00:00 Know here at extreme AG. We've got a great thing going and if you are one of our followers and you've been listening and watching what we do, you know that we're trying 00:06 to always push you envelope on educating you remember the whole concept was shortening your learning curve well to do that or to 00:12 assist in that we want to bring in Affiliates that can contribute contribute what they know what they do and also contribute geographically, 00:18 you know, we've got Temple out in the Eastern Shore that's really cool because you may be aren't aware of some of the things that he's dealing with for instance is environmental compliance, which 00:27 is probably been way ahead of you where you live because of the Chesapeake Bay issues that arose 20 or 30 years ago. Well, 00:33 Matt, Swanson's gonna give us a taste of what maybe he can contribute from his unique position in Western, Illinois. Welcome to extreme eggs cutting the 00:42 curve podcast where you get a guarantee return on investment of your time as we cut your learning curve with the information, you can apply to your farming operation 00:51 immediately extreme egg. We've already made the mistakes so you don't have to managing your Farms Water Resources. 01:00 Is a critical component to a successful and sustainable farming operation Advanced Drainage Systems 01:06 helps Farmers, just like you increase their yields up to 30% with their technologically advanced Water Management products visit ads pipe.com 01:15 to see how they can keep your business flowing. Now here's your host Damien Mason. Well Green's welcome to another fantastic episode of Extreme Ice 01:26 cutting the curve, it's me Damien Mason with one of our Affiliates Matt Swanson from Illinois. 36 01:32 year old Farm operator is a affiliate of extreme Ag and I want you to know about his operation. Also what you can learn from him in his contribution during 01:41 his time now working with extreme magazine affiliate Matt. Welcome. Thanks for being here. Thanks for having me Damien. I appreciate it. All right the operation you 01:50 went to Western, Illinois. I've been there. What is it Macomb, Illinois. I've been on the campus. I did a speech to a cattle group over in that part of Illinois. 01:59 It gets more curvy. It gets a little different from what people would think of when they think of the champagne part of Illinois. It's very different over where you are. So how far 02:08 are you from Western Illinois University? So I actually my home is in Macomb. I went to Western 02:14 for both my bachelors and my masters. Um, but I'm actually from or the farm is from laharp, which is about 20 25 minutes Northwest of Macomb. 02:23 All right. So when the average person listening this is of course a little bit corn and soybeans. Is that all you do? 02:30 So we have a few cattle around not as many as we used to have there's a little bit just a very little bit of wheat, but corn and soybeans is kind of it's kind 02:39 of it. I wouldn't say it but it's pretty close to it. And there are more cattle over there than certainly there are in Central, Illinois. 02:45 There was a time certainly maybe about even before you were born where everybody, you know even had a feed yard 02:51 a small feed yard where they fed cattle maybe had a couple of silos, but that's kind of moved away in in the really good dirt part of Illinois over you are there's a little more curve 03:00 there's a little more a little more cattle country if you will. So, what's that look like? Yeah. So we and even on our own Farm. We have a lot of of rolling 03:09 type terrain. We have a lot of what we call Timber soil which is been farmed for, you know, 100 to 150 years, but it's not the black. 03:17 Prairie soil that most people quit, you know equivalate with Illinois. We do have some of that we are kind of on the edge of it. So if you go about 03:26 five miles west of us it gets real flat and real black. If you go to the far of West of where we Farm which is right on the Mississippi River, it's it's real 03:35 Sandy and it's over the bluff. And so it's a lot. It's a lot different. We see a lot of soil types right in my area bring it back to learn about your operation. But one of 03:44 the things I asked you before we hit record was what you could contribute to extreme Ag and you spoke in there just about soil agronomics. We 03:50 got guys on here. Kelly Garrett will admit he says I'm the worst Agronomy guy in an extreme AG. He's the business guy. He's the entrepreneurial guy. 03:59 He's certainly a farm guy but he says agronomics is not his a plus is agronomics. You're eight plus is business. You're eight. Plus when you look at farming, there's the operational 04:08 part of it. There's the agronomics part of it. There's the at your desk part of it and probably a couple other parts, but give me your grade on 04:14 each of your categories. Yeah. So agronomy's is probably my favorite of the of the three, we'll call 04:20 him the big things. Am I right by the way are those the three things the operational the agronomics and the business? Yeah, I would say that's probably your three. 04:29 Three biggest buckets Agronomy of three is probably my favorite Kelly has rubbed off on me a little bit. The business side is 04:37 is something that by necessity, I guess I've gotten more into and it definitely 04:43 Been more involved with her have taken a liking to lately. So forgiving grades, probably a for the economy B+ for 04:52 the for the business side. the operational side I still do a lot of field work, but you know, I that part is as Necessarily become the less the least 05:03 occupied it, you know at least occupier of my time. I guess these document every time because as an operation grows and this is something that I think everybody I've 05:12 been saying it for years on stage the height in the shop. I want to put new blades on the vertical tillage equipment farmer. There's a 05:21 lot of those aren't there, but the problem is the capital requirements and the scope and science of operation. 05:27 If you want to be hanging in the shop doing that. I think that you really need to realize that you should get someone to manage 05:33 the business and you should do that because it just gives too big you might like sitting behind it a tractor wheel but 05:39 at times if your operations going to grow you could put someone else in that tractor seat is that we were talking about. Yeah. So I mean it's in in you've heard other people in the business 05:48 talk about you know, what are the what are the hundred dollar an hour jobs and you know, even with the increased cost of Labor There's 05:54 jobs that definitely pay better as far as in the grand scheme of things then then driving a tractor or 06:00 Or doing maintenance. Now those things are important. No question. 06:04 But as far as growing or running an operation, you know those those aren't the most profitable jobs generally. If you run your own business long enough you have moments 06:14 where you're doing five dollar an hour work and you have moments you're doing five hundred dollar an hour work. That's just the scope of it. I mean it really 06:20 is and also that can be seasonal in in agriculture more than actually for me. It's that way too. I've got times when I'm worth a hell of a lot more and I've got times when I'm twiddling my 06:29 thumbs and I'm not worth as much just because of the demand but for you guys, there's time to 06:35 be behind the wheel because don't you also say hey I can hire someone do this. But this is a new Farm we took on I want 06:41 to see it. I mean don't you think there's there's a bigger payoff then so there's two things generally in the season than I 06:47 do a lot of and that's the Harvest part and the planning part and for for the same reason, but for you know different you're learning different things the 06:56 Harvest thing you're learning all the nuances or you're seeing kind of your trial work up close, you know, it's one 07:03 thing to look at the data. And it's another to you know, let's say you put a trial out and you've got this new product and it's consistently 10 07:10 bushel of a better throughout the entire field every every inch of that pass. 07:15 You may put a different trial out and it's 50 bushel, and this part of the field and it's five bushel, and this part of the field and it's minus 10 bushel in that part of the field and those things. 07:24 are things that you don't see in the data specifically, you know if I say 07:28 Well, this this was overall 20 bushel better. Yeah, but that was 50 bushel better here and five bushel better. There is almost more important than the 20 bushel better 07:37 because if you don't understand why it works it doesn't so and by the way, I went down this it sounds like I'm gonna rabble. I'm really 07:44 not we're talking about I Agronomy you said that's your a grade. You're giving yourself a great a on that. So the point is even though you know 07:50 that there's a time that you should be handling the business versus just operating a piece of equipment because maybe the hired guy could do that for the growth of the business. You also 07:59 are adding a lot of Observation when you're when you're out in that field when you're actually saying now, I understand where our problems 08:09 are now I get because I always say that you know, I own Farm ground that I've never farmed and and I grew up on a farm 08:15 farming a bunch of other properties. That weren't even that good but I knew about them and now I don't own those places so it's 08:21 kind of like I think you learn a place a hell of a lot better when you're on when you operate a couple of times. Yeah, you can't get too far away from it. I 08:27 think in my situation in in times where we've gotten away from this thing or that thing you've definitely noticed that maybe 08:33 your management isn't as good so it it becomes kind of a balancing act of not losing track of those things as they change and morph throughout 08:42 the year and years and also still, you know, making sure your prioritizing your time. We're gonna come back to a time and and a ground 08:51 on me, but you didn't give yourself a great you said agronomy's your favorite and then you give yourself an a member just because it's 08:57 your favorite doesn't mean you're good at it. There's people that you know, I know guy that his favorite thing was to 09:03 drink whiskey. Is good at it because you know, he was he was in the arrested. Okay, operational give 09:09 yourself a great. Uh, I guess depending on how your classifying it I would say be probably and do 09:18 you think operational is all so management or should we throw that in as that somewhere? Is that across all of it? I don't know. 09:24 I would say operational wise to me is are you the best equipment operator? Are you the best maintainer? Are you those kind of things that's that's 09:33 kind of where I put that bucket in. So you put them then on management which obviously is involved everything you throw that 09:39 more in the business category. So let's call that there. So let's put the management in the business side of it. And in that area 09:45 yourself for grade there. Yeah. So five years ago, I would have said a plus for Agronomy and be for 09:51 management and I would say that some of the effort that we put into our I put into Agronomy is kind of been shifted into the management at a necessity so I 10:00 would probably give myself an A minus on management. Yeah trending upwards. 10:05 and I'm hoping to just maintain that a In the Agronomy side and probably losing on the operational side to be honest. I I know that 10:14 you I'm one of my business books. I wrote that you've got to be really honest to be able to assess especially when you run your own ship, you know, if you're working for a large organization they 10:23 give you grades, but when you run your own ship you give yourself a grade and it takes it takes a certain character to really look at their critical strengths. And 10:32 then also look at their weaknesses that might be harming them. Do you have any weakness that you think has harmed you 10:38 or is harming your business and that you think you can build by being part of extreme AG that can make your weakness not weak anymore. 10:44 Well, he's bringing up to a passing grade. Yeah, so part of the thing I would say weakness Wise It's probably being too. 10:53 optimistic and not enough pessimistic sometimes and I know some people that know me was gonna laugh at that because that's they don't necessarily feel that way 10:59 but I think one of the great things about extreme AG is that you have a pool. If you want to say of collaborators and contributors 11:09 and you see different ways that they do things and you learn from them. So, you know one of my probably best friends on the planet is Matt miles and I don't care 11:18 for I don't care for him. I actually I gotta tell you I mean favorite person in the world. It's a bold-headed southern 11:25 guy from the Delta Region. He missed he missed but none teens my name half the time he talks to me. I've been working for for a year and a half. Actually. I love Matt. He's he's 11:34 one of my all my favorites and I I tell him that all the time. Yeah not I mean not take away from Kelly or Kevin. I mean 11:43 most of these guys have known for quite a while and most of them actually six to seven years ago speaking at an industry 11:49 event, but Matt was kind enough to invite me very early in the process down to see his operation just right around with him for a few days and I've done that. I 11:58 don't know several times. and it's you don't even you know, you have we have conversations but he's busy so but it's you 12:06 learn a lot just from watching somebody else do the same thing that you do and I think that's 12:11 Probably that one of the most beneficial things I've gained out of out of that friendship is just being around somebody that 12:17 knows what they're doing is very successful what they're doing and seeing how they do it, you know in in the environment in 12:23 real time. Well, let's face it if someone's doing exact same thing as you then you don't need to go and what the hell 12:29 you gonna glean from it, right? Right. Yeah. So we're giving grades here and I asked you about your okay, you're one of your things you say you're going to gain is 12:39 from the perspective. I guess I'm gonna wrap that up and say you're gonna glean perspective from different regions and 12:45 different strengths of other people, but you didn't tell me that there's anything glaring that you think that you need to fix. Most people don't ever like to 12:51 admit it. I can admit my glaring weaknesses. Actually. I can feel the shape a sheet of paper with them. You you tell me you're farming 12:57 uh weakness farming weakness I probably tend to stick with things a little longer than I should and and 13:07 conversely I could say my dad would probably say the exact opposite. He probably would say I don't stick with things long enough before we 13:14 we fold them off. So that's kind of an interesting juxtaposition. There's things that I think we've probably held on a little too long. Are you 13:21 talking about a practice a product all the above practice product and surprise Enterprise? Yeah Enterprise right 13:27 trying to grow food grade corn tortilla corn chips and it didn't work out for you or something like this. Well so funny coincidentally we do we are looking at food grade 13:36 corn for next year, but My dad would say that I moved too quickly between things and I would say probably the exact opposite. 13:44 So that's I would say that that's probably my weakness. I probably stick to things probably a little too long. All right, I want to I want to 13:52 hear more about your weaknesses but more important hear about your operation. And I know that our listeners do also because that way then the listener can say, hey, I 13:58 know what I'm gonna get from Matt Swanson's contribution to extreme egg before getting that. I want to remind Matt as well 14:04 as anybody listening right here something smart that my man Kelly Garrett said he said if you give a play to food, it's all kinds of nutrition to an 14:10 unhealthy athlete and the unhealthy athlete can't eat. It. It does not do that athlete any good equate that to your crops if we are putting all kinds of fertility because that's 14:19 what we've always done in PK in PK NPK. We always put it out there and all the sudden the crap cannot up take that nutrient. What do we just done? We put a plate of food in front of an athlete 14:28 that's banged up. The point is stress mitigation. So a big objective for Kelly in 2022 was 14:34 stress from mitigation. He achieved that partially with agrisons products agerson is one of our business partners. They've got cool products like accomplished Max. They've got stuff that 14:43 these guys are putting in Forever. They're using to mitigate the stress and 14:46 you can do the same thing. So learn from Kelly's lesson again, always think about that narrative or that I'm sorry that analogy healthy athletes can take in the 14:55 nutrition healthy plants can take in the nutrition stressed plants cannot take in the nutrition agerson can help go to your nearest nutrient. 15:03 Retail outlet and find out about great products like accomplished Max, okay. Matt, you know what that was that was kind of a commercial right there, 15:11 but that's all right, because you know what? I mean. I've got a little bit there right transition. 15:18 See, yeah, sneak it in. Yeah, just sneak it in like that. All right, tell me about the operation you talked about your father you and your father fairly traditional anything else. 15:27 Yes. So we it's me my my dad we've got I've got my cousin helps us and then that's the Illinois side. And then we haven't in Arkansas 15:36 side that we started a couple years ago. That's actually partnered up with some of the other guys in extreme Ag and in making that happen. 15:46 So that was mostly peanuts in 2021 and 2022 had some personal things going on. So we didn't do it but hopefully in 2023 will be you would not have picked up some acres 15:55 in Arkansas. Do you have a person that's on site because I've been to Matt's place when it's 104 degrees 16:01 stuff and get away from you in a hurry, you know, it's like it's like when you away from the refrigerator for a while next thing, you know, it's all it's all stinky. Is 16:10 there a problem who's keeping an eye on the shop? And yeah, so the guy that we're partnering up with owns the property that we're working with and so he's 16:19 there all the time him and his guys are there all the time but you know in season usually there every one 16:25 to two weeks at a minimum. So you are yeah personally. All right. So how many acres in Illinois 16:33 So run about a thousand twelve hundred in Illinois. And then the operation in Arkansas was about six 16:39 seventy five six. Eighty. Okay, so I'm gonna play the other side of this the person listens gonna say wait a minute is that in 16:48 him? That's not enough acres to have to pay two people. It must be something else going on tell me what else you do for income. Well, so we've I've got a 16:57 trucking business. We just started here recently to take kind of take advantage of the way the market is and that in that area and 17:03 then here very recently actually still working on it. We're rolling out a Agronomy like 17:12 an agronomist type position or or company here. To handle soil testing and soil mapping and things like that. 17:21 Got it. Are you gonna expand Illinois or can you it's I we would expand either place it whenever it comes available. I think 17:30 one of the biggest things about this business is you've got to stay Nimble and kind of respond to things as they happen the Arkansas thing kind of happened over just a couple conversations. 17:40 and Were open to expansion in any direction and at any time if it makes sense, so however, there are certain realities you live in Macomb. You got kids. 17:51 You can't just you can't just expand doesn't mean go pick up a bunch of acres in Western Kansas because that means you 18:00 move right right now, it's just a matter of you know, what makes sense and one of the things that I'm working on 18:06 to kind of accommodate them with some of those things as pilot's license. So obviously that cuts the travel time significantly versus 18:12 driving which is what we're doing well, I've thought about that a couple of times to go and do speak engagements and far-flung places, but the problem is when there's 18:21 a paycheck at the end of the runway. I'm afraid that the weather is not going to be a factor and I might end up hurt myself, right? Yeah, 18:27 so that's that's a definitely a consideration. So, okay. So operationally on those acres in Illinois, it's mostly corn and soybeans then you've 18:37 got the cattle thing which we don't do a lot of that discussion here at extreme AG except for Kelly's going direct to Consumer. Now, 18:43 do you envision any growth in any of these other enteres that you know talk about the entrepreneurial side 18:49 that we glean from people like Mr. Garrett here at extreme AG. Is there anything that you see that might have potential besides just 18:58 Road crops? Well, I mean the trucking thing is definitely is not going to go away that's a problem that the state 19:04 that it's a nationwide problem that Illinois has made worse. So we're working through that. I think that definitely 19:12 has the potential to grow. And that would not be the first. Farm started trucking company that turned into a much bigger 19:19 deal at least among the people that I know and I know Matt's got his Trucking outfit Kelly's got one as well and that, you know was kind of on our on our 19:28 radar solve our own problems but to bring in some extra cash as well. Our time getting people to work have a 19:35 hard time getting employees. A trucking is is not the most exciting job in the world. Right? So, you know, you've got to either pay or or just 19:43 have somebody that enjoys it. Right now 36 years old you you know people that are my age could remember the 19:52 70s and all that is really scares you right now about the agricultural situation. We're in like year four of 19:58 things being really good. Yeah. So I mean like anything we've seen land prices, by the way, at least you didn't do the typical farmer thing because you tell 20:07 Farmers they've been making a lot of money they hate it. No, we're not making any 20:12 barely break it even I've been hearing that for for 53 years. Well, some of them are some of them are lying to me 2019 2020 21 20 20:21 22 a couple of those years were a bunch of government money got tossed out here like like when we thought billions it still 20:27 was a big number now, we're throwing trillions around so it doesn't matter. But anyway, is it too good? 20:33 I don't know if it's too good. I don't know. You know when it wasn't that long ago that guys were discouraging their kids to come back to the farm. I think by and 20:43 large that's probably still the case because most of them have seen the seasonality if you want to call it that of the farm business. 20:50 Land prices scare me. I mean we've gone from 15,000 being a lot to 20,000 being a lot to 25,000 being a lot to some 30,000 acre sales. 21:00 That is a problem. If you especially if you're trying to start something from scratch because you know land being the most important part of that now it does. 21:09 Help you if you own it, but if you don't that's a problem. The interesting, you know, obviously if you talk to my grandfather, he 21:17 would tell you well, you know, seven percent big deal. We were paying 18 or 19 or 20, you know when I was 21:22 Younger seven percent I got interest rates. Yeah, but interest rates and some big number compared to what where we've been for the last three to 21:32 ten years. Well when you were buying tractors for 3500 dollars, you know, 20% was a little bit different now, you're buying tractors for 21:41 three quarters of a million dollars and that seven percent is still a gigantic number and interest 21:47 Well, you did that thing where you said that, you know, the numbers were less because the equipment cost less that's true. But in real 21:53 dollars it probably maybe isn't that big of a difference but yeah, they're probably still is some real dollar appreciation because the equipment does a heck of a lot more per you know, productivity per 22:02 horsepower productivity per dollar. Really? Yeah right answer me this you used to write an article for Prairie farmer. I 22:11 grew up getting the Indiana Prairie farmer delivered to our door and I read it and I I want to 22:20 hear about what she used to write about. So the Prairie Farthing is actually new that was something we've been working on this year and haven't 22:28 even rolled out the first one for them. Okay, so I thought something you had done. So you're contributor. We think another written for other people. The Prairie farmer thing is new though. 22:37 Okay. Well tell me how this whole thing came about. Actually, the editor lives not too far from me and she came out to do an article cover article 22:46 on us. I don't know two three years ago probably now. and it's something we've kind of played with back and forth since then and 22:56 you know with some changes I got going on that was kind of a an Avenue that I looked into something that I could. 23:01 Express my you know. I don't know business savvy or or how much I enjoy this by writing about different things that I found interesting and that's 23:10 kind of what we've always done. It's kind of what I do with my Twitter feed as well is just 23:14 hey, this is what's interesting today that I'm looking at and and talk about it. So blank piece of paper. 23:20 Some of us have filled lots of lots of blank pieces of paper. It might seem like it's no problem plenty of topics for the first two or three and all the sudden after about six 23:29 of them. You're like, oh crap. I don't have anything to say. What do you think? 23:33 I can see I can see how that would happen. I think as long as you're staying pretty Nimble with what you're doing. There's always going to be something new to look at. So I 23:42 I don't know that it's a Blank sheet of paper thing. It's so matches. What what do people find interesting? You know what I find interesting generally may 23:50 not be the most interesting thing in the world for a lot of people. So, all right. What do you find interesting right now that you want to share with the 23:56 people just the people are just meeting Matt Swanson. Remember? They've met all these other people we've been doing this. I've been I've been working since June of 24:02 a year ago. Yeah. I know. I know that we got we got into it on Twitter feed. I'm sorry and a tech stream when you said, who's this too sick so number and I 24:11 said, hey good to meet you man. Let's see I talk to you commodity classic. I've been contributing stuff since June of 2021. I've 24:17 created I think a hundred and forty videos for these people. Hey nice to meet you. Anyway. Yeah, I 24:23 get guy can be kind of fiery but It's I would say we we do it. I mean we do any kind of an interesting thing like this, you know 24:32 this last year we experimented with the desiccation that Matt has talked about for a long time and then Kelly did last year and 24:38 and I had one guy. Well, you know what got you into that here specifically. All right, you know how many people are doing that? I'm like 24:44 no one that I know of. Nobody in Washington Illinois is doing it. And for the person is tuning in for the very first time in 20 seconds explained 24:50 desiccation. Yeah, so essentially what we're doing is we're spraying soybeans with a with a chemistry to 24:56 to kill their take the green out of him kill them kill the plan after it's Germany terminate is a nicer word determinate the 25:03 soybeans and you're doing that prematurely they will do it on their own but you're doing it prematurely the reason yeah, we do it after it's in essence but before 25:13 Before they would naturally get there. Just so Harvest ability is way better. 25:18 and it also kind of Makes the Green Quality a little bit better in my experience at least so far. The reason that a couple of other guys do is timing it it spreads out 25:30 your Harvest if you're limited on human capital if you're limited on to labor if you're limited on equipment and also you can 25:39 you can manage your timing of harvest a little better, isn't it? Yeah, I mean essentially allowed us to go from one field to the next bang bang without ever having to stop and wait 25:48 on green leaves or green pods or anything. So what are you going to contribute as affiliate to extreme egg? Yes some trials going on you working with 25:57 some products you doing something new and Nifty that you're excited to tell us about. Yeah. So this year we did 26:03 two trials. We did one with ag Explorer and one with Nature's in the Nature's trial was kind of two-fold one. It was a fertility trial right to wait. 26:12 Let's start the first okay? Okay so nature and we're so you're proper your trial with Natures you did in 2022 is so yeah, we did a 26:21 They built us a program for soybeans specifically and then to kind of contrast a fertility program to contrast with our with our standard 26:30 programming and typically our standard program includes two by two and infer on soybeans anyway, so we will 26:36 it's not that we were adding those products. We were changing the products changing the ratios timing things. Yes. So you've always done in for or 26:42 two by two fertility at time of planting on soybeans, but you teamed up with Tommy and the people of natures and decided 26:48 this time in 2022 to do what yeah. So we essentially what we did is we changed products. We use some of their potassium acetate product 26:57 depending on which version it's in and what the timing was we did. 27:02 Two fertility or excuse me, fully or passes on those beans and then we also did that field was split between a corn on corn pad or a corn on corn 27:11 or excuse me, a bean on corn situation and a bean on being situation. To also test the product on beans on beans but 27:18 to see what kind of yield drag we were seeing beans on beans as well. Speaking of being on means Kelly was allegedly going to do that in 27:24 2022 and then the markets change just enough that it didn't make sense anymore. So he stuck with the standard rotation. You did some soybeans following soybeans. 27:33 What did you speak of contributions? And I know we'll get more into this. We talk about trials and results. But what did you see? 27:40 We didn't see any any drastic difference between the beans on corn and beans and beans now. Yeah, no yield drag. That's that's been my experience in the 27:49 past and we do not see anything and we actually grow. All non-GMO soybeans. So the biggest challenge for us with beans on beans is. 27:57 With some of the weed resistance issues, you know that can get out of hand in a hurry even in 28:03 rotated beans. So that's something well glyphosate tolerance soybeans were godsend 28:09 in 1996. If you ever had to grow up walking soybean fields in the middle of July to eradicate weeds, but what glyphosate dollars 28:18 soybeans did to people that are younger maybe you don't even realize that's how this whole thing came about. We just invented some Some Frankenstein weeds that you can't kill him and 28:28 you're saying and in your and you're doing non-GMO. So is it worse is the is the weed resistant we herbicide resistant weed problem worse in 28:37 non-GMO soybeans. It's not let's say was put this in two ways if you compare it to a glyphosate system glyphosate only system. 28:47 It's not any worse because you can't kill anything that we're worried about glyphosate. Really we only have one weed. 28:52 That is a challenge of non-GMO. That's not a challenge in a Roundup or a glyphosate-based system. versus the enlist or extend there 29:02 is a difference because the timing the herbicide timing and nonjima soybeans is super critical. and if you don't get the right weather at the right time, it 29:12 can screw it up anyway, so All right, we do we have resulted or kind of reverted to using. 29:19 Older chemistry we use a lot of older chemistry, but it is cheaper and we also use a field scale weed wiper to clean 29:28 up escapes too. So non-GMO and this is the thing that my friends out here in Suburban Phoenix. Don't know this that doesn't mean no chemistry. It means older chemistry. 29:38 All right older and in a lot of cases more dangerous actually. Yeah, Eric Watt and things like that that 29:44 are not only for the operator or could mean more tillage. It could mean more tillage but you're not, you know bringing out the old 29:50 style cultivator answer me this you do not a contribution. You can make to the person listening right now. They're saying why would you grow non-GMO soybeans? Well, there's a little bit of a price 29:59 premium. Tell us about that. Yeah, so typically in the past it's been we've done this for the soybeans for six seven years now the corn actually 30:07 before that. Um, it was about a dollar fifty is what we were getting which, you know, when beans were eight eight dollars 30:15 not that long ago. That was a nice 24 as a 25% in it. Yeah significant amount of money. Anyway, yeah. 30:23 Um, so now we've continued to do it. We actually have not seen any substantial and repeatable yield drag with. 30:32 New non Gmail hybrids versus extant and endless hybrids. Yeah, and now our premium for 2023 is up to two dollars and 50 cents 30:41 a bushel just for straight non GMO. Yeah and your yield. comparable 30:46 Yes so far. Yeah, so $2.50 on a thirteen dollar bushel. That's not insignificant. Let me get my calculator. Hey you people you're a Joy's laugh because I don't use my 30:55 phone. I still use the old fashioned kind of calculator right here. 2.5 divided by 30 31:02 I'm not the smartest tool in the shed, but my calculator says that's a 19% bump. Okay, that's right. And we actually grow we had this year. 31:11 We grew non-GMO seed which added about another dollar fifty to that. So we're getting paid almost four 31:17 dollars going into next year. Yeah. So there's something when we talk about contributions, you can make there's people out here that say well young guy can't get in there culture because blah I'm 31:26 like, well if you're just gonna be a straight come out of the producer and you don't start off with capital it's gonna be tremendously, but 31:32 you know, what a young guy can't get into making shingles either a young guy can't get into mining uranium either. I mean things that are commodity production 31:41 tend to favor size and scale and large amounts of capital, right? If you're a young guy. 31:49 Grow non-GMO seed and you get four dollar premium. Yeah, you just got you gotta find your Niche. Right and it's not. I mean, 31:58 it's not fun. It would be way easier to to plant something like a list or or extend but it's not that bad and the money 32:04 is pretty nice. So yeah trials Natures on soybeans and and I was all about fertility the other trials you did in 2022. So we also 32:13 did an Aggie explore trial same deal same fertility deal. And the soybeans was out on corn. Well, it was on soybeans. All 32:20 of our trial work was on soybeans this year. And I can't remember I would have to look if that field was beans on beans or beans on corn. But anyway 32:30 fertility trial same thing just to change your products timing and and volume. So, okay and 32:36 the product from I explorer you used on these trials. That's right. I would have to look them up to be honest. Okay, but 32:42 the good thing is this was supposed to be meet Matt Swanson talk about our operation not trial results, but eventually you will be sharing your trial results from 2022. That's right. Yep. 32:51 All right, looking ahead of 2023 and then we're gonna let you go 2023. What? Can we expect? What are you gonna be doing and being able 32:57 to bring trials or Labs or information and results or even just we always like updates during the season if I come to your farm in June you can say hey, I'm 33:07 doing this. I'm doing that. What are you gonna be able to tell us about 23? So 2023 is gonna be here is gonna be interesting for us. 33:13 So we're actually as part of the economy business. We're moving a new product to kind of my area onto the 33:19 farm that we're gonna offer as a service. But as far as soil mapping goes, And that's gonna be your private Enterprise that you're doing. That's right, 33:26 and I'm just but I'm sure we'll talk about it within the feed because it's it's something that I think is going to kind of be a key. Yeah, 33:32 as far as unlooking our next our next field level. So you got any companies or products that you're gonna be doing within extreme Ag and our business partners. 33:40 Honestly, we haven't talked about it yet. I just I assume we're gonna be working some with Natures. I know Tommy and Tommy's already been out to the farm list 33:46 for this year working on stuff for next year. So at the very least I'd say would probably there anyway, I'd say we'll get you a couple out there. All right on the way out the door here. We 33:57 gave we gave ourselves grades on everything but you haven't given yourself yet a grade as an extreme AG contributor. What's the grade you go give yourself an extreme 34:06 egg contributor for 2022. Yeah. I'm gonna give myself a d. All right, and so we're gonna and we're gonna contribute more in 34:15 2023 and that's what we're doing right here. That's what the hope is. Yeah, we're gonna work it up to at least a B plus. Well, hey 34:21 at least least passing anyway. Any other thing then as a contributor they brought you in because they thought you had good stuff to share last thought 34:32 on the way out the door about what you know that you want anybody that's listening to this. The one thing you've learned in your so far that you think you can share that's 34:41 like hey, this is the one thing I know. Oh, that's a you should prep for that one. Um. 34:51 I would say the overarching thing is you've got to constantly be willing to be wrong right something that we've 35:01 Learn kind of as a group or are willing to do as a group as you've got to try things and you've got to fail at them badly in some cases to understand. You know, 35:10 what the next step is and I think that's if you're into extreme if you're in extreme AG or you're looking extreme AG, I 35:16 think that's kind of what you're looking at. I think you're by Nature probably that person. 35:20 But you've got to get really good at sucking and stuff. I like it. Remember Chad Henderson says there's no such thing 35:26 as failures. There's only experiments that didn't pan out. I think this is his wording. So I like it. That's why we got 35:35 that's why we got you here, dear listener and viewer. We're gonna be seeing more of Matt Swanson in 2023. He 35:41 openly admitted that he was not not as much of a contributor in 2022 as you need to be we're gonna remedy that that's why I'm here to bring his story to you but more importantly all 35:50 the stuff that you can learn because we are here to shorten your learning curve till next time. You're gonna hear a lot more from the Affiliates, but 35:56 you're gonna particularly here a lot more from Max. He has a lot of cool stuff to share with us about his trials and also want to hear about this field mapping and 36:02 all the new Ventures he's doing as a young person and anger culture and interesting 36 calling you young. I mean, let's face 36:08 it. But when the average Farmers 60 in this country 36 is Young right and feel young some days. I can tell you that till next 36:14 time. He's Matt Swanson. I'm Damian Mason. Thanks for being here. And remember this episode is all 36:20 Out helping you learn. So if you can share it with somebody else to help them learn, please do so. It's extreme as cutting the curve. That's a 36:26 rep for this episode of cutting the curve, but there's plenty more check out extremead.farm where 36:32 you can find past episodes instructional videos and articles to help you squeeze more profit out of your farm cutting. The curve is brought 36:41 to you by Advanced Drainage Systems the leader in agriculture Water Management Solutions.