About This Episode
Brad Downing owns Cross Creek Ag Solutions in Greentown, Indiana, roughly 56 to 60 miles north of Indianapolis, selling seed and biologicals and running a custom spreading business. Recording in late May 2019, he puts north central and northeastern Indiana under 5 percent planted, with the northwest maybe 20 to 30 percent. The night before, thunderstorms and tornadoes dropped a quarter inch to two inches of rain in about ninety minutes on already saturated ground. Farmers in their late seventies tell him they have never seen this.
The daily conversation is prevent plant. Downing's approach is to strip the emotion out and run the numbers: can the operation afford to take prevent plant, or does planting through June 15 pencil better at whatever revenue protection level was purchased, whether that is 85 percent or 90 to 95. He is cautious about switching maturities because hybrids were selected for specific soils, and he asks growers whether a large yield give-up is worth a few points of moisture. They have already moved 114 and 115 day products down.
He also pushes on the human side. Emotions are all over the board, and his advice to advisers is to sit in the mud alongside the grower rather than show up with a list of answers. Shay Foulk raises farmer suicide rates directly, and Downing tells listeners to call him or anyone else rather than go there. On acres that do go prevent plant, he sees an opening: install tile, clean fence rows, conserve moisture, and use the time to educate landlords about rent.
“No one needs you to come along and just tell them how to fix all your problems. Just get out there and wallow in the mud with them.”
— Brad Downing
Key Takeaways
North central and northeastern Indiana were under 5 percent planted in late May 2019, with the northwest closer to 20 to 30 percent.
Run the prevent plant decision on numbers and the revenue protection level actually purchased, not on emotion or on what the neighbors are doing.
Switching hybrid maturity buys a few points of moisture but can cost significant yield if the season turns good, since hybrids were matched to specific soils.
Cross Creek had already moved 114 and 115 day products down to 110 to 112 day, with a harder conversation about going earlier waiting at June 15.
Downing frames this as a three to four year effect on the ag industry, not a single bad spring.
Prevent plant acres are a chance to install tile, clean fence rows and conserve moisture, and a reason to talk with landlords about the rent situation.
Full Transcript
Shay: Good morning, everyone. Got Shay Foulk here with Ag View Solutions with special guest Brad Downing on today. Brad is from the heart of central Indiana, and I say the heart because, well, that's their geographic location, but also they got a, they got a lot of heart going on right now this time of the year. If you'd go ahead and introduce yourself, Brad.
Brad
Downing: Thanks, Shay. This is Brad Downing. The owner and president of Cross Creek Ag Solutions. We're based out of Greentown, Indiana, which would be about 56 to 60 miles directly north of Indianapolis. We are a seed biological custom spreading business. And we are a Beck's dealer as well for seed. And we also farm a little bit on the side too. So yes, you are correct about having some heart, you got to have some pretty tough guts and a big heart right time now to be in the ag industry because it's getting real, real quick.
Shay: I hear it's, uh, I hear it's pretty dry in that area, Brad. Hey, you still there, Brad?
Brad
Downing: Yeah, I'm here.
Shay: I hear it's, uh, pretty dry in that area. Is that right?
Brad
Downing: Yeah, yeah, dry is something, uh, we only get when we're inside or inside the shop. Every time you step outside, it rains every other day.
Shay: Sounds like some pretty crazy weather up there last night.
Brad
Downing: Last night was very interesting. We were actually on the place where about 2 o'clock I walked across the field. We were up to 88 degrees sunshine and about 2 o'clock I thought, man, if it really just dries a little bit more, we may try to mud corn in 7, 8 o'clock tonight, or at least get started, you know, today, Tuesday morning. And that didn't happen. By 6 o'clock we had thunderstorms pop up all across north central and east central Indiana, tornadoes all over the place. And then Ohio had the same thing. With multiple tornadoes and multiple thunderstorms anywhere, leaving an already saturated soil, but left anywhere from a quarter inch to areas had 2 inches of rain in the course of about an hour, hour and a half as the storms passed through. So it was pretty ugly.
I'll say if we had any crop up this time of a normal year, between hail, tornadoes, and the rain and the torrential downpours, that crop would have been almost destroyed.
Shay: Well, maybe there's a little bit of silver lining there, I guess.
Brad
Downing: You about have to find some silver lining this year just to keep yourself from going nuts.
Shay: Hard to catch a break right now. What, uh, what do you think for percent planted acres in your area, Brad?
Brad
Downing: I'm sorry, say that again, you cut out there, Shay.
Shay: Yeah, sorry about that. Uh, what do you think for percent planted of acres right now, corn and beans?
Brad
Downing: Uh, for most of Indiana, especially northern Indiana, I would say the north or the northwestern part of Indiana would be probably somewhere around 20%, maybe even 30%. There are some guys I've heard that are done that either have a lot of sand ground or are system ditched, and 2 weeks ago they really had a good window to get some in. But you get to the north central, central part of Indiana and the northeastern quarter of Indiana, it's less than 5%.
Shay: Wow, that's pretty incredible, especially looking at anywhere— I said that's pretty incredible looking at, you know, 5-year average as far as planting goes, pretty far behind there.
Brad
Downing: Yeah, in my career, I've never seen it this widespread across all states, but let alone across Indiana. I've never seen this before. Seen before. And even talking to some of the farms that are, you know, still actively farming in their late 70s and 80s, they've never seen this. It's just unprecedented.
Shay: So the producers that you're working with, what kind of decisions are they making right now? You know, as they have the continued rainfall, prevent plant dates are right around the corner. What kind of decisions are they making?
Brad
Downing: You know, there's a lot of emotion right now. And we're really trying to take the emotion out of it and really look at the the logic and the numbers and where we're at in this. So each conversation is different and unique to each person, obviously. And getting the emotion, you know, settled down— and, and it is, it's a highly emotional, it's a highly volatile time, and we don't know what the end result's going to be. But the conversation right now is a lot about prevent planning. I don't know how many times a day we say prevent planning. It's like an unbroken record, I feel like, right? But, uh The realistic thing is, can we afford to take prevent planting? And does it make most sense versus do we, do we have a chance to put this crop in in the next 15 to 20 days and go all the way out till June 15th planting corn?
So that's the biggest question is, can we— what's the numbers say? Let's take the emotion out of it. And then the next thing is, if we decide, okay, we can't take prevent plant, what are we going to do with this crop that's in the ground? You know, you've bought 85% RP crop insurance? Or have you bought up to 90-95%? Where are you at in your situation on crop insurance? And then what can we expect by putting this crop in the ground? I know a lot of the motion right now, though, is discussing wanting to get to earlier hybrids. But we are really struggling with, you know, what's the right decision, because we've selected these hybrids for these farms, and they've— the way they farm, or their ground type, or, you know, what the geographic location is based on the hybrid that we've selected for them.
And as we start making decisions to go to earlier day hybrids, we've got to be really careful that if we happen to get a great growing season through, you know, June, July, August, September, we may be sacrificing yield. We've got a lot of data that we've put out to these growers, you know, wanting them to look at and also discuss, are you willing to take a huge yield loss for, you know, 5%, maybe less on moisture by switching hybrids? So we got to be really careful But we get to June 15th, we're gonna have to have some serious discussions about moving from the 110, 112-day down even earlier. Because right now we've already started taking out the 114, 115-day products and moving them, you know, down in the 110, 112, or maybe even earlier to 105.
Shay: It's interesting talking about those long-term decisions because we're not just talking 6-day, 6-week decision-making right now. We're talking 6 months and beyond that. As far as the hybrids go, and some of the marketing decisions that they're making right now?
Brad
Downing: Oh, absolutely. And you know, the one thing that we discussed, we were looking at, you know, very short-term decision-making we have to make. This is a long-term effect for even this year. But the one conversation we've been having in the ag industry, and I think everybody outside the ag industry that happens to listen to this really needs to understand that this is not a '19 problem. This is going to be something that's going to affect the entire ag industry from the top down for the next 2, 3, maybe 4 years. I mean, if we have ratcheted up even commodity prices, what does this do to the ag industry and also the general population of other industries outside of ag? What's this happen— what does this make happen for the next 4 to 5 years? So I think there's some long-term effects here we really, really need to be careful and understand.
At least start discussing versus just the nearsighted of what we got to get done. But it sure would be nice to get a crop in the ground.
Shay: Exactly. How are, how are producers' attitudes right now? I mean, you mentioned we talked about prevent-plant 37 times a day, looking at marketing decisions, looking at planting, and then you don't even hardly want to look at the weather to see what that's going to do. Are producers holding up all right? What's the attitude there?
Brad
Downing: Uh, all over the board. You know, some days you got to keep— to keep from crying, you got to start laughing about all day long because there's nothing you can do. You know, we're completely out of control in this situation. God's got this in his control. It's not in our control. That's a good reminder and a lesson for all of us to learn, but it's not an easy pill to swallow. So guys are all over the board right now, and emotions are running high to, you know, sometimes just getting a conversation, you know, turn back to logic. Or, you know, the best thing is sometimes it's better just to get out there and wallow in the mud when everybody's stuck in the mud. And no one needs you to come along and just tell them how to fix all your problems. Just get out there and wallow in the mud with them. Sit in the mud, you know, I'm, I'm here with you too.
Let's talk about this and let's, let's see what we can get done. And maybe together we'll make a really good decision versus just coming up with all these answers for everybody. Yeah, just go out there and sit in the mud with them. Because that's where we're all at. We're in the mud. So if I had any advice to anybody getting in the ag industry, I would tell them go get— instead of ag econ, I'd go get a psychology degree. Because I think it'd be your best decision right now, as we have all these kinds of conversations and all the different emotional decisions that ag is taking on over the next few years.
Shay: Well, and it does take a psychological toll. I mean, these are people's livelihoods. And I think that does make a huge difference when you talk about wallowing in the mud and getting out there, actually having these conversations, these difficult conversations, and not only looking at it from the standpoint of economics or agriculture, but hey, how are you doing? How's your family? Are you holding up all right? With these difficult times, I mean, farmers have unfortunately higher rates of suicide than many other industries. And with people struggling this time of year, We've heard of a few different producers that have had to deal with suicide in their operations, unfortunately. And just taking a minute to reach out to the people and say, hey, are you all right? You want to talk? You know, we're going through the same thing too, just to know that they're not alone.
Brad
Downing: Yeah, absolutely. And if anybody's ever in that kind of situation, I mean, that, that's not an option. I mean, I don't, don't go to that degree. And if, uh, they get my number off this podcast, and they're listening to this, I may not know you, but please give me or anybody you know a call. And, you know, don't, don't go to that length. It's not worth it. Your family is more important.
Shay: Yep. And, you know, looking at this, so you talked about getting through this, pushing on, driving on, you know, resiliency comes into the picture. And we see that widespread through the ag community, but especially this year, sitting down looking at it from, you know, the economic, the logistical standpoints. Saying, hey, how can we get through this and do what makes sense for the long-term effects, uh, the longevity on our farm? So I think you had a great point there. Is there anything else you'd like to share with us as far as what you're seeing in your area, or, uh, you know, any other advice you'd like for people out there?
Brad
Downing: You know, I mean, the other part of it is if we, if we do take Prevent Plant, or there's other people that are going to take Prevent Plant, what a great opportunity, which hopefully it's not a huge amount of acres that each person takes, or You know, we'll just have to determine as it comes up or what the right decision is. But if you do take it, what a great opportunity to have land improvements put on. So I would be really wanting to encourage everybody to have the discussion with the landlords and understand that, you know, the rent may have to be— each rent situation is going to be different. And it's a time for education to the landowner. And also, you know, what can we do for land improvements? Because if you haven't taken prevent plant, I would really be looking at moisture conservation within that farm.
And then also looking at the fact that what can we do from, you know, putting tile in to cleaning up fence rows, or just anything we can do, I would really encourage guys to spend the time this summer because it sounds like we may actually have some extra time on our hands that we didn't plan on.
Shay: Right. That's a great point. I haven't heard anybody bring it up. So unique perspective there from Brad. Brad, how can any of the listeners contact you?
Brad
Downing: You mentioned that Yeah, so my phone number is 765-432-0475. My email is brad@crosscreekag.com. Or you can go on to Twitter, Instagram, or Facebook and look us up and get ahold of us if you need something or just need somebody to talk to and working through some challenges. We're here for you.
Shay: You got a lot of irons in the fire there, Brad. Great to hear from you this morning. Thank you so much for your time, and we'll catch you guys next time on the Ag View Pitch.