come you know they kept a commission on that too yeah so these beams look good
okay I mean these this is a nice looking field of beans obviously there's a lot
less weeds here than there was over there and but this would have been
wheat last year as an example so that's part of the reason we're much cleaner
okay does wheat just smother down or is it the other weeds come up and spend
themselves off through it or it's it's a little bit of that it's also the
fact that we harvest around the first August so all the weeds that would go
to seed none of them get a chance to go to seed and and we can use herbicides
in wheat that we can't use in the non GMO beans so we can well if you would
kind of show us a point 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 and 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 I want so
these these beans typically we look for the pod development on the top three
nodes and when they start to change color on the top three nodes largely the crop
is done putting together nutrients and then it it goes into some assets drops
of leaves you can see the 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 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 drive
down now and we could take a killing frost on this field and wouldn't hurt any
yield we're safe from the frost so what percentage do you like to see here
straight down to well the market standard for soybeans is 13 percent
we'll typically start harvest somewhere is around 14 14 and a half with food
grade beans we got to make sure that we don't have too much moisture in the
stem because as they go through the combine the moisture in the stem can
stain the bean and what we get what we call dirt stain and dirt stain then is
something that the buyer is a little bit unimpressed with they they really
like to see a 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
that's the way we think no commercial beans don't concern so do these look
different in the pod then they they're in a regular commercial bean typically
typically soybeans I'll get a right for one so it's easier to open most of the
food grade non-gmo beans will have what's called a clear hyala so every bean
where it attaches to the pod will have a little obsession point and so clear
hyala 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 I mean if they're they
got to dry down a lot they're oblong they're pretty spongy but you know two
weeks ago this field is grass green so it's changed a lot in two weeks and so
where will these end up these will go back to my bin first and then my contract
with SB and B is what we call a buyers call contract when they are ready to
process or clean and and load containers with this variety they will call me and
say we need 10 semi loads next week and then we'll we'll deliver that's called
a buyers call contract
you a few days or a week's notice usually we know a week ahead 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 and other growers that they can rely on but
we usually are able to you know we're usually able to accommodate what what
they need and they know when we're busy so will any of these likely make it back
into onto American shelves as part of a food product or the most 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 and B buyer but the overseas buyer has requested my beans for their process
for their whatever they're making they like my beans and so it makes me feel
really really good someday I'm gonna have to get to Thailand and meet these guys
because or ladies 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 it's one of the things that's
unique about it you know American agriculture is talking about we we feed
the world but it's like to think this is gonna end up on someone's table and it's
gonna feed them and they're gonna be happy to have it yeah and relationships
as you know in sales relationships are what drives the whole equation and the
bigger you get and the more you get removed from that relationship the less
concerned 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 it it's built on
relationships it's that the SB and B folks have the relationships with the
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 we like how he's doing it we like the fact that he's using some
regenerative practices we like the fact that he doesn't use certain herbicides
we like the fact that his beans are always high quality we like those
things and so we will we will pay a little extra for that so what percentage
of your soybeans are food grade 100% 100% okay yep four years ago I grew a few
commercial beans and we went back to 100% food grade somewhat of a logistical
reason but also financial reason yep because you'd figure out how to make it
work then why not take the premium over right yep yeah it's it's big deal that same
three dollars we talked about is three dollars for me that adds up right it does
add up I think we're good here let's get some