Barn Talk - Keeping The Most Cultivated Crop In America Growing w/Andy Ross

Episode Date: November 20, 2021

Welcome To Barn Talk! In today’s episode, we have Andy Ross on the show to discuss everything corn! We touch on a number of topics including: How Andy got his start in plant breeding/agriculture, why he decided to be a plant breeder, the steps it takes to get a corn hybrid to the farmer, the differences between inbred vs. hybrid, why GMO’s and much, much more. SUBSCRIBE TO THE PODCAST ➱ https://bit.ly/3a7r3nR SUBSCRIBE TO THIS’LL DO FARM ➱ https://bit.ly/2X8g45c SUBSCRIBE TO BARN TALK CLIPS ➱ https://bit.ly/3BlZnqq LISTEN ON: SPOTIFY ➱ https://open.spotify.com/show/3icVr4KWq4eUDl7Oy60YMY ITUNES ➱ https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/barn-talk/id1574395049 ADD US ON: INSTAGRAM ➱ https://bit.ly/3gaobdN TIKTOK ➱ https://bit.ly/3eJfftr #corn #farming #plantbreeding ------------------------------- ***PLEASE NOTE*** Barn Talk is a significant break from the typical content viewers have come to expect from This’ll Do Farm. Please be advised that we will be exploring a wide variety of topics (some adult-themed) and our younger viewers (and their parents) should be advised that some topics will be for mature audiences only. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Amazon presents Laura versus Fruitflies. Swarming your fruit and terrorizing your kitchen. These little freaks multiply at a rate that would make a rabbit say, yo. Chill. But Laura shopped on Amazon and saved on cleaning spray, countertop wipes, and fly traps. Hey, fruit flies, your baby boom ends here. Save the Everyday with Amazon. Talk about the differences between embrids and hybrids.

And so if you don't think about corn a lot, there's some examples that are really close to home for some folks. And it's the Laberdoodles. If I had my whole pool of labs, and those are going to be my male stock, and my whole pool of different poodles would be my female stock. I basically am always trying to come up with different poodles to be apparent and different labs. Okay. And so the poodles, I'll cross poodles by poodles and try to make better poodles. and labs by labs to try to make better labs. But when I'm going to go make something I'm going to give to the consumer,

I make my Laberdoodle, and I cross a lab with a poodle. Right. Now, that's a good analogy. That's what you guys as farmers would see is the Labradoodle. See, he thought this up because he knew who he was going to be talking to. He's like, I got to make this to where they can understand. Well, I talk to a lot of 4-H kids. Well played, well played.

All of the food we eat and much of the clothing we wear comes from plants and animals that are raised on farms. Farms are different in type, in size, and even in name. Welcome to Barn Talk, garage episode edition. What happens at the barn stays at the barn. Until now, we're going to let it all out for you guys today. Because of our diverse subject matter, which in turn gives us a very diverse audience, we get questions, a lot of questions. one of the most popular basket of questions we receive is about corn.

Seed corn, candy corn, field corn, popcorn, the band corn, maybe not the band. Not quite the ban, but more questions than we have answers to. So today, we brought out the big guns to try to inform all of us about the most widely grown crop in America. If you like the show, if you enjoy watching the show, we just ask you to share it out. we don't have any sponsors on this show. So kind of the payment is, if you get anything out of it, tell people about it. We're trying to grow it.

Yeah, that's the fee. That's the ticket to admission to watch or listen to the show. Kind of a value exchange. We kind of live by that. That's the way America should work. If you get something out of it, share it. If you didn't like it, then don't. But, you know, keep it simple, stupid.

That's how we rock. That's right. So today, we're actually a little bit ahead of the game we're we're recording this middle of the day and so the markets are going uh the last time i checked corn on the board was 573 and the best price around 583 adm and cedar rapids if you want to fight that fight and 568 local one of the feeders today um soybeans 1221 on the board and 1217 and cedar rapids once again you see there's a pattern there um hog 75 Cattle 132.

Shout out to my good buddy Kyle Menz. It was his birthday this week. And I'm always amazed that he makes it another year. So we got to get him on here and help him explain the dynamics of the cattle market. But we'll work on that. Bitcoin, $63,400. So it hit an all-time high this week. And then it's consolidating.

It's consolidated. Getting ready for its big run to $100,000 by the end of the day. the year. I saw that inflation's at 6.2% year after year after year. And that's stated, that's the rate now. That's stated by the government, which means it's actually more like about 15% because the way they changed the consumer price index to keep it manageable. Ethereum 4600. I think it hit a high this week two. And Tesla, Elon sold 10% of his shares, which he was going to sell anyway, but he had to make a Twitter poll about it and let everybody get pissed off.

He's much more of a politician than people give him credit for because I think people are starting to figure out now that he was planning on selling those shares anyway. He just thought he would stir the pot when it came to taxing capital gains and unrealized capital gains and all that. Well, I also think he wanted to kind of like, because a lot of people have billionaires,

when they think of billionaires, they like hate billionaires, you know? and he wanted to make it look like he was giving. He's just going to sell this money and give it to give it away. He was going to do his part to fund the government for at least a day. So people are like, oh, wow, this is awesome. He's not like Bill Gates. Yeah, well, that bar is pretty low, so hopefully he can stay above that. So it sold off.

I can't remember what it got to. It was up close to 1,200. Maybe it went over $1,200 a share. Anyway, it was up a little yesterday. Last time I checked, it was down 1036. And then I thought I'd throw in MP materials, so I don't think I've ever quoted that stock, but that's one that's near and dear to my heart.

I've got a little bit of MP. And what their claim to fame is, they're the only rare earth miner in the United States. So all of your magnets and all of your rare earth elements that go into electronics, cell phones, a lot of military gear. Guess where that all comes from, China? And they're the only mine in the United States. I think, and basically, there's not much in the Western Hemisphere. Most of it's all over. Do you know where there's also an awful lot of rare earth minerals?

Afghanistan. Too bad we left there. I bet you the Chinese are probably over there cutting a deal right now. Yeah. And they don't care if the Taliban are doing what they're doing. Yeah, there's Civil rights standards. They'll be fine. They don't care. Just give us the stuff. Anyway, it's $45. It's actually up. They just had their third quarter earnings, and I think it went pretty well. What they're doing is right now, they kind of caught a lot of crap during that because they're actually shipping all that stuff over to China to be processed, because guess what? There really isn't much for processing facilities within the United States. So they're working on what they call their phase two. When they bought this, mine. I think they actually bought it off a Chinese company. And now then they're building out the

infrastructure to process the material there. And then the third phase that they're going to start next year is where they will actually further refine it and then they won't have to ship it overseas and they'll do it all here and make it a closed system. That's what they're working towards. And I think that's where the big payoff is. If you're a very long-term... Long-term stop. And this is not financial advice because everybody knows, don't do what I do. Research, you do your own research, but yeah, I'm high on the stock, too. I think it's a good 10-year hold.

Yeah, there you get. I hope I got 10 years left. I hope I got 10 good years left. I hope I do too. Anyway, so today we thought who better to explain everything corn than somebody that thinks about corn all day long practically every day. And our guest today has been involved in agronomy and crop science in general and plant breeding specifically for his entire adult life and his professional career. He has a BS in agronomy from ISU and has also collected a few more degrees along the way.

He has a master's and a Ph.D. in plant breeding from ISU. So I told him to bring his patience and all of his little words, because he's going to have to talk slow. We don't have a chalkboard down here, so it might get a little tough, but we're going to try to get through it. He is currently the senior research manager for Corteva. Corteva.

Close enough, Corteva. Corteva. I don't know why I couldn't say that, but I couldn't. It took most of us a little while to learn it too. It's on a bunch of hats. It's on the side of a bunch of hats that I have. But anyway, and if you can't, if you haven't guessed, I am representing today. Thanks to Fred Greiner and Nick Rogers, my local pioneer dealers for helping me out to keep me warm in the winter.

He is the senior research manager breeding hybrids for pioneer brand seed corn. Welcome, Andy Ross. Welcome, Andy. Thank you, gentlemen. Tork, Sawyer. It's glad to be here. Okay. you, where are you located at? Where do you work out of?

Yep, that's a good starter question. So, um, I am based out of the Marion, Iowa Research Center, which is just north of Cedar Rapids, Marion area there, right off County Home Road. Okay. So we just got one of those new fancy roundabouts put in. So, oh, yes. Yeah, people have to slow down and wave now. That's good. They're, they're popping up everywhere. Apparently the United States is behind everybody else, but we're, we're doing our best to get caught up. And that research center's been there.

and so probably 82, I believe, early 80s. Okay. When they started breeding corn, Pioneer started breeding corn out of that research center. I would be, I would be in bad, um, bad manners if I didn't, uh, thank Bridget McKela. Shout out to them. Yeah, because they kind of put this all together.

Um, I don't even remember how I got in touch with one of them. But anyway, we started chatting a little bit because ever since we started this podcast, I mean, we've gotten questions about seed corn and people wanting to know why field corn doesn't taste as good as sweet corn when you yank one off alongside of the road. It didn't understand that. And we've always talked about, we're like, man, we've got to get somebody on here just to talk about corn because people are always asking us questions. And it's like, I don't know. It comes in a bag and I plant it and I sell it. And I care a lot about it, but I don't really know all the mental stuff.

So anyway, so they kind of help put us together. And we're also thankful because, you know, a lot of times when we call a company and tell them that we want to talk to somebody and they look at us, they're like, ah, yeah, I don't know if we really want to put our corporate reputation on the line to sending somebody to talk to you knucklehead. Well, lucky for you, they picked the right guy. So thanks to Pioneer for putting that together. Yeah, they searched long and hard to find the right guys. Or was it a deal where they called and called and finally somebody said, well, I'll do it. No, they may like, no, they probably said Andy would fit these guys just fine. Yeah, well, that's good.

Well, I work with Bridget in the past on a few marketing things. So she probably thought, oh, yeah, we can send Andy. No, I've watched your guys as material and I think it's down to earth and right on, you know, what people want to hear. So it'll be a great conversation today. and so we'll just talk about corn reel. Yeah. So first of all, we just want to get a little background. Yeah.

You know, why did, how did you get into this specific field and why did you get into the ag industry, you know, in general? Like, how did you get here? Yep, that's a great question. And, you know, a lot of times, a lot of times kids really don't know what they want to do. I know my kids are struggling through that trying to figure out exactly. I'm still struggling. What is it that I should do for the next 30. 40 years. And it's a shame we put a lot of pressure on kids to figure that out. But I actually got

fairly lucky. You know, my folks farmed in the 80s. They both grew up on farms in Powsheek County. And they farmed in the 80s. And of course, if you know a little bit of history about farming, of course, 80s are really rough on farm families. And so, you know, my family, the first hard year in the 80s, 82, I believe is what it was, right? And so that was the year that actually broke my folks in farming. You know, they were a young family, had young kids, and we're just trying to make a go at it. And so that year pushed them off the farm. And so, you know, I lost my farming experience at a fairly young age.

Same situation for my wife, basically the same story. But when we moved into town, off the farm, you know, went through school then. Then when I was about 16 years old, dad was trying to push me out of the house and get me real job, right? And so he had known, in North Liberty, Iowa, there was a DeKalb Research Center there where they developed corn hybrids for DeKalb. And so he stopped by and got me an application, put it on the kitchen table. So I filled out the application, went out there and pollinated corn coming up with new imbreds for DeKalb when I was 16 years old. And, you know, kudos to the staff at that research center there, you know, it was only probably about 10 people.

But they really took me under the wing, taught me about corn breeding, taught me about science a little bit. And finally, one day I just went up to the corn breeder at the time there. I'll call his name out as Gary Stanglin. And so he did wonders for me. And I just said, hey, Gary, I mean, what do I need to do to do to do what you do? Because coming up with new corn hybrids is kind of like opening a Christmas present. You know, you get to discover something every year or something new. And you're doing it, not for yourself, but you're doing it for the American farmer. And so that's what's really cool about the job of being a cornbringer. So Gary's like, Andy, pretty simple. You go to Iowa State, get your bachelor's degree in agronomy, and get your master's

and PhD in plant breeding, and then you can do what I do. And so for a 16 year old that was trying to find his path of, okay, now what do I go do? Somebody just drew it out. Like here, a sticky note, do these three things, and then you can do what I do. And so for me, it was pretty simple. And then when I went to Iowa State, of course, I got to spend a lot of time working with other seed companies. I worked for ASGRO, just because I like that type of work. I like the involvement. or the joining of science and agriculture, and then the ability to discover something new. And so it was just really cool.

It fit my personality and it fit my background and desire. And, you know, in order to, you know, it's always kind of been, me breeding corn has kind of been my revenge on the 1980s, picking on my folks, to go and make, you know, make better hybrids for the farmers now. And, you know, it was really to stabilize my income as a getting a steady pay, How do you get a steady paycheck and egg? And that's hard to find.

It is for sure. And so that was my way to do it. And it's like I said, a little bit of my revenge on the 80s. And it's to make better corn hybrids now for the farmers now trying to suffer through the same thing. So when you decided that you were going to go down that path and you got to Iowa State was what surprised you the most as far as your schooling? Was it difficult? In other words, did you know, did you have a good grasp of what you were getting yourself into as far as the classes you were going to have to take and what all you were going to have to do? Or was it pretty surprising? You know, and again, the agronomy department at Iowa State is a fabulous department. So when I was a, and I, you know, I probably had more gall back when I was 16, 17, 17, I was trying to figure out what to do. I just actually called up the agronomy department.

and I said, hey, I'm going to come there. I want to be a plant breeder. What do I need to do? And they set me up with a couple professors. So when I was in high school, I went to go visit Iowa State, and he showed me around. And he was actually an oat plant breeder that showed me around. Or oat breeder, sorry.

Yeah. And so I knew just in that high school visit up to Iowa State that this is going to fit me really well. And, you know, the agronomy classes in the agronomy department is, it was great for education. I got to learn a lot. And they were just, I thought it was a great. education in Iowa State. You know, that's funny that you said that because I think he's the third person. I think a lot of people don't give these universities credit as far as the admissions staff

because when Craig Rupp was on here, he was thinking about going to Iowa for ag engineering or electrical engineering. And he actually called the admissions department at Iowa. And the lady he talked to, She asked him what he wanted to do and what he knew about, you know, what he thought he wanted to do. And she said, well, I don't think you want to come to Iowa. Unless you want to be a computer science guy, you need to go to Iowa State because they got a way better ag engineering department. And he, I don't think he thought about that. And so he ended up doing it. And then the other person was when Nup was on here.

Nup was all set to go to Co. Yep, to play football. And then he decided that, you know what, I'm probably not going to the NFL. I should make my decision to go to college on. And he called the emissions at Iowa State like a month or two weeks. And they got him, got all of his stuff, and got him in, like in two weeks. So, you know, kudos to people. These kids, if you're willing to make that phone call, they've got people.

Yeah, they'll make it work. And that's a great thing. Yeah, and I actually think they've actually become better at doing it since I've been at Iowa State. So, you know, that's the good thing about the ag community. The ag community takes care of their own. And it's not just their own, but they're more than willing to adopt other people's kids and bring them in and teach them ag. And so you don't see that in a lot of industries, but you do in agriculture. Yeah.

And the state of Iowa is very blessed to have Iowa State. Yep. You know, I mean, it has turned itself into about the premier ag school in the nation. Yeah, for sure. If you're listening to this somewhere else. I don't know. All the K state people are pissed. Well, I mean, K-State pretty much has the nutrition program.

I mean, in the hog business, if you're going to be a nutritionist in the hog business, you're probably going to go to K-State because they're the top-notch. I mean, they all have their place, and I'm not knocking any of them, but Iowa State definitely has a reputation when it comes to the ag business that they're one of the dominant educators. Well, three Iowa guys, it's hard to not brag on your school. Well, right, exactly. A little bit. That's exactly right.

So when you got, did you go, did you, when you got out of college, when you got that degree and you started, what was your first, what was your first experience in the, in the production side of it? Or the research side of it. Yeah. So I finished up in about 2002. Yeah, 2002, I finished up at Iowa State. and my first job for Pioneer was down in Champaign, Illinois. And they hired me down there to be a corn breeder, but there was a little nuance with it. And at that time, Pioneer was trying to develop hybrids for different market segments, for end-use market segments. And so they were really trying to figure out if they could develop hybrid-specific for three different types of grain end-use.

And they were high extractable starch, high total fermentables, and high-available energy. And so the high-extractable starch was, can we make hybrids specifically for the wet milling industry like Cargill stuff, you know, where you're extracting starch out. And then high total fermentables, of course, the ethanol business and then high available energy is obviously what you find folks do is. Yep. Feed business. And so I was, my job is to figure out if I can make hybrids that were just like any other commercial hybrid, but had that specialty used to them for high extractable starch for wet millers. And so I spent the first probably five years of my career working specifically on developing types of hybrids like that. And then of course for the Illinois

markets. So that was for my first nuance and my first, you know, probably true breeding project other than just breeding corn. Yeah. To see if you can make it do this thing for us. I would probably have, you know, it would have worked. I mean, we could make it. We can breed for whatever we want. We can make the corn crop do what we, what you need it to do or what you want it to do. But really the demand had to be in there. And the demand just, you know, when you realize that trying to grain channel that many different types of corn to the different users, our grain systems just are not in place to do that. We're in place to do. Number, or two yellow dint corn for the most part.

I mean, outside of the whites and waxies and those type of corn. Yeah. So around here, Tri-Oak, they, for a period of time, and I don't think they're still doing this, but for a period of time, they were trying to get where, and I think they worked with Pioneer on this, and it could have been at that same time period, where they had all these growers that were raising hogs for Tri-Oak,

and a lot of them, they were selling their corn to try oak. And so they came to those guys, and they were trying to get them to plant a specific hybrid with the idea that it was geared towards that hog feed. And I think they tried, I mean, I think they kind of did that for a few years, but then I think it's like everything. When you tell somebody what they ought to plant,

And farmers like, you know, I don't like that hybrid. I want to plant this. And I don't know exactly what happened, but I don't think they do that today. I think they're back to just whatever they get in, you know. And Triox is right. If they could keep the same type of hybrids coming through, they would help their rationing and figure out their rations way easier. Yeah.

And that's why they wanted for the high extractable starch for the wet milling plants. It's like, if we can get that type of corn, we can make the efficiency of our plants so much better. But it's just a matter of getting all the ducks in a row. I think all those logistics work great to get out to the individual farmer. And usually we're all pretty good at being the fly in the ointment deals like that. Especially if you're not willing to add a quarter or 50 cents to a bushel of corn. That's right.

That's exactly right. It's hard to sell. I feel like we might be getting a little bit ahead of ourselves. One thing I wanted to ask you is we have people across the spectrum, you know, for the people that, we know pioneer everybody knows what pioneer is everybody knows pioneer seed corn yep um but there's people out there that corn is corn is corn and they drive along the road and they see field corn so you've you work for pioneer um give us a short you don't have to go too far into the weeds but give us the long and short of how they're the same and how they're different pioneer hybrid international and where

they came from and what they're where they at today well we won't start with teoscenti which is thought to be the originator of corn, so we won't go back that far. But, you know, if you're just talking when your introduction about the difference between sweet corn and popcorn and, you know, field corn. And a lot of that is, a lot of it is single mutations. So we'll just talk real quick about the differences. And so why popcorn pops may be good at reasoning. So if you know, if you look at popcorn, it's usually small kernels and they're really hard on the hard all the way around. They don't have the dent in them. Yep. Right. And so the reason that is is because when that starch with the right amount of moisture, is in there. It's really just a little bit of a bomb. And so that hard starts all the way around, keeps it contained until that inner starch heats up with just the right amount of moisture when you pop it in a microwave popcorn bag, right?

When it hits that temperature. It hits that temperature, it pops. And it actually explodes and it bursts out and makes different type of corn kernel or that popcorn kernel. The cool thing about popcorn that most people don't know about, there's actually different types of popcorn breeds

based on the end use. And so they actually have different Um, they breed popcorn to be, if it, if that popcorn is going to end up at a movie theater, there's a different type of corn popcorn flake that they want versus if it's going to go into a box a crackerjacks or caramel corn, right? Yeah. Because, you know, you don't want that flowery type of, uh, popcorn kernel in your box of cracker jacks because it's just going to get beat to pieces. You want those mushroom type that you get the caramel to coat it. So just in popcorn, there's differences in what they, you know, breed for their end use. Um, and then of course,

sweet corn, you know, that. is really, I don't know the history of the germ plasm of sweet corn as much as some of the other plant breeders that we have working at Pioneer, but the big thing is just instead of producing starch, it produces sugar. And there's usually in the sweet corn varieties that people are selling now, there's usually anywhere from three major genes, okay, that basically they got turned off so they're not producing starch, but they stop and they're just producing simple sugars. and so that's what gives it that sweet taste instead of that starchy taste that you'd have, you know, I'm sure that our swine, if they, I'm sure they would rather eat sweet corn.

Right, right. If we could deliver to them fresh. Yeah, right. So we can't, we go all the way to starch. Yeah. And that's what becomes field corn. Yeah. And so that would probably be the primary difference is, I mean, you know, just those mutations that make it sweet.

Yeah. And so, and you know, if you go back and try sweet corn from the would have been sold in the 80s, we've come a long, long ways in the, uh, the appeal of the sweet corn that we get to. now compared to the very first sweet corn varieties. Yeah and and in that business there's people doing the exact same thing. Just selecting those varieties to get the desired effect. The University of Wisconsin is actually probably the hub of that. Really? Just a shout out to the University of Wisconsin and I know several of the breeders that work at Pioneer they got their education working in sweet corn. I'll be darn. So then they just transitioned that knowledge into field corn

when they came to work for Pioneer. Well there's actually a kid that Perry Schnicker was my class in high school. And his brother, his brother, I think this is right. He actually, and he could be retired by now, because he was quite a bit older than Perry, I think. And somebody can correct me if I'm wrong on this,

but I think it's right. He actually worked for corn pops, and he was a plant breeder for whoever, however they got the corn, because their whole thing was they wanted these, giant because those are like roasted kernels of corn. Yep. And if you've ever seen a bag of corn pops, the kernels are ginormous.

Yeah. And he worked for whoever it was that was, you know, working on that to make those kernels how they wanted them so that they'd roast. And I don't know what the, I don't know what the dynamics of it was, but I always thought that was really interesting that that was his deal. Well, you know, if you go to Casey's and grab a bag of corn nuts, That's actually a different type of corn too. That's Cusco corn, and it's like this big white corn that has these big kernels on it,

and they roast those just for corn nuts. But it all usually goes back to this Cousco type of corn. I'll be darned. Would you give a rough kind of like, I don't know, you don't have this kind of open-ended, but when and kind of how did hybrid seed corn start, you know, you can go really in depth on that, but you don't have to. Just kind of give your knowledge on it. Sure.

You know, it's actually a really cool story if you like corn as much as like. You have to like corn. So, you know, a lot of, a lot of corn in the United States in the early, if you think back to the early, late 1800s, early 1900s, a lot of it was open pollinated varieties of corn. And that's the stuff that you know in the 1900s, 1910s, you see him picking my hand, even into the 20s and 30s, right? You're picking it in my hand. And it's just open pollinated. That's when they saved ears from one crop. Shelled the seed and planted it the next crop.

And they did a lot of their selection from one season to another just on how beautiful and how straight, how big the ears were, how straight the kernels were, how the ears looked. And there was a lot of, you know, pretty ear contest, really on figuring out what seed to save to the next generation. Well, it didn't look anything like what we plant today. No, no. So, you know, that's where, if I'm right, that's where the saying, like, my dad, that generation, they would say, if you got your corn planted early, for one thing, we planted a lot later because you had all the fieldwork, but, you know, people say knee high by the 4th of July. And now then, if we don't have corn that's practically tassling by the 4th of July, you think, you know, you didn't get it planted in a decent time.

But, you know, I've seen pictures of when they were cullivating, and when they were, when they were shelling corn by hand, the corn's not very tall. I mean, it's nothing like what you see today. Yeah, it was, I mean, it was a, they were, they were, of corn plants and they were all different, right? Every corn plant out in that field was different from the open, in the open pollinated corn era. And so, one of the main open pollinated corn that affected the Midwest was a corn, open pollinated corn variety called Reed's Yellow Dent. And a lot of the corn varieties, a lot of the corn germ plasm that I work with now mostly originated from that open pollinated variety because there was all different types of open pollinated varieties

that were farmer bred. I mean, what I do is really nothing more than what the farmers in the 1800s and early 1900s did themselves. It's just that once we got, made it sophisticated enough that, you know, it was time that, you know, Seedsmen started making these seed companies that popped up all through the 20s, 30s and 40s and said, you know what? We're going to make this part of my farming business is to make seed from my neighbors. We're going to select the best ones and sell it. And you started adding science to that, which is basically what Henry Wallace did. back in the 20s for Pioneer, and that's where Pioneer got to start, is adding that science with what he thought he needed for his farm or what his neighbors needed, which is better

standing, better yielding hybrids. And that's how we worked away from the pretty year contest and started applying genetics. And so what Henry Wallace did then was he started growing different varieties of corn that he was accumulating from across the country and crossing them together to make hybrids and that's when we started making that move from the open pollinated to hybrid corn. And it just happened to hit right because a lot of those experimentations that Henry Wallace was doing in the late 20s and then when he got in joined forces with a young farmer who turned into the Pioneer's first plant breeder, his name was Raymond Baker. Those two guys together started making corn hybrids in the 30s when we went through the Depression and a couple

droughts and I think it was 33 and 36. So I wasn't around then, but so I heard that was what happened. But that's when they first had hybrid corn out. And that hybrid corn in those drought years of 33 and 36 made such a difference that it was so evident to farmers that that's that was mass adoption. Yeah, that they were willing to pay a buck a pound for seed to not save their own but buy it from somebody else. And that was basically the start of the hybrid sea corn business for pioneer for Iowa and frankly for the Midwest is that 30s decade. So in the time that you've been involved in it, how has your job changed?

How has the technology changed the selection process and how you bring a hybrid to market? Yep. It's changed a lot. And I will give, just like the ag, just like I gave a shout out for the ag community of teaching, anybody that's willing to learn ag, they're also probably the fastest adopters of technology.

And so whether it's, one, frankly, computers changed a lot of what we do, just from data analysis. So, I mean, my job, I look at thousands and thousands and thousands of different corn lines and different experimental hybrids to work their way through the system to figure out what the best ones are.

I spend most of my time getting rid of the losers, right? So that we can make room for the winners to come through. And just having the computing ability, to do that has made our job way, way easier. And that started happening in the, you know, probably the 60s and 70s. I mean, most of the breeder, the older readers I network with now are just retiring.

They're, you know, back when the punch cards, yeah, they were talking about how many, they used to have to send all their data in so they could get punch cards made of it to get the analysis back. Wow. And so, and that's all taken off. I mean, right now I take all my notes on the iPads. I mean, I don't do, I don't use, you know, paper, paper for anything.

Yep. And it's just because everything's barcoded, us keeping track of all the genetics that we keep track of on an experimental basis. So you can do a lot more and off way faster time. Yeah, the magnitude is a lot more. Now, the other thing that's probably one of the other key changes in the plant breeding industry is being to do, being able to do stuff off cycle. And so when people think about corn and breeding corn, they say, oh, yeah, well, you spend a lot of time here in the summer outside. But actually, the biggest thing about corn breeding is we make sure we get two cycles in a year. and so we find all the good hybrids now,

and then I just went through advancement, just finished it yesterday, finished the final advancement process of finding the better hybrids. And then once we find those better hybrids, we have to take the two parents of them, they're the inbreds, and reproduce them, make more seeds.

So we send my staff and other staff are busy sending seed down to winter nurseries. So we grow corn in Puerto Rico, Hawaii, Port of Air, to Mexico, all these different places where we produce corn, and we've got to get sent back in time to hit planting next year. Yeah, right.

So it's, the clock never stops. It's almost, it feels like that movie Castaway where, if you remember Castaway, um, Tom Hanks is, you know, trying to coax him into figuring out how FedEx can move fast and the clock never stops.

It's pretty much my life feels like. Yeah. Work of bees and the corn breeder is that we make things we, we do a lot and we go fast. Um, so that would be a big change. So computing, sending seed to off cycle nurseries and then probably just the, the modifications in equipment.

And so it started with combines, because we have special research combines at combine plots, modifying that equipment. And then right now, probably the newest one is drones. Oh, sure. We take a lot,

a lot of notes by using UAVs. Yeah, I can imagine. That's pretty cool. Yep. So out of my staff, I should my staff, out of the pioneer staff at Marion Research Center,

you know, there's probably about 20 of us there. And we probably have two to three people that are dedicated in the summer months of just flying drones. Yep. and collecting data shout if you're a young kid out there learn how to fly drone yeah yeah it'd be a good that could be a good little hustle for you yep because you got to be good at it that all the crop scouts are you know they're using drones like crazy now so it's awesome uh one thing i wanted to throw in there

and this is kind of going back to like all the different types of corn that the average consumer out there really you know they don't have any really connection there's other other ways that we use corn around the world than just ethanol, feed and livestock, and what was the other one, I forget. Starch, the starch, yeah, wet milling, yeah. So could you talk about just a little bit how corn's used outside of those three things for products that we kind of use? Yeah, you bet. And so one of the things I didn't touch on was, so most of those three areas, the high total

for minerals, high extractable starch, high available energy. And we still do characterize hybrids for those functions. but you have the whole section of food corn, you know, and that's actually a really cool area because, you know, when you're, when you're making those hybrids, you know, the end consumer is not necessarily a pig, a cow, or a production, or industrial plant, but it's you, you, you know, the human consumer. So white corn, pioneer leads the way in developing white corn hybrids. And so when you go buy a bag of, you know, frito chips or tostito chips, most of that, likely that corn probably came from a pioneer bag of seed that a farmer grew. and we do pay attention to how to make those corn hybrids in for different uses. I mean, the guys making Bud Light want a little bit different corn varieties. The guys making tortilla chips and then the folks making, oh, I'm trying to figure out with the corn grits. Oh, yeah.

I didn't even think about that for the South and other areas that eat grits. So there's that type of corn and then, you know, and the waxy corn, which has its industrial purposes. Yeah, what is that? It's just a little bit different starch that have different characteristics. And so where waxy corn actually got at start, if I remember right, from my plant breeding history, was that during World War II, there was a ban on the import of tapioca. And tapioca kind of has the same starch consistency as waxy corn.

Oh, okay. And the guys breeding corn is like, well, we think we can get a replacement for that during the 40s. Use it out. By you making waxy corn. Yeah, because I. And it's usually using a lot of industrial applications. Okay. All right. So, but you guys fail to mention my favorite corn, and that's the little pickled corn that you get on the salad bars.

Oh, yeah. You miss that one. Who hot? Who hot? Exactly. That's right. Yep. So.

Where's that come from? They just harvest it really early. And so, and I assume it's done manually. I don't know. I actually would like to learn more about that myself. Yeah. You know what? I think about it every time I go to the salad bar.

Well, I do, I guess I have too. And I always have thought, like, how's that? Well, I guess I don't, I've never. had the interest to pull an ear when it's first developing in a field to see if our field corn if it's that darn tiny but it would have to be i think you could bring it in and pickle it yourself yep so all these people out listen to your podcast now i'll be darned pickled corn recipes and see if i'll be darned i might go home and try it myself well there you go next summer that's pretty good that's pretty good so i don't know if that got where you were going no no yeah that's that's perfect i just you know

the average person out there really doesn't know that they, when they think of corn, they just think field corn, sweet corn, you know, and they don't know that there's other uses for corn that we use in the world. And I think every, you know, like there's industrial uses for it, you know, people, I don't even know if a lot, you know, there's a few people. Well, it's like plastic. Everybody. Yeah, right.

I mean, there's a lot of plastic today that's made. Yeah, and near and dear to my heart, I wish more people would use this. I really like the corn-based packing peanuts. Oh, yeah. that when you're done with them, you just hose them down and they just melt. Because shout out to the mercantile. We always have to plug the mercantile. My wife's home goods store in Washington, Iowa, we get a lot of boxes,

and we get a lot of packing peanuts. And this guy is the one that has to get rid of all. And when I open those packs, so a lot of people, there's two ways they've gone. They've gone to these bags of air, these plastic. It's like a corrugated thing. and there's cylinders of air. There's no bubble wrap anymore. No bubble wrap.

They've gone to that or they use these packing peanuts. And I like the packing peanuts because they just meld away. You can just get rid of them really easy. So anyway. Yeah, I made, I don't know, it was a few years back. I made a trip to Washington, D.C. to help lobby Congress for some corn-related activities from the academic sector. And we ate lunch in the cafeteria where Congress eats lunch.

lunch? Yeah. Or, yeah, lunch, I suppose. They don't work until supper.

Who am I kidding? And they had, all their silver robbers made out of corn starch, you know, compressed corn starch for being recyclable and disposable. So I thought that's pretty cool.

They probably didn't give me anything sharp so they wouldn't stab each other. That's right. They got to keep it civil there. Yeah, that's right. That's right. So as far as corn hybrids go,

and my guess is that this is probably has sped up as technology was improved. But what would you say on average from the first level of the selection process till I buy a bag of Pioneer Seed corn, how long a time period is that? Yeah. So historically it's probably been nine, 10 years.

I would say now it's somewhere between seven and six years. Yeah. So it's a pretty lengthy. So you start, so it's like a funnel. It is very much. So you have this huge. A good analogy. Chunk of possibilities.

And then at each, that's like you were talking about, you just, you're constantly eliminate the weakest link, the weakest hybrid. So maybe I'll back up one step and try to explain it like this because, and no offense, but it's really, it's actually hard to explain. I went down this road with my folks a couple times. You know, usually do it a few times because it's not everybody thinks about developing corn hybrids. And so, you know, when you say the word hybrid, it's actually a combination of two things, right?

in this case, it's two in breads. And the reason we call them imbreds is because they, they breed true. And so every time we have imbred, a female inbred, and we cross it with the male inbred, every one of those plants or kernels of corn that cross produces is genetically the same. Okay. And that's why what we sell to growers then in our bag of seed, every one of those kernels is genetically exactly the same. Yep. And that's why, you know, not to get off too much in a tangent, but when we're trying to breed corn,

we're not trying to breed how much that any one plant can produce on its own, but it's the acre. How much can that acre produce on its own? So we want all those plants to act and function as one, you know, clone army almost, right? And, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, so, so, to start with then, that's going to talk about the differences between embrids and hybrids. And so, if you don't think about corn a lot, there's some, excuse me, there's some examples that are really close to home for some folks and it's the laberdoodles. And so for folks to have laberdoodles, you know, it was that combination of labs and poodles. And so for me, as a guy, if I were to, instead of breeding corn, I was breeding laberdoodles, if I had my whole pool of labs,

and those are going to be my male stock and my whole pool of different poodles would be my female stock, I basically am always trying to come up with different poodles to be a parent and different labs. Okay. And so the poodles, I'll cross poodles by poodles and try to make better poodles. Yep. And labs by labs to try to make better labs. But when I'm going to go make something I'm going to give to the consumer, I make my

Laberdoodle. Yep. And I cross a lab with a poodle. Right. Now, that's a good analogy. That's what I give, you know, that's what you guys as farmers would see is the Laberdoodle. Yeah.

Behind the scenes, I'm breeding labs and poodles. See, he thought this up because he knew who he was going to be talking to. He's like, I got to, I got to make this story. where they can understand. Well, I talk to a lot of 4-H kids. Well-played, well-played. And, you know, but it's really hard when you don't think about how the difference between hybrids and imbreds a lot. That's what, you know, just to keep relating to maybe some of your listeners,

tomatoes that you grabbed for your plant in your garden. Same deal. They have imbreds, and then when they cross the hybrids you, sorry, the tomato plants you go by are hybrid tomatoes. Yep. usually. And that's because they're trying to get genes, genes for disease resistance from parent one, or the female parent and the male parent. And then when they combine them, they have twice as many disease resistance genes. Yep. And that's very, very similar to what we do with corn. And frankly, you do that with hogs too. Yeah, right. I mean, you know, that's like Durox, usually use them as your males, right?

Because they eat their dang babies. Yep, that's right. They're not good. That could have been the problem. So I grew up, uh, farmer's hybrid was what we used. and there was very little white. Everything was colored. The mothers and the boars. And they'd only fare about eight pigs because they weren't very good mothers. And that was part of the problem that farmers, that's why there's no farmer's hybrid today.

But they were eight really good pigs. They were big, tough pigs because they had all that basically Durrock and Hamph and Poland, China. But it didn't work on the, they got kind of hammered when PIC came. knock and to Calb and they had gone and worked really hard on the York Landrace large white cross and then they put a hamper a Durac Boar on it. You got a lot better litter and you got a mother that could raise that litter and that kind of that kind of hammered the farmer's hybrid which once again if anybody is out there I got a what was that guy's name that sent us the pig factory sign gosh dang I can't remember

If you're watching, thanks to you. I really appreciate it. We've got it up in the barn. I meant to do a shot of it. We should bring it down here. But if any of you have one of those nice black and white bore power signs from back in the 70s, Torque's looking for one. I'd love to have one of them.

But ours got cut up to patch holes in the corn crib. So don't let a good piece of metal go to waste. But anyway, I got off there. No, but that's, but for your, the comment you made about the land race is there you make better female. And, you know, they have bigger litter sizes. They don't lay on their babies, but they don't eat them. Right. And it's the same thing.

When you look at a production field for making corn, you know, where they de Tass, grow four rows and detassel one, that's the process that we're doing to combine that female and male seed. Seed stock together. And so we select on the females, or the poodles in this case, right, we're trying to make sure that it produces a lot of seed. And the males, we have to have a big enough tassel on those to cover. The four rows of production field. Exactly. And a pollen to cover the four rows in the production field when you're making the hybrid seed.

So it's very much similar to this wine industry. I just thought about this. So within your system, do you have researchers that focus on just the male and female and people then that just focus on doing the hybrids? Or do you do a little bit of both? So we've, through the areas of plant breeding in a lot of different places,

They've done different models of that very same thing. People that focused on making the inbreds and in the analogy, the poodles and then the labs. And then people that said, okay, thanks for the thanks. We'll take it from here. Yeah. So the way we currently do it is I do both things. Yep. So I make the seed stock.

And then I also myself and the group of breeders that I work with, you know, cross those together and figure out which combinations to cross. And then that's where we make those thousands and thousands of different options, you know, optional crosses and then go plan them out in the field and test them and that's when you were talking about your funnel that's that's the very first step of that funnel is narrowing it up and when you do that progeny test and says okay we use this poodle number 571 and you know that poodle just everything we use her for doesn't work very well then we kick her out no different no different than a line of corn and we're like so we just quickly sort through the lines of corn that aren't going to get us anywhere, narrow it down to the parents that are the best, and then cross those to make the

combinations that we think are going to work out for farmers. How many, like on average, like are good performing, you know, how do I even say this? They're like a good performing, and like a seed plot. How many losers do you throw out versus how many winners there are? Yeah, it's average. Very, very high rate. So for every generation, let's say, of research, it's probably more like 90% we get rid of. Okay. And just keep the the best 10%. And so it's kind of like, if in the last four years of testing a hybrid, um, so it's basically aligns with like, you know, the freshman, sophomore, junior, senior year of your high school class, right? And then there's, you eventually get to graduate. It's just that

along the way, if we kicked out 90% of your class along the way, there'd be like two kids left at the end of the year, right? Right. Right. And that's basically what we do is the opposite. Not everybody gets to go forward. We're basically kicking them out. Yeah. And, uh, yeah. And, uh, so we spend more time and more resources on the good ones. Yep, yep. And that's really what it's about, because what we want to do is make sure that by the time we get it to growers, that we have it fairly well characterized.

And so that we can tell if that hybrid's going to do what we said is going to do. Gotcha. And so, but there's many reasons to get kicked out of, you know, the corn breeding pipeline. It's not just yield. I mean, the biggest thing, of course, is yield because we already got a package of hybrids that yield enough that growers.

are currently selling. We're trying to improve how much they yield, right? And increase that income per acre. But at the same time, we're trying to stabilize it by having decent agronomics. And so that, you know, whether there's root lodging or stock lodging or willing or whatever, you pick, you pick the thing

that's going to happen to your corn product that we're trying to protect against. Is that the biggest struggle of, you know, finding a new hybrid is getting rid of the losers? Is it pretty easy to, like, say, okay, this is a loser? We've got to cut it. Like, what's the biggest struggle of developing a new hybrid do you think? Yeah. Well, the biggest struggle is actually,

um, there's, there's no one perfect hybrid, right? And so when I think of hybrids and when I, when the people that I work with as a breeding team think of what we need to do for the growers, it's not come up with a single type of hybrid, but it's actually come up with a, you know, a product portfolio. And so you guys were talking about stocks earlier, right? And it's no different than that, really. You can, you're not going to go put all your money on Bitcoin. Right. Right. I hope. Right. You're going to put your money, you know, you're going to put your different places and

you're going to have different strategies. And that's no different than what I would rather see growers do is don't pick the one or two hybrids that you only want because you just want huge boxes of seed, right? But spread it out a little bit. I know. Cough, cough, this is a perfect tee up right here. So spread it out just a little bit, right? So you have a package of hybrids.

Yeah. And so we start very early, to answer your question, so we start very early in the pipeline, trying to make different hybrids for those very specific purposes. This is going to be all-ealder. This one's going to be a little more defensive. They're not going to talk about it at the coffee shop, but they're not going to be frustrated by it either. It's going to do what they want it to do on a consistent basis.

So developing that portfolio is the biggest challenge. Exactly. So when you think of it that way, then it's very hard to discern what's good and bad. Right. And one more caveat to that is, as you're thinking about breeding corn across the United States, what the grower in Ohio thinks is good or bad,

compared to what the grower in Iowa thinks is good or bad, compared to the folks in Nebraska. Very, very different opinions on what makes a good hybrid. Yeah. Well, and weather and soil type and crop production. Yeah, I mean. They're going to come and thump on your corn product. Yep. So.

Well, you got right into what? Because I'm that guy. I'm that guy. Because, so we've got 400 acres here. And on any given year, I plant about 250 acres of corn. So we got, basically I got three big fields now. We've managed to clear everything out to where we got three big fields, and one of them is

corn on corn, one of them is corn on bean ground, and one of them goes to beans. And I'm not going to lie. There have been more than one occasion that I've said to, said Nick Rogers, you know, just give me 1197. I'll just plant the whole damn thing to 1197. And then you have a year like... That probably makes him cringe a little bit. Yeah, well, no, you won't do it.

He won't do it. And no matter how hard I try, he won't do it. And then there's years like two years ago. Two years ago, sorry. Well, we're in, this season, last crop season, he got really dry. And when you're riding in the combine, and every other ear that hits the outside snoot of 1197,

the shank breaks and it rolls off instead of rolls in. And you call Nick and say, 1197, da-da-da-da-da-da, would have yield. But guess what? It still yielded good, but it was a pain in the butt to harvest. Right. But then this year, we had great weather. We had great weather.

I mean, we were a week. If it would have not rained for 10 more days, it would have been a whole different story. But we got that rain. Best crop I've ever raised. I had four other hybrids, all good hybrids. Guess what probably the best corn I raised was? 1197.

I'm back to Nick Rogers. He's like, hey, how is your whatever? I'm like, not as good as 1197. We're planting the whole, we're going to plant the whole farm next year. He's like, no, no, you're not going to do that. Okay. So what my question I had written down is, and we kind of touched on it, we kind of answered it. But like I tell them, all I want you to do is just give my 1197 just a little better stock string, and it'd be the perfect hybrid. Why can't you guys just make it a better? Why can't you just make it a little better?

Well, I think I know, because you can explain. Well, we do. I mean, to be honest, we do try to do that, because we don't like going back to the drawing board all the time, right? And so we want to make, I mean, if we know what's wrong with 1197, we'll try to go fix that thing. And we know the two or three things that are wrong with it. Usually what happens in the corn breeding process is everybody thinks of it as a linear, you know, we gain a couple bushels every year over the span of, you know, 50 years or whatever, and we're making gains, which we are, we're making lots of gains and average corn yields. but what happens usually is there's step change hybrids and 1197 was kind of that step change hybrid that got everybody's attention and so but to make a stable profitable income that's it right you should really spread out a little bit because to protect yourself against years and the way I look at it you know and talk to my team is it's no different than a football team or a baseball team everybody knows everybody knows the quarterback right and it's hard to name off unless you're a fanatic it's hard to do you

name off all the other players on the team, but the other players on the team, they're the ones that help you drive you to the Super Bowl, too. Yeah. Right. And, you know, I remember Joe Montana, Dan Marino, but I don't remember any of the other guys on those teams, right? But I remember those guys. And we do that with hybrids too, whether it's 1197, 3394, 33, 67, back in the old days, 3780, you know, those type of hybrids, they bring, they bring back fond memories to people because they were Cep change, recognizable things. And I will say in, in what you're saying, Part of the problem with a hybrid like 1197 is, you don't plant it everywhere. So you plan it on your best ground.

That's right. And it does phenomenal. And I don't plan it where I know it's going to be challenged. So all I know is that it's fantastic. If I planted it everywhere, I wouldn't say that. But we're all in the same boat. All of us are in the same boat. We put them out there.

And then when you have a hybrid that does that, you're just like, well, damn, I should have plant the whole farm. And that's very much just like the stock market, isn't it? I mean, you see that stock go up, you're like, man, I should have put everything in Bitcoin. What in the world is wrong with me? But, you know, your good knowledge and experience at the end of the day says it's probably not the best thing. And so my goal really is, is to make sure that we get those all-star quarterbacks found. Make sure we get those good hybrids out there. And, but at the same time, provide a team of other hybrids around them so that you can develop that portfolio. My job really, the way I look at it is I try to make increase the profit for farmers, not just, you know, the performance of one or two things, but the overall profit margin is really what I'm after. Yeah, it's good that there's people like you because if farmers ran everything, we'd only have a crop every three years when we had that perfect weather and then the rest of it'd be a train wreck, because all we had, if you had 10 farmers, nine of it would be, well, breed for yield, breed for yield, breed for yield. And then it'd be like, well, why is it followed over?

Oh, yeah, we didn't, we didn't worry about the stockwall. We just wanted to yield. But you know, and part of that is just the experience of seeing how hybrids, the experience that I get that a lot of people don't is the experience of seeing how hybrids perform across the United States. And you really do get to see, see what diseases thump on them. I mean, if you go to Nebraska, a lot of the hybrids that we would sell in Illinois would just get thumped on for goss as well.

Oh, sure. And that bacterial disease, you just really got to be. really good for Goss's wilt to be sold in eastern Nebraska. Sure. If you go to take that same hybrid that you'd grow in Iowa and ship it off to Pennsylvania, you're going to get a different set of diseases. And they're going to be like, man, it sure did. It was a nice hybrid if it wouldn't have died from Grayleaf Spa.

Yeah. Things like that. So it's just thinking about where those hybrids need to go and what soil types. I mean, whether there's clays or loams or, you know, deep soils that, you know, a lot of deep soils and aren't going to hold the roots up and get root lodging. I mean, that's where a lot of my breeding response. responsibility is for the state of Illinois as well. And so those guys have really deep prairie soils, right? And so you got to make sure you have good roots to hold into those prairie soils where folks in clay areas,

they're like, they never see root lodge. Yeah, there's nothing. There's right. Yeah. You don't have that. Just I can talk on and on so about why you want different varieties of corn. But yeah, we'll try to make 1197 better torque. Well, so, but when you say that, it's going to, to be so you you know the you know the parents that you cross to get that and so then when you have a hybrid like that what in what you're doing to work off of that would be you probably are you know that you've got a really good parent one side or both sides whatever so then you're taking those two parents and you're crossing with something else because you know you got a great result with this so you're thinking well if we can find a different combination absolutely but it won't

never be the same reader you got you got it no no you don't want that you know somebody somebody somewhere would be like where where's torque where i haven't seen him in like in three days because i have a tendency to just wonder off but um once a hybrid is crossed you can't really modify that Am I right in that? For the most part, yes, you're right in that. The thing that I would say, well, let me explain what you mean, I think. So make sure we got clarity around that. So once you make that cross between inbred parent one,

Embred parent two, and I make 1197, it's pretty much fixed because, you know, the trans genes that we put in there for Roundup or BT, we put those in the parents and we cross them together. And you're going to get 1197 all the time. in order to make something new, I got to go back and I got to pick one of those parents and change it. And change it. Yeah. And make it better.

Make something about it better, just what you were describing. And so whether if 1190, you know, well, I'm called 1197, but if a hybrid has, you know, bad roots, let's say. And I think it's coming from, I know where it's coming from. We always know most apart it's coming from one or the other, right? Oh, if it's coming from mama, then we're going to go back and we're going to fix mama's roots. And, you know, maybe we'd cross it back to the same male and try to make that hybrid again. just a little bit better. Okay.

But a lot of times, a lot of times, our genetic gain is moving fast enough. In other words, we're improving yield that we don't want to go back and cross it to the same dad again or the same, because you've already got something better. Yeah,

you would, in swine industry, you've got a new bore usually, right? If five years from now, you're going to have a new bore or new bowl, so there's no use of waste in the time to go back. Exactly. Because we,

if we're doing our job, we've made improvement on both sides of that gene pool to make hybrids. And so you usually don't go back just because it's not advantageous to do so. So now, at the same time, you know, we know the pedigree tree all the way back to the 1920s for the corn that I'm working on, which is really cool. And so I know if, you know, I know which hybrids that you guys have out here now that have grandparents of 1197. Yeah. Right. Or sorry, they're that 1187 parents would be their grandparents. Yeah. Right. And so when you, we're not me driving down looking at hybrid.

signs is a little bit more thrilling than other people because I'm like, oh, yeah, that's the, you know, that's the son or that's the aunt, you know, of said different hybrid. So that's interesting. So the one difference that you, once you have a hybrid, the only thing that I would say we can change, it would be an example is, is if we took a hybrid and said, you know what, we're going to make that hybrid into a waxy hybrid. Oh, sure. And so that would be the one characteristic that we could change. And that was just because there's one gene that changes from normal starch to waxy starch. you just have that gene. It's a recessive gene you put it on both sides

and you put those parents back together again and you've got the same hybrid, but now it's a waxy hybrid. So that would be the one example where you take the hybrid and change just a little bit that changes the starch profile. So I won't, I'm going to try not to stay nostalgic on my hybrids

because there should be something better coming. Yeah. There's usually always something better coming. Yeah. But you know it. Andy will let us know too I'll send us a text and be like hey I'll really piss

I'll really piss Nick off when he gives me his recommendations here next week and I go well I'll get back to you I got to call Andy and see what he thinks about it there you go yeah I'll get lots of hate mail in it is like look I don't even have that hybrid yet for all of those that you have questions about your

agronomy recommendations from your dealers we'll put Andy's cell phone in the in the comments feel free to call him and ask him whether or not you think. Waste this time. Yeah. He hasn't got anything to do. One thing I wanted to talk about a little bit and get your, you know, your two cents on is

GMOs. To the average person out there that really doesn't understand, they just see non-GMO on the label at the grocery store and they don't really know what GMOs are and why we use them and why we went that route. Can you give them kind of your two cents on that and a little breakdown of why we use GMOs? Yeah, I sure can sure try. So, you know, GMOs, that term genetically modified organism is where that came from, right?

So it usually implies some biological organism that got modified through a, what people would classify as a non-native event. And so a lot of what I do is breeding corn is all considered native modification. I mean, I'm modifying genetics too, right? It's just that I do it in a native way. And so, but this is really an example of where, you know, science came along and our ability to do molecular genetics. was able to change a lot of things for not just our cropping system, but also for humans, too. Yep. I mean, whether it's the new vaccines that people or folks are taken, right?

Yep. Is it a key example of, you know, modifying genetics to whether it's viral or some other organism to our benefit. And so GMOs back in the 70s when they figured that they could insert genes into plants with a gene gun, you know, that was where the first step of being able to, you know, change the organism for the better. And so, and a lot of times I consider it for the better. I probably have a biased opinion for the people that don't like GMOs, they would consider I have a biased opinion. But I see what the advantageous things that it does for individual consumers and for society as a whole. And so we'll pick one. If you pick BT as an example, one of the first ones we put into corn, the reason we put it there was to bring.

protected against European corn borer, army worm, things like that, um, that get in and destroy the, destroy the corn crop. The very first thing that it did for growers was, is for European cornboard, they'd get in the tunnel into the shanks of the corn and your ears are dropped. So you,

I mean, it would be horrible ear droppage where in the flights of European corn borers in those years would be really bad. Yep. Um, so it saved a ton on yield. The thing that it did for the other consumers that we probably doesn't, not get enough credit for is this,

you know, if you thought of a corn crop that was unprotected from army worm, let's say, in certain areas where army worm becomes prolific, is that those worms would get in there and they chew on your kernels of corn before you go harvest it, right? And so it's like in the August time frame, August September. And then they would open up those kernels of corn and that starch would be exposed and then molds grow on there. And so you get all sorts of nasty molds growing in your kernels of corn that then that got harvested and made their way into the food change. And then that starts to be exposed. And then system or into the feed system. And so that's where a lot of, you know, the concerns of swine industry about certain levels of mycotoxins come from is damaged corn, right? And then the environments that cause that mold to grow in the cornfields. So having BT protection really drop that level of insect pressure, which in turn dropped the mycotoxin exposure to the swine industry into a lot of other, I mean, for us eating

corn chips. And so that's why I, as a plant reader, consider, you know, most GMOs to be beneficial. not just to the farmers, but to society and the consumers as a whole. So you're not just, your mission isn't just to out here to just kill humans and be the evil people that they all like to pay you to be. It's, it's really too bad that, you know, people got on to that of, oh, it's the corporations trying to, you know, subject themselves onto society or trying to get what they want us to have, you know, try to, the corporation is trying to get something. It's, it's not that. I mean, most of the people that sit in my chair trying to breed corn are doing it

from what we talked about at the very beginning. I'm trying to make something better for what would have been my dad, mom, and I'm trying to do something better for the American farmer and for the world farmer. And frankly, you know, so we can keep increasing the food structure and food productivity that we have in the United States and other countries. I mean, we're not, they're not making any more land, right? And so we got to, the land that we have, we have to use it wiser, use it better. And we have to produce the same amount of food in that ground.

And so, yeah. Yeah, the human population is not stopping. It's continuing to grow. And, you know, one of our main jobs in agriculture is trying to figure out how to feed them. Right. Yeah. And I think that's something that a lot of people just trace over. They don't even think about that.

Well, they're just so, you know, most people are disconnected that they don't understand that, yeah, there's the lands. We're not, they're not making more of land. And we got to keep. There's actually less. There's less. And we got to keep producing all this food. And we got to do it in a way that is, you know, productive. Here's an editorial comment.

If you're someone that's worried about GMOs, when you pick. a cup of bag of frito's corn chip that you're going to go home and dip in uh nacho cheese sauce and you're looking for frito corn chips that say non-gMO uh gmos are the least of your problems at that point it's kind of like looking for a non-gMO slim gym or something like that you know it it just it kills me what gets a rise out of people because and it's kind of the same way with medicine in that throughout this whole the pandemic that we're still in much has been made about the vaccine and mass and distancing and all these things we need to do. But the thing I think is most curious is the people that are most susceptible are people that have

underlying health conditions. And nothing has been made about exercise, what you eat. what you eat. Vitamin D. Vitamin. Basically. Your basic health. Our country is very good at, if I get hit by a truck,

the United States is probably the best health care system in the world for keeping me alive and fixing me. However, if I make bad choices and I eat terribly and I don't exercise, we are the worst country for treating the symptom or, treating the disease and not worrying about the symptom. In other words, we don't talk about, we don't talk about, you know, the things that we need to be talking about. And I feel like GMOs are kind of the same way in the fact that a lot of the, people are looking at shit junk food and they're saying, I'm not going to get this junk food because it says, it doesn't have a GMO. Yeah, it really is preventative maintenance. Yeah. It is a lot of what GMOs are for. And it's,

you know, if we can keep insects at a bay, yeah, then it's going to make a better product for, you know, for the growers and for the consumers. And so it is kind of sad when science gets politicized. Yes. And that's really a lot of what we're dealing with in society. And so, you know, as my job, and that's what makes, it's frustrating for folks in plant reading because at the end of the day, we just want to merge in, what can we do for growers?

How can we do it better, taking the science that we know, all forms of science and trying to make that a better product that we do want, you know, as a safe product. Yeah. And I should probably let you know, I mean, when we talk about GMOs, people, we don't rush GMOs to market. I mean, when I told you it took seven years to get a product, a new corn hybrid developed, it takes longer than that to go through from figuring out, you know, what a GMO, you know, what new GMO or how would we change a corn plan and a transgenic approach?

How would we do it to going ahead and doing it to having trials where we conduct that research and then actually letting it get to the consumer? So we have to go through probably on average, I would say, almost 15 years of science and evaluation of that before would ever hit a consumer. And it's, you probably make sure safety's the number one concern. Yeah. That's a thing. Yes. I mean, we're monitored by the USDA for sure.

I mean, everything, any trial that we do that's, you know, not approved for the food chain is monitored almost monthly and by the USDA. And we get random inspections at research sites. And they'll just, the USDA will call up and say, hey, we're coming to look at your books, you know, and we better have them in order, which we do. And so we spend a lot of time just making sure that, you know, everything's accounted for. Everything's accounted for. So, but again, most of what I do specifically is not the GMOs. I'm, you know, if you think of adding GM, adding a trans gene to a hybrid, it's kind of like adding a, adding a new radio to a car. My job in the

overall process to develop the chassis of the car and develop the new Ford F150 or whatever. And then if somebody wants to add that new component to airbags and other things to keep that product safe. Yeah, that's kind of what we do with adding DMOs to the final chassis of the hybrid. Yeah, it's kind of similar to what you talked about if you had an existing hybrid that you could make that a waxy hybrid. So you develop the hybrid first and then if a technology is out there that they decide that it's worthwhile looking at it to see if you could add that. That's, that's an add on basically. Yep, it's an add on that. And it needs to provide value, right? And I mean, we don't do it.

It's very, very expensive for us to do it. Sure. It's to us to bring a new trans gene to the marketplace or to switch a different trans gene in hybrids. It's insanely expensive. And so it has to have a purpose. It has to have a purpose. And somebody has to have a benefit from it.

And it's usually, you know, it's not the seed company as much as it has to have the grower and the consumer in mind when we do that. Yeah. Okay. Well, that's kind of a tie-in to, you know, we're trying to add value to these hybrids or we're trying to make a hybrid better. What is the, how far can we take the corn plant that we're, you know, we talk about our populations growing, our inputs get more expensive. So if you're a farmer, your inputs get more

expensive, your rent gets more expensive, your equipment gets more expensive. The way you justify that is if I can grow more bushels the acre, and if I can market those bushels for a higher value, that's how I offset my cost getting higher every year. But, you know, our yields, I grew up, and if our corn made 150 bushel, boy, we thought that was really, really good, to where now, you know, we grow 250 bushel and we think that's really good.

That's right. And you see the people that are winning the corn growers or the yield contest. Well, what is the, like, is, I know that I'm kind of putting you on the spot, but I guess generally thinking, like, how far can we take? Is there a ceiling? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You know, I suppose there is, but I would be remiss if I called it out and said what it would, what the ceiling's going to be because I'm sure I would be wrong. Um, because I'm sure to go past what I envisioned or what any, you know, the three of us could envision. Um, maybe I'll frame it up this way. I know that there's a sales rep. Pioneer sales rep in Eastern Iowa, and they've been keeping track of their plot average.

You know, the package of hybrids that they sell to farmers every year, they've been keeping track of the yield of those hybrids for the last 25 years. And that's it. They've kind of sent out a publication to some of the breeders that, hey, look, we've been doing this, which is really cool. You know, just in the time that I've been in the Seek corn industry and started my job, well, yeah, started my job of going to Iowa State and being in the Seekorn industry, we've probably, based off that plot, probably increased the average, you know, the average yield about 50 bushels. Yeah. I mean, that's, you know, that's two bushels a year. Yeah. And so I could easily see us hitting, you know, 300, you know, if you get a field average of 300 someday. Yeah. You know, we'll be sitting here old then and say, well, I can't remember back in my day. We didn't even think of that. But yeah, right. Then it'll be, I think we'll be able to do it. And so, and it's probably going to be closer, you know, I'm going to, I'm going to hopefully retire early, but.

So we better get, we better make corn move a little faster, maybe three or four bushels a year. But yeah, I, I think the ceiling is probably closer to 300 if I had to pick, which I just said I wouldn't. But now here's the thing is I'm only I and pioneer and the breeders like me that do our job. We're only half the equation. It really goes back to the management by growers too. And so there was an old study that, you know, as we looked at the increase in corn yields across years, it's usually about 50% of the effect is what I do by making better genetics. And in the seed,

not just me or pioneer, but seed corn companies in general, giving you better genetics. And the other 50% is really what you do with them. Yep. You know, how you become better farmers, how you treat that seed,

you know, whether it's seed treatments, planting earlier, planting better, you know, getting the right spacing on your, on your planting. I mean,

what I said earlier in our conversation was is that I don't think of, of how to increase yield on a per plant basis, but it's how to increase yield on a per acre basis. And so making sure that the grower treats that acre as one uniform critter and making sure all those plants get the equal

opportunity to grow simultaneously all at once, I think it's key to raising yield. Yeah, and you have everybody, and I'm as guilty of this as anybody, that it's very easy to get caught into what you've always done. And when you think

about it, and I'm there's people that are still that are doing this but you know when you feed that crop there's a lot of people that's feed they're feeding a crop based on what their yield was what their yield potential was even five years ago and as the potential gets greater the way you feed that crop the way you fertilize it be different that's got to be different too and you know we try to keep up on yeah all that stuff You got to keep with up the times. Because what we did last year may not be what we should be doing this year or what may be out there to be able to do next year.

We are the other half of that equation. Farmers are the other half. And you got to be with the times and try new stuff and be on the forefront. Because, yeah, if they're doing their part on their half, we got to be doing our part to increase that yield, you know. Well, and that's why, you know, really we have to stay in sync and pay attention to what growers are doing. because, you know, if you make a hybrid that can yield a lot and it's not being fed right

or being fed too much or too little, it can, you know, cause us not being syncing you you not get the ultimate performance out of the hybrid you want. Well, just know whatever happens is your fault. We've been duly, we know. And on that, when you were talking about, you know, increasing the yield two or three bushel a year. To my fertilizer provider, that means that you can only raise the costs of my fertilizer. Let's just say $3 to $6 a year.

So we'll go back to $3 corn. So I think that would be a good plan. We'll just say, I'll just sign a deal with you. You know, my yield, I'm going to try to get my yield to go up two bushel a year and you can raise my chemical and input costs $3 to $6 a year. and I'll sign that for as many years as you want. So, Brad, get back to me. Well, I think we'll wrap it up here.

I think we nailed about everything that you could think. I really enjoyed it. It answered a lot. I hope it answered a lot of questions that people had. I sure thought it was interesting. And, I mean, it's the kind of thing that you just don't know if you don't ask. And I feel better about Nick not letting me plant 100% one number. now I know there's, I know it's just not him being mean that there's a reason behind it.

Yep. So he's off the hook. And you're kind of your why is really cool as to why you're a seed breeder, you know, you're just getting revenge on the 80s. I thought that was a really good tie to, you know, tie in just to show people that, you know, you got a reason to why you're doing what you're doing. And it's cool. Yeah.

And it's not just me. I mean, all the plant breeders, um, not, and it's, all the plant breeders are pioneer and the ones for, you know, our competitors. They have similar reasons. I mean, most of us got involved in ag and trying to make the better corn hybrid. No different than Henry Wallace did back in the early beginnings is we're trying to improve the rural communities, trying to improve agriculture, and we want to be partners in doing so. And so this was just our way to do it.

You know, I wasn't going to be able to go back and farm. And so I, you know, picked this way and a lot of people did the same. Yep. Well, Andy, it was a pleasure having you on and stop back anytime. Yep. And thanks, talk. all of you for listening and watching. Yep. And we should be back next week.

I don't know. Swayer's got kind of a heavy load this week because I'd like for you all to pray for me because I'm taking my blushing bride of, I think, 28 years, our anniversaries this weekend, I think it's 28 years. We're going to Magnolia in Waco, Texas. All the men just rolled their eyes. Yeah, so pray for torque. All you guys out there know what I'm into. However, I am taking a smaller vehicle on purpose, so there's a limit to how much, although I know they can ship. I told Trisha that she thinks she's going to Waco to go to Magnolia.

Secretly, I'm going down there to restart the Branch Dividian, so I might be, I might not be coming back. Yeah, and pray for me too, because now I'm going to have to do all the work here, and I'm going to have to get this podcast edited, and who knows, maybe I'll do a solo episode next Friday. I don't know what. We'll figure some stuff out. But thanks, thanks, Andy again for coming on the show. It was a pleasure. Share the video,

share the podcast out if you got any value at all, guys. We really appreciate all the support. And we'll see you back here next Friday or the week, the Friday after.