RealAg Radio: Building bins, triggering new crop sales, and managing fertilizer prices, Mar 12, 2026

Your spray day Decision made Easy. Choose solutions with Airlex Active for performance and application flexibility, whether you're dealing with small or large weeds in early or late crop staging and even in cool or dry conditions. Aerolex Active. Just go. It's time for Real Egg Radio on rural radio channel147 on SiriusX. Reel ag Radio and RealLagCulture.com is your home for insight and analysis of the issues that are impacting your farm business. Let's get real and get connected with RealAg Radio. Hello and welcome to RealAg Radio here on rural radio channel147, SiriusXM. It is Thursday, March 12th. I am your host for the day, Lindsay Smith. And Thursdays are for the Farmer Rapid Fire. Brought to you Corteva Crop Protection. We're going to take two stops in Ontario, then we're going to hop to Manitoba, off to Alberta and then zip back to Saskatchewan to talk to Trevor Herzog with Corteva. We're going to start though, near Renfrew, Ontario. And I've got Jen Dohlman on the line. How are you? I'm good. How are you? I'm doing very well. I think it's kind of hilarious that I have to do the Farmer Rapid Fire to actually talk to you. It is really sad when you're friends and you only see each other for work. It's a little bit. Now it is the Ottawa Valley Farm show this week, but there's a wicked ice storm and so I'm assuming you didn't go. I didn't go. I wish I could have, but no, I didn't. We were supposed to be taking. I teach at the Algonquin College Agribusiness Programme. Which you used to teach at. I did, and today was one of our field trip days and so we had to pull the pin. So we'll be at the Farm show tomorrow. So I'm looking forward to that. Yeah, I was like, oh, I'll talk about the farm show and the rapid fire. And now I'm like, oh, now what? Now what? Now we talk about the weather, which isn't great, so. Yes, it is. It's just nasty. And hopefully it's sort of, you know, this is our last gasp of terrible winter. And after this, it looks like it's going to be cold, but we'll get there. We'll eventually get to spring. So other than, of course, teaching, trying to do a field trip, etc. What else has been keeping you busy? Well, I've been mostly trying to get books caught up, which is always. I think every farm everywhere has that issue because there's always so many other things that are more fun. Right. But in the long run, it's the books that make it so that you can keep doing fun things and then just even checking on the bees. Because I'm a beekeeper, I hadn't made it out because the snow was too deep, but I've heard good things. Whenever I was out digging out my hives earlier, because we'd had a lot of snow, I had still had a lot of alive beehives. So it's always March makes or breaks it with bees. It's like alfalfa fields or fall wheat. Right. Like you can, you're good till now, but you still have that final stretch to get through. Mm. Now and how you have, you have a bee house. You have, like, how has this journey been? Are you building the bee side of the business? Is it status quo? How's it going? It's mostly status quo. Beekeeping now that we are dealing with varroa mites is kind of like bungee jumping all the time. Like, you're really good until you're really not. There's not a lot of halfway points. So I have been touch wood successful in all but one year and keeping my bees healthy and alive. We've definitely had had some real like mite management issues. You think you're fine and you're not. Like any other aspects of livestock agriculture, fingers crossed. I think we've got everything right, so we should be good. And it's one of those things that it's almost you do. If you do a really good job keeping the bees alive, then you have too many bees. So this year, my last year, thankfully, I had great survival and I was able to sell some genetics to actually my mentor who had lost some. So that kind of builds that diversity in the system. So for right now, my goal is to just kind of keep on keeping on. I. I sold out of honey last year. For the first time ever. I stopped doing events, which is funny because I got into beekeeping to do events, but I just, I need it on the farm too much. But I've got a lot of really good local retailers and right now it's kind of like it's enough for one person to manage while also doing off farm jobs, while also managing kids, while also managing a farm. So it's a little intense, but that's kind of how I roll and want to hire people, right? Yeah, exactly. Yeah. And it's. Isn't it funny how sometimes it's like, oh, I like doing this certain thing so I'll do more of it. And then you realise that's like hosting events. That's the part that maybe has to go first because it just doesn't work anymore. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And the thing is like right now, like I have to make combine payments no matter what. I have to make mortgage payments no matter what. The B's are wonderful, but I can do everything right. And they still all die. So I'm not gonna. That's going to be my luxury income that goes there. Right. And then like the honey money, that's the fun money. But I can't necessarily be like, oh, I'm just not going to like take on this custom work because I want to focus on my bees that just not for my skill. That's not. It works. Yeah. The, the banks don't accept honey as payment for your mortgage. No, but my banker does like honey. So I like to think that that's kind of like the buffer. And her parents really like my honey. So it's kind of like they butter. They make me look good. That's right. Yeah, exactly. I tell her how great her customers are and I'm like, yes, we are. Yes, we are. Yeah. Continue to lend us money than now. You also, you've built and invested quite heavily in the farm. How did this last fall go with the bins and the dryer and the shop and really like putting together quite the little operation up there. Well, okay, so, you know, the background here is I had to start again at 40 with my partner. We had to walk away from my family farm with litigation during COVID and my husband dealing with a heart condition. It was so fun. And thank you, Lindsay. You were definitely somewhat a rock I could depend on at that time. Well, that is so wonderful. Well, and we bounce back, right? Like, yeah, pivot in farming. And so yes, we bought a farm that had no buildings we could insure and a house that had like water coming in through electrical sockets. When it rained it was awesome. But now I'm not getting rained on as it so. And I'm making a lot of mortgage payments on a lot of buildings and equipment. And they're beautiful and wonderful and as long as we keep good self discipline and we don't have like the crippling drought that some of our neighbours further east had. And we've got lots of. We've got like risk management in place. We've got crop insurance, we've got all those things and then we've got Rainy day funds. For rainy day funds. But it's, it's good. The grain drying system went awesome and we got a government grant for that part of the Grow Ontario strategy. So it was like cents on the dollar for what we had to actually put in of our own money. It was like writing a PhD thesis. But it was really good investment. But we love our system. It works great. We're in an underserved part of Ontario so we have to be resilient now. Now we're not waiting on trucks. We can look after our crop until the trucks can come to us. We've been able to deal with some new buyers for wheat and things like that. So that's really exciting. And, and yeah, things are, things are good. It's just, you know, it's like, what is it from the Tiger King? All these pandemic references. I'll never recover financially from this. We bought one farm and it was a million dollars and it's just like, oh my God, there's just so much debt on this. But, you know, like that's, that's kind of it. We can't take it with us when we go. And right now we're, we're doing okay and we have plans for when we're not okay. Right. And that's just all we can do. I am glad to have crop insurance. I'm really glad we have good agronomic practises and yeah, we just keep evaluating the balance sheet and checking and seeing. I really appreciate. Because I don't think, you know, a lot of, a lot of people wouldn't even know where rimfrew is on the map. But it is true, it is an area where, you know, and this is one of the things I noticed in moving to Ontario. You know, there aren't a tonne of bins around or there isn't maybe excess drying capacity as you move further from maybe some of the major centres. And so to your point exactly, that you buy yourself that time of being able to keep the combines rolling, keep the crop in good quality, in good shape because you've invested in the infrastructure to do so, which is. It's pretty cool, Jen, to see what, what you and Mike have put up there because they're really, I mean, there was an incredible need for it in your, in your area. Yeah. And, and it's really neat too because we've seen. It's funny doing our, our new strategic plan for the county. I'm on the economic development committee and just the amount of cattle that have left the county and the number of soybeans that have come into the county. So now there are some ground that should be back to cattle. They shouldn't be soybean ground around here. We have a lot of fragile ecosystems and thankfully there's still enough cattle here that when cattle prices are good, there are. There are more cattle here again. And like some places where the fence lines were gone and they just missed the opportunity. But yeah, it's nice. There's actually like, there's actually three commercial elevators now within 20 minutes of my farm, which because 20 years ago. So it's improving. There's definitely the trucks is a big thing factor. And it's like, even from where you are, Lindsey, to where I am, we're only about 40 minutes from each other. But a truck to get to my place in a day is going to at best get two loads into the port. And from your place, I think four. Right. So it's like they're not going to answer the phone call. Well, and I have to make that a good customer. Exactly. And. And there's enough demand closer that they don't. They don't always have to answer that. Right. So exactly. That you sort of. Well, and it's good because. Yeah, that moves that many more tonnes to our. Yep, absolutely. Okay, before we run out of time, I do have a question this week and it does sort of relate to all of this in that with, you know, the world going to hell in a handbasket and all sorts of ridiculous things happening. We're asking this week, has the last two weeks prompted you to pull the trigger on some of those new crop sales or are you sticking with your marketing plan as is or do not ever really do any sort of new crops? Okay, so just midwinter doldrums. Sometimes we thinking, oh, God, we've got nothing sold. And fertiliser is so stupid expensive. We have to sell something at least. Right. But we'd done a lot of work over Christmas nailing down last year's cost of production. Spoiler alert. It was really tragic, but we kind of were like, okay, we need to be. We need. Because our debt is so high, we need to be cutthroat about this. We can't be emotional. So as things were starting to get a little bit sideways, we sat down and we're like going, and not sold. How much do we want to have sold and what do we want it to be? It wasn't. What is the price now? What do we need to be? Because we can't be selling at less than at least our cost of production. So we set a whole bunch of sell orders in place. And then Monday I was at with the students. We were touring Harbeck's agromarch and we were touring Beacons Egg Farm. And I came home and my inbox was full. Every single sell order I'd had went. And that's why we do this. Absolutely. Like, I on Tuesday morning, I sat there looking at my umpteen emails and I felt so freaking confident and proud of myself because we wanted to like, overreact, but we can't overreact. We need to calm the heck down. Like stay calm and carry on. And now we're like, okay, well, we'll set a couple now that are like stupidly high hoping for it because there's no crop in the ground yet. But I feel so much better today knowing that we hit on those peaks because there was no way I was going to get through to those guys that, yeah, yes, absolutely. No, I'm feeling very. I will probably never be this lucky again. Although my favourite crop I ever sold, I was on a beach in Mexico for the highest corner ever sold. And that made me feel so good about myself. I like it. This might be a whole new series. My corn went. Yeah, this might be a whole new series. Where were you when your your best? Yeah, okay, that's inspiration for maybe later. Okay, Jen, I gotta let you go. I gotta hop to my next farmer, but thank you so much and stay safe out there. It's a little slick. You too. Take care, Lindsay. All right, we're going to take a quick break and I'll be back with more of the farmer Rapid fire brought to you by Corteva right after this. Ah, the lovely signs of spring. 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For our producers, that might be a question specific about their crop, a pricing opportunity, or whether it's the right time to make a sale. And sometimes that question comes at 2:00am Whether you're staying awake thinking about the markets, wondering, should I pull the trigger now? Instead of second guessing yourself, ask Sonoa the question and get a clear branded response based on real data and analysis. For those who are interested in looking into what Grainfox offers and of course, using Sonoa, where can they go? Grainfox CA Relay. Welcome back to RealAg Radio here on rural radio channel 147, SiriusXM. I am your host, Lindsay Smith. It is Thursday, March 12th. It is the Farmer Rapid Fire brought to you by Corteva Crop Protection. All right, we head now to. Well, is it Mount Forest? Is it Arthur? I don't know. He'll tell me. We got Shaun Schill on the line. Shaun, where are you from? I'm from the beautiful town of Arthur. That is Arthur. Okay. There you go. I couldn't remember. I wrote down both and I was like, Shaun will tell me if I'm wrong. It's fine. Are you staying dry and warm? It's gross today. Ontario. It's very gross to be in Ontario. We're spending a bit of time outside here about an hour ago and I'm just nice to get myself the chill back out of myself right now. So. Yeah, we've had lots of. Lots of wet weather and yeah, just cold and wet. Has your snow mostly disappeared? Other than the snow piles that we have in the yard? Pretty much all the snow's gone in our area outside of, you know, around the outside edge of the fields or whatever. But yeah, the snow disappeared. It actually went away really nice. Like, we didn't have a lot of rainfall, just warm weather and kind of left. But last night and today it's just been raining pretty, pretty hard and constant. So it's. It's definitely a gross day. Mm. But let's hope that, you know, this is just. We're in for like, kind of a cool, wet seven to 10 days and then it's gonna be beautiful, like right on out. Yeah. Yeah, I'll take your word on that. Okay. That's what I'm hoping for anyway. I don't know. The forecast may not be in line with what I think. What's keeping you busy then, other than hiding from the Gross weather? Well, yeah, it's that time of year. Yeah. You kind of get the inkling that you better start getting yourself ready for the year. So now we've got most everybody in the shop and getting some equipment ready and a few shop projects that we had planned, trying to finish them up and. Yeah, then you spend a bit of time in the office finalising some, you know, crop production projections and what you want to do for the year and getting everything kind of nailed down so that when the weather isn't gross, we are ready to roll. And this is. It's been an interesting couple weeks, to say the least. As far as energy prices, fertiliser discussions, crop prices too. Where. How has that sort of impacted your planning? Are you relatively in a good spot as far as, like, supply and pricing? We'll talk about grain in a minute. But like, on the supply side for fuel and fertiliser, how are you sitting back in January? I normally do it in January, not necessarily always in January, it's more of a price thing, but in January I did fix 75% of our fuel needs at that time for the year. So I'm in a good position on our fuel needs for the year. Fertiliser, you know, we've had some stuff booked and we have our initial needs kind of taken care of on nitrogen, which would be more our winter wheat and our first pass on canola and. Or corn, but we haven't got all our nitrogen locked in at this point. We had some discussions with retailers, with our. With our people that we work with, and I think that we're going to probably find that most of them are covered at this time. So depending on, you know, what the prices look like. But some of this has also changed some of our cropping dynamics as well. Like, obviously the grain markets are moving in different directions as well. So what we were thinking about doing, you know, two, two and a half months ago is. Is certainly changing today based on, you know, the cost of fertiliser maybe going up on us and markets changing some of our margins on certain crops. How much? Like, as a percentage, how much of your acres do you think are relatively easy to swap out or switch? We are pretty flexible this year, more so than any other year, generally. I'm trying to get to the point where I want to make sure we're sticking somewhat to our rotation, but we could probably easily flex 30, 30% of our acres one way or the other at this point in time. So obviously I haven't gotten in the office yet this week to do it. But, you know, we're watching the soybean market do what it's doing and you're watching Nigen or you're. You're looking at potential risk on the fertiliser and nitrogen market as well. And if energy markets are obviously certain crops take different types of amounts of energy to work with as well. So if you want to really get down to it, soybeans are starting to become more of an attractive crop on just taking some more of that unknown risk off the table, I would say. Yeah. And the market's moving in a way that is trying to attract. Attract growers to, you know, maintain some soybean acres. Of course, then you're growing soybeans, Shaun. But I don't judge. It's fine now. But that does bring me to my question of the week. And when I looked at the list of farmers I had lined up, I was pretty excited about this one, that my question is, with all that's been happening in the world for the past two weeks and what grain prices are doing, has that pushed you to maybe sell some new crop more than maybe you would have? Are you sticking with your marketing plan? How has it maybe changed your, you know, sales on new crop? Well, if you consider like even in the last fall and in the early part of this year that there really wasn't much what you would call any improvement, significant positive margins on crop, you know, everybody's cost and expense side and dynamics of their business are different, you know, from grower to grower. But, you know, the reality is, is that, you know, on average, there wasn't a lot of profitability. You know, we're certainly getting to a point where there's profitability. It's not huge profitability, but some profitability is better than none. Right. And I'm not really. I'm selling. We're obviously doing incremental like we've always done in the past, and we'll incrementally sell into this rally. So, you know, obviously we're. I'm not selling any more aggressively than I normally would. I think, you know, we're the upside, it could fade away at any time. But I'm really hoping that, you know, we're going to be probably 30 to 40% sold going in the spring on majority of our crops. And we're hoping that, you know, that's one of our, you know, our weaker sales per se, across the board. Right. Depends on the crop, too. Like some crops, there may be a stronger margin or, you know, return there that you should probably lock down a few more bushels on. But my goal right this point in time, we're well on our way to having about 30 to 40% of our crop book before we put a drill or a planner in the field. And is that, is that pretty much in line with most years? Like you're. So it sounds to me like you're, you're pretty much sticking with the plan, but your plan already has sort of spread out your risk of, of locking in some of these sales throughout the year. Yeah, for sure. Like I would say that like on the corn soybean front, we're probably more of an average, you know, getting in front of some of some pre sells on crop here. Wheat, we're being a little bit more aggressive. Wheat has really kind of turned on here in a way that, you know, we're probably going to be about 50% sold going into. While we are, we're basically 50% sold at this point in time. And we'll look for some more opportunity before harvest to maybe get another 25 sold at that point. And you know, if the right numbers come along, I'll be almost 100% sold on wheat going into harvest and then maybe even be selling 27 wheat as well at that point. So yeah, it depends on the crop. Yeah, we're a little bit more aggressive on the wheat side. We're probably more typical on our soybean and corn crop and then we have, you know, the other crops that we grow, but those are more of a contracted scenario, which. Yeah, but yeah, I would say that we're probably a little bit more than just a shade more than being typically sold at this point. Okay. It's fascinating to hear how everyone's sort of handling this and I'm just, I for one am. You know, there's a lot of negativity out there. At least there's a bit of a silver lining here on the crop price side. I don't know if it's enough to make up for the fertiliser and the diesel side, but it sounds like maybe, maybe we're close. Well, and like I said, you know, it's. The crop dynamics are going to probably change and they're even going to change for me. How, you know, the acre balance happens here in the next probably, you know, month and a half before we're actually in the field and the markets will shift some of my, my thought process. So, you know, if we decide to get a little heavier on the soybean acreage front, well, then we, you know, we'll sell that like we're not going to switch acres without having some type of forward sale done on that decision. Which then you know, you're, if you're doing that and you're taking away from corn acres or something, then all of a sudden you've, you know, your pre selling corn has, you know, become a heavy percentage of what your crop total growth is. Right. So yeah, like, I mean there's going to be certainly some changes in the next, I would say month and a half and that just not myself imagine most growers are, are really looking at it and trying to figure out where the best, where the best fits gonna be for the most part, barring not getting totally out of rotation. Right. Yeah, I have the ability like just in our operation with, with the acre base that we have to swing, you know, significantly one way or the other and just it we can do that. But some operations are, you know, they're really more rigid on the rotation side so they kind of have to stay within that just because of the, you know, their dynamics. But yeah, it's, it's an interesting time. It's a sad time at one, you know, in the same sense too. Right. Like, I mean there's all this turmoil in the world and the last time we had, you know, war and turmoil, you know, I felt almost guilty as you know, we were selling very good production numbers because the reason why we were doing that was somebody was getting bombed somewhere. Right. That's where it's sad to benefit off of things like that. But you know, at the same time you have to look after your business too. Mm. No, I hear ya. It's, that's. I mean it'd be great if it were for really great reasons, but at the same time you've got bills to pay and this is the market you're handed, so you've got to manage your risk however you can. Right. So yeah, and risk is definitely elevated right now. Like there's no two ways about it. You know, energy, markets, the whole, this whole geopolitical thing is something that even I can't grasp. Well, you know, at the end of the day is I got to look at the end, you know, kind of the finish line and say, hey, you know what? I don't know where this thing all lands and we want to be here next year. So you know, are we, have we got a reasonable margin right now that we can attract ourselves to or you know, lock ourselves into and you know, make sure that we are here next year? Mm. And if you really Want to throw? You know it. Throw caution in the wind. You could get sheep. So there you go. We'll leave it there. Okay. Shaun Chill from Arthur, Ontario, thank you so much for joining me today. Yep, take care. We are going to take a quick break here on the Farmer Rapid Fire brought to you by Corteva Crop Protection. And I'll be back with more right after this. Looking for expert insights to power smarter decisions on your farm? The dirtt podcast features industry voices diving into what matters most. 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The Pulse School on RealAgriculture.com has everything you need to make the best choice for you and your farm on demand videos with leading industry experts available anywhere, anytime. Go into the season confident and ready with the Pulse School on RealAgriculture.com. Welcome back to Real Life Radio here on world radio channel 147, Sirius XM. It is Thursday, March 12th. I am your host, Lindsay Smith. And Thursdays, of course, are the Farmer Rapid Fire brought to you by Corteva Crop Protection. All right, we head to near St. Francis Xavier, Manitoba. I've got Gunter Joakim on the line. Gunter, how was the dentist today? Oh, my gosh, it was great, but no pain yet. Okay, but I'm also full of drugs, right? Half my face is kind of falling off. And if you would see me, I'm drooling profusely. I should have a tip on. Yeah, this is just audio, everybody. So there you go. We've caught Gunter in a happy state. Opposed dentist. So other than too much dental work, what's keeping you busy this week? Actually, we on the farm, we brought in some seed. So we have all our seed and like our cereal seeds Oats and wheat brought the last in today. We, we're still supposed to receive some fertilising yet, but most of it is on the farm. So we're good there, we're good on our inputs. Fuel, we don't have a lot of fuel storage, so that's a bit of a concern, but, you know, whatever. So that concern is with everyone. And there's ways we can save fuel, but there isn't really a good way to save fertiliser. We're already, you know, we're already doing our very best, I think, to only apply as much fertiliser as we need. So the spike in fertiliser prices from last fall to now, with this war going on, you know, there isn't really a heck of a lot we can do other than thank goodness we booked our fertiliser all last summer and last fall. But going forward, you know, we're already variable rate applying. We're already, you know, soil testing to make sure we don't over apply and just apply enough to get a really good crop. Right. To be as efficient as we can. So on that side we're kind of stuck. And yeah, it's, it can. It's gonna be a little bit ugly forward, I think. So now, when it comes to, as you mentioned, you know, not everyone has, you know, extra fuel storage necessarily. What are some of your best fuel saving tips? Does this mean no recreational tillage? Is that what it means? Absolutely. And we've already practised that in the past. This past fall, we had some issues with a couple of fields, so we had to do some tillage. And right after we did the tillage, I was already having a few regrets. And the reason being because it's been very windy last fall, this winter, even a couple of weeks ago, the wind like crazy. We have good snow cover, so it's not a problem yet. But going into spring and summer, any of those exposed fields, right, there will be soil blowing and. And you can't have that. And there is no need for that. Right, I get it. Like, we do targeted tillage. We don't do tillage because grandpa or my dad did it. We do tillage because we have to fix ruts, maybe some compaction. And even to fix compaction, you can deep rip with tools now that don't leave a lot of bare soil laying around. So we actually do a fair bit of zero till or direct seeding into standing stubble. Not really zero till, but direct seeding into standing double or we just do light tillage in the fall, we do no tillage in the spring. None. We don't do tillage to dry out our soils. Heck no. We, we wait an extra three, four days. It's that that has proven to be very effective. Like seed into a proper seed bed. Good conditions, like there's enough time at the end of June to mud it in. When you're into crop insurance already early on in the year. We know, we try to, we try to do things right rather than hey, look everyone, we're done seeding. Yeah. You don't have to be the first one done. That's right. And I mean you are in an area with pretty heavy soil and you get good moisture. So I mean, you are saying this, recognising that like it may be wet at seeding time. Oh yeah, very wet. And, and you have to be very, very patient. And so when, when you do this really minimum till or almost zero till or zero till you have to be. Yeah, that starts in the fall already. Like at harvest. At harvest, not after harvest. At harvest. The straw management and a tree management is imperative is so important because you screw up there and ask me how I know if you screw up there, it's really hard to minimum till or zero till because you're going to have a disaster on your hands in the spring trying to see through a layer of 3 to 4 inches of thick Thatcher straw. And it just doesn't work right now you mentioned of course, how you're managing with fuel prices, fertiliser prices as well. My question this week is, you know, grain prices have also of course been reacting to world events, etc. Has that triggered a change in your marketing plan? Have you priced some new crop? Have you stuck with your plan? How has that maybe impacted the grain sales side of the business? For the most part, we stuck with, with our plan. We, we had a couple of targets trigger this week and, and yeah, I could sit here and go, Lindsay, we screwed up. Like we screwed up. We, we sold. But you know why we sold? We sold because it was part of our marketing strategy. Right. We sold some old crop and we priced some new crop. And like I said, we have all our fertility inputs we have bought and paid for. We actually have some in crop inputs paid for already as well. And so it's, that's in our budget. So we haven't adjusted our budgets a lot. What we've done is I've gone back into some of the budgets and I upped our fuel expense per acre by 30% and, and see how that changed the budget. And so we've, we pulled some of the targets off and, and we're waiting because we're still in a rising market. But like I said, I'm not upset at what triggered this this week. It's, it's good we're in the money there and, but going forward, you know, we're, we just move some of those targets up because our budgets change. So overall, no, if you have a marketing plan, stick to it. Right. You make adjustments. If, if there's some things that are out of your control, if they already all sudden change, like our fuel. Right. I, we had last year's fuel price in there. I can't pre buy a year's worth of fuel. So I bumped our fuel line Item up by 30% and it changed the budget. And so, but going forward, I, you know, it's kind of crappy what's going on there because what is happening over there is out of our control. It's 100% government caused. Right. The US decided to lob some bombs for whatever reason. Not here to discuss that, but that's the reality. Bombs are flying, market gets nervous and right away the market reacts. Markets don't like nervousness, but at the same time it can, it can present opportunities. Right? Yeah. So I could sit here and go, oh geez, you know, fertiliser prices are crazy. And they are like, don't get me wrong, I think they're out of control. But again, have a plan. Don't just sit there going, oh my gosh, like, what's going on? What's going on? We need to do something to bring fertiliser prices down. Well, sure, but right now that won't happen in a few months. There's nothing you can do to influence anyone to lower the fertiliser price. You've also managed what risk you could manage to the best of your ability, which is, I think, a really cool, it's a really important point is that so much of what's happening we have no control over. But you have control over what you do in your own business for risk management. And I mean that's, that's what you can control. Absolutely. And, and you know, I don't go to bed at night going, oh no, the sky is falling, or wake up and hear some other catastrophe that happened overnight. And you go, oh, like we're done for. No, never. I go, okay, what's happening? So you take a breather and, and you step back. What can I do at my farm to mitigate what could happen down the line, what can I do on my farm, right, to make it better and react that way. Okay, we're gonna leave it there, Gunter. Maybe have a nap or if you're feeling really great, just, I don't know, paint a room or something. With all this feel good. I said to my, my kids this week we have dinner club and we have a wedding to go to and the medication I'm taking. Yeah, yeah, you got it. That's right. I'm stuck with water, so that'll be awesome. Oh, your liver will thank you. All right, Gudru, take care. Thanks so much for joining me. You bet. We're going to take a quick break here on the Farmer Rapid Fire brought to you by Corteva. 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These products offer higher active ingredient concentrations imitator brands can't match. See the difference at Defendyourn ca. Welcome back to RealAg Radio here on rural radio channel 147, SiriusXM. It is Thursday, March 12. It is the Farmer Rapid Fire brought to you by Corteva Crop Protection. No one protects your crops like Corteva. Cheque out our full acre solutions for cereals and canola at Corteva Ca. And joining me now from near Trochu, Alberta, I've got John Kowalchik on the line. John, how are you? Oh, I'm doing good, Lindsey. How about you? I'm doing well. What's keeping you busy this week? I'm staying out of that. A little bit of a breeze outside and doing some work in my shop. Working on some on a little service trailer. I'm getting ready for spring, so. With some fuel tanks and stuff on it, so working on that. When you say a little breeze, I feel like you're downplaying how much of a breeze it really is. I can hear it whistling by the building. Yeah, it's a bit, but it's not quite Lethbridge windy, but it's central Alberta windy. Okay, There you go. Yeah. Now, and this, the service trailer project, has this been an all winter thing or is this a new one to keep you busy till it's time to roll? Yeah, no, it's been kind of an ongoing thing all winter, so I got a wave here in February a bit, so I've been gone. So I'm just kind of catching up on some of that. So get that. Get that kicked out of the shop so I can work on some other stuff. So. Mm. Always nice to have a project on the go. Better when it goes well. So. Yeah, let's hope that that's the case. Are you all ready then for. You've got your cropping plan sorted or has the last few weeks sort of maybe made you go back and look depending on what crop prices have done? Well, I don't really have a lot of wiggle room on my. As far as rotation and stuff, so I'm pretty much set on that. But I don't change a lot, so it doesn't really affect me. The pricing right now, it didn't make me decide to do anything different as far as what crops to grow, but what it did do is it gave an opportunity to maybe feel a little bit better about growing some Canola. So I was able to do some. Some pricing for next fall. So it's a good opportunity right now to take advantage of this and definitely some of this turmoil in the world, it can. It can hurt us on one side, but it can also open up opportunities too, so. Mm. And was Canola. Was Canola the one that perhaps was a bit tougher as far as budgets went? I'm hearing some really different sort of storeys depending on where you farm, as to whether or not Canola was one of the stinkers? Not for sure. And it comes down to yield, right. Because it's not just the price per bushel. We got to look at average yields and stuff and. And our cereals did very well last year, so Canola didn't do quite as well. So to match up the numbers a little bit more on. On profits, I guess you, if you can increase the yield rate, you can take a lower price. So for me, I Needed. I had poor, poor canola crops last year. So I'm kind of going off averages and looking at crop insurance averages and using that as a line for net returns. And so the new pricing that we're getting now for next fall is definitely helping with those numbers and getting it probably closer to the returns we're getting on same malt barley and stuff like that. So that is actually my question this week. Has had, or has the last week to two weeks of price moves changed how much new crop or triggered some new crop sales or are you sticking with a more regular market marketing plan that you would have? So would you say it has, has changed and triggered some sales? Mm, yes, for sure. And even some, some old crop stuff too. Cleaning up that. I think it's going to do a great job probably for us in western Canada to help clean up some of this carryover that we're getting because there was going to be lots of canola carryover, I would guess. So it's, it's nice to see the price of old crop go up as well because I think long term that will help us for sure. I think. Yeah. There, there's no shortage of canola in the landscape, is there? It's. There's a lot out there. Yeah. It needs to do some moving, so. So that works. Now you mentioned you grow malt barley as well and did that do well last year? Malt barley is one of those ones that I think you guys that do it well always do it well and then on the fringes it's a bit of a challenge. Yes. It's. There's definitely more hoops jump through growing malt barley and, and some people don't really like that, but it's something I've been doing forever, so it's not a big deal. Having to do a little bit more traceability and also watching nutrient levels in the soil and protein levels in the barley. Right. So we've been able to grow fairly good high quality malt barley in this area for quite a while last year with the timely rains we got. We also got a decent yield on, on the barley and the wheat. So that definitely helps the number. So I would say consistently over the last 10 to 15 years, malt barley is probably one of my best crops. So yeah, it's always fascinating to me that like wheat and barley are almost opposites. Right. In wheat you're trying to get the highest protein you can and in barley you don't want it too high and you don't want it to fall over. Yes. Yes, that's right. It is a little bit different. You have to treat them a little different. And thankfully my soil here, well, maybe not thankfully but I have trouble even growing high protein wheat. So I'm lucky that way for the malt barley side of it and not so lucky when there's. You're starting to get cut back on what you get paid on your wheat because your protein levels are low. So. But, but for sure my area has been fortunate that way for growing malt barley because has been one that in the past we haven't had to rely so much on our canola to carry the farm. It A lot of farms I think in western Canada there the last few years have had to rely on it so much. So I'm thankful that we had malt barley to kind of help out with that. And, and I mean you are in as you said, I mean an area that does very well. Where does your malt barley typically go? It goes to it's Alex in Rawr or Rahr in Alex Storey. The company is, is the main one that it goes to. But last year we had multiple people looking for malt barley right at harvest. So it worked well. Any overages I was able to market and it made it a lot easier to get rid of a little extra malt barley right at harvest and it helped with storage. So there was, there was a demand. It was weird. It was right at harvest, everybody wanted it. So and that was kind of nice in a way. But that doesn't happen very often. I was going to say it's nice to be able to run it through wine company. So. Yeah. And that, I mean it is malt barley is also one of those ones that, you know, it can maybe go into storage. Okay. But it doesn't always stay okay in storage. Right, right. Yes. There's definitely a few tricks there as far as monitoring it closely and also having aeration and making sure it's in good condition going into the bins. I have a grain dryer so it's always about conditioning the grain and learning how to do that properly for long term storage because we very often hold it for eight or nine months. Pretty easy. Yeah, that's. It's a long time. And that I think for a lot of. Well, I know for people here, maybe in eastern Ontario or eastern Canada, they don't realise what all goes into making malt. It is fascinating stuff and it smells great when you're malting it. Yes, it is pretty cool. Yes, super cool. We like it. It makes beer and that's good. Yeah. Okay, John, we're gonna leave it there. Thank you so much for joining me on the Farmer Rapid Fire. Have a great week. You bet. You too, Lindsey. We are gonna take a quick break here on Reel ag radio on Roar radio, channel147, SiriusXM. And we will pause the Farmer Rapid Fire to hop off to Saskatchewan. And we've got Trevor Herzog with Corteva on right after this. And they're off. It's Bollinger Canola on the inside followed by hemp nettle, flixweed, buckwheat and narrowleaf dogs Beard. This is one tough field folks. But hold the phone here because here comes Prospect Herbicide making a move on the outside and eliminating the contact competition one by one. And now way out in front, it's Canola for the win. With two powerful modes of action. Glyphosate friendly Prospect provides exceptional control of broadleaf and grassy weeds to get your Canola off to the best start possible. As far at your local retailer. Co Op has been beside local farmers and ranchers for generations. With Western Canada's largest fuel network and a team of local agronomy experts, Co Op is built to keep your operations moving forward. With deep local knowledge of the factors affecting your farm. We're ready to provide trusted advice in the field and on the ground. Count on Co Op to support your entire operation from season to season. Co Op here for your farm, here for your family. Visit your Co Op Agro centre to talk to a team member today. Welcome back to Reality Ag radio here on Real Radio channel 147, SiriusXM. It is Thursday, March 12th. I am Lindsay Smith with Real Agriculture. Joining me now is Trevor Herzog. He is the pioneer agronomy lead for Western Canada based in east central Saskatchewan near Yorkton. Trevor, how are you? I'm doing very well. I've got a beautiful sunny day here in east central Saskatchewan today. You are living in the charm today part of Canada right now because I have the opposite. So there you go. You know on today's show though we did hear quite a bit, of course consternation, some, some risk over fuel prices, fertiliser prices really across the board for some farmers. They've already pre priced so they're in a bit of better shape as far as fertiliser goes. But there's plenty out there that maybe, plenty farmers out there that maybe did not pull the trigger on some nitrogen. What are you hearing? What are farmers grappling with this week? Yeah, we've, we've been having some conversations with our customers and you're 100% correct. You know, you'll think back to the fall, let's say on average we would have been experiencing about a thousand bucks a tonne on nitrogen. And that's a pretty hard pill to swallow at that price. And so some customers were, were not booking their nitrogen fertiliser at that time. And now here we are today is 1200 bucks a tonne and we're two months away or a month and a half away from hitting the field. So, so that's a, that's a head scratcher at the moment. And what we're hearing from customers is what are my options when fertiliser prices are that high? And we're starting to get a few more questions actually about pulse crops, one of those being soybeans. And you know, soybeans certainly have a fit. We tend to rely a little bit on moisture in August to help us fill those pods. But, but we are getting asked quite a bit about soybeans as an option right now as a lower nitrogen using crop for artificial, you know, fertiliser sources. So, so that's, that's an interesting conversation. We certainly have lots of options to talk through them, but if they haven't grown it before, there's, there's a lot of agronomy sort of factors to be considered in that. So it is not necessarily a slam dunk for all areas. But, but there may not be other pulse options that are slam dunk either. Right. So yeah, it's a, it's a much different conversation now. The other, the other thing I think, because I think soybean acres and or pulses become of course much more attractive when fertiliser nitrogen prices specifically are high. We have seen though some shifts in other costs like diesel, but grain prices have changed too and it's got some looking at, you know, perhaps squeezing some of these rotations to not being a rotation at all. What are you hearing as far as, you know, how crop rotation may change and what are some of the watch outs there? Crop rotations are always so tricky and every operation needs to look at their bottom line and what's going to get them through the next year while trying to keep long term in mind. This is, this is not something that Ed McGram should recommend. But you know, customers are getting forced into areas that they don't normally like to think about and that is canola on canola with only snow in between. And it's not the best scenario to be considering. But when you have to pay bills and land, fertiliser, fuel, everything. All the prices of everything are going up for inputs. It does become a little more common to have that conversation. So really all a customer can do in that situation is really think about your herbicide tolerance systems that you're using in canola. So if last year was Liberty Link, one of the best things you can probably do in a scenario like that that's not ideal is grow optimum gly. So you're looking for another herbicide tolerant system to help manage number one volunteer canola pressure that would come up from your previous crop and reduce your yield. But then the customer will have to be really diligent at keeping an eye on disease, pressure and verticillium, blackleg, sclerotinia, all those main diseases in a tight rotation like that, if environment aligns, those can be hard to manage throughout the season once your crop is already in the ground. You're committed now. So just things to think through. Talk to your local agronomist about those things. They'll be able to help you out. And the pioneer agencies in western Canada are there to assist with that as well. I think it's important to note that this isn't ever a recommended thing. If anything, we want to stretch those canola rotations, but reality is what it is and at times you may have to deal with this on a field by field or farm by farm basis of what they decide to do this year with things changing so rapidly right now, the common saying is economics trump agronomics sometimes and this could be one of those situations. So yeah, absolutely. Okay, we're going to leave it there a lot to think about. But as you said, call your rep, have that conversation, make sure you you sort of planned or pencilled in potentially those added maybe fungicide passes or something along those lines that may end up factoring in. And Trevor, we'll cheque back again in a couple weeks and see where we're at. Absolutely. Thanks for the opportunity. Catch you later. All right, that does it for another edition of the Farmer Rapid Fire, brought to you by Corteva Crop Protection. I have been your host, Lindsay Smith. If you've got feedback on today's show, 1-855-776-6147. You can drop us a text or leave us a message or you can always send me an email. Elsmith realagriculture.com and I will be back on tomorrow's issues panel 4:30 Eastern right here on ROAR radio channel 147. Sa.