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“Where I grew up, we have real narrow roads, and if you’re going to have wider than 60 foot and 80-foot equipment, they’re going to have to change the infrastructure, not only just because of width but also because of the loads on the roads and and bridges and things like that. I think autonomous vehicles will come into their own.” — Keith Wendte
In this episode of the No-Till Farmer Influencers Innovators Podcast, brought to you by NewLeaf Symbiotics, Frank Lessiter talks with farmer, data guru and long-time CNH engineer Keith Wendte.
During his tenure (the company was known as International Harvester when he started), Wendte worked to design implements for no-till farming and had designed a spring-based down-pressure adjustment system before electronics innovations beat his system to the market. Wendte is retired from the implement design industry, but still works actively at the family farm near Effingham, Ill. He’s bullish on wheat prices this year, and encourages the use of wheat as a cover crop.
In this week’s podcast, Gruver and Wendte talk about the roots in the family farm, his work at CNH, alternatives to ever-increasing tractor size, and more.
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Full Transcript
Brian O Connor:
Welcome to the latest episode of No-Till Farmer Influencers & Innovators. I'm Brian O'Connor, Lead Content Editor for No-Till Farmer. NewLeaf Symbiotics sponsors this program, featuring stories about the past, present, and future of no-till farming. I encourage you to subscribe to this series, which is available in iTunes, Google Podcasts, Spotify, SoundCloud, Stitcher, and TuneIn radio. Subscribing will either receive an alert about upcoming episodes as soon as they're released.
Brian O Connor:
I'd like to take a moment to thank our sponsor, NewLeaf Symbiotics, for supporting our No-Till Influencers & Innovators Podcast Series. Want to do more with your fields in 2022? Now available in convenient planter box application, Terrasym by NewLeaf Symbiotics is proven by Beck's 2021 PFR to improve yield by 2.7 bushels per acre in soybeans and 4.6 bushels per acre in corn. That's $20,000 more in incremental income with every 1,000 acres planted. To calculate your return on investment for the 2022 growing season and purchase Terrasym directly online for only $4.35 per acre, visit newleafsym.com/2022. That's newleafS-Y-M.com/2022.
Brian O Connor:
Keith Wendt loves data. Even after he retired from his position as an engineer with CNH, which was called International Harvester when he started, he still runs data for the family sharecropping outfit near Effingham, Illinois. In this episode of The No-Till Farmer Influencers & Innovators Podcast, brought to you by NewLeaf Symbiotics, Frank Lessiter talks with Wendt, a farmer and implement designer, about his position at The Red Tractor Company. During his tenure at CNH, Wendt worked to design implements for no-till farming and had designed a spring-based down pressure adjustment system before electronics innovations beat his system to the market. Keith's bullish on wheat prices this year and encourages the use of wheat as a cover crop.
Brian O Connor:
In this week's podcast, Lessiter and Wendt talk about roots in the family farm, his work at CNH, alternatives to ever increasing tractor size, and more.
Frank Lessiter:
Keith, tell me where you grow up in Illinois and the town and a little about your history.
Keith Wendt:
Okay. Well, I'll start off with... I guess I'd like to start off with my Dad and my Mom because that's where it all started, actually, and kind of an interesting story. They both grew up on farms and my Dad started farming with his Dad when they were still using horses for farming, which I know you did, too.
Frank Lessiter:
Yep.
Keith Wendt:
My Dad always said, "You know, farming is really hard," and he said he would never go back to farming once he completed his education, but after he served a couple of years in Europe in World War II, he came home and he decided, "You know what?" He was tired of taking orders and he decided that farming wouldn't be so bad after all and he could be his own boss, so-
Frank Lessiter:
There you go, right.
Keith Wendt:
... that's what he did. That, plus the fact that his Dad had purchased a tractor while he was in the war and he said, "Well, you know what? I'm not going to have to take care of the horses anymore. Maybe farming isn't that bad." So-
Frank Lessiter:
Right.
Keith Wendt:
... that's what he did. He met my Mom at a wedding a couple of years later and they got married in 1950 and they started out with 40 acres of ground and my Mom had saved enough money up to buy three dairy cows and a few chickens. They went to the bank, got a thousand-dollar loan. They bought a Massey-Harris 44 tractor, a plow-
Frank Lessiter:
Sure.
Keith Wendt:
... a disc, and a row crop cultivator and off they went. Over the years, then, they also managed to raise four boys, so he had plenty of good, free hired help on the farm.
Frank Lessiter:
Right.
Keith Wendt:
As a result, our farm has been very blessed over the years and we've just prospered now for over 70 years and the farm is still growing to this day.
Frank Lessiter:
What's the location?
Keith Wendt:
The location is in Effingham, Illinois. It's actually east of Effingham about 10 miles or a hundred miles east of St. Louis, just north of I-70.
Frank Lessiter:
Oh, okay.
Keith Wendt:
Okay, and it's a 7,000-acre farm, and like I said, still growing. We've got... My youngest brother, who went to University of Illinois and he got his degree in ag economics, and he's the one that manages the farm. I'm the second-oldest. My oldest brother got his degree in engineering, also ag engineering, and he became a soil and water conservation engineer and worked for NRCS-
Frank Lessiter:
Okay.
Keith Wendt:
... for many years. He's now retired, and my fourth brother is an attorney, so I guess you'd say we have all of the bases covered for running a prosperous farm.
Frank Lessiter:
Were you an ag engineering grad?
Keith Wendt:
I was ag engineering, too. I got my bachelor's and master's degree from University of Illinois, too, both in ag engineering.
Frank Lessiter:
Okay. Well, main crops, corn and soybeans?
Keith Wendt:
Corn and soybeans, yes, and we also do winter wheat and then we double crop the soybeans after the wheat, so that gives us a little extra income and also provides a cover crop over the winter time, too, which we really like-
Frank Lessiter:
Yeah-
Keith Wendt:
... so-
Frank Lessiter:
... there's a lot of people getting interested in wheat as a cover crop or a cash crop, but it serves as a cover crop all over the winter.
Keith Wendt:
Right, and I'd like to do more of that, but it's very time-consuming, especially when you're doing double cropping, so it gets very busy-
Frank Lessiter:
Right.
Keith Wendt:
... especially in June and July when you're trying to harvest wheat and put a crop of beans in the ground at the same time.
Frank Lessiter:
Effingham, you consider that Southern Illinois?
Keith Wendt:
Yeah. That's kind of South Central Illinois. I'll just tell you a little bit more about that. Most of our soil types, they are what they classify as a silty clay loam-
Frank Lessiter:
Sure.
Keith Wendt:
... and we're just south of U.S> Route 16, which that's where the glacial till stopped way back in the Ice Age, and so everything north of that has the good soils and we have the lighter soils, what they call timber soils. Like I said, we're we grow the corn soybeans, winter wheat and double crop beans. I live in the Chicago suburbs, actually. That's 200 miles north of the farm, but I still-
Frank Lessiter:
Sure.
Keith Wendt:
... actively participate in all the operations and whenever actual labor is needed on the tractor, then I'll go down there if they ever need it. My main responsibility is the data collection analysis and then creating prescription maps for the farm.
Frank Lessiter:
Yeah. You spent a career with Case IH in-
Keith Wendt:
Right.
Frank Lessiter:
.... engineering and planters, and we'll get into that later, but tell me about what you're doing with data and the analysis, et cetera, on the farm.
Keith Wendt:
Well, my main job is to... You know, we put out a lot of plots and we do a lot of experimenting and always trying to improve our production. We're constantly looking at new products and technology that'll help improve our yield, reduce our cost, improve efficiency, et cetera, et cetera. As far as putting out plots, we do whole field plots. We have GPS on all of our machinery, so we know exactly what we're putting down, where we're putting it, and that, obviously, really helps us with the recording the data-
Frank Lessiter:
Sure.
Keith Wendt:
... and everything and keeping track of everything. Once we do the harvest and we get all the yield data, that's electronically sent up to me and I use Ag Leaders SMS software and I record all the data and put it in there. I also use that for analysis.
Keith Wendt:
I took several statistic classes while I was at the university, so we always do replicated trials, just like you're supposed to on a whole field basis. Then, I look at the various things that we're experimenting with and decide whether it provides an adequate return on our investment and if it... You know, after three years, we usually give it three years. If it doesn't look like it's returning an adequate return, then we drop it and we go on to the next bigger and better thing.
Frank Lessiter:
Give me an example in the last couple years as something that really proved out and something that didn't do so well.
Keith Wendt:
Okay. Well, we've been doing a lot of in-row fertilization and things like that. Some years, it turns out okay and we get a return, but a lot of years it does not. I'm not sure why because you read a lot of articles about in-row fertilization-
Frank Lessiter:
Sure.
Keith Wendt:
... and two-by-two fertilization and also applying micronutrients, too, has produced some pretty good yield increases for some farms. For ours so far, I haven't really seen an adequate return. I've seen some yield increases, but not enough to justify the added expense. We have seen some improvement on split applications of nitrogen on our corn, so we're headed more and more towards that. We apply fungicide and some years that works and produces a return and other years it does not.
Frank Lessiter:
Right.
Keith Wendt:
One of the things that has helped us, though, like I mentioned, our soils are lighter. We have a clay pan soil, so you go about you go 20 inches down and you have a clay pan. Tiling, it's not as useful as it is up north. However, we have installed a couple hundred acres of tile and we have found that in most years it does provide a return. We don't do it over the whole field. We mostly do it in parts of the field where it's really flat-
Frank Lessiter:
Sure.
Keith Wendt:
... and the dirt's a little bit blacker. We use our yield maps along with, you know, topography maps that we get from our as-planted files and we're able to see where we need the tile. In most years, that has provided a good return, so we'll probably continue on doing that.
Frank Lessiter:
With the planter, are you doing variable-rate seeding?
Keith Wendt:
Yes. We've been doing variable-rate seeding for quite a few years now. Haven't really seen a good return on that, either. For our soils, it kind of depends on how good your emergence is. Our soils are lighter, they have more clay content, so we get some crusting. In the years where we get crusting, the higher populations do better than the lower populations-
Frank Lessiter:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Keith Wendt:
... so that's been an eye-opener for us. Also, we've been lowering our population on soybeans, too. we found out we can save some costs on that, too. We bet actually working with the University of Illinois on what they call their DIFM Project and-
Frank Lessiter:
Sure.
Keith Wendt:
... they've been helping us put out plots and we've been doing a lot of experimenting with that along with nitrogen management as well. We've been splitting applications of nitrogen with them and also using real low rates and real high rates just to see what the returns are on those.
Frank Lessiter:
Soybean rates, what were you at? How low have you gone?
Keith Wendt:
Well, a long time ago we were at 180,000 because of-
Frank Lessiter:
Sure.
Keith Wendt:
... the crusting issue, but now on the average, I would say we're 160, but we've also gone as low as 120 on some of our soils where we think crusting is not going to be a problem and we're reasonably sure we will get good emergence.
Frank Lessiter:
Yeah. We've had some no-tillers talk about going as low as 70 or 80,000 plants per acre and showing a yield increase, but at the same time, they'll tell you they don't have the courage to do it that all 700 acres.
Keith Wendt:
That's right. That's... Yeah, you're taking a big gamble-
Frank Lessiter:
Yeah.
Keith Wendt:
... that's for sure.
Frank Lessiter:
You talked about split fertilizer application. What time are you putting this on?
Keith Wendt:
Actually, this year we did something a little different. We don't like putting anhydrous on in the fall, but we did this year because we got the anhydrous at a much cheaper rate than where it's at now-
Frank Lessiter:
Right-
Keith Wendt:
... so-
Frank Lessiter:
... now, it's so high-priced you might not-
Keith Wendt:
Right.
Frank Lessiter:
... want to put it on at all.
Keith Wendt:
I know, exactly, and so we actually put all of our anhydrous on already at a hundred pounds and we used the stabilizer. We have the clay pan soil, so I don't think we have to worry as much about it leeching into tiles and things like that, but then, we'll also next spring we'll put on urea and we do all of our fertilizer variable rate, by the way, so-
Frank Lessiter:
Okay.
Keith Wendt:
... we do very intensive soil testing. We do it every two to four years and we only put on what we need. We'll put on our P and K and our urea all at the same time. We do our own fertilizer. Everything is variable rate. We've been doing that for 25 years now, and then we'll put on... With our planter, sometimes, we'll put on a little bit more nitrogen in furrow, and then we'll come back with why drops later on, depending what kind of a year it is.
Frank Lessiter:
Sure. What kind of yields do you get on corn and beans and wheat?
Keith Wendt:
Well, it varies. You tell me what the weather's going to do and I can tell you what we did. Our goals for corn, it's 250-bushel and soybeans are 80-bushel. That's our goal, and that may not sound like much to some people, but for our soils, that's a very aggressive goal.
Frank Lessiter:
Right.
Keith Wendt:
Now, we also have like 3 or 400 acres that we are doing a high management program on and our goals there are 300 bushel on the corn and a hundred bushel on the soybeans. We're doing a lot of different things on that. We're doing even more intensive soil sampling, doing tissue sampling, more inferral, more 2X2s, more split applications of nitrogen, foliar feeding, fungicide, and in some cases some biological applications.
Frank Lessiter:
You're getting close to meeting those goals?
Keith Wendt:
We did. We had one field that averaged 280 bushel. For us, that's astronomical. That was a new farm record for us, and-
Frank Lessiter:
Right.
Keith Wendt:
... like I said, for our lighter soils, we think that's pretty good.
Frank Lessiter:
Yeah. Now, with high fertilizer prices and you saved some money by getting anhydrous on last fall, you going to cut back on fertilizer at all this spring? Or not?
Keith Wendt:
Well, first of all, I already told you we only put on what we need. We already... We also have our own fertilizer shed. We stockpile it, so we've actually got... The shed is full of fertilizer that we bought it a couple of years ago.
Frank Lessiter:
Ooh, wow. Great.
Keith Wendt:
I don't think we're really going to cut back on it. Also, the other thing that we've started doing is we found a source for chicken litter, processed-
Frank Lessiter:
Sure.
Keith Wendt:
... chicken litter. We've been putting that on and we've found that we can raise our P and K levels especially much higher, much faster with the chicken litter. Don't ask me why, but it's been very productive for us. So far, I haven't seen a great yield improvement yet, but I just know that our soil testing shows that we're really doing a good job of raising our fertilizer levels, and that's less expensive than commercial fertilizer, so we're gravitating more towards that.
Frank Lessiter:
What about soybeans? Fertilizing them this spring?
Keith Wendt:
We'll put on what the soil test says we need. We base our VRT maps off the soil samples plus the crop that was removed last year, and we had pretty good yields last year, so I don't think we're going to skimp on fertilizer for this year.
Frank Lessiter:
Yeah. Well, great. How about herbicides?
Keith Wendt:
Yeah, we change every year. You know, I really can't speak what we're doing this year. I really haven't been that involved with that-
Frank Lessiter:
Sure.
Keith Wendt:
... but it's a struggle. We've been rotating our chemicals, doing different modes of action, you know, just like everyone else has been. Are you asking if we're cutting back on it? Or just what are we doing?
Frank Lessiter:
Yeah. If you're cutting back, but I mean, I like hearing that you're spreading out the modes.
Keith Wendt:
Yeah. We won't cut back. I mean, we do grow soybeans for Asgrow and they pretty much require a hundred percent weed-free soybeans, so-
Frank Lessiter:
Okay.
Keith Wendt:
... we're probably not going to cut back on the herbicide because we get a... If we have fewer weeds, we get a good bonus for that, so we're not going to do that.
Frank Lessiter:
Yeah. Now, you're not totally no-till. In fact, you told me you were about 10% on your-
Keith Wendt:
Yeah.
Frank Lessiter:
... highly erodible ground. How do you make-
Keith Wendt:
Right.
Frank Lessiter:
... that decision? Why aren't you no-tilling more?
Keith Wendt:
First of all, we do no-till on all of our ground. It's erodible. Most of our ground is relatively flat. Erosion's not a big problem. We have no-tilled and we suffer a little bit on yield-
Frank Lessiter:
Sure.
Keith Wendt:
... but having said that, though, I do think eventually we would like to be no-till a hundred percent and I think cover crops is also the way to go, too. Like I said, I'd like to increase our acreage on wheat, too, because that is a good cover crop, and it's very profitable. It's almost as profitable as corn, and corn's one of our higher net income profit centers, I guess you'd say.
Frank Lessiter:
Right. Are you... Have you looked at strip-till at all?
Keith Wendt:
We have not done strip-till, and one of the main reasons there is our fields are all irregularly shaped, and if you had a nice square 40 or an 80, strip-till works really nice. We did quite try that, actually, about 20 years ago. We tried strip-till. We did not see an improvement and, again, I'm not sure why. I think it's because our fields are already fairly high fertility and we just haven't seen the need for it. We could probably save some money doing it, but like I said, I guess so far what we're doing seems to be working for us.
Frank Lessiter:
Right. Double crop beans, are you no-tilling those? Or using both
Keith Wendt:
Yeah yeah. I meant to say that. Yeah, after we take our weed off, we totally double no-till crop fat, so we've got that and we've got the no-till on the highly erodible ground-
Frank Lessiter:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Keith Wendt:
... and I also should have mentioned that we have a lot of CRP ground and we've been gradually increasing that over the years, too. We do not like erosion. We're trying to get rid of that wherever we can.
Frank Lessiter:
Are you taking any CRP land back into cash crops? Or-
Keith Wendt:
No.
Frank Lessiter:
Okay.
Keith Wendt:
No. We've been increasing CRP gradually over the years.
Frank Lessiter:
Right. Well, with your analysis, you must know that it's paying off for you.
Keith Wendt:
Yeah, yeah, it has. The ground, we take out CRP. It's rolling erosion-prone and it's next to trees or woods. We like leaving buffer strips along the streams anyway to keep the soil out of there, so yeah, it's been working for us.
Frank Lessiter:
I'm impressed with what you're telling me you're doing with this data and analysis and collection. I was reading recently for a couple crop consultants that said we got a lot of farmers out there that collect this data, but they don't do anything with it. They don't know how to use it. They don't pay somebody to do it for them, but they say they're missing the boat. They collect it and they're not getting much out of it.
Keith Wendt:
I totally agree with you. I agree. Yeah, if you're going not going to do anything with the data, there's no use collecting the data.
Frank Lessiter:
Right. What do you got for a planter? I assume you with your background you're running a Case IH Planter?
Keith Wendt:
Yes, we are. We actually just switched to 20-inch rows. We got two 60-foot planters on 20-inch rows. We plant soybeans and corn at the same time. We're actually changing our... When we start planting soybeans, we're going much earlier now. we're starting in mid-April and we hope to get done in April and also get the corn done by the first week in May.
Frank Lessiter:
How many rows on your planters?
Keith Wendt:
That'd be 36 rows on a 60-foot planter.
Frank Lessiter:
Okay. A lot of people are talking about maybe today it makes more sense to plant soybeans ahead of corn.
Keith Wendt:
Yeah-
Frank Lessiter:
What do you think?
Keith Wendt:
... and that's what we've heard.
Frank Lessiter:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Keith Wendt:
That's what we're trying to do, and last year it actually did pay off for us. We planted most of our soybeans in April and it paid off.
Frank Lessiter:
Yeah. I remember at the first No-Till Conference in 1993, Howard Doster, who's now deceased, but he talked about even then you should buy another planter and try to plant corn and soybeans at the same time because it was paying off even back then.
Keith Wendt:
Right, right.
Frank Lessiter:
Yeah.
Keith Wendt:
I always remember back in the old days, they always said, "If you get your soybeans in in May, you're fine," but obviously that isn't true anymore.
Frank Lessiter:
How do you got your planter rigged? What do you got on it? Coulters, row cleaners
Keith Wendt:
Yeah. We've gradually been shifting to the newer technology. We've got precision planning meters on them now, the belts, so we can go high speed. We got liquid in-furrow fertilizer across all of the rows and it's the Case IH Row Unit, basically.
Frank Lessiter:
Mm-hmm (affirmative). We just did our benchmark study on no-till, which is coming out in the next issue, but one of the things to look at is coulters. Only 44% of the no-tillers answered our survey are running coulters these days. I take it you're not running them?
Keith Wendt:
No, we got the Case IH Planter with the staggered disc, so we don't feel like we have the need for them, but we do-
Frank Lessiter:
Yeah.
Keith Wendt:
... I forgot to mention we do run the residue managers and we also run automatic down pressure, too, the hydraulic down pressure system, so-
Frank Lessiter:
Well, you go back six years and only 41% of our people were running down pressure. Now, it's at 61%, so it's really-
Keith Wendt:
Yep.
Frank Lessiter:
... coming on.
Keith Wendt:
Yeah, I think that's the right thing to do.
Frank Lessiter:
How do you... Well, let's talk about that. How do you measure the value and investment of a down pressure system?
Keith Wendt:
I guess I really... We haven't. We've never put any plots out doing that. We could-
Frank Lessiter:
Sure.
Keith Wendt:
... do it, but we haven't. We just know it's the right thing to do.
Frank Lessiter:
Right.
Keith Wendt:
We do go from some areas in our fields that are soft versus harder soil types and we know that we need it. We also have areas that have a higher residue than others, and also, when you go from conventional or min-till to no-till within a field, you have to have it.
Frank Lessiter:
Yeah. You mentioned you just went to 20-inch rows. Is that on both corn and soybeans?
Keith Wendt:
Yes, Yeah, we've been on... Actually, we were on 15-inch row soybeans and 30-inch corn, and then we put out some corn plots and we found out our 20-inch rows gave us a two-to-three-bushel advantage and we decided to go 20-inch on everything, so that's what we've done.
Brian O Connor:
That was Frank Lessiter and Keith Wendt talking about trials at his Effingham family farm. We'll come back to the conversation in a moment. Before we do so, thanks to NewLeaf Symbiotics for sponsoring today's podcast. Want to do more with your fields in 2022? Now available in convenient planter box application Terrasym by NewLeaf Symbiotics is proven by Beck's 2021 PFR to improve yield by 2.7 bushels per acre in soybeans and 46 bushels per acre in corn. That's $20,000 more in incremental income with every 1,000 acres planted.
Brian O Connor:
To calculate your return on investment for the 2022 growing season and purchase Terrasym directly online for only $4.35 per acre, visit newleafsym.com/2022. That's newleafS-Y-M.com/2022. Now, let's get back to engineer Keith Wendt and Frank Lessiter as they continue the discussion.
Frank Lessiter:
You mentioned high-speed planting. How fast are you going?
Keith Wendt:
We've been going eight to 10 miles an hour-
Frank Lessiter:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Keith Wendt:
... and if we had to, I think we could go even faster.
Frank Lessiter:
Yeah. Kinze just came out at the Farm Machinery Show with a new planter and for next year they say, "We're going to run it at 12 miles an hour."
Keith Wendt:
You know, it gets to the point though, yeah, you get good spacing, but my thing is that I think depth control is just as important, and if you're going over some ground that's fairly rough and you see that row unit bouncing up and down, that-
Frank Lessiter:
Right-
Keith Wendt:
... scares me.
Frank Lessiter:
... right.
Keith Wendt:
Even with automatic down pressure, you're still going to get bounce-
Frank Lessiter:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Keith Wendt:
... and so we'd like to control our depth, so if we have the time, for now, we'd like to go a little slower.
Frank Lessiter:
Yeah. What kind of tillage are you doing in your minimum till ground?
Keith Wendt:
It's all vertical tillage, so-
Frank Lessiter:
Okay.
Keith Wendt:
... we hit it real light in the fall and then one light pass in the spring and then we plant,
Frank Lessiter:
Compaction a concern?
Keith Wendt:
Not really. Our soils are... I said we have high clay content, but we also have a higher sand content, so we don't get as much compaction as you normally would in a loam soils of some of the richer soils. Like I said, though, we do have a clay pan down at 20-inch level and that's our compaction layer right there.
Frank Lessiter:
Yeah.
Keith Wendt:
I don't think there's any use ripping that up. We have tried that. We haven't seen any benefit in doing that, so we just leave it.
Frank Lessiter:
Yeah. Well, your mother and dad started with 40 acres and you're at 7,000. You're going to keep growing? Or stay there? Or you don't know?
Keith Wendt:
Hard to say. Fortunately, our family's fairly large. A lot of the kids and grandkids now are purchasing land and then renting it back to the farm instead of finding other renters, so-
Frank Lessiter:
Sure.
Keith Wendt:
... it helps to have a big family, I guess, so I guess that remains to be seen. It's hard to predict. Land prices are just going sky high now, even in our area, so you can only handle so much.
Frank Lessiter:
Right. On cash rent, what are you willing to pay the cousins?
Keith Wendt:
Well, actually, we don't cash rent the cousins. All the cousins and grandkids, it's crop share. It's one-third-
Frank Lessiter:
Okay.
Keith Wendt:
... two-thirds and it's worked out pretty well, but my brother that runs the farm has been very good about that. He gives us the highest price that he gets for the crop.
Frank Lessiter:
Uh-huh.
Keith Wendt:
In other words, if we sell corn for $4 and $6, they'll get the $6.
Frank Lessiter:
Yeah. There you go. Well, that's pretty good.
Keith Wendt:
That's a great benefit.
Frank Lessiter:
How many family members would you guess are involved in owning land that's in the operation?
Keith Wendt:
Well, there's four brothers and then there's 10 grandchildren and every one of the grandchildren owns some farm ground-
Frank Lessiter:
Yeah. Well, great.
Keith Wendt:
... that they rent back.
Frank Lessiter:
Right, right. What have I missed talking about the farming operation?
Keith Wendt:
I guess the one thing I would like to mention is that we have GPS on all of our equipment, auto guidance. We use RTK. We have our own RTK base, so we have correction signal for the GPS, and most of our drainage is not done with tile, but it's surface drainage-
Frank Lessiter:
Okay.
Keith Wendt:
... and so whenever we do the as-applied files for our planting, we get topographical maps. Now, we know exactly where we need to put the surface ditches, so one of my jobs is to keep track of all that information, and my brother that worked for the soil conservation service lays out the ditches. Then, we upload that information into the tractor that makes the ditches. It has auto guidance on it, so it knows exactly where to go and where to put the ditches in.
Frank Lessiter:
Wow.
Keith Wendt:
We've found that is a big moneymaker for us having a good drainage, especially for our soil types.
Frank Lessiter:
Vertical tillage, how wide a width are you running?
Keith Wendt:
Around 53 feet, 50 to 53 feet.
Frank Lessiter:
What kind of horsepower does that take?
Keith Wendt:
That takes a lot. We have three quad tracks. It's 580 engine horsepower. I'm not sure what the PTO horsepower is.
Frank Lessiter:
Sure.
Keith Wendt:
That's what it takes, but we're going fast, too, so you can get over a lot of acres in a day with that much machinery, and if you only have to hit it once, that's... doesn't take long.
Frank Lessiter:
Right. What kind of horsepower are you having on the planters?
Keith Wendt:
We still use two-wheel-drive tractors and it's around 280.
Frank Lessiter:
Okay. Let's shift over to your career at Case IH. When did you start there? What did you do? What'd you do-
Keith Wendt:
Okay.
Frank Lessiter:
... over the years?
Keith Wendt:
All right. Well, once I got my degree at the University of Illinois, I started with the International Harvester back in 1977.
Frank Lessiter:
Okay.
Keith Wendt:
I started out in the Implement Test Group working on planters, tillage equipment, and forage harvesters. After that, I went into planter development and I spent a lot of time on what we call the Early Riser Planter.
Frank Lessiter:
Sure.
Keith Wendt:
One of my first field trips that I had with the company was got to spend a whole month in the winter time down in Antigua, which was a nice, nice place to be at the time.
Frank Lessiter:
Right.
Keith Wendt:
I also did a lot of plot work at Purdue University for the Early Riser Planter and also in Florida. Then, in the early '80s, I did a major switch. I went into engineering reliability and my major focus there was on planters and the new at the time Magnum tractors.
Frank Lessiter:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Keith Wendt:
I became a manager for grain drills and air drills for a while in the test group. Then, in 1990, I started working for the Advanced Engineer Group. My first project there was working on what I would call smart programmable tractor and combine monitors. Today, we call those... At K sites they call them the Pro 1200. That's the programmable displays that you have in your-
Frank Lessiter:
Sure.
Keith Wendt:
... tractors and combines. 1994, Case IH was the first company that came out with a factory-installed yield monitor, and so my job was to come up with the first desktop software program to help bring in that yield data and do some simple analysis on the data. There were other companies out there, but Case IH decided that they wanted their own software, so that was my big project.
Frank Lessiter:
That was when? 1994?
Keith Wendt:
'94, yep.
Frank Lessiter:
Yeah, okay.
Keith Wendt:
Then, the rest of my career, it went from advanced engineering to innovation, so I worked on planter and seed meter improvement. I don't know if you're familiar with the ASM meter that we came out with. That was-
Frank Lessiter:
Okay.
Keith Wendt:
... one of my big projects. Worked on auto guidance and autonomous vehicles back in 2000 already. One of the most interesting things that I was involved with there is in the year 2000, we had a demonstration from some of our higher level managers and we had a tractor take a planter out to the field all by itself. It planted a 10-acre field and came home all by itself, so that was way back in 2000.
Keith Wendt:
We were way ahead of our time as far as that goes, and you do realize that everything was... We knew there were no obstacles or anything like that. At the time, we didn't have all of the sensors that you have today. I also spent time working on sugar cane harvesters, grape harvesters. Got involved with high-speed planter row units. One of the interesting things I did there is you talked about 12 mile an hour, well, I did some plots where I put them in at 16 miles an hour. That was kind of exciting, too.
Frank Lessiter:
Yeah, right.
Keith Wendt:
I've also worked on low-disturbance, high-speed fertilizer applicators and electric drive seed meters and delivery systems. Then, I retired.
Frank Lessiter:
I remember one early on when we started No-Till Farmer. It was in 1972, and then '72, '73, we went to the manufacturers and said, "What planters do you have for no-till?" Most of them said, "Well, we got a planter who works under any conditions. It's
Keith Wendt:
Mm-hmm (affirmative). Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Frank Lessiter:
I always remember Case IH because I was impressed with something they did. They told us that they had a planter that would work in no-till that was fine, and six months later they took it off the market because they said, "The damn thing's not working in no-till." I've always been impressed by a company who decided that it wasn't for no-till and they were willing to take it off the market, and I don't remember the number of it or anything.
Keith Wendt:
Oh, okay. Well, you're probably going to talk about this next, but the breakthroughs in planters?
Frank Lessiter:
Sure.
Keith Wendt:
I think in my opinion, the biggest thing was the staggered disc, which we already mentioned. We didn't see the need for coulters, and Case IH-
Frank Lessiter:
Mm-hmm (affirmative). Right.
Keith Wendt:
... came out with that with the Early Riser and I think that was '82 and got rid of the coulters. I think that was one of the biggest things that the company did as far as innovation and planters. The next biggest thing, I think, that had an impact, and this is something that I had a personal hand in, was the equalizing gauge wheels-
Frank Lessiter:
Sure.
Keith Wendt:
... and that gave us several advantages too, because now at the higher speeds and at no-till, which usually you have rougher ground conditions, it just made the row unit ride so much nicer and you got better seed depth control. I think that especially today is probably one of the biggest innovations that really enables us to go at higher speeds that we're seeing today.
Frank Lessiter:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Keith Wendt:
The other thing, I think, that has really helped us, and all companies for that matter, is the pneumatic down pressure systems, the hydraulic down pressure systems.
Frank Lessiter:
Sure.
Keith Wendt:
I was involved with a pneumatic down pressure system way back in the early 2000s. One of the things I'm most proud of is that I developed a system that could actually do automatic down pressure without any electronics at all. It had a spring system that sensed how much weight was put on the gauge wheels, and so it would adjust the down pressure automatically so that you didn't have to worry about going back there and adjust the road units all the time. Well, of course, by the time I got that working just fine, then we got advancements in electronics and load cells, and so that kind of made that concept a little bit outdated, so that never did make it to the market, but I was pretty proud of that.
Keith Wendt:
The other thing that I worked on was suspension systems for plant erosion. Now, not only do you have down pressure, but you also have a suspension system on the gauge wheels so it makes it even ride smoother. I think that's something that never did make it to market, too. In the future, I think you'll see some of that.
Frank Lessiter:
Yeah. People in Western Canada and the Dakotas are running air seeders. They're using them-
Keith Wendt:
Right.
Frank Lessiter:
... for corn and soybeans. Now, is that a fad that's going to stay with us? Or are planters-
Keith Wendt:
I-
Frank Lessiter:
... going to catch up? Or what?
Keith Wendt:
... I guess I don't know enough about that to-
Frank Lessiter:
Okay.
Keith Wendt:
... comment on that, Frank, but in general, though, I will say this is that I think the larger horsepower tractors and larger planters, I think, are going to slow down at slower space. I'm not saying they won't get bigger, but I think the pace is going to slow down just because of all of the limitations we have. Where I grew up, we have real narrow roads, and if you're going to have wider than 60- and 80-foot equipment, they're going to have to change the infrastructure, not only just because of width, but also because of the loads on the roads and bridges and things like that.
Keith Wendt:
I think autonomous vehicles will come into their own eventually. I think they'll start out smaller and you'll be talking more about fleet management and things like that.
Frank Lessiter:
Sure.
Keith Wendt:
... but as the technology increases, I think those widths on autonomous vehicles will get larger and larger, too, so it's going to be exciting. Looking-
Frank Lessiter:
Well-
Keith Wendt:
... forward to it.
Frank Lessiter:
... yeah. We've got some people talking about swarm farming, where you might have a dozen units running in a field. One guy controlling them from a pickup truck. AGCO's got some things out like this and they're fooling around with robots and maybe three of these small units replace one big planter. Who knows what's coming?
Keith Wendt:
Right, right. I think you're right. I think that's what's going to happen.
Frank Lessiter:
Right. I pulled up an article. We had some comments in 2002 and you were talking about increasing speed and compaction. One of the things you talked about was, and you just mentioned this with on the roads and big units, tire pressure, changing tire pressure from the roads to the fields. It's catching on a little bit. You've had some experience with that, haven't you?
Keith Wendt:
Right. I didn't personally work on it, but there was a couple of fellows in our group that was working on it and, yeah, I think that's the way to go. You're going to decrease your compaction. Obviously, it's actually easier, less expensive than tracks, and it really makes a lot of sense. As the technology and entire system develops, it's going to become more feasible, I think, to have those kinds of systems. They're already out there, aren't they? I mean, with a lot of-
Frank Lessiter:
Yeah, yeah. There's
Keith Wendt:
... the companies?
Frank Lessiter:
... yeah, there's-
Keith Wendt:
Yeah.
Frank Lessiter:
... three or four companies have got them. They haven't caught on that fast among farmers, but there are some guys using them and swearing by them.
Keith Wendt:
You know, I'm a little surprised it hasn't caught on because for me, that makes a lot of sense.
Frank Lessiter:
Down on the farm, is the land pretty close together? Or you got a lot of road time?
Keith Wendt:
Oh, we have a lot of road time. If you go one direction, it's 30 miles and you go the other direction, it's 20 miles, so I would say the whole... You know, if you look at the diameter-
Frank Lessiter:
Right.
Keith Wendt:
... it's 50 miles, so...
Frank Lessiter:
You got on-farm storage? Or do you sell at harvest? Or what?
Keith Wendt:
No, we've got on-farm storage. We have almost enough storage for our whole crop-
Frank Lessiter:
Wow.
Keith Wendt:
... corn and soybean crop-
Frank Lessiter:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Keith Wendt:
... so that makes it nice. We've been gradually increasing storage throughout the years, and it's-
Frank Lessiter:
What is the-
Keith Wendt:
... not just because of extra land, it's because of yields, too, have been gradually increasing two.
Frank Lessiter:
Yeah. What total capacity bushels would you have?
Keith Wendt:
We're around 750,000.
Frank Lessiter:
Wow. All in one location?
Keith Wendt:
Well, no, not exactly. There are a couple bins on farms that are remote to us-
Frank Lessiter:
Sure.
Keith Wendt:
... that we have because then we don't have to haul it as far, but most of it is at our farmstead.
Frank Lessiter:
Yeah. You got any tales to tell me about the other things you did at Case IH?
Keith Wendt:
I think I've told you everything I can remember, or some things I can't tell you-
Frank Lessiter:
That's fine. Right.
Keith Wendt:
... but anything that's covered with a patent I've told you.
Frank Lessiter:
All right. Good, good. For a long time, you would come to the National No-Till Conference. Did you get a lot out of it? You used to get in the roundtables and-
Keith Wendt:
Yes, I did. I did want to mention that. See, when I was working with CNH, they sponsored my trips, first of all, so they-
Frank Lessiter:
Sure.
Keith Wendt:
... covered all of the expenses and everything. It's not that I can't afford it or anything, but I've just been too busy usually to get to the conferences. That's kind of a busy time for me.
Frank Lessiter:
Sure.
Keith Wendt:
However, I would like to get back to it. When I did come to the conferences, whenever I got home, I always wrote a very comprehensive report on my trip, and then I would circulate that company-wide. That made it up to the higher echelons of the company and everybody read them and got a lot out of them. I'd like to think that some of the product development that's happened over the years has... They've been paying attention to what I said in the report and-
Frank Lessiter:
Yeah.
Keith Wendt:
... I think it's helped them realize how important no-till is, so I feel real good about that and I think having the conferences and the magazine and everything I really think has helped quite a bit in the industry in general, too.
Frank Lessiter:
Great. Well, one of the things I remember about the roundtables and your competitors would go, too, and the green people would sit in the roundtable and they wouldn't say word, even when some farmer was saying something they knew it was totally wrong.
Keith Wendt:
Right.
Frank Lessiter:
They didn't say a word.
Keith Wendt:
I know.
Frank Lessiter:
I've been in the roundtables where you were, and if somebody was saying something wrong, you'd try and correct them.
Keith Wendt:
Yeah. I think that's important. I don't like misinformation and sometimes if you spread the rumor long enough it becomes fact and I hate to see that.
Frank Lessiter:
Right, right. Well, it's been great.
Keith Wendt:
Yeah.
Frank Lessiter:
You try to get down during harvest season and-
Keith Wendt:
I come down whenever I'm needed. Most of the time, though, I think my time is better spent up here. They've got several, you know, hired help. My brother's got a couple sons-in-laws and his daughters help out quite a bit, so they don't need as much help as they used to, but if I had to, I do come down and I really do enjoy it. Farming's a lot easier than it used to be, so I do still enjoy driving the tractor.
Frank Lessiter:
That's like me. I grew up on a farm and there's days like today that I'm glad I'm sitting in this office and not out breaking water in the livestock tanks, and then there's days in the summer I wish I was out there, but-
Keith Wendt:
Yep, that's right. You got it.
Frank Lessiter:
Cover crops, what do you think is going to happen? You're going to try and get over more acres?
Keith Wendt:
Well, I'd like to see our weed acres increase and, like I said, that to me is a cover crop. We have tried doing some cover crop on some of our acres where we put some clover and oats, wheat and stuff-
Frank Lessiter:
Sure.
Keith Wendt:
... like that. I don't know, for whatever reason, maybe we're doing it wrong. It just didn't give us very good growth, and we even put it in with a no-till drill, too, so I don't know what we did wrong, but it just didn't seem to take hold. It could have just been... We only tried that for one year and it was on a limited acreage and it just didn't pan out for whatever reason. I think we're just kind of waiting to see how that develops, I guess is what I'm saying. It doesn't mean we won't do it in the future, though.
Frank Lessiter:
One other question with high commodity prices, are you planting more beans this year? Or sticking with the rotation?
Keith Wendt:
No, we're sticking with 50-50. We like the crop rotation of corn soybeans and wheat, so I think we're going to stick with that.
Frank Lessiter:
What percentage of your acres would be wheat?
Keith Wendt:
That would be about 10 to 15%.
Frank Lessiter:
Okay, and then the others split between
Keith Wendt:
Then, the others are split 50-50.
Frank Lessiter:
Yeah.
Keith Wendt:
Yeah, that's what I meant by that, right?
Frank Lessiter:
Yeah. That's fine.
Keith Wendt:
I think I'm real high on the wheat double crop thing, just because we don't need to go out and buy more land and, like I told you, it's with the price of wheat and soybeans going up, I think that's going to be a very profitable profit center if we keep doing that. I just really like the idea of having cover over the soil all year round. I think that's the way to go.
Frank Lessiter:
What's your yield goal on wheat and double crop beans?
Keith Wendt:
Double crop beans, when we first started doing double crop, we didn't have the technology. As far as planters go, we were right around 20 to 20... We thought if we got 20 or 25 bushels, we were doing great, but these last few years with our newer planters with the better technology, automatic down pressure and things like that, sometimes our double crop beans have been beating our conventional beans and we're-
Frank Lessiter:
Wow.
Keith Wendt:
... we're getting, 500 bushel an acre, which is, again, for our soils is pretty good. Wheat varies all over the board. I think we're averaging around 80, but we'd like to see that consistently over a hundred, but so far we're not there yet
Frank Lessiter:
At your location, when are you putting the double crop beans in the ground?
Keith Wendt:
We like to get them the last week in June and-
Frank Lessiter:
Yeah.
Keith Wendt:
... certainly by the first week in July.
Frank Lessiter:
Right. That's great. Hey, this has been fascinating.
Keith Wendt:
Thank you very much.
Frank Lessiter:
It's been great.
Brian O Connor:
Thanks to Frank and Keith, and thanks to our sponsor NewLeaf Symbiotics for helping to make possible The No-Till Farmer Influencers & Innovators Podcast Series. Thanks for tuning in. You can find more podcasts about no-till topics and strategies at notillfarmer.com/podcast. That's no-tillfarmer.com/podcasts. If you have any feedback on today's episode, please feel free to email me at B-O-C-O-N-N-O-R@lessitermedia.com or call me at 262-777-2413.
Brian O Connor:
Don't forget, Frank would love to answer your questions about no-till and the people and innovations that have made an impact on today's practices. Please email your questions to us at listenermail@notilfarmer.com. Once again, if you haven't done so already, you can subscribe to this podcast to get an alert as soon as future episodes are released. Don't forget, please email your questions to us at listenermail@no-tillfarmer.com. Once again, if you haven't already done so already, you can subscribe to this podcast and get an alert. For Frank and our entire staff here at No-Till Farmer, I'm Lead Content Editor, Brian O'Connor. Thanks for listening.
