RealAg Radio: War's ongoing impact on prices, and where tech fits in pest management, Mar 24, 2026

This Real Egg Radio podcast is brought to you by High Performing Carbine Insecticide from fmc. Carbine Insecticide delivers fast, selective and extended control of aphids and alfalfa and pulses, leaving beneficials like lady beetles to help in the fight. Ask your retailer. Today it's time for Real Egg Radio on rural radio channel 147 on Sirius. RealAg 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. And welcome to RealAg Radio here on Rural Radio 147. SiriusXM. Shaun Haney, your host here on this Tuesday edition of the show. Hey, thanks so much everybody for making Real Life Radio and Rural Radio 147 a big part of your workday. Highly appreciate you tuning in and a big show to every listening out there on the Real Light Radio podcast as well. Well, we got, we're have some fun here today. We, we got a lot to discuss and of course we're going to cheque in on what some of the continued impacts are on the markets when it comes to the war in Iran. We're in the middle of not necessarily a ceasefire, but a pause on US Strikes on some of those Iranian energy sites and the power plants and things like that. President Trump says that the US Is in negotiations with the Iranians. Iranians deny that those negotiations are going on. Having put all that out there, what is the impact when it comes to the market and how close are we are, how close are we to a reopening back to normal of the Strait of Hormuz? Everyone's watching that very, very closely. On top of when will there be some sort of peace agreement when it comes to Iran, just in general, we heard from Jacob Shapiro going back a couple weeks ago that potentially the war in Iran and the Strait of Hormuz are on separate trajectories. Well, today's guest, we're going to get some of his opinions on all this as well and also the upcoming potential meeting between China and the US and we'll try to tie that back to Canada as, as well. So we'll be joined today by Arlan Suderman of Stonex. Always appreciate Arlen's commentary, his insights. He is, he's got people on the ground all over the place at Stonex. So he comes with some real, real on the ground knowledge for sure. So looking forward to talking to Arlen. We're also going to hear today a product spotlight with Berg. You've been hearing their reads here on the show for a number of different weeks. Curtis de Goyer is going to be with us here today. He's their head agronomist and he's doing a lot of great work, not only in Canada, but also in the US and looking at how Burgos Technologies are really, really they're cutting the swath into the US as well, especially in some of those states where there is winter wheat, potentially canola and crops like that. So we're gonna hear from Curtis on that today and then we're gonna play for you on listening here on Rural Radio, a port most recent pest and predator podcast with Dr. Shaun Prager and Teresa Aguirre Cordero. So looking forward to that. And it' sit's brought to you by the wgrf, the Western Grain Research Foundation. They make pests and predator podcasts possible. So looking forward to having those discussions today about some pests bugging the pulse crops and how do we judge some of the economics of all that? If you have any feedback on today's show, you can send me an email shaneeyealagriculture.com youm can also text or call the RealAg feedback line, 855-776-6147. And broadcasting today from Ames, Iowa, yes, I'm on the campus of Iowa State Cyclones in the Sweet sixteen, if you follow college basketball. You know, I came to Iowa and all that's happened since I got here is the basketball teams have been winning. Iowa University, the Hawkeyes, they won on Sunday. The Cyclones from Iowa State, they beat Kentucky on Sunday. So in both of the games, crazy wild. And boy, if you're into March Madness, it has been a fantastic tournament. My bracket bombing, terrible, just awful. I usually, I'm pretty good at this when it comes to March Madness in the brackets, like I can hold my own. I hang in there longer than maybe I deserve to. This year, it has been the exact opposite. I am a flop. I don't know what I was thinking when I was picking my brackets. I had three brackets. Each of my winners are still in there. But I'll tell you, it's, it's not looking very good when it comes to the rest of that bracket shaping up. I'm gonna need my winners to come through if I'm gonna place it all very well. In my family challenge. I didn't enter any of the other ones. Like, I just how many brackets kingdom person really have? We just have a family one going and there's some of my kids are doing much better than I am. That's, that's all I have to say. They, they appear to know what they're talking about. I should maybe just stick with agriculture. But I am speaking here today in Ames, Iowa at Iowa State University. It's the Iowa Ag Bankers. The Iowa Bankers association is having their ag meeting and yesterday they had a great agenda. Dr. David Cole was here, very, very notorious, famous farm management speaker from Virginia Tech. He was here and who else was? Oh, there was a policy update from the head of government policy with the Bankers association that was really good. And yeah, I'm speaking about bankers and account management and trying to talk about technology with the farming audience. So looking forward to that. It's going to be a lot of fun. Went to the reception last night, met a tonne of the bankers that were there and of course don't need to tell you there's a lot of concern when it comes to the, the state of farm economics. Of course, when we look at the proteins, things look great or much better relative to what we're seeing here on, on the cropping side. Cropping side is definitely a concern, but a lot of great conversations and some people doing some good work out there in those rural communities with the community bank. So looking forward to my conversation today at the banking meeting here in Ames, Iowa. Okay, let's take a break. When we come back, we're going to talk to Arlen Suderman from Stonex, find out what his opinion is of what's going on not only on the input side, the cost side, but also the markets relative to that strain of her moose. And just make sure we have all the insights we need to make some decisions on our farms and ranches across North America. Back right after this. If you're serious about agriculture, Real Ag's got you covered. For over 10 years we've listened to and shared more producers have to say about everything from policy to agronomy, from coast to coast. Keep up with the latest in Canadian [email protected] through daily newsletters and cheque out our YouTube channel. Thanks for joining us in the Real I community as we continue to cover and serve North American agriculture. It's now time for a product spotlight, joined right now by Cocoa Economic Services. Bryce Geisel. What's the key takeaway for growers heading into this season on this topic? That nitrogen management strategy is really going to be different, farm by farm, depending on all those different things that go into it. Want to make sure that you're using the right product for the Right application. We have a lot of different options that farmers can use, depending on how they're using their nitrogen. It's going to help reduce those losses and making sure that people are using the products that are going to fit for the application, not trying to use the wrong product in the wrong way. If you are new to top dressing or you haven't looked at it, or maybe you've been doing it and you haven't even realised that nitrogen loss is a concern, I really encourage you to look at utilising a urease inhibitor again. An example that would be Anvil nitrogen stabiliser to help make sure we reduce those volatilization losses. So to learn more about protecting your nitrogen investment, make sure you go to defend your NCA or talk to your local retailer. And welcome back to Re Lag Radio. With deep roots in agriculture, MMP, MMP's Agrisk management team helps producers protect their bottom line through smart, proactive risk planning. From agristability agrivest to tailored private insurance Strategies, M&Ps Ag risk advisors simplify complex programmes and build customised plans to fit your farm. Strengthen your operation with confidence. Connect with MMP today, wherever you are in Canada, by going to MNP ca. Let's talk about what's going on in the markets. There's no shortage of things and how. What's all impacting what's happening with commodity prices on the input side, but also, of course, when it comes to some of the commodities that we are growing in, our fields are about to put into the ground. Joining us to break it all down and provide us with great insight is Arlan Suderman from Stonex. How we doing today, Arlan? Good to be with you again, Shaun. You're right, there's a lot to talk about. You having fun yet? Oh, I am. You know, from a pure student of the markets, it is fun. I know it's very frustrating to both producers and end users. Though we are getting to like, a month into the Iran war, what would be your biggest surprise of what? Like some of the reaction, like from a. From a market perspective, is, is there anything that's really like, whoa, didn't see that. I don't know. From a market standpoint, I think it surprised me how easily people are swayed by headlines. When you get in a war, there's a lot of misleading stuff that's out there. There's a lot of. Call it, I'd say it this way, both sides, in any war, both sides are going to use the media to fight battles in Two fronts, the battle front and the public opinion front. And they're going to put information out there. And sometimes the information is meant to distract from another objective and sometimes it's actual truth and you have to be able to discern from that. And the way people, the way people in the markets are simply swayed by the head headlines, this way or that way thinking, is there no strategy or whatever. And I think that you have to learn in a wartime to take everything with a grain of salt in the context of what you observe and interpret it in that way. Hey, we're recording this on Monday afternoon. A great example is Monday morning where President Trump says, hey, five day delay here on these energy sites, bombings, we are going to go, we're negotiating, in the process of negotiating. And Tehran says, I don't know what you're talking about. We're not negotiating at all. There's a really good example. Yeah, there is. And first of all, we'll look at it from the President Trump's side. Are we talking, are we negotiating or is this a distraction for troop movement somewhere else? We've certainly seen times this over the past year when he had a conflict with a country and he would say one thing is a distraction to set the stage for being able to catch an opponent off guard somewhere else. That's one possibility. Looking at it from Iran's standpoint, if they hope to survive, and I would anticipate they have the hope of surviving, then they cannot appear weak. They have to look like anything that happens was their idea or something that they drove in order to continue to sustain the support of their support base, whether that's Revolutionary Guard or whoever that may be. And so they might be negotiating but not want anyone else to know. But you also likely have different factions within Iran and we may be negotiating with one faction and that faction may not even the Iranian Guard may not know that they're negotiating type of a thing. So all of those are possibilities. And so there again, we simply have to say, okay, what do we observe happening? And it tells us, if nothing else, that we seem to be coming to some inflection point, that the end is probably closer rather than further away, probably in the days and weeks ahead rather than the months ahead. Are the markets reacting then as expected here? I would say so. We, of course had the immediate reaction on Monday morning of seeing a total collapse of crude oil prices, stocks surging higher, treasury yields that had been higher at 8 and 9 month highs earlier overnight, falling, plummeting and then bouncing back. And then when Iran came out with its counter statement. We saw some type of a rebound on that of what, you know, if they were higher coming back, et cetera. So I think they're trying to generate all that or to try to digest all of that, so to speak. One thing is clear, as I had been saying, the grain and oil seeds, the rallying grain and oil seeds probably ends whenever the rally in crude oil ends. And I think we saw that really certainly play out, particularly for corn and wheat. When crude oil collapsed, corn and wheat did as well. Soybeans, though, do have another storey in the anticipated release of the RVO's, the blending requirements, et cetera, later this week. And so that gave them a little bit of support in the midst of that pressure. Are you pretty confident we're going to see those 26, 27 RVO's this week? I am. Lee Zeldin, who's head of the epa, did come out again today and say it is going to happen by the end of March. So we fully expected that. But why would the White House have a big celebration of ag event on Friday, which is still on as of this moment as we're talking, if they didn't expect to have a major announcement to celebrate? So I fully expect it on Friday if it doesn't get leaked out before. And obviously something that they at least believe will be very positive for farmers and for the biofuel producers, since that's who they invited to this event. Well, the President went to Iowa and he didn't. You know, we were expecting some around E15 and he kind of punted it, Arlen. So I really hope that that's not what happens on Friday. I really. You're right. Yeah. There was a lot of expectations when he came to Iowa that he would announce at that point, but that wasn't based on anything he said. In this case, the White House invited specifically biofuel producers and farmers and has talked about biofuels as a topic of discussion at the event. So you have a little bit more to go on there to suggest. And, you know, if they knew they were going to do it by March 31, why wouldn't they move it up to March 27 when they have this big event? Because we know this administration loves to draw attention to themselves and that would certainly allow them to do that, E15, the opportunity for access to it year round. If it does happen, does it have the market impacts as many have been kind of promising and hoping for? What are your thoughts on it? Yes and no. The biomass diesel impact should be fairly immediate. Once we get the RVO's as we see production really ramp up for the remainder of the year and into next year if it comes out anywhere close to what we anticipate. The one potential bearish surprise might be there because of inflationary gasoline prices, fuel prices right now, if they'd say, oh, we're three months into the year, so this year's we're going to scale back, that would be a disappointment to the market. On the ethanol front, it's more of a long term benefit because it's not a mandatory, it's a voluntary saying we're going to allow it year round, allowing the infrastructure to get developed and that would allow that demand base to be built. I believe that would happen, but it wouldn't be as immediate for corn as what this RVO's will be for soybean oil, canola oil, etc. Speaking of canola, that has been one of the better performing commodities in our entire North American commodity complex. Arlan. Yeah, and it goes back to the expectations of biofuel demand. And as we look at what we know so far from the 45Z as well as the proposed regulations for the RVO's and everything, it looks like North American feedstocks should receive favourable treatment and particularly with specific expectations or specific wording to try to cut out imported used cooking oil from China or outside of North America, I should say. And so it does look positive. Yes. Yeah. The Canola Council of Canada, the ccga, the Canola Growers of Canada, they've been talking a lot about this UCO in the same way that the American Soybean association has been very much in step. And looking at that from a North American point of view, FP genetics brings new seed genetics to Canadian farms, empowering growers to thrive in ever changing conditions. Visit FPGenetics CA and join thousands of Canadian growers who trust FPGenetics to deliver innovative, reliable seed genetics season after season. Experience the next wave by going to FPGenetics CA. We've got more of my conversation with Arlan Suderman. We come back right after this quick break. Peter Johnson at wheatpeatrealagriculture.com I'm the host of the Word and I love doing the Word. I love the questions, I love the challenges, I love having to apply agronomics to all over the globe and areas outside of my normal jurisdiction. Also, I love the feedback the most. Where growers challenge me, tell me about their plot results, help me to learn the word. Absolutely. The best part of my day. Since 2009, the Canola School on RealAgriculture.com has been providing relevant and timely agronomic advice to anyone involved in canola production. With over 15 years of video content on YouTube, the Canola School has been producers. Go to source for canola agronomy, research, marketing and more. The Canola School is brought to you by BASF and Invigor Hybrid Canola cheque us out on YouTube [email protected]. As you look ahead to the next growing season, there's a lot to consider when it comes to your crop. You need every possible advantage available to you. 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. We're going to get back to more of my conversation with Arlan Suderman of Stonex. But first, the Canadian Agri Food Policy Institute. CAPI is an independent AT think tank bringing together diverse voices to advance future focused policy solutions. By creating a trusted space for dialogue, CAPI helps ensure growth and prosperity for Canadian agri food. You can find out more by visiting capi, which is C A P I CPA CA let's continue my conversation with Arlen Suderman. Speaking of China President Xi, President Trump, there's been pre negotiations in Paris. Will we see a spring meeting here between the two leaders? Yeah, I really believe we will. And I believe that the delay in the meeting has nothing to do with how the trade talks are going and everything to do with the President trying to manage a war day to day without having to deal with the security issues of being in Beijing, let alone the image issues of that. And so I do expect it to happen because I think President Xi needs this to happen because of internal things happening inside of China with the Communist Party and I think President Trump needs this to happen as well. So I do expect it to happen. I don't expect another 8 million metric tonnes of soybeans to be involved in it for this current marketing year. From the start I felt like, you know, because Brazil soybeans are so much cheaper than US soybeans at this point delivered to China, any soybeans, just like the 12 million metric tonnes they've already bought, they'd have to be bought by Sino Grain, the state grain buyer, and then put in the reserve from where they could be auctioned off to crushers. The reserves are full and so I expected that they would offer an alternative of buying other commodities and that then it would be up to Trump how hard he pushed soybeans per se. And it looks to me like that's exactly how it's played out, that they've offered other commodities, non soybean commodities, and President Trump has not pushed him on the soybean side of it. And frankly, if he wants to help the farmers, most American farmers have sold their soybeans already, whereas they still own other commodities. They could benefit more if it's other commodities from that standpoint. So I think it makes some sense from that standpoint. It's a question of timing now. And then what happens to the 25 million metric tonnes of that are expected for next year? One of the interesting things is when you look at this, the Trump administration understands that relationship matters to China. And So during Trump 1.0, the negotiators talked with their counterparts in China daily, seven days a week, had conversations with them, built relationship day in, day out. And then when the Biden administration came in, those communications got shut off. There was radio silence for four years between negotiating teams. And the Trump administration came back in and reached out to Chinese trade negotiators and it's, who are you? So it had gone from a relationship business to transactional business, and now they're trying to reestablish a relationship. So when they're scheduled negotiations, know that those. There's communications going on on almost a daily basis. But those are the actual. Okay, now let's sit down and do the solid negotiating about what we've been talking about. So I do expect something to happen. It just probably won't involve soybeans or not much of it. Now, specific site or just. I think it's Cargill in Brazil where China has said, I think it's foreign material. They've said, is that an indication of, hey, we're back on the American bean train, or what do we read into there? Yeah, the market initially interpreted as that, but I think in this case it was probably literally foreign material. Or China periodically does things like this to try to knock the market and be able to buy something cheaper. And it may have simply been that China had asked Brazil's Ministry of Agriculture to tighten up inspections for what they said were weed seeds that aren't present in China. They didn't want those in the soybeans and some other foreign material. Maybe Brazil had gotten a little too comfortable with the bit doing business with China and not maybe cleaning things as well as they needed. To or whatever, I don't know. But they have straightened out that problem. The beans are flowing once again and it looks like it's something from the past. Okay, well, the weed seed technique as I'll call it, that's exactly what they did on Canadian canola the last time with with two major exporters. And if I remember correctly, one of the weed seeds isn't even found in Canada. It's just. So this seems to be a bit of a pattern here, but I guess it does speak to when the China business on commodities is good and you're in the circle of trust and love, you can do a lot of business, but it doesn't mean you're going to stay there forever. So it's almost like a get it while it's hot kind of scenario for exporters us, Canadian or others. Yeah, absolutely. And I think when it comes to soybeans, the United States is not the low cost producer in the world and that business is going away. I think the opportunity to sell soybeans near term to them is a good segue, so to speak. Or bridge is a better word probably to our domestic demand base that we're building. The risk there is the biofuel programme does have a political component to it. So what if the next administration is not as favourable toward biofuels? That's a risk going forward. But I think if you can have domestic demand versus being dependent upon China, that's always good. But as long as we're not the low cost producer and part of that is currency exchange rates with our strong dollar versus the weak RIA in Brazil, any new markets that we create, we're simply creating new markets for Brazil. I think back to the earlier winter months. A lot of speeches in the U.S. i always had somebody asking questions about currency. There's always some sort of currency nerd in the crowd. You know exactly who I'm talking about, Arlan. They're out there. And there was a lot of optimism from US farmers in the audience about the bearish US dollar because it was going to allow for more opportunity for exports. Now with the Iran war, that has been kind of flipped on its head as all of a sudden the US dollar is back to being viewed as, hey, maybe this isn't going away as the world's reserve currency. How do you see it right now in the direction of the US dollar? I think the biggest problem with the US dollar right now is the euro. If you look at the global currency basket, the dollar cannot go down without the euro going up. But the European Union has enough economic problems that it's very difficult for the euro to go higher. And I think that's going to be the biggest obstacle of getting the US Dollar weak enough to truly be able to compete with Brazil and other countries. Would it be a positive for US Agriculture if that dollar was more bearish? Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. It would help us compete. Yeah. I've been watching the Canadian one of the things I talked about lots is the Canadian dollar and does it, does it lose value to those European currencies as well and stay pegged to the US Dollar? Because it would really be a disadvantage for Canada if it appreciated versus the US Dollar. It would create some hardship. And you're agreeing with that too? Absolutely. Yeah. Cave to wrap up things to watch out for here in the coming week. I think the RVO announcement from the epa, we expect it to come on Friday of this week, certainly by the middle of next week. But Friday makes the most sense right now that I think will be a significant market mover or at least to have that potential to be a market mover one way or the. Our bias is positive, but we'll see then when do we see things really play out with Iran? President Trump is creating an expectation that it be within days. It would be foolish to create that expectation if he didn't know something that is going to happen to make it happen. He could really hurt his credibility by doing that. So I think the market is leaning in that way that we will see something and then see how that plays out for the commodities, be it energy prices and fertiliser prices especially. Yeah, we talked to Josh Linville from your shop quite a bit. And the fertiliser market is just absolutely wild. And one of the things that we've heard from Chicka Shapiro from Bespoke Group is the end of the Iran war as it sits is not necessarily on the same trajectory as the Strait of Hormuz reopening and being back to normal. Do you, do you agree with that? It'll have a long tail. The first step is to get resolution and, and then to reopen the strait. But that's going to take some time. I am into camp that believes that we're seeing much in the way of mining of the strait. But I do think that the drone risk is probably the most significant risk for ships going through there and that's enough to create fear and Iran would like to keep that fear in place as long as they possibly can. And insurance there has to be the appear, you know, the perception of safety in order for those shippers to get insurance. That's one of the key as well. Yeah, and I hear that insurance has pretty much been worked out. It's now more about just being able to physically get through and Iran would like to charge ships to go through there as their revenue source since they're losing a lot of their other crude oil revenue and so they would like to do that. Whether they're successful or not is going to be the key. United States would obviously like to get of rid reopened without Iran getting that leverage. So they wouldn't have the revenue to start building their nuclear programme again and building other missile and military hardware that could be used against the West. Arlen, always love your insights and perspectives. You are so up to date by the minute on some of this stuff that's going on. So hey, thanks a lot for joining us here at RealAg Radio. Thank you Shaun. My pleasure. Great stuff there with Arlen Suderman of Stonex. Really appreciate him joining us today on the show. CDC Evident Durum from Alliance Seed is your clear Choice for Plant 2026. It delivers high grain yield, strong disease resistance and excellent end use suitability. With CDC evident, you'll set a new standard for derm performance. Learn more by going to allianceseed.com or you can call 877-270-2890. Back with more of Reelag Radio right after this quick break. Until you've used Via TUDE fungicide, you'll never know what your canola crop is capable of. Engineered excellence in Every Jug Via Tude combines two powerful actives, Group 11 and 3 for best in class Sclerotinia protection and superior resistance management by penetrating the plant and protecting against infection. Treat your canola crop to a healthy and productive season with VIA2. Ask your local retailer for more information. Before you get back in the field this year. Spend some time with the corn school on realagriculture.com get all the information you need on hybrid selection, planting depth, crop inputs and more from a wide range of industry experts. A massive library of video content is available online demand when you need it most. Spend your time outside of the field inside the classroom with the corn school on realagriculture.com. And welcome back to RealAg Radio. It's now time for a product spotlight with Burgo. There's a lot going on at Burgo and we've different farm shows across North America have been posted. Seeing some great videos and some of their product launches. A lot of stuff happening. Encourage you to cheque that out on the Real Agriculture YouTube channel or@real agriculture.com. but for right now, we've got Curtis De Goyer. He is the agrome manager with Brego. Hey, Curtis, welcome to the show. Hey, thanks for having me on here. Okay, so, hey, right off top, what is it from an agronomy manager standpoint? What are you doing at Brego? Yeah, so up at the Factory here in St. Bruce, Saskatchewan, we've got a good little chunk of land, about 2,000 acres, and it's actually some of the, probably the original land that Borgo got started on, testing equipment and kind of built the way they are now because of this, some of this challenging land. But, you know, the. The thing that we're doing now with that, we've got the equipment, but now we're doing a lot more agronomic trials and using that equipment to, you know, kind of see what, how we can get the most out of the equipment with different fertiliser placement, different seed placement in relation to that fertiliser, and then just understanding that whole seed fertiliser and how we can create some more, some. Some recommendations to give growers on. On our equipment. Yeah, and, and Burgo has made major inroads into a number of US States with crops that you have a lot of expertise in and taking that technology that Bourgault is in that great construction that Borgo is famous for, and bringing it to states like Colorado and Montana and North Dakota and many others. So when we look at the overall agronomy programme, what are some of the features of it? Yeah, so you touched on definitely some newer areas we're going into. And like you said, we've got a lot of experience, let's say, in, say, western Canada, northern Great Plains, on spring crops. Right. We've got canola, we've got wheat, we've got a lot of expertise in that, in those crops in general. And now these new areas, you know, new to us, should say, you know, into Colorado, Kansas. I think that, you know, a lot of our expertise can be used there, but there's some things that we don't know, and I think that's where we can go in on the agronomic side and try to understand the area. What are we trying to accomplish there? What are the growers trying to accomplish? What are some of their limitations? See, where our equipment, like you said, is, you know, it's built strong, is built correctly for certain areas. So we can, we can use that equipment to go in and maybe fix some things or help to solve some problems. In some of those areas, but then also understanding the whole. The whole crop production there and what are some things we can change, our equipment, what are something we can offer in there? And I think that's where we can really set ourselves apart a little bit. And that's what we're excited to do here, here, moving forward. Yeah, and Bergo is. Is big on. On trialling. So what. What are some of the crops that you are typically doing trials in? Yeah, spring canola, spring wheat is majority of the ones we do up here in. In Saint Gr. It's kind of our typical crops. We have done some fall rye trials where we've got some. Some pretty cool results in that. We have tried other crops like, you know, corn, soybeans here, but to be honest with you, it's. They're not suited for up here. So it's tough to do the trials here. And that's why we want to look in different areas to see if we can get into those areas where those crops are, you know, the major crops in certain areas, and then expand our knowledge on the agronomic side there. Yeah, I've travelled across much of the production areas of Colorado and, you know, I think there's a really good fit there, just from one example of, you know, bringing some of the knowledge and, you know, some of the technology that Bergo has to offer to a state like that. So where do you see opportunities in the future for the Burgo agronomy programme? Yeah, we're. We're expanding a little bit, like we said, you know, in a certain area right here, we can do these trials, but now we need to physically move, do trials in other areas. And we're moving south, call it south. We're going Odessa, Saskatchewan. We've got another satellite station kind of going up there. We've got some acres. We're looking into lentils and as we keep going south there, into Colorado, into Kansas, some of the crops that we want to look into, winter wheat, winter canola, to a certain extent, soybean. And to get the full understanding of how we can utilise our equipment with those crops, we just have to be there and, you know, some of the future things we've got on the go, we've got some partnerships that are hopefully going to start up to get some trials down into those locations, into those growing locations. So, yeah, really excited for that. We've actually got another agronomist coming on board too, because, you know, some of these initiatives just require, you know, a few more people out there. Yeah. So for some of our audience in some of the US States, like, you know, they're not as familiar with Virgo as somebody would be, say in western Canada. To those new potential customers in states like Kansas and Colorado. What is from your, from your lens, agronomic lens, what is Burgo known for? Yeah, you know, first and foremost on the equipment side, pretty heavy duty equipment. We've got some, we've got some good equipment. And then more on the agronomic side to your, to your question there, fertiliser placement. We've got a lot of research on, you know, where we can have safe rates of fertiliser going down either with the seed, but we also have these mid row banding options, mid row banders, mid row shanks. And it's just another way to apply fertiliser safely. And I would say that's what Borgo, you know, is known for quite a bit in western Canada. And I think that that's where we want to try some things down into Colorado, Kansas, where we can play with some different fertiliser strategies that, you know, what, maybe, maybe work, maybe don't work, but we want to find out. And that's where I think we've got this opportunity to get there and do some of those trials there. Yeah, for sure. So how do people find out more about what Borgo is up to and maybe find out a little bit more about the product line? Yeah, for sure. You can go on borgo.com There's a lot of great info there. You go on the Agronomy tab and you can see some of the research that we're doing and whether or not again, to your, to your listeners, you know, in certain areas, if it, if it totally, you know, is exactly what they're looking for. But you can get the kind of the concept that we're doing. Right. As far as the trials. We also have a podcast if you, if you want to tune in. We've just got little 20 minute blurps on our podcast and you can hear kind of some of the things that we're, that we're playing with here as well. And we hope to, you know, get down and have some more items, some more topics that are more relevant for some of your listeners. There's people can find the podcast episodes on the website. Yeah, you can find borgo.com or anywhere else. You find your podcast there. Yeah, Spotify, itunes, all that. So yeah, feel free to go search it out. It's Equipped Agronomy. Cool stuff. Equipped Agronomy is the podcast hey Curtis, thanks so much for joining us. Really appreciate it. Hey, thank you very much and yeah, looking forward to speaking to you again. Great stuff. And if you have, do you have any questions, make sure you find your local Burgo dealer. Okay? We're back on RealAg Radio right after this. I'm Lindsay Smith from RealAgriculture.com Join me Monday nights for the Agronomists, a one hour live and interactive show broadcast across YouTube, Facebook and X. Monday nights at 8pm Eastern, I host expert agronomists from all over the country to give you answers to some of the toughest agronomic questions. Join us live or catch the replay Tuesday morning. Morning. That's the Agronomist with me, Lindsay Smith, Monday nights live at 8pm Eastern. Hi, I'm Bernard Tobin, host of the Soybean School on RealAgriculture.com throughout the year on the Soybean School, we'll bring you timely agronomic video content from planting to harvest, from the latest agronomic research to the latest in production technology. Cheque out our massive video library on YouTube real agriculture.com or download the audio podcast versions wherever you get your podcasts. The Soybean School is brought to you by Mak Seeds and Lalamon Plant Care. And welcome back to Real Life Radio here on Royal Radio 147 at SiriusXM. Hey, get instant answers to your grain marketing questions 24, 7, everybody. Sonoa is your AI grain market analyst available anytime to help you understand prices, basis and market trends so you can act with confidence. Start a free trial today and unlock your reel ag listener savings by going to Grain Fox CA realag. Now last week on the programme we heard from Teresa Aguero Cordero, who's a PhD student at the University of Saskatchewan. She was talking all about season seven, the pest and predator podcast. And I can't believe we're already in season season seven, but here we are. Well, in today's we're gonna play you that episode. It's episode 34 in what has been a fantastic long running series talking to entomologists across Canada. And today we're gonna hear some new pulse crop research tied to Lygus bugs and when they cause economic damage and where technology fits into some of your integrated pest management system and those decisions, that decision making. And we got Dr. Shaun Prager, who's an associate professor at the University of Saskatchewan and like I mentioned, PhD student Teresa Aguirre Cordero. Let's get to the discussion. Okay, let's get going here with the Pests and Predator podcast, I guess. Teresa, let's start off with you. What is the main pest management challenge that lentil growers are dealing with right now on the western Canadian prairies? Well, I think that depends. In the thing is that pest pressure in lentils is highly unpredictable because different insect pests respond very different in the weather and the environment. So, for example, in 2020, grasshoppers were one of the most important pests in lentils. But in recent years, like, the numbers have been so low, actually, I was struggling last summer to find enough grasshoppers for experiments. And in the case of aphids, like, now they are, like, their population is very high. And during, like, 23, 24, 25, Lygus bugs also starting drawing, like, more attention in lentil crops. So I think that grasshoppers, Lyges, aphids, but it depends in the year, the weather, et cetera. Yeah. And Shaun, that kind of speaks to the point that we got to just be on our toes, right. Because based on the conditions and those kind of variables, we may be dealing with all of them, none of them different levels of them. Like, we just. We got to be really ready for anything. Exactly, exactly. So even in the time that I've been thinking about pests that eat lentils, what I would have been concerned about, what growers would have told me that they were bothered by, would have changed over the course of years, between years and among years. Right. So. So, yeah, so what's a problem? One year isn't a problem in another, usually driven by. Which is the one that we're trying to fix. Yeah. So, Teresa, let's. I guess, let's hone in on those pests that you mentioned. We got Lygus bugs, we got aphids, we got grasshoppers. They differ. How do they differ? In the way that they damage the lentils. And why does that matter when we're trying to set some of those economic thresholds? They damage lentils in very different ways. So, for example, lygous and aphids both have piercing sock in most parts, but the effect in the plant is very different because in the case of Lygos, they piercing and sucking the plant, and they inject the saliva, and their saliva have enzymes that macerate the plant tissue. So the impact depends first in the crop stage. So in flowering stage, Lygus can cause flower abortion, and during the potting stage, Ligus can damage very young seeds or even leave this kind of chalk pot or Lygus bite on the developed seeds. In the case of aphids, even if they also feed by piercing and sucking, they damage its different, more like indirect, and they cause plant vigour over time. And the important part here is that they can transmit diseases. With grasshoppers, they are completely different because they have chewing mouthparts, so you can saw the damage, like very visible, like in defolation. So these are just differences in feeding behaviour. But we are. They are also very different in how the weather affects them, as we just mentioned. So for me, it's like kind of a puzzle that we need to complete to understand, like a realistic scenario and then like. Yeah, make decisions of how we can manage them. Yeah, Shaun. Yeah, no, I think Theresa is exactly right. Each of them is a problem, Each of them a problem. In some times and over last decade, people have been working, we've been working to try to build the tools for some of those things, but each one is its own problem historically, and some of them weren't problems even a few years ago. So, Shaun, when we look at economic thresholds, we can calculate that based on a bunch of research that people like yourselves have been doing. But for the farmer on the ground, what does that actually mean in real life? I guess there's two ways to think of that. What does it mean if you think about it relative to your farmer, your goal is to maximise your farm profit, really. Right. We think about yield, but really what you want to do is you want to maximise profit. You want to make the most money that you can out of your crop. And obviously the most money comes from having the most crop you can sell for the most money for the highest price per bushel or acre or whatever it is. Having said that, there's inputs and so you also have some amount of money that you need to spend to do that. We always think about it as fertiliser, but it's. So it's the insecticides and the pesticides that we spray as well. Right. What you want to ultimately do is minimise the amount of input. Right. And maximise the amount of output. And the economic thresholds, when it comes down to it, are just a way of giving a more sensible number, something that you can kind of get your head around that should, if you follow it, minimise the number of times you have to apply an insecticide such that you're only really using it when you're actually going to sustain a decrease in yield that's going to cost you money. Right. So basically it lets you have a number that you can pinpoint to say this is when I'm going to start losing money at a greater rate than the cost of what it's going to cost me to fix this problem. So tree said. So adding on top, like let's. In that context, what happens when ligas, aphids and grasshoppers and kind of a worst case scenario, they all show up together, what happens there? Sorry, Shaun, what was that? Well, it's like Dorothy, right? It's grasshoppers, aphids and wagyuz. Oh my. Yeah, go ahead, Teresa. Yeah, they are all together. And at the same time we also have other insects that could be pollinators, that could be predators, parasitoids. So for me, like in the PhD, I'm trying to get kind of a dynamic threshold, like to understand how the presence of other insects can help in the yield. Like, for example, if a lengthier crop, it's at flowering stage, then you need pollinators. So applying pesticide at the wrong time can affect the yield more than the damage caused by the pest itself. Maybe. So it's important to understand how factors like not only environmental factors, temperature, humidity, but also how the natural enemy and the seasonality can influence thresholds. So how could thinking about multiple pests together maybe change the way we make management decisions in the field? Intresa. So one of the experiments that I'm running, it's with drone images. So for example, I survey my microplot, recording all the insects, like the good bugs and the bad bugs, twice a week and at the same thing, talking images by the drone. So my idea is to correlate, for example, the canopy, like all the different indices that we can get from the drone images with the insect population over the time. So this will help us to understand how different pests stress the crop and how that translates into yield loss. So instead of asking do I have enough aphids or ligus or grasshoppers to take action, I would like to start thinking or asking what is the total stress on the crop right now? So maybe like spray is not necessary. Yeah. So thinking it, you call the dynamic threshold, right? Is that, is that how you put that? Yeah, yeah. So not looking at the pests in isolation, but looking at them in totality in terms of what is the actual stress or pressure on the crop given those total population levels at that time. Am I summarising that correctly? Yes, yes. Maybe to make the pest management much more integrate, like unrealistic. Yeah. And where did, like the. Like there's natural, like natural enemies are often kind of overlooked in this integrated pest management programme. As you know, as you just alluded to. So I guess why do you think predators should be treated as a core part of this IPM at this time? So. Go ahead, Shaun. Sorry. I think it's not fair to say they're overlooked. That's not entirely true. They're just. But it's much more difficult to quantify their effect. Okay. Yeah. And so, and so historically you assume they existed, but you didn't directly factor them in. Right. So you assumed, say, the number of insects you had in your field was somehow being altered by them, but in a kind of a mysterious way, it was kind of a black box. Right? Yeah. And the result of that is you can't fine tune things. And the numbers themselves are dynamic. Right. So the numbers of the good bugs you had aren't consistent over the course of the season any more so than the pests are. And so what Teresa is really trying to get around, get her head around, is ways to account for that. Right. And that allows you to fine tune that number more to take out that, that kind of unknown factor. So I'm curious, like, so we consider those beneficials in the canopy there. Okay. Making sure we're considering them. How confident are we that they are going to aggressively do what we think they should be doing in terms of like, you know, being that, that beneficial, that has that, you know, taking care of the insects that they're preying on? Do we have that confidence? No, that's, that's, that's really why in many ways it is difficult to quantify that. That, that is the trick. And so that is in a lot of ways the major task for Teresa is that sometimes we do, sometimes we do, but in many cases we, we don't. And the only way to do that is to do historically be experiments or just a guess or exclusion. So in the past we might, we may know because we would have, say, put a cage around a, a series of plants and then said, okay, well there's no natural enemies in there. And then how many pests are there? And we can sort of compare them and say like, well, the ones with the cages didn't actually do as well as the one without the cage, something along those lines. But it's far less common that we knew what was actually being excluded from the cages or the extent to which they're doing that. That is Right. How many things that we don't like are they eating or laying eggs in or killing and that, that's what made that a black box. It's why often. And it's it's difficult and time consuming. That's why people often just kind of ignored it. Yeah. Like we want them to be wolves, not like sloths. Like, you know, we. Right. It, I guess. Is there, like, is there things that we can do? I guess these are just things wrapping or kind of bouncing around in my simple brain is, are there, do we know if there's things that we can do to entice them to be like more interested or more aggressive? Like, I guess we're still trying to figure that part kind of stuff out too, I guess. Yep. And it's. And it varies by the insect. Right. So. Yeah. Okay, well, very interesting. So Teresa, what do you think is currently missing when it comes to insect monitoring and decision making around ipm when we look at this whole package? Well, I wouldn't say that it's something completely missing because a lot of great work is already being done in insect monitoring. The challenge that I see, it's more about integration of the information and also in the time because as a PhD student I would like to sample many locations across the prairies. But that's simply not realistic given like the geography and in the fact that experiments are very time intensive too. So another challenge is timing. And in many cases we only fully understand how insect affect yield at the end of the season. So after all that data have been analysed and in the case of integration monitoring data, it's often hard to get in real time. And tools don't always connect pest pressure with natural enemies, with economic threshold, crop stress, et cetera, into one clear picture. So yeah, that, I think that it's the challenge like time and integration of information. Yeah. And this is really important work and Shaun, I was just thinking about the factors. Right. So if we're measuring the impact of some sort of pest in a dairy operation, we're measuring, you know, we're, we're in the parlour, it's inside, it's contained. Or a pig barn or a poultry operation. When we're talking about crops, we are outside. So we have, you know, we have different thickness of canopy, we have sunlight, we have cloudy, we have wind, we have no wind, we have cool versus hot and we have, we've. Those are just a few of the variables. I'm sure there are way more trying to understand how those beneficials and, and pests interact in all those different situations and combinations of permutations. That is what makes this so difficult. Like how do you actually measure this? That's a good question. In some ways you measure it the same way as you've always done it, which is by simple experiments in other ways. We have new tools that allow us to do that. One of the things that makes what Teresa is doing a little different over the last, say, five, 10 years, the tools that we can do to use to do some of these kinds of things, to answer some of these questions, well, they either exist now and they didn't, or they've come across. Right. And on other ways, you do things the same way as you always have, which is a bad answer. So for decades, people have done some of this. Right. You would have taken the thing that you didn't like and the thing that eats the thing you don't like, and you would have said, I don't know, put it. Put it together in a glass jar or something and watch them eat each other. Right. And then said, okay, one lady beetle eats 15 aphids. And so. All right. In X amount of time. And so now we have an estimate. Right. Don't miss on Tyler Wist doing the play by play of all that happening too. So that is exactly right. Tyler loves that stuff. That is exactly what Tyler does. Yes. So if you had Tyler here, you'd have him doing the. Right. And that's what Tyler and I would have both grown up. Sort of have grown up. Not that we're old, but, you know, like, even, you know, even a decade ago when we would have started learning to do this, that's what we would have done, and it's what the people who taught me sort of would have done. Right. And that's kind of how you go about it. But this is where technology is sometimes kind of neat. And so Teresa, while she still does some of that, has a whole array of fancier and more expensive methods available to her that allow her to do this in a very different way that including right from the field. And so she's, you know, I mean, maybe she should explain what she's doing, but she can employ things. Molecular biology tricks that weren't available until recently or too expensive and remote sensing methods to answer some of these questions in ways that we just couldn't otherwise. Teresa, tell us more about some of these technologies that. That we're hearing about here from Shaun. Sure. So, yeah, actually, technology is like one of the things that excite me a lot in. Yeah. As a tool for pest management. So, for example, in my PhD, I am flying a drone to take pictures and then correlate with the canopy stress and then with the yield and with the presence or absence of the different insect, pest and beneficials too. Well, natural enemies. And Also in the Ph.D. i'm trying to know exactly what the predators are eating. So for that I'm running DNA extraction from the gut content of ladybugs, damsel bugs, spiders to understand what are they really eating and apart. Like alongside my PhD I also start developing a tool that brings like these threshold and integrate monitoring and ecological context together. So yeah, in my PhD and outside of my PhD technology I think that it's like something that is very excited for me because I mean when like in the past pesticides were the new innovative tools and today we have apps, drones, AI. So just like insect and agro systems evolve pest management, it's also like constantly evolving. So yeah, using these technologies I think that can help the management of pest to get to be more integrated, sustainable, practical and realistic. Well and using all those tools, like using all the tools available to us to try to tackle an issue that we, we know is not going away. We know farmers are challenged with this and as Shaun mentioned earlier, it comes down to profitability and there's a, there are pests in our canopy, they're trying to rob us of yield. There's cause every day they're working at trying to chip away at our profitability and we can't just rely on one way of doing it. We do need to open ourselves up and really look at the full toolbox available to us. So really important research and I really do appreciate both of you joining us here today for the Pest and Predator podcast. Thank you very much. Thank you very much for your time. Now if you're listening to RealAg Radio on Rural Radio 147, you should go to RealAgriculture.com and cheque out the entire conversation that I had with Dr. Prager and Ms. Cordero. Encourage you to do that. If you're listening on the RealAg Radio podcast, you just heard the whole thing. Now we want to Hear your feedback. Shaneyaelagriculture.com or you can call or text the real like feedback line 855-776-6147. Thanks everybody for getting real and getting connected with RealAg Radio. We'll of course chat again tomorrow. Cheers. Thank you for downloading this RealAg Radio podcast brought to you by High performing Carbine Insecticide from fmc. Carbine insecticide hits aphids hard with effective selective extended control. It also has activity on lygus and tarnished plant bugs. Ask your retailer today.