They Said Give It 3 Years...I Almost Quit After Year 1.

A lot of times in really high alkali spots out in the field, water will stand. We lose production on those acres when you have that. One, because of the high alkali there, and then two, because the water stands there and drowns the crop out. It's just a feature that we deal with here in the river valley of Nebraska. Most people know me by Rosie, my nickname, so short for my last name. Name's Mike Rosentrator. I've been farming on my own for twenty three years now. So I farm corn and soybeans, and then I have some acres of alfalfa. I don't have any cattle, so I have to I have to sell my alfalfa. You know, he was telling me, know, it's not gonna be a one year deal. This is this is something over time. And then, you know, he explained to me about the how we're feeding the microbes in the soil. It made sense to me. The first time I put it on would have been in spring of, twenty twenty three. Visually, I didn't see any advantage on the alfalfa crop here that we're here on today at that that year, and I didn't really see much yield advantage. I did try it on some row crops that year too, or I planted half a pivot using the product, and then the other half I didn't use the product. I didn't see any yield advantages to be honest with you there either. Although I did see some plant health advantages. At harvest time, the corn was down and all, you know, plants were all dried up and down and had fallen. But where I used the product, that corn was still standing. I was able to pick it real easy. But then the next spring was where we've seen a big advantage. I'm a strip till farmer. I strip till on the row crops before I plant. The half of pivots where I used the rhyzogreen the year before, we didn't burn much fuel and it pulled real easy and and worked really easy compared to the half where I didn't use it. So then I realized that there there was better soil tilt there. I believe it's because we you know, you're feeding your microbes in the soil and stuff and as they're working, they they create air pockets in the soil. It keeps the soil this doesn't get tight. It's a microbial action in the soil. I've continued to use it on fields that I know tend tend to seal over or harden or compact just because I I've I've seen that with the strip till machine and and so I believe I'm getting a better water penetration on those fields. And then, like here on the alfalfa, I guess, to be honest with you, I just kept using it on here because the company said, you know, it was gonna take some time, and I kept applying it. And the third year has been even a visual advantage. You could see the alfalfa got taller and it was thicker as far as what we harvested was a huge advantage. Most years I would get somewhere around one hundred and eighty to two hundred big square bales. That was even when this alfalfa crop was young because this is this this five year old five year old now. And this year, first cutting, I got three hundred and twenty one bales. I I don't some of it was well, it's all God, but, some of it was, we had some good rains, timely rains in the spring that helped. I'm sure too. But, again, I think, the soil would receive the rain better because I didn't have a compaction out here. I had one hundred and eighty three bales in the second cutting, which was pretty normal for a first cutting. And the third cutting was quite similar. I don't remember exact numbers off the top of my head, but it was right around the same. We increased by double on the tons of hay this year compared to past years. So like I said earlier, I don't own any cows myself, so I don't have anything to feed it to. I'm I'm looking to sell. One of the things that stands out when I talk to the neighbors and stuff, my protein is exceptionally high. Like on first cutting, I even I'm getting twenty, twenty one percent protein on dry basis. My neighbors aren't near that high. It makes it more marketable. I can't see it from the camera, but the ground slopes in general to the north. In years past, the pivot crossed the pivot road here and be headed to the south, I'd be putting on an inch of water with the pivot and you could drive along the pivot road and the water was running out of the field downhill. And now with the using the Rhyzogreen, that doesn't this this year, that didn't happen. The water's going in the ground where I need it instead of running off. So that's huge factor. The water's gonna actually penetrate the soil. My dollars spent on irrigating is more productive. Ten miles north of where we're standing right now, I have two pivots that I ran up there. The corn stalks get grazed by the cattle after harvest and stuff, but they don't eat everything, of course. Then you get to this time of year when we're picking corn, I'd still have trash laying on the ground from last year and maybe even two years ago that you'd see. The trash didn't decompose. Since using the rhyzogreen up there, I've noticed that the trash that's there from last year is gone. It's decomposed. It's gone. There's gotta be some microbes or stuff that we're feeding in the sand up there that's making them more active. I have some neighbors that they just no till plant. To me that's the guy that needs to be using the product. That's going to help them penetrate the soil with irrigation water a lot. The return's probably not going to be there the first year, just to be honest. But when the turn does come two, three years down the road, it's going to definitely be worth it and benefit to you.