00:00 Okay, so last year they did something pretty cool. They went out way early and planted stuff like when all the neighbors then did the drive-by and said, oh crazy. 00:10 OLS, look at that. Well, anyway, they're doing it again. Welcome to extreme AG's cutting the curve more than just a podcast. 00:16 It's the place for insights and information. You can apply immediately to your farming operation for increased success this episode of cutting the curve is brought 00:25 to you by AG Explorer with Innovative products that improve fertilizer efficiency protect yield potential and 00:31 reduce stress. I explore helps Growers maximize field potential find out how AG Explorer can help you get more out of your crop at Ag explore.com. And 00:40 now here's your host Damian Mason. Hey there, welcome to extreme eggs cutting the curve. We got a great topic. Today we're talking about how early is 00:51 too early the matte and Lane miles experiment last year. They did with just soybeans this year. They did it with corn and soybeans. They 01:00 did it third week of February now, they are in the Delta region of Arkansas. That's southeast Arkansas. Things are probably a little different there than where you farm. 01:09 But the point is can you extrapolate a lesson from what they've seen done and learned and apply it to your farming operation guys kind 01:18 of a cool deal. The reason you did it last year was you wanted to get three crops? We think it's pretty cool and we can double crop you do a lot of that down and your area. I'm 01:27 certainly it's a harder task in North Dakota to double crop they have crop and then snow you did it to get three crops. Did 01:36 it work last year tell us about last year's experiment. And then what you applied from last year's experiment to this experiment and 01:42 by the way to your listener if you're driving down the road, I got Matt. Cells and Lane miles on here father son 01:48 team and you're gonna learn a lot. So go ahead last year's experiment and then bring me to this year. Well last year's experiment 01:54 was kind of a progressive experiment. So we started with a February Bean field just to see how early is too early then we 02:03 notice middle the year. Hey, we we can actually cut this. So I mean these soybeans and plant another crop. 02:10 So when we decided to do that, then we thought well we can get these the next crop of soybeans off. So double cropping for us is weed beans we being grown in 02:19 the winter. And you know, we we harvested around June and then we we've got time to replant beans we plant these beans July 31st 02:25 the second crop just to see if we could do it. And after that we started seeing that well if we can get this being crop off 02:34 by November 15th. We can get a wheat crop in so it was a progressive. It started out as a early trial for soybeans and ended up 02:43 with trying to get a triple crop on, you know, three three crops on one acre. So the idea of getting three crops was harvest 02:49 the wheat as early as possible which in your case would be usually June something. Yeah. Well we start for me. 02:58 So we started everywhere with soybeans. Yep, then again in July and then we started with the with the wheat at the last week of October. So we'll cut 03:07 that. Well that it's actually gonna be harvested in the second year, but it was planted in the first year. Yeah, so no, you don't get three harvests in one calendar 03:16 year, but you're utilizing One calendar year to do three things with two Harvest being in that same calendar year. Yeah basically would be five crops in two 03:25 years. There you go. So that's a better way of looking at so the call it triple crop it probably more better call a two and a half crop on a two-year 03:31 thing. So five five harvests in two years time. So last year then the numbers are the dates again were roughly what we 03:40 started around the 20 probably 20. We're right around the same time 18. They were 18 last year this year. 03:49 You put soybeans the ground February 18th. It's still in that part of the world on a normal year. 03:55 50 for the high February 18th. Yeah, probably so, okay. So your soil temperature is sitting there around 04:03 40s Yeah, mid 40s to low low 50s, you know something range and what how much different from last year 04:13 than this year. So so this past year was definitely a success we made over a little we made about 120 bushel off of both of those two soybean crops. 04:22 When you combine them together. The ROI was huge of course soybeans price was huge too. So that made a big difference 79 on the first year 41, 04:31 I think or 42 on the Sega you The difference in last year with the sole temps and the in this year. What what kind of hurt us this year is last 04:40 year. We planted them it took 25 to 30 days for the means to emerge. So during a bunch of that hard hard weather snow freezing rain. 04:51 In the low temperatures those beans were still under the ground. So they were still a little warmer than what the air was. 04:57 They were protected from a lot of the frost in the snow because they were still on the ground. They were actually growing on the ground pretty good the 05:03 root system. This year so 25 to 30 days for that crop to Myers this year. Same crop nine days. 05:11 So we went into a really warm window. When we planted it, and and I and I thought that when we did that I you know somebody that's awesome. They come 05:20 up nine days. I said mmm. It's not gonna be awesome if you know 20 days from now we get some really harsh weather, which 05:26 is exactly what happened. Okay, so this year February 22nd is when you begin planting on the beans and 05:32 corn and so you decided to put corn. Let's stick with beans this for this right in a second. So you're putting beans in and this year is more ideal conditions. Your soil temperature 05:41 was better. You're you're ambient air conditions were better and you you're feeling better about it this year. 05:49 I was a little scared that they were going to come up too quick. It would exactly what they doing now had we not got. 05:58 With so we got four or five pretty rough days ready for three the last three the second day of the 06:07 last three we were still in really good shape that third day. The temperature got below freezing for nine hours and 06:13 got down to a low of 27. And the majority of the field just couldn't take it. I mean it just it just 06:21 Okay, so let's go with which crop it's it's my assertion that soybeans can handle being. 06:32 Abused better than corn is that lane about that that's going with that's going with with my experience Lane. Did the 06:41 soybeans wear fare better with being abused in the corner. Actually, no I'm and you 06:48 know, we we kind of thought the same thing so during that like that real hard freeze. I mean the soybeans obviously they didn't make 06:57 it for the majority of it. Now. We did have a few that around the tree line that I'm gonna say what out of that 25 acre field Maybe 07:05 Eight Acres nine acres something like that that actually looked pretty good if we could figure out 07:11 a way to keep kept them. We would have had but he just didn't work. Oh. 07:16 With the corn, you know, it froze it froze. It frosted off it come back growing point was still under the ground. 07:24 When it came back, it was real buggy with real weak looking and we had some we had a lot of stalks look pretty good. We had a 07:33 lot of stalks that were we would call runs. I mean they just they came back but they they wouldn't have been they didn't look very good. So we 07:42 went in it was a 40 acre 45 acre field and we ended up terminating about 30 Acres of it keeping 15 Acres of it to see 07:51 just how bad it either was or wasn't you know, whether or not it's gonna be good around Germany is when sprayed it off, but you said we're gonna keep these 15 Acres as 08:01 an experiment to see what the yield drag is because the corn is gonna make it but if you lost one, I mean the projection you talk about 08:10 runs, but then also you guys something that probably just went away. So do you lose 20% of what you planted? 08:16 well, we had we had 20 about 28. So we went out and really researched this last week and you know and I back 08:27 to what you said originally so that you know, I put all this on on Facebook social media. So people can keep up with what 08:33 we're doing. Yeah, and the consensus was prior to the frost or during the frost or during the freeze. I shouldn't say frogs Frost. We'd been fine freeze. It smoked 08:43 us. The consensus was the beans would live in a corn wooden. And exactly what you think Damon and before 08:50 was always. It was opposite the corn actually which all of it. The corn Frost is the ground completely looked dead hundred 08:58 percent brown leaves, you know, all that foliage was gone, but it came back. But as like what language talking about we we did 09:06 stand counts and we were somewhere around that 28,000. We planted thirty five thousand but of that 28,000 about 8,000 of 09:16 those. Excuse me were either. Rights, as Lane says buggy whipped or basically didn't come up hardly at all. I mean there was hardly nothing 09:27 left of it. So Another big consensus on the on my post was man. Is there any way you can can terminate some of the SN and and plant at a 09:37 normal time? And see what the yield drag is going to be and my boys hoping I didn't have to do that. I mean, it's right on the highway 09:44 people driving by we look crazy or stupid or whatever people call us already and then now we're out there last week. 09:51 Spraying a chemical on there to decade to Corn kill the corn. So we replant it. 09:55 So yeah, the plan is because you already had the fertility kind of going You're Gonna replant corn into that. And then have you already done that. No, we actually 10:04 started raining. We hadn't that we got we got the the crop terminated see what you don't want to do is go in there and just like 10:12 you can't plan over the top of it because it's corn if it's soybeans you could go in there and do whatever you wanted to but with corn it's real finicky 10:18 on standing facing. Yes, so we had to go in there and kill that when we got that done late Saturday night. And then it rang Sunday and then it's pretty much 10:28 rained all week. So our test now is going to more be like February 22nd corn versus April 15th 10:35 coin. Yeah, so actually gonna be real Ultra early against almost what we would call lakehorn here. 10:43 Yeah, so that's the thing by the way, we're recording this because you're if you're trying to run the dates in your head, it's April 6th while we're 10:49 recording this. So we're talking about about six weeks since the first planting and now the second 10:55 planting isn't even done on corn. What's the story on the story beans you got rid of basically you told me 2/3 of 11:01 the Field of Corn wasn't going to make it wasn't gonna and so it's terminated So You're Gonna Keep about 15 Acres as an 11:10 experiment because it looked like it was there and you're gonna then trial that and say okay. It is 11:16 February this February planted corn. I have a chance. and by the way, if the goal was to get 11:26 two and a half crops a season five five Harvest every two years with a soybean wheat thing. What was the motivation to 11:32 go out? Third week of February and plant corn knowing that the conditions weren't ideal. What was the motivation there? 11:40 You don't answer that or you may answer that. Yeah late Lane you answer I would not lanes and motivation is Lane saying yeah. 11:49 what the hell because because we can I mean our motivation for the whole thing. I mean, it's it's basically research. I mean we we were we 11:58 did it last year and Kind of got told it wasn't gonna happen. You couldn't have be it couldn't be done. 12:06 And I mean you might as well you tell him we can't be done. You might will slap him in the mouth. I mean 12:12 our motivation for the whole thing. Just see see how early too early if it can be done or if it can't be done. 12:17 Well, and my motivation was repetitiveness so it you know, and and I said this all last year the 12:23 Stars lined up perfectly for everything we done last year to make it work. 12:27 And so we needed to see the public needed to see. Not just us. I mean we're doing this with our pocketbook, but we're doing this for the whole ad community. And and so 12:39 can it be repetitable that was the thing so That's why we did it that my motivation. This year was to see if we could do it again and number two. Could we do corn can 12:49 we also do corn we've we've planted corn in February before had it frost all day. Yeah, February 17. He's been several years ago. It actually yielded better. 12:58 The same and a little bit better than some of the later Planet corn now. Wait, that's something that most people are certainly 13:04 the corn the corn efficient items are saying wait wait you get you play the earlier than you should have 13:10 it frosted off you didn't replant and it still came in and did as well or better than the rest of your normal normal times as you 13:19 will plan that stuff. Yep, did the board. I mean, that's why we did it again. You know, I don't give me wrong. I didn't want 13:30 to replant. I didn't want to fail I didn't want the other day. I told Lane I said all we've done is cause ourself some 13:36 trouble. So we had to move a spray boom that we hadn't used in several years because it had a tank on the spray. Boom. Everything else was busy doing other things. We got to go kill 13:45 this 30 acres of corn 25 miles from where we're playing, you know, but is that and I get all that done on a Saturday afternoon, you know, so it's a 13:54 lot of trouble but man the research we'll get out of that this year. What if that April corn makes 25 bushel better or what if the February 14:03 corn is within three or four bushels. It's when in three or four bushel, then you got to stop and say, okay does this help our efficiency on equipment our dryer, you 14:12 know, so there's a lot of variables going there win or lose. So we almost needed to lose this year. To see and on the soybeans with a 14:21 love to have them because I really think they would have yielded as good as what we replanted, but it was a third of the 14:27 row so it wasn't like we going it wasn't like, you know a set of rows that all lived against the tree line and then the rest of Phil didn't it was it was 14:36 opposite. So either like half moon was glad to keep it pick up in the middle of the field and we'll fur irrigation that don't work. 14:42 Well, so we just ended up terminating the whole thing. So let's go back to the corn thing. I'm thinking here. The takeaway is 14:51 If it works. We know then that we can push the envelope. So that's something right there because they're conventional wisdom was there's certain 14:59 things. You just can't do you know, whatever you I think there used to be a thing. You're not supposed to plant corn into soil temperatures that are below like 58 or something like that. I think is 15:08 am I right about that. Like there was this conventional wisdom, which sometimes we toss conventional wisdom out. Why will we got better trade 15:14 to get better hybrids? We get better equipment better inputs, whatever. One of the other things was if you worked. 15:22 Now instead of having to pay your guys overtime when it's go time. 15:26 To work 14 hour days. Maybe you can have eight hour work days longer starting in the spring and and also it gives 15:35 you from a timing standpoint. That's one of the Benefits or one of the reasons you experiment with the right. Yeah. We give up. We we know that I mean 15:44 it. All right. So my dad used to say this and he's passed he always said if I could plant my cotton all in one day I planted May the 15:53 10th, but I can't play my cotton all in one day. So I start April the 20th. Yeah, you know the same thing with with the 15:59 corner if we could plan it all in one day. Why would why risk that but it's a it's a risk reward based on equipment efficiency another thing 16:08 too. And that's one of those things got to go the end so we may get out there and and August. And cut that early corn and lose 10 16:18 bushel, but then two weeks later we get a big hurricane comes up through the gulf and that later coins all in on the ground. 16:25 Then where we at, you know, so there's a lot of there's a lot of variables that go into this you're talking about you're talking about getting talking about now length of season you're talking about if you 16:34 start early enough, maybe you protect yourself from natural disaster on the back end of the season, which is something 16:40 that people and where I'm from, you know, the average the average Ohio farmer doesn't have to think about the average Indiana farmer 16:46 and think about in where you are is a chance that when you get talktober a system Brews out of the South and comes and blows the hell out of McGee Arkansas. It's 16:55 on it. It's done it. I mean how to stay out of 10 years. It's probably doing it three, you know, maybe or at times if you're if you're especially if you're super late, 17:04 so our goal is in as early and out as early as we can two years ago. There was 15 with 15 or 20 names storms that were in the 17:13 Gulf of some sort. And I think we got three of them. Yeah rise. For example, we can cut about 60 to 17:23 70 acres are rise per machine. In in good standing rice. We had two hurricanes come in back to back. We were cutting 12 to 17:32 22 Acres a day. Yes. So you just lost you just lost one just lost 75% of harvest capacity. Hey Lane. 17:41 I got a question for you. And then I want to talk about beans. It's one thing for some young person like you to be out here throwing caution 17:47 of the wind and doing a bunch of dumbass stuff. Your old man should know better. Why is he doing this? Why is he not here 17:53 doing this crazy stuff? Okay, we just talked about it. It's impress you that your old man is his age and he's still out here pushing the 18:00 window on stuff like this. Yeah, and I've said that time and time again, so, you know you always As a person gets older they 18:09 they start to try to what you I guess you would say slow down and and just become more cautious become more cautious, right? And one thing he does good about 18:18 and really everybody extreme AG is why extreme AG was designed is is they're not in a rut. They're still looking to think outside the box and 18:27 can you do more he may email me have 20 crops left, but can't even if there's not a five left. Can he make the five the best five he's ever had. 18:37 On the soybeat. I think that's true too. That's why I thought this is a fun topic to cover. All right, the soybean then they didn't they didn't get 18:46 Rose off or whatever. So your prognosis on the soybeans that you went in third week of February. 18:54 What's your thought on that? Where will they end up? The February means yeah. They're dead. They're here. So there's 19:05 not no you didn't even keep a little bit back. You didn't you didn't keep anything. You didn't even keep one third just to 19:11 see if somehow because they didn't even nothing made it. Well the the what made it what if 19:16 If irrigation everything's got to be in a straight line and and what what happened is around that tree line. It was basically like a half moon that kind of went out in 19:25 the field and it didn't it didn't work. It would have made it the configuration of the field made it where we couldn't we could have 19:34 kept some of it had been a lot of trouble. Yeah. Okay, so that one was one cut your losses you guys this is not this isn't even enough. It's not 19:43 even enough to make it a legit experiment. No, it was just gonna be too hard to make it a legit experiment. We were able to do that with a corn but after we're gonna 19:53 do it again next year. So of the two experiments on soybeans this year complete failure. 20:01 But as Chad as our buddy Chad Henderson says there's no such thing as a failure. There's just an experiment that didn't pan out right last year's 20:10 early beans did work out. Yes, that's right. We're 50 right now. Yeah. All right. Now here's the thing the next person's gonna say. Hey, that's 20:20 cool for these guys. But you know what? I'm concerned about the economics of this. Are you really out that much. I mean you didn't do it 20:29 on any large scale your soybean experiment. It was it didn't work. It was on 40 acres. If you 20:35 watch any video that's been done that we've done on you know and put on Facebook or anything we've done it's all been. 20:43 Very much noted and stressed that this was on small acreage. Yeah, and it was not something that would go break the bank. Yeah. Looking ahead. 20:53 What did you what are you gonna do in this whole wrap it up here. What will you do different on your early planting experiments? So they're gonna be another crop that 21:02 you're gonna do it with is you're gonna be a different system. Will you back off on any of the 21:08 Stuff you did this time what's going on? What will the next Springs early planting experiment look like 21:17 You answer that or you want me to all right lane man. I don't care either. Well it I mean you're you're making me have to really think now I will 21:27 probably pay a little more attention to the 30 day forecast and the 15 day forecast as far as what what got us in a bind if they would 21:37 have come up a week 10 days later like they did the year before. We'd be fine. We'd be golden. We'd be sitting here talking about our February 21:45 Bancroft. What happened to us is we got too good of weather right after we planted them. So it's kind of sounds crazy, but we're 21:54 almost gonna have to hope for a pretty rough. Pattern to keep them from emerging if that makes sense. Yeah, and and most people 22:04 would say well wait a minute great weather after planting is good. That thing is then they got up and then you had that 22:11 It's almost like a false Spring right you had a fall spring and then you got waxed with your last dose of winter and then it it put the car box on the crop. Okay, and what I 22:20 think and all honesty and I've said this before and I'll say it again we've put you know used to our our Target date 22:26 to plant soybeans was April the 15th. That's when we thought man. We can go out there then we actually moved that 22:32 back 30 days. So I don't have we planted 60% of our beans this year and March. Yeah, we don't that's never been an issue. 22:41 So You know February is just something out there to play with. But we have moved our planning date up 30 days in 22:49 the last five years and I think I think that's a no-brainer in my opinion. So yeah, and by the way, you did that and again it spread out your labor and spread 22:58 out your utilization of equipment. You're not having to go a hundred and fifty miles an hour on one day. 23:04 You got you got that and it hasn't burned your yield or like you said the earliest soybean. Maybe you burned a bushel on that, 23:13 but you Like your old man said you you can't do you can't plant your entire Farm on May 10th. Yeah, so that's the big takeaway there. So next 23:23 year, you're gonna hope for the weather. Is there anything else laying your old your dad answered that? Is there anything else besides the 23:29 weather that you're gonna look at next year in your early early planning experiment? I mean just as far 23:36 as see if we can make it work again. I mean it's the inputs weren't the problem. The seed wasn't 23:42 the problem the way you did it the population the the planting spacing. None of that was a problem. It just was weather this was weather. 23:50 Yeah, we had the coolest 28 Acres of soybeans healthiest prettiest biggest soybeans. And Bob March the 23:59 first probably yeah that I've ever seen. It was the coolest thing in the world and it but you cannot predict. 24:07 A fall spring no. Begum groundhog didn't do his job. All right, that's Matt and miles and Lane miles talking about early planning 24:17 experiments. If you want to see more they did a great job of documenting this on the Facebook page for extreme 24:23 AG, we're always experiment with stuff here. And these guys pushed the envelope a little bit and stay tuned on 24:29 that that one third of the corner experiment to see what they can report back on that soybeans. You already heard was a lost until next time. 24:38 I'm David Mason and this is Extreme management. Thanks for listening to another edition of cutting the curb for more 24:44 insights and information that you can apply to your farming operation. Visit extremeag dot Farm. Are your 24:50 craft stressed out AG explore has you covered with a full line of products designed to reduce crop stress and improve yields check out agexplor.com and start 24:59 protecting your yields and topics.