00:13 This episode of the Extreme Ag Show is presented by concept Agritech Cowboy is the game changer, getting it in 00:22 through the leaves and into the plant circulatory system. That's why this product is 00:26 so effective at delivering both calcium and boron to plants at critical times when they need it the most. 00:39 When you visit Henderson Farms in Madison, Alabama and take in the beautiful fields and landscape, it's easy to forget just how close you are 00:48 to one of the fastest growing cities in the country. Madison is only about 10 miles from Huntsville, Alabama, a city with a special place in American history. 00:58 Huntsville is Rocket City USA. What's really special about Huntsville, Alabama is I think we have something that's unique 01:16 to only this area. We had the space program. We sent people to the moon. We sent people up in the shuttle. 01:24 We have defense programs here, and we have industry here, and we have agriculture. 01:33 After the Allied Forces defeated Hitler during the ending days of the War, Warner von Braun and about a hundred of his top scientists surrendered 01:41 to the US Allied forces. And so when they surrendered, their whole idea was to eventually somehow get to the United States. 01:50 He wanted to continue his work in the rocket business. He ended up in Huntsville, Alabama. Uh, he helped develop, 01:56 was a pioneer in developing the Saturn five, which is one of the most powerful rockets ever created. 02:01 Different members of my family in certain ways had different kind of interactions with Mour v Braun from my grandfather, uh, 02:09 liberating Tri Germany to my dad, uh, working at NASA and doing hand in hand work with Warner von Braun through the early days of the space program. 02:20 And so that brought lots of technology, uh, to this area. But I grew up out there. 02:26 I I got to meet a lot of people, got to meet astronauts. It's a, it's a full circle of technology 02:33 that meets agriculture here. This is a family farm partnership. It started with my great-grandfather, then my grandfather 02:44 and my uncle's up there on the hill. Chad's up there on the hill, and here I am. So we're the three partners of Henderson Farms. 02:51 I'm very fortunate to work with family and, and, and I'll say that and I'll say it, I'm very fortunate to work, play, fuss, and fight with family. 03:01 At the end of the day, we're still family. We're not always going to going to agree. So we all have things that we're really good at, 03:10 which makes the family farm partnership really work. Oh, gosh. Uh, I, if, if you won't know what I do here on the farm, you, you probably have 03:22 to follow me around, uh, for a little bit. One of the biggest things I do all the marketing, and it's not just a day to day deal. 03:32 I tell people that typically just say in a bushel of corn, a bushel, soybeans, I'll have at least 18 months 03:37 of marketing into that bushel. And people's like, wow, what do you mean? And I'll give an example. Like right now, today, 03:46 I am shipping out 23 harvested corn that I've rolled into the 24 market for basis and carry and to grab premiums. 03:57 Okay, well, I've got a lot of the 24 crop that's been hedged and got positions on for several months. I have also, over the past couple months 04:09 with the run up in prices, have hedged and secured cured percentages of wheat, corn, and soybeans for the 25 crop. 04:17 And I'm already working on a deal for the 25 harvested wheat to carry that into January, February, March of 26. 04:27 So we're in 24. So basically I'm actively involved in three years of crop steel and working on a fourth year of marketing. 04:39 Marketing for a farm a lot of times means it's, you are creating a brand name for yourself. In agriculture, we're always trying 04:50 to figure out a niche market, a way to make more profit. So how do we do that when we're growing the same crops 04:57 as everybody else, we create a value added product. And what I mean by that is corn. Let's take corn for example. 05:06 I've got corn that's in my grain. Bins been there since September. Industry standard is when it goes to market, 05:12 they buy it on 56 pounds as a bushel of corn. That's what they buy. My corn coming outta the bins right now is running 05:19 62 pound test weight. I'm six pounds over. So every truck that leaves has an additional 6,000 pounds on it. 05:26 Here in the south, we use a term called gravy money. That's what that is. I have a higher protein corn. My wheat industry standard may be 05:36 55 56 pound test weight. I can give 62 pound test weight. Well, what does that let me do? 05:42 That lets me ship wheat over to Rome, Georgia to grain craft. That's a highend meal that goes 05:50 to high end bakeries, which means a premium for my wheat. And so over the years, we've created a name brand 05:59 for Henderson Farms that our products are high quality. So the marketing's not always about selling a bushel for a certain price. 06:10 It's about selling your brand, creating that market, and then getting a better price for it. Uh, urbanization here is a, is a significant problem. 06:24 A again, it seems like, uh, most of the country wants to come here and live and work. I mean, you can come live here 06:31 and you're short drive to Atlanta, your short drive to Nashville, your short drive down to most beautiful beaches in the world 06:40 down on the Gulf Coast. But it comes at a, it comes at a cost. Uh, we lose agricultural land. 06:48 There's a lot of absentee land owners in this area, and we farm some of that land. And typically when that land gets passed down 06:57 to a next generation, it's to a generation that's never stepped foot in this part of the country. We, we've got a farm that's 300 acres 07:05 and they've been offered $80,000 an acre for it. That's, that's multi-generational life-changing wealth. You can't fault someone for doing that. 07:16 I try to keep us profitable in the face of all adversity that comes to us. And that's a big thing. When you're in an area 07:22 where there's a lot of urban sprawl, you have to maintain a profitability and you have to know that at any given minute, 07:29 you could lose acreage. And it's always in our face, but it's not a fear. We don't go to bed fearful of what we may not have tomorrow. 07:39 We go to bed thankful for what we had today, and we deal with it. It's the American farmer. We revel in adversity. Ty 07:56 Amino grow is an exciting new product put out by concept agritech. What we've seen is an increase in fruiting sites 08:04 as well as branching. And this has equated to yield Spot less. Introducing the cleanup for tar spot, gray leaf spot, 08:20 Southern Rust and more novel next generation at Astria. Fungicide from FMC broadens your spectrum and strengthens your residual foliar disease control. 08:30 Protect your corn fields with a proprietary combination of three modes of action. Visit your FMC retailer or@astri.ag.fmc.com 08:39 to clean up this season In the heart of harvest. Victory awaits. 08:44 Introducing Dem CO's high speed all wheel steer. Combine header transport trailers crafted for strength, engineered for speed, Demco 08:55 Tailored for victory. Some farmers I know swear by a name, say they never operate anything else. 09:06 Well, here are a few names for my Fent 900 Tractor Fuel Saver time maximizer Game changer. 09:18 I like those names. BioHealth is a product by concept Agritech made up of a consortium of beneficial biology 09:32 that actually colonized the plant and boost the plant's immune system from the inside In the foothills of North Carolina, it's harvest season 09:52 for Kevin Matthews and his daughter Danielle. High yields aren't the only reason to celebrate. So today we're, um, trying to wrap up soybean harvest. 10:03 My daughter, she's looking after that side of the farming operation. We've been blessed. We got three, you know, 10:09 we've got three kids, two girls and a boy. And, uh, so Danielle, she's, she's more, more book smart. Uh, and she's a very hands-on person. 10:18 She's cutting soybeans today. She runs the combine. She actually planted the corn that we're picking right now. She run the planter planting this corn. 10:28 I love running a combine. I really like running a planter, but fall's my favorite season. 10:33 And being in the combine is fun. It's frustrating some days, but it's one of my favorite things to do. 10:44 They're cutting double crop soybeans. Uh, the double crop soybeans are planted in behind wheat. 10:53 So we harvest the small salt red winter wheat once it's harvested immediately. We're right behind the combines 11:00 with the planters planting our soybeans and we call 'em double crop soybeans. We're getting two crops in one year off of it. 11:06 We harvest the wheat, now we're harvesting soybeans. And it's even more satisfying when you're harvesting a field that you planted and you get to see 11:13 the end result coming in the combine. She does a phenomenal job. If something happened to me today, 11:20 I'm confident she could take the thing and run. And Well, I started running on my own when I was about 15 and then 1516 'cause I could drive myself to the combine. 11:38 But I've always drove 'em and run 'em with my dad probably since I was about, I don't know, eight or nine. 11:46 I would get in there and drive. He wouldn't leave me by myself in there. But, um, it's a little different though. 11:51 When you get by yourself. You got a lot to remember and look out for rock crop, The biggest 12:09 challenge we have is we have all these patch fields and you're spending 99% of your time cutting turn rows off by the time you cut the turn rows. 12:17 You have five, six passes and then you're done with the build. And then you gotta go cut more. 12:22 Turn rows, turn rows drag up the easiest. You got most limbs in 'em, you can, we go around our fields religiously picking pick up limbs, trees, 12:34 trim it back with a long arm mower. But all it takes is one storm and you have a bunch of limbs to pick up. 12:40 So that's the biggest thing. You don't wanna run it in here and stop the combine up or break something. 12:49 Another hassle of small patchwork fields means today Danielle has to cross a creek through a narrow path in the woods to get to the next field. 12:58 Nick, if you will get right here where you can watch my auger. If it looks like anything's gonna hit holler to stop. 13:04 It's a tight squeeze For a while. I didn't run the combine. Um, we're expecting our first 13:24 child and uh, I learned that, uh, motion sickness is, uh, apparently can happen to you early on. 13:33 So I could not stand to watch Rose come in the combine. It made me sick as could be. So we're finally where we can run the combine. 13:41 So I feel like I'm doing something now. She's got her, uh, got her another generation on the way due here in May. 13:52 I ain't quite figured out how she's gonna have a baby in May and, and gotta run that planter. 13:56 I, I guess I'll have to let her have off to have my first grandchild. Kevin's gonna be in trouble. 14:02 He's not gonna get nothing done now. So he's gonna be babysitting every day. He don't know it yet. 14:10 Balance is hard. It's took time to figure out. I'm really about to learn about balance and life in the farm. 14:18 Being out here, like a lot of days we're harvesting seven days a week. So sometimes I have to remind myself on a Sunday, like, 14:26 you know, just let everything else rest and just enjoy being in the combine. A lot of people would just tell you, well, 14:32 why don't you just take off work? You work for your family, just take off work. But I mean, the crops don't quit growing. 14:37 So if I'm not out here doing it, dad's gonna be the one out here doing it. And he don't need to be here every day. 14:44 I mean, we're here working. We need to be helping him. So there's sometimes you just gotta say no, 'cause that crop's still growing. 14:53 It don't care if it's Sunday, it don't care if it's NC State's biggest football game. I mean, you still gotta get out there and work. 14:59 The balance is difficult. It's not the easiest thing in the world to figure out and we're still figuring it out. 15:14 Adding Raytheon into your infer application or even an over the top application round V three V four, can do wonders in helping that plant 15:24 navigate tough soil conditions. As far as nutrient tie is concerned, Control the toughest weeds with overlapping residuals. 15:33 Lock in the longest lasting control for your soybean fields authority brand herbicides such as authority, edge herbicide 15:40 and Authority Supreme herbicide combine the industry's most effective group. 14 and 15 active ingredients for a clean start 15:47 and long lasting residual control. Following up 14 to 28 days later with a post application of Anthem max herbicide 15:54 through V six establishes a heavy duty economical, overlapping residual program. Claims are good and all, 16:03 but I'm more interested in results. My fent momentum planter delivers them the only planter with automatic tire pressure adjustments, 16:13 weight transfer across its frame, and inline center tandem wheels that eliminate intros. It's just another way I know fence got my bottom line. 16:24 Top of mind. Introducing Dem CO's newest dual auger grain cart design now equipped with the front folding auger 16:42 and available in right side or left side unload options featuring Dem CO's quarter auger design for optimal visibility 16:50 with a 22 inch vertical auger unload at speeds of 600 bushels per minute. Demco outpace harvest time every time. 16:59 Sweet success has been in the product lineup of concept agritech for a while. We've seen it do a lot of things 17:05 that you wouldn't think a black strap molasses product would do. Anytime you can increase the bricks content of your plant, 17:12 the more healthy it's gonna be. Along the Chesapeake Bay in Maryland where Temple Roads farms, there are two distinct 17:28 and vital forms of farming, oyster farming in the waters of the Bay, and traditional farming on the fertile 17:35 lands surrounding it. Both practices may seem worlds apart, but they share many similarities 17:42 and common goals of sustainability and returning the bay to a healthy, thriving ecosystem. Today. Temple visits his old friend, an oyster farmer, 17:54 Jason Ruth, to learn more about oyster farming and its similarities with extreme ag. When you look at all these oysters, um, 18:04 you really look close at 'em. Each one of 'em has a shell that it starts off, that it originally began with, 18:09 like there's a shells on every oyster you can see here. And that's how we kind of reproduce our oysters. We use the, the shells from our chucking operations 18:19 to help propagate new oysters in the future. So it's part of your new seed bay to Put it in farming terms, we're taking, um, 18:27 we're placing our seed directly on this and planting it on our farms. This is our soil. This is your soil. 18:32 That's, yeah, that's your soil right there. So with here, so if you look at this, this is the oyster we planted 18:38 originally started on that shell. There was probably a couple more there. And you notice how they grow long and skinnier, right? 18:44 Versus something which is gonna be natural like that, which is round. They're both the same age, but you can tell the difference. 18:54 Look how you know this, this one's a lot thicker. Um, this one's a lot. You know, it's, it's fight you can see it's trying to 19:00 outgrow it's competition and it's out, it's focusing on its energy to get to that food source and that light. 19:07 So it's the same principles as far. So I mean, do you get to a point where you can, like for us, like if I plant my crop too thick, I'll end up 19:14 with a tall leggy plant with not as much fruit for seed. Exactly. We, we'll end up 19:19 With, you'll end up with the same scenario. We'll end up with long skinny oysters that are not desirable. 19:25 It's crazy how common what you do. And what I do is so similar. You're taking the old oyster shell, making new bottom 19:35 fighting for all the same things that we're doing. And you're filtering the best. Correct. I'm out here on the other end planting cover crop, trying 19:42 to do the right thing under fertilize and basically, you know, not trying to do the wrong thing, trying to save the bay. 19:49 And we're all making that same. Exactly. One of the biggest challenges that we have here in the Chesapeake Bay is sedimentation. 20:00 You know, if you look at this tank, we're sucking the water right outta the water column here out of the outta the Kent Narrows here. 20:06 And just in a few weeks time, this tank has that much sediments as built up. That's the biggest challenge we face in 20:13 the oyster industry right now. So if you talk about a little history here, there was 26 companies here just like mine 20:25 that did the exact same thing that we did in the fifties and sixties. Right now, there's only one left. And that's myself. 20:31 We're the last remaining year round oyster processing facility in the state of Maryland. I mean, we had a sustainable harvest, natural harvest, 20:39 no aquaculture involved right now, um, until the mid eighties of 5 million bushels per year. That's what we were harvesting here in the Chesapeake 20:48 Bay, Maryland portion only. And in 2004, that harvest went down to 36,000 bushels of oyster trees. 20:56 Holy mo. Okay? Yeah. I mean, killed it. It Killed it. So that was in 2004, 2009. 21:01 They revamped the, the aquaculture laws infused lots of money into it to help seed, you know, seed money and help people get started. 21:08 Um, the aquaculture business kicked off. Uh, you know, let's fast forward to here. 2023. I mean, we have a natural harvest 21:17 of about 650,000 bushels per year and a aquaculture harvest of about 300,000 bushels a year. 21:25 So we're back, you know, we're still 80% less of what we were before, but we're steadily increasing every year. 21:32 Every year. I have people asking me all the time, you know, what's the best solution to bring oysters back? 21:36 I'm just like, well really, uh, take 25 million people that live, breathe, and recreate on the Chesapeake Bay and move 'em somewhere else. 21:42 That's not gonna happen. Right? So what's plan B? You know, plan B is better practices on our aquaculture and better practices on your farming techniques. 21:50 Peop make, make, uh, homeowners and make, uh, communities more, um, mindful of the, the, the runoff that they might call and the 21:59 Impact that they have. Correct. Putting buffers out and stuff like that. That's, that's all runs downstream. 22:03 Everything runs downstream. And this is, this is a cornerstone species. Okay? Without this on the bottom, 22:10 the water clarity in the bay goes down because you fix this cornerstone species right here and you'll fix every other problem 22:18 in the bay at the same time. That's how we, that's incredible. And we can't do that unless we all work together. 22:23 Correct. Alright bud. What you've been waiting for. Wait, I hope they're fried. I'm going to eat a raw oyster. I'll never eat raw oysters. There's cocktail sauces, there's 22:35 Something on the, alright. Alright. Cheers bro. Cheers. Nah, I'll take it fried all day long. Actually, you gotta eat One more simple. Oh, come one. 22:50 Really? If, if I fry 'em, is it not an aphrodisiac? It's only if it's raw. Well, whatever you want it to be. Really. 22:59 Oh, I'm out. Go long for season long foliar disease protection that starts at plant active ingredient flu triol moves 23:21 through your corn plants as they grow for inside out protection from roots to tassel. A single at plant application provides comparable 23:28 performance in corn yield protection to that of VTR one foliar fungicides against diseases like gray leaf spot, northern corn leaf blight, common rust and more. 23:45 Some farmers I know swear by a name, say they never operate anything else. Well, here are a few names for my Fent 900 Tractor 23:56 Fuel Saver time maximizer Game changer. I like those names. When it comes to sustainable 24:48 and regenerative farming, Kelly Garrett is always ahead of the curve. He's found an interesting piece of equipment 24:55 that gives a new way of planting cover crops, a key part of his operation to protect his soil and prove itself 25:01 and reduce the need for synthetic inputs. So this is an airway. Uh, our neighbor Steve has one. We kind of like the looks of it. 25:09 So we investigated it because a couple things. Number one, uh, trying to drill our cover crops in was kind of tedious, took too much time. 25:19 Uh, the drill gave us trouble. Things like that, just broadcasting 'em and hoping for 'em to germinate. 25:24 Uh, we really weren't happy with that. Uh, Evans came up with the idea of this airway for about three different reasons really. 25:32 Number one, we hope to broadcast our cover crops, broadcast our wheat, run the airway across it. There'll be a little bit of incorporation. 25:39 They had a couple different options here on the back. It was kind of a chain drag sort of thing, but, uh, Steve, the neighbor said that 25:47 that just balls up with cornstalks. So we chose to go with this rolling basket to get a little bit of incorporation seed to soil contact, 25:54 hoping to get better germination. We've talked to a couple other growers, watch some videos. We feel like that'll work. 26:00 So the one reason is the winter wheat and the, uh, and the cover crops temple, uh, seeds, his, uh, winter wheat in front of a vertical tillage tool. 26:10 And, and that's how he gets his wheat to grow. Obviously he's raising some 130, 140 bushel wheat. I don't know that we'll be able to do that, 26:17 but alls I'm suggesting is, is that it'll work. Second reason is the, uh, residue control. There's about three or four things that we try to do, um, 26:27 to, to con help control the residue or deal with it. By chopping up this residue, we hope that it will break down faster. 26:35 Again, that's a, a huge concern of ours going forward here. And we just need to get that residue to turn over faster. 26:41 We believe that this will help us size and mulch that residue a little bit while still maintaining our no-till status because 26:48 of the conservation and erosion control. 'cause that really is of the highest priority. The third reason, and the one I'm a little bit most 26:54 interested about because it's the one I, uh, am the least experienced in, is nutrient stratification. One of the downsides to no-till is that all 27:04 of the nutrition stays in really the top inch or on top of the surface of the soil. And we'd like to get it a little deeper. 27:11 This it, this doesn't till the ground, but it pokes holes in the ground, hence the term airway. It pokes holes in the ground. 27:17 So we are hoping that we can harvest the crop, broadcast the cover crops, plant food it before or after the airway, and then run the airway across. 27:27 And then the, the spikes and the opening up of that, I really hope we can airway it before the plant food. 27:33 And then we will create the holes in the ground and the plant food, the liquid will get down in those holes and we'll defeat some of this stratification problem 27:40 that we think persists. Get some of that nutrition deeper in the soil profile for the roots to pick up. 27:45 That's something that I'm excited about. We're gonna have to see how it happens. I'm interested to go out here and try this. 27:50 This is, uh, uh, one of our irrigated fields, 300 bushel environment. It's been corned for two or three years now. 27:57 Tremendous amount of residue out here. Let's see how it breaks it up. The, ideally, I hope I can size the 28:02 residue, get it to break up. But I don't want to destroy the cow feed because that's also important to us for the winter feed. 28:08 For the cattle, It changes everything. So says Indiana corn grower Nathan Davis about innovative XY way LFR fungicide from FMC Xw brand fungicides are the first 28:28 and only at plant corn fungicides provide unprecedented season long inside out foliar disease protection. Precision is understanding the potential hidden within, 28:43 decoding the specific nutritional needs of your crop. Maximizing every nutrient and getting the most out of your yield. 28:54 We break down the science in a way that works for your crops and for you, apply less 29:01 and expect more with precision crop nutrition from agro liquid In the heart of harvest. Victory 29:07 awaits. Introducing Dem CO's high speed all wheel steer. Combine header transport trailers crafted for strength, 29:16 engineered for speed, Demco tailored for victory. Cobalt, uh, probably my favorite nutrient that I've learned about in the last recent years in, 29:35 in the plans world or in our agronomy world. Uh, cobalt. Kelly and I affectionately call it mother's milk. 29:41 It's got a lot of like beans, for instance, soybeans, any lagoon fixing, uh, plants. It's, it's cobalt is really important in the en enzyme 29:50 fixing microbial world like rhizobium and stuff. Cobalt's a key initiator in that. So it's really important in that crop. 29:58 Other functions and all the other crops. So the slowing down of light leaf senescence and late season like corn, right now we're in fall, 30:05 plants are dying, maturing and helps that plant stay healthier longer. Um, helps with germination. 30:12 We actually used it on some wheat seed this year, uh, and, and with seed treatment. 30:16 And I think we've really got a better stand by using that in furrow. Um, so it's, it's really a neat, a neat element. 30:24 Um, has a lot of plant health benefits that, and with enzyme reactions within the plant. A couple of things we know about cobalt is it helps 30:33 with one drought resistance. So in drought areas, plant cobalt the last couple years have been pretty droughty 30:39 around here in western Iowa. So adding that in has helped with water efficiencies and drought tolerance. 30:44 Uh, the other thing is, is probably getting into the hormone side of it, it helps block that ethylene ethylene hormone, 30:50 which is a trigger for the plant. Uh, and it's hormonal cycle. It's, it's like, okay, ethylene. 30:56 Once it sees a spike in ethylene, it's like, okay, I'm stressed. Now what do I do? So it helps block 31:00 that cement enzyme reactions with cobalt to help suppress that. Make the plant think, Hey, we're all right. 31:05 We're not stressed out at the moment. We've seen that with applications in the field, especially specifically beans. 31:11 'cause I think, you know, with that end fixing piece with the legumes and stuff, you see a better result. It just seems like we get better plant health 31:19 out of those plants. And in that plant health. With the cobalt, we tend to get a need less 31:25 synthetic fungicides and plant health products. Uh, as we apply 'em. Cobalt can be applied in two ways that we've, 31:35 I've applied it one's a seed treatment with a couple products that we use. It's just, you know, like soybeans, treat 'em with it. 31:41 Just an nutritional package. There's nothing else with it. And the other way's just to full your application. 31:46 I haven't found a dry product yet to go spread on the soil. Just, it seems like the foliar application 31:52 is the way to go with cobalt. So like a cobalt deficiency. I couldn't today tell you what it looks like. 31:59 I don't, I don't think it's one of those more visible ones. You know, cobalt in the soil is not a highly available, 32:05 highly known nutrient. So it's really become a foliar feed type seed treatment application. 32:12 And it just seems like anytime we have a product with Cobalt in it, we get a pretty sized nice response to the plant health yield response. 32:20 And so we've been adding a little bit more and more into our recommendations as years have gone by.