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For this episode of the No-Till Farmer Influencers & Innovators Podcast, brought to you by SOURCE® from Sound Agriculture, listen to a compilation of audio clips from the 3 most popular episodes of the podcast released in 2023 featuring stories about no-till legal battles, small acreage no-till, cover crops and much more.
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- [Podcast] Diverse Cover Crop Choices in Harsh No-Till Climate with Scott Day
- [Podcast] Benefits of No-Tilling Small Acreage with Bob and Anita Wildermuth
- [Podcast] The Story of No-Tiller Percy Schmeiser & His Monsanto Legal Battle
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Full Transcript
McCain Vogel:
Welcome to the No-Till Farmer Influencers and Innovators podcast, brought to you by Source from Sound Agriculture. I'm McCain Vogel, associate Editor of No-Till Farmer. In today's episode, listen to a compilation of audio clips from the three most popular episodes of the podcast released in 2023. Starting us off at number three, we have the story of how a single no-tiller by the name of Percy Schmeiser fought an army of lawyers as agribusiness giant Monsanto accused the farmer of stealing its Roundup ready canola seed. Here is Percy's son, John recounting his memories of the legal battle that went all the way to the Supreme Court and the Hollywood movie that was made about it years later.
Speaker 2:
I assume they had an army of lawyers on the Monsanto side.
John Schmeiser:
Yeah. So at least eight lawyers from Monsanto sitting in the courtroom, like three or four at the main table at every step, lower court, appeals court, Supreme Court, and counsel from St. Louis, local counsel from Saskatoon, counsel from Toronto. Their main patent lawyer was from Toronto. And so yeah, there was some pretty big legal fees being paid out at the time. So after the appeal court ruled three zero in favor of Monsanto, there was a big discussion between dad and Terry as to whether or not they should apply to the Supreme Court. So it's not automatic that the Supreme Court is going to hear the case. They have to make an application to it. And I think Terry [inaudible 00:01:46] gave us less than a 50% chance that the Supreme Court would hear it. And dad was of the opinion of still back to why he decided to fight them in court in the first place.
And so the application was made. And the statement that came back from the Supreme Court was that, "Yes, we are going to hear the case and here's the timeframe of when it's going to be heard." And the only other statement they made to Terry was, "We find that this is an interesting case." And what does that mean? I don't know. But it's something that stuck with me forever. And then shortly thereafter, the Canadian Supreme Court heard a case on a patent on a Harvard mouse. Apparently they wanted to patent a gene that was inserted into a mouse. And the Canadian Supreme Court released their decision about two months after on this saying that a patent on a living thing wasn't valid. And so we think that was tied to the decision [inaudible 00:02:51] dad's case. And so then it went to the Supreme Court.
Speaker 2:
So at the end, he's facing a million dollar penalty if this doesn't work. But committed undaunted, still going to pursue this.
John Schmeiser:
Yeah. And so a million dollar plus because it was a million dollars after the Court of appeal, so it could be even higher after the Supreme Court if the Supreme Court rules against that. And so for those who don't know, this is what the Supreme Court ruled. They ruled nine to zero in favor of dad that he didn't have to pay the $15 an acre. Okay? And the reason why, the consensus reason why he didn't have to pay Monsanto is when he sold his canola, he didn't get any more for it. If it was Roundup ready canola or if it was conventional canola, he got the same price for it. So there's just no distinction by any buyer in Canada that they're going to pay a premium or they're going to pay less depending if it was Roundup ready or canola. So on that dad won 9-0. There was two other avenues for appeal. And the second one was, was their infringement? And the third one was, does Monsanto have a valid patent?
So first one on the infringement, they said Canada's patent law is very, very clear. Even if you unintentionally have possession of a patent, the patent holder has rights because you've infringed on this patent. Okay? Now the Supreme Court only ruled 5-4 in favor of Monsanto on that one. And then on the third one, does Monsanto have a valid patent? The answer was yes. So they said that there was a distinction between the Harvard mouse case because it was something with a heartbeat and a plant. And so that was the distinction, and the Supreme Court ruled 5-4 that Monsanto had a valid patent. So when this all shakes out, Mike, Monsanto got what they wanted. The money wasn't the issue. Monsanto got what they wanted, they got a valid patent. And they proved that there was infringement so that they could enforce their patent.
But on the most important case to dad, it was he didn't have to pay Monsanto anything. And another key piece of evidence in this that really weighed things in dad's favor in the Supreme Court was if you have Roundup ready canola, it doesn't automatically guarantee it's going to bushel more. It's not designed for dry conditions or wet conditions or anything like that. The only application with Roundup ready canola is that you can spray it with Roundup and the plant won't die.
And the one thing that Monsanto could not get around and went to great lengths to try and prove is that year in question, dad never sprayed his canola with Roundup. So the argument that the Supreme Court was... not only did he not receive any more or any less when he sold it, he never took advantage of the one and only application of the Roundup ready Canola seed, and that was you can spray it, and it doesn't die, the plant doesn't die. And he didn't spray it. So because he didn't spray it weighed in his favor, and I think another part of the big reason why court ruled 9-0 in his favor.
Speaker 2:
You were with him the day that the judgment, the phone call came in, correct?
John Schmeiser:
Yeah. I was also in the Supreme Court as well. And that's why I made it into the movie. The Supreme Court hearing is probably the most surreal hearing that I had. Just being in the Supreme Court for the first time and having a case that involves your family is at another level. And then when I look at all of the stress, the anxiety, the nervousness of what could happen, yeah. And then after the Supreme Court hearing was done, perhaps the largest media scrum that I have ever seen. And I've seen some for Prime Ministers, I've seen some for Presidents, but this was crazy. There was media from all over the world there. And once that was done, my wife and I went to a restaurant, had a meal and looked at each other and said, "Did what we see today really take place?" It was just a lot to take in.
And so then when the judgment was announced, I was there as well. It was mom and dad and myself, and we were sitting in Terry Zakreski's office in Saskatoon. And we were told that the call was going to come at 10:00. And 10:00 and 10 seconds, the phone rings and the legal secretary says, "Supreme Court's on the line." And within a minute, Terry just thrusts his arm in the air like this in celebration with this big smile on his face. And immediately we thought, "This is good." And then Terry's reaction changed. And it wasn't as strong as serious, but it was more focused I guess. And he was listening and listening and listening. And the call went on for another five minutes. And so you can imagine we're sitting there and Terry's initial reaction is yes. And then all of a sudden it's, "What's going on?"
And I think on a couple of occasions while Terry was still on the phone with the clerk at the Supreme Court, my mom was saying, "What's going on?" And Terry kind of, "Let me finish," right? And so once he got off the call, he hung up the phone and he said, "You're going to like the news. And I'm going to phrase it this way. Hershey, you're my client and it's my duty to act in the best interest of the client and give the best advice to the client. And here we are today where we have the best outcome for you as my client, because the Supreme Court's voted nine to zero that you don't have to pay them anything." And that's when we celebrated a little bit. And once we did that, then, "What were you so concerned about?" And he said, "They went over the rationale," kind of an abbreviated rationale of why the majority went nine zero in dad's favor. And then they advised him about the 5-4 and the other two issues and the majority opinion on both of those.
And so he summed it up afterward. He goes, "Whether or not Monsanto has a valid patent or not is really not your fight. And it has no implications on you. You're not a seed grower, you're a farmer and farm equipment dealer. So that's Monsanto's business. Whether or not there is an infringement, yeah, that's part of it. But really there's no penalty to you because you infringed on Monsanto's patent because you have this 9-0 decision. So that's why I say Monsanto got what they want out of it, and Dad got the most important area of appeal to him. But immediately we went to a press conference after that. And before we even walked into the room of the press conference, all the media had been spun by Monsanto's Communications people that Percy had lost and Monsanto had won.
It was amazing. And still to this day, Monsanto's speaking notes are on this that Percy lost, but Monsanto won. They just refuse to acknowledge that it was a split decision. So there's been on a couple of occasions where just some media friends, I said, "You know, why don't you go back and look at the Supreme Court decision?" And that's been cleared up. But we're all past the time period of explaining. If people want to think he lost, who cares? At the end of the day, what was most impactful on our family, that financial penalty was gone. The weight of the world was lifted off my mom's shoulders. Monsanto had put caveats on all of our farmland, so we couldn't borrow against them to finance the court trial. So my mom was of the opinion that there would be locks on her house before she even got home that day if all three went.
And part of the decision of the 9-0 that went dad's favor, the court also ruled that each party pays their own costs. And so that was in the decision as well. And to Monsanto's credit, before we even left the lawyer's office, they called and said that they had removed all of the caveats that they had on dad's land. They had removed that fairly quickly. So we'll give them that. But to this day, it never ceases to amaze me where I'll run into somebody who may have heard about it and they'll go, "Well, he lost." And it's just like sometimes if you're explaining, you're losing, so you just let it slide.
Speaker 2:
Right. Well, before we get into some of the lasting significance and impact of this, had it ruled against Percy and Louisa, what would've happened? Would the farm have been lost? Was the dealership in trouble? What would've happened had it gone the other way?
John Schmeiser:
So we never saw what Monsanto's legal costs were on the Supreme Court. We knew it was a million dollar bill once it got past the Court of Appeal. So our guess was it could have been twice, maybe three times as much. So it could have been as high as maybe three, $4 million. All the land was at risk. All of our real estate was at risk. The dealership certainly was at risk. Absolutely.
Speaker 2:
I wanted to ask that question because this required enormous courage to do what was done here at that time.
John Schmeiser:
Yeah. Well, and there would be time periods when we were together as family where this was while I was going through the courts, the various levels of the court where this is the last thing that we wanted to talk about. But then there was also some times where there were some pretty frank discussions that were had. And ideally we wanted it all to go away. We wouldn't wish that it would happen on anybody just because of how consuming it was at times.
And so we were all aware that sometimes when you take a principled stand, it can be very costly. And fortunately it worked out for the better. But the other thing too is my parents, even my mom to this day, just so grateful for all the people that provided financial support. It's crazy. Somebody would see an article in a newspaper in Alabama. And they cut the article out and there'd be a check for $5 sent. And it'd just say something, "I can't help with a lot, but here's something to help you." And just amazing about that. And it was not only North America, it was all over the world where people provided support, financial support, which really helped a lot on the legal cost. But if Monsanto was awarded their cost, there's no way dad would've been able to raise that money. It would've completely devastated us.
Speaker 2:
But kind of want to talk about the significance of all of this. And it was at a very interesting time for agriculture. We got Roundup ready technology available in a number of crops. The world is changing very quickly. Percy could have settled this thing on the first phone call for 20 grand and signed an NDA and never been able to speak about it again. Tell us what happens if this doesn't play out in the public setting that it did and created this awareness not only for the wheat debate that followed, but for the ability for farmers to stand up and represent their interests, fight for themselves. Tell us what life might've looked like had this never happened.
John Schmeiser:
They certainly would've pursued payment for their patents a lot more aggressively than what they did afterward. And I think one result of this too is because dad never sprayed the canola with Roundup. That was an avenue for mediation if Monsanto approached somebody and said, "Hey, we want you to pay," if the farmer could prove that he never sprayed it because it was being mentioned by the Supreme Court. So then you have both of those things that you're going to get the same price for it, but yeah, you didn't spray it. So in the judgment, and this is going back some time since I looked at it, but it was very clear about the fact that because he didn't spray, he didn't take advantage of the patent technology. That was part of the rationale for it. So I know on a couple of occasions, dad had been told by people that he had met that they came to a resolution out of court where they didn't have to pay because they were able to prove that they did not purchase either the technology or the chemical to spray it.
And so I think that's one right there. I think they would've been more aggressive. I think the other thing too is like we mentioned earlier, I think they would've probably got patent approval on wheat. And even the wheat grower groups in Canada, we're not comfortable with that all. Now, the mindset's changed a little bit now because we've got a couple of decades under our belt. But at the time, they were concerned about losing markets overseas if Roundup ready wheat came market. So I think that was a big impact. And then the other thing is Monsanto's reputation really took a hit on this, and that I think probably had some impact in the purchase by Bayer. And there is a Bayer Monsanto tie into the movie as well too that we can get into a little bit later. But Monsanto, when you sue your customer and you're very public about suing your customer, and then you stand on a pedestal with a megaphone and boast everybody about how you won after suing your customer, not every customer responds positively to them.
And then the other behind-the-scenes stuff as well too, from what the investigators were saying to our customers at the dealership, that didn't go over very well either with customers about having to divide farmer versus farmer. This is a community where if a farmer got sick during harvest, everybody else came around and helped them pick the crop up. And now all of a sudden you've got this division there that was very, very evident. And it all circles back to Monsanto's tactics. Their public relations approach was maybe different than what customers were expecting to see from a seed company.
Speaker 2:
Do you think that there was a lesson learned here, one that farmers can stand up and fight and actually have a shot at winning? And secondly, maybe the behavior of big agribusiness may have been changed somewhat?
John Schmeiser:
I don't know about the latter. I hope. And I certainly see it from the equipment industry perspective where our manufacturers make a good product and they're able to make that good product because customers are successful and dealers are successful. They can reinvest in R&D and everything. So they're really attuned to the customer. So I hope every business that works with farmer customers doesn't take them for granted, and don't take them for granted that the business is always going to be there just because of the product that they make. So yeah, I think there were some lessons learned out of this. And if it makes for a better company that's dealing through our supply chain, I think we all win, quite frankly.
Speaker 2:
Let's pivot over to the movie for a minute. And before I turn it over to you, a couple observations. One, I think everyone who's listening to this needs to go and rent this movie. It's available on Amazon. Anyone in making a living in agriculture, agribusiness, a student needs to see this movie. And I've seen it twice and also seen the documentary. It has a Christopher Walken, Academy Award winner is playing Percy Schmeiser. Second observation, and you shared this with me earlier, John, that your wife is pleased with the composite character Peter Schmeiser, which was played by Luke Kirby, who I understand she got a better looking husband than she did in real life as you said it I think, right?
John Schmeiser:
Correct. Yes. That's okay with [inaudible 00:20:51].
Speaker 2:
Yeah. Tell us about what it's like to see your family on the big screen and how all that came together.
John Schmeiser:
It's very surreal as well too, just like being in the Supreme Court. And the first time that I saw it was, I guess it was June 15th of 2020. And the producers had arranged a screening for the media buyers, so Netflix, Amazon Paramounts, Apple TV, Universal Studios, all of them were invited because they were going to sell the rights to it. And who's going to take it from that point on the distribution? And so they allowed all family members to watch it.
And so we're in the middle of Covid at this time. And so it was done online. And I watched this movie. I've seen it three times. That premier, the Canadian premier, and the US premier. I haven't seen it any other time except for 30 seconds flipping through the channels one night, and there it was on, "Oh, it's on the next station." And each time of those three times that I've seen it, I'm not watching a movie. And so I view it completely different than any other movie that I watched just because of the closeness to the story, to the issue that we all had. And my siblings feel exactly the same way.
When my mom saw it, she fell asleep during it, which was probably a good thing because it was a little late at night. But that was probably a good thing because she was a little anxious watching it just because of the memories that it would bring back. And that's the same thing for us. And then it brings back memories of the time period at the time, what was going on at the time not only with the case, but what was going on in their personal lives because as an example, when something happened... Yeah, my daughter Rachel was born right about that time. So those things came back. And then the nitpicking started and still does start because every movie takes some artistic liberties. And in this particular case, every word of the court transcripts is 100% accurate. And the writers told us that because they were so worried about being sued that they made everything in the court transcripts exactly word for word.
But there were a few liberties, artistic liberties that didn't hurt the film at all. And so we noticed them. When we watched film, we noticed them. And I try my best not to ruin it for somebody and let them watch the movie in the entirety. And what I typically say, "Watch the movie and I'll talk to you about it afterward. And then if you want to know what was stretched a little bit or what was added, I'll tell you then." So a good example is my dad was a farm equipment dealer. And there's no reference to that in the movie at all. And when I talked to the writers at one of the premieres, they said, "You have so much content. And it's like, how do you put these storylines in there?" And so sometimes you take the simplest path to tell the story in an hour and 40 minutes, right? Yeah. But I'll probably watch it again sometime in the future, Mike, probably.
But for the time being, yeah, it is just an unbelievable experience. It's a great storyteller. I wasn't paid for the movie. Mom and dad were paid for the rights, so a production company bought the rights before the Supreme Court decision even was issued. So that's how long that this thing was in the works. So maybe I'll touch on that just a little bit. So yeah, it was about three months before the decision came out where they bought the rights and they paid mom and dad $5,000 a year on a five-year contract as they were going to build the script. And after five years, they renewed it for another five, renewed it for another five. And then when they got all the clearance to go to proceed with the movie, then an entertainment lawyer came in and negotiated the fee for mom and dad on production of the movie.
So there's no back end or anything like that. It's just the rights were bought. And the writers sat down with all of us for hours, I think three or four days with mom on four or five different times. And then with my wife and myself, sat down with us for almost a whole day putting the script together. And the writers told me they reached out to Monsanto and wanted to get some perspective from them as they were writing the script. And Monsanto basically told them, "If you proceed with this thing, we're going to get a court injunction and shut it down."
And so that's why it took so long for this thing to hit the screen. And when Bayer purchased Monsanto, one of the lawyers reached back to Bayer and said, "Hey, we have this project." And as I understand it, what Bayer said, "We don't care what you do. But you will not use the word Bayer in your movie." And so they were fine with Monsanto being in it, but they would not consent to Bayer being mentioned it. So it's no mention of Bayer in it at all because it's a Monsanto story. So they started-
Speaker 2:
Bayer bought them in 2018 I think, right?
John Schmeiser:
Yeah. I think it was sometime around that time when they finally got approval. So I think, if I remember correctly, it would've been maybe March or April of 2018, and filming started the last week of August in 2018 and also in May. So once they got the go ahead, the writers called mom and dad. And so they shared the news with us. And in May, they said that Liam Neeson had signed on to the role to play my dad. And this is just priceless. I wish you could see it. But my dad had these old grade school notebooks that he always wrote stuff and kept in it. And so I asked him, when they said the movie's going to proceed, I said, "Who's going to play you?" And he goes, "I don't know who it is, but I wrote it down."
So he pulls out this old little book and he goes, "Lion Neeson?" And I said, "Would it be Liam Neeson?" He goes, "Yeah, that's it. Yeah, that's it." And I immediately went, "Holy crap." Now I finally knew what the scope or the scale of this thing was going to be because if they've signed him, I went, "This is going to be a Hollywood production." And so, wow, that's quite something. So about two months later, I'm visiting with my parents and I asked Dad, "Do you have any idea when they're going to start filming?" And he said, "Yes, it's going to be this fall. It's going to be in Winnipeg. But they've got a new actor to play me." And I went, "Oh, do you know his name?" And he goes, "No, I don't remember his name."
So he goes, pulls back this book again. And he wrote it down. And he goes, "Have you ever heard of an actor named Chris Walking?" I went, "No, dad, I haven't. Nope, I haven't." And immediately I thought, "Okay. So maybe this isn't a Hollywood production again." And so at the same time, dad said that if you want to go watch some of the filming, call the writer and they'll make accommodations for you because mom and dad were invited and dad was invited for a cameo. And he said, "Not my style," and turned it down. So I did call the writer and just get the details to see if I could make it work. And after she told me the details, she said, "Well, you must be pretty excited that Christopher Walken has signed on to play your dad." And I just went, "What? Are you kidding me?" And so she went through the cast of who was all signed on, Christina Ricci. And Michael J Fox was supposed to play the lawyer.
So they're starting filming the last week of August. The first week of August, he broke his arm. And so Zach Braff, who played the lawyer, filled in for him. And then she also told me who was going to play me. And I couldn't picture him immediately. After I hung up the phone, I have to admit I did kind of Google him and see who it was. I went, "Okay, now I know who this is." I did kind of do that. Yeah. And then production finished up in Winnipeg. There were six weeks there, and then went over to India and filmed there for, I think it was three, four weeks. And that was 2019. And then Covid hit, and so it was delayed.
And I think one of the writers told me they had to cut back some stuff out of the original film that they had just because producers, lawyers were just a little concerned about going over that line. And again, they were worried about litigation. They could not get insurance for the film until they got Bayer to sign off on it. And so lawyers were saying, "You can't proceed until you get insurance for it." So they were so cognizant of that. Yeah. So June 2020 when it went into media firms, the buyers released in Canada on October the ninth and then in the US on, I guess it was April 30th, and then a Canadian premier in the US premier that I went to and represented the family.
McCain Vogel:
Coming in at number two is an episode featuring longtime southeastern Wisconsin no-tiller Bob Wildermuth and his wife Anita. Bob and Anita discussed several topics including their early days of adopting, Bob's advice for cutting input costs, the 20 plus national no-tillage conferences that Bob and Anita have attended, and even Bob's off-season activity of driving trucks all over the country.
Anita Wildermuth:
We were just kids.
Speaker 5:
Right, right. Yeah. So how many acres are you farming on the home place here or whatever.
Bob Wildermuth:
All together, it's about 245.
Speaker 5:
Well, that's one of the reasons I wanted to talk to you, because you're not a big time user and you've in no-till. Did you have chances to expand over the years and decide not to do it or what?
Bob Wildermuth:
Me mostly, I've had chances there's been land all the way around us that could have been added if I really wanted to. But I've not wanted to because I figured I'm not doing that god darn great with what I'm doing, so why do I want to make it worse? And that's where that's always been. We milked cows for a long time, all the time I was growing up. And then we moved over to this farm where I'm at, which isn't that far away from the other one. I could milk about twice as many. And so of course things went along and time went on. And I finally told my father, "The milk inspector is really going to get POed with that cement we got outside the barn. It's supposed to be in good shape." I said, "This about had it." And I said, "And we've got some other difficulties around here, which we need to work."
And I knew at that time, that was a lot of years ago, it'd be 50,000 bucks at least to straighten things out any kind of way. And wasn't really interested because I knew what they'd say at the PCA. "Well, my goodness, you need to milk more cows to pay for this." And I had no use for that. So before long, we quit milking and just fed steers in two farms for a while. We'd usually have about at least a hundred going for a while. And then one winter my father says, "You ought to come down here." At that time, they had a house down in Florida for over 20 years, Puniac Springs. And said, "You ought to come down here over the holidays." "Oh geez. Got to feed the cattle. I got to find somebody." Well, shucks, I thought more about it and just ended up taking the livestock, what I had left, which were about 20. And there were a few that I should not have sold right away, weren't quite big enough.
But otherwise I'd been feeding the steers shell corn. And once their bellies get used to it, it turns into be a darn good looking animal. And once in a while, a little hay, mostly shell corn. And so I had some Holsteins that went prime. Wow, that don't happen. I thought, "When I get back, we'll do it all over again." Got back, the price of livestock went down as a farmer. I said, "Well, maybe not." We never did after that. We've just been corn and beans. That's probably been 25 years at least, about that. And all just corn and beans and [inaudible 00:35:33] school. And it's not been that great some years like everybody's, but the last two years with the help of new genetics and everything and then the fact that I kind of like this AgriSolutions low salt fertilizer which I put in right when I'm planting, right on the seed. And I used to just do what they said, which was about six gallons to the acre.
But it seemed like towards the end of the season it was dying out, or not dying out. The stocks just looked like maybe they needed a little more. So I just jumped to it and heck, I went up to 10 gallons. Not supposed to do that, but I did. And it's worked. And that and the help from the local DeLong company people and so on. Now I'm up to where to last two years, over 200 bushels, the acre of corn.
Speaker 5:
That's great.
Bob Wildermuth:
That's something, I can't believe that yet. But it sure helps to pay the bills. And these kind of bills just seems like they get larger mostly in the last two years also. [inaudible 00:36:55]. Yeah, go ahead.
Speaker 5:
I'm kind of like you. I grew up on a dairy farm north of Detroit, about 40 miles. And I think that milking cows and lugging hay bales is what made me an ag journalist. And as my dad once said to me, "You just decided it was easier to tell others how to farm than to do it yourself. So I think there's probably some truth in that." You're as old as I am. We're both in our eighties. I like to refer to myself as being as old as dirt. But you've probably seen it all. You probably started out mow board plowing, and you went to minimum tillage and ended up with no-till, right?
Bob Wildermuth:
I kind of went that way, although I did quite a jump. I just got disgusted with working in soybean ground. "Yeah, it looks pretty. Oh, ain't that nice. All out there, nice and black and level," or at least mostly level usually. But I said, "This is silly. This ground is soft to begin with. What are we doing this for?" I didn't have a really great corn planter then, but it kind of worked. And then after that, after going to a few things and my father and the University of Wisconsin stuff, "Well, they're using Allis Chalmers planter for no-till, son of a gun." So I poked around and ran onto one and went from a four row to a six row in fact as that went on. And I said, "This is working, especially on the soybean ground. This is working good. It's growing all right, but this planter sure seems a little stupid. And I'm hearing about all these picket fence rows and planting and so on. This thing sure ain't doing it."
And then I learned out how or why, because it was the way the planter is made. Inside where the seed drops down, it hits the casting inside there. Well, [inaudible 00:38:50], the seed's not going straight through. So some of them are close together, some of them are spread out. And so it took a while and I finally got a John Deere. And the one I've got now, yeah, I keep looking at the tools and the things that I could add at the no-till shows and thinking about it. And I'm still not sure a hundred percent I want to spend money for any extra things because I'm getting picket fence stands. Maybe there's something I could improve. That's what I keep thinking, what I keep telling myself. There has to be because selling this stuff. It must be working.
But I haven't done any of that. I've just been using what came with the planter and it's been working pretty good. So I've been doing that. And as I like to say with this whole thing, I guess anyway, it's an old adage, but the KISS principle, keep things simple as you can. And when you're using quality seed and good fertilizer placed right and good rain, if it's possible, you can still get over 200 bushels to the acre apparently because I did two years now.
Speaker 5:
So your John Deere planter, what model is it and how old is it?
Bob Wildermuth:
Gosh, it's got to be a dozen years old at least. It's a 1780, it's a John Deere six row.
Speaker 5:
Okay. What row width?
Bob Wildermuth:
30 inch. 30 inch.
Speaker 5:
Okay. Gotcha. Okay, go ahead. Use this to plant soybeans too?
Bob Wildermuth:
So I can watch what's going on, but there's several things you can do. But the main thing I want to know is the population, how much population I'm putting on. And that's basically what I'm watching. And it seems to be pretty good. Okay, different seed. You get different seed and it'll go from 31, 32 to maybe another seed product. It'll get up to 35, that's thousand. And I'll run along with it. And then, "Well, I can't say that's hurt me any. I'm still getting decent yields and the hybrids I think can take it." I think they're able to take it so I'm not concerned. I would be nice if different hybrids would be the same, but they're not. I've changed the adjustments a little bit, but generally they are too much either way. So I hate to mess with them. As I said, I messed with the fertilizer a whole lot since I got that about 10, 11 gallons per acre area. I keep the nut pretty tight on that adjustment.
Speaker 5:
Are you fertilizing other than with the planter?
Bob Wildermuth:
Yeah. Yeah. Oh yeah. The local fellows here in town in Clinton, in fact they've got the last soil test that I have. I don't think I even have a copy. But they look at it real close and this will pass fall. Now that's another thing. Two years I have put the spring lay down or whatever you want, they used to call it plow down, I don't like that idea, fertilizer on. But they've done it in the fall. I'm not very happy with that idea. I've got hills, not really bad, but I do have hills, so I always worry about it. Well, this year was great. Any rains we had this fall, there wasn't any toad stranglers with it. And last year, apparently it wasn't too bad either because it worked. In fact, I had the water checked with an outfit up at the university in... Oh gosh, what is it?
Anyway, it doesn't really show much of any fertilizer runoff. And so that's good. But they did that. And so that was on first, did that and now two falls. And by golly that seems to... Well, actually this is the third one coming up. And they did it here in December after I finally got everything off. And I had one field at the other farm where I grew up, it has some fields that always bugger. They just tried to wash on me. And it ticked me off to the point I was thinking about putting the whole darn farm in to alfalfa if there was enough people around here milking cows or feeding cattle that needed it. But there aren't, so I haven't done it. And I said to the farm service agency, "What do you think about terraces?" "Okay, it wouldn't be a bad idea." So I put one in, that would be last November I think it was, and a year ago last November, I mean this past November. And then this past spring they did two more.
Now they're not real big, but they had things to do and had to work around the weather. And I was planting as they were finishing up. And that took the last of April before I finished planting.
Speaker 5:
Sure.
Bob Wildermuth:
Or middle April. Yeah, middle April. Then I got done. So anyway, that a little bit higher moisture was where I was going when I combined it. But still it was around, let's see, '21 I think, 2021. So it had come down a lot with that fall we had. We've been lucky that way, what, last three falls, something like that and [inaudible 00:44:48] dry it off. And I try to take advantage of that. I am trying to get at it, but I just don't like to with soybeans, I don't like taking any green beans to town. I think that's stupid. But there's guys that do it every year. And I usually wait just a little longer. Okay. Then maybe I lose on the other end. They get too dry. This last year they did. Not every year, last year they did. And you just have to work around all this stuff.
Speaker 5:
Your comment about terraces reminds me of way back in the seventies, there was a soil conservation service agronomist at the time which is now NRCS, but north of Indianapolis someplace. And he made the comment that at the rate we're going with sod waterways and terraces, it would take us a hundred years to get everything under control or we could no-till and get it done in two years.
Bob Wildermuth:
That guy's got [inaudible 00:45:51]. It definitely makes a difference to a certain extent. I can sure see that. I've always done it. I can see it especially on the other farm there. But now I got the terraces to go with the no-till, and it was kind of fun when I was planting as he was trying to finish up with leveling off the area and around the terraces. I kept working a little bit here, a little bit there. Time I got done on both of them, I had my short rows in the middle. It was crazy. It was crazy when I came to combine them.
Speaker 5:
So you talked about the Allis-Chalmers no-till planter. When did you start? What year was it?
Bob Wildermuth:
Good question. Probably-
Anita Wildermuth:
Before I retired and that was '98. It was probably three years, four years-
Bob Wildermuth:
Oh, I'd say yeah, probably about 95 maybe. It's been quite a while.
Speaker 5:
So you've been no-till all the way since then?
Bob Wildermuth:
Like everybody, a year or two. And my father, I had worked with him and he wasn't so sure it was a great idea on the ground that wasn't open. It still had a lot of stalks up on top. And it also helped with the better planter. The last Allis had great big old opener discs. I forget the diameter now, but they were big and it just cut through everything and didn't seem to care, which is the same way my John Deere one seems to work. I talked to a guy that mentioned there are a couple of them in the circle thing there on John Deere, and I just wondered if anybody had any other ideas. And a couple guys, I think they came together and said, "Oh, we don't even have those openers anymore. We don't need them." Oh, well, I hadn't tried that yet. I still have them out there in front.
And I think [inaudible 00:47:42], especially this last year, I didn't have the chopper on the back of the combine. I didn't have the teeth sticking out for quite a while until I remembered it. And that makes quite a bit of... It ain't exactly a [inaudible 00:47:59] it's done. It does help to make it a lot smaller. And so we'll see how that all goes. But I think it'll be okay. I can work through it.
Speaker 5:
Let's talk about soybeans.
Bob Wildermuth:
Yeah. I was just going to mention that the one thing I have always tried to do, except this last year because Soybean Association needed some ground for plots. Okay. So the guy came out, he's a farmer north of Clinton. He came out with his eight row planter, I believe it was. And he planted it all in 30 inch rows. Well, I'd given up on that a long time ago. And he said, "[inaudible 00:48:37] plant your beans." "Well, yeah. Okay. What'd you think it'd be worth?" "Well, it wasn't a bad price." "Go ahead." Well, I'm not sure I'm going to do that again. I've never used replaced guards, so many in my life.
I can figure there was just too much old corn stubble and other stuff that was getting in the way in certain places because generally there was quite a bit in the same place. And the guards would just break and I'm not going to do that again. What I do and have been doing, I have a... Oh boy, I can't even think of the name of the No-till drill I got. But anyway, I try wherever I can to go on a slight diagonal to the corn rows when I plant. I don't go straight. I go on a diagonal. I like that a lot better. And I also always had a fixed drag. You know what I mean? A fixed drag.
Speaker 5:
Yeah, yeah.
Bob Wildermuth:
It's mounted on there and you lift it up and down with a cable when you're going wherever. And I really need to get new drags. It's made with a chain deal. One side, it hangs pretty level and not too strong. You flip them over the other side and it's made for really rooting. And I think either way it wouldn't be too bad anymore. It's really worn out on that one side. But it does help a lot when you're going crossways and the drill does a halfway decent job of loosening up corn roots and stuff. But then they're kind of laying there, but the drag kind of exposes them really and they don't bother much when you come to combining.
And your field is somewhat more level too. It does make a difference. The drag isn't strong. It's not a big rugged thing, but it rolls along there and the openers and so on the drill loosen it up a bit and it makes a big difference. I like that better. I'm going to go back to it. This last year, the tractor that I had using it, I took it to a guy with the drill and said, "You're better [inaudible 00:50:45] than me. There's a lot of bearings on there, all these damn openers and there's a few that are shot." So he replaced all of them for me and the whole month of March, he had it. And I took the tractor to him and he says, "Hey, you know your tractor, that clutch isn't so good." "Yeah. I was kind of wondering about that, [inaudible 00:51:02] is pretty thin." So he tried to replace that. Well, the time I got done, I spent, I don't know, 5,000 bucks there I think.
But I got both of them fixed and I didn't get 20 hours on the drill or the tractor, either one. Talk about saving money the other way around. Last fall, the fall when I was finishing combining, I had the tank pretty full. And spring came along and I had enough diesel fuel, I didn't have to buy any of this last fall or this last spring. Planted my beans. And when I planted my about 130 acres of corn, I got by without buying any diesel fuel.
Speaker 5:
That's great.
Bob Wildermuth:
There's just savings all over the place if you work at it.
McCain Vogel:
We'll be back to reveal the number one most listened to episode of the podcast in a moment. But first, I'd like to thank our sponsor Source from Sound Agriculture for supporting today's podcast. If you want to make your fertilizer plan more efficient, Source it. Source from Sound Agriculture optimizes the amount of crop nutrition supplied by the microbes in your soil, providing 25 pounds of nitrogen and phosphorus per acre. It's a cost-effective alternative to live biologicals that you can throw in the tank and spray in season. If you want to unlock your crop's potential and increase ROI, there's only one answer. Source it. Learn more at sound.ag.
And now it's time to reveal the number one most listened to episode of the No-Till Influencers and Innovators podcast for the year 2023. The most popular episode features fall-line capital director of agronomy and no-tiller in Manitoba, Canada, Scott Day as he talks about no-tilling in the extreme climate of Canada's prairies and why choosing a diverse crop program has been so successful on his no-till farm.
Speaker 5:
Scott, tell me where you are in Manitoba. You're pretty close to the US border, aren't you?
Scott Day:
Well, we're only about 25, 30 kilometers from the US border, from North Dakota and about 50, 60 kilometers from Saskatchewan. So I'm straight north of Minot, North Dakota about an hour and a half. My family's been in the area for about 120, since agriculture started here in southwest Manitoba.
Speaker 5:
You went off to school then came back home?
Scott Day:
Yeah. I went to university and then I actually traveled for a couple of years working on farms in Australia and Ireland. And then I came home. And that was a great experience and I came home not sure what I was going to do. Our farm was really quite small, it was a livestock operation. And I ended up buying a piece of land beside our farm and getting a job as an extension agent for the government on the same day. So I've had essentially two careers ever since I decided to focus on agriculture and that's why I still farm today, yet I've had other jobs along the way.
Speaker 5:
Yeah. So how many acres are you farming today?
Scott Day:
Well, it's just my father and I and my father just turned 80 last week. And we farm 1,650 acres. We used to farm a bit more than that and had a hog operation as well. But my work keeps me very busy and I travel a lot. And so we've kind of consolidated the farm to be a little over 1600 acres essentially in one block around our farm yard.
Speaker 5:
Sure. Right. So what crops are you growing up there? I think you got a real diversified rotation, don't you?
Scott Day:
Yeah. I was an extension agent and I managed a research farm looking at crop diversification. So I was always involved in no-till, but also looking at new farming methods and new crops to grow. And I'd often try and implement that on our own farm. So we've grown sunflowers and marrowfat peas and lentils and blacks and oats and variety of other things. But now we've kind of settled on growing canola, wheat, malt barley, soybeans, and dry beans.
I've had to keep my farming side of things relatively simple because of my other work commitments. So I probably would be growing corn and sunflowers and those crops, but they take so long and take me well into the time of year when I'm usually in the United States working. So I don't grow crops specifically for what's best for the farm. I kind of grow crops that fit into my schedule a little bit.
Speaker 5:
There you go. Soybean production in the US, North Dakota and South Dakota have really gotten on the soybean bandwagon in the last few years. And apparently you're making soybeans work up where you are too.
Scott Day:
Yeah. We've been very fortunate with soybeans. I was involved in kind of helping usher in the crop along with a lot of us with the department in the industry, but 15 years ago I think there was less than 10,000 acres of soybeans. And then we hit close to 2 million acres in 2017. So that was a very rapid increase and that had a variety of things. You had better harvesting equipment, you had better varieties, you had better crop protection products and so on. But ultimately we were able to access varieties that could mature in our climate. So I grow double zero soybeans and last year I grew a triple zero soybean and they yielded quite well.
The problem that soybeans are having in Western Canada is that they don't handle lack of moisture in the last half of the season. When our crops like wheat and canola and barley and those crops are maturing and getting ready for harvest, that's when soybeans still need some rainfall and we haven't consistently got that. So this year it'll be interesting with the drought as to how that will affect the soybean yields again. The peak in soybean acres was a few years ago and lately that's kind of tailed off because there's lots of areas where they just don't get enough moisture to grow a good soybean crop late in the season. We loved having that crop in the rotation.
Speaker 5:
What's it do for you in the rotation?
Scott Day:
Well, most of our canola is Liberty Link or even Clearfield. There is Roundup ready canola that makes up a significant acreage. But for the most part, we don't have a lot of Roundup ready crops in our rotation. So putting soybean in allows us to use glyphosate in a different way. And we don't have widespread glyphosate resistance yet because we have had a lot of variable options in the system, primarily because we had mostly Liberty Link canola rather than exclusively glyphosate canola. And being able to grow soybeans, you plant them a little later, you're using a Roundup ready system or an extend to provide a different way of using herbicides in your rotation, and then you harvest them later as well. So they fit really well into your schedule, add the right type of diversification to your rotation. So farmers like growing them. It's just getting the yield and income compared to say growing another crop of canola has been a bit of a problem.
Speaker 5:
You mentioned weed control and Roundup ready and Liberty Link. Quackgrass was a big problem for you people before you were no-tilling, right? Can you elaborate on that?
Scott Day:
Yeah. That was kind of one of the things I learned with the no-till group is that my grandfather had always been supportive of soil conservation as had my father. But you just didn't have the tools to go no-till back then. And so when you kind of went from full tillage to conservation tillage or less tillage, you kind of had the worst of both worlds where you had some of the weeds that were left from the tillage era and they were doing really well in the no-till. And one of those that was really a problem when you kind of made a half an effort towards no-till was quackgrass. And I remember those first few years of us transitioning to reduce tillage. We were almost going to give up because there was so much quackgrass.
And if you make one or two passes, you're just dragging the roots around the field. So you're spreading it around that way as much as seed. With no till, stopping tilling and stop dragging the roots around and then with glyphosate being used in the fall and just being used judiciously, I can't point to a quackgrass spot on our farm anymore. And it's like a lot of things, nature will adapt to whatever you're doing. And if you kind of just halfway move from one system to another, you end up probably having the worst of both worlds for a while. So this was my message to other farmers as an extension agent was, "If you're going to try this, then do it. Don't go halfway and then blame one thing or the other because it's not working. It's because you will probably end up having problems from both systems if you just go halfway." And what I mean halfway, like you were still cultivating prior to the drill or you were using aggressive tillage while seeding or that sort of thing.
Speaker 5:
I thought it was interesting where you said you're basically using glyphosate or a roundup on soybeans but not on your other crops because you're using Liberty Link and Clearfield canola.
Scott Day:
If you look at the numbers, probably the most canola is the Liberty link. And in that region where corn is grown, grain corn is grown and a lot of that corn is roundup ready. But our other crops that we grow like wheat and barley and peas and lentils, those crops are not herbicide tolerant. They're not genetically modified. So we have quite a few crops in our rotation that we have to use conventional weed control on with the canola that was the genetically modified crop that had herbicide tolerance. And there was a couple of things. First of all, the varieties were quite good. They yielded very well, and then the Liberty was very effective in our climate. I know the guys in Australia haven't had great success with Liberty and weed control there as much as we've had. But Liberty just worked very well in our climate so that we had that option always in our rotation for most of us anyway.
And so introducing a Roundup ready crop like soybeans is actually adding variability to most of the farming systems here on the prairies. With the flex draper headers that we're using for peas already or lentils, they're just a natural fit for soybeans as well. So you are able to include soybeans in your farm without any modifications to any of your equipment, which is certainly a different thing when it comes to corn. And we plant soybeans with our air seeders. The only problem is we have to up the seeding rates. Seed costs are a little more than if we had a planter, but as far as the crop stand goes, it looks fine.
Speaker 5:
So on these triple zero soybeans, what kind of yield would you like and how many days of a growing season do you have up there?
Scott Day:
The triple zeros got hailed, but they still yielded about 40 bushels the acre, which I thought was great considering it had hailed. The first year I grew soybeans with the double zeros, we had really good luck. They yielded about 50 to 60 bushels to the acre. And you plant them about the end of the third week to the last week of May, and you harvest them the 1st of October. We have a bit of an advantage with day length, but it's not much farther north than us, so I don't think that's an extreme difference.
But it's kind of an interesting experiment in that these fields are truly virgin soybean fields. There's no disease and there's even thought that the inoculant that you're putting with the seed is more aggressive than what is commonly found in the corn belt. It has an ability to produce more nitrogen than the native populations you find in established soybean areas so that we have this benefit of having really clean fields when it comes to fresh soybean and maybe over time our yields will start to go down as root diseases and other things prevail. And in the Red River Valley of Manitoba, some of the common disease issues that are plaguing soybean producers further south are starting to show up in the odd field here and there.
Speaker 5:
Are you planting totally spring crops or do you have any winter seeded crops?
Scott Day:
It's entirely spring crops. Maybe 10 years ago there was a pretty big increase in winter wheat and it just hasn't been consistent in providing more income per acre than spring wheat. Winter wheat should yield more, but it doesn't always do that. And then it is not usually worth as much as spring wheat. We also have the problem of harvesting and seeding at the same time. And we have a pretty tight window there, so that's a bit of a issue. Where I am in southwest Manitoba is where a lot of rye is produced, fall rye, that then goes to the US to be used as cover crop seed. And so the fall rye is planted primarily on fields that are difficult to grow. Spring crops like really sandy areas and kind of poor quality soils is where fall rye usually is planted now.
Speaker 5:
You bring up an interesting question here because we've got more people wanting to try cover crop seeds and apparently seed production was not that great last or this year and seeds are getting expensive to buy and hard to find. Were yields in your area down on rye seed or not this year?
Scott Day:
What I can tell you is the drought has affected just a massive area. And normally things get wetter as you move further north and the prairies are further east. And it's almost the opposite's happened in some cases. With rye, the few fields that I know of in my area, the yields were okay. But we were an area that did get a rain at a critical time. So there was a couple of things. First of all, the drought. But then last fall it was extremely dry and not a lot of rye was planted. I would say that it's likely that quality seed will be hard to come by if you're looking for fall rye.
Speaker 5:
Yeah. In the story we did back in 2012, we made the comment that you're farming in one of the harshest climates on the globe near dead center on the North American continent, but snow accumulates for six months a year and melts maybe two weeks before you start seeding in the spring. That's pretty short.
Scott Day:
Yeah. Well, for us, normal is just the average of the extremes. There isn't really a normal. We hit minus 50 and we hit plus 43 this year in the Celsius scales. That's like minus 60 to plus 110. We have an extreme drought this year and two years ago we had probably the equivalent of all the rain we've seen this year in one 24 hour event. We do have this challenge of a fairly tight production window. And so you manage things differently when it comes to fertility or planting or crop choices and that sort of thing.
Most farmers have a plan B in mind at seeding time that if things get late, you switch crops because you don't have a lot of time to make those adjustments when seeding is actually rolling. You move to maybe barley or oats as you get late in the season. It's not dissimilar to a lot of the northern plains, but we are kind of in the very center where we seem to have the most extremes. I'm in this weird situation where we've had seven hailstorms in the last 11 years and that's not normal. Like a yield map for my farm is totally useless because nothing has been relative to what I've planned in the spring for seven of the last 11 years, and we had hail again this year. And that's always a wild card now it seems.
McCain Vogel:
That's it for this episode of the No-Till Farmer Influencers and Innovators podcast. Thanks to John Schmeiser, Bob and Anita Wildermuth, Scott Day and all of our great podcast who were featured last year. And thanks also to our sponsor Source from Sound Agriculture for helping to make this podcast possible. A transcript of the episode and our archive of previous podcast episodes are both available at notillfarmer.com/podcasts. And for our entire staff here at No-Till Farmer, I'm McCain Vogel, thanks for listening, keep on no-tilling and have a great day.
