About This Episode
Chris Barron records this one at the Schaffer farm in north central Ohio as a peer group meeting wraps up. Mark Schaffer picked up the idea of intercropping soybeans into standing wheat from growers elsewhere in Ohio and has been refining it for 10 to 12 years. He widens wheat spacing and plants beans earlier so they are established by wheat harvest, which also lets him cut bean populations, since Julie says moisture at establishment is the limiting factor.
The harvest problem is mechanical. Plastic FlexiFinger pans mounted about a foot ahead of the header drop below the cutterbar, lean the soybeans over so the wheat heads can be clipped, and let the beans spring back up behind the combine. This year they planted 2.6 and 3.7 maturity beans, with the earliest going in April 11 and standing at R4 at wheat height during harvest. They are moving from combine tracks to duals to straddle rows and measure loss.
It was a brutal wheat year. The Schaffers normally plant about 3,000 acres of wheat, half their acreage, and lost 75 percent of it, something Mark had never seen in 25 years of farming. The peer group is what gives the episode its title. Mark calls opening his books to six other operations the single most rewarding thing he has done, and Julie, a nurse who came back to the farm, describes her first SWOT analysis as energizing.
“There's so much reward in trying to direct someone to do a better job of what they're doing.”
— Mark Schaffer
Key Takeaways
The Schaffers have intercropped soybeans into wheat for 10 to 12 years, widening wheat spacing and planting beans early so moisture sets the stand.
Plastic FlexiFinger pans run about a foot ahead of the header, push beans below the cutterbar, and let them stand back up behind the combine.
Earliest intercropped beans went in April 11 and were at R4 and wheat height at harvest; they ran 2.6 and 3.7 maturity beans.
They lost 75% of roughly 3,000 acres of wheat, half their acreage, in a year Mark had never seen in 25 years of farming.
Switching combine tracks to duals lets them straddle rows and measure how much yield the tracks are costing.
Six operations spent days on their farm working through financials, succession, other profit centers and family employee dynamics.
Full Transcript
Narrator: Hey podcast, thanks for joining us for today's episode where Chris talks with Mark Schaefer and his daughter Julie about some exciting agronomic intercropping on their farm, as well as their participation in our peer group. While we feel every podcast we put out is important and brings value, we believe this is one of the most important conversations we've had yet. Listen in and let us know if you have any questions or would be interested in being part of a peer group. Enjoy.
Chris
Barron: Hey, welcome everybody. You got, uh, Chris Barron here today with the Ag View Pitch, and we've got a couple of special guests. We're over in Ohio I guess north central Ohio, and we've got, uh, just finishing up with a peer group meeting here today. And I've got Mark Schaefer and his daughter Julie, uh, who farms, uh, they farm together here. And a couple of topics I wanted to discuss today with you guys. One of the first things we got to do when we got here was kind of seeing what you guys were up to with wheat harvest. But it was really interesting when we pulled in, we not only saw wheat being harvested, but there's soybeans behind the combine. Explain that?
Mark
Schaffer: Well, uh, we, we got the idea years ago from some, uh, people in Decirrus, Ohio on intercropping soybeans into our wheat. And so for the last 10, 12 years we've been doing this and we've been just experimenting and doing things differently to allow a better crop in the inner intercropping. So we've been pushing the envelope of spacing the wheat out and letting the beans being planted earlier to allow better bean stand at wheat harvest. And we've sort of accomplished this with some new tech technology with some plastic FlexiFingers that we applied on the cutter head of the combine to actually push the beans down so we could clip the weed off. So we're pretty excited about where this is going, but it's a work in progress.
Chris
Barron: Julie, you guys have been doing a lot of testing and changing and tweaking. There's not a lot of people in this area that are double cropping like that, or intercropping I should say, where you've got both crops growing at the same time. What are a couple of the things that you've learned to do, not to do, or, or, you know, just give us a little insight on some of the things you've been testing, what you've learned the last year or two as you guys have been pretty successful at this process along the way.
Julie
Schaffer: We've always known that moisture is so key to us in our operation to get our beans established in an intercropping. So we felt that the earlier we could get those in, the more likely we'd get a rain to get those beans germinating and get them a good start. So that's allowed us to cut our populations. Um, but along the way we've also learned about varieties. And last year we got hit hard with drought. Um, after our beans did get germinated, they just kind of sat there. And what we found is that our early varieties, and we're still experimenting with this, but our early varieties, when they got hit with that drought and during the, they started pollinating, they went into reproductive, um, mode right at wheat harvest. And we realized that might not be a good scenario.
So just experimenting with maturities, getting weed control in the fall and the early spring to try and start as clean as you can.
Chris
Barron: Yeah, it's kind of interesting because, you know, even in your area, there's not very many people growing two crops at the same time. You know, tell us a little bit about spring and the impacts that you, that you had or the challenges you had. Because obviously in this area, when we came into Ohio, we saw a lot of nothing. And, you know, you guys were able to put wheat in, you know, in the fall and you guys were wet in the fall too, it sounded like. And then, you know, but you were able to get, get some of the beans in early, some of them in a little later. But there's, there's prevent plant in the area and there's a fair amount of corn. You guys don't plant any corn, you plant wheat and soybeans intercrop. So, um, do you foresee that continuing?
Do you, you know, um, tell us just a little bit more about, you know, about that process and what you guys think and what's, what's the future hold, I guess?
Mark
Schaffer: Well, first of all, you know, we've had a disastrous wheat year. We typically plant around 3,000 acres of wheat in this area. It's half our acreage. And we lost 75% of it this year. Never in the 25 years I've been growing crops have I ever lost one field of wheat, let alone to lose 75%. And that was big in our county, here in County, uh, wheat survival was next to nothing. But, uh, one year out of 25, uh, you just have learned to accept whatever environment presents to you. So we— it didn't stop us from trying to take the acres that did survive and, and doing some testing on some planting some very early intercropping. We, in fact, our very earliest planted intercrops were April 11th. We planted some, they were actually pushing through the canopy during wheat harvest, but with these Flexipan fingers, uh, we were really excited about the, uh, uh, conditions.
Chris
Barron: Explain a little bit to the listeners what you mean by that, because one of the first things we got to see is a combine going across the field with, like I said, with beans out there. It's not something that we see in the Midwest very commonly, or probably even around here. So, you know, explain what you're doing with that, with that soybean plant as you harvest the soybeans, or as you harvest the wheat.
Mark
Schaffer: Yeah, the soybeans are actually, actually these beans are a 2-6 bean We planted some 2.6 beans and some 3.7s. Uh, the first field we went to, which is a field you got to experience yesterday, was the 2.6 beans planted in, in, uh, April 11th. These beans were actually R4, and they are actually at the same height as the wheat heads. So you can imagine, you look at the field, it looks like it's a weedy mess because it's green and yellow. And so when we come through with the combine, we have these FlexiFingers that, uh, it's a new product that we just heard about last year where these have these plastic pans that you mount on FlexiFingers out ahead of the header about, I would say, a foot, and they drop down and are below the header. You set your header height to what you want to cut at And these pans actually put— just lean the beans over so the cutter head can clip the heads off.
And as the header passes through, the beans just brush up behind the header, behind it.
Chris
Barron: Gotcha. Um, any other comments? I know one other thing you guys are doing, you've got tracks on the combine, and I noticed this year you guys are talking about going to rubber tires to straddle those rows better and and any other changes or any other things that you think you see coming in the future?
Julie
Schaffer: Yeah, so like, like Dad said, we're still in the experimental phase, and with us not having that much weed out this year, it's actually a good year for us to see what these beans that are at the R4 stage are doing. And we can go back through after and evaluate how many how much grain actually came off the field and evaluate where these tracks went on our combines so that the following year, if there is anything to what we're doing, we know how much yield actually came off by going through and evaluating what kind of loss we had with the tracks and put on some duals on the combine.
Chris
Barron: Great, sounds good. Well, one other quick little, little topic I'll bring up. So we were here with our peer group 6 other basically operations here to basically look at your farm, look at the financials, have a conversation with you about succession transition planning, the, the other business and profit centers that you have and the dynamics of the family employees and all those kinds of things. And we all in our peer group, we've gone around and around to each farm. And just tell us a little bit about that experience from your perspective, being in a peer group.
You know, what's the advantage, you know, being able to get some information feedback from your peers as opposed to, you know, talking to a quote unquote expert on the topic or whatever, but you know, your peers get to come spend a couple of days at your farm, really dig into the information and understand your business and your situation and then give you some feedback on where you're at, what you're doing, maybe a little thought process about where you're going. I mean, what does that mean to your operation? And, and are those, you know, any comments I guess you have on, on the process the last 3 days?
Mark
Schaffer: I think the first comment I'd like to make is it's probably the single most rewarding thing I've ever done in my life. Having a group of business people, farmers, producers, who are diversified in what they do in life, such as myself, and listen to their life stories and to physically see their financials, see the mistakes that maybe they're making, see the good that they're doing. There's so much reward in trying to direct someone to do a better job of what they're doing. It's self-rewarding more than— I always get more out of, a farm I go visit than, than probably when they come to my farm. Um, but not saying that it isn't rewarding to have them here at the farm. It's an excellent opportunity to open your farm and your books and find out what I could do to make this operation better.
Chris
Barron: Julie, any comments?
Julie
Schaffer: Yeah, just like experimenting on the farm, um, just gets me excited. I always said I don't know if I could be a farmer if I didn't farm with my dad because my dad's always experimenting and trying to do new things. He doesn't just throw beans or corn in the ground and just wait and see what he gets. He's always trying to push the envelope. And that's kind of how this group was to me. And I'm so glad I got the opportunity. This was actually my first SWOT analysis and it was a whole different kind of experience for me. Kind of like TPAP was for me where I was just blown away at how much energy it brought to me and how it's pushing me to get to that next step because you just want to better yourself and you want to better your organization. And it's almost a commitment you make to yourself to make sure you get to the next level.
Chris
Barron: Yeah, I appreciate that. Any other comments from either of you now that we've kind of wrapped up the peer group meeting, we've kind of dug through your farm and looked at things.
Mark
Schaffer: And I would only add to the, to the listeners out there, if, if you're sitting there listening to our, our podcast here, um, and, and you wonder, is, is my farm worth a peer group to visit? Um, I would say every operation is entitled to this privilege. Uh, it's such a rewarding and, and fruitful venture, and I would encourage it to any operation.
Chris
Barron: Yeah, a lot of, a lot of other industries use peer groups to improve their businesses and to go to the next level and to figure out ways of doing things differently. And, and I, like I said earlier, I think we have— in farming, it's really easy to get backyarditis. And so whenever we can get out and see other farmers and learn from each other I think it's, it's really important. And Julie, you came from— you were, you're a nurse, right? And so you came back to the farm. I mean, talk about a similar but very different, uh, process, you know. Um, tell us a little bit about that and then we'll kind of wrap things up.
Julie
Schaffer: Dad said I came back to nurse his plants. And the part I like about that is usually his plants don't talk back unless they die.
Mark
Schaffer: Yes.
Julie
Schaffer: And It's a lot, it's a lot easier. Part of the, part of what I enjoy about farming is being outside. I get to farm with my dad. I get to enjoy it with my family. And you don't get to do stuff like that in every industry. There's just so much rewarding. And I think the agriculture industry in general, there's so much to learn. And in the medical industry, there is as well. But in agriculture, it's just on the brink of just like intercropping. Um, no one does it in our area. There's just lots of different ways to do lots of different things. And it's just really exciting.
Chris
Barron: Yeah. And that's a testament to you guys and your operation too. You guys think out of the box and, uh, you've been very successful. And I think part of the, part of the reason, you know, for that success is being willing to experiment. Being willing to take a chance and, uh, being accepting of a year like this when it rains every day and then it rains the next day and the next day and the next day, and then you get to nurse the crop, right?
Julie
Schaffer: So, so I can't get enough Band-Aids on right now.
Chris
Barron: Exactly. Any final comments? Otherwise we can kind of wrap it up here. So, um, all right, well, everybody, uh, thanks for listening, uh, to the Ag View Pitch, and we will be back again next time.
Narrator: Thanks. Like we said earlier, this is one of the most important conversations we've shared so far. The value that these peer groups bring to the operations is second to none. If you identify with the message shared here today and would like to be part of a peer group, email us at C-B-A-R-R-O-N at agviewsolutions.com or call Chris at 319-533-5703. We'll catch you next time on the Ag View Pitch.