00:00 Well greetings and welcome to a cotton field at Miles Farms outside of McGehee Arkansas. We are talking about cotton today. We're specifically talking about some new trials. 00:09 We're doing in conjunction with aggro liquid. I've got molly Alexander Regional Southeast region agronomist for Agra liquid and I've got the national agronomist. Stephanie's 00:18 Linco. She's been in tons of our videos. You've probably seen her before also got Matt miles the proprietor of Matt of Miles Farms. We're 00:24 staying in a cotton field. You know, what I'm from Northeastern Indiana. This is the first cotton. I've touched 00:30 since a t-shirt I put on yesterday. What do I need to know Molly you are doing these trials out here. What do I need to know? You said when we before we hit the record button interesting thing 00:39 about cotton is getting all the chemistry right getting everything right before you even put this seed down only thing I know is a 00:45 recording something with Matt. He told me cotton is a plant that's always looking every day for a reason to die. So it's kind of delicate. It seems like it's kind of a pain in the ass plant to 00:54 grow and you said let's start at the very beginning before he ever put the seed in the ground. What are we looking at? 00:59 Well first and foremost, you have to look at soil samples and see what kind of balances or imbalances you're dealing 01:05 with. So cotton main requirements are a good base of an MP and K early on and then basically you have to have micros to move those macro inputs 01:14 you put in as well. So cotton is a big component of calcium. Sulfur Boron manganese K is the biggest factor in cotton in Peak 01:23 Peak growing conditions cotton can take up to four pounds of potassium a day. So when we're starting out we want to look at our soils and make sure that one we 01:32 got to look at our pH is see what we're looking at our soil composition. Is it heavy Clays is 01:38 it gumbo? Is it Sands do we run into leaching do we run into tie up? So all that needs to be balanced first before we start tailoring a custom cotton protocol. 01:48 Matt you planted this field win. I'm holding this cotton plant here for if you're listening. It's about four inches tall. If you're watching you can see that it's about four inches tall 01:57 you planted this couple weeks ago. Yeah, probably I'm not I'm I didn't look at the exact planning date, but it's probably been two weeks. Okay, we're recording this for the listener. We're recording us on 02:06 May 18th of 2022 and I want to talk about the trials that they're doing but more importantly you planted it Molly's Point getting everything right on the fertility Etc. 02:15 Then one thing you did that for this Agri liquid trial you put in an infero product and you're going to do several applications foliar 02:24 four of which are going to include their product. We'll talk about that in a minute. But let's talk about what you put in here in Furrow as our experiment with Agra liquid. It would 02:33 be the Agri liquid fulvic. Product they have a phobic acid is is a product that's used in several different ways. You can 02:42 use it as a you know, fertility stabilizer. It moves nutrients through the plants it biology feeds off of it. You know, 02:51 there's there's several different, you know reasons for that. We had done some trials last year where it worked pretty good in some in some soybeans 02:57 and corn on the Agri liquid plot. So figure we might want to try it on Cotton we've seen in the last three to five years. So as we're as we developed into putting in fur 03:07 on our corn, you know, we we started growing corn in 2007. So we're very we're very new to the corn business first, you 03:13 know, 10 years or so, we didn't use any inferral. So as we got in the info program with a cotton, we're like, okay, will this work on I mean with corn we're like, 03:23 okay, we've got these on our Planters the same planters plant the cotton will this work on you know with these things work on cotton and of course they've been doing the research 03:29 for years, you know where it did so it's it's been a it's been a benefit to you know to play and test and and try to figure out what you know in for a fertility or it's 03:38 not so much fertility as other products, you know, like like the full vic you can get it too hot on Cotton. Like 03:44 I said, it's always looking for a reason to die where you can load up fertility on corn and infer right at the sea 03:50 you do that to Cotton and you're gonna be in trouble Stephanie you're doing thank you. By the way, you're doing a trials 03:56 on four of the extreme egg Farms. This is the only one with cotton because he's the only cotton producer with extreme egg. What do you 04:05 want to find out what we're trying to do kind of the goal for overall working with these guys is collecting that data 04:11 in different regions. So I really like what's National we do a lot of work on corn is kind of that King that a lot of people have a lot 04:17 of exper. Experience there but then breaking into the Southeast region where we have you know, Matt and Kevin and Chad we 04:23 can get some of these crops that are more specific to the Southeast region and that allows us to prove that, you know, our products work on 04:29 other crops then corn. So we have lots of data on corn here. We can Branch into other crops and get that same data replicated. In other parts of the country, Mr. Miles told 04:38 us. He didn't grow an acre of corn on all of his acres in southeast Arkansas until 2007. I'm from the Midwest. We think that he 04:47 should just stay the hell out of corn and stick with cotton because I can charge more case rent for my Acres if we have a corner on 04:53 the corn, you know I'm talking about but here he comes along but you know what he can't shake his old ways. His old ways are he likes to grow 04:59 cotton? He told me in a podcast recording it's always looking for a reason to die. It's finicky. He almost hates this plant but here we are 05:05 in a cotton field. What is it that you think you're gonna find out Stephanie gave us a big picture here Molly. What do we go? Find out here? What do you think? We're gonna find out? What are you? What's your 05:14 hunch? Tell you that we're gonna find out about using full vic in. So my biggest reason for using fulvic overall was with 05:21 the cost of fertilizer this year through the roof people are looking at ways to kind of cut their input costs down or get more benefit out 05:30 of what's already in their soil. So one of the coolest things about full vic is it actually will help break down antagonistic Bonds in the soil. So if you have high calciums, 05:39 hi mags high phosphorus, you've got a lot of your nutrients that you've put in year after year after year tied up by adding full vic and Furrow. You're actually 05:48 going to be able to break a lot of those bonds down and get more benefit out of the years of inputs of dry and pain put 05:54 down. So I'm expecting to see the cotton get off to a lot better start faster emergence even stand and just a healthier overall plant and then that 06:03 carry on through the season and it'll actually give us a good idea of full versus snowflake on whether or not we increase our available 06:12 inputs Molly when you look at this, is it off to a better start than it would have been without it or Tell too early to tell what do you think? It depends? 06:30 People like Rob so that would be a question directed for him because they've seen it from the get-go versus what I've got to see we're gonna be talking 06:36 to Robin another recording Matt. You're the one I got here is this cotton off to a better start because of the fulvic or is it too soon to tell 06:42 or did you tell more at the fifth day of emergence? What do you think? It's really too soon to tell we had we we 06:48 struggle we were really driving when we planted this and so we were really struggling with you know with having enough 06:54 moisture to just get it up because if you get it too deep, it's definitely not coming up. So I I know you're the knuckle guy how deep do we plant 07:00 cotton seed about a half of an uncle. That's your fingernail. You know if you gotta go and we had to go a little 07:06 deeper than that on somewhere last plane to the point that we stopped because I'll stop planting before I'll go too deep Stephanie as 07:12 a trained agronomist when you hear this guy talking about half a knuckle fingernail. Does this make you cringe or you think this is just fine? I think it's just fine 07:21 because it's what that grower knows experience-wise and what they're comfortable with, you know, people measure, you know, things based upon 07:27 their experience. So, you know, if a knuckle or fingernail works for him, you know, the important thing is, you know, that's his 07:33 standards other people have to come up with their own standards. So it's not gonna necessarily be uniform across the world. Right? Would you still going back to the prior statement? 07:42 Would you agree that they should leave corn to people like me so I can charge more cash rent. He's just stick with cotton down here. Well, I'm a corn 07:48 grower as well actually attend to think that as well but you know really losses when they flooded out 07:54 throughout the entire Midwest a couple years exactly. Yeah. I think we covered all that so and to be honest with you, we don't make 08:00 it. We don't make a difference in the South that we can grow every acre in corn and 08:03 Affect the acreage I just left in here to decide she's gonna be the funny one. They did not give you the script ahead of time. I'm supposed to be the funny one around here. All right, let's talk 08:14 about cotton a little bit more here. This infural thing that you did full book's been around for a while. Why would we just experiment 08:20 with this now? Just out of curiosity didn't didn't see the need or maybe did we discover something new about fulvic Molly he 08:26 making phobics have been around for years and years. They've been mined for a very long time. But I think they've just now been able to be tailored into a liquid 08:35 form and a draft form that has been marketed in a better sense. It's not it's not really been fully understood and tested. So heavily in the past 08:44 10 or 15 years. It's really hit during this. This is a new age. It's biologically age. Everything's about biological soil 08:50 Health, you know, that's been what he'll say in the last five years basically and that's been the big key. So, you know, a lot of these products have been sitting on Shields or sitting 08:59 being ready to be made but there was not a lot of interest in it interest was in the mpk. Yeah. 09:03 Know we learned after that that the microbes were just as important. If not more important in emp-n-k and then from there to the biology my absolute favorite things. I've learned since 09:12 joining the extreme AG team is about boron and my favorite guy that we ever talked to is the Boron guy. So yeah, we never even thought about boron and FFA soil 09:21 judging back in the old days answer me. This Miss Stephanie. You Molly said something about tailoring and making products. They're a little more specific to the 09:30 crop and that's where technology is making us more productive. You know, that's how we've gotten to where we are. You do this in Agra liquid you tailor stuff around a little 09:39 bit. It's not just like a coming by this generic product off us. Tell me a little bit about that. That's correct. You know, that's kind of the key 09:45 behind the Agro liquid philosophy is all of our sales team is trained to look at that soil test. We have 09:51 a complete profile of all the different products and we can mix and match that for that specific soil and crop. So what you're going to do here in Arkansas isn't necessarily what we're 10:00 going to do in Mississippi or Alabama, you know, it's gonna be specific for that girl or even if we look across all of Matt's Fields, 10:06 you know, there might be some fields that have a different Ratio or a different product mix than the one we're standing in now tell 10:12 me a little bit. Oh my good comment on that too. If you got someone to come sell you something fertility product and they don't 10:18 ask for soul samples. Yeah. Probably don't want to buy I'll be honest with you. That's the first step in Agronomy to try to help a farmer. Let me see your samples. 10:26 Yeah, because then we're talking about a problem, you know, and that's where I guess I want to go to next the problem that we seek to solve with 10:32 this infural treatment Molly. Was it just that it didn't get off to the right start or even something that we're talking about into three week four week when this plants this tall is or something what problem 10:41 we fixin' so in for a wise truthfully Matt soil samples were very well balanced and very well managed. So in Furrow, I didn't want to mess too 10:50 much with his grower standard. I just wanted to add something to see if we could Kickstart the mpk and inputs. He had put down throughout my 10:56 foliar trials are more for fixing the problems more to the mid-season into the reproductive stages. Then what we actually needed to do and for okay 11:05 Matt, has it down. I'm very excited about hearing about that because I learned when I interviewed Matt and talking about cotton previously about 11:11 how much work. I mean you're going over this field, you know, dozen times you're gonna do eight folio treatments half of which are going to include their product. What are we 11:20 not talked about? You know, you see a lot of States you're in charge of the whole country. What do we not seeing? What are we not doing 11:26 that? We will probably be doing more of five years from now when it comes to Cotton production and they were looking they're moving more towards that micro 11:32 management to get those higher yields. You know, it's not going to be a one pass put it on a planting and then be done 11:38 for the entire season and wait for Harvest. I think we're gonna look at you know, whether it's y drops or full your applications irrigation treatments. 11:45 I think we're gonna start seeing more of that micro management and adding those things like sulfur micro nutrients in there to get 11:51 that top. You will be doing that infer we'll be doing that through the Fuller treatment or all the above. It'll be all the above and you know, even if you look at that plan or 11:57 pass now, you know, some may go in Furrow some may go to buy two, you know, you can do multiple applications even on that planter Molly 12:03 before we and I know I'm going to Rapid Fire but, you know got a lot to cover here. I mean you guys are doing a lot of stuff out here on this field. There's a little four-inch plant Matt dug 12:12 it out. You know, he scolded me actually Rob did if I pulled out I'm bust Off The Roots and they dug it out very gently with those knife. 12:20 This is going to end up being about waste time. It's gonna get harvested. It's gonna become sheets that we all sleep on fantastic. You said 12:26 before we hit record that if you didn't you must not wear any underwear I sleep bear pickle. All right, just curious 12:32 so that most people go to underwear. I had to be less restricting. So thank you for asking now while we're talking about cotton. No 12:38 this thing is so forest plants gonna become about this tall. We're gonna Harvest it. We're gonna make it into bed sheets. You said if 12:44 we didn't use a plant growth regulator, it'd be like tall as me and it started to be like a little miniature tree. 12:49 Did we always do this because you don't even do the plant growth regulator thing in Agra liquid, right? We do not manufacture a pgr. No, but I come from a 12:58 family that's grown cotton for probably the fast 50 years. And as long as I've been alive, we've used method picks. 13:04 It's been a standard. All right, but say is methadone and that's why oh, nothing. Why another quote tell 13:14 me about it. What's methiquap it's a plate with regulator. Yes. Okay. Got it. Yes, and in the mapquat is like saying 13:21 glyphosphate and Roundup metal quite here for a growth regulator. So is there any is there anything that we're going to discover that our infraro treatment? We try it here is going 13:30 to be antagonistic to the normal planting stuff like plant growth regulars use anticipate anything like that. So truthfully, we really want our info to get the plant off 13:39 to a really good start and take off as fast as it can. However, there's a vegetative growth stage and a reproductive growth stage. We apply the 13:48 growth regulator to stop the vegetative growth and focus on the reproductive. That's why we apply the growth 13:54 regulator. I just try to demonstrate that if you're watching this viewer, you get it if you're listening because Molly actually educated 14:00 me about this right before we started this recording because she wanted me to understand because Cotton's common new thing to me. You've got the trial going on man. 14:09 You're excited. Is there anything you want to see that that Already talked about for the objective of this trial. No, I mean it I'm 14:18 I mean what Molly's got planned and what agriculture has got planned is gonna be very exciting, you know to see happening. 14:24 Like Molly said you're trying it's almost a catch 22 you're trying your best to get this plant as big and as healthy as it can with fertility and then you've got to shut 14:33 shut it down. So it'll stop growing vegetatively and start growing really, how big is a plot we're working on that's 40 acres and then if it works it'll go across all cotton acres 14:42 and all cotton acres to you is a couple thousand. Yeah, two to three thousand. Okay, you know, just depending on the year what the price of cotton 14:48 is. That's the cool thing about farming here. We can grow so many different crops if y'all's corn gets higher and we'll go we'll 14:54 go participate in where you don't want us to be and if Cotton's higher we'll stay out of that. Did you hear them? I always say her family's been growing cotton for 15:00 over 50 years here in the Delta Region and she never said corn because you know what? She understands leave the midwestern people alone. Let 15:06 them do what they're good at right we grow corn rice Milo. All right last couple of questions for you. I want to make sure we get this thing all 15:12 wrapped up return on investment is after All money. What do you anticipating or what are you thinking right now? If you put the pin to the paper on on a return on investment for this man? 15:21 Well Stephanie well in the previous trials we've had with Agri liquids on, you know, we were testing Pro germine a couple other products. I believe 15:27 two years ago in a cotton plot. We kind of move around a different plots depending on what agric liquids won't see in the south at that time. But we got a we got a pretty good Roi, you 15:36 know, just just don't on the you know in for our program with I think it was a couple of foliers. Maybe it wasn't gonna be as a tense as this one. So I'm pretty excited to see this in first 15:45 apparently inexpensive to try it. Oh very unexpensive. Okay. So we're not talking about a lot of money invested on the infer thing. 15:52 We think we're gonna get a pretty good. All right, well and the grower standard practice right beside the plot. 15:57 Is pretty expensive you know what we did right beside the plot. So if They don't have to out yield that to net 16:04 more roi's that makes sense that follicles a lot cheaper than what you know the whole package we put in so, you know, we'll we'll see how that works. It's not gonna take 16:13 a big bump to make this all makes sense. So I'm here right down it his name is Matt miles Farm Stand in the aggro liquid 16:19 cotton plot and the E Arkansas with Molly Alexander Southeast Regional agronomist and National grama step is Linko for Agra liquid. And for extreme 16:28 egg, I'm Damian Mason. Thanks for tuning in stay tuned to tell you more about other cool trials. We're doing here with cotton in the Delta region of Arkansas.