Episode 165: Epigenetic Seed Adaptation and No-Till Success with Brad McIntyre

Hi, friends. Welcome to the Regenerative Agriculture Podcast. This is Jon Kempf and I really enjoy having conversations where we discuss all the various aspects of soil health, plant health, livestock health, human health, and how we can steward and manage and optimize these ecosystems for the best performance of everyone. And today we have a conversation I've been looking forward to for a while with Brad McIntyre out of Idaho. If I'm not mistaken, Brad has a fairly diverse operation doing a number of different things. And you know, it's when you have this diversity of perspective, you, you develop, you develop your own perspective on what's happening in your local context that is perhaps more nuanced than if you're just doing one or two things. Even if you're doing those one or two things really well, there's a diversity of perspective that's really beneficial. So, Brad, thank you for being here. Thank you for all the work that you're doing on your operation. Why don't you. Well, let's begin by you giving us a bit of the context of the scope of your operation, the, the environment, the ecosystem that you're farming in and what your operation looks like.

Yeah, thanks John, for having me. I've been excited to sit down and chat with you. I've listened to a lot of your podcasts and, and have learned and grown through those. So I really appreciate this opportunity. We are in Caldwell, Idaho. We farm right here on the Snake River Basin. We're about a mile and a half up off the river. So we have a very diverse soil types through each field and we're in a fairly populated area, we're out on the outskirts of it, but we have smaller field sizes and a lot of pressure from people moving out and building houses. And so that has kind of shaped what our business looks like today. But I am a fourth generation farmer here in this area and I, my naturally my children are going to be fifth generation, so we're really proud of that. We mainly row crop, seed, a lot of seed crop in this area. And as we were growing our farm, as I was as a kid, we were growing, doing a lot of custom work in the hay industry, alfalfa industry. We were, you know, doing a lot, anywhere from 4 to 5,000 acres of cutting and really just heavy in equipment and labor. And it was getting to the point as these field sizes were shrinking because of housing, roads were busier, we really started trying to understand what, what the future looked like for us and our business and equipment costs continuing to go up. We just came to the point where we realized that that wasn't going to be something that was going to be good for the future. And so we started scaling that back in the same time I was, I'm always in that mindset of trying to find ways to do things easier, better. And I was looking for a rock picker because of the Snake river playing. We have a lot of rocks down here. And so I was looking for a mechanical rock picker. And it led me down a rabbit hole of someone that quit using the rock picker because of no till. And from there I found the no till conference in Indiana to go to. And there I met Gabe Brown, Ray Archuleta, and I just never looked back. I came home. Instead of looking at equipment, I came home worried about soil health. And so as we're winding that custom hire business down, really focusing in on soil health and getting the family on board with that. Because I have my father here still and I have my brother Ben and also my brother Brian and Spencer work in and out of the business with us. We, we all got excited about it and so we went headlong into soil health and all those aspects of no till animals. You know, how do we cover crops? How do we do this the very best. And so our business has kind of evolved from that passion. So now currently, today we, we still farm around a thousand acres. We went from three thousand to a thousand. We have livestock on the farm. We do direct sales, meat, direct sales of grass, finished beef, pastured pork, pastured poultry, and that's broilers and turkeys. And then we have egg layers also on pasture. And so that business has really evolved. But it all centers around soil health and how do we make our local ecosystem better and then also how do we feed our local people and get them healthier.

And are you doing any crop production other than through the livestock? Is it primarily all livestock and grazing and grass based focus at this point?

We do still do some seed production. We raise brassica seeds because we do run a seed house as part of that. So we clean and, and process seed and bag it custom and also for ourselves. So a lot of purple top turnip. And then other, you know, if we get contracts on other brassica seeds, we'll, we'll raise them. I sell quite a bit of seed to green cover seed. And so that's been. About a third of our business is doing the seeds and then a third is that direct sales and a third is other cropping that we don't need for the animals or the seed that we sell commercially into the, you know, feedlots and dairies around here.

And those crops that you're selling, would those also be grain crops, corn, etc.

Yeah, corn mainly is what we sell outside of what our needs are for the farm and for the seed house. And everything we do is non GMO and that way that can work back and forth for our own animals.

I've not visited your operation. I don't remember the rainfall context, but if I remember correctly from some of our earlier conversations, you are doing a lot of irrigation and you have some very challenging irrigation water quality.

Yeah, we are fully irrigated. If we didn't have irrigation, we would have no cropland. Here we, we are. Rainfall is anywhere in that 8 to 10 inch range for the whole year, but most of it falls from October to May and so that summertime is very dry. We actually just had a heavy rainfall event the last couple days we got right at 2 inches of rain, inch and a half one day, and a half inch the next day, which is unheard of in our area. But that's what we've been seeing more and more is longer periods of drought and then really intense storms that aren't, that hasn't been normal. That's what we're starting to see, this, this change.

Yeah, I think weather patterns are shifting as land use shifts all around the country. And I'm really intrigued with some of the work that Alfalo and some of his colleagues are pointing to about how we can use agriculture and, and landscape management to change regional rainfall patterns. But that's a con for another day. I suppose. You have a few aspects that I'd love to get into. But you know, when you mentioned the, the seed production, I remember. I think it might have been at a Green Cover Nexus event where you were talking about your seed production and the custom seed work that you do and that you had two different seed lines. You had the lifeline and the death line. I still remember that quote. Tell us a little bit about that.

Yeah, so just the way we treat seed is, you know, if a customer wants it treated with chemical, it's, it's the death line. And if we treat it with biologicals, inoculants and whatever that has life in it, it goes through a different, you know, different line. And so we have life and death. And so I always like focusing on the life side and yeah, it's just one of those. And I like to think about it like that because we're always out to kill something or we're always out to keep something alive. I'd way rather focus on, I call them my livestock in, in the soil and then I've got my livestock on the, above the soil. So I would way rather be focused on keeping something alive than killing something.

Brad One of the things that I'm intrigued by have been for a long time is just the significant gap that appears to be present in commercially produced seed where there, there doesn't appear to be any emphasis or focus on quality other than quality defined as germination rate. So when you look at longevity, you look at seedling vigor and so forth, seed size, test weight, energy content, you can use, you can consider all these various parameters. So how, how do you think about producing quality seed and what are the factors that are particularly important and valuable to you?

Yeah, I mean we're graded in the seed industry by our germ and you know, how pure the seed is. And that's, that's what everyone's, you know, buys off of and rates everything off of. The one thing that I have found really interesting with my, like, if you take purple top turnip into perspective, when I took over the seed house from the gentleman, there was three lots of seed that were in that building, a purple top turnip that were under germ that never could. You know, they were like in that 50 to 60% germ range. And they all had been raised in the, you know, conventional way in rows, lots of fertilizer, lots of tillage to keep them clean. And I started raising purple top turnip in and I was just, you know, drilling it. So it was in that 7 inch spacing with a no till drill. And everyone told me, you know, you're crazy. And I'm like, well, I don't do tillage. So I got to figure out how to raise the seed crop and they wouldn't give me a contract. And that's when I started working with green cover. And I said, hey, I want to be focused on no till because I want to be focused on my soil. Are you willing to purchase from me? And they said, yeah, if you're gonna be focused on soil, yeah, we'll definitely support you. And that's how it all got started. But the one thing is, is I've in, in when it comes to those Brassicas, I've never had a bad germ. And my germ typically gets better as it, as it's sitting there and, and it doesn't sit real long, but I've actually held a box back and I've tested. It's four years old now and it is maintaining like 95 germ what creates that? You're smarter than me and you'd be able to maybe answer that. But there's something to soil health and, and that's cre, you know, keeping that germ and everything really good on that.

Hang on, you've, you've literally got me scratching my forehead here. How does germination rate improve over time? I didn't know such a thing was possible.

I don't know it. That certain lot started like at 91 and maybe it's a seed lab issue but it, that germ has got better. I know like in alfalfa seed and clover seed there's hard seed and so maybe, maybe there's hard seed that they test is bad germ. You get that recording in alfalfa and clover. But on, on brassica maybe there's a hard seed aspect to it, I don't know. But that something that seed is staying viable and I've yet in all the years I've grown in, you know, in my no till system I've never had a bad germ. Maybe I just, I need to find, maybe I'm jinking, jingling myself but I've never had a bad germ and there's some sort of, I feel like it's, it's in the way we're raising it.

And how has, how has seed size or yeah seed weight. Perhaps there's both a size and a weight component. But how has seeds per pound changed? How is it different in the 90% germ versus the 50 to 60% germ?

They're typically, you know, I don't, it's such a small seed anyways but it's very, I would say average size. It's not super plump but the box weight is heavier. Where a lot of my standard box size for a Brasca when I'm went for other growers when they come in we'll have around that 2350 pounds or 2400 pounds. This specific lot that I've kept back is closer to 2500 pounds so it's denser.

Yeah. And in, in addition to the shift from tillage production to a no till production, what has the shift been in. In nutrition management and herbicide, pesticide management and so forth.

So on those like when, when you're looking at the brassicas type seeds, we've tried doing pre emergence for weeds and stuff and I don't, in the no till system I don't see any change. So we've backed off of doing any of those. We Just plant it thicker than the industry says to plant it. We do get some mustards that come in, but with me controlling the cleaning side, I can get those out here and there. We'll have some issues, but takes a little bit extra work and extra passes. But I can take the time because I have the machines to do it, to get it clean. And so no herbicide. And I haven't, I can't say I haven't. There's been times, I would say half of the years I don't have to do anything for pests. We do struggle with cabbage seed pod weevil. And so the years that it comes in heavy and early, we'll have to take care of it. But other than that, I just usually if it comes in late, I just let it, you know, run its course and maybe it knocks yield out, maybe it doesn't. I've never tested that. I just don't. I try not to spray. And so we are able to really cut back and then on our nitrogen, we will put some nitrogen on it, but we follow your nitrogen recipe and so we are able to use about half of what the industry says to use and we seem to have really, really healthy seed.

Taking this approach, what, what does your seed productivity per acre look like in terms of pounds per acre yield per acre of actual. Of actual pounds as compared to the historical trend?

You know, our average, I would say we're in the average. We haven't seen a real big jump in yield, but we've, we've definitely had the reduction in expenses and high quality seed that, you know, not ever losing a crop, that's, that's important.

You may not have seen the, an increase in yield, but have you seen any yield reductions?

No, no. And in no till in general, we, everyone said, oh, just plan on a yield reduction as you get going. We, we from where our yields were, we flatlined for a couple years. We did not grow, but we didn't fall. And then we've slowly been on an incline on and there's, you know, some random years with other issues like on corn might have a little bit of a lag, but you can always like tie it back to a management issue. But we've been able to actually increase our yields through no till almost every year.

And what do you attribute the fact that you did not have a yield decline as was predicted and suggested you should expect?

I don't know if I can really put my finger on that. The first when we started no till, it was all behind alfalfa into small grains and then from there we would go into corn or other seed crops from. From that point. And so the nice thing about no tilling into alfalfa is you were. You had all those big channels for that root decay, and then those roots can keep going down those channels and so get through the compaction areas and a diverse rotation. We. We're not just corn, soybeans. We have. We have a lot of different crops we can grow in our county. And so that, I think helps a lot with that decline is we're not just corn on corn, corn, beans. You know, we have that diverse rotation and all that root matter and stuff dying down, and we just never saw it.

I want to dig into the livestock side of the operation. Understand that a bit better as well. But while we're having this conversation about seed production, where. Where do you see the opportunities for people in seed production or to grow their own seed? Where do you. It seems to me, from some of the conversations I overhear, and I'm not deeply embedded in this space, so I don't know the details, but it seems to me that there is a reasonable amount of unsupplied demand in this space. What are you seeing?

Yeah, I think the biggest thing is finding the right buyer. And the seed industry is. Is kind of in a lull at the moment with ag economy where it's at. Farmers are kind of rocking back on their heels and not knowing really what to do. So there's kind of a. Kind of a weird spot right now, but I still think people need to be growing as much of their own seed as possible. Just when you look at epigenetics in their local growing region, we. Why not be focused on that?

I know that in the. In some of the group discussions with Green Cover, we've had some conversations about epigenetic variability in. In various regions. Have you experienced any of that in your own seed production?

I. I always save seed back that. Like my purple top turnip, I guess, unless I have a problem, I always try to, you know, keep quarantine and then save my seed back. One thing that I saw that was. Was pretty crazy in the epigenetic side. We took over a farm that had previously had someone raised a forage collard on it. And so this person, they had the collard. Somebody else took the farm over and raised onions and bell peppers on this farm and this area of the field that they didn't want to farm because the soil was really poor. These forage collards kept coming back and reseeding, but they were not receiving any water. And so we're in this really, really low rainfall environment. But those, those forage collars just kept growing back and they got this really heavy stand. And so when I took the, that back, that, that place back, I started farming it again. And so this, this had been two years of no irrigation. I harvested, I had the guy go up and harvest those and they, those things went almost £3,000 to the acre and they've had no nutrients, no water, and then they had just reseeded two years in a row. Well, three years in a row right in the same area. And so then I, I took that seed and used it in my cover crop mixes. And that seed had grown like, I mean, it just, it just was so much bigger. It was, you know, probably six inches taller than, than the other seed that you could buy of the same variety. And there was just something that had happened and as it went through all that drought and stress, something with the epigenetics and would that react in other people's area? I don't know. But in our area, that seed was pretty amazing in the mixes.

What would be intriguing now is to take some of that seed and take it into other areas and see how it responds in other areas.

Yeah, yeah, it would be. But I know there's as it adapts, I mean, we grow alfalfa seed, we have a line of alfalfa seed. And the guy that I purchased the seed house from, his theory on alfalfa seed was to always take the, take seed for his new field from his oldest field, because that seed, that alfalfa was adapting. And so he would take seed from the oldest field and plant the new field. And then he was always, as he planted new fields, he would do that. And so that's what we've been trying to do. And I, I'm a firm believer that. Are you getting the very best testing alfalfa out there doing that? Probably not. That's what, that's the argument always out there. You know, are you missing out on, you know, 10 more points of relative feed value? Maybe, but most of the time when you're harvesting alfalfa, it comes down to a management issue or a weather issue of, of what you creates the issue with the quality, right timing and all that. So I would rather have a plant that's really hardy for my area and, and just stays in and grows in its, its environment better than these racehorse type varieties that in three years there's just no stand left.

So when you considered selecting or when you've Taken this approach of, of keeping the oldest alfalfa and it was also the approach utilized by your predecessor. How old alfalfa fields and stands do you have at this point? How long are you able to maintain them?

You can make. Well his, his, he would leave fields in 10 to 12 years. His alfalfa seed fields, like the thinner they are, he would be able to, you know, they would still produce well. And then you're rotating it out and you know, I, you're probably getting a certain root type that's, that's gonna last longer is my assumption. Like the shorter branch types might be going away and the more tap roots are staying. That's just my assumption. But you know, as we planted those, you know, into forage production, they weren't. I did a nine way study on a field one year and I had some really expensive varieties all the way down to this variety from the neighbor at the time. I didn't own it yet. And was the number three on the first year on yield in quality and then it was the number two and then it was number one through, you know, so on the third year was number one. And the fourth and fifth year is number one. The one, the, the two varieties that were number one two on the first year. Those, the one variety had to take out on the third year. Well, they both got taken out on the third year. The one variety was so bad you, you hardly could find a plant out there that was the number one the first year. So it's just kind of like a racehorse. And so I think it's from keeping those fields in longer, you're all those disease plants are gone now. Anything that was susceptible to those root diseases has weeded themselves out. And so you're just constantly making a hardier and hardier variety. For my area, I don't think it would work that great in everywhere. But for my area and my disease pressures, it's working well.

The same practice, the same approach would work in developing those local adaptations.

Yes, and, and that's where I think it's important for people to look at seed production in their area on these open varieties and to get a hardy, you know, variety that works in that area. And I think that's what we've are missing in a lot of this seed production. You know, grass is bred normally in certain areas. Grass seed and alfalfa seed production has its certain areas because it's, it's very best for those areas. Well, can we produce it in other areas? Yeah, your yields might be less. But are, are we getting A more locally adept variety that would still yield well, produce well, and knowing that it's going to be better for that environment.

Well, what you just said is quite interesting, Brad, because the reason grasses are grown in a certain area and the reason alfalfa seed is grown in a certain area or for any of these different crops, they're grown in areas where from an environmental perspective, a climate perspective, they have the lowest disease susceptibility possible. They're very dry environments that are conducive to seed drying down and not getting moldy, not having all kinds of diseases. And what you're suggesting is that now that's great for seed production, but it might not be so great for the actual value of the crop once it gets planted into soil that's a thousand miles away.

Yeah, that's, that is, that's my theory. Now, you know, maybe there's a lot of haters out there for that theory, but I just really, I would rather see seed that's adept and is going to produce well for a local region. And that takes away my business. Right, but it's for a local region because it might work better for the long term. Now in cover crop production, I can see maybe that's not, you know, you're just on that one year deal and it's, you're in and out, but you look at like grasses and alfalfas, the stuff that's gonna, that's more expensive stays in long time. Like, why aren't we focusing on stuff that's, you know, it's already primed for that biology. You're not spraying it, you know, kill those things and, and you know, it's just primed for your biology. It makes sense to me too to focus on regional seed production.

Well, in the case of COVID crops, I remember a story, I certainly had it off recording. I think I might have had it with Keith Burns here on the, on the podcast as well, if I remember correctly, where he spoke about the speed of genetic adaptation. I think in a four year environment where a southern rye was brought to a more northern environment and in a period of four years had adapted to where it no longer had the, the spring flush of growth, similar what did it, what it had had in the south. And so there was, and I can, I can see this working in both directions where you can have varieties that are more adapted to southern or northern latitudes and you can either get more rapid growth in the fall or slower growth in the spring and you can actually use that to your advantage from a cover crop perspective. But perhaps not from an actual cropping and seed production harvest perspective.

Yeah. So with that thinking about you saying that and it just pops up into my head. This is the second year in a row that we've had spring oats in our cover crop mix come up the next spring into, you know, other crops that I'm trying to produce for seed, so. And not like new plants, they survived and then went to seed. So are we, I should have, I should probably like try to keep that, see if, am I slowly, like producing a winter hardy oat? I don't know, it's like, how is this slowly, you know, making a winter hardy oat? And maybe the winter wasn't as hard, but we still got down to zero. But they didn't freeze out and they're in, you know, I planted a new crop and then they're still there. They didn't, they didn't die like they should have. So I think you can take stuff that isn't supposed to do as well and it can adapt. Is it going to be the best and always work every year? I don't know, but I think it can get used to that environment and you can start getting a better and better, you know, hardy and heartier plant.

Well, one of the, one of the aspects that I really appreciated about the Rye adaptation story that Keith shared and the Collard adaptation story that you just shared is the speed at which it happens. It happens so rapidly. In the case of the Rye, it happened in four generations. In the case of collars, it happened in two generations. And somehow I think many of us have, because we no longer do it, because we're no longer as closely associated with seed production. Many of us have this kind of intrigue that producing seed is somehow requires some special effort, some special energy, and that saving our own seed and replanting in the future is a very long payback window. It's going to take years, a decade or longer perhaps in order to see a crop response. But that in that in fact is not what I'm observing on many different crops and environments, that the, the, the changed epigenetic expression actually happens surprisingly rapidly.

Yeah, I don't, I, I think as humans we like to think that we're, we can trick nature more than we really can. It, it all survived this long on its own. And I look at that, you know, that collar story, it got nothing and it produced over a thousand pounds an acre more than, than when people try to produce it.

So you missed adding that in the story.

Yeah. So where, and like how can you ever, you know, recreate that? I don't know because you try and we get, you know, I, I know people raising that variety like the 1800-2000 pounds and it did right at £3000 clean and there it was like a four acre plot. So I mean just in insane. And you know, I guess I could try to raise it and see, see what I could get seed wise. But I, I don't.

So what is interesting is that you there in the forage collard, you have a crop that the growth cycle is adapted to your rainfall pattern.

Yeah.

And why are you growing irrigated alfalfa again? Seems to me you should be going dry land collards.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. If you could. I just don't know how I think you recreate that. But yeah, maybe, maybe you put the seed out and it would just go. And you know that, that takes another level of guts I guess than what I have.

Well it takes a lower opportunity cost probably.

Yeah, yeah. Maybe I could find some land and try it on it. But yeah, that's, that that was our experience.

But what's interesting to me what you're describing, I don't have a ton of experience growing either collards or turnips, but they're both winter, winter annuals. And wouldn't the rainfall pattern that matches to the collards also be similar to the turnips? Will the turnips have a higher rate water requirement in the spring when they're bulbing?

Yeah, they have a higher water requirement and then they just need a little bit. That's why I was so surprised at the yield and the health of those collards. Getting. No, no rain really. I mean there was a few scattered showers in that May to you know, end of June when they were ready. But I, from what I could see is they got, they seated down in like August time with rains because the seed fell out and then we, we got some timely August rains when they came back up again watching them and so they, they were planted earlier than we typically seed them and their, their roots were so big going into, you know, coming into the summer because I think because they seeded earlier and that's something that you know, we probably ought to try. Now turnips, you can't do that per se because that bowl will get too big and then it'll pop in the, in the wintertime and then you have problems with that. But where collard is more of a, is that root, maybe it's just getting an earlier planting timing and then it can get that Deeper taproot going where you don't have to irrigate it.

That was one of the key concepts of the system of root intensification and the various methods and the pioneering that has been done on growing larger yields of small grains is planting them quite a bit earlier where they're now. Well, depending on which latitude and region. Of course, there's a lot of variability, but there's experimentation with planting them as early as mid July to develop this very robust root system in a large crown that just emerges from spring dormancy and is off to the races in.

Probably at a lighter planting rate. Yes, yes, I've planted early. A couple years ago I planted early on some winter wheat and I actually, it, it died. A lot of it lodged and died because it got so thick in the spring. Then it couldn't. It just was just too thick. And so that's what my thought was after that experience was like, man, if we planted thinner early like that, what would it do?

I remember, I think this is just me stretching my memory. This might have been from the Mark Bonfills method. It might have been from system of root intensification. And I, I'm even hesitant to mention I should go back and dig it up again. But for some reason I'm thinking that when they were planting in mid July and this was on winter wheat, they were planting it at like 15 to 18,000 population, which is row spacing was 18 inches and spacing in the row at 12 inches, if I recall correctly. It's like you're planting it almost closer to a corn crop than we commonly do with grain.

That's crazy. Yeah, that, that is a corn crop spacing. Yeah. And like we planted it probably 125 pounds the acre, you know, so, yeah, I don't know. That's all, you know, lots of seeds. So. Yeah, I could, I could see that because then you get, I mean that thing, when we did it so early, we planted in, we were there planting a cover crop. So we're like, it was just a corners of these pivots. So I was like, ah, let's just get the corners planted while we're there with the equipment. And then it got so thick, there was no weeds. That was definitely. It was never had to use herbicide, but it was so thick it just ended up just melting away.

All right, so you had this awesome collard story and you also almost missed telling us the best part. And so now I'm going to ask you the question, what, what other great observations or experiences have you had that surprised you or intrigued you?

Color story is the one that's been most impressive to me by far.

Yeah, that's a great story. It's a great. It's a great example for us to learn from.

Right. And a great example, I think a great example of that. We really still don't know that much and we still have a lot to learn to try to mimic nature.

You know what? I think a major part of the reason is why we don't know that much. It's because so much of what we think we know is false.

Yeah.

There's actually a whole lot of things that if we, I think if we had less information or not lesson, if we had less training, less knowledge and we just paid more attention and we were more observant, in some ways we would be better off.

Yeah, I really like when Gabe Brown says, you know, we got to change the way we see things because our mind does get in the way of this is what we've always done. And so this is what's right. And in opening our mind to learning by observation and seeing it different, I think that's really key in agriculture. No matter what agriculture in is keeping an open mind and going out and spending time to see it different and challenging. Like, you know, like you always say, challenge the status quo, but challenging what you believe is right. And, you know, I really feel like we can learn so much more if we just take the time to go and see.

I think one of the earliest versions of that quote that I heard was from Kerry Reams back in the 1970s. And no, I didn't hear Carrie say that in the 70s, but it was written down by many of his students. His. His mantra that he kept repeating over and over was see what you look at. And the same, the same essence in that we look at things, but we don't connect the dots. And so I think seeing is. It's observing carefully, but also then thinking about our observations and questioning our observations and, and trying to correlate them to other pieces of information, understanding what's really happening going on. So observation is. Is partially visual, but it's also partially. Then the. The intellectual exercise of thinking and just questioning what exactly it is that we're observing and how it connects.

Yet I really like, because it. Maybe it's my personality, but I can do that somewhat and get a little bit of that observation. But when I really feel like I gain more is. Is when multiple people go and ops observe something and then we can have a discussion about it.

Yep.

And and it's that you feed on each other and. And then somebody says something, and it really, you know, gets your brain thinking. And I, you know, as, you know, with my brothers, we can have this, these conversations, and then it's like, oh, know, you just said something, and I saw that there. And then you can really build on it. And I think as humans, we need that community. And that's why I like these podcasts, because it's, it. It stirs thought, and then you can relate it back to things that you observed in the field, and then you can really start building ways to change or do try new things. But it's really important to. To try new things, too. I think it's one thing my dad instilled in a saying he always had was, you know, seed doesn't grow in a bag. Go try something different. Try something new. And so we need to observe, and then we need to go make change and try it and try to fail. Every year you should try to fail at something.

Well, without trying to fail, without attempting to make mistakes. You know, I've had this conversation, maybe not on the podcast. I struggle to remember sometimes where I've had these discussions. But when we are, when we are children, we celebrate our children making mistakes. Up to a certain age. You fall off a bike, hey, that was. We celebrate them, we encourage them. As they're learning to walk, as they're learning to ride a bike, as they're learning to write whatever it is through. Up to a certain age, as they're learning, they're constantly encouraged through mistakes. Every time you fall off, you get back on, you start over again. And then when you reach adulthood, all of a sudden perfection is expected. And now when you make a mistake, you get discouraged so frequently, like, that was stupid. Why did you do that? So there's this complete flip in how we think about making mistakes as you approach adulthood. And if we kept more of that childhood encouragement and encouraged each other to make mistakes, to make more mistakes, to make them faster. Huh? You fell off that bike, but that was a rough landing. Let's get back on and try it again. Let's try something different. If we had more of that encouraging perspectives in our ventures that we pursue as adults, think of how the world might be a different place from both a feeling perspective and a productivity perspective.

Oh, I think, I think you're spot on. You know, it's interesting that I have six kids and I'm training my daughter, my. So my second oldest to drive, and she's taking driver's ed But I bought her a little vw, a bug, and it's a manual, and so she's all nervous about it. So I was teaching her how to drive it last night and, and she's definitely making mistakes and, you know, she's getting all nervous and I'm like, no, you're great. You know, everything's fine. And, you know, really putting some abuse on the vehicle and, and, you know, and totally happy about it. Giving her lots of grace and patience. And then like you said, you. In adults, like, if an adult was to do that, you'd be like, what are you doing? And, you know, I, I think the world would be a completely different place. And with my faith, I, I feel like our, our Father in heaven views us the way we view our children. Oh, I mean, look, he's just being silly, you know, and there's a lot of grace involved where as adults we are so critical on each other. We're, we're critical on the next farmer across the road when in reality they just haven't, they haven't visualized and sought different and, and, but we're so critical on their, the way their crops look, maybe the way their, their borders look. And, and at the end of the day, they're still learning and it doesn't matter. We just, we need to have more grace for people.

Thank you, Brad. That was very well said. We need to have more grace for people, including ourselves.

Oh, and especially ourselves. You look at suicide rates amongst agriculture industry, we need to have more grace. And, you know, financial issues definitely don't help that, but we all need to help each other a little more.

You know, I find it interesting that the opposite of grace is having judgment and being judgmental about each other and oh my goodness, does it seem we ever excel at that?

Just, just look at social media and that tells you where a people, a nation or a people are. And it's that the first thing is we see, we see the bad in everyone. And if we could change that, if we could. You know, I saw a little short video and it was talking about this of if, you know, somebody cuts you off in traffic and the first thought you had was, oh, they're, you know, they probably have an emergency and they've got to get there before me. And it's, it's good for them to do that versus, oh my word, what a jerk. You know, can we change the way we see people and see their actions? Because we don't know what's happening in their life. We don't know why you Know, a certain farmer has dirty borders or, you know, their crop looks the way they are, maybe they're just going through a tough time and maybe we should go get to, you know, have conversations with them and, you know, and just with people and how do we treat people? A little kinder just offered that grace because we've been given a lot of grace. Right. Everyone, you know, when we screw up, there's a, there's a lot of grace given to us. Why aren't we giving it out?

Yeah, I want to be considerate of the many people who I'm sure have conversations about your livestock operation or have questions about your livestock operation.

Yeah.

You're growing a number of different things, are you? And I think if I understood correctly, you market all of those directly to consumers. Do you also do all of your own processing? What does that, what's the scope and the size of that operation look like?

Yeah, currently we are raising all the animals ourselves. We do not process them ourselves. We have a USDA processor for all, all livestock. We don't do anything here at the farm. I, I have enough going on and the, the one thing, I don't need another job and I don't need to manage anything more. And as long as there's somebody in the community that's willing to do that job and I can pay, pay them and, and help build them up as a business, I'm, I'm ready to help them with that. So we do have other people. JBAR Poultry does our poultry and Northwest Premium does all of our pork and beef. So they do a great job and we're happy that they're in business and able to do that for us. So yes, all of it's direct to consumer. 99.5% of our sales is all right here in the, in what we call the Treasure Valley. So the greater Boise area, we're about 40, 45 minutes from Boise. And so that Treasure Valley is where all of this meat is produced and is sold into. We sell online. We do drops and home delivery through that method. We do a little bit of restaurant, not a whole lot. Most like eggs go more to the restaurant than meat. We do a little bit of meat sales and then we have an on farm store where about a third of that is all sold through. And that has been the, the one thing that has surprised me about our community, and I would, I would hope that's the same in other communities, is how far people are willing to drive to come to our farm store and shop. We did a, a little on Paper study. I had my mom, she was working the store and I had her write down or ask and then write down the zip code for everyone that was shopping in the store those days. And what we found was the, the average travel distance was around 40 minutes to get to our store. And you know, and it was a nice busy day, really a really good day. And it just, it blew my mind how far people are willing to, to travel for high quality protein. And they're, they're concerned about their health and they're also concerned about our well being and the story that we're telling with soil health and animal health.

Out of curiosity, when, when they, when you had that average 40, 40 mile travel distance, what was the average sale size?

Our basket size in that store is just below $80 a basket size. So some people are traveling that far for just a few dozen eggs and then we have some people that come and shop and spend hundreds and hundreds of dollars. And so it's a real variance. But when we look at basket size fluctuates. But anywhere from that like 75 to $90 is our kind of average daily basket size.

All right, I have about, I have about a dozen questions, but the, the context of what I'm so intrigued about what you're describing, what you're describing, Brad, is that there are many beef producers in particular, but other livestock producers as well, who are making an effort to sell direct to consumer, to decommoditize themselves and to capture more of that retail dollar. They're prioritizing producing a high quality product. They're selling online and they're shipping product all over the country and very little is actually being sold in their region. And in some regions where you have very low population density out on the plains, that's understandable to a degree. But I'd like to understand what is it that you've done? How have you approached it differently to have such a large concentration in your immediate local region?

So there's a few things. Shipping is not the easiest in our local area. Dry ice is a big component of shipping frozen product. And dry ice is really expensive in our area. If you were to go buy dry ice in bulk right now it's around $3.30 a pound in the Treasure Valley. When you need eight to ten pounds for a box, you're just, you're at a disadvantage to people on the east coast or other places, you know, anywhere close to the ocean that's in that 25 cents to, you know, 75 cent range. So it was just always more Expensive and more difficult for us to look at Shipping, which is the faster way to, to build that business is, is offer to everyone and ship it out and really get that going. So we always, and maybe we weren't, maybe we didn't see things well enough to be able to define cheaper ways of doing it, but it just, maybe it kept our mind closed off and so we just focused on what we could control with our local area. And it was also a family goal. When we did holistic management training as a family, one of the main priorities was providing a nutrient dense protein for our local economy and in our local, you know, region. So we just doubled down on that. We did the main local farmers market so we could find those customers. We told our story online, we grabbed as many emails as we could everywhere we went. And my sister in law Maria tells a great story, does her weekly emails. She was very diligent about that. And we also had the website built. And so what when I, I mentioned the website is because pre Covid when we were at the farmers market, very few of those, those members there had websites you could shop on. So we started in 2015 selling protein. 2018 we were starting to kind of ramp it up. Pre Covid, I actually had a big problem. I had about 30 head of steers that were ready to butcher with no buyer. It was too, I raised too much for our market. There was no one out there willing to buy. I, I couldn't find them at the time and then covet hit and I had all this beef ready. We called and luckily got some spot locked up and within just weeks all of that meat was butchered and sold. And it was a huge blessing. Now Covid wasn't a huge blessing in a lot of ways, but it was a big blessing on getting our product moved and sold. And we had a website that you could buy on. And so when our farmers markets closed, people turned in, in the community, turned to who they could get it from and they could get it from us because we had the website, we could meet them at a location and drop it to them in the way that was safest for them. And we were able to, we, we over doubled our business that year and that was just a springboard for my business to grow. And, and from that point on we've been growing 25, 30% a year.

And your, your sales base you described is still in the local region. What does the, what, what does your mix of sales look like? What are the various products that you're producing? Where do you, where are you finding the strongest demand.

Beef is the strongest demand. And it's kind of crazy because when we started, there's so much beef out there. There's. There's a lot of great beef producers in our area. And so we looked at pork and chicken as, hey, if we're going to be different, let's. Let's be really good at pork and chicken. And then our customers were asking for beef, why don't you guys do beef? So we started doing beef. And ever since COVID beef is just. Our beef sales have just went just through the roof. And so it is definitely our number one seller at the moment. Every time we do a pork sale, we sell more beef. And I don't know why people are so. As the price continues to go up and up and beef prices are. Are insane right now, but people, it's like a scarcity thing. They want to buy more beef because it's more expensive. I don't know why pork is half or less than half and they don't buy more pork. And I know there's some, some religious issues there and some, some diet issues with pork, but still, for those that could eat it, why don't they eat more of it? It's saving them money and it tastes really good. But beef continues to shine. Chicken always grows as much as we could produce. It's just, you know, a lot very labor intensive the way we do it on pasture, but it's. It's kind of crazy.

That's an interesting observation, Brad. You know, I. I wonder again, I'm lacking context here to have an informed perspective, but we have, here in our local region, we have a local butcher shop called Heritage Meats. And they started from nothing half a dozen years ago. Covid also benefited them a great deal. But they are moving everyone's cheese because of quality, and there is nothing that they're buying. I'm using this term loosely. They're buying commodity beef. They're buying beef at the sale barn. But they just. They buy well and they butcher well and they optimize for quality. And they have a reputation of having the highest quality meat in the region. And of course, their competition, I mean, the funny part about this story is that they are literally 300 yards from the local, from the closest Walmart super center. And there are other grocery store chains, major chains, all within a couple miles. They're right in the dead center of the largest local town here. And they are just going to town, literally and figuratively being just growing very rapidly year over year because of the quality of the meat compared to what people can buy in those other stores? How much do you think that has a factor in the demand for quality beef at any price or for beef at any price in your. In your context?

Well, I think it's. I think it's a huge thing. And when. When beef prices are doing what they're doing, the. The big packers have to find ways to make it as cheap as possible and still get the meat into people's hands. And so they're gonna, you know, do all sorts of things to try to. To make that meat cheaper and cheaper. The. What I saw it interesting in the store the other day was pork ground beef, the ground pork ground beef mix. That was the first time I've ever seen that. You know, they're trying to find ways to. To make this cheaper for families. But we don't ever change. You know, our hamburger is always 80, 20. You know, we're keeping it consistent, trying to keep it fresh. We really focus on. As grass finishers, we. We really focus on that. That animal is. Is well marbled. And we're doing that visually. We're making sure that brisket's really full. There's tail fat, and. And when they hit that, that's when we butcher, we don't go on age, and we go on that look. And so I think that is really helping our sales is that we're consistent with an amount of fat inside that meat. Now, we're never going to be. Never going to grade like the grain finishers, but we're very consistent with. With what it is. And you know, a story that a good friend of mine, John Vanderheizen, said the other day, he was talking about grass finishers, and he related it to wine, that every grass finisher has its own flavor profile. Every farmer does. And just like wine in a region and in the winery has their own taste and flavor profile. And that's what we have. We have our region, and we're all irrigated pastures. Cover crop and grass mixes, and then you got people that are out in the range, and we all have our own flavor profile. And I think our flavor profile definitely resonates with our customers, but we're not going to be the producer for every customer out there. There's going to be some people that don't like my flavor profile, and that is fine. It's. It's figuring out that not everyone is my customer, but speaking really well to who is my customer and telling the story and getting it. Getting it in their hands conveniently as possible. That you can afford to do and as consistently flavor wise as, as possible. Because people want that consistency. They don't want it changing all the time. They want consistency and they want easy access. So we try to always be in front of them via social media or email. We try to provide them a very consistent product that they're used to and get it into the hands of as many people that appreciate the flavor that we, that we have. And that's what we focus on.

Brad, I just think, I think you just said something very important that. Yeah, I'm sure people heard it. But also we should lean into our local flavor, our local terroir as a strength, not as a weakness. And in the mainstream marketplace, having a product that is unappealing to some people is considered a weakness. But if you are not in the mainstream, then that is a strength. Like the universal wine, the wine that everyone likes is the cheap wine. Well, no, the people with sophisticated taste buds don't like that. But maybe a better way of saying it is the wine that appeals to it, that wants to appeal to a universal audience is the lowest price stuff. And I read this fascinating book years ago and I keep pointing back to it titled Biochemical Individuality. And it was describing how depending on your bodies, historical accumulated experiences and your unique biochemical footprint or the composition of your body, you will have, you will perceive the flavor of things very differently from the people around you. And there's some obvious cases, like the genetic makeup changes that are associated with people either loving cilantro or hating cilantro. But then there are layers and layers of nuance beneath that very obvious example as well. And to, to your point, it is, it is actually a marketing strength to have unique flavors that are not universal in appeal. And if you, if you are targeting universal appeal, then you are in, you're essentially producing a commodity. You're competing with commodities.

Yeah, you know, you're challenging my thought because a lot of times as you look as, as a business, you're like, I need to grow, I need to grow. And you know, you're, you're trying to gain market share all the time. And as you try to gain that market share, you know, you don't want to become water dense. That's what, you know, some people really love that grain, finished beef, but tastes all the same and it's very mild and they put all kinds of seasonings on it and make it what they want. Right. Well, I always say that ours doesn't need, you know, it doesn't need much salt and pepper you know, that's right. That's what I always say. Like with my pork, just pork chop, just put salt and pepper on it and put it on the grill and, and cook it low and slow and get it to temp and you'll have the best eating experience. The fat, you'll crave the fat more than the meat. And, and because it has that flavor in it, you don't need to add the flavor to it.

Exactly.

And, and I really like that because I've never thought about those. You know, the big, big beef, it is kind of a, it's just a very mild flavor. And, and that's probably on purpose. Right. That, that helps everyone be able to eat it. Their, their customer base is wider. But I don't need to be selling to the world. Right. I, I need to do what's right for my farm size and my context and, and for our family and just focus on who loves that flavor profile.

Well, if you try it, if you take this idea and this conversation we're having all the way to its extremes to the end of the spectrum, the one example that we have to point to of someone who has marketed terroir very, very well is Glenn Elzinga from Elder Spring Ranch, who's in your region of the country. I attempted to buy steak from Elder Spring Ranch some time ago, a year or two ago, because I wanted to hear, I wanted to explain experience, what the rave was all about and the fact that they've won half a dozen awards for having the best steak. And Stefan Van Vliet has told, has described how they're, they're grazing hundreds of different plant species and he actually found the compounds from alliums from, from onions and chives and garlic and so forth in their meat because they're grazing these wild plants. And do you think I could buy their steak online? They're sold out for months in advance at 60 to 70 bucks a piece.

Yep.

So there's the extreme example of selling terroir from 100% grass fed animals that are known to have remarkable flavor because of the vegetation they're grazing on and because of the environment they're in.

Yeah, Glenn's doing a fantastic job and the way they do that in herding and those animals get across all the, all the landscape the way they do. And I've never been, I've never had the chance to eat it, but I, I should. And you know, it's going to have a very unique flavor profile. And, and that's what is, that's what sells for his customer base. And that's what's amazing is, you know, he has so many, so many such a diverse, you know, plant availability where on my irrigated pastures, just whatever I provide. And that's why we tried to do big cover crop mixes and get, you know, as much diversity in the animal as possible. We're just. There's no way we could afford to get to. To his level, which when it goes back to, I, I don't need to either. Right. I. I need to do what fits in our context and. And what the customer wants. What my customer wants.

Exactly. Brad, this has been such an enjoyable conversation. What are the important topics that we've missed talking about?

I mean, soil is my passion, and we haven't talked a lot about soil. Actually, my license plate, I just got a new one, but my license plate says soil nerd. And it is that. That's what is the basis of everything. If you look at everything on this planet that we use daily, everything you can tie back to soil. And so as a people, as customers of things like, are we focused enough on the soil health of our region, of our nation? And I think we can do better. Always, we can do better. And I, I think that's really important for people to understand that every choice has a negative or positive influence on their soil health. And the things that they're buying has is a negative and a positive, you know, influence on soil health. So we need to be more conscious of it and we need to vote with our dollar better and just realize that the soil is very important and that the livestock in the soil, we get to see our livestock on top of the soil all the time. If we could only hear and visually see those little guys underneath and what they're saying to us, like we can with our livestock on top, I think we might act a little different.

All right, Brad, this. This is an interesting conversation. You. You framed this just maybe the way you articulated it triggered something for me. But you. You framed it as the things that we buy as consumers. But you are a farmer. You're more often thought of as a producer rather than as a consumer. I don't particularly care for those two labels, by the way, but the. So my question for you is, as in your life, as you're making decisions about what to buy and how to spend your dollars, how are you doing things differently today from what you did historically? Historically.

I think the. I think the main thing is I'm. Is I'm actually trying to think about it because a lot of times there's just no thought given that what I'm buying and I'm not perfect at it. I the last one to say I'm perfect in all my, my choices. But I try to consciously think like what what am I doing? What what is this is doing for the future of my children and you know, their lives because we're so interconnected and we like to think like oh, I'm just making this one decision today and, and it doesn't affect anything else but there's always a cascading effect on every choice. And so I just try to be more conscious of it and just be more aware that maybe I have to make this decision. I'm not happy about it. But how can I change in the future? What can I do differently the next time and just try to be more thoughtful. It's going to change.

And Brad, are you thinking about these decisions and just being conscious and being mindful in the context of making purchase decisions for your farming operation or in terms of your household and family or both?

Both. And, and it's. This has been really like the last six months has really been because I, I look at soil and I've always just like this only affects farm, my farm life. And then the last six months is when I've been really thinking about it more and I don't know what triggered it. It's just how if you look at everything goes back to soil and like you know, civilizations died because, and they moved because of soil degradation. So yep. Like am I truly leaving my this resource better than than I found it for my next generation and my, my community and am I involved enough as, as a member of a community to. To help others make these changes? And it's, it's a passion of mine to make sure we are leaving this, this resource better. It's just it. I think it's very important and you know, even when you look at building houses for all these people moving in, lots of people are moving in in our valley here. But you know, are the construction people really worrying about ground nesting bees? Because that's a huge thing for our seed production around here. Like no, we're not. So how, how do we keep all this stuff? You know, humans need a place to live, but how do we structure these things and how do we keep focus and not have one of these oh moments and have to look back and say well we really screwed up there. How do we not screw up.

Something in the way that you said that? Brad, trying to recall the exact words that you use but paraphrasing something to the effect of how. How do we steward this resource? What if we changed our language to no longer think of it as a resource? What if in that framing, we are the resource? In other words, instead of the land belonging to us, what if we start thinking about in the context of us belonging to the land? It will be here longer than us, and we are here to serve it instead of it being here to serve us. How would that change our relationship in the way that we show up?

Well, we learned that from scripture that we are stewards and that, yeah, we just have this opportunity for a moment in time. I think that's a. It's a lot better way to use it, to look at it, because that's what humans have done, is how do we manipulate something to get gained? But how do we stay alive? How do we feed our families and stay financially healthy and leave it better and. And look at it in that way? I like it. I think it's a lot better way to look at it. And I think our. Our words matter a lot. The way we say things and the way we voice things. And so I think just. Even. Even saying or viewing it different, I think will help a lot.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Because the words that we use and those thoughts and intentions end up manifesting themselves in our lives and other people's lives and. Absolutely. Brad, this has been just a wonderful conversation. I've greatly enjoyed it. Thank you for all the work that you're doing. Thank you for being here and sharing your experience and your wisdom, and I look forward to chatting with you more soon.

Well, I really appreciate it, John. It's been. It's been a joy, and I look forward to more conversations in the future.

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