00:00:00 Bringing the Department of Phosphorus efficiency to your farming operation. That's the topic in this episode 00:00:05 of Extreme Ag Cutting the Curve. Welcome to extreme Ag Cutting the Curve podcast, where real farmers share real insights 00:00:12 and real results to help you improve your farming operation. And now here's your host, Damien Mason. 00:00:20 Hey there. Welcome to another fantastic episode of Extre Acts Cutting the Curve. I am joined by a couple of great ones, 00:00:25 and we have a great topic for you. We're talking about bringing the Department of Phosphorus efficiency to your farm. 00:00:30 Are we making a spoof off of Doge? Yes, but you know what? There's a lot of things that actually crossover. 00:00:36 We're talking about eliminating waste and bringing efficiency to improve your bottom line. My version of Elon Musk is James Patterson. 00:00:45 He is here from Agritech, USA. He is joined by everyone's version of President Trump. Temple Rhodes. Okay, I'm kidding. 00:00:52 Temple Rhodes, as you know, is a founder of extreme ag, one of the, of the guys of extreme ag, I'm sorry. 00:00:57 And, uh, he's been dealing with phosphorus scrutiny, applied phosphates that is since the late eighties at his farm along the 00:01:05 Chesapeake Bay in Maryland. We three were just on a stage in February in western Nebraska discussing efficiency 00:01:13 and utilization of applied resources and how we are gonna be under increasing scrutiny to decrease our amount of applied nutrients. 00:01:22 This is where the future is going. Temple and James and I, absolutely 1000000% believe this. And if you don't believe it, look at the Wisconsin, uh, 00:01:30 potential legislation on nitrates in the water. Look at Western Nebraska where 26% of the wells tested were about 10 times the, uh, safe level 00:01:40 of nitrates in the water supply. Look at the Chesapeake Bay. Look at northern Ohio 00:01:44 where phosphates are found in Lake Erie starting in the late 1990s. And now we've got a regulatory issue. 00:01:49 We're talking about decreasing applied nutrients. It's where the future is going. I've got these two guys 00:01:53 that are gonna give you the whole scoop. Did I pretty much outline that, James, the way we should? I think you got it. Good. I I I mean, 00:02:00 we're talking about the environmental side here, and the environmental side is obviously driven through inefficiencies. 00:02:05 What we're talking about there is we're talking about cutting waste. So right now everybody's talking about cutting back and, 00:02:11 and where can we get to, well, the first thing to cut is cut the waste first, and then that's where you start. 00:02:16 There wouldn't be an environmental issue if there wasn't an efficiency problem with our fertility in the first place. 00:02:23 And I think that's part of the conversation that we got to have a discussion on. And mainly it was focused around nitrates, 00:02:30 but it's across all nutrients that we do. It's across all pesticides and chemistry that we use as well. 00:02:35 Efficiency is key when it comes to profitability. And then that, and then obviously you're eliminating waste in that instance as well. So, 00:02:44 Well, the problem really is James, I mean, think about this, Damien, you think about it too. What is waste? Does farmers really know what waste is? 00:02:52 That's the real problem. What is the waste? Okay, well, let's go with this. And you guys are a lot closer to it, more agronomically, uh, 00:02:59 dialed in than I am. But I read an article about a year ago, and I was in one of the presentations 00:03:04 that I think was involved with extreme ag where, uh, a person that is in the crop nutrients business said about 35% of applied nutrients get into the plant. 00:03:15 And I think particularly we're talking about macronutrients, nitrogen, phosphorus being the 00:03:18 two most important ones, right? So if you're only talking about one third of what you throw out there, getting into the plant, 00:03:23 we're wasting two thirds of what we put out there. No smart business gets ahead by overlooking two thirds of your expense, going literally down the drain 00:03:33 or into the water table or, uh, volatilized or whatever. So if we, let's just talk about that with efficiency. 00:03:40 So nitrogen's probably more efficient, especially when we look at timing and placement. And Temple does a great job with that. 00:03:47 Now, spoon feeding the crop when he needs it, he's able to get away with less nitrogen and total because he can time it. 00:03:53 The challenge with phosphorus, it's more, it's a really chemistry based problem that you have there. So phosphorus is the least deficient 00:04:00 macronutrient that you'll use. So when we talk about, we're talking about 10 to 30% single season availability. 00:04:06 So the old school of thought was, and I'm sure Tim will you, you appreciate this because it was all about building a bank in your soil. 00:04:15 So phosphorus is really inefficient coming in on the front end. But the thing we don't talk about temple is 00:04:22 how an efficient phosphorus is in the soil. 2% of the phosphorus that's in your soil is available to a plant at any one time. 00:04:31 So you got something with a 30% efficiency coming in, you got the soil that gives it up at a 2% efficiency. It sounds like a pretty bad bank balance for you. 00:04:39 And that's why in the past temple, you've really had to look at building as big of a cash reserve as possible, knowing that 2% of that's something gonna be available. 00:04:47 And if you're short of p you're short on yield. Incidentally. Well, there's, there's areas gotta be hang on, temple. 00:04:53 I think it's important. The person that's listening to this is going their, their, their BS meter is up and they're gonna say, well, James Paterson's 00:04:59 with Agritech USA and they've got their whole product lineup. Much of their product lineup is about phosphate, phosphate, 00:05:05 um, efficiency or phosphate maximizer. Yeah, well, that's true, but here's the thing that I have learned by working with guys like Temple 00:05:12 and the extreme man, guys, phosphorus doesn't move. And so the idea that throwing more out there, unless you're putting it exactly where the roots are, 00:05:20 you can have phosphorus is my understanding. And Temple, I think you're the one that taught me this. You can have a, 00:05:25 your phosphorus test can be through the roof. If it's six inches away from the roots, it, it might as well be on Mars. Am I right about that? 00:05:33 Yeah, I mean that's very true. But what, what I was gonna get at and and say a minute ago, you know, there's so many people 00:05:39 that are concerned with, they're gonna mine the soul so we can't cut back 'cause we're gonna mine the soul. And they're all about building this bank. 00:05:44 But again, it's back to, you know, you're only gonna get a certain percentage back out of that. But there's instances around here where guys have got a PPM 00:05:54 of eight, 900 in their soil, but yet when they plant corn out there, and they're not allowed in my environment, you know, being 00:06:02 that their ppms are so high because it's years of putting on poultry litter, you know, prior to when we had a nutrient management plan. 00:06:10 Well, having said that, they'll, they'll go out there and plant a crop there, their ppms in the soil and phosphorous are through the roof, 00:06:18 but yet the first thing that show a deficiency is, is in phosphorous. It's locked up and they cannot get it into the plant. 00:06:26 So it doesn't matter what you have out there. Once you have certain soil types, especially if you have a bunch of calcium out there, 00:06:32 it's gonna lock right up in the soil. So every bit of the phosphorus that you take and you put out there, you're giving it a chance 00:06:39 to lock rate back up in the soil. So when you, when you come back and you think about it, like that's why I, everything 00:06:45 that I do, we use some type of fertilizer efficiency product making my fertilizer more efficient and spoon feeding every bit 00:06:54 of it across the board only within the root zone. Because back to you what you said a minute ago, Damien, it don't matter if it's, if it's outside the root zone, 00:07:03 it might as well be on Mars because it doesn't do me any good. Hey James, I got a question for you about the Department 00:07:09 of Phosphates of phosphorus efficiency, um, before we get into mitigation, meaning how to get that phosphorus using products like yours. 00:07:19 The reality is, you spoke just a little bit ago about the building up the bank and I heard that. 00:07:24 I I, I remember hearing that was a kid. Oh, that farmer's mining that field, they're, they're paying high cash shrimp 00:07:29 because they're not putting any fertility back to it. It seems like we've learned. Yeah, great. Matt Miles was the example. 00:07:35 That's how we came in contact with your company four years ago, five years ago, was I've got huge phosphate levels in my soil test, 00:07:43 but it's not doing me any good. So this is not, this is not a new problem, it's just that we now figure out how better how to remedy it. 00:07:52 And honestly, I think where we're at in general with yields in the states, it hasn't been that big of an issue now. 00:08:00 But if you look at this's, just, just average yields from say the late eighties to now, on average, you're needing 50 pounds more p per acre just 00:08:09 for the standard yield in the United States. So in the past you used to be able to get through it. Now we're pushing new hybrids 00:08:14 that are more efficient at taking phosphorous outta soil and compared to old ones, 00:08:18 and then we're pushing higher yield requirements. And what people don't realize is that it's starting to show up now, even with a huge amount 00:08:26 of p people are still showing p deficiencies. So that's bringing awareness. Now we have a whole bunch 00:08:33 of more holistic management systems in the industry. We've got biological products. What's one thing all biological companies claim more 00:08:41 phosphorous cycling in the soil? Well, that's the natural process that the plant has. We're trying to make whatever's happening with 00:08:48 that plant more efficient so we can get a higher conversion rate. Think about what would happen to corn yield's temple. 00:08:53 If you could move your removal rate from the soil from 2% plant available at any one time and just move it to 5% 00:09:00 or on the front end, make phosphorus double as efficient on the front end. I mean, those are the things that we need to be looking at. 00:09:06 But by the way, the person that's listening to this, that's maybe not as, uh, agronomic, you just said plant available 2% to 5%, is there really only 2% of, 00:09:15 of available nutrient that's actually plant available or that's applied available? Is that what I'm saying? So 00:09:21 If you talk about what's happening in the soil, and this varies obviously depending on soil conditions and types, but the plant basically, uh, phosphorus, 00:09:30 how can I describe this in a really easy way? Temple. So phosphorus is held in the soil. Yep. Yeah. The way a plant gets it outta the soil is 00:09:39 using acids from its roots. Think about how much acidity a plant can release into how much soil you have in an acre. 00:09:46 So it releases a little bit of acid, and then what happens? The phosphorus becomes unavailable, 00:09:50 and then the soil sucks out the acidity and then it fixes back up again. So everybody knows bigger root system, 00:09:57 more phosphorus availability. The problem is, it's a chemistry problem, and I don't think we can overcome it alone on thinking 00:10:04 that we can increase efficiency. Like we can get to a certain point. It's a double-edged sword. 00:10:09 It's what's coming in the front end, and it's how we can extract it on the back end. What about, by the way, you just said also the person 00:10:16 that, okay, if you went from 2% plan available phosphorus to 5%, somebody's gonna say, oh, you only increase it by 3%. 00:10:22 No. If you go from 2% to 5% plan available, you increase it by 150%. 00:10:26 Yes. From two to 5%. And so that, and it is still, you're still not even using hardly what's there, but you 150% increased the availability of the plant. 00:10:37 Yeah. Which obviously then should equate, should equate to yields. And, and, and, you know, you talk about the removal rate, 00:10:44 whatever, it's almost minuscule. The removal rate's not even an issue at this point. It's really, 00:10:48 Well, it's not even, it's even, you gotta remember, you know what I mean? We're only talking about phosphorus right now, 00:10:52 but we're not talking about the whole, the whole thing. You know, Dean, you and I did, um, some episodes on building a fortress. 00:11:00 It starts right there. So when you, when you build a bigger root system because of you're getting more phosphorus 00:11:07 and plant phosphorus drives energy, energy drives roots. The more roots you get, the more micronutrients you pull up, 00:11:14 the more nitrogen you can pull in. Like everything works together. But it's, it has to start with something. 00:11:19 It starts with the phosphorus piece, in my opinion. Is that true, James? And start with the phosphorus piece. I mean, it's, most farmers like to talk about nitrogen. 00:11:29 It's, that's, it's killing. Eric says that's the, that's the, that's the macros of all macros. 00:11:34 Yeah. The funny thing is, in, in our diet and human beings, phosphorus pretty important. You need energy to be able to conduct photosynthesis. Yeah. 00:11:41 You need nitrogen, obviously to help expand cells and, and grow. One of the thing that's a little known fact about phosphorus 00:11:49 is that we talk about nitrogen and temple, we talk about different forms of nitrogen that you might use, whether you're using anhydrous 00:11:55 or you're using UAN, which is a mixture of ammonium and nitrate. Well, a a plant requires energy to take. 00:12:02 So if you put urea out in the ground and it converts to nitrate, a plant requires energy to convert it from nitrate and to plant available form. 00:12:09 Well, what drives energy? Phosphorous, We don't often think about this, that if, if phosphorous is higher, 00:12:16 you can get better at nitrogen use efficiency, and you're getting better energy efficiency by the plant as well. 00:12:21 Like, it's just often here. Here's, here's my assumption on phosphorus. It's not very responsive if the efficiency's really low, 00:12:31 it, you can see a deficiency sometimes, but it's not like temple. How many times did you do a trial in the past? 00:12:36 This is a good question, and I visited some farmers across the United States. A good example was a kid 00:12:42 who took over his dad's farm in Missouri. He says, I'm gonna fix the soil test. He went up and he put on, you know, three, 400 pounds 00:12:47 of phosphorus compared to the 50 the year before. Do you think you saw a yield increase? Hardly. Nope. How many times have you made applied phosphorus temple 00:12:54 and seen a dramatic increase in yield? Never. Mm-hmm. I've never seen a difference. I mean, we'll give you, for instance, Chad Henderson, um, 00:13:03 a couple, well fi about five years ago, Damien and I talked about this early on a greenery episode. And Chad went out there 00:13:11 and he applied enough dry fertility in trips that he said, I should be able to grow 500 bush of corn on this. 00:13:18 And he, and he filed it for a number of years. It never made any difference in yield on year one. Year one, he thought, well, 00:13:26 maybe it just took a while and I'm gonna see it. Year 2, 3, 4. Never saw a difference. Never saw a difference in, in, in the soil test, 00:13:34 never saw a difference in yield. Nothing ever changed. But he spent a boatload of money to go out there and try to fix the soil and get it, 00:13:41 well, it didn't work out. Hey, by the way, um, for the person that's saying, okay, how are you measuring this? 00:13:49 Like when James talks about going from 2% available to 5% or any of those kinds of things, it the soil. 00:13:56 Because a person that's saying being critical or maybe skeptical about what we're saying here, they're saying, my soil tests are fine. 00:14:02 My soil tests are fine. And you would say, sure. So with Matt Miles, and that's when he came up, is because he tissued and then ultimately now SAP samples 00:14:10 and you're finding out that, that it's not getting in the plant. So when we talk about department of phosphorus efficiency, 00:14:15 you can have all the damn phosphorus you want, but if it's not in the plant, and really now with SAP sampling, is 00:14:21 that the way to find this out? Both of you guys can comment about that because tissue might be still good. 00:14:26 Yeah. But isap the better way. I mean, I think there's a lot of different tools that we can use. 00:14:31 I think at the end of the day, there's more of a model of a, of response on your farm. 00:14:36 So I I I mean, look at the way we test soils. Okay? So, uh, temple, a wheat plant has a root system like this. A corn plant has a root system. 00:14:46 Your root system might be, yeah, okay, put my heads around it. Yeah. But, and you are telling me 00:14:52 that a soil test is based upon acid extraction theoretically on what a plant can release in a 24 hour period. 00:14:58 Well, what plant? Yeah. So, and, and, and what genetics, like the genetics today, even on the corn side, are much more efficient at 00:15:05 getting phosphorus outta the ground. That's why some of these mining studies are really interesting. 00:15:09 And we're not even talking about the p that doesn't show up on the immediate soil test. The legacy phosphorus like Brazil's looked at, you know, 00:15:16 if someone could figure out how to access the legacy phosphorus in the soil, you wouldn't need to apply phosphorus. 00:15:21 There's plenty of it there. So when you talk about being able to measure things, we measure it on the back end. 00:15:28 We can see phosphorus, temple purple leaves. You can see it when you've seen it, it's already zapped your yield. 00:15:35 Yeah, right. It's too late. Right? It's too late. So, by the way, temple, that's the other one that if, if you're, if you're see corn plants are purple, 00:15:44 the damage is done, right? Yep. The damage is already there once it shows a deficiency. 00:15:49 And, and I think that that's the beauty of, of, you know, you brought up SAP samples, you know, that's the beauty 00:15:54 of a SAP sample, right? So the SAP sample gives you kinda a, a, a picture of what happened a little bit before, what happens now 00:16:01 and what's getting ready to happen. So I, I think that that's the beauty of a SAP sample. You know, tissue samples are a snapshot 00:16:08 of what's happening today. But the good part about a tissue sample is, is if you are somebody that has tissue sampled over years, 00:16:15 you kind of know what that bell curve of exactly what that plant needs at any one time. If you can get in front of those things, 00:16:23 all those things make a difference. You know, there's a nutrient uptake chart, you know, and we talked about this when we were wrapped in Nebraska, 00:16:29 you know, and if you can follow those uptake charts and figure out what that plant needs, at what timing of that plant's life, and you get in front of all of them 00:16:38 and you, and you spoon feed, and you know, whether it's nitrogen, phosphorous, potassium, whatever it may need. 00:16:46 But again, in the right form where the plant can utilize it to be the most efficient, that's what it's all about. 00:16:52 And then when we, we can really start talking about cutting the waste, right? 00:16:56 Because does farmers really know what their waste is? I'm not sure that, that even, I know what, what waste is. You know what I mean? I know 00:17:06 that I feel like I was wasting a lot of dry fertility being spread on the ground. So I cut it out and I went to a different form 00:17:14 and I went to a different location, and I went to a different timing. And that seemed to all work out. 00:17:20 And if you look at my plants, like let's just say corn, for instance, right? In, in my, uh, in my, just to say at my field day, 00:17:29 right at my home farm, you know, I, I basically got in front of every window all throughout the season 00:17:36 and applied what I thought was at the perfect timing for every nutrient, not just phosphorus, but all nutrients, and got in front of those windows. 00:17:46 And it was, it was the middle of September. It was time to harvest corn. I came over here and my corn was still black, green. 00:17:55 And the only thing that was, that was left, that was even, you know, that even looked like it was ready was just the 00:18:00 ear, the husk around the ear was opened up and it was dry, but the plant was completely black green. 00:18:06 That means it had plenty of phosphorus, it had plenty of sugar left in the plants. It, it had plenty of ine. 00:18:12 It never went, it never fell short of anything. And it carried itself all the way throughout season. That was the best. I I lengthened my green fill 00:18:21 window, right? Because it never ran out. That's where this thing works out at. And come to find out, you know, I go in there to harvest it, 00:18:28 it looked like I was chopping silage, but yet it was testing 20, 21%. So it was, I mean, it was fairly dry 00:18:37 and we couldn't get over how dry it was. And that's how it's been for the last couple years with us. And that is without plain any dry fertility up front 00:18:45 that is just getting in front of each one of them windows and treating the plant. 00:18:49 You know, we keep talking about balancing the soil, balancing the soil, balancing the soil. I'm not sure that we have enough time on this earth 00:18:58 or enough money to balance our soil, but what we can do is we can balance the plant's nutrition and balance the plant itself. 00:19:07 I know we can do that. By the way, the person that's listening to this, James, all right, so you've got a product called Nutri Charge, 00:19:14 which makes phosphorus available. You said you've got legacy phosphorus and mini soils that you wouldn't even have to apply. 00:19:23 I think when we talk about Department of phosphorus efficiency, I see a day where a bunch of, i, I can say this to about a lot of things. 00:19:31 We look back at how the doctors and used to use leeches for healthcare, and we're like, what the hell you thought like bleeding 00:19:38 people out was somehow gonna secure them. That's how I think we're gonna look at over tillage and over fertility. 00:19:46 20 years from now, we're gonna say, oh my God, we still in the year 2025, we're doing that. It's not like the 18 hundreds. 00:19:52 That's where I think we are there. I, I think, you know, Kelly makes that point. It's like, I think you could probably look at a lot 00:19:57 of your fields and cut back by half and not lose any yield If you, you the standard there if you're doing it right. 00:20:06 Yeah. So if you Use products, if you use products like Nutri charge or if you have a biological mix or whatever, yeah. 00:20:12 So here, here's my theory on this and um, might be a little brash, I'm taking temples approach here where he starts 00:20:18 to rile up retail. But I'm gonna say that you look at what's happening with Doge right now, they're cutting 00:20:24 inefficiencies in the market. Okay? So when we first launched this product, we started the product as a product 00:20:31 to improve the equation of p going in. So if we knew that you averaging 10 to 30% on the front end, and we knew it was a chemistry equation, 00:20:38 we built a compound, a patented compound, that we knew that we could more than double what was go the availability, what's going in. 00:20:44 And we to test for years on this. Yeah. And to treat your dry fertility, which isn't inefficient. And we could show in university research all across the 00:20:52 United States that if you cut it by 50%, you would a increase yield and you wouldn't decrease yield, but you would show more p efficiency. 00:20:59 The problem is, is that the entire ecosystem wasn't driven around that situation. It was driven around volume and the, 00:21:09 and the mentality around building a bank. So retail didn't really support it. So we went another way. We said, let's focus on getting it into these efficient 00:21:17 applications, which if you take p on the surface, it's not really efficient and you go into a band. That's why starter fertility exists, 00:21:23 because we're trying to concentrate p And it is like, it's like if we're standing in the hallway of a high school and everybody's got a Velcro, uh, tackle pad, 00:21:32 and you throw a bunch of guys wearing, you know, Lycra down there, and the guy in the middle's gonna make it to the end, that's what's happening in that environment. 00:21:39 We're concentrating p hoping the part can do it. We're not adjusting the chemistry of what we're doing. In fact, liquid phosphorus ties up faster 00:21:46 than dry phosphorus. We're just banding it in an area where the plant can access it. So we said, let's do the same thing. 00:21:53 Now let's take this chemistry and let's put it in infer. And then immediately the needle moved, 00:21:58 and we've worked for years on this and trying to, to demonstrate that a, there's two folds of what we're trying to do. 00:22:05 One, if we can make things efficient on the front end, here's the question we always get, you're gonna mine the soil. 00:22:11 Well, if you double the efficiency of what's coming in on the front end and then on the back end, it's only 2% efficient at one 00:22:17 time, you're still in the net plus equation. And then secondarily, what we've noticed with guys like temple driving this research is 00:22:26 what are we talking, we're talking about protecting inorganic phosphorus is what we do, but we haven't thought about it. 00:22:30 Everything the plant's doing in the soil, whether temple's using a, a humic acid or if he's using a biological product, an enzyme, its job is 00:22:39 to take organic P and turn it into inorganic P, which is the same as phosphorus. So we figured there was a double whammy when we could 00:22:46 protect what was going in and what's coming out. And, and I think now where markets are being, where they are, people are looking at changes 00:22:55 that they can make to be more efficient because the waste, there's no sense having any waste. And I think, you know, one of the things that I would heed, 00:23:05 and I think everybody's saying right now, everybody's saying, well, don't cut back. Don't cut back. Don't cut back. 00:23:09 Well, that's technically true. Maybe we should be looking at don't cut. What? Yeah. Yeah. Right. Yeah. We should cut the waste. 00:23:17 I mean, we do it with everything else we do. We, you, you temple, you, I, I've watched you, you walk around and you're looking at sea and spray technology. 00:23:24 You're looking at all this different technology to eliminate waste with chemistry. But we don't do anything with fertility, 00:23:33 By the way, is we don't, hang on, hang on, throw it out there. You know, the problem with a really good visual 00:23:39 that's created by our friend James, I'm still running down that hallway with Velcro on trying to not get stuck 00:23:46 because I'm thinking, I, I'm not thinking about fosters getting tied up. I'm thinking about me getting, uh, caught. 00:23:51 And so I'm, I'm still hung up there a little bit. Uh, I, I, you know, but the, the problem is back to kind of, you know, 00:23:59 and I hate to say this, you know, 'cause I, I tend to offend people, especially in the retail world, but we don't have, not just 00:24:06 There, not just there, Actually, you're right, it's everywhere. But you know, when, and, 00:24:11 and I use this analogy, you know, we, we spend millions of dollars every year farmers do with, with retailers and, and retailers do their job there. 00:24:21 There's no question about it. But 99% of the time we're spending it with guys that are salespeople or, you know, uh, sales agronomist, 00:24:31 and they're not an agronomist, but they're, they're really a salesperson. It's like going into your financial office 00:24:36 and saying, I have a million dollars and I need the secretary to spend it. And by the way, I wanna go to ROI on it. 00:24:44 You, you gotta be really comfortable with what you're doing. And especially when you're talking about all these cutbacks, 00:24:50 like, how do I cut back? How do I cut the waste? Do you know who you're talking to? To even to understand 00:24:57 what your particular waste is on your farm? That's what you gotta get down to. And that's, that's the bare bones. 00:25:05 And that's what's hard to figure out. You know, it's been years for us to figure this out, James, you know that I've talked to you for years about this. 00:25:12 So it, it's, it's taken us years to do this. Don't think that it's gonna be easy. But unless you start to do things efficiently 00:25:21 with every bit of money that you spend out there to, to make the money that you spend safer, you have to start somewhere. 00:25:29 So you have to start with efficiency. I don't know how else to do it. Well, and just, uh, like an kind of unrelated 00:25:38 but related subject, you noticing that you had a P problem and us working together 00:25:43 to address the chemistry, and, and we did. It didn't cost a lot to do that. Yeah. So it was five bucks an acre. I think you introed into that. 00:25:49 Yeah. What was it doing for the efficiency of everything else in your program? That's the thing we don't, we don't talk about. 00:25:55 Well see, we ne we never talk about that. You know what I mean? Like when, when you start to talk about our tissue samples, like the very first year 00:26:01 that we did this, you know, um, again, we started with in furrow, and then I went out on a limb and I put it in places that James said, 00:26:11 no, we're not ready for that. Don't do that. And I did it anyway. So I put it in my like early side dress 00:26:17 and then in my Y drop, and I was dropping it here, there and everywhere just to see where I could, honestly, 00:26:22 what I was trying to do, James, is I was trying to make it fail, but it didn't fail. It kept giving me more, um, more ROI. So I was all about it. 00:26:30 But, um, you know, when we first started doing it, like we would get these increases in our tissue samples that were, you know, anywhere between 18 to 35% 00:26:43 over the check where it was right alongside of it. And we could, and every time that we made another application, 00:26:50 we would open up that window. So it was like we were making more phosphorus available, but it wasn't just phosphorus that we were making available, 00:26:57 we were dragging up all the rest of the stuff as, as we went. You know, again, if you make the plant efficiently, 00:27:04 get phosphorus into it, it builds itself a bunch of energy. Then it can go out there 00:27:08 and look for the rest of the micronutrients. I mean, we were getting increases in zinc, calcium, like they were all following. 00:27:15 Um, so, but you know, I think the one thing that I think the only thing that I saw over all these years was, um, we were getting a downturn once in a 00:27:27 while, like late season. Like we'd get a downturn in potassium. But again, it was 00:27:32 because I was creating such a different plant that it was, it was, it was starving for potassium. 00:27:38 So I ended up having to feed of a little bit more potassium through my cycle because of the plant that I was creating. 00:27:46 I was creating a plant that wasn't there prior. Hey, got a question about, uh, phosphorus efficiency, James. 00:27:53 Um, obviously you, you would love it. Everybody just use nutri charge, that's your product. Got it. But there really aren't, 00:28:01 it's not like there's 50 products. There's a whole bunch of stuff now that's claiming biologicals 00:28:06 or amendments that are saying we can help you reduce nitrogen. It's less on phosphorus 00:28:12 because it is just a more limited area. Am I right about that? Uh, I mean, I, I do think 00:28:18 there's a lot of things on phosphorus. I just think the challenge that you have, it can be easier to move the needle line than nutri. 00:28:24 It's really inefficient. So, you know, the one thing I will say about this, wait, Wait, wait. This is the equivalent 00:28:30 of going to us a ID and finding literally a hundred billion dollars and like, like none 00:28:37 of this was actually going where it should have. I mean, this is all waste. It's all waste. So like you're saying basically on phosphorus, 00:28:43 that's the most easy, easy waste to find. It's, it's, it's the easiest to identify. It's the hardest to move the needle on 00:28:51 because it's not a singular thing. Yeah. So like why we may say, like our company focus on chemistry to protect chemistry. 00:28:58 There's only one part of the puzzle. And here's the big thing that I would say. As we've gone into the market, 00:29:04 our most successful partnerships are with companies. And they will be the first to admit it. Like everybody knows with biological products, 00:29:12 they can cycle phosphorus. Okay? They cycle it into a form that's in the same form as your fertilizer. 00:29:17 The problem is the chemistry in the soil wipes it out really quickly. So everybody will say, look, we can keep it available. 00:29:23 So you've got one side of the spectrum that focuses on the biological health and getting more out of the soil. 00:29:29 The chemistry in the soil limits you from reaping the reward of the investment you do to make it available. 00:29:36 What we've really found interesting, and, and you know, we can do this with other products, you can do it with sulfur in the market, 00:29:42 but again, if you use acids and sulfur and things like that, they buffer out. We engineered our chemistry to protect chemistry. 00:29:50 And at the beginning we were going after it singular. Yeah, let's just focus on an organic p on the front end, and we'll talk about that. 00:29:55 What we figured out is the guides that have pushed the needle and develop the best ROIs are not just using one product 00:30:04 for P, they're not just using UltraCharge. There are guys like Temple that are using biological products to increase the cycling, 00:30:13 and then they're extracting more value from our application and we're extracting more value from their application. 00:30:19 I think when we figure out that this is not a singular approach, that it's a systems approach, that's when everybody wins 00:30:30 Temple. Yep. He said it systems approach. It's the, it's, it's the, it's like, it's what we hear at extreme ag all the time. 00:30:38 And I actually had to ask, I actually had to do an episode. I said, what's That mean? So, so 00:30:42 I'll give you a for instance. So he's exactly right. So, um, a couple years ago, um, you know, we put some biologicals in with Nutri charge 00:30:52 and we were getting this, this synergy, you know, and I took it to James and I was like, man, there's something going on here. 00:30:58 And it just so happens that that farm had chicken litter applied on it. And James and I started talking about this. 00:31:04 So James came up with a new product and he brought it out to us to use the next year. Well, I gave, I took some to a friend of mine that he had a 00:31:15 situation where he put the, the new product and it was nutri charge release and it's a biological an acid 00:31:21 and Nutri charge all in one, all in one jugs. And well, it's dry powder and you have to, you have to wet it down, whatever. 00:31:28 So he took it out there and he streamed it on with just water, no fertility whatsoever. 00:31:37 And streamed it on to try to get some manure because he had huge values of, of pea in the ground, but he couldn't get it. 00:31:45 And he had a lot of litter on the ground, but it wasn't getting into his corn plant. It was always tied up. So he did that 00:31:51 and put it against regular fertility, put it against chicken manure and, and put this out there and had checks in there. 00:31:57 It was 30 bushel, like it's, it's, it's a number that we, we really shouldn't even talk about, 00:32:04 but it was side by side 30 bushel. And it was, we went out there and took pictures of it and it was phenomenal. 00:32:11 The difference and alls it was, was we unlocked the phosphorus and unlocked some of the other nutrients in the ground, 00:32:17 sucked it into the plant. And that plant got off to a way better start and it made 30 bushel. 00:32:24 I mean, nothing else changed, But we didn't even want to make that product temple. 'cause you were trying to tell that, that the issue 00:32:31 that we had is like, we're very complimentary in the industry and we're always trying to find it fit into systems. 00:32:36 Yeah. So we would try and position this to people and people would just say, well, you don't need to use nutri charge, just use biology. 00:32:42 So we got tired of it. We said, all right, we'll make a product. We put two together so we can show how it works. Yep. 00:32:47 I think that's the key part of this thing is that it's not singular. And I know they say systems all the time, 00:32:53 but when it comes truly, when it comes to phosphorus, it is not, it is such a hard thing to overcome. You can't do it with one thing alone. 00:33:01 All right. I won't go to the, the thing, uh, I just saw on our extreme AG Facebook page, uh, a per per typical close-minded looking for a fight. 00:33:09 Some guy from Kentucky starts popping off that I found somebody I'll never need to listen to again because Kelly Garrett was just essentially saying, you know 00:33:17 what, in a tight economy, you probably could, uh, lose some fertility spend and it's because it's not doing you any good anyhow. 00:33:24 And oh my God, typical close-minded. Oh, you can say that 'cause you're in Iowa. It's the old thing that won't work here. 00:33:30 Farmers would love to say that in General Temple, if you were, if you were coming around from the department of phosphorus efficiency to average farm USA, 00:33:41 is it safe to say they're spending 20 to 30% more on phosphorus that they're not even getting any benefit for? 00:33:49 I can tell you this much. Um, I, I don't know how to say this without sounding arrogant and I I don't mean this as sounding arrogant, 00:33:56 but we've been dealing with, you know, phosphorous and nitrogen regulation around here for going on three decades here. 00:34:07 And if anybody was gonna mine the soil, we would've done it by now. Yep, for sure. Yep. 00:34:13 I mean, for sure we are growing as good or better crops than we ever had on a lot less fertilizer with CECs that are below a four 00:34:24 and an organic matter that is below a one. So in my opinion, if we can do it here, I think that you can do it anywhere. 00:34:32 I mean, there's, in my opinion, there's the, the farmers in the Del Marva area have done an exceptional job of decreasing fertility 00:34:41 and still is are willing to decrease fertility every year to, to maximize ROI. 00:34:47 And that's what the name of the game is, James. You see that, by the way, we were on stage in gearing 00:34:52 Nebraska, got a nice audience. We had him worked. I mean, totally, they loved us. And then at the end, temple had to do that thing 00:35:00 where he had to brag up the Delmarva farmers. And so they ran us out of town. Three guys came as with pitchforks, one guy had a gun. 00:35:07 And if it wasn't for me and James being probably specimens, I mean physical specimens, we might have lost our 00:35:14 Lives. Just athletes. Just athletes, athletes. Anyway, take the illustration and of course the, the, 00:35:21 the self-congratulatory Del Marva farmers are the best in the world, but his point is being very, I 00:35:26 Didn't say that they were the best in the world. I'm just saying, I'm joking with you. I'm just saying we've dealt with it a long time. Okay. 00:35:31 All right. So close to close this out from James, what his point is, if you, if you go 30 years on a phosphorous reduction 00:35:39 in CEC soils, sub four, sub 1% organic matter, meaning there's sand, we've been there, it's sand, 00:35:46 it's it, a lot of it's wind blowing. It's a, it's a beach. Some of it, my God, it's so next to the Chesapeake Baye, if you didn't mine out the soils 00:35:53 there, then what are you afraid to experiment with? Whether it's in Western Nebraska or Kentucky or anywhere else in, you know, in Ohio, Indiana, Nebraska, 00:36:01 you know, you starting naming the places, right? Yeah, I mean, I think so. I mean the, the one thing that I would say though, temple is 00:36:07 that most farmers in the States, if you've got something that's really inefficient right now, 00:36:10 they can probably cut out pea this year. That's not really the solution here. This is a great time to cut back on something, 00:36:18 use something in efficiency. And if you push the needle on it, there's your proof of concept, yeah, you're gonna cut back anyway. 00:36:23 A lot of farmers are cutting back on what they do. So invest a little bit in something that will move the needle on p and you'll see it. 00:36:31 And then from that point, it's just like Kelly did and people like to throw stones. You, the only way you're able 00:36:37 to do these things is if you step off the ledge and you try yourself. And we're not asking you to risk, you know, 00:36:42 no one here wants anyone to risk anything, especially in this market. But unfortunately, historically, 00:36:47 phosphorus has been one thing that people have just been like, well, it's, it's 1200 bucks a ton. 00:36:51 I can't afford it. I'm not gonna use it this year. Alright? And most likely in a lot of areas, 00:36:56 they can still grow a good crop. Yeah, they're missing the point though, because all they're doing is validating to themselves 00:37:02 that they've been using something inefficient anyway, so that it, it's, it start 00:37:06 to look at things on a more efficient level temple. And the Del Mar has proven that, you know, that, I mean, they can do it. 00:37:13 And by the way, the, the, the, the, the best part is you stop spending the money. And the worst part is you have to admit 00:37:22 that you are spending money unnecessarily ahead of time. But again, that's why we are here for you, the Department of 00:37:28 Phosphorus Sufficiency, spearheaded by James Patterson, our, our our, uh, 00:37:33 if they wanna learn more about your product, where do they go? Agritech, USA 00:37:38 Agro Tech, USA and the product specifically is Nutri Charge. They have another new product we talked about when 00:37:43 we were at commodity classics. Go check out that video. Also, I talked to their agronomist Molly, 00:37:47 about one of their other new products. So anyway, it's a great lineup and they are a great business partner here of our friends, 00:37:52 of, of Extreme Ag Temple Rhodes, uh, our, our dude, our Del Marva dude anyway, and an advisor to Department of Phosphorus Efficiency. 00:38:01 Say bye, say bye Temple. See you guys. Thanks. Thanks a lot for being here next time. I'm Damien Mason. This is extreme Ag Cutting the curve. 00:38:08 Check out all of our library of great information with people like James Patterson and our other business partners. 00:38:13 It's at Extreme Ag Farm. Also go to our YouTube channel. It's free to subscribe. 00:38:17 You can see our show, the Greenery on our YouTube channel, and also a bunch of videos that people like Temple 00:38:21 and our other extreme ag guys are shooting out in the field to help you farm better. So next time, thanks for being here. I'm Damien Mason. 00:38:27 That's a wrap for this episode of Cutting the Curve. Make sure to check out Extreme Ag Farm for more great content to help you squeeze more profit out 970 00:38:36.445 --> 00:38:37.685