Latest / Conservation Stories / Todd Baughman and Katy Lewis

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Todd Baughman and Katy Lewis · Conservation Stories

• 0:00
  Speaker A: Foreign. Welcome back to another episode of Conservation Stories. And as you know by now, Conservation Stories is a podcast that's brought to you by the Sandhill Area Research Association. And about once a month now, Todd Bauman and I get together and discuss who knows what. But this time I asked him if he'd bring along a friend and he brought Katie Lewis with him. And I'm pretty excited to have you here. So glad to be here now. So, Todd, you got any updates about what's happening out back there on the old station?
• 0:38
  Speaker B: The old research station, actually. I mean, much like the growers, it's been a great year for us. We have been fortunate at all three of our stations. We've missed most of the damaging type weather. We had a little bit of peace size hail early at the station, but otherwise we haven't been on one of those areas that's had, had more damage. So that's been, been good for us obviously for our research. The rainfall has definitely helped us. You know, we're limited irrigation like everybody else at all three of our farms. And so that's definitely been beneficial. And so definitely a lot more excited moving into harvest this year than last year. We really feel good about the crop. Got a lot of great research going on and you know, know, and, and with this kind of weather, it helps with the success of that research as well, you know, probably surprising everybody. Our researchers live some of that weather extremes just like our growers do because it can impact our results of our research and, and the effectiveness of that. So, so we're as excited as everybody else.
• 1:43
  Speaker A: We've talked about that, like how like research a lot of times is like decades long.
• 1:47
  Speaker C: Absolutely. There's nothing worse than being in your third, fifth year of a research trial and it gets held out and you don't get to get that last year of research.
• 1:56
  Speaker A: Exactly, exactly. So, Katie, give us a little bit of your background, tell us where you're from and I know where you are now. Yeah.
• 2:03
  Speaker C: So I have been involved in farming for as long as I can remember, as long as I've been alive. Grew up in South Texas, Gulf Coast, Southern Gulf coast region, Corpus Christi, several generations back, family has been involved in farming. So it's, it's second nature to me.
• 2:24
  Speaker A: It's in your blood, it's in your DNA.
• 2:25
  Speaker C: Yeah, absolutely. Went to school, got a degree in chemistry. Didn't think I'd be sitting here right now for sure, but took a soul science class and fell in love with it and so went to grad school, studied soul science for Master's and PhD. Met a guy at school that thought he knew, not thought, knew he wanted to come back home to Brownfield, Texas, and farm. And so, yeah, here we are 11 years later.
• 2:54
  Speaker A: Yep. My. My old stump grounds. Yeah.
• 2:58
  Speaker C: Yeah.
• 2:59
  Speaker A: That's great. It's nice to know that people are still there.
• 3:02
  Speaker C: Absolutely. Yeah. Lots of good cotton that direction, too. This year. Yes, they've been fortunate with rain. Not much of the bad winds or hail.
• 3:12
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 3:12
  Speaker C: That some people have experienced.
• 3:13
  Speaker A: Yeah, it's kind of been a. It's just been a relief.
• 3:17
  Speaker C: It feels like, you know, people to.
• 3:19
  Speaker A: Have something hopeful this year.
• 3:21
  Speaker C: Yes.
• 3:21
  Speaker A: You know.
• 3:22
  Speaker B: Oh. Especially after coming off the last three years. This. This was. This was definitely something we needed for all of us to, you know, and not just, you know, definitely our growers, but our. Our gyms, our communities, our businesses, you know, all of them hopefully are going to benefit. That. That. Now, obviously, we wish the price was a little better, but.
• 3:40
  Speaker A: Oh, my goodness, isn't it bad? We were having that discussion earlier. Delinda Hickland and I talking today, recording a podcast about how bad the price is.
• 3:51
  Speaker C: Absolutely.
• 3:52
  Speaker A: It makes no sense.
• 3:55
  Speaker B: Well, the bad thing is, you know, it's. It's really. And it's one of the few times I remember in my life that it's bad on everything. I mean, corn's bad, beans are bad, sorghum's bad.
• 4:07
  Speaker A: I mean, it's just everything. Yeah. Yeah. I'm just looking at, like, the prediction of, like, ag income. It's not. Not great, you know, and so. But, you know, you still have, you know, that the rain that we've gotten this year is just something that, man, there's not. You can't pay to pump water. That does what a good rainfall will do.
• 4:30
  Speaker C: Absolutely.
• 4:31
  Speaker A: And. And I know, like, so, like, just for people to understand, too, that, like, every time it rains, not only right, is it. It's really good for the crop, but that is money saved that a farmer doesn't have to pay for pumping that like. And that. That can get so expensive.
• 4:48
  Speaker C: And another thing, too, I mean, from a soil perspective, we couldn't ask for a better water source than rainfall leaching salts through the soil. Because one of the things with our irrigation water that concerns me is how salty it can be at times. And the amount of salt that we're adding to the soil, especially unlimited rainfall years.
• 5:08
  Speaker A: Yes. Yeah, that's really true. And I mean, I think people, probably most people have a basic understanding. Don't. Don't put salt on your grass, on your ground. Unless you want to kill it.
• 5:16
  Speaker C: Right, exactly.
• 5:17
  Speaker A: Yeah. So year after year of, you know, water that's got a little salt in it, that is not good. Yeah.
• 5:25
  Speaker C: So we needed the rainfall this year for sure.
• 5:27
  Speaker A: Yeah, it's good. Katie, tell us a little bit about your research. You've been around for 11 years. Yes. And tell us, have you been focusing on the same thing this whole time?
• 5:39
  Speaker C: I would say the, the general idea, major objective of course, is to enhance or optimize any inputs into a cropping system. So whether that be, you know, the crops that you're selecting, the fertility that you're adding to the system, trying to optimize the system systems to the best of our ability. For, specifically for the semi arid high Plains, we've looked a lot at cover crops. No tillage, reduced tillage. And you know, someone that came from South Texas, I didn't know what it was like to not rotate crops. So that was a huge thing that I learned coming up to the High plains for the first time and, and realizing that things were so much different. And to me, as a sole scientist, I couldn't ask for a better place to work because of all the challenges that our farmers face on a daily basis. And you know, cover crops being one of those that can be extremely beneficial, a crop rotation, when you combine that with reduced tillage, there's so many benefits as long as the system is being optimized for that given farm, that unit. So we do a lot of cropping system work done quite a bit of fertility management. Most people go straight towards nitrogen and that's what they want to work on. We've tried to adventure out into some different areas. We did quite a bit of work with Cotton Incorporated on potassium management and cotton, that's a big issue that our farmers face. A lot of times our soil tests will indicate that we have adequate and sufficient K in our soil, but. But yet we'll still see deficiency symptomology later in the growing season and see responses in soils that our soil test wouldn't indicate. And so we've done quite a bit of work on that here recently we have started moving into more of the biological realm.
• 7:42
  Speaker A: Very popular now.
• 7:43
  Speaker C: Absolutely. So many of the companies that we interact with, industry companies, are looking more into not necessarily completely replacing synthetics, but putting synthetic fertilizers out with a biological and trying to reduce the amount of inorganic fertilizer we're adding. So that's been a big topic here lately. We just received some funding to conduct a project here on the high plains. We're working with a group out of Virginia Tech as well, Auburn University. So really exciting.
• 8:20
  Speaker A: Yeah. And that's the nice thing about. Right. The land grant universities is the collaboration you can have across state.
• 8:27
  Speaker C: Absolutely. Yeah.
• 8:29
  Speaker B: So yeah, I mean that, that's a huge advantage to. To the system is one it opens you up to basically investigate anything you feel is important or that our producers feel is as important. You have that freedom to do that and then to interact with the other scientists that do that same type of thing or even bring a new idea or a new area. You know, there's. We may not have that expert.
• 8:56
  Speaker A: Right.
• 8:57
  Speaker B: But then having that expertise, if it's not within the A M system, even one of the other land grant systems that can help us answer some of those questions.
• 9:05
  Speaker A: Yeah, that's. That's amazing. So I know that I've never seen it, but I know that there's a farm in Dawson County. Tell us about that research farm. And because it's been there for a long time. Right.
• 9:18
  Speaker B: 38 years.
• 9:19
  Speaker A: That's what I was thinking.
• 9:20
  Speaker C: 1990S. Yeah.
• 9:23
  Speaker A: So.
• 9:23
  Speaker C: So that was actually one of the research trial that was on that farm and still is. There was one of the first things I started working on when I started in September of 2014. And it's a long term, no till cover crop system comparing to more of the traditional conventional tillage continuous cotton system. So we have studied just about anything you can think of on that trial. When you, Wayne Keeling and Kevin Bronson initiated it in 1998, it was focused more on glyphosates. I guess that's right around the time that Roundup ready cotton came out. And so they were looking at it more from that perspective, but managed it until we took it over in 2014. And we've looked at organic carbon changes, microbial populations.
• 10:17
  Speaker A: Okay.
• 10:17
  Speaker C: Yeah.
• 10:17
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 10:18
  Speaker C: We've studied some really cool things in that study and still maintaining it. In addition to that, we do a lot of cropping systems work there looking at not just cover crops, but rotations. With wheat. I think there's been some sorghum work that was done there as well. We recently initiated a cotton sorghum and cotton wheat rotation in a dry land setting.
• 10:43
  Speaker A: Because we all know that that's very important. Yes, it is.
• 10:47
  Speaker C: So we initiated that this last year with hopes that it can be there until whenever.
• 10:54
  Speaker A: Yes. Yeah.
• 10:55
  Speaker C: Past the point of my retirement is the hopes.
• 10:58
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 10:59
  Speaker A: That.
• 10:59
  Speaker B: I mean that that's a really neat system. Lamisa cotton growers approached Texas A M, I guess in the 90s about, you know, because, because we had two stations at that time here in Lubbock and one at halfway. Both of those are on, on heavier textured soils. And they were like, you know, if we were willing to, to invest in and come up with a location, we'd really like to have you all looking at, at a more sandier soil system. And so they put that together and had been in partners with us for a number of years. And, and, and so it, and it was developed to address questions that could directly impact those producers in that area. And I think it's held true to that initial system. This past year we actually purchased that farm from them. We were fortunate enough that AgriLife research at college Station helped us with the funding to be able to purchase that farm. So we now own the farm. But, but our plans are to continue, you know, the ideals that it was set up on to make sure that we're addressing questions that help that region.
• 12:11
  Speaker C: And there's so many different disciplines that are working there too. So we have pathologists, entomologists, weed scientists. And so that to me is the exciting part of having a farm and having an opportunity like that is, you know, we can have systems based trials where we're looking at every aspect of a production system.
• 12:31
  Speaker A: Rolling back to the beginning of the subject, you used a word, something ologist, that I have never heard before.
• 12:38
  Speaker C: Entomologist. Pathologist.
• 12:39
  Speaker A: A pathologist. Okay, okay, okay. So they're studying pathogens.
• 12:44
  Speaker C: Yes. So we have both a research and extension pathologist here in Lubbock.
• 12:48
  Speaker A: Okay.
• 12:50
  Speaker C: Terry Wheeler and Marina Rondon. And they study diseases as well as nematodes.
• 12:59
  Speaker A: Nematodes, yeah. Big problem.
• 13:02
  Speaker C: Big problem in the 90s.
• 13:03
  Speaker A: Yeah. And so tell us what a nematode. Toadies. Can I pass in layman's turn? Like, explain it to me, the third grader. Yeah. So it's a little critter.
• 13:16
  Speaker C: Yeah, a little critter in the soil. It's not necessarily disease, but it can be pathogenic. There can also be beneficial nematodes. So they can play an important role in decomposing organic material that's added to the soil. But the ones, the bad guys that are in the soil, the. They can be extremely detrimental to a cotton plant.
• 13:36
  Speaker A: Yes.
• 13:37
  Speaker C: There are some seed treatments, I guess there's technology now we have some varieties that are more resistant to the nematode. And we have two kinds of nematodes on the high plains. Rena form and root knots.
• 13:51
  Speaker A: Okay. Yeah. Well, this is really what pushed us into peanut production, you know.
• 13:56
  Speaker C: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 13:57
  Speaker A: And so that was kind of the first line of defense. Try to figure something out. But which was good because it also then created another cash crop for diversification, you know, and then you had it brought in more infrastructure for something different. So it's, you know, there's a lot more benefits of diversification. Just what happens on the farm.
• 14:17
  Speaker C: Yeah. Oh, absolutely. And to me, that's one of the challenges that we face on the high plains is the lack of the infrastructure for farmers to be able to diversify.
• 14:27
  Speaker A: This is true. And in fact, I was just. I was at an event a few weeks ago, and someone approached me about, you have any farmers that, you know, like, a contract to grow a certain crop? And I was like, you know, called Lacey, and she's like, oh, I can grow it. I just don't have where to take it. There's nowhere to take it.
• 14:41
  Speaker C: Exactly.
• 14:42
  Speaker A: And so things that could, you know, and. And I know you probably guys are probably aware that our tafa, our Texas Ag Fund, has been beefed up. And I think that's part of the. Part of the hope is that money can be spent in investing that's infrastructure for, you know, for some things.
• 15:00
  Speaker C: Yeah, that would be great.
• 15:02
  Speaker A: It would be.
• 15:02
  Speaker B: No, that's a definite struggle. And it was something definitely different. As Katie kind of mentioned, I grew up southwest Oklahoma and then worked in North Texas for a lot of years. And, you know, obviously there. There's an elevator in almost every community. The size of it varying, obviously, based on that community, but there's at least some local source. And then, you know, growing up, there was always a huge commercial combine cruise that would come in, especially during wheat harvest that you don't see out here. So, you know, a grower didn't even necessarily have to own a combine to be able to produce a grain crop, because, you know, even if he didn't, you know, one of his neighbors would have a. Have a custom cutter that he could get in line with and help cut his crop. So. So, yeah, that definitely is one thing that we really struggle with out here.
• 15:56
  Speaker A: So what do you think? I mean, is it. Is it because of. I mean, obviously this was, like, the last place in the United States to be settled, and I heard someone say it was. It's a. They called it a manless land for a landless man. That's what they call trying to recruit people to come out here, you know, so I don't know, is it because of. You know, like, think about in the 50s when we. They really started using irrigation and things like that we were still just growing cotton. So what, what is it because of our climate? I mean, it is very good for cotton. It is a great cotton climate.
• 16:39
  Speaker C: Absolutely, it is.
• 16:40
  Speaker A: But like, are there just really so. So few other crops that it is good for?
• 16:46
  Speaker B: Well, I think cotton is definitely better adapted to the environment and in this area, but also I think twofold. One, the infrastructure, you know, and it's. And it, when you think about it, it is a, it is a design limited infrastructure. You know, you can't run, you know, like if you take an elevator, you can run any type of grain through any.
• 17:08
  Speaker A: Through an elevator.
• 17:09
  Speaker B: So if a grower swaps, say from wheat to corn, that elevator can still handle that.
• 17:15
  Speaker A: Or a cotton gin is a one and done.
• 17:17
  Speaker B: And the same thing with a cotton stripper, you know, you can't harvest. Right with the cotton stripper. And so when you make that kind of investment right. In that system, you know, that, that, that somewhat limits you. And then I would say probably, you know, I know some people would argue with me now, but it was by far the most profitable for a number of years.
• 17:40
  Speaker A: Yes, yes. You know, that's, that's absolutely the truth. It was the cash crop for sure.
• 17:44
  Speaker B: And, and so you could, you can make a lot more on an acre of cotton than you could on an acre of wheat or corn or whatever in this region. So I think those combined.
• 17:55
  Speaker A: Yes.
• 17:55
  Speaker B: Kind of lend itself to that, this monoculture philosophy. Unfortunately, that doesn't seem to maybe be as big a case now.
• 18:05
  Speaker A: Right, right. And so in the position that we're in now, like as we're being pushed towards other things, especially maybe in cattle productions, we're looking at going back to grass in a lot of these places. You know, I'm curious what, what that that kind of infrastructure is going to look like, you know, as we're doing that, you know, are you talking about we need to put in more feed lots? We're going to put in more, you know, like there's not, you know, the sale barn, the cattle still barn here in Lubbock is closed. So, you know, a lot of the things that we would depend on as that industry grows. Yeah. That infrastructure, although don't think it's quite as expensive as putting in elevators.
• 18:47
  Speaker C: Yeah, right, absolutely.
• 18:48
  Speaker A: Yeah. So, but I wonder too, you know, like we were talking about cotton you mentioned, it's, it's really well adapted to this area. And a lot of that's because that's where we invested the money in developing that, you know, and so many of our, like My ancestors came from the south and cotton is what they knew. Absolutely. Yeah.
• 19:07
  Speaker B: Yes.
• 19:08
  Speaker C: Well, and I think cotton too. I've heard my husband say this before. It's just we talked about it being well adapted, but it can withstand drought, stress. It's so much better.
• 19:18
  Speaker A: Yes.
• 19:18
  Speaker C: Than a lot of other crops, which.
• 19:20
  Speaker A: Is so fundamentally different than what you hear people. Why Cotton is like this stepchild of the commodity world right now. It gives so much bad press and I don't understand, like, you know, when I think about how much pesticides we use now, based on what it was like growing up, it's like nothing. Yeah. And when people used to say, oh, hemp uses half the water of. Of cotton, I'm like, that is. I don't know how much water hemp. Hemp necessarily uses. And I don't think anybody else does either. Maybe at that point anyway, they didn't. But I know for sure that cotton is not. It is not utilizing that much water here or we would not be growing it.
• 20:00
  Speaker C: Absolutely.
• 20:02
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 20:02
  Speaker C: It can definitely withstand some pretty serious, prolonged periods of moisture stress.
• 20:08
  Speaker A: It's a tough. It's a tough plant.
• 20:10
  Speaker C: Yes, it is.
• 20:10
  Speaker A: Yeah. And it's. It's next. It's in the family of hibiscus. Yeah. And okra, correct? Yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I have a beautiful hibiscus in my backyard. That's an AM variety.
• 20:22
  Speaker C: Is it the winter hardy one?
• 20:24
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 20:24
  Speaker C: I came out of our Vernon Research Center.
• 20:28
  Speaker A: It's gorgeous. It is like the blooms are like.
• 20:31
  Speaker C: This and they're gorgeous.
• 20:33
  Speaker A: It's amazing. And I love to look at it because it does so much. Reminds me of what a cotton plant looks like when it's flowering, you know, like right before it starts to turn. Yeah.
• 20:42
  Speaker C: They're gorgeous.
• 20:43
  Speaker A: Yeah. It's just beautiful. It's beautiful. So what are you. Do you. You mentioned a while ago, Katie, like different. See systems being utilized within their specific production region or area or for that certain crop. And that's something I'm. You're hearing that more now like that people are going, oh, we want people to do regen. Well, you know, and people that don't know might be like. And it's going to be like this. But people that do know, and you hear this more often is it's going to look different everywhere.
• 21:15
  Speaker C: Yeah.
• 21:15
  Speaker A: And that to something a point you made while ago, Todd, was like, the soil that's there in Abernathy, the soil that's there in Halfway is different from very different because I know we farm in both places. So it's it's very different. And so. But it's this. The same region, but our soil is varying.
• 21:36
  Speaker C: Absolutely.
• 21:37
  Speaker A: Which means that what. You know, we've had this conversation on our podcast before about what the Binghams can do outside of Meadow, Texas, is different than what the Bartimans might do here in Slayton.
• 21:50
  Speaker C: So, good example. Peanuts do really well in sandy soil. Need to be in a sandy soil. Corn. Not a good idea, necessarily.
• 22:00
  Speaker A: Yes, yes, yes. And part of that, right. I mean, like, corn needs a lot of water, and sand does not like to hold water.
• 22:06
  Speaker C: No, exactly.
• 22:07
  Speaker A: Yeah. We grew some corn. I remember in Terry county when I was young, and I can remember my grandfather saying, the way you knew you'd had enough water for corn as you tied a goldfish to it and kept the gold. Yeah, but. So when we moved north, of course there was still water. And we moved there in 2003, and my goodness, there was so much corn. Everywhere you looked, there was corn, you know, and. But this soul was just different there. Now we were growing some peanuts there too, so there was enough sand in that soil to do both, but, you know, definitely not so much corn. Yeah.
• 22:45
  Speaker C: Certain soils are just more suited for certain crops than.
• 22:48
  Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah. And different types of systems. So you seeing any benefits to, like, say, animal integration? Are y' all doing that testing? Yeah.
• 22:58
  Speaker C: So we have a project. We're working with cactus feeders up in the Stratford, Texas, line area. We have some on farm locations where we're looking at perennial grazing systems. We've also started some cotton forage sorghum rotation where we're incorporating cover crops. So definitely moving into the animal integration component. Haven't convinced Todd yet to let us graze cows on any of our research farms. But our collaborators that we have in Vernon as part of another project focused on regenerative agriculture, it was funded in 2021, so we're coming up on the fifth year of that. But they have managed to incorporate forages into their cotton production systems. And they've been grazing those. Yeah, we started in a really tough time with the drought we've had for the last several years, but we've finally gotten to the point where we're starting to collect and see some good.
• 23:57
  Speaker A: Well, it's. It's tough, but it's like. It's just reality.
• 24:00
  Speaker C: Oh, it is. I know. It's useful data.
• 24:02
  Speaker A: Absolutely. So do you think that as this land goes back more and more and more to. To. To grassland, do you think it could possibly increase our rain?
• 24:13
  Speaker C: Like, there should be so much more that's beyond me.
• 24:17
  Speaker A: Yeah, I. I wonder about that, though.
• 24:18
  Speaker C: No, it's a good question.
• 24:20
  Speaker A: If. I mean, it's never. It's never not been. I mean, millennial ago, it was, you know, obviously different, we know, from research and stuff. But I've wondered about that. I wonder if it would impact some of our rain system. I don't know, just throw that out there. Yeah. I just thought you'd be so smart. You can.
• 24:41
  Speaker B: I don't. I don't think it'll necessarily do that. I think it will allow us to be more efficient with the water sources we have. We may even be able to bring in some. Some other water sources that, that are more adapted to certain for that necessarily wouldn't work with what we're having now.
• 24:58
  Speaker A: Exactly.
• 24:59
  Speaker B: You know.
• 25:00
  Speaker A: Right.
• 25:01
  Speaker B: And to me, the way I look at it is cotton will still be king in this region, but what it will allow our producers is to give them another level of risk management that they currently may not have. If they're, say, 100% cotton, you know, having. Having that cattle component or that forage component, that. That'll be another commodity.
• 25:25
  Speaker A: Yes.
• 25:25
  Speaker B: That, you know, and just like right now, and, and, you know, cattle prices are obviously the one commodity that, that is in the, in the positive compared to everything else. Now, the problem is that a lot of people don't think about. And I've talked to some producers that are friends of mine is, yeah, Todd, cattle are high. And I'm making money on cattle, but I've got more money in these cattle than I've ever had. So it's not like that. It's not like there's this big, giant gap and I'm just killing it.
• 25:57
  Speaker C: Yeah.
• 25:57
  Speaker B: And they're like, don't. Don't get me wrong, I'm making money, but. But every time I buy a calf, I got a whole bunch of money.
• 26:04
  Speaker A: Yes, it is amazing how much calves cost right now, you know, just to buy one to feed out. Yes, it is shocking.
• 26:12
  Speaker C: Yeah, but.
• 26:13
  Speaker B: But that level of risk management, you know, and like I said, growing up in southwest Oklahoma and working in the rolling plains of Texas for a number of years, you know, that's been a traditional risk management tool that we use. And I think that's something we can take advantage of up here as well.
• 26:27
  Speaker A: Yeah, I think so too. I mean, I've seen that play out, you know, with Lacey, you know, Vardamins to see, like, hey, I don't have enough. It's too dry here on the ranch. I really need some, you know, to mean Something for these cows to eat and then take advantage of that wheat that they're putting in in the winter.
• 26:42
  Speaker C: Yeah.
• 26:43
  Speaker A: And, you know, it's. It is. And then the cows are, you know, they're leaving the manure on the ground. So now we don't have to do, you know, synthetic fertilizers and so. Yeah, I mean, I can see. But it is definitely, you know, we're kind of changing and going back, it feels like to me, in a lot of ways, in management style and thinking about things. We're going backwards.
• 27:06
  Speaker C: Yeah.
• 27:06
  Speaker A: In time. Yeah. You know, and maybe even like to think about the 40s where, you know, probably that's where the height of maybe animal integration here, you know, because I know that my granddad was a big deal in the 50s when he was integrating pigs and things like that on his. On his land, you know, and that was in the 50s. So, you know, I guess it pretty much stopped by then. Yeah. You know, so it's gonna. It's an interesting time. Yeah. Yeah. So, Katie, cover crops and no till, strip till, minimum till. All of these things are kind of a romantic idea of. Right. You know, of. I think a lot of people maybe would see it as silver bullet. This is what's going to. This is why things aren't working or etc. Etc. You know?
• 27:58
  Speaker C: Yeah. So interesting. We had a group of insurance agents, adjusters out at the research center yesterday. A big group, 160.
• 28:08
  Speaker A: Wow.
• 28:09
  Speaker C: Huge. But a lot of those guys are also farmers or landowners. And so they had a lot of interesting comments related to cover crops and reduced till and no till. And, you know, by the end of our conversation, it really is, you know, unless you're. Again, I'm going to say it. Optimizing the system. It may not work that first year that you try it. And so, you know, going out trying different things, I think is something that we need to try to encourage. We have a project right now that's funded through nrcs and it's. It's focused on. On farm research where we have a large amount of money that we can assist farmers with adopting some of those practices, trying to reduce the risk that's associated with it, because I think that's a big part of it, you know, having a husband that farms and knowing how tight budgets can be. You know, it.
• 29:05
  Speaker A: You might have a bank that goes, no.
• 29:07
  Speaker C: Yes, exactly.
• 29:08
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 29:09
  Speaker C: Your banker might tell you, no, exactly.
• 29:11
  Speaker A: Or you may have a landowner. Oh, that's a landlord. That says.
• 29:14
  Speaker C: Very true, too.
• 29:16
  Speaker A: No, I want you to grow cotton after Cotton after cotton. Because that's how I make money.
• 29:19
  Speaker C: Yes, absolutely.
• 29:22
  Speaker A: There's a lot more to it than just, why don't you do it?
• 29:25
  Speaker C: Yeah. And so, you know, even if we talk about the actual production part of it, you're right. There's so many different aspects that go into it that have to be accounted for and thought about. It's not just as simple as I'm going to do this and it's going to work perfectly. I do believe that in the right environment, you know, selecting the right cover crop, the right seeding rates, termination timings, optimizing your nutrient management, following the COVID crop, as well as your. Your irrigation, I think it can be a very successful practice across the high plains. But it has to be managed in a way that you're going to maintain yield in that system.
• 30:05
  Speaker A: Yeah, and that's. I think that is. That's where I think, like, it's just so different than, you know, what we've been able to do since, say, the 90s. Yeah. You know what I mean? It's just really, you know, and I think about how that it changed. You know, as you know, I was getting married and moving into, you know, seeing what my dad was doing on his farm and then doing it on our farm. It's just really interesting remembering what it was like to see my granddad on the farm versus my dad versus me and my spouse. You know, it's just. It was very different. And.
• 30:38
  Speaker C: And so my husband and I, when we moved up here in 2014, the majority of all the acres that him and his family were farming were more conventional tillage, continuous cotton, winter fallow. And slowly but surely, Clay has started. That's my husband. Clay has started adopting some of these practices because he's realized that from a time perspective, it's hard to find help a lot of times. And so it might be him and one other person, and it's just not possible to go out and see and fight and control the, the sand from blowing. And so a cover crop is the answer. Keeping the ground covered during the winter, at least on his irrigated acres, he's made that full movement towards reduced tillage and cover crops. Yeah, he would love to be able to rotate, but the elevator, the infrastructure component is what's the biggest challenge.
• 31:37
  Speaker A: Yeah, and like, that's, I think, something that, you know, is important for us to be thinking about in terms of economics. I wonder how, how often investment in different types of infrastructure is as we think about, in terms of a different crop, could. What would it look like if, you know, a rural community said, we're going to. We're going to do something that we incentivize someone to come in here to take rye or barley or something, you know, something else, you know, so. And I know. I mean, we've seen it before. You know, I've seen that they try to do. And bring expanding, you know, diversifying other things, and sometimes it works out, sometimes it doesn't.
• 32:28
  Speaker C: Yeah.
• 32:29
  Speaker A: So it's a. It is. It's a big risk.
• 32:32
  Speaker C: Yes.
• 32:32
  Speaker A: For people to take. Yeah.
• 32:34
  Speaker C: And I even think, you know, with us, the talk about converting some of our acres back to grass, that's going to be a risky move, too. I mean, they're going away from what they've known and what they've done for the last several decades.
• 32:48
  Speaker A: Yes. And not many people are cowman. And if you've ever seen the musical Oklahoma, you know that this is true.
• 32:55
  Speaker C: Yeah, absolutely. My husband is not a cowboy at all. He is a farmer.
• 33:01
  Speaker A: Yeah. Well, I know. I kind of think our first, like, experience of. Of animal integration when we lived in Earth and we hired somebody to bring in cattle, you know, because it was way more common there. You know, it was just something that we were seeing, and that was kind of my first experience of seeing that. But we didn't ever handle them, you know, because someone else was doing that. And it was a good thing for us. And for them, it's kind of like custom harvesting or whatever. It's, you know, giving them another place to go and giving us another source of income.
• 33:38
  Speaker B: No, and that. And you brought up. And that's one of the things we. We've discussed is, you know, there. There's opportunities to be involved in animal agriculture without owning the animals.
• 33:49
  Speaker A: Yes.
• 33:49
  Speaker B: And in some cases, depending upon the situation, even having to deal with the animals. You know, I know one of the farms I worked on, the gentleman that handled that, basically, he was the cow guy on the farm. He basically leased the land, put up the electric fence, and then. And then managed them from a health standpoint. So basically, the grower I worked for essentially had little or no.
• 34:14
  Speaker C: Yeah, yeah.
• 34:15
  Speaker B: You know, interaction other than having the forge portion for that grower. With that being said, I know one of the growers he was talking about had done that several years ago, and how he felt that was a disaster. And I do think that is something to worry about.
• 34:32
  Speaker A: Management is.
• 34:33
  Speaker B: Is who you get in.
• 34:35
  Speaker A: Yes.
• 34:36
  Speaker B: Partnership is also key. It is to how that works and how that success, you know? You know, because. And, you know, I Grew up hearing about disasters, you know, cattle dying and not being taken care of like they needed to from a sickness standpoint.
• 34:51
  Speaker C: Oh, yeah.
• 34:51
  Speaker B: Or a bloat standpoint. You know, so there are a lot of things that go into that.
• 34:57
  Speaker A: Yes.
• 34:58
  Speaker B: That situation that, that makes it difficult and then, and then, like I said, accepting that risk. But I think it also, again, brings us some advantages against risk. Just like it is accepting some risk also that you have to weigh out.
• 35:14
  Speaker A: You guys will probably get this. I'm not sure people that didn't grow up on the farm will understand, but, you know, you often give your farms a name like, my husband's family had a booger and a son of booger. Well, when we moved to Earth, we had a quarter section that they'd been sheep on and we called it the dead sheep farm. Oh. Because. Yeah, there were so many sheep carcasses on that farm when we took over, you know, and which I, I know that they sang about sheep is they're bored, looking for a place to die. So I'm not saying somebody mismanaged them.
• 35:49
  Speaker C: Because that's all I know about sheep. Right.
• 35:51
  Speaker A: You know, but I. When you said that, that's what it made me think of was like, yeah, there's a lot to, A lot goes into, you know, you're really, essentially, you got two businesses going now. So it's a, it's definitely something that changes up your management for sure.
• 36:09
  Speaker B: Well, nothing. Anytime you, anytime you make change, there's a level of management that comes with that. Whether that's no till cover crop, cattle forages or whatever, that, that definitely has to come with that change.
• 36:23
  Speaker A: Are you all looking at economics when you do all this?
• 36:25
  Speaker C: Absolutely. Biggest part of it, right? Not the biggest part. It is, it's huge though. Yeah, it is huge. Yeah. So we have some economics economists that are at the research center that conduct the economic analysis for us and they do more of your basic budget type analysis. But then they also look at things in the future. How is this going to impact the farmer 20 years from now or even communities 20 years from now. So they can really do some cool stuff with numbers.
• 36:55
  Speaker A: Yeah, I think that, that to me is one of the most interesting parts of agriculture that I never really thought about. I mean, I thought about our bank account, but I never really thought about, you know, the impact across the whole, you know, ecosystem of the rural economy. Yeah.
• 37:12
  Speaker C: Yeah, for sure.
• 37:14
  Speaker A: So tell me. You used my favorite word while ago. So it's a good day for me when I'm, when I'm When I podcast and I hear the word microbe twice, this was my. That was my word of the year one year. Because I'm a weirdo.
• 37:30
  Speaker C: Yeah.
• 37:31
  Speaker A: So of course, you know Sarah Burnett. She's the one that made me introduce me to this whole world of the millions and billions.
• 37:39
  Speaker C: And we don't even know how many organisms.
• 37:41
  Speaker A: Yes, yes, organisms.
• 37:42
  Speaker C: More microbial cells on our body than we have of our own cells. Did you know that?
• 37:48
  Speaker A: No.
• 37:48
  Speaker C: Yes.
• 37:50
  Speaker A: That is another fact. I know that. Like in a teaspoon of dirt.
• 37:56
  Speaker C: Yeah, soil.
• 37:57
  Speaker A: Soil. I'm sorry, soil. Like soil. Because in a teaser of dirt, there's probably not very many microbes.
• 38:03
  Speaker B: No, that's the stuff under your nail.
• 38:05
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 38:07
  Speaker C: Off the floor.
• 38:09
  Speaker A: Yes, yes. There's way.
• 38:13
  Speaker C: Yes, way, way, way, way. Microorganisms are very important in our soil. So, you know, soil health has been a big push for the last 10 years. I think 2015 was the world of soil or soil. They celebrated soil around the world. And so that was really the year that nrcs started pushing soil health and the term soil health. And with that came a big focus on the microorganisms in the soil and what functions they were providing to the overall health. And being a chemist, I do have a special place in my heart for that, too. But it takes all parts, it takes the physical aspects, the chemical and the biological, to make a highly functioning soil. We've been working with my land. Agri life has a very close working relationship with them. In addition to our research trials that we have across the state, we're also collecting data from on farm locations where they've installed algae systems.
• 39:19
  Speaker A: Yes. And it's seen it.
• 39:20
  Speaker C: Yeah, it's a. It's a very cool technology where my land comes out, they collects a soil sample from your farm, then they culture the algae, they grow it up on the edge of the field, and then they pump it back through your irrigation system.
• 39:37
  Speaker A: So now they're harvesting things out of your own soil.
• 39:40
  Speaker C: Right, that's what I understand. Yes. It's coming from your soil. So it's the native algae. We conducted research with them for the last two years. Moving forward, a lot of our focus is going to be on not just what the benefits are to the plant and to the soil, but also how are we changing the microbial community. You know, are the algae proliferating? If so, how is that affecting the other dynamics in the soil?
• 40:08
  Speaker A: It'd be interesting too, to see, like, what is what. How it's impacting the nutritional value of like a tomato or, you know, Absolutely. Because I, I think one of the things, I think markets that could be developing over the next few years would be, you know, as we begin to see, like maybe enter this system, this same plant has more nutrition.
• 40:33
  Speaker C: Yeah.
• 40:34
  Speaker A: So that like certain people can maybe go after those markets. Yeah.
• 40:37
  Speaker C: You know, so that is a big, big focus these two years is looking at how the nutritional value of the melons and onions and things that they're growing more in the South Texas region, how that's being influenced.
• 40:50
  Speaker A: So you know that Sarah Burnett's dad did his thesis in the 70s on the microbial life in the soil from the plant to the cattle and how it impacted the meat. Yeah. He was so, so ahead of his time.
• 41:07
  Speaker C: Yeah.
• 41:07
  Speaker A: Like if he were here right now, of course, you know how people is. You're always a genius 90 miles away from home.
• 41:13
  Speaker C: Yeah, yeah. And so working with them, but then just the industry partnerships we have beyond my land, it's interesting to me so many of the companies that I would consider being hardcore synthetic. I mean, I don't know of any company that is now.
• 41:31
  Speaker A: There's, well, there's money to be made. Yeah.
• 41:33
  Speaker C: Biological world. So. And a lot of them are focused on, you know, free living nitrogen fixers that are going to pull atmospheric into and fix nitrogen in the soil. That way we don't have to add as much uan or urea to our soil.
• 41:52
  Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. That would be cost wise, but also just environmental wise. I mean, that's a big. That's a big impact. Yeah, yeah, that's really. So, you know, carbon markets are huge thing and everybody is like, you know, convinced. I'm not saying everybody, but there's a lot of people. You know, I don't think it's as big of a deal as it was maybe five years ago. Yeah, but you guys measured carbon out there.
• 42:17
  Speaker C: Absolutely. We've measured carbon everywhere.
• 42:19
  Speaker A: Everywhere. Yes.
• 42:22
  Speaker C: We have pulled soul samples from South Texas, Texas up into Dalhart and the northern panhandle. And you know, based on what we've seen, soil texture as we were talking about earlier, is a major factor. Your clay soils are going to be able to protect more carbon. You're going to have just inherently greater carbon in those soils than you would in your sandy soil. And then management practice, your, your crops that produce greater biomass, of course, are going to result in greater carbon inputs into the system that typically would result in greater sequestration or storage of that carbon in the soil. But you know, to me, it's not about how much we have. It's the Benefits that we get from adding the carbon to the soil.
• 43:14
  Speaker A: Right.
• 43:14
  Speaker C: Stimulating microbial. Cycling. Microbial activity. Activity and cycling nutrients so that we take something that might be considered unavailable and make it available.
• 43:26
  Speaker A: So 11 years ago, when you started, how often do you hear people talk about microbes? Was it something that like soul scientists talked about?
• 43:37
  Speaker C: Oh, absolutely. I mean, it was involved in. In everything I did through graduate work from a scientific community. Yes. It's always been a major part of the conversation. Now when I moved here, I may have heard from a few people that, oh, you don't need to look at the microbes. We don't have any in this environment. It's too dry. You know, but that's not true. I mean, we have microorganisms that are going to be more suited for our dry climates. And as long as we're feeding them, as long as there's carbon or organic material going into the system, they are going to be active. You know, during the colder months, we don't have a whole lot of activity because we can get relatively cold here. But yeah, microorganisms have always been major focus.
• 44:26
  Speaker A: Yeah, that's interesting. It's just been. It just seems like. I don't even know. I think back now, I'm like, where did all of this start for soil.
• 44:36
  Speaker C: Health, Soil help the push.
• 44:39
  Speaker A: So, so did it, did. Was it nrcs that said let's do this or was there external factors that make. Because generally they're not in the lead, shall we say? Yeah.
• 44:57
  Speaker C: So I think there was a big NRCS push, USDA push towards soil health. And with soil health came this large awareness.
• 45:10
  Speaker A: Yes.
• 45:10
  Speaker C: And awareness on the microbial populations and what they were doing.
• 45:15
  Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah. And because I think, I feel like, you know, a lot of the things that we've. We've had these practices, these soil health practices probably since 2015. But then in the last administration we started calling them climate smart farming. Gave them all a different name.
• 45:31
  Speaker C: Yeah, right.
• 45:32
  Speaker A: In which now we don't have that name again.
• 45:33
  Speaker C: Yeah.
• 45:34
  Speaker A: So whiplash. But it's all the same thing.
• 45:37
  Speaker C: It's all the same thing.
• 45:37
  Speaker A: It's all the same.
• 45:38
  Speaker C: It was whole health, it was conservation practice.
• 45:41
  Speaker A: There you go.
• 45:41
  Speaker C: There you go. Quality, sustainable. Yeah. I mean, we've had soil tilth, soil quality. The term just changes. But I do, you know, I think in the last 10 to 20 years there has been a much larger focus that's been put on the biological.
• 45:58
  Speaker A: I think that we have a consumer awareness and I. Which I wonder, you know, there was so much Emphasis on probiotics. Even before we started hearing about. I wonder sometimes if that push kind of has made people become more aware as they think of food as medicine. Like, maybe if I was eating food that was more. Had more microbial life in it, then I wouldn't have to be taking probiotics. You know what I mean? Consumers are just becoming more and more aware.
• 46:28
  Speaker C: Yeah.
• 46:28
  Speaker A: There's more and more available to them. And as Todd and I've discussed many a time, how do we provide those people with really good and accurate information.
• 46:37
  Speaker C: You know, right here, what we're doing.
• 46:40
  Speaker A: Yes, yes, yes. Yeah. You know, good example. I was to have the conversation with someone probably a year ago, you know, spent more energy on hemp than I. I wish I had about 90 of that energy back and didn't know about 90 of the people that I met. Yeah. But one of the things, like people will just, you know, say it can do so many things. And I'm like, do you know that 90% of the things that you just mentioned, corn can also make. No. Yes, it can. You know, and guess what? Yes, it has a lot of cellulose, but cotton has more. And cotton is made cotton. You don't have to make it into cotton from hemp. You know what I mean? Like, you know, so being able to like, come at those conversations to like maybe pop some of the bubbles of those myths, I think is. Is really good and important for us to do. And I appreciate y' all coming. This is, this is so interesting.
• 47:44
  Speaker C: Yes.
• 47:45
  Speaker A: So interesting. So in general, you see benefits of the. The system as a whole.
• 47:54
  Speaker C: Yes.
• 47:55
  Speaker A: But when you start piecing it apart without considering the entire, your entire system holistically, a holistic look at that system, you know, and so the answer to someone, a consumer who's like, why don't farmers do this? The answer is because it might not be feasible for a multitude of reasons. Because it might not work in certain settings the way you're thinking of it.
• 48:24
  Speaker C: Absolutely, yes. Everything has to be managed in a way that's going to be specific to that given environment, that farm even.
• 48:33
  Speaker A: Right.
• 48:34
  Speaker C: It gets down to the farm level.
• 48:36
  Speaker A: Which is one of the reasons why I think it's been, you know, we have an organic certification. Well, that's just pretty much blanket. Right. But regenerative, as we're looking at giving these, you know, it's so place based, you know, and we. There's so many certifications.
• 48:57
  Speaker C: Yeah.
• 48:58
  Speaker A: So much time, so much energy on that. When I think maybe the answer is removing all of the people between you know, let's get the consumer and the farmer closer together or the consumer and that buyer, that brand, build that relationship so that they can know that they are getting what they're getting. Not because a fourth party has certified it, but because they've been on that property and they know that farmer personally.
• 49:27
  Speaker C: And they know what's best. Not only for the longevity of that operation.
• 49:34
  Speaker A: Yes.
• 49:34
  Speaker C: But also environmentally, economically.
• 49:37
  Speaker A: Yes, exactly, exactly. We, we think around here about triple bottom line economics, people planet, profits.
• 49:47
  Speaker C: Yep, absolutely.
• 49:48
  Speaker A: And I love that. That's what, that's really what agri life does.
• 49:52
  Speaker B: Yeah. And I mean, you know, all of our producers are in this for what I would call the long term game. And I think sometimes that gets lost in the public. You know, they, they want to be doing that one. They're doing what they do because they love it.
• 50:08
  Speaker A: Yes.
• 50:09
  Speaker B: I mean, this is not a get rich.
• 50:11
  Speaker A: No, you would not do it. Yes. I mean, did I love it when you have to quit? It's like you're pulling it from my cold dead hands. Yeah, that's what it feels like.
• 50:20
  Speaker B: Exactly. And so, so that long term viability is so important to them. And I don't. And maybe, you know, maybe that's something we need to do a better job of letting the public know that, that, you know, these guys are in this for the long term and so that overall health, as we think of it, is just as important to them as it is to you as an individual.
• 50:41
  Speaker A: You know, and it would be a nice thing to even maybe have an economist on and talk about, let's talk about how much it cost, you know, how much, how much. I saw the, the estimates for cotton this year that were in the red, not, not in the black. We're going to make money. We're in the red. Yeah.
• 51:03
  Speaker B: Oh, yeah.
• 51:04
  Speaker A: And you know, so in that, that is, when that's what you've relied on for so many years, suddenly you have to pivot. Yeah. All the things that we've discussed.
• 51:16
  Speaker B: No, one of the funny memes or whatever I saw one time was a grower saying, he said, I'm not really worried about your hundred thousand dollars BMW when I'm sitting in my $750,000 million dollars cotton harvest.
• 51:29
  Speaker C: Yes, exactly.
• 51:30
  Speaker A: Exactly. Man. Oh my gosh. It really is. I know there's a group of guys down, I think in that Tahoka, maybe Dawson county area that have come together and they're farming like cooperatively, you know, because they're like, man, we're going to be able to like afford this equipment.
• 51:53
  Speaker C: No, the machines are outrageous.
• 51:56
  Speaker A: They are. Yeah. They really are. And like, we had a discussion earlier on one of the podcast recordings about how, how much money other countries provide to help their farmers stay in business versus the 2% of 9% that we get or something like that. You know, it's really amazing that that's who our competition is and that we've been able to keep going as long as we have. Yeah, it's really hard.
• 52:29
  Speaker B: No, no, and, and we definitely, you know, we, we don't realize what, you know, let's say China, for instance, you know, how much they support agriculture and how much they now support agriculture research compared to what we do.
• 52:43
  Speaker A: Yeah. You know, it's interesting, Todd, that I, I don't. Can't remember if we talked about this last month, but the Polish farmers that were here, I asked them what's the things that's most surprising, and they said, how far behind you are in innovation? Yeah, well, I was like, what? Yeah, but I did notice that when I was there, like the types of equipment that they have are high, super high tech. You know, these strip till machines that are like modular, that you can take them apart, you literally, like have one plow for your entire year, one thing, and it is sensing. It has like five sensors so that it's like sensing moisture depth and where is it? So it's like moving right to left, up and down to decide where to plant that seed for each individual seed.
• 53:33
  Speaker C: It's impressive.
• 53:34
  Speaker A: It's amazing. And the EU is paying for half of that, so those farmers can get, get access to that innovation. Makes a lot of difference.
• 53:42
  Speaker C: Absolutely.
• 53:43
  Speaker A: Makes a lot of difference. Yeah.
• 53:46
  Speaker B: Well, and you know, I spent a little bit of time in Europe and you think, you know, a lot of those farms are much, much smaller. They are, from an individual standpoint. Well, you know, that, that 20 acres in Poland, you know, that changes that whole dynamic also. And, but the reason they can do that, you know, is because of the support that you're talking.
• 54:06
  Speaker A: That's exactly right.
• 54:07
  Speaker B: You know, there's no way you could live on 20 acres.
• 54:10
  Speaker A: No. Well, and most of those, most of those, like in Poland, like those farmers are elite. Can you imagine, imagine having enough land, you say, say you're like 500 acres. How many landlords you're dealing with? And a lot of the, some of the, a good, good part of those subsidy payments go to the landowner and not to the farmer. So it's really an interesting, it's an interesting setup there. You know, imagine if everyone in the United States owned 20 acres. That's what it's like. Yeah, it's amazing. We're just, we're just in such. It's so different, you know, it's not different bad. It's just different.
• 54:51
  Speaker C: Yeah.
• 54:51
  Speaker B: Yes.
• 54:52
  Speaker A: Yeah, it is. So you have any like big dream research that you want to do?
• 54:59
  Speaker C: Oh, gosh. So I think if I could one go back in time, but I know that's not possible. So I'll focus on the now I would really like to establish like the long term trial that we have down in Lamisa. I would like to establish something like that, but to address the challenges that our farmers are facing now. But have it replicated across these different environments like we've been talking about today. Because again, and maybe that would be that way of demonstrating that what someone in a sandy soil can do and be successful with isn't going to be the best option for someone Lubbock North. And so, you know, establishing something like that where there's going to be 20 plus years of data that captures the environmental aspects of, of it, the weather that we're experiencing in a given year. That, that would be my dream is to have that and really.
• 56:13
  Speaker A: Be able.
• 56:14
  Speaker C: To communicate broadly the results of something like that.
• 56:18
  Speaker A: Yes. And you know, I know I have a good friend and he's got family land in Terry county and he's looking for, they're doing fundraising right now. He lives in New York, Terry, to buy a section of that land to turn it into a research farm. Oh, wow, that's cool. And then Dolly Baker Barker has her place in Morton, which is amazing. So maybe we'll see some more of that. Yeah. You know, this really what we need is we need to be able to see a life size.
• 56:49
  Speaker C: Yes.
• 56:50
  Speaker A: You know, replica of, of this and not just a couple of acres.
• 56:55
  Speaker C: We need to see it. Yeah.
• 56:57
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 56:58
  Speaker C: And you know, there's, there's challenges. We've had, Todd and I have had conversations about this. You know, with working on farm, there can be challenges as researchers because we like to do things the same way every single year so that we can publish those results and we know farmers aren't going to do that. But that's what makes it interesting about working on farm. And I feel like I'm at a little more stable situation as far as my career goes, that I can take those risks and I can work more on farm and just start monitoring what's going on.
• 57:31
  Speaker A: I hadn't thought about, I really had not thought about that before, about how that is a risky thing. For a researcher.
• 57:37
  Speaker C: So we have to be able to publish.
• 57:39
  Speaker A: Yes, yes. Yes. Wow. That is. I had not thought about that.
• 57:43
  Speaker B: Well, well, and even some ways, when. When you're thinking about it from answering a question, you know, if. If the system changes from year to year, what really impacted the result?
• 57:54
  Speaker A: Exactly.
• 57:55
  Speaker B: You know, when you're trying to narrow it down to say, what. What weed control do I need to implement? Or what fertility.
• 58:03
  Speaker A: Yes.
• 58:03
  Speaker B: You know, when you're trying to answer single questions and you throw multiple factors from year to year, which. And we already have the environment doing that.
• 58:11
  Speaker C: Exactly, exactly.
• 58:13
  Speaker A: Exactly. Oh, that's another. There's another one that is going in. In Lamb County. Oh, I forgot about that. Yeah, so there's some. There's really is some interest in. In, you know, trying to figure out.
• 58:29
  Speaker C: You know, the regional.
• 58:31
  Speaker A: A regional thing. Yeah. And now I. I'm excited about that because it's a grassroots type of, you know, this thing. Thing that happened in La Mesa. It's like people saying, you know, we want this to happen.
• 58:42
  Speaker B: Yeah. Yes.
• 58:42
  Speaker A: It's exciting. And thank you, friends, for joining us for another episode of Conservation Stories.