Randy from Fieldrows
Appearances
Farm4Profit Podcast
F4F - Welker Farms & Special Guest Randy from Fieldrows
you know, you just can't get it all done. But then somehow we roll over the next year and things keep happening and you realize, well, I guess we did get it done. Yeah, that's my adjust. But yeah, it's always evolving. You just have to be willing to evolve.
Farm4Profit Podcast
F4F - Welker Farms & Special Guest Randy from Fieldrows
The way that I remember it is I thought I was the one doing all the spanking.
Farm4Profit Podcast
F4F - Welker Farms & Special Guest Randy from Fieldrows
We were working on the combine, getting the bean and the corn head ready, and we didn't hardly break a sweat.
Farm4Profit Podcast
F4F - Welker Farms & Special Guest Randy from Fieldrows
So what have you guys been doing here at the show?
Farm4Profit Podcast
F4F - Welker Farms & Special Guest Randy from Fieldrows
Good question. Well, we are partnered with Case IH, so we've been spending quite a bit of time at their booth. They launched the new 11 AF-10 high-capacity combine, so spending some time talking about that. We ran them during harvest, at least the AF-11, so that was quite an experience, so being able to share that with everybody.
Farm4Profit Podcast
F4F - Welker Farms & Special Guest Randy from Fieldrows
And then just a lot of fans, just meeting everybody, talking to people, telling stories. It's been awesome. It's been a good time.
Farm4Profit Podcast
F4F - Welker Farms & Special Guest Randy from Fieldrows
Nothing else in the market like it. But what I wanted to ask you guys, if I could come on your show and promote it and kind of get the word out there for James Moose, is that something y'all, I don't know if y'all do that or not.
Farm4Profit Podcast
F4F - Welker Farms & Special Guest Randy from Fieldrows
Okay, so I'm Googling James Moose and nothing's coming up.
Farm4Profit Podcast
F4F - Welker Farms & Special Guest Randy from Fieldrows
All right, Nick. Yeah, so yeah, that's basically just our story. So I guess we can move on to you. Yeah, no, no. My name's Nick, Nick Welker. I'm the third in the family. Well, actually, who's older? Leg, arms, or me? Don't get it wrong.
Farm4Profit Podcast
F4F - Welker Farms & Special Guest Randy from Fieldrows
Yeah, they haven't really, you know, got on the internet, so to speak. They're really starting out grassroots. But I can get you the email contact and all that if you want to email them.
Farm4Profit Podcast
F4F - Welker Farms & Special Guest Randy from Fieldrows
Or leg arms. No one wants to participate.
Farm4Profit Podcast
F4F - Welker Farms & Special Guest Randy from Fieldrows
I'm not sure the speakers are on.
Farm4Profit Podcast
F4F - Welker Farms & Special Guest Randy from Fieldrows
No, we're pretty close. I went off to college, was going to pursue a career in aviation, was planning on being a pilot. That sounds fun. Did some Air Force ROTC for a few years, was going to be a fire pilot. And then I decided to change that to air traffic control. I was going to be a controller in a tower.
Farm4Profit Podcast
F4F - Welker Farms & Special Guest Randy from Fieldrows
flower in a tower they call it yeah and then in the process of waiting for a job with FAA I was back at home and the farm was growing quite a bit during that time and there was a lot of need of help and I just sort of stopped applying for the position and started farming so not that I didn't grow up on the farm but that's kind of how it took me back to the farm and then in about 2000
Farm4Profit Podcast
F4F - Welker Farms & Special Guest Randy from Fieldrows
10, 11, we were getting close to our 100-year centennial for the farm. We homesteaded, or official papers, or 1912. So I wanted to do something special for the farm, so we got the first GoPro Hero ever made, the very first one. And we went together and bought it together, and I stuck it to everything I could, made a video, put it up on the internet.
Farm4Profit Podcast
F4F - Welker Farms & Special Guest Randy from Fieldrows
It did really well for a year's worth of farming. And then we had our Series 1 first big bud that my grandfather bought. one of the first ones made and it was due for a major makeover. So I was like, well, that'd be kind of fun to do a time lapse of this, put it to a time lapse, put it up on YouTube. That did very well. Kind of got the whole big butt thing really sparked up again.
Farm4Profit Podcast
F4F - Welker Farms & Special Guest Randy from Fieldrows
And from then on, it was just like, this is kind of fun throwing videos together and putting them on the internet. And a couple of years later, it morphed into the vlogging style where instead of pointing the camera at the tractors, we're turning the camera out and pointing at us, which is not totally awkward at all. But it's been quite an experience.
Farm4Profit Podcast
F4F - Welker Farms & Special Guest Randy from Fieldrows
I mean, we do promote. We do have advertisers. Okay, I'm looking at it right now. You found it?
Farm4Profit Podcast
F4F - Welker Farms & Special Guest Randy from Fieldrows
And then it just, I don't know, it just doesn't make sense to me, but it just kind of kept taking off and people kept watching. And so we just started making videos and man, it's been 12, 13 years since we've really been doing it strong. And so that's what's brought us basically to this point now, which has been quite a journey.
Farm4Profit Podcast
F4F - Welker Farms & Special Guest Randy from Fieldrows
I've got some videos out now. How soon could we get it out? Could y'all start talking about it?
Farm4Profit Podcast
F4F - Welker Farms & Special Guest Randy from Fieldrows
And my brother is married, has three kids. I'm married and have four kids.
Farm4Profit Podcast
F4F - Welker Farms & Special Guest Randy from Fieldrows
And you all have said you're on the farm.
Farm4Profit Podcast
F4F - Welker Farms & Special Guest Randy from Fieldrows
Yes, yes. We're a mile apart. Just far enough where a 30-06 can't quite make it.
Farm4Profit Podcast
F4F - Welker Farms & Special Guest Randy from Fieldrows
See, when I moved back to this area, I moved so that I was 30 minutes from my in-laws. That way, if they drove over and I wasn't home, they'd be upset. So at least they call first. You guys are too close for that.
Farm4Profit Podcast
F4F - Welker Farms & Special Guest Randy from Fieldrows
Yes, yes, yeah, yeah. No, no, it's a little different. I do have an alarm that beats when someone's driving down the driveway.
Farm4Profit Podcast
F4F - Welker Farms & Special Guest Randy from Fieldrows
He doesn't? Oh, weird. I tell everybody to go there. Give the address and everything.
Farm4Profit Podcast
F4F - Welker Farms & Special Guest Randy from Fieldrows
We bring on seasonal help sometimes. Yeah. Yeah. It depends on, lately they haven't done a lot, but usually we bring on extra guy in the spring planting, seeding, and then harvest can be one to two, maybe three guys.
Farm4Profit Podcast
F4F - Welker Farms & Special Guest Randy from Fieldrows
We have a lot of strips. The way the land was built up, there's...
Farm4Profit Podcast
F4F - Welker Farms & Special Guest Randy from Fieldrows
Well, it's got green accents, like a John Deere. But, I mean, look at the, there's yellow, red, black, a lot of different components.
Farm4Profit Podcast
F4F - Welker Farms & Special Guest Randy from Fieldrows
You know, you'd think so. And we do have friends that farm 2,000-acre fields, you know, not far from us. But we're just in an area where the county roads, unless we start ripping up some county roads, which I don't know would go over very well.
Farm4Profit Podcast
F4F - Welker Farms & Special Guest Randy from Fieldrows
I get them mixed up. Have you ever forgot a field? Yeah. Usually spraying is when that happens. Yeah, that's it. And you come back later and you're like, uh-oh. Oh, no. Oh, that's not good. Call in your cam guy. Can we do this?
Farm4Profit Podcast
F4F - Welker Farms & Special Guest Randy from Fieldrows
So do you do very much tillage then? Or do you end up leaving a lot of it to help with the wind erosion?
Farm4Profit Podcast
F4F - Welker Farms & Special Guest Randy from Fieldrows
Oh, he's... Oh, he had an incoming call. Yeah, somebody called me. It was Owen, the owner. But, yeah.
Farm4Profit Podcast
F4F - Welker Farms & Special Guest Randy from Fieldrows
That probably helps, too, with the labor and the amount of equipment that you need. Especially, like you said, if some years it's not for a lot.
Farm4Profit Podcast
F4F - Welker Farms & Special Guest Randy from Fieldrows
For a while, I mean, high horsepower tractors, that's where big buds were. That's really what drove big buds was Summerfollow. Pulling big Frickstad cultivators eventually became Flexcoil, which eventually became C&H, New Holland, Case IH. But the big, big, that's what the big bud 747 was. Well, actually, that wasn't. That was built for California.
Farm4Profit Podcast
F4F - Welker Farms & Special Guest Randy from Fieldrows
But a lot of other big buds, they were designed for that. Well, When Kemp Follow hit the scene, air drills weren't that big. Guys were still pulling box drills with small horsepower, 150, 250 horsepower tractors. So really our buds actually sat and didn't do a whole lot for a while.
Farm4Profit Podcast
F4F - Welker Farms & Special Guest Randy from Fieldrows
But then when the air drill carts hit the scene, carts started hitting that 400, 500 bushel, widths getting 60, 80 feet. Then all of a sudden our buds became usable again and needed because you needed the horsepower and the hydraulics to pull those.
Farm4Profit Podcast
F4F - Welker Farms & Special Guest Randy from Fieldrows
I know, but it makes sense. There's too much, too little of everything. There's always, and it seems like grain prices, high, low, rainfall, high, low, winter, early, too early. You know, it's just, why can't we just have this baseline meat? We're all happy.
Farm4Profit Podcast
F4F - Welker Farms & Special Guest Randy from Fieldrows
Yeah, because I water there's been some times I've heard some of my friends that are in the row crop country and some of the rainfall you guys had during the growing season wasn't far off of Mars. You still ended up with 200 plus bushel corn. Yeah.
Farm4Profit Podcast
F4F - Welker Farms & Special Guest Randy from Fieldrows
There's people that sell rocks on eBay, put a dollar minimum bid, and they have a timed auction. So he started taking pictures of field rock, and they will pay for the shipping to send the rock to their house.
Farm4Profit Podcast
F4F - Welker Farms & Special Guest Randy from Fieldrows
They'll pay $6, $7, $8 a rock, and the rock itself will ship. It'll be like $35 in shipping because of how heavy it is.
Farm4Profit Podcast
F4F - Welker Farms & Special Guest Randy from Fieldrows
I mean, we partner with John Deere. Yeah, I don't want to step on their toes.
Farm4Profit Podcast
F4F - Welker Farms & Special Guest Randy from Fieldrows
There you go. That's cool. I want to go back to the big buds because not very many people get access to see them. Not very many people have ever ran one. This is something that you said your dad bought the first big butt on the farm.
Farm4Profit Podcast
F4F - Welker Farms & Special Guest Randy from Fieldrows
Well, it's not a John Deere, though. I'm sure you guys promote other brands. John Deere is not the only ship in the ocean.
Farm4Profit Podcast
F4F - Welker Farms & Special Guest Randy from Fieldrows
Oh, the third of production period.
Farm4Profit Podcast
F4F - Welker Farms & Special Guest Randy from Fieldrows
Because I was surprised when you said the hydraulic capacity is what was needed. I know air drills take a lot of that. I didn't figure an older tractor would have... Hydraulic capacities.
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F4F - Welker Farms & Special Guest Randy from Fieldrows
Okay, is there a good story behind this brand?
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F4F - Welker Farms & Special Guest Randy from Fieldrows
Oh, it's a phenomenal story. It's manufactured right here in Weewahichika, Florida, which is about 40 miles down the road.
Farm4Profit Podcast
F4F - Welker Farms & Special Guest Randy from Fieldrows
Engine transmission replaced within about six hours.
Farm4Profit Podcast
F4F - Welker Farms & Special Guest Randy from Fieldrows
Yeah, they do look cool. They do look cool. I didn't understand the ease to work on it like that. It makes sense.
Farm4Profit Podcast
F4F - Welker Farms & Special Guest Randy from Fieldrows
You never heard of Weewahichika? No. It's where all the Tupelo honey comes from in the whole world. Oh, all of it?
Farm4Profit Podcast
F4F - Welker Farms & Special Guest Randy from Fieldrows
Three. Yeah, three currently.
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F4F - Welker Farms & Special Guest Randy from Fieldrows
That's a whole other story. Okay. Well, let's get into it. Well, so Big Brute. So we farm, obviously, pretty low cost per acre. So we try to keep our costs down. And we were running a pull-type sprayer behind a Magnum.
Farm4Profit Podcast
F4F - Welker Farms & Special Guest Randy from Fieldrows
89 40 and we wanted to build our own sprayer because we knew we could do it cheap and we were trying to find what platform are we going to put this on and we have some friends that ran Tyler I don't know if you know Tyler spreaders yeah and so they have the Tylers which eventually became Case Titans and they said you need to get one of these Tylers they're built like a tank big box frames we've got a 2500 gallon sprayer running right now at the time they had one of the biggest sprayers in the world you know about 20 years ago 2500 gallons 100 foot boom and
Farm4Profit Podcast
F4F - Welker Farms & Special Guest Randy from Fieldrows
But, you know, Allison transmission, Cummins engine, Cat engine, whatever it may be, run big acres. We don't really care about footprint in that we're not row cropping. We can drive over stuff. It's a big fat tire. So we found ourselves a 2001 FLX 4375 Titan, I think is what it was. Case, yep. Yep, with low hours on it. Should have been left in the coolie. Yeah, it was thrashed.
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F4F - Welker Farms & Special Guest Randy from Fieldrows
Probably. Is there Moose there? No, but the owner's last name was Moose.
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F4F - Welker Farms & Special Guest Randy from Fieldrows
The rust had seen its day of fertilizer spreading, but we cleaned it up. There's the video on it. And we basically... took a New Holland S1070 pull-type sprayer, chopped it up, put it on the back of it, and we're like, this thing looks hideous in the front. Absolutely terrible front end on it. Like, I wonder if we could make it look like a Big Bud. That'd be kind of fun.
Farm4Profit Podcast
F4F - Welker Farms & Special Guest Randy from Fieldrows
So he calls Ron Harmon, who's the current, he's like the grandfather of Big Bud, currently running it. So... Ron's like, I think I got an old butt out in the back there. You guys can take the hood off of it. It was an old butt that was sitting next to the ocean down by Texas, and it had rusted the whole thing up. But the hood, it was actually, it had rust, but it looked okay.
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F4F - Welker Farms & Special Guest Randy from Fieldrows
So we went down to the trailer.
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F4F - Welker Farms & Special Guest Randy from Fieldrows
This is not right. I don't like doing this.
Farm4Profit Podcast
F4F - Welker Farms & Special Guest Randy from Fieldrows
So we put it on the front of it, and then we built our own fenders. So that looks like a big bud from the front, but it's really a Titan floater truck.
Farm4Profit Podcast
F4F - Welker Farms & Special Guest Randy from Fieldrows
Oh, yeah, we put it in a tractor pull.
Farm4Profit Podcast
F4F - Welker Farms & Special Guest Randy from Fieldrows
It did a full pull, but then the second time, yeah, it popped the axle shaft. It dropped the gear, and when it dropped, it dropped the drive shaft. It did pull the farthest. $1,500 later. Wow. That's the cost of tractor pulls, I guess.
Farm4Profit Podcast
F4F - Welker Farms & Special Guest Randy from Fieldrows
He's since passed, but now his son Owen runs the company. He's the one that actually contacted me through a DM on Instagram.
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F4F - Welker Farms & Special Guest Randy from Fieldrows
No. Our local fair has been diminishing year after year, and they do occasionally bring in a local puller. I mean, a couple guys come in, but it's just not big enough to do anything. But we've driven our big buds down there and hooked on and pulled the sled around. Now anymore, it doesn't happen very often. Sounds like fun. Yeah, it's kind of cool.
Farm4Profit Podcast
F4F - Welker Farms & Special Guest Randy from Fieldrows
It's cool to hear that you guys are innovating. You're doing it the farmer way. No, no, no, no, no. Let me rephrase that. We're glutton for punishment. One of your most recent videos was you're bending a draper back, the frame of a draper back out. Like four people sent that to me.
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F4F - Welker Farms & Special Guest Randy from Fieldrows
Do you realize how familiar that sounds, James Moose? It's the guy's name.
Farm4Profit Podcast
F4F - Welker Farms & Special Guest Randy from Fieldrows
Tanner, if you made a tractor, would you name it Tanner? Whatever your last name is? Or would you just – it makes sense.
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F4F - Welker Farms & Special Guest Randy from Fieldrows
No wonder it smelled like corn. I was wondering what was going on.
Farm4Profit Podcast
F4F - Welker Farms & Special Guest Randy from Fieldrows
Corey and I owned a truck together, and we were going to try and do what you guys do. It had been wrecked, so we bought it. Took the sleeper off of it. I'm going to turn it into a day cab. And we very quickly realized we were in over our heads.
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F4F - Welker Farms & Special Guest Randy from Fieldrows
It does. It would make sense.
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F4F - Welker Farms & Special Guest Randy from Fieldrows
We actually, I mean, we didn't lose money, but we didn't make money. Yeah. But every time we dug deeper and deeper into it, we went, oh, no. Yeah.
Farm4Profit Podcast
F4F - Welker Farms & Special Guest Randy from Fieldrows
We couldn't even figure out exactly where the truck had been all of its life. That's how many parts were... We're like, was it in Montana for a little bit and then in Nebraska?
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F4F - Welker Farms & Special Guest Randy from Fieldrows
Have you seen those guys, the Edison Motor guys?
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F4F - Welker Farms & Special Guest Randy from Fieldrows
Yeah, that's pretty innovative.
Farm4Profit Podcast
F4F - Welker Farms & Special Guest Randy from Fieldrows
Well, it depends. It's pretty neat. I mean, pretty awesome idea. I don't know if our batteries are like the winner, but.
Farm4Profit Podcast
F4F - Welker Farms & Special Guest Randy from Fieldrows
That's not the point. It's a brand-new tractor, and I'd like to promote it.
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F4F - Welker Farms & Special Guest Randy from Fieldrows
Once battery tech and the ability to generate the electricity is perfected, electric by far is the way to go. There's no doubt. As much as I love combustion engines, it is the way to go. It's just we're not.
Farm4Profit Podcast
F4F - Welker Farms & Special Guest Randy from Fieldrows
No, it's got to roll coal, right?
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F4F - Welker Farms & Special Guest Randy from Fieldrows
We can pretend. And what are you going to spray ether on then? I mean, it smells nice, but...
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F4F - Welker Farms & Special Guest Randy from Fieldrows
Oh, I like that a lot. So we've interviewed a lot of people on our podcast. We've interviewed people that have been on TV and have their own TV shows, but we've never interviewed someone who's been on National Geographic.
Farm4Profit Podcast
F4F - Welker Farms & Special Guest Randy from Fieldrows
Oh, that's true. Who are you talking about? It was just a small blip. No, we got, yeah, we had contacted by a production company that was doing a series called The Story of Food for National Geographic. And they said, we would like to use some of your footage if you'd let us. I was like, oh, that is awesome. Sure. Of course, not thinking about royalties or anything. I was like, here, take it.
Farm4Profit Podcast
F4F - Welker Farms & Special Guest Randy from Fieldrows
Yeah. And yeah, they ended up, I gave them like an hour's worth. I think they used six seconds of it.
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F4F - Welker Farms & Special Guest Randy from Fieldrows
Yes. So after this interview, we'll have you meet with our people, and you can sign the release.
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F4F - Welker Farms & Special Guest Randy from Fieldrows
I always wondered, though, how those TV shows, and when you see the ad clips, and sometimes they don't match the context that they're actually talking about, who's sourcing those? And we learned that that was a piece of how you guys got your content used was, oh, they just ask people that are willing to give it.
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F4F - Welker Farms & Special Guest Randy from Fieldrows
Yeah, yeah, that's exactly what they do, 100%.
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F4F - Welker Farms & Special Guest Randy from Fieldrows
So yeah, we typically, of course, originally was wheat, fallow, wheat, fallow. Then the pulse crops kind of entered the scene. So lentils, chickpeas, yellow peas, garbs. And we've found yellow peas seem to be the best. The market for it is the animal food, dog food. So it either goes towards animal feed because it's high in protein, like 26, 28%. Yeah.
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F4F - Welker Farms & Special Guest Randy from Fieldrows
Well, number one, it has automatic traction boost. That is where it can sense when you need extra traction. It engages four-wheel drive, limiting your chances of getting stuck.
Farm4Profit Podcast
F4F - Welker Farms & Special Guest Randy from Fieldrows
Or Asian countries have really been taking it on too because it's been cheap protein for them because they're just desperate to find protein. But it's a shallow root crop that we found we can plant after our wheat. And like this year, our peas, which were on wheat stubble, ran 19, 18 bushels in a year.
Farm4Profit Podcast
F4F - Welker Farms & Special Guest Randy from Fieldrows
Our wheat probably ran average of 16 bushels. So a lot of that wheat, now the wheat that was on fallow ran low 20s, mid 20s. But I mean, it wasn't far off from making the yield of the wheat and it was supposed to be fallow ground. So we were supposed to be spending money to keep the ground dead. And here we had a crop we were able to harvest on it and we sold it for $7.50 a bushel.
Farm4Profit Podcast
F4F - Welker Farms & Special Guest Randy from Fieldrows
It's dropping, but the wheat's worth $5 right now, if we're lucky, before discounts. So I mean, it will be our most valuable crop. So now with that though, we can't plant the farm in that every year because of... diseases like Astrakita and stuff. So we have to do 30% of the farm rotate. So then after that, we'll do a wheat crop again, then we'll follow it.
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F4F - Welker Farms & Special Guest Randy from Fieldrows
And so that'll give us the three to four year rotation between the pulses. And we've tried some oil seeds in the mix. The problem is we keep trying all these crops and it doesn't rain. So everything keeps a fail. Like that was a failure. Camelina. That was a failure. Lentils. That was a failure. Like,
Farm4Profit Podcast
F4F - Welker Farms & Special Guest Randy from Fieldrows
So we're kind of like, okay, we need to stick with the crops that we know are tough and can handle the drought. And when we finally get into a normal precipitation cycle, I think some of these other crops are going to be good. Because there is a lot of market for a lot of these crops. With Canada, Canadians are amazingly innovative. I would say a huge chunk of our tech originates in Canada.
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F4F - Welker Farms & Special Guest Randy from Fieldrows
It's unbelievable. A lot of the manufacturers are up in Canada. And they, there's farms, they're running eight, nine different crops in the same farm. And I just, it blows my mind. I can't imagine it, but they have got it down to an art.
Farm4Profit Podcast
F4F - Welker Farms & Special Guest Randy from Fieldrows
So a lot of that market's kind of drifting below the border and a lot of them actually will send trucks down and pick up our product and take it back to the border across to Canada, so.
Farm4Profit Podcast
F4F - Welker Farms & Special Guest Randy from Fieldrows
Well, we bin it typically first, put air on it. We don't dry anything, but we do sometimes get a little higher moisture, so we put air on it. And then while we have it in the bin, we then start watching the markets and start marketing accordingly. And, yeah, there's a local SNCC, Harvest States, a couple there. That then goes on trains, and it goes to the Asian nations.
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F4F - Welker Farms & Special Guest Randy from Fieldrows
I have a prototype, Corey, so they haven't got all the bells and whistles worked out. The automatic traction boost malfunctioned.
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F4F - Welker Farms & Special Guest Randy from Fieldrows
elevator or something so no we we don't on the farm uh we come drive down the elevator it's a it's a mighty two and a half mile haul downhill oh that's not bad yeah so yeah we roll dump in the elevator and then the elevator when they're eventually full they then fill the the cars accordingly but occasionally there are times where it will feel direct to a rail car for certain crops they'll have a conveyor set up we'll just drive out on this load right on in yeah
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F4F - Welker Farms & Special Guest Randy from Fieldrows
So I still, I can't fathom what it's like to harvest 19 bush of wheat, 18 bush of wheat. How fast can you drive?
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F4F - Welker Farms & Special Guest Randy from Fieldrows
Oh, it's exhilarating. Tell them what we got on this. So normally when we're harvesting, our top speed's probably six miles an hour. And that's just because our header physically can't cut it fast enough.
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F4F - Welker Farms & Special Guest Randy from Fieldrows
it's starting to lay under the the cutter bar um and uh so this year we had the privilege to demo uh the 9260 case h9260 and a case ih af11 with a 50 foot fd250 macdon head and the header has 19 longer knives and redesigned guards and i didn't really think a lot of that but I pushed it up to 14 miles an hour and it was still cutting the crop with pretty even stubble behind.
Farm4Profit Podcast
F4F - Welker Farms & Special Guest Randy from Fieldrows
We know if things are malfunctioning coming straight from the factory.
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F4F - Welker Farms & Special Guest Randy from Fieldrows
And so we averaged about 11 miles an hour with that combine, about 55 to 60 acres per hour, burning less fuel than our other combines per acre. And it was quite remarkable. And I didn't break one guard on that entire header that entire time. And the other headers we have, which are draper heads, 45 foot,
Farm4Profit Podcast
F4F - Welker Farms & Special Guest Randy from Fieldrows
MacDon design, case branded, and they, I mean, we're constantly out there changing guards, changing sections, but that new header, flex head. I'll tell you, it was like Speedy Gonzalez out there. Just dust cloud, just dust rolling off the combine.
Farm4Profit Podcast
F4F - Welker Farms & Special Guest Randy from Fieldrows
It's pretty amazing. But I mean, that combine was outcutting our two class eight, 45 foot combines by itself. It literally over doubled our capacity.
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F4F - Welker Farms & Special Guest Randy from Fieldrows
You had to go 11 miles an hour to keep the sieves loaded. It has a gauge that says... with pressure sensor that says, you know, here's where you need to try to keep it to keep the sieves loaded properly. And about 10 to 11 mile an hour is where we had to keep it.
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F4F - Welker Farms & Special Guest Randy from Fieldrows
I'm the test dummy. Why I called you guys was to see if I could promote it on your podcast. I know you guys got a pretty big reach.
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F4F - Welker Farms & Special Guest Randy from Fieldrows
Oh, yeah. It doesn't like it otherwise.
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F4F - Welker Farms & Special Guest Randy from Fieldrows
Absolutely. There's no way physically. There's absolutely no way. I mean, what was a good day of summer following with a 50-some foot freak's dad?
Farm4Profit Podcast
F4F - Welker Farms & Special Guest Randy from Fieldrows
And I'm doing 1,500, 1,800 acres in a day with a sprayer. Or in harvesting. I mean, it took a day to harvest a field, and now we are harvesting sections in a day. And so that, oh yeah, and the grain trucks. Our biggest truck growing up, the grain hopper on that new F11 is larger than the largest grain truck we had growing up. So the combine itself is bigger than the truck we had.
Farm4Profit Podcast
F4F - Welker Farms & Special Guest Randy from Fieldrows
So it's just that level of... There is definitely still room to scale for size. I think we're getting towards the limit on some of the Like, well, there's only so big you can make a machine. It's got to fit down the road.
Farm4Profit Podcast
F4F - Welker Farms & Special Guest Randy from Fieldrows
Well, I also don't want to make you mad because I know that we kind of owe you some money ourselves because of the hard work that you did for us. But if I look at this content calendar that we've got, I could probably get you squeezed in on the Welkers episode that comes out the first part of October.
Farm4Profit Podcast
F4F - Welker Farms & Special Guest Randy from Fieldrows
And so, but air drills, I mean, they're 100 feet. They're getting, yep. There's things coming down the pipeline, 1,300 bushel carts on the back. So, yeah, it's, I don't know where it's going to go. That's it?
Farm4Profit Podcast
F4F - Welker Farms & Special Guest Randy from Fieldrows
Tiny. Two of them. Have you ever used one of them other bins?
Farm4Profit Podcast
F4F - Welker Farms & Special Guest Randy from Fieldrows
Those look kind of cool.
Farm4Profit Podcast
F4F - Welker Farms & Special Guest Randy from Fieldrows
Yeah, I was sitting there thinking about that. That would hold our years farming on it.
Farm4Profit Podcast
F4F - Welker Farms & Special Guest Randy from Fieldrows
It certainly is. So as you guys are looking to the future of the farm and the future of the channel, what are you excited about? You're going to keep doing more of the same? You got more stories to tell?
Farm4Profit Podcast
F4F - Welker Farms & Special Guest Randy from Fieldrows
You know, I don't really know where the channel is going to go in that if we just continue to tell a story, and I don't really know what that story is going to bring. I think there's a lot of opportunity for the farm to grow in the next 10 years. There's a lot of acres that could be added. So we're going to have to hit that crossroad. What does that mean for us? Do we need more equipment?
Farm4Profit Podcast
F4F - Welker Farms & Special Guest Randy from Fieldrows
more manpower. Um, we've got a younger generation that's quickly growing and won't be long. And these kids will be able to start participating in our farm operation. So we're trying to think ahead for that. Um, you know, and it's right now, it's not a great time to think about the future.
Farm4Profit Podcast
F4F - Welker Farms & Special Guest Randy from Fieldrows
Cause you're like, I don't know if we're going to make it through this year kind of thing, but it, it is exciting. But I, I, you know, every year I think this is going to be a boring year and it just seems like something happens that just makes it fun. Yeah, or something you want to forget.
Farm4Profit Podcast
F4F - Welker Farms & Special Guest Randy from Fieldrows
It's based around the seeders. It's based around 24-hour capacity of one of their air seeders.
Farm4Profit Podcast
F4F - Welker Farms & Special Guest Randy from Fieldrows
And, I don't like the idea of mega farms, not that I'm against it, but for us in particular. But there's a point where you have to grow to stay in business. I mean, and that's where you got to kind of follow. And if there's land that's been next to you for
Farm4Profit Podcast
F4F - Welker Farms & Special Guest Randy from Fieldrows
Perfect, because guess who else is supporting James Moose and promoting them? No way.
Farm4Profit Podcast
F4F - Welker Farms & Special Guest Randy from Fieldrows
well, the entire life of the farm and it has a chance to come up and you've got the opportunity, it'd be, you always look back and why didn't grandpa buy that piece of land? He had the chance, he had the money, why didn't he do it? You know, and you don't want to be that person, but you got to be smart about it. So I think, you know, you just got to give it a try.
Farm4Profit Podcast
F4F - Welker Farms & Special Guest Randy from Fieldrows
Yep, the Welkers. Wow. You're kidding me. Go check out the videos. They're already out now. They're going to get one this fall.
Farm4Profit Podcast
F4F - Welker Farms & Special Guest Randy from Fieldrows
I don't think we've ever had a payment on a tractor.
Farm4Profit Podcast
F4F - Welker Farms & Special Guest Randy from Fieldrows
Not that we just have cash to throw at stuff like that, but we buy these bargain deals. We bought a $6,000 truck, put an engine out of another truck that was thrashed, under $20,000. We've got a nice semi to pull stuff around. We didn't have to spend $100,000.
Farm4Profit Podcast
F4F - Welker Farms & Special Guest Randy from Fieldrows
Rachel, how come we're not promoting James Moose tractors?
Farm4Profit Podcast
F4F - Welker Farms & Special Guest Randy from Fieldrows
I'm not joking. Time is getting to be tough trying to find out how to get it done with the means that we have. Before, bachelors, no kids. It's like, you know, all the time in the world. Who cares, you know? But now it's a struggle to find the right time to be able to get this stuff done.
Farm4Profit Podcast
F4F - Welker Farms & Special Guest Randy from Fieldrows
You probably think, well, the Welkers, they need something big, right? They're like the big buds. The James Moose is a 300 horsepower tractor, but you look at it, you say there's no way that much horsepower is packed in that type frame, but it is.
Farm4Profit Podcast
F4F - Welker Farms & Special Guest Randy from Fieldrows
Maybe he was talking about himself.
Farm4Profit Podcast
F4F - Welker Farms & Special Guest Randy from Fieldrows
What it costs you to grow your acre of corn is what we pay for our land, basically.
Farm4Profit Podcast
F4F - Welker Farms & Special Guest Randy from Fieldrows
So it's a way different scale. Just different levels. Yeah, it's pretty much the same, but just a smaller scale. I will say, I see a lot more newer paint in this country than I do in our country.
Farm4Profit Podcast
F4F - Welker Farms & Special Guest Randy from Fieldrows
Yeah, there were some years that were killer. And we droughted during them, so.
Farm4Profit Podcast
F4F - Welker Farms & Special Guest Randy from Fieldrows
No, no, we did not. Mine was Hollywood because I make videos and I hate Hollywood. I do like a couple movies. No, no, so people call me Hollywood. I just say Nick, though, but I don't really care. Whatever they want to call me, that's fine. Scott, we were doing a live stream and some guy in the comments during the live stream kept saying, hey, ask that leg arms over there.
Farm4Profit Podcast
F4F - Welker Farms & Special Guest Randy from Fieldrows
What's that leg arms doing?
Farm4Profit Podcast
F4F - Welker Farms & Special Guest Randy from Fieldrows
I can show you the specs on it and stuff.
Farm4Profit Podcast
F4F - Welker Farms & Special Guest Randy from Fieldrows
I will say that I admire her. I drive her crazy, too. Probably better than nitpicking, though.
Farm4Profit Podcast
F4F - Welker Farms & Special Guest Randy from Fieldrows
We do struggle, but we will. So, yeah, we have been asking a question to all of our guests at the end of every show just to get a perspective from Farm Progress Show. We want to know how you guys juggle work and personal life.
Farm4Profit Podcast
F4F - Welker Farms & Special Guest Randy from Fieldrows
But the first part of October works, and it sounds like Welker's is an okay thing to get permission from them?
Farm4Profit Podcast
F4F - Welker Farms & Special Guest Randy from Fieldrows
Well, I try to look at my mind. Well, obviously, our livelihoods are based off of the farm. And so when it's time to farm, it's time to farm. and we do what we can to farm. And if I have to put it in a couple extra hours to get the spraying done, whatever it is to be, that lets me get the time off afterwards to do some of the family, I'll do it.
Farm4Profit Podcast
F4F - Welker Farms & Special Guest Randy from Fieldrows
But there are times too, like, so we're coming to the show, we got greened out on Friday, we had Saturday, to basically spend time with our families before we came here. And I almost loaded the sprayer up, went spraying because I need a lot of there's a lot of spraying to do. But I decided, you know what? The family is more important than the fields right now. Those weeds can grow whatever.
Farm4Profit Podcast
F4F - Welker Farms & Special Guest Randy from Fieldrows
Let them grow. Neighbors might judge, but that's fine. I'll take care of when I get back. You know, so you have to make You have to make a call, and you have to be willing to make sacrifice, too. I mean, I used to be big into hunting and all kinds of things, and I just realized there was a time for that.
Farm4Profit Podcast
F4F - Welker Farms & Special Guest Randy from Fieldrows
I had that time, and now my time is my family and my responsibilities, and so that gets put aside. But it's just, I don't know. There are days where I feel like it can't do it. You just can't get it all done. But then somehow we roll over the next year and things keep happening and you realize, well, I guess we did get it done. Yeah, that's my adjust. But yeah, it's always evolving.
Farm4Profit Podcast
F4F - Welker Farms & Special Guest Randy from Fieldrows
No, I work directly with them, so I'm helping them get the brand out now. I can share Owen's email address if you want it, or his phone number. I can give you his phone number.
Farm4Profit Podcast
F4F - Welker Farms & Special Guest Randy from Fieldrows
You just have to be willing to evolve.
Farm4Profit Podcast
F4F - Welker Farms & Special Guest Randy from Fieldrows
I got a DM through Instagram from Owen Moose, which is the owner's son, just saying he was a fan of my content and his father had developed a brand new tractor and wanted to know if I would help get the word out. So I said, sign me up. How do we get one? Well, they're going to start coming to dealers this fall here pretty quick.
Farm4Profit Podcast
F4F - Welker Farms & Special Guest Randy from Fieldrows
They were all different. I mean, it's the best place. I've got a soft spot for Nick's.
Farm4Profit Podcast
F4F - Welker Farms & Special Guest Randy from Fieldrows
Guys, this has been a pleasure. Remind our listeners where they can find you if they've never heard of Welker Farms before.
Farm4Profit Podcast
F4F - Welker Farms & Special Guest Randy from Fieldrows
Yeah, I mean, a quick Google, you'll find us, Papa, but YouTube, Welker Farms, Instagram, Facebook.
Farm4Profit Podcast
F4F - Welker Farms & Special Guest Randy from Fieldrows
tiktok pretty much all the platforms um just type in welker and usually welker farms pops up um and yeah usually posting once or twice a week on on youtube and then the other platforms try to do it daily or throughout the week so yeah so quick quick jab you were on youtube before zach right yeah well yes yes i was but yet somehow you've let him double you in followers yeah i know yeah well he's very compassionate
Farm4Profit Podcast
F4F - Welker Farms & Special Guest Randy from Fieldrows
There is three of us. I know. Zach's just one of those that you just can't underestimate.
Farm4Profit Podcast
F4F - Welker Farms & Special Guest Randy from Fieldrows
I can beat him on the racetrack.
Farm4Profit Podcast
F4F - Welker Farms & Special Guest Randy from Fieldrows
All right, guys. Thank you so much. We appreciate you sweating it out with us here on the Sucup stage. And I can't wait to do it again next time.
Farm4Profit Podcast
F4F - Welker Farms & Special Guest Randy from Fieldrows
We're going to start in the southeast mainly and then trickle our way up north. Probably this year, but next year you should start seeing some up in your part of the world.
Farm4Profit Podcast
F4F - Welker Farms & Special Guest Randy from Fieldrows
If we're going to do this, we don't want to get it from a dealer. We will run this ad, but we want Owen to send us one before anybody in this area gets one. Oh, yeah.
Farm4Profit Podcast
F4F - Welker Farms & Special Guest Randy from Fieldrows
I mean, I can talk to him. They've got limited supply, but every day there are more and more coming about.
Farm4Profit Podcast
F4F - Welker Farms & Special Guest Randy from Fieldrows
I'll share you his phone number, and y'all can work out the details. Does he have a lot of technology in him? Oh, yeah. And that's the beauty of it. A lot of the technology in these new tractors, do we really need them? It just complicates things. So the moose is very simple. Gives the farmer what they need and nothing more.
Farm4Profit Podcast
F4F - Welker Farms & Special Guest Randy from Fieldrows
And you don't pay for it.
Farm4Profit Podcast
F4F - Welker Farms & Special Guest Randy from Fieldrows
Guess how much it is. Take my guess. $50,000. Come on, Corey. How much is a brand new 300 horsepower tractor today?
Farm4Profit Podcast
F4F - Welker Farms & Special Guest Randy from Fieldrows
Okay. Ain't nobody going to beat that price point.
Farm4Profit Podcast
F4F - Welker Farms & Special Guest Randy from Fieldrows
I was just going to say, it looks a lot like a John Deere 4450. And that's not worth $100,000.
Farm4Profit Podcast
F4F - Welker Farms & Special Guest Randy from Fieldrows
It's similar. I'll agree it is similar. But if you were going to make a brand new tractor brand, wouldn't you want it to resemble other popular tractors?
Farm4Profit Podcast
F4F - Welker Farms & Special Guest Randy from Fieldrows
Wasn't Deere the first one to make a tractor? So every tractor kind of looks like a Deere.
Farm4Profit Podcast
F4F - Welker Farms & Special Guest Randy from Fieldrows
I think I like your... It's a different way of thinking, but I really think once people get in it, they drive it, they see how well it works, and they see how much money they're saving for a brand new tractor, I don't see why this brand couldn't be at the top of the totem pole in three or four years.
Farm4Profit Podcast
F4F - Welker Farms & Special Guest Randy from Fieldrows
All right. I'm ready to make a deal because I think we can help you. How about you drop your lawsuit against us for stealing your music on our intros? We run this ad, and you send us some James Moose merch so we can rep it appropriately when we go out and about, and you get us in contact with Owen Moose. So you drop your lawsuit.
Farm4Profit Podcast
F4F - Welker Farms & Special Guest Randy from Fieldrows
It's gone. We run this ad. We get some cool stuff to wear, and we get to talk to the boss.
Farm4Profit Podcast
F4F - Welker Farms & Special Guest Randy from Fieldrows
How many people from here do they have?
Farm4Profit Podcast
F4F - Welker Farms & Special Guest Randy from Fieldrows
Lots. Tens of thousands.
Farm4Profit Podcast
F4F - Welker Farms & Special Guest Randy from Fieldrows
Also, Zach is repping this brand as well. Oh, really?
Farm4Profit Podcast
F4F - Welker Farms & Special Guest Randy from Fieldrows
Check out the video, Zach.
Farm4Profit Podcast
F4F - Welker Farms & Special Guest Randy from Fieldrows
We also have this colorway, James Moose, $1,000. We've got hats, shirts, and stickers exclusively over there at farmfocus.com. So head over there, check it out, buy it, and support the brand that supports you.
Farm4Profit Podcast
F4F - Welker Farms & Special Guest Randy from Fieldrows
You got Zach, Welkers, and Bills? Zach, Johnson, the Welkers, Nick and Scott, and Trevor Bills from Arizona trying to get to the West Coast. Awesome. But we don't have anybody in Iowa yet, but play your cards right. Hopefully we will. Okay.
Farm4Profit Podcast
F4F - Welker Farms & Special Guest Randy from Fieldrows
You know what I'm saying?
Farm4Profit Podcast
F4F - Welker Farms & Special Guest Randy from Fieldrows
Do you think we have a deal? Do you think that would work? Yes. I will agree to drop the lawsuit for illegally using my song without my permission in return for promoting the brand. I think we can do that. And a couple hats and shirts. Rachel, what size shirt do you wear?
Farm4Profit Podcast
F4F - Welker Farms & Special Guest Randy from Fieldrows
Yeah, I'll get you a smaller medium. Corey, you're probably extra large. Tanner, are you a large? A large or a medium? He's just a little guy.
Farm4Profit Podcast
F4F - Welker Farms & Special Guest Randy from Fieldrows
I'll, um, well, you guys know Ben from Farm Focus, so I'll contact him and y'all just get in contact with your sizes. And the hats are snapbacks, so...
Farm4Profit Podcast
F4F - Welker Farms & Special Guest Randy from Fieldrows
Absolutely. Yep. Got a banger of a song made. It's about a minute and 40 seconds. Just talking about all the features and everything involved with it. So if you could play it, that'd be pretty cool. I'll send it to you.
Farm4Profit Podcast
F4F - Welker Farms & Special Guest Randy from Fieldrows
How about we do that? We'll hang up now, and that's what we will share with our audience is your banger, and we'll get the word out that way.
Farm4Profit Podcast
F4F - Welker Farms & Special Guest Randy from Fieldrows
And I would like to mention, probably by the time this airs, if everything goes smoothly, you can find that song on Spotify and all streaming platforms.
Farm4Profit Podcast
F4F - Welker Farms & Special Guest Randy from Fieldrows
great i love it yeah awesome well i i'm glad this was the conversation we got to have and it wasn't you upping your lawsuits yes i was a little nervous when we answered yeah and i i hate the way all that happened but as an artist i just feel that i should be you know paid for my art and i didn't want to step on you your toes because y'all probably didn't think anything of it but
Farm4Profit Podcast
F4F - Welker Farms & Special Guest Randy from Fieldrows
We've had many conversations.
Farm4Profit Podcast
F4F - Welker Farms & Special Guest Randy from Fieldrows
Yeah, I thought you were sending us the file. Yeah, I sent it for you to hear it, not the world to hear it. Okay. You know what I'm saying?
Farm4Profit Podcast
F4F - Welker Farms & Special Guest Randy from Fieldrows
Wipe it clean. And start over.
Farm4Profit Podcast
F4F - Welker Farms & Special Guest Randy from Fieldrows
That's great. Well, let's let the listeners hear the song.
Farm4Profit Podcast
F4F - Welker Farms & Special Guest Randy from Fieldrows
Oh, yeah. The slogan for James Moose is, nothing cuts loose like a moose. Here we go.
Farm4Profit Podcast
F4F - Welker Farms & Special Guest Randy from Fieldrows
Oh, not much. Just hanging out. What y'all doing?
Farm4Profit Podcast
F4F - Welker Farms & Special Guest Randy from Fieldrows
Absolutely. Well, everybody that is at Farm Progress Show sitting here in the Sukup booth, we thank you for sitting in here. Whether it was just to take a load off and try and cool down, or if you were here to see the Wilkers, we're excited to have them here. The Farm for Profit podcast puts on two episodes every single week. We've got a Farm for Fun show and a Farm for Profit show.
Farm4Profit Podcast
F4F - Welker Farms & Special Guest Randy from Fieldrows
We try to help farmers achieve higher levels of profitability with the trends, tips, and techniques and experts that we get to meet, all while having a good time, throwing a little entertainment into the mix.
Farm4Profit Podcast
F4F - Welker Farms & Special Guest Randy from Fieldrows
We're fine. I'm a little concerned about why you're calling.
Farm4Profit Podcast
F4F - Welker Farms & Special Guest Randy from Fieldrows
We'll see how these guys put up with our hard questions. But excited to finally get this interview put together. It's going to be one that I think both you and I have been looking forward to.
Farm4Profit Podcast
F4F - Welker Farms & Special Guest Randy from Fieldrows
You want to call me back or are you good?
Farm4Profit Podcast
F4F - Welker Farms & Special Guest Randy from Fieldrows
Children. Children. Lots of children.
Farm4Profit Podcast
F4F - Welker Farms & Special Guest Randy from Fieldrows
All right. Yeah, I wanted to run something by you. Have you seen the new James Moose 1000 brand-new tractor on the Brand Ambassador? Have you seen that? The what? James Moose? Yes. It's called a James Moose. It's a brand-new tractor hitting the market this fall. Long story short, I'm the official Brand Ambassador, and we got one. It really is a phenomenal machine, innovative.
Farm4Profit Podcast
F4F - Welker Farms & Special Guest Randy from Fieldrows
Ah, it's good to be here.
Farm4Profit Podcast
F4F - Welker Farms & Special Guest Randy from Fieldrows
Yeah, the last time we were together, I was spanking the Mono Farmer in a go-kart race. That's right.
Farm4Profit Podcast
Closing the Yield Gap: Protecting Farmers’ Profits w/ Acre Shield
All right. I'm material handling sales director. So what that means is I kind of oversee all of our material handling products. So that's the drag conveyors, bucket elevators. We've got triple run conveyors, distributors. all of our structures, so the towers, catwalks, those types of things.
Farm4Profit Podcast
Closing the Yield Gap: Protecting Farmers’ Profits w/ Acre Shield
So basically anything that handles grain and, you know, some towers and structures there to support those products.
Farm4Profit Podcast
Closing the Yield Gap: Protecting Farmers’ Profits w/ Acre Shield
So we've got a new dual-flow distributor. It's a completely electronic control. Corey, did you get that on your setup? No. It's dual inlet, so if you've got a couple, a wet leg and a dry leg... then you can dump into a dual inlet distributor and take that grain to basically anywhere you want to, even going into the same bin with it at some point. So you guys have one sitting right out here.
Farm4Profit Podcast
Closing the Yield Gap: Protecting Farmers’ Profits w/ Acre Shield
It's a big piece of metal. It is. It's pretty massive. We've got three different sizes, a 14-inch, a 16-inch, and an 18-inch.
Farm4Profit Podcast
Closing the Yield Gap: Protecting Farmers’ Profits w/ Acre Shield
So anytime you've got two legs on a farm, it does make it a little easier to direct your grain where you want it. If you don't have it, it makes it kind of difficult. You've either got to use a combination of multiple distributors or some two-way valves or three-way valves after that distributor.
Farm4Profit Podcast
Closing the Yield Gap: Protecting Farmers’ Profits w/ Acre Shield
And the nice thing about this is you bring two legs down into it, so it ties both bucket elevators into one distributor.
Farm4Profit Podcast
Closing the Yield Gap: Protecting Farmers’ Profits w/ Acre Shield
correct like this has been done for years correct yeah your first yes this is our first to market with it it has been out there for several years um you know we're just uh obviously as we're growing we're finding these needs to become more and more and this was an opportunity for us to grow and expand so in the past you would have probably purchased that from a secondary source and then
Farm4Profit Podcast
Closing the Yield Gap: Protecting Farmers’ Profits w/ Acre Shield
added that because you needed that as part of your whole suit of grain setup right you do you need that you need to have an option and what we found is when we did purchase them there were some pretty long and extensive lead times with them we thought hey this is an opportunity where we can come to market with something
Farm4Profit Podcast
Closing the Yield Gap: Protecting Farmers’ Profits w/ Acre Shield
have something just as good or better than the competition, and cut down on those lead times that people are facing.
Farm4Profit Podcast
Closing the Yield Gap: Protecting Farmers’ Profits w/ Acre Shield
Well, it is actually built in a facility in the Ukraine. Oh, okay. We've partnered, got a manufacturing plant there, so we're letting them build them, bringing them over here, and then we're... being able to market them here in the United States.
Farm4Profit Podcast
Closing the Yield Gap: Protecting Farmers’ Profits w/ Acre Shield
That's exactly right. So how long have you been with Sukup, Randy? So I've been with Sukup Manufacturing for 24 years. So kind of started off in the engineering side, on the design side. I went into sales and service, and now I kind of head up the whole product line of material handling.
Farm4Profit Podcast
Closing the Yield Gap: Protecting Farmers’ Profits w/ Acre Shield
Absolutely. What we try to do is find out what the needs are, what the problems are that farmers are facing, and then introduce a new innovative product to the market to solve all those problems.
Farm4Profit Podcast
Closing the Yield Gap: Protecting Farmers’ Profits w/ Acre Shield
Well, there's some gearboxes up there, you know, with C-Face electric motors on them. So they're pretty reliable. No different than what you've got probably running your bucket elevators, to be honest. And then all the controls for it are actually, you know, just wires running up the tower conduit. Controls would be on the ground. So it's basically, you never have to get up there to do anything.
Farm4Profit Podcast
Closing the Yield Gap: Protecting Farmers’ Profits w/ Acre Shield
and cleaned and shoveled many a grain bins that i wish i had a paddle sweeping yeah that has been one of our fastest growing products at every farm show i've been at it's probably the most talked about thing there especially if you get somebody that um has a family member that's maybe had an accident or maybe themselves have had an accident with a traditional sweep inside of a grain bin um
Farm4Profit Podcast
Closing the Yield Gap: Protecting Farmers’ Profits w/ Acre Shield
Some guys come in and they're hacking and they've been in dust so long that it's just really starting to affect their lungs and their health. So when they see a product like this where it basically keeps them completely out of that grain bin and they don't have to get in there to do anything.
Farm4Profit Podcast
Closing the Yield Gap: Protecting Farmers’ Profits w/ Acre Shield
I tell you what, I go to a lot of farm shows, and the best thing that I can do is stand there, talk to the paddle sweep, and I get a farmer that comes up that's got one, comes up, that's the best thing I've ever invested in. You know what, that right there,
Farm4Profit Podcast
Closing the Yield Gap: Protecting Farmers’ Profits w/ Acre Shield
It is. And nobody likes it. And I tell you what, the commercial market has, you know, with the whole OSHA and zero entry laws that came into effect probably like eight, eight, nine years ago. That really changed how we clean out grain bins.
Farm4Profit Podcast
Closing the Yield Gap: Protecting Farmers’ Profits w/ Acre Shield
Correct. Yeah, this one is meant for the farms. It's not a commercial one. I mean, we've got a commercial one out there. You know, you get some big bins, you're going to take more than just a little farm paddle sweep to do it. And we do have those large ones available as well. We just aren't displaying those here today.
Farm4Profit Podcast
Closing the Yield Gap: Protecting Farmers’ Profits w/ Acre Shield
You can, yeah. So we can go into, if you've got another brand of unload out there, we do make some retrofit kits that are available. You'll have to probably call in. Now, one thing to be a little careful of is I don't know how well some of those other brands are made, so we're not going to warranty if they've got a gearbox problem or something. That's on them, not us, so...
Farm4Profit Podcast
Closing the Yield Gap: Protecting Farmers’ Profits w/ Acre Shield
We are. I mean, there's still quite a bit of interest. I mean, you know, downpricing. usually for grain bin sales isn't a bad thing. Let's hold our grain. We need to store more of it and wait for a better day, huh? Yep. I mean, we've got to have an uptick at some point, right? We're going to have to. But, you know, the downtrend isn't necessarily a bad thing.
Farm4Profit Podcast
Closing the Yield Gap: Protecting Farmers’ Profits w/ Acre Shield
There are, you know, obviously people out there that still have a lot of last year's corn, so they're looking at grain bins and putting some more storage up for this year, so they've got somewhere to put that grain. So what else are you excited to talk about at the show this year? Oh, we've got a new triple run conveyor here. That's a new receiving low profile conveyor.
Farm4Profit Podcast
Closing the Yield Gap: Protecting Farmers’ Profits w/ Acre Shield
We've had that out for two, three years. We've also got our full heat mix flow dryer on display here. So this is I think the second show we've had that at. So definitely stop by the booth and check that thing out. That's really an innovative product with the whole mix flow drying systems available.
Farm4Profit Podcast
Closing the Yield Gap: Protecting Farmers’ Profits w/ Acre Shield
Hey, thank you, guys. Appreciate it.
Farm4Profit Podcast
Closing the Yield Gap: Protecting Farmers’ Profits w/ Acre Shield
And then obviously all of our traditional grain handling, material handling products, all here on display and all the bins too. I mean, we've got three different sizes here, hopper bins out here, centrifugal fans, we've got everything.
Farm4Profit Podcast
Closing the Yield Gap: Protecting Farmers’ Profits w/ Acre Shield
That's correct. So triple run conveyor to conveying system that can be used in multiple different scenarios, right? So the three basic ones are a dual receiving system.
Farm4Profit Podcast
Closing the Yield Gap: Protecting Farmers’ Profits w/ Acre Shield
It is. I mean, we can get up to, you know, we got capacity ranges anything from 4,000 to 10,000 bushel an hour. You do need to have a bucket elevator sized appropriately and the rest of the conveying systems down the line to take whatever capacity triple run you choose. We need to make sure the rest of that can keep up with it.
Farm4Profit Podcast
Closing the Yield Gap: Protecting Farmers’ Profits w/ Acre Shield
Yeah, you can. You've got a 12-inch double run. That's 10,000 bushel an hour. So as long as we're running that horizontal, that'll keep up with the fastest speed that our triple run's going to be able to put out. So that is an option. Otherwise, we've got other drag conveyors, bucket elevators, things like that, too, that we can use to make sure we get rid of that grain.
Farm4Profit Podcast
Closing the Yield Gap: Protecting Farmers’ Profits w/ Acre Shield
That's right. And how far apart are your farms, right? So that's something else to keep in mind. If your trucks are
Farm4Profit Podcast
Closing the Yield Gap: Protecting Farmers’ Profits w/ Acre Shield
That is true. We handle a lot of commodities. I mean, we've done things from frack sand to canola to sunflower. So it just, it depends on what the farmers and the people need out there.
Farm4Profit Podcast
Closing the Yield Gap: Protecting Farmers’ Profits w/ Acre Shield
Why Sukup? Why Sukup? That's pretty easy. Okay, we're a family-owned company. Every product that leaves our facilities, it's got their name stamped right on the side of it. So we want to make sure we've got the most innovative and the highest quality product on the market today. So you don't find that with some of our competitors, right? They're owned by banks, investment firms.
Farm4Profit Podcast
Closing the Yield Gap: Protecting Farmers’ Profits w/ Acre Shield
They're traded on the stock market every day. So, I mean... When your name's on something, you want to make sure your product resembles your name very well.
Farm4Profit Podcast
Closing the Yield Gap: Protecting Farmers’ Profits w/ Acre Shield
So the best thing to do is get on our website. It's www.sukup.com. We've got all of our literature, all of our brochures out there. Take a look. We've got a dealer lookup there. You can go in, punch in your zip code, take you right to your nearest Sukup manufacturing dealer. I love it. Thanks again for jumping on with us. Hey, thanks, guys. Really appreciate it.
Farm4Profit Podcast
Closing the Yield Gap: Protecting Farmers’ Profits w/ Acre Shield
Yeah, we do some stuff with pistachios and almonds as well. So, you know, nuts to sand to grain.