How Strip Till and New Equipment Tech Create Sustainable Ag Opportunities, with Dave Sender from Soil Warrior

To till or not to till is an issue that many sustainability-conscious growers grapple with each year.

But with the right equipment, strip till offers an attractive third option, allowing growers to reduce the impact of tilling while minimizing their fertilizer application with targeted, variable-rate application technology.

In this episode, Dave Sender, the regional sales manager at Environmental Tillage Systems, joins us to discuss how strip till can help lower an operation’s carbon footprint, build soil health, reduce inputs and improve yields. ETS produces the Soil Warrior line of strip till equipment, and Dave will tell us why it's is an increasingly popular practice for growers who want the best of both worlds.

Also, Tom and Sally provide an update on the Nutrien Ag Solutions Sustainable Nitrogen Outcomes Program, which has gone live.

Growers who enroll can get paid to participate in practices that keep nitrogen applications on crops in the field, reducing runoff into reservoirs or aquifers. But it also prevents nitrogen from being exposed to the environment and being released as the greenhouse gas nitrous oxide.

Click here to learn more or get involved in the Nutrien Ag Solutions Sustainable Nitrogen Outcomes Program.

Episode Transcript

Dave Sender:

One of the first things that growers will always rave about when they start strip-tilling is the emergence that they see and how uniform their stands are right out of the gate. When you start to look at improving yields, that's very important that all those plants are able to come up out of the ground at approximately the same time.

Dusty Weis:

Welcome to The Future. Faster. A sustainable agriculture podcast by Nutrien Ag Solutions with our very own Tom Daniel, Director North America, Retail and Grower Sustainable Ag, and Dr. Sally Flis, Senior Manager North America, Sustainable Ag and Carbon. This is your opportunity to learn about the next horizon in sustainable agriculture for growers, for partners, for the planet. To us, it's not about changing what's always worked. It's about continuing to do the little things that make a big impact.

Dusty Weis:

On this week's episode. Dave Sender, Regional Sales Manager at Environmental Tillage Systems, joins us to discuss how a grower's equipment can play a role in helping lower an operation's carbon footprint, building soil health, reducing inputs, and improving margins. ETS produces the Soil Warrior line of strip- till equipment. And Dave will tell us why strip-till is an increasingly popular practice for growers who want the best of both worlds. But if you haven't yet, make sure you're subscribed to this podcast in your favorite app. Also, make sure you follow Nutrien Ag Solutions on Facebook and Instagram.

Dusty Weis:

I'm Dusty Weis. And it's time once again to introduce Tom Daniel and Sally Flis. And Tom and Sally, Nutrien Ag Solutions Sustainable Nitrogen Outcomes Program has gone live and it's turning heads. But when we were at Commodity Classic back in March, one thing that we kept hearing from the growers is why would the third- largest nitrogen producer in the world want to help its customers limit their nitrogen use? Good question, right, Tom?

Tom Daniel:

You know, it does sound odd. And we did get asked that question while we were at the Commodity Classic, why would a huge nitrogen fertilizer company, and we do sell a lot of nitrogen products to our customers, why would we be engaged in wanting to lower nitrogen use? Well, around sustainability, we need to be able to not only control the amount of nitrogen use because we want to keep it in the crop that's growing in the field, not showing up in rivers or reservoirs or aquifers. And secondly, we want to be able to use those nitrogen products in efficient ways that can keep that nitrogen from being exposed to the environment and being released as nitrous oxide, for instance.

Tom Daniel:

And so, Sally, when you were looking at our 2022 projects and how we were going to commercially expand our carbon programs, I think you made a decision that this is one of the focal points that we wanted to go to and you really developed the Sustainable Nitrogen Outcomes Plan.

Sally Flis:

Yeah, Tom. The team really found that, and as we've all looked at the carbon registries more, there is still just too much complication and too much data need and too much liability on both sides, for both Nutrien and the growers in the soil organic carbon and that sequestration or removal space, where we're looking at 10, 20, 30, 100-year commitments from both Nutrien and the grower in order to make those soil sequestration credits happen in addition to somewhere between five and 15 years worth of data in order to run the models and get the outcomes generated, costs of soil sampling, the quality of soil sampling that we're able to pull, the variability we're still seeing around soil sampling as being the way to really say what's happening with soil organic carbon out in the field.

Sally Flis:

So we really felt like we needed another year to kind of figure out the removals and the sequestration side of things, but we've had so much interest in the field for growers wanting to be involved in carbon that we pushed forward with the Sustainable Nitrogen Outcomes Program, which is really focused around the Climate Action Reserve's Nitrogen Management Project Protocol Program. And so the way it's designed is really set up for us to be able to get every acre that enrolls through a verification and validation process with them and create real marketable Scope 1 credits that either Nutrien can claim towards our Scope 1 footprint or that could be available for other buyers to claim towards a Scope 1 footprint.

Sally Flis:

It's not the biggest amount of emissions or the biggest tons of carbon that you're going to get in a program. We ranged from .01 tons per acre to .15 tons per acre in emission reductions in acres that were in the process of getting verified and validated right now with the Climate Action Reserve. But it's a project we can do every year. It's simpler additionality. So the minimal rate reduction to get into the Sustainable Nitrogen Outcomes Program to meet additionality is 5% rate reduction. Reasonably simple change to make. You know, there are some growers operating really efficiently that this program might not still be a fit for, but we felt like it was a program that could have the biggest number of growers and acres involved for a lower data and investment lift on our side.

Tom Daniel:

So Sally, what crops are we really focused on? And this is a U.S. project at the moment. Our Canadian markets are really, they're signing up growers today in their projects up there, which are more around the regulated markets and looking for a Scope 3 in those situations. But in the U.S., what particular crops are we kind of focusing on? And are there any limits in the geography piece?

Sally Flis:

Yeah. Unfortunately, it's limited on a county basis by the Climate Action Reserve. And that's because when they designed the Nitrogen Management Project Protocol, it's actually designed based on emission factors. So while we need a lot of data to prove what the grower did in the field, the outcome or the amount of emission reduction achieved is based on some modeling that was done by the Climate Action Reserve historically that sets up these emission factors that are then correlated to the rate reduction or the use of a slow-control released fertilizer or a nitrification inhibitor in the field.

Sally Flis:

So it's limited by geography because of the data that's available around the relationships between nitrogen fertilizer use, yield, enhanced-efficiency fertilizer products, and measured nitrous oxide emissions in the field. So it's limited by county. We chose three crops to focus on this year; corn for grain or silage, cotton, and wheat. So three broad crops. Now within wheat, you can do winter wheat or spring wheat. And there's a couple of counties that could do a durum wheat. They do recognize other crops in the Climate Action Reserve, but we felt this year that we were going to expand upon kind of those three primary crops in the U.S.

Sally Flis:

The other piece of the Climate Action Reserve is it isn't available in Canada. Any of the registry documents that Climate Action Reserve operates are only available to the U.S. in general.

Tom Daniel:

There's lots of crops that are already in the field today. So growers that want to be engaged in a carbon program and want to use what we call that lower-data lift around this particular project, this is still one that they can engage in right now. In fact, you've got sign-ups going now through the middle of April. And then when we look to the fall crops, like winter wheat and those, then we'll be enrolling acres I'm assuming, Sally, during the summer months for some of the winter crops.

Sally Flis:

Exactly, Tom. If you haven't put all your nitrogen on yet, there's still opportunity to make some of those practice changes and adjustments in the field as you look to either in-season application or the nitrogen you're going to maybe put down with planting or the nitrogen that you're using along with some pesticide or herbicide application. So there's lots of places with that minimal rate reduction to get in the program where you can still make adjustments to most any field out there.

Sally Flis:

And this is where, Tom, we go back to thinking about what's the right rollout for timing on these programs and where we're going to try and shift some of this enrollment to really more of a continuous enrollment around some of these programs where we aren't just going to stop enrolling acres because it's April 15th. We may stop enrolling acres for 2022 harvested crops, but we would want to come back and go ahead and start enrolling acres, whether it's for that summer planted 2022 crops, those winter crops like you were talking about, or even growers that are starting to think about their 2023 planted crops. We want to start getting engaged with those growers for potential enrollment as soon as they get done planting that 2022 crop because a lot of them will already be thinking about their 2023 crop at that time.

Tom Daniel:

So Sally, these are one-year agreements that the grower can sign up for now, which is a real advantage in the carbon markets versus some of the five, 10, 15, 20-year contracts that are out there. But it is a Nitrogen Management Protocol. My question to you is this, if I reduce my 5% this year, are there opportunities for me to resign these acres up in the future and actually continue to receive payments?

Sally Flis:

Yeah. So the baseline that you set is good for 10 years. One thing we need to spend some time on after we get through the verification and validation process we're in right now is what does that 10 years mean? So is that 10 years for that field? So if you're in a two or three-year crop rotation, is your baseline really good for 20 or 30 years? Is that a 10-year baseline for your farm? And so that baseline is good for 10 years. It doesn't matter if you're in a different field the following year.

Sally Flis:

That is definitely a question we're going to spend some time engaging with the Climate Action Reserve around is exactly what does that 10-year baseline mean. But there is an opportunity to set that baseline for a 10-year period and continue with the practice change that you make for 2022 going forward, or keep tweaking that. I'm not sure I would encourage anybody to jump right in with a 30% rate reduction, which is the highest number that we can use in this program. But if you're going to go with 5% this year, what are the opportunities to maybe continue to tweak that efficiency going forward and gain more credits each year as well?

Dusty Weis:

Well, and Tom and Sally, lots of helpful things to consider there. But as we like to say all the time on this program, it's not just about nutrient management. Sustainability is about the whole acre, whole farm solutions. And one part of that operation that we haven't talked about yet is the equipment that you're putting out in the field. Well, there's a brand that's rolling out some pretty cool sustainability solutions in the equipment space, Soil Warrior. And we got to have a conversation with Dave Sender from Soil Warrior when we were at Commodity Classic. And that's coming up in a minute here on The Future. Faster.

Dusty Weis:

This is The Future. Faster. A sustainable agriculture podcast by Nutrien Ag Solutions. I'm Dusty Weis along with Tom Daniel and Sally Flis. And we're joined now by Dave Sender, Regional Sales Manager at Environmental Tillage Systems. Dave, thanks for joining us.

Dave Sender:

I appreciate it. I'm glad to be here. Thank you.

Dusty Weis:

So Dave, this is the first appearance on our podcast from an equipment manufacturer. So can you elaborate a little bit what exactly Environmental Tillage Systems and the Soil Warrior is?

Dave Sender:

Yes. So Environmental Tillage Systems, we manufacture the Soil Warrior. We've been around for, well, I think we're going close on about 20 years now. But we're a company, we focus specifically on strip-tillage. We have machines and customers really all over the globe. We're in about 20-some different states here in the U.S. We're in three different provinces in Canada. And we have machines all the way over into Zimbabwe, New Zealand and Australia. As a company, all we really focus on is strip-till. And I think as a result of that, we've really gotten to be really the leading experts in strip-tillage.

Tom Daniel:

So Dave, as you know, this podcast, when we originally started was really focused around carbon and carbon markets and all those type things. And one of the key pieces around carbon is a limitation of soil disturbance, right? We're not exposing the soil to environmental or sunlight and releasing of our CO2. So when we take a look at strip-tillage, and we really haven't talked about strip tillage as a subject in the first 17 episodes that we've had, but with Environmental Tillage Systems and you're specializing in strip-till, can you kind of elaborate on why this is becoming so popular, a tillage method with our growers? And secondly, what's the value in this method for the grower and for the environment?

Dave Sender:

Yes. So typically, we like to summarize strip-tillage as kind of the best of both worlds. And what we mean by that is having the benefits of doing tillage, which a lot of times is getting to be more and more controversial in a lot of areas, but it also has the benefits of no-till. So when you talk about building soil health and building carbon, those are two of the primary items that come along with strip-tillage.

Dave Sender:

But the other aspect of that is the ability to put fertilizer into the ground and put them into strips and really start to focus on and control what you're doing with your, well, really with your money at the end of the day, as far as what you're spending on fertilizers, and the ability to control that. You start to talk about variable rate applications and water erosion control, wind erosion control. We could, needless to say, probably spend hours and hours talking about it. And listening to your podcast in the past, these are a lot of topics that are very important to the agricultural community as a whole.

Sally Flis:

So yeah, you brought up two items there that I would like to dive into a little bit deeper. How the use of something like a Soil Warrior is beneficial to soil health? What are the different interactions you guys have seen in the feed? Maybe how you guys are measuring soil health as you look at the performance of the implement in the field? And then the second one is how are you guys doing practices like variable rate fertilizer application in a piece of equipment like a Soil Warrior?

Dave Sender:

I'll touch on the variable rate side of things first. And I've been with the company for about 15 years now. And it's quite unbelievable about how much technology has changed over the years. When I first started, we had a ground drive fertilizer system. So if you wanted to change fertilizer rates, you had to change out sprockets.

Tom Daniel:

Dave, don't make fun of that. I've still got some sprockets hanging on the wall in the shop.

Dave Sender:

For sure. But you fast forward to today and it's really unbelievable the technology that's been coming out and evolving. And it continues to evolve. But what we do is we have rate controllers, whether it's a dry machine or a liquid machine. We have clients that do both dry and liquid at the same time. So the units themselves can be extremely versatile.

Dave Sender:

But as far as the variable rate side of things goes, it's, again, these manufacturers, the technology have done a really great job of making this technology user-friendly and almost a plug and play. So for example, specifically with Soil Warrior, we have partnered with a vendor to manufacture and develop rate control technology for our units. So it's an ISO compatible system. So any tractor with an ISOBUS connection, regardless of the make of the tractor, which is quite unique in the ag industry, because everybody likes to have their own thing, right? So we have the ability to basically plug into really any tractor and interface with most any monitor on the market. Granted, there's exceptions to every rule, but we're able to connect to that. And from there, it can be something as simple as a grower working with their agronomist and downloading their prescriptions right into that monitor. And you've got all your mapping and whatnot and boom, there's your variable rate technology.

Dave Sender:

The other part of that then is how do we measure the benefits or the improvements, if you will. And it's just like when you measure the soil benefits and soil health with no-till. We look at that soil aggregation. We look at water-carrying capacity. When I speak with guys about strip-till, this is an obvious statement, but most of the growers we talk to are either coming from no-till or they're coming from conventional till. And we talk about those soil improvements, whether it's better water-handling capacity. I like to say it handles the extremes better, whether it's an extremely wet year, whether it's extremely dry year, we have the ability to build that soil health like you would see with no-till.

Dave Sender:

As things have evolved with the company, we're getting more and more growers that are utilizing cover crops. So as a manufacturer, we've been developing add-ons, if you will, to the machines where growers are able to add cover crop systems in a lot of different ways into their systems. So to go back and answer your question is we look at the same things that you always would. Soil aggregation. I always like to bring up earthworms. They're the workforce. They do so much. But then ultimately, it helps to improve the use of fertilizer. The fertilizer efficiency increases dramatically in having the ability to put it in those strips as opposed to broadcasting and hope mother nature will do it for you. You're getting it in there.

Dave Sender:

From there, it varies into a lot of different areas of discussion with regards to potential reduction in fertilizer rates. Especially growers coming from a conventional system, they're able to reduce their input cost dramatically, fuel savings, labor savings, tractor-hour savings, and fertilizer savings. And right now with the way input costs are rising, who knows where the end of that's going to be, but they have the ability to reduce a lot of those inputs and at the end of the day put more money in their pocket all without sacrificing yields.

Sally Flis:

So Dave, you touched on that nutrient use efficiency piece. There's got to be some of it's that better relationship to placement in the soil and the root zone. And maybe there isn't a favorite one, but kind of what's the favorite timing for growers to use the Soil Warrior for a fertilizer application?

Dave Sender:

That's, I always answer things with depends and it drives some people crazy, but...

Tom Daniel:

Well, it's farming.

Dave Sender:

It is farming. Right.

Tom Daniel:

And farming depends.

Dave Sender:

Yeah, it does. It's all over the map. I always tell people when I speak with them that you talk to 10 different strip-tillers, you're going to get 10 different answers. There's been plenty of research done. Now, we've done research with a university over several years specifically with our equipment, I guess I can't speak on anything else, but I would assume it's probably the same. But they compared running strips in the fall versus running strips in the spring versus doing a two-pass system. And what they found is from a yield standpoint, there was really no difference in the overall yield as far as what that plant was producing.

Dave Sender:

Now, again, it goes back to the depends. It's farming. You got to look at what weather's doing and so on and so forth. So for example, say you went out and did fall strips and you had a really tough winter, perhaps you were having a very unusually cold and wet spring, then perhaps there might be a benefit to going out and doing a spring pass where traditionally maybe you wouldn't be. But again, there's just, you think of a way to run a machine and there's probably somebody out there doing that.

Tom Daniel:

When it comes to Soil Warrior, and I'm thinking about strip-tillage and fertilizer applications, are we looking at placing the fertilizer in the row and then using whatever system we may have available to plant right back into the row?

Dave Sender:

Absolutely. And that is the whole kind of crux of the system in and of itself is that to take full advantage of that fertilizer and get that efficiency out of that fertilizer is coming back and planting into that strip. When you talk about strip-till in more of a general sense, you'll hear discussions regarding deep banding versus a blending, for example. So a deep banding is going to be more of a applied with a shank, where you're putting it down maybe seven, eight, nine inches deep in tight ribbon that's maybe just a couple inches around. Whereas with our systems, our systems are, we're traditionally coulter systems. We do have the ability to run shanks and we do, especially if we have growers that are using anhydrous still.

Dave Sender:

But with our coulter system, we're blending that fertilizer throughout that entire strip. So if you take a strip, most growers are going to be running a strip that's, I'll say five to seven inches deep. And the strip's going to be anywhere from 10 to 12 inches wide typically. And things like soil types and moisture and so forth will come into play as far as what those strips look like. But you're going to have fertilizer throughout that entire strip, top to bottom, side to side. So when it comes back to planting into that strip, it's a very safe environment for that seed to be placed. And that plant is going to have availability to those nutrients as it continues to grow and find water.

Dave Sender:

One of the first things that growers will always rave about when they start strip-tilling, again, kind of specifically with a coulter system, is the emergence that they see and how uniform their stands are right out of the gate. And when you start to look at improving yields, that's very important that all those plants are able to come up out of the ground at approximately the same time.

Sally Flis:

So Dave, I think you mentioned it a little bit in one of your earlier answers, but we talk about how can we stack different programs for growers when we're looking at carbon credits or sustainability projects. How are you able to stack different conservation practices in the field? Have you got growers that are trying to go out and put a cover crop in in between corn rows with an in-season application and that kind of stuff so that we can start to have more practices happening at the same time?

Dave Sender:

Yes. So when it comes to cover crops, specifically with our units, we'll have growers that, and it depends on geographically where they're at, I guess, but you'll take some of the area that I deal with most. If we see a grower doing cover crops in those areas, they'll usually put cover crops down in a bean field that was just harvested. And how we do that is we'll either have growers that do it between the rows, on the rows, almost kind of a broadcast off the machine. Again, it goes back to the if you can think of it, there's somebody doing it type of situation.

Dave Sender:

You get into some other areas and talk about people that are flying on cover crops and doing all kinds of different things. For me, one of the things that's always intrigued me is the interceding side of things. I think there's a really, a lot of really neat things coming down the pipe for the cover crop side of things. But as a company, we have more and more growers that are looking to take advantage of those programs and ultimately take advantage of all the benefits that a cover crop can give them. So I don't know if that answers your question or not.

Sally Flis:

No. That's yeah. I mean, I think you've answered it a few different ways, right? Growers are going to come up with different ways to do stuff once you give them some ideas. So who knows what somebody's going to try next out in the field, right?

Dave Sender:

Yeah. No. And I mean, we've even had customers that'll, they've even fabricated their own bracketry, for example, just to get it a certain way that they want it. And the growers get really creative a lot of times. And it's fun to see. That's one of the things I like about my job is being able to just see all of those different things.

Tom Daniel:

Yeah. Most situations, farmers that I deal with and my dad, of course, was a farmer, you give him a cutting torch and a welding rod and he can do all kinds of things.

Dave Sender:

That's right.

Tom Daniel:

So he can design things to be as you unique as he needs them to be. Hey, real quick question. Back to the fertilizer use on the bands, are you seeing a preference to liquid-type systems or dry systems? What are you seeing the most?

Dave Sender:

As far as when you compare dry to liquid, it really seems to be more of a geographic situation. Most of the growers we work with out East, start to get out on New York and along that Eastern seaboard, they've all been liquid machines. As you shift more towards the West and get into the Midwest and the Corn Belt and so forth, they traditionally seem to be more dry systems.

Dave Sender:

Now, personally, with a lot of growers that I work with, what I've been seeing more happen is they're adding liquid systems to their dry systems. So they're actually putting down dry fertilizer and liquid fertilizer. So those growers typically tend to be more of a spring pass operation where they'll put some P and K down in the spring. And then they'll have 28%, for example, or 32%, and they'll put some of that down in the strip ahead of planting.

Dave Sender:

Again, it just, it goes back to the kind of the general thing I keep saying is that just it's all over the board as far as how growers want to handle it. But most of the units that we sell are still dry units.

Tom Daniel:

Do you see the growers using this system, the Soil Warrior system and also using in-furrow fertility on the planter and those type things too?

Dave Sender:

Absolutely. Yep. So really, in every case, the grower's still going to be using an in-furrow starter of some sort. To kind of really drill down a little bit more, when it comes to spring passes, fall passes, and so on, this is kind of a general observation I've made over the years now, if a grower has the capability to put nitrogen down with their planter, say for example a two by two application, they'll typically tend to be a fall, dry, P and K type of application. Then they come back in the spring and plant, put down a two by two application of nitrogen, still with an in-furrow, and then that's their operation. If they don't have that, then they typically tend to be more of a spring pass, and they'll put NPK down with it.

Dave Sender:

In all instances, at least with the growers we work with, they're still, with regards to their nitrogen they're still doing secondary passes, whether it be a side dress, top dress, what have you.

Tom Daniel:

Right.

Dave Sender:

So they're still making those passes yet.

Tom Daniel:

So Sally, this really fits into our Sustainable Nitrogen Outcomes Program. I mean, we're reducing the amount of input that we're putting down on the ground. We're reducing the exposure to it, to the environment, because we're keeping it in a band. So we're closing up the biological interaction, I guess, is the best way we can put it to a banded application. And we're reducing the overall exposure because we're putting less product in most cases. So all of that fits into the sustainable ag mode, and really it fits into that thing we call 4R. Right, Sally?

Sally Flis:

Yeah. So when I was at the Fertilizer Institute, I got to work with the teams at Environmental Tillage Systems and in the Soil Warrior. And you guys have been big supporters of that. And just to remind our listeners, we talked about 4R a couple episodes ago. And that's right source, right timing and placement of our nutrient applications. So what drew you guys to being really involved in a program like the 4R program across the country?

Dave Sender:

So the 4R program, it really complements and ties in with what we believe as a company as far as what the 4Rs are and what they stand for. I don't mean this to come off as cheesy or anything, but as a company, we take that very seriously, that we want to do what's right, not only for agriculture but also in the broader scheme of things. When you look at the benefits of say like a program, what 4R does is when we start expanding on that, again, going back to reduction in erosion and increasing profitability because you can cut down on inputs and so on and so forth. But in a nutshell, with what the 4R does, it's a really, really good fit for what we do and how we feel about what we do.

Sally Flis:

So Tom, this is one where you and I always, I think we have this discussion probably every other week.

Tom Daniel:

Is it an argument or a discussion?

Sally Flis:

No, no. It's not an argument. It's discussion. Is are we picking management practices that we're not giving us unintended consequences? And I think that's one of my favorite things about a practice like strip-till is you get some of those benefits of soil health and not disturbing the soil. But when we look at some of these watersheds in states that you're in, Western Lake Erie Basin in New York where we've got some pretty sensitive freshwater systems, you're able to get the phosphorus below the surface. And that keeps it in the soil and keeps it out of the environment. We just had some speakers in some sessions we've been in recently talking about how it's such a big land area that's impacting the Mississippi River Basin and the phosphorus and nitrogen losses associated there.

Sally Flis:

So what have you guys done for any testing around the Soil Warrior and how that can improve keeping that phosphorus in the field? Are you guys doing any [inaudible 00:27:43] field measurements or tile drainage measurements or stuff like that as you roll equipment out or just play around with it on development?

Dave Sender:

Yeah. I guess I don't have an answer to that if there's been specific tests for us measuring that. I'm sure we've worked with a lot of different universities and even seed companies and whatnot over the years. So I'm sure there probably is some data of some sort out there, but I don't have that off the top of my head.

Tom Daniel:

So Dave, when we talk about strip-tillage and we talk about, I call it banded applications of our fertility, we're also seeing growers look at other things like biological products and things that they will continue to add to the efficiency already there from the placement. Do you see a lot of movement to where you've got phosphate products or nitrogen stabilizers, those type things, actually being added into this practice?

Dave Sender:

Yes. It's really all over the place. It's nothing specific that I can really point out. But specifically, it's with individual growers that whoever they're working with, whether it's their local co-op or whomever. But there are growers that are using that, those different types of products. We've specifically done it with anhydrous. So we've custom- built some machines to be able to take advantage of that. But we don't have anything specific as far as a product line goes that says, hey, you use this for that specifically.

Tom Daniel:

No. And I wasn't looking for a particular...

Dave Sender:

Yeah.

Tom Daniel:

... recommendation. But growers are still looking at opportunities to create more efficiency outside of just the banded opportunities.

Dave Sender:

Right, right. And as a company, we're still say a small enough company that when it comes to things like that, if we would have a grower that would come to us and say, "Hey, this is something I'm looking at doing," and these are some ideas that we've had, or maybe I've worked with my agronomist or what have you, "is this something you guys could explore and possibly build or what have you"? And that is, as a company, that's still something that we bring to the table, that we're not kind of putting ourselves in one little box, so to speak. We're still pretty nimble and flexible as a company to be able to address some of those types of things.

Dave Sender:

So going back to what I said earlier, that's one of the things I like about what I do is having the ability to still be creative to some degree or another.

Tom Daniel:

Well, we call it being able to pivot. So it's when things don't go our way, pivot.

Dusty Weis:

Guys, this has been a real great discussion. I mean, Tom and Sally, they like to dig in with the experts that we have on.

Dave Sender:

I could sit here and talk for four hours about it, to be honest with you.

Dusty Weis:

Well, and that's why I can see they're so excited. You're like a great big old pile of red meat. They're enjoying picking your brain here. So I don't want to cut it off, but...

Tom Daniel:

Yeah, I'm not so sure he wants to stay.

Dave Sender:

When you're passionate about something, that's easy.

Tom Daniel:

That's right. That's right.

Dusty Weis:

That's just it. And we get passionate about sustainability here. It certainly has many facets. We talk about practices. We talk about inputs. We talk about technology. And now, because you visited us today, we got to talk about equipment too. So Dave Sender from Environmental Tillage Systems, thank you so much for joining us on this episode of The Future. Faster.

Dave Sender:

Thank you. Appreciate you having me.

Dusty Weis:

That is going to conclude this edition of The Future. Faster. The pursuit of sustainable success with Nutrien Ag Solutions. New episodes arrive every other week, so make sure you subscribe in your favorite app and join us again soon. Visit futurefaster.com to learn more. The Future. Faster podcast is brought to you by Nutrien Ag Solutions with executive producer Connor Irwin and editing by Larry Kilgore III. And it's produced by Podcamp Media. Branded podcast production for businesses, podcampmedia.com. For Nutrien Ag Solutions, thanks for listening. I'm Dusty Weis.