They kept a commission on that too.
Those guys don't care for
themselves.
So these beans look good.
This is a nice looking field of
beans.
Obviously there's a lot less weeds
here than there was over there.
But this would have been wheat last
year as an example.
So that's part of the reason we're
much cleaner.
Does wheat just smother down?
Or does the other weeds come up and
spend themselves off through it?
It's a little bit of that.
It's also the fact that we harvest
around the 1st of August.
So all the weeds that would go to
seed, none of them get a chance to
go to the seed.
And we can use herbicides in wheat
that we can't use in the non-GMO
beans.
Well if you would kind of show us
the plants and what we're looking at
here.
Yeah, so typically the
soybean will
put on pods at every node.
So each place that the leaves
attach is a
flowering, we call those nodes.
And so as a bean plant grows,
it keeps putting new nodes out.
These are what's called an
indeterminate soybean.
Meaning that they will be creating
pods on the bottom while they're
still flowering on top.
When you get into the
later, farther south,
those are...
...Determinate beans.
And in those determinate beans,
the bean will grow all to a certain
point and then it will stop growing
and begin to flower.
And then the whole plant flowers at
once.
These beans, typically
we look
for the pod development on the top 3
nodes.
And when they start to change color
on the tops 3 nodes, largely
the crop is done putting
together nutrients.
It goes into senescence, drops the
leaves. You can see when you get off
this corner where we've had some
traffic, it's not quite as uniform
here because of the driving in and
out of the field.
But you'll see those beans are much
more uniform and the top beans are
turning.
So they're largely at the point
where they'll just, as they dry
down now, and
we could take a killing frost on
this field and it wouldn't hurt any
yield.
We're safe from the frost.
So what percentage do you like to
see your stride down to?
Well, the market standard for
soybeans is 13%.
We'll typically start harvest
somewhere around 14, 14 and
a half.
With food grade beans, we've got to
make sure that we don't have too
much moisture in the stem.
Because as it goes through the
combine, the moisture in stem can
stain the bean.
And what we call dirt stain.
And dirt stain then is something
that the buyer is a little bit
unimpressed with.
They really like to see them nice
pretty table ready.
You know, nice clean beans.
If you're not proud enough to put
them on your table, then we don't
want to harvest.
That's the way we think now.
Commercial beans?
That's our own concern.
So do these look different in the
pod than in a regular commercial
bean?
Typically soybeans, I'll get
a riper one so it's easier to open.
Most of the food grade non-GMO
beans will have what's called a
clear isle.
So every bean where it
attaches to the pod.
We'll have a little abscission
point.
So clear isle is typically
what most of our buyers want.
Rather than a dark or a brown or
a black.
So these beans have a lot of
moisture. They've got to dry down a
lot. They're oblong.
They're pretty spongy.
Two weeks ago this field was grass
green.
So it's changed a lot in two weeks.
Where will these end up?
These will go back to my bin first.
And then my contract
with SB&B is what we call a
buyer's call contract.
When they are ready to process
or clean and
load containers with this
variety, they will call me
and say we need 10
semi-loads next week.
And then we'll deliver.
That's called a buyer call contract,
so.
And they give you a
few days or a week's notice.
Usually we know a week ahead.
We'll probably roughly.
Yeah, they'll tell us what they're
thinking. And is that going to be a
problem? Because if I can't, because
I'm busy doing something,
then there are other growers that
they can rely on.
But we usually are able to
accommodate what they
need.
And they know when we're busy.
So will any of these likely make
it back onto American
shelves as part of a food product?
Or will they all exclusively end up
in Asia?
Likely these will all go export.
It's interesting that
the same buyer has
bought all of my soybeans each year
for the last several years.
Not just SB&B buyer, but the
overseas buyer has
requested my beans
for their process,
for whatever they're making.
They like my beans.
And so that makes me feel really,
really good.
Someday I'm going to have to get to
Thailand and meet these guys
because.
I don't know what they are.
I haven't ever met them.
But clearly it's something I would
love to do is to meet the people
that think my beans are better than
anybody else's.
I mean, that's one of the things
that's unique about American
agriculture is you're talking about
we feed the world, but it's like to
think this is going to end up on
someone's table and it's going to
feed them and they're going to be
happy to have it.
And relationships,
as you know, in sales, relationships
are what drive
the whole equation.
And the bigger you get and the more
you get removed from that
relationship,
the less concern
that buyer has for the
seller.
So that's one of the things that's
really unique and nice about the
IP soybean market is
that it's built on relationships.
The SB&B folks have relationships
with the folks on the other
end that are buying them and they do
repeat business year after year
after year and then eventually
those buyers start to say,
well, we really like those beans
that you got from northwest
Wisconsin and we'd
like those again.
We like how he's doing it.
We like the fact that he's using
some regenerative practices.
We like that he doesn't use certain
herbicides.
We like to fact that his beans are
always high quality.
We like those things and so we
will pay a little extra
for that.
What percentage of your soybeans are
food?
100%.
Four years ago I grew a few
commercial beans and
we went back to 100% food grade.
Somewhat of a logistical reason,
but also a financial
reason.
That premium, because you figure out
how to make it work, why
not take the premium out of it,
right?
Yeah, it's a big deal.
That same $3 we talked about is $3
for me.
That adds up, right?
It does add up.
I think we're good here.
Let's get some...