbicide, pesticide, insecticide, all those kind of things, but didn't really understand any of it. Um so for me to to learn as much as I have and to get to this point where all of those things are just common language understanding, kind of second nature at this point, because you're living in it every day, um, it's been a cool process. For somebody who wants to get into agriculture that maybe doesn't know how to break into that kind of like cult feel or that like kind of society of people, I would say the number one thing you can do is find a farmer who's willing to allow you to be in their space and spend time with them and figure out ways to make yourself useful. Um, like with Brad, a lot of the things that we've gone through over the past couple years is yeah, I'll spend time with him in the cab, or I'll ride, or um, I'll pay attention to what he's doing and planning, but asking questions as he's doing the things he's doing and asking why he's doing it that way. You start pulling out a lot of valuable information and you start downloading a lot of their brain into yours.

SPEAKER_02 7:23

Do you really want to know why Brad does things the way he does it?

SPEAKER_01 7:25

I uh you know, I was side dressing today. He planted corn. Um, I was side dressing just this morning before we got rained out. And I do have some questions that I will be asking him later, but uh for now we're just gonna leave those tabled. So that's fair enough. I I definitely think that's the best way to break into the space is find ways to add value to their farm and their operation in unique ways. It might be a certain set of skills or um techniques or understanding that you bring to the table that they might not have. Um one of the beautiful parts about agriculture that's kind of a double-edged sword, is there's a lot of people in this space that have done things for the same way for so long because dad did it, because grandpa did it. I mean, you guys kind of talked about that on the last podcast episode, but one of the beautiful opportunities with that is that's just a way for you to add value, is you bring in a completely new perspective, right? There is a lot of things from technology, from understanding like just business in general, that yeah, Brad had been doing a certain way when I came into this business and when I I came on board, that now we do completely different because we've just had those conversations and kind of crossed those bridges to say, I think we could do it better this way. And he may fire back and say no, but ultimately that's where the conversation is.

SPEAKER_02 8:50

Yeah, so let's what let's talk about that doing things different. Um, you know, you are, like I said, you you're the Swiss Army knife. Like you said, you were side dressing this morning, but your title is operational business manager. Yep. Uh your unofficial title is basically the keeper of all the data, data analytics. I mean, you do all of that. Um, you know, we are known for for dirt, for dynamic, intensive replicated testing. We're known for our research. Um data in is only as good as data out. Yeah. I think I just messed that up, but we'll just we'll just freeze on right past that. But no, I mean, our data would not be valuable if we didn't have someone like you setting at it, sure, looking at it, cutting it. So, I mean, maybe before we get into some of what you do for us, just what's your take on just data in agriculture in general right now? I mean, with today's equipment, everybody's got the ability to look at as applied. Everyone can pull out yield maps. Um, I hear it all the time with customers. It's I didn't see it on the yield monitor. Is that accurate?

SPEAKER_01 10:13

I think it, I think it really depends. I think there's a lot of people that um, yeah, they might look at it for a second or maybe look at it, but not necessarily under a microscope, um, like we do. And that's one thing that I think you have to be intentional when you are sitting down to look at data or just anything involving data in general, is what is the purpose of this? What can I gain from this information? Or what am I going to do with this information? We could fill out spreadsheets forever, like Excel's, I it's not infinite, but it feels infinite, right? On an Excel sheet. But ultimately, what pieces of information do I need to give me the questions and the answers that I'm I'm looking for? And for us, like when I pull over data and I start querying and everything like that, I have to look back at our notes at the beginning of the season to even figure out okay, what are we specifically looking for here? Like, are we doing a humic study? Are we going to do an application study? Are we doing a timing study? What is the purpose of that? And then you start building the story into you know these layers, just like when you're querying the data, you're building layers on a map, but you start layering the story to figure out, okay, here's why this happened, or here's you know what I saw on the yield map. But what were the kind of implications that maybe caused that, right? And I think that's where data is gonna start becoming more powerful, is it helps us start to tell the story a little bit better. Um I think it's very interesting. You talk to a lot of farmers and you know, you start asking them in the fall or in winter meetings, you know, how did everything do this year? How did crops go? You know, how did yield? And it's a very emotional response almost. There's a lot of kind of emotion tied to that. Where if something maybe didn't do as well as they thought it was going to, there's a large, large disappointment. And I understand you're gonna feel that in the pocketbook, but at the same time, not all of those factors necessarily could have been under your control. And so helping people understand the story of okay, did you do what you needed to do? Did you do it at the right time? And ultimately was it just completely out of your control. I think those are the things as a company, and we start to develop our own technology and things like that that we are going to strive to answer for guys and help kind of paint a picture at the end of the season to say, hey, you did everything you could and you did it at the right time. But ultimately, Mother Nature's the ultimate gamble in farming.

SPEAKER_02 13:16

Yeah, and that's a that's a great point. Um, as far as maybe like some disappointment, because from my seat, I feel like if somebody's not seeing, you know, a significant jump on on the yield monitor, like it's always in the cab at time, like they're expecting 20 bushel. Let's just throw that out there. Um, that's why Brad and I are always so big on ROI, because ROI is an actual thing that you can look at. It's a thing that you can figure. There's numbers associated with it. You take the emotion out of it. And to truly get the ROI, I think it goes back to what you're saying, as far as you actually have to have a plan, know what you're looking for, and cut that information a little bit deeper than just, oh, I didn't see anything. I think this is where it was at. Maybe that's where I put my flag when I was planting and forgetting about it for the rest of the season. Um, so no, I think that's a that's a great point.

SPEAKER_01 14:15

Yeah, I mean, at the end of the day, like, you know, when it comes to ROI, numbers are numbers and bushels are bushels and dollars are dollars. But I think data and good data collection goes further than just oh, okay, here's my overlaid layers, here's what it is, here's the numbers. I think it's being able to understand and you know, answer the questions why, or at least have some kind of hypothesis why this happened, and from there kind of start to work the story. I mean, we do that on a yearly basis with the dirt books. We don't just throw our numbers out there in our research books and say, here's what it is. I mean, there is a written paragraph and a story to say, you know, this is why we thought this happened. And that requires hours of intentional thought, but ultimately that's the only way we learn, that's the only way we grow, it's the only way we get better, and you know, figure out what we're looking for next year when we get in that situation.

SPEAKER_02 15:16

So, what what's the future hold in in data? You know, I mean, it doesn't even you you can take it away from AG if you want. I mean, I think you know where I'm going with this as far as you know, AI is on the the cutting edge. You know, we just had this conversation with one of our employees over lunch today, kind of helping him understand things a little bit more. I'm not even gonna pretend like I'm educated in the area.

SPEAKER_01 15:46

Uh I don't I don't know that I'm necessarily extremely educated either. Uh every day is kind of an exploratory process for me um with AI, with data, um, with all that stuff. Um as far as what the future holds, I think honestly, there there will be a ceiling at some point. I think we will get to a point where um AI will whether it's allowed to only do so much or whether it caps itself, I think we will find that. I think we are ways off of that. Um but the power that is in it is limitless. Um just from a labor efficiency or a time consumption like deal. Like I'll give you a perfect example. Okay. I just yesterday, uh I think Alyssa, I think it was two days ago. Two days ago, yeah, we talked about so two days ago, um I was introducing Alyssa to a new program, and I won't specify the program on here because I don't know if they would be upset if we mentioned it or whatever. But so you can give that access to um your Microsoft 365 account, your HubSpot, which is our CRM, um, and then our bookkeeping information or our contact records. And so every morning at 757, and I set it to 757 specifically because I want it ready to go when I walk in the office at 8. It will generate a report that reads through all my emails, automatically marks my emails as red, and creates a follow-up task list for me. On top of that, we'll generate all of my tasks to do from my CRM. So anything on my end of the business, whether you guys are selling or whatever, that I need to follow up with, and ultimately overlay that with bookkeeping too. So anything I need to see as far as invoices going out or anything like that. So everything I need to do for the day and tackle, right? There's a lot going on. I wear a Swiss Army knife. I don't know what hat I'm gonna be wearing when I walk in that day, but everything I need to take care of is already generated and on my desk. So whether I get to it at 8.02 or whether I get to it at 455 or 8 p.m. that evening, it gets taken care of. And that's just kind of the deal where it would probably take somebody a good hour and a half, two hours of their day to get all those ducks in a row.

SPEAKER_02 18:14

I know the days that I walk into the office and just plan on here's an office day, which it never happens that way. But yeah, it's two hours before I feel like I'm even getting started doing anything because it may have been three or four days since I stepped foot in there.

SPEAKER_01 18:29

And that's like maybe maybe that's like something to talk about too, is like, you know, they talk about the most successful people always wake up early in the morning because that's like that unbothered time to like gather themselves and kind of get going and get motivated. And it'd be interesting to see what the change is for not just successful people, but just proficient, maybe efficient people in the future is is it really having that isolated time to focus and to get your ducks in a row, or is it just having the process already there for you? And then that frees up more time to enjoy the rest of life or to fit more things in. So I I don't know where it will go per se, but it is interesting and it it's uh it's cool to sit back and watch. It's cool to know enough to be a part of it and not necessarily be scared to dip your toe in the water. That's another thing I would encourage listeners is you know, if you're not using some kind of artificial intelligence or um you're not big on technology or you're scared of it, there's no no reason to be. I think, you know, even if you don't know how to use it, just ask it that. The best way to learn is literally to have it teach you how to use it. So it's it's a cool tool that really can add a lot of value to your life, and we're getting ready. Um, we have some things in beta stages that we are kind of working on behind the scenes, but we are getting ready to do a lot more of that here at Cross Creek Ag and bring that into a production standpoint and a product standpoint and a data analytics standpoint, not just with our research, but also on your farm to make it available for you. So I'd say definitely get comfortable with it.

SPEAKER_02 20:12

All right, Spencer. My eyes are glossed over. You've you've got me thoroughly confused, as I'm sure you have with most of our viewers, but that's that's probably a good thing. Yeah. Us us old folks need to learn a little bit. Um but no, with that, let's uh let's move back to something that I do understand. So as we've mentioned multiple times here today, you wear all of the hats. So you were just giving us uh a lesson on data, AI, what the future looks like, how you're streamlining the business and making it more efficient. But this morning you were side dressing corn.

SPEAKER_01 20:51

Yeah, I was. Brad uh Brad ended up going home sick yesterday, which is part of the reason I'm on the podcast today. But you're much more interested in Brad. Oh well, I appreciate that. Um so yeah, I hopped in the side dress rig, and I'd I hadn't side dressed too much before that. Um I did it a little bit last year. I wouldn't even really count it as much experience. Uh the night prior, Brad asked if I could side dress a little bit um while he went to a ball game and uh came back. And so yesterday it was some of our tougher shaped fields uh that we ended up. I just kind of hopped in and started going. And as is most things with farming, once you do the hardest part first, you kind of figure out how to do the easy parts better. And uh so yeah, we got we got done um with all of our fields down south this morning, uh side dressing, and then we have one field left to go, but a lot of V4 to V6 corn, um everything looks pretty fairly okay. There's some replant spots, uh there's some drownout holes where we came back and filled in that are just starting to sprout through. Um but everything all in all looks pretty healthy. The ground was pretty dry before we got into this kind of two to 12 hour rain. Who knows when it's gonna be two to twelve inches, right? Yeah, maybe I don't know why, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 22:18

The studio here is pretty uh soundproof, but for you guys out there, it is absolutely pouring out the easy side right now. Um just like last week when Brad and I talked more serious weather moving in, um lot of instability coming in tonight. So we'll see what happens.

SPEAKER_01 22:37

Um trying to catch an eight or two, you know. Let's do it. Let's do it. Let's do it.

SPEAKER_02 22:45

Well, Spence, um you got your Cross Creek hat on today. You had your you just had your agronomist hat on, you had your operator hat on, you had your data analytics hat on, your business operations hat. Um so you know with that can't wait to see where we go from here. Yeah. Um excited to follow up with you here in a few months, as you mentioned. Um some exciting new tools coming out for us to use in dirt, for for me to use in my evaluations, uh but hopefully for our customer base, both current and future customer base to use. So uh when some of those things get a little bit farther down the pipe, look forward to having you back on and um potentially presenting some of that to any of the folks out there and go from there. All right.

SPEAKER_01 23:37

Well, thank you for having me.

SPEAKER_02 23:38

Thank you.

SPEAKER_00 23:40

Thanks for joining us on this week's episode of the Turnrow Podcast. This episode is brought to you by Cross Creek Ag Solutions. From precision ag technology to smarter, data driven decisions. Cross Creek helps farmers maximize every acre. Ready to grow more with less guesswork? Visit CrossCreakag.com and see what your operations in the same. Cross Creek Ag Solutions. Farming smarter starts here.