Episode 178: Reducing Inputs and Reclaiming Independence with Alex Udermann

Hi friends, this is John. Welcome back to the Regenerative Agriculture Podcast, where we have all kinds of fun conversations related to regenerating our soils, regenerating our public health, livestock health, and regenerating farm profitability. There's lots of room for improvement in all of those areas. The profitability piece is often the pain point that's catching most attention nowadays, but it's just an expression of everything that comes before that. I'm honored to be here today with Alex Uterman. You can share your story and background much better than I can. But, you know, one of the things that is intriguing— there are many growers who are on this pathway of regeneration who are, who are building on 20 or 30 or 40 years of experience. And you are starting off from a much younger, fresher perspective. So I'd love for you to tell us about your farm's history, the context, the scope of the things that you're working on today, and where you started from.

Yeah, so a little story about our farm is, yes, I'm 5th generation. I farm full-time, graduated high school, started farming after high school, skipped out on college. Just knew at a very young age that farming was something I really wanted to do and kind of just dove into farming headfirst. And like I said, I grew up farming my whole life here. Farm with my brother Jake, my wife Kirsten, and my parents John and Mary Lou. We're a dairy operation. We feed all our steers row crop. We also do some custom work. We do custom manure hauling, liquid and solid. And then we also got into the custom no-till planting and cover crop seeding. We just added a drone to our farm. We're also a Revolution drone dealer. And I've also became a mentor and a contractor to the Minnesota Soil Health Coalition. I guess I just have a strong passion, I guess, for regenerative farming or conservation or just helping heal the planet or doing the right thing farming.

It sounds to me like you need a thing or two more to get done.

I got kids, so that fills the rest of the bucket up. Yeah, we got 4 kids. My brother has 2 kids. So yeah, we, we have— we stay busy. Fun activities. But I just, I don't know, I have a deep passion for regenerative farming. And it really saved our operation. I think that's where I have a huge passion for it. It's definitely made a mark on my soul, I think. And I'm not going back.

When you say it saved your operation, what's, what's the story behind that? How did that all come about? What was your operation like before you started the transition?

I think the operation— well, we really didn't change acres or cattle numbers. Everything that part stayed the same, but the way we farm definitely has changed tremendously. We started this transition in 2016. So everything prior 2016, in the past, we were full with tillage. I mean, we were stock chopping, chisel plowing, disking, field cultivating, deep ripping, you know, the whole shebang. We did it all. And we— Dad was raised that way, Grandpa was raised that way, and that's kind of just the way we were taught. And, you know, we're breaded with this information from all these huge ag companies that you need to do X, Y, and Z and till the field this way, all that fertilizer on and spray this chemical and plant these traded seeds. That's the way farming was supposed to be. So, but what really started our journey was purely the economics of farming. They were not the best the last 10 years, I would say, and it really just put a financial struggle on our farm. But as I got older, more into this operation with more management, I can understand that the economics are just only a small piece of the puzzle here with regenerative farming. I mean, there's many more benefits other than the economics, but we can dive deeper into that. But so what really started was the economics of it. You know, freshly graduated high school in '11, I was farming full-time for a couple years. Everything was going good. We're buying equipment, staying progressive, and things were going the way they should be with decent commodity prices, and everything was just flowing that way. But when we hit some bad economic times and some droughts, things weren't cash flowing no more.. And then when you talk about soil erosion or water erosion, we can see those pretty good. But I saw a different form of erosion on our farm. It's the equity erosion on the balance sheets. Yeah, so I was watching Dad's and Grandpa's equity just erode and erode. We're borrowing more capital to have new operating notes just to keep on getting by. And it was kind of just a down roll or downwind snowball effect, race to the bottom of the barrel with—

I like that, that take on erosion, equity erosion. That's certainly been very true in many operations in the last decade.

It has. And then when you can see that real time where you're just chiseling away at that positive equity you have, like, there was going to be no future for me here to farm, you know, a couple years into this operation. And I thought, we have to do something, or I won't be able to farm, or my kids won't be able to farm. So I kind of, you know, got to put your big boy pants on here and let's figure something out. But, um, I mean, we can dive deep into this, but it was a combination of the cash flow was nonexistent no more. We ran in a few years of droughts. We were in D2, D3 droughts for two seasons in a row. We had low commodity prices, high inputs, high interest rates. Making all these payments on this expensive equipment, the four-wheel drives, the tillage parts. Uh, you know, you're burning probably $20,000 of fuel every spring and fall doing tillage, and $10,000 in parts on air filters and chisel points and hydraulic filters. And that, that's not even mentioning the labor. You got two four-wheel drives going in the spring trying to do tillage, and the planter come behind them, and picking rocks for a week with 2 skid steers and 3 guys. And it just was the point where, you know, this is enough. Like, we can't afford to keep doing these practices.

So what did you, what did you consider changing first?

Well, like, this is the really part of our story that I think is pretty unique. Is when we made the switch, we spent $0. The only thing we changed was the way we managed.

You must not have done it right.

Are you supposed to spend money first?

But I was—

well, I guess at that point we didn't have any cash flow, so we— there was no option to go, you know, buy all this cool stuff that we have now. You got to work our way into this. But before I get there, I'd like to maybe discuss maybe some other things here quick too before— but, um, like I said, our cash flow got so tight. This is how micromanaged we did our farm. Like I said, we spent $0 on our transition all year because we just changed the way we farm. If you're familiar with milking cows, you can have a teat dip sprayer or a a dip cup. And this is how tight things got for us where we micromanage everything. We went from a spray cup to a dip cup so we could save $75 a month on iodine milking our cows. But if you just do something like that and you cut back on this or cut back on that, pretty soon you got, you know, $1,000 or $3,000 a month savings. You can make your P&I payments to live on by. So I said, we were, we were there. Cash flow-wise. And another part too that I want to call out is the system that was designed for us that we did not set for ourselves. I found out when you call out the bad corporate egg system, they definitely bark back at you when you call them out. An example is, uh, I mean, our lender— we were financially strapped. They were kind of telling us— they literally told us we got to pull our heads out of our ass or we're going to lose the farm. And I took that to heart, and I come up with this great plan where, you know, slashing these expenses and cutting all these expenses out, we're getting more milk, better feed, and it wasn't up to their standards yet. But, and then I, I thought about maybe we should buy one robotic milker because we've gained already 15 pounds of milk per cow by switching some management practices in the field, and some other herd management practices. So I wanted to buy a robot, just one, milk less cows and get the same amount of milk on less feed, less labor, and say we can go get off-farm jobs for the time being to get some more cash flow established. And it would have been maybe like a $200,000 investment, very minor. They would have cash flowed relatively quick. But this is where the bad system comes in play. The bank told me, no, we can't do that for you because that won't cash flow. But on the flip side, they said, but we can loan you guys $2 million to go build a brand new barn with 4 robots and now 240 cows. And I just thought, you're not solving our problem, you're only creating a bigger monster. We can't service our debt. And it's just the system is not— I guess the system is corrupt. I guess they want you to continue in this trap, but when you start asking questions how to escape the trap, they kind of turn on you and shun you away and don't want your business no more. And that happened just not with the bank, it happened with our co-op.

I was about to ask you, what other examples do you have of that type of, um, type of experience?

I mean, I, I love my co-op I do. They're really good to us, but we had an old agronomy manager that was very old school, which, you know, I don't blame them. And when I wanted to start doing these practices, it was no-till, no crop, it's not going to work. And he gave you about a million excuses. So every time he gave me a bad excuse, I found one positive to kind of outcompete his bad thing. So I knew by if I listened to him and I came up with a solution that would offset, then I would be successful. But, you know, it was the point where we're doing no-till soybeans. He was brought— we were broadcasting commercial P&K, and I just asked the question, if I'm broadcasting commercial P&K dry on top, why can't I do that same thing with my manure, my dry manure, or my solid manure? And that was, you know, you can't do that, you're going to lose so many nutrients, and, you know, the whole gamut. But it's like, On the flip side, I'm running your dry P&K on top and that's okay, doing no sulfone beans, but I can't surface apply a few tons of VetPak and accomplish the same thing. So it pretty much got to the point where I told our old, uh, agronomy manager, said, it's, it's our farm, it's our money, it's our decisions, we're going to do what we want, you guys work for us. And it didn't take very long, it was a couple years later, he quit his job and we have a new younger, uh, a grounding manager that's more open to trying things and understands our vision on our farm and kind of works with us. And so I think times are changing. It just— there's a lot of— there's a lot of, uh, bucking the system back in the day.

And how, how did you navigate that? What was the There's this common dynamic that I observe where there is this tension between the younger generation, in this case you, and the older generation on a farm and the long-term relationships they have held with, let's say, agronomy managers in this particular instance. How did you— how did the, the historical agronomy manager having this particular perspective or this antagonistic perspective, how did that affect your operation as a whole?

With the old plant manager?

Yeah. With— how did that, how did that influence your family? How did that influence your decision-making ability? Did you feel limited in your ability to make decisions as a result of his presence?

In the beginning, yes, because we trusted his value and his decisions. So we kind of just, you know, Dad was loyal to him. We were loyal to him when we first started farming too. So We trusted their input because that was his job. I mean, we were just at that point, we were just farmers. We're, you know, working the land, you know, doing X, Y, and Z. And we trusted off-source people to make those decisions for us. But once I started understanding how the system works, I started questioning more and more, kind of going against the authority, you would call it. And he really didn't like it. But at the end of the day, it's a farmer-owned co-op, and we just told them, we said, we're going to do it this way whether you like it or not. And we got them on board right away. So there was no, you know, hidden secrets. We're going to be start doing no-till soybeans, reduced tillage on our corn acres. We have to maybe change our herbicide plan up. And we didn't leave them in the shadows. That's one thing I would not recommend doing. Get your co-op on board as soon as you can, and you're going to probably have to educate them more. Get them up to speed to match your goals on your farm.

Let me, let me ask you about that. How did you benefit by educating them? What was the support or the response that— how did that benefit you and reward you?

Well, when that old plant manager quit, we had a newer one in there. He's been there for his whole life too, and he's more willing to try things and he can understand things. And I invite him to meetings and our field days and they show up and they want to learn too. So I think the financial pressures on farmers now are facing— I think the co-ops are gonna have to start adapting. So I think co-ops are starting to understand the importance of soil health, regenerative farming, and it's opened the door up to having more conversations of things I want to try. So like foliar feeding or interseeding cover crops, we have open communications now of how we're picking our herbicides and what products we're putting down in our fields. It's more of a kind of a mutual conversation now instead of a one-sided, I'm right, you're wrong. And I can give you another example too of, you know, bucking the system. So we bought brand new tractors in 2010 and 2 of them were lemons. We're dealing nothing but issues with sensors and turbos and they go down the shop, get fixed and come back and they were still not working. And once they got— when then we cracked the head on one under warranty, so get that rebuilt. And then it was out of warranty, and pretty soon we had to start paying all these bills. And we kind of just, you know, went up to the King Authority again too and said, you guys got to fix this stuff. Like, we've been dealing with this since day one, since we bought these tractors, and the warranty has not fixed them. And our local Deere wouldn't do nothing, so we called down to mothership headquarters and They told us there's not much we can do, and you've been buying this paint color for the last 50, 60 years, and they tell it— pretty much tell you, you guys are on your own. So we've switched our entire equipment lineup a different color based on the service too. So like I said, the bigger thing, like, once you start calling out the corrupt system, it definitely fights back at you and wants you to cave back into their system. You have to kind of go full— if you're going to commit, you got to commit, I guess, because they're going to bucket and they don't want you to get off. They want to keep taking that money from your pocket.

I guess, well, I guess what I hear you saying in some part is not so much that you were just fucking the system, it's, it's almost a different way of saying that you were claiming your independence or expressing your independence and, and, um, not willing to put yourself in a position to be controlled anymore.

It's exactly true. And quit taking our money if I can. I found a better way to farm without the assistance or dependency on outside people. And once you cut someone's cash flow off, yeah, they're definitely going to complain and cry about it and cause up some ruffled feathers, but Yes.

Well, then you give us— go ahead.

And then back to the co-op thing. I mean, like I said, I don't want to degrade or talk bad about anyone, but once I figured out, you know, I'm not an expert at anything, but I don't claim to be either. But when I was looking at what we were doing for commercial fertilizer between the manure management or the manure we have And the way we spread it was probably not the recommended, but we didn't know any better at the time. So we changed how we applied our manure. We covered more acres at a lower rate. And between how we were applying our manure now and the fertility we had in our soil, the co-op still wanted to build up the P and K with dry commercial. And I pretty much told them that's going to be the end of that because As I was going off, I was just researching, you know, extension recommendations off P&K. You can expect this yield if you have this fertility buildup on your soil. And with manure applications, I said we're going to be done with P&K. And we haven't bought any commercial P&K since 2018. And if I didn't question that theory, we'd still be buying probably $40, $50 an acre worth of P&K up till today yet. And you take that times 1,000 acres, that's, that's a pretty nice check a guy can take and put somewhere else to make improvements on the farm.

In addition to changing from tillage to no-till and the P and K applications, I was about to ask you about the scope of the other changes that you've made, the changes that you've made over time, but maybe to just catch us right up to the moment of where are you today? What does your operation look like today?

Well, if I could explain the starting point, because I— that's one thing I struggled with is, I mean, it's cool to hear our story where today, but you need to understand how you went from point A to point B. So this will probably answer your question you asked me 10 minutes ago, how we started. But I think you get the graphs that we were financially struggling. There's a lot— there was like 10 bad things going against us, and it was not looking very healthy for me to farm. So we decided to make the change in 2016. We— I just said, this is enough, we have to do something different. And we had nothing to really to start with besides what we currently had. And that was the first year I went to a winter conference, and I just want to learn if I could— if there's something I'm missing, if I can talk to somebody. And this conference was irrelevant to the conversation I had with this farmer at lunchtime. I just sat down, this farmer started talking to me, and he said he was doing strip-till since 1985. And I thought, wow, this guy is a seasoned veteran, he's been doing strip-till since 1985. So I just talked his ear off the whole lunchtime, got his number, and he wanted to sell me his— it was a John Deere corn planter he retrofitted into a strip-till bar. And he said he was going to sell it to me for $1,500 because he wanted to— he finally could afford a new one. He said he wanted to upgrade. So I thought, this would be— this is my golden egg ticket. I can take this home to Dad, and this is what's going to save the farm. Hopefully we can cut back on fertilizer and tractors and whatnot. So I went home that afternoon, told Dad, and he pretty much told me that is not gonna happen. He's like, keep dreaming about that idea, pretty much. So stubborn as I am, I don't like being told no, but I think this is the one time I'm glad Dad did tell me no, because if you would have told me yes, I probably got suckered in on the strip-till route. So between that winter, I was just having conversations with Dad and Jake and the family here, and researching things online, we agreed as a family mutually that we would custom hire no-till beans out in the spring of 2017 from a farmer in our area that does no-till soybeans. And we would— we planted 400 acres of no-till soybeans, hired it out, and we also planted 100 acres conventionally ourselves like we normally would do. And then our corn acres, we started doing reduced tillage on. So fast forward that fall in 2017, between the no-till soybeans and the conventionally planted soybeans, there was zero yield difference. And we had a— I think we spent $22 an acre to get those soybeans custom no-tilled. So that's kind of like when the aha or the light bulb went off. For $22 an acre, I can no-till soybeans. I don't have to stock chop, chisel plow, pick rocks, field cultivate or disc or roll and plant. Like, you're talking 8 passes down to 1 for a $22 an acre check. Sign us up. So I think we, I think we spent, it was like almost $9,000 to get those acres custom no-till for us. And we would have spent way more than that if we would have did it ourselves. But then I kind of told Dad, I said, if we have $9,000 to hire this out, I I said, don't you think we could spend $10,000 on our planter every year? And he said, essentially, yeah, there'll be no difference. So for $4,000, we bought spike closing wheels, and I bought 4.5-inch caster gauge wheels for our row cleaners. And I just pulled out the pins on our row cleaners. So I just made— I call it Four Man's Floating Row Cleaners. And I maxed out the springs on our corn planter and I was able to no-till all our soybeans from 2018 to 2021 off a $4,000 investment. And then we did zero fall tillage. We only did one light disc pass in the spring for our corn acres to work in manure and nitrogen. And that was kind of what started us on this whole journey until up to where we are today.

So to come back to the question, where are you today?

We are 100% no-till with adding cover crops where we can. We've implemented a nutrient management plan, manure management plan, irrigation management plan. We bought a drone to interseed and foliar feed. We've started composting. At a large scale. We're running compost extract and furrow this year.

What does the livestock side of your operation look like? How many livestock are you running?

We have 80 milk cows and we feed out about 250-300 steers a year. And I'm glad you brought that question up because this is another aha moment that happened for us too when we were full with tillage, conventional farming. I mean, it was vet bill after vet bill, or sick calf, or this cow had this issue, and it was just out of control spending with the vet. It was, you know, milk fever, keto— milk fever, ketosis, you know, warts on the cattle and mastitis and respiratory issues on our calves. And it felt like we were feeding more medications and giving more shots for cattle than they were doing any better. But once we made the switch to, you know, no-till soybeans, reduced tillage on our corn acres, and once we implemented no-till on all our acres and started adding cover crops, there was like— I don't know what year it was, but there was that sweet turning spot where I think our soil started to change for the better. And our— my gut feeling is our soil changed, it was healthier. We were harvesting healthier crops, our grain or corn silage or alfalfa, you know, our forages. And then in return, we were feeding that to our cattle. And we hardly have any veterinary expenses anymore. Like, I'm not saying we don't, but it's nothing, nowhere near what it was 10 years ago. And I can't explain it besides other than it seems like we fixed the soil. And then fix the cattle.

So let's, let's dig into that a little bit more. When you, when you say you fixed the soil, uh, you've described your manure applications, you switch from tillage to no-till, but usually when I think about fixing the soil, I think about more things than just those two, two things. What other changes did you make? Did you make any changes in herbicide, fungicide applications? Of course, you also reduced your fertilizer applications, which is not insignificant. What were the other changes that were made? And in addition, kind of the follow-on question to that is, how did you see your soil's health characteristics improve?

All right, we'll take that one question at a time here. Well, you know, but that goes back to why I love the coalition. I love people coming on our farm because that's another thing I struggle with too. How do I know I'm doing a better job? Like, how can I see it? I mean, the only thing I knew was if I get this— if I'm getting the same yield as I am no-till, or when we were starting with reduced till, my yields were matching my conventional acres in the past, that was a win for us because our expenses went down, our yields would stay the same. So that was like my you know, thumbs up, this, this is working. But if you would ask me 10 years ago, what's the worm casting, what soil aggregates, what soil structure, what water infiltration rates do you have, I told you I have no idea. Like, I don't know any of that stuff is. So, you know, once you get 5 years in this thing, you start talking to people, you have field days, people show up. Like, Ray Archuleta comes, and some other— Stephanie McLean came over, and You know, the Coalition helps you out a lot, stuff. They show you this stuff. This is what a midden looks like. That's what earthworm castings on top of the soil looks like. This is what soil structure should look like. And all that stuff is there now. But if you don't know what you're looking for, you have no idea what you're supposed to be— you, if you don't know what you're looking for, it's hard to miss this stuff. But I can walk into our fields now. And my indication for a good sign in our field is if I can walk in our field, I can see castings on top, and I see the middens in the field where they're like the little teepees of the worms where they're just pulling all that residue. And if I can see those, to me that tells me I'm going to do a good job. And if you can take your spade or shovel, dig up a lot of soil, and it's just full of earthworm channels and holes, it's— you're just creating that giant sponge to have your water infiltration rates go down. And I'm sure there's a lot of other things that I'm forgetting about, but how have your water infiltration rates changed?

You're in a part of the country where that matters a great deal.

Yeah, if I could— I have a perfect video of it. If I could— I wonder if I could send you it, but this was last—

is it, is it online anywhere?

Uh, I could put it online if you want.

Yeah, if you could put it online or share it with us, and, uh, we'll, we'll share it. We'll, we'll share it in the show notes so that people can see it.

I mean, this— it does not get any more picture perfect than this example. It was— I was so happy when it happened. But so I think it was— I took my wife out to supper one night, and it was supposed to rain. And then it kind of went away. But long story short, it was a severe thunderstorm. It was like hail and 2 inches of rain in like half hour. It was just insane. And then we were already out, so I was like, we might as well drive around quick, see if there's any storm damage and see how the fields look. And we literally drove by one of our neighbors' conventional field. He probably planted a week later than us, but I'm talking more bull plowing disking, field cultivating, pack, and planting. And there was water standing from one headland all the way to the other headland, like it was a lake. And the only thing that splits his field apart and our field was a tree line. Like, these fields are literally butted up to each other beside the tree line. And when you go— when you drove past our no-till cover crop field. There was zero water standing in our field. So I think that shows us that our water infiltration—

maybe that's because, maybe that's because it all ran off already.

That's what they say. Well, I mean, that was— I mean, it was— you can't get any more black and white than that. That guy had water standing from one end to the next, and you drive by, you know, 100 feet into our field just down the road. It's been in the tree line and it's— there's no water there. It all infiltrated down.

2 inches in 30 minutes, that's 4 inches per hour. That's pretty good. You kept all of that without having it run down the river.

It's the plan. Store up that water bank. Yeah, but then too, if you don't have water in your profile, that's, you know, a a fourth to a third of the soil is water.

I, I had asked you about your livestock. We spoke about your livestock a little bit. How has your livestock management changed in terms of— you have both dairy cows and you have, you have some beef. Were those historically confinement? Are they still confinement? Are you doing any grazing with those?

Yeah. I mean, it's not ideal. We're not set up to graze. I would love to graze, but it just— I don't like to make excuses, but it just wouldn't work for us. A lot of our fields we farm are— we farm extremely residential, you know, 20, 30-acre fields. And every field we farm has a major road next to it. And I mean, we have over 100,000 people that live around 5 to 10 miles from our farm, and it To me, it's not worth killing somebody if a cattle got out, and it— the risk is not worth that extra soil health benefit. So to compensate for that, that's why we're getting into composting. We implement the Better Manure Management Plan. I'm trying to do the second next, second next best thing as I can to hopefully mimic the hoof on the ground. And we're starting to get more aggressive with COVID crops. Um, we pulled alfalfa on our operation. I would like to start planting a multi-species forage mix I could harvest every year, just get new diversity into our rotation and, you know, give my cattle some diversity too. So I'm trying to do the best we can with the current infrastructure we have on our farm that way.

Yeah, you mentioned at one point in the conversation that you're starting to— you spoke about the composting. You mentioned that you're doing compost extract in the planter this spring.

I am. It's going to be— we're going to be learning as I go here. So composting is a new fun adventure for us. We're doing that because I think that's going to help us mimic the cattle, I think, with new diversity since I can't get hoofs on the ground. So that's why we got into composting because I wanted to build that fungal level up in our fields because we're all— every field we have is probably bacteria dominant. So that's another reason why we got into composting was just to bring that new diversity of that fungal species in our field. And so we started composting wood chips and I've inoculated with mushroom substrate from a local mushroom farmer and I've seen some pretty good results with that. It's not done yet, So hope— that's why we're going to go with the vermicompost extract and furrow this spring since our compost is not done. I guess we're to the point where I'm done making excuses. I guess I want to, you know, stay progressive at this. I always say we'll try it next year. I'm trying to get rid of that mentality. So we are definitely learning compost as we go. So it's very— it's a very complex operation, trying to understand compost and the biology and the fungi.

All right, let's explore that for just a little bit. If you're trying to get rid of the excuse of you'll try it next year, that means you're trying lots of things this year. What's the scope of the things? Okay, what's the scope of the things that you're trying this year?

Well, I was hoping our compost would be done, but it's not. So I went to Plan B. We got Fed and Happy vermicompost. That I plan on extracting and running in furrow. And then talking to a few people, we've found out that our 6-24-6 starter in furrow is pretty much about worthless for us with our fertility and the average soil health we have. So we pulled that out, and we're going to be running— I said that extract with algae, some sugar, and then maybe a humic source or some Soil Essentials amendment as well. To replace that 6-24-6 just to hopefully boost the biology and the diversity in our row crop acres.

Oh, the biology will definitely like that. And it's— have you ever tried running with and without the 6-24-6?

I have not. So this is gonna be, this is gonna be a full swing here. Hopefully get a home run.

Yeah, it's, it's interesting to observe the common pattern with a lot of row starters. There's of course Regional soil variation, so it's not a universal by any stretch, but it's surprising the number of growers that we speak with that when we start analyzing their situation, we ask them to conduct a trial with and without. Um, there's often visual differences early that the starter shows up very strong early. It shows, uh, the plants look nicer, the stand is stronger, better, they take off faster, but there's no yield response. Over and over and over again, there is not a yield response from that starter application. In some cases it's a yield drag, which is not the way that it's supposed to work at all. So that's why I asked. It's pretty intriguing to observe.

Yeah, well, I'm, I'm hoping it's going to work because we're going to be committed to it. So I, I'm gonna be doing some test, uh, checks too, just so I know it works. I might just shut the planner completely off on a couple paths and see what it by Fields can do on its own. I would like to try some of that. And, um, I know I'm gonna try— we're gonna play around with some different rates of— maybe it should put algae in one pass and not take it and then take it out one pass. I mean, there's a, there's a few things I want to keep trying. And then we have the drone now too, so I might like to do some maybe compost extract fully you're feeding to hopefully maybe help break down some of that crop residue or just increase the diversity in those fields and can play around with some sugar and algae applications with that and some micronutrient tests too with the drone.

How do you hope to see your farming operation evolve over the next couple years?

Well, my two biggest goals that are really driving me that I've spent my whole winter researching on was drone applications and composting. So my goals are to increase our fungal levels in our field and to get cover crops interseeded on all our acres so we can get away from, you know, just getting— right now we're just getting cover crops hopefully established in the fall if we can, and then we have very minimum growth And then the springtime, obviously it takes off in the spring, but the whole reason of getting the drone was to get cover crops interseeded, you know, late September, early August, so we can get those extra 100 days of growing green, capturing more sunlight, more sugar, more carbon storage. So those are, I would love to see our landscape change and have more green in our fields longer. And I would love to see our Haney test and our soil tests reflect that with the compost applications and having the COVID crops growing longer and keep reducing our chemistry applications and fertilizer applications. Hopefully I can maybe do better jobs with more nitrogen efficiency with the drone, kind of like more of a Band-Aid step until I can raise that fungi to bacteria ratio maybe to 1 to 1 and get the soil cycling so I can keep further pulling back off on nitrogen and herbicide applications.

What does your crop mix look like at this point?

For rotations?

Yeah.

So our cropping rotation is typically a corn-soybean rotation. Then we'll add small grains in there as well. We usually grow rye or oats for grain. We'll use that, um, the residue for bedding, and we'll sell the grain to a co-op or feed mill or whatever. But I mean, it's, it's not the most perfect rotations. We do corn on corn, beans on beans, kind of. We watch the markets and see what best fits the acres too, and a lot of financial decisions behind it. But it's, it's not the most ideal crop rotation. It's just, it's what works for us and what makes sense.

You know, there's, there's many directions that we could take this discussion in, but one of the things you, you spoke about all the new things that you're experimenting and you're trying with. You've been on this pathway for a while. Um, what have you become really good at? What are the things that— we're all on a journey of constantly learning, and we're all hopefully constantly trying new things. Well, what are the things that you think you've, you've figured out reasonably well that you're happy with the success that you've had and the momentum that you've had on your operation?

Well, I think every time I think I have a smart idea, I have to ask the question, is this what nature would like me to do? Or is this what I think I want to do? And if it doesn't fit Nature's cards, rule of thumb, generally it's not going to be a wise idea, or it's not going to get the goals you want. So if you think you're smarter than nature and you think you can outsmart her, you're wrong. And once I grasp that mentality, that I'm not right, you dropped your ego. The world opens up to a different lens. You can look at things a lot differently. So if someone wants to sell you this product or this seed or this chemical or this practice, you can kind of sift through the lens, I guess, and call BS to a lot of things and say this is kind of a quick scheme to make a buck off a farmer again and kind of look at like, what are some examples of, of moments where you looked at that perspective and changed your opinion or your point of view about something you were considering? Well, just the dry fertilizers, the P&K. After you can see the fertility levels in your— the fertility levels in your soils are just out of this world, and they wanted to keep selling you P&K. So that was one of them. And, you know, you got to buy this high horsepower equipment to get stuff done and get wide tillage parts or tillage equipment pieces to get stuff done. It's like you don't need to have high horsepower, wide equipment no more to get some done. We went from having 300+ horse tractors down to our biggest tractor now is a 305 and everything else under that is lower horsepower than that. So we're getting more done with less equipment, less horsepower, less principal and interest payments. And you don't have to get caught on the bandwagon of you have to be X, Y, and Z farmer and buy all this stuff.

Yeah. What have we missed talking about? What are, what are the strengths that you've developed, either you individually or you and your operation, that people would benefit from knowing about?

Could you repeat the question? You kind of cut out.

And my question is, what are the, what are the things that we've missed talking about? What are the strengths that you have developed or that you have developed in your operation, either you personally or you as, as the operation? What are the things that you've become really good at that people would benefit from knowing about?

I'd like to question everything, whether it's a good question or bad question. Someone told me the only dumb question you ask is the one you don't ask.. So even if you think it's a silly question, ask it anyhow, so then you'll know. Like I said, that's really helped us change everything we've done. So I've always asked, why do I have to buy this big high horsepower tractor? Or why do we have to buy this treated seed? Or why do I have to till the soil? What is that doing? Or why is water infiltration important? And those just— they can't—

if we—

if you ask the right question, it will steer you in the right direction. And once I understood why it's important to implement all 5 soil health principles— I mean, you can overcomplicate this journey in a real hurry and get stressed about trying to do everything, but if you just stick to the basics, do the 5 principles, everything will just fix and correct itself.

Good. This has been a wonderful conversation, Alex. I've enjoyed it. Where can people connect with you or learn more about your operation.

If you— you've all heard our story of the financial struggles we went through, and when we went through this process of adapting regenerative farming, it's what really truly saved our operation from shutting the doors down and having an auction and walking away from the egg industry completely. So this new farming style has burned itself into my soul. Like, I don't want to give it up. It's, it's emotionally connected to me, and I have a passion for it. And we went through a lot of things that were not very enjoyable, between buying a business partner out and free financing with a different bank and equipment. Like, it was bad, and I never wanted that feeling ever again. So I thought if I could help somebody else out to avoid our costly mistakes or the stress we have, so I just volunteer my time working with our local Soil Waters doing field days. I'll go present on panels, I'll bring equipment out, we'll do planter demos, drill demos, kind of just give my experience to other people. And I've had an great opportunity with the Minnesota Soil Health Coalition, and I really wanted to take our farm to the next level and go like super advanced, and the coalition was that missing bridge for me. And once I got hooked up with Mark, I mean, it's been let's go, hang on. So he's opened the doors and new opportunities and new conversations that I didn't even dream or thinking about. And I mean, I've had conversations with Russell Hedricks, Rayer Celetta, Liz Haney, have this opportunity with you. I mean, it's the endless opportunities to help advance our farm. So I just kind of devoted— or I told Mark about my passion for this, and I told him I want to get helped out more. So I think last winter I became a mentor with the Minnesota Soil Health Coalition, where it's just a— I think we have over 75 farmer mentors in our— in the whole state of Minnesota. You can talk to people like me and other farmers. They just we just give our time to talk to other producers about what works for us, what don't work, or how do we do it. Or if you have a question about something, we'll, we'll track an answer down for you somehow. Whether if I don't know it, I'll ask Mark and we'll, we'll find somebody for you. So I do that now. I'm also a part-time employee with the Coalition, so I get to go to field days and speak with them now. And, and then we also have a social media page on Facebook. It's probably our most popular one where I post quite a bit of stuff too. Just kind of— I try to post weekly. It gets tough sometimes, but I try to post what we're up to and why we're doing it. Just post educational, funny videos, or descriptions of a picture or something. But I don't know, I just like giving back and helping somebody out. Because told myself too, I, I don't want to farm the whole county or the whole state. I have no desire to. If I can farm just enough acres to provide for our families. That's all I need. I don't have to, you know, farm 10,000 acres to make a living. We can farm less acres and probably make more money and enjoy doing it. I just want to give that to somebody else too.

Thank you, Alex. That is so valuable because I'm very much of the persuasion that what you put out into the world is what gets returned to you and what comes back to you again. And it is really— it is the— what you are describing is the power of community. When you actively engage to support other people, to work with others, you build a community around yourself. And that's something that we are so sadly missing in our world today if we, if we all view each other as potential competitors instead of collaborators. So thank you for doing that. Thanks for all the work that you're doing in that space.

You're welcome. Like I said, The networking is the hugest part. How can we all help each other? Because once we all understand that we're in this together, if all farmers got together and helped each other out, we could change the world. And not just changing our families, I'm talking outside the farm too. We can increase the world with human health, cleaner water, cleaner air, healthier soils, more nutrient-dense crops and produce, and healthier livestock. I mean, we physically and truly can change the world the way we farm with everything.

Wonderful. Well, thank you, Alex.

Thanks for being here.

Thank you for sharing your knowledge and wisdom, and I look forward to speaking with you again soon.

Not a problem. I appreciate this as well. Thank you for the opportunity. It was fun.

The team at AEA and I are dedicated to bringing this show to you because we believe that knowledge and information is the foundation of successful regenerative systems. At AEA, we believe that growing better quality food and making more money from your crops is possible. And since 2006, we've worked with leading professional growers to help them do just that. At AEA, we don't guess, we test, we analyze, and we provide recommendations based on scientific data, knowledge, and experience. We've developed products that are uniquely positioned to help growers make more money with regenerative agriculture. If you are a professional grower who believes in testing instead of guessing, someone who believes in a better, more regenerative way to grow, visit advancingecoag.com and contact us to see if AEA is right for you.