That Ranching Podcast

Hey, everybody. Thanks for jumping on here today. It's a busy time of year. It's fall here in Minnesota. Marcus, we're already 50 degrees today. Oh, it's beautiful out there. Yeah. We're probably pushing Got our first frost. Corn's almost out to that time of year. But with with that brief explanation, Trevor is not here today. So I'm solo, which feels weird. We haven't done one of them in quite some time. Marcus is behind the camera back there. He'll be he'll be on, as kind of my sidekick here. So keep us on task, and he might pitch in. Really, the purpose of today's webinar is getting back to the results we've seen in 2026. From back this spring, we had quite a few pictures coming in, some testimonials. And I think what we really wanted to go back to about July this year and talk about the new results that have come in since July. So most of what you've... You'll see today is stuff that either just was released, maybe marketing sent out, or some of it is... Or a lot of it is never before released. It's just brand new stuff, testimonials we've got from customers, feedback, pictures, you name it. Some of it's anecdotal. Some of it's side by side comparisons. But, really, what we wanna go over and for you to take away is what have we seen with Rhyzogreen this year across the country? What are guys saying about it? And most importantly, you get to hear from growers on on how it's working out in the field. So with that, we'll jump into it. Real quick, as always, you know, we start every presentation here at Riomax even internally with our purpose, which is driving profitability back to to rural North America. And I think that's part of what today's presentation is all about is going back and saying, alright. Here's what we've seen with Rhyzogreen. Here's the results. And at the end of the day, what Trevor often says, if we can't earn your business, we don't deserve your business. And that stands true from a financial aspect as well as if rhizobreen or the tubs or the turbo boost paste, if it's not paying for itself in your operation, you probably shouldn't be doing it. And so that's where when we look at results from the year, what guys have been seeing, and you can apply that maybe in your own operation is, you know, this producer that's seen a a half a ton to the acre advantage or a 40% increase in production or whatever it might be is. In my situation, what would that look like financially, and is it worth the the investment with the rhizogreen? So with with that, we've got the, the forms filled out there. We'll talk a little bit briefly. With real... Or with Rhyzogreen, excuse me, we're on just under three quarters of a million acres. At this point, just under 750,000 acres across The US and Canada, mainly the Western 0.5. And with that, that's where we wanna reflect and really talk about what our guys seeing across a broad range. There's anything from, you know, guys that are running maybe a few thousand acres of forage production down to a 20 acre pasture. And without further ado, we'll we'll jump into what we call q 50 here at Riomax and Rhyzogreen. It's our quest to, increase branch efficiency by 50%. And so what that looks like for anyone that's not familiar with the Riomax tub side of things is we're feeding the good bugs inside the rumen of a cow, helping her be more efficient so she can get by on less forage, less grass. And with the use of rhizogreen is unlocking those nutrients in the soil, feeding those good microbes, and unlocking nutrients, making them plant available. So to put it super simply, it's grow more grass and consume less grass, and that's where we get that 50% increase in in ranch efficiency. Dwayne, do we have one guy at the cam say, grow more grass, save your ass? That one's I think we're supposed to make that a T shirt if I'm not mistaken. Trevor did shoot a quick video. He couldn't be here, but I asked him last week if he'd shoot this, and it's just more to talk about the mode of action of Rhyzogreen. So if you're new to Rhyzogreen, we're gonna run through that, and then we'll get get straight into the results here. Hello there. Unfortunately, I'm not able to, make this webinar. So... Because I'm gonna be traveling, but I wanted to shoot this quick video. First of all, thank you all for joining. If you're a Rhyzogreen customer, thank you. You're looking at it as an as an option, thank you for that too. At at Rio Nutrition, we take no business for granted ever. So, they're gonna give you a little update today of some really cool stuff in terms of the the results we've been seeing this year. Obviously, this is year number seven. And so here, I'm actually sitting in a grass alfalfa field here, in Minnesota where we did one of our first trials in June 2020. So it's been a really exciting journey. Just a quick reminder on... For those of you that are not familiar, the mode of action. Rhyzogreen is applied to the leaf. Okay? And it it it needs to be applied to a green leaf. It's absorbed through the leaf and then translocated down into the roots into the roots of the plant and expressed out of the root tips, and then, that, gets into the root zone or the rhizosphere. Man, this is thick. So it gets right down into that, into the rhizosphere where it then serves to feed and stimulate the native soil microbes. So whatever part of the continent you're in, whether you're up in Alberta or in Texas or Montana, Washington State, Dakotas, wherever you're at, rhizogreen serves to stimulate and feed the microbes that are native to your soil. When there's more of them and they're more active, they unlock the nutrients that are in the soil and make a plant available. I call it liberty and justice for all. We liberate those nutrients by feeding those microbes. Unlock them, liberate them. Justice for all is when... Well, just when you get good good, forage production, getting more out of every acre. And and so what we see across about 700,000 acres is an increase in production or tonnage, however you wanna measure it, of, between 1030%. Now you will see here some, results today that are even bigger than that, but that's typically what we see. And it's all about unlocking nutrients in the soil, and and and that comes as a result of feeding those microbes. So, sorry I couldn't make it on the webinar. Again, thanks. It's been a great year. A lot of results from the way cold North down to the Gulf Of America and everywhere in between, the high country, arid climates, the Midwest. And it's it's such an exciting fulfilling journey because, we're working with mother nature. We're helping get more out of what you've got. We're we're feeding that nat... Native cycle. It's kinda like spinning a flywheel, a a natural flywheel. Right? And, once you spin it, it's hard to get it going. But once it spins, it continues to go like this field right here. We're we're still seeing, an increase in production in year seven. You know? This was applied June 2020. So it's really exciting journey, and we thank you for being on it. If you're just, looking at Rhyzogreen for the first time as a family business, we are excited, to have you consider it. And and like I say, we we don't take business for granted, but we also don't expect, business if it doesn't make sense, right, if it doesn't pencil out. We had a a a customer say recently, the math has got a math, and it is so true. So we wanna, we'll go over some numbers with you today, and, you can decide if the math math. I love to help folks get more out of what they've already got. Thank you all. Bye for now. Always good to see Trevor in his natural habitat there digging in the grass and the soil. He's not, checking manure. He's typically doing that. So to talk really about the the key results we see here with with Rhyzogreen, at the end of the day, the the main result that we focus on and what ultimately drives the bottom line for producers using Rhyzogreen is the 10 to 30% increase in tonnage. Now that looks different, obviously, depending on what you're currently at for production. If you're getting a ton to the acre, you're getting five ton to the acre. Obviously, a 10 to 30% increase looks a lot different depending on the guy, but the different results we're gonna go over today will kinda cover a a variety of those producers. Under that, I guess, in really second to it, but the results that show and really back up what we see for increase in production is a 59% increase in life in the soil. That's across over 400 studies where we're measuring the microbial biomass, which is the microbes in the soil, a 371% increase in water infiltration, where we're actually simulating a a rain on the soil, testing control versus applied, and measuring how fast that water soaks in, which especially in the drought regions across a lot of the Western US this year where guys have have not got the rain they they need or they want. Ultimately, we can't dictate that, but when we... What we can dictate in this case is how fast and how much gets in the soil where you need it. So the last result is the fungal population, a 96% increase there across over 400 trials as well. So overall, these results, although fungal is not what pays the bills, you might say, that backs up and shows when we can increase that life and the health of that soil, that's where that increase in in production comes from is more nutrients being unlocked and made plant available. With with that, the first video we have, it's about two minutes long from a producer in Colorado. So some of these are gonna be short snips from producers, and then some of them are just gonna be results that we'll talk through as we go. So let's kick it off with Wade Rogers out in Colorado. This field we're sitting in right now, it got to where it was not producing at all, like three or four round bales for this whole upper area. We started doing some soil samples, did those. That guy suggested that we aerate plant clover if we're gonna plow anything up, which I told you earlier, I'm no farmer. So we weren't doing the plowing thing, but we did plant a bunch of clover. So we started the aeration, which helped a bunch. We started seeing old grasses that we used to have. That's when I seen the ad for the rhizogreen. Liked what we heard. It was half of what the chicken manure was gonna cost typically was putting up like about 40 big round bales. That first year we put the rhizogreen on it, it put up 52 bales. I was pretty tickled with that. And that wasn't even the whole, we still had more field to hay and that was just that area. That's another five days of feed in the winter that you don't have to buy hay for at $200 a ton. So I would say it was a darker green toward later in the summer when it was closer to haying. There's less dirt patches in between your grass. Like it's filling in with grass since we started the microbes are working and stuff. We had some we sprayed just for pasture and the cows just kept coming back to it. We almost had to fence it off even after it had dried up. When they had green grass everywhere else around them, they kept coming back to that one test spot. It me the soil must be working, doing what it's supposed to, putting more nutrients in that grass. We'll keep rolling. If we talk about every result, we might be here a while, so we'll let you soak it in and and keep on trotting here. This is some pictures, and you may have seen this early this year. This is from up in Vanderhoof, BC. Side by side comparison there. If we jump to the next picture, there's a kind of a summary. These are some different pictures we've shared earlier on this year. Up in the top corner is in Wyoming, which we actually have a video from that producer here in a few minutes. And then down bottom middle is, Luling, Texas, which I believe John Mitchell's on here today. We might have him pipe up here in a minute. Just got a got a few pictures there together. But with that, we'll jump into Carthage, Texas. So this is a... Oops. Excuse me. We got a brief video first. I got ahead of myself. Chris, let's go ahead. This is Chris Williams out in Saratoga, Wyoming. How can you increase your production with limited water and a limited growth period with terrible drought? This is as bad as we get here. We got a real narrow window to maximize production. On this meadow, we fertilized and used the rhizogreen and it increased our production from two and a half tons to three tons per acre. It seems that Rhyzogreen kicks the soil microbes in gear. It seems like we're getting a lot of production once the soil starts drying out. So this year is a serious drought. I got about one third of my place irrigated. So I just kind of put all my eggs in one basket. I fertilized it here and rhizogreened it here, hoping to, you know, maximize the production on the ground that I could get wet. It's a lot greener and and growing more on the rhizogreen side. We all just doubled down on those acres we could get wet. It's really easy to do the math when you're replacing $300 ton with either hay you put up or the regrowth that you're gonna regrow. So in Carthage, Texas, we'll we'll jump into that. Alicia Grass in Coastal Bermuda was talking to this producer last week. He had a a 60 acre patch, he said, was a 25% increase in production, and then he had some Bahia grass. He's a field of strictly bahiagrass. He said they had 53 acres. Normally, they would get 74 to 80 rolls, and they got a 112 this year. 40% increase. And he said, what what he figures the difference was between the kind of 25% increase versus the 40%. They were in a drought this year. They they have been most of the year, and he said the the field that they applied, the bahiagrass, they got it they got it cut earlier, and they got the rhizogreen applied back on it earlier. So they cut it, and then they applied the rhizogreen. Same with the Alicia grass in the coastal Bermuda, but that got a cut later, so it got applied later. So he said they were kind of already into the drought by the time they got it applied. So they still saw an increase in production, but it wasn't quite as much as as the stuff they got applied earlier. And he said, when I talked to him the other day, he said it's been it's been rough here the last little while. They've only got three quarters of an inch of rain in the last four months, but he's definitely noticed. He said the the production hasn't been near where it normally is on a on a good year, but he says noticed on some pastures where he's applied it, it's definitely stayed greener longer than the neighbors, and he feels like he's getting more use of his moisture. And then also he had applied... And this is more an anecdotal or a story if you will, but he'd applied some rhizogreen on a recovered oil field patch, where there had been a bunch of work over the years. And he said he felt like the the pH was a little bit off. I think it's like 6.4. I'm not a real soil health guru, but in his mind, he said, I feel like it actually helped with that. We don't advocate or we don't say we help with pH at all, but he said areas that they've struggled with getting grass to grow, and it's been bare dirt for the last few years With the rhizogreen application this spring, they've actually seen some of those patches fill in, which is kind of a common theme we've heard, and we're gonna hear throughout today is, guys noticing that the grass is thicker and patches. I think Chris act or one of the fellows Wade Rogers mentioned it in his video that, that it wasn't so much clumps. There was more... The grass was more filled in. So with with that, Lauren, are you and John on on here now? I know you guys were traveling around a little bit. Basically, we are here. Yes. Alright. Well, I appreciate you being basically here. You guys had fired over some pictures here this morning, from a producer's place you were at, and I thought, where better to hear it from... Than from the horse's mouth? Yeah. So we were over there this morning, in page, and the picture there on the left hand side, I told Delbert, I said, looks like you weren't spraying up against the fence line like you normally do. And he said, well, John, I guess you're right. And and there's a a little a little pass behind us and then... And another... Some other photos we took, but you could tell where he made his turn and, you know, it was right there kinda in the corner of the fence and night and day difference between, you know, the... Definite spray line. And then, you know, you can see there a picture on the right where he went underneath the trees, and he's like, yeah. I didn't really notice that. I said, nope. Don't forget. It's working because the rain that we got the other day rained underneath those trees just like it did the open fields. So he was real tickled when we pointed that out to him. I don't know if you have the other picture we we took of the night and day. Yeah. Right there. You can definitely see... I know it's a little dark what we're seeing on our... On the computer here, but the hayfield that he treated, no cows on it, and then the one across the fence was his neighbor. There was no cows on it. It's a hay field as well. But definitely just the thickness of the grass. When we drove down the road and looked, you could see the growth, how the, instead of being steamy coastal, it had more leaf to it, darker in color. And then the nontreated there that was on his place that's closest to us, he had had cows on it, so you could you could see that, you know, it was a a pressured pasture. And then he had turned the cows out, I guess, a week ago because he started planting some overseeding, some winter grass in there. But it's... It was really beautiful this morning with the sun coming up being able to see how dark green that treated field was compared to the nontreated fields. They definitely stood out. But I think Lauren was saying there's a county road running down. You can see the t and then the n t in the back corner. There's a county road running down the middle, but he said there was kinda yellowy on the nontreated and and dark dark green like you're saying. Green. When we drove up to the place early before we drove into his property, I said, yep. That's the fieldy rhizogreen over there. You could see it. Just just beautiful beautiful hay meadow. That... That's awesome. Did did he have any production numbers on that? Yes. And and I apologize. He told me... You know, most of us, we forget what happened twenty minutes ago, but he told me a story earlier this year after he cut his hay. He was tickled to death at what it made. It it was something crazy. You know? Remember, we're here in Texas. We don't talk about tonnage. We talk about, you know, the round bills. Of course, we asked for the, you know, four foot bills or five foot bills, and and he put up, you know, large sized hay bills, and I think he said something like six bells to the acre when he typically only gets close to two and a half if that. Wow. He was really shocked and surprised. John, if it would work, we're doing this presentation again here at eight tonight. If you and Lauren get the chance while you're driving to maybe give him a shout and just get those numbers, that'd be awesome to share along along with this picture tonight. I sure can. And I texted him earlier. He's probably out checking cows and stuff. He'll be back. He'll he'll send me the data later on. Alright. Well, hey. I appreciate you guys jumping on. I know you got an appointment to get to, so we'll let you let you keep rolling there. But thanks, guys. You bet. Alright. Well, with that, I think we got a a quick forty five second video from Trevor talking about. And and some of these results, I guess, as we go through are from the customer appreciation meetings we did earlier. I actually... I feel kinda stupid to say this, but I was at quite a few producer meetings or customer appreciation meetings where someone spoke up and talked about what they saw on Rhyzogreen, and we were all fired up and excited at the time and then completely forgot to write it down. So I definitely had to follow back up with quite a few people and humbly say, listen. I'd forgot to get those numbers, if you don't mind sharing them again. So here's here's one of them. Trevor had recorded himself right after it. So Hey. We just had a great session in Clearwater, Nebraska last night, one of our customer appreciation meetings. And we had a guy that showed up, and he said, yeah. I actually use Rhyzogreen on on alfalfa this summer twenty twenty six. And he said, I I I had, on this field that he used it on, he said I had, 35 bales off it on the first cutting. And then he said, I applied Rhyzogreen, and he said, the second cutting, I got 45 bales. So he said, usually, the second cutting, it gets less. And this time, he got, almost 30% more that, from 35 to 45. So it was a great story. Sorry. We had to cut that off because he started talking about turbo boost pace right after that. So... But there there again, I know we we do hear that as well as guys saying when they applied rhizogreen, they've actually seen an uptick or maintain their second cutting to their first is the same amount of tonnage, which for a lot of guys, they typically see quite a big drop off from... In production from first cutting to second. So awesome story to hear there. A few more from Nebraska. Now we got Valentine, Nebraska. Mr. Shane Keller. You'd gotten me a couple pieces of feedback from your customers there the other day. I don't know if you want to speak to them. Sure. So yes, one of them that sprayed this spring. You can see there on his upper bench where they applied. They got, yes, they were still down compared to a normal hay crop. They got 70% instead of 50%. And had that report for more than one user on Hay Meadows. And they noticed a lot more legumes and a lot better quality grasses that they were putting up. And then a couple different ones on grazing. One of the people they have four pastures they rotate and the grass kept coming on. So he kept adding cattle to it. And he's the last time I talked to him, he still had not gotten into the fourth pasture and thought he might hay it instead. You didn't even tell me that one the other day. No, I just remembered it. Slid another one in there on us. And then this was one of the guys, I think, mister Bob Dexter. You were telling me the other day he's used Rhyzogreen three years in a row, but he didn't do it this year, and he was still 70% of of normal? Yes. Correct. And I'm quite sure I haven't talked to him but the regrowth, I mean, what I have done always notice a lot better regrowth. Awesome. Then myself on pasture ground. Don't have numbers, but I did the same thing. Could not believe the grass in the hills compared to normal. And I had to, because of the drought, I changed my grazing pattern so I don't have exact numbers compared to what I usually did and I have to sit down and figure it out but I had to take more cattle over so I could clean it off. Well we'll jump over and watch a quick video of you and then you can fill in if there's anything else you need, dad. Didn't know about this. So I'm here today with Shane Keller in Valentine, Nebraska, and I'm... I mean, we're out in the middle of a ure here. He's got grass. And so, Shane, what are you thinking? Very pleased. Never seen grass like this before, and this is a year where most people are a little bit short on grass. So, obviously, we're very grateful for moisture we've gotten. Is that what all the grass is from? Takes mother nature to do it, but this was all treated with rhizogreen. And so where's your control strip? On the other side of the fence on my neighbor. Oh, well And it doesn't look very good. Well, yeah, I I just think it's... It comes back to that, you know, working with mother nature. And everybody that's ever heard me speak gets tired of me, wary of me saying it, but get more out of what you've already got, and Shane has been doing that. Shane has been getting more out of every acre. And you can spray the rhizo green when it isn't very good as long as you have the green growing plant to get it in the soil. Mother nature plays a big role in everything. But if you have the rhizo green in the ground, when the moisture comes, it's ready to go to work instead of trying to do it afterwards. It's there, and it pops up, obviously, quickly. And it's... That picture you showed me of your... That... The hill where you had that tub, and we're gonna flip... We're gonna do a kind of a video of a video here. So tell us what we're seeing here, Shane. That is up in the hills pretty high, and the grass is tall. But if you look down in there, it is just as thick as can be. Okay. I'm I'm not I'm not focused super good here, but here, if we do this and we kinda zoom in here, There. We got ourselves some some grass there. Think we got more of Trevor's knee in that one than we did of your grass there, Shane, but I don't know if you have anything. He's in the comment. I was hoping he'd show the video of the fence line or the picture. You don't have that? Oh, I do not have that. No. I mean, I I have it somewhere, but I don't have it in the in the Hey, Chris. I'll send it over to you, you can pull it up in a minute. Alright. Sounds good. That'll show up. Well, with that, if we jump on to the next one... Marcus, do you mind? Yeah. Sorry. Yep. In Apple Springs, Texas, we had a a hay meadow just talking to this producer last last week. There is a 20 acre hay meadow. He said he normally gets 35 bales, and this year, they had 51 bales, which is a 45% increase. A couple quotes from him, he said it worked better than anything I've ever... Than I've ever seen anything work. Excuse me. Which that was a direct quote. I thought that was a pretty good one. That was... I asked him how rhizogreen worked, and that was his response. Then he said, it looked like we had a 10 inch rain. He said, it's been real dry. Those are just a couple pictures of his pasture. There's no control strip there. But he said his neighbors, meadows and pastures are kind of browning out at this point. Everyone's asking what he's been doing. His has stayed green so much longer. In that kind of East Texas area, they've been pretty dry this year, and it's been, he said it's been holding out a lot a lot longer. So just a a quick win from there. With that, we're gonna move over to Sun River, Montana, I believe. And we had a a producer putting up alfalfa. He had done a pivot with Rhyzogreen. He got three and a half ton to the acre versus averaging below three ton to the acre on the untreated. You can see there on the, on the right in that picture, those as we talked about earlier, the leaves going all the way to the bottom. So a lot of times, especially on a plant like alfalfa, where we see the increased production isn't necessarily a taller plant. But a lot of times it's just more leaves going down to the bottom is where a lot of that increased tonnage or increased production comes from. Now this guy, he said that he currently buys in about 800 ton of hay a year. And when he did the math, if he applied ryzogreen on all 1,500 acres of alfalfa that he raises, that would be almost enough at seven fifty ton of hay per year that he would increase over what he normally produces. And that that would all be on his own place. So in essence, he could raise all of his own hay then with the same ground. So if you think about that as a as a hay producer is not having to buy any more land, not having to rent any more land, you can raise more of that hay. And at the end of the day, it's hay you've raised. So you know what it is, you don't have to buy any, cut a lot of that out of it. And especially with what hay's costing West this year, would more than pay for the use of rhizogreen several times over on a first application. Now I think we... Ah, they're fashion. That is after I'd grazed that east side of that... The right side of that fence. I'd already grazed that and came back to it. Grazed it, treated it, and then come back to it. Man. So you're gonna have some decent fall grazing yet? Thankfully. That's good. Well, we got another short video from a producer out in, I believe it's Western Nebraska as well. We'll jump right into it. I had a neighbor come over and went by the fields and he said, what did you do to your fields? They look so good, so green and lush. And I said, well, I put rhizogreen on and I didn't fertilize. And he said, are you kidding me? And I said, no, I didn't fertilize. I just put it on. I'm either going to be the dumbest guy in Cherry County or the smartest guy in Cherry County. And I got production wise, got approximately 80 bales more on each field without fertilizing. Hay costs are 200 to $300 a ton on alfalfa, So extremely beneficial to put the rhizogreen on. A $150 a bale, 80 bales, that's what? Is that 1,200? I think it's 12,000. That's $12,000 a field. So the science behind it told me that should do at least as good without the fertilizer. Probably won't do that every year, but it turned out really good this year. This was a high fertilizer cost year, so thought I'd give it a whirl. The fertilizer cost was a $112 an acre. Rhyzogreen more than paid for itself. I mean, who could who could not try it? So you could kinda look at that a few different ways. I just ran the numbers while the video is playing. If you figure Rhyzogreen at $35 an acre on the 140 acres he was talking about, that would cost... Would have cost him about $5,000 for the use of Rhyzogreen, and it saved him... He was figuring about 14,000 in fertilizer costs and increased production about $12,000. So about $26,000 in savings plus return for a $5,000 investment. Now I will just note on the fertilizer side of things, cutting fertilizer is not something we recommend or endorse. We're using what's already there in the ground, and we want to be very careful that we're not, especially when we're cutting it for hay, is we are taking a lot of those nutrients away. At some point, you likely are going to have to replenish what's there. So what what he was saying in there is probably not something you'd do every year. And I would would have to follow that up. Shane, I'd be glad if you pitch in on what what your guys have done kind of on the fertilizer side of things, but just want to be clear that we're not intending to replace fertilizer. That was more of a... This producer made that decision on his own. But we have seen it where guys are reducing fertilizer inputs and and still maintaining or increasing yields. So yes, I haven't had a lot of people that are farming apply, but those that have, I have had some that completely cut it and just doing tests and gonna see where to go with it. That's good. And I would just say, yeah, it's an it's an individual decision there. Please, please, please talk to us or talk to someone knowledgeable about plants before you make that kind of decision. We don't want someone thinking that that's just the way to do it. With with that, we're going to move over to Crofton, Nebraska. We got a triticale result. Had this producer, he applied 48 or he had 48 acres of triticale, a separate field. He left 1.6 acres as a control strip, so he cut it separate, weighed it separate, tested it separate. Rhyzogreen applied 3.5 bales to the acre more. Our 3.5 bales to the acre control is two and a half bales to the acre, so about a 40% increase, one bale to the acre more. And then he he tested the bales separately and sent them in to get feed samples. It was very interesting looking at that. We didn't... I wouldn't say we blew the control strip out of the water as far as, the quality of the feed, but consistently across all the metrics, the TDN, the protein, the energy, we were higher. Not not majorly higher, more marginally higher, but across the board, we were higher. And I would just say that that holds true. We get a lot of questions as if I apply ryzogreen when I'm getting more tonnage, is it going to dilute the nutrients, so to speak, and I'm actually going to have poor quality feed? And we have not seen that. In some cases, we've seen it where we're actually a lot higher on the feed quality, but a lot of the time we're at least if we're higher, it's marginal and at least maintaining that quality of that feed. And we do have another video here, I believe, from down in Arkansas, producer that did it on pasture. Got fuel costs, man hours, your equipment costs, fertilizer. Before you even start talking about your grass, it's all about the rancher's bottom line. If you can do the same thing or even better than what you're doing at less of a cost And it's it's less impact on your ground and it's better for your soul and it's better for your... Whatever you're growing. It's a health food for the microbes that are in the soul that actually build the quality of your forage and and your crops in there. Whether it's, like I said, with hay yield or with a grazing, application of it, it it works. I know for a fact because I'm I'm here every day and I'm doing it that we had a, at a minimum, a 20% increase on tonnage and yield on the ground that we applied rhizosphere green to versus the year prior where we didn't have rhizosphere green applied. It's a no brainer. You've got to work with the land you've got, so you've got to get the most that you can out of your ground. And the only way to do that is to feed your ground. So if you're not feeding your ground, your ground is not going to feed you. I think that sums up a lot of what we're talking about here tonight is if you're not going to feed your ground, your ground is not going to feed you. The more we can feed that life in the soil, it's going to do a lot of the work for us helping unlock those nutrients and and feed the plants. Speaking of soil, now we do have... This was a dig. Trevor was actually up at a producer's place up in Maddock, North Dakota. Shane Maddock, which you'll be, he's on a video here in a few talking about corn silage. And Shane just happened to mention they'd had some regenerative classes, you might say, at their farm not that long ago, and they'd done some soil digs. And the top there is some conventional farming soil. The second one down is some rhizogreen treated soil, treated the spring of twenty twenty six, which you can already see the difference in the consistency of that soil. And then down at the bottom is the regeneratively managed land for twenty years. Now, we're not claiming as Rhyzogreen to do twenty years of work in half a season. But I think we can start to see the shift already. And Trevor had made a note here is rhizogreen changes soil health and soil structure fast. So when we say fast forwarding regenerative ag, it's stimulating and really getting that flywheel moving in the soil, where the life might be highly or a lot quite a bit dormant or dead, so to speak, and getting things rolling, getting feeding that life, helping unlock the nutrients that's already there. Another little snip from Jefferson, Texas, early September. You can see down the line, again, it's pretty dry out there in East Texas this year, and you can see the the treated versus untreated. I believe that was the neighbor's place there, but the rhizogreen treated on the right hand side. And Rod Symington are you on here tonight? Could you pitch in on this one? This was I think you took this picture. Yep no that was that was kind of a fun day there. That was ground that was treated this spring with rhizo green. They took one cutting of hay off of it and this was twelve days after they cut it. I did those digs about 40 feet apart from each other treated versus control and it was all fertilized the same this spring just the difference was the rhizogreen. It's under flood irrigation so it was quite like a block of very solid I couldn't shake it apart I had to take it home and drag it out first but you can see the soil how it's changing it it works very fast And the darker soil on the right, was that wetter too? They were both soaked. Okay. Yeah, they both weighed down probably 10 to 12 pounds each. Oh wow. When had they applied Rhyzogreen before that cutting? Applied it in the spring at Greenup. Okay, so they applied it early before first cutting. Do you know when they, sorry I'm asking a few more questions but do know did they see an increase in tonnage on the first cutting? Don't know that I didn't have any big accounts they were all taken off because they said they they were questioning how well it worked but once we did those digs they were sold on it. They trying to run horses out in there afterwards. Okay that's awesome well and that sometimes you can maybe back this up, Rod, but when when we do, do apply it before first cutting, sometimes we're not seeing that the first cutting necessarily, but it's once you get that regrowth that we really see that increase in production would you say? Exactly, yeah very seldom do I really even ask for the difference on the first cutting. We like to give it time to get doing its work. Yep. Absolutely. No, thanks for piping up there. With that, we got a quick video down in Apache, Oklahoma, and then we're going to talk about a few third party trials. We're really dry area. So alfalfa is really hard to grow. We don't have irrigation. We don't have the groundwater support irrigation. So if we can get a quality hay growing, it just helps our bottom line with the protein wise and everything else. So first year we put on the rhizogreen it, the first cutting we saw a little improvement. The second cutting you can see a little bit more improvement. Now the third cutting we see leaf all the way to the ground versus in a dry year, you'll have a stem three, four, five inches up, then it bushes out. But we've got leaf all the way to the ground. It's thicker overall. It's going to be our best cutting yet. In itself, that's going to create more tonnage. This year, we're going need all the tonnage we can get. Well, there again, talking about leaves all the way down to the bottom, thicker. And then what Kenneth was talking about being in a drought. I think where we've seen it this year really prevalent is in the drought situations where the plants are stressed, they're really being pushed to the limit is when we've, we're using Rhyzogreen, it's optimizing the moisture we are getting, although it's not where we want it to be, and we're not necessarily getting a bumper crop. When we're comparing it to a control, we're still seeing large increases over what the plants would have done had we not have used used the rhizogreen there. Just to touch on third party trials, we've got a few numbers and you've probably seen some of these before, maybe have one or two of them that are new for you. We did a trial with Agrellis back in 2024 on alfalfa, five different states. We had a 25% increase in production or in tonnage across all five trials. We did another one with Agri Authority in 2024, 2025 on alfalfa. We had a 13.9% increase in tonnage. Interesting thing we did, So when we do these third party trials, we supply the product and obviously ask them to do the trial for us. But then beyond that, we don't have control over where they're done. They'll, you know, ask us states and what have you, but we don't have control over the exact farms they're done on. And we had a producer call in, I believe it would have been this spring now. And he said, hey, I think I did a trial for you guys. And we're like, could have been. We honestly don't know. And he's like, well, it worked. And he ordered two, two totes. I think it was about 2,500 acres worth of of rhizogreen for his alfalfa. So that was kind of cool. Pretty inspiring to be able to see that someone that had done a trial and kind of a small set, a smaller setting for us in a controlled setting, seeing the results and then came back for more. And then Agrellis 2025, another alfalfa study in Texas, 14.5% increase in, production there. Then we did another one on alfalfa, or alfalfa, excuse me, on corn silage in Nebraska, where we had a 24% increase in feed metrics. So that one wasn't really measuring production, that was more measuring the actual quality of the feed. Across the board, we were up 24%. And then we're gonna watch a quick video from Maddock, North Dakota talking about increasing production now on on silage corn. You've used it on your corn silage? We use it on corn silage this year. Yep. Yep. So... How did you get along? There's a major difference. I think we're gonna be in that we're gonna probably be anywhere from 10 to five to 10 tons more per acre than we normally would that would run-in this area. And that's saying we were really dry in July too. So it wasn't like you just had a really good year moisturized. No. Shut off for a long time. Yeah. Okay. So what would the average be Like the tons per acre? Between fifteen and twenty tons in this area. That would be the average. And what what what do you... We're gonna we're gonna push that 25 to 30 ton range, I think. Okay. Yeah. So... Yep. The silage corn is probably 12 feet tall. Wow. So, and I I got, you know, the ears on it are probably that long. Okay. It's it's pretty significant difference. So when when they talk about silage, some guys also ask about grain corn. We see a lot more consistent results on the forage crops. Now one thing we know we can consistently do across, Trevor always says, it's got a root in the ground, we can we can help that life in the soil. But when we're looking at grain corn or, wheat is the results aren't as consistent on increasing bushels or increasing production that way. But when it's silage corn or the triticale we talked about earlier, all those forage crops, when we can increase the health of that plant and the life in the soil, 90 plus percent of the time we're seeing an increase in production. So that's where on on something like silage corn, we're still seeing that increase in production that holds true. We're increasing the health of that plant, the growth of that plant, and that consistently means more tonnage. Well, I say that we did actually do a trial on some wheat in 2025, some spring wheat. This was out in Washington. I don't have the exact yields in front of me here. This was in more of a drought situation again, which like we've talked earlier tonight, the yields weren't where they wanted them to be. But on the rhizogreen treated, we still saw 24% increase in actual bushels in that situation. Now, that holds true like we talk across all the different crops is when we're in a stress situation, drought situation, water short as we're seeing the rise of green ground consistently do a better job utilizing the rain, do get and getting the most out of what we got. With that, we got a video from a fellow in South Dakota talking about water infiltration. The water filtration has been tremendous on the acres that we have treated with Rhyzogreen. Three inch and twenty hundred rain here this spring. My name is John Cocher. We ranch out here in Woods, South Dakota in Lett County. We've been using Rhyzogreen now for three years. We have a quarter just west of our place that normally has a pool of water along the road. You can see where it washes the stubble and everything down towards the road. But after the 03:20, my wife and I, we drove down to the field. I didn't believe her that it rained 03:20 because there was no pool of water. And we could see where none of the stubble had washed. The field we treated with Rhyzogreen versus a non treated side, we had 136 pounds per bale more on the Rhyzogreen side. That was just a random test of three random bales on each side. It has been well worth the money on our ranch. We are seeing the dollars per acre return. When he was talking about water infiltration, it just brought back to mind we had a fellow down in Texas earlier this year, he did it on a pivot. And he said one of the things he noticed right out the gate is normally when he runs the pivot, he's just grazing cows on it. So he wasn't necessarily focused on increased production or he was trying to increase the production, but he wasn't really able to measure it in that setting. But he said normally every time he ran the pivot, there'd be water standing behind. And he said he did not... Was not seeing that anymore. And especially in West Texas where he's at, I'm up in the Panhandle, is every drop of moisture you can get on the plants and on the soil, you want it to go in the ground, not evaporate. And so I thought that was a pretty cool thing to hear. But just just to kind of go back to what John was talking about with seeing money returned. I would say, as you look at it, whether you're a customer or looking at Rhyzogreen, maybe looking at doing it, if you got time yet this fall, if it's staying warm for you, otherwise next spring, is to really run the math and figure out what makes sense in your scenario. What what do you need to say... See to pay for the use of Rhyzogreen? And from the results we're talking, you know, that 10 to 30% increase in production. If you say, hey, if I can see a 20% increase, what would that look like? You want to be making sure that that 20% increase is at least going to pay for the use of the product. For some of our guys, they're looking at if I can break even on increasing production and I can invest in my soil, that's where I want to be, you know, maybe in like a pasture type setting or, you know, how far above do we need to be to really be bringing money back into your pocket. We just want to talk briefly on fall application. So here in Minnesota, we've kind of got our first frost already this year. So we're kind of getting to the point where it's really probably not something we want to be applying yet this year. In a lot of areas there, you know, maybe further down south, we're not quite at that point yet. We do want to make sure that we're not within two to four weeks of frost before applying Rhyzogreen. We want to give that plenty of time to get into the plant and then absorbed into the plant and then transferred down into the roots, expressed out the root tips. So I would say looking at it, obviously, we want to get Rhyzogreen out there to start feeding the microbes and helping the plants. But the bottom line is, if we're too close to that frost window, I would hesitate to push it. I would rather you hold off maybe till closer to spring once you start to green up there. There again, that being said, if you're further south, you got a bit of time and you got a green growing plant, by all means, just a little word of caution there. So for for those of you that are looking at doing some rhyzogreen here, like, well, like we just talked, if you're looking at doing it yet this fall, but otherwise, as is something for next year. We do have our bill and hold that we do every fall. And how this works, it's $2 an acre off promo. It'll be running through the December 15. So you book your Rhyzogreen and you pay for it by December 15. So you buy that product, that's your product. And then we actually put it in storage here. We can ship it out to you yet this fall if you want it, by all means. But for a lot of guys, if they don't have heated storage or they don't have enough room in their heated storage, we'll store it through the winter and then we'll ship it out to you in March or April next year, whenever it's warm enough for you to get out and apply it. We'll just ship that out to you then. Alrighty. Well, hey, thanks everyone for your time here. We sure appreciate it. And as always, if you got any more feedback or results from your own operation on Rhyzogreen, feel free to send them over. We'd love to hear them. If you've had any challenges this year, obviously reach out on that too. Love to love to connect and and, see what we can do to help you there. Thanks everyone and you have a great evening.

One neighbor told me, he said, it's a good thing guys have a short memory. He ranches also. And he said, because if we could remember how bad things were last year, we wouldn't be here today. Well, back to that ranching podcast. We are here today in Valentine, Nebraska, South Of Valentine, joined by Shane Keller. And we wanna talk to the viewers today a little bit about an enduring ranch, something that spans generations, and then try to do a little deeper dive as to what makes it enduring in the face of a lot of challenges and hardships. So Shane, is it right that the Keller's have been around here since the eighteen eighties? Yes. 1884 Keller's homesteaded on the river about 10 miles south of here. Shane, maybe just give a little introduction to the viewers as to, you know, where where you're at today and a little bit about the ranch. I lost track how many generations it was, but so however many it was. You said you said your great grandpa? Yes. We're... Your grandpa, your dad, yourself. I'm fifth and my boy who's moved back two years ago would be the sixth. Sixth. And then you got some grandkids? Yes. So the seventh in the making kinda. Yep. Sure. That's a pretty big deal. That seven generation span has has weathered and navigated a lot a lot of challenges. Yep. We're in good times in the cow calf industry in 2026, but it hasn't always been that way. Correct. Maybe take us back to the early days, 1884. I don't remember them. What's up with your memory? So Shane and I know each other quite well because he has been part of the Rio family since 2012, which is how many years ago? Fourteen. That is fourteen years. So Shane is a little bit like part of the Rio family. Shane, yeah, take us back to 1884. So let's just off the stories that have been put together off on the Keller family that in '84, homesteaded... Family homesteaded down on the river, 11 kids. So they started branching out. We are not on an actual homestead. You might see the trees over there. Be my grandpa homesteaded that. And that is still in family. There's too many kids there. So my grandpa moved on to this place. I think my dad, I don't know if he was a year old or not, so about '43, '44 I think, came over here but we did not actually homestead the place I'm on. Okay. But but back in the eighteen eighties, wasn't the Keller family the first white family to settle in this area? Supposedly in Southern Terry County. It was the same year Valentine was established. Pretty neat history. Was there was there a story about that? The Indians, when they would migrate back and forth, they camped out north of the homestead and they would go down into the homestead and John Keller was born and a baby. And they... I don't know how many times it was but more than once the Indians would come down there. They'd never seen a white baby before and they wanted him and they would try to trade for that baby. Okay. So I don't know how my ancestors slept very well at night, but... Wow. Well, they hung on to the baby and then they hung on to the legacy. Yeah. And it's still alive today here in October 2026. So Shane, talk to us a little bit about how does your ranching operation endure? You know, you can speak to the viewers a little bit about what is it in terms of your values or your rule system that enables you to endure through thick and thin? Short memory. I don't remember the bad times. Honestly... That's called optimism, I think. Long long time ago, a neighbor told me, he said, it's a good thing guys have a short memory. He ranches also. And he said, because if we could remember how bad things were last year, we wouldn't be here today. And I think of that often. But really, it's the lifestyle I love and I wanna be able to pass that on to my kids. And to pat myself on the back I guess, it's amazing the compliments we get about our kids. And it's other rural kids, you can just tell. And I'm not putting anybody down, but there's a difference when people have responsibilities and have to go out and do things and take care of things and are responsible for it. There's a difference and I want to pass that on to my kids and grandkids and that's how I want to bring them up. Well, that's... I stand in awe of that and we'll we'll get back to, you know, your your actual values here in a minute, but just to bounce to... What are you most passionate about? Like, what what really drives you to do what you do? My family, to be able to have some... Build something up worth passing on. Worth passing on. The land and the cattle. Yeah. So so that that helps us understand what your true north is. And I think there's many listeners that would very much associate or understand that. So back to your values, you had an old saying about taking care of the cows or how did that go? Growing up, my dad always told me if you take care of the cows, they'll take care of you. And so that's always kinda been my true north is taking care of the cattle. I wanna have a good reputation of being known for good cattle. To take care of the cattle, you have to take care of the land. You take care of the land, that'll help take care of the cattle. Are you saying that this taking care of the cattle and taking care of the land is pivotal to enduring? Yes. What you've done? Yes. I was looking back, you talked about reputation, and we know reputations don't grow on trees. They gotta be earned and they gotta be nurtured and they gotta be built. You've sold calves... Go ahead. It's probably someone trying to buy genetics. I thought I shut it off. They knew what we were gonna talk about. We're just about to start talking about genetics. They like what they see in your calves and what was that? The same person you've been working with? Since '91. '91? Thirty four years. '34, thirty five years. Been selling cattle too. Why is that? Because they feed out good. He knows what they can do, and he doesn't even come look at them. He hasn't for years. He just comes and picks them up and takes them home. Well, I think that says a lot because now we're tying this legacy into and then identifying the principles or the values that guide you, and then taking that right through to, you might say, the tangible measurable of what that looks like, that you've got a reputation that's thirty five years strong and still going. I guess, looking at all of that, and then coming back to the economics, basically the ranching business as an entity to make a profit, can you talk to your view on managing a ranch to produce a profit versus I realize there's a lifestyle, living a good life, but this is the earning a good living part of it, you know, that goes... It's very tough very often because the cattle markets vary so much like the grains do, but it's usually the lowest thing out there really. Everybody thinks we're rich because they hear what we got per head or whatever, but takes takes a lot of money to operate. And that's where you gotta pinch your pennies and I don't tightwad, pinch pennies, whatever. To me, pinching pennies is what I do. I wanna get the most out of that penny. I I don't wanna be a cheapskate, but you gotta buy something of value that's gonna give you a return on your investment. And you just... You gotta pencil everything out and see what's gonna work. Words of wisdom here. You know, we have that old saying at Rio, get more out of what you've already got, but you were doing that long before Rio. You had a popcorn story to that point? So... Oh, yeah. I like Jolly Time popcorn. I like making popping my own corn and before I got married, I always used Jolly Time. We're not sure if my wife's tighter than me or not yet. Been married several years. Pretty pretty close. Yeah. And so our children that have both of us in them are really bad. But anyhow, she she does a great job of pinching pennies and trying to make things save money and make... Get good return while she was buying me off brand popcorn. Didn't wanna ruffle any feathers in the beginning of marriage. Not over popcorn. Yeah. So I let it go for quite a while. And then finally, said, is enough, know. There's too many unpopped kernels. Yeah. The bag was cheaper per bag, but there's a lot more waste. Less feedings per bag. Yep. I did have to bring it up and we eat all the time popcorn now. With a lower cost per feeding. Well, I I think it's really cool to see how the the legacy comes. It doesn't... You don't just leave a legacy by mistake. Like, there is so much that goes into it, and the more we dig and the more we talk to Shane, the more we we understand there's there is a reason or a foundational thing that underpins the resilience or the endurance of this ranch. And that's come all the way down to the fact that you gotta make every penny, stretch every penny, get more out of every penny. How do you see there any correlation or overlap with the use of Riomax or Rhyzogreen? How does that, if it does, help you achieve what you're trying to achieve? I mean, it's been fourteen years, so I thought you bought from us just because we're nice people, but it must be more than that. Wait. Didn't see Nothing to do with that. I knew I was asking for You said that. Back to the penciling out. Exactly. When I first saw a Rhyzio ad, started penciling things. And it penciled out to be cheaper than what I was currently doing. Can I just ask, how do you pencil? Are you so techy you don't know what that... I just wanna know how, like, do you determine if something is penciling out well or not? Like, how... Goes to the popcorn feeding. Feeding? Yep. How many feedings you get per head, what it's gonna cost you per head per day. Okay. So kinda the old apples to apples deal. Yep. Yeah. Sorry to interrupt. Keep going. I lost track. We got the pencil. But yeah, so pencil penciling that down, breaking it down to how much those cows are eating per day. That's where your true expense is. It's not what you paid for the product, how much can I get out of it? You gotta divide that into it. Yeah. And then you figure out what it costs you per head per day. And then you have to check and see what the results are. The results are a lot harder to pencil. A lot of them are harder to actually pencil pencil, but you can get an idea. But you know, is this... What's this one doing for me? What's this one doing for me? What am I getting out of it? Yeah. And like I said, that stuff's all harder to pencil but then that breaks it down. If you can feed a more expensive upfront product but you're getting more feedings so that breaks it down to cheaper and then you're getting better results as in health of cattle, pregnancy rates, weight on calves. Yeah. So you've talked about figuring out the cost per head per day way back in 2012. At that time, or in those 2012, 2013, what were some of the first results you saw? I know they're a little harder to pencil, but you must have seen something? First one was calf weights. I was weighing everything, and all we did was change the tub we were using and for a three year period we got a quarter pound of gain a day more on our calves after weaning. I mean from the day we weaned them we weighed them And the only thing we changed was that orange tub. And you keep them around how long from weaning? It probably was until November Yeah. Before I weighed them again. It it varied October, November. It'd be anywhere from forty five to sixty days. I was gaining a quarter pound a day more. I mean, I I had weighed and kept track what I was doing before. And then when we switched, I continued because I wanted to know if that orange thing was worth it. And so, I mean, it has been. That was the calves and I liked what it did on them. So then I started using it on our first calf heifers and I was very frustrated because they weren't cleaning their hay up. I saved the best hay for those young cows that are growing. Sure. And I thought I was feeding them bad hay and I... Next day I'd look at it and I'd get out and walk through it and it's all good. Heifers look really good and and And what are they doing? Nothing. Just don't care. Just chilling. Yeah. They're content, happy. Yeah. And then it dawned on me that product is supposed to help their rumen break down their forage intake so they get more out of it. So you... They don't eat as much. So I fed them less hay. And so you cut them back on hay. Did you see any body condition fall off or drop off or... They look better. Yeah. Okay. So we... This is cool... How do do that? Do you do that? How Eat less and look better. What you do is you work with mother nature. I can't tell you everything. Okay. But it's feeding the good guys, feeding the rumen microbes. There's more of them, they're more active and they do a better job of breaking down your forages. Whether it's out grazing or hay meadows or hay or silage in the wintertime, whatever the program is. If there's more of the good guys that do the job of breaking down forage or feed, we get more nutrient extraction. Those cows are happier sooner. So this is... Guess you've probably got a few stories and I'm probably a fool to ask you to tell them because I don't know what's coming. He has a habit of giving me a hard time. I don't know why. I sure don't ask for it. But over these fourteen years, we can dive into some more results here in a bit. But working with our family business, are you seeing there there is a parallel with the way you're running your ranch for the next generation? Are you seeing any parallels, or are there any stories you can tell? Or just funny stories? Probably all sorts, but... Yeah. Well, while we're waiting You mean the one I told? It's not about results or parallel to the way you run, but you you did mention that you had worked with all three of my daughters over the years in different roles that they were in. They quickly keep leaving you two, don't they? I sadly... They're working with me. I'm not sure that that's the reason, but was there a story about Kristen, the oldest? Yes. Not long after she'd worked for you. I worked closely with her. I'm an emoji guy, but I was very limited. And I was trying to get creative with my emojis and she'd sent me a text about something that... I mean, my response was like, well, whatever. And I thought I sent her that emoji. I just do that whatever again because we gotta freeze in that position. Yeah. Okay. Freeze there. Okay. Keep going. And that's pretty much what I thought I sent. And I guess it was a huggy emoji that I sent. And obviously, I'm older quite a bit old. Well, obviously, old enough to be her dad. And she was kinda wondering why I was sending her a huggy emoji. So she goes to Twain, my manager that I'm working with, and asked him and he just starts laughing because he he knew exactly what the deal was. Calls me and says, what the heck are you doing sending hug emojis? And I'm like, what? I said, that's a whatever. He said, no. That's a hug emoji. Took me six years to find the whatever emoji. You found it? Yep. And then you sent it, didn't you? Yeah. I sent it to Twain because Kristen doesn't really... I don't know. She kinda works with you, not really. She's part time, but... Yeah. I sent it to Twain. He still works with me and I sent it to Twain. This is the emoji I thought I sent. And so he sent it on to Tristan with everything and of course everybody remembered. Oh, okay. And I still think of it every time I try to step out of my comfort zone on emojis. Thought I was gonna get a lawsuit against me. So you were you were with us in... Obviously during the 2020 timeframe when Rhyzogreen was rolled out, and you'd seen firsthand what feeding microbes in the rumen had done in terms of hay or forage savings, what was your initial thought when you heard about Rhyzogreen? Cool. Nah, that's not what you told me. A long time ago, what'd I tell you? Well, took you about two years to ever try this stuff. I thought you might have thought, oh, this is a fufu dust or snake oil that these guys have come up with. Well, I thought it was more for farming. Which fair enough. We did start talking about corn and soybeans. You know, it's... You you have a point. I'm in grassland, cows. Yeah. It... Not not for my area. I tried it right away on the yard and the wife's stuff and we saw a significant difference on our gardening. But yeah, I didn't. And there was a lot of arm twisting to get me to sell it because I'm not a farmer and I thought there's just no no business for me there. Boy, was Well, I you were right technically at that point, but how has that looked in the years that have followed with the use of it with your own ranch and then with customers? It has helped out very a lot. I don't have... Well, no, we do have some test results with some customers. It's improving the quality of the grass. We have improved quantity, but we have also improved quality. And of course mother nature plays a big role in both of them. I mean, with the cows and the land, have to do the best you can and deal with mother nature as it hits you. Yeah. And that's that's kind of you can do the best you can and get the best results you can, but mother nature can have a major effect on that. So you showed me a fence line probably a month ago where in a pasture where you had applied rhyzogreen on pasture, and then the... It was the neighbors. Correct. And so there may have been different grazing management, but it was pretty much the same... Looked to me like the same soil, the same grass, and same amount of rainfall, and we can pull that up here. Can you speak to that? Like, how does that make you feel? Makes me feel great because that's... Now with Rhyzogreen, we applied... Had a guy apply for us yesterday. We do everything aerial out here, and my aerial applicator applied yesterday some pasture for me. I'm excited to see what it'll do out here. I have not done much pasture ground out here, but we did that up there on my grandma's place. And it was not a very good summer and I have not ever seen grass like that up there. And that in Rio, that's what that's doing to the soil and the plant and what Rio's doing to our cows is what's gonna help make this thing stay sustainable and be able to pass something on a value. And passing it on lines right up with what your passion is and the legacy continues. So we're honored to sit here in Cherry County because there's a lot more cows in this county than there are people, is that right? Correct. But I guess the message here is with Riomax, we see a 15 to 30% hay or forage savings, and that applies to if you're on pasture, you know, stretching your pastures, more grazing days. But then the flip side of that is feeding the microbes in the soil with the rhizogreen, we're getting 10 to 30% more production there. So those are our numbers that we've seen across thousands of acres and thousands of cows, not just in Cherry County but all over the Western 0.5 Of North America. And Shane, from where you sit, or let's say representing the ranching community, how do you think that sounds? Does that resonate with where you think folks are trying to get to? I think so. Yeah. I think we could look at it as, are we getting, are we taking care of the cows to get more out of every cow check? Are we taking care of the land to get more out of every acre. It's just a love you have and it's not about making a bunch of money. I mean, you go through tough times and when times are good, you have to figure out how you can save money back to get through the bad times. And the flybys in my mind, they they think they think it's a get rich thing and it's not. You you spend your life trying to pay for everything and then you have that to pass on. But it's not a go in there, you know, you... I mean, I I know of ranches that have been for sale lately and it would take the entire calf crop to pay for the interest alone on the payments on You the can't... It's not an easy thing And you gotta be willing to work hard. You know, people see in town weird hours, that's that's the neat thing is we don't punch a clock. But you always gotta make up for the time you're gone. I mean calving time, you're running around the clock twenty four hours a day and then when times... You can't, you're your own boss which is great but that what you do as a boss makes a difference on whether you make it or not. Know, you you have to prioritize your cattle. You gotta take care of your cattle and you gotta be there. It's what I did. I knew when I was three years old, that's what I wanted to do with my life. And that's two, three, three out of five kids. That's what they wanna do. And I don't know, somehow, like I said, it just... It gets in your heart and you have a love for it. And I guess I don't know how you... You you you can instill it in anybody, I guess, but... Somehow you must have lit that fire and you maybe can't force someone into it, you can inspire them or light the fire. I mean, I'll be honest with you that it's kinda hard for me to encourage a kid to come back and do it because there are so many other jobs out there. You can go make money. If that's all you're in it for, it's a job. And I don't feel like I go to work every day because I'm doing what I like. And when when you do... When you're doing what you like, you're you're not working. You're playing, having fun. I just witnessed Shane and John, your son, and some neighbors weaning these 200 and some calves here this morning and I saw you doing your thing and you were having fun. Mean, it was hard work, but I could tell you were passionate and your heart was in it, and your son was there right with you. So I think that bears testament to what you've just said. You're obviously somebody that's willing to try something new, if if it seems like it'll make sense. What's one of the the most riskiest things you ever tried? Well, don't know the answer if it's still gonna work or not, but marriage. Well, I hope my wife didn't see this one. So far so good. That's that's a hard one. It's a risk every day. I guess probably one of our big... Biggest risks is our genetics. Well, I mean, feed is also... But you know on that a lot. I say that anything, almost anything we try it takes ten years before I know the answer whether I did the right thing. I mean if I try a new something new for genetics, I need that mama cow to stay in the herd for at least ten years to really pay for herself. And that's where you get into all that penciling and figuring and all that stuff again. I mean, you're doing something that's not sustainable in your operation, you're losing money. If you can do something that works and stays with you, you have a better chance of making money. Note, I didn't say you're making money. I said you have a better chance of it. And I mean like all that, you know, your genetics, your feed program, your equipment, every everything you do is high risk. I mean, I'll try to save money and buy cheaper equipment and I usually pay for Everything we do, I mean you gotta... I'm not saying that there's times you can spend less and get by or do good. But most of the time it's cheaper because there's a reason why it's cheap. Well, to that point, I bet you had naysayers when you first started with Riomax or even since. I still do. You still do? People think I'm nuts spending that kind of money on something. And I know neighbors that have used it and they know after they took their expense out, it made them money. But they can't get over that upfront cost. Yeah. Which kinda brings us back full circle to the penciling at first. And like you said, first looking at your cost per day, cost per head per day, apples to apples, but then looking at what levers are we impacting or pulling. The four levers we see consistently across all the cows on Rio is hay or forage savings, conception rates, weaning weights, and herd health or calf health. So Shane, we've talked about this ranch enduring and lasting and staying resilient. And there's some parallels perhaps with Riomax. During the time we've been together, worked together, there has been some me too or look alike tubs come out onto the market, and I'm not here to knock anyone. This is capitalism. Everyone... It's a free country. Do you see any alignment or misalignment with your values in relation to what some of these look alike options have provided? Yes. I know people that have used them. And like I said, well, I was talking about the equipment and stuff. There are some people that can get by. They don't need... People can get by with stuff, but it's very painful when people come out and say they have something just like this but cheaper. And I know it's not. I myself have not seen it on our place because I didn't use them. But I know people that have and it majorly affected them and it cost them a lot of money. How did it affect them? Preg rates was the main one I know. That's the easiest measurement on a cow around here is how they preg up. One of those companies came through and had meetings and told everybody they had the same thing as Riomax, but cheaper. So everybody bought in, or not everybody, several people bought into it. And I'm not saying it majorly adversely affected everybody, but it did a lot of people. I mean, majorly. And it's very hard to sit there and watch people do that. You can make things look like it's the same on mineral and stuff. You're guaranteed analysis. They've got a list there and you can guarantee all that but you gotta look at your ingredients. What made that guaranteed analysis what it is? Was it a cheap product or was it a high quality product that the cows gonna be able to use instead of poop out the back end? Right. Which if it gets pooped out the back end, I think you're talking about trace minerals, probably doesn't do a lot for conception rates. No. Or milk production or weight gain or anything. Yeah. And, you know, fifteen, twenty years ago, we never had any copycats or look alikes or people saying the same thing as Rio but cheaper. And I'm not here to bash those people but it is becoming more common. What's saddening to me is the actual impact they have like that example you gave of a drastically reduced conception rate. You know, that hurts. Yes, it does. And the rancher that bought that bill of goods is the victim of that story, right? Correct. Someone made money off him and it was not ethically pitched. It's sad to me. I mean, Riomax aside, I think one of the principles that's coming out today is you need to do your math. I'm not that good at math, but you need to get out the pencil and crunch your numbers so that you can in fact make the best decision for you. Whether that's brand X, Y, or Z, I'm not saying Riomax even needs to be part of the equation, but as a family business in the agriculture space, it is our duty to help and guide and educate and encourage folks along to make the right decisions so that we can end up with enduring ranching operations as we have here in Cherry County. Just one last thing. Can you talk to the viewers, we talk internally about Q50, which is our family business quest to increase ranch efficiency by 50% with the use of and Rhyzogreen. So Riomax, you're squeezing more out of every mouthful, you're able to use less hay, and on the Rhyzogreen side, we're producing more production per acre, 10 to 15%. Is that something that is perceived as just another dream of Rhyzorb? How do you think folks actually perceive that q 50? That's a dream. It's out there in the clouds. I mean, it's just somewhere. Along with the foo foo dust and the snake oil, here's two fifty. Mean, who would just think, oh, yeah, how is that possible? But I think throughout all of this, we've already kind of explained how it is. Back to the penny, how much can you get out of that penny? How much can you get out of a cow? I don't mean starving a profit out of her, but optimizing her genetic potential. How much can you get out of every acre? How much can you get out of a ranch? You said you're not in it for the money, but there's years that you can make money, there's years that are tight, but as a company we have a purpose that is driving profitability back to rural North America. There's just those levers you can pull to increase the efficiency of the ranch, which an old timer told me twenty years ago, he said efficiency never goes out of style. I think we're seeing that come full circle where more and more folks are looking at how can we get more out of our ranching operation without a whole bunch of inputs. Yeah, that's the only way we're gonna make it. To wrap up here, what advice would you have for the listeners as to adopting this stewardship of the land or leaving a legacy? What's the best thing, you know, maybe one or two simple things they can do? Get on a good program with your cattle, take care of your cows, and take care of your land. Take care of your grass, and they'll take care of you. Well, back to your dad's quote. Right? Take care of your cows, and they will take care of you. Well, that wraps us up for that ranching podcast. Thanks for joining us, and we will see you next Thursday morning.

Why would we want to sustain a resource that's been so degraded over time? We want to rebuild that resource. I'm actually looking forward to our children, our son, our daughters coming back. Know, all our kids can be around. Mean, that's that's a big wish and a big dream. Nobody wants to inherit a break even business. Welcome back to That Ranching Podcast. Today, I have the pleasure of welcoming Lindsey and Shane Maddock here at Matic Ranch Supply, Maddock, North Dakota. A lot of Maddocks there. Yeah. Can you folks introduce yourself? Start with you, Shane. I'm Shane Maddock. We're our ranchers in Central North Dakota here, North Of Maddock. This is my wife Lindsey. We own Maddock Ranch Supply in Harvey, North Dakota. Feed mix, it's a feed mill in Harvey, North Dakota also. We have four kids. We have three daughters and one son. And so we get to be ranchers and parents and raise our family in the midst of it so. That's really cool. Business owners so. Yeah. So you're you're ranching and you're doing business and you're raising a family, there's a lot of irons in the fire. So any of the kids getting old enough to help? Yes. Our oldest is 13. Okay. And probably more so reluctantly but she is a great helper when she wants to be. Yes, they are. And the younger ones, they'd love to be part of everything, know, in on all the actions. Have anywhere from 13 to 10, a six year old and a three year old. Okay. Well, rarely do we leave the house without somebody who's like, can I come with? Can I come with? Yeah. Yeah. Well you guys are... It's of intriguing to me because the the way your family operates and and you're all working together, but you're doing some things different. And I don't say that in a bad way, but sometimes in life I think it's not a bad idea to challenge status quo. Not for change sake, but for doing the right thing sake. And I often joke with Riomax, we were all natural before all natural was like a good buzzword or a cool thing. We did all natural right from 2006 because it was we felt it was the right thing to do. So maybe you can walk us through a little bit on your ranch, Your approach to ranching and running that holistically. Sure, yeah. So first I'll say, I'm a fourth generation rancher on a first generation ranch. In 2014, me and Lindsey had the opportunity to go and strike out on our own and form our own ranch and so we took that opportunity. And then later on, we had the opportunity to bring my brother and my dad in to the fold and we brought two ranches together to make one again. But from the get go and since I was a little kid, we've always been regenerative in our approach to ranching. Whether it's cell grazing, intensive grazing, mop grazing, it's always bale grazing, cover crops. It's always been first and foremost what's best for the soil. And so before we make any decision, before we put crops in, form a grazing plan, it's always like what is best for our soil, what's gonna be most beneficial for the soil and for us and make us the most profit? So the soil is at the... It's really foundational to this whole thing. And then you use that as a lens to make every decision through. That's really cool. So using that as a lens or decision making pivot point is... Does that... Has that changed the way you do things? Oh, for sure. Yeah. You know, I don't I don't just do the status quo. Yeah. Whatever what my neighbor's doing, what the guy down the road is doing, know. And maybe those guys are making money, but I'm looking through the lens of, okay, I wanna build this for the long term and I want the lowest input put I can with the highest return. How can I get that soil to be highly fertile and raise the best crops possible without throwing a bunch of input into it? Yeah. That's great. And we always say work with mother nature not against her. And that sounds like a bit of a cliched term but it's so true because when you start working with that natural cycle, the mother nature had this figured out before man tried to do his thing and so that's what I I I think it's such a inspiring story that you don't have to be... Some people think of regenerative ag as sort of out there and you're just normal people doing it but but you're making your decisions different and that's what's what I'm getting here. For sure. And you know, like you said it's... Mother Nature has always done it this way. It was not until the modern agriculture one hundred and fifty years ago when we started trying to force our ideas on how to do this. But if we go back a thousand years ago, when the bison roamed the plain, you know, they had that herd mentality, they stuck together and there would be thousands and tens of thousands in one herd. And they would move and they'd trample and they'd lay dung and urinate all over the land and then they would move on. Yeah. And that land had ample time to rest and recover before anything else returned. Yeah. That... Impact. Right. Yep. That's how we got those tremendous, the tremendous deep soils of these plain... In these plains. Yes. Yeah. And there's documentation from way back then with the... Would they say riding horse and through those those prairies with grass that was shoulder high to a horse. I mean, there's a lot to that and I think regenerative agriculture has a bit of a thing that it's the new thing, a bit of a fad. In fact, it's actually age old. Yeah. Going back to... It is. We're just trying to figure out what mother nature had you know, before we man arrived. That, how do you see the Riomax and the Rhyzogreen playing in? Are they helping that journey or are they sort of an addition to or where do they fit? It fits wonderfully really. Mean even just the other day when we were out moving cows and then we moved the tubs with them and it's like, well right over there is some Kentucky bluegrass. We want less of that, right? It's just an invader. So, that's where we put our tub. So, now we are gonna get the animal impact there and hopefully reduce our invaders and get more of our native species to come back. In that same particular area, we had had a gopher problem at one point in time. And so, I think there's a lot of just feeding the soil, whether it be with the animals doing it, the manure, I think Shane wants to talk a little bit about the manure. We'll let him have that moment but... Not yet. I think that that manure breaking down and bringing the helping, you know, that soil come back to life and so many factors feeding that. Yeah. It goes together beautifully. So. It does, yes. Yeah, well that's that's really cool. Maybe you can take us into the manure, that's one of my favorite subjects and and the reason I like manure is because it's a metric that you can see with your eyes. You can scrape a stick through it and look at the the texture, the consistency and it's... It takes science and makes it like dummy down so even I can understand it, but... Well, yeah. And the thing about Riomax and as you know Owens and most people that are using Riomax is it's a it's a natural product, it's natural minerals. They're easy digestible. There's no sulfates or oxides in it. So what goes in an animal ultimately comes out of an animal and as on our goes on to our pastures on our soils and our soil microbes, if there's something in there that they don't like, they don't wanna eat, our insects don't wanna be in there, those paths won't break down. And then before we started with Riomax, I would have manure paths that would last year, two, before they had ever break down. I probably drive out to the pasture now and find manure paths that are four years old if I really wanted to find them. From prior to Rio? Prior to Rio. Yeah. But, since we switched to Rio, it takes about three weeks and those manure paths are completely gone. Yeah. So, and that was one of the first things I noticed. I'm kinda, I don't know if I would call myself a manure nerd, but that's one thing I really pay attention to on our regenerative system is, okay, how much how much manure and urine am I getting spread across our pastures? Is it getting too concentrated? And then how fast is it breaking down? Cause I wanna utilize those nutrients in I'm the glad you said that part cause that's... I'm maybe not a manure nerd, but I love to find ways to get more out of what we've already got. So if you got an acre or you got a thousand acres and you have better breakdown of your manure, you're gonna get more production because the nutrients are going into the root zone and the dung beetles are a lot of times part of that transportation mechanism to get it into the root zone. But that's what I love about regenerative agriculture is because you're basically spinning this natural flywheel And then it keeps spinning. It does, yeah. Yep, for sure. So, just back to Riomax. Anything else that you're seeing in terms of what results, hay savings, forward saving, weaning weights that sort of plays into this story? Well, yeah. Definitely, we've increased our carrying capacity on the acres that we've had. I'll go back, our first year on Rio, I think was '23, maybe '22, I can't remember. But it was a horrible, horrible dry year. So maybe an inch of rain all summer long. And by the middle of July, I mean, were browning up. But we were using Rio and our pastures were kinda hanging hanging in there. We reduced the number of acres it took to graze a cow by one and a half acres that year. And, we saved a 100 acres of pasture for the following year. Okay. In a in a major drought. We were d four drought that day. When most people were pulling off of grass early. You were doing the opposite. You were doing the opposite. So you saved an acre and a half. What is it like five acres per... Yeah. With our regenerative system, we were doing between five and six acres and then when we added Rio into it, it's been like four to four and a half. Yeah. For sure, yep. And it comes back to, you know, what you're talking about carrying capacity, it comes back to the financial side of it then. Right? It's not just regenerative ag to be doing good things for the next generation. It's actually got a financial aspect, does it? Oh, yeah. Well, I mean, we have to be financially profitable in this business if we want our... If we wanna build a legacy that will carry on to our children, our grandchildren. Nobody wants to inherit a break even business. Yeah. And we wanna pass on profitable businesses that will, you know, will surpass generations. Yeah. So, yes. So Riomax and and Rhyzogreen are a great tool to help us achieve those goals. And I'll you talk to Rhyzogreen just to introduce it to the listeners. Taking the same science of feeding microbes in the rumen of a cow with Riomax, So there's more of them, they're more active, they do a better job of extracting nutrients. We do, we use that same science in the soil to feed your native soil microbes. Here we are in North Dakota and we're feeding your North Dakotan microbes. Right? We're not trying to introduce some foreign species. We're feeding your native microbes. And and they serve to unlock the nutrients in the soil and make them plant available. So that's sort of how the science works. But what does that look like on the ranch? Does it sound like a bunch of foo foo dust like I'm saying or? No, it's not. It's real thing when you feed those soil microbes and they're able to go to work for you and release those nutrients. It's amazing what the plants will do with that natural organic, I guess you could call it fertilizer or nutrients that it's able to pull up and and utilize how much more dense and nutritious that plant will become. Yeah. Yeah. You've used it on your corn silage? We used it on corn silage this year, yep. Yep. So... How did you get along? There's a major difference. I think we're gonna be in that... We're gonna probably be anywhere from 10 to five to 10 tons more per acre than we normally would that would run-in this area. And, that's saying we were even... We were really dry in July too. So... So, it wasn't like you just had a really good year of moisturizing. No. Shut off. Yeah. For a long time. Yeah. Okay. So what would the average be then? Like a tons per acre? Between fifteen and twenty tons in this area. That would be the average. Yeah. And what what what do you... We're gonna we're gonna push that 25 to 30 ton range I think. Okay. Yeah. So, yep. The silage corn is probably 12 feet tall. Wow. So, and I I got you know, the ears on it are probably that long and Okay. It's it's pretty significant different. Well, I I think you know, we're we're not here to say you gotta move away from fertilizer or Rhyzogreen can eliminate fertilizer. But it certainly can help you unlock and and extract more goodness out of the fertilizer that makes a plant available. For sure. So if you're spending you know, every dollar you spend on fertilizer you get more out of to the plant. Because there's a high percentage of fertilizer that is not plant available, it's in a locked up form. So, you're paying for it but you're not getting the benefit of it. And the missing key or catalyst is life in the soil. Surprise again. So we talk about Q fifty at Rhyzogreen Nutrition. Our quest to increase ranch efficiency by 50%. And that's looked at from two ways, one is Rhyzogreen helping get more production per acre, we see 10 to 30% increase as an average. And then Riomax helping get 15 to 30% more savings. So we're producing more forage and we're using less forage. So you start compounding that, you do see that 50% increase in efficiency. What are you guys seeing or how does that math look like to you in day to day ranching? Was it last year we're on that webinar? What did I call it? Rancher math or monkey math? But I I'd said you know, if we'll just take a 100 cows for example, if we can use Rhyzogreen and increase our pasture forage growth by 15%, well ultimately that's 15 more cows we're able to run on the same amount of acres. Right. So and then if we add Riomax into that equation and on the conservative side, we can do another 15%. Well now we've increased our carrying capacity from a 100 cows to over a 120 cows. Yeah. With just adding Rhyzogreen and and that ultimately is not only pays for itself, return on that is really good. Yeah. Yeah. And then, you add in heavier weaning weights, better conception rates and I think our cows go into winter better than they ever have in the past condition wise is very good. That's cool. So, there are a lot more successful coming out of winter when they go in looking good. Yeah. Having some condition on them especially up here in North Dakota. I was just out at a customer's place last week and he just started on Riomax's last spring. And I went out to to the pasture and we're looking at his cows and those cows came running up and I go, wow, those cows look like they've been on Riomax and he said, they're the best they've ever looked. Is that right? Yeah. A dry year. In a dry year. Yeah. So... Yeah. So he was pretty... He was really happy with how Riomax has been working out for him. Well well, in regenerative ag you talk about efficiency. You know, efficiency is almost more important than just profitability in isolation. And there was an old guy that said to us years ago, he said he said to me, son, efficiency will never go out of style. Mark my words. And here we are probably twenty five years since he said that. And efficiency is what we're talking about here. Efficiency is what you're measuring in regenerative ag. Efficiency is not trying to you know, starve a profit out of a cow or you know, just really just go for yield and yield only. It's looking at that longer term flywheel and working with mother nature. For sure. Definitely. And you know regenerative egg too, know. We out there is this saying not too long ago you know sustainable agriculture but why would we want to sustain a resource that's been so degraded over time? We want to rebuild that resource so that I think that's when the regenerative, regenerative eggs been out forever but everyone started really pushing that term regenerative agriculture. We want to build things back up, we want to regenerate it. Yeah. But just with that mindset and using those methods of regenerative agriculture, it's amazing how much more efficient you can get just with that alone and then you add in some of these other tools that come along with it and it just makes us ranching enterprise just so much more profitable, but it's more fun to just go out look at your cows too and how they're functioning and how your soil is functioning. Yeah. I mean, you get to the fall of the year and you have ample grass that normally you would have it grazed off because... Right. And you just got more grass than you know what to do with. It's really fun to be in the ranching world when you're doing that. Yeah. I I think we're kinda getting into the the core of this and this how it makes you feel when you're working with an abundant ecosystem. And it's an abundance mindset and you're working in sync with mother nature and you're seeing the results. So talk to me a little bit about the legacy. When you get this flywheel going and you got the next generation as you alluded to earlier, how does that look? Well, I mean we obviously have a passion for agriculture and raising cattle and livestock and I think more so it's the way of life you know. And I don't know that kids really learn to appreciate that, I probably didn't as a child learn to appreciate it until you're an adult, right? So, on a day to day, maybe they don't always see the benefits of the lifestyle we're living, but I think once they maybe go to college and come back and they're gonna want to raise their family in the same sort of system and you know within the different businesses that we have going on but the base of it is the ranch you And that's kind of what started it all so I think they'll want to provide that for their family too. And not only that too, it's whenever you do something, know, when you work hard at something that you want some rewards with that too. With the way we're ranching and the products we're using and stuff like that, we get to experience those rewards hopefully our children get to see how that affects us and want to have those same feelings and strive for those same things. Yeah, that's really cool. And you think about you know, passing on to the next generation. If you pass on a wore out farm that had just had all the nutrients just mined out of it or even a cow herd that was very dependent on synthetic inputs to prop it up, you wouldn't feel that good in handing that on to your own offspring. I wouldn't know. Whereas, how do you feel handing something like this on? Oh, yeah. I'm actually, we talk about it all the time. I'm actually looking forward to our children, our son, our daughters coming back and hopefully bringing husbands back. Maybe if we continue on this path, with what we've already built, there'll be enough there to be able to have four families working on it and you know all our kids can be around. I mean that's a big wish and a big dream but that would be you know if we keep going and our land is functioning and our cattle are functioning and all these things are working together for the good of things, I could see having at least two of my children coming back and being part of it. But regardless if they come back or not, they're still taking with them what they learned. Right. And wherever that takes them at least they still have that foundation. Yeah. Well, this is great. It's a great discussion and I think it brings hope back into agriculture. Agriculture has taken a bit of a beating over the years. I think breathing some life back into it, some regenerative approach, healing the land, working with mother nature but then you know the family aspect and that regenerative, that generational aspect is heartwarming. Brings life back into agriculture. Good. Any further comments to the viewers on regenerative ag? I would just encourage if if you're curious, there's a lot of great organizations out there that promote it. North Dakota, we have the North Dakota Grazing and Coalition. There's the Leopold Sand County Foundation. NRCS is a great resource to... They're really starting to dig into some of the more regenerative things instead of just handing out money for programs. They really wanna dig into these regenerative programs and and really help guys get to a point so it's not so financially burdensome in the beginning to get some of these things going. And get it started. Yeah. Yeah. Well, good. Thanks for joining us today and thanks for joining us on this That Ranching podcast. We will see you again next Thursday morning.

Agriculture is about keeping food on the table, keeping a community, being involved in in what's happening around you, and and caring enough to be involved. Well, back to That Ranching Podcast. We're thrilled to be in Tatum, New Mexico today joined by Brad Harris sitting at the kitchen table. Brad, can you introduce yourself to the viewers? Absolutely. I'm Brad Harris and we are a five and six generation ranching farm family here in Southeastern New Mexico. Our family came here. They homesteaded here before it was even a state and we're just grateful to be here today in this hot wonderful summer day out here where it rains all the time. And and where you can definitely see a jackrabbit running across the prairie for the dirt that he throws up. So, thank you We for having we are one and a half miles from the Texas line. But this used to be Texas and then they re. Absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah. We're we're on a historic ranch. You said 5 5th And 6th. Yes. And I I like that because it it kinda alludes to the topic we wanna touch on today that is so near and dear to our heart and and everybody in ranching is the generational aspect, know. But before we get into that Brad, maybe for the viewers, tell a little bit about your operation here and your family and Absolutely. Yeah. Well, you know, we've We have a seed stock operation and we raise registered Angus bulls and we service a large area of commercial breeders that that are raising, you know, more of a top a top end commercial type herd that will, you know, perform in the feed yard, that will perform on the ranch, that will, you know, yield more, you know, more red meat for for what we're what what they're consuming here. You know, our our environment here is semi arid. I mean, mostly arid. We don't always have rain. We've gotta produce we've gotta produce as much as we possibly can and then get the most out of it. Yeah. And so with that being said, our operation is an operation where we're here to try to serve our our community, our friends, the different people that we'll meet. We work extensively on every aspect of the cattle market that we can. We operate in a cow calf operation, we operate in stocker operation, we operate in feeding cattle all the way through to the end. And we're currently working on things where we can look at the end, the packing end of it, and being able to evaluate, you know, things like nutrient density and things of that order so that we can better serve, you know, the the public. So it's really broad. I love it. And and we were just in the Texas Panhandle earlier today. So obviously, that's the home of a lot of know, lot of beef is fed there. A lot of feed lots and and I think in that area is where the originally the the way red beef is is grated. It came out of that, you know, as far as your marbling. And so I'm not here to challenge the status quo or the the way beef is graded, but it is graded on marbling which is the fat within the muscle. But Brad, you mentioned an interesting thing that I think is a very under loved subject, and and I think we're gonna see more developments on this. It's not the topic of this podcast, but it could be a future one. You said nutrient density. You know, imagine going to the store and selecting not just on fat in your meat, which is great by the way, love beef, love marbling, but but on nutrient density, perhaps iron levels, vitamin a, d. And and we've seen the maha movement make America healthy again. And suddenly, beef has gone from something that was almost frowned upon, red meat. And now, as as Secretary Kennedy said, it's at the center of the plate. And it should be. But I think we're gonna see beef taking steps further towards a health food because it is. It's it's it packs a plethora of nutrients there, but no one's getting rewarded on it. Or are they? Maybe you've got something we don't know yet. Well, you know, I think that these are these are all things that we have to put into the equations. And and the the equation that's set is we come to the table realizing that there is a a mathematical equation that we don't have the answer to. And it's there for a reason, because we're supposed to be the ones that find the answer to it. In agriculture, we have a plethora of problems. And when I'm saying problems, I'm referring more to the idea when you go to math class and the teacher's written up on the board a bunch of math problems that need to be solved. And it's not a problem, it's that it begs an answer. Yeah. And so, in today's world, we have to be careful to not fall into the trap of the idea that all problems have already been answered. There's a unique set of problems for each generation that need to be answered. They beg to be answered. That's why we're here today, and this is why we're in this world today, is to answer these questions and to find the answers to them. So, in years past, when you consider health of a nation and people working hard outside and doing all of the things that involved, you know, everything from active lifestyle to coming into the world that we're in today where we're air conditioned, thank God, and we're heated and A 106 out there. A 106 out there. Yeah. Yeah. We turn on the we turn on the water and we can get a drink. We don't have to worry about whether we've got water in the cistern or not because it rained or didn't rain. I mean, we've fought generations before us have solved a lot of equations and given us answers. Now we come into this scenario, agriculture today, with problems that beg answers. And so we have things, health things that are going on. We have climate change that's going on. We have all kinds of of of things that are, you know, beyond our control that if we come together, we have an opportunity to to find answers. We were created to come up with answers. Yeah. I I think it's really our our responsibility to lean into some of these issues that face us. And I've been accused sometimes of having a dream that might only ever be a dream. One of them is in in the feedlot starter phase, know, days is to get by with minimal antibiotic usage. Not because I'm against antibiotics, But on the flip side. I'm all for a healthy end product that relies less on on Stimuli or props. Okay, so and I've said I have a dream that we can get away from antibiotics at that highest risk, highest stress time of that calf's life. People laugh at me and they probably should. But I will say that once you have a dream and you're chasing a goal that is, according to the general public unreasonable and not possible, you will find that doors start opening. That's right. And I think to your point, we have problems in different maybe different set of challenges in different generations. But I think it dovetails well, Brad, into what we'd like to discuss today. And that is, if I could say, there's a problem in agriculture that me or you alone can't do anything about. We can we can't change the world, but we can maybe influence some things. And that is, I walk into your your ranching operation, your house, and I'm I'm met by your family, and there's there's a unmistakable generational vibe. And it's quite different to what you find in a lot of ranches. I am privileged to get on a lot of ranches all over the Western 0.5 of The US and Canada. But we see the youth moving away. They're going to the the coasts, or they're going to the cities, or they're going to the oil fields. And fair enough. Maybe they've got their reasons because they're looking to earn a a better living or is that something we could talk about today, Brad? Absolutely. You know, Trevor, I've been blessed with the the opportunity to raise eight children. And I have currently two daughters and and six boys. And we've sent them, you know, the older ones that are college age have been, most of them been through college and, you know, and and studied, you know, studied ag programs and with the intent of trying to come back and find a way to make viable things that that don't seem viable. To make possible what seems impossible. So I mean the way that the way that I like to explain it the best that it it makes sense to me is there's ag industry and then there's agriculture. And an ag industry is is a beautiful tool in the hand of agriculture. But ag industry having agriculture in its hand is a really bad mistake. Because industry is focused on on the on the return on investment. It's it's about stocks. It's about portfolios and how things operate. Agriculture is about keeping food on the table. Keeping a community. Being involved in in what's happening around you and and caring enough to be involved. Yeah. And so, ag industry developed out of agriculture. And and and so we're in a time when the focus has gotten to be about ag industry and how do we push push push push push and turn this into a bottom line and that be the only focal point. But we forget that it's agriculture is where the grid is. Agriculture is where people meet people. That's where the the consumer has the opportunity to put a face behind the producer. To connect back to the land that they may not ever know, they might not ever you know, own, but they have an opportunity to say, is a family. This is a real people. This is generations. Well, I I think there's a there's a quote iron sharpeneth iron and you've just said something that kind of hits me because at Rhyzon Nutrition our purpose and you can find it online. I'll say it right now is driving profitability back to rural North America. So I say that and I'm like, boy, what you've just said, that that sounds more like ag industry. And industry has a lot less of a of a you know, it's it's got less life to it than what you say ag culture, agriculture. Culture versus industry. And I've been thinking about this and and we've been talking about it at with the family the family business and You know we we're not going to back down from our drive to help impact profitability in a ranching or farming operation because that's part of you know having a functioning ecosystem and keeping the youth But it's much bigger than USD or Canadian dollars. It's much bigger than that. It includes that, but I mean I I think we need to be relooking at our purpose in the light of is it more about and I'm gonna throw this out there. You can shoot holes in it. Is it more about helping folks earn a good living in ag and live a good life and leave a good legacy? How does that sound? You know, think that that is a a That it's noble. It's noble in task and purpose. You know, and along the same lines of earn a good living, it put it into into a context. You know, you can go and and a person can earn a good living. If I'm a doctor or I'm a lawyer, can earn a good living. But that doesn't mean that my kids are gonna get anything from that. They are gonna have to become a doctor or a lawyer Yeah. And then they're gonna have to step up and do their own thing. Now, in agriculture, if we can help them do the very things that you spoke of along with give them a vision. A vision. A vision for that future. Yeah. Then then out of the vision for the future that that we can help them get. Then they will have the strength, the fortitude, the grit necessary to pursue it and and see it come to pass. So when I when I think about a vision, I think about you know an idea that that encompasses the desire of the heart first. And and the desire of the heart is to is to be needed and have a purpose. Because you can you can you can fall short of a million things, but if you have a purpose and you're needed, you'll find a way. As a as a parent, as someone who is going to lay something and and and hopefully an inheritance up for my children or maybe a dream up for my children. You know, I have to be able to articulate and hand off a purpose. And if if we take a purpose like agriculture and we say, you know, a purpose in agriculture is is is multifaceted. But the first and most important purpose in agriculture is to reconnect the populace, the people back to the provider, the source. And so in agriculture, we are a direct link to connect people back to God, To the Creator. And when we do that, we find that in that, we have an opportunity to teach people how to be giving and how to care and put other people's needs before ourselves. And when we do that, then we begin a process of building what maybe maybe the maybe one of the hardest things in in in our society in in agriculture as a whole is helping the next generation build on a foundation that won't be divided. And that begins with marriage. And so, if we can put purpose before we put marriage, then marriages hold together. Then families hold together. And then people grow. So, to find purpose is and meaning is is where a vision is. And if you don't believe that there's a purpose and a meaning for the next generation in agriculture, then you're you're pouring cold. You're pouring water on the fire. Because there is a purpose and a meaning. You just don't believe it yet. And if we paint the picture that that it ends all with us and you know, the last thing I want is you know, going back into the seventies and the eighties and things of that order. And even the nineties, know, people, young people would leave the farm and they'd be like, when I got off that tractor, when I turned 18, was the last time I fed those cattle. Told I my dad, here's the keys. I really appreciate it. We'll see you later. I'm gonna go make a living for myself. I'm not I'm tired of doing this. To where I wanna see the kids, you know, get off of whatever they were doing, the tractor or the horse and say, man, I loved it today. It was hard and it was great. You know, I'm glad we got to do this dad. The funnest times I ever had is when we all work together. Yeah. You know, I want that to be a culture, a legacy we pass on and we wanna give them an opportunity to do that. And that's what I appreciate about Riomax and what you guys are doing. Because for that very reason is how we met. I mean, because of the point I was looking. Was saying, hey, how in the world am I gonna take these yearling bulls and keep flesh on them and while they're in breeding season to my customers and you know, these guys, know, it's it's nobody wants to be feeding in in in April and May and June, know, but we don't have steady rains and we don't know what's gonna happen and and so how do we keep these bulls in good shape? And so that brought me to Riomax. And and so with that in mind, it has filled a whole lot of other equations and help me find answers to that help me be more successful and help my customers be successful. And so that in mind is what what started me on Riomax is how can I help them be successful with their operation? Notice he he keeps using this word help. And and I love that because as long as we're helping folks Yep. And the like the Riomax dealers are driven to help. Yep. Make an impact not just financially, but also that that leaving a legacy being good stewards of the land, but having something to pass on and and and and giving a vision as you said, I think is is exactly what we need, but to your point, if if we can create a Ag system, agriculture that has a true culture to it. Where young people are thrilled they're attracted to stay. It's not easy. Nothing worthwhile in life is. Nothing that I found anyway. But I think you'll find that with purpose and and a vision that it'll attract the youth back. Imagine more young people coming back into ranching and farming. I mean how many towns have I driven through in the last two decades dead or dying towns. Right. And again, can't change the world, but can we can we light a fire in people's hearts to show that there there is a way. There is way we can do this and the answer is not necessarily Rhyzor or Trevor but can we be part of it maybe but if nothing else if we can work to bring the culture back in to ag, so we've got agriculture and it's worthwhile, the juice is worth the squeeze. Absolutely. You know, Trevor, this is one of the things that I'm really passionate about. And I was reading a book the other day. There was an Andy Andrews book. And one of the quotes he was talking about is he was talking about in history that we've been sold a bill of goods, an idea that, you know, children were were going to overpopulate the world to the point that the world wouldn't have enough resources. And and he went through and and he really he did a lot he did the research and then just showed. He said, look, there has never been children that starved due to the fact there weren't enough resources available except for the fact when there were tyrannical governments and people doing evil things. Because always always there's been enough. And we've risen to the to the occasion to help and to come forward with what was necessary to supply what was needed. Now, that being said, in agriculture, we've taken the same we took the same bad medicine. We said the farm's not big enough to support us all. The ranch won't support us. We don't have enough money. We don't have enough capital. We don't have enough, you know, there's not enough land for everybody. We can only have one or two children. Maybe one can come back and have this thing. And we bought into that bill of goods as a whole and we have to change. If we wanna change what's out there, have to change what's in here. So we've gotta we've gotta be believers ourselves. We have to believe that we don't have to be dividers of things but we can be multipliers of it. And, if we can surround ourselves with that kind of a view and believe that, we can see it. I promise you, you know, the inventions of the days, the the the you know, everything from our our internet to our I mean, you can sit there and ask your phone questions and it can search the databases of everywhere and then give it to you instantaneously now. And all of these things were not answered, you know, ten years ago. And and twenty years ago, they weren't in people's mind. But once they started becoming in their mind, they became a reality. You know? And so, what can we do as agriculture if we are willing just to dream a little bit and get a little vision beyond. Instead of looking at it and saying, hey man, I'm already sold on the whole idea that this next generation just will not have enough. You know? And so, we're out here in the desert so to speak. It's getting hotter. It's been hotter. We get rains, you know. We have more drought years than rainy years. But that's not that's not a reason for me to tell my kids, look, there's not gonna be enough for all of us. I look at them and say, hey, you know what? You have You were put into this world to be To to find answers and to be an answer. You didn't break this world. This world has has strategic math problems for you to find answers to. And when you do that, the world will be better because of it. And it's gotta start here. Well, think that, almost wraps us up. Very inspiring. Yes, there's challenges. Yes, there's problems. But I think as Brad has alluded to, it's on us in agriculture to lean in. And you know, you spoke about the the fallacy or the the idea, crazy idea that we would run out of resources. I don't support that. And we always have a saying, you know, get more out of what you've already got. The audience has possibly heard me say that before. Get more out of every acre. Get more out of every mouthful. Get more out of every cow. Get more out of your ranching operation. And the first thing you need to get more out of though, before all that happens, is get more out of your frame of reference and your you know perhaps how you see the world and I think Brad is giving us some awesome ideas and how to think differently and give the next generation the hope they need to stay in. Yes. We need resilience. Yes. We need, toughness, but, it's a great industry, and, I'm proud to be a small puzzle piece in this. Brad, as we wrap up, I I wanna thank you for having us here at Tatum, New Mexico. And as always, thanks for joining us, and we will see you next Thursday morning. Thank you.

The risk is greater than ever. Record prices are awesome, but the financial risk and liability of owning these calves, it's intense and it's stressful. Well, welcome back to That Ranching Podcast. Today, we're lucky to be in Lubbock, Texas at Texas Tech sitting here with Doctor Ryan Rathmann. Doc, introduce yourself to the listeners. Yeah, you bet. Thank you for having me. My name is Ryan Rathmann. So I'm a beef cattle professor here in the animal and food sciences program. And so most of my career I've spent coaching the livestock judging team. But by trade, I'm I'm a reproductive physiologist and a rumenant nutritionist and really, really just passionate about moving the beef industry forward, whether that be in on repro or nutrition or health or meat science and growth and development. Just an enthusiast for the industry and really enjoy research and research that's practical, right? That can truly make a difference for our stakeholders that being cattle producers at every level. Well I really respect what you've just said and I think we have a strong alignment right out of the gate when you said just doing things to move the industry forward. You're doing it in your capacity, we're doing it in ours. Yes sir. But the net result is the people we serve, the beloved beef industry here in America. You know, I first met Doctor Rathmann at Hemphill Beef Conference in Canadian, Texas April this year, April twenty twenty six. Ever since that time, I've wanted to sit down and have a podcast to help glean and have you share with our viewers some of the insights that for me was an 'Aha' moment back in April. So doc, if you could just speak a little bit about in my terms that energy redirection. I think that's cool both for the cow calf folks and for the feedlot space. It applies to both. Absolutely. Yeah. Let me talk on that just a little bit and then you can redirect me if you need me to go a different direction. Okay? So, yeah. I I really enjoy evaluating beef cow efficiency and trying to figure out, you know, a lot of the talks like the talk I gave that day honestly was aimed at trying to decipher the most optimal cow size as defined by mature weight. And then also her milk production level. That's kind of a cow herd level, because we're talking about means. Not every cow is gonna be the same size, the same milk level. Right? And so we're talking about striking that optimum for your cow herd. Then we do a lot of research as well looking at individual cows and differences amongst them that make some more energetically efficient versus others, right? And so I think in the long run we've got to get a better handle on this. So from a genetic selection standpoint, we can start to identify these genetic lines that are more energetically efficient, that do more with less, that are, you know, healthier and just, you know, convert God's grass to more total pounds of beef and maybe specifically pounds of lean at the very end of the system. And so that's where my heart's at. That's where I like investigating. And where I think honestly some of the low hanging fruit is in our beef industry. If we're going to make really true strides in reducing our carbon footprint to produce a pound of beef, I think it lies a lot in what we're about to talk about. And so that day, you know, I think what sparked your interest was talking about the cow. I think first you need to you need to take a step back and say, hey, what is the cow spending most of her energy on? And most of her energy, about seventy percent of it in the in her production year is gonna be spent on maintenance. And so, just to make sure we're all on the same page, maintenance energy is basically if you fed a cow, x number of calories and she neither gained nor lost weight, she you'd be feeding her at maintenance. Right? And so when you'd start to break that maintenance requirement down, what I was actually mostly after that day was discussing how much of it is utilized by her GI tract. So I kind of missed the point, the main point you were making. No its all good, we'll get there. We'll get there. This is like my catch up day. About thirty eight to fifty four percent of a cow's energy consumption that's dedicated towards maintenance is going to be consumed by the liver and the GI tract. And a big part of that is the liver. I generally I just generally round it and say the liver consumes about twenty five percent. You know, the liver is very expensive simply because, so many of our metabolic reactions are occurring there. The storage of nutrients, and then the acquisition of them and the distribution of them to the target tissues across the cow's body. And so it's huge in dairy cows. Cows that give more milk are going to have larger livers. It goes hand in hand. Even progeny out of cows that have more milk, They're say steer and heifer progeny in the feedlot. They're actually going to have larger livers and their maintenance requirement will be a little higher. So consequently, if you look at their feed conversion rates, they're not quite as good. And so there's reasons not just at the cow herd level, but all the way through the receiving and the feedlot phase to try to optimize milk production levels so we can optimize liver size. Right? And then, the GI tract, you know, the four stomachs and the small intestine, large intestine, that'll that'll consume another sixteen to twenty four percent. So anyway, so that's kind of a big part of what we were talking about that day. But I want to let's take a little look into maybe the other components. Right? Physical activity is one. And it gets counted as maintenance requirement. And so if you have cows, cows could have anywhere from say ten to fifty percent of their calories they consume actually be expended on on foraging. Right? Walking around. They walk miles and miles and miles. They may Cows being cows. Yeah. Exactly. They they may walk more miles than an international soccer player. Right? I think they say an international soccer player that plays in the midfield runs about ten miles a game. So that cow probably has that soccer player beat. But, I used to do a lot of confined cow calf system research. And when you put cows in confinement and make them a couch potato like a feedlot steer, you reduce their maintenance energy requirements by about twenty five percent. We don't often think about that. But probably a lot of your customers that y'all serve are in the western half of the United States. And their cows are spread out. They've got to walk a long ways to water and a long ways to grass or long ways to that supplement depending if you're trying to use it for grazing distribution purposes. That eats up a lot of calories. Right? And a lot of times you can't do anything about that. Right? But it is important to understand that that's part of the maintenance requirement. So another one that we talked about that day that's big is the immune system. And so the immune system on a daily basis will consume about fifteen to maybe upwards of forty or even fifty percent. Wow. Of the energy that a cow consumes on a daily basis. Right? And so when you look at that spread, the cows that may only be consuming fifteen percent, those are the healthy cows. Right? They're not mounting an acute immune response to a disease per se that's in heavy abundance or pathogen that's heavy abundance in her environment at the time. And so, you know, she doesn't have to spend quite as much. What I think your viewership needs to understand though is the like I talked about with the liver being energy demanding. Right. The immune system is highly energy demanding. And more specifically, it demands glucose. Glucose is, you know, tremendously important for things like marbling deposition. And so when you when you shift that that precursor away from something like marbling to having to take care of the priority which is survival. Mounting an immune immune response because that's more important. It takes it takes priority. Then we can burn a lot of calories and divert it from maybe our own production objectives for growth and for marbling deposition. I think maybe I quoted that day one thing you told me, Trevor, that was kind of neat. In some like lighter weight calf studies, There's calves that can burn up to a pound of glucose in just a few to several hours, when they're trying to combat something like BRD. That's huge. Right? I mean, they could literally lose weight and you can understand why. Their intake goes down. That's the problem. It's kind of a a double edged sword. Right? The calf's sick. He eats less. He gets less calories. But then his immune system is also demanding more fuel. And so it kind of goes backwards and that's kind of what sends him a tailspin. That's why it's important to keep him healthy in prevention. You know dependent upon what they're having to deal with in their local environment that immune system can really really consume a lot of fuel. It's very enlightening to me and it's kind of a no brainer when you stop and think about it. This conserving, better optimizing available energy because we're talking the same diet. Whether it's a feedlot calf or a cow out on pasture, it's the same diet but it's what are we doing to better optimize the available energy. That's right. Help us and the viewers maybe unpack that a little bit as to how does the body know to say, Hey, we're good here. Let's use this for weight gain. No, that's a good question. Yeah. I guess maybe the best way I can explain it is survival or Darwinism takes priority, right? You think about our own needs. It's kind of hard to maybe explain how does the body per se prioritizes it other than we just have to understand that mother nature knows best. Yes. And mother nature says, if you can't survive, then everything else like reproduction Comes second. That's out the window. Yeah. Right? And I don't care what we're talking about physiologically. That's the case. And the immune system is going to take priority over everything else. I guess maybe that's the best way I could explain it without getting too scientific. That's cool. I like the way you're talking to me so I can understand. But so mother nature is doing the prioritizing. Yes. We don't totally understand how she does but she knows. Yes. So what comes second after the immune system? Yeah. Would say probably after that the priority is on the GI tract. If if the if that cow can't take what she consumes and and and, you know, and put it to use Yeah. Then the the immune system never gets to use it, right? Guess you could make the argument that perhaps the GI tract is first and the immune system is second. The only reason I may say that's a little bit different is because when you get a cow on a negative energy balance, she'll actually lose, visceral organ weight. And so the GI tract shrinks. It kind of goes hand in hand with intake, but the liver will shrink. Right? So you start looking at a cow that's going backwards from a say a BCS five to four to three to a two. She actually drops five to ten percent, with each of those full body score drops in her daily maintenance energy requirement. So it's actually cheaper to operate a cow that's thin as opposed to optimal or especially fat. But the reason is because her visceral organ weight shrunk. Right. And so, mostly as she goes backwards, it's going to be muscular atrophy. Just like if you or I were sick, you know, we're laid up for a few days with the stomach flu and we're throwing up and, even though there's probably other areas of our body we wish would lose weight on. We probably realized that after a few days, we've probably lost a little bit of muscle mass. That cow as she's going backwards, she'll start to catabolize a lot of that skeletal muscle and these other protein tissues because most of these organs are mainly protein based. She'll catabolize that and redirect it towards energy when there's times in her diet when she didn't have enough energy to fulfill it. So I'd say the the GI tract's a major priority. The immune system a major priority. And then a lot of the other factors are secondary. You know, we didn't I didn't really mention it, Trevor, but you know, obviously it kind of goes without saying. But things like operating the cow's heart, her lungs, her brain, these obviously are a major priority. Right? After that, we can look towards that cow, dedicating calories towards growth or you know, marbling or even milk production, right? She'll sacrifice and compromise milk production way before she's gonna sacrifice being able to operate her organs or her immune system. Would you say reproduction comes before or after milk production? I would actually say reproduction comes after. Yes. Yeah. And we use that expression, a cow milked herself thin. Right? And it's those thin cows that we wind up being more likely to diagnose open in the fall Yes. And have to cull, right? And so I'd say, to go back to maybe the mother nature sentiment, I would say that mother nature says, take care of the progeny you've got before I equip you with another one. Yeah. That's a quote that we'll keep. That's brilliant. So, just to that point, we've seen countless times over the last two decades with cows or heifers are on an incline coming into breeding, they'll have much better success than even if it's a fat cow on a decline. Because at that point, mother nature is prioritizing. Is that correct? Yeah, I think so. I mean, there's probably a little bit of debate to that but I agree with that. There's probably some signaling mechanisms in regards to just caloric intake, energetic feedback back to the brain that then maybe influences the endocrine system that's, know, hormonally getting that cow prepped and in position to reestablish cyclicity so she can hopefully get bred that, in absence of it or in a negative energy balance probably, are a little different. Right? It may be more meaningful maybe say in like sheep than cattle. I would say in cattle it's probably a little more just her status. Her current condition status maybe even more so than like, hey, today she was in a negative energy balance. Right? And so to me, I definitely agree. I'd rather have a cow going up and expect more reproductive success than going down. The challenge in a production system is a lot of times, we're going this way and and you look at a dairy cow. Right? That's her and that's why they suffer so much from reproductive standpoints. Right. They prove your point. Know, how how how difficult it is fertility wise to get these dairy cows re bred because there's such a huge demand for milk. The the time of the year when you want a beef cow in the best condition is when she calves. Reason being is because it's the cheapest to recondition her prior to that when she's dry Doesn't have a calf on her side. And, now I basically built in an insurance policy for that cow. If she's say at a six, then I can afford for her to lose weight while she's lactating. If I don't have, you know, the absolute maximum nutrition to support it. And she's still at a five. Right? Where your break your break over in a lot of climates is probably that five to four. If we slip to a four and we're still in the middle of the breeding season, we should probably expect our pregnancy rates are going be suppressed, right? And it's environmentally dependent. That may be more so true up north than it is in the southeast per se. But, but yeah, no doubt about it. I agree with you Trevor that, you know, ideally, we'd love that cow to be on the up tick. It's just really hard because she's Yeah. She's trying to to lactate and she's trying to re breed. And if it's a cow less than five, she may even have growth left still to be accomplished in her life. And so there's a lot of priority there. That that, that sixty to ninety days postpartum is when her milk peaks. Yep. And so there's just a lot of demand. It's pretty hard to provide enough nutrition. And mother nature, obviously, we can get drought pretty pretty quickly too. That that it's tough to contend with. So I I think just having, you know, a good management plan in place where you've got the right supplemental program and you're fully utilizing everything that we understand could be beneficial from a reproductive success standpoint and health standpoint would be to a producer's best interest. Well, I think the take home message for the listeners is really looking at whether that cow is out grazing or whatever the program is, there is an unspoken prioritization of demands and survival comes first and then it flows on from there. But let's now just jump into a different space and talk about starting calves in a feedlot the first sixty days and how that whole energy redirection plays in in that space. Yeah, when we jump into that conversation, my biggest deal would probably be, hey, we don't want to be behind the eight ball per se. We want to, like I said, be good planners and say, let's do we have this calf's health and immune system optimized prior to coming into that stressful period. Right? And and no doubt about it, nutrition at that moment is really important. But like I said, a lot of them are slow to maybe start on feed if they've never been exposed to creep. And so having a cow herd that's got the right mineral program, having those calves, pre weaning exposed, you know, to good mineral vitamin and energy and protein, program, certainly sets them up for success once that once that stress comes. But once that once that does come, I completely agree with you. I mean, I think for me the priority initially is palatability. We're trying to teach that calf how to eat. And so, whatever nutritional company you're dealing with, you you want to go with one that, you feel like is is making that a priority in my opinion. In terms of just, is this a palatable feed stuff or supplement? Do they want to come to the bunk? Does it engage them? Because it's you're intake dependent. We can talk all day about all these energy demands. But if they're not eating it. If they're not eating calories then it's going to be a tough battle. You're going get into health problems. We had an old nutritionist that always used to say, to your point, you want a calf healthy, hungry, and up at the bunk. And so if we don't get it up to the bunk, we have much bigger problems at play. I agree with you. But I love where you're going. You start with the foundation. You got to have foundational immune health and mineral status, whatever company that you're getting that from. But then coming into the feed yard, however you'd you know, whether they've been pre weaned or weaned or shipping or co mingling, sale barns, all of this is a huge stress event. Absolutely. And fourteen to twenty one days post stress event, we do have disease breaks. I mean, it's very typical. So maybe talk a little bit about how the energy redirection and a good health status plays into that. Yeah. Doing the best we can. Absolutely. That first couple of leaks I agree with what you said. It kind of depends on the pathogen, right? Something like mycoplasma may break a little bit later, where you may have other BRD pathogens that break a little sooner. So there's a lot, you know, a lot of pathogens have different time courses, but, no doubt about it. Just making certain that we get adequate energy intake And then, perhaps more so even, or just as importantly like that mineral component, that vitamin component and making and making certain we got a lot of protein. We hadn't really mentioned protein. We've been talking energy. But, make no doubt about it, the immune system, although a big fuel consumer, heavily dependent upon protein. Right? A lot of the products that they're producing to try to defense that calf against those pathogens are going be built with protein. Right? Right. And so we got to make certain that's a priority too. Balancing, you know, their ruminodegradable protein versus that escape protein, to make certain that we've got that in concert. But I think if we have challenges during that time frame, obviously it could compromise their maximum immune efficiency. And so they you may get higher pull rates. But I think and that's kind of obvious, right? But I think in the long run maybe what we don't think as much about is setting that calf up for long term success. You know, not getting to the point where they're, you know, become a chronic. Yes. Making certain that if we do have to treat them that they can rebound and they don't have any, you know, chronic damage. Right? It doesn't go so severe that we get long term liver abscesses or lung abscesses that compromise that calf's growth and efficiency. Those are the calves that are really the killers as far as Right. On the bottom line, besides the mortality. But, and then what I was talking about was maybe more so any days spent of that calf quote unquote unhealthy or where they've got to devote closer to that forty or fifty percent of the calories they're consuming versus the fifteen percent. That's a calf that's not, you know, necessarily set up as well probably from a marbling standpoint in long run. They're not quality grade as well. So yeah, there's a lot of carcass effects are decided And you've seen that. Yes. A lot of carcass effects are decided, you know, one hundred and fifty, two hundred days prior to You spoke about the long term. So just to zone in on that first sixty days, what we do in that sixty days getting that calf up to the bunk, getting it on feed, helping the immune system. How much does that actually impact the trajectory throughout that calf's days in the feed yard? Oh, it could be huge, right? And so I think a lot of times when we look at scientific research from a practical or applied standpoint, they'll try to do comparisons where they put them in silos and say, these are calves that never got treated. This is how they performed carcass weight wise, quality, you know, grid distribution. And then, you know, pulled once, you know, and then pulled twice and then pulled more than that. Right? And they'll try to make those applied comparisons. I mean, it's massive. I mean, it's hundreds and hundreds of dollars difference between these calves that haven't been treated and these calves that are that have been treated multiple times. And so when you add up the the medicine costs from antibiotic perspective plus, you know, the reduction or depression in long term growth and performance and feed conversion, their cost of gain is much higher. And again, a lot of times you generally always see a carcass weight difference amongst those comparisons that I stated. Okay. It's probably the biggest thing right now, right? When carcass is worth, whatever the market's at two, two twenty, two twenty five, two thirty today per pound and you can see a eight, ten, twenty, thirty pound difference in a lot of those comparisons, maybe more. We're talking about a significant amount of money. The stakes are high. Excuse the pun. But the stakes are high. And for the feeder, he may not necessarily be making a whole bunch more margin. It's good conditions for the cow calf man and we appreciate that. They've had tough times not that many years ago So we're we appreciate that. But maybe you can speak a little bit with what's at stake and how much these calves cost. They're not making a whole lot more margin. Can you speak to managing that risk? The risk is greater than ever, right? And that's the tough part about the cattle business today. Record prices are awesome, but the financial risk and liability of owning these calves, it's intense and it's stressful. And so to me, there's never been a more logical time to get better at your craft. And when I say that, I'm saying your nutritional craft, your vaccination schedule, your preventative measures. Right? And a lot of that is based on nutrition. And so just make certain you're working with a company or nutritionist that can help guide in your specific environment and management conditions. A good plan so that that that you can protect that investment. Margins have been pretty bloody here in feedlot sector the last couple of years. And, you know, I think, maybe one thing worth mentioning is, you know, in today's climate, you know, those feeders are basically forced to feed them for forever to try to get on the better side of this profit equation. Right. Because that initial investment is so much. They've just got to get so much carcass weight out of them to ever come out in the black. And so that again, that just elevates the importance of making certain that health is on the up and up. Right. To try to protect that. We talked about maybe the overall just well-being of the animal and things that happen in the first few weeks of receiving. I don't know. I'm speculating a little bit. But we're talking about organ integrity and we're talking about things that may have some influence on late deads. And so you know, given the fact that we're taking these cattle such extreme weights, you know, we probably need to consider that the implications of what's going on those first few weeks. Foundational. Yeah. That's a good that's a great way to put it. Foundational. Maybe foundational to being able to support cattle that can go to that heavy of a weight. And just thinking practically speaking, we're sitting in on the second floor of the animal science building here at Texas Tech. But it's supported by a foundation, right? You couldn't build a structure like this. And as far as the floor coverings and this nice office we're in, it's all great but the foundation came first to support that. It all has a huge impact. Just to wrap up here, Doctor. Rathmann, can you speak to the mood of the beef industry right now? There's a lot going on. There's a lot of risk. There's a lot of optimism. Well, I mean, yeah, there's a lot of factors at play right now. I I think we still got to be excited about the beef industry no matter what happens. I mean, the people that are a part of it, they choose to be a part of it because fits their lifestyle, fits their passions. Yeah. And I know some days can be tough. It's fun because, you're balancing the science and physiology that we talked about and somehow doing your very best to understand all that. But at the end of the day, figure out how to translate that to just good practical everyday decisions. Yeah. That can, keep our cattle healthier and, keep them more profitable, consequently. But, it's a great time to be in the beef industry. I'll say this, I felt like when I went to college in the nineties, I'm forty six now. But when I was in college as an animal science student, I almost felt like I was discouraged by my professors to go actually raise cattle. Because in that period of time, the beef system in the United States probably only generated about thirty five, forty dollars of total profit across every segment. Okay? So that shared cow, calf, stocker, feedlot, packer. Even though I know I was studying it, I was still yet discouraged. And so, let's fast forward now to two thousand twenty six. There's nearly nine hundred dollars worth of profit built into every animal that we generate in this industry that's shared across these segments. So no doubt about it. The cow calf guy is getting probably even more than that, last year or this year. And then at the other's expense based on, you know, inventory. Right. Packers and feedlots, taking it in the shorts a little bit. But, let's look at the bigger picture and appreciate the fact that we have built the premium protein in the world and we have tremendous consumer demand that has gifted us the opportunity to build in nine hundred dollars worth of profit. And so I know some days are tough, but that to me should be positive information to push you forward and say there's always opportunity to make money. Yeah. Well, you pushed through in the nineties and I think we can take a cue from that. There is optimism. It's worth being passionate about. People are still voting with their checkbooks. The beef demand is is really strong. Great words of wisdom you shared with us, doctor Rathmann. That wraps up our That Ranching podcast. We'll see you next Thursday.

And about fifty percent of them would laugh in my face when I said, I'm trying to figure out a way to help feedlots reduce or eliminate antibiotic usage. Welcome back to that ranching podcast where you join us around the kitchen table to talk about things that matter to men and women in ranching. Well, I say ranching. This is probably a got a little bit of a twist to it. Twain, maybe you can, tell the viewers where we're going in this podcast. Absolutely. Well, we're excited to announce the launch of our new Turboboost program, which some of you may have heard of the Turboboost Paste. We relaunched early May of twenty twenty five. It's been quite a journey over the last about a year and a half, but sure. Including running out of paste. Maybe you want to talk about the new tub we're launching. Yeah. So the turbo boost program is in short a tool for feed yards, starting calves, high risk calves. It includes a dose of paste at arrival and then sixty days exposure to the tub. But before I go into that, can I go like way back? Yeah. The history here. Alberta, about fifteen years ago, this is long before paste or the Turboboost program, we had a customer that, had a baby calf that was sick and they had given it everything. Shots of every antibiotic known to man. Couldn't turn it around. Finally, one evening, he dragged it into a barn with its mother and he was about to go in for the night and he said it's gonna be dead in the morning. He thought one last thing. He thought, you know, that Riomax tubs that he was using, if he could somehow get that into the calf. He took a hammer and a chisel and he went at whatever ten eleven at night and he chiseled himself a chunk of tub. Went into the kitchen, mixed it with hot water, dissolved it, put it in a drench gun and drenched that calf, shut the barn door, went to bed and said to himself, I'll I'll drag that dead calf out in the morning. He went out in the morning, opened the door and that calf was up sucking. He said to us, you guys have got to figure out how you can get a condensed concentrated form of the tub into a paste. So that's where the paste came from and we called it as we launched last year twenty twenty five, the tub in a tube. Obviously, very concentrated form. But to that formula, we added a few extra sciences to help stimulate and and get an immune response. And that's kind of where we started seeing some traction, didn't we, Twain? Yeah. It was last winter coming into spring, we started to see some guys doing the the paste, the Turboboost paste in in the feed yard situation, in sick pens or in receiving cattle, and and even some alongside the PG three sixty and the Repel tubs. So that got us thinking. For about two years, I've been researching and pursuing a dream. I have a dream, and maybe that's all it'll ever be. But that is to help guys starting calves to wean themselves off of dependence on antibiotics. Which means against life. And so maybe it's all it'll never be more than a dream. But when you start pursuing something and chasing something, you find doors open. And I would sit down with the brightest minds in the industry. PHD nutritionists. And about fifty percent of them would laugh in my face when I said, I'm trying to figure out a way to help feedlots reduce or eliminate antibiotic usage. But the other half, when I said, I need a new sheriff in town, all barrels blazing, the best of the best, all natural of course, no drugs, no chemicals. Over the course of time, we found that there were different technologies and sciences that we could use and then incorporated them. So when we've done these trials on the Turboboost program in the south, all the data was collected from using that, you might say, the Repel tub with all the antioxidants, everything you expect in the Riomax tub plus a few additives. It's got a bumper level of the Riomune yeast which ties up and flushes out the bad guys. Scour causing bacteria. Bad bacteria just gets rid of the bad guys. Then a bumper level of the key trace minerals that really fuel the immune system. And then finally, probably the most important thing is the Turbomune, which Turbomune is an immune response activation. And it's like an on switch for the immune response. So think of it, instead of a sick calf getting antibiotics, that sick calf is now empowered to fight off disease challenges from the inside out. We're not saying it's a silver boat, it's not a cure all, but the data we've seen so far is very exciting. Absolutely and just to touch on that, so the tub, when we set out, this is not specifically designed for Riomax customers necessarily. Exactly. You know, guys that are if you're running your cattle on year round, and weaning them on already, you don't necessarily need to look at upgrading to the Turboboost tub. Although, we'll touch on that in a minute. We got guys that are are doing that. But, yeah, that's a good point. Really, it was mainly designed for guys that are bringing in high risk calves, un weaned calves that are they're being commingled, they have a suppressed immune system, and typically low mineral levels coming in, and and they need a they need a boost as the Turboboost program would would imply. But Trevor, you were telling me earlier, do you want to explain how you've you know, guys wondering, is it a fit for me? How you how you let them qualify themselves. So the the biggest things we've seen on the trials we've done, you know, less treats, less doctoring, less retreats, less death loss, and more weight gain. And I say to guys, if any of those four are important to you, then Turboboost program is important to you. The other thing,Twain, I would say that who who it may not be a fit for, let's say it's a Riomax guy. Those calves have been on the the Riomax program since they were, in the fetus stage and, they may not need to to use this. In in talking to one cattle trader in Montana last week, He said, boy, if anybody has any questions or doubt as to the mineral status or the immune status or you don't know where those calves came from or you know where they were commingled or shipped from. If there is a question and with the size of the prize, in other words the risk with what these calves are worth, he said he would definitely do it. Worth worth the investment. Hundred hundred percent. Yeah. And and actually just to put some numbers to that, so the Turboboost program, what it looks like, it's a dose, a thirty cc dose of the Turboboost paste on receiving the cattle, and then a one round of tubs out to the cattle. We're looking at one tub per twenty five head, and that's gonna last you between forty five and sixty days at average consumption. And so total cost all in, we're looking at about forty bucks a head for per calf. You know, bringing bringing them in, getting them the paste, as well as the tub through that initial sixty day period. With those numbers in mind, you know, a forty a forty dollar program and given that calf the best chance, you know, setting the trajectory for its entire life in the feed yard, let's bounce back to some of the summer data we have. We did a bunch of trials in the south just because that's where calves are moving. So we got Oklahoma and we got Texas Panhandle which you know, there's a lot of cattle fed there. And then we got East Texas. Oklahoma, we had the Turboboost tub program versus control that happened to be another stress tub. The numbers were as follows. Treat rate, five point two percent on Turboboost calves versus fifteen point two on the other program. And then weight gain, two point two pounds a day versus one point eight eight. Now we're not guaranteeing weight gain, but when you have a healthy calf, more of that energy does go to weight gain versus just feeding the immune system. Just got an update from the Texas Panhandle trial after the sixty days. Out of two hundred nine head, one dead, so point four percent death loss versus ten percent on the same the brothers and sisters of these calves from the same ranch in the same feed yard last year. So point four percent death loss versus ten percent and two point two pounds average daily gain. They came in at seven hundred pounds, had a bunch of baby fat to lose. They had a lot of hundred and five degree weather. No rain, super dusty, lot of stress that way. But he said not easy calves to get along with, but there we have it. Let's bounce to East Texas. Treatment rate, so doctoring down thirty percent. Retreats down thirty percent. And then weight gain was, one point six pounds on the the control group and two point one on the Turboboost group. So here you see, you know, from point five pound increased daily gain to point three two on the low side. Just to give you directionally where we're at. Could you also touch on where it didn't work? Yes. Good point. So I've given you three sets of data. The fourth one was done in New Mexico. And this guy told me, he said, I'm bringing in good quality calves. He paid really good for them. Ranch raised. And he brought in a set of steers and a set of heifers. He put the steers on the Turboboost program, heifers on his just his standard practice. And and just a quick point there. We're not saying change anything in your program. We're saying in on top of. Right? Don't get rid of your nutritionist. Don't change your ration. This is on top of. So what he said to me on day thirty eight, so we're not through that sixty day, but we're over the worst of it. He says, you know what? I haven't treated any on either group. So in that case, technically, it wasn't just a roaring success for Turboboost. But just to give you some context of where it really shines and where it maybe doesn't have as much impact. However, he said by day thirty eight, he said the steers, the Turboboost group, seem to be eating and converting a little better. They look stronger than the heifers. So jury's still out on that one. He thinks from what he's seeing, he's going to get, you know, some weight gain there that he's, you know, more so than the other group. But I'm glad you asked that, Twain, because the viewers might be saying, you know, where would I use this? Or who's a fit? Who's not a fit? And I think that's good because just like any of the Riomax family of products, the tubs or the Rhyzogreen is, we got to look at where are you currently at? You know, what are you looking to get done? So this is probably more in terms of treat rates, death loss, weight gain, and what are you what are you looking to get done in your operation? What's it gonna cost you to incorporate the Turboboost program? And does it make sense in your situation? So as always, love to discuss a little bit further with you, see what makes sense in in your situation, but we do got a lot of guys doing to start off with, and we're strongly encouraging it, is to do it, do a comparison yourself. So as you're receiving cattle this fall, let's say you're getting them in in groups of a hundred at a time, we would recommend doing at least two, but probably three if you can groups of the Turboboost calves. So if you're getting in a hundred calves, let's say two hundred calves a week and they come in in one hundred head groups, you do a group of the Riomax calves, a group of control, a group of the Riomax calves, a group of control, group of the Riomax calves, a group of control. And that sounds quite extensive, but why we're recommending that is what we've seen is if you have a guy where they're bringing in cattle once a week, let's say, and they bring in a group of cattle, they put it on Riomax, and then they bring in the next week, it really heats up, and then they receive a bunch more cattle that is their control group. Well, that group that comes in in a hundred and seven degree heat is at an unfair advantage regardless of the program they're at. So to stagger it so you can you have those controls in there, think is very important to actually be able to measure that over not just one one group versus the next is you you got a couple tests. And it'll help you take some of those variables out and get yourself a truer test. Going back to we knew starting with the repel tub, we knew that we could make traction on less treats and less retreats just with that. But when you added those three things I mentioned, that's where we've seen that extra getting us to the next level. And people ask, you know, why the paste and the tub? And the best way to say it is it's like coming onto an interstate that that pace is like your on ramp getting you up to speed and fast right now. And then the the tub is to maintain exposure to that tub maintains that calf through that critical sixty day period where you're setting the stage, you're setting the trajectory for that calf's gain. So one question we get a lot is, is there Bogotech or rumensin in it? Twain? The short answer is no. It's all natural. The ingredients in the Turbo Boost program is all natural. Everything we have in there for immune activation, none of that is medicated. And the cool thing is it's approved by where food comes from for natural programs. So yes, it is all natural. Dead calves don't gain that good and they're hard to sell. But even if they're alive and they're in the sick pen, you know, we talk about retreats. Sick pen and you get chronics and people are like, man, I just treat them and treat them. That's what we're fighting against, folks. When that immune system is healthy, it's sucking less juice so to speak. And that's known as energy redirection. You take the energy in a diet, what Doctor Ryan Rathman from Texas Tech taught us is that fifteen to forty percent of that energy will go to the immune system. To feeding the immune system. And he explained that, that if that immune system is suppressed, you know, there's disease challenges, it's gonna suck way more energy just to keep that immune system fighting. So up to that forty percent. And the converse, he explained is also true. If that immune system is strong and that that calf is in good rig health wise, way less energy is gonna be used for the immune system and that redirects. This is the beauty of it. That redirects and goes straight to weight gain on those calves. And so he has seen in his meat quality studies where a calf that was sick during the feedlot versus one with a really strong immune system on the same diet, the healthy one marbled better, which is what we get paid for in the beef industry, you know, besides, you know, it's an incentive, besides just weight gain. So I think it's really cool because everyone wants to get more out of what they've already got. And when you have that energy redirection, it's helping you basically pull more energy and use it for weight gain than just fighting the battle on the disease side. So that kind of comes full circle. Health equals weight gain. Health also equals less treats and less antibiotic. You know, that has a cost associated with it. The stress of running them through the chute. The labor. But ultimately, health equals weight gain. One more thing, tub placement. If you imagine a pen like that with the the bunk at the front, we recommend placing your tubs about halfway back, not too close to the front because those cattle are likely skittish and shy and, you know, when the feed truck's driving by, they're gonna hang back. And so placement of your tubs about halfway back and do leave a passing lane because those calves are gonna walk the perimeter. Let them walk. But have that tub set in a little ways so that they walk, they'll smell it and pretty soon one or two stop, then you got six or ten stop. And and and what you're doing is getting calves like, on the program fast and healthy, hungry, and up at the bunk. If bringing your treat rate down and your retreats down, your death loss down, and your weight gain up. If that is important to you, definitely consider this tool. So thanks again for joining us on That Ranching podcast. We will see you again next Thursday morning.