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American Land Seller Podcast
Welcome to The American Land Seller, the podcast dedicated to landowners, buyers, and investors seeking expert insights into the evolving land market. Hosted by Koby Rickertsen, an Accredited Land Consultant and Multi-State Land Broker with High Point Land Company, this show dives deep into market trends, investment strategies, and real-world experiences in farm, ranch, and recreational land sales.
Each episode features industry professionals, seasoned investors, and landowners sharing their expertise on topics such as:
✅ Land market trends and valuation strategies
✅ 1031 exchanges and tax implications
✅ Seller financing and creative deal structures
✅ Conservation easements and government programs
✅ Navigating legal and zoning challenges
✅ Building generational wealth through land ownership
Whether you're a first-time land buyer, a seasoned investor, or a landowner looking to sell, The American Land Seller provides the knowledge and tools you need to succeed in today’s competitive land market.
American Land Seller Podcast
Episode 30 Joe Wahlgren - From Generational Transition to Corn Fields & Wedding Venues
Today on The American Land Seller, we sit down with Joe Wahlgren, a 4th generation farmer from Gothenburg, Nebraska. Joe and his wife Diane started farming in 1993, growing their operation to 5,000 irrigated acres producing food-grade corn for Frito-Lay, soybeans, popcorn, and alfalfa.
Joe is a data-driven farmer, utilizing shallow strip till, no-till, and cover crops while leveraging precision ag technology to maximize yields. In 2024, he and Diane are launching a new family partnership, Canyon Farms, with their daughters and sons-in-law, marking a 5th and 6th generation farm transition.
Joe, a former Wyoming Cowboys offensive tackle, applies his lineman mentality to farming—paving the way for the next generation. Join us as we discuss farm succession, ag technology, and the future of Canyon Farms!
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#AmericanLandSeller #FarmSuccession #NebraskaAg #RegenerativeFarming #PrecisionAg #FritoLayCorn #FamilyFarming #NextGenFarming #NoTill #StripTill #CoverCrops #CanyonFarms #AgTech #FarmOwnership #LandSales #RuralAmerica
Today on the American Land Seller, we have the privilege of speaking with Joe Walgren, a fork generation farmer from Gothenburg, nebraska. Joe and his wife Diane began farming in 1993 with Joe's parents and have since expanded their operation to around 5,000 irrigated acres. They raise food grade corn for Frito-Lay, soybeans, popcorn and alfalfa. Joe is a strong believer in using data to drive farming decisions. He employs a combination of shallow, strip-till, no-till and cover crops in his rotations. He also collects extensive data to ensure that inputs and hybrids are placed on the best acre. This data-driven approach, combined with the latest in farm technology, allowed Joe to maximize yields and operate more efficiently. In 2024, joe and Diane formed a new partnership with two of their daughters and son-in-laws Parker and Kennedy Trower and Brayden and Kaylee Brundage. The new partnership is called Canyon Farms. The family has set goals and a timeline that will transition labor management and ownership to the new partners. The family sees this goals and a timeline that will transition labor management and ownership to the new partners. The family sees this transition as a truly exciting effort as the fifth and sixth generations come on board.
Speaker 1:Joe is a three-year Letterman, offensive tackle for the Wyoming Cowboys and received his Bachelor's of Science in agribusiness. Diane received an associate degree from Southeastern Community College in Lincoln and the two returned home to begin their family in 1992. Joe often relates that he was born an offensive lineman, never afraid of setting the stage or pushing the load for those that follow. Joe understands that his role is now to open a path for the next generation. Let's dive in and learn about Joe's journey, his vision for the future of Canyon Farms and the exciting transition to the next generation.
Speaker 3:Welcome to the American Land Seller Podcast with your host, kobe Rickardson. Kobe is an accredited land consultant and multi-state land broker with High Point Land Company. Join us each week as we explore all things land. We bring you fresh insights and expert guests on sales, marketing, regulations, economics and so much more. Visit wwwamericanlandsellercom and find us on one of your favorite podcast platforms.
Speaker 2:Okay, Kobe and our special guests, let's get started. Okay, Kobe and our special guests.
Speaker 1:Let's get started. Hey everybody, welcome back to the American Land Seller Podcast. We are here with Joe Walgren, a Nebraska farmer I'm going to talk about. I've been really excited about doing this particular episode because I deal on the marketing and selling side of land all the time. I grew up in a family farm, our families kind of went away from farming. We still own farm ground, so we're investors, but we aren't producers anymore, as my immediate family or my. But I did grow up on a farm and so it's going to be kind of fun for me to to talk to Joe a little bit about. You know, last time I drove a tractor, I think, I think we had to actually hold on to the steering wheel the whole way through, and so we're going to dig into technology and what's going on. But let's start Joe.
Speaker 4:How are you today? I'm real well, I'm inside and I'm warm.
Speaker 1:That's right, it's been a little bit of a frosty winter. It started out mild and then it got into a little bit chilly. So and the groundhog, I guess, a while back said that we're supposed to have a longer winter than normal. So Happens every year, we'll see, yeah.
Speaker 1:We'll see, I don't think that guy knows what he's talking about, so let's talk about like it's my podcast, so I get to talk about what I want. So we're going to talk about land values and how that's affecting the producer right out the gate. I know that over the last five, six years we've really seen values of land just jump up and increase. That's got to have a kind of a maybe neutral or negative effect on us to what you guys are trying to do. Talk just a little bit about where you're at with as far as a player as. Are you buying? Are you kind of on the sidelines right now hanging out being written from investors? How's that look for?
Speaker 4:you. We, in particular, grew an operation with my parents over the last 35 years and my dad's out of it now. But in that time we purchased land and we also let land go. And we let it go because it was overpriced. Right, they say when should you buy? When's the best time to buy land? And they say whenever it's for sale. That's what I say.
Speaker 4:But we didn't necessarily have the means or it didn't make sense to us, or Jeepers I mean, we're just financially not ready to leverage like that, and so we let some stuff go. Of course, hindsight, you wish you would have bought it all, but I don't think I could have swung it All. That being said, over 35 years we purchased our share of good ground. That made sense and a lot of it came from relationships that we had. It wasn't us out pursuing it was hey, that farms well with your farm. You've been farming it, Love the relationship, Want to buy it. And of course we expressed to those that we farm for that yeah, if it. And of course we express to those that we farm for that yeah, if you ever want to sell, we'd be more than interested. So that has always gone on and we added quite a bit of land over 35 years. We leveraged to get there.
Speaker 4:The math, however, has changed, and it's not just the inflationary measures that have forced everything up, but, rather than looking at 150% of rent or 160, 70% of rent the values now of the I don't want to call him an outside investor, because there are still farmers or farm owners that are flush enough and need some depreciation that they're out there bidding. What I would tell you was 50% more than the land should ever sell for as far as compared to earnings, and so that's what we've seen in the last couple of years is these $14,000 bids, and I'm a numbers guy and I got to tell you at that level I'm probably a renter. The family owns a couple thousand acres of irrigated farmland and it's leveraged to pay for what we've added, and I don't see an avenue to leverage what I have to seek a 2% return. So we're actually looking at, we want to deal with the people that we rent from. We'd love to talk to them about perhaps selling someday at a fair level, whatever it is, but I'm not actively out there seeking other land to bring into the fold at $14,000 an acre, because I don't have an extra income coming in and that's what we run into is ethanol money or whatever it is, coming into an operation and then running the bids up to where I don't think it's viable. I don't think it's viable for me to leverage to that level, seeking a 2% after-tax return. So that's the change.
Speaker 4:I guess all that said. That's the change. I didn't see that really coming. I didn't think that would affect us that much. I look at Illinois and Iowa land values being affected by influx of money that doesn't have anything to do with the farm. I never really figured Western Nebraska was one of those areas that was going to be affected that much by it, but here she is.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean you know, and again, like we have, I think, what Bill Gates is one of the largest landowners in the county that I live in. So you know it's just crazy I agree with you on that that how much outside. You know, when we grew up it was kind of just all producer owned very. You know there was a few players and investment stuff, but that was never anything that I ever saw. You know growing up that we were ever going to have investors in the land world. And then you know, like the push to offline land or online it into a different purpose is kind of been kind of fascinating in my industry too. Like we have a family that maybe owns 3,500 acres that will sell off all but 200 acres of it and start growing corn for whiskey, you know, and so stuff like that. It's just so you have a certain percentage of of your product that you're making on the farm. So you can say, hey, it's all farm grown, but you're also can go out and buy your inputs that you're making on the farm. So you can say, hey, it's all farm grown, but you also can go out and buy your inputs that you need to make that. So I totally agree with you and it's been kind of fascinating to me to see, like I said, some of that transitioning outside of into you know. You know side by side trail systems or or like you were just talking about tourism based agriculture. You know like so I definitely get that.
Speaker 1:Do you think like I? I always say that, um, like, my job is to find, take the property and put it in the right light in front of the right people to get the most value out of it, and so that kind of clashes a lot of times with what producers. You know like we, I get it a lot from the producers in the sense of you're driving up land prices and putting me out of business. You know, and so I look at it, you know, in a different light than that, but you know, when you're considering it is, I believe it, kind of yings and yangs. I think you're going to probably see.
Speaker 1:You know like the right. Now we're seeing a normalization or stabilization in land prices. There's other things people are interested in putting their money into and stuff like that. We've seen Bill Gates and some of those big players pull way back. Really, in Nebraska, the biggest people that are still buying are the, you know, lds, the church, and so it's kind of going to be an interesting couple of years. Do you think maybe there's a pathway where you guys are going to be able to get back on track, to maybe start looking at hey, we're back in the game and what price range do you think that's got to be in for that to happen?
Speaker 4:If I've got a 50-year history which I do with several of our landowners and it comes up for sale because of a death in the family or transition from generation to generation, they all have a standing knowledge that we want to purchase. So I've got to make it fair. So play it out. I have one agreement where they are going to call an appraiser and they're going to come appraise the ground and my dad and I have first to come appraise the ground and my dad and I have first right to buy it at that level. That seems fair. That's more than I could ever expect from anybody. That is awesome.
Speaker 4:Appraise that baby until the $14,000 is in the neighborhood. And then it's like oh gosh well, appraiser can't ignore that. Gosh well, appraiser can't ignore that. Perhaps can average that with, I don't know, a $9,000 or a $10,000 sale in the neighborhood. But anyway, I slice it. The honest-to-goodness fair price is now elevated to $3,000, $4,000 higher than I thought it should be. I would bend over backwards at the $10,000 level, $11,000 level, any day to purchase something. I have a history on that's entered over my operation. I have no problem. It's going to get painful when you start chipping in an extra quarter million, an extra half a million, an extra three-fourths of a million, just because I already have leverage.
Speaker 1:Yeah, well, it's an interesting point that you make. I think, honestly, I'm not an appraiser, but I deal with it enough to know that most of the time that high end and that very low end because there's the other side of that too, there's grandpa selling it to the grandson or whatever that's going to be like that, yeah, so I think they take those top and bottom like numbers, like the one or 2% of the very top and the bottom, and they throw those out. But you're all right though. I mean there's been a lot more 14, 15, you know, 13,000 sales, probably in the last year not last year, but the last three or four years that I ever thought I'd see in this industry. So that's, you know, that's just putting a list, you know, putting a sign out there, listing it, marketing it and selling it.
Speaker 4:I'm not buying it for me either. I'm the fifth generation and six and seven are just down the road here and we're trying to transition into how does this keep going? Because just if you grow or you die, that's an old business mantra and I can't see how my growth in 35 years from 1,600 to 5,000, I don't see how that can parlay into 12,000, 13,000. So we're going to grow in some way, but somehow in other industries I'm afraid, um, we'll have to be the avenue for us to be diversified, I guess. But the uh, the base that I do have, we're circling the wagons one way or another. We're circling the wagons trying to trying to uh, figure out how to make it available two, three, four generations down the line.
Speaker 1:Yeah, now that's. I mean, that's it's. It's impressive that your commitment is that way in a, in a world where I think that's that's kind of one of those things, that it's a smaller percentage of people that are are their. Their goal is to transition on to the next generation. You know, like a lot of uh, a lot of people I think nowadays are are just trying to survive as long as they can. So it's a. It's a. It's really kind of fun to watch you guys. I know it's challenging, but let's take a quick break and we will be right back.
Speaker 1:The American Land Seller Podcast is brought to you in part by LandHubcom. Join us today and experience the expertise of LandHub's land marketing professionals. Whether you're buying or selling, let us show you the way in the ever-evolving world of land transactions. Visit Landhubcom and discover what the future of land marketing looks like. Landhubcom where your land journey begins.
Speaker 1:And we're back here with Joe Logren. He's a Nebraska farmer, logren Farms from Brady, nebraska, and Joe, right before the break you had kind of hinted to. You know like your goal as a family has been to put that sixth and seventh generation on the farm. You know, help those guys. You know, keep the family close and help those guys be successful going forward in a world of you know, it's really kind of tough to get started.
Speaker 1:It's absolutely tough to get started as a farmer right now. I mean, if you aren't, I'm telling you my son that was his, you know, his heart was to be a farmer and my dad had to sit, you know like my dad had to sit down with him and say, bud, even if I gave you all the land that I have for you to farm, he says you still have to go take three or four million dollars and get the equipment and I'm not really at a point in my life to get in it with you, you know. And so you know jumping into it if you aren't already into it, or you know, is really difficult, know is is really difficult, um, but you mentioned that, hey, we're going to live. We're looking at stuff that's like non-traditional, that, um, you know that we can do to help improve our, our annual income and and maybe create opportunities for those guys that are coming back and working with you in the farm. Talk just a little bit about what are you guys looking at?
Speaker 1:What's that look like? Is it? Are you, are you kind of afraid of it, or is it exciting? How does that look?
Speaker 4:Yes, I would say not afraid of much in this world. I think you put good people around you, you'll figure it out. But we are committing to work things out because we don't have all the T's crossed and all the I's dotted. But we are looking at a wedding venue, an event venue in a rural setting. I think that that could possibly fly. We're looking at, perhaps, an Airbnb cabin on a lake several of those.
Speaker 4:All of this revolves around everybody wants a little slice of heaven round. Everybody wants a little slice of heaven, and I've been fortunate enough. My grandpa and my dad purchased a small cabin on a local lake in 1976. And I wish they would have bought 10 of them. They're really valuable now, but I grew up there and my kids grew up there and their kids are growing up there, and while I can sit back and say how awesome it is that they invested, that my dad invested and that I continue to invest in that to give us a spot, I look around.
Speaker 4:There are thousands of others who want a little slice of heaven, and so how do you provide that? I mean, it's a limited resource and so we have looked at some of our property and another property that we're talking to some people about creating that little slice of heaven for them, whether that be a long term place to park your camper, so when you grab the kids from play practice you can head out there with the grandkids and your campers all set up and there's your little slice of slice of heaven on the river or on the pond or whatever. So we're looking at models that would serve. I don't know people 30 to 60 miles away, even a mile away, and they'd have a little slice of heaven of something that they could call their own. And it's not necessarily a big, blown-up, expensive cabin on the lake, but it's your little slice and you'd be proud to have it and proud to probably pay pretty good rent to have that. We're looking at that model the wedding venue. That revolves around the fact that I have three of my four daughters living here. They all would like to be stay-at-home moms and that would provide an opportunity and, honestly, they're very well-educated and very and very well equipped to do it. They have experience doing what we need, and so we're just like, yeah, we're going to invest in this.
Speaker 4:This is tantamount to leverage what you would inherit when I die and use it today. Now, it's not necessarily something that will pay you to run to Fiji every year and eat bonbons. It will allow you to leverage your inheritance into a business. You run a business, but it's not going to pay you if you don't work it. If you're running cows on grandpa's grass, you better damn well be there running cows on grandpa's grass and taking care of it and building the business. You can't be jacking around and expecting it to pay you if you're not working it, if you're not pouring your heart and soul into it. And they understand that and I guess that's the model that we're we're kind of pushing.
Speaker 4:It's not, it's not a popular model. With some of the, some of the generations older than me, they're like no, no, you can't do that. You got to hold on to it. You can't let them use it. You can't let them have it. I'm like I don't know. I'm more inclined to see them blossom with some equity that they can use while I'm still alive, some equity that they can use while I'm still alive.
Speaker 4:So I didn't see a lot of other ways to get three of my at least three now, of the four families that we have as kids, to get them here and to give them hope for a future and possibility of running their own business. I don't see any other way of doing it. It's tough. You come back to Gothenburg because Gothenburg area, Brady area, because of you want to raise your kids here, but the jobs aren't necessarily what you wanted or expected. They're not necessarily paying you the housing's not what you necessarily expected and will you get anywhere over time. It's pretty difficult and so they all want to. They'll want to start this business together and it boiled down to me leveraging what they're going to inherit to do it. Yeah, that makes sense.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it does. And it's one of those things too that you and I have had conversations about this before, where you talked about how you know like and, and I will say at the time it was a little twinkle in your eye in the sense of, hey, I figured out how to take, you know my per acre income and, and you know, and you had it all boiled down to with your wedding venue, you know like the per acre income. You can do better with a wedding venue, even, I think it like 40% occupancy, you know, to start with. Then you are going out and and planting corn on it, you know, and so and this is a property that wasn't going to be corn ever anyway, you know it was-.
Speaker 4:Right, right, yeah, it. Does you take the same amount of investment and invest it in something like that? It does have a much, much greater return at a low occupancy rate. You're right. Are there risks associated with it? Oh my God, yes there are. Are there benefits beyond just having a business? I mean, we look at building something like that and the opportunities to bless people around us, to have family reunions heck, to have our own family reunions there. I just think, allowing people like teammates to use the facility you know, to have their mentors out there at the lake fishing for free father-son fishing stuff out there at the lake fishing for free father-son fishing stuff, fishing clubs, things like that.
Speaker 1:Those are all auxiliary to what we bought the property for, but they all provide a lot of blessings in the community if they come to fruition. Yeah, it's a neat venture that you guys are doing and I'm excited. Are you getting closer to getting that, getting that going, or?
Speaker 4:we're waiting on uh one, uh one conservation easement proposition from uh, from a company to to perhaps dig out the west meadow. And if they were going to do that, it makes a mess of things and so we want to, we want to align any sort of construction with that mess. If they really want to do that and they're, they're talking about creating some more. Uh, and then the four, four dollar and forty cent corn didn't help the help, the whole thing slows things down just a little bit.
Speaker 1:when you have when your real job that's what I always say like I, I have a lot of volunteer stuff that I do and stuff like that, it really, really hurts my day job when I have to actually go work hard, yeah, no. So, but I think you know. What you're touching on, though, is something that I think everybody in the ag industry is looking at right now and they're like hey, you know, if this is going to be a future for our family, if this is, you know, because I think a lot of people believe that the way the agriculture is going, it's going to go commercial, you know, and so it's basically going to be investor owned. And then you hire somebody. You know you're seeing big ranches in Montana and things like that that that's exactly what's happening. You know. To get a half a billion dollar price tag on a large ranch in Montana.
Speaker 1:You know there's not a whole lot of people that can buy that you know, and they're probably not going to put a cowboy hat on and learn how to ride a horse and they're probably going to stay, you know, in, in, where you know, in Atlanta or wherever. They're going to stay where they're at and going to just feel good about owning the property and what they're doing. So but no, I think that's a neat idea. I think you know I hear it all the time there's lots of people around here that there's Airbnbs out in the middle of the country where people have turned the loft in their barn into a really fancy Airbnb and you can go out there and hang out, you know, in the country and have that experience.
Speaker 1:And I think the good thing I guess with our kids' generation is they are a more like Route 66 kind of hearted people. Right, they want to get off the interstate and they want to go see what's out there. They're the ones that are going to go back and say Nebraska's not as flat as you think because we were in the Sandhills. You know. So we know, you know and so so you know, talk about just like what? What are your kids kind of perspective on this? You know, like they're moving back, are they excited? Are they worried? You know, like what's, what's that look like? Or, you know, you, you're, you're a close family.
Speaker 4:What do you think their thoughts are? Their thoughts initially were because I needed to find out if they were interested in coming back and farm. I tell this in jest, but it happened. Their thoughts were when I said all right, are you somebody who wants to come back and try to farm with me? I got to figure this out sooner or later. And one of them was a Forest Service firefighter in Laramie and another one was a US Marine and he was stationed in Lincoln, had just gotten out of the Marine Corps and started working for an aviation company, and I got a no I'm not your guy. And I got a hell no. And I laugh at that. Now, that's rare.
Speaker 4:I mean to oversimplify, I don't want to put words in their mouths, simplify, I don't want to put words in their mouths. But they basically all started having kids and that woke them up to the fact that the dual income passing in the hallway to hand a baby off, remote from family, I mean to sum it up is difficult, I mean totally difficult, to make it anywhere, paying rent, whatever. And that brought them all to the question hey, is there any way? Now rewind the clock 30, and I had the same conversation with my dad hey, is there any way? We were in a situation where I was going to be competing for an internship at the Chicago Board of Trade and my wife was going to be the only breadwinner Didn't know it at the time, she was pregnant and we would have been in Chicago, away from family, pregnant. She would have been the only income and I would have had to compete for the next six months for this job. It was not looking good. I thankfully asked my wife what she wanted and she was honest. She says I really don't want to go to Chicago. I'm like okay, well, thanks for telling me. What do you want to do? She said I want to raise a family. I said well, I know you do, and I never talked to Dad about it. He never pressed it, you know, thank God.
Speaker 4:Anyway, I had worked for the state of Wyoming long enough that I knew I didn't want to work there, and we sat down and said okay, we've got to add basically this amount of gross revenue to justify your existence, because you just can't come home and start sucking on the same hog that I'm raising. And so that worked out so wonderfully. We had a landowner, that was, we were farming all of his corn ground and none of his alfalfa ground and he offered the alfalfa ground to us if I wanted to come back and do it. I'm like, well, yeah, so we started putting up alfalfa and that was a godsend that family invested in us that way. Anyway, in hindsight it was a good decision. I'm posed with that question with my kids and I'm like, okay, well, we got to add something.
Speaker 4:And just going out and adding ground in a saturated market that I sure can't afford to buy ground and that poses some issues, and so we started looking at what can we add. And so the conversation has fostered a lot of open communication, which is awesome with my adult children, and they are 30, 28, 26, and 23. I miss that. I miss that. I miss that by a few years. Anyway, they're all between 23 and 30. And they're all married and they're all the last one is having a baby and they are open to anything that makes this family operation work.
Speaker 4:And we use a pretty simple metaphor that I have a very predictable business model and we'll call her a cow, but that cow, the milk from that cow, feeds us all one way or another. If you're a partner and want to buy a piece of land. Guess what Revenue comes from that cow? And so I've got to teach you how to care for that cow and make sure that nobody but nobody slices off a piece of that cow to eat, sells a piece of that cow, neglects that cow or abuses that cow in any way, because it's the predictable model that we've fallen into.
Speaker 4:That is a very good segmented farm. It's very predictable and what it can do and will do and you can't expect much less from it you can't expect much more from it. So there are finite resources there that we have to deal with, and the kids are really fun to go through that conversation with and see them understand, oh, okay. So, yeah, we do have to make choices there and we have to. Why are we doing that? Well, we're investing in that for for your kids. Yeah, okay, okay, I understand, and they're they're understanding a lot more about how to use leverage and not to be afraid of some leverage. That's a big hurdle. Some of them were real savers and save it then spend it, save it up then spend it, and that's probably no way to farm. You have some serious, serious difficulty farming that way.
Speaker 1:Yeah, well, that makes total sense, hunter.
Speaker 4:Let's take it quick, go. No, I did your. Your initial question is what do the kids think? I think the kids are, uh, coming into it a little wide-eyed like, oh boy, this is, this is different than what we thought. Um, a lot more happens in the boardroom than happens out in the field and we don't necessarily get to do fun things and sometimes we take home problems we have to think about. I still think it's good for all of us. Everybody says you should leave work at home and I'm like, yeah, a little bit of I don't know exactly how to fix that problem is not too horrible to go to bed with sometimes.
Speaker 1:Yeah Well, not only that, but I know your wife and she's a lot like mine. A lot of times that gets solved pretty quick when you have a refreshing. You know you talk about something with your spouse. They're probably smarter than we are.
Speaker 1:So you know a lot of times that helps solve it too. But uh, no, I I think it's interesting talking about the uh, the family dynamic because, like, I know, like listening to my dad, you know and I don't know. You know, our parents are the similar generation, but my dad was basically in California and got a phone call from him. Dad said, get your butt on, it's time to go to work. You know, and so he was. He was going out there to be, you know, to be something else and do something else, and there really wasn't any choice. You know, and it kind of tracks with you know, like kind of how his attitude was for a long time, you know.
Speaker 1:And so so it's great that you're, you know, it's great that our parents were more of, oh, you're interested in it. Yeah, come, you know like come on back. And then again, you know, giving you that heart to create that environment so that your kids feel like you know they're welcome to come back and be a part of it. And not only that, but you're going to work with them on how to be successful, you know, like creating that success for the future, and so that's really really awesome. Let's take a quick break and when we come back, joe. Let's dig into this like technology, because that's something that, like I said, it has changed a million percent since I was planting corn and soybeans and stuff when I was a kid years ago. So let's take a quick break and we will be right back.
Speaker 2:Land isn't just dirt. It's where memories are made, families are raised and livelihoods are built. But when it comes time to sell or buy, the weight of the decision is heavy. Where do you even start? Who can you trust to guide you? For too long, land transactions have been treated like a simple exchange Numbers on a paper, a signature on a line. But it's more than that. At High Point Land Company, we don't just list land, we walk it, we learn, learn its story and we find the right buyer who understands its worth. You are not just another deal, you are the steward of something bigger and we're here to help you navigate every step of the way. When it's time to sell, when it's time to buy. We're here Because land is more than just land.
Speaker 1:It's your legacy. Get started on this, because I'm going to be so fascinated I think this is probably going to go long, because I am so intrigued with the technology that's going into farming. But I just want to make one comment. You made the point to mention that your daughters have all made the conscious decision to be stay-at-home moms. I think that's kind of great. You know, like, in a world where we're told we can be anything we want, I think very rarely is it intended that stay-at-home mom is something that they're intending on that, and I think it's going to be great for your kids and your grandkids, I mean, and your kids, and so that's awesome. So kudos to you and your wife for raising kids that are courageous enough to take that stance and make that their goal.
Speaker 1:So, transitioning into technology and farming this is probably something that at the end of the year, when you're done harvesting, we should do another podcast, joe, and just dig into, like all of it. You know, because when you were talking about you know, using what your assets are to create new opportunities that's not. That's also true in the field, right? That's not. That's also true in the field, right? So you're looking at everything from mastering carbon credits to like the technology on your, on your harvesting equipment, your planners, your, everything that goes through the field is giving you data. So let's start there. Well, gosh, since we were kids, man lots changed, right?
Speaker 4:I, uh, I gotta tell you so much has changed since 10, 15 years ago. We were pretty early on with a lot of guys collecting data, but we get caught in the problem of now what do I do with this? How do I make actionable decisions, actionable data? How do you get that out of all of this? Sat back one year working myself to death, death. Say that I'm blessed. I've got a great ability to try to run this farm. My point is that I was not getting all the jobs done that I should, and so I chose the ones that I wasn't doing very well and I tried to hire them out. One of those were was data manipulation, data collection, data and uh so found a company um started dealing with them. They rolled in, created a new company, um, I can name them crop tech solutions in gothenburg. Sure started dealing with them from from day one. Um came in with just Strasberg from Sand Valley Ag and they were trying to answer questions for me, and over the course of now it's been 16 years, 14, 15, 16 years.
Speaker 4:We have developed a methodology. They do a very good job of handling just my God, just a load of data. I can't believe the data. It's millions of points of data and just to give you a sense of what we do, we don't do all this on paper but I have a copy of what I can show somebody like a landowner, because it's hard to present this kind of data. But I can show you and just hold up quickly and describe where we start. And where we start is a very specific look at fertility and we, we, uh, we grid sample every two and a half acres every year and that costs a load of money it's like it's 40, 50,000, $50,000 a year but end up with grids on every element that we need to track that look like that and from that, like I said, I don't have all this on paper, this is all done digitally. From that we get actual spread and fertilization recommendations that look like this and you see the gray is zero and the red is a whole crap ton and so very specifically going to put nutrients where it says it needs it. We watch trend analysis and of every element you can think of under the sun, we make sure that our next year is just as good as this year and we're not mining or causing some problem.
Speaker 4:All of that data goes to serve with CECs and pH and everything else that has to do with that land, serve to provide us with polygons that we go on variable rate seeding and variable rate fertilizing. And just to give you an idea, this seeding map I just showed you runs everywhere from 19,000 plants to 34,000 plants. So that was something that was foreign to us 12 years ago. It was like, well, set the planter at 32, something like that.
Speaker 4:But they use the data and if you've ever seen the movie Moneyball, they use that all the time. But you use the data to find out who should be on the mound, who should be on first base and who should be at bat, and you trust the data. No matter what the guy looks like, no matter what the guy acts like he has a relative history of getting doubles and triples you put him on the back, anyway. So that's what they do. They take all this sort of data and blend it with seed corn company data, blend it with university data, blend it with all the different studies that come out as to the aspects of different fertility schemes and algorithms and we get very specific with it. I mean, there are times when they come up and say, well, you don't need anything there I'm like are you sure, or you're not so sure. It's not something you really want.
Speaker 4:If a little's good, a lot's better. And they broke me of that habit. No more drugs, my butts are over. So we spend all this money saying specifically where it should go, and then they'll go and do some composite samples, which would be the old way, the 1990s. You run 80 acres of composite samples, dump them in a bucket, mix them around, get one recommendation and you do the whole 80. And they'll do those samples today in this method and every time they do it. This method applies less fertilizer and makes more money at the other end. So at the other end we have yield goals on those.
Speaker 4:I don't know if you can see that On those zones we have yield goals for each one of those, and those yield goals run from 188 bushel an acre, 188 all the way to 285. That is money ball at its best. It is saying you know what? You've got data backed into the mid 2000s that say that that particular acre won't do any good, won't do any good, won't do any better, and so we're not going to dump the inputs there. But this other acre over here it'll do 285 gold, which means it can be 300 corn easy anyway. So we uh, we have feedback all the time from these algorithms on how they're doing and in season feedback from companies like justin sand, stancil Irrigation, things like that. That'll tell us how the algorithms are doing, whether the fertility algorithms are shorting us in any way, and they run their models and our local data. But we've gotten pretty good proof that we're super efficient or very efficient. I'm sure there's always room for improvement. We run about a 0.75 nitrogen use efficiency, which is hands and heads above what the old recommendations used to be. So we seem to be very efficient there. And then the best piece of information that they've come up with lately is a statistical analysis of how close we came to that yield goal.
Speaker 4:And I told you that that business model was a cow and that that cow was very predictable in what it would produce in milk. They've honed this down. We don't guess much, barring a hailstorm, barring some freak of screwed up you know, oh, gee, I didn't turn the damn planter on or something but barring something like that, um, the technology provided in everything that we do with the, the planters, right through the combine, how we water, when we water, how we fertilize, when we apply it, split, apply all that technology boils down to where we we hit. We hit um between 98% and 107% of our yield goal last year and that 98 number was a small hailstorm in one field and that's why that fell at 98. The rest of them just true to the numbers. And the numbers that say this is your max ROI, that should be your yield goal.
Speaker 4:True to the numbers they just landed right there. It's very predictable and it's baffling to me that it's that predictable. We've always just been kind of well. I liked that hybrid last year and I think this would be enough fertilizer to put out and I really hope it works out. That's how you control what you can control, because too much of the other is uncontrollable. And these boys have helped me drill down to a very predictable model and that's something I really didn't see coming 20 years ago.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's. I think what you said was kind of interesting was this is like think a lot of people think like I just learned something across the field. Your goal should be to try and get it all to be equal. Right, we're telling me it is. It doesn't matter what you do in this spot. You can plant, you know, corn, three, three kernels of corn on top of each other all the way through. It's not going to do any better. So slow down your seed ratio to that particular area because it doesn't yield out anymore, no matter what, saving you on your seed. And then you're still getting the yield goal. That's fascinating.
Speaker 4:It's really the ROI, and boy it's tough to play money ball, though I got to tell you it's tough to listen to the data.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I bet.
Speaker 4:You, really the guys will call me. They're like do you know, this prescription is only dropping 22,000 plants out here in the middle of the pivot. And I'm like, yeah, I know, I know, I see it Yellow spot, close your eyes, hold your nose and keep going. And so, but these guys, these guys with crop tech, they're kind of fun to play with, they're techies, but they'll put blind blocks out in our fields on what stuff we want to study. We want to study high fertilizer, low fertilizer. We want to study high population, low population. We want to see what this does, what that product does, what that product does without. And we did fungicide tests last year across the, across the field, stuff like that. It's it's fun to look at the data, but they do it blindly. And so you just come up on on something and your monitor starts to beat when planting the wrong population and you're like what the what the dang guys put that out there in the middle of nowhere well, that's, that's like the big thing.
Speaker 1:I can remember when I first got into rotary, I had somebody came in and they were, you know, like it was a pretty good size farmer from west here and he had like the wind spinners and all this other stuff and he had all the data he could possibly have, and one one farmer that was in the group that he was like stuck his hand up. He says what are you gaining off of this? What we don't really know yet, but we've got the data, you know, and so you know, and so I I think it's funny that you know, like you're you're now implementing a lot of that stuff that these guys were doing at the time. You know, like that, that they're being able to implement that and make it make an impact on on what you're doing and saving you some money and really, really is the epitome of focusing on ROI.
Speaker 4:I mean, what you do, you do 10 or 12 things just a little better. It's all better and there are no magic bullets, but you can, if the data. Data can, can prove out that I can shave 20 bucks an acre off a seed by lowering those poor producing areas and save some fertilizer, and or just dump it over here so it yields better in those areas. Uh, that's the, that's the whole. The whole key is to maximize and get the roi on it now that's I mean when you're talking technology, you know, like that.
Speaker 1:That fascinates me. That aspect I guess I had never heard how they're you know, like how that's an I knew they were talking about. Like your sprayer on your, your boom sprayer on your deal can hit all the way across. Every nozzle can hit a different rate going through. You know, and so they're you know, and they're getting to the point where I think like they're almost being able to sample soil as it's the implements going through the field. To kind of give you an idea of you know similar, similar technology.
Speaker 1:But the one that really got me was I was talking to the drone guys and they were talking about how their camp they have like four or five different cameras on the drones and with the sprayer systems on them, and then like four or five different cameras on the drones and with the sprayer systems on them, and then the drone's going through looking for weeds and it'll just go find that weed and kill that wheat. You know, like that's literally to where we're at now. Instead of you got you know 6 000 weeds in a field. You run the boom, you know, you run the sprayer through and kill those weeds. Now you can just that that. Send that drone out. It'll go out and kill them individually.
Speaker 4:It's kind of insane.
Speaker 4:The part of that that's missing that I've just become aware of is that all sounds awesome until you look at the pricing model and the software will charge you X amount, a really low amount, for something that was sprayed blanket. But on something that was not sprayed because of the technology, it'll charge you $15 an acre and so, at the end of the day excellent technology it kept me from using as much as a blanket operation would have used for a product. But the pricing model you're not quite there yet didn't save me money right, but I think I think you're under to it's going to, I think, the more implementation gets put into it.
Speaker 4:I want to see it If that software remains proprietary and we are trading or robbing Peter to pay Paul and it doesn't net me anything. This is a free country. They can price it how they want to. But I was a little surprised at how much you end up paying for the technology that you skip. It really eats into the profits.
Speaker 1:When you start talking about strapping another $100,000 to my sprayer yeah, I guess just to finish up here, joe kind of I guess my industry sees we look at our crystal ball, we kind of look at what the future is going to do I honestly believe you're going to have a normalization. You're going to have kind of a quiet this year. I don't think you're going to have a normalization, you're going to have a kind of a quiet this year. I don't think you're going to see astronomical increases. I don't really see us having, you know, drop in prices. Farmland's never corrected I mean very rarely. If it did, it's very subtle with the exception of some time in the 80s where you had, like you know, 50% correction. That caused a lot of stress. But what's?
Speaker 1:your thoughts on? Are you optimistic? Where you had, like you know, 50% correction, that caused a lot of stress. But what's your thoughts on? Are you optimistic? I know you know like, looking at commodity prices and input values and all this stuff, it kind of looks pretty bleak. But are you kind of I mean, it's kind of being a farmer, isn't it? It's kind of you go through these times where it's, you know, kind of like we're similar in that there's times where I don't know how I'm going to eat tomorrow and there's times where we're looking at boats to buy. It just depends on the month.
Speaker 4:Well, we know it's cyclical. We lament when there's just no margin, fortunate as of late in the last month, to provide just a little bit of margin and the market moved since January. But you know, if this is another, I just can't tell you how long it's going to last. That's the problem. I mean, if this is another 14, 15, 16, 17, where we just had, you know, flat prices with very little margin, the market's doing what it's supposed to be doing. It's supposed to be finding a breakeven, operating almost below that breakeven and weeding out those who can't make it, and that sucks. But that's a fact of life in economics. We just don't know if it's going to turn around on a drought because of the weather this year. We don't know if it's going to turn around in 2029. I can't tell you. But, quite honestly, everybody's operating in a below break-even method.
Speaker 4:If they want to raise soybeans right now, a small margin in corn, we have a lot of specialty crops that we raise. We raise food grade corn, we raise popcorn, things like that. We're trying to foster those relationships so we can hold on to those margins, because that will keep us slightly in the black and I would tell you that those would keep me in the black and keep me viable until the good market returns someday. That has eroded, and that's eroded because of the overhead costs of equipment.
Speaker 4:I can't fathom how some of the deals we used to make for a couple of combines every year at the $100,000 level have now gone to $200,000 or $300,000 annually, and the prices of tractors have once doubled. And I can't fathom how narrow margins hold on by your fingernail until prices return Five, six years later. Those three things cost of living, taxes and depreciation are a draw on whatever you do. And so while on paper I can break the farm even all three of those taxes, depreciation, cost of living, lowered or added debt to our farm. And that's where we are, and we know we're going to try not to do that at a hell of a rate. You better figure out what your cost of living and taxes and depreciation are and try to hold on, but any minute it could break. I got to tell you we're the eternal optimists.
Speaker 1:If you're not optimistic, you shouldn't be in Farling. You can't figure out how to do it.
Speaker 4:You can turn on the news and old Eric Snodgrass could tell you that the biggest drought is going to hit east of us. And, lordy, hold the farm. We're going to have $9 corn you just never know when it's coming and so that's the carrot that we hold out. I think we're holding the carrot. I don't think anybody's holding it. We are the ones holding it, holding it up and chasing it at the same time. Haven't figured out a real thing?
Speaker 1:now the uh. Well, I appreciate you taking the time to do this. I've been for a long time just because of the fact that I have a lot of industry specialists in here, but we've just never had a producer that we've gotten in here to sit down and talk to, and so I really appreciate your insight and I really pray that you and your family continue to be blessed. And so anything you want to add, normally I tell people how do we get ahold of blessed, you know. And so anything you want to add, I normally I tell people out of how do we get a hold of you, but I don't know. If you want any money out there. Let's listen to the podcast to reach you, but you sure can throw your info out there if you'd like.
Speaker 4:Well, if anybody's trying to search for us, sometimes Canyon Farms will catch us. We changed our name used to be rnj walgren farms and now we're uh, the kids and I and my wife will be canyon farms, having to live on gulch canyon nice you see that on the side of a truck.
Speaker 1:Someday you'll know who it is now I'll know, because I there's a lot of times where I'll see trucks and I'll be like it'll take me a couple weeks to figure out who that is. Because of it, like that, your families are coming back and a lot of times you have a bunch of daughters. So, walgren, maybe isn't going to make sense in 20 years if they're all something else.
Speaker 4:So that's smart. It was the root of that name, yeah.
Speaker 1:That's very cool. Well, I appreciate you taking the time to do this again. It's very cool. Well, I appreciate you taking the time to do this again and we will see you all down the road.
Speaker 3:Take care as we wrap up another episode of the American Land Seller Podcast. Thank you for joining us. Visit wwwamericanlandsellercom and find us on one of your favorite podcast platforms. If you would be so kind and you enjoyed today's insights, please like, subscribe, rate, follow and review us on whatever app you are listening or watching on. Connect with us on social media for updates. Until next week, kobe wishes you success in your land endeavors. God bless you and have a great week. The.
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