Latest / No Dirt No Flowers Podcast / Advanced Farming Equipment Trends / Ft. Tom Riel

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Advanced Farming Equipment Trends / Ft. Tom Riel · No Dirt No Flowers Podcast

• 0:00
  Hello everyone and welcome back to No Dirt No
• 0:02
  Flowers episode 23. This week Mike and Drew sit
• 0:06
  down with another one of Yakima Valley's trusted
• 0:08
  suppliers and providers to the hop industry,
• 0:10
  Tom Reel of Burroughs Tractors and Reel Solutions.
• 0:14
  Together they discuss the many successful and
• 0:16
  some failed farming projects they've worked on
• 0:18
  together over the years, as well as some of the
• 0:20
  emerging and exciting new technologies in agriculture
• 0:23
  today. Also be sure to check out our new video
• 0:25
  on YouTube, Quality Check with Gasworks Brewing.
• 0:29
  Think of day drinking or hot ones, but with,
• 0:31
  well, with me and much, much, much more beer.
• 0:35
  And as always, if you have any questions or comments
• 0:38
  for Mike and Drew, send them to ndnf at royfarms
• 0:41
  .com. Enjoy the pod. Okay. Here we are. Round
• 0:54
  two of the Valley Suppliers. Well, this goes
• 1:01
  beyond just the Valley, though. It does. We'll
• 1:04
  get into that. Uh -oh. Aren't you up in Wenatchee,
• 1:07
  too? Yeah. Wenatchee, Sunnyside, Hillsborough,
• 1:12
  Oregon. Wait, before we dive into it, because
• 1:16
  I already have questions. Oh, we need background
• 1:18
  first. That's what I mean. Okay. The background.
• 1:21
  Who are you? Who do you work for? Oh, yeah. This
• 1:28
  is the worst intro we've ever had. It's awesome.
• 1:32
  We've never been polished on our intros. Okay.
• 1:35
  No dirt, no flowers. Sitting here with Tom Reel.
• 1:38
  No tractors, no dirt, no flowers. No tractors,
• 1:41
  no dirt, no flowers. Yeah, that's good. Do a
• 1:43
  new shirt design for you. That's great, yeah.
• 1:48
  Sure. Okay, so we're sitting here with Tom Reel
• 1:51
  from Burroughs Tractors. Give everyone who doesn't
• 1:56
  know you some background. My background's pretty
• 1:59
  boring. I started at Burroughs my senior year
• 2:04
  of high school. And I was one of those kids that
• 2:08
  didn't want to go to school. So they had a program
• 2:09
  that was called Diversified Occupation. Got to
• 2:12
  go to school for half a day. Then I got to go
• 2:15
  to work for the other half a day. So all I needed
• 2:17
  was a job. So I called up Uncle John and said,
• 2:19
  hey, can I come work at Burroughs? And started
• 2:22
  sweeping floors, cleaning toilets, all this stuff.
• 2:28
  Worked up into assembling equipment, minor mechanic
• 2:31
  stuff. Realized really quick that I didn't want
• 2:34
  to bust my knuckles for the rest of my life.
• 2:37
  So figured out really into like obviously mowing
• 2:42
  lawns and stuff like that. So back in the day,
• 2:45
  I did that on the side. And so we had all these
• 2:48
  lawnmowers that were great products that nobody
• 2:51
  was selling. So I said, hey, I want to try to
• 2:54
  sell those things. Started selling half a day
• 2:57
  and working the shop half a day and then eventually
• 2:59
  sold enough to have a full -time job in sales.
• 3:05
  And then when some of our older ag sales guys
• 3:09
  retired, took over some of their accounts and
• 3:12
  then now I'm the sales manager. And yeah, just
• 3:16
  living life. Now, did you ever sell any lawnmowers
• 3:20
  to Matthias Gargis? I don't know if we did. Because
• 3:24
  I don't know if you picked up on this, but he
• 3:26
  was mowing lawns is what he said. So there's
• 3:30
  a connection. Oh, yeah. I think that was prior.
• 3:32
  Yeah. Yeah. I don't think we ever did. Missed
• 3:36
  opportunity. Yeah. I'm going to call him after
• 3:38
  this. You should. Yeah. How come you never bought
• 3:40
  lawnmowers for me, Matthias? He's probably be
• 3:42
  like, because you were six when I was doing that.
• 3:46
  Yeah. Probably. Okay. Keep going. Sorry. So how
• 3:51
  long have you been sales manager? About eight
• 3:56
  years now. Okay. Yeah. Oh, wow. Longer than I
• 3:59
  thought. So, you know, Burroughs has a long history
• 4:03
  in the Valley that, I don't know, like when did
• 4:07
  Burroughs get established? Maybe it says in your
• 4:08
  shirt. Burroughs was started in 39. Yeah. You're
• 4:13
  going to ask me all these questions about the
• 4:15
  history of Burroughs. That's where you really
• 4:16
  should get John in here. Get John and your dad
• 4:19
  in here. They could talk forever about the history
• 4:23
  together. And that'd probably be about seven
• 4:25
  episodes long. So, yeah, Burroughs was started
• 4:32
  in 39. It was owned by Old Man Burroughs. I think
• 4:36
  they had the Ford dealership, the cars and the
• 4:41
  tractors. They split the tractor division off.
• 4:43
  Oh, cars and tractors? Yeah. I don't know what
• 4:45
  year that was that they split that off. And then
• 4:49
  Burroughs family sold to the Kabrick family.
• 4:53
  Yeah, and then John bought, John Real bought
• 4:57
  the K -Bricks out starting in 2006. Oh. Then
• 5:03
  from there, 2004, we had the Yakima store. In
• 5:08
  2004, we bought a store in Wenatchee. That was
• 5:12
  a New Holland dealership that you bought in Wenatchee
• 5:14
  or an actual? Yeah, so it was. The Kubota dealer
• 5:19
  up there had New Holland and Kubota, but they
• 5:22
  weren't doing a lot with the New Holland side
• 5:24
  of things. So New Holland basically cut them
• 5:28
  off. And so then it was an open point. So then
• 5:32
  we just opened a store up there and took on the
• 5:34
  New Holland role. So we, meaning the real family,
• 5:38
  bought? Well, the Kabrick family owned Burroughs
• 5:42
  at the time when we opened that store. So the
• 5:45
  Kabrick family bought. the store in Wenatchee
• 5:48
  in 2004. And then, so at that point in time,
• 5:52
  then there was two dealerships, K brick owned
• 5:57
  dealerships, right? Yakima and Wenatchee. And
• 6:00
  then John bought the dealership, bought the K
• 6:04
  bricks out in 2006, he said. Yeah. So then bought
• 6:07
  two out, two stores out at that time. Correct.
• 6:10
  And then you guys continue to add more stores.
• 6:12
  Yep. Yep. And then in 2011, John bought out a
• 6:17
  real schlep in for Sunnyside, New Holland. So
• 6:21
  we added that location, which I was really big
• 6:23
  because that store did just as much as our two
• 6:27
  stores did. So we kind of doubled overnight at
• 6:31
  that point as far as size. So then volume now
• 6:34
  of sales revenue, however you want to cut it.
• 6:37
  Like what does like, which store does like what
• 6:40
  percentage of your overall revenue, generally
• 6:42
  speaking? Well, between the – yeah, it's pretty
• 6:48
  split between Yakima and Sunnyside, and then
• 6:51
  those two stores probably equate for 70 % of
• 6:55
  our revenue. Nice. Wow. How much different are
• 7:00
  the – because you said you're down in Oregon,
• 7:03
  Sunnyside, Yakima, Wenatchee. Oh, when did Oregon
• 7:08
  come into it? We bought an existing New Holland
• 7:11
  dealership. We bought them out in – Hillsborough,
• 7:14
  Oregon in 2017. Oh, I got to think you got to
• 7:18
  have different, a lot of different equipment
• 7:20
  in each one that like a lot of the stuff, even
• 7:23
  out of Sunnyside, you probably wouldn't be using
• 7:24
  up in Yakima. Yeah. A lot of it we do. We, so
• 7:28
  we've, we've stayed really true to like focusing
• 7:31
  on train buying. Like you go down to Sunnyside,
• 7:34
  we do a little bit with, with open land and dairy
• 7:37
  stuff. We have some of the big tractors, big
• 7:39
  balers, but I mean, all in all 70. Plus percent
• 7:43
  of our business is tree and vine. So Wenatchee
• 7:49
  is very, a lot of orchards and stuff like that.
• 7:51
  So we really focus on that. We go down to Oregon,
• 7:55
  we have to, there's a lot more like hazelnuts,
• 7:58
  nurseries, a lot more berries down there that
• 8:01
  we deal with. So it's a lot of the same equipment,
• 8:04
  but a little bit different. Interesting. Does
• 8:08
  most of that, not to get too in the weeds, but
• 8:10
  does most of that difference in equipment come
• 8:12
  in the implement or on the tractor side of things?
• 8:17
  You know, up here, it's a lot of different implements,
• 8:20
  right? Hops use a lot of different implements
• 8:22
  than a vineyard does or an orchard. But a lot
• 8:25
  of the same type of equipment, but different
• 8:28
  sizes, right? Down there, it's tractors, too,
• 8:32
  because when you've got big hazelnut orchards
• 8:35
  and stuff like that, they need higher horsepower
• 8:36
  tractors. and whatnot i know sometimes you get
• 8:42
  like obviously widths and sizes but then also
• 8:45
  weights and i know you guys do a lot of different
• 8:48
  stuff which we can get into later on the the
• 8:51
  innovative side of things including just modifying
• 8:54
  or slightly modifying existing tractors like
• 8:57
  wheel weights and like tire weights and things
• 9:01
  like that to try and get them to be safer in
• 9:04
  these vineyard type Or orchard -type applications.
• 9:08
  Yeah. We actually bought a small manufacturing
• 9:12
  shop in 2012, I think. Is that the location across
• 9:18
  the street from your... Yeah, we call it Real
• 9:20
  Solutions. I like that. R -E -I -L Solutions?
• 9:26
  100%. Yeah. So we just do a lot of custom modifying,
• 9:31
  like I said. smaller tractors that maybe they
• 9:34
  don't come with a set of weights in the front,
• 9:35
  so we'll build a bracket and put weights on it.
• 9:37
  We built some custom hop equipment over there,
• 9:41
  twine and sleds, weeders, anything that we can.
• 9:45
  We built some top cutters. Oh, you guys built
• 9:47
  top cutters? Yeah. I thought that was patented.
• 9:50
  No. No. Probably was. Probably was. Didn't Sears,
• 9:55
  Paul Sears, have the patent on the top cutter
• 9:58
  that basically everybody uses? At one point in
• 10:02
  time? I'm not sure on that. Hopefully no lawyers
• 10:05
  are going to contact you after this. Ours is
• 10:08
  completely different. Ours is not your traditional
• 10:10
  type of top cutter. Ours is more, it's built
• 10:12
  a little bit more like our bottom cutter. So
• 10:13
  we build bottom cutters. Yeah. Some other stuff
• 10:16
  that we can't get from other suppliers, right?
• 10:17
  It's like either we don't able to, or we're not
• 10:22
  able to supply that to growers or we figure out
• 10:24
  a way to build it ourselves. Yeah. So. That's
• 10:29
  cool. Let me ask you this question. Can I ask
• 10:32
  one more question before we move on? How unique
• 10:34
  is that in the... Please do. As I ask and simultaneously
• 10:42
  cut you off. Was that actually an ask or was
• 10:45
  that... It started as a very... It was a Roy
• 10:47
  ask. It started as a very intentional ask and
• 10:51
  then it turned into a Roy ask. Where you just
• 10:56
  keep plowing forward. I think what you meant
• 10:57
  to say is, if I may. If I may. How unique or
• 11:02
  non -unique is that where a dealership also has
• 11:07
  a custom fabrication component? A fabrication
• 11:12
  solution? A real solution. I think if you're
• 11:16
  going to be in the specialty business like we
• 11:18
  are, which is called the tree and vine, it's
• 11:21
  like everything's specialized. I think you have
• 11:24
  to to survive. I think if you don't own one,
• 11:26
  then you have a relationship with the manufacturer
• 11:29
  that you can. somebody that you can trust that
• 11:32
  can do those modifications for you. Because when
• 11:36
  you look at global -wise, when you look at our
• 11:39
  specialty market in Washington and Oregon and
• 11:43
  some of the stuff we do with hops and orchards
• 11:46
  globally, it's a small sliver of what these big
• 11:51
  manufacturers do. So trying to get them to be
• 11:55
  like, hey, I need this tractor made exactly like
• 11:57
  this with this on it, this on it, this on it.
• 11:59
  to be able to fit for this grower is nearly impossible.
• 12:03
  So it's like either you try to force the square
• 12:07
  peg into the round hole or we modify the square
• 12:09
  peg to fit in the round hole. You know, I'd say
• 12:13
  where I've been really disappointed with real
• 12:15
  solutions so far. I don't know if this is a real
• 12:17
  solution. We've got complaints. You know about
• 12:21
  this complaint. It's really only one. Prep yourself,
• 12:24
  people. It's when you delivered like a couple
• 12:28
  tractors with the... Black murdered out rims.
• 12:31
  And then I said, I like those. We should get
• 12:34
  those on everything. And he said, yep, no problem.
• 12:36
  We'll make that happen. Oh. And then for the
• 12:38
  last five years or whatever. Oh, what? Just this
• 12:42
  last batch of tractors we delivered didn't have
• 12:44
  them on them, but that was a timing thing. We
• 12:47
  were kind of up against it. Oh, that's interesting.
• 12:51
  So it was only one batch. The batch that just
• 12:54
  got delivered out here yesterday. Oh. Yeah. Yeah.
• 12:57
  They're all going to have white rims, though.
• 13:00
  I can go get some black spray paint and we can
• 13:02
  fix it up. That'd be fun, actually. Okay. Sorry.
• 13:06
  Sidetracked. Most of ours we buy on lease, right?
• 13:11
  Are we taking on lease? Most of our tractors
• 13:15
  with you guys are, I think they're 100 % leased,
• 13:18
  aren't they? Most of your tractors are, yeah.
• 13:21
  Yeah. Definitely your higher use, higher hour
• 13:25
  ones. Yeah, the one sprayers. So what do you
• 13:28
  do when you get them back? You release them out
• 13:30
  or you sell them or do they go back to the manufacturer?
• 13:32
  What do you do with all those things? Because
• 13:34
  there's got to be a ton of farms that are just
• 13:36
  leasing. Yeah, we get it. It kind of works out
• 13:39
  good for the grower and it works out good for
• 13:41
  burrows. When it comes back off a lease, if the
• 13:45
  grower doesn't want to purchase it, you have
• 13:46
  the first right to purchase it. If not, then
• 13:49
  we can purchase it. If we don't want to, then
• 13:52
  it just goes to auction. And so we kind of got
• 13:56
  some options. I mean, obviously, you know, the
• 13:59
  ag needle's been moving. It's kind of a roller
• 14:02
  coaster, right? So you don't know where you're
• 14:04
  going to be at in four or five years. So it's
• 14:06
  kind of nice to have those options. But we usually
• 14:09
  purchase most of them, and some of them we rent
• 14:12
  it back to you to fill some gaps. Yeah, like
• 14:16
  we're renting some right now. So we got tractors
• 14:19
  on lease. Our core fleet is on lease. And then,
• 14:23
  I mean, some stuff we've bought, some specialty
• 14:26
  stuff we've bought, but the majority of it's
• 14:28
  on a lease. And then we will also rent for like
• 14:32
  this period of time where we have a lot of things
• 14:35
  happening, but then it's going to die down again
• 14:37
  in two or three weeks. We don't want those to
• 14:40
  sit all year. So then we're renting those ones
• 14:42
  from you. Just to get over this little hump and
• 14:44
  then send them back and then we'll clean them
• 14:46
  up and sell them. Secondary market's been pretty
• 14:50
  good right now. Ag's not doing super hot. Guys
• 14:55
  are looking for deals, so they're not afraid
• 14:58
  to take something with a few thousand hours to
• 15:00
  get a discount. Sure. So it's been okay. What
• 15:04
  segment of ag sucks the least right now? Unfortunately,
• 15:10
  no segment that we play in. I hear cattle's good.
• 15:15
  Yeah. That's what I've heard. Yeah, it's true.
• 15:20
  If you specialize in... Tree and vine. Yeah.
• 15:25
  You know, it's always been good to be diversified.
• 15:27
  You know, hey, if hops were up, great. Maybe
• 15:31
  apples are down or apples doing good. Hops are,
• 15:33
  you know, or the grape deal's not doing good.
• 15:36
  To have them all hit at the same time stings
• 15:38
  a little bit. Yeah. Yeah. Is Wenatchee pretty
• 15:42
  much all tree fruit? Yeah, in the space that
• 15:46
  we play in up there. Yeah, there's some vineyards.
• 15:49
  Yeah, you don't hear a lot about Wenatchee wine.
• 15:51
  No offense to you Wenatchee listeners. I don't
• 15:55
  even know if that's what you would call them.
• 15:57
  Now my question I was going to ask a while ago.
• 16:01
  Is it okay if you ask? Yeah. Okay. I have your
• 16:04
  blessing. Oh, yeah. Thank you. How, especially
• 16:10
  on implements, how do you go find new innovations
• 16:16
  that are out there and new products? Like, oh,
• 16:20
  that might be interesting for this farm or this.
• 16:22
  Because I know that you're really closely connected
• 16:24
  to your customers and you know their needs really
• 16:26
  well. But how do you find something for them?
• 16:30
  Do salespeople come to you or do you go like
• 16:33
  to trade shows? A lot of times guys will come
• 16:36
  to us now that we've kind of developed a name.
• 16:40
  It's kind of being more technology type driven
• 16:42
  and we're interested in those products. We have
• 16:45
  hired about two years ago, we hired. TJ Lang
• 16:49
  is a full -time ag technology manager. So he,
• 16:54
  mostly that's one of his primary jobs is to be
• 16:57
  finding new technologies and then helping vet
• 17:00
  them because that's been a challenging process,
• 17:03
  right? There's a lot of people that have this
• 17:05
  new tech that bring it in, but it's not commercially
• 17:08
  scalable or commercially reliable when you put
• 17:12
  it into the field. So trying to vet that and
• 17:15
  work with them to get it. to where we need to
• 17:18
  be able to be successful on these corporate farms
• 17:21
  is a challenge. So what are some of the main
• 17:24
  categories you're looking at right now within
• 17:27
  the tech space or the innovation space? Because,
• 17:30
  or even, yeah, in the innovative space or the
• 17:34
  tech space, because I know in some cases we've
• 17:37
  worked with you to try and R &D some solutions,
• 17:39
  you know, through real solutions or however that
• 17:43
  was set up, you know. I mean, an example would
• 17:46
  be, remember when we worked on that kind of half
• 17:50
  -automated weeder system, you know, that went
• 17:52
  in and out around the plants? You know, people
• 17:54
  sat on the back and hydraulically moved in and
• 17:57
  out around the plants. I think we still have
• 17:59
  some of those sitting around out there. We do.
• 18:02
  Yeah. I heard you're going to use them again
• 18:03
  this year. Are we? I was going to say we should
• 18:06
  be. Yeah. A whole other topic is... solutions
• 18:10
  that you come up with that are commercially viable
• 18:13
  and scalable but then it's hard to get them implemented
• 18:16
  on the ranch because we have like the old guard
• 18:19
  or the old way of doing things that seems like
• 18:23
  it's a real barrier because that thing i think
• 18:25
  works great but but one with the rubber deals
• 18:29
  uh different there's a different one but we go
• 18:31
  through spurts where we use it and then spurts
• 18:34
  where we don't use it and it i think a lot of
• 18:36
  it has to do with just the the pain in the ass
• 18:39
  factor to the manager or something like that
• 18:42
  right you gotta get they gotta buy into they
• 18:45
  gotta buy into it and get it out you know and
• 18:47
  they once they buy into it then getting it to
• 18:50
  work they'll figure out the flaws in it and the
• 18:52
  tweaks that need to happen and then they'll make
• 18:54
  it successful if they buy into it but they don't
• 18:56
  buy into it from the beginning that's that's
• 18:59
  a struggle that we find as like equipment spiral
• 19:01
  what how do we develop something that get these
• 19:04
  guys to buy into because everyone's trying to
• 19:07
  want to beat the drum a little bit different
• 19:09
  too as growers, right? Which I think is a little
• 19:11
  bit ridiculous. It's like if we all just kind
• 19:13
  of like improved on the system systematically
• 19:16
  together over a long period of time, I think
• 19:19
  the system would be more efficient. Yeah. I mean,
• 19:22
  I appreciate creativity, but there's also some
• 19:24
  inefficiencies that come with that as well. It
• 19:26
  kind of makes it tough to develop stuff for the
• 19:27
  industry when everyone does things a little bit
• 19:29
  different. You know, obviously the joke, you
• 19:31
  know, the only two things a farmer can... Two
• 19:35
  farmers can agree on what the third one's doing
• 19:36
  wrong. You know, everyone just does it a little
• 19:40
  bit different, you know? So it's for us, you
• 19:43
  know, we got to go out there and ask a lot of
• 19:44
  questions and, you know, it's not our job to
• 19:46
  try to tell you guys how to farm. We can try
• 19:48
  to bring solutions to you, but trying to listen
• 19:51
  to what you guys need and then go back and try
• 19:55
  to tweak or modify or make what we have work
• 19:59
  in each grower situation can be a challenge.
• 20:05
  So that's one that we worked with you guys on.
• 20:07
  Another one was, I mean, one really successful
• 20:10
  one is working with you guys on... Grinding roots.
• 20:14
  I wrote down root chopper. No, I don't think
• 20:16
  that one was a success. Oh, no. The first iteration
• 20:19
  of grinding roots was not a success. Remember
• 20:22
  the... No, I still have the trophies sitting
• 20:25
  in the boneyard back there. The trophies. The
• 20:29
  stationary grinders that we build with the feed
• 20:32
  rollers and the hammer mill type setup. It was
• 20:35
  pretty cool. We have version one and version
• 20:37
  two. They're pretty rusty now, but we still got
• 20:40
  them. Basically, it was like a grinder, kind
• 20:43
  of like one you'd use to feed big tree trunks
• 20:48
  and stuff into, like a wood chopper. But it was
• 20:52
  this thing where you would drive it down and
• 20:54
  you would throw the hop roots on these belts
• 20:57
  that fed into the grinder in the field. And then
• 21:01
  it had swinging blades on it towards like, almost
• 21:03
  like a flail mower inside that would chop the
• 21:06
  hop roots up fine enough and then kind of lay
• 21:09
  them on the surface. But it was, it worked well
• 21:13
  when it worked, but it was, man, it's a lot of
• 21:16
  dirt, a lot of material there to try to build
• 21:19
  something heavy new. duty enough to hold up is
• 21:22
  a challenge. Yeah. No, I think it's, uh, it's
• 21:26
  still a heated topic. I'm sure within the industry,
• 21:28
  but we like the root grinding. We being one of
• 21:32
  the one half of the table, like the root grinding,
• 21:35
  the other half has, I think I'm sure it's a different
• 21:39
  opinion, but, but what's, but what's interesting,
• 21:42
  it serves a purpose. And so it's like, yeah,
• 21:44
  we, we find have a role for it within, within
• 21:48
  our program. Other people are still using it.
• 21:52
  Yeah, we have a machine that we rent out, and
• 21:54
  we have a lot of hopcars that run it, and some
• 21:57
  guys don't like it. That goes back to what I
• 21:59
  was saying earlier about everyone just does it
• 22:01
  a little bit different. Some people are okay
• 22:05
  with certain results, and some people want to
• 22:08
  do it differently. Yep. What's some of the other
• 22:11
  ones you worked on? And then I do want you to
• 22:13
  get back and answer the question about what are
• 22:16
  some of the areas you're focusing on right now?
• 22:18
  Oh, the sprayers. That's what I was going to
• 22:20
  say is the sprayers were highly successful, and
• 22:22
  we collectively put a lot of time into that program.
• 22:26
  Yeah. A lot of dye testing. A lot of blacklight
• 22:29
  dye testing. Yeah. But that was, I mean, at the
• 22:33
  end of the day, developed a sprayer that is one
• 22:36
  of a kind for you guys, and obviously you've
• 22:38
  had a lot of success with it. Yep. It was a successful
• 22:40
  project. Yep. I see you have a thought. Oh, I,
• 22:44
  yeah. I just really want to know, like. What's
• 22:48
  the future of I'm getting ahead. Maybe I'm not.
• 22:51
  What's the future of, of farm equipment implements?
• 22:54
  Like, are we going to have our robotic weeders
• 22:57
  like the norm five years from now? Well, we have
• 23:00
  like drones or droids or whatever you call those
• 23:03
  things. Drones. Like the guys that go walk around
• 23:06
  like the little robots. Oh yeah. Cause I assume
• 23:09
  you have to be in that space when it does come.
• 23:11
  Like, yeah, we have a, you know, fully autonomous.
• 23:16
  hybrid sprayer that we sell air blast sprayer
• 23:19
  that we sell right now we have there's there's
• 23:21
  some growers in the apple industry that are running
• 23:23
  them it's been very successful so is that a tractor
• 23:27
  that uses that add -on this is a company called
• 23:30
  the machine called robotics plus yeah it's actually
• 23:33
  owned by uh yamaha agriculture and it's a hybrid
• 23:39
  75 horsepower diesel that powers a power generator
• 23:43
  and then everything on the sprayer is electric
• 23:46
  It's fully autonomous, 400 -gallon. So it's all
• 23:50
  one unit, or it's actually all one unit? Yeah,
• 23:52
  and the sprayer part of it, the air blast part,
• 23:55
  is modular, so you can take that off, and then
• 23:57
  you can put a herbicide sprayer on it now. How
• 24:00
  come you haven't told us about this? We have
• 24:03
  a tech day that you've been invited to. It's
• 24:06
  there all the time. We do it once a year. So
• 24:10
  you're saying that it's our fault. Yep. Well,
• 24:16
  maybe it's mine. Maybe I need to communicate
• 24:20
  with you in a different format. Every farmer
• 24:24
  is a little different. Every farmer is a little
• 24:25
  different. Hey, Mike, text. You're going to be
• 24:28
  like, next time actually show up to the demo.
• 24:32
  That's true. All right. Point taken. But with
• 24:36
  that machine, they're looking to adapt more.
• 24:38
  Once you have that self -driving. platform figured
• 24:43
  out we can work on adapting more implements to
• 24:46
  the back of it so that's something that's happening
• 24:48
  right now on a very successful level are there
• 24:52
  any issues i remember at one point in time there
• 24:54
  were some issues with canopy and communications
• 24:57
  with the autonomous units has that gotten better
• 25:00
  like are there any issues like like on some like
• 25:05
  vineyards and um high density tree fruit you
• 25:09
  would have the the linus or the communication
• 25:11
  ability with satellites and so it's like with
• 25:16
  with a full -grown hop vine are there issues
• 25:18
  yes okay but um but there's way around those
• 25:22
  issues we can put more repeaters up maybe and
• 25:25
  and get they're getting it to where it can work
• 25:28
  in row without having to rely on that signal
• 25:31
  and then once it pops back out it gets that signal
• 25:34
  and can and continue to do its turns and whatnot.
• 25:37
  Okay. Yeah. But if I jumped out in front of it?
• 25:40
  It'll stop. So it's got three LiDAR cameras on
• 25:44
  it, so you can see all the way around the machine.
• 25:48
  Yeah. So... It's pretty cool. You should check
• 25:51
  it out. I do want to check it out. So on the...
• 25:55
  Because you guys have looked at different autonomous
• 25:57
  units, and there are different autonomous units
• 26:00
  out there. I know at one point you guys were
• 26:05
  looking at a unit that retrofitted onto existing
• 26:10
  tractors. Is that still an option that you guys
• 26:13
  are pursuing, or have you switched gears into
• 26:15
  this fully autonomous unit? We've switched gears
• 26:19
  into this fully autonomous unit. I think in the
• 26:21
  future there's still going to be that option.
• 26:23
  The company we were working with. What was the
• 26:24
  name of it? Blue White. Blue White, yeah. Yeah,
• 26:27
  back to bedding companies and whatnot. They're
• 26:29
  no longer actually in business. They struggled
• 26:32
  with exactly what you were talking about, the
• 26:34
  communication and being able to work in canopies
• 26:36
  and whatnot, and then it just couldn't find a
• 26:40
  solution quick enough until the funding ran out.
• 26:43
  Yep. And then Monarch was one of the earlier
• 26:46
  autonomous, or was that all electric, or that
• 26:48
  was all electric and autonomous? All electric,
• 26:51
  and they just went out of business here in December.
• 26:55
  Oh. But didn't Monarch get a capital infusion
• 26:58
  by another entity that... took them a little
• 27:01
  bit further uh they did but the but that ran
• 27:07
  out yeah yeah so what was the fail point of that
• 27:11
  technology then autonomy i mean we we had a bunch
• 27:14
  of monarch tractors on our lot and if it was
• 27:16
  just an electric tractor you know the thing sold
• 27:18
  for almost a hundred thousand dollars so just
• 27:21
  buying a tractor that's 45 horsepower um for
• 27:25
  that kind of money it It didn't really make financial
• 27:29
  sense, right, for a corporate farm. Because the
• 27:32
  autonomy worked. There's a weird, not weird,
• 27:37
  but it seems like there's a, as you go from 45
• 27:42
  to, let's say, 75 horse, the amount of situations
• 27:47
  that you can apply that to greatly increase.
• 27:49
  Yes. Right? Like 45 is too little, 55 is on the
• 27:53
  border. I'm making numbers up. Yeah, 45, we're
• 27:57
  spraying weeds and maybe doing a little bit of
• 27:59
  mowing. Yeah. You know, when we get to 75 and
• 28:02
  above, now we're pulling air blast sprayers and
• 28:03
  we're being able to pull discs and stuff like
• 28:05
  that. So that was the other problem it had from
• 28:11
  the very start. Yeah, just it was too little
• 28:13
  horsepower. Yeah. Yep. But if the autonomy would
• 28:17
  have worked and they could have got that to work,
• 28:20
  you know, you put that out there going. doing
• 28:22
  your herbicide sprays or something like that.
• 28:24
  There could have been an ROI there that worked.
• 28:25
  Yeah. Huh. So how much is that the unit that
• 28:30
  you guys are focused on right now? How much does
• 28:32
  that cost? Depends on how you have it set up.
• 28:37
  Let's go bare bones. No implement, no add on
• 28:40
  implement to start with. Just air blast sprayer.
• 28:42
  Is that what it comes with stock or standard?
• 28:44
  Is it just air blast? Yeah. It's about 250 ,000.
• 28:48
  That's a number. That's a number. Yeah. That's
• 28:51
  a number that you can... What's the payback on
• 28:54
  that? Right about three years. Really? Yep. Running
• 28:58
  at how many hours a week, how many months a year?
• 29:02
  That's running at about 600 to 700 hours a year.
• 29:06
  Okay. That's not... Yeah. Okay. It's right about
• 29:13
  where most guys would be with the spray program.
• 29:15
  Yeah. And it can... It's autonomous? Fully autonomous,
• 29:20
  yes. So you can just run that thing 24 hours
• 29:23
  a day? Yeah, you need to have one guy managing.
• 29:28
  One guy can easily manage three units, but probably
• 29:32
  four units depending on how your blocks are set
• 29:34
  up, right? And by managing, you mean they're
• 29:36
  refilling it as well? They're managing it to
• 29:39
  watch and make sure, keep an eye on the tablet.
• 29:41
  If something did come across an obstacle and
• 29:44
  it stopped, it's going to need to be, someone's
• 29:46
  going to need to go out there. You can look through
• 29:48
  the cameras on the tablet and be like, oh, it's
• 29:50
  just a tumbleweed. push through it, stuff like
• 29:53
  that, just to make sure they continue to run.
• 29:55
  And then that, that guy can also do the filling.
• 29:59
  You know, if you bring a tender truck out to
• 30:01
  it and just set it up to where they can fill
• 30:04
  those machines, one guy could keep up with all
• 30:07
  that. Yeah. How did the, like, so if you had
• 30:10
  one sitting right out in front of the farm here
• 30:13
  and you wanted to send it over to desert ranch,
• 30:15
  would you have to drive it over? Would it be
• 30:18
  able to cross traffic? Oh, that's a good question.
• 30:20
  Are you roading it on a truck, or is it roading
• 30:23
  itself? When you go across a county road or down
• 30:26
  a county road, it can't do that autonomous. Oh.
• 30:29
  So you've got to either put it on a trailer and
• 30:32
  take it, or you can bring it to a road and then
• 30:36
  manually drive it across. Oh, okay. It's got
• 30:40
  a remote control that you can switch over to
• 30:41
  that mode and drive them across and then send
• 30:44
  them. You can have autonomous tractor crossing
• 30:46
  signs? and spots i'm starting to feel really
• 30:51
  curious about all this yeah it's great they're
• 30:55
  also really easy to put on a trailer i mean they're
• 30:57
  they don't weigh more than a than a regular tractor
• 31:00
  so i mean you throw it on trailer and you move
• 31:01
  it to the next site and deploy it it's really
• 31:04
  easy to bring up an obvious roadblock one that
• 31:08
  we've we've hit on it's like yeah that's awesome
• 31:11
  and then Do we have a million dollars to deploy
• 31:14
  towards an autonomous tractor program with a
• 31:16
  three -year ROI? Maybe, but... We just lease
• 31:19
  it. Our viewers are going to find this really
• 31:23
  interesting. Okay, so what's the lease cost?
• 31:26
  I don't know. What you're saying as the sales
• 31:34
  director, head of sales? Sales manager. Sales
• 31:37
  manager. So what you're saying as sales manager
• 31:41
  is we'll figure out a way. Yeah. All right. That
• 31:44
  doesn't sound like the worst idea. No, it's great.
• 31:48
  You think four of them could get through the
• 31:49
  whole ranch? No. I don't know how many acres
• 31:54
  you have, but... Well, we don't need to throw
• 31:56
  out numbers. But right now we're running a fleet
• 31:58
  of, let's say, what it would take to... Because
• 32:01
  right now we're set up to run, based off the
• 32:05
  way our spray program, which we spray less than
• 32:09
  probably the average. in terms of like what we
• 32:11
  use for pesticides and fungicides and stuff like
• 32:14
  that. But I think we're running about 13 spray
• 32:17
  units. Does that make sense? It sounds about
• 32:19
  right. Yeah. So 13 spray units. And generally
• 32:22
  speaking, we don't, we want to have basically
• 32:24
  like a 10 day turnaround. So if we run into a
• 32:26
  problem on the ranch now, we could, we could
• 32:30
  stretch that now given how we're running our
• 32:32
  program. But when we used to have more CTZs and,
• 32:36
  and, or more varieties that, that, required more
• 32:40
  protectants we didn't want anything more than
• 32:43
  a 10 -day turnaround because if there was like
• 32:45
  an outbreak of something or a problem we wanted
• 32:47
  to be able to get through the entire ranch in
• 32:48
  10 days but that was only running you know one
• 32:52
  shift so because a lot of those those products
• 32:55
  they're more effective at night or during periods
• 33:00
  of lower heat and so there is going to be a portion
• 33:03
  of time in a 24 -hour period where it's not going
• 33:06
  to be very effective to be spraying, even if
• 33:09
  you have the autonomous unit that could be going
• 33:11
  24 -7, right? Yeah. And so now that I say that,
• 33:15
  how many units would you need if you're running,
• 33:18
  like, let's say, I'm probably giving you the
• 33:22
  answer, but if we had 13 units, how many would
• 33:24
  we need? What we've seen on the orchard setting
• 33:28
  is that four units was able to do what six units
• 33:32
  was able to do. Now, why is that? because it's
• 33:35
  more efficient or you know it doesn't take breaks
• 33:37
  yeah it's it's more efficient on its turn it
• 33:40
  can turn row to row um because it's all is it
• 33:43
  four wheel steer yeah well no it's not four wheel
• 33:45
  steer but the the front tires can turn 90 degrees
• 33:47
  oh yeah yeah so it's like a it's like a harvester
• 33:50
  like a like a berry harvester or something like
• 33:52
  that each wheel has its own electric motor right
• 33:55
  so it can it can independent it's it's got a
• 33:58
  hinge in the middle of the machine that that
• 34:01
  pivots so we can actually spray at a faster speed
• 34:04
  most of these guys in the orchards are spraying
• 34:06
  at five miles an hour so okay so we've desired
• 34:10
  and tried to spray at five miles an hour you
• 34:13
  know this and we've broken a lot of stuff yes
• 34:15
  so how can why can that unit spray at five miles
• 34:18
  an hour but the our current rigs can't and that's
• 34:21
  what we're doing in some orchard settings i'm
• 34:23
  not saying that it's gonna happen in in hops
• 34:26
  i mean we'd have to definitely try it yeah but
• 34:29
  um It might not be possible without, it might
• 34:32
  be a little more bumpy. Yeah. So. I mean, I'd
• 34:37
  gladly. To answer your question, you know, the
• 34:40
  13 units, I mean, you'd probably need anywhere
• 34:43
  from eight to 10. Yeah, yeah. Where are they
• 34:46
  manufactured? New Zealand. Oh. Really? Yeah.
• 34:51
  Okay, so you're looking at autonomy. Yeah, what
• 34:53
  else? That was good. That was great. Yeah, tell
• 34:55
  me about AI and robots. Where's that at? You
• 35:00
  guys got to be looking at that. Not really anything
• 35:03
  on robots. It still weighs out, I would think.
• 35:08
  Are you talking about robots in terms of like
• 35:10
  a robotic weeder, which isn't really a robot
• 35:13
  weeder. I'm talking to any type of like, could
• 35:19
  be something looks like a little humanoid, could
• 35:21
  be a weeder that just looks like a little lawnmower
• 35:24
  shooting lasers. That's a thing, by the way.
• 35:28
  Those are weeders? Yeah, it is. And row crops.
• 35:32
  Row crops. Yeah. But as far as weeders, you know,
• 35:36
  we have our electric weeder, which I'd love to
• 35:39
  get back out here again. We've tried it. We will
• 35:41
  try it again. Yeah, I want to be just so we're
• 35:44
  on the same page here. I'm hearing conflicting
• 35:46
  things about this. I want to be there to witness
• 35:48
  and mediate with you two there. Conflicting stuff
• 35:51
  about what? I want to get like. The rope, the
• 35:54
  weeder, the. Well, you're thinking of a different
• 35:57
  type of weeder. The weeder that we've tried out
• 35:59
  here is different than the types that you usually
• 36:03
  engage with me on. No, I talked to Tom about
• 36:06
  it like a few months ago and he said it works
• 36:08
  and you said it doesn't. I didn't say that it
• 36:11
  didn't. Greg and I, based off a certain use case,
• 36:15
  don't feel like it has the best ROI would be
• 36:18
  the appropriate way to state that. All right,
• 36:19
  let's check this baby out. Want to be there?
• 36:24
  That's fine. I'd love to get like just an acre
• 36:27
  and just, we could just try it for like the whole
• 36:30
  season. As we, as we've talked, you know, everybody's
• 36:33
  kind of got the different way of doing stuff.
• 36:35
  And so I still think there's a lot of validity
• 36:38
  in, in it. It just needs to be incorporated into
• 36:41
  a specific sequence of events. Right. And so
• 36:44
  sometimes when you take these pieces of equipment
• 36:46
  out there, including this electric weeder, if
• 36:50
  you run it in a non -desired sequence and i'll
• 36:54
  make one up that's probably real we didn't get
• 36:57
  the labor through to weed you know the first
• 37:00
  two times or we didn't get that thing in there
• 37:04
  the first two times in some sequence of events
• 37:06
  then it becomes ineffective because you're trying
• 37:09
  to run it over too big of weeds right or yes
• 37:11
  or what we ran into when we ran it last year
• 37:15
  um on some baby acres when you have and there's
• 37:18
  we can probably debate this but when we ran it
• 37:21
  through um g12 up there we were potentially burning
• 37:27
  the side arms that were on the ground and so
• 37:29
  we would have needed to get in there and train
• 37:31
  them first before we ran the electric weeder
• 37:34
  so that we didn't take that opportunity to get
• 37:37
  that vine trained on the string and burn it yes
• 37:41
  yeah i agree i we went back and it looked like
• 37:46
  there wasn't a lot of burning um But I would
• 37:49
  agree getting them up on the string would be
• 37:51
  definitely helpful. But I also don't think the
• 37:55
  weeds were that tall at that time. In that yard,
• 37:57
  they weren't. I was thinking of we ran it over
• 37:59
  in, what was the yard we ran it in? They're pretty
• 38:02
  tall. And we were just kind of all like, well,
• 38:04
  that was a good test. Oh, it was Roy 11 off of
• 38:07
  Birchfield. Yeah. Now that was, those were really
• 38:11
  tall. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So how many of those
• 38:14
  units do you have running right now out there
• 38:17
  around in hops? We don't have any running hops
• 38:20
  right now. We've got quite a few of them running
• 38:23
  in vineyards and in orchards that really have
• 38:26
  taken off in there and done a really good job.
• 38:28
  But it's also one of those things where once
• 38:31
  you kind of start doing it, you need to see it
• 38:33
  through the whole season. And then you really
• 38:35
  see the results and it starts to build a program
• 38:39
  around it. That's why we're excited to work with
• 38:42
  you in hops and kind of prove it out. I'm game.
• 38:47
  Here's a good question. So when you're looking
• 38:49
  at these new pieces of technology, one of the
• 38:54
  barriers that can be sometimes, and we've ran
• 38:57
  into this, I think, with you, is, okay, who's
• 38:59
  going to bear the cost of this, right? And then
• 39:01
  how do we, like, divvy that up? Because, like,
• 39:03
  we're R &Ding this thing together, right? You
• 39:06
  know, and so is it the farmer's responsibility
• 39:08
  to bear the entire cost of that, or is it your
• 39:10
  responsibility? Like, whose responsibility is
• 39:13
  it? That is the toughest part. We're trying to...
• 39:18
  go back to like i was talking about betting these
• 39:20
  products we're trying to put more pressure on
• 39:22
  the supplier bringing it in to be like hey man
• 39:26
  yes i think you got something here but you can't
• 39:30
  expect burrows or or roy farms to front the bill
• 39:35
  for the whole thing like we got to have some
• 39:38
  sort of extended trial here to prove it out in
• 39:40
  a real life scenario yep and then once they you
• 39:45
  know sign off on that then i think we can ask
• 39:47
  for some investment yeah right yep that's that's
• 39:51
  one of the the biggest struggles with these technology
• 39:54
  pieces is they're not cheap yeah yeah but we're
• 40:00
  gonna need to have them you know for for future
• 40:02
  yep yeah because that electronic weeder how much
• 40:05
  does that thing cost new i mean we wouldn't obviously
• 40:08
  there'd be some program, lease program or something
• 40:10
  like that. That's why we've put together an extensive
• 40:12
  rental program on that, and it makes more sense
• 40:15
  to rent it out, and we can take it from grower
• 40:18
  to grower to grower. Because what's the, I mean,
• 40:21
  some people, I think some of our, especially
• 40:23
  our brewing partners and our brewing customers
• 40:26
  would find it really interesting to know how
• 40:29
  much a single electronic weeder costs. It's around
• 40:34
  $150 ,000. Yeah. So you got $150 ,000 for that
• 40:37
  and $250 ,000 for an autonomous tractor, and
• 40:39
  we need multiples of all these things. That's
• 40:43
  one of my biggest fears of this industry right
• 40:45
  now is that those that can figure out how to
• 40:52
  trial and advance certain expensive equipment
• 40:56
  that will give a competitive advantage, they'll
• 41:00
  get out in front and leverage that, get out in
• 41:02
  front of the, you know, the... struggling farmer
• 41:07
  and the efficiency gap will be so much that it'll
• 41:10
  damage the middle guy or the smaller farmer in
• 41:13
  the long run. Yeah. Like you're talking about
• 41:15
  autonomous tractors and these high dollar items.
• 41:18
  It's like, and you say they're being used in
• 41:20
  tree fruit. Well, I could probably guess like
• 41:22
  the, you know, one or two or three entities that
• 41:25
  have those deployed. And they're probably the
• 41:27
  large vertically integrated, like tree fruit
• 41:30
  organizations and then all the other growers
• 41:33
  that are, you know, selling. having to liquidate
• 41:37
  right now in a in a buyer's market may not even
• 41:41
  get the opportunity or they may be so cash strapped
• 41:44
  that they're not going to get those implemented
• 41:46
  and then the system just continues to feed on
• 41:49
  itself yeah i gotta think compared to you know
• 41:55
  three years ago when everybody had money falling
• 41:57
  out their ass or perceived To date. You're telling
• 42:02
  me. It was way easier to sell back then, too.
• 42:04
  No kidding. Yeah, let's try that. You know, toss
• 42:08
  in a couple of those while you're at it. You
• 42:09
  never know when I'll need that. Everybody answered
• 42:11
  my phone calls then. I feel like I don't have
• 42:13
  any friends anymore. There's other technologies
• 42:19
  that we're working on, too, that are like Weedit,
• 42:23
  for example. Which one's that one? It's a sensor
• 42:27
  that can, camera that can. sense plant life yeah
• 42:31
  only spray the plant life oh yeah yeah yep you
• 42:34
  know so you can save some chemical and target
• 42:36
  and not over use and just target what you want
• 42:41
  to kill yeah we have other products like just
• 42:44
  a ultrasonic sensor that can just sense an object
• 42:51
  so you could set that up to turn on and off when
• 42:55
  it when it sees something when you're doing,
• 42:57
  whether it's on a herbicide spray or we have
• 43:01
  some other air blast technologies too that are
• 43:04
  like, we used to sell the Smart Apply. We now
• 43:08
  have this product called Orchard IQ, which is
• 43:11
  very similar to Smart Apply. It's a see and spray
• 43:13
  type sprayer for your air blast. So that can
• 43:17
  also help save, but also put the chemical in
• 43:21
  the right area where you need it, reduce drift,
• 43:24
  a lot of things. Yeah, so what else? So autonomous
• 43:27
  tractors, obviously weeding technology, electric,
• 43:30
  laser, you know. We have a... You mentioned the
• 43:34
  other one, the vegetation sensing spray systems
• 43:39
  that'll turn your sprayer on and off, like in
• 43:42
  between hot vines. Oh, yeah, I've heard of that.
• 43:44
  As an example, which we've ran those on our ranch.
• 43:47
  We ran one unit, two units we had. I think we
• 43:49
  had that on one of our units, didn't we? On your
• 43:52
  herbicide? Not on the herbicide, on the Turbomists.
• 43:55
  Oh, yeah, you guys do have one Smart Apply. Yeah.
• 44:00
  Which Smart Apply works great. John Deere ended
• 44:04
  up buying them out, so we're not a dealer anymore.
• 44:08
  Oh, serious? Yeah. So we've found another very
• 44:13
  competitive product that'll do everything that
• 44:17
  Smart Apply will do. Which product is that? It's
• 44:20
  called Orchard IQ. Oh, that's when you're talking
• 44:21
  about Orchard IQ. Yeah, it's through Turbomist.
• 44:24
  Oh. Yeah. Turbomist is a Canadian company, right?
• 44:27
  From what I remember? Yeah. Speaking of equipment
• 44:33
  and whatnot, do you go, or maybe it's your manufacturers
• 44:37
  or your suppliers, but go to like China, New
• 44:42
  Zealand, Europe to go look at? What kind of cool
• 44:46
  innovations they're playing with to make sure
• 44:48
  that we stay competitive. Yeah. Been to Italy
• 44:52
  a couple of times to the I'm a show over there.
• 44:54
  That's a, that's a big show. And there's a lot.
• 44:58
  I believe I went with you one year, didn't I?
• 45:00
  No, you were with John and a group that they
• 45:04
  went with. Yeah, that was before. That was before
• 45:08
  I had went, but it sounded like you guys had
• 45:11
  a good time. Oh, we did. Yeah. So there's a lot
• 45:17
  of innovative products over there and stuff.
• 45:20
  Once again, you run into when you go over there,
• 45:23
  all these guys are using them, but they're using
• 45:26
  them on their 10 hectares. Yeah. You know, they
• 45:31
  put them in the garage every night. They're their
• 45:34
  owner operators. And so they're like, oh, yeah,
• 45:37
  this thing works great. And it'd be great. And
• 45:40
  then you go to try to deploy that on a thousand
• 45:41
  acre farm. And it's like. Oh, you guys park your
• 45:44
  stuff outside at night. You guys don't wash and
• 45:49
  wax it down every night and get all the spray
• 45:52
  residue and everything off it. Oh, so I guess
• 45:57
  that, yeah, makes sense. They're not made for
• 46:00
  a lot of the equipment's not made for our scale.
• 46:02
  Yeah. You know, but a lot of that equipment,
• 46:06
  they. that they're able to get a lot of government
• 46:09
  subsidies to develop that equipment over there.
• 46:11
  So there's a lot of that technology starts from
• 46:15
  over there, and then we just got to take it and
• 46:17
  adapt it and make it more robust of work in our
• 46:20
  environment that we have. Oh, man, that makes
• 46:23
  sense. What about China? No, nothing out of China.
• 46:29
  A lot of it's like Italy, France, New Zealand.
• 46:36
  Yeah. Very interesting. Oh, has the landscape
• 46:42
  got more competitive over the last couple of
• 46:44
  years? I assume your biggest competitor is like
• 46:47
  John Deere, but there's... Our actual biggest
• 46:50
  competitor in the tree and vine space would be
• 46:52
  Kubota. Oh, okay. Yeah, yeah. That makes sense.
• 46:56
  Those smaller tractors. Yeah, I think John Deere
• 46:58
  is more focused on the bigger stuff. We don't
• 47:02
  run into them as much as we do Kubota, which...
• 47:07
  We just have a good time competing with Blue
• 47:09
  Line. They're good people. Oh, good. When did
• 47:13
  Kubota really make a move into the Valley? Have
• 47:19
  they always just kind of been around? Yeah, they've
• 47:21
  always been around. If I generally think about
• 47:24
  it, it seems like there's a period of time where
• 47:26
  they've been around, but then they made a big
• 47:28
  jump at some point. Maybe I'm just remembering
• 47:30
  that wrong. When Blue Line bought the Kubota
• 47:33
  dealership in Yakima, which was equipment out
• 47:36
  in the mid, I mean, they really kind of made
• 47:38
  a bigger push, and Greg's made a lot of, you
• 47:42
  know, opened up a lot more stores, and it's gotten
• 47:46
  more competitive as things get right. The piece
• 47:49
  of pie gets a little bit smaller. Things get
• 47:51
  tougher, so it gets more competitive. What do
• 47:54
  you think you guys offer that your competitors
• 47:56
  don't, or what do you think is your, if you have
• 47:59
  a competitive advantage? They have real solutions,
• 48:01
  okay. That's number one. That goes without saying,
• 48:03
  though. All joking aside, I do think that that,
• 48:06
  is uh is a great thing i mean i know the blue
• 48:09
  line does a lot of their own manufacturing as
• 48:11
  well but uh i think i think for us i mean i think
• 48:14
  we focus a lot on service taking care of the
• 48:19
  customers after the sale um i think that's been
• 48:22
  instilled into all of us by john you know he
• 48:25
  was a hop farmer he grew up on a hop ranch and
• 48:28
  it's like he knows that these guys are making
• 48:30
  their living their livelihood with this equipment
• 48:33
  that we're selling so when they're down It's
• 48:36
  like it's all hands on deck to get them up and
• 48:38
  going. We'll figure out whatever we need to figure
• 48:41
  out once the dust settles. I think that that's
• 48:44
  huge in setting us aside from our competition.
• 48:48
  I think the other side of it is being willing
• 48:51
  to look and invest in these technologies. I mean,
• 48:54
  we all know that we need to have solutions for
• 48:56
  the future. I think a lot of our growers recognize
• 48:59
  that and like, hey, I want to partner with these
• 49:02
  guys because they are willing to put money into.
• 49:06
  investing in buying these products and bringing
• 49:07
  them out i don't really see a lot of other dealerships
• 49:11
  going hog heavy into the technology type stuff
• 49:15
  or they do and they have some stuff but there's
• 49:18
  a pretty hard line and participation is what
• 49:20
  i've noticed where you know and maybe this is
• 49:24
  to your guys's detriment but i'll use an example
• 49:26
  like with the turbomist sprayers i mean we spent
• 49:29
  an enormous amount of time tweaking those things
• 49:33
  with you guys Yes. And we probably became annoying
• 49:37
  at some point, but we're extremely happy with
• 49:40
  the product and we feel like that that thing
• 49:41
  is amazing, but. Never annoying. But I'm using
• 49:48
  that as an example to where like we did partner
• 49:50
  and you guys were willing to continue to, to
• 49:53
  go down that road until we were satisfied. Yeah.
• 49:56
  And we, I totally love doing that. That's one
• 49:58
  of the things I love about this industry and
• 50:00
  my job is like, there's always a new challenge.
• 50:02
  There's always. the nice thing about having every
• 50:06
  grower that does a little bit different is that
• 50:08
  it's not just, Oh yeah, I got this tractor. You're
• 50:10
  just selling this piece of equipment. It's like,
• 50:12
  no, we got to tweak this. And the challenges
• 50:14
  of it really is exciting. And then when you have
• 50:18
  partners like you guys that are willing to be
• 50:20
  like, Hey man, if you're willing to stick with
• 50:22
  me and make this what I want it, I'm willing
• 50:24
  to invest in you. Then totally makes it worth
• 50:26
  the effort. Yeah, I'm not sure who ate the cost
• 50:31
  on Root Grinding version one and two, but. Well,
• 50:35
  I have the trophy. That's true. It is in your
• 50:39
  boneyard. So if that tells you anything. Yeah.
• 50:45
  Random question. So you have gone to Hop Convention.
• 50:54
  We don't really go to the Hop Conventions. That's
• 50:57
  a good question. Why not? I thought I saw you
• 50:59
  down there before. I've been to the one when
• 51:01
  it was in Portland. Yeah. No, and it's not anything
• 51:06
  against, you know, that we don't want to support
• 51:09
  or anything. It's just see all you guys all the
• 51:12
  time. Yeah. Something to think about. It may
• 51:15
  not be worth the ROI, but just being in the consciousness
• 51:20
  of the grower when they, like when they're kind
• 51:25
  of. broke out of their day to day and they maybe
• 51:28
  have a little bit more bandwidth to think about
• 51:30
  other things might not be a bad idea I'd love
• 51:34
  to go I don't know just random thought but yeah
• 51:39
  I was curious for some reason I thought I know
• 51:41
  I've seen you before but it must have been the
• 51:42
  Portland one but I was curious what if that's
• 51:45
  kind of the only industry where you get to see
• 51:47
  a little bit more transparency through like to
• 51:51
  the end user to the brewer because there's a
• 51:54
  bunch of those there and do you take any of that
• 51:56
  into consideration like what you learn about
• 52:00
  what's going on in the industry there it's a
• 52:02
  little different than you know fruit that's kind
• 52:04
  of like it goes to grocery stores and that's
• 52:06
  kind of yeah why don't you give why don't you
• 52:09
  give like technology get on a give a speech a
• 52:13
  talk there like give like technology update like
• 52:16
  your projects i guarantee the brewers would love
• 52:20
  to learn more about the, I think a lot of growers
• 52:22
  would love to see, would love to see kind of
• 52:25
  like follow through and numbers and like a, an
• 52:29
  actual report of some sort verbal or otherwise
• 52:33
  about some of the things you're working on. Cause
• 52:35
  I mean, look at like, I mean, dude, we've engaged,
• 52:38
  you know, over the years about autonomous tractors
• 52:41
  and, and what have you, but then whatever reason,
• 52:44
  probably cause we have a lot of stuff going on.
• 52:45
  We just didn't come to that. technology day.
• 52:49
  And then we're sitting here talking about something
• 52:51
  that is quite surprising, actually, that we didn't
• 52:53
  know that was going on. You know, and so I'm
• 52:57
  sure you've engaged with our team members, but
• 53:00
  we have a lot going on. And so. Yeah, we did
• 53:05
  give a technology update, I think, at the last
• 53:07
  Hopcore meeting that we had here in Yakima. But
• 53:11
  yeah, that's something we should look into. You're
• 53:13
  right. I'd be curious to know which of our listeners
• 53:17
  sent feedback about this one. Like, we had to
• 53:23
  give one of our big suppliers yesterday, or one
• 53:26
  of our large customers, sent out the supplier
• 53:31
  agreement, supplier partner agreement or something
• 53:35
  like that, that goes through all of the different
• 53:37
  things that we are committing to do on the farm.
• 53:43
  Or, I mean, it's designed for people selling
• 53:45
  fricking, you know, glass bottles too and whatever.
• 53:49
  But everything from like how we're committing
• 53:54
  to future technology and sustainability and all
• 53:57
  of that sort of stuff, all the way throughout
• 54:00
  the supply chain, how we're buying equipment,
• 54:03
  all of that. I think there's an opportunity to
• 54:06
  tell a story all the way through to the end consumer.
• 54:12
  In some way, shape or form, like even in little
• 54:14
  things like, you know, lower emissions tractors
• 54:19
  or electric, you know, whatever. Yeah. It's kind
• 54:24
  of interesting to think about. Total side tangent,
• 54:26
  but when you're talking about a three -year ROI
• 54:29
  on the autonomous sprayer, is that factoring
• 54:33
  in fuel savings? Yes. That machine has a, it'll
• 54:39
  run. 30 hours on a tank of diesel yeah because
• 54:42
  it's not under load right it's just being used
• 54:44
  as a generator yeah so it's it burns about 70
• 54:49
  less fuel than a normal tractor does yeah because
• 54:52
  a normal tractor is under load under torque load
• 54:54
  yep and those are just being yeah they're just
• 54:58
  being used as a generator to charge the battery
• 54:59
  right it's running a power generator yeah there's
• 55:02
  power and everything but it's super low knee
• 55:05
  like torque like said yeah so is there there's
• 55:07
  a massive battery on this No, there's a small
• 55:12
  battery to where you can fire it up and drive
• 55:14
  it short distance with it just under electric
• 55:18
  power. Oh, so it's straight off the electric
• 55:21
  generator then to the motor. I've always wondered
• 55:23
  why more equipment didn't use that. Yeah, why
• 55:28
  is that? Because you've seen iterations of this
• 55:30
  over the years, and even car manufacturers tried
• 55:33
  it, but then they got away to all EV, and now
• 55:36
  they're coming back, like Scout Motors. I'm a
• 55:38
  big fan of Scout Motors. They're coming out with
• 55:40
  their... Same thing. I mean, same thing, a little
• 55:42
  bit different. He's put a deposit on two Scouts.
• 55:46
  Which means absolutely nothing. Hey, I'm just
• 55:48
  saying, you put your money where your mouth is.
• 55:50
  I'm saying you're right what you're saying. I
• 55:52
  did put my money where my mouth is, but it was
• 55:54
  only $200. Our listeners didn't need to know
• 55:57
  that, okay? I'm saying that you support the...
• 55:59
  Keep going down your freaking tangent. That was
• 56:02
  one of the things that... Hey, I just don't want
• 56:04
  anyone to think that there's, like, Mike Roy's
• 56:06
  blowing money. I put two single $100 deposits
• 56:10
  down, just for clarity. Are you going to get
• 56:12
  the scout? I'd like to, but they keep delaying
• 56:15
  the release, and so I had this perfect plan worked
• 56:18
  out where it's like, you know, like... My wife's
• 56:21
  car and my truck, like right about when they
• 56:24
  come out or it's going to, the timing is going
• 56:26
  to be great. And then my stepson rolled his truck.
• 56:30
  And then like, so it was like, we're doing a
• 56:32
  big car shuffle. And then all of a sudden, like
• 56:36
  27 is now 28 release. And anyway, so we'll see
• 56:39
  if we make it there to 28. I would like to, because
• 56:42
  it seems like it makes a lot of sense. Why two?
• 56:47
  Well, SUV truck. So I would. wife, husband matching.
• 56:53
  His and hers. His and hers. His and her scouts.
• 56:55
  Same color? No, not same color. Anyway. Yeah,
• 57:02
  back to your question. Why have more people not
• 57:06
  looked into this? Because it makes a lot of sense.
• 57:08
  That was the thing that drew us the most to the
• 57:11
  Rodox Plus was it being a hybrid because that
• 57:14
  was one of the, going back to the Monarch talk
• 57:16
  about a fully electric tractor, you know, on
• 57:18
  a full charge. pulling 45 horsepower you put
• 57:22
  a mower on it that required all that horsepower
• 57:24
  it only run about three and a half to four hours
• 57:27
  on a charge and then it takes you know eight
• 57:30
  plus hours to charge so it a lot of downtime
• 57:33
  right where you get this uh hybrid type model
• 57:36
  now all of a sudden i can go run if i could weather
• 57:40
  permitting 24 hours a day yeah yeah yeah and
• 57:43
  then that's what helps boost that roi because
• 57:47
  I just remembered this. Remember when the New
• 57:50
  Holland engineers came out here and we engaged
• 57:52
  with the engineers on their full EV tractor?
• 57:55
  Yep. And they're asking what the use cases were
• 57:59
  and what our loads were and this, that, and the
• 58:01
  other. And the amount of batteries that they
• 58:03
  would have had to strap onto that just to get
• 58:06
  our sprayers on a schedule that we're currently
• 58:11
  on was... pretty intense like they had to strap
• 58:15
  batteries onto the front of the tractor the belly
• 58:17
  and then you potentially start limiting uh at
• 58:21
  that point you potentially start limiting the
• 58:23
  use case because there's so much real estate
• 58:25
  taken up by battery packs and we sent them a
• 58:29
  sprayer back shipped it back east and they had
• 58:31
  it for like three months trying to to use that
• 58:34
  horsepower requirement for the turbine sprayer
• 58:37
  that you have and uh to try to make that work
• 58:40
  and they couldn't no yeah I mean, I'm not saying
• 58:44
  that it won't happen in the near future, but
• 58:46
  today it's just, I don't think the battery technology
• 58:48
  is there where that's where that hybrid type
• 58:51
  model just works better for the bigger corporate
• 58:53
  farm that needs to get the hours of input out
• 58:58
  of it. Yep. That is so fascinating. We have some
• 59:02
  other ones. Like we have this other product called
• 59:05
  the Burrow. It's like a little cart. Is it named
• 59:08
  after Burroughs? I don't think it was, but we
• 59:11
  could say it was. And it's a small electric cart,
• 59:16
  but it'll tow like 5 ,000 pounds. Oh, I think
• 59:20
  I've seen this one. And it'll haul like 2 ,000
• 59:22
  pounds. And we have the Weed -It sprayer. It's
• 59:26
  towing like a 200 -gallon pull tank with an electric
• 59:29
  motor and a Weed -It setup. We've been demoing
• 59:33
  it quite a bit to Orchard guys and whatnot. That
• 59:36
  one, you can put an extra battery pack on it,
• 59:38
  and you could go get, if you're towing something,
• 59:41
  like 10 hours of run time out of it, and then
• 59:43
  have it charged. By swapping out a battery? No,
• 59:47
  you could put an extra battery on the top, and
• 59:48
  then you could get like 10 hours of run time
• 59:51
  out of it, and then it would take like eight
• 59:53
  hours to charge. But that machine also sells
• 59:56
  for sub -50s. So when you look at that to replace
• 1:00:01
  like maybe a small tractor you have doing your
• 1:00:03
  herbicide sprays or some deals, You're kind of,
• 1:00:06
  whether you buy a new tractor or you buy that
• 1:00:08
  machine, it's pretty close. So that's a really
• 1:00:13
  interesting product. We're starting to see a
• 1:00:15
  lot of, get a lot of traction on just for smaller
• 1:00:18
  jobs. What are your thoughts on, I guess, maybe
• 1:00:23
  theoretically, maybe not, the reduced maintenance
• 1:00:27
  on these units? Because in theory, there should
• 1:00:31
  be less maintenance. on especially i mean certainly
• 1:00:35
  on like an all ev setup but on a hybrid setup
• 1:00:39
  i would imagine that there's still less because
• 1:00:40
  you have the reduced torque load and reduced
• 1:00:43
  demand and some of the componentry but then maybe
• 1:00:47
  increased needs on the technology management
• 1:00:49
  side so what are your thoughts on maintenance
• 1:00:51
  and upkeep and whether those costs are going
• 1:00:54
  to be lower or higher and then how that would
• 1:00:56
  impact your business. Because, you know, we talked
• 1:00:58
  about the sales side and the manufacturing side,
• 1:01:01
  but there's also a maintenance side to your business.
• 1:01:03
  Yeah. On the, on the maintenance side, these
• 1:01:06
  electric type units, daily maintenance is going
• 1:01:09
  to be way down. You know, you don't have a bunch
• 1:01:11
  of grease arcs and, and, and on fully electric,
• 1:01:14
  you don't have to change the oil and the fuel
• 1:01:16
  filter and the air filter. On the hybrid models,
• 1:01:20
  you do have still that engine to service, but
• 1:01:23
  you don't have all the rest of the stuff, the
• 1:01:25
  hydraulics, the hydraulic filter, all the grease
• 1:01:28
  points, rebound bearings going out, that type
• 1:01:32
  of stuff. Are the service intervals any longer
• 1:01:35
  on an engine that has reduced torque loading?
• 1:01:40
  Service intervals are getting longer on newer
• 1:01:43
  diesel engines already. I mean, I remember when
• 1:01:44
  I first started working in the shop, it was like...
• 1:01:47
  the oil change intervals on a diesel engine was
• 1:01:50
  150 to 200 hours. Now a lot of these are 600
• 1:01:53
  hours. So they've already gotten better. But
• 1:01:56
  as far as the reduced torque load, no, they're
• 1:01:59
  still going to, for that horsepower rated engine,
• 1:02:01
  it's still going to have a recommended hour time
• 1:02:05
  on changing, no matter what the torque load is.
• 1:02:08
  Okay. But yeah, what are your thoughts overall?
• 1:02:11
  You said some of the daily maintenance is going
• 1:02:12
  to be less and then. Yeah, I think a lot of this
• 1:02:16
  other technology, like I love the Robotics Plus
• 1:02:21
  because everything is modular. So if you do have
• 1:02:25
  a piece of the technology that goes bad, you
• 1:02:27
  just literally unplug a wire, take this module
• 1:02:30
  off, get a new one, put it in there, and then
• 1:02:33
  they're working on like a replacement program
• 1:02:36
  to where like we'd send that off to them. They'd
• 1:02:38
  refurbish it and then send it back. Then we'd
• 1:02:41
  have it on the shelf if something else were to
• 1:02:42
  fail again. just trying to provide that service
• 1:02:46
  to where you have less downtime. So, you know,
• 1:02:50
  it's not like an electrical nightmare and we
• 1:02:52
  got a guy out there trying to chase a short that's
• 1:02:54
  somewhere and he can't find it and it's make
• 1:02:59
  it all modular. Yeah. So interesting. Well, here's
• 1:03:04
  one question too. You're talking about new technologies.
• 1:03:07
  You guys ever looked at branching out into i
• 1:03:13
  don't know something that is adjacent but new
• 1:03:16
  for you guys like i don't know make this up like
• 1:03:19
  have you looked at being a drone distributor
• 1:03:20
  we've looked into some drone stuff we haven't
• 1:03:24
  we have a drone but we might get in as far as
• 1:03:30
  the drone part of it um with some of these technologies
• 1:03:34
  using the drone to help map and do the doing
• 1:03:37
  the originals the initial setup um but as As
• 1:03:42
  far as some of the other technologies. Oh, like
• 1:03:44
  mapping as a service? Yeah, like, well, say you
• 1:03:48
  get this Robotics Plus autonomous rig. Yeah,
• 1:03:52
  you got to map. You got to set up all your fields
• 1:03:54
  and map them out. Geofences and things like that.
• 1:03:56
  Yeah, some of that can be done with a drone,
• 1:03:59
  depending on how you want to do it and how precise
• 1:04:02
  you need to be. Some of it, like, we got, like,
• 1:04:06
  this handheld called Torch. and you can go and
• 1:04:09
  mark every row, and then you can build routes.
• 1:04:11
  Oh, yeah. So whether it be a drone or handheld
• 1:04:15
  -type devices, or sometimes you just got to drive
• 1:04:18
  it, validate it. Yeah, we played around a little
• 1:04:21
  bit with drone spraying last year, just really,
• 1:04:25
  like, just I wanted to see if it would work.
• 1:04:28
  I think there's a real use case, but we still
• 1:04:31
  got to flush a couple things out. It would not
• 1:04:33
  completely replace spraying. It would be an addition
• 1:04:37
  to it. The coverage -wise, it was good? Yeah,
• 1:04:39
  I was very happy with the coverage. It surprised
• 1:04:42
  me. And the speed at which you can get over stuff.
• 1:04:45
  Now, you wouldn't spray two -spotted spider mite
• 1:04:47
  with it, but if you're looking at doing some
• 1:04:49
  foliar feeding, you can rip through acreage with
• 1:04:53
  those things. Interesting. We did a demo down
• 1:04:59
  in Oregon. We did some dye testing of drone sprayer
• 1:05:05
  versus airbrush sprayer. Yeah. And it wasn't
• 1:05:10
  good. That's why I asked. Well, it wouldn't be
• 1:05:12
  good for spraying mites. It probably wouldn't
• 1:05:16
  be good for spraying aphids. But if you have,
• 1:05:19
  whether we get there, this is where my mind sees
• 1:05:22
  things, right, is that you're going to have probably
• 1:05:24
  more total equipment used over very strategic
• 1:05:30
  times. And I'm talking more about maybe implements
• 1:05:32
  than a bunch of different fleets of tractors.
• 1:05:35
  But you're going to have more. total implements
• 1:05:38
  that are being used in a very intentional way
• 1:05:41
  to gain overall efficiency and so in like one
• 1:05:45
  example of that is let's say you have like your
• 1:05:47
  turbomist sprayers that are or these you know
• 1:05:49
  new robotic sprayers that are used 60 of the
• 1:05:53
  time 70 of the time um but then in order to get
• 1:05:59
  increased output or more efficiency you're going
• 1:06:02
  to use let's say the drones for 30 percent for
• 1:06:05
  your fuller feeding and things like that oh yeah
• 1:06:07
  that makes sense you know and so you go in there
• 1:06:09
  and you'd be able to get over acreage really
• 1:06:11
  fast and efficient let's say with like drones
• 1:06:13
  or something like that for that 30 40 percent
• 1:06:16
  so that's like more equipment but used in a very
• 1:06:21
  intentional way yeah i don't know interesting
• 1:06:24
  or you can use those things for um Probably Volbait
• 1:06:29
  as well. Yeah, that wouldn't make sense. Most
• 1:06:32
  of that done as like a service by a company or
• 1:06:35
  would it be something that you would own? I think
• 1:06:38
  you'd own the fleet and have somebody and, you
• 1:06:41
  know, you start really like playing that out.
• 1:06:42
  Like, let's say you have that individual that's
• 1:06:45
  running those autonomous tractors. You'd probably
• 1:06:48
  eventually, you know, at a farm our size, have
• 1:06:51
  a small group that's running the entirety of
• 1:06:53
  the autonomous or really in this case, like autonomous
• 1:06:56
  plus aerial. Yeah. Fleet. You'd have like your
• 1:07:00
  operators that can drive your tractor and your
• 1:07:01
  sprayer, then you have your like technology type
• 1:07:04
  operators. Probably, yeah. I mean, I don't think,
• 1:07:06
  I wouldn't envision the two being very different.
• 1:07:08
  I mean, it's all kind of functions similar, right?
• 1:07:10
  You got like geofencing and mapping on the upfront
• 1:07:15
  with patterns and then basically like iPads.
• 1:07:19
  And so it's like deploying an autonomous tractor
• 1:07:21
  out in the field is theoretically no different
• 1:07:24
  than deploying a drone. They have their, they
• 1:07:27
  have their flight slash drive patterns. There's
• 1:07:30
  differences, but it's not like that, that different.
• 1:07:32
  Yeah. No, I was just curious if you guys, I think
• 1:07:36
  it leads into my question of like, do you, do
• 1:07:39
  you think your future of innovation is doing
• 1:07:41
  what you've done better or do you feel it's doing
• 1:07:49
  new things? Incorporating new things. Does that
• 1:07:54
  make any sense? I mean, I know that you're incorporating
• 1:07:56
  new things into doing things better, but... Is
• 1:07:59
  that really an either or? No. I would think it's
• 1:08:01
  got to be both. No, it's not an either or, but
• 1:08:04
  I was setting up the question. So I was going
• 1:08:06
  to say, like, do you think it's an either or?
• 1:08:09
  And then... I think right now, today, what we're
• 1:08:14
  currently doing and kind of what we've done in
• 1:08:17
  the past and trying to continue to... drive forward
• 1:08:20
  with good service and make sure our customers
• 1:08:22
  have been selling the old reliable tractor and
• 1:08:25
  the sprayer and everything like that. That's
• 1:08:27
  what's paying the bills to subsidize our need
• 1:08:30
  and want to do the technology stuff. Because
• 1:08:34
  it's obviously not the best of time in ag to
• 1:08:38
  try to sell a bunch of those types of products,
• 1:08:41
  you know, and be profitable on them. It's kind
• 1:08:46
  of wild to think about that we're probably, Like
• 1:08:49
  the rise and fall of, I doubt we'll ever see
• 1:08:53
  in our lifetime. Maybe we'll see another run
• 1:08:56
  like we just saw where hops and tree fruit and
• 1:08:59
  wine were all just like amazing for so long.
• 1:09:04
  I hope so. It'd be nice to run into one again.
• 1:09:07
  But yeah, I was talking to somebody a couple
• 1:09:10
  of weeks ago and they said they've never seen
• 1:09:12
  all their commodities bad at the same time. And
• 1:09:16
  they'd never seen them all good at the same time
• 1:09:17
  either. But the funny thing is like with AI robotics,
• 1:09:22
  all of this stuff that's now coming in 2026,
• 1:09:25
  where it's like we're getting into it, where
• 1:09:28
  this product's available, it's like, damn it.
• 1:09:30
  It came like five years too late when the money
• 1:09:34
  wasn't there because we could all drop our farming
• 1:09:37
  cost and be more efficient now if the money was
• 1:09:39
  still there. I mean, to your point, though, it's
• 1:09:43
  like, you know, there's unfortunately there's
• 1:09:46
  consolidation. And so there's consolidation.
• 1:09:51
  So there's down markets, there's consolidation
• 1:09:53
  happening, the bigger getting bigger. And so
• 1:09:57
  the bigger are going to have plenty of opportunity
• 1:10:00
  to invest in the things that we're all talking
• 1:10:02
  about. And to your point, Drew, like the smaller
• 1:10:05
  may not have the opportunity. And so, yes, we
• 1:10:07
  as a collective have maybe lost somewhat of an
• 1:10:10
  opportunity, but the survivors and the ones that
• 1:10:14
  are consolidating are still going to have the
• 1:10:17
  same. And so it's, unfortunately it's not a at
• 1:10:22
  large type of type of opportunity, but yeah.
• 1:10:27
  And to your point, Tom, like right now you don't
• 1:10:29
  have the farmer there to help you pay for it.
• 1:10:32
  So you have the bread and butter paying for all
• 1:10:35
  innovation because you know, it's what I just
• 1:10:37
  heard is, you know, it's coming and you have
• 1:10:39
  to have it, but there's nobody there helping
• 1:10:42
  you to get there right now. It's you guys on
• 1:10:44
  your own just knowing it's coming. Yeah. Trying
• 1:10:46
  to. mitigate not over investing into it, but
• 1:10:49
  making sure that we're still moving forward with
• 1:10:51
  it. Yeah. So if you could, um, I mean, since
• 1:10:55
  we're primarily a hop focused think tank here,
• 1:10:59
  if you could, well, those were Tom's words, not
• 1:11:04
  mine. Okay. When he came in, I do feel smarter.
• 1:11:07
  You said that. Oh, you said this is the think
• 1:11:10
  tank. I'm sure it was a joke, but, um, No, if
• 1:11:15
  you could snap your fingers. It's more like the
• 1:11:17
  peanut gallery up here. Yeah, that's great. No,
• 1:11:21
  if you could snap your fingers and say, hey,
• 1:11:22
  based off everything that I'm seeing, have experience
• 1:11:26
  with, have run in these hop yards, if you could
• 1:11:32
  say there's these top three things that every
• 1:11:36
  hop grower should be implementing right now.
• 1:11:39
  Maybe it's not three. What are they? Technology
• 1:11:42
  -wise? Yeah. Specific. Obviously, autonomous
• 1:11:46
  sprayers. Okay. And then I think some sort of
• 1:11:50
  see and spray herbicide. So on the see and spray
• 1:11:55
  herbicide, when are you using that? So you're
• 1:11:58
  just spraying like in between the hops with the
• 1:12:00
  herbicide and not the hops? Yep. So like we have
• 1:12:05
  some sensors that are object. You can just see
• 1:12:09
  an object. So you can point that sensor up. It's
• 1:12:11
  an ultrasonic sensor. to where say it's going
• 1:12:14
  to read as the hop say baby hops yeah that's
• 1:12:18
  that was wondering is like what is the specific
• 1:12:20
  application because it's not in burndown it could
• 1:12:23
  be in basal burn mid -season and it's definitely
• 1:12:26
  probably in babies yeah okay so we're talking
• 1:12:29
  we're talking babies specifically yeah okay babies
• 1:12:31
  and you could if you wanted to use herbicide
• 1:12:34
  to spray then you could move that sensor up to
• 1:12:38
  where it would shut off and not spray the you
• 1:12:40
  know see the twine or the or the baby hop growing
• 1:12:43
  up and, and not spray and then just spray in
• 1:12:45
  between. Okay. So see and spray on baby hops.
• 1:12:49
  Yeah. And then I would definitely say, uh, like
• 1:12:53
  see and spray on airbrush. I mean, especially
• 1:12:56
  in hops. I mean, you, it's such a moving target.
• 1:12:59
  You, the ROI is so much greater and see it's
• 1:13:04
  brand just spraying the crop versus like, orchards
• 1:13:10
  and whatnot where you got a tree you got to spray
• 1:13:11
  the whole tree every time you're you're spraying
• 1:13:13
  a moving target so there's a lot of overspray
• 1:13:17
  a lot of waste so when we've looked yeah oh yeah
• 1:13:21
  when we've unfortunately i don't think the drift
• 1:13:23
  is going to be solved with sea and spray but
• 1:13:25
  you would reduce the amount of airborne particles
• 1:13:28
  so on the sea and spray at my opinion based off
• 1:13:33
  like how molecules how we've Just had the pleasure
• 1:13:37
  of seeing how molecules fly around the valley
• 1:13:39
  with organic crops. So on the sea and spray on,
• 1:13:46
  let's say on the, on the air blast sprayers or
• 1:13:48
  whatever sprayer you're using, we saw that be
• 1:13:52
  fairly effective or, or, or effective in the
• 1:13:56
  early season. And then when we got into full
• 1:13:58
  vine, it was basically just kind of business
• 1:14:01
  as usual. Would you agree or? Yeah, I would.
• 1:14:04
  I would say what we've seen in hops is like some
• 1:14:08
  of this, you can save 70%. 70 % of your spray
• 1:14:13
  early to mid -season. So let's say prior to hitting
• 1:14:18
  the wire. Yeah. Yeah, would that be fair? But
• 1:14:21
  then when you get up there and you start, when
• 1:14:22
  everything's full canopy, you're going to be
• 1:14:24
  back to normal. Maybe it's not even necessarily
• 1:14:27
  saving a lot of chemical, but it's putting it.
• 1:14:31
  in the right spot right to where you're getting
• 1:14:35
  more effective out of the chemical that you're
• 1:14:37
  putting out there yeah um yeah later on when
• 1:14:40
  you got full canopy you're not going to see it
• 1:14:42
  turn on and off as much but there still is a
• 1:14:44
  savings i mean i would say it's still going to
• 1:14:46
  be something it's 20 yeah so where that 20 mostly
• 1:14:52
  be coming from it must have been coming from
• 1:14:54
  like the poles poles poles and then end of field
• 1:14:58
  Because you start adding up an operator that
• 1:15:01
  isn't on top of it, turning it on and off when
• 1:15:04
  they're turning around in the ends of the fields,
• 1:15:06
  that can add up over a season or over a block.
• 1:15:09
  And then I think there's the other factor of
• 1:15:13
  whether you have, like you guys have rate controllers
• 1:15:15
  on your sprayers, but the kind of like the management
• 1:15:20
  side of it, right? Knowing that the job got done
• 1:15:22
  right, got done the correct way. We didn't over
• 1:15:26
  -apply, we didn't under -apply. How many people
• 1:15:28
  are running rate controls on their sprayers?
• 1:15:31
  Because I was talking to a girl the other day
• 1:15:32
  and I was very surprised that they were not running
• 1:15:35
  any rate controllers. And that's just been something
• 1:15:39
  that we've done all the way back to my dad. We
• 1:15:42
  used to run those Ravens like back in the day.
• 1:15:45
  You guys are extremely progressive. And I mean,
• 1:15:49
  we have been, but there's a lot of old school
• 1:15:52
  in the hop industry too. So there's not a lot
• 1:15:56
  of hop growers running. ray controllers. There
• 1:15:59
  is quite a few growers running scene spray types
• 1:16:03
  systems now. That really makes sense. And how
• 1:16:08
  much is the cost of a unit? How much does it
• 1:16:12
  cost to equip one sprayer? He would ask me that.
• 1:16:18
  You're here to make sales. Yeah. Let's say mid
• 1:16:24
  to high 20s. Okay. So what's the ROI on that?
• 1:16:29
  Mid to high 20s, you're saving across the season.
• 1:16:32
  I'm making numbers up. It's 70 % some part of
• 1:16:35
  the season. It's 20%. The other part, 30%, 40%,
• 1:16:41
  I would imagine, maybe. Once again, I think everyone
• 1:16:44
  does a little bit different. So it would be,
• 1:16:47
  we've seen it, a lot of them be one year, one
• 1:16:52
  to two years. Jeez. but that's an exercise you
• 1:16:56
  know hey give me your numbers well and then we'll
• 1:16:59
  go off of your numbers and figure out what it
• 1:17:02
  is now does that make any difference because
• 1:17:04
  i know like we go pretty low volume on our sprayers
• 1:17:08
  whereas in some other people go on the other
• 1:17:12
  side of the spectrum so you know i mean i'm not
• 1:17:16
  in touch with what other people are doing right
• 1:17:17
  now but the remember we used to go like I mean,
• 1:17:21
  the belief in the hop industry specifically was
• 1:17:24
  like, you know, two miles an hour at 100 gallons
• 1:17:28
  to the acre, where we try and go four to five
• 1:17:31
  miles an hour at 50 gallons on a full vine. And
• 1:17:37
  so is there less opportunity for savings like
• 1:17:40
  in our world or somebody else that's spraying
• 1:17:42
  lower volume or is it the same? Percentage is
• 1:17:47
  still going to be the same as savings, right?
• 1:17:50
  That's what I would assume, but I don't know.
• 1:17:52
  You know, we're just shutting off in between
• 1:17:54
  that three and a half foot between the plants
• 1:17:57
  when they're young and they're not big and bushy.
• 1:17:59
  Percentage of savings should be the same. So
• 1:18:01
  you're just essentially using less water, right?
• 1:18:06
  That's what I would suspect. I just didn't know,
• 1:18:08
  like, you know, sometimes when you run into turning
• 1:18:11
  on and off and like, you know, some of those
• 1:18:14
  sprayers were never meant to spray. that low
• 1:18:17
  of volume. They were geared towards a higher
• 1:18:19
  volume output. And so you start messing with
• 1:18:21
  like the pressurization of the lines and does
• 1:18:23
  it take longer to turn on and off, you know,
• 1:18:26
  or sorry, does it take longer to fill the lines?
• 1:18:30
  Right. Like there may be like delayed startup
• 1:18:33
  startup or to increase the flow rate backup,
• 1:18:36
  but maybe it's staying pressurized all the time.
• 1:18:38
  Now that I'm thinking about that. So you're,
• 1:18:39
  you're putting, that's why the sensors on the
• 1:18:41
  nozzle. okay the nozzle body so it's it's getting
• 1:18:43
  a certain amount of pressure to that and then
• 1:18:45
  it's just opening and closing okay because otherwise
• 1:18:48
  like you could basically like depressurize the
• 1:18:51
  system to some degree and then you'd have like
• 1:18:53
  there'd be a delayed startup time when it would
• 1:18:55
  turn it back on which would lead to maybe like
• 1:18:57
  less efficacy on the vine but if the sensor's
• 1:18:59
  on the nozzle and you're like playing with the
• 1:19:02
  with a pressure eye or a constant pressure of
• 1:19:06
  some sort there yeah Not a constant pressure,
• 1:19:09
  but it's always staying some form of pressurized.
• 1:19:13
  Yep. Yep. I think we've moved beyond listener
• 1:19:17
  interest into geeking out mode. Oh, yeah. I love
• 1:19:19
  it. What do you got? Anything else you want to
• 1:19:23
  communicate to the growers slash listeners out
• 1:19:27
  there? Bye, Blue. Bye, Blue. Perfect. Tom real,
• 1:19:36
  real solutions from Burrell's tractor. Thanks
• 1:19:41
  for coming on. Thanks for having me. Yeah. Thanks.
• 1:19:43
  Maybe I think it'd be cool to do a follow -up
• 1:19:46
  at some point and maybe specifically around like
• 1:19:50
  an implement and, and how it's impacted things.
• 1:19:56
  Okay. All right, man. Thanks. Thank you. Yeah.