00:00:00 Are your grain bins keeping your grain in condition? More importantly, are your grain bins safe so that you won't have a grain engulfment 00:00:07 or a grain entrapment issue? That's what we're talking about in this edition of Extreme Ag Cutting the Curve. 00:00:12 Welcome to Extreme Ag Cutting the Curve podcast, where real farmers share real insights and real results to help you improve your farming operation. 00:00:21 This episode of Cutting the Curve is brought to you by cloth where machines aren't just made, they're made for more 00:00:28 with a wide range of tractors, combines, forger and hay tools. Cloth is a family business just as driven, demanding, 00:00:34 and dedicated as yours. Go to cloth.com and start cutting your curve with their cutting edge equipment. 00:00:40 And now here's your host, Damien Mason. Hey there. Welcome to another fantastic episode of Extreme as Cutting the Curve. 00:00:47 I've got a great episode for you today, and it's something that could save your life. It could also make you money on your grain setup. 00:00:52 You know what? Green bin, they're all over. They're, they're getting bigger. They're, they're monstrous. Go to Matt Miles. Matt Miles has a grain set up 00:01:00 that would be three times the size of an average grain elevator just two decades ago. Is the grain coming out in as good a quality 00:01:07 as it was when you put it in there? That's question number one. Number two, if you have to get in your grain bin, is it safe? 00:01:13 Are you gonna die? Is one of your hired guys gonna die? We wanna prevent that from happening. I've got a great topic for you. Dates. 00:01:18 That's exactly what we're talking about. I've got Opie, uh, CEO President, uh, I'm not exactly sure of his title to be honest with you, but he's important. 00:01:25 His name is Adam Weiss and he's, uh, joined by Adam Gittens. Adam is with a company called HTS Ag. 00:01:33 They are a dealer and installer of the OPI Grain handling, uh, equipment. So we got them on here, joined by Matt Miles, who is a, 00:01:42 who's almost fanatical about, uh, grain bin safety and grain bin quality. And then we got Kelly Garrett 00:01:47 that's gonna be putting in a system from opi. We had this conversation at Commodity Classic. We wanted to also bring it to you now, uh, via podcast. 00:01:55 So it's a great subject. Um, what's OPI do? Adam Weiss? Yeah, OPI solely does grain management. Uh, we've been in business for 40 years, pioneered the, 00:02:07 the digital temperature and moisture cables and, uh, so based off temperature, moisture, we automate fans and heaters to keep graining condition. 00:02:20 Matt, your grain set up. I was there. It's massively big. It, you put up a part of it, then you expand it. 00:02:27 Did you put in their stuff when you built your bins? Yes, absolutely. When I built my bins, I actually didn't have the dryer. 00:02:34 So I built these bins in four stages. The dryer being the last thing I, I did. So extremely important in, in my opinion, 00:02:43 when you're drying higher moisture grain without any heat, so you're basically using our, our air to dry. 00:02:49 So you really gotta pay more attention to it. And then of course, as the bins have gotten bigger, you know, it, you can control a 10,000 bushel bin 00:02:58 or sample it even better than you can 120,000 bushel be in. So it, it's, it's one of those things 00:03:05 that once you've got it, it's kinda like a forklift. Once you've had one, you're like, how'd they ever get by without it? 00:03:12 Right? So, um, talk about grain condition and we're talking about then the safety part of it. So let's go in, they both go together, 00:03:21 but what does this thing do? You're the one that puts 'em out there, uh, Mr. Gittens, you're the one that puts this stuff in a bin. 00:03:28 How does it work? What do I, how do I put it in? Why do I need it? Where to kind of talk about why I need it? So kind of go from the standpoint 00:03:35 of boots on the ground out in the field doing the Work. Absolutely. And you know, I think it's important 00:03:40 to note here, we talked about Matt's setup being very big. OPI has a solution not only for those very large bins, 00:03:47 we work with, uh, customers like Matt, uh, up here in Iowa. We also work with even some commercial grain accounts 00:03:54 where we're talking some really big setups. But we also can work with the very small bins. You know, even on my own farm operation, 00:04:01 I've got an 18 foot diameter bin, holds about 3000 bushel. And what it does, we, we put a cable down through the grain 00:04:08 or multiple cables as the bins get bigger and we're able to monitor moisture and temperature on that cable at, uh, preset intervals, 00:04:16 every two foot, four foot, six foot, whatever, uh, whatever we decide on, depending on the size of the bin there. 00:04:23 And that gives us the ability then to have a very, very good understanding of what's happening in the bin. But the, the even bigger step is we can automate the fans 00:04:34 based off of a weather station. And so we can turn the fans on and off based off of actual humidity 00:04:41 and temperature at the site. And we can, we can significantly reduce run times of the fan while at the same time we're able 00:04:50 to get the grain in perfect condition. Got it. Get the grain in perfect condition based on the monitoring. 00:04:57 So is op system the cables as well as all of the mitigation? Is it, is it just the sensory 00:05:03 or is it then the remedy as well? So we have the, not only the sensors in the bin, but then also the automation 00:05:12 where we're automatically turning those fans on and off. And it's all tied into a cloud platform 00:05:16 where you can view what's happening in the bins. Yep. And you can make adjustments to the system and set it to do what you want it to do. 00:05:23 Go back to Matt, before I talked to Kelly, Matt, I was on a stage at Ag PhD with your kid, uh, in July. And this is exactly what we talked about was it's, 00:05:33 it's, it's automated. It's probably technologically was a little bit too much all at once. 00:05:38 'cause it's one more thing to figure out. And I'm guessing now you wouldn't go without it. No, I absolutely wouldn't from the day one. 00:05:45 I mean, it's a little bit confusing when you first start, you know, but once you understand, 00:05:50 if you know anything about managing grain anyway, it takes the, it takes the wear out and it takes the travel out. 00:05:57 Like Adam was saying, you can do all this from Hawaii. If you're on vacation, you preset everything, and then if you don't like something that's going on 00:06:05 or you want to change your target moisture, you know, you're able to do that there. They used to be somewhat, 00:06:11 I don't know if they had 'em in the north, but sterols you, Adam, Adam probably understands that with rice. 00:06:17 You, they were in, in your, in the older bins because they had to move the grain around to keep rice from staining. 00:06:23 And majority of the bins in our area now have all the sterols took out and cables put in. Interesting. So this isn't a corned soybean thing. 00:06:31 Also rice staining. So it's not a matter of it's, uh, crust. It just stains. Is that the issue on rice? 00:06:38 Oh yeah. That, and that's another advantage if you're a rice producer, you know, your wife's not gonna want to go to the grocery store and pick up white rice ass brown. 00:06:46 Yeah. You know, any stain to it at all. They reject it to, goes to dog food or whatever, so you can mismanage your drying and, 00:06:54 and put too high moisture in there and not put enough air on there and not do things right. And, and this system only dries when it's efficient 00:07:02 for the grain that you have in there. All right, we're gonna go to Kelly. You're gonna put this system in. 00:07:07 What is, what did you look for? You, you were, without this, you got nothing. You got no sensory in your ca in your existing 00:07:14 bins. Is that what I'm understanding? No, we have never had a system like this. And, you know, the fall of 23 wasn't so bad, but in 21 00:07:22 and 22, I had some grain go out of condition and we had to move it before we really wanted to because it started to get hot in there. 00:07:30 And, and you know, we, we were monitoring as best we could, but, uh, with a system it, 00:07:37 I believe we could have done much better. So we've had grain go out of condition in our large bins and you know, now I, I know Adam, you know, 00:07:44 because he lives about a half hour away and, uh, this really seems the way to go. I, I believe there'll be a big r oi. 00:07:51 Okay, so you're gonna put this, go ahead. We, if it's okay to do this, because if we were at Commodity Classic 00:07:57 and we had a whole bunch of farmers in the panel and the booth, we'd ask this question also. You just bring up ROI 00:08:02 and I wanna talk about the safety some more, but we'll go to ROI, um, at some point. So don't let me get away from that. Okay. 00:08:07 Kelly's gonna talk to us about the money. All right, let's talk about, uh, I'm putting this in and it's gonna prevent me from having to get in the bin. 00:08:16 Um, we've said this before we hit the record button. I went to the farm progress show when I was a kid, uh, 16 years old. 00:08:22 I think they're like 1985. And they've got, you know, the emergency crews showing you how to pull people out of a grain bin 00:08:30 and this whole thing don't get in grain bins don't get encrusted. And these are like 10,000 ac, 10,000 bushel grain bins. 00:08:36 And here we are with 10 times that big a grain bins as harvest have gotten bigger, yields have gotten bigger farms consolidated, 00:08:43 and somehow the problem's worse. Matt says Adam Weiss, is the problem worse? Are we losing more farmers 00:08:48 and grain bins than we did 40 years ago? It seems like it's something we sure as hell should have gotten better at. Unfortunately, 00:08:55 We are, um, we referenced a study Purdue just produced last year that shows a year over year increase of 40% in, in entrapment. 00:09:03 And uh, obviously that that stats going the wrong way. And with the, the technology that we have today, there, there's no reason for it. 00:09:11 It shouldn't be. We can prevent it, but yes, unfortunately it is going the wrong way. Yeah, I got that stat here that, uh, the, 00:09:20 the talking points you sent, uh, is it just a matter of I should never get in the green bin until it's down to the, down to the, the, the floor? 00:09:30 I mean, is isn't that what we're talking about? Well, yeah, ideally, and, um, zero entry is what we're pushing for. 00:09:37 So, you know, even, you know, with proper monitoring and, and ensuring that you don't have outta condition grain, 00:09:44 that'll, that'll keep the grain flowing. But then even once it gets down to the bottom, I mean, there's technology sweep technology really can get you 00:09:52 to zero entry and that would be the goal. All right. So I put in your system in an existing bin, I put it in, if a new bin, it doesn't, it doesn't matter. 00:10:00 And you, and you don't build the grain bins, you're only the system. That is correct. Yep. We focus solely on the technology 00:10:07 for managing grain. Got it. Um, I want you to tell me then about the ROI Kelly, before we do that, we put it in the system. 00:10:16 You can do it on retrofit, you can do it on a 20-year-old bin. Is it worth doing it? If I have a, 00:10:20 if I have a 20-year-old Benz, is it worth doing this? Absolutely. Absolutely. And Kelly's gonna talk, tell you a lot about the ROI there, 00:10:27 but yeah, the r oi is the same, whether it's a, a new bin or, or an existing bin. 00:10:31 Got it. Um, might A little better on an older bin, honestly, because the equipment's not as up to date. 00:10:38 So you need more help managing, um, you, you work on an old tractor more than you do a new one. So you definitely, I would think an older bin with the, 00:10:46 with the smaller fans and less capabilities than we have now would even be more important than a new band. 00:10:52 Mr. Uh, Mr. Adam Itten, is that true? Yeah, I really think so. And you know, in my own farm operation, 00:10:59 we've talked about keeping graining condition, we've talked, talked about getting it to the proper condition 00:11:04 and not having the spoilage. One of the other things that I've actually been able to do in my own operation last fall, 00:11:10 we harvested very dry soybeans. They went in the bin eight, eight and a half percent moisture. 00:11:15 And I've actually been able to run the fans when it's ideal, when the humidity is a little higher 00:11:20 to put a little moisture back in those soybeans. And that is, uh, that's pure profit when you can have, uh, a more, uh, closely desired moisture 00:11:30 of your soybean delivered to the elevator than, uh, a real dry bean Lane. Miles 00:11:36 said that at the Ag PhD stage show that we put on about this very thing, that because of the, uh, op system knowing 00:11:44 and what the moisture is, you can, on a humid day in Arkansas, which they have two of, they have two humid days in Arkansas, I think 00:11:53 you can turn the fans on and suck ambient moisture outta the air and, and, and boost it back into your soybeans so 00:12:00 that way your soybeans are not too dry and, and, uh, are at that what, 13 to 15% I think is what he is looking for, that 00:12:06 that, and that actually happens, right? Yeah. So in my operation, I'm shooting to get those beans up around that 12 to 13% mark. 00:12:14 Um, our local, uh, soybean processor doesn't like 'em above 13. So that's what I'm, what I'm shooting at 00:12:20 and you know, when you can take 'em, even if I can only add one or two points to 'em, to take 'em from eight 00:12:25 to 10 is a huge improvement. And we've been able to do that. And then some in my own, my own operation. 00:12:31 And that's where I feel like, you know, the, the beans I have, they're in a small bin. It's a little 3000 bushel bin, 00:12:36 but that's probably the bin that's going to pay me the biggest dividend this year. Yeah. So we talked about that. You already mentioned it. 00:12:43 And uh, and that was one of the things that you covered at the Commodity Classic was these guys are large scale, you know, 00:12:50 we're talking about Matt's got this, uh, I mean, it's it's massive. It's, it's bigger than, uh, grain elevators, 00:12:57 but it doesn't ha you don't have to be big to make this work. In other words, if you've got a 3000 bushel bin, 00:13:02 we you've got a fit for them and it still is the right thing to do. Absolutely. Hey, hey, Mr. Gittins, remember 00:13:09 what I would say we're an audio type platform. Nobody heard you nod your head, you've gotta answer audibly. Yeah, absolutely. And the, the big difference there is 00:13:19 in a, in a 3000 bushel bin, we've got one cable down the middle and four sensors on it. And when we get to a 105 foot diameter bin, 00:13:29 we drop 26 cables in it with, you know, whatever length that is and however, however many sensors that works out to. But the system is very scalable, small bin 00:13:39 to big bin and everything in between. We can, we can fit a system into that. All right, so I'll talk about how, uh, if I, I, 00:13:45 if I call you out to my to retrofit and like Kelly's gonna do, and then we're talk about if we start new and we're gonna talk about doing the whole thing 00:13:51 from, from soup to nuts. Before I do that, I wanna talk about Nature's Nature's a company that we do some, uh, trial work here for. 00:13:58 At Extreme Ag Nature's is focused on providing sustainable farming solutions and helping maintain genetic potential 00:14:03 for your crops. High quality liquid fertilizers from nature is powered by Nature's bio. 00:14:10 Kay can be targeted at specific periods of influence. You know what, a year like this, you got down revenue, we're gonna be down 25% year over year on farm incomes. 00:14:19 Why not make sure you're maximizing your fertility investment? Don't go out there and be wasteful. 00:14:24 Don't be, you know, don't be more judicious. Put the fertility out when the plant is going to utilize 100% of it. 00:14:30 Nature can help you with that by targeting periods of influence throughout the growing season via precision placement techniques as a means to mitigate plant stress, 00:14:37 enhanced crop yield, and most importantly, boost your farms. R-O-I-R-O-I. Kelly's all about that. He likes money. 00:14:45 So do I. Um, you're gonna put this system in, are your bins right now, sensorless, your grain setup right now has no sensors. 00:14:54 No sensors. I was in one of your grain bins when I was there in December. Your kid thought it was funny, like somehow I don't know how 00:15:01 to operate a scoop shovel. I had it then they, it was kind of Thomas Sawyer thing. You probably didn't even know how to run a scoop shovel. 00:15:07 Next thing I know cheese is saying outside the grain bin, drinking beer while I'm been doing his job anyway, 00:15:12 I've been in your grain bins. How old are they? They're they're more than a decade old, right? 00:15:16 Yeah, 2010 and 2016. Okay. On that site. Got it. And they have no sensors. Is it presented a grain quality issue for you? 00:15:30 Yes, it has at times. You know, you'll get, you know, the one bin is 160 foot, a hundred thousand bushel bin. 00:15:36 The other bin is a 60 foot, 150,000 bushel bin. Yes. We have had grain go out condition a couple times as much as I hate it. 00:15:44 Okay. Um, and then you, and it costs you money because the green is, uh, it goes in and you get docked on because it has do toin or some damn thing. 00:15:53 I don't know. What's it get? Well, it just, it gets hot and get, it'll just, it'll spoil, you know, the aflatoxin typically doesn't come from going out 00:16:03 of condition, but it, uh, but it can, but typically just the cornal spoil and it can get rejected at, uh, at the ethanol plant. 00:16:12 Yeah. You know, a hundred thousand bushel bin to have a five or 10,000 bushel hotspot in the middle. 00:16:19 Um, you know, you're, it's, it's not hard to, to get a deduction on your grain ticket or on your settlement sheet. 00:16:26 Worst case scenario, it gets rejected and then you're gonna have to feed it to cattle. You're gonna have to sell it 00:16:31 to somebody just assuming $5 corn, the, and, uh, and a rejection. And then maybe you have to sell it for $2 a bushel 00:16:39 to a cattle feeder. Yeah. Um, 8,000 bushel gets spoiled in the middle of a hundred thousand bushel bin is not 00:16:47 a, is not hard to do. 8,000 bushel, uh, in our example there, we're gonna go from a $5, uh, per bushel to two Yeah. 00:16:56 Three bucks, three 8,000 bushel. You took a 24,000 burn and $24,000. I'm guessing I can put in an op system 00:17:03 if somebody's nodding their head. Everybody's nodding their head. Who wants to Adam White Getting pretty dang close to putting in the set. Adam 00:17:08 W started getting excited when we started running those numbers. So I just, I just lost $24,000 on a hundred thousand bin. 00:17:13 And that's in one year with, with, uh, an 8%. Yep. I don't think that, I don't think that's unreasonable. 8% of the, of the bin, 00:17:21 8% of the bushel in that hundred 50,000 Bushel bin, that's not reasonable. You're a great handling guy. Is 8% of a problem in a bin? 00:17:30 It seems high, but maybe not. No, it, it could, it, I mean, and it depends on the year, it depends on the manager, 00:17:36 it depends on the lot of different variables. Weather, you know, that's another thing a lot of times we dry in conditions 00:17:42 that are actually making us go in the negative. If we're doing it by, I guess you would say by I, the computer system allows you, you know, I used 00:17:51 to look at the temperature and then I'd get my, you know, my equilibrium and 00:17:55 and it figures all that for you where I was screwing some of that up and, and you can't, I mean you can't. 00:18:02 And a hundred thousand bushel being easily, Kelly's probably being a little bit conservative. 00:18:08 I could see it being 10%. Okay. So the grain can fall. And then the next thing you, if you don't have the cables, you're gonna over dry your bottoms. 00:18:17 So if you've got a hundred thousand bushel bin, you're gonna, and you're trying to get to 13% manually, you're going to dry 20,000 bushels 00:18:26 or 30,000 of that down to nine or 10% on corn. Do the math on that. Do the math on the s foliage. That's why this is such an easy thing for me to talk about. 00:18:36 Yeah. Because we like making money and we can talk about skinnier margins and, and a year like this, well, skinnier margins, you'd say, 00:18:45 well, don't spend money on a bunch of new infrastructure. Well, skinny margins also mean you can't afford 00:18:51 to lose eight to 10%, uh, or take a deduct on eight to 10% of your, of the, your health grain because of uh mm-Hmm. 00:18:58 Because of, uh, so Adam Weiss, you were nodding your head go. Yeah, Yeah. In a, in a 00:19:04 bin the size of Kelly's, you know, you get a little bit of spoilage like that, uh, with, with no visibility in there. 00:19:10 There's no way to tell. And it's just when you're taking it to the elevator, that's when you're gonna get that, that bad news. 00:19:16 You know, we were talking about the ROI, um, there's, there's lots of aspects to this. ROI and Matt talked a little bit about it, 00:19:24 but if you think about a monitoring system, providing insurance for spoilage and then providing optimization 00:19:32 to get you at the exact right. Moisture content and temperature for properly storing that grain for as long as you want to. 00:19:40 Right. So the great thing about having on-farm storage is you're not a price taker anymore. 00:19:45 You're not just taking it to the elevator at harvest. You know, you're taking advantage of carry. But to do that, you gotta properly and safely store it. 00:19:54 You know, you can do like, like Kelly and frankly, like most farmers have done to this point is doing what they've always done, 00:20:01 put it in the bin, turn the fans on for a couple days. Um, but without the visibility, you don't know. So that's the great thing about these systems is, you know, 00:20:11 you catch a hot spot early Yeah. Before it spreads. You move that grain, blend it, then you optimize. 00:20:19 So you can even put in, you know, above your target moisture, do natural air drying in bin, which is much more cost effective than using a dryer 00:20:30 and then maintaining an aerating. You're only running those fans when there's productive air to push in. 00:20:36 So, uh, you know, you're, you got a lower power bill, lower fuel bill, and better quality grain De is getting ready to say something. 00:20:44 Well, did you hear what Adam said right there? A farmer is gonna do what he's always done. That's the most expensive sentence in agriculture. 00:20:51 Yeah. Well, in every business and, and, and, and I mean we, we, we are in ag, but I don't want our, our followers, I don't want our, 00:20:58 I don't want our listeners to think that we're bashing on them. Let's face, well, I'm not Bashing on a listener. It 00:21:02 happens all the time. We're, but yeah, most, The Most, most expensive ones in agriculture will you get, we're gonna do it. 00:21:08 We, we continue to do the same thing and expect a different result. And when, when we put 20% in the corn in a 00:21:14 bin, we worry about it. But, but the farmer has to understand, he doesn't really worry about 10% corn in the bin. 00:21:20 Obviously 15 is ideal. That 10% corn from doing what we've always done and running those fans continually 00:21:28 and overdrawing that 10% corn because of the loss of moisture, the loss of weight, and the overspending of the electricity can be just 00:21:36 as expensive as the 20% corn that goes out of condition. So doing what we've always done is just as expensive 00:21:43 as letting it go out of condition. Yeah, that's, that's a dead on statement right there. Um, and, uh, your, your, uh, 00:21:52 your statement about letting it get too dry. Well, and I think there's a big statement there, and we're go back to Kelly on the money 00:22:01 or Adam Gits on the money. If you don't know, you probably tend to over dry. Like it's the insurance policy, right? Mm-Hmm. 00:22:10 Like by God, you know what, I, I, two years ago had a, had a hotspot. We're all just, so then you're using, so this, 00:22:17 you can make the case that in terms of ROIA system, a sense a sensory system like you are having, or a sensor system, I'm not sure exactly what you call it, 00:22:26 you can pay for that real quick. Just on saved not just the preventing of the hotspots, but also the over prevention when you just ran the fans 00:22:33 and ran the fans and ran the fans. Because really the safety and the grain quality preventing, uh, 00:22:39 getting in the grain bin and killing yourself or the electricity or the grain quality, it's all the same thing. 00:22:45 It's prevention. And that's, and until in the old days to prevent it, or if you didn't have any systems to prevent it, 00:22:51 you just over overran the stuff. Is that why you're perking up Kelly? Yes, I was doing a little math here. 00:22:58 Grain to me shrinks 1.4% per point. So if we dry the grain three points too much, that's 4.2%. 00:23:09 You know, you're 4.2% on a hundred thousand bushel bins, obviously 4,200 bushel, 00:23:14 you're not gonna dry all of it that much. Let's say you dry half of it and, and there's 2000 bushel that you've lost from overdrawing. 00:23:25 If you, if you, if you drop half of the grain three points too much and at the bottom it's easy to do 00:23:30 that, you, you'd be beyond that. So if we're talking drawing that grain and losing 2000 bushel in weight 00:23:36 because you've over dried it 2000 bushel times earlier, example of five bucks, there's 10,000 right there. And that's in weight from taking that grain, uh, 00:23:46 from 15 to 12. And I tell you what, I've unloaded a lot of, I've done a lot of sweep augering of 12% grain at the bottom. 00:23:53 Okay, that's a great point. And, and on top of that, not only are you spending the money on the electricity to 00:24:02 lose money at the elevator, you know, we see on average somewhere between 40 and 80% reduction in fan runtimes 00:24:10 by putting the system in and automating that. We did a side-by-side trial last year, and we were able to prove a 37% reduction in fan runtime 00:24:18 on grain that was already in condition when it went in the bin. It went through a dryer first. 00:24:23 And those types of numbers are just over and over again from 37%. 00:24:27 You, you cut back fan usage, fan time by 37% is that, and that's not every day of all year, but that still is every day for six months. 00:24:40 Yeah. So the fans typically, we don't need to run, uh, quite that much with them. But, you know, you might run them for a, 00:24:48 a solid month depending on what you put 'em in. You wanna get the grain cooled off in the fall. Yeah. Especially if it goes through dryer. 00:24:55 And so trying to get that cut down, you know, if you can take it from 250 hours of runtime even to 200 hours, uh, these are not small electric motors. 00:25:04 They use a lot of electricity. They take a lot of money to run. And when you start talking about multiple fans on multiple 00:25:10 bins, that just becomes a multiplier to how much money we're spending to effectively penalize ourself, as Kelly was saying. 00:25:19 Well, and Adam, either one of the atom's probably got, got, uh, numbers on this, but when you're running them yourself, there's a certain, 00:25:27 and I think it's fairly high percentage of time you're actually going into the negative. You're, you're using the electricity and, and 00:25:34 because of the outside temperature, you're not getting, you might be going up in moisture sit down, but you may be just setting steel for two days 00:25:42 and not doing anything. So, but paying the electric company That's exactly right. That's 00:25:49 what Adam was saying is you're you're paying money to get a lower quality grain and a lower price at the elevator. Yep. 00:25:56 Yep. Which is just as, it can be just as expensive as having it go outta condition. But when the fans running 00:26:02 and the grower feels like he can sleep at night, which he can, but that's an expensive, that's an expensive rest. 00:26:09 Yeah. And I wanna go ahead and, and go into the money. And I think since we got, uh, since we got the, the powers that be, we got the, we got the CEO of Ope here. 00:26:17 So you know what, we're gonna go ahead and, and we're gonna ask about money. 'cause again, we want to make sure we provide the listener 00:26:23 what they missed at Commodity Classic. All right. Everybody that's standing around the panel right now, everybody 00:26:28 that's listening right now is saying, okay, we keep talking about, uh, the expense of, well, the expense of a life is, you know, probably incalculable. 00:26:38 Uh, you know, your, your, your hired man goes in and all of a sudden ends up, uh, in a grain entrapment that's bad obviously, but, and also grain quality. 00:26:47 And then talk about over, uh, doing it as Mr. Gits talked about, you know, you, you've, you've already dried the stuff. 00:26:54 Now you've over aired it and you've, so you, you've created the worst product that's going to have less value at the elevator. 00:27:00 And you also spend a bunch of money to create that stupid, I wanna put in one of your systems, I'm sold on this. 00:27:07 How much can I do it on a per bushel? I'm assuming that on a per bushel basis it gets cheaper the more you go. 00:27:13 In other words, if I do like where Matt has 600,000 bushel bins or whatever, they are even bigger than that. 00:27:21 That on a per bushel basis, the price goes down's versus 3000 bushel bin. Like, uh, Mr. 00:27:26 Gittins is talking about, I keep calling you Mr. Gittins 'cause there's two Adams on here. Okay, That works. 00:27:31 It's, it's not out of any, any over respect for, uh, Iowa guy, let just tell you that. Okay. Anyway, Mr. 00:27:38 Gittins, um, you're the one that's out there doing it. When I call you out to my farm, what do you tell me to expect? 00:27:43 Money-wise? Uh, so the first bin's the most expensive. We've got some infrastructure you gotta have in place a gateway that's gonna talk to multiple bins. 00:27:53 And then of course it, it depends, is probably the easiest answer because the taller the bin, the longer the cables, 00:28:00 the more expensive the cables, the bigger the diameter the bin, the more cables we need to be able to read all of that. 00:28:07 But you could be looking at a system for, you know, several thousand up to tens of thousands when you get into some of these bigger sites. 00:28:16 But, uh, you know, on average the first bin, let's call it a, you know, around a, a $15,000 investment for, um, you know, a medium sized bin. 00:28:26 Something like what, uh, what a lot of farmers are dealing with. Well, What a medium sized bin now, or compared to Matt's place 00:28:34 or compared to yesterday. That what's been, that's 40, that's probably 48 9 Ring, you know. Yeah. 00:28:40 And what's that? What's that? Bushel wise? 60,000. 50,000. Something like that maybe. Depends on the height. 50 to 60. Okay. 00:28:47 So, uh, it's, it's the best part of this then. Yeah. So you can't give an exact number. I get it. You kinda lawyered me right there. Adam Giddens. 00:28:57 It was, oh, it depends. It depends. You know what nobody hates. It depends when they want a price. 00:29:02 Kelly, how much are you gonna spend? I think mine was about 23,000, wasn't it Adam? If we looked at the, the full retail with everything and, 00:29:13 and mine, you know, I'm going into a hundred thousand bushel bin, right? We're no, we're going into the 150,000 bushel bin. 00:29:20 Uh, uh, and, and I have, it's my first one, so we have to put in the control system, things like that. You know, the second bin will be less expensive 00:29:30 because the, the, it'll wire into the same control system. Got It. So I 00:29:35 20,000, Once I begin the infrastructure improvement, subsequent ones get cheaper because I've already gotten Yes. So Adam, either one of you, either 00:29:44 of the Adams wanna take that. So once I do one bin, then the second one, third one, they keep feeding off of the same thing. 00:29:49 So I'm basically lowering, um, I'm lowering my incremental cost. Exactly. Yep. 00:29:57 Yeah. Kelly's being there. If I did the math rights 15 cents a bushel, that, that's a, I mean, you're gonna way more than say 15 cents a bushel. 00:30:10 Plus they make me all the time. 'cause I wear it all the time. I sleep like a baby at night during grain bean season. 00:30:16 Because I know, and if, the thing about it is, if it's not working, it'll alert you. So it's not just if you, it's not gonna be, 00:30:23 you go down there a week later and well this, the power's been off. If the power goes off, somebody's calling you 00:30:29 or you're getting an alert that says, Hey, your power's going off. Yep. Yep. 00:30:33 Um, the other part of it, I think when we talk about ROI or the cost, 'cause I get it, uh, you know, 00:30:40 both atoms are reluctant to say a number because then if somebody calls, well, you said on the extreme mad cutting the curve podcast, 00:30:46 it's gonna cost this much money. We get it. There's always externalities, whatever running power to it. 00:30:51 I mean, I'm sure there's all this stuff, you know, length of cables changes. 00:30:55 I understand that. What do you tell people if they wanna know when my payoff is Matt Miles just threw out a number 00:31:01 of 15 cents a bushel, I can pretty much see I can make 15 cents a bushel in my first year. 00:31:07 I'm thinking by golly, by the second year for sure. Do you tell people you're pretty much gonna bail pay for this system after year one? 00:31:13 It's paid for? 'cause that seems to me that's not terribly unrealistic. Yeah, I I would say, um, commonly in one year and, 00:31:22 and for sure in two years. Does that sound right, Adam? Jens Yeah, we, we've seen it over and over again. 00:31:28 And it, again, it depends on the use case. If you're rehydrating soybeans, you might pay for it five times in the first year. 00:31:35 If you're just trying to dry corn, it might take two years in a a really extreme situation. 00:31:42 Maybe it takes three. But between over drying the grain, between the, the fan savings, the electricity savings, um, 00:31:50 and, and you know, as Matt said, the peace of mind is really worth something, I think too. Yeah. All right. 00:31:58 So what did you cover, if anything, at Commodity Classic that we have not covered Now? 00:32:03 Is there anything that you talked about that came up there that we wanna make sure 00:32:07 that our listener is not missing out on? Damien, one of the things I wanted to mention, we we're talking price. 00:32:15 So I think it's important that we cover, we have more than just, we've been talking about our 00:32:20 absolute Cadillac system here, right? It's the full grain monitoring with full control live view into a dashboard on the web. 00:32:28 We have a lot of options for growers that are looking at something that maybe are a little more cost conscious and, 00:32:35 and are wanting to have some idea of what's going on in the bin. I mean, even down to the point, 00:32:41 if we've got some free options available on the opiate website, you can go in and look At it. 00:32:46 Hey, Adam Weiss, did you not do the pre podcast? We don't make any money on free. We, we, you know, we can't stick around. 00:32:54 We can't, we can't keep this business going for free. What's he talking about? Yeah. Uh, and this kind of goes back to 00:33:01 what Matt was talking early on about, uh, when he first got the system, how, you know, it was a little intimidating at first, 00:33:08 but a lot of what we do is education. We, we think it's, it's really important to provide, uh, you know, this isn't rocket science, 00:33:17 but there is some science behind Yep. How to manage grain. And so we spend a lot of time educating farmers 00:33:23 and end users on what EMC is, how the system works, um, how, how fan warming affects the relative humidity that here on the plenum, you know, all of this stuff, um, 00:33:36 is important to properly manage grain. Not only do we provide that education, but our partners like Adam at HTS ag Yeah. 00:33:44 Or, uh, AP Fab down in Matt's neck of the woods, they will educate and manage the grain for the farmer. 00:33:53 So that's why we offer these tools. We want you to be educated and know how to use the system and what you're getting. 00:34:00 Adam Gits, all joking aside, I I, when I made the crack there, you can't make money on free. I'm guessing what you're gonna tell me is once we get farm 00:34:09 operators better at understanding good management of grain methods, or uh, God forbid, the guy in the next county over that got killed 00:34:19 because he got an a grain entrapment situation. If we can help educate you, then you become a customer. 'cause you realize I need, 00:34:27 I need better grain management stuff and you can help me. Is that kind of where you're going with this? 00:34:31 And then op system is, uh, the next step after the free education? Yeah, that's a hundred percent right. 00:34:38 If we can just simply help everyone understand how they can do better, the tools that we sell become critically important to that. 00:34:46 And so there is that, that whole idea of a value escalator, right? We start with the free system. We educate you on the stuff. 00:34:52 We help provide some tools to get you better at what you do. But we really view ourselves as a partner 00:34:57 to come alongside farmers and help them do better at what they're doing and help them make money. 00:35:02 Because then in the end, we all win, Right? So once they get the, once they get through the free 00:35:06 and say, yep, it turns out I, I used your tool and it looks like I need this. And, and that's, uh, that's where they come. 00:35:12 What else did you cover or what else did you, did you cover Commodity Classic or did you wanna make sure you covered here? 00:35:18 Like Mr. Adam Gits just said, uh, about the tool on the side. Is there anything else? Closing thoughts? 00:35:24 I would add one, one thing is that it's not a transactional sale. We sell you the system and lead you on your own. 00:35:30 We're here to consult with you too. So if you've got a situation going on, you're not sure, yeah. 00:35:35 Uh, you know, if you should run the automation or if you should move some grain or we're here to consult with you 00:35:41 and our partners like HDS Ag are there to, to help you manage that grain. Got it. Kelly, This is intensive management. 00:35:49 You know, we now have an iPad hooked to the scale on the feed wagon for the cattle. We now have more monitors than I can count in the planting 00:35:57 tracker, the combine and the sprayer. You know, tracking everything that we do to make, uh, intelligent decisions on the foliar apps, the planting, 00:36:07 you know, the, the GPS if you will. Um, and this is, this is the next step in evolution. One that I probably should have made that Matt, 00:36:15 Matt Miles made years ago. This is intensive management of your grain system. Like they said, it's not a transactional sale. 00:36:22 You know, we have a consultant on our markets. We have a consultant on the cattle feed. We have a consultant on the GPS 00:36:29 and here's a consultant for our grain bins to keep the grain in, in condition. This is the, this is one of the final pieces 00:36:36 for my operation of intensive management. Matt, you're the one that's got the most experience with the OP system. 00:36:46 Well, I, I was kind of almost laughing to myself because you know, the first thing a farmer's gonna say if you don't wanna spend the money, and there's very few things 00:36:53 anymore that we spend money on that we are guaranteed that we're gonna get a payback on. It's not if it's when I mean it, all of these things are 00:37:03 so simple, but I was thinking about it, it's a big deal for us. 'cause we, we do raise beds, 00:37:08 but when they come out with our RTK system, you know, we round a marker and oh, I can do that better than that RTK system. 00:37:15 You know, when we have pipe planter irrigation scheduling, I know how to set that water 00:37:19 up better than that computer does. Yep. I lost, I'm ing two on that. So if you think you can dry as good as this can dry, 00:37:27 you need to figure something else out besides grain dry. By the way, both of your kids in the, uh, 00:37:35 in the upcoming series that we're gonna do with Next Extreme mag, that's the, the offspring of the extreme Ag guys. 00:37:42 Um, Matt's Kid Lane and Kelly's kid, Verne, both of 'em talked about technology. And it's funny because they both referenced your exact thing 00:37:53 Kelly said about the iPad on the feed wagon. But Vern gave a different story. Vern had to bring him up to speed on using the iPad 00:38:00 to make sure that the rations were correct and that the feeding was accurate for the cattle, et cetera. And they're getting the right amounts. 00:38:06 And they also said that, uh, Kelly struggled with, uh, resetting the iPad. So I've heard a different version of that, uh, story. 00:38:14 And I've also, go ahead, Kelly. Yes, Yes. Oh yeah. It, uh, so the iPad for that feed wagon when I'm supposed 00:38:21 to be feeding the screen is black. And when I, when it's, when it's in the transitional phase, when he's supposed to be filling the feed 00:38:30 wagon, it's supposed to be white. And when I don't push the right buttons when I'm unloading the feed and then I pull back out the gate that he's open 00:38:37 for me, he can see what color the screen is. And I can't always hear what he's yelling, but I can see the arms up in the air and the animation 00:38:44 and I am like, oh yeah, I forgot to push that button. And so I get in trouble. Yeah, I, you know, lane and Vern are both better looking 00:38:51 and smarter than Matt and I. And so we're very proud of our sons because they're a better version of us in many, uh, 00:38:58 in many situations. And then when Matt just said that he's over for two going against technology, it's kind of like the old, 00:39:05 was it John Henry that took on the steam shovel? If you know your fables and, uh, the steam shovel won? Well, um, Matt Miles was the John Henry, 00:39:12 but Lane says, you know, I, I keep, uh, I keep bringing in the technology and he says, dad at first says that won't work, 00:39:18 or I can't make that work. And he said eventually he comes around. So he, he was more complimentary 00:39:22 of your technological adoption than Vern was of Kelly. I should point that out, Matt. Well, I wanna adopt it. I just can't always implement. 00:39:30 Adoption and implementation are two different things. I tell people all the time, Damon, that one of the biggest mistakes I've made in my life, 00:39:37 and I continue to do it some is that'll never work and it will never work on my farm. Every time I say that, it works on my farm. 00:39:46 But I am getting better. Damien, Adam's, Adam, one of Adam's guys, John called this morning to talk about setting up the system. 00:39:54 And I said, you're talking to the wrong person. You need to talk to Vern. See, I'm getting better. So that's, this is our last point. 00:40:01 Um, first off, I can, I I, I can see that it's always a struggle. You know, we're, we're not 18, you know, we didn't get born 00:40:09 and they hand us a, a, a, an iPad when we were little, when we were babies. So it's different. Is this hard to figure out Adam Dens? 00:40:16 You're the one that's out there putting these on. Is it hard? Is it, does it really that much level of complexity, technological, you know, 00:40:23 It, it is very complex technology that we bring into a very simple platform. Okay? And so that's where having a dealership like HTS Ag 00:40:32 to partner with, where we can come in, set things up and help coach and mentor our customers, train them on the system 00:40:39 and help keep an eye on it. You know, uh, Kelly, we got your back on this. We're gonna make sure that you, you are successful with it 00:40:45 because that's what we do. Well, Matt Miles, I'm not wor Matt Miles says he's a worrier and it works for him and he sleep like a baby. 00:40:51 And it's not just the M**k Ultras. So it must be, it must be working for him. 'cause it works is keeping him. 00:40:56 Alright, Adam Weiss, uh, without being a commercial, the point I'm gonna make here is this, the safety is paramount, right? 00:41:05 We don't need to be a Purdue study that you talked about. 40% more loss of life 00:41:09 because of grain engulfment, grain entrapments than there were over the last several years. 00:41:14 That's, that's not something that we, I mean that's, that's something that we absolutely should be preventing. And then secondly, um, I want to go 00:41:20 to Kelly's point about money. He just said, this is intensive management. You've done the work, you rented the farm ground 00:41:28 or paid for the farm ground. You've got the latest equipment, you've got you and your hired hand or your kids 00:41:34 or whatever it is out there. You, you maximize the crop and you get the most yield. Why p**s away 8% of it 00:41:41 by not having proper grain handling once it's actually in the, in the system. And I think that's not an unreasonable number. 00:41:47 What I just heard from the two guys with most experienced, Kelly and Matt, Absolutely that's reasonable. 00:41:53 And and not even just p**s it away, but why not even ha have the visibility to know what you have in there? 00:42:00 Yeah, you've done all that work all year long to get that crop into the bin. And then with no visibility, just sit and pray 00:42:07 and hope it comes out good at the end. I, I, I, you know, I don't know why Or to Adam ton's point, not you, you're so, you're 00:42:13 so a**l routine about making sure you're doing the right thing. You just go out and air it and air it and air it 00:42:17 and air it until you've, again, you've, you've cost yourself money because you over you, you over over electric 00:42:24 and over, uh, dried. Yep. I like, it's a great topic. Uh, you made this more exciting than I ever thought it could have been. 00:42:30 And I credit you Adam Gittens, um, I, you've got all those, uh, credentials behind you got all those certificates. 00:42:37 I'm sure that it must be like, uh, something. Um, I, I, uh, I, I'm, I'm envious. And then we've got, uh, Adam Weiss, who's the CEO of Op. 00:42:46 We got Adam Gits with HTS Ag. He's the one that's gonna be putting the system in for Kelly. 00:42:50 So if you have questions about this, 'cause you, you're finally realizing you need something like this, I think go to these two 00:42:55 'cause they're the ones that are putting it in. If you wanna know what, uh, what it looks like, uh, in a new install on a large scale, Matt Miles is your guy. 00:43:03 Matt Miles, Kelly Garrett, Adam Giddens, Adam Weiss. Till next time, thanks for being here. If you wanna take your learning to the next level, 00:43:09 remember you can become a member of Extreme Ag for just $750 a year on a dollars per acre basis. This is a spit in the wind and it's worth it. 00:43:16 You get access to guys like this to talk about things like their op system and the question answer platform. 00:43:22 You get special offers. You could have gone to Commodity Classic for free and you could have been at the panel these guys hosted 00:43:27 'cause Nature's our business partner that talked to you about a little bit ago will pay for your admittance. If you're a member of XT Extreme Act, 00:43:32 they'll pay for your commodity classic. Think about special offers like that. Also, you get trial data information at the end 00:43:37 of the year from these guys and what they're doing. You'll actually see the numbers and you'll know what works for them, what doesn't, and you can then extrapolate that 00:43:43 and put it on your farm. See $700 a year to become a member of extreme Ag. Till next time, thanks for being here. 00:43:49 Check out all of our awesome information. Hundreds of videos just like this. Cutting the curve platform. 00:43:54 I'm sorry, cutting the curve on the Extreme Ag Farm platform. They're all there. Also videos 00:43:58 that they shoot out in the field talking about stuff that they do that you can apply to your farming game, extreme Ag Farm. 00:44:05 Till next time, thanks for being here. Extreme ag cutting the curve. I'm Damien Mason. That's a wrap for this episode of Cutting the Curve. 00:44:11 Make sure to check out Extreme Ag Farm for more great content to help you squeeze more profit out of your farming operation. 00:44:18 Cutting the curve is brought to you by cloth where machines aren't just made, they're made For more. Visit cloth.com 1094 00:44:26.645 --> 00:44:29.345