00:00 February planted soybeans that ended up making a pretty big yield and also taught us some valuable lessons. 00:04 That's what we're covering. And this episode of Extreme Ag Cutting the curve. Welcome to Extreme Ag Cutting the Curve podcast, 00:11 where real farmers share real insights and real results to help you improve your farming operation. This episode is brought to you by Simon Innovation, 00:20 protect your crops and maximize yield with a full lineup of innovative precision tools engineered 00:26 to enhance the efficiency and accuracy of your sprayer. Visit simon innovations.com and start getting more ROI out of your sprayer. 00:34 And now here's your host, Damien Mason. Hey there. Welcome to another fantastic episode of Extreme Ag cutting the curve. 00:40 Me your host, Damien Mason, with my man Matt Miles, one of the founding of Fathers of Extreme Ag. And we did something pretty cool. 00:47 I think we've covered this a couple of times, Matt, where we've talked about, uh, you, you and Lane have done it. 00:52 You and I have done it where you get excited and you try do stuff. You took almost 48 acres 00:57 and put it into a February planted soybean uh, crop. Harvested them this week. And right behind the combine are planting 01:06 another crop of soybeans. You're gonna do double crop soybeans after soybeans. Um, and the results are pretty impressive. 01:13 So I wanna share this because there's a lot of people that might be in a geographical climatological area where this would work for them, 01:21 and they probably thought, man, this is kind of crazy. So tell us about, first off, you went out in February. Yeah. Yeah. You, you could have gotten, 01:30 you could have gotten frosted, you could have gotten flooded. You didn't, they made it. 01:35 So talk about from the beginning till the end. Yeah. I had a, after the, after the harvest, you know, of course it went on. 01:40 So social media and I had a guy call me. He said, I really like following you because you do some really crazy, he used the word 01:46 that I'm not gonna use on this podcast. Right. Said, you know, I said, I do do some crazy stuff, but it's control crazy. 01:53 So, you know, when I say that, we started out in 2022 and, and my goal was how early is too early from, from the last 10 years of my soybean production, 02:05 every year I'd moved my production up plant earlier, plant earlier. And, and my yields were increased, steadily increasing. 02:12 So I wanted to go out there and do something really crazy and say, okay, it is middle February too early, 02:17 or say the third week of February, too early. And so in 22, we did it. We had great success. 23, we did it not such good success. 02:25 So we were 50 50 going into this year. My goal was to do this for 10 years. And it, and if it works seven to eight years, 02:32 then it's something that I need to be looking at or lane needs to be looking at in his career as he goes. So I'd already told Lane, I said, 02:40 if this don't work this year and I've got two bad years and one good year, then I'm out. I'm done. This don't work. Yep. 02:45 So we went out on February 26th and planted, you know, a 49 acre field in soybeans. We actually planted it in an 86 acre field. 02:54 But I took one, planted an early variety to try to get the second crop back on it. Right? The second field I planted on the same date 03:01 with a later mature variety to see what the yield capture is. So I've got several different things going on here. 03:06 But the 49 acre field, planted acre field has now been harvested in beans, planted behind them. Yep. 03:13 And actually ended up being just about 48 acres. 'cause some turn rows and small of that. And so you were doing a very good job 03:18 of keeping your numbers by the way. I'm gonna tell you right now, dear listeners and viewers, he, Matt was very bashful about this. 03:24 He didn't wanna share the yield information. And after 300 different people on social media said they wanted to know what the numbers were, 03:31 he's grudgingly decided he is gonna do this. But remember, we're talking about a trial, we're talking about 49, 48 acres. 03:36 We're not talking about doing this on 4,000 acres. So it is a trial. Um, okay. The thing I think is neat, 03:43 you guys in extreme ag are always about, all right, it's an experiment. It's a trial. We're gonna do this. 03:49 You didn't do this on every acre you farm, you did it on this, on this. You willingly said it could flood, it could frost, it, 03:55 could you freeze, it could die. There's all kind of things going, but it worked out. And you said if it, if two of three years are failures, 04:04 we're not gonna try the experiment anymore. We'll already have our answer. Now you've got two of the three years that are 04:09 quite positive and one of the, one of the years it was not, what do you need to see in the double crop 04:20 to definitely cement it that you're going to do this more? Well, and, and there, like I said, 04:27 there's two trials going on. There's one where I'm planning early with a longer season of variety to see. 04:33 I theoretically those beans should be 10 to 15 bushel better than the ones I cut Monday. Okay. So I've got that trial going on. 04:40 The one with the double crop, you know, One you cut Monday, the ones you planted, The ones I cut and planted. 04:45 So we cut and planted it, we cut and planted. Just say fill one on Monday. Okay? Two, we haven't, we haven't desiccated yet. 04:53 The weather got really, really stinky here. It's been cloudy and drizzling for three days. You don't wanna desiccate in, 04:58 in front of that kind of weather. So there wasn't even a chance of me doing the other one based on the forecast. 05:04 But so on with the one with the double crop, you know, we're, we're always talking about more, you know, doing more with less, you know, so if we can take one acre 05:13 and we can produce two crops off of it, we can do that with wheat and beans, you know. But in this scenario, if I chose to, I could do two crops 05:22 of beans and then a crop of wheat. I did that in 22. I had three crops planted in one year, harvested the third one the second year. 05:29 But I planted another crop behind that. So theoretically I got four crops in two years. Yep. Is what in that scenario, you know, 05:37 how early is too early to plant beans? How late is too late to plant beans in the, in the delta? That's two things I'm looking at right now. 05:43 So, you know, if you just take the first crop in general, you know, it was early. We had three frosts on it. 05:49 You know, I had a neighbor come out there, actually come out there and pull up in the field and he, he had had a few to drink that afternoon. 05:55 I was walking and he said, man, and it was after a back to back two day frost. And he said, man, I'm sorry. 06:01 He said, you, you know, look like you had a pretty good chance here. And he said, I'm sorry that these 06:05 frosts are gonna knock you out of this. And I said, well, don't count me out yet. You know, I, I hadn't been thrown out yet. 06:10 Well then, you know, the beans come up after that got a killing frost, which I thought they were gone at that point. 06:16 You know, we used some products that, that, uh, integrated ax sales called Shield Lee Luber use it all the time. 06:22 It's kind of a frost protector. Uh, really worked well. I'll, I'll be honest with you. It really worked well. So, you know, there were some things, 06:28 some things we did there to protect it from the frost that was minimal additional cost. Mm-Hmm. But we saved a herbicide spring. 06:36 We saved a insecticide spring and we saved at least one irrigation depending on when you would plant from there. 06:43 I'm gonna save two irrigations based on when most people plant. So that's a lot of stuff adding up there, you know. 06:50 Now my population was a little higher, you know, because I wanna make sure I got the plants out there. But I'm gonna do that in any harsh conditions, 06:57 even if it's in April, because I feel like that that first planting is where you need to, where, where you need to have your stand. 07:03 If you're having to consider replanting or have to replant, you're two weeks later at that point you've lost, you've lost yield. 07:09 Okay. So, uh, we did, and, and I, the, if you're listening or watching this, I want to, you don't click off now, 07:17 but we've covered a few different angles on this. I'm just glancing over here pushing the early planting envelope. 07:22 We did this in 2022, Matt and Lane's first year of doing this experiment. Um, we did, uh, we did a thing called beating the frost tips 07:31 for early season planting. So we've done several, uh, recordings about this thing. And so I want you to at some point go 07:39 to the Extreme Ag Farm website. You can just type in early season, early soybeans mat, something like that and you'll find it. 07:45 So several of these. Alright, so the question here is, alright, you didn't get frosted out. We say February. Everybody, you know, there's, 07:51 you were at the very end of the month. Um, if you had gone one week earlier, would the beans be dead? 07:57 'cause it had been too big and the frost would've whacked them. 21. 21. 08:03 I went one week earlier and they stayed in the ground logger because of the cold conditions. 08:06 Yep. And it worked. 22, I went one week earlier, had a really warm spell when I done it, they came up and that's when, that's why we lost 'em. 08:15 They were too, too high, you know, up too good when that happened. So I know that's, that's a yes and no. 08:20 You just, you can't out guess what the weather's gonna be. You just, when you, pardon? 08:24 When you, um, when you made the decision to do it, did you say, was it soil temperature or just day length? What was the, what was the, when you said we're going 08:35 to the field tomorrow and here's why, what was the reason? Well, so during that time of year, the main reason is, 08:41 is it dry enough to get in the field? You know, can, can we get in there? But the other thing you've really gotta pay attention to now 08:48 that's, whether it's in February or whether it's in May, is your 15 day forecast. Mm-Hmm. You know, even though these guys can't predict past 08:56 tomorrow night very accurately at all, they, they're a lot better doing that than I am. So I rely on that 15 day forecast. 09:02 People ask me do I, what date is my date that I plant to, I have a target date, but I have a 15 day forecast if I get 09:09 to my target date and, and, and, and we're gonna get a bunch of sub zero, you know, subfreezing temperatures. 09:15 I, I'm not a total idiot. You know, I'm gonna probably wait on that By the end of February, February 26th. 09:21 In your part of the world. It's unlikely you get a lot of, I mean, you get some 29 degrees at 09:26 night, 27 degrees at night. And that's why you were starting to dodge and, and hedge round. 09:30 Okay. What about on, uh, fertility, et cetera? Did you do everything the same on a February 26th planted, uh, soybean crop as you would if 09:39 you went out there and planted them? Um, March 26th Fertility wise? Yes. Now when you start talking about herbicides 09:47 and insecticides and irrigation, no. Mm-Hmm. You know, like, And you said you used a couple of products to help you 09:53 through the early season. Some like some stress mitigation products or, uh, something. Yes. Okay. The stuff, 10:00 And I did that, I did that because of the forecast. I knew the frost was coming, you know, and, and you put some of these products on, 10:08 I think it's either 36 or 48 hours prior to the frost. You know, if you go look at the Citrix growers, you know, and people like that when they, when they're about 10:17 to get a frost, they're trying everything they can to, to eliminate the stress on the plant. And so that's exactly what we done. Alright. 10:24 What about then, uh, the, the, the after it's in the ground, it's going and all that. You knew you were out of the woods by 10 days, 15 days. 10:34 You knew you were out of the woods. I knew I was out of the woods. Yeah. 15 to 20 days. I mean, I had a, and, and, and of course that could change, 10:43 but in a normal frost year or adverse weather year, I knew I was out of the, out of the woods in about three weeks. 10:50 Understanding that it took about 10 to 12 days for 'em to come up. See, that's, that's the beauty that you really need. 10:57 You don't need a warm spell when you plant 'em. 'cause you need those beans to stay in the ground a minute. Yep. You know, sit there and, and, 11:03 and we put, we put groceries underneath them, you know, but we want that bean to, to germinate, stay healthy while the, while the weather's adverse. 11:11 And then when the weather starts getting better, then that bean starts coming outta the ground. You used, uh, same fertility, inro, all that kind 11:19 of stuff was the same as usual. And then you used a little bit of stress mitigation stuff to help it through the cold time. 11:24 Is there anything else that changed about that versus the stuff that went in a month later? No. No. Alright. And I actually planted some beans 11:32 two weeks later, you know, so I'm, I've got several different early planted beans. You know, my target window today is, is march, March 15th. 11:41 That's when I think we get past that, that frost line, you know, it starts getting less chance of that. And that's where we're picking up our best yields. 11:49 Yep. So this, these are really only two weeks and three days ahead of, uh, what your normal is. Alright, I wanna hear the actual yield. 11:55 I wanna hear about what's gonna happen, uh, with the second crop. And I got a couple other questions about the 12:00 type of variety that you chose. But before I do that, uh, I wanna talk to our listeners here about nature's. 12:05 You hear us talk about nature's all the time. Uh, good friends over there, Angie, and, uh, you know, Jason, Tommy, all of 'em. 12:11 They're good folks over there. Nature's is focused on providing sustainable farming solutions and helping you maintain your crop's potential for today 12:18 and for future generations. Nature's high quality liquid fertilizers powered by Nature's Bio. 12:22 Okay. Target specific periods of influence throughout the growing season. That's right. You hear us talk about spoon feeding crops. 12:28 One of the big topics around here about putting stuff out there in small doses when the plant needs it. 12:32 Get your biggest bang for your buck in a year like this when we've got some lower commodity prices. 12:37 Get more bang for your fertility buck using products from Nature's Nature's bio. 12:41 Okay. Uh, you'll get precision planting placement techniques and you'll mitigate your plant stress. 12:45 You'll enhance your crop yield. Most importantly, you'll boost your farms ROI You'll make money and you'll be here for the long haul. 12:51 That's what we want for you, natures go to natures.com. Um, by the way, you desiccated it this before we start talking about the second crop. 12:59 You desiccated it for the person that's considering doing this. Um, talk us through how it works and why you do it. 13:05 Well, there's several diff several different types of products you can put on a desiccation from Paraquat, which is, you know, kind of a scary product for most anyone. 13:14 Uh, all the way down to the, probably the least working one is just straight salt. You know, like you, we salt our rice every year, you know, 13:22 we'll put salt on there to dry the, the stalk out 'cause there's so much biomass, so desiccation in my opinion. 13:28 And, and there's a video out on extreme ag right now that they just put out, I call it an art, not a science, because there's so many things 13:35 that can go good and can go wrong. I desiccate a hundred percent of my acres, you know, soybean, 13:40 Soybean acres. Yeah. So of course we ate our cotton, which that's where I started doing it from. 13:46 Because a cotton, a cotton crop, you always, it's desiccation and defoliation is basically the same word. You know, you're just using different products to do that. 13:54 We have to get the leaves off that cotton before we pick it. So I was already familiar with this, uh, 14:00 process when I think it was Syngenta. You know, they were only ones that made Paraquat at that time that came out and said, Hey, 14:06 you know, we can do this. And so we started playing with it early in the years. We would do some, uh, just to see how it worked. 14:13 In today's world, uh, if you're putting soybeans in, in the beans, you know, you, you got enough experience with farming. 14:20 Green pods don't work well in, in a grain bin or in an August system. Um, if you wanna run your combine a mile, mile 14:26 and a half faster than you do, uh, than you normally do, then, then you can put a desk on there to get the, 14:32 the stalk brown and the leaves gone basically is what we're doing. We're basically defo heading this plant and, 14:38 and drying up the, the green pods so that it, it flows more efficient and goes through the combine better, goes 14:45 through the grain bins better. And it'll give you about, normally about a week, depending on the variety. 14:51 It will give you up to two weeks. Um, more harvest, earlier harvest. And if you plant it correctly, 14:57 that's where I go into the arc. You know, if you know your combine power, you know what you're gonna harvest today, then 15:03 that's all you desiccate that day. So it's got a plant back window. Each product has a plant, uh, a harvest window. 15:09 So you looked at your harvest interval, you see your combine power. How many acres can I harvest a day? I've gotta wait 14 days. 15:17 So how many acres do I need to desiccate? So I'm desiccating soybeans every day or every two days because we get into weather like we've got today. 15:25 Yep. I don't want a bunch of beans sitting out there, half dead waiting to get harvested. Okay. So you, you, did you do paraquat or salt? 15:35 I do paraquat. Okay. And then besides the fact that it's kind of na, it's it's kind of nasty stuff to deal with, 15:41 uh, you've had no problem with it. No. And we got a plant back window that we have to watch. So you have to really manage that. 15:47 If you wait, if you wait till the till, the bean gets too, too ready and you play, you spray the gramoxone on there 15:54 or the paraquat on there and you don't have time to wait for that window, which would be illegal. 15:58 Then time you get to that window, you're gonna have a lot of shadow. Okay. So you've got your plant back, meaning 16:04 after you put it on there, you're not allowed to plant because of a legal thing or because it'll actually just not your seed. 16:10 I say plant back window, I mean harvest window. Okay. So you apply the product, you have a certain window that you've gotta wait before you can harvest that bean 16:18 to get that chemical out of the, out of the seed. Yeah. So that you just mean it takes it about what, 10 days to die and then or to, to dry down? 16:26 Well, it depends on when you do it. You know, so you, with that plant back window on Paraquat, you've gotta be 14 days before you harvest. 16:34 So you need to desiccate that bean a little earlier than you would say with sharpen and salt. 16:39 Okay. You know, sharp and salt. I, they might, I don't even know they might have a five day window, but it's gonna take them 15 16:46 to 20 days, you know, to get ready. So it just depends on the product that you're comfortable with. 16:51 You know, this all has to be done with a ground rig because, you know, there's not a lot of beans ready to be desiccated in in July. 16:58 So I'm sitting out here in the middle of the world with one field or two fields created. Ate no way an airplane's gonna touch that. Yeah. You know? 17:05 Alright, so you did it and the idea is you're, you're, you're doing this and you're saying, uh, 17:10 but you don't want to do, if you had a bunch of acres, if you had a thousand acres, you wouldn't desiccate all in the same day 17:15 because then 10 days from that point everything's ready to get harvested and you can't do a thousand acres in one day, let's say. 17:23 That's exactly right. That's, that's, that's the exact answer. Okay. Uh, you figure out your efficiency combine power, 17:29 and then you desiccate based on that. Okay. The person that's listening to this, that's saying, you know what, it's cool these guys do all this stuff, 17:35 but he's wasting money on chemical and he is wasting time and money. Send a machine out there to desiccate it. 17:42 Why don't you just plant a shorter variety, the shortest variety of soybean that'll mature the earliest and not do the desiccation. 17:52 Well, what if there's 15 bushel difference in yield at the same planting day between the early 17:57 material and the late material? Yeah. So 15 bushels, even at $10 is $150 an acre and it's gonna cost me 16 to go do that. 18:05 Yeah. So You just 10 times you just 10 times your return. Okay. So the point is you're saying a shorter variety 18:11 versus, uh, a longer variety that you desiccate could be 15 bushels difference Theoretically. 18:17 Okay. Alright. Next question then. When you, uh, when you do do the desiccation and you're ready to go, is there, when, when that soybean, 18:26 when it's dead and dry, it's just like a normal soybean, all that, do you have any the uh, 18:32 because I don't know this, the chemistry you put on there, there's nothing about you can plant right behind that. 18:37 There's no residual in the soil from paraquat right There ist. And, but what there is an advantage 18:42 of is if you've got any grass or broadleafs out there, it kills those, it kills those. That's part of the harvest deficiency. 18:50 You know, you know how to run it. You know, you're running a, a combine and you've got, even if it's six inch tall grass at the 18:56 bottom of your canopy, you know, at the bottom of your plant and the dew falls, you're done. 19:01 You know you're gonna choke up. You keep running if that grass, if that grass is dried out, you can run all night long if you need or you 19:07 Got it. So, so, so yeah, there's gonna be, there's gonna be some weeds and some grasses in your 19:11 soybeans clean as you want 'em to be. But the point is, the paraquat treatment kills all those and then you can drive and run, like you said, 19:17 even when the dew comes on, because it's not cleaning onto live bladed grass, weed, whatever. 19:22 All right. Then you go right behind the combine and you plant, you're planting a shorter soybean for the second double crop. 19:29 I am. And the reason why I'm doing that, which theoretically in a scientific shorter Season, shorter season I should say Yes. 19:35 Shorter season variety scientifically, uh, it, you should plant a longer season variety. So e both times February and July. 19:44 So I have that in the February planet. I've got a four nine that I haven't harvested yet. And the 4.0, the 4.0 was planted 19:51 to plant another bean behind it. Okay. To get both crops in. That bean's gonna come off somewhere 19:57 around the first week of November. If I planted a, like a five or a four nine, you're probably looking at the last 20:04 couple of weeks of November. And my weather situation at that point, you know, is, is, is terrible. 20:10 So I don't wanna be, I'd rather take 40 bushels in the first week of November than the rot. See we have so much trouble with rot down here 20:19 'cause our temperatures are still in November, we're still sometimes 80 degrees. So you're getting rains and you're getting a hot temperature 20:25 and the beans ripe, it spoils, I mean it's just throwing apple out in the middle of the summer out on your porch and see how long it lasts. 20:31 Yeah. Same scenario. So, alright. So will you, will you, you will, you will not need to desiccate the second crop or will you? 20:42 Yes, I'll des I'm, I'm telling you, I desiccate a hundred percent of my soybeans unless I get in a situation where I know I'm not gonna get 20:49 to 'em and then I'll wait. But I would say in a year with say 4,000 acres of beans, I'm gonna desiccate three to 3,500 acres of them every year. 20:59 Got it. All right. So let's go ahead and get to this question that you didn't want to ask and be asked, but you're gonna have to answer it in 2021. 21:05 It was a success in 2022. It was a failure. I'm sorry, 22, 23, 22, 23, 24, wasn't it? Yeah, 20. Yeah. 22 was a success. 21:15 23 was a failure because of the weather. 24. The biggest success you've had, your yield that you got in 2022. 21:22 Yeah. The yield I got in 2022 was 74 bushel. That's remarkable. And you got done early then the, uh, but you didn't double crop soybeans 21:32 after 'em in 22, did you? Yes. Not, not in 22. I did. 22 was a year that I felt like all the stars lined up. I got 41 on the second crop. 21:41 Okay. 2023. 2023, uh, was the bad weather. And you planted them a, a little bit earlier than February 26th, you got whacked 21:52 and then what ended up happening with that field? Well, I just went back and replanted it, you know, two weeks later 21:57 and it made, you know, probably 80 bushel And, and did not double crop. Did not double crop, Just went longer season soybeans 22:05 planned them mid-March or so. And, and then they made normal soybeans this year. Crop number one on the double crop desiccation plan on your 22:15 48 acres. Uh, well bushels per acre. Yeah. Well, it was 40 and, and I've got my, my, 22:22 my operations guy lane went through this. It was 49.4 planted acres. That's what I was using. And I got my, my net bushels back and it was 89.97. 22:32 So 87 bushel, 86.97, which is 87 bushel. We went back and started studying the op center and we harvested 47.7 acres. 22:41 Why did we just harvest? Why did we, where's those other two acres? Well, when we plant, we plant all the way out to the end. 22:47 Yep. And then we come back and we have to knock those ends off to be able to layer up poly pipe for irrigation. 22:51 Mm-Hmm. So we took out basically an acre and a half. If you do it by that math, it's 90 bushel. Uh, so, and it's important 22:58 because I know you were concerned about this. We we're not, we're not braggy around here. This is an experiment. It was only on 48 acres, 23:06 but 90 bushels on crop number one in the desiccation double crop soybean experiment. 23:12 Okay. On, uh, what do you, we don't know what the weather's gonna do. What's your anticipation for the second crop? 23:19 Well, the cool thing about the second crop is, is I got in in a week earlier than I did in 22. So that's gonna gimme a week longer grain field, 23:28 a week longer to get height, the more nodes, and I plant it in great moisture week, Week, longer of, of longer days. 23:36 Right. So I'm, you know, again, I'm not bragging, but I see this bean crop maybe being closer to the 50 number than the 40 number 23:46 because I got 'em in a week. Yeah. All right. So you're gonna end up maybe 140 bushel soybeans per acre, but it took you two plans to make that happen. 23:56 Um, that's still really, really good. Will this become now based on what this season is shaping up like instead 24:03 of a 48 acre trial, is this gonna be a thousand acre trial next year? Well, it actually went from a 48 acre trial in 22 24:11 to 86 and 49 this year. So 135 this year. Yeah. I'll stepped on out there and did a little more, but I, I have made the comment, 24:21 I wished I would've done about 500 acres. So it all depends on the forecast in the last week of February. 24:27 If the forecast looks good, yes. That number will increase and I'll get bit one of these years. I know I will. 24:33 Alright. Other stuff for a farmer to consider us listening to this, um, down there is different. 24:37 I know insurance. Is there anything, do you, do you, do you fly naked because of crop insurance or any kind of A-U-S-D-A programs? 24:45 If you say, Hey, you crazy ass, you went out there in February 26th and planted this corn crop. 24:50 Um, if you get waxed, there's no program, anything like that. Have you seen those, uh, Duluth underwear 24:57 that called butt ass naked? Yes, I have. That's my insurance. That's my insurance when I plant before April the first. 25:07 I think that's something we're working, you know, trying to get redone. 25:11 Yeah. Is our, is our insurance plant dates in today's world are outdated by 15 years. 25:16 Yeah. You know, I would, I would tell you last year, 70% of my crop was planted before the insurance day 25:25 Before insurance kicked in. So, so you don't have any No, sir. Not really, but I can tell you this, I can more if, 25:32 if they do work insurance is is irrelevant compared to the you. Yeah. The, the, the opportunity. 25:39 The opportunity is there to really fly and make good money on this. So you're willing to go naked on the insurance. 25:46 Uh, that would not happen in my part of the world. Um, but then insurances are different in the Midwest. Um, to the person that's considering doing this, um, 25:55 what mistake did you make, if any, on your three years of doing this? Any, The second was Weather. 26:01 You've never It is, it is been weather. Any, not you, there's nothing you've done other than maybe getting unlucky with the weather. 26:08 Well, yeah, the second year, right. The second year I probably should have paid more attention to the fact that it was gonna get warm enough 26:15 to germinate those seeds come out in nine days. 20 20, 20 22. It took 'em 28 days to come outta the ground. Okay. 26:24 2023. It took 'em nine days to come outta the ground. So that's what 19 days of weather that they took, that the 2022 crop was still under the ground. And 26:35 This year you, you, you did better. I mean, stuff came out sooner. Well, and, and, and we can look at a monthly forecast 26:42 and it'll say February or March. I'm, I'm looking at March, I'm not looking at February forecast. 26:47 March is gonna be warmer than normal. You know, we've got some meteorologists, some of the guys in extreme ag work with and, and, 26:53 and he, he's pretty, he's pretty good saying March is gonna be warm, you know, or March is gonna be cold. 26:59 And so have out of attention to that and, and advice if, if you want to try it, try it on a limited. Same thing with desiccation. 27:07 Don't go out there temple roads, you know temple. Mm-Hmm. And the send it guy, he called me about desiccation. 27:13 I said, temple, how many acres can you cut a day? And he said, well, I can probably cut 200 acres a day. I said, well, don't do over 200 acres. 27:20 He called me back about three days later. He said, man, I just couldn't stand it. He said, I did 500 acres, you know, 27:26 and I said, that could get you in trouble. Yeah. You know, so, you know, you can, there there's a such saying as too much of a good thing. 27:34 And, and I'm still playing with this. If some, if someone come to me today and said, Hey, should I plant my beans in February? 27:41 I'd say absolutely not. If they said, can I plant my beans the last half of March? I'd say absolutely yes. 27:47 Yep. Got it. I, I think we got everything. Is there anything else? You said you pulled up your, uh, your notes on all this 27:53 and you said you wanted to get this recorded before you forgot about it. You just harvested these um, three days ago. 27:58 Monday we harvest them. The combine was running and the planter was running at the same time in the same field. 28:04 Got it. So you planted and harvested. Harvested then planted all two days ago. Today's Wednesday. We're recording this on Wednesday, July 24th. 28:11 You did this on July 22nd. So you harvested July 22nd. Anything else in your notes that you wanna make sure we cover? 28:17 Because this is kind of cool. I can see some other people doing this. I maybe that's the big one. Who shouldn't do this. 28:23 Well, who should do this? Who shouldn't do it Is someone that that's gonna do too many acres. 28:30 You know, because this is a small percentage. 50 acres, I use that as a round number is a small percentage of the acre. 28:37 This year we had 5,000 acres of beans. So we're talking about 1% of my acres. You know, so, so look at that. 28:43 So if, if you're, if you're farming 2000 acres, maybe do 20 acres if you'd like to play, you know, if, if you don't like to play 28:50 and have a little risk, then don't do it at all. Because I don't Think this, this doesn't work for anybody 28:57 that's un irrigated in your part of the world in the south. 'cause I, I mean you, you can't expect soybeans 29:02 that are going in July 22nd. You, you hit a, you hit a hundred degree dry spell. I think you're sunk on that second crop. 29:09 I'm guessing you tell me, I'm guessing if you are un irrigated in the south, don't do it. 29:15 If you're north of the Ohio River north of about, uh, southern Missouri, I'm guessing it doesn't work. Am I Right, 29:24 Right. Well, I could just say you were in a boot hill, Missouri, you're probably gonna wanna look as at, at 10 29:29 to 12 days later than what I've done. That would still be your risk factor. Yeah. You know, my target date is March 16th. 29:36 You know, so a guy that, the guy in the hotel of Missouri is probably target date should be March 25th to to first. 29:43 Yeah. Well again, and by the time you get up to where I am or northern Indiana or something, it's just, there's not a, 29:49 it just, this doesn't fly. It doesn't work at all. So it's, it's southern, um, and it's gonna be irrigated because if you 29:57 But it will work, right? It'll work. But your date's probably gonna be April 1st, April 5th. 30:02 Hmm. 10 years ago, if you, you would've had to put a gun in my head for me to plant a bean before April 15th. 30:10 I'm, I'm 30 days ahead of where I learned to plant beans. If You did it in the Midwest 30:16 and you did it April 1st, which there's been times the soybeans went in and I, I, I think, um, 30:22 I don't know if you'd still have mature beans to desiccate. Your beans were fully mature when you 30:26 desiccate they dried down. But, but I mean they were still green, but they were mature. Right. 30:31 They were mature. I mean, I watered 'em, I year get 'em up to where the membrane broke, 30:35 broke when you pulled the pod apart. Yep. The membrane was broke loose from the, from the pod wall. 30:40 That's my key termination to I'm done irrigating. And I did that just like I would do a bean planted in April. I did everything to the bean that I would do except 30:50 for I used less chemicals and I used less insecticide. Matt, about two years ago when, uh, we were first getting rolling, 30:55 maybe it was even three years ago, you did something, uh, kind of crazy also. 30:59 You, um, you were grabbing corn. It was the earliest planted corn you had done as I recall. And you had your new grain set up so you were able 31:07 to harvest it wet, spend the extra money on drying it. But you caught the river market, I think is what you told me. 31:13 Um, you, and you got like a buck more a bushel because you were grabbing corn like it almost July, if I remember right. 31:22 Um, does this same concept happen with these soybeans? Is there more desperation from soybeans July 22nd when you harvest them that you could run 'em right 31:32 to an elevator and get a premium because of the timing? It's funny you said that because a September bean today basis is zero. 31:40 So not a positive, not a negative. Those beans, I cut Monday, I got a plus 75. Okay. So you got 75 cents 31:47 of positive basis on your July 22nd soybean. So on a year like this where we're depressed, that that's, that's more than enough 31:57 to be good margin on that bush of soybean. A $12 beam becomes a 1275 or an 11 something becomes 11. That's, that's, that's, that's the margin. Yeah. 32:05 Well, I mean, it's just like buying a a, like hedging them buying a call or buying a put, which everyone working that year, 32:10 that's gonna cost you 20 cents a bushel to do that. Yeah. You know, at, at 80 bushel beans, that's 16 bucks. You know, I didn't spend more than 16 bucks in the, 32:20 in in any of these extra products I done plus saved money because they got ready earlier. 32:24 I got ready before the worms and the stink bug came in. Last thought. You have a lot of acres to cover. You've got employees, et cetera. 32:32 Is there a certain reason that you will do more of this because of management of time and labor? Meaning this way it spaces out your season. 32:39 Like now you can, you can utilize more days on the calendar instead of having to chunk out 18 hour days. 32:45 Your guys can work 10 hour days and, and it helps with management. Well, we're still gonna work the 18 hour days, 32:52 we're just gonna get finished before, before we would in a normal situation. But what I have learned, and, 32:57 and we've said this a lot, is I had a, I had a guy tell me this the other day. He said, I told my clients, he's a consultant. 33:03 He said, when you think it's time to plant corn, put your corn back in the shed, start planting beans and two weeks later plant your corn. 33:11 And we've learned that, I mean, we, you know, a bean will take the cold weather so much better than corn wheels. 33:16 So get some of your beans outta the way. Hmm. You know, plant your corn and then, you know, if you want, 33:21 if you gotta plant lay beans, I feel like I can make enough money to have 'em custom harvested, 33:26 to have 'em all planted early and be in the same way. And something we didn't think that what, 20 years ago we started changing our thinking 33:32 about beans before corn. Oh, absolutely. Yeah. I, I changed, I just changed it in the last five years myself. Yeah. 33:38 Nice. His name is Matt Miles. My name's Damian Mason. We're talking about Matt's early February, I'm sorry, his, his early, uh, soybean trial, 33:47 which was planted February 26th, that got harvested on July 22nd. Set an absolute record for him. 33:51 I meaning on his trial, uh, 48 acres at almost 90 bushels an acre. Um, we're not trying to say this is, uh, foolproof. 33:58 We're telling you this is what he did. And we appreciate you being here to listen to this awesome episode. Thank you. 34:05 Yes, sir. Till next time. I'm Dan Mason reminding you that the scholarship, scholarship from Extreme Ag, if you were hearing this 34:13 before August 14th, August 14th, 2024 is the deadline. If you have a kid, a niece, a nephew, a grandkid that is attending a, an accredited agricultural college, 34:23 two year or four year degree, we don't care. We want to help the next generation. We're giving away ten three thousand dollars scholarships, 34:29 ten three thou, it's $30,000. Folks, this is not rinky dink stuff. Go to Extreme Ag Farm. There's a big banner up there. It says, scholarships apply. 34:38 I actually went and did it myself just to see what it was like. It took like 15 minutes for a chance at $3,000. 34:44 Your student can do this. Go to Extreme Ag Farm and apply for the scholarship. We wanna help the next generation succeed. 34:49 And I know you do too. So share this with somebody who can benefit from it. Same thing with this episode. 34:52 Share it with somebody that's considering doing double crop beans with desiccation just like Matt Miles did. 34:57 So next time, thanks for being here. That's a wrap for this episode of Cutting the Curve. Make sure to check out Extreme ag.farm 35:03 for more great content to help you squeeze more profit out of your farming operation. 35:08 Cutting the curve is brought to you by Simon Innovations. Don't let your sprayer's limitations hold you back. 35:14 Visit simon innovations.com and upgrade your sprayer's capabilities now.