Dirt to Dollars

Episode 35

• Farmers • Season 1 • Episode 35

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0:00 | 46:35

Thanks to Southern States Hardin Co-op for sponsoring this week's show! Go visit them at their Hodgenville and Elizabethtown locations. 

Thanks also to our studio sponsor Biotech Innovations.  Learn more about them at www.biotechinnovationsag.com.


SPEAKER_02

Welcome to Dirt to Dollars, where we cover everything from the dirt on your land to the dollars in your hand.

SPEAKER_01

We're talking all things agriculture in central Kentucky, from the field to the farm office.

SPEAKER_00

Join your hosts, Daniel Carpenter, Matt Adams, and Mark Thomas as we dig into current ag news, practices, and more. And now, coming to you from the Biotech Innovation Studios, here's Dirt to Dollars. Now let's get innovative.

SPEAKER_02

All right. Welcome back to another episode of Dirt to Dollars. Hey, can y'all can y'all hear me okay? I think I may be having internet trouble. I put my Wi-Fi in the barn to see if it would make my internet more stable.

SPEAKER_01

Is it working? Come on. This is why we don't let Daniel open. I thought we were too. Although I'll give it, that's probably that's probably top two of the opening jokes he's had.

SPEAKER_02

Good. Well, I think we're good. It seems to be in good uh stable condition.

SPEAKER_00

I was you were almost through the joke before uh quit trying to figure out why you would I thought maybe you had it on the roof trying to get better signal or something, or like power and some barn cameras to watch the sheet. I had all kinds of things going through my mind.

SPEAKER_01

You got a solar power up there to solar panels on your roof to run that router.

SPEAKER_02

Just putting it in the barn for more stable internet. Just another bad dad joke.

SPEAKER_01

Bad dad joke joke. Anyway, what's going on this week? You know what's not a bad joke? What's not a joke? Oh, what's not a joke? Our sponsor this week Southern States Harden Co-op back to the OG. Those guys and gals have been running their tails off the last few weeks. And they, much like us, we're looking forward to uh the break we got in the weather to catch their breath and recharge and get going.

SPEAKER_02

So Yep, been there, done that, and it's you know, when you have those wide open weeks of non-stop action, you gotta keep going. You gotta, you know, the farmers aren't wanting to slow down, even though a few may have slowed down a little bit there at the end of that dry spell.

SPEAKER_01

But uh there were several that quit planting, uh, just said, you know what, I'm done, I'm stopping. Uh ground's too hard, I'm just gonna stop. Um, but that doesn't stop the sprayers, the fertilizer trucks and all that. They're still out there trying to catch up or stay ahead uh of our planters. And when you don't have uh a day or two in there with with some uh rain, you don't get that free time to catch back up. We've experienced that here on the farm with spraying. I've been behind spraying all spring, it seems like. Or haven't had those. We'll have a few now before we get back in the planter, but yeah.

SPEAKER_02

But it was good to see we got some rain this week.

SPEAKER_01

Yes. How much do you get? In the How Valley wetlands.

SPEAKER_00

Don't even want to hear it because he always gets three times what anybody else.

SPEAKER_02

No, I don't. I think we were somewhere between two and two and a half for the week.

SPEAKER_00

Are you serious?

SPEAKER_01

One I think we had one point six in all? Yeah. One one six, one eight, something like that at the most. I had some farms that got like an inch and a tenth last night, and then we were somewhere between six and eight tenths the previous night, depending on where you were at.

SPEAKER_00

I was an inch and a quarter total. How much wind like uh not really much. Now you were right in that area that had a tornado confirmed. So we didn't even know it. These tornado sirens on your phones, I was about to turn them off because I was I planted until almost midnight Monday night. And uh trying to finish a farm up and brought the planter home and put it in the bar, needed to do some work to it while it was wet anyway. Uh so come in and get showered and get in bed, and it's like, you know, you just had gotten into that deep sleep, and then next thing you know, the tornado sirens are going off on your phone. And I reach over and just I guess I thought it was an alarm or something. I canceled it, and then I listen and I hear the voice of Ryan Hall from YouTube, the weather guy. And I look over, and Molly's got her phone up and got Ryan Hall pulled up, and he's talking about Grayson and Hart and Harden counties. And I was like, Oh, we might already pay attention to this. So yeah, then we pulled the tornado warning up, and you know, on the radar now it gives the cool little box that the warning's in. Well, it was that little cone deal coming right off that stump storm, and we were right dead in the center of it. And you know, some radars will have like the little line with the dots on it showing the direction of the storm that was going right over our house. But it didn't, I mean, you could hear some thunder fairly close, but it wasn't raining yet. There wasn't wind blowing on the side of the house or anything. And so we saw that and they started talking about where I'm at is that corner of Grayson Harden, Hart County, and they started talking about all three counties. I thought, yeah, it's probably something coming this way. So we got the kids and the dog and went to the basement, and really by the time we got good and settled in the basement, I looked up the radar and the tornado warning was already east of us. But yeah, we thought it was just one of those things that got blown out of proportion. And then uh I get a text from a friend today that uh follows the weather pretty closely and does some storm chasing and stuff, and it was a picture of some National Weather Service map that he has access to, and it was showing a preliminary EF-0 tornado tornado path just west of our house. And the uh the caption with the t in the text was that one was coming right for the back porch.

SPEAKER_01

So they must have changed actually first two things. One, don't you all have to go outside to go into your basement?

SPEAKER_00

No, we can get to it. Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_01

Some reason I was thinking that you guys had to go outside. So I no, so every time you talk about going to the basement, I envision that opening scene of Twister whenever y'all are going.

SPEAKER_03

We gotta like take the door to the door and Toby's out there. Come on, Toby.

SPEAKER_00

No, we're not quite that primitive.

SPEAKER_01

Okay, well, that's good. Um, the second thing, they must have changed those tornado warning sirens the way they go off, because last time that happened and you guys were in that triangle, our phones blew up here in Etown. And so we got up and was looking around and I was watching the radar, of course. We knew it was south of us. And this time they never went off.

SPEAKER_02

The sirens never went off in E Town. I don't know if they now they went off like the the cell phone sirens. Did your cell phones go off? No, so ours went off early in the day because of a thunderstorm watch, and they go crazy, like their sirens are growing nuts. But then that thunderstorm warning, it was it actually listed Hal Valley and Sicilia, but we must have been just right outside of that that triangle or whatever they do, and I guess it it did like our alarms didn't go off. We we woke up during it, but it wasn't because of our sirens going off, so I don't know what's going on with that.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, the one a few weeks ago that went started there, and I guess it started in Grayson County too, and went like Pierce Mill through Rhinyville uh up towards Redcliffe. Ours went off then, even though we were south of it, but and the sirens were going off in Etown, but we we didn't even get out of bed.

SPEAKER_02

I I looked at weather apps and it's like and then it's funny on the the Tuesday night storm, there was a thunderstorm watch, then they canceled it, and then the storm was going crazy. It it was storming harder here than it was Monday night, and they lifted the storm watch, and then there ended up being a tornado out of it and uh was warned, was it? No, no, never didn't even have a thunderstorm watch. And the weathermen, like uh Weinberg was like, oh yeah, they should have lifted that that thunderstorm watch. They shouldn't even have it to start with, and then ends up being a tornado.

SPEAKER_00

Well, and I saw something where he was kind of bashing, where Weinberg was kind of bashing the National Weather Service after the fact that uh that should have been like he was posting pictures of the of the rotation signatures and stuff on the radar, like this should be a tornado warning. And so he was kind of backing off of it too, or backing up on it. Hindsight's always 2020, I guess.

SPEAKER_01

Every time.

SPEAKER_02

But you think so. We're recording this tonight before they update the the drought conditions. I I'd say we're still in a drought. I did notice a lot of the cracks had had sealed up around here, but uh I do think I do think we'll still be in a drought, and probably another another good incher would would get us out of that, I bet.

SPEAKER_01

But I'd say that's right.

SPEAKER_00

So Monday night, that rain really didn't make it mud. We had six and a half tenths or something. That rain really didn't even make it muddy. Uh we actually went back to spreading chicken litter Monday afternoon and weren't leaving a track, weren't spinning a wheel, nothing.

SPEAKER_01

The only place it was muddy here was where water had run off the grain bins or the barns or something like that, and it kind of pooled.

SPEAKER_00

So then we get about that much more between Tuesday night and Wednesday morning. We got a quarter inch Wednesday morning. And uh this afternoon, Wednesday afternoon, I mean it was muddy. It was put your muck boots on.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, but that rain, you know, we had some sat somewhat saturated conditions, but then that Wednesday morning just kind of off and on rain, drizzle up until lunchtime. It just soaked, I mean, it just soaked in good.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah. For an inch and a quarter rain like what we got, you couldn't ask for it falling any better for as dry as we were. To get that over the course of two days, two and a half, yeah, two almost two and a half days, really. That was perfect.

SPEAKER_02

So yeah, I think it helps. I think you know, it not only gives your retailers a break like we started off with there, but it's it's given giving farmers a little bit of a break too. And a little bit of uh a little bit of comfort in some rainfall.

SPEAKER_00

You haven't had any time to fix any of the carnage that comes with planting time, you know, stuff that you band-aid up or that really kind of needs fixing, but you just say I'll fix it when it rains. We haven't really had that. So that's like I'd hadn't serviced and changed the oil in the planting tractor because we were in such a rush to get the planter to the field. If I'm gonna rain, it surely it'll rain after a couple days of planting, we'll pull it in the shop and change it then. So uh Yeah, so we pulled it in and and did that during this rain break. So you always need a little bit of a break there. And like Mark said, some people had quit because it was so dry. We were we stayed on beans uh just because we were still hitting some moisture in the bottoms, but when we got on top of the hills, I mean they were going a inch and a quarter, inch and a half deep into dry dirt. So my thoughts with that was just keep rolling while we had decent planting conditions. We were getting the planter in the ground, and it's basically what we do with double crop beans. I mean, how many times do we plant double crop beans behind wheat and we're going into dry dirt just hoping for a rain to get them up? So I thought surely with this rain forecasted we'd get something, and it was perfect. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

I talked to a farmer yesterday at uh John Deere, and he said that he saw something this spring you'd never seen before. He started planting beans um a while ago. I won't oust him on his planting date, but um he said they were checking beans a couple days ago, and some of the beans were were well up into probably a V2 stage, and some were still emerging. Uh yeah, and I think this year can happen, but what normally happens with those early first of April beans and they lay there, you know, now would be almost a month, they would have already rotted in the ground. So that just shows the beans are resilient. They can lay there and wait for the moisture to get up if there's not so much moisture that it just rots them.

SPEAKER_00

They didn't have enough moisture to rot.

SPEAKER_01

No, they did not. Yeah. They did not.

SPEAKER_00

And yeah, that's that's why they'll just sit there. That's what our thinking was on keep going planting beans, and we'll switch corn switch to corn and plant corn when we've got moisture, which now we're close enough to being done planting beans. I think we're just gonna finish planting beans when it dries up and you might as well.

SPEAKER_01

And a couple days knock it out and be done. Uh somebody texted us today and asked about slugs, and it it hasn't been cool and wet enough for slugs. I think it's in this rain, I I think it's gonna be continue to be too warm. And the beans that have been planted are too far along for the slugs to do much damage to them. Yeah, I don't know if the warm thing is gonna keep up.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, it's supposed to cool off, but I don't know. I mean, we're not gonna we haven't wet went into just a muddy, nasty, wet, damp time. I mean, we're not that wet.

SPEAKER_02

I I have not, you know, I have obviously with the weather conditions, I have not heard slugs mentioned at all. But I I don't know. If I don't see it being a thing, but it could, I guess, you know, we I've been wrong before.

SPEAKER_01

I think he just hasn't planted yet, and he was trying to make himself feel better about not planting.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, that's probably the quiet part out loud, Mark.

SPEAKER_01

We'll see if he listens or not.

SPEAKER_00

So speaking of uh, Mark, you were talking about the beans being uneven to emerge. Uh, I was talking to my brother-in-law, who's a crop scout and agronomist, and he had been scouting some corn the last couple days and was seeing some corn that was uneven in emergence because of the dry weather. And that was my worry on the corn side is if we get some of that into enough moisture to germinate and some of it into dry dirt, it's gonna be uneven. And if a corn plant comes up at a different time, it's a weed.

SPEAKER_01

It's a weed. That's right.

SPEAKER_00

Bean plants can come up at different times and you're gonna be okay, but absolutely.

SPEAKER_01

Well, and even if you get enough moisture to emerge that corn plant, and then there's no more moisture, and then it just dies. You know, that was a that was a real possibility before this rain, too.

SPEAKER_00

I saw some of that out driving around some of the country. Some of this super early planted stuff was pretty uneven looking. It looked like it had all germinated and came up, but it was just uneven. So maybe this rain will help even it out some and be okay. But uh real quick before we get off the weather, shout out to our guest last week. Did you all follow his post the last week? He pretty well nailed a lot of this. He did.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, he sure did.

SPEAKER_00

So good job on that, Sean. And y'all make sure you go check him out at Central Kentucky Weather on Facebook.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, and if you missed last week's episode, check it out on the podcast. Yep.

SPEAKER_00

So he kind of called that he thought we were gonna and he's still I saw a post today or yesterday that he still thinks his pattern's flipping and we're gonna trend a little more cooler and and wetter here through May.

SPEAKER_02

So you know, I will say, and I don't want to keep you know pilot on him, but it it is a drama-free weather space. Yes. And I appreciate that. Yeah. And I it's no dramatic videos calling people out for sending stars and and it's and it's and I enjoy that because that's that's what I like. I just want to see the world and and see the good no nonsense approach to it. And um, yeah. Sound like dirt's dollars. No nonsense. I don't know about the nonsense. There's plenty of nonsense going on. Hopefully we don't have any drama though. I'm good with I'm good with a little bit of a little bit of it, but I just I don't like all the drama. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

So Mark, yeah, you got done planting corn, right?

SPEAKER_01

I did.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah. I I saw you got called out a little bit.

SPEAKER_01

So there's a little bit of story behind that. Um so last year, you know, you knew what kind of season we had last year. We just we started April 17th, I think, and didn't finish planting corn till May 34th or 35th. Um just drug out all year long. And Chuck Weldon, our good friend from uh northeast northwest Missouri, uh was done around Derby Day, and and we talked quite a bit. And he said, Hey, I'm I'm done planting corn. What have you been doing? So this year when we got started, we talked and I told him what was going on. We finished up Sunday night and uh I sent him a text. I said, Hey, I just want to let you know we finished corn today. It took him two days to reply. Probably because he was busy planting corn, probably. So uh so he replied and and we talked about it a little bit and he sent me a message about an hour later and he's like, sorry, man, I just had to. And he put out TikTok and then I guess he shared it over on Facebook and uh was talking about you know, kind of comparing last year to this year and and how we kind of banter back and forth. And he said, you know, I only got two planters, and we farm about the same amount of acres. Actually, I think he farms a little bit more than we do.

SPEAKER_00

So yeah, that that's the point I was gonna make. Yeah, he farms a little bit more than we do. He said he he he farms a little bit more than you, and he's just a little bit taller than you. So that's kind of that's like the double lammy for a farmer. I mean, so hold on, let's do that. That's worse than a your mama joke.

SPEAKER_01

Let's let's address this one at a time. So Chuck Weldon is taller than me if he stands on a tractor house magazine when we measure.

SPEAKER_00

Okay. I thought you were going to be something new with what kind of shoes he had on it.

SPEAKER_01

No, no, that's that's how close we are because actually two years ago at Commodity Classics of in 25, we we went down that road and we both took our shoes off and stood back to back, and I had him by just a little bit. Now I'm not saying it's it's because I got more hair than he does, but uh, you know, that could be it. Um so then he posted that video and he said, You got three planters? He's like, what what exactly have you been doing? So I haven't had time to reply to him yet, but I'm working on it. Got two reply videos, I guess. Now I gotta talk about which way I plant corn around the field.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, that's what I was gonna say. You got you got called out on that too for making fun of somebody for going around the left side of the field.

SPEAKER_01

You go around the right. Plant beans, it doesn't matter. So you can back it doesn't matter when you're planting beans. When so you can back into the corner and then pull back out.

SPEAKER_00

You can back into the corner and pull back out going.

SPEAKER_01

I know, but then when you're combining, you go to the left, that way your auger's sticking out. So you combine to the left so your grain cart can get to you.

SPEAKER_00

I know what you're gonna say, but you start the other way so you don't swing auger into the trees when you're backing in the corner.

SPEAKER_01

So you have a good point, but it makes a difference with it makes but it makes a difference with the width of the head. With a six or a head, you have to be more conscious of that. With a twelve with an eight, not as much with a twelve. You still got to be conscious of it, but it's not as bad because you're you're that much further away from the tree. It's more on the width.

SPEAKER_02

We have to put the head than the length. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

That's correct. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

But that that's all relative to, though, because if you're running a combine that'll run a 12 row head, you're probably running a combine that'll run a 40 or 45 foot scraper. So your auger's still going to be longer than the corn head is wide in proportion.

SPEAKER_01

Well, yeah, but you're not sticking the auger out while you're not going around.

SPEAKER_00

Sticking behind the combine the same amount.

SPEAKER_01

Okay.

SPEAKER_00

I got you, didn't I? You did.

SPEAKER_01

But you need to bring the bell, man. You can ring the bell. Okay. So let's take this a step further and go to planter size.

SPEAKER_00

Okay.

SPEAKER_01

So if you're planting 16, harvesting eight, and you back into that corner, you drive the combine into the edge, you back up, and you have to move over and run the eight beside it. So now you have 16 to make that turn. Same way with the 24, you know, you run that 12, you back up, you cut into that next 12. Now you've got 60 foot. Now your auger is not going to hit in that. So again, back to back to a six row head, planting with a six row planter, you you very much have to watch the way you plant it. Same way with a twelve and a six.

SPEAKER_00

Not as bad.

SPEAKER_01

It'd be the same concept because you're right. Because now you're 30 foot, so you've got more you've got more room to work.

SPEAKER_00

Who knew there was so much math involved in planning and opening up fields? Kids, if you're listening at home and you're thinking, Man, I hate math class. When am I ever going to use this? You never know. Well, never know.

SPEAKER_02

But calculus. Is it calculus? I mean calculus. I mean, like you don't I don't know that you need that stuff that much.

SPEAKER_01

Trigonometry. Maybe some trig. Critical math. Critical math skills.

SPEAKER_02

So we really I'm I'm glad you all got your your issues worked out there. And um, Matt, congratulations on the win. But we we need to we need to we had a little social media issue this week. Uh we did. Uh we're gonna we're gonna talk about it.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

And it wasn't me this time.

SPEAKER_00

You're not famous enough to bring this kind of controversy.

SPEAKER_01

We'll get there.

SPEAKER_02

So what we're gonna talk about, and and we're not you know bashing anybody, but we're we're gonna talk about the stuff that got talked about on social media and and um do one of y'all have have this post pulled up? So Tim Farmer made this post, and uh I I mean I used to really enjoy watching Tim Farmer on the show.

SPEAKER_00

I was thinking about that when I was reading that post that uh like when I was a kid, that was at eight o'clock Saturday nights or something that Kentucky Appeal came on. Like I was in front of that TV every Saturday night at eight o'clock. Yep. And it was kind of like dirt to dollars. We had the little acoustic guitar intro.

SPEAKER_02

Yep, and it was just uh I I just I always liked watching it. I wasn't even a big hunter or anything like that, but I just I just like watching the show. I thought it was good. And uh I didn't even know he was still doing stuff, but uh, I guess he's trying. And he made he made a uh he made a post about um chemical application. And if do if one of y'all haven't get what do we want to do? Do we want to read it?

SPEAKER_01

Do you want all right?

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, I'd say read what he describe the picture first. I would like to hear you to describe the picture.

SPEAKER_01

So the picture is a um it would be a picture that gets put up um in a pesticide training class of what not to do, not wear a property. Exactly. That's for that's for PPA. You apparently what does PPA stand for? So it is a um lady in a tank top with shorts carrying around a sprayer with a tank top and shorts carrying around a sprayer in our table.

SPEAKER_02

And a sprayer with the sides on the sides of the tank, which you know just uh it's an advertisement.

SPEAKER_01

I'm sure it came from the store. It had a a premix in it. You bought the sprayer with it, you could you could fill it up later.

SPEAKER_00

But doesn't mean it even doesn't even mean that roundup in our correct, correct.

SPEAKER_01

Doesn't it could have whatever in it. So he starts out during my travels the other day, I saw a scene that encapsulates the current state of affairs in our country. The facts are there, but ignored. The lawsuits for cancers from glyphosate are advertised on television constantly, but the onslaught continues, and let's even advertise for them with our little sprayer edit. Glyphosate has been taken from Roundup in 2023 or so, but still continues in farming practices, but millions of gallons are still on garage shelves. In the store in the short amount of time that I was filling up my tank, I watched this person use a half a gallon on a one-tenth acre lot. The smell was horrible and chemical. Look at the list of countries around the world where this is banned in farming practices. Now let's extrapolate this little tranquil scene by the millions. I see it everywhere I travel. Think of the runoff into our water sources. Just me and my humble opinion. And these folks vote. If they are not willing to do the vetting on the effects of chemicals that we eat, breathe, and bathe in, how do they determine the consequences of their decisions at the voting booth? The truth is there, but it takes effort to do basic research. We owe it to ourselves to at least do the minimal, minimal analysis on important issues if our children and grandchildren can have hope for the future. Honest and open debate is key. We must come together with decency and respect one another and respect one another to ensure our future on every issue. So let's talk about it. With decency, any kind of hateful behavior will not be tolerated. That's how we roll here. What are your thoughts? Now, when I saw this, I saw it because it was shared by our friend um in Butler County, Mr. Greg Drake. That's where I saw it before the farmers' comments were turned off.

SPEAKER_02

Yes. I saw it before that, and you could not comment because I saw it and wanted to comment on it, and I couldn't. So I was like, well, this guy's off his rocker, and I just went on. But then I saw that Greg posted it, and um, and that's when I chimed in and was like, you can't comment on it, he's wrong.

SPEAKER_01

Um, but so after Greg started getting some discussion on his, Tim went back and changed it where he had can have comments on his now. It didn't work.

SPEAKER_02

I took a screenshot of it after he said that, and it wouldn't, I told him I let go do it.

SPEAKER_01

I've got it pulled up right here. Maybe you all just blocked it, but um I can click on it now and he may have blocked us because we had a valid argument. But it's uh hold on, hold on, you're right. I know you guys are right. I wanted to comment. You can see the comments, but I cannot comment. I don't know if it's because I don't follow him.

SPEAKER_02

So we want to we want to take this apart a little bit. Do we want to talk about some parts of this? Let's do it. So one of the things that bugs me the most is that he's comparing somebody who's spraying a parking lot to agriculture, not the same. Not the same at all. Not even no, like that person did not have to have any kind of training to do that at all.

SPEAKER_00

And even his assumption that she sprayed a half gallon of Roundup on a tenth of an acre lot while he was watching, how does he know the sprayer was full?

SPEAKER_02

Well, how does he know the sprayer's full or what was in it at all? Like that just because it says Roundup on the side, she could have bought that at a yard sale.

SPEAKER_03

Right.

SPEAKER_02

She could have been spraying fertilizer on it for all we know.

SPEAKER_00

She could have been spraying organic fertilizer and it could have smelt bad. And that's the other thing, and that's what I commented. So my comment on Greg's post, not thinking that Tim Farmer would ever see it, was let's have honest and open debate. And then the little asterisk turns comment section off. Uh-huh. Yeah. And uh, so and I was kind of surprised. I pulled Facebook up later that day or something, and uh it said Tim Farmer has replied to your comment. I was like, oh, yeah, I was the same way. I was like, right in your mouth, I guess. So uh he claimed that the comments hadn't been turned off, and there was somebody else had commented, had replied on there and was kind of educating him some. And I've got to hand it to him. He seems like he was listening, and he thanked most everybody that was debating against him, he thanked them. He said that was the kind of information he was looking for from agriculture. But yeah, so I I mean Daniel and I used to teach pesticide, private pesticide applicator trainings. So we've got a little bit of expertise in here. Uh so I pointed out just the facts that you know, she was not following the label, she was not did not have any kind of personal protective equipment on or anything like that. Uh I think Greg Drake had pointed out that if she had more than two ounces in that half-gallon sprayer of actual Roundup, that she was off label because that's the max rate in a spot spray application like that. Um I also pointed out that you know when I'm and I'm probably a little more diligent than the average farmer because of my past and trying to teach that for so long. Uh, when you teach six or eight of those classes a year, you kind of pay attention a little bit. But I mean, when I'm mixing, when I'm loading chemicals or working on the sprayer or anything, I've always got my gloves on. Like I I see people on YouTube videos and stuff get out and work on a sprayer with bare hands, and I just cringe. Like I never do that. And not saying that it would give me cancer or make me sick or anything, but I'm not gonna take that chance. Why would you? Throw some gloves on, and and if anything, it's gonna keep your hands cleaner because that stuff's nasty and sticks to your hands and clothes and gloves and everything else. But uh always have some kind of glasses on. It may not be safety glasses, but I'll keep my sunglasses, and even if it's not sunny when I go to mix chemical, I'll load it up because I've had too many times when I've been pouring stuff in the inductor or whatever, that it splashes up and splashes on my glasses or splashes a little on my face or whatever, and we don't want that stuff in our eyes. Um and then the point that I made to him that I thought would maybe really resonate with him was that really pesticides are a whole lot like firearms, they're perfectly safe if they're handled responsibly.

SPEAKER_01

That's a good analogy.

SPEAKER_00

And uh and about the smell thing, that was something I pointed out. Roundup, if any of you have been around glyphosate, it really has a smell, but it's not strong. It's one of the least strong smelling chemicals that we deal with. Now, do you know? So he mentioned that they changed. And that's pure that's pure glyphosate, that's not after it's been diluted in a sprayer or mixed in a spray tank.

SPEAKER_02

Right. Now, he he mentioned the formulation has changed, so the homeowner versions don't have glyphosate in it anymore. Do you want to know what they have in it? So, you know, they talk about like glyphosate's in the news. Uh he mentioned all the facts and that all these lawsuits. Well, lawsuits aren't facts. Lawsuits are juries that have opinions. They're not facts. But besides that, these lawsuits have pulled glyphosate from Roundup on a homeowner level. But then they go and they take glyphosate out and then they put other products in there. These products are more toxic than glyphosate, and that is a fact. DIQAT, diquat dibramide is the active ingredient that's in that product.

SPEAKER_00

Also, isn't Daiquat what was in uh that's what you use in it's like a it's a broadleaf chemical for in an aquatic setting. It's yes like for ponds, yeah.

SPEAKER_02

But it's also it there's there's some land applications that it's into. Then there's uh fluizophop, and I it's in another product as well, and I can't I I've seen that before. I've seen that active. And it and and and then there's triclopeer, which is a yes, it's in crossbow. That's probably the smell, and then um amazepic, which is like a pre-emergent, I think, in some some situations there. So you've got four active ingredients in there, and I I didn't research this a lot, but there's several different sites that mention how that new mix is 45 times more toxic than glyphosate. So they're not listed in lawsuits because that name doesn't ring a bell with anybody when they see those. So that's what you get, and that's why these posts are troublesome because it's really making things worse. They think they're making it better, they're making it worse, and then when somebody who has farmer as a last name and is on a trusted source of education and he's out here putting this stuff out, and people believe him because of that that that role that he has. It's the same way, same way Richie Farmer got elected to commissioner of agriculture, right? Because farmer's his last name and people recognize him from something. So hey, let's let him make decisions in agriculture. And that's what we got with Tim Farmer. That's that's that's why it's bad. And that's why he doesn't need to be putting stuff out there and blocking the comments and updating his profile picture the same day that he puts it out so he can make sure everybody sees what he has to say and he can look important again.

SPEAKER_00

Hey Mark, I think we uh we might need to get a hot mic button or whatever you call it.

SPEAKER_03

Where we can mute Daniel off from our side when he gets too fired up.

SPEAKER_01

Oh but you know, I mean I Yes. Uh Daniel, you've fired up because you're passionate about it, like all of us should be. And that is that is one thing that that irks me is you take these products and you put them in the hands of people that are not trained. And we've talked about this. And farmers go through the utmost training when it comes to all of these products. We're we have to follow the label. When you have those classes, I've been to I've been to classes with both of you guys, I've been to classes with other extension agents, and the one thing that comes through is the label is the law. What it says on that label is what you have to abide by. And if you're off label, you should get in trouble.

SPEAKER_02

And and those labels, they're even erring on the side of caution. Like they're not even, you know, it's the same reason most of those labels are because we have idiots that use it. It's the same reason they have, you know, that these same people have to have a label that says don't use the hairdryer in the bathtub. And that's the reason that you have these homeowner chemicals that have to have those even extra things. Like, I mean, I would say you're probably fine to not wear PPE with glyphosate. And I'm not saying to do that, but I th I'm saying it's just there because you never know what people are going to do, right?

SPEAKER_00

Like you never know. Anytime anytime anybody brings up glyphosate being dangerous or toxic at all, there's a moment that sticks out in my mind from when I was a kid, or I was probably in high school, but I was pretty involved in the outdoor and hunting industry at the time, and I was somewhere at a show listening to a food pot seminar, and there was a guy up there giving wildlife food pot, teaching a lot wildlife food food pot seminar that worked for some outdoor company now, but his previous career was with at the time Monsanto, which is now Bayer, and he was talking about Roundup and talking about how safe it was. And this would have been in the early 2000s when Roundup was really just, I mean, Roundup Ready was just starting to come on board and Roundup was really getting uh starting to take off in popularity. And he said that when he worked for Monsanto, they would do demonstrations where they would talk about the safety of Roundup and glyphosate, and the reps would pour it in a glass and take a swig of it. Now, I'm not saying do that, and it's definitely not safe to do that, and don't do that. But if they felt good enough about it at the time to tell their employees to do that, then it's probably pretty darn safe.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02

I'm I'm fired up, guys. Well, I'm trying to be careful with what I say. What one thing that I will say is that I I don't know. I have never we know a lot of people who've used a live glyphsate for a long period of time, and I've not known of anybody to ever have any negative medical effects that have been proven that came from that. I've never heard you'd think you'd hear something. But then not only on top of that, but it's just sometimes it's just the sheer number of things, right? Like there's just so there's been a lot of that chemical put out for a lot of acres, and there's gonna be things that happen. It's just there's things that are gonna happen, and I I I still there's not been a a proven I I just really like to see a scientific study that's not biased by a company or a uh uh or somebody who is just trying to make it look bad and is biased that would say that is it's safe or not. And I think it's just because they've tried it so much, it's just they can't they just have to go on the court or the the public opinion side of things and try to sway it that way rather than show scientific research that and here's another thing when somebody makes the argument about it getting into your food system and getting into the watershed, glyphosate's half-life is so low and it is not persistent at all.

SPEAKER_00

It has zero residual activity, so it is not staying in the soil to prevent anything from growing.

SPEAKER_02

Now, if somebody's spraying it in a driveway, like he was talking about, like you know, those kind of applications, there's a chance. And it was heavy, if it's hard to spray, yeah. I mean, that that could, but even then, it's not gonna last.

SPEAKER_00

It's not gonna such a small amount. Yeah, and typically when it gets sprayed on foliage or on a crop field or whatever, it's gonna get bound up in that foliage and in the soil, and it's not gonna make it, it's not gonna come out of there. And you would have to have gallons of pure product to the square foot, probably, to be able to get that stuff to leach out and go into the groundwater. Now, is there some if you went out and pulled a well water test, would you maybe see some hints of glyphosate showing up? You probably would, but there's thousands of other things that are going to show up in that too. And part of that is just the sheer level of stuff that we can test now. Yeah, and we can we can detect such low levels of things, there could be something that you didn't even know was in the atmosphere that's showing up in that water sand.

SPEAKER_02

Well, people will be concerned about 0.000001% of glyphosate that showed up in something, but they don't care about the uh 0.5% of bugs that are allowed in a uh container of peanuts. Like, you know, like there's literally there's things in your food that you're not worried about because it doesn't have a big flashy name that you've seen mentioned in lawsuits. But anyway.

SPEAKER_01

So one thing I noticed about that post is it was shared 25 times. And when you click on the shares, of all the shares that I could see, Greg's was the only one of somebody that shared the post and then commented or posted their opinion as they shared it. Everybody else was just oh, Roundup bad and and share it. Had had nothing to add to their own.

SPEAKER_02

Well, and then now that I've a little now that I've clicked on that, my algorithm is just showing me a bunch of anti-glyphosate things. And it's and and the one that's burning me up the most here lately is talking about uh we need to be buying more non-GMO products like they raise in Europe because they don't apply glyphosate to non-GMO crops. Yes, they do. They do it, they burn down. And and but it's just like they're they're you know, they're they just they don't know.

SPEAKER_00

They and everybody wants to bring up Europe and these other countries. Go talk to the farmers in Europe and ask them what they think about Roundup being banned and the the farming practices that they've been forced into. They do not like it. It has not been good for agriculture over there. Uh they're in a whole lot more trouble than we are because of how they've had to change farming practices.

SPEAKER_02

But it's not just in grain crops there, there's livestock and everything.

SPEAKER_00

It's a mess. And Mark, you uh you made the point of Greg being the only one that shared it that shared an opinion. I think part of that may be I know I'm a little reluctant to share something like that. That's true. Even and share a opinion that's different than that because you're giving that post attention. That's true. That's like when I went through some of the reactions of on that original post. I saw some people on there that had liked it or whatever that I really don't think meant to, but it was probably Greg had shared it. And they had clicked on the post and thought they were reacting to that. So they were giving him a little bit of uh little bit of clout that he probably didn't they didn't mean to either.

SPEAKER_02

Attention is a hell of a drug. And when you get some some people like that, they can get attention for a post like that, you know, that's going to be in the back of their mind when they're wanting to get clicks or trying to build up their their follower list. Well, I could put something out there about that again, and that'll get me some some views.

SPEAKER_00

But before or as we finish this up, and we'll we'll move on before Daniel gets fired up and gets us kicked off the radio, but um it's uh you do have to give Tim some credit. I agree, I agree for engaging with those of us on Greg's post and acting like he was willing to listen and and learn. And who knows, maybe we'll uh get him on here one day and and just have an honest and open debate about it.

SPEAKER_01

I like that idea.

SPEAKER_00

All right. Well, I think we got fired up enough that we flew through.

SPEAKER_01

We ran out of time, I believe.

unknown

So Mark.

SPEAKER_01

Certainly, this isn't the last episode that Southern State's hardened co-op gets the sponsor.

SPEAKER_03

If you needed a glyphosate, you can go see Bill at Harden Coop at Southern State's Harden Co-op and he will hook you up.

SPEAKER_02

Probably all the real stuff and not that stinky homeowner stuff. He can probably get you either one.

SPEAKER_01

But if you're gonna get the real stuff, just know that you better go by the extension office first and get your pesticide card because they won't sell it to you without having it.

SPEAKER_00

Yep. All right, yeah. So thanks again to Southern States Harden Co-op. Our faithful sponsor.

SPEAKER_01

Yep.

SPEAKER_00

We'll see how we'll see what we can get fired up for next week. Let's pay attention to the news and it'll be.