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Michaela Paukner:

Welcome to the No-Till Farmer Podcast, brought to you by Yetter Farm Equipment. I'm Michaela Paukner, managing editor at No-Till Farmer. In today's episode of the podcast, contributing editor, Dan Crummett talks with Michael Cully, the CEO of Susterre Technologies, a company developing a retrofit system for no-till planters that uses ultra-high pressure water jets to slice through residue.

Dan Crummett:

Well. Hello, I'm Dan Crummett, contributing editor for No-Till Farmer and Farm Equipment Magazines. And, I'm here today with Canada based Michael Cully, CEO of Susterre Technologies. We'll be discussing a novel planting method that should interest no-tillers around the world. Michael, thank you for joining me today. Tell me a little bit about Susterre work with water jet technology, where it came from and what brought us to this point today.

Michael Cully:

Yeah, so Susterre we where we were formed by a venture capital fund to commercialize a technology that's been worked on for at least 10 years now in the industry. We can talk about where it originated, but there was a company in Ontario, Canada that had been working on prototyping the use of ultra high pressure water jets. And by ultra high pressure, we mean water jets that are 60,000 pounds per square inch.

Dan Crummett:

Yes.

Michael Cully:

So extremely high pressure. They're typically used in industrial manufacturing to cut through metal. And the theory here is that if they can cut through metal, then they can pretty much cut through anything you would find on a field. What we're trying to do through the company is really promote the use of regenerative agricultural practices like no-till farming and cover crops. And, to me a little bit, I would consider the term no-till farming to be a little bit of a misnomer. I would almost call it delayed tilling, not no till tilling. Cause there's really very few, if any, farmers that are no tilling the same field forever. No matter what farmers tend to do is they end up tilling their fields every three or four years. And a major reason why they do that is because by definition, when you're no-till farming or using cover crops, you have heavy residue on the field.

And as that residue builds up over the seasons, it becomes more and more difficult to cut through. And today's technology, which is either a colter or metal disc cutting through residue, doesn't get cut through cleanly, it gets pushed into the soil or hair pinned into the soil. So that when the seed goes down, it's no longer touching soil but touching residue. And that inhibits seed germination and plant growth there. So, the theory is you take something like these ultra high pressure water jets, which can cut through metal and they can pretty much cut through any residue that you would find on the field. And so that you can have farmers stay in no-till farming or stay in the use of cover crops for far longer. So we're not going to negate the benefits of no-till farming by tilling.

Dan Crummett:

Okay. Well, how is this system adapted to planting equipment, the power requirements, water storage, plumbing, valving? How does that work with the system that you are marketing?

Michael Cully:

We are taking a technology and industrial use, it's a stationary technology that's typically used on a table to cut through metal.

Dan Crummett:

Right.

Michael Cully:

And why we're obviously putting it into a moving application in a field which has very challenging requirements. And so, there's certain design elements that we've had to build into the technology to accommodate the movement of the jets across the field. Even the movement of, if you think about putting the technology on a toolbar for a planter that might fold, you have to accommodate the folding and other things like that. So, we have patented design elements that we've built in to handle that movement. It does require power to run the system. We require about 12 and a half horsepower per row to run the water jets on top of what the farmer would need to run their planter. So a 12 row planter would require about 150 horsepower of energy to run our system as well.

We don't use a lot of water on an average usage. If you think of a 30 row, 30 inch spacing moving at five, six miles an hour across the field, we only use about 10 gallons of water per acre. So really a very low amount of water. In fact, for farmers that are ready using starter fertilizer like a UAN 28%, we could actually use that fluid as the cutting fluid in our system. So in that case, the UAN would cut through the residue, cut into the soil, and then get injected into the soil about three or four inches, so below the seed bed. So it'd be waiting there for the plant to tap into that fertilizer and which we think-

Dan Crummett:

Replacement just through the original pass with the water jet.

Michael Cully:

... Right, exactly. So, we're not using a lot of water, for a lot of farmers if you think about the scenario of a farmer uses a 12 row planter, is he normally going to have a 300 horsepower tractor pulling a 12 row planter? Maybe, maybe not. I would argue probably usually not. So what we are also offering for the farmer is what we call a power cart, where we have our own engine on the cart to run our system. It also serves as a fluid tank for the farmer as well. And then, we also install on that cart what we call the intensifiers, those are what pressurized the system up to 60,000 pounds per square inch. So, you would have a scenario where the farmer would have his tractor, then the power cart, and then his planter behind the power cart, and we would install the row units on his planter that utilize the water jets there.

Dan Crummett:

Okay. What would a planter look like from the ground engaging material? If you go...

Michael Cully:

So you would still see on the farmer the opening wheels, the seat, the mechanism, and the closing wheels on the planter. We would be at the front of the planter, and so we would be installing a new little row unit. It has a ski on the front.

Dan Crummett:

Yes.

Michael Cully:

That's how as we go forward, we push down the residue as we go along. And then it has a nozzle that comes down and shoots the water immediately in front of the opening wheels on the planter. So, our first product is a retrofit system that's going on existing planters. And we can install basically on any existing planter that's in the market, as you can imagine. No too manufacturers, even different models have different configurations on the toolbar. So there isn't somewhat of a customization of where we place our equipment on the toolbar. But generally the technology's the same, it's just where do we position certain items on the toolbar.

Michaela Paukner:

I'd like to take a moment to thank our sponsor Yetter Farm Equipment. Yetter is your answer for success in the face of ever changing production agriculture challenges. Yetter offers a full lineup of planter attachments designed to perform in varying planting conditions. Yetter products maximize your input, save you time, and deliver return on your investment. Visit them at yetterco.com. And now let's get back to Dan and Michael.

Dan Crummett:

You mentioned the intensifiers. Are those electric driven or are they displaced-

Michaela Paukner:

Hydraulic.

Dan Crummett:

... Pumps? They're hydraulic?

Michael Cully:

They're hydraulic driven.

Dan Crummett:

Okay.

Michael Cully:

Yes. So our engine is running a hydraulic pump, which is running those intensifiers. And intensifier is almost like a giant tube, you can almost imagine like a piston moving back and forth inside a tube. And the movement of that piston is what creates all that pressure, believe it or not, 60,000 pounds per square inch.

Dan Crummett:

Tell me a little bit about some of the agronomic benefits that you've seen in research demonstrations. I know there's a parallel effort going on in Australia, I believe with AquaTill and I've read of its use there. What can you offer the grower with this system?

Michael Cully:

Yeah, I mean the technology originated in Australia. The Australian government was very interested in looking at ways because they're under extreme stress down there for crop conditions. From what we've seen, the AquaTill technology is focused a lot on a special usage that is slightly different than what we've been focused, we've been really focused on row crop planting applications in North America.

Dan Crummett:

Okay.

Michael Cully:

And that's really where the development, we've gone through four rounds of prototyping, plus this year we built commercial sized units for a final round of field testing. This spring we tested in eight different field conditions across three different states and in the province of Ontario in Canada. And the results were really exciting with what we found out there. So for instance, we planted corn over heavy corn residue in Kentucky for instance. And by mid-season we noticed that same variety of corn, same population, everything, our corn was noticeably higher in height than where the farmer planted with his own technology. We looked at that and said, "Well, that's strange." And we weren't sure if that meant anything or not. But when we did the harvest, we ended up having about a 6% yield increase.

Dan Crummett:

Wow.

Michael Cully:

Over what the farmer saw. Likewise, we did some planting in double crop soybeans in Tennessee. So one day they harvested their wheat in June and we went in the field the very next day and planted soybeans in that same wheat field. Again a month later they had a severe drought situation down there this summer. We noticed that our emergence looked better than the farmers rose, and in all cases we did side by side testing, meaning the farmer went down the field with his technology, we did the next pass with our technology and we interspersed to make sure that we could see really side by side our effect. So in this case, with the double prop beans, about a month later, our emergence looked better and then we had about a 9% yield increase in that field.

And then in Iowa we did a field that had had the residue on the field was two seasons of corn residue plus a cereal rye cover crop that was about chin high when we planted. And again, our crop, the farmers told us our soybeans came up about a day earlier than his. The growth again, we had a height difference in the canopy of the soybeans and then we ended up having about a 12% yield increase over the farmer. So, what we saw in those cases was very exciting in terms of going in extremely difficult conditions and delivering crops in difficult conditions. So were two other tests that we did, where basically we were able to plant in on, I would call unplantable conditions. One was in river bottom in Tennessee, where the ground was extremely compacted, not due to machinery usage, but due to flooding that they get every year.

And it was over 400 PSI in compaction. When we planted side by side soybeans, the farmer could only get his seed about a half inch into the soil, that's how compacted it was. And we were able to deliver seed two inches, a full two inches into the soil. They ended up having to replant that field entirely, it was a total loss for the farmer, whereas we had emergence and growth in ours. Another one we did in Iowa was on CRP land that had been in the CRP program for 20 years. So you can imagine land that's almost like a meadow that had been sitting for 20 years. Unfortunately, the farmer, for whatever reason was that land was removed from the CRP land. So he decided to plant soybeans there. When he went out there with his own planter, he cracked the toolbar of his planter due to the horrendous conditions in the field.

But we were able to get in there and actually plant a crop through the extremely difficult... I'll call it a cover crop, if a meadow can be considered a cover crop. That's what it was. And we were able to get in there and plant, and we're still waiting for the final yield results, but it was looking very good mid-season as well.

Dan Crummett:

Yeah. You've outlined being able to plant in an obvious good window, that sort of thing, and get the crop up the stand. What other cost savings would a no-till producer see from your technology?

Michael Cully:

Yeah, definitely. We believe that they will have some cost savings in terms of over applying seed and fertilizer in their field due to poor germination because we're going to have better germination than today's technology. In theory, the farmer could do a slightly lower population of seeds and still get the results out of their field because they're going to get a higher rate of return from what they do plant in their field. Also, because we can inject chemicals into the soil instead of on top of the soil, then we avoid a lot of that runoff from the field that where farmers are losing, the chemicals are applying, which is bad for the environment obviously when you look at things like algae blooms and things like that. But from a cost saving for the farmer, it's an efficiency gain that whatever they're applying is going to stay in the field and not be used rather than losing half of it to run off or whatever the losing today.

Speaker 4:

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Dan Crummett:

I noticed on the web, you have some figures along that line.

Michael Cully:

Yeah, we estimate right now that we probably could save at least maybe 10% on costs from planting. We also provide the farmers with a greater planting window than what they have today. One of the great things about the water jet technology is that it works extremely well in damp residue conditions. So today where the farmer in the morning has to wait for the residue to dry out or if it rains in the day and then they got to wait for that because they know they're not going to be able to cut through damp residue, as long as a tractor could be in the field, we could be out there planting. So we literally could give more time to the farmer, which as you know in a 10 day window say every hour matters. So if we can give them more time, it's at least a risk mitigation factor, but it could mean that they could actually plant more acres than they could today. So that's a revenue opportunity for the farm under that case.

Dan Crummett:

Yeah. Walk us through a discussion of Susterre sales pitch, so to speak. Convince a grower that they need this.

Michael Cully:

What we're seeing is based on the results that we're seeing on yield, the more efficient use of inputs, the ability to have more time in the field. We're currently estimating that if you purchase our technology, you would have a payback for our technology within two planting seasons. If you compare that to other... And we're not an inexpensive technology, we are a high sticker price, but the payback in two seasons, I would argue is a much more favorable payback than they could get from other investments on their farm. For instance, buying a new tractor, buying a new carbine, even doing tiling in their fields, tend to have a payback in somewhere in the five year, seven year timeframe for a farmer.

But we can deliver that payback in a year or two years. So it's a quick, it is an investment, but it's one that's going to payback for them quickly. And then they're going to see the benefits of the technology. And of course, as we all know, if they can stay in regenerative practices for more seasons than they are today, then they're going to build up the benefits of those practices rather than going back to square one every time they till every three years or four years.

Dan Crummett:

What is your business model as far as how do you sell this product? Sales staff or dealers?

Michael Cully:

Yeah, we're sales small startup and we're really right now moving from what I would call a 100% product development activity. Now we're shifting into commercialization and sales activity. We're the first sales are most likely going to be made directly from us to the farmer directly. And, to be honest it's going to be probably those farmers who test our units or their neighbors who see it on the field who would be like the first sales. But the longer range business model is to have a dealer network in place to represent us around North America. We know farmers have their sets of trusted advisors that they use where dealer is one co-op, could be another agronomist, could be another. And, it seems a little foolish and from my experience I've worked in the ag machinery industry for over 20 years. I know you can't replace those trusted advisors. So, if we can tap into the existing ag machinery dealer network around North America and have some of those companies represent us in the market, that'd be the way we'd like to go to market.

Dan Crummett:

Right. Well, to wrap things up, when would you predict the first sale?

Michael Cully:

We technically could take an order today, but realistically we're going to probably hit the ground running next spring and summer to be taking orders in the back half of next year. And, I am anticipating most farmers tend to buy machinery in the back half of the year for tax reasons and other reasons. So it's probably going to be similar for us as well, that we would take orders on the second half of the year perhaps for delivery for the spring planting season, the following calendar.

Dan Crummett:

Where is your manufacturing facilities?

Michael Cully:

We have our manufacturing partner in Ontario, Canada. Just it's south of Toronto and west of Buffalo, New York. And so, those companies are manufacturing for us, but we are capable of delivering in North America. Our initial focus is corn and soybeans.

Dan Crummett:

Yes.

Michael Cully:

Perhaps also sorghum. And we're going to be doing some cotton testing this spring as well, but so we're really talking about the corn belt type geographies, which would be our prime focus.

Dan Crummett:

Yes.

Michaela Paukner:

Thanks to Michael Cully and Dan Crummett for today's conversation. The full transcript and a video for this episode are available at no-tillfarmer.com/podcasts. If you're interested in learning more about Susterre and AquaTill another company using water jets instead of coulters to cut through residue, join us at the National No-Tillage Conference January 10th through 13th, 2023 in St. Louis. The companies will be there talking to no tillers about their technology during our Tuesday Tech talks and an ahead of the curve panel discussion on Wednesday. Register online at notillconference.com. Many thanks to the national No-Tillage Conference and Yetter Farm Equipment for helping to make this no-till podcast series possible. From all of us here at No-Till Farmer, I'm Michaela Paukner. Thanks for listening.