00:00:00 We're talking about nitrogen reduction in your corn, and we've got an award winner. And that's right. Kelly Garrett, NCGA award. 00:00:06 We're talking to him and Mike Evans in this episode of Extreme Ag Cutting the Curve. Welcome to Extreme ags Cutting the Curve podcast, 00:00:13 where real farmers share real insights and real results to help you improve your farming operation. And now here's your host, Damien Mason. 00:00:23 Hey there. Welcome to another fantastic e episode of Extrem Ice Cutting the Curve. We've got a great topic for you today. 00:00:28 It's something we've already touched on a few different times at the field day at Kelly Garrett's and also in the field with Kelly Garrett 00:00:35 and Evans a couple of years ago, also at Johnny Re's Field Day, where they're doing trials on nitrogen reduction. 00:00:41 Well, here's the cool part. NCJ, the National Corn Association, who, uh, obviously the association that, uh, gives out awards 00:00:48 and our guys have gotten, uh, countless awards here at Extreme Ag. Well, there's a new category and it's a pretty cool one. 00:00:54 It's about a nitrogen challenge, biggest yield you can get using 180 pounds of applied nitrogen or less per acre. 00:01:02 Kelly Garrett won the award. He'll get the award, uh, at Commodity Classic where we'll be beginning of March in Denver. 00:01:08 We'd like you to be there with us as well. But the point of this episode is talking about how you can get record amounts of corn 00:01:15 with limited amounts of nitrogen. The award is neat. That's kinda like frosting on the cake. The cool thing here is the goal 00:01:22 that Kelly Garrett sets is profitability. Doing big yield with less nitrogen is possible. They proved it. They've got the trophy. 00:01:30 Now they're gonna tell you how you can do the same thing on your farm. Tell me about the award. 00:01:34 I didn't even know there was a category for this. So this has kind of all struck me just in the last month when you got the award. 00:01:38 So tell me about it. Evans, you, are you the one that found it and applied for it? Yeah, I think this is their second year 00:01:44 and they call it a pilot class. Um, we did it last year and, uh, put an entry in, but this would be the second year of, of this class as far 00:01:53 as I, I remember, so, yep. All right. Tell me about the actual category. Uh, you know, is it only a half acre? No. 00:02:02 You did a bigger, bigger, bigger trial. So tell me about how, how you, what the actual contest that you competed in and the parameters. 00:02:10 Um, it's the same as any other NCGA class entry. So it falls those parameters as far as you know, how many acres you, um, combine and, and weigh out. 00:02:22 Um, the one difference is, is you gotta prove, you know, what, how much nitrogen you actually put out there. 00:02:27 So you gotta give a little bit of auditing there. We had to go through, you know, give it a maps and, and invoices and stuff like that that they put you through. 00:02:34 Nothing to, I mean, just being open and honest with them. So it a little bit of leg work, but that's about it. 00:02:40 That's about the only difference. You know, like as far as taking the yield, I, I believe I'm, you know, if I'm saying this 00:02:47 wrong, somebody's listening. I, you know, I've tried to do this from memory. It's gotta be at least 10 acres of corn. 00:02:52 Uh, it's gotta be continuous corn. It can't be a strip crop. You can't use lean end rows, you know, 00:02:57 and you have to take alternating passes through the field and you have to turn in like at least 1.25 acres. 00:03:04 Um, and I, you know, I think our entry was around 1.3 acres or something. 'cause that's how long the rows happened to be. 00:03:10 Uh, but it, you know, so for someone to say, well, it's only 1.25 acres, that's true. But when you take the alternating passes 00:03:18 and you take the N rose things out, it, it really is a bigger sample. It's a sample of a bigger subset. 00:03:24 And then as Mike says, you know, so this class, class J is, starts out exactly the same as all the other NCGA classes, 00:03:31 but now the added twist is you've gotta be below 180 pounds of nitrogen and you gotta verify that 00:03:38 You were practicing for this game before the game was announced. Because two years ago we were in the field northeast 00:03:44 of your house and you were doing reduced nitrogen trials in that field. And I think we had Temple there, 00:03:51 and I think we had Matt Miles there. I might have had Chad there. We were going through this exact thing. 00:03:56 You were, you were, you were rehearsing for the part before the play was even announced. Yes. This, uh, class J is really, uh, uh, 00:04:04 we're really fortunate that they brought Class J around, uh, uh, in my opinion, to, to bring, uh, and, 00:04:10 and I'm glad, you know, I'm excited that we won this to bring, uh, notice to the calibrated agronomy team, the integrated ag team, you know, and, and Evans 00:04:20 and I in, you know, been working together since 2020 in the effort to get better, you know, be more sustainable, 00:04:26 improve the ROI be more efficient, all of those things. Uh, we're working on this. And then, you know, Evans and I meeting Jared Cook, uh, 00:04:35 and then being introduced to Clint Freeze and Luke Soltz, you know, wind Grove all. So there's five agronomists 00:04:41 that are really working together. Evans is the point, man, of course, on my farm Evans and Wind Grove. 00:04:46 And we're just trying to make as much money as possible. I, you know, we get a lot of, uh, we get a lot 00:04:52 of credit in the sustainable space and, and we wanna be sustainable. But that's not even really the number one goal. 00:04:59 I'm not trying to say we wanna be unsustainable. The number one goal is to make a living and be as efficient as possible 00:05:06 to reduce the, the input cost. And that's what we've accomplished here. So the thing is, uh, I'm gonna go ahead 00:05:13 and refresh the listener in case they haven't tuned into our episodes. Your favorite statement, uh, the holy grail of American Air, 00:05:20 north American agriculture is production of corn. We love producing corn. You're from Iowa, the corniest of all corn states, 00:05:25 and then you, uh, to do more corn, you gotta fling more nitrogen out there. Your old man thought you needed 1.4, 1.2 pounds 00:05:34 of applied nitrogen per bushel, or some crazy thing like that. Well, you did. What was your yield on this competition? 00:05:40 3 25, 3 24, 324 Bushels of corn with less than 180. And actually you did considerably less than 180 pounds of applied nitrogen. Right, 00:05:49 Right. You know, the, uh, it would be a hundred pounds of anhydrous in this area. Uh, you know, 'cause we run a variable rate. 00:05:56 So then we had to, we also had to send in for the audit, the prescription that Evans wrote in this area. 00:06:01 There was a hundred pounds of anhydrous. There was about 20 pounds, uh, from the Aquid product, high energy. 00:06:07 And in the two by two, then there was about 15 pounds from the plant food, you know, the byproduct that we spray. 00:06:12 So there's 135 total pounds of nitrogen. But then when we look at the foliar products that Evans puts out there, 00:06:18 there was about another 16 pounds. We totaled 151 pounds of nitrogen in this area. Synthetic nitrogen applied. 00:06:26 Okay. 151 pounds. And you were allowed to go up to 180 and you still did 324 bushel. All right, so the point is, you say, 00:06:33 you know, it's one of your favorite things. The, the Holy grail North American agriculture grow more corn to do that, throw on more nitrogen. 00:06:39 And this is the absolute antithesis of that. You're at less than a half a pound. You're at like a four tenths 00:06:43 of a pound applied nitrogen here, if my mask right. Uh, and your old man thought you needed three times that. Yes. People, his people, not only his generation, people, 00:06:52 five years, people still today think you need 1.2. Right. It takes 1.1, you know, 00:06:57 and, uh, our soil is, is a big part of this. But, you know, we had a challenge plot with agro liquid at Matt Miles 00:07:05 Field Day in southeast Arkansas. And we only yielded a, uh, half a bushel more than Matt, but we spent $50 an acre less on nitrogen. 00:07:14 Mm-hmm. You know, I mean, that's so, so the Iowa soil is a big deal, but thi this can be accomplished in some form 00:07:21 or another anywhere to, uh, to improve your profitability. So what the takeaway is, 00:07:27 do you really need as much nitrogen? You have, uh, let's try to make as much money as possible. And, uh, let's, uh, let's, let's, 00:07:37 let's manage in a more, let's intensively manage in a more detailed fashion to approve our ROI, 00:07:44 Mr. Evans, we recorded an instructional, informative video with your, uh, your new venture calibrated agronomy. 00:07:50 And we talked about bringing your fertility plan into the 21st century. And one of those things was about a 00:07:55 history of over application. And therefore, uh, we've, we've done some, we've done some wrong, and we don't like to admit that, 00:08:02 but we have the Des Moines River Watershed, uh, when you're in one of the most ag states in the union, and they're talking about, we need to restrict agriculture 00:08:11 because there's a bunch of fertility products that are in our watershed. Now, we talked about Lake Erie. 00:08:16 That's been something I've been paying attention to for 30 years because I'm not far from the Lake Erie Watershed in my farm in Indiana. 00:08:22 This is, this is a real thing. So in other words, cutting back nitrogen, A, it makes you money. 00:08:29 B, we're gonna start having nutrient management plans imposed upon us. I think you, 00:08:36 Yeah. I mean, you look at what temple deals without in Ches, the Chesapeake Bay, they were already restricting phosphorus 00:08:42 and all, all, all those applications and keeping an eye on that just because of the environmental 00:08:48 things they deal with out there. And, you know, when, when Des Moines Waterworks sued the few counties north of us on that whole nitrate deal, you know, you know, 00:08:58 everybody was concerned about it then, that if it passed, then what are we gonna do? 00:09:02 You know, it was kind of the doom and gloom. Like, oh, they're gonna shut us down from putting on all this nitrates on. 00:09:07 And, uh, it really got people's eyes opened. And, you know, I was part of a, a research project up in there to kind 00:09:13 of measure some of that stuff. So you kinda learn just by researching how, you know, great the soil can be and what it can produce. 00:09:21 And then we've obviously applied some of that to Kelly's farm and, and, and looked at various different ways to, to manage nitrogen. 00:09:30 Kelly, you know, uh, we talk about, you're ahead of the curve, uh, here, if we're cutting the curve. 'cause we're helping people get, uh, 00:09:36 where, where we already are. So you've been saying this now for at least two years that we're over applying 00:09:42 and balance and all those kind of things. And then we're not, we're not cheering for environmental regulation. 00:09:47 We think that's not good. But we also see it possibly coming. Here's my observation. They took tetracycline out of the drip lines and poultry. 00:09:56 30 plus years ago, every bird in America had antibiotics in the water drips. And then they said, oh God, if you take this away from us, 00:10:04 you're saying about antibiotic resistance. But you know what, if we take this away, we, they'll produce chickens. 00:10:08 We're producing more chickens than we've ever produced. They're bigger, and they get bigger faster than ever. In other words, we adapted. 00:10:13 We were, we were lazy and relied on tetracycline when we really didn't need it. I can say the same thing then about overuse 00:10:19 of antibiotics and hog production. They started making them more, more judicious. Applications only owners treat, you know, 00:10:25 animals need treated versus preventative. Same thing. The hog industry said, oh my God, we'll never be able to grow hogs. 00:10:30 We have a surplus of hogs. There's almost no margin in pig production right now because we're so good at making pigs. 00:10:35 The point is, we keep adapting. I think we could adapt, even if we had nitrogen reduction laws, which we hopefully don't get there. 00:10:43 I think we, we probably are gonna wake up and smell the coffee just like they did in those other two examples. 00:10:48 You, Yes, I believe that that's what's coming. And no, I don't, and I don't cheer for environmental regulation. 00:10:56 I just try to be a realist and look at what's coming and exactly what temple's dealing with. The Lake Erie, the Des Moines watershed, the state 00:11:03 of Nebraska now is testing wells there. The, there was a congresswoman there, I believe that, uh, uh, I think she's got a million dollar grant. 00:11:11 They're looking at wells and they're trying to, uh, reduce the nitrate in the wells. Uh, this is coming down the pipe. 00:11:17 Uh, and, uh, I wanna be prepared for it. And really though, uh, I'm, I'm glad that I'm prepared for it. 00:11:22 But again, I'm just trying to be as efficient as possible. Our margins are thin in row crop production, 00:11:27 but especially right now with $4 and 30 cent corn on the board, uh, why, why be wasteful and Well, you're, you're ahead of the curve. 00:11:35 The thing is, I used those examples about chickens and hogs and, and I'm, I'm not being mean, 00:11:39 but we screamed, just like Evan's talking about, oh my goodness, they're gonna take this away from us. Turns out we were fine. We, we did just fine. 00:11:46 We don't want the regulation, but it turns out we're good at what we do. We did fine. Look at it. 00:11:51 Look at what, so if, if we have to cut back nitrogen, we're gonna scream bloody murder. That's going to hurt yields. 00:11:56 And the reality is, I think we'll still be fine. I, I agree. The the amount of nitrogen that that is being put on that isn't being used 00:12:04 by the plant is either being wasted going into the watershed. Worst case scenario or best case scenario, 00:12:10 it's being put into vegetation, uh, which is a stress mitigation problem, just takes more water to grow the plant. 00:12:16 But all of that nitrogen that is being put on is not needed for yield. American agriculture does a great job 00:12:22 of producing a very sexy looking vegetative crop. Our goal is to produce reproductive crop. Yeah. And I, I would say Damien too, that is like, 00:12:31 it's the retraining your brain type thing. Like, you know, we all thought like yield nitrogen in the last 20 years. 00:12:38 We had to pour more fertilize fertilizer to it to get there. But our philosophy a little bit is like, you know, 00:12:46 nobody's gonna grow a 300 bushel average across the field. I mean, it's just not, not gonna happen. 00:12:52 I mean, really, if you were gonna be realistic, weather plays a role in all that stuff. Retraining your brain. We're gonna rose this 250 bushel 00:12:59 corn, but we don't need 250 pounds of nitrogen. Start figuring it from that way and be more realistic on your plan. 00:13:06 I like it. I wanna get into how you actually did this so that the person listening can apply these practices 00:13:11 and cut back and action on their farm. By the way, if you're listening to this one thing you can do, you probably are overspending on fertility 00:13:16 'cause you're using fertility where it's not actually getting into the plant. Our forensic nature's can help. 00:13:20 Nature's is focused on providing sustainable farming solutions and helping you maintain your full potential with your crop for today and for future generations. 00:13:27 Using nature's high quality liquid fertility powered by Nature's bio, okay. Can target specific periods 00:13:33 of influence throughout the growing season via precision placement techniques. In other words, don't try 00:13:37 and fling all your fertilizer out there in a fall angle. Be there when that plant needs it. 00:13:40 You can use products from nature and put it out there when the plant actually can utilize it. Get your crop there, save money, 00:13:46 get more bang for your fertility buck. All of a sudden you've got a solvent farming operation. And that's gonna be very important in the year, like 20, 25 00:13:53 and beyond because these ag cycles going downward. It should last for a while. You should be really smart about your fertility. 00:13:57 Nature's can help Also, by the way, you can go and check that out@natures.com. If you are not a member oft extreme ag 00:14:05 and you want to become a member for $750 a year, you know what, you'll get access to Kelly Garrett and Mike Evans. 00:14:10 You'll get data at the end of the year that the non-members do not get. And you also get special offers. 00:14:15 Like for instance, you can go to Commodity Classic with our friends Nature. That's right. Nature's a paying for you. 00:14:19 If you're an extreme Ag member, you'll go to Commodity Classic for free. Go to Extreme Ag Farm to check that out. 00:14:25 Go to Commodity Classic. You'll see me, you'll see Kelly. You probably even see Evans. 00:14:29 We'll be in the nature's booth, in fact. And you also, you can go and see Kelly get this award. So go to natures.com and check that out. 00:14:35 How'd you get there? Now? How do you, okay, we talked about nitrogen reduction. That's a strategy you've been working on. 00:14:39 Again, you've been practicing for that ball game for several years now. Um, practices, alteration of products, 00:14:47 biologicals, all of the above. Evans, you're the agronomist. Uh, you can lead this off if you want. How'd you get there? 00:14:54 All the, all the above. But I think the, the key was testing and validating stuff. You know, using, using our testing methods, 00:15:04 rapid soil tests, SAP sampling in, in season has been probably one of the, the key things we've been able to use and learn 00:15:14 and make these adjustments and get to the point where we're at today. 'cause we under start understanding nitrogen balance in the 00:15:19 plant far greater than we had anytime before that point in time. So sampling in season with SAP 00:15:26 and being able to calibrate our, our applications to when the plant needed them versus just slinging stuff out there and, and kind of crossing your fingers at times. 00:15:35 You know, I always think of guys who side dress especially top, top dress. Mm-hmm. You know, we always try to plant around rain 00:15:41 and sling it out there and hope a rain soaks it in, right? So, you know, we went more of a foliar route and, 00:15:46 and using the SAPs to kind of say, Hey, we need a little bit of nitrogen, but we also need the supporting, uh, minerals 00:15:53 around that, um, application, whether that be biology, carbon, uh, micronutrients to support that nitrogen assimilation in the plant. 00:16:03 Kelly, did you, uh, your practices obviously compared to what Gene Garrett did when you were a little kid, 00:16:09 uh, way less tillage. Does that help with the nitrogen thing? Um, where, where, what, where, 00:16:15 what practices can help you get there on still maintaining yield with a huge nitrogen reduction? 00:16:20 I, I do believe the no-till helps with the nitrogen because you're, you're not disturbing that biology, that microbial system. 00:16:26 You're letting it flourish and they're, you know, trying to build that organic matter, I believe no-till is key. 00:16:32 And, but then as Evan says that the place to start, because everybody's farm and everybody's soil's gonna be a little bit different. 00:16:37 That rapid soil test to validate what's coming outta your soil, this is going to amaze most people. 00:16:45 But in, in July we've validated three years in a row. Now there's over 700 pounds of nitrogen being mineralized organically 00:16:53 in our high yielding areas. In a low yielding area, it's down towards 150 pounds, 200 pounds. It's infinitely variable 00:17:00 and you just need to realize what's coming outta your soil. And then that's the beginning of the fertility program. 00:17:07 Okay, so let's validate what's coming outta the soil then let's use the SAP test to validate 00:17:12 what the crop needs to be balanced. And ba the definition of balanced to me is using 95% of the nitrogen that's going into the plant. 00:17:21 We, we find plants to be way out of balance, then they get to be vegetative or they even get to be diseased. 00:17:27 Uh, I believe that excess nitrogen leads to white mold and soybeans. We have made applications of micronutrients to balance that 00:17:35 or to help assimilate that nitrogen. And we've improved soybean yields 50% in cases. It, uh, it really is about the balance. 00:17:43 We, we don't need to apply nitrogen because the soil or mother nature applies it. We need to supply the micronutrients 00:17:52 and the other products to help use that nitrogen and provide a balanced crop. And when we do that, and we can 00:17:58 achieve that, and it's a challenge. We don't get it all the time. The, the disease pressure goes down, the cost of, uh, 00:18:05 fertility goes down, the yield goes up, the health of the plant goes up, the quality of the product we're producing. 00:18:11 All of that goes up. Mr. Evans, I'm a different, uh, recording for your calibrated agronomy company. 00:18:17 We've, uh, we've done the instructional informative videos and we talked about biologicals. 00:18:22 So in this instance, can I cut back $50 of nitrogen spend and put in $15 of biological product spend and maintain yield? 00:18:33 Is there, is that, is that, does that sound too crazy to the person listening to this like, oh no, that'll never work or will it work? 00:18:41 No, I, I think it, it works, you know, some of the philosophy we have is reducing that upfront load, um, and utilizing in other places. 00:18:52 And whether that be biologicals in furrow or seed treatments or, you know, if you're side dressing, it's, it's using 00:19:00 that money in that side dress application and late season applications. Um, we, we tend to historically do it off front loading, 00:19:07 which would be like fall applied or right before the planter hits. And then you got all that season try to capitalize on 00:19:14 that, um, investment. So we kinda look at it from an investment point as well. Not only economically, but economically as you know, 00:19:21 why don't you move some dollars into this where it's gonna be more profitable on an ROI perspective? And it, it tends to be a lot better investment doing it 00:19:31 that way than trying to cross your fingers and play it in October and get to August. Kelly, you love talking about money 00:19:38 and you said the goal is profitability, environmentalism, yes. Sustainability, yes. Regenerative practices. Yes. 00:19:43 Winning this award that was very far down the list of, uh, of the reason you did this. 00:19:47 The goal number one is profitability. Do, is it your impression that most farms, if, if, if they could spend 30 bucks less on nitrogen per acre 00:19:56 and all of a sudden that could be the margin, that could be difference between break even and profit on an acre? 00:20:02 Yes. You know, like, uh, working with JC ag financial services, you know, marketing and the CFO of the farm, like we talked about, 00:20:09 my costs on average are $70 less than their average customer. How much? 70. 00:20:14 70 less per acre. Alright. I would like to touch on what you talked about with Evans. 'cause I wanna push back a little bit. 00:20:20 You said reduce $50 in nitrogen, add $50 in biology. Uh, I don't that that, I believe you can probably spend less than fif, 00:20:29 I believe you can probably reduce your nitrogen by $50. I said 50 and then spend 15 in other words, or maybe 50 and spend 10. I don't, 00:20:36 It's just, it it's not Why miss surgery? You said 15. It's not, I I don't know that it has to be $15 a biology. 00:20:42 I would tell you my first place would be $15 a micronutrients. Ah, Mm-hmm. Would be my, 00:20:46 because again, um, agronomy to me is chemistry plus biology. When I mean chemistry, I don't mean 00:20:53 rounded, I mean elements. I mean nutrients and your chemistry side of your agronomy is out of balance. 00:20:59 That's the definition of over-applying nitrogen. Just because it takes less zinc, less cobalt, less copper to produce a corn crop doesn't mean it's less important. 00:21:08 The average grower has been led to believe that they don't want nitrogen to be their mitigating factor. Mm-hmm. Copper, cobalt, meibum, 00:21:15 those are probably their mitigating factors. That's where that $15 needs to be spent. First, then let's talk about biology. 00:21:21 Yeah. And then when you, then when Kelly, Real quick, real quick though. Can we ask Evans to say the word molybdenum? 00:21:28 Because it's always fun for me to hear the agronomist mispronounce molybdenum, Molly. Okay. 00:21:35 Molly, you call it Molly, but what's, what's Molly short for? Molly, Go ahead. 00:21:44 But to Kelly's point is like if you overload, say you go put 240 pounds on hydro on the soil, you're over, you're overbalancing this, you know, 00:21:51 you're creating an imbalance in the soil and you can actually, um, from an agronomically or soil function, um, suppress other nutrients. 00:21:59 Like calcium gets locked up. 'cause you're putting on all this nitrogen, you, your micronutrients get, especially copper, get, 00:22:06 uh, get tied up. 'cause you got all this nitrogen and you're over overbalancing the soil to the wrong way. 00:22:12 And you tie up key things that the plant needs and then it, when it takes up all this nitrogen, they don't have the nutrients to handle what you've done. 00:22:22 You're going to go, by the way, he still never said noum. I mean, never will. I didn't hear him. 00:22:27 I didn't hear him say it. I never did. Um, you're gonna go a hundred percent corn in 2025 because you've already made the 00:22:34 calculation cost of production. You finally factored it in. Said, I'm not making any money on soybeans. 00:22:39 Obviously Iowa, it works, but there's always the nitrogen issue. This award taught you this last three years 00:22:47 of you doing trials and practicing this. Now you're gonna apply that broad acre so you are truly putting your money where your mouth is. 00:22:53 So the person says, oh, well, all right, you're gonna put literally thousands and thousands of acres now and reduce nitrogen. 00:23:00 Are you gonna, how much of what you did for this award are you gonna do across thousands of acres? Well, I'm so glad you asked that question 00:23:07 because the way that, the way that we got this award is the way that we farmed every acre for the last three years and we'll continue to farm it. 00:23:14 And this award was also done on a corn, on corn field. And part of the audit that we had to go through to validate our nitrogen uses, we had 00:23:23 to be less than a hundred, 180 pounds of nitrogen this year. And we had to be less than a hundred. 00:23:29 Uh, we had to be less than 300 pounds last year. They also asked the question, well, how many pounds of nitrogen did you put on the corn crop last year? 00:23:37 And I said, it was the same. It was the same. So we, this, this isn't a, a, a one year deal and we didn't do anything special to win this award. 00:23:45 Sure. We farm every acre the way that we farm this acre. And when we achieve balance, when we achieve assimilation 00:23:52 of nitrogen and when we achieve balance, this is what happens. Okay. So are, Do we achieve it on every 00:23:57 acre? No, not always. What do you think in 2025, what do you think Mike Evans, what will, what will your recommendation, 00:24:04 your prescription be on applied nitrogen across all of the thousands and thousands of acres that you're gonna have in corn next year? 00:24:10 What will the recommendation be on average? I know you do variable rate, Um, that'd be probably 180 pounds average 00:24:20 on the farm. Okay. Across everything. Yeah. You're shooting and you're shooting your county a your county proven yield 00:24:26 is like 2 25. So you're nowhere close to the 1.1 or 1.2. The people think no, you're, 00:24:31 and you're gonna, so you might very well do a 240 bushel corn average in 2025, assuming you get some rains. 00:24:38 And you might do that with 180 pounds. Is that, is that a reasonable statement? The goal for 25? Yeah. I mean that's crossed, you know, 6,000 acres. 00:24:48 So there's gonna be a lot of variability, you know, and we ate everything so, you know, well they're gonna have, you know, we taken point, we've had Kara's got some dry land 00:24:57 that we've put on probably 120 pounds a couple years ago, weather worked, right? And it was 300 what, three 15 or something? That spot was. 00:25:04 And so you do the math on that. I mean, that to me is the gold star right there. And you, you plan for the weather to handle it. 00:25:15 And, and you know, that's, the weather worked out and we hit home run, you know, the weather didn't work out. Probably been 2 62 80. So the, 00:25:23 Uh, the, uh, the 300 we had a, we also won the state of Ohio in the no-till irrigated category. Damon, with a 335 bushel yield. 00:25:32 I can't tell you exactly what it is, but there's no doubt in my mind we're less than 180 pounds there last year. 00:25:37 We third in the nation at 3 77 in the no-till irrigated category. There's no doubt in my mind it would also class 00:25:43 qualify for Class J. So both of you can address this. We all know how ag works. We've all been there, whether it's at the tavern 00:25:51 or the co-op or the coffee shop. Yeah. Well that, that works for you. That won't work for me. That works for you. But that won't work where I farm. 00:26:00 Oh, that's easy to say when you're in Iowa, but you don't know what kind of soil I farm. So address that. 00:26:06 And by the way, we're not in any way being judgmental. We know that soils are different. We know that, we know that climatological issues are, 00:26:11 you know, vary from even from one part of the corn belt to the other part of the corn belt. But there's always the tendency to say, 00:26:16 even Matt Miles will, will admit that he's always, his always initial reaction is That won't work. That won't work. And then what's he always do, 00:26:23 he finds out that it'll work. Temple Rhodes is doing it in Maryland, as are many farmers in the Chesapeake Bay watershed. 00:26:30 And we just did it on 20 acres, uh, at map miles. It wasn't just a test plot, we just did it on 20 acres at map miles 00:26:38 and we're gonna do it again this year. And you said you spent $50 less, almost all of it was on, on reduced nitrogen 00:26:44 and you were within a bushel of Matt Miles. Uh, We were half a bushel better than Matt, and we spent $50, and I, I can't remember, Mike can probably remember, 00:26:52 but I believe we, we made like two 40 or two, we made somewhere around two 40 or two 50, and I think it was on six tenths of a pound of nitrogen. 00:27:01 We, it was more than what we have in Iowa, but the soil there isn't as good. And, and so now, you know, Matta was believed he had 00:27:08 to supply 1.1 pounds. Yep. We out yielded Matt by a half a bushel with six tenths of a pound of nitrogen applied 00:27:16 Evans. Uh, you, you generally work in Iowa, but now with your new role in calibrated agronomy, you're doing, you're getting calls from Nebraska, 00:27:25 Missouri, et cetera, et cetera. So the first per the call, the call that you get that they say that won't, that won't work here. 00:27:30 What's your, what's your response gonna be? Uh, it works. It's been, works about anywhere really. We got customers, you know, 00:27:38 20 miles from Kelly that are doing it. Um, you know, our, our counterpart Clint Freeze out in Illinois. 00:27:44 He does it all day long, you know, with their program. You know, I, I can't speak for their operation, but I know he called me this fall 00:27:51 and he ran one field at, I think the average was about point half a pound of bushel, uh, of nitrogen, uh, half pound 00:27:59 of nitrogen per bushel, excuse me, on his farm. And I think that was like two 60 corn. So, you know, it, it, you know, 00:28:07 our good friend Jerry talks about agronomy is universal. It travels everywhere. And soil chemistry is soil chemistry. 00:28:14 And that that does not change. The, the math does not change. Um, you just gotta have the data to input into that math 00:28:20 to understand what you need as an output. So, you know, just like we did with, with Matt down in Arkansas, it was the same concept. 00:28:27 You know, we knew the soil wasn't gonna be as, as, uh, bountiful on producing its own nitrogen, so we had to change our plan out. 00:28:34 But, you know, it's, it's just being realistic and, and, and knowing what to do when 00:28:42 I think we're gonna leave it there, Kelly, unless you have anything to contribute on this, You know, before you say it won't work there, you need 00:28:50 to do a rapid soil test and validate what's coming out of your soil and then look at a balanced program 00:28:56 and I can you do exactly what we're doing? Maybe, maybe not, but I I'm sure you can make an improvement somewhere. 00:29:02 Yeah. Uh, you, you don't have the information yet to be able to make that statement. Got it. Uh, by the way, if you enjoyed this, 00:29:11 there's literally hundreds of episodes. You've been shooting these for three and a half years and they're all free@extrememag.farm. 00:29:16 So it's like a video library that's free, go and check it out. Topics from everything, uh, 00:29:22 that happen on your farming operation that you can benefit and apply to your farming 00:29:25 operation immediately to farm better. Also, there's videos from, uh, the field days. There's videos that these guys shoot. 00:29:30 There's videos that I'm involved in at their events and it's all free. And I told you, you can become an extreme Ag member. 00:29:35 It's only seven 50 bucks and you can go to Commodity Classic for free. I'm gonna be the courtesy of our friends at Nature's. 00:29:41 I'm gonna be there. Kelly's gonna be there. I think Evan's gonna be there. Uh, the other thing I wanna remind you, if you are a fan of 00:29:45 what we're doing here at Extreme Ag, check out our new series called The Grainery. It's shot at my grainery. That's right. 00:29:50 My on Farm Hangout in Tavern, where I bring the guys in for a round table where we just hang out. We talk about issues impacting you, farming, agriculture, 00:29:57 family, generational stuff, money, big, big picture stuff, and also the personal side of it. 00:30:03 And it's really a lot of fun. And you can basically, uh, you know, pull up a chair and pour yourself a drink and pretend you're right there 00:30:09 with us because we're talking about stuff that's pertinent to you. So check out the grainery. Uh, you'll eventually see Kelly. 00:30:13 You might even see Evans on the Grainery. It's a lot of fun. And, uh, it's gonna be, uh, a, a great time for you to take 00:30:18 that, uh, take that time. It's a little, uh, it's a little less formal than some of our other stuff. 00:30:22 So anyway, check it out. So next time, thanks for being here. He's Mike Evans with Integrated Ag Solutions 00:30:26 and Calibrate Agronomy. And the other guy is Kelly Garrett, you know him. I'm Damien Mason. Till next time, thanks for being here. 00:30:31 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 790 00:30:40.205 --> 00:30:41.485