Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: All right, welcome back, folks, to the Drone on show. I'm Mike.
[00:00:04] Speaker B: I'm Preston Cave.
[00:00:05] Speaker C: Jason.
[00:00:06] Speaker A: And today we're going to sit down with Preston again from North Carolina. You guys, if you've listened to the podcast in the past, you've heard us talk with Preston. Dude, you get to spray some really cool stuff. We got to go down there with you. Spray some big mountainous stuff. Is that about as rugged as it gets where we were?
[00:00:22] Speaker B: Yeah, I would, I would say so. We do some. Some stuff like spreading over top of trees or something like that that can get a little hairy.
[00:00:29] Speaker C: But.
[00:00:29] Speaker A: But as far as altitude wise, like what we were doing that day. Yeah, because we literally, we started at bottom and by the time we got to the top, it had changed in temperature, like a lot.
[00:00:40] Speaker C: How big of a deal is the 300 foot max ceiling for you?
[00:00:44] Speaker B: Yeah, it sucks. We. We battle it all the time. I mean, that's one reason why we had to scale down to that mini truck was because. Was because of that. Try to get places, get generator, water, chemical drone up there. Because a lot of times we can land and then fly back off again.
But like, that place, I mean, there wasn't no place you could land.
[00:01:06] Speaker A: So say. Say there wasn't a ceiling on the DJI could. Would you spray that from the bottom or you would still go up it?
[00:01:13] Speaker B: I would still try to go up there. Just efficiency wise. Yeah, I mean, I don't. I mean, if. If one could follow terrain good enough, you make it just spray up as you're going and then fly back down. But yeah, from an efficiency standpoint, I'd like to be.
[00:01:27] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:01:27] Speaker B: Up top or, you know, work my way up.
[00:01:30] Speaker A: That way you don't have to ferry as long.
[00:01:32] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:01:32] Speaker A: But as the drones get faster, getting up there would almost be faster with the drone.
[00:01:37] Speaker B: Yeah, for sure.
[00:01:37] Speaker A: Yeah. Do you.
Do you do any lifting in the mountains?
[00:01:43] Speaker B: Not, not. Not a lot of lifting. I did, I did drag out the T40 the other day to lift out a trampoline of my daughter's trampoline blue.
I put it together for Christmas and then we had a bad windstorm come and it blew it like 200 yards away into an old pond.
Yeah. So I took a ratchet strap and made a lift with a ratchet strap and had a 40 foot rope that we used from the hurricane and.
Huh. Yeah. Hooked it to the 14 foot trampoline.
[00:02:15] Speaker A: Did you have to go in the water?
[00:02:17] Speaker B: Yeah, it was. It was like a drought. Like a. You know, they dug it out so
[00:02:19] Speaker A: the Dam was busted.
[00:02:20] Speaker B: But now I was wearing muck boots.
[00:02:22] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah.
[00:02:23] Speaker C: So that sucker actually picked up like a normal size.
[00:02:26] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. 14 foot trampoline.
[00:02:28] Speaker C: That's impressive.
[00:02:29] Speaker A: Wow.
[00:02:30] Speaker C: Like a lot.
[00:02:30] Speaker B: Well, the shipping weight on the trampoline, we looked it up. It's just 140 pounds.
[00:02:35] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:02:36] Speaker B: So it's not. Not terrible. I mean I've spread fertilize with it having £120 in it.
[00:02:40] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah.
[00:02:41] Speaker B: But yeah, we took off of that thing and it started. It started humming good.
And I was flying back to where I needed to go and the trampoline was catching wind and dragging.
[00:02:49] Speaker A: Oh yeah, yeah.
[00:02:50] Speaker B: But now we got it done.
[00:02:51] Speaker A: So you did it just to experiment it or that's the only way to get it out?
[00:02:56] Speaker B: It is the easiest way. Yeah. It's like a briar thicket down into the pond. So it's going to take like three of us to pick it up over top of a fence and yeah, we just grab the drone.
[00:03:07] Speaker A: That's why oftentimes in videos I say we don't even know what these drones are going to be used for in the future. It's just a perfect example.
Never thought about that. Hurricane stuff or tornado stuff.
[00:03:20] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:03:20] Speaker A: Like trying to clean things up.
[00:03:21] Speaker B: Yep.
[00:03:22] Speaker A: Where it's, you know, trees are down, all kinds of crazy stuff.
[00:03:25] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:03:26] Speaker A: I'm excited to see that. I wonder if anybody's going to do anything with the ice because right now there's tons of ice down south. I seen it this morning on my phone.
[00:03:33] Speaker C: Oh yeah. I didn't see how bad it is.
[00:03:35] Speaker A: No, it is really bad.
[00:03:36] Speaker B: I don't know if it's AI or not, but I did see some little. A little drone.
[00:03:40] Speaker C: Doesn't that suck?
[00:03:41] Speaker A: Doesn't that suck?
[00:03:42] Speaker B: It does.
[00:03:42] Speaker A: Whether we literally don't know if it's A or AI or not.
[00:03:47] Speaker B: Yeah. But a little drone like had a ring around it and it clipped around the power line and like zipped down the power line to clear the ice off of it.
[00:03:54] Speaker A: I have seen something like that before.
[00:03:55] Speaker C: I have too.
[00:03:56] Speaker B: Is it real? I think so.
[00:04:01] Speaker A: Isn't it crazy? We question because AI is so good. It literally looks real.
[00:04:06] Speaker B: Yeah. I posted a picture. I had done a little speaking thing the other day and I posted a picture. It was like 40 people inside the thing and I little chat GPT like make the room full.
[00:04:14] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:04:14] Speaker B: And it like standing room only. And it packed the place and I posted it on Facebook like being funny and everybody thought it was real.
[00:04:21] Speaker C: Like congratulations.
[00:04:22] Speaker B: So I had to. I Had to re edit my post and put the real picture in.
[00:04:26] Speaker A: But geez, I was gonna show you a picture here, see if.
See if you think this is real.
[00:04:33] Speaker C: Picture of a shop back home.
[00:04:34] Speaker A: They put something about AI or real.
[00:04:37] Speaker B: Yeah, that could be real.
[00:04:41] Speaker A: Could be real.
[00:04:42] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:04:44] Speaker C: But you're not sure.
[00:04:44] Speaker B: I'm not sure.
[00:04:46] Speaker A: Oh yeah. Okay.
[00:04:48] Speaker B: Is it real or not?
[00:04:49] Speaker A: It is real.
[00:04:50] Speaker B: I mean, yeah, I can see it being real.
I don't know.
[00:04:56] Speaker A: Your mini truck. We were chatting off. Off the podcast. Where'd she go? Did she go to heaven or.
[00:05:02] Speaker C: Yeah, I assume you had it for sale.
[00:05:04] Speaker B: No, I do not have it for sale.
[00:05:05] Speaker C: Didn't you have it for sale? Or maybe you just posted a picture.
[00:05:07] Speaker B: Maybe just post a picture. Okay. So we were down in South Carolina spreading cover crop. £16 acre. We done 1155. I mean 1155 acres in three and a half days.
[00:05:19] Speaker A: Wow.
[00:05:19] Speaker B: So we were turning and burning, but it was good land. I'm not used to that. But anyways, we were like on the backside. So it was like a 400 acre field way on the backside and the 50 was rolling and it got to the far back corner, not working its way all the way back to the truck. So we just took off of the mini truck and we run out of seed. So I was driving back to get more seed in like fourth gear, just raising cane around the edge of the field and it was overheating a little bit and I was driving fourth gear, third gear, second gear, first gear, wide open, trying to get back to the truck. And then I went in four low, third, second, first and. But I mean, just stop. Oh, done.
I went back to the truck and got some oil and come back. Just trying to, you know, help any way I could. And I opened the top of the motor where the oil cap is and just smoke just came rolling.
So it was never a good side for. We fried her, but yeah, we're gonna buy another one.
[00:06:22] Speaker C: So did you guys. You guys would trailer that thing out to the job?
[00:06:25] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:06:26] Speaker C: Okay.
[00:06:26] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yep. And whenever we got the jobs, I mean just like whenever he was up there in the mountains, we'd drive it everywhere.
[00:06:31] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah.
[00:06:32] Speaker B: I mean it. Yeah.
[00:06:33] Speaker A: And it's also street legal.
Not on the interstate though.
[00:06:38] Speaker B: That I don't know. It's been on the interstate, but you can run 60 miles an hour in that thing.
[00:06:45] Speaker C: Really.
[00:06:46] Speaker B: But you don't want to do it long. And I wouldn't want to be in the master seat.
I think it's wound tight.
Piss and come through the Passenger seat.
It is.
[00:06:57] Speaker A: They just look cool because. Because we don't have a ton of them here obviously in other countries.
[00:07:02] Speaker C: What you pay for that thing?
[00:07:04] Speaker B: So I paid I think 5,400 bucks for it. And that was like, Maybe it was 6400 bucks, but that was straight from Japan. I got a really.
[00:07:13] Speaker C: They bought it over from over there.
[00:07:14] Speaker B: Well, it was. There's a. Shipped over here. Mount Airy mini trucks. They do really good job. They got a. They got a. I guess they impound a lot of them or whatever it's called. Import a lot? Yeah, import a lot of them. But you go over there to their farm and they'll have like 200 of those things sitting out with keys in them. And you just hop in one and drive it and keep driving them until you find one you like. Yeah. So who's there?
[00:07:37] Speaker A: Who's their target audience? Normally?
[00:07:40] Speaker B: Farmers.
[00:07:41] Speaker C: Farmers.
[00:07:41] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:07:42] Speaker B: But I mean everybody. I mean they're cool. So everybody.
[00:07:43] Speaker A: So is that starting to become more popular than like side by sides?
[00:07:48] Speaker B: Well, like I could go buy. They're probably cheaper. Not a new one, but I can go buy the. They. I think it's 20 years. They gotta import them. Like 20 years old.
[00:07:57] Speaker A: Yeah. So they're quite old.
[00:07:59] Speaker B: Yeah. So I have a 94 model. Cause I bought it, it was like the last generation or two generations ago. And now you can get a early 2000s model. Because we're 20 years back.
[00:08:09] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:08:10] Speaker B: So it's like 20 more horsepower and it's got AC in it.
[00:08:15] Speaker A: Wow.
Wow.
[00:08:16] Speaker B: But I can buy that for nine grand.
[00:08:18] Speaker A: But are they all manual?
[00:08:19] Speaker B: No, they got automatic stick shift. They. Dude, they got a. They got a diesel Toyota. That is sweet. It's got like a ten foot bed.
[00:08:27] Speaker A: Like. Like a Hilux.
[00:08:30] Speaker B: You're talking above my head.
[00:08:31] Speaker C: 10 foot bed?
[00:08:32] Speaker B: Yeah, it's got a 10 foot bed. Like it's like cab and a half, but it's a, like got like a three cylinder diesel in it. That thing is all awesome.
[00:08:39] Speaker A: But that could only be off road or.
[00:08:41] Speaker B: No, no, no, no. It'll run 70 miles an hour. I mean, I guess you could probably run that one on interstate legally.
[00:08:45] Speaker A: Wow.
[00:08:46] Speaker C: But it's over 20 years old, right?
[00:08:48] Speaker B: Yeah, but I mean these things are taking. I mean he, he only buys like nice ones. Yeah, yeah, it's.
[00:08:53] Speaker C: It's kind of bull crap. We, we were in Iceland, we were driving the what Hilux around and those things are sweet.
[00:08:58] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:08:59] Speaker B: So he gets all. I mean, but we can't get them.
[00:09:01] Speaker C: I mean we could get Them here, but it would be like 100,000 bucks.
[00:09:04] Speaker B: Yeah, he gets all kinds. It's pretty sweet. You have to go check out his YouTube.
[00:09:07] Speaker A: Yeah. How do you get into it?
[00:09:09] Speaker B: Do you know his. I think, I think Justin kind of runs it now, but I think he just started getting them for his farm and then he just kept doing it.
[00:09:16] Speaker A: Yeah. Interesting.
[00:09:17] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:09:18] Speaker A: I, I'd like to know how, how your life was growing up. Like did, did you grow up on a, a ranch or a farm?
[00:09:24] Speaker B: So I grew up on a farm. I grew up on a tobacco farm. So whenever I was young, I mean it was, it was hard. Summers were, were hard work. So we grew up on tobacco farm. My dad bought some. My dad, whenever I was in kindergarten, he bought some chicken houses. So I'm. Dad's got commercial chicken houses, which I hate chicken houses, man.
[00:09:43] Speaker A: Were the chickens for like slaughter meat?
[00:09:46] Speaker B: Well, meat breeders. So that dad has. In each chicken house he's got 11,000 hens and 1100 roosters. So one rooster per 10 hens. So they're fertilized eggs. So they'll pick up around during peak about 7 to 8,000 eggs a day per house.
[00:10:04] Speaker A: Wow.
[00:10:05] Speaker B: So he's got, he's got four houses now. So they're.
[00:10:07] Speaker A: Oh, oh, he still has.
[00:10:09] Speaker B: Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I just stay out of them.
I got, I got bad allergies and that dust, I can't stand it. But it's a lot of farmers where I'm at. It's a steady paycheck for them. Yeah.
[00:10:21] Speaker A: But they, Your dad wouldn't hatch the eggs. He ships them off to somebody.
[00:10:25] Speaker B: So that's. Dad's got a contract with. We. We have Tyson close by us, but dad grows for Wayne Sanders. Used to be Wayne Farms. So it's their chickens Dad's just contracted to, to grow them. So dad gets a contract. He's got a 15 year contract when he built the houses. So that's saying I'll bid this house. Here's the contract. I'll give you money every week. So he gets paid per week and then an egg bonus, like a hatch bonus as well. So he gets paid.
I ain't talked to him about this in a long time, but like maybe 60 or 70 cents a dozen per eggs and then he gets paid per week to look after them. So they bring feed to him and then he gets a hatch bonus as well. So nice. They, they come and pick up eggs like three times a week, four times a week and take them back, hatch them. Then they, those birds go to rollers.
[00:11:16] Speaker A: Well, my brother, he just built a 700 by 128 foot barn. He's doing eggs. Not those dehydrated eggs we ate this morning, but that's what he's raising them for.
[00:11:26] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:11:27] Speaker A: So you grew up raising tobacco?
[00:11:30] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:11:31] Speaker A: What would a typical day look like for you as a kid?
[00:11:35] Speaker B: So summertime like whenever. I don't know how much you know about tobacco, but it's a. I know nothing.
Yeah, you smoke.
So it's a pretty intensive crop as
[00:11:46] Speaker A: far as that 360 is not rolling.
[00:11:48] Speaker B: It was rolling.
[00:11:50] Speaker A: Are the others still rolling? Okay. Yeah, we can keep it.
[00:11:53] Speaker B: All right. It has to go in really tilled soil. So we'll start in wintertime like plowing the land. And then we start tilling in the spring. And then we bed up rows. That's on 48 inch rows. And so we'll set, we'll set them, set the plants. It's like 5,000 plants to the acre with a transplanter. So we're sitting.
[00:12:13] Speaker A: Oh, not manual.
[00:12:14] Speaker B: No, no, no, no, no, no, no. It's.
[00:12:16] Speaker C: So they're actually plants that are actually started. You're not.
[00:12:17] Speaker B: Yeah. Well, we actually start them in a.
So we start them in a greenhouse. It's in a, like in a tray. It's 288 cell tray. And we got a, like a vacuum type seeder that puts seed in each one of those holes and then you float them in water. So you float that tray in water. It's got a hole in the bottom of it, wicks water. And then it's on. The greenhouse is on a rail system. So we got a lawnmower that's on a rail that we're mowing the plants.
[00:12:46] Speaker A: No way.
[00:12:47] Speaker B: Yeah. So they get up.
We do this in like around the end of January, 1st of February when we're doing this. And then those are floating. They grow and then. So they'll be really flimsy. So we mow them, mow the tops of the plants off to get them a thick, good, sturdy stalk. So then into April 1st of May we transplant it. And then you're constantly cultivating that crop. So we'll cultivate it like four or five times with two different plants plows.
[00:13:14] Speaker A: Back when you were younger, obviously there weren't spray drones to spray anything. Were you spraying the tobacco with anything?
[00:13:20] Speaker B: Yes. So it's. So that happens. We plow it when it grows up. Every, every plant's trying to reproduce itself. Right. But we're, we're wanting the leaf so it Grows up with a flower, you want to cut that or hand break that flower off. Oh, and each in where the leaf comes to the stalk, the axle, the stalk, a sucker's growing, which would, which would make another.
Another flower. So you got to hand do all that and then you hand take off each sucker.
[00:13:47] Speaker A: There's not a machine.
[00:13:48] Speaker B: No, no, no, no. Well, there's a machine that can cut the, cut the top off. But our soil is so different that the, the plant height is like on the east, on the eastern part of the state. They take a three wheel highboy machine. It's got a fan that blows down with like a knife that'll blow the leaf down and then.
[00:14:07] Speaker A: Oh, that's cool.
[00:14:08] Speaker B: So we spray an alcohol based sucker killer sucker remover. Yeah. So it's gonna burn that sucker. So you gotta spray that like three or four times.
[00:14:21] Speaker C: So you do that instead of going through and hand breaking everyone off.
[00:14:24] Speaker B: Well, if it gets bad, you'll have to break them off. But if they're like less than that, then that alcohol will burn them.
[00:14:30] Speaker C: Gotcha.
[00:14:31] Speaker B: And then there's a growth reducer MH30 that, that I have sprayed with a drone now that we.
[00:14:38] Speaker A: We got some guys rolling by with some big old trash cans.
[00:14:42] Speaker B: I thought it was like a jet.
[00:14:45] Speaker A: Me too.
[00:14:46] Speaker B: Yeah. So then that MH30, it'll stop the growth of the plant so the suckers won't come, but then it ripens up and.
[00:14:52] Speaker A: Yeah. So did you like doing that as a kid? And exactly what part of that did you do as a. I done everything.
[00:14:59] Speaker B: My birthday's July 17th and.
[00:15:02] Speaker A: Oh, mine's July 16th.
[00:15:03] Speaker B: Heck yeah. Dude, I wanted to have a birthday party.
[00:15:08] Speaker A: How old are you?
[00:15:09] Speaker B: I'll be 32.
[00:15:11] Speaker A: Okay. Yeah, I'm 34.
[00:15:13] Speaker B: Yeah.
So you can come down, we can talk to Baca for somebody if you want to.
[00:15:19] Speaker A: For my birthday party.
[00:15:20] Speaker B: Yeah, for your birthday. So then you got a bouquet of flowers.
So the boys, the Hispanic boys that we, you know, that hung out with us or work for us, they would always pick me a bouquet of flowers for my birthday.
Sing me happy birthday when we got back to the. Cool. Yeah.
[00:15:34] Speaker A: Because you're always working.
[00:15:36] Speaker B: Yeah, I was always topping the bike on my birthday. Yeah. Yeah. So yeah, I was. I mean, I was involved in every bit of it. And then we got to prime that tobacco, so my dad had a mechanical harvester, so we didn't do a whole lot of priming by hand, but if it got wet, we'd have to get in there and prime by hand. So you'd taken off each individual leaf
[00:15:51] Speaker A: and you just did the motion where
[00:15:53] Speaker B: you put it under your arm. So, so the older, the older, the older days, you had to like, keep every leaf straight and everything. So they would, you gotta come around the stalk, like take the stalk, take the leaves off the stalk and throw the leaves under your arm.
[00:16:08] Speaker C: How big are the leaves?
[00:16:10] Speaker B: Oh, I mean, I mean, they're.
[00:16:12] Speaker C: Oh, no.
[00:16:13] Speaker A: Oh, wow.
[00:16:13] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:16:14] Speaker C: A couple foot.
[00:16:15] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:16:16] Speaker A: So how much can you carry until you gotta take it?
[00:16:18] Speaker B: Well, you can probably. I mean, it depends on how much you're taking off the plant. Like, whenever you're stripping, you're taking off probably that much of the stalk. So you're, you're probably walking 15, 20 foot and you got an armful and you got to walk across to the trailer and throw it in there. Wow.
[00:16:32] Speaker A: Is there any part of that you didn't like as a kid?
[00:16:35] Speaker B: I mean, it was all work.
They get hot. Real hot.
[00:16:39] Speaker A: So you enjoyed it?
[00:16:40] Speaker B: Yeah, no, I enjoyed it because. For me, because I had to get, I got my ass kicked if I didn't enjoy it.
[00:16:47] Speaker A: But, but bring it up. One of my chores was to take care of 40 horses before we went to school and like, give them water. And I just, if somebody asked me something in my childhood, how I grew up and something I didn't like, it was probably that.
[00:17:03] Speaker B: Yeah, I, I, I enjoy, I did, I did enjoy it. So whenever I got out of college and come back, we were, we had 70 acres then, which, I mean, so it's pretty good amount. Not a lot.
[00:17:16] Speaker A: Is your family still doing tobacco?
[00:17:18] Speaker B: No, we quit in 2018. That market.
[00:17:20] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:17:21] Speaker C: I was going to ask you, is that enough acreage to make a living on tobacco?
[00:17:25] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, yeah, but labor gets hard. Problem is, is the price per pound is the same. It was in the 80s. It's, it's go. It's going up a little bit now, but it's tight, basically.
[00:17:37] Speaker C: Is it because it got more efficient?
[00:17:39] Speaker B: That and Brazilian tobacco.
[00:17:41] Speaker A: Oh, yeah. Did they have better quality or what?
[00:17:43] Speaker B: No, that's cheaper.
[00:17:44] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:17:45] Speaker B: Yeah. And they can grow, they can grow two crops a year down there.
[00:17:48] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. Yep.
[00:17:49] Speaker C: Gotta put tariffs on them.
[00:17:51] Speaker B: Tell me about it.
[00:17:52] Speaker A: Well, I, I think what's happening is the, the vaping is probably taking over some of the bad.
[00:17:58] Speaker B: Well, I mean, there's. We. RJ Reynolds and Philip Moore's. I mean, they export so much tobacco to like China and, or cigarettes to China and stuff. I mean, it's fine, but they, they just ship in Brazilian Tobacco to mix with. Because American. American tobacco is a really good quality.
So they. In North Carolina, tobacco is really good.
[00:18:16] Speaker A: Is tobacco used for anything else other than people smoking it?
[00:18:20] Speaker B: I mean, I'm sure they're trying to work on something, but I don't. I don't know.
Yeah.
[00:18:25] Speaker A: Yeah, I don't either. I'm honestly, I don't even know if what YouTube will do about this conversation.
[00:18:32] Speaker C: There used to be, like, big old tobacco barns where those just to hang the. Hang the leaves in.
[00:18:37] Speaker B: So, like the. You talking about the old stick barns? Yeah, so, yeah. So we. So like, ours is like a grain bin floor, right? So you got a grain bin floor that's corrugated. And then the boxes are like two and a half, three foot deep, 10 foot wide, 10 foot tall. And so we lay these boxes down flat on the ground. And then you're putting tobacco in here. So you're layering this tobacco inside this box. And then we stick a pin in it at an angle and turn that box up so that the leaves are now sitting there like this so air
[00:19:10] Speaker A: would go through it.
[00:19:11] Speaker B: So we. So my job and that I enjoyed. So I was at the barn, so I would handle all the tobacco coming in. Whenever we were priming, me and three other guys, one old man on the broom. We done it kind of backwards. They got. Well, I wouldn't say backwards. We just done it with what we had and done a good job with it. But they have leaf loaders now, so they'll come in with big trailers with a belted floor on them back up to a leaf loader, and it's just all elevators and it beats the leaves and fluffs them up, and then it goes into the box. But we use skid steers. We just dumped it on the floor and had a skid steer with four forks in it, and I'd run the skid steer to shake the debacle off. So one old man was there with a broom, keeping the leaves out from underneath the tires.
And I would check it in the box. And then we would. Once we got boxes full, I'd get out and pin it. And so it was like that. You talking about efficiency with like your trailers and stuff, like, you had to be efficient. We had to roll whenever because frost is coming and frost kills the debaca.
[00:20:06] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:20:07] Speaker B: So, I mean, it's. You. When it's. When it's time to roll, you.
[00:20:10] Speaker A: You go and long hours late.
[00:20:14] Speaker B: So we would prime. What we would do is in. In the fall, we would prime a barn and. Or we take out a barn in the morning. So taking it out, unpinning it, the debaca falls. We put it in the square baler. So it's a square tube that we throw the debacle in, and it presses it, and then you put metal straps around it, and that's what you take it to the market in.
[00:20:34] Speaker A: Huh. So we was cool.
[00:20:35] Speaker B: So we would. So it's constant. You empty a barn, you got to fill it. So we would empty a barn. Fill it. We would. Most times we only had 70 acres, but a lot of these guys are doing that, like times eight or nine.
[00:20:46] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah.
[00:20:47] Speaker B: Big, big farmers.
What was your question?
[00:20:51] Speaker A: No, that's it.
[00:20:52] Speaker B: Okay. Yeah, yeah. So we were. We were constantly doing that.
[00:20:55] Speaker C: So you would basically harvest, put it in the barn until it dries.
[00:20:58] Speaker B: Seven days. Seven days.
[00:20:59] Speaker C: So take it to the market, harvest again.
[00:21:01] Speaker B: Yeah, I didn't really cure that much that dad could tell you more about that. Basically, you got a slow start it. We got fans rolling. You got to bring the heat up in it. It's green, so you got to bring the heat up slow. And there is a science to that. So you got to bring the heat up slow. We'll start it at 100, 100 degrees and just go up slow. It's wilting that plant till it gets yellow. You want to get all the green out of it. Sometimes they'll gas it, and then we'll turn the heat up to dry it. So like 160, 170 degrees, if I'm thinking right, it's been a while. So you'll dry that leaf down.
[00:21:34] Speaker A: What. What are you using for heat is a gas.
[00:21:38] Speaker B: Propane. Yeah, yeah, Natural gas. Propane.
[00:21:40] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:21:41] Speaker B: Yeah. So that's. It's literally like a green bin floor. You're just forcing that air up through it. So you gotta. You gotta evenly distribute that tobacco in that box and do a good job with it. If not, you'll have a. A place where air don't go through. If you overpack it in the corners or something. And then that. That whole side right there won't be. Won't be shared. Right?
[00:22:00] Speaker A: Yeah. When does tobacco start smelling, like, good.
[00:22:04] Speaker B: Oh, man, that's a good smell. So it's like right around 150, 160 degrees when in that curing process, you can walk through there, open up a barn door.
Yeah, I can smell it right now.
[00:22:16] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:22:16] Speaker B: Yeah, that's good. That's money. Yeah. Yeah.
[00:22:20] Speaker A: Like, for me, smells will always take me back to the very first time that I smell Something.
[00:22:27] Speaker B: Yeah. So we. We put all of our tobacco in a barn in a room because you got to keep it a good moisture level or to get real brittle. So, like whenever we haul it to the market, it would not look good because you're tarp or something flapping and it bust a tobacco.
Yeah. That room had a garage door. And you open up that garage door,
[00:22:44] Speaker A: you just stand there for a little bit.
[00:22:46] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:22:46] Speaker C: Did you guys chew your own tobacco?
[00:22:48] Speaker B: I actually don't even. I've. I got bad lungs. I mean, you know, high school kid. I tried smoking, but, you know, I can't handle that. But I never dipped.
[00:22:55] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:22:55] Speaker B: Yeah, well, I guess I did. But.
[00:22:57] Speaker A: Did you play sports in high school?
[00:22:58] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I played football and baseball.
[00:23:01] Speaker A: Were you good?
[00:23:02] Speaker B: I was too small, but short. Yeah. Yeah. Short. Yeah. Like, I was 5, 7, 5 8. And yeah, I guess I was pretty good.
Yeah, I was good. Yeah. Football. Football had a heart. So. Yeah, I'm used to hard work, so I'd stay on the field the whole time, but. Yeah.
[00:23:20] Speaker A: Wow.
[00:23:20] Speaker B: Yeah. The only thing I didn't do was punt pro. So kicking off on punt, but everything else, everything stayed out there. Yep. Yeah.
[00:23:29] Speaker A: Did you guys ever win, like a championship of some kind?
[00:23:33] Speaker B: So football, we kind of sucked till my senior year, and we'd done pretty good my senior year. We made it to playoffs, but then I was probably better at baseball. But my sophomore year, I just got to go up to varsity and. And play. But they went to the. To the semifinals of state. State playoffs. Yeah, we had. We had some. We had a good team there. But yeah, baseball, we were just average road, but I enjoyed it. Yeah, I didn't.
[00:23:57] Speaker A: Did you hit home runs?
[00:23:59] Speaker B: Yeah, I was. I was pretty good my senior year. We. I had a batting average of over. Over 300 there.
[00:24:05] Speaker A: Wow.
[00:24:06] Speaker B: And.
[00:24:06] Speaker A: And that's.
[00:24:07] Speaker B: Towards the beginning of the season. I got injured in the middle, but towards the beginning of the season, I'm out. I was doing good.
[00:24:12] Speaker A: What caused the injury?
[00:24:14] Speaker B: I think it was an elbow injury or something.
[00:24:15] Speaker A: Oh, yeah, Just maybe.
[00:24:17] Speaker B: But I. I mean, I was just. I was out for.
[00:24:19] Speaker A: Oh, no.
[00:24:19] Speaker B: A week or two.
[00:24:20] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah.
[00:24:21] Speaker B: Nothing crazy.
[00:24:21] Speaker A: Yeah. What did you do as a hobby as a kid down there? Dirt bikes or.
[00:24:26] Speaker B: Yeah, I had a dirt bike, but I was busy. We. We showed cattle. I enjoyed showing cattle.
[00:24:31] Speaker C: Okay.
[00:24:32] Speaker B: So we got talking about tobacco, but tobacco paid the bills, but until 2018, anyways, so.
[00:24:40] Speaker A: So, okay, since you brought that up when you say that, because he mentioned 2018 twice now.
Was it like a crash Like a housing crash.
[00:24:48] Speaker B: So I graduated from. So literally, I mean, my dad done very well for himself. He built that farm from nothing and tobacco paid every bit of our bills and it was a good, I mean, good business.
[00:24:58] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:24:59] Speaker B: So I graduated from NC State in 2014, was planning on coming back and farming my dad, and just 2015 was a nightmare. I mean it was. I graduated in the fall of 2014, come back in 2015 and I couldn't get a tobacco contract.
So I ended up growing organic tobacco, which was a show. But yeah, I grew organic tobacco for a little while.
[00:25:20] Speaker A: And did it actually grow?
[00:25:23] Speaker B: Well, we learned.
[00:25:24] Speaker C: Did it grow faster than the weeds?
[00:25:26] Speaker B: Well, we done a good job growing it, but you had to watch what fertilizer we was using and we have chicken houses. So we tried fertilizing it with chicken litter. Like the fall before. We put a lot of chicken litter out there and it did not cure good. So that curing process that I was telling you about, so this chicken manure made it like really, really green and rank and you couldn't get the green out of that leaf. Curing it, yes, it was bad. But I didn't grow much tobacco there for a little while. I actually grew CBD hemp one year.
[00:25:53] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:25:53] Speaker B: So I was on that organic tobacco like website somehow, but some potheads found me and called me. Dude, I got screwed so bad.
[00:26:03] Speaker A: Yeah, so tell me about it.
[00:26:06] Speaker B: They called me like, hey, we got, you know this.
It was being talked about the CBD hemp deal and we went to extension meeting and these guys were there and they was like, yeah, we can, we can do this, do that, do this. So they sold me. I should, I went and signed a contract with them. Oh, I rolled up to their office.
[00:26:23] Speaker A: Air quotes that you said contract. Are you, Was that a mess?
[00:26:28] Speaker B: I rolled up to their, I rolled up to their office and it was their house in like a suburb. And I, and I walk in and like this chick walks downstairs with like some paper and pajama pants.
[00:26:41] Speaker C: I was like, oh, what am I getting into?
[00:26:44] Speaker A: Yeah, I, I can see this as an old movie scene. There's this farmer boy rolls up, rolls up in your square body. You slam the door and you walk up, you know?
[00:26:55] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:26:56] Speaker A: Anyhow, I can see it.
[00:26:57] Speaker B: Yeah, it's bad. See, he, he, he sold me a bunch of hemp seeds and his thing was you can. Do y' all know anything about hemp?
[00:27:06] Speaker A: I know nothing about hemp. And I'm sure they would love to learn about hemp.
[00:27:09] Speaker B: Alright, so I don't know much about hemp either.
So he sold me seeds and he told me the transplant water like I was talking about floating the tobacco. He said you can put high nitrogen rates in your, in your water that it's floating in and it would convert all the seeds to females.
[00:27:28] Speaker A: I.
[00:27:29] Speaker C: Sounds fishy.
[00:27:30] Speaker B: Whatever.
So instead of buying clone plants, like they were really, really high, instead of buying plants, female plants, he sold me this seed. It wasn't much, but it was like 2,000 bucks or something.
[00:27:42] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:27:43] Speaker B: He sold me these seeds. Well, 2000 bucks for an 8 or 20 year old is pretty high. But anyways, sold me these seeds and I, I put them out there and it got hot in the greenhouse and they didn't like the water so they were like wilted and had some kind of rod in them. It was a mess. But we ended up getting it out there and it was.
[00:28:05] Speaker C: Did they convert to females?
[00:28:06] Speaker A: Yeah, if you have pictures, we're going to have to share them.
[00:28:08] Speaker B: Yeah. No, it did not convert to fe. It did not convert females.
[00:28:11] Speaker A: So why do you need females?
[00:28:12] Speaker B: This is going.
So the females is what actually produces the flower.
[00:28:16] Speaker A: Oh, okay.
[00:28:17] Speaker B: So the males, the males out there have like, at the axle like I was telling you about with tobacco plant,
[00:28:23] Speaker A: they have little suckers and stuff.
[00:28:25] Speaker B: Well, it's like, it's their, it's their pollen sacks.
[00:28:29] Speaker A: Okay. Okay. So I thought this, this was my take. You thought you're going to grow hemp?
[00:28:35] Speaker B: Yeah, no, we grew, we grew him.
[00:28:37] Speaker A: No, no, I, I know, I know. Yeah, I know. That's where I thought you're gonna go with this. Well, so he gave me these seeds.
[00:28:43] Speaker B: No, no, it was. So I had, I had to get, I had to get it tested for THC levels. So the. They was.
There was a lot of man, that's a long time ago. Yeah, there was, there was a lot of people that we.
[00:28:56] Speaker A: We can find it later though.
[00:28:57] Speaker B: Okay. Okay. Okay. Yeah. I didn't realize that these males were out there, but I was, I mean I was hunting for them, but I couldn't really tell what I was looking for. So I would like, here's. I only. I planted, I don't know, maybe four or five thousand plants or something. So like seems like a bunch. Yeah, no, no, I mean it was, it was like two acres worth. But I'd go down through there and I'd be like scouting each plant, like looking at it. And obviously like the prettiest plants were males. So I was here and I'm having to pull these up and at certain, at Certain point I was having to like put a trash bag over them when I pulled them up. Cuz if you shake them, the pollen will start coming out.
[00:29:32] Speaker A: No.
[00:29:32] Speaker B: So I was literally going through there and like every time you pull up a nice plant, like, you know what I'm saying?
[00:29:37] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:29:37] Speaker B: And then.
But I mean, it grew. I mean, I mean, we had, we had, we had hemp plants that were, you know, six, seven foot tall. And these high school kids were just eating this up.
Yeah, yeah. I had neighbors coming in looking at it and checking it out, but it was at the end of our property, so you had to know it was out there. But. Yeah.
[00:29:57] Speaker A: So it looks like marijuana?
[00:29:58] Speaker B: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, it's marijuana or it looks like marijuana, but the THC levels in it are low.
[00:30:03] Speaker C: So what's it have to be, like below 0.3% or something?
[00:30:06] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:30:07] Speaker A: So how do you know this stuff?
[00:30:08] Speaker C: They just passed the law in Ohio a couple years ago.
[00:30:10] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:30:11] Speaker C: You can grow hemp, huh?
[00:30:13] Speaker B: Yeah. So we would chop it down with machetes and then put it in our tobacco boxes, hang it upside down and dry it inside of our tobacco barns.
So we had. I had one barn full is what I ended up having. But it was eat up with seeds. So the buds where there were male plants out there started producing seeds.
[00:30:30] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:30:31] Speaker B: So these guys like just, they wasn't answering any phone calls. Nothing.
[00:30:36] Speaker A: They left you high and dry.
[00:30:37] Speaker B: Oh, yeah.
[00:30:38] Speaker A: Oh no.
[00:30:39] Speaker B: Yeah. So I ended up getting it sold. Some guy in a pisca truck come by and gave me 1300 bucks for it.
[00:30:46] Speaker C: How much do you think you should have got for it?
[00:30:48] Speaker B: Well, so I had, you know, I had all this stuff set up through FSA so they, they knew I had all this stuff. We had a hurricane that year, so. Hurricane Matthew. I believe it was Matthew.
[00:30:57] Speaker A: Oh, yeah.
[00:30:58] Speaker B: And if it wasn't for that hurricane, I'd have been bad.
[00:31:00] Speaker C: Lost your ass.
[00:31:01] Speaker B: Yeah. Because I kept getting. I would go to the mailbox and I just kept getting checks because of hurricane relief.
[00:31:07] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:31:08] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah.
[00:31:09] Speaker C: Is that where tax money is going? These freaking hemp farmers.
[00:31:14] Speaker B: I broke even.
It wasn't like I was scamming insurance companies or something. But no, I was, I was grateful as a, as a young man with.
Yeah. Trying to make it. I was grateful.
[00:31:27] Speaker A: So before.
[00:31:28] Speaker B: Thank you, tax players.
[00:31:29] Speaker C: If you, if you plan A2. You said you plan would have planted about two acres.
[00:31:32] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:31:32] Speaker C: How much do you think you should have gotten from it? It would have been a good crop.
[00:31:35] Speaker B: Man, that's so long. I'm Trying to forget that stuff.
[00:31:38] Speaker A: I don't.
[00:31:39] Speaker B: I don't know.
[00:31:40] Speaker A: I mean, it was like when he puts one in the power line, he tries to forget that.
[00:31:43] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, it was. I mean it was supposed to be like making like $60,000 an acre is what these guys were telling me.
[00:31:50] Speaker C: No way.
[00:31:50] Speaker A: Yeah. Got twelve hundred dollars.
[00:31:53] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:31:54] Speaker C: It's a long way from six.
[00:31:55] Speaker A: Learning experience, right?
[00:31:56] Speaker B: Yeah. Dude. Cool. Cool story to tell.
[00:32:00] Speaker A: Yeah, I like it. Before this, you. You started to say that you were in the show.
[00:32:06] Speaker B: Yeah. Showed cattle. Yep. Yeah, yeah, we showed cattle all over. Well, when you mentioned sports. So I was busy playing sports in high school, and then whenever I went to college, we started getting pretty heavy in the show and stuff.
[00:32:17] Speaker A: So is that, that doesn't make money, does it?
[00:32:19] Speaker B: No.
[00:32:21] Speaker C: What do you sell your.
[00:32:22] Speaker B: That's, that's, that's the. That's the. Like there's a local show junior show there close by. So we've won. Won it a time or two and, and make you make a look like Farm Bureau and farm credit come in to the auction and bid off steers type thing.
[00:32:38] Speaker C: Remember that couple sears we found that were showcal, like show steers?
[00:32:41] Speaker B: They were like.
[00:32:41] Speaker C: Yeah, that one was like 20 or $30,000.
[00:32:43] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah.
[00:32:44] Speaker A: They sold that one in Columbus then, I think.
[00:32:46] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah, I think so.
[00:32:47] Speaker B: Yeah. So like Fort Worth steer bring like $300,000 or something?
[00:32:51] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:32:51] Speaker A: For what?
[00:32:52] Speaker B: It's, it's. It's just tax write off. New way ag going and buying a steer and you get your picture taken with it supporting the Jeep.
[00:33:01] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah. So it's like a 501C3 for companies where they can write it off.
[00:33:07] Speaker B: Sure. Yeah. I mean it's just a ride and
[00:33:09] Speaker C: then all that money goes to the. The owner.
[00:33:11] Speaker B: So. So we did, we won. Got to BNC in North Carolina State Fair. So we won that. My sister won it, but we raised the steer. So that steer ended up bringing $19,000.
[00:33:23] Speaker C: Geez.
[00:33:23] Speaker B: But now the. So take all the grand champions.
60% of that money goes to scholarship. For every kid that wants to enter that scholarship. 40% of that money went to my sister.
Okay, so 40. She got 40%. But 60% of that money went straight to her. The 40 had to go into college scholarship for her.
[00:33:50] Speaker A: Okay, that makes sense. Okay.
[00:33:51] Speaker B: Yeah. Now that's just how North Carolina does it.
[00:33:53] Speaker A: Okay, so it doesn't like she doesn't get cash.
[00:33:55] Speaker B: No, no, no. She didn't, she didn't get 20 or 19 grand cash, but she, she got 40 of that 40%. Yeah, yeah, but.
[00:34:03] Speaker A: But what I'm saying is she got 40 cash. Oh, she did.
[00:34:07] Speaker C: The rest of it would have went well. She got fund.
[00:34:09] Speaker B: She got 60.
Wow, that's too much math. She got. And I may have my numbers backed up here a little bit, but she got. She got 40%. 60% of that 40 she got in cash.
[00:34:19] Speaker A: Oh, okay.
[00:34:20] Speaker B: Yeah. Or a check.
[00:34:21] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, that's cool.
[00:34:23] Speaker B: But we've done. We've done a lot of showing all over the country, but you know, whenever you go to like. So I was selling seed stock bulls. So whenever. So whenever I go to sell you a bull, like, hey, this, this bull's mama won such and such fair. Or, or this bull we just had. I showed dad's bull at state fair and it was reserve supreme. So he's won.
[00:34:43] Speaker C: What's that mean?
[00:34:44] Speaker B: So he's won the Hereford show, the bull show a lot. But then we go into all breeds go into the ring. So we're competing against Angus and all the other breeds. So he got. He was the second best bull in the barn.
[00:34:56] Speaker A: Wow.
[00:34:57] Speaker B: Yep. So whatever.
[00:34:58] Speaker C: Something like that worth.
[00:35:00] Speaker B: Whatever. Yeah, whatever. Whatever you want it to be worth. Yeah, I mean he, he would. Right now a good bull should be bringing five grand. And I mean, he could probably sell it for 10 or something, but. Yeah.
[00:35:13] Speaker A: So all that experience got you. You're like, aren't you on different boards now?
[00:35:18] Speaker B: Yeah, so I'm. I'm the. I'm the chair of my young farmers and ranchers.
And then I was on my cattleman's board. Now that I've sold all my cattle, I've kind of. I've kind of. I've got off the cattleman's board.
[00:35:29] Speaker A: But you sold your. For the listeners. Why'd you sell your cattle?
[00:35:33] Speaker B: Yeah, so I bought the drone. 23 was doing grass fed grass finished beef, then done both in 24 and then in the spring 25. Cattle prices are ridiculously high right now. So I do a bunch of traveling with the spray stuff. So I end up just selling, catching. Yeah, just selling the cattle. Yeah, it's too much. Too much. Too much work for my wife to do while I'm gone.
[00:35:56] Speaker A: So.
[00:35:56] Speaker B: Yeah, just cashed in.
[00:35:58] Speaker A: Yeah. Aren't you're on the board of this spray drone conference that we're at now?
[00:36:02] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, I'm on the committee. I didn't really do a whole lot this year. I apologize.
[00:36:05] Speaker A: But how'd you. How'd they pick you?
[00:36:08] Speaker B: I bought the T40 in 23 and then and went to that conference in 24. And I guess I was just dumb enough to do the stuff that I'm doing, like all that crazy pasture stuff. And Steve was looking for some help, but I went to that first conference in 24, and then I started doing all kinds of that crazy pasture stuff in 24. And then in the fall of 24, after doing all that stuff, I asked, you know, if you want me to come on, I'd be glad to help. So I got on last year, the committee. So this is my second year on this committee.
[00:36:40] Speaker A: Yeah. Okay. Yeah. What. What would a committee member do?
[00:36:43] Speaker B: We had.
[00:36:44] Speaker A: If he's not busy spraying pasture land.
[00:36:46] Speaker B: Yeah. So we're, we would do zoom meetings every two weeks. So we have like two or three hours zoom meetings every two weeks to kind of plan out what we want to do. And.
[00:36:56] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:36:57] Speaker B: Yeah, I wasn't, I wasn't, I wasn't very active this year.
[00:37:01] Speaker A: But your screen time was behind it. A T40 or T50, huh?
[00:37:04] Speaker B: Yeah. Or 25.
[00:37:05] Speaker A: Yeah, or 25. You like those little T25s, man, you
[00:37:09] Speaker B: gotta get a 25p a bunch of them.
[00:37:12] Speaker A: Oh, yeah.
[00:37:12] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:37:13] Speaker A: Do you have a market?
[00:37:14] Speaker B: Oh, yeah.
[00:37:14] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:37:15] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:37:15] Speaker C: No, you gotta get a bunch as in how many?
[00:37:17] Speaker B: Whatever you can get here.
[00:37:19] Speaker A: Can, can you sell 250? 250.
[00:37:22] Speaker B: You could sell 250.
[00:37:24] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:37:24] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:37:24] Speaker A: We've literally never run them. Yeah, I mean, we repaired a T20.
[00:37:29] Speaker C: Or was it. We worked on T20s, but. Yeah, we never, I don't think we ever, like, we never used them.
[00:37:34] Speaker B: That 25p is a like. So we roll up. Like if you guys, you roll into a big square field, you got a little 20 acre patch over here. Take your Japanese mini truck and 25 and go over there and spray it. Don't be tying up your new way ag trailer to go over and try to knock out 20 acres. Yeah, just send that 25 out and go get that. I mean, it's, it's, it's a heck of a drone.
[00:37:55] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah, I know we're getting some, but I don't know if we're getting enough.
[00:38:00] Speaker C: That doesn't sound like it.
[00:38:01] Speaker B: No, you're not. I can go ahead and tell you. You're not.
But the, the only, the only problem is is the price point's too high on those things. I know they, they.
[00:38:10] Speaker A: You know what is even worse? The margins on it.
We actually don't make any money.
[00:38:15] Speaker B: Yeah. I mean, you can buy from what I seen from best way you can buy T50 just about, if not cheaper than you can at 25p.
[00:38:22] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:38:23] Speaker B: Which is silly, but whatever.
[00:38:25] Speaker A: Why do you think that is?
[00:38:26] Speaker B: I mean, I guess, I don't know. China, I guess.
[00:38:29] Speaker A: Is it, you know, like ability of building them?
[00:38:31] Speaker B: Maybe.
[00:38:31] Speaker C: I don't know.
[00:38:32] Speaker A: I was gonna say, do you think it's convenience, right. Where like when you get a small little pickup truck, it's almost as expensive as like a full size F150, right.
[00:38:44] Speaker C: I don't know. Well, I think it has a little bit to do with like the shortage. Like we don't have many here. Yeah, people pay more for them. Where the 50s.
[00:38:52] Speaker A: But like you wouldn't. There's a lot overpay for one.
[00:38:55] Speaker B: If my T25 went down right now, I would buy one. Oh, yeah, yeah, I would buy. I would buy a 25 before I'd buy another 50.
[00:39:02] Speaker C: And you paid more for it than a 50?
[00:39:03] Speaker B: Not me. Not a lot more.
[00:39:05] Speaker C: But if it was the same price,
[00:39:07] Speaker B: you'd buy the, oh, 1,000%.
[00:39:09] Speaker A: Wow.
[00:39:10] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:39:11] Speaker A: Yeah. We just never run them. And so you know how cool they are. Yeah.
[00:39:15] Speaker C: So why wouldn't you just. How many, how many gallon tank is that?
[00:39:18] Speaker B: 1.5.5.
[00:39:20] Speaker C: What if you would just put 5 gallons in the 50?
[00:39:22] Speaker B: You still going to use battery?
[00:39:23] Speaker C: More battery because it's heavier.
[00:39:24] Speaker B: Yeah. And you can, I mean you can literally, like I can cut off the radar and I can send that sucker anywhere.
[00:39:30] Speaker A: But it's. It's basically the same, but it's a lot more.
[00:39:34] Speaker B: I mean it's a lot more nimble. You mean you can. Okay, around a lot faster.
[00:39:37] Speaker A: Okay. Kind of like a T60X. It's like that sucker just is snappy.
[00:39:40] Speaker C: Does it terrain follow better than the 50?
[00:39:42] Speaker B: No, same as 50. Yeah. But now the 25pmay be different, but yeah, hopefully, yeah. Supposed to have better connectivity too.
[00:39:49] Speaker A: And I believe it will.
[00:39:50] Speaker C: I believe it does.
[00:39:51] Speaker A: I believe it will.
[00:39:52] Speaker C: The 60s had way better than the 50s.
[00:39:54] Speaker B: Really?
[00:39:54] Speaker C: And the 100 supposed to have way better than the 60. Yeah, the 60 definitely had way better than the 50. Like that is not even a question.
[00:40:00] Speaker B: Dude, that's crazy.
[00:40:01] Speaker A: Would you consider buying a T100 for those fertilizing jobs that you do?
[00:40:05] Speaker B: Yeah, we're. We're thinking about it hard. And all the Christmas tree work I did too. I think we're going to be able to do. We're going to be able to do some high GPA work in those Christmas trees. Yeah, no, obviously at £500, the acre T100 would be nice.
[00:40:18] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:40:19] Speaker C: But would you guys fly them out if you were legally allowed to? Christmas trees.
[00:40:23] Speaker A: You can just put some seed bucket on it.
[00:40:25] Speaker B: What you talking about?
[00:40:26] Speaker C: Would you guys fly the Christmas trees out with the drone?
[00:40:28] Speaker B: No, we've, I've. I found a cargo net. Been talking with that Christmas tree farmer. Yeah.
[00:40:33] Speaker C: It'll be more convenient than load them up on a truck.
[00:40:35] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. I mean, these mountains, if you do
[00:40:38] Speaker A: that, you gotta call me up. I'll come. Just do it.
[00:40:41] Speaker B: Yeah, no, we're going to do it next year.
[00:40:43] Speaker A: I think I'm coming.
[00:40:44] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:40:45] Speaker A: Come on.
[00:40:45] Speaker B: You know how to get there?
[00:40:46] Speaker A: I am, yes.
[00:40:48] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:40:48] Speaker A: Now I. I will bring all kinds of T1 hundreds and we'll make a show out of it.
[00:40:52] Speaker B: Yeah, no, we can put on a show. I mean these guys. These guys start cutting trees in October, which is.
[00:40:57] Speaker A: So we'll get probably pretty at all.
Yeah.
[00:41:03] Speaker C: They plant these things up on the mountain.
[00:41:05] Speaker B: Oh, yeah. Yeah.
[00:41:06] Speaker C: We bring like 5T100 down there.
[00:41:08] Speaker A: Fly cart.
[00:41:08] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:41:09] Speaker C: Fly carts.
[00:41:09] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:41:10] Speaker A: Fly cart. One hundreds.
[00:41:11] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:41:11] Speaker A: Coming. That's probably here now. By the time they hear this.
[00:41:15] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's going to be. No, there's. There's a lot of these Christmas tree growers. I mean there's going to be a. I mean they already are. There's a lot of people buying a lot of Christmas tree growers buying the drones.
So we've been spraying deer repellent all winter on these trees.
[00:41:30] Speaker C: How often have to spray that?
[00:41:32] Speaker B: About every 60 days.
[00:41:35] Speaker A: Doesn't last that long. Yeah, it also.
[00:41:39] Speaker C: Go ahead.
[00:41:40] Speaker B: Should I talk about it? We've talked about that, right?
[00:41:42] Speaker A: Yeah, we don't know.
[00:41:44] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. About 60 days.
[00:41:46] Speaker C: But you're not convinced that it does.
[00:41:47] Speaker B: No, no, it works. It works.
[00:41:48] Speaker C: Okay.
[00:41:49] Speaker B: No, the farmer go out there and start scouting.
[00:41:52] Speaker A: What were you gonna say that you weren't sure? We can always cut it out if
[00:41:55] Speaker B: you think we should. Did I tell you about the milk?
Damn.
[00:42:03] Speaker A: Why, why, why can't we share it?
[00:42:05] Speaker B: I got. I got in trouble over that. For.
[00:42:07] Speaker A: From the faa?
[00:42:08] Speaker B: No, from the dagum, North Carolina pest side department.
[00:42:12] Speaker A: Okay. Let's go here. Can you share?
[00:42:16] Speaker B: Probably. Probably don't need to.
Probably don't need to.
[00:42:23] Speaker A: You can't spray milk.
[00:42:24] Speaker B: So I end a video. I made a. I made an awesome video. Like first take, awesome video posted on Facebook. And I was spraying milk for deer repellent.
[00:42:33] Speaker C: Huh.
[00:42:33] Speaker B: And since I said it's the deer repellent. Yeah, milk.
[00:42:36] Speaker A: Like milk from cow.
[00:42:38] Speaker B: Milk from a cow.
[00:42:38] Speaker C: Interesting.
[00:42:39] Speaker B: I did not know that, yeah. So I was spraying milk for deer repellent. Said that pesticide man called me the next morning, said since you're spraying, since you're, since you said repellent, that's considered a pesticide and milk doesn't have an EPA number.
[00:42:53] Speaker C: Oh, oh my gosh. That is just, that is just goes to show how freaking ridiculous people are.
[00:42:59] Speaker B: Yeah. So we would need to edit that out if we can.
[00:43:02] Speaker A: But it could help the next guy that was going to spray milk.
[00:43:06] Speaker B: If I would have said that it was like boosting calcium or like a soil thing and it may deter deer, then I'd have been fine.
[00:43:14] Speaker A: So I think, I think it's valuable information for somebody.
[00:43:18] Speaker B: I think it's great information. A great way to help dairy farmers. But.
[00:43:21] Speaker A: Yeah, correct. But you're telling them the proper way.
[00:43:24] Speaker B: Okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So yeah, the proper way to do this is you're doing it as a calcium booster and you won't get in trouble for it. Funny thing is, I was calling.
[00:43:34] Speaker A: Can we put it in or no, because this is also educational.
[00:43:38] Speaker B: Right, right.
[00:43:38] Speaker A: Like I was, I was gonna go do milk as soon as he, you know, said that. I'm like, can't you spray that on food plots? Yeah, but we're doing it to improve the soil is what we're finding out.
[00:43:48] Speaker B: Because exactly what. I guess the, the better, the healthier your soul is from the milk, the deer. Don, like the.
[00:43:53] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, whatever.
[00:43:55] Speaker B: It's just a bunch of bull crap.
[00:43:58] Speaker A: Why wouldn't it be allowed to stand say that?
[00:44:00] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean he said he was going to find me for not spraying the EPA labeled.
[00:44:04] Speaker A: Oh yeah. So he hasn't yet?
[00:44:07] Speaker B: No, he hasn't. And he also didn't mind me spraying it, but I just didn't need to advertise it.
[00:44:11] Speaker A: Yeah, but yeah, we're not, we're not advertising it here either. Like you don't want to use milk for a deer repellent.
[00:44:17] Speaker B: No, it's terrible.
[00:44:18] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:44:18] Speaker B: Doesn't work.
[00:44:19] Speaker C: Yeah, but as a calcium booster it really works.
[00:44:22] Speaker B: Yeah, deer don't like calcium.
But anyways, so I was calling, I was calling up, I was calling up these Christmas tree that I spread fertilize for and I was like, so what do you hear about this?
And he was like, well, I can tell you this. Well, he took a 250 gallon mist blower to the local dairy and got some dump milk, like had antibiotics in it, put it in our mist blower, come back and a 250 gallon mist blower will create a 5 gallon bucket of butter inside of it because the constant agitation ended up turning and stopped
[00:45:06] Speaker A: up every one of his nozzles.
[00:45:09] Speaker B: So I'm so so.
[00:45:14] Speaker A: Dude, when you looked at me, you were so serious. So serious. Deer don't like cows.
[00:45:22] Speaker B: So. So we.
So the first, the first job we done we ended up doing 90 gallons of like food line red top whole milk. So we ended up doing 90 gallons of milk. Was dumping gallon jugs in there and now we're doing 55 pound bags of powdered milk.
Like restaurant grade powder milk. So we'll put that in 45 gallons of water. Huh. Doing three gallons of milk to the acre.
[00:45:47] Speaker A: That is so cool.
[00:45:48] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:45:49] Speaker C: Did you figure out or how'd you find out that that works?
[00:45:52] Speaker B: These Christmas tree growers eat up with it.
[00:45:54] Speaker C: They already knew.
[00:45:54] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah. But now I do, I do spray a lot of Buck barrier. It's a concept ag product that works really good.
[00:46:00] Speaker A: Yeah, I remember you had told me about that.
[00:46:01] Speaker B: Yeah. It's a citrus oil. Yeah.
[00:46:04] Speaker A: Yeah.
Interesting.
[00:46:06] Speaker C: That is interesting.
[00:46:08] Speaker A: At least it was in the faa. Have they called yet?
[00:46:10] Speaker B: Not yet.
[00:46:11] Speaker C: Okay.
[00:46:12] Speaker A: They like, they like us.
[00:46:14] Speaker B: Yeah, I bet they do.
[00:46:15] Speaker A: Someday we will share. We.
We.
We've hinted eluded, but who knows if we'll ever get there.
[00:46:23] Speaker B: Key fighting's all I can say.
Yeah.
[00:46:28] Speaker A: Words of wisdom that you would share with some young guys that are wanting to get into this.
[00:46:32] Speaker B: Stay at it, man. It's a hustle. I think we, we talked about that a little bit in our, in our last podcast. But get after it, get up early, stay out late, do a good job.
[00:46:42] Speaker A: This has changed your life. Spray drone pilot.
[00:46:45] Speaker B: Yeah, man. I mean I've. We made good money last year and we sprayed. We sprayed a little over 10,000 acres last year. And yeah, hopefully soon my wife will come home. I've got one guy hired full time. Now we're looking to hire on more. More pilots. Yeah. It's changed my life. I. Two and a half years ago, I didn't even know what a spray drone was.
[00:47:04] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:47:05] Speaker C: So wild.
[00:47:05] Speaker B: And now I'm helping plant this coffee. I know.
[00:47:08] Speaker A: Like, look at this. There's a lot of young folks here that it's literally going to change. Actually, I had a guy on the podcast, 24 years old, he was able to buy acreage land house because of using spray drones this way.
That, that's insane. It's creating new jobs.
[00:47:28] Speaker B: Yeah. And, and we're doing a good job for these farmers too. I mean we're able to save them money. We're able to do a better job. We're able to help their input costs increase yields all. And I the cattle thing, I used to do like regenerative ag and like grass fed grass finished beef. So I was always kind of against the chemicals. But we're able to do so much so such a better job with these chemicals and spray them so much accurately and do a good job. And if it's going to get sprayed, it needs to be done right and these drones do it right.
[00:47:58] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:47:58] Speaker B: So yeah.
[00:47:59] Speaker A: So often, you know, I got into spraying with precision ag with drones that they're super precise. And then I talk to farmers and realize that they try to do you know, five gallons to the acre but
[00:48:12] Speaker C: they don't really know.
[00:48:13] Speaker A: They don't really know if they're pulling, you know, equipment has gotten better. They can now, you know, do that,
[00:48:19] Speaker C: talk to guys that do orchards and they're like, yeah, I want to do 10 gallon acre, but no meter, just get on the tractor, turn around and roll.
[00:48:27] Speaker B: Yep.
[00:48:27] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah.
[00:48:28] Speaker C: Or these things are pretty darn accurate. How long's your, your season, your spray season?
[00:48:33] Speaker B: I don't stop.
[00:48:34] Speaker C: You don't stop?
[00:48:34] Speaker B: No.
[00:48:34] Speaker A: All year?
[00:48:35] Speaker B: Yeah, basically all year. So like January we're still spraying Christmas trees and then so every day it's above freezing or the wind's not blowing, we're spraying Christmas trees and we're already starting to frost seed clover. I've done done some herbicide work on pastures. We're frost seeding clover now and we'll roll into pasture herbicide and then you know, we'll get into our row crop stuff by the time our, our anytime we want to go back and forth to the mountains or whatever, spray herbicide and then fertilizer on Christmas trees and cover crops. I mean it's all year round.
[00:49:05] Speaker A: What for new guy, what is going to be the hardest thing for them to have a successful business if they have no agricultural background?
[00:49:14] Speaker B: The no agriculture background is going to be tough. I mean just being straight up, honestly, I mean you, you gotta understand these farmers, their mindset. Whenever they call you, it's cause they already have a problem. Yeah. So I mean you gotta be very really efficient of your planning, really efficient of your flying. You gotta cover acres when it's time to go. But being able to walk into a gas station or coffee. Well, gas stations where all the, where all the coffee is at for these rural areas. So walking to the gas station, you see a guy with a decab or pioneer hat on, you go over and shake his hand and introduce yourself to him and be able to talk to him, ask him how his crops are doing.
[00:49:52] Speaker A: Dude, give him a business card, money. You are hearing it from Preston himself. Pack aerial applications. Dude, those are golden nuggets, I'm telling you.
[00:50:02] Speaker B: Yeah. There was a guy in front of me one time at a construction site that had farm tags on his truck. And I got out and went over and talked to him while we were stopped.
That's what. That's what it takes.
[00:50:12] Speaker A: 100%. 100%. It's a grind, like you said. There's going to be a YouTube series coming out. It's called the Grind and it'll have its own tags, but showing how to get it done.
[00:50:25] Speaker B: Yeah. It's not just buying a drone.
[00:50:28] Speaker A: No, no.
[00:50:28] Speaker B: You got to get out there and do a good job. And that's one thing this conference is able to teach these young kids or I mean, anybody that doesn't know an ag background. You got to get out there to stuff like this to. To learn.
[00:50:39] Speaker A: Yeah. Dude. Before we go, I gotta ask you. How'd you smash your finger?
[00:50:44] Speaker B: Yeah. So one night we got done and my U joint was going out my truck and we were able to stop.
[00:50:50] Speaker A: Spray truck?
[00:50:51] Speaker B: Yeah, my spray truck, the Dodge. And we was coming in. I got to auto part place right at 9:00'. Clock. The first one I got to got a U joint come back. I'm not that good a mechanic, but my dad. My dad's pretty good. So I called my dad up. He come over there and help me out. But in my shop, I ain't really got a whole lot of tools. So I was using a Reese hitch to drive the.
I was using the recent resets to drive the. The drive shaft off my truck. I didn't have a big hammer.
[00:51:18] Speaker C: It's the right tool for the job, man.
[00:51:20] Speaker B: Hey, it worked. It knocked it off.
But my pinky was on top of that research on the concrete floor.
And that drive shaft fell right on my pinky.
So I done like. I done like that evening we were doing lime and fertilizer. We were doing 300 pounds of lime to the acre and 300 pounds of fertilize to the acre. We got that job done and come home, changed out our U joint and went back, drove two hours to another job to do £60 a week to the acre.
[00:51:49] Speaker A: Oh, God.
[00:51:50] Speaker B: Like on like158.
[00:51:51] Speaker A: That's a grind.
[00:51:52] Speaker C: That is freaking grinding, dude.
[00:51:53] Speaker B: Gotta roll, man.
[00:51:54] Speaker A: I love it. Preston, thanks so much for being on.
[00:51:58] Speaker B: I appreciate you guys.
[00:51:59] Speaker A: It's so fun chatting with you. It is, but.
Alrighty.
That's all we got for you guys this week. Make sure to hit subscribe, give it a thumbs up and we'll catch you guys later.
