Bob Welker
Appearances
Farm4Profit Podcast
F4F - Welker Farms & Special Guest Randy from Fieldrows
Yeah, we got to the hotel and check in and she goes, yeah, welcome to H-E-M-M. What are we in for? But hey, no sweat. It's being here. There you go.
Farm4Profit Podcast
F4F - Welker Farms & Special Guest Randy from Fieldrows
Now, we have a lot of connections, too, outside even Case IH. Just wanting to touch base that we've been meeting for the last four to five years. And it's always cool just to touch base with the Midwest and the people.
Farm4Profit Podcast
F4F - Welker Farms & Special Guest Randy from Fieldrows
Okay. All right. My grandfather came from Oklahoma when they opened up Montana in the early 1900s for homesteading. 340 acres was what they were given. That was huge. Most of you guys are thinking about 160. Well, this was double. And so that encouraged my uncle and grandfather to go up and homestead just outside of Shelby, northern Montana, about 70 miles east of Galatia National Park.
Farm4Profit Podcast
F4F - Welker Farms & Special Guest Randy from Fieldrows
And my uncle had enough for one year and left, and so my grandfather took care of that 320, and then his 320, and then in five years they own it. And so that was the first generation. He stuck it out. My dad and uncle farmed it, and then it passed on to me. I'm third generation, and I'm just managing the farm. It's growing. We're getting more acres, but I don't see that as acres.
Farm4Profit Podcast
F4F - Welker Farms & Special Guest Randy from Fieldrows
I just see it as a heritage. We are a heritage farm in Montana over 100 years old. And I just see is that this fifth generation that's on the farm right now is going to be using that land. So I'm just a caretaker. It's a privilege to be able to see that I have this started in another generation and they can experience the joys that we are experiencing.
Farm4Profit Podcast
F4F - Welker Farms & Special Guest Randy from Fieldrows
You said 18, 1,800? Well, our average is around 30. It's supposed to be 30 for spring wheat, 37 for winter wheat. But the last few years have been brutal. And it hasn't just been drought. It's also been hail. So it's just one of the troubles that farming face. We look for it every year for a crop. Again, we look forward to the next year.
Farm4Profit Podcast
F4F - Welker Farms & Special Guest Randy from Fieldrows
And another thing is that we didn't put all this together. When you look back and say, well, we need to do this, this, this, this to grow a channel. It was just things that we needed to do on our farm. And then things that were out of our control, like Farm Simulator game. You know, that's a big worldwide farming game. And of course, they wanted big buds on that.
Farm4Profit Podcast
F4F - Welker Farms & Special Guest Randy from Fieldrows
And they came to us and said, they asked for a farm that runs big buds. And so they mapped our farm, part of our farm, put it on there. And that, of course, blew up. And so it was just those kind of things, some of the creative builds that we did. And we didn't do it necessarily, but it just, you know.
Farm4Profit Podcast
F4F - Welker Farms & Special Guest Randy from Fieldrows
So we look back, and it was God that was putting certain things that finally culminated into us being here interviewed by you guys. Absolutely. Which is a privilege.
Farm4Profit Podcast
F4F - Welker Farms & Special Guest Randy from Fieldrows
Well, in the very beginning, you know, we start and we do start doing some repair work or whatever. And he's like, stop, stop, stop. The camera didn't quite work. And Scott and I would be kind of, you know, well, we want to get this done. You know, and so we'd have to do a stop and then redo it like this and then start again and do it like that.
Farm4Profit Podcast
F4F - Welker Farms & Special Guest Randy from Fieldrows
But it wasn't very long before, you know, the viewers start popping up and you're going, whoa. I mean, you know, we don't find this, we just normal. And honestly, we say what we're doing and have done, many of you guys do out there in the Midwest all the time. It's just that the platform has been given to us. And so we, it wasn't very long before we said, you know,
Farm4Profit Podcast
F4F - Welker Farms & Special Guest Randy from Fieldrows
God has given us a platform, and if we can encourage others and showcase the family farm and what we do, we are representing also all of you out there who are spending just as much time or more energy and resources to produce the food for our country. And so we're very privileged to be in this position.
Farm4Profit Podcast
F4F - Welker Farms & Special Guest Randy from Fieldrows
Yeah, I would say, you know, the 160 block, because what the difference is, is that a lot of our country is intersected with county roads a mile apart. And so you're either, like most of them are going to be 320, you know, half of the section, and because it, and there's different,
Farm4Profit Podcast
F4F - Welker Farms & Special Guest Randy from Fieldrows
owners lands kind of scattered around so you just can't block out one you know so some is rented some of your own you whatever and so it's just kind of morphed we'll have our longest strip is is two and a half miles long man two and a half miles yeah yeah and you better hope you don't pull in the wrong driveway with the truck yes it happens yes that's why they beep you when you get to the headlands yeah the alarm goes off tells you to grab the steering wheel again it does
Farm4Profit Podcast
F4F - Welker Farms & Special Guest Randy from Fieldrows
But what that does add is then when you're filling out FAA maps or federal crop maps, there's 135 fields. So you end up, you know, doing a little bit of paperwork.
Farm4Profit Podcast
F4F - Welker Farms & Special Guest Randy from Fieldrows
That area was noted for farming half the land and the other half would lie fallow because they had no other way to control weeds and moisture. You always conserve enough moisture so there will be enough to grow that next crop. So summer fallow is what we call it came into effect. And that was plowed. Well, we were actually... not knowing they had no other alternative is mine the soil.
Farm4Profit Podcast
F4F - Welker Farms & Special Guest Randy from Fieldrows
Because you were mining the organic matter in there because you couldn't help but plow it. Anytime you introduce oxygen into the soil, it's going to continue to break down. Well, the land was getting just harder to farm, cloddy. It just wasn't accepting water as well. So in 1997, I made the decision, and it was 100% no-till.
Farm4Profit Podcast
F4F - Welker Farms & Special Guest Randy from Fieldrows
You had to adjust the equipment to start tilling in that kind of a ground, but the equipment had come about then. And so since 1997, we have done very little tillage. And so we want to manage the residues out there, and actually our farmland has really improved since that.
Farm4Profit Podcast
F4F - Welker Farms & Special Guest Randy from Fieldrows
Yeah, we have to manage our inputs via our resources. Our resource is water. Yep. And so we look at our yield and whatever, and we can put enough N down with the seed. We'll hit those years when everything goes well and you should go out there and top dress for that. But we consider our farming very simpler than the West.
Farm4Profit Podcast
F4F - Welker Farms & Special Guest Randy from Fieldrows
We're blown away by what you guys have to do in the Midwest to manage your water. And that's what you're doing. You've got water, generally, and you need to manage it, and it's just amazing how much inputs that you are constantly putting in there.
Farm4Profit Podcast
F4F - Welker Farms & Special Guest Randy from Fieldrows
That's what you do? That's not how it goes here. Yeah, I got tired of pulling it, so they finally bought me a tractor. Okay, just for that, huh? Yeah, just for it. It's amazing. Yeah, rock on. Rock on, rocks off.
Farm4Profit Podcast
F4F - Welker Farms & Special Guest Randy from Fieldrows
There wasn't, but we upgraded. Yeah. And that's the thing that, you know, because we have vendors that know those kind of things. But with Scott and Nick, you know, they were able to really formalize in their mind and now get a grip on what we need to do when we bring a tractor in, what gallon needs to flow, what kind of pumps and stuff. And so it's just been a great learning curve.
Farm4Profit Podcast
F4F - Welker Farms & Special Guest Randy from Fieldrows
on the farm tech school to learn what not to do and what to do. So it's been a fun experience.
Farm4Profit Podcast
F4F - Welker Farms & Special Guest Randy from Fieldrows
I don't know why. You know, they designed it when you don't have to unhook anything. You just take your hand and start pumping, and the cab and the hood comes open like this. And you look down, and there's all this open area down there to do your...
Farm4Profit Podcast
F4F - Welker Farms & Special Guest Randy from Fieldrows
And tell them how it won a contest.
Farm4Profit Podcast
F4F - Welker Farms & Special Guest Randy from Fieldrows
And we're known for our shop work, not that we're perfect at it, but that we bring the stuff in and then really kind of go from the bottom. And the latest one we did was a Peterbilt truck that has kind of an interesting history. But we brought it in, and what was interesting is We got it from eastern Montana from someone who had got it from somewhere else.
Farm4Profit Podcast
F4F - Welker Farms & Special Guest Randy from Fieldrows
And we were doing a live show over at the Case IH booth.
Farm4Profit Podcast
F4F - Welker Farms & Special Guest Randy from Fieldrows
A meet and greet. And there was this guy I was looking at. He was just looking at us all the time. And while in the meet and greet, he came up. He goes, that was my truck. And he pulls out his phone and shows us pictures of that truck. That was his truck.
Farm4Profit Podcast
F4F - Welker Farms & Special Guest Randy from Fieldrows
Yeah, it was from this area. That's cool.
Farm4Profit Podcast
F4F - Welker Farms & Special Guest Randy from Fieldrows
Yeah, at least not pigs, right?
Farm4Profit Podcast
F4F - Welker Farms & Special Guest Randy from Fieldrows
Oh, no. It ends up that way because the deeper you get, the more you're going, uh-oh.
Farm4Profit Podcast
F4F - Welker Farms & Special Guest Randy from Fieldrows
Yeah, there's a lot of hurdles. Yeah, but it doesn't roll coal.
Farm4Profit Podcast
F4F - Welker Farms & Special Guest Randy from Fieldrows
Yeah, they get addicted to it. You've got to give them a high once in a while, right?
Farm4Profit Podcast
F4F - Welker Farms & Special Guest Randy from Fieldrows
Yeah, which was, you guys don't seem much for you, but that was some of our highest yielding crop for this year.
Farm4Profit Podcast
F4F - Welker Farms & Special Guest Randy from Fieldrows
All our wheat goes across the ocean. Hardly any of it stays in the United States because it's a high-protein wheat, and that's what the buyers want.
Farm4Profit Podcast
F4F - Welker Farms & Special Guest Randy from Fieldrows
It looked like a summer following.
Farm4Profit Podcast
F4F - Welker Farms & Special Guest Randy from Fieldrows
Give me more. They're meant to be ran full.
Farm4Profit Podcast
F4F - Welker Farms & Special Guest Randy from Fieldrows
Fortunately, I did stop before I hit the Canadian border before I could get it turned around.
Farm4Profit Podcast
F4F - Welker Farms & Special Guest Randy from Fieldrows
You know, if we spent a long of seed hours in that, you know, you could get somewhere around 300 a day with a 60-foot plow, you know, just constant, a full, long, long,
Farm4Profit Podcast
F4F - Welker Farms & Special Guest Randy from Fieldrows
There you go. Just store it in there.
Farm4Profit Podcast
F4F - Welker Farms & Special Guest Randy from Fieldrows
Well, yeah, 60 miles an hour helps aerate it. Just put a tube down the middle, like a tile.
Farm4Profit Podcast
F4F - Welker Farms & Special Guest Randy from Fieldrows
Well, actually, what was told me was there's an elevator that quit allowing some of these carts to come in because when you add the tractor and the cart, it was overloading their scale. It was going over the 130,000. So they said, hey, you know, because they were close and they're bringing it in. They go, let's not do that again. So I guess there is a limit there.
Farm4Profit Podcast
F4F - Welker Farms & Special Guest Randy from Fieldrows
Everything's getting bigger.
Farm4Profit Podcast
F4F - Welker Farms & Special Guest Randy from Fieldrows
And the other thing, we're blessed, ROI is low. As far as the, I mean, it's high compared to our input costs. We don't have, we have some land payments, but not a lot. You know, when we look at what you guys are paying for cash leases and all that, it's huge. It's unbelievable. Our cost of farming per acre is much lower.
Farm4Profit Podcast
F4F - Welker Farms & Special Guest Randy from Fieldrows
And so we're going to make a profit this year even with that because we haven't invested a lot of new color. Yeah.
Farm4Profit Podcast
F4F - Welker Farms & Special Guest Randy from Fieldrows
you know a fresh paint uh we've been made to do what we can do and so we're going to come through this fine yeah um and i kind of learned that from my dad and my uncle back then when they had really tough years going through and i said you know those years are going to come uh but there's also the other year right so one thing too to consider is probably one of the reasons why our farm
Farm4Profit Podcast
F4F - Welker Farms & Special Guest Randy from Fieldrows
No. No, I've always had one.
Farm4Profit Podcast
F4F - Welker Farms & Special Guest Randy from Fieldrows
Yeah, we've taken combines out in a five-year program because there was zero interest back. Remember those days? They had five years, zero interest like that. And so, well, I'll just go ahead and do that.
Farm4Profit Podcast
F4F - Welker Farms & Special Guest Randy from Fieldrows
But anyway, somebody came on the farm and just asked, well, how many employees do you have at this farm? And it was asking Nick, and he looked at the three of us and looked and says two and a half. So at least I pull half weight.
Farm4Profit Podcast
F4F - Welker Farms & Special Guest Randy from Fieldrows
Yes, that's right. What does an acre of land sell for? The last land I bought was last year $700,000. 700 bucks. Now, it wasn't prime Iowa farmland. No. You know, you have five feet of soil. We had five inches. Yeah. You know, so we didn't have to pay for all that extra footing. There's a couple of crazy people in Illinois that would have paid that for rent. Yeah. Oh, I know it.
Farm4Profit Podcast
F4F - Welker Farms & Special Guest Randy from Fieldrows
That's what I'm saying. It's just mind-boggling what it takes to farm out here.
Farm4Profit Podcast
F4F - Welker Farms & Special Guest Randy from Fieldrows
So something's working. We had a couple good years.
Farm4Profit Podcast
F4F - Welker Farms & Special Guest Randy from Fieldrows
And then some guy's like, well, call him leg arms.
Farm4Profit Podcast
F4F - Welker Farms & Special Guest Randy from Fieldrows
Yeah, well, I'm the caretaker of Kobe. So, you know, I'm the dog guy. Okay. The dog guy. Tanner does have that on here somewhere. Yeah, I do.
Farm4Profit Podcast
F4F - Welker Farms & Special Guest Randy from Fieldrows
we don't we don't miss very many things no you guys are trying not to yeah yeah when the equipment appears on a farm we have to get a dog approved so you know that's very important and the buds are definitely dog approved have you seen the videos and they love riding on that fender
Farm4Profit Podcast
F4F - Welker Farms & Special Guest Randy from Fieldrows
And quickly for me, I'm getting into my upper years. I'll be 70 this fall. And so a lot of classmates of mine are retiring. I'm going, what? Retiring? I never figured I would retire. They'll just finally put me in the back 40 and let me just run around that with a tractor. But, you know, I've reached the pinnacle where I don't have the responsibilities they have.
Farm4Profit Podcast
F4F - Welker Farms & Special Guest Randy from Fieldrows
I've been giving them over since 19, you know, in my 60s, you know, and I've just kind of held my hand up. They've kind of taken the reins and run with it. I think it's a travesty if fathers don't do that.
Farm4Profit Podcast
F4F - Welker Farms & Special Guest Randy from Fieldrows
If they don't give their sons who are coming up in farmers or daughters the ability to make the decisions, to take the reins and just give up control, I say you're really shorting the next generation of really being able to carry that ball to the finish line. I just don't have the responsibilities that they do. I have grandkids, but we can turn them back. We can play with them.
Farm4Profit Podcast
F4F - Welker Farms & Special Guest Randy from Fieldrows
We can spoil them, mess them up, and then turn them back to their parents. I really live in a good life in this way, but I'm not going to change. I still want to be out there. I still want to see them succeed and the next generation take over. Lord willing.
Farm4Profit Podcast
F4F - Welker Farms & Special Guest Randy from Fieldrows
Except when you're running go-karts. I was going to say, unless it's on a racetrack.