 farm over in Benora, so like 35 miles away, fifth generation farmer. We're doing no-till, regenerative, and we kind of are using cover crops, what I call green manure. Most of you guys are probably from around here, you know that June 10th was a nice interesting timeframe for everyone in Williston. They all got hail. So there was a photo I just kind of wanted to bring into that kind of got in social media because we all kind of shop there. Well, this was June 10th at night time. Two people decided to canoe. I didn't make the paper, I think too. I think it did, yeah. So I thought it was kind of funny I wanted to throw it in there. Nope, it's fine. I'm going to talk about kind of like the questions I get of why we're switching to 100%. We're in the transitional stage, we've got some organic and we're getting all the way there. Next year in the fall will be my last year with this frayer. So I'm really looking forward to selling. Health reasons. It took us a long time to conceive a child and about took us actually seven years and about year five, year four, we finally went to a doctor and found out like there's just some health things. And when the doctor called like, oh yeah, you can be my wife, if you put on pills, it won't heal her. You know, it just kind of be taking pills the rest of your life. And she kind of said, well, is there anything I can do? And he's like, well, if you don't want to take pills, you can just eat certain foods and it'll kind of maintain it. She said, fine, she didn't take the pills. And she asked a lot of research and found out that it is possible with what she had going on that you can heal yourself with the strict diet of the foods. So that was kind of one of the first steps of going in my farming world, chemical fertilizer going, okay, I think there's something we can do here. Soil health. You know, I look at my fields today in the normal way of farming and you dig the soil and you just don't see much, you just see crafter, nothing really in there. So I was like, there's got to be something else. And that's when I started getting online and talking to farmers, trying to talk to organic, kind of came across something called like regenerative farming, use a lot of cover crops, building the soil health, you know, bringing the organic matter back, biomass is everything. And I was like, this is where I kind of want to go. And the big one is the chemical and the fertilizer cost to keep climbing. And especially next year, they're going to get terrocious. But I just kept saying, I work my butt off all year. And the chemical and the fertilizer people, they seem to be taking our money. And then of course, I'm going, all right, if I want to farm the way I'm farming now, what do I got to do? I need to buy a possible new sprayer. One of my neighbors bought a new sprayer and told me how much he paid for it. And I was like, geez, Louise, I don't think I want to go that route. And I've bought a lot of land the last couple of years. So where I had to buy the thing called the grain beggar, I couldn't afford grain bins. And I started looking into grain bins constantly, that's going to be a quarter of a million dollars. Or yeah, the quarter of a million dollars to $350,000. And of course, steel keeps climbing. So between the sprayer of a new sprayer and grain bins, I just kind of said, I think I'm going to be out because I don't have the money and I don't want to take a loan on just those two pieces of equipment. So kind of one of the reasons why I also bowed out. And the last of farming of love for the farming, you know, you just sit there and you wonder, what are you kind of doing to the soil for health? What are you kind of doing to the people that eat or food or animals? You sit in the tractor all day and you start kind of thinking, what can be done differently? So those are kind of the reasons why we're getting out. We believe we can do it organically, regen organically. It took me a couple of years to kind of figure it out organically. A lot of people tell like this last guy tells nothing wrong with that. But I kind of, I just didn't like to turn the soil over because I kind of said it kind of undoes the purpose for the bad sling term. You get an organic as well. You turn the soil over, you wreck the soil, you don't make it any better. There's got to be something better. So the funniest thing is in 2018, I was still in a depression. I'm going to go organic. I got it to the soil. There's no other way. Got to control the weeds. And that's kind of like where I just was like, I don't know, last year was really interesting. Last fall, I did a thousand acres that I was going to transition this year. And I kept telling myself, I'm going to take my pro tail in 2021, and I'm going to just till the soil and then seed with my no-till drill. So I had to kill the weeds. But I kind of got out of that mindset and started learning about the regen. And we're strictly no-till, and we're not going to be turning the soil over. And I know it can be done. One of the first years too, when we were in organic and turning the soil over on some of the fields, we bought organic fertilizer, the pebbles. And kind of like that idea, I kind of not. I had to get it all away from Wisconsin, Chick-Manua. And it kind of felt like I was still doing the same thing. But of course, it was organic. So didn't have to worry about the soil health. But over the last couple years, obviously, everyone's probably been raising cover crops. We've been getting more into it. And I realized the realization that cover crops are the answer to get out of doing fertilizer. So that's what we're doing on the farm. And I kind of talked about it, a regen. Regen is kind of like a new word. They are, you're just trying to get the soil healthier. Trying to get everything back in the soil. Use it like as a bank. You're just trying to get it healthier. And one of the things I'll be doing is, he kind of talked about two cover crops. I don't know if he did it a whole year, but we're doing like a whole year of cover crop, which we're calling regen, arrest year. Because we believe that we can arrest the ground with cover crop. You can also do green manure to it to where he does it and some of other farmers, they actually turn the soil over to incorporate and get their hand. There's another way you can do it if you do roller crimping, terminate at the right time. So that you leave the biomass, the plants, above it on the ground to cover for suppressing weeds and let the nitrogen build. So that way, when you pull a crop following year, you pull a couldn't crop. This is a picture of a cow peas from some of my regen year. And I was really surprised with all the nodulators that's on that root system. Obviously it's not on every plant, but where there was some soil, we got that. And that's somehow misspelled that we're there 36 months of going organic transitional into organic. And a lot of people wondered like, I get the question going, well, Wade, you're going to do 36 months. That means three year crops that you're going to be in transition. You're going to lose money. You're not going to make it into the organic world. It's going to take you three years. Well, as you were talking about, it's 36 months. It's the last time you spray synthetic fertilizer, chemical, anything prohibited. So if you time it right, you can actually do it where for me instance, we'll do peas and lentils. Peas, I won't terminate. I'll just naturally combine it. Lentils, I'll terminate it with a parrot bot, but you know, that's the end of June or July. So then there's your ticket of the start and window 36 months. If you wait 36 months in one day, you end up be able to have an organic field. So I'm able to do it in two years. I have transitional ground of a crop or cover crop in the third year. If I wait that one day past 36 months, it's considered an organic field and harvested. How we're going to manage in weeds is obviously cover crops on the off years or a year after harvest, get a cover crop out there. It starts covering the ground, making sure that the biomass gets out there and suppress the weeds. There's another thing called the weed zapper. Did quite a bit of research on it because I was always worried about weeds when I first started getting into the organic wondering what is the best thing to do to control weeds because I don't want to be that farmer out there that lets the weeds go and just get out of control. So we bought something called the weed zapper and there's actually a slider to after this one. There's another thing I have not bought, I'd love to buy, plan to be buying it, is to terminate weed seeds and one way to do it is after or when you're combining, there's an attachment on the back of the combines that actually crushes and kills the weed seeds, you're not throwing it out the back. Another way to do it is just getting out there mowing it. I noticed after pea and lentil harvest, I started getting weeds growing. Luckily this year they didn't get to the flowering stage but if they would have, I would have gone out there and swath it, mowed it anyway so that I just would not create a full seed to drop to the ground and start germination. Another thing for me, we don't want to plow because like you were saying, you kind of pop up weed seeds that have been sitting in the ground. So that's where the no-till, the regen, just letting it be, then to build up the soil. That's a picture of one of our transitional dirhams this year. You kind of see some tallness out there, that's actually alfalfa and the weed zapper took care of that. This is the weed zapper. There's only, it's made in Missouri and I just got it this year since we went full-blow transitional. We have about a thousand acres, that's in the transition, 400 acres, that's organic. Next year we're doing 2,000 acres and the following year we'll finish it up and be done. But the thing that sends electrical currents on the back is the generator. I know you can't see it. It's 40 feet, 42. Travel 4 to 6 miles an hour. It's got a lot of safety features on it but what I love about it is this is what I was worried about, no killing and trying to control the weeds. This took my breath away and made it very possible and I don't know if this video will play. I don't know if they get something on it or not. But this isn't my flax field, that's actually truly organic. The CRP last year broke it off. Get the field ready. You see electrical current on the left side more than the right side. I was going out after alfalfa before the flax got up and actually one of my agronomists called me and said, is that an organic field or is that not an organic field? And I said it's an organic field, why? He said, well, it terminated all your flax. It killed it. And I just wanted to know if it was that weed zapper or was it chemical? Because it goes chemical, it's one of the hardest plants to kill. So that was fun to see an agronomist call me and go, what did you do? And it did a better job than those chemicals. This is transitional dermal picture there. We did weed zap it since I didn't know till. So I mean, didn't break the ground, just seeded it, stuck the weed zapper to it when it's shorter. And this is what it looks like. But of course, three weeks before harvest, some of it, the weeds finally got up and passed the canopy. But state that clean and clear, I was pretty happy. This is kind of some of the current prices. Lentils are up there per pound. Because a lot of people were like, so organic, profitable, is it not profitable? I believe it is. Peas green and yellow are that price. Wheat. And I was wondering about derma, couldn't find that out. So it's kind of need to know. But like I said, derma is never that high. This is just this year. Blacks is over $40. Like he was saying, it's usually 27. And of course, it's just about this year, so dry. Everything is, they're just scrambling to get any kind of bushels, conventionally or organic. So I'll be sharing the next slide is actually transitional and conventional. I had a little over 2000 acres of Durham. And half of it was transitional. The other half was conventional. And I picked, you know, fields that were all about the same, nothing with high yield and low yielding. Just put it out there and give it an average. We got a grain cart. So we can always keep track of that. But I'll show you real list numbers on my farm. So my very own comparison on the farm, conventional, the average yielding in order was pretty dry was 20.89. Transitional with no fertilizer chemical was 18.91. Just shy of two bushels less. My expenses did 175 pounds of urea. You got your roundup in crop. And then one of the thing that was different was crop insurance. Was a little bit more money than the transitional side. Because it's funny, transitional, they have their own level of crop insurance. And I'm going to get two organic. It's another different level. So that difference alone between a thousand acres was $84.17. Conventional, you have to do three more passes. Kind of talking about the sprayer, the spreader for transitional. Seed it, throw the weed zapper in there or not. So the end of the day, when I sold everything here, like I said, it was $84.17 cheaper. But do you mind as almost the two bushels that I lost? I gained $52.17 trailer versus conventional in the transitional world. Now I would be nice if I had organic verum this year. It wouldn't be that high, but if it was, it'd be really cool. And then on the conventional side, it's getting kind of interesting. I hear your ria right now is like $860. And Hydrus is like $1,300. Roundup is going to be $45 a gallon or more, if you can get it. And the other things. And it's going to be pretty darn expensive to do a conventional. Like I said, I got less than two bushels to do transitional. It might be something you might want to look into it. You can still, the color was great. Test weight was great. Protein was great. One of the reasons why it was great is both my conventional and transitional came off of all pulses. So that was kind of like my end builder. And like I said, conventional, you put 175 pounds down. We spread it. We looked for rain. We did timely and less than a two bushel difference. Close to two, but it was less. This is a picture of also a brand new braking. It was CRP Virgin Ground. We did set a fire to it last fall. And we did disk it just so that we get the ground even because it's got all the virgin potholes and this and that. But everyone said, and I've done this, I broke up so much ground and I've always lost money my very first year conventionally. I've done Dero, I've done lentils, I've done peas. It's always a crop insurance year on that field. I just did it on Flax Organic Flax with the old price of $27 nerdy contract. I needed 5.78 bushels to break even. And I did a yield of 9.13. Sold it, got paid, then made a profit on it. I really wasn't expecting that, but on a dry year or two, I'm in the drought, but that's what we ended up getting. And I was just pretty tickled. And any questions? How have your neighbors kind of perceived the transition process? Have they been? First, I talked to, I got two cash renters. I talked to them, told them two years ago or so. What would you think if I went organic on your fields? One, I knew she'd be all four. It seems like ladies, moms, they're kind of already there. It's the guys that aren't kind of there yet. She was all four. Yeah, go ahead. Talk to the other guy. He was like, yeah, sure. As long as my cash rent is going to be the same, I said, yeah, it's going to be the same. It's not going to be cheaper or lower. And so they were all four. I am leaving their fields last to transition into organic. I'm just going to make sure I get all my fields up and going and then hop into theirs last. How close are you to being certified? Well, we got 400 acres that's certified. We got 1,000 acres in 2021, or a little over 1,000. That's the transitional stage one. And then next year, 2022, I got close to 3,000 acres of deer. I'm going to do over 2,000 acres of transitional, 1,000 not. I might change it down to 500 because of fertilizer prices. I'll just go because I swear our prices for commodities going to be high in 2022. And I made money transitional in this year with unexpected high prices going out. I think it would just go all in and get it in. So 2022 and then 2023 is my last year to maximize it'll be transitional. Like I said, I'm selling my sprayer next year in the fall and it'll be done spraying. By 2025, that's when absolutely everything is. Oh, it's kind of close. There's transitional 1,000 acres. That's this year. The following year I'm planning on doing a pulse crop. I'm going to rest it, do a regen year, build a nitrogen up because in the following year on that first 1,000, I'll have good soil and ready to put a yield in and get hopefully good yield and a good price for organic. So then just the acres just start kind of increasing. So I'm either doing between 1-3 to 2-3 transition every year so that I have years of crop that are cover crops and years that's cash crop. So that I always, I'm planning to always do like the cover crop, rest in the ground financially. It's very doable. I mean, we all grew up summer follow. If you do the continuous cropping on Durham or whatever, you knew the yield was always going to be down here. You had a chemical fallow or summer fallow. You went in to harvest it, it was always 5, 10, 12, or just higher. So that's kind of what my thinking is, is I'll farm one year, rest one year, farm one year, but of course do it at a 50% level and keep going that way. So I have a question on the cover crop because forage is so short this year. There was a lot of producers looking for fall grazing. Is it a possibility and maybe Claire can answer this too, could you bring someone's conventional calvert in? Good question. I kind of forgot about that. Yes, for the first year ever, I have that 400 acres. I said that's organic. This is my regen year, my policy year, just letting it be out there. So I have two different farmers or ranchers. They put up their own fencing, not cost to me. They got their cows in there right now eating my cover crops and I'm getting paid so much a day for each one of the cattle. I love that they're pooping, they're saliva in their urine are the best three things to also build up that organic matter. So then the following year, I'll go in and straight seed it with the seeder right there. Straight seed, some type of crop, pulses or grains or flax. I haven't quite decided but of course I got to decide early, especially with seed to get in. But that is a good question. So I'm hoping on the rest years of regen, I got about two or three other people that kind of want to put their cattle on. We'll try to get most of the cattle on all the regen years on most of the ground. If not, oh well, it'll still be pretty good, I believe.