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Healing the Soils of the Earth with Sarah Burnett · Conservation Stories

• 0:13
  Speaker A: Hello, friends. Welcome back to conservation Stories. This is a podcast from the Sandhill Area Research association that we love to call Sarah. And speaking of sarahs, my friend Sarah Burnett is here with us today, and I. Sarah is the person who introduced me to my word of the year in 2021, which was microbes. Microbes was my worthy. Sarah. Sarah, thanks for joining us. I appreciate it.
• 0:43
  Speaker B: Yeah, absolutely. Glad to be here today with my friends from Sarah.
• 0:47
  Speaker A: Yes.
• 0:47
  Speaker B: There you go.
• 0:48
  Speaker A: Well, thank you very much. So we usually start out by a little bit of history and that kind of stuff. We're friends. I know a lot about you and your dad, who's just kind of an unsung hero of the world of farming. Would you give us. This is your anniversary of Texas Earth, your company. Give us a little background. Tell us about your dad and your company.
• 1:19
  Speaker B: Yeah, absolutely. So Texas Earth Incorporated, Washington created in 2004. So, yes, this is our 20th anniversary year. And for those 20 years, our goal has been to heal the soils of the earth. That was my dad's mission, not only personal mission, but, if you will, mission field. He definitely saw God's hand and blessing, if you will, all over that mission. For him, it was his last goal. He did not start Texas Earth until later in his career. His beginning was based in ruminant nutrition. He got his masters from Texas Tech, and I believe it was 1977, and went and ran the panhandle research station and studied ruminant nutrition and kind of grew his knowledge in that area. But his master's thesis, he talked about the quality of the nutrition of the cattle and how that impacted their health. And so really kind of in a, you know, more obtuse approach, he understood the value of good quality feed and how that was created in the soil, even, you know, way early on, obviously, you know, regenerative, quote unquote agriculture is a buzzword for lots of people, and it's becoming more and more common. But I like to say that, you know, my dad was ahead of the curve. He was on the pioneering side of soil health and what it meant to regenerate microbes in the soil. So Texas Earth started in Brownfield in those early years in 2004, and then we moved to the Idoloo highway in December, you know, November, December of 2016. So this is our 7th year, seven and a half years at our Idoloo location.
• 3:21
  Speaker A: And then you lost your dad right around that. Right around two.
• 3:26
  Speaker B: That's right. So my dad passed away from NK T cell lymphoma, which NK stands for natural killer, on November 17 of 2016, which so happened to be the day that we got the keys for our new building. So, unfortunately, he did not get to see what life was like as we were, you know, in our new building, in our new location. But, you know, our goal, you know, has always been to create quality products that heal and restore that are affordable for our customers, and we continue that mission, you know, even after his passing. We sure wish he was here, and lots of people know him that may be listening to this podcast today. So it's hard to miss that tall, skinny, handsome cowboy, right? So we love and remember him. Did you. Did you know that he was the marble man?
• 4:18
  Speaker A: No, I did not know that.
• 4:21
  Speaker B: Yes.
• 4:23
  Speaker A: I did not know that.
• 4:24
  Speaker B: Yeah. So after college and before he, you know, kind of went on to his, I guess it was after his undergraduate, he went to Germany and I drove the stagecoach for Marlboro and sold spirits way.
• 4:41
  Speaker A: Oh, my gosh. Wow.
• 4:43
  Speaker B: Super fun. So not everybody can say that their dad was the Marlboro man, but true story.
• 4:48
  Speaker A: That is really fun. That's awesome.
• 4:51
  Speaker B: Well, kind of a fun tidbit that.
• 4:54
  Speaker A: That product that your dad started, let's talk about that for just a minute. Like, that is like, it's a big deal. Now everybody's starting to make these biological, you know, products, and I remember we, you know, our friend, you know, I have a friend, Mary Lucero from New Mexico, and the way she found you was searching for what's the best one, and she's a microbial scientist. Brilliant, brilliant. You know, and she found you, and because that was, she was on a search to find what's the best really effective microbial soil amendment in the, the changes they're seeing there in New Mexico from using that is pretty phenomenal. So tell us about that product.
• 5:39
  Speaker B: Sure. Our flagship product is bionector, and it's a liquid in a liquid form, so it is beneficial organisms combined with microbial food sources and soil supporting products that is completely water soluble. It can go and drip through your pivot. It can be a foliar spray, and it is designed to enhance and activate microbes in the rhizosphere of the root zone. So things like earthworm castings, molasses, kelp microbes, that's what you're going to find in this product. And the difference in what we make here locally in Idaloo versus a lot of maybe the competitors in the market is that our microbes are absolutely alive. This is not a shelf stable product that you can put on a shelf and revisit three, four, five years later. We make it fresh. It has a shelf life of approximately 40 days. That's how we're able to ship it all over the United States to our distributors, and then they apply it to their customers. Ground or sell it direct or however it goes. But these are both aerobic, so with oxygen, anaerobic without oxygen, and then facultative microbes, that means they can live in oxygenated or non oxygenated environments. So it's very diverse. Also, it has both bacterial and fungal strains, which is another huge benefit to a liquid microbial product. So some people call this compost tea. Right, but you can put us in that category, too. But ours is much more technical. We have genus species analysis. We know how they behave. We know the length that they will last. A lot of folks may make their own microbial tea, which is great, but it's only going to last a day or two on average. So, you know, if you want a little more dependable and longer lasting and diversified product, we definitely can check all of those boxes.
• 8:01
  Speaker A: Yeah. And I know one of the things that I've learned from you is just I never. I've had no understanding of the importance or even that, you know, I knew that there was, like, little biological critters or something in the soil, but had no clue, like, how many. And maybe that is something, too, that we are just now kind of really embracing and accepting and investigating. Because I know, like, in the last couple of years, a and m has changed their soul science textbooks to include this type of education on microbial life, you know, so, which tells me that we may have, like, this whole slew of people that have come out of there, not just there, but other areas that. That are maybe unfamiliar or skeptical even of the importance of microbiology in the soil. So. So for me, think to yourself, I'm explaining this to tillery on a third grade level. Give us the. Give us a little low down on those microbes. How many do we estimate there are and what they do and why they're. Because they do a million different things.
• 9:14
  Speaker B: But, yeah, I mean, so soil science, in a broader term is the wild west. It is the. It is more vast than the ocean and deeper than the sky. Right. We have only understand a tiny fraction of what fungi, what bacteria do in the soil, what the roles are. I mean, you can, if you did a search for soil supporting microbes or soil supporting fungi, they have maybe named some, but they have no idea what they do in a greater scale. So we really can only focus or, you know, contribute a small fraction of what we have in our product to actually what their role is. So you want soil supporting microbes. Right. And so here's some facts. Right? It takes 500 years to naturally accumulate one inch of topsoil.
• 10:12
  Speaker A: Sounds like our water.
• 10:14
  Speaker B: Yeah, exactly. 500 years to naturally accumulate. And in one tablespoon or maybe even teaspoon. I don't think it really matters at this level. You're going to find more microbial strains, individual microbial strains than there are people on earth. Over 8 billion. Right. One spoonful. And so that we're talking, that really helps to sort of paint a picture of the depth and breadth of what it is that we're trying to approach or learn about or enhance. Right. So, I mean, it's uncreated, uncharted territory.
• 10:53
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 10:54
  Speaker B: We cannot even begin to understand, create the creation and levels of what it took to get here. Right. But what we have to do is be a good steward. What is there, even if we don't understand it? And so being a good steward means cultivating it. Right. And I'm not talking about cultivate, cultivating with a plow. I'm talking about giving the microbes things they need to survive. And there's three things, and I've already mentioned them, water, air and food. So if we're talking about the things that needs to have a healthy microbial population in soil, and then we look at our soils and our weather and our environment, like, that's a pretty uphill battle for most people.
• 11:33
  Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, no, it's so true. And I think now we're starting to understand the impact that some tillage, that over tillage, you know, I mean, and lack of not having. Keeping food in the soil for them by not having a root there, root system there. I mean, it's interesting to me to see in, like, we've discussed this in other podcasts about how many people now do cover crop. You know, you still see. You still see places where you don't, you know, but so compared to ten years ago, you know, there's a lot more cover on the ground. But, you know, I also hear a lot of people say, I can't do it, I can't do it. You know, and so, I mean, I think it's still kind of controversial about how people feel about whether they can or cannot do that. But we do know that. That they. That there needs to be food for. For the life that's there in the soil.
• 12:27
  Speaker B: So, on average, the soils in our 400, or, excuse me, 4 million acre production zone have less than 1% organic matter. So we're not starting with a lot, and we have to work on building that up. So that is the introduction and storing of organic matter materials. And a great way to do that is with COVID cropping. People will complain or debate however you want to look at it. Oh, it steals water. It steals water. Well, okay. I mean, you're not, generally, you can strip till other things into it, but what you are doing is adding organic matter. You're adding root exudates, you are adding carbon, you are reducing the dirt blowing. You are keeping the soil temperature lowered. Right. With COVID crops. So if, even if it might still a, you know, a bit, how do you even quantify it, really? I mean, I guess you can. The, the benefits far outweigh the risk when it comes to using a cover crop. And, you know, cover crops are good for other folks that want to incorporate, you know, grazing into their programs. And it is. It's definitely has other benefits beyond just, you know, it seems wasteful to some people, which I don't even understand because they haven't really stopped to weigh, I mean, a bag of seed, you know, a cover crop mixture. Right now on my little piddly 30 acres out here, I have wheat, rye, and a triticale blend that. What is it doing? It's benefiting from the recent rains. It's keeping my neighbors happy because it's suppressing weeds. It's suppressing the dirt blowing. And what I'm going to do at Texas Earth is I'm fixing to install cotton dry land, cotton strip trials. So I'm going to come in here and I'm going to make sure that I'm not going to disturb the ground around my strip tiles so that it doesn't blow and that I can continue to enhance and restore the soil that isn't currently, quote unquote, in use.
• 14:33
  Speaker A: Right, right.
• 14:34
  Speaker B: So, I mean, some people like a pretty plowed field. I mean, and I love the smell of dirt, and, I mean, it's beautiful, but it's not for everybody anymore. And I do not think that there is a right or wrong way, but when you talk about really deep tillage in high fungal strain areas, you are disrupting the, the pathways for communication, because that's what fungi do. They are the communicators. The bacteria are the heavy lifters and do the manual labor, if you will. And the fungi are the communicators. They're the, you know, the site managers that are talking and moving nutrients around and creating a community of communication. So, you know, Tillage does have, you know, those side effects. But, you know, we don't have, our soils are not heavily fungal based. I mean, they're barely any. So, you know, there is, you know, some arguments to be had that you're really not disturbing that many colonies and that breaking of the hard pan and.
• 15:40
  Speaker A: Yes, right.
• 15:41
  Speaker B: You know, I think that there's arguments for both. You have to say, you know, how does this impact my yield? Do I see less weeds using cover cropping? Are my microbial colonies flourishing because of. And then other people would say, well, how do I know? How do I know if my soil.
• 16:00
  Speaker A: That's a good question. Yeah. How do you know? Yeah.
• 16:02
  Speaker B: So I can only speak for myself and our products. I have not done extensive research on anybody else's or any of that. So I can tell you that the folks in our area that have used bionectral liquid year over year as part of a larger fertilization program have been able to reduce their amount of, like, fungicides that they need. They don't have as much or, you know, cotton diseases especially. You know, they talk about that they were able to move off of some of these more technical seeds that have these protections in place that are already genetically in the seed. You know, they may or may not have nematode pressure anymore. I am not making claims to, of any sort. I can tell you that our customers experience have been a result of enhancing their soil health in conjunction with other programs, whether it be synthetic products or whether it be other natural products in a more organic type program. It is a journey. It's the microbe marathon. Right.
• 17:11
  Speaker A: Right.
• 17:12
  Speaker B: We're not going to fix things overnight. We're not going to change, you know, what happens with one product. And if somebody comes along and says, my product, you only need just mine, or, you know, you only need, you know, you have to really think about, come on, what kind of sense does that make? There is not a silver bullet when it comes to soil health.
• 17:33
  Speaker A: Wow. And that's, I, that's the thing I really admire about you is that, you know, there's so many people that do make those claims, and I love that you, you know, like, let's stick to the facts. Let's, you know, do some legit testing on this. Let's figure out, let's see what's really, what's really happening and what's really helping. You know, and I just think, you know, that's, that just lends to your credibility.
• 17:57
  Speaker B: You know, the farmer a's experience is not going to be the same as farmers bees experience. So you have to take into account lots of other factors that are going on. And it could be residual things in the soil. It could be the soil type. I mean, it is not uncommon for 120 acre pivot to have two or three different soil types in it, or even more, depending. And there's ways to find that out if people want to look. But, yeah, we are all about a collective approach for the best soil vitality that we can help you find or get or achieve or work towards. We do have programs for conventional customers where we customize npks and blend them with beneficial microbes, and we're seeing fantastic results because our natural products are helping as synthetic products to work better.
• 18:52
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 18:52
  Speaker B: So this is not a black or white conversation. You know, you do not have to live or die on the cross of soil microbes. Right. You know, it's soil health as a bigger general term.
• 19:05
  Speaker A: Yeah. Well, and that's, you know, I think that's one of the things that we, you know, have been really trying to do with the people that we have on this show is like to say the hardest place to find is the middle. I mean, it's so easy right now to just feel comfortable in, in a black, living in a black and white world and. But really, the hardest place to find is the middle. And that's usually right kind of where the truth is, you know, and absolutely, you know, and so, you know, that's why, like, we recently had, you know, Jeremy and Kyle and Lacey on the podcast doing a roundtable, because we wanted to show three people, three producers doing things three different ways who respect each other, you know, and are finding, you know, success and, you know, failure and working and reaching their goals or sometimes missing the mark, you know, all three of them, you know, but they're, they are pioneering and working and trying to really think wisely about their own managing their own production system and how these different approaches can be good, beneficial for them or not. But they're not holding someone else hostage to their own ideas and they're passionate about their own ideas, like what they believe. And that's, you know, it's great. It's great. But it doesn't mean you can't respect other people, you know, and what they're doing and the things that they're finding success, success with. And so the last thing you want to do is, you know, make people think, you know, well, here's the, here's the one solution, and this is going to fix it all because there's your ride. There's, there's not a silver bullet for, you know, soul health, but there's not a silver bullet for or the lake. The water situation that we're in. Every problem we have is complex and that it takes complex solutions and the. And people that aren't afraid of that complexity.
• 21:09
  Speaker B: Yeah. I dare to say that someone who comes to you and says, it's my way or the highway probably has a sales quota to meet, you know? So be wary of that, because you're exactly right. There are. There are a hundred ways to skin a cat. That's my thing. If you've heard, you've been around long, and I've said it a thousand times, and it's true because, you know, we can approach a problem in lots of different ways. It depends on the, you know, growers equipment, it depends on their budget. It depends on their knowledge level or their desire to live, you know, somewhere close to the middle, or do we want to gravitate to the fringe of the things that are out there? So there are absolutely a thousand great ways to do things, but you have to educate yourself about what your options are or find people that you trust that can help to you to navigate the journey of soil health. And I can guarantee you it's not going to be somebody that has to meet a sales quota or doesn't have both synthetic and organic or natural options on their shelf to sell you. So that's something that we really pride ourselves in, is that, you know, if we don't have it here, we can find it and we can figure out how to incorporate it into your program. And all we want is for our customers to be successful and to educate themselves and move the needle towards improving soil health because it's a collective needle. Our kids, grandkids, we all have to pay attention because we have got to be able to produce food on the high plains for generations to come. And if we don't pay a little bit more attention to what's going on, we're gonna have a hard time doing that.
• 22:48
  Speaker A: Well, that's really true. And, you know, I mean, I know it's. It's been easy, you know, for the last, you know, not necessarily the last several years, but, you know, in previous couple of decades to kind of think we don't have a problem, you know, but now it's. It's right here in front of our face. You know, we've started this campaign. We're helping farmers to our landowners, to piply lakes, into restoration programs. And we're calling that campaign tomorrow's water is your legacy, because really, we are the generation that's going to be remembered. We're very aware we're no longer. There's no longer any question as to whether we're losing our water and that there's. It's not going to come back and any, you know, rapid way, you know, but we can't use that as an excuse not to do the things that we know can actually help. And it. No, it may not help us. We may be dead, but we have a responsibility to the future generations, and our legacy will be, you're the ones that knew. You're the ones that knew. So whether, you know, those generations have water, they don't have water. Our legacy is going to be highly connected to what that outcome is.
• 24:14
  Speaker B: Well, people may not see, you know, ignore it because it's below the surface, out of sight, out of mind, but you can look at the actual species, animal species that used to be here that are no longer here because we do not have the water to support their habitat or the habitat has gone, you know, just disappeared before us. So even if the people that don't want to play like there's a water issue, you know, they're the animals, will.
• 24:41
  Speaker A: Tell you that there is, right? Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Well, you know, and I think. I do think more and more people are. Are becoming aware and more people, you know, are concerned. You know, we're in the past, we might have, you know, kind of just kind of blown it off. But I think that there are more people are concerned. And, you know, people do want to leave things for the next generation. I think it's just making sure that we're connecting those people to the opportunities to do that. You know, the opportunities to. That are out there.
• 25:19
  Speaker C: Hello, friends. This is Tillery Timmins Sims. I want to take a moment to talk to you about an initiative that we are collaborating on with milestone environmental services. So milestone made us aware of some proposed regulations that are before the railroad commission. So, in Texas, the railroad commission, even though the name doesn't match, regulates the energy sector. And our laws or regulations for energy waste have not been updated since the 1980s. So it's time for some common sense improvements in those regulations, and those are right now waiting for you to go and comment on. So in order to protect our soil and our groundwater, this is really important. So if landowners have not negotiated a great surface agreement with the oil oil company, then they are open to having waste dumped on their land. So we really appreciate your efforts. So you can go to Sara Dash conservation.com, you can go to initiatives and click on that and the drop box that will come down. You'll want to click on energy waste disposal. It's going to be really clear and really simple. Thanks for your time, friends. Appreciate it.
• 26:32
  Speaker A: Bye.
• 26:33
  Speaker B: Yeah, education is the number one key to change and to success, you know, so organizations like the, you know, water college, TAWC, and things out there that can help people to connect the dots on, you know, what we have and how can we steward it. I mean, I think most people probably in Lubbock, Texas, don't really realize that their water comes from north of Amarillo, right. Robert Roberts county, if I'm not mistaken. Right. That's where my mom grew up. And it was only, the only county in Texas that has one city in the whole entire county. It's the county seat. It's primarily ranch land. And their water is pristine and clear and wonderful, but it will run out, too. I had a conversation the other day with some folks from a big corporate entity, and they were talking about that they anticipated desalinization plants and the oil pipeline, taking over water supplies, pumping seawater all the way from Houston to our area. I mean, they talked about it like it was tomorrow's news almost. And I thought to myself, please, please let somebody stop that from happening. Like, let's not let that be our reality. But in order for that to happen, we have to create better stewardship practices. And cover cropping is one of those negating runoff. I mean, there's lots of, lots of things. Applying lakes are super important to that. Also into the animal aspect of conservation and education is just so, so important. And it has to find the right land on the right ears and people who are, you know, out there making decisions for thousands of acres of land at any given time.
• 28:15
  Speaker A: Exactly. And how do you, you know, you know, we. I know when we have been in Kansas and, you know, seeing what they're doing with their water situation there. And of course, it's, the laws are different there, but, you know, they're finding, you know, 25% reduction in irrigation, you know, equals, you know, in the 35% increase in water, you know, and so I think there's some things, but they're also helping farmers to figure out how do we offset this, you know, economically for them. Like we. Because we have to have water. But especially in rural Kansas, if we don't have. If we don't have ag, why bother with water? Because no one will live here anymore. Because that's it.
• 28:57
  Speaker B: Well, tying it back to. Tying it back to soil health. What is, what do microbes in the soil, do they have better nutrient utilization? They help break down organic matter into more pure forms of carbon. Right. So we have to consider that carbon to nitrogen ratio microbes helps convert atmospheric nitrogen to plant usable nitrogen, which equates to people adding less synthetic, synthetic fertilizer nitrogen.
• 29:23
  Speaker A: Right.
• 29:24
  Speaker B: It promotes disease control. Microbes as a whole reduces compaction. Right. So these nasty, hard, you know, you can't even put a penetrometer through some of the ground around here, and it improves water utilization by improving the porosity. So, you know, if you have more, think about the soil having cathedrals in between the clay colloids, right. So we're creating little spaces in the soil for microbes to live and for water to be stored and for earthworms to help, you know, navigate and, like, it's a surge system. So microbes are just not some cool trend, right. They are imperative to success. And people don't understand these microscopic things can make such an impact, but, you know, they absolutely can. And, you know, if we're extending the aerobic zone in the soil, we're extending the amount of feet of matter that can be farmed and cultivated and be drawn from, and all of that equals improved yields for the grower. This is not something that is a feel good. It has a consequence. Right. So think about soil health and the action of soil health as putting money into a savings account where traditional, you know, practices, perhaps, where you're not doing any restoration or just swiping a debit card on that same checking account. Right. So adding soil amendments and microbes and things that are putting something back into your account is an investment that you will capitalize on.
• 31:03
  Speaker A: Yeah, that's a, that's a real good way to think about that, like, and you cannot continue to draw from that account over and over and over again without making some deposits.
• 31:13
  Speaker B: Yeah. Who wants to be overdrawn? Not. I certainly don't.
• 31:17
  Speaker A: Right.
• 31:18
  Speaker B: But you have to be a good manager to not be overdrawn, and you have to make some deposits. I mean, it's a. People want to say, well, it's just, you know, it's all about the dollar figures for farmers. Well, it. Absolutely. That is a major part. So if we want to approach it as a, you know, hey, dollars and cents here, it's worse. And it is worth making some deposits right into the.
• 31:40
  Speaker A: Yes. Well, it's interesting, though, you know, that I'm trying to remember who it was. It released the survey not long ago, and that was the number two reason, you know, that farmers implement the practices that they do is economics and number one is social pressure.
• 31:57
  Speaker B: Oh yeah.
• 31:58
  Speaker A: You know, my neighbor's not doing it.
• 32:00
  Speaker B: I'm not doing it. If neighbor is doing it, then I want to try it. I mean it's this peer relationship that go on and then obviously economics. How much money are they able, what is their operating budget? And they're not even in control of that. A lot of Times street gets the final say, which, you know, is a whole other podcast hour.
• 32:23
  Speaker A: Yeah, right, exactly.
• 32:25
  Speaker B: You know, bless their hearts for how hard it is. You know, I always go think about, you know, the farmer buys it at retail, sells it at wholesale and has to do all the work in between.
• 32:38
  Speaker A: Right, right. Exactly.
• 32:41
  Speaker B: I don't know that we can change that system, but we need to take into account the struggle that is going on.
• 32:46
  Speaker A: That's the system that, that's the system that they live in. That's exactly right. Exactly right. And, and farm, you know, commodity prices can go down and down and down. Input prices will never go down. Input prices are going to always go up. And they aren't paying wholesale for those input prices, they're paying retail for them.
• 33:06
  Speaker B: Well, and then all the extra things that go on top, the fluctuation of fuel and the exorbitantly expensive, you know, equipment. Like yesterday I was having a conversation about crop insurance. If I wanted to have get the, if there was a. And I don't know all the correct words and acronyms, but basically if there was any county payouts on my historical cotton makers, I had to buy insurance even if I didn't want to plant a crop. Like I have dry land caught. I'm doing strip trials. So in order for me to be part of the system, I had to pay into the insurance company to be part of the system. I was like, no, like this. You know, it's just extra costs that, I mean you're gambling every day. But one thing that is not a gamble is soil health that will pay back every time.
• 33:55
  Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, that's, that's such a, that's a great way to put that. It really is. That. That is it. That is one thing that is guaranteed is that you, you definitely are going to reap when you sow. When you sow there.
• 34:08
  Speaker B: Well, it's biblical. So I mean at the end of the day for me, that's pretty much right where the, where the buck stops. Right, right.
• 34:16
  Speaker A: And that's kind of jeremy, you know, had makes that point too about, you know, the seeds that fell on the good soil. You know, that's where the, that's where the farmer was reaping, you know. And what does that mean for me today? You know, what can I do to impact that? Well, let's switch just for a minute and talk about. You got a grant. Yes, correct. And you got a grant that is really hard to get. And you got it. So they say, everybody said this was really hard.
• 34:52
  Speaker B: This is really hard.
• 34:52
  Speaker A: Yeah, but you got the granthenne. And not only did you get the first part of the grant, you got the second part of the grant, which is a commercialization. Right? It's an. It's scaling up.
• 35:05
  Speaker B: Well, so, yes, we were lucky enough or fortunate enough or blessed, however you want to phrase that, to receive the USDA phase one SBIR grant for our research on a new product that was developed here at Texas Earth called Biofluf. And for your listeners, SBIR stands for small business innovation. Innovation research. So really what it is designed to do is to target technology in small businesses that is being developed by small businesses and how it's applied into the market and what the potential impacts could be. So phase one is basically proof of concept. So we were able to take biofluf and add it to several different farms in our geographical region and take all of these analysis and data points and turn it into, hey, did this work or did this work well enough to move forward to writing for a phase two application? And yes, it did show positives, positive impacts and is worth pursuing this, you know, second grant. And phase two is a commercialization grant. And what that means is, how are you going to scale up? How are you going, who are you targeting? What is your value proposition in the marketplace? And what do you see the impact being financially, to you, your community, the end user? And on so down the line, there are lots of grants out there. I've learned so much that I didn't want to know. It's really not mind numbing. And I know that you understand, it's just this whole big world of grants, but basically we're just being able to have some funding through the USDA that will help us to scale up and distribute the biofluf products. And if you don't mind, I would like. I think it is important to your listeners to understand that the biofluf is made from a fuzzy cotton seed meal. M e a l. I sound like a real hit because it sounds like, you know, meal, the meal. But I laugh at that every time I have to spell it out. So basically, this byproduct of cotton production has generally been used in the feed industry. So cow cake animal feed. And what we did was we took it, we inoculated it with beneficial microbes and trace minerals and pelletized it so that a grower could do several things with it on their ground. Number one, they're adding organic matter, which they don't have and can easily add in a really tangible way. They are adding soil moisture retention capabilities because fuzzy cottonseed mill has 328% water holding capacity, which far exceeds anything else that I have found that is natural. We're talking a natural product, right? Not synthetic. And so then you're inoculating your ground with beneficial microbes. So when water interacts with this product, the pellet begins to break up. The microbes are active, the trace minerals become microbial food. And it has this inherent, albeit small, NPK value that is, that is inherent to the product. So it works on a lot of different levels. Right. And it's a low use rate. And so it is kind of a new and creative way to channel a byproduct of a, you know, the biggest crop produced in our area. And it just is really. It's a neat idea to pursue. We've actually had quite a lot of interest in the nursery and landscape market. And globally, peat moss, which would be kind of the closest product that you could compare it to, is being outlawed. The bogging of peat moss in already Wales, Britain, Scotland, Canada is even. And it's this un global climate protection plan that is happening as we speak where they want these countries to reduce their global carbon footprint by 2030. So pretty soon, you are not going to have access to things that are non renewable. Peat Moss is non renewable. So to create a product that is really a new product that is a byproduct of cotton production on the half plains was a win for everyone in every way and on every level. And so I really am excited about it. We have it in right now, currently in soil amendment mixes that we've been selling to our retail customers through our grow Texas earth.com line. And then eventually, I would like to see biofluf integrated into peat moss based blends on a higher or a larger manufacturing scale for other people, like, say, Scott's or, you know, miracle grow or these other folks that have these soil blends that they sell and package that go into, like, box stores. So, you know, we're small, right? Texas Earth is small, but, you know, we can have a large impact if we have something that, you know, we can commercialize through this program. So we're very excited and thankful for the opportunity, but we won't. We won't get that grant, hopefully. I mean, it's not gonna. It's a next year thing, so we're working hard to write that proposal.
• 40:35
  Speaker A: Yeah. Well, and, um, you really kind of started this kind of all started out at, um, the hub at Texas Tech. And that, that's one thing. We just, um, had a conversation with Taylor McAlpine about his experience out there at the hub. And you. You also, um, you also began out there at the Texas tech hub. You know, it's an entrepreneurial, um, a place for people like you to kind of get connected with funders and to really. Sure, escalate.
• 41:04
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 41:04
  Speaker A: Accelerate your, um, potential.
• 41:07
  Speaker B: Yes. Taylor was also in my cohort, and so I got to see his journey and his idea grow and blossom. And everybody in our cohort has just done fantastic. And it was all because a number one, that you introduced me to Tayshell Williams, who is the director of that organization. She invited me to join that cohort with Bioflu, not Texas earth as a whole. But, hey, you have a new product. They had never had a female ag business through the hub before Texas Earth. So it was kind of fun to talk about and have those conversations. And so Nick Bergfeld was one of my mentors, and he's the one that encouraged me to explore what the USDA grant. He said, you'd be a great fit. I had to go and you know it to be true. Go look up what it even meant, like, you know. So here we wrote it in three weeks, and here we are. But, yes, the innovation hub, funded by Lita, so many thanks to, to the Lubbock Economic Development alliance, allows people like me to get support from mentors both in the academia world and also hands on in the commercial, more retail side of things, to develop products and to assess kind of what legs, quote unquote, they have. And so I'm so incredibly thankful. That was such a wonderful experience, and it really opened a lot of doors for me at Texas Tech. I'm just, I'm thankful for that experience, but more people need to know about it, and there's. If you have any questions, reach out to the hub. Does an idea I have fit in one of their programs? Because they have lots of different programs just from, like, general basic idea development all the way to kind of where we were, which is we have this tangible thing. What can I do with it? And so that was a, it was fantastic and many kudos. They have a wonderful staff, and just thanks to everybody that was involved because that was a great experience for us as a whole.
• 43:09
  Speaker A: Yeah, I'm glad. I'm really glad that you were able to do that. And Taisha's, she's, she is a rock star. She is great.
• 43:15
  Speaker B: She is.
• 43:16
  Speaker A: She's. Yep. She is. Well, thank you. Thank you so much, my friend. And it's been an interesting conversation. And thanks for introducing me to microbes and introducing some people in the audience. And hopefully it will really maybe spur some curiosity and people can learn some more. And I will say, I know that we do have some folks that are more, you know, urban or people that are having gardens and those kinds of things. And Texas earth products are available right out there at idaloo. They're easy to go and pick up or have delivered to you. And I can't speak more highly about them and their effectiveness. They're used on golf courses and I, people's lawns, and they're, they're a really great thing.
• 43:59
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 44:00
  Speaker A: So what's the, what's the website tell, tell us. Tell us how you, that people need to get in contact with you.
• 44:07
  Speaker B: Yeah, absolutely. So, yes, you nailed it on the head. We have no minimums. Every grower from a backyard gardener all the way to our customer in California who fertilizes all of the leafy greens for Costco. So anybody and everyone in between matters to us. So we want to help you. We want to customize the plan for you. You can shop our retail size product line@growtexaseearth.com. you can come out here and talk to me in person. Our more bulk kind of general information about more farming type topics are found on Texas earth.com and my contact information is there. We have an on staff, on site agronomist, certified agronomist. We offer soil sampling and petiole testing. We can do, you know, lots of different things, so please reach out to us if you just have general questions about soil health or different product options or pathways. We help all kinds of customers, both conventional and organic, and from every size and shape and form. I'm excited. I'm going to go to San Diego in July, and we have three customers, farmers out there for actually. One is a composter who inoculates his compost with our product. The second is a hops grower who sells locally to his breweries. The third is a ten acre apple orchard who. Yes, I've just experienced wonderful couple years. And then the last one I'm super pumped about is dragon fruit. We fertilize this dragon fruit. It's their succulents. So I don't know if it's a garden or how you want to quantify, but it's really neat. So that should tell you the variety of crops that we're able to help because it is not crop specific or soil specific. It is about overall soil health. So happy to help educate and thank you for your time today and talking to me. And I hope it helps somebody out there. So please feel free to reach out.
• 46:05
  Speaker A: I do, too. Thanks, friend. And thank you, listeners, for joining us again. I hope that you've learned a lot and will join us again next time on conservation stories. See you soon.