It's not working. Okay. Well, here we started again, I'm still a little low on battery. So you are on the Nez Perce reservation and you leased land from the tribe. And you've, you've had a good relationship for a long time.
And so, when I don't know exactly when there is to ground on the reservation, it's not all owned by the, the tribe. Tribe owns a number of tracks, we're going to go out here to one of the tracks right now. And we're actually getting north in the rain.
What are we looking at? So we were looking at land that's just been harvested right. And this is, hey, this
is barn. These are barley fields. And you see the stubble has been cut short to manage it. And I've got samples of barley that samples of the crops the light came off here. This was a, this was a canola field, we're going to a barley field and a left field. So we're going to see what that looks like. The stalks left here are or canola, spring canola field. Okay. If you want to plug that in and let it let it charge or whatever.
Well, I do, but I think it stops it from recording. So I'd rather just keep moving. I think I think the battery's good, and I'll charge it.
So So
and the barley is the barley malt,
or feed, okay. Goes to Great Western Martini in Vancouver, Washington. And as malted for beer feed could go any number of places from locally to export? Not necessarily any particular one. Okay, in for beer. And
I'm embarrassed that I don't know. But is it two different parts of the barley like part of it goes to? Or is it the same?
It's a variety. Okay. Now, I've got I've got a sampler, the back will, will go so. So this far for the past 20 plus years is employ something called direct seed. So in other words, we don't have any heavy tillage, we don't flip the ground. And this is a, this is a canola field. If you, you look, oh, you can see the rows. See to see the rows me and look, look away. You see the rows over the hill there and this is the direction that the drill went. Okay. Okay, so now what we've done. So after we cut the canola, we've come in, and with the drill and seated again, if you look down right outside your window, you'll see rows of dirt, you know, and it puts it and we'll see the drill here shortly. What it does is it puts fertilizer, puts liquid fertilizer, dry fertilizer and seed all in a row. Oh, okay, in one pass. So we're not broadcasting. We're putting it right under the seeds, so the roots grow through it. So this will not this field hasn't been tilled. This happens to be a tribal member's field. And I grew up with family. So it's, I'm honored that I get to farm it. And I know them all well. And they're great people.
So how long has your family been here? Four generations?
Four generations. 1904 My family officially arrived here on the prairie. So so we've got we've got a excess of 100 years. So the the you know, you've heard of no-till you've heard of conventional till maybe
this is why you get to stop you. And so what does that mean? No Till I mean, understand that tilling is when you you turn the soil over, right? And what we're looking at would go under the soil and then does that decompose?
You know, it would take an invert the soil and about six inches and put all the stubble down below. So it reclaimed. We'll show you okay, I'll show you a non conventional field. Okay, a conventionally farmed field.
Okay? So conventional farming tills are Yeah, okay, right direction
He does very little tilling. this field hasn't been tilled. So in other words, it hasn't had a disc or a plow in it, or any, any inversion for as long as I've had it, which is about 20 years.
Why is it tilled and why would you then not want it tilled?
it's a highly emotional subject. It's like me saying Fords are better than Chevy's. Oh, really okay, but we, we direct seed, because it builds the organic matter in the soil. It doesn't disturb it doesn't break it down and to it yet, it prevents erosion, what I normally do with the cropping system, I'll have a pipe out, which is a piece of PVC pipe or help four feet tall, fill full of water and put it on on the soil and open the valve and watch how the water either runs like this or kind of just goes down to snatch, you know, doesn't run off. And I can take it to a field that's conventionally tilled to do that, and it runs across the surface. Because there's soil structure, there's wormholes, there's quick rain, like that a shovel I can show you. So and without heavy tillage tend to build organic matter which will add water and nutrients to you tend to prevent erosion from quick storms. High fast melting, you know smell when it gets warm
this can all be used for for cooking oil. Okay.
So we can see a drill row right here. So we'll find it cut this drill row seat and it's still dry underneath. It hasn't hasn't soaked down. So what we'll do here
see right there so what what this girl does this lays down a row seat. There's one of the one of the kernels right there there's, there's a wheat seed right there. It's got roots. It's got roots already going down doesn't have doesn't have a chute. But it's got lots of roots. And that's, that's good. That's what we want to shoot. And that's what we just put the ground about five days ago. already. Yeah, see there's a row. There's a row here. You'll see the drill pretty soon. So row here, there's a row here. And then the middle is the fertilizer. Liquid which we can't see. Dry. I think we can see maybe it might have dissolved already.
Yeah, yeah, there's a there's a kernel. This is canola, but you're planting wheat. So
that's, that's the culitivar rotation. Okay, so, so Canola is here. Yeah, that's better. Okay, so Canola is a brassica. brassica spring and fall canola has a really deep root here that's canola stock. And it ends up usually about this tall has it big tapra. So it started it started from a seed, probably one of these. And then it sends a stock up in a big taproot down and it should go down. It can go down you know 1012 inches, breaks up the hard pan. And it's a it's a brassica. Wheat is a cool season grass like barley. Like Timothy, we grow Timothy for export. That's a perennial, so it's, we don't have to receive it each year. And then and then. Now we grow lentils. We'll see the lentils here shortly. Those are lagoons like alfalfa. They put lentils. Yeah. The back seat. You can grab some if you want to They so lentils garbanzos and Falfa. All lagoons which fix nitrogen on the ruts and fixing they're all three different cultivars will use different herbicides and different methodologies for them a if you were going to talk about cover crops cover crops, have brassicas cool season grasses and lagoons in them and we grow them as a natural we grow them in our natural rotation
What does cover crop mean? Cover Crop
means so if this was going to be seated okay take that field right there it's wheat fields been harvested won't be seen until next spring. And you could go in and Harrell Harrelson cover crops seed, which would be a lagoon cool season grass and brassica. You know, it might, it might have radishes in it could have lentils could have any number of things. And, and and there's always something growing. So you on the ground. If you look, you'll see green on it. That's volunteer, and that's good. You don't want the ground there. You want you want the soil microbe activity to continue with living with something living on it all the time. Okay, that
makes sense. Does that make sense? Yeah. Yeah.
I mean, okay, so. So the soil is a living, living organism. And we were careful not to not to let it lay idle in there. So we harvested the canola and seeded it within about a week and a half. This has been seeded about five days. And so, this we're sensitive to making sure there's always something growing on the ground, one for erosion of our grade two for the microbial activity that occurs around the roots and soil. They're still discovered a lot about the soil that we took.
Yeah, I want to say did EO Wilson write about this? Yeah. Okay. Yeah.
So okay, well, we're going to allow field and there's I saw a canola plant up here. I can, I can show you what it's about. It's about this tall. Okay. And just below shoulder height. So much taller than all that. Okay, so I've got some video of when we were harvesting this deal. So you see all so when the raindrops get hit there. It splashes when they hit when they hit residue. it disseminates raindrop. Okay. And it prevents it from direct sunlight, heat from sunlight and it also also protects protects the ground keeps one cooler two worms come up. And we'll we'll take take these pieces. Take them down digest them. Oh, okay. High worm activity.
Okay, once they're good for the soil. We like we like we're good
just lift that's going Oh, wow. Okay,
so when that is crushed and made into oil, surely
that's crushed and when you see canola oil in your supermarket that's the source really small beads. We crush it we haul it to the Terra which is their national consortium and the warden which is central Washington it's sold by the pound okay so this is about 28 cents a pound or $28 100 or $560 a ton but anyway that's cool we can grow spring canola and pork and all the Balkan all we would see it in the fall and harvest next summer in the spring canola weed seed in the spring and harvest and harvest the same year. Yeah, they crushed it they had They have a process of heat. They add some things to it, roll it, then the part that's not oil is is meal for feed. Okay, it's not wasted.
So the oil is expelled.
Roll, they rolled literally crushed it. Okay, and
then what's left goes to feed?
Absolutely. It's good feed. So it's not wasted, you know, all of this. When oil is extracted the rest is food thanks.
Yeah, that's that's never knew what kind of look like sort of smaller than peppercorns, but bigger than poppy seeds really
is. You can, you can stop you can put your hand at it. Take a picture. It's nice to have a reference. Because you go okay, that's so good. You ever sighs size reference. So, so this this field was planted last spring, we had a cold crop on it. And then we seeded this fall.
And we'll the next rotation be a third thing or back to we would?
So this is a canola plant. Normally they're longer than that. And if you look. Oh, see? See? Wow. Yeah, like a little beat?
Yeah. Oh, well, how do you get them out of the pods
combine? So what it does is it rubs it shakes it blows it. And we'll we'll see a combine here. Let's see. See all fine hair ruts on that. Very, very healthy. Okay. Very nice.
That's how you tell? Yeah.
I mean, we see all the fine. There's, there's what they call ????. And there's a lot of lot of biological activity going on around these roots. They're discovering but yeah, that's what, but normally this would be this would be this high. Okay. I mean, it'd be I've got some video combine, but you get a good idea. Oh. And how far this can go down? The Hill?
Gosh, I'm trying to figure out how to ask this question. You know, I'm trying to even visualize an acre, but how much land would it take to create a pound of?
Well, so this year, canola ran about 2200 pounds per acre. So public sneaker, square roughly. It's about 220 by 220 feet. So this field that we're looking at here, on the hill here, is 100 acre field
turtle over this way a little bit, you can kind of see so you can see the border down that side. And then it follows that road over there and stops at that timber down there. So that's 100 acres. Oh, wow. Okay. Okay. That's kind of give you a reference. So but roughly 220 by 220. Will that's 215. Square root of 43,560. That's how many square feet you know, in an acre okay, this is a this is a field it's been conventionally work. It seen it and all the stuff you see there as volunteer. Oh, that's from the crop seed
prior year. Okay. What is it? Is it also canola?
There's something that was it was barley, now it's winter wheat. But so they work. They worked ground they destroy ground, cultivated it, worked back down. Smooth it out. fertilized it, seeded. We do all at one pass.
Okay, is this another? Is this your that's not your farm? Oh, okay. So we are looking at the difference here
and it will sort of appear. So just kind of hold what that looks like and all the trash. It's not. It's not clean and pretty and pristine. So this was another barley field. Same type of thing that was worked, not ours. So this is a barley field, I'm going to take you to a barley field. That was worked. Okay. That's where we're going to jump on the sprayer. Okay. So play with the technology a little bit, some things we do and show you today several things we do, it will flow head up, down, up down to drills that are putting the seed fertilizer to the ground.
Now it gets really bright again.
Yeah, well, it's, if you don't like the weather, just hang it up, because it's probably gonna change
the field. It's like there's green, and then a distinct change to kind of this gold color. You
know, canola and the silver is bright yellow was groovy. And it is stunningly gorgeous.
Flowers, yes. Right yellow flowers.
And, of course, everything around and still green. haven't started the maturity. I mean, it's just you come off the whiteboard Hill. And you look at out there the flat for Greenville and coming this way, it's stunning. Absolutely stunning. So this would be an example of Timothy. That was that was went rode and failed. And so it has to be fertilized. And if it needs any weed control, we'll do that. And another crop another year. Okay, so we saw that we saw the barley fields. So yes, this is the barley. This is same crop, fully just managed differently. Oh, okay. So you see, you see all the straw. And if you look down the rows, you can see the drill rows again, drills with this way. And place to seed the fertilizer. So there's a skip right here. And if you look right out your window, right straight down, where the drill skipped. That's what it looked like. Before. Okay, we pulled we pulled the drill through. So yeah, so this is a barley field much like that one, but it hasn't hasn't been tilled up hasn't been inverted. We just sprayed, sprayed it with, with Gly FOSS to stop the growth on IT volunteer is seated right now are putting an herbicide on, it's called a pre emerge herbicide, which means we are putting an herbicide down. That will weeds really really small and they shift first start to germinate grow. They're very sensitive to any any chemistry that's adverse to him. And so they will, this chemistry that we're putting down, we'll stop the small weeds, and not we won't let them get big and then try and spray them. It'll stop them when they're small. So this is called this called pre emerge herbicides. So this is this is one of the one of the pieces we use. This is 135 foot sprayer, okay. All full of technology. And we're going to jump on it. You can drive
it's pretty exciting, will be
awesome. This is what you call immersion reporting, where you get to just immerse yourself in the
show this, this has
like a series of a series of
products come out of each one of these nozzles. But instead of it all turning on at once, it turns on nozzle by nozzle so you don't overspray what's already been sprayed and you'll see that okay, so it's very precise. I can smell something is that the Yeah, that's the herbicide. That's the herbicide. You know, that's like it's really quite quite benign but it's very, it's, it's what they call, it's what they call a selective herbicide. Doesn't hurt wheat doesn't hurt. Doesn't hurt barley, this barley is a great example. There's a great example of root structure. That's what you want because
it's all held together, right? Yeah.
That's so this is the volunteer barley came from the crop. came from the crop we just harvested to see all the Reds that you want but some red some ruts mainly the rule is what you see above is usually usually less than what you see below the ground if you have good restriction terms of volume in terms of mass volume
killing killing destroys that yeah
totally breaks this down and
can interesting for example those connections
what percentage Did you say see above the ground as
well you said what you see above the ground is what percentage of what you see below it's
usually near near half of what you see okay, so So what are we talked about? Red seeds wheat seeds you can see it's just been seeded but if you look here, there's see you see all this this mask till he breaks us down. There's a wormhole right there and most of these pieces you'll find a co CEO that came or up here find that is it's not hard at all. See that? That's all that's all the kids worms have gone down they'll come back up and voice your voice she comes back
is this a freeze during the winter right? Yeah, did they just go deep enough that it's not it doesn't freeze
so this prayer was new this this 1600 gallon tank. Okay,
how much does a vehicle like this cost?
About 600,000 It's more than just even though this is we use a train you're training in our major piece of equipment about every other year this finally arrived this Greg and we've already got 300 hours on your 1000 acres. So you go on Okay. Let's think about that. So this piece of equipment is already sprayed this field once we sprayed it to kill a volunteer army. Now it's going alright again. And it'll go over and at least two more times where the drill only goes over once a year. You only drill one crop a year and the sprayer goes over and we can put fertilizer on with this tool. So this is a very precise tool you'll see you'll see the you'll see an 843 My awesome parties the environmental these are my new partner next generation and this is the environmental journalists is always always glad to have people show up to see how careful we are with the soil. Now this happens to be a piece of crap broke out in the 70s in fact I helped pick sticks. Really? So how does that make the Austin roughly roughly what's my guess I'm more than double
what does pick sticks mean? Was that when you say a tick sticks on it.
What does that mean? Well, it has had a lot of timber on it. They brought the the broken Apple decided to bring some more of it out. And if so it had a lot of sticks on it. Have a nice weekend and as they broke this out so far since seven eight yet probably about 1970 72 We've had 20 years and it's never been it's never ever taken a big tool through a cloud Jessica Florida
we have we have a what I call it a direct seed cropping system where many strong careful with the plant biomass soil biology and we we like we like earthworms we like bars or not this would be the cameras prairie Rainsville right out here so, hello this would be when you cross the river we'll do that later.
What does that mean the chemists
well there's a chemistry up there.
Yeah, that's what the indigenous tribes used to dig chemistry. Okay. And that's that's where they call it in scope
so one at a time so you can drive with drive this right answer the right answer. It'll drive itself but you can get get set up
okay
won't be Yeah Do we both come or just me? One at a time just one at a time
how to even heated
Yes. It's Arizona age vac system
turn this Can you can you see that? Yep. Okay, so you see the boundary that's that's the deal right?
So that's this is kind of GPS Yeah,
it's all GPS
watch this how's this two parallel park
watch
Wow. So we'll bring the GPS up. I've got to accept that case a case is liable. So so anything you do pops up on the screen and it's all touchscreen. So we're gonna we're going to set the boom Okay, so watch. Okay, yeah, I'm not doing that. What they're doing is they're going to,
they're just following the land to the land. Yeah.
So you go to this page. Okay, I've got it set to 34 inches wide. So watch what happens. It it will follow the car it will follow the contour. Right it will just kind of go slam into the ground. So if you want 43 inches for a spray pattern you get 43 inches if you you know if you want 30 Florian is down all these A's means working sooner. So there. These are the numbers sensors, those that are an actual height bunnies. Or information. Technology though Oh, always. It's fun stuff. I mean, you know, I bought
the for this technology. Would you have had to manually lift the arms? Yeah,
well, we'll turn on the end and it didn't turn off and on by itself. Okay, so we'll just get rolling here. So remember that each each of these. So we've got we've got a pressure target of 35 pounds at each nozzle and 30 gallons per acre. And we can we can change that if we want it
how much mouth do you have to do this? Actually
froze for some reason. Okay. So green is this what's spray? Oh. So this one calls. It's what's called painting. It paints
over something you've already sprayed. And
so if you look out there,
look, I can see my right.
Oh, no spray, because see, see where our blue is and some stuff was get sprayed. And it turns on and off cabled off. I just told him. I told him to grab that line. So you see what I'm doing? He thought, oh,
yeah, this is like where it's like, wow, we're
so busy. Okay, so
anything that's dark is double spread, right? See, so now we're within within two inches of last pass. So let's say. So there's our there's our speed seven, seven miles an hour. We got a target. We got a target. I've got a speed set of 12 point. So you see here, so. So these are the sections, I can confirm them off. I want us to watch. Watch what apps to say it knows or not. What I'm going to do here, when we get down there, I'll show you. That's how much product we have to take. We got to go to this page. They'll tell us. Okay, deals 317 acres, we sprayed 68 There's 249 remaining. And I have 15 acres of a product on board. So if you divide 200 by by 15 You'll get you'll get how many gallons Great. We've got a target, we've got a target of 13 gallons per acre. So there's what we're actually putting on per acre there's thresher. We just got some new beta software case brought it out. And it's doing some strange things today. They're never back. So what one wants you to watch wants you to watch the nozzles on that. We're going to turn watch the screen here. We're going to turn and go across what's already been sprayed. Okay. So watch from the inside out. Watch. Watch them shut off as they come as they come to watch see? Oh yeah, let's see what we did. We just turned here and stuff. Spray. Painting the field, very precise. Very precise, a waste. If you want three gallons an acre 15 gallons an acre you get. We can also put in a prescription that says this garden field gets more it gets less. And you just go in going into the end loaded prescription and with the USB secondhand. Okay, Okay, my turn right over. Can't break anything. Okay. You sure you don't have to worry. Okay. See if we can slide you for this. Yeah.
Okay. Okay.
That's the break the break. Okay. So, this is a one hand deal, okay. And this is your joystick. So let's get you back on. Let's get you back on. So what we want to do is we want to go want to go around to the left
and then go back into slides. Okay, I swear. So all you
do is Oh, okay
can wash your map? See, it'll, it'll turn back on. So what You get ready. Okay, now we're gonna go out there a little further and then you're going to touch this button that steering wheel. Okay, I'm gonna I'm gonna guide you okay because going that way Yeah, okay. Okay when you cross that that line and Caronia when the nose of this crosses no pressing wait a little longer is now touching hold on okay we'll get you back we'll get you okay okay when you're when your nose gets over that then touch that auto again
no here yeah, not yet.
Yes Don't touch the wheel out touching the skin again
Okay, now we're back on see
it's shutting off when you touch the wheel. Oh I see I see see see it's getting back to where it needs to be
how much training does
oh and well we are part of this whole development of this whole system this is beta software that they brought out makes it a case by case Raven a heavier phone
on we'll turn it all right and under always on to joystick concise everything you need
pretty cool depressing isn't it is
how much of your day is spent you know doing this versus in an office doing that
versus you know not really, this is fun.
I really like I love technology
what's your favorite part of your job
I like technology I remember when we had a sprayer that you know it just pulled around we had to pull it at a certain speed at the right rate you know so if you want to go faster just so see your speed your speed is spot on there for one second. So and no note that you're actually putting on 30 You know between 12 and half 13 gallons that the speed is going to adjust a lot so if you want to push forward on that you can increase your speed
know what you're really doing okay, so there's your there's your work or our what is AC acres acres per hour
Okay, so we're gonna turn we're gonna get we're gonna turn when you get to the end of the run
we'll just take it out so let me get to this I'll just turn it off that way yeah
yeah
Archer boom you know you're doing great. And see well spring going up display. So see, these are the sections not the nozzles. So see how they keep coming on and we can further out
the neck is cool. I imagine it's gonna feel right at home here.
These kids us a real life video game
that was pretty comfortable.
Out here. I've got XM in the corner. Okay, so the huddle I just had a quarterback. fullback on him, pull back to the pickup. You just keep pulling back. It's, it's gonna, it's gonna slow down You got everything in your right hand? Drive right towards okay. Okay, now pull back on your stick.
All right now
I like red clarity right here, right? You can let go the stick all right, yeah, this is not what you expected was not at all. So there's things we can talk about very precise. If you want, if you want a certain galleys with a certain, certain, excellent as I showed you, as I showed you before. There's, there's what we've done that much this field, because it's GPS is exactly that number of acres. We know how, you know, we know exactly what it's going to take within a gallon or two, wow, to finish it. So there's no waste,
waste, but also no overspray which could cause problems on the ground, right?
Very, very environmentally sensitive. Always happened. So the remote control to your right. Go get right there, pull it off scratch. So I can I can go in and turn it on. And like walk around the back of the sprayer and turn on each nozzle check. It's not as fun stuff. So So I have x out, you know, obviously we have a we have our own FM radio system. So we can talk from here to almost Spokane if we need to, you know, we have phones right? You know, there's the ramp
and how many people will you have working on your farm?
There's about six seven of us year round that are more seasonally right you'll see some other cool things today. We love showing people the technology and precision and care we take we don't put extra product on. Again, all the fields are mapped their zone, so just didn't get a chance. Absolutely. Okay,
is it okay if I leave my recorder in here because we might get some questions. I'm gonna see
