Barn Talk - What It Really Takes to Break Into Farming When You Don't Inherit Land

Episode Date: April 7, 2026

Welcome to Barn Talk! In today's episode, we're joined by Brandon from NBC Precision Spraying LLC a farmer and ag entrepreneur who's been making waves on TikTok with his authentic, no-BS takes on agriculture. Brandon shares his journey from growing up on a small Iowa farm, building a custom spraying business from the ground up, and landing the opportunity to massively expand his operation through the power of relationships and hard work. We dive deep into the realities of farm expansion, balancing family and business, finding reliable labor, and the fast-changing world of ag technology from the first sprayers to cutting-edge "see and spray" machines. Brandon opens up about the challenges and rewards of telling ag’s story on social media, how sales skills translate to success on and off the farm, and why building a legacy for the next generation matters more than ever. Whether you’re a farmer, entrepreneur, or just curious about rural life and ag innovation, this episode is packed with honest conversation, laughs, and hard-earned wisdom. So, kick back, hit that subscribe button, and let’s get into another great Barn Talk episode! JOIN THE BARN TALK NEWSLETTER & GET LIVE EVENT ACCESS: We're on a mission to get 10,000 subscribers, and once we do, we're hosting a live event at the barn! Sign up to get exclusive access to tickets and details.👇🏻 Help us get there: https://www.joinbarntalk.com SUBSCRIBE TO THE PODCAST ➱ https://bit.ly/3a7r3nR   SUBSCRIBE TO THIS’LL DO FARM ➱ https://bit.ly/2X8g45c  LISTEN ON: SPOTIFY ➱ https://open.spotify.com/show/3icVr4KWq4eUDl7Oy60YMY  APPLE ➱ https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/barn-talk/id1574395049 Follow Behind The Scenes👇🏻 ● Barn Talk Instagram ➱ https://www.instagram.com/barntalkshow  ● Barn Talk TikTok ➱ https://bit.ly/3qciekS    ● Sawyer’s Instagram  ➱ https://bit.ly/3BtX0n4    ● Tork’s Instagram ➱ https://bit.ly/3LGZJxS ●Sawyer’s X ➱ https://x.com/SawyerWhisler  ● Tork’s X ➱ https://x.com/TorkTalk       00:00 Supporting Barn Talk & newsletter 09:24 Getting a beginning farmer loan 13:43 Meeting the farm owner 18:52 Struggles with planting equipment 24:05 Challenges with sprayer ownership 26:53 Challenges of owning a crop sprayer 34:51 The risks of farming 39:04 Farmers competing for land 42:17 Evolving farm equipment technology 51:20 Hiring struggles and CDL challenges 56:46 Farmers sharing their own stories 01:00:30 Starting live videos in the field 01:08:01 Reflections on farming challenges 01:08:51 Challenges of competing with big farms 01:13:56 Upcoming Iowa election and agriculture 01:19:35 Unique crop rotation strategy 01:25:58 Reflecting on farming life pressures 01:30:32 Reflecting on future farming challenges ------------------------------- ⚠NO FINANCIAL ADVICE / DISCLAIMER⚠  The Information discussed and shared on Barn Talk is provided for educational, informational, and entertainment purposes only, without any express or implied warranty of any kind, including warranties of accuracy, completeness, or success for any particular purpose. The Information contained in or provided from or through this podcast is not intended to be and does not constitute financial advice, investment advice, trading advice, or any other advice. The Information on this podcast and provided from or through our content is general in nature and is not specific to you, the user or anyone else. You should not make any decision, financial, investment, trading or otherwise, based on any of the information presented on this podcast without undertaking independent due diligence and consultation with a professional, professional broker or financial advisory. Understand that you are using any and all Information available on or through this website at your own risk. RISK STATEMENT– The trading of Bitcoins, alternative cryptocurrencies, NFTs, individual stocks, etc. has potential rewards, and it also has potential risks involved. Trading may not be suitable for all people. Anyone wishing to invest should seek his or her own independent financial or professional advice. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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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. What happens that the barn stays in the barn, but not today. We're going to let it all out for you guys. Today is going to be another guest episode. We've had a heck of a lot of good guests coming to the barn.

I guess spring and the warm weather is bringing more people to the barn, which is great. So we're looking forward to this one today. I think you're going to get some value from it. If you do get any value from it, all that we ask is you share the show with the people that you know. The more that you guys do that, the more that this show grows, the more impact we can have and we can grow the impact of Barn Talk. It's kind of the ticket to admission to watch or listen to the show. And a lot of ways to get value. If you laughed, if you're related to us on something, if you learn something, just share it.

That's all that we ask. Another thing you can do to help us out here at Barn Talk is leave a review on Spotify or Apple. The more that you guys do that, the more credible you make our show, which allows us to have more credible guests. I want to come on Barn Talk. So we appreciate all of you that do that. We love hearing your feedback on what we can do to improve the show or what you love about the show. And reviews only take five seconds, and it goes a long ways, guys. So thank you so much for the people that have done that.

The last thing you can do to help us out here at Barn Talk is we are launching a Barn Talk newsletter. You can go to join barn talk.com and sign up for our newsletter. We're going to be putting out a weekly newsletter full of value, full of some entertaining ag, thoughts and opinions from us, both dad and I. And our goal with that is if we get to 10,000 subscribers on that email list, we're going to throw a live event here at the barn. And if you want exclusive deals or exclusive tickets or exclusive content, sign up for that email list.

Join barn talk.com. Isn't that going to be kind of like a Tom Sawyer event where we get all these people here and then we hand them like paint brushes, hammers, and we just knock out a whole. Okay. When I sell my business, I want the best tax and investment advice. I want to help my kids, and I want to give back to the community. Ooh, then it's the vacation of a lifetime. I wonder if my out of office has a forever setting. An IG private wealth advisor creates the clarity you need with plans that harmonize your business.

your family and your dreams. Get financial advice that puts you at the center. Find your advisor at IGPrivatewealth.com. A bunch of stuff we've been wanting to get done. I was thinking more like Woodstock. Are you singing? I don't know. I could do a Joe Cocker,

like a heavily drugged, alcoholic Joe Cocker maybe. That would be entertaining for a little while. We'll figure something out. I think we could find some ways to entertain. All right. We're going to work on it, But we got some ideas. We always got ideas.

But I think it'd be pretty awesome to actually, like, put something together like that and do some in-person stuff. It'd be nice to meet everybody, talk to people. And the great thing about the newsletter is basically, I can't turn this off. So it's hard only an hour a week, you know, for me to get all my thoughts out. But now then with this newsletter, it's like the world's my oyster. Yeah. So you can really impact people on the written word side. Yep.

if you thought I was kind of got a screw loose before, sign up for the newsletter, and then you'll just realize how troubled I really am. How are you doing today? I'm good. It's supposed to be warm today, but I'm leery. I'm leery after this early bit of bad weather we had, so I've still got my stocking cap on. I could shed it, but I just, I don't know. I'm waiting for more of a sign, so we'll see. Yeah, we've said it a million times. Spring is teasing us. It is.

No more snow. Yeah, I don't think so. I'm over the snow. I think we'll make it. I think we'll make it now. But our guest today, great guy, one of those people that I feel like I know him, I know him through TikTok. And that's where I found his content. He started fairly recently, really.

but he is putting out some really great stuff and good value, lots of thoughts. He's from up by Jewel, Iowa. He's got a family. He's trying to farm. He's got a custom business that he started. And just really dropping a lot of value is what perked my attention. And I thought, what the heck, you know what? We need to get him on here.

So I reached out. And he's made the trip down today. So it's going to be a great show. And I think you're all going to really enjoy it. So without any further ado, let's get into it. Well, shit, boys, we're live. So Brandon Fonken. Fonken. Welcome to Barn Talk.

Thanks for coming down. You have been blowing up on TikTok, and both of us have seen your stuff. And we love what you talk about. We love how authentic and real you are. And I just feel like in this world of media that we're, in, people really resonate with it. And so we just said, you know what, we got to get this guy on. I think you'd be perfect for Barn Talk. And we're just glad to have you here. So it's going to be a good one. Well, let me, I'll hit you with a good one just to start. So you've talked about how

farming is a business where you can't just slow down when the numbers don't work. Is there a time if you go back where the numbers didn't work, a tough year, and how you got through it? I haven't got to that point really in my career yet, luckily, because if there was going to be that time, it probably would have been, what, 2018, 19 when things really slowed down. I can still remember I sold corn in the twos, which seems crazy. Somebody my age just started in 2018. I sold corn. I think 298 was the worst sale I ever made. Yeah. But luckily, I've always had another income. So the way we built the farm, or mine and my brother's half of it, dad's farm forever. But when we started farming, we didn't want to just go, okay, now we're farmers, so that's all we're going to do.

We kept all of our other jobs. Everything we bought was some of it was with cash. We had very minimal loans. And so when you got the other revenue stream, such as spraying, our day jobs, yeah, it wasn't fun. I mean, it wasn't great, but we got through it. It wasn't like, oh, man, are we going to make it? I mean, I wasn't, it's never been to that point, I guess. What, where can people find you on social before we get to? Well, TikTok's the main one that I just started here, I don't know, a year ago. I am on Instagram. I've kind of started putting some of the stuff from TikTok also on there. I'm trying a YouTube channel, but that one just doesn't really want to get much track.

I've just been putting shorts up there. Who knows, we might this summer when we get actually in the field start exploring with some maybe some longer form stuff. We'll see. What's the handle for people? At NBC Precision Sprane, LLC. Nice. Yeah. Nice.

I thought that was a good hook. Yesterday, I used that hook on, I did a teaser and I said, we're going to call it the NBC after-school special. I only know at least one guy got it. At least one guy got it. There was one comment. Well, so I guess, yeah, tell us a little bit about, you know, your journey and how you got to where you are today with everything that you got going on. and I guess dive deep into what do you have all going on? Because there seems to be a fair amount.

Well, I grew up on a small farm. In Camara, Iowa, a small little town, about 30 miles north of Ames. And from just like him, from when I was a little, little kid, all I wanted to do was farm. That was what I wanted to do. But realistically, you can see it. You know, dad's not growing. It's tough to grow, tough to get more acres. There's not going to be room for me.

but I still had that hope. And I just love being in the field. Like every kid, that's what you like the best. You like driving the tractors, the sprayers, whatever, whatever it can be. But I went on, I played all the sports in school. We kept busy at that. And then at graduation, you know, my parents were big in that proponent back then of, you got to go to college no matter what happens.

You've got to get that piece of paper, something to fall back on. So that's what I did. And I didn't, at this point, I really didn't think I was going to be able to farm. I helped dad here and there really didn't think it would happen. But I went to Iowa State, got a degree in agricultural studies. And I did some internships while I was there. Worked for ag leader technology. Worked for pioneer hybrid.

And right out of college, I had a job selling seed. And it wasn't bad, but seed sales are one of those things. It's just you really got to love what you're doing to do that job. That's a very difficult thing to do. But I was doing it. It was fine. I was still helping dad. And right out of college, too, I had started spraying for dad, just helping him on the farm,

running the sprayer. That was just my job. John Deere 6,000, one of those old three-wheel ones. And like I said, I wanted to be in the field. I liked being in the field. And so what better way to be in the field than buy a sprayer? Because then you can be in the field all summer long. And so I, I don't know.

Earlier on, when I was selling an ag leader, I told a farmer that, hey, if you ever sell this machine, you let me know. I'd like to be interested in buying it. I was thinking that might be three, four years down the road, but it was like a year and a half later. I'm just graduating college. And he says, hey, this machine's for sale. Would you be interested? So I didn't have the money. But I started looking around government programs and they had the beginning farmer loan. And so I got signed up for that. And looking back still, sometimes I'm like, what was I thinking? Like, because you had to go jump through some hoops and get people to sign up to do it.

and one of them was my father-in-law who signed up to do it for me, which, you know, to let me spray his acres just to get the loan. And I would have. But that plan, my father-in-law lives two and a half hours from my house. So I was, my plan at this point was a big chunk of my acres. I was going to have to drive two and a half hours in a spray. Well, that's by car. So in a sprayer, it's going to be twice as long. Yeah. And I was going to come back. But it's just like, it was almost like it was meant to be because then I got this job offer to start selling case IH equipment. And that's kind of like where it really took off. It was, because you know, you're working with these guys. You're building the rapport, selling a machinery. They trust you

at this point. And so in conversation, you just mentioned, hey, I got a custom spraing business too. And the good part about my job with case was I was 100% commission. So if I wanted to take a day off here or whenever, nobody was paying me. I wasn't shortchanging anybody. Realistically, you could say I'm building better relationships with my customers. And so it just, kind of started. It just kind of started snowballing little by little. You know, because the problem is, and it's not a co-op problem, all the co-ops have the same problem. It's just turn over in the seat. It doesn't matter who it is. Every co-op has the same problem. And the only place they can learn is on your farm. And so about the time you start

getting an operator, kind of, he's getting the hang of it. Well, he's gone. Because he's either going, he either wants to get promoted up into sales or, you know, it's the work-life balance. he doesn't like it. He's on to something different. Next man in. And so people really liked, okay, the job that they were getting done. They knew what to expect. And it's just kind of kept growing. The business has just gotten bigger and bigger. And then I got into selling in 2015, I started having kids, family, got married, all this. And remember, this is a full commission job. So I started getting like, okay, 2015 came. The markets crashed, you know, just kind of like what they're doing now.

And it was like, we got to start thinking about something a little bit different, a little more consistent. And so I got a job selling chemicals, seed, fertilizer. I was back in that industry again. And the good part of where I went, they were selling it. They wanted me to sell it. But they didn't have any sprayers. And they didn't really want to get into that.

So it worked. It was like a match made in heaven because they let me do all the application. And it was my own deal. I've invoiced separately. did it all separately. And then that took it kind of to the next level at that point. Nice. So your farming. So that's your, so were you, you have your own acres now that you're farm and how did you get, were you accumulating that while you were building the spraying business or that kind of happened after or how that all come to bay? No, well, we were building the

spraying business. I got to the point where I didn't think I was going to farm. Like I really, I didn't. And I was, I'd really made peace with that because I love. selling machinery when I was doing that and I really liked spraying. I liked everything, you know, and I could still help out. It was like you were being on the farm. And then in 2018, because this was like 2010 through 2015, 2016. And in 2018, it was just one of those flute deals. It was a family friend that we had made years ago when I was in 4-H. It was a little kid, you know, shown at the local county fair. We never even knew these people, but we just made friends and we had that relationship for years.

And they always knew that we wanted to farm, but, you know, it's just, it's impossible like every kid. And just by chance, this family friend of ours had bought hay off a neighboring farmer for years. He bailed his waterways, did all this. And one day he was picking up hay. And the farmer told them, I think I'm thinking about retiring.

I think I'm going to hang it up. And I'd really like to find some young guys who would want to take this over. Well, it was just that was the ticket. he mentioned to him right there, I think I got a young guy, you know, a couple of young guys' brothers that would really be interested in your farm if you'd be interested in talking to him. And so then he also told me and my brother and we sent him a letter. And this whole time, though, you're still thinking, this doesn't happen.

You know, we don't know this guy. I don't know him at all. But we sent him a letter, told him a little bit about ourselves. And we at least got a response like, hey, I'd like to meet with you. And I think we went and met with him like two or three times, I think, is what we met with him, kind of seeing his operations, seeing the farms, going over all of it, this whole time, still thinking, eh, still, it's not going to happen. Not being pessimistic. Just trying not to get yourself too excited. And lo and behold, at the end, he said, okay, I think I'm going to go with you guys.

And it was just like a shot because, you know, dad's been farming his whole life. He's ranged between probably 1,000, maybe 1,100 at the high, down to 800, you know, when a farm would get sold or somewhere in that range. But now we just picked up 2,200 acres in one shot. Like overnight. Damn. We went that big. And so it's exciting, but yet kind of terrifying at the same time.

Yeah. How did, yeah, I was going to say, how long did that, how long did that excitement go before you looked at each other and said, do we even, do we even have equipment to farm this? Well, we realized we probably did. Frozen lasagna, medium power, 15 minutes. Sounds like Ojo time. Let's play. Feel the fun with Play-O-Joe, the online casino with all the latest slot and live casino games.

What you win is yours to keep with no wagering requirements, instant payouts, and no minimum withdraws. Hey, I just won. Woo-hoo! Feel the fun! Play Ojo! Honey, forget about the lasagna. Let's celebrate! 19 plus Ontario only, please play responsibly. Concerned about your gambling or that if someone close to you, call 1-6-3-1-26-3-2-600 or visit Connexontera.ca. I honestly think at first, we didn't realize, you know, I'm used to spraying. I'm used to cover. in big acres and spraying goes really fast. You know,

and so you almost get a false sense of security like, that's not that big. We can do it. It won't be a problem. So I think at first we didn't really realize. Yeah, we didn't really grasp what that was because originally, you know,

dad had equipment and we thought, we're going to, we'll just push it a little harder, you know, put in some bigger hours, you know, we're young. That's what we'll do.

We'll make, do with what we got. And so that, but we did know we were going to need a bigger tractor. We knew that. That was the first thing. And luckily, this was like I said,

2018 commodity prices are in the tank, so our, so our machinery prices. And luckily through our jobs, we had been saving up some money, not really planning the farm, just we've been saving up money. And so when we went right to auction,

you know, and it's great, we didn't have anything to trade in. We were just buying straight out, so you didn't have to worry about getting rid of your trades. And so we just started looking there. We bought a Ripper.

We bought a two-track John Deere, and we thought that was really all we were going to do and a field elevator. We ended up buying that off of our landlord. But we thought that'll be fine. Dad had a 16-rail planner and MX 270 was 7,000 hours. Like, looking back, it's like, what are we thinking? Seven thousand hours? We thought that was going to do the trick. But at that time, we thought we're just going to, you know,

we want to save as much money as we can. We don't want to overextend ourselves. And so that fall, we had to do the tillage. In 2018, that was his last year, you know, he combined it all. Obviously, it was his crop. But then it was our baby. And so we got the tillage done. That really went pretty easy. No breakdowns. We were thinking, this is awesome. You know, we got a steel on this tractor. It worked excellent.

Then as the winter went through, though, we just kind of started thinking, I don't know if we want to try and plant all this with a 16 row. Like, that's a lot of acres. Like, because now, you know, we've got our acres, but we're using, you know, we're going to pay dad to plant ours as well. So now realistically, it's not just 2,200 acres. We got something like 3,000 acres. And so we started thinking we better, better at least get a bigger planner

because that's pretty crucial to get that in. on the right time. And so once again, we went back to auction, bought a 1250, 24-0 case I-H planner. And the planner was okay, but we got into spring. We were ready to go first year. You know, you want to impress your landlord. You want to, you know, show them that you can handle this. And we got the tractor all hooked up, ready to go. We were going to start at dads, if I remember it, because it was drier. And we had the field there. We were just going to get going. We took off and eight rows are just not planting or it says it's not planting and I don't know I'm I'm out trying to figure it out I'm looking all over it and we can't figure it out but it is planting

and so there's part of me for a second that thought it's planting let's just go but then the other part creeps in like yeah but what happens when it's not planning and you just planted 100 acres with two rows not working so I think it was like 12 hours that I said like I'm out there by flashlight now at this point still trying to figure this thing out scratching my head calling everybody I know dealerships. And my fear was, you know, we're just starting out. I don't want to call the dealership because electrical issue like this, they're going to do the same thing I'm doing at, what, $180 an hour in electrical issues?

You know, it could take hours. Yeah. And so I just kept looking it over. And finally, I saw some electrical tape around a seed sensor. And I'm like, huh, wonder what's going on there. So I wrapped it all off or I took all the tape off. And I could see that somebody had, you know, nick this. the seat sensor and taped it back together,

well, they're all daisy chain together. That took them all out. So I did some diagnostics. Unhooked one, plugged it in there. Lease got the problem to move. And I'm like, okay, now I know what it is.

Put a new seed sensor in. Away it went. It's like, okay, now we're off to the races. All the gremlins are done for the year. Things are good. Sailing. And because, yeah, I mean, we did lose a day or two at this point.

And neighbors are already planting, you know, and you're thinking, oh, landlord sees all of his neighbors planting. And we're not, doing anything and it's like not for lack of effort but so when we thought okay we better just leave dads because we want to go make a good impression let's go up and get planting up there so we went up there first day we get going things are going decent and then the 7000 hour tractor

really wasn't meant to pull a 24 row plan all those hydraulics all that oil going through it and we started getting transmission faults the tractor's overheating it's not really meant to pull it and so we're like down to like three mile an hour just trying to limp this thing thinking, well, this is what it's going to take because we don't have the budget. You know, we're young guys starting out. We don't have the budget to go buy a new tractor. So then we got a rain delay, which I guess you can look at it as good or bad. We could at least regroup, but it didn't stop raining. I mean, it rained for like two weeks. And it's, our ground is not real well tiled. So now we've got another problem. This tractor couldn't pull it

before. And now case planners are relatively heavy. And now we're in mud. But so we're we decided we were going to take that 9510 that was on our field elevator tractor and we're going to put that on the planner. And so that did work. That finally worked. But we got to the point now where that was our field calivating tractor. What are we going to run on our field elevator? So when it finally did dry up, what we would do is we'd work like 300 acres with the tractor

on the field elevator and then we'd unhook it. Oh, wow. Switch it back to the planner and go plant like 300 acres. And, you know, it's just like looking back now, like those are honestly kind of fond memories. Like at the time it wasn't. But it's like sometimes those struggles are what like you look back on and kind of smile. Like, we got, we got through it. But it was a, it was a struggle from beginning to end. It was, it was an interesting first year.

Yeah. That's a good, that's a good story, man. That's, that's a journey right there. And, you know, just listening to your story, like, it's about, it's about who you know. It's about who you know. And like, people say that all the time, you know, growing up, people are like, get out there, meet people. get out there, meet people, but how crucial that can be. I mean, it's huge. Oh, and it's how you treat people too.

Yeah, for sure. You never know how an impression, you know, the impression you leave with somebody pays dividends down the road. Yeah, how pivotal, like, I mean, sounds like sales, the skill of sales. Like, how well has that served you in your career? I mean, it's really, I mean, I don't even think you can put a number on it. And what's crazy is all of those things, all the jobs. that I've done in my life between sales and now TikTok and all that stuff is the least likely

thing I thought I would have ever done. Like I grew up super, super shy, like not outgoing, kept to myself, just didn't want to do that. I'm still not very good at it of the small talk stuff, just making conversations. But I think any salesperson would agree, if you have a product that you're selling and you're confident in it and you believe in it, you don't even have to work at it. It's easy. It just comes naturally. And I was so passionate about what I was selling. And when a customer called me and wanted me to come out, well, I had a purpose. I knew why I was there. I knew what to talk about. It was easy. And so, yes, those learning how to sell is because every part of your life, even if you're not selling a product, you're ultimately selling yourself.

I mean, that is huge to get into sales or any sort of sales is great life experience. Yep. Absolutely. So you're farming today. You're still running the spray. business. Are you do, you're not doing it. You're not a, you're not a, you're not working for a company anymore. So you're just doing full time spraying, full time farming. That's where you sit today. That's all I'm doing. I don't sell chemicals either. That's the question I get a lot of times like, you don't even sell chemicals. Now, I've been down that road. It's, it's just, it's not that I don't want to. It's just there's so many people doing it anymore with, you know, all the 10 sheds popping up. It seems like everybody sells chemicals. And I don't have anybody to sit at the shed all day. So if I sell

somebody, I always use the example, a 250 gallon toad of Roundup that I'm going to make a buck or two bucks on. Well, that's great. Like, I'll take it if I, you know, if somebody wanted to give me that. But if I'm out spraying now and I got to shut that down, where I'm really moving, and now go home and load them, it just got to the point where- You just lost way more. Yeah, it just wasn't worth it. It just got to that point where, you know, it didn't make sense anymore. So I just went away from that. And you know how it is, too. Whatever you focus on is what moves. And so I've kind of decided, you know, application is what I know. It's what I love. You know, I like driving stuff. I like being an operator. So I just focus on that, do the best

job we can there. And what kind of works out nice then, too, is you'll get co-ops or other, you know, chemical sellers that will want to work with you because I'm not, I'm not competing with them. You know, I can actually help them grow their business because a lot of these, you know, 10 sheds, they don't actually have their own sprayers. A lot of them are just, maybe they're a seed dealer selling chemicals on the side. Well, now they can actually, they don't only have to sell the guys that have their own sprayers. They can partner with me if they want and grow their business from that aspect as well. Yeah. Well, I feel like your niche is actually growing because it hasn't been that long ago that if you wanted to spray your own, the cost of that sprayer,

was not, I mean, it was a number, but it wasn't crazy. And today, if you want to buy a sprayer, the number of acres that you really need to run through that to justify it, we talk about farmers being over-equipped. If you're going to own one of these sprayers, chances are you're really over-equipped. Yeah. Because for the amount of acres that you probably should run through one to justify it.

So I feel like it's a great niche because that's probably growing. And then to your point, the number of guys that you can have a conversation with about how the co-op, how the co-op, and I'm nothing against co-ops. You can fill in whoever you want, but the number of co-ops that that, that blankety-blank kid that was running that sprayer that, you know, sprayed the neighbors or ran off the end of my terrace or ran over everything. And it's exactly like you said. I mean, it's really hard for them to keep experienced people. So people have bad experiences.

And then once you find somebody that you feel like you can rely on, you don't want to, you know, you don't want to switch. Well, that's what, you know, you'll constantly hear people say, every farmer should own a sprayer. Like, like you'll see that. And a lot of times I look at it and I'm like, maybe. But I'll see a lot of operations too that maybe they don't have the extra help. You know, they don't have somebody.

Because spraying isn't just a one-man job either, for the most part. Right. You really need somebody to be hauling your water and you got to have a trailer with water tanks and all that. So now you really need two people and a sprayer. And so if you're even short on help at all and there's anything else you can be doing with your time, whether that's hauling grain or whatever, you can just hire somebody to do it. It's all done. You don't have the liability.

You don't have the insurance. You don't have any of that stuff on your equipment. To me, honestly, and obviously I'm extremely bi. biased. But I think there's a big argument to be said that, you know, it doesn't make sense to own your sprayer. Because then there's a lot of operations too, I see, that will own a nice sprayer, but they don't want to do fungicide. Like, they might have an expensive machine that can't do it. So then they're hiring out a plane or something like that. And then typically they don't have enough help in the spring either. So they're hiring the co-op to do their pre-emerge. Well, so now you've got this

expensive machine that now you're trying to justify, maybe you have enough acres to actually justify it, but not in one season. You know, if you did it on your pre, your post, and your fungicide, maybe you could justify that payment. But when you're giving up those other two seasons and you're only looking at it in one season, and then you got weather windows, you know, because the more you farm, you know, yeah, it seems like it'd be easier to justify that sprayer. But in some ways, it's almost harder because the bigger you get, you still got to get it sprayed in a timely fashion. So now if you're going to shell off half of your acres to somebody else because you've got to get sprayed because it's going to rain. You're not utilizing it.

Yeah, you're not utilizing it then either. So I don't know. There's a hundred different ways to skin that cap. But to me, I think there's a big justification to say, you know, let's just do away with that. I don't understand why everybody wants to hire their fertilizer done, but thinks you need to have a sprayer. And to me, the fertilizing aspect of it has a lot bigger window. You know, you can do that. There's guys a spread all winter.

So I don't understand why sometimes you got to have a sprayer, but yet everybody hires the inhydras done a lot of times, the fertilizer. It just doesn't make 100% sense to me, I guess. Yeah. Yeah. I got you. So you're running two businesses at the same time, got a family.

How do you balance it? How do you try to keep it all going? I have a very forgiving wife. And luckily, she came from a farm, so she understands how it goes. Because it's, and it's gotten, I would say it's gotten better. as we figured it out. And we have got to the point where we've got a little nicer equipment. We don't have new equipment. But yeah, it's like in the spring, I don't do anything with the farm.

I have nothing to do with it because I'm running the custom application business. I will spray our ground, but that's it. My dad and brother, my dad still plants and my brother, he'll work the ground for him. And so they handle all of that. But the hardest part is probably, you know, for anything, there's a tradeoff. You know, yeah, people look and think, oh, he's got all that nice machinery. be really nice. But you realize when you're on the spraying business, April to August, when everybody wants to go on their family vacations or whatever, we don't really get to do that, you know, because you can't get away even. Like, even if it rains and you think, okay, we got a couple days. Well, with the territory, sometimes that we cover, well, it might not have rained here

or it rained less. And so you're worried, is it going to dry up before we get back? And so, I mean, there's a big sacrifice. Like, the kids don't get to go on a lot of vacations. You know, that's just part of it. But they like, I mean, they like the lifestyle. And, you know, And, you know, April through, April through May is usually the big push because we're tracing planners, you know, trying to get the preemerge on. So that's when there'll be times where, you know, my wife won't see me for, you know, two weeks if it doesn't rain, you know, because that's just the nature of the beast. But on the flip side in the winter, it's obviously a lot slower. I can take the kids to school, you know, do all that. It's a big tradeoff.

But it's just, we make it work, I guess. Just one of those things. You don't even think that much of it, I guess. You know, because it didn't just start like that. We just kind of gradually have worked and grown into it, I guess. I thought for sure you were going to say you had a boat at Okabogi that said fungicide on the back. Well, it would be easy, too, because that's where my in-laws are at. So it makes sense.

But no, no boat. I just don't have time for it. It's just the summer activities, that's the hard part. Like, when I have time to have a hobby, whether that be fishing or, you know, boating, whatever most people do, with their free time. It's just, you know, and that's the thing. I've seen a lot of application businesses try to start up over the years and they kind of want to dabble at it almost, have one foot in, but yet they still want to have a life per se, which work life balance, you know, that's a thing

you hear a lot anymore. And I really feel like if you're going to be in the custom application business, you can't dabble in it. You've got to be all in because all it takes is one time you're not showing up when you said you were and you just lost a big account. You know, know, and that's all it takes. We've been doing this long enough now, and we've had enough people that I believe that if you're going to be successful in anything, that work-life balance is a fallacy. Because pretty much everybody that we've ever talked to that is successful,

it's like you can't dabble. So whatever that is that you're going to do, especially if it's a seasonal thing like that. When it's time to do it, that's all you spend your time at. And it just is. Everything else has to work around that. And then you kind of,

if you can get through that, then you can try to build the balance on the front or the back, but during there is none. And a perfect example of that is I just got a guy stopping the other day and wants me to spray his fungicide this fall, or this late summer. And I'd never sprayed for him

before, but he told me the reason was last year he hired a drone to do it. And right in the middle of fungicide season, he sprayed for two days and then he took off for a week because he wanted to go to Sturgis. What? Like how are you running a bit? Like, especially if you're a drone operator, like that's your, that's your go time. Like it's fungicide seat. Like I couldn't believe that somebody would do that.

But like that's the perfect example. Like, you know, maybe he didn't plan that he was going to get all those acres. But, you know, if you did now at this point, now you kind of got to make your decision. Do you want to, you want to, you want to grow? grow your business or do you want to go spend a week of vacation? You know, it's just, I don't know. Different strokes for different folks, I guess. Yep. Mm-hmm. So you, you started out, you spent a lot of time at a KSIH dealer, but you're not a purist. I can't say that you're a, I can't say that you're a traitor. So what do you guys run for equipment on the farm side?

We've got a little of both still. But on the application side, we're pretty much, all John Deere. Yeah. And John Deere makes very good stuff. I don't think anybody would argue that. Sometimes people argue they're too expensive. I don't know if they're that much more expensive than anything else out there. Their technology is light years ahead.

But the bigger thing for me, especially, is service. That's key. I mean, any company that is still around today through all of the mergers, all that stuff, makes good stuff. I don't think anybody would argue that. I think whether you're talking Gleaner, KSAH, John Deer, that's all good. it's just whoever you've got in your backyard to support you. And right now, our best support without a doubt is John Deere.

And so that's where we're slowly, but surely probably going more that way. But I mean, we've still got a quadrack that does all our heavy tillage. We've got a red planner. My dad has a red combine still. He threw that out there as like a token to the cat. Well, we still got a red planner. So we're slowly going that direction. And like I said,

I was that kid in high school that I was wearing the K-Sah-H clothes. Like I was, I don't want to call myself a contrarian, but, you know, everybody was John Deere, you know, and I always like to kind of, I don't want to say go against the grain, but, you could go to an airport in any state and you could go buy John Deer merchandise. And that was like, you know, K-S-H, you know, I feel like they're getting the short side of this stick. And so I was that guy. I was wearing the K-Sage. And so that's why it was so easy for me to sell, too. You know, I believed in this stuff from day one. You know, that was all I, you know, I thought that was the best equipment.

But just slowly, as time has went on, I've just, I've had better luck on the service side. Because, I mean, it really started on the application side. We were still all red. And then we started going green on the application side. And the service just blew me away. I mean, it was like, you could call them and very shortly they would be there. I mean, it's not to say there wasn't their growing pains because, you know, they haven't always been, you know, John Deere hasn't always had to maintain Heggy. You know, Hagee used to maintain themselves.

And so there was a few growing pains in there, but boy, once they've got it now, things are really taken off. Yeah. What's the thing that keeps you, I mean, you got something to follow up with on that? What's the thing that keeps you up at night the most when it comes to your operation or just like agriculture in general? Well, I mean, I think all of it is, you know, nothing's guaranteed, you know, like with the farming side, you know, the big risk.

Like on the farm side, it's great. You picked up 2,200 acres. And when we first did that, I kind of. I thought, okay, you know, this was already, what, eight years ago? And I thought, I didn't like it at that point. I mean, I liked it, but I don't like having all my eggs in this one basket. Like, that makes you nervous. You know, if a landlord dies, the farm gets sold, I can't afford to buy it. You know, that obviously keeps you up in night. And so I always thought, you know, we'll rent some more ground. We'll be able to find some more, like in the previous eight years. But it just hasn't really,

hasn't really happened. It's just not for, there's different ways. ways to go about going, going about growing your farm. And I'm just not prepared to do it the way a lot of guys will, which has probably held me back to a certain extent. But I don't know. I just, I can lay my head on my pillow at night and not feel like I'm that guy who did, you know, did something he maybe shouldn't have. But I mean, that's probably the biggest one that just, you know, what's the sustainability to this, you know, without being able to grow at least a little bit, you know, to, it's always going to hurt, you know, if someday you lost 2,200 acres in one shot, yeah, that's always going to sting.

But it would sting a lot less, you know, going from, you know, say, 4,000 acres back to 2,200. That would sting a lot less than going from 2,200 to 0. You know, that would sting a whole lot more. So on the farm side, that's without a doubt the biggest thing. And probably on the spraying side, that would probably be the same thing too, because you never know. None of your customers are guaranteed at any moment. they could buy a sprayer, they could, they could lose their farm to somebody, somebody,

you know, you just don't know. It's just the uncertainty of it all. But really, I think as I get older, you just, you know, wisdom comes with age. And I just kind of get to the point where I'm going to control the controllables. I'm going to do the best job I can, you know, on the farm side and the application side. And, you know, things just have a way of working out, I guess, you know. I remember dad telling me that from a little kid, like things just always have a way of working out. that's true. You know, 90% of the things you worry about never happen anyway. If it's meant to be,

it's meant to be, just control what you can and let the chips fall where they may. Yeah, let the work do the talk and do. It's all you can do. What, so I kind of want to go back to what you said at the beginning. What are some ways, because like we have this conversation too. Like, it's the idea of going and picking up more ground. Like, how are people just going and are they knocking on the door? Are they just calling these farmers? are straight up, are they? Because we're kind of, we have that same conversation. Like, how do you do this, how do you do this ethically, you know, like, what have you heard about people doing it? I mean, you know, and it's weird. It's a double-edged sword on the whole thing,

you know, because in some ways, like farming, you know, if you do go talk to a landlord or do anything like that, you're an awful person. Like, you shouldn't do that. But in any other industry, and that's where it's kind of weird for me, because I'll get upset about the same thing. If somebody talks to my landlord, I've had it done. But then if I flip my sales hat back on and it's like, well, when I was selling KSIH equipment, was I extremely mad because the John Deere salesman was calling on my same customer or the same thing with seed. You know, if somebody's planting Pioneer, this is DeKalb dealers just have to sit back and go. Well, whenever he decides, he's done with Pioneer, then I guess that's my chance to pull.

So it's weird in some ways. Like, farming is just unique in that way that you don't treat it like a normal business. Like if anybody puts a post on Facebook that they're looking for ground, you know, they'll be ridiculed. Like that's, that's terrible. But every other business on the planet advertises. Like, it's so weird. Like there's competition in every other industry. But in farming, it's like, no, if I've rented this ground, I should be able to rent it until I decide to retire.

It's just an odd scenario. But, you know, you've heard of the things where people go into funeral homes, you know, walking through the funeral, you know, or through the visitation line and mention it about the farm and and it doesn't work every time. But what that tells you is if they keep doing it, it's worked a few times. It's worked somewhere. You know, that is savage. I mean, I've, you hear it frequently. And then you'll get the letters, you know, in the mail. People will say they can do a better job. And, and, you know, then people will just straight up offer more money. And, and honestly, to a certain extent, that's the one part of it I really can't get upset about. Like,

like, like it doesn't bother me if somebody does that. Because once again, putting back on my business hat, if I'm going to try to, you know, sell somebody a combine or whatever when I was doing that, and it's a little cheaper, it's got these features, it's going to benefit the customer. Well, if I'm the farmer and I'm trying to do the best job for the landlord, who is now the customer, well, if they can offer more ground or more money for that ground, well, isn't that better for the, you know, like, that doesn't bother me the way it bothers some guys, but it, you know, it also does cause problems. I mean, it's, I don't know, agriculture is in an interesting place right now for sure.

I love these cash rent auctions, you know. I'm just like bamboozled by that. Some of those numbers that come out of there, I'm like, wow. You're farming for the experience. I totally am because I can't even make that, I can't make that pencil on any pad of paper, no matter I can sharpen the pencil all the way down to the metal. And it's like, I don't know what you guys are doing.

doing, but hey, more power to whoever's rent in the ground. But sometimes, though, and I don't know, you know, there's two sides of every story. And so, like, I think I read on X, like some of those Northwest Iowa farms, that's where you always see the super, super high cash rents. But somebody explained it made sense that that's huge cattle country. And a lot of times those guys are paying positive basis because they need so much corn to feed their cattle. So, you know, everybody's got a different story.

If, okay, 525 or whatever it is, to you and I, does sound crazy. Yeah. But if I've got a bunch of cattle and I'm paying a positive basis because I don't have enough corn in my area, maybe it makes a lot more sense just to pay a little more cash rent and raise it right in my own backyard. I mean, I don't know, but there's, you know, there's two sides of every story. But the problem is when other landlords see that and then they say, well, why can't I get that for? Yeah. Yeah. You know, so that that is the hard part, definitely. Yeah. Oh, I know what I wanted to ask you about. So how long, how long have you owned? owned a sprayer? What was the first sprayer that you bought? First sprayer I ever bought was in 2009, 2008. It was a 2009 DTS10. Okay. Hagey sprayer. That's what I started out with the old twin tanks on both sides, you know. So, yeah, it would have been, no, maybe I'm thinking of that wrong. It might have been, no, no, I think it was, it was 09. Yeah. Somewhere 2009, oh, 10. So when you think from where you

started to where you are today, the technology, like what, how far has that moved? And today, what do you think is the best feature or the best software or whatever that has come in the sprayer world? I don't know if you want me to talk about that. Every time I mention it, somebody who says, oh, he's always talking about this again. But, oh, that's great. That's just what we want. But the, honestly, I, the CN spray is unreal. I mean, from starting with what we started with, you know, the DTS, I mean, we went from a John Deere 6,000. You got to keep in mind, which was a nice machine, rear boom, you know, tricycle front end, 320 gallon tank.

And you thought, man, you know, we didn't think much of it, you know, but we got 32 acres on a tank, you know, spraying 10 gallon acres. So when we went to the DTS 10, we thought we had the whirl by the tail, a thousand gallon tank. We were moving, 90 foot boom. And now to fast forward to today, you know, we've got a Hagi with a 2,000 gallon tank on it. And we've got the C& Spray machine. and the sea and spray is just, who would have ever thought,

I mean, I can remember growing up and auto steer wasn't even a thing. I'm not, I'm not that old. Like, I can remember farming without auto steer and thinking of,

man, tractor can drive itself now. And now to fast forward to, we have machines that are capable of just spotting a weed and only spraying that weed. I mean, it's just wild.

I mean, the sea and spray, I don't know. So many people get hung up on the subscription. Like, that is what really, really upsets people that I think a lot of them don't even want to, that's it. That's as far as

they want to go. They don't want to hear anybody out. They don't want to look any farther. And I mean, it's a great product. That's probably been the biggest change that I've seen since I started, I guess. And easily, the simplest ROI you can speak of. Yeah. Farmers in general hate subscriptions. We want to buy something. We want to pay for it once. And it's ours. We want to wrap our hands around it and it's ours. Subscription, that just feels dirty. Besides when they get home and they turn on Netflix and they turn on Hulu. But if it was up to them.

I know. That's the wife. They got plausible deniability on that. And I'm that way on a lot of things. But the one thing that I'm really not is technology's type of things. If it's going to help your business. Well, I mean, there's two ways to look at it. Like, even a computer.

Like, if I could probably get a computer and just pay a subscription like every month and I'd probably do that. because you go spend what? What's a new computer? $2,000, something like that. And in two years, it's completely worthless. You're cursing it because it's too slow. And it's junk.

So you throw it away and you get a new one. Well, would I rather be able just to pay a little bit every month and always keep the latest? And that's the same thing with the C&Spray thing. Like, there's other competitors out there. And that's what people will constantly, like if I make a post about C&Spray, I'll get the precision symphony system

and the weed it and the green eye and all these. And I'm sure all those systems are great. But the way I look at it, you're going to have $200, $250,000 up front costs right there. You've got to pay that. And so now you've got, depending on your farm size, you'll pay that back, no doubt, with chemical savings, but it's probably a five-year return on most size farms, I would guess. So by the time you finally get it paid off, you've expelled all that money, whether it was cash or you financed it either way, you really haven't made any money. You're just working to get your initial investment back and bang at that point you know five years in technology terms is a light years i mean yeah

now yours is completely worthless because good luck selling an aftermarket you know aftermarket things are hard to sell to the secondary market anyway but now you've got a technology piece that's five years old what's it worth and now there's something better something you know some the new hot thing has came along that's where honestly i feel like on some things i like the subscription model i really genuinely do because, you know, it took, I don't know, I mean, I don't work for deer, obviously, but I'm sure it took billions of dollars to develop a technology like that. And so if they wanted to get all of their money back and then say, okay, now you can have it. What's not going to cost? I mean, a million, two million dollars. I mean, and the problem is that, and that's getting to be my

real hard part, too, back to your question about what keeps me up at night, is how do we continue to update machines as we go forward? Because they continue to get higher and higher. most industries just pass along that cost. And to a certain extent, we can do that also. But if you get too high, well, now you've got competitors with the co-op that they're also selling products. So they can kind of hide some of the application dollars in their margin on the products. Or if you get too high, it makes it much more enticing just to buy your own sprayer. So I can only pass so much of that along.

And so that's where I feel like with the subscription, it does give you a way into the market without having immediately raise all your prices. I don't know. No, I like that. That's a good point. I mean, anytime I sign up for text, just tech, I think that's the mindset to have about tech because in this world, it moves so quick. It's like, and like with AI, it's like, oh, you try this one out. You try this one out. Well, and a year, there could be a better one that's doing the same thing, but just at a better, better frequency. Well, that scenario that you gave there, the part that people that do that don't want to talk about is one, when you buy said technology, if it's like me, inevitably, I buy it. And then as soon as I buy it within three months, I find out,

oh, they're just getting ready to do an upgraded version. And if you would have waited, you could have bought that. So then the one that you got, you're not getting the best technology. And if you would have waited, you could have got it cheaper. And then two, three and a half years into your five years of saving or figuring out that you've got it, something way better is out there. And then you're cursing it all the time because you're stuck with this. So by the time that you're done, it's not, it's not good. And that's only speeding up. I think the technology's only speeding up. Oh, and I see, I think, you know, once again, I'm a farmer, but I'm completely opposite. In some ways, I think the subscription should go farther. And I think it would benefit

the companies, too. This is another thing I've thought about. Like, look at it. And, at all the equipment you see on these dealers lots anymore and how expensive and late model it is and how few of people on the secondary market can buy that. Just take it like an 8R tractor, for example, like the new 8R 540. Okay, 8R 410. Well, they all have the same engine. I know the 8R 540 has a bigger one now, but just go the little R's. Okay, so if you start an 8R 410, that big farmer needs it to pull his planner, whatever, well, he trades it back in, you know, the 2,000 acre guy, he only needs a 280 or whatever. What if you went that far that, you You actually, it's just an 8R.

And you pay a subscription. Pay a subscription in the spring. You're pulling a 36-row planner. So you want your full 4-10. In the fall, it's just pulling a thousand-bushal grain cart. You only need 280. You pay a little less. And then I think the glory of it for the manufacturer's side is when they trade that back in,

it's just an 8-R. They don't have to try to get this premium for this machine that, you know, a good chunk of the population doesn't need that size of a tractor. They could sell it to more of an average size. and he can put whatever horsepower he needs on it. I don't know. I've thought about ways that you can implement this farther. You're going to be pissed because this is going to happen now.

And you'd be like, gosh, I could have gotten a royalty out of that. No, I put a video out on that last spring. And people didn't like that idea. Okay. Farmers do not like the subscriptions. No. They don't. But I think new age farmers might be okay with it.

Probably. Because I'm used to subscriptions, you know. It's just with everything. There's subscriptions with everything now. Well, the nice thing is you can cancel it if you don't want. I mean, it's just you're not committed, you know. Yeah. I don't know.

But then you'll see the same guys that don't want subscriptions go out and lease all their equipment. Isn't that kind of in a way? Same. The same thing? Like, I don't, I kind of, I feel like there's a little bit of a disconnect there. Yeah. Let's talk about labor. How, what's your, what's been your experience with labor, maybe on the,

farm side and the in the spraying side, your business, has it been tough to find labor? Have you used any programs to get labor? Because that's something that we talk about a lot on here. A lot of guys think that that's what keeps them up at night is the labor side. What's been your experience? The labor, so far, we've been very fortunate. We've been able to have retired part-time guys. And because that's really what we need.

That's what makes the labor side for us even harder because with the spraying, that's the main time we need it. you know, April through August, and then, yeah, it's nice to have a few part-time truck drivers in the fall to haul the grain. But I don't stress out near as much on the farm side of it because, let's face it, if it takes us a couple more days to get done, you know, because we didn't have an extra truck driver that day, oh, well, nobody's going to come in and combine it for us. We're on the spraying side, if I don't have enough help to keep things moving, and that farmer needs his ground spray and I'm not getting there, he's going to call somebody else.

but so far we've just gotten by pretty good with retired guys. Now, we've had two of the guys that have been with us for six, seven years. They're basically full time in the summer months. And then, you know, but if it rains for two weeks, that's fine. It works out great because they're retired.

They just go home, do retired guy stuff, and they're happy. But now some of those guys are wanting to be a little more retired. And so I've been looking here recently. And it's a struggle because, you know, farms don't need CDLs. You know, if we were just hauling grain, I could just put anybody I was confident in to drive truck.

We don't need a CDL. And technically, maybe I could, you know, straddle that gray line and say, well, we're farming, you know, so I don't need my guys to have CDLs. But when you're doing all the custom work, if you got the wrong officer who really wanted to double check, it's just not worth it. I want to, I want to dot all the eyes and cross all the T's. So we need a CDL driver, but not a full-time CDL driver. You know, we only need them four months out of the year. Most people have CDLs are using them. And so I've started looking into the H2A program a little bit.

I looked into it last fall. And honestly, it kind of surprised me how expensive it really was. I mean, it was a lot more than I thought. The hourly rate's really good. It's really not bad. I mean, it's cheaper than what we pay our guys now substantially. But the problem is you've got to pay for their airfare here and back home. And you've got to give them lodging, which, once again,

some of the bigger farmers in the area, it seems like they've always bought an acreage or a farm that had an acreage on it at some point. Well, that's not a big deal. Maybe they had an acreage. They let them live there in the house. No problem. But for me, that means I've got to go rent them an apartment, something like that. And then you either have to give them a vehicle or I have to drive them to and from work, do all that. And the bigger problem for me and my business, which I don't think a lot of people understand because I was talking about this on TikTok the other day. And we don't, like, we can't afford a full time guy. Like, and we don't, I mean, we don't need, we just, we only need it seasonally.

If we're not in the field, we're not bringing in money. And that was the downside a little bit to the HOAs or the H2A's because they want to, you know, they obviously came a long ways. They want 40 hours a minimum a week. Well, if it rains for two weeks, I mean, what am I going to have them do? I mean, I'm sure I can keep them busy. But now I've got an expense there that I wouldn't have otherwise had. But realistically going forward, that's probably what we're going to have to go look into,

at least for the spraying side. I still think it's pretty easy on the farm side. to get help. Like there's a lot of people, whether that's a high school kid or, you know, a retired guy, he thinks it's a lot of fun to go out and drive a tractor,

you know, just really enjoys the job. So that part isn't super hard, but on the spraying side, moving forward, probably going to have to look more into H2As or something like that. Yeah. What, uh,

we, there's a lot of, a lot of talk in the news about pesticides, fungicide, and round, and water quality. Water quality and Iowa being the second, what is it?

We're the second leading cancer state in America. What's your thoughts on all that jazz? I mean, you work with these chemicals. You've been working for them with them for years. What are some things that people should know about the spraying business and how farmers use these chemicals, et cetera? Well, I mean, I think that's the frustrating part. And that's one of the reasons I started a TikTok page was to try to, there was just such a

disconnect between the farm and non-farm anymore. Like there are so many generations removed that they don't understand what's going on. And I think to the average person that drives by and sees us out spraying thinks, wow, look at all the chemicals they're dumping. They don't realize that, you know, 95% of that is just water. You know, it's just a carrier. And people just don't understand that. And I'm not going to say, like, that the water quality issues don't have,

anything to do with farms because, I mean, I'm sure there is a certain amount of that, no doubt. But you'll hear so many people say that farmers don't care, you know, that, oh, they're just all in it for the money. They're tearing down all the groves, taking out, you know, they're all about the money. And, and that's not it. I mean, you can look back. I mean, we've came light years, even in the last 10 years, you know, how many guys are doing prescriptions, you know, they're grid sampling every single acre, knowing exactly what each acre can hold and putting on the right amount in different amounts. in every spot of the field because, and that's the thing I don't understand why people think we're

just out there with reckless abandoned because obviously fertilizer is expensive. Like, we're not going to use any more than we absolutely have to use. And so back to the spraying side of it, you know, now we've got things like, you know, individual nozzle control. So we're not overlapping anymore. Same thing with chemicals. We don't want to use any more than we absolutely have to because we're paying for them. You're not only paying for their herbicide, but it's another trip across the field that you're also paying for. And so I do think there's something there, but I think farmers are an easy target. I really think that. And in farmers' biggest disadvantage is so many farmers want to keep to themselves, stick to themselves, not really talk about anything. I mean, I think I have no doubt.

There's some people that think the fact that I'm on TikTok is probably stupid. But, you know, that's just part of it. Like if we all continue just to sit back and just let only negative media influence agriculture, well, eventually we're going to wake up in a, in a way. world of hurt with a lot of policies that weren't necessary because people didn't understand what was really going on. And it's not their fault. Like, if you're not from a farm and you didn't grow up on, you don't understand it. And so if all you're seeing is the media, which, let's face it, is negative 90% of the time towards the farms and you don't have anything to counterbalance that. Well, what else are they supposed to think? You know?

100%. That's one of the big reasons we got on too, you know, especially on the hog side. we just show what we do in our hog barns and people have seen, you know, documentaries about big food and big meat and these factory farms. And then they watch our channel are like, oh, these guys actually are family farmers and they're actually care. And I agree with you 100%. If we don't get on and tell our story or show it, they're going to just see that one side and not know another perspective. and I do think I had somebody coined this phrase or they said this on a phone call with me. Citizen media.

Citizen media is becoming more and more of a thing. Podcasts, TikToks, people doing talking head content on TikTok. Like, I think people trust citizen media more than they ever have before coming from real people doing real things. And yeah, man, I just give you mad probs for doing that because we need more farmers to do that, you know, to get on. say their opinion and educate people. And, yeah, I think that's a great, great point. I started for the money. I'm still in it. I'm still in it for the money. It just, it hasn't found me yet. Yeah. But I'm trying to make it happen. We're all making money. And I believe it's true. I just haven't figured out how to, I feel like I'm in one of those cash grab boxes, you know, where they turn the fan on. You're trying to grab the cash. And I didn't wear cargo shorts. So it's like I can't give any.

I just can't give it. Well, we do, we got a can box up here, so there's something for you. Yeah, I'm always hoping of that. A wise guy, a friend of the show, Jr., he always said that you'll never go broke drinking beer because every can is another nickel. Now, I'm not sure exactly how that works, but he does have a point. So, we'll talk about starting your social media. So you said that was part of the reason that you did start.

So what did that look like when you decided you were going to do it or were you on the fence? Well, like I said earlier, I'm super shy by nature. Still am. Like, it's odd. Like, I still will not film anything in front of anybody because I'm way too. It's just, I don't know. I can't do that. But the main reason I did it to start with wasn't even about agriculture.

It was more because of him because he thinks like, you know, the millennial farmer, Larson Farms, all those guys, like, you know, looked up to him. And I said, you should do that yourself. You know, people think that was really cool. And that was before there was Jackson, you know, who took over TikTok. I wanted, I thought, you know, people would really like that. You know, he eats sleeps and breeze farming. And he's like, no, I couldn't do that.

And so mainly I wanted to just kind of do it like, well, here, I'll just kind of give you an example. It's not that hard. And like the first several video, like the first one I ever did was just a picture and put music to it. And like, oh, this isn't too hard to make a TikTok. And then I started actually talking in them. but only showing like my equipment or asking questions. And then I don't know. All of a sudden I just said one day screw it.

You know, and I film myself talking. And just little by little, it's taken off on that side of it. And I don't know. My wife has always accused me of not having a filter and saying, saying things that I shouldn't. I just,

but I guess I'm just real. Like you know where I stand. Like if I have a thought, I'll tell you. If you disagree, that's perfectly fine. But I'm just, you know,

so I sometimes I say things that are maybe, slightly controversial, but I don't know. What made you, or how did you come to the decision to start doing lives? That I don't know. Well, it was out in the field, you know, because mainly I started doing lives in the field. And that was kind of fun, though, because, you know, people don't see sprayers. Like, there's very seldom you see that. And I remember there was one Sunday afternoon where I was running seeing spraying.

I thought, what a perfect time. because it was a really clean field too. So you could see it, you know, popping off and on like very frequently. And so I had like 650 viewers on there. And like, and you could clearly tell that they were non-farming people because they had all kinds of questions. And it just felt like you were kind of connecting. And then the more I did it was like, this kind of fun because it's more of a interactive debate too. Like, you know, they'll talk, you know, they'll, I like lives better because it's more than just a video.

like when somebody will ask a comment, I can sit here like this and take as long as I want. It's my live. Yep. And explain my point more thoroughly. Then you can in a video because that's the downside to TikTok because people are looking for something snappy. So you might have had a really good point, but it might have been 40 seconds into the video and nobody even got that far.

And so that's what I like about the lives is when they're there, you get your point across better. And then it really kind of became fun because I'll start noticing the same guys show up every night, you know, and you're just kind of talking about your days. it's no different than I always joke. It's kind of like the guys after work going to the bar and having a beer. I like to sit down in my shop,

turn on a live, have a beer and talk, you know, talk with my friend, basically, you know, it's, it's kind of how I look at it,

I guess. Where do you, where do you hope, do you have a goal with it, or do you think just keep, keep doing what you're doing and keep just promoting ag at a positive light?

Or, I don't really know. Because like when I started it, I thought, you know, it was mainly to show him, and then I'll admit sometimes, you know, you think you're doing some good, like trying to convince people. And then you look at some of the comments and you're like, we're getting nowhere.

Yeah. But then every once in all, like I said, I like it in my lives, because I had one guy came in one day and he was all about, must be nice to get all those subsidies and it must be. Oh, we get that every. All those types of things. And but he was a rarity where he actually stayed. And like he came in hot, but by the time, you know, he left, he actually ended up following me. Like we had a conversation like, and I felt like, okay, that's one.

You know, we actually did explain something. But then on the other side of it, it's like I like doing TikTok to a certain extent. But yet it's also, you know, some people, if I would, I think it would be a huge marketing tool. Like if I was selling a business and I could ship around the country, I think it'd be awesome. But there comes a point where with what I do, what good is. You know, there's no, there's no monetary, you know, return for me because I can't. Even if somebody's a huge fan in Texas, it doesn't do me any good. I can't grow my custom spraying business by doing that.

So I always thought, I honestly thought I'd do it for six months. And I didn't think I'd still be doing it at this point. But at least at this point, it's kind of fun. And I don't, that's the thing. I think from an outsider looking at social media, they think, what a clown. Like, why is he on? Why is he doing that? But they don't realize behind the scenes, like the network.

Like, we talked about networking earlier. like networking is so huge. And that's where I screwed up. Like I guess I'm trying to make up for it later in life. Because when I was in college, I was not your typical college kid. I skipped a lot of class, but it wasn't because I was at the bar. The problem was I was 30 minutes from home. And it was too easy. You know, you had one class on a Friday. Didn't have a class on a Thursday. So Wednesday afternoon, what are you doing? You're heading home. You're helping dad in the field. And so there was no networking that went on. And that's probably my biggest regret. But now this is kind of my networking and I kind of see how important it is. Because like it's crazy. Like some of the, when I first started, some of the big creators that I thought were out there, you know, I looked up to and still do. But like now like, I don't want to say I'm on level with them, but it's like, holy cow, like, I've got about as many followers of some of these guys do.

And, you know, behind the scenes, you're exchanging phone numbers, bouncing ideas off people. And it's so nice to do that because you can talk to farmers who are actually willing to share their ideas because you're not their competition. You're how many miles away. whereas, you know, a neighboring farmer, you know, he's, you know, you'll have a great conversation, but they're not going to tell you anything important. Yeah.

What's the most common, like, live? What are some of the most common live discussions you have with a non-farming person? Like the subsidies, is that a big one? What's, give, give people your thoughts on that whole deal. And it's, if I didn't know any better, like if I always try to, like any part of an argument, you got to try to see both sides of it. I really feel like I pride myself on that. And so I first want to see like, okay, if I was, lived in the city, didn't know anything about agriculture, and you're seeing on, you know, CNN, Fox News everywhere, it doesn't matter what media station.

Farmers Bridge Assistance, $12 billion. Well, $12 billion sounds like a lot of money. And like, and so, and if you're just a non-farmor, you think, well, didn't they just give them something like, you know, a month or two ago? You know, in your head, you think, man, there's a lot of subsidies. but you don't realize when that they don't understand the other parts that go into the farm that we don't really get any of that. I mean, essentially we're money launders for the big input companies. I mean, and the day they announced the bridge assistance, wasn't that when the USDA report came out as well?

And every single dollar that we would have made on that, we lost. Drop that day. And so, I mean, it's, but it's hard. Like there are so many of those people that I don't know what it is. I think a lot of it, I don't try to broach that too much because I try to really stay out of the politics. But I think a lot of it is people are upset because what, like 80 some percent voted one way. And I think that's some of it. And so they were already irritated with farmers.

And then you see subsidies in the news. And it takes it that much farther. And to a certain extent, they don't even want to hear it. Like, you know, if somebody would actually listen and be like, oh, wow, you lost that much money in one day when the market did that, And like if they would understand that, well, when they, you know, if we were this close, I really feel like there was going to be a bunch of farms that, that weren't going to be farming this year. And for the first time and maybe a long time, there might have been a landlord that had

to go looking for a tenant. Like maybe, like maybe not, but it wouldn't have been as easy as before. You know, I think we would have taken some farms out, maybe created some opportunities for some younger guys. But just in time, you get that subsidy. No reason for seed prices to come down. no reason for cash rents. It's just, I don't know, it's not sustainable with what we're doing. I mean, it's encouraging bad behavior too. But that's frustrating. I mean, that's the hard part.

Like, I feel like if somebody will actually listen, I've got a chance. It's just so many of them make up their mind and then go try and find facts to support their opinion instead of the other way around. Just look at the facts and then form an opinion. 100%. You pointed at your son earlier, people that people might not, he's not on camera, so you might have to let people know his name and all that. But you want to probably get the next generation started farming at some point. That's something that's probably in your head a lot. What are you, how do you feel about the future of ag to make that happen? How do you feel, how do you feel about that currently?

Welcome aboard via rail. Please sit and enjoy. Please sit and sit. Please sit and sit. Play. Post, taste, view, and enjoy, via rail, love the way. Honestly, it's not a real heartwarming feeling. Yeah. It really isn't. Like, I mean, I can remember when I was growing up, my parents were trying to encourage me to go do something else, you know. And I always thought, like, why would you, why would they want to discourage me? Well, now as I'm getting to that age, you know, and he's 13.

So he's got a few years yet. but as he's getting to that age, it's like, I can see what they were saying now. You know, you look at it and the problem is, the farms in our area, at least, you know, we've got nice ground. Like sometimes I'm jealous of, you know, everybody says it must be nice

to have all those big, wide open square fields. And honestly, sometimes I wish I farmed in an area where there were smaller fields because I don't think it would be as easy to have all the huge operators. You know, if you had little patches that you were farm,

it might create more opportunity. But in our area, it's not just our area, it's everywhere. But I always equate it to if you were on vacation and you went out of town and you had to stop somewhere to eat supper, there might be the best mom and pop restaurant across the street or a Texas roadhouse across the road. Where are you going to go? You're going to go to the Texas roadhouse because you're not familiar with that area, but you've heard of the Texas Roadhouse. And the same thing happens in farming, where as some of these operations have built some size, they get heard of. They're they're recognizing and they do great job. I'm not, you know, You know, nothing anti-big farm. It's just, but it's hard to compete because, you know, they've got the visibility. And that's huge right there. It's just just the visibility. So, you know, you think about some, you know, some landlady die or, you know, some lady's husband dies.

The landlady now has to rent out the farm. She didn't really pay a whole lot of attention to the farm. So now she needs to rent somebody. Well, she's probably going to ask a couple people. And who do you think I should rent my farm to? Well, probably going to be one of those big guys because that was the only people, have heard of, whereas might be a great young farmer down the road, but probably easier just to call up, you know, the big guy. And, and that's the frustrating part. And it, you know, but then

the encouraging part for me, too, is, well, I didn't really plan on having an opportunity. And I guess if it was meant to be, it just kind of happened. So the sprain, I think, will still be there. He does like doing the sprain. But I've been encouraging him. I don't really think I want him to go to college. I mean, that sounds crazy. Like, whoa. But. I've kind of taken the approach now of if you're not going to be a doctor, a lawyer, engineer, something that you absolutely are majoring, have to have that. I don't think, I feel like today a college degree is kind of like a high school diploma was 20, 30 years ago. You know, it doesn't really give you the leg up that it once did because everybody has it.

So I'm really encouraging him because now you also start thinking about AI. 100%. What jobs could be replaced by AI, you know, computer programmers, probably a lot of that type of job, you know, that would have been a good paying job, might go away. You know, so I'm pushing him more towards the trades, you know, things like plumbers, you know, welders, electricians, anything like that, because that's hard to come by in small town, small town America too.

Mm-hmm. Well, really anywhere now. Yeah. I mean, you can kind of name your own price. If you can use AI and do the trades, if you can use AI and know how to use it and use the tools and you have a trade skill, that's those two things, I think will get you very far. Yeah, because it's, in the future. I mean, that AI, it's crazy with what it, you know, and I, I never say it can't do something because, you know, it's just at that point that you can't ever say never because who would have thought we'd have tractors driving themselves?

Now we've got autonomous tractors. I mean, it's unreal. It's, I don't know, but that's what I'm kind of encouraging him. I hope he can farm. I mean, it's still a good life. I mean, it really is. Like, we don't do it for the money. I mean, obviously there's a lot better ways to make money.

But it's just, and it's undescribable. Like, you know, somebody, because that's another frequent question I'll get in a live, is like, you say farmers are never making any money or they lose money from time to time. Why do you keep going? And, and honest, I can't answer that question. Like, I don't know. Like, it's not one of those things you can put your, you can't put your finger on it. Like, if you didn't grow up, you know, following behind your dad, you know, walking around

the farm and it's just in your blood, you can't explain it to a non-farmer. It makes no sense. And I'm sure there's other industries like that as well, but I just, I can't think of any of them. Yeah. Because I do. I think about that.

It's like, you know, what if I would have just stayed selling machinery or stayed in a job? I mean, you get your house paid off. You get your vehicles paid off. Now what? I mean,

now do you just start kind of saving? Like, but here, anytime you make money, it's like, oh, well, now we really should update this.

We should do this. You know, there's always so many places to be putting that money on a farm, you know. Well, the best thing you can do is get really good at a trade and then one day you'll need a tax right off. And that's where the farm comes in really handy. If you can make a bunch of money doing something else and farm, that's where farming really shines.

If you have to make it all on the farm, though, it doesn't shine quite as well. No. No, I don't know. And sometimes I wonder, too, like, well, we get to a point where too big is too big. and then it goes the other way around, like where, you know, I could see,

like, I can't help but think that the corn and soybean gig isn't about up. I mean, I really, I just, every year we subsidize it

to keep growing more, but our carryout gets bigger, our yields get higher. I feel like eventually we're going to find something else. I don't know if that's a crop or what it is, but where a smaller operation

can pivot on a dime, maybe get into that, and maybe that's their niche, whereas the larger you are, it's a little harder to, turn that cruise ship, you know, and I don't know, but there might be opportunities. I mean, you just never know. Yeah, I think it's really interesting. You've got some people running, you know, we've got an election coming in the state of Iowa anyway, and you're going to have a new

governor one way or another, and you're going to have a new secretary of ag or the reelected one, but there's actually some people running for those offices. And I think it's so interesting because there's at least a couple of them that they're really, really bagging on the current state of ag and how there needs to, you know, we need to switch things around. We need to prioritize different crops and all that. And I hear that. The only problem is, and I think we'd all agree with that. The corn and soybean thing is just it isn't working. But when you talk to guys that raise cotton and the price of cotton is half of what your cost of production is, well, I wouldn't grow cotton either. And you talk to the wheat guys and that's not a very good deal.

So what do you do? Well, corn and soybeans, as poor as it is, is a better option. Until there's a better option, this is, and we haven't helped it in the fact that we have our government and are just the way we've done. done things. We've incentivized it to the point that that's what we do. And I don't know how we get off that train. Edible beans don't work either. Chat Larson from Larson Farms talked about that on his episode. They tried edible beans. They had one good year. And then he said that this past year wasn't so good. His line was you only plant what you can afford to lose. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I mean, to a certain I just think we're doing too much. Like we're trying to fix what, you know, by fixing, trying to fix stuff, we're creating a problem. Like, what if we just did away with all the subsidies completely? Like,

just nothing. Maybe we don't even subsidize crop insurance. We just, we get the government out of it, let supply and demand work, you know, and it makes sense. Like, oh, well, man, if we're not getting, if we're not getting, if we're not having this backstop, maybe I should be putting my ground that I took out of pasture back into corn or back into pasture and getting some cattle because cattle are at a high price, you know, and we've just got everything so out of whack just because of the way we've incentivized things. Like you said, it's just, I mean, the free market will work. It's just you can't keep throwing things in it to manipulate it from time to time. Yeah. Yeah, and they, I mean, they're definitely not. And where it's a worldwide commodity, uh, market that we're playing in,

and everybody is trying to optimize it for whatever country they're in. And the result is crazy, just plain crazy. Yeah, it's, I don't know, I don't know where it's going to go. I really don't. But, I mean, it's kind of scary that your plan is. I mean, you think about, you're going into farming, you plant your crop, and your best business plan, quote unquote, is hope that somebody else somewhere has a problem. Like, what other business operates that way?

Yeah. I mean, you don't, you know, start a roofing company and go, well, I hope the neighboring roofing company breaks his leg and has to take the whole summer off so I can be profitable. I mean, it just, but yet, we line. up to do it every year. And like you said, you know, if we have those subsidies and we bail them out or, you know, we throw those in every time, you kind of feel like you're back stopped to a certain extent where, yeah, it's pushed more guys into the corn and soybeans. But I don't understand how more than guys have done corn and soybeans. So if you've pulled all those acres out of some of those

other crafts, why haven't those marks? I mean, I'm not, I'm not into it enough. But I don't understand, like if we pulled all these acres out because corn and soybeans weren't profitable in two years, think of what the price of corn would be. Yeah. Like, why haven't, Why hasn't cotton came back? Why hasn't wheat? I don't understand. Yeah, I'm telling you. I am the most dumbfounded thing in the commodity world over the last two years to me is you go back far enough.

When the whole Ukraine war started, I was like wheat prices are going. I thought that was going to be what pulled a bunch of acres back to wheat because I'm like, okay, you got the two biggest wheat producing countries on that half the world, and they're at war, and all this farm ground is getting torn up, blown up, and nobody's going out there with a tractor. It's not going to get farmed. It's not going to get exported. There isn't going to be enough wheat in the world.

Wheat prices are going up. I've never been so wrong about anything in my life. It didn't do anything. Wheat price didn't do anything. In fact, it's gotten cheaper. And I'm like, well, how is this possible? Like, how does this work? And I still, nobody's really ever been able to explain to me.

Maybe they've got a bunch in storage. I don't know. Well, I mean, the short answer was that they were still letting Ukraine export and China was still, or Russia was still exporting. But the total production has got to be hit hard. Doesn't seem to matter. I don't know. And I don't know. Does it go back to the media again where, you know, all the glyphosate on wheat?

You know, you see that all the time. Oh, yeah. Is that pulling back where people are not using wheat? because, you know, I don't know. And that goes back to my bigger point. Like, you know, if we keep letting these narratives, you know, be pushed, if they're not true, we don't give our side of it when we end up with things where, well, I'm not planting wheat or I'm not buying wheat or I'm not buying corn syrup. You know, I don't know.

There's just, there's no, there's only negative. We don't ever want to give our side of it. Mm-hmm. Well, yeah, I look at like what Jason, you know Jason Mock on X. He does a lot of intercropping where he, you know, he's, you know, he's, you know, He's planting two different crops. So he has gone where he comes in on his corn in the fall, and he plants a half rate of wheat,

and he plants that in a weird row spacing that's basically set up for how he combines his, how he plants his beans. And so then in the spring he'll plant beans into, the gaps from where he planted that wheat. And so then he'll combine the wheat, and he's got ahead that the spaces where the beans are growing, it pushes the beans down ahead of him as he cuts the wheat. And then the beans come up through,

and he gets a full crop of soybeans, and he gets three quarters of the yield he would get on a half rate of wheat because of the extra sunlight. and then he plants 60-inch corn into that, no-tills that into the soybeans. So he's raising three crops every two years. And it's pretty freaking crazy. I mean, we had him on the podcast,

and he's like a mad scientist. He'll make your head. I mean, it's like, it's crazy to listen to him, but he's got a really big X-fall wing, and he documents the whole thing of him doing it. And I don't know, you talk about how sustainable it is and how we might have to do something different. I look at him and I look at what he's doing

and I'm like, because his whole thing is, can we put less inputs in and get more out of it? Can we make more money per acre by putting less inputs in and doing variations with this intercropping? And I don't know. It seems to be working for him. So I don't know.

I think there's a lot to be said for that because I think we've gotten to that point too where maybe we don't go after those last three bushel because those might be the most expensive bushels that are out there. You know, I mean, how many things, you know, whether it's the, you know, crop type stuff or technology's side of stuff that says, oh, we're going to give you three bushel the acre. Well, if every one of those was true, we'd be growing 400 bushel corn at this point. And I just, sometimes I wonder why, I mean, I've seen guys that will buy a brand new planner, tear everything off of it and spend a couple hundred thousand

more to put all this other stuff on it. It's like, you know, in the right year you can go out with a 40-year-old John Deere 7, 7,000 with finger pickup and get the same yield that that one did. You know, it's just, it's hard for me to see that you're always getting that return on the technology.

There is a guy, and I don't remember his name, but he was, didn't he, he won the national yield, he was the national corn yield champion for some area. I don't know where and he planted that all with a like 300 and I don't know 300 and whatever bushel acre

corn yield he planted it with a finger pickup 7200 planner see that's where sometimes I just wonder like you know I look around and I see guys you know in my neighborhood or whatever that haven't really got any more ground but I've went to a bigger planner or a bigger combine whatever you know they've but their operation maybe really hasn't grown they just updated bigger faster, more efficient equipment. It's like eventually where does that pencil? You know, like we always think like planting early, you know, is going to give you a big yield advantage.

And to a certain extent it can. But if you get to the point where you're too over-equipped planting, just for example, and you plant it all in a week or three days or four days, what if that was the wrong weather window? You know, sometimes like we might not want to do it that way. And like, then sometimes I'll see the, the, I was going to do a video about this on TikTok actually the other day. like sometimes you'll see these guys

with these big X-9 combines and stuff like that and that's great. Like if you need that if that replaced a combine fine. But then you'll see some of those same guys that are getting done like November 1st or October 30th you know somewhere and it's like you know back in the day

we used to go till middle of November December you know no big deal okay well I get it the soybeans you know if you can get them out sooner that's great because you know that can be a struggle but and also from the moisture side but realistically, you're not going to speed it up to make a difference. And so I wonder, it's like, did you really become more profitable because you finished your harvest on November 1st versus November 20th?

Like, what difference would it have made in those 20 days? You know, if you're harvesting corn, that's where I sometimes don't understand. It's like our, it's farming is the most unique thing out there because sometimes you're not, you know, there's other factors in it. Because then I guarantee you there's people that in the back of their mind, they want to rent more ground. and if I'm not the first one done, then people think I already have enough and they don't want to rent me anymore. So we're out there rushing through it

because we don't want to be the last one's done. And it's just, it's crazy. But like that doesn't pencil. Like, you know, like you invested in this big combine so you get done two weeks earlier. But on paper, where did that investment pay you back by getting done two weeks earlier? There is nothing on there with paper.

But boy, it sure did feel good. And that's it. I'm one of those guys. So you see, I want to get to that point. I want to be so over-equipped. So I had a cousin that he doesn't, he's retired, he's rented his farm out. But he was the equivalent of that. He had a 9,600 combine with an eight-row head,

and he combined by himself or he had just a little bit of help. And the way he combined was he would make a round, and then he would unload onto the wagon, and then he would throttle the machine down and he would step out on the platform and he'd take a... This episode is brought to you by FedEx. These days, the power move isn't having a big metallic credit card

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then he'd get back in, fire up, and he'd make another round, and he might do the same thing. See, that's what I want. I want my X-9 on my, you know, six, 700 acres, and just have the satisfaction of, yep, it's pretty good. Yeah. It's pretty good. Yeah.

So, but yeah, it doesn't pencil. Well, and it's like I found myself too. Like when we got, you know, when we picked up more acres in the spring is like, I love those jobs. But like looking back now too, it's like it's fun. I still enjoy it. But it's not as much fun as when I was helping dad. And, you know, the quick, the quick thought would be, well, because you didn't have skin in the game then. But I don't think it's that.

Like back then, you know, we put in a good day. You know, we'd work till 9, 10 o'clock, whatever. But we always took Sundays off. You know, dad did not work on Sundays. And, you know, you enjoyed it. You looked forward to it. But it seems like now there's so many pressures, whether it's weather or you're worried about neighbors' opinions, whatever it is, you're out there just going as hard as you can rushing through the exact thing that we love to do, you know, to the point where, you know, too much of a good thing is a good thing. And so you just, by the end of the season, you're like, I'm sick of this.

You know, it's just, it's a vicious cycle. It really is. Yeah. And I think we've, we've had this conversation. with multiple people that there is a point where there's a lot of people out there farming that they have grown out of what they enjoy because now then they're not the operator, they're the HR. Yep.

Now then there's some guys that thrive on that. And there's some guys that, you know, that is what they really enjoy is building and not so much the actual farming. But for a lot of these guys that are getting to roll in big acre, To your point, I feel like it's become a monster to them that they probably aren't enjoying the part that they started out that they really did enjoy. No, like when I was in college, graduate, I wanted to be one of those. Like, that was my goal. You know, I, and it wasn't because I just loved doing it so much.

I wanted to do it as much as I could. I wanted to be a 10, 15, 20,000 acre farmer. That was my dream. And as we've gotten older, matured, got other interests. And I've got the opportunity to work with some. of these guys. Some of these guys that, you know, I've sprayed for some of them that, that are pretty large operators. And I'll watch them, though. And it's like, I don't want that. Like, their phone is ringing nonstop. I mean, like, I, I love getting in a cab and turn it on a podcast

or something like that and just sitting there. And it's like my sanctuary. You know, you can just chill out. And I couldn't imagine I get in there and it's just nonstop phone calls. Like, at least they're still in the machines at this point. But eventually you get to the point where you're just sitting in an office telling everybody else what to do. Like, same thing with autonomy. When when the day comes, if that comes, that we don't even drive the equipment anymore, we just sit in our office or deliver our, you know, I'm out. Like, I'll go find something else to do. Like, I mean, what's the fun in that at that point, you know? What's your, what's your door star? Like, what do you, what are you striving for?

What is this all for? To get hopefully him involved. I mean, that, that's the main goal is, and I've got another son, too. And, I mean, he's four, though. So, We've got a little more time with him. But I mean, I just keep wanting to get to the point where I would ultimately like to get to retirement age or up there to where you've got enough money that you can maybe crack the throttle at least a little bit, you know, and still farm, you know, go hang out with my wife a little more, maybe spend some of that time that we had to give up in the early years, maybe get some more of that back and just kind of enable them to do what they can do.

You know, if they can farm, that's great. but it's probably going to take some help on my point or on my part, like now, essentially. You know, we need to start growing now if we're going to get him into it. And that's my North Star. I mean, realistically, everything you do is for your family. I mean, trying to provide for them, make sure they want for nothing. For the most part, we've succeeded so far, I guess, aside from the fact they'd probably like a little more time with their dad. Yeah. Yeah. No, that's awesome. It's a legacy thing. I mean, that's for sure. I think people ask why we do it.

I think it's that legacy. There's something about it. It's yeah. He just, yeah, I want him to be able to do what he can. And my girls, if they want to do it, that's great. You know, I don't foresee that. I mean, they like the ag side, but they're not out. I mean, he's been with me since day one.

And I've tried. I tried really hard for the longest time. I didn't want him in the cab because I saw other kids that I grew up with that didn't ride with their dad in the cab. They weren't around their debt. And they got out. They went and found a job in the real world. And not that that's not that I'm like jealous of that.

And that's what I wished I would have done. But I don't know. You know, because like we talked about earlier, once you're hooked on it in such a young age, everything else just pales in comparison. Like you didn't, you didn't stand a chance,

you know? And so part of me like just looking at the future of ag, realizing, you know, dad owns some ground. But if, you know, if we lost all our rented ground tomorrow and dad passed away and I inherited, it's not enough to keep farming. I mean, we could farm it, but we're not farming it the way we are now. You know, and at that point, I still got to get a different job. And do I really want to be,

you know, a weekend warrior? I don't really want to do that. Right. And so that's kind of the, that's the scary part. And that's why I wanted to keep him away from it. But then you get to the point where, well, I'm not succeeding. He's here. You're not going to do it. So now, I guess we're going to go to plan B and just try to find a way, you know, and I think the best one is the sprain. You know, the sprain gets you in there. At least, even if you'd never farm another acre, you feel like you're really closely tied to egg. Next thing will probably be dry fertilizer. I'm trying to get something in that avenue going. So at least maybe you're not running a combine, but you're doing something in egg anyway. Yeah. We have a signature question that we do at the

end of a show. We used to call it the golden shovel, but I just didn't like that. So we're going to call it tip of the hat. Tip of the hat. So who's somebody or something that you want to tip your hat to and say, this is a really great tool or this is a really great piece of equipment or this is a really great person for this reason? Well, there's multiples, honestly. I can't really exclude. But I mean, I'd probably say, you know, my wife is probably one of the main ones because she's had to put up a lot of crap. I mean, you know, with me being gone and we got four kids, you know, at all the different ages, you know, that puts a lot on her shoulders. I mean, you kind of got to tip your cap to her for one. And then my parents, I mean, you know, they, they never really discouraged me, you know,

from going into ag. I mean, once they realized kind of like I did with him, that it was a foregone conclusion. Well, then they've tried to help us any way they can. And, and honestly, there was multiple people, probably that really got it started. It was at Titan. There was a couple older guys there, older salesman, been around it for a long time that really, you know, kind of showed me the ropes, how to sell, kind of gave me that, just that skill of how to do it. I don't know. So maybe that's cheating, but that's probably the three, three people I would tip my cap too. Well, I'm sure you got three hats somewhere around your shop. Definitely. More than that. We all, we got, we got way too many hats that we could tip our cap to. I probably got more. Yeah. And yeah, my wife doesn't, yeah, she doesn't like it

when I come home with another hat. I'm over getting, I told dad, no more pine year hats. We got, unless it's really, really cool. But man, there's just too many to get it. So, well, I mean, I got all my words out. You got anything for anybody? No. How, one more time, how do people find you?

TikTok at NBC Precision Sprane, LLC, I think. One of the two. There's only one. On Facebook, though, there are a lot of fake accounts. You might want to look out for that. they are popping up like crazy. Facebook is terrible. You know, I say this all time. Meta for being as big of a company own an Instagram, their platform sucks. Yeah, it's, it's terrible. And I don't know when that just started, but you know, when I go in and tell them fake page, I don't know if anything happens.

I see it in the next day or whatever. But so it's, it's the same. There is a Facebook page. There is a Instagram too. They're all the same at NBC precision sprain LLC. Yep. Well, Brandon, it was an absolute pleasure to have you. Thanks for coming today. We love what you're doing. If you guys got any value from this episode, go follow Brandon what he's up to. Share the show with the people that you know. Leave our view on Spotify or Apple. We love you guys. We appreciate you. And we'll see you back here next week for another episode.