Agronomist on Walmart Drone Fails, Fungicide Wins & DJI Ban Concerns | The DroneOn Show Episode 33

Episode 33 • December 19, 2025 • 01:16:16
Agronomist on Walmart Drone Fails, Fungicide Wins & DJI Ban Concerns | The DroneOn Show Episode 33
The DroneOn Show
Agronomist on Walmart Drone Fails, Fungicide Wins & DJI Ban Concerns | The DroneOn Show Episode 33

Dec 19 2025 | 01:16:16

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Show Notes

In this episode of the DroneOn Show, host Mike chats with Melvin Lahmers, an agronomist and seed consultant from TMK Bakersville who's been in the farming game for over 30 years, growing up on a family farm and helping growers feed the world through crop consulting, custom applications, and aerial tech. They dive right into a hilarious cold call from an 80-year-old farmer hunting for a drone to check on his cattle—bashing Walmart models that "only fly 500-600 feet" and skipping licenses altogether—while stressing how drones save calves and boost efficiency without needing Wi-Fi or fancy features. Melvin shares his pilot's perspective on scouting fields from the air, the evolution from satellite imagery to drones for spotting issues like irrigation problems or disease in corn, and why fungicide applications via drones are a game-changer for yield boosts in river bottom ground. They tackle big-picture topics like the potential DJI ban's massive impact on U.S. farmers (with no comparable American alternatives yet), regulatory hurdles, the "air show" crowd who just want to see drones in action, and tips for applicators on dealing with curious onlookers or charging for demos. Melvin opens up about his unique "confidence cards" he hands out for motivation, drawn from coaching youth basketball, and emphasizes the need for perspective in ag's fast-changing world. If you're into real talk on drone tech's role in modern farming, from practical cattle scouting to high-stakes policy fights, this episode delivers.

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[00:00:00] Speaker A: Dude, he got the number from that guy. What the world? We're just rolling right into it. [00:00:04] Speaker B: Yeah, you've got a new division. Some girls. [00:00:11] Speaker A: So good. [00:00:13] Speaker B: Oh, my gosh. [00:00:14] Speaker A: I literally. Dude. So guy raises cattle, he needs a drone to. [00:00:19] Speaker B: Are we recording now? [00:00:20] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:00:20] Speaker C: Oh, yeah, yeah. [00:00:21] Speaker A: We're just rolling right into it. [00:00:22] Speaker B: Okay. [00:00:23] Speaker A: Like, what a perfect hair look. [00:00:25] Speaker B: Hair check. [00:00:26] Speaker A: Yeah, hair check stuff. [00:00:28] Speaker B: Okay. [00:00:28] Speaker A: Oh, yeah, we're. We're rolling. [00:00:30] Speaker C: Like, so I didn't. I wasn't rolling during the phone call. [00:00:33] Speaker A: Oh, no, I wasn't. Oh, dude, I thought you were recording. That's why I put it on speaker. So farmer calls me and. Actually, I'll let you be the farmer. [00:00:43] Speaker B: Okay. [00:00:43] Speaker A: You called me looking for what? [00:00:45] Speaker B: Yeah, a drone that doesn't need WI fi. Yo, all that fancy stuff. [00:00:49] Speaker A: You don't need that. He was sent. [00:00:51] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:00:51] Speaker A: And. [00:00:52] Speaker B: And all those Walmart. Sorry, Walmart. All those Walmart drones, you know, they only fly 5, 600ft. That about it? I don't know what happens when they fly 5, 600ft. He didn't explain that because the 15 minute phone call, sometimes you just don't ask questions. I deal with that myself, so. So. But I'm intrigued by the 5, 600ft. When he comes to visit, you can ask, but they only go 5, 600ft. And he only wants to go 100ft in the air. He doesn't want a license. [00:01:21] Speaker A: Yeah, because he's. And he wants it to check on his cattle. [00:01:24] Speaker B: Check on his cattle? Yeah. [00:01:26] Speaker A: Dude, I wish you would have been recording. Land. [00:01:28] Speaker C: And he's going to only fly 100ft. No, I think he's going to hit that 250 too easy. [00:01:35] Speaker A: Oh, he's going to start flying. He's going to be like, mike, this is crazy. I can be, you know, a half mile out or a mile out. [00:01:41] Speaker B: Check on the neighbor's cows. Yeah, he lives there alone, so the neighbor's wife's thing. [00:01:45] Speaker A: Like. [00:01:46] Speaker B: Like that. So. [00:01:47] Speaker A: Dude, it was such a random phone call. Literally, I could not have. [00:01:51] Speaker B: But yeah, I thought that was staged. Really did. You did? Yes. And with. With the phone call. It was so good. With the phone call. You know, I watch your videos. [00:02:01] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:02:01] Speaker B: You're like, you call up these really important people and I'm like, when's. When's Melvin gonna be on the phone call? And you call me up like. Like the time with the lime. Hey, can we spread Lyme through a drone? [00:02:14] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:02:15] Speaker B: Like, no, that's stupid. But you said, why not? Let's try it. [00:02:20] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:02:21] Speaker B: So, okay, we Did. I thought I would get on. On one of your videos for that. Okay, so we're back to the guy looking for his cattle and hating on Walmart drones. [00:02:31] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:02:31] Speaker B: So you. [00:02:32] Speaker A: That. No way. Let's take a little bit. You actually thought that I asked that dude to call me? [00:02:37] Speaker B: Yeah, I think it was staged. I still do. [00:02:40] Speaker C: That's what he was doing when he was getting coffee. [00:02:43] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:02:44] Speaker A: That is crazy. [00:02:47] Speaker B: He's gonna get in his free bottle of water or that bubbly stuff. Whatever. The bubbler. [00:02:53] Speaker A: You want a bubbler? Lennon, if you want to get him a bubbler, he can. He can crack one. We got pomegranate. We got lemon, lime. Kind of like a Sierra Mist. Not nearly. I don't know. [00:03:02] Speaker C: I feel like Melbourne doesn't do coffee and it doesn't do bubbler. [00:03:05] Speaker B: Well, I had my coffee in my car. [00:03:06] Speaker C: Okay. [00:03:07] Speaker B: Um, so about three hours in, maybe I'll take one of those. [00:03:11] Speaker A: Dude, if this podcast lasts for three hours. Well, I was supposed to have an important meeting today at 10 o' clock with politicians from Washington D.C. you were? I was supposed to. And then like a lot of politician stuff, it was on the schedule and then they said nope, canceling the meeting and didn't even give us a date on when they could meet again. [00:03:30] Speaker B: Okay. [00:03:31] Speaker A: Yeah. Because what they're talking about doing with the potential DJI ban. Oh my gosh. It's going to have a huge impact on farmers. [00:03:39] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:03:39] Speaker A: For real. [00:03:40] Speaker B: Please get it figured out for us. [00:03:42] Speaker A: I. Yeah, I'm going to try. [00:03:44] Speaker B: Okay. [00:03:45] Speaker A: Because that figured out. Perfect example. Guy that just called, he wants a good drone, not this Walmart shit. [00:03:52] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:03:52] Speaker A: And the drone that we have will do everything that he wants. Did you know there's not even American built drone that can do what that guy wants this good? Like literally there isn't one available. I don't want to crap on too much American stuff because, like, we just don't have it yet. But we haven't gotten there. We haven't built the equipment to like how China has it. [00:04:13] Speaker B: And getting back to this gentleman, really sincere farmer. I appreciate what he's looking to do. Check the cattle and like he commented that. Go out and check them. Keep an eye on him where he can't get to him as easily. More timely. Definitely a good thing. And I feel like if Radio Shack was still in business, they might. They might have something that would. [00:04:33] Speaker A: This. Melvin, that's why we brought you on the podcast, because I'm sorry. [00:04:40] Speaker C: So please don't apologize. It's great. [00:04:42] Speaker B: But DJI Yes. So I watch your, your videos and all this and I'm concerned about it, but you seem very confident that we can get this figured out. So we need the drones. In agriculture, we do 100%. [00:04:55] Speaker A: Like, okay, so we didn't even do a proper. What is that called? Introduction. [00:04:59] Speaker B: So let's get back to the farmer first to wrap that up. So he wanted a good one. It's going to cost fair amount of money. But he didn't, he didn't balk at that. So. No, no, it sounds like he's going to make. Because he said you save a few calves. Yeah. [00:05:12] Speaker A: I looked at you on purposely when I, when I told him that, you know, I got what you need, but it's going to be about 8,000 bucks. And I looked over and he was like, not, not a problem. You were like, okay, he's going to buy it. [00:05:22] Speaker B: Yeah. And what I was trying to get your attention is, does he have grandkids to fly? [00:05:28] Speaker A: Yeah, I was going to ask him to be interesting, but, dude, he can fly it. [00:05:32] Speaker B: Yeah, that's what's great. [00:05:33] Speaker A: Yeah, These things. I think a lot of people are intimidated by the drones because they think if they make one wrong move, it's going to run into a tree or something. And they actually don't do that. [00:05:45] Speaker B: That's my experience. [00:05:46] Speaker C: Let me. [00:05:47] Speaker A: Several years ago, dude, I should totally let you fly one. [00:05:50] Speaker B: This is so rude of you to just. [00:05:53] Speaker C: It's a Walmart drone that, that the, the sensors fail and puts it straight into the tree at 600ft. [00:05:58] Speaker A: Yep. [00:05:59] Speaker B: Or my time was before. Before sensors even. [00:06:02] Speaker A: Oh, yeah. [00:06:03] Speaker B: So, yeah. [00:06:03] Speaker A: And they wouldn't hover. They would probably just kind of float around. [00:06:06] Speaker B: I could get them to run into the ground is what I could do. That's what mine would do. [00:06:11] Speaker A: They, they definitely do not do that now unless something catastrophic has happened to it. Okay, but guys, we have Melvin Larmor Lammer. Is that how you say. [00:06:20] Speaker B: I've been called worse. Llamas. [00:06:23] Speaker A: Llamas. A local TM from tmk. Bakersville. [00:06:27] Speaker B: Bakersville, yeah. [00:06:29] Speaker A: Agronomous sea consultant. What's your role there? [00:06:33] Speaker B: I like to say simply say simply feed the world is what I do. [00:06:38] Speaker A: So do we have like a drum roll over there? [00:06:41] Speaker C: Like, I don't know which one it is. [00:06:44] Speaker B: I like to say that, you understand. I like to say a lot of things, but. But I help the farmers. The farmers are the ones who feed the world, so I do my best to help them. [00:06:53] Speaker A: Dude, that's good. [00:06:54] Speaker B: In feeding the world. So Whatever. As far as the crop consulting, all that. And we've got a great team that goes out and makes custom applications, everything. [00:07:05] Speaker A: Yeah, we do it. How long have you been in the farming? Crop consultant types. [00:07:11] Speaker B: Work, farming. Grew up on a. On a farm. My dad and the family. [00:07:15] Speaker A: Okay. [00:07:15] Speaker B: So since I was this big, but well, about 30 years now in the crop consulting business. [00:07:22] Speaker A: Wow. [00:07:23] Speaker B: So I've seen a lot. [00:07:23] Speaker A: You don't look old enough to be in it for 30 years. [00:07:26] Speaker B: Started when I was five. Yeah, that was a good one. So when are we recording? When can I stop being stupid? [00:07:37] Speaker A: So continue on. [00:07:38] Speaker B: So, yeah, tmk, Bakersville. Great team. Been with them all these years and been great to help the farmers feed the world. [00:07:46] Speaker A: Yeah, that is good. And I met you from randomly pulling up to tmk because I had a customer where we. I think we were spraying for a customer years in Baltic. [00:07:59] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:07:59] Speaker A: Somewhere close there. And he had said, hey, you got to go down to tmk. You got to see Melvin. He's. He's pretty interested in this drone stuff. Just randomly pulled in there. [00:08:09] Speaker B: You were uninvited? [00:08:10] Speaker A: I was, yeah. [00:08:12] Speaker B: Landon too. [00:08:14] Speaker C: I don't know that I got the best look because I was slinging a camera that day. Yeah, I got a few dirty looks. [00:08:22] Speaker A: Little caught off guard, but, dude, you rolled with the punches. Just like you're rolling with the punches right now here on the podcast. [00:08:27] Speaker B: Okay, so back to the agronomy work. So I've done that forever, and I was involved with aerial application of crops back years ago here. [00:08:38] Speaker A: Locally. [00:08:39] Speaker B: Yes. And so I'm a pilot, private pilot. So I would look at the fields from above and get the vantage point of that, which really helped me and helped the farmers. And then drones became more common. So thought, wow, drones would be good to observe the fields. [00:08:55] Speaker A: Can you give us a timeline of when this would have been taking place? [00:08:58] Speaker B: Because the. The drones had been a pilot for 20 years. So started looking at fields then from that perspective. And I like satellite imagery, of course. Wasn't that good back then? [00:09:09] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:09:10] Speaker B: So that was 20 years ago, probably in 2008. We were doing a lot of aerial. Fair amount of aerial. We weren't. We were contracting with aerial applicators and on some river bottom ground that they planted corn after corn irrigated. So there was a lot of disease. So that definitely proved to be advantageous to put fungicides on. So I was trying to get aerial applicators in, and we had. It was a fair amount of acres. But you have to have, as you know you've, you're in this business, I hear. [00:09:43] Speaker A: Yeah, I am. [00:09:45] Speaker B: Some, some of the, the bigger aerial applicators need a lot of acres to be able to justify coming in. And that's the nice thing on drones, is you can come in for smaller acres. So I would do all this work coordinating aero applicators to come in and then whatever weather changes, whatever. Probably they were overbooked and so getting there on a timely manner was getting to be an issue. So I was pulling my hair out and as you can see, I've stopped pulling my hair out now so they wouldn't get in it. And as my agronomy work, I want things done on a timely basis and work with so many farmers. [00:10:21] Speaker A: Well, don't farmers want the same. I mean if, if, if it's ready, it's ready right now. Yeah, it's, it's like I tell guys and folks might watch the videos. It's like when a farmer calls, he's usually not calling the schedule out. [00:10:34] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:10:34] Speaker A: Like two weeks. It's like, I need this yesterday. Okay, I'll make it happen. Yeah, the drones are able to do that. [00:10:41] Speaker B: Yeah. And that's. We schedule custom application of pesticides, herbicides, fungicides and fertilizer, all that stuff. So on the spraying we have a list and it's difficult to get through the list if the weather doesn't cooperate and all that. Yeah, it really bothers me a lot, the weather. [00:10:59] Speaker A: Are we, are we going to get, are we going to talk about the weather? [00:11:02] Speaker B: I want this done in a timely manner and then we've got all these jobs and the farmers will call up like, when are you getting here? Yes, I know, I know we need to be there and we will get there. But then I can change recommendations. With my knowledge, I can change recommendations and make it still work. It's not like it's a one day, it's not a going to fall its face. [00:11:26] Speaker A: Are we, are we talking about fungicide specifically? [00:11:28] Speaker B: Everything. Okay, everything. [00:11:30] Speaker A: Because I mean, let's talk fungicide. Isn't that like a seven day window? So say your aerial application company was going to come and you had a, you know, schedule out for this week, a certain week, and they were supposed to be there Monday, but they don't get there till Thursday or Friday. Is that, is that a problem? [00:11:47] Speaker B: No. 7 on corn and soybeans, it's not quite that tight of a window. [00:11:51] Speaker A: Okay. [00:11:52] Speaker B: Now on the wheat head scab fungicide, it's approaching that tight of a window. [00:11:56] Speaker C: Okay. [00:11:57] Speaker B: With the wheat application but yes, there is a. Is a window there. And on the other, the corn and soybeans, I'd say it's a 14 day window for even 21 at times, depending on disease pressure and timing. And the disease moves in. [00:12:13] Speaker A: Talking about the disease, you've told me in the past that you're not necessarily for fungicide on all corn. There has to be disease first before you even think about putting it on. And that my question. [00:12:26] Speaker B: I've got an air show topic too, so don't let me forget that Landon here with the cameras. Those cameras just make me edgy. Wherever you are, Landon, air show topic. Okay. So not all corn. Neat. Get back to your point. Not all corn needs fun to shut. Fungicide. [00:12:45] Speaker A: Yeah, right. Why not? [00:12:46] Speaker B: Is that your. Yeah, well, why not? [00:12:48] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:12:49] Speaker B: Okay. Some hybrids have better disease resistance than others. [00:12:53] Speaker A: Okay. [00:12:53] Speaker B: Crop rotation matters. [00:12:55] Speaker A: Is that a big factor, you would say? Because earlier in this conversation, you had said I heard something like they were planting corn on corn does that. [00:13:02] Speaker B: Yeah, because then you have the disease there laying on the soil surface, and it can proliferate the next year from the. From the fodder. So that's why you're hearing crop rotation. If that. Yeah, yeah, if that. If it was soybeans or something, a hay field, it wasn't in corn year before. There's not as much disease present potential. [00:13:22] Speaker A: Okay. [00:13:22] Speaker B: Yes. That's the big thing with the crop rotation and hybrid variety. Genetics have become much more disease resistant. [00:13:32] Speaker A: To fungus or to other things as well. Because like we talk about, you know, getting these spray drones to do fungicide work, because that's 90. That's probably 90 to 95% of their work is doing fungicide on corn and beans and wheat and that type of stuff. And now you're over here telling me that they'll probably be resistant to it in how long? [00:13:55] Speaker B: No, they'll never be totally resistant. [00:13:57] Speaker A: Okay. [00:13:57] Speaker B: They won't know. No, I don't see that happening. Unfortunately, Mother Nature has a way of adapting, obviously. [00:14:03] Speaker A: Okay. And Mother nature just wants to eat like the fungus wants to come in and eat the corn. It's like you might be resistant this year, but next year I'll come back with revenge. [00:14:12] Speaker B: Survival. That's. It's. That's what it's trying to do, Survive. So I suppose if you and I were just out there eating pieces of limestone, that's what we had to do. We would adapt somehow. Oh, pieces of limestone. Wouldn't we? [00:14:25] Speaker A: That's when you think, this is good. [00:14:26] Speaker B: So there's our gray leaf Spot. And so. But genetics and farmers talk about. And I do too, about the price of seed. Seeds costing a lot more, but they're doing research to help against disease resistance. All this so that from whatever 100 foot level the cattle farmer versus satellite view, we're looking way up above. [00:14:48] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:14:48] Speaker B: If we get a more technical, I'll look like I'm not smart. So. Not that I've already done that. So why does Landon get a fancy light shining on him? [00:14:59] Speaker A: Well, we got three big ones. [00:15:01] Speaker B: Well, I know, but why does he have his own specific. [00:15:04] Speaker A: So when he wants to chime in, he can. [00:15:06] Speaker B: He's giving me some hand signals. Okay. So did you play baseball? [00:15:13] Speaker C: I tried because I, you know, I can. [00:15:15] Speaker B: Okay. Curveball right there. I hung in there. Coach wanted me to hang in there. I. Right there. Yeah, I love it. Best at bat. Usually getting hit. So. Yeah, we didn't have as good at helmets back then either, obviously, so. So the. The seed companies are getting much better at their resistance. So. I'm not saying that every sh. Crop shouldn't be sprayed. As far as the corn. [00:15:42] Speaker A: Yeah. Melvin, you're not being good for my business. [00:15:44] Speaker B: I mean, I want to spray acres, so specialty crops. That's the deal. You know, at one point I thought, well, I'm flying airplane. I can just do this fun dive bombing and do crop dusting. Aero application. [00:15:57] Speaker A: Oh, is that why you got your license originally? [00:15:59] Speaker B: No. [00:15:59] Speaker A: Okay. [00:16:00] Speaker B: But just to observe fields. And it is kind of fun to fly. Yeah. [00:16:04] Speaker A: So when the FAA calls you and they ask why you were die bomb in the cornfield. Well, I needed to observe that corn. [00:16:10] Speaker B: I didn't bring a piece of paper. I have an FAA story too, so. Are you making notes? What was my other topic? [00:16:17] Speaker A: Air shows. [00:16:17] Speaker B: Air show and faa. Okay, so we'll get to those. Where was I? [00:16:22] Speaker A: So you're die bombing. You're. You're observing the area. [00:16:26] Speaker B: Yeah. So that's why I was. Got my. My pilot certificate. But back to every crop being sprayed. So. Thought that'd be neat. But then I realized that to make that business work, you'd have to go down south and applied it. Specialty crops too, because you couldn't do it around here. [00:16:44] Speaker A: What would be considered a specialty crop for somebody that is listening and doesn't know what a specialty crop is? [00:16:49] Speaker B: Well, anything other than corn and soybeans. [00:16:51] Speaker A: Okay. [00:16:52] Speaker B: That we grow in America. That what have what all of you sprayed, like specially. What? You should be thinking about the specialty crops. [00:17:00] Speaker A: Yeah, well, grapes. Well. Well, here in Ohio, it is really tough to get into specialty crops. Like if you bring up grapes, like, holy smokes. I've tried my best to try to get Hillcrest Orchard apples to let me spray. Will not do it. Because it's such a high cash crop, they literally will not risk even one row of apples to let me see how well it works. And I know it works. [00:17:24] Speaker B: Yeah. And see, that wouldn't be as much as a big aerial applicator either. That's where a drone is. Perfect. Because they couldn't spray them barely before, really, could they? [00:17:32] Speaker A: No. [00:17:32] Speaker B: So oranges, things like that? [00:17:35] Speaker A: Yeah. Specialty crops. Right. Locally here. Let's see what else we. [00:17:39] Speaker B: There'd be that wouldn't be around here. [00:17:41] Speaker A: Yeah. Dude, I hear Michigan has a lot of variety in different crops. Like here where we're at, I think of soybeans and corn. Maybe a few vineyards and some orchards. [00:17:56] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:17:56] Speaker A: But nothing huge. But up there in Michigan, I hear they have blueberries, onions, all kinds of stuff. [00:18:03] Speaker B: Yeah. And sweet corn would be another one that we don't have a huge amount here, but it can benefit. [00:18:09] Speaker A: Yeah. All right. For the folks that are listening, we're kind of pointing out some specialty crop stuff. It would be stuff that normally if you see corn and beans, it would be anything else other than that. [00:18:19] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:18:20] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:18:20] Speaker B: Cool. So some of those might need some more. And I'm not versed on those. What all they need as far as special applications, because people call me at my business is what am I going to do about my garden? I'm not getting involved. Sorry. [00:18:34] Speaker A: Wait, people actually call you to ask for. [00:18:37] Speaker B: And I've got thousands of acres of crops that I'm worried about trying to keep alive. So I say how about just check with the garden store? Go that route. So I've purposely blocked that stuff out of my brain because I just can't take the time to help people with their gardens. I'm sorry, wait. [00:18:54] Speaker A: It sounds like maybe there's a garden consulting firm. Firm business here in Ohio that could make it possibly. Yeah. [00:19:04] Speaker B: I don't know anything about it. So where were we? [00:19:09] Speaker A: Just a special. And doing the aerial application. [00:19:11] Speaker B: Yeah. So that wasn't going to be a route to go with. With getting into aerial application because there was enough business here. You'd have to travel a bunch. [00:19:21] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:19:22] Speaker B: So corn and soybeans there will. It's not like it's a negative to spray it every time, but it's. It's just a return on investment type deal. [00:19:31] Speaker A: Okay. Because I was going to bring that up. Okay. Say I call Melvin and I'M like, man, my corn doesn't look that good. And then Melvin comes out and he's like, okay, yeah, it looks like you should spray it. Well, doesn't it already have the disease? And isn't it harder to treat something that's already there? Why not treat it prior to it being infected? And how are you going to know if it's going to get infected unless you. [00:19:54] Speaker B: You. [00:19:55] Speaker A: You can talk to the plant or something that it's getting sick, which that's. [00:19:58] Speaker B: Going to be down the road is talking to the plant having even in each plant. Or you could pick certain plants. This is exciting for the future. You can put a sensor into the plant like an IV and it'll give you some feedback so you can start to tell if it. If it's feeling like it's. It's not doing the best. [00:20:16] Speaker A: Like it's like it's getting a cold or something. [00:20:18] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:20:19] Speaker B: So that. That will be. The plants don't actually talk. And I wouldn't admit that they talk to me on air anyway. Not saying that. Okay. See, it's getting a little hot here. So, yeah, the plants won't talk to you yet. Or you can't. I can't admit they do yet. So, yeah, you go out and observe. Like on corn, the lower leaves start to show the infection. So there's different timing of different diseases. Like tar spot. You've maybe heard of that. Oh, yeah. It takes. We haven't had. We've had a little bit of it here, but we haven't had a lot of issues with it yet. But it comes in later. So you can give a preventative. And that's what we're doing on wheat. On the wheat. Head scab. [00:20:59] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:20:59] Speaker B: Is we're doing a preventative. If it gets. [00:21:02] Speaker A: Because you basically know that wheat is going to get it. [00:21:05] Speaker B: Possibly. It's a pretty high percentage chance. And because there are more resistant wheat varieties for head scab too at this point out there and being developed. But it's shown that it is a big return with our. Now, of course, you guys with drones don't miss anything, miss any part of the field. So not one sometimes. And our custom application equipment doesn't miss a spot either. And if it does, it's a test plot. So. But sometimes there'll be a little. [00:21:33] Speaker A: How are the people going to know when you're being sarcastic? Sarcastic. [00:21:36] Speaker B: Sarcastic. Yeah, I don't. I don't understand your question. So is it 40 minutes yet? [00:21:47] Speaker C: How big are these Are minimum. How big are these test plots? [00:21:50] Speaker B: Yeah, it's like this big. This big. [00:21:53] Speaker C: So full length of the field. [00:21:54] Speaker B: But yeah, I would see those a lot in wheat when I was flying around with the head scab. It does. It works. The head scab application. If. If you can't market your crop. That's a concern too. So there's a few diseases in corn. If you're feeding hogs or something. The gibberella that it can make it vomitoxin where you can't feed it. [00:22:14] Speaker A: Huh. [00:22:14] Speaker B: And then you're. That's a problem. So on the wheat, if you can't market it. We haven't had that bad a scenario recently. But you'll get rejected. The elevator. When you haul your. Do all this work, haul your weed in, they say, oh, sorry, we won't take it. [00:22:28] Speaker A: So wait, and how do they know if it has it? [00:22:32] Speaker B: They test it right there. [00:22:33] Speaker A: But they just grab one handful with their probe. But what if they grabbed the like just a wee tiny wrong section? [00:22:40] Speaker B: Their probes are designed to go down in and get from different points. [00:22:45] Speaker A: Oh. [00:22:45] Speaker B: But yes, that's a good point because you're. You're testing a minuscule amount. [00:22:51] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:22:52] Speaker B: Of the problem. And so there's been stories of the truck pulls out, goes get some coffee or something, comes back and it's just a sampling. Difference in sampling. [00:23:03] Speaker A: No way. [00:23:03] Speaker B: So it is a. Can be a little tricky that way. [00:23:07] Speaker A: Holy Mac. Okay, so what kind of like parts. [00:23:10] Speaker C: Per million or volume are we talking about? That will disqualify a farmer where, you know, he loses everything. [00:23:17] Speaker B: Yeah. We agreed you wouldn't ask me tough questions. And I don't remember those answers really. Right. Yeah. I got. I got a really good friend that I call. I don't call him. He's called Google. Yeah. Okay. But it's very. I forget what. 0.3.5. I don't know. I could throw that out there and people check me, in fact. [00:23:36] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:23:36] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:23:37] Speaker B: Wrong. [00:23:37] Speaker C: Yeah, that's great. [00:23:38] Speaker B: But it's a very. It's like this big. [00:23:39] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:23:40] Speaker B: Okay. [00:23:40] Speaker C: So. [00:23:41] Speaker A: Huh. [00:23:41] Speaker B: So yeah, I don't have that memorized thankfully. And we haven't had. It's probably been six or eight years since we've had a real problem with it. But a lot of the weed is being. [00:23:53] Speaker A: Treat it aerially. [00:23:54] Speaker B: Yes. [00:23:54] Speaker A: New way ag. [00:23:55] Speaker B: Yes, exactly. [00:23:56] Speaker A: Here we go. [00:23:57] Speaker B: And doing a good job of it too. [00:23:58] Speaker A: Appreciate it. Appreciate it. Say a farmer pulls up with his wheat. That is bad. What would he do with it? If. If he can't sell it, what does he. [00:24:07] Speaker B: Yeah. And it depends on what the end market is for the wheat. If it's for human consumption or what it, whatever it is, their levels, they could bring it back to the farm and grind it, feed it. [00:24:19] Speaker A: Okay, okay. All right. So they could feed it to their cattle. If they have cattle. Okay. [00:24:25] Speaker B: And it could be diluted out, that type thing. So they can. But if they don't have livestock, then they're kind of. And if they've got big acres. [00:24:33] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. I was going to say, what if they have thousands of it? Yeah, that'd be a problem. [00:24:38] Speaker B: Yeah. So you guys are helping us avoid. Thankfully, I don't have those numbers memorized because you guys are helping us attack that problem. [00:24:45] Speaker A: Appreciate that. Why aren't you doing it with your ground rigs? [00:24:48] Speaker B: We have done it and we do some. We've tried to get it done with airplane. We don't like to drive through the wheat because the wheat is this tall and it's heading. That's when you're. When it's flowering, it's heading. So you don't like to put more tracks through. It has tracks through it from herbicide application. Possibly, but either way, you drive through a crop early, it'll recover. But that's the. When it's out heading. [00:25:12] Speaker A: Yeah. It's not going to come back. [00:25:13] Speaker B: No. And the plants next to it aren't going to make up that yield difference. [00:25:17] Speaker A: So it sounds to me just this little bit, five minute section that we're talking about wheat, it sounds like somebody that's wanting to get into drones. If you live in an area that there's a wheat probably going to get early applied. Right. [00:25:29] Speaker B: Yeah. I would suspect other parts of the. [00:25:31] Speaker A: Country where they do you know the yield loss by running through your wheat with a ground rate. [00:25:39] Speaker B: Do you know 3%? [00:25:40] Speaker A: 3%? [00:25:41] Speaker B: Yep. Wow. Well, actually, 3.3. I do know that number. Can Mike just ask the questions instead of Landon, please? [00:25:48] Speaker C: Yeah, generally. Generally it kind of depends on how much coffee Mike's head. [00:25:55] Speaker B: Okay. [00:25:56] Speaker A: No, that's good. [00:25:57] Speaker B: No, that was a great question. Landon. Keep. Keep the questions coming. [00:26:00] Speaker A: Yeah. So 3.3 bushels or what? How do percent. Okay, so you're. [00:26:05] Speaker B: Let's do 100 bushel. [00:26:07] Speaker A: Yeah, that's easy. Yeah, yeah, yeah. [00:26:09] Speaker B: Let's just do 3.3 bushel. So if around here we're averaging probably 80. [00:26:14] Speaker A: Okay. [00:26:15] Speaker B: So you're looking at three bushel there at 3.3 or whatever that comes out to. [00:26:20] Speaker A: And that's going to add up if you have enough acres at some point. What if it's small enough it probably. [00:26:25] Speaker B: Yeah, that's. That's at 7 hope I wish it was $7, but at $6 that's 18 $20 an acre from driving through the crop. You're losing just no matter what dog on it. [00:26:37] Speaker A: Since we're talking about that a lot of custom app. TMK does a lot of custom app. Why aren't the farmers doing this on their own? [00:26:45] Speaker B: Doing the. [00:26:46] Speaker A: The ground rigs driving through there in general or with. [00:26:49] Speaker B: In general. It's time that we'll get a satellite view. It's manpower time. Equipment. The equipment's very expensive. Obviously. [00:26:57] Speaker A: Ground rigs. [00:26:59] Speaker B: Yeah. And drones. [00:27:00] Speaker A: I was going to say when do you think TMK buys a new ag rig and flies drones? [00:27:05] Speaker B: We'll see when the price drops. [00:27:07] Speaker A: Yeah. Well we've got so many much, much cheaper than any one of your ground rigs. I mean give us a price range of one of your big ground rigs right now. [00:27:16] Speaker B: Four or five hundred thousand. [00:27:18] Speaker A: What? [00:27:18] Speaker B: Yeah. So yeah. [00:27:20] Speaker A: Oh my gosh. You can get one new AG trailer and two T1 hundreds the month of December right now for like 120 grand. [00:27:31] Speaker B: Yeah, you should put that on your videos. I have not seen a single thing about a new way ag trailer on your videos. [00:27:41] Speaker A: Dude, your orgasm is through the room. I love it. [00:27:45] Speaker B: I love it. Yeah, it's big time money. Okay, so you're getting me off track here. So the reason farmers have custom ag done is equip. Yeah. Time and equipment labor train people to do it. So they have us come out and do it because we do. We've got the equipment, excellent operators, all that. So the reason and we've looked at drones to talk about the past. This will go the FAA story. So probably 2013 I think it was. We got a drone just to observe the crops. [00:28:17] Speaker A: Do you know what that drone was? [00:28:19] Speaker B: It was a quad four. I don't. It's in farm and dairy. Did an article my friend Google could. [00:28:24] Speaker A: No, no. I'm just wondering if it was a DJI drone or if it was an American build drone. [00:28:28] Speaker B: Way, way before that. [00:28:30] Speaker C: Right when the DJI wasn't in the Phantom series. [00:28:33] Speaker B: Yes. [00:28:34] Speaker A: Well that would be a DJI drone. Yeah. [00:28:35] Speaker B: Okay. [00:28:36] Speaker C: Phantom. Phantom something. [00:28:37] Speaker B: Yeah, my bad. So we had another employee there was into the technology more than I was and he was investigating. I guess it came from California. Is it was called a quad four. Okay so we got a virb camera. The not a GoPro but have you heard of a virb? [00:28:52] Speaker A: I think I've heard of that. [00:28:54] Speaker B: So put that on There retrofitted to put that on there. And we were making just observations in fields and we weren't charging for it. We were just out looking at fields for farmers. Like this drone thing's gonna happen. [00:29:07] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:29:08] Speaker B: So we were out looking at fields and at 2 o' clock one day they FAA out of Chicago, I think I've still got their cards, called the office and talked to somebody there, said, hey, we're going to be there at 2. They called at 10, they'll be there at 2. Or they called at 2, they'll be there at 10 the next day. Either way, they were coming from Chicago the next day to visit with us. That's what everybody was nervous. [00:29:35] Speaker A: Why'd they want to come to you? [00:29:36] Speaker B: This article was in the Carmendari and it got, you know, they share articles and stuff. So it was stated in there by somebody. He's not. He's passed a great leader of. Of our company, agronomy wise. Dr. Don Myers, he was involved with our company, was a professor, extension educator, all this. So he said in there that FAA doesn't have enough time to regulate the drone activity. Apparently somebody saw that. So yeah, they came and visited and they were nice people, but very stern. Said just stop doing this. Absolutely stop with your business. Flying the drone, looking at people's fields. We said, we're not charging, we're just out there looking. They said, you can't do that. We don't have regulation. And I know you've gone through some regulation stuff. [00:30:25] Speaker A: Oh, one day I can share, but right now I can't share. [00:30:28] Speaker B: Yeah. So. And so we. They said don't do this anymore. [00:30:32] Speaker A: As a business, I cannot. Yeah, dude, we have to, we have to remember this section in this podcast because when we can share. I'm going to come back to this story I'd like because it is so similar. Like they just show up and they say we don't have regulations, just stop doing it. But you can't tell me how to do it. [00:30:52] Speaker B: Like exactly. [00:30:53] Speaker A: Oh my God. [00:30:54] Speaker B: So then. [00:30:54] Speaker A: And you were just flying a drone looking at crop. [00:30:57] Speaker B: Yeah, just. Yeah, just out looking at crop and bring it back and show the farmer the. What we saw and. [00:31:02] Speaker C: Oh no, remind me what year this was. [00:31:06] Speaker B: 14. 14, 2014. [00:31:08] Speaker A: It's really not long ago. What is it? [00:31:10] Speaker B: No farm and dairy and I, I'm sure I've got my notes somewhere in their cards that. But yeah, that was thinking about. That was 2014. They came from two guys came from Chicago, flew in within the next day and said stop doing this. So of course I'm a pilot and so I didn't link it. You know, you could link it to your. Your pilot's license for. And I just didn't want. If there was any issue or anything. Yep. I didn't want it to be associated with my. So we didn't go that route. But then I wasn't going to push it. [00:31:40] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:31:41] Speaker B: Because if they'd start for no reason, just. Yeah. [00:31:45] Speaker A: So he actually did quit. [00:31:46] Speaker B: Sure. [00:31:47] Speaker A: Okay. I was going to say I was. I. I don't think I like that's what's. Bowing down that easily. [00:31:52] Speaker B: Statute of limitations for 2014 to hear. But we quit because I wrecked it. So. Yeah. [00:31:59] Speaker A: Okay. No, that is crazy though that you bring that up and the FAA and their, you know, power and I don't know actually that they have that much power, but they like to say they do. Told you to quit flying a drone looking at crops. This is mind blowing. [00:32:17] Speaker B: As. As a business now they were fine with it. We were a farmer looking at our own field. But just as a business, don't go out and look at other. Other fields. And I'm very thankful for the faa what they do and. But I wasn't appreciated then for sure. So that in that article you'll see that we had dreams of getting in the spray drone business and the one where it's like. It was like a small helicopter. 180,000. [00:32:44] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:32:44] Speaker B: Is the one that we couldn't. Couldn't quite get that through to management. [00:32:49] Speaker A: And so you're saying the company TMK was going to invest in Hoping. Yeah. [00:32:55] Speaker B: Was a dream. Yeah. No, at that point because of all the problems we'd had with getting application done and. [00:33:02] Speaker A: Wow. [00:33:03] Speaker B: So. [00:33:04] Speaker A: So if you would have got management to buy one, maybe you would have been the first guys in this area to do it. [00:33:11] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:33:11] Speaker A: Because you were early adopters, I would say. [00:33:14] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:33:14] Speaker A: And it probably stemmed because you were a pilot, would you say? Because there's many other seed consultants companies in the area. But I felt like maybe they're a little slower on the aerial stuff or maybe, I don't know, possibly. [00:33:28] Speaker B: Yeah. I just saw a need. Have a need. You're gonna see what you can do to fill that need. [00:33:33] Speaker A: Yeah. Dude. It's so cool to think that it's happening now. [00:33:37] Speaker B: Yes. [00:33:37] Speaker A: Did you think it would take this long though, from the time when you were, you know, back there dealing with that? [00:33:43] Speaker B: Yeah, I thought it would take a long time, unfortunately. [00:33:46] Speaker A: Oh yeah. [00:33:46] Speaker B: The way we were. So get back to how I heard about You. Where were we Anyway on this. I just feel like I'm saying the word so a lot at the end of sentences. [00:33:56] Speaker A: So it's fine. [00:33:58] Speaker B: So there. But I started a sentence with that a lot of young people say, I mean, before they started sentence. So I want to try and adapt to that. But usually when I adapt, it takes six, seven years, something like that to really. And then it's gone. It's totally gone. And I'm not even supposed to be doing it. This guy look like an idiot, this guy. So, okay, so I thought it would take a long time because I was discouraged. And so the one. We had. No, no avoidance at all. We had FPV on it, which was highly illegal. [00:34:32] Speaker A: What? [00:34:32] Speaker B: First? Yeah, you, you. They said, they about said, let, let us see that. And they about put it on the floor and stomped on it. They were very against that because they knew you had to have an observer no matter what. We had that on it. [00:34:46] Speaker A: And regulations is what slowed this whole thing down. Yeah, I literally. [00:34:51] Speaker B: Maybe we do need regulations, though. What if people are launching these things 5,000ft in the air? [00:34:57] Speaker A: No, I agree with certain regulations. [00:34:59] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:35:00] Speaker A: But there is no doubt in my mind that we are actually behind the technology role of aerial application with drones in the States because of the tight regulations. Look at Brazil, dude. They have hundreds of thousands of spray drones. They're able to do aerial application and potentially have better crops. More crops, more crops to sell than we do. [00:35:23] Speaker B: Yeah. And it's because. Well, I, I feel that technology has helped with the regulation. Right. Because now the drone's not going to go where it's not supposed to. [00:35:32] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:35:33] Speaker B: So was it the techno technology here? Not here. Or was the regulation not allowing the technology or. I don't know which came first, the chicken or the egg? [00:35:43] Speaker A: Well, well, I would say the technology was here and they came to your door and said, no, you can't do it. But I bet you asked them, how can I do it? And they said something like, well, I don't know how you can do it, but I just know you can't do it. [00:35:57] Speaker B: Yeah, that's what we got. [00:35:58] Speaker A: I know, but that's not how you move things forward. [00:36:01] Speaker B: So, yeah, the technology now is making it their dummy. More dummy proof. [00:36:07] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:36:07] Speaker B: Obviously than they were. So where were we on that topic? [00:36:11] Speaker A: No, it. Yeah, we'll just roll with it. So basically I'm a little grumpy because the regulations have held back technology making it. It just slowed the growth down. And I'm not, I'm not saying that we shouldn't have. Regulations. Yeah, I'm just. I'm dealing with some things on the back burner that just like your story, in the future, it will be a thing. But you're just saying I can't do it because you don't know. [00:36:39] Speaker B: You don't have an answer. [00:36:40] Speaker A: That's not a good. [00:36:41] Speaker B: That's what you tell kids. Your kids. You just tell them, no, you can't do. I don't know why you can't do it for. I can't tell you why. You can't just know. No. So that's what they were doing. [00:36:52] Speaker A: And we didn't give you a solution. [00:36:53] Speaker B: And I'm telling you, you'll give them a solution. No, you can do it this way. [00:36:56] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:36:57] Speaker B: Like, look at it from this avenue. They're saying no. [00:37:00] Speaker A: Yeah. I'm telling you, if a lot more spray drones would have been able to come into the country because of like the regs wouldn't have been so tight, I bet we would be much further ahead with aerial application being more cost effective than how we're doing it currently. [00:37:16] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:37:16] Speaker A: There's no doubt in my mind. [00:37:17] Speaker B: Well, the leaps and bounds I've observed you guys making. [00:37:21] Speaker A: Yeah. In three years, it's mind blowing. [00:37:24] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:37:24] Speaker A: And you have not even gotten to watch the T100 fly yet in person. [00:37:28] Speaker B: I've watched your videos and I've seen that you have a trailer, an awesome trailer that you can fit too. Like it's. What is it, a foot wider than the T50 ultimately with the. [00:37:40] Speaker C: Okay. [00:37:41] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:37:41] Speaker B: With the props out. [00:37:42] Speaker C: So you watch the comparison. [00:37:43] Speaker B: So, yeah, I've watched that video. [00:37:45] Speaker C: So what was your response to kind of wrap this up, that story with the faa? What was your guys's response, you know, moving forward with that kind of. [00:37:55] Speaker B: Yeah, we put it up on the shelf. We still have it if you want to see. [00:37:59] Speaker C: You still have that original have it. Is it in pieces? [00:38:01] Speaker B: After it's a little dinged up, I took it up and fly it and I use it as a weed eater on the ditch bank is what it ended up. I think it's gyros or we're off or something is my story. And I'm sticking with two. But we still have it if you want to want to see it. And so we had another employee there, Cassie, that's there, and she's real good with technology and she could fly it just fine and handed it over to me and it just totally went wacky for some reason. It's been static in my hands or something. Went weird with it. So I'm glad I'm a little better at flying planes and drones. So we just. We stopped. [00:38:40] Speaker A: I just can't believe you just. [00:38:43] Speaker C: You stopped with the drone. But do you still fly yourself like airplane look at fields. [00:38:49] Speaker B: Oh, yeah. [00:38:49] Speaker C: Is that what you're continuing to do? [00:38:50] Speaker B: Oh, yeah. [00:38:51] Speaker C: To present day. [00:38:52] Speaker A: Why. Why don't you just get a drone and do it? [00:38:54] Speaker B: They're expensive and I just. [00:38:56] Speaker A: What's your airplane cost? [00:38:58] Speaker B: And those darn Walmart ones aren't any good. Working at farmers. [00:39:01] Speaker C: Does it have something to do with you get to work and fly a plane? [00:39:05] Speaker B: There's different things. [00:39:06] Speaker C: Is that something that's part of it or, you know, why do you choose to still fly a plane? [00:39:11] Speaker B: We've been considering getting a cheap drone to look at fields. Yeah. So, yeah, that's. [00:39:17] Speaker A: I'll give you a deal. [00:39:18] Speaker B: Okay. Yeah, we'll make. Let's make it. [00:39:21] Speaker C: And some lessons. [00:39:23] Speaker A: Yeah, it sounds like you could use some flight lessons. [00:39:29] Speaker B: So. Yeah, we used to try and stitch too. That was the issue, you know, back in the original. You trying to stitch the images together. [00:39:35] Speaker A: Oh, yeah. [00:39:37] Speaker B: It was chaos. You get all kinds of distortion and in companies would charge you three or four dollars an acre to send them your pictures for you. [00:39:48] Speaker A: You're referring to Ortho mosaic. He's. That's what he's referring to. [00:39:51] Speaker C: Were you shooting manually or was it an automatic thing like we had? Were you messing. Messing up the. You know, you should have taken 10 photos and you only got eight in there. [00:40:00] Speaker B: No, no, it was just the. We had a verb. Had the fisheye to be able to get. [00:40:04] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:40:05] Speaker B: Get a good enough view, you had to have enough height. So we used the fisheye. And so then to get it stitched together, it just wasn't a practical thing to do. [00:40:13] Speaker A: Yeah. And they made it so easy. Now with the DJI system, like, I can literally map a field, take all that data, doesn't cost me any more, and put it right into dji, the web, and it'll stitch it all together and you got everything. It's just crazy how fast we got there though. I mean, we say it's been long, but. But as far as the technology progressing now, it's so rapid. When I started, I started with the T40s. It was a 10 gallon tank, had a radar in the front, none in the back. And we're at the T100 now. We have 26 gallons. We got lidar vision sensors, radars in front, back, everywhere. Feels like the cell phone era. [00:40:50] Speaker B: Yeah. It's amazing because with my plane I've gone up and this is just on my own, just observing fields. I've taken thermal camera up the. Whatever the industrial thermal camera is and tried to get pictures and just didn't work out. And John Deere, 15 years ago, they had a thing that you could strap to your strut that did all different variations. It did thermal and it did infrared, true color, all on this system. Then there's another one. Just several different cameras. I've looked at and tried a couple to do what drones are doing. But with a plane, you're higher and just observing yourself, you can really see. [00:41:32] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:41:33] Speaker B: A lot of acres quick with a plane versus a drone. [00:41:36] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:41:37] Speaker B: So yeah, they have. Both have great fits. [00:41:39] Speaker A: I agree. [00:41:40] Speaker B: So back to then. So we'll move on here. So I thought, well, hopefully someday we'll get into being able to utilize spray drones. And then driving around customers fields and as I see these campaign signs up that said deer drone recovery. [00:41:56] Speaker A: He. Did he say deer drone, not drone. [00:41:59] Speaker B: Was it. [00:41:59] Speaker A: It's drone deer, not deer. Drones. Think about it. Can you imagine a deer recovering? [00:42:05] Speaker B: You've heard this before that I must. [00:42:07] Speaker C: Have listened to Braden Price. [00:42:09] Speaker B: He's really. I've never seen you. [00:42:10] Speaker A: But can you imagine that deer recovering a drone? Okay, Like a deer walks out and has a drone. Here, here's your drone bag. [00:42:18] Speaker B: That'll make a great video content or whatever you guys call it. Yeah, drone deer recovery. [00:42:24] Speaker C: There you go. We can dress Mike up in a reindeer outfit. [00:42:28] Speaker A: We could. [00:42:28] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:42:29] Speaker A: You actually see my signs? [00:42:30] Speaker B: Yeah, I saw them. And so then I'm going to interrupt. [00:42:34] Speaker A: Yeah, hint here. Guys, if you're listening and you want to get into a spray drone business, you do what I just did. You put yard signs out. Yeah, it worked. [00:42:43] Speaker B: But we grew up on a farm. I live on a farm and I. Those. Any signs don't stick around. [00:42:49] Speaker A: Oh, you rip them out? [00:42:50] Speaker B: No, I just take them out and rip them out. That'd be rude. So I didn't rip yours out. But yeah, go around, do it. You know, the free Internet, all that stuff. I leave it up for a day or two. Like the neighbors. We might want some good Internet finally or something. So I'll leave them up for a day or two, but then they're gone. They look bad. So. But I was observed. Yours weren't in my direct line of sight of living. [00:43:13] Speaker A: Dude, this is interesting. [00:43:14] Speaker B: So drone deer recovery. Yeah, see, that was staged. [00:43:18] Speaker A: It didn't make. It didn't make sense that I had drone deer Recovery on there. And there was a spray drone. [00:43:23] Speaker B: Well, didn't it say field spraying or. [00:43:26] Speaker A: Something on the same line? Yeah, it said drone deer recovery and then field spraying. [00:43:30] Speaker B: So I get my camera out, I pull over safely, put my safety vest on, get a picture of it. Who's this joker? Field spraying. He's not. I know what he's doing because there's been a few people in the industry that don't know what they're doing. Not to name any names, but, yeah, there's people that have been out there just not knowing more. [00:43:48] Speaker A: This is great for the podcast. [00:43:52] Speaker C: Well, please continue with your. With your story. When you first saw. [00:43:56] Speaker B: I saw those. And like, okay, this is cool. Maybe somebody will be able to do it. I doubt this person will. Then time goes by and somebody says, calls up, hey, I'm gonna think about having a field sprayed. And Great. Yeah. What are we spraying? I'll get you some suggestions. And what do we need to address? And like. Yeah, okay. And then more of this comes in. I'm having it. Who is this? And he gives name. And. Okay, so this guy's out spraying. I'm sure he's not doing a good job, but whatever. At least he's spraying. Brutal. He's trying to. At least he's trying. [00:44:32] Speaker A: He's referring to me. [00:44:33] Speaker B: Really. No, that was the drone. Deer. [00:44:36] Speaker A: Deer. [00:44:36] Speaker B: Drone recovery. That was that one. So I'm skeptical, unfortunately. [00:44:41] Speaker A: Wow. But. [00:44:42] Speaker B: And it's not our business. See, we should. [00:44:44] Speaker A: This is the first time I'm hearing this. [00:44:45] Speaker B: We should be in this business because we're in the custom application. But the. The amount of work and dedication, all that. It takes a lot of work, as you know. Yes. [00:44:55] Speaker A: It's not just all, oh, okay, guys, you're hearing it from Melvin. People say I just make it look too easy. And, you know, it's not as easy as Mike makes it look. Yes, it's hard work. [00:45:05] Speaker B: Yeah. So we. We've got a lot of work we're already doing, and we want to do the utmost job of getting that work done. So then throwing this other business in their venture. And then you've got all these. No other political signs like yours, but figuratively, there's all these people putting shingles out. Is that what they call slate? You heard that term where. Put your slate out of your business in the old days that they used to do that. [00:45:31] Speaker A: Don't do that. It makes you farmer look. [00:45:33] Speaker B: Sorry, the farmer with the cows. He would appreciate my. [00:45:37] Speaker A: Okay. [00:45:38] Speaker B: Analogy of putting your slate out. [00:45:40] Speaker C: I guess I've never Heard of it. [00:45:41] Speaker B: Okay. Google it. [00:45:44] Speaker A: Landed. Don't do it. I was going to say it's going to make you. I remember you said that you've been doing this for 30 years, but you started at five, so. [00:45:53] Speaker B: Okay. No, I went to Wilmington College. I did. I wasn't one was really smart. You know, kids that went early. I. Yeah, it was either that Ohio State for a four year AG degree. So I got mine in eight at. [00:46:05] Speaker A: Would you be surprised if I told you that Ohio State may or may not have had us do some stuff? [00:46:10] Speaker B: I hope they did okay. Yeah, definitely. So. [00:46:15] Speaker C: So you were seeing all. All this slate and you. I was hearing. [00:46:18] Speaker B: Seeing it out there. [00:46:19] Speaker C: Like we'd be doing this ourselves. [00:46:21] Speaker B: Well, if the market is already getting flooded, then. [00:46:25] Speaker A: Flooded. [00:46:26] Speaker B: Okay. That was my concern because we've done. [00:46:28] Speaker C: Can you be competitive? [00:46:29] Speaker B: Yeah. We've done things before with like there's different things that you get in seed treatment, stuff like that, that you could make a huge investment, but then boom, all these other people. [00:46:40] Speaker A: Okay. Yeah. Doing it. [00:46:41] Speaker B: So if, if we want to. Do we want to jump into that giant venture. It's not that giant, but really a venture with everybody else out there. Not everybody else out there, but others doing it. [00:46:54] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:46:54] Speaker B: And being able to really dedicate a lot of time to it. So I see this out there and like, yeah, I'll help our customers because I'm working for the customers. I'm always working. Yes. I'm tmk Bakersfield, my employer and great team. My coworkers too. But ultimately it's the customer. I need their needs filled somehow. I'm like, yeah, this guy's out there spraying deer. He's spraying deer or something. I'm getting. [00:47:23] Speaker A: Hey. Talking about that you could Repellent. Deer repellent. [00:47:27] Speaker B: Yeah. Does that work? [00:47:29] Speaker A: It does actually, but it's not cost effective. [00:47:31] Speaker B: Okay. Yeah. Anyhow, because that's a big topic I've researched a lot. [00:47:36] Speaker A: For real? [00:47:36] Speaker B: Yes. [00:47:37] Speaker A: Crop damage. [00:47:38] Speaker B: Yes, yes. [00:47:39] Speaker A: Oh, let's circle back. [00:47:40] Speaker C: Let's put that in the bag. [00:47:41] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:47:42] Speaker C: Let's keep moving forward. [00:47:42] Speaker A: Yeah, let's. [00:47:43] Speaker B: Okay. So yeah, that's a big issue for sure. So I get a few customers call and I'm like, who is it? He said, Mike Yoder. And okay. Then I time whatever the timeline is there. You guys show up in the, in. [00:47:56] Speaker C: The parking lot and slinging cameras, walking into the office. [00:48:01] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:48:01] Speaker C: Asking to talk to you. [00:48:02] Speaker B: Yeah. This is like a two year time frame probably. [00:48:06] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. [00:48:06] Speaker B: Over a two year time frame. So I'm just laying back Watching, like, yeah, they're. I didn't think they'd last long, but wow. They keep. Whoever this is, keeps. So then you guys roll in and I thought you guys. Yeah, I thought these guys are goofballs. That's just. I'm cynic. And then I thought you were less of goofballs after you rolled in there. You get that play on words. Less goofballs. [00:48:31] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. No, no, no. Dude, this is good. I like it. So you were still skeptical after your customers have been calling you, wanting to get aerial application done, Were you recommending us at that time or not? [00:48:43] Speaker B: I didn't know. I thought you were. Nobody at that time, just a political sign is who I thought you were. So I'm like, if you can. And we don't want to align with people that aren't going to get the job done, because we can't do that. We're not going to recommend people that aren't going to get the job done. So we're kind of a turning point there of where can we go if we're going to get into it or if these other people are going to do it. [00:49:10] Speaker C: Great. [00:49:11] Speaker B: If somebody reputable is going to get into this business, then, yeah, all for them. So I'm suggesting recommending what to put on and somebody's coming out there and magically applying it. So then you guys roll in and seem like a decent outfit. [00:49:27] Speaker A: Dude, that is good. [00:49:28] Speaker C: I'm glad we fooled you for a little bit. [00:49:31] Speaker B: Likewise. You asked me to be on the podcast. I'm sorry. Sorry for you guys. This one's never gonna air. I'm always. When's this. When's that podcast gonna be out there? [00:49:44] Speaker A: So you don't listen to podcasts, but you're gonna listen to this one to see how often you say so. [00:49:49] Speaker B: Critique myself. [00:49:50] Speaker A: Yes. That is good. Thanks for sharing that. Because I wonder, you know, I. I tell people that get into this that don't expect it to be easy. There's not. People aren't just going to Google drone service spraying near me and just call the first person. You just clearly told me that that was not going to happen for you. I mean, you. It took you two years till some random guy like me pulled up and showed you my rig and can. I don't think I convinced you there, but, like, you seen how serious I was and how the rig is laid out and that we're actually doing this? [00:50:25] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:50:26] Speaker A: Did the trailer have any influence on you, like, thinking like, okay, this guy has got a set Up. [00:50:31] Speaker B: Major. Yes. Yeah, major influence. Yeah. Because we've had people talk to us before that they're looking to get into it. And of course now we. Hey, these are the guys you need to talk to this. Yeah, you've got to have the equipment to get the job done for sure. Yeah, it was very impressive. [00:50:49] Speaker A: The other folks were operating out of an enclosed trailer or just out of. [00:50:53] Speaker B: Their pickup truck or anything. Yeah, or an old, any old trailer van. Not necessarily van, which that is. [00:51:02] Speaker A: So I like to say where do. [00:51:04] Speaker B: All the UPS trucks go? Where do they go to die? [00:51:07] Speaker A: Oh, never thought of that. [00:51:11] Speaker B: I haven't checked with my friend Google. Maybe I will. But something like that, wouldn't that be something that somebody might do? Yeah, I think you put a trailer behind a UPS because those things are beast. Apparently those UPS trucks, you just wait. [00:51:23] Speaker A: Till you see what we are designing right now. It's not been designed. It's going to be. Don't tell me I'm not. [00:51:30] Speaker B: I don't have to be done away with when I leave here. So don't tell me top secret information. [00:51:37] Speaker C: So we rolled into your spot a couple of years ago. Where is it at in terms of ratio? Local farmers, ground rigs, aerial application. What's the ratio? Is it you know, half and half or where are we at? [00:51:50] Speaker B: No, not anywhere near. [00:51:52] Speaker C: What do you, what do you guys do? [00:51:53] Speaker B: Like what's the average, yours kind of special? Well, several thousand acres with ground rigs but yours is kind of specialty with the drones because we'll get into agronomy side of it. I want agronomy to be top notch with the application. I'm skeptical of field edges. Yeah, things like that. [00:52:13] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:52:13] Speaker B: So for like burn downs, things like that. See we had our first spray rig was a ATV pulled 150 gallon J&M innovations that we used. I forget in the early 2000s to spray alfalfa. That's how we got into the custom application business is a Honda four wheeler and pulled this 100 with 30 foot booms. [00:52:35] Speaker A: So oh my gosh. [00:52:36] Speaker B: We were looking for ways for low impact spraying in the early 2000s. So and time flies now, it's been a while. [00:52:44] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:52:44] Speaker B: And that obviously 20 some years wasn't the most operator friendly. We looked at going with like a Geo Tracker or a Suzuki Samurai J Inn Innovations. I don't think they're one of your competitors. Might not even be in business. They had like a gooseneck. You could put it behind a JNM Innovations or Geo Tracker type thing. [00:53:03] Speaker C: I love those vehicles. Just by the way, this is little Suzuki. I had a Suzuki Samurai, very common in Australia. [00:53:10] Speaker B: Oh wow. [00:53:11] Speaker C: Yeah. Take them off roading, they just float. [00:53:13] Speaker B: Yeah, I gave like $600 for one. It lasted me three years as opposed to several tens of thousand dollar side by side or whatever they are now. So. So that was our first sprayer was this ATV pulled 150 gallon tank. So we were looking for ways for low impact spraying from the start and that was low investment. So on the drones as far as spraying every acre, I know that's where you're headed with our big rigs. There's liquid nitrogen application UAN28. That's 40, 50 gallon an acre. You can do any rate of it but that's 40, 50 gallon per acre. Now I see your wheels spinning here. Go out this afternoon and accept that challenge of 50 gallons per acre of. [00:54:02] Speaker A: You know I will. Yeah. I, I just think with time, I mean with time who knows what they'll do. But the edge, the edge ticks me off. Like it just. [00:54:10] Speaker B: Oh I was going to go a different route. [00:54:11] Speaker A: I just, I wish, I just wish it'd be like perfect straight edge. [00:54:15] Speaker B: I let. I shouldn't. [00:54:16] Speaker A: Did you see my screw up video? Sprayed the frigging hayfield next to it. [00:54:21] Speaker B: Yeah. But what I that that was just wind. [00:54:24] Speaker A: Yeah, it was, it was wind but I also should have stayed in because I knew it would come down but I didn't know how far down. Like how much do the fines actually affect. [00:54:31] Speaker B: And that brings up. I absolutely am amazed by the change of the droplet size with the drones. With two little slides on your screen and you can. That is tremendous. [00:54:43] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:54:44] Speaker B: That's one of my favorite things about the drones. [00:54:46] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:54:46] Speaker B: Is that you don't change that. [00:54:47] Speaker C: So with a lot of your customers you're looking at volume and you're looking at precision on the, on the edge lines. [00:54:54] Speaker B: That's my two biggest things with the drone is volume and then. And some of the herbicides you need like glufosinate Liberty for example need 10 gallon minimum carrier for it. And some of the products aren't labeled at this point too. [00:55:10] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:55:10] Speaker B: So for spraying every acre those would be some dilemmas I see there. But I was going the other route with Field Edge. I'm very excited about the Field Edge. Tell me, tell me more of the job it did. Because you know your videos are they like you're anonymous where you are kind. [00:55:28] Speaker A: Of usually I try to not. [00:55:29] Speaker B: I've discovered all but one of your. [00:55:32] Speaker A: Videos where it's located well, yeah, you do because you're local. I just don't want. I, I, it's the farmer's land I don't want. [00:55:38] Speaker B: And I appreciate that people just. But I'm, I'm kind of creepy. I've gone out and looked at those fields after you've sprayed them. So I don't wait for your follow up video, but I'll go check out the field, drive by it. And very impressed. [00:55:52] Speaker A: Oh my gosh. I didn't even tell you to say that. [00:55:55] Speaker C: I really like to hear that. That's interesting. [00:55:57] Speaker B: Thanks. [00:55:57] Speaker A: To give me an example on a field that I did that I didn't do a follow up. And you were like, okay, that's actually pretty good. [00:56:04] Speaker B: Let's see. Well, the one where you did a follow up on your mix up just over the hill. [00:56:10] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah. [00:56:11] Speaker B: One thing that I would like to critique you on. [00:56:13] Speaker A: Okay. [00:56:14] Speaker B: Is waterways. You familiar with waterways? [00:56:16] Speaker A: Yes. [00:56:16] Speaker B: I think you blew right through those waterways. [00:56:18] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:56:19] Speaker B: But maybe he wanted them out. [00:56:20] Speaker A: He did. So well, he said I don't care. [00:56:23] Speaker B: Yeah. Which our applicators do a great job of. They ask the, the operator, maybe they're going to do something with that field. But yeah, the waterways are there to stop erosion. Erosion. [00:56:34] Speaker C: Yep. [00:56:34] Speaker A: So yeah. So yeah. And those are really easy to avoid. You just put a non spray area, drone goes over it, shuts it off, turns right back on. [00:56:42] Speaker B: Yep. You did a, did you do a frost seeding? I'm trying to think back of these like a year ago north of here. You did a alfalfa? [00:56:50] Speaker A: Yeah. Dude. Did you see that field, how it took? [00:56:52] Speaker B: Did you spray that one too? I'm trying to remember. Specific fix. [00:56:56] Speaker A: No, didn't spray it. [00:56:57] Speaker B: Okay. But yeah, I was by that one. So. [00:57:00] Speaker A: Can you believe that that alfalfa grew that good? [00:57:02] Speaker B: Well, that used to be an old practice of frost seating. [00:57:06] Speaker A: Okay. Yeah. The farmer was not sure how it's. [00:57:08] Speaker B: Going to do, but he didn't even, he didn't even pack it in, did he? Did nothing. [00:57:13] Speaker A: Did nothing. But everything worked out for him too. Like we were just coming out of spring. We seated it at the right time. I think we got decent amount of rain or maybe even snow after the fact. [00:57:24] Speaker B: I think it was. Yeah. There was snow coming or. [00:57:26] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:57:27] Speaker B: Yep. [00:57:28] Speaker A: So doggone it, how many fields did you go to after each? [00:57:31] Speaker B: Not each one. Not the ones in Iceland where. [00:57:36] Speaker A: That. [00:57:36] Speaker C: Jimney is really fuel efficient. [00:57:40] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah. But I don't have that anymore. I'm Landon. Good questions or no, you asked that one specific field. [00:57:47] Speaker A: Yeah. Let's come back to field edges. [00:57:49] Speaker B: I'm trying to think of one specific that. But I know I've been there looking at one that you did. You did. Well, you did some pasture not far from you. Yeah. And then some pasture just south of here that you put graze on, I think. And they had some horses there, but it was right by the road. And that's a big indicator of field edges is growth regulators. Two 4D type products. You can tell exactly where the herbicide. And it's not like a burn down. [00:58:19] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:58:20] Speaker B: Like obvious where it was. [00:58:21] Speaker A: Yep. [00:58:22] Speaker B: So I'm impressed with the direct line that it gives, but obviously in extreme wind it's not. That's an operator decision there. [00:58:30] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:58:30] Speaker B: And what's around and all that. [00:58:31] Speaker A: Although I hate to spray graze on, the more people that talk to me say that it's. So is it called volatile? [00:58:37] Speaker B: Volatile. [00:58:38] Speaker A: Volatile. [00:58:39] Speaker B: Not necessarily it. That'd be where the vapors kind of pick up and move. Can move around. [00:58:45] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:58:45] Speaker B: Yeah. You got to be careful of your. [00:58:48] Speaker A: Don't you like duracor better than a graze on though? [00:58:51] Speaker B: It's volatile. [00:58:52] Speaker A: That. And it has a broader spectrum of weeds that it goes after, right? [00:58:56] Speaker B: Yeah, possibly. [00:58:57] Speaker A: Possibly. So you're not buying there? [00:59:00] Speaker B: It depends on the specific situation, actually. Yeah. Of what weeds you're dealing with. [00:59:05] Speaker A: What about the guy down. Did you sell them? The. The Duracore Carl? You did. I think he got. [00:59:12] Speaker B: I think you did, actually, but no, you didn't. Somebody he got from somewhere he ordered for. He ordered. I think I told you, he ordered for next year. He wants to go. [00:59:20] Speaker A: I think he had really good results. [00:59:21] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:59:22] Speaker A: Do you think that makes sense to just treat your pastures and not brush hog them? [00:59:27] Speaker B: Well, you need to stimulate grass growth. That's part of the deal with brush hogging is your grass gets mature, you cut it off so it regrows. So it's both. It's for different reasons, but in. In that scenario where the weeds are. Yeah. Very aggressive and you need to get them knocked down because brush hogging them won't stop them. [00:59:46] Speaker A: They'll just. Yeah. [00:59:48] Speaker B: So both of them. Yeah. [00:59:49] Speaker A: Yeah. I've heard so many farmers say they look at their pasture and it looks horrible and they're just. Yeah. I just haven't brush hogging in a while. It looks better when it's brush hog. Yeah. But you didn't actually do anything about the. The actual weeds. [01:00:04] Speaker B: Yeah. And if it's grazed down. If the grass is grazed down completely, the brush hogging is not important. If the grass is growing lush, you don't have to brush hog. And yeah, I'm in favor of the spraying. And we've had a lot of requests to spray pastures with the ground rigs. And as we talk, the price of a ground rig and taking it out on these hilly, rocky. [01:00:25] Speaker A: Does not make sense. [01:00:26] Speaker B: Random holes in the field, all that. So the drones have been a especially spectacular tool for pasture spraying for sure. [01:00:35] Speaker A: Yeah. Burn down. Don't like doing it. I'm sketched out about the overspray and getting sued. [01:00:40] Speaker B: Field edges. [01:00:41] Speaker A: Field edges, yep. But. But the broadleaf control. Not as worried about it. [01:00:46] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:00:47] Speaker A: So that's why I'm down there. Where? Close to you guys. I'm going right to the edge. [01:00:50] Speaker B: And there's not too many gardens or things. [01:00:53] Speaker A: That one garden was close, but I took wind into consideration. Like you said, you gotta be a good. You gotta be a good applicator. You look at where the wind is, figure out, you know, what your offset should be to bring it in from there. [01:01:05] Speaker B: Yep. So where were we? This sounds like it's boring to me, at least in here. Maybe it sounds different somewhere else. [01:01:10] Speaker A: But, dude, you know what's crazy is people that are listening to this, oftentimes they're, you know, working or they're just. They want education. People like to you and I, right? It sounds boring because this is what we do. But people don't know. Like pastures spraying for broadleaf. I never knew that that was a thing two years ago. [01:01:30] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:01:30] Speaker A: Then I look at all the pastures that we have and all the horse pastures. It's like, dude, I could make all those look way better. [01:01:36] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:01:36] Speaker A: They don't even know that there's a product out there. I did a horse farm. You probably went and looked at it. Now that I know that you do that up north, put Nova Grays on it because he wanted some of the clover there, but didn't want to kill all the clover. Great result. Beautiful farm. He's taking care of his pasture. Most of the people around here don't even know they can do that. [01:01:58] Speaker B: That was north of Apple Creek. [01:02:01] Speaker A: Did you actually go there? [01:02:04] Speaker B: He probably. [01:02:05] Speaker C: Probably knows the guy, actually. [01:02:06] Speaker B: That's one I don't know, but okay. Yeah, I know a few of them, but yeah, I agree. Great. [01:02:13] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:02:14] Speaker B: So then that brings up a topic of you didn't know about pastures spraying two years ago. [01:02:19] Speaker A: Yeah, didn't know. [01:02:20] Speaker B: So that's a. That's a interesting scenario with the drones is we've got agriculture people and we've got Drone people. So how do we merge that? Right, Drone people. Nothing against either one of them, but they like to fly drones. [01:02:36] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:02:37] Speaker B: And they don't know the work. [01:02:38] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:02:39] Speaker B: And the timeliness with going out doing this business. So. But then we have ag. It seems like we're getting more agriculture people that are interested in the. In the drones and they know what's happening out there and how much work and timeliness. [01:02:54] Speaker A: No, this is valuable. Say more. Okay. Because we are helping entrepreneurs that have never had an ounce of education or. And never grew up on a farm and they know nothing about. That's their biggest fear is how do I talk to farmers about it? [01:03:07] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:03:07] Speaker A: It's talking to guys like yourself that are willing to share. Right. [01:03:11] Speaker B: Yeah, I guess. [01:03:12] Speaker C: And you do have to make a good impression, as you attest. Like, you can't just rock up and be like, hey, I got drone. I don't know anything about farming, but I can spray your fields. Right. Like, you have to gain some sense. [01:03:24] Speaker B: Of trust, have some knowledge with. Yeah, yeah. With the application. [01:03:27] Speaker C: So there is something that needs to be done. [01:03:29] Speaker A: Right. [01:03:30] Speaker C: Or you got your ag guy that needs to learn about the drones as well. So I think that's where you're going. Right. Is kind of meshing those two industries or worlds and how that comes together currently. [01:03:41] Speaker B: Yep, exactly. And you guys are doing good with the education of both. Both ends of it. But people understanding labels and what labels are and reading all that and everything is. [01:03:52] Speaker A: Yeah. When I went to get my commercial applicators license, really what I learned through that whole course is read. Just read the label. Yeah, read the label. And if you don't like reading the label, put it in a grok and then ask it. What does the label tell me? [01:04:10] Speaker B: Yeah, exactly. I used to have a book, the old crop protection reference book that was this thick and it had like tissue paper thickness papers, like 800 pages. [01:04:21] Speaker A: You're showing me it's about 8 inches to 12 inches thick. [01:04:23] Speaker B: I should have brought one. I still have them. But you just. I had that in my truck and so that's where the labels were. You didn't search them. [01:04:31] Speaker A: Oh, no way. [01:04:33] Speaker B: And you get new when he's still. [01:04:34] Speaker A: Just can't believe that you're that and. [01:04:36] Speaker B: You'D old and you'd flip. Talking about slate. [01:04:42] Speaker A: I don't know. You must. I mean, okay, you're very youthful. [01:04:46] Speaker B: You'd flip. [01:04:47] Speaker C: You're very youthful. [01:04:51] Speaker B: So you'd flip through these tissue paper papers to read the label. [01:04:55] Speaker C: Oh my God. [01:04:56] Speaker B: So now we have it. So easy. You can do all your searching and your buddy Grok. [01:05:01] Speaker A: Do you Grok, do you AI? [01:05:02] Speaker B: I don't do that. [01:05:03] Speaker A: Did you not watch that video I put out? You got to get AI or you're going to be left behind. [01:05:07] Speaker B: Melvin, that was a while ago. Yeah. I'm excited about AI Very. [01:05:11] Speaker A: You are? [01:05:12] Speaker B: Yes. [01:05:12] Speaker A: For real? [01:05:12] Speaker B: Yes. [01:05:13] Speaker A: Tell me more. Why? [01:05:14] Speaker B: Because it makes life easier. It's. Yeah. [01:05:17] Speaker A: Do you use it in your current. [01:05:19] Speaker B: Well, Google forces me to. [01:05:21] Speaker A: Oh, you can put it in AI mode. [01:05:23] Speaker B: And it's in there. It says right, here's what AI thinks. [01:05:26] Speaker A: Oh, yeah. [01:05:26] Speaker B: So I look at AI. I don't know if. Kind of like that drone deer recovery. I don't know if I trust it yet. [01:05:35] Speaker A: I like it. [01:05:36] Speaker B: But. So, yeah, I used to look at the label. You can pull it up so easy. Now look at the label. But a lot of time that's put me out of business because a lot of people just call me and ask, how tall can you spray this corn? Usually I have it up there, which makes me AI. So I guess. I don't know. Yeah, I am. I'm not artificial. That's one thing. I'm legit. Whatever you get is not artificial. [01:06:03] Speaker C: You are intelligent. [01:06:04] Speaker B: No, I was just saying that. So, yeah, read the label. Mesh. Landon's keeping us on track here. We're just over here goofing off. I like that. So we're meshing the agriculture people with the drone mindset is good. Yes, we need that. [01:06:22] Speaker A: You wouldn't say that the market is flooded, would you? No, not even close. [01:06:27] Speaker B: No. And I might have said that wrong, but for as many people just boom, like that, we're getting into the business. Then if there hadn't been an upstanding company so close, we would have probably gone. It may still go that route. I don't know. Who knows? But it's just good to have good people out there doing what we need done. [01:06:49] Speaker A: This is good. [01:06:50] Speaker B: So then back to the air show. I don't want to miss that. So I get calls. Really bugs me sometimes when I'm busy trying to help farmers out. Like, hey, I think. Think I need to spray my field. How about I get a drone in to do it? I say, you really do need that sprayed. Yeah, I definitely need this spray so I can come look at it and see what our situation is. No, I need it sprayed. Can I. Can you give me a guy with the. To spray it? So basically, I just want an air show is what they want. So there's that crowd out There. [01:07:26] Speaker A: Oh, we were doing an air show tour. Remember that, Landon, where people said, oh, no, I'm. I'm definitely interested in buying a rig and all the drones and everything. [01:07:34] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:07:35] Speaker A: I was driving all over the creation. [01:07:38] Speaker C: We were all over the country. [01:07:39] Speaker A: Literally never once did I sell a rig like that. Now I have sold a rig that they flew here or then I drove there to show the boss and then they bought a rig. But never just a random road trip doing an air show tour that people bought. [01:07:58] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:07:58] Speaker A: It's like people are actually for real serious. They're going to come here. [01:08:02] Speaker B: Which I remember you making that statement, I think is where you come here. Yeah, I saw it somewhere that. [01:08:08] Speaker A: Yeah. Anyhow, so you think that there's farmers that need something sprayed because they, they just want an air show. [01:08:15] Speaker B: They want to see it in action, which I agree. If I didn't have my vantage point, it's pretty exciting stuff. [01:08:21] Speaker A: So do demos for people that are thinking about doing. [01:08:24] Speaker B: They're paying for it because they tell them it's going to cost you this to do it. And you guys have quoted and other operators have quoted. Like, how many times have you shown up at Fields and there's like eight people there. Is that common? [01:08:35] Speaker A: Oh, yeah. [01:08:36] Speaker B: And then more people show. [01:08:37] Speaker A: Show up for sure. Once the rig is parked there, they're like, what's that? [01:08:41] Speaker B: And then they want to talk to you. You're trying to get your job done. [01:08:44] Speaker A: Yep. [01:08:44] Speaker B: I'm sure that's. [01:08:45] Speaker C: Yeah, that. That happens quite a bit. And I like it most of the times because you're. People are observing it and seeing it getting its work done. [01:08:54] Speaker A: I, I can deal with that as well. [01:08:56] Speaker C: You know, people do like, they can't get in the way. But yeah, I, I can appreciate their intrigue at it. [01:09:03] Speaker B: Yeah. But I think you need to have like some bleachers, I don't know, or chairs or something where you could just start charging admission for the people that wanna. [01:09:13] Speaker C: Yeah. And for. For $50, one at a time can come up on the deck. [01:09:18] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:09:18] Speaker C: And. And observe liability get to be an issue. Get some airtime. [01:09:23] Speaker B: How about get a smoke machine on some of them, like the airplanes with. [01:09:27] Speaker A: Oh, yeah, that would be good. [01:09:29] Speaker B: Can you do that? [01:09:30] Speaker A: I could. [01:09:31] Speaker B: That's an interesting thing. This. Can I patent this or something? But what if you put smoke on them and that helps you better visualize the pattern? [01:09:39] Speaker A: The pattern. I don't know about the pattern. I mean, it's gonna help you with, you know, which way the wind is blowing. Just like an air Tractor would, you know, they come down, they hit the smoke, figure out it's going this way. Why don't you just go out there, turn it on for a brief second at very fine. See which way it's blowing. [01:09:56] Speaker B: I love that. Yeah. [01:09:56] Speaker A: And then adjust it. [01:09:58] Speaker B: Adjust it up. So where were we? So that was the air show that people are just intrigued, which is good. But it can be cumbersome at times. So. And I deal with that on my end as they're trying to find a reason to have a spray drone. Spray. [01:10:13] Speaker A: Interesting. We just heard something fall outside. [01:10:16] Speaker B: That must not have been normal. [01:10:17] Speaker A: I feel like we were all over the place, but I like it. I feel like we could sit down for another hour and hit on stuff. We. Let's see what the feedback is. Anybody that's listening, if you're watching on YouTube, leave it in the comments. What would you like to ask Melvin? Melvin is an interesting fella. [01:10:35] Speaker C: He is intelligence. He's an agronomist. [01:10:39] Speaker B: I've been called worse. [01:10:41] Speaker A: I like it. [01:10:42] Speaker C: I want to hear more. [01:10:43] Speaker B: So we were on camera. I'm so nervous now. Where's the camera? [01:10:47] Speaker A: They're all. [01:10:48] Speaker C: There's. There's three of them up. [01:10:50] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:10:51] Speaker B: I want to thank you before we get off air here. Not to hold you up, but thank you for what you're doing. [01:10:57] Speaker A: No problem. [01:10:57] Speaker B: For this. This. The agriculture. [01:11:00] Speaker A: My pleasure. [01:11:01] Speaker B: Because like I explained, we. We needed. We needed this and it just wasn't happening. And now you guys have been very aggressive and with confidence. [01:11:11] Speaker A: Oh, yeah. [01:11:12] Speaker B: Move forward. [01:11:13] Speaker A: Let me tell you why he's saying with confidence. So Melvin doesn't give out business cards. So if you talk to him in person, he will pull out this stack of papers. Do you have it with you? [01:11:25] Speaker C: Let's see it. Let's see it. [01:11:26] Speaker A: No way. [01:11:28] Speaker B: I got. I got credit card in there so I can get that good deal on a drone or something. [01:11:32] Speaker A: Yeah, but. Yeah, look at this. [01:11:34] Speaker B: They're a little mangled, the outside ones, but yeah. [01:11:37] Speaker A: He pulls out. Where'd you come up with this idea? That's what I really want to know. [01:11:42] Speaker B: Think a lot. Google didn't give me this one. Actually. I need an extra hair tie. So I was like, what? Can I wrap a hair tie? I have no money, so. No, no. I came up this. I coach youth basketball. [01:11:58] Speaker A: Oh, okay. [01:11:59] Speaker B: And kids, you know, going through a lot and you're just coaching them for. [01:12:03] Speaker C: Dude, that's so good. [01:12:04] Speaker B: A couple hours. [01:12:05] Speaker A: I mean, it's so good. [01:12:06] Speaker B: And they're just like. This is third through sixth Grade. And you're coaching them, like, do this, do that, and. And they're trying. And you just see this look, like, oh, man, I got so much going on. Like, here. Have confidence that whatever you're going through is going to help build. [01:12:22] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. [01:12:23] Speaker B: And even us old people. I'm old. Like, yeah, even what you do may not work out. The think way you think you're gonna. It's gonna work out. But if you have confidence, whatever you went through. [01:12:35] Speaker A: But they're not all confidence. Right. [01:12:36] Speaker B: There's perspective. [01:12:37] Speaker A: Okay, so let me explain to them that aren't watching on YouTube what this is. So he has little papers that are, I don't know, maybe an inch and a half long, and they have words on them. It's not a business card. So when you're talking to Melvin, he will pull out this little stack of papers that are. That's in his pocket and he literally has em right now. And he will give you whatever word that he thinks you might need, like unlimited. [01:13:02] Speaker B: All I have right now is perspective and confidence. Like, those pretty much cover most things. Right? [01:13:09] Speaker A: So when I showed up at the tmk, he. After I showed him the new AG trailer and showed him my operation, he was like, you know what you need, Mike? You have this already, but here, here's an extra confidence. And he gave me this little paper that literally just says that confidence. So pretty cool. I thought it was cool. I literally thought I put it in a video. Did you see it? I thought it was so cool I put it in a video. [01:13:32] Speaker B: I knew that where that video was taken too. I figured that one out pretty quick. [01:13:36] Speaker A: So you should. [01:13:38] Speaker B: So thank. Thank you for your efforts with all. With all this. [01:13:42] Speaker A: My pleasure. It's fun. It's fun. You know what? I'm gonna bring this up. So some guys think that I do this, and Mike is cocky, and Mike is full of himself. Why do you think people get that read on me? [01:13:58] Speaker B: Because you're confident? Maybe. I don't know. Yeah, it's because you don't waste time. You get to the point, like, there's no. No artificial. Yeah, that. That's. It is my impression. [01:14:11] Speaker C: So we don't often sit around talking about the weather. [01:14:14] Speaker B: Yeah, exactly. [01:14:16] Speaker C: As in, like, small talk. We do talk about the weather a lot. [01:14:19] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:14:19] Speaker C: Because just not in small talk. [01:14:21] Speaker B: Yes. To. To fill the void. [01:14:22] Speaker C: Yeah. [01:14:23] Speaker B: Yes. There's other stuff that can fill the void. [01:14:25] Speaker A: So I would say anybody that's listening to this, if you guys are going to the spray drone end user conference in Kansas and I know some of you guys will be there. If. If you have that feeling about me, come up, let's talk. Let's just chat. And you're going to probably find out that I'm a man that is just like you, that is out there trying to make a living and trying to make a difference and helping entrepreneurs get into a business that, you know, hopefully changes their lives. And let's chat. Maybe. Maybe we can sit down, have a talk, and you can help the next guy that's wanting to get into it. So you probably won't consult with somebody in Iowa, Right. But if somebody's local here, listen, and they want to get in touch with TMK Bakersfield. How. How can they do that? [01:15:09] Speaker B: Yeah, the TMK Bakersville is in the big city of Bakersville, obviously, and so it's propane also. But we have Internet. Google search will find us, obviously. And we have Facebook and 330-897-3911 is the number. So appreciate everybody's business and support. [01:15:35] Speaker A: Alrighty. There you go, guys. That's all I got. Thanks so much, Melvin, from coming on. Seriously, I mean that a lot. I would like to sit down with you again in the future and just have another chat. [01:15:45] Speaker B: So my pleasure. Thank you. Glad to help. [01:15:47] Speaker A: All right, and that's all we got for you guys today. Make sure to subscribe to the channel, give it a thumbs up, and we'll see you guys on the next one. And if you're listening to this on Spotify, I don't know how that platform works, but maybe you can like it. Do you like things on Spotify? I don't know how it works. [01:16:01] Speaker C: Yeah, you can like artists and podcasts and stuff like that on Spotify, but. [01:16:06] Speaker B: In you look at me, why'd you look at Landon? [01:16:08] Speaker A: Because I know about Google. Do. Do you do Spotify? [01:16:10] Speaker B: No. [01:16:11] Speaker A: No. Okay. I don't either.
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