Mike Howell (00:08):
The Dirt with me, Mike Howell. An economics podcast where I present the down and dirty agronomic science to help grow crops and bottom lines. Inspired by eKonomics.com, farming’s go-to informational resource. I’m here to break down the latest crop nutrition research, use and issues helping farmers make better business decisions through actionable insights. Let’s dig in.
(00:39):
Well, hello again everyone. Welcome back to The Dirt. We’ve got a familiar face in the studio with us again today. Welcome back Dr. Alan Blaylock. Alan, if you will, remind everybody who you are and what you do.
Dr. Alan Blaylock (00:51):
Alan Blaylock. I’m senior agronomist with Nutrien. I’m based here in Colorado and primarily cover the western half of the U.S. I provide agronomy support to our customers, our sales and marketing crew. Mike and I both work together on a lot of projects. Good to be back on the program again.
Mike Howell (01:08):
Alan, it’s always a pleasure to have you on. I know we get a lot out of it anytime we have you on the show. Now, the topic we’re going to talk about today isn’t a new topic for our program, but we’re going to hit it at a slightly different angle and try to shed a little more light on it. Potassium is one of our essential plant nutrients and we’ve spent a lot of time talking about it over the course of the last two years, but we’re going to talk about some decrease in soil test levels. Before we get to that Alan, let’s remind our listeners a little bit about why potassium is so important for crop production.
Dr. Alan Blaylock (01:38):
Well, potassium is obviously an essential plant nutrient. It’s also an essential nutrient to humans and other animals, does so many things in both plants and animals. It’s one of the nutrients that’s taken up in the largest quantities, may be second to nitrogen, in a lot of cases. And nutrient uptake of potassium is typically pretty similar to nitrogen. So, it’s a pretty important element. We are often applying potassium with our fertilizer. So, we’re going to talk a bit about that, I think, in our discussion today.
Mike Howell (02:08):
So Alan, over the last several years, there’s been a couple of papers that have been published talking about soil test levels and potassium and how those levels are continuing to go down, and that’s something we talked about at a meeting we were at a few weeks ago. What are the results of these soil tests showing us and why do we see these potassium levels continue to decrease?
Dr. Alan Blaylock (02:27):
Well, one of the things you’re referencing, Mike, is what we call the North American Soil Test Inventory. It’s conducted every five years. This was initiated by the International Plant Nutrition Institute, which has closed their shop, I guess, but they’ve turned this activity over to the Fertilizer Institute, which continues to run these inventories. So, what they do is every five years they solicit analysis from all the soil testing laboratories across North America, and they take that analysis and they break it down into state levels, and so they can look at soil test trends over a period of time. The most recent analysis was done in 2020 and that was released then in 2021. We’ll have another inventory conducted in 2025. That last inventory looked at the data from approximately seven and a half million samples across North America. So, the labs send in the samples. It’s all done anonymously obviously, to protect any identities, but then that data is aggregated, and then we can look at trends over time in soil test levels, what’s happening across the country in different states? And that gives us a lot of information about the fertility of our soils and what’s going on there.
Mike Howell (03:38):
Well, Alan, you mentioned that these levels keep coming down and that’s a trend that’s been going on for what, the last 20 or 30 years or we keep seeing these reduced soil sample levels?
Dr. Alan Blaylock (03:48):
Yeah, I think you can go back to somewhere around, I was just reviewing some of this information this morning, in preparation for this. You can go back to about late 70s, 1980s where we were applying approximately what the crops were removing, and we look at that today and now we’re removing a great deal more than we’re actually applying as fertilizer. So, that creates this negative balance in the soil and some of our key crop growing areas, we continue to see declining soil test levels. Which is a bit alarming when we think about future fertility and future soil health and sustainability of our soils.
Mike Howell (04:23):
That’s right, Alan. If we keep taking out of the bank, we’re not going to have anything left in the bank.
(04:28):
Like what you hear? Then you’ll really like what eKonomics has to offer as farming’s go-to information resource. You’ll find ROI calculators, crop guides, and a whole lot more. Check it out at nutrient-eKonomicswithak.com.
(04:45):
So Alan, talk a little bit about some reasons why we may be seeing these declining levels?
Dr. Alan Blaylock (04:50):
Well, there are a couple things. One of the big contributors to this is yields. Our yields keep going up and up and up. Corn yields for example, increase approximately two bushels per acre per year, on average, across the country. So if you think about 10 years, that’s an average increase of 20 bushels per acre across the country or over 20 years, that’s 40 bushels per acre. And soybean yields are doing the same thing. They continue to increase. Better genetics, better agronomic practices. So, as we increase yields, the amount of nutrients we remove from the field increases. Now if you look at fertilizer consumption data over that same period, that’s relatively flat. So, we’re not really applying correspondingly more fertilizer to these higher yields, but yet we’re continuing to remove more and more from the field. And so, that’s the big driver I think of this decline in soil test. We’re removing more than we’re applying in fertilizer.
Mike Howell (05:47):
Alan, another reason I hear growers not putting out as much fertilizer or potassium especially, is because of increased cost of these nutrients. Talk a little bit about the price and why growers may be wanting to save a little bit of money?
Dr. Alan Blaylock (06:01):
I’m glad you brought that up, because that is a big factor and all agricultural input costs are increasing. The cost of equipment, the cost of seed, the cost of crop protection, and the cost of fertilizer, they keep increasing. And many of our farmers are growing commodities where they have pretty tight profit margins. So, when these input costs go up, the farmer has to think about making that budget work. And so, a nutrient like potassium where we can store reserves in the soil, the farmer can, shall we say mine, some of those reserves for a period of time. So, they think about that and they say, well, I’ve got some in the soil and so I don’t have good cash flow this year and maybe I need to cut back on that. They know they get an immediate response to nitrogen, really hard to store nitrogen in the soil. But things like P&K, we can store in the soil, we can build that up and then we can use off of that for a period of time.
(06:53):
So when budgets get tight, there’s a tendency to look at those things and say, well, I can cut back on that a little bit and I can grow my crop from what’s in the soil. So, those things tend to be some of the first things they start to cut in their budget. And it’s understandable that we all have budgets to live in and when our income isn’t matching up with our expenses, we try to cut our expenses somewhere. So, the farmers are looking at the same way and trying to reduce their costs. And so, these are some of the things that maybe are sacrificed.
Mike Howell (07:23):
Alan, and that ties into the next thing that I wanted to talk about is rented land versus farmer-owned land. And a recent study that I saw showed that over half of the farmland in the United States is rented. Would farmers tend to do better on their own land and apply more fertilizer versus something that’s rented and they may not have that piece of ground for a long term?
Dr. Alan Blaylock (07:44):
Well, I would think so. If I own the land and I’m going to be potentially passing that on to children or other family members, I’m going to be probably more inclined to invest in maintaining soil fertility than if I have a short-term lease. If I’m renting year to year on a piece, I’m going to be more concerned about what do I need to grow this year’s crop? And not maybe thinking as far ahead into next year or five years from now or 10 years from now. There’s pretty good evidence that there’s value in maintaining optimum soil test levels and not allowing that to get depleted. And when I say optimum, that’s talking about a soil test level that is sufficient to grow a crop but not excessive. I don’t need to spend money on excessive of nutrients beyond what the crop needs, but there’s good evidence that maintaining that adequate level has real benefits. And the thing that it really does is gives me that flexibility to adjust for cash flow.
(08:40):
And if I’m maintaining good soil fertility and I have a year of tight cash flow high costs, then maybe I can mine that soil and I’m not going to be hurt by that. Now, that’s a temporary thing. I don’t want to continue to mine over a period of time because eventually I deplete that, and I use up the reserves that are in that nutrient bank. But there’s real value in maintaining that soil test levels. There was a study, I believe it was out of Minnesota a number of years ago, showing that residual soil fertility actually was more productive than added fertilizers. And there are multiple reasons why that could be, but maintaining that fertility has real long-term value, and if I am on a short-term lease, I may not see that same value in maintaining that.
Mike Howell (09:20):
Alan, these are all good reasons why soil potassium levels could be going down and here in the Mid-South, I don’t know if this is the same way in other parts of the country, but the crop rotation could have a lot to do with that. Historically here in Mississippi and Louisiana, we grew a lot of cotton and there was a shift back in the mid-two-thousands, and we quit producing so much cotton and started growing a lot more corn and soybeans. And if you look at the yields coming off of these and how much potassium is actually needed, you actually need a lot more potassium in a corn and soybean rotation than you do if you’re in a cotton rotation. The crop mix could have a lot to do with that as well.
Dr. Alan Blaylock (09:55):
Absolutely. And you’re referencing probably a discussion we had with Dr. Bobby Golden, not too long ago, when he was at Mississippi State University talking about this changing in crop rotation and really talking about the amount of crop removal. These high-yielding grain crops that especially in the Mid-South, we’re growing really high yields. But we’re also growing high yields in the Midwest. I mean, I think about some of the corn yields, some of the recent records just mind-boggling. 600 bushel yields in our contest plots, and that just shows you where the genetic potential of these crops is. But as we grow higher and higher yields, and particularly in these grain crops, we remove more potassium than in a cotton crop. So, when we switch the rotation, that can change the dynamics of this crop removal-to-use ratio. And if we don’t change our fertility program to match a different crop, then we can get ourselves into trouble in a relatively short time. Particularly in soils, like some of your southern region soils don’t have the same rich fertility that some of our Midwestern soils have, where they haven’t maybe been farmed as long. They’re certainly not weathered as intensively as your soils in the south, and those are older soils and they just don’t have that base fertility. So, if we’re not maintaining that and really taking that into account, we can run short if we don’t apply what the crop needs.
Mike Howell (11:13):
Well, Alan, we know that potassium is an essential plant nutrient, and if we have low levels of potassium that can lead to reduce yields, but that’s just the tip of the iceberg. When we really start looking at this, we’re also seeing reduced levels of potassium in our food. And that can be in different forms of meat, it can be in vegetables or grains, and we’re going to reference a link to a paper here on the website talking about the reduced levels of potassium in these foods. What else can we see as a result of low potassium levels?
Dr. Alan Blaylock (11:43):
Well, that paper you’re referencing Mike, was a really interesting paper. It was published I think in 2020, and the researchers were looking at the incidence of potassium deficiency in the U.S. population and decreasing blood potassium levels across the U.S. And so they said, well, why is this occurring? So, they’re able to trace this back with various national health databases and food databases. So trace this back and just decreasing potassium in the human diet in the U.S., decreasing blood levels of potassium in an incidence of something they call hypokalemia, which is just a fancy word for potassium deficiency. They’ve seen this trend of an increasing degree of potassium deficiency. They connected that back to food. They went and sampled thousands of food products and pulled the analysis of those out of a USDA database. And lo and behold, potassium levels in our food have declined, especially in fresh foods. In processed foods, where potassium is largely being supplemented fortified in some of the processed foods like fast food and some of those breakfast foods, things like that that are manufactured food products, we can add potassium. And so, they’re enriching those foods.
(12:56):
So, we didn’t see the decline there, but where they really saw the decline in potassium was in fresh fruits and vegetables, in meat and milk, dairy products, things like that. And meat obviously because if cattle are feeding on forage that’s low in potassium, they’re going to be low in potassium as well. So, the meat that we consume from those animals is also low in potassium. So, they made this connection between increasing potassium deficiency in our human population and decreasing potassium content in our food products, especially fresh foods. And then tying that back to this soil test inventory. Soil samples showing declining potassium in our soils. So, making that connection all the way through. And they talked about what we call the dilution effect of higher yields. We’re growing higher yields with the same amount of soil nutrients, so of course the end food product can be lower in those nutrients. It gets diluted in a greater amount of production. So, this is an alarming trend because potassium is so important in so many of our bodily function, blood pressure, regulates nervous system. So, we think about a lot of people struggling with mental health issues. You had a recent podcast on that. Is that connected somehow? Because potassium does play a role there. So, there’s so many health effects of potassium in our body. It’s so critically important that this declining nutritional quality of our foods is certainly a great concern.
Mike Howell (14:20):
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(14:42):
So Alan, we’ve talked about the soil test levels going down and talked about the levels in our food going down. What can we do to correct this problem?
Dr. Alan Blaylock (14:50):
Well, I could be really simplistic and give the simple answer, is that we’re just not applying enough potassium to a lot of our crops. Now, it’s obviously more complicated than that, but that is at the root of the problem is that again, we’re removing more in our harvested crops and we’re applying to replace that. So soil fertility declines when that happens, and the obvious way to arrest that decline is to boost the level of potassium that we’re applying. But again, that’s over simplistic. We need to look at the total management system. We need to look at crop rotations, changes in cultural practice and a variety of other things. There are many advocates for soil health that if we can improve the health of our soils, we can improve the ability of crops to extract nutrients from the soil. And there’s certainly truth to that. If we can improve the soil biology, we can improve the ability of the crop to recover potassium that’s in the soil. Well, that certainly can be part of the equation. But we have to look at this on a system-wide basis. But again, I come back to our basic premise that we’re removing more than we’re applying and it simply points in the direction of needing to use more potassium fertilizer.
Mike Howell (15:58):
So Alan, let’s look at this. Let me play devil’s advocate a little bit. Let’s say grain prices go really high this year and fertilizer prices come way down. Could a farmer go out and put out a double amount of potassium and get all of this back in the soil in one year, and be where we need to be really quickly or is that a bad idea as well?
Dr. Alan Blaylock (16:17):
Well, we can certainly build potassium by applying what we call a build-up kind of rate. Now, can we get back there in one year? I would say that’s not practical. But if the cost of potassium declines, relative to the value of the crop, then certainly that’s a good place to invest because potassium is a nutrient we can store in the soil. It’s not easily lost from soils. It’s generally, in most soils, it’s not readily leached or we’re not going to have a lot of runoff unless we’re applying it on the surface. So, generally we can store potassium in the soils and over time we can certainly build that up, and the lower the cost of the fertilizer, the more readily we can do that. Now there’s certainly limits to what you want to do in one year because we’re applying fertilizer, they’re salts basically. So we certainly don’t want to overload the soil in a given year, but if I get a good price on potassium and my crop value is good, that’s certainly something I want to think about.
(17:12):
And there’s probably some tax benefits to doing that, putting nutrients back in that soil bank as it were. That’s certainly something to look at if economics become favorable and by doing that, then I build some flexibility for times when that’s the reverse and potassium prices are high relative to the crop, and I maybe want to mine a little bit of that soil potassium. We have to take a look at the economics of that in any given year and work that into our budget. That build-up application can certainly be part of our long-term plan.
Mike Howell (17:43):
Well, Alan, one other thing I wanted to touch on a little bit, and we talked about this in one of our very first podcasts we did together, and that’s biofortification. I know there’s a lot of work going on in recent years looking at trying to get more nutrients into some of these crops. Talk a little bit about biofortification and if there’s a way we can get more nutrients into the crops?
Dr. Alan Blaylock (18:03):
Yeah, Mike, this term biofortification is a concept that’s being discussed really around the world. What it really means is we’re going to use a fertilization program to boost the nutritional value of a food product, of a harvested grain, a vegetable, whatever the case may be. This is particularly important in grain-based diets because grains are primarily starch and certain grains, especially things like rice are very low in their actual nutrient content. Nutrients like zinc and iron and some of the other minerals and proteins. So, particularly in what we would call subsistence level grain diets like rice diets, where maybe that’s the only food they have. They’re getting calories but not getting a lot of nutrition. So, one of the things that is being proposed to help counteract that is boosting the soil fertility program for producing that crop, fertilizing with some of these specific nutrients. And zinc is one of the big targets internationally.
(19:00):
And the FAO organization has an initiative around biofortification. And if we think about what we talked about with potassium in the U.S. and zinc is also a nutrient of concern in our U.S. medicine. So applying more of these nutrients may not necessarily produce a yield increase all the time, but we can increase the amount of nutrient that’s taken up into the crop and therefore increase the nutritional value of the crop that we’re harvesting. That’s really what biofortification is about, using our soil fertility management to increase the nutritional value of a harvested crop. A vegetable or a grain or something like that.
Mike Howell (19:38):
Alan, we’ve covered a lot of topics today and I hope our listeners are getting a better understanding for why potassium is so important and how we need to monitor these soil test levels and make sure we’re not depleting that soil of this essential nutrient. Alan, is there anything else you want to leave our listeners with before we go today?
Dr. Alan Blaylock (19:53):
Well, I’d like to wrap it up by saying that we really want to focus on good sound agronomic principles, and those principles include the concepts of balanced plant nutrition, applying what the crop needs and looking at all of the nutrients that that crop needs. And when a farmer’s looking at that decision saying, well man, I can’t afford everything I need. Well, maybe it comes down to putting more of that nutrient investment on his best soils where he can grow more and get a better return. And maybe some of the poorer soils, maybe it’s better off to grow a low input crop, maybe a forage or something like that if he doesn’t have enough cash flow to really adequately fertilize those acres. Again, maybe that investment is better put into his best lands where you can grow the most and get the best return. So again, thinking about sound agronomic principles, thinking back to our concepts of four hour nutrient stewardship, applying the right source and that includes the right nutrients. Making sure we have all of the nutrients that crop needs. Applying that right source at the right time, the right place, and at the right rate, so that we’re getting good balanced crop nutrition to that crop.
(21:05):
By doing that, we grow a good crop. We maximize our economic return from those nutrients, and nutrient interactions are really important here. And that’s why balance is so important. We skimp on one nutrient, it can affect the response to another nutrient. If we invest all our money in nitrogen and we don’t apply P&K and sulfur, we might not get the full value of the nitrogen that we applied. Adding those nutrients to our nitrogen can boost the value of our investment in the nitrogen and get better value out of that. So again, good agronomics following those sound agronomic principles, and I’ll just refer our listeners to our website, nutrient-eKonomicswithak.com, lots of resources there talking about these topics. Talking about four hours of nutrient stewardship, talking about balanced nutrition and talking about potassium and its role in crop nutrition. I think we sometimes overlook some of the basics in favor of something that’s maybe more a bit exciting. We know we get a big response to nitrogen and so maybe not paying attention to some of the other things like potassium.
Mike Howell (22:07):
Well, Alan, we sure appreciate you taking time to visit with us today. I think this has been a really informational podcast today. Listeners, thanks for tuning in and if you need more information on anything we’ve talked about today or would like to read some of these studies we’ve referenced today, you can find all of that on our website, that’s nutrient-eKonomicswithak.com.
(22:27):
Listeners, I hope you enjoyed the first segment of today’s show. If you did, please take a minute and give us a rating on your favorite podcast channel or app and give us some feedback as well. We want to hear from you to help make the show even better. And don’t keep it to yourself. Please share these episodes with coworkers, family, friends, anyone you think may benefit from the information we’re sharing here. Don’t forget to visit our website nutrient-eKonomicswithak.com, to help find the latest crop nutrition news and research information as well as market updates, a growing degree day calculator, a nutrient use calculator, a rainfall tracker, and much, much more. It’s all at nutrient-eKonomicswithak.com. Most episodes of The Dirt are now available for CCA credits. Visit our website and click on the agronomics tab to find these CCA credit opportunities. And if you have a question you can ask one of our agronomy team members. Simply ask your question and one of us will get back with you. Thanks for listening. Now segment two of The Dirt.
(23:35):
Well listeners, thanks for coming back for segment two. As you know, we’re traveling around North America, visiting different research farms associated with some of our great universities, and today we’re in the state of North Dakota. To help us talk about that, we have Dr. Travis Hoffman with us. Now, if you’ve been tuning in very long, you know most of these segments tend to be focused around row crop agriculture. Today we’re going to do something a little different. Dr. Hoffman, if you will, tell us a little bit about yourself and what you do there at North Dakota State?
Dr. Travis Hoffman (24:03):
Awesome. Thanks for the invite. Travis Hoffman, I serve as the extension sheep specialist with a joint appointment with North Dakota State University and the University of Minnesota. So, I get to work with our producers here in the Northern Plains region.
Mike Howell (24:17):
Okay. That sounds like two full-time jobs, but I’m sure you can take care of it. Travis, what we wanted to talk about today was one of your research farms and the sheep unit there at North Dakota State University. I understand you have a flock on campus and then one on a remote location. Tell us a little bit about those two locations?
Dr. Travis Hoffman (24:34):
Yeah, thank you. We’re blessed to have the resources that we do to augment our extension program and both our teaching and research in our three-legged stool that is the Land-Grant institution. And so at North Dakota State University, we have an on-campus sheep flock. That sheep flock started in 1894 with Shropshire Hughes and has transitioned and in fact, the Colombias that we have are some of the longest standing and tenured flocks that we have. And that one was started in 1945 as well. And so, we’ve got a great group, approximately about 300 head of ewes, there on our on-campus farm, which should consist of registered Colombias, registered Hampshire’s, commercial Dorsets, and also a commercial hair breed composite. So we appreciate that opportunity and in fact also Mike, we have the NDSU Headinger Research Extension Center that’s on the western side of our state where we have approximately a thousand ewes, primarily Rambouillet focused , but also some registered Colombias as well. And I look forward to sharing what we get to do with our sheep research stations.
Mike Howell (25:40):
A thousand ewes. I can’t imagine having to keep up with that many. When I was growing up in 4-H, we always had a few lambs that we were showing. I think we had 12 in the barn at one time, and that was all I wanted to fool with. How in the world do you manage a thousand at one time?
Dr. Travis Hoffman (25:54):
Well, that’s right. I might’ve rounded up, the last inventory was 920. So. Just down a little bit in terms of brood ewes, Mike, but we have a talented group there. Our shepherd is Dave Pearson, our director of the Headinger REC is Dr. Chris Schauer, and we have some students that help. In fact, we have an exchange program that we’ve worked with individuals that are collegiate or veterinary students from Puerto Rico as well. And so, we’ve got just talented people to help make it move forward and help us meet our goals and mission as both research and extension primarily there in Headinger.
Mike Howell (26:27):
Well, tell us a little bit more about the history there. I know that station has been there for a long time and has quite a pedigree itself. So, tell us a little bit about that history and why it’s so important to the producers there in North Dakota?
Dr. Travis Hoffman (26:39):
Absolutely. So I’m going to touch back again to the west side of our state of the Headinger Research Center that started in 1909 and then in 1940s we shifted and added sheep to our operations there. And in fact, in 1944 is when we started with sheep there. They’re the largest university owned and run group of sheep that we have in America, there in Headinger, North Dakota. But some of the focuses that we’ve been more recently looking at is trying to get those sheep or those ewes to breed out of season, or to have more fall lambs. And we’ve augmented even some of those things here on campus at NDSU because if we can be able to spread that lambing portion out of some of them being in the spring or some in the fall, you can be able to utilize the resources. And that’s what helps partly, Mike, to allow us to have the access to the numbers of ewes, the offspring, and the progeny that we do produce.
(27:35):
The sheep that we had here on campus, those that were born in September and October, we sent those to our local marketing option in Sioux Falls South Dakota and topped the market at 280, 290 per pound for about a 100 pound lambs. And so return on investment of 280 pounds of sheep times two, that’s getting dollars done and trying to get a return on investment from there. So, the Headinger portion again has primarily looked at that out of season breeding, and our on-campus portion is run the gamut from reproduction, nutrition, genetics, and my focus is meat sciences as well.
Mike Howell (28:10):
Well, Travis, I understand that you have a lot of registered animals there, and one thing in some of the background that we were looking at, some of these animals have quite a history. They come from a line of royalty. Am I correct on that?
Dr. Travis Hoffman (28:21):
Yeah. Previous to the time that I was here, there’s a lot of background and a lot of pride, right? And anytime that you identify yourself as a seed stock operator, is identifying the best ones that you can make and no matter what those are, there was many national champions in the previous days, particularly in our Hampshire’s and our Columbia’s. But we take pride as well of seeing what can fit for our producers as well. And it’s certainly not just about those seed stock operations because when we think about it from helping our seed stock producers, the Headinger Research Center has the Dakota ram test. We’ve got a new $3 million lamb feeding facility that next year, this calendar year in 2024, those rams will be fed in, gather that information and work to help to facilitate those seed stock breeders that we have as part of our game as well. But we offer rams at our Jamestown ram sale. And then we offer ewes and sometimes rams as well at our Headinger ram sale. And so hopefully from a genetic standpoint, we’re doing things right and offering breeds and advantages that can work for the commercial industry. Because it’s truthfully about drawing all those people together along the supply chain.
Mike Howell (29:29):
Now, the ram test, that’s something I’m not really familiar with, but I’m assuming that that’s going to be a lot like the bull test stations that we have around here in the south. And evaluating the performance of those rams and seeing how they do on feed, and looking at their genetics. Is that similar to what we’re doing with the bull test stations down here?
Dr. Travis Hoffman (29:45):
Yes, sir. In fact, a large number of area producers from Montana, Wyoming, North Dakota and South Dakota primarily in that region, will bring sheep to Headinger or identify a location, and then those go on feed in September, October. They’re rated in terms of wool growth, fineness of fiber diameter, animal growth as well, and a lot of different factors. They have a certified program. And so, if you can meet all those factors and make it into the top approximately 10%, you’re provided an honor and a reward to say, this one’s one that did all the things right and hopefully can add value to their seed stock. Another twist on there, just from a genetic standpoint, is that our ram test and also the Wyoming ram test, we were able to find some genetic factors that were limiting us because some of the ram lambs, when pushed hard from September to March in generalities, there could be some limb deformities or abnormalities. And so, that change in terms of growth, it’s really fun when we could identify those genetic markers that have an impact on production agriculture.
Mike Howell (30:48):
And that in turn is going to help all of our producers out there that are in the sheep industry, and we can’t thank you enough for what you’re doing to help those producers out. Travis, we’ve talked a lot about the history of the farms. What do you see in the next 50 years? Where do these farms go?
Dr. Travis Hoffman (31:01):
Well, if we think about it, there was a time when there was a lot of fine wool sheep in Texas, and there still is, but there’s a transition. And in fact, more of our sheep operations are moving towards the central to eastern part. I know that sounds silly because most of the focus has historically been in the Intermountain West. But I’m going to give a couple things of potential reasons why and how we could dig through that. One of the things is, is that there is more of an increase in the ethnic marketing of lambs. Those lambs that we sold two weeks before Easter we’re approximately 80 to a 100 pounds and they’re done. Those are going to harvest, then going towards the east coast or east side of our country. And so, there’s more opportunity for people to be involved in the south and in the east part than historically.
(31:48):
And so, that would be my first one, is looking at the ethnic markets. And some of those have been, in fact, with more commercial hair sheep instead of the wool. Wool has been a while in terms of when you’ve been rewarded for it. Not to say that those that don’t do the best job do a great job with it, but it doesn’t pay the bills for a lot of people. Another thing that’s on my second to-do list there, would probably be the solar grazing. Some are convinced that we need another 1 million head of ewes to raise under those solar grazing sites because it’s an oxymoron, Mike, if we’re increasing the amount of energy to the system with solar power and yet running a gas powered lawnmower underneath it. It doesn’t fit the board of directors ideas on policies. And so, sheep and goats work for that.
(32:31):
And the third thing is that we’re going to have feed intake and residual average daily gain and information that we’ve had in the cattle industry, much like now, what we’ll have in terms of resources at our NDSU Headinger research project. And some of the push on that is truthfully just being forward on the climate smart idea. So many people care about how does animals have an impact, and I’m super excited. It’s a great story to tell. Sheep have a tremendous positive enforcement and response in terms of how we work with agriculture and converting grasses or grains to protein. But being able to be in that ideas, those are things that we need to be tip-top at the front of and trying to look at how we can look at our supply chain and reproduction, genetics, nutrition and meat sciences. And we try to take a holistic look at our research programs at North Dakota State University and with my collaboration at the University of Minnesota.
Mike Howell (33:25):
An extra million ewes just to eat the grass under the solar panels. That seems like an awful lot of lambs coming onto the market. How is the market going to be affected by those extra lambs coming out?
Dr. Travis Hoffman (33:36):
Oh, there’s plenty of room for growth. And in fact, our largest challenge if one was to say, is first domestically, seasonality. But secondly, we have competition from our Australia and New Zealand competitors. There is an ample amount of room to promote lamb and feed your adventurous side, and we’re American wool. So, there’s room for growth and I look forward to continuing. Now, we haven’t been on that trend and so we got to catch to stability before we can move back to growth.
Mike Howell (34:01):
I understand. Well, Dr. Hoffman, we sure appreciate you taking a few minutes and sharing about the sheep industry there in North Dakota. Listeners, we thank you for tuning in this week. As always, we’d like to encourage you to visit our website, that’s nutrient-eKonomicswithak.com, to find out more about anything we’ve talked about here today. Until next time, this has been Mike Howell with The Dirt.
